Nerd Poker - Episode 81 - Freak Peak

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

A new day is dawning, and the Ice Five have the final ascent up Pandemonium's Fang before them. They've stared at it all campaign on the map, but they imaginations may not have prepared them for what a jerk their Dungeon Master might be when it comes to scaling mountains. Hopefully the party and their respective prides will all survive.

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussaint Comedian, writer, actor, nerd. I've been playing D&D with my friends for a long time. I decided to do a new podcast where we play Dungeons & Dragons in my very own dining room. With my wife, kid, and my noisy dogs. So meet my friends Sarah, Kev, Dan, Clay, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season 3. Hey, everybody.

It's Brian Poussaint. You're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Episode 81. We did it. We made it past 80 to 81. Our characters are still alive, I think. For now. Hey, my friends are here at the bottom here on my screen.

Dan. Hello, Dan. Well, hello there, Brian. Sarah. Hi. Blaine. Hi. Chris. Hello. You're in a purple room. I am. Your room's all purple. What's your background there, Ken? of course uh our friend uh our carny friend up there uh ken everybody hello ken and then yodel he hi in the middle uh you guys have all moved around it's random every time we don't do this to you on purpose you know that right this isn't like us trying to fuck with you

like breaking into your house and rearranging your furniture like we're going to for your birthday next year i Mm-hmm. I think it depends on when you join the thing. Yeah, maybe, yeah. Brooklyn in the house. Sam, everybody. Hi, sweet children. How are you doing?

Good. What's going on? Dan, are there people we should thank for episode 81? Where am I? You know, there are people we should thank for episode 81? You know, there are people we should thank, and they go by little Patreon usernames, like Michael McAvoy. Hey, Michael McAvoy, thank you.

Thanks, man. Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Thank you. Thank you, Sean Meredith. Thank you. Thanks, Sean. Thanks, Sean. Thank you, Dr. Balls, paging Dr. MF Balls.

I'll fuck off the front desk. Thank you, H.J. Gillum. Thanks, Roll for Diabetes. Thanks, R.F. Thank you, Dink Steinkuhler. Thank you. Thanks, Anatomically Correct Warforged. Thank you.

Thanks, Anne. Thanks, Thorsday Adams. Thank you. anatomically correct war forged thank you thanks Thor's day Adams thank you oops I stepped in shaving cream yay thank you

I hearts and bad thank you who doesn't he was great in that one comedy special with the giant uh was it like that the wind foam and he's like outside in hawaii doing a special that was a craziest thing thank you nom nom the con thank you thank you thanks thank you frank wacker we know what that means i hope that's your real name thank you scott parker thank you thanks scott oh thank you sean bryant thanks sean good drawings sean yeah man holy shit and of course thank you fart cube 420

thanks for 420 hey blaine who are those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Those Patreon supporters brought to you by Pepperidge Farm. Five-hour energy blasted goldfish. The old guy died. We do things differently now down here on Pepperidge Farm. Pepperidge Farm. Five-hour energy blasted goldfish. Fish, fish, fish, fish, fish. Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Back to you, Dan. Yay. back to you dan yay uh my favorite goldfish are the ones that have like dissonant flavors that they should you know like when you have kids you've seen these of course but there's like the like the pink donut sprinkle ones like what the fuck are you doing it's like what they're doing with bagels these days uh no my favorite part of that joke was watching blaine's face as he yelled at his microphone i was trying to i was trying to keep it down and then did the fish first first first backed up pretty great uh i do have to say that uh during these last few zoom meetings i have just been staring at chris's background because i love the purple it's such a cool it's just distractingly cool sorry i have a private amazon shopping list that's just

things i could be using for a fancy light effect because i am intimidated by chris's professional looking light show in these zoom uh games you guys are so sweet. I also like that Blaine called these Zoom meetings. It's never felt more professional. Set down his Zoomer poker. I expect a full report. These are the only Zoom meetings I have where we talk about a guy in Sacramento with a giant dong.

Who what? Anyway, speaking of Sacramento, let's get into what happened last time on nerd poker the ice five leveled up i hope they rolled their new hit points and checked out their abilities because their dungeon master didn't send them an email outlining all their abilities like he does sometimes because he was busy and shit anyway they're following a mountain path up Pandemonium's Fang in the Feywild in the hopes of finding a sort of less combat-laden path up the side of the mountain

and eventually inside the mountain, wherein lies the altar for the Tenebris one. What will they do when they arrive? No one fucking knows narrator himself appear as a final boss and nobody really was thinking that but okay anyway that's it for me gang you guys have just done a long rest and i made tiktok roll a perception check that i jokingly had end up as your leveling up. So before we get into the narrative proper, would anyone like to take a second

to get into their leveling up or are you all good? I think we did it on the air for the most part. I just did my hit points, but I don't know what else. Are there any other abilities I get at level eight? Well, as I hinted, I didn't look it up. So, Blaine, will you hit me with a commercial while I do some lore research for Mr. Posey?

If you go into your D&D Beyond character, it does it automatically for you. It'll tell you what you get to do. Yeah, you can add two abilities. Yeah. I'll do that off air. Okay, but you are all level 8. feat i'll do that out there okay but uh you are all level eight so um i noticed a couple of folks have uh shown up as level eight in dnd beyond for instance hal seen dr uud i see that you are listed as level eight tick tock you guys on right now i i added a feat i'll basically all i got to

do was add a feat but i really enjoyed the one I picked. Tell us what you picked, if you'd be so generous. Sure, I'd love to. I picked a feat, instead of changing my ability score, I picked a feat called Inspiring Leader. That's a very Sarah Gazzardo

feat. I thought it was more of a Halcine thing, but it seemed in keeping with her deal. But you can spend 10 minutes inspiring your companions. Choose up to six allies, so that works well, including yourself. They can see or hear and understand you within 30 feet, and each creature will gain nine temporary hit points

once per short rest. So right before we go into battle i can do that uh so we all get an extra hit that's badass it just takes 10 minutes yeah i have to do it before we are like doing anything but uh chris did you find anything interesting when you leveled up sadly no just for level eight uh i can either do a feat or ability so i uh maxed out my dexterity because i'm an archer oh cool and it does brian sound like that's your main choice whether you'll do a feat or an ability score improvement yeah um i will say darkthor has pretty outstanding ability scores just like dr uid so i would recommend the two of you pick a feat

if you're looking for my input like right now dark through you've got a fucking 19 dexterity and an 18 wisdom that's pretty insane um but uh yeah what about you anyone on the feeds um again i would have to level you up and do it for you um so if you want you can do it right now. Or I can. Also, if you want to look at your book, it's on page, I believe it's on page 165. I'm trying to sign in to be on it.

There's like 60 of them. It's under features and traits, I think. Well, that's, yeah. But yeah, it will probably take you a while. Yeah. I mean, we don't all have to spend too much time i think people always tell us they'll find this interesting and then we do it and people are like this episode just seemed to go on for a while and it's like all right uh but i'll i'll put you as level eight i can do that um as for the feat that you get, it's such a long list.

The main thing I'll say is if I just sort of select feat here, it's like, I don't know. What would you guys say who've already looked? Like probably 100 different choices? It's a lot of the ones. There's a lot. Some of them raise one of your...

But Brian, if you look in dnd beyond on your character sheet which now shows you as level eight um you'll see uh like once you go to edit your character it's under ability score improvement so like you go in ability score improvement it'll say you know choose an option ability score or feet and if you just want if you want to read about each of them i would go to your book it's on page 165 and if you're positive you get a feat you can check he does he does i can confirm he gets a feat yeah everybody's ways cool i think it's a standard thing yeah probably the easiest way is to just read them all in the book and then uh queep dr who did either of you get a chance to scope in advance yeah i just added to my um um dexterity and

constitution i believe nice cool uh how about you blaine i was gonna do uh uh i get to increase one score by two or two scores by one and i'm already pretty high i don't know if i need to be like the i don't yeah the roided out ex-professor dude as i was hinting earlier i think you and brian should go for feets for sure i just found out you're jacked you're already muscly yeah it's i shouldn't have gone for a feat but i i don't know how anyone ever turns down a feat they're so fun no so i'm gonna i'm gonna i will uh i will go through the feets and stuff and try to figure that out. My, my hit points went up, I think by, by six. Uh, and, uh, I didn't have any other things, but now I can, now I have a, a definite flying speed.

I can change into something that flies and support stuff. Uh, and I can change. That's cool. Did you pick up any more spells too? Um, I think I got a spell slot and I switched to some of my prepared spells around. So that's awesome. Oh, Hey,

one thing that I did learn is that good berries, one good berry can provide nutrition and sustenance for a person for a day. So that means anytime we run out of food or whatever, I can just whip those things up and we're all good for food. Yeah. You're, you guys have reached a point with, with,

with, uh, say that spell and a couple other spells, you should start considering your long, uh, hike abilities. Like the fact that you guys are in the side of a barren mountain right now should be like,

you know, ticking off a little alarm in your heads that you're kind of in a wasteland so uh you know at least you've got good berries and i believe you can create water i can also create whatchamacallits oh my god i actually used to love whatchamacallits they're they're in if i may uh inferior chocolate but like the texture better than a kit kat blaine what do you call it it's a it's a watchamacallit you forgot the name no it's watchamacallit you know you know watchamacallit the hershey's watchamacallit third base jesus fucking christ sorry i was waiting for somebody to glitch.

Please, don't give Sarah another aneurysm. So, okay. I was about to have one. The leveling up is mostly done then. I really recommend feats for y'all two gentlemen. But yeah, it'll take a minute for you, Brian. So we can do it off the air or you can look at that page in the player's handbook. It's fun.

It's grand old time, but it's mostly reading. And that's about all I got to say about that. Yeah, Darkthor, your ability scores are so high. I would be shocked. I don't think you can legit really go any higher with your decks. I think the game will stop you if you try to increase it. So on the bright side, you're good. You're not allowed to go over 20, I think.

Well, he's at 19, so he could go higher. But yeah, you could max it out, I guess. You're like a god at this point. You're like, it's like you're primed to take on the mantle of some sort of uh gehennah goddamn um speaking of which you are all in a very small cave that blaine bored out with his insect claws and my act all i get it you said you made a play on board uh but you you dug in there with his cause of the umber hulk and you know it's it was it was tough it took him a while because this is like rock rock but you managed to make enough room in there and um patreon supporters will

note that we just did a little side adventure here with Sark. So if you're not a Patreon supporter, the Ice Five had a little side adventure there with none other than Sark. So do check that out. That was so fun. Oh, my God. No spoilers, but it slightly referenced an old Sark adventure. You guys are in the side of this mountain. I'm going to say you are nestled in here enough in this tiny little opening that there's no real danger.

TikTok, you and Gus keep an eye out. You don't really notice anything, but I will have all of you do an insight check. As you wake up with your spells prepared, your levels up to your hit points maxed. Nine. 17. Sorry, is it an insight you said? I sure did. Oh, sorry, 21. you wake up with your spells prepared, your levels up to your hit points maxed. Nine. Seventeen. Is it an insight you said? I sure did. Oh, sorry. Twenty-one. Oh. Well, goddammit.

Nineteen plus three. You do the math. I always do. Oh, god. Oh! I hated choking so much after the hacky joke that I killed myself. Aw.

Usually, though, you don't do any joke. You just make me do the math with no joke. All right. So, can anyone beat a 21? Nope. Well, congratulations, Blaine. You did it. No, I'll never leave the house you're kind of

you didn't do the math huh I beat it 21 you didn't do the math wait what are the numbers again 19 plus 3 so 20 no no what is it?

Really? You didn't do the math. What is it, though, Brian? It's 22, goddammit. Oh, looks like you did the math, you son of a bitch. Bone-ja, bone-ja. No, it's just bone-jazzle. No, the...

Total bone-age. What, are we on a morning show? What the fuck? No, the total bonage. What are we on a morning show? Bonage. Just want to bang on my drum all day. Welcome to the boy yard. A real long way around just for me to shiv Brian. But yes, the, the fact that you've been in this mountain for a while and, you know, Dr. Uy, you figure this out to an extent,

but Dargthur, since you rolled the highest, you put together, you've been in caves before, you know a rock face. The higher you get up on this mountain, it seems like the more solid the rock is and you feel like this, you waited a while to really test out dr uid's claws it it might be hard for him to bore into the side of the mountain the higher up you go it almost

feels like this is starting to be made of some sort of uh intense granite that is really densely packed and difficult to dig um and you feel like it's going to get just harder and harder going the higher up you get in this mountain so should we be thinking about going back to our world to find the altar now that we've gotten high up on the mountain the idea was to get away from the right definitely feel like you know you're still kind of like in the as far as like final goal like near the top of the mountain you're not sure where exactly but you're you're like 20 of the way up the mountain kind of still not sure where exactly, but you're, you're like 20% of the way up the mountain, kind of still in the wider base of it,

but it's getting already like mountain. Okay. Well then maybe we want to keep going, I guess for a bit. I mean, it's quiet here. There's no guarantee it'll be quiet there. It's,

it's. Yeah. All right. Well, let's keep going. Oh, before we go though, I give everybody a rousing 10 minute speech.

Oh, on the subject of, uh, you know, to, to believe in yourself. I think we need to hear this in character. Uh,

I mean, it's 10 minutes long, so I'm not going to do it, but it ends with, you know, developers for 10 minutes. Uh, she,

you know, it ends with her basically being like, you know, you are, you are the one that you've been waiting for all of your life uh if that's from frozen 2 but also in this world it's a very uh it's a very uh you know inspiring rousing speech about believing in yourself um and that in fact it was just like you were the chosen one all along uh and everybody cheers and leaps up in the air and uh they all get nine hit temporary hit points hey this is awesome do we have to do the jump into a lot in the last couple months I'm all speeched. Don't tell Rhodes. I know.

My kids are younger and... Oh, they had to see it? Yeah. The high roll you got, Brian, I think you'd also put together back in your dimension, your home dimension, none of you have been to Pandemonium's Fang before,

but it does look treacherous and very you know tall and uh it's not known for having wildlife on it or like civilization on it it's it's it's just this sort of imposing mountain with a sort of like ominous quality to it that like has rumors and legends of it of of magical historical uh significance but nobody lives there it's everyone kind of steers clear of it okay just throwing that in there so you don't expect to see giants or dragons like on the mountain proper based on all of your collected knowledge uh and that and that insight role but yeah yeah just just kind of giving you a little more on pandemonium's thing because none of you

picked it as one of your locations that you have a background on but it's so big i gotta i gotta assume all of you know that much about it so maybe hell seems right and we could if we think it's supposed to be kind of not particularly occupied maybe we could transfer back now maybe it would be a good time to kind of get our bearings figure out i'm sorry. Yeah. I didn't know about the giants. I know that there were, you know, all kinds of stuff,

but ultimately we're trying to get in dragons. Yeah. Ultimately we're trying to get inside. So I just feel like we're taking time too, that we don't want to waste because we know that the violet fangs on route to the other guy and, you know, stuff is coming to a head. Oh, she probably turned him inside out by now. I mean, I gotta give you guys credit. Again, I think I said this a few episodes ago,

but I think it's cool that you just sort of let the two big bads fight each other while you're just fucking going to the power source. I think that's interesting. We'll see what happens. I learned that from my dad and the DMV. Yeah. I mean, as far as you know,

Hashinka is most likely somewhere via the arch major Vanzervale. We will find her. We'll get there. Let's go destroy this altar. Then let's head over to these two clowns. Yeah. So are we going back?

Yes. It's now when we come back we're not going to be on the side of a mountain like uh broadcasting our location with a big pink search light coming out of tiktok's chest are we if you want to oh okay let's do that yeah where are you what are you where exactly are you opening the portal before you initiate the sequence tiktok where where are you walking well are we it would be uh it would be outside it would not be i mean you really have two options inside or outside yeah yeah i mean it's inside inside rock wall when we come back does that happen does that work though that way that i don't think it's that we get transported inside do we know dan telfer is our dungeon master inside checkight check, please, from everybody.

I'll actually choose Insight or Arcana. Oh, I think I'll go with Arcana. Proficiencies are in effect. Please remember to roll advantage and add your proficiency bonus. Reminder to listeners, the advantage on proficiency is a house rule because I just feel like proficiency should be more fun.

I have a proficiency and I can't I rolled 22. Nice. I got a 23 insight. Can you do the math on that for me? Just kidding. It's 23. Is it 18 you said, Sarah? 13. 13? Okay. 17 insight and I did the math

already. Okay. Can you show your work? Yeah. 14 plus 3, fuckface. So when you say 3 fuckface, that means it's the same math as just 3 non-fuckface? Until school's open, you can just take math class with

Nerd Poker Crew. Get out your flashcards, kids. 14 plus 3, fuckface. It would be great to go back to school. Oh my god. it'd be great to go back to school oh my god that would be great if we did release like a flashcard set and it just was like a bunch of foul words on it um guys guys guys i think we should start an online university oh well come on here's the faculty right here think about it beautiful uh you just want your tenure so okay you would my tenure whoa that was the weirdest plane impression i've ever done heard and i've heard at least three plane impressions it's like my same impression

you're you're a cursed sam impression ken you got the highest, if I'm not mistaken. I am the highest. You, oddly enough, a non-magical person, are still able to sort of suss out like, yeah, it might hurt a little bit. You don't think it would necessarily kill you guys, but you've lived in caves in the sides of mountains before, and you feel like you've heard of people trying to magically shift in and out of walls

with a couple of shamans in your tribe, and you're like, no, I don't recommend it. I don't think it would kill you, but I think you'd get beat up. Then let's go outside, guys. Let's go outside and do this thing. Let's shift this campaign into normal drive. Cool. So you head out into the mountain path which is narrow it's only about 10 feet wide

and then there's like a sheer drop off on the other side um tick tock you caress your chest plate thoughtfully i don't think that's right okay ding dong hopefully you ring your bell uh and oh no your shirt begins to shift as if your chest has come to life uh you just rebuttoned your shirt but again your shirt just pops open uh your chest plates begin to unfurl we see your inner workings the blue sparks turn into a bright light. The ice fibers sucked into your chest. You get sucked into your own chest. So weird.

You know what? You should think it's weird because this is some serious body horror shit. As you fold in, everybody drops to the ground. Let's please get a constitution saving throw from everybody 17 beautiful also 17 you guys did it 18 you did it too brian 24 you very much did it chris 15 you barely did it ken uh can you

queep gulps's lunch down as you guys kind of like get vertigo for a second and drop into the gravel um you're in an almost completely identical location the road is dusty with gravel and light travel um the only main differences you notice is there's not a hole bored into the wall by dr uid like you just left in the feywild and the sky and the landscape below as you kind of like look over the side of the cliff it just looks less magical instead of everything being sort of overcast with clouds it's actually a pretty clear day in Clottenheim can we see forever no

however you guys are currently on the northwest corner and you do see there is some sort of magical disturbance miles away to the west so you can where the Archmage of Vandervale's blue

grotto is supposed to be? If it's to the west, it might be Dame Island. Do an insight check, won't you? Yeah, that sounds like it looks like LA on 4th of July. I will remind everyone the Archmage of Vandervale's keep is supposedly halfway between here and Dame Island.

So kind of the same direction. Okay, 19. I nailed that shit. 24. Jeez. Damn, Queep. What was this roll? Queep, you've never been so brainy.

I don't know what's happening. Insight, sir. Insight. Geography lessons with Queep. Rock. Clear. Kalaka South. insight geography lessons with queep rock how many koreas are there 17 for me great wrong i got a 10 that's good right that's uh terrible tan that's great i mean ken if anyone could make fun of you, it's Ken. But yeah, you're just sort of using your eagle eyes, I guess, and peering out

over the horizon. And yeah, you feel like you're seeing some magical Kalaka vision. Magical clouds, lightning. It looks like something is growing out of the ground, and it's between the hills. So you think it is maybe near where the Archmage's keep is. Alright. There's some atmospheric effects happening over there. I tell the hills. So you think it is maybe near where the archmages keep is. All right.

There's some atmospheric effects happening over there. I tell the rest, maybe they have a bouncy castle growing out of the ground. It looks like, yeah, there's like some sort of rock formations quickly, uh, jutting out and to all of,

to most of you, it looks like dust, but creep associates it with some sort of magical attack that he's seen before. Some crazy shit. Okay, so that's happening there. Do we know, do we have our bearings on the mountain, like where this altar is? So it sounds like we should do this quick and then go over and get killed at this other place. look up the mountain you know you can tell the road ahead is going to continue to spiral uh around

it in such a way where like it's it's like you know a traditional hiking path that's sort of easy to fall off of if you're not careful it's going to just get more and more narrow as you go up the mountain and you know higher up you see there's like some clouds that seem to be clinging to the mountain a little bit you're not sure if it's magic or not but you've you know got a ways to go and you're not sure exactly where the altar is none of you did that research so it's it's a little unclear where you're going exactly like none of you did that research is the most like passive aggressive just like a casual aside like p.s the most important thing none of you actually did do that but that's fine so moving on i don't mean to be

passive aggressive but i don't know i didn't mean I like to throw it in your face because I do think at this point, it's funny for me to remind myself and the audience that you guys pick this. And I wanted to give you the compliment earlier. First, I think it's interesting that you made this choice in a cool, good way. But it's also interesting because you had no point asked an npc about this you had no point rifled through some books about this you were just like fuck it here we go we just knew it was inside the mountain and that's gonna have to do i guess um it's how about most dungeons and dragons move you could do is like our final destination let's just do it let's wing it quip has wings we. Yeah. We just gotta

get inside. You could try to dig straight in and see if we hit a tunnel or passageway or we could just keep going. True. Let's ascend for a while and see if we see any kind of anything that could be a hidden door or anything

like that. Okay. Let's get a survival check from everybody, please. Ascending Pandemonium's fang. Fifteen. Eight. Climbing up a mountain that looks like a fang.

Pandemonium is an alternate dimension. E-W-O. One, two. Wow. What you got there, Bri-Bri? 19. 19? Cha-cha.

Well, Darkthor manages to rally you guys along. You spend the better part of the day, and you make it pretty far. The path just gets narrower and narrower. You spend the better part of the day and you make it pretty far. The path just gets narrower and narrower. You're starting to see sort of thick brush and brambles growing out of the mountain less. It's been on the sides of the mountain, but you've been able to ignore it for the most part because you've got a path. You've got a direction.

You've got a goal. And now you're seeing less vegetation. When you do, it's got less leaves on it. It's starting to get dark. You feel like you've made it pretty far, but it's still a long way to go. And as it gets dark, you notice the cloud cover is also starting to get closer. So you've made it so far that you're starting to get above most of the clouds below, and you feel like the clouds that are clinging to the mountain above you now are unique to the mountain.

By the way, Dan, I chose resilience. Oh, cool. Tell the listeners what that is, please. I choose one ability score. You gain the following benefits. Increase the chosen ability score by one to a maximum of 20. You gain proficiency in saving throws using the chosen ability. And I pick Constitution because that was something I could use more of. So now I'm 16 Constitution. What is it? How does it raise my regular plus i know my

saving throws now three plus three yeah so that's also going to raise your bonus uh for saving throws as well as just constitution checks i couldn't log into dnd beyond okay well i'll i can do that for you yeah um i think it'll help you with your hit points too it's not going to help you with any abilities there's unfortunately i don't think a constitution based ability but i'm going to go ahead and change it for you just double check most of the abilities are like uh wisdom intelligence strength i could be convinced i could if strength was the way to go, I could be convinced. Because I have a 16. I could use...

Actually, what that means is you'll be good. You're proficient. I would do constitution, sure. There's no reason... When it says the chosen ability, what it means is constitution not the big list i would stick with that it'll make you hearty but what do you mean not the big list it helps you it's not he's talking about skills versus abilities but it still will help you it still will help your saving throws so which is fine right so that's good constitution saving throws are pretty common there are they're pretty much anytime you're trying to fight off disease poison that's what i felt like i feel like we go we do those pretty often more than strength saving throws there's almost no strength

saving throws and again we're it would that whole thing where i mentioned strengths wisdom and intelligence just throw that aside that skills so um and then so does it give me a plus to my regular constitution yep uh three it was two i think so so i'm just checking no no it'll no no it'll it if you add it if you do it in dnd beyond just update your actual it's 16 but it'll still be plus three oh i i wasn't at plus three yet but now i am now you are yeah all right gotcha okay cool and it's and then that's also in dnd beyond now i put i fixed your dnd beyond i'll get i'll figure that out once we get off just change to ids and passwords and shit and if you you know since we're doing it at home i will say also that one thing that's nice about it since we've been talking

about math also is that you can roll from you can just click the number and it rolls it for you and it will add your pluses so like if dan says do a wisdom you know the saving throw if you are logged into dnd beyond and you click on your wisdom saving throw thing it will roll the die for you and add whatever you're supposed to add so you don't have to like look for it and then you can just know right away that's cool it's it is cool they've added digital dice so if you tap it you'll just see this big digital dice appear roll and have a number then you can yeah and it adds it adds the stuff that you might need to look up otherwise but that said even though dnd beyond is owned by my parent employer, I still have physical dice here because who can resist this beautiful, gorgeous sound on a Wyrmwood tray, especially. But anyways, y'all have that as an option.

Should you choose to use it? It's quite convenient, especially if you've got kids running around and getting your dice tray is something you don't have two minutes to go do. But less math. That's really good for attacking that too yeah so if you go in and uh you go up to your your your attack you just tap it and you're good to go it also keeps you can keep track of your spell slots and all kinds of i think it's honestly it's best for spell slots because that way you're not constantly having to remember to use your pencil um it's great i can't always forget how to use a pencil i can't add my blade of kukla you know i've ordered so many boxes of mechanical pencils which are my favorite uh dungeons and

dragons pencils and i still lose them constantly and i can't find them and then the pet the lead all falls out uh so even my favorite pencils are uh driving me crazy what's with the pencils let's let's talk about pencils all right so are we gonna we decided we are gonna oh it looks like a nice reusable mechanical pen i always use the pentel pto5s i think dark through was doing an awesome oh ken's got one of the official Dungeons & Dragons ones from when we did the live show last year. We were doing a big survival check, and then I think all of a sudden we started talking about... Right.

We were showing stuff off. Everyone held up their pencils to the camera. Sarah just took out a big fucking knife and held it up to the camera. That's not a pencil. Yeah, you just went full crocodile dundee on us this is a pencil that's not yeah you guys you guys have made it pretty high up and now sarah you're instigating what conversation please oh forever instigating conversations the worst um i guess i was just saying are we digging

into the mountain or are we walking up the mountain is what we were talking about before the pencils right i thought darker was doing a sweet survival check about something yeah we all did a survival check that's it determine how far up you got you guys think you're about you're about 50 up the mountain now okay so we're the question is now are we continuing do we dig do we want to keep going it was it's nighttime now it's night in there maybe we should have dr uid dig us another hidden time sleepy hole sure can i do that maybe we'll find a passageway when he does and if not i'm gonna umber hulk out on this on the side of this mountain all right so you bust out your umber hulk claws watch me work um you work for about an hour and

you only get about 10 feet in it is really thick dense rock okay so you made an alcove but you feel like it's going to take you about uh like it got harder as you went so you feel like it's going to take you about, uh, like it got harder as you went. So you feel like it's going to take you at least another hour to get a 20 foot deep thing where you can kind of be a little more hidden. Do you know, we have the, uh, we have that thing that we can use once a day,

right? Don't we have that once a day, uh, uh, Liam and his tiny hut going on? No, I think we established it was once a week and also we didn't know where it came from oh once a week yeah you're right so just do another hour right

and get us a 20 foot sure it's starting to get close to midnight um can't quite get to 20 feet it's really getting tough but you get you get like you know you're you're in far enough now where the whole group can kind of wedge in there and not be seen by say a humanoid going down the path okay are you guys gonna crash for the night yes yes please all right tick tock let's get a perception check for you and if you're having gus go separately will do just tell me what gus is doing if he's doing um boss what do you think you want to just sort of generally stay right around this area stand around like jauntily pace back and forth yeah i'm gonna throw my elbows around and do a little jig oh so he got a 22 and i also got a 22 and I also got a 22. Okay. So he, um, jauntily and merrily just kind of marches up and down the path a little

bit, does a little flit around. Um, you don't see much from inside the cave. Uh, he says, ah, that,

that cloud up ahead, up above us. It's looking weird. Does it look like it's maybe like actually a thing? Like actually a dragon, let's say? Oh, man. That's what he says. Oh.

All right. He like taps his finger on his chin thoughtfully like, oh, I wonder. How far ahead would you say it is? I think by noon tomorrow we'll hit it okay do we think that this cloud is some sort of magically generated cover of an altar entrance is it tomorrow morning and you're checking it out for your own self i'm just thinking out loud after digging a hole for two hours gus is reporting this in the morning and his arcana blows but you can you can

go and assess it yourself dr ewood let's do it just remember that there is one super dragon remember that sort of like cloud teleported down when we first killed was it zetagog or zetagog is the one who is probably the the dragon who can look like a cloud the one you killed is havacula right wait did we rest already or no this is in the middle of this morning oh we did okay i the dragon who can look like a cloud. The one you killed is Havocula. Right. Wait, did we rest already? Or no? Yes, it is morning. Oh, we did?

Okay, I have to give you guys another speech. Sorry, this is going to have to be a daily thing now. But on the plus side, anytime that we have time for it to be a daily thing means everybody is just basically getting an extra nine hit points. And I think you guys know what that means. It's time to hear the climax of Halcine's motivational speech. Sarah? Oh, okay. Sarah's going to have to climax of hal seen's motivational speech sarah oh okay

sarah's gonna have to get a little bit more prepared for this stuff but basically shake out your diction get you know do your vocal warm-ups and let's hear it no i'm saying like prior if i have to do this every day that's not fair every time we rest you're right it's not fair and okay so uh she rouses everybody and we all have coffee around the uh you know rock and uh and she uh i don't fucking know i've already used frozen too what else even is there now when she was so excited to get this with kennedy speech i was really excited about the feed but i didn't know you were gonna make me do it every time and also didn't really think about the fact that it was gonna be every day right it's gonna be every day um okay so she um plays uh like a little do do do do do do do do do do do do do

do do do do do do do do and she does like a jig while she's waking everyone up that's attracting dragons and everyone no in fact what happens is everybody like feels super like you know what Yep. It's attracting dragons. It's attracting dragons. And everyone, no, in fact, what happens is everybody like feels super like, you know what? This is putting me in a great mood this morning. They pop up out of their sleeping bags and everybody does like a fun little

dance. Like the ice five for once is able to like let go of their problems, let go of their worries. And just for a moment, just live, you know, dance like no one is watching and we do um and that gives us all uh nine hit points same points for the day same temporary hit points um but they don't stack on yesterday's uh so today yes we have we have a request from sam in the zoom chat can i see the please? She kind of did it, Sammy.

I kind of I was like a recorder like, but yeah, everyone is dancing now. Yeah. Brian's doing it. All right. We need this patron video content, you guys. No, absolutely not. I'm doing Gus. This is Gus.

He skanks for some reason. I'm doing the one step. Oh, yeah. some chuck mangione came in there how's that going again i forget oh i forget you've really never heard music until you've heard six nerds try to sync up chuck man Mangione trumpet over zoom latency Sam now says he is crying I love you all so much and also

from Chuck Mangione alright so you guys have your temporary hit points back and you head out I assume you're going to scale the mountain as planned so let's get a survival check um and i would like an additional arcana check from dr uhid please uh i got a 19 plus 423 for survival and my arcana is an 18 plus 624 with proficiency you'll see if i can beat that nice balls everybody else's survival check please 18 16 18

where'd you get helsine well after i was talking about how great dnd beyond was now my screen has frozen i didn't bring my regular dice in here with me so we oh hang on that's really funny um uh 11 all right well had one die right sadly how scene got the low roll on that one but everyone else rolled really high so uh you you're just a little wiped out from all that reveille recorder playing and uh you need to get kind of nudged along but everyone else is going dr as you approach uh yeah you don't know what the fuck is going on with these clouds but you all as you get closer definitely get a weird vibe um and yeah around noon you are no longer able to really continue to use the path it kind of hits this area of bushes and

thickets where it gets too thick and there's not really, it looks like, a path that humanoids have walked before. There's just brambles, like six, seven foot tall bushes covered in thorns and some sort of bugs. The bugs are large, too.

These bugs are going to be a huge Dan Telfer problem and also it looks like the cloud is moving in a sort of organic and sureless child just let us know that he liked bugs

kids love bugs I love that kid these bugs look like they you guys look at them for a second, you look up at the clouds that are now like a couple stories above you and you're like, oh, that cloud is maybe bugs. The cloud is maybe swarms of bugs.

And you see them landing in the thicket. You see them crawling on the rock face. They're everywhere. And they're big. They're like fist-sized beetles the reason that we can't get through or are the brambles the reason we can't get through the brambles the reasons you the reason it would be difficult to continue ahead on foot without you know spending a huge amount of time cutting through with a machete

they are crawling everywhere though like it's their habitat they're landing in and out of it when they take off to make a loud uh deep buzzing noise and they are the ring of clouds uh that sort of cling to the mountain so it's a swarm of horrible insects that we have to get through somehow i mean i could get through the insects i was thinking i could use gust of wind to just blast them out of the way, but the brambles, if the brambles are still a problem. Cut through the brambles, maybe,

or burn them. Cut through them, and Darkthrow, now that you're level eight, I think you have a thing that you might be able to ignore those brambles. What is that? Now that you're a level eight ranger, you have, like,

Wongstride or something. I'm looking for it. It's not long stride. But the terrain is virtually gone. You'd have to spend time cutting a path through it. What if we just burn them? Yeah, I think we should burn them. Sure.

We can burn them. That guy sounds unorthodox. We're the Ice Five. It's so unlikely. Haven't you been listening to Halcine's speeches? Follow the five cues. Brian, this is on page 92 of the Player's Handbook, but Landstride, moving through non-magical difficult terrain

costs you no extra movement. You can also pass through non-magical plants without being slowed by them and not taking damage from them. you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement wow good call chris finding that chris so maybe you could maybe brian could go ahead and just slice a path through yeah if you want me to try to do me try to clear the bugs out of the way with a gust of wind first and then you could do that or oh sure yeah should we protect our heads at least get some sort of basic kind of i don't want to say wear a mask because everybody should

wear a mask laser i'll be safe out there where am i uh should we put something on so that we don't have uh bugs eating our heads off like in the abominable Dr. Fibes. Oh. Because I just wash my head with honey. It's a conditioner thing for me. They haven't come for us yet, right, Dan? Nope. I mean, it's up to you.

Yeah, no, you do the bugs and then I'll hack through this stuff in front of us. Okay. I don't know if it'll work, but let's find out. Okay, so I'm gonna try to just blast these bugs with a line of strong wind, 10 feet

wide and 60 feet long. Wind line. Great. So you just cast gust of wind, wham, right into these brambles, and they shake hard. A couple of inches collapse inward and crunch, butambles and they shake hard a couple of inches collapse inward and crunch but it's you know a natural living

thing so it resists enough that it doesn't get utterly destroyed these fist-sized beetles go in a huge cloud and swarm out I'm gonna need everyone to do a constitution saving throw yay well amount. I'm going to need everyone to do a constitution saving throw. Oops. Yay. Well.

Well. 16. All right. Natural 20 plus five. Great. Tick tock. You're fine 15 right brian sarah uh 15 total yeah great uh yeah i rolled a two okay so okay chris you're immune to this uh ken blaine brian you get to have this sarah you're gonna take full on this oh um and so did we get an extra nine or just the same

nine from no just it's every day you're gonna get nine every day that i can give you the speech, you get nine temporary. Nine. All right. You're going to take Queep. Darkthur and Dr. Uwit are each going to take 17 points of acid damage as a bunch of these things

pop and splash. green guts on you. Half is 17? Why are they popping? Listen to this goddamn description and maybe you'll be able to know what you're screaming about, you fucking children. But it's half, right? This dark green bug guts just splatters on you and sticks to you like napalm and you just start trying to claw it off it burns your skin it burns your hands uh sarah yeah uh so you're gonna take uh 32 points as this stuff just splashes right in your face in a backdraft from

your spell and one of the bugs just like is half dead and clinging your face and stuck. And it's just starts gnawing at you. Wait, genuine question. A blast of air is shooting out of me. About 100 of these beetles explode out of this bush. And we're talking like a gust of guts just backdrafts out of the side of these brambles. Okay. Nobody likes what i just did blaine left blaine quit dungeons and dragons oh no also he might be putting a shirt on the shirtless child that has been illustrating our adventure so far um okay i just i just

was saying it's 10 feet wide so i just thought it wouldn't nothing would be should be able to like get back i mean i'm narratively painting a picture for you failing your saving throw okay um how many 32 yeah i mean if you want instead of the guts uh splashing back on you we can say that um multiple bugs attacked you in retaliation for the spell, but it has nothing to do with the geography and everything to do with the dice roll. Okay. It is the air is now thick with these things

near you. They're not continuing to attack you, but they are swarming directly overhead as a result of leaving the bush. Again, about a hundred of them right above your head right now they're like this big okay well they're not attacking us so just can you just start hacking through or what are we gonna do yeah yeah okay um so you're gonna go ahead and use your uh special feature for a ranger so you're able to um kind of get into brambles and hack

uh 60 feet in that are cleared off by hal seen with your runic sword um but it takes a long fucking time like we're talking after you know like half an hour you get the 60 feet in and they're starting the bugs are starting to land back in the bushes can i get in there with uh with my uh umber hulk claws and and help uh sure clear this stuff out sure i still think we should burn this shit yeah um maybe a fire path as you two start going in there together a couple of these bugs uh start landing on the bush and you know from previous experience if you keep hacking without clearing the brush out they are probably going to either start exploding or attacking you let's do some fire arrows from uh tiktok can we

do that sure i'll throw some oil well you guys are in the middle of the bush now classic nerd poker throwing oil on it and just setting it all on fire. Well, Queep and I can fly. We're about 60 feet into the brush now, yeah. Yeah, why don't you, Queep, why don't you create an oil trail? And we can just light it. We can also stand the fuck back and shoot a fire arrow so when inevitably everything goes to shit, we're not in the middle of it.

And we can get, hey hey are we still close to the uh that cave that i carved no okay you want to try to carve another travel away from it try to what if there's a passageway right inside here or something yeah let's check and we're trying to get inside this mountain so i i guess that's what all i'm trying to can i throw up yeah i guess magic see if i can get any i was i was gonna do that but it it doesn't work through like at least mine doesn't work through more than a foot of rock so yeah you cast detect magic and you can't really get through this rock with the spell um also your nature skill is high enough dr wood you feel like it's to be a real fuck of a time trying to dig

through this rock. Okay. All right. So I guess can we all focus on trying to dig through the rock? He's the only one with the, he's the clause you spells anything we can strength. Well, now we've cleared how much of the brand does the Bramble look like it has an end.

Got about 70 feet in. And now you're you're i've i've got narratively that you're pausing because you know the bugs are going to maybe swarm you again if you keep like from the 70 feet can he see if it looks like that it's going to end at a certain point you see no end to it no endless bramble also no one has tried flying yet although it has been suggested oh yeah i'm gonna fly up and spread the oil. Why don't you fly up and see how far the bramble goes. Actually, fly up and see how far the bramble goes

and if there's an entrance anywhere within the next... without going too far. Gus, do you want to go with him? All right, boss. I'm going to need a constitution saving throw from Queep and Gus. Good boy. I got you, Queep and Gus, right here. Gus got a natural one.

All right. I got a 15. Nice. Great. So you're going to take three points of piercing damage creep as a couple of these things cling to you and start gnawing on you uh you're in the middle of a cloud of them uh gus is going to take 14 points of piercing damage i think he vanishes yep yeah and you just see him disappear as these things just glom on him start gnawing and he goes and just pops out of existence

that's like in that tom cruise movie where he just keeps groundhog day in right yeah actually what happens from actions actually i i forgot gus is a custom uh familiar so he doesn't pop out of existence he drops to the ground and squeals for a while uh lays motionless for a moment and then pops out of existence oh thanks dan oh that's better so when they flew the bugs chased them i'm just trying to get a sense of yeah i mean weep right now it is like 10 feet above the ground in the middle of a swarm. What are you going to do, Creep? Can I see anything from here? Can I see the distance?

Your perception check with disadvantage. All right. Yay. Well, that's not a good one. Eight. Well, you can tell.

Oh, with disadvantage. Hang on. You can, yeah. Seven. You? Oh, with disadvantage. Hang on. Yeah. Seven. You can tell you're in an isolated cloud. That's a result of you guys trying to clear out the bramble. So it's like you've sort of angered the local beetles into creating a nearby cloud. And that the main cloud is still like about 60 feet up.

And if you look out in the brambles, it's really hard because it, it not only is thick with bugs and bramble, but like it curves around the mountain. You really don't see an end to the, the path forward. All right. I'm going to head back. Okay. So you land.

Well, do you not have anything nature wise that could help us with this can you like talk to them and tell them to lay off or if he could talk to the if I could talk to the bugs just imagine it chatting with a uh an ant

haranguing with a praying mantis think of oh how magic that would be hey what'd you do today oh I uh rolled some dung with a praying mantis. Think of how magic that would be. Hey, what'd you do today? Oh, I rolled some dung. Of course, I don't wish I could talk to that Beatles. You know who I'd like to talk to

is Ringo. I think he's got to be interesting. He's married to Barbara Bach. Yeah, I got nothing. Call lightning. Poison spray. Produce flame. Flame blade. Moon beam. Poison spray. got nothing call lightning poison spray produce flame flame blade moon beam i'm gonna do i'm gonna cast zone of truth on one of these beetles and ask them why they're being such assholes nice interesting do you speak animal jk i'm going to actually do that will the poison spray work like raid

in a sense I could I could sleet storm them and then they'd probably all get frozen and just fall from the sky but then we wouldn't be able to get through the brambles well it's starting to look like with a deep sigh I feel like we're coming to the end of this Ken was like

isn't it starting to look like getting through the brambles is not even a thing yeah so everybody do an insight check I don't think I've seen all of you this irritated with me in years it doesn't have to be with you it could just be with the sitch

yeah it is 22 an insight you said I sure did 23 An insight you said. I sure did. 23. In the box. 21.

Damn. Damn. Who are you waiting on? You and Chris. I didn't hear your numbers. I said 20. 17 plus 3. TikTokok you don't know what the fuck's going on everybody else you kind of look up and you look around uh it feels really difficult to get ahead you do notice the bugs are not as much on the side of the mountain though they're they're kind of mostly like when you look a couple stories up flying in a close circle ring pattern around

the mountain in waves and there's like five to ten feet of clearance between the mountain cliff side and the bugs main swarm so you feel like if you climbed up the side of the mountain you might be able to avoid the bugs

for the most part okay maybe I'll fly up so now we're mountain climbing? you might be able to avoid the bugs for the most part. Okay. All right. Maybe I'll fly up some rope. So now we're mountain climbing? Yeah. Just like what we went back to. I do have my claws for climbing, too.

Yeah. And you got wings. Yep. I got my boots. I got my wings. Got some rope. Throw it down. It'll be great.

And on that note, I believe we're going to pause our adventure and that is the end of episode 81 hey sam keifer what do you think happened today thank you for asking me by the way i'm glad i asked you i want you guys to know i was having a bit of a rough day myself but uh sarah's speech brought me right back to life i'm impressed with you guys even managed to make math aggressive we're back in clottenheim i think uh i know we're somewhere if that helps i think i lost it i wanted you guys to know that i too own a pencil um we're cutting into a mountainside uh fuck yes i hope we fight a cloud fuck yes i hope we fight some bugs and fuck yes i had to google what a bramble is

and i would like to invite all of our listeners the next time you're in the heat of passion with your partner as you remove their shirt to poke their chest and say ding dong and then tweeted us how that went i like i like also sam is saying that clearly since he turned his camera off during the adventure he has changed his shirt he is no longer wearing the same shirt he was at the beginning of this episode ding dong it yeah you're a dashboard confessional d it truly looks like he went and tried to find somebody in his apartment building who would ding dong his chest uh-huh he he changed bands originally he looked like a dj in a limp biscuit cover band and and now he looks like a guy in an imagine dragons cover band why all cover bands? I don't think that Limp Bizkit or Imagine

Dragons have any steps up above their own cover bands. I think a bad Limp Bizkit cover band. Okay, he's in those bands. He's in Limp Bizkit. They're called Imagine Imagine Dragons. And Fully Erect Bizkit. My video for Grandpa Metal is finally out. It came out really really well it took us four months to

do and we wound up doing it a lot like this uh all the guitar playing you know all the the band footage is shot zoom style and my director jack bennett he did a bunch of metal videos he killed it uh grandpa metal check that out on a post saying the band on YouTube. And then I just did my 10th episode already of Grandpa's Metal Stash on Gimme Metal. And I'm having a blast doing 25 songs a week, and I'm just picking these playlists and playing all my favorite shit. If you like heavy metal,

try it. Yeah, they look great. Thanks, man. I'm surprised how many clips from the Music Man you included in there. I know. I really just like the... Come down the street, oh please let it be for me.

I just auditioned for a thing the other day and you used your audition song no i had chorus line in my head after after i did i actually thought i hope i get it i hope i get it and and wanted to kill myself. But then you felt nothing. Wow. Oh, nice. Anything you want to plug in? Yeah, I just tried doing this the other night. Maybe this will be formalized by the time this episode airs in a couple weeks. I feel like we're like three weeks out here.

But yeah, I'm trying to do stand-up on Twitch. I'm trying to make it fun so when people drop things in the chat, it actually makes like a canned laughter noise like i'm trying to actually make it feel like stand-up for everybody um but i'm trying to do like crowd work as well as plant material and actually make it interesting because holy shit it feels like that might be all i'm comfortable doing for a while as far as stand-up comedy so uh rather than just lamenting how i used to do it three times a week for years, I'm just going to try to do my approximation of it on Twitch.

So if you can follow me on Twitch, I promise I will try and do as much there as I can. It is TelferDan on Twitch. Nice. Blaine? Stacey Keech into the Staceyverse in theaters. Double billing it with Tenet. I really think what you've done with animation is impressive. We got all the best, and they all kind of did their thing.

I haven't even seen it. Stacy's just like a rodeo clown. He keeps us all in check, and nobody gets hurt. I love my day in the barrel with Stacy's rodeo. It's already my favorite thing. I haven't seen it. Anybody else? All right.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to another episode of Nerd Poker. You can follow us at patreon.com slash nerdpoker, and you get bonus episodes from there. And you can also send us anything at P.O. Box 16069, Encino, California, 91416. Thanks for listening.