I’m super hoping the house ends up a good ol’ dungeon. Also, I’m starting to wonder: is touching elven shit just always going to go weird for normal people? It kinda seems like they exude energy by just existing (or moreover if they are as prone to shit seeping into them as well)
I have a question regarding immunity to normal weapons in the context of guests on the show. It’s something I’ve been thinking about during these last few encounters with Anne.
Do you think there will come a point where characters (including or maybe exclusively guest characters) could arrive with a magical weapon (or other item, though in this context I’m more thinking of weapons) so they don’t feel too useless in combat?
Maybe there could be a break point in levels, so just like they can unlock new characters starting at a certain level they could at other levels unlock certain types of gear they can start with.
I’d just hate to be in Anne’s position as a guest. Even though she can bring other skills to the table, combat is such a focus in D&D that I think it could become a point of frustration for guests especially.
I’m sure you understand where I’m coming from and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it Adam. Maybe you have thoughts on it going in a different direction, like how you design encounters around guests not having magic weapons.
Mhmm! I think level 8 gives an allowance for magic items.
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I started at watching episode 8 when you were dong prep for ep 35. I have just watched episode 20. At this rate I will catch up in the 50s…
What sort of situation do you mean?
it’s interesting that a mechanic came up at the end of this fight that might have been useful earlier for the guys that couldn’t deal damage. That’s the grapple and shove attacks. these are opposed ability checks that someone that can’t damage the enemy can do to help out. I know that their strength is low so the chance to succeed isn’t great but its better than nothing. While successfully grappling only drops the enemies speed to 0, when you combine it with the shove prone on your next attack, if you succeed it puts the opponent on the ground with 0 speed to stand up with on its turn. So it then must either attack with disadvantage or use its action to try to break your grapple and stand.
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I don’t play DnD myself so this may be a dumb question: If a monster is immune to damage from physical sources (golem, wolfy monster), and magical attacks damage it like from The Apology, does Berg’s necrotic damage make it “count” as a magical attack? Like could he have punched the wolf to eventual death even without the hammer? I was confused on why the War Pick wouldn’t do anything even though it may have added necro damage.
My understanding is that the Necrotic damage only occurs if Berg damages someone or something in melee combat, so if the weapon he attacks with doesn’t deal damage, then no Necrotic would be added to the attack. The hammer itself is just imbued with magic, that’s what allows him to attack and deal damage, thus additionally lifeleech and deal extra damage from his inner ability.
I gotta say, all in all they stomped that encounter. I don’t think there was much reason to be frustrated other than being too indecisive to capture the werething.
The only frustration I noticed was when Anne wanted to help Berg by attacking and it was misunderstood as taking the Help action. There seemed to be some frustration at why she couldn’t go in, attack then bonus action disengage. She could have but it was the wording “I want to help Berg” translating into taking the Help action and needing to remain within 5 ft of Berg. That whole scenario was a little confusing since Adam said “your swords aren’t going to do much” so she said “I just want to help him (by attacking the enemy)” so Adam thought she wanted to take Help action and disengage while she wanted to take the attack action and disengage. When she didn’t get to roll her attack she seemed frustrated, which I don’t blame her for. The “alternative” actions in combat are definitely the most overlooked actions you can take by new players, even though they can be the most helpful.
For future reference, you actually can run up within 5 ft., take the Help action and run away. It still grants advantage to the person you’re helping. Answered here
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Thanks for pointing this out. So after the fight when they were interrogating the beast and the grapple and shove action came up it made me start looking through the phb for “alternative” useful attacks and there are a decent amount. With the thief archetype it could involve using your bonus action fast hands to lay a trap like “caltrops, ball bearings, or a hunters trap” running around the creature and then attempting to shove them into it. On page 153 of the phb under torches it says you can make a melee attack with a torch and it deals 1 fire damage. While that’s very weak you can combine it with spreading oil the turn before or coating the enemy in oil and it burns them for more. I’m not saying these are the best options in the world and I know it’s easy for me to backseat game after the fact and I have the benefit of not having to do it live but the point is there are plenty of things you can do to help if the only thing that has been taken away is your ability to damage the creature with your normal attacks. I’m sorry if I sound critical I don’t mean to be. I love this show and love watching every week, just wanting to share some other options that are available when people feel like their character can’t help.
@AnneMunition You were right about how to help Berg and using your bonus action to disengage and move away
Fun episode, may have pushed Anne passed her comfort zone or right at the edge but I suppose that happens sometimes.
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Long fight that had interesting turns. I liked it. It shows how things sometimes can feel frustrating when not one is not prepared for the fight and how things can make the players feel helpless when they are used to fighting in a one way every time.
One gripe i have with the confusion of helping at the end. Instead of listing all kinds of things one can do it could be better just to stop and slow down the roll and go trough the turn one action/move/bonus action at a time instead of trying to explain the whole turn in one sentence. “You can your move to move next to the enemy.” “You can use your action to attack or help Berg.” “You can use your bonus action to disengage or dash.” and then further on explain that Disengage actually doesn’t disengage the character but it let’s you move out if you still have movement left. And one could only use disengage or dash and not both as they both use the bonus action.
Personally, i think the best thing might have been to pull out a torch, light it on fire with her fast hands stuff from Thief and bash with that. 
Stick it to the man!
I like how the help action requires the helper to be in 5ft. This removes a lot of abuse of the system and shows that the fight isn’t actually characters waiting for everyone else and standing still while they do their thing instead of just being a way to simplify the actual fight scene so that it is easy to play out.
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Help action requires the helper to be in 5ft but not to stay within 5ft.
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The way to alternatively fit this, at least for “grappling”, is maybe someone just needs help keeping a limb down so the main grappler can adjust themselves into a better position.
It seems to be that there is sage advice that one doesn’t need to stay next to the target. I still feel like they need to stay there. It’s good to remember that these tweets here and there aren’t official.
Edit: There is official ruling to this later in the thread. It states that you don’t have to be within 5ft when the attack happens.
“Alternatively, you can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you. You feint, distract the target, or in some other way team up to make your ally’s attack more effective. If your ally attacks the target before your next turn, the first attack roll is made with advantage.” [PHB p. 192]
I find the “attacking a creature within 5 feet of you” being the key. If he attacks and the creature isn’t 5 feet of helper the requirement is not met.
I understand that it can also be read so that you only need to be within 5 feet when you target the creature that you want to help against. To me it would need to be worded more clearly to say anything about targeting a creature within 5 feet and then explained that against the target that you selected the friendly creature gains the advantage and thus the requirement of 5 feet applies only to the targeting and doesn’t have anything to do with the actual attack.
PS: Shows me how badly i remember rules. I remembered that help could only be used to gain advantage on melee attacks.
Nope, as @Typoko already said, you have to be within 5 feet of the creature that is being attacked for Help to work. This limitation can only (so far) be adjusted to 30 feet by a rogue mastermind.
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/sage-advice/rules-answers-august-2015
Nope. Not a sage advice Twitter response either, this is on the Wizards site rules clarification.
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Didn’t have that version of SA compendium saved. Those are good grabs. Nice.
I’ll drop the actual quote from the SA compendium:
If you use the Help action to distract a foe, do you have to stay within 5 feet of it for the action to work?
No, you can take the action and then move away. The action itself is what grants advantage to your ally, not you staying next to the foe.
Edit:
I took a swirl around the web and found even newer version of the compendium (v1.14 2016):
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