A Geek History of Time - Episode 358 - Dungeons and Dragons Class Reunion Part II

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

I mean, it is 2 o'clock in the fucking morning where I am. The 1848ers were so much more radical than what we're comfortable or familiar with. The layer, the layer of sarcasm involved in that entire delivery is, like I've seen, I've seen, yeah, it's not even frosting. But he failed, so fuck them, buddies. Now, after World War II ended, Lockley started mapping out foot trails for the newly created. Oh, God, Pembroke Shire. So Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire.

Okay. Pembrookshire. Just please let me just read Latin today. We're way into the 19th century now. I'm sorry. Well, Damien. It's 3 o'clock in the fucking morning. Murdery to the real world.

My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And I have been working for the last week in my office. time in the evenings to try to fix a situation I've gotten myself into in Mech Warrior. And that is, so the newest DLC for it is the Sons of Kerenzky. It's the clan invasion. And I fully intend when I'm able to get a new system, hopefully after Christmas, I want to get that and I want to port my current career into that campaign, right?

Mm-hmm. Well, the thing is, I found out on Reddit a week ago that if you don't have a good reputation in the game with Fedcom, Corita, and darn it. I had it in my head. No. Eric. Comstar.

No, no, no. No, the Viking. Rasklag. Rassel Hague. Thank you. Yes, with Rassel Hague, like in order to get good salvage from anti-Klan missions, you need, like, Fedcom, Corita,

Rassel Hague, and Independence are the ones you need to have good, good relationships with to get those, those salvage points. My relationship with Corita is pretty good. My relationship with Fedcom needs work. It's not bad. But right now I have like a negative 400 and something reputation with Russell Haig. And, and my independence reputation is, is almost negative 2,000 because they've been my reputation dump. And, yeah.

I and and I don't want to give up the marauder two that I got in order to you know start a new career. So like I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to deal with this. So I've been taking missions specifically trying to find ways to improve those and it's it's not it's I have accepted that rassel my rating with rassal hague is never going to be good. Like I just that's that ship has sailed, but I'm working to try to figure out how to get better with Corita and FedCom, which is sometimes difficult because those two are, you know, frequently missions for one are against the other one. Right. So, yeah. So that's what I have been trying. I've been racing around different sectors of the intersphere trying to figure out how to get missions that'll allow me to bring those two relationships up at the same time.

I'm going to need to ask you for a list of what I need to get those reps up for so I can, like, either start modifying what I've got. Yeah. The thing is, like, the other DLC that I got was, like, hey, it starts before you're playing, so you'll have to rewind. Yeah. And, like, I don't want to do that. Yeah, no, I understand that. So, but this one, perhaps I will, but it's like. Yeah.

Well, what you can do and what I've been reading about a lot of folks doing is you can import your mex and it takes your, if I remember right, it takes your reputation rank and it takes your relationships. And by importing that into a new career, you reset the clock, but you have all of your stuff. the problem is it also carries your reputation ratings with you. Right. And that's that's my problem. Okay. So yeah. So that's that's my current, you know, really trivial,

but also taking up a lot of mental headspace problem in my life right now, which is like so much like first world problems. It's not even funny. But there you go. How about you? What have you been up to? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a U.S. history and economics slash government teacher here in Northern California at the high school level. And today I did something I haven't done, I don't think ever, but also just where my life is heading. I need to make sure I'm a little more mindful of this. I need to get more theater back into my life. And I've been slowly doing that in supporting my daughter and her endeavors. But a friend of mine wrote like a one-act play that got acted out only audio.

Ultimately, I think she essentially wrote like a fictional podcast. Okay. And it was essentially back to the future, goes back to watch Lisa Strata in the original performance. Okay. And it was really good. It was a lot of fun. I was able to hang with it as an audio. format it was a radio play i guess

theater yeah um anyway uh yeah i really enjoyed that and i need to you know i don't do much in the way of fiction and i think theater is one of the fictions that i really enjoy so okay that's that's what i learned so all right cool all right so uh what is a class in d and d that you have never wanted to play oh never wanted to play Um, well, up until, uh, the first campaign that I played with you in, I had never played a cleric. Because I had, I had less than zero interest in that role in the party. Um, and then fourth edition, I looked at and kind of went, you know what? I could hang here.

Like, I could do this. Um, and then since then I wound up playing a. a cleric in a different campaign after that interestingly based on what I had to say at the end of the last episode it was using a

modification to make it a so hay type kind of cleric but yeah I never had a whole lot of interest in doing that until fourth edition and I still don't have a lot of interest in

plan a warlock. Okay. Like there's just something about I don't know there's something about the mechanic there's something about the rationale behind it

that just kind of leaves me cold. Sure. And I think yeah, those are two of the big ones. Those are two of the big ones. Just about anything else I can hang with. I have played a barbarian had a lot of fun playing a

barbarian. I was not overly sad when that character died. And it wasn't even because of a particularly dumb barbarian thing that I did. It was it was a badly for me timed critical by an enemy that that took me out. And this was in in 3.5. So like all of all of the safeguards that are in fifth edition weren't there. And it was just, no, no, you have now taken enough damage that like, no, you're dead. Dead, dead. Gone. I was like, oh, well, shucks.

I had a lot of fun playing the character. I was sad to not get to do my really bad Jaeger accent anymore for him. But, you know, historically barbarian was another class that I had kind of like taken her left. Like, it wasn't anything that was interesting. How about you? A class that I have no interest in playing. Yeah. I don't really have any interested in playing Warlock or Paladin because I think they're the same thing.

All right. The only caveat is if I find a homebrew version subclass of either of those that seems interesting, then I might be down. Have you seen the Paladin subclass champion of the people? yeah yeah I actually almost you know my college of the idiot barred almost multi-classed into that

nice so yeah nice I like that all right but yeah that I think Pally's in Warlock so anybody with a daddy um

yeah okay I can see that that makes sense yeah that makes sense yeah okay cool yeah well you know

I would love to see from second edition AD&D and And for those you who have just tuned in and you just found this, you should go back and listen to the previous one. Because this is part two of a two-part series. D&D classes I would like to see brought back now that 2024 rules are extant. And in the last episode, I gave all the context and even talked about all of the first edition, AD&D classes that I wanted to see come back.

And there were literally two of them. Yes. But in second, regular and advanced, what I found actually was that some of these were first edition supplemental material kind of things that had then been brought forth to second. But I hadn't noticed them until second. Okay. Fair enough. So starting from second edition, AD&D, in no particular order, I would love to see the Harper brought back, specifically the Harper. Right.

With the popularity of the movie that recently came out in last two, three years, Harper's got to be on the list for subclasses for Bard. Like, the thing is they're so remarkably specific as a thing, but these are bards that have a similar code of conduct to paladins, but they like to fuck a lot more. So, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to say that I think, the potential for Hymbo Palinans has been, has been under,

underplayed. Underappreciated, yeah, I agree. Powerfully underappreciated. Yeah. Like when one of your class abilities is literally immunity to disease and you're a charisma based class, like, come on.

That's true. Yeah. Like, like, I want to, I want to see, like, I want to see the development of, of the tabletop, uh, subculture of ethical non monogamy. Yeah. That would be involved in that. Like, yes, I am a hymbo, but I'm not a skeezy.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. You know, I. So yeah. Um, also the dad bard. Like on the flip side of that.

Mm-hmm. I want to see more of that too. Yeah. But anyway. So these are bards that will sneak into and out of areas under the cover of mundane visibility. And there's not really a bard class that can do that right now. No.

You don't know who they are until they tell you who they are. And then there's a lot of them all around you. Harper's are also really good at identifying objects. You kind of have almost a divinity bard kind of thing going on. That would overlap with lore bards, to be perfectly honest. But the difference is these are bards that can be defrocked because they have a code. and it's universal. So perhaps the Harper does need to be a paladin class

now that I think about it, now that I've said it out loud. I'm torn about that. I like the idea of it being a barred class because that's that's the that's kind of the automatic cultural association that we have with it. I like the idea of it being a rogue subclass because there aren't a whole lot of pro-social rogue

rogue. Oh, that's a good point. Right, yeah. And again, that mundane visibility aspect. You know, it's kind of reminded me of the courtier, but like less prissy. Yes, and what it reminds me of is actually the historical ninja. Yeah, not the character running around in black pajamas, but the... The one that looks like a farmer. Yeah, the one that looks like a farmer or a pilgrim or, interestingly enough, a Sohey.

Yeah. You know, I'm just, I'm just trying. traveling through, I'm on a pilgrimage to go to, you know, the sacred mountain and, you know, while I'm here, I'm just noting down exactly how many troops you have. Right, right. You know, and

what really made the ninja, the ninja historically was disguise and, you know, the ability, like, to, yeah, like, yeah, to get away. Yeah. And so that's, that's the other thing

is it's a good aligned kind of ninja which I think is fun yeah I still think it would be it would be more appropriate as a Pali though I see what you're saying but I

the ninja the ninja that you're describing only has a mundane invisibility yeah this one has again access to like divination magic like identification it's got access to what do you call it well magic in general

yeah but also, yeah, and it has a mundane visibility. So. Yeah, I get what you're saying about it being tied to an oath. And there being a code of conduct and an oath. And that is meaningful. But there's also the issue of the other aspects of the Paladin core class in terms of, you know, their role, speaking as somebody who is playing one right now, not in, not in, not in fifth edition but in in in Pathfinder and fifth edition does kind of the same thing their role is to be a bulwark and take hits that's true yeah there and and harpers aren't so harpers aren't so you know yeah i i think i think based on and again getting into the meta-arch type stuff from fourth edition you know they're they're more of a they're not a striker which is what fourth edition made rogues but they are a a a

leader yeah which is what fourth edition made bards yeah and the other thing is that like yes you've got a code and that seems deeply specific but like this is one of those harpers are known throughout the land whatever world you're in yeah harpers are an organization similar to thieves can't quite honestly like hobo code is something that everybody knows right yeah so uh or something that hobos know universally right right and honestly i would say give them thieves can't as a language. Like they automatically get to have it. Totally.

Because of their job. I'd say make it a Harper dialect of it. Yeah. There you go. And, you know, they automatically have a lot more languages, make them the linguistics guy. Just like think all the knowledge half the grime of being. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah. I think it's a place for Harper's. I think you're right. I like that idea a lot. I like the idea of, no, my character is basically a spy in a very big way. That's what they'd like. I'm a spy for a specific organization with a specific ethic and set of goals. And yeah, no, I'm here for it.

And the role-playing opportunities there are awesome. Yeah. Well, because like one of the problems the DM always has is what if somebody blows their intelligence role or their investigation role? Then you're like, how do I get this important information for them for the story? Well, if you've got a Harper in the group, you just give them a primer. Yeah. Here is your guidebook to where you are.

And if you're going to play Harper, you know that you take that on. Like, you know, so. Yeah. And narratively, the DM can just have somebody come up, you know, next to them in the marketplace. Yes. and say some completely innocuous phrase pass a note to the player that says, hey, in Harper, this means

watch the fuck out. Right, right. And you have now told them, oh, hey, there are already Harper's here, and there's a situation. Yep. You know, and you've done it in a way that, you know, everybody at the table

will, like, be able to understand and that'll be entertaining for everybody. Yeah. So the next one comes to us from Dark Sun. and it's a subclass of rogue and if you said you saw a pattern here in what I prefer yeah it's kind of interesting

what am I going to say no I don't fantasize about being more clever more agile and more able to get out of trouble than I am yeah well you're not a liar so right you know but so yeah I I want to play these kinds of characters, I guess.

So this, this class is the trader, T-R-A-D-E-R from Dark Sun. Okay, right, right. These are for the players who love commerce, but they want to win by using the rules. They get multiple language as a subclass. They have fast-talking as a class feature, X amount of times per long rest. or, you know, like your charisma bonus amount, you know, per long rest. And they have networks. So your party's new to a town.

Don't worry. Your trader knows a guy because it's a class feature and he can get you seen to. You blew it on your investigation check. Again, don't worry. His is automatically several D.C.'s difficulty classes lower. Let your trader roll now. Okay. You know, because nothing spreads faster than trade.

Right. Except for rumors. Yeah. No charge, of course. Think of the role-playing opportunities of both that and a Harper. Like, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So, yeah, I think that there is, there is room for the more social classes, social subclasses of these things. And you said you wanted a pro-social rogue. Here it is. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, he can also shank you. Because, you know, the road is a dangerous place. Right. And, you know, particularly on Athas. I don't, I don't like getting blood on my hands, you know, but, but I will stab a motherfucker.

I will, I will cut a bitch if it becomes necessary. Right. Right. You know, but, but no, we're not doing that. No, we, we can talk to our friends in the slums, you know, and it's. Yeah. So, okay. The next one comes from Al-Qadim, which the next four will actually come from Al-Qadim.

Because so many glasses. So many classes. So many glasses. The first one is the jackal. Okay. Okay. Refresh my memory. Sure.

Al-Qadim was a really rich module setting in terms of source material. Jackals, in short, steel. spells from other magic users. Okay, yeah. They're sorcerers. They're sorcerers who have so much rogue in them. But at the end of the day, they are still sorcerers. So they live by deception.

So they're going to have other kits with them to keep up K-Fabe. Right? So, no, I'm an artist. What are you talking about? Or I'm a musician. What do you mean? But basically, they have to steal a spell from somebody in order to be able to use a spell.

So they make opposed intelligence or Arcana checks. And they can try against any level, but of course the DC goes up to hire the spell because you're fighting above your weight class. Okay. And their success determines the level of spell that they can steal from their mark.

Okay. The amount of time the jackal spends also increases with the level of the spell. They have to stay within sight of their mark, right? So a simple can trip, I can glance at you. level one spell i gotta i gotta keep an eye on you for like six seconds right okay so and i got to make roles and and you might know you know and that kind of thing um the mark also gets one chance to

detect the the theft from their brain okay right so you're reaching into someone's brain and you're scarping out that spell okay right so now you've got like sorcerers who hang out outside of academies and stuff like that. They're almost like Sciestalkers in Rift. Okay. In a way. Because they're not feeding, but, you know, Systalkers is like, oh, wait a minute.

I smell a wizard. Right. You know. And, you know, for a Cystocker that was time for a very pointy-toothed grin, and grumbling, you know, grumbling stomach. For this character, it's, oh, all right, I'm going to get, I'm going to get some tools now. I'll get my magic tonight, yeah. Yeah.

So the markets to detect the theft, they get one shot. You can update that very easily to an insight check. After all, this is not a particularly common or normal thing. So having it simply be an Arcana check would absolutely disadvantage the jackal, a bit too much. An insight would be like, why is that guy staring at me? Why is my brain feeling like it's tingling? Why is my nose bleeding? Why do I have a headache all of a sudden?

Right, you know, so and then trying to figure, you know, zero in on that. You know, that's a wisdom check. That's which wizards are not always going to have good wisdom, you know. Indeed. So, yeah. So what do you call it? What's also cool about this is that it's a very ram. and broadly approachable set of magic.

A jackal never knows what's actually in someone's head. So you're just kind of reaching in and getting a blind grab bag going, right? Yeah. You could get some really cool stuff. And I love the idea of a mechanic that would keep track of how many spells you've stolen and how long you can keep them for. For the sorcerer who wants to be a thief but ends up a gambling bookkeeper, this is the one for them.

Also, you have to make deception to make sure that you're not discovered. After all, what wizards wouldn't tell their friends about you? That's true, too. Yeah. So there are layers there. These are very social characters. Yeah. What I find interesting about that one is one of the underlying assumptions for the utility of that class to the rest of the group.

there's an underlying assumption that you're going to be in an environment where there are a lot of other spellcasters around. Yes. That you can do that too. And that's a session zero thing. Hey, this is a high magic world. Okay. Yeah. Because there are druid classes that are like, hey, you're a druid of the sea.

It's like, we're in Kansas. That's going to be kind of kind of difficult. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there are. I didn't, I didn't mean that as a criticism. I was just, you know, that, yeah.

I think that that there are certain subclasses that are given to us in the 2024 rules where if you are not going to be in that environment very much or around those kinds of people very much, it is not worth playing that character. Yeah. No, definitely. I think this is one of those ones that that absolutely. needs to be countenanced. So. Yeah.

Now the next one is the Mamluk, which are basically slave fighters with a code. Right. Honestly, think Templars. Yes, very much. Yeah. Yeah, I can. Okay. In fact, there's a mechanic where if a Mamluk, so the Mamluk empire actually was a

historical thing. And essentially, all of these fighters, in this case, game. All of the fighters were slaves and they are led by their emperor who rose up from the ranks of being a slave to being the leader of this whole thing. Right. Which means there's an advancement that you which but it's it's this like you we all go through the same shit. We all go through and there's a mechanic in there where if a mom luke who is three ranks or higher comes up to you and orders you to do every do something you have to do it. There is no fucking choice. And so I actually think that that need to obey your superiors would actually open up all sorts of fun role-playing opportunities for the player of that character.

The higher and level you go, the more Mom Luke MOOCs you could bring to bear for the final battle. Yeah. You blow the whistle and they all come out like the duckie boys in the wanderers movie. and it's not too much different than a champion, to be perfectly honest. And honestly, it might be better as just a local flavoring of a certain type of champion. But, you know, in this area, champions also get XYZ, you know, that kind of thing. So it might not be its own distinct subclass, but I think it's one of those things of like a good DM could flavor it really well with a good player. Yeah. Yeah.

The next one is another rogue subclass, the barber. Okay. Now, this rogue subclass is kind of what the courtier was trying to get at when it was in Xanthars, I think. But with the ability to earn, not just spend money. Right. A rogue who combines gossip with manipulation and boosting people's charisma. if you got treated by a barber for 10 minutes, you got advantage for the next hour

on all charisma-based skill checks, essentially. It gave you like a plus five in second ed, but like now like you, you know, it's kind of like the inspiring leader feat, except that this gives you advantage on charisma checks for an hour because you look good. they're also terrific at insight and deception along and persuasion you don't know you've been robbed until like the next morning that kind of thing right and you never suspect that it was the barber who

did it because who pays attention to the barber they're invisible and think of the weapon proficiency your shears now do a d8 cool damn yeah the gossip only the road razor yeah you know this would the only rogue that would get bardic knowledge and bardic inspiration, although I think capping it at like D6 forever would be good. Yeah, but also give them the medicine skill for free. Yeah. So. Yes, Barber Surgeon. Yeah. Yeah. So I think Barber would be a really cool, again, pro-social rogue. Yeah. Because like you said, there's not that many of them. Yeah. No, I like it. Yeah. Now, so unfortunately, like, if we're looking at what I've asked us to bring in, it's been a rogue type, rogue type, or bard type, but, you know, basically that of that end. A thief who does magic, a fighter, and another rogue type. The last one, though, absolutely a magic user. Okay.

My absolute favorite of all of the ones. And honestly, I think this was kind of the impetus of the whole episode. The Mageweaver. Okay. Please bring this back as a subclass of wizard. Basically, you weave spells into scarves or napkins or robes or whatever. Stitchcraft. It takes you one hour per level of spell, which means that you're always under-deliverance.

what you're capable of, but also they store. Oh, okay. So you can stockpile batteries. Like you could stockpile your spells. It just depends on how much fabric you're going to drape over your body. And now you have a reason to always be spending and earning money. Right. Which is like one of the number one problems I found in D&D is like, how do you motivate characters

when none of them have a family and none of them care about money? Yeah. So, but you can stockpile spells this way. It also kind of limits them the same way that warlocks are limited because the longer the spell takes, the higher the Arcana DC it is to weave it. Okay. So not much above sixth level is possible on a practical level unless you get really high level. And even then, how much downtime do we really ever get? You know? Yeah. So imagine you run into a guy who's. got a swatch of cloth on his hip, and then it turns out he uses each one of them to magic missile you to death.

Like, nice. You get death by window drapes. I love it. Yeah. But I just, I love the idea of you've got like these little napkins tucked everywhere, and you're like, ah, buta-da-da-da-da. And it could be like, you know, you have not had any downtime for a while, and you're eating into your reserves, which you've been making for a while.

and right next town i get to i absolutely need to find more silk you know that kind of shit like i love the mage weaver i think it's a a severely cool uh type of wizard um yeah actually i think maybe it would i don't know if you should be a wizard or a sorcerer because the magic's coming from you but you're also crafting things so i think i'm going to lean toward wizard yeah just because Because of the amount of hunched over, you know, work or study that's involved. Yeah, you're doing a craft. I feel like that fits, that fits the wizard paradigm more than the sorcerer paradigm. Agreed. Agreed. So, anyway, that's it for second level. It was mostly Al-Qadim and Dark Sun.

Okay, fair. But now on to third level. Is there anything second level that you're like, oh, God, could we have brought this back to? there there were some kits in second level that I would like to see developed into specific things and like one of my one of the ones that I used a lot was the mermiton kit which is a little bit is a little bit related to the Mamluk yeah um in that it is no no you you are coming from a military organization you are you know part of a an army of some kind whether it's a mercenary company or whatever and what I would what I would like to do with it is you know

mechanically in second edition the way it worked was just okay so you have this you know stated thing that you you you um I'm trying to remember what how it worked but it was it was essentially you you may or may not wind up in a situation where you have to follow the orders of the organization that you're part of mm-hmm um but then mechanically the big thing was you get a free weapon specialization because of your training nice and like that's something that we kind of already have like thematically that's already the battle master right right you you are so good with your weapons that you

can do all this you know crazy you know amazing stuff but I would like to build out the aspects of you are part of an organization. So kind of like what you're saying with the MAMLuk. And have it have more to do with, you know, as you go up and level your rank and your command, like you have a certain level of commanding presence. And so some of the abilities that you get when you get to higher level is you can stand up in a crowd and tell everybody, you know, make a hole, you know, get, you know, get people out of the way. You know, you can, you can influence NPCs by your, because the other thing about murmurance was everybody's going to mark you as a soldier. Right.

Like you walk a certain way. You carry yourself a certain way. Like play that up and have that be. No, no. You have that voice. of a drill instructor or a field grade officer saying everybody

get out of the way, everybody clear out, whatever, you know, and kind of building up that and then you know, kind of like what you talked about with the Mamluk, the ability to be like, all right, you know, I've got my squad.

Yeah. I'm not talking about my adventuring partners. I'm talking about, no, actually the squad of whom I am the sergeant. Right. I've told them all, we've got to do this thing. Right. Don't worry, guys.

My friends are coming. Yeah. So, yeah, I'd like to see that. You're summoning MOOCs to take bumps for you. Yeah. You're essentially finding a way to extend your hit points. Yeah. So, yeah, that would be for second edition.

That's the first one that comes to mind for me. Yeah. I'd also thinking about it. the kit of war mage for wizards. Okay. Which in second edition it was number one, you almost, if I'm trying to remember right,

it's like if you're a specialist, you have to specialize in one of these schools. And you suffer, like you lose an additional school that you can't cast because you focused on your military training. Sure. And so your range of spells was limited.

You still got the same number of them, but like you couldn't pick as many, right? Right. And you got a free weapon proficiency with a weapon that was usually a fighter kind of weapon. Well, I know that the Forgotten Realms, because that's what D&D 2024 is going to release next. Yeah. Blade Singer is in there. So you're pretty much getting warm age that way. You kind of.

But. I would like it to lean more wizard. It's like I'm a wizard who is trained to be like a military engineer. Like I'm support for an army. Okay. And less a I am I am a multi-class, you know, fighter mage. Right. Right.

I am looking forward to seeing what they do with Blade Singer. Yeah. because my favorite class in fourth edition was the sword mage. And if they managed to find a way to make that work in fifth edition, I will be very happy indeed. Okay. But I'm afraid it's going to require a whole lot of weird high stats and be strange. So we'll see how that works out. But yeah.

So that's what I would like to see. Yeah, yeah. I'm down. All right. So for third edition, there were so many to choose from that I had to start dropping some. But the first one I'm going to say is the archivist. Now, this is actually a variant on the cleric. It's not a prestige class. It's its own class. And this is, I think, ultimately, what Father Romero wanted to be before he answered the call of what his parish actually needed from him. okay these are book learning clerics yes uh these clerics are very intelligence based which means

a division of your attributes to be sure but i never liked the deemphasize the deemphasis on intelligence for everyone but the wizard and that goes double for the clergy if you're a cleric you're gonna learn shit right you're gonna yeah you're gonna read a lot of stuff the clergy were like they were the ones with all the books at too many points in history for them to to do fucked this way. Yeah. They can't all be friar tuck. So what I like is that archivists can kind of read themselves into heresy if they're

not careful. Instead of praying to their gods, the archivists have prayer books and they can add any scroll or tablet that they find into their prayer book, making them a much more versatile spellcaster than a standard cleric if the DM gives them a chance, right? So that's, you know, one of those things that you and the DM need to sit down and be like, hey, this is what I want to. Right. What really drew me to this class was their Thron-like ability called dark knowledge. And essentially what it is is they've read so much.

They know better how to defeat creatures and beings that they come across and they can spread that knowledge to their party for bonuses. Kind of like what we see Mako do in Conan the Destroyer. You know, it's horn, its power is in its horn. Right, right, right. And then Conan's like, oh, okay, rip it off, get muddy water everywhere. Yeah. The higher the level, the more cool the dark knowledge gets. They basically get sneak attack damage if they get to eighth level because they know the

vulnerable spots on creatures based on how much they succeeded in their knowledge check. Oh, damn. Yeah. Remember, third ed was super into like all the fucking skills. Right. But this could easily be updated, too. Like you, you make a nature check or you make an arcana check or whatever the fuck it is. Like you, you know, you, number one, you're going to probably be knowledge domain.

Yeah. Adjacent at least. Yeah. At least adjacent. Yeah. A lot of skills for a cleric especially. Like clerics get like three skills usually. Like, yeah.

Suddenly, you know, it's got a shit ton of skills. and your intelligence bonuses matter a lot more as a cleric. You become less focused on being a support character and you can lean into a utility role. Yeah. I was thinking you're supporting in a different way, but you're right. You're absolutely right.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think I would love to see an archivist. I would, you know what I'd really love. love to see. I'd love to see an archivist where you are a member of, and I'm trying to remember what the name of the group is in Anne Rice's universe. But they are essentially the watchers. And they know everything there is to know about the creatures of the night. but they are they are not direct

in in Rice's universe they they are they don't interfere they stay out of things mostly because if they interfered they know that you know the things they're watching would you know do away with them right um but I'd really like to see a character

who is very much you know has that cleric role of you know if people need healing I can do that and I can point out to the fighter and the ranger and everybody you know where they need to be swinging what the weaknesses are and meanwhile i'm i'm going to be standing back here with the wizard because i'm a book learned and cleric right like my spell list does not include flame strike

that's not something i i do like i'm i'm back here you you guys you guys do all of the actual like hitting things with with sharp or or hard objects i'll i'll be i'll be back here um just because i think any any role that provides a way for a character to be useful without that use having to come down to their basic attack bonus i think i would want to see more of as an option on the table yeah no i agree so I agree. The next class that come from third edition was the battle dancer. And I, okay, you're nodding your head a lot.

This class came from an oppressed group forced into slavery and they hid their martial prowess in dancing, stories, songs. Stuff that they're enslaveders didn't pay much attention to. Similar to Capoeira, ultimately. Yes. think similar to monk but charisma based monk so yes because of this they also promote bonuses amongst their friends very tumbling oriented um by 20th level they're dealing four attacks per round at 4 d8 per hit so it was gross oh it was so holy crap like in the 2024 rules if you want a monk without all the discipline and with like a frenetic flavor this is it

And again, I love the idea that, like, it inspires your friends or, you know, just makes an opening to make the AC drop a little bit for your friends attack kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I can see this being kind of adjacent to, like a drunken style monk. Yeah, in some ways, yeah. Yeah. But focusing more on buffing. Yes.

Your opponents or not your opponents, your comrades. Yes. Rather than, you know, focusing or discombobulating your opponents. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's a space for this. I think that the bard of dance, the College of Dance, kind of tries to do this, but I don't think it does it very well. Number one and number two, I think that this can still be monk-based.

I don't think it has to be. See, what I like is like, you know, typically a class has two very important attributes. But like building something where one steps in for the other is also pretty cool. So, you know, because everybody who plays a monk is typically very laconic, very like grim and gruff. Because charisma is their dump stat. What if it wasn't, you know? Yeah. The next one is the sword sage. This is essentially a knife wizard.

or a wizard knife. Either way, you don't know any magic. You actually know maneuvers like wizards, no spells. You prepare a certain amount of maneuvers from the list that you know, and you also know stances. And in many ways, this is the proto-battlemaster. There's a ton of versatility here. Yes.

What I like is that there is a planning ahead that you have to do that reminds me of the arcane magic folks, whereas Battlemasters strike me as sorcerers who are fighters. Yes, yes. They are marshaled sorcerers. Yeah. These guys are martial wizards. Yes.

A sword sage was actually, oh, no, wait, I didn't play. I'm sorry. It wasn't a sword sage. I played one of the other classes out of that same book. Oh, okay. in the one really long-term 3.5 campaign I played in shortly after my divorce, the first long-term 3.5 campaign I played in. And now I'm trying to remember it wasn't, the name of the class wasn't Battlemaster, but it was something like that. Okay.

And yeah, I really liked what that book was doing. and the sword sage was a really fascinating version of what they were doing with that what I what struck me immediately upon seeing fourth edition was I was like oh well the way these powers are structured is almost exactly the way you had to do things with those classes from that book and so I feel like it was a test run for that but yeah Yeah. So.

All right. So the next one is probably my favorite, absolute favorite from 3035. And it actually came from a book called Swashbuckling Adventures. So this was deeply specific and opened a gaming license. But oh my God, this class was, I just, I loved it. It's called The Wanderer. Okay. You ever want a guy who knows a little bit about fucking everything? Okay. This is your guy. He wandered, you see, and he picked up a bunch of little tidbits on his ways. Not too tough, not too smart, but skilled in almost everything.

You talk about a master of none but a jack of all trades. This is the guy. At a time where nobody was taking knowledge skills, the wanderer got all the knowledge skills for free. Oh, wow. Yeah. They actually made it useful, right? At ninth level, the wanderer got to make a skill check without a knowledge skill, even if they didn't have any ranks in it. There is zero cross-class skills for him.

Everything is a class skill for him. So this is skill monkey. He's not going to be much in a fight. He'll probably need saving sometimes, although he does get the rogue's advancement regarding evasion and uncanny dodge. But between fights, he's going to get you everywhere you need to be. Right. So in 2024 rules, he's absolutely a rogue. He is the skill monkeyest skill monkey that ever skill monkeyed.

He is the most ook-ook skill monkey you will ever encounter. You know, instead of using, like, I would imagine one way to represent that is every skill, because you've got the Jack of All Trades thing for Bards, which is really cool, right? Right. But with this one, every, you know, you can basically drop one of your, you can spend your sneak attack dice to add to any skill role. Oh, all right. That's, you know, that's how I would update it, at least. Yeah. Add one of your sneak attack dice.

Like, you don't get to add all your D6s, but like, you know, at this level, you can add one D6. Once you get to this level, which is much higher up, you can add two D6. It's kind of like action surge, how like you get two of them starting at level two, but then you get to like level 17 and you finally get three of them. This would be the same thing. Like, yeah, yeah. Because you're adding potentially 12. 12.

Yeah. You could really blow this up. Right. So make it like in the beginning, you get to add this one part, this one die. And, you know, at the tail end, you know, when you get to 17th level, you get to add two dice or three dice. you know yeah yeah yeah but yeah i think the wanderer is just so so cool like just yeah yeah so i saw a thing once hold on yeah yeah so uh the next one is the battle rager also known as the kuljarg which was translated from the dwarvish to mean axe idiots

okay just based on that i it's it's yes Yeah. We're done. Thank you. We can move on. Actually, these next three are racial specific. Okay. Which I totally understand why that's not going to happen in 2024.

Yeah. But also, wow. These are Dwarven fighters who battle rage. Okay. So really big on instinct and aggression. They're barbarians who are still fighters. Okay. Like, if you want to be able to blend both of those, you have to play a dwarf, right?

Okay. Yeah. And this is back when race was very much an essential thing in D&D. And while I don't like that in terms of bioessentialism, I do kind of like the occasional cultural uniqueness, right? Right. So you don the spiked armor of your forebears and you rage hard while wearing it. These guys are all about their aesthetics as well.

So think punk rock dwarves. Hell yes. And my favorite. Yes. My favorite part about this is two-pronged. One, they might get stuck in their rage if they're not careful. So there's a mechanic. Yes.

And battle ragers need to make wisdom checks to come down from their rage, right? But also, to get into their rage, they have to sing. Oh my God, they're literally mosh pit dwarves. Oi, oi, oi, oi. I love it. Yes. Yeah. So I, again, like there are severe limitations on this.

Yeah. As there need to be because, oh, what a flavor. Yeah. I have to say this is very closely related to a class. I don't want to revive for D&D. Sure. I want to import from Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which is the dwarf slayer or the dwarf slayer or the dwarf troll slayer

Who you would start out Not as a troll slayer You'd start out as like You know a goblin slayer And as your game levels You're gonna become a troll slayer And then eventually a dragon slayer And the whole idea behind the character

Is that you have somehow Dishonored yourself and your family So badly That you are on a quest to die But you're a dwarf So you can't just It would be even more dishonor and shame on your family for you to commit suicide.

Right. So what you need to do is you need to go find the biggest fucking thing you can and keep killing bigger and bigger shit until you find something you can't kill that kills you. Wow. And a friend of the show, Sean has played this archetype as a barbarian a couple of times. uh once when i was running the game and the number of times we had to pause the game because i couldn't stop laughing was was quite a thing um but i i would really like to see that archetype as a as a thing uh brought over yeah um and and i think they would get along famously oh god yeah

number one what you're describing is a paladin uh like that's an oath Yeah. It's a oath of death by cop. But yeah. Yeah. So, God, what would that be? It's not redemption. It would be.

Epletion. Absolution. There you go. Oath of absolution. Yeah. All right. So the next one also racially based. Gnome Giant Slayer.

Oh, hell yeah. There's just something so cool about little guys kicking the shit out of big guys. that I love. Yeah. And again, you're getting into short people cultures. I wanted to play a party of these with my friends, but nobody ever wanted to.

This was a prestige class in three. Oh, my God. That would be so great. Like, like, I, oh, I would, I would run that game. I would totally, I would a thousand percent. Just, just for the crack. Just, just for the, for the, for the, for the, for the, bullshit of it like oh my god that'd be great and they get slippery so when something is two sizes

are more bigger than them then they get to add their prestige level to their attempts to get away from a grapple by a giant you gotta love it yeah it's the mickey mouse thing you know where he's like trying to yeah um all of their abilities are aimed at the giant so i totally got it get it not being very versatile but how rad is it to swarm like crazy over a giant and fuck him up oh totally yeah and at ninth level they get a thing called annoying strike I just love the name yeah it basically gives the giant

the shaken condition every time that they damage him why won't you little fucker still got my eye damn it on my toe you're everywhere like yeah just yeah oh my god um just

oh so yeah you update that to 2024. It's gnomes only. It's absolutely, you know, again, the slipperiness, all those kinds of things that happens early on. But then the higher up you go, the more people you can coordinate with. Yeah.

You know, just, yeah. And I love the fact that it's gnomes. Yes. And it's not magic centered. it's it's martial centered it is yeah this is for gnome fighters this is for gnome rogues

yeah you know gnome barbs yeah like that's that's that's who this is intended for it's not for the illusionists or the sorcerers or whatever that you see so much

gnome stuff associated with right yeah I I love it love it so much yeah The next one is also racially based, also small people.

Halfling Outriders. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I may have a problem. But maybe. I also don't like mounted combat ever. And this is just very contrived. But that said, the Halfling Outrider is really fucking cool. Again, culturally specific.

Yes. but if you play in a game where like you guys are a group of this, right? Like that's the one thing I always have a problem with D&D has always been like, well, you have to have some sort of group composition, which I like by and large. But what if we do want just like four of us to be halfling outwriters? Like the DM should be able to craft a world like that. Yeah, what if we all want to be some flavor of, you know,

mercenary from, you know, the white company. Exactly. What if we want to be, what if we want to be a party of idiot, freshman magic students? You know, what if,

what if we're all just fresh out of the cloister? Right. Lyrics of, whatever kind. See, see with that, like the clerics or the wizards, you've got different schools.

And so you're automatically going to like start dividing along those lines. Yeah. These guys are all outriders. Okay. Yeah. They're all. they're all you know and and I think it's fun to try to bring like an adventure to that group that that group will will be challenged by but also have a chance at success at yeah with with those

limitations now this was a prestige class right so obviously this would be a subclass um but basically they're halflings riding dogs doing all the things that caesar said that the britons did that scared the shit out of him so jumping on the fucker tumbling backward, dodging, like, standing on their mounts, leaping from the saddles, quick turns, charging faster than they have any business doing. Right. It's just so fun. And I just love the idea of, okay, so imagine these are halflings.

So they're, at this point, slightly shorter than my son. So they're, you know, three feet tall. They're riding on dogs. Right. Think about how fuck off big the dog has to be to make that word. Like, I love everything about that picture. Oh, yeah. These are Newfoundlands.

These are massive. Little people on giant fucking dogs. Right. Yes. Yes. And again, it's a class that, like, you know, modernly, most everybody here is halfling or, you know, Hobbit or whatever version you have in whatever game you're playing. And they immediately think, well, you know, like, like Bilbo, sneak thief, right?

Right. And this, this is no, no, I'm, I'm a fighter or I'm a ranger. Like, I will fuck you up. I will fuck you up. Yeah. And, and yeah, because because it plays against that ingrained assumption. Mm-hmm. I, I, right there.

I love it. yeah i love it it's it's a little niche for us to ever see it happen for for fifth but i would totally if if if i was going to run a game and you came to me and said i want a house rule this i'd say no more right i'm i'm there we're there and the thing is this just occurred to me it's like one of the biggest problems with playing a cavalier is the way they've built it. It's centered now around mounted combat, which it becomes fucking useless

the moment you go into a dungeon. Any town. Any town, any, you know, any place where you don't have a large amount of distance to maneuver in. Right. This, you're on a dog. You can make it work. This could be rooftop to rooftop.

Yeah, yeah. It's a big, I found a dog Yeah, but it's a dog and And that's a medium-sized critter that you can make this work. Uh-huh. Yeah, and I love that. That's, I'm there. Yeah.

All right, the next one is the tattooed monk. This is my final one from third edition. Okay. It's a prestige class at third level, which was insanely low back then. But first off, basic monk abilities, cool. Secondly, every tattoo gives them a cool ability. It kind of reminds me of Brave Star, actually. Okay, yeah.

Some of the tattoos are really stupid, and I love that. Here's a few of them. And as you go up and level, your tattoos can now do magic shit. But you have these tattoos on you. Like, as you move through the monastery, you get these, and then as you grow through your abilities, they manifest. best, right? Right. Okay. So arrowroot tattoo. A character with this tattoo can heal wounds in another character by touch. Awesome. Each day they can cure a number of total hit points equal to their

wisdom bonus times their class level. A tattooed monk cannot heal themselves, but they may divide the curing amongst multiple recipients and they don't have to use it all at once. Okay. So it's laying on hands. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I like it. Um, but but more limited because you're not the paladin. Sorry, you had tattoos, right? Bamboo. Once per day, per bamboo tattoo that you possess, a character with this tattoo can add to the number of tattoos that you possess

as an enhancement bonus to your con score. The benefit lasts for one round per class level. So literally a bundle of bamboo. Shit. Yeah. I am unkillable. Yes, I will take this hit I have more hit points than the fighter and the barbarian combined

Right, and again, like it just goes away for like after a round or two or however many levels you've got But like yeah these aren't even as good as temporary hit points but yeah god they like Wham the one spot where you shot me diamond hard Yeah the rest of me is soft you know yeah Didn't feel it a bat tattoo once per bat tattoo that you have. You can add the number of tattoos that you possess as an enhancement bonus to your deck score. Okay.

So each one of those, a bat, a bellflower does it for charisma, a butterfly does it for wisdom, a centipede does it. Okay, so a centipede tattoo once per week, you can use the shadow walk effect. So this wouldn't be once per week. This would be, you know, if you get up high enough, you know, and basically with each level you're, you know, you know, at certain levels, it's kind of like the meta magic, right? Where you get to add another. So if you chose centipede,

then it would be your wisdom score per long rest, right? That you can misty step or, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Allows a tattooed monk to cross great distances, but you must end your journey on the material plane. Must be at least fifth level to gain this tattoo. So it kind of reminds me of the way of the shadow where you can. Yeah.

Yeah. Shout or shadow. What it reminds me of is the tattooed man class from Rifts. There was in the Atlantis book, it introduced the idea of magical tattoos. And you could have, you know, a magical tattoo where you touch it and you have a flaming sword that does, you know, D8 mega, damage you know you could breathe fire with another one you could you know be resistant to vampiric possession with another one all that kind of stuff yeah um so yeah centipede you could do that chameleon uh you could alter self once per you know long rest per chameleon tattoo you have so what you do

is you basically like over the period of time in in three five it was you got a total of five tattoos so pick carefully in in you know 2024 whatever the limit would be i would imagine it would be like six but you could be like um between those you could you know you can increase the number of this kind of tattoo you have by two right right and so on or every time you go up in your wisdom score or something crab tattoo uh gives you damage reduction against a certain type of magic nice pretty cool and that increases. So this would basically just give you resistance, I think. A crane tattoo, gradual immunity to bodily decay, right?

At first you get immunity to non-magical diseases, and then the next time you get another one, it's poison, and then and then and then and then. Chrysanthemum, every hour that you are in direct sunlight, you heal that many hit points per level. Nice. Yeah. Daylight spell doesn't provoke fast healing, though.

But I do. Shame. Yeah, but I really do like you're a solar-powered monk. Yeah. Dragon tattoo, obviously, fire breath, right? Nice. Dragonfly tattoo. Dodge bonus equal to your AC,

or dodge bonus equal to the number of tattoos that you have of dragonflies. adds to your AC one round per level is for how long it lasts Falcon tattoo immune to fear the higher up you go or the bigger the Falcon tattoo

the greater the radius that you can project this aura that keeps your friends safe from fear nice lion tattoo gives you smite monkey tattoo helps you with several dexterity, manual dexterity skills. So your sleight of hand, your stealth. Crescent moon is, you could like, you know,

long strider or something like that. Okay. Full moon. You get luck bonuses. A mountain means that you get plus four to your con and your wisdom save. Oh, wow. You know, for, you know, level per that.

But again, since you are choosing, right, a total of five, maybe six, you have to be careful, right? Yeah. A nightingale, you can either heal, you can heal your wounds or others, twice your current class level each day, and you can spread it out. So like a better version of. Yeah, it kind of sounds like there's a certain level of, okay, when you get to this level, you swap this lesser one out for a new one.

You get a cover over. Right. Phoenix, you get spell resistance equal to your class level. So that would just be like, you know, you get to add a resistance. Yeah, you get to add resistance to a type of damage. An ocean, you never need to eat, sleep, or drink. So I'll be on watch again, you know. Pine, a pine tree.

you get to remain conscious even if you drop beyond zero. Scorpion, once per day, you can force an opponent to attack you using their lowest ability score modifier instead of strength or decks. Oh, wow. A spider, you get extra stunning attacks. The sun, you get, again, more luck bonuses. A tiger, you deal extra slashing damage. A tortoise, you get extra AC or, what do you call it?

You can use your class level to add to your Arcana check to use magical items. A unicorn, they're really big. They had different kinds of luck in 35. A wasp, you can use haste on yourself once per long rest. Hell yeah. Right. A white mask. You're immune to detect thoughts, detect lies in any attempt to magically discern your alignment.

Oh, wow. Plus 10 on all deception checks. So some of these are really cool. Some of them are stupid. You can only pick five back then. So you've got to be careful. But like if it was updated, you maybe, you know, you get three to start with. And then like, let's see, third, normally goes to six.

maybe at like 10th or 14th level you get two more and then at like 17th level you get like two more that kind of thing yeah okay so that's it for 3 o okay now let's go on to fourth not pathfinder fourth yeah there's only one only one by the way you you did mention which uh you already kind of jumped in yeah and kind of jumped i jumped in with the 30 ones yeah so for fourth i'm going to tell you mine and then feel free to tell me which one okay i should add to that

the scald okay you ever want to be a bard but also a barbarian you ever been slightly dyslexic when describing your class and you said barbarian by accident here you go

scalds get raging songs which is rad because you're going to go in tanking but you're also inspiring your friends to kick massive ass you get multiple songs that work outside of combat two spells that shorten your travel time increase ability rules for people and in battle you can release the dirge of doom when you get to high enough level

which basically nerfs all the bad guys while boosting all the good guys which yeah honestly that's battle meditation for the Jedi I was going to say it's an arcane version of the cleric spell prayer yes um when you get high enough you can raise dead friends to fight for you as well so I'm getting the band back together I'm getting the band back together nice yeah and because you're also kind of a bard you can grab anyone's spells and understand them

with a high enough role I have wanted this combination for so long I love the idea of a scald a raging like just yeah oh it's so good so yeah no i like it but yeah with with with you know 2024 rules um you add rage right but it's it's much more limited you maybe your rage allows you to soak damage but not give

more damage right you know so it's limited rage uh maybe the same amount of times right um but yeah but it's a lesser version still um i wouldn't I would almost say, I would reverse what you said. And it is you go in and you swing like a motherfucker. Okay. Because you're motivated, but you don't have quite the same level of psychotic resilience. Okay. Yeah, sure.

That a dedicated barbarian has. I'm down for that. I like the idea of this character being kind of a glass cannon a little bit. a little bit. See, I just think that like a scald is a tougher bard. Yeah.

So that's why I was like you're not hurting people more. You're inspiring everyone and you're going to take all the slings and arrows and that's fine. Yeah. You know, check me out.

I just got shot. You fucking go get it. Like that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate that. Yeah. But I like the

idea that it is you are you are a bard who is just hyper aggressive yeah yeah yeah no i get that i totally yeah but yeah um either either way yeah you know so it's a way idea you get like you know again the the valor bard already has the i'm going to give you bardic inspiration for fucking everything um but this one would be like i give you double that for fighting and half that for everything else. Yeah. You know, that kind of thing. So, and again, you get high enough level, you start nerfing the bad guys, too.

Not to the level that, you know, some of the other ones do because you've also got rage going. Yeah. So, yeah. Anyway. I like it. What do you, anything from forth that you're like, hey, why not this? I've already mentioned that I really, really like the sword mage. Yeah.

That's, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Blade Singer will see what that winds up looking like. But the other one that comes to mind that I thought was really clever. And I really, really liked that died an ignominious death with the addition that gave birth to it was the Marshall. Which was a non-divine leader healer. and it was you you are you are uh and i'm trying to remember what your like your prime stat was strength but charisma was your very close secondary but you weren't powered by divine anything you weren't using magic you were just using your uh leadership potential and your and your charisma

to provide bonuses to your comrades and in addition to to being able to restore some of their hit points, like some of the abilities of the marshal were like, okay, so you can make an attack against an adjacent opponent. And as part of that attack, you can also grant a bonus action to any one of your allies who's also fighting that same opponent.

And there were others that were like, you know, you sacrifice your attack. You use your attack to effectively push one of your allies five feet. Right. And allow them to make another attack against an opponent they are now in a position with. It was a tactician character. I like. And I like the idea of taking a fighter subclass that is you are a fighter.

Like that is that is your core thing But your your subclass is you are a battlefield Tactician you are a you're a commander You know and being able to provide Additional mobility and occasionally additional actions and bonuses and whatever to You so where like the champion can buff himself This character would provide those kind of benefits to their party members.

Yeah, I like, I like that a lot. So, I feel like, is that the same one? Because my brother told me about there was like a version of a bard where you were like the captain and you led everybody, but by inspiring them and, and like, yeah, it was, yeah, that was, that was, that was this guy. Same one. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. That, it was that or scald, but like, I'm sorry, there's nothing ever going to be to called for me. I totally get it. I totally get it. Yeah.

So on to fifth, I'm just going to speed run through these because most folks are aware of fifth edition subclasses. So I'm going to go a lot shorter on them because I don't have to convert them either. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Here's one that got dropped out. Because again, they only picked four subclasses for each, right? Right, right. So that means we lost out on the Rune Knight. And I love the idea of a Rune Knight. It's a fighter with a crystal fetish. literally it's a fetish

you use it yeah you use it as a yeah you use these runes to power your abilities to fight it's a little bit limited so you have to pick carefully you only get two ruins to start with at third level but by 10th level you get four a lot of fighting based capabilities

and they're all based on the elements or giantness really in addition to the spell special abilities that the ruins give you Um, the, let's see, the cloud gives you the ability to operate with advantage on slight of hand and deception and allows you to change who someone hit if you're close enough to them. The fire room gives you extra 2D6 of fire damage when you hit people. It also restrains them on a failed save with shackles that do fire damage every round. And that sounds cool.

Yeah. Also, you're better with your tools and so on and so forth. You also get other gianty abilities as you go up. I always loved the idea of a fighter being dependent on a little pouch of things. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's pretty cool. All right.

The eloquence bard. The bard talks best. All the talky things this bard does. Not much else, but my God, he's a fucking savant. And what's cool is that he breaks down the language barrier as he goes up and level. And he can buff your friends and debuff enemies with but a word. Yeah. And I do like, I like a talky, talky bard.

Yeah, I like that too. All right. Ancestral guardian barbarian. Yeah. You rage so hard that your ancestors notice and they come down to help you. Yeah. I do miss that one. Yeah.

As a barbarian subclass, that I always thought that was pretty cool. Right? They advise you, they protect you. They eventually hit bad guys for you. Yeah. It's like if Hulk Hogan of the NWO was a D&D character. Just all going to run to the ring too. Yeah.

Like whoever you're fighting has to take on Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, you know. All of them. Six. Yeah. Okay. The knowledge cleric. I've already mentioned the archivist above, right? Right.

Right. Yeah. But this is what the archivist kind of turned into in a lot of ways. The thing is, most clerics are known for devotion to a principle or a cause. knowledge clerics know hell of shit and and the gods love them for how much they've studied it's a much more versatile outside of combat cleric than most clerics were yeah not not not not to ignore the forge cleric which was the cleric of creation but through hard fucking work right um these clerics can silver a weapon for you without spending very much time on it uh they are the proletary clerics yes they get bonuses to ac as they get on and level and they can forge a key like very useful when hardly

anybody wants to play a fighter anymore yeah spores druid probably my favorite druid that there was how cool is it to be a druid who's all about decomposing and the spore right yeah and they can literally create their own mushroom

zombies as they get up and level like it's when when did we When did we hire a necromancer? Right. We didn't. Right.

We didn't. What are you talking about? Being in which, they do necrotic damage too. Yeah. I'm talking about Bob. The guy who says he's a druid. He's a druid. No, he's not a fucking druid.

He just raised like four zombies back. Yeah, they're fungal. I'm sorry, they're what? Yeah, they're fungal. That's, that's, you know that, you know the stalks. What kind of last of us bullshit? shit is this. You know the stocks they have coming out of their

foreheads? Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's a that's a fungus thing. Oh, fuck. No, I quit. I'm out. Yeah. I'm done. Thank you. You know what? It's been fun. Love y'all. Not him. Love you, fuck you. Buy. You know? Like, yeah. It's all right. Bob's going to raise two more people to replace you. It's fine. Fine. I'm out. Yeah.

But like this is, hey, did you want to play a druid, but you want to have a good explanation for why you're doing necrotic damage do you do you want to play a necromancer but not feel quite so icky right or alternatively even ickier like is that your thing have you touched a mushroom in the wild

they're fucking gross yeah um the arcane archer they got rid of um yeah you know uh I I too many fighters or melee

fighters. I like the idea of a distance fighter. Like it was a very different take. I hope it comes back. The Kensei Monk, I think both them and the Arcane Archer require specializations that have soft places in my heart given the cultural references

of both, quite honestly. But I do love the idea of a Kensei monk because like you get the Limu Bai. You get I am the one who owns the 400-year-old Jade

Gim. Yeah. Yeah. Watch me use it. You know. Yeah. You get Miyamoto Musashi. Yeah. So. Like, yes, I am the greatest swordsman that ever lived. No, I am not a fighter. Right. And the thing is... What makes me great is you can't hit me.

Yeah. What makes me great is you can't hit me. And when I hit you, I hit a vital spot. And, oh, and also, I punch you after. Like, just Because, yeah. Because I can. One of the things that I really appreciate about Fifth, both the original version of it and 2024 version of it is everybody who is an adventurer has the same progression for attack. in every edition up until fifth

your ability to hit an opponent in combat progressed based on your class and if you were a warrior type you had a straight line progression and that was easy to follow if you were a cleric or a monk or anything related to them you were not terrible

but you weren't as good as the fighter. And, like, that was, that was the thing that made the fighter types, you know, meaningful. Right. Now it's, no, no, everybody, everybody who decides to go out and become an adventurer needs to know how to defend themselves. So, like, everybody, everybody, you know, has the same attack progression,

which means on a mechanical level, you can play a cleric. Yes. And not feel like, because this is always what bugged me. If I was going to play a cleric, I was going to have to sacrifice my ability to hit opponents

when I needed to. But you're giving me a character role that involves wearing armor and carrying a melee weapon. Which always just bugged me. And like the idea of the Kense or Kensai in Oriental Adventures being related to a

Monk always bugged me because you're supposed to be a swordsman, but you use the cleric attack progression, which means you're not really as much of a master swordsman on a very basic level as the fighter over there. Right. So now that they've done away with that artificiality, you can play with roles and the way what makes the fighter different from the rogue isn't, well, I'm better at hitting people over the head with a sharp piece of metal. No, we're both good at doing that. The fighter has other stuff that makes him a frontline combatant. Right.

You know, and so the Kense monk makes more sense now. Yeah. Yeah. Mechanically. So, yeah. Speaking of monks, they got rid of the drunken monk. which I was so happy when it came in and in the supplements in 3-5 that like, I mean, how rad is it that you have to get drunk and then your hips start moving in such a way that you're harder to hit?

Yeah. Like, flavor-wise, that's amazing. Mechanically, they totally got why they dropped it, quite honestly. There's not enough oomph to it. Yeah. There's other really cool shit. Quite honestly, I think they underdeveloped the drunk monk. in in three five no in five no in three five I thought it was really good the you you got two

improvised weapons they basically took Jackie Chan and turned him into a prestige class yeah and then they dropped a lot of that and I'm like you either give me Jackie Chan or Bo Wright show from from Mortal Kombat one or the other one way I want a guy who will either throw up at you get a breath weapon or I want like Jackie Chan like I want like that that slapsticky kind of yeah let me let me be the the besotted version of a swash buckler yeah because it's kind of the same idea like i'm gonna make you miss a lot and it's gonna be charming and funny and and the one thing that i would want to try to find a way to build into it is if like if you watch the drunken master movies right he does so much

I don't want to say low key, but that's the only, the only way I can think of it. So much, so much grappling that doesn't look like grappling. Right. Like, he's never grabbing somebody and wrestling him to the ground and, like, trying to pin him. He's grabbing them and flinging, you know, flinging himself over their shoulders. Right. So you're trading. There you go.

You're trading five foot spaces. You know, you're moving them. And the thing is that there's now weapon, um, weapon effects that you can do. 2024 rules, right? You can vex, you can sap, you can do that. Drunk monk can do, you could do that with your fists. You know, you can find a way to do that. And then also, you know, add in the thing of like trading places or, you know, the waterfall falls down, you know, that kind of shit. Yeah.

Okay. The oath of redemption paladin, I think, needs to come back. Okay. If you've fallen and you're trying to humbly rise again, I think that that's really cool mechanically. So I like that. Certainly from a story perspective, the swarm keeper ranger, I really, really want to have come back. If you like the spore, the spore druid, how could you not love a guy who sends a fucking

swarm of hornets at you? Like, oh, that's cute that you have a tiger. I have mosquitoes. Like, I've got to be in terms of biomass, 10 to 1. Yeah, I, I, I do, I do want to say, uh, you need to have something in the rules that says, if your swarm is mosquitoes, you have to be evil aligned. Because that's bullshit. Sure.

That's, that ain't right, man. Sure. Hornets. Hornets, not so much. Like, okay, you can, whatever, whatever alignment, that's fine. Mosquitoes are fucking evil. Yeah. Like, there's no, there's no getting around that. But yeah.

Sure. But like, I summon bees. the bees right and what's cool is you could summon like crawling creatures or you could summon flying creatures right

just a whole bunch of fucking rhino beetles all of a sudden like biting the shit out of you centipedes yeah just like oogie is shit um yeah

so got one of those plus a spore monk Yeah. Geez. Or a spore druid in the same party? Holy shit. Yeah.

Okay. Swashbuckler rogue, obviously. I mean, duh. Yeah. And I get why they dropped it, but fuck psionics. I'm sorry. No. I want, I don't give a shit about a soul knife.

I want a rogue that doesn't rely on decks and intelligence. Dex and charisma, please. pulling rugs out, swinging on chandeliers, doing all the Doug Fairbanks shit. Like, make my D&D cinematic. Yeah. Give me a rogue. He flunked out of Bard School. Yes.

That's what I want. Yeah. Or one who is not specifically very sneaky at all. But he still manages to, wait, how did he get a knife at my balls? What the fuck? Like, he was just talking and smiling. How did I not see that? See, you just use your charisma for your stuff instead.

Yeah. The mastermind rogue, I also think they should bring back. Yeah. Rogue who positions people just right, distracts the bad guys at just the right moment and gives folks advantage against them. Yeah, a kind of a rogue version of a Marshall. Yeah. A, you know, I'm doing this. I'm doing this by being, you know, sneaky and quick as opposed to, you know, you over there, you know.

Right. Right. Yeah. And just like, hey, next hit, you might want to hit him in the throat. You know, that kind of shit instead of like, I run up behind him and stab him. So. Yeah. Divine soul sorcerer.

Yes. Have you ever wanted to be a sorcerer, but you also think that your party needs healing? Have we got a subclass for you? Right. And what's cool about it is that it's all sorts of fun of like, I was awakened kind of role-playing opportunities, right? especially if you take the meta-magic distant spell ability because now touch spells are 10 feet oh yeah so you've got con as your save right and you can cast stronger heels from farther away

nice just mechanically that's really cool and i honestly like the the divine soul way cooler than like the clockwork soul i think yeah i i will i will 100 percent agree with you on that. So I understand why they'd want to keep an aberrant mind one. Enough people like, like that shit, but like, fine, sacrifice the other thing I like for this.

Yeah. The genie Warlock. Okay, so it's the only patron I've ever actually enjoyed playing for another character. I fucking hate Warlocks because I don't want to be the patron. Yeah. But with a genie Warlock,

you can absolutely invert the power dynamic here, right? And it's also automatic give the party a quest type shit because guys My genie means nine toes from Virgin Dwarves What the fuck? Yeah Like on one head side quest on the other hand again like just thinking of the table Banter sure come out of anything like that What kind of random shit does you why does he need that I don't know

He won't tell me he won't He doesn't want. He seems embarrassed. Right. And also he won't let me back in the ring to hide until I get him these things. Yeah. Like so. Yeah.

Yeah. Also bring back every school of wizardry. I'm sorry. But and I totally understand that it totally on balance is like you have four for each and stuff like that. No. Abjuration, evocation, divining and illusion. Those are really cool. I get it.

Those are really, really cool ones. But you need to give us all eight again. Yeah. And you need to add chronology and graviturgy. Okay. Give us 10 fucking subclasses for Wizard. I feel like, here's the thing.

I feel like a specialist, like school specialist wizard. Uh-huh. ought to be, okay, this is your subclasses. You are a school specialist. specialist and whatever school you choose, it's all it's all there around that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and then have it be like, okay, no, I am a, I'm a elemental mage, fireman, you know, focused, focused elementally, you know, or, you know, like you said, I would, I would put gravetergy chronomancy as, as, as, uh, rather than specialists, have them be, you know, uh, under, under,

under elemental somehow. Oh, okay. Sure. So, but yeah, that would be my, my take on that. Sure. Because I think,

I think that like, first off, having all the different schools, yes, it's Dungeons and Dragons, there's magic. Like, I'm sorry,

wizards are quintessential to the game. Yeah. You don't have to play a wizard, but if you do, you can be really good at one of these schools. Yeah.

You know? And again, chronomancy and graviturgy, I think it'd be really cool to have a wizard be able to do to the bad guys what children and COVID did to me. So they age me. You're now 30% heavier. Yes. And 10 years older. Yes. Yeah.

But also, like, what neat foci for a D&D game. Not every wizard needs to have magic missile. Yeah. You know? And finally, here's some classes I'd love to see in, in, in,

2024. Right. First and foremost, the acupuncture monk. Okay. So this is a way of mercy monk, basically, but with a blowgun.

And, uh, they hand out needles like a druid, hands out Goodberry. Okay. Um, but like, stun gets inflicted through the use of a needle.

You see them turn around and hit their allies with the very next needle to remove a condition from them or give them HP. A kind of can say healing monk essentially. Nice. And you get higher level and it's almost like quivering palm. Like think of Jet Lee from Kiss the Dragon meets Iron Monkey. That's exactly the movie I was trying to think of. Yes. I think that's where I got the idea.

But like I want a fucking acupuncture monk. I want. I want healing kits to matter and to have variability to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is where you do that. They could do herbalism. Like, they, they could get access to remove condition spells quicker, but through like this shit.

So they have to go and fucking buy these things, you know, and keep them and all that. But like, you could just, it's, it's a way of opening up aspects of the game. Yeah. And you're still a monk. You know, you're still stunning strike. You're still this. And maybe, you know, the needles give you a little extra oomph on that.

Yeah. Or do you have extra opportunities for it. So. Nice. I also think the anthropologist is a class that should exist. As a bard? Yes. Yeah.

Makes sense. They go out of their way to study living people. Like, I'm tired of the, I want to go to a library. I want to go to the market. I want a people watch. and take notes. Yes. This means a lot of intelligence

and possible charisma. They know about all the customs everywhere they go. That helps the DM. They don't fight well because they've never really had to because they've always talked their way out of it.

Or they are like Marcus Brody. They don't know anything different from theory because they don't live in the real world. Or they only live in the real world. Or they are the, the one who steals cultural artifacts. I'm open to all the different iterations of it.

It kind of like, you know, it's kind of like what kind of a rogue are you? Are you deception, a stealth, or a persuasion rogue? That kind of thing, right? Yeah. Same thing here. Yeah. So. Lost in his own museum, you say.

Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I, I, see. Mm-hmm. one of the one of the concepts that I came up with for for a character was um and I and I wanted to try to do it as a wizard was Daniel Jackson from Stargate oh yeah yeah

and and just give him a whole bunch of you know cultural and history skills and play him as a wizard but like having him as an anthropologist barred you know archaeologists specifically, but that's a subcategory of anthropology. Like, I would, I would totally do that. Because I think, I think that would be an archetype for that. That would be a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Scholar, I think, or a librarian. I'm cool with either. But someone who's, again, very similar to the archivist. This could be their whole beginning of their arc. like they're a cleric who needs to get some field work in or a wizard who needs to get some field work in. I'm not sure which way it would go. The moment you said get some field work in,

the first thing I thought of was they're a graduate student at a magical academy. Yes. And before I can get my degree, I have to go out. Yeah. They want a practicum. They want me to spend time out.

I don't get it, but okay, fine. Right. You know. Yeah. That'd be so fun to role play. Oh, God, yeah. It would be great. Like, or they could be along the lines of the bard who knows it.

They're probably going to die in battle. So they avoid fighting while adding to the group's collective defense and offensive capabilities by calling out learned vulnerabilities or encouraging certain courses of action that raise the morale of the party. Nice. So, again, your guy from. Stargate in some ways. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. That's Daniel Jackson right there. Yeah. Yeah. But like just having that character who's clearly a non-combatant. Yeah. Who at the same time adds like battlefield control or increases the vulnerability of the

enemies so that like, you know, I'm not doing a D6 of damage every round, but I'm making it so that you are effectively doing a D8 plus a D4 of damage. Right. You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, the College of the Idiot.

I playtested it. There were some kinks that we needed to work out. We had to kind of reconfigure the randomness of it. But oh, my God, it was fun. Low intelligence is a must. But essentially, like, I think in the campaign that I played, and again, he was, I think by the time we were done, he was level nine, College of the Idiot level three

Divine Soul Okay I think I did maybe six times through the entire campaign where I did any damage and three of them were like in the first two levels Wow

Yeah Like it was and and the thing was He was really fucking good at longswords Like he really was Yeah Never did any offensive spells ever but I would make it so that like me and the cleric

who's also a thief, a mastermind we would synergize what we did to give it to the fighter and between and he would just wreck shit. Oh my God like one of the one of the abilities I had was to change the to upgrade the die that you were using to

to hit something with oh damn so a D8 turned to a D10 Nice Now you think about that With superiority dice You think about that And then

Fucker hit toll of the dead On the on the Beastie So now it's double Whatever that shit was And then and then Oh it was great So College of Idiot There were some

Some things that never got used with him But that was just You know the nature Of what happened in that game Right But oh my God That was a fun class So yeah

Yeah Well, I remember hearing about it at first and made like, oh, my God. Yeah. And then the only other one would be, what's that? No, go ahead. I was going to say, the only other class would be the warlock who's the patron was the great felt ones. Because Julia has done some really cool thing with Muppets and Scott. That's, you know, that's hysterical.

and on the same level, if you just change the lighting level slightly, it's terrifying. You just change the tone that you're singing the song with, and it's terrifying. Yeah. It's time to play the music.

It's time to light the lights. Yeah. And so on, you know. Yeah. It's like a kind of torture to, have to watch the show. You know. Nice.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we, there was all kinds of, like, Gonzo's blight was an incredible game changer of, of a control spell, because each one of those things only had a hit point, and they only did one hit point of damage if they hit. Yeah. But, like, there's 12 of them.

They're difficult terrain. Yeah. And they levitate, so you could have a sphere of, Camilla's all around you. And fucked up. Oh my God, it was. It was so cool. Or like she, you know, she called in, uh, animals rage or something like that.

And so he appeared on top of the guy with two drumsticks and just like starts beating him with great clubs. You know, bye, bye, Darren. You know. It was so good. So, yeah, I, I, I look forward to her getting back to that character to see what else she does with it. That's fine.

Yeah. Anyway, those are all the things that I want to see back in 2024. Are there any classes from fifth ed that you want to see back in 2024? Not that I can think of off. Yeah. Not that I can think of off top of my head. I think in fifth with the limited amount of time I've gotten to play it, I very much like the,

the level of variety that's there because I think it provides for enough options for you to be able to do something that is yours without getting into the bloat and the oh my God

how am I ever going to make a decision because there's too many options that became a thing with three five. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, that makes sense. So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, as big a fan of, of, of the

24, you know, version of fifth. Yeah. Um, and part of what I, what I, what I like is that it, to me, it feels like a, a return to, to some of the feeling of first edition in a good way. You know, there isn't, there isn't the same level of minutiae, you know, that came about with third. Right. And you can just kind of concentrate on, you know, I want to tell a story and do cool

shit and it has the toolkit for you to do the cool shit without you and the DM having to spend so much time doing homework. Yeah. That 3-5 required. So, you know, yeah, as far as as classes go at this point, I'm pretty happy. I think all your ideas are good ones. Thank you. But otherwise, I'm happy with what's there.

so cool yeah well that's what i've got for this week um what are you going to recommend that people take in and buy breed watch listen to um i i'm going to i'm going to strongly recommend uh that everybody take the time to watch at least the first couple of episodes of delicious in dungeon. Oh, yeah. And be warned ahead of time, it does mood whiplash very, very, very effectively.

It starts out as a fairly lighthearted, wholesome, you know, a bunch of friends going into a dungeon comedic kind of thing. And then very quickly you find out just how deadly being in a dungeon is. Yeah. And then it flips right back to,

okay, now that we've defeated the monsters, we're going to cook them. Right. Here's the recipe, and this is how we're going to do it. Right. And, like, I have not identified so strongly with an anime character in a very long time. I switch between identifying with Chilchuk.

Like, when I'm at work, I'm Chilchuk. Like, why am I surrounded by these crazy people? And then otherwise, I definitely identify very strongly with Senghi. Uh-huh. So, and if you watch the show, you'll know what that means. So it's wonderful, it's wonderfully animated. It's an awful lot of fun.

So Delicious in Dungeon is my recommendation. What about you? I'm actually going to recommend you go to YouTube and you type in the Dead Alewives and there's two different skits that they do. Both of them are D&D skits. So there's basically part one and part two. Sometimes it's Dead Alewives, and then you have to type in Dead El Wives, Titania.

But either way, go and listen to those. You don't have to watch them because there was never any decent animation put to them or anything like that. They're all middling at best, and that's fine. but the audio of it is goddamn hilarious and if you have hung with us this long, you are a D&D fan.

You deserve to see yourself roasted. So there you know. And depending on your age, he mentioned the Dead Aal Lives and you already know what he's talking about. But go find it anyway because it's always worth listening to again, always. Well, cool.

Where can they find us? We can be found on our website at wauba, wauba, wauba, wauba.com, which is the only place, apparently, where we're to be able to find roughly the first 45 episodes of this epic project. And we can also be found on the Amazon podcast app, on the Apple podcast app, and on Spotify. Wherever it is that you find us, please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And, sir, where can you be found?

Let's see. First Friday of every month, you could find me at the Sacramento Comedy Spot in downtown Sacramento. If you're in the greater Sacramento area, go to sackcomedy spot.com. Buy your tickets there and then come and see us at 9 p.m. Me and the rest of the crew of Capital Punishment, come and see us on, let's see, March 6th, April 3rd, May 1st, June 5th. Come and check it out. If you have not, you really owe it to yourself. If you do not, you do not live in the greater Sacramento area, then you absolutely should come and see us online. Go to satcommodyspot.com, buy your ticket online, stream it, dress however you want for that. But anyway, me, Justine, Emily, and the four guests that we have on are going to just bring the ponder and you're going to want it. So anyway, well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien

harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, I attack the darkness.