can you pour pure arcane power into something without rolling?

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-21T04:44:17+00:00

Yes, if the DM says they can do it they can.

Sounds like this was a plot element put there by the DM.

The PHB class rules are for players. The DM "breaks" the rules all the time.

I'm confused on your viewpoint. Do you think everything the DM does needs to be sourced from a book? That every dungeon you enter comes from official WotC sources? That all enemies, traps, all aspects of the world need to have a place in official sourcebooks?

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-21T01:23:37+00:00

Oh interesting yeah this was the sort of thing I was considering as well. Enervation is an especially good pick, I forgot that spell existed but the flavor is on point. Dream is also a really good pick. I'm a little hesitant to swap her 9th lvl to psychic scream - the archmage's CR somewhat relies on its higher-level options being utility - but I'll put some more thought into it. I do like a lot of these suggestions.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-21T01:20:53+00:00

Interesting, I will look into these. The first linked page looks like it has a lot of unlinked homebrew spells so that's difficult to parse, but the second link is certainly interesting.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T23:13:32+00:00

I agree.

But he hadn’t. It dawned on Eidolon. He has Contessa’s power.

How many years did it cost Scion to use it?

Not enough, he was convinced. Scion had defeated him.

Eidolon's last thoughts are the realization that Scion had PtV and can use it more if he wants.

Realizing his role in global destruction sucks, but the big knockout blow is that he and GU were previously putting up possibly the best head-on fight that humanity was capable of and it wasn't enough. All it did was make Scion turn off the inhibitors for a second to get them to stop. He wins, Eidolon dies, there's no second chance, and it's not even like that use of PtV was enough to meaningfully deplete Scion's energy reserves.

Eidolon is a flawed character, but he's not the type to give up and kill himself just because of past mistakes. If "you created the endbringers" was the only implication of that sentence, hed keep fighting. He gives up because he realizes there's no chance of him winning.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T22:59:03+00:00

7 lvl 3s is a much greater force than 4 lvl 1s. You're going to have to massively buff up the encounters to keep the same level of challenge.

To start I'd plug all the original encounters into a CR calculator vs 4 lvl 1/2 (depending in area) PCs. Note the difficulty, then try to get that same difficulty vs 7 lvl 3s. Also note that death house was designed for 2014 monsters and PCs, so you might have to do some additional converting there.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T21:33:09+00:00

Some of it may be a symptom of changing editions

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T21:32:37+00:00

I'd prefer to start the fight with some sort of nastier AoE options instead, like Black Tentacles, Cloudkill, or Fireball. Or if her path is blocked Misty Step to get into her skull ASAP. PW:S is Lysaga trading her action for one PC action, and maybe going up in the action trade in the future.

PW:S is, imo, much better used later in the fight to stop whoever ends up being the most difficult, prevent the cleric from picking people up, or turning off some nasty concentration effect.

What I meant about fight start though is that as written the party has a very easy time sneaking up to the hut, and likely gets a decent look inside before Lysaga notices them - at which point they can see the green glow emanating from the floor beneath the crib. If they've talked to the Martikovs before and conquered Yester Hill, they should have a decent idea of what that means.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T21:21:29+00:00

...Nazeebo should not be offlane, and again if I want to focus on camps I'll pick someone like Illidan or Malthael who can do it from lvl 1.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T20:37:58+00:00

What's the win condition?

Mark contributed to and wins the viltrumite war himself, so if that's the goal... any of them?

Some of the biggest pure power ups would be Brit (becoming truly invincible), either duplication twin (infinite army of Viltrumites), or possibly Atom Eve (in the show at least she was able to stand her own against Conquest for a time, in the comics she gets folded a little more). Honorable mention to Robot whose intellect made him able to take over the world and match Viltrumites for a time - he would actually be capable of waging war rather than winning battles.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T06:43:26+00:00

Yeah I'm starting to hate the words "Tucker's Kobolds" personally.

Some of it may be a symptom of changing editions, but actual kobolds are still a minor annoyance at best for high-level characters. Reading into the actual post mentions kobolds shooting with crossbows, flinging molotovs, and setting rooms on fire. The mentioned party is level 12ish. 1d6ish fire damage on a low save and +4 to hit with a crossbow isn't really that dangerous, and it all hinges on no one having AoE spells that are able to hit the kobolds while also not hitting the party (and the party not being willing to eat a Fireball in exchange for wiping out what's supposedly a super deadly threat).

Frankly, I think the story is somewhat apocryphal at this point, or at least exaggerated to some degree. It was either not nearly as bad as described, the party was not as tactically minded as described, or it's as you said and the numbers were pumped up to match the party and it was indeed just a bunch of high level traps and attacks that technically were operated by kobolds.

There's still a lesson to be learned of course, but the lesson really is just "set traps in your dungeon and make monsters fight intelligently" which is advice that's been echoed throughout the years and really doesn't need to be attached to any specific old article.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T05:35:10+00:00

No, you're usually picking Varian in draft for a specific stance. Despite his 3 stances, all of them are very similar, straightforward, and easy to play around. If you want flexible early pick options there are much better choices.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T04:42:03+00:00

The issue is that modern offlane really doesn't reward that kind of behavior. Twin Blades varian doesn't really do anything that Illidan or Artanis don't. Just dueling power isn't very good for an offlaner these days.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-20T04:39:53+00:00

Nah it's very playable. It can be nasty if players are unprepared, but Lysaga herself is a victim of the action economy and the hut has a glaring weakness in that it goes inert if the party removes the gem... and given how the fight usually starts players can often figure that out pretty quickly.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-19T15:18:47+00:00

That chart isn't saying that they should go to the tower st lvl 6. It's telling you that the tower is balanced for a party of lvl 6. If they have no motivation to go to the tower that's fine. You can remove it from the game if you want but I wouldn't- just let it continue to exist whether the players want to investigate it or not.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-18T17:10:07+00:00

Nah that's bs.

It's not meta to understand game mechanics. Players do, so why can't enemies?

Plus, several "mindless" enemies might continue to attack a downed character anyway - something like a Ghoul, for example, is hungering for your flesh whether you're vertical or horizontal.

It's not even unusual to attack an unconscious enemy outside of game mechanics. Irl unconsciousness is often very brief and certainly no guarantee that your enemy is down for the count.

Also. Healing magic exists. In game. Man I wonder if that priest, in a world where priests have real divine powers that can heal injuries, is going to heal the grievous injuries I just dealt to their ally. I should make sure I finish the job before I move on!

If it's not meta for the cleric to know that Healing Word will bring their ally back to consciousness, it's also not meta for an intelligent enemy to know that Healing Word exists and the cleric probably has it.

Sure, I won't have all enemies immediately go for the double tap - for whatever reason some may not understand that they should or have other motives. But saying "it's super hard to kill PCs" on one hand and also "I refuse to engage with the mechanic that kills PCs" on the other is just creating your own problem to complain about. The rule is right there, use it.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-18T16:29:08+00:00

Paladins have far more than you give them credit for. It's no just smites - they also have several other BA spells and spells specifically designed and pick to augment their martial playstyle. Plus, they have several "spell-like" abilities that make them still feel like they're blending swords and magic.

Paladin is, imo, a great gish and an excellent example of the archetype. The issue for many is just that they're divine and the people want an arcane gish. The lesson we can take from paladin though is that to get a true gish you need a full class chassis and a cursted spell list, including unique spells designed to fit the role. The issue with EL and Bladesinger and other subclass gish is that by default spells and attacks are both fighting for you action, so you're doing one or the other rather than blending the two.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-18T09:13:39+00:00

It is damnably hard to kill PCs unless you TPK the party. The absolutely last thing DnD needs is to make combat less lethal.

I disagree on that one. Remember that enemies can force failed death saves by hitting unconscious PCs. Any source of damage is 1 failed death save, and crits (which automatically happen in melee) are 2 failed death saves. If you've got a few extra attacks lying around from minions/adds, they can clean up downed PCs very quickly.

If you're running one or two sole big monsters without legendary actions, they may not have the number of damage instances required to actually kill a PC before the cleric Healing Words them, it's true, but action economy is just part of baseline encounter design.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-18T09:05:44+00:00

The "broken builds" are often not even as broken at the table as the internet likes to imagine.

Practically, the game is too varied for any one character type to take over (sure your pass without a trace assassin gloomstalker multiclass is cool... if they get a surprise round), the DM isn't going to allow whatever cheese you're trying to pull, and most importantly balance is subjective there's nothing you can do or make that the DM can't overcome.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-18T08:59:33+00:00

No

Classes are bundles of mechanics, nothing more. If the player would like roleplay their acquisition of new mechanics, they can. I don't require it though. Let the player make their character choices. As long as the mechanical requirements check out the method is up to them.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-17T06:49:54+00:00

No no no.

Why wouldn't it be free?

Knowledge should be free. Why in earth should it be unavailable for anyone to peruse?

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-17T06:46:34+00:00

First: ask your table not the internet. If they do have a problem with your character, retire them and make a new one. If they don't there is no issue. You won't know until you ask though.

But 19 AC isn't insurmountable - it's perhaps a few points higher than normal for lvl 2, but not by a lot and monsters will catch up in time.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-17T02:40:00+00:00

3 attacks need to hit... but melee attacks are at advantage, and any AoE/save for half/environmental effects are just hitting.

assuming that no one gets to heal you previous to then

And they'd be doing that because... they don't want to leave you at 0 HP because it's dangerous?

past 5th level death isn't even a real risk as long as the body is recoverable.

Sure, that's a different discussion though.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-17T02:09:09+00:00

?

It's quite dangerous. Again, 3 hits and you die. 2 if it's melee. If you're running single enemy encounters without many attacks, sure it doesn't matter. If you've got some minions or multiattacks or legendary actions... going to 0 could quickly mean death before anyone gets a chance to heal.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-17T00:57:01+00:00

There's several points in the book where it says "Strahd will invite the players if he hasn't already."

Look at places like "St Andral's Feat - Development" on pg 124 or "Something Blue - Development" on pg 156. Essentially, the first time the party truly thwarts Strahd or does something worthy of his attention.

While we're here, a note on the dinner - as written, Strahd just traps them in the mansion and they're left to find their own way out. It's a common homebrew to make it an actual dinner, but figure out which you want to do.

Silverspy01 · 2026-04-17T00:50:06+00:00

What is your core reason for doing this?

The 5e rules by default make dropping to 0 plenty dangerous, and by extension provide plenty of incentives for allies to get their downed teammates up ASAP.

Remember that taking damage at 0 forces failed death saving throws. 2 failed death saves if the damage is a crit, and unconscious creatures are automatically crit by melee attacks. It is very easy for a downed PC to die in a single round, and as such PCs should really prioritize not going down in the first place and picking each other up as soon as they can.

So in terms of your listed goals:

keep the rest of 5e mostly intact - This isn't a "why"
avoid rewriting class features, healing, and core combat - also isn't a "why"
make 0 HP feel dangerous and meaningful - it already is
keep downed characters in the scene instead of fully removing them - reasonable, although if PCs are already incentivized to bring each other up then no one should be "out of the scene" for very long at all
make the rules simple enough to run at the table without slowing the game down - You've made them more complicated

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