Latest / Bards and Barrels / S3 Ep 18: Combat Strategies for the Bad Guys

Transcript

S3 Ep 18: Combat Strategies for the Bad Guys · Bards and Barrels

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another episode of Lards and Barrels.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Today we're coming at you with combat strategies.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, I almost didn't get it.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Man a man.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: Let me do the intro, and I gotta crack.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: So much pressure.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if we've ever taken so long to pull one.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's what happens is the left hand.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's letting me down.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I need to start cracking on the right.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still surprised you crack with your left hand.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I didn't even know if we said it at this point, but that was, I guess, the sad opening crack that happened there, but it happened.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Phil is sort of in the saddle tonight, I guess, here with Brett and Ross again.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: We're here.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: I guess.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Ready to rock and roll, man.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's your fault, Ross.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's not my fault.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's always your fault.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Ross was supposed to have the opening crack, but someone couldn't wait for our episode to start before I pull the tap.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was giving the channel.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: My bad.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Tonight we are going to talk about something that um, yeah, you can maybe throw this into our DMing series if you want to.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it doesn't necessarily have to live there, but we're gonna talk a little bit about combat strategy.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: From kind of the the DMC, we're looking at opponent side here, not necessarily as player characters.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about player characters all the time.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, maybe we can do one on that at some point, but we really want to focus tonight on you're getting ready to go into combat, you're the DM, you gotta throw together an encounter, run some monsters, and try to make that encounter fun for your players and kind of realistic too, right?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like it wants you want it to be a challenge, right?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, what kind of strategies have you guys used before?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the one that everybody kind of starts with is just to throw meat at a problem and just like run bad guys in and have them swing at your player players and have them die.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And rinse and repeat.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is the most basic strategy is just throw a monster in and have it run in and attack.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, for the the first gosh, for a long time when when I started DMing, I that's exactly what I did.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was like, you know, put in you know the first two or three, and if the two first two or three didn't seem challenging enough, well then you send in five or six more and and they wipe those out.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if the encounter lasted 15 minutes, then hey, we were we did pretty good.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: It took some time and they had to think about it a little bit.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of how it all started.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think there are some monsters that are set up okay for that type of strategy.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Just not maybe like goblins.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like a goblin isn't the type of creature that is gonna want to do melee combat at all.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: They want to attack from range.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are big fans of a book um called The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters by Keith Amon.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this book goes into great detail of through a lot of the main monsters that you're gonna be coming up against.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the most most popular monsters are in this one.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it breaks down each one and goes over what are their goals?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what would a a goblin want to do in that battle?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it gives you a lot of flavor for what they would be looking at doing, what's their incentive for fighting you, um, and if they take a hit, what are they gonna do in response?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think, I think uh for me personally, one one of the most like and it depends on what you're trying to run to.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like I I I tend to land on the Curse of Strahd a lot because I've run this twice.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think your point to like what character, what what you know, what NPC, what is their motivation, all of that monster type thing.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it very specifically spells out in Curse of Strahd, like he's not out to kill them, at least not at the beginning, until he feels threatened by them, right?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like part of the one of the things that that I at least I read it this way was he likes to play with his food.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So he shows up, he spies, he picks, he may show up in a battle, but he's gonna get out there because he really doesn't want to kill them, he wants to see what they're up to, kind of thing.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's like you have to get in their head, and we're gonna talk about that from the perspective of like monsters, but it's like throughout various written campaigns, they will spell out how the BBEG, the big bad, evil guy, reacts or how you should play them in specific situations.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I so one of the things that I appreciate about Keith's book too is in moving our campaign into a homebrew realm, or even when we were running things in Descent into a Vernus, there were specific like fiends, right?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's the difference between how a pit fiend would act in a battle to a barbed devil, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't know.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I use that to kind of learn their motivations, the hierarchy, a bunch of that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: But going into homebrew now, it's like okay, there may or may not be multiple BBEGs in this campaign, depending on how things play out.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Spoiler! Um, so what are their motivations?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: And kind of figuring out, okay, well, sure, creature type plays into that somewhat, but also what is their actual goal?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that's from a totally different book that I'm pulling that information from that doesn't necessarily play into combat strategy, but I can kind of marry those two things together of okay, do we have some sort of a cat and mouse type game, like what Strata is doing?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Do we have a brute force type of attack?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you do have a super strong uh monster that just charges in, wipes people out, and then leaves because that's what they can do.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Or do you have something that is more of an ambush style?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're put up in a lair, they're setting a bunch of traps, they're trying to lure people in.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think something to be cognizant of as a DM as well would be how your players react to all of those things too.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like, you know, a creature's gonna react a specific way, but but a prime example I have, speaking of our homebrew, is like, you know, when we first started playing, throwing cultists at us was like that was kind of fun.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: When you're in the bathhouse in the basement of the bathhouse, and here they are just attacking you, you gotta get rid of five or six of them.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: But in our most recent session of our homebrew, you can see where we've advanced as players to we talked our way around a battle.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: There was no combat in that because we talked, well, I talked our way out of it because everybody else hadn't gotten in their costumes yet.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh long story.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but that's a good example of that.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is like you even said at the end of that session that like that was the only combat encounter that you had prepared, and we completely weasel our way around it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: But that's that was fun.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: You role-played your way out of it, and that's it's just that growth, right?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: From the start of the campaign, you immediately see a cultist and you think like, oh no, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Roll initiative time, and now it's like cultist, let's talk to these guys a moment, you know.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we can come to an agreement here.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of our style as a group, is we've got some silver-tongued characters uh who like to talk, but then if we didn't have some of those characters, if we were more of a uh a murder hobo type of party, that would be a different story.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And also in this party would depend who walked out that door first.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because Ross's character walked out that door first.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think if Isaac or Matt's character would have walked out that door first, it might have been a different story.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: It would have been blood.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: But that's yes, there would have been a combat.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other big thing about developing encounters and taking them up against your players is also keeping in mind that you don't have to have all of one type of creature or monster that you're throwing at your opponents.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it could be a horde, so it could be like four or five goblins and a hobgoblin, and um maybe some of the goblins are writing um like wargs.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wargs or something like that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So how does each one of those play differently from each other based on what resources they have?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think you bring up a good point, Brett, too, because that totally changes the effectiveness of your battle, too.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you have different fronts you can kind of send, like we we've mentioned this goblin example, goblins are ambushers, right?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like goblins themselves, they like to hide and attack from a distance and then move and hide again, so they're hidden.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: That is when they're most powerful.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: But if you then have a hobgoblin or a bug bear, especially, that can be more of a melee fighter, then you're taking that attention away from the goblins that are hiding.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: You're that much more effective.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And by having your combat encounter be a little bit more diverse, you also open up spells.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a a wizard or a uh a sorcerer or something that has a lot of battlefield control spells, they finally can get to use some of those and use them in different ways than you normally would if you just have everybody run into the open clearing in the middle of the battle and just fight there.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you can allow them to use some of their skill set in different ways or flank around some of these characters, it gets a lot more engaging and a lot more things happening all at the same time.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Managing all that, just uh this was where having some sort of battle map um or virtual tabletop really does come in handy is to keep track of all these multiple moving scenarios that are happening all in the same at the same time.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Especially when you are talking about ranges for things like spells or people that are hiding in maybe a clearing, like just on the edge of a clearing, 30 feet versus oh, they're 40 feet out, so that's past my movement speed, but within my spell range, right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: So there are you know components like that that a lot of times we take for granted when we're just in a slug fest.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and a lot of times with theater of the mind, you end up just kind of fudging those numbers anyway, so that if you can have a little bit more of a set structure to that more complicated encounter, you can allow your players to kind of push and pull a little bit more based on what they can actually see to optimize what their move is gonna be.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think too, um, I know we're mainly talking about combat strategy from the DM side of the table here, but uh what it allows your characters to do as well, or your actual PCs, is to start creating and building their own combat strategies.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're approaching them with a more strategic battle instead of just kind of throwing meat at them, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: It gives them a chance to your spellcasters can shine, but as a group they start to plan.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, who's gonna be up front as our kind of melee tank, right?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna take the hits?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that way our spell casters can buff them, can throw ranged attacks, whatever that looks like.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Where's that rogue hiding?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: He's gotta be sussing out all these hiding goblins that are out in the clearing or outside in the skirmishes of the clearing.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know, it it helps encourage, I think, some of that more strategic combat that really builds those encounters out.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because a lot of times in in a lot of times combat boils down to who can deal the most damage.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of can get stale.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can add traps or alarms for different creatures and having some of those things built into your encounter, that opens up a lot of dynamics of what's gonna happen in the moment.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and it can bring some of those skill checks in too, kind of into combat, even like you could be totally taken back by the the goblin set, maybe a pit trap, right?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you just happen to step across it and fall in it, and like what does that do with where you were at in battle?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because now you're kind of underground, you probably took some damage.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't you might have fallen prone in there, and they could just be standing over you, you have no help.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: It totally could change combat.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And all of your teammates have to acknowledge that and throw their planes to the wind and come help you.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think it adds a lot of flavor to the battle as well.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's I mean, I don't necessarily think we we talk about goblins a lot in that aspect, but that's one thing that they actually are really good at is traps.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they love those traps, they love alarms, and then they also will flee.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if a goblin gets down to one or two health, they're gonna run.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or, but if they're just like a little bit more in that three to four range, because goblins don't have a lot of health to begin with, they're still gonna stalk the person that damaged them and they're gonna try and take revenge.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So having that in the back of their mind of not all monsters are in it to die can open up a lot of possibilities too, and how your encounter ends.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: I love too that that can change depending on like a goblin example.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: When a goblin's looking out for themselves, they are gonna flee when they get down to one and two.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: If a goblin is following the orders of a bugbear, of someone that they are scared of, they will stay and they will fight because they're afraid that the bug bear might kill them if they go back anyway.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or if a goblin defeats one of uh somebody on the battlefield and they don't see anybody else, they're gonna loot the body.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: I I would love to start playing that out.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Not that I feel like you guys ever drop that often, but that would be fantastic.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, but if you had another uh a friendly NPC fall in battle and the goblin just runs up and starts looting them and they don't see you, pop shot.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like a great way to get rid of a certain um silvered skull flail that has been the bane of my existence.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think this also brings up uh an interesting tactic that you very rarely see in DD, and that's the counterattack.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like if goblins, you know, flee at a certain point when their health is low, there's nothing to say they can't regroup and attack again in an ambo like if you chase after them or they ambush you down the road or something like that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: You don't see the counterattack very often at all in DD.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they can bait you totally, totally.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: They could run in the set more traps and bait you into more traps, exactly, which is exactly what they would do.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is one that the Lost Minds of Fend Elver, one of the um the most popular intro to D starter sets.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they have some of this built in where the goblins will escape and go warn other people in another room um to set up to attack you.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the hardest thing about all this as a DM is like thinking through all of this in the moment.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like it's like, you know, you can set this up and have this all thought out ahead of time, but in in the heat of the moment, it's very hard to think about things like that, to send somebody to go warn others or or to, you know, three guys pull back and build another trap and then bait them in.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's very hard to do that in a pinch.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: I definitely agree.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's even in preparation anymore.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we all know I've kind of thrown caution to the wind when it comes to prepping at this point for our campaign.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: But one thing that I do do one of the things that I do do is I do do uh because I got to my beer out.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: I realized that after it came out it was too late.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: So uh one of the things that I do uh in preparation is I make sure that I do review these stat blocks for potential combat opponents I think you might come up against, specifically so I can think through of okay, like I'm pretty sure it might be goblins, it's cultists, it's one of the two.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: They have like pack tactics where when there are multiples of them, if one of them is within five foot of another one that is attacking, they get advantage.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: So small things like that that can totally change how combat plays out.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: I would try to review that before the night.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: So do you feel like, and this is a slight tangent to our topic, but do you feel like having gone into homebrew, like you have more time to do that because like you worry less about the minutiae of the story because what's gonna happen is gonna happen, but I can focus on making sure that this encounter is worthwhile.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I yes, I think so.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: I spend more time planning on that than the actual story line because that part That's driven by us, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I am not always good at doing, uh, but I've seen recommended several places, is to write down uh for your combat encounter possible ways that it's gonna end based on some of the different uh monsters that you're throwing at them.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: How are they going to die?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are they going to fight it into the end?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are they what happens if they get captured?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or what happens if they escape?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And having just kind of those three end possibilities in mind can open up different possibilities for you when you're actually in the combat.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you have them a little bit of a note written down ahead of time of what are some things that could how this could go.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a great idea.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I have done, I don't always do it, but I'll use a note card and write out like what the name of the monster is, what their AC is, what their hit points are.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that way I kind of have and their major like skills, whatever it is, actions.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: But that would be a great place to add something like that of okay, what does this monster do?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like when do they flee?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: What hit point level do they flee?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what if they die, or like how do they die?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Anything like that.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a good thing.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: What if the players try and talk to them instead of fighting?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I like that a lot.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those intrinsic motivations for that that monster.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: I also as a DM admission, uh, I always look at the hit points that a monster has, and whatever is written out, if it's 12 D12, I automatically say 144.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't roll it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: I always give the monsters max HP.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: But you guys have so many magic items.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: We feel that.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: You have so many magic items it doesn't matter.
• 18:36
  unknown: Right.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and I think that's to me, that's the hard thing, too.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is like I appreciate the fact that you put in time creating these combat encounters, but at the same time, as a PC, I know I can deal so much damage that sometimes in the back of my head I'm like, combat's not gonna be fun.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be that meat wave.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Unless it's a really big opponent, these guys aren't gonna have a chance against me and my buddies here.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like I would rather do my best to try to avoid it unless it's impossible to avoid.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's kind of how I play in a lot of ways right now.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think it makes sense.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: You guys are also high-level, right?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you're level 13.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: So when you see just kind of a group of cultists, you're probably thinking, like, okay, well, we're not gonna deal with these peons, right?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like maybe who they report to, but not these guys.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think that plays into those decisions too, because you're right, like you know you're just gonna squash them.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like my actions reflected that exact thing when that in that encounter.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: They did.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: I picked up that vibe.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, good.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was the intent.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, any other strategies that you guys can kind of think that we didn't cover that you typically would use?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some things like goblins also really like cover.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you're keeping those rule sets in mind.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you want to use that, uh, they like to hide and peek out from behind cover.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I don't utilize that enough w when I DM combat encounters.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's another thing to keep track of.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's exactly right.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: But when you have a creature like a like if we've been focusing on goblins here, that's kind of their bread and butter.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's one where you might want to lean into it and embrace it there.
• 20:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: The the other one that I think of also in the Lost Minds of Fandelver is the Nothic that you encounter about halfway through the campaign.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the basement of the the mansion, I think is where it's at.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um like that's another place where if I remember right, when we the group that I did it with played through that, like there's just crates and things everywhere.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like he should have ducked behind things more than what he did.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's without knowing his motives, like we've been talking about, and knowing things like that.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's just in general, like if you're taking hits, you should really be looking for cover to either recover from those hits or to regroup yourself to attack and counterattack.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think so often we gloss over cover because we don't necessarily think about how beneficial it is.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: But if you have half cover, so you could be maybe hidden by if you're a small creature, you can hide behind a large creature.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I think as a small creature that you can you might be able to even attain three quarters cover, but at half cover, you get to add plus two to your bonus, like your AC is a bonus, and to your dexterity saving throws.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you're three quarters covered, you get plus five to your AC and your deck saving throws.
• 21:29
  unknown: Nope.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're hard to hit.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that makes even a squishy character quite a bit better.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Plus five to your AC.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you can really encourage the players to start using some of those non um go-to attacks.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you have something that does a uh a splash damage type of an attack, that's a great use for it.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you can splash it behind the bot the barrel and attack hit the goblin that's hiding behind the barrel, great.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Fireball.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Always good.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fireball.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: We really should not do this podcast.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Phil is learning up picking up too many ideas.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, I'm using that for my player character.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: At first street.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Still, we give you way too many flippin' ideas.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Not to say that, you know, the next cult as you come up against won't be magic wielders that maybe just all they have stocked is fireball and counterspell.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Strategy is gonna go up to the bigger.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Mage armor.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Fireball.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Mage armor, fireball, counterspell.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Done.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that's gonna do it for this episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can listen to past episodes of the show anywhere podcasts can be found.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Bards and Barrels.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you soon.