Building Your Own D&D Class with Haven Joseph-Lyon

Episode Transcript
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>> Skylar (00:15):
Welcome students to Session Zero
University. My name is Professor Rainier, one of the
many teachers here at the university. But for right
now I am your orientation
representative. Here at scu. You will
find a variety of professors well versed in the realms
of tabletop role playing games, offering you

(00:35):
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take a homebrwing class with our potions
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sure to take all your required general education
classes like Character Creation 101,
Intro to World Building and NPC

(00:58):
Voices for Beginners to help round out
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matters not. There is always room to
grow at Session Zero University.

>> Haven Joseph Lyon (01:30):
Alrighty. Welcome class. My name is Haven Joseph
Lyon. I am the co CEO of Campaign Castaster,
a high fantasy TTRPG podcast designed to
introduce you to your fictional home away from home.
and I'm super excited to be talking about ah,
how to build your own class in D and D. That's one
of my number one things that I've been invited to come here

(01:51):
and talk about today. So I'm super excited to talk about this.

>> Skylar (01:53):
Yeah, we're super excited to have you, Skylar, here. Obviously,
you guys know me so you don't have to. I don't need to give a whole
explanation. But Haven, super excited to have you here
to share with us so much awesome information about the idea of
making your own D and D class like that.
It's a lot of work. I mean it's a big
undertaking. Right? There's so many different features
and so many different like level progressions that you have to

(02:16):
really work into and playtest, I'm sure. And we're going to
get into a lot of that here ably in a moment. So.
Awesome. So of course you already mentioned kind of
what you do in the TTRPG space. Is there anything else
you wanted to intro before we kind of jump in?

Just so people understand who I am kind of in this
space. I personally have been playing D
and D for 15 years of my life. even though I'm pretty
young, I dm'for 10
of those years because that's one of my more of my passions
with the craft itself. And I'm a big, big anime
Superhero and, everything. Nerd.

(02:50):
Same here. Exactly. Same here.

>> Skylar (02:53):
I am right there with you. Awesome. And
then, and I know I mentioned this in the email I
sent, but I kind of went snooping around and I noticed that you also,
like, co authored a series of books too.

Y. I co authored the Gemini series. The first
book is called the Gemini and the Treasure Codex. The second, the Gemini
and the Ruby Spyglass. it's actually supposed to be a quintology.
We have the other three completely, like, written, but we
have. Haven't had time to, like, publish it and everything
like that. So that's with my dad, Weston lion,
as well as my stepmom, Jenny Butterfield. and we kind of

(03:25):
did that during COVID and that was our little pet project. And
then we, published it and everything because my dad owns a publishing
company.

>> Skylar (03:31):
Oh, very cool. Okay. So that's so awesome.
That's one of those things that, you know, you hear a lot of people talk about, like, oh, one of
these days I'm gon toa write a book and I'll get it published.
You actually did it, which is really cool to see.

Absolutely. It was one of my dreams. And I always wanted to
make a fictional. Obviously, we're
storytellers. I love storytelling. So that was one
of the ways that we did it. We made a completely, steampunk
pirate book series.

>> Skylar (03:56):
Nice.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (03:57):
That is such a good combination.

Yeah, thanks.

>> Skylar (03:59):
We've been doing a little bit of steampunk stuff in our current D and D
session that we're posting episodes on, but not pirates
yet. Actually, I think what's coming next, I guess that's a little bit of a
spoiler is pirate. So we'll see if we can intermix those two
things.

Yeah, well, if you need insp. That have to.

>> Skylar (04:13):
Ye's. I was just gonna say, if I need inspiration, I'm going
straight to the Gemini series.

Sounds perfect.

>> Skylar (04:18):
Fantastic. All right, so we're talking D and D
class. Making your own. Now, I personally have
never jumped into making my own D and D class. I've had
ideas. I know, actually one of the guys in our group,
Cameron, for his campaign, which is the pirate one that I was mentioning,
he's working on, kind of pushing some ideas
around and playte testing a little bit with something that he's working on as far
as the homebrew class. So, but with that being said,

(04:40):
obviously you actually successfully did it.
What sparked your initial idea? What kind of made you think to
yourself, I want to make like what currently
exists isn't what I want to do. I want to make my own.
what kind of drew that course for you.

Yeah. So I first want to say that it wasn't just
me. It was actually me and my, co owner
of Campaign Castaster, Nick Bailey. He's my
roommate. he's currently out at Drill because he
is doing his own sort of stuff out there. m. And he's
gone for the next three months, but so I'm the only half that gets to
be here. so Nick,

(05:15):
and I have been roommates actually for the past, o. Geez, like
four years, I think. and we wanted to create
this podcast. And therefore the podcast actually kind
of formed due to a failure of a podcast. And
then we got into okay, how do we make this
world? That sort of stuff. And I know you've talked about world building,
but the thing really that really like brought it

(05:36):
together for us was we wanted a class that
could, I'm a big improv fan, personally. I grew
up with improv comedy and everything like that. That was. I
started in middle school. That was my own whole thing. And Nick and
I were talking and we wanted a system that wasn't
like looking at spellcasting and things like that.
There is written things and you have to stay

(05:57):
within the confines of certain rules, which is understandable. Every game
needs something like that to run and to
actually work. Right, Right. but
what we saw a lot of the time was D and
D. Unless you have people like at our table that are
like super into role playinging and like getting out of their
shells, it's really hard to

(06:17):
not be confined by those rules.

>> Skylar (06:20):
Yeah.

so we wanted to create a class that could improvise
with the player and their creativity at the same time.
and that therefore created the
runeecaster. N. This thing, this
class that could change based off of
how the person that was owning it wanted to change
it. With things such as prepared runes, like

(06:40):
normal spells, where you have them written out and they tell you exactly how to
do it in case you can't function without those rules.
But also with its own improvised rune
system where we give you a detailed layout of.
Hey, you just need these three things as long as you stay
within these confines and your DM is okay with it.
It functions. and it's something that will transform as

(07:01):
you want it to transform.

>> Skylar (07:02):
Interesting. Okay.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (07:04):
So it's sort of got, an ever
changing element to it.

Yes. And that's the whole goal. It's so that every time you
play, it's never the same. It has the same
general rul. Basics. But you can
build upon that to make it your own and more
unique.

>> Skylar (07:20):
Which is always kind of the key thing. Right. We always want to have,
like a really unique character.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (07:25):
And so to have a class that can match that energy is super cool.
Thank you. If. If you had to
summarize the runececaster and like, the concept
behind it within like a couple sentences or a
paragraph, what would you. How would you define what it
kind of the features and what it does and how it works.

Yeah. Okay, so, and I think we're going
to talk about this at some point. Picture the
anime full male alchemist. How they're able to
take all of these things, the world around them,
and interact with it and allow mu. M.
Magic itself to flow through the
world and not the person. There's always a
payoff that has to be made with those sort of things.

(08:04):
and my roommate Nick took a lot of inspiration from the
Owl House, which is a phenomenal cartoon. And I actually watched it just for this
interview. so I could speak from his
perspective on that.

>> Skylar (08:14):
Awesome.

and in that show especially, they even
show, written sigils and symbols that they
use to activate magic around the world. Rather than
somebody sitting down creating
incantations with words, they rather draw
it in two different symbols that then come to life
upon pressing it in that showk. but it's
taking those two sort of concepts of something that's

(08:37):
taking from the world itself and writing things
down on pieces of paper or just
onto objects to automatically cast
spells or in this case, runues. just on the fly
in. In something that allows you
to continually move and continually not
be stuck due to a rolelacement.

>> Skylar (08:56):
Right, right. And like, sitting there thinking like, well,
you know, here's the spells that I have.

Yes.

>> Skylar (09:01):
Nothing here is really, like, quite fit for this situation.

Yes.

>> Skylar (09:05):
And this kind of dodges that idea that anything
can be made on the spot, on the fly, like you
said. for any given situation.

Exactly. And like, even. Even once you've
already created an improvised rune, we've kind of
have it in our rules that once you've said an
improvised rune, you can then make it a prepared one.
So like one of the ones that's written out. So then afterward,
if you want to use that same ability, you can sit down with your DM and look
over the rules and actually make it a prepared one

(09:33):
instead of having to come up with it. On the fly, every single
time.

>> Skylar (09:37):
Got it, got it. Because again, I mean,
the way that it works is so, like, vast
and so, never the same, I guess you could say.
Right. So then the idea that, like, I want to go to my DM
afterwards, and he's like, hey, what you just cast back there, that was
really cool. And you're like, yeah, absolutely, I want to do that more
often.

Exactly. And it allows for the player and the DM
to find a way to make something that's balanced.
If something was like, oh, this is a rule of cool moment. You can
totally do that, but in the future, you're not doing that ever
again. Like, like stuff like that.

>> Skylar (10:08):
Yep, exactly. Exactly. Awesome. So,
in addition to sort of this idea of casting
on the fly and creating these customized spells, you
also talked about how there was some new, like, element
and damage types in the class. What kind
of stuff went into that? Or, what. What would
we see if we looked at the runecaster class?

Yeah, actually, I'm pulling it up right here just so I tell you
the exact elements.

>> Skylar (10:31):
Exactly. Right.

so actually, I have. My understanding is you
guys actually did a legend.
I almost said legend of Advantress, last
Airbender. Yeah, yeah.

>> Skylar (10:42):
Avatar legends.

Yeah, exactly. so we kind of like all
of. There's so many shows that tap into, like, the natural
elements, such as fire, water, earth, air,
lightning, thunder, that sort of stuff. And we have a couple of those
in D and D already. But the things we personally felt like
we were missing is things like shadow. Something that's not,
necrotic, but, like, has the ability to

(11:03):
darken areas, slip into shadow. The Shadowple conjure
beings. We think shadow is more of a conjuration
thing. very much ether, the ability to
manipulate space of objects and beings.
vitality, the ability heal and cure disease
personally. Something that's never sat right with me, in D and
D. And I love D and D. I stand by it. so don't think

(11:23):
of'a hater. but, ah,
traditionally, healing word and curirbunns are
evocation spells, Element
spells. But what element do they fall under? I mean,
like, life is a thing, but that's not really an element, if
you really think about it. It's an amalgamation of a bunch of these different
things. So he created vitality, this thing that has its
own natural essence.

>> Skylar (11:45):
it's like life force in a sense.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (11:47):
Okay, very cool.

yeah, so we have those that. I think those are
a couple of the ones we added Earth is another one.
the ability to restrain or fortify natural
substances in creatures. because bludgeoning is a thing.
Yeah. But it didn't feel right that
Earth was only brought down
into just bludgeoning because I feel like it could do so much more than
that.

>> Skylar (12:08):
Absolutely.

and that also gives our players flare
abilities to be like, hey, like instead
of it becoming like a wall or like a big ass hammer
that slams down on you, it now can be Earth
that juts up through the ground and sticks
up into a creature. Like that's. And it's
not piercing, but it's Earth damage.

>> Skylar (12:28):
Right, right.

And you can swing it flavor wise
them.

>> Skylar (12:32):
Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't. It's not limited to whatever
the damage type would theoretically be, depending on
the form that it takes.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (12:39):
It's its own thing so that you can do anything with
it.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (12:43):
Which is really cool. And I like that you mentioned the Avatar
last Airbender, because I can definitely picture that. And it's sort of
that exact concept that, you know, they're out there using
their earthbending to build houses or to grab
somebody's feet, you know, from the ground or
just a hundred different other things. And so yeah, it doesn't
really make sense to just limit that to

(13:04):
the already predefined sort of physical damage types
of D and D. Exactly. That makes a lot of sense.
Okay, very cool. And just to clarify, you
have. Was it one player, I think currently
in your guys stuff that's playing.

Yes, currently we have we made
a separate race for this player. they're a
spriggan, which is taken from Norse mythology and that.
So pretty much just like a tree and person. But they're very tiny.
They're like three foot.

>> Skylar (13:30):
Very, sort of like little teenage groups.

Exactly. We took a. But like we like
to take a lot of inspiration from a bunch of different media.

>> Skylar (13:39):
Oh absolutely.

And our player Sophia, she plays like in this
character. and she even flavors all of her
runes to be based off of being
a tree person. So like there's She has
SAP portal which is kind of similar to Misty
Step in a sense, but it creates a portal of SAP on the
ground that she then goes through and pops out of another
portal on the other side and is like actually covered and

(14:02):
resin and stuff like that. She has this
I can't remember the exact name for it, but it's basically called
like Brain Rot, where I think it's called
Brainstem, where basically she shoots a root into the
ground and the root pops up and hits into the back
of the brain of a creature and they have to
make a save. And if they fail, they're like, stunned in
certain ways where they can't use all their abilities because their

(14:24):
brain'trying to re function itself out of this.
Like my conid sort of
mushroom disease.

>> Skylar (14:31):
Ooh, That's.

It's kind of gritty. Yeah, yeah.

>> Skylar (14:35):
Dark.

Cool.

>> Skylar (14:38):
But that's cool. It's. And it opens up that creative
opportunity. So it's not just I cast Eldritch
Blast every turn. It's. I'm casting all these different, like,
crazy things you've never heard of before.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (14:50):
Or things that maybe you've, like, you get it, you get where it comes
from. But again, like you had said, it's flavor differently.

Yes. And it. Or it's something you see in a TV show and you're like,
I've always wanted to do that with a character. How do I do that?

>> Skylar (15:01):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Boom.

>> Skylar (15:04):
There's a, bloodbend.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (15:07):
Awesome. So let's look at the process then.

All right. Yeah.

>> Skylar (15:10):
So we. You're creating a new, class
massive undertaking. What was kind of like the step by
step process that you went through with the runececaster to kind of
bring it to life?

That is a phenomenal question.

>> Skylar (15:22):
yeah. Where do you even start?

Ah, yeah, that is. That. That itself is a great question.
So, generally, we start, like I
said before, we started with, these different
shows that we had these ideas from. We wanted to create this ever
evolving system. So then how do we do that?
Well, of course we have to make something similar to
what people know so that they're not completely thrown

(15:44):
out of their subconscious, concept of
what D and D is. Right. So then we started looking
at things like fighters and warlocks and wizards and
okay, what levels are they getting new,
new new features and
abilities with? So we created these things called runic
practition features, which is just a
jargony word to say. It's basically the same thing of everyone

(16:06):
gets something as you level up at these different things.

>> Skylar (16:08):
Right.

So for us, we went like third level, sixth level, 10th level,
it's so on and so forth. then we
were like, okay, runes need to be different than spells,
but we don't need, like, we don't want them to be so
different that you can't grasp your head around it.
So with spell levels, they have nine spell levels.
We then created a tier system of

(16:30):
runes rather than level system. This
is only six tiers versus the nine
tiers. And basically we created an
equivalent, being that,
first and second level spells were equal to a
first tier rune,
then third and fourth, second tier, so on and so
forth.

>> Skylar (16:51):
kind of condensing it all down.

Exactly. So that way you still have the ability
to be super powerful in these different rites. But, like, it's
not. You're not so focused on, like, oh, it's a ninth level spell.
I only have this much. And instead of it being spell
slots, it's very similar, but we call it runic
mana points, which you then
get a certain amount per

(17:13):
tier level that you can then use that go
into either using a prepare rune or using an
improvised rune. I'm sure we'll have
plenty of time to talk about how this gets tricky and
everything like that.

>> Skylar (17:25):
but every new class is a learning experience is.

Exactly. And we wanted something similar to
that of Cantrips. But. But how do you make
that without creating, like, a cost to it and making
it familiar? Right, sure. so we created
sigils, which. Which are these new elements that
we're talking about. We have 16 different elements from fire, water, earth,
air, all that sort of jam. and

(17:48):
each roomcaster only
starts with three.
You only get three.

>> Skylar (17:55):
Three of these elements.

Exactly. and that was just so that people
had to be selective. And it makes a character,
grow over time. Because you can have a
minimum of three to start. well, maximum of three to
start. And then by the end, at, like,
20th level, you have seven sigils
available that you get to choose from.

>> Skylar (18:16):
Got it. Okay, so you're not getting all of them. Because, I mean,
that would kind of throw off the idea of a character anyways. Like,
it doesn't feel special if you just have access to everything.

Exactly. So your character has to have some things that
they're specializing in. and then obviously, as
they get older and as they get more experience, they experience more
magic. And therefore we created that
ability to get grander ideas and
bigger options as a player.

>> Skylar (18:42):
Absolutely.

as your character. As your character progresses as well.
then we decided, okay,
now that we have all of that general
idea, how are we even gonna create, like,
runes? Like, how do you create its own whole
magic system? that's a really
tough thing to do. And Nick and I figured that out really,

(19:03):
really fast, in terms of, oh, my God, this is a
lot. so we really focused then
ono the subclasses. The subclasses then
became this thing of,
okay, what's something that we would like to see. We
created four subclasses. We created the E Liz something that's like a
Hexlade warrior, but instead of taking Hexb Blade
just and res skinning it. We,

(19:25):
Nick and I love anime. As we said before, huge
Juu Jitsu Kaiseen fans. So we created a subclass that
was basically like, okay, how do we create a class
that can cast magic while keeping
people, like close to them and
having these runes that allows them
to be a combatant, to

(19:46):
be trifled with. So they basically have this ability
to create domain expansions. That's not what we call them or anything like
that. But we took inspiration from that, where it creates a
domain of your own that keeps a creature within
like 30ft of you and they can't escape it. and you get
like improved criticals and stuff like that. We have the
Kanji, which is, creating,
having extra runes on the fly

(20:08):
at your disposal. Similar to that of like, Gambit being able
to throw cards and like, attach them to different
people and affect people. The, across the playing
field. nice things like, the
Wiccan. it'basically like our
version of a Druid, where they pull on what
we call the beast Jels. Their power. The beast Jels in
our world Cerulin, and on the continent

(20:31):
consonant of Venalor. we have around
like 12ish of these creatures. And their
whole kind of role in our world is they
are physical manifestations
of the power of each
individual biome, if that makes sense. Okay, so for
the desert, there's a big. There's a big u,

(20:51):
desert lizard called Aathon, which is a
huge desert, lizard that actually is
made of yellow energy and looks like a,
thorn Thorny dragon, I believe is what
it's called.

>> Skylar (21:03):
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oay. So we have stuff like that. We have Haldor, which is
this, cragged goat that is made
of actual stone that, is found within the
mountains itself. Tenko, this golden
fox that runs through the forests.
Stuff like that.

>> Skylar (21:20):
Gotcha.

And then we created one last one which
is called the Incantemic. the
Incantim make is basically this idea of there's always
that dark magic, that dark
sense that like, everyone's like, oh, don't ever touch that. So
we created something that is that
which they take the runes and they
scrawl them into their skin with like,

(21:43):
blades and stuff like that.

>> Skylar (21:45):
Dang.

Oay. And at a cost of it potentially
harming Them in the future, they have abilities
where they can, like, they can siphon blood
from other people. And it gives them, more
mona points to actually cast spells. okay.
And in their own right. And runes. and they also
have things like our gut feeling, which is at 14th

(22:06):
level, where basically a creature has to
make a constitution saving throw, or they suffer,
exhaustion levels. But in order to do
that, the incantemic has to expend health
points. and we have an entire system that lays it out
for the player there.

>> Skylar (22:22):
Kind of going off of the anime inspiration kind of reminds me
a little bit of Deadman Wonderland, where they have.

Yeah, okay.

>> Skylar (22:29):
They have, like, the blood powers and they can, like, turn them
into weapons, but it hurts them.

Exactly. So, like, that was kind of the gist. We see
those all the time in popular fiction. So we
were like, how do we make that in this sort of setting? And
there you have it.

>> Skylar (22:42):
Yes, absolutely. That's awesome. That's so awesome.
And my mind went right to it too. So it's like, this is
all stuff that's gonna, like, people can pick this, up ideally,
like, if they get the source material, they'll be like, okay, this
totally makes sense.

Exactly. And it's very much written, so
that's understood. We have had plenty of playte tests and
have really tried to refine the wordage
kind of going on here.

>> Skylar (23:06):
Absolutely, absolutely.

But, yeah, so we started with those subclasses, and then we
went into, We went into creating
the runes themselves. So we have to get
to, like, okay, how do you actually do this? so
we created a bunch of different,
charts that show you exactly how to do it. We have three
different types, three different,
like, subscriptures

(23:30):
within runeecasting itself. You do not
need to actually understand, like, how to read and
write these different subscriptures. It's just a flavor
thing, just for those of people at home who are like, oh, my God, I
can't even wrap my head around that. basically we
boiled it down into three things. the
overall thing is called Kelton, which is just the language of

(23:50):
runes. and we have things like Callan,
which is the schools of magic. So you can just identify,
okay, abjuration. I want something that focuses on projecting
people, conjuration, summoning things forth, so on and so
forth. Zebin, which is the sigils, which are
your elements. Okay, so, like, let's say I want to
use abjuration. Okay, I'm doing something to protect

(24:10):
someone. Then let's say I'm using Zebin
S my sigils. Let's say I use an
Earth sigil. Okay? So that's something that
innately has the ability to protect people, to
fortify people with abjuration. That's right in the same
line. Then you have.
Let me make sure I have this here. Then you have,
Venificum, or venicium. It just

(24:33):
depends on how you want to pronounce it. But
this is the words of power. And we
created our own whole chart and it's
super laid out. It shows you per tier level.
We have words like amplify,
conjure, heal, that sort of stuff. And for
each tier level it tells you, hey, these are the words that
you can use, right? So yeah. So

(24:55):
for example, one of the words is
protect. Okay. So if I'm
using Ven, benefesium or Ven Beneficum
as my word of power protect, I
then use Zebin as my
sigil Earth. Then I use Callan Schools of
magic being abjuration. Now I
can basically say, oh, I want to create

(25:18):
a wall of earth around myself or a wall of
earth around my friends to maybe
try and take off some damage. Maybe it gives them
advantage, against a dexterity saving throw.
Maybe it gives them 2ac to. To an
attack only for that round. Or maybe it's a one minute
thing that you then just place on
someone and now they have like something similar to like

(25:41):
mage armor, where now they have armor across them and
it's this actual bits and pieces of earth that are
forming and circulating around them to take the hit.

>> Skylar (25:48):
Ab.

There's plenty of ways that you can reason with your DM as
long as it's within the general idea
of that. Another example, like let's get
into something damage based. So schools of
magic. I'm just gonna choose Evocation, because that's normally
something that attacks. Right. then
I. So like for each one of the

(26:09):
elements, we detail what they're capable of
doing. For example, fire. It has the ability to
ignite any flammable objects. Like
that's just. That makes sense. Yep. water. It has the
ability to create illusions and
cover. So like fog, cloud. How that creates
like illusions and stuff like that, that's its innate

(26:30):
purpose. But I could do something like
lightning, the ability to stun and magnetize
objects. Right. So okay, let's say I
use the school of Magic Evocation
Sigil being our element Lightning. And
then let's use Word of Power. Word of
power I'm looking at right now is

(26:51):
Strike Super Easy one. Right. So basically
I create a small little jolt of damage. But now
you may be wondering Haven. Okay, I understand
that. But how do you actually deal damage with
the system?

>> Skylar (27:03):
Right, that's fair. Yeah.

So we created a. A.
We have plenty of charts for people to very clearly see
it. but we had this chart that says damage die increasing
through tier level. So each
element has a different level of
dice at different tier levels. And that always stays
the same for that tier level

(27:25):
in that element. For example, if we're talking about lightning,
Lightning's natural dye type is a
D8. So at first tier
level, Lightning gets two
D8. So let's say I'm just like.
It's not the lightning bolt spell, but I'm just choos it like. Let's say I
say sparky hands and you just release
forward a rune that has all of these stipulations with

(27:47):
it. If you're casting it at a first tier level,
you're going to do 2D8.

>> Skylar (27:52):
Got it.

Let's say you instead of doing lightning, want to
use psychic. Psychic has a
die type of D4
but instead of it being 2D8 because you're not using the
D8s, it's 3D4 at a
first tier level. Now let's say you're tearing up.
Looking back at lightning, you start at 2D8. At

(28:13):
first tier, second tier, you go to 3D8, third
tier, four, fourth tier, five, so on and so
forth. And each one of them tends to go up the
D4 types. So something like psychic,
it goes from 3 D4 at first tier
to 5 D4, so on and so forth. And it typically
goes up by two. Got it. U. So that way

(28:33):
it's something that's comparable but
also is like it has smaller ability
of damage because something like
Force and psychic, they're gonna be
more for not damage based things like
they can be, but they're not as
powerful as something let As let's say

(28:53):
Earth, Ether or Necrotic are. Earth,
Ether and Necrotic. They're. I mean so like
that's Space, Death and Earth
itself. Those are powerful sigils
themselves and elements themselves. So those get
D12s.

>> Skylar (29:08):
Gotcha. okay.

However, now we
have an issue of like now this gets into.
Okay, as a player, when you are taking
your sigils, are you choosing the damage
based runes like the
sigils, these elements that only deal damage, or are
you taking the ones that are more malleable and

(29:29):
more versatile and don't deal as much Damage, but give you
more benefits of things like illusions of things like
Ohk. You see what I mean? So, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We
have. So right now, I believe, Lichcen takes
vitality. So that's a D6. So that's our
healing. She also takes poison, which is a
D6, and she takes necrotic, which is a

(29:49):
D12. So she. She has a
sigil that deals a lot of damage. And then
she has two sigils, One that's used for healing and one
that's used for beguiling people. Like,
so in this. In this circumstance, poison, let's say she has.
It has the ability, the ability to incur sickness
and an exhaustionm. So like with that
brainstem thing we're talking about, that's completely created by Sophia

(30:12):
herself, she took those different things
and was like, okay, bam, done. I want something
that can give me poison abilities. I want something that can let me heal
people and I want something that can deal damage
over time.

>> Skylar (30:25):
Right.

So she chose Nerotic, so on and so forth.

>> Skylar (30:29):
Very cool. Okay.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (30:31):
Because the words that are going to be associated with each one of these
elements are going to open up the door to a lot of different abilities
that might not just be damaged. You know, you need all those utility
spells. Exactly. And so.
Yeah, okay, I totally see what you're saying. Some of the elements, lean
a little bit more towards pretty
explicitly damaged. Some lean a little bit more towards pretty

(30:51):
explit. The D4 ones.

Yes.

>> Skylar (30:52):
do they do damage? But they also have a lot more
vesatility.

So it just depends on what you want them to actually be able
to do in your game. Very cool. That's just
it. It's a malleable system for everyone to talk about and
agree upon and be like, wait, is that the rules? Let's just
quickly check that chart. Done. You don't need to think about it
further, Right?

>> Skylar (31:11):
Exactly. Absolutely, absolutely. And the numbers are all
there. It's pretty straightforward. So if you are doing something
with damage, boom, there's the chart. What level are you
casting it at? There you exactly set.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (31:22):
Very cool. And then everything else is kind of a sort of
a conversation with the dm.

Right.

>> Skylar (31:27):
Like, this is kind of what I'm going for. Would this
be something that's accessible?

Yeah.

>> Skylar (31:32):
And then the DM would say, yeah, absolutely. I think that fits.

And that's. That's like one of my favorite parts personally, is
like the Runeecaster can be. It is a phenomenal
class, but it can be an overpowered class.
Your DM is a yes man'like.
If your DMs like yeah, that sounds awesome. You automatically
kill the boss. Like, like, yeah, that
becomes Overel exact.

>> Skylar (31:54):
Oh yeah. That basically works the same as a wish spell. So yeah, go
for it.

Yes. But like it also allows for people who are more
like rules lawre lawyry as DMs to be like,
okay, like yes, that is within the confines,
but that dive value is actually wrong here. This is why.
Or like that element actually can't do
that specific thing. okay, here's what it can do
instead.

>> Skylar (32:15):
Right.

But okay, very cool. And we. I will
say not to overcomplicate things. I know there's
a lot of information for our viewers and everything going on. The only
thing I will say is like we even added things such as Sigil
swaps, meaning you can change out elements between
prepared runes to have more ability.
But there's also some prepared runes that don't

(32:36):
have that ability. So like let's say there's one that's
specifically Earth.

>> Skylar (32:41):
Okay.

Only is used by Earth. But
there could be some that are like Force,
Earth and Radiance. And you can switch those out and
you flavor it based on that element.

>> Skylar (32:53):
Oh, okay, that makes sense. So like instead of a giant rock shooting
out of the ground, you might switch it to
maybe switch it to lightning. That seems kind
of crazy, but we'll just go with it. And it's a
beam of lightning shooting down or a giant bolt of.

That is a great example. Exactly. Okay.

>> Skylar (33:09):
Perfect. Yes. Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, it's. It's all. It's all up in here. What you
can create with your mind and what your DM is okay with you
doing.

>> Skylar (33:17):
Yes, absolutely. And then again, the numbers are
there for when those kind of situations ar.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (33:23):
Very, very, very cool. That is
an awesome class. And I again love the
diversity of it. Love the ability to do
so many things. Like basically, however, you can
string some words together that fit with what
you'what. you've taken so far are the elements that you've claimed and so
on and so forth. Like you could do just about anything.
Which is really cool. So again, obviously with within the

(33:45):
confines or whateverm is willing to
allow. But that's pretty normal for D and D.
Yes, exactly. Awesome. Very cool.
Okay, so we walked through like sort of
what the class is, the steps that you guys took in order to kind
of get to a fully functioning class.
What was playte testing like? Like did you guys

(34:06):
have to run A bunch of different scenarios or kind of. How do you do
that? Like, how do you playte test? a TTRPG
homebrew class.

Yeah. Like, Like, I mean, like anyone who's starting, we had no a
clue. We were like, okay, what is. What is the right way
to start this? What is the things that we actually
cover. and we
actually had, I think, about four to
five different play tests of this. I DM'd
once, then my CO.
DM, Nick DM'twice

(34:34):
I believe. And I think we both DM twice.
The first time I did it, we had one
person trying it out in a one shot that we
did. And each playtest was only a one shot.
It was just us, testing these things out. and that was
fine. The person that was there did a
e. A war forged e. Liz, who had this

(34:54):
ability to keep people in, like,
tethered to them in general areas. that first
time actually was pretty, pretty easy. We started at fifth
level, and it was something that was controllable. It was
in an environment where I was DMing, so I knew
all the different die types and everything like that. So
it was super easy for that player to be like, hey, this is what I'm thinking

(35:14):
of doing. is this something that I can do within these realms? And
I'm like, I look at the charts. Bada baning, bada boom. You're done. Go
for it, Go for it.

>> Skylar (35:22):
Awesome.

And that actually, our playtest was pretty smooth sailing on
the first bit. but before we even actually got to
playtesting, we had a lot of people. Nick and I
were in college when we were making this.
and we actually had a bunch of English major friends where
we actually had them sit down and read through the
whole thing, a bunch of times to make sure that the
wording made sense and that it actually made sense to

(35:45):
a player. Understanding.

>> Skylar (35:47):
Okay, very cool.

So it wasn't just us being like, yeah, it's a cool thing,
like, and.

>> Skylar (35:52):
Then having to explain it, because otherwise it's like, almost
impossible to sort of exactly get the. Get the rundown
for it for a new. A new person. New to the run caast.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (36:02):
gotcha.

So. So we had that as our
general basis. Then we went to the second playthrough. The
second playthrough. Nick let it. and we had, I
think two of us were runecasters.

>> Skylar (36:14):
Very cool.

One of our players was an incantam. And one of our
players was a. I want to say
kanji. They had the ability to have these extra
runes at the ready, on their person.
And this was an interesting
game because there is a
rune that basically allows you to create an
illusionary wall. So like let's say you're running

(36:37):
in the heat of battle. Ah, like. Or you're trying to
escape from like someone in a chase scene and
you run to a dead end and you turn around and you
cast this rune. And this rune basically
creates a wall that looks like it's been there the whole time. So
like you're hiding behind the wall and you can see through
it but the other person cannot.

>> Skylar (36:58):
Like a two sided or what one sided mirror. Mirror
thing.

Yeah, yeeah, exactly. Yeah. Two sided mirror. That's what it is.
Ok. And like that was kind.
We're getting lost in that terminology.

>> Skylar (37:08):
I know, it's like one of those mirrors like you
see on cop shows when theyact.

Yeah, exactly. And so it was actually really interesting
because we were in this war forge
schemunk world where we were trying to go in and
assassinate this official. And this official was on
the other side of this wall. And if we were to walk in through the
door, there were like a bunch of guards waiting for us to walk
in. So we didn't want to walk in through there. So our
incantimic was on the ready while the

(37:36):
while we had our other runeecaster,
the kanji create this illusionary
wall on the wall
itself.

>> Skylar (37:46):
Interesting.

Okay, so basically what happened was the wall
still looked the same but we could look through
one side while the other side couldn't
see that there was a rune going on.

>> Skylar (37:58):
Very cool.

Ok. And it just so happened that our
incantina had that ability to. I think we
were at like 14th level. and they were able
to use the gut feeling that I talked about
before where basically it is based off of
basically how we have it is you have to target a
creature that you can see for this
to happen. And basically what you do is you concentrate on the creature's

(38:20):
internal temperature and you make it rise so they start to
become sick and exhausted. and
because we created this wall, we could see through
this. This political official was sitting on
his like own throne and we had.
And this person literally blow
through their. Like they had
so much health and we had people who were healing them

(38:43):
enough that they could get rid of all
of their health and
kill this person in one go. Because they
had six levels of exhaustion in
one go. By expending. Because it takes
25 points of necrotic damage
to the Person casting that.
Oh, level of exhaustion.

>> Skylar (39:04):
Right?

Yes, Y. And that was upped because that used to actually
be lower. And this is why we had to up
this because that person literally killed
that person with that. Like, we
were done. We were done with the one shot in I think two
hours. Because we got to that wall and
it just annihilated this guy.

>> Skylar (39:25):
Right, Right.

And like, we were like, holy shit, we need to fix
something.

>> Skylar (39:29):
This is an op combination here. One guy
heals, the other guyly slowly
sucks out the life of the enemy.

Exactly. So like, that was a huge moment for us where we're
like, w. Oh my God. Did we create something overpowered? And
yes, we did in that circumstance. But it just took
small adjustments of tweaking it to like, okay, what
level? Are you truly getting this? Because I think gut feeling
originally was at 10th level and we switched
them and we were like, okay, at 14th level this makes a lot more

(39:57):
sense. And like, so as an
example, we have here we have like an 18th level.
Inantemic Runeecaster wishes to inflict all six
levels of exhaustion on a creature. They must declare
it no beforehand.
So if it fails, Orurx succeeds. So like, they
still will lose 150 points
of necrotic damage against themselves

(40:20):
even if the person succeeds.

>> Skylar (40:22):
Right.

Like, so that's a. That's a huge thing. Like, are you willing to take
the 150 points of health away from
yourself and maybe auto die?

>> Skylar (40:31):
You might just die? Yeah, absolutely.

For that creature to fail on the
save like and die themselves or succeed and not
be affected in the slightest.

>> Skylar (40:40):
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Oh my God. Wow. It was a lot of that.
We actually did not have to adjust. A lot going on
with the Kanji Wiccan, or our ear
Liz. Those seem to be rather, And we figured that out
through our two other ones. We had one where we did
20th level. A 20th level one shot.
Everyone multi classassed into

(41:02):
Runececaster in another CA class so we could see how
people could interesting abuse that and
how crazy it could get. and so that actually
didn't become overpowered, but it became
very fascinating from a player's perspective. I was actually a player
in that. and Nick dm'it and I.
I did a multi class of ten

(41:23):
level. I think something like ten levels of
gunslinger and ten levels of runececaster.
And we have this rune that basically gives you
vit. As long as you have vitality, it gives you,
vitality shots.
So basically I would my character
before we even started the game. In
his world would scrawl vitality

(41:45):
runes on his bullets so he could
shoot his allies and heal them with his
gun.

>> Skylar (41:52):
Oh, that's cooleah.

So he was.

>> Skylar (41:54):
That is so cool.

He was a sniper and he would have a sniper and would be
healing people across the battlefield while
simultaneously shooting bad guys with his
other incendiary bullets that he basically
scribed fire runes on.

>> Skylar (42:07):
Oh, that is sick.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (42:09):
That is so cool.

Yeah. So O's it truly is based off of.
It can get super overpowered if.
And we've made it so that it can't. As long as your
DMs keeping you to a T. Right,
sure. But you get to do the fun that
you've always wanted to do within a,
understandable level without it being way over the

(42:32):
top.

>> Skylar (42:33):
Right.

And allowing other players to feel like you're not doing
all the heavy work.

>> Skylar (42:38):
Oh, that's a fair point too. Yeah.

Because that is a thing is like, like, honestly,
we actually saw a lot of people wanted to play the
runecaster more. Even in our own podcast, we actually have a
couple of our players starting to look toward multi
classassing there because there's so much
capability and versatility
that it's almost like, why wouldn't you want to be a
runeecaster within that? It's not better than other

(43:03):
classes. But I think a lot of people are very much drawn
into the fact that like, like D and
D supposed to be. You get to customize everything.

>> Skylar (43:11):
Yes, absolutely. So as opposed to
being locked into. You know, I played
Warlock for the first time not too long ago, and it was just like,
oh, I get like two spells that I can cast,
period, for so long in the game. And so, yeah, I
could like, I want to be able to do more.

Exactly. And we want to make sure that players can have
a fun time while staying
within the confines that they need.

>> Skylar (43:36):
Right, right.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (43:37):
Because if you start jumping outside of the rules, it's not fun anymoreact.
It's not fun for the other players who might lose out
an opportunity because you're just nuking every
encounter. It's not fun for the DM who's trying to tell
a fun story alongside of the players, you know, and
everything just easily gets solved by this one guy who does whatever,
you know?

Yes.

>> Skylar (43:55):
No, I totally get that.

I would definitely say that's how our playtest went.
A majority of them were just tweaking small, small things.
There was that one big thing with gut feeling and just replacing it
in its order to make sure that it made sense that it wasn't
overkill. but everything else
kind of just like fell into our laps. Our players were
very open with their criticism, and we took it in

(44:16):
stride. we would have each person kind of fill
out, we would create a Google form where
basically they would go in and answer a bunch of questions that were all the
same questions for each person. So we could see, okay, where is this thing?
Like, in any additional comments that they had, outside of those
comments, we would ask them, like, hey, like, any
other things that you're thinking of, please let us know. Like, what did you feel?

(44:37):
Like, was it clunky? Was it too, too much
decision? Like, what did you feel? Because we don't want
to get people choice. Stunning.
Like, if that makes sense.

>> Skylar (44:47):
Yes, absolutely.

Oh, my God, I have so much I can do. What can I even
do with all this possibility?

>> Skylar (44:52):
Absolutely, absolutely. And I would argue too,
that, you know, when it comes down to it, there are going to be classes
that some people lean more towards
than others for this. Like, people who don't
want to improv as much might not look into some
of the more something, you know, like this, but people that
love to do that, people that love to, like, come up with things on the

(45:13):
fly and all that kind of stuff. I'm not downbing
anybody, any particular player, for anything. You know, you do what you
enjoy. If you want to run around as a martial character and
just swing a sword at things, yeah, that's totally fine.
Absolutely. If you're somebody that just really likes to come up
with things on the fly and create crazy new
scenarios and ideas, Runecaster is definitely

(45:33):
something to check out.

Absolutely, Absolutely. And it's something like with the
ear le like I talked about before, it's something that you can do
both. Like, yeah, you can have those funds. Any
ideas and get to do melee and keep your
enemies, like, pressured the entire time.

>> Skylar (45:49):
Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, so let me ask you, Haven, where could a
person find, like, if a person was interested in checking
out the Runecaster, is that something that you guys have or plan to
publish?

Actually, so Nick and I have been planning to publish this for
a while currently. we are not going to be
publishing it soon. but it is within
our plans at some point to make a book or a
supplemental, that basically gets to talk about the
world of Ceruan inv Veentallo in our entire
campaign, as well as adding in, the Runcaster
itself with the different, items we've even added in

(46:24):
with that to like, make it feel more of like a
big world affected thing.

>> Skylar (46:29):
Absolutely.

So I sadly think the only
way that people could, find more
information on that is by sitting down and listening to our podcast, which they
totally can do.

>> Skylar (46:40):
I was gonna say there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, yeah, no, I was just
gonna say like, if you're somebody that wants to check out the
Runaster follow campaign Castaster,
go listen to the podcast, hear it be
playeduse that's that'like the best way to learn in my
opinion.

And like in Sophia, she does an amazing job. I think she
was awesome with her ruined choices.

>> Skylar (47:00):
Absolutely, absolutely. And then, hey, that'll inspire some
ideas, right?

Exactly.

>> Skylar (47:05):
and so from there you can keep up with campaign casters, follow
them on social. and then obviously once you guys
are ready to put that out there, you'll be in the right
place, to do that.

Yeah, I, to see that. It's actually great. You mentioned that too.
I will just say one thing regarding our
podcast with that, we actually do
plan, once this is released, we're go going toa try and
open up on our social media's polls and abilities
to submit ideas for some cool rooms so that people
can actually be a part of that making of it. and
so keep an eye out for that if you're checking out any of our socials and stuff

(47:37):
like that. If you want to be a part of creating more runes that can go
into a book like something like that.

>> Skylar (47:42):
That'd be really cool. That'd be awesome to be a part of. Yeah,
be a part of like ah, the community that's being created there. That would be
awesome.

Absolutely. We are all about community and trying to bring
in anyone we really can with us.
Like we want to bring everyone up, as we
continue to work out this whole podcast.
Podcast.

>> Skylar (48:00):
Absolutely. It is a lot of work. I totally get
it. You know, we actually we did it in
one of the first episodes that we did to this I talked to Hartley Yosea
who was putting together his own sort of one page
TTRPG that was based entirely around wizards. And I know he had
talked about too the idea of creating just
this, a mass of spells
specifically for, for his system. So yeah,

(48:21):
definitely. you know, if you have ideas, send them over
to the campaign casters because I know how much like that.
That can be daunting.

Yes.

>> Skylar (48:29):
To come up with so many different ideas.

Yes.

>> Skylar (48:31):
It is without, without like jumping into D
and D and just scrolling through the spell bug and being like all Right. Basically
this. You know, you want to come out with new ideas
and interesting new capabilities.

yeah, we don't want to say stagnant. We always want to be creating.

>> Skylar (48:44):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course, the beauty of it, the
Runecaster, is that you're not limited to anything that
would come out that you guys publish. You can come up with
anything.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (48:53):
You can come up with all sorts.

It's always changing to, whatever way you want to play.

>> Skylar (48:57):
Absolutely. So, last question I got before we
go into our intramurals. and of course, for those that are
curious, I'm going to obviously have links to Campaign Castaster,
their podcast, as well as socials, in the description.
So definitely scroll down and check that out. but my last question to you,
Haven, before we jump into the enderm murals, is
anyone out there who's trying to make their
own, homebrew class? Like. Like I said, Cameron, one of the guys

(49:20):
from our podcast, he's working on one right now.
What kind of advice would you give
to somebody who's trying to do that?

Yeah, think. I think I say it a
lot whenever I talk about any of this stuff in general.
It's just take the things you love
from the things you love and find a way to make it
playable.

>> Skylar (49:40):
Absolutely.

Like, cool. It is. It is. As
long as you care about it. And it's something that makes you happy.
And it's something that you can, like,
just sit down and go, okay, this is a cool concept.
Now how. How can I look at these rules?
Like, like, and don't be afraid to
borrow for a second and go, okay, this

(50:02):
is what works. Look at what works and why
people like it. And then take your idea and
mesh it with those things. Yeah, it's okay
to look at that and go, okay, what works? Then take
bits and pieces and then make your own thing, with
that general foundation.

>> Skylar (50:19):
I love it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Be inspired by
something and let that inspiration kind of guide you through
the process.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (50:26):
I love it. Awes. Awesome. Well, we're going to jump
over to our intramural section, so stay tuned for that.

Hell, yeah.

>> Skylar (50:53):
So the idea that we came up with for our intramural, because, you know,
we like to play, some sort of sort of improv game
that revolves around whatever the theme of the episode is.
So today I came up with an idea. It'a
really just basic concept called custom class,
quick pitch. And the idea is that, is
kind of based off of the runecaster. You guys had some

(51:13):
things that inspired you? the owl house. And, you
know, why am I Full Metal Alchemist? There we go.
Gosh. And I mean, you even mentioned, like, Avatar the last day. That was
the one that kept coming to mind. And I was like, wait, there's a different one. I gotta get to that one.

No, I get it. You're all good.

>> Skylar (51:27):
Yeah. So, we're going to kind of take
some bits and pieces from. From different
topics, and from those, we're going to let those kind of inspire
a class. Just an idea. Obviously, we're not making
the fullhd all the way through
20. We're not going to do that right here, right now. For the
next, like, eight hours of, you know, done.

I'm already done up.

>> Skylar (51:50):
We're going to take, we're just going toa, like, take the flavors
that we're getting out of these characters. We're going to take characters,
magic items, and personality quirks, and
we're going toa take some flavors from those things, and we're going to turn them
into. I don't know, I thought maybe we could do, like,
three classes each, so I'm for that. Awesome.
Sweet. So, Haven, I got a question for you. I have

(52:11):
a total of 10 from each of those categories,
and I figured the best way to split them up would be say there's the first
five, the second five, and then go through each
category for each of those. So do you want me to
give you for characters, do you want the first five or the second
five?

Oh, go. I'll go second five, Second
five, second five.

>> Skylar (52:29):
Okay, sounds good. for magic items, do you want first five or
second five? First five, first five. Okay,
sweet. And then for the personality quirks, do you want the first five
or second.

Fil m. Let's go second.

>> Skylar (52:41):
Second five. Okay. Sweet. Okay.

Very bizarre. Okay. Okay. I'm reading
them.

>> Skylar (52:47):
So basically, you know, one class at a
time. Feel free to take a character, a magic item,
and a personality quirk and come up with just a
general concept for what a class might look like. And we'll
go through, like, what everybody chose. But there's. There's some
unique ones in there, for sure.

So we're making. So we're starting with one character first, right?

>> Skylar (53:05):
Yeah, we can start with it, or you can take one from each of the categories
to help kind of inspire.

Like, the direction of it.

>> Skylar (53:10):
Yeah, but, yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Okay. These are some fun ones.

>> Skylar (53:15):
I know there's. There's some interesting ones in there, for
sure.

Oh, I. I think I have
it. I think I have. I think I have one.

>> Skylar (53:24):
Okay. Okay, hit me with it.

Okay, so currently I'll tell you the inspirations and then
I'll kind of go what the class kind of would be. so
I'm a big SpongeBob fan. So I'll take SpongeBob SquarePants.
Then I'm taking a sentient
overramatic cloak. Then
I'm taking has, an imaginary friend
who gives surprisingly good or terrible advice.

(53:46):
So basically what I would say
is I don't know what to call this class, so excuse
me for not having a name for it, but basically I'm
picturing how SpongeBob in the end of the first
SpongeBob movie has his purple cloak and his
cone hat. And basically he, he can summon
forth a familiar at third level, which is
Patrick Starr, which at every single

(54:08):
time you bring him in,
you basically get to roll a D6 or a D10
or maybe even a D20. And he, he gives
you, depending on your role, you aot
a actual chart that says like, for one, he
tells you this advice and it gives you this general
benefit. so like example, like
he could be like, I don't know, let's just pick

(54:31):
up the whole town and move it over. So
whenever, whenever you, bring
forth Patrick, as you're familiar, he doesn't
actually do anything himself, but now
you, you like, gain the
spongebob, like fancy, fancy arms
that are like super ripped and you're able to like,
geth nice additional like, advantage

(54:53):
in a, strength ability score at a third level.
And as you like, let's say at like
10th level, whenever it, like, it can
actually expand the amount in which his list
continues to get bigger or the
actual choices increase in their
ability and proficiency. And the cloak
itself would then at like 6 level,

(55:15):
you can choose to go up in the air and perform
like a beguiling dance that is
playing something like u. oh, what's the
name of, goofy goober rock from the end of the
movie where he basically just slam the best song
ever. Yeah, exactly. And like in a 10 foot radius, it
basically charms people if they fail a charisma saving
throw based off of your. Whatever your modifier

(55:38):
is. I guess in this circumstance it would be charisma.

>> Skylar (55:41):
Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, wow.
Okay. The SpongeBob class. Ye I
love.

I was gonna say, I think you definitely could do a
Spongebob. I think that 100% and like,
I could, I could even get behind like each
different subclass would be not just Patrick like
it's a different familiar from his like
stuff. So it would be like Patrick has his own
like, bunch of stupid ideas. And then like

(56:07):
you have Oh my gosh. You have Mr. Krabs coming in
where it's all greed based ideas. So. Oh my
God. You could make like subclasses of the
seven deadly sins and each one
is one that goes based off of a
separate character from SpongeBob.

>> Skylar (56:24):
That's so good.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (56:25):
Oh man. Squidward comes in and he's got like a wrath
thing.

That's what I'me like something like that. I'm
super down, dude.

>> Skylar (56:33):
That's so good.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (56:36):
I love thatquid. Squidward would fits so well with sort of like,
bardic mix. like, what
is the bard thing? I can't even think of it. Which is
embarrassing. Where he criticized. Oh, close.

Vicious mockery.

>> Skylar (56:48):
Y Vicious mockery. Yes. Where he's just like,
you're terrible at clarinet.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (56:52):
Like I would, I would love.
Oh, that's good.

SpongeBob M class. For days I could get by the SpongeBob class.

>> Skylar (57:00):
We're going to work on it. We're goingna publish it.
It'snn be amazing.

It's there. It's there.

>> Skylar (57:05):
I love it. I think it'd be hilarious. I know that pretty much
any of the players in our group, they just. Anything comedic,
they'll go for it. ###Ah and so this, this would
100%. And I think they're all big SpongeBob fans as well. So this is,
this is like top tier.

I wasnn. It's dangerous. You brought a comedian on to
your.

>> Skylar (57:23):
Well, hey, it's actually funny that you say that because the one
I came up with, I went with Homer Simpson
for the magic item. I went with inappropriate
puns hat. So a hat that like constantly
saying inappropriate puns at inopportune moments is kind of the
premise that I came up and then, for personality
quirks always carries a
disproportionately large number of rubber ducks.

Yes.

>> Skylar (57:46):
I'm imagining. And maybe this is technically a bit
more of a bardic subclass. Technically, but like
a comedian class.

Yes.

>> Skylar (57:54):
Everything's just based on comedy. The most like,
ridiculous things you can do. It's giving, there's a humor
side to it where it's giving buffs
to the rest of the party because they're getting a kick out of whatever it is you're doing
during the battle, no less. Yeah. And then on the other
hand, there's sort of this you know, attacks
with vicious mockery type thing where you're making
fun of them to the point where you even call them out.

(58:17):
Like, like some comedians will like do the, the audience
work.

Yes.

>> Skylar (58:20):
Where they'll, they'll point at some guy and they'll just start making yeah. The
crowd work. Or like there. Yeah. They're just making fun of some dude in
the audience.

I wasnna say.

>> Skylar (58:28):
And it'sort of that same concept.

You could, you could even go further with that. Like I was gonna say don't
even limit yourself to just bar because I think you could
make your own class and then make each subclass a different
brand of comedy. So then you have dry comedy,
you have like, like crude comedy,
satire, all of that stuff in each one.

>> Skylar (58:47):
Rubber ducks definitely lends to prop comedylute.
Gotta have a got guy that
just.

Pulls out a rubber hand carrot top in there and you're
good.

>> Skylar (58:57):
That's o dude. That that's exactly
how someone would pitch that to me as be like oh yeah. So I'm
just ah, a human male and I've got like a
crazy big puffy red hair.

Hell yeah.

>> Skylar (59:08):
And I was like oh, I know what you're doing.

It's perfect. It can never go wrong.

>> Skylar (59:14):
I mean, hey, who doesn't love the idea of just
literally a comedy based class?

Oh, exactly. Like I would think it anytime.

>> Skylar (59:22):
Oh anytime. Absolutely.

Okay. I think,
I think I have. Okay, okay,
I'm done for this one. I'm done for this one. Okay, okay. So
what I'm thinking. So have, I have, for characters. I have
Indiana Jones, I have Nice.

>> Skylar (59:38):
Okay.

a bag of holding that occasionally spits
out live squirrels and
refuses to use doors, preferring to climb through
windows. And basically what I'm
thinking is it could
like like all of. I mean I'THINK a lot of these could go into subclass
territory but I think if we're
talking subclass territory, you could make

(01:00:01):
a like Indiana Jones inspired
sort of subclass where it's an adventurer
that always is looking to like replace
like items and stuff like that. So he has this bag of
squirrels and basically puts squirrels down
wherever he goes and takes the different
objects. So basically like the whole thing is you

(01:00:22):
get advantage on all sleight of hand checks.
Almost like fast hands. But like the trick is,
is like every time you're like
ever in combat you can like swap out an
enemy's weapon for a squirrel
without seeing it and like have like sleight of hand checks
versus their Passive perceptions and stuff like that. And

(01:00:42):
it's constantly like you are just a ah. Master
of deception in terms of like magic
tricks where you can just like be like see
your weapon. It's gone now. And now they
have.

>> Skylar (01:00:54):
And now it's aquirl.

>> Haven Joseph Lyon (01:00:55):
No, it's a squirrel. Exactly. Like I think that would be
a great rogue subclass for sure.

>> Skylar (01:01:00):
Oh, I love that.

I also like with that ab that thing of like
refusing to use doors. Like just make it a full
blown like they always
have a grappling hook or something like that so they're able
to reel themselves up walls and climb up
surface. even if there's nowhere for it to latch
onto. So it looks like it's just like,
like we're talking prop comedy. They're able to like lash it

(01:01:24):
up and then just climb on walls
just without separate things. So like that's just
passive like third level ability where they can't they
just flavor it like they have a grappling hook or
something or a whip and are able to
climb up walls at all times. Nice. Okay,
well simultaneous of like what is.

>> Skylar (01:01:42):
That spell rope trick or whatever. Yeah.

Rop trick or spider climb M.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Skylar (01:01:47):
That's what.

Okay. I love. I'm thinking general idea.

>> Skylar (01:01:51):
Sneaking around, climb it up walls,
just throwing squirrels.

I wasnna say the perfect. The perfect concept.

>> Skylar (01:01:57):
Yeah. I love it. One of the guys in our campaign right
now has What is it? It's a bag of or a
sack of furry something
or something along those lines.

Oh, it's the one. It's the one where you like throw creatures out of
it. Yes, yes.

>> Skylar (01:02:11):
So this sounds a. He loves doing it.
That's like his main move is he'll just. Any
givenounter he reaches in the bag, he's like well, let's see how this will
helpagag bag
tricks. Bag of tricks. Thank you. Yes. Except this one's a bag
of squirrels.

It's always going to be squirrelactly and I'll take that any day
because you.

>> Skylar (01:02:29):
Know what you're gonna get.

I was gonna say honestly, I could, I could even picture
myself making ah. A class based
off of Kronk from m Emperor's new Groove.
And like his wholetick is like he just has a bunch of
squirrels that he like he goes squeak, squeak, squeak,
squeak, squeak and squeak squeak. Exactly.

>> Skylar (01:02:47):
That's so good. That'd be awesome. Perfect.
Oh, dude. Oh. And then of course that has to be in there too. It is
like one of your class Features like at the
beginning getting this class is that you have the language
to speak explicitly to Squarel.

Exactly. I'm so down.

>> Skylar (01:03:01):
I love that.

Absolutely. Yes.

>> Skylar (01:03:02):
Okay, man. Now we're. See we're making a lot of tough decisions between some
of these class ideas that we ve.

I know. Gotta start cutting down. It's tough.

>> Skylar (01:03:09):
I know, I know. All right, all right.
I'll go in with another one. this one's a little bit more
chill. I think. So, maybe, maybe not as funny.

But ye go for it.

>> Skylar (01:03:19):
I think there's still some possibility here. So Groot is my
character from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Yes.

>> Skylar (01:03:23):
we all love our tree, man. Hell
yeah. My. What is it? The magic
item is a teapot that brews leaves with
flavors corresponding to the drinker's current emotion.

That is awesome.

>> Skylar (01:03:35):
I'mnna play around with that a little bit.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (01:03:38):
and then I went with the.
Compulsively organizes everything by color, even during
combat.

Nice.

>> Skylar (01:03:44):
So I'm imagining this is a class. and
it's not exclusive to, what am
I thinking of? like if you were playing any kind of a plant
based species or race or whatever.

Absolutely.

>> Skylar (01:03:55):
But it's kind of maybe a druid subclass
where you innately like grow leave out
of your hair or off your body, which is
kind of freaky. But it's normal because, you know,
this, this is your class. This is what you ve.

Welcome to D and yeah, exactly.

>> Skylar (01:04:11):
Exactly. This is fantasy, guys. Anything can happen.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (01:04:14):
I love the idea that. So you grow leaves
out of you and then you can like throw those in. I
have always loved the idea of playing like a chef based class.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (01:04:24):
I've tried one. It was fun. it was
interesting. It was. I think it was through like a cleric, which I thought was
bizarre. I was expecting like a bard or something.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (01:04:31):
But this would be a druid version of that where you're constantly
brewing things. almost a little bit like the artificer
class, how they can like make items and
potions and things like that, you know, every, like once every long
rest or whatever the case. this one makes different
teas that have different effects. It could be it
boosts you, lets you fly. It could be turns you

(01:04:52):
invisible. It could be, you know, all these different things.

Absolutely.

>> Skylar (01:04:55):
Based on these different leaves. Yeah. And they're all like different
colors, which is kind of where the organizes by colors.

I wasnna say. I'm curious if you could even make it
like. And you could make it either like you're
saying a druid subclass or its own class entirely by making
it based off of, reading tea
leaves. Kind of like how they do in
a bunch of different cultures. And, make like,
like, the main function of it to, like, ident.
Like how, I think there's a druid subclass

(01:05:23):
that has the wheel or wo thing. I think it's circle of stars where,
like, you can roll and, like, the DM
tells you whether something good or bad'coming forward. I think
that might be a special. Well, but, like, make it based off of that,
where they're almost like a propet that uses that and then
can adjust the
future with their leaves.

>> Skylar (01:05:42):
Oh.

Because that's where you take all those ideas that you were saying
and, like, put it into its own, like, abilities
that are improving your future.

>> Skylar (01:05:52):
Right. Oh, that's cool. That's a cool idea.
Yeah. Like, you're not limited to what's coming.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (01:05:57):
Use your abilities to change. Yeah.

That's a really good idea. Dud.

>> Skylar (01:06:01):
I like it. I like it. Sweet.

Ye. Okay.

>> Skylar (01:06:04):
Very cool.

I think I have. Let me look at my
last personality quirk, because I think I have
the other two.

>> Skylar (01:06:12):
Okay.

these are tough.

>> Skylar (01:06:15):
I know. If you need to adjust them at all, feel free.

Oh, no, you're okay. okay, I think I have one because I.
Again, I'm somebody who goes for the bit, and I feel like this is
hilarious. Gordon Rams, ``y is
my character. I'm going with a
magical monocle that reveals everyone's deepest, most
embarrassing fear. Oh, boy. And
then I'm going to say is convinced they

(01:06:37):
are secretly a legendary hero villain from a bygone
era, which is basically just Gordon Ramsay himself.
so what I'm thinking is, like you were
saying, having a chef class.
What I'm going for is basically
his whole kind of thing is he creates
food that each, like, each subclass is

(01:06:59):
a different type of chef. So, like, you have a
pastry side, you have a, dessert
specific. You have more of a grill master.
You have all of these things. And then what
you can do is this sort of, like, monocle thing
that it's talking about. It's. They make it
basically a Michelin star reader that if some.

(01:07:19):
That if. That if somebody like, you could
basically analyze a creature, almost like how,
the Cobalt soul from, Matthew Mercer critical
role, Monk class does, where they basically
analyze a creature. You can analyze a creature,
but you can actually, instead of just
analyzing it, you don't get to analyze everything.
You choose, like, one thing, and you can

(01:07:42):
make that advantage. They have a disadvantage.
So, like, so, like, you reverse it
by, like, cooking certain foods that makes them
beguiled in a certain different direction.
Or, like, you see, I mean, or basically,
like, like, somebody starts creating, like, a
pot of food, and then they just splash it on a

(01:08:02):
guy, like, randomly halfway through, and they're like, now
you have no strength and you have the opposite of
what you had before. So if the person was like a meatball, they're
now, like, they're like, faster or something like that.

>> Skylar (01:08:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sensee.
Okay'and you could do that both ways.

Yeah. So, like, you could increase them in one direction or you could
debuff them in one direction. Like, help your allies
debuff another. Another group by, like,
cooking with, like, grill master tools and,
like, specifically for that one. Like,
everyone in your party, as long as they're in like, a 20 foot
radius, gets, like, a plus one to saving throws
because. Because get the

(01:08:41):
smell of barbecue in their general area. Stuff like
that. O man.

>> Skylar (01:08:45):
This is just. It gives an aura of. Yeah, the
scent is delicious.

Like, the pastry chef basically has,
like, a healing ability that if you're in
the general area, they can spend their turn applying a
pastry into your mouth. And you heal points based off of
that. Like, open up. There's plenty I think you
can do with that.

>> Skylar (01:09:05):
I love that. Again, again, this is the perfect, like,
chef class.

Exactly.

>> Skylar (01:09:09):
I love that. I love that. And I'd be screaming at everybody,
where's the limmb sauce?

The whole thing. Exactly. It's ra.
It's raw. Okay. You can see.

>> Skylar (01:09:18):
Yeah. Ah, it's perfect. My wife and I have been watching a lot of, Kitchen Nightmares.

I love Kitchen Nightmares.

>> Skylar (01:09:23):
Totally get it. It's, like, spot on. Perfect
Gordon Ramsay clau.
All right, last one I've got is, So
I had Mary Poppins.

Oh, yeah.

>> Skylar (01:09:34):
Cursed teddy bear.

Nice.

>> Skylar (01:09:37):
It says overly affectionate teddy bear that grants small
boons. And then, for the
quirk, the personality quirk, I have, an
uncontrollable gosh. Uncontrollable
urge to correct grammar and pronunciation.
This class is simply titled the Nanny,
and it is. It is entirely
based around the idea. I think it's kind of leans towards

(01:09:59):
a buffing class once again. I mean, those are. I don't know,
it just. It just kind of makes sense. That buff
slash debuff. She's going around, she's helping
the allies to, you know, giving them
lessons Basically, which increase their
stats, give them advantage, give them resistance even.
You know, stuff like that.

I like it.

>> Skylar (01:10:17):
And then on the other hand, again, kind of comes back to that vicious
mockery idea where, an enemy might
miss, the one of the other player characters and
sh. Like, slam them with this insult of like, I've
never been so disappointed or something like
that. Like these very posh kind
of,

insult have an ability in there that's like, basically
you're consulting their parents.
Oh, no.

>> Skylar (01:10:42):
Like, she can like, spectrally summon your parents.

Exactly. Like, put you in the corner of shame. Put you in
timeout. That would be perfect.

>> Skylar (01:10:49):
Timeout would be a really cool name for one of the features too.

Or like, I love that. Or pull something from, Oh, what's her
frickaking name? Oh, is that who you
pulled's the person? What's the character you pulled?

>> Skylar (01:10:59):
Mary Poppins.

Y. I was gonna say he's also.

>> Skylar (01:11:01):
Like Nanny McPhee, too.

I was thinking Nanny M. McPh, but I was also thinking
of Mary Poppins. Spoonful of Sugar. That would be the name of one
of, like, the things.

>> Skylar (01:11:10):
Oh, yes.

Like ISO. There's plenty to go around with those
100%.

>> Skylar (01:11:14):
And then with the teddy bear idea, I think this was, I
think there was a character in one of the Final Fantasy games where
in't played. She, like, I haven't really either.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (01:11:23):
I remember watching, like, my nephew, I think, plat them
and there was like, one. There's this, like, little girl that you
can get as part of your party, and she just has like a teddy bear.

Yeah.

>> Skylar (01:11:31):
That's like, alive, and it will do the attacking for you. So
I like to think that the character like you
playing the Mary Poppins classes.
The nanny.

Yes.

>> Skylar (01:11:41):
you are kind of more focused on the buff debuff
stuff, but you can summon these, like,
spectral toys.

That's awesome. They will do tax for
like, like the artificer subclass. The, one that creates
like, the dog. The. The war dog.

>> Skylar (01:11:56):
Yes.

That would be cool.

>> Skylar (01:11:58):
Yes. Or like, in Dice Throw
if. I don't know if you ever played that. Like a board game
or a dice game. I guess, technically. But I digress. They came out
with a character where they did, They did a Santa and then they did
Krampus. And Krampus also kind of has like, these.
That'sesome ways that you can use to gain
ability. S. That so.

Yeah. Yeah.

>> Skylar (01:12:18):
I actually really like that idea, just even by itself. Yeah.

I was gonna say I actually really like the idea of
whenever you were talking about the. Whenever you introduced the
teddy bear, Id having having a teddy
bear as your patron would be crazy.
As your warlike patron.

>> Skylar (01:12:34):
Sexual teddy bear in the sky.

Like, it's's like, that's the name of it is
like the teddy bear, but like the majority of the
abilities you get is a friendship and like, and
like love and stuff like that.

>> Skylar (01:12:46):
Yeah, yeah.

Or like.

>> Skylar (01:12:47):
And I love that it has like a really deep, slow voice too. So it's
like, good job.

And you call. You could call all of your attacks the
bear hu. Where you just squeeze the shit out of people.
Like, that would be awesome, man. That would be epic.

>> Skylar (01:13:01):
Oh, I love it. I love it. Awesome. Well, for those of
you that are listening, if any of you do actually
go through these ideas and make like a full version,
please let us, please tag us. I want to see that so
bad. I probably will play it too. In fact, I'll do that. I'll make
that commitment. I will play it. If you make.

I will. I will say hands down, if somebody makes any of these, I
will do a whole one shot.

>> Skylar (01:13:23):
Yes.

Based off of.

>> Skylar (01:13:24):
Based around the idea. Y.

Please.

>> Skylar (01:13:26):
I love that.

Absolutely.

>> Skylar (01:13:27):
Might. I might toy around with it myself. Definitely. A couple of
these were fantastic. So. But whatever
the case, Haven, thank you so much for being onk. So this is your
university. Really appreciate it. Again, for those of you that
are listening, please, please go check out campaign casters.
Follow them, subscribe wherever it is that you get your
podcast and of course on socials because. Because you

(01:13:48):
don't want to miss out on everything that they're doing.
And again, the future possibility of
Runecaster is getting released, which I definitely want to check
out. So yes, definitely do that because
they are fantastic. And Haven, thank you so much for taking the time to
be here.

Thank you so much, Kyler. I really appreciate it.

>> Skylar (01:14:04):
We'll see you guys next time on Sessions Zero University.

See you next time.

>> Skylar (01:14:11):
Thank you so much for joining us for today's class.
We hope you gained some new knowledge and ideas from our
incredibly knowledgeable professors, which you can take with
you to your table and implement into your games
and sessions. If you enjoy what were developing here
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(01:14:31):
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