0:00

Today on the Lazy RPG talk show, there's

0:02

a bunch of different humble bundles that look

0:04

quite interesting. We're going to take a look

0:06

at those. We're going to look at the

0:09

Kickstarter for Zaminora, Ballad of the Witch, Sigil,

0:11

Wizards of the Coast 3D virtual tabletop, appears

0:13

to be all but dead. We're going to

0:15

talk about that a little bit. I had

0:18

the wonderful opportunity to run a first level

0:20

Shadow the Weird Wizard game, so I'm going

0:22

to give some quick impressions of Shadow the

0:24

Weird Wizard based off of that one game.

0:26

Today we're going to talk about defending yourself

0:29

out of the fun. How some players seek

0:31

such high defensive capabilities that they essentially

0:33

make the game and the threat of

0:35

the game meaningless. And we're going to

0:38

cover more questions from the Patreon Q&A.

0:40

All today on the Lazy RPG RPG

0:42

talk show. I'm Mike Shea, your pal

0:44

from Sly Flurish. to talk about all

0:46

things in tabletop role-playing games. The Lazy

0:48

RPD talk show is brought to you

0:51

by the patrons of Sly Flourish. Patrons

0:53

get access to all kinds of tips,

0:55

tricks, tools, scenarios, the whole separate podcast,

0:57

the dedicated discourse everything they get so

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much that the patrons of Sly Flourish

1:02

get, and they help me put

1:04

on shows like this. To the

1:06

patrons of Sly Flourish, thank you

1:08

so much for your outstanding support.

1:10

I often mention that humble bundles

1:12

and bundles of holding are the

1:14

best ways to get lots of

1:16

material for a very low price

1:18

and there are three count them

1:20

three humble bundles going on right

1:22

now all of which are pretty

1:24

tremendous. The first one is a

1:27

Delta Green Humbel bundle with

1:29

proceeds and I think even

1:31

some matching that are going

1:33

to help in Ukraine. Delta

1:35

Green is a Call of

1:37

Modern Day Kalehoo game. 25

1:39

bucks gets you 58 items,

1:41

less than 50 cents a book. or 50

1:44

cents an item, of course different items have

1:46

different sizes, for all of Delta Green, which

1:48

includes a bunch of material for various virtual

1:50

tabletops, including the Roll 20 and Foundry. You

1:52

can find a link, I don't really know,

1:54

I've never played Delta Green, so I don't

1:56

know very much about it, but you can

1:59

find a link. down to the Delta Green

2:01

Humbel bundle below. Looks quite reasonable. Lots of

2:03

people are very excited about it. I just

2:05

haven't played it, so I can't really say.

2:08

So it comes with the Delta Green Corebook,

2:10

which is called the Agent's Handbook, and a

2:12

whole bunch of different stuff to play Delta

2:14

Green. So if you are looking into, hey,

2:16

a modern day Kolkathulu style game, and you

2:19

want to help support direct relief, you can

2:21

take a look at the Delta Green Humbel

2:23

bundle bundle. The next one

2:25

I picked this one up is a

2:27

this is the first time we've I

2:30

think we've seen Wizards of the Coast

2:32

doing a Humba bundle and they are

2:34

doing a world of Dragon Lance book

2:36

bundle which includes all of the main

2:38

Dragon Lance books I don't know if

2:41

it's every single Dragon Lance book book

2:43

but it's all of the main Dragon

2:45

Lance books I don't know if it's

2:47

every single Dragon Lance book but it's

2:49

all of these books available in EPU

2:52

that you can then put on any

2:54

device or read on any platform that

2:56

can read EPUs. EPUs. process. $18 for

2:58

26 books. So less than a dollar

3:01

a book, including them. Three main Dragon

3:03

Lance books, if you've never read them.

3:05

If you've never read them, there's certainly

3:07

a read. I don't know how well

3:09

they hold up these days, but I

3:12

started reading them. They're fun. So if

3:14

you want some good... You know, good

3:16

old D&D reads, this is a fantastic

3:18

one, and 18 bucks is an absolute

3:20

steal for this many e-books. So check

3:23

out the World of Dragon Lance book

3:25

bundle, also available on Humba bundle. And

3:27

thanks to Wizards of the Coast for

3:29

putting out material in a non-DRMed downloadable

3:31

format that you can download and own

3:34

and keep. I would love to see

3:36

more stuff like that. And then the

3:38

last Humba bundle I just found out

3:40

about yesterday is a player focused... source

3:42

material from Coble Press. So it includes

3:45

Deep Magic 1 and 2, it includes

3:47

the Foundry license for Deep Magic, vault

3:49

of magic, which are magic items, the

3:51

Midgard Heroes handback, Zobat Clockwork City, which

3:53

I really loved, the Southlands Player Guide,

3:56

all four warlock grimoires. These are really

3:58

cool books that encapsulate all of the

4:00

materials. So even though this is. mostly

4:02

focused on player stuff. There's actually a

4:05

fair bit of GM stuff in here

4:07

as well, but you don't get like

4:09

probably the two books that I would

4:11

love, but they're not in here, the

4:13

Midguard World book, and the Southlands book

4:16

are outstanding, and there's other ones as

4:18

well. Lots of separate warlock. I actually

4:20

have some stuff in here. I think

4:22

one of these warlock magazines, to your

4:24

5E games, so very good. but it

4:27

includes probably about, it looks like five

4:29

or six really big books. in PDF.

4:31

So if you're looking for more character

4:33

options, and one thing I always think

4:35

about with these is they don't always

4:38

have to be like just full character

4:40

options. These are things that GMs can

4:42

use to kind of modify their game.

4:44

The Deep Magic One and Two, for

4:46

example, have so many, more than like

4:49

a thousand, more like a thousand spells

4:51

that you can go to find like

4:53

one spell to a single item that

4:55

the characters can use or to give

4:58

to monsters and stuff. books. So I

5:00

use Tome of Heroes as well, which

5:02

is not one of the books that

5:04

you get on here. Really cool bundle,

5:06

very good rate, and you can find

5:09

a link to that. That one is

5:11

helping to support Make a Wish, so

5:13

you can find that out in the

5:15

show notes as well. So three big

5:17

humble bundles. I think if you picked

5:20

them up, you get like 150 books.

5:22

That's a whole lot of stuff that

5:24

you get. Zaminora! Zemanor, ballot of the

5:26

witch, Grim Tales inspired by a Balkan

5:28

and Slavic folklore for D&D 5E, D&D

5:31

2024, and the legend and the mist

5:33

RPG. I don't know what legend and

5:35

the mist is. Seems to be doing

5:37

quite well. I've only just glanced at

5:39

it, but I did say, hey, does

5:42

it have a one-click preview? And the

5:44

answer is, yes, it does. You can

5:46

click down, and I think it goes

5:48

to a Google Drive, and I think

5:51

it goes to a Google Drive. where

5:53

you can open it up and take

5:55

a look at it to see what

5:57

it's like. And oh, this is the

5:59

spreads, I see. I thought I'd put

6:02

Zaminora on, there it is. Good looking

6:04

book. I did not have a chance

6:06

to dive in too deep, but if

6:08

you were looking for new options, new

6:10

interesting things to drop into your 5E

6:13

games, a new angle on it, then

6:15

you can check this out. and check

6:17

out the free preview and see what

6:19

you think of it. See of the

6:21

extended, you know, see what kind of

6:24

material it's got. The artwork, they are

6:26

a no AI company, so all of

6:28

the artwork is generated by human beings,

6:30

for human beings, which I appreciate. It

6:32

looks quite interesting. So I only just

6:35

got it, so I have not had

6:37

a chance to take much of a

6:39

look, but it looks pretty cool as

6:41

well. So that is the Zaminora ballot

6:44

of the witch. Kickstarter available now. You

6:46

can find a link to that down

6:48

in the show notes and check it

6:50

out and see what you think. So

6:52

last week, I guess, yeah, it was

6:55

over the last week, we first heard

6:57

from Andy Collins that 90% of the

6:59

team that was working on Sigil, the

7:01

virtual table, the 3D virtual tabletop for

7:03

Wizards of the Coast were laid off

7:06

by Wizards of the Coast, which pretty

7:08

much. spells doom for the 3D virtual

7:10

tabletop known as sigil. It's kind of

7:12

funny because about a month ago or

7:14

so, I had a show topic where

7:17

I talked about the end of 1D&D.

7:19

I kind of said that now that

7:21

all three of the core books are

7:23

out, we're sort of at the end

7:25

of the core books are out, we're

7:28

sort of at the one D&D period

7:30

from that first moment where they did

7:32

that four-minute, five-minute video talking about, one

7:34

was the new core books and two.

7:37

was the 3D virtual tabletop. And what

7:39

I didn't expect was that the 3D

7:41

virtual tabletop would be dead this quickly.

7:43

But it is. What's interesting to me

7:45

is when I was talking to people

7:48

about it, almost nobody was surprised, right?

7:50

Like really, there were very few people

7:52

who were like, oh my God, I

7:54

can't believe they killed it. It was

7:56

really, and I think that's kind of

7:59

the main point that I would reinforce

8:01

to people is recognizing like what really

8:03

matters. to the industry and to the

8:05

hobby and what doesn't matter to the

8:07

hobby. And in my opinion, Sigil never

8:10

really mattered to the hobby one way

8:12

or the other. It was never going

8:14

to change or revolutionize the entire tabletop

8:16

role-playing game hobby. People were going to

8:18

play however they play. And maybe it

8:21

was one of another, one of many

8:23

different virtual tabletops that people aspire to.

8:25

But it was never really going to have

8:27

a big impact in my opinion on the

8:29

hobby overall So I was I never I

8:31

don't think I ever even really talked about

8:34

it on the show because I never really

8:36

felt like it had anything that that it

8:38

was going to make an impact one way

8:40

the other and One way to measure that

8:42

it measure that it was going to make

8:44

an impact one way the other and one

8:47

way to measure that impact is to say

8:49

Well now that it's dead how much of

8:51

an impact is there to the big thing,

8:53

but it was amazing to me is how much

8:56

people brought up sigil

8:58

and conversations. And then

9:00

how many people said,

9:02

well, I'm not surprised when

9:05

it dies. It was like

9:07

we wanted something to

9:09

talk about, right? And it's actually interesting

9:11

because the last two or three weeks,

9:14

we really haven't had any big news

9:16

to discuss. And then this happened and

9:18

now we have something to discuss. But

9:20

it was actually kind of nice having

9:23

three weeks where we just sort of

9:25

focus back on our games again. So

9:27

what's interesting is that, you know, so

9:30

many people kind of just... Yeah, so,

9:32

oh yeah, I, you know, not surprised,

9:34

right, you know, and walk away. I

9:36

think it really sucks Randy Collins, because

9:39

this is the second time he's

9:41

gotten fired from Wizards of the

9:43

Coast while they were in the

9:45

middle of building a 3D virtual

9:47

tabletop. They tried to do the

9:50

exact same thing back and forth

9:52

edition. In fact, it is fascinating.

9:54

And I listened to it again

9:56

for context. There were talking about

9:58

what it was. was like working

10:00

at Wizards of the Coast and working on

10:03

D&D during the fourth edition times when there

10:05

was a big push for electronic gaming and

10:07

a big push to bring electronic gamers into

10:09

D&D. And everybody knew that it kind of

10:11

fell apart back then as well. And now

10:14

it fell apart here. And what was really,

10:16

you know, kind of sad was hearing Andy

10:18

on the panel talking about what it was

10:20

like back then and then being very excited

10:23

for the fact that he had been hired

10:25

by Wizards of the Coast and now work

10:27

on Sigil. And then it happens again. I

10:29

mean, he's a smart dude. He can't

10:32

be that surprised at something like

10:34

this occurring, but it's never fun to

10:36

watch 30 people get fired. So

10:38

there's no, there's no part of me

10:40

that's happy about that. I'm not

10:42

happy about any of this really. I

10:45

don't know that like, you know, yeah, I

10:47

don't think it's a good thing that went

10:49

away. I do wonder whether it was the,

10:51

you know, is it the second best outcome

10:53

for sigil. The best outcome would

10:55

be that they actually build a nice

10:58

tool that people like and enjoy and

11:00

it actually does help a lot of

11:02

people enjoy the game. But the next

11:04

best outcome is they tried something, right?

11:06

They tried something and it didn't work

11:09

and then they killed it. And I

11:11

think like, you know, in that whole

11:13

sort of like fail off and fail

11:15

first fail off and kind of idea,

11:17

I guess that's kind of what you

11:20

want to do. I don't think that

11:22

you necessarily want to like, brought it

11:24

up, when they first said that this is

11:26

something they were going to do, I was

11:28

actually pretty positive on it. And the reason

11:31

why I was positive on it is I

11:33

felt like, well, they're not just creating another

11:35

virtual tabletop that's going to compete with Roll

11:37

20 or Foundry or Fantasy Grounds. They're trying

11:39

something completely different. Not, I mean, not totally

11:42

completely, because like there is Tail Spire, another

11:44

3D virtual tabletop. But generally there aren't that

11:46

many of them. And I wouldn't say that.

11:48

It was a shot and it was a

11:50

company that had the resources to be able

11:52

to really make an attempt at this. So

11:55

I was like, okay, not a lot of

11:57

people could put the capital forward required in

11:59

order to. really run a 3D virtual tabletop.

12:01

So I thought like from a business standpoint

12:03

it kind of made sense. Let's make something

12:05

that's new that we only we can really

12:07

do and see how it goes. But in

12:09

my mind there was one major problem with

12:12

it and that's that it required everybody that

12:14

plays to have a powerhouse computer. And today,

12:16

when a lot of people are on their

12:18

phones, when a lot of people are on

12:20

tablets, when there's a big mix of different

12:22

computer hardware out there, expecting that every one

12:24

of your players is going to have a

12:26

big beefy, 3D rendering computer, is too much.

12:28

Like, that alone should have almost stopped the

12:30

whole thing, right? Like, you're just never gonna

12:32

get that many people to be able to

12:34

sit on that kind of client. Because all

12:37

it takes is one player who can't play

12:39

and nobody can. right, unless you're gonna kick

12:41

the guy out, right? Nobody can play. So

12:43

that alone was a big issue. And I

12:45

think pretty early on, like even, it's been

12:47

more than a year since the summit. And

12:49

at the summit, there were already a lot

12:51

of questions like, well, how are you gonna

12:53

monetize this? And how exactly is it gonna

12:55

work? And people are like, yeah, we all

12:57

sat on these alien wear PCs that had

12:59

these massive graphic cards in them to use

13:02

it to use it. And I think that

13:04

was a real limiting factor. So anyway, Sigil

13:06

appears to be dead. They're still kind of

13:08

waffling about, oh, we're integrating some of the

13:10

Sigil stuff into the rest of D&D Beyond.

13:12

Nobody knows what that means. But really what

13:14

I think it means is that Sigil is

13:16

a concept that is basically gone. And my

13:18

only main point is I don't think it

13:20

matters that much. Like it's an interesting topic

13:22

to talk about and it's kind of a

13:24

fun thing for, you know, we have the

13:26

RPG business channel inside of a discord server,

13:29

we talk about stuff like this. But the

13:31

reality is like, does it matter to the

13:33

games that we're playing, does it matter to

13:35

the games that we're playing, does it matter,

13:37

the games that when we sit down with

13:39

our friends? Not really. I'm waiting for the

13:41

system. Hey, anybody from Wizards of the Coast,

13:43

if you happen to be listening to this

13:45

video, I would sure love an update on

13:47

where we stand with the 5.2 system reference

13:49

document. My understanding is that Wizards of the

13:51

Coast is very interested in getting that out

13:54

there so that more people will build D&D

13:56

2024 products. An example is there's the new

13:58

Obajima is now available on D&D Beyond. Where

14:00

is it? Obajima tails from the tall grass.

14:02

This also is an interesting kind of joke

14:04

for me. If you want to find out

14:06

as a publisher what it takes to get

14:08

your material published to D&D Beyond, start with

14:10

a million dollars. Obajima made $2.4 million at

14:12

their Kickstarter, which is why Wizards of the

14:14

Coast is super interested in having Obajima put

14:16

on their D&D platform, on the D&D Beyond

14:19

platform. So again, it's like nobody really knows

14:21

exactly how you get your material up on

14:23

nobody, or how you get your material up

14:25

on D&D Beyond, but it sure likes having

14:27

more than a million dollars helps, which also

14:29

gets me to my Wizards of the Coast,

14:31

won the OGL war, because the big thing

14:33

that they wanted with the OGL war, was

14:35

they saw the OGL war, was they saw

14:37

the OGL war, was they saw the OGL,

14:39

was, was they saw the OGL war, was

14:41

they saw the OGL, was the OGL, was,

14:44

was, was, was, was the OGL, was, was,

14:46

was, was, was, was, was, was a big

14:48

thing thing thing that they wanted with they

14:50

wanted with, they wanted, they wanted, because a

14:52

big thing that they wanted, they wanted, they

14:54

wanted, because a big thing that they wanted,

14:56

because a big thing that they wanted, they

14:58

wanted, they wanted, because a big thing that

15:00

they want the OGL, they wanted, they wanted,

15:02

they wanted, because a But they did have

15:04

to, they did apparently ruin the reputation in

15:06

the process. One of the interesting things about

15:08

Obajima is it is only available for D&D

15:11

2014. So that's a really weird thing. Like

15:13

I was reading, I don't have a link

15:15

to it, but basically there was a link

15:17

in the forums on D&D Beyond where they

15:19

talked about how Obajima is integrated with D&D

15:21

Beyond. And the answer is it only supports

15:23

D&D 2014 because Obajima was written for D&D

15:25

2014. And the reason why is that there

15:27

isn't a 5.2 SRT to write things for

15:29

D&D 2024 yet. So my understanding is which

15:31

is that the coast definitely wants. to get

15:33

D&D 2024, they want more people to write

15:36

material for D&D 2024, do more kickstaters, make

15:38

a million dollars so they can figure out

15:40

which ones they want to bring into the

15:42

fold, then go to those and say, hey,

15:44

how would you like to be on D&D

15:46

beyond? And then they go into D&D beyond

15:48

and then they go into D&D beyond and

15:50

then they go into D&D beyond and then

15:52

they get, then Wizards of the coast. seed

15:54

D&D 2024 rules out into other products so

15:56

that they can figure out which ones integrate

15:58

and didn't beyond. But it gives us more

16:01

material that we can build products with for

16:03

every system and every platform in any different

16:05

way we want to go, whether it's going

16:07

to DDB on or not, we get all

16:09

that new material that we want. So, really

16:11

interesting stuff. Anyway, that is what's going on

16:13

with Sigil and D and Beyond and Obajima

16:15

and the 5.2 S.R.D. So the 5.2 S.R.D.

16:17

is one thing I'm looking forward to. The

16:19

other thing I'm looking forward to is the

16:21

new starter set, which is coming out in

16:23

September. Those I think are things that Widges

16:26

of the Coast are doing that are really

16:28

important and that will change the RPG hobby

16:30

and really everything else's books. And the books

16:32

could be cool and the books could be

16:34

cool and the books could be cool and

16:36

the books could not be cool and the

16:38

books could not be cool, but I don't

16:40

be cool, but I don't be cool, but

16:42

I don't be cool, but I don't be

16:44

cool, but I don't be cool, but I

16:46

don't think it's gonna be cool, but I

16:48

don't think it's gonna be cool, but I

16:50

don't think it's gonna be cool, but I

16:53

don't think it's gonna be cool, but I

16:55

don On Wednesday, I have a regular game

16:57

Wednesday, and on Wednesday, they're just about to

16:59

get to like a great big boss fight,

17:01

and I had three of my seven players.

17:03

So I have six regular players and one

17:05

on-call player, and three of them couldn't make

17:07

it. And I was like, man, the last

17:09

time I ran four players in a really

17:11

hard battle, they almost got wiped out, and

17:13

I don't know if I want to do

17:15

that again. So I asked the people that

17:18

were coming, and I said, I shadow the

17:20

Weird Wizard. I'm very excited about it. I

17:22

missed my chance to play Shadow the Weird

17:24

Wizard at Winter Fantasy. How would you guys

17:26

like to try it out? And they... gracefully,

17:28

my player said, sure, why not? We'll try

17:30

it out. So we whipped up some first

17:32

level pre-gen characters. I found some pre-gen characters.

17:34

They're not great, so I don't really recommend

17:36

them. But we got some first level pre-genes

17:38

together. I got out the books. I got

17:40

out a scenario called One Bad Apple, which

17:43

is an introduction scenario of what they call

17:45

a quest for Shadow the Weird Wizard. We

17:47

ran it. And we really enjoyed it. And

17:49

I wanted to talk a little bit about

17:51

some of my experiences, having run, shadow the

17:53

weird wizard, again, recognizing I've only played one

17:55

game. So the first thing that came to

17:57

mind is, you know, at first level, and

17:59

I warned my... players about this. I was

18:01

like at first level, you're really only

18:04

going to get a taste of

18:06

what Shadow the Weird Wizard has.

18:08

And it's not going to feel

18:10

that much different than any other

18:12

RPG that you're playing. Like it's

18:14

not showing the true full richness

18:16

and depth that exists with Shadow

18:19

the Weird Wizard. So I wanted to

18:21

give a warning that like, hey, here

18:23

are the things you're really going to

18:25

learn at first level in Shadow the

18:27

Weird Wizard, which is what? and

18:29

you know maybe a couple of

18:32

like you know how the character

18:34

class powers are going to work

18:37

among the four main character archetypes

18:39

that exist but the real depth

18:41

of Shadow the Weird Wizard comes

18:44

up as you play through the

18:46

whole scenario. Once you get particularly

18:48

to like third level where you

18:51

start to pick up expert paths

18:53

and master paths, that's where things

18:55

really begin to fill out and you

18:57

start to see the richness of the

18:59

game. So Shadow the Weird Wizard is

19:01

designed by. is designed so that you

19:04

run a campaign of about 10 sessions.

19:06

It's intended that each quest is one

19:08

session of a game, you run 10

19:10

sessions and you've now gotten from all

19:12

the way from first to tenth level.

19:14

You level each time, you get new

19:16

abilities each time, and you're off to

19:18

the races. I hope, I think my

19:20

players all liked it enough that we

19:22

will play a campaign like that. My

19:25

intention though is to be a little bit

19:27

more relaxed and do like two sessions per

19:29

quest and then, so two sessions per level

19:31

and then do about 20-ish quests. I think

19:33

I also like the idea of starting at

19:35

zero level and having like a little zero

19:38

level game where you have nothing but a

19:40

background to begin with before you even pick

19:42

up your path. And that way when you're

19:44

playing through it, that way I'll have a

19:46

little bit more room, we'll have some time,

19:48

we'll have a little bit more room to

19:51

describe what happens during downtime. The idea is

19:53

like you have a quest which is sort

19:55

of like, you know, the pinnacle of all the

19:57

excitement and then you can describe sort of out

19:59

of car- what happens in between them?

20:01

And they said there might be

20:03

even like two, three, four weeks

20:05

in between these sessions for downtime

20:07

and for kind of descriptions of

20:09

what happens to the characters. But

20:11

for me, because I run three

20:13

hour games trying to do a

20:15

scenario plus downtime in three hours

20:17

and then constantly level, I think

20:19

would be too much. And then

20:22

looking at when I ran one

20:24

bad Apple, it's a pretty long

20:26

quest, right? There's a lot of

20:28

stuff that goes on. in it. And I

20:30

ended up abbreviating it significantly by jumping straight to

20:32

the dungeon. I basically said they got right to

20:34

the dungeon. I gave them all the background of

20:36

how they got there and then I started up

20:38

at the dungeon and then we started in the

20:40

dungeon and crawled and it fit nicely into a

20:42

three-hour session. They finished the session, they got what

20:45

they wanted when we were done. But I know

20:47

my own pacing and I know I can read

20:49

an adventure and get a feeling for how long

20:51

it's going to take. And I could definitely tell

20:53

that this scenario was going to take longer than,

20:55

you know, I mean, it's even long for a

20:57

six hour session. Like it could take a while.

21:00

There's a lot of investigation that goes

21:02

on. There's a lot of things that

21:04

happen here. So I think they could

21:06

really end up taking a longer session.

21:08

So I would probably be more relaxed

21:10

and have. a quest, take as long

21:12

as the quest needs, and then have

21:14

some downtime, level up, and then go

21:16

to the next quest, rather than trying

21:18

to get everything to go into one

21:20

session. So it really worked. It's a very D&D

21:23

stuff. So this was, you know, when Rob

21:25

Schwab wrote this, Rob Schwab wrote Shadow of

21:27

the Demon Lord, which my group and I

21:29

loved, and I had a friend of mine

21:31

who just keeps coming back and saying, like,

21:33

oh man, I love Shadow of the Demon

21:35

Lord. And so I'm excited to run this

21:38

and Shadow of the Weird Wizard is sort

21:40

of a less super dark apocalyptic take than

21:42

Shadow the Demon Lord is. Still plenty.

21:44

dark gritty stuff going on in

21:46

this game. But it's very much

21:49

built like a Greyhawk style D&D

21:51

sort of scenario, high fantasy Greyhawk

21:54

D&D scenario, but definitely has some

21:56

fun things going on in it

21:58

and some fun. sort of traditional

22:00

fantasy elements to it. A couple things

22:03

that I noticed, there's probably two things

22:05

that leapt out at me. One was

22:07

in all the conversations we've had about

22:09

what to do with orks, Shout of

22:12

the Weird Wizard has definitely a very

22:14

different take on what orks, who and

22:16

what orks are. Instead of orcs being

22:18

a species, orcs are essentially a curse

22:20

that gets applied to humans. So they're

22:23

actually more like gnolls in the D&D

22:25

side. In D&D, traditional D&D lore, not

22:27

necessarily Eberon or other worlds, but in

22:29

traditional D&D settings, gnolls are formed by

22:31

hyenas who have eaten the cursed remains

22:34

of the victims of Einago. So yinigu

22:36

goes to a world, yinigu is a

22:38

great big gnoll demon lord, he kills

22:40

a bunch of people, he leaves their

22:43

bodies to rot in his wake, hyenas

22:45

follow, they follow along with inigu, they

22:47

eat the cursed meat that's left over

22:49

by the remains of those killed by

22:51

inigu, and then the hyenas transform into

22:54

gnolls. Right, that's sort of the traditional,

22:56

that's why gnolls are fiends in the

22:58

2025, monster manual and stuff like that.

23:00

Now, in Eberon and in Midgard, two

23:03

other worlds, gnolls are not like that.

23:05

Knolls are humanoid mammalian style creatures. So

23:07

what's interesting is Shadow the Weird Wizard

23:09

took that take for orcs as well,

23:11

that orcs in Shadow the Weird Wizard

23:14

are humans who have been cursed. They

23:16

sort of physically transform into these brutish

23:18

forms that are filled with bloodlust and

23:20

going out there and murdering other people.

23:22

So they're almost like the ravagers from

23:25

firefly, right? They're humans who have been

23:27

kind of cursed and now are out

23:29

there and have this sort of thing

23:31

in there. That's not a terrible way

23:34

to go. But it is takes like,

23:36

there's some cognitive dissidents that occurs with

23:38

me, where it's like, I almost rather

23:40

wish he just called them something else.

23:42

And I think that like, if you

23:45

read that and you're like, ah, you

23:47

know, the problem is that, you know,

23:49

it's just gonna bring up the conversation

23:51

of orcs again. you could just call

23:53

them something else, right? That like, they're

23:56

different enough from traditional orks that I

23:58

feel like you could have just made

24:00

a new thing from that, that Shadow

24:02

of the Weird Wizard could have made

24:05

a new thing. But I do keep

24:07

in mind that Shadow the Weird Wizard

24:09

is intended to be a take on

24:11

D&D, and as a take on D&D,

24:13

and including old school D&D, I'll show

24:16

some examples of that, that you want

24:18

to have orcs in there. Now, could

24:20

have orcs just been another species like

24:22

anybody else, like maybe? So it's interesting.

24:24

And if you dig it, you dig

24:27

it, I don't know how I feel

24:29

about it. I think I can run

24:31

with it. I explain that way to

24:33

my players because one bad apple kind

24:36

of involves, you know, the curse and

24:38

people getting turned into orchs and stuff

24:40

like that. I think I would want

24:42

to feel my players out about that.

24:44

I don't know that anybody be like

24:47

upset. It's just like, is that, you

24:49

know, you almost want to call them

24:51

something else? Like, you know, my feeling

24:53

is like, I'd almost want to just

24:55

refer to them as something else instead

24:58

of just calling them orch. Ork has

25:00

become now this label that we apply

25:02

to this one thing and it goes

25:04

off. Yeah, real here says that's not

25:07

really that far off from Tolkien's orks,

25:09

which are sort of created. And yeah,

25:11

I think that that's, if you most

25:13

think of like the or the, the

25:15

ora kai, right, who weren't called orks,

25:18

but I know, I know, I only

25:20

know the movies, I've spent a long

25:22

time since I read the books, but

25:24

maybe orks are kind of that way

25:26

too. And it doesn't prevent you from

25:29

having some of the orks who managed

25:31

to break away from their own bloodlust

25:33

and now are sort of rebelling against

25:35

the other orks. Like you could still

25:38

have fun kind of turns of events

25:40

where a group of orch manages to

25:42

hang on to some of its humanity

25:44

and now they're not as violent as

25:46

the other ones. You could still drop

25:49

that in there and it could still

25:51

work out. I think it could still

25:53

be kind of interesting. The other thing

25:55

that I noticed and is something that

25:57

I definitely recommend taking a look at

26:00

taking a look at. So this is

26:02

in secrets of the Weird Wizard, which

26:04

is the GM's guide for Shadow the

26:06

Weird Wizard, and it talks about the

26:09

difficulty, setting the difficulty for various encounters

26:11

and things like that. And one thing

26:13

that's interesting is all of the, so

26:15

quests, I really like this idea. So

26:17

Robert Schwab refers to adventures as quests,

26:20

and his intention is to say like

26:22

these are really focused things that are

26:24

built around an outcome, that there is

26:26

a quest that the characters go on.

26:28

And so quests are what he calls

26:31

adventures, which I kind of narrows that

26:33

focus down on exactly. what you're supposed

26:35

to be doing with these things. But

26:37

one of the things is all the

26:40

quests and the encounters are built by

26:42

tier, not by level. So of the

26:44

tiers, you have first and second level

26:46

are your novice path. Then at third

26:48

level, you begin to get your expert

26:51

benefits, and that's third, fourth, fifth, and

26:53

sixth level for expert. And then seventh,

26:55

eighth, ninth, and tenths are your master,

26:57

your master tier. and the encounter building

26:59

guidelines and the tiers for quests are

27:02

built along those tiers, which means first

27:04

and second level are treated the same.

27:06

What that meant was first level was

27:08

really deadly and I had actually heard

27:11

I went over to the shadow of

27:13

the weird wizard or the Robert Schwab

27:15

discord server and talked to people there

27:17

and They said yeah, watch out. It's

27:19

really deadly and it was I killed

27:22

a character like they were fighting They

27:24

were fighting a guy and the dude

27:26

did enough damage to like completely kill

27:28

one of the characters pretty pretty easily

27:31

a little bit too quickly So one

27:33

thing that I would definitely recommend and

27:35

it's just based on pure damage A

27:37

creature that does more than 2D6 damage

27:39

on an attack is going to be

27:42

particularly deadly at novice paths. Even though

27:44

the encounter building guidelines here, like we

27:46

had four characters, so you can see

27:48

the novice path, an average is eight

27:50

and a hard is 12, except boy,

27:53

I'll tell you, we had a challenge

27:55

eight monster, and that challenge eight monster,

27:57

it was one of the bone dudes.

28:00

It was called a bone guard and

28:02

in this case, it was a bone

28:04

guard champion. Who is, you know, the

28:06

bone guard champion is only a difficulty

28:08

eight creature and they defeated it with,

28:10

you know, the defense and the health

28:12

wasn't so bad. But because it does,

28:15

and I think this guy, he has

28:17

two attacks with a ruin blade and

28:19

the ruin blade does 3D6 damage. And

28:21

a creature, a flesh of my creature,

28:23

this is 1D6 health also. Damage and

28:26

health is also really interesting. I'll talk

28:28

about that in a minute. And if

28:30

the, if they become incapacitated from the

28:32

attack, they die and their soul is

28:35

trapped in the room blade. So they're

28:37

really lethal. And this bone guard champion

28:39

killed one of the characters outright. It

28:41

was really tough. I would be apprehensive

28:43

about running creatures this high at, in

28:45

your, in your Tier 1 novice, novice

28:47

quests. So it definitely appeared pretty deadly

28:49

to me. And some people like that

28:51

level of deadliness, right? There's that sort

28:53

of like, well, how should you deal

28:55

with this other than just go stand

28:57

up and fight the guy, was definitely

28:59

a question. I love how many different

29:01

skeletons there are, right? Like they have these

29:04

bone guards, which are essentially all of their

29:06

like, undead skeleton kind of things, but there's

29:08

so many of them. There's just a whole

29:10

lot and you will find this throughout this

29:12

that there's just so many I was talking

29:14

about orks before and you can tell that

29:17

like orks are Let's see if I can

29:19

find it in table my new table contents.

29:21

I'm so happy about hey, look at that

29:23

He piled so many monsters into

29:25

this, right? So there's this whole

29:27

thing on orchs, but you can

29:29

see a ton of different orchs

29:32

that are there. There's also rules

29:34

for building your own monsters in

29:36

here, death orch, you know, difficulty

29:38

ate death orch, orch warlord, orch

29:40

doom bringer. You know, lots of different

29:42

orks. So big piles of monsters

29:44

that are in here. Oh, so

29:47

let's talk about health and damage.

29:49

Health and damage is kind of

29:51

interesting. So health and damage is

29:53

a way for essentially separating

29:56

out things like hit dice and

29:58

death saves from damage. Essentially,

30:00

your character has so much health. That's

30:02

their maximum hit points is measured in

30:04

health. So you might have a health

30:07

of 14. When you take damage, you

30:09

track your damage up. It starts at

30:11

zero and goes all the way up.

30:13

When your damage hits your health, score.

30:15

you're incapacitated, you fall over unconscious from

30:17

all the wounds that you take. Any

30:20

damage, and it caps out, it can't

30:22

go higher, the amount of damage cannot

30:24

go higher than your health. So whatever

30:26

damage you took that hits you at

30:28

your health level, it caps out then.

30:31

Any new damage you take when you're

30:33

unconscious starts to reduce from your health,

30:35

and health is much harder to get.

30:37

And when your health hit zero, now

30:39

you're dead. So you start to have

30:41

this cap at the top and your

30:44

damage goes up until it hits the

30:46

cap and then the cap starts going

30:48

down until it hits zero. And when

30:50

it hits zero at that point you

30:52

die. So it's an interesting way to

30:54

kind of have death saves and have

30:57

hit dice and other things that are

30:59

sort of stuck in this other column

31:01

and turning health into kind of two

31:03

separate things. Another interesting bit is that

31:05

traps almost always do damage to health,

31:08

not damage. So it makes traps. kind

31:10

of deadlier because they are taking over,

31:12

they're almost all like they're draining your

31:14

life, right? Your health goes down and

31:16

you can't just recuperate from it the

31:18

same way that you can recuperate from

31:21

damage taken during combat. Part of the

31:23

reason of that is the damage that

31:25

you take during combat is considered to

31:27

be pretty temporary, that it's not, it's

31:29

sort of like exhaustion and other things.

31:32

It's not true physical damage that your

31:34

character has taken. So that I thought

31:36

was a really interesting take on it.

31:38

So I'm very excited. I just bang

31:40

the mic. So I'm very excited for

31:42

Shadow the Weird Wizard. I really enjoyed

31:45

our first game. My players enjoyed it

31:47

even though one of the characters died.

31:49

They still kind of had fun escaping

31:51

from a really nasty situation. They tried

31:53

it out. It's very easy to play.

31:55

One thing that I really like about

31:58

is like the character sheet for it

32:00

is really. And yet the complexity of

32:02

the game is really high. So you

32:04

only have to worry about these four

32:06

main ability scores in your health and

32:09

stuff like that. Yet as your character

32:11

grows, you get lots of interesting stuff.

32:13

It expands, so it feels rules light.

32:15

But it doesn't stay, but it offers

32:17

a lot of, it offers a lot

32:19

of customization for players. One of the

32:22

things that I'm looking forward to that

32:24

you don't really get the feeling for

32:26

in just a one-shot game is the

32:28

sheer amount of customization. So you start

32:30

off with your four main classes, right,

32:32

of the fighter, the mage, the priest,

32:35

and the rogue. But the minute you

32:37

get to your expert tier. you get

32:39

there's a whole ton of different expert

32:41

paths. You can see them all here,

32:43

like this giant list of expert paths.

32:46

And you can pick any of the

32:48

expert paths, right? You don't have to

32:50

stay, even though they're kind of broken

32:52

out by faith, power, skill, you don't

32:54

have to pick, you can get from

32:56

any of them. So it's almost like

32:59

multi-classing twice, that as soon as you

33:01

get to third level, you multi-class once

33:03

into making something, and then you're already

33:05

pretty unique. priest, but I'm also an

33:07

assassin, right? You can mix those two.

33:10

And then when you get to level

33:12

seven, seven, eight, nine, ten, right? And

33:14

when you get to level seven, the

33:16

master paths, there are just, I mean,

33:18

it looks like a hundred of them,

33:20

right? There are like tons and tons

33:23

of master paths. So yeah, there are

33:25

so many different paths that you can

33:27

take in this game that every creature,

33:29

every character is going to be super

33:31

customized. And that's not even including like

33:33

the backgrounds that you pick too, which

33:36

are kind of saying like what are

33:38

the other things that you pick too,

33:40

which are kind of saying like what

33:42

are the other things that you do

33:44

in the world. And you can add

33:47

new backgrounds as you go as well.

33:49

You can learn new backgrounds during your

33:51

downtime. So the character customization is through

33:53

the right and I'm sure we'll see

33:55

more of those. but just with this

33:57

one book, the amount of customization is

34:00

tremendous. But also the game is very

34:02

simple. I don't feel like you need

34:04

an online character builder in order to

34:06

build characters for it. You can really

34:08

do it with just pen and paper

34:10

and I don't think it's hard at

34:13

all to get started. I think it's

34:15

really really cool. So I love it.

34:17

I can't wait to play it again.

34:19

I'm excited to play a new version

34:21

of it. Very exciting RPG. And there's

34:24

something really cool about playing an RPG

34:26

that's this well produced. But it all

34:28

comes from one mind of a guy

34:30

who's been making RPGs for like, I

34:32

don't know, 25 years or something like

34:34

that. He's been in the industry. And

34:37

it's his take on it. Like nobody's

34:39

in the way between Robert Schwabs, weird

34:41

twisted brain, and the RPG, that you're

34:43

playing, weird twisted brain, and the RPG

34:45

that you're playing at your table, it's

34:48

all him. Now I'm sure, like, when

34:50

we play it, we'll probably run. when

34:52

you get to later tears, I don't

34:54

know. But it looks, still, I think

34:56

all of those are things that I

34:58

feel like I can manage, and I

35:01

think the game is gonna be really

35:03

good. So that was my initial take

35:05

on Shadow the Weird Wizard. I don't

35:07

know when we're gonna play a longer

35:09

campaign, but when we do, I will

35:11

certainly give more insight into my experiences

35:14

with it. Right now, you can pick

35:16

up Shadow the Weird Wizard. You can

35:18

find links in the show notes. I

35:20

highly recommend buying the physical version, the

35:22

physical version of the PDFs. two books,

35:25

the Shadow the Weird Wizard Player Guide

35:27

and the GM's Guide, the reason I

35:29

suggest getting it is because I don't

35:31

know how big the print run is

35:33

going to be. And if he runs

35:35

out, I don't know if the book

35:38

is making enough that he'll be able

35:40

to do a whole other print run,

35:42

which he'll be, if the book is

35:44

making enough that he'll be able to

35:46

do a whole other print run, and

35:48

then you're kind of stuck with print

35:51

on the fence, then go ahead and

35:53

get the PDFs. and check out the

35:55

PDFs for it. But the PDFs are

35:57

also going to cost you some money.

35:59

So I would probably get the physical

36:02

book for it. from it. I have

36:04

the two physical books and I am

36:06

really happy I do because I think

36:08

they're outstanding. So Soren Johnson, lead designer

36:10

for Civilization 4, wrote on a blog

36:12

and he was quoting from a book,

36:15

a book I read a long time

36:17

ago, called A Theory of Fun by

36:19

Ralph Costa. And he sort of summarizes

36:21

it as to an idea that players,

36:23

well, where is it here, given the

36:26

opportunity, players will optimize the fun out

36:28

of a game. His point is that

36:30

a lot of the, and if you

36:32

think about games like role-playing games in

36:34

particular, when you have factors of randomness

36:36

and you have factors of uncertainty, players

36:39

gravitate towards certainty, that they want to

36:41

reduce randomness, they want to reduce the

36:43

chaos of a game, and get it

36:45

to the point where they can get

36:47

very solid consistent results. The problem is

36:49

that solid consistent results are boring. And

36:52

it's not all players too, right? We're

36:54

not gonna group everybody together in this

36:56

kind of thing, but it's definitely a

36:58

factor of human nature that we want

37:00

consistency. We want to remove chaos and

37:03

randomness from it, and we want to

37:05

have that kind of consistency. And we

37:07

can find it that there are definitely

37:09

certain players who remove that consistency, or

37:11

aiming to remove that consistency. And when

37:13

you get to the point where you

37:16

do. It turns out the game is

37:18

no longer fun. An example is if

37:20

you went to a slot machine in

37:22

a casino and you put a quarter

37:24

in, if you got to the point

37:26

where every time you put a quarter

37:29

in that like, you know, you'd always

37:31

get like 23 cents back, right, every

37:33

time. You'd never play, right, even though

37:35

that's kind of like what the odds

37:37

are like. I don't know if the

37:40

odds are actually like that. But it's

37:42

that randomness that draws you in. even

37:44

though what you're actually trying to seek

37:46

is consistency. People love to find a

37:48

pattern even though they just have randomness.

37:50

And we can find this in our

37:53

RPGs. Kelsey Dionne really nailed this topic

37:55

when she was on a podcast recently

37:57

called The Dungeon Master's Die. And she

37:59

mentioned something I thought was really interesting.

38:01

She said that when she was looking

38:04

at homebrew classes for Shadow Dark, she

38:06

could tell whether or not the homebrew

38:08

classes were made by game masters or

38:10

made by players. And the way she

38:12

could tell was that players who made

38:14

homebrew classes for Shadow Dark often tried

38:17

to put elements in the character class

38:19

that eliminated the difficult parts of Shadow

38:21

Dark. For example, they can carry more

38:23

stuff, or they have a better source

38:25

of light, or they have a better

38:27

way to deal with food, or they

38:30

have better ways to deal with injury.

38:32

They had ways to kind of deal

38:34

with the very things that make Shadow

38:36

Dark unique in the first place. You

38:38

see, the GM's kind of understand that

38:41

you don't want to have that in

38:43

there. But, you know, she could tell,

38:45

like, when she could see things, like,

38:47

oh, I really want this. And it

38:49

was funny, because my players, after we

38:51

were done with our Shatter Dark campaign,

38:54

talked about how, you know, they loved

38:56

it, but they were frustrated, continually frustrated

38:58

by the inventory system, of having so

39:00

many slots of inventory they could pick,

39:02

and having to make the choices. And

39:04

they were like, I wish we just

39:07

had more. And I was like, if

39:09

you had more, you wouldn't care, right?

39:11

Like we have more in D&D and

39:13

inventory is never a problem. We never

39:15

even talked about it. Like it would

39:18

just remove that whole aspect of play

39:20

if you get it there. But what

39:22

really kind of caught my, you know,

39:24

grabbed my, you know, tickled my brain

39:26

hearing Kelsey talking about that particular for

39:28

classes was the focus on defensive stuff.

39:31

So players optimizing their fun out of

39:33

a game is one thing. But I

39:35

think that players also defend themselves out

39:37

of the fun of a game. That

39:39

one of the areas of randomness that

39:41

they are particularly, many players particularly focus

39:44

on is defense. They want to never

39:46

be hit, never take any damage, never

39:48

have to worry about any status effects,

39:50

never have to worry about any kind

39:52

of thing. And you can tell because

39:55

there are ways of particularly in 5E

39:57

in D and D and all the

39:59

5E variants. There are lots of ways

40:01

to optimize around that sort of thing.

40:03

Getting better armor is one way, getting

40:05

magical armor is another, picking certain class

40:08

options is another. There are ways to

40:10

just continually beef up your defense until

40:12

eventually you're almost never gonna get hit.

40:14

Some examples would be, imagine a character,

40:16

this is all legal within the game,

40:18

obviously you'd have to be pretty high

40:21

level to get there. But you could

40:23

have full, you know, played armor plus

40:25

three. which will give you a base

40:27

AC of 21 right there. You add

40:29

a plus three shield and now you're

40:31

at 26. And maybe you dip into,

40:33

or maybe you take the magic initiate

40:35

feet and get shield, and now you

40:37

can have an AC of 31. That's

40:40

three things. And it doesn't even

40:42

matter what your abilities are at

40:44

that point. As long as your

40:46

abilities, that you can wear, played

40:48

armor. That in three moves, I got

40:50

to 31 AC. Right. And a 31 AC

40:53

is ridiculously high. Right? It would mean that

40:55

somebody would have to have a 20 attack

40:57

bonus to hit you half the time. So

40:59

players, but players gravitate towards that.

41:02

And that's just armor class. There's

41:04

also so many different spells and abilities

41:06

and class options and things like that

41:08

that also lean on the defensive. And

41:11

when you lean on the defensive, like,

41:13

you know, I had a player and

41:15

he's a great player and I love

41:17

him, who used blink. a lot. And

41:20

he just had the spell blink and

41:22

he would cast it all the time.

41:24

Now the funny thing was his play,

41:26

the other characters also hated it because

41:29

it meant that they were always taking

41:31

the hits that he should be taking.

41:33

And sometimes I would have monsters that

41:36

would ready an attack that as soon

41:38

as you blinks in, they would hit

41:40

him. Right. So there were still ways

41:42

to deal with it. But there's still

41:45

ways to deal with it. level spell

41:47

in 5E. Shield is in my opinion

41:49

way over tuned. It does way too

41:51

much. It stacks with advantage. It's easy

41:54

to get with like a one class

41:56

dip. It's a spell that you can

41:58

pick up a button. of different ways.

42:00

It's a shield is a. problem, right?

42:02

In my opinion, Shield's a problem. And

42:05

none of the current versions of 5E

42:07

did anything to alleviate the challenge of

42:09

Shield, the spell shield. And that's because

42:11

a plus five bonus to AC, even

42:13

as a reaction, is super powerful, super

42:15

powerful and gets more powerful, the higher

42:17

level you are, and things like that.

42:19

Then you have things like rings of

42:21

resistance, you have things like the old

42:24

heroes feast. Luckily, newer versions of heroes

42:26

feast have dealt with the poison immunity.

42:28

immunity is infinitely powerful against poison dealing

42:30

monsters. It doesn't matter how much damage

42:32

your ancient green dragon does with a

42:34

poison breath. If you have poison immunity,

42:36

you get rid of all of it,

42:38

right? It's really powerful stuff. So there's

42:40

lots of things that players can optimize

42:43

for in order to remove their defense.

42:45

But what can we as GMs? do

42:47

about this. So there's a few things

42:49

that we want to do. The first

42:51

thing is be super careful about offering

42:53

the ability for characters to craft their

42:55

own magic items because they will craft

42:57

defensive items to optimize their defensive capabilities.

42:59

I would be very careful about letting

43:02

people craft items and I would have

43:04

a direct hand in what items they're

43:06

capable of crafting one by one. That's

43:08

one where I feel like the 2024

43:10

Dungeon Master's guide did a great disservice

43:12

to Dungeon Master's by offering a crafting

43:14

system that is far too easy to

43:16

use. And if you implement it, it's

43:18

bad. There was a GM who talked

43:21

about this on EN World who said,

43:23

hey, I ran a one to 20

43:25

game. I think it's third to 20th

43:27

level D&D 2024 game. And they said,

43:29

you know, I saw the crafting item

43:31

in there, so I put it in

43:33

there. And my players made 10 ringsings

43:35

of resistance. each that they were getting

43:37

enough money and since rings of resistance

43:40

no longer have a tunement it meant

43:42

they could wear ten of them and

43:44

they resisted every every character resisted every

43:46

element type. I heard another player who

43:48

said that his group he offered it

43:50

up and his group one of the

43:52

players told everybody else make sure to

43:54

make armor that has the shield spell

43:56

on it craft that and that way

43:59

you have six castings if every character

44:01

has six castings of shield they can

44:03

use every day right like the players

44:05

will go for that there's some players

44:07

certainly will go for that so You

44:09

know, you don't have to tell them

44:11

that they can't craft anything, but you

44:13

want to put places in there that

44:15

they can't craft 10, you know, whatever,

44:18

60 magic resistance rings, or six suits

44:20

of shield armor. Instead, you should know,

44:22

what I do particularly for crafting is

44:24

there's a particular element or a particular

44:26

item component that they have to go

44:28

get that is going to limit their

44:30

ability to make a magic item. And

44:32

I would also tell him, like, you

44:34

can't make it, you can't use shield.

44:36

Also, those in spelled weapons that have

44:39

six castings, you shouldn't let them use

44:41

six castings. It should be a single

44:43

casting per day, not six castings per

44:45

day. When you're handing out loot, be

44:47

careful about handing out defensive loot. A

44:49

ring of resistance here and there is

44:51

not so bad. One player who's got

44:53

resistance to fire is not so bad.

44:55

You know, plus one bonuses on armor

44:58

or not so bad, but I might

45:00

not put it put it on plate.

45:02

I might not put it on the

45:04

heavier armor. I might put the plus

45:06

one bonuses on lighter armor, like studded

45:08

leather armor or chain armor and things

45:10

like that. I would not put any

45:12

more than a plus one bonus on

45:14

any armor, right? I think that if

45:17

you start to put a plus two

45:19

plus three bonuses on armor, you're going

45:21

to have ACs that are going to

45:23

go really high. I also would never

45:25

give out a magical shield. If you

45:27

give out a magical shield, don't give

45:29

it, you know, give a magical shield

45:31

that has a spell effect on it,

45:33

like an offensive spell effect, or some

45:36

other kind of utility spell effect, rather

45:38

than a defensive spell effect. And I

45:40

wouldn't put a bonus on it. You

45:42

can also do that with armor. You

45:44

can give out really cool magic armor

45:46

that doesn't have a bonus on it,

45:48

but does have some other kind of

45:50

fun effect. And that way the player

45:52

is still driven to want to use

45:55

that armor, even though the armor class

45:57

on it's not particularly any better than

45:59

the normal armor. So. Be very careful

46:01

about what loot you give out and

46:03

what defensive capabilities that loot is going

46:05

to have for the characters because players

46:07

gravitate towards defense already and they have

46:09

so many different class-based ways of doing

46:11

it through spells and class abilities and

46:14

other things. If you start to add

46:16

on magic items that do it, those

46:18

will all stack together and then they'll

46:20

become even harder. to threaten. And really

46:22

what happens when the characters cannot be

46:24

threatened is the game gets boring. It

46:26

certainly gets boring for me as a

46:28

GM, but it could also get boring

46:30

for them or like, yeah, hey, look,

46:33

I didn't get hit again. Hey, I

46:35

haven't taken any damage in three sessions.

46:37

Right? Like, this is great. And then

46:39

you're throwing bigger and bigger monsters and

46:41

it gets to be a problem. Submarine

46:43

spells. I have a friend who was

46:45

a Navy submarine officer. He worked on

46:47

a Navy submarine. And he told me

46:49

an interesting anecdote. He said that when

46:52

you went on to a submarine and

46:54

you closed the hatch on the submarine

46:56

and sealed it off and went off,

46:58

there was only so much happiness that

47:00

existed inside of the submarine. So that

47:02

meant the only way you were going

47:04

to get more happiness was by taking

47:06

it from someone else. I always thought

47:08

that was very funny. And what I

47:11

realize is there are certain spells in

47:13

5E and probably in other systems too

47:15

that I'm going to call from now

47:17

on submarine spells in naming it after

47:19

his anecdote. A submarine spell is a

47:21

spell where somebody's going to be unhappy.

47:23

A player around the table is going

47:25

to be unhappy. That player could be

47:27

the GM, that player could be a

47:30

player, a obvious example is counter-spel. Right,

47:32

and the counter spell isn't necessarily an

47:34

example of one where they're defending themselves

47:36

out of the fun, but it's definitely

47:38

a spell where somebody's sad, right? Either

47:40

the GM is sad because their monster

47:42

who is going to cast a big

47:44

spell can't cast that big spell, or

47:46

a monster cast counter spell on a

47:48

player who now just lost their turn

47:51

casting a spell, right? I think Level

47:53

Up Advance 5E has a really good

47:55

way of handling the submarine, the counter

47:57

spell, by saying you can cast another

47:59

spell. you can use your reaction to

48:01

cast a different spell of half the

48:03

spell level of the one you had

48:05

cast originally. So you don't lose your

48:07

action. I really like that. That's not

48:10

so bad. But there are other submarine

48:12

spells as well. Shield is a little

48:14

bit of a submarine spell, right? When

48:16

a character, I'll tell you if you

48:18

want to see shield, you want to

48:20

see players hate shield. Right? And then

48:22

when one character attacks it, it throws

48:24

up shield, and now it's got an

48:26

AC of 31 and no one can

48:29

hit it. See how much fun they're

48:31

having? The answer is not much fun.

48:33

That's kind of a submarine spell. When

48:35

you cast it, somebody, players become unhappy,

48:37

right? Or characters become unhappy. It's a

48:39

reason why you don't really want to

48:41

have super high armor classes for monsters.

48:43

It's kind of fun in some circumstances

48:45

where you have a high AC monster,

48:48

but monsters with armor classes higher than

48:50

18. taking the fun away, right? You

48:52

don't mind that a monster takes damage,

48:54

and they certainly love doing damage. So

48:56

that's one where we see a net

48:58

growth in happiness, over spells like shield,

49:00

where we see somebody is happy and

49:02

somebody is unhappy. Circle of power, this

49:04

actually came up as a version of

49:07

a submarine spell. Circle of power, let's

49:09

pull it up here. So Circle of

49:11

Power is a spell that it has

49:13

existed for a long time. It existed

49:15

in D&D 2014 for a long time.

49:17

It is a 30-foot radius area and

49:19

creatures inside the area have advantage on

49:21

saving throws against spells and magical effects.

49:23

And when an affected creature makes a

49:26

saving through against a spell or magical

49:28

effect, it allows a save to take

49:30

only half damage. They take no damage

49:32

instead. Whenever you take like half damage

49:34

to no damage, it's essentially infinite damage

49:36

mitigation mitigation. because it means that if

49:38

I throw a, you know, super, super

49:40

upcast meteor swarm that does a thousand

49:42

points of damage, but they make their

49:45

saving through, they take zero, they take

49:47

no damage. Circle of power wasn't a

49:49

problem, because the only class that could

49:51

actually use circle of power were... Paladins.

49:53

And since it was a fifth level

49:55

spell, it meant that Paladins only got

49:57

it at 17th level. But something happened

49:59

with D&D 2024. So they expanded it

50:01

out to Wizards and Clerics as well.

50:04

So now it doesn't show up at

50:06

17th level. Now it shows up at

50:08

9th level. And I saw it for

50:10

the first time in my Wednesday game

50:12

a couple times back where one of

50:14

the players saw it and he read

50:16

it and he goes, oh, Mike is

50:18

going. I remember this, but like, I

50:20

never, why wasn't this an issue before?

50:23

And the answer was, it didn't show

50:25

up till 17th level before. And 17th

50:27

level for something like this, a lot

50:29

of people never make it to 17th

50:31

level. But B, it was only one

50:33

class that got it. Now, it was

50:35

really powerful because a paladin could mix

50:37

this with their aura that increased saving

50:39

throws as well. And I remember running

50:42

some 20th level one-shot one-shot when I

50:44

was doing. to like everything. Now, it's

50:46

only magical effects, so it doesn't include

50:48

breath weapons or other types of effects,

50:50

but it can affect a lot of

50:52

other things. So what do you do?

50:54

This is an example of like a

50:56

player's like, this is really great, I'm

50:58

gonna get it, but it's like, well,

51:00

now every wizard they fight is gonna,

51:03

you know, could in fact do no

51:05

damage to them at all. Right. 30

51:07

foot radius as well. It's a giant,

51:09

giant, giant radius. So what do you

51:11

do you do with that? Well, my

51:13

answer is you lean in on it.

51:15

If you know that they are going

51:17

to cast something like that, you have

51:19

a bunch of wizards, and you have

51:22

all those wizards hammering them with fireballs,

51:24

and the description of them with their

51:26

aura up, and the fireballs blasting against

51:28

the aura, and maybe one of them

51:30

fails to save me through a one

51:32

point and gets, you know, half damage

51:34

or whatever. You know, it's going to

51:36

be rare, but you can really lean

51:38

in on it. But the problem is

51:41

now you're tuning your game around a

51:43

single ability. And that's something that I

51:45

see in 5E. I've witnessed this for

51:47

10 years and it has not gotten

51:49

better with higher, the newer versions of

51:51

the game. That what happens is certain

51:53

characters will take certain options and now

51:55

because of that one particular option. you

51:57

have to change how you run the

52:00

game. And I think that's always kind

52:02

of an unfortunate design area. One area

52:04

that's not really about defending out of

52:06

the fun is the new rogue thief

52:08

ability that allows you to use a

52:10

magic item as a bonus action or

52:12

essentially use the magic action as a

52:14

bonus action. So now every time I'm

52:16

handing out a one-shot magic, a one-use

52:19

magic item or any item that the

52:21

rogue can use that would normally take

52:23

a magic action, I have to remember

52:25

that the rogue can do it as

52:27

a bonus action. And I have to

52:29

ask myself. Is that okay? Because they

52:31

could also potentially use it twice because

52:33

you still get to use the magic

52:35

action on your normal turn. And since

52:38

they're not using spell slots, it means

52:40

that they could technically trigger that magic

52:42

item twice. So I was looking at

52:44

like the helm of brilliance as an

52:46

example. I rolled up a helm of

52:48

brilliance. Right the helmet brilliance is a

52:50

very rare magic item at the characters

52:52

at a point where they're getting it

52:54

and you can start plucking stones off

52:57

of this and using it diamonds rubies

52:59

fire opals and regular opals the fire

53:01

opals you can cast spells like Fireball

53:03

prismatic spray with diamonds wall of fire

53:05

with rubies daylight with an opal on

53:07

a rogue they could do two gemstones

53:09

per turn Right? And that means they

53:11

could do, I'm going to do fireball

53:13

and prismatic spray on one turn. Can

53:16

you imagine doing fireball and prismatic spray

53:18

or even just using two diamonds and

53:20

doing prismatic spray twice or during a

53:22

wall of fire plus a fireball? Right,

53:24

that's a lot of stuff. And that's

53:26

one where I would probably talk to

53:28

the player and I'll be like, look,

53:30

this is a bit over tuned. Are

53:32

you cool with the idea that you,

53:35

if you're using the magic action, if

53:37

you're using the magic action, I think

53:39

that feels fair to me. For all

53:41

I know, the rules might work that

53:43

way, but as far as I can

53:45

tell, and from what I had read,

53:47

I don't see anything that tells me

53:49

that because you're using the magic action

53:51

as a bonus action, that you cannot

53:54

use it also as your action. But

53:56

let's find out. Level 3, fast hands.

53:58

This is the rogue thief subclass. Take

54:00

the utilized action or take the magic

54:02

action to use an item that requires

54:04

an action. And that's as a bonus

54:06

action, you can do one of the

54:08

following. So there is nothing limiting the

54:10

rogue from using the magic action twice.

54:12

But I would definitely say, hey, how about

54:15

you don't do that? Right? Because then

54:17

I'm going to have to say, no,

54:19

I can never give out any items

54:22

like this, right? Like the only alternative

54:24

is, I can't give out items like

54:26

this, or else I have a rogue

54:28

who's never doing any rogue stuff. And

54:31

this is where it comes back to

54:33

that idea of optimizing your way out

54:35

of the fun. Is it really fun

54:38

for a rogue to do that idea

54:40

of optimizing your way out of the

54:42

fun? Is it really fun for a

54:44

rogue? out to be the far best one.

54:47

They went to the slot machine. They found

54:49

the one that gives the outcome where they

54:51

pull it every time and they just pull

54:53

that one over time. Somebody's getting bored. I'm

54:55

either getting bored. They're getting bored. The game

54:57

is getting stale because they're just, you know,

54:59

they're out wizarding the wizard because the wizard

55:01

can't do that, right? The wizard can't cast

55:03

two spells a turn, but the rogue's like

55:05

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. So

55:08

these are all things that we have to

55:10

kind of keep an eye out for. And

55:12

they're all things that we have to sort

55:14

of pay attention to. And there's a lot

55:16

of different ways that we can deal with

55:18

it. Some of them are just talk to

55:20

your players, right? Have a conversation with your

55:22

players. Some of it is being careful about

55:24

the kind of stuff that you give out.

55:26

Some of it is other things that you

55:28

can do on your side. So another example

55:30

is dreadful blessings. I've talked about dreadful blessings

55:32

before. This is sort of my take on

55:34

the doom point system from Tales of the

55:36

Valiant. Dreadful blessings are a limited number of

55:38

options that boss monsters can use to break

55:40

the rules of the game. And in my

55:42

case, I would use them for something like

55:44

the monster drops your circle of power with a

55:46

dreadful blessing for this turn and then hammers

55:48

you with a meteor swarm. right? So that

55:51

like it is, they can only do it

55:53

so many times, but this guy can do

55:55

it that one time. You want to be

55:57

a little careful about using dreadful blessings for

55:59

just getting rid of things that the players

56:01

use. So I would be, I would not

56:03

use it all the time to always get

56:05

rid of something. Like you don't, you don't

56:07

want to change your game around so the

56:09

thing that the player used, they just can't

56:11

use anymore. But if they've gotten a lot

56:14

of use of circle of power, you want

56:16

to tell them, like, in this case, this

56:18

one guy, he's going to be able to

56:20

drop it for a turn. Right. And they'll

56:22

understand why. And they also know the limitation

56:24

that. That's the limitation that. biggest tip that

56:26

I can give you out of this is

56:28

just keeping in mind that this sort of

56:31

thing exists, right? That there is this

56:33

option for optimizing the characters who will

56:35

optimize their way out of the fun

56:37

and particularly I think we see it

56:39

a lot on the defensive side of

56:41

the fun and particularly I think we

56:43

see it a lot on the defensive

56:45

side of defending themselves out of the

56:47

fun. And it's something that we might

56:49

want to talk to our players about,

56:51

it's something that we want to think

56:54

about when we're offering rewards. of a

56:56

design thing that developers of video games

56:58

have recognized for a long time. And

57:00

we can sort of recognize that too.

57:02

Let's do some patron questions. Every quarter

57:04

I put up a new thread on

57:06

the sly flourish, patron, for people to

57:09

ask their questions. They can ask one

57:11

question a month. I answer every question

57:13

every Friday and then some of those

57:15

questions I bring here to the show

57:17

so that we can dive deeper. Hussain

57:20

B says, my group recently started a

57:22

new level five adventure. During session zero,

57:24

all the players wanted to keep using

57:26

their level three characters from the last

57:28

campaign. So the group started at level

57:30

three instead of five. We are two sessions

57:33

in and so far the encounters have not

57:35

been a problem. I've been keeping my hands

57:37

on the monster dials and the players are

57:39

enjoying the extra challenge. My question is, how

57:42

do you recommend I recalibrate them to the

57:44

campaign's power level? The two options I see

57:46

are one. I can do both, I feel

57:48

like both can be fun for the party

57:51

since players love leveling up and players love

57:53

having extra magic items. Which route do you

57:55

feel will be more fun for the players?

57:57

Getting right to the topic I had before.

57:59

what might be most fun for the

58:02

players initially might be the way that

58:04

optimizes the way out of the fun,

58:06

which would be more magic items. I

58:08

would recommend leveling them up more quickly.

58:10

The nice thing about that is the

58:12

things that are occurring with levels, if

58:14

you give too many magic items out.

58:16

then they're always gonna have those magic

58:18

items. You can't really ever take them

58:20

away. You can, but then you'd be

58:22

a dick. So I would feel like

58:24

instead of trying to be more generous

58:26

with magic items to get them to

58:29

scale up, I would just lower the

58:31

level or speed up how fast you

58:33

are leveling them up. Change things a

58:35

little bit. So maybe the milestones that

58:37

they're leveling on are a bit quicker.

58:39

I'm also assuming you're using milestone leveling,

58:41

but that's kind of, you know, they

58:43

could depend. But either way, you can

58:45

sort of increase things so that they're

58:47

leveling up a little faster than they

58:49

might normally level up. The other answer

58:51

is keep it the way it is,

58:54

because it depends on what adventure you're

58:56

running, but sometimes it doesn't scale up

58:58

so high that two levels is really

59:00

going to make it the way it

59:02

is, because it depends on what adventure

59:04

you're running, but sometimes it's not super

59:06

tight. decide when you want to do

59:08

it. Another way is side quests. You

59:10

can drop side quests in there that

59:12

they can accomplish and the side quests

59:14

get them to the level that you

59:16

want. But I probably wouldn't worry about

59:19

it too much. I would run the

59:21

game as you run it and if

59:23

there are options for the characters to

59:25

level up a little faster, that's probably

59:27

fine. But I don't think that I

59:29

would worry about it. I don't think

59:31

I'd worry about it too much. Nathan.

59:33

I'm making good on my 2025 goal

59:35

of getting a Shadow Dark group together,

59:37

and I run a lot of 5E.

59:39

Any tips for leaning into emergent storytelling?

59:41

Yeah, I have a few tips of

59:43

these, and I've talked about, if you

59:46

look at my Shadow Dark Retrospective that

59:48

I did after having run a year-long

59:50

Shadow Dark campaign, I have a lot

59:52

of tips there. Probably the biggest one

59:54

is building whatever your story arc is,

59:56

so that it's not built around any

59:58

particular character's faction or back. background. And

1:00:00

that way when they bring new characters

1:00:02

in, you can tie the characters to

1:00:04

those factions. And that way they still

1:00:06

have the same quest that their original

1:00:08

character had. So the example here where

1:00:11

I realize this was like the characters

1:00:13

all went into a dungeon. The dungeon

1:00:15

was a long crawl and a lot

1:00:17

of them died on the way. It

1:00:19

was early on the game and a

1:00:21

lot of the characters died and the

1:00:23

new characters showed up. But the new

1:00:25

characters had different motivations than the ones

1:00:27

that went in. to require one thing,

1:00:29

but the characters who were there are

1:00:31

like, well, we don't care about acquiring

1:00:33

that thing. And that was kind of

1:00:36

a mess. And we got back on

1:00:38

track, but it was a little bit

1:00:40

of a mess. So instead, what you

1:00:42

could do is say, like, all of

1:00:44

the characters work for one of these

1:00:46

three factions, but all three of those

1:00:48

factions have a goal of stopping Mugno

1:00:50

Blob from destroying the same goal and

1:00:52

motivation for what they're doing. even if

1:00:54

they're a brand new character, that that

1:00:56

still keeps the game on track. So

1:00:58

that way the story of the game

1:01:00

is more abstract from the individual characters,

1:01:03

so that if they switch characters out

1:01:05

because characters die, and they die often

1:01:07

in shadow dark, they're still on the

1:01:09

same path. They're still going after the

1:01:11

same thing. They're still the main drive

1:01:13

that is driving the rest of it.

1:01:15

That is probably my number one goal

1:01:17

for keeping a sort of heroic story

1:01:19

going, even when you're turning through character.

1:01:21

because they are dying a lot in

1:01:23

Shadowdark. So that's probably my number one

1:01:25

tip. Ryan M says a question for

1:01:28

during or after your mid-February 2025 monster

1:01:30

manual review. If I'm at the table

1:01:32

running a published adventure that references an

1:01:34

SRD monster I accidentally didn't prep for,

1:01:36

which book should I grab to get

1:01:38

the most table usable monster? Assume I

1:01:40

have all the core monster books from

1:01:42

the various major 5E flavors, digital and

1:01:44

physical, and by table usable, I'm thinking

1:01:46

that it means in order of priority

1:01:48

one has the same name so I

1:01:50

can find it to the stack block

1:01:53

is straightforward to run and three it

1:01:55

hits it at CR. Right now I

1:01:57

really like the 2025 monster manual. I

1:01:59

think it's really good and I have

1:02:01

been for my Wednesday game and my

1:02:03

every other week game. which is started,

1:02:05

it's a DD 2014 game. I have

1:02:07

been reaching more and more for the

1:02:09

D&D 2025 monster manual. The monsters hit

1:02:11

really well. They are easy to run

1:02:13

at the table. They hit at their

1:02:15

CR. The names match up for the

1:02:17

most part. There's only like those odds

1:02:20

and ends like Drow. But again, like

1:02:22

the idea of like I'll just use

1:02:24

any humanoid stack block for a Drow

1:02:26

and now I'll just add Drow effects

1:02:28

in my head. That can certainly work

1:02:30

well. But I think the reason that

1:02:32

I'm reaching that I'm reaching for it's

1:02:34

the newest book is it's the newest

1:02:36

book. And I'm kind of excited to

1:02:38

have it, and it's the newest book,

1:02:40

and off I go. In a year,

1:02:42

I'm not sure, because I still go

1:02:45

back to maybe I'm better off just

1:02:47

building a quick monster using forgafo stats.

1:02:49

I now have like my my forgafo's

1:02:51

rapid monster stats in my head, where

1:02:53

I can just build monster stats very,

1:02:55

very quickly based on a challenge rating,

1:02:57

and then I can kind of tune

1:02:59

that monster how I want. To me,

1:03:01

that's almost as good as anything that

1:03:03

I would get out of a monster

1:03:05

manual. In many cases, like there's weird

1:03:07

complications to monsters that I find in

1:03:10

monster books. Well, that doesn't really fit

1:03:12

the situation I've got now, but I'm

1:03:14

able to improvise better when I'm able

1:03:16

to use my own stats really quickly.

1:03:18

So, you know, I would say, like,

1:03:20

the one you want, having the monster

1:03:22

stats by challenge rating, and I'll tell

1:03:24

it to you, I'll speak this out,

1:03:26

you can write this down while you're

1:03:28

listening, the quick monster stats, I've checked

1:03:30

these against pretty much of the different

1:03:32

monster books, and I think they hold

1:03:34

up rather well. The armor class and

1:03:37

difficulty class of a monster is equal

1:03:39

to 12 plus its half its challenge

1:03:41

rating rounding down. So now you've got

1:03:43

AC and DC. Hit points of the

1:03:45

monster are somewhere between 15 and 20

1:03:47

times its challenge rating. You can kind

1:03:49

of pick. Is it 15 times challenge

1:03:51

rating or 20 times challenge rating? Its

1:03:53

attack bonus and primary skills are four

1:03:55

plus one half of its challenge rating

1:03:57

rounded down. And primary ability would be

1:03:59

like, what's the ability score that it's

1:04:02

best at? Is it good at strength?

1:04:04

Is it good at intelligence? Is it

1:04:06

good at wisdom and stuff like that?

1:04:08

The other stats, when you need them,

1:04:10

you improvise. They're somewhere between zero and

1:04:12

whatever its primary stat bonus would be.

1:04:14

But that also works for its attack

1:04:16

bonus. So the attack bonus of the

1:04:18

monster is equal to four plus one

1:04:20

half of its challenge rating rounded down.

1:04:22

And damage is seven times challenge rating.

1:04:24

That's the total damage the monster does.

1:04:27

You can divide that into two attacks

1:04:29

or three attacks or four attacks. If

1:04:31

an attack hits multiple characters, then you

1:04:33

divide that by two. So if it

1:04:35

does a breath weapon, you would do

1:04:37

three and a half per challenge rating

1:04:39

instead of seven per challenge rating. With

1:04:41

those stats in your head, you can

1:04:43

build any monster at any challenge rating

1:04:45

you want. And then you can improvise

1:04:47

all of the different effects and abilities

1:04:49

and other details of the monster as

1:04:51

you go. But I find that like

1:04:54

having that in my head, like I

1:04:56

just recited that, I didn't even have

1:04:58

to look at anything. Just having that

1:05:00

in my head lets me build any

1:05:02

monster that I want and pretty much

1:05:04

any challenge rating and then I can

1:05:06

improvise that monster a lot. I think

1:05:08

that might be even better than any

1:05:10

monster book that you're going to that

1:05:12

you're going to find. Christopher S says,

1:05:14

at some point I'd love for you

1:05:16

to tell us your experiences with A5E,

1:05:19

level up advanced 5E, comparisons and contrasts,

1:05:21

the good and the bad, etc. I've

1:05:23

been running two different A5E games, one

1:05:25

where I've slowly switched to A5E, and

1:05:27

one that started is A5E, pure, no

1:05:29

house rules. I'm finding that skills with

1:05:31

expertise often yield quite higher results than

1:05:33

the DCs I set for them. Five

1:05:35

for easy, 10 for moderate, 15 for

1:05:37

hard, 20 very hard, 25, 25 nearly

1:05:39

impossible, 25 nearly impossible, 30, nearly impossible,

1:05:41

why bother, but okay. Why bother but

1:05:44

okay. Why bother but okay. I'm curious

1:05:46

on you and your players take on

1:05:48

it. Also I can't wait until the

1:05:50

Level Up Gateway is ready for all

1:05:52

so my players can use it. Making

1:05:54

character in A5 is a bit more

1:05:56

complicated and as a GM remembering all

1:05:58

the little triggers Destiny Inspiration features backgrounds

1:06:00

that can be in, that can all

1:06:02

be lightning rod. I'll be straight

1:06:04

with you. I did not find level

1:06:07

up advanced 5E as fun to play

1:06:09

and run and neither did my players

1:06:11

as other 5E variants. I feel like

1:06:13

it over, it's sort of leaned in

1:06:15

on the extra complications of the game.

1:06:18

And as one of my players said,

1:06:20

like those extra common, those extra complications

1:06:22

weren't worth the extra effort. I brought

1:06:24

it to the players. They did not

1:06:27

come to me saying, hey, we want

1:06:29

a crunch year 5E. I was like,

1:06:31

hey, let's try this version of 5E.

1:06:33

And we did it and players. And

1:06:35

I still have three players who are playing

1:06:38

A5E characters. So what I did is I

1:06:40

started off by saying, we're going to have

1:06:42

an A5E game. And we had an A5E game,

1:06:44

and then partway into it, I did have players who

1:06:46

are like, you know, my on-call player in particular, who

1:06:48

is like, he's not going to keep up and constantly

1:06:51

upgrade his character. And if he ever had to upgrade

1:06:53

by two levels, it was a lot of work. And

1:06:55

plus they didn't have all the books and stuff like

1:06:57

that. And getting it extra, he was just like, it

1:06:59

feels like I'm doing a whole lot of extra math

1:07:01

for not a whole lot of extra game. And

1:07:03

so what I said was I want

1:07:05

everybody to have fun, so I'm going

1:07:08

to open it up. You can play

1:07:10

any 5E character you want. You can

1:07:12

play A5E, you can play D2024, you

1:07:14

can play D&D 2014, you can play

1:07:16

Tales of the Valiant, you can play

1:07:18

whatever you want to know, whatever you

1:07:21

want to play. Three of my players

1:07:23

continued to play their A5E characters. We

1:07:25

have an A5E wizard, an A5E, the

1:07:27

warlord class whose name escapes me, the

1:07:29

class name escapes me, escapes me,

1:07:32

and an A5E paladin, who's a,

1:07:34

I think is known as a herald.

1:07:36

So they changed the class names,

1:07:38

which also kind of annoys me

1:07:41

a little bit. I know that

1:07:43

there are a reason, a marshal,

1:07:45

thank you. Lord Bard says, Lord

1:07:47

Bard says that was a marshal.

1:07:49

Yeah, so we have an A5E

1:07:51

marshal, we have an A5E Herald,

1:07:53

and an A5E wizard. The marshal

1:07:55

is continuing to play the marshal

1:07:58

because there isn't any other, with

1:08:00

A5E. And that's fine, right? And so

1:08:02

half the players are still playing with

1:08:04

A5E characters and they're still enjoying it.

1:08:07

But a lot of the A5E complicated

1:08:09

aspects, I've sort of hand-waved away now.

1:08:11

I don't really pay attention to expertise.

1:08:13

The players still pay attention to expertise

1:08:16

when they're playing those. But then I

1:08:18

have a couple of players who are

1:08:20

playing D&D 2024 characters now. And one

1:08:22

of, and both of them switched

1:08:24

over from their A5E ones, and

1:08:26

they're much happier with the DD

1:08:29

2024 characters. Just not even just

1:08:31

from like power, because in fact,

1:08:33

one of them went way down

1:08:36

in power. He was doing a

1:08:38

lot more damage with A5E, and

1:08:40

then switched to G&D 2024, and

1:08:43

now has more utility, but less

1:08:45

damage, but less damage, but less

1:08:47

damage, but less damage, but less

1:08:49

damage. And he's... entry books are

1:08:52

fantastic books to help augment your 5E

1:08:54

games. I think there's a lot of

1:08:56

cool rules from A5E, like the idea

1:08:58

of safe havens, like the idea of

1:09:00

resources, of what are they called, supply.

1:09:03

I think there's a lot of really

1:09:05

good options in there. The idea of

1:09:07

strife as a status effect, a lot

1:09:09

of things I really like, but I

1:09:11

did find that the game was kind

1:09:13

of too crunchy. And as you say,

1:09:16

not having an online character builder for

1:09:18

a game that's this crunchy, clearly showed

1:09:20

that difference. a high fantasy game like Shadow the

1:09:22

Weird Wizard can be like that is far

1:09:24

easier to do on like a character sheet.

1:09:26

That I think is a big difference as

1:09:28

well. So those are kind of my thoughts on

1:09:30

A5E. I was going to do a longer segment

1:09:33

and I might at some point do a longer

1:09:35

segment where I talk about A5E. But you asked,

1:09:37

so it's here. And actually this answers SamM's question

1:09:39

as well. who said, I know you use A5E

1:09:42

books for monsters and prep, but have you run

1:09:44

or played much with actual A5E? I'm curious how

1:09:46

the martial maneuvers play out. If they slow it

1:09:48

played down, how do they feel compared to spells?

1:09:51

And if they're too much for someone, just wanting

1:09:53

to play a simple character. My experience is that

1:09:55

they are not too much in what they do,

1:09:57

but they were too much in the idea of.

1:09:59

too many options and then my players felt

1:10:01

like there were too many trap options. There

1:10:04

were too many ways where it's like I'm

1:10:06

never going to want to take this set

1:10:08

because they're clearly worse than the other set.

1:10:10

I think that the weapon masteries from D&D

1:10:12

2024 and the weapon maneuvers that are in

1:10:14

Tales of the Valiant was a offered the

1:10:16

same kind of capability. in much smaller amount

1:10:18

of rules, which meant it was way easier

1:10:20

to take. Of those, I really like the

1:10:22

tales of the valiant ones because you do

1:10:24

those instead of doing damage. And I really

1:10:26

like that idea. In fact, Shadow the Weird

1:10:28

Wizard also does this, where you can do

1:10:30

these extra maneuvers when you're attacking with a

1:10:32

weapon, but you do them instead of doing

1:10:34

damage. If you wanted a house rule for

1:10:36

weapon masteries in order to kind of bound

1:10:39

things, that could be something that you could

1:10:41

do. You could, for example, say for topple,

1:10:43

you can attempt topple, but if you hit,

1:10:45

you don't do any damage, and instead you

1:10:47

invoke a saving throw. That would be a

1:10:49

nerve, definitely, to topple. But if you find

1:10:51

that the weapon masteries in 2024 are just

1:10:53

over the top, that could be a house

1:10:55

rule that would bound things a bit. And

1:10:57

that is the way the Tales of the

1:10:59

Valiant handle, is it? And I find it

1:11:01

to work better. So yeah, by too much,

1:11:03

I didn't think that the weapon maneuvers in

1:11:05

A5E were too much, it was too much.

1:11:07

material and Tales of the Valiant and D&D

1:11:09

2024 with the weapon maneuvers and weapon masteries

1:11:11

I think were an easier one to bring

1:11:13

into the game that added that extra power.

1:11:16

Friends, I want to thank all of you

1:11:18

for hanging out with me today while we

1:11:20

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1:11:22

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