Swords, Spells, and Shenanigans: Covering Classes from Barbarian to Monk

Andrew: 0:24

["Pomp and Circumstance Theme". Hoist your tankards high and polish your dice, because it's time to unleash another electrifying episode of Legends, loot and Lore. We are your dynamic duo of dice-rolling themselves Andrew, that's me and Joe that's me. Ahoy adventurers and aficionados of all things fantasy, in this rollicking installment we're embarking on a quest as epic as a dragon's wingspan, diving headfirst into the captivating realm of Dungeons and Dragons. Our target Unveiling the heart and soul of character creation, the first six iconic classes that are as essential to role-playing as a trusty plus-one sword From bellowing barbarians who rage so hard they give even the Stoutestone Giant a run for its rocks To bards whose harmonious melodies are more entrancing than a siren serenade. We're peeling back the pages of character creation to reveal the hidden treasure of wit and whimsy. Prepare for more laughs than a halfling at an all-you-can-eat buffet as we delve into the realms of role-play and roll with the punches. So grab your dice bags. Roll for initiative, because Legends, loot and Lore is about to take you on an epic adventure. All right, so let's dive. Well, first, joe, before we even get into that. Oh yes, we always talk about our current campaign. That's going on. So when last we talked, we were just trying to convince all of the Council of various groups to help join us on the battle to defeat the dragons who were being called together. And now we've been sent on our first quest. So what was the purpose of that quest and what were we doing?

Joe: 2:31

Oh yes, the Draakhorn had been blown and the Council was lacking in information on what the Draakhorn was and how it worked, since it hadn't been done for at least a millennia. So they had reached out to the Arcane Brotherhood, who had an expert in the Draakhorn it was an expert, actually, in dragons in general. However, they had not heard from this expert in three years and she had disappeared in the Sea of Moving Ice in order to, for all intents and purposes, interview a dragon up there. So they asked you to go and the Council asked you to go and find her and find out the information on the Draakhorn. So you guys left off last time on a ship that was just entering the Sea of Moving Ice.

Andrew: 3:26

Yes, and I'm trying to remember the ice skimmer, a frost skimmer. The frost skimmer was the name of the boat. A hardy ship? I'm sure it was. And yes, we were on our adventure to find Macath, the tiefling sorcerer. That's correct, sorceress, sorry, sorceress, forgive me, you're free. So, yeah, so we were on this adventure, so we were sailing through the Sea of Moving Ice and encountered several. We encountered what Giant Octopi, yep Merrow, is that what they were?

Joe: 4:06

That is correct. Oh and some polar bears, some polar bears, one of them, which was attacking an ice warrior who you saved from the polar bear and gave you. He gave you some basic information that made your search somewhat slightly easier.

Andrew: 4:27

That's right and then so we were still sailing on trying to try and define this iceberg that was. It was mainly a plateau, but it had columns of spires of ice surrounding this iceberg, and that's what we were in search for.

Joe: 4:49

It was made that way specifically in a defensive measure.

Andrew: 4:54

Gee, I wonder if that's. I wonder if they were thinking about that.

Joe: 4:58

So you guys actually found it. A few days after helping out the ice warrior, and as your party advanced onto the iceberg, not only did you what you later learned run into the frozen figures of Maccath's party from three years previous, you encountered a village of these ice people and they attempted to poison you after they lost their honorable single combat against you. However, the shaman of the village was secretly terrified of the dragon who had been keeping this village in terror and under his control for years, and she was afraid that he was going to eventually wipe out the entire village. So she let you in. That's pretty dramatic. It was, actually, and it never would have happened. You would never would have found out about it if it wasn't for the Toma, the half orc, saying that they were there on a spirit, in response to a spirit vision, and he was talking about the last message that Maccath had sent three years previously. But in the way that he said spirit vision, it clued in her, who had been praying to her spirits to try to have somebody come and rescue them. If he hadn't worded it just that way, that never would have happened.

Andrew: 6:43

Interesting.

Joe: 6:44

So thank God for Toma who, if I recall correctly, doesn't doesn't rank too high on intelligence, but but he had a, he had a spark of brilliance Just happened to be that he worded it that way and I forgot to mention that to Bill when we were playing that the fact that she decided to help them was because he worded it that way.

Andrew: 7:06

Well, thank, thank God for that. So so we're now at the point we are, we. We found out that there is a dragon on this iceberg, or who makes makes its home on this iceberg. Yes, somewhere, somewhere deep in the underbelly of the iceberg. So the dragon is there and supposedly Maccath, the tiefling sorceress, is somehow went down with the dragon into its layer. We don't know if Maccath is alive at this point or not, but we are. We have now just kind of begun entering the, the cavern of of the dragon, the dragon of white death, if I right. It wasn't that what it was, yeah, the name.

Joe: 7:51

the dragon was nicknamed Old White, Old White Death, and then we ended the session. Actually last night we ended the session. Right as you walked into a room full of kobolds who didn't notice you because you were stealthy enough and your response was there's 12 of them. I want to attack them. I'm going to use my action surge so I can try to hit three of them at once, and I said we're going to call it there because I don't feel like doing this combat this late at night.

Andrew: 8:21

I was ready to kill some things.

Joe: 8:22

He's going to kill a lot of things next week.

Andrew: 8:25

Oh, I can't wait. Thoridan is.

Joe: 8:27

Thoridan is primed for gear it up for his first real combat out in the world.

Andrew: 8:33

He's got blood lust and he's, he's ready, he's, he's not afraid to wield that war hammer on anything that comes in his way.

Joe: 8:41

So it will be very exciting when we join up next week to continue the adventure. And cobalds are kind of my height, so being a dwarf, so it's a three, four foot max.

Andrew: 8:50

It's a pretty even, pretty even match up height wise.

Joe: 8:53

And for those of you who know cobalds and those of you who don't know kobolds, they only have about nine, 10 hit points, so a level eight I believe you guys are at right now, level eight, level eight. Dwarven fighters should have very little trouble whacking them at one hit point a piece. I hope so.

Andrew: 9:10

That, that's my plan. I'm hoping to take out three to four of them in my my first round Tune in next week. That's right, all right. So, so that that's our adventure in. What is it? It's now Rise of Tiamat.

Joe: 9:26

Rise of Tiamat, which is part two of Tyranny of Dragons Tyranny of Dragons, which is a two part adventure, two books Excellent.

Andrew: 9:36

Can't, can't wait for next week.

Joe: 9:39

Should be a lot of fun.

Andrew: 9:40

Yes, all right With you. Yes, with that, let's dive into. We've got so much to talk about with these classes. So we're going to go through the first six out of what are a total of 12 classes in the basic rules. The first six are and these are going in alphabetical order, so there's no real particular order to these barbarian Bard, cleric, druid, fighter and monk. Those are the six that we're going to cover this episode. We're going to cover the other six, the Paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock and Wizard. That will be in the in an upcoming episode and we'll we'll have the kind of a two part or here to to cover all the classes, because it's really just too much to to to kind of cover in in one session. So so, joe, let's start with barbarian. So what? How would you, how would you describe a bar, a barbarian, what? What is the what? What? What is their kind of background, so to speak?

Joe: 10:51

Well, typically a barbarian is more of a primitive class. They don't have your sophistication Other people would have. By that basis, Certain people tend to put intelligence as a dump stat in these particular characters.

Andrew: 11:09

No, hang on hang on, when you say dump stat, let's, let's remember, let's remember our audience here. So that's when you, when you talk about a dump stat, so remember there are six, six, a bill, six stats, six stats. So when you, when you assign, when you roll the dice and and you get your points and you start assigning out points to each of these stats, joe, what, what is a dump stat out of? Out of those?

Joe: 11:33

six. So a dump stat is the stat when you roll your six dice. Sorry, you roll your six stats and whatever stat turns out to be the lowest roll, that becomes your dump stat. You end up putting that roll into your dump stat, which is the stat that is least likely to be useful to your class or your character in general. For a barbarian, while you don't necessarily need to have a low intelligence, other stats are more important, like strength and constitution, for example. For sure, intelligence is not necessarily a strong point of barbarians. That's not to say that a barbarian can't be intelligent, because there definitely are, but it does not always have them there.

Andrew: 12:25

Right. So yeah, that's what a dump stat is. So not for each class, between race and class. So each class has certain stats that are just not as key as other ones. So if you get a bad role for one of your stats, you can always put it onto something like, in this case, for a barbarian intelligence, because their attack roles, your HP, your AC, all those things are not dependent on intelligence, so it's not as important as those other stats. For a barbarian and we talk about things like wizards, when intelligence is your spellcasting ability, then intelligence is very important, but for a barbarian kind of their typical thing, they're not going to be the most intelligent, so you don't have to worry about putting a lot of points into that particular stat.

Joe: 13:22

If you watch any of critical role, grog is a barbarian and the guy who plays him plays him a little simple because he has low intelligence. That's a typical way of playing barbarians. But again, not that you have to.

Andrew: 13:40

There's a lot of interesting stuff, I mean what you can do. So when you start selecting a class for your character, this is really this starts to flesh out. So you've got race, you've got class, you also have backgrounds. So this is really where you start to build the backstory for your character, kind of who they are. So barbarians could be the town champion. They could be the muscle in town that helps protect the people. They could be a criminal. There's a lot of things that you can do with a barbarian and play with those different abilities, but we'll talk about, we're going to talk with each of these classes, what's called the quick build. So in the basic rules, wizards of the Coast kind of provides a kind of quick way to build one of these characters, telling you exactly what key stats to what abilities to focus on and how to kind of quickly build a character, so it'll be as enjoyable as possible. So, joe, let's talk about the quick build for barbarian. So we said strength is most important, absolutely.

Joe: 15:01

Because the barbarian tends to be a melee fighter, which is a fighter that gets in close hand to hand combat swords, axes, even some clubs every once in a while, depending on what flueurish you want to have. And as a creature coming in with that type of melee weapon, strength is almost always required for those to determine how hard you hit, if you hit, and how hard you hit.

Andrew: 15:31

Because typically you're adding your strength bonus to that attack Both of those roles. Right, exactly. So that's why strength is most important. You really want to make sure you're at least probably above a 15 to start off with at a level one character. You want to get as close to 20 as possible. That will really beef up your weapons and later on in different levels, when you start getting a second attack and things like that, the barbarian becomes a big heavy damage wielder very, very quickly.

Joe: 16:10

Yes, and the second thing that you tend to want to boost up is your constitution. Correct the constitution you want to boost up because when you get into that close melee contact and start fighting, you are going to be the center of attention for many of your enemies, which means you're going to draw a lot of attacks, which means you need to be able to hang in with the combat and take a lot of damage.

Andrew: 16:36

And they're not wearing necessarily. I mean, they're big brutes so they're not necessarily wearing a ton of armor, correct? So you want to make sure they've got as much HP as possible. So that's why you really want to focus secondarily on that constitution score to help beef up the high HP so when they get in the midst of battle they're able to take some hits before they potentially go down.

Joe: 17:00

Absolutely, and the limiting of your armor tends to help them in this case. Because the third one, if you have another high ability score, stat score is to get into your decks, not only to help with your initiative bonus, meaning you can jump out early into that combat, but also the decks will combine with your constitution and increase your AC.

Andrew: 17:34

Yeah, so you want to, you always want to. That's another great, a great point. You want to kind of balance. Balance, you know, getting getting decent HP and getting getting high AC. So so when, when other, when enemies are attacking you, the likelihood that they're going to connect with that attack will hopefully be, it'll hopefully be less likely that they will they'll make that attack. And let's talk about background really quickly. We're not going to get too deep into backgrounds on these episodes, but but the one that Wizards of the Coast recommends is the Outlander background, and that's that's kind of what they, what they suggest for a, a quick build for for barbarians.

Joe: 18:18

And remember, the barbarians are very much tribal people. So those who are found out not in the cities tend to live in tribes and they tend to be hunters and trackers of some sort. So they they don't necessarily the Outlander kind of fits that when you, when we, get into that description, you'll see what an Outlander is and it fits that motif.

Andrew: 18:44

So there there's. There's many other backgrounds to choose from, but that's kind of a the most typical background chosen for for a barbarian. Now, as far as hit points are concerned, we've got one, d12, which is which is what the hit dice is for. The hit die is for barbarians. So as, as you're, as you're getting hit points, you're going to use the D12 plus your constitution modifier, that's correct.

Joe: 19:15

Yes, when we get into our character creation episode, you'll see exactly how that works, when we start showing how leveling up goes through.

Andrew: 19:24

And let's let's talk about some of the other class features, proficiencies light armor, medium armor and shields. So again, it's not not heavy duty armor that they're, they're proficient in it, it's, it's lighter because they're, they're, they're not really wearing a lot of armor, they're Correct, they're, they're wielding that weapon and and their proficiencies are in simple and martial weapons.

Joe: 19:47

Yeah, you're thinking that they're wearing animal cloths, maybe some basic leather here. These guys don't have the capability out in their in their tribes, to make most metal armor.

Andrew: 19:59

And some of the equipment that they can start with. So you start with certain certain amount of equipment, um, either a great axe or or any martial melee weapon.

Joe: 20:10

Which can be a sword. It can be um an epee, which is, of course, the type of sword I mean. There are numerous. There's clubs, there's uh picks, hand axes.

Andrew: 20:22

Yeah, hand axes.

Joe: 20:24

There's multiple types of axes. I mean there's, there's, there's a whole list of them and, yes, and as a barbarian, you have the opportunity to come across the most of them, and let's talk about one one nice feature that that barbarians get, and that is that is what is called rage.

Andrew: 20:43

So, so, barbarians have a rage feature. So what it? What it says is you know, in battle, again they are. They are fierce, ferocious fighters. So on, on their turn, they can use a bonus action to enter this rage. And when they are raging, they get. They get several benefits. Uh, provided they aren't wearing heavy armor. And, joe, what are those benefits that they get when they are raging?

Joe: 21:11

So the uh. The first one is you have advantage on any strength checks or saving throws. So if there's some, if you want to do something and you want to lift something, or if you're trying to resist somebody pushing you, uh, you get advantage on those d 20 roll checks, which is, you get to roll the dice, the d 20, twice, and you get to take the higher, the higher die roll between the two of them. Um, another advantage is when you use a melee weapon like your battle axe to attack and you're using the strength modifier, you gain a bonus to your damage roll, which is based upon a rage chart which is in the instructions, starts out at plus two additional hit points whenever you're raging and that builds every five or six levels I can't remember off the top of my head. And the final advantage is in resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. And this is huge, andrew, because, as a character who's gonna run up into melee combat, 90% of the damage you're gonna take is actually from other creatures swinging melee weapons, whether clubs, warhammers, axes, swords, bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. That also includes arrows. Arrows are piercing weapons. You get resistance, which means you take whatever that damage is and you cut it in half and you keep going. This fits into the warrior motif, this fits into the lacking of heavy armor. I've always thought of this as kind of like an adrenaline rush on steroids, if you will.

Andrew: 22:57

Now I'm looking at the notes here and the beginners in the basic rules. Now it says your rage lasts for one minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then.

Joe: 23:21

Yep.

Andrew: 23:21

So what does that mean? What is or taken damage?

Joe: 23:25

So, the idea being that in order to maintain your rage, you have to be active. So that's why you have to attack something. But you can also imagine that it would be pretty easy to stay pissed off and raged if somebody were kept hitting you. So if you keep taking damage, it doesn't matter. Your rage is maintained If you don't hit something and you don't take damage. You think about it of six to 12 seconds depending, when you have a chance to kind of get your breath and cool down and all of a sudden, well there goes that adrenaline will start to ebb.

Andrew: 23:58

You stop being Hulk smash and Bruce Banner.

Joe: 24:02

So it's coming back.

Andrew: 24:02

Exactly, you start turning back into Bruce Banner Fascinating. It was interesting. There's so many things to talk about here. We don't wanna get too deep into this because we've got so many classes to talk about. We will do standalone episodes about each individual class. So we'll dive deeper into a lot of the other details and kind of customizing the class for your specific character. But we will get into that deeper. But let's move on to the Bard, one of my. I love the Bard, it's interesting they are. So there's I think there's really three types of class. You really have your, your kind of weapon wielders, so you've got people like your barbarians and your fighters. You've got spellcasters, like a Bard or a wizard or sorcerer, and then you kind of have some hybrids that are a little bit of fighter and spellcaster. So you've got those three different ones. But this is.

Joe: 25:17

You know. It's interesting. You say that I actually have him in my head split up into three different categories. I have the melee guys who run up with the hand weapons. I have ranged characters, which are people who use bows and arrows and magic, and I have utilities, which are people who tend to use either both or, more specifically, they have supporting type magic or abilities. And I throw clerics, paladins and Bards into the utility one, because they have spells that affect both good and bad creatures. They have healing spells, they have debuffing spells, they have buffing spells for the characters. That's just me. Your character characterization fits just as well too, but that's just how I've always said.

Andrew: 26:06

So it's interesting, interesting, yeah, so. So Bards are. So I love the description of Bards as a versatile and charismatic spellcaster known for their captivating performances, magical abilities and wide range of skills. This kind of goes into what Joe was saying. You know they're not only are they offensive spellcasters, but they have these kind of I don't know what to call it defensive but support spells to help the party as well. You know they're entertainers, but they've got this great magic that they use within their music and storytelling and they really have a way to inspire their allies and also kind of manipulate reality with their performances. So there's a lot of interesting things that you can do with a Bard, and what's your take on the Bard, joe?

Joe: 27:09

I think it nailed most of it right there on the top of the head. The Bards. The only thing I would really like to add about that is the Bard is one of the more and we'll talk about it in a minute the charismatic characters. These are the guys that can whip into a bar or even on a street corner, start playing, make a few copper pieces, just because the people will feel sorry for him, or actually he'll be good enough that the people will like him. And if your party happens to be extremely poor, at least now you have some kind of money for the night and you can do that inside of an inn. Sometimes the innkeeper will give you room and board if you're good enough. They always have the ability to charm people. But, as I was saying before, they're also not terrible with little hand weapons short swords typically, but you can hand once in a while you can give them a long sword or daggers even.

Andrew: 28:08

Yeah, I mean. So they're again very, very versatile class within the world of D&D. Now their primary ability, as kind of we've already alluded to here, is their charisma. That's the primary ability that they focus on. So their spellcasting ability is based on charisma and a lot of those persuasion performance Is it performance Charisma based or is that no? No, that's charisma. I can never remember if it's charisma or strength. No performance is charisma. Performance is charisma.

Joe: 28:45

Because performance in D&D is specifically towards the idea that you are performing something less than actually doing something like physical.

Andrew: 28:54

Got it so like athletics or acrobatics.

Joe: 28:56

Correct, or you can even do oration. There's when we talk about the class, we'll talk about some subclasses, but there are some subclasses that deal with oration as opposed to music.

Andrew: 29:09

Fascinating. So let's talk about the, let's talk about creating a bard. Let's talk about creating a bard and let's talk about kind of. We'll talk about the quick build. So, obviously, as we've said, charisma should be your highest ability score and, again, get as close to 20, that's always with that primary ability, you always wanna try to get up to as close to 20 or to 20 as quickly as possible. So focus on that, focus on charisma as you level up, followed by dexterity. And why is dexterity important?

Joe: 29:44

Well, like I said, they tend to be using some of the lighter weapons which will double, as you can use either strength or dexterity, but also dexterity is important because they tend to be a little bit of a faster character, a faster race, not race a faster class, and it boosts their initiative and they also don't wear very heavy armor, so it helps boost up their armor class at the end.

Andrew: 30:13

Because you wanna make sure, because it's interesting, I don't think, even though AC stands for armor class, I never, I don't necessarily, associate it with with wearing armor. I associate it with the ability for, for your character, to avoid avoid getting hit by the attack coming at you, correct? So that's why I always think of of Bards, like as you said, as as more light on their feet, you know cause they're. They're not necessarily wearing armor, so so that that's why that dexterity, the higher dexterity, kind of fits into the ability to avoid an attack, not necessarily because it's hit your armor in and hasn't pierced your armor, but because you're able to move out of the way and kind of dodge and avoid that, avoid that attack.

Joe: 31:04

If you check out Critical Role, you can see Scanlan, who is your typical Bard, who uses all of these features that we're talking about, and he doesn't really wear armor. He's more about quick and getting out of the way.

Andrew: 31:17

You're 100% correct on on using that dexterity for things other than being an being an armor wearer. So there, it's not just because it's called armor class, don't? You don't necessarily have to equate it to how much armor they are, they are they're currently wearing at the moment. Thirdly, think about Constitution. So we always I think this is probably always always a good middle stat for almost any any class, because that that's your HP. So if it's not your second, it should be your third, probably For the most part, I agree, yeah, so cause again, your primary ability should be your highest stat, somewhere between dexterity and Constitution or kind of the, the next two. Really, it really depends on on how you want to build the character, and we'll get more into that on on the, the specific class episodes. But just remember how you, how you create the character will also dictate what, what emphasis you put on each, each ability.

Joe: 32:21

Right and and and. Just remember as as a bard you may get in close, but you tend to not wear armor or heavy armor, so your dexterity is going to be important about keeping up your AC. So how you deviate between dexterity and and Constitution, maybe you sacrifice your dexterity for a better Constitution so you can stand in the battle a little longer. But you know, depends on how you're building them, like you said.

Andrew: 32:47

Yeah, it's a, it's a careful balancing act between between the two. For sure, other things you want to think about when you are creating your bard. They recommend using, if, if you're trying to make one quickly, choosing the entertainer background, which again is very typical for for a bard. When, when it comes to now this is, we were talking about a weapon wielder. Now we're talking about a spell, a spellcaster. So when, when it comes time to think about spells, remember there are cantrips and and then leveled spells. So, remind me of the difference. I'm so glad you asked. So cantrips do not rec. Cantrips you can. You can use over and over again when, when your other spells, when you're leveled spells, they require the use of spell slots. So you have X number of spell slots as a as a first level player, so you can choose I think it's probably what four, I think four spells, four spells at at level one, if I recall correctly. And you you've got X number of spell slots. So you can only use those first level spells so many times and after after that you can't use them anymore. But cantrips can be used over and over and over again. So it's interesting, when I was doing all this research, they they talked about kind of how to, how to pick your cantrips. In the beginning One should be like a utility spell. So let's say you're, you're casting light or something like that. So if you're in a dungeon and you, you're one of the few races that doesn't have a dark vision, you can cast light or something like that. Or you're just it's in the dark and you and you want to be able to to light it up. Utility spell, something that can, something that that would help your party, like a healing spell. So so they recommend I'm trying to say what cantrips they recommend here Minor illusion, vicious mockery are are the two that they, they choose. So minor illusion is a kind of useful utility spell, not really an attack spell, so it could help you get out of out of certain situations. And then vicious mockery, which is the Psychologically cutting spell. Yes, sarcasm just.

Joe: 35:16

The old sticks and stones. Yes, goes out the window because words can hurt. And when they come from a bard, they can actually take away your health.

Andrew: 35:25

And that's, that's one of the things. So you, you want to hold on to that cantrip because, again, as you, as you level up those, those cantrips become more and more powerful. But, but remember, you can use them as many times as you want, so so you don't have to have spell slots for those. Now, the first level spell slots, or the first level spells that they recommend, are charm, person, detect, magic, healing word and thunder wave.

Joe: 35:57

Which is a nice mix between utility, offense and defense, with the charm person and detect magic being utility. You can charm a person and possibly talk your way past them. You can detect magic to see if something might be magically guarded or protected. Healing word is kind of self obvious where you can heal, and thunder wave is an attack spell which is fairly commonly used by bards and many other classes in the games that we've played. Anyway, it seems to be a player favorite.

Andrew: 36:30

Yes, yes indeed. So now let's talk about some of the other things for the other features, for for this class. So the hit dice for the Bard is a D8. Yep, and let's see proficiency. So the Bard is only proficient in light armor Because, again, they're not typically in armor wearer, so this is probably leather or something very simple, nothing heavy or elaborate, so to speak. Weapons wise simple weapons crossbows, long swords, rapiers, short swords. And let's talk about their tools. So what do they get as their tools?

Joe: 37:20

So the cool thing and here's your role play, your personality fitting into it you're proficient in three types of musical instruments that you may wanna choose. So I think the one time I mocked up a Bard, I never got to play it. I think I took the drums and I thought it was like a lot of fun to think that I'm dragging this mini cart behind me with a modern day set of drums behind and like setting it up before every battle somehow.

Andrew: 37:50

And.

Joe: 37:51

I never played the character. I've never played a Bard. I haven't played a lot of characters. It was just an interesting concept.

Andrew: 37:58

That really is. Now it's interesting because that will go into my next thing that I wanna talk about here. So I could imagine it reminds me of the old I don't know what necessarily Civil War, but colonial battles during the Revolutionary War how they had the band out there playing. So I could see like a Rush concert at this battle and Joe is just drumming away out there just throw an inspiration out at the rest of the party. So that's the one thing that Bards have is what is known as Bardic inspiration.

Joe: 38:46

Oh boy, you just gave me a great idea after we talked about the inspiration.

Andrew: 38:50

I'm so good, so talk, so I'll talk.

Joe: 38:52

You do that. You do that. I'll talk about my idea.

Andrew: 38:53

I'll talk about Bardic inspiration and you talk about your idea. So it's interesting. This is my idea of Bardic inspiration. He's not really a Bard, but I think of Matt Foley from Saturday Night Live giving the motivational speech telling kids to stay off drugs. So this is he's giving a Living in a van Down by the river. So he is giving this motivational speech. That is so good it's like the most epic motivational speech ever that the dice that you're rolling are even inspired. So what happens? I love this. It's like a personal cheerleader. So once within the next 10 minutes, somebody can roll the dice and add the number rolled to one ability check. And what is the Bardic inspiration die? It starts out as a D6. That's right, it is a D6. And then at fifth level it becomes a D8, a D10, a 10th level and it just keeps going up. So you can add this die to an ability check and attack roll or a saving throw.

Joe: 40:11

Not to your damage, dice.

Andrew: 40:13

Not to your damage dice. It doesn't inspire your weapon, but it inspires you in other ways.

Joe: 40:21

Think of it as inspiring you to do something, whether to hit, to avoid damage or to resist damage Makes it tough enough.

Andrew: 40:31

Yes, now you can only have one inspiration die at a time, so don't think like you can keep multiplying these. But yeah, so, joe is your drummer on the battlefield doing an epic drum solo and you feel so moved by this music that you've got this extra jolt of inspiration when you go out in the battlefield. So, joe, let's please share your idea with us, do you remember?

Joe: 41:00

the movie about Kiss. The kid was trying to do everything he could to go see the band. Kiss and his mother was part of a church group. They were trying to prevent him to go seeing the concert. Now I can see it. I don't remember this movie. It was from the 80s and 90s and anyway, he gets the Kiss concert, but he's a drummer in his band at home and his mother breaks one of his drumsticks, which makes him lose it and will walk out on his mother. So is that the Kiss concert with his girlfriend and his friends? And he's waving just one drumstick and, without looking at him, I forget who the drummer of Kiss was. He ends up throwing his drumstick into the audience and he catches it. Of course, of course, of course, of course. So what you were talking about about giving out the inspiration and I mentioned that you know, I was always thought of a drummer would be awesome. It would be great if the drummer had a huge pack of drumsticks and as he gives the inspiration, he tosses the drumstick to the player and the player has to hold the drumstick while they're attacking or trying to resist it. That's where the inspiration comes, because he plays this epic drum solo or whatever, and then gives him an actual drumstick that he has to hold while doing it.

Andrew: 42:22

That would be amazing.

Joe: 42:23

It's like here's your physical representation of your inspiration, and when you think about how inspiration works, it's a bonus action. So you can do your attack, you can do whatever. And then you turn to one of your compatriots and say, hey, andrew, you're doing a swell job, or whatever you may say. Or you play a quick you know guitar rift or a lute rift or whatever, and you pay attention to them. That's when they get their inspiration. So the great thing is, as a bard, you can still take your regular action and then inspire somebody as a bonus action.

Andrew: 43:05

And you can give that.

Joe: 43:07

I think it's six times or four times when you're first level.

Andrew: 43:11

You can use this feature the number of times equal to your charisma modifier minimum of once, and you regain those uses after you finish a long rest.

Joe: 43:22

Imagine being a bard, but being a terrible bard, so you actually end up with a low charisma. You'd have to role play the hell out of that.

Andrew: 43:32

That would be like the anti-bard. Like you're just, you really really wanted to be a musician but you just like you can't carry a tune. Like you can't, you've tried the guitar, you've tried the drums, you've tried everything and you just can't. You can't do any of it. But there's so much to bards. Like I said, I'm really looking forward to doing individual episodes about each of these classes so we can really dive into them.

Joe: 44:00

Talk about all the details that come with it.

Andrew: 44:01

Oh, absolutely, because there's so much fun that you can have with these. But let's talk about another interesting one. So this is so. We've talked about kind of the weapon wielder, we've talked about spellcaster, kind of weapon utility player. So another utility player, at least as that I would consider, would be a cleric. So talk to us, what is a cleric?

Joe: 44:31

In simplest terms, the cleric is like the American Express card you never leave home without it. The cleric, in the simplest of terms Any good party should not leave without their home without their American Express. American Express cleric Correct. The cleric is your generic healer. There are several other classes that can heal. However, the cleric is more built around the idea of being a healer than any other creature any other class, I mean and they channel the power of either a higher being or a deity that they worship and they use that faith their charisma is based. Their faith is based upon their charisma to heal and regenerate those people who are ill and damaged. But in addition to that, they have these abilities to inflict damage and to hurt, and oftentimes they can be used as divine messengers against some evil anti of whatever their deity is.

Andrew: 45:42

So really, their power is based? Their power is granted by a deity of some sort.

Joe: 45:49

Based upon their faith in that deity. Correct Got it. I keep going back to it. But critical role the character of Pike.

Andrew: 45:58

Yes.

Joe: 46:00

She is a cleric of the Everlite and for a brief period of time, she appears to have lost her power due to some type of self-doubt.

Andrew: 46:12

Fascinating. It's there just. I think they're such a great character I love in doing the research. I love the one phrase that I saw in there. It's their ability to both mend allies and dispense divine retribution. I love that concept. So it's interesting. They are representing a deity who they follow and who has granted them these powers. But they're not goody-to-shoes, they're there to work both sides of the coin, I guess, would be the way I would put it.

Joe: 47:00

I agree. Yeah, that's why I feel that they fall underneath the utility type of character again, because they are doing both damage and healing and you'll see some status effect type of things where the spells are concerned. When we dive into the actual character episode, the class episode specifically, you'll see that some of them are more of a less damage oriented and more buff and anti-buff. Your enemies Got it.

Andrew: 47:42

So I love this paragraph in here because, again, there is an appendix that talks about all the different deities. So this is something you wanna make sure you're coordinating with the DM. Depending on what deities are within your particular campaign, you may pick someone else, but I love this part. It says once you've chosen a deity, consider your clerics relationship to that God. Did you enter the service willingly, which is a really good point or did the God choose you, impelling you into service with no regard for your wishes? How did the temple priests of your faith regard you as a champion or a troublemaker? A troublemaker cleric sounds really interesting. I'm trying to think of who this reminds me of.

Joe: 48:36

Somebody who's bucking against the trend. Who's the reluctant hero?

Andrew: 48:42

Am I thinking of? Like Constantine, like is he?

Joe: 48:46

You know, I guess, yes, in a sense, constantine never wanted the job that he had and he did it because he knew it was the right thing to do, but he was like always reluctant to do it. He wasn't even so much that he was reluctant, he was just like, yeah, I'll do it when I want to. You're pushing me around enough. But I think you are thinking Constantine, because that's what came to my mind.

Andrew: 49:12

Yeah, it's an interesting dichotomy about you are. The other person that this makes me think of is Moon Knight.

Joe: 49:23

Yes from the show.

Andrew: 49:24

Absolutely Because he was kind of tied to that God, like I think the God more chose him than he picked the God, yeah, and he was kind of like the servant of this God, really sort of unwillingly, Well to the point that he ended up with a split personality that took over when the deity's powers manifested Absolutely. Yeah, so I mean he doesn't necessarily have the healing powers of the like the cleric does but that God, that deity Enforcement, yeah yeah, the deity relationship kind of kind of fits in there.

Joe: 49:59

That's the other one that I was thinking of. That's a great example of that enforced service.

Andrew: 50:06

So let's talk about now. Let's talk about the quick build for a cleric I'm also looking forward to. So we're also going to have an interview with another one of our friends, kat. Yes, and Kat has done multiple clerics she has. So I'm looking forward to hearing her perspective on clerics and why she has chosen clerics and some of the interplay between her backgrounds that she's developed for those particular characters.

Joe: 50:42

I think one of her because it was the longest running one of her best clerics was Petra. When we did. Curse of Strahd and she was able to level her up very, very far In a lot of fun nod. She played a female dwarven cleric there with a beard, which was always the way I believe D&D had. It represented that the female dwarves ended up having facial hair as well.

Andrew: 51:10

Interesting. I do not know my history of female dwarven facial hair Interesting. So let's get back to the quick build first. What should they be thinking about when? What's the first ability they should focus on when building the?

Joe: 51:27

cleric. So the first thing that you want to put your stats into is your wisdom. That's your spell modifier. That's where you're going to base all of your magical power out of.

Andrew: 51:39

Wisdom is going to be key for whatever spells you cast, all those healing spells. So the second ability you should prioritize should either be strength or dexterity. Strength if you're going to create an offensive character, you want to have that if you're wielding a weapon, so to speak or dexterity for defense if you want to have a higher AC. And right behind whichever one you choose, then the third one in line should be your constitution to maximize the HP. Those are really the. It would go in that order. So either strength or dexterity in the second slot, just depending on how you want to create your character. If you want to be more of that, that kind of ranged attack spellcaster, you know, definitely work on your defense. But if you want to get in there a little bit more with a weapon, then work on the offense and go with your strength. But the other thing you want to look at is the background for a cleric. So why would you choose the acolyte background? I guess that's the stereotypical background for a cleric.

Joe: 52:55

It fits where a cleric would kind of its basic roots in, and you know we'll get into the backgrounds in more detail. But the basic idea of an acolyte gives you certain additional checks and skills that fit into the religious background that you're diving into as a cleric. But you know there are tons of other backgrounds that you can just as easily apply as you go through.

Andrew: 53:22

Some of the things to consider. As far as a cleric is concerned, your hit dice are going to be a 1D8 and your proficiencies similar to other characters in the same kind of spectrum. Light armor, medium armor, shields, weapons are just simple weapons Because, again, they're more of a spell casting kind of defensive. They're not in the middle of battle, they're not really a weapon wielder in melee combat. So they're limited in kind of what weapons they have proficiency in. I mean they can cast, I mean they could theoretically use any weapon but they don't have proficiency in it.

Joe: 54:11

See, that's interesting. I've personally always looked at the cleric as more of a melee character than a ranged character myself.

Andrew: 54:18

Really.

Joe: 54:19

Yeah. So I mean that kind of gets into kind of the next section about the equipment that you can start with the mace or, depending on your race, if you're proficient with a warhammer or warhammer, it's always pictured in my head as somebody who's going to get up into the middle of a combat and start swinging around. That being said, I don't think when Kat played Petra she was actually that much in the middle of a combat like I would have played one, so that's not necessarily saying that I'm right. That's a good point.

Andrew: 54:51

I'm thinking more of their support spells to the other characters that are actually in melee battles. So they are either weakening an enemy or strengthening an ally is kind of how I see them.

Joe: 55:10

You know, what the other thing is is that when she played Rey. In the more recent campaign, the Tordo, she ended up with such a high AC that she just waited into combat and started whacking things around. So again, I was fitting in in my head as more of a melee character, but I never really dug into the idea that a priestly character would be further back. I guess I'm thinking more of the Paladin, which we'll have to talk about next episode, where they have I believe they have the proficiency in the heavier armor, right, yeah, that's a good point. I missed that one on myself. Again, that was my view of how the character would be played.

Andrew: 55:48

But see, it's interesting that you say that though, because it's how we've seen other people play the character. So and you've said this, I've said this you don't have to play the stereotypical character. So our friend Kat had a cleric, tortal, who had a very high AC. So with a very high AC they could actually go into battle much more easily because they were less likely to be hit by weapons with that high AC. So they could, they could more easily go into into the mix of things and and and cause some, cause some mayhem. But I, I've always, typically I've, I think, more of a stereotypical cleric who kind of being outside of, outside of the main battle and kind of playing that, playing that support role.

Joe: 56:37

So I'm kind of behind sight now that I'm thinking about it. My friend Liz played one in her first campaign. She played a cleric and she really didn't get into the middle of melee either. She always hung back and I always thought she just hung back because she liked casting spells. But it might have been that that's how the character was designed and I'm I would have been misusing a cleric if I were to have designed a cleric and played with him that way.

Andrew: 56:58

Well, you wouldn't be missing. Wow, you, just. You just be playing it differently off off book.

Joe: 57:03

Yeah, that's a great way to put it off book.

Andrew: 57:06

All right, so, my goodness, there's so much good stuff to talk about, so let's go into the next class, which is Druid. Haha.

Joe: 57:16

Now I have always thought of the Druids definitely as a support character. Yes, they, they, they have very little hit points, they have typically very little strength and when you start looking at their spells, our friend Christina played a Druid in our second campaign that we did together and she she ended up not caring for it as much. She had played a rogue in the first run, but I was fascinated, I was DMing, I was fascinated by all of the spells that she had that were modifying the terrain and the thing. So I fit them squarely in the utility type of class.

Andrew: 58:01

I really, I really dig the concept of of a Druid very, very nature based. You know, drawing power from drawing power from the earth. You know trans. I love transform. We'll talk about that in a second Transforming animals.

Joe: 58:18

Yes.

Andrew: 58:19

Wealding kind of the forces of nature you know communing with, with other animals. It's just. I really kind of dig that kind of like it's, it's, it's like the hippie of just the hippie of D&D.

Joe: 58:33

And then these guys. More than any other race, this, these, these guys remind me of the Native Americans, people who who tried to create a balance with nature around them, where they would hunt animals but they wouldn't do it to excess, and they had this balance of nature and man. And I think that the Druids have always built that concept in my head. And it's not a race that we talked about because it's not a common one, but our friend Kat played a Druid one time as a firbolg, who is a race that really has that same connection with nature, and it really worked out beautifully, except she played him as a very cranky character.

Andrew: 59:19

So let's talk about what's our one now. Let's talk about the quick build of building a, a Druid. So the the first thing you want to focus on when, when building a Druid, is you want to look at wisdom, because, again, wisdom is going to be your, your spell casting ability. That's what's going to power the Druid spells, followed by Constitution or dexterity, really depends. Again, you want either think about dexterity for the, for the armor class, so if you, if you want to protect yourself, you'll be a little bit more defensive, or if you're really going to go in there and and start attacking what high HP you know, go for the Constitution. So you can. You can play it either way as far as that's concerned, just depending on how you and you envision your character and the background that they recommend with with Druids is the Hermit background. Joe, what are your thoughts on the quick build of a Druid?

Joe: 1:00:23

I think it fits in perfectly with the lore that is set up with what you can read in the basic rules about who and how the Druids exist, especially the Hermit background. When you think about a Hermit, my first couple of thoughts of Hermits come into recluses that live out in the woods in small little mud or wooden huts that are constantly tinkering with plants and friends with animals. Actually, what was the name of the guy in the Princess Bride that they took, the Miracle Max? Yes, I always thought of him as more of a Hermit than a wizard or anything like that, just because of how they were like, away from everything. And the Hermits are always creed people who were far away from mankind and all creatures and try to live with nature and that's just possible. So the Hermit fits in. And again, when we get into backgrounds and you do your own research on the backgrounds, you'll see that the skills that the Hermit brings to a Druid complement it.

Andrew: 1:01:35

I just so. I think there's some interesting races that play well into the Druid class. One is a dwarf, like a mountain dwarf. You get some plus twos to some other abilities, but I think just the race itself being a hill and mountain dweller, kind of being underground, really plays into that kind of Hermit background. So they're very in tune with nature, with stone and gems. They've got that kind of that bond with nature. So I kind of see that one fitting in pretty well. At least that's my take, cause I was thinking of this more when I was creating Thorid in the mountain dwarf, mine the fighter. But a Druid would be an interesting class to play with those as well.

Joe: 1:02:34

I think so. I think it would be interesting, but unfortunately, for the opposite reason why you think so, I think a Druid dwarf would be one who loves trees and growing things in nature, whereas in my head the dwarves themselves are more, like you were saying, deeper in the mountains. And I'm probably biased because I have been reading and listening to RA Salvador's books n o o n and in there there is a dwarf who is a Druid and all the dwarves look at him funny, because they're like you, like trees. We're mountain people, so I'm biased to that opinion. I never really thought about it until I heard that story, so if you had pitched that same concept to me before I read that, I might have agreed with you completely.

Andrew: 1:03:24

Surprise. That'd be the first time you agree with me completely.

Joe: 1:03:28

Not necessarily.

Andrew: 1:03:29

I'm just kidding.

Joe: 1:03:29

When we talk to you, we agree on a lot of things. Yes, which is odd, because we are allowed to disagree.

Andrew: 1:03:36

We are. We do disagree on quite a few things. That's what makes us such good friends. Let's talk about my favorite thing, your favorite. Please, oh please, Well with Druids, which is wild shape.

Joe: 1:03:48

Don't get wild on me now. Shape your responses better. That was bad, it was terrible that was awful.

Andrew: 1:03:55

It was low, low hanging. I am not editing that out of the podcast. That one stays. Yes, wild shape. So yes, a wild shape is what allows a Druid to adapt to different situations by transforming into various animals possessing unique abilities. There are limits on this as to what animals they can, what they can wild shape into. I think the movie honor among thieves really went out on a limb allowing the Druid to wild shape into an owl bear. That's not typical based on the basic rules, but it's interesting. This gives you additional abilities, like you could be a bird, you could have the ability of flight, swimming, enhanced senses. So there's a lot of other things that you can add into your abilities as a Druid by wild shaping into various creatures. You can wild shape into a small animal and go in and spy on a situation. There's a lot of different reasons for doing this Scope out the area ahead by being a bird and flying up high and seeing what's going on before you actually go into a combat area and get a lay of the land. So there's a lot of really cool things you can do with wild shape Get into and out of situations based on what animal, as you level up. You can turn into a greater array of animals based on the abilities that you have gained, but for me, wild shape is just one of the coolest things that you can do as far as a Druid is concerned.

Joe: 1:05:43

Agreed the versatility that allows you to, like you were saying, there's just so many things you can do as different creatures and smaller creatures sneaking around, flying creatures to go take a scout out, it's great. There are drawbacks, of course, where you take the traits of the creature that you do. So if you were to take the traits of a mountain lion, let's say, you would only be able to do the amount of damage that a mountain lion would be able to do. You would not be able to cast any spells as that creature. Now, if you were previously concentrating on a spell, you can maintain that concentration, but you cannot cast any new spells and you're limited to the armor class and the hit points of that creature. Now, the caveat to that is, instead of dying when you hit zero, you revert back to your original being and start taking hit points again from wherever your hit points were there. So it does create an extra pool of hit points if you find the need, but it will more than likely reduce your offensive punch.

Andrew: 1:06:57

Certainly, I don't necessarily see it as being that much of an offensive tool. True, I can see that. I see it again more of the utility class and things like that as the abilities. That's why I think they kind of fudged things and allowed the druid to become an owl bear in honor among thieves. But typically I think lines and tigers are maybe some of the larger animals that you can become on some of the higher levels I can't recall.

Joe: 1:07:38

We'll get into that when we start talking about the class-specific episode, because the information that's available for each class is so detailed, vast, that we've been recording now for over an hour and we're still touching only the high points, and we hope to. After we do our character creation, I think we're going to start diving into the specifics of each class individually.

Andrew: 1:08:06

Correct. So on that note, let's segue right into the next class, which is the fighter.

Joe: 1:08:16

So the fighter is really interesting. In my campaign on Tuesday night when I'm playing, I created a fighter for the first time and I've been enjoying playing the fighter class, which is why I found it really interesting. You haven't had a chance to perform combat as a fighter much in the Monday night campaign. After you've done it for a while, I want to talk to you about it and compare our experiences, because I find the fighter expansive and limiting at the same time. How so? Well, there's only three things you can do attack, attack or attack. Your attacks don't vary by much, which is one of the things I kind of like about spellcasters is because you usually have a range of spells and you can mix and match. And you know, with a fighter you really only can run up and hit something. There are variations on that, of course, but as my fighter, I run up and I hit things. Now, given the character that I'm playing, it fits perfectly with the personality that I've built around him and that's fine. That's one of the reasons why and again, we'll talk about the details that's one of the reasons why, when I took my subclass, I took the one with maneuvers, because the maneuvers give you a large variety of things you can play around with, I think once you get to level up a fighter, it becomes a much more robust character.

Andrew: 1:09:48

Yeah, you've got the superiority dice with the maneuvers you can disarm, you can frighten. There's a lot of things you can do when you get into higher levels with a fighter, but I think your level one fighter is just that's what he is. He is trained to fight. That's what they do. Everybody within a party has their specialty and his prowess is with weapons and defending those that are in the party and keeping him safe. So I think if that's what you're into, that's the perfect class for you. If you want a broad range of spells and being able to do a lot of different things, then a fighter is clearly not for you.

Joe: 1:10:34

When it comes to the melee range, they are well-rounded as melee characters.

Andrew: 1:10:42

I mean, they've got the ability to wear the armor, so they've got proficiency in armor weapons, et cetera. They are fantastic people Like Thoradin the dwarf he's a soldier, so he has fought in wars, and he's over 250 years old, so he's seen a lot of battles, so he's not just a killing machine, he is a wise tactician. He knows how to coordinate a battle and go in, so he's got a lot of wisdom behind just swinging a sword. Agreed, so let's talk about quickly building. Do the quick build for a fighter. So why don't you dive into what abilities and what skills you wanna have for your fighter?

Joe: 1:11:43

So the first one is typically everybody would think it's strength. Now the other option that you might wanna consider is dexterity, and the reason why is a fighter is also proficient in archery. Now this is really interesting. I did a one-shot where my friend Chris was DMing. I made a Centaur and I made him an archer fighter and he reigned death from above. It was massively death damage dealing. I don't have the words for it. So don't be afraid to also consider ranged weapons or perhaps even finesse weapons knives, short swords, anything that you might wanna use as a finesse weapon and max out your dexterity instead. However, strength is the typical one for using swords and spears and clubs and such. The next one should definitely be your constitution, your dexterity. You're not gonna worry about as much because when you see a little bit later, they're gonna end up with proficiency and heavy armor, which means they're gonna get a lot more AC from their armor class, from their armor. So you're not really concerned so much with your dexterity. You wanna make sure that your hit points are maxed out because your stats aren't really going to be able to help your AC if you opt for the heavy armor.

Andrew: 1:13:05

Yeah, you wanna have the hit points behind that sword that you're swinging. So when you hit you wanna be able to take a hit. Hit right back. You wanna be like Rocky Balboa? Yes, you wanna be able to punch and be able to take a punch. So definitely, maximize that constitution for your HP. What else should they consider with a fighter? Let's talk about some of the other features. So.

Joe: 1:13:36

Real quick since we were talking about the other backgrounds. The typical background for a fighter is a soldier which, again, as we said in the other ones, the details of the soldier background fit in and complement well with the fighter. Again, we'll go through it all when we delve into the backgrounds in future episodes.

Andrew: 1:13:57

So hit dice 1d10. Yep, so again Healthy. Yeah, very, very healthy with a 1d10, which is great. They're proficiencies. They are proficient in all armor and shields, so yet again they can wear heavy armor, so that'll be a big boost to the AC. That's why you don't necessarily have to focus so much on the dexterity and wanna focus more on the constitution to raise the HP If they do break through and connect with that weapon.

Joe: 1:14:33

I wanna make a quick note here. We've talked about shields and a couple of these characters. A shield is a basic plus two to your AC if you wanted to add it to your character, and with a fighter you can use two-handed weapons. But if you are looking really for that boost in your AC, you can take something as simple as a long sword and get that shield and take whatever AC you have and boost it up by two. I think clerics sometimes have it and when we talk about paladins we'll talk about shields. But in my head fighters are like the number one class to walk around with a shield in hand.

Andrew: 1:15:12

Yeah, I think I can't remember which ability it is because, remember, because I'm not carrying a shield or using it or have a weapon in the other hand, I got a plus two to my damage.

Joe: 1:15:26

It's two weapon fighting.

Andrew: 1:15:28

Yeah, the two weapon. Is it two weapon fighting?

Joe: 1:15:30

I believe it's called two weapon fighting.

Andrew: 1:15:34

But I'm not wepending with two weapons. Now we gotta look this up. So now we gotta oh well, what did you get a bonus to? It's the. I get to add my strength bonus to the damage From the second attack, not from the second attack, from any attack, because I'm not wielding, because I'm, I have nothing in the other.

Joe: 1:16:00

In the other hand, when you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a plus two bonus damage rolls. That's the one, yeah.

Andrew: 1:16:14

Okay, and what is that Dueling? Dueling, that's, that's the, that's the, is it?

Joe: 1:16:19

a feat? No, no, it's a fighting style so this is one of the things you get as a fighter you get to pick a fighting style and as you level up, you get to pick more or swap them out. But in Andrew's case he picked dueling, which, when he's only using one melee weapon, he gets an extra bonus to his attack damage as long as he's not holding anything in his other hand. Correct, think of it as the ability to move more freely without thinking about holding a shield in the proper position to defend yourself. You're more. You're able to more advantageously place yourself in striking positions.

Andrew: 1:16:59

Correct, so that's yeah. So there there's again. There's all sorts of things when we, when we get into the standalone episodes, what we'll dive really deep into into all these features, so you can, you can see how they, how they kind of all come together to to form these classes. So that brings us, for this episode, to the last but definitely not least class, alphabetically, of the monk. Well, you just like this is not Tony Shalug.

Joe: 1:17:30

What's that you just playing? You know you're just talking that way about the monk because I would my in what I consider your greatest character ever made so far was a monk.

Andrew: 1:17:41

I'm a huge fan of of the monk. I love, I love the martial artist there. There's a lot to to these characters. So let's talk about what a monk is. So a monk is a highly trained martial artist who not only has trained in in in combat, but they're, they're also I kind of see them as the Zen Buddhist monk. So they're, they're not only just a fighter, but they, they have harnessed the power of mind and body to, to, they channel that through their, their strikes, and are able to perform extraordinary feats of acrobatics when they are, when they're fighting. What? By channeling all this energy through through themselves. They have, they've trained significantly, they've got, you know, called mystical abilities. We'll talk about there, we're not gonna talk about today. But they have what are called key points, which is that with the, which is this energy that that flows through them. I've heard this some, some in some of the reading that I did. I've heard this compared to the force. So they, they they've talked about some of the, the Star Wars people as as monks because they have this key energy flowing, flowing through them that's an interesting analogy that I can definitely get behind yeah, it's, it's between this and, I think, maybe Paladin, I think was the other one, if I recall correctly, but there were there's a couple classes that that they talk about with, with Star.

Joe: 1:19:24

Wars characters and Sith, yeah, yeah yeah, but anyway I don't want, I don't want to get too much into well as a person, as a person who's DM'd you as this monk and the other monk where you, I, you didn't have a name for the shapeshifter right, you didn't have a name Menevich, which I believe is check for shape-shifting. I think that's right. That's right. You told us that. Yeah, I remember, I remember. I think you fell so in love with the subclass thatyou ywere Draufganger wD D D that you, you, you. To a certain extent I think you ruined the rest of the monks for yourself because you were just so enamored with that one. But I remember trying to find a way to defeat you and and just knock you down a few pegs and and every time the, the abilities of the monk would just rally and and you would do damage.

Andrew: 1:20:26

I'm just. I'm just it's got it, it is. It really is my, my favorite class. Yeah, I will. I will say this much so. So my, my inspiration for, for my monk was, was the character daredevil, as well as my cat, who is, who is named DD after after daredevil. But but it's interesting I've heard it's almost more of be with with the key points, with this, with this kind of mystical energy flowing through them. I almost think it's kind of a combination of daredevil with with the martial arts abilities and iron fist, yep, with with that, with that that, that the key points, that the key energy flowing flowing through them.

Joe: 1:21:16

So I almost punch that, yes, where you know, the visual effects was like all the power flowing right his fist. You know, I don't know why I keep thinking of key and I think of kung fu panda and he would, you know, in the combat he would like tap the body and like certain points and all of a sudden it would be like but it didn't take anything out of him, it wasn't his key points, right, he was finding key and the other person in disrupting the flow, if you will. So that's what it rings my bell, but it's not really interesting, but yeah, I mean, it's just there's.

Andrew: 1:21:46

I really feel like there's just so much that you can do with with this carrot, with this class. It's just a lot of fun. And let's talk about the quick build for, for, for, building a monk, yeah. So definitely the first thing you want to do is is focus on on dexterity, because again what's that completely, and why is that?

Joe: 1:22:10

I'm not gonna take this away from you oh come on, I can't have all the fun. So the dexterity is most important because, in my opinion, for the month it's most important because it adds into your unarmored defense. It when when monks don't have any proficiency in any armor whatsoever, which means they incur penalties if they wear any armor whatsoever. So dexterity is vitally important. Not only will it help you to go first, but it will also help protect you unarmored defense. Very simply for the for the monk is, your armor class is a 10, plus the modifier for your dexterity, plus the modifier for your wisdom, which is why the quick build recommends wisdom as your second stat point correct and one of the reasons so.

Andrew: 1:23:07

So one of the reasons that I really liked so the, the monk that I created was a tabaxi, which is the feline race in in Dungeons and Dragons. So one of the things I like the one, the one reason that I created a tabaxi, or feline monk, was that typically a monk has a 1D4 unarmed strike, but with the tabaxi, with the, the tabaxi has the cats claws, so the tabaxi unarmed strike becomes a 1D6. It's a little boost right off the start, yes, so so 1D6 for for not not even holding a weapon, is is a pretty slick little feature because you can use again when we get into the, the episode about monks, we'll talk about flurry of blows, which is one of the things you can do with your key points. But you can have two extra attacks, two extra unarmed attacks, so you can really use those cats claws to to do some some nice damage.

Joe: 1:24:11

I have to tell a quick aside story about this, please do so. We were playing Curse of Strahd and you guys were coming up to face Strahd. Do you remember? You won the initiative role and you came up to Strahd and you hit him with your short sword and you hit him with two unarmed strikes and I think your unarmed strikes at that point were up to like a d12 or something like that, or maybe a d10. You were doing like massive damage to him. I do remember this and and and. The problem was Strahd has a heart hidden inside his castle that absorbs. I think it's up to 50 points of damage and you did like 54 points of damage in one turn, which is a massive amount of damage for a monk to do. I mean it was. It was impressive, don't get me wrong. Monks can do great amount of damage, especially when you use the flurry of blows. But I remember I had to describe it as his wounds healing back up because he was really got still had that 50 hit points because it was transferred and taken from his heart, and I remember the look on your face. You were so distraught, so deflated. You thought that everything that you did was worthless and you just kind of like we're just gonna take a step back from the combat and it felt so bad to watch you do this because I wanted to tell you there's this heart over here.

Andrew: 1:25:27

It was a man, it was so funny. I was I'm like what am I even doing? Why are we? Why are we even here trying to defeat this guy? If I just did 50 plus points of damage to him and he just like healed himself, I'm like I give up.

Joe: 1:25:40

I give up I. It was probably the most miserable I ever felt about letting brutal playing against the character, because it was like this and he's been building the character and he'd been like working on it and and perfecting it and all of a sudden it comes up and it's like his best shot didn't do anything and it was like it was the perfect morale defeating. Like I just like I had to let it play out. But then I told them afterwards there's like dude, you, you don't understand how much damage you really did.

Andrew: 1:26:10

You just erased this whole problem yeah, it was, it was, it was frustrating, to say the least, but but I think again, I am just, I'm all about the monks. I think it's just, I think it's nice because they are fighters, but but they do have a lot of, a lot of variety in how they fight. You know, it's not, it's not just a fighter, you know just dealing damage with a single weapon. You know, with the, with the key points, there's some, there's some really cool things that they can there's a mystical aspect?

Joe: 1:26:46

yeah, it's. It's like you know, it's not your typical brawler. It's a guy who goes up and punches and kicks, but he's not a brawler, he's a very precise instrument of damage dealing it is.

Andrew: 1:27:00

It is Neo in the matrix and he just stands and goes. I know kung fu.

Joe: 1:27:06

That's how I feel when I play a monk which is really funny, because I was gonna say Neo from the matrix. I was gonna say it's like Bruce Lee, which is kung fu, if I'm not mistaken.

Andrew: 1:27:16

So yeah, so I mean it's just, it's just a fun. I love. I just, I love more like I am. I know nothing like I am, I've never taken a lesson in any martial art whatsoever, but I am just. I love them so much because I think it's just, I think it's such an elegant way of fighting with, without a weapon and I think it's just very I don't say artistic, but there's just there's just some some flow to it. That just that, I think, is just really beautiful and I love how. I love how that kind of plays out on the field with with a monk. And it was fun playing a blind monk and I'll talk more about this on the stand on episode, building building daredevil as a monk and some of the things that you want to consider. But there's some really things that you really cool things you can do, but but playing a blind character, we we don't have time to go into that now, but it was. It was definitely a challenge to to be a blind fighter out on the battlefield and and.

Joe: 1:28:20

But the monk is something else that, like you know, I was talking about how a fighter, you kind of just walk up and swing your sword or swing your weapon and hit, and the monk definitely has a lot more creative flair that he can use to it. On the Tuesday night game we were playing with Mike and Mike played that monk for a while and and he had a staff and he had a lot of fun trying to incorporate backhand slashes with the staff and his own, his own fighting he's.

Andrew: 1:28:48

I love that you're cracking yourself up he said it every time.

Joe: 1:28:51

He was saying fury of blows instead of flurry of blows, and it's still plays. It's still play. It plays out well. A fury of blows. It was really well, but it's like, I think. I think the idea that I was trying to say here's like with a fighter you walk up, you swing, you hit, you miss, you do it again. With a monk, it's more artistic, if I may, because you know you see kung fu fighting and stuff like that. You see these people making these elaborate moves, trying to get into the right position, and with a monk it's, there's more creativity to it. And then when you get into the role playing, yeah, there's, player and and when you get into the role playing of it. This is when you can start describing what you're doing, and when you have a player who really enjoys role playing, they'll get into that. Obviously, I try to do it whenever I do a killing blow, but other people will like to just describe their hits at random points and it's like good, go for it yeah, there's, there really is just I don't know there's it was too much there's.

Andrew: 1:29:50

There's so much there. There's so much you can do with with the key points. Well, like I said, we'll get into it in in a future episode, but but definitely dive into it. You can feel free to do your own research. There's. There's tons online about, about these different classes and and so so don't don't let this. This is just kind of scratching the surface as to what's really out there. So, wow, that that was six half and we're six classes and my god, we've been, we've been going for over 90 minutes talking about, talking about all these, all these different classes, and and we're only halfway there. So so thank you for for listening through through all of this. We will continue with another episode right after this with the other six classes which, remember, are the paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock and wizard, and we'll dive into all those as well. And then you know, like I said, we will, in future episodes, kind of do a deep dive into into each of these classes and give you some more details on on some fun, fun stuff you can do with them we also have an interview coming up with our friend cat, who we mentioned play the cleric several times, so we're gonna dive into her background and her choices, about all of her character creation yes, it'll be fun to listen to somebody else talk about character creation and and kind of their their thought process on on how they develop characters from the beginning, so hopefully you'll find that interesting that that episode should be coming up shortly. So, once again, thank you so much for listening we we look forward to to you joining us on on future episodes. Remember you can help sponsor, sponsor us and and keep us producing these episodes. You can go to legends, loot and lore dot supercast calm. You can also visit our website and check everything out there, which is www. Legends, loot and lorecom. So check it out and thank you so much for listening thank you.