itmeJP Community


itmeJP Community

[Court of Swords E22 Q&A] Hail to the King, Baby

Was that a CR 5-10 loot table we saw?

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I’m a bit confused about rock gnome king, what would have happened if someone used magic that is not affected by ac? Would he just die?

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Unless has has any kind of full magic protection, he’d die.

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Found the part where Persnidgetron says he takes it and puts it in to his backpack/pocket. Not sure if it was ever added to his inventory as Shawn seems to stop writing things down. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Not really. Character was pretty topical unfortunately. I feel like he would’ve betrayed the party eventually, if not at the end of the dungeon (see the Patreon video!).

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yeah, i don’t like this. i’m ruling against it. if you hold your action to make an attack, you get all the attacks you were entitled to when it triggers, so long as they don’t require you using a bonus action or anything.

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Oh! Maybe so…

Might be fun to play a raven or, really, any of the classes haha

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So what is going on with Bergs bracelet? Is he forever doomed to randomly die now?

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I’m actually with you on this, but my argument for it was disproven, so I removed it and only pointed out the official call.

This treating a reaction as one full action is fine, I’d say, and adds more tactical options, than the severely restrictive by the book reading.

Still an area you had to make an official call on.

Sage advice tweets can be such a load of conflicting bullshit some of them end up flat out wrong too.

Ask Kukrit, i’m sure he has an opinion…

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How does it add more tactical options? Being forced to take an action because the action you wanted to take is no longer available due to GM fiat only railroads options available. Most of the players (I think Dan’s good at remembering what he can do) forget rules repeatedly and things their class can do, so I think it’s rather unfair for the PCs to (I’m really not insulting the players) clever enough to both rule lawyer that they can do that, AND remember it every session.

I don’t understand when Day9 not tracking ammo is fine because for the “spirit of the game”, which I 100% agree with, but the same reason can’t be argued for not, if initiative order is unkind enough, lobbing 6 attacks in a row with +5 to hit and 1d8+3 damage, FOR A CR 3 MONSTER. And that’s assuming that’s the only enemy attacking the party.

Speaking of which, this rule also breaks the “Easy/Medium/Hard/Deadly” design because Adam gives the monsters extra attacks that they shouldn’t have. It happened with the rust monsters, and it happened here with the manticore. God help them if there’s a monster that doesn’t have proper restrictions that can cast 2 high level spells in the same turn.

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Today’s episode was phenomenal, guys! I was crying from laughing so hard, from the perfectly innocent twins to “I try to convince him to take off the armor” “No”. All I could hear was “You fail” on that one XD. It was all amazing!

Adam, as always, you are the world’s greatest GM! Dan, JP, Max, and Sean, you guys are incredible players and all of you are outstanding people. You have remarkable chemistry together and I hate to see Sean go, but I’m excited to see where the story leads next!

A few random questions: Will the soldier prisoner guy from when they first entered the cave play a part in the coming storyline? The one they were supposed to “free” according to the visions? Also is Azure’s orb still around? Probably just waiting for some lucky person to find it and suddenly become the next super villain or something.

I could totally see if a kid finds it on the bank of a river and the shot pans up as we hear the familiar snarky comments from, Thuy, as she scolds her brother for picking up trinkets instead of catching fish for their dinner and when she takes it from him she is suddenly endowed with the power of the gods and decides to take over the world! Just a thought of course :slight_smile:

Anyways sorry for the long post, keep doing what you do guys! I look forward to the next show!

Monster Manual pg 213


Armor Class 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points 68 (8d10 + 24)
Challenge 3 (700 XP)

Multiattack. The manticore makes three attacks: one with its
bite and two with its claws or three with its tail spikes.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft. , one target.
Hit: 6 (1d6 + 3) slashing damage.


Initiative is a core part of the game, it is supposed to go against you sometimes and the manticore has good dex to boot. A manticore is an offensively favored CR 3 creature.
Its defensive stats are below average for a CR 3 creature (+1AC but - 30hp)
Its offense matches CR 3 (19-21 DPR) but it has a +5 not a +4 since its defense is weak and its DPR dips when its in melee.

There is no foul play. the manticore is a bit weak if anything. The rust monster attacks were due to a misapplication of the rules that the group then corrected.

The “Foul play” as you put it is how Adam is modifying the rules. If say after triggering the readied action for 3 attacks, the Manticore’s turn is right after, then he gets another 3 attacks. RAW, the max the Manticore could possibly get in that scenario is 4 instead of the 6 I’m talking about. I’m not disputing the power of the monster as is, I’m arguing that that power under Adam’s ruling creates a disparity of what the CR actually is if given more attacks/actions than is allowed by the rules.

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RAW are unclear when it comes to the ready action, but the only restriction on multiattack in the MM is that it cannot be used for opportunity attacks

Making creatures with multiple attacks only be able to ready 1 attack is counter intuitive. It is a strange interpretation of the rules but the sage advice link is only applicable to players with extra attacks taking the ready action during combat.

As a player if you take the ready action to attack and have multiple attacks you would expect to be able to make multiple attacks. The interpretation you are referring to is that you can only ready a single attack which is made doubly strange because you can cast a full spell action but you would be unable to unload your 5 attacks per round that would usually only take you 6 seconds.

If however there is a surprise round the issue is moot because acting in a surprise round gives a full turn instead of readying an action. An attack before the players have rolled initiative is effectively a surprise action.

Furthermore “readying an action” is a combat action. If you have readied before combat you wouldn’t necessarily be restricted by the “ready action” because you cant take it, you aren’t in combat.

So 6 attacks fits with: multiattack as written, surprise rounds, being outside of combat, what I would argue is intuition and the ruling made at the “table”.

No, there’s two restrictions on Multiattack. Why am I posting this for the third time?

“A creature that can make multiple attacks on its turn has the Multiattack ability”

That’s it. Extra Attack gets the same text.

“Beginning at 5th leveI, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn

RAW and RAI, it’s pretty clear - the multiple attacks only function on one turn. You say, “It’s counter intuitive” when what you really mean to say is, “It’s a poor choice to make for your turn”. Counter intuitive is, “His familiar can aid on it’s own turn, but I have to spend my own turn if I want to command my goat to do the same thing.” Is it a poor decision to ready an action? Well when you’re readying an action, you typically can’t do anything offensive anyways. So the next best thing is to ready an action so you can do something. It’s better than nothing.

Even if you try to argue that Multiattack is different, then what does that mean for Druids who specialize in shapeshifting, or arcane casters who use Polymorph? Why are fighters, the masters of martial combat, unable to unleash a flurry of attacks on someone else’s turn, but something with 1 Int and a 0 or below modifier to Dex able to act quickly against something they can’t even see at the time of readying to strike?!

Adam can run the game how he wants to, but RAW and RAI, it 100%, unambiguously says the opposite.

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The texts are different!!!
“Beginning at 5th leveI, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn”

Extra attack is dependent on taking the attack action on your turn.

“A creature that can make multiple attacks on its turn has the Multiattack ability

Multiattack is not dependent on taking the attack action on you turn. That is why it specifically mentions you cant use it during opportunity attacks.

Mutliattack is the ability to take multiple attacks, creatures(not players) get the ability if they can take multiple attacks on their turn.


Multiattack also exists so that individual monsters can compete with the damage output of multiple monsters but thats a different topic. It keeps damage consistent without giving creatures single attacks that deal an average of 20 per round which has its own issues. It’s a tool which lets the designers manage a monsters damage output,

I think it’d be cool to see JP play a cleric. The party took a while to figure out how strong dodging is, and Dan never really took advantage of how decent clerics can actually be in melee (not that it’s bad that he didn’t). He just did a spellcaster, but there are two melee right now and no one’s done a sorcerer yet either. He could bard. The bardic inspiration mechanic is kind of lame though.

I’m really glad Adam brought up the bug people and guardian and corruption and what not. The current story has been a little tunnel visioned on the gnome king himself, even though he seemed like sort of a pawn.

I’m very curious about what the party’s going to do now. Azriel wasn’t connected to the angel quest beyond guarding Raziel (and really raziel’s quest itself wasn’t ever made clear actually I don’t think).

YES IT IS. There is no break, no comma in that sentence. The multiattack ability means the creature can make multiple attacks on it’s turn. It doesn’t say, "A creature that can make multiple attacks has the multiattack ability. And it says you can’t use it during opportunity attacks, because that’s a question someone might ask. To make it unambiguous as to what they mean. That’s why there are erratas; to correct or make a rule more clearer (because it’s a FAQ or whatever) so it’s easier to understand and not open for interpretation.

This isn’t something you’re going to argue successfully; RAW/RAI, Multiattack doesn’t allow you more attacks on a reaction. Why? Because beside RAW saying so, literally every other design decision in 5e when it comes to combat, indicates an attempt to reduce the power curve across levels, as well as how high the power curve goes.

One thing that hasn’t even been brought up, which I don’t see the cast running into any time soon, are monsters with Legendary actions. Now you’re introducing 3 more actions the monster can take at the end of any creatures turn, on top of multiattacking off a readied action, and those legendary actions are refunded at the start of the monster’s turn, EVERY TIME.

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