Her insight into mythology is spot on. She right about herself a deep thinker. Reason these myths are not forgotten, is universal truth they contain. Incorporate them into her campaign is wonderful.
Love the outfit Dael! Very excited to see your big sub bump. Remember, Colville might have sent people your way, but all he did was get eyeballs on your content. Those eyeballs wouldn't be subbing if it wasn't for the hard work that YOU do, and for the great content that YOU create. So, yes, thank Colville, but mostly thank yourself. You're the one the put in the hard work for so long and have been producing great content. Anyway, keep up the great work! I'm happy to see things taking off! 😃👊
When I saw your videos for the first time I thought, "cool! another dnd YTer that I can learn and/or steal ideas from." Then I saw some of your other stuff and thought, "YAY! ANOTHER MYTHOLOGY NERD!"
1. noice pirates of penzance reference 2. right, leaving at 5.02. no spoilers here. 3. you done great, very effective lasertag look. you did shoot me on my birthday though, so i hate you forever
My brother said "oh, did you see Adara commented on your video?" and the kill Bill sirens went off in my brain. Thank you for leaving when you needed to, you're good.
The fey dying if you know their name reminded me that in norwegian folklore, there are underworld creatures called "jotner" which dies if humans utters their name. Also, there is another concept called "bytting", where a child from the underworld were switched with a human baby (bytting literally means "trading" in norwegian), and so the human family must raise a child of the underworld. A "bytting" will die if you get them to tell you their age.
Wow, that is FASCINATING!! The correlations with other stories from around the world alone - Yeates recounts a tale of an Irish Changeling defeated when tricked into revealing it isn't human, but now that I'm thinking about it, the Changeling specifically does this by revealing its age. I'm gonna have to go look this stuff up now and find out more!
1st Fire - "Wow, we were really unlucky that this fire started while we all slept." 2nd Fire - "Huh, that really stinks. What are the odds that would happen again?" 3rd Fire - "Somebody get me the Ghostbusters."
Another idea to make your melee types fear getting into close range is an Aura. Let’s say that a ten foot aura causes creatures to become drowsy. If they end their turn in the aura, they must make a DC13 Constitution Saving Throw or make all rolls at disadvantage on the following turn. Alternatively, you could give them fire damage, as befits his fiery nature. Ending one’s turn within a ten foot aura deals 1d6 fire damage. This way he always has a chance to hurt someone when it’s not their turn. Since he is a fey creature, perhaps he is asynchronous with space and time. This allows him to disengage as a bonus action once during the fight. Or it could be a legendary action that he can disengage, since he is likely to want to keep himself alive.
Commenting on a two year old video to mention that this gave me summer great ideas for my setting and campaign! I won't rattle on about it but I love anything that gets the gears turning.
One idea I’ve been thinking about is a villain who, when directly attacked, dodges and hits back really hard for free. He doesn’t have to roll to dodge, he just gets to dodge and counterattack. The catch is they have to “directly” attack, so an indirect attack (say destabilizing the ground beneath him to send him falling to his death) doesn’t trigger the ability. Also, he has to counter, so if if the players can trick him into accidentally attacking himself somehow (idk how that would work) his counter ALSO nails him. I have no tabletop RPG experience whatsoever but I’d like to play in the near future, so I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I love the idea of “puzzle battles” and I thought this might be cool or interesting.
I know this video came out awhile ago, but I just came here to say that this video inspired me to start my own campaign with the Burner Prince as the bbeg, and tonight we had our final session after over two years. They finally killed him, truly, with his true name and all that.
The idea of attaching an enemy's abilities to an item and giving it to the players is exactly what I've been doing recently. I created a massive shield that splits in two and is dual wielded like a weapon. It gives your STR mod in AC, lets you leap to allies as a reaction and take a hit for them, and let's you slap the ground knocking everything adjacent to you prone. Can't wait until they have to fight a military squad with two of these bad boys in the mix :D
I'm very interested in what you've mentioned so far regarding "deep" or "old" magic. Have you done a video on the elements you use to give magic that feel in your game world? If not, I would love to see one when it fits with whatever else you're planning.
I really like the idea of having the bad guy roll initiative each round. Anything to keep combat dynamic, unpredictable, and therefore fun and exciting. I am totally going to try that.
About a year ago I ran my players against a Faerie Prince, they had lots of time and tools available to them but they basically only skimmed this and found a location for him and went to confront him. Oddly they would not do this vs a dragon or a demon but thought this was fine vs a Fey :) So this fight was nearly impossible to win and they actually got wiped however the Prince is easily bored and wandered away allowing another fey who was his enemy to rescue them. This Fay berated them (and the players finally realised that this was a super bad guy not just a boss fight :) ). They did two quests to find his true name and then used this to make a dael ( :) ) with him to keep him from the prime material plane for 1000 years (nothing to him but seemed good to the players). Your videos have gotten me to include a lot more plot lines and points influenced by other mythologies than Norse.
As a Scot who's super into his countries native mythology, it is AWESOME to know that people are interested in faeries and get that they're scary mofos. I got directed here by the wonderful TH-cam algorithms and I'm very grateful of them for once. I've been super enjoying your videos, and this one made me subscribe. Thanks for being awesome, dude.
Grave Cleric made Death Yo-Yo an issue for my group, so I started using a system of lingering injury whenever a player drops to 0. A lot of them can be cured by Lesser Restoration, but when my Paladin lost his sword hand from a white dragon’s breath weapon, it really changed the party’s attitude regarding hitting 0 HP.
I’m no Colville but I name drop you wherever dnd videos are found. My wife and I both love you, you’re clever, fun, and as cute as a button. We love that your channel has dnd, folklore, and so much more. Keep up the great work and at any point you start streaming your games, I’m there!
I love the idea of the burner prince. That whole description leading up to seeing the burner prince in a serene yet displaced scenery was really great! I'm definitely stealing that lol thank you so much!
"I'm a believer in breaking the rules." Yes, good. I firmly believe that DnD is just a guideline. I've probably broke every rule at least once either in some change made to a spell or ability or villain. I like to call this Chaotic Neutral DMing (or Chaotic Good if the changes are more beneficial for the players).
My group had a big bad that was a sort of embodiment of chaos who would have a new initiative every round- it works as well as you're hoping! Definitely kept us players on our toes! I think it gives a nice contrast to normal battles, so it's great for bosses!
I have an Elven wizard baddie in my campaign that I gave a special ability of being able to maintain 2 concentration spells at once. his spells are all themed to mind control, illusion, and telekinesis, he also has a magic amulet that gives him contingency teleport when his hitpoints are reduced below 10.
Glad to see Matthew's shout out is having a positive effect! I had watched you for a while, as well as Colville, and him giving you a shout out warmed my heart.
Honestly, having the perspective from someone who's new enough to still probably have at least some memory of their first time DMing is more helpful to the current crop of newbies than having the Old Gods talk about their methods. You remember what it's like sitting awkwardly in front of a group of friends for the first time psyching yourself up to painting a world in their minds with your words.
I love the idea of slipping between planes. I did a similar thing in one of my campaigns. Any time they strayed into a deeply wooded area, they had a chance of accidentally wandering into the fey realm. Because of this, it was very difficult to harvest lumber in densely forested areas. Most of the buildings in the world were stone or brick and things crafted from wood were very valuable. Made for an interesting setting. And it took my players awhile to figure out what was happening 😅
Initiative every round was a common practice. You had to declare your actions ahead of time. I can't quite remember the action mechanic but it was basically a move action & an attack action. Everybody would roll initiative and carry out the first half of their declared action, in order, some players would delay. After the first half of the turn was completed then you'd carry out the second half of the previously declared actions. This would result in the players being committed to their declared actions but, not knowing how the belligerents/monsters were going to react, which lead to wasted turns via misjudgments. Players would anticipate something a declare their actions off of their anticipations, however by the time they went the situation on the board had changed. The basic tactics was melee players wanted to move last in initiative order in the first half of the round and then attack first in initiative order in the second half of the round. I know we rolled were supposed to roll initiative every round but I believe we rolled initiative every half of round. This was in the AD&D days.
Great advice and ideas, thanks again and congratulations on the surge of subscribers. I love the first level spells being like cantrips to the BBEG caster. A similar thing I've had good results from, for my villainous casters, has been scaling up their spells. Basically, I cast any spell of fifth level or lower as fifth level - it's a bit like Pact Magic and helps me handle bookkeeping, but it could quickly turn the fight into a slaughter. BTW, what is it with the male players and the death yo-yo tactic? All of my female players will withdraw and take a healing potion when they're getting low on health, but the males just expect someone else to use their turn to revive them. I don't have a lot of DMing experience, but there's definitely been an absolute correlation between respective player gender and tactic used. Definitely going to try out reroling the baddies initiative and see if that affects them.
I am enjoying your videos, glad MC took the time to point you out. Keep making the videos that excite you or that you are passionate about making. It is obvious that you are enjoying yourself in the creative process of your videos, and that makes them enjoyable to watch.
No wonder Colville gives you constant shout out, your content is so goddamn good! The advice, the hacking of the rules, the concepts and inspiration all is freaking awesome! I'm glad I took the time to come here and check it out! And I wouldn't call "giving the bad guys stuff players can't have" cheating, I'd say is leveling the play field. Which is all about making everything more interesting for EVERYONE. After all, we're here to play TOGETHER not against each other, right? So, keep being opinionated, Dael, it's awesome =D
Thanks for the quick channel intro, I am here because of the Colville shout out so it's greatly appreciated. Also, so nice to see a fellow Aussie making great content, and D&D content to boot.
Have only recently come to your site - and not via Colville, although I do recall that Vecna segment of his - and I am finding your D&D DM items absolutely priceless. Can't wait to sort out your mythology items and they appear to be dead in my interest areas as well, having been attempting to get on about mythology, especially of the Isles, for almost five decades. This is going to restart and buff that up big time, I believe.
Dael, excellent job as always. Don't be nervous many D&D nerds, like me, were here before & though we appreciate Matt getting your name out there, I do not want you to change things. Keep your standard schedule. I am sure you have plenty to say about D&D, but I enjoy your other content too.
I think a big take away from this video is that most DMs probably wonder, "where do you even start to come up with these creative legendary actions and reactions?" where as this video is a great example of starting with what your players can do. For example, my players consist of a tanky paladin, 2 rangers, a wizard that loves to take advantage of his utility and a sorcerer that outputs a lot of fire damage. So I could probably give my bad guy a resistance to fire, reactions to being blocked by the paladin, a chance to catch arrows, and some form of safety net from the usual tricks of the wizard. I don't want to make it to where nothing affects the bad guy but somethings to make the players take a different approach and make for a good challenge.
Giving NPCs feats and Spells that the players don't normally have is great. you're not Alone in doing this. I baked into one of my badguys a feature of being able to burn attacks off his multiattack to make parry reactions. So it's harder to hit him, but he can't make as many attacks if you really press him.
Dael, you are awesome, pleeeeeeeeease keep up these videos, you may not feel you have the experience of a Mercer or Colville, but you have a voice and an approach to things that is unique. Great job!
Live streaming will be really cool for some, but a series on your world afterwords would be even better for me. Specifically a TH-cam series that summarizes the fleshed out elements uncovered when you were streaming with some anecdotes of what has happened in your game at those locations. I love world building, but I enjoy structured content far more than the casual, conversational style of live streaming.
Yay D&D video! EDIT: ok, now that I've actually watched the video, I love all of this! I'm also a big fan of the Deep Magic vibe, and if you're looking for some interesting mechanics to make that more volatile and unpredictable you might want to check out the DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) spell system. It has some fun things involving random rolls and the unpredictable nature of magic, as well as a system called Mercurial Magic that flavors spells differently for different casters. Going more into the main topic of the video, having your BBEG break the rules is usually a good plan, and another way to help the solo caster villain really work is to strait up have them prepare for the party. Some DMs don't like this approach, but WebDM has a great video talking about how it can totally be justified with the abundance of scrying magic in 5e, of course this will just train your players to use non-detection spells like Vox Machina uses insight checks, but that's half the fun! On the topic of worldbuiding/world-explaining livestreams, I know I'd be a fan of that sort of content. You seem to have a very well thought out world and I'd honestly like to hear more about it if only to shamelessly steal parts for my own game. Anyways this comment is officially way too long, so I'm just going to say great video and leave now.
You may not have the years of experience, but you do have good ideas, a charming personality and a great screen presence. Looking forward to burning through your videos!
The Big Bad in the campaign I recently finished was a level 20 Warlock Vampire who's split-personality alter-ego was the girlfriend of one of the party characters. Their motivation was revenge for the 200 years they'd been captive of the family of another member of the party (who had no idea this had gone down until late in the campaign). So they "kidnapped" the girlfriend and there was a showdown on a frozen rock in the far north. It got more complicated, though, because the girlfriend alter-ego was a branch out of the original personality of the Vampire before they were captured and infected with Vampirism; the "girlfriend" they thought they'd come to rescue never *truly* existed, so when they managed to purge the evil personality, they decided to cure her of Vampirism (with her blessing) by killing then resurrecting her. It was an emotional 2-session climax for the year-long campaign, that's for sure. It also doesn't matter so much that you may not have been running the game for as long as others because perspectives are useful and other points of view are really good to see.
"I've only been running the game for a handful of years, so you should go in this knowing that I have no idea what I'm doing" me too. even with ~15 years of DM experience under my belt ... I still have that feeling. I "wing it" a lot, and things happen to fall into place ... but knowing what I'm doing? Nope. The only thing I know (or think I know), is that it's a game, and games are supposed to be fun, and you try to figure out what the people on your table want, and like a hollywood writer/direcotr you try to direct a story for them.
Great advice for sure! Just brainstorming here. I would say instead of dealing with rerolling initiative you can just apply legendary actions and rip thematic abilities from other monsters and add them to the villain. Doing actions out of order shouldn't be a surprise when the villain is that of legend and myth. There is also the idea of lair actions or just general environmental actions that happen at certain initiative. In the case of your villain as an example of being a fey, having entangling roots try and grapple the players in a certain radius around them is a thematic environmental effect. Something that doesnt necessarily damage them but can make them panic when they are easy targets and cant move while your villain is prepping some kind of a spell ability *cough* fireball *cough*
I didn't make it here because of Matt but I subbed because of your last dnd video. On another note I make costume enemies based on story books and folk lore most recently new witch's/hags and the first big bad my party will face in a campaign I'm building which is a twisted version of Pinocchio and Geppetto where a devil answers the lonely old man's prayers and not an angle. They make a pact. The "Toy Maker" as I call him slowly losses his mind over his obsession to bring his new talking doll to life and delves deeply into necromancy and crafting magic constructs. Long story short I'll probably end up watch your lore videos as well and build something out of them to throw at my party. Lol
Discovered you by recommendation from my D&D group. Will say, as an Irishman, it really made me grin seeing how eager you got into designing a boss around an old legend of ours and it certainly was a cool idea. Ive only been a DM for 4 months, and due to a one shot I ran on my birthday as a treat to myself, my group (surprisingly) asked me to continue the story into a campaign as they found the villain too interesting to let it end there. So, big proud moment for me there. However, Ive always felt over the last few months that I never make encounters that feel as threatening as they should be against the group. Either homebrewing monsters that dont hit hard enough or, just in general, even hit the players. Nothing feels threatening to them since my big bad and her big henchman hurt them at lvl5. Hopefully my one shot this week will change things, but we'll see. I'll just have to try and make encounters actually scarier. Though the Bard who has relied on Bane for the last 3 sessions to stop the enemies, hopefully she's gonna feel scared fighting my Magic Eaters :3
This is lovely! Not that I expect my 2 cents to matter, but the presentation is solidly enjoyable. You're a dork but in a friendly, sort of endearing way and not awkwardly so. It feels fun without getting silly and informative without becoming stuffy. I love mythology (in general, but specifically European) and pull from it for a lot of concept seeds. I like the idea of Legendary Reactions and the bit about keying them to specific triggers quite a bit as well as the thought of shuffling the BBEG's initiative - usually, I'll have a sort of passive that flips every 4-5 rounds where everyone rerolls (excluding unconscious, who reroll on waking anyway). I'd like to hear more of your setting in general. The arrangement of deities, divine things, devils, the fey, various cultures, geography, and Planar arrangement would be nice, too. Take care. Cheers!
I started watching your D&D videos a few weeks before the Colville shout-out because I actively search for youtube D&D enthusiasts and you’re one of them now.
I miss being able to have a lone Big Bad caster turn to face the party when they barge in unprepared and clumped together, then cast create pit, and top initiative off with quickened black tentacles and cloudkill.
The world I'm building for my first session as DM features Fae very heavily. I'm definitely using the knowing a fae's true name gives you power over them thing. That's such a good idea. I don't know if you've ever read Jim Butcher's Dresden files, but faeries feature heavily in that book series and I've based a lot of my faerie and even magic system on the stuff from that book. I've ever made a bunch of vanilla D&D monsters that have nothing to do with faerie into fae creatures, or have them be descended from faeries
Can't say I got here from Colville, but TH-cam suggested your channel and you're thoughts are golden. Can't wait to see what other great ideas you have. *brain slurp*
It's funny because I "found you" about 2 days before Coleville put up his video, saw his video and went "yup, already know about her." Also thanks for the Sperm. Eh Sperm Principle! Helped me kick off the background of my new campaign a lot more smoothly.
Good video. Any chance we'll see a campaign diary again? The one I saw way back made me want to be in your campaign and was the reason I became a fan. : )
Not sure if anybody has mentioned this at all, but you may like the "Earthsea" series. The magic system in it is tied to the "true name" of every thing, items, animals, beings, etc
Found this video through r/DnD; seems like really great content. Really like the treatment of mythology and its incorporation into the game. As a side note the authentic Irish pronunciation of Fionn (Mac Cumhaill) is _f•yuh•n_ . But yeah, awesome stuff, to be sure.
Heya! A bit late to the party but another who found you via Matt Colville and have to say I'm loving the stuff on your channel! Came for the D&D ideas, got hooked by your very fun and charming style and am staying for the fun mythology stuff. Cheers!
Funny enough, I've started following your videos after one of your reddit posts about traps. Not sure about the whole Colville thing though. I totally agree with ALMOST everything you said and I have used some of it myself with few tweaks like, e.g. instead of a fire shield I gave my BBEG armour of Agathis so it would hurt my barbarian player and the two weapon fighter ranger but it would wear off after some threshold. It also made sense narratively, as the armour represented lingering shadows that would slash whoever attacked it's master but would be weakened after some strikes. Nonetheless, I came here to say that I don't agree with the immunity to sneak attack thing **unless it solely affects the hidden part** [I think I saw some text about that] but does not affect the near ally thing and the rogue is still somewhat able to do sneak attacks. The reason for that is that if you want to break the rules and make things immune to something, you have to be really careful about not having one of your players sitting at a high stake battle with the feeling that she was jeopardized. It can be anything, like casting banishment in a player, being immune to spells, being immune to divine smites, you name it. Just exercise caution and get the right balance between making sense narratively and stripping players down from the class features that made them pick that class at first place. Another example of that are old school DMs from 3.0, where monsters were immune to sneak attack but CR took that into account, carrying this feature over to 5e. Anyway, this is not a critique but more of a yellow flag to folks that scroll through the discussion, **balance narrative and a player's fun**. Which, from the videos that I watched thus far, I believe that MonarchsFactory does fantastically and her players are in a total roller coaster. Looking forward to watching more videos! It's superb to have someone with a fresh new lens discussing DnD
"Fey can only die when they are known, man can only die when he is forgotten"... Holy crap that's beautiful!
Yeah, I'm DEFINITELY stealing that for my home campaign.
If not general headcanon
That's like standard mythology for feys guys
Her insight into mythology is spot on. She right about herself a deep thinker. Reason these myths are not forgotten, is universal truth they contain. Incorporate them into her campaign is wonderful.
I guess that's what qualifies as bars now? Just seems like a fact of the world.
"Up yours, authority. That's what villains say."
- Asmodeus, lawful evil lord and tyrant of all devils, begins typing furiously.
He can have quite the poison pen, he'll have you know!
@@DaDunge Or really just most of them anyway.
"I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just very opinionated, and think too much." I need a poster of this... and a shirt, and a mug and...
Would be very cool!!!
That would be such good merch.
Old time gamer here, with 30 year experience, she knows what she doing.
That outfit is a LOOK
Like a serious LOOK
She does look pretty damn badass.
Well, yes. That's what happens when you have visible skin and clothing.
All good in the hood.
Love the outfit Dael! Very excited to see your big sub bump. Remember, Colville might have sent people your way, but all he did was get eyeballs on your content. Those eyeballs wouldn't be subbing if it wasn't for the hard work that YOU do, and for the great content that YOU create. So, yes, thank Colville, but mostly thank yourself. You're the one the put in the hard work for so long and have been producing great content.
Anyway, keep up the great work! I'm happy to see things taking off! 😃👊
Couldn't have said it any better myself. Congratulations, Dael!
Don't you reduce people to eyeballs, that's giving a really creepy image in my head.
He' right you know ^
So freakin gracious of you, Luke. What a terrific community! 😄
Exactly right!
When I saw your videos for the first time I thought, "cool! another dnd YTer that I can learn and/or steal ideas from." Then I saw some of your other stuff and thought, "YAY! ANOTHER MYTHOLOGY NERD!"
That's the same thing that happened to me today when I started watching
I was like "Yey, a mythology nerd that rocks those stories. Then she started D&D too
Me too
1. noice pirates of penzance reference
2. right, leaving at 5.02. no spoilers here.
3. you done great, very effective lasertag look. you did shoot me on my birthday though, so i hate you forever
My brother said "oh, did you see Adara commented on your video?" and the kill Bill sirens went off in my brain. Thank you for leaving when you needed to, you're good.
#neverforget
i am a penzance born that lives and dresses as a pirate
This is by far the raddest transaction on this silly website I have seen in a long time
The fey dying if you know their name reminded me that in norwegian folklore, there are underworld creatures called "jotner" which dies if humans utters their name. Also, there is another concept called "bytting", where a child from the underworld were switched with a human baby (bytting literally means "trading" in norwegian), and so the human family must raise a child of the underworld. A "bytting" will die if you get them to tell you their age.
Wow, that is FASCINATING!! The correlations with other stories from around the world alone - Yeates recounts a tale of an Irish Changeling defeated when tricked into revealing it isn't human, but now that I'm thinking about it, the Changeling specifically does this by revealing its age. I'm gonna have to go look this stuff up now and find out more!
@@MonarchsFactory Or even as per the name, the whole original tale pertaining to rumplestilskin.
"Thats alot of times to be on fire while your asleep" For sure thats waaaay to many times, i would be mad by the second year lol
1st Fire - "Wow, we were really unlucky that this fire started while we all slept."
2nd Fire - "Huh, that really stinks. What are the odds that would happen again?"
3rd Fire - "Somebody get me the Ghostbusters."
Another idea to make your melee types fear getting into close range is an Aura. Let’s say that a ten foot aura causes creatures to become drowsy. If they end their turn in the aura, they must make a DC13 Constitution Saving Throw or make all rolls at disadvantage on the following turn.
Alternatively, you could give them fire damage, as befits his fiery nature. Ending one’s turn within a ten foot aura deals 1d6 fire damage. This way he always has a chance to hurt someone when it’s not their turn.
Since he is a fey creature, perhaps he is asynchronous with space and time. This allows him to disengage as a bonus action once during the fight. Or it could be a legendary action that he can disengage, since he is likely to want to keep himself alive.
Nice! Love these ideas!
Commenting on a two year old video to mention that this gave me summer great ideas for my setting and campaign! I won't rattle on about it but I love anything that gets the gears turning.
Man I've been wanting a bard villain. This has been a big help.
Just army of 1/2 breed creatures
One idea I’ve been thinking about is a villain who, when directly attacked, dodges and hits back really hard for free. He doesn’t have to roll to dodge, he just gets to dodge and counterattack. The catch is they have to “directly” attack, so an indirect attack (say destabilizing the ground beneath him to send him falling to his death) doesn’t trigger the ability. Also, he has to counter, so if if the players can trick him into accidentally attacking himself somehow (idk how that would work) his counter ALSO nails him. I have no tabletop RPG experience whatsoever but I’d like to play in the near future, so I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I love the idea of “puzzle battles” and I thought this might be cool or interesting.
I know this video came out awhile ago, but I just came here to say that this video inspired me to start my own campaign with the Burner Prince as the bbeg, and tonight we had our final session after over two years. They finally killed him, truly, with his true name and all that.
The idea of attaching an enemy's abilities to an item and giving it to the players is exactly what I've been doing recently. I created a massive shield that splits in two and is dual wielded like a weapon. It gives your STR mod in AC, lets you leap to allies as a reaction and take a hit for them, and let's you slap the ground knocking everything adjacent to you prone. Can't wait until they have to fight a military squad with two of these bad boys in the mix :D
I'm very interested in what you've mentioned so far regarding "deep" or "old" magic. Have you done a video on the elements you use to give magic that feel in your game world? If not, I would love to see one when it fits with whatever else you're planning.
Holy fucking shit, this sounds like the coolest boss fight in the world.
15:28 This is SUCH a great idea. Dangerous, but brilliant.
I really like the idea of having the bad guy roll initiative each round. Anything to keep combat dynamic, unpredictable, and therefore fun and exciting. I am totally going to try that.
We agree so much on how the fey and deep magic should be treated. (Also, “legendary REaction” has just become part of my DM toolbox)
"I have no idea what I'm doing; I'm just very opinionated, and think too much."
Wow, you're more like Colville than you think. xD
About a year ago I ran my players against a Faerie Prince, they had lots of time and tools available to them but they basically only skimmed this and found a location for him and went to confront him. Oddly they would not do this vs a dragon or a demon but thought this was fine vs a Fey :) So this fight was nearly impossible to win and they actually got wiped however the Prince is easily bored and wandered away allowing another fey who was his enemy to rescue them. This Fay berated them (and the players finally realised that this was a super bad guy not just a boss fight :) ). They did two quests to find his true name and then used this to make a dael ( :) ) with him to keep him from the prime material plane for 1000 years (nothing to him but seemed good to the players).
Your videos have gotten me to include a lot more plot lines and points influenced by other mythologies than Norse.
As a Scot who's super into his countries native mythology, it is AWESOME to know that people are interested in faeries and get that they're scary mofos. I got directed here by the wonderful TH-cam algorithms and I'm very grateful of them for once. I've been super enjoying your videos, and this one made me subscribe. Thanks for being awesome, dude.
I strongly like the way you treat the plains. Makes good story telling sense
Grave Cleric made Death Yo-Yo an issue for my group, so I started using a system of lingering injury whenever a player drops to 0. A lot of them can be cured by Lesser Restoration, but when my Paladin lost his sword hand from a white dragon’s breath weapon, it really changed the party’s attitude regarding hitting 0 HP.
"A firm reinforcer of the idea that names have power"
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
That's all I have to say
I LOVE the idea about changing initiative every round for the bad guy. I am using that Idea POSSIBLY this weekend.
I’m no Colville but I name drop you wherever dnd videos are found. My wife and I both love you, you’re clever, fun, and as cute as a button. We love that your channel has dnd, folklore, and so much more. Keep up the great work and at any point you start streaming your games, I’m there!
The changing initative is an interesting mechanic for sure..
I love the idea of the burner prince. That whole description leading up to seeing the burner prince in a serene yet displaced scenery was really great! I'm definitely stealing that lol thank you so much!
"I'm a believer in breaking the rules."
Yes, good. I firmly believe that DnD is just a guideline. I've probably broke every rule at least once either in some change made to a spell or ability or villain. I like to call this Chaotic Neutral DMing (or Chaotic Good if the changes are more beneficial for the players).
My group had a big bad that was a sort of embodiment of chaos who would have a new initiative every round- it works as well as you're hoping! Definitely kept us players on our toes! I think it gives a nice contrast to normal battles, so it's great for bosses!
My presence here is entirely Matt's fault and I'm glad to have found this place. You make good gaming stuff.
I have an Elven wizard baddie in my campaign that I gave a special ability of being able to maintain 2 concentration spells at once. his spells are all themed to mind control, illusion, and telekinesis, he also has a magic amulet that gives him contingency teleport when his hitpoints are reduced below 10.
Glad to see Matthew's shout out is having a positive effect!
I had watched you for a while, as well as Colville, and him giving you a shout out warmed my heart.
Funny. I had been watching Dael's DnD and Mythology vids for a while but had to look up Mat Colville just there.
The internet is never really one sided. Cool to see two communities collide, but in a positive manner.
Two Colville shout outs, Nice!
For the record though, it was your mad skills with the ukulele that earned my sub ;-)
Honestly, having the perspective from someone who's new enough to still probably have at least some memory of their first time DMing is more helpful to the current crop of newbies than having the Old Gods talk about their methods. You remember what it's like sitting awkwardly in front of a group of friends for the first time psyching yourself up to painting a world in their minds with your words.
I've been playing/Mostly DMing since '78, and you look to be a great DM to run a character under. Good stuff.
One thing to consider- if you've got a solo BBEG give them a feat that allows them to roll two initiative die and go twice per round
I love the idea of slipping between planes. I did a similar thing in one of my campaigns. Any time they strayed into a deeply wooded area, they had a chance of accidentally wandering into the fey realm. Because of this, it was very difficult to harvest lumber in densely forested areas. Most of the buildings in the world were stone or brick and things crafted from wood were very valuable. Made for an interesting setting. And it took my players awhile to figure out what was happening 😅
Initiative every round was a common practice. You had to declare your actions ahead of time. I can't quite remember the action mechanic but it was basically a move action & an attack action. Everybody would roll initiative and carry out the first half of their declared action, in order, some players would delay. After the first half of the turn was completed then you'd carry out the second half of the previously declared actions. This would result in the players being committed to their declared actions but, not knowing how the belligerents/monsters were going to react, which lead to wasted turns via misjudgments. Players would anticipate something a declare their actions off of their anticipations, however by the time they went the situation on the board had changed. The basic tactics was melee players wanted to move last in initiative order in the first half of the round and then attack first in initiative order in the second half of the round. I know we rolled were supposed to roll initiative every round but I believe we rolled initiative every half of round. This was in the AD&D days.
"Ah! It's so hard to punch you because you're burning me!"
I feel like Minsc would say this, right Boo?
Great advice and ideas, thanks again and congratulations on the surge of subscribers. I love the first level spells being like cantrips to the BBEG caster. A similar thing I've had good results from, for my villainous casters, has been scaling up their spells. Basically, I cast any spell of fifth level or lower as fifth level - it's a bit like Pact Magic and helps me handle bookkeeping, but it could quickly turn the fight into a slaughter.
BTW, what is it with the male players and the death yo-yo tactic? All of my female players will withdraw and take a healing potion when they're getting low on health, but the males just expect someone else to use their turn to revive them. I don't have a lot of DMing experience, but there's definitely been an absolute correlation between respective player gender and tactic used. Definitely going to try out reroling the baddies initiative and see if that affects them.
I am enjoying your videos, glad MC took the time to point you out. Keep making the videos that excite you or that you are passionate about making. It is obvious that you are enjoying yourself in the creative process of your videos, and that makes them enjoyable to watch.
I think it was great to make this video right after stating what you are about. :)
No wonder Colville gives you constant shout out, your content is so goddamn good! The advice, the hacking of the rules, the concepts and inspiration all is freaking awesome! I'm glad I took the time to come here and check it out!
And I wouldn't call "giving the bad guys stuff players can't have" cheating, I'd say is leveling the play field. Which is all about making everything more interesting for EVERYONE. After all, we're here to play TOGETHER not against each other, right?
So, keep being opinionated, Dael, it's awesome =D
Congrats on your shout-out!
Your villain you describe here is probably the most creative D&D villain I've heard of! Thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks for the quick channel intro, I am here because of the Colville shout out so it's greatly appreciated.
Also, so nice to see a fellow Aussie making great content, and D&D content to boot.
"effective but alarming costume"!? I understood that reference!
Have only recently come to your site - and not via Colville, although I do recall that Vecna segment of his - and I am finding your D&D DM items absolutely priceless. Can't wait to sort out your mythology items and they appear to be dead in my interest areas as well, having been attempting to get on about mythology, especially of the Isles, for almost five decades. This is going to restart and buff that up big time, I believe.
Enjoyed a couple videos already, but that Gilbert and Sullivan reference at the start is definitely worth a subscribe!
Dael, excellent job as always. Don't be nervous many D&D nerds, like me, were here before & though we appreciate Matt getting your name out there, I do not want you to change things. Keep your standard schedule. I am sure you have plenty to say about D&D, but I enjoy your other content too.
Two D&D videos in a row!! Yay! I’ve been watching your stuff for a couple months now, and your D&D videos are my favorite.
Love your fresh perspective Dael. So many play the game but you are among the few who approach it as an art form.
Came here for DnD-content, discovered your mythology-vids, loved them equally. This channel really is a hidden gem.
I think a big take away from this video is that most DMs probably wonder, "where do you even start to come up with these creative legendary actions and reactions?" where as this video is a great example of starting with what your players can do.
For example, my players consist of a tanky paladin, 2 rangers, a wizard that loves to take advantage of his utility and a sorcerer that outputs a lot of fire damage. So I could probably give my bad guy a resistance to fire, reactions to being blocked by the paladin, a chance to catch arrows, and some form of safety net from the usual tricks of the wizard. I don't want to make it to where nothing affects the bad guy but somethings to make the players take a different approach and make for a good challenge.
The legendary reaction system is definitely something I'm taking for my big bad. Awesome video.
Yes. More about your setting! And don't sweat who shouted you out. Be you! We like you that way! ❤👽🙏🐙🦑
Giving NPCs feats and Spells that the players don't normally have is great. you're not Alone in doing this.
I baked into one of my badguys a feature of being able to burn attacks off his multiattack to make parry reactions. So it's harder to hit him, but he can't make as many attacks if you really press him.
Dael, you are every bit as important a D&D channel to me as Colville is. Keep it up! I am also enjoying your mythology stuff!
Honestly, to me, your figuring-out-for-yourself take on D&D is what brought me here. Keep it up!
You are my new hero. This is what I've always wanted D&D to be, I'm glad I'm not alone.
I’ve watched several of your videos and enjoyed the content but I subbed when you sang Tom Bombadill. More of this please.
Dael, you are awesome, pleeeeeeeeease keep up these videos, you may not feel you have the experience of a Mercer or Colville, but you have a voice and an approach to things that is unique. Great job!
I've been watching your videos since the G&S vloggers days. Seeing Colville shout you out made me squee so much for you
Happened across your channel by complete accedent and I am so happy I did.
I really enjoy your take on magic and how your world is impacted by magic.
Came for the topic, stayed cause I appreciated the pirates of Penzance reference
Live streaming will be really cool for some, but a series on your world afterwords would be even better for me. Specifically a TH-cam series that summarizes the fleshed out elements uncovered when you were streaming with some anecdotes of what has happened in your game at those locations. I love world building, but I enjoy structured content far more than the casual, conversational style of live streaming.
Yay D&D video!
EDIT: ok, now that I've actually watched the video, I love all of this! I'm also a big fan of the Deep Magic vibe, and if you're looking for some interesting mechanics to make that more volatile and unpredictable you might want to check out the DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) spell system. It has some fun things involving random rolls and the unpredictable nature of magic, as well as a system called Mercurial Magic that flavors spells differently for different casters.
Going more into the main topic of the video, having your BBEG break the rules is usually a good plan, and another way to help the solo caster villain really work is to strait up have them prepare for the party. Some DMs don't like this approach, but WebDM has a great video talking about how it can totally be justified with the abundance of scrying magic in 5e, of course this will just train your players to use non-detection spells like Vox Machina uses insight checks, but that's half the fun!
On the topic of worldbuiding/world-explaining livestreams, I know I'd be a fan of that sort of content. You seem to have a very well thought out world and I'd honestly like to hear more about it if only to shamelessly steal parts for my own game.
Anyways this comment is officially way too long, so I'm just going to say great video and leave now.
You may not have the years of experience, but you do have good ideas, a charming personality and a great screen presence. Looking forward to burning through your videos!
The Big Bad in the campaign I recently finished was a level 20 Warlock Vampire who's split-personality alter-ego was the girlfriend of one of the party characters. Their motivation was revenge for the 200 years they'd been captive of the family of another member of the party (who had no idea this had gone down until late in the campaign). So they "kidnapped" the girlfriend and there was a showdown on a frozen rock in the far north. It got more complicated, though, because the girlfriend alter-ego was a branch out of the original personality of the Vampire before they were captured and infected with Vampirism; the "girlfriend" they thought they'd come to rescue never *truly* existed, so when they managed to purge the evil personality, they decided to cure her of Vampirism (with her blessing) by killing then resurrecting her.
It was an emotional 2-session climax for the year-long campaign, that's for sure.
It also doesn't matter so much that you may not have been running the game for as long as others because perspectives are useful and other points of view are really good to see.
"I've only been running the game for a handful of years, so you should go in this knowing that I have no idea what I'm doing"
me too. even with ~15 years of DM experience under my belt ... I still have that feeling. I "wing it" a lot, and things happen to fall into place ... but knowing what I'm doing? Nope. The only thing I know (or think I know), is that it's a game, and games are supposed to be fun, and you try to figure out what the people on your table want, and like a hollywood writer/direcotr you try to direct a story for them.
The live map idea sounds like a lot of fun!
Great advice for sure! Just brainstorming here.
I would say instead of dealing with rerolling initiative you can just apply legendary actions and rip thematic abilities from other monsters and add them to the villain. Doing actions out of order shouldn't be a surprise when the villain is that of legend and myth. There is also the idea of lair actions or just general environmental actions that happen at certain initiative. In the case of your villain as an example of being a fey, having entangling roots try and grapple the players in a certain radius around them is a thematic environmental effect. Something that doesnt necessarily damage them but can make them panic when they are easy targets and cant move while your villain is prepping some kind of a spell ability *cough* fireball *cough*
I didn't make it here because of Matt but I subbed because of your last dnd video. On another note I make costume enemies based on story books and folk lore most recently new witch's/hags and the first big bad my party will face in a campaign I'm building which is a twisted version of Pinocchio and Geppetto where a devil answers the lonely old man's prayers and not an angle. They make a pact. The "Toy Maker" as I call him slowly losses his mind over his obsession to bring his new talking doll to life and delves deeply into necromancy and crafting magic constructs. Long story short I'll probably end up watch your lore videos as well and build something out of them to throw at my party. Lol
AAAHHH so many new viewers and subscribers! You've come so far since the old days of Geek & Sundry vlogs!
The Burner Prince is an awesome villain! This has given me so many ideas...
Discovered you by recommendation from my D&D group. Will say, as an Irishman, it really made me grin seeing how eager you got into designing a boss around an old legend of ours and it certainly was a cool idea. Ive only been a DM for 4 months, and due to a one shot I ran on my birthday as a treat to myself, my group (surprisingly) asked me to continue the story into a campaign as they found the villain too interesting to let it end there. So, big proud moment for me there.
However, Ive always felt over the last few months that I never make encounters that feel as threatening as they should be against the group. Either homebrewing monsters that dont hit hard enough or, just in general, even hit the players. Nothing feels threatening to them since my big bad and her big henchman hurt them at lvl5. Hopefully my one shot this week will change things, but we'll see. I'll just have to try and make encounters actually scarier. Though the Bard who has relied on Bane for the last 3 sessions to stop the enemies, hopefully she's gonna feel scared fighting my Magic Eaters :3
I've been here since the G & S days and am so excited to see your channel having such a growth spurt! Congratulations, Dael!
Doing a livestream brainstorming session would be amazing, keep us posted :)
This is lovely! Not that I expect my 2 cents to matter, but the presentation is solidly enjoyable.
You're a dork but in a friendly, sort of endearing way and not awkwardly so. It feels fun without getting silly and informative without becoming stuffy. I love mythology (in general, but specifically European) and pull from it for a lot of concept seeds. I like the idea of Legendary Reactions and the bit about keying them to specific triggers quite a bit as well as the thought of shuffling the BBEG's initiative - usually, I'll have a sort of passive that flips every 4-5 rounds where everyone rerolls (excluding unconscious, who reroll on waking anyway).
I'd like to hear more of your setting in general. The arrangement of deities, divine things, devils, the fey, various cultures, geography, and Planar arrangement would be nice, too.
Take care. Cheers!
I started watching your D&D videos a few weeks before the Colville shout-out because I actively search for youtube D&D enthusiasts and you’re one of them now.
Love the idea of legendary reactions! It's a cool design space to make epic villain encounters feel more unique, definitely going to steal that one
I have been a fan since before Matt gave you a shout out. I didn't even know he had. I worked with Matt for a few years at Turtle Rock Studios.
I miss being able to have a lone Big Bad caster turn to face the party when they barge in unprepared and clumped together, then cast create pit, and top initiative off with quickened black tentacles and cloudkill.
The world I'm building for my first session as DM features Fae very heavily. I'm definitely using the knowing a fae's true name gives you power over them thing. That's such a good idea.
I don't know if you've ever read Jim Butcher's Dresden files, but faeries feature heavily in that book series and I've based a lot of my faerie and even magic system on the stuff from that book. I've ever made a bunch of vanilla D&D monsters that have nothing to do with faerie into fae creatures, or have them be descended from faeries
Can't say I got here from Colville, but TH-cam suggested your channel and you're thoughts are golden. Can't wait to see what other great ideas you have. *brain slurp*
It's funny because I "found you" about 2 days before Coleville put up his video, saw his video and went "yup, already know about her."
Also thanks for the Sperm.
Eh Sperm Principle! Helped me kick off the background of my new campaign a lot more smoothly.
"Just pick thematic spells" Love having easy going players that this works.
Fuckin love it.
I don't know who matt is.
Lucky legendary drop from the TH-cam algorithm :)
Good video. Any chance we'll see a campaign diary again? The one I saw way back made me want to be in your campaign and was the reason I became a fan. : )
Not sure if anybody has mentioned this at all, but you may like the "Earthsea" series. The magic system in it is tied to the "true name" of every thing, items, animals, beings, etc
I don't know who Matt is but I just found your channel today and I'm loving everything I found so far keep up the awesome videos.
Never saw your content before but i really liked it, the initiative reroll is a super nice touch, please keep up the awesome work!
Came because of Matt, saw that I already followed you. Getting old. Love your channel.
I hate it when I'm walking around and wake up in a faery.
Don't lie. We know you love it.
Found this video through r/DnD; seems like really great content. Really like the treatment of mythology and its incorporation into the game. As a side note the authentic Irish pronunciation of Fionn (Mac Cumhaill) is _f•yuh•n_ . But yeah, awesome stuff, to be sure.
Theres a lot of really cool out of the box ideas here. Amazing video! Thanks!
Heya! A bit late to the party but another who found you via Matt Colville and have to say I'm loving the stuff on your channel! Came for the D&D ideas, got hooked by your very fun and charming style and am staying for the fun mythology stuff. Cheers!
Funny enough, I've started following your videos after one of your reddit posts about traps. Not sure about the whole Colville thing though.
I totally agree with ALMOST everything you said and I have used some of it myself with few tweaks like, e.g. instead of a fire shield I gave my BBEG armour of Agathis so it would hurt my barbarian player and the two weapon fighter ranger but it would wear off after some threshold. It also made sense narratively, as the armour represented lingering shadows that would slash whoever attacked it's master but would be weakened after some strikes.
Nonetheless, I came here to say that I don't agree with the immunity to sneak attack thing **unless it solely affects the hidden part** [I think I saw some text about that] but does not affect the near ally thing and the rogue is still somewhat able to do sneak attacks. The reason for that is that if you want to break the rules and make things immune to something, you have to be really careful about not having one of your players sitting at a high stake battle with the feeling that she was jeopardized. It can be anything, like casting banishment in a player, being immune to spells, being immune to divine smites, you name it. Just exercise caution and get the right balance between making sense narratively and stripping players down from the class features that made them pick that class at first place. Another example of that are old school DMs from 3.0, where monsters were immune to sneak attack but CR took that into account, carrying this feature over to 5e.
Anyway, this is not a critique but more of a yellow flag to folks that scroll through the discussion, **balance narrative and a player's fun**. Which, from the videos that I watched thus far, I believe that MonarchsFactory does fantastically and her players are in a total roller coaster.
Looking forward to watching more videos! It's superb to have someone with a fresh new lens discussing DnD