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S2 Ep. 8 - Class Review: Monk · Bards and Barrels

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Bards and Barrels, the podcast for Dungeons and Dragons players, new and old.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Phil Boone, and I'm joined by my friends and co-hosts Ross Struess and Brett Miller.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be exploring the world of Dungeons and Dragons in each episode, sharing our experiences, offering tips and advice for those who play and run this classic game.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you're a new player just starting out or a seasoned veteran looking to get a new perspective on things, Bards and Barrels has something for everyone.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: So sit back, grab a drink, and join us as we roll for initiative and embark on an epic adventure.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: There it is, the opening crack.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Bards and Barrels.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: How are we feeling, guys?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's a good night for some DD.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: For some DD.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Great night for some DD.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have a class review for you again tonight.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be reviewing the monk, but before we jump into that, uh DD Beyond um has just released their 2023 Unrolled, is what they're calling it.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but looking back at some of the statistics that they have captured over the last year, uh I just wanted to hit on a few of these that I kind of found interesting to see what you guys think.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's uh let's start with names.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: This one is so good.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have definitely fallen into this.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: The most popular name of all NPCs.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is it all NPCs?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: All characters?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's all characters, period.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bob.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Second year running.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, it's still Bob.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Bob.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've used Bob as a name before.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely have not used Bob.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: I have not used Bob.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I can just see somebody, I can just see it at your table, Brad, being like, what's that guy's name?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, I don't know, Bob.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Normally if I say Eddie Jim Bob.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the most declining though, one of them is Eddie, which I think is a falloff of Stranger Things not being released this year, is 2022.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Rando, short for random, I guess.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I would think so.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting one too.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: But Bruno, we don't talk about it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: We don't talk about Bruno declined.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Fair.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Seraphina for growth.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the reference if there is.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to remember where I've heard this name before.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is it like a play on Seraphim?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like Nah, that's too deep.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Link Breath of the Wild slash, like, yeah, all of the games that have been released recently, I would assume.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm sure Link is always probably pretty high based on just game popularity at the time.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, fair.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I know Serafina from uh his Dark Materials.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you if anybody's ever read that book.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's a character in their name, Serafina Pecola, um, but spelled differently.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't think this is the same one influencing the most growing, one of the most growing names.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: You also wonder how many people hit the like random generator button.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe Serafina came up a lot.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't feel like I get cool names like that when I use the random name in the generator.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: I get crap that I can't pronounce most of the time.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's half the fun.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: You just add a little phlegm.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: It just goes.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: They need to have like a click button to like have it say the name to you on there.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: That would be amazing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, yes.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna move on after Serapina over there.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh interestingly enough, we're gonna see that character come up too.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Sarapina.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be your monk's name now.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly enough, so do you need the next thing they have listed on here is uh species instead of race, which I thought was kind of just an interesting distinction.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's DD as a whole trying to get rid of race to like PC themselves.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't disagree with it by any means, but uh for those that are interested in what they mean by species, most of these in the table align with what we would have historically called races in older versions of the rules.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what you can still find in all pretty much all the books.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Anything printed basically right now, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see what the new handbook holds.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't really see anything overly surprising in that in that species list, though, as far as like the ones that are the most used human elves, dragonborns leading the way, um, Tiefling, half elves, dwarfs.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's basically everything that's in the player's handbook, because you even get down to like to the half, half orc, halfling, things like that.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: The only interesting one is gnome fell a little farther down the list than I expected it would, because it is one of the main species.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have that much for like oomph in abilities boosts.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Human is excellent pretty much for any class.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it it's easy for some any pretty much anybody to take a human as a as a race or species.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess we're talking about being lower on the list, but even even the gnome had between 80 and 100,000 uses.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not we're not talking about five people used a gnome this year.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it's still a ton.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, but human is over 700 that would be.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that would be the difference.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: I play an Asimar, and that's fourth from the bottom, but I I don't know.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like I kind of randomly found that, and it's it's it's it's when I found it, it was listed as a human sub-variant.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it technically I thought it fell under human anyway, with like lineages within it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sure.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the interesting things I think from the article they kind of posted along with this is that they talk about how some of the uh small folk, like the dwarves, having gnomes, uh, they're some of the least popular standard races, but that also uh they found similar information from the opening weekend stats on Baldur's Gate 3 that they were some of the least picked species as well.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it carried over into the game as well.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: I I feel like, and I could be wrong, but there might be some stereotyping going on that if you play a little person and you're trying to be a badass, it's a little you may think that it's harder to do that.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily so.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: They also mention movement speed.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, true, yeah, because they would have a lower movement speed, yeah.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And in a video game, that can hurt.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to dash everywhere.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: That'd be a pain in the ass.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oof.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're wasting actions at that point.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I can finagle my DM occasionally uh in a game to get away with some of that, but in a video game, it's a very hard line to uh how far I can move.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Can't finagle the programmers.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: I can click wherever I want, but I'm only moving my 20 feet, 20 to 30 feet.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's sticklers on that, I guess.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh classes.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: You any any surprises here?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not really at the bottom with Monk, the one we're talking about today, coming in pretty much last, other than an artificer coming in the bottom two.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully, with what we're gonna talk about today, maybe we can move that up a little bit.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: I would guess that artificers are just complex classes to play.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's just a lot to them.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: The one that surprised me, well, not surprised me, didn't surprise me that it's this high, is the wizard at four.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: What I would like to know is how many of those people created a new character that wasn't a wizard within like two weeks of playing it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: What I thought was interesting is that wizard and warlock are both m significantly higher than Sorcerer as far as kind of those three go.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I also, to your artificer point, it's not in the original like player's handbook.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that could be part of that as well.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Several of these, I mean, they're they're tight.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like so the top ones are Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, and then wizard for the top four.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's interesting that the fighter is definitely the clear number one, but rogue and barbarian, pretty close.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Wizard, paladin, warlock, really tight there in that second group, and then uh clerics, rangers, bards, and druids are like a third group that is very tight.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then sorcerers, monks, and artificers kind of fall off at the end.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: So interesting stuff.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: So where do our characters fall?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a paladin, so I at least came in, what, fifth?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: How about you guys?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've got right now a fighter and a warlock running.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So first and what is that, sixth?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: My other character's a rogue, so I got two on that one.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm running a rogue, and if you count Yostix, Yostix is a cleric.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we count Yosticks.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Of course you can.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yostix counts himself.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Can't not.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Of course he does.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Every day.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Counts himself twice for his second leg.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: His third leg.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, not his second leg.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I guess he everybody has a second leg.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Just excuse me, I'm gonna leave now.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh any anything else notable that you guys kind of saw on there that caught your interest for their kind of year-end wrap-up?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there was one about the top searches were for Druid and Dragon, and then related, the top five articles that they had on there were Druid 101, Wild Shape Guide.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And my bet is that is coming out of the DD movie, and everybody looking up, how many wild shapes can you have for long rest?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've talked about that before.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they did they kind of fluffed that on the movie.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Go back and see our episode on reviewing the DD movie.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Season one, like episode four or something like that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a fun one.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I also thought it was interesting that the at least the the one they listed fourth on their top five articles was what is Dungeons and Dragons, which may also be influenced by the movie, people actually seeing it and then coming to check out the game and get into it and play.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the one that kind of caught me in the uh articles was the embracing your wild side playing as a lycanthrope in DD.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know too many people that have played werewolves or rare creatures, so probably the more experienced players digging into that one.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like a challenging like party dynamic, potentially.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Every so often you just turn into a freaking wild animal.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have one extra person watching during while you rest.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: What what if what if you didn't turn into like a werewolf or something cool?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: You turned into like a were rabbit, and really what they had to do is remember to pick you up so you didn't get lost.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be pretty good.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what I mean the what else is out there?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's were rats that have official stab locks, like were tigers, were ravens.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like yeah, yeah.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty much any.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you could you could finaglas, you could be just about anything after.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: A were crab.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that exists, but it does now.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: At least in my brain.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what's in Moana?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Aware crab?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe Komatola?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just probably just a regular crab, yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a giant crab.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of like Phil when he hasn't had his beer.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Just becomes a giant crab.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Just kidding.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Just kidding.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: You're not wrong.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Moving on.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right, all right.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into class review now.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So uh tonight we're looking at the monk.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: What are your guys' first thoughts on a monk?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for me, I was a little surprised during the build of at least at level one, how few things you have to like really pick out for this class.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we've done a few classes, like where we've gotten into having to pick spells or at least picking like paths or or things like that.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, with a monk, you don't even pick your way until you're at third level.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So the characters we created for for show and tell today, so to speak, um, we didn't have to do any of that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just it felt they're gonna be pretty similar.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very simple very straightforward process, which I thought was supplies surprising.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Overall, there's not a whole lot of complexity to monks at this stage, at this stage, sure.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's more complex when you're playing it and getting used to how they play, especially in combat.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh mostly.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was surprised how many different ways you can play a monk.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like with looking up different pop culture references, I was thinking, like, oh, come down from the the mountaintop and punch somebody, and that was all that you could do.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's lots of different ways you can have some variety in character build and backstory to give substance to your character.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I yeah, I agree with that point, Brett.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like when I initially thought monk and any monk build that I've ever done historically has been just like this martial arts combatant, like very much came from a monastery with all of this training.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think you know there is a component of that.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of monks probably do use that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they do, and it there's nothing wrong with that.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Your unarmed strikes are you know your powerhouse, but there are all of these other paths that you can take, which are neat, and you know, a couple of them really are better flavor than they are necessarily skill set, but I think that there's a lot of freedom in that too, that I never necessarily have noticed.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, kind of speaking along those lines, what are some of the pop culture references, Brett, that you have noticed for these?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, there are so many big ones for this one.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, if you go through any of the what 80s, 90s, early 2000s, Kong Fu movies like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, all of those guys are monks in DD.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then you get Ninja Turtles, you get Goku, Dragon Ball Z, you get Iron Fist, Daredevil, Batman, uh Yoda and Rey from Star Wars.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those could even be monks.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they do a lot of martial arts.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Poe from Kung Fu Panda, like so many good fighting pisticuff movies.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Rafiki.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Rafiki.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Hell yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Mr.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Miyagi.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be a good one.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: There, there's like no, there's no shortage of options for this one.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Ryu, Street Fighter.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: One interesting one that I saw.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious what you guys think.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: I saw some people like mention maybe Neo from Matrix movies.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: That would probably a multi-class of some sort.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I would agree.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I would think probably a multi-class.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then another one I saw I was curious about was Beast from the X-Men.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Since it's a mutation, does it qualify?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it is kind of a hand-to-hand combatant.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've used X-Men for other things too, so yeah.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was also thinking, like, um, I don't think about DC characters very often, but like Green Lantern.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Ouch.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Ouch.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like Green Lantern.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, because he's part of like that group that could be like a like almost like a religion.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: He uses his ring.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess it's a weapon.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, sorcerer.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, but it's not magic.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're right.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Magic isn't inherent to him.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's an interesting one.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: I really don't want to talk about DC characters anymore.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we brought it up.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: I know, but I'm just saying, I'm I'm ready to be done.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: I kid.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna get us in trouble.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: That always fine.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um all right.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh any other pop culture references you could think of that we didn't hit on.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we hit a lot of them.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know, you guys one I want to run by you guys, uh, Maya from Echo.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Have you been watching Echo on Disney Plus?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, I have not seen it yet, but no, I haven't yet.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think that she could classify as a monk.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of the ability that she gets, I could see being akin to Key.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely could see that she would potentially be a monk as well.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's on my list to watch.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna be thinking of that as I watch the rest.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Would recommend.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let me know what you think.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: You could in in Doctor Strange, so we've clarified that they're sorcerers, warlocks, wizards, whatever you want to categorize them as.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: They're magic users.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: But they're multi-screen.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: If we're thinking about like stereotypical monks, they are monks in that sense.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like the meditation, the religious part of it, like all of that, they would be monks as well.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: So Camartage is definitely like your stereotypical monk enclave temple.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: Their abilities would not classify them that way.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's move along to pros and cons of the monk.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with the pros.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh a pro for me is is the key.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: I I I think it's a simplified version of your spell slots.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: That if you're not ready to get into that management and using that up quickly, it's very easy that one of your abilities costs this.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Use that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: When it's gone, it's gone, right?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like if you have the the resources to do it, great.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't, great.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: The spell slots are very similar, of course, but I feel like you get more key to start with than wizards or warlocks get spell slots most of the time.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think this one is gonna be really fun in combat.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have a lot of movement as a monk, and you can run and gun and punch a lot of things.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And being able to punch multiple things per turn, whether that's one person, one attack on a on a uh opponent or multiples, you're gonna be doing a lot, and it's kind of like uh a super awesome fight scene in the heat of battle.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree with Brett's point.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: I this definitely fits into kind of that skirmisher type of role in battle where you can like move in because you have the mobility, strike, and then get out of there too, a lot of times.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: It also makes a pretty good like utility or control class, too.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You have some different features that you get throughout your journey that can help you, you know, empower your strikes.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you get some evasion, different things that you can do to steal your mind.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you get some of those pieces as well that can help bolster you, but also allow you to do a lot for your party in that same aspect.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: To to your point, Brett, about moving and attacking a lot, how many classes do we have that right off the bat you get two attacks?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: So you get your your action attack, but then you can as a bonus action do an unarmed attack too.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like if you don't have armor on or and are not using weapons, correct.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean if you're taking full advantage of your monk, you're probably not gonna wear armor anyway.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have proficiency in it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that should be one thing we we should touch on now.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like your unarmored attack, you get extra bonuses just based on not wearing armor.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you can be really strong and peck a punch without wearing armor naturally as a monk.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, you get to add your dexterity modifier and your wisdom modifier both to your AC for your unarmored defense, which we haven't talked about quick build yet, but obviously that's what it tells you to dump your points into.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I thought this one really compliments well, I don't even know if it compliments or competes with the rogue in a party.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: When you get into the heat of battle, those both can run around.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: The rogue can do sneak attacks, disengages, all their cunning actions.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: But then you've got the monk who can just kind of slip in and out and jump and leap over top of things.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it depends on how you want to go about doing it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to do it sneakily, you gotta go rogue.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: But the monk has the ability to jump and move quickly in a flashy situation, yes.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're trying to do it with stealth, you don't want to do that with a monk.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: You can.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: You could because uh at some point you're gonna have high dexterity.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think with one of the monastic traditions, you can eventually become invisible.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, that's handy.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So like there's actually an option for that.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to be a monk, you can make your do rogue things, but not be a rogue.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's like a ninja.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm down for that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm not gonna argue with you if that's what you're waiting for.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't sure.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all right.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh any other pros before we move to cons?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, we got on the cons list for the monk.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's something we kind of talked about already, and I feel like most if you're a first-time builder, anytime you play DD, your your gut reaction is you need armor to do something.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I think this is counterintuitive to a lot of players.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is it and if you don't understand like where your AC comes from as a monk, you're gonna be like, well, I need some chain mail or something in there, even though it's uh detrimental to actually do that.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: You're hurting yourself if you did that.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I think just that counterintuitiveness for like a first-time builder, that lack of proficiency in army doesn't do it, doesn't it would not be great for them just because of the stereotypical way they want to think about how you play DD.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: But the pro side of that, as we talked about, is get you out of your decks and your wisdom, you're gonna have a high AC without having any armor.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's fine.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think one of the biggest cons is if you're going up against a lot of ranged encounters, it's tricky as a monk.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're not necessarily gonna have a lot of abilities that can hit from range with a lot of punch.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: You won't do a lot of damage.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You will probably have a high deck score, so you can, you know, roll a short bow or something like that, but you can't use most of your strongest abilities.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, you've got the movement speed to get in there and cover a lot of distance to do so if you need to.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I listed it as a con.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not really sure it is or not.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that maybe the key features could be overwhelming to a new player, but they're really not any more difficult than learning spell casting.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Arguably they're easier.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um technically, a monk is not a magical class.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: The key is not considered to be like in the spell casting range.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically the same thing, but technically it's the same thing, but it's its own mechanic.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, right.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: But they don't consider it to be spell casting, if that makes sense.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's a rules thing, but I just had a moment of panic because uh, as we'll see with my character, I did a tiefling who you get thalmaturgy as a spell as a tiefling, but then I'm like, how do I get spell slots?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then I looked and it's like at will casting, so I'm like, okay, never mind, it's not a problem.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: What do you use as your spell casting modifier?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say, 'cause normally it's at the top, there's nothing there.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, well, uh probably because thalmaturgy really isn't a damage.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a damage dealing.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's fair, you know, flavor more than anything.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: But interesting.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, yeah, we don't dress.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh any other comments?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think the with the key that we're gonna talk about here in a little bit, it's overwhelming at first a little bit, but I think you can settle in and use it faster than spells.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're not that complicated, quote unquote spells.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: The usage of the key isn't that complicated.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to use them where spells you can have potentially endless options for different spells you you can pick.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and one of the things I like about the key, kind of over spell slots, is you don't have to say, oh, well, am I using a third-level spell slot?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or it's like it's all the same.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's three key points, you know.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a little bit easier to keep track of.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that kind of lends us into um the quick build that is listed in the basic rules or the player's handbook.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we've got decks listed in as highest, which makes sense for the unarmed strike.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's also what you trigger with like your Fury of Blows, some other things that we'll talk about here in a little bit when we get into that first level.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then wisdom uh for some of your key-driven items as well.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of why they lend into those.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um they suggest the hermit background, which I would say fits the stereotypical monk build.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: You grew up in a secluded monastery.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so obviously, by no means are you married to that, but that is why they suggest it, is it fits the stereotype?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, did anybody here use the monk or use the use the monk?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I did go.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: We all did.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: How many of us use the hermit as the background?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Did anybody use it?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: You did?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: I did not, I did not either.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: I did intentionally because I didn't figure you guys would.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: Smart.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all right.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of what they uh suggest for quick build.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, first level features.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: What does a first level monk look like?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: When you do get your unarmored defense, um so that's where um when we were talking about not having armor and not wielding a shield, uh, your AC equals 10 plus your dexterity modifier plus your wisdom modifier.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: So as long as you don't have any actual armor on that would uh modify those numbers, you get to use those um modifiers to bring that number up, which is actually really handy because the way the quick build is and they have you dump your high scores into decks and wisdom anyway, your highest modifiers are gonna then be your your AC is gonna benefit from those higher higher rolls, depending on how you rolled, of course.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is you get martial arts at level one.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is like the offensive version of unarmored defense.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not wearing armor and you're not wearing a shield, you get to do some bonuses, such as you can use dexterity instead of strength for your attack and damage rolls.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and you can roll a D4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this isn't huge now, but it scales up as you grow in your monk levels.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that uh that martial arts being able to use an unarmed strike, just punching with your fist, gets more powerful as you go.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think by the time you hit fifth level, you are up to a d6, uh, you progress up to a d8 at 11th, and then ultimately to a d10 at 17th, which a d10, I think we've talked about before, there aren't that many, especially simple weapons, which your monk weapon has to be a simple melee weapon that would hit in at a d10's worth of damage.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the nice part about that too is you know, you start hitting with a bonus action.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you have used your unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, uh so you basically can almost take like a second attack action on that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: At level one.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: At level one.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: So getting to punch twice is huge when you only have ten health.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the things that I the very first time I built a monk that I didn't understand was the monk weapon.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm pretty sure I only ever really used an unarmed strike.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't understand that I could use a monk weapon specifically.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they give you, you know, it can be a short sword or any simple melee weapon that doesn't have the two-handed or the heavy property, which I think is all of them except like one, I'm pretty sure.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a good list that you can still pick from, and you can use that and get the bonus action still.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's pretty good.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty dang good.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um first level wise, I mean, uh that's kind of it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the monk has a d8 for its hit dice, so your starting HP is gonna be eight plus whatever your constitution modifier is.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Does give a little importance to putting a little bit into con.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that way, uh, if you are gonna be in, especially in the battle, in the heat of things, yeah, you can probably jump out of there pretty quickly with your decks, but you may want to take a little bit in constitution, so you're not quite so uh easily downed.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then proficiencies was maybe something I would also list on the weakness side, too.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel like they have a ton of proficiencies.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Not really.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's pretty slim, but slim pickings.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of thing that fits what you think would be a monk, though.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Even disregard the monastic traditions and stuff for a second, but like you think like they're simple people, like they want to use what is available to them, their fists and very basic weapons.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't be proficient in anything but yourself, and yourself is the weapon you want to be proficient in.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: So the skills you get to choose from acrobatics, athletics, history, insight, religion, and stealth.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of all fits along those month traits.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, agreed.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I thought was a little bit odd out of all that, you're so your saving throws are in decks and strength.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which maybe I guess like your resolve.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I could see strength almost being more like your resolve instead of physical, but that's the one that I just odd, especially since I don't know about you guys, but I chose strength as my dump stat.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was one of my so it's like dex is great, but that strength save is poof, dang.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, and I think that's basically everything that fits into first level.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, before we jump into kind of the uh the big thing that you get as a monk, I want to talk a little bit about key.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So what is key?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is the energy inside of you being used to do things, do cool things, more make more more oomph to your punches.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it kind of goes back to that self-weapon kind of deal.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's like you have honed your body.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: You hone your body, you organize your mind and you and you you you like channel.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Channel, yes.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: You channel your energy.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, it's yeah.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Key key is about channeling your energy to where you need it.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like punch whatever you need, that's where your key goes.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in essence, as the monk, right, you have this pool of key points uh of that energy that in essence you are storing up, and then you can release some of that energy to you know power up some of your attacks, uh, to do kind of different things as you grow as a monk.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the cool ones, right off the bat, Fury of Blows.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you can take a second unarmed strike as a bonus action.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you make an attack, unarmed attack with your first main action, you can do two unarmed strikes with a bonus action, and that would use one of your key points.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Another one coming a little bit later at level five that I was really excited about is stunning strike.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I picture this as you punch somebody in the nose and it's just like messes up their brain for a little bit, and they're completely stunned for the whole round, and that uses one of your key points.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then your whole party can just way-lay on the big baddie.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they they have to make a constitution save, but that's a fairly easy thing to save, and you can just have a free round of combat.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: So another thing you can use key for is um patient defense and step of the win allow you to use your key points or your kai.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Is it kai or key?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard it pronounced both, but I haven't heard it that way too.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Either way.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: So your key points, you can use so with patient defense, you can use it to use the dodge action as a bonus action.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And with step of the wind, you can disengage or dash using a bonus action, which is kind of goes back to how we were talking about how you can get into battle, throw some punches, and get out.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: That bonus action allows you to get out of it without triggering an opportunity attack.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or use it as a scout.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Get in and get out.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Get in and get out before your party has to do anything or before they notice you.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: See, and I'm just thinking it's another way for me to play a rogue, but not actually be a rogue.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that way you don't accuse me of always playing a rogue.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: But Chris was still my dump stat.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Now you just told us your secret.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: So when you play in a monk, it's like, okay, Phil, great.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Still a rogue.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'll play the sneaky monk.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: Sneaky.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so that is key.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh especially Flurry of Blows is important because that ties into uh some of the monastic traditions.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's your big third-level decision.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: First big one here.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what is your primary combat style and technique gonna look like?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the basic rules only gives you one choice, and that is the way of the open hand.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the first things is the open hand technique.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: So when you hit a creature with one of your attacks, uh, granted by your fury blows, you can knock them prone.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they have to make a s they have to make a saving throw.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if they fail, they also can be pushed 15 feet away from you.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that lasts until your next turn.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: The the next one you get in there is called wholeness of body.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: And at sixth level, you gain the ability to heal yourself to hit points equal to three times your monk level.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: So if you get that at sixth level, you can regain 18 hit points without the rest, which is pretty big deal.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: As a non-healing class.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like mostly.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: Without touching your hit die.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: So you can't heal others, but you can heal yourself with that.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: It does take a full action though.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it it does feel balanced in that regard.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I would agree.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you can only use it once before you have to long rest.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh bumping up to the 11th level uh with the way of the open hand, you hit tranquility.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of your long rest that you're taking to restore your wholeness of body, uh, you can actually get to gain the effect of this sanctuary spell.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the big part that I thought here uh is that it lasts until the start of your next long rest.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's a ridiculously long amount of time for a sanctuary spell to last.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um now it can be broken, right?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: There is a saving DC listed on that.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it is basically eight plus your whiz modifier, um, plus your proficiency.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, plus your proficiency.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So for anyone that's not familiar with the sanctuary spell, uh basically you are um warding a creature within range against attack.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you set up this sanctuary.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um anyone that targets that warded creature, so whether it's yourself or if it's one of your party members, something like that, if they target them with an attack or harmful spell, they have to make a wisdom saving throw.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: So based on that save DC that we just talked about, uh, if they fail it, they have to pick a new target or they lose that attack or spell completely.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there are some you know area of effect things that may not necessarily be kind of picked up by that, uh, but for the most part, having that last for that long is pretty incredible.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Pro tip write down who you have that cast on because you will forget between a if you if it's going for that length of time, you and or your dungeon master are gonna forget that detail.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh a hundred percent.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's the big one?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: 17th level.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: At 17th level, you gain the ability to set up lethal vibrations in someone's body.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is called quivering palm.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: When you hit a creature with an unarmed strike, you can spend three key points to start these imperceptible vibrations with lat which lasts for a number of days equal to your monk level.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: That is a long time.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: 17 days.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: 17 days.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the vibrations are harmless unless unless you use your action to end them.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: To do so, the target must be on the same plane of existence.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: So when you use the action, the creature must make a constitution saving throw.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: If it fails, it is reduced to zero hit points, and if it succeeds, it's gonna still take 10 d10 of necrotic damage.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: That is huge.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: You do have to wait until 17th level to get that.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: But that is massive.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's like an instant kill.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, basically totally or a crap ton of damage.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is unreal.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you are having to spend three key points, but at 17th level, you have a whole bunch of them.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: You have 17 at that point.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the only thing that you know, like limitation to it as well, is that you can only do it to one creature at a time, and that to end it or to cause basically that final zero hit points or 10 D10 damage, they have to be on the same plane of existence.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're talking about 17th level, that could be harder than you think.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no kidding.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: I it's interesting for like if you're if you're facing like a major enemy or something, like that's if you go in and fight them, you're you use this and then you get out because you feel like you're in over your head or something, and then snap of a finger, they pretty much die.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: But you also had to think at that high of a level that some of the monsters that you're coming up against are gonna have pretty high saves.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: So they could still make it, but even if not, you know, 100 necratic damage is still rough.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty rough for sure.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that is kind of your only option in Way of the Open Hand, but I do, or excuse me, in the basic rules is Way of the Open Hand, but I'm pretty impressed by it, actually.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's a strong one to go with.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: I would agree.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um the player's handbook does open us up to two others.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we have the Way of the Shadow and the Way of the Four Elements.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not sure if you guys looked at these ones or not.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Way of the Shadow is uh it's what I would refer to basically as like the ninja subclass in essence.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you follow a tradition that values stealth and subterfuge.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so ninjas, spies, assassins, something along those lines.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the pieces that I really liked about this option.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: So at third level, you gain shadow arts.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to burn an action and use two key points to get this, but you can cast like darkness or dark vision or pass without a trace or silence.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to have any of the material components.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that can come in handy if you do have some sort of a stealth mission.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you also gain the minor illusion cantrip if you don't already know it.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, bumping up to six level, you gain shadow step, which is a really cool, um powerful, yeah.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think is fun flavor-wise too.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like it brings in additional components you wouldn't always think about.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where are the shadows?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because in essence, you can basically teleport from shadow to shadow as long as they're within like 60 feet of one another.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you also have advantage on the first melee attack you make before the end of the turn.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it starts also kind of feeding into that roguish side that we talked about.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fun one to take and kind of throw your DM for a loop because you're gonna be like, okay, where's the sun and where are the shadows falling right now?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Very true.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's not do that.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh mental note to do that.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so this is the class we kind of hit on earlier that um you can eventually become invisible.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: So by using away the shadow at 11th level, you gain a cloak of shadows.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're in an area of dim, light, or darkness, you can use your action to become invisible.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: You remain invisible until you make an attack, cast a spell, or in an area of bright light.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you know the advantage you get doing that as a rogue is that you would get sneak attack damage.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you don't get that as a monk, however, a you know you definitely would have the advantage on those attacks if you are invisible to whoever you're attacking.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then lastly, 17th level opportunist.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: So when a creature within five feet of you is hit by an attack made by a creature other than you, you can use your reaction to then make a melee attack against that creature too.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost like getting an attack of opportunity, in essence, against another monster that's attacking one of your party members, which I thought was pretty good too, because you can already do a lot of attacking as a monk.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Just lay it on thick.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, other option in the player's handbook is the way of the four elements.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you've been taught to harness the elements using them as an extension of your body.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um the last uh avatar, the last airbender, in essence, like that's kind of where this would fall.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a lot, kind of, to this class.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: I would say maybe as a new character, it might be a little bit more complex.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of choices, uh, because you you know the elemental attunement discipline, and then one other elemental discipline of your choice, and there's kind of a lot, and some of them have some different prerequisites that you'd have to look through as well.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think you could do a lot with this particular monastic tradition.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I don't know.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you guys have thoughts on that?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Did you look through some of those things?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's just each one of these decisions on which or each decision on the monastic tradition that you're gonna go with is gonna set you up a lot all the way through upper levels.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big decision, and I think you should really focus on where you want to take your character once you reach that third level and are ready to make that decision.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it comes back somewhat to like when we talked about the pop um pop culture references, right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like what kind of a monk do you want to play?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're trying to play, you know, the traditional monastery type Kung Fu monk, you know, way of the open hand makes sense.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to play someone um like Aang, the last stairbender, you know, that's gonna be something more along the lines of um the way of the four elements.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you want to play a ninja, you know, you're talking about the way of shadow.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Some of that's gonna come down to what type of monk do you want to play?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is a lot kind of wrapped up in each one of those things.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is one of the first classes that we've had that up until this third level, you're kind of making up your backstory, and it's kind of fluff until you reach this point.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: I would agree.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I think even when I went to go build the character for today, I was trying to think about what I would pick at third level.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you start to put together backstory, you kind of need to have an idea of what you want to do.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um have everything gel together.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: You don't kind of want to be wasting those first couple levels.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, outside of the player's handbook and basic rules, we do have some more options.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'll hit on them briefly.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to spend a lot of time on those, but um, we have the way of mercy, which comes from Tosha's Cauldron of Everything.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, here you can use your key points to heal or harm.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a chiropractor if you kind of read through it.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can eventually revive a fallen creature, though.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um, we need a way of the mercy uh monk to help Brett this week after scooping snow.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: In uh Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, we have the Way of the Ascendant Dragon.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you gain draconic features.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so something akin to like uh breath of the dragon, you can temporarily get wings.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the cool parts of this was the ability to create an aura of frightful presence around you, or an aura of resistance, kind of whatever your party needs, more of a support type scenario there.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have the way of the astral self from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: So this is more about drawing your key.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: To call forth components of your astral self.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can actually call forth like astral arms, an astral visage, astral body, and then awaken them to actually boost the damage that those things can do or what they can do for you.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Cool concept.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely lends itself well to having a very high wisdom score that plays into that astral self.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: The way of the cobalt soul comes from the Taldori campaign setting Reborn.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: No thine enemy.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: You analyze your foes to learn their weaknesses, and it grants you insight into their vulnerabilities.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can eventually use your key points to take additional reactions or to grant creatures basically you give them a vulnerability to a certain type of damage.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that way you can just wail on them.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have the way of the drunken master from Xanther's Guide to Everything.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love this one.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've played it before.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: It creates a lot of fun role-playing uh opportunities during during combat.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: So even if you're not like a super high charisma player, which I am not, it still gives you some opportunity to build that into your combat.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can eventually cancel disadvantage and fight off a mob of goons with up to five Florida blows attacks, like at very high level.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: But this is pretty much a flavor like monastic tradition.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: You don't really get a lot else from it.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: Secretly, the three of us are uh monks of the way of the drunken master.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I would uh I would concur.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh then we have the uh way of the Kensai.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: This comes from Xanther's Guide to Everything.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: You get weapon mastery.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a lot of the um comments around you know, Jedi, some Jedi are monks.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: They refer to this, the way of the Kensai.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they have weapon mastery over a lightsaber.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the features of this one are actually pretty easy.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you can grant up to three bonus points on attack and damage rolls using one of your Kensei weapons, um, which is kind of the big thing for that one as well.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if you are a new player, I actually thought that that one was pretty easy to follow.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have the way of the long death.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: This comes from the Sword Coast Adventures Guide.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: You are a student of death and incorporated into your fighting style.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can frighten those around you, you can drop to one hit point instead of zero.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Your touch channels the energy of death uh at one point, pretty high level.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can roll up to 20 d10 necrotic damage by using some of your key points.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, um, from some of the major sources is the way of the sun soul.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: That also comes to us from the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: You get a cool radiant sunbolt weapon, which is pretty awesome.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, very heavy on radiant damage, and you can uh boost your attack power with your key.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: So those are some of the other options that are out there kind of outside of uh the basic rules and the player's handbook.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: So let's jump now into our builds.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh who wants to start us tonight?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'll start.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um I created a uh her name is Amani Lato.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: She is a tiefling monk.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um just a couple things here so that we keep on moving.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um I did do the the quick build.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: I put my top two rolls in dexterity and wisdom.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: I actually rolled four 15s.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then a 13 and a five.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like I have several plus twos, but my intelligence, intelligence and my strength are not great.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Strength of five.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: Strength of five.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a negative three as my modifier on strength.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's why my uh strength saving throw is a negative one.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's not good.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but with that unarmored uh defense, I have an armor class of 14, which is really nice because I put uh a couple of those 15s in the Dex and Wisdom.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um trying to think what else.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: I did think of her as being like a traditional um monk in in terms of like the way she would fight.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I was thinking like way of the open hand is probably the way she would go, even though we can't pick that yet.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um let's see, what else did I choose?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: I went with a spear with the weapon.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um I thought about doing daggers, but I thought that was a little too close combat.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted something that, you know, you could throw.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: I could throw.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can throw daggers too, but I but I wanted like when I think of a monk, I think of like walking around with a quarter staff, but a quarter staff wasn't an option.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: So spear is the way I went.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um now the interesting thing is going with the tiefling, um she does have defenses against fire.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: She's resistant to fire, and she does get the thalmaturgy spell.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: So just some cool little um flavor things for her.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then the one other thing, we were talking about backgrounds earlier, how they suggest you go with the hermit background to get that stereotypical monk.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I actually went with nobility because her backstory to me was more like early in her life, she I won't say a sinner, but she did a lot of bad things.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: She rebelled against her parents, she stole things, she did things like that, and so to right herself, she went to a temple and became a monk.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then now she's trying to put herself on the path of righteousness kind of thing.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that kind of falls into that trope of being that normal monk that we think of, kind of thing, too.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: So anything else that I need to hit on that we talked about?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: Brett, what do you got?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: So mine is a wood elf monk named Aiden Swift Strike.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: I thought the name was perfectly fitting for this one.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Very nice.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he is basically a ninja bounty hunter.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so with being a wood elf, you automatically get um a wisdom bonus.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so my wisdom and dex were my top two.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Dexterity coming in at an 18, wisdom at a 17.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I did pretty well in the other ones, 13s and 14s, and then charisma was my dump at 12.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: But straight off from level one, I come in at armor class of 17.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: So good luck hitting this at level one.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, later on, that'll scale a little bit, but at level one, this is pretty tanky.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then as a bounty hunter and kind of a ninja bounty hunter, I'm positioning myself for down the road, picking up Way of the Shadow as my monastic tradition.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: So going that ninja route that we've been talking about.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I kind of went along those same lines as Brett.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I think ultimately I would like to end up with uh Way of the Shadow for the ninja side as well.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I uh went with a Whitefoot Halfling monk.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Her name is uh Sylph.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I rolled okay.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh dumped everything per quick build.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my highest was Dex.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh as a Whitefoot Halfling, um, I get a plus two racial bonus in Dex.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: So my deck score is at a 19.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um next up was wisdom.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: I put that as a 16 for plus three.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh next up was constitution because I didn't want to just get struck down immediately, even with a high AC as well of 17 uh at first level.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh intelligence, and then my dumps were strength.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: I got a 10 in strength for a plus zero modifier, which is gonna make that saving throw a lot of fun.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh charisma, which everyone knows is Phil's favorite dump stat, is a nine, even with that extra plus one from my racial bonus.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we stuck to those stereotypes for us pretty tightly.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: Rolling at a negative one modifier for my charisma.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so um, I chose the mace as my uh monk weapon.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just felt like that's kind of the route that I wanted to go.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did go with the Hermit background and backstory-wise, uh, I actually did a lot in this space, and we don't have to hit on all of it.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but uh Whisper was my character's original name.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she was born into the bustling heart of a hidden halfling village, uh, deep in a forgotten forest.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, basically, she was a natural acrobat, but she wanted more.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, logic, not laughter, was her muse.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, while other children chased butterflies, she dissected their wings, analyzed their flight patterns and their intricate designs.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one day she stumbled upon a hidden path leading to a secluded monastery atop a mountain peak.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: The monks there um recognized her talent for martial arts and her inner wisdom.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: They took her in and renamed her Sylph for her silent wind-like movements.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: So for decades she trained under their tutelage, um, mastered unarmed combat, uh, turning her small stature into an advantage through swift strikes and acrobatic maneuvers.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: She embraced their life.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: She found solace in the rhythmic meditation.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, her social interactions, however, remained a mystery.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: So etiquette and small talk were alien concepts replaced by grunts and gestures.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta hit that negative one uh charisma in there somewhere.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so now she's venturing out into the unknown.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, her silence a shield, and her fists a beacon of justice.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: She carries the weight of her monastic training, her mind a fortress of logic.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yet her heart, once dormant, stirs with a newfound sense of purpose.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so she is tall for a halfling, actually, as well.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think she let me find it.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh three foot ten inches, and uh because of kind of her monk training, she is rather muscly, so she's like a 52 pounds as well, which is pretty heavy for a halfling.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh I don't know, this this was a uh this one was a lot of fun to build.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: I had a good time with this one.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, picking up a halfling is an interesting choice because you're small, so you can move through the larger creatures' spaces.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, so that's one of the reasons that I picked it was because of that.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: I also love that they have the um like lucky racial trait.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if I roll a one on a d20 for an attack roll ability check or a saving throw, I get a re-roll it.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to use the new roll, but hey, anything's better than a one.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're also naturally stealthy, so I can even try to hide.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even if there is just a creature, like a normal-sized creature like you guys, is in front of me.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can try to hide behind you.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, Phil picking up rogue traits.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every other character uses building a rogue without building a rogue, okay?
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: Call me out on it.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think um, Billboys, that's all I had um on mine.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we hit on everything there.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, let's start wrapping this one up.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we've been at this one for a while.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, final thoughts on a rogue.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: I did it right there.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: I just did it.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: Friday and Slepton.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: Final thoughts on the monk.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I I really like the monk as a class.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the things after we've gone through this whole episode that I that I like most, because one of my favorite things when building a character is coming up with the backstory and the story behind this character is like choosing that monastic tradition gives you a path from the very beginning.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: And even though it doesn't, you don't get it until level three, you have to be thinking about that at level one.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if you can like lay out it gives you that path to set up your story and then actually utilize that somewhere, whereas nine times out of ten, what you come up with is fluff and you forget it by the time you get three, four levels into your character anyway.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: I would totally build a monk.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think this one can be a lot of fun.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think you need to keep a focus on keeping an eye on where your character is going and keeping the substance in that character.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be really good in combat.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're still contributing to your party throughout the rest of your character as well.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: I would say that for as easy as setting up a level one monk is, you have to keep that in mind where you're going because it can get complex really, really fast.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: So if you choose a monastic tradition, like the the four elements one, you could set yourself up to be in trouble if you're not thinking far enough ahead.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like you get there and you don't really know what you want to do with this character, you may go, Oh crap, I don't know what to pick anymore.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or this isn't really the path that I wanted to go, kind of thing.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: Work with your DM.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely think it's important to know what you can do with your key points, especially too, like as you're growing as a monk character, to make sure that you understand what all you have available to you because you definitely could be missing out on things.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as being an entry-level character, relatively easy for new players, uh, I would say that the monk qualifies in that aspect for sure.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's gonna do it for this episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 57:05
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• 57:09
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• 57:11
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• 57:15
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• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you soon.