At first glance, Pelgrane Press's 13th Age looks like just another D20 fantasy RPG. But dig a little deeper, and you'll find a rich, uniquely crafted world that sets it apart. The Dragon Empire has risen and fallen thirteen times, leaving in its wake the scattered remains of past ages.
Now as the 13th Age begins, powerful Icons rise to power and try to direct the fact of the Dragon Empire.
Join us as we rollup new adventurers and explore 13th Age’s unique and innovative mechanics.
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Today's Rollup Characters
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Music.
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Hello, welcome to the Role Playing Chains. It's Adam, and today me and my good
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friends are going to be rolling up 13th age characters.
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Now, we're doing this on the heels of the fact that Pelgrim Press is going to
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be kick-starting sometime in the future, and we're recording this as of the
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end of April of 2024, a new version, a second edit of 13th age.
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So we thought, while this is still relevant, let's go ahead and for the world of 13th age.
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So joining me today in alphabetic order are?
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I believe that starts with me. Hey, it's Chris.
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Been a bit absent for a while. I apologize for that.
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I am here to cause chaos. And up next...
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Hey, this is David. I'm here to assist in that chaos.
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Hi, I'm Christy. Haven't been on any of these before, but we'll see what happens.
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Maybe I'll be chaos. us? May I be a control rod? We'll find out.
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Yeah, I did the post-GenCon 2023. This is your second appearance on our podcast,
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and we're glad to have you on board.
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Glad to be here. The deep nerd shit.
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Okay, so folks, the 13th age. As far as I understand it here,
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the setting of this world is at the end of the 12th age, the beginning of the
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13th age, or it's a very cataclysmic event.
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That ended the 12th age and kind of marked the beginning of the 13th age.
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And that events and the damage is known, uh, known for is called the chaos scar.
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And it's just like world reaching.
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And the world of 13th age is you're in an uncertain world.
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It's kind of on the rebuild, so to speak, and things are becoming increasingly dangerous.
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One of the big kind of features of this game that I like is the fact that you
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don't, you know, Hia Mad and all these other gods that you can see in D&D,
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they've kind of been replaced by these leaders called the Icons. They're mighty rulers.
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Some of them are racial champions, such as there's a Dwarf King, there's an Elf Queen.
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Some of them are God-like beings, but they have a lot of power and influence
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across the world of 13th Age.
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Am I missing anything so far with this? Good.
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No, you're more or less right. A big thing I actually like about 13th Age,
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which I want to bring up, is the idea of the living dungeon.
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Which are these almost like it's
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architecture that just exists and
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sometimes bubbles up and tries to eat things to
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turn into dungeons so if y'all
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like dungeon meshy this is the game for you they got
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a whole force book for this living dungeon
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i think gareth hanner writer yeah gareth hannerham
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yeah that is a campaign book it's called the eyes
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of the stone thief and i if we're talking about things we like i think one of
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the big features i list the first time i encountered this game was actually
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listening to rppr's playthrough that david took part in and the game utilizes
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this unique feature called an escalation dice mechanic.
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Which as somebody who has since then actually played in dnd
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games and went through the stride
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battle that took hours to complete and
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stuff like that the escalation dice is a a nice way
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to keep combat fast and what's
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really lovely about that specific mechanic is the
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fact that the escalation die started out as a 13th age thing and it has moved
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on to other games like i can think of a couple of them right off the bat that
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use the same mechanic specifically one that we've reviewed on this podcast by
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our good friend Julian McKay,
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which is Mutants in the Now and Mutants in the Next.
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For me, it feels like it keeps the battle tense. I mean, it's easy to go through
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a turn and then pull out your phone.
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It does. It does make things go a little bit faster. And in the case of.
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How do I put this gently? In the case of folks that the dice absolutely hate,
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it puts it to where they can actually connect.
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Not naming any names or dropping any clerics into the mix, but Caleb Stokes at his, Lord, please,
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if you like me even a little bit, let this smite finally connect.
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One of the greatest moments of that. like it was
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and i think we would be kind of
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remiss here if we while we're talking about our favorite things one
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of the things that we're going to get into in character creation which i'm really
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looking forward to hearing everybody else's is the one
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unique thing that about your character and it and the playthrough that i did
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which i did actually eventually play a game of 13th age as a con game at gen
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con several years ago but you just pick one thing that your character is either good
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at or something unique about them and when i played
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that game years ago picked that
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everybody missed i had the type of face that everybody thinks they recognize
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me from somewhere so i'm just that guy that you see so i encountered a group
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like oh hey man yeah been a while a group of bandits or something like that
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and i de-escalated the situation hey we we met we met there right,
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Yeah, I'm your cousin's roommate's second brother-in-law.
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Okay, yeah, no, I remember you at the... How you been?
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What was your unique thing, David, when you played? So my unique thing in that
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one was that I had discovered purple dye by accident,
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because prior to my characters putting together these three materials that would
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make purple dye, The only way that you could get it was from pulling out the uvula of a shark,
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and most sharks are not willing to part with their uvula easily, so purple dye was rare.
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And so once I made it everything about the character was in different shades of purple.
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Which my weapon of choice because I was playing a bard was a crossbow that had
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the words free samples labeled across the very front of it and my battle cry was tell your friends!
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So I also stood out because here I am just clad head to toe in purple,
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which I can tell you from real life, does make you stand out a little bit.
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I think one of the last things I would like to, because I probably should have
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mentioned this beforehand, it's like some of the big set pieces and the setting
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itself is the Dragon Empire,
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which is pretty much just sprawling like the civilized part.
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And it's ruled by the Wizard King. The Empire's lands are, you know, protected by giants.
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Not giants, excuse me. I can't read my notes. Great stone knights,
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which are gigantic, you know, magical constructs that are like 100 feet tall or something like that.
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I did mention the Chaos Scar, which was an apocalyptic force.
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And here's where to elaborate on that a bit.
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Called by the angel of blood that tore through the world during the end of the last age.
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The cataclysm was a swath of destruction that just went across the world.
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World we did mention the icons which there are quite a few and i think we could we could probably,
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we'll briefly mention those as we go forth here there's this you know game of
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thrones-ish style undead crusade that's also being waged by the lich king in
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the north against the civilized worlds.
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And lost i think there's a bit about this the things that's lost like magic
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and the ability Like there is magic and all that, but we're kind of starting
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from square one kind of as a culture.
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I think that's about the main things I got here.
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It's great. I mean, it's Pell Grain. Pell Grain hasn't put out anything I haven't enjoyed.
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So I'm looking forward to rolling this up. So would you all like to go ahead
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and join me as we go through this lovely but 11 or 12 year old book?
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Absolutely, we're joining you. Turn in your hymnals with me,
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if you will, to page 28, 29.
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So we've got a nice little checklist here. We can go through here.
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It's an overview. If you need someplace to record permanent,
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okay, it tells where the character sheet is in the book, but we're using a form
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fillable that we'll hopefully make available to you all.
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And this is basically D&D 4th Ed, right, Chris? More or less.
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It's very formulaic in that way. but I think it works.
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Okay. So it is extremely straightforward. You just run on through.
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I actually appreciate that. Me too.
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We had decided that we were going to do point by instead of doing generating
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the X ability scores by rolling dice, or at least Chris and Adam and I had. I'm fine. Right.
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So first off, let's start with character class. And race.
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So, David, you and I have been talking about this beforehand.
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Would you like to go ahead?
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Well, we decided first off that it's a hard knock life for us and that we grew
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up in an orphanage. So I'm going to go high elf.
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And I am actually going wood elf. So we are basically going to be pulling the
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childhood quasi siblings because we grew up in the same orphanarium.
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Yeah. But we're like, we're best friends.
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Yes. All right. And Christy, what you got in mind? All right.
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Well, I go, I'm going to go ahead and go with a half elf.
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I'm, I'm that little tag along that kept running after you guys. Hey guys, me too. Me too.
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So you're like three years younger than us. Yeah. I'm, I'm like maybe just a
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couple of years younger than you guys.
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And I always wanted to be part of things with you guys, but you're like, No, no, we got this.
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But I wanted to.
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It's like, oh, you're our little brother or our little sister.
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I'm sorry, kid. You're in middle school. We're in high school. We're adults now.
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But look, her ears are pointy. That means that she's one of us.
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We got to bring her along.
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Okay. Speaking of adults, I am going to be playing a human.
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So I will go along with your hard knock laughs.
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We love you, Mr. Hannigan. again so
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that kind of rolled directly into what chris was beginning beforehand too with
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classes so i'm gonna go ahead and throw mine out there i'm gonna be a human
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paladin which makes sense and it's being the voice of a porotah and why are
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you a human paladin you want the real reason.
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I mean because you're a teacher but yeah well
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years ago when rpx was
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starting up we actually played with doing a game of
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this and that's when patrick was more active on the forum so
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i just i wrote up a character beforehand i've lost the character sheet since
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then but my character concept i just picked a paladin just for shits and giggles
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and i loved it so much that i'm kind of revisiting it here oh i love that that's
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really sweet dude pretty sweet It's the game that never happened,
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much like how we're going to have to make this be a game that does happen.
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All right. Well, anyways, I guess since I am next up the list,
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I am going to be playing a wizard, which is a very weird class for a wood elf.
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On a similar vein, a very weird class for a high elf and different for me because
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I more often than not, I play the bard.
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This time I'm going to have a little bit of fun and I'm going to break out the barbarian,
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that is a weird one for a high elf we actually both talked about this beforehand
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and we decided to play elves that did not make sense which is probably why we
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are orphans in the first place,
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well I'm going to go ahead and play something which means why you do allow me
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to tag along which I'm going to be a cleric.
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She can come we need somebody to
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heal us thanks guys i
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kind of feel like our battle cry is going to be whichever one
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of us is engaging in combat between me
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and chris is going to look at the other one and go you watch the kid wait wait
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no no no no and then the fight starts whether it's a melee fight or whether
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it's a ranged fight okay though david i think it's fair to say that the way
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we've been describing our characters we're both barely adult,
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Yeah, but we are older than the kid, and therefore she is the kid.
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It's like, yeah, we can legally drink. That means we're adults, right? Sure.
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But I'm technically an adult. I am literally three years younger than you.
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Yeah, but you can't quaff like we can, glug.
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Who needs to quaff? You lose half of it.
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No, I don't. I just save it for later. Well, I appreciate that you quaff,
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but I am more interested in, you know, a mixed drink, like an old fashioned
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or, you know, a gin martini.
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OK, give me the strongest ale you've got and give my friend something with an umbrella in it.
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The most pretentious thing you can imagine.
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As we've kind of mentioned beforehand, and we'll probably take a break on this
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here as we kind of, you don't hear our number crunching fun that we're going
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to be doing off mic here, so to speak.
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So the general ability score, and I do something else I want to mention here with this.
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Two of the writers on this, Rob Henso and Johnson Tweet, have different methods of going about this.
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One of them is just, you know, rolling the dice, and the other is,
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you know, point buying, and we're going to be doing point buying.
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I do want to mention that one of the gems I thought of in this book that I really enjoyed is how,
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on the asides, it's either Rob or Jonathan that are kind of,
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you know, either canceling the other out by saying something they particularly
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thought about the game as opposed to the other one.
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And all that. So it's like you're reading a book and there's also this conversation going on.
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And I believe it was Rob Henson I met at Gen Con. They were advertising this
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game at maybe Gen Con 2022.
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They were putting it out there that they were getting started on this and I
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asked if that feature was going to be in the new book.
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So I want to think of course a lot has happened since then that the new book's going to have this.
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Also multi-class and we're not going to be kind of touching on this here.
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I think there's It's expansions that kind of go over it. But as for this row
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up, we're just kind of going with the book as is.
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And the book as is says no multiclass. Tell you what, folks,
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we're going to take a brief break here and we're going to go through our stats.
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And then when you come back, we're going to tell you a bit more about what we're working with here.
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Music.
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And we're back. So we've got some stats here. We're going to throw some stuff at you all.
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Well, we went ahead and added in our class modifiers and our racial modifiers with this.
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So I'm starting out with my paladin, which will be named somewhat soon, I guess.
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Seventeen's for strengths. I'm going to go for con of 14, but I took one of
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my modifiers that I could add, so I got a plus two to that.
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So it's got i'm up to like a 16 on con
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decks not such a good feat or ability
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there i got nine int eight wisdom 10 and then my charisma was 14 with the point
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buy-in system but i also went ahead and took a plus two to that so you know
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my big stats are you know it said make it 16 so i've got I got like a 17,
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16, 16 for my big stats.
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All right. And up next to me, I am playing the wizard. So I have an intelligence of 18.
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My wisdom is my next biggest stat at 16.
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I have a dexterity of 15 because of who I grew up with, David.
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I have a constitution of 10, a charisma of 10, and a strength of 18.
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And up next, David. Well, I actually decided to go for a fairly physically balanced character.
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So I've got a strength and con both of 16, a dex of 14, and I am not exactly
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the sharpest tool in the shed with an int and whiz of 10, and a charisma of 12.
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I'm very likable for a barbarian. I understand basic hygiene.
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I appreciate that fact. All right.
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Alright, so with my Cleric, I went ahead and took Strength 14, Con 12,
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Dex 10, Int 12, Wisdom 16 plus 2 of Class Bonus, and Charisma 10 plus 2 Race Bonus.
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Christy, it's just gonna be like you in my character knowing looks at each other
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so many times. It's like, goddammit.
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Why do we do this?
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Hey, I'm not intelligence.
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Hmm. So it looks like it's time to get on to our combat stats and first level
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hit points and all that fun stuff here.
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It looks like, hmm, what do we need to do for combat stats?
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So, there is a handy dandy little chart that we can flip ahead to that talks
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about what our numbers are going to look like. Okay.
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We've got three numbers there. There's AC, which is armor class PD,
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which is physical defense and MD, which is mental defense.
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And they are based off of your character class plus a stat.
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So you're going to have a base and then you're going to have the relevant stat
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that gets added to it. Okay.
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So anyway, in the
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book yeah this is the annoying bit honestly so if
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we go to page 29 oh going
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back actually page 31 so 31
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tells you where you're going to find the chart which is going to be here on
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page 76 so i know i just told you to go to one page i'm telling you to go to
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another one so 76 it is okay it's based on the class you uh picked yeah so since
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you are going for paladin,
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your base so your usual base ac and those base ac numbers assume that the pc
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is in the armor that suits them best so see your class writer for details yours
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is probably a heavy armor But your usual base AC is going to be 16.
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Your base physical defense is 10. And your base mental defense is 12.
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Now, on each of those, you're going to be adding the middle modifier of a trio. Okay.
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Now, once everybody has their stuff filled in from that chart, let me know.
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And while you're plugging and playing, I am going to jump back over because I've already done mine.
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Okay. Ten, ten, ten, baby.
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Excellent. No, don't look at me. I'm going to die. Okay.
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Well, here's where it gets a little bit better. Okay. Does everybody have theirs
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plugged in? Because I'll tell you how to find the numbers to attach to them.
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So for your armor class, the AC, these are your values that are relevant.
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Con, dex, and wisdom.
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So you want to take a look at those three values, and whichever one is the middle
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number gets added to your AC.
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So it looks like I have con is plus two, dex I have no pluses, and wisdom I have no.
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So, well, Wisdom, my Wisdom's a 10, but I didn't add a modifier to it.
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So that's going to be a zero.
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I have a plus two then because my deck's 15.
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Okay. It goes again, David. Con, Dex, and Wisdom.
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AC is the weird one of the three because those are kind of across the board
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because you've got your Con, your Dex, and Wisdom.
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You take the middlemost of the three.
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So for me, my con is a 16, my dex is a 14, and my wisdom is a 10.
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So my modifiers are 3, 2, and 0. So I use the middlemost, which is the 2.
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All right. And for me, my con is a 10, my dex is a 15, my wiz is a 16.
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So I would have a plus 2 as well.
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Yes, because you use that middle. I'm between 2 and 0. I assume 1 would be the happy median.
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No. No, in your case, since you've got a 2, a 0, and a 0, since you've got a
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tie, you have to go with the tie.
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So unfortunately, you have to use the 0 modifier.
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Well, I'll have a shield. That'll probably give me a plus 1 later. It does.
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And I've got a 0, a 1, and a 4. So 1. So 1 it is.
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The shield is figured into your armor.
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Because shield would automatically add 1 to armor.
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Let's see. Now, moving on to physical defense. For physical defense,
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you use the number on the chart.
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But then, the three stats that are at the left are your physical stats.
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So that's Strength, Con, and Dex.
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Okay. And again, you use the middle number. So for mine, 16,
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16, and 14, I am the physical one of the group.
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So that means that I am going to use the three for that.
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And then for your mental defense you
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take the middlemost of your
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right numbers so int wiz and charisma so
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for me that's a zero a zero and a one so i'm using the zero
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okay now that's how you figure out your base now once we've got those numbers
00:24:01
plugged in add your level since we are a level one character that means that
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i'm going to end with ac of 15 physical defense of 15 and mental defense of 11.
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So that is a plus one with the level.
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So in this case, I would have an AC of 13, a physical defense of 11 and a mental defense of 14.
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Correct. Okay. All right. So I've got AC 16, physical and mental defense, both 13.
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Okay. So you see how we're all right around that range. As we level up.
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Every level, we're going to add one. So the higher we get in level,
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the higher those numbers get, because we just get a little bit hardier as we
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increase in level. Gotcha.
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So I didn't get a single plus on those for any of the particular stats,
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just the way I arranged everything.
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But that plus one per level was very beneficial.
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Mm-hmm. What about HP?
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So HP is going to be a little bit different. there
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should be a base for your class and what
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you're going to do for that so you're rolling cleric
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yes which means base is seven okay so
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i'm going to scroll all the way
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back to the start of the pdf and click on the
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link for the class because each of our classes should
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have a level progression so for
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me for the barbarian it's on page 78 for
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the cleric yours is going to be on 94
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and it will tell you in here
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how to figure out your total hit points so yours is seven
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plus your con mod and at level one you multiply
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that by three so 10 so it's
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10 times three which is 30 oh okay
00:25:51
you don't multiply the con by three
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okay so it would be what is your modifier three
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my con mod is what hold on it is six plus con mod or uh whatever plus con mod
00:26:06
in parentheses times whatever so what is your con what is your constitution
00:26:12
modifier so hers is one so that That means that it's going to be 8 times 3. So 3 times 8 is 24.
00:26:19
Now, mine is 7 plus my con mod, which is 3.
00:26:24
So actually, no. Yeah, it's 3. Derp. I just did this math two minutes ago. Why is it?
00:26:32
So I have 30 hit points. Yes.
00:26:34
I also have 30. Mine is 8 plus my con modifier, which is a plus 2 and times 3.
00:26:42
Yeah. Mine is, I have 18 hit points. So don't look at me funny.
00:26:47
That's fine. Big brother! Yeah, the littler big brother. Hey!
00:26:52
Hey! Somebody had rickets.
00:26:57
When I was a lad, I ate three dozen dicks every morning to help me get large.
00:27:03
No one shoots like Gaston. No one poops like Gaston. That's how I always heard that.
00:27:11
My lord. So it looks like we've already went through our armor class and our
00:27:15
physical defense, our hit points, and our mental defenses.
00:27:20
Initiative is the, let's see, if your deck's stat plus your level.
00:27:26
So I don't even see where initiative goes on the character sheet.
00:27:29
It is directly under Dex.
00:27:33
Yeah, okay. So we also each get one feat at level one.
00:27:41
Before we do that, Adam, David, let's finish off the modifier plus level section here.
00:27:47
So initiative, for example, my modifier with my modifier plus level means for
00:27:54
strength means I have a zero because I have a negative one for strength.
00:27:59
But my level is one so it's a zero correct so
00:28:04
like keep that in mind well you're a
00:28:07
wizard you're not supposed to be strong nope but i
00:28:11
am just trying to make to point out that even though the modifier plus level
00:28:17
makes it seem like it would be they should both be negative one when you are
00:28:22
a level one character you actually start off at base zero for everything if you
00:28:28
started out with a negative modifier. Yep.
00:28:32
So I started, when I was building with my array, I put tens across the board, and then I added two.
00:28:40
Yeah. Because I wanted to make sure that I had no negative modifiers. Yeah.
00:28:45
Okay. And recoveries, I don't think we handle that just yet here.
00:28:50
We do a little bit, because recoveries are going to matter quite a bit.
00:28:56
But once we start taking damage, I'm looking at you, Bria.
00:29:01
What? I'm looking at you. What are you talking about?
00:29:04
My squishy baby brother. Oh, no. Hey, I am older than you by I don't know how
00:29:12
many minutes, but I'm going to assume many.
00:29:14
So we do have a number of recoveries that we are going to pick up.
00:29:18
They are, we all have a recovery die.
00:29:22
Yeah. And so you get the amount of, let's see, trying to think how to put it. So here it is.
00:29:31
So my recovery dice are a D10, and I get to use a number of those.
00:29:36
That says D10 times level plus con mod.
00:29:40
So I need to double check and see how that's figured up, because I get a bunch
00:29:45
of recovery because Barbarian.
00:29:47
I'm supposed to take a hit, but I'm supposed to shrug it off.
00:29:51
Like, that's kind of the way that that goes. You just shake it off.
00:29:55
Shake it off. I'd say it's eight, probably.
00:29:59
Yeah, and that's what I'm looking at. It's like, what does this eight probably mean?
00:30:04
I think check it off is where it goes into it.
00:30:08
It said see chapter five, but as I look through the chapter index here,
00:30:14
I'm just trying to see damage and healing maybe that under it.
00:30:20
Recoveries. Start with eight or nine recoveries. It represents a six or nine major recovery.
00:30:25
Three dice, a 1d8, times level, plus coins.
00:30:30
So here's the recoveries. Each PC normally starts the adventure with eight or
00:30:34
nine recoveries, the stat that represents the PC's ability to heal or bounce back from damage.
00:30:39
Many healing spells and healing potions require you to use up one of your recoveries.
00:30:43
So does using a standard action to rally during a battle.
00:30:46
The basic mechanic when you use a recovery is always the same.
00:30:49
You regain lost hit points by rolling recovery dice equal to your level and
00:30:53
adding your constitution modifier.
00:30:55
So your class indicates which recovery die you will use.
00:30:59
So in my case, a d10. At fifth level, you double the bonus you gain from your con modifier.
00:31:04
At eighth level, you triple it. And if you don't want to roll handfuls of dice
00:31:09
at higher levels, you can use the choice of options listed in the dice rolling conventions section.
00:31:14
So what it says here, a fifth level barbarian with a constitution of 14,
00:31:18
which is a modifier of plus two, has been cut up pretty badly.
00:31:22
They use a standard action during the battle to heal, rolling 5d12 and adding
00:31:27
double the con mod modifier, in this case, 5d10 plus 4.
00:31:31
So when you do a recovery, you use that number of dice.
00:31:35
So your level times your recovery die.
00:31:40
So your character class will tell you what your recovery die looks like.
00:31:44
Okay. I'm looking for that right now myself under paladin, under the heading there.
00:31:50
Further down, there's, like, a whole bunch of boxes, and there's,
00:31:54
like, cleric stats, and it gives all that lovely, lovely list.
00:31:59
What page are you on on that? Mine's on 94 for cleric. Okay.
00:32:05
So that'll show you what it looks like so you can find it in Paladin.
00:32:08
Recovery gas, 1d10, plus level. There we go. I see it now.
00:32:12
Plus con modifier, so. So, like, mine is 1d8 times my level plus 1, because my con is plus 1.
00:32:23
Is this on the class page? Because I am having trouble.
00:32:29
Hold on. I got you, bro. Yeah. So let's look at wizard level progression.
00:32:36
Okay, there we go. Oh, six plus con. 1d6 times level plus con mod.
00:32:42
Okay, thank you. Well, damn.
00:32:45
You are squishy. Yeah, no, I'm fucked.
00:32:48
Maybe you should stay back, away from the blood and the fighting.
00:32:53
I'm a wizard, my man. I do love that with the high elf, the teleport, I am my ranged weapon.
00:33:00
Are we about see we've got recovery dice,
00:33:05
attacks and powers you calculate your attack and damage rows based on your ability
00:33:09
scores favored by your class or by the specific powers you choose within your
00:33:14
class most classes use one specific ability score for most of those attacks see chapter 4.
00:33:22
Yeah that's that's more unique like for example I use intelligence as my main skill.
00:33:32
David, you're playing Barbarian, so I presume strength? You presume correctly.
00:33:37
Unless, so, if I am making a melee attack, I am going to...
00:33:43
This is actually kind of the funny thing with the Paladin. If I were to use
00:33:47
a crossbow for a ranged attack, which, in my mind, means I'm hurling a crossbow
00:33:53
at something, basically, I use...
00:33:57
Okay. I use my strength modifier on my damage rolls always.
00:34:02
So if I hit with a melee attack, so my weapon of choice is going to be a two-handed greataxe.
00:34:09
So my attack roll is going to be at a plus four because it is strength plus level.
00:34:14
And if I damage, then I deal a d10 plus my strength modifier plus level.
00:34:21
If I am reading this right, I need to double check it because it looks like
00:34:26
I'm going to be dealing d10 plus 4 on all of my melee hits, which is kind of fun. Yeah, you hit hard.
00:34:34
What can I say? Barbarian. I make things go thud.
00:34:38
Actually, I stand corrected. My base is weapon plus strength damage, no plus 1. So d10 plus 3.
00:34:45
But then again, my ranged attack is also going to be...
00:34:48
I just love axes. So I'm going to use a great big two-handed axe for my melee
00:34:54
weapon. And on the off chance that I have to hit something at range,
00:34:58
I've got hand axes that I'm just going to hurl. I'm going to axe them something.
00:35:04
Yes, that takes us to our unique thing. And unless anybody has anything else to add to that.
00:35:11
Nope, I think this is a good spot to break it out. Why don't we go ahead and
00:35:15
start doing names and unique things.
00:35:18
So, I want to go last. I want everybody else to kind of introduce yourself and
00:35:23
tell me what your unique thing is.
00:35:26
Okay, my name is Kazuma Kiryu. And, no.
00:35:31
I actually haven't come up with a name yet. So, if anyone else has come up with
00:35:35
a name, I will cede to them.
00:35:39
Well, I am known as Dorga the Fierce We don't do last names Barbarians,
00:35:46
And Kirstie Alright I haven't figured out a last name yet But I figure I will be Katrina,
00:35:54
With a Q, not a K Okay Katrina, that does definitely call back to me From the
00:36:00
old Dragonlance novels I read
00:36:02
as a teen I think that was one of the characters there Pretty cool Cool.
00:36:06
Now, I'm going to take a little bit of a liberty here, and you all do what you want to.
00:36:12
Hello, I'm Randy Goodman, Paladin. And my one unique thing, I'm going to go
00:36:17
ahead and lead off with this. I have a child in every town.
00:36:23
Oh, my. Indeed. I assume it's because he runs an orphanage, but...
00:36:32
I feel like that's what he means by that, but I feel like it can be taken way
00:36:37
wrong by other people, and I love that.
00:36:39
I feel like his kids very specifically take it wrong.
00:36:45
Oh, yes. Of course we do, because we love him. He's a good man,
00:36:49
that Mr. Goodman. Could be both.
00:36:53
Por que no la dos? Por que no la dos.
00:36:56
I apologize, I ran away. way when i say i have a child in every town i meant
00:37:01
to say he his charisma got the best of him wherever he goes okay i love that
00:37:06
that doesn't answer the question it does not which is perfect if you want to
00:37:12
pick your last name as goodman that's totally fine,
00:37:17
Okay, well, I guess I will go next, and now I have a name.
00:37:22
My name is Elias Gronefino. I am a wizard, and my one unique thing is one time
00:37:34
when I was eight years old,
00:37:38
my best friend peer pressured me into eating what I thought was a bug that turned out to be a minor god.
00:37:49
My one unique thing is one time when I was eight, I peer pressured my brother
00:37:53
into eating a bug that turned out to be a minor god, and I ate the lizard that opposed the bug.
00:38:00
So I am also minorly divine in an interesting way.
00:38:05
My one thing is this one time when I was six, my orphanage brothers dared me
00:38:13
to eat a mushroom so I could go with them.
00:38:16
And I ate it. And, you know, slightly divine thing. Weird divine thing.
00:38:24
So we're all like kind of demigods?
00:38:29
We're adventurers. We're adventurers. Of course we're demigods. It stands to reason.
00:38:34
I mean, I don't know if I'm a demigod, but I picked the name Randy because it
00:38:38
also means it has a double, it's kind of a double entendre here. And I am a good man.
00:38:44
Yes, you are, sir. yes you are i like
00:38:47
it that i made like one little joke and then david you ran with it and you're
00:38:51
like hey christy how about this you're like yes me too me too i also i feel
00:38:59
like if anybody joins us later if they want to join the fraternity it's going
00:39:03
to be a case of well if you want to be part
00:39:06
of this party you gotta eat this duck but i didn't want to eat the duck eat the duck,
00:39:16
it's like i don't know what we do next folks is
00:39:20
it relationship i we do need to
00:39:23
do one concept yeah we've got
00:39:25
feats and then we we've got relationships with
00:39:29
icons and then the last thing is our
00:39:32
skills and when i
00:39:35
say it like that that's because we all get to decide what
00:39:38
our backgrounds are and we don't have skills like we would in a normal d20 game
00:39:45
what we have instead is we have a background and then when we apply our background
00:39:52
to a thing that background basically makes a role.
00:39:56
So for instance, in the one that I did with RPPR, I was playing the bard and
00:40:02
my one background, I had two of them.
00:40:05
One was diplomacy done drinking. So I could do a.
00:40:10
Any kind of charisma-based role, as long as I had a drink in hand.
00:40:15
And so I always carried a flask so that I could use that one.
00:40:18
And then the other thing was, if it's something that involved learning,
00:40:22
I had things I learned in Bard school.
00:40:26
And I made them intentionally vague, as you're supposed to do with backgrounds,
00:40:30
so that you can bullshit your way into applying them to as many things as you possibly can.
00:40:37
And that's kind of how it goes. you're supposed to well
00:40:41
i'm not saying min max by giving yourself something that you can bullshit with
00:40:45
but ta-da yeah no uh rogues and bards are very good at using their backgrounds
00:40:53
to maximize things i'm just trying to figure this out in my head here so do
00:40:58
y'all want to do feats before icons.
00:41:01
Let's do icons first actually because that will uh help us go over like kind of the concept of
00:41:07
the game all right now i know this is what was has been retooled in second ed
00:41:13
so i'm gonna read this as is this brief little thing here invent your character's
00:41:17
relationship to the mighty icons,
00:41:20
who rule or shape the world it's the key to engage in your character with the game world,
00:41:26
so if you haven't already scan over the icons which i'll give a brief little
00:41:30
rundown of those real quick,
00:41:32
and as you decide on the relationship to the icons that suits your player's
00:41:37
character, remember that it's nature of the magical world that even the most
00:41:42
powerful figures need a lot of help to accomplish their goals.
00:41:45
The icons have risen to power levels where they balance each other out in an uneasy equilibrium.
00:41:51
To advance their agendas further, the icons need heroes, and that's where we kind of go in.
00:41:57
So let me throw up. I did kind of prepare a little brief thing for the icons here.
00:42:05
All right, so we have the Emperor. He's the immortal ruler of the Dragon Empire from his throne.
00:42:09
And ancient and powerful, he commands respect and loyalty.
00:42:14
But his power is slipping. We have the Priestess, which is the living embodiment of the Three Faiths.
00:42:20
She leads the faithful warrior priests and seeks to uphold religious traditions and authority.
00:42:26
We have the Archmage, which is an entity possibly comprised of the souls of
00:42:32
many wizards or one wizard. It's a little ubiquitous on that, on purpose.
00:42:37
And, you know, their motives are mysterious. Magic shit. Magic shit indeed, sir.
00:42:43
We have the Dwarven King. He's the ruler of the Dwarven realms,
00:42:47
known as Dwarven Hearth.
00:42:49
And he's grim and yielding. He safeguards Dwarven prosperity and ancestral legacies.
00:42:55
We had the Elf Queen, this ethereal sovereign of the elves in their woodland realm of Vinylmare.
00:43:05
I believe that's how it's pronounced.
00:43:06
She embodies the ancient ties of Elvenkind to nature's power.
00:43:10
Again, this is just a brief run-through. There's an entire page dedicated to these people.
00:43:16
There's the Orc Lord, which is Bloodthirster, a war-mongering leader of savage Orc tribes.
00:43:21
We have the Illijka King, who is the dead monarch of the Undying Legions,
00:43:25
eternally hungry to snuff out all life.
00:43:28
We have the Three Orcs, I've missed the main dragon. Shoot.
00:43:33
The Great Gold Worm. The Great Gold Worm.
00:43:37
He is the world's protector and the inspiration for holy orders of paladins
00:43:42
and independent heroes.
00:43:43
Although the Gold Worm's physical form seals the gap that prevents the Abyss
00:43:48
from erupting into the world, his dreams and the agents he employs still move
00:43:52
through the world, helping those who will fight and even die for what is right.
00:43:58
It's a giant gold cork. More or less, yeah. Yeah.
00:44:04
On the other side of that, we have the three, which are... Among the first dragons to walk the world.
00:44:13
Basically, they're called the Three, and they're three-colored dragons.
00:44:17
So there's the Red, who is a living engine of destruction.
00:44:20
The Blue is a sorceress, perhaps even the original mother of all sorcery.
00:44:24
And the Black is queen of shadows and assassins.
00:44:28
Unlike the great gold worm who must fight alone, the three have learned to join forces.
00:44:33
So the three will never face the gazebo. Oh no, you must face the gazebo alone.
00:44:38
We also had the Diabolus, which is a patron of the demon cults,
00:44:45
forbidden knowledge, possibly human, that has very much an address in this kind of way.
00:44:51
As I talked about the Astygians, I think they kind of warped what they are and what they were.
00:44:59
We've got the Crusader, which is the Armored Fist of the Dark Gods.
00:45:04
We have the... I was going to say the Emperor.
00:45:08
I did the Archmage. It looks like I'm missing out on the Prince of Shadows.
00:45:14
Prince of Shadows is a trickster who exploits and reshapes the world nearly
00:45:18
as often as they redistribute its wealth. They're the Robin Hood,
00:45:22
but maybe not as nice, I guess you could say.
00:45:26
He is part thief, part trickster, and part assassin. To some,
00:45:30
he is a hero. To others, a villain.
00:45:32
He has squandered the riches of the dwarves, murdered the hopes of the dragon,
00:45:36
and plundered the dreams of a god.
00:45:39
His exploits have changed the world, but none can tell you his ultimate goal or motives.
00:45:44
If I skipped over anything, I want to apologize for this here.
00:45:48
Looks like at level one, each character gets three relationship points.
00:45:52
The number of points you spend on a relationship is a measure to the overall usefulness.
00:45:58
And this relationship mechanic lets you roll 1d6 per point invested in a relationship
00:46:05
when you're trying to leverage your connection with the icons.
00:46:09
And then we've got to actually pick one that's a negative, too.
00:46:12
So, icon relationship master chart above summarizes the likely role-playing
00:46:18
and sort-oriented consequences of positive, conflicted, or negative relationships
00:46:23
with heroic, ambiguous, and villainous icons.
00:46:26
So, we basically have to put two plus ones and one in negative? Is that right?
00:46:33
I think, well, it's three. Each character gets three relationship points.
00:46:38
I'm trying to look and see where the chart is.
00:46:41
13th Age assumes your plan is heroes. If you want to run a game as an archvillain,
00:46:45
you may want to flop the maximum stuff.
00:46:50
So go on page 37. Spend one, two, or three points.
00:46:54
So we could burn all three at once or kind of spread them out.
00:46:59
And then you get to spend one, two, or three points.
00:47:04
I can see why they're wanting to redo this here. Okay.
00:47:07
So i can tell you
00:47:10
that two that i feel like supporting just because it fits the nature of the
00:47:16
character the the elf queen and the high druid because the high druid has to
00:47:22
do with the wilds and the elf queen basically if you're an elf you kind of have
00:47:28
to say something for the elf queen,
00:47:31
Yeah. She gets a little bit of your reverence because pointy ears.
00:47:38
I'm glad you mentioned the Hydruid because I left that one out.
00:47:41
I think that I want to put two points with the Priestess. That seems to kind of go with mine.
00:47:48
I'm going to just put a plus two there for the time being. And I may...
00:47:53
Hmm. I think I should have at least one point somewhere else.
00:47:57
I think the Great Gold Worm.
00:47:59
Christy, what about yourself? Alright, well, I've got to go for that Priestess.
00:48:04
You know, it's kind of an obvious fit right there.
00:48:07
Let's see. I feel like I've got a negative relationship with the Orc Lord,
00:48:12
because while he does support Barbarians, I feel like I don't like that support of Barbarian.
00:48:18
So, he dislikes me because I won't toe his line.
00:48:22
And I dislike him because you don't get a monopoly on Barbarian.
00:48:27
Some of us non-Orcs like wearing furs, too.
00:48:31
So i've got a positive relationship
00:48:34
with the elf queen a positive relationship with the high
00:48:37
druid and a negative relationship with the orc lord i think
00:48:40
the lish king would be a good negative for me well think
00:48:44
of it like this you've got positive conflicted or
00:48:47
negative now negative relationships with villainous
00:48:50
icons the icon is out to get you
00:48:53
at least in the abstract or by implication this
00:48:57
relationship often implies some special knowledge you have about the icon or
00:49:01
power against the icon so if you have a negative relation with the lich king
00:49:07
there is a reason why you dislike the lich king and a reason why he dislikes
00:49:12
you so keep that in mind i'm barrel.
00:49:16
Oh dare you i repopulate as
00:49:20
quick as he he's killing how dare you that good man has made all sorts of good
00:49:28
men's around the entire kingdom one day i will smite him do we have to spend
00:49:35
any points for conflicted or it's just three points in general it's just what
00:49:38
i think it's three points in general.
00:49:41
So if you had gone for Conflicted, the icon has reasons both to destroy you and to support you.
00:49:48
This sort of relationship is a rich vein for personal drama.
00:49:52
You might be an angst-driven former villain, a hero who is secretly drawn to
00:49:58
a hidden dark streak, or a well-intentioned hero who is embroiled with the villain
00:50:03
through no fault of your own.
00:50:07
I'm going to change mine real quick. So,
00:50:11
I am going to check out the Great Worm as another positive, and I think I'm
00:50:16
going to put the Emperor as a conflicted one, and it's all those fraternity tests. Yes.
00:50:25
I mean, we appreciate what you're doing, but... Yes, we understand that you're
00:50:30
trying to make the Great Empire of Humanity stronger, personally.
00:50:35
Listen, man, we're not here to be on board with the Quiverful movement.
00:50:40
His Majesty the Emperor has gifted you with a present This is a codpiece with
00:50:47
a rather large chain and a lock on it Take the message I fucking hate the horny bard meme,
00:50:53
I'm going for the paladin So I
00:50:58
interrupted you Chris and I apologize for that I would
00:51:00
love to know which movers and
00:51:03
shakers like you or ambivalent towards
00:51:06
you or actively seek to destroy you well i
00:51:09
was thinking about that and considering i accidentally
00:51:13
ate a god i think i
00:51:16
have a negative relationship with
00:51:19
the great gold worm that's not
00:51:22
my fault though right i didn't do that i will have a complicated relationship
00:51:30
with the elf queen i believe because you know as a wood elf i should have a
00:51:37
relationship with her but as an orphan not really,
00:51:42
And I think I'm going to have a positive relationship with the three,
00:51:44
because the blue helped me with my magical learning.
00:51:52
Perhaps you're the bastard son of the Elf Queen. I doubt that.
00:51:57
So you realize that the three are villainous in nature, right?
00:52:03
I mean, you believe that, yeah.
00:52:05
It straight up has the three as an icon of villainy. Yeah, you believe that.
00:52:12
The world believes that. They believe that. Sure. Okay.
00:52:17
Like, they straight up have their own villain card. The one says,
00:52:21
come to see me in evil lair.
00:52:23
Evil lair. So, how do you feel about the Orc Lord again?
00:52:28
I hate the Orc Lord. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.
00:52:32
The Orc Lord is, he's a villain. Mm-hmm. He's bad. Mm-hmm.
00:52:37
He's very bad. it looks like we're
00:52:40
up to the backgrounds and we've
00:52:43
already did feet and we'll do gear off mic we
00:52:46
can just kind of stat stuff out here no one no one likes a shopping montage
00:52:51
so backgrounds and skill checks selecting your backgrounds is one of the fun
00:52:56
parts of character creation i am reading directly from the book by the way as
00:53:00
you couldn't tell where you make up a story elements and add to the game.
00:53:05
Each background is a piece of the character's history. It contributes to the
00:53:08
character's ability to succeed with non-combat skills.
00:53:12
Instead of assigning points to skills as you would other D20 games,
00:53:17
in 13th Age you assign a certain number of points, usually eight.
00:53:22
To backgrounds. With backgrounds, you still choose how to allocate a certain
00:53:27
number of points that function as bonuses to D20 skill rows,
00:53:32
but these points aren't pegged to individual skills.
00:53:36
Instead, you put them into backgrounds, which are broad categories of experience,
00:53:41
cat burglar, for example, rather than implementations of experience such as climbing and hiding.
00:53:47
Backgrounds don't sync to any ability score, though some backgrounds obviously
00:53:52
may be used more often with certain ability scores than others.
00:53:57
So each player character starts going to the next section on assigning them.
00:54:02
Each character gets eight background points, though the Bard,
00:54:06
Rogue, Ranger, and Wizard have talents that allure them bonuses.
00:54:12
Assign your background points to as many backgrounds as you want.
00:54:18
Up to your total points. You assign a maximum of five points to a single background.
00:54:24
You can. You don't have to.
00:54:25
When you roll a skill check to find out if you succeed a task or trick,
00:54:31
the GM generally tells you which ability score can be tested.
00:54:34
So you can get that nice little plus.
00:54:37
Then you, and in some cases the GM, choose a background you think is relevant
00:54:41
to gain points you have in the background as a bonus to the skill check.
00:54:46
In rare cases, the GM may tell you that the background you're arguing for isn't
00:54:50
actually relevant and that you won't get to add the background points to the skill check.
00:54:56
In other rare cases, your role-playing approach to the situation may lead to
00:55:01
some, may require the GM assessment, as the book says.
00:55:06
So I think with, I'm kind of cutting it short there, but I think it's a little
00:55:13
something mentioned about our backgrounds. also under each character overview.
00:55:18
So you may want to double check those. I know, for example,
00:55:22
For paladins, that background, paladins are usually high-disciplined warriors
00:55:25
rather than untrained neophytes.
00:55:30
Yeah, so there's a couple things we could take into consideration.
00:55:33
It says I could have started as a city guardsman, a combat medic,
00:55:37
a bodyguard, an outlaw, a seawall
00:55:40
captain, a citadel, golden citadel archaeologist, Elcrin's courtier.
00:55:46
Well, that does sound interesting. So, yeah, there's quite a bit here.
00:55:51
So do you all think, should we take a moment off mic to look at these and jump
00:55:56
back in, or do you want to do it live?
00:55:57
Okay with doing it live, because I've already taken a few moments to figure mine out.
00:56:02
Just because I've had a little bit of experience with this, I will tell you that my two,
00:56:11
because I'm only going to be doing two of them here, I've got
00:56:15
orphan knowledge in barbaric skills
00:56:18
as my two catch-alls specifically because
00:56:21
there are things that I learned as an
00:56:24
orphan that I am going to be applying to any of my knowledge roles like it's
00:56:31
one of those things where how did you learn this well things that got talked
00:56:34
about around orphans that people don't really think about because you don't
00:56:38
realize the The orphan is right there just absorbing things like a sponge.
00:56:42
And then barbaric skills are things that I learned how to do by being a barbarian.
00:56:49
Like when it comes to...
00:56:52
I know how to break open a door because barbarian smash. I am not going to be
00:56:56
picking a lock because that doesn't fall under barbaric skills.
00:57:00
But on the other hand, smashing door open does.
00:57:03
Does that make sense as far as how I'm breaking that down? Yeah.
00:57:07
And you're going to distribute eight points between those two.
00:57:11
Yes. In fact, I'm splitting it right down the middle four and four.
00:57:14
Okay. Because it makes it nice and easy.
00:57:17
Christy, do you have any ideas for your cleric? Well.
00:57:22
I was thinking of maybe a Me Too, because really my character has been tagging
00:57:29
along all her life and doing her best to fit in with whoever she's following around with.
00:57:37
So she's kind of, you know, observing how to fit in.
00:57:41
So Me Too, maybe, gives me a little bit of good for a lot of different little things. I like that.
00:57:50
It's basically the, I'm going to roll to assist mechanic on pretty much everything.
00:57:57
That's glorious. And then I need at least one more. Think about that one.
00:58:05
Might I suggest. So how did you come to be a cleric?
00:58:09
You see this one time when I ate a mushroom, it really did some weird stuff.
00:58:15
And I walked off and came to a temple. Okay.
00:58:22
So might I suggest mushroom samba for the other one? How do you know this?
00:58:27
Well, this one time I ate a mushroom.
00:58:30
Have that particular background be an explanation for all sorts of story-appropriate weird things.
00:58:38
So the hallucinogenics on it have just never really gone completely away?
00:58:44
Sometimes just weird things happen. Sometimes weird things just happen.
00:58:50
Does that work for you, Adam? And does that work for you, Christy?
00:58:53
Does that fit for your various idioms of the game, both of yous?
00:59:00
You know i'm fine with it and it
00:59:03
could give somebody a chance to really mess with
00:59:06
my character oh hey yeah that's
00:59:11
not real adam will that work for you
00:59:13
oh i totally fine with me i am going to do a weird split here with mine if you
00:59:19
guys are okay with it absolutely what kind of weird are you thinking adam so
00:59:26
here's what i'm thinking for my background i like the idea The romantic Kevin Costner figure from,
00:59:32
you know, Bodyguard Whitney Houston kind of deal like that.
00:59:35
Because I have an image of my character holding the musical starlet or bard in my arms.
00:59:41
So I'm going to put four points in that.
00:59:43
But as you were talking about my class background, David, like how did I get into being a paladin?
00:59:50
Well, but also, how did I get to become such a prolific lover?
00:59:56
However, well, they've said the only man that could ever please me was what?
01:00:02
Son of a preacher man. Yeah. Oh, you are breaking out from dusty Springfield here. I love it.
01:00:08
So I'm going to do plus three and son of a preacher man.
01:00:12
And I think a plus one to also kind of explain my continued series of bad decisions.
01:00:19
Plus one in Barfly, hanging around tavern. I'll allow it. I love it.
01:00:24
I like this mix. If this game takes off and I'm the one running it and all that,
01:00:27
obviously, if I have my character there, he'll be an NPC or something like that.
01:00:32
But it seems like we got a pretty good spread with what you all are working with here.
01:00:39
I like it. I think, honestly, this may be...
01:00:43
I mean, there's guild checks and stuff like that, but I don't know if that's
01:00:48
something we should do on mic or if we might just go ahead and call it C.
01:00:51
Well the one last thing i
01:00:54
did want to mention is that we do get a
01:00:56
feat at every level oh it looks like or at least there's a space for 10 of them
01:01:02
on the sheet yeah and i am starting with a feat that dovetails nicely into one
01:01:10
of my talents so i've got one class feature and i've got my choice of three different talents.
01:01:17
So just to go into that real quick, my talents that I am focusing on are Barbaric
01:01:27
Cleave, Building Frenzy, and I'm Unstoppable.
01:01:30
Just because the Sia song, I'm Unstoppable, just kind of resonates in my head.
01:01:35
It's like, you're not going to stop me today. the fun thing
01:01:39
with those barbarian abilities are
01:01:42
if i can jump over to them real
01:01:45
quick come on work with me here pdf okay here we go so barbarian rage the basic
01:01:51
one once per day i can use a quick action to start raging a rage lasts until
01:01:56
the end of battle or around five minutes if you decide to rage out of combat
01:02:00
for dramatic role-playing effect and while raging i roll 2d20 to hit with
01:02:04
my Barbarian Melee and Throne Weapon attacks instead of 1d20.
01:02:08
Use the higher roll for the attack. If you roll a natural 11+,
01:02:11
with both dice, and your highest attack roll is a hit, it's a critical.
01:02:15
So that's Barbarian Rage in and of itself.
01:02:20
The three adventure-tier talents that I picked up, Barbaric Cleave,
01:02:24
once per battle as a free action, I can make another Barbarian Melee attack
01:02:29
after I've dropped a non-mook foe to zero, or dropping the last mook of a mook mob would also qualify.
01:02:39
Then the second one that I grabbed is Building Frenzy. One battle per day as
01:02:44
a free action after I have missed with an attack deal plus 1d4 damage with your
01:02:50
melee attacks until the end of the battle.
01:02:52
Deal an additional plus 1d4 additional damage each time one of your attacks
01:02:56
misses up to a maximum of additional four dice.
01:03:00
And then on Unstoppable, once
01:03:02
per battle, declare you're using Unstoppable before making a melee attack.
01:03:06
If your attack hits at least one target, you can heal using a recovery.
01:03:11
Now, each of those has an adventure feat attached to it.
01:03:15
And so I am going to start out by taking my adventure feat onto Barbarian Rage.
01:03:22
So that one is that whenever the escalation die is at a four or higher,
01:03:26
as a quick action, I can start raging for free.
01:03:29
It doesn't account against my normal usage.
01:03:31
And this rage lasts until the end of the battle as normal.
01:03:35
Now, what's really fun with that one is that that feat escalates.
01:03:39
So the adventurer feat is four or better i can take it as a champion feat which
01:03:45
now means that i rage freely when the escalation die is at a three and epic
01:03:49
is you can now start raging for free when the escalation die is at a two so
01:03:54
i just get angrier faster which is lovely.
01:03:58
The barbaric cleave the adventurer feat has gained a plus two attack bonus on
01:04:03
it But Building Frenzy I like because the bonus damage dice for the whiffs just keep going up.
01:04:10
So it goes up to D6s, then it goes up to D10s.
01:04:14
And then the epic feat is you can use Building Frenzy twice a day.
01:04:17
So that one is absolutely adorable because I get a bonus every time I miss.
01:04:24
So I'm not sure how often that's going to come to play, but it's going to be great.
01:04:29
Now everybody gets a feat at
01:04:33
level one and there are some general feats
01:04:36
that you can pick from for instance there is improved initiative
01:04:39
which is always fun yeah but there are also feats that are tied into your abilities
01:04:46
so take a look at the various abilities that you've got and figure out which
01:04:52
one is going to be one that you're going to use more frequently than others
01:04:56
and that's going to be one that you can attack or attach to.
01:04:59
You can also use the racial feat that is attached to your racial ability.
01:05:05
So, one of the ones that we've discussed a little bit is that as a high elf, I get to teleport.
01:05:14
So, what's fun with that is that
01:05:16
if I wanted to, I could take the feat attached to the high elf ability.
01:05:22
So, once for battle is a move action, place yourself in a nearby location you
01:05:27
can see. So, I can just auto-teleport, right? Right.
01:05:29
The champion feat is deal damage equal to twice your level to one enemy engaged
01:05:35
with you before or after you teleport.
01:05:38
So you can basically do your level times two damage to one target as you are just bamfing through.
01:05:45
So that's another thing to look at.
01:05:48
Let's see, you're playing a human. Christy is playing a half-elf. Yeah.
01:05:53
Yours is surprising. That's your racial power. Once per battle,
01:05:56
subtract one from the natural result of one of your own D20 rolls.
01:06:01
And the champion feat is you can gain an additional use of surprising each battle,
01:06:06
and you can only use it to affect a nearby ally's D20 roll.
01:06:10
So the reason why that is important is because 13th Age does some lovely things with dice.
01:06:18
Sometimes they say that you can do a great thing as long as you've got an even-numbered die roll.
01:06:24
So if you roll a 17, but a 16 lets you trigger this ability,
01:06:30
you can pop your surprising to just kind of go, hey, that 17 was actually a
01:06:36
16, and that means that I get to do double damage because I rolled even.
01:06:40
Gotcha. Or whatever the thing is. Pretty nice.
01:06:45
It's very nice. So we only get one feat, though?
01:06:48
Or do we get one of general, racial, and class? We only get one.
01:06:54
But we get them more frequently in this game than we do in other games. Yeah.
01:07:01
So let's see. At level one, you get one adventurer. At level two,
01:07:06
you get a second adventurer.
01:07:08
Three, four. And then at level five, you should have four adventurer feats plus one champion.
01:07:14
And then at six, you get a champion. At seven, you get a champion.
01:07:19
And at eight, you get an epic. At nine, you get an epic. And at ten, you get another epic.
01:07:24
So at level 10, you should have a grand total of 10 feats, but they'll be broken
01:07:29
down as four adventurer, three champion, and three epic.
01:07:33
Sounds pretty cool. I think it really is. Yeah. That's pretty nice.
01:07:37
And humans start with an additional feat at first level, so you basically get
01:07:43
two feats at level one because you're a human.
01:07:47
I may just take Smite Evil. That seems like a good one to have,
01:07:51
and then there's another one. I wonder if it's strong recovery or toughness would be a good one.
01:07:57
Toughness, you get additional hit points equal to half your baseline class hit points rounded down.
01:08:03
So, for instance, your baseline hit points for a ranger would be seven.
01:08:08
Yeah. So that means that they would gain an additional three hit points every level with toughness.
01:08:16
Mine, that's before the multiplication, right? The seven.
01:08:20
Yeah. before so mine was 10 so i
01:08:23
would get an additional five well actually
01:08:27
no it's baseline so what was your con
01:08:29
modifier my cons plus two so that
01:08:33
means that yours is eight as your baseline yeah so you gain an extra four with
01:08:38
toughness now once you hit level five though the total bonus increases to your
01:08:44
baseline hit point value and then at level eight it increases to double your
01:08:49
baseline hit point value.
01:08:50
So toughness is another one of those ones that scales up stronger as you level.
01:08:57
You were looking at strong recovery or possible and it can pick one it's either
01:09:02
that or yeah recovery yeah strong recovery is when you roll recovery dice re-roll
01:09:07
one of the dice and use the higher result at fifth level you re-roll two and
01:09:11
then at eighth level you re-roll three so,
01:09:13
that's another one that scales it just means that when you
01:09:16
recover if you roll a one on your
01:09:19
recovery die that die only gives you
01:09:22
one hit point but having the ability to re-roll
01:09:25
it is actually fairly useful i'm not
01:09:27
going to bother with that one personally because you know
01:09:31
me and you know how much the dice freaking love me so i don't think that i'm
01:09:35
going to have that problem well i can re-roll this eight and maybe get it into
01:09:39
a nine i i don't think it's going to matter for me on that one christy what
01:09:45
did you decide on oh i'm just going to go ahead and take that surprising
01:09:49
because it sounds like it could be useful as there's that weird dice stuff that
01:09:53
david was talking about.
01:09:55
How often does the weird dice stuff apply to you? Because... I don't know.
01:10:01
So let's take a look at that and we'll find out. Shall we? Do you mind if we
01:10:06
take a quick peek and find out just how useful it is?
01:10:09
So we're going to take a look in the Cleric section.
01:10:13
I know that this is a little bit of min-maxing, but I feel like it should be
01:10:19
mentioned because like Like, for instance, some of the different spells that you can cast.
01:10:26
Let's take a look at spellcasting, because some of these are a little bit different.
01:10:31
Like, let's see, Hammer of Faith until the end of the battle.
01:10:34
Your basic melee attacks use D12s. Okay, that's a fun one.
01:10:39
Javelin of Faith is a useful one. I've kind of figured out what spells I want
01:10:45
to take, because I get four.
01:10:47
First level. Which my thought was Cure Wounds, Javelin of Faith,
01:10:52
Shield of Faith, and Hammer of Faith. Okay.
01:10:55
So Cure Wounds is a quick action. You or a nearby ally can heal using a free recovery.
01:11:01
Hammer of Faith is the one where you change your melee attack damage to D12s, which is fun.
01:11:08
And then the other one you were looking at was which one?
01:11:11
Javelin of Faith and Shield of Faith. Okay. Okay, so Javelin of Faith is ranged,
01:11:16
one nearby creature, and then Shield of Faith, quick action to cast.
01:11:21
You can cast a spell for power, for broad effect.
01:11:25
One nearby ally gains plus two to AC, or cast for broad effect,
01:11:30
choose up to three nearby creatures, including you.
01:11:33
They get a bonus of plus one. Okay, so none of the spells that you're looking
01:11:38
at have the odd or even mechanic that really jumps in.
01:11:41
Okay, so there's no point in taking surprising because it's, or not mainly.
01:11:47
Let's take a look. What is your domain that you're going to go with?
01:11:52
Okay, you actually get to choose three domains.
01:11:55
On here. Okay. Because some of the bard spells definitely have that ability
01:12:04
where when you make the roll, if it's odd, it does a thing. If it's even,
01:12:08
it does a different thing.
01:12:09
And I don't see any, none of the domains are jumping out with that.
01:12:15
So that racial ability isn't as useful for you.
01:12:20
Okay. Gotcha, gotcha. Gotcha. Now, as support goes, I don't know if Adam's got
01:12:27
any of those abilities that require it, or if Chris has any abilities that require it.
01:12:33
So with that said, half-elf is great for flavor, but I don't think you're going
01:12:39
to be using your racial ability all that much.
01:12:42
But that's okay. You don't have to. I don't have to. I'll figure out a feat here.
01:12:48
Yeah, here it is. so in bards because
01:12:51
bards have what are called battle cries and so
01:12:54
you're uh okay so here it is like one of the bards first level battle cries
01:13:01
is called move it and the triggering role is a natural even role so choose one
01:13:06
one of your unengaged allies can move as a free action or one of your engaged
01:13:10
allies can make a disengage for free.
01:13:14
It together. Flexible melee. Natural 11, use only twice per battle.
01:13:19
Let's see, there's one that's called We Need You, which is on a natural even hit.
01:13:24
A nearby conscious ally can roll a save against save ends effect.
01:13:28
So you can basically as a bard, if you make the right roll.
01:13:33
So each of those are the ones that require a natural even roll.
01:13:37
You can modify them to turn them into natural even rolls.
01:13:41
So half health bard gets massive to where it's like those two things that are
01:13:47
battle cries they have access to at level one always hit once per battle because
01:13:53
you can use that surprising once per battle which is wonderful,
01:13:58
but outside of bards i know i'm trying to see who else has one of those odd
01:14:04
or even things that has to happen i'm not seeing it right off i'm sorry but
01:14:10
with that said i will save dirga the fierce,
01:14:14
and i will send you the character sheet so that you
01:14:17
can post it with the roll-up that sounds totally great
01:14:20
man i appreciate it this view y'all go ahead i'll cobble together mine i'm going
01:14:24
to double check myself just to make sure i'm 100 okay i'll probably go ahead
01:14:28
and pick out some stats and stuff like that just finish it and if you happen
01:14:33
to listen to view mine and notice I've messed up. My bad, dude.
01:14:38
And for those of you who are already thinking about drawing fan arts of the
01:14:41
characters, I have a definite look that I am thinking for Dorga.
01:14:47
I'm going to go barbarian classics, so I am going to be wearing the furs and
01:14:53
the leathers with just wide swaths of just exposed thigh or bare arms.
01:15:02
Because why not?
01:15:05
Let's be fair. If you're got a barbarian hero, might as well make it the standard
01:15:09
barbarian hero. Let's make it fun.
01:15:13
Awesome. Well, and for those, we have mentioned it on Mike here,
01:15:18
but Chris actually had to run off.
01:15:19
So we'll also kind of follow up with him a little bit after the fact here.
01:15:23
But David, Christy, thank you all so much. I've had a really great time visiting this game.
01:15:28
Well, thank you. It was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having us.
01:15:32
Oh, pleasure's all mine.
01:15:34
For all of our listeners out there If you're listening to this in the month
01:15:38
of April Or let's be honest,
01:15:41
It'll be close to May when this one gets posted To Patreon I'd
01:15:44
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01:15:46
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01:15:50
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01:16:19
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01:16:22
And until next time we'll see y'all later. Bye bye. Bye. Bye.
01:16:29
Music.