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Bonus Episode - D&D 2024 Discussion & Happy 5 Years to the Podcast
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Join us for a bonus episode to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. Here we have an informal chat about some of our favourite moments as well as discuss the upcoming D&D 2024.
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
Follow us on our Twitters - @FellowshipTable
Intro written and produced by Joseph McDade
Music kindly provided by Fesliyan Studios
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Introductions
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's special edition episode of the Fellowship of the Tabletop, Bellum Draconis. We're not doing any of the other shit. We're not doing any character work. We're just here to celebrate five years and um talk a little bit about the new rule set for D and&D 2024, the one edition that isn't one. Joining me for this Bumbleweeks episode on a Friday night, ah we've got Ian. Hi Ian. Hey man, how's it going?
00:00:51
Speaker
Oh, I'm a grand man. I was expecting you to say who plays the Warsaw's or Nick's. Yeah. I don't need that shit. I'm not today. I'm playing me. Luckily, we can't see that on Mike. Not right now. Yeah. We've got Callum, who we can see on Mike. Pull up a chair, listeners. Ooh. We've got PoopXy. Hey, Will. Hello, listeners. It's all very professional there. And we've got Will.
00:01:20
Speaker
I'm playing with myself right now. I wish it was alive. Get your twanger out. There it goes. That was a good one.
Humor & D&D Rule Book Discussion
00:01:28
Speaker
Who here has the hardback copy of the rule book? No. I'm well up to date with it, mate. I'm just laughing. I've barely got the bareback version of this. I'll tell you what. It does have a lovely new textbook smell to it. Is it?
00:01:44
Speaker
just as yeah Did you have that good crack as well as you opened it up with all the glue and the backing kind of just snapped for the first time? didn't argue ever How many pages were stuck together before and how many pages were stuck together now? Have you ever noticed how delicate the pages of a player's handbook is actually quite thick? They're not thick pages. I can't hold a lot. No? They're not very absorbent I don't think.
00:02:10
Speaker
Just seeps through into the next one. I wanted to use this episode to advertise one D and&D, and I'm not entirely sure that this will fly with the coast. Anyway, right, we should move on for that moment. Your pages don't make a good cum rag. I think it's not.
00:02:28
Speaker
alice no one's going to buy it now is not why people have bought the handbook ah But the hardback covers my splash pride lie my half alter you eyes um If you can just keep it on the top on the front cover of the hardback You might be able to get to the bathroom just in time to slide it out veryellant Very repellent i play on biscuit with the players handbook last person to jizz has to play a monk or something like that. Do you know how many of a podcast, how many creators slash influencers of the D&D space have treated one D&D with this aura and respect and we're just coming on it literally.
00:03:14
Speaker
yeah and yeah that wasn't How much we like it Ian? There you go. That's how much you like it. And so I have a very, very loose structure to this. A couple of things maybe to start us off with. And yeah, but firstly, it's been five years. Congrats, guys. We've done five years this year.
Podcast Reflection & Journey
00:03:33
Speaker
Half a decade, which is oh wow incredible. And what is it? Four, five births? No, six. Of children here. Six children.
00:03:43
Speaker
I think we really had six children in this podcast over five years. That's bad. So one, two, three, four, a five, six, seven, seven. so Seven.
00:03:55
Speaker
Seven children doing this podcast, um which is incredible. Their entire lives and are shorter than our podcast, some of them, and... Crikey. That's incredible. We did a pandemic. I can see Ian's turned grey as we tell we say this. I have actually, over the last five years, I have turned grey. gif that just saving my joy right the yeah very quickly yeah is what's happening to ian now ah I just think it's it's quite a feat. I think the thing that I'm particularly proud of is the fact that when we released our first episode on the 20th of September, 2019, we haven't missed a single fucking Friday since then. oh Yeah. 262 or 263 now with this bonus episodes released on a Friday weekly. And at the, we didn't know what the fuck we were doing. If you listen back to the first episode, which
00:04:52
Speaker
Do it after you've had some shots, makes it better. But you get to the end of the episode and we don't know how to sign off. We have no structure. And I kind of bumble my way through saying, yeah, this will be a weekly podcast. Tune in next Friday. And then we kind of awkwardly do the sign off with the farewell, which actually was coined by Darren. And I forgot about that. I thought I thought naively.
00:05:19
Speaker
I did the farewell, but he was the one who cut in with the farewell. And that ever since then, we've done farewell. That's up to Darren there. But yeah, having the ability, all of us, to record that much content and organize ourselves regardless of what happens in the fucking world. You mentioned the pandemic or kids, you know, they take up a lot of time, change of jobs, change of houses, all the things that have come along in these last five years for us all. We've still managed to create enough content to produce a weekly episodic podcast
00:05:56
Speaker
Where we, I say we, where Mark and Danny have to craft the stories. It's not like they go to chat GTP or have someone write this out from a fucking rule book that already exists. This world is crafted and a live breathing environment.
Maintaining Podcast & Costs
00:06:13
Speaker
and We managed to do it and you guys managed to lead the charge for it for five years every single Friday. i am gonna be I'm so proud of that. I always will be. and and To know that there's no end in sight, this isn't like a swan song or we've got to five years. Here's a special bonus episode. We'll see you now in you know two weeks time. We're going to drop the ball. Fuck it. There's no end in sight. we we're We've found our area and it's become much more than just a podcast in some ways. It's a good avenue for us all to keep in contact, to check in on ourselves, to check in on how we're doing in our own lives individually, as well as how we're doing families and career-wise and shit like that. And it's just a goddamn blessing.
00:07:02
Speaker
Hell yeah. And it's it's also like the longer it goes on, you mentioned about um every Friday, the longer it goes on, the less likely we are to break it because the more sacred it becomes and the more of an achievement it becomes and the less, you know, the the bigger the drive is to keep it going.
00:07:17
Speaker
um you know to not miss a beat in that regard. And you know I think Danny's done a great job of giving us that backlog and you know the live sessions we've done in and amongst it as well. Returning to live sessions post-pandemic has been that was's been amazing. But I mean it wouldn't we wouldn't we probably wouldn't have kept it up if we had stayed at live. If the pandemic hadn't happened and we'd stayed live the entire time it probably would have fizzled out because life commitment, commitments changed, you know, at that point, three of us had four of us had an additional child within that time, have four more children, which, you know, someone would have gone, ah you know, what I can't I can't do it, because probably me because I've got a screaming child who won't sleep for four fucking years. You know, it's yeah that kind of thing.
00:08:02
Speaker
um And the fact that it was online, I could mute as he cried on the monitor or oh I could pop off and quickly look after him and everything could keep flowing. You know, that wouldn't have been impossible without the option, the advent of, you know, Zencaster and and I saw buying mics and Ian, you're doing all the fucking research in order to let us figure it out, buying the, you know, they're not DIY boxes, but the equivalent of it, et cetera, you know, all that's good stuff.
00:08:24
Speaker
But it's also having the willing cast members to do that as well because it's it costs to get a podcast up and running at just the initial footfall of how much it costs to get the gear together. ah it's ah It's a lift and to have seven, eight people, if you include what previous cast members who are still cast members and and there's always a seat at the table for anyone who's ever been in this podcast.
00:08:50
Speaker
But it's a lift to ask anyone, one, to give up their time, because that's the most finite resource, and then two, to foot the bill of new mics, new cables, new stations for your XLR, and to then monitor yourselves to be a good co-host. So be careful of your fillers and what you're eating and your general etiquette. ah So it's it's So it's a privilege and is it's every one of us is lucky that everyone stepped up. It requires everyone to to kind of reach that bill. And like I said, if you listen to the episode that we just released today, and we have um I put in
00:09:33
Speaker
the very first episode, put snippets of our introduction in there, and then you just listen to the rest of the episode. It is night and day difference in terms of quality, not only in just the sound recording, but in our cadence and the way that we're able to talk and our confidence and our diction.
Favorite Moments & Storytelling
00:09:52
Speaker
everything You hear Darren, fuck me, Darren in that opening segment. Again, listen if you haven't listened to this week's episode, just even if you want to listen to that 20 second segment,
00:10:03
Speaker
My God, that guy has has improved no end over the mic. I think it's also it's been a helpful thing in general life as well, teaching us how to talk without avoiding those fillers and things like that because You know, I remember going through and trying to cut out each of the ums and just fucking giving up a couple of episodes. in It just it was like, right, we've got to stop doing it because I cannot cut out because you sounded awful trying to remove them all. But um how about we go around and we think about favorite, would you ah favorite moment? Sorry, I know. how I know. I know what you like because you said I cut out my fillers.
00:10:47
Speaker
I couldn't resist, I was just like, oh, there's a fill of that. I was trying to move on to, I guess, I was trying to but keep us, keep us jaunt again, the right direction, you pricks. I'm sorry, favourite moment. of the last five years, favorite moment just to you or to your character, whatever you fucking like, the most powerful moment for you or in the last five years, blah, blah, blah, and then perhaps your favorite cameo. That could be a person coming in as a cameo or an NPC cameo or ah anything in that regard that falls under the umbrella of kind of cameo. So we'll go around and just do, we won't go into person and do all three. We'll do kind of favorite moments to begin with. Does anyone want to start?
00:11:24
Speaker
Anyone got one that's off the top of the head? Yeah, I can crack one out straight away, you know me. Well, I bet you can. What about a favourite moment? I'm going to go with meet himself first i' gonna go with a moment. It's really hard because I do have such a hard love for Drago. He's, in essence, a perfect D and&D character for someone like me who's shit with maintaining knowledge of the rules set, which is going to lead great into our conversation about D and&D 1 in a few moments' time.
00:11:48
Speaker
He's a simple barbarian slash became a paladin but he was always really easy to play because he was a stoic o of a dragonborn. There's not many layers to drag. But my favorite moment has to be and and it's it's it's telling because it's the episode that just got released today is nicks. Finally.
00:12:13
Speaker
laying it all on the line, laying it all out there on the line when he's confronted with his captain, his father figure, Hildegard, in the darkest depths of the jail cells, and he lets it out. So far, no one in that campaign, Nix hasn't told, has it just hasn't unloaded on anyone about Here's Patron, ah what that, the spider who swims, what that patron is trying to get Nyx to do, in essence, kill three people to gain more power. No one in the party knows about that. Nyx hasn't been able to open up to it. He's always tried to deflect and deflect and deflect. And he's just been building up and building up and building up. And then he's confronted with his captain and he has to kill his captain. That's one of the three that needs to be killed.
00:13:05
Speaker
And Nix tries everything to try and save that, to stop that from happening.
00:13:12
Speaker
And he's unable to. and he He has this realization when he's there meeting him face to face in the jail cells and emotion overcomes in and he just lets it out. And he tells his captain everything about everything, that deal, that night on the Esmeralda, what that's done. And he's also confronted with the fact that his actions, the repercussions from it, doesn't sit just with him, but everyone in the crew. Like he's had Fassil die and he loved Fassil as the Dragonborn on the ship.
00:13:42
Speaker
as had to go into hiding captain hildegard in front of him has has been arrested and all of this came from some stupid shit that nix did. And it's just it's that moment where it gets too much and he just he just cries his eyes out in front of him this fault role model and he bears all but then it's that it's the moment afterwards where.
00:14:06
Speaker
The captain goes, all right, look, I have to die. and I'm going to do it for you. I still love you. I'll take it. I'll take the sacrifice. I'll die a pirate's death. And then the curse will be lifted on not just you, but everyone. It's a real captain's way out. Danny did a great job with that. He did a brilliant set up.
00:14:27
Speaker
But then Nyx, even though he's had that emotional outpour to still have an ace up his sleeve of trying to change the deal, because that's who he is at the end of the day. he he He moves and he snakes his way through things with a very dishonest approach. Might have a good heart, but the direction of it, no one knows.
00:14:48
Speaker
um So being able to have something that was in my head and planned or maybe I can get out of this deal because of this wonderful amulet that I've got the time tuna.
00:15:00
Speaker
where it can reverse time because the deal always said from the spider who swims, the souls needed to return to the water. Nothing after that. So Nix's mind, he's like, well, they've returned to the water, let's get them back out. And for that to kind of pay off to have, because you can, I mean, everyone who's played D and&D can try and plan a few steps ahead. But it's very rare when your your expectations meet reality. And so to have the opportunity to have, in Nick's mind, Captain Hildegard jumped to the water. He wasn't jumped, he was he was chained to a concrete fucking bollard and sent flying.
00:15:42
Speaker
um so But to have the ability to recall it, so to it worked. like it in't Well, we don't know if it worked, but it seemed to have worked, like time reversed and Captain Hildegard came back on the on the on the jetty, as it were.
00:15:59
Speaker
I'm and then and then next i think try to throw an acorn that sprout at a sixty foot oak tree to break the bonds and we don't know what happens after that but the. There was a slight pay off for me because regardless of what comes after in as a player had that.
00:16:16
Speaker
weeks and weeks of despair and planning and oh god i hope this comes up i hope i'm able to to kind of fulfill this this wish i've got because that would i'd be really fucking cool and it came up i managed to fu fulfill it i don't know what's going to happen but regardless of what comes in the future i've had that a euphoric kind of release where, yes, i I wanted this. I planned this. And it came after Nick's had to bury his soul. So there's so many layers and differences to play Nick's. So if I'm talking about a favorite moment, it's the episode that literally, which is lovely because it's the episode that celebrated our fifth anniversary as well.
00:16:54
Speaker
That moment because it was, it came from weeks of despair and and just sadness for Nick. So it is nice to be able to kind of almost in Nick's mind, try and get one up on this deity that's had so much control over him. So that's my favorite moment. Cathartic moment. Very nice. Thank you very much. Anyone want to go next or just of pick someone? gone Will, you want to um jump on them?
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, I'll jump in. i've got I've got several. I have got several. There's a lot. yeah Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, I think I might have said it before on the podcast. I can't remember, but it was like literally listening to you guys that got me into D and&D in the first place. And kind of I started learning the rules through listen to you guys play. um So to have it as well build into the fact that I can obviously take part in that is is just for myself, a lovely journey that that I really kind of appreciate and look back on with fondness, which means that obviously the first Big memory for myself that jumps in is my first ever time of jumping in with you guys, which was for the Christmas special a couple of years back. Noodle! Yeah, bringing in noodle in. That voice, do the voice. ah Do the voice. Do the right. Oh, I think it's just pretty high up with noodles. Amazing. They're just like friends.
00:18:08
Speaker
You're all my friends, but he's new to now, isn't he? um Anyway, yeah. to And having just like the three or four episodes or whatever that was, and just that little, I had so much fun with it. um And everything that, kind yeah, like things kind of worked out for it that way. So just as a as a mini-arc, really enjoyed that.
00:18:24
Speaker
There's stuff that I know that we've that that hasn't necessarily released yet, but might do soon, which is another favorable moment, which I obviously won't mention now. So in its place, another massive thing was when we just started doing the the the Shadow Men one shot,
00:18:40
Speaker
with Carl Jeet and the other guys and it got to the point where as we were kind of playing and developing those characters over the space of like two or three episodes or whatever it was that I was like this guy he could be a villain this sounds fun and right towards the end just being like you know what yes I'm gonna fuck this whole group over. I'm gonna fuck shit up. I'm gonna see what happens. And everything worked out perfectly through kind of other character choices and things like that. And I remember sitting there going, I know this is awesome, but I feel like an absolute asshole. I think I think even wrote down, I'm so sorry, Callum, I had a piece of paper and held it up to you on the screen because I was like, I had that, my heart was beating. I think I gently sent you a message afterwards saying, this is fucking awesome, or something to that effect. I loved it. As a listener, I was participating, but as a listener, the whole betrayal thing that came with Koji was fucking A. I loved it.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, that that I mean, it was it was fucking awesome. And then for that to lead into like a mini campaign as well, or he becomes a villain and getting to bring in yet another druid um to actually sink my teeth into. So for a character over kind of ah a 20 episode arc or 25 episode or whatever it was. um Yeah, those are ah really big moments for myself. I'll always treasure and remember very fondly.
00:19:57
Speaker
I love that. How about you, Callum? You were just talking about the, um as a spectator as a listener. It doesn't have to be as a spectator, even though you do spectate most of it. um What what um what a well what a drive by yeah um all about yourself? you but I mean, you've been in since, obviously in since day one as well. Yeah, very much so. and what by What about you? There has been.
00:20:23
Speaker
very many, many moments that I have loved um listening to and being a part of throughout these last five years most certainly.
Character Arcs & Storytelling Climax
00:20:33
Speaker
It's difficult to definitely pick one. If I go into my head, one of the things I liked, because it did kind of come out of nowhere, way was the climax of our first campaign. And it might be a little bit self-serving. I will hold my hands up there. But with fully casting hold person on everybody else, just when we're all against Elf here and all that stuff. And just taking the responsibility on myself to end the blight,
00:21:00
Speaker
sacrifice his own life for it and all that kind of stuff. And he meant it meant kind of a lot to me, because even though nobody had known about it, that that had been in place for ages. I'd had that plan with Folly for a very, very long time, months upon months of actual gameplay. And it was even harder for me. I absolutely adored playing Folly. yeah I really... Shader was my introduction, and I will always have a special place for the barbarian who wasn't very angry, really, who was a bit more quiet and withdrawn over anything else. um But to make this known sorcerer who was a bit of a dick,
00:21:43
Speaker
um but still can with a heart of gold and then to do that bit at the end it think it felt very kind of. um Storytelling drama ask and it would it was something that was built all throughout the.
00:21:58
Speaker
series for it. There were so many people who were willing to lay down their lives for it that you could see it just being a cacophony of, I'm doing it, I'm doing it, I'm doing it, and people just stealing all the books and it turned into a diabolical mess. And i the the controlled ending that it kind of permitted me to do ah for the campaign, and it's something I would have loved to have listened to, and still do in all fairness. I do go back to listen to some of my favorite bits in season one, and that's definitely one of the things I always give to. As I said, I apologize for self-serve, but... But what's great about that moment though, Callum, is that it was it was... I remember it feeling close, because I think we all had to roll against the spell save, didn't we? And for a few of us, it was... I say to us, you guys, it was close, or there was there was... There was only Darren, really, um that came close, I think, was 17, and the spell save was pretty close, and I had to double-check whether I was able to beat it or not.
00:22:53
Speaker
I think you still got high up, but I think Darren was the closest. I think you may be about 15 or 16. Yeah. you know And I think that's the the great thing about you know having these big pivotal moments is that it's normally down to look luck. Yeah. The roll of the dice. Whether they happen or not. Exactly. and that's And when it does all pay off, there's something really, really pleasing about that for a story-time part of you, but also from from a kind of that the the the D&D gods have have let it be that way. But no, that's a good moment. And yeah, for just for those who weren't aware of that campaign or haven't listened to it yet, the basic term is clear.
00:23:25
Speaker
i Spoilers! Spoilers! But the premise, I mean, you can go back and listen if you want, but the premise was that, you know, one of the players had to basically, they had to go and get a book, they had to go and get a knife, stab the book with the knife, but it would also take your soul. And by doing so, we kind of close up this rift of undead that were pouring out, named the Blight. So they knew about that beforehand, and they'd had a plan in place about who was going to take it, what they were going to do with it, and then Folly, literally, Kalim's going to tell them, ah, the blue. And I was blindsided by it. I genuinely,
00:23:58
Speaker
I had no fucking clue. It was a really long session because we have multiple fights, Drago fighting Grazert. We had the charge of the tower. and there were clawed falling, there were all these different elements taking place. And it was jumping between two battles building up to the climactic moment. And then that I was like, I got fucking no energy for this man. and I was emotionally drained. And then you threw that and it paid off and it worked. And you you're right. I there are some moments about all these campaigns. I think this is sorry, I kind of jumped onto my favorite part. I owe mean i haven't got a favorite part. I've got favorite images.
00:24:31
Speaker
And I've got so many of these little images that I've built, like almost like story bits. And that is definitely one of them, Callum, that moment. I can see them all. And it's always Mount Dumasque almost. And it's, this is purple energy. And there's this noise. And that I can see the edge. And i I remember where people roughly were on the map, who was where. I remember Elphie's gaunt and kind of like haggard face, this broken elf of a man.
00:24:57
Speaker
Um, you know, these powerful images, but my favorite, you know, this gallon in hollows, um, where you all put to, you but had a, basically our funeral for a dude you'd never met. yeah yeah But there was something right. So how about it? yeah No fucking reason. You didn't even know the guy. And yet somehow you tapped into something there. Um, but my favorite one was on the way down from there. There was a a pulley system to get minerals and rocks in the cliff edge. And there's a fight that took place obviously between these pulley things, but that,
00:25:26
Speaker
My favorite image, and I don't know why, is you guys just chuntering down that, and it went on for ages, um and just the view. And in my mind, that image is so clear in my head, above anything else with this kind of view over sleep guard. And it's nice because, you know, it's a world that we as a group created and kind of pieced together. That was all you, man. But we just lived in it.
00:25:49
Speaker
You know, it was nice to kind of feel, it felt alive then. It felt like your bird's eye, you know, Sim City style saw the whole thing. And that was like a nice, a really nice moment. It was a bit of fog. It was a nice, there was a pricity, warm
Cinematic Battles & Campaign Endings
00:26:00
Speaker
air. And it was just something really pastoral about that image. I was like, fuck that, that's glorious. It's that and the battle of the Blight, that final battle, that whole combat, namely the way it ended up becoming so cinematic.
00:26:19
Speaker
but not at all the way I'd written it. And I remember getting about halfway through my notes and just going control a delete and then just, and just, and just had dice in my hand and, and some, a couple of ideas like that you guys want to leave with. And that was it. And the the whole fight with, um, draw with Drago. And I had to build the map, had to um ah build the map and add all the blight around it and the circle slowly closing in. There was only a set number of rounds you had to fight.
00:26:45
Speaker
yeah And the the charge towards the castle, the death of, you know, there's so many bits to that. Of the death of Claude, man. yeah lord The Claude sacrifice. that's That's got to be up there. It's one of those. but Danny did such a good job playing Claude. He did. To their end. And his final, I think Claude's final wish was for Drago to save Sebastian. No, someone one the air to, was it Sebastian or was it, who's the, this is really bad. It's the one arm. It is someone with one arm that, uh, rain's had to burn all the prosthetics. It's not Sebastian. Sebastian was a drunk, young kind of, he, he fucking, ah he swayed off the blight. Uh, so it was, uh, God, um,
00:27:40
Speaker
Oh, I've forgotten his name now. He was lucium Lucian, Lucian Blightbrain. Lucian Blightbrain, that was it. yeah Like, Claude, even to the end, like, there's this opportunity for Claude to maybe have some saving grace because ah the paladin skills that he himself had imbued into Drago.
00:27:57
Speaker
asked Drago to make sure Lucian was safe. ah He did such a good job playing that. But you are right, that cinematic battle where the camera was panning out of one moving across hordes of undead to the next group as they're making their charge towards the castle. It's so vivid. It was so masterfully told by yourself. And it did it did feel it's really hard in a D and&D campaign for the end to feel like the epic End of the story that you just built sometimes years especially in our case it was years. How do you pay that off how do you pay off two years is over two years worth of campaigns and late nights sleepless nights. Lots of sleepless nights a lot especially on your part how do you pay that off that must be such a stressful place to be as the creator of the world.
00:28:47
Speaker
And ah it really it feels like it was paid off it feel like it was on a grand cinematic world ending live on the roll of the dice live on the side of the sword.
00:29:00
Speaker
do or die and it it felt like ah it paid off the entire season. What's exciting is we do you know we don't we're that for this, but you know we haven't even got there with this season yet as well, which is the exciting bit that we've got something like that coming um definitely with with Danny's masterful DMing at the moment. so like ah How cool is that that we've got that again?
00:29:21
Speaker
I can definitely say that as because obviously as a listener fully for campaign one as well that it it did have the payoff that that you're talking about and I can remember as well the kind of the epilogue section I remember the very final episode and this isn't this is I think just the impact of of the the characters and the story over all of it but I remember listening to that very final episode And the the outro music is is the is the the the fellowship intro music. But I remember talking to you about it, Ian, and definitely you, Mark. You played the full song for it. And that's the very first time I've been listening to this for years, got me into D&D, listened to this incredible story, all its twists and turns and all the moments that you guys are just talking about. And then for that music to kind of carry on and listen to that song and its entirety for the first time. I remember I was i was driving home and I was listening to it and I was just weeping at the wheel because it was It was a perfect closure for kind of everything that that you guys had created. so Yeah, the whole idea of listening back up. You also raised a heavy point that I need to thank Joseph McAde for that theme song because I genuinely think there's some theme songs out there, especially in the D and&D podcast world. I'd set ours up as one of the best and it's all down to him.
Theme Music Appreciation
00:30:36
Speaker
ah especially It's called The Elm Tree for anyone listening to this.
00:30:40
Speaker
and you want to find the song called the Elm Tree by Joseph McCade and then if you wanted to just check him out he's got his own website he allows you to he does free music he does paid music he's become a bigger deal since we got in touch with him and thankfully found our theme.
00:30:59
Speaker
He's really good to work with. So if you are interested, this is also a good point to plug Sencaster, so apologies for that. But if you are looking, this tool there's a couple of tools you need to get started. One is set yourself up with a good microphone. Now, if you need any help with that whatsoever, you can DM any one of us.
00:31:15
Speaker
at our twitter pages which you should know by now but there's you need the recording software which we full-on use zencaster mark's already said that without zencaster this this would have been a really hard endeavor to keep going every week for five years you also need a good good song and i ah really just joseph mccade check him out say that we sent you He's really good, and he can he can do you a custom ah custom opening.
00:31:44
Speaker
You just have to deal with being second best, I guess. That's not an advert, but he is genuinely just, yeah, his music was shit hot. And, you know, we've got some... McDade, not Mcgade, McDade. I knew I was butchering it. I thought that's what you were saying. You're not saying McDade.
00:32:00
Speaker
I don't know what Will's just put on our chat, McDade. I was like, yo, I'm going to look him up. I'm going to listen to that fucking song. The cool thing is I link him in all our show notes. So if I have fucked it up, his website is in our show notes. So just check it out there. And it's in every single one. So but I do have to shout him out because he helped us out on.
00:32:20
Speaker
We found the seat theme song on the, if we released on the 20th of September 2019, we got the rights to the theme song on the 18th or 19th of September 2019. It was a close call. What a banger though. And as well to find that riff in particular. ah yeah And just how it's edited together by you guys. is yeah It's such a good combination of just like the kind of the the jauntiness of a medieval D and&D podcast with a bit of rock in there. It's a great one. Pooh Bear, we haven't come to you yet. what about all Sorry. No, I know. Pooh Bear, what's yours? fun i'll and We need you for rules later. What's your what's your favorite was your favorite moment in the last five years? There have been been so, so many. I totally agree with everybody else. There have been a lot of um really good moments.
00:33:06
Speaker
um I was, when listening, when Will was talking about his as Carl Jeet the bastard, um ah I agree with him. so So having also gone heel with the character before, um it's a really interesting ah moment. um So for Elphir, I spent a long time writing Elphir's backstory as a had really long backstory, talking through campaign one in the Forgotten Realms, and we came to Aerith, we had all that stuff. and then
00:33:37
Speaker
And then Mark contacted me about, about sort of this, this dark influence and going down that route. And that was very interesting. And we've been slowly going down that road. And then, and then for me, that, that final turning point with tomorrow, I was like, well, I'm going to, I'm going to burn the pub down.
Character Dynamics & Conflicts
00:33:52
Speaker
I'm going to let more go to sleep and burn that shit down. about that Um, and, and rob them take away all the resources and get out of there. Um, I nearly murdered Tali. Mark wouldn't let me.
00:34:05
Speaker
My one coup de grace was going to be to murder Tarly and he'd find a dead body. Wow. Robin would fuck it. No, no, Darren would fucking go spare. Generally. He had to. So paternal. What stopped you from doing that? what You did. You told me not to.
00:34:23
Speaker
I said, if I kill Tali now, don't throw hands at the little girl. Probably a good thing. I think that was before, I think that was, I mean, that was post, that was post Shader, but maybe it was just smart. I think, I think I thought you'd had plans for Tali later on. Yeah. As an NPC. So I'd, um, but no, yeah, nowadays she'd be fucking dead by now. Cause the way else, the way I'm doing 24 marks. And what he was casting was that he would have gone into a room and Because he had his own silence He would have killed her and because of his stats he could have dropped her while she was unconscious. Nobody would have heard a thing and she would have been dead. And you would have either found her corpse and the building was burning or you wouldn't have done. So your favourite moment of the last five years is wanting to kill a child.
00:35:09
Speaker
No, no, no. The favourite moment was turning heel. i do i'm I have to kind of give Will some flowers here because before you turned heel, Drago and Elthir, and we did this live in person across the table, had a massive moment where you were just wading on him and there was palpable tension in the room, whether or not that was a player tension or a character tension. But I never once obviously being one of the two characters that was centered in that situation. I never once thought, I hope Will's feelings ain't getting hurt or anything like that because you were the way that you played it and you've done it since with ah everyone as well. Something about you.
00:36:01
Speaker
ah The in-party conflict that you're able to create, yeah but you as a person, knowing it never gets taken personally, is, I think, a really hard balance to have in D and&D. Because I think a lot of people take their characters and and portray it on themselves. It's really easy done. And when you have an argument, are you arguing as a character? Are you arguing as a player? I never once make that judgment when our characters spar off. I'm never going, ah, fucking will.
00:36:30
Speaker
And I'm never worried about it because I know that afterwards we're high five and it's never ever taken outside of the characters. And I've got to give you all the credit for that. I'm full on. I will underline that because you have to do the heavy lifting and that because you are being the heel. So you have to take all that extra heat that comes with it. It's very interesting doing that because it was hard. I was like, OK, I'm going to do this. I've got to go for it.
00:36:55
Speaker
And a lot of people, like you you go on like Reddit and all sorts, and you Google and you search about people talking about imparty PvP. And some DMs, and Mark was great at enabling it, some DMs are absolutely not, don't let it happen, it's fucking shit, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:37:10
Speaker
um But for us, it worked. It worked very much because it really did serve as then a catalyst for so ru so many plot points. So many. Full on. I just have to give you your flowers for it because I think you handle each time there's each time I think you handle it ah because I think professionally is that a word that we can use? We're a fucking professional podcast, I guess, in some ways. yeah But you handle it really professionally. And I've always ah been in awe of that. And it's a wonderful thing to play against you.
00:37:38
Speaker
it's lovely to play with you, but but it's one of the, it's one of the, things I know I'll bang on about all the fucking time, but it's one of the bits I love about like even the most simplistic form of combat. And again, I'm going to, I'm going to suck. We'll stick a little bit here. The most simplistic forms of combat.
00:37:54
Speaker
can be made so tangibly interesting and dramatic through the fact that something happens from the party and you stick to your guns and usually that's centred at some point around will and your characters morals or rights that you don't believe in. I do normally have very polarised characters. Absolutely. And you don't capitulate and go, oh, well, the rest of the group is doing it. You stick to it. And I'm thinking, again, some of the big moments in battles that really stand out to me are moments where there's a basic, well,
00:38:23
Speaker
for me, the battle of bleak, and we'll go back to that, you know, that's a basic, well, basic, you've got the undead attacking, you just got to defend, defend, defend, but then throw in the fact that Drago goes apeshit and keeps himself out and he's going to die in there. And this is, you try and beat the shit out of him as Elthea, don't you? to You try and strike him out like him to to drag him back. Yeah. yeah and And that for me, I have can picture that so clearly, because it's these little moments of internal, internal conflict that, that drives any, you know,
00:38:52
Speaker
I think Ian's totally right. Everyone's relatively, a lot of people get that point, whether you think, oh shit, it's personal because it's at me, but it's not. And we we're all good enough friends here to realize that if anything, it just adds to the fucking drama. And, um, yeah and it's just, and it is, you are majority of the catalyst to that and it's good and it's necessary and it makes for a more dynamic Yeah, and you stick with it as well, which is is awesome as well. you Take Emron, the most recent example there, just his own beliefs. Man, you stick to him. he You stick to him and and you're not afraid because you realize that as the character, Emron would stick to it so much that he would
00:39:32
Speaker
ah harm and throw hands up if he believes that his beliefs and his way of life is is called into a question here. um So he he's got the worst party person at all. it's It's ridiculous. Like if you if you if if you want to if you want to party, he because the the polarized character, he is absolutely it's so difficult because that's it. It's like no, well, I'm going on. It's my where the highest similar to like when you had early Drago, he was very much like a I'm doing it this way, and yeah, Dick had it, because everyone is. Everyone comes across as very moral in that case. But at the end of the day, when you look at it, some of the things he does, it's really dickish, because he'll be like, well, I'm going to do this because it's the right thing. Fuck the rest of you. I totally agree. Gets into trouble. We're fucked. And one thing I've always liked going back to Drago very quickly is just that even though he had character shifting moments throughout that campaign,
00:40:26
Speaker
at the very end he's still self-indulged and went after Grazette one-on-one. Despite the world with the book and the knife and everything he's been through, sometimes you can't just change who you are at the source. And the source of all that pain came from Grazette, the source of his journey, the killing of his father, everything. And you can go through these monumental shifts but the core sometimes you just don't change. and And so you say that, you know, whatever Drago was still took a very selfish action at the very end of that campaign. And speaking of core and ah change, I think that might be a nice little segue into talking a
D&D 2024 Rule Changes Overview
00:41:06
Speaker
little bit about 2024. And then maybe we'll finish on like a powerful moment or something. Otherwise we'll chat for an hour.
00:41:13
Speaker
We can just slow it down a lot. And this is where I'm going to wow, amaze, and surprise you all with my in-depth knowledge. But for once, I feel like I've talked enough during this little pub social gathering that we've got with our beers in hand. So I'm going to step back from the limelight, which I know, shocker. And I'm going to let Callum talk us through character creation and customization as the first bullet point on this list. Don't steal my list. Don't steal my list. I'm open to this shit. for producing me. Ian's gonna be there for the, we need you for the idiot answers. This is all fresh to you. We need you to idiot check stuff. I gotta admit, they're right. I don't know fuck all about D&D 1, all right? So this is the first time I haven't searched it, I haven't checked a YouTube, haven't Googled it, haven't checked an email. I know absolutely nothing about it. So this is- The name 1D&D got dropped by the way. It's now D&D 2024. Yeah. But what happens when it comes to 2025?
00:42:10
Speaker
Don't ask silly questions. Don't ah don't ask those questions. but yeah We're not honest by them. So I can say that's a really way to, that's a good way to aid your project really, really quickly. i think' a think of the way that um You know, ah Magic the Gathering and just they've monetized the constant sets coming out. Maybe it's something like that. I don't know. If we said we're the Fellowship of the Tabletop 2019 edition, nah. Nah. would have been like one D and&D or whatever and it it sort of went by the wayside and a lot of people call it. It is referred to as dan D&D 24 or 2024.
00:42:48
Speaker
I like to call it D&D 1. I like to call it 1. The problem though is, when you do the next version, what do you do? D&D 2? Well... You reach the Xbox problem, don't you? Where it's like, Xbox, Xbox 360. Well, what the fuck? That's a big jump right there. What are you going to do next? Xbox 1. That makes no sense! Yeah. But the thing is, I think for this, because obviously they've never billed it as a new edition. They've always billed it as a refinement of fifth. It's almost like what they could have done, but they didn't. It's like when they did 3.5. They did a 3.5 because they knew it was needed. But I think if they'd done a 5.5, people would have been like, oh, you're just copying what you did with 3.5. So if I rebranded themselves as 24... Indulge me. Tell me all that I need to know. I think...
00:43:36
Speaker
I think what we start with we go through a couple of things and I've got the new player's handbook open. um For those of you listening who don't have the the you got a copy the hero whatever version of it on D&D Beyond e etc. I've got stuff out now which is nice.
00:43:52
Speaker
um so yeah I thought what we'll talk about is look at the character creation because that's changed. Classes, subclasses, feats. Look at spells and magic and have a little tinker through that. Look at the way equipment might have changed slightly, rules and combat, gameplay flow, etc. and see how multi-classing and proficiency has taken a bit of a move.
00:44:12
Speaker
and if Obviously, you know, we're partway through a campaign here. The next couple of episodes will not be 2024 edition rules, but we can talk about, you know, um legacy versus 2024 versions of our current characters. So Seth, Nix, Baal, Shader and... and I'm not sure, I'm sorry, he's so dead. He's so dead. He's just asked on the floor. I had three characters in these campaigns, two of them are dead. I'm just waiting for Alfred to turn. Yeah, me too. Let's be honest. Me too. It'll happen. I've actually installed a kill switch in him.
00:44:52
Speaker
Activate that damn thing you cowardly bastard. Is it in his exhaust? You've got to stick your finger up there. It's like those really fine reset buttons, but you've got to get your finger in there to just kind of activate the camera. I like to think that you explode, but instead of fire, it's just that test cassette tape wire that comes out. You're like, oh shit, who's got a biro? Wheel him up, wheel him up. Wind it back up. His memory bags, they're all tangled up. He's definitely there with that cassette tape, Jesus. thing I've noticed. Did you know they're back in fashion? fuck Sorry, but did you know at this really confused me? the but Right, okay, sorry. We're going to just take a detour out of D&D into the youth culture of today because I found out, and there's probably a lot of young people that listen to this podcast so you can explain this to me, but what has come back in fashion, like the humble vinyl,
00:45:42
Speaker
which I understand because it is in some ways a superior way to play music. What was never a superior way was to cassette, but the cassette has now become a fashion to the point where people now spend over a hundred pounds or a hundred dollars on a cassette player and a cassette will now cost you 20 pounds or $20 for your favorite album. This is 2024 and I'm not joking. I was speaking to someone the other day,
00:46:10
Speaker
And I wasn't aware of their age. And I said, huh remember the days where you have to work ah put a biro into the cassette if it unraveled? They were like, no, I've got a good collection of cassettes. I was like, wow, wow, that's nice. I got rid of all mine. Oh, no, I bought mine last week. What do you mean? How old are you? Oh, I'm 19. You were fucking not alive when cassettes were important. So it's not even a nostalgia thing. It's a pure fashion thing. Blow my mind as we were, but blew my mind. My God. Do they have to turn over to side B for the tracks? Yeah, everything shit. has but They haven't upgraded it in the slightest. It's a marketing... Genius move. I'm trying to repair tapes with bits of tape. I remember recording songs on the radio by yeah waiting for the moment that that guy would stop talking. Click, you could record your favorite song. And you'd have to press play and record on the thing. Yeah, right. So making a character, building a character. Let's get back into that now, the 2024 and not the cassettes. So first thing I noticed, I'm just having a quick look through now, choosing a car. it's The beginning of it seems to be really gauged towards bringing in new players because there's like the bit about complexity levels as well.
00:47:20
Speaker
down the side giving a sense of like, this is an average complexity, high complexity, low complexity. So you know beyond. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's a nice little touch they've got when you're looking kind of picking your classes and stuff like that. But I guess the first thing about character creation that we should probably discuss is the backgrounds, which has obviously changed a bit don't want to pick up about what the fuck has changed there.
00:47:45
Speaker
but Well the the interesting thing is what they've done is is in in the old version you you you chose your your your your race and your class and did all that kind of stuff and they've completely flipped on its head in that you choose your class and your backgrounds before you even really consider Um, your actual characters know it's called species. Now we have to remember our species rather than race. Um, it's a, it's a very interesting sort of sort of flip to it. And the fact that they've now tied backgrounds.
00:48:16
Speaker
into having a more encompassing ability, so it affects your ability scores, it affects your various skills and your all the things that were tied to your chosen species in 2019 version, fifth edition, is now tied to your background, which is quite interesting. Yeah, so i point yeah, because you've got the ability score and background, so a background gives you a feat which grants your character particular capabilities, feats of discrimination. So yeah, yeah i'm the idea that these uh, proficiencies and two skills and one tool. And that's quite bugs. And that was pretty much there in the, in the previous one wasn't there, but it's this idea that you, you can, the proficiency bonus.
00:48:58
Speaker
plus two for level one character and that's the same as well. more it's the The thing that's altered is basically they've ah tied various attributes and various proficiencies to to ah those backgrounds. that's so it's In some ways it's a really good idea I think because it actually forces you to go well what's the concept of my character rather than I want to play a dragon that can hit things hard. You go, no, I want to play someone who has ah grown up on a farm and tended to the land and been forced into a an adventuring lifestyle because blah blah, blah, blah. So it kind of ties in there, which is quite nice.
00:49:32
Speaker
um But equally, I mean, i've some I've seen some people argue that it it can be quite limiting, in a sense, because you go, well, ah can you not be a, like, ah because of the ability scores that are linked specifically to the backgrounds, you can't choose any background and just have any ability scores linked with it. It's got to be kind of tied in, which I can understand so quickly. Yeah. So give me on this one, because obviously i'm I'm coming to this with a wealth of knowledge, but that sounds like it's mixing in more of an RP.
00:50:02
Speaker
yeah yeah with carture Yeah, because there's so many ah easy ways to to nix this where you choose the strongest character. Well, yeah, it's trying to kind of hamfist a story into it. And the whole point of Dungeons and Dragons is the role play element. And do you reckon that some people just take it as the game element or it's to beat the game? And so to do that, I think so.
00:50:24
Speaker
So is this a way to stop? Would you say that? mean i think to rate your reality is more than I think it's a way to reward role players. Because us, with that sounds, that whole like, well, what you were saying there with your background of like being a farmer and how that kind of you were ushered into to war and how that plays in. That sounds like something that we hear at the fellowship. That's our gravy train right there. um And that sounds pretty cool. Yeah. So the background lists three, sorry, I didn't interrupt you well, lists three abilities, increase one of those by two, another one by one, or increase all three of them by one point, which none can increase at above the score of 20 though. But as, as, as already been mentioned, it does kind of, in one way, I think it
00:51:14
Speaker
it guides you towards, and I think you're right, Will, the way you say it rewards you for for RP and for playing a character making a character a certain way. But I guess the the argument that it's it's some kind of more controlling, I guess, is freed up by the change they've made with with races or or species as they're now. So and what's what's the big change there? that I know we kind of jumped slightly, but what's the change there with species?
00:51:38
Speaker
they kind of they It looks like they've revamped most of the species and given them some some pretty cool stuff. Or not all of them. I know that some of them have remained pretty much the same. Like halflings are pretty much the same. um the The full orc class is the same from some of the... um and Half orcs gone, isn't it? Well, they've got no more half breeds. All half breeds have gone.
00:51:59
Speaker
Yeah. But like, for example, Emron, you are, um, did you want to talk through what, like the differences between? So I said, Emron, obviously you did. You couldn't. Cause I was, cause you're RP in it. You're talking about background. You're just getting more. So what have they changed about you? So that they have to ask him. I has changed in the ASMR mouth.
00:52:23
Speaker
In an order that we're surprised.
00:52:29
Speaker
I wouldn't play a Vagemar. Oh man, you guys are just, well. You'd be a cocksimal then. Arsemar is how it's actually pronounced from. Arsemar. Doesn't help. No, don't shut up. So the, yeah, there you go. I'm going to put it in the chat for you all. There you go.
00:52:52
Speaker
Fuck off. But yeah, sorry. this This race, they're meant to be celestial. Now, in the old version, you would choose a particular one that you would sort of go for, either light, dark, or or whatever. But they've actually changed how your transformation works now in that when you transform, obviously once per day, you can transform into into your angel form, as it were. But now it um you actually choose which element you can go for. So you could be your celestial revelation, they call it now.
00:53:26
Speaker
You could choose to go down the heavenly route, or you can choose to shed lots of light, or you can now go the necrotic shroud route, so you can actually have pools of darkness and flightless wings come from you, depending, I suppose, on your celestial emotions at that moment, depending on whether you're channeling. It's really cool.
00:53:44
Speaker
Are you able to flick between all of them at the same time? You can do one, one time, one another. You used to have to be asymptomatic, you could be a fallen one, which would be the necrotic one, but now you can as well yeah challenge all of them. you You choose it when you make the transformation each and every time. That's really cool. I was just looking, because I was, from what I'd been reading up on it, that I hadn't read it properly properly, that that a lot of these species have been kind of nerfed in terms of their special abilities. But looking through it now, that there's there's still quite a bit for each one. i they they have there's There's lots of things that are in there. They've just changed things slightly. I don't i wouldn't call them nerfs. Ironically, um my character, who is celestially descended, can no longer take the language celestial at character creation, which is really, yes, it's really crazy. And the same with, I believe, Tieflings can't take a
00:54:35
Speaker
demonic turtle one of the languages practice which is just it's it's very yeah so you get also get i'm just scrolling through now as we're talking the human gets two choices of size you can be medium or small everyone changes everyone can yeah i'm not everyone i believe oh i don't think that goliaths can and i don't think halflings can be medium or they've also got rid of the straggle one has to be medium but asymar can be small or medium Gnomes have Elves have That was a nice little touch there. um Just a little thing. Quite ironic. But it gives you had a bit of control over it. um Yeah, gain heroic inspiration whenever you finish a long rest. That's cool.
00:55:16
Speaker
We'll talk a but bit more about inspiration stuff later on. So yeah, half-elf's gone, half-orc's gone, we've just gone full species here. Well, the idea is you can still say that you are a half sure whatever, but the idea is is that if this idea that they have stats that are different, now essentially, if you want to be a half-elf, you could become a human and say you're a half-elf, but you're technically half-elf and they've chosen to bias it that way. Or you could be an elf and say you're a half-elf and go from there, I believe. Does that run the same with dragonborns?
00:55:46
Speaker
yeah Dragonborns, um they have made a few changes. They've they've dragged some things in from Fizzban's source book, but also made a few brand new changes. um So with the Dragonborn, their breath weapon, unlike the original handbook, their breath weapon is like it was in Fizzban's with the Metallican Gem Dragons, where it's a ah no longer a you save and you take no damages. It's increased damage and it's a ah kind of a save for half damage. um With regards to the lineages, they're all the same, so you can be the the the different lineages that they've got there. But with regards to the breath weapon, you can choose each time you use it to either make it a cone or make it a 15 foot cone or a 30 foot line.
00:56:28
Speaker
whoa increased utility there and on top of that from level five um you can kind of summon spectral wings related to your draconic heritage and gain a fly speed equal to your walking speed get the fuck out of here yeah yeah we're redoing season one come on really they look really fucking cool they're really really cool now Yeah. So, I mean, Danny, if you're listening to this, I'm going to, I'm going to twist your arm and a couple of WhatsApp's and see if I can get this new Dragonborn in there for Baal. Cause it looks ah fucking amazing. Did Dragonborns have dark vision in the old one? No. The dark vision needs a new vision. Yeah, they do now. They now have dark vision, or up to 60 feet as well. so I like to think that Drago is just going to wake up one day, can see you in the dark. Oh my God. It's interesting because obviously moving down the list d dwarves now have dark vision up to 120 feet
00:57:23
Speaker
And they get a tremor sense now as well, don't they? Like ingrained within their character. They do. It used to be that they now have tremor sense, yeah. That's right. It used to be a stonework so they could just get advantage on investigation checks for stones or things like that. But now they get, how far is it? Is it 30 foot, 60 foot? 60 foot tremor sense. So long as they're touching stone, they can basically sense any creature Around them around on the stone within 60 foot either within or kind of on it's very cool it's it's It's blind sight, but then even more it's it's very cool. Yeah, it seems that they've given quite a few and obviously it's tied to long rest Which is a little bit like the yeah dragonborns um flying which built like the the asma and they're flying It's very interesting interesting. They've given certain certain them races certain abilities that are literally once per um long rest
00:58:15
Speaker
Yeah, there's I just want to spend a just a little bit of time championing Goliath's. Yeah, i i'll die i am a love tele come i I am loving Yeah, they've changed the way the giant interest and ancestry works. So as a frame of reference for the Goliath, there was also a subclass of fighter called the Rude Knight. And what that was based on was The language of the giants basically gave you certain powers like um from cloud giants, ah hill giants, frost giants, fire giants, and all this kind of stuff. They've basically made it part of the and ancestry now. so A lot of this stuff they've kind of added um just
00:59:02
Speaker
as per level one thing. So as an example now, if you are a Goliath and you derive from the giants of clouds, then as a bonus action, you can basically teleport up to 30 feet and you can do this. You can do it as many times as equal to your proficiency bonus, but they've got so many different options and I think this is just the giant and So the Goliath's always a fun class to play anyway in my opinion. I've played them a couple of times and they are good. But this little thing that they've just put in a help I think helps kind of make you think about your background as well of your character. So again, adding the RP element, but just gives you something fresh to kind of um shoot with.
00:59:44
Speaker
So but the um i jumping, we're going to talk about species there a little bit, and obviously on the back of that is the is the character creation concept of the feats, etc. And I know this isn't technically character creation, but obviously the the epic booms that come in. it I mean, we're talking late, late, late game. This is well this wednesday so yeah level Yeah, so I mean, I don't know, I always find it really, as a DM, I've never liked that higher level, I find them icky and difficult to manage because just the the array and the time it will take. I don't know, maybe it's just new on to my part, but it they looked quite, quite sexy. Some of the the the epic moons that you are given just looking at some of them now, Boon of Dimensional Travel, Energy Resistance, Boon of Fate. I think when you're doing that level, thirty yeah, I think when you're doing that level, you're basically the point where
01:00:32
Speaker
You have to have your characters. That's almost where the stories you're telling aren't on the material plane anymore. And you're talking about characters who are traveling to other planes to do shit. Where the stakes can be that high and you're not having to think about your ending the actual material world.
01:00:50
Speaker
I think as well it brings in an interesting point that it's not out yet obviously. It's probably, I think, I can't remember when it's out actually for those with early access. Let's Google it. Let's Google it. Do it. The Monster Manual and the update with regards to the creatures that they're trying to keep them kind of more specifically in line with the combat rating. I know that they're making several changes in that. I've seen things like the Dire Wolf stat block and the And they're simplifying a lot of the stats for DMEs so that you could instantly see saving throws rather than just going, right, okay, what's their deck strength, et cetera. It actually tells you the specific saves and the bonuses and things like that. So it's all broken down and made a bit simpler. But on top of that, I know that they're making something stronger. So for example, with the direwolf, it used to be that if they make an attack
01:01:40
Speaker
um on you You made a strength saving throw to avoid going prone, but with the new Direwolf, they have removed the saving throw. So if the attack lands, you are knocked prone without a save, which wow ah is it's really interesting. Like some people would probably argue against it and be like, well, that's bullshit. Why don't I get to argue against this? But actually, if you think about it, a Direwolf is a large creature. It's fucking huge. And if it is going to leap at you and try and smash you, ah bite you, pounce at you, whatever it is,
01:02:08
Speaker
Like it does make sense. And then it adds an extra layer of challenge. So you've got to think about your movement that little bit more. You've got to think about, do I take this attack of opportunity to get out of there or do I disengage? Like I think it almost opens up an extra element for players because I feel like unless you've got a good DM, like fortunately we do, um where both yourself, Mark and Danny, you you put in different layers within combats and things like that. um But I feel like for a lot of, um games and a lot of players, people end up in a situation where they just run in and it's, I'll hit, now you hit, now I hit, now you hit until one of us drops, and then I'll run to the next person, do the same thing. So it kind of adds an extra dimension, I feel, um with the new rulings that it seems like it'd be quite fun to play with. So the the release date, so the Dungeon Masters guy comes out November the 12th, this year, and then the monster manual itself is February the 18th, 2025.
01:03:04
Speaker
why Why separate separate those? Because you're convinced. Tell me I'm wrong. But to run a campaign, you need both of those things. I've never ran a campaign. But if you're putting your players against enemies, you need to fucking know. Well, that's because the old ones are still valid. The problem is, I think what i think the reason they're trying to leave the Monster Manual later is probably to see how 2024 pans out for the next few months just to check whether there's any tweaks I imagine that they need to change before they manage to put it out to print. I would imagine they're doing it because of needing to make any edits to the Monster Manual. I would imagine that's why. And you know you you could be jaded and say, well, it's to eke out the the fact that you get you get to do a big launch every few months.
01:03:54
Speaker
Well, marketing wise, that just makes sense. it's it does Like it or not, it's a business at the end of the day. yeah um the And there's no getting away around that. that that's That's just a fact of life. That doesn't just reside with D and&D or Wizards of the Coast. That's just how life works.
01:04:11
Speaker
but Yeah, i I'm still surprised that it's a few months away from the monster manual. But when you put it like that, like it gives them a chance to kind of test the waters. with them I would imagine that's why they're doing it. Okay. So um moving on a little bit, ah we've kind of covered feats and origins and kind of the creation of characters, which seems to be, you know, a nice kind of starting in place for it. But another big area, obviously, is kind of spell casting.
01:04:38
Speaker
And I'm just scrolling through now and lots of it, nice and familiar, semantic material, ah verbal elements, uh, spells, lots clarity on some elements. Um, what, what people's major takeaway has been from the kind of the general school of spellcasting. I mean, it can be specific to characters or, or more, or more generally. They've made some spells concentration that weren't before.
01:04:59
Speaker
ah You have a very pertinent example. I do. So, M1 can no longer go into a fight, cast Spiritual Weapon and then slap Bless Up straight afterwards. Because by what? Because Spiritual Weapon is now a Concentration spell. um Which, um for those of you who... ah which is one of those things now, they have increased it so that you can get more damage from it depending on what level you cast it at, which is a nice holdover from the Baldar's Gate um game, if you haven't played it, it's very nice.
01:05:25
Speaker
um So it's annoying in that it's basically stopped clerics from being able to essentially attack multiple times, have lots of things up, which I can understand because if you go back to three point five, clerics were fucking broken and made all of the classes invalid. But nowadays, they did. They did. I could I could rant all about three point five and how crazy it is compared to 5E and it will blow your mind in what what you could do at 3.5, it really would. Because I'm well known for clerics, I mean... No, no, just generally, it will blow your mind the stuff you could do before and then and then go into a fight. Oh, okay, all right. So the time before, there is no time before for me, it's 5E and that's it. this was The idea of concentration... It was T&D style in 2019. Basically, you could you could do that whole thing like before Worldcraft and buff yourself up with lots lots of spells and then go into a fight.
01:06:19
Speaker
um which was crazy but now concentration changed that so yeah spiritual weapons a big one for me um from my point of view I know that um for the druids as well there's some quite big changes specifically to the conjuration spells um not obviously just for druids but a major one that pops up for me that I will if Danny allows me probably be abusing at some point um like things like conjure animals you no longer are able to conjure a single animal or I know that there there used to be like a shepherd druid who specialized in conjuration that could conjure like eight CR quarter wolves and just fuck the action economy and stuff like that. they've They've made a change to the spell where instead of actually creating the animal, you create an area where there are spirits of said animals within it. And effectively, the the the big change to conjure animals, which is a third level spell, which Bar has access to, is um that you can kind of
01:07:13
Speaker
set that up and things within a radius, I believe it's it's a ten foot radius or a five foot radius spell, so ten foot overall, but things within ten foot of that, you can make ah make a a saving throw or take certain slashing damage as those spirits attack things nearby. um And you can move that around as well. Yeah, you can when you use your movement, you can command I believe maybe even as a free action, I'm not even sure if it's a bonus action, you can make that spell move as well. So you've effectively got a roaming pack of spirit animals, no longer ah targetable, I believe, that can just go around and create habit like a moving spirit guardians effectively. no least therere
01:07:56
Speaker
They don't look out of daggers as well. Yes, they've allowed you to move because that used to be a pop up and not move. But now they've they've made several spells that used to be you do this. And then if you've cast it in the wrong place, you're fucked. They can now move. So yeah that's quite nice. And again, going back to like my previous point, it feels like it opens up loads more with regards to tactical combat environments where you actually like I mean, as player characters,
01:08:20
Speaker
Brilliant. We've got loads to play with, but there is nothing stopping some of the enemies we come up against having access to the same thing. So it really has, it makes you kind of have to think that little bit wider, that a little bit more tactically, I think. And I think it will just, um if anything, it's it's a boon for the game rather than yeah yeah something that will detract.
01:08:38
Speaker
Think of the beneficial thing that definitely going to affect a lot more role play, especially in our later stages of the campaign is obviously we talked about it a little bit before, but the new counter spell effect where if you are subject to a counter spell, you've now got to make a constitution saving throw to see if the counter spell actually affects you or not. And I kind of liked that.
01:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, I'm all about that because I think we were talking about it before we were recording, well, the other day, actually. And I like that because visually I can see that instead of just a big, you know, you hold up a new no reverse card or you just do nope, and it stops. You know, you're thinking then, well, how do you kind of spell it? And, you know, and it's almost like Harry Potter, like your little like, u you throw the wand off at the last minute, or like you just get send yeah yeah ah yeah you know because it is it's it's for some spells and there are as will will remind us if we forget sometimes trying to be subtle with spell casting there are verbal semantic and material components to spell casting for some of us and you know that's
01:09:37
Speaker
It's so easy then to be like, as you pull out the piece of dust that's about you, a gust of wind fires it out of your hand, you're unable to cast the spell, boom. And that's a really nice, I think from a DM and a storytelling perspective, a nice way of, instead of just noping them, and you've got a nice way of kind of talking about what.
01:09:54
Speaker
What it means. I love the idea of kind of seeing ah almost like a yeah mind ethereal battle going off between somebody casting a spell him and then somebody trying to stop the but so materialistic or not materialistic, the somatic components to it all as well.
01:10:10
Speaker
And on top of that, the fact that the caster doesn't lose the spell slot, yeah if they are counterspelled, yeah works in the the original caster's favor. So you get fucked for a round, but you don't get penalized. Well, that's it. i think Basically, because we know how limited spellcasters are. And if you are a DM that has the ability to counterspell, you can just hold up but that basically invalidate the character's turn each turn. You're basically like, no. So it's nice to not punish the players for like, oh, shit, I might as well not cast a spell here because it's going to get countered.
01:10:39
Speaker
They don't at least burn the spell slot, it's nice. Yeah, especially if it's a high level spell slot and you're like, I only got one of those bastards and then it's gone. So you might as well, while we're on that, talking about those little kind of, they're not conditions, but kind of conditional changes like that. There's a few other changes to things like ah incapacit not incapacit to one of those has changed oh folks i grapple grapples change doesn't it concept of grappling grappling yes it how It looks like Ian, thank you for asking. It's no longer a contested skill check. So for example, if you built a Path of the giant barbarian with skill expert in athletics with a plus 10 at level four, ah that that isn't going to help you. It's effectively, um you have to make an unarmed, not not an attack, but in the space of an unarmed attack, you make the grapple action.
01:11:33
Speaker
um and the enemy has to make a saving throw and the saving throw is based on your um proficiency bonus plus your um strength modifier unless you are a monk in which case I believe you get to use your decks instead um so you have a set DC for it so instead of it being a contested one the person who's being grappled has a DC to break um so it benefits stronger characters they're more likely to be able to break out of it Um, but that, yeah, that you still have to make a check to try and break out of a grapple, but it's, yeah, it's no longer, um, contested each time to, to kind of counter the fact that someone rolls a a strong character rolls a one and like a tiny week character rolls like a, like an 18 or 19. Yeah. There's, there's a little bit more balance. arguably Yeah. You have to choose. It's when you make an unarmed attack, you choose, it's due damage to grapple them or to shove them. Cause it's no longer like you could, it's not like when you had to split the show of action. Now it is part of the unarmed.
01:12:26
Speaker
attacked it makes sense and potentially you might miss because the whole thing about grapple before was that it was guaranteed to hit. I think you but whereas is this I know you still have to actually hit them before you then have to add on the effects. But yeah, I believe as in do you mean you have to hit their AC to be able to grapple them. So instead of making them a weapons with actor you can use a punch kicker headbutt to similar In games first, unarmed strike, a melee attack involves a unit force, and whenever you use the unarmed strikes, you still have to roll to hit. You can then choose to add either damage, grapple, or shove to the effect. Is that not right with just the grapple of feet? I i was under the impression that you use your your action, your attack action, to make the grapple, to initiate the grapple in the first place. That's how it is in D and&D 2019. But if you if you if you look in the in the rules glossary, which is an excellent addition to 2024,
01:13:20
Speaker
Um, yeah, you now, you now have to, you now make an unarmed strike and then choose one of the following options for its effect. Now, I don't know whether there's this is yeah this is news to me. I'm definitely looking into this. It's just in this handbook now, uh, a creature can grapple another creature. Characters typically grapple by using an unarmed strike. So there may be other options that you can kind of do with it. Uh, but yeah, it doesn't say typically unarmed strike.
01:13:49
Speaker
So again, so for the grapple of feet, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike as part of the attack action on your turn, you can use both the damage and the grapple option. You can use this benefit only once per turn, so you still have to hit the creature with the unarmed strike. See, I interpreted that, and again, I might be wrong. As we're talking, I'm literally looking, I interpreted that as you could grapple them as well as deal the damage from an unarmed strike. Only with the grapple of feet. That's what I mean with that feat. And you know what? how I interpret it is you can only grab the target's actual feet. So it's just, it's just crazy. It's just crazy. There's so many ways that you can interpret this. So for me, I would be grabbing their feet, diving NFL style and I've got your feet. You can't move. So, you know, it's funny, isn't it? We're all right in our own way. No, there's also some new point is that the old version of grapple used to be you take the, you take an action.
01:14:47
Speaker
to grapple, you wouldn't have to roll to hit and you just had the contested athletics.
01:14:54
Speaker
So from looking at, again, at my interpretation here, when I'm looking at the unarmed strike action here, it says whenever you use your unarmed strike, choose one of the following options for its effect. Damage, you make an attack roll against the target, yada, yada, yada, ya yada. Grapple, the target must succeed on a dex or saving throw.
01:15:12
Speaker
So it doesn't look like you actually make an attack roll against it. You don't have to hit its DC, its AC. You can choose the grapple with your unarmed strike. So it effectively means you have to have a hand free to be able to grapple, which obviously makes sense. But instead of having to hit there. Because when grappler then says when you hit a crit with your unarmed strike.
01:15:29
Speaker
you can then use the following options, which is interesting. I believe that means that it literally is talking about you can grapple and deal damage to them at the same time. I'm pretty sure that's what the um the interpretation of it is then. Again, I might be wrong. I've always thought that you should have to roll to hit the counter to grapple anyway.
01:15:45
Speaker
I don't like the idea of you, doesn't matter how high they're, orever you can just grapple them. Do you know what I mean? i Yeah, I agree. But at the same time, you think, are you trying to, because when you roll to hit, you're rolling to see if you can spot the defenses, kind of work your way through, actually deal and or some form of damage to the target. Yeah, as opposed to like the difference between someone in in heavy plate trying to actually grab an arm, as opposed to trying to punch hard enough through said arm to to deal some sort of damage on the other side.
01:16:11
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I think have, uh, it'd be useful to have a little look and just to double check that. But I think just from having a look at it, it's, it's either damage or grapple or shove, unless you've got the grapple of feet, in which case you can damage and grapple at the same time. It's an interesting. Vaguarity within the rules, isn't it? I need to have a, I need to do some. Yeah. Punch the hole in it already. Send out another edition, which is at the sorting coast. There you go.
01:16:41
Speaker
So there's a couple of other differences. Are there new ones? New conditions? I think they took out some conditions. I can't remember. I think like slowed, there's no longer a slowed condition if I'm not wrong. um And I think there's one other condition just to simplify it. so those Yes, you've you've got blinded, charmed, deafened, exhausted, frightened, grappled, incapacitated, invisible.
01:17:07
Speaker
paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained, stunned, and conscious. So some some of them have just adjusted just the wording ever so slightly to clarify, like incapacitated as. Exhaustion has changed in like a quite substantial way, hasn't it? and as i decide That concept. Yes. In that it's different. Go on, Will. No, I was going to say, after after I was going to point at Callum, and be like, go for it, Callum. You probably know this. Go on, Callum.
01:17:31
Speaker
kind of I am muted and I am just... He doesn't know this! I am just trying to bring up a little bit of information. know this! I can't remember. Shall the wills do this? The wills can do it. I couldn't remember what he was. I knew there was changes because there's now six levels of exhaustion as opposed to five.
01:17:48
Speaker
Effectively, well, the sick is still death, same like the previous one, but the difference is instead of it having ah building effects, like a lowered movement speed, then a lowered ability check, etc, e etc, e etc, or the other way around, sorry, um it looks like it has a communulative effect on every single d20 roll that you make. So starting with a minus two, going to a minus four, I believe, and literally chocking down that way as the levels of exhaustion build up until you hit level six exhaustion, in which case you snuff it. So the speed changes as well, doesn't it? Speed by five feet each level as well.
01:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, so it sounds like it's a gradual effect as you get more and more tired, which I quite like. it It feels like exhausted makes you seem actually exhausted as opposed to, oh, I can still sprint and do everything that I want to do, but I can't make out things very well with my perception check because it's a disadvantage. so Yeah, it feels like it's it's a gradual increase, which is quite nice. I like it. There is. And things like that are still in there. So as well as the reduction to your D20 rolls,
01:18:49
Speaker
and the speed decrease per a level of exhaustion, I do think you still have disadvantage at level 1, your speed halved at level 2, disadvantage on a different series of rolls at level 3, your hit points get halved I think at 4.
01:19:05
Speaker
Is that right, or am I crossing old and new here? So I thought they'd still done some of that into the new one. No, from what I can see, it's just what we... Is it just that? I think that's the old one. I think that's just the old one. Yeah. My deans of John is letting me down. Just the cumulative... Full of shit, Callum. I always am. I always am. You've just used the search tab, haven't you, rather than the rules glossary tab of these? Even Ian knew.
01:19:29
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Ian knows everything about this. this i i mean know There's a reason why I'm not contributing. It's because I already know this guy. and i want I want the listener to be able to hear all of this. You still lose one per long rest as well, don't you? That stays the same. yes with I believe there are spells that can help still I don't know if the updated spells because I know they've things like um lesser restoration used to cure a disease as well as a condition like frightened or petrified or whatever it is now it no longer gets rid of that disease so for RP elements like
01:20:03
Speaker
um For example, if you've got a group of people going through the sewers and one of them falls in and contracts sewer plague, as that disease, you cast Lesser Restoration on them, it's going to do fuck all. So they've got to find another way around it um in that way. So it's really useful. If you haven't already and you've got the new player's handbook, have a look at those spells, those things that you actually do, because some of them have been updated with considerable effects. So Lesser Restoration only removes blinded, deafened, paralyzed or poisoned. It's very specific what it removes. It's not just remove an effect. it's these these very specific effects. Yeah, and there are a lot of spells very, very similar to that. But also thinking about spells with regards to healing, that has taken a massive boost. So I think one of one of the the big complaints with people within 5E was the fact that you use an action to try and heal someone and it does less healing than the next damaging attack would do. um So now they've pretty much buffed in the sense of doubled ah healing spells, like a single ah healing word instead of a single d4 plus he modified does 2d4 plus he modified. I believe it's the same for Cure Wounds and other spells like that, so they've really tried to balance that idea of, I want to help my ally um now rather than what used to be just like, right, Les, we've got to kill the enemy first and then try and heal, otherwise it's pointless. Yeah, Cure Wounds is our 2d8 plus your spell class to modifier. Yeah, it does kind of feel like you take a step back in turn economy when it's that kind of shit.
01:21:31
Speaker
Oh, I got 12 back. Oh, you took 20 damage. ah Yeah. and um And it's useful for our group as well, because I know that we've got at least technically four healers in Alpha, Rains, Emron and Baal. So it's it's really useful to know, OK, maybe this healing was going to do a little bit more. Or actually, it's useful to use my action here to to get my allies back on their feet, which is an inevitability when you got someone like Nyx in the party. Nah, mate.
Character Flaws & Storytelling
01:21:57
Speaker
Nah. Nah, I can't see that happening. Nyx is fine now.
01:22:01
Speaker
He can't. He's got to fulfill his overlords. He has plot armor.
01:22:11
Speaker
I won't even come close to dying. Not with a party, yeah. Speaking of dying and ways of killing, then the next big thing to talk about I guess would be the weapon, the weapons change and how that's... Weapon mastery is awesome. I love the weapon mastery. Me too! I'm so glad we got to this point. I'm just looking at it now and from the way I'm looking at it, and do correct me because I am wrong,
01:22:35
Speaker
you are, depending on your build of character, you assign yourself a weapon a weapon mastery. Is that right? Yeah, you can choose them. So yeah depending on the class you choose, your class might allow you to choose X number of weapon masteries. And essentially, you have to specify the weapon and the mastery you're going to apply to it. So this is something... Sorry, go.
01:22:57
Speaker
Sorry, so just to jump in there, some classes let you swap that mastery out per rest, either a short or a long rest. So you can actually, you can be that person with like ah a maul on your back and a great sword and be like, right, which mastery is going to help me best. This feels like trying to trying to bring unnecessarily, because I love the simplicity of it, trying to bring a complexity to martial characters.
01:23:21
Speaker
is that Yeah, it's it's to give them more options. So for example, um if I built 2024 and Ron now has um has three um weapon mastery choices. um Essentially, he's key. So he's a he I can take um push with the war hammer and Nick with the light hammer. um And they do different things.
01:23:44
Speaker
um And it basically allows you as a martial character to do different things, as you say, and just give them a few more tactical options. I think the crucial thing is tactical options within the game. yeah So like just limit to how often you can do this in combat as well. If if we put this in a Drago context for for the ends of our group. So Drago, you and your massive, massive, massive sword, more than likely you would it take something like Cleave.
01:24:08
Speaker
which is if you hit a creature with a melee attack roll using this weapon, you can also make a melee attack roll with the weapon against the second creature, so like through them both, within five feet at the first, it's also within your reach. On a hit, the second creature takes the weapon's damage, but you don't add your ability modifier to the damage unless the modifier is negative. Which means you'd be cleaving through double bitches. You know what? I've heard enough. We'll redo season one. We'll redo season one.
01:24:35
Speaker
i'd love the We want to part like a remake of a video game. That's all the rage at the moment. We're going to have the fellowship of the single top season one remaster edition. There's some interesting ones like SAP, if you hit a creature with this weapon, the creature has disadvantage on its next attack roll before the start of your next turn. Topple, yeah push. You've got slow speed by 10 foot. This is nice, the graze. If your attack roll with this weapon misses a creature, you can deal damage to the creature equal to the ability modifier.
01:25:05
Speaker
you used to make the attack roll. This damage is the same type dealt by the weapon. The damage can be increased only by increasing the ability modifier. So like, the blade misses, but the pummel does, or, you know, just the very edge of the blade. Or the shield blocks it, and it still takes the impact. Absolutely. I really like that. Nick is quite fun. So Nick essentially could give your character three attacks at level one. When you make the extra attack on a lot of the light property,
01:25:32
Speaker
you can make it as part of the attack action instead of a bonus action. make this attack What? I'm having a issues understanding that. there are various There are various ways of, in in theory, people have gone and looked at it and gone, oh, I could build my character like this to have me loads of attacks at level one because the fact that it's tied to the idea of having light weapons. Like a short sword or a dagger or something like that. Light weapons allow you to make ah an offhand attack, don't they? It's a bonus action. Now, it allows you to do it as a and part of the attack action. But if you take like the the dual wheel defeat, whatever, which means you can ignore the light properties, you could have a light prop weapon in one hand, and make the bonus attack within in theory, this is how it's written, probably broken and shouldn't happen this way, and still make your offhand attack. So essentially getting three attacks at level one.
01:26:19
Speaker
that's yeah that's fair just I think you would be able to, wouldn't you? Because it's regardless, um because it's ah it's as part of the attack action, so you still get your bonus attack with your offhand. i thought it like the But it's saying when you make the extra attack of the light property, because the whole light property thing is make you can make an offhand attack with this.
01:26:38
Speaker
Um, yeah. I believe within the rules as well, it talks about drawing a weapon as part of an attack action. So I know I've seen online some people to being like, Oh, I can get this many attacks because effectively I'll make an attack and then drop the weapon and then draw another weapon and then make the attack with that and then drop the weapon. and So like light weapon on light weapon on light weapon. I think that's how people are trying to work around it. Obviously as written, you go, yeah, okay. But Nick also says the attack extract kind of made once. put Exactly. Exactly. Which shoots down a lot of those. I'm trying to find a way to break these people and bless you if you listen to this podcast and you're a nerf like that But I these people who who try and build these men in the game like yeah, and it's just like that's Callum. It's not It's not a computer game today the point five to the point of this game isn't to to to to It's to have a moment. It's a social it's a social game and I just don't I don't get it when they're like trying to
01:27:36
Speaker
trying to figure out out like that. island I love making characters with massive fucking flaws that aren't perfect because for me that's ah a closer depiction of of a form of reality that humanity is inherently flawed and that that's as part of it as part of being cute or you being alive is you're not perfect and no I wouldn't want to win.
01:27:54
Speaker
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be perfect. You're never going to have those cool like coming of age moments or those David versus Goliath moments if you aren't perfect, because then you are the Goliath. You're never going to be beaten. So why is the enjoyment in coming back from you know the underdog story that we all know and love? I love an underdog. You'll never get blasted by a big lightning ball at the top of a tower. You'll never get your hand flayed by an unconscious cleric. yeah I mean, the list goes on. So it's very interesting. Looking at weapon mastery, please remember the point of view now. um So, M1's taking Warhammer, obviously, because he wields a big fucking hammer. I can now push people away 10 feet.
01:28:32
Speaker
straight away from myself if it's large or smaller. now that's not a season one robin busher that i allied where you can push and then get ah attack for opportunity no because the attackable opportunity clarifies that it's an me but also because i've got the crusher fee i can push people five feet away when i make blugeing space so actually i can now push ah ah push opponents away fish calllor feet We're going to say, I can push Callum. I can push Kat. Probably. i publish and This is how I'm going to die. and Everyone's just going to bludgeon me to death. But the point is rather than just pushing them either five feet or 10 feet, I can now push them 15 feet away from me, which is quite interesting tactically. You can essentially clear a path. Which again makes sense given what the weapon technically does. I'm surprised that's stacked in all fairness. does yeah me It's Me too. There's a reason to get the feet. Yeah.
01:29:22
Speaker
Mmm. Yeah. It's virtual space. Yeah, exactly. What do you think Ian? I can't believe it. I've got stacks. I mean, you've got 10 feet, then 5 feet. Why would you think they'd make 15 feet? As you all correctly said, you'll allow clearer path forward. The opening, accordingly, I understand. Shut the fuck up. Can't ring through. No, I'm here. I'm here for you, Caleb. You're good.
01:29:49
Speaker
No, I'll just picture that. Emron and Sauron just whacking people from there. That's the tits. A crowd of things. I need to enlarge him. I'm going to give you a magical fucking fiery weapon. He'll join strength in that thing. Oh, mate. There you go. Just because this is enjoyable at the moment, the change with healing potions, Ian, what are your thoughts?
01:30:12
Speaker
I can't believe that we can finally get some good healing on us so that at least when you use a potion it feels like all the gold you spent on it actually fucking matters here and it's good to take in battle. It's no longer one of these things that you take and just have before battle or after battle you can actually use it as a mechanic in battle knowing that there's a good chance you'll survive the next hit because the sheer volume of healing that you get now. Tell me wrong. Why is it useful? Why is it useful in battle Ian? because it allows you to just be able to take the next lot of attack. No, we've covered that already. It's really true. but And also, you're totally right because it does it does do that. And I mean, mechanically, it's different, obviously, from the 2014. Well, I mean, how how how can it be that much different from drinking a potion in 5V? You're still going to ingest it through your mouth. If you've got a character with a mouth, it might be through the butt. You can convince me of a otherwise.
01:31:05
Speaker
As far as I'm aware, you still drink a potion, roll some dice, it stacks on, and there you go. It's all a bonus action now. At any end, you're absolutely right. Look at him typing and talking. I have to give Callum some props. Callum sent me a side message just now. It just came up on my WhatsApp saying it's also a bonus action. of call yeah that but you're a good bullshit to yeah umpress It was impressive.
01:31:40
Speaker
but we don' I think he deserved it just for the amount of bullshit that was coming out. so we look i mean i think yeah So it enables you to attack and drink, attack and drink, which who doesn't like to do that? What I want to know is if you're wielding a greatsword, can you actually do that as a bonus action?
01:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, mine. Yeah, why not? Well, yeah, because yeah because the an an attack action and a bonus action are still two separate. So you could swing with your two-handed sword, do the damage, release one hand off the sword, drink your potion. And I think now in six seconds, are you able to do that with such a weighted weapon? I would say that that logic is a little bit flawed and it should be cast as a normal action. Are you able to do that? I'm sure. No, is everyone able to do that? Yes. yeah ah the and Let me just practice with my great swords.
01:32:25
Speaker
I think it also feeds into that thing that you said earlier about the will about the um healing po healing spells being changed. I think it is it's a hot house for all that many people are playing anyway, but I think it just allows for, like you said, wail on the enemy and hope you survive. It's more, okay, we can be more tactical about this because potions don't either cost don't cost full actions to to heal or don't cost, well but you know, don't cost full actions. They only cost a bonus action, which frees up. There's still the action economy, which is as a shifted slightly. Well, I suppose it in theory gives you means that you could drink a potion and then decide I'm going to get the fuck out of here, take the disengage action and run away. Whereas before you had to go, oh, I've either got to disengage and run away without any health.
01:33:09
Speaker
or he stand here and heal and then waste the healing because they're going to hit me next turn. So I think the really important thing is giving characters options to run away. yeah For sure. Have we ever used that? No. We tried. Should we? Yes.
01:33:26
Speaker
do we click on Monty Python full-on run away it's hard though because when you're in a party of more than two people yeah ah there's ah right if it's a good party they're different characters some will run some won't run and then and i your car you cutting in trying to suck your own drago dick from season one again Drag
D&D Rule Updates & Gameplay Impact
01:33:50
Speaker
it everyone from the shit. Biggest smile comes across. I got the black guys. You guys run. I got this. Those inspiring moments are, um you know, what make D&D's inspirations. So speaking of inspiration, um again, but there's ah there's a change there as well that, Colin, you were confused about because you didn't know how actual inspiration works. Yes. i've I I don't know where I got this idea from, but on the previous edition, I always thought... Because you never had it.
01:34:15
Speaker
Very true. um But as a DM, I very rarely give it. um I always thought inspiration was you get to roll an additional D6 and add it. And I might have got the idea from Bardic Inspiration, I don't know, but that's how I always played it. ah damn Well, i did I did the rules. No, no, you added a D6.
01:34:39
Speaker
no think that Isn't that original DM inspiration from 2014? Well that's what I thought it was, on but I've now been told it's rolling with advantage. In the new, I believe that is what it is, in the new players' handbooks, isn't it? In the new players' handbooks, it's not the advantage, it's re-roll. Well, if you roll with an advantage, you have to roll two D20s or something like that at the same time. With the heroic inspiration, you can roll and then know how side you Before you decide if you wanted to use it or not. right And you can actually re-roll, I think this is right, and well you can correct me if you want, but any die. So it doesn't have to be a d20, I think you can re-roll it for a damage die as well if you wanted to.
01:35:23
Speaker
um I'm gonna read the actual wording to go from there. That'll be really interesting though. There you go. To stop you from getting a shitty one. And yes, it is literally, it's not. Towards the mic world. Towards the mic. What's really good is that we've done this for five years now and I have to do this live so people will hear this. I have to tell you to move closer to your mic. Sorry. Come on, where's the inspiration role for that motherfucker? Let's go.
01:35:49
Speaker
um Yeah, so Callan's right, you now can do choose any dice roll. You said Callan's right, that's it, I'm done. You roll the dice, and then you get to see the result, and then go, right, now I'm going to use my inspiration. Whereas before, you had to go, oh, I'm going to use it now. And if you roll 2.19, you're like, oh, shit, it's kind of wasted, because they're both in the same dice roll. So it's effectively like a luck point.
01:36:11
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much. But it is one that you can use on any dive, so it doesn't have to be an attack, a saving throw or anything with a d20. That final line though, if you look at it in the rules, if you gain heroic inspiration but already have it, it's lost unless you give it to a player character who lacks it. I didn't know there was a passing option for 2014. That's nice as well. So if you're getting blitzed with it, you can offset one to another player. Well, I think... This is a new thing as well. Humans are the ones, they just have a heroic inspiration every day. After a long rest, they get a new one. They can just pass theirs on if they get another one by all means. The halflings have the lucky feet. That's effectively what it is. It's just a better lucky feat, isn't it? Instead of reriding the one. Yeah, exactly.
01:37:06
Speaker
Although lucky, you can, yeah, yeah halflings, like you can do at any after every single reaction or every time it comes back to your turn, you can reuse it. Whereas this obviously is its a one and done, isn't it? I like those. It's like how I really like the um the divination stuff where you have those, that we roll yeah to roll two D20s at the start of the day. yeah And then you can use it. So even really, I guess the shittest one is like a 11 or a 12, where it's like, ah, nips, it's right in the middle. not going You want really high or really low. Exactly, either. You're going to buff someone up, you're going to fuck someone over. and i like I like that. Yeah, that's a nice concept anyway. That's what I decided when I made Old Girl for You Mark at the the beginning of season two, being like, I'm going to make a character that decides the roles. like Fuck you. that I'll choose whether it works or doesn't.
01:37:54
Speaker
It's fantastic. There is a lot of role influencing that goes on the game and I love every part of it. It's another element of battlefield control though, isn't it? Which is, you know, if you're not inherently a volatile character, then there are other ways to kind of control either other people or the enemies around you. It's a nice little touch. It's not a new one, but it's just something I really appreciate in the game and it's spread. It's not like you can have one character that just controls all the dice. It's spread amongst different, which is fun.
01:38:25
Speaker
I haven't got it. This isn't a segue by the way. I feel like I could feel it all. It was so good. Maybe we should talk about tools. What I thought was that Mark was just taking a rest right there and just to pause, which is really good because the next point is rest mechanics, exploration and survival. So maybe now's a good time to talk about such things. Well, I think we skipped tools. Do you want to go to tools? Well, we're all tools really.
01:38:54
Speaker
And speaking of tools, oh my fucking God, guys, tools, they seem so much... that There's a lot more detail with these in the player's handbook than there have been before. Obviously, you get your proficiencies there and you've always had it. You can be like, oh, what do you want to choose? Smith's tools, alchemist's supplies, brewer's supplies, glassblowers, whatever it is, yada, yada, yeah yeah, that's cool. And you kind of go with it and go, I'm going to make a character that can, I don't know, blow glass randomly and create. That's wonderful. That's a nice little extra. Let's not forget that Drago was actually a cartographer.
01:39:23
Speaker
well yeah whenever it suited drago was a cartographer he was he was proficient in making math we did a good job of just calling that out though yeah like that you try to be settled no drago apparently was a guitar prime example of getting the proficiency and just doing fuck all with it bru I've just been looking through them. Well, you're totally right. They are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. really now they've They've actually made a thing of them. there's You can do downtime activities with them, which I'll let someone else obviously chat through, but just initially um it tells you what ability check you can use to have these tools used. So for example, like cobblers tools, you're going to want to use dexterity for like obviously fixing boots and shit, um things like ah Brewer's supplies you need intelligence to see whether or not you're actually making the alcohol or making a poison, things like that. But on top of that, within the player's handbook, it actually gives you a suggestion of things that you can make, like actual items and gold it takes to make them. So you can do really, really, really cool shit. Like, for example, with Smith's tools, because I know that obviously Emron is a Smith, um and he creates shit anyway, but it explicitly says
01:40:34
Speaker
that you can use these to pry open a door or a container, and it gives you a specific DC for them. It tells you which weapons and armor you can actually make with it, as well as adventuring supplies like caltrops, crowbar, and even a fucking grappling hook. I mean, the the stuff that you can do now with these tools is that there's so much more.
01:40:52
Speaker
um And with the the items that you can add to your inventory, it looks like it's not just you build a character, you've got your your your actions, your grapples, your attacks, your spells. It looks like they're actually really paying good focus to the cool shit that you can do outside of that. And yes, there was always the opportunity to be like, yeah, I'm going to pick this lock. I'm going to go and do this. And the DM had to usually improvise that shit.
01:41:15
Speaker
But now it's very much a part of the game, of the rules, where you can go, no, do you know what? I'm using my downtime and we're in the middle of the desert and I'm going to use my leatherworking tools to create a water skin for us that we can fill with this character's spell or whatever it is. So it gives that extra layer to the creation and the creativity of yourselves, which is really, I think, a really awesome, interesting addition to the game. Just look at the cobblers. With the cobblers tools, you can actually buff a character's next acrobatics check.
01:41:44
Speaker
by spending time improving their shoes, which I think the fact that you can now go, oh, I'm going to do this, yeah is a fantastic little calligraphy. Calligraphers supplies, ability, dexterity, write text with impressive flourishes that guard against forgery. That's again, you can imagine the uses in like kind of a thievery kind of, i' you know, kind of me mercantile kind of way, crafting e spell scrolls with that as well.
01:42:10
Speaker
And when it comes to character creation, you can actually think about these things. you can You can look into those tools and go, well, actually, which one would be useful for the concept of the character that I have, which would be really fun to to play out. so Yeah, you feel more inclined to kind of make sure you divulge that and put that into the character work because...
01:42:28
Speaker
You don't want to just pull it out of nowhere, at least we know the way we play. But they've got some fantastic things. I mean, the gaming sets that will have three dragon antids, dragon chests and whatnot. You can now, to utilize it, which is obviously part of the action, you can discern whether someone is cheating or win the game yourself. So there's ways you can make like parlay or win gold or God knows what else.
01:42:54
Speaker
um with a good DM putting those opportunities in front of you, which I love, I love. I've now given that a good look because I thought, oh, no, I generally have the idea of, oh, no, that's the girl all going to be the same. But no, i I love what they've done with that. That was a new thing to make. What's the bet that Ian's now going to look at Nix's proficiencies and see how we can straight up that dice start right there? I was like, Liar's dice. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. That's how I can make back my gold navigated schools as well. Yeah. for The wholesaling thing you can determine position by stargazing.
01:43:26
Speaker
Well, that's it. Well, you you take the sailor origin um yeah and that gives you various bonuses. Pirate.
01:43:34
Speaker
because you get technically as the sailor you get tavern brawler i think is the starting feat yeah the minus one to my strength that would still just yeah but you still love doing it could be could well it could either be zero or soft skin but i mean the stuff that you can do yes it's really cool i think they've made some really interesting changes that you can actually do some really cool shit with and it lends itself to to either character creation or just creativity within play like within downtime within um RP, there's some really cool elements to just inspire you and go, well, actually, do you know what? There is a rule for this. So this is what I want to do with my time and with my money rather than I'm going to just suddenly make a map as a dragonborn and barbarian. why would Yeah, Ian, you can now do damage with unarmed strikes if you're a sailor because tavern brawling allows you to add 1d4 your damage. Is that an unarmed slap attack? Yeah. Excellent.
01:44:30
Speaker
Quite interesting. Is Nix a slapper? yeah I think Nix can be anything you want him to be. He's more a spanker. ahlthough he said beat then either way i'm in So we were moving on to the long rest, I believe. Yeah. Do you want to start on what was the big change you've seen there? In the old days of 2019, if you had a long rest and you were interrupted by a fight, it wouldn't affect your long rest that much. Massive change this time in that it massively affects the moment you roll initiative in
01:45:08
Speaker
a long rest or a short rest, that is it. That rest is is essentially interrupted. And for a long rest, it means that before you could have a fight, as long as it didn't last up to, I can't remember how long it actually had to last. If it didn't last more than an hour, you were okay. You were fine. Yeah, I think it was up to an hour. Whereas now, the moment you roll dice, or you cast a spell other than a cantrip, or you take any damage,
01:45:35
Speaker
it's interrupted and if you if you resume a long rest immediately after the interruption, it requires another hour per interruption to finish. So it essentially pushes that that long rest on. But if you've rested at least an hour, you do gain the benefits of a short rest. So you can still go, oh, we've not rested for that long, but we get a short rest. Because a lot of abilities now, there are quite a few abilities that are now either you regain one on a short rest or all on a long rest, which is quite nice for a lot of character skills. So basically what you're saying is that every character has now been given a fitbit that yells at them if they don't get the required amount of sleep.
01:46:12
Speaker
It's very real life. yeah There's an extra ah feature in there that I correct me if I'm wrong because I don't think I checked this specifically for the 2014 players handbook, but it mentions you must wait at least 16 hours before starting another long rest.
01:46:29
Speaker
that a lot of people homebrew into their games anyway. This idea that you can't just, oh shit, we need a long rest. Let's just go through a dungeon. Fuck it, let's long rest here. You actually need to wait that day. You can't just sleep the entire day. I think that was, I think it needs to be in there, but not the specific number of hours, I don't think. Right. No. But I really like that. But I really like that. It is 16 hours before starting another long rest. You have like three and a half hours. You can't fucking just sleep, sleep, sleep to get it out. I will go check on that as well.
01:46:58
Speaker
some interesting stuff um but yeah and then short rest i don't think didn't have changed short rest hasn't changed you can still explain the hit dice and that kind of stuff but again it's interrupted um by rolling initiative casting spell other than the cantrip and taking any damage because obviously some people would sometimes cast spells don't require a cat that more than can but you can't do that you have to literally wait until the rest to actually cast those even ritual spells and with regards to that previous ruling of waiting 16 hours that means that if you're on a dungeon crawl or something like that you're in it for the long run yeah aren't you you can't just you've got to then
01:47:39
Speaker
so ration your abilities. Exactly. Because you otherwise you fuck it up, you have to leave and wait an entire day to get your skills, your spells and stuff like that back before you can make a second attempt. so it it almost it It's like role play safe scumming, isn't it? Sometimes. yeah I don't know whether you guys have been... I don't think it's happened within the fellowship, but within some groups that I've certainly kind of played before as well. It's the idea of, oh, fuck, we're exhausted now. Let's just let's just rest now. Well, exactly because in the original and some of the original D and&D games,
01:48:10
Speaker
you could literally just long rest all the time. But are ironically, if you were in a certain point, it would say you can't rest when enemies are near. yeahp yeah um Which then obviously means that if, you know, guys, when you're awake at night and you can't sleep, that means enemies are near. Just saying. god but Just for clarification on... Minecraft style. Handbook. yeah They did say that a character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period.
01:48:35
Speaker
So that's the wording, how they did it before. So they've changed it a little bit, but it was kind of there. I guess it makes sense. It's effectively the same thing. The difference is that when it's interrupted, you go 16 hours from. That's the big thing. Yeah. Yeah. yeah That's really interesting. Good to know. Some good shit that's changed. i'm I'm quite happy with the majority of stuff that's... I love a lot of it. I think it certainly gives a lot more i think variation, a lot more role play. Well, they've they've they've refined it. They've taken it and gone, oh, there are things we need to fix. Let's fix it.
01:49:05
Speaker
because D&D 4th edition was a pile of dog shit. And they they improved it with 5th. Don't hold back, Will, will you? i'm Sorry, Wizards of the Coast. Everyone in 5th 4th edition was awful. But 10 years of 5th, that's quite a testament. yeah It's a testament to anything in mainstream media. 5e exploded. The second resurgence of D and&D came during 5e. Just the popularity increase. Yes, critical role.
01:49:34
Speaker
but It's broken through mainstream media in a way that it never has had before so it's gonna be really interesting to see how dnd 2024 takes that momentum cuz it's either gonna live or die off it and they have this opportunity to push it further than it ever has been because it wasn't with the coast that got 5e off the ground.
01:49:57
Speaker
It was external influences that did that um and shows like Stranger Things, you know. So it's going to be really interesting now that they've got people, whether or not this will make or break them. So speaking of making and breaking, as many of them have been made and broken over the the last five years, I thought it'd be apt. I know we didn't call this one, but I think we kind of covered like favorite coolest of the memories of the of the podcast in the last five years. So I thought um we might look at Cameos So this could be an NPC, it could be the inclusion of a new voice into the podcast. We're talking specials, Shadow Mend, you know, Darren's work with Shadow Mend, everything back to episode one and and be Beyond in the Crispuses as well. Has anyone got any special moments of of of NPCs or those voices that join um to to to add in? Will, do you want to start us off?
01:50:51
Speaker
du As you know, the fellowship in PCPC, I've had quite fortunate amount of characters to come into the game. And I would 100% put money on Vasir Rohan. that That one shot, that pirate one shot that we did was so much out and It was a fucking chaos. I had this concept of a moon druid that would enlarge themselves with those additional spells and turn into a fucking giant octopus. And like I was like, you know what? I want to be a Kraken. It's a pirate. I really, really want that. And it came to fruition in that one short for us as that kind of Kraken attack.
01:51:28
Speaker
right at the end there and that is like just just dnd fantasy of like a concept coming to real life coming to fruition with a brilliant heist everything working out and you know it like it all paid off as well it's one of those moments where instead of things going to shit or oh this doesn't matter like i knew that the obviously the character had gravitas specifically within uh nix's backstory and things like that but For me, I just fucking love that. It was so much fun. And all of the the characters that we had in that one shot were just a really good laugh. It was chaotic. Big shout out to Aunt Liddy. Like, Casey's, Casey's Aunt Liddy.
01:52:07
Speaker
It's one of my fondest memories from a one shot. It was hilarious. It was so good. It was so good. ah But yeah, for me, for me that that is, yeah, I fucking love that. i I always give props to one particular, which I'm fairly certain was a off the cuff NPC, but I still was a nice guy. I can't get over that. I mean, it makes me laugh every time I listen to it. That's such an iconic fellowship moment. you Like, shifting gears. There's that, like, what's your iconic moment, don't you think? Nice guy. that That break of you as a DM and the character, and it just became this iconic moment that kind of, as as it does, it can make you calm, you're right. If I think about it right now, I just laugh. It's amazing. it's the The point was that that was on our that was on our big down that we're down the slope towards the ending then I had the ending in sight and it was the three camps and the you just fought the you know skeletal dragon in the sky we were on our way to open the the three the three um portals up to allow the arms to scourge through the sleep
Character & NPC Development
01:53:20
Speaker
guard surge the armies for the obsidianis you know this big coalescing moment. He's just got nice guy in his head now.
01:53:27
Speaker
i I just had all that in my head and not planned the capture of this ah this this ah yeah shaman goblin and just yeah lost the void. It'd been one of those really fucking difficult weeks. There was a special place in my heart. Be a nice guy, be a nice guy, kill me now. I just think that was That was the nice guy. Drago was the bad guy. Good cop, bad cop. yeah was a Nice guy. Be a nice guy. Kill me. Kill me now. It killed us. It killed us all. That line slayed us. Going into ah my ah favorite side character thing. I've got to give a couple of shout outs here. One to Casey, just for just being my incredible.
01:54:22
Speaker
Like, just, I'm sorry, I mean think all of us harbors love for that, for that yeah supreme human. ah She... We'll get her back on soon. Head in her sleep guard.
01:54:35
Speaker
not just as a great side character, just as a great character. And that came through because of her. um I yeah, we miss her in around the table. She's still here. She's fucking living life and doing amazing things. And like Mark says, we want to back on and there's always a seat there for her. But yeah, what she did with Helena. So straight up, ah number one, I got to give mention to our returning guest, James, every time he steps up to the mic, he comes through.
01:55:05
Speaker
with so much energy and and love and well thought out, detailed characters. I just think he brings such a great energy to it.
01:55:16
Speaker
Will, I mean, come on, you started your career here as a fucking side character. You showed us up every time. We loved and hated having you on because all of us in a side chat would just be like, fuck this guy. We've got hours, that are up like months, years in some cases of of character development and nothing comes across as good as you make your one shot characters. So fuck you for that.
01:55:44
Speaker
Yeah but also well played. Yeah thank you very much. thank you I think old gal has got to be your the jewel in your crown. I think Carl Jeet was a pinnacle for him. I've never have i encountered a character that I have hated. He was single-handedly about you might i made look I still love Noodle, for me Noodle's top tier. Which is going through all his characters. like fuck that guy if Noodle's different, Noodle's a very good, you yeah Will has his ability to create a character for the moment and for the setting that just works. You know, it's just like why? he Understood the assignment. He has he has thousands of the pre-prepared characters. yeah And one of the reasons why, because Will and I talked about this before you know you you joined in, now planning on you know getting you in for stuff and pieces, was part of that was me giving you an an outlook, because I knew you had all these prepped characters. And like Vasil, for example, it's a great little, these safe little one shots where you've got that freedom, was a great way to play test it and see what it was like and have a go at it. And I knew that would kind of scratch that itch a little bit. But and I also knew the, you know, quality of audio work, your character work, like you just smash whatever. So you let's stop. There's a reason why you're here full time and not just, you know, side character. um i I have to give a quick mention to probably my favorite NPC made, because every time I hear the name, I think it's just brilliant Hans Uber for Christmas. I think that is a stroke of creative genius, blowing the lines between what is out there in popular fiction and making that work in a D and&D Christmas environment. I got to give Darren all the props in the world for Hans Uber because prop andber I fucking love him. So there we go. That's my lot.
01:57:43
Speaker
hardly was very i need to come up with a new christmas character to be fair ah yeah it's coming up going up's going up and for me yeah you've kind of taken a mom was going to be casey and playing hell in a sweetguard there was such a good um and again it's a useful blurring of the line between where does Casey end and where does Helena begin but Casey's in a similar position to you Ian that in as much as her strengths isn't in her knowledge and law of D and&D but is in her capacity to play and stick to a character and and and and kind of play with the the feelings and drama within that and like you know just the
01:58:20
Speaker
the awkward royalty of her and the, well, I don't know, was just so like there and real and genuine. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I know, you know, one of the episodes right before the battle where I dipped out and, you know, it was kind of Helena who was that leading force, right? And, you know, take it, I ended up building a lot of that campaign ended up being built around the NPC Hell in a Sleepguard that became the PC Hell in a Sleepguard. And that's a lot of pressure to be like, well, I am the story. i you know That's a nice feeling, but also it's it's a weight that you're like, shit, i've got to I've got to do the right thing here. Otherwise, I fuck it for the story and for everyone around me. and
01:59:00
Speaker
And I think she bore that weight with just ease and just, you know, and ran with the character, ran with the idea, you know, smash at some lovely, like big ah battle moments with, you know, just playing a fucking straight up fighter champion, just hack and slash and just, you know, just did some serious melee damage to a lot of fuckers. um And, and, and, yeah. Oh, exactly. I just had smashing, crushing skulls, I think, lying on themselves. Loads of visceral deaths. And, you know, she she went all all in on it. So, um yeah, for listening, Casey, we need to get back on at some point.
01:59:36
Speaker
and And I know, Will, you want to cut him real quickly. I'm just going to lay her on top of that, just saying like the emotion she brought as well, especially to the final episodes. If you listen to Casey's voice alone, it breaks at the right time. It's because just she was in it. She was present right in that moment, playing that character full on. And that's such a an easy thing to say, hard as fuck thing to do. ah So we'll forever have my respect. Go on, Will.
02:00:03
Speaker
I was going to say, and just a testament to literally what you guys are saying as well, I remember because I was chatting with you as as well, Mark, when the kind of the concept was created and you're like, I'm just going to make kind of the most basic champion fighter, like mechanically that I can for this character. And everything that you guys have said, obviously building on something that arguably would be really, really easy to play is just a testament to to what Casey did with that character that really brought it to life, the skills that she kind of portrayed throughout that.
02:00:33
Speaker
um I was fully as as a listener at that point as well. um was is it It was fantastic. It was really fascinating and and heartwarming and moving to kind of listen to as that character went on and along as well. Just wanted to add ah an extra mouth to some of that. this Shit, we need to get Casey back on, don't we? We do. Yeah, we do. We need to get Casey on. We all love you, Casey. She miss she has a life.
02:00:56
Speaker
um Jesus Christ. But to everyone who does listen, we really appreciate the time that you get with us. Thank you.
02:01:05
Speaker
it a go We don't have lives. This is where we are every Friday night. So I think that's also a testament to our own lack of lives. and Anyway, anyway, well, because you're a poo bear. Sorry, poo bear. What about you?
02:01:19
Speaker
What, favourite, like... Oh, I don't know, NPC. Yeah, someone that isn't one of the main... It's... it It's... It's Drago. That's OK, man. You and a lot of people out there. That's fine. Let's talk more about him. We haven't so far. It's great. Actually, while Will's thinking, because obviously he hasn't had long enough while he's all done this. really enjoyed it when he thought Drago was finished and then Darren brought him back. for yeah While you're thinking about an actual one, you bitch. There's another one that... didn't even make it in i remember ages ago when we were recording at yours ian in your front old house front room and um i got mic
02:01:58
Speaker
Yeah. To knock at the door. Was that ever in? Was that before that? That was pre-recorded. That was pre-recorded. You know what? Holy shit. That was the prep work that one was. Yeah, so we were practicing. We got that recording somewhere. We were practicing. I don't think we recorded that. We did. No, here we did, yeah. I remember very clearly because I remember setting that up with Mike and Chloe and then they came in at the moment and he had his character all prepared and Chloe was super embarrassed about it and I remember watching Ian just go, oh for fuck's sake.
02:02:25
Speaker
because everyone was eating and that's it. We had a massive KFC. That's right. And then just, it was just absolute chaos. Um, but that's another cameo that I can't believe it's about the podcast, but part of the, it happens before the recording. He literally just rocked up, um, from another county. I'm here now who's brilliant and got involved and just tried to kill everything. Um, and then tried to, I think, turn on the party at one point as well. No, he did. He did turn on the party. He was controlled by something else. Wow. So yeah, we're going back into the annals of our beginnings and that was we were, we had just bought our, cause we used to record listeners on, as you may or may not know, it's a singular mic surrounded by six or seven people.
02:03:11
Speaker
in and just big, loud rooms. And it was a Zoom H1Z. And so back in the day when when we were just getting this thing as an idea, like, oh, how would it sound? how would What's the mechanics of making a fucking podcast work? How do we get our voices onto tape and get that onto the internet? um Which sounds way easier now. But back then, I didn't have a clue. We just bought this microphone and it's like, right, so how do we how do we equalize and normalize everyone's voice on one single mic?
02:03:41
Speaker
Well, OK, let's record a few sessions. So there's some there's some unedited, raw, like B-side footage of us all just playing through our formative characters. Oh my, I'm going to have to try and resurface that. That could be a part of a bonus type thing. That'd be awful. That would sound horrific. I'll take episode one as it aired and make it even worse. Well, I don't know because I think the pressure was off because we knew we were just playing around with it. So I don't think we were all as robotic because... Maybe. But we weren't eating buckets of chicken. Oh, shit, man. I love you. We'll... Just say it five years ago, man. We'll not be able to listen to that with his aversion to people chewing and stuff like that. Not a fucking chance to enjoy those. In the fucking way.
02:04:28
Speaker
ah Will came out. he was He's taken this moment, obviously, because he wasn't here. And he's just like, I want a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, I assume, because he's got a kettle in his hand. So he's just ran from the kitchen to his microphone to say no fucking way. So respect the hustle. jar Oh, dear. maybe Maybe there's some other listeners like that. If you are, let me know. Some ASMR. We'll do an ASMR eating an apple. No, I've got that aversion too. I wouldn't be able to edit the motherfucker. Will, have you actually thought of a character yet?
02:04:59
Speaker
um you know but no no could you but all of them and I could talk about characters, but we're not allowed. so um there are Because obviously we listeners, we're recording now in September. We have stuff all the way up until page Christmas. We won't lie. We've been really efficient this year. So there's stuff I can't talk about, which is a real shame.
02:05:17
Speaker
You make a good point that we have been efficient and that that that's so I'm gonna suck someone else's dick here that's a lot down to Danny and his his foresight in world building skills cuz Amazing his pack horse mentality of like we keep going we keep going yeah he like our ability not to engage with the plot yeah that as well yeah there is something to be said because it must be really hard to take someone else's fucking campaign and run with it and he deserves so much credit for for being able to
02:05:56
Speaker
take i would not do it for for example all right so as as confident as i am taking any character i'm running them through a campaign and i am now thanks to this you can give me a character last minute and just say can you run with this fine let's fucking go if you would have asked me to take on the reins of your campaign market use the dm because of how good you are as a dm No chance, not one bit would I want that responsibility. So to be one step up to it, and then two, make it and craft it into his own way, where it's not better than yours, it's not worse than yours, it's his own. and it yeah Stands on its own,
Anticipation for D&D Changes
02:06:36
Speaker
I think, deserves so much praise and respect for being able to pull that off, because that takes skill. You can have the confidence to do it, but to actually pay it off and to have the skill set to do it,
02:06:49
Speaker
I just, that's incredible. The guy is awesome. And yeah, I'm really thankful that we have ah such amazing DMs within our party. should we Like, if Will can't think of an NPC, should we just think of one of Danny's NPCs to to to suck that NPC? Oh, that's good. so I generally can't think of a minor NPC um that hasn't already been mentioned, but Danny's got so many that's that's come in, I think. Claude, man, is going to always forever be my favorite. No, no, no. I think i thinkric i think the cleric in... um
02:07:25
Speaker
gawell snake run snakeron they were ah she was ah hope what a hope may a fuck hope fuck hope man cop was bru is amazing I almost the um it was ah can't remember ah shit which one he is now but he's the one that sounds like the therapist from Afterlife.
02:07:43
Speaker
Hello, I'm here to do some things with you. Yeah, that's not Kareem, is it? It's a Kareem. Yeah, it is Kareem. You're wear my tabards at the duel of the desert champion. Yeah, yeah. Great. And that voice just fucking gets to me every single time. it it's oh but Oh yes, it's Kareem. I just love it. It's the duel. I want to fucking rip Prago's face. I was going to say Prago.
02:08:12
Speaker
Oh my god. The fact I really wish I could punch Prego did genuinely is... How did that work out for you, Callan? It didn't work out very well for me, I'm not gonna lie. um But yeah, when you hate a character and you really despise one, you know it's well written. Prego is top dollar. I was saying a choice i was saying to Callan before this actually, and I'm gonna mention it now because felt like a good point. i the Long D and&D campaign. This is niche, niche within niche now. Running like a long D and&D campaign like this, being a character or a DM in it is a bit like wrestling because it's this it's the constant kind of flux of storylines. it's the you know As long as they have an opinion, it's good. So if they're booing all the cheering, fuck, it doesn't matter because they you're enlisting in emotion. It's the silence that they're not caring that you don't want you want to avoid.
02:09:00
Speaker
It's the the ebbs and flows of an ongoing, constant storyline that doesn't really have an end. I thought that was it it was an interesting like mirroring between wrestling and D&D.
02:09:13
Speaker
Love it. Interesting point. Love it. I feel like we're coming to a natural close here, guys. Do we have anything else that we wish to want? Have we said everything we want to about D and&D 2024? I think we could write so many episodes about it. I think we've touched on some very nice points. I mean, yeah I personally don't have anything more. I mean, obviously listeners go out there, read it, make good impressions. I think we've we've given a nice you know, toe dipping experience. I think from our point of view of of things that we've noticed, we've enjoyed and liked, or comments. We've dipped our really long, dangly toes into the water of t D&D 24. Like old girl style. Old girls got an Onlyfans account out there somewhere and it's just free pictures of his only feet. It's only free toes. It sells as no toe nail clippings.
02:10:03
Speaker
Totally fans. But I don't. I've thought about every else's like impressions they want to take. I really like D&D 2024. I think it's a really nice refinement of fifth edition. I know there are there are some detractors out there.
02:10:17
Speaker
I think it's always going to be. nice refinement yeah I think what's really cool, and this listeners is more for your knowledge, is that we will be adopting it and and issuing it within our characters and our campaign. ah When that will be, it's really hard when you haven't got a monster manual that's not releasing for months down the line. So it's it will come in the future when it's at when it's good, because at the moment asking RDM to to learn all these new rules and these new sets of guidelines and then make them feel real in the world that's already built. It's a really hard thing to do. And like I said, Monster Manual is not even out yet. But we will be introducing these bit by bit. So it will be a good place to learn from your point of view as well. Mark, you were saying? I think it's also fair to say also that we'll probably do something similar to this for the
02:11:14
Speaker
the end guide when it comes out and the monster map, maybe yeah the monsters manual as well, go through the characters, the monsters that are called and the changes that are made for each of the new books when they come out as well. So in a way, it's nice so that you're not just get bombarded with three short episodes of three new books, but um know spaced out through as and when they come out. So um yeah, we'll just keep you updated as they as it comes out and changes. And yeah, like Ian did say, it will take a while before we get out because you At the moment, you can't really run it without the the other two parts. so well yeah And also, in case you have listened to this entire thing, you deserve some background knowledge. like We have recorded episodes up until um our latest one. Hang on, listeners. It was a hundred and episode 119, which won't air until February the 7th of 2025. Wow. So we are we are in a good place.
02:12:06
Speaker
um But there's some, there's just like how we work things if, cause I sometimes I do questions like, how the fuck do you schedule this? Well, you've got so many players. How do you find the time to get this down and make sure that you're hitting your weekly target? Well,
02:12:21
Speaker
just by having everyone fucking on the ball and- Serious FOMO. Doodle polls. Yeah. Doodle polls in so many ways. So many ways. FOMO is a big one as well. Just neglecting my wife and children, that's all. Yeah, I'd prefer our partners, those of us who have them, do deserve a shout out because they do, you know, they do look after us. Fucking drive by. Fucking drive by.
02:12:49
Speaker
no
02:12:53
Speaker
That was such a side part! i finished our partners those of us are that home that That is the Carl Jean stab in the back type of thing there. You
Podcast Journey & Future Plans
02:13:05
Speaker
took it that way. Who bit the bastard in now a thing? I wish the listeners could see everyone's face when that light, especially Callum's, and when that light hit. It like got into my head bush. We take out a lonely heart side at the same time.
02:13:23
Speaker
No, you are right there. Start writing a note for the person who finds me. I think the other thing is that like, my, because when something's that deeply ingrained as part of your life, your family kind of come to expect it as well. And also like, I don't plan things on Friday nights. No. Realistically, I think if I'm going to go somewhere, either I'm going on the Thursday,
02:13:45
Speaker
um and I'll do it on Friday or I'm going on a Saturday after after D&D, the following morning we're off. So like you just you because it's been going, and again, no one wants to miss out because it's so enjoyable, because we do the capture, because it's a great story. You're like, fuck it, I don't want to. I can we just like i remember one of the um over the summer, but um some yeah moved my I moved my trip away Uh, moved out the whole shift of the whole thing a day. It goes a little bit of a problem with that, but I didn't want to miss the, um, no, I moved it back. Didn't I moved it back so we could do the old, one of the all day events. Um, because it was the only a day we could all do. And like, no fucking way we're missing that. I'm no way missing that. And, um, yeah, so it's, it's multiple elements, but it's easy to schedule because everyone knows. All right. If you miss out, you get a FOMO. Yeah. And to get a little bit, um, it's.
02:14:37
Speaker
It's harder as you get older. There's a cliche in that your walls go higher as you get older and and and sometimes it's true, sometimes not. In my case, that kind of does ring true. ah It certainly gets harder to hang out with all your friends and have that life that you had when you're in your young 20s and stuff like that. So yeah there is something to be said.
02:15:00
Speaker
that it's a rare and very fortunate thing that this does bring us all together. And not that we need to be forced in any way, shape or form, but it gives us a a reason. And that's such a hard, it only gets harder as you get older to have that outlet.
02:15:21
Speaker
So I feel incredibly lucky. And to be mixed up with such fine, upstanding people, such as you all and our extended family members as well, and Callum is... I was waiting for that one that time. I really was. You have reversed the car back over. You left him there to the ground now.
02:15:50
Speaker
I'm a fucking speed bump on the road. I've been cemented over at this fucking stage. but I'm imagining that meme, the swing pool meme, where the the the mother's holding a child up and there's the other one drowning. It's like... And kind of... Oh, man. If our partners ever do listen to this, like, yeah, Will is right. We fucking... We are lucky to have... We owe them a lot. Yeah, we do. They put up with a lot of shit.
02:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's what it that's what that's what love is for those of us who um ah I Mean why did you stare at Callum directly in the face? when you say that yes i was star that big sign that he held up saying this means you callum ah You know what everyone's sitting here again fuck Right, and that is the players' handbook, ladies and gents. That's what we've got so far. And that is our fifth anniversary as well. That's five years at the Fellowship of the Tabletop. And the five days say, we've got another five more to come, easy. I mean, shit, with our schedules, like I said, we're already into the new year. Happy 2025. And in five years' time, we'll have D&D sixth edition. We'll be able to talk to you about it then. In four years' time, it's one off a 10.
02:17:06
Speaker
Whoa. yeah ri what's your Right, before before we do close this up, and I'm aware that we have taken up over two hours of people's lives with our shit. yeah favourite quote that you can bring to mind and then we'll... I've got to try my way. There we go. We're going to go round the table. Don't just put yourself as a spoiler already. Let me set it up. We're going to go round the table and then we'll bring this to a wonderful close. Will, as you are already chomping at the bit for it, your favourite line throughout this whole adventure thus far?
02:17:40
Speaker
I think the favourite line has to be chasm. The use of the word chasm rather than chasm has to be up there with me. I've got one. Let me guess, your parents are dead.
02:17:58
Speaker
All right, I'm jumping in next then. i along the light and that was a roll thing Something along the lines of, you're going to be really attractive when you're off. Yeah, I was going to say the same one. I was going to say the same one. It's not that exact quote. It's you quite a looker. um Oh, that one had his in fits of laughter. Oh, gold that was so good. oh no i'm im i'm I'm surprised, Caleb, you haven't gone for another one. It's a very good one from you. So you have to hear what you say.
02:18:28
Speaker
ah it offer My favourite one is kind of along the lines of ah Chasm with Monopoly. just Yes. I know it wasn't part of it, but I love that one. Coludo. Yeah, Coludo and Monopoly. I can't believe that was so quick. but that was that quick The thing is, that clue what's Coludo? That bit gave me the idea, when we discussed it really early on, of having a little single, like one love, stupid one line at the very beginning of the episode, followed by the song, followed by the start of the episode. yeah It was Coludo that generated that concept.
02:18:58
Speaker
what, episode four, five, I think? Something like that. So, you know, without Coludo, we wouldn't have our kind of eponymous opening that we've got. I live for that shit. Whatever the stupid things are always. One of these days, what I really want to do, though, is it will take a fucking age. I did it for like the fiftieth episode. Stick them all together. Yeah. I think I did it for the fiftieth episode and I put more together and that was chaos. But put them all together. That'd be fun.
02:19:25
Speaker
But ah oh we got ah gone in. It's just it's just me. And it we've already said it, but it really does because I would have this tattooed is nice guy. a Nice guy. Kill me. yeah Shank, shank is another one. Shank deserves an argument. Oh, the goblins. Yeah, the goblins. No, that one. Nice guy. That line, because we all broke and I just remember sitting there and you tried so desperately hard to get us back on track. But every single one of us was red faced spitting our drinks out. We were destroyed. And I think we even to the point where we tried to get it, everyone tried to get it back on track. And we felt about laughing again the very next moment because we couldn't get that out of our heads. And I think that's the moment that we all broke the most. Yeah. There have been several moments like that when we have broken. And I think that's one, as you say. And then she's quite a looker when she grows up. There's again another one that broke as well. Yeah.
02:20:31
Speaker
the lot darren lines narrow and a lot I do think there's there's an exchange that happens with Claude and Drago and Robin about getting him back in a book and hold the book to his face. you' go Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. Quick grab the book. grab the book I remember that, that was so fun. I'm a big fan of the poo room as well. Oh yes. I blessed this egg. That was an old school egg. Oh yeah, I blessed this egg. Run down to sleep. With my beer peg.
02:21:06
Speaker
yeah Well, sorry, there's been a lot of harkings back to season one, but there that there are some some great bits about all of it. There's some great stuff in season two coming up that we just can't talk about. Hell yeah, that's the big problem we've got. We've got 15 episodes worth of ah of absolute chaos approaching and it's going to fall. I mean, it's just the next episode we find out what happened because Nix went and fucking went against his deal and bullshit.
02:21:34
Speaker
Yeah. kick off and I genuinely don't know what happened. I wasn't there for the recording. I'm so fucking excited for next week. Oh, I'm quite excited for this. Yeah. so Find out next week. It was a a small selection of people I don't know about what's going on yet. so Well, that does leave me to say you may as well tune in to next week and find out what happens there.
02:21:56
Speaker
I will be to everyone. I've said this at the start of the episode that was released today, but I will just reiterate to our listeners out there, if you have been with us from the start, I mean, fuck me, Jesus Christ. Well done. Well done. that For those of you who have, what's up?
02:22:11
Speaker
Let us know, like, yeah, let us know. Reach out to us. We have our X page, which I know isn't the most popular thing, but you can drop us a ah review as well. um um ah So and to those who have joined us along the way, just welcome to the table. ah Tell more people about us, because I like to think that we're five years you're good to place bets on us. We're gonna keep giving you content every single week. And I do, I just, I know this is gonna sound cliche corny, I've already done it already, but I do have to thank every single one of the co-hosts of the Fellowship of the Tabletop. Those who have been past, those who are present, those yet to come. It's well it's such a, we don't take it lightly. When you're invited, fuck you, Calum. When you're invited to the table.
02:23:02
Speaker
I'm going to make a nice sign off and you're just killing it. Yes, I am. I can start to see why you're alone. This is for all the dry vibes I've suffered tonight.
02:23:11
Speaker
academicly Sorry, Callum, are you still making as much noise? so it if you we Not that we have our pick of players to to get to the table, but You'll and probably notice that we get on with every single one of them is because you all of you just inherently are dope as fuck. And it is genuinely a pleasure to be able to sit through and edit and listen to these laughter. But it's also just I've count myself very lucky to be included in such a wonderful group of people.
02:23:43
Speaker
At this stage of my life i think it just there's a lot to be said for it and i think it's a very rare thing so it's not lost on me so thank you every single one of you and to those who aren't here tonight fuck you. um so I say until next time guys.
02:24:16
Speaker
I think we've established that Kaka Kaka and Ducky Ducky doesn't know what evolution is. So good. What a great film. Formed my childhood then. Kaka Kaka! Ducky Ducky!
American Pie Discussion & Humor
02:24:31
Speaker
What happened to Sean William Scott? What happened to him? he He just got known as being stiffly and he right he rode off that. He got tied cash. That was it. That was it. There's a new American Pie film coming out. Is there really? There's probably not.
02:24:44
Speaker
not i'm ah I'm here for it, I don't give a shit. Those films, there they are perfectly a representation of my teenage years. It's an American pioneer fight. It's all about bitches and how to get my dick wet.
02:25:00
Speaker
But settling for pie instead. Yeah, I'm with you. Just me? Okay. No, but it did make me... I can never ever think of an McDonald's apple pie without thinking about American pie. Because McDonald's is like home made. But with nuclear hot. McDonald's is home made. Such a funny film. So good. What's it feel like? Do you want to feel this one? Like warm apple pie. Apple pie, huh?
02:25:27
Speaker
McDonald's a homemade. I just, it's so good. It's so good. ah Jim. We'll tell your mother we ate it.
02:25:42
Speaker
It's not what it looks like.
02:25:48
Speaker
Just imagine is that being your first film. There's two versions of it, isn't there? Because there's one way he's doing it on the table, raw dog and it which means that he's done this multiple times. And the other one is him ah full hand on the foil part, smashing it in while he stood up towards the sink.
02:26:07
Speaker
ah Ass shot. That's the one I i know. What I love is that my experience of being on a film is you're going to need at least five to 10 takes. So that means that he's done 20 pythucks.
02:26:26
Speaker
I'm averaging around 25 bucks. And he was hungry for it as well. He was young. That was his first film. He would have done it. It wouldn't have been like, oh, no, I mind this now. He full on fucked that thing. He was hungry. Can we have an interview coordinator on set, please?
02:26:41
Speaker
Right, we're going to have to actually fuck the pie. Nah, I'm method, man. I'm method, I go all in. I came in that thing. Just highly scented. One of the socks? No, no, I'm going to go in raw. About eighteen ah eight takes in. Get off my pie. Mr. Kipling, what are you doing here?
02:27:01
Speaker
No, to this day he can't eat pie. I think it's just the amount of in-jokes there must be. I'm like, hey, happy birthday. It's a fucking pie. Of course it's a pie. Don't chump cut. Don't chump cut. Do you think he has kids? It's a lattice, isn't it? It's a lattice pie that doesn't cut the holes, premade holes. It's like crispy top. Like knitting with your dick.
02:27:28
Speaker
Great British Bake Off. What did you create as your showstopper? The pie fucked by Jason Biggs in America Pie. Mary Berry would love that. She'd put her face in it. sugar cream Sugar cream for the cum. Very inventive. that not sugar cream That would get a Hollywood hang thing. I like that you already smashed the pie. How did you do that? Put my dick in it, Paul.
02:27:55
Speaker
How do you get there? There's a certain flavor with this. Where's that coming from? Well, my sweaty, sweaty nuts. My My balls. Salty. Pecan. There's a lot of conversation I thought I was going to be a part of this evening. Conversation. That too. He's hungry. There you go.
02:28:17
Speaker
that was a about That was a deep old American pie holder. I said, I don't know whether or not this will make it or not in the episode. It may be part of the very end. Happy five years. we let elbow This is what we do.