Legends in the Making: Crafting Your First Weapon-Wielding Character

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Andrew (00:07):
Welcome travelers to another fantastic episode of
Legends Loot and Lore.
Rejoining the podcast after aside quest of several months is
Joe.

Joe (00:24):
Hello everybody out there in D&D land Welcome back Joe.
Thank you.
Nice to have you back, I knowit's been a long time I've been
missing this.

Andrew (00:36):
Get yourself a little closer to the microphone.

Joe (00:37):
Joe, I've been missing this , have you?
Yes, I was.
As everybody will remember.
I left as soon as I was helpingcoach some soccer and you know,
every Saturday I had a lot offun.
But this was always in the backof my mind and I eagerly
awaited every Monday for the newepisodes and all the interviews
that you did.
I love them all.
I hope you keep doing theinterviews too and we can kind

(01:00):
of fit them in there, because Igotta say you're really good at
them.

Andrew (01:04):
Well, thank you, Thank you very much.
I had my two.
I had an audience of two,Geordi and Geordi and Fizban.

Joe (01:13):
They were just.
Since I've been back in theroom, they have told me that
they loved your interviews.

Andrew (01:20):
I'm sure they do.
They love just sitting herelistening and getting all the
attention, yep.
So now that we're now that theparty is back at full strength
we are going to talk today aboutwe're going to actually create
a couple of characters, and sowe're going to walk everybody

(01:41):
through the whole process.
We're going to use D&D Beyondto create these characters and
walk you through that process soyou can get a feel for what a
lot of all the options are andwhat everything means, etc.
And we will.
We're going to create both akind of weapon, what I always
call a weapon wielder, like abarbarian or rogue paladin,

(02:08):
those types of guys thatprimarily fight with weapons,
and then we'll do a spellcasteras well warlock, sorcerer,
wizard, something to that extent.
So we're going to pick those atrandom.
So who knows what's going tohappen?
It'll be a roll of the dice.

Joe (02:25):
Aren't you forgetting a little something, what we have
to update them on?

Andrew (02:28):
the campaign.
Geez, what's been happening?
I need an update on thecampaign, but that's what we're
going to talk about today.
Yes, let's, let's, let's updateeverybody on on the campaign.
What, what has happened, whatis?

Joe (02:56):
what is so when the last we spoke before my hiatus, yes you
guys were getting ready.
You were investigating adragon's layer in the sea of
moving ice and you guys werefinally making your way into the
layer and trying to get to thedragon.
More specifically, he washolding hostage with somebody
who had expertise that thecouncil needed to fight the

(03:19):
dragons.

Andrew (03:21):
Hang on one second Joe.
Before you go into that, youneed to go look out the window.

Joe (03:27):
Oh no, I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing tieflings
for life.

Andrew (03:31):
I don't know, I don't know what you're going to say,
but but take a look.

Joe (03:43):
Bards are mid Joe, who Are superior?
Is that supposed to be likemiddle ground?

Andrew (03:58):
It's not a compliment.

Joe (03:59):
Well, I've never heard of mid as a term, as a adjective
before.

Andrew (04:04):
Yes, so so our, our neighbor Fable, who is, who's, a
D&D player as well, has hastaken an obsession of getting
back at me has taken offense tosome of Joe's, joe's comments on
the podcast about tieflings.
So and and and since since Joeis more of a musical character,

(04:28):
a bard to some extent.
So our neighbor Fable has hasdeclared that bards are mid,
which is which is again it's,it's kind of it's the.
Is that basically?

Joe (04:42):
saying bars are average.

Andrew (04:44):
Barred bars are eh.
Bars are eh.

Joe (04:47):
I don't mind that.
I'll be honest with you.
As long as I'm not like thatsucks, Then I'm in pretty good
shape.
As long as I'm in the average.
I've always said I'm an averageJoe.

Andrew (04:56):
So it's more like subpar , it's not a compliment, it's
not meant to be a compliment.
And then, and then, joe, whobecause I think I think that was
Catherine, that was Catherine'scomment about.
I will not forget that,catherine, because because you,
you have not, you've, you'vebeen absent for so long.

(05:19):
So so, joe, who is?
Is that that barb, that barredbarb?
Cutting words and what, andwhat was the last one about
tieflings?

Joe (05:31):
tieflings are superior tieflings are superior.
So yeah, yes, she took offenseat me, saying that the people,
the races and individuals ingame tend to look down on
tieflings as dangerous, and whenI was commenting on that, she
thought I was.
She thought I was personallydoing it that way, or she just

(05:53):
decided it would be a good wayto rid me, which is fine too,
because it is funny every timeit's like tieflings.
They they Catherine.
At Catherine's birthday partythey drew a picture of me.
It was just a bunch ofscribbles and everybody said it
captured my likeness quite well.

Andrew (06:13):
Yeah, so so our, so our neighbor, has has some, some
strong, strong words for for Joetoday.

Joe (06:21):
I still think it's unfounded.
But hey, how you doing overthere Fable.

Andrew (06:27):
So, thank you, thank you .
That that was our.

Joe (06:31):
That was a live interruption.

Andrew (06:35):
I got the text message from from Fable that said tell
him to look out the window.
So so I had to relay themessage.

Joe (06:45):
So anyway, yes, you guys had been getting ready to go and
face the dragon and eventuallynow I'm going to fast forward
through a lot of stuff because adecent amount has happened you
guys did go and face the dragonIn only I think it was three
terms, like not even threecomplete terms you took down a
large adult dragon, which is notnothing to sneeze at.

(07:08):
We know that I think about this, or that's 18 seconds in real
life.
You guys took down a live, alarge adult dragon.
So you know, that's prettyimpressive.
I need to start like mixing in,like tougher guys for you, and
I did recently.

Andrew (07:21):
You really, you really do.
Yeah, it's, it's.
It's definitely got a littlemore difficult.

Joe (07:28):
The problem is is, like you know, they're supposed to be
facing up against this big baddragon and when they take him
out in 18 seconds is like, ok,no problem, I'll add more
creatures.
And then all of a sudden, nowwe've got five people playing
and then I have six creaturesfacing off against you, and the
amount of time it takes for aturn to rotate.
It's almost like 10 minutes, orfive to 10 minutes, before
somebody gets a chance to maketheir second action, and it just

(07:51):
slows the game down.

Andrew (07:52):
What about just more difficult individual, that's.
That's what I've been doing,yeah.

Joe (07:58):
I've been beefing up.
So, anyway, you guys made itback to town.
Yes, and you, I think you weregoing back to not Baldur's Gate,
what a deep.
You guys made it back to waterdeep.
And the town, the council, sentyou on a mission to chase down
one of the wearers of purple,who was one of the leaders of
the dragon cult.
This one had been disgraced, butthey still thought this one

(08:20):
would have more information foryou.
So you guys started off huntingthem, and on your way to
hunting them, you come out totwo encounters so far.
One of them was against threehill giants, which didn't do as
much damage as I was hoping, butit took a good amount of time,
and the other one was againstthis creature that was part

(08:41):
specter, part ghost it was.
I was actually quite proud ofhow well that one handled.
I almost took out.
I think I almost took out Stevewith that guy.
I think you did, and so it'slike it's giving me ideas of how
to boost up.
I'm not exactly sure whathappened.
I don't know if I'm not playingthe enemies to their maximum
capability or you guys had aboost somehow.

(09:03):
Well, first of all, you'replaying with five people and the
adventure is supposed to belike five to six, but I really
don't think that that's reallythe factor.
I think they made the adventuretoo easy.

Andrew (09:13):
Have you, have you tried the encounter?
Builder in D&D beyond.

Joe (09:17):
I have not, but I have noticed that they have their own
map thing going.
Yes, that looks veryinteresting.

Andrew (09:22):
We played that in the campaign that I'm doing on
Wednesdays.
We tried that a little bit andit's really, it's really pretty
interesting.
You can import your own mapsbut whatever source books you
have that they have the maps foryou can bring those maps in.

Joe (09:40):
Oh, so you can do that if you have the digital copy of it.

Andrew (09:42):
Yes, like Fandel, like I'll show you Well, so I
actually experimented with it.
I actually experimented with it.

Joe (09:47):
I took the Phandelver, I took the map of Phandelver that
I use using the tabletop, that Iuse, yes, and I put it in there
and I was like, wow, this isactually really neat.
Yeah, it's obviously aprototype or an early version.

Andrew (10:01):
I think it's an alpha.

Joe (10:02):
they're calling it at this point Of what they want to do
because they want to make this afully virtual tabletop
experience with special effects,dice rolling, everything.
So it's like you know they're.
I mean this is.
This is where they've beengoing since they announced one
D&D Right they, they, they wantto revamping all the rules, and
now they're bringing this out.
So it's, it's going to changethe entire dynamic of everything

(10:24):
.

Andrew (10:25):
It's certainly well, but I it's, it's.
I think it's super cool.
I think the map feature is eveneven in its infancy.
Is is a really spectacularaddition for those that don't
necessarily use a virtualtabletop program already.
So if you want to keepeverything in D&D, you have
access to all the monsters rightthere and it brings.

(10:46):
It brings everything in If youyou've got the characters
already.

Joe (10:49):
So it's especially for new people or people who are looking
for transition, like for newpeople is like look, I don't
have to go buy a tabletop, avirtual tabletop, and then buy
the component.
You can buy it all here,correct?
So anyway, you guys had foughttwo separate encounters in the
woods while searching for thisguy and you had just finished

(11:09):
the last battle.
We've been having a littletrouble getting advancing on the
storyline, so, despite the factthat it's been about two months
since he's gotten an update, wereally haven't gotten that far.

Andrew (11:20):
Haven't gotten very far.

Joe (11:22):
But the good news is there's only the storyline.
Only has a few chapters left.
It's just getting through thosechapters, Right.

Andrew (11:31):
And we'll get there eventually.

Joe (11:32):
Of course we will Absolutely.
So anyway, back to the ourcharacter creation.

Andrew (11:42):
Yes, character creation.
So we've, in the interveningweeks since you were last year,
we've talked a lot aboutcharacter creation, character
backstory, we've talked a lotabout the theory behind behind
creating characters and how theyfit into stories and things

(12:04):
like that.
So now we'll actually go intothe mechanics of building a
character.

Joe (12:10):
And I've noticed, when I start building a character for
myself personally, I startthinking about what the
character is going to be rogue,barbarian, whatever I end up
creating.
And then I start imagining,well, how would one come to this
position?
And then you come up to all thetypical storylines you know for
a rogue.
Well, he lost his parents at ayoung age, and this and that,

(12:33):
and tragedy, tragedy, tragedy.
Or you know, you're a cleric ora paladin, you were really
raised in a religious order, yougot to, you got to, you got to.
And then you know, you take thetypical storylines and then you
cushion them, you tweak them tohow you want to have your
character represented in thisparticular case.
And that's how I've alwaysapproached the backstory aspect.

(12:53):
And one of the things I likeabout 5e and I obviously one D&D
when it comes out thebackstories that you can kind of
pick up the traits andeverything.
It gives you writing prompts.
So you have a general idea, yougo through on the traits, which
all have rolled tables to thelook 6d6 or d8, you can randomly

(13:15):
do them or you can purposely,you know, pick the ones and
they're like writing prompts tobuild a story around.

Andrew (13:21):
Oh sure.

Joe (13:21):
Beautiful that way.

Andrew (13:23):
Absolutely yeah, they've done a lot to to really help
you kind of flesh out that, Ithink, the part of the character
.

Joe (13:31):
I think one of the things that they're trying to do is,
you know, they're making combatmore effective and easy, but I
think they want to try toenhance the role play of the
aspect too, and that's that'sthis background stuff.

Andrew (13:42):
It's probably the part that I would think most people
have the greatest amount ofdifficulty with, but it's
probably one of the.
The tougher parts for people isthe role playing aspect,
because it's getting into combat.
You pick your weapon, you pickthe person you're going to hit,
that kind of thing.
So I mean, it's kind of prettystandard, pretty standard action

(14:07):
in battle.
But but doing the role playingand really coming up with
understanding who your characteris and how they would interact
with others is, is is probablythe more difficult part of it.
So I think they're doing a muchbetter job of of helping guide
newer, newer people to and tofill that out.

Joe (14:27):
And I think you know it's not required that you be one way
or the other way either,because when you look at our
group, our group literally has aspan of everything that fits
into it.
Like Steve, you know Steve'sgreat.
He comes in, he rolls his diceand he goes home and he when
when I forced him to do roleplay, he does it, but he's not

(14:48):
exactly like a hundred percentkeen on doing role play.
Kat is very much into her roleplay, you are really big into
Thorndon, frank is is like kindof half in, half out on Antonio
and and a bill is like totallyall in on Toma, I mean.
So it's like we got alldifferent levels of how deep

(15:10):
people are into their role playand you don't have to be into
the role play even if everybodyelse is right.

Andrew (15:17):
Absolutely.
No, absolutely it's you, youcan.
You can be into it as deep intoit as you want, or or as little
as you want.
So that's, that's the nicefeature.

Joe (15:27):
Steve also happens to be the person who figures out most
of the puzzles in the party.

Andrew (15:31):
Thank goodness.
He's he's brilliant when itcomes to four, four, four.
A barbarian who loves to rage,who's just just just a monster
when it comes to battles.
He's got such a such a, he'sgot an amazing brain for for
figuring out puzzles.

(15:52):
He doesn't love to rage, heforgets to rage at the time.
Well, he loves to rage, hedoesn't remember to rage.
There's, there's a difference.
You can love to rage and forgetto rage.
Anyway but so let's, let's talk, let's talk about okay, so
you're ready to make our firstcharacter?

Joe (16:06):
Let's make our first character.
So there's 12 classes.

Andrew (16:10):
Well, we have.
We don't even get to classfirst, we get to race first.
No that's true.
So let's let's walk throughthis on a on a step by step
basis.
So we're again, we're going todo this in D&D beyond.
So you go to the charactersection of of D&D beyond and
even even on the free level, youcan you can create at least a
few characters.
So we're going to go intoselect, create a character, and

(16:34):
when you go to create acharacter, they give you several
options.
There's the standard method forcreating a character, which is
what we're going to do the stepby step approach.
They've got pre-made charactersthat are ready to play that you
can.
You can do quick build so youcan choose a race in a class and
it'll it'll help you create thefirst little character Very

(16:57):
quickly.
Or the random is really it justrandomizes the character.
You have the option to set someof the parameters like level,
race and class, but it'llrandomize everything else for
you.
But for our purposes, we aregoing to use the standard step
by step character buildingmethod.

(17:20):
So we got to pick a charactername first.
So let's just use the well.

Joe (17:28):
I say we hold off on the name just for a second because
we can come back because wedon't know what kind of
character it's going to be yet.
And I find there is on.
I think Andrew was about to say, and the character builder,
there's a link to somethingcalled the fantasy name
generator which is really afantastic little tool and you
know if you want to get.
If you end up picking a dwarfor an elf, you don't want to
have an elf or a dwarf name forthe opposite one.

(17:48):
God forbid, I mean you can ifyou really want to get creative
and have a fun backstory but ingeneral you tend to want to, you
know try to match it up.
And when you click on thecharacter, the fantasy name
generator, you can pick so manydifferent fantasy races and it
gives you suggestions.

Andrew (18:03):
Yes, so we will, we'll, we'll, we'll pause on on naming
our character at this point.
The other things on this pageare the character preferences
like what, what source booksmaterial comes from.
There's other partnered content.
We've got a dice rolling so youcan enable or disable digital

(18:23):
dice rolling for this character.
So if you don't have your owndice yet, you can, you can use
those from D&D beyond.
Joe and I have our own opinionson on the digital dice.
I, you know, in some campaignsI use it, some some I don't.
I I prefer to use real dicebecause I'm a dice goblin, so
I've got many of them.

(18:44):
So so I, I just I love the feelof rolling dice, but if you, if
you have and you can get dicesuper cheap, but if you don't
have a set of dice of your own,you can easily use it.

Joe (18:59):
It also makes it easier to play if you're trying to keep it
on a more quiet.
You're not rolling aroundhaving dice fall on the floor,
chasing it all over the place.
That this is also easier forthat past.

Andrew (19:08):
Yes, but.

Joe (19:09):
I agree, I prefer the hands on throw it in.
You know, I have any of a dicetower.
I roll my stuff down, my littlehomemade dice tower and I just
love hearing the click, click,click, click.

Andrew (19:20):
Yes, so.
So, joe, why don't you talkabout advancement type?
So there's, there's two ways to.
So you're starting with, we'restarting with a level one
character you, your character,levels up throughout an
adventure, and there's our twoways of of doing this.

Joe (19:37):
So you have the milestone and you have experience points.
The experience points is theones that everybody's familiar
with If you've ever played anRPG online or on a count console
game.
You get experience points everytime you kill a monster or you
achieve a certain aspect ofmission in the game and then,
once you hit that, that point ofof experience points that, for

(19:58):
the next level, you level upinto the handbook.
In the basic rules and in theplayers handbook there are.
It tells you how manyexperience points you need to
get to each level.
Most, if not all, pre-madeadventures will tell you how
many experience points toachieve to, to award people for
certain achievements.
But the monster manual, whichis, you know, easily searched

(20:23):
anywhere on the internet, willtell you how many experience
points for killing each creature.
If you have 10 creatures andthey're each worth 10, 10
experience points, the partygets a hundred experience points
each, no divided between them,because they work together, they
work together to killeverything, so they get a

(20:43):
hundred.
So there's five people.
You kill 10 monsters at 10experience points a piece 100
experience points divided byfive people, 20 experience
points per person, and, as youlevel up, when you hit those
experience points, levels.
Milestone is so much easier.
It's a little less personal,it's a little less involved, and

(21:08):
I feel that it does take acertain amount away from the
game, but now you don't have tohave somebody tallying up
experience points on the side oftheir page.
Milestone is hey, you finishedthis chapter, you level up.
You finished this quest, youlevel up, and adventures,
especially the DND coreadventures like minds of

(21:29):
endeavor, the tomb ofannihilation and the mad wizard
they all have points where it'slike okay, this is a milestone.
This is a milestone.
If you're using milestone nowis when you tell your characters
to level up.
They'll.
Also, you can just fall back onthe experience points generated

(21:50):
by each monster, but themilestone is easier.
It's a set point and you don'thave to really think about it.
One of the great things aboutusing experience points, though,
is, let's say, bill can't makethe game on Monday, and
everybody else levels up.
Well, bell's not leveled up yet.
So you get more natural,creative, natural leveling in

(22:11):
the party, where everybody's notat the exact same point at all
the times, right.

Andrew (22:17):
You know, for me, I have my own opinions about this.
First of all, let me makeplease do share them.
I will.
Let me make this point First ofall.
Usually it's going to be the DMthat determines whether or not
you're using milestone or XP.
So it's not, it's not somethingyou necessarily have to decide.

(22:37):
So if you are, if you'recreating this character for a
particular campaign, ask your DMhow they are, how they're doing
leveling up in in theircampaign.
Is it milestone or or XP?
So that that's one thing to tokeep in mind when you see this
option.
For me, I think I thinkmilestone is is lends itself

(23:00):
better to a role playing gamethan than XP.
Xp is great if you're you'regoing into, you're doing a lot
of dungeon diving, killing a lotof things and and and doing
that you know.
So if you're, if you're into alot of action and things like
that, xp is great.
You know, because I think Ithink when, when you drive your

(23:24):
characters with with XP, theytend to want to kill everything.

Joe (23:28):
That's a really good point.

Andrew (23:30):
Yeah.
So it's like.
It's like oh, I'm going to killstuff to get more XP.
So you know, I think, I thinkit might.
It could possibly take awayfrom the role playing aspects of
the game, as opposed tomilestone, where you're not
necessarily concentrated on.
Do I, do I need to clear thelevel, kind of thing.

Joe (23:48):
We and we came across that in in in the, the, the campaign,
where you know you guys hadkilled the dragon, but there are
still extra points inside hislayer that you guys hadn't
explored and the debate wasraging.
Well, we don't have time.
We're not going to be able toget a long rest in.
That's just not logicallyfeasible.
We can probably take a shortrest, but you know there's still

(24:09):
other areas of this place toexplore.
Should we explore or should wejust get out of here now?
And the general consensus wentout to just get out.
And if there had it been an XPgame, the people might have been
more incentivized to go andclear the whole dungeon.
Correct, that's a very goodpoint.
Yeah, so that's that's, that'smy opinion on the matter.
I I haven't really played anadventure, a campaign, in person

(24:33):
.
We've done one shots once ortwice in person, but I've never
done like a full campaign.
I would think that when playingin person, playing with
experience points would bebetter, because you're sitting
there, you're around the table,it's easier to hey we, how many
experience points did we get?
When you're online, it's veryhard to have that cross
conversation with each otherwithout you know, talking over

(24:53):
the DM or something like that.
So I think I think the the uh,the idea of playing experience
points would theoretically workout a lot better in person also
than a online campaign.

Andrew (25:05):
Yeah, it depends, like if you've got a campaign where,
like the one campaign that I'min, people kind of come in and
come out of depending on theiravailability, so so XP for that
is good, because not everyone isinvolved in every every battle.
So so, like you said, it lendsyourself more to more realistic

(25:27):
that that some people are at ahigher level because they've
done, they've done more.
So it all just depends, like,like I said, that's how, that's
why the DM kind of sets thatfrom the beginning, based on
what the campaign is going toagree to kind of look like Um,
what about the next thing?
Hit point type, so fixed orrolled, what's your opinion?

Joe (25:49):
Uh, I'm, I'm all about the rolled yeah, um, this.
This comes back to the exactsame point here.
When you have a fixed hit point.
So each class, like we talkedabout, has a certain uh hit dice
a D eight, a D six, whatever itis, and that is your basis for
how you level up your hit points.

(26:10):
What they do is they take theaverage of the dice of that die
roll that you would roll andthat would be your fixed HP
increase every time you leveledup.
So on a D eight, I think it'splus five.
So when you roll.
So so every time you level up,you get your five plus your

(26:30):
constitution modifier everylevel.
That's fine, there's nothingwrong with doing it that way,
but I feel like it's more uhoriginal, more uh individual.
When I actually rolled that Deight, I have a chance of
hitting a one, I have a chanceof hitting an eight, and it
creates suspense for the person.
And you know interestingcharacters.

(26:50):
My Thursday night game I am alevel nine fighter.
I have like 87 hit points.
I should be easily in thehundreds.
Yeah, I have rolled crap.
And the funny thing is therehave been times where I rolled
like I was like, oh, I leveledup and I rolled digitally and I
was like, oh, let me just rollthis digitally so I don't have

(27:11):
to pull my dice out.
And I rolled the one, I waslike you know what I really
should do it the way I've alwaysdone it.
I should really roll with thereal dice, because I didn't want
the one pulled out the realdice.
I rolled the one again and I'mlike, nah, I'm not the only get
them on there.

Andrew (27:23):
It was meant to be.

Joe (27:24):
And I had a couple of instances, not that I did both,
but I have a couple instanceswhere I got ones and two.
So I just did not level up.
I did not, I, I, I.
My fighter is still likecharging into the middle of
combat and it's like at the endof every combat everybody's like
are you okay?
I'm like, nah, I still got a.
I still have like half myhealth hit points.
So everybody thinks I got like50 or 60 and I'm like, nah, I
got like 38.
That's rough.

Andrew (27:47):
That's rough.

Joe (27:47):
So that's the differences.
Again, I prefer.
I prefer the roll because it'smore personality, it makes it
more uneven and when it's unevenit seems more natural.

Andrew (27:58):
You leave it.
You leave it up more to chancethan than anything else.
So so it's a good point.
So you can.
You can do it either way.
It really just a lot of that'sjust personal, that one's more
personal preference than thananything else.
Other things on the on the mainscreen are they talk about you

(28:18):
can, there's prerequisites onfeats, multi-class requirements,
things like that.
We're not going to die.
I don't think we want to divetoo much into all this.

Joe (28:26):
Because we're still waking.
Level one character.
You're not going to get a feat,unless you get us human and
you're not going to get a multi-class because we're level one.

Andrew (28:33):
We'll, we'll deal with that at some point at a later
cast yes and the other things,encumbrance we're not again it's
, we're going to make this.
I want to make this as simpleas possible, so we're going to
remove encumbrance.
I would.

Joe (28:46):
I would.
I would remove it Right.
So basically, encumbrance isthe basic concept, is how heavy,
how much equipment you cancarry before your speed is
actually reduced.
The vast majority, I think,people play no encumbrance,
which means you can carry athousand pounds and nobody's
going to care about it.

(29:06):
And your strength of base, your, your, your capability of
carrying things and I forget theexact math, but it's based upon
your strength, skill.
I think it's your strengthtimes five, it might be 20.
I don't remember, but you, you,you multiply it out and that's
how much you weight, you cancarry.
But the interesting thing aboutthis is that when you go into a
place like a giant, a dragon'sden, and you get all that coin,

(29:29):
that coin actually encumbersmost people.
When you play encumbrance, itbecomes too heavy to carry all
of that corn out.

Andrew (29:35):
Well, that well, that's the.
That's the other option here.
You can ignore coin weight onthe screen so you can ignore the
coin weight.

Joe (29:41):
So so, and it's interesting because some people just don't.
They refuse to throw away.
Like oh I got a new sword, letme keep the old one, just in
case I wanted to use it forsomething else.
Oh, I got a new shield, let mekeep the old one.
Some people just refuse tothrow that stuff away.
Well, if you're doing cumbrance, well now.
They went from 30 feet to 20feet.

Andrew (29:58):
Well, I ran, I ran into this playing Baldur's Gate three
, my character, my character andBaldur's Gate three.
I was like I'm picking, I'mpicking up, I'm picking up crap
everywhere.
Like every room I go into islike pick this up, sure, pick
that up, sure.
Like I picked up like a deadbody and it was.
It was like it was like you're,you're slow.
Now I'm like you've got toomuch stuff.

(30:19):
Like, oh darn, so I had to.
I had to start like droppingstuff.

Joe (30:23):
To how to drop things, and that's the other thing.
In a video game, you know,people will pick up literally
everything take it to the storeand sell it, because even if
it's only one gold, hey, that'sone more gold, whatever it
tallies up.
And it's like you know, I'mgoing to force you.
I like that.

Andrew (30:37):
Well, I could bring it back to the camp and just dump
it back at camp.
But like I was in the middle ofa room and it was like all of a
sudden, I was like you're likeyou've got too much stuff, but
anyway, so that's everything.
What's that?
On the character preference.

Joe (30:52):
So the ability score modifier, and so this is just
the display.
Yeah, yeah, we didn't mentionit.

Andrew (30:59):
Okay, it's important?

Joe (31:00):
No, it's not.
There are some people arguethis.

Andrew (31:03):
Okay.

Joe (31:04):
So you can put the model.
So, on the character sheetthere's a big box and right
beneath it there's a little siroval, and one of them gets your
actual ability score.
The other one gets themodifying number, the number
that you add to your attack rows, and so on and so forth.
So you can put the modifier ontop, which is the bigger number,
or you can put the score on topand then put the modifier on

(31:28):
the bottom.
Most people, I think, go withthe modifier on the top because
that's the number that's mostimportant.
However, some people by firmlybelieve that it should be the
score on the top and themodifier in the small one.
It's just another option.
I'm sorry.

Andrew (31:42):
Again personal preference.

Joe (31:43):
Absolutely.

Andrew (31:43):
It doesn't matter for creating a first level character
.
You can always change it later.

Joe (31:49):
This entire experience is based upon personal preference.

Andrew (31:53):
Yes, so let's go on to.
And then there's characterprivacy, so you can, if you
don't want to share thecharacter with anyone else, you
don't have to, or you can keepit specific to a campaign, but
we're going to leave thischaracter public and we'll
probably share the link on theput on the Discord server or
something, or share it in the inthe notes.

Joe (32:14):
The idea of keeping it private is, if you don't want to
share it with anybody else, youcan actually print out the full
character sheet when you'reready, and you can print out
everything.

Andrew (32:24):
Now for now for some of the some of the fun stuff Hold
on.

Joe (32:27):
We need a D 100 now to pick a race, I think I need more
than a D 100.
So oh yeah, if you include allthe variants, it's probably
close to two or three hundred.

Andrew (32:37):
My goodness.

Joe (32:39):
Let's filter the sources here, you know, let's.

Andrew (32:41):
let's trim out some of the more, so let's what like, if
you go to like just the playershandbook, right, you've got
just the basics, so it is.
So we've been basing everythingoff the nine Okay.
So we've been basing everythingoff of the, the basic rules.

Joe (32:59):
Well, change it to the basic rules.
So we say basic rules, which Ithink is then one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight,nine, still still nine.
There's nine.
So do you want to do a D 10 andthen ignored number 10, re-roll
10?
.

Andrew (33:18):
I think that works.

Joe (33:19):
All right.
So for the audience, we arelooking at Dragonborn, Dwarf,
elf, half elf, half orc, halfLing, human rock, gnome or
tiefling, in that order onethrough nine and Andrews got to
die.
If he rolls a 10, we will justre-roll it Now.

(33:40):
Drop it from a high distance sothey hear it thud.

Andrew (33:45):
These are the solid copper ones.
You'll hear it.
Thud, no matter what, here wego.

Joe (33:52):
Oh, I heard that that is eight.
That would be the rock gnome.
I would not have chosen thatmyself.
I would not have picked therock gnome.
I never would have thought todo that.
That's cool.

Andrew (34:05):
So so we're going with a gnome, absolutely.

Joe (34:06):
The rock gnome specifically , because this is the basic rose
.

Andrew (34:09):
Yes, so we'll read a little bit of the basic
description here.
So a gnomes.
Energy and enthusiasm forliving shines through every inch
of his or her tiny body.
As a rock gnome, you have anatural inventiveness and
hardiness beyond that of othergnomes.
Most gnomes in the worlds ofD&D are rock gnomes, including

(34:32):
the tinker gnomes of the dragonlance setting, and some of the.
Some of the traits that rockgnomes have are dark vision,
what is known as gnome cunning,and gnome cunning means you've
got advantage on allintelligence, wisdom and
charisma.
Saving throws against magic,which is not insignificant.
Artificers lore.

(34:53):
Whenever you make anintelligence, a history check
related to magic items,alchemical objects or
technological devices, you canadd twice your proficiency bonus
.
Instead of any proficiencybonus, you normally apply so
many, so many different things.
And what's that with the tinker?
Oh my goodness.

Joe (35:13):
You basically get artificers tools and you then
can use them with a 10 goldworth of materials and money to
call to make a little clockworkdevice.
It only works for about 24hours unless you spend an hour a
day trying to keep fixing it.
You can also create a firestarter or a little music box,

(35:34):
which you know it adds flair andpossibly some type of
usefulness.
I mean, look, this is D&D.
You can use anything foranything.
At this point you can use yourfire starter and try to convince
somebody it's magic.

Andrew (35:48):
Well, what's nice is I mean here's the thing I mean to
have a fire starter.
As it says, you can use it tolight a candle, torture campfire
.
So if you don't have anyspellcasters that can create
fire, this is a quick, easy wayto start a fire.

Joe (36:04):
So and you can also use it in the idea, like you know, hey,
I want to use my fire starterto light the curtains on fire so
that we burn down the mansion,or something like that.
Again, it's a little moreflavor than actual function
because, yes, everybody, most,most adventurers end up with a
little bit of a Flint Flintcapabilities to make it.

Andrew (36:23):
But and this lasts for 24 hours, which is always useful
.
Yes, yes indeed.

Joe (36:29):
So this is going to be kind of fun, I think.

Andrew (36:32):
I've never played the.
I've never played a gnomebefore.

Joe (36:36):
No, I have.

Andrew (36:36):
I know.

Joe (36:37):
So this is so, we have it we also haven't discussed which
one of us is going to play themagical character and which one
of us is going to play the meleecharacter.

Andrew (36:43):
I think we're going to have to flip for that.
Ah, okay, We'll say.

Joe (36:46):
we'll say who plays what.
So here's just anotherexplanation.
So the next page is more about.
It brings a detailed of all thethings that we just talked
about.

Andrew (36:54):
Yes.

Joe (36:54):
It gives you a little drop down so you can read those
things.

Andrew (36:56):
Yes, indeed.
So we've got.
We've got all of our details onall of our Racial traits, or
species traits, depending onwhat version of D&D we're
talking about.
So so we're going to pick ourrock gnome and we're going to go
on to the next one, which ischoosing a class.
So we've got 12, 12 classeshere, I believe, right, Joe?

Joe (37:21):
Well, actually 13, because they added artificer here.
Okay, so the, the, the corerule book, the, the player's
handbook, only has 12.
The officer doesn't, it isn'tincluded, right, and I think we
should do that.
We should just pull out theartificer and just do that.
Yeah, just do the D12.
So for everybody listening athome, it's barbarian bard,

(37:42):
cleric, druid, fighter, monk,paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer
, warlock and wizard.
And one of the things is that,you know, even if we pick
something that is a magicalclass that doesn't base upon
wisdom which this guy hasbonuses to wisdom and stuff like
that, it doesn't matter.
Even if we make him a meleecharacter, you can make anything

(38:03):
, you can be anything.
You want a strong meleecharacter that has a little bit
of magic or a very weak melee,you know, it doesn't matter.
So we're not necessarilylooking to make what's called
min max maximize all thestrengths and minimizes
weaknesses.
We're looking to just have somefun.
That's the randomness.

Andrew (38:21):
That's right.
That's why we're playing atrandom Now, remember, we've
covered all the basic races andall the basic classes in
previous episodes of the podcast.
So if you want to a little bitof a deeper dive, we're just
we're not going to go into eachof them individually here, but
you can check out earlierepisodes and and listen to some
more of the information aboutthese different classes.
So I'm I'm going to roll myspecial D12, my, my fable D12.

Joe (38:47):
Oh from fable.

Andrew (38:47):
From fable.

Joe (38:49):
Is it just the D12 or is the whole set?

Andrew (38:51):
It's just a D12.
No, she just just a special D12.
And so we're, we're ignoringour officer and starting
barbarian to wizard, okay.
And we're we're hoping for afight Like a well, it really
doesn't matter, we can go eitherway on this one, okay.
And this is part of the pointthat we're either way, we're
going to go either way.
So let's, let's see what, what,what class this character is

(39:11):
going to be.

Joe (39:15):
That'll be a six One, two, three, four, five.
Fighter One, two, five, six.
Monk Monk, A monk rock.
No Nice, this will be cool.
This will be interesting.
You know he's got his trainingpunching the walls in the
underdark.

Andrew (39:29):
Right, right, oh, this will be cool, nice, so, so, monk
.
Monk is more of a more of afighting melee fighter character
, melee, fighter character.

Joe (39:37):
While they do have special abilities because of the key
you're definitely not a magicalcharacter.

Andrew (39:42):
Yeah, so this is, this is a martial artist.
Not necessarily, notnecessarily Lots of weapons, not
not really like a great axe oranything like that, more more
hand to hand combat.

Joe (39:54):
But but like a quarter staff or something like that.

Andrew (39:57):
So, so that's what we're going to do.
So we are, we are selecting.

Joe (40:00):
Monk.
So we're going to do the sameprocess when we make the next
character, which is going to bemagical, and we're just going to
keep rolling until we come upwith a more traditional, radical
one.

Andrew (40:10):
So some of the some of the first level abilities that a
monk will have.
So they describe the monk asthe master of martial arts,
harnessing the power of the bodyin pursuit of physical and
spiritual perfection.

Joe (40:22):
The hit dies a, d, eight, and the primary abilities are
going to be dexterity and wisdom, for which is also interesting
because when when we werelooking at the rock gnome, he
was kind of like he looks likehe was more of an intelligence
character than anything else.
So kind of like balances out,this will be interesting yeah.

Andrew (40:40):
And so some of the things at first level for for a
monk are the unarmored defense.
So when you're wearing no armor, not having a shield, your AC,
your armor class, equals 10 plusyour dexterity modifier and
your wisdom modifier.
So again, when, when we startrolling out the ability scores,

(41:02):
we want to make sure that we arepaying closer attention to
dexterity and wisdom, to to helpbeef up the armor class.
For for this one, you want totalk about martial arts.

Joe (41:15):
So at first level you get martial arts, mastery of combat
with unarmed and monk weapons.
Those are short sword, thestaff depending on how creative,
there's none chucks that youcan find to use in the game.
But you're really not doinganything that's heavy or that
has a dual wielding, I mean atwo handed usage.
You gain benefits, so you'reusing your dexterity instead of

(41:39):
your strength when you're usingthese weapons.
Sometimes you it's a strengthmodifier, but no, as a monk
martial arts you're used.
You're kind of more of adexterity creature.
Now, also, most people, mostcharacters, if they try to do
melee damage with a fist, if I'mtrying to punch you, that is a
straight up.
Whatever your strength score is, that's what you do damage as

(42:02):
that's it.
Whatever your mod, strengthmodifier is that's how much
damage you can do.
In a monk's case you can roll aD four instead of that,
whatever that is, and as youlevel up as the monk, it moves
to a D six and then you can rollD six and then I believe it
tops out at a D eight, I don'trecall.
Yeah.

Andrew (42:21):
I'd have to.
I'd have to look at that, butthis.

Joe (42:24):
This allows you to do more damage with your hands, which
counteracts the idea that you'renot using a lot of weapons
typically.
And then the last thing is youcan make an unarmed strike on
your turn by using a bonusaction.
So if you do have a short sword, or if you're just using
strictly your fists, you canactually make two attacks.

(42:45):
It does take your bonus action.
He's holding his little nunchecks now.

Andrew (42:50):
My pillow fighting.
Nun, chucks, shout out, shoutout to super sox shop.

Joe (42:57):
Are they sent you that?

Andrew (42:58):
No, no, they didn't send it to me.
We bought this at at a New YorkComic Con Nice.
But a super sock shop is isphenomenal.
They make all sorts.
I had that sword, the sword upthere.

Joe (43:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew (43:09):
Is a.
Yeah, they make all sorts ofpillow pillow fighting weapons,
but they also made our.
She also makes a Christmasstockings, so all the stockings
we have for the cats are fromfrom her shop.
Amazing stuff.
But yeah, I bought the nun, theorange nun chucks at the, the
last con.

Joe (43:29):
So the idea is that you can use your bonus action to do an
additional attack.
So now you're basically as longas you have your bonus action
available, you're guaranteed toattacks, which is the modifier
the more attacks you get, themore damage you can do.
Yes, which is also somethingthat offsets somebody who's like
a fighter who has a D 10 on asword.

(43:50):
So it it balances.

Andrew (43:53):
Yeah.
So it's yeah, it all balancesitself out, which is nice, cause
it's yeah, you're not going tobe a huge weapon wielder as far
as that's concerned.

Joe (44:02):
Again, that's mostly a creativity, personal choice if
you want to or not.

Andrew (44:09):
Interesting.
Okay, see, this I want to use.
I'd love to use the nun chucksas a as a monk.

Joe (44:15):
That makes money.

Andrew (44:16):
You should do that and maybe, maybe I will All right,
so we're going to, we're goingto confirm that.
So, so we have our monk, wehave our our rock gnome monk.

Joe (44:30):
And to go back we chose hit points to be based upon the
role.
However, if you remember backto our, our episodes where we
talk about characters in general, where we kind of hit on the
hall of the high points, did Ido that?
Yeah, we, we, we did roll.

Andrew (44:47):
Okay, I said fixed.

Joe (44:54):
Oh, did we not change it?
Cause.
I didn't change it oh you didn'tchange it, okay, so anyway we
now, we now have chose, but andand the funny thing is, it
wouldn't have actually come upuntil we had to the second level
, because at first level, whenyou create your character, your
hit points is automatically yourtotal hit dice, which for the

(45:15):
monk is a D eight, yes, and thenwe haven't gotten there yet.
So right now our level is level, our hit points are eight.
Our constitution modifier willthen be added into that.
If we have any, will be addedinto that when we get there.

Andrew (45:31):
Right.

Joe (45:32):
But so right now we have a grand total of eight hit points
and then at first level we getto pick some proficiencies.
Yes, so we are not proficientat any armor.
So if we wear any type of armor, we then become, I think, in
Cumberd, it's just, it justslows us down.
I think if we do that weaponsor simple weapons like short

(45:53):
swords and things like that aclub maybe, even if you really
wanted to tools we get to pick atool uh, artisans tools or a
musical instrument, and then wehave automatically built in a
saving throw against strengthand dexterity.
So if something is like we needa saving throw to see how long
we can hold this or how quicklywe can kind of move around

(46:17):
something, we uh haveproficiency in that.
And a quick reminder ofproficiency is a number that is
given based upon your level.
As you level up I think it'severy four or five levels your
proficiency bonus goes up and Ibelieve everybody starts off
with a two.
So that proficiency bonus meanshow you're rolling for strength
.
You are proficient at strengthand dexterity because monks have

(46:38):
to be, you know, tough and theyhave to be dexterity.
And then from skills we get topick from acrobatics, athletics,
history, insight, religion andstealth.
So we have to pick between thetools and the skills.
So we're going to start withthe skills.

Andrew (46:53):
Yeah, so we get to choose two skills, so we get to.
We get to choose from thoseskills.
We get to choose two of them,so we got one, two, three.
Should we?
Should we randomly roll these?
Since there's six skills,should we randomly roll?

Joe (47:05):
I think we should why not Unless there's something that
says that we should really justsit down and have a conversation
about it.
I think we should definitely gowith the dice, just because
that's the whole point of this.

Andrew (47:14):
Like like for me.
So if I were, if I were pickingthis character myself and not
randomizing it, being a gnomeand being a monk, I would
probably pick stealth as what asone of my skills.
What would be your other one?
That's a good question.
I would say probably eitheracrobatics or athletics.

Joe (47:32):
For a monk, See now I would have gone.
So, in general, my concepts ofa monk is not stealthy Not that
it's that you're wrong, but Idon't think that way.
My thing is I'm going to doubledown on acrobatics and
athletics.
Okay, that's how I would haveapproached it.
However, I was looking athistory, because he is a gnome
and he does like the history ofcertain things, so I was

(47:55):
thinking of that as well, maybe,but let's roll two D six and
figure this out.

Andrew (47:58):
Let's roll two D six and see what happens.
All right, I'll pick this one.
This one picked my, my metal Dsixes here.
Well, you're, you're in luck.
This, this is actually.
This is actually perfect foryou.
One in three, which would beacrobatics and history.

(48:20):
So Joe wins.

Joe (48:23):
I don't like that.
I mean I like that I win.

Andrew (48:25):
Thank you.

Joe (48:26):
Thank you, I was great, I was perfect I like to thank the
heavy dice for rolling in myfavor.

Andrew (48:30):
That's right.
But now the dice be ever inyour favor.

Joe (48:32):
But now it's going to be like, okay, if Joe wins, now
it's like a competition, now I'mgoing to have to lose something
, not at all, it's just no.
Oh, how many we got here.
One, two, three, four, five,six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11
, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
There's more, oh, there's the.
Oh, my goodness.

Andrew (48:53):
But, but I don't think all of these are.

Joe (48:55):
Well, these are all choices , so, but I don't think these
are all basic rule choices.

Andrew (49:00):
Oh, that's a good point, so I would.
I would probably.
I would do one of the basicones.

Joe (49:06):
Well, let's start with the difference between do we want to
pick a musical instrument forhim or do we want to pick an
artisan's tool for him as a monk?
We can roll an odds or an even,or we can just, or you can pick
it.

Andrew (49:20):
Yeah, I don't know Like what would be, and there's so
many choices here.

Joe (49:29):
Well, so, so.
So take a step back, Just whatabout woodcarver's tools?
I'm good with that.
I could see that.
Yeah, right, okay, so we'regoing to, because it even kind
of fits in with the gnome that'snot the rock gnome, but the
gnome.

Andrew (49:43):
I like it Kind of say a rock gnome, but I mean that
would be, that wouldn't beSmith's tools, that would be.
Doesn't even say anything aboutstone tools.
Mason's tools.
Mason's tools you want to gowith mason's, or do you want to?

Joe (49:54):
I'm a good with sticking with the wood.

Andrew (49:56):
Let's go woodcarver's tools.
Okay, let's go woodcarver'stools I do like that.
I like that, I like that storyfor this guy.

Joe (50:01):
Yeah.
Um maybe this is what happened.
See, you know, this is what I'mtalking about?

Andrew (50:05):
I don't know.

Joe (50:06):
This is what I'm talking about when when I was talking
about how you start making yourcharacter and your thing Maybe
what happens was he was a rockgnome and for some reason or he
or she, and for some reason, asa child they developed an
interest in woodworking insteadand they were, you know,
banished or ostracized.
And they, they went out intothe world and they found
somebody who would teach themhow to carve the wood, but they

(50:27):
were a monk, so it kind of camehand in hand.
For, I mean, like, this is howyou create your backstory, this
is how you start brainstormingthings.
Now, granted, I have a lot oftime and experience going into
this, trying to make backstories, but this is what you do.
Yeah, what woodcarver's tools?
Well, how does that fit in withsomebody who's a rock gnome?

Andrew (50:44):
Yeah, but I but I see, but I could see, I could see,
like I go always back to mycharacter, my daredevil monk
character.
I could see being a woodcarver,like carving your own quarter
staff and like like making yourown weapons like carving your
own weapons out of wood would belike super cool.
Maybe that's what it was.

Joe (51:03):
He found somebody who would help him with the woodworking
but, that person wasspecifically the monk to whom
who made the weapons for all themonks Right.
So like something that would bereally cool, all right.

Andrew (51:13):
So so there's, there's.
We're building the backstory aswe as we move along here.
Um, we already talked aboutunarmored defense.
And the martial arts and themartial arts.
So we know all about that.
So there's other.
Obviously there'll be otherthings available at higher
levels, but we're we're keepingthis level one and let's go on
to yes.

Joe (51:34):
Before we get into the abilities, I want to go back to
the home.
Yes, because now that we knowthat we have a rock gnome and we
know that he's going to be sometype of monk, I think it's time
we try to pick a name.
Let's okay.

Andrew (51:42):
We're okay, let's go back to name picking.
So let's go back to okay.
So let's go to um, are there,there you give some Bumble
bumble, zan Rose, bumble bumble.

Joe (51:55):
You know, I literally was just looking at that one, I kind
of like it, I kind of like I, I, I, I done Well hang on.

Andrew (52:01):
So let's go to fantasy name generator and let's see.
So now we're on their website,which is very, very simple to
understand for the most part.

Joe (52:09):
So then you've got to go up on the top to fantasy and
folklore in this particular case, and then you look for one of
the races.
So we're looking for gnome orrock gnomes no names.
Is there a rock over there?
I don't know if there's rock.
Nope, there is not rock.
No.
So no names, no names, no names.

Andrew (52:24):
So they give you a list, I think like 10.

Joe (52:30):
So we got then just get it mid-dark Hungry, Not well, we
have to figure out.

Andrew (52:36):
Is our, is our character male or female?
Oh, leave it as neutral oddsodds, male, even female, done,
that's a two.
So Female, female it is.

Joe (52:50):
So we click on the female names.
Okay, herb, herbap Fen.
I still like the other name,fensnuth, I don't.

Andrew (52:58):
I don't like any of these.

Joe (52:59):
No A guy Glyphlawa, kind of Luffa Dlep.
I can't even pronounce some ofthese.

Andrew (53:04):
All right, let's see, I think so.
So so, zanrose, zanrose,bumblebumble, I just love
Bumblebumble.

Joe (53:14):
Bumblebumble is a great last name.
I like it Okay.

Andrew (53:17):
So Zanrose Bumblebumble is, is our rock gnome monk?
All right, so now we can goback to the abilities, let's go.
Let's go to abilities.
So we've determined race, we'vedetermined class.
Now let's go to ability.
So, when you get to the abilityscore, you've got, you've got
three options.
So let's let's talk about eachof these.

(53:41):
There there's what is known asstandard array, or your manual,
your rolled ability scores, orthere's a way, there's what you
can do called point buying.
So let's walk through each ofthese.
So let's walk through standardarray first.
And Joe, why?
What, what's so?

Joe (54:00):
standard.
Standard array is is set up bythe creators of Dungeons and
Dragons, the fifth edition,where they give you six numbers
for your stats.
You remember, anything around a10 is average.
Anything above a 10 is aboveaverage.
Anything below a 10 is belowaverage.
So they give you a 15, 14, 13,12, 10 and an eight, and the

(54:25):
basic idea is look, you don'twant to spend all your time
rolling and then trying todecide here, use these six
numbers and put them into whereyou need to.
Now, you remember when we weregoing through the basic rules,
they said, hey, on this class,you need to put you know, we
recommend these two.
And then, on this class, werecommend these two.
So you'd put your 14 and your15 into the top two recommended

(54:47):
stats and then you just kind ofdisseminate the rest of them and
putting your, your eight, inwhat's called the dump stat,
meaning like that's all I hadleft.
I just dumped my my lowestpoints into that one, right?
So this one's easy, so that youcan just kind of do it.
It does allow for flaws incharacters which, with that
eight and that 10, it makes itso that you're not really a

(55:08):
super human.
There's possibilities, becausean eight is actually a minus two
Right, so it's a minus twomodifier to whatever you put it
into, which is pretty drastic incertain cases.

Andrew (55:21):
Yeah, but and remember, you can also offset that, so
let's remember.
So.
So, for example, the gnome getsa racial bonus of a plus two to
intelligence and a plus one toconstitution.
So if you wanted to offset theeight, you could put that into
intelligence at the plus two andyou're back to 10.
So you're back.

Joe (55:41):
you're back to zero, You're back to zero For a modifier
Right.

Andrew (55:45):
So so there, there are ways to offset them.
But so that's that's.
That's the first method, thestandard, standard array we're
going to, we're going to skip bymanual, enrolled, and let's
talk about point by See.

Joe (55:58):
I.
I like the idea of point by.
Cat has done this, I haven'tdone this yet.
Me neither.
I like the idea in general.
So the basic concept is inconstitution and in the point by
.
They give you 27 points.
Every strength, every, everyability starts out as base of
eight and then you add your 27across the six of them.

(56:20):
So if you do the math kind ofquickly, you basically can add
four to most of them and I thinkit's five to two of them, and
you, you balance out and you'redone.
So now that's kind ofinteresting, because you now
have a line that shows alleights and beneath it is a quick
another line that shows youwhat your current total will be
for that one.

(56:42):
So, like Andrew said,intelligence is a plus two.
So the intelligence reads eightwith a total of 10.
So you can take these pointsand adjust them as every you
want.
You can literally take 27points, put them all into
strength and max yourself out to20.
And now you're now.
Now you're down to 20.
Now, now you're down to 15points.
It gets to the rest of yourstats.

(57:02):
So you can literally puteverything else at three at that
point and you will end up withapproximately, you know an 11 on
everything, except for your onestat that you maxed out.
So this allows a lot ofindividual creation, a lot of
individual.
I want to minimize my strengthstrategy too Right and I want to
minimize my strengths, maximizemy weak.

(57:22):
I want to maximize my strength,minimize my weaknesses and just
balance out everything I wantand, like you said, take
strategy, because you need toknow.
Well, I don't want to besucking at this, but you know, I
need to balance it out, right.

Andrew (57:35):
So those, those are the two alternative methods we're
going to, as, as we're doingeverything with these characters
, we are going the therandomized route of we're going
to manually roll out all ofthese, all of these stats.
So we're going to, we're goingto roll six, six ability scores,
and then we're going to assignthem to to the six different

(57:57):
abilities and and see what, seewhat happens.
Let's do it, maybe again.
May the odds be ever in ourfavor.
The dice.

Joe (58:08):
Oh, oh 18.
Nice start.
So.
So what happens here is there.
There are several ways.
Before we get any further,there are several ways to roll
up your stats.
Yes, one of the most commonways is you take three dice and
you roll them and you use thatnumber no matter what.
One of the ways in order tomake your character a little bit

(58:31):
stronger is you roll four diceand you just take the top three.
Now we're using DND beyond toroll for us, and Andrew pushed
the button and we got threesixes and a five.
So the five gets discarded andthat gives us the 18, which is
massive for a level onecharacter.
That's as high as you can go Imean you can't go any higher as

(58:52):
a level.
One character.
But except if we took that anddumped that into intelligence to
make it 20, which we had to seewhat everything else rolls out.

Andrew (58:59):
Let's say okay, so that's, that's our first one.
Let's let's see how the rest ofthese go.
I'm going to get an eight 13.

Joe (59:05):
13.
All right, so remember againnow 10 is an average person.
Anything above a 10 is betterthan average, and a 13 is
actually on the upper side ofwhere an average comes out at 12
, 13.
Yeah, when you start pointbuying and you start assigning
things, so that's pretty goodAll right.
Oh, there's an 11.

(59:27):
There's an 11.
Hey, we're going to becompletely average on something.
Yeah, oh, there's another 13.

Andrew (59:34):
Okay, another 13.
All right, Another 13.

Joe (59:40):
We're coming out slightly powerful.

Andrew (59:45):
Oh, there's an eight, there's the eight.

Joe (59:49):
We're going to be stupid at something, exactly, exactly,
all right so so our we're goingto have to assign them.

Andrew (59:55):
So we've got, we've got six, six scores now 18, 13, 13,
13, 11 and eight.
So we were we're it's pretty,pretty evenly.
It's pretty even because we'vegot one.
That's a pretty decent spread.

Joe (01:00:07):
We've got one super one, we got one that's not so good.
Yeah, we got one that's alittle low and the other three
are kind of like middle of theroad, like if you got a 15 every
.
If you got a 15 and you're dicerolling, that's slightly above
the average of what you wouldget for mulling three or four
dice.
So ending out with 13s isactually pretty good.

(01:00:27):
So, as a, as a, as a monk, wewant to definitely be looking to
put something good in dexterity.
Yes, and we want to definitely.
What's the modifier for key?
I don't remember.
Key is second level when youstart getting to use your key
points, but I forget what.
The modifier is.
That wisdom.

Andrew (01:00:45):
I don't recall.
We can, we can roll back andPlus your wisdom, the wisdom.
The key saved DC is your wisdommodifier, so key is the ability
you get at second level.
It's not magical, but it'ssimilar to that stents, but the

(01:01:07):
key points that you get arebased on just whatever level
you're at, so so there's no,we're looking, we're looking at
this and we're saying okay, sowisdom is the other.
Yeah, the starting wisdom.

Joe (01:01:19):
The starting wisdom are the two are the base ones that are
recommended by by the by theadventure.

Andrew (01:01:24):
I probably say, dexterity should be the 18.

Joe (01:01:28):
Only because we don't have any other bonuses already built
into it.

Andrew (01:01:31):
Absolutely yeah.

Joe (01:01:32):
So 18 is going to round out to a plus four on your modifier
Right, which is going to behuge for us.
Actually, we should also lookinto putting something big into
wisdom, because our armor isgoing to be based upon our
strength, our dexterity and ourwisdom as well.
So we should probably look toputting one of the 13s into our

(01:01:52):
wisdom.

Andrew (01:01:53):
Yeah, I would completely agree.
I would say wisdom, wisdom getsa 13.
Absolutely, I'd sayconstitution, especially because
we have the plus one inconstitution.
Yeah, give that a 13 as well,because that'll put it up to a
14.

Joe (01:02:05):
Which gives us a plus three there.

Andrew (01:02:08):
Yeah, all right, so we're going to, we're going to
give constitution a 13.

Joe (01:02:12):
No, it's plus two.
I can't remember.
I thought on my head.

Andrew (01:02:17):
Uh, so so now we have, we have another.
13 are 11 and eight.

Joe (01:02:23):
So what's the other modifier?
So our intelligence has aracial bonus of a plus two.
So our question here is what dowe want to do?
Do we want to dump the eightinto the intelligence and make
it average?
That's what I would do.
See, that's what, okay, so?
So I would actually want to bebumping the eight, one of the

(01:02:44):
13s, put the last 13 intointelligence, to bump up the
intelligence, because the guy isa rock gnome.
He's supposed to have.
Okay, he's a rock gnome, butthat's just me, so hold on a
second.
So what do we got?
We got three numbers left.

Andrew (01:02:56):
We got a.
So again we've got strength.
Intelligence and charisma arethree, three ability scores left
and we have an 11 or 13 andeight.
So I would say, maybe what ifwe put the?
What if we put intelligence atthe 11, the strength of the 13
and charisma at an eight?

Joe (01:03:14):
Yeah, he just won't be very good at talking to people.
I'm liking that I think.
I think that's fine he's alittle intro socially awkward or
, if you want, we can assignnumbers One, two, three, enroll
a six.
I have dice.
I don't know what's what's,what's still this, so do what
she said.
Yeah, okay.
So strength of the 11.

Andrew (01:03:34):
I thought I said strength of the 13, strength of
the 13.
We're going to giveintelligence the 11 because it's
got a plus two racial bonus.
Yep, so automatically put it upto 13.
Yep, and then charisma will getthe eight.
So we're going to do so as areview.
Dexterity because, remember,dexterity and wisdom are our two

(01:03:54):
key ability scores.
So dexterity is going to getthe 18, wisdom is going to get a
13.
Constitution and strength We'llalso get 13s.
And intelligence will get the11 because it's got a plus two
racial bonus.
So that'll bump it up to a 13,and then charisma is the eight.

(01:04:18):
That's our dumb stat.
Yep, all right.
So I want to work the wood.
That's right, he's, he's.
He's a man of action, not a manof words, absolutely.
So we're going to click applyability scores.

Joe (01:04:35):
And where we go.

Andrew (01:04:36):
So now we have.
So now to review.
So so dexterity was the 18, soit has a mod of a plus four
modifier, which is reallyimportant.
Wisdom is the 13.
So it's got a plus one modifier.

Joe (01:04:51):
So that means our armor class is going to be a 15, which
is nice, so, which is aboutaverage for a first level
character.
Especially if we were playing afighter or something like that,
he would have the armor in theshield, which would bunch them
up to around 14 or 15 anyway,right, so we're in good shape
for that way.

Andrew (01:05:06):
Excellent.
So we feel good with our, withour ability scores.
So we're going to go on to nextand this is going to be our
description.
So and again, we I've got waytoo many extra backgrounds in
here.
So in the basic rules there areone, two, three, there's six,

(01:05:28):
six backgrounds All right.
So the why don't you review thebackgrounds?
And I will roll.

Joe (01:05:32):
So we got six.
We have acolyte, criminal, folkhero, noble, sage and soldier
acolytes Kind of like you knowyou're in a temple, you just
have some basic background ofreligion.
Criminal, Obviously, is acriminal folk hero somebody
who's done something relativelypopular, popular and helpful in
their, his own society.

(01:05:53):
A noble is not gotten quiteobvious.
Maybe he's the youngest childof a noble family who didn't sit
with the rocks, Uh-huh, Sayjust somebody who studies and
spent a lot of time bythemselves off on their own, Um,
and then you know, a soldier isa soldier.
So I think a lot of these couldfit and and we could make and
again, like like we've been,I've been saying this is how you

(01:06:13):
make a backstory.

Andrew (01:06:15):
Say like I feel like if I had a, if you had to pick, I
know what I would pick out ofout of these six.
What would you pick If I?
Had to pick you do, you have topick.

Joe (01:06:28):
I have to.

Andrew (01:06:29):
Yes.

Joe (01:06:29):
I would probably take the noble, because I would make him
the youngest son of a noblefamily who was, you know, never
really paid attention to, andwhen everybody else was off
working with the rock, he waslooking at the wood chair and he
was, you know, fiddling withthe wooden chair, or something
like that.
I think I would either do thenoble or the soldier and and the

(01:06:52):
after his life in this, insoldiering and, and we know he
did his term of duty orsomething like that, and then he
decided you know what I'm done?
Uh, you know, these people areobsessed with rocks.
I want to go and explore andlearn about these trees and this
wood thing.
Like, maybe he's just like anoutcast from that spec.
That's how I would do it.

Andrew (01:07:10):
Interesting, I would, I would go with the sage
background and, again, becausewe already have, we already have
the, the proficiency in history.

Joe (01:07:23):
Okay.

Andrew (01:07:23):
So so this would this would be somebody that's studied
.
He's studied martial arts, he'sstudied woodworking to build
his weapons.
So I think I figure, like he'sa, he's a, he's a.
He's a student of the world hasgone out to learn a lot of
things he's he's learned how tofight with his hands.
He's learned how to build withhis hands.

Joe (01:07:43):
Isn't that interesting?
Like you're looking at thebackstory about how he came to
the physical capabilities thathe has now and I'm looking at
the backstory of how he was likenot accepted or whatever, and
he decided to walk out.
It's interesting how twodifferent people approach the
same back Exactly.

Andrew (01:07:57):
That, that, that's, that's again.
That's what's so fantasticabout building these characters.

Joe (01:08:02):
And you don't even have to do your favorite thing, because
after you've made three or fourcharacters, you stop making all
your favorite things and startmaking the other things you're
interested in, right.

Andrew (01:08:08):
Exactly so we are.
We are going to randomize thisagain as well and see see what
we come up with.
We've got, we've got the four,which is noble, a noble, a noble
.

Joe (01:08:22):
Am I winning again?

Andrew (01:08:24):
Again, it's not about we .
Again, this is.
This is like.
This goes back to the one ofour, one of our original
questions how do I win D and D?
There is no winning, it's just.
It's just different choices.
So we are going to choose noble.

Joe (01:08:39):
All right.
So you understand wealth andpower.
You have a title, your familyhas land.
You've never really had anydiscomfort or work.
You know you might be apampered and you might not have
no anything about it.
Um, you get an additionalproficiency and the skills.
One of them is persuasion, soyou're able to talk to people,
which is actually probablypretty good, because our person,

(01:09:01):
we're going to need it, becausewe have very shitty charisma.
We only have an eight yes and,and this bonus will give us a
plus two, so it'll help offsetthat minus one?

Andrew (01:09:10):
No, the minus two.
Is it a minus two at eight?
That's those minus one.

Joe (01:09:15):
Maybe it is a minus one.
Yeah, you're right, minus one.

Andrew (01:09:18):
So I set that minus so yeah.

Joe (01:09:20):
So anytime you're trying to you, uh, career, persuade
anybody with something you know,it'll balance itself out.

Andrew (01:09:26):
At least you're not at a disadvantage when you're when
you're trying to persuadesomebody.
But then we get an extra skill.

Joe (01:09:31):
Yes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.

Andrew (01:09:40):
Let's roll a d 20.

Joe (01:09:42):
And if it turns out to be higher.
So we got animal handling orcona athletics.
Deception, insight,intimidation, investigation,
medicine, nature perception,performance, religion, sleight
of hand, stealth and survival,three which is athletics.

Andrew (01:09:55):
Well, hold on, don't.
We have athletics already.
I think we already haveathletics as a proficiency, so
let's roll it again.
Let's re roll.
That Are there.
Are there 15 of them?
Or five, six, 13, 14, 15,survival?

Joe (01:10:15):
Oh.

Andrew (01:10:16):
I like that survival.
He will survive.
That's it.

Joe (01:10:18):
I think it's a good one for a for a, and if you've got a
thing for you, you've got tothink about this right Again.
Here I am building thebackstory.
As a noble, he was kicked outby his family and he had to
learn to survive on his own.
He had the struggle.

Andrew (01:10:31):
He doesn't have the privilege of being a noble
anymore, so he has that bearingstill but it doesn't have the,
the, the advantages of it.

Joe (01:10:38):
So he had to learn how to survive, and that's when he
found this monk to help him withhis wood Interesting.

Andrew (01:10:44):
So now we get to choose another tool.

Joe (01:10:46):
another tool proficiency, which is a gaming set, in this
specific case, gaming set dice Iso let's okay.

Andrew (01:10:53):
So there's dice, dragon chess playing cards or three
dragon anti.

Joe (01:11:00):
If we're going to pick something.

Andrew (01:11:01):
I see playing cards because of of oh, no, no, I
think we should just roll it.

Joe (01:11:04):
I should roll it Absolutely .
Cause the dragon trust wouldactually work really nicely with
the row with the background.
Yeah, so D four.

Andrew (01:11:09):
So let's say D four, that'll be four.
So that's three dragon and anti.
All right.

Joe (01:11:15):
I don't know what that is, but it sounds like fun.

Andrew (01:11:17):
Probably.
My guess is it's probably likethree card Monty.
I've never played that, youknow.
Do you have you ever heard ofthree card Monty?
Yes, okay, you shouldn't haveplayed it, cause it's, it's,
it's a gimmick, it's, it's, it'sa way to steal people's money.
Oh, is that when you turn oneup and you say oh, this is
where's the queen.

Joe (01:11:38):
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Andrew (01:11:39):
Okay, yeah it's, it's a hustler's game.

Joe (01:11:41):
It's.
It's a way to take your money,so All right.
So, oh, this is interesting.
Then this is really interesting.
I have this guy's developing ina background.

Andrew (01:11:48):
But, but see, but, but, but maybe again he is.
He's had to survive on thestreet.
So this is, this is a way formaybe him to make some money.
Well, he's got high dexterity,so he's got the fast.
Yeah, yeah, I like it, I likeit.

Joe (01:12:00):
Say okay, say okay and this is how this happens, guys, and
this is in girls.
This is how your characterdevelops, and and, and.
The thing is, you know you doit once or twice.
You're not going to be likekicking ideas like this, oh my
goodness, but but again therethere's so many extra languages
here.
So now we get an extra languageas a, as a, as a noble, so
let's, let's pick somethinglogical then.

(01:12:20):
So, as a halfling, he would bedealing with other races on
normal.
I'm sorry as a gnome.

Andrew (01:12:26):
Yes.

Joe (01:12:26):
As a as a noble, he would probably be dealing with other
races, and as a as as an a gnome, he would also be like moving
crafts and and things that hecreated.
Mm, hmm, um, he already speakscommon, which is the human
language.
I would say, maybe, like Elvis,I was about to say Dwarvesh.

(01:12:48):
Dwarvesh Only because dwarvesand the, the gnomes, would seem
to have a kindred between them.
Okay, but I could go with the.
We can go with something else.

Andrew (01:12:56):
I'm just, I'm just thinking high society, Like
what's, what's like a.

Joe (01:12:59):
Ooh, that's a good point too, Like the dwarves are more
workers.
But if he's a noble, maybe he'sa little snootier.

Andrew (01:13:05):
Like that's where I was going with it.

Joe (01:13:06):
I'll go with it.
Go with it.

Andrew (01:13:07):
So we're going to Elvis, so Elvis, okay.

Joe (01:13:12):
Funny she doesn't look Jewish.

Andrew (01:13:15):
I was, I was, I was going to start singing like blue
suede shoes, or you know, I'mgoing, I'm going that route.
Um, okay, so there's, oh.
So we got the backgroundfeature.
Position of privilege.

Joe (01:13:31):
Thanks to your noble birth, people inclined to think the
best of you.
You're welcome in high society,but our guy is not going to be
that way.
Uh, people assume that you havethe right to be wherever you
are.
Common folk make every effortto accommodate you and avoid
your displeasure, and otherpeople of high birth treat you
as the equal in the same socialsphere.
You can secure an audience witha local new noble.

(01:13:51):
Wow, that could be veryinteresting.
That could be, helpful.
That could be very helpful.
Yeah, I mean, you think aboutit.
You walk into a town andnobody's going to believe some
ragabond ruffian that he's, uh,you know, coming to give him a
warning and he's like look man,here's my pet patents of
nobility.
Let me talk to your Lordbecause I have information he
needs to know.
Right, Interesting.

Andrew (01:14:10):
Let's oh no, let's dive into the suggested.

Joe (01:14:13):
Okay, so here this is.

Andrew (01:14:14):
This is where we get into rolling a lot of things.
The suggested characteristicsfor for our rock gnome monk.

Joe (01:14:23):
So it suggests to pick two of these personality traits,
which there's.
Eight, so we'll roll a coupleof D eights, yes, all right, so
let's grab Uh.
So the first one is eloquentflattery, makes everyone to talk
, to feel like the mostwonderful, important person in
the world to the common folk.
Love me for my kindness andgenerosity.
Three nobody could doubt, bylooking at my regal bearing,

(01:14:44):
that I am cut and unwashed.
Uh, cut above the unwashedmasses.
Four I take great pains toalways look my best and follow
the latest fashions.
Five I don't like to get myhands dirty and I won't be
caught dead in unsuitableaccommodations.
Six despite my noble birth, Idid not play myself above other
folk.
We all have the same blood.
Seven my favor once lost islost forever.

(01:15:06):
In eight If you do me an injury, I will crush you, ruin your
name and salt your fields.
And again these things are.
These things are like.
We talked about thesebackground, personality traits
and stuff like that.
This helps you build yourbackstory and how your character
should be portrayed in the roleplaying.

Andrew (01:15:22):
Yes, yeah, and again, you don't have to use these.
These are just.
These are just guides as to Toyeah, Options for for how to
build.
So you don't have to come upwith your own Right so we and
you don't have to roll to topick them.
But again, because we're doingeverything random, we are going
to roll these and and just seewhere, see where the dice lead

(01:15:46):
us.
So I'm going to roll two Deights and Roll two D eights and
see what, what happens, oh,these these are really good
three and eight.
So we got three, which is no onecould doubt by looking at my

(01:16:06):
regal bearing, that I am a cutabove the unwashed masses, and
eight, which is if you do me aninjury, I will crush you, ruin
your name and salt your fields.
So think about this.

Joe (01:16:19):
This is noble, who's been, who's been ostracized by his
family, spent, sent to to tomake his own.
He's as a survival, that'swhere he developed his survival
skills.
And then when he gets out there, people see him.
He looks like he's ragged, helooks like he's a, he's a
ragabond.
But the way he, that's how he'sdressed, but the way he carries
himself, he has a regal mannerand a regal attitude.

(01:16:41):
And the second, somebody treatshim subpar.
He just beats a crap out of himand he just destroys the wares
or whatever.
I liked it.
They see, this is all character, this is all how you start your
Right.

Andrew (01:16:51):
So we're going to add those two Good, right Now,
ideals.
So we've got a whole bunch ofideals for for our.
There's six of them.
So there's respect.
Respect is due to me because ofmy position.
Responsibility it is my duty torespect the authority of those
above me.
Independence I must prove thatI can handle myself without the

(01:17:12):
coddling of my family, like that.
One.
Power If I can attain morepower, no one will tell me what
to do.
And these all have.
We're going to talk aboutalignment.
So so these have all differentalignments associated with them.
Family is another ideal ideal.
Blood runs thicker than water,and noble obligation is my duty
to protect and care for thepeople beneath me.

(01:17:34):
So so some of these are good.
Some of these are lawful,chaotic evil.
So let's, we're going to roll.
What the D six to see?
Yep, one D six.
You only get one of these inthis case.

Joe (01:17:45):
What what is what is our?
The independence is a good one,but you know we're going by Zan
Ross.
Zan Ross is going to be anideal.

Andrew (01:17:55):
What's the ideal for Zan Ross Three, which is
independence?
Ooh again, this is really good,I must.
I must prove that I can handlemyself without the coddling of
my family.
This is, this is all rolling,really.
Yeah, this is coming togethernicely.
So here's the idea too.
Now, right.

Joe (01:18:11):
So the the alignments that we will talk about, this one's
chaotic, which means it doesn'treally tend itself to evil or
good.
It depends on how you use it,and you'll find that, indeed,
the alignments really don't meanmuch, unless you are role
playing and you decide to diveinto your role play.

Andrew (01:18:31):
Indeed, this is exciting .
Okay, now onto onto bonds.
So we can choose one, andthere's six of them.
So what are the bonds for ZanRoss?
So we're going to start.

Joe (01:18:42):
You're going to face the challenge to win the approval of
my family.
Something else that would fitin, because he's left and he's
going to succeed at this myhouse is alliance with another
noble family must be sustainedat all costs Wouldn't fit in,
but we can build a story aroundit.
Nothing is more important thanthe other members of my family
would not fit in at all.
But we can find him havingregret and that's why he wants

(01:19:03):
to win back into their favor.
I mean, you can twist a lot ofthis.
I am in love with the air ofthe family that my family
despises.

Andrew (01:19:11):
That works out really nice, really nicely.

Joe (01:19:15):
I, my loyalty is to my sovereign is unwavering.
That could work, but you know,and the common folk must see me
as a hero of the people Now thisalso works is like you know.
The common folk would look athim like you're not working with
rocks.
Why are you?
No?
No, you have to see what I cando.
I must prove myself.
I mean another, another optionof proving myself.

Andrew (01:19:33):
He's a hero of the people.
He's not.
He's not just a noble, you know.
He's not not just to be admiredbecause he's a noble, but
because of what how he can helpthe people.
There's a lot we can do withthat.
Let's see what this will beinteresting.
Three nothing is more importantthan the other members of my

(01:19:55):
family.

Joe (01:19:56):
Okay.
So now, just going off the spiton the top of the head, he's
left but he is not.
Or she is left because we saidit was going to be a she.
She is left but she's nothomesick.
She's resentful of the factthat she felt the need to leave
and now she has to come up withsome way to go back to them and

(01:20:19):
prove to them that she is worthy.
And as a DM, a person mightfind a way to input a member of
that of her family into thecampaign to create conflict.
Now, this person has thisindependent streak and he's

(01:20:39):
doing all this or she's doingall this and that and the other
thing and all of a sudden, well,you know, somebody kidnapped
your brother or your father andI was like no, I got to go save
them.
I mean, yeah, I disagree withthem, we hate each other for X,
y and Z, but they're my family.

Andrew (01:20:51):
Right Now onto my favorite part, the flaws.

Joe (01:20:55):
I keep remembering when we'd first created.
Your flaws for Fianc was uh no,it wasn't really the flaw.
I guess it was one of thepersonality traits you were
supposed to give a certainpercentage of whatever gold was
in your pocket away every timeyou walked into town.
That was fun.
It was, it was a lot of fun, andthis is where I fall down as a
DM.

(01:21:16):
In general, I I'm, I'm a goodperson to introduce somebody to
the game, but I don't get intoevery single aspect of the game
with them and that's like,that's it.
I don't.
I don't dive into those thingsI like to, but I just don't have
them head for it.
Oh so the flaws.
I believe that everyone isbeneath me.

(01:21:36):
I hide a truly scandaloussecret that could ruin my family
.
I am too often.
I too often hear veiled threatsand insults and every word that
talked to me, and I'm quick toanger.
I have an insatiable desire fordecadent pleasures.
In fact, the world does revolvearound me and by my words and
actions I offer them, bringshame to my family.

Andrew (01:22:00):
So I rolled the six, which is by my words and actions
I often bring shame to myfamily.
So this particular group ofrock gnome.

Joe (01:22:10):
Rock gnomes are very heavy into and he brought the.
She brought the shame by beinginterested in the wood.
Oh, this is a nicecontradiction.

Andrew (01:22:19):
I mean, this is, this is a short story.
I mean, come on.
This is like you know now wehave to choose an alignment for
for our character.
So we've got chaotic, betweenchaotic waffle and neutral.
So there's chaotic evil,chaotic good and chaotic neutral

(01:22:39):
waffle, evil, waffle goodwaffle, neutral and neutral.
Just purely neutral, neutralevil and neutral Good.
Should we, should we roll this?

Joe (01:22:50):
How many of them are there?

Andrew (01:22:51):
There are nine.

Joe (01:22:52):
Well, hold on.
So first, let's do this.
A good character is a personwho, in general, will do things
that are for the betterment ofsociety or the people that
they're currently working ordealing with.
An evil person in general willdo what's best for themselves
and for their following orwhatnot.
And a neutral person, kind of,is more like life happens, let

(01:23:13):
it happen.
Now you got the chaotic, whichthen I mean you got the law fall
in the one hand where it's likeanything I can do, I will do,
but as long as it's in the law.
And then you have the chaotic.
That's like I don't care whatthe law says, I'm going to do
whatever I want.
That I think is right or Ithink is wrong.
That's the chaotic aspect.
And then and then the, the, theneutral concept is like you kind

(01:23:35):
of toe the line between bothaspects.
So there's not.
I kind of, I kind of want toavoid being evil, but that's
just in my head.
So yeah, roll out a D 10 andwe'll ignore the 10.

Andrew (01:23:46):
So well, let's, let's talk about this.
We don't necessarily have toroll this one.
I would say, for for everythingthat we, we built out about
this character, I would.
I would probably land somewherein chaotic good or chaotic
neutral, just just just based oneverything that we've rolled

(01:24:08):
out for this character already.

Joe (01:24:09):
I'm thinking, chaotic, neutral myself.
Yeah, because he's obviouslychaotic, jordy.
Jordy is playing with my, myempty water can't buy a glass
and he's very fascinated by thesilverness of it.
See, it's from Valley.

Andrew (01:24:26):
It's like toy.

Joe (01:24:32):
I'm thinking.
I'm thinking the chaotic,because obviously he's not going
along with his societal norms,and then the neutral, because if
he was chaotic, good, I thinkhe might, she might decide to
try to stay with her family.
But I think if he's, if it's achaotic, neutral, it's like look
, I, I, I love you guys, but Igot to get out of here.

(01:24:53):
You're, you're, you're not.
No, I think chaotic, Well,cause we're cause.

Andrew (01:24:57):
Remember, remember.
The one thing that we've gotgoing on is um, if you do me an
injury, I will crush you, ruinyour name and salt your field.

Joe (01:25:07):
So that's so that would shy away from the idea of making
them good yeah.

Andrew (01:25:12):
Like I feel like is like we're good, but if you cross me
I will ruin you.
Yes, like kind of thing, okay.

Joe (01:25:20):
So I like that.

Andrew (01:25:20):
All right, so let's call that, let's call it chaotic
neutral.

Joe (01:25:23):
You're right, that fits in great.
Um we, let's, let's come backto the idea of faith.

Andrew (01:25:28):
Another time yeah.

Joe (01:25:28):
The truth of the matter is as, as a rock gnome, they're
going to be an artisan.
We can look up at a later timewhat type of gods that the
gnomes would have worshipped,and stuff like that.
We can fill that in later, butthat's a lot more deeper dive.
I'd be honest with you unlessyou are a paladin or a cleric,
most people don't really worrytoo much about the faith aspect.
Right?

Andrew (01:25:48):
Yeah, so we can.
We can skip that for now.
Now, lifestyle anywhere fromwretched to aristocratic.

Joe (01:25:55):
I think we have to go poor because he wants to be something
more.
She, I keep guessing that shewants to be something more than
what she can be, but she doesn'thave the ability to sustain
herself beyond some modest means.
But I don't think modest makessense because she basically has
nothing.
She left from nothing, so she'sstarting from nothing.
So I think poor two silverpieces versus one gold makes

(01:26:18):
more sense.

Andrew (01:26:19):
Yeah, but again you know she's, she's doing three dragon
auntie on the street so she shecould be making some money for
herself, like how much money isshe making for herself?
But like I think poor, I thinkmodest, modest or poor, modest
or I think modest.

Joe (01:26:35):
Okay, I'm good with that Cause cause again, I'm not that
strongly about poor that I wouldwant to argue the fact that I
think I think modest would work,A modest lifestyle keeps you
out of the slums and ensuresthat you can maintain your
equipment.

Andrew (01:26:49):
You live.
You live in an older part oftown, renting a room in a
boarding house in our temple.
You don't go hungry or thirstyand your living conditions are
clean.
If simple, ordinary peopleliving modest lifestyles include
soldiers with families,laborers, students, priests,
hedge wizards and the like.
So I think that's.
I think I think that fits infine.

Joe (01:27:05):
Yeah, do me a favor, just click on the pool on the um, I'm
poor, I'm poor.
Let's just see what that reads.
You're going to corridor uh.
Comforts in a stable community,simple food and lodging is
threadbare clothing,unpredictable conditions,
results and sufficient theprobably unpleasant experience.
Accommodations might be a roomof a flop house or the common

(01:27:25):
room above a tariff and youbenefit from some legal
protections, but you still haveto contend with violence, crime,
disease.
People at this lifestyle leveltend to be unskilled laborers,
cost mongers, peddler, thieves,mercenaries and other
disreputable types, which, which, which I think would still fit
with the three dragon antiaspect, because that's kind of
dishonest but I'm good, Iwouldn't call.

Andrew (01:27:47):
I wouldn't call her disreputable, though I'm good
with the modest, I'm good, okay.
So we'll settle on modest, okay, um oh physical characteristics
.

Joe (01:27:55):
So hair um, figuring a rock gnome would probably be more or
less underground, uh, or or atthe very least working in the
ground a lot.
But let's give her like a lightbrown hair instead of like dark
brown or black, because it'lldifferentiate the fact that,
look, she's different.
It'll add into the fact thatshe's different than the rest of

(01:28:16):
her family who tend to havedarker hairs.

Andrew (01:28:18):
Well, let's go to, I'm going to, I'm going to go back
to the the information on, on,on, on gnomes, to see what their
, what their traits are.
So we know they're betweenthree and four feet in height,
about 40 pounds.

(01:28:39):
So we know that already.

Joe (01:28:43):
Um what else?
Yeah, so, like you know the the, you're accustomed to life on
the ground.
Yeah, I'll have a lot of timewhen people spend outside.
Their hair lightens because ofthe sun.
Maybe she escaped from theunderground more frequently than
than her parents really wantedher to, so she tends to have
lighter hair, so like a lightbrown hair instead of a dark

(01:29:04):
brown or or a black hair.

Andrew (01:29:05):
Okay, so we're going to go.
Hair light brown skin is olive.
Sure.

Joe (01:29:17):
Because it wouldn't be dark skin, because she wouldn't.
You know, in in a darker area,like the drought and the in the
door guard, which are darkerdrought, dark elves and dark uh,
dark dwarves, they tend to havedarker skin as well.
So she would be somebody who'dhave somewhat lighter skin
because she spent more timetrying to go outside.

Andrew (01:29:35):
Okay, Um, what color?
What color eye is doing?
Doesn't gnome?

Joe (01:29:44):
Let's say, and then just spit ball in here like bright
blue, something thatdifferentiates her from
everybody else.

Andrew (01:29:52):
Okay, we go.
Bright blue, I get height.
Now we know height should besomewhere between three and four
feet.

Joe (01:29:59):
So so roll a D12 and if it's a uh, we'll go from three
one inch to three to four foot,okay, so that's three feet five
inches.

Andrew (01:30:12):
Boom, three feet five inches, okay, now here.

Joe (01:30:16):
Now we got the question of age, so the adulthood by 40 and
they lived to about 350 to 500.

Andrew (01:30:23):
350 to almost 500 years so this actually is this I would
.
I would assume if, if our gnomehas recently left home, they've
probably reached the age ofadulthood.
I think so.
They're probably at least 40.
Let's roll a D20 and say 40plus, yeah, 15.

Joe (01:30:49):
So 55.
So my theory, again buildingonto the story aspect of this,
is that she, xanrose, is 55.
She ended up having an issuewith her parents as she reached
her age of adulthood and thenshe moved out and left.
Then she spent several years onthe street and then she failed
into the the good graces of amonk who taught her the

(01:31:11):
woodworking skills that she'salways sought and gave her a
home.
Monks don't tend to have alavish lifestyles.
That's why the idea of a modestlifestyle fits into that as
well.
So like she's beyond the streetslum days that she had.
But she's learned somewhat, haslearned not to be that
extravagant person.

Andrew (01:31:33):
Right.
Ok, so we've got all of this.
Now we have our XanroseBumblebumble, the noble rock
gnome monk with woodworkerstools.
And so she is.

(01:31:55):
She has light brown hair, oliveskin, bright blue eyes.
She's three foot five, weighs29 pounds, is 55 years old
personality traits no one coulddoubt by looking at their regal
bearing.
They are a cut above theunwashed masses and if you do

(01:32:18):
them injury they will crush you,ruin your name and salt your
fields.

Joe (01:32:21):
So she still has a little of that arrogance left over in
her.
Oh yeah, she will.
She will crush you.

Andrew (01:32:28):
She's also independent.
Nothing is more important thanthe other members of her family,
but she still feels the need toprove her own independence of
them Right, because she refusedto count how to what they wanted
.
She can handle herself withoutthe coddling of her family.
But her family is still in,family is still important, and
her flaw is that by her wordsand actions she often brings

(01:32:54):
shame to the family.
So that's her woodworking.
That it would also.
It's also why why she has sucha low charisma score.
She's always saying the wrongthing.

Joe (01:33:05):
Well, you know what the thing is again here feeds into
it.
She has low charisma.
So she constantly talks aboutwoodworking when all the
important guests are over andher parents and her family kind
of put up with it, but whenthese high nobles from the rest
of the gnome rock gnome societycomes in, they don't want to
hear about it and she's like no,you don't understand.
Wordworking is so much moresuperior than rockworking.
I mean, like this is this is apretty fun, pretty fun character

(01:33:28):
.
I think what I'm going to do isso we're going to come back
next week to make our secondcharacter.
When I done, quite done here.
Yet we're going to come backnext week to make a second
character.
But in the meantime I'm goingto type up a little something
for a back story for her.
I'll flip it over to you.
You modify it, what not?
And then when we post this upon the discord, we'll have the
whole thing filled in and theycan kind of take a look at

(01:33:49):
everything.

Andrew (01:33:50):
Excellent, excellent.
So we got it.
Now we have to choose equipment.

Joe (01:33:54):
Yes.

Andrew (01:33:56):
So equipment or gold.

Joe (01:33:58):
Equipment, of course Equipment.
You can pick the gold and thenyou can go out and buy
specifically what you want, butI like this better.
So a short sword or a simpleweapon, that's your first choice
, I.

Andrew (01:34:09):
I'm opting for simple weapon.
I agree, I again, I, I am goingto, I am going to go to the way
of being the woodworker.
So I would say maybe, maybe, aclub I love, quarter staff for a
martial artist.
I think it's a great, a greatone About darts.

(01:34:33):
She makes her own darts, makesher own darts.

Joe (01:34:37):
I don't know how I feel about that.

Andrew (01:34:38):
They're made out of wood right and she have sharp metal
points, that's.
Ok.

Joe (01:34:43):
Or they can still be wooden points.
There's nothing that says theyhave to have a metal point.
Ok, so I was thinking of dart,or I was thinking of sling, but
I was thinking sling first, butthen I can.
Then I, then I saw the dart andI was like what if she, or, or
the short bow, she makes her ownarrows.
She, she lovingly crafted ashort bow and then made her own

(01:35:07):
arrows.
Oh, I just noticed, you got theboomerang there too.
I mean, you got a boomerang.

Andrew (01:35:13):
How are there one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, forty, fifty six.

Joe (01:35:20):
So let's, let's roll d 20 and see, and we'll rule out the
obvious ones, like a hand axeand a light hammer.
We'll probably just rule thoseout.

Andrew (01:35:30):
I don't think there are 17.

Joe (01:35:31):
No, I think you said there are 15.

Andrew (01:35:33):
Yeah, OK, so let's go Now.
Come on.
Why can't I roll?
Why can't I roll low for achange?
She, you're right.
Yeah, what's what's a?
Nine?
One, two, three, four, five,six, seven, eight, nine a sickle
.

Joe (01:35:51):
I don't know how that doesn't fit.
That doesn't fit what we'rethinking.

Andrew (01:35:54):
No Eight, which would be the quarter stuff, quarter
stuff done All right quarterstuff.

Joe (01:36:03):
I think you actually get 10 darts automatically.
I just noticed, so we're goodanyway, excellent.

Andrew (01:36:09):
I would probably say an explorers pack.

Joe (01:36:11):
I was actually going to say an engineers pack.

Andrew (01:36:13):
Really.

Joe (01:36:13):
Because she's coming from the underground.
This is what she knows.

Andrew (01:36:16):
OK, that makes sense, I could.
I could see that.
So let's do the Dungears pack.

Joe (01:36:19):
That includes a backpack, crowbar hammer, ten pistons, ten
torches, tinderbox, ten days ofrations and a water skin 50.
Fifty foot of help rope, yeah,strap to the side of it.
Explorers pack is bedroll messkit.
Tinderbox, ten torches, tenrations, a water skin, have 50
for the I want to sayDungeoneering, but I'm thinking

(01:36:40):
that now that she's out andshe's on her own, I think the
Explorer pack makes more sense.

Andrew (01:36:44):
That's that's what.
That's what I was leaningtowards.

Joe (01:36:46):
OK, fine.
So, she has the 10 darts.
Yes, as a noble, she getsstarting equipment, starting
with oh, what do you?

Andrew (01:36:54):
got A set of fine clothes, a signet ring.

Joe (01:36:58):
So these are going to be things that she probably doesn't
wear normally.
She probably has to have apouch or a packet that she takes
with her everywhere, which haswhat I was talking about before,
that scroll of pedigree, Right,and then she has an extra 25
gold pieces.
Maybe maybe she doesn't have 25gold pieces.
Maybe she has a fairly heirlooma family heirloom a minor one,
but something she took from homebecause she values her family

(01:37:20):
so much.
Maybe it's a family crest orsomething like that that's worth
25 gold pieces.
We can uncheck a pursecontaining 25 gold pieces, so I
think it's why I still like theidea of her taking this like
family, family crest, becausethen it's like there's that
attachment.
My family is still veryimportant to me.

Andrew (01:37:34):
All right, so we'll add that starting equipment.

Joe (01:37:36):
Yeah.

Andrew (01:37:38):
Boom, all right, any, any.
So we got the.

Joe (01:37:43):
Yeah, that's just the other possessions possessions items.
We can add anythingindividually.
Now, if we had a choice, we hadanything specific that we
wanted to add.

Andrew (01:37:53):
I don't think we need to add anything at this point.
Again, we're trying to keep thesimple, so.
So let's not, we're not goingto add anything additional at
this point.

Joe (01:38:01):
Right, and we're going to change that currency from 25
gold into a family heirloom.

Andrew (01:38:05):
But we can do that, we can do that under possessions.
Can't we, can't we.
That's only we can only editthat one possession Can we add?
We can't add.

Joe (01:38:16):
No I think possessions is just one long box.

Andrew (01:38:19):
So let's call it a Family family, if I can spell
family crest heirloom familyheirloom that's worth 25 and
we're going to Take that down tozero gold pieces, right?

(01:38:39):
Ok, good, excellent, so we'vegot, we've got all that, we've
got all the inventory, we've gotall the equipment, and that's
our character.
So now that's, that's, that's.

Joe (01:38:54):
Zan Ross, zan Ross.
Now we have to come up with apicture for her, which will will
dig into a little bit later.
Yes, and we will put this allup on the discord once we have
everything completed.
Now you have the options.
You can export it to a PDF soyou can print it out for your in
person game, or you canactually view the character
sheet on D&D beyond.
We're pretty much done here,making the character aside from

(01:39:17):
this imaging and and thebackstory, and this is it.
I mean, yeah, it took us twohours almost to go through the
whole thing, but it goes a lotfaster when you're working by
yourself.
And then, obviously, thebackstory creates a whole new
process.

Andrew (01:39:31):
So now we've got our character minus minus a full
backstory and and that, but wereally have a pretty well
flushed out character here,which I really I was.
I wasn't sure where I was goingto go in the beginning, but
this is.
This is a pretty cool.

Joe (01:39:48):
Yeah, no, I'm like in this, yeah, and, and I was like,
especially like when we bothsaid, oh rock, no, no, like
neither of us have ever done it,and now like it, and half of
this is your backstory.
In my opinion, half of yourbackstory creates so much more
enjoyment out of it.

Andrew (01:40:02):
Indeed, indeed, all right, so yeah, so we've got our
, we've got our first character,so this is our weapon wielder
character.
Next is next episode.
We're going to create thespellcaster.

Joe (01:40:17):
So, like we were saying, that's everything Now your
characters created, except, likeyou were saying, andrew, the
backstory, which I'm going towork on.
You're going to work on theimaging.
We'll swap things out.
You give me a couple of optionsfor imaging.
I'll give you the backstory,we'll tweak and then, as soon as
we can probably some timemiddle of this week, maybe close
to the end we'll post it up onthe Discord.

(01:40:38):
Yes, indeed, next time, like Ithink you were saying and I had
interrupted you, we'll come backand create our magical
character.

Andrew (01:40:44):
Yes, Looking forward to that.
Absolutely, I'm.
It's funny like I could.
I could go either way on onwhether it's like a fighter,
like a weapon, weapon wielder orspellcaster, like I.
Just they both.
They both have different thingsthat appeal to me.
Agreed, I like the spellcasterbecause it's you can cast

(01:41:06):
different spells, it'scustomizable.
Yeah, it's it gives you some,some flexibility as far as
that's concerned.
So that's the nice nice thingabout that.
But we will do that nextepisode.
Then we will probably take abreak and we've got the holidays
coming up and then we will comeback after we create our two

(01:41:28):
characters with our live playand and play those two
characters and and have some funwith those so you can see what
they, what they actually looklike in in real life play.
Thanks a lot everybody.
Thank you for joining us.
We will.
We will catch you next episode.

Joe (01:41:44):
Have a great one.

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