Commoners have it rough, cats, rats, birds, even some bugs or enough paper cuts. Everyone jokes about wizards dying of 1d4 damage, but commoners literally die of it.
its a meme that came up in original DnD which wasn't well thought out in details given that the guys who made were diving into a relatively new genre of gaming. When dnd reached its peak with 3rd edition and PF1, those have it right because they account for the cat's lack of strength so the cat's attack round is : 2 claws +4 melee (1d2-4) and bite -1 melee (1d3-4). Its claws can't do 1 point of damage even on a crit and it has to get real lucky to crit with the the bite. It came up in dnd 5 again because it shows the horrible design of this specific edition.
@@tgres287 Maybe Pathfinder changed it, but cats are actually *super* deadly to commoners in 3.5. Sure, they have -4 Str penalty to damage, but attacks in 3.5 always deal a minimum of 1 damage, even if a penalty would reduce it to 0 or below. So effectively, each of the cat's attacks consistently deals 1 damage on a hit. (And if that weren't the case, crits wouldn't help the bite either, since in 3.5 crits work almost the opposite of in 5e: Crits in 5e multiply the dice but leave modifiers untouched, whereas in 3.5 crits multiply the flat modifiers and base damage dice, but never multiply any additional dice added to damage, like from sneak attack.) With the cat getting 3 attacks in a full attack action, as well as significantly higher AC and initiative, a cat out for blood is very much a deadly threat to an average commoner in 3.5!
@@TKDB13 huh, I didn't know about that min 1 dmg rule. Just looked it up and you are right. Our dm ignored it so we were never in danger from cats and little things. Thanks for clarifying - i guess I have to take back my comment about 5e.
@@tgres287 Yeah, and 3.5 was definitely not "original" D&D anyway. The first edition with an official stat block for a cat was AD&D, and in that, domestic cats got up to 3 attacks per turn (the third only if the first 2 both hit), only one of which is capped at 1 damage (the other two are 1-2 damage), and were very definitely an existential threat to peasants and low-level players. It was entirely *NORMAL* for a cat to defeat a peasant or a first level wizard in a single combat round if it landed all 3 of its attacks.
Fun fact: the feral cat Population in Australia is regularly producing very large specimens, regularly in the 20-25 lb range.(keep in mind the avg house cat is about 10 lbs less, my own semi chunky girl is about 12-13lbs) Imagine some alternate campaign start where a group of urchins meet a colony of well fed ferals that are starting to show signs of higher intelligence, pack hunting and are actively hunting things like goats, chickens, and even small children?
More wholesome idea. The street urchins and super cats team up to survive in the city together. Imagine the kids distracting any bothersome humans while the cats hunt, or the kids using their thumbs to get at things the cats can’t.
@@formdoggie5 giant rats have already been tested on and given human level intelligence, it’s only fair, and the best way to get rid of them, would be to give their natural predator human level intelligence and an equal size increase as well
This reminds me when my party of a fighter, cleric, paladin, and a wizard all were nearly killed by a single magic broom. We were rolling so bad and it hit with every roll. The DM was laughing so hard because he wasn't fudging.
I was playing lost mine of phandelver with my siblings and my sisters husband. Me, my brother, and her husband were nearly tpked by a swarm of stirges. None of us could hit them and they did tons of damage
This once again demonstrates the power of the Action Economy. Simply having more actions, even dealing minimal damage, can be a deciding factor in a fight.
Yeah. Found that out when my party of 9 (2 players who I mistakenly told could recruit as many DMPCs as they wanted at the king's party in session - frankly it's a miracle they recruited that many, considering Charisma was both of them's second lowest stat) fought 11 bandits, 4 thugs, and 2 bandit captains. Everyone was level 4 or higher, so I thought they'd be fine, but the Monk-Cleric and Wizard-Sorcerer nearly died even though the Ranger (a Fairy who can fly) was paradropping Goodberries on the injured...
You can approximate it by damage per attack * number of attacks * hp each * number. I don't understand why people always fixate on number of attacks. It's not any more important than any of the others, but you don't hear people talking about defense economy.
LMAO, I want the set up to this epic encounter. Three drunken commoners defiled a statue of bast, cursed to be targeted by alley cats every night, first night out.
Fun fact- my 7 lb cat intimidated the vet and 2 technicians when they tried to take a blood sample from her without me in the room. I told them that I would calm her, and they took the blood sample without a need to roll d20s as I spoke calmly to my little beast. Cheers !
This is amazing, I’m marking a new random encounter where the party runs into the commoners getting overwhelmed by viscous alley cats. A test for the animal lovers.
I'm truly sorry that I am failing to contain my "Um, actually..." but viscous means "having a consistency between liquid and solid." Like a gelatinous cube. A cat is usually "vicious" -- mind you, in the context of D&D a viscous cat has a lot of potential for a monster encounter.
@@Soren015 A viscous cat does indeed sound very terrifying though, mind you. A regular cat is already plenty capable of fitting into even seemingly tiny openings, imagine the horror of thinking you're safe behind a bolted door with nary a gap in construction, breathing heavily with relief only to feel a drop of something cold and wet upon your breast. You look up, trembling and petrified from the realization, to the vicious, viscous visage of an angry feline about to pounce on your face. End scene.
Im bringing this into my game like "you come around the corner and find townsfolk engaged in mortal combat with alley cats". I do minis and terrain, I'm going to need more cat minis. Bravo, this beats mind flayer vs. drow for me.
4 zombie cows did a total party kill in a campaign I ran. It was meant as a kind of fun encounter as they chased down a mid-level necromancer. But I was stunned. The PCs rolled bad on the dice, but don't underestimate those cows, especially if they're undead.
These "Monster Melee" episodes are great! They actually reveal a lot of the weakness in the roll-based mechanics of D&D and how you lack granularity of power at lower levels and really at all levels to be fair. We need some Werewolf vs. Vampire, Devil vs Demon and Giant vs Dragon type episodes.
Growing up in the 90s one of my favorite shows was Celebrity Deathmatch. Though the show has faded into the annals of time, I have Esper the Bard here giving me 3 commoners fighting 6 cats, a worthy substitute! Keep them coming :D
Horrors of level 1 jokes aside, cats are fully capable of taking down targets larger than themselves, especially if they're practiced hunters, and they can do an ALARMING amount of damage to a human being, without hitting vital areas. Cats have on video chased off bears which are more durable than an average human, so this still makes sense, a bunch of rabid cats who are mentally unhinged could indeed result in fatal injuries to a human.
@@zonbichaos5844 eh not really, I mean people die from letting their dogs lick them in the mouth too but I don't consider that a dog fatality it's more of a side effect. I'm thinking more direct injury wise
@@erikgilson1687 I mean, that's like saying no one has died to a poisonous snake because it was the poison that got them. Cat, like a monitor lizard, often have extremely infectious bites that incorporates into their hunting success.
It plays a big part. In one session my group fought a singular tough enemy in one battle, and several weaker enemies in another. The weaker ones gave us more trouble, just because there were more attacks flying. Meanwhile one really good crit on the single tough enemy swung the battle firmly in our favor, and it fell not long after.
Without the silly grappling for two turns the commoners would have probably won. Same if they took rocks and went up the stairs with one dodging in the front.
@@badideagenerator2315 realistically, commoners should've won. what really did them in was 1 of the commoners wasting a turn disengaging, and the cats hitting 70% of the time whereas the commoners only hit 50%, and failed both opposed's in a row. the disengage could've been fine had he continued running after throwing the stone, forcing the cats to dash a second time giving him an extra attack... but once it got down to 1 hp commoner with 4 cats left, ya it was pretty much over. that damage roll of 1 also hurt really badly because for all intents and purposes, it may as well have been a miss since 3 out of 4 it was a one shot.
Before video: the commoners are going to totally curb stomp this! After video: How do commoners actually survive in the incredibly dangerous world of D&D? Also shouldn't there be unique stat blocks to represent: child, old man, woman etc.
We completed an Out of the Abyss campaign last year and one of the near-end sessions was the players taking on each of the surviving demon lords in a battle such as this! It was amazing!
This is like the one I always threaten my players with, which is lvl 1 character vs 8 crabs. You can be known as the man who ran away from crabs for the entire campaign, or you can toe to toe them and face potentially 36 attacks before you vanquish them lol
Imagine if these cats had actual hunting tactics. Using stealth at the start, attacking with a prepared action, starting off attacking someone who was straggling from the group. Reminds me of test encounters I’ve tried with lvl 1 adventures and a pack of jackals.
One of the very few encounters my players ran from without fighting was a group of cats. Drop a cat encounter in your next dnd game players will assume they are evil magic cats
Harry, Barry and Larry were just coming back home after their usual visit to their favourite tavern after work to relax and have a good cup of mead, they just didn't know that a group of rabid cats were out for blood.... At first they thought they could take them on..... -I mean those are just some street cats and we are full on grown adults, we can take them! And after that we will have a interesting story for our kids, when we have them... Poor fool.... They went to the attack, throught the battle Larry had the stupid idea to try and catch a cat and throw it into a hole, it didn't work, shortly after that Harry got overwelmed by the cats and got KO.... Larry after seeing this he thougt Harry died, and screamed: - You know what? Screw you Barry! I know you are the one taking my food on the job -What!?! Shortly after leaving him, Barry also got overwelmed, in his last moments, before loosing conciousnes the last thing he heard was this: -This is what happens to the ones that steal my food, SCREW YOU BARRY!! but if the poor fool had thought more throughly, he would have known that he was next, and with that the three friends had to sleep on the alley way for the night. In the morning the three drunkiards barely remembered what happend, but after seeing their batle marks, thought that they fought some drunken Tabaxi, with a nice story on their belt, they went on about their day
Even with a lower CR but with a larger number of monsters will beat an equal CR mob at low levels. Its different at higher levels with higher AC. for instance, take 1 Empyrean versus cats with equal CR rating. You can figure out the mathematics of crits versus what the AC. And with the higher CR abilities like the Empyrean opening up a fissure would kill off those hundreds of cats fairly quick before their crits would come into play to kill him.
@@MegaPokefan97 Really depends on the cleric's spell list. If he's got spirit guardians it's a pretty easy cleric win. If he doesn't the rats almost surely surround him and take the win.
I don't really understand what you are saying. An Empyrean isn't "at low levels". Also what do you mean by "equal CR rating" How do cats have an equal CR to an Empyrean? Like total? Because cats have a CR of 0 and the Empyrean has a CR of like 23, so an equal number of cats to CR would be like 50. I think it could easily solo those cats. The average damage for 50 cats wouldnt be great with the cats +0 and the Empyrean armor class of 22 only every natural 20 would hit for 2 damage, reduced to 0 due to immunity. In fact an Empyrean could take on 1 billion cats and not take a single point of damage. Even taking away the resistance and adding like 200 cats, I still think the math is just awful. With 250 cats, thats exactly an average of 25 damage a round. But if they cast firestorm or earthquake it's over.
This series is a great idea! If possible, I would recommend trying having some clay golems vs a tarrasque. I'm curious how long it would take for them to either be swallowed by the tarrasque for the tarrasque to actually die.
I would like to suggest a battle between a night hag or ghost and an appropriate adventure group. The flickering back and forth across the border ethereal makes it a challenging encounter.
How can you see this as anything other than a massive upset. The commoners have a dominant edge in both Strength and Intelligence. You have to credit the heart of those cats. They could’ve easily lost their nerve when the first one went down in one hit but they stayed strong and pulled out a well earned victory against those damn commoners
I had a feral kitten once get into my weld shop and that thing ran 1000 mph into a stack of I beams. It got pretty messed up for a few seconds. Then it got angry. I had to wear welding gloves over work gloves to handle that bastard.
I don't know what it is with gaming and wildly overestimating the strength of small animals. Reminds me of Kenshi where it's not uncommon to see gangs of men with metal pipes getting beaten up by baby goats.
I was one of the first susbscribers to your channel before I moved to Japan over a decade ago. In fact, some of your earlier videos helped push me to make the move to Japan. Now that I'm back in the states it's wild to see the channel so huge.
the cats and the commoners should have had names. In my headcannon this is a battle between snuffles, cuddles, snowball, garfield, ebeneezer and darling versus John Hathmann, Gregory "duck" Williamson and Jack Dick.
I was holding my cat when I was a kid, and something scared it... It jumped off my chest and ripped me open with claws. I had to go to the hospital for that one. A surprisingly severe injury for a housecat.
If I can make one suggestion for a fight, I would love to see one of the NPC‘s from a module that has character levels, I know that’s possible I wanna see how big of a difference it makes in a melee.
I love the "of course 3 adults could take on some cats", like really? Somebody's house cat, Fluffy the lap cat, is one belly scratch away from going jungle-mode on your arm. A half feral alley cat's resting mode already is fighting for its life. If it's cornered, or worse, WANTS to kill you, it's like stepping into a tornado filled with fishhooks. You remember that needle pit from Saw II? Imagine that pit chasing you. I'd rather fight one medium sized dog than 2 cats.
You don't *need* apply racial traits to NPCs. It's an option at the GM's discretion. In this case, a +1 to each ability score wouldn't make a difference (11s instead of 10s, still a +0 modifier).
Cats when hunting as a group (and they do that when feral) actually take out the weakest member first, taking out enemies one at a time, generally doing guerrilla tactics and hiding in between ambushes, there is footage of feral cats taking down a small herd of deer, and others of them taking out a pack of coyotes that were “poaching” “their turf”
"Best" part is you can clad the commoners head-to-toe in steel plate and they _still_ are likely to die to a pack of wild cats. It does change the numbers needed a bit, since the cats need an average of 26 attacks to drop a commoner in full plate, but 8 cats vs 1 commoner will do that on average within 4 rounds, even if the commoner kills one cat per round.
Imagine the people who find the aftermath. A: "Oh no, what happened here?" B: "It looks like they were killed by....umm....cats?" A: "Like, regular cats?" B: "Yup, regular old cats"
The clowder lost a few brave soles that night, but the kittens ate well. Idk if the map is to be taken literally, then at least one of the commoners triped on the stairs while being attacked.
Very amusing . the commoners vs cats, one of the greatest match ups after a group of drunk commoners encounter a dark aleway with a bunch of Feral alley cats. LOL :)
I remember losing to a zombie cat in some module as part of a backstory prologue thing. And I mean a whole four person party lost, not just like one character. There were wizard tower gimmicks, but the DM ended up mostly using them to try and save us from stupid thing. The dice gods were cruel that day...
Ambient bar commoner 1: "What happened to billy, bob and brad?" Ambient bar commoner 2: "cats ate their face, but the barkeep can tell you more about it" Barkeep: "cats ate ther face"
I like the idea of this being nonlethal combat, but it would still be a heck of a story, them drunk, fighting a cluster of alley cats and losing, honestly I’m gonna add this to the lore of a town in my game I’m designing, a street where a group of cats fought a group of drunk commoners, and won. Maybe add a tavern named after the fight on that street, “The Cat-Claws Tavern”!
The whiplash in power levels between these episodes is hilarious and I’m totally here for it.
Oh just wait, I've got some more whiplashing cooking up ...
I expect two CR30 monstets next episode.
Commoners have it rough, cats, rats, birds, even some bugs or enough paper cuts. Everyone jokes about wizards dying of 1d4 damage, but commoners literally die of it.
They can't defend themselves from rats and birds, so they raise cats to fight for them.
It's a time-honored D&D tradition for feral cats to pose a mortal threat to the average commoner. Glad to say 5e has stayed true to form!
"mortal threat to the average commoner" - or a level 1 wizard...
its a meme that came up in original DnD which wasn't well thought out in details given that the guys who made were diving into a relatively new genre of gaming.
When dnd reached its peak with 3rd edition and PF1, those have it right because they account for the cat's lack of strength so the cat's attack round is : 2 claws +4 melee (1d2-4) and bite -1 melee (1d3-4). Its claws can't do 1 point of damage even on a crit and it has to get real lucky to crit with the the bite.
It came up in dnd 5 again because it shows the horrible design of this specific edition.
@@tgres287 Maybe Pathfinder changed it, but cats are actually *super* deadly to commoners in 3.5. Sure, they have -4 Str penalty to damage, but attacks in 3.5 always deal a minimum of 1 damage, even if a penalty would reduce it to 0 or below. So effectively, each of the cat's attacks consistently deals 1 damage on a hit. (And if that weren't the case, crits wouldn't help the bite either, since in 3.5 crits work almost the opposite of in 5e: Crits in 5e multiply the dice but leave modifiers untouched, whereas in 3.5 crits multiply the flat modifiers and base damage dice, but never multiply any additional dice added to damage, like from sneak attack.) With the cat getting 3 attacks in a full attack action, as well as significantly higher AC and initiative, a cat out for blood is very much a deadly threat to an average commoner in 3.5!
@@TKDB13 huh, I didn't know about that min 1 dmg rule. Just looked it up and you are right. Our dm ignored it so we were never in danger from cats and little things. Thanks for clarifying - i guess I have to take back my comment about 5e.
@@tgres287 Yeah, and 3.5 was definitely not "original" D&D anyway. The first edition with an official stat block for a cat was AD&D, and in that, domestic cats got up to 3 attacks per turn (the third only if the first 2 both hit), only one of which is capped at 1 damage (the other two are 1-2 damage), and were very definitely an existential threat to peasants and low-level players. It was entirely *NORMAL* for a cat to defeat a peasant or a first level wizard in a single combat round if it landed all 3 of its attacks.
Fun fact: the feral cat Population in Australia is regularly producing very large specimens, regularly in the 20-25 lb range.(keep in mind the avg house cat is about 10 lbs less, my own semi chunky girl is about 12-13lbs) Imagine some alternate campaign start where a group of urchins meet a colony of well fed ferals that are starting to show signs of higher intelligence, pack hunting and are actively hunting things like goats, chickens, and even small children?
I can see that espcly in a fanstay land type setting where gaint rats are danger but a commor can deal with them is needed.
More wholesome idea. The street urchins and super cats team up to survive in the city together. Imagine the kids distracting any bothersome humans while the cats hunt, or the kids using their thumbs to get at things the cats can’t.
Giant rats would naturally lead to giant cats.
@@formdoggie5 giant rats have already been tested on and given human level intelligence, it’s only fair, and the best way to get rid of them, would be to give their natural predator human level intelligence and an equal size increase as well
We have dire cats
More realistic scenario- first commoner gets attacked and the other 2 commoners run like hell leaving the first guy screaming in a cat blender.
More realistic scenario: The first cat gets splattered and all the other cats turn and flee
Cats should have a Morale of like 2, maybe 3.
@@RoninCatholic I'd say that would depend on how hungry they are. Desperate animals do desperate things.
@@Lavery760 what about hungry commoners?
Counterpoint, the commoners are drunk
@@Lorekeeper_GGuy Counter-counterpoint: the cats are high on schooma.
This reminds me when my party of a fighter, cleric, paladin, and a wizard all were nearly killed by a single magic broom. We were rolling so bad and it hit with every roll. The DM was laughing so hard because he wasn't fudging.
Curse of strahd? :D
The accursed comic relief cartoon fight in which a broom completely whoops the ass (or sweeps) an adventuring party.
Really swept the floor with you guys didn't it.
I was playing lost mine of phandelver with my siblings and my sisters husband. Me, my brother, and her husband were nearly tpked by a swarm of stirges. None of us could hit them and they did tons of damage
This once again demonstrates the power of the Action Economy. Simply having more actions, even dealing minimal damage, can be a deciding factor in a fight.
Yeah. Found that out when my party of 9 (2 players who I mistakenly told could recruit as many DMPCs as they wanted at the king's party in session - frankly it's a miracle they recruited that many, considering Charisma was both of them's second lowest stat) fought 11 bandits, 4 thugs, and 2 bandit captains. Everyone was level 4 or higher, so I thought they'd be fine, but the Monk-Cleric and Wizard-Sorcerer nearly died even though the Ranger (a Fairy who can fly) was paradropping Goodberries on the injured...
You can approximate it by damage per attack * number of attacks * hp each * number. I don't understand why people always fixate on number of attacks. It's not any more important than any of the others, but you don't hear people talking about defense economy.
@@DanielLCarrier in practice damage spread out over many characters usually ends up being more of a threat.
LMAO, I want the set up to this epic encounter. Three drunken commoners defiled a statue of bast, cursed to be targeted by alley cats every night, first night out.
Berserk if it was just about some random drunk homeless man
Fun fact- my 7 lb cat intimidated the vet and 2 technicians when they tried to take a blood sample from her without me in the room. I told them that I would calm her, and they took the blood sample without a need to roll d20s as I spoke calmly to my little beast. Cheers !
This is amazing, I’m marking a new random encounter where the party runs into the commoners getting overwhelmed by viscous alley cats. A test for the animal lovers.
I'm truly sorry that I am failing to contain my "Um, actually..." but viscous means "having a consistency between liquid and solid." Like a gelatinous cube. A cat is usually "vicious" -- mind you, in the context of D&D a viscous cat has a lot of potential for a monster encounter.
*taking notes* Yes... Yes... I like this.
@@Soren015 A viscous cat does indeed sound very terrifying though, mind you. A regular cat is already plenty capable of fitting into even seemingly tiny openings, imagine the horror of thinking you're safe behind a bolted door with nary a gap in construction, breathing heavily with relief only to feel a drop of something cold and wet upon your breast. You look up, trembling and petrified from the realization, to the vicious, viscous visage of an angry feline about to pounce on your face. End scene.
Im bringing this into my game like "you come around the corner and find townsfolk engaged in mortal combat with alley cats". I do minis and terrain, I'm going to need more cat minis. Bravo, this beats mind flayer vs. drow for me.
4 zombie cows did a total party kill in a campaign I ran. It was meant as a kind of fun encounter as they chased down a mid-level necromancer. But I was stunned. The PCs rolled bad on the dice, but don't underestimate those cows, especially if they're undead.
I'm just imagining the scene from monty python with the killer rabbit of caerbannog but instead of 1 rabbit it's 6 cats.
I think this video concept is unintentionally the funniest thing in the world.
“Fell the feline”
These "Monster Melee" episodes are great! They actually reveal a lot of the weakness in the roll-based mechanics of D&D and how you lack granularity of power at lower levels and really at all levels to be fair. We need some Werewolf vs. Vampire, Devil vs Demon and Giant vs Dragon type episodes.
Growing up in the 90s one of my favorite shows was Celebrity Deathmatch. Though the show has faded into the annals of time, I have Esper the Bard here giving me 3 commoners fighting 6 cats, a worthy substitute! Keep them coming :D
I remember that show!
Would love to see that show come back, the world needs the claymation Musk/Zuckerberg deathmatch
Then again I've seen 2 cats attack a man walking his dog completely unprovoked once so this isn't impossible now that you explained 40 seconds in.
It was always a joke in 2nd edition that a cat had a 50% chance of killing your 1st level wizard...
Horrors of level 1 jokes aside, cats are fully capable of taking down targets larger than themselves, especially if they're practiced hunters, and they can do an ALARMING amount of damage to a human being, without hitting vital areas. Cats have on video chased off bears which are more durable than an average human, so this still makes sense, a bunch of rabid cats who are mentally unhinged could indeed result in fatal injuries to a human.
I guess it's technically a possibility but I don't think there has ever been a single confirmed human fatality in history due to a cat attack
@erikgilson1687 Cat scratch infections have actually killed people, if that counts.
@@zonbichaos5844 eh not really, I mean people die from letting their dogs lick them in the mouth too but I don't consider that a dog fatality it's more of a side effect. I'm thinking more direct injury wise
And if they have rabies, the commoners would not survive
@@erikgilson1687 I mean, that's like saying no one has died to a poisonous snake because it was the poison that got them. Cat, like a monitor lizard, often have extremely infectious bites that incorporates into their hunting success.
My god, its so stupid and wonderful all at once! 3 chums attacked by the cats from The Warriors!
Lets get this fight going!
Me: Brain...brain no...
Brain: A gang of awakened cats that are all bards and just go around using vicious mockery to insult humans to death.
drow mage vs mind flayer: watch later
dragon vs beholder: watch later
cats vs hobos : subscribed
Action economy is so op lol
It plays a big part. In one session my group fought a singular tough enemy in one battle, and several weaker enemies in another. The weaker ones gave us more trouble, just because there were more attacks flying. Meanwhile one really good crit on the single tough enemy swung the battle firmly in our favor, and it fell not long after.
Also doesn't help that commoners only have double a cat's hit points
@@badideagenerator2315 yeah kind of bs
Without the silly grappling for two turns the commoners would have probably won. Same if they took rocks and went up the stairs with one dodging in the front.
@@badideagenerator2315 realistically, commoners should've won. what really did them in was 1 of the commoners wasting a turn disengaging, and the cats hitting 70% of the time whereas the commoners only hit 50%, and failed both opposed's in a row. the disengage could've been fine had he continued running after throwing the stone, forcing the cats to dash a second time giving him an extra attack... but once it got down to 1 hp commoner with 4 cats left, ya it was pretty much over. that damage roll of 1 also hurt really badly because for all intents and purposes, it may as well have been a miss since 3 out of 4 it was a one shot.
A full-on free-for-all between every chromatic and every metallic dragon could be a fun watch.
Before video: the commoners are going to totally curb stomp this! After video: How do commoners actually survive in the incredibly dangerous world of D&D? Also shouldn't there be unique stat blocks to represent: child, old man, woman etc.
The moment I saw it was orange cats I knew the commoners were in trouble
This is better than the Olympics 😂
Picking random fights with feral alley cats? Common... they got the be some kind of chaotic!
I wanna see Goblins vs. Kobolds. Toss in some Hobgoblins and Bugbears with the goblins and some higher end Kobolds like the Scale Sorcerer
Great idea
Give the kobolds a half-dragon as a chieftain lol
This video makes me think theres a Arch druid collecting cats for a nature uprising! 😂 🐈
Man these are hilarious. I think you’ve struck gold with this concept. Excited to see it continue.
We completed an Out of the Abyss campaign last year and one of the near-end sessions was the players taking on each of the surviving demon lords in a battle such as this! It was amazing!
I think a cat evading a grapple does an automatic one scratch damage to the grappler.
This is like the one I always threaten my players with, which is lvl 1 character vs 8 crabs. You can be known as the man who ran away from crabs for the entire campaign, or you can toe to toe them and face potentially 36 attacks before you vanquish them lol
Those twolegs were too used to only meeting weak hearted kittypets.
Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.
I understood that reference
Imagine if these cats had actual hunting tactics. Using stealth at the start, attacking with a prepared action, starting off attacking someone who was straggling from the group.
Reminds me of test encounters I’ve tried with lvl 1 adventures and a pack of jackals.
One of the very few encounters my players ran from without fighting was a group of cats. Drop a cat encounter in your next dnd game players will assume they are evil magic cats
I love how this fight is taking place in an epic corridor
I'm so glad that someone is finally doing this kind of monster fighting on TH-cam! I've been wanting to see this kind of thing for years!
Harry, Barry and Larry were just coming back home after their usual visit to their favourite tavern after work to relax and have a good cup of mead, they just didn't know that a group of rabid cats were out for blood....
At first they thought they could take them on.....
-I mean those are just some street cats and we are full on grown adults, we can take them!
And after that we will have a interesting story for our kids, when we have them...
Poor fool.... They went to the attack, throught the battle Larry had the stupid idea to try and catch a cat and throw it into a hole, it didn't work, shortly after that Harry got overwelmed by the cats and got KO....
Larry after seeing this he thougt Harry died, and screamed:
- You know what? Screw you Barry! I know you are the one taking my food on the job
-What!?!
Shortly after leaving him, Barry also got overwelmed, in his last moments, before loosing conciousnes the last thing he heard was this:
-This is what happens to the ones that steal my food, SCREW YOU BARRY!!
but if the poor fool had thought more throughly, he would have known that he was next, and with that the three friends had to sleep on the alley way for the night.
In the morning the three drunkiards barely remembered what happend, but after seeing their batle marks, thought that they fought some drunken Tabaxi, with a nice story on their belt, they went on about their day
My great auntie's face was eaten by her two cats after she died
Even with a lower CR but with a larger number of monsters will beat an equal CR mob at low levels. Its different at higher levels with higher AC. for instance, take 1 Empyrean versus cats with equal CR rating. You can figure out the mathematics of crits versus what the AC. And with the higher CR abilities like the Empyrean opening up a fissure would kill off those hundreds of cats fairly quick before their crits would come into play to kill him.
Like, who would win? A hundred rats, or a 5th Cleric?
@@MegaPokefan97 Really depends on the cleric's spell list. If he's got spirit guardians it's a pretty easy cleric win. If he doesn't the rats almost surely surround him and take the win.
I don't really understand what you are saying. An Empyrean isn't "at low levels". Also what do you mean by "equal CR rating" How do cats have an equal CR to an Empyrean? Like total? Because cats have a CR of 0 and the Empyrean has a CR of like 23, so an equal number of cats to CR would be like 50. I think it could easily solo those cats. The average damage for 50 cats wouldnt be great with the cats +0 and the Empyrean armor class of 22 only every natural 20 would hit for 2 damage, reduced to 0 due to immunity. In fact an Empyrean could take on 1 billion cats and not take a single point of damage.
Even taking away the resistance and adding like 200 cats, I still think the math is just awful. With 250 cats, thats exactly an average of 25 damage a round. But if they cast firestorm or earthquake it's over.
Scratch=4 flying claws,1 bite and 1 peel out on your tunic.
The cat sounds are great. 😊
100 commoners vs 1 tarrasque. It’s closure then you think.
How could you do this Esper? The cat the dog and the horse are man's best friend and you pin them against each other. What evil have you wrought?
Fun evil.
Ahhh yes. A tell as old as time.
Hilarious. Can't wait to see what you do next!
This series is a great idea! If possible, I would recommend trying having some clay golems vs a tarrasque. I'm curious how long it would take for them to either be swallowed by the tarrasque for the tarrasque to actually die.
3 commoners : « Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle will be legendary ! »
When you and the boys get jumped in an alley by cats and lose
Esper I think you may have a new hit series. Love this, more please.
How about a 4 Element(al)s Battle Royale?
I would like to suggest a battle between a night hag or ghost and an appropriate adventure group. The flickering back and forth across the border ethereal makes it a challenging encounter.
Do not mess with the cats!
How can you see this as anything other than a massive upset. The commoners have a dominant edge in both Strength and Intelligence. You have to credit the heart of those cats. They could’ve easily lost their nerve when the first one went down in one hit but they stayed strong and pulled out a well earned victory against those damn commoners
Joe is gonna have a great story to tell at the bar
I had a feral kitten once get into my weld shop and that thing ran 1000 mph into a stack of I beams. It got pretty messed up for a few seconds. Then it got angry.
I had to wear welding gloves over work gloves to handle that bastard.
I cannot stress how amazing you are a different voices and animal sounds bravo, sir! 🥹👏
I also admire the sx!
I don't know what it is with gaming and wildly overestimating the strength of small animals. Reminds me of Kenshi where it's not uncommon to see gangs of men with metal pipes getting beaten up by baby goats.
These D&D cats were almost as big of a-holes as actual cats.
"Unaligned. I know, not chaotic evil"
Based Esper??
If any of those commoners had a shovel, game over. lol I am Routing for the cats! Suddenly Bast shows up and seeks revenge for her worshipers LoL :)
I was invested to an embarrassing degree…. Bravo, brother. :)
Numbers are a huge advantage that are often overlooked.
I was one of the first susbscribers to your channel before I moved to Japan over a decade ago. In fact, some of your earlier videos helped push me to make the move to Japan. Now that I'm back in the states it's wild to see the channel so huge.
That's incredible! Thanks for watching for so many years!
These Monsters Melees are great for showing possible monster tactics...
I was surprisingly excited to see this match up.
the cats and the commoners should have had names. In my headcannon this is a battle between snuffles, cuddles, snowball, garfield, ebeneezer and darling versus John Hathmann, Gregory "duck" Williamson and Jack Dick.
now this is a hilarious deathmatch
I love this video concept! Haven't had your videos in my feed for a while... Happy to see it!
I’m really enjoying these vids. The whimsy of this one was a fun surprise.
Also, can’t wait for Monstrous Heroes, Trials, and Eldritch Castle.
Coming very very soon!
I was holding my cat when I was a kid, and something scared it... It jumped off my chest and ripped me open with claws. I had to go to the hospital for that one. A surprisingly severe injury for a housecat.
My absolute favorite current dnd series
This is probably the best thing I've seen on YT in a while! Thank you!
This is where "Health is a representation of willingness / ability to fight" comes in strong.
If I can make one suggestion for a fight, I would love to see one of the NPC‘s from a module that has character levels, I know that’s possible I wanna see how big of a difference it makes in a melee.
The thing no one realized they needed so desperately
These videos are an amazing part of your already great channel, please keep making them!
I really hope 6 housecats beat 3 fully grown adult males
just shows how powerful action economy is. The cats were inpurrfect, but at the end, they came out feline...
I love the "of course 3 adults could take on some cats", like really? Somebody's house cat, Fluffy the lap cat, is one belly scratch away from going jungle-mode on your arm. A half feral alley cat's resting mode already is fighting for its life. If it's cornered, or worse, WANTS to kill you, it's like stepping into a tornado filled with fishhooks. You remember that needle pit from Saw II? Imagine that pit chasing you. I'd rather fight one medium sized dog than 2 cats.
You would still need to apply a Race to the Commoner.
That is what (any race) means. For the Commoner that could make quite a bit of difference.
You don't *need* apply racial traits to NPCs. It's an option at the GM's discretion. In this case, a +1 to each ability score wouldn't make a difference (11s instead of 10s, still a +0 modifier).
Half-Orc commoners would totally annihilate those cats.
did he have to make all the commoners look like ron weasly? thanks now i have nightmares.
You should do Lich vs Pit Fiend for the next one. I’m sure that’d be pretty fun to watch!! Anyhow, love your new series, keep up the good work dude 👍
Counter-offer: Lich vs Solar. An agent of the gods has been sent to handle a lich who is growing in power.
@@primeemperor9196 Awww hell yeah!!! That sounds absolutely hype!!
I guess it would take a LOT more commoners than usually depicted in media to drive off a flesh golem with torches and pitch forks
There has to be a D&D equivalent to Rock. Vs Paper vs Scissors!!!
Cats when hunting as a group (and they do that when feral) actually take out the weakest member first, taking out enemies one at a time, generally doing guerrilla tactics and hiding in between ambushes, there is footage of feral cats taking down a small herd of deer, and others of them taking out a pack of coyotes that were “poaching” “their turf”
"Best" part is you can clad the commoners head-to-toe in steel plate and they _still_ are likely to die to a pack of wild cats. It does change the numbers needed a bit, since the cats need an average of 26 attacks to drop a commoner in full plate, but 8 cats vs 1 commoner will do that on average within 4 rounds, even if the commoner kills one cat per round.
These are some of your best videos. Definitely nothing else out there like it.
Imagine the people who find the aftermath.
A: "Oh no, what happened here?"
B: "It looks like they were killed by....umm....cats?"
A: "Like, regular cats?"
B: "Yup, regular old cats"
Hell yeah! Cats versus Commoners! Classic!
The clowder lost a few brave soles that night, but the kittens ate well.
Idk if the map is to be taken literally, then at least one of the commoners triped on the stairs while being attacked.
Very amusing . the commoners vs cats, one of the greatest match ups after a group of drunk commoners encounter a dark aleway with a bunch of Feral alley cats. LOL :)
I remember losing to a zombie cat in some module as part of a backstory prologue thing. And I mean a whole four person party lost, not just like one character. There were wizard tower gimmicks, but the DM ended up mostly using them to try and save us from stupid thing. The dice gods were cruel that day...
Commoner 3 really cost his and his buddies lives by trying to grapple the cat twice, love the personality of that scoundrel though
Ambient bar commoner 1: "What happened to billy, bob and brad?"
Ambient bar commoner 2: "cats ate their face, but the barkeep can tell you more about it"
Barkeep: "cats ate ther face"
These are great! Please do more of them, thank you!
I love it 🤣I still vote for the Fomorian vs something of equal power level!
“Yea! YEAAA- NOOOO man!!!”
-the dogs watching this
I like the idea of this being nonlethal combat, but it would still be a heck of a story, them drunk, fighting a cluster of alley cats and losing, honestly I’m gonna add this to the lore of a town in my game I’m designing, a street where a group of cats fought a group of drunk commoners, and won. Maybe add a tavern named after the fight on that street, “The Cat-Claws Tavern”!