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How A 10-Year-Old Pokémon Trainer Captures
A ‘Legendary’ And Derails A 5e Campaign
The year is 2017.
A group of stupid high schoolers and college
students are playing 5e at a kitchen table.
I was a high school freshman and the new player
in the group.
The rest of the group comprised of a college
senior DM (Alex), college freshman (Nate),
and high school junior (Toby).
And finally a college sophomore (Jim).
Alex begins to set the scene.
We are all at the generic tavern in the town
of Littleloaf as we start to introduce our
level 1 characters.
Nate is a neutral good old Half-elf cleric,
Toby is a lawful good middle-aged Dragonborn
paladin, and I am a lawful neutral middle-aged
human fighter.
Jim’s character is Brendan; a chaotic good
10-year-old variant human warlock.
Nate, Toby, and I share our backstories.
They are all pretty generic.
It was at that time that Jim gives Brendan’s
backstory.
Brendan found a magical talking tree in the
forest.
The tree called Oak offered to be Brendan’s
patron.
In exchange, Brendan would have to fill out
a special book (Pokédex) with information
about any and all creatures he sees.
Jim, who has been a fan of Pokémon since
Gen 3, announces that he is doing a Trainer
build based on one of the player characters
from Gen 3.
Alex gave it the okay and we dove right into
our first encounter; a classic D&D tavern
fight with 4 drunks.
Nate tries to diffuse the situation, getting
clobbered in the process.
Toby is in a fistfight with a couple of drunks,
and I take things a little too far by stabbing
a guy.
“Go Pikachu!”
The attention of everyone in the bar turns
to the 10-year-old and his freshly-summoned
mouse familiar.
One of the drunks begins mocking Brendan and
laughing at his familiar; keep in mind that
“Pikachu” was literally just a mouse.
“Use Thundershock!”
Pikachu crawls up the drunk’s leg and Brendan
casts Shocking Grasp through his familiar.
It turns out that touch spells can be cast
through familiars.
Jim rolls well for damage and the drunk collapses
to the floor.
The other drunks, already mostly beaten, take
this as their cue to clear out.
Thus begins the story of Brendan and his quest
to become a Pokémon Master.
Fast-forward an hour.
Alex lays on the plot hook: The mayor of Littleloaf’s
daughters has been kidnapped by an evil cult
that worships Tiamat, The Dragon God.
With a nice persuasion roll, Toby convinces
the mayor to lend the party some magic items
to help them on their journey.
Nate gets a staff that casts Cure Wounds for
free twice a day, Toby gets a set of +1 armor,
and I get a greatsword that does an additional
1d4 fire damage.
What about Brendan?
Alex tries to hide his smile as the mayor
addresses the boy.
Mayor: “Uh, aren’t you a little too young
to be hunting a cult?
I guess you can have these… things.”
The mayor hands Brendan 5 red and white, roughly
baseball-sized, spheres.
As Alex is describing to Jim what his new
items do, Jim’s face lights up.
Brendan politely thanks the mayor, who is
woefully unaware of the terror that he has
just released upon the world.
Over the next 6 months IRL, we meet on weekends.
Brendan amasses an army of creatures from
the ordinary to the bizarre.
It should be noted that he took a level in
rogue to boost his Animal Handling skill (expertise).
It should also be noted that this guy is STILL
10-YEARS-OLD.
With just raw Animal Handling checks alone,
Brendan gets: 2 orphaned wolf puppies, 23
tiny crabs, 2 very big crabs, a horse with
a unicorn horn glued onto it, a velociraptor,
2 monkeys, an ice mephit, a magma mephit,
and a partridge in a pear tree.
With the 4 Pokéballs he uses, Brendan captures
a rust monster, a gelatinous cube, a freaking
ginormous crab, and a kobold.
Aside from those, he is gifted a hellhound
by his “rival” and is gifted a wyrmling
by Giovani (one of the cult leaders).
Fast-forward past those 6 months.
The party is in the final dungeon of the adventure:
the volcano base of the cult’s leader.
It is at this point that the party discovers
what the cult leader is.
An adult.
Red.
Dragon.
Of course, the party had leveled up a few
times since the start, but they are not in
a position to take down an adult dragon head-on.
Alex tells us later that he intended for us
to solve a dungeon-wide puzzle to make the
volcano erupt and destroy the base.
The dragon was supposed to escape and continue
the plot.
But an easy solution like that is not why
you are here.
You want to hear how a 10-year-old child derailed
an entire campaign.
The party waltzes right into the dragon’s
throne room and rolls initiative.
The fight starts out as most of the fights
did: Toby and I are beating monsters up with
our melee weapons, Nate is keeping us alive
with magic, and Brendan is commanding his
posse of monsters from the back.
Alex, RPing as the dragon, does the edgy villain
“you can’t defeat me” chuckle.
However, we are all rolling unusually high
for our attack rolls and dexterity saves.
Alex starts getting really nervous and the
color drains from his face.
The dragon has about 10 percent of its HP
left when our luck runs out.
Alex: “The red dragon bathes the battlefield
in fire with his breath weapon.”
Nate rolls his dex save.
Crit fail.
Toby rolls his dex save.
Crit fail.
I roll my dex save.
Crit fail.
We all stare at Jim as he rolls his dex save.
18!
He makes it.
But most of his monsters aren’t so lucky.
By the end of the dragon’s turn, 3/4ths
of the party, 2 orphaned wolf puppies, 23
tiny crabs, 2 very big crabs, a horse with
a unicorn horn glued onto it, a velociraptor,
2 monkeys, an ice mephit, a magma mephit,
a hellhound, a rust monster, a gelatinous
cube, and a kobold have been reduced to ashes.
Alex looks over at Jim, expecting to see him
with an expression of terror.
Jim is stoic.
Jim pulls his phone out of his pocket, taps
it a few times, turns up the volume, and places
it on the table.
It’s playing a song.
It’s the damn legendary Pokémon battle
theme from Pokémon Emerald!
The thumps of the bass drum and the dramatic
blaring of trumpets set the stage for Brendan’s
crowning achievement.
Brendan and his 2 remaining monsters (the
ginormous effing crab and the wyrmling) are
terribly outmatched.
Crouching behind the crab, Brendan orders
the wyrmling to keep up the attack.
The dragon was damaged a little by the wyrmling’s
breath weapon, but retaliates by reducing
both the crab and the wyrmling to confetti,
courtesy his sharp claws.
And there, in an arena coated in ash, the
10-year-old boy is staring down the 500-year-old
dragon.
Since Brendan is now pretty much helpless,
Alex, as the dragon, starts to give the “good
effort but you were screwed from the start”
speech.
Dragon: “You are impressive for one so young,
but I’m afraid that your efforts we-”
“Go Pokéball!”
Alex freezes.
Apparently, he hadn’t been keeping good
track of the Pokéballs he gave Brendan.
Kinda stupid if you ask me.
Alex sweats bullets as Jim rolls Animal Handling.
19 + Brendan’s ridiculous Animal Handling
bonus of 10 + the Pokéball’s modifier of
10 = 39
Alex sighs and the rest of the table erupts
in cheers as the 10-year-old-human turned
the BBEG into his pet dragon.
Alex announces that the story is basically
ruined.
(Ya know, with most of the party being dead
and the BBEG being out of the picture, and
all).
Alas, next session would be the start of a
new campaign.
As we are all packing up, Alex pulls Jim aside
and whispers in his ear.
Fast-forward 2 weeks.
A level 10 party of seasoned adventurers sits
in the newly refurbished, but almost empty
generic, Littleloaf tavern.
They ask the barkeeper where everyone is,
and then Alex drops the plot hook.
Barkeeper: “You haven’t heard?
All the businesses in town are drying up.
No one wants to make the dangerous trip through
Littleloaf Wood anymore.”
Nate: “Well, what makes the trip so dangerous?”
Barkeeper: “Well, no one is sure, but rumor
has it that a red dragon has taken up residence
in the woods.
A couple of the people who made it here in
one piece even say they saw a little kid with
it.
But that’s just a load of bull if you ask
me.”
The party decides not to go after the little
kid.
Thank you for watching!
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Pokemon and DnD?
Sounds like an incredible setting to me!
Would you have let your player capture the
BBEG like that?
Was this a great game or homebrew gone wrong?
You decide and let us know in the comments
below!
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Thank you for spending part of your Halloween
with the Team at All Things DnD!
We hope you enjoyed this D&D treat and we
hope your Halloween is full of ghouls, witches,
and liches!
