My logic for why invisible creatures who every one can see still gets advantage is that see invisible isn’t necessarily you can see them perfectly you might be able to see a shimmering wave of energy but they are still hard to track on the battle field giving them that might give them a small head start even if it’s only a second or two then once the battle actually is on it’s way you lock in on them more
You aren't alone. I have been doing this for 48 + years and I still haven't memorized those damn conditions for 5e. Not sure what it is about them. Methinks it is because some of them are a bit wordy and do some switch-backing on the technical application of said conditions so it is easy to forget the details between similar conditions.
On the change to petrified not explicitly mentioning lack of awareness: way back in the 2e Netheril boxed set where you could play in ancient Netheril, it was mentioned in a throw away line about Karsus that after he got petrified he remained conscious and aware long enough to watch the sky cities crashing and the empire burning.
I find the new Surprised Condition lacking. The way I handle it: Surprised - You have an Initiative of 1 and cannot not use reactions until your turn. This gives Surprised serious consequences, but doesn't cost the surprised creature/character their entire turn; they just go last while surprised. It also means they're not boned on Initiative for the entire combat.
One thing I don't like about the new exhaustion is it doesn't effect DCs at all. An exhausted fighter gets worse and worse at their core thing, but a wizard isn't getting any worse with their magic unless it is low level spells like chromatic orb or cantrips like fire bolt but you can have 5 levels of exhaustion but their fireball is just as hard to move away from
Yeah, it is one weakness of Exhaustion. I'm imagining that there was a reason behind it going down that way... But I am not sure. Wizards and such are still in great danger though with lowered saving throws and their piddly HP pool... I haven't played around with it enough to know if it feels as unfair as it appears.
@17:55 It’d be nice to not have the “is within 5 feet” but rather “is within the attacker’s reach”- some creatures have 10 feet reach. “Poke em from a distance”
🥳🫂👍🏿 Thank you for the review and clarifications - saw a number of what could be editing errors that seemed like errors but wasn’t sure they were some sort of litmus test or puzzle 🤔
Regarding Deafness: the difficulty with speaking only made sense if the person had not heard well before, as in real life. What happens when people that could already speak okay and lose their hearing is that they speak with an obnoxiously loud volume. Some people do that anyway, even if they can hear just fine. So, it is good they removed the speaking part, it never should have been there.
I kind of liked the 20% spell failure on the assumption that volume control was a portion of the requirement to successfully utter the verbal components.
@@grr-OUCH that’d be nice too! As is, you currently CANT be quiet about spellcasting if there’s a verbal component and it makes subtle magic a total pain (unless you’re rocking metamagic or illusionist that is)
@@johnbe8505 Gulp. lol. It's on the list! I was committed to doing a one-shot if we hit 10k by the end of the year. Doesn't look like that's in the cards, but it's still on the table as a project I want to do.
I have to disagree with you on the surprised condition. Having experienced setting up an ambush only for the entire ‘surprised’ party to go first despite rolling with disadvantage I can confidently say that it feels totally wrong and makes no sense. I have had to house rule surprise so that anyone that is surprised cannot do anything on their turn unless the creatures that surprised them have had their turn. As for stunned, I think it is a perfectly acceptable to have a condition in the game that takes away player agency, just like petrifaction or death do. Sure it takes players out from fully participating in the game for a time, which is no fun, but I feel that in the long run it benefits the game more to have the players characters suffer from bad outcomes from time to time. Part of the contract players sign up to should be that they understand that this can happen from time to time. Making PCs immune to anything bad happening just because it’s not fun at the time is in my opinion a worse option. That being said I agree with you in that allowing movement whilst stunned is a great improvement because there is still something the player can do unlike when they are petrified or reduced zero hit points and taking death saves, or worse still, dead!
I agree it would be quite hard to justify a creature which rolled well on Initiative with disadv. acting before a solo PC that is under Invisiblity spell as well as rolled 20+ on Stealth check trying to silently approach. Even if that action would be Ready (Attack) or Dodge. What would @DM-Timothy do in such a situation?
Regarding stunned, keep in mind that I’m an advocate for Paralyzing characters over stunning them. It’s ok to take agency occasionally, it’s not as ok to do so and make it boring. That’s my real issue with stun. It’s a boredom condition instead of a raised stakes one. Regarding surprise. I think I might have to do a video on why I don’t see it as a problem, but the tldr is “act as if you didn’t know what was happening, because you “won” initiative on a surprise”. It’s another reason why it’d be good for reactions to be unavailable when surprised until your turn.
@georgeseed4009 I would have the surprised prey act as if they had no idea the assassin was there. They’d keep walking, potentially putting them into the wrong position for the ambusher, or would stop to light their pipe, or otherwise complicate things in a small way, then it’d be the players turn to overcome that and kick some butt.
@@DM-Timothy I guess the change to allow movement fixes the ‘boredom’ aspect of the stunned condition as now your PC can stagger back towards the protection of other party members, or drop prone behind a wall, or any other thing you can do with your movement.
Conditions need to be kept handy. Something I always keep on my cheat sheet/DM screen. No. If one enemy person sees you while you are hiding, not everyone sees you. Only the person that can see you can target you., no one else can. Running it the way you do is extremely unfair to stealth players and illogical. Being stunned adds a lot of tension in the middle of combat because you are vulnerable and delayed for a round. Yes, it's a bummer you can't do anything, but there are lots of ways you are not able to do anything in combat that helps besides being stunned. Out of range, at 0 HP, Dominated, Charmed, etc., etc. Removing Player Agency should not be avoided at all costs.
The one person spots you they all do thing is just the RAW, not my personal use case. I prefer the more granular approach like you do. :) As to Stunned, I’m not a die hard “leave agency always” DM. Stunned just doesn’t add enough tension because the downside isn’t strong enough. Paralyzed is good, stunned is just a missed turn for no real tension gain. At least, in my experience studying my various players reactions.
@ sure thing! It’s in the Hide action. It states that you gain the invisible condition, but that “ The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurs: “ (Note, it does not say that the condition is bypassed, but that it ends) “you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component.” I can’t emphasize on my phone as I reply here, but “an” is singular, meaning if an enemy spots you, he can shout or point and your invisibility is immediately ended, thus removing your hidden status for all enemies. Raw that is. I don’t tremendously agree with it for good table play.
@@sleepinggiant4062 I actually think it was the intention of the 2014 sentence "until you are discovered" in the hiding sidebar, as after being discovered you apparently no longer needed to check your stealth vs people's perception. Though I could be wrong there, it's not as definitive. Regardless, I'd say the designers belief is that if someone says "Behind the bookcase!" and points at you, that your stealth is toast, and they're considering that an assumed (and I guess free/non) action.
My issues with stun are largely on behalf of the players getting stunned, rather than as a DM worrying about my monsters. But, I'll admit, I'm happy to see Monks only stunning once a round.
My logic for why invisible creatures who every one can see still gets advantage is that see invisible isn’t necessarily you can see them perfectly you might be able to see a shimmering wave of energy but they are still hard to track on the battle field giving them that might give them a small head start even if it’s only a second or two then once the battle actually is on it’s way you lock in on them more
That works, for sure! :) It's a bit odd mechanically, but as justifications go I think that one fits well. Thanks!
You aren't alone. I have been doing this for 48 + years and I still haven't memorized those damn conditions for 5e. Not sure what it is about them. Methinks it is because some of them are a bit wordy and do some switch-backing on the technical application of said conditions so it is easy to forget the details between similar conditions.
Definitely concur. Glad I’m not alone!!
Me too.
I actually have condition cards from when I played in person. Makes it easier at the table for sure
On the change to petrified not explicitly mentioning lack of awareness: way back in the 2e Netheril boxed set where you could play in ancient Netheril, it was mentioned in a throw away line about Karsus that after he got petrified he remained conscious and aware long enough to watch the sky cities crashing and the empire burning.
What a brutal and lovely piece of lore. Thanks for sharing that!
The lady exhaustion AI video kinda looks like Laura Bailey. Fitting with D&D being topic mentioned.
I find the new Surprised Condition lacking. The way I handle it:
Surprised - You have an Initiative of 1 and cannot not use reactions until your turn.
This gives Surprised serious consequences, but doesn't cost the surprised creature/character their entire turn; they just go last while surprised. It also means they're not boned on Initiative for the entire combat.
I like this solution in many ways. Though I’ve enjoyed the occasional upset. I definitely agree that reactions should wait until your turn.
Fun (or annying) monster tactics could be that two of them grapple one PC, giving them disadvantage to all attacks.
Very true. Another way to encourage them to break free, which from an action economy standpoint is a big win for the monster.
Look, you can't just say "Some call me Tim" without blowing up three mountain tops.
Fair point. I’ll see about blowing up some mountain tops in an upcoming intro…
One thing I don't like about the new exhaustion is it doesn't effect DCs at all. An exhausted fighter gets worse and worse at their core thing, but a wizard isn't getting any worse with their magic unless it is low level spells like chromatic orb or cantrips like fire bolt but you can have 5 levels of exhaustion but their fireball is just as hard to move away from
Yeah, it is one weakness of Exhaustion. I'm imagining that there was a reason behind it going down that way... But I am not sure. Wizards and such are still in great danger though with lowered saving throws and their piddly HP pool... I haven't played around with it enough to know if it feels as unfair as it appears.
@17:55 It’d be nice to not have the “is within 5 feet” but rather “is within the attacker’s reach”- some creatures have 10 feet reach. “Poke em from a distance”
I can see that. Not sure if there’s a deeper meaning besides expediency behind the 5’ reason.
dazed condition is still here. hidden in rogue's cunning strike at level 14
That’s fair. Some spells act similarly, too, I just preferred it over Stun myself. :)
🥳🫂👍🏿
Thank you for the review and clarifications - saw a number of what could be editing errors that seemed like errors but wasn’t sure they were some sort of litmus test or puzzle 🤔
Uh oh. What'd I miss?
@@DM-Timothylike at 3:28 the screen freezes and has green bars across the bottom
@@TwinSteel Definitely not intended. Something must have gone wrong in the rendering of the final draft. :/ Thank you for letting me know!
@ no worries - didn’t interfere with my understanding 👍🏿
Regarding Deafness: the difficulty with speaking only made sense if the person had not heard well before, as in real life. What happens when people that could already speak okay and lose their hearing is that they speak with an obnoxiously loud volume. Some people do that anyway, even if they can hear just fine. So, it is good they removed the speaking part, it never should have been there.
I kind of liked the 20% spell failure on the assumption that volume control was a portion of the requirement to successfully utter the verbal components.
@@DM-Timothy That would be fun, and have side effects when trying to be quiet about it.
@@grr-OUCH that’d be nice too! As is, you currently CANT be quiet about spellcasting if there’s a verbal component and it makes subtle magic a total pain (unless you’re rocking metamagic or illusionist that is)
you steam your dnd game on here or on twitch?
Not currently no. I’ll admit, the idea of doing so is very intimidating! Mostly from a technical front.
@@DM-Timothy i would love to see how you dm a game
@@johnbe8505 Gulp. lol. It's on the list! I was committed to doing a one-shot if we hit 10k by the end of the year. Doesn't look like that's in the cards, but it's still on the table as a project I want to do.
2000 games in 10 years ? That's like 200 games a year, that implies you play a one shot on more days than you don't every single year
I run 7 weekly campaigns, actually. :) Most of those 2,000 have been in the last 4 years.
You pronounce "again" funny. My flat Midwest accent pronounces it "a-gen".
I’m full of weird pronunciations. I still pronounce Garage like an Australian, too. Comes of being a “bloomin’ foreigner” ;)
I have to disagree with you on the surprised condition. Having experienced setting up an ambush only for the entire ‘surprised’ party to go first despite rolling with disadvantage I can confidently say that it feels totally wrong and makes no sense. I have had to house rule surprise so that anyone that is surprised cannot do anything on their turn unless the creatures that surprised them have had their turn.
As for stunned, I think it is a perfectly acceptable to have a condition in the game that takes away player agency, just like petrifaction or death do. Sure it takes players out from fully participating in the game for a time, which is no fun, but I feel that in the long run it benefits the game more to have the players characters suffer from bad outcomes from time to time. Part of the contract players sign up to should be that they understand that this can happen from time to time. Making PCs immune to anything bad happening just because it’s not fun at the time is in my opinion a worse option. That being said I agree with you in that allowing movement whilst stunned is a great improvement because there is still something the player can do unlike when they are petrified or reduced zero hit points and taking death saves, or worse still, dead!
I agree it would be quite hard to justify a creature which rolled well on Initiative with disadv. acting before a solo PC that is under Invisiblity spell as well as rolled 20+ on Stealth check trying to silently approach. Even if that action would be Ready (Attack) or Dodge. What would @DM-Timothy do in such a situation?
Regarding stunned, keep in mind that I’m an advocate for Paralyzing characters over stunning them. It’s ok to take agency occasionally, it’s not as ok to do so and make it boring. That’s my real issue with stun. It’s a boredom condition instead of a raised stakes one.
Regarding surprise. I think I might have to do a video on why I don’t see it as a problem, but the tldr is “act as if you didn’t know what was happening, because you “won” initiative on a surprise”. It’s another reason why it’d be good for reactions to be unavailable when surprised until your turn.
@georgeseed4009 I would have the surprised prey act as if they had no idea the assassin was there. They’d keep walking, potentially putting them into the wrong position for the ambusher, or would stop to light their pipe, or otherwise complicate things in a small way, then it’d be the players turn to overcome that and kick some butt.
@@DM-Timothy I guess the change to allow movement fixes the ‘boredom’ aspect of the stunned condition as now your PC can stagger back towards the protection of other party members, or drop prone behind a wall, or any other thing you can do with your movement.
@ it’s definitely a step in the right direction… ok, I really didn’t aim for that pun, but I’m sticking with it.
Conditions need to be kept handy. Something I always keep on my cheat sheet/DM screen.
No. If one enemy person sees you while you are hiding, not everyone sees you. Only the person that can see you can target you., no one else can. Running it the way you do is extremely unfair to stealth players and illogical.
Being stunned adds a lot of tension in the middle of combat because you are vulnerable and delayed for a round. Yes, it's a bummer you can't do anything, but there are lots of ways you are not able to do anything in combat that helps besides being stunned. Out of range, at 0 HP, Dominated, Charmed, etc., etc. Removing Player Agency should not be avoided at all costs.
The one person spots you they all do thing is just the RAW, not my personal use case. I prefer the more granular approach like you do. :)
As to Stunned, I’m not a die hard “leave agency always” DM. Stunned just doesn’t add enough tension because the downside isn’t strong enough. Paralyzed is good, stunned is just a missed turn for no real tension gain. At least, in my experience studying my various players reactions.
@@DM-Timothy - Please point me to that rule.
@ sure thing! It’s in the Hide action. It states that you gain the invisible condition, but that “ The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurs: “ (Note, it does not say that the condition is bypassed, but that it ends) “you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component.” I can’t emphasize on my phone as I reply here, but “an” is singular, meaning if an enemy spots you, he can shout or point and your invisibility is immediately ended, thus removing your hidden status for all enemies.
Raw that is. I don’t tremendously agree with it for good table play.
@@DM-Timothy - yet another reason not to go to 5.5. How in the world did they come to that conclusion.
@@sleepinggiant4062 I actually think it was the intention of the 2014 sentence "until you are discovered" in the hiding sidebar, as after being discovered you apparently no longer needed to check your stealth vs people's perception. Though I could be wrong there, it's not as definitive.
Regardless, I'd say the designers belief is that if someone says "Behind the bookcase!" and points at you, that your stealth is toast, and they're considering that an assumed (and I guess free/non) action.
Monk can only attempt a stun 1/turn now, so problem solved
My issues with stun are largely on behalf of the players getting stunned, rather than as a DM worrying about my monsters. But, I'll admit, I'm happy to see Monks only stunning once a round.
How do you play over 300 games in a year? Lol
lol, I run game 6 days a week, usually 7 games (2 on Wednesdays).
If you cant remember after 2k games maybe you should quit DMing.
lol, thanks for the advice. I think I'll stick with it. ;)
Solid reply. 😂. Thanks for the video. Super helpful!!! @@DM-Timothy
@@timothywhitney6307 my pleasure! Glad you enjoyed it! (The video… lol)