Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Part 4: What's Lost Is Found | Starter Kit - Advanced D&D
Episode Date: November 24, 2025The Inquisitors have a scheduled meeting with a dangerous gang member, and an unscheduled meeting with several others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
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Last time on Starter Kit.
We are not especially welcome in the Thieves' Quarter.
Should we go perhaps not?
in our uniforms.
You will be so happy all this has come through for you.
We're here for our meeting?
Yeah, meeting.
I, of course, am Gerald.
Welcome back to your starter kit.
I'm David Nett, your dungeon master for this D&D adventure.
However you play it, at its heart, Dungeons and Dragons
is an adventure in combat game.
In fifth edition, the designers have been careful
to create a combat system that works equally well
for fluid, gridless combat, the way we played
in the older versions of D&D, and tactical combat on a grid.
I do both in my games.
And when I pull out a battle map for tactical combat,
my players know something big is about to go down.
You find yourself in this cramped shack
that you have gone back to behind the little shop
and you are there with this man who has called himself Geralt.
He stands there with his arms crossed.
He has named you Leona.
He clearly knows who you are.
And he says, I am Gerwalt and I am told you are looking for me.
I can only assume it is about that business last night.
There's much that I need to know as well.
Perhaps we could make an exchange of information?
He says that seems fair.
I will start.
I sent a crew of my men to perform a small mission for me
through the sewers and up into the garden district.
A small, simple smash and grab.
I think we're all adults enough here to not have
to pretend that I wasn't up to nefarious business.
My men went and none of them came back.
How many did you send?
I sent four.
Four men.
Four men.
None of them came back. It was supposed to be a simple smash and grab. The owners are out of town.
The guards are bodyguards for hire. We didn't think that they would be any trouble.
And yet they didn't return. From what I hear, I did have, of course, a watcher watching the house.
From what I hear there was quite a mess.
My watcher saw some other people coming into the house behind my men, screams and whatnot.
And then the city watcher arriving on the scene. My watcher also saw the group of you arrive on the scene and have a scuffle
with some kind of creature.
So that's what I was, what I had learned.
I am keen to find out what happened to my men
and recoup my losses if it is possible.
You weren't working in conjunction with another gang.
Absolutely not.
We had a heartbees.
Why would we work in conjunction with another game?
I incite the hell out of him right now.
Okay, roll it for me.
Does anyone else want to join me?
Yeah.
You can all, yeah.
I would actually like to use my psionic ability
of detect thoughts.
Okay, so while you guys roll it in,
and you guys are using your kind of
trying to read his face.
Aw.
We'll go around here, Leona.
I've got an 18.
Okay. Igneas.
I've got a 14.
10. 21.
21.
From what he's said thus far,
you guys, you two, actually you all think
that he's telling the truth.
He's maybe hiding something, holding something back.
He certainly knows more than that,
but you think he's telling the truth.
So you cast detect thoughts.
For you, it's a psionic power,
and I think you can do it once per.
Once per day, once per long rest for one minute.
Okay, so when you cast Detect Thoughts, the first thing that Detect Thoughts does is,
right away, without him making any check or resisting it or anything, you can detect surface thoughts.
So what you get from him right away is he's quite angry, while he seems pretty composed talking to you,
he's quite angry.
And as he talks about the mission that has gone awry and the screams that he heard inside
and another group following them in, and especially when he's asked if he worked with another crew,
he's quite angry about the idea of that.
He really does want to find out what happens.
And while he hasn't said it to you out loud,
he clearly wants to punish whomever is responsible
for his men being killed.
So the other part of Detect Thoughts
is that you can try to push deeper if you want to.
Is that something you'd like to do?
Yes, I would.
So when you push deeper, he does get to make a saving throw.
Okay.
He's gonna make a wisdom saving throw against your,
for psionics, you'll use intelligence as your modifier.
So it'll be eight plus your proficiency bonus,
which is three there, right?
So 11 plus your intelligence.
Modified. There's another two. Okay, so 13. So he's gonna make a wisdom check against the 13. So as you try to push a little harder, he snaps his head around to you, and he says, you'll be wise to stay out of my head, sir. I'm not from this one. We communicate differently than others.
Forgive me, sir. He says, I'll let aside this once, but I'm going to be watching you and keep my eye on you. In fact, go stand over there. And he kind of points to the corner and
There's not much room, you can shuffle past other people
and go stand in the corner if you want to.
Please forgive my associate.
He's not from this world.
Yes, so he said, so he said.
I'd also like to add that he is not from this world.
So what happened is he made his wisdom saving throw
and when that happens is your spell ends.
He pushes you out of his brain and he knows that you did that.
So that's the bad side of the tech thoughts.
If he had not saved, then you would have been able
to push in further.
So you shuffle over into the corner,
he turns back to you and he says,
that was uncalled for,
I believe I've been fairly cooperative meeting with you at all.
I think if you try such a thing again,
you will find that I am not a fellow to be messed with.
Are we clear?
Yes.
Yes, sir.
Sure.
All right then.
So what can you tell me of what happened to my men?
Are you familiar with a group called the rivers?
You see his face goes dark.
He's not even trying to conceal his anger.
The rivers?
His jaw clenches, those upstart bastards.
Before you do anything retaliatory,
we don't know that the rivers killed your men.
The rivers were also dead.
The creature you saw us battle,
it may have killed all of them.
I will tell you that the river's involvement
makes sense to me.
They're a young gang, but they've been unruly
these past couple of months.
Mostly they had kept to their place,
small burglaries here in the,
there, but these last few months,
Sheeran and her band have grown bold.
I'll tell you, they've taken several of my corners,
a handful of my businesses.
I've sent my men out after them, and no one has come back.
You said her name.
Sheeran?
Sheeran.
Have you heard anything about them
dabbling in dark arts, magic,
dealings with underworld creatures?
Not that I have heard,
it would seem out of character for
Sheeran, until recently she was a two-bit thug.
She formed her small group, perhaps a year ago,
six months ago they could call themselves a gang.
They had enough members, a few dozen,
to call themselves a gang,
but I don't know how she would have found her way
into any dark magics.
Would any of your men have?
My men?
No.
He says, there's a few of my men that have some talents,
but nothing like what you've described.
That's the province of wizards and others of those.
If they have those kind of powers,
they can usually make their living without turrets.
to me.
You may underestimate Sheeran and then at some point she may have had dealings with or been
infected by a demon or a minor deity.
That is fair.
That's a fair assessment.
I would not have given her much credit previously.
It is true she's risen up this gang and taken much from me.
It is possible she has had help.
How long has it been since you've seen Sheeran in person?
Probably since the gang began to rise, several months.
I did hear that they were recruiting young people out of
orphanages to fill up their ranks, distasteful business. I would never do such a thing.
You said about two months ago they became unruly? Yes, two months ago I lost my
first corner to them. My men did not come back one day. We sent someone looking and the
rivers had marked the corner claiming it for their own. We began to pursue them at
that time and it was a back and forth game. We would find a couple rough them up
only to find our men missing entirely the next day. Where are these corners that
she? He names a couple of streets corners around the city. The
What he said about the main kind of low-level corners, things where there's not much activity,
that checks out in your brain.
Drug sales, you know, other kinds of illicit business, prostitution, kind of places like that around the city.
In case we want to go poking around the city.
Sure, absolutely.
So he gives you a couple of names of some streets.
You recognize them, certainly.
Your men, they traffic in the sewers often?
Rarely.
We use the sewers sometimes to travel under the wall into the higher parts of town.
Have any of your men gone missing in the sewers?
No.
The men and I have lost to have been either on the corners or last night.
Do they have a hangout?
Is there a locust for them?
anywhere if I knew I would send my men in and burn her out the city watch may
find itself in debt to you if rather than inaction justice on her you turned
her over to us for further questioning I say this not to interfere with your
business but to protect the city at large there may be greater powers here that
we are dealing with trying to persuade him sure let's roll a persuasion check then
persuasion skill 15 he nods and he says perhaps if I find her I will
reach out to you, you may owe me a favor. I will not interfere with your search for Sheeran,
but once you have found her and done with her, whatever you will, I ask you leave the rest of
the rivers to me. Do we have a deal? I'm okay with that. I know what it's like to lose some crew
members. I appreciate that. And he makes a little bit of a sad face, but this one he's not even
really trying to be super believable. And he says with that then, I bid you adieu, and I will check
on you soon. You guys? Thank you. Leave the shack. Yep. You go out to the door, open the door and go
out the door. The two thugs are hanging back a little bit from the door this time. They're a little
scared of you. Yeah, you do the, they do a little fence again. And you guys head out. You've now
been awake for about 36 hours straight in this investigation. Do you guys feel like you want to
explore more in the thieves quarter? Do you want to go home and rest? Do you want to go back to
the precinct? What do you want to do? I mean, our shift starts up again soon, right? Well, now that
you've caught a case, you're not on a regular shift. So you're not going to go.
go back to your night shift and wait for more cases.
Until this is solved, this is on you.
I'm okay on sleep.
Yeah, can I ask the benefit of long rest?
Great, yeah, absolutely.
Because none of us need.
It's a good point.
So while in the gameplay, you've been going for 36 hours,
but you are heroes, you can continue to push ahead.
Mechanically, when you go to long rest,
you would heal your hit points back, you would get your spells back,
some of your hit dice back if you've spent them.
But as you say, you guys haven't taken any damage or anything,
and you haven't cast many spells.
We will get those back and I can get my mind reading ability back
and piss somebody else off.
Is there any disadvantage in the game to taking longer?
No, you'd just be taking some time to take the long rest.
And if you're not, since you're not in like danger right now,
going back and resting, which should be perfectly safe.
Should be clear our heads.
Might as well do it.
Yeah, fresh eyes.
Seems, seems good.
All right.
So you guys have been awake for 36 hours.
So you head through the quarter.
As you approach the door into the newer part,
the gate through the wall,
into the newer parts of the city.
I get everybody to make a perception check for me.
Now there are a couple ways perception is used.
You all have a passive perception on your sheet.
This is an active check because you're in a dangerous place.
So you're looking around pretty regularly.
This isn't just kind of a passive thing.
So we'll go down right here, Narak, would you get?
18.
All right?
15.
14.
All right.
Narak, you realize, just as you bought it before you get to the gate,
you realize you're being followed.
There's someone shadowing you.
I actually use my sorcerer cantrip.
message. Okay. And I believe, can I send that to everyone in the party?
I think it's just the one person, but I can check really quickly. Actually, you've got the sheet there.
We can check really quickly?
Yes, to a creature. So I, you hear a telepathic message from me and you know that it's me.
We are being followed. When I hear this, I give a almost imperceptible nod of my head so that
Narak knows I've heard him. And I continue walking slowly, so as not to tip my head.
my hand and I turn very suddenly upon who's following us.
All right.
So you spin around quickly and you catch,
there's a person coming around the corner behind you
that when you spin around and you kind of all moving forward,
the person stops and locks eye contact with you
and so a woman in her mid-20s black cloak, black clothes,
and she makes eye contact with you and just startled,
looks at you for a moment and then turns around and runs.
No.
No.
Do we chase her?
Heck, yes.
Well, you chase her, we're so.
Do you chase her?
Yeah.
So you take off running after her.
You guys see, now you heard, saw the person,
or felt the person following.
Right.
You see Leona taking off after this person.
What do you do in Narlaq?
Well, I guess the jig is up, so I say,
run this way.
And you follow Leona?
Ignis, what do you do?
I guess I follow Narla.
Okay, so you're following as well?
So Raviel.
I'm gonna get some height on this,
and I'm gonna climb up on the roofs.
Okay, so you just find a bit
just find a building and start to scramble up on the roof?
Yeah, yeah.
And what are you doing, Shywin?
I will follow as well.
Okay, so you're gonna run after them as well.
So you guys run, and this person's got a fairly good lead on you,
and she's running with her cloak billowing behind,
she takes a turn and then another turn,
and rounds the corner.
You are up on the roof kind of trying to run,
jumping from roof to roof.
I need you to make an athletics check for me.
Okay.
And what I'm gonna say is it's a DC of 15
to keep up with them, because you're finding roofs
and jumping across and scrambling.
You can take your time and move across the roofs,
but in order to keep up with everybody on the DC-15 athletics.
All right, that's not great.
I have no bonuses for this.
Well, actually, so because you're up on the roof there
and you're jumping across spaces,
if acrobatics is better for you,
you may use that instead.
Thank you.
It's plus two.
All right.
Yay, 13.
So 13.
So you're kind of moving around.
You're finding places to jump across roofs
and running into places where the alley's too wide
and having to negotiate around them.
And they actually move a little bit ahead of you.
You can hear them running,
but you can't see them anymore as they're round corners.
You know where they're going.
you'll be able to follow.
Okay.
But you're a little bit behind them.
Okay.
Okay.
So as you race after this cloaked figure,
Leona's in the lead, the rest of you following,
or Raviel crawling on the roofs behind,
you round a corner and you find yourself in sort of a courtyard
with a bunch of small alleys connecting to it.
I'm gonna put this out here.
If you move the little guys there for me.
Here we go.
Move the babies.
We're gonna drop this guy right in the middle of the map right there.
Hey.
And can you hand me the miniatures there?
Mm-hmm.
We will start with Leonie.
Leona, you come around this corner here.
You're followed by Narlak, who is after you, Igneus, and Shywin,
who's a little faster than the rest, so she's right there in front.
You are on the roofs coming from this direction.
As you round the corner, what you see, Leona, is a figure standing on top of a set of boxes here,
and the rogue that you followed has rounded the corner and taken up position in front of this person.
And you kind of skid to a stop, and you see that the thief that you were,
Chasing has turned to face you, and the person on the boxes says,
thank you for joining us.
Oh.
Oh boy.
In the alleyway behind you, you guys hear a noise.
Oh my gosh.
And moving from the shadows behind you in this alleyway.
I bring my big weapons.
It's going to be fine.
I'm very good with my small.
It's going to be fine.
It's going to be great.
Stepping out from the far side of this alleyway,
I'm just going to come around the table here.
Damn it.
Oh, poor.
Stepping here, here.
And...
David.
We're surrounded.
That's how that looks.
Here and here.
Look at this one with her rooftop action.
That's right.
Guys, wait for me!
Oh, God!
The person who's standing on the boxes says,
don't bother to try to talk your way.
We know that you are inquisitors of the city watch.
We just want to know where is Liam?
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Are you, Shearin?
He laughs.
No.
Now, Shearin is my boss
and she's keen to understand
what's happened.
to her man.
Can you tell us what Liam looks like?
He says, we know that you have encountered Liam.
You chased him through the sewers,
and we want to know what's happened to him.
Liam is the creature.
That is one of his forms.
Oh, boy.
Will you tell us?
In exchange for safe passage out of here,
we'll tell you what we know.
I unfortunately, as he steps down from the boxes,
I unfortunately am not authorized to allow you to live.
And there's gonna be an initiative for everybody.
All right.
And initiative is what happens at the beginning of combat.
I don't think I'm gonna tell you anything.
Can I still roll even though I'm a little behind?
You will roll, yeah, because you'll be part of this coming up.
Seven.
So we'll go, yeah, Leone, you have seven?
Six.
Six for Igneas.
Sixteen.
Sixteen for Ravio.
Shinewood.
Ten.
Excuse me.
And Narlaq.
Seventeen.
Oh, you couldn't let me have that, could you?
So you find yourself there in the alley.
You've just been told by the leader of whoever these people are that he's not authorized to let you live.
Narlaq, you are up first. What are you doing?
I would like to move to this square and then cast burning hands at those two.
Okay, fair enough. Move yourself into there. So now we're on a gridded combat guy, so things become a little bit more precise.
His movement can be up to six squares. Each of these squares is five feet, and you can see his speed at the top of his sheet. His speed is 30.
So you can move up to six squares. He's just moved to six squares. He's just moved to.
a few and then he's going to cast burning hands.
What's the range of burning hands?
Oh, you know what? Actually, I guess I can't.
Because the range isn't long enough,
so I would, I'll probably cast sacred flame instead.
Okay, so sacred flame on which one of them?
On the speaker.
So sacred flame requires him to make a dexterity check.
Is that correct?
Right.
All right, against, against a 14.
14.
So he does not make his dexterity check.
Yeah.
Great.
So how much damage does he take?
Roll that damage for the...
It says it increases by 1D8 when you reach fifth level.
Yes, you are...
Even though I'm technically still fifth level,
even though I'm three levels of one
and two levels of another.
It's true.
So you're multi-class, but you are a fifth level character.
So that should be the same.
So 2D8.
2D8.
2 plus...
So six points of damage.
Okay.
Nice little opening.
So a flame flies down out of the sky
and bursts onto this leader,
it kind of stumbles back into those crates.
And are all the crates and barrels filled with oil?
They are not, unfortunately.
Plus, this is a sacred flame, so it's divine flame anyway.
It wouldn't actually start them on.
They don't divine words.
Burning hands, I could, but it's too far.
So now you only moved, what, four, like 20 feet?
So you've got 10 more feet of movement if you want to.
So in combat, you can move up to your speed and take a standard action.
But if you don't use all your move at once, you can continue to move beyond that.
You can split your move up between your actions.
I think I'll actually move back too.
Okay, so you can move back.
I'm pretty squishy, especially about my arm.
Hide behind Leona.
You just stepped out and thrown your sacred flame.
And then next is Araviel.
You're up next.
Okay.
You're running along the rooftops.
And you hear like conversation happening.
And then you hear this bursting explosion.
And you've heard his.
Oh, Narlaq.
So you know what's happening.
You speed yourself up.
You leap to a roof.
And you actually end up on a rooftop.
Right above, right here, you step out.
And you can see these two guys hanging out in the alleyway
behind your friends and all these people
in the center of the.
Okay, I need to, it's time for me to summon my flail.
I will do that subtly and secretively.
Okay.
That's a full action actually.
Yep.
It looks like they might not be going anywhere.
As a bonus action, I will, I will hex the one closest to me.
Okay, so this one right below you, right here.
The one right below me.
Okay.
Oh, by the way, when we took the short rest,
Warlock spells all replenish.
Oh, yeah, you get your spells back in the short rest, yes.
Yeah, this counts as just one again, and I get an extra one later.
So yes, he has been smitten with my hex.
Perfect. So you've hexed him. He doesn't even know it.
But I do get to choose an ability.
So I'm gonna choose, since we're doing some fire stuff.
Okay.
Dexterity, his ability checks with dexterity.
All right.
Disadvantage now.
So your movement was moving into here to see this.
You took your action, doing the hex and draw and...
I think hex was my bonus action.
That's your bonus action and getting your weapon was your action.
So now we move on to Shywin.
Shywin you're up.
You can move and attack, you can try to climb up the wall if you want to get better advantage,
you can just leap into battle with somebody.
Now, you do have your bow with you.
It's not strong, so you have to take an action to string it if you want to do that.
Who has ranged weapons here? Which guys?
We'll say this guy has a crossbow, because he's easy because he's carrying that bow there,
and that guy over in the corner appears to have a crossbow, and this leader appears to have a crossbow.
So one of the ones near you does.
Yeah, I guess, I guess I will move and attack the guy with the crossbow behind us.
Okay, and using your daggers?
Yes.
Okay.
So you move 5, 10, 15, 20, and you're going to attack him with your daggers.
Now you have two daggers, right?
So you're going to fight two-handed here.
Fighting two-handed means you can take a bonus action and make an extra attack.
So you are a Ranger level 5.
You have two attacks with your on hand.
And then remember we talked about bonus actions, things like Hunter's Mark and stuff,
doing a bonus action.
You can also, if you have two weapons that you're fighting with,
use your bonus action to attack again just one time with that extra weapon on your offhand.
So if you want to you want to be a weapon.
You want to you've got three attacks with your dagger here if you want them.
Okay.
Let's see how the first one goes.
So we'll start with the first two, yep, certainly.
What am I rolling?
So you're gonna roll your D20 and you've got a dagger listed on your equipment sheet there.
So you'll use the bonus, the attack bonus that's listed by the dagger.
Roll a D20 and add that to it.
Natural 20.
Nice.
Natural 20.
So you've created the first time out.
So we'll talk about how a critical hit works here.
So you swing that dagger, you spin around and run up to this guy who's got a crossbow and just stab him in the gullet.
So what the critical hit means is that you're going to roll the critical hit means is that you're going to roll a
twice as many dice for that weapon as you would normally do.
So a dagger is normally 1D4 plus whatever your addition to voice is.
In this case you're gonna roll 2D4 for your damage.
You double the dice.
Now it's D4 not D6, D4 is a pointy one.
The little triangle.
Counting thing.
There you go.
It's really bad.
So you'll roll two of those.
Okay, so that's three, four.
So that's seven points plus...
Plus five.
So 12 total points of damage.
You just run, turn around and just stab this guy in the gullet.
Yep.
And you drop him.
Yep.
You pull out your dagger and he just falls to the ground.
Okay.
So I'm gonna let you, so you moved a little bit and you stabbed him, but you've got more
move action left here.
So there's a couple things you can do.
You can continue attacking.
There's another guy standing next to you.
Right.
Or you can use the rest of your action to pick that crossbow off of that guy that fell.
Yes, I will do that.
I will pick up his weapon.
So you sheathe your daggers and you kneel down and pick up his crossbow, grab his sheaf of
bolts out of his quiver, jam them into your belt and you turn around crossbow in hand.
So this guy,
That guy right there is down.
A little bloody spot on the ground here to remind us
that we dropped somebody.
Nice.
All right, Leona, you are up next.
You find yourself sort of surrounded in here
by all of these bandits.
So I only brought my dagger.
So you do have a dagger in hand, that's what you've got.
Which is a close-up weapon.
So I also have a speed of 30, so I can move six squares at a time.
Six squares, yep.
But it does look like I have an action surge once per round.
Once per rest, I can do an additional action in combat.
Right. So the way that that works is normally in combat, you have a move and then you have an action.
The action can take lots of different forms.
You can dash to move again, you can attack, you can cast a spell.
So what this does, action surge, if you use it, it adds another action.
So you have a move and then two actions that round.
So you could use those again to move again or attack twice or anything that you want to.
Which is different than a bonus action?
So bonus action, some of your powers, like your combat maneuvers, take a bonus
This is a whole other action.
It's a full-on action.
Well, with the distance I have now,
since I don't have any long-distance weapons,
it seems the only way I can get a strike in
as if I move, dash, and then use an action search.
That seems right.
So where are you going to move to?
I think I'm going to go towards the leader.
I think that's who I'm going for.
So one, two, three, four, five, six.
Almost gets you there.
And then you've got one more five.
foot square to get to him. So that's your dash.
Yep. Now you can take another action. This can be an attack if you want it.
All I've got is a dagger, so I'm going to go for the ribs.
Swing at him with the dagger. So you're going to roll your D20 and add your dagger's
attack bonus to that.
Five plus seven, twelve.
So that does not hit him. So you scrape your dagger across his armor, but that's only
your first attack. You get a second one here. Okay. Because you attack twice per round,
because you're a fifth level fighter. Now, you can also, in the middle here, let me talk
about your bonus actions because you've got your combat maneuvers as well. So you've got something
called distracting strike. They do. As a bonus action, you can choose to spend one of your four
combat maneuver dice and make a distracting strike against him. What it'll mean is if you hit him,
you'll add more damage to him. And the next person to hit him will also have advantage on that attack.
I would like to use that. Okay. So on the second attack, you're going to do a distracting strike.
So you'll take one of your D-8s and kind of put it out there. That's your combat maneuver dice or D-8s.
So just put it right there in their day straight, so remember to use it when it comes side of it.
Okay, I was thinking my rolling.
So you're going to spend that guy, you have four of these, so mark down, you now have three,
because you can do four of these in a day.
Just wherever you want on your sheet or in your note paper.
And then you're going to try a distracting strike.
So you're going to roll a hit again using your dagger.
Eight, seven, ten.
Fifteen does hit him.
So the second time, the first time you slashed across his armor, the second time you stab him right in the body there.
And so you're going to roll your damage, your damage is a D4, plus whatever the bonuses there are.
as they are.
Four plus four?
So it's eight points there, and then you get to roll your combat maneuver dice, your martial
dice as well.
So it's eight plus...
Eight.
So 16 points of damages you this time just stab that guy.
I only have a dagger.
I already have a spiritual flame.
But yeah, you just did a crazy amount of damage to him just with your dagger.
He does not however fall.
He is still standing.
But so does that include...
So that includes...
So the distracting below was that.
You just use that.
So the next person to attack him.
So the next person, so somebody go from him.
So the next person will have advantage
of the attacks made before the start of your next turn.
So after your turn, it is now the bandits turn.
Whoa.
Now the bandits and their leader,
I've drawn different initiatives for him.
Glad I put myself right up next to him.
He actually is startled by you attacking him.
And he's not able to respond right away.
The other bandits actually are.
So the first thing that happens is a couple of these bandits,
you see them sort of twist.
and twitch a little bit.
What?
And their faces start to bubble as they start to transform.
No.
God, make it stop.
All of the rivers are these?
So Shywin, right here beside you, this guy,
his skin sort of, his chest opens up,
and he sort of peels away and emerging from his chest
is a huge black bear.
They're all different weird things?
Standing beside you.
Over here on that far side, actually, Jason,
I'll ask you to do this for me.
The two of them kind of fall to the ground
writhing and emerging from their bodies
are two giant rats.
Your buddies.
All right, all right.
This is good.
They're beautiful.
Over here across the way, this person starts to transform.
It kind of gets down on all fours and his body starts to change as he moves into looking like a kind of a dog-like creature.
But then you hear a yelp. He kind of screams his head twists and it's like he turns partly into a dog and then his body starts to turn inside out.
It's almost as if he's transformed too far.
And he falls on the ground just in sort of a steaming lump of twitching flesh right here.
Right here.
Dave.
As his transformation has failed.
Fantastic.
But he was too far.
He killed himself.
And this guy over here does reach down all fours
and turns into a sort of a mangy coyote.
Okay.
That's interesting because that seems like they're using some spells or powers.
This guy here steps forward and comes beside you
and takes a stab at you.
And now she's a thief.
That's just a person.
That's just a person.
She's just a thief.
She's the one that you chased into the
This one happens to be a halfling, yes.
So when she attacks you, her friend has also attacked you,
and she's a rogue, so she's gonna get extra bonuses
to her damage if she hits you.
So she stabs at you with her dagger.
What's your armor class now?
12.
Armour class 12.
So she stabs you in the side with your dagger,
but you're occupied with her companion,
and she kind of dances around and stabs you where you don't expect it.
So she does three points of damage with her dagger,
but as it gets into you, she reaches it in and then twists it
and you can feel it sort of like passing around through your organs,
around through your organs, you take 10 more points of damage.
Oh my gosh.
So 13 total points of damage just from her little,
her staff there.
So on your hit points there, we have 54.
Did you have a lot of hit points?
Take 12 points of damage off of that.
You think it was 13.
It was 13, I'm sorry, 13, yes, thank you.
You're right.
Thank you for your honesty.
Who side have I on?
I know, I have a question about,
because one of my things, I can't remember
if it's Perry or Repost is about striking back
immediately if I get hit.
That is true.
So if you are missed, on Repost,
if you are missed, you can strike back right away.
Now Perry, however Perry is,
somebody hits you can try to parry that weapon.
You can use your reaction.
So you do have a reaction.
You have one reaction on everybody else's turn.
So you could use a reaction here if you wanted to to parry it,
and you're going to roll some dice and subtract
from the damage that was done to you if you
want to try to parry this below.
Yeah.
OK.
So as the digger starts to go into you, you actually
try to grab the arm and pull it out, rather than
pushing it in further with a parry.
So you're going to roll another one of your superiority
die, so one of your D8s.
And then when you roll it, you're going to add your dexterity
modifier.
Six plus two eight.
So you have eight.
to subtract eight from that 13 that was done to you.
Okay.
Okay.
Not bad.
So now you've used another superiority dye, so you're going to mark that down to two.
You now have only two left.
But still usual.
You can do those kinds of things four times a day.
You told me not to hold back.
Too many use my tricks.
There you go.
There you go.
All right, so Igneas, you are up.
What do you think you're going to do?
So I, now that I have a better sense of what we're dealing with here,
I'm going to turn around and go here.
And I am going to moonbeam the crap out of that shape.
out of that shapeshifter.
Nice.
So Moonbeam's a cool spell for you in this situation, right?
Yes, it is.
Not only does it do damage, but it hurts shapeshifters more.
Especially more.
Yeah.
That's what they are?
Well, he shifted some shapes.
I'm going to make that call and let him be a safe shifter.
I'm going to go with that.
So now what happens with Moonbeam?
So with Moonbeam, a beam of pale light shines down on a five-foot radius,
40 feet high.
It makes sort of a cylinder.
So at a point within range.
The range is 120 feet.
You've got plenty of range to him, yep.
Definitely that dude.
And in a creature enters the spells area
for the first time on a turn,
or starts its turn there, it is engulfed
in ghostly flame.
That causes searing pain.
And it's gotta make a Constitution saving throw,
which as a shapeshifter, it's got to do with disadvantage.
Oh, wow, okay.
So he'll do that saving throw.
The big bear's roaring in this beam of moonlight strikes down.
I did roll 118, but the other one was a two.
Yes.
So he fails that saving through.
So on the fail, he takes 2D10 radiant damage.
So roll that for me.
So that's a 10.
That's a 1.
Oh, so 1 and a 2.
So 3.
3 points of damage.
3 points.
And then, because he's a shapeshifter, he reverts to his original form and cannot change back.
Wow.
So you see.
Can I assume a different form until it leaves the spell's light.
This bear shrinks, shrinks away, and
collapses on itself.
And what you see actually laying prone on the ground
is the man who was standing there before
who changed into the bear.
You see him transformed back.
He's naked.
His skin is sort of pale and bumpy.
Looks like he's been burnt, maybe.
He looks in really bad shape, kind of just like,
startled on the ground on all fours,
just trying to catch his bearings.
Nice work there.
I thought you were gonna say nice wordplay.
No, nice working.
And then the last one is this bandit leader
who stands in front of you.
Leona. And the bandit leader snarls.
Sorry. Hold one thing though.
On each turn, after I cast a spell, I can use an action
to move the beam 60 feet in any direction.
So continue to control it as it goes.
Right, yeah.
So can I move it now or do we have to wait?
No, that's, you took your action to make the spell.
So on the next round you'll have a move and an action again,
then you can move it around if you want to.
So this is going to be pretty devastating for these guys, probably.
So Leona, you're facing this lieutenant right now,
and he's kind of snarls that you're stabbing him,
draws from his belt two short swords and lays into you, attacks you.
I put myself in the...
He's right in that.
So his first attack, he is also a rogue.
So his first attack, your armor class is 11 right now?
12.
12. Okay.
So that one is going to hit you.
He does one point of damage with his short sword,
but then again, he is also a rogue,
and he's going to get sneak attack damage on you.
So a total of six points of damage with the short sword.
And you can't pair, unfortunately,
because you've already used a reaction.
And then he swings the other short sword action.
short sort at you and this one misses so you're all right there six no six points
total yep and then we are back to the top with narlac yes all right so narlac first
will move my maximum move which will which is 30 okay you can move in this so
one two three four five six yep the reason I move so close is because I actually
want to cast burning hands now in a cone on the two ends
enemies avoiding Leon.
So you're just gonna shave right along them, avoiding Leona.
I put out my two hands and I go like that so they just miss
maybe fire sprays from your hands.
You just catch, you catch the barrels and boxes and you catch just on the edge of it,
both a lieutenant and that thief.
I'm also casting that as one of my third level slots to give it extra damage.
So it's more powerful.
So how many dice damage will that do?
And it gives an extra D8, I believe.
Now with burning hands, you spray that fire at them and they can
out of the way they get a dexterity save, right?
Right, right.
So they're both gonna try to do that.
So first, the smaller thief.
What's your DC?
Thirteen for sorcerers.
So the smaller thief, you know, nimbly, like, ducks under your spell
and is able to avoid some of it.
She'll take half damage, though, still, right?
That's what the spell does.
The other rogue rolls on natural 20, and he is high enough.
He actually has something called evasion.
So since he successfully avoids it, he avoids all damage.
He flattens down to the ground, and the fire just goes over to the
and the fire just goes over top of him.
Okay.
So he's gonna avoid it entirely,
but she'll take half damage.
Right, I'm gonna roll this four times.
Yep.
So two, four, ten,
13, so half a 13.
So even at half damage, you fry her.
She starts on fire, screams and collapses to the ground.
She deserves it.
Halfling, let us into a trap?
Yeah.
So she's down, but the Tens is still standing there.
And it is,
is, eravio, you're up.
Well, since the first person I hexed
is now diminished into a pile of pulp,
I will use my bonus action to curse a new creature.
Same curse, same hex, dexterity ability, disadvantage,
and that thing, it's gonna be the prone dude.
So, hext now, it's time to finally attack
with my flail, galash.
So now you are on the roof.
I'm coming down.
On top of him.
So you're going to try to leap down and take whatever damage you might take?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So you leap down from the roof onto the ground.
I am going to let you roll an acrobatics check to try to avoid some of this damage.
But you were quite high up, so you're going to try to roll with it.
Okay.
But you might take some damage.
So acrobatics check against the DC of 15 for me.
Okay?
That probably won't happen.
That is a natural one, sir.
Oh.
So you leap down and you're kind of trying to move as you leap, getting ready to smack this guy,
and you just land horribly wrong on your ankle
and you hear a snap as you go down.
No, I broke my ankle.
And you take...
A one, two, three, four.
Give me a break.
Give me a break.
Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.
Give me a break.
Give me a break.
Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.
You break.
Give me a break.
Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.
Have a break.
Have a Kit Kat.
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15 points of damage coming down off that roof.
And you do land beside him, but your ankle is rough
right now, you can still fight on it and everything, but you're in quite a lot of pain.
Okay, worth it to use...
And he's right there beside you, so you can take a swing at him.
Yep.
So, cool thing about my flail.
That is my packed weapon.
So as a hex warrior, I have...
Once prolonged rest, I can choose a weapon where I get to use my charisma score as my ability score
instead of strength or dexterity.
Can I just say that I have done that?
Yeah, absolutely.
That's just a choice that you make.
with this main weapon and you have a much higher charisma
than you have dexterity or strength.
So we're gonna assume that's always the case.
Also as a hex blade and one of your invocations,
you have blade thirst or something like that,
Thirsting blade.
Thirsting blade, which means much like our fighter here
and our ranger, you get two attacks when you make an attack after.
Yes, she's hungry.
Thirsty.
So take a swing at that guy.
The bleeds are thirsty.
Okay, here she comes.
Come on, Galash.
Oh my gosh!
I'm so mad.
10?
10 does not hit.
So he's able to kind of scramble out of the way of your flail.
You roll another attack though.
All right, here we go.
Natural 20.
That is a natural 20.
So he doesn't have enough hit points left
to worry about rolling damage.
Talk to me about what happens to him.
My flail is actually two, it's a chain of two
different bald, spiky balls on the end.
And as they, I'm coming down and yes, I break my ankle,
but who cares?
As it flails, it flails, it flails,
and I just smack it right.
So it actually goes into the gooey part of a human,
and it just sinks in so hard that you actually hear
it hit the cement underneath,
and everything that used to be in his body cavity
just leaks out.
It's as if a carrying crawler was crawling out,
except for the carrying crawler, it's his intestines.
That was extraordinarily descriptive, thank you for that.
And we'll move him and put some blood there on the ground.
We're moving on.
Shywin, you are next.
Should probably be more than some blood, let's be real.
So I am going to move.
Okay.
Let's see.
You have a crossbow now.
You took a crossbow for that guy.
I want to get leader dude in my sights.
Okay.
I'm just going to come around the corner.
You can move your full movement and come right around the corner there and you can see him now.
So you're going to fire your crossbow at him?
I sure am.
Yeah, I think he's probably since he's right in front of Leona that he's the most.
Absolutely.
He's right there.
I'm going to cast Hunter's mark on him.
Okay.
So there's a bonus action.
hunter's mark and you've marked him now.
So remember you'll have extra damage if you hit him
and you're gonna fire this crossbow.
Now your crossbow, you don't have written on your sheet
because you normally carry a crossbow.
However, in order to figure out what you're gonna roll
to hit him, this is a ranged weapon.
So you're gonna use your dexterity bonus.
So your dexterity is quite high.
Plus five.
And then you add your proficiency bonus as well
because this is a weapon your proficiency in.
Okay.
So your proficiency bonus at the top of your sheet,
plus three.
So plus eight total, that will be what you add
to your role when you roll to hit with this.
Come on you.
15 plus 8, 23.
You hit.
Now damage for a light crossbow is a D8.
And then you're gonna add bonuses to it.
So let's roll this first and see what the main number is.
Three.
It's three.
So you're gonna add your dexterity bonus to that again.
So that was plus five, I believe.
So now it's eight.
And then because you're an archer as your archetype,
you add plus two more.
So that's 10.
So 10 points of damage to that guy.
And the hunter's mark.
Drop into him.
Oh, and the hunter's mark.
Thank you for that. So you roll another D6 on top of that.
Another D6, yes. Thank you.
I'm all about killing these guys.
Four.
All right, so that does, in fact, drop him.
He falls to the last.
Yes!
All right, and so next up,
you've moved, you acted to use your bonus action,
so next up is Leona.
So the person in front of you on both sides of you have fallen.
Cannot?
Do they have any better weapons than my dagger?
They do. Well, the guy in front of you is wielding two short swords.
Great.
You can grab one or both of those.
Let's take them.
Okay, you drop your dagger and grab a little.
both those short swords and then what are you gonna do?
I guess I'm gonna head towards the rats.
Alrighty.
So we'll move you toward the rats.
You're just gonna move at your full speed,
four, and you can step right in between them
with 25 feet and you can make your attacks if you want to.
You can attack one or both, however you wanna do it.
You've got two weapons in your hand,
which will mean you get a total of three attacks
and we'll work on that as it comes.
Great, let's go for.
The rat on the right or the rat on the left?
The rat on the left.
Okay, the rat on the left first.
Take a swing at him.
Now with short sword is gonna work in the same way
that your long sword works.
You're stronger than you are dexter,
so you'll use the same stats for your long sword there,
except where it says 1D8, you'll have 1D6,
because it only does 1D6 damage.
So roll to attack, a D20 plus 8.
Actually, sorry, plus 7, that long sword is magical.
That's why there's an 8 though, so D20 plus 7.
Six plus seven.
So with the first swing, actually,
I think you do hit, let me make sure my giant rat here.
Oh yeah, it's just a rat.
Yeah, so you do hit the rat.
It's a giant rat.
It's like the size of a giant rat.
dog but you do hit it but it can't be a make you go so roll your damage then okay
which is the D6 D6 three plus your strength bonus because you're using
strength you're stronger so plus four for your strength ability there yeah plus
yeah so plus four yeah so that's great so seven total and you smash this rat it
splatters all over the the wall see they're just rats and then you have the one on the
other side great let's take swing at that okay seven plus
set 14. 14, so you hit this one as well.
Yeah.
Right.
Two plus six.
Six.
All right, this one is still alive, but only barely.
It's kind of hanging on.
And I have one more move?
But because you have two swords in your hand,
you can take a bonus action to swing one more time.
Now this one, you won't get as much bonus to damage,
and we'll show you when you do this.
It's a roll to hit just like normal.
11 plus 18.
So you hit them this time.
Now this is just a D6.
You don't get to add your strength bonus to this one.
Okay.
attack is just the straight die roll.
Five.
Five points of damage, you do put that one down as well.
Jay, if you want to draw some blood on those guys,
move those guys off the map, draw a little blood.
Just got two rats in one move.
All right.
I'm not really impressive.
I'm not sergeant for nothing.
And the remaining bandits, it is their turn,
and the remaining bandits have exactly one thing
that they are going to do, and he turns,
and this coyote turns and just races off in this direction.
He's a coyote, he's fast as shit, and he is gone.
He's just gone.
That is.
That is great.
It could be a message to the rest of them.
So you find yourself in this alley.
You lean against the wall.
A couple of you have taken some pretty serious damage.
That was a holy crazy thing to happen.
That whole thing took less than 20 seconds.
All that happened in just less than 20 seconds.
These monstrous transformation.
You guys just find yourself just leaning against the walls
in this alley way looking around.
You were supposed to go to bed.
You said you found this.
Now we really need back.
Yeah, now you've been messed up quite a bit.
So probably you will need to find your way home.
But we're going to pause.
We're going to pause there for this time, and we will find our way home next time.
And if you want to see what happens when the team find their way home to heal themselves,
you can watch us next time on Starter Kit.
Next time on Starter Kit.
She peels back part of the skin and brings up his liver.
You've seen nothing like this before.
We're looking for people.
People are delicious.
You see it's the young man that you encountered at the mansion.
Liam!
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The war is over and both sides lost.
were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust.
Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses
someone else tonight.
But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.
This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.
Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.
This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that,
emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.
This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s.
And man, it is so good to be back.
Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m.
Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.
See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.
Oh, please, not that music.
That music gives me nightmares from my childhood.
Could we get something a little bit lighter?
some lighter music here.
Are you a fan of true crime TV shows?
And what about Unsolved Mysteries?
The show that jumped started
all of our love of true crime.
I'm Ellen Marsh.
And I'm Joey Taranto.
And we host, I Think Not,
a true crime comedy podcast
covering some of the wildest stories
from your favorite true crime
campy TV shows
all the way to Unsolved Mysteries.
Baby, you will laugh, you will cry.
You'll think about true crime
in a whole new way,
and you'll also ask yourself,
who gave these people, mics?
episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon.
And every Monday, you can listen to our True Crime Rundown, where we go over the top true crime
headlines of the week. So come and join us, wherever you listen to your podcast.
