Latest / Sessions Canceled / Apocalyptic Subclasses | Unearthed Arcana 2025: Ep. 163

Transcript

Apocalyptic Subclasses | Unearthed Arcana 2025: Ep. 163 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:08
  All right, everybody, so the GM actually brought out an old Dark
• 0:18
  Sun book and everyone got really curious because like Dark Sun,
• 0:22
  who's heard of that? And then much like Scott Pilgrim
• 0:24
  and the vegan police, the the DND police kicked the door and
• 0:27
  and said we weren't allowed to play that because it's bad and
• 0:30
  it's got bad themes in it. So because.
• 0:34
  Slavery or something? The slavery and racism like
• 0:37
  that. So they, they actually, they
• 0:38
  carted away the DM. Yeah.
• 0:40
  They just threw him in the back of the Paddy wagon and he's
• 0:41
  gone. So that was cancelled.
• 0:48
  Yeah. I just think of the the they
• 0:51
  called the Pinkertons on the GM. Yeah, they called that.
• 0:53
  That's what should have been. They just when they called the
• 0:55
  Pinkertons on him. I just think of the John Mulaney
• 0:57
  joke when at the house party when the cop comes in, he's
• 0:59
  like, get the Paddy wagon. Just get the Paddy wagon.
• 1:05
  But yeah, this week, Well, actually, I should say hello.
• 1:09
  It's me, Isaiah. I'm with Josh, and I'm indeed
• 1:12
  here. Yeah.
• 1:14
  And this week we're going to be talking about the apocalyptic
• 1:16
  psych classes from Unearthed Arcana because it caught my eye
• 1:21
  and brain was smooth this week. So I figured Bridge can take a
• 1:26
  look at this and see what we got and.
• 1:28
  Your eye and then solemnly disappointed you.
• 1:31
  Some of it did, some of it really fucking did.
• 1:33
  Dude like 6765% disappointed me but.
• 1:45
  Only four subclasses too, which is like, not a lot.
• 1:48
  A little light. Yeah, it's a little light.
• 1:50
  So we're probably not going to have too much to say today, but
• 1:55
  yeah, I just kind of wanted to talk about it because there are
• 1:57
  some stuff that I did really like, and I have beef.
• 2:01
  I got a bone to pick with you, D&D and Wizards.
• 2:04
  And I can't say Mr. Jocker or Mr. Perkins because you don't
• 2:08
  work there anymore. But whoever does still work
• 2:10
  there, hopefully not that cute aging lady whose name I can't
• 2:13
  remember. Chelsea Darmus.
• 2:17
  And she has. She does still.
• 2:18
  Work there, Yes. Well, I hope it's not her.
• 2:21
  Mackenzie. Mackenzie.
• 2:23
  Yeah, I hope it's not her because she seems very nice and
• 2:26
  is adorable. Wow.
• 2:28
  Whoever it is, hopefully not her.
• 2:30
  Whoever. Designed it.
• 2:31
  I mean, it might be here. I just, I mean, OK, I'm going to
• 2:39
  get into it a little bit right now before we really start.
• 2:44
  I don't know what is going on with Wizards, and we've talked
• 2:47
  about this before pretty much every single time we've done a
• 2:50
  2024 UA. But I don't understand this fear
• 2:57
  to just let the subclass be cool.
• 3:00
  Just let it do something weird and wild and strong and just
• 3:04
  make a player go, oh shit, I want to do that.
• 3:08
  It's always this really cool thing.
• 3:09
  And then they're like, and, and you're like, and and they're
• 3:12
  like, and you can only do it once a day and then you go wait.
• 3:18
  But that makes it a lot less cool.
• 3:19
  And they're like balance baby. And I don't really get it.
• 3:25
  And it's got that bug really bad in this one.
• 3:28
  I I would go as far as to say it's some of the subclass
• 3:31
  abilities are close to like 2014 level conservative, you know?
• 3:38
  I mean, I'm not really going to gauge whether the the
• 3:41
  conservativeness or not of them because whatever, I don't care.
• 3:45
  But yeah, what the problem? Your pause before we identify
• 3:54
  any problems, you should solve the problem you have identified,
• 3:57
  which is that you're not following or subscribed yet on
• 3:59
  whatever podcast platform you're currently listening on.
• 4:02
  Solve that problem first, then we can talk about D&D's.
• 4:08
  Problem. You done it good.
• 4:11
  Yeah, what's going on here Is D and DI think is is.
• 4:19
  This is going to sound like a weird comparison, but follow me
• 4:22
  on the journey a little bit. I think DND is suffering from a
• 4:25
  very similar problem that Final Fantasy 14 is currently
• 4:28
  suffering from. And I don't know if it's hitting
• 4:34
  DND in the sales yet, but they have established a system.
• 4:47
  And I think they've gotten really good at sort of filling
• 4:53
  in the, the, I don't want to quite say paint by numbers, but
• 4:56
  like they've gotten really good at operating within the system
• 5:00
  they have established. And I don't mean system isn't
• 5:02
  tabletop system, I mean system of how they design things,
• 5:05
  right? They have like a, you know, some
• 5:07
  sort of design Bible or something along those lines
• 5:11
  where they're like, OK, when ability does XY or Z thing, it
• 5:14
  can happen this many times. If ability does this this or
• 5:17
  this or something like this, it can happen this many times.
• 5:21
  You know, if the ability is tied to this stat, then you need to
• 5:23
  make sure it can do XY or ZX number of rounds.
• 5:27
  Like they have this system that they've set up because they've
• 5:30
  been designing 5 VA long time and so they've gotten into the
• 5:33
  groove. The problem is that they've
• 5:37
  gotten so comfortable in the system that they are now afraid
• 5:41
  to really do anything wacky woo Hoo or wild or or maybe not even
• 5:45
  afraid. They just don't even really
• 5:46
  think to do anything wacky woo Hoo or wild cause the system
• 5:50
  that they've set up like works. And the reason I compare it to
• 5:53
  14 is because 14 is in a similar situation where they started
• 5:58
  designing everything, particularly with the job design
• 6:01
  in the game. They started designing
• 6:03
  everything so that it's very like every class has a 2 minute
• 6:09
  rotation window. And the reason they did that is
• 6:11
  so that everyone's bus lines up. And then if everyone's bus lines
• 6:14
  up, we know that every class is sum is viable in every fight
• 6:17
  because everyone's got the same buff window worry about and the
• 6:19
  rotations can fall within this, this this same system.
• 6:23
  And it led to a a lot of people being like, oh, now all the
• 6:28
  glasses feel a restricted because you need to make sure
• 6:32
  that they have a 2 minute rotation that works with
• 6:35
  everyone else's two-minute buffs and two-minute rotations.
• 6:38
  And then you B, you also can't wiggle the abilities that much
• 6:44
  because once you pop the job out of that two-minute rotation, if
• 6:48
  it's the only job not in that rotation, that job's probably
• 6:51
  going to be less effective than everybody else.
• 6:55
  And then it's going to be a problem of it's just not going
• 6:58
  to use because it's so obviously less useful than the others.
• 7:03
  And the other thing that 14 did was they started making sure
• 7:07
  that every all jobs in the same role had like the same
• 7:15
  abilities. So every tank has a 30% damage
• 7:19
  reduction ability. Every tank has a big AOE get my
• 7:24
  health back type ability. Like they all have these
• 7:27
  abilities that if you play them all, you're like, oh, this is
• 7:30
  just this ability from this like this this ability is from this
• 7:34
  other class. This is just that like in a way,
• 7:37
  the and I I this is getting a little into the weeds, I know,
• 7:40
  but like the Dark Knight's blood Spiller combo is kind of just
• 7:44
  fell cleaves from warrior. Like it's the same.
• 7:47
  It's a very similar like philosophy into how the jobs
• 7:50
  revert DN DS doing the same thing.
• 7:53
  Like everybody needs to have an ability that does X.
• 7:55
  Everybody needs to have an ability that does Y and we need
• 7:57
  to make sure that it fits within this framework.
• 8:00
  Everyone needs X number of short rest abilities per X number of
• 8:04
  levels. You know what I mean?
• 8:05
  They've gotten really rote with the system.
• 8:09
  And so now the reason that things end up being not cool, as
• 8:13
  you're putting it, is because if they get too wacky, woo Hoo with
• 8:17
  it, they're getting out outside of that Design Bible that they
• 8:20
  have at this point. And so they're playing it overly
• 8:24
  safe because they're like, well, the Design Bible's been working.
• 8:28
  Well, so that's kind of what I mean when I say conservative,
• 8:30
  right? They're they're very like
• 8:32
  intentionally restricting how crazy things get because they're
• 8:35
  like, well, we can't, we can't color too far outside the lines.
• 8:37
  People. Come on.
• 8:37
  Yeah. They don't want to.
• 8:38
  Break the 2. Reason they don't want to break
• 8:40
  the two-minute window. Yeah, and that's really
• 8:42
  beginning to frustrate me with 5E.
• 8:45
  Yeah, it's inferiority. I also realized some weird
• 8:48
  inconsistencies in this UA where they have rolled back the proc
• 8:55
  the the proc mod. You know, they, they rolled that
• 9:00
  back in 2024 in the Player's Handbook.
• 9:02
  Like pretty much. Oh, did.
• 9:04
  They, yeah, they stopped. I mean, it's still there in some
• 9:06
  abilities, but it is not across the board the way it was for a
• 9:09
  little while. Thank God no.
• 9:13
  Yeah, that's. Kind of that's kind of been less
• 9:14
  of a thing that right around when the 20/20/24 playtest stuff
• 9:20
  started coming out, they started going back to either based on a
• 9:25
  stat or just like a set number. Like you just get three of these
• 9:29
  day and discussion. They've been doing a lot more of
• 9:31
  that. They don't have as many things
• 9:33
  tied to proficiency bonus, probably because they realize
• 9:36
  that proficiency bonus goes up to six and a lot of the
• 9:38
  abilities they wanted to make. If you could do it 6 times, it'd
• 9:41
  probably be too reliable on top of homogenizing.
• 9:47
  Yeah. I mean, the homogenizing thing,
• 9:49
  I feel like it's probably the thing they were worried about
• 9:50
  more because no. I don't think they're worried
• 9:53
  about that. You think so?
• 9:55
  No, I don't think they care. I don't think they see
• 9:57
  homogenizing as a problem because if they did, we wouldn't
• 10:00
  be talking about this the way we're talking about it right
• 10:01
  now. Well, no, I would argue that
• 10:04
  they do a bit because for a while there and again, you know,
• 10:07
  whether or not they were doing it just sort of to see what it
• 10:09
  was like, you know, when they removed pack magic, they did
• 10:13
  repeal that eventually, you know.
• 10:16
  They did. I don't like they're worried
• 10:23
  about overboard homogenizing, sure, but I think some
• 10:27
  homogenizing across the board to make their lives a little bit
• 10:30
  easier, I think is I don't think they're too terribly scared of
• 10:36
  or maybe somebody's telling them they have to be that way.
• 10:38
  I don't know. I it's, it's, you know, it's
• 10:44
  kind of that thing the, the benefit of homogenizing.
• 10:47
  And this is the same argument that 14 has or 14 makes, right?
• 10:51
  The does the devs make the benefit of the homogenizing is
• 10:55
  it lets you design the math really tightly, right?
• 10:58
  And if you have really tight math, you can kind of very
• 11:03
  reliably always do what you want and it, you will get the outcome
• 11:06
  you generally want. The downside of course, to the
• 11:11
  homogenizing is that, you know, everything feels overly samey
• 11:16
  and then players eyes start to glaze over and, and I think this
• 11:21
  is a really big one, When you homogenize things a lot, that
• 11:25
  means it's faster to learn. And if it's faster to learn,
• 11:30
  then you have less of a time investment necessary to feel
• 11:33
  like you've mastered the system. And once you've mastered the
• 11:37
  system, you're kind of less inclined to keep using the
• 11:41
  system. Or if you are going to keep
• 11:42
  using the system, you're going to start using more third party
• 11:45
  things which add in that air of this is a new thing for me to
• 11:48
  learn, you know, like it's that it's that whole issue of, oh, I
• 11:55
  know how to do this. So like now I'm less interested.
• 11:57
  Whereas if the if there's depth to it, you have to spend a lot
• 12:00
  of time with it to really master the depth, you know what I mean?
• 12:04
  And of course, casual players don't want there to be a lot of
• 12:06
  depth, they want to just be able to figure it out.
• 12:07
  And more hardcore players want there to be depth because they
• 12:09
  want to be able to sync 10,000 hours and feel like there's
• 12:12
  still new shit to learn. This is the ultimate fighting
• 12:14
  game dilemma that's been going on for the past 10 fucking
• 12:17
  years. Just 10 years. 10 years
• 12:22
  recently, yeah, I would say right around when Street Fighter
• 12:25
  Five came out, this really started to be a topic.
• 12:30
  Interesting. Street Fighter Five.
• 12:34
  When did Street Fighter Five come out?
• 12:35
  I don't remember off the top of my head. 2016 Oh, it was close.
• 12:39
  Almost 10 years. Yeah.
• 12:41
  Street Fighter Five really got this goat going of like, oh, if
• 12:44
  we make the game more simple or easier to learn, then the casual
• 12:49
  players will want to play more because they feel like they
• 12:52
  they, they can actually play properly and they are not as
• 12:55
  intimidated. What actually happens when you
• 12:57
  make a game, at least when we're talking about a competitive
• 12:59
  game, this is a little different because DN DS not competitive.
• 13:01
  But when we're talking about a competitive game, what actually
• 13:04
  ends up happening is the good players learn the game really,
• 13:07
  really fast and then they absolutely pub stomp the shit
• 13:11
  out of the not good players. And what happens is the not good
• 13:14
  players leave just as fast as they were going to because
• 13:18
  they're just getting their ass beat anyway.
• 13:21
  So it really solved nothing. Yeah, the thing you.
• 13:26
  Need catering to the the the greatest common denominator has
• 13:31
  never worked I'm. Not going to say never.
• 13:35
  I mean, it depends on it. There's there's varying degrees
• 13:37
  of it, but honestly. The thing that you need at.
• 13:40
  The end of the day, most. Studies will show that when you
• 13:42
  cater to the like masses as opposed to just like a general
• 13:46
  you got here some stuff for here, some stuff for here, some
• 13:48
  stuff for here, it usually does result in everyone being
• 13:52
  unsatisfied. Well, that's not what we're
• 13:55
  talking about. That's different.
• 13:57
  We're not talking about the, we're not talking about
• 13:59
  necessarily catering to the masses in the sense of like
• 14:02
  design. We're talking about trying to
• 14:05
  open it up so anyone who's interested could potentially get
• 14:10
  invested. That's what I'm saying though,
• 14:12
  that that's kind of one of the same.
• 14:13
  Opening it up for casual enjoyment does mean that you are
• 14:16
  stripping it away from hobbyists or enthusiasts a bit, because
• 14:20
  you're more worried about bringing new people in than
• 14:23
  keeping the people you have. Sure, I guess neither one of
• 14:27
  these are relevant to what I was.
• 14:28
  The thing, the the point, the important crux here is that that
• 14:32
  doesn't solve anything. What the actual solution to the
• 14:36
  problem is, both for fighting games and for D&D, funny enough,
• 14:39
  is having other players at the same level playing with the new
• 14:46
  people. That's what actually solves the
• 14:49
  problem, right? In a fighting game sense.
• 14:51
  You. New newer players get invested
• 14:55
  if they're facing if they're fighting other newer players
• 14:59
  because then they feel like they are learning together.
• 15:02
  And it's not this case of just getting absolutely Dick stomped
• 15:05
  into the ground in five seconds. Some people are psychopaths and
• 15:07
  will get Dick stomped into the ground and not care like me, but
• 15:11
  most people won't. Yeah, no, I'm definitely not one
• 15:14
  of those people. DND is the same thing in that
• 15:18
  playing with a really experienced group, or if half
• 15:22
  the group is hyper experienced, even the newer players are going
• 15:26
  to feel a little bit intimidated out because the G Ms. going to
• 15:30
  be like, OK, do your do your this and that role and the
• 15:32
  player's going to be like, I don't know what that means.
• 15:33
  They're going to be like, Jesus Christ, come on, it's just your
• 15:35
  fucking basic attacker, blah, blah, you know, and then they're
• 15:37
  going to get annoyed at them because they don't know it.
• 15:39
  So again, it's the same. It's the same thing you, that
• 15:44
  large swath of players all at the same level is what keeps the
• 15:47
  new players coming in. That's what actually helps.
• 15:52
  And the initial entry, like the gateway needs to be, needs to be
• 15:59
  accessible, right? Like you need to be able to get
• 16:02
  in the door easily, but there also needs to feel like there's
• 16:07
  a, a, you know, an ocean to discover, an iceberg to find, if
• 16:11
  you will, for most people. I mean, here's the thing, hyper
• 16:15
  casual players you're never going to get no matter what.
• 16:18
  That's why they're hyper casual right click.
• 16:21
  So, you know, basically, yes, DND is sort of they're playing
• 16:34
  it safe within the lines to try and hit that generic across the
• 16:40
  board thing with the newer players.
• 16:44
  And I yeah, like I said, I don't know if it's hurting them yet or
• 16:50
  not, but I feel like it probably will eventually if it.
• 16:55
  Isn't. I think I think it is.
• 16:57
  I think it's hurting them already.
• 16:58
  I I. Mean we don't know their
• 17:00
  financials, so no well 2024 sold really well so.
• 17:05
  It did. I think, well, I don't think
• 17:07
  it's hurting them necessarily financially yet, but I think
• 17:09
  it's hurting them reputationally at the moment.
• 17:12
  Yeah, but they don't give a shit about that if they make money,
• 17:15
  I. Mean the designer thing where
• 17:20
  they're the designers. Care, but we're not talking
• 17:22
  about the designers. Well, so it's one of those
• 17:25
  things where, you know, reputation and income are sort
• 17:28
  of linked to, right. If D&D gets a bad rap, it gets
• 17:30
  bad word of mouth. If it gets bad word of mouth, it
• 17:32
  gets less sales. If it gets less sales, it makes
• 17:34
  less money. Like it's all sort of connected.
• 17:37
  So they probably they might care about their optics less so, but.
• 17:42
  Well what I'm saying is even if they get a shitty reputation,
• 17:45
  but they have enough people who don't pay attention still making
• 17:49
  them money, then they're not going to care, right?
• 17:52
  If there if there's a large enough swath of the not online
• 17:56
  people who are not living and breathing this horseshit the way
• 18:00
  we do, then they probably won't care.
• 18:03
  If those people who do live and breathe it manage to get the
• 18:07
  word out to the more casual people well enough, then they
• 18:11
  might care because then it'll probably start to affect the
• 18:13
  bottom line more. I don't know if that's happening
• 18:16
  or not. You know what I mean?
• 18:16
  Like I don't know if we're at that point or not or if we're
• 18:19
  approaching it or what. It's very, you know, we don't
• 18:23
  know their financials. We know 14's financials or at
• 18:26
  least some of them. And we know 14's not doing so
• 18:28
  hot right now. So.
• 18:30
  You know, it's a shame. Listen, it was basically in pot,
• 18:35
  like Dawn Trail was doomed from the beginning.
• 18:37
  There's no scenario where the hype of End Walker ends and then
• 18:42
  you keep it up Like no matter what they did, people were going
• 18:47
  to finish End Walker and then stop playing 14 forever.
• 18:51
  That there is a, there is a percentage of people on this
• 18:53
  planet that did that because End Walker finished and got them
• 18:58
  what they wanted. You know what I mean?
• 18:59
  Like, there's no scenario where you do this big 10 year
• 19:03
  crescendo and then you don't lose a bunch of people
• 19:05
  afterward. And anyone who thought that
• 19:07
  wasn't going to happen, such as the the C-Suite assholes,
• 19:11
  they're fucking delusional idiots.
• 19:12
  And I'm sure the devs tried to say that to them and I'm sure
• 19:15
  they didn't listen. And then you have to do the back
• 19:16
  and forth bullshit where you pretend and you schmooze the
• 19:20
  C-Suite to try to make them happy, even though you as a dev
• 19:22
  know this is not going to go well.
• 19:24
  But but yeah, because like, from an artistic standpoint, as a
• 19:28
  developer, you have this big crescendo and you're like, all
• 19:32
  right, we're going to keep going, but we're going to do
• 19:35
  something different. We're going to, you know, change
• 19:37
  it up from an artistic standpoint.
• 19:39
  You're like, I know I'm going to like lose people, but I don't
• 19:41
  care, right? Like this is, this is what the
• 19:44
  artistic, this is what the art needs, so I'm going to do it.
• 19:48
  But from the C-Suite assholes who want the money, you know
• 19:51
  they don't understand that because they're all zombie robot
• 19:54
  people with no humanity in their soul.
• 19:56
  You know. I'm not necessarily saying D&D
• 20:02
  is quite that far into this the shitter, but, you know, it's
• 20:05
  sort of. Like, I mean, I think it I it's
• 20:07
  after OGLII think it is like I said, I think we've hit that
• 20:13
  point a while. I don't know, I don't know.
• 20:14
  We can't tell, but yeah, we don't know fiber.
• 20:16
  My being says it is. We don't know where they're at.
• 20:20
  And also I don't think these U as being boring necessarily is
• 20:26
  affecting the bottom line. You know, like actually I don't
• 20:29
  think it's affected the bottom line at all.
• 20:32
  It might. You can't say it won't do it at
• 20:33
  all. It might, right?
• 20:34
  Because the UAS are just previews of what's to come in
• 20:39
  source books or adventure modules.
• 20:41
  So. But the casuals don't have
• 20:44
  something to look forward to. The more casual player base is
• 20:47
  not looking at these UAS, you know what I mean?
• 20:49
  The percentage of people that look at these UAS is very small.
• 20:53
  I don't know if that's true. I, I, I, I would like to see.
• 20:55
  I'm pretty sure they. Gave us numbers and it's tiny.
• 21:00
  I don't it would take me too long for me to try and find it
• 21:03
  right now. But I feel like I remember them
• 21:05
  giving us numbers and the percent because they were
• 21:08
  talking about the numbers when the play test was going on.
• 21:11
  And they were saying how the play test got way bigger
• 21:13
  reception than any other UA play test material has ever gotten.
• 21:18
  And the number that they gave for UA stuff before was like a
• 21:23
  high it, I want to say it was like 10% or something like that.
• 21:27
  It was not a lot. It was not a lot of players so.
• 21:31
  10% is quite a lot when you consider worldwide play of DND
• 21:34
  that's that's I'd say 10%'s a lot.
• 21:35
  It's an absolute number of a lot, but 10% of the players who
• 21:39
  play DND, which is to say 10% of like sales, not that much, you
• 21:44
  know what I mean? Like in terms of players that
• 21:46
  already exist, if we're talking about who's giving the company
• 21:49
  money, 10% looking at the UA is not that much.
• 21:54
  So I don't think the UAS are moving any numbers around very
• 21:58
  much. Until see how the percentage
• 22:00
  until they get. Fair enough.
• 22:01
  Until they get solidified into a book.
• 22:05
  That's different. Obviously.
• 22:07
  Once they get solidified into a book, you know, whole other
• 22:09
  story. It's just, it's playtest shit.
• 22:12
  Most people, it's like, most people don't look at patch
• 22:14
  notes. Most people don't look at
• 22:15
  playtest, you know, it's all that shit.
• 22:20
  I mean shit, think about yourself.
• 22:21
  I don't know. But I only look at the only
• 22:24
  time, like for games, the only time I look at like patch notes
• 22:26
  or anything like that is for a game that I'm actively into
• 22:31
  right now or have been deep in the sauce for a long time with,
• 22:35
  you know what I mean? Like like, I'm not looking at,
• 22:37
  I'm not looking at the patch notes for Conan Exiles right
• 22:40
  now. I don't give a fuck.
• 22:41
  You know what I mean? Oh, I do.
• 22:42
  So like for me it's it's purely a, a, a, a comfort thing.
• 22:47
  I don't like change typically. So I want to know what's
• 22:50
  changing and what to be mad. At you could just live in
• 22:54
  blissful ignorance and not look. I cannot.
• 22:57
  I can't do that. No you can't though you.
• 22:59
  No I can't though. I literally nothing on the
• 23:02
  planet stopping you from doing that.
• 23:04
  I my own mind, it's not how my brain works, sorry bud.
• 23:07
  Can't do it. Nothing on the planet.
• 23:08
  Stopping you I it's my own brain.
• 23:11
  Can't do it. You have control of your own
• 23:13
  brain. No, you know, you really there
• 23:15
  are studies that say you you kind of don't your your brain is
• 23:18
  definitely not getting down this.
• 23:20
  I'm. Definitely not getting down this
• 23:21
  argument right now. You are just a weird pile of
• 23:24
  flesh being piloted by anxiety meat.
• 23:26
  Like all that to say, I kind of know what your general thoughts
• 23:34
  are going to be. But general thoughts on each
• 23:36
  other's like glasses, they're fine.
• 23:42
  That's it. You're not No, no, no, nothing.
• 23:44
  A little more specific on each ones.
• 23:46
  Any ones that stood out to you, you liked more than others, or?
• 23:48
  I mean, we get to specifics when we talk about each one.
• 23:50
  There's only four, so they're fine.
• 23:54
  Fair enough. I mean for me.
• 23:56
  I don't know, the sorcerer did a couple cool things.
• 24:00
  The warlock can't be mad. Glad I.
• 24:03
  Have so many things to say about the warlock it's crazy dude.
• 24:09
  I mean, OK, so I put together a tiny little bulleted list.
• 24:12
  I mean the warlock general thoughts.
• 24:14
  The warlock did my #1 cardinal sin, so you know.
• 24:19
  There's so many, there are so many.
• 24:21
  It did I I like. The the give this Class A spell
• 24:25
  they don't normally have and then just like build them, build
• 24:27
  the class around it. Yeah, command.
• 24:33
  There's no reliance on command. Yeah, yeah, I brought that up.
• 24:36
  My notes. Which is not even that good
• 24:39
  fucking spell. No, like not even a little bit
• 24:41
  mean. It's OK.
• 24:44
  General thoughts on each of the subclasses?
• 24:46
  Circle of Preservation, Utterly sauceless.
• 24:49
  Like Boring had some neat ideas presented, but it just fails to
• 24:54
  capitalize on any of them in like any.
• 24:57
  Meaningful way. It's the meat cube druid.
• 25:00
  It's just not. It it is, it is literally the
• 25:02
  meat cube druid and it could have been so fucking cool.
• 25:05
  That's what makes me so mad is that it had the potential to be
• 25:08
  dope as shit because you get a fucking domain expansion and
• 25:11
  that's cool as fuck. And yet you get a little healing
• 25:15
  and then you get a little resistance to fear and you get
• 25:17
  some movement restriction and some damage and like, like, you
• 25:24
  know, it's, you know what the sad thing is?
• 25:25
  I'm I'm. I'm actively comparing each of
• 25:28
  these subclasses to Cartographer.
• 25:31
  I mean cartographer. Was worse and they're all better
• 25:35
  than Cartographer, but if there was one that I was like I'm
• 25:39
  getting cartographer vibes it would be circular preservation.
• 25:45
  Gladiator was interesting. Gladiator is probably the best
• 25:48
  one. I think it sits it's I like it a
• 25:53
  lot, but it does sit squarely in two camps in my head.
• 25:55
  On one hand I do like what it does and I like that it captures
• 25:58
  a like showman fighter vibe. I I wish it had some more Bard
• 26:04
  like options like stuff that sorcerer king has what it done.
• 26:09
  And on the other hand I do really dislike that it's entire
• 26:13
  kit is weapon master effects. I mean.
• 26:17
  They're basing a lot of fighter around around weapon mastery, so
• 26:20
  like that's on on design. I know I but this is this is
• 26:26
  kind of your cardinal sin is similar to mine where it's it's
• 26:29
  like I don't really like basing an entire class or subclass off
• 26:32
  out it often outside mechanic and like, yes, I know spell
• 26:36
  casting is technically an outside mechanic.
• 26:38
  Shut up. It's different.
• 26:40
  OK, I don't know. I, I, I, on one hand I was like,
• 26:47
  oh, it's cool that they're like really doubling down.
• 26:49
  But then I just, I just imagined several ways that it could go
• 26:53
  wrong and I, I got filled with dread.
• 26:57
  I mean, you need to, I feel like it makes sense to have a, a, a
• 27:01
  subclass here and there to be really, really emphasized on
• 27:04
  weapon mastery. I don't know if Gladiator is
• 27:07
  necessarily the one I would have gone with, but you know.
• 27:12
  Yeah, I, I don't know, I again, this this could just be because
• 27:16
  I know less about the 2024 rules and the 2014 rules.
• 27:19
  Like we spent I spent years studying the 2014 rulebook and
• 27:25
  playing in bunches of like dozens of games and one shots
• 27:28
  and all this shit. I just have less understanding
• 27:30
  of the new rule set. So there is a bit of like
• 27:34
  friction for me for short. What does that have to take?
• 27:37
  My what? Does that have to do with weapon
• 27:38
  master? Well, not like I haven't read
• 27:42
  the fighter in a while so I'm not 100% on how much it actually
• 27:46
  affects the class or not how. Much what affects the class.
• 27:50
  Weapon Mastery. A lot.
• 27:55
  Do you forget about that? Forget about that ability where
• 27:57
  the the fighter gets they get 3 weapon masteries for free
• 28:02
  regardless of what weapon they're using.
• 28:04
  Yes, so that I do know, but yeah, like as far as I can tell,
• 28:10
  none of their core class features do anything other than
• 28:14
  give them to you. Doesn't make them stronger.
• 28:16
  It doesn't like key off of them, it's just that you get them.
• 28:19
  Well, that's what this subclass does, because it lets you combo
• 28:25
  them. Yes, I, I.
• 28:27
  Get that? But what I'm saying is, is that
• 28:30
  getting them is one thing. I I find something odd about
• 28:33
  focusing the entire class around them again because they are an
• 28:36
  outside mechanic. Technically giving them to you
• 28:39
  is one thing, like giving you the ability to do that is cool,
• 28:44
  but I don't know. I've I've got something weird
• 28:47
  about it in the same way that I've got like a weird, like
• 28:50
  there's always been a weird disconnect with Warlock and
• 28:52
  Eldridge Blast where it's like this is just your one thing.
• 28:54
  It's the same issue I have with with Ranger.
• 28:58
  Like they're all sort of similar issues in my head.
• 29:01
  But they're not the same though, because weapon masteries are not
• 29:05
  one singular thing. It's a it's a menu of shit you
• 29:08
  can do. Yes, it's a.
• 29:09
  Substance as opposed to as opposed to Eldridge blast, which
• 29:12
  is one thing. Like literally one thing.
• 29:16
  It's one thing, but it's one thing that can be edited and
• 29:18
  altered and played with. Invitations, yeah, but that's
• 29:21
  not the same as like Elder's Blast.
• 29:24
  You can edit what it does, but you're still casting Elder's
• 29:27
  Blast. Weapon masteries are I have a
• 29:30
  menu of different abilities I can use at different times and
• 29:33
  do different things when I want, like on command.
• 29:37
  It's not like you can hot swap your, your Elder's blast or
• 29:40
  anything like that. It's just whatever invocations
• 29:44
  you slap on it, you have, but you're still just every turn
• 29:47
  it's cast out as blast. Whereas with weapon masteries,
• 29:49
  it's like I attack and I do this thing with my weapon mastery or,
• 29:53
  and I'm going to use this weapon mastery or this weapon mastery,
• 29:57
  right? Like that's, that's a pretty,
• 29:59
  that's a pretty important distinction.
• 30:03
  I suppose I don't know. It's it.
• 30:07
  It occupies the similar part of my brain so I I look on it
• 30:11
  similarly. Moving past the Gladiator, which
• 30:20
  again I have a mostly like defiled sorcerer, I thought was
• 30:24
  really interesting. I think it had a lot of
• 30:26
  potential and it did. So it plays with it a system
• 30:31
  that I had home brewed and and sort of played with a couple
• 30:34
  years ago, which is like overcasting spells using hit
• 30:36
  points as a burnable resource. So that was super cool, but as
• 30:42
  we said before, it just feels like it could have been more, I
• 30:45
  just kind of wanted more from it, just kind of push its
• 30:47
  features a little farther. And then finally, I mean
• 30:51
  sorcerer king, the naming here doesn't make any goddamn sense.
• 30:54
  And I I don't feel like we needed a second psionic warlock,
• 30:59
  but it also like kind of isn't a psionic warlock.
• 31:02
  I. Was going to say it's not at all
• 31:03
  a psionic warlock. What?
• 31:05
  Well, it uses psionics, psionic spell casting.
• 31:09
  Yeah, but that's the one thing it does that uses the word
• 31:11
  psionic. Right.
• 31:13
  But because it's a psionic spellcaster, it's a psionic
• 31:16
  warlock. Because that's it's you're
• 31:19
  getting into like coded language with, it's not hacked casting,
• 31:23
  it's psionic casting because they're making that distinction
• 31:25
  now. Well, you're still packed cast.
• 31:27
  You still use pack casting like you're still warlock.
• 31:31
  Still use regular warlock casting.
• 31:35
  Yes, sort of. It's.
• 31:37
  Oh, literally, you still use that magic.
• 31:40
  You do. But the way that you cast the
• 31:42
  spells is different because you don't require components like it
• 31:45
  shifts it to a like a different Ave.
• 31:47
  It's odd. I I don't think the the
• 31:54
  implication was that it's psionic so much.
• 31:56
  It's just just like like a a force of will type thing.
• 32:01
  Like, I don't, I like yeah, they use the word psionic casting,
• 32:05
  but there's nothing else about it that implies psionic anything
• 32:08
  other than the word psionic casting words.
• 32:12
  That's kind of the issue, right? Is that it very specifically
• 32:17
  references psionic casting, which is a type of casting, but
• 32:20
  nothing I. Think they just use that word to
• 32:24
  get the point across because if they've used it in other places,
• 32:26
  so you kind of know what it means when they say phrase it
• 32:28
  that way. Right, but it does actually have
• 32:31
  a mechanic. Well, I'm I'm not though,
• 32:33
  because it has a mechanical implication.
• 32:36
  Yes, I know that. I'm saying I don't think you're
• 32:38
  reading too much into the name choice.
• 32:40
  Like they could have called it fucking brain casting or like or
• 32:45
  like fucking, I don't know, will cast or whatever.
• 32:49
  Like soul cat, like it could have called it a lot of things.
• 32:52
  Right. But they didn't.
• 32:53
  They called it psionic casting, which is coded language, Yeah.
• 32:56
  I think they do a similar thing. It was just a case of being too
• 32:58
  lazy to like come up with another name.
• 32:59
  To be honest, I really I. Don't know if that big you
• 33:03
  should have used a different name then.
• 33:04
  Like that's. They do a similar thing in the
• 33:07
  same UA where they talk about oh it allows you to critically hit
• 33:10
  your foes but you're not actually critting your foes.
• 33:13
  Well, you're using coded language to describe a non coded
• 33:16
  thing. But the word psionic has no
• 33:18
  mechanical implication though. It does though.
• 33:21
  No it doesn't. Yes.
• 33:24
  It does. There's no mechanic in the book
• 33:26
  that says if you see the word psionic, that means this, that
• 33:29
  and this. That's not a thing.
• 33:32
  There is. Though psionic casting is
• 33:34
  casting without using verbal or material components, no.
• 33:37
  It's just happens. No, no, see, no, no, you're,
• 33:39
  you're, you're, you're flipping the, the, the, the symptom and
• 33:42
  the cause here. Anytime there is a class that
• 33:48
  has the ability to ignore the verbal and semantic components
• 33:52
  or whatever, or the verbal, you know, ignore components.
• 33:55
  Basically they use the word psionic to call like, as just
• 34:00
  like a, a theme, like a naming theme, like a naming, like a
• 34:04
  scheme. But there's nothing in the book
• 34:08
  that says if you see the word psionic on an ability it means
• 34:14
  XY and Z. However, there is something in
• 34:17
  the book that says this is a critical hit.
• 34:20
  The words critical hit mean XY and Z.
• 34:23
  So yes, in the case of the gladiator, then putting the word
• 34:25
  critical hit in the description was probably a bad idea because
• 34:28
  that can cause mechanical confusion.
• 34:30
  Whereas the word psionic does not have any built in mechanical
• 34:35
  meaning to it. They just use it in the same
• 34:37
  place as like to stay on brand. Quote UN quote.
• 34:41
  I get what you're saying. I I disagree.
• 34:43
  I I like I believe it absolutely does have a mechanical
• 34:47
  implication. I even said it before, it has a
• 34:49
  mechanical implication. Like, yeah, you could say it all
• 34:51
  you want. I, I think I don't, I think
• 34:52
  you're wrong. Like, I don't think that's the
• 34:53
  idea. Like there's a big difference
• 34:56
  between the player's handbook calls out a specific mechanic
• 35:00
  with a specific key. Like there's no keyword.
• 35:02
  There's no psionic keyword in the game that doesn't exist.
• 35:05
  There is a, there is a keyword for critical hit or keywords,
• 35:08
  but there's no keyword for psionic.
• 35:11
  There's not like a glossary or a reference or anything.
• 35:13
  There's no, it's not like the word action, which has a very
• 35:17
  keyword to it, right, means a very specific thing.
• 35:20
  Psionic doesn't have that. It's just a theming.
• 35:23
  Every time they come up with something, it's like we're
• 35:25
  staying on themes. So we're gonna call this psionic
• 35:28
  because it's sort of within the brand of the like how we design
• 35:33
  quote UN quote psionic things, but it has no mechanical keyword
• 35:37
  to it. It's not like in, you know, in
• 35:39
  magic, if something says trample on the bottom, it means a very
• 35:41
  specific ruling that doesn't exist in this case.
• 35:52
  And should they maybe have not called it psionic casting
• 35:55
  because it it reads odd given what the subclass is supposed to
• 36:00
  be? Yeah, it reads a little odd, but
• 36:03
  I don't think you can assume like you, you can't.
• 36:07
  This is why anything based on the name like This is why I
• 36:10
  think because they could have had it, they could have called
• 36:13
  it psionic casting and it could have been like this ability lets
• 36:17
  you cast once a day for free without looking at your target
• 36:21
  and they could have just put the name scionic casting on it.
• 36:23
  Right, but it would. Have been the same.
• 36:26
  Yes. What I'm saying is that it's
• 36:28
  it's sort of creating a common law situation where you reuse
• 36:32
  the phrasing so much and force it to abide by the same rules
• 36:35
  each time you use it. And as you keep doing it it the
• 36:37
  rule sort of builds itself. Yes, but the the mechanic build.
• 36:41
  Itself based on how often you do it, and they are doing it quite
• 36:44
  a bit. They've done it quite a bit
• 36:45
  since psionics were introduced into the actual game with things
• 36:48
  like the soul knife and all that shit.
• 36:49
  Yes, thematically it causes confusion, but mechanically you
• 36:54
  cannot base any any kind of mechanical basis or assumptions
• 36:57
  off of it because the game is not designed that way.
• 37:03
  You can't be here forever because I, we're going to be
• 37:06
  here forever because I'm I believe me.
• 37:09
  I disagree. Let's put it this way.
• 37:10
  If you're having a rules lawyer argument and you try and use the
• 37:13
  word psionic as some sort of rules lawyer defense, the
• 37:16
  designers would say no, that you can't, that that's not how you
• 37:20
  would rule, that it's a general versus specific thing, right?
• 37:23
  Like they would be like, no, you can't rule it that way because
• 37:25
  there's no general rule about psionics.
• 37:27
  You know what I mean? Yes, but there are there are a
• 37:32
  myriad of specific rules that are creating a general theme.
• 37:35
  And yes, I'll give you that they are thematic, but it is creating
• 37:38
  a general through line to which you can assume mechanics should
• 37:41
  be placed. No, that's so it's nothing.
• 37:44
  That's what you don't assume. Stop assuming.
• 37:46
  That's what I'm kind of. You can.
• 37:48
  Though, because you've got precedent.
• 37:49
  Precedent is what allows the assumption.
• 37:51
  But you you shouldn't, shouldn't is kind of irrelevant.
• 37:54
  If there is precedent, that's the information you have to go
• 37:56
  off of. But if you know but.
• 38:02
  I don't know general that that's kind of the issue is that even
• 38:05
  then, but you do. Now, because you know there's.
• 38:07
  Nothing. You know, because you just told
• 38:09
  me. But I that doesn't necessarily
• 38:11
  mean that I didn't know priorhand.
• 38:12
  I know they're introducing A Scion class.
• 38:15
  For all we know, that could be the mechanical implication, but
• 38:20
  it but you they can be establishing it farther down the
• 38:22
  line, but you do not actively make it mechanical.
• 38:26
  Sure. If they, if they release a
• 38:28
  sourcebook and create a general rule, that is if you see this,
• 38:32
  the word psionic, it means this, then then retroactively it would
• 38:37
  apply to things. And then you're in a situation
• 38:39
  where you have to go back and look at all old stuff, which
• 38:43
  would be messy, which is why I don't think they're going to do
• 38:46
  that, because that would be a huge pain in the ass.
• 38:52
  And yet they might again. We are getting a a real like an
• 38:55
  official psionic. Class we're maybe we don't know
• 38:59
  that for a fact. We might be getting a class, but
• 39:02
  even if we get that class, I don't think they're going to put
• 39:04
  any kind of general rules about what the word psionic like it's
• 39:08
  not going to become a keyword. I really doubt it because that
• 39:12
  creates such a mess with all of those subclasses they've already
• 39:15
  made. Like you'd be beholden to the
• 39:18
  old shit that you wrote down. I don't know what to tell you.
• 39:24
  We'll see. I, I, I don't know.
• 39:26
  I feel like there is indeed the chance that either could happen.
• 39:30
  I'd be fucking shocked if they did that 'cause that would be
• 39:32
  stupid, let's put it that way. It'd be stupid, but there
• 39:35
  wouldn't be any. Like I'm not sure what the other
• 39:37
  recourse would be if they do make that psionic class.
• 39:41
  You're hard pressed to go well this is how this will work.
• 39:44
  But all this other stuff doesn't have to.
• 39:48
  Work the same way? No?
• 39:49
  It it could be similar, but you can't.
• 39:51
  Like the Psionic class basically will have its own specific rules
• 39:55
  and then some subclasses that might reference psionics as a
• 40:00
  theme. Do not assume that because the
• 40:04
  Sion class did it this way, then the then this class also does it
• 40:08
  that way. Don't do that.
• 40:10
  Well, what they'll likely, oh, OK, now I think about it, what
• 40:12
  they will likely do is they will have, they'll, they'll do it to
• 40:14
  a degree, right? They will errata things
• 40:16
  together. We've seen them do that plenty
• 40:18
  of times. We'll probably just going to get
• 40:21
  in errata that tells us how to generally think of things.
• 40:24
  And then unfortunately it will be sort of a case by case basis
• 40:27
  because that is what we've also seen precedent of them doing
• 40:31
  even through fully completed books, right?
• 40:33
  That's what the Sage and Vice Compendium is.
• 40:35
  I still think that's a really bad idea and that they
• 40:37
  definitely should not do that. Fair enough.
• 40:40
  I mean, I can't tell you can't have that one.
• 40:41
  But yeah, moving on to another thing with terrible naming
• 40:43
  conventions. Fucking Sorcerer King.
• 40:45
  Literally why? I mean, I get what they're going
• 40:48
  for. But don't call it sorcerer.
• 40:50
  Sorcerer is a class. There's no implication
• 40:53
  thematically in the subclass itself that says this is linked
• 40:56
  to a sorcerer. It's just a spellcaster.
• 40:59
  If someone reads Sorcerer King Warlock, you go wait a minute,
• 41:03
  am IA warlock with sorcerer powers.
• 41:06
  No you are not. You are a sorcerer with a
• 41:09
  psionic thing. Kind of, no, you're you're and
• 41:13
  barred abilities, Yeah, your chanter wizard abilities.
• 41:18
  You're a warlock with like a commanding presence is the idea.
• 41:21
  And like commanding magic. Yeah, should.
• 41:25
  It's more like it should be called like Mage Tyrant.
• 41:28
  Yes mage tyrant is. That is literally what I was
• 41:31
  thinking because it's fucking capstone is called Tyrant.
• 41:35
  Yeah. Absolute tyranny.
• 41:36
  Yeah. Yeah, I bruh.
• 41:39
  I mean, I get I, I it says your packs draws from the power of a
• 41:43
  monstrous tyrannical force akin to a demigod or an
• 41:47
  overwhelmingly powerful magic user.
• 41:53
  Yeah, I don't know. Through your pack to herald this
• 41:55
  tyrant's interest in the world's channeling their influence and
• 41:58
  mind bending psionic power. I, I, yeah, I don't know, Or
• 42:02
  maybe just call or maybe call it Psychic tyrant if you do want to
• 42:05
  lean into the psionic thing. I don't know if they actually
• 42:08
  want to lean into the psionic thing.
• 42:09
  It's a little unclear on that. So yes, I'll agree with you.
• 42:13
  It is unclear because they name drop it three times across the
• 42:16
  fucking thing. With I guess no abilities that
• 42:19
  support it except for its spell casting ability.
• 42:22
  I I guess it they probably do want to lean into the psionic
• 42:26
  thing. This might make more sense if we
• 42:28
  knew anything about Dark Sun. True, I don't know a lot about
• 42:32
  Dark Sun. I don't know Dick about Dark
• 42:34
  Sun, but everyone's pretty sure that these subclasses are for a
• 42:38
  Dark Sun kind of book, so. Yes, I read that.
• 42:41
  And, and I I do know that Dark Sun has this whole thing where
• 42:46
  magic doesn't exist anymore, so all of the magic stuff is
• 42:50
  psionic based. So perhaps that's what they're
• 42:54
  going. So Sorcerer King might make more
• 42:56
  sense in the context of Dark Sun.
• 42:59
  Mm hmm. But I'm not sure I'm I'm
• 43:04
  assuming a little bit at that point.
• 43:06
  Yeah, all of that said, let's get into it.
• 43:15
  And you know, then we we got to start at.
• 43:17
  Unfortunately, I wrote stupid little tag lines for each of the
• 43:22
  classes and when Circle of Preservation.
• 43:25
  But what if we need it later? Because it's all I think all I
• 43:30
  could think of. I could just think of every RPG
• 43:31
  player who hoards every item until the end of the campaign
• 43:34
  and then you don't actually use those items.
• 43:36
  Me, me and every. RPGI failed to see how this
• 43:40
  subclass has anything to do with what you just said.
• 43:42
  What? Preservation.
• 43:43
  Just just just hoarding assets. Doesn't hoard anything though.
• 43:47
  No, it doesn't. But it's about like preservation
• 43:50
  is innately about like keeping. Things land though, yes?
• 43:54
  But in my head, it's just not how it it's just not how my
• 43:57
  brain kept translating it. I suppose I.
• 44:03
  You're stretching up the logic, but OK, sure.
• 44:05
  You do what that means that you do literally go.
• 44:07
  This land is my land. I should have named.
• 44:09
  That should have been the tagline.
• 44:10
  This land is my land. Damn it.
• 44:12
  Damn it. That would have been so good.
• 44:14
  Yeah, fuck. That would have made no sense.
• 44:18
  Yeah. So I mean, we're just going to
• 44:19
  do do a quick read throughs of each of the abilities and just
• 44:22
  give some some opinions on them starting at the top.
• 44:26
  Why'd you? Just say that like you're
• 44:28
  telling the class with the lesson play.
• 44:29
  That's because. It's not we always do the UA as
• 44:32
  I figured we might as well just give them a quick rundown.
• 44:34
  I know, but I don't think you had to describe like we're not
• 44:37
  giving a Lesson plan. It's all right.
• 44:39
  That's fine. Don't start off at the top with
• 44:42
  the circle of preservation spells.
• 44:44
  You get Bless, Lester, Resto, protection from Poison
• 44:48
  Sanctuary, Beacon of Hope, Plant Growth, aura of life, Death
• 44:52
  Ward, Greater Resto and Hallow. It's fine about what I would
• 44:57
  expect. You know nothing crazy.
• 44:59
  I do like that hallow is there. I feel like that's like
• 45:01
  criminally underutilized spell. It's not amazing, but it does do
• 45:04
  some fun cool things. I.
• 45:06
  Don't really remember what it does.
• 45:08
  Hallow Basically you create an area of land that it works kind
• 45:11
  of like magic circle where certain effects can't happen
• 45:14
  within it. Demons can't exist in it,
• 45:17
  possessions can't happen while you're in it.
• 45:19
  You basically just create a weird little bounded field
• 45:22
  slash. So cool cool cool spell that
• 45:26
  never actually comes up in D&D because D and DS are just about
• 45:29
  dungeon fucking and monster slapping.
• 45:31
  So you can do monster slapping in it, but it requires setup
• 45:34
  which you very rarely get in D&D.
• 45:36
  But you guys never have. Yeah, because 90% of fights are
• 45:39
  you getting jumped and then smacking the shit out of
• 45:41
  whatever you're fighting. Yeah, yeah, or, or that that old
• 45:44
  chestnut. Or running into the room and
• 45:46
  jumping each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:50
  Prep time for Yeah, it's first Level 3 ability, Preserved land.
• 45:55
  As a bonus action, you can expend the use of your Wild
• 45:58
  Shape to fill a 15 foot cube originating from a point on the
• 46:01
  ground that you can see within 120 feet of yourself with
• 46:04
  Revitalizing energy. The effect lasts for one minute
• 46:07
  or until you have the incapacitated condition, are
• 46:09
  more than 120 feet away from the cube, or die.
• 46:13
  Whenever a creature, including you, ends its turn in the cube,
• 46:16
  you grant the creature one of the following benefits.
• 46:19
  Either bolster you, the creature gains temporary hip points equal
• 46:23
  to 1D4 plus your druid level, or purify you end one effect on the
• 46:28
  creature causing it to have the frightened or poisoned
• 46:31
  condition. In addition, non magical
• 46:34
  vegetation native to the region sprouts on the ground within the
• 46:37
  cube. This vegetation disappears when
• 46:39
  the effect ends. As a bonus action on subsequent
• 46:42
  turns, you can move the cube up to 30 feet to another area on
• 46:45
  the ground within 120 feet of yourself.
• 46:53
  I love this ability in theory. I like having a cool little it's
• 46:56
  the Q the main expansion. It really one of the the only
• 47:02
  thing I like just about as much as a Sycamode is having a cool
• 47:04
  little like pocket dimension reality marvel thing.
• 47:07
  And like, yeah, the size is relatively small, methinks, but
• 47:10
  it's a Level 3 spell and it does get bigger at level 14, so
• 47:14
  that's kind of whatever. Level 3 generally.
• 47:17
  Speaking, I like it. It's on brand, it's thematic, it
• 47:19
  does something neat. I just wish they pushed it
• 47:22
  farther. There's something funny about I
• 47:26
  there's no other way to really describe it because you do need
• 47:28
  to get specific because of how targeting and spells and
• 47:32
  everyone AOE works in 5E. But like calling it a cube, I
• 47:36
  just, I just imagine like a 3D like a wire frame of a cube with
• 47:44
  like plants inside the cube. And then you see as like the
• 47:47
  tree mesh, like there's like tree, there's like a mesh of
• 47:51
  like bushes and trees on the inside of the wire frame.
• 47:53
  And you see as like a tree gets cut in half as it hits the edge
• 47:56
  of the wire frame. Yeah, that's exactly how I
• 47:59
  thought about it too. Something like out of the
• 48:00
  fucking Sims. Yeah, like it's got like a weird
• 48:02
  vanishing. It's just calling it a cube
• 48:06
  like, I don't know, 15 foot square area or something like, I
• 48:10
  don't know, cube like it's the, it's the cube of trees.
• 48:15
  Outside this cube, everything's fucked inside your perfect
• 48:17
  little vacation destination. Yeah, like I just, and they all,
• 48:22
  and they always refer to it as your cube.
• 48:25
  Like they don't call it anything except for the cube.
• 48:27
  And I just, I don't know. It's also funny because I can't
• 48:32
  help but think of the Asuka memes of Guilty Gear with the
• 48:35
  cube. Yeah, Cube Apagi.
• 48:41
  Just a man's playing Yu-gi-oh with the cube, you know?
• 48:47
  Yeah, I mean, I like I said, I think my big issue is that I
• 48:49
  just wish it went a little farther, like having to choose
• 48:52
  between 1:00 and 4:00 plus level or, you know, stopping fear it
• 48:57
  just like just let it do both. Let's just let it be cool.
• 49:00
  You know what I mean? I just wish it was more exciting
• 49:04
  than just like. AD 4 plus level, yeah.
• 49:07
  I mean, not even that it's just temp HP, like OK temp HP like I
• 49:11
  I just need it. I don't know.
• 49:13
  I just want I don't know. I don't know what I want but not
• 49:17
  it was something more. Well, yeah, I mean, I I think
• 49:20
  it'd be cool if we got something like it increased your Max HP
• 49:23
  and then you could heal every round.
• 49:25
  Increased it healing or like resistances to certain damages
• 49:33
  or I don't know something something.
• 49:37
  Yeah, I don't know. That's kind of what I'm saying
• 49:39
  though, right? It just feels really held back.
• 49:42
  Like like I use conservative law with my notes but like what I
• 49:45
  mean is just held back. I wouldn't even call it held
• 49:47
  back. It's just kind of.
• 49:49
  Uninspiring Well, that's what I'm I think it could be like I
• 49:53
  think it it I don't think it's uninspiring.
• 49:55
  I think it you go, you go, you read it and go, oh, this could
• 49:58
  be super cool. And then when you read see I.
• 49:59
  Didn't even think that. Oh, no, see, I thought like, oh,
• 50:04
  this could be super neat. Really fun way of controlling
• 50:06
  the battlefield and like, shifting your way to like,
• 50:08
  poisonous terrains. Like, it had a lot of fun stuff,
• 50:11
  like in theory, but it in practice just doesn't hold up.
• 50:16
  And like, yeah, it's a Level 3 ability, but I feel like even
• 50:18
  the Level 3 ability, Level 3 ability should be relatively
• 50:21
  strong. Nothing I I don't know.
• 50:25
  For me the the the kind of basic sniff test is.
• 50:28
  Do I read this? Do I read the subclass and get
• 50:31
  like an idea for a kind of character I can play?
• 50:33
  And I read this and went, I I literally have nothing for this.
• 50:37
  I no, you know, like there's nothing about it.
• 50:42
  Like if I wanted to play a druid who is all about like, oh, we
• 50:46
  need to like cure and help the land and shit, I'd probably just
• 50:50
  play a circle of the land. Like, you know what I mean?
• 50:53
  Like there's nothing about this that's like getting me hyped up
• 50:56
  on the theming or anything. Yeah.
• 50:58
  I mean, I do think it is kind of interesting that I think it is
• 51:04
  kind of odd that this one doesn't really feel like it has
• 51:08
  a niche to protect. I I think this is one of those
• 51:12
  the niche makes more sense in dark sun situations.
• 51:15
  Probably, yeah. I mean, with that in mind, sure.
• 51:18
  But then it's one of those ones where it's like, you know, if
• 51:23
  you're playing a Dark Sun game, maybe make it so that there's
• 51:25
  only one druid and then you can only be this subclass or
• 51:28
  something like that, You know, to really make it feel like it's
• 51:32
  worth it. Yeah, I don't know.
• 51:34
  Like if there is no vegetation you can force vegetation to grow
• 51:37
  which could give you stuff like food.
• 51:39
  Well, Dark Sun is very deserty if I remember correctly, so
• 51:43
  yeah. Yeah.
• 51:48
  After that, you, yeah. I I know, yeah.
• 51:52
  It just, I don't know. It just inspired nothing for me.
• 51:55
  Fair enough. After that, still at Level 3,
• 51:57
  you get Student of Preservation. Your studies have improved your
• 52:02
  understanding of the order and resilience of nature, granting
• 52:05
  you the following benefits. Frugal Casting.
• 52:07
  When you cast a druid spell, you can cast it without material
• 52:10
  components, except material components that are consumed by
• 52:13
  the spell or have a spell cost. Additionally, whenever you cast
• 52:18
  a druid spell that requires a material component that is
• 52:21
  consumed by the spell, there is a 10% chance that the component
• 52:25
  isn't consumed as part of the casting.
• 52:27
  And then you get a tool proficiency with artist and tool
• 52:29
  of your choice. I don't know what does this do.
• 52:34
  I feel like in a in a lot of words it doesn't do anything.
• 52:36
  What? Do you mean what does it do?
• 52:38
  It makes it so you don't have to worry about material components.
• 52:40
  Except you do though. No, yeah, they don't.
• 52:47
  If it's consumed, disability doesn't work.
• 52:49
  If it costs something, disability doesn't work.
• 52:51
  And if it does cost something, there's a 10% chance that it
• 52:54
  doesn't have to cost anything like.
• 52:56
  No no, there's a it's AI. Feel like you're misunder
• 52:58
  misremembering how the material rules work.
• 53:02
  It you so things. Most spells have a material
• 53:06
  component requirement. Right, which means you need a
• 53:08
  focus or materials. Yes, I, I know, yeah.
• 53:11
  So it's just saying you can ignore that.
• 53:13
  So you don't need a focus, and you don't need a component patch
• 53:17
  of any kind in order to cast those spells.
• 53:21
  Right. But if it if it consumes
• 53:23
  something. Which is a small percentage of
• 53:26
  spells, but yeah. Yes, but they're the ones that
• 53:28
  they're the only ones people give a shit about.
• 53:30
  Like casting with your hands free is fine, except you're
• 53:33
  almost never going to be completely bare handed.
• 53:35
  You're going to have a weapon in one hand or something, which
• 53:37
  would limit your spell casting no matter what.
• 53:40
  So I think the idea is if you have a spell that's like verbal
• 53:46
  and material, for example, you can just say it.
• 53:49
  You can just do the verbal and then you could have like a
• 53:51
  shield and a weapon or something like that, right?
• 53:56
  Like it, I'd have to go. It depends on what acts what I
• 54:01
  don't remember what spells do and don't have like verbal
• 54:03
  versus material and all that shit, you know, depends on what
• 54:05
  spells druids have and everything the the degree of
• 54:08
  usefulness to it. But like, if you had a spell
• 54:11
  that had a somatic component and a material, well, somatic, you
• 54:15
  still need your hand in some capacity.
• 54:17
  So well, then you get into this weird.
• 54:20
  So this is also that weird thing where if if a technically rules
• 54:27
  is written, if if a spell has a somatic only component and you
• 54:37
  have a focus in your hand, you have to put your focus away to
• 54:40
  do the somatic component because the the focus only covers the
• 54:46
  somatic component if the spell also has a material component.
• 54:53
  So that's some weirdness. So it's really the point of it
• 54:56
  would be if a spell has verbal and material, then you can
• 55:01
  ignore the material and just verbal it.
• 55:04
  That's the main scenario where it's going to come up.
• 55:07
  You can check how many spells have just verbal and material.
• 55:11
  Kind of a lot, actually for Drew it kind of a lot.
• 55:17
  Let's see. Wait, it's not hold on, wait,
• 55:20
  now I need to. No, almost none.
• 55:22
  Oh no, not that much. Bury fire, healing word,
• 55:24
  earthbind, warding, wind aura, vitality, guardian of nature,
• 55:30
  EOS, and whirlwind. That's it.
• 55:33
  So it doesn't actually do much, and the one thing it does do you
• 55:37
  really only have a 10% chance of pulling off?
• 55:40
  Yeah. Dog shit.
• 55:44
  I mean I'm sorry there's no other way to put it.
• 55:46
  This is a dog shit ability like. I mean this just goes back to
• 55:48
  the whole verbal somatic material thing being a shitty
• 55:51
  design anyway that. Should get correct reworked
• 55:53
  anyway. I just feel like maybe they
• 55:59
  should do what every other RPG has done and just say generally
• 56:03
  speaking you can assume that they have a mix of these things
• 56:08
  and just leave it at that. Just leave it up to the table.
• 56:12
  A mix of what things? You know, you use how does how
• 56:15
  does fabulous put it like casting spells requires a level
• 56:18
  of like chanting magical words using a free.
• 56:21
  Hand and chanting, basically. Yeah, not even a free hand.
• 56:24
  A free like your hands need to be not tied up.
• 56:28
  Yeah, is effectively. I feel like 99% of the time too,
• 56:34
  components just get ignored. They do, yes.
• 56:39
  So just get rid of them. Like it's again, this we've
• 56:41
  talked about before. This is like a weird holdover
• 56:43
  that they're like, no. They get components get ignored
• 56:46
  because they're fiddly and noodly.
• 56:48
  There's a, there is there is a system out there that you could
• 56:51
  design for a component system that is not fiddly and annoying
• 56:54
  and is more intuitive and then people would use it.
• 56:56
  You know what I mean? Right.
• 56:58
  But I think well, so I don't think it would work with D and
• 57:01
  DI think it's been too long. I think it gets ignored too much
• 57:03
  and I think there's just a taste in people's mouth of it being
• 57:06
  annoying and not worth doing. So I think it is a little bit
• 57:09
  too late for I think. There's a universe where if you
• 57:11
  designed a good system, people, I can't, I'm not going to try
• 57:15
  and do this on the fly. But like, I think there's a
• 57:17
  universe where you could design A more intuitive system that
• 57:19
  because here's the the reason they don't want to get rid of
• 57:22
  it, right, is because the the vibe of the, you know, the
• 57:27
  wizard pulls the bat Quano out and like smashes it in his hands
• 57:31
  and then turns it into a fireball.
• 57:32
  Like that's kind of a fun, cool fantasy vibe, right?
• 57:35
  Like they don't want to get rid of that vibe.
• 57:38
  So if you just say, oh, we're just going to ignore it
• 57:41
  completely, then you lose that. But the way it is now is, yeah,
• 57:46
  overly weird and noodly. I think I feel like there it
• 57:49
  probably is some kind of a medium.
• 57:51
  I mean, part of the problem too, is that the rules for like
• 57:55
  putting a weapon away or taking a weapon out or swapping weapons
• 57:58
  are also fiddly and noodly. So it would help a lot too if
• 58:02
  like with Pathfinder, OK, put a weapon away at 11 action point,
• 58:07
  right? And then cast the spell another
• 58:08
  action point, you know, that like, so there's some of that
• 58:12
  going on too. But I, I, yeah, like they don't
• 58:18
  want to lose the vibe, but it is, it's not good the way it is.
• 58:20
  But I feel like there's a universe where you can figure it
• 58:22
  out. It would just require some 4th.
• 58:26
  I mean, probably, honestly, just treat it like ammo is probably
• 58:34
  it's like ammo in some set. Like you have, you have 5 spell
• 58:39
  casts worth of component stuffs and like to cast.
• 58:42
  If if a spell requires component stuffs, then it reduces your
• 58:46
  ammo of component stuffs by 1. You know, I mean like something
• 58:49
  like that where you kind of you abstract the ammo a little bit,
• 58:53
  but you still pay credence to the fact that it's there.
• 58:55
  You know what I mean? But that's, that's spitballing.
• 59:01
  So like, you know, and if you're curious, what Fabulous says is
• 59:05
  you must be able to, you must be free to move your body.
• 59:09
  You can be holding items in your hand as long as you can move
• 59:12
  arms, move your arms, you must be able to speak and pronounce
• 59:17
  the invocation. That's what Fabulous says.
• 59:22
  So you can't be like tied up or gagged.
• 59:24
  Yep, I think that works perfectly fine.
• 59:26
  I think that should just be the standard across the board for
• 59:28
  DND at this point. I mean, I don't know.
• 59:30
  I do like the idea of components.
• 59:32
  I love the concept of components.
• 59:34
  I love the the feeling of components.
• 59:36
  Right. But the the system as it is, as
• 59:38
  we've said, is weird and noodly and frankly not really worth the
• 59:40
  effort. Yeah, but I don't think it has
• 59:42
  to be, is what I'm saying. Like I think there's a universe
• 59:43
  where it could work. It it could, boy.
• 59:46
  Just got to put that work in. Yeah, but they're not gonna as
• 59:50
  we've seen, as we've literally seen by them going, well, we're
• 59:53
  just going to scrap anything that we think doesn't work
• 59:54
  clearly as it is now a mechanic. They could, it would just
• 59:57
  require a 6E you know? I don't think they would do it
• 1:00:02
  even then. I'm going to be honest.
• 1:00:03
  I, I I don't. Know if they would, but they
• 1:00:05
  could. They could, but again, but I'm
• 1:00:08
  not like yes, they could do it. I don't think they will though.
• 1:00:11
  Their design philosophy has just been.
• 1:00:13
  It is worth pointing out we also have a whole new crop of lead
• 1:00:16
  designers at this point, so things are kind of up in the
• 1:00:18
  air. True, true.
• 1:00:21
  But we also don't know necessarily that it was the old
• 1:00:24
  designers who are doing the the slash and burn.
• 1:00:27
  We don't know, yeah. We don't know who's doing what,
• 1:00:29
  so. So it could be the new people, I
• 1:00:33
  have no idea. Moving on past that, we have
• 1:00:37
  improved Preservation. Your preserved land gives you
• 1:00:41
  more powerful becomes more powerful in the following ways.
• 1:00:44
  4 to 5 Protectors. While inside the cube created by
• 1:00:46
  your preserved land, you and your allies gain a bonus to
• 1:00:49
  Constitution saving throws equal to your Wisdom modifier, a
• 1:00:52
  minimum of plus one, and reject Desecrators.
• 1:00:55
  Kind of like that one. I do like that one, yeah.
• 1:00:58
  That one's pretty effective. Reject Desecrators, which is
• 1:01:01
  just a wild name. Whenever the cube created by
• 1:01:05
  your preserved land enters an enemy space, and whenever an
• 1:01:08
  enemy enters the the cube or ends it's turn there, that enemy
• 1:01:12
  makes a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC, and
• 1:01:14
  on a failed save, the enemy takes 2D10 radiant damage and
• 1:01:18
  it's speed is halved until the end of your next turn as new
• 1:01:20
  growth rises to hinder it. On a successful save, the enemy
• 1:01:24
  takes half as much damage. Only an enemy makes the save
• 1:01:27
  only once per turn, so you get some good damage and you can
• 1:01:32
  slow their movement, which. You know what else it's?
• 1:01:34
  Super effective, but it's fun as a ribbon, you know?
• 1:01:37
  OK, 222 things here. 1 slight backtrack to the components
• 1:01:41
  thing. I also feel like part of the
• 1:01:43
  problem with material components that actually cost gold is the
• 1:01:47
  ones that cost money are not affected enough to justify
• 1:01:50
  their. Like if they're going to cost
• 1:01:51
  money they should be better spells than they are, you know
• 1:01:54
  what I mean? I feel like they yes should be.
• 1:01:56
  You also run into the issue like legend lore should do way more.
• 1:02:00
  You know, yes, I mean, you also run into the issue where it's
• 1:02:03
  not that a thing costs gold. The material costs gold, which
• 1:02:06
  means you have to find a place to get that material, which
• 1:02:09
  means that if it's you know your GMs, you could also present you
• 1:02:12
  those materials. Which is also a thing you could
• 1:02:14
  spell. Streamline.
• 1:02:15
  Because you could do it like Fabula, instead of saying a
• 1:02:18
  specific material, you could just say material points, right?
• 1:02:21
  Inventory points, right? You could just do that.
• 1:02:24
  Absolutely. Or to make it cost gold, just be
• 1:02:26
  like you got the money or just the gold just evaporates into
• 1:02:30
  the ether like. Well, not necessarily into the
• 1:02:32
  ether, but say you have to go to a shop and spend X amount of
• 1:02:35
  gold on various magical implements.
• 1:02:38
  You know, something like I don't like evaporate into the ether.
• 1:02:40
  That feels weird to me. So here's the thing.
• 1:02:43
  That's the same issue right? If you're saying oh I have to go
• 1:02:46
  buy this much worth of X thing is the same as saying well you
• 1:02:49
  have to go buy and buy a diamond worth this much.
• 1:02:52
  No the DM. Can just because the difference
• 1:02:54
  is I have to buy X amount of magical S components and those
• 1:02:59
  can be whatever the DM allows or whatever I want.
• 1:03:02
  Versus I just throw gold into the air like a Final Fantasy
• 1:03:06
  potion and it evaporates. I don't like that idea.
• 1:03:10
  Why I I don't see why the like the the just feels wrong.
• 1:03:14
  The cosmology of D&D is off, clearly like money just as much
• 1:03:18
  as everybody else. Apparently the afterlife of D&D
• 1:03:21
  is capitalist, so like. If you're a cleric to like a
• 1:03:24
  money God and that is your material components in that
• 1:03:27
  scenario, I'd be fine with it. But if you're like a wizard, I
• 1:03:29
  don't know. I feel like you just Final
• 1:03:31
  Fantasy throwing gold into the ether and then it just turns
• 1:03:34
  into a spell. I don't like the way that feels.
• 1:03:36
  I still want you to have to like go to the magic shop or whatever
• 1:03:38
  a little bit. They literally, you know that
• 1:03:40
  there's precedent for this in in one of the Neverwinter Nights
• 1:03:43
  games, you have to spend gold to use the magic forge and you can
• 1:03:47
  ask the blacksmith why the fuck am I paying you?
• 1:03:49
  I'm the hero of this thing and you.
• 1:03:51
  Melts the gold. To make the magic, Yeah.
• 1:03:53
  What the hell dude? Fuck it, run it.
• 1:03:54
  I don't care. Like.
• 1:03:56
  Again, though, the melting the gold down with the blacksmith,
• 1:03:58
  you're still going to the blacksmith.
• 1:04:00
  What you proposed was I literally reached it in my
• 1:04:02
  pocket and yet it into the air and then yo, Jimbo just appears.
• 1:04:06
  Don't like that vibe? I look I I'm all for yojimbo
• 1:04:09
  just showing up and doing my doing my chores if I can pay
• 1:04:12
  for. It I don't like just throw money
• 1:04:13
  into the air and then it turns into dust.
• 1:04:15
  Like that feels weird. That feels off, that feels not.
• 1:04:18
  Totally weird. A diamond.
• 1:04:21
  Yes, because a diamond is like a material physical thing that
• 1:04:24
  like you, you know, could describe as doing all sorts of
• 1:04:27
  weird, like magical, like tonally it just feels off for
• 1:04:30
  D&D for me to just like toss some gold out and it just
• 1:04:34
  evaporates. I, I don't know, like you're,
• 1:04:36
  you're getting into the semantics of gold is a hyper
• 1:04:39
  valuable precious resource to people for reasons I'm.
• 1:04:42
  Just talking about the tone, the vibes, the feels.
• 1:04:44
  I think feels. I think they both work.
• 1:04:46
  I think gold and diamonds. It occupies a similar brain
• 1:04:49
  space of a really expensive thing that's fucking worthless
• 1:04:51
  practically speaking. I guess.
• 1:04:53
  But like, I want to, you know, I don't know.
• 1:04:55
  I also want to just describe like the wizard goes to the to
• 1:04:58
  the magic shop and has to buy back guano or some shit.
• 1:05:00
  You know what I'm saying? I don't know.
• 1:05:04
  I preserved bat guano from the weird from the weird.
• 1:05:07
  Magic shop guy just feels better.
• 1:05:12
  I like if it feels better for you man I I'm not finna yuck
• 1:05:15
  your Yum fuck it but. Anyway, more importantly, that
• 1:05:18
  wasn't even the point I wanted to make.
• 1:05:19
  You fucking derailed me again, God damn it.
• 1:05:23
  You do it to me as much as I do it to you.
• 1:05:24
  Argue with. Me about shit that I'm not even
• 1:05:25
  trying to argue about. What I'm trying to argue about a
• 1:05:27
  different thing. Let me get to my main point
• 1:05:29
  before you start arguing. You're the one who brings up the
• 1:05:30
  argument, no? But I wasn't trying to argue
• 1:05:32
  about the gold thing that was less important.
• 1:05:35
  The thing I was going to say is the thing that I feel like 2014
• 1:05:38
  did more that I feel like 2024 is now doing less is flavor
• 1:05:45
  ribbon abilities. So like this improved
• 1:05:48
  preservation thing, right where it's like rejects desecrators,
• 1:05:51
  right? So you get to throw out some
• 1:05:52
  damage, enemy makes a wisdom save and you reduce speed.
• 1:05:56
  That's all well and good. I would also like it if there
• 1:05:58
  was one more little ribbon ability that was like, also, if
• 1:06:02
  somebody tries to kill plants or poison the earth in this cube,
• 1:06:07
  they're unable to, you know, like just something that's like
• 1:06:10
  mostly fiction based. That's not like a inherent
• 1:06:13
  mechanical thing, but still adds to telling you what the ability
• 1:06:17
  does. You know, like give me my hard,
• 1:06:21
  give me my hard numerical combat effective effect, but then also
• 1:06:27
  give me my like flavorful fictional effect in addition to
• 1:06:31
  that. So like the combat effect as it
• 1:06:33
  does 2D10 radiant damage. And then the fictional effect is
• 1:06:36
  if somebody tries to poison the earth within the cube, it just
• 1:06:39
  doesn't work. It's like purged immediately,
• 1:06:41
  you know what I mean? And I feel like 2014 did that.
• 1:06:44
  A lit just a Smit, not a not a lot, don't get me wrong, not a
• 1:06:46
  lot more. I feel like 2014 did that just a
• 1:06:49
  little bit more. I don't know, I just would like
• 1:06:54
  it did. Like a little bit, but.
• 1:06:55
  Not a little bit, not a ton, not a ton.
• 1:06:57
  And I would love more of it. I just want more of that, Like,
• 1:07:00
  because if we're going to do the ribbon ability thing, make the
• 1:07:02
  ribbon. Because like we all know D&D is
• 1:07:04
  a combat game, right? So if you make an ability that's
• 1:07:06
  not combat relevant, then you can kind of make it do whatever
• 1:07:09
  you want because it's not going to, it's not going to throw the
• 1:07:12
  balance off or anything that much right?
• 1:07:13
  So let it go crazy. Give me some weird fictional
• 1:07:18
  ribbon abilities. You know the fucking?
• 1:07:19
  Well, that I think that that that speaks to a different issue
• 1:07:22
  that DND has, which is we don't want to tell you how your thing
• 1:07:25
  might look because then you might not want to do it.
• 1:07:27
  I'm. Not even saying tell you how it
• 1:07:30
  looks, just tell you what kind of weird effects it could have.
• 1:07:33
  You. But I think DND is too afraid of
• 1:07:34
  that. I think.
• 1:07:35
  I think if they're terrified of doing it.
• 1:07:37
  Give me something vague and evocative.
• 1:07:40
  DND doesn't do that. Give me vague, I know DND
• 1:07:43
  doesn't but they should. They should but they don't.
• 1:07:45
  All games should. There's a lot.
• 1:07:48
  This is not ADND only problem, there's plenty of other games
• 1:07:50
  that I feel like could do that more.
• 1:07:54
  Agreed. Shit, fabulous could do it I.
• 1:07:57
  Think Fabulous does it pretty well.
• 1:08:01
  Nah. How do you figure?
• 1:08:05
  Fabulous. Still really really really
• 1:08:07
  combat primary. Like they could still have a lot
• 1:08:11
  more of that like fictional ribbon type shit on there.
• 1:08:16
  Fair enough. Moving on to the level
• 1:08:19
  tenability facilitated Restoration, you can cast less
• 1:08:23
  duration or a greater restoration without expending a
• 1:08:25
  spell slot or requiring spell components.
• 1:08:28
  You can use this feature to cast a spell in this way a number of
• 1:08:31
  times equal to your Wisdom modifier, minimum of once, and
• 1:08:34
  you can regain all expanded uses when you finish a long rest.
• 1:08:37
  This is great. It's powerful ability good.
• 1:08:40
  I don't really see a reason why you'd ever cast lesser lesser
• 1:08:42
  resto over greater, especially when it doesn't require spell
• 1:08:47
  components. Which is also would mean spell
• 1:08:49
  components that require the the material but go off I guess.
• 1:08:57
  You can cast, yeah. I don't know.
• 1:09:01
  I'd have to look at the two spells.
• 1:09:02
  There might be some slightly different wording that would be
• 1:09:04
  relevant. Maybe it's strong as fuck,
• 1:09:08
  though, I'll give you that. I do, yeah.
• 1:09:12
  I mean, so for me, I feel like it you could have easily tied
• 1:09:15
  this in with the cube. I in my head I just feel like
• 1:09:20
  make it so that no like you while you're in the cube, you
• 1:09:23
  don't need any materials for spells, just in general.
• 1:09:26
  So the reason is because the two of them do very different things
• 1:09:29
  in 2024. So lesser resto will cure blind,
• 1:09:33
  deaf and paralyzer poisoned. Greater resto will cure one
• 1:09:37
  level exhaustion, charmed or petrified, a curse including
• 1:09:41
  atonement to a cursed item, any reduction, any reduction of
• 1:09:45
  ability score, any reduction of hit points.
• 1:09:47
  So greater Resto does not cure the conditions of blind, deaf
• 1:09:52
  and paralyzer poisoned. What the fuck?
• 1:09:54
  OK, all right, game. That's why.
• 1:09:57
  All right, game. I don't remember if it I'm going
• 1:10:01
  to check the 2014 version. It used to, yeah.
• 1:10:04
  It used to just do basically. Everything.
• 1:10:05
  No, no it did not. It's always worked that way.
• 1:10:12
  2014 version was exactly the same.
• 1:10:14
  It did not cure blindness, deafness or paralyze or any of
• 1:10:17
  that other shit. Yeah, no, the two spells are
• 1:10:22
  identical. Well, that's why.
• 1:10:26
  Interesting, I just feel like the greater resto should do
• 1:10:29
  everything that lesser does and then more because it's greater.
• 1:10:32
  But sure I. Mean it's a reason to keep the
• 1:10:38
  two versions of the spell in the game.
• 1:10:41
  Well, the reason why you'd keep the earlier one is you get it
• 1:10:43
  earlier on and you can cast it potentially more often.
• 1:10:45
  But it's one of the things where it's like, well, let's say if
• 1:10:49
  you could make greater resto to be that.
• 1:10:51
  Like if it has any number of those things, it just wipes them
• 1:10:54
  all in one shot. You know what I mean?
• 1:10:57
  You can be blind, deaf and petrified, paralyzed and
• 1:11:00
  incapacitated with five levels of exhaustion.
• 1:11:02
  If you hit, you spend that 100 GP, you're clean.
• 1:11:07
  I guess I, I brought this up later to my notes.
• 1:11:11
  Maybe my sense of balance for 5B is fucked because I haven't
• 1:11:13
  played it in a while. And like, I'm just, I, I'm just
• 1:11:18
  hitting the point where it's like, let just just hack off all
• 1:11:22
  the weird restrictions. Just let players do wacky wild
• 1:11:25
  shit and like, is that going to fuck balance?
• 1:11:31
  Yes, but I'm also getting to the point where like fuck balance.
• 1:11:33
  Like who cares? You know, I don't know.
• 1:11:39
  I mean, I guess I'm in a fuck it mood recently and I just, I'm
• 1:11:42
  like, I don't need this shit. Fuck it.
• 1:11:44
  I mean it's true you haven't played DND in a while so like,
• 1:11:47
  you know. I also have not once.
• 1:11:50
  No, that's not true. We did run 2024 rules, done it a
• 1:11:54
  couple times actually. I don't know what the fuck I'm
• 1:11:55
  talking about, I just don't remember.
• 1:11:57
  Them that well, you didn't run it.
• 1:12:00
  Not run it. So run with it like we have run
• 1:12:02
  games using those and I have used those.
• 1:12:04
  Played with it a little bit, not much though.
• 1:12:08
  We did a little like the second-half of Matt's campaign.
• 1:12:13
  A couple one shots, basically. Yeah, a couple one shots.
• 1:12:15
  What's one shots are you talking about?
• 1:12:17
  I don't remember doing anyone shots.
• 1:12:20
  Didn't we? No, you just are you just making
• 1:12:27
  up games that didn't happen? No, no, I'm thinking of
• 1:12:31
  something I did with Luna. Oh, OK, yeah, maybe you did.
• 1:12:35
  I didn't. I think I was with.
• 1:12:39
  Luna, I don't know. I don't know.
• 1:12:46
  I'm going to assume I did something with Luna, but OK, I
• 1:12:50
  don't know. He listens to the podcast, he
• 1:12:51
  can Fact Check me later. OK.
• 1:12:54
  After that final capstone ability, we get Sacrosanct Land.
• 1:12:58
  The size of your cube increases the size of your cube.
• 1:13:01
  Sucks fat Dicks. It does, created by your
• 1:13:04
  preserved land and cube increases to 30 feet.
• 1:13:06
  In addition, when a creature you can see in the area of your
• 1:13:09
  preserved land is hit by an attack roll, you can make a
• 1:13:11
  reaction to half the attacks damage.
• 1:13:15
  It's not good. No, I I like.
• 1:13:17
  So boring. I wish it was just better
• 1:13:20
  there's. Why not half all incoming
• 1:13:21
  damage? Why is it just attack rolls?
• 1:13:22
  Why are you limiting it to a reaction?
• 1:13:24
  Why? I'm not even talking about
• 1:13:28
  mechanically, I'm saying like flavour wise it's just a fucking
• 1:13:34
  boring ass ability. But.
• 1:13:36
  Mechanically, it's decent, it's all.
• 1:13:38
  Right. I don't even think it's that
• 1:13:40
  good. Like you get a once react, like
• 1:13:44
  yeah your area gets bigger, that's cool.
• 1:13:45
  But you get a one per once per turn, half the damage.
• 1:13:49
  Yeah, which is, I mean it's. On the area that we're sort of
• 1:13:51
  claiming as your domain like? Similar to what?
• 1:13:53
  Barts, yeah, but I think Barts could be cooler too.
• 1:13:58
  Like I think it should. I think it should be not just
• 1:14:01
  for attack rolls, probably for any incoming damage, but other
• 1:14:04
  than that. I I don't know, I think it
• 1:14:07
  should just be an across. Just let it be an area of
• 1:14:08
  affecting. Let it be an emanation of
• 1:14:10
  halving incoming damage. I don't know, permanent halfing
• 1:14:14
  is really strong. Like, yeah, but I don't know,
• 1:14:22
  it's level 14. You're you're 3 levels away from
• 1:14:25
  epic level. Your GM is going to be throwing
• 1:14:26
  ridiculous shit at you at this point anyway.
• 1:14:28
  You're going to be fighting Dragons and whatnot.
• 1:14:29
  Like fuck it. Yeah, but you can't just
• 1:14:32
  completely shit roll everything the DM does, no.
• 1:14:36
  I'm not saying you'd be able to shit roll it like, you know,
• 1:14:38
  they've, they're, they're making a.
• 1:14:39
  Damage permit every Because think about it, if it's a 30
• 1:14:43
  foot cube where all incoming damage is half, no matter what,
• 1:14:46
  the players are going to turtle up in that cube and they are
• 1:14:48
  going to be fuck busted. Like all incoming damage is half
• 1:14:55
  no matter what. That is fucking OP.
• 1:15:01
  If everyone just turtles up in the cube that's fuck busted
• 1:15:04
  overpowered and the monsters don't, the enemy doesn't really
• 1:15:07
  have a good reliable way to get him out of it either.
• 1:15:09
  Or turn the ability off. There's no concentration or
• 1:15:12
  anything. Well, so you know, there's an
• 1:15:14
  argument to be made about maybe you can make it concentration or
• 1:15:16
  maybe you can make the the half damage part of it concentration
• 1:15:23
  like you can, you can use your concentration to buff your
• 1:15:25
  ability, but maybe you can't like go into a wild shape or
• 1:15:28
  something like that. There are ways you can balance
• 1:15:29
  it out, but to make it cooler, but I don't know, I just think
• 1:15:37
  it could be a little, you know, just make it more or again,
• 1:15:40
  maybe maybe just keep it to attack rolls, but make it any
• 1:15:43
  attack rolls, just all of them across the board.
• 1:15:47
  I. Don't know that's it's a lot.
• 1:15:52
  It's AI feel like what else it is?
• 1:15:53
  I feel like you're. Discrediting how much half
• 1:15:56
  damage on everything is. Right, but when you compare it
• 1:15:59
  to half damage on one thing capstone like that's.
• 1:16:05
  Well, your. Your subclass capstone.
• 1:16:08
  You know what I mean. The final thing that makes your
• 1:16:12
  your subclass cool, you get a once per round reaction like.
• 1:16:17
  Come on. Somebody.
• 1:16:24
  I think that's la boy Shrug. I don't know.
• 1:16:30
  I don't I don't care. Up next, we got gladiator.
• 1:16:37
  I agree with you. Oh, sorry, Gladiator tagline.
• 1:16:39
  Are you not entertained? I am.
• 1:16:42
  What is it? Maximus Perseus Meridius.
• 1:16:45
  I think this was probably the best one.
• 1:16:49
  It's got the best vibes. I think it it has the most fun
• 1:16:52
  being what it is not. You know, we're going to not
• 1:16:56
  bring up the master race thing we talked about earlier.
• 1:16:59
  We talked about it enough. Yeah.
• 1:17:00
  I think for what it is, I think it has fun with what it is.
• 1:17:01
  I think it's got fun flavor and I like it.
• 1:17:03
  I like it a lot. Could it be better in some ways,
• 1:17:07
  Yeah, but I think it's cool. I think like it's main ability
• 1:17:09
  brutality. Very neat.
• 1:17:11
  It's a long 1, so buckle up. Shaped by the intensity of the
• 1:17:17
  arena, you've learned to execute brutal martial moves once per
• 1:17:20
  turn. When you hit a creature with an
• 1:17:22
  attack role using a melee weapon, you can add one of the
• 1:17:25
  following brutality effects of your choice.
• 1:17:27
  You can do this a number of times equal to your Charisma
• 1:17:30
  modifier, minimum of once, and you regain all expended uses
• 1:17:33
  when you finish a short or long rest.
• 1:17:35
  First one, bleed. You can activate the SAP Mastery
• 1:17:39
  property in addition to a different mastery property that
• 1:17:41
  you're using with that weapon, and the target takes extra
• 1:17:44
  damage equal to your Chrisma modifier to a minimum of one.
• 1:17:48
  The extra damage's type is the same as the type of the weapon.
• 1:17:51
  Yeah, same as the weapons type. You get Bluff.
• 1:17:55
  You can activate the Vex Mastery property in addition to a
• 1:17:58
  different mastery property you're using with that weapon,
• 1:18:00
  and you have advantage on the next saving throw you make
• 1:18:03
  before the end of your next turn.
• 1:18:05
  Finally, you get Stumble. You can activate the Topple
• 1:18:08
  Mastery property in addition to a different mastery property
• 1:18:11
  you're using with that weapon, and on its next turn the target
• 1:18:14
  can only make an an action or a bonus action, not both.
• 1:18:19
  It's pretty stronger, Bill. It's pretty strong, yeah.
• 1:18:21
  I mean, using two at once is pretty solid, and it's got some
• 1:18:23
  fun little like tail end stuff that you can do the extra
• 1:18:27
  damage, the advantage on saves and then the like, limiting
• 1:18:30
  turns. Yeah, it's pretty fun.
• 1:18:32
  It doesn't feel. Limiting turns on top of the
• 1:18:35
  topple, like you can activate the top of mastery and like you
• 1:18:40
  know. Yeah.
• 1:18:42
  That's the other thing too, with the with the Gladiator, it's
• 1:18:44
  like it's not just using the weapon masteries, it is making
• 1:18:47
  them better. Yes, it's making them actively
• 1:18:50
  better. Yeah, I don't.
• 1:18:53
  Yeah, I this one, I'm like, yeah, I don't think this could
• 1:18:55
  be. I think this is perfect.
• 1:18:58
  It's it's strong. It it will feel good to use.
• 1:19:00
  And like, yeah, you're limited by how many times you can do it.
• 1:19:03
  But like, yeah, so pretty good. I think that's fair.
• 1:19:06
  Knock them prone and then they can only take an action or a
• 1:19:10
  bonus action next turn like. Yes, pretty good while doing on.
• 1:19:15
  Top of the fact you could also what is it SAP or slow or what's
• 1:19:22
  the what's the three that the fighter gets because like bass
• 1:19:25
  fighter gets three they can use for free later, yes.
• 1:19:32
  I think it's SAP. Slow and tactical master push,
• 1:19:36
  SAP or slow. Yeah, push I I was going to say
• 1:19:38
  shove. But so like you could prone them
• 1:19:41
  and slow them and then just be like, all right, I'm going to
• 1:19:46
  walk away now. Yeah, you just do.
• 1:19:48
  And I wash my hands with this mantis and walk away like.
• 1:19:51
  What you get to do, little bitch?
• 1:19:52
  Crawl towards me. What do you mean I got nerved?
• 1:19:56
  What the fuck am I going to do? Not win?
• 1:19:59
  Not win. At Level 3, you also get Combat
• 1:20:04
  Theatrics. You've honed your combat skills
• 1:20:06
  to entertain Devastating or entertain Davis a devastating
• 1:20:10
  opponents and dazzling onlookers.
• 1:20:12
  You gain the following benefits. Athletic Air.
• 1:20:15
  Whenever you make a Dexterity, Acrobatics, or Strength
• 1:20:17
  Athletics check, you gain a number equal to your Prisma
• 1:20:20
  modifier, a minimum of 1 bonus proficiency.
• 1:20:23
  You gain proficiency in one of the skills of your choice,
• 1:20:25
  Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Intimidation, or
• 1:20:27
  Performance. It's a good ribbon, not bad.
• 1:20:32
  The one thing I do have with this subclass is that you are
• 1:20:36
  relying on a tertiary skill for the subclass stuff, which means
• 1:20:42
  that it's never going to like they're never going to be super
• 1:20:45
  high in their number. What you talking about with us?
• 1:20:50
  So this this whole subclass requires on a charisma as a
• 1:20:53
  tertiary skill to do all its fun shit as opposed to strength and
• 1:20:56
  decks which is typically what the fighter runs with.
• 1:20:59
  So you will have to build your character recordingly.
• 1:21:02
  Yeah, but you could do a dex Charisma, that's not that hard.
• 1:21:06
  You could do a dex charisma, but that like it's one of the things
• 1:21:08
  where it would limit what kind of weapons you can use and so on
• 1:21:11
  so forth. It's just, I don't know, but I
• 1:21:13
  think you. I think having a charisma based
• 1:21:15
  fighter is fun though. Like I don't want them to all be
• 1:21:19
  strengthened decks, you know, like, no.
• 1:21:21
  No, you're like, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm I'm just
• 1:21:24
  saying it's a thing that you will have to keep track of.
• 1:21:26
  If there was a downside, it's just another thing to keep track
• 1:21:28
  of, not that it is bad. But it's a passive thing.
• 1:21:31
  It's not an active thing to keep track of.
• 1:21:33
  You just got to, you just got to do the math a little bit upfront
• 1:21:35
  and consider it, you know, error.
• 1:21:39
  At level 7 you get. I'm always of the opinion if if
• 1:21:42
  the math is, if the math that you have to do is very front
• 1:21:48
  loaded and but you only really do it once or every once in a
• 1:21:51
  while, then it's not a big deal if you have to do a little extra
• 1:21:56
  work. You know, like excessive amounts
• 1:21:59
  of math or like figuring something out is only annoying
• 1:22:02
  if you have to do it all the God damn time.
• 1:22:04
  If you only do it once or twice and then you're good, like less
• 1:22:06
  of a problem. You know what?
• 1:22:07
  I. Mean yeah, yeah, that's his one.
• 1:22:10
  Like if I have to, you know, if I'm playing the video game and I
• 1:22:13
  have to open my character sheet every 10 minutes to figure out
• 1:22:16
  what the hell new ability or whatever I'm picking up is,
• 1:22:19
  that's annoying. If I do it every two hours,
• 1:22:21
  significantly less annoying. Fair enough.
• 1:22:27
  At level 7, you get flourishing. Sorry Flourish Perry, you've
• 1:22:32
  learned to stylishly counter blows from your opponents.
• 1:22:35
  When an enemy hits you with a melee attack role, you can use a
• 1:22:38
  reaction to add your Charisma modifier to a minimum of 1 to
• 1:22:41
  your AC against the attack, potentially causing the attack
• 1:22:44
  to miss. There is a addendum add on to
• 1:22:48
  this called Flourish Counter. If this reaction causes the
• 1:22:52
  attack to miss, you can retaliate with a powerful
• 1:22:54
  counter attack. As part of the same reaction,
• 1:22:57
  make an attack role with a melee weapon against the triggering
• 1:23:00
  creature. If this attack hits, you can use
• 1:23:02
  one of your brutality effects on the target without expending a
• 1:23:05
  use of that feature. Once this counter attack hits,
• 1:23:08
  you cannot use this feature again and or to make another
• 1:23:11
  counter attack until you finish a long rest.
• 1:23:14
  You can also restore your use of this counter attack by expending
• 1:23:16
  the use of your second wind. No action required, it's fine.
• 1:23:21
  Yeah, I mean, I love that one's counter attack is very fun.
• 1:23:25
  That's fun. I wish you could do it more.
• 1:23:26
  Make it a short rest or a couple times per short rest.
• 1:23:29
  Like once per long. Seems kind of mean, but you also
• 1:23:31
  get seven wins so you can. Get it back, I was going to say,
• 1:23:33
  plus the second win so you can get it back pretty reliably
• 1:23:38
  'cause you can, you know, you're doing it.
• 1:23:40
  So you're getting it one per short rest and.
• 1:23:43
  Well, at level 7 you have 2-3. You have 3 second wins at level
• 1:23:48
  7 plus the one prolong. So you can use it four times at
• 1:23:52
  level 7. OK, so that is a bit better.
• 1:23:55
  Yeah, and then you and you regain, you can regain second
• 1:23:57
  wins on a short risk. So like that's a pretty solid
• 1:24:00
  one. I would, you know, maybe like a
• 1:24:03
  Smith, maybe maybe 2 prolonged risks maybe, but still.
• 1:24:07
  And also it gets upgraded because you get the boulder, the
• 1:24:10
  next ability of the boulder brutalities.
• 1:24:12
  So like basically once you if you parry and counter attack a
• 1:24:15
  dude it's going to be like you're fucking hitting them with
• 1:24:18
  a big smack. True, yes.
• 1:24:22
  For bolder brutalities you just get more brutality options.
• 1:24:26
  Ryve allows you to activate cleave.
• 1:24:29
  In addition, you can add your ability modifier to the damage
• 1:24:32
  of the additional attack made as part of the property's
• 1:24:34
  activation rush. You get the Push mastery option,
• 1:24:38
  You can immediately move up to your speed without provoking
• 1:24:40
  opportunity attacks, and then you get stagger, which is slow.
• 1:24:44
  In addition, the target has disadvantage on its next saving
• 1:24:47
  throw it makes before the end of its next turn.
• 1:24:49
  Pretty good level 15. You get brutal resurgence
• 1:24:54
  whenever you use your second win to regain hit points.
• 1:24:56
  You can regain and spend a number or the upgraded.
• 1:25:01
  Wait what? Or boulder brutalities.
• 1:25:04
  Yeah. Did you just go through all
• 1:25:05
  three of them really, really fast?
• 1:25:06
  Like, yeah. Oh, OK.
• 1:25:10
  Yeah, I do it because they like, I just don't want to say the
• 1:25:13
  word master property again, the words master property again
• 1:25:17
  because I have to say it six more times and they just, they
• 1:25:19
  just don't want to do it. What?
• 1:25:27
  Because you have to say the cleave mastery property in
• 1:25:29
  addition to the different mastery property.
• 1:25:31
  I just, I just, I had to said it 6 times previously.
• 1:25:33
  I just don't want to say it again.
• 1:25:37
  OK, well now I'm confused but whatever, continue.
• 1:25:40
  OK, level 15, you get your Brutal Resurgence whenever you
• 1:25:45
  use your second win to regain hit points.
• 1:25:46
  You also get you regain expended uses of brutality.
• 1:25:50
  You also regain expended use of Brutality whenever you use your
• 1:25:53
  Action Surge, which means you're going to be using it a lot more,
• 1:25:56
  which is good. Let's see at level, what is it?
• 1:26:00
  Yeah. I mean, how many second wins do
• 1:26:02
  you get at 15th level? How many second wins?
• 1:26:16
  It's still just one. No, it's not second wave.
• 1:26:20
  I'm thinking of AI, don't know what I was thinking of. 15th
• 1:26:22
  level you have. 4/4 OK, so assuming that, let's just assume
• 1:26:27
  that you built yourself really well.
• 1:26:28
  You rolled some good stats. You got a + 5 to your charisma.
• 1:26:31
  I was confused. That means you'll be using
• 1:26:32
  ACTION SEARCH. ACTION SEARCH.
• 1:26:34
  Yeah, yeah. So you'd get 10 uses of
• 1:26:39
  brutality, 'cause you're going to get one with each second wind
• 1:26:41
  and one with the action surge. So 10 uses.
• 1:26:43
  Yeah. I mean, that's, that's plenty.
• 1:26:45
  I'll even, I'll have to be like, yeah, that's plenty of uses.
• 1:26:47
  I I can't imagine you're using ten of those in any given fight.
• 1:26:51
  And then at level 7 and then at level 17 you get a second use of
• 1:26:55
  action surge, so. Yes.
• 1:26:57
  And if you short rest, you that that number would jump back up a
• 1:27:02
  lot by another 10, which would give you 20.
• 1:27:06
  And if you short rest, yeah, you can use, God forbid you've just
• 1:27:08
  got a party of warlocks and you keep short resting.
• 1:27:11
  Yeah, you'll be fine. You'll be absolutely fine.
• 1:27:14
  Yeah, you're good. Finally, you get Mutilate.
• 1:27:18
  When you hit a bloodied creature with an attack roll, you can
• 1:27:20
  attempt to critically injure it. This is the thing I had problems
• 1:27:22
  with. The target must make a
• 1:27:24
  Constitution saving throw. DC-8 plus your Chrisma modifier
• 1:27:27
  plus Chrisma sorry, proficiency bonus.
• 1:27:30
  On a failed safe, the target suffers the following effect
• 1:27:34
  Maimed. If the target takes the Attack
• 1:27:36
  action, it can only make one attack sluggish if the target
• 1:27:39
  speed is halved and has a -2 to its AC, these effects last until
• 1:27:43
  the target regains hit points. Once a target fails a saving
• 1:27:47
  throw against this feature, you cannot use it again until you
• 1:27:49
  finish a long rest. If you had a weapon of certain
• 1:27:52
  death, which means it can't regain hit points while you're
• 1:27:55
  hitting it, that would be really fucking mean.
• 1:27:59
  Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Even if you don't have a weapon,
• 1:28:03
  even if you don't have a weapon of certain certain death,
• 1:28:06
  there's a lot of enemies you're going to be fighting that will
• 1:28:09
  not have any ability to regain health.
• 1:28:12
  Yeah, so they're just cooked. If they don't have some kind of
• 1:28:15
  spellcaster with them or whatever you're fighting like
• 1:28:17
  demons or some shit, they're not going to regain health.
• 1:28:20
  They don't have anything to do so.
• 1:28:22
  So like that's pretty strong. Yeah.
• 1:28:27
  That one's like a pretty solid capstone ability.
• 1:28:33
  Let's see, do I have any nuns? So I, I wrote that it was
• 1:28:39
  lacklustre. I, I, I feel like I must have
• 1:28:41
  misread it or maybe I didn't fully understand it, but no, I'd
• 1:28:43
  say it's pretty good. They're critically injured thing
• 1:28:45
  that they need to change that wording that.
• 1:28:47
  Brutally injure, maim them something?
• 1:28:50
  Yeah. I don't know.
• 1:28:51
  Yeah, they wouldn't. Say it's just the word
• 1:28:53
  critically injure. They do say critically injure as
• 1:28:56
  opposed to critical hit like it is different verbiage.
• 1:28:59
  Yes, it's different versions, but it's still coded language
• 1:29:02
  which it's. Not really.
• 1:29:05
  I mean the, the, the, the, the, the keyword is critical hit.
• 1:29:09
  It's not where so the difference is critically and then the
• 1:29:13
  second word is injured. So like it's different enough.
• 1:29:17
  It's different enough. I don't think that.
• 1:29:18
  Similar enough to where it confused the shit out of me.
• 1:29:23
  I don't know, fucking read forehead.
• 1:29:26
  Like, I don't. I don't feel like that many
• 1:29:27
  people are going to get confused by that one.
• 1:29:30
  Like, yeah, it probably should be brutally injured or something
• 1:29:32
  like that, but I don't. Think it's that bad.
• 1:29:36
  All right, all right, I don't know.
• 1:29:39
  I'm not trying to add homin in it, but for me it was, it was
• 1:29:42
  bad enough to where I'm like just just change the word
• 1:29:43
  critically, just say brutally or severely, just anything.
• 1:29:46
  Yeah. I mean, you could definitely put
• 1:29:48
  another word in there and it wouldn't change it that much.
• 1:29:54
  After that we get the defiled sorcerer tagline Defile.
• 1:29:59
  They use the word defile a lot in this one, and they should,
• 1:30:02
  that's what the class is about. But they do use it enough to
• 1:30:04
  where I laughed by the amount of times they used it.
• 1:30:06
  Maybe, maybe it's just because the game that's coming out, but
• 1:30:09
  like the Defiled Sorcerer just made me think of the Cena Bytes,
• 1:30:12
  which is definitely not what they're going for.
• 1:30:14
  But like, just where my brain went.
• 1:30:17
  There's a Hell Racer game coming out.
• 1:30:18
  Oh yes. Yes.
• 1:30:21
  Is it just like a Dead by Daylight game?
• 1:30:23
  No. How do you fucking play?
• 1:30:28
  I talk about it later, but yes, there's a Hellraiser game on the
• 1:30:32
  way. I will show you the I'll send
• 1:30:34
  you the trailer. What?
• 1:30:36
  OK, Level 3 ability defile and empower once per cost is a long
• 1:30:41
  one. Once per turn, when you roll
• 1:30:43
  damage for a spell you cast using a spell slot, you can
• 1:30:46
  siphon your own energy into the spell to empower it.
• 1:30:50
  Roll a number of your unexpended hit.
• 1:30:52
  The hit point dice. Just call them hit dice up to a
• 1:30:54
  number. They they they officially
• 1:30:57
  changed the name to Hit Point Dice.
• 1:30:59
  Oh, that's going to fuck me up rolling.
• 1:31:01
  They they. Because people were confused
• 1:31:04
  what they meant by hit dice. Because people thought hit dice
• 1:31:06
  meant like to hit something. They weren't thinking of hit
• 1:31:09
  points, so they specified that it was ready to Tigger Health
• 1:31:12
  and called them Hit point dice. All right, if that's a big
• 1:31:15
  enough fucking problem for them to change, critical injury is
• 1:31:18
  enough for them to change that shit.
• 1:31:20
  That is perfect example of coded language right there.
• 1:31:24
  It's a but here's the thing. Both are using the word hit.
• 1:31:28
  Critical versus critically and hit versus injured are different
• 1:31:32
  words. In the case of the hit point
• 1:31:34
  example, they both started with the word hit.
• 1:31:37
  You know, like it's a little, it's a little closer like that.
• 1:31:41
  There's a closer relation. I'm just saying, you know?
• 1:31:48
  What? It's fine.
• 1:31:50
  What are you confused about Hit? Point the other one also.
• 1:31:53
  Both start. You said they both start with
• 1:31:55
  the word hit. Both in the other situations
• 1:31:57
  start with the word critical. No one is critical and one is
• 1:32:00
  critically. That is a different.
• 1:32:04
  Word. It's a derivation of the same
• 1:32:07
  word. But it but that is relevant.
• 1:32:09
  When you're talking about game mechanics, A, A, a a different
• 1:32:13
  tense of a word is relevant. It's also not capitalized, by
• 1:32:16
  the way, and they capitalize it. It's always capitalized if it's
• 1:32:19
  a mechanical function, so there's that too.
• 1:32:22
  Yes, but you could argue type it like typo for something like
• 1:32:25
  that maybe. Anyway, roll a number of your
• 1:32:31
  unexpended hit point dice up to a number equal to half the level
• 1:32:35
  of the spell slot expended. Roll up minimum of one dice and
• 1:32:40
  add the total and add the total number rolled to one damage roll
• 1:32:44
  of the spell. Those hit point dice are then
• 1:32:47
  expended. Then you get life steal.
• 1:32:49
  Instead of drawing on your own life force when you use this
• 1:32:52
  feature, you can try to steal life from another creature you
• 1:32:54
  can see within 30 feet of yourself.
• 1:32:57
  That creature makes the Constitution saving throw
• 1:32:59
  against your spell save DC. Creatures that have immunity to
• 1:33:02
  the exhaustion exhaustion condition automatically succeed
• 1:33:05
  on this save. On a failed save, in place of
• 1:33:08
  rolling your hit point dice, roll a number of the creatures
• 1:33:11
  unexpended hit point dice up to a number equal to half the level
• 1:33:14
  of the spell slot expended. Round down to a minimum of 1.
• 1:33:18
  You then add the that total. Oh my God.
• 1:33:21
  You then add that total rolled to one damage roll of the spell
• 1:33:26
  and whose hit dice are expended for the creature.
• 1:33:30
  But once the creature fails to save against life steal, you
• 1:33:33
  can't use live steal again. So you finish a long rest unless
• 1:33:35
  you spend 3 sorcery points. No action required to restore
• 1:33:38
  use of it yourself. I think this ability is super
• 1:33:41
  cool. I love this.
• 1:33:43
  My only beef is let you just roll up to spell slot number.
• 1:33:49
  I really want them to push the risk reward here, so let you
• 1:33:53
  just throw out the biggest numbers for your spells because
• 1:33:57
  if you're out of hit, but well, if you're out of hit point dice.
• 1:34:03
  You can't, and you well, you can't regain health on short
• 1:34:05
  risk. Exactly.
• 1:34:06
  Yes let me risk it for a biscuit.
• 1:34:09
  I feel like they they did this to make it so that you don't
• 1:34:12
  kill yourself by accident as a like less so than balance to the
• 1:34:16
  game. I mean, there's no way for you
• 1:34:17
  to kill yourself. It doesn't do direct damage.
• 1:34:19
  No, no, but like put your to to soft lock yourself into a death
• 1:34:23
  state where it's like, well, I have two hit points after this
• 1:34:26
  fight. We don't have the healing or
• 1:34:27
  resource or anything that we have to rely on a rest.
• 1:34:30
  I can't rest. Well, you can.
• 1:34:32
  It just won't. You just can't heal.
• 1:34:34
  You can't heal, so you can't. And there's other options for
• 1:34:37
  healing, yes, but like at lower level maybe not as much.
• 1:34:42
  I for for the one where you burn your own hit point dice I would
• 1:34:48
  say yeah sure you can let the person go up to equal to spell
• 1:34:53
  level. I think the life steal where you
• 1:34:55
  get it from someone else though I think it makes sense to limit
• 1:34:58
  that one. I agree.
• 1:34:59
  No, no, I'm with you there 100% don't.
• 1:35:02
  Don't do it for other people. But if I'm if I'm the only one
• 1:35:04
  at risk, let me do as much as I want up to spell level.
• 1:35:08
  But I think it is also just a case of DND doesn't want you to
• 1:35:12
  output they they don't like. They try to avoid the absolutely
• 1:35:18
  ridiculous Nova damage. You know, like in a single
• 1:35:21
  attack type situation. Especially with 2024, they've
• 1:35:24
  been trying to avoid that. More, I think, yes, I know they
• 1:35:29
  are. Like hence like divine smite
• 1:35:31
  changes and stuff like that. Yes, yes I understand that.
• 1:35:34
  I do. I get it.
• 1:35:37
  That being said, sneak attack does still exist and it does
• 1:35:41
  still do an ass load of damage no matter what they try.
• 1:35:44
  Do that. Like yeah, sneaky deck does
• 1:35:47
  decent damage. It's actually not that out of
• 1:35:48
  control. At higher levels it does, like
• 1:35:53
  it's like 16 D six or something like that.
• 1:35:56
  Yeah, but you got always got to keep in mind Rogue only has one
• 1:35:59
  attack, and if you miss, it's like, well, you know, so like,
• 1:36:04
  it's not that crazy. Yes, but also as opposed to that
• 1:36:07
  miss as a rogue. And still miss.
• 1:36:11
  You're like stroke of luck thing, unless that's a short
• 1:36:13
  rest. That doesn't apply.
• 1:36:16
  That doesn't apply to. I don't think you can use that
• 1:36:18
  on hits, Yeah. You can if you follow it to fail
• 1:36:21
  AD 20 test. Oh yeah, D20 test.
• 1:36:24
  Now you, I don't, I think wasn't it not wasn't it like saves and
• 1:36:27
  chip 4? No, no, I think back in the back
• 1:36:29
  in the day, it was no. It wasn't, it wasn't.
• 1:36:31
  It was attacker. But also that's only once.
• 1:36:35
  That's only one attack. It's fine.
• 1:36:40
  So you can miss. It's not like rogues are just
• 1:36:42
  just have the no miss button. No, I mean they they have the
• 1:36:46
  once no miss button that's an automatic crit like it's fine.
• 1:36:50
  Yeah, yeah. It's going to be a lot of damage
• 1:36:51
  for the one attack and like that's kind of the rogues thing
• 1:36:54
  but that's it. Whereas allowing you to do that
• 1:36:56
  on the regular. You know, like they're trying to
• 1:36:59
  avoid the absolutely ludicrous paladin smite for 56,000 damage
• 1:37:05
  every other turn type shit. Right, right.
• 1:37:08
  But even with this ability you can only like if the damage is
• 1:37:11
  hitting more than one target, you can only increase the damage
• 1:37:13
  to the one target, hence the one damage roll.
• 1:37:19
  What? So it says add the total rolls
• 1:37:24
  to one damage roll of the spell. So they're not talking about one
• 1:37:28
  die of the spell, right? They're at like.
• 1:37:33
  Yeah, all I'm saying is they're limiting how many hit there.
• 1:37:36
  I think the reason they limited how many hit dice you can pile
• 1:37:39
  on to the extra damage is because they don't want you to
• 1:37:42
  Nova out like crazy. Right, right.
• 1:37:44
  And what I'm saying is that if you can only target one thing,
• 1:37:46
  you're not going to be able to Nova out that crazy.
• 1:37:51
  It's still one. You're still doing a ton of
• 1:37:53
  damage on the one thing. Right, but no more than like for
• 1:37:57
  example, a rogue would be. Right, but you could do this
• 1:38:01
  more reliably than the rogue can do the sneak attack.
• 1:38:05
  That's not true. Rogues can do they They can give
• 1:38:07
  themselves automatic advantage now by not moving.
• 1:38:09
  Rogues, right? Rogues can do it once you turn,
• 1:38:12
  but I'm just like. But you can only cast a spell
• 1:38:14
  once you turn. It's a searcher, yeah.
• 1:38:19
  I mean, yeah. 'Cause they changed the way that
• 1:38:20
  the other that the the other thing worked the one of the
• 1:38:23
  metamagics. Yeah, well, they didn't change
• 1:38:27
  Quicken spell, but you there's also the multiclass problem,
• 1:38:34
  right. Again, I'm at this in with
• 1:38:36
  classing with a paladin and shit.
• 1:38:37
  Like there's a lot of I think they're really they're just
• 1:38:40
  trying to make it so people can't do 100 damage in a single
• 1:38:43
  attack as much as they can. You know, they're just trying to
• 1:38:45
  dodge that problem. And yeah, I know the rogue has a
• 1:38:49
  pool of D sixes. It is also worth pointing out
• 1:38:51
  that like a pool of D sixes is not the most reliable bonus
• 1:38:54
  damage and shit. So, you know, there's there's a
• 1:38:57
  bit of a push and puller. Level 3 we get the defiler
• 1:39:09
  spells from the defiler spell table.
• 1:39:12
  You get blindness, deafness, inflict wounds, rave and
• 1:39:15
  feeblement, ray of sickness, bestow curse, vampiric touch,
• 1:39:18
  light, hallucinatory to rain, anti live shell, and contagion.
• 1:39:22
  These are awesome. I love these spells.
• 1:39:24
  Pretty much all of these I think are cool, so fuck it.
• 1:39:27
  I mean, I'm not fuck it, but like like run it it's.
• 1:39:31
  One of those things where I'm like, yeah, sure, good spells,
• 1:39:33
  but like, I don't know, bonus spells never get my Dick hard or
• 1:39:35
  anything. It's for me.
• 1:39:38
  I like when they use the rare ones like Contagion.
• 1:39:41
  You're like, oh hell yeah, I haven't used that one in a
• 1:39:44
  while. I mean, it helps, but it's just
• 1:39:47
  like, I don't know, the bonus spells thing has always been a
• 1:39:50
  design element that I'm like, man, I don't like it.
• 1:39:55
  I think it depends like like, you know when, when, which one
• 1:39:57
  was it? I think it was Bladesinger that
• 1:40:03
  gives you haste and you're like, hey yo, a haste that I don't
• 1:40:07
  have to take. I can just have it for a free
• 1:40:09
  99. I'm going to take that.
• 1:40:12
  You know what I mean? I don't know.
• 1:40:15
  I think it's fun. Level 6 you get corrupted
• 1:40:19
  caster. You learn ways to tap into the
• 1:40:22
  corrupting magic within yourself, granting you the
• 1:40:24
  following benefits. You get Defilers ward when you
• 1:40:28
  kind of When you take a bonus action to transform surfer
• 1:40:30
  points into a spell slot. You can read your body in a
• 1:40:33
  protective web of defiling energy roll.
• 1:40:36
  A number of D6 is equal to the level of spell slot graded.
• 1:40:40
  You gain temporary hit points equal to the total rolled.
• 1:40:43
  If a creature hits you with a melee attack roll while you have
• 1:40:46
  temporary hit points, the creature takes necrotic or
• 1:40:48
  poison damage, your choice equal to your Chrisma modifier.
• 1:40:53
  Then you get strengthened Rot, damage dealt by your sorcerer
• 1:40:56
  spells and sorcerer features. Ignore resistance to necrotic
• 1:40:59
  and poison damage. Very nice, good little ribbon.
• 1:41:03
  Side I just I get it, but I do think it's funny that it's like
• 1:41:09
  by the way, your sorcerer spells ignore resistance to necrotic
• 1:41:12
  and poison so it's like they were like we're going to take
• 1:41:17
  we're going to take the idea of magic damage out of the game so
• 1:41:20
  you can't just ignore resistance all the time but then we're
• 1:41:22
  going to give everybody a bunch of abilities to ignore
• 1:41:24
  resistance all the time yeah look, I like all right, I guess
• 1:41:28
  I. It's it's just another one of
• 1:41:32
  those where you go right, OK. Yeah, right.
• 1:41:35
  OK. Yeah, it's just another case of
• 1:41:37
  like guys just fucking. You could have reassessed.
• 1:41:41
  You could have reassessed the system.
• 1:41:43
  I don't. Know either the problem clearly
• 1:41:46
  wasn't that bad if you just recreated it all over again, or
• 1:41:51
  maybe we should have just taken everything down from its roots
• 1:41:53
  and built it back up. Just maybe, maybe a 6th edition.
• 1:41:56
  They didn't really mess with resistance and vulnerabilities
• 1:41:58
  and shit on any stat blocks really so.
• 1:42:04
  To my eternal fucking rage. It's the thing I wanted damn
• 1:42:07
  near more than anything else on monsters.
• 1:42:09
  I just wanted vulnerabilities and resistances across the
• 1:42:11
  board. I don't know why it's not just.
• 1:42:14
  I always thought to myself, why is it not just a number?
• 1:42:16
  So like, let's say you have fire because because you know, it's
• 1:42:20
  like the reason they want to avoid it is because it's such a
• 1:42:22
  binary, right? But if you could just be like,
• 1:42:24
  oh, this monster has fire resistance 10, which means any
• 1:42:29
  incoming fire damage reduced by 10, This monster has fire
• 1:42:33
  reduces 20. This monster has fire resistance
• 1:42:35
  50. Like if you just made it a
• 1:42:38
  number, then you could have more granularity and then you could
• 1:42:40
  use it more. So like zombies have necrotic
• 1:42:43
  resistance 5, they're not that resistant, but they're semi
• 1:42:46
  resistant. Whereas the Skolord has necrotic
• 1:42:50
  resistance 50. So you're probably not going to
• 1:42:53
  do resist necrotic damage to him, but there's a chance, you
• 1:42:55
  know what I mean? And you can keep immune in there
• 1:42:58
  too. And then vulnerable would be the
• 1:43:01
  opposite, right? Vulnerable like fire vulnerable
• 1:43:03
  10 would just be 10 extra damage.
• 1:43:07
  I never understood why they didn't do it that.
• 1:43:09
  Way I I guess the reasoning is because as a player, when you
• 1:43:15
  hit something that's vulnerable just to like the hype of the
• 1:43:17
  double damage just be hitting. I guess, but I feel like the
• 1:43:22
  hype of the double damage versus the hype of like 10 extra
• 1:43:24
  damage, like it's still there. You still are like, oh, we have
• 1:43:27
  a thing that is weak to we need to hammer it now.
• 1:43:29
  You know what I mean? Like I feel like the tactical
• 1:43:30
  hype is still there. The tactical hype is still
• 1:43:35
  there, yeah, you're still figuring out, but I just don't
• 1:43:36
  think it would hit as hard. I guess.
• 1:43:39
  But sometimes I think there's something very about to have to
• 1:43:42
  double damage. But here's the other thing.
• 1:43:44
  Sometimes the double damage sucks 'cause you rolled a three,
• 1:43:47
  you know? Yeah, I mean there is that
• 1:43:49
  problem as. Opposed to right, 'cause that's
• 1:43:51
  the thing, like double damage, like, OK, I rolled 3 damage so
• 1:43:54
  it takes 6 damage versus I rolled 3 damage, but it takes 10
• 1:43:58
  extra damage no matter what I rolled, you know what I mean?
• 1:44:02
  So like, yeah, I almost feel like the hype argument doesn't
• 1:44:06
  necessarily totally work either because you could roll shit
• 1:44:09
  number. That's the whole, that's the
• 1:44:10
  whole argument for doubling the damage of a crit, right?
• 1:44:12
  Like sometimes it's fun, but sometimes you rolled one damage
• 1:44:15
  and then you do 2 damage. You know what I mean?
• 1:44:19
  Same kind of thing I. Don't know, I've always.
• 1:44:25
  I don't know, it's always bugged me with with DND or well with 5E
• 1:44:28
  at least. I actually have no idea how old
• 1:44:30
  our editions handled it, if they even did.
• 1:44:33
  They must have in some way shape or form.
• 1:44:35
  I just not entirely share out. Level 14 you get your withering
• 1:44:39
  aura when you use your innate sorcery.
• 1:44:41
  I had to look up what that did. An aura of defiling magic fills
• 1:44:45
  a 15 foot emanation originating from your from you while your
• 1:44:49
  innate sorcery is active, granting you the following
• 1:44:52
  benefits. Defiling aura you.
• 1:44:55
  I keep reading this so weird. Defiling Aura when an enemy
• 1:44:59
  within the aura hits you with an attack role and.
• 1:45:02
  Then defiling shroud. Yeah, yeah, defiling Shroud.
• 1:45:07
  Withering Aura Withering aura is the ability Withering.
• 1:45:10
  Defiling Shroud is the sub category.
• 1:45:13
  When an enemy within the aura hits you with an attack roll,
• 1:45:16
  you can reduce that damage total that attacks total damage
• 1:45:19
  against you. The reduction equals your cousin
• 1:45:21
  modifier, Essence Siphon. When an enemy dies within the
• 1:45:24
  aura, you gain 1B4 sorcery points.
• 1:45:27
  Once you use this benefit, you can't regain sorcery points this
• 1:45:29
  way until you do like sorcery. Again, I like that you could
• 1:45:32
  give him the suck when he dies. I would, I think I just prefer 1
• 1:45:36
  sorcery, 1 sorcery point per kill.
• 1:45:38
  I think would be fun. Like obviously if you're
• 1:45:42
  fighting hordes, it'll get really busted, but that could
• 1:45:44
  also be fun because it's, it's the one time where it'd be
• 1:45:46
  really busted versus everything else.
• 1:45:48
  We were killing like two or three things at higher level,
• 1:45:50
  you know, I. Guess that's true, yeah.
• 1:45:55
  You could be a madman and just do these sorcery points equal
• 1:45:57
  the challenge rating. That would be out of control.
• 1:46:01
  That would be so funny dude. You fight one dragon, you down
• 1:46:05
  in another, dragon shows up, you're like what?
• 1:46:07
  You're in range now, buddy boy. Again, definitely not.
• 1:46:10
  That would be too much. A bit, yeah.
• 1:46:13
  I admit that'd be too much, but it would be funny.
• 1:46:15
  A level 18, you get superior defiler, the file defile.
• 1:46:23
  I just think of the breaking video tagline Fortify of 18
• 1:46:30
  Superior Defiler You've perfected your ability to
• 1:46:32
  control and channel defiling magic, granting you the
• 1:46:35
  following benefits. Fueled Soul.
• 1:46:37
  You have immunity to the poisoned and exhausted
• 1:46:39
  conditions. Further defilement The size of
• 1:46:42
  your withering aura increases to a 30 foot emination.
• 1:46:45
  In addition, enemies cannot regain hit points Ball in your
• 1:46:47
  aura. That's pretty good little that
• 1:46:50
  is pretty good I. Defy.
• 1:46:52
  You weren't kid. They really did use the word
• 1:46:54
  defile too much. Goddamn, I didn't think about it
• 1:46:57
  until you pointed it out. One, I'm going to do a quick
• 1:47:01
  rundown. It's the first time.
• 1:47:03
  Oh, he's doing math. He shouldn't be doing that.
• 1:47:05
  I shouldn't be doing math. It's too late.
• 1:47:07
  It's fine. Don't even worry about it.
• 1:47:11
  23456, 7-8. Jesus.
• 1:47:26
  Nothing 10 that's 10 they did 10 times on one page.
• 1:47:30
  Nice. I may have miscounted there
• 1:47:32
  because I was reading fast, but I think about 10 I mean.
• 1:47:35
  If it's even close to 10, I love that.
• 1:47:37
  Yeah, finally we get the worst named one here.
• 1:47:41
  Sorcerer, King, Patron, Warlock. Your pact to draw us from the
• 1:47:45
  power of a monstrous tyrannical force akin to a demigod or an
• 1:47:48
  overwhelmingly powerful magic user.
• 1:47:50
  Through your pact you herald this tyrants interests in the
• 1:47:53
  world, channeling their influence in mind bending
• 1:47:56
  psionic power. At Level 3 you get the following
• 1:48:00
  spells. Command, compel, duel, hold
• 1:48:03
  person, Mind spike, wrathful smite, fear, sending,
• 1:48:07
  compulsion, staggering smite, dominate person, synaptic
• 1:48:10
  static. Very cool.
• 1:48:14
  Can I just point out I giving this giving compelled dual to
• 1:48:19
  the warlock feels like a weird choice.
• 1:48:22
  It yes, a little bit. I don't feel like the compelled
• 1:48:25
  dual doesn't mean well. I don't think compelled dual
• 1:48:29
  forces you to fight that person. I think you can choose who
• 1:48:31
  you're compelling. I don't know, boss.
• 1:48:37
  One creature you can see within range makes a Wisdom save.
• 1:48:40
  On a failed save, the target is disadvantage on attack rolls
• 1:48:42
  against creatures other than you, and it can't willingly move
• 1:48:45
  to a space that is more than 30 feet away from you.
• 1:48:51
  I mean, yeah, I guess I don't know, it just feels weird
• 1:48:57
  because I feel like the warlock's going to be like, hit
• 1:48:59
  me in the face and then immediately go the fuck down.
• 1:49:01
  You'll be like ow, maybe not that hard.
• 1:49:10
  It's yeah, but you know, it's a little weird.
• 1:49:14
  No, because I was just thinking about the semantics of it.
• 1:49:16
  Like there's there's almost no situation where unless I'm
• 1:49:19
  playing a blades hex blade warlock that I want to get
• 1:49:24
  anywhere near melee combat with somebody.
• 1:49:28
  Yeah, like I can't see any scenario where you'd want to.
• 1:49:31
  Yeah, I just can't. First level, you get Tyrants
• 1:49:37
  Herald. You gain the following benefits.
• 1:49:39
  Intimidating Presence. You gain proficiency in the
• 1:49:41
  Intimidation skill, if you don't already have it.
• 1:49:44
  You also have Expertise and Intimidation, and you get Voice
• 1:49:47
  of Tyranny. You can cast Command as a bonus
• 1:49:49
  action without expending a spell slot.
• 1:49:51
  You can do so a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier
• 1:49:54
  or a minimum of once, and regain all expended uses when you
• 1:49:56
  finish a long rest. That's all right.
• 1:50:00
  Commands. All right.
• 1:50:01
  At lower levels, I mean better than is at higher levels.
• 1:50:04
  Command isn't like an amazing, amazing spell, but you can
• 1:50:07
  command someone to go prone. So like you can command them to
• 1:50:13
  go prone and then walk up and bonk them on the head for
• 1:50:16
  advantage. And you can also command you can
• 1:50:21
  do halt where the target doesn't move and takes no actions or
• 1:50:24
  bonus actions the next turn. So you can shut the turn down
• 1:50:30
  and you can cast it as a bonus action with this with Voice of
• 1:50:33
  Tyranny. So it's actually not too bad.
• 1:50:35
  It definitely has some use. It does, yeah.
• 1:50:38
  I mean, it's it's not terrible. It's not.
• 1:50:41
  I wouldn't even say it's bad at low levels.
• 1:50:42
  I'd pray it'd say it's perfectly fine.
• 1:50:45
  I mean, I don't know, it doesn't necessarily scale poorly or
• 1:50:47
  anything. It's just, well, no I suppose
• 1:50:51
  not because your your save DC is constantly growing as you level
• 1:50:54
  up. So I guess it would be does
• 1:50:58
  command require? Does command have a monster
• 1:51:02
  type? Nope.
• 1:51:03
  Limitation, no. OK, so it's better than I
• 1:51:05
  thought. I thought it may have.
• 1:51:08
  Level 6 you can also at at when you upcast it you can you affect
• 1:51:12
  one additional creature for each spell slot.
• 1:51:15
  That's actually pretty. So like higher levels you could
• 1:51:17
  be like level 5 command. I command 5 creatures to halt
• 1:51:22
  True as a bonus action. I'm actually actually wait a
• 1:51:25
  minute. This is sounding better and
• 1:51:26
  better the more I'm thinking about it.
• 1:51:28
  Because it's a bonus action without expending your spell
• 1:51:30
  slot with the voice of tyranny inability.
• 1:51:33
  So you can tell 5 dudes they don't get a turn next turn.
• 1:51:39
  Does Holt say that you'd lose an action?
• 1:51:41
  On it's turn, the target doesn't move and takes no action or
• 1:51:45
  bonus. Action.
• 1:51:46
  That is really good, OK. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 1:51:51
  You shut them fuckers down. You're like, Nope, you get no
• 1:51:54
  turn. Yeah.
• 1:52:03
  Anyway, at level 6 you get your Decisive Edict.
• 1:52:06
  Your patrons power surges through you, allowing you to
• 1:52:09
  rally your allies and subjugate your enemies.
• 1:52:11
  When you cast the spell using a packed magic spell slot, you can
• 1:52:15
  cause profane power to erupt in a 30 foot emanation originating
• 1:52:18
  from you. For each creature you can see in
• 1:52:20
  the emanation. Choose one of the following
• 1:52:22
  effects. Marshall If the creature has
• 1:52:24
  advantage on attack rolls into the end of its next turn a
• 1:52:27
  press, the creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against
• 1:52:31
  your spell save DC or have the frightened condition to the end
• 1:52:33
  of its next turn. Once you use this feature, you
• 1:52:35
  cannot do so until you finish a short or long rest.
• 1:52:38
  You gain uses when you use the Magical Cunning feature I'm.
• 1:52:42
  Going to be honest, I feel like the Marshall one, I'm just going
• 1:52:44
  to always pick. Yes, correct I.
• 1:52:47
  I don't see because because the thing about the frightened is
• 1:52:50
  they have to, they have to fail to save.
• 1:52:52
  Whereas they fail to save. And they have to be.
• 1:52:55
  The homies just get advantage, that's it.
• 1:52:57
  They also have to be susceptible to frightened in the 1st.
• 1:53:00
  Place in the first place. A lot of them are not, so you
• 1:53:03
  know. Yeah, at level 10 you get your
• 1:53:07
  Vindictive rebuke. You learn to rebuff those who
• 1:53:10
  challenge you or the might of your patron.
• 1:53:13
  When an enemy hits you with an attack role, you can take a
• 1:53:15
  reaction to force the enemy to re roll the D20 and the enemy
• 1:53:18
  must use the new role. If this reaction turns the
• 1:53:21
  attack roll into a miss, the triggering feature takes psychic
• 1:53:24
  damage equal to your warlock level.
• 1:53:26
  You can use this feature a number of times equal to your
• 1:53:28
  charisma modifier, minimum of once, and you regain all
• 1:53:31
  expended uses when you finish a long rest.
• 1:53:33
  This is one of the only abilities I'm like.
• 1:53:35
  I can kind of see the psionic in here because of psychic damage
• 1:53:38
  but like even then not much. Yeah, it's kind of a weird one.
• 1:53:43
  Yeah, it seems like a little out of place, but like, sure.
• 1:53:45
  It's hell. It's Hellish Rebuke with psychic
• 1:53:47
  damage, essentially. Yeah, pretty much.
• 1:53:50
  Well 14 you get absolute tyranny.
• 1:53:52
  You wield your patience, tyrannical might with absolute
• 1:53:56
  conviction. When you cast command, you can
• 1:53:58
  target one additional creature within this Bell's range
• 1:54:01
  additionally A frightened creature by you.
• 1:54:03
  A creature frightened by you automatically fails it's saving
• 1:54:06
  throw against any command you. Cast Yeah, this one just doesn't
• 1:54:10
  feel like it's going to be worth it.
• 1:54:12
  No, because again, things at that level are just going to
• 1:54:14
  ignore. Not going to be frightened,
• 1:54:16
  Yeah, and the one additional creature is nice, but it's not
• 1:54:19
  that big of a deal as a level 14 ability.
• 1:54:22
  Yeah, no. Like yeah I get it, you can
• 1:54:25
  command like 6 dudes at once, but yeah it's like most of them
• 1:54:30
  are at the higher level. It's like they're probably going
• 1:54:32
  to save unless you can get them frightened, but slim chance.
• 1:54:41
  Andy, that's all of them. I do love the idea of being like
• 1:54:46
  command halt. No, you just don't get to do
• 1:54:48
  anything. I just said no, Yeah.
• 1:54:50
  You just look at them and do it, no?
• 1:54:52
  That is kind of funny. Yeah, I mean, the, the, the halt
• 1:54:56
  is pretty crazy. I I didn't think about that.
• 1:54:59
  Again though, this warlock again doesn't really pass the sniff
• 1:55:02
  test of like I don't get any character ideas when I read it.
• 1:55:07
  Oh, I do. I I think for me that this is
• 1:55:09
  one of those multiclass ones where it's like I want to do a
• 1:55:12
  barbarian and then take some levels in this.
• 1:55:16
  I guess, yeah. Because you're really just
• 1:55:19
  flexing your muscles at people and they're just doing what you
• 1:55:21
  say. Yeah, but I always think about
• 1:55:23
  when anytime I'm thinking of subclasses, I always think about
• 1:55:26
  them as just a pure class. I don't really account for
• 1:55:28
  multiclass, I'm just looking at it by itself usually.
• 1:55:31
  Oh, and like, I don't know. I'd have a hard time trying to
• 1:55:34
  figure out what kind of like, I don't know, Sorcerer King, like
• 1:55:38
  I don't even know what to like. The name doesn't even really
• 1:55:42
  invoke. Any ideas for me?
• 1:55:45
  Yeah, I know. It's a very weird name, like I
• 1:55:47
  don't know what kind of patron would be like a sorcerer king,
• 1:55:50
  you know? Again, if I knew Darksun better,
• 1:55:52
  maybe this would make more sense.
• 1:55:55
  Well, I mean I think you can think of like crazy magic
• 1:55:57
  emperor person who's like giving you some power.
• 1:56:00
  You can like like think of like your Gwynn from Dark Souls or
• 1:56:03
  or. Yeah, but that immediately gives
• 1:56:05
  me like lich vibes or something like that, you know, And I feel
• 1:56:09
  like a lot of those types of characters I could apply to
• 1:56:11
  other patrons, you know, like, oh, what if it's a fairy king?
• 1:56:15
  Oh, archfay. Oh, what if it's like a, you
• 1:56:18
  know, a Lich King or something? OK, undead, like, you know what
• 1:56:20
  I mean? Like, I feel like it's easy to
• 1:56:22
  slap other patriots, so it'd be hard for me to be like Mage King
• 1:56:26
  guy who doesn't fall into any other category.
• 1:56:31
  It just doesn't. I'm sure I could think of
• 1:56:33
  something, but it just doesn't. Nothing.
• 1:56:35
  Nothing coming to me. Enough.
• 1:56:41
  I think they're fine. You know, overall, I actually, I
• 1:56:46
  think I liked them a little more than I did when I read them
• 1:56:48
  today, as we talked about. I think I think I liked them a
• 1:56:50
  little bit more. I think in in terms of rank, I
• 1:56:54
  probably have to say gladiator, gladiator, sorcerer, gladiator,
• 1:57:06
  defiler, defiled sorcerer, sorcerer king, and then
• 1:57:11
  preservation at the bottom. I just don't think that one's
• 1:57:13
  very good. No, the preservation sucks.
• 1:57:16
  I do like that they're throwing in some other mechanical stuff
• 1:57:20
  that they didn't play with as much in the past.
• 1:57:22
  Like the fact that the the sorcerer uses it dice.
• 1:57:27
  It's cool and I think the gladiator had something that
• 1:57:32
  keyed off bloodied somewhere. Yes, it's final ability.
• 1:57:36
  Yeah, right. Yeah, mutilated.
• 1:57:39
  Show and you hit a bloody creature.
• 1:57:40
  So like I do like that there were throwing in a little bit of
• 1:57:44
  extra stuff, but like do it more, you know?
• 1:57:50
  I would like that more, yeah. Like we're doing a little bit of
• 1:57:52
  it, Like let's get more like, let's get more creative uses of
• 1:57:55
  like hit dice and bloodied and and shit like that and give me
• 1:58:00
  weird effects with like weapon again.
• 1:58:03
  This is one of those things, this is a big thing for me that
• 1:58:07
  that 5V doesn't ever want to do and I feel like they should do
• 1:58:12
  5V doesn't ever like to replace abilities, right?
• 1:58:16
  So the idea of the idea, so I don't know, my cat's over there
• 1:58:25
  causing trouble. The idea of like, like weapon
• 1:58:31
  mastery, for example, let's say, I don't know, take the Vex or or
• 1:58:37
  SAP, which gives your opponent disadvantage.
• 1:58:39
  It's like you gain. It's like you take the SAP
• 1:58:45
  weapon mastery property and you know, remove.
• 1:58:50
  Well, weapon masters are a bad example because they're pretty
• 1:58:52
  short effects. But like that it's the thing
• 1:58:55
  where like for example, I always say for Ranger, right?
• 1:58:58
  For me, if I were making Ranger, I would make default Ranger be
• 1:59:01
  the pet class and then the subclasses you take some certain
• 1:59:06
  subclasses would remove the pet and replace it with a different
• 1:59:09
  ability. And 5E is always afraid to do
• 1:59:12
  the remove and replace thing. But I feel like if they did
• 1:59:15
  that, they could get some more wacky woo Hoo shit.
• 1:59:18
  So like, for example, maybe like the hit dice, you take the the
• 1:59:23
  the filer sorcerer or something like that and it's like you
• 1:59:27
  don't have hit dice. Instead you have like life
• 1:59:29
  essence dice. Your hit dice are replaced with
• 1:59:31
  this other kind of die thing. And with these other kind of die
• 1:59:34
  thing, you could do XY and Z, but it doesn't key off of hit
• 1:59:38
  dice base ability because it's not a hit die.
• 1:59:40
  You know, like shit like that. Get like get a little, push the
• 1:59:43
  boundaries, push the boundaries. Come on guys.
• 1:59:45
  You could do it. I'm probably asking too much, I
• 1:59:48
  know, but I don't know. For Wizards, yeah, maybe a
• 1:59:51
  little bit. I I know, I know.
• 1:59:55
  Just just one of those thoughts. But yes, give me more like,
• 1:59:58
  yeah, like if I can. We're using blood.
• 2:00:00
  Eat a little bit. We're using hit dice a little
• 2:00:02
  bit. Like keep going, keep going.
• 2:00:03
  Come on, come on. You're so close.
• 2:00:05
  I'm almost there. Keep.
• 2:00:06
  Just don't stop edging me or stop edging me.
• 2:00:09
  Stop edging me. Stop edging.
• 2:00:14
  He's edging, he's edging. He's edging.
• 2:00:16
  Yeah. Stop edging.
• 2:00:17
  He's cooning. Jesus Christ.
• 2:00:21
  But you know what you shouldn't stop doing?
• 2:00:23
  Fucking Christ. Following us on social media,
• 2:00:25
  you shouldn't stop doing that. Oh my God.
• 2:00:28
  You should do that. Sure.
• 2:00:30
  Yeah, you should do that and. Yeah, you should do that.
• 2:00:33
  Do the things with the thing. Yeah, I got yelled at when I
• 2:00:37
  asked you to do more than one thing.
• 2:00:38
  So go do the thing with the thing.
• 2:00:40
  It's sure that's vague enough. Yeah.
• 2:00:49
  Chad, he's gooning. Chad, he's gooning.
• 2:00:52
  He's. I guess that's where I'm going
• 2:00:55
  to leave things. I'm done.
• 2:00:56
  Yeah, I'm done. He's motherfucker as a mouth.