Episode 92 New D&D 5.5 Plus Alteration Edition Rules

Click Here to send in your random question to have a chance to win!

Ever wondered why D&D streamers bite the hand that feeds them? Or why new players seek complexity, only to strip it away once the dice start rolling? This episode is an entertaining rollercoaster through those dilemmas and more. Richard shares his firsthand experience running Shadow Dark for newcomers, capturing the paradoxical tug-of-war between simplicity and complexity. We even have a laugh at our own expense, acknowledging our rather limited peek into the new Dozens of Dragons 2024 book, but hey, it's episode eighty-something, and you're still here with us!

We jump headfirst into the realm of Dungeons & Dragons, tackling the exciting yet sometimes daunting updates slated for 2024. Our conversation wades through backward compatibility, new rules, and the ever-growing universe of D&D, questioning if the changes are just a balance patch or a genuine game-changer. Listen in as we air our frustrations with the playtesting process, especially for the druids out there, and how player feedback has shaped (or misshaped) the new edition.

Switching gears, prepare for our lighthearted banter about everyday quirks. From pondering Pokemon-themed snacks to wrestling with neighborly dog dilemmas, we weave through personal anecdotes that add a dash of humor and relatability. Ever thought about what ice cream flavor you'd be? Or which trends you'd erase from existence? We sure did, and we share those whimsical musings alongside our dreams of hosting a TTRPG-focused podcast, where creativity and chaos reign supreme. Grab your favorite drink, sit back, and join us for a fun-filled episode of gaming insights and delightful digressions.

Support the show

Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
https://linktr.ee/rajkevis

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to Richard and Carl present Deep
Space and Dragons.
We're already halfway in aconversation on the new Dozens
of Dragons 2024.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Richard and I have not read this book we're
discussing I am Carl and I meanI also have not actually read
the book that we're discussing,but I do have some access to
certain portions of it and Ihave looked over some relevant
things for what I am planning inthe future, hopefully.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
And I was in all of their stages at the beta where I
was thoroughly underwhelmed.
So our information willprobably be wrong here.
But you're tuning into episode80 something of the show, so
really this is on you.
I think the funniest part is Ihave a lot of knowledge on this
book.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
for streamers who hate D andD talking about this
book Huh, streamers hate D&D ingeneral or streamers that hate
change.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
So a lot of my favorite D&D streamers, like Bob
Worldbuilder, professor DungeonMaster, ginny D and a bunch of
other ones, love talking abouthow great indie games are and
gave a ton of coverage of theOGL scandal and then all
shamelessly reviewed thisproduct and deep-dived into it,
because it's like D&D pays theirbills and I don't know.

(01:13):
It's like we're a positive,supportive community.
I'm like you guys are positive,supportive, but man, oh man, oh
man.
All of you did this.
None of you are like you knowwhat.
No, I'm putting my foot down.
No, okay, it's because you getmore views on the dnd episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Huh well, before we get too deep into our our, uh,
deep space analysis of dungeonsand dragons.
Uh, what's the new in therichard verse?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
okay.
So I'm heading towards thewrap-up of the season and this
weekend I ran shadow darkbecause I had some new players
at the table and it's like theydon't know how to play D&D.
They're jumping in the middleof our campaign, at level eight,
in the middle of Chult, and I'mlike, yeah, no, I'm going to
just bust up Shadow Dark withits six core stats and your
weapons and that's only therules you need to play.

(02:01):
So that went really well.
But then and part of why, whenyou suggested this topic, I'm
like, oh heck, yeah, this willbe interesting.
I had the feedback I usuallyget afterward.
So Shadow Dark is a reallyelegantly designed game with its
four classes, 30 seconds toroll up a character.
Your background just gives youadvantage on background things.
Your weapons are close range,mid range, long range Spells.

(02:24):
You make a roll like.
It's very elegant.
You get your two spells ifyou're a spellcaster.
But after every time I've ranshadow dark, at least one player
without flip uh fail will belike uh, I like dnd better and
they'll usually cite somethinglike oh, you feel like your
skills are more relevant, eventhough if you actually do the
math, the difference betweenhaving proficiency in nature or

(02:46):
just a high wisdom is two, whichmeans the difference is whether
you roll a 12 or a 14 tosucceed, which means it's a five
percent differential but it'slike something about how dnd is
constructed, make people feellike they have more control over
the game, where, like, the lessbells and whistles you put on
shadow dark, the more obvious itis that you're just gambling
with slight modifiers right likeit's an interesting concept for

(03:08):
a player to be like oh well, Iprefer picking specific skills.
So that way I feel like mywizard's more specialized than
their wizard and I'm like okay,you both picked intelligence.
So you're telling me neither ofyour wizards would have had
arcana normally, and youwouldn't argue that all skill
checks involving intelligencewere somehow arcana.
If I said that's a glowingmagic mushroom, you mean to tell

(03:28):
me that you're like oh well, mycharacter's bad at mushrooms,
so that's less fun.
And you wouldn't be like well,it's a magic mushroom, so
shouldn't I be able to usearcana, which functionally,
mathematically, means it's thesame thing, it's just using your
intelligence?
that is pretty funny so it'slike ironic that when players
ask for more complexity and thentry and subvert that complexity

(03:50):
in game in real time, so itreally it only added more
complexity to me it's like rightwhen's the last time someone
made a set strength check anddidn't use athletics?
Yeah, and if the argument isthat every strength check is
athletics, then there's noreason to actually have
athletics, is there?
Unless you're doingnon-athletic things like your

(04:11):
strong character?
Who's bad at athletics which?
Why would you be that?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
yeah, you know, it's kind of funny actually that.
I mean I recently read the corerules of dnd um and jumping uh
is based on your strength scoreand optionally, the dm may
choose to let you roll anathletics roll to increase your
jump distance or jump height oh,is this the 2024 core rules?

(04:37):
No, no, no, the um we'll see2024 D&D is designed to run with
the same core rules as far as Iknow, they updated the core
rules, I think.
I thought the whole point wasthat it was backwards compatible
.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
It's backwards compatible, but I have to
imagine, because the base rulesare stripped down, five, I'll
call it six, even though it'snot out of spite.
I'll call this 6, even thoughit's not out of spite.
So on, Free D&D Beyond.
Before I bothered acquiring thenew player's handbook with a
Christmas present from a friendof mine it was that the four new

(05:14):
classes were now available,which led me to believe that if
the classes and subclasses,which are the basic rules they
give for everyone, had the newones in it, that they must have
updated the basic rules as awhole.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
No, so I mean.
The reason that I have thoughtthat the core rules were the
same is because they'resecondary books, namely Quests
from the Infinite Staircase Ibelieve that they said that's
the last book they're printingin 2024, and it's designed to be

(05:51):
a bridge between the newversion and the old version.
But they all run the same, likethe D20 system, and all the
same basic rules.
So they're completelycompatible.
You just have more optionalfeatures in the newer version.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, you're wrong.
The free rules were updated to2024.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Oh, yeah, okay, I wonder what changes were made
then.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
So that's the thing is, because I played through the
beta, I know some of the thingsthey were going to change and I
know that for the most partthey chickened out.
So, before we go too far intomy hatred of that, are going to
change and I know that for themost part they chickened out.
So before we go too far into myhatred of that, the rest of the
what New with Richard isworking my last couple weeks of
my co-op terms before I headinto the next semester, getting

(06:36):
worked on my book, helping mymentor with a project I can't
talk about.
So tomorrow for work becauseit's our last team,

(06:58):
something-something, workshop,friendship Right and after
searching on.
Amazon, it became apparent thatI could get my hands on Pokemon
cookie honey biscuits, whichare delicious and have little
Pokemons on them but the wildpart is they're only $2 a box,
so like the size of a box ofOreos, and they're only two
bucks.
So I'm bringing in five boxes ofthese Pokemon cookies and a box

(07:21):
of Pokemon fruit snacks.
That cost me under $20 totalBased on my monthly book sales.
I converted them into Pokemoncookies and a box of Pokemon
fruit snacks that cost me under$20 total based on my monthly
book sales.
I converted them into Pokemoncookies, which is funny because
of.
Prime Free Shipping.
It absolutely cost them more tobring me the cookies than
profit they made.
That's a win, I'm not sure it'smy favorite snack, but I think

(07:43):
the novelty of handing outPokemon cookies makes it my
favorite snack Right.
Like I don't know if it's themost delicious treat I can think
of, but as far as doing a bitis concerned, it is an amazing
bit to be like what's yourfavorite snacks?
Pokemon biscuits.
That's just great.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, okay, I mean favorite snack, like.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
there's a lot of things to consider when you're
talking about your favoritesnack, because flavor is
obviously a very important one.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
See, flavor is an important one, but also I'm very
conditioned for snack.
In this context, from workingin restaurants and other fields,
I mean individually packaged,shareable, high preservative,
low allergy risk snack, becauseI'm used to the idea of places
where you can't bring in.
It was literally a club's rulethat you couldn't bake something
and bring it into club.

(08:39):
Club rules had specific rulesthat you had to buy something
prepackaged and open it there.
Huh, because, like you don'twant someone handing out pot
brownies.
Like, think about all thefriends you've had in your teens
.
Would you trust them to bringan unpackaged good to an event?

Speaker 2 (08:59):
I am naive.
I probably I wouldn't eventhink about that.
I would just be like anybodyhaving the allergies.
Okay, don't do anything withnuts.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
So you would trust Redacted, whose name has a few
A's in it, and he's similar tothe first stage of the Aggron
line of Pokemon to bakesomething and bring it in
untested to a college party.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Oh no, no see, I don't have faith that Redacted
would actually succeed in baking.
I believe that Redacted wouldjust bring a few packaged good.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
But you see my logic right Like, even if you ignore
the sussier ways of looking atit.
I see why, as a blanket rule,not letting college students
handcraft things to feed toother students, even for food
safety reasons, of like.
I believe you're the one whohad mentioned that people who
make stuffing are likely to killthemselves if you actually

(09:53):
stuff the turkey.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yes, there is a risk of salmonella so yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
So my brain was like okay, these are a safe snack,
like they're literally like whensnacks are specifically
designed for kids, they're lesslikely to have weird allergens
and dyes in them.
These days, like there's no red13 in these whole wheat, green
flower, vegetable oil, cornstarch, salt, sugar, honey,
cookies and the copyright isfrom this year, so they're not

(10:27):
like ancient ones either,although they would have been
fine until the heat death of theuniverse.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Disgusting fun fact If you drink enough Allura Red,
it'll turn your poop red.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
It's still all beets, to be fair, and you're allowed
to eat those.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
You're allowed to drink a lot of allure red
apparently not for me.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
You ain't, I ain't giving you that permission all
right, I will keep that in mindbecause I'm pretty sure if you
just drink that straight youturn into hollow each ago and a
hole just opens in your chestwhere your heart once was okay,
I mean that's fair, that's fair.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
I I, when I drank enough allure red uh to uh oh no
, that's not personal oh no, itwas in the form of red powerade.
Um, so you know that's?
I just like red powerade, andthen eventually you just drink
enough and it's like oh yeah, Iprobably shouldn't be drinking
so much because there's too muchred food dying here.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
It's just like when it was a conceptual thing, it
wasn't gross, but when it becamea personal thing, it got real
gross real fast, like in theoffice today, someone was
talking about having a cystremoved, which is one of my
weaknesses, but also a thingthat happened to my armpit and
was the most excruciatinglypainful thing in my life.
So it's like they're tellingthe story.

(11:47):
I'm deeply empathizing and alsodying, because it's just like.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
I'm being tortured.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
But I also have 100% empathy.
So I'm like, no, I need tosupport this story because I
fully understand how trulyterrible this was.
But it nearly killed melistening to this retelling.
Oh yeah, right, but it nearlykilled me listening to this
retelling.
Oh yeah, right, carlverse, whatnew?
We kind of hit the groundrunning with this episode yeah,

(12:13):
we did a little bit, but okay.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
So within the past year we got some new neighbors
and these neighbors have dogs.
They have three dogs now, Iguess, and I think they have.
I got some new neighbors andthese neighbors have dogs.
They have three dogs now, Iguess, and I think they have a
cat, I don't know.
They have lots of pets, but thedogs are.

(12:35):
They like to bark a lot andthat scares my fiance.
So I mean, I'm an animal person, I like animals.
Animals generally like me, uh,but apparently not these dogs.
I mean, maybe I shouldn't bedisparaging my, my neighbors.
I can make hopefully no onedoes any internet sleuthing to

(12:56):
find out who my neighbors are, Isuppose, uh, but uh, one of the
dogs was up against the fence,uh, and so I extended my hand
out to let them sniff my hand toshow them I'm not a threat, and
they bit my hand instead.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
So I was talking a bit about you in a work meeting
today, particularly theambulance story.
Check earlier episodes of DeepSpace and Dragons for the
ambulance story and I'm like thething about Carl is he tells
all stories with the sameenthusiasm, which is like
because, unlike most of us whoare starving from dopamine and
need those dopamine hits fromInstagram and Twitter, I think
he just has a healthy amount ofdopamine.

(13:34):
This is how I described you tostrangers is you have a healthy
amount of dopamine?
Making you weird?
Okay, because like dog toreinto your hand isn't the topic
this week but no, no, the dogdidn't tear into man.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
they bit my hand enough to draw blood, uh, and
I've just I've been spendingthis was last week, it's almost
been a whole week and I'm tryingto decide, like, how, how do I
even proceed?
Because you can't go to theneighbor and be like, hey, your,
your dog bit me.
No dog owner in their rightmind is going to be like, yep,
my dog's violent.
I guess I better put them down.
Yeah, you don't want it toescalate too quickly either and

(14:11):
call animal control.
And the animal control is like,yep, your dog's taken away.
And then like who do they thinkit was?
Probably the neighbor that hasthe fence that shares the yard.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, here's the thing too Like you touch the dog
and it bit you, I don'tactually feel bad for you.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, yeah, I mean, on the one hand it's like you
should be more careful around it.
I should be more careful aroundanimals that I don't know.
On the other hand, it's likethis dog is.
I'm trying to de-escalate thesituation with this dog so that
my girlfriend feels comfortablegoing outside again in our yard.
And yeah, it just backfired andI have concerns that what if

(14:56):
this dog is tending towards moreaggression and might actually
like escape from the yard thatdoesn't have a proper gate and
attack someone?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
If I learned anything from sitcoms, the solution here
is you build a fence to keeptheir dog out.
Yet again, at this currentjuncture and this is
hypothetical legal Richardspeaking, who isn't trained in
any meaningful way and, in fact,may get rejected from law
school from someone listening tothis episode while my
directions are going, whichwould be deeply satisfied to be

(15:29):
like oh yeah, I listened to yourpodcast.
You don't get to be a lawyer.
I'm like yeah, that's fair.
I put this on the internetpublicly, thinking I was a
writer.
Anywho, the facts remains.
Like your hand crossed aproperty line and touched a dog
that was on the other side of afence.
You have nothing to stand onhere.
In fact, it's easy to argue youaggravated the dog and it would

(15:50):
just end poorly for you.
As much as awkward as thissounds, you don't really get to
take action on something forbeing a threat until it does
something, so like, really, youshould be put down.
Oh harsh, yeah, I know.
You're like best friend, backme.
I'm like I am backing you bytelling you don't touch other
people's dogs without permissionyeah, I mean that's fair sorry

(16:14):
man, I want to have your back onthis one, but I'm with the and
remember I'm terrified of dogs.
For the record, like I wouldjust be like, I'm not going to
this yard.
It's scary, but it's true likeuntil the dog does something,
there isn't actually a play tobe made other than like upping
your yard security and pimpfactor.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Right, which is a little bit difficult because
it's a rental property, so Ican't exactly just oh, I need to
.
I guess the number one thing Ishould do.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Pause, pause.
You got a beautiful solution.
Make your landlord do it.
That's his literal job.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
I do need to contact my rental company and be like
hey, these people have apotentially dangerous dog.
Can we get this fence repairedand the gates set up for them?

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Do the caring here.
So I don't think landlord's areal job and I think that's part
of what's killing our entirecountry, nay, world is the idea
of people making passive incomeon land which has caused most of
the genocide in human history.
Anyway, landlords are bad.
So any chance you get to make alandlord do their actual job,
make the landlord do theiractual job.
Yeah, no, if you have alandlord and you're unsafe in

(17:21):
your yard, they need to fix that.
So make them fix that.
That's true, Because they'regetting paid to do that.
They're not just paid tocollect money because, ha, I got
the land first.
Idiot, Because by that logic weshould probably be paying.
I don't know the First Nationspeople, or dinosaurs, or
something.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Pay the dinosaurs?
That'd be funny.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
So that's my core point.
So yeah, this is an easysolution.
It's not your problem.
Make it your landlord's problem.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
All right, I like the way this is going.
Yeah, I have gotten some usefuladvice in talking to friends
and family.
Friends and family One of myfamily members suggested maybe
calling animal control to seewhat my options are for ensuring
that something like thisdoesn't happen again.

(18:15):
Obviously, onus on me to notinteract with the dog as much as
possible.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, I do think this being in Landlord Problem is
the correct play, because, yeah,completely not on your side
with the oh, I'll have this wildanimal sniff my hand and decide
if I'm friend, because that'sjust a lifetime of being Carl,
apparently.
Because there's no versionwhere I'd go anywhere near that
creature and it'd be like to thelandlord hey, I don't feel safe
in my property, fix the fence.

(18:41):
And then he's like well, it'stheir fence.
It's like well, it's theirfence.
It's like cool, fix their fence.
I don't feel safe in yourproperty you own.
It is literally your legalresponsibility Fix it.
Okay, thanks.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, alright, I mean too bad.
It's in the middle of thefrozen hellscape.
That is winter in Saskatchewan.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Well, they better build you an ice wall then to
keep the zombies out.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
That they better build you an ice wall then to
keep the zombies out.
That's enough about real worldanimals and monsters.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
We heard minutiae about the new D&D edition and
why I'm so underwhelmed by it.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, okay, I mean, I am intrigued to hear your
thoughts about why you'reunderwhelmed.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
So this playtest cycle?
I learned something about placetesting by being in both the
D&D open beta and the CriticalRole Daggerheart open beta.
Okay, I've learned thatplaytesting is only helpful if
your players haven't alreadymade up their minds.
So they kept putting out theseplaytest documents where they
try a new rule, send out theseplayer surveys and then claw

(19:43):
back the ideas.
The Critical Role game becausethis game didn't exist yet was
developing new concepts witheach playtest.
Like oh, instead of giving aninfinite number of actions even
though that works better for anarrative, we can use some
tokens to track it, we can makesome environmental effects.
Everything in 5e was just brickwalls on both sides, like.

(20:05):
My favorite example is druids.
All DMs on Earth have agreedthat druid wild shapes should be
somewhere printed in the classdescription, like being, like
okay, this is your druid of theair, your druid of the sea, your
druid of the land.
To flavor it, however you wantdone Players everywhere, because
they're players in the worstare like like actually, I want
to be a mongoose and it says youshould have a stat box for a

(20:26):
mongoose handy so they demo thisnew druid and they're like
players like ah, you don't haveenough customization with it, so
then they quad it back with thestat blocks.
I'm like of course players don'tlike change, but we all know
this is a problem mechanically.
This is a problem.
It limits your design space.
To let them just be any beastunder a challenge rating but,

(20:50):
people yelled, so you changeback, but those aren't even the
people who are going to bebuying all your products.
Dms buy way more products thanplayers like 30 to 1 right right
right players have more votesthan.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
DMs.
In theory, whatever the DM saysgoes, and if you don't like the
rule set the DM is using, thenyou can just play a different
game In theory.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
They even put that in the new Dungeon Master's Guide,
but this is the flaw of D&D'sdesign philosophy that's in the
new Dungeon Master's Guide, notin the new Player's Handbook.
Ah, that's in the new dungeonmasters guide, not in the new
players handbook so it's likeokay, you are telling players
they can do this, and thenyou're telling dms, oh, you
overrule them.
But I had a player when I wasrunning shadow dark.

(21:37):
Try and argue that they shouldhave kept their magic item from
a game.
I ran them in tTRPG Club a yearprior.
Players are not sensible, right?
Because why would you thinkthat?
It's like oh, I'm playing thesame character from another
Shadow of the Dark, so I havethis magic book from that.
I'm like no.
And they're like come on,richard, let me have that.

(21:59):
And the thing is, by givingthem any wiggle room, your
players will try and push backagainst your absolute
dictatorship, even though thegame doesn't function without
you.
So if the druid said, write onit in the book, you wild shape
into one of these three formsand then the player can go like
come on, let me be a mongoose.
It's so much easier to sellthan come on, I have this
mongoose stat block ready.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, okay.
So then ultimately, the changesyou feel are not significant
enough because both sidesstonewalled each other and got
nothing done.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, so it's like it's basically a balance patch.
The new rules, which I pickedup because of course I did, I'll
need them at some point areeffectively a balancing patch
for this game, which is awkward,to say the least.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
So this is kind of where I'm at right now.
So I have the 2014 DungeonMaster's Guide.
I have three anthologies ofadventures based on 2014 rules.
I mean, like I say, the questsfrom the Infinite Staircase is
designed for both, but I wasplanning on using the 2014 rules

(23:23):
because that's what most of myplayers are going to be familiar
with.
But then I don't actually havea copy of the player's handbook
in my house, and so I'm like doI go and buy the old one or do I
buy the new one?
Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
So my solution is I would just add you on D&D Beyond
and book share my new one thatyou bought me for Christmas.
Yeah, okay, but I digress.
So, like the thing is, the newones are balance, patched right.
There isn't a single new classI would isn't better engineered

(24:07):
than the previous one.
I don't think they're betterenough to give Feds people to
switch.
I'm not about to tell myplayers click this campaign link
and rebuild your character withthe new rules Because,
effectively, they made everyclass a little bit stronger,
because that's how they balancedit right.
So the classes that were lessplayed got more buffs, the
classes that were more playedbasically stayed the same, which

(24:28):
is why you have rogues.
Be like, oh, you can spend yoursneak attack dice to do some
status conditions, I guess.
And then you have monks,upgraded on almost every level
up, because speaking in everylanguage is functionally useless
in this game.
But, like the back and forthwas, they had some ideas that
seemed interesting, that theyweren't quite willing to commit

(24:48):
to.
Like let's take the exhaustedcondition.
The original exhaustedcondition in the new version
when they beta tested, it wasfor each point of exhaustion you
get minus one to all dice rollsand if you get to minus ten you
die Because it got thatpushback.
Now it's each time you exceedan exhaustion level you get two

(25:11):
minus from your dice rolls.
Your speed is reduced by anumber of feet, equal to five
times your exhaustion level, andfinishing a long rest removes
an exhaustion and basically itsplits the difference directly
between what the two versionsdid, resulting in no one quite
would know how it works off thetop of their head now.

(25:33):
Because the new method was tooradical of let's just lower dice
rolls but now we need to makesure it's still lower speed,
like it used to.
So now it lowers speed and dicerolls but doesn't have
advantage or disadvantage likeit used to.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
And it's like like a good example is, as you're
saying, new subclasses with newclasses.
They tweaked every subclass tonow start at level three.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
I kind of appreciate that.
I kind of appreciate that it'skind of a slap in the face to a
lot of people who want amulticlass, but I don't think
they should be designing thegame for meta builders anyways.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
But here's why I got kind of disappointed for the
idea not being pushed far enough.
So starting every class atlevel 3 is cool.
You know what would have beenreally cool If they made
subclasses work for every class?

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Hmm.
So it's like they pushed Like,designed one subclass that would
be like this is the magicsubclass, and then you could be
a magic rogue, or a magicfighter.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
What if totem was just?
You could be a totem barbarianor a totem wizard.
So it's like they didn't doanything too drastic.
My favorite example of that isthe big new thing they have is
this weapon mastery mechanic,because they're like martial
classes are less interesting.
This weapon mastery mechanic isjust a worse version of the

(27:01):
balder's gate weapon masterymechanic that came out
beforehand.
So in balder's gate every weaponhad a secondary special effect
it could do like if you had alance, you could Like if you had
a lance, you could dash towardssomeone.
If you had a crossbow, youcould hamstring them.
And some weapons had two orthree of these special powers.
Weapon mastery is you choosetwo weapons and then you get

(27:22):
this extra power added to them,which is like a less
well-engineered version of theextra powers in Baldur's Gate
version of the extra powers inBaldur's Gate.
So like if you take weaponmastery with a greataxe, for
example, when you hit someonewith a melee attack, you can
also have somebody within fivefeet take partial damage as well
because you cleave with thegreataxe, this weapon mastery

(27:43):
mechanic sounds kind of funbecause it makes each weapon
slightly different, even thoughthey were cheap and didn't
actually write one power foreach weapon.
So, even though they were cheapand didn't actually write one
power for each weapon, so, like,several of them get cleave,
several get graze, several getnick, hence my earlier.
They didn't push it far enough.
If you're going to make it thatI'm a weapon master with whip,
that should do something unique,right?

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
So they make this mastery mechanic.
But then they're like okay,we'll give it to some classes,
but we're not going to put theKensei monk in this book, the
weapon-using monk, to use thisnew weapon mastery mechanic.
Instead, we're just going tore-engineer classes that already
exist and buff them.
So the thing is, and how theydesigned it using video game

(28:26):
logic, is the new classes areall universally stronger, except
for losing hyper specificexploits like some people like
oh, I can only smite once a turn.
What if I attacked four timeswith my monk paladin?
It's like shut up, just shut up, just smite your one time.
Shut up.
You still get the same numberof smites over your fight

(28:46):
because you don't get more spellclasses.
You just can no longer do itall at once and wipe out a boss
in one shot instead of threeshots.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
That's not good for the game Right.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Because then you just get to win the entire fight
while the rest of the party sitsthere on the ground.
So like.
I would up to any person whostarts new.
I would probably start on thenew book Because, as I mentioned
, melee characters get aspecialty weapon that gets to do
a little something extra.
Most of the classes got alittle buff here or there.
Druids are still broken, butthey got rid of that weird

(29:21):
exploit of infinite wild shapingat max level.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Right.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
And they did the most pointless update of all time.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
So they made that level 19,.
You get an epic boon, which isa rule in the old game, which is
like a super feat.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Right, right, that was an optional rule and plus, I
mean like players neveractually got far enough to get
them anyways, but that's notreally the point.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
And then they fixed everyone's level 20 ability to
actually be good, because thoseare terribly unbalanced.
So like, for example, barbarianbefore was your strength and
con.
Both went up by four.
That was sick.
And then Monk was like you getsome key points back when you
roll an initiative.
It's like, did you guys speakto each other?

(30:04):
So now Monk's final ability isalmost a little too on the nose.
Where I'm just double checkingthe exact numbers is you get
four to your dex and your wisdom.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
To a max of 25.
For some reason.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, which, sure, to a max of 25 is because if you
take an epic boon to get plusone you then get a plus four.
It's like to stop you frommashing yourself so you don't
lose any of those points ever,even though 25 doesn't do
anything, anyways, but the jokebeing that it's the most

(30:42):
pointless upgrade ever becauseno one, unless you're on, like
even critical role campaigns.
They only are level 20 whenthey come back for, like their,
let's see how the old party'sdoing now at level 20, because
you don't get to level 20 in D&DEven if people are paying.
If you're the most well-paidstreamer on Twitch, paid to play
D&D for four hours a weekweekly with Bartholomew Mercer

(31:04):
running the game, you're stillnot getting to 20, naturally,
over three years.
Critical Role still not gettingto 20, naturally, over three
years.
Critical roles like Oz, 10 yearanniversary so like no sane
group is ever actually getting Idon't think there's enough
books printed to naturally makethat curve yeah, I'm pretty sure
there's no content printed.
Official content printed overlevel 14 so it's funny because

(31:28):
you get a huge power boost nowat 19 and 20, which is almost
like a waste of writing Overlevel 14.
So it's funny because you get ahuge power boost now at 19 and
20.
Which is almost like a waste ofwriting.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Like you could literally cap 5e at level 10, as
Baldur's Gate did, to nonegative repercussions
whatsoever.
Okay, so tell me back to mycore conundrum.
Currently, I don't have a fullset of 2014 books and I'm not
sure if it's actually worth itto invest in them anymore
because of the 2024 books.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
So if you didn't have either, I would say, grab the
new ones.
They basically, like I said,said it's like a patch.
It's like grabbing, downloadingthe new balder's gate updates,
ironically, where they fixedlittle things.
It's as close to a patch ratherthan a new book as I've ever
seen a physical game do.
Right, it's because, like thelittle things, like, oh, let's

(32:26):
have all the subclasses at thesame time, let's buff the weaker
classes, let's make weaponsmatter a little more.
It has way better feats.
It's basically, if you neverbought a 5e book, this has most
of the good stuff from all the5e books.
That was actually usable,although it's like, like I said,
they didn't go far enough in alot of things.
Like they added origin feats,where when you pick a background

(32:47):
it comes with a feat, but theyonly made like four origin feats
so it's like you choose abackground and you basically get
alert, magic initiate, savageattacker or skilled and, like
all of the backgrounds, willpick some edit of each of those

(33:11):
so it's like the idea was goodand, like all of the backgrounds
, will pick some edit of each ofthose, so it's like the idea
was good.
But in the playtest you hadTavern Brawler and I guess
Tavern Brawler turned out to betoo strong.
Oh wait, I was looking at thefree rules.
Never mind, let me look at theactual core book.
There might actually be morethan the giving gets credited

(33:35):
for.
But the idea that, okay, we putin this origin feat mechanic,
so we made the regular featsbetter and then made these
separate shittier feats so yourbackground could have a feat, is
good.
But would it be worth upgradingif you already had all the

(33:56):
pieces up to that point?
Right?
It's like if I up because it'sjust stronger, you're just
playing with better pokemon.
It's like when you jump intolike gen 7 pokemon and you're
like, oh well, I guess I'm notgoing to use a butterfree.
Why would I do that?

Speaker 2 (34:07):
okay, but so then, walking this back just a little
bit, I did buy the 2024 monstermanual.
It hasn't come out yet.
It doesn't come out to 2025,which is kind of hilarious to me
, uh, but so their naming wasstupid.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
By the way, they're gonna call it 1dnd and yet they
like chickened out at the lastminute, because nowhere on these
books do they say 1D&D.
They just call it Player'sHandbook, dungeon Master Guide
and Monster Manual and didn'tactually commit to calling it
1D&D.
See, it's the little thingslike that about this that makes
it such a mediocre product.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Okay, but so the 2024 Monster Manual, according to
their descriptions, the originalone had about 300 monsters, the
new one will have about 500monsters.
I wonder how many of those arecolors, and then there's minor

(35:02):
tweaks and differences there.
But if I'm playing with20-20-2014 players and I'm
playing with 2020, 2014 playersand I'm using 2024 monsters, do
you think that actually is goingto cause a noticeable like
difference?

Speaker 1 (35:19):
So D&D is weird.
It's kind of like Monopoly withfree parking.
So I've been working onbalancing D&D fights.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Fuck for like seven years now, there goes our one
F-bomb worth it.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
That was like a natural one.
I didn't force that, I wasn'tdoing a bit, it just came out
the number of times I've had toupscale a monster because they
would simply kill whatever wasactually supposed to be
mathematically a threat, or itswings too far in the other way
it's like once players hit level5, you can throw an ancient
dragon at them and they mightjust win.

(35:55):
Like almost every time it saysto fight a young dragon against
level 3.
I just up the size of thedragon by one and they still win
.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
So it's like the new monsters, if they've been
rebalanced for stronger things,as long as you're a DM that's
pro shenanigans and let themhave some shenanigans, they'll
probably win.
Because a lot of these dungeonsare under the assumption that
after they fight the firstmonster, every other monster
will start running towards themand kill them.
And it's like no, that's nothow this works For a DM.

(36:32):
You're like no, I'm not goingto control one dragon and 30
kobolds to make it annoying,right like.
It's like they usually justcrush you via action economy.
Because I don't usually useminions and enemies, because I
don't want the players to sitthere for six hours waiting for
their turn.
Right, here's what my thoughtsare.
I wouldn't worry about thepower difference, but if your

(36:54):
one player is using the new book, I would make everyone use the
new book because it nerfs themwithout looking like it nerfs
them, so the new book makes themstronger, but it gets rid of
any bullshit they had in mind.
So it's like yeah, your dwarfis better than the 5e dwarf.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
But you're not a half Simic, half Warforged Death
Domain, cleric, who took the oneability that lets you start
with the tough feat by yourself.
Because what it does is itstops the educated players from
cheating themselves an advantage, because tough is just one of
the origin feats.
now, right, so everyone wouldget that, so that one player

(37:35):
who's being quote-unquote clevergot slapped Like.
If someone's like, oh, I'm agloom stalker, multi-class
paladin, vengeance to triplesmite, he gets a power-up but
loses his bullshit.
So I would just have everyoneover and be like we're upgrading
to the new edition guys andjust make them do it.

(37:56):
But you treat it like you gavethem a prize, because I'm
probably going to do that nextweek, especially since I had to
buy it once digitally and I justlink everybody to it.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Well, okay.
So I mean I definitely see whatyou mean by classes just became
stronger because, like therogue, for example, uh, reliable
talent used to be a level 11ability, uh, and now you get it
just like I think that's levelseven instead.
So you just get it like fourlevels earlier, uh, and instead

(38:29):
you get like the improvedcunning strike at level 11 which
isn't actually more powerful.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Amusingly, it's just better because it's like it lets
you be more fun with it.
Let's put it that way.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
I definitely like the cunning strike, but so it's
like the rogue definitely got astraight upgrade and I looked at
the monk because the monkdefinitely also got a straight
upgrade.
Like you say, that level 20ability where you can regain
however many key points at thestart of battle when you roll
initiative, that's just like Ithink that's level.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
I think they move that down all the way to a level
11 ability yeah, but what youprobably didn't notice with the
rogue is they sneakily took awayits extra ability score
improvement no, it still gets ata level 10 oh, it does my bad.
So, yeah, like.
And then it's like.
Yeah, it's kind of funny though, because, like wizards being,
look at where your balance is.

(39:28):
They give you arcaneane,trister, assassin and Thief
again, but they'll throw in aSoul Knight for good measure.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
They did take away the rogue's Blind Sense.
Which Blind Sense is, I don'tknow.
It's kind of a medium.
I don't know if it's better ornot, but the Cunning Strike is
definitely more interesting andutilitarian.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
So I think why they took away the blind sense is
because they gave dwarves tremorsense.
So your dwarven road now getsblind sense oh yeah okay, like
it's like they probably like.
Oh, we don't want to give himany of the new race abilities
outright right and like, forexample, cunning strike being
like you have to have apoisoner's kit on your person.
It just tells you what it does.
I give this speech before,where it's like each new ability

(40:13):
give players takes away theirability to improv a bit.
So it's like, yeah, no one'sgoing to be like.
Now they're like, oh, poisonkit just does this.
But also for new players,that's great, because poison kit
just does this.
I'm all about trip by the.
I'd be doing that withliterally every attack.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Well, so I mean, the question I have now is like, say
, like one player wants to be amonk and the 2014 monk isn't as
bad as the ranger but is, atleast according to the internet,

(40:55):
one of the weakest classesthat's never been true.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Ugh, I'll die on this hill rangers, because they get
multiple attacks and hunter'smark can actually just match
everyone with dps with a bowwith 200 foot range.
So you just sharpshooter, shootsomeone with Hunter's Mark for
like 3d6 or like the Hunter one.
See, ranger had a lot of hispower in his subclass.

(41:21):
He's like oh, if they're not atfull health, they take a d8.
They take a d6 for Hunter'sMark.
You get an attack with yourmain weapon and your offhand
weapon for another d8 andanother d8.
Oh, what's this?
You get to apply Hunter's Markon each hit People are just bad
at.
D&D.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Okay, okay, that's not about the Ranger.
As far as I know, no one in mygroup wants to be the Ranger.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, because no one's good I tell you right now
if I was playing your campaign.
As a Ranger, I'd outperformeveryone.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
One player does want to be a monk, and I'm looking at
the 2024 monk.
It's like, hmm, the monk isusually not particularly strong,
just because it's limited inwhat its options are, what it
can do, because it has to behigh wisdom, high dexterity, and
it's just like you don't havemuch room for feats if you want

(42:15):
to match it.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
I've tried to play a round of a Strength Monk and it
just never quite does what Iwant it to.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Exactly so like would it be unfair, do you think for
me to be like, hey, you know,try this version of the monk.
Or like I guess I should justgive that option to all my
players?

Speaker 1 (42:36):
yeah, that's what I'm thinking, hey guys, come half
an hour early if you want toupgrade to a 2024 version and if
they don't, sucks to be themfair enough, we haven't actually
started the campaign yet, so oh, I would just make everyone do
it because part of it do isreducing their options for the
bloat.
Like I said, I'm getting playersshowing up being like I want to
be a mushroom folk splore druidwith fairy wings and I'd be

(42:59):
like I like my main group's notas bad for that.
But like when I was runningdrop-ins, I always remember the
person's like I'm a warforgewith a kunai machine gun and it
was like a machine gun.
It's like yeah.
I'm a Warforged with a Kunaimachine gun and it was like,
yeah, because I'm a Warforgedfighter with an Artificer
subclass that says I get gunproficiencies from the Eberron
book.
So I'm going to use MattMercer's Gunslinger class and

(43:21):
then subclass as an Artificer.
I'm like I'm going to justdrown you my character right?
No, my character right now.
So it's like, yeah, lettingthem use the new monk is
completely fair if everyone getsthat option.
And the thing about me notreally supporting wizards of the

(43:41):
coast too much, even though wegive them free advertising all
the time is you can legally bookshare it.
Or if it's a physical book,what are they cops like?
They're not gonna.
Well, they might send.
They might send troops to makesure that you're not all sharing
the same book.
They have sent down goons tobreak down doors before and they
don't want me talking about it.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
They shouldn't have sent goons to break down doors
that's true, they did straightup send goons, okay, but so your
overall vibe that I'm gettingis that the 2024 rulebook,
provided you aren't overinvestedinto the 2014 rule set, is a

(44:23):
slight upgrade that would beworth investing in.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yes, see, that's where I'm at, and I kind of came
around on this after a while isthat it condenses things.
It cleans up some weird fringecases, like let's take the
Warrior of the Elements subclass, for example.
Instead of learning spells andusing spellcasting, which didn't
quite work, and taking thoseterrible elemental
ba-da-da-da-ba's.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Instead, you can spend a focus point, which is
key points.
It just felt like being.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
They felt like being different.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
It's a weird argument .
We don't want to use keybecause it makes people feel
like their monks should be Asianinspired and that's cultural
appropriation.
I'm like, is it more cultural?
appropriation to make your animecharacter not use key, Whatever
OK anyway, it's like they wokethemselves into a circle and I
don't know where they ended.
But if it, eh, if someonerefers to it as key points, I'll

(45:16):
be fine.
But what it does is at level 3,you can spend a point to make
your attacks have 10 foot rangeand be an element of your choice
, and then you get to spendpoints to do like sphere blasts.
You can give yourself a flyingspeed with it.
You can give yourself damageresistant lift Like at different

(45:37):
levels.
do these different things withit, so it absolutely does what
the original was supposed to doof let you be Aang from Avatar,
right, but it doesn't have youmess around with spellcasting.
So, since you don't have tomess around with spellcasting,
it's still kind of mad becauseit scales off your monk
abilities, but it'ssubstantially less so because if

(46:01):
you go just dex with it, you'dhave less saving throws for a
couple abilities, but it wouldstill work the majority because
you get stretchy punches that dodifferent damage types.
You get a speed boost, you canfly with it, you can give
yourself resistance with it, soit's like your AoE explodey
thing would become less good.
Much like some of your othermonk-like.

(46:22):
Anything that used the monksaving throw before would be
less good, but you're lessdedicated to it and you don't
have to like it's not badanymore.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Which is my like main takeaway.
It's like, yeah, like they madethat one subclass that was just
bad before a valid option.
Okay.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
So I guess my final question, which is actually kind
of a doozy, Ooh Well.
So, particularly with thebranding, Dungeon Master's Guide
2024, Dungeon Master's Guide2014, or Scarce Handbook 5,
right, they made so much moneyto come up with those titles.

(47:06):
Do you think that having thispatch update is actually good
for the players or do you thinkthat it adds unnecessary
confusion about what sourcesyou're using for what classes

(47:27):
and abilities?

Speaker 1 (47:29):
So I think it gives an excuse to bring down the
banhammer.
Hammer.
I think if you use it with allyour other dnd stuff unmediated,
it's just adding pot to a potbecause they decide for a while
they're trying to like make thednd mtg crossovers work while
simultaneously have mgg pullaway from its own lore.
Yeah, so it's like none of themtg products are quite fleshed

(47:53):
out enough, like here's a's aRavnica guide without a Ravnica
campaign.
Here's this, here's that,here's these.
They gave us a bunch ofsettings, but not enough content
to actually play a campaignthere, right?
So what this does for me is, ifyou use this, you tell everyone
we're just using this and thenit's like okay, you all get like
most of the races, most of thesubclasses and new toys to stink

(48:17):
around with, but then you asthe GM now have in one place all
of the sources your players arepulling from and you go hard on
that.
You're like, hey, you're doingthis Because then everything's
been rebalanced again.
Because, like Bladesinger, forexample, being like, oh, I just
have an AC of 25 as a wizard,the one player who actually knew

(48:37):
that existed had just a hugeadvantage.
Why would you?
The difference in power betweenmy cantrips occasionally do
half damage and I get plus 7 tomy AC, isn't a fair calculation.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Right.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
So I would use it as a reset point.
I'd be like, alright, we'replaying this new book, pick from
the new book.
I'd be like, alright, we'replaying this new book, pick from
the new book.
So I think, as a soft reboot,it is good for the players and
the DMs because it gets everyoneback to the same page, because
they've been putting out 5econtent for a decade and it's

(49:12):
gotten unyieldy and they're alllike, oh, it's Black Compatible.
It is.
I wouldn't let them.
I would just say no, becauseonce you start being like, oh,
I'm going to be a Wildfire Druidsubclass and they have little
guides on how to integrate that.
Because it's quote-unquote,backwards compatible, I just

(49:32):
wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
I can definitely see how it's backwards compatible.
For example, the Wizard,instead of getting their Arcane
Tradition at level 2, they getit at level 3.
But at level 3 in the 2014rules, the Wizard didn't get
anything.
So that was just an easy slotto put it into where it's like
okay, you get an extra spell,spell slot and you get to choose

(49:55):
your subclass.
So it's like and, and.
Then from there on the, thelevels where you get new
abilities line up uh, and thesame thing with uh, with the
cleric, uh, level three.
You didn't get anything.
So the fact that you got it atlevel one, now you get at level
three, but everything just linesup perfectly again, because

(50:17):
they just moved it to a spotwhere it could be, where it
could slot in perfectly, and I'mpretty sure that you can just
use them as is.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
You just get your class at the appropriate level
for the new version anotherthing I find really funny is it
just kind of like took the bondsand flaws and all that stuff
and just threw it?
Just kind of like took thebonds and flaws and all that
stuff and just threw it out, sojust like yeah no, we're just
not even gonna bother likethere's no backstory and
personality is a single squareon the character sheet.

(50:48):
Now and it is like about thesame size as appearance and both
those boxes are smaller thanfeets.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
They seem to expect you are going to get but the
same size as appearance in boththose boxes are smaller than
feets.
They seem to expect you aregoing to get more feets in this
version.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
I just find it amusing.
They're like, yeah, whatever.
Like I think they just threwalignment in the garbage too.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
They're like, yeah, no we don't care about that
anymore.
Well, yeah, I mean, like I said, I have the new monster manual.
It hasn't actually been printedyet, so I have it on pre-order.
I'm kind of excited becauseit's just like an expanded
monster manual with morehigh-end monsters to choose to
look through and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
um, but they've kind of been doing away with
alignment slowly anyways,because, like they don't want to
say that any one race ormonster is inherently evil, even
though it's like yeah, but alsoI always think of my favorite
Nemesis player being like I'mlawful good, because in my

(51:50):
society burning taverns to theground is a thing my people
would do, and I'm like, but youburn those people alive.
They're like, yeah, like alawful good person, Like, and I
had this epiphany where, likethey're like, I can wield the
lawful good sword.
And I look at the descriptionof the sword.
I'm like how is it that you'rethe same alignment as the sword
and the sword hates you it ofits being because you don't get

(52:13):
along at all, and the evil swordagrees with you completely.
It's like well, you see, goodand evil is a spectrum.
I'm like Alignment's dead.
You can wield Excalibur afterburning children alive.
Alignment is now dead.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
I did enjoy the awful good characters where you know
they're doing lawful but they'resaying terrible things, like I
had that character, philip, whorefused to negotiate with
terrorists and uh, so when therest of the party was trying to
recruit goblins, uh, he was justlike no I'm, I'm going through

(52:50):
this portal instead because Idon't.
I don't agree with you guysnegotiating with these
terrorists.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Right and like they still have like a carrying
capacity table and all thisstuff that no one will ever pay
attention to.
But like, even looking at thecharacter sheet, it's like, okay
, they almost optimized it a bitmore for video gaming.
I think one of my quips about2024 Player's Handbook is it's
less good than balder's gate.
Like balder's gate started withthe same 5e rules and changed

(53:20):
things as it needed, and likethe players handbook changes
aren't as good as the balder'sgate changes in the same
direction.
It's like they had similar ideasbut didn't do it quite as well
as larry and studios, which isreally funny to me.
Like if the new playershandbook was just like, matched
the rules one-to-one to whatthey did in balder's gate for
like everything I'd be so manykinds of on board.

(53:41):
But like there's little thingsthey did where it's like okay,
the feats in the player'shandbook have all the
interesting ones like chef,crusher, piercer, dual wielder
has been adjusted to actuallygive you a stat up.
You know.
Just little things that verymuch help the design I, I can't.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
I do have a quick question.
Um, do you know if they've madechanges to dual wielding?
Because that has always withthe two weapon fighting style
with the feet and just with thefact that anyone can technically
dual wield.
It's's always been kind of anambiguous rule because there's

(54:19):
so many ways to offshoot it.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Let's take a look what they settled on, because
the way I've been home ruling it, even in my most recent
campaign, is just when you doanything because this is how
Baldur's Gate did it you canbonus action with an offhand
weapon, did it.
You could bonus action with anoffhand weapon.
So D&D would never just be like, hey, can I dual wield with
this by casting a firebolt inone hand and punching them with

(54:43):
the other?
No, I'm trying to find it here.
Also, the fact that they callit off-weapon fighting instead
of calling it dual wielding, I'mjust like guy, guy, come on,
come on.
Alright.
So as I look this up, off handfighting see, the problem is

(55:13):
like even like the physical book, trying to find like every
specific thing there's noPathfinder.
Pathfinder's just a nightmare,where every single thing has a
specific mechanic for it.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Right, right right.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Alright.
For some reason, attack goeshere in the glossary it's not
really that important.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
We can move on to a random question or whatever.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
I want an answer to this, dang it.
But do you have give me anyclosing thoughts you have on
this book while I look this up?

Speaker 2 (55:54):
well, I don't know.
I've kind of kind of gone overthem all.
Where it's like I, I have thisconcern that someone is going to
go and buy a player's handbookand not realize that they fought
the 2014 version oh, that 100is going to happen.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
That's why I look.
But digitally you're not goingto have that problem.
If you do it on dnd beyond,you're not going to have that
problem.
If you do it on D&D Beyond,you're pretty dumb.
I don't have a more polite wayof wording that that's my first
concern.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
And then my second concern is that some of the
rules are so similar and yetjust a couple words different.
And it's like, hmm, like, howmany people are gonna like?
Because it's not a new edition,or even a 0.5 edition, uh like,

(56:47):
and they've been releasing the5e content for like 10 years and
people have that core rule setin their mind.
It's like, uh, I don't know,it's just, it seems like it's a
nightmare for for dms andplayers.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Um, I mean, unless you you know where I kind of
have that hard stance, I guessdifferent thought on it, where,
because the rules are so close,if you get one wrong it
shouldn't change anything.
So it's like by switchingeveryone onto this version.
It'll actually make it lessconfusing, because it's right
here's a monopoly example againat this point, a decade later,

(57:23):
everyone's forgot how to playdnd right like anything that's
been house ruled, has become therule at this point so like
having a new book like, forexample they got rid of
offhanded fighting, no longerexists.
What happens is weapons with thelight property are, when you
take this action on your turnand attack with a light weapon,
you can make one extra attack asa bonus action later on the

(57:44):
same turn.
The extra attack must be madewith a different light weapon
and you don't add your abilitymodifier unless that modifier is
negative.
So offhand fighting isliterally what the light weapon
feature does.
And if you have the two-wayweapon fighting style you can
add the ability modifier is ifthe extra attack is the result

(58:07):
of using a light weapon, you canadd it and then the dual
wielding lets you make theoffhand attack with a light
weapon if you're holding anon-light weapon kind of thing,
and then it ups the stat andthen lets you make the offhand
attack with a light weapon, ifyou're holding a non-light
weapon kind of thing, and thenit ups the stat and then lets
you sheath and unsheath, twoweapons at a time.
Yeah, so the phrase offhandweapon, why I couldn't find it
is, it's just gone.
It's just what light weapons do.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
But also how they reworded.
The two-weapon fighting is whenyou make an extra attack as a
result of using a weapon's lightproperty, you can add your
ability modifier to the damageof that bonus action attack.
It's like oh okay, so if youtake two-weapon fighting, it has
that reminder in front of youhow it works.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Yeah yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Is it an elegant solution?

Speaker 2 (58:49):
No, but it'll do, it'll do.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
But yeah, my thing thing looping back around is,
with Christmas and things,there's a good chance someone in
my group buys me and each otherthe new players handbook and
I'm planning to use it to forceeveryone to upgrade to get rid
of some of the chaos, becausethen I'm just patching everybody
.
I'm mad it doesn't go farenough, but my players are

(59:17):
stubborn.
I won't be able to switch themonto a new game.
I've tried a few times.
It just doesn't stick Right.
Like I'm not going to get themto be like oh, want to roll two
D12s and play Shadowheart, playDaggerheart, because it'd be
like eh, I like the complexityand strategy of D&D and I'll be
like cool, tell me howoffhanding combat works right
now.

(59:37):
But that's kind of where I'm atwith that one.
It's like they don't know Ifthey're not going to let me and
they're still.
I'm still so mad about the wildshape thing.
They did do one nice thingwhere they put the wild shape
stat blocks in the back of theplayer's handbook.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
So I'm willing to be like yeah, if you want to use
any animals, use the ones in theback of the player's handbook
and they're like but I want tobe a dinosaur and a crocodile.
I'm like too bad Punk.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Too bad, it's in there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
And if it's not, sucks to be you.
So, all in all, like it'sbecause it's been a decade that
I'm like fine, it's a completelyunnecessary upgrade, but it's
like as soon as one personupgrades, you're better off
upgrading everybody which istheir entire scam right, I guess

(01:00:30):
that makes sense and with thatbeing hyped up, time for our
random question.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Oh, I love random questions, so we've definitely
used several of these already.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
I'm just working my way down the list.
What ice cream flavor would yoube?

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
What ice cream flavor would I be?
Salted caramel.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Mochaccino.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Mochaccino, mochaccino, you think you drink
that much coffee?

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
if a vampire bites me , they have heart problems and I
have less coffee in my systemthan normal.
All right, this next questionwill probably take a little more
thought.
If you could delete one trendfrom existence, what would it be
, and who's getting the firstwarning?
delete a trend from existence oh, I know, I know mine pre-order

(01:01:27):
early access games and I'mwarning you right now nintendo
don't do it.
They get a warning because Idon't think they've straight up
been pre-ordered Legend of Zeldaand played three days early yet
.
But that's just a dick move,right?
The literal idea that peoplewill spoil your game unless you
give them extra money is justpsychotic, because it's not like

(01:01:48):
you buy the pre-order of thegame.
You buy the deluxe edition toget to spoil the game for your
friends three days early becauseyou're paying extra money to go
first.
It's bad.
It's the same as your parentsdonating to get you into law
school.
I don't approve of thisbehavior.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Okay, what trend would I want to get rid of?

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Considering you live in Saskatchewan, probably drug
use.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Well, I mean, I don't know man, I should have looked
at something bigger.
It should have been like foodcost inflation.
I'm such a selfish jerk, Idon't know really.
I guess those do count astrends, but I'm trying to think
of do count as trends, but I'mtrying to think of a trend,

(01:02:43):
something that annoys me, that Iwould like to stop happening.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
People you like in a sentence.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
No, no, deep in thought.
Yeah, no see, I'm trying tothink of the way to like word it
.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
You're trying not to get monkey pod on your wish.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Well see, there'll definitely be something about
like posting online comments andwhatnot, but I'm just trying to
think like Social media Damn.
Power play, yeah, maybe socialmedia in general.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
I think Meta would be getting the first warning then.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Yeah, because everybody knows that social
media is bad for your socialskills and abilities and general
overall happiness.
Everyone knows, and yeteveryone does it anyways.
Or everyone knows that Amazonis a giant evil corporation, but

(01:04:11):
they're so damn convenient thatpeople just do it anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
And the cats did it, so they could have more boxes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
So it's like I wish I could eliminate the trend of
people using something that theyknow is bad because it's
convenient.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
I mean, I'd also kind of want to go with disruption
method marketing, where youbuild a business intentionally
undercut everybody and then,after you killed your
competition, jack up the prices,like Netflix, adding
commercials back in now thatthey've killed TV.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Now that they've killed TV, they want to be like
TV.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
And this question's a fun one, but I'll bring you
another quick one.
If Petty Revenge were a sport,what medal would you give your
co-host?

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
If Petty Revenge were a sport, what medal would you
give your co-host?
If petty revenge were a sport?

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
so hot take.
I think you're actually betterat pity that revenge than me,
because you do it so casuallyand so out of nowhere.
It's like petty revenge forcarl.
I can't even fathom what it'dbe.
It'd be like I don't even know.
Like we'd go hang out withCassie in a decade and you just

(01:05:22):
point to your stone boat you'dmade floating there, and Cassie
wouldn't even remember what youwere getting revenge for.
But like because the problem,though, is, if it's scored like
figure skating, I think peoplemight not get it, so I'm going
to have to give you a bronzeCause.
Like your petty revenge mightnot come off as vengeance.
Like you're the kind of personwhere your revenge is you got
someone a bagel every day andthen stopped getting them a

(01:05:45):
bagel, and they'll never knowwhat they did wrong, and that
was your goal from the start,but they might just think that
like oh, no bagel, weird.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
My petty revenge isn't grand enough.
It's not obvious enough uh,well, see, um keeping in the
theme with with dnd um you I?
I honestly, as pertains to dndspecifically, I think that
you're a gold medalist in pettyrevenge oh, not just a dnd, I'm
just a gold medalist in PettyRevenge.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Oh, not just in D&D, I'm just a gold medalist in
Petty Revenge.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Well, yeah, I mean most likely Just D&D is the form
in which I have the mostexperience, where something that
like a question that someoneasked ten sessions ago and you
ruled it a specific way, andthen the next time that comes up
and they're like, oh, this iswhat the rule's saying, and

(01:06:41):
you're like, well, I actuallyruled it differently ten
sessions ago because youspecifically asked me to, and
now you're going to die.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
I believe that was Cedric falling off a blimp and
them catching it with a rope,and I dislocated both their
shoulders.
Oh no, I don't think you everdid that to Cedric.
No, I did it to them trying tocatch Cedric because Cedric's
too heavy to go here, and thenlater I'm like well, catch
Cedric then.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
But yes, that does sound more like it.
Everyone's always asking howtall he is and how tall the
rooms are, and it's like, okay,fine, if you guys want to care
about that, it'll come up.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Yep Also for non-D&D petty revenge the lettuce
sandwich.
I have a gold medal in pettyrevenge.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
Was that petty revenge?
Yeah, I don't know what, for Ithought that was just that you
didn't believe me.
I could taste lettuce.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Yeah, but that is petty revenge, right.
The vengeance would have beenha ha, I made you eat lettuce
shows that you're full of crap.
But I did it in such a profoundgold medalist way that the only
outcomes were either I punkedyou or I proved you wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
Okay, you definitely punked me.
I'm sure I've given the lettucespiel before on the podcast, so
if anyone's brave enough to gothrough our entire catalog to
find just the, word.
I enjoy them downloading thetranscript off of every episode
and control effing lettuce tillthey find it like I would love
them having to re-watch it all,but I find it even funnier to

(01:08:09):
hunt for it the lettuce spiel,but it I don't know if it's
famous or not, but I've given itquite a few times.
It's pretty good.
I'm not going to repeat itright now.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
But let's be honest, I am definitely a gold medalist
in petty revenge.
I think I told you about myindirect letter writing campaign
of encouraging people to writeletters on behalf of a third
party to get my vengeance on thefirst party.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
You did tell me about that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
I mean I made a self-regenerating Snorlax to win
a Pokemon match against my ex.
We weren't even exes at thetime, I'm just petty.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Just petty.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
And with that, thank you all for tuning in to Richard
and Carl present.
Deep Space and Dragons.
Click the button in thedescription to suggest your
random question to get enteredinto a draw for maybe upcoming
new Deep Space and Dragons swag.
Maybe I'm thinking about it.
I am actually so what I'mthinking about doing for the
holidays is I'm consideringhaving my novel artists do up a

(01:09:14):
Richard and Carl portrait so itmatches my portfolio picture and
putting those on mugs.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Okay, your artists.
They're just going to usewhatever description you give
them of me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Oh, I have Facebook photos of you.
Do they actually have a pictureof me?
I have pictures of you I cansend to an artist.
Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
I mean especially the one where I'm in the purple
leopard print tank top beingcarried around by my
brother-in-law.
That's a good base one.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
It's pretty top tier right Like.
I think you're just in a few ofmy family photos.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Oh, that might be true.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
I recall this happening, where my mom's, like
Carl, get in the photo andyou're like I guess I'm in the
family photo now.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
I don't remember when specifically it happened either
, but I know it's happened.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
I vaguely recall it happening.
But yes, thank you everybodyfor tuning in and yeah, maybe
I'll get around to it.
I don't know, I'm writing abook and doing stuff, but maybe
I'll get around to it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
The power of ADHD works in strange ways.
And in the meantime, self-care,hydrate, exercise, stuff like
that, you know take care ofyourself, because, also, if
you're waiting for someone tolife in one body.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Also, I feel like throwing this one out there if
you're waiting for someone tostep up and be the dm, it's a
sign that you should step up andbe the dm agreed uh bye, bye.
Really.
I easily could do a fullpodcast on just ttrpgs, like if
we had the hours for me just torun you through a different

(01:10:42):
ttrpg every week, it'd be a toptier podcast.
I have like such a backlog ofthose from the club.
It's actually insane.
Uh yeah, like I have acyberpunk ttrpg rulebook just
sitting on my shelf being likenow how to find people who are
willing to learn to playcyberpunk ttrpg rule book?

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
just sitting on my shelf being like now, how to
find people who are willing tolearn to play cyberpunk?
Yeah, I think, I think, uh, myroommate has a like a starfinder
uh book and he also had thislike superheroes book.
Although the superheroes book,um, character creation was super
complex and I I just never gotpast character creation because
I wasn't even sure what kind ofhero I wanted to be, let alone

(01:11:19):
capable of choosing the skillsand abilities.
Let's be honest you want to bethe guy from a doka box that
removes colors.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Therefore their powers with giant screws.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
Yeah.