Based on some of the comments I may have communicated poorly. To be clear, I think the DM did a very good job considering it's a lot of pressure to run something like this as consistently as possible and trying to keep in mind it will be content. Please do not take anything in the video as frusturation with the DM personally. Despite the minor points of frusturation near the end, the gauntlet was fun to play. I recently played the level 10 gauntlet and it was a really positive experience. If you want to try DMing or Playing in the gauntlet, please check out the linked video in the description for the details.
The Gauntlet was an extremely positive experience. Kudos to Treantmonk for putting himself out there in a real situation. It reminds me of early UFC when a Taekwondo instructor fought a BJJ person and was stunned. The fact that he didn't use any levels of Wizard for this combat challenge shows that he has evolved. The fact that he chose 6lvl of Sorcerer shows he is listening and growing. A lvl 14 Sorcerer or Sorlock with a 2 lvl dip in Warlock would better equipped for real non stop combat. 4 Feats with both. Lots of MM! Thanks!!
This was a really cool test to see! I think you made it clear that the gauntlet was difficult because the challenge was intended to be difficult and you had to play your but off to get to the end.
The sidekicks are not that strong. A higher level Sorcerer build would have been much more effective than the 6 lvls of Paladin. The 13 Strength took away from having better scores that mattered. Allow Treantmonk to run this again? A 14 lvl Sorcerer or Sorlock with 2 lvls of Warlock would be very effective in his hands.
Honestly, I think the way the Gauntlet *should* work is that the "DM" role should be split between the "Adjudicator" and the "Monster Controller" to prevent this adversarial situation arising between DM and the Challenger. That being said, I still love the idea of the Gauntlet, and following Kwayzar's journey has been an absolute blast.
They wouldn’t need to have a second DM on hand for the entire game, just someone on speed dial they can call up to be an arbitrator when there’s a major disagreement.
I gotta say, I knew you (Chris) were good at D&D, but seeing your tactics in action really highlights your knowledge of the system and knowledge of tactics. Well done.
Hearing about the behind-the-scenes disagreements made this border on DM horror stories. "Wait, but you don't know the priest is readying a spell!" "Oh? Tell me, how did they know I'm approaching with Spirit Guardians?" I agree with Chris that this adversarial DM-vs-player premise undercuts the idea of how D&D is meant to be played, and the mechanics of the game are not written with this sort of dynamic in mind.
I agree completely. This is not D&d. It is adversarial PvP, where one player also holds the role of rules adjudicator. It is unbalanced. A 3rd party (neutral DM) is needed. This is why every sport has an umpire/referee/judge. Not playing. Just adjudicating.
I have really enjoyed these gauntlet videos. A few things: There were a couple of times when you and the DM readied a spell while you were concentrating on another. As I understand it, readying a spell requires concentration. To the issue of the adversarial player - DM relationship, it might be better if there was one person running the monsters, and another managing the rules. That might lead to less rules errors (or maybe not), but it would certainly lead to less frustration.
I've never run into that first situation and clarification would be great. 100% on your second point, especially here where there are clear objectives as any sports team.
@@dustinavant2003 In the Player's Handbook, under Actions in Combat the Ready action includes the following text: "holding onto the spell’s magic requires concentration" The implication is spelled out directly underneath; i.e. if you are already concentrating, you lose concentration when you ready a spell. There is no clause about the spell being 1st level or higher, so cantrips are affected.
As I watched CMCC’s video, it really felt like you were playing against the DM and not against any of the monsters after halfway through the first encounter. Doing things like targeting the steed on purpose and holding Dispel Magic to stop your Spirit Guardians didn’t feel like something the creatures you were fighting would have thought to do, instead it was the DM specifically trying to beat you and your character. This is something that immediately takes the fun out of any TTRPG for me. My first DM had this mentality that he was trying to defeat the PCs with his encounters, instead of roleplaying with the mentality of the creature in a fight situation. It prevented me from coming back to D&D for years and it made me sad to see Chris in what I felt was a similar situation. This build is very strong, and Chris is a great player. I know the Gauntlet is about testing the limits of a character’s abilities, but I don’t feel like it should be about testing the DM against a character’s tactics or player ability.
Kiting is when you hit targets at range and move away when they're gaining on you, perhaps yeeting is a proactive version where you push them away from you?
Yep, agree. Kiting would work. I've also (in the context of videogames) heard stutter stepping, but wouldn't make much sense to use that for a tabletop game. Yeeting is when you throw them, so if you pick up an enemy and throw them (at another enemy or off of a cliff, say), that would be Yeeting.
Kiting is shooting from range and moving away so that you stay out of a melee enemy's reach Yeeting is where you push them using ranged attacks, so that they can't get to you
I think not knowing all the specifics kind of adds to your gauntlet run. There is a lot of difference between a generally optimised build and a build optimised for a specific encounter.
@@irisinthedarkworld If you know what's the exact parameters of the encounters, maps, etc, it makes a big difference than if you're going into it semi-blind or not knowing certain factors. Eg the 10 min duration one got brought up a lot as an example - but likewise Chris knowing the sorts of enemies that were going to pop up heavily influenced his strategies. The more you know, the more specific you're able to make your build to work (which, looking at this gauntlet, is not something that's going to test every aspect of a character)
@@irisinthedarkworld For one it tends to have lots of moderately strong enemies and very few individually strong ones, any single target DPR builds (such as Sorc-lock) would likely underperform due to running out of resources too soon. Lasting AOE such as spirit guardians here seems to be a pretty solid idea, although it may be worth getting extended spell just to work around the encounter tempo (which is by the way not a metamagic that you would normally take on a build, but it might be strong here).
@@tornagh9200 yea extended metamagic is strong but in niche cases, honestly usually taken later or with metamagic adept (on sorc character). SG def benifets from it as you get 20 mins out of the spell (which is already strong being 10 min let alone 1). There's a few other spells (death wars aid etc) which really shine from it, but youd plan that way ahead.
@@irisinthedarkworld You can never in a single gauntlet have even close to complete spectrum of encounters - for instance if you run the flooding in part 1 only slightly differently so the water never gets as high and so the sharks can't easily attack while you are on the higher ground and on that ground you are not attacking at disadvantage it entirely changes how that first encounter runs with no other changes at all. Would really give melee focus builds a better shot in that setup while making very little difference to how effective magic users can be. But if you go and add in a thick fog cloud or darkness that limits visibility on top of the water (either depth) suddenly most magic builds are suffering badly as they can't target anything before it has taken a bit out of them, don't have the situational awareness to use their AOE spells effectively (if that spell even allows them to cast it without hitting themselves). And that is all just one tiny environmental change.
Oddfather here: Thanks for the upload! You did a very good job and you are correct to say that I was stressed out. I do think I need to remember that while the gauntlet is a challenge, people have to come first and 'rigor' or whatever is no excuse for rudeness. While this was a failure on my part, I do think part of the issue comes down to conveyance. If it was my intention to not have you know that dispel was readied, I should not have told you it was readied. Similarly, while I always run with audible distances as a rule (which are published by wotc) this wasn't said ahead of time which led to the conflict. There's a shade of nuance there - I was trying to do my job and make things challenging - but invoking obscure rules that aren't universally used wasn't the way. Sorry for any friction this might've caused. I'm learning about so many assumptions I come into DND with!
To be fair, readying a spell requires you to cast it normally, and dispel magic has a verbal component, so Kwayzar probably would have heard it anyway.
It can be easy to slip into a kill the players mindset. Happens to every dm at some point. And every player. I felt you went harder on him than most dms would, but it happens. A learning lesson and maybe we get to see roles reversed. With treantmonk as dm for your run.
@@mogalixir it is. But its official and has been printed multiple times. But it doesn't technically apply to this situation and I didn't use it correctly even if I did. So yeah it wasn't a good moment for me.
@@pyromidas well the 'goal' was to kill the players - just not by unfair adjudication of the rules, which I fell into to some extent at the very end here. I've gotten better about in future runs.
@@BorrowedKnowledge I think good, competitive play can be fun and educational. There is no inherent reason for it to be adversarial or uncomfortable. OddFather has run plenty of gauntlets without issue as have dozens of other DMs in the discord. Sometimes rules debates happen. Hopefully everyone remains civil, and you move forward, which was the case here. As a bystander who watched this run many times, I honestly wouldn't have known there was an issue if Chris hadn't mentioned anything.
Fun to watch but too much meta on both sides. Would love to see a similar concept with monsters rolled on tables, fog of war enabled on the map, and an unaligned arbiter making final rules decisions.
Yea and the player is always going to be at a disadvantage when the both are allowed to have meta knowledge because the DM is always going to have more. Enemies are capable of warning others of danger but that sometimes takes up some of their turn to do it. I think you end up in these scenarios where the DM gets all weird and personally invested in killing the player rather than it feeling like you are controlling creatures which are trying to kill their PC.
I think the DM being adversarial is not right, even in this gauntlet framework. The test is only valid if you play it as close to a "real" tabletop experience as possible, and that means limited knowledge has to apply.
About the phantom steed spell: The horse taking one minute to fade when it dies will give the opportunity for everyone close enough and interested to beat a dead horse, which seems to be a common activity (especially outside the game).
Speaking as someone who discovered the guantlet and it's server in large part from your run, your insight into the concerns that can evolve as a result of the format are incredibly helpful and in my opinion a must watch for anyone trying to run the guantlet. I've both played and run the first 3 maps at this point and its no easy feat. Your run is nothing short of impressive. I also appreciate the fact that you presented everything in a way that doesn't bury your DM. I've had a few interactions and message conversations at this point and they have all been overwhelmingly positive, so as always your ability to approach things with both insight and nuance is just something most of us can only aspire to. Thank you Chris
I watched the other video before your explanation. I couldn't figure out how you figured out all that maneuvering on your warhorse. I'm like... this guy's a GENIUS! It made a LOT more sense when you said you had a break there to actually figure it out. Don't get me wrong. You were still a genius to figure it out at all. But at least it's a more human level of genius.
The whole time between encounters thing is really silly and specific. 3000 feet? Why? I understand it's a challenge but it feels very disconnected from actual dungeoneering. The giant mobs of a million enemies heavily favoring AoE is another issue, but feels more at home in a challenge dungeon than a random 1/2 mile jog between every room.
Yeah, this stuff is being adjusted for the gauntlet and future gauntlets; it was an arbitrary decision that turned out to require revising. But 3000' is as good an arbitrary distance as any, so that's what was run with.
@@ryuteki to be fair, casters already are favored so killing spell timers isn't unreasonable since most adventuring days don't involve back to back combats with no time between. That said it should be very clearly stated
My favorite part is the justification given in the cmcc video. They say it is not a time constraint, it’s that the encounters are 3000 feet’s from each others. They also say that if you have a way to travel faster it will be less than 10 minutes between. Ways to travel faster. Like a horse.
@@ryuteki Well, 1 hour spells last through it, 10 min ones don't. 10 min ones do let you grind through long individual fights (that can last multiple minutes already; I've seen the first fight go for 30 rounds or 3 minutes) so it's not like that much value is being lost. But it's true that it wasn't really thought through and the number chosen was kind of arbitrary.
Very nicely done, Chris. Although the player / DM knowledge vs. character / monster knowledge applications were a little unsettling to me. While gauntlets aren‘t my cup of tea, it’s interesting that videos like this unveil the shortcomings of D&D quite a bit. Sans the roleplaying part it reduces D&D to a game of arcane chess, where one better abandons melee combat entirely, in favor of superior / overpowered spellcasting options, despite the boring resource-bookkeeping. I really enjoyed, when your expert blocked the door for the winter wolf and assassin, since this showed creative use of the environment, while most of the remaining combat situations seemed very mechanical (almost CRPG-like) IMO. Too bad that rule-lawyering and DM vs. player antagonism killed potentially enjoyable parts of the adventure: creative problem solving and playful combat narration (among other things).
I thought the whole idea of the gauntlet was to see how well a build would work. That really shouldn't need a player to die. I do think the DM should be held a bit accountable here. That's not me calling them out or saying they are bad. Every DM screws up. I think it should also be noted it was commented they paused the game for family matters, so they could have had stresses going on in the background that could have really impacted them. In any case Treantmonk you did amazingly well.
In the end, the DM needs to play like how the Monsters would play, not trying to kill the player at all costs. Sorry to hear the end room had the invisible mage with bad rules. The monsters in the last room would not know about any previous tactics. Maybe they can use AI instead of playing as a player would. Hope you give it a second chance. Maybe this needs a DM to run the game and have a player run the monsters and not DM.
I didn't think bypassing encounters would be allowed but since they are I'm really interested to see how a stealth build would fare against the gauntlet by just stealthing by everything and killing the mind flayer. Maybe a gloomstalker build, or a chronurgist to give sidekicks your mote so you can combine pwt with invisibility or something like that
You can't tell us that there's another gauntlet run happening but that we might not hear about it for a long while! Super excited for contend like this!
Early comment, but I'd love if you made some type of 'gauntlet' of your own, so you could have some sort of baseline to test builds in to see how they perform. Honestly, more DM-sided stuff to play with on this channel would be awesome.
Seconding this. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on actually using it as a baseline because there are so many variables that make it practically impossible to build a true ‘baseline’ gauntlet, but being walked through your thought process of designing a gauntlet to sufficiently test characters’ capabilities would be a new and interesting treat and very much within your wheelhouse.
I would personally prefer a gauntlet style thing but with multiple players each playing different treatmonk builds. I feel this gauntlet, while very fun and interesting, doesn't really test how powerful a character is overall, but just how good they are without support. Like if you played a twilight cleric, one of the most powerful options, in this gauntlet you would probably do pretty badly because one of your biggest strengths of giving masses of hp across the whole party is not used.
Being able to quick travel from one encounter to the next to preserve the highest spell levels between fights should have made a significant difference.
Depends on what additional surprises there are for moving that fast. If I were CMCC, I'd make ambushes for just such an occasion. How would that Assassin and Winter Wolf have done if they'd gotten a surprise round??
@@Joemantler I'm not sure exactly how they calculate what is fast pace ect, but with the 60ft movement speed of the horse, they can travel the 3000ft in 5 minuets (50 rounds) without dashing, which might mean they could maintain a normal pace.
@@luka2784 They had one horse and three guys. You make a choice... leave one behind, or slow down. They had set the rules. After that, as DM, its about giving the players choices, and letting them asses cost/benefit. The Winter Wolf/Assassin might set traps. Who knows? But this is a tournament. The rules were set by someone else. Maybe they will take things into account in the future and add fast travel options.
@@Joemantler true about the three people, it would have to be a cost benefit of an extra follower or sprit guardians for two rounds. I know that fast travel was disallowed for this game, but they said that it would be allowed in future playthroughs of the gauntlets, so its still interesting to think about how it would change things. I wonder if the ability of the expert to dash as a bonus action (and so can move an extra 30ft a turn) changes how its speed is calculated for traveling rules, it its accounted than it would be able to mostly keep up with the horse, and would definitely make it in under 10 min.
Thankfully The Gauntlet is designed to be a wargame version of 5e for optimizers to show the strength of builds. Many tables would rather prefer different kind of games, but this is for a different type of tables. Both are good, but each are not for everyone. Edit: I got to the invisibility part, and i agree with you on this. the gauntlet is flawed in this way. so i ngree with others who think there should be a rules master and a monster controller. or the dm needs to stick to the books as much as possible, especially when its noticed.
I have to say, having no Fog of War really reduces the amount of tactics you can apply to the situation, both as a player and as the GM. That makes it less interesting IMO. Hiding, sneaking, ambushing etc. should be part of the toolkit.
One thing that stands out to me in this specific combat is you know far more than you aught to about the position of your opponents it seems - most of them are out of line of sight now, have been for a few rounds even, and some you would never have seen at all. That wolf and rider for instance turns up and you get to act knowing they are on the other side of a closed door, so for me at best you should have known a howling wolf call echo's from the inside of the temple to even know they are coming. Not unusual in a D&D game, many games do play that way, but at the same time it really stands out a few times in this encounter as a really really big enabler. Where had this been my game I think especially for the ambushing Wolf and Assassin you wouldn't even know they were coming unless their stealth check on approach is lower than your passive perception. Though equally for me the NPC get played as if they only know what they can see or reasonably be able to learn from their allies - I'm sure I do meta game occasionally without realising it, but I try hard not to. Also I agree that this particular DM-Player dynamic sounds horrible - for me the DM and you have all got it a little wrong in the goal of this gauntlet concept - the DM's job isn't actually to kill you. It is to use the NPC's as best they can to provide in this case a massive and almost certainly lethal challenge, but win or lose its an epic little story and fun challenge for your both.
I'm the DM here. I think the basic issue is that while I generally run with less permissive know-your-location rules, I was also trying to be really clear about what I was doing and stating my rulings so that CMCC would know what was going one while editing, which generally meant that Chris had way more access to information than I typically would have allowed. So something I want to do better here.
@@TheStrangeBloke Yeah the whole doing it for presentation thing does add an extra layer of complexity. Seems to me a pair of perspectives presented in each video or two videos on each run section would be a good way to do it there. So the DM only ever tells the player what the player should know. But the DM is also doing an after-action style report on the stuff the player doesn't know but the gods eye overview should - a little note taking won't slow the DM down too much.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 I have been doing after action reports for runs I've done since. It's good data! This was, ironically, the second run I did, so I was learning a lot.
Really nice work here, I'm super impressed (but honestly, not in the least bit surprised) by how far you made it, Chris! Looking forward to seeing how you do in the level 10 Gauntlet run!
I really enjoyed the part where you talked about the adversarial part and how was so uncomfortable. I thought about a way to fix that and what should really happen for The gauntlet is a DM who arbitrate the rules, a player such as yourself doing as you were doing, and lastly an enemy player who controls the monsters. I think this would fix the problem of the adversarial DM
It's unfortunate that you had to deal with an adversarial DM. I hate those kinds of interactions too. I'm on the discord so I got to see the builds that did win and lost, and I was kind of shocked, but impressed, to see that one of the few builds that won was the ranger build that Pack Tactics came up with.
Really enjoyed these. Any plans to review other gauntlet runs? I'd love to see your analysis of the nuclear wizard run, and what you learned from it for this one
I think it's worth looking into the targets of Dispel Magic. It does say it can dispel a magical effect the caster can see, but the Targets section under Casting a Spell in the PHB states that spells can target a creature, object, or point of origin for an AOE. So, to me, in order to 'target' Spirit Guardians, they need line of sight on its point of origin, which is you since it has a range of Self and follows you. I went down a huge rabbit hole on Dispel Magic a couple months ago when I saw someone ask if Dispel Magic could dispel all instances of Bless or other such effects. While I thought the easy answer is "No because you can't see Bless" I wanted something a little more concrete. Point of Origin makes a lot of sense and covers these situations as well as uncovers even more unique situations like being able to 'mass dispel' the effects of a Fear spell because the Point of Origin is also the caster.
Goblin chronurgy wizard might do well. Give a familiar the bead with the invisibility spell, the familiar uses invisibility on you while you are concentration on polymorph to turn one of your sidekicks into either a giant ape or a T-rex. Your simulacrum does the same. Thoughts?
Such a tough challenge. Assuming we're actually beating the encounters (as opposed to simply bypassing them via shenanigans), of course. Can think of lots of ways to *beat* these encounters if you don't need to slog through all that HP. Can 100% see why you went with a Spirit Guardians build if you're approaching this "fair".. I could see a Winged Tiefling Illusionist 14 build taking this though. Tasha's summons to do DPR when needed, and just use your Simulacrum and spam Illusory Reality Silent Images everywhere to lock down encounters and grind them down with Tasha's summons.
Yeeting? I thought that was throwing stuff. Running away while enemies are chasing has been called kiting to my knowledge. Maybe it's just an MMO term?
Yeah putting myself is Chris's shoes if a DM told me someone readied Dispel Magic and then asked me how "my character knew" there's an issue with the DMing style. Either the gauntlet is a test of might focused on mechanics or it's not. Once you start getting into questioning RP reasons for mechanics decisions you've lost the spirit of what this is supposed to be. Also, I think getting frustrated as a DM with a player making smart decisions you didn't anticipate is very much so not the spirit of D&D. The maker of the video saying you should just hunker down to force the player inside is goofy. If you don't want outside to be a part of the battlefield get a new map. Overall The Gauntlet seems like it could use some work. It's a great idea and is almost there in execution, but the role of the DM and player needs to be crystal clear going in. Is this a test of might where players push the limits of mechanics and the DM is there to facilitate, or is it player vs. DM and y'all are both there to kill one another by any means? If it's the latter then a third party rules-expert needs to be there the entire time.
To be fair to you, I didn’t clock the “no movement between EB rule” until I was playing Solasta with the warlock and had to pick all my targets at once.
Hey, just wanted to comment on your steed moving whilst firing your cantrip bit. in Xanithar's: "Simultaneous Effects" 'Most effects in the game happen in succession, following an order set by the rules or the DM. In rare cases, effects can happen at the same time, especially at the start or end of a creature’s turn. If two or more things happen at the same time on a character or monster’s turn, the person at the game table - whether player or DM - who controls that creature decides the order in which those things happen. For example, if two effects occur at the end of a player character’s turn, the player decides which of the two effects happens first.' Given the mount moves during your turn independent of your actions it seems like this fits the situation. Hope this helps :)
It's a pity that such a good idea was spoiled by this approach. A solution could be that the monsters have some pre-determined course of actions, build around their nature. For instance, the golem may have been ordered to guard a door or chase the characters. And simply do that. Having a very low int, such a simple task seems adequate. The mage and flame skulls could have their pre-determined combat tactics, not based on some specific character ability, that they presumably do not know. Of course, Priests' tactics might include trying to dispel any spell they are aware of. The DM could also use some random tables to determine what monsters choose to do when multiple alternatives are possible. Monsters' tactics are not revealed to the player, but they can be guessed. If this makes the monster weaker, just increase their number. This would actually free the DM from trying to outsmart the player and restore their role as an arbiter.
Thanks Chris, I know your target market for content is Optimancers, but you talk in this video about the nature of the gauntlet creating adversarial tension. I wondered if you'd consider doing a video on Session 0s, and how to create an environment where people are outlining their needs and expectations so that "DnD is for everyone"?
Would you be able to post the links of what builds completed the gauntlet? This was such a great sight tho. It’s unfortunate to hear about the disagreements the two of you had. Hope for the 10th level gauntlet it isn’t as uncomfortable! Can’t wait to see what you bring!
Straight up believe this goes against the spirit of what this Exercise is about. I thought it was designed to showcase optimised builds and facilitate the need for clever tactical gameplay. At the end of the day if a DM wants you to die, you will die. So the entire premise falls short when the DM is specifically playing to expose the weaknesses of your build through bending mechanics and meta gaming their monsters. Overall disappointed with this run, I could sense tension rising with the gameplay pace change, and when the priest readied an action to dispel magic without having any conceivable knowledge was the cherry on top.
I just don’t agree the job is to kill a character. The job is ultimately to have fun. I would control the monsters to make them act as you’d expect them to. I want to have fun as a dm and would want my player to have fun. Yeah, it is meant to be challenging, but it is the same thing as when you set a tough target for a run time for someone during practice. Yes, it is to challenge them, but it should still ultimately be fun/rewarding
One question is how many alternative allies options are available to pick from and can you double up on the same one - they may be kinda weak but the synergistic plays its possible to generate could really shift what builds work best. As it isn't really a solo challenge. I'd agree the others on druid - though I'd go wider on the subclass as the wild shape on any type would be a good advantage on this gauntlet at times and there are many powerful druid based builds, some that would prefer more spell caster allies others more warrior types. Necromancer favouring wizard (or any other class with access to animate dead) could be a good call, assuming the gauntlet allows you to bring your undead horde with you - I'd assume you wouldn't have used any spells before the first encounter myself as you get 24 hours of control surely you reasserted just before bedtime on the way in so have hours left. But even if you did have to drop one higher level spell to maintain control of your horde before you arrived that is a massive boost to your action economy, and gives you a small horde of meat shields that may let you bypass a map without loosing anything important. Artificer could be interesting but probably doesn't work in this format that well, it has too much focus on magic items that don't seem to be allowed.
Must say it seemed like the DM metagamed the strategies of the monsters lot, doing what he knew would be best and not what the monster might be able to think of. Also some of the challenges seemed really arbitrary and put in just to mess with the player instead of actually making sense. I would have been pretty frustrated playing this
19:50 - Small correction on this one: "If a creature has half cover normally they would get advantage on their saving throw against Sacred Flame." The rulse in the PHB page 196 state: "A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws." Same with 3/4 cover and a +5. But I have seen so many people get this wrong or just don't know about that rule, it just never comes up, in my experience.
Sacred flames says the creature can't benefit from cover for the spell so this correction while correct is not applicable for specifically Sacred Flame.
@@abcrasshadow9341 Sure, but my point is, that Chris said "Sacred Flame grants an exception from this rule", and then quoted the rule wrong. No one ever gets advantage on their save due to cover. Which is relevant later in the episode, when the Golem dodges and has cover, which grants Chris disadvantage on his EB and should grant the Golem +2 AC, instead of simply being ignored as an another source of disadvantage.
@@Nerdality_Florian I think they played by the correct rule even if he stated it wrong, because he mentioned pulling the gollum in front of him to get rid of cover, which wouldn't make sense if he thought that it did nothing stacked with dodge.
@@luka2784 It's not entirely clear to me. If we are talking about Round 2 (47:57), he attacks without Disadvantage, but also hits on a 17, which is the exact AC of a normal, cover-less Stone Golem. So it looks like they applied neither, despite mentioning it in the narrative? I see four possibilities: 1) Somehow there was a source of Advantage (Help Action?) to cancel the first Disadvantage. 2) The Stone Golem's AC was modified to be lower. 3) They gave the attack -2, instead of +2 AC to the golem... and didn't properly show it in the maths. 4) After battling for hours they forgot about something. It happens. In round 3, Chris mentions that the golem was both dodging AND had cover, but neither those words nor the maths on screen tell me anything about how they ruled that. But if you find something less ambiguous, let me know!
@@Nerdality_Florian I agree with the point you highlighted. I was talking about 50:00 where he talks about moving the golem down to get rid of cover even when it was dodging.
Great run Chris. I think you could gave maybe used Expeditious Retreat, affecting you and the mount, to add kiting ability and maybe manage to do that sniping thing you wanted to
@@blshouse yea and that last map is quite small and fireballs range is 120' I honestly don't know how to deal with that. Maybe fizbans Platinum Shield. He would take ¼ damage, but not something available on this particular character.
Also, I don't know what melee build could even beat the first map, let alone conquer the final map. There would have to be some serious cheese involved. XD
Could you also have shared spirit guardians with your find steed to increase the range of it like you would if you were a wildshapeing druid with spirit guardians? That sounds like it could have been fun
Yeah I think it is interesting and actually kinda good that it is competitive due to the adversarial nature, but the rules should be called by an entity other than the "Dungeon Master". Basically have a Monster Master as an adversary and a Game Master making rule calls and the like. I think high amounts of meta-gaming here is unavoidable, so should probably lean into it and look into some details a little more like "how do you call prepared actions in an adversarial context?"
Curious to see what the final thoughts you had put in the times would have been. But I'm glad you had fun mostly, I do find it interesting but I don't really see a build being showcased so much as a challenge that is a little much and lends itself to table conflict (I get this is supposed to be a challenge but its all a little much).
Going with your readied action dispel magic convo, technically, as you said, he needs to cast the spell, so you probably would have heard him casting his spell with verbal components. So you wouldnt even be metagaming, you'd know he cast a spell waiting for you.
A tough challenge for sure. The time between sessions seems like it was spent making a scenario designed to combat your build in particular. I would be very interested to see what builds made it through at level 14 - because I suspect they will not have faced the same opponents. Still, it seemed like it was fun. I would love to try something like that for sure.
I was thinking the same. Enough spell slot for invisibility at least, maybe greater invis for the last fight (though it might not be worth it). Then some rogue levels for hiding as a bonus action and stealth expertise, and then bugbear and gloomstalker for lots of attacks and extra damage. Try to get to the arcanist and kill him in one turn. I would be surprised if this actually worked though, CMCC must have thought of strategies that try to cheesily bypass the whole thing.
@@DeadpoolAli Flagship Ranger has cleared the gauntlet, however the use of life cleric+goodberry was needed for future runs as it felt like it would trivialise the challenge. Yesterday, a madman beat the gauntlet with vanilla mercy monk, no multiclassing + no houserules
I do have to wonder how reasonable it would have been for the Priests to have realized that they could have just Dispel Magic'd the steed and have been done with the whole chase early on.
A very different type of play. Meta-knowldege, like DM & player knowing monster stats, seeing the full map, knowing each other's resources, etc. - it doesn't feel like D&D, but I get that it is more of a build test.
Am I correct in assuming that there's no fog of war in the gauntlet? I think things would be different if the player didn't know where the NPC were when out of sight.
The Expert wasn't in line of sight when you cast the final Spirit Guardians, and thus would've been damaged by it. Not that it would've made much difference here, but that's one weakness of the spell. Anyway, great run! I'm looking forward to seeing your next attempt.
I'm honestly impressed at how far you got, it's a pretty insane undertaking. I don't know how anyone could beat this gauntlet. Maybe if you try to run past everything somehow, to just focus on killing the arcanist? The maps are way cool too. I actually know FakeFairytale, he makes incredible maps and is an awesome DM and player. Very cool to see his work used here. ^^
I think you did about as well as was possible given the situation. DnD combat was never intended to be so intense and competitive that you have to rely on obscure or technical rulings just to get through. Some people love that level of competitiveness and adrenaline but I find most would rather sit back, relax, and have fun - cuz DnD is for everyone. Heard that somewhere. :D Looking at this from waaaay over here I think it'd be better Gauntlet-Runners to hang out with the DM socially beforehand and shoot the breeze with no set timeframe. It's hard to be even-handed and keep things cool as strangers. I also like the idea someone posted about a ref and monster handler as separate roles - take some of the pressure off the person running the game.
What a fun challenge to watch and awesome to see you work your wat through the maps! Happy you had (generally) a good time doing so! ;) I’ll sure be keeping an eye out for other gauntlet runs!
I think you could do it with a full monk, but you'd have to actually RUN it. There's no way you could beat every monster with a monk, but you could get to the arcanist and take him out in what would most likely be a suicide run when all the monsters caught up to you. Monks are pretty hard to actually damage at high levels when you include all of their abilities: immunity to poison, evasion, proficiency with all saves, even slow fall, stillness of mind, running over water and other surfaces. When people discount monks, it's mostly because they don't have much damage potential. They actually have a lot of ways of avoiding damage. Ascendant Dragon could give themself fire resistance on that last level which could have been helpful, assuming they weren't dodging the fireballs anyway.
Now that you've run the Gauntlet, what build do you think could beat it? I understand that you've mentioned not getting it now, but theoretically, what could do it? Maybe some kind of Fighter for sustained damage?
I wonder if literally "speed-running" is the key. Just off the cuff, and please feel free to pick it apart. I am among the very small minority that still thinks storm sorcerer has value. At level 14, give me 6 storm sorc, 6 tempest cleric, 2 rogue. I'll take ashardalon's stride, counterspell, thunderstep, and tbd on last 3rd level spell. With the rogue's cunning action dash, the gauntlet gives you a magic item, of which i'd take boots of speed... You could pull a Colby d4 Ashardalon's strider deal where you bamph every large or smaller enemy by transmuting Ashardalon's stride into lightning, and every enemy that is large or smaller gets thrown out of the way by the tempest cleric's level 6 ability. Any time you get surrounded, you subtly cast thunder spell with the storm sorcerer's level 6 ability to add lightning damage, which triggers the tempest bamph, and you have a way to smoke past possibly anything? I'm just spitballing. Make it a Tabaxi that takes mobile feat, squat nimbleness (of they chose small as size at character creation). 45 movement speed, doubled by the boots, further compounded by a transmuted lightning ashardalon's stride... You might beat the whole thing in less than an hour if you can kill the arcanist. How is my aim? What am i missing?
It's an interesting idea conceptually, and I definitely think there's merit to the fact you'd get to the last encounter with less resource expenditure than other casters, but I definitely think there's some risks to it. The magic item's always just a +1 weapon/focus, so unfortunately boots are off the table. At this point we're looking at 45 base movement with both feats taken, +20 from ashardalon's + no opportunity attacks (which you can precast as mentioned in the video), doubled to 130 from feline agility, quadruple speed from dashing twice - you're clearing every room in a single turn. I'd probably be inclined to drop the storm sorcerer tempest cleric combo, I'm not sure what you're getting from throwing them away from you if your aim is to run past everything. Unless you're suggesting clearing the way for the expert and warrior, in which case that seems too reliant on being around similar initiatives and the enemies not moving. I think the big problem is conserving enough spell slots to pull that off. Ashardalon's is a 1 minute spell and we need to clear the 3000 foot gap between encounters. With it being precast, and a turn to reach the exit of the room, you have 48 seconds to reach the next encounter. Assuming you don't need to spend a turn standing still to recharge Feline Agility to clear the next room, we're looking at 45 feet, +20 from stride, doubled twice, 260*8 (our remaining rounds) isn't covering that gap. That'd mean we'd need to recast for every room (using sorcerer as planned or dropping squat nimbleness for metamagic adept could get you extended spell, which might make up for it? I haven't done the calculations). And that's with the potential to be beaten in initiative, which could lead to dispel magic or taking damage at the start of an encounter and simply losing concentration, leading to more resource expenditure and potentially loss of health. Considering that, I'm not sure if the resources are conserved well enough to make it worth it, especially considering you're entirely optimised around, and have spent all your feats on, running away from other encounters, and have no allies on hand. Maybe there's something that can be done with chronurgist wizard, swap out squat for metamagic adept extended spell, and extend a haste from arcane abeyance + familiar and an extended stride on yourself? That would lead to a -5 drop in base speed for a temporary quadruple, but that makes dispel magic even more scary as you'd lose a whole turn. Not sure what your lowest possible amount of resources spent for any of these possibilities is, but you're also losing opportunities to bump your save DC or other abilities, which is potentially worthwhile in exchange for avoiding so much, but certainly risky. Like I said, interesting conceptually, but the huge gaps between combats is pretty brutal for it IMO. When it's reduced for future gauntlets as seems to be planned, it'll probably be excellent if the gap is reduced enough to get double value or more out of each Stride. Or I've been talking nonsense throughout, which isn't unlikely EDIT: It isn't included in this video, but in the original it mentions a monk is planned as one of the next builds to run the gauntlet on the channel - maybe that's a build with similar intent to what you had planned? Sort of struggling to think how else a monk would handle it otherwise
Try number 2 with the God Wizard? Or is that more of a build for a campaign? Either way thanks for pointing me toward CMCC Builds, it's a great channel
The God Wizard is a force multiplier, focusing on getting the most out of the team. With only two side kicks I don't think they would have enough damage for this gauntlet.
Loved seeing your tactics again. This build was great but your tactics on show are amazing. Great job. I cant wait to see your level 10 guantlet run. Glad you get to take 2 patrons with you for help. Hopefully they dont play a vanilla orc warrior and a kenku expert haha
Regarding the DM's accusation of you metagaming when you only ran to the edge, but not into line of sight of the priest: weren't you told to watch video of previous attempts so you'd be better prepared? Then where's the line between what's acceptable and what's not in terms of metagaming?
The other two gauntlet runs did not have the first floor church battle so I think that alone is an unfair comparison. I think you def would have gone through or atleast faired well against the original gauntlet (and prob with a less adversarial DM). I also kinda preferred proper walls on my vtts so that you only see what your character would see. The monsters themselves shouldn't have been metagamed by the DM as well (but you are 100% correct if the DM is metagaming "through" walls you should be able to as well). But wow btw spirit guardians and fireball it really shows how important half damage on a save really adds up! This is a tough fight especially with 2 little dinky npc allies. Can't wait to see more!
Thanks for the fun content Chris!! For the level 10 Gauntlet, I'm guessing it will be a über cheese grater, utilizing Spike Growth and possibly other area of effect zones.
I guess the part about Phantom Steed doesn't really matter for the Gauntlet since it's a Wizard spell and Kwayzar used Find Steed, which critically doesn't have the weird dismount wording. But the interaction still confuses me. The steed uses the statistics of a riding horse. When the spell ends, the creature fades, giving the rider 1 minute to dismount. The spelll ends when you dismiss it with an action or if the creature takes any damage. You cannot ride a horse when it's dead. There are general dismount rules, but those should be overridden by the specifics of the Phantom Steed spell. I'm not even sure you can kill the Phantom Steed, since the spell already ends upon taking damage, skipping over the process of calculating hit points and rolling death saves. Taking damages simply defaults to the 'spell ends' state. And in that 'spell ends' state, regardless of how you get there (because that is Chris' beloved TRDSIC), the creature fades and you get a minute to dismount.
Look how often he needed to use Subtle Spell. Treantmonk talks about how he should have used Extended Spell for 1 Sorcery point on Spirit Guardians! He's saying it! More Sorcerer! Sorcerer better! Was that so hard? Go update the Sorcerer Subclass Tiers. What you did to them was outlandish. Ask to do the Gauntlet again. Do either Sorcerer(DS)12 Warlock 2(HB) or Sorcerer 14! You will dominate this test. You could still do Spirit Guardians ,EB ,Crusher..but have more resources for other...Blink, Polymorph, Couatl, Haste..don't be stuck in 1 battle plan!
I do not know the rules of the Gauntlet, but this might work. Level 14 Divination Wizard with Alert, Lucky and Mage Slayer feats. Cast Gift of Alacrity (GOA) and Etherealness on self and abandon the Sidekicks. Dash down to the Mindflayer. Appear next to it for surprise or win initiative with high Portent number and GOA/feats. Cast Eyebite. Use the feats and a low Portent number so it fails the saving throw. It falls asleep. Ta-daaa!
It's a gauntlet. Not everyone is supposed to make it. Frankly, MOST people shouldnt make it. For the record, I hate Flame Skulls! Your build was exceptional! Your tactics were really good. Shifting on the horse is not something I would have allowed in one of my games, but it's RAR. I dont like playing straight RAR, because it feels like a chess match and bleeds realism. But in a game like this, that's how you play it. AND you didnt build a character to beat THIS dungeon! You didnt take Water Breathing so the first part wasnt so hard... or Control Animals to cast on the Sharks that you could have used against the Chuuls or Hydra. You made a character, and tried to save the world. Well done!
As much as I understand the intent behind The Gauntlet, if I was running it I would allow for a Short Rest when transitioning to the Temple map. Its a new scene, and I find it important to maintain a cinematic vibe with One Shots like this, to keep players invested and fighting passionately without the RP motivations they would (hopefully) have during a longer adventure or campaign. Some really strategic plays here, a pleasure to watch.
Did Kwaysar not have Absorb Elements for the final Fireballs? This really highlights how D&D is an awkward merge of kinda miniature combat game but the really fun part is the underdeveloped story telling system. “Winning” D&d as a goal just leads to salty players or DMs
Based on some of the comments I may have communicated poorly. To be clear, I think the DM did a very good job considering it's a lot of pressure to run something like this as consistently as possible and trying to keep in mind it will be content. Please do not take anything in the video as frusturation with the DM personally. Despite the minor points of frusturation near the end, the gauntlet was fun to play. I recently played the level 10 gauntlet and it was a really positive experience.
If you want to try DMing or Playing in the gauntlet, please check out the linked video in the description for the details.
The Gauntlet was an extremely positive experience. Kudos to Treantmonk for putting himself out there in a real situation. It reminds me of early UFC when a Taekwondo instructor fought a BJJ person and was stunned. The fact that he didn't use any levels of Wizard for this combat challenge shows that he has evolved. The fact that he chose 6lvl of Sorcerer shows he is listening and growing. A lvl 14 Sorcerer or Sorlock with a 2 lvl dip in Warlock would better equipped for real non stop combat. 4 Feats with both. Lots of MM! Thanks!!
This was a really cool test to see! I think you made it clear that the gauntlet was difficult because the challenge was intended to be difficult and you had to play your but off to get to the end.
The sidekicks are not that strong. A higher level Sorcerer build would have been much more effective than the 6 lvls of Paladin. The 13 Strength took away from having better scores that mattered. Allow Treantmonk to run this again? A 14 lvl Sorcerer or Sorlock with 2 lvls of Warlock would be very effective in his hands.
Honestly, I think the way the Gauntlet *should* work is that the "DM" role should be split between the "Adjudicator" and the "Monster Controller" to prevent this adversarial situation arising between DM and the Challenger. That being said, I still love the idea of the Gauntlet, and following Kwayzar's journey has been an absolute blast.
A designated referee would go a long way, for sure.
You almost need 2 DMs for the guantlet, one running the monsters (as if you were doing some sort of PvP game) and one with the adjudicating.
More than that, have no sound channel in common between the Monster Controller and the Player, and enforce fog of war for vision.
@@DerekRawlings Exactly. Someone with no stake in the outcome. Neither a close friend of the PC or the NPC controllers.
They wouldn’t need to have a second DM on hand for the entire game, just someone on speed dial they can call up to be an arbitrator when there’s a major disagreement.
I gotta say, I knew you (Chris) were good at D&D, but seeing your tactics in action really highlights your knowledge of the system and knowledge of tactics. Well done.
Hearing about the behind-the-scenes disagreements made this border on DM horror stories. "Wait, but you don't know the priest is readying a spell!" "Oh? Tell me, how did they know I'm approaching with Spirit Guardians?"
I agree with Chris that this adversarial DM-vs-player premise undercuts the idea of how D&D is meant to be played, and the mechanics of the game are not written with this sort of dynamic in mind.
I was just about to say the same thing. There are plenty of games which have a ruleset designed for adversarial play, but D&D is not one of them.
I agree completely. This is not D&d. It is adversarial PvP, where one player also holds the role of rules adjudicator. It is unbalanced. A 3rd party (neutral DM) is needed. This is why every sport has an umpire/referee/judge. Not playing. Just adjudicating.
I have really enjoyed these gauntlet videos. A few things:
There were a couple of times when you and the DM readied a spell while you were concentrating on another. As I understand it, readying a spell requires concentration.
To the issue of the adversarial player - DM relationship, it might be better if there was one person running the monsters, and another managing the rules. That might lead to less rules errors (or maybe not), but it would certainly lead to less frustration.
I've never run into that first situation and clarification would be great. 100% on your second point, especially here where there are clear objectives as any sports team.
@@dustinavant2003 In the Player's Handbook, under Actions in Combat the Ready action includes the following text:
"holding onto the spell’s magic requires concentration"
The implication is spelled out directly underneath; i.e. if you are already concentrating, you lose concentration when you ready a spell.
There is no clause about the spell being 1st level or higher, so cantrips are affected.
Nice catch!
As I watched CMCC’s video, it really felt like you were playing against the DM and not against any of the monsters after halfway through the first encounter. Doing things like targeting the steed on purpose and holding Dispel Magic to stop your Spirit Guardians didn’t feel like something the creatures you were fighting would have thought to do, instead it was the DM specifically trying to beat you and your character.
This is something that immediately takes the fun out of any TTRPG for me. My first DM had this mentality that he was trying to defeat the PCs with his encounters, instead of roleplaying with the mentality of the creature in a fight situation. It prevented me from coming back to D&D for years and it made me sad to see Chris in what I felt was a similar situation. This build is very strong, and Chris is a great player. I know the Gauntlet is about testing the limits of a character’s abilities, but I don’t feel like it should be about testing the DM against a character’s tactics or player ability.
I've always heard leading a melee target referred to as kiting.
This is the term I’m more familiar with as well. I’ve heard Yeeting only in reference to launching enemies over distance
Kiting is when you hit targets at range and move away when they're gaining on you, perhaps yeeting is a proactive version where you push them away from you?
@@SergioR00 is correct. Yeeting is to throw someone, Kiting is to aggro from range and lead them around without letting them close to melee.
Yep, this. I have heard of kiting many times, and use this tactic in my own gameplay but yeeting not so much.
Yep, agree. Kiting would work. I've also (in the context of videogames) heard stutter stepping, but wouldn't make much sense to use that for a tabletop game.
Yeeting is when you throw them, so if you pick up an enemy and throw them (at another enemy or off of a cliff, say), that would be Yeeting.
I've never heard of "Yeeting," but I've heard of "Kiting."
Kiting is shooting from range and moving away so that you stay out of a melee enemy's reach
Yeeting is where you push them using ranged attacks, so that they can't get to you
I think not knowing all the specifics kind of adds to your gauntlet run. There is a lot of difference between a generally optimised build and a build optimised for a specific encounter.
isn't the point of the gauntlet that it covers a wide spectrum of types of encounters in order to test every aspect of a character?
@@irisinthedarkworld If you know what's the exact parameters of the encounters, maps, etc, it makes a big difference than if you're going into it semi-blind or not knowing certain factors.
Eg the 10 min duration one got brought up a lot as an example - but likewise Chris knowing the sorts of enemies that were going to pop up heavily influenced his strategies. The more you know, the more specific you're able to make your build to work (which, looking at this gauntlet, is not something that's going to test every aspect of a character)
@@irisinthedarkworld For one it tends to have lots of moderately strong enemies and very few individually strong ones, any single target DPR builds (such as Sorc-lock) would likely underperform due to running out of resources too soon. Lasting AOE such as spirit guardians here seems to be a pretty solid idea, although it may be worth getting extended spell just to work around the encounter tempo (which is by the way not a metamagic that you would normally take on a build, but it might be strong here).
@@tornagh9200 yea extended metamagic is strong but in niche cases, honestly usually taken later or with metamagic adept (on sorc character).
SG def benifets from it as you get 20 mins out of the spell (which is already strong being 10 min let alone 1). There's a few other spells (death wars aid etc) which really shine from it, but youd plan that way ahead.
@@irisinthedarkworld You can never in a single gauntlet have even close to complete spectrum of encounters - for instance if you run the flooding in part 1 only slightly differently so the water never gets as high and so the sharks can't easily attack while you are on the higher ground and on that ground you are not attacking at disadvantage it entirely changes how that first encounter runs with no other changes at all. Would really give melee focus builds a better shot in that setup while making very little difference to how effective magic users can be. But if you go and add in a thick fog cloud or darkness that limits visibility on top of the water (either depth) suddenly most magic builds are suffering badly as they can't target anything before it has taken a bit out of them, don't have the situational awareness to use their AOE spells effectively (if that spell even allows them to cast it without hitting themselves). And that is all just one tiny environmental change.
Oddfather here: Thanks for the upload! You did a very good job and you are correct to say that I was stressed out. I do think I need to remember that while the gauntlet is a challenge, people have to come first and 'rigor' or whatever is no excuse for rudeness. While this was a failure on my part, I do think part of the issue comes down to conveyance. If it was my intention to not have you know that dispel was readied, I should not have told you it was readied. Similarly, while I always run with audible distances as a rule (which are published by wotc) this wasn't said ahead of time which led to the conflict. There's a shade of nuance there - I was trying to do my job and make things challenging - but invoking obscure rules that aren't universally used wasn't the way. Sorry for any friction this might've caused. I'm learning about so many assumptions I come into DND with!
@@mogalixir yea not familiar with this either.
To be fair, readying a spell requires you to cast it normally, and dispel magic has a verbal component, so Kwayzar probably would have heard it anyway.
It can be easy to slip into a kill the players mindset. Happens to every dm at some point. And every player. I felt you went harder on him than most dms would, but it happens. A learning lesson and maybe we get to see roles reversed. With treantmonk as dm for your run.
@@mogalixir it is. But its official and has been printed multiple times. But it doesn't technically apply to this situation and I didn't use it correctly even if I did. So yeah it wasn't a good moment for me.
@@pyromidas well the 'goal' was to kill the players - just not by unfair adjudication of the rules, which I fell into to some extent at the very end here. I've gotten better about in future runs.
Wow. That was fast! Chris puts my release schedule to shame 😅
What are your thoughts about Chris’ comments re adversarial DM’ing as a general issue of the gauntlet?
Hi buddy! Maybe you could put HP bars on the tokens to help viewers to keep track of HP? Also: Such a cool idea!
Please do this again with Chris!
@@mikegilkey I would like to see DND Deep Dive as well.
@@BorrowedKnowledge I think good, competitive play can be fun and educational. There is no inherent reason for it to be adversarial or uncomfortable. OddFather has run plenty of gauntlets without issue as have dozens of other DMs in the discord. Sometimes rules debates happen. Hopefully everyone remains civil, and you move forward, which was the case here. As a bystander who watched this run many times, I honestly wouldn't have known there was an issue if Chris hadn't mentioned anything.
Fun to watch but too much meta on both sides. Would love to see a similar concept with monsters rolled on tables, fog of war enabled on the map, and an unaligned arbiter making final rules decisions.
Yea and the player is always going to be at a disadvantage when the both are allowed to have meta knowledge because the DM is always going to have more. Enemies are capable of warning others of danger but that sometimes takes up some of their turn to do it. I think you end up in these scenarios where the DM gets all weird and personally invested in killing the player rather than it feeling like you are controlling creatures which are trying to kill their PC.
I think the DM being adversarial is not right, even in this gauntlet framework. The test is only valid if you play it as close to a "real" tabletop experience as possible, and that means limited knowledge has to apply.
About the phantom steed spell: The horse taking one minute to fade when it dies will give the opportunity for everyone close enough and interested to beat a dead horse, which seems to be a common activity (especially outside the game).
Speaking as someone who discovered the guantlet and it's server in large part from your run, your insight into the concerns that can evolve as a result of the format are incredibly helpful and in my opinion a must watch for anyone trying to run the guantlet. I've both played and run the first 3 maps at this point and its no easy feat. Your run is nothing short of impressive.
I also appreciate the fact that you presented everything in a way that doesn't bury your DM. I've had a few interactions and message conversations at this point and they have all been overwhelmingly positive, so as always your ability to approach things with both insight and nuance is just something most of us can only aspire to.
Thank you Chris
I watched the other video before your explanation. I couldn't figure out how you figured out all that maneuvering on your warhorse. I'm like... this guy's a GENIUS! It made a LOT more sense when you said you had a break there to actually figure it out. Don't get me wrong. You were still a genius to figure it out at all. But at least it's a more human level of genius.
Nice run! I'm sure you could have cleared It with better informations over the 10 minutes between combats
The final fight would have been tough even if I had more spell slots.
@@TreantmonksTempleI hope u see this u have to bum rush that acranist to kill him quick and to keep enemies from being able to fire ball u
The whole time between encounters thing is really silly and specific. 3000 feet? Why? I understand it's a challenge but it feels very disconnected from actual dungeoneering.
The giant mobs of a million enemies heavily favoring AoE is another issue, but feels more at home in a challenge dungeon than a random 1/2 mile jog between every room.
Yeah, this stuff is being adjusted for the gauntlet and future gauntlets; it was an arbitrary decision that turned out to require revising. But 3000' is as good an arbitrary distance as any, so that's what was run with.
@@SindarinElealar it isn't as good as any, though - it is specifically a spell-timer-killer.
@@ryuteki to be fair, casters already are favored so killing spell timers isn't unreasonable since most adventuring days don't involve back to back combats with no time between. That said it should be very clearly stated
My favorite part is the justification given in the cmcc video. They say it is not a time constraint, it’s that the encounters are 3000 feet’s from each others. They also say that if you have a way to travel faster it will be less than 10 minutes between.
Ways to travel faster.
Like a horse.
@@ryuteki Well, 1 hour spells last through it, 10 min ones don't. 10 min ones do let you grind through long individual fights (that can last multiple minutes already; I've seen the first fight go for 30 rounds or 3 minutes) so it's not like that much value is being lost. But it's true that it wasn't really thought through and the number chosen was kind of arbitrary.
Very nicely done, Chris. Although the player / DM knowledge vs. character / monster knowledge applications were a little unsettling to me. While gauntlets aren‘t my cup of tea, it’s interesting that videos like this unveil the shortcomings of D&D quite a bit. Sans the roleplaying part it reduces D&D to a game of arcane chess, where one better abandons melee combat entirely, in favor of superior / overpowered spellcasting options, despite the boring resource-bookkeeping. I really enjoyed, when your expert blocked the door for the winter wolf and assassin, since this showed creative use of the environment, while most of the remaining combat situations seemed very mechanical (almost CRPG-like) IMO. Too bad that rule-lawyering and DM vs. player antagonism killed potentially enjoyable parts of the adventure: creative problem solving and playful combat narration (among other things).
I thought the whole idea of the gauntlet was to see how well a build would work. That really shouldn't need a player to die. I do think the DM should be held a bit accountable here. That's not me calling them out or saying they are bad. Every DM screws up. I think it should also be noted it was commented they paused the game for family matters, so they could have had stresses going on in the background that could have really impacted them. In any case Treantmonk you did amazingly well.
What are you talking about? Chris is still very much alive
You teach me something new every day! I've never heard that strategy called "yeeting"😂. Kiting I've heard, but now I know something new!
"Yeeting" is throwing someone away through the air. To yeet a d&d character, put them into a catapult.
@@ryuteki or something.
In the end, the DM needs to play like how the Monsters would play, not trying to kill the player at all costs. Sorry to hear the end room had the invisible mage with bad rules. The monsters in the last room would not know about any previous tactics. Maybe they can use AI instead of playing as a player would. Hope you give it a second chance. Maybe this needs a DM to run the game and have a player run the monsters and not DM.
I didn't think bypassing encounters would be allowed but since they are I'm really interested to see how a stealth build would fare against the gauntlet by just stealthing by everything and killing the mind flayer. Maybe a gloomstalker build, or a chronurgist to give sidekicks your mote so you can combine pwt with invisibility or something like that
this has been attempted at least once without success, but I feel pretty confident its possible.
You can't tell us that there's another gauntlet run happening but that we might not hear about it for a long while!
Super excited for contend like this!
Early comment, but I'd love if you made some type of 'gauntlet' of your own, so you could have some sort of baseline to test builds in to see how they perform. Honestly, more DM-sided stuff to play with on this channel would be awesome.
Seconding this. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on actually using it as a baseline because there are so many variables that make it practically impossible to build a true ‘baseline’ gauntlet, but being walked through your thought process of designing a gauntlet to sufficiently test characters’ capabilities would be a new and interesting treat and very much within your wheelhouse.
I would personally prefer a gauntlet style thing but with multiple players each playing different treatmonk builds. I feel this gauntlet, while very fun and interesting, doesn't really test how powerful a character is overall, but just how good they are without support. Like if you played a twilight cleric, one of the most powerful options, in this gauntlet you would probably do pretty badly because one of your biggest strengths of giving masses of hp across the whole party is not used.
Being able to quick travel from one encounter to the next to preserve the highest spell levels between fights should have made a significant difference.
On the other hand, giving up a surprise round could be fatal.
Depends on what additional surprises there are for moving that fast. If I were CMCC, I'd make ambushes for just such an occasion. How would that Assassin and Winter Wolf have done if they'd gotten a surprise round??
@@Joemantler I'm not sure exactly how they calculate what is fast pace ect, but with the 60ft movement speed of the horse, they can travel the 3000ft in 5 minuets (50 rounds) without dashing, which might mean they could maintain a normal pace.
@@luka2784 They had one horse and three guys. You make a choice... leave one behind, or slow down.
They had set the rules. After that, as DM, its about giving the players choices, and letting them asses cost/benefit. The Winter Wolf/Assassin might set traps. Who knows?
But this is a tournament. The rules were set by someone else. Maybe they will take things into account in the future and add fast travel options.
@@Joemantler true about the three people, it would have to be a cost benefit of an extra follower or sprit guardians for two rounds. I know that fast travel was disallowed for this game, but they said that it would be allowed in future playthroughs of the gauntlets, so its still interesting to think about how it would change things. I wonder if the ability of the expert to dash as a bonus action (and so can move an extra 30ft a turn) changes how its speed is calculated for traveling rules, it its accounted than it would be able to mostly keep up with the horse, and would definitely make it in under 10 min.
DMs should not forget that that is a play, should avoid uncomfortable issues. While i liked the gauntlet idea, its execution seems to be flawed.
Thankfully The Gauntlet is designed to be a wargame version of 5e for optimizers to show the strength of builds. Many tables would rather prefer different kind of games, but this is for a different type of tables. Both are good, but each are not for everyone.
Edit: I got to the invisibility part, and i agree with you on this. the gauntlet is flawed in this way. so i ngree with others who think there should be a rules master and a monster controller. or the dm needs to stick to the books as much as possible, especially when its noticed.
I have to say, having no Fog of War really reduces the amount of tactics you can apply to the situation, both as a player and as the GM. That makes it less interesting IMO. Hiding, sneaking, ambushing etc. should be part of the toolkit.
One thing that stands out to me in this specific combat is you know far more than you aught to about the position of your opponents it seems - most of them are out of line of sight now, have been for a few rounds even, and some you would never have seen at all. That wolf and rider for instance turns up and you get to act knowing they are on the other side of a closed door, so for me at best you should have known a howling wolf call echo's from the inside of the temple to even know they are coming.
Not unusual in a D&D game, many games do play that way, but at the same time it really stands out a few times in this encounter as a really really big enabler. Where had this been my game I think especially for the ambushing Wolf and Assassin you wouldn't even know they were coming unless their stealth check on approach is lower than your passive perception. Though equally for me the NPC get played as if they only know what they can see or reasonably be able to learn from their allies - I'm sure I do meta game occasionally without realising it, but I try hard not to.
Also I agree that this particular DM-Player dynamic sounds horrible - for me the DM and you have all got it a little wrong in the goal of this gauntlet concept - the DM's job isn't actually to kill you. It is to use the NPC's as best they can to provide in this case a massive and almost certainly lethal challenge, but win or lose its an epic little story and fun challenge for your both.
I'm the DM here. I think the basic issue is that while I generally run with less permissive know-your-location rules, I was also trying to be really clear about what I was doing and stating my rulings so that CMCC would know what was going one while editing, which generally meant that Chris had way more access to information than I typically would have allowed. So something I want to do better here.
@@TheStrangeBloke Yeah the whole doing it for presentation thing does add an extra layer of complexity.
Seems to me a pair of perspectives presented in each video or two videos on each run section would be a good way to do it there. So the DM only ever tells the player what the player should know. But the DM is also doing an after-action style report on the stuff the player doesn't know but the gods eye overview should - a little note taking won't slow the DM down too much.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 I have been doing after action reports for runs I've done since. It's good data! This was, ironically, the second run I did, so I was learning a lot.
Really nice work here, I'm super impressed (but honestly, not in the least bit surprised) by how far you made it, Chris! Looking forward to seeing how you do in the level 10 Gauntlet run!
I really enjoyed the part where you talked about the adversarial part and how was so uncomfortable.
I thought about a way to fix that and what should really happen for The gauntlet is a DM who arbitrate the rules, a player such as yourself doing as you were doing, and lastly an enemy player who controls the monsters. I think this would fix the problem of the adversarial DM
Someday, maybe, make your own gauntlet Chris. Seems like fun.
It's unfortunate that you had to deal with an adversarial DM. I hate those kinds of interactions too.
I'm on the discord so I got to see the builds that did win and lost, and I was kind of shocked, but impressed, to see that one of the few builds that won was the ranger build that Pack Tactics came up with.
Since when did kiting become "yeeting"?
Your effectiveness in the first church room was masterful. Well done
Really enjoyed these. Any plans to review other gauntlet runs? I'd love to see your analysis of the nuclear wizard run, and what you learned from it for this one
I think it's worth looking into the targets of Dispel Magic. It does say it can dispel a magical effect the caster can see, but the Targets section under Casting a Spell in the PHB states that spells can target a creature, object, or point of origin for an AOE.
So, to me, in order to 'target' Spirit Guardians, they need line of sight on its point of origin, which is you since it has a range of Self and follows you.
I went down a huge rabbit hole on Dispel Magic a couple months ago when I saw someone ask if Dispel Magic could dispel all instances of Bless or other such effects.
While I thought the easy answer is "No because you can't see Bless" I wanted something a little more concrete. Point of Origin makes a lot of sense and covers these situations as well as uncovers even more unique situations like being able to 'mass dispel' the effects of a Fear spell because the Point of Origin is also the caster.
Cast simulacrum on Mike so we can get more builds/gauntlets. This was a lot of fun to listen to. I would love to see more of these.
Metaknowledge kind of wrecks 5e if players and DMs don't work together to limit how it impacts things.
Goblin chronurgy wizard might do well.
Give a familiar the bead with the invisibility spell, the familiar uses invisibility on you while you are concentration on polymorph to turn one of your sidekicks into either a giant ape or a T-rex. Your simulacrum does the same.
Thoughts?
Such a tough challenge. Assuming we're actually beating the encounters (as opposed to simply bypassing them via shenanigans), of course. Can think of lots of ways to *beat* these encounters if you don't need to slog through all that HP. Can 100% see why you went with a Spirit Guardians build if you're approaching this "fair"..
I could see a Winged Tiefling Illusionist 14 build taking this though. Tasha's summons to do DPR when needed, and just use your Simulacrum and spam Illusory Reality Silent Images everywhere to lock down encounters and grind them down with Tasha's summons.
Yeeting? I thought that was throwing stuff. Running away while enemies are chasing has been called kiting to my knowledge. Maybe it's just an MMO term?
Yeah putting myself is Chris's shoes if a DM told me someone readied Dispel Magic and then asked me how "my character knew" there's an issue with the DMing style. Either the gauntlet is a test of might focused on mechanics or it's not. Once you start getting into questioning RP reasons for mechanics decisions you've lost the spirit of what this is supposed to be.
Also, I think getting frustrated as a DM with a player making smart decisions you didn't anticipate is very much so not the spirit of D&D. The maker of the video saying you should just hunker down to force the player inside is goofy. If you don't want outside to be a part of the battlefield get a new map.
Overall The Gauntlet seems like it could use some work. It's a great idea and is almost there in execution, but the role of the DM and player needs to be crystal clear going in. Is this a test of might where players push the limits of mechanics and the DM is there to facilitate, or is it player vs. DM and y'all are both there to kill one another by any means? If it's the latter then a third party rules-expert needs to be there the entire time.
I’ve played with an adversarial DM once. I agree with you, DM vs. Player(s) sucks and isn’t any fun.
To be fair to you, I didn’t clock the “no movement between EB rule” until I was playing Solasta with the warlock and had to pick all my targets at once.
Hey, just wanted to comment on your steed moving whilst firing your cantrip bit. in Xanithar's: "Simultaneous Effects"
'Most effects in the game happen in succession, following an order set by the rules or the DM. In rare cases, effects can happen at the same time, especially at the start or end of a creature’s turn. If two or more things happen at the same time on a character or monster’s turn, the person at the game table - whether player or DM - who controls that creature decides the order in which those things happen. For example, if two effects occur at the end of a player character’s turn, the player decides which of the two effects happens first.'
Given the mount moves during your turn independent of your actions it seems like this fits the situation. Hope this helps :)
It's a pity that such a good idea was spoiled by this approach. A solution could be that the monsters have some pre-determined course of actions, build around their nature. For instance, the golem may have been ordered to guard a door or chase the characters. And simply do that. Having a very low int, such a simple task seems adequate. The mage and flame skulls could have their pre-determined combat tactics, not based on some specific character ability, that they presumably do not know. Of course, Priests' tactics might include trying to dispel any spell they are aware of. The DM could also use some random tables to determine what monsters choose to do when multiple alternatives are possible. Monsters' tactics are not revealed to the player, but they can be guessed. If this makes the monster weaker, just increase their number. This would actually free the DM from trying to outsmart the player and restore their role as an arbiter.
Thanks Chris,
I know your target market for content is Optimancers, but you talk in this video about the nature of the gauntlet creating adversarial tension. I wondered if you'd consider doing a video on Session 0s, and how to create an environment where people are outlining their needs and expectations so that "DnD is for everyone"?
Chris, DM's getting frustrated at players ruining their plans happens at normal tables too.. it shouldn't, but it does..
Would you be able to post the links of what builds completed the gauntlet?
This was such a great sight tho. It’s unfortunate to hear about the disagreements the two of you had. Hope for the 10th level gauntlet it isn’t as uncomfortable! Can’t wait to see what you bring!
Straight up believe this goes against the spirit of what this Exercise is about. I thought it was designed to showcase optimised builds and facilitate the need for clever tactical gameplay. At the end of the day if a DM wants you to die, you will die. So the entire premise falls short when the DM is specifically playing to expose the weaknesses of your build through bending mechanics and meta gaming their monsters.
Overall disappointed with this run, I could sense tension rising with the gameplay pace change, and when the priest readied an action to dispel magic without having any conceivable knowledge was the cherry on top.
I just don’t agree the job is to kill a character. The job is ultimately to have fun. I would control the monsters to make them act as you’d expect them to. I want to have fun as a dm and would want my player to have fun. Yeah, it is meant to be challenging, but it is the same thing as when you set a tough target for a run time for someone during practice. Yes, it is to challenge them, but it should still ultimately be fun/rewarding
Fantastic job. I saw the CMCC video. Great tactics. I wonder what kind of solo build could do better…?
There are some that already have:)
I feel like a Shepherd Druid has the best chance TBH
@@dinomichalopoulos1517 None have been used till now but I generally agree. It should be able to tear through the gauntlet.
One question is how many alternative allies options are available to pick from and can you double up on the same one - they may be kinda weak but the synergistic plays its possible to generate could really shift what builds work best. As it isn't really a solo challenge.
I'd agree the others on druid - though I'd go wider on the subclass as the wild shape on any type would be a good advantage on this gauntlet at times and there are many powerful druid based builds, some that would prefer more spell caster allies others more warrior types.
Necromancer favouring wizard (or any other class with access to animate dead) could be a good call, assuming the gauntlet allows you to bring your undead horde with you - I'd assume you wouldn't have used any spells before the first encounter myself as you get 24 hours of control surely you reasserted just before bedtime on the way in so have hours left. But even if you did have to drop one higher level spell to maintain control of your horde before you arrived that is a massive boost to your action economy, and gives you a small horde of meat shields that may let you bypass a map without loosing anything important.
Artificer could be interesting but probably doesn't work in this format that well, it has too much focus on magic items that don't seem to be allowed.
@@davidwilfand916 how does a Shepard Druid beat all the dispel magic?
Must say it seemed like the DM metagamed the strategies of the monsters lot, doing what he knew would be best and not what the monster might be able to think of.
Also some of the challenges seemed really arbitrary and put in just to mess with the player instead of actually making sense.
I would have been pretty frustrated playing this
19:50 - Small correction on this one: "If a creature has half cover normally they would get advantage on their saving throw against Sacred Flame." The rulse in the PHB page 196 state: "A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws." Same with 3/4 cover and a +5. But I have seen so many people get this wrong or just don't know about that rule, it just never comes up, in my experience.
Sacred flames says the creature can't benefit from cover for the spell so this correction while correct is not applicable for specifically Sacred Flame.
@@abcrasshadow9341 Sure, but my point is, that Chris said "Sacred Flame grants an exception from this rule", and then quoted the rule wrong.
No one ever gets advantage on their save due to cover.
Which is relevant later in the episode, when the Golem dodges and has cover, which grants Chris disadvantage on his EB and should grant the Golem +2 AC, instead of simply being ignored as an another source of disadvantage.
@@Nerdality_Florian I think they played by the correct rule even if he stated it wrong, because he mentioned pulling the gollum in front of him to get rid of cover, which wouldn't make sense if he thought that it did nothing stacked with dodge.
@@luka2784 It's not entirely clear to me. If we are talking about Round 2 (47:57), he attacks without Disadvantage, but also hits on a 17, which is the exact AC of a normal, cover-less Stone Golem. So it looks like they applied neither, despite mentioning it in the narrative?
I see four possibilities:
1) Somehow there was a source of Advantage (Help Action?) to cancel the first Disadvantage.
2) The Stone Golem's AC was modified to be lower.
3) They gave the attack -2, instead of +2 AC to the golem... and didn't properly show it in the maths.
4) After battling for hours they forgot about something. It happens.
In round 3, Chris mentions that the golem was both dodging AND had cover, but neither those words nor the maths on screen tell me anything about how they ruled that. But if you find something less ambiguous, let me know!
@@Nerdality_Florian I agree with the point you highlighted. I was talking about 50:00 where he talks about moving the golem down to get rid of cover even when it was dodging.
_You can't ride a dead horse_ - we can in ruurs debates!
Nyuck Nyuck Nyuch!
The real question is, with what you know now, Do you think you could beat the gauntlet with this or another build?
Did the Mage cast both fly and greater invisibility?
it dropped concentration on g. invis from the landed disadvantage attack
@@benjaminrosiek5007 Ah I missed that
Great run Chris. I think you could gave maybe used Expeditious Retreat, affecting you and the mount, to add kiting ability and maybe manage to do that sniping thing you wanted to
He needs a way to deal with all the fireballs in that last encounter more than he needed to increase his speed.
@@blshouse yea and that last map is quite small and fireballs range is 120' I honestly don't know how to deal with that. Maybe fizbans Platinum Shield. He would take ¼ damage, but not something available on this particular character.
Hold the door my trusty sidekick!
Also, I don't know what melee build could even beat the first map, let alone conquer the final map. There would have to be some serious cheese involved. XD
Could you also have shared spirit guardians with your find steed to increase the range of it like you would if you were a wildshapeing druid with spirit guardians? That sounds like it could have been fun
Doesn't work, SG range is "Self (15ft radius)", not "Self". Otherwise you could have double cast stuff like Lightning bolt using a steed.
For the Algorithm!! 🤖👌
Yeah I think it is interesting and actually kinda good that it is competitive due to the adversarial nature, but the rules should be called by an entity other than the "Dungeon Master". Basically have a Monster Master as an adversary and a Game Master making rule calls and the like.
I think high amounts of meta-gaming here is unavoidable, so should probably lean into it and look into some details a little more like "how do you call prepared actions in an adversarial context?"
Curious to see what the final thoughts you had put in the times would have been. But I'm glad you had fun mostly, I do find it interesting but I don't really see a build being showcased so much as a challenge that is a little much and lends itself to table conflict (I get this is supposed to be a challenge but its all a little much).
Going with your readied action dispel magic convo, technically, as you said, he needs to cast the spell, so you probably would have heard him casting his spell with verbal components. So you wouldnt even be metagaming, you'd know he cast a spell waiting for you.
You know what could have been perfect, if the sidekick you had chosen for the warrior was not the orc, but a warhorse 😂
A tough challenge for sure. The time between sessions seems like it was spent making a scenario designed to combat your build in particular. I would be very interested to see what builds made it through at level 14 - because I suspect they will not have faced the same opponents.
Still, it seemed like it was fun. I would love to try something like that for sure.
I wonder if an assassin character could just max their stealth score and sneak past every encounter.
I'd imagine the gloomstalker assassin build from table top builds would do really well. Pack tactics where you at?
I was thinking the same. Enough spell slot for invisibility at least, maybe greater invis for the last fight (though it might not be worth it). Then some rogue levels for hiding as a bonus action and stealth expertise, and then bugbear and gloomstalker for lots of attacks and extra damage. Try to get to the arcanist and kill him in one turn.
I would be surprised if this actually worked though, CMCC must have thought of strategies that try to cheesily bypass the whole thing.
People have tried with invisibility magic and such, I don't think anyone has managed to make it all the way to killing the final boss yet
@@DeadpoolAli Flagship Ranger has cleared the gauntlet, however the use of life cleric+goodberry was needed for future runs as it felt like it would trivialise the challenge. Yesterday, a madman beat the gauntlet with vanilla mercy monk, no multiclassing + no houserules
I do have to wonder how reasonable it would have been for the Priests to have realized that they could have just Dispel Magic'd the steed and have been done with the whole chase early on.
I have never heard of it being called Yeeting, I have always refered to it as Kiting
Hello! Are you gonna make a new video with the updates you would do to the build if you were to run it again? Thank you for the attention!
A very different type of play. Meta-knowldege, like DM & player knowing monster stats, seeing the full map, knowing each other's resources, etc. - it doesn't feel like D&D, but I get that it is more of a build test.
Am I correct in assuming that there's no fog of war in the gauntlet? I think things would be different if the player didn't know where the NPC were when out of sight.
@@mogalixir All the more reason to have a referee present, able to see the whole board.
The Expert wasn't in line of sight when you cast the final Spirit Guardians, and thus would've been damaged by it. Not that it would've made much difference here, but that's one weakness of the spell.
Anyway, great run! I'm looking forward to seeing your next attempt.
i never thought i’d hear you say “yeeting,” chris :) and it’s a damn good strategy. another great video!!
I'm honestly impressed at how far you got, it's a pretty insane undertaking. I don't know how anyone could beat this gauntlet. Maybe if you try to run past everything somehow, to just focus on killing the arcanist?
The maps are way cool too. I actually know FakeFairytale, he makes incredible maps and is an awesome DM and player. Very cool to see his work used here. ^^
14 levels of illusion wizard with eldritch adept, misty visions. Unlimited control.
I think you did about as well as was possible given the situation. DnD combat was never intended to be so intense and competitive that you have to rely on obscure or technical rulings just to get through. Some people love that level of competitiveness and adrenaline but I find most would rather sit back, relax, and have fun - cuz DnD is for everyone. Heard that somewhere. :D
Looking at this from waaaay over here I think it'd be better Gauntlet-Runners to hang out with the DM socially beforehand and shoot the breeze with no set timeframe. It's hard to be even-handed and keep things cool as strangers.
I also like the idea someone posted about a ref and monster handler as separate roles - take some of the pressure off the person running the game.
What a fun challenge to watch and awesome to see you work your wat through the maps!
Happy you had (generally) a good time doing so! ;) I’ll sure be keeping an eye out for other gauntlet runs!
I've always heard the term Kiting used to describing running ahead of a melee opponent and shooting the whole time.
2nd fight kite machine hun
Good job Chris. The Gauntlet is very difficult, and I too am anxious to see these successful runs. Take care all.
Wanna impress me Mr. Treantmonk.....run it with a Monk build 😆😅🤣😂
j/k....or am I?😏
I think you could do it with a full monk, but you'd have to actually RUN it. There's no way you could beat every monster with a monk, but you could get to the arcanist and take him out in what would most likely be a suicide run when all the monsters caught up to you. Monks are pretty hard to actually damage at high levels when you include all of their abilities: immunity to poison, evasion, proficiency with all saves, even slow fall, stillness of mind, running over water and other surfaces. When people discount monks, it's mostly because they don't have much damage potential. They actually have a lot of ways of avoiding damage. Ascendant Dragon could give themself fire resistance on that last level which could have been helpful, assuming they weren't dodging the fireballs anyway.
@@indigoblacksteel1176 I could do it with a Wizard/Sorc and just dimension door, but where is the fun of not fighting your way through.
Gotta say with the whole Phantom Steed thing, Chris is kinda beating a dead horse.
Now that you've run the Gauntlet, what build do you think could beat it? I understand that you've mentioned not getting it now, but theoretically, what could do it? Maybe some kind of Fighter for sustained damage?
High mobility ranged martial can theoretically do it (and probably did already).
Mobility and ranged damage is key I figure.
I wonder if literally "speed-running" is the key. Just off the cuff, and please feel free to pick it apart. I am among the very small minority that still thinks storm sorcerer has value. At level 14, give me 6 storm sorc, 6 tempest cleric, 2 rogue. I'll take ashardalon's stride, counterspell, thunderstep, and tbd on last 3rd level spell. With the rogue's cunning action dash, the gauntlet gives you a magic item, of which i'd take boots of speed... You could pull a Colby d4 Ashardalon's strider deal where you bamph every large or smaller enemy by transmuting Ashardalon's stride into lightning, and every enemy that is large or smaller gets thrown out of the way by the tempest cleric's level 6 ability. Any time you get surrounded, you subtly cast thunder spell with the storm sorcerer's level 6 ability to add lightning damage, which triggers the tempest bamph, and you have a way to smoke past possibly anything?
I'm just spitballing. Make it a Tabaxi that takes mobile feat, squat nimbleness (of they chose small as size at character creation). 45 movement speed, doubled by the boots, further compounded by a transmuted lightning ashardalon's stride... You might beat the whole thing in less than an hour if you can kill the arcanist. How is my aim? What am i missing?
It's an interesting idea conceptually, and I definitely think there's merit to the fact you'd get to the last encounter with less resource expenditure than other casters, but I definitely think there's some risks to it. The magic item's always just a +1 weapon/focus, so unfortunately boots are off the table. At this point we're looking at 45 base movement with both feats taken, +20 from ashardalon's + no opportunity attacks (which you can precast as mentioned in the video), doubled to 130 from feline agility, quadruple speed from dashing twice - you're clearing every room in a single turn. I'd probably be inclined to drop the storm sorcerer tempest cleric combo, I'm not sure what you're getting from throwing them away from you if your aim is to run past everything. Unless you're suggesting clearing the way for the expert and warrior, in which case that seems too reliant on being around similar initiatives and the enemies not moving.
I think the big problem is conserving enough spell slots to pull that off. Ashardalon's is a 1 minute spell and we need to clear the 3000 foot gap between encounters. With it being precast, and a turn to reach the exit of the room, you have 48 seconds to reach the next encounter. Assuming you don't need to spend a turn standing still to recharge Feline Agility to clear the next room, we're looking at 45 feet, +20 from stride, doubled twice, 260*8 (our remaining rounds) isn't covering that gap. That'd mean we'd need to recast for every room (using sorcerer as planned or dropping squat nimbleness for metamagic adept could get you extended spell, which might make up for it? I haven't done the calculations). And that's with the potential to be beaten in initiative, which could lead to dispel magic or taking damage at the start of an encounter and simply losing concentration, leading to more resource expenditure and potentially loss of health. Considering that, I'm not sure if the resources are conserved well enough to make it worth it, especially considering you're entirely optimised around, and have spent all your feats on, running away from other encounters, and have no allies on hand. Maybe there's something that can be done with chronurgist wizard, swap out squat for metamagic adept extended spell, and extend a haste from arcane abeyance + familiar and an extended stride on yourself? That would lead to a -5 drop in base speed for a temporary quadruple, but that makes dispel magic even more scary as you'd lose a whole turn. Not sure what your lowest possible amount of resources spent for any of these possibilities is, but you're also losing opportunities to bump your save DC or other abilities, which is potentially worthwhile in exchange for avoiding so much, but certainly risky.
Like I said, interesting conceptually, but the huge gaps between combats is pretty brutal for it IMO. When it's reduced for future gauntlets as seems to be planned, it'll probably be excellent if the gap is reduced enough to get double value or more out of each Stride. Or I've been talking nonsense throughout, which isn't unlikely
EDIT: It isn't included in this video, but in the original it mentions a monk is planned as one of the next builds to run the gauntlet on the channel - maybe that's a build with similar intent to what you had planned? Sort of struggling to think how else a monk would handle it otherwise
Try number 2 with the God Wizard? Or is that more of a build for a campaign? Either way thanks for pointing me toward CMCC Builds, it's a great channel
The God Wizard is a force multiplier, focusing on getting the most out of the team. With only two side kicks I don't think they would have enough damage for this gauntlet.
Loved seeing your tactics again. This build was great but your tactics on show are amazing. Great job.
I cant wait to see your level 10 guantlet run. Glad you get to take 2 patrons with you for help. Hopefully they dont play a vanilla orc warrior and a kenku expert haha
Regarding the DM's accusation of you metagaming when you only ran to the edge, but not into line of sight of the priest: weren't you told to watch video of previous attempts so you'd be better prepared? Then where's the line between what's acceptable and what's not in terms of metagaming?
The other two gauntlet runs did not have the first floor church battle so I think that alone is an unfair comparison. I think you def would have gone through or atleast faired well against the original gauntlet (and prob with a less adversarial DM).
I also kinda preferred proper walls on my vtts so that you only see what your character would see. The monsters themselves shouldn't have been metagamed by the DM as well (but you are 100% correct if the DM is metagaming "through" walls you should be able to as well).
But wow btw spirit guardians and fireball it really shows how important half damage on a save really adds up!
This is a tough fight especially with 2 little dinky npc allies. Can't wait to see more!
Yo I wanna see a build like kwayzar but using vedelken to get advantage on wisdom int and charisma checks
It was dexterity saves (or rather the lack of making them) that got him in the end though.
Thanks for the fun content Chris!! For the level 10 Gauntlet, I'm guessing it will be a über cheese grater, utilizing Spike Growth and possibly other area of effect zones.
I guess the part about Phantom Steed doesn't really matter for the Gauntlet since it's a Wizard spell and Kwayzar used Find Steed, which critically doesn't have the weird dismount wording. But the interaction still confuses me.
The steed uses the statistics of a riding horse. When the spell ends, the creature fades, giving the rider 1 minute to dismount. The spelll ends when you dismiss it with an action or if the creature takes any damage.
You cannot ride a horse when it's dead. There are general dismount rules, but those should be overridden by the specifics of the Phantom Steed spell. I'm not even sure you can kill the Phantom Steed, since the spell already ends upon taking damage, skipping over the process of calculating hit points and rolling death saves. Taking damages simply defaults to the 'spell ends' state. And in that 'spell ends' state, regardless of how you get there (because that is Chris' beloved TRDSIC), the creature fades and you get a minute to dismount.
Im sorry to hear about the adverserial experience - dnd is a game; fun should be goal at all times
Look how often he needed to use Subtle Spell. Treantmonk talks about how he should have used Extended Spell for 1 Sorcery point on Spirit Guardians! He's saying it! More Sorcerer! Sorcerer better! Was that so hard? Go update the Sorcerer Subclass Tiers. What you did to them was outlandish. Ask to do the Gauntlet again. Do either Sorcerer(DS)12 Warlock 2(HB) or Sorcerer 14! You will dominate this test. You could still do Spirit Guardians ,EB ,Crusher..but have more resources for other...Blink, Polymorph, Couatl, Haste..don't be stuck in 1 battle plan!
I do not know the rules of the Gauntlet, but this might work. Level 14 Divination Wizard with Alert, Lucky and Mage Slayer feats. Cast Gift of Alacrity (GOA) and Etherealness on self and abandon the Sidekicks. Dash down to the Mindflayer. Appear next to it for surprise or win initiative with high Portent number and GOA/feats. Cast Eyebite. Use the feats and a low Portent number so it fails the saving throw. It falls asleep. Ta-daaa!
It's a gauntlet. Not everyone is supposed to make it. Frankly, MOST people shouldnt make it. For the record, I hate Flame Skulls!
Your build was exceptional! Your tactics were really good. Shifting on the horse is not something I would have allowed in one of my games, but it's RAR. I dont like playing straight RAR, because it feels like a chess match and bleeds realism. But in a game like this, that's how you play it.
AND you didnt build a character to beat THIS dungeon! You didnt take Water Breathing so the first part wasnt so hard... or Control Animals to cast on the Sharks that you could have used against the Chuuls or Hydra. You made a character, and tried to save the world.
Well done!
As much as I understand the intent behind The Gauntlet, if I was running it I would allow for a Short Rest when transitioning to the Temple map. Its a new scene, and I find it important to maintain a cinematic vibe with One Shots like this, to keep players invested and fighting passionately without the RP motivations they would (hopefully) have during a longer adventure or campaign.
Some really strategic plays here, a pleasure to watch.
Did Kwaysar not have Absorb Elements for the final Fireballs?
This really highlights how D&D is an awkward merge of kinda miniature combat game but the really fun part is the underdeveloped story telling system. “Winning” D&d as a goal just leads to salty players or DMs
If I had to play the gauntlet I'd prolly run an alpha strike Gloomstalker/Assassin/Fighter with some ridiculous, ridiculous stealth capacity.