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S2 Ep. 5 - The Mechanics of it All · Bards and Barrels

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Bards and Barrels, the podcast for Dungeons and Dragons players new and old.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ross Druce, and I'm joined by my friends and co-hosts Brett Miller and Phil Boone.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be exploring the world of Dungeons and Dragons in each episode, sharing our experiences, offering tips and advice for those who play and run this classic game.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you're a new player just starting out or a seasoned veteran looking to get a new perspective on things, Bards and Barrels has something for everyone.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: So sit back, grab a drink, and join us as we roll for initiative and embark on an epic adventure.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there's the opening crack.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: That was a good one.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was a very good one.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: That one's acceptable.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, please.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Swift on the pole.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Really hard on that one, guys.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Come on.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: We can see the focus.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's like staring at his beard.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, it's time for another episode of Bards and Perils.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ross along with me for the ride tonight.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Phil and Brett.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: How are we doing, guys?
• 1:00
  unknown: Good.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm ready for this one.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so we have a little bit of a confession to make.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: In the the last DM in episode, uh, we did say that it was the last one.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh then we realized that we totally uh said we were gonna talk about game mechanics and how to actually run the game and didn't do that.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So tonight is, like Phil said, it's the redemption episode.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: We are actually gonna tell you how to run the game.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Makeup episode.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Makeup, that's exactly right.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so let's get started with uh a little bit of like what are the three core concepts, the pillars of DD, fellas.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so if you have read, I think it's in probably the player's handbook and the DM's guide, um, really even in the basic rules, I think covers it, but DD is kind of built on three pillars, right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: So you have um exploration, you know, what is out there, there's kind of this social interaction aspect of meeting people, talking through different situations, and then lastly, and kind of what most people think about when they think DD is the combat side of it as well.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh kind of what we want to do for this episode is we're gonna go through all three of those and tell you how certain things apply to this.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So as you're running a game, you're gonna run into challenge ratings, uh, which essentially give you the the how hard is this gonna be for your party.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you can choose uh to scale that based on the level of your party.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, you know, level one parties, your challenge rating is gonna be lower, so they're gonna be have be able to roll lower and still complete things, right?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you have a party that's 13th to 15th level, they're gonna have to roll higher to complete those same kind of things.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So as we go through the three pillars, we'll talk about that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about how you can use inspiration, which is uh which one of you guys wants to talk about inspiration, Brett?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's like if you do something really cool, you can give it to your player.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I mean if your players do something really cool, you can give them inspiration and they can use that at their leisure.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you're right, Brett.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: What you would do is you would burn your inspiration to gain advantage on a skill check, uh, an attack roll, uh, or a saving throw.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Saving throw, thank you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so that's the third one.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So your DM can grant that to you at any time based on something cool you did.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or uh if you are an avid follower of Dungeons and Daddies, if you tell a good dad joke, uh they grant inspiration for that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it could be for really anything.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then speaking of, you know, if you get advantage, what is advantage?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: What is disadvantage?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll talk about a little bit of that about that and where that may uh come into play in each of these pillars.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start with exploration, guys.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So where this is this is a very redundant question in a lot of ways, but how does exploration work in DD?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where do you see this?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: In a world.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're building the world, so you are dropping your players in somewhere, and they have to figure out what's going on, where they need to go, uh to complete whatever mission they're on.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so that might be going through a dungeon, that might be crossing through a forest or a different land, or even crossing plains, too, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: It just kind of depends on what your adventure does and where you're headed.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, you know, one of the most challenging parts I think on the DM side for exploration is figuring out the best way to do something like travel, personally.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that I always kind of find challenging, and I've tried to find, you know, different ways that other people have done it and you know hone in on some of that.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think in one of our campaigns we had several days worth of travel, and you had opportunities to like level up skills or practice a skill set or something like that to potentially gain either proficiency or increase an ability score, something you can kind of gain out of that.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the whole other side of exploration, especially travel, is random encounters.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, like as you're traveling, so so to back up just for a second.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think I think it's hard.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or I find it extremely hard.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it like time in D D is it's weird because it's like, you know, this this entire thing that you did today may take place over three days, but you just crammed it into four hours in your session, right?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like in your brain, is it four hours or is it an entire day?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a lot of things you skipped the minutiae of the day, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like if time's complicated, then distance, at least for me, is also complicated.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like you look at a map of Feiron, the scale on that map, it's like an inch is like 200 miles.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So like the distance between Baldur's Gate and the Elterrel, it would take you going by wagon, maybe not horse, but if you're walking or going going by wagon, yeah, it's probably gonna take you a day and a half to get there.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like in your game, you're like, okay, you took off toward El Tell.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're there.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like where did that time go?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there figuring out a way to grasp the concept around time and distance in the game is so hard to do.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not you're not trying to play Oregon Trail.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're that your whole game isn't around the travel.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's okay to speed through some of that stuff.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like sure, riding in a wagon is not probably gonna be very exciting.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: If your wagon gets jumped by a pack of direwolves, that might be some exciting, especially for certain levels of character.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think you just hit the nail on the head, so that brings you back to random encounters.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like if you're traveling a long distance, odds are something is going to happen over the course of that distance.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the game, I think it's in the Dungeons Master, the Dungeon Master's guide, that gives you tables that you can run.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you would roll a D100 sometimes, you could roll a D20.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's just it tells you which dice to roll, and then you roll it, and then based on your role, it gives you this happens.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe you just come across some people that you can interact with, or maybe you come across a pack of direwolves that attacks you upon seeing you, or something like that.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um one of the games, and going into the video games for a minute here, that does this really well is like Red Dead Redemption.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of games do this, is where if you're traveling from place A to place B, and sometimes you'll have a random person start shouting you at you from the side of the road.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a friendly like side quest that you can do, but sometimes it's somebody attacking you, and so it's not always good, it's not always bad.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can kind of make it into whatever you want it to be as the DM.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think a big part of that too comes to on the DM side, comes to knowing your party.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, understand not just your player characters, but the people sitting at your table too.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: How important is the exploration pillar to them?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is it a big deal to some of those people that they they like the wagon ride?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you have a player that likes the wagon ride, you know, don't skim over that part too much, and you're gonna have to build not maybe even random encounters.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: You might have to just fully build some encounters that you know are gonna happen just to make sure that you're hitting on that pillar.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think this may sound intimidating to people, but I think you'll you'll get a feel from your party.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you'll know when not to skip that ride if your players are having conversations about thing things.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're having this very constructive conversation about themselves about what they need to do when they reach their destination.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can just say, hey, 15 minutes has passed, or an hour has passed, or 20 miles has passed, but you just let them keep going.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to like actively intervene.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think you bring up a great point there, Ross, because what I also think that travel really leads itself well into or leans into is a whole nother aspect of storytelling.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like it gives you this opportunity to, if you need to introduce some side story through a random NPC that approaches the party, you can, or maybe they, as they're traveling, stop at a tavern and they hear whisperings about what's going on in an area.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: It gives you a whole nother opportunity to interject some of that.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it also gives you, as the DM, an opportunity, opportunity to get in your player's head a little bit of what they're planning to do, because they're probably gonna be sitting in front of you discussing their plans, and then you can adjust how you're gonna do things in a few minutes based on what they're presenting to you.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And at least in my experience from running like pre-written campaigns, I don't feel like there's ever been a shortage of things to throw in in those instances.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's typically, like you mentioned, Phil, there's some side like a little side quests that play a part in the bigger story that you can throw in along there, or there's always NPCs that I never feel like I get to or never like fully flesh out for whatever reason that you could maybe that's who they run into, which then leads them to the side quest before they ever get to where they're going.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's lots of things that you can possibly do.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um another thing to talk about uh is resting.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So generally what what we've kind of discussed and and looked up in in the uh the uh the wizards books is that two short rests plus a long rest is a day, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna advance you through a day.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Do you guys play that way?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is that typically what you see in your sessions?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is this what other people are gonna see in their sessions?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think two's fairly realistic.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a short rest is equivalent to an hour of just taking a little break, catching your breath, um, and it gives you an opportunity to get spell slots back or health back.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like get some of your things back, uh, but not everything.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then a long rest is a full eight hours of taking a nap or like going to sleep for the night.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think I probably as a DM do a bad job about letting people take short rests, and then maybe let people take too many long rests.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you know who's I'm gonna throw our buddy Matt under the bus because we could really use a long rest right now in our campaign, and we are dying.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we have made it a lot of encounters back to back.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, honestly, uh with what we're reading, I actually think it's in line with probably what an adventuring day would be.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So and and limiting how many long rest you give your players helps balance out the different class features.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like your your long rest is gonna reset those key class features that you only get once per long rest.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: I definitely think that not getting regular rest makes combat more challenging and more realistic.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like the threat is more real.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we all fall into the trope of you just had a deadly encounter, everybody wants a long rest.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, sure, take your long rest, but then you walk right into another deadly encounter, and then if it's you know, if it doesn't go right and people get hurt, then they want another long rest right away, which really isn't the way you should do that.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it should probably be you just took a long rest, sorry, you can take a short rest if you want, or you just took two short rests and your long rest is gone.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you don't get any more.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know a situation where I would tell a party, eh, no, no rest at all.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: But in theory, you could if if the time if sometimes you run into situations where your rest gets interrupted.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I would do.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: I would let them take a rest, but there's a high probability that something might happen while they're resting.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Going back to random encounter tables.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, just dip daddies around.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's like in Minecraft, yeah, the monsters are close.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can't sleep right now.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:13
  unknown: Exactly.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're touching all the video games.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, why not?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just bounce around, it's all good.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh any other thoughts, but uh before we move on, because we got a lot of stuff to cram into this episode.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Any other thoughts on uh exploration?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I would say don't underestimate how important it is, um, just to maintain a balance.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the pillar that gets forgotten most, uh in my opinion at least.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it it helps you put your players into that world.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think too, especially if you're running like a homebrew campaign, the exploration becomes so much more about telling the people about your world.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: So don't skip over that.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: But if you especially if you spend time building that.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think you make an excellent point in homebrews because like you could throw something in that nobody's ever seen before.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have an experienced party, they're used to going around Fey Rune and they generally know where things are gonna be, but now all of a sudden they've never been in this town that you made up that now exists on the map.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to go exploring to find out what's here.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta talk to people to find out what's here.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a unique perspective for that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not that an incoming DM is necessarily going to have that problem.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're talking to people and introducing them to your world, that gets us into the next pillar, which is social encounters, social interaction.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's meeting the people or characters or creatures in your world and learning things and engaging with them.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is probably one that I personally struggle with the most, I think, for me.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it probably comes back to that Phil never plays a charisma-based character because that's just not who I am.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but this is one that I really have to work at for sure.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, even introducing like long-standing NPCs, like it takes me some time to kind of get that integrated and figure out how that person fits.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, that's just something that I struggle with.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm the opposite of that.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think I'm pretty decent at like uh a couple of like the like the if you run if you ever run the Death House in Curse of Strahd, like the like the two little kids, the dead kids, it's like sorry, spoiler alert.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, geez, wait, they're dead?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's it's fine, it's all good.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but I think that's a good example because it's like I I feel like I find interesting ways to leverage them to like set the mood and draw people in.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's just me talking.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I know the story well enough, then it's just like I'm using them to advance the story kind of thing.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think I do that pretty well.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And those are those are key encounters, like key uh people, NPCs in your game, but there's also just like the random shopkeeper that you have to uh kind of haggle with your players on prices if they want to buy something.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's um all sorts of being a person in your world and engaging with your players.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: I will I will say that one thing I always try to make sure to do is not force combat.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: So if you guys go up into an interaction and you can talk yourselves out of it, by all means, like there's no need to have a combat if you have a witty way to get out of it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: I absolutely think that that should stand.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, don't, as a DM, get so locked into well, they're supposed to have this huge battle.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you know what, save your big battle, like maybe it'll come up in the future.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: But if the players are smart enough to get out of that or get around that or more power to them.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but you also have to think about and read through whatever you're playing.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're playing a published adventure, most of the time your NPC, they've got their own ideals, bonds, flaws, care different personal characteristics that will lead them to a plausible outcome.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like somebody might be quick to the trigger that you're playing and that your players are meeting, or somebody might they're very lawful neutral and don't want to get involved.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Parlay?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I hate parlay.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Get into your character or the NPC or that playing a little bit and think what would they do in this situation?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: I will say, I I know we talked in a previous episode a little bit about some of the uh material that we like, but if you've read through any of those, like the monsters know what they're doing books, it talks about some of those motivations that your different monster types would have.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that to be super helpful as well, just kind of knowing, oh well, honestly, this monster doesn't have a high enough intelligence to know better.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: If it gets injured, it's gonna run.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, simple things like that, or does it serve someone?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: That can help kind of build into those things as well.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: If they can intimidate a monster.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you have um a character that is very they could go either way.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, depending on what your players do.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: If if it's like a if they have a good thing happen to the player and they pull the NPC toward their side, that's a plus one.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if they say something that's gonna make the NPC mad, it's a minus one.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And once you get to three or five or something, it triggers something.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: It triggers like that person's gonna attack or that person's gonna help them out.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I actually really like the idea, Brett, to almost build like allies as you're going through the game in this.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's like positive interactions, negative interactions.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because in real life, you're not going to walk up to somebody and they're immediately gonna be your ally.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to kind of earn it a little bit.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So don't be afraid to use that to try and uh make your players work for it a little bit.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Mental note on that one.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good one, I know.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but you guys make a good point.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're talking about persuading people, when we're talking about haggling with storekeepers, uh a key part of that is skill checks.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you would do skill checks and exploration, so don't necessarily think we're not included there because you would never use it.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: It just fits better here.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about skill checks for a second.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So on your player sheet, you're gonna have a whole list of things that are related to your core statistics that you have.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you could do athletics checks, you could do uh deception, you could do persuasion.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be a whole ton of them.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: So just take a look at your character sheet.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: We won't go through all of them.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: But at any given time as a DM, depending on the situation you're in, if you if you're talking with a barkeeper and you're trying to haggle your way out of something, you could try, you could ask them to roll persuasion.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: See how persuasive are they?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Your persuasion will have a modifier, you roll the d20, and based on how you roll, the DM's gonna decide whether you pass that or not.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: That also connects back to a challenge rating because depending on what you're trying to do, if you're trying to not pay five more gold for something as a DM, I'm probably not gonna rate that as too high of a challenge rating, especially if you're pretty good at persuading people.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're trying to haggle, you know, that really kick-ass sword that's on the wall behind him that has some sort of magical properties that has a pretty high price point on it, I'm gonna make that roll a little higher or that challenge rating a little higher.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So make it harder for you to do.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: You might also hear um hear it called like difficulty class.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes it's like DC or CR.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, a lot of DMs use them interchangeably, but CR sometimes you'll hear more so with like a stat block for a monster.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: DC you'll hear with um like ability checks, saving throws, combat.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna use them interchangeably, just so you guys know.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: But if you read something like that, just know that's what the DC stands for, uh, difficulty class.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes from zero up to like 30.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: I you know, honestly, I forget that it goes that high.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll use it that way.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: In the Dungeon Masters Guide, it goes, and most of the books have this really.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it goes from like very easy at a challenge rating of five all the way up to moderate at 15, hard at 20, and then up from there.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: As a DM2, one of the things I appreciate that is in the book is it says if it's something that is so easy that you don't think the characters even need to try, don't even make them roll for it.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, just let them succeed.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Opening a door.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like unlocked door.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, picking up something off of the ground, you know, right.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Roll athletics, it's heavy.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: If it's heavy, iron door.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so something else to talk about here.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we so we've talked about NPCs, but we generally have focused on like a little bit major, more major NPCs.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's gonna go talk to the barkeeper, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And there's always gonna be characters that books give you or that you're gonna make up that are crucial to advancing your story.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: How would you guys handle like your party's walking through the streets and they're like, is there anybody around us?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, Yeah, there's other people milling about, and then they just go pick a random person to talk to.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: How would you handle that in your game?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Woo, buckle up.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, it's I hate it, but I try to figure it out.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not hard to have random tables ready, right?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have an inkling, because you know your party that they're gonna do something like that, maybe just have like a couple stock NPCs handy of because they're gonna want to know, like, okay, what like what's the sex of this character?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: What you know, race and class are they?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: So at least having that base idea and a name or a hat full of names or a Discord channel full of names or whatever it is, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like something, and and then from there you just kind of roll with it.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they're gonna talk to people that don't know anything.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you can you can stiff the players on information, and that's okay too.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: You you make an excellent point.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So typically in the the pre-built adventures that I've seen, almost always when they talk about a town, they will tell you, the book will tell you that people in this town know this general information.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like if something's wrong in this town, like the mayor hasn't been seen for six weeks because he would give a speech every Friday and all of a sudden he hasn't been doing it for a month and a half.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: They will know that.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: DM does not have to give that information willingly.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: To your point, you can stiff them and tell them nothing.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: This could just be Joe Blow, and you don't he doesn't know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Jack.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want to be involved in this, right?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: He could tell them nothing, but they do know something, and the book will almost always tell you that.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm going to start flipping a coin of whether it's someone who is friendly or like a pickpocket or you know what I mean?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like it doesn't matter.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: We need to stop this podcast, Ross, because this is gonna come back and fill us.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, I love this though, but but I I I think I think that's great too, because it's like, how often in that situation are you like, oh, this is just peasant person on the street?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: You may have picked the wrong person who's gonna steal everything you have.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Member of the Thieves Guild.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like there are a lot of opportunities.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's another adventuring party that you don't know about.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's another rogue that lifted your money or uh uh sorcerer that put a curse on you, but you didn't know it because they did it silently over in the corner watching you.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just some interesting things.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so now before we get like ideas, well, we're moving on to combat.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're just gonna be getting more and more.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so now we're gonna move on to the one that everybody's probably been waiting for, and it really is probably the biggest of the three, or maybe not the biggest, but it's probably the most complex of the three.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about combat.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we start at the top.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when a combat situation starts because you've triggered it because you pissed off the bartender, or you're fighting the big bad baddie, what's the first thing that's gonna happen?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Roll initiative.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you do that?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone rolls a d20 and adds their initiative modifier to it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's also typically your dexterity modifier if you can't find your initiative modifier on your sheet.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then the DM is going to write down the order, basically.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: So as a DM, you're also responsible for rolling for whatever um monsters are a part of that or whatever the opposite side NPCs, whatever it is, um, and those will get added into your order.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: The party doesn't need to know that up front.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: They do not need to know when your NPCs or monsters are taking their turns, but that is how combat will run.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you'll start with the highest scores at the top, work your way down all the way down to one, and then you'll have the next round of combat.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is the part that at least in initially, of course, separates this from the other two entirely because everything up to this point could feel very chaotic and it's very bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, depending on how your players are reacting to things immediately when you go into combat.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Structure.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you're gonna do things in a turn-based order.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you, as a DM, if you know the players are gonna get into combat, one thing I would really recommend is pre-rolling your initiative for the monsters.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to do it at the table, just have them already written down and uh an initiative number next to their name.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not trying to layer that in while trying to take in everybody else's numbers.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can already have the monsters already figured out.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's super helpful.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why I haven't done that before.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: That it's one of the things that has like I have struggled to figure out like I can't keep track of all these uh this initiative order uh in the heat of the moment.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So just doing that ahead of time makes it so much easier.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: That brings up a great point because this is what happens when you say everyone roll initiative.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: People just start yelling numbers at you.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, you have to be really fast of like, and I I usually do at least have people's names pre-written down so I can just like quickly write the numbers, then I have to resort my list.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but man, there are tools, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, roll 20.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is where like if you're playing online really easy, but there's also a whole world of initiative trackers that you can have on your table and display to your players, and like they can write in the number or and then like move pieces around.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whole world if you look into anything on Instagram or Pinterest or anything.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: In case it comes up, uh rolling initiative, initiative ties between your players are differentiated based on their dexterity modifiers.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: So if one person has a plus three, one person has a plus two, the plus three wins.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: If they're still tied, make them roll again.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Highest number goes before the other person.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the next thing that I had on my list was to talk about attack rolls, but I think there's something very important that we need to talk about before that.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So keeping in mind that we're doing this from the perspective of a first-time DM.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: When that first person goes, let's assume for a second it's a player, it's not a monster or something like that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is where the game, if you're not already overwhelmed, can become a little more overwhelming.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because especially if you're playing with new players, they're gonna look to you to be like, well, I'm gonna do this do this, but what's that do?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: How do you handle that?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like at least at the beginning, before before you go really quick, I do I do feel like at least at the beginning, it's like you are helping them learn their characters, and if you're a first-time DM and they're first-time players, you're doing a lot of you just gotta learn on the fly.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it's really handy to have access to their player sheet, whether it's a copy of their sheet or like an online version of it, it's a lot easier to be able to look at it without having to go around the table and look over their shoulder.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: I I agree with Brett 100%.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Even when we all play online, I have all of your character sheets up in separate tabs so that way I can like look through actions and figure out if you do have a question, like what an action does, or if you're getting ready to cast a spell, what does that spell do?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: Just so you can push some of that to your players.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, new players are hard.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: I completely agree.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: But especially as you start playing with a group and they get more comfortable, you know, you can ask them, okay, remind me what does that do?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: And they can look it up so it's not all on you.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: But for a new party, hopefully you're low level, so you're not talking about you know a ton of features yet, but a lot of that will fall to you kind of as a DM.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think Brett's right, that's the easiest way is to have a copy of their character sheet.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if there's one thing that you need to remember, write it down.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you're like, okay, now how does sneak attack work again?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Write that down.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that's gonna be it's gonna be far more complicated with players that are spell casters because they're they're gonna say, Well, I'm gonna cast fireball.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you've never seen fireball cast before, you're gonna be like, okay, what does that do?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And don't be afraid to say, just read to me what it does.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because like then everybody can be like, Oh, that's how you do this, or that's how I think this works, right?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then just keep going.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many spells, it's okay to not know all of them.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for sure.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's absolutely so many.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and and believe me, as you go, you do learn a lot of those.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm surprised how many I know now.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you just say it, and I'm like, Oh, I know what that does, or something like that.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also there's gonna be several players at the table who they're just gonna fire their bow or they're gonna swing their sword.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it's so other than maybe pointing out this is what you're rolling to attack, this is what you're rolling for damage, it probably isn't gonna be too complex, but just know that there's gonna be questions asked, not everybody's gonna know what's going on.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now I will say, as a new DM for a young party, especially, you can remind them about bonus actions, like what they can do.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would even take it beyond that and say you don't have to attack.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can also do a whole slew of other things.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can dash, dash, dish, disengage, hide, uh, ready in action, all those things are possible as well.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it can be overwhelming to explain to them, but it's like attacking isn't always necessarily the first thing you have to do.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: So after your players are going, uh, the next natural thing that's gonna happen is they're gonna they're going to attack, and they're gonna attack the baddie, they're gonna attack any PC or something.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so how guys do they do that?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: They pull out their sword and slice.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: AKA, you pull out a d20.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, at least for your so for any type of an attack roll, you're gonna roll a d20, and then your sheet is going to tell you what sort of a modifier you're gonna have.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Depending on the weapon type and your character build, a lot of times it's gonna be your strength modifier plus your proficiency bonus.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you're proficient with that weapon, and if you're a strength-based character, it's a strength-based weapon.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Other times it may be decks.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's getting into the weeds.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: But you're gonna roll dice, you're gonna add modifier.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: If you hit, if you hit, if you what you rolled is higher than the player, the opposite side of this, the monster, the NPC, whatever it is, higher than their armor class, that's gonna be a hit.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you hit, you get a roll damage, and then that's the other number that's after your to hit bonus, it'll tell you one d6 plus two, whatever that number is, the number of dice you're gonna roll, plus some sort of a modifier, usually your strength modifier there as well.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: That'll be the damage that you do, and then if it's a type bludgeoning, piercing, necrotic.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you're casting spells.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the time you get to use all those other dice in your bat, right?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, truly.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you need the full set.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, exactly.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Almost everything else can just use the d20, but this is where you get the fun one.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I think uh it's a good a good way to visualize this, is it's a it's a one versus one comparison.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's your attack roll with your modifier against an armor class.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if you need a different way to like visualize that, it's the shield of the character.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you surpass the shield with your attack, you're gonna hit and cause damage, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how that would work.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: You roll the dice for the damage, HP goes down, hit points, health points, however you want to call that.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard it both ways.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh says hit points, but a lot of people say health points.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Health points, it's that's video game.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: It is, it is.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's right there.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then from there, you know, once the the hit points reach zero, that's some stuff for a different day that we should probably talk about.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh death saves for a mobile.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Stay tuned.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, death saves.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Where's Anthony?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still wondering if he uh completed his death saves on that.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so something else we need to talk about too.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if if uh the a player can cast a spell or sometimes weapons cause this, depending on area of effect and things like that.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: Again, a little bit into the weeds there.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, monsters can do it, players can do it.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: But when certain things are cast, they may call for a saving throw on the part of the opposition or anybody that's within range of the person doing this attack.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Guys, what is a saving throw and how does it work?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: So for some spells, it's just gonna say it must beat a certain number.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a lot of them.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you are a spell caster, you'll have a spellcasting save, and it's based on whatever your core skill is that you're casting spells with.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna do 10 plus whatever that number is.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: If you're using any sort of an online tool, that number is already there for you.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to do the math, anything like that.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: We also see saving throws pop up outside of the spell world as well.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you are going up a mountain path and a rock is falling, and you have to make a dexterity saving throw to see if you are quick enough to dodge out of the way for that rock.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Those instances where you're trying to avoid damage, something is happening to you and you're trying to get out of it.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's an instance where you're gonna hit a saving throw, you roll your d20, there is a separate section on your character sheet for saving throws.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: You will add whatever the modifier is for that particular type decks, strength, charisma, constitution, whatever they are.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if they're all up there, actually, now that I think about it, but they're all I think they're all up.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I think one other aspect of saving throws, uh, we put that in the combat area because typically it's associated with weapon attacks, depending on the weapon, spells, things like that.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Another place saving throws could come up.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: If your party walks into a room where maybe there's some explosive gas or something milling through, you could have your party roll for per for perception.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: If they fail their perception, everybody's gonna be making a dexterity save or perhaps a constitution save when the room blows up because they walked into uh some flammable gas with a uh a lit torch.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody Ari in this room know about that?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It happens.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's not as defensive as he used to be.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's just given up.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: I try to remember the circumstances completely around that.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Did you did you roll on that one, or you just rolled poorly?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: There is a whole series of bad rolls, I think, following it, and then like the roof collapsed and we all died.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it was like it was the worst possible things in a sequence that happened.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: They all lots of failures.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which we didn't even touch on.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Failures and critical hits.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we should talk about that really quick.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if if you uh let's do this in relation to attacks first.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if you roll a one, that is considered a natural fail.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: That means your attacks are just gonna fail.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter about your modifier, you can't add your modifier and get above that one.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: You roll a one, it's a one.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, my bad.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna miss.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Potentially, and Phil has done this in some instances where if you not fail an attack, you may lose your weapon.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: You may drop it, it may break, it may explode into a gajillion pieces.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to do things like that.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there are even instances where the book uh kind of mentions that you can still have a critical failure, you could still roll a one and succeed on a task, but have all of these terrible consequences on the back of it.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: I never go that route.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: If you rolled a one, you failed no matter what.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's just how I operate.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but likewise, yeah, like okay, roll again.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: And if you roll another one, like, sorry about that magical weapon you had, but it's toast.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think a matzcatana immediately.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like you tried to get that thing out of the game a couple times.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Weapon that should not have been given to him.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: But on the flip side of all that, if you roll a natural 20, that is a critical hit.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so you get to roll double damage on an attack with it.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, it's huge.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that really, really packs a punch uh when you roll it.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's when everybody stands up and cheers and they're like, yeah.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we've run into instances before we've had to look this up where you technically, so you would hit with the natural 20 and then you would roll your damage twice.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's the official rule, is you would roll damage and then you would roll damage again.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: We instituted at a house roll where you you roll your damage and it just doubles your damage because it would suck really bad if you you know roll a 15 on your damage and then roll a 1 on your bonus damage, and then so you only did 16 damage, that's no fun.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot more fun to do 30 damage.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of did that that way.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was a good rule by us, and it does help but you a little bit.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: It takes one more dice roll out of the game, so it keeps things moving a little quicker if you just have to multiply.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and as a DM, if you roll like a two and you just double that, I'm okay with that too.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: You do it behind a screen, you could have rolled a 15.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we've discussed that in the mailbag.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Players don't get a bunch of dice rolls.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, one one thing to note on the natural failures and natural successes.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: I say success because when you're outside of combat and you do a skill check and you roll a nat 20, a nat 20 and a skill check is not an instant success.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: The reason for that is like we talked about earlier, if you have a challenge rating of something that's a 32 and you roll a 20 and your modifiers a five, you have a 25 and the challenge rating for whatever you were doing was a 30.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: You did not succeed at doing that thing.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to seduce the devil or a dragon, that's gonna be a really hard challenge, right?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: That like go to the extremes when you think about like, yes, is it gonna work or not?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not, even though you rolled a 20.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Use your best judgment.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: If it's something that they probably shouldn't do, set that CR rating pretty high.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: That way, if they roll the Nat 20 and they're like, yeah, I did it, you can be like, no, you didn't.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Good try, but no.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and one more thing that we need to back up and talk about really quick.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about it a little bit with inspiration.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're granted inspiration, you get to use that at any time to give yourself advantage on a roll.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this advantage and disadvantage can pop up in other places, but let's talk about it really quick what advantage and disadvantage means.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: So advantage means you get to roll twice.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, both of these mean you get to roll twice, but with advantage, you get to take the higher number of your two rolls.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Disadvantage is the opposite.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: You roll two dice and you take the lower of those two numbers.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Phil, what instances may you roll for advantage or disadvantage, depending on what?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, uh honestly, it can happen.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: But you have a spot.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: So uh the one the first one that comes to mind like is if it this is very combat heavy, we didn't talk about this another episode.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but is flanking.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: If a creature's flanked, you get a roll with advantage.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of combat tactics that allow you to roll your attacks with advantage.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's a big one.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there are situational things that could grant you advantage, so um maybe you can see the uh opposing party and they can't see you.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: So typically, like in a first round of combat, you may have advantage on that particular group because you know where they're at and they have no idea where you're at.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you're kind of swooping in there for advantage attacks.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's down on the ground and prone, you get advantage on it.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you slip and fall, disadvantage, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, right.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's talking about combat-specific ones.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the nice thing about advantage and disadvantages outside of combat, you can kind of reward and punish people in a way.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to say punish because that's that's kind of the wrong word in this instance, but you but you can do those based on situations.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so like if you know somebody's trying to persuade somebody and they give a really good argument at the table, you can grant them advantage based on the argument they gave.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: I that is I would reward players for doing that.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Roll with advantage.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: That was a good argument.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have anything to say against that.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you fumbled and did something really weird, and it's like, no, disadvantage on that.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um I also like to give it to for players that really cleverly use their items.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, like even the random items that you get just in your like starter equipment.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you can come up with a good use for those bearings.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I love those thousand ball bearings.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it also could be something with your character or your backstory.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like if you were trying to do a religion check on something and the cleric is doing the check, they might get advantage just because they're a cleric and so they're gonna have experience knowing that type of field.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or like a paladin wearing plate armor is gonna have disadvantage on stealth checks.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: He can't sneak around and play armor, he clinks and clanks everywhere he goes, so he would roll disadvantage on that.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Any other thoughts on any of this?
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: This was a really good episode, guys.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot, um, it's not always gonna pop up.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's just gonna be just get started and you'll run into weird situations, and you're gonna have to probably look some things up, and that's okay.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: And don't be afraid to just make it up on the spot and look it up later.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're wrong, own it.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Apologize if you feel like you need to.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean it's your it's your game at the end of the day.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that's right.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be great.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be fun.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even if you kill your players, yeah, they can make new characters.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's exactly right.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's gonna do it for this episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can listen to past episodes of the show anywhere a podcast can be found.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Want to stay in the loop and not missing the latest from us?
• 41:34
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• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you soon.