Nerd Poker - S4E11 Nine Nein-Canines

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Our crew must confront the dog-related mystery they've gotten themselves into, as well as the wealthy old lady sobbing on Danny's monk-robed shoulder. No way things will get violent, knowing how nice everyone is. Right?

Hey everybody, I'm Brian Poussin, 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

Lee Chris Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Season 4. Hey, everybody. I'm Brian Poussaint, and you're listening to Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. It's episode 11 of season 4. My friends are here.

I see their delightful faces. It's been a couple weeks since we played a regular game. But let's start. Hey, Sarah, how are you? Oh, I'm all right. How are you, Brian? Good. We see Blaine. Hello, Blaine. Hi, Brian. How are you? I'm all right, buddy. I see Ken. Hey, buddy. Hey, Brian. Chris. Hey right, buddy. I see Ken. Hey, buddy. Hey, Brian. Chris.

Hey there, Brian. Yeah, let me find him. Looking at a weird view. There we go. Gallery view. Hey, buddy. Hello, Dan. Oh, hi.

There I am. I was in gallery view. And right where I like him, in the upper left, in gallery view, it's Sam, everybody. Hello, robust saints. I think people like when you say beautiful children. Sweet children. Tender children. I like all of them.

I don't know if you can't fix it up though the people have spoken and tell somebody you know who needs to know that is congress uh right those beautiful children uh how's peanut doing behind you there ask him hey buddy not great oh poor guy maybe it's because he called him peanut he's a super drunk hi ramen I'm your favorite

aren't I yeah look at ramen look at ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen how's my little packet

of spices and dry noodles yes dog's having weird like am I having auditory hallucinations what's going on why am I thinking in English?

Do I think in English or do I think in dog? What's that sound like? I'm feeling thankful. Anybody else? Oh, I sure am. Yeah. What do you feel thankful about? What?

No, I don't know. No. I don't want to get bashful, but I guess I'll take the reins here and talk about what I'm particularly grateful for. Pub goodbye, but also Patreon supporters who go by, well, names like Toblerone Jones. Thank you, Toblerone Jones. Thank you. Thank you, Blackie Green's bastard son, parenthetical, the cool one.

Oh, not him. Hey, hi. Thank you, Glenn Headcrash Sugden. Thank you. Thanks, Glenn. Thanks, John Lloyd. Thanks, Aeternum Dave. Oh, Aeternum Dave, what's up?

Thanks, Jib Janine. Thank you, Mark Dillon. Thank you, Brian Stopp. Thank you, Ethan. What do they want me to stop? Well, it's spelled with With a Y So I think their name

Is actually Brian Stop Oh no no I think they're telling me To stop something Yeah That's impossible It's with two Ps Yeah but every time

They get called and wrote Call it kindergarten It was like I just want to eat the glue Let me eat the glue Anyway Brian stop Ethan

I'm trying to eat glue thanks Ethan thank you fetus man and umbilical boy thank you William you mean I don't need to use my credit card name Ashton thank you

Dan Telfer's patented airport bags patented airport bags. Patented. Remember when I forgot what a suitcase was? That was amazing. Airport bags. That was like near the beginning of the pandemic, and I was just like, ah, what are things?

I've definitely done that. Your brain just goes grandpa on you, and you can't remember anything. I got so high later because I wished I was high when that happened. Thank you, Eric Payne. Thank you. A bonus episode with Patton Oswalt, Sark, and Jerry. Oh, that would

be fantastic, yeah. Thank you, Douglas Calabrese, or Calabrese, one of those. Thank you. Thank you, Jeremiah That Kid Blaine Incinerated Dudek. Oh, now he has a name. Thank you, Jeremiah That Kid Blaine Incinerated Dudek. Oh, now he has a name. Thank you, Jeremy Smith. Thank you, Dam Dam's Rubble.

Thank you. Thank you, Brandon Smith. Thanks. Thank you, Funky Ball of Tits from Outer Space. Thank you, Steve Wilchester Toner Fielanervivenhausenorkextraordinaire. I might have butchered your name. I ran out of tongue movement. My tongue got paralyzed in the middle of your name.

Thank you, RayRPG. Thank you, Kerry Marsh. Thank you. Thank you, Gregory Dodds. And finally, thank you, Dargther's Secret Ropehole. Thanks, Trevor. Thank you. We all love to take a little trip up dark through

secret ropehole, don't we, gang? No. Do we? I do. Speak for yourself, please. I find it to be very warm and dark. Hey, Blaine, who are those Patreon supporters brought to us by? Those Patreon supporters brought to us by Abs of Glass. Make you weak as a

baby. You won't even be able to support your own head with abs of glass. And toenails. Harder to cut, but they only grow half as fast. Toenails from the makers of hair and claws. Hot Mountain Condoms.

Take the interest out of your hamsters and support the environment with Hot Mountain Condoms, not for human use and Bad Samaritan Hospital. Drop your uncle off here. He's dead. Bad Samaritan Hospital.

Why don't you go somewhere else? Damn. Wow. Thank you, Blaine. And hey, Billy, who are those commercials brought to us by? I just bet Blaine had like a week off. And so he just got all the people to make commercials. That's right, Billy.

Thanks, Billy. Wow. And now. Are we going to play Dungeons and Dragons? Oh, for the love of God. God, I was saying. I'm sorry. I'm just excited.

What happened last time on Nerd Poker? The castaway cuties question mark? Fuck off. Then slash nice five slash

the five guys from Clottenheim's the guys cast away Clottenheim's. The guys cast away. Clottenheim cast away. Foxy Five. There was a Twitter poll today and all of the options were a little weird. Castaway

Cuties came in third place so Brian can sleep safely. Anyway, our heroes decided to go on a little beginner's adventure for Kurt's Adventurous Guild and save Tinklefoot the dog from the copper mine. It all went just as easily as they could have guessed. They found, unfortunately, Tinklefoot's skeleton at the bottom of the mine. And even more unfortunately, when they returned the skeleton in a little ad hoc coffin that

Kurt helped throw together, they discovered some unfortunate news. For when they met Madame Mesramayne on her front lawn of her estate, and there were many dogs kind of running around the butler brought lady mesramane out and she cried and sobbed and held old danny tight weeping about the state of her skeletal dog while iva paperbark interviewed a nearby living dog and discovered the dogs were people, people, people. So the rest of the crew has not found this news out yet,

but yes, the, the, the elderly lady Mesramane is sort of clinging to you, Danny, and like going, Oh, I miss my little Tinklefoot so much. And you guys are all kind of scoping the scene out,

except for Iva, who is down on one knee with her aminals. And you know the truth. Who, just me? Oh, no, Iva does. Iva does. Iva is the one person who is aware of this at the moment. That, yeah, at least a little Pomeranian is claiming to be a person and that everyone here that's a dog is actually a person and a prisoner.

So my first question is going to be, is the butler outside? Yes, he's an elderly elf. Is he also facing... That's him now so he is he's outside and basically like here's my question we're all facing the house and the butler and lady what's her face are facing us yeah the lady's kind of got her eyes half open and she's sobbing and holding danny because what i'd like to do is i'd like to uh cast a minor illusion cantrip with in just in a flow a flowing script like a banner i'd like to hang basically a five foot because it can't be bigger than that right um that just says the dogs are people

trapped inside like behind so that everybody can see that except for the except for the lady and the yeah i'll let you choose deception or sleight of hand. If that is my choice, I'm going to go with sleight of hand. And so, yeah, she's going to you guys, you're all kind of facing the manor and the butler and Lady Meserman are facing Iva. So she's going to project this on the manor. You're going to see this on the manor. Right. But it can only be five feet wide. Yeah, but you can only be five feet wide because that's just a dumb illusion.

You guys will see it. This will be a very clear illusion that all of you will suddenly go, and can you say what it says again? It says the dogs are people trapped inside. That's all it says. I only rolled, though I have an

amazing plus to my sleight of hand and yet i still only ended up with a nine so wow okay yeah so uh you you you cast it and it doesn't look like them saw but you do have this moment where you kind of like like cancel out the illusion as the butler kind of like looks over his shoulder you don't think you don't think he saw what it said but you do feel like maybe he saw something happened on the manor um the woman is still sort of sobbing but yeah did one of us catch it yeah you all caught it you all saw it okay oh we did it was really it was easy to see it was a matter of did she hide it from the butler and the lady. Okay. Also, Well, I guess no one cares.

No, I... You do notice after you cast this illusion, all the dogs get really quiet. Hmm. Hmm. Do you have anything you need to tell us, Lady Mesramine? Oh, yes.

I suppose there's the matter of the reward. I'll have that sent to, you know, Kurt down at the Adventurer's Guild. Unfortunately, we are headed directly out of town, so I'm afraid we're going to have to press you for that now. Do a persuasion check. Oh, I am not persuasive. Spoiler. Bunny in a top coat. I'd believe anything.

15. She goes, well, all right, all right. Just wait here with Octavio, my butler, and I'll be right back. So she heads inside, and the butler kind of just nods and says, thank you, I appreciate your efforts. How long have you worked here? Oh, I've worked here for 40 years. Where is the lady from originally?

From Blingbottom, of course. Originally, yes. We're all just from around here. We are new to the city and looking to help. I see. Yes. Anytime we find anything that seems out of sorts, we will straighten it out. You will find Lady Bess Germaine, much like all of Blingbottom, is entirely wholesome.

And there is nothing unusual to save us from other than a stray dog. Okay. Insight check on this guy guy which i'm just trying to figure out if he knows how much he's like is he lying i'm trying to figure out if he's lying like under duress or is he lying to try to protect himself as well sure do that insight check yeah i mean he's lying for sure no yes yeah i got that. That is a 23. better days, but his eye keeps darting over his shoulder. He's wringing his hands nervously, just sort of worried that you're all going to do something that will put his life in danger.

Octavio, is it? Yes. Do you want to come over here and stand with us? Oh, why would I do that? Well, I believe when the lady comes out We're going to have some words And perhaps you'd like to be standing over here with us Do another persuasion check

Sorry, I had to close the laundry door there What'd I miss? I'm trying to I asked Octavio Who seems under duress If he wants to come over here and stand with us i got an 18 he basically told him we're about to blow shit up and if he wants to be on our side he needs to make the choice now he goes oh and he he kind of like trots down the stairs and stands um behind all of you that's so if you'll all head over to roll 20. I have, Jelf has a little bit of a magic ability.

I can do a little bit of basics like close up. No, Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have something called a little bit of magic. What are you talking about here, Blaine? I was wondering if I could do an insight check combined with sort of a magical vibe from my elf side and see if I could detect if there's even some sort of magical control or just just the vaguest hint of some sort of magic on anything yeah you know you're you're short on time i would say you can pick you can either do an insight like your intuition or arcana and just pick i would say whatever the biggest bonus is right uh uh insights plus five

are gonna uh they're both i have a uh i have proficiency in both and a plus five i'm gonna go with uh insight the 17 the 22 hot damn uh this so a few things this This building does look magical in that it's very old, but also it seems like there is some sort of aura pulsing off of it. The way it's moving almost seems like there's an illusion on the house. This house seems haunted as fuck. And you're not sure what this lady's deal is but she's evil um and you notice all the dogs are slowly gathering behind you as well as if they understood in perfect common what the exchange between nathan and octavia was okay do you have to spell magic

no no just i was just sort of like trying to figure out if i could get a get a magical vibe off of anything yeah i mean it's always great to talk about what spells you have because listeners aren't used to your characters yet so if you uh ever want to discuss i can do prista digitation that's my like i said i can do some coin stuff. I could pull Nathan out of a hat. You do close-up magic and stuff? Yeah. Nice. I miss Magic Castle.

All right. Yeah, me too. I hear they're doing stand-up in the parking lot. No shit. They do that at the 7-Eleven on Santa Monica, too. They're doing that a little live. That's not stand-up playing. Oh, really?

There's a dude at the Gelson's with a flametop Jackson and an amplifier just wailing at the entrance of the Gelson's. Sounds like my new favorite Gelson's. All right. So Lady Mesermane comes back out. And she says, all right, well, I've got a few pieces of gold for everyone hold out your hands no don't do it it's gonna turn you into a dog uh she approaches you danny um why would why does she want to give me gold there's a reward for saving tinklefoot's corpse

so she can bury it somewhere. You know, Tinklefoot, the dog that probably used to be a person. Yeah, no, I know. My pleasure. No gold necessary. And then I back away from her. Okay. I will move your token back a little bit also as I will bring her.

I bow politely. She seems a little confused. Will none of you take a coin or two? I went all the way. We were just having a chit chat. You know, you asked me to go get it now. Yeah, while you were gone, we had a little chit chat with your beautiful dogs. Her face just suddenly goes completely like flat and grim.

And she says, Oh, what's the story? The story is you leave now and you won't become one of them. Unfortunately for you, this is a choose your own adventure. And then, and then and then yeah

um and then we roll for initiative right yeah well no i'm gonna do you want to just straight up attack her i'll give you opening fly yeah yeah yeah i'm gonna go ahead and uh really not like make a plan and come back when she's sleeping? Sorry, it's happening. It's been declared that she's attacking. Iva, tell me what you're doing. She's trouble. I guess I'm going to flip over her to get behind her.

That's my plan. So I'm going to, like, run at her and then do, like, a running do a running tumble over the top of her. And then we'll see if she turns around to face me or stays facing you guys. That's an acrobatics check for sure. Sure thing. This will be fun. Also, she's going to contest this because you're trying to flip over her. So she's going to try to...

You miss 100% of the flips. You don't try to flip over the lady. That's what they say. What do you see? What do you get? This is going to be fun because I rolled an eight. Ooh. One second while I pull up.

That might be necrobatics. You're going to kick her right in the face. Sure. So she rolled a 20. Ooh. So you run to flip over her, and as you jump, she grabs your ankle and throws you hard to the ground. That is going to be...

My gems. 18 to hit? That's probably a hit, yeah. What's your AC? It's a hit. My AC's 14. Gotcha. You're going to take four points of bludgeoning

damage. Nice. And everybody roll for initiative. Initiative. Don't tell me what it is right away because I got to roll my own. Who got over a 20? 20 and above. 21. 21.

I got a 20, but I don't know if I was supposed to roll since I initiated it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's going to be a 21 for 2D. Jelf, you've got a higher deck, so I'm going to give you the jump on that one. Nathan, what'd you get? 19. Danny, what'd you get?

Fucking 6. This is parade of the greatest initiatives. And then we got that... Game over. Game over, man. right uh jelf you see you know iva tries to do the spectacular run and the flip over lady mesramane and with i meant to do that uh with unusual alacrity you see this elderly woman just like throw an arm out, grab her and just

chuck her into the stone stairs. What are you going to do? How close is Iva next to this? Go AWOL. Well, I will direct you to roll 20. I'm going to go ahead and throw Iva's token right up in front of her.

Stop throwing me. Thrug a trunk. Right now you're about I'm going to go ahead and throw Iva's token right up in front of her. Stop throwing me. Thrug a trunk. Right now you're about, and I'll use the little ruler, you're like, you know, 15 feet away from her. Okay. I'm going to fire an arcane shot from my bow. Nice. And I'm going use a a grasping arrow uh 16 plus 4 is

what's that a 20 it sure is that's a hit my uh so that's uh and then a grasping arrow a creature hit by the arrow um it uh vines grow out of the ground and grabs her but she also takes some damage I think so I'm trying to see what her thing is what kind of arrow is that again? a grasping arrow a creature hit by the arrow takes an extra 2d6 poison damage

speed reduced by 10 feet takes 2d6 slashing damage for the first time on each turn it moves one foot or more. Jeez. Brambles last for a minute. You can use this on blah, blah, blah.

And they can use an action to remove them with an athletics check. Cool. Yeah, give me your damage on Lady Mezzermane. That's a seven. Not the but all right uh so that's poison damage and she's sort of immobilized i hope all right so yeah she gets hit with this arrow and as she gets hit you just see her skin suddenly turn this deep violet color and her face just start to like twist into this horrible expression. Her facial features become very leathery and she snarls at you with these hideous yellow crooked teeth.

She's clearly not human and that'll do it for Jelf, I believe. Up next, we've got Tootie. I'm going to bonker with my hammer. All right. And hammer with your bonker. Do me a favor and run your token up there for me as you move around.

Certainly. Thanks, boss. I mean, you got gotta be within you gotta be up in her face to hit her alright right up in her face now as a reminder you can do that but then run away

it's just you could invoke an opportunity attack right not like well that hang on a second sorry okay uh five that's a miss so you swing it sure it is and that wasn't wait a minute five what's your plus to hit with your hammer i rolled two and plus five to hit well if, if it's plus 5... I rolled a 2. So it was a 7.

Your roll was so low you only gave me your to-hit bonus. You were so ashamed. You just completely cancelled the dice out. All right. Now, remind me, does 2D, because he is a paladin, get any additional attack actions?

I don't know. Let's all find out together. Let's go on a little trip. Actions. Actions. If you know what's good in any of my sense.

Hang on. Unarmed strike. No. Two weapon fighting is my bonus action bless you you know what seriously bless you and then let's see yeah I'm looking at your actions maybe you attack the rebuke the violent but that's all I don't think we're high

enough level to have yeah yeah alright just checking in. We're little threebies. Good for the listeners to know. And, uh, sorry. Wait, I'm sorry. Did you also talk if she was undead? Did you discuss that?

We did not. We did not discuss it. No? Because he's a paladin, right? You don't get the sense she's necessarily undead. Well, she's gross. So I just thought, you know. I mean, she is.

You know what? Her skin is this leathery purple. Her eyes and teeth are yellow. She has little horns coming out of her temples. Her breath is from the grave. Oh, man. Ouch. She smells like a dirt she sleeps in.

Yeah. Banaca. Is there, yeah, I mean, there's probably still, like, more of a magical than an undead vibe coming off of her. Maybe because of the dogs. Yeah, I mean, the way Dungeons & Dragons breaks everything up, she's something very specific. It's definitely more in the demon realm kind of a thing.

But we're going to take things right on over to you, Iva Paperbark. You're on your back. That means you have to use half your movement to get up. All right. Well, I am going to... Shoot. I can use half my movement to get up, but I can still attack her with that... with this action, right?

Mhm. Okay, um, so I'd like to use also... and then I'm gonna disengage, but I'm going to, um... use as bonus action, I can make an insight check against a creature I can see that is in incapacity. Wait, there's no one... I'm sorry. Before I do this quickly, there is there is someone within five feet of her. I see. So that means that I get

this is for my sneak attack, right? Correct. She is. Yeah, there is 2D right there. Yeah. So in that case, then I'm just going to attack her, but I think it's just it can be a sneak attack because someone's I'm sorry. I'm trying to. Yeah, that's right case, then I'm just going to attack her, but I think it can be a sneak attack because someone's... I'm sorry, I'm trying to look this up.

Yeah, that's right. That's all right. Right, yeah. Extra 2d6. If I advantage... I don't need advantage if someone's within five feet of her. Okay, so I'm just going to go ahead and swang at her with my sword sword.

Yeah, to get advantage, she needs to have her ability to get out of combat blocked. So you gotta get closer to like 180 degrees. Well, but she also is restrained by the vines. Yeah, I don't need advantage to be able

to get that for this. Okay, so um so that is a 22 to hit. That's a hit. That's better than mine. Aw, Ken's numbers. Mine sucked. It's okay, it's okay, Ken.

And then that is 10 total points of damage. Nice. Total points of damage. Total damage. Total damage. Total damage. All right. Will that do it for your turn, Iva?

Yes. Okay. I believe up next, we've got Nathan. Cool. All right. Nathan will, as this is all going so quickly, he'll hop sort of across the stairway over here to try and kind of open things up.

And he's going to pull out his wand and cast Witch Bolt. Ooh. Okay, which one? What bolt? Which bolt? That's that cinnamon-flavored whiskey at Walmart. So I have to make an attack roll. Ugh.

Oh, that's not good. Twelve to hit. Twelve is a miss on that. Well, I know. And I turn to everybody, Oh! She's very smelly! All right.

Well, that was a very funny turn from Nathan. Let's see. So you guys all notice that she all of a sudden just sort of like goes, and even though she is held down by these vines she just sort of disappears in a light blue mist that just blows away she has uh seemingly disappeared but things are very tense uh you feel like the way she was laughing it was like oh shit something's about to happen. Maybe it's definitely like a threatening kind of laugh.

So I'm not taking you out of combat just yet. Danny, you're up. Brian. Danny, okay. Where are we now? Nerd poker. What's Brian Poussin in France? No shit, but I'm saying

if she's gone, what's stopping us? Nothing. We can go in the house. You can go in the house if you want, but also it feels like she's maybe about to do something. Naughty. Anybody else have a feeling?

I don't know. We have a leaf blower or something something that would be kind of funny if we just kept the mist maybe look look to Octavio what's about to happen oh yeah oh great um uh I believe the lady has

entered another dimension and she's about to do something horrible and come back okay um should we spread mention and she's about to do something horrible and come back. Okay. Should we spread out? Can we go inside? Anything can be prepared for this. Have we already seen? Let's see.

I hope this move won't disappoint her, but are any of these dogs here pointers? Yeah. Because maybe we could use them to know where she's coming back and get a jump on her oh nice and then we can all get a jump on her

oh yeah okay so what do you yeah or is there a pointer did the dogs have any sort of that's funny so every all the dogs are hiding behind lady or not the misery Octavio and yeah Danny it is your turn. But right now you're kind of like, okay, do I go inside?

Do I brace myself? What do I do? It feels like something's about to happen. Yeah, I think Danny would prefer to just sort of stay on his toes. All right. I wonder. What are you considering? I was thinking of casting Minor Illusion or something, but...

Oh, you could. I'm just going to stay... Isn't there a way that you can hold my action? Yeah, hold your action. Until she reappears? Yes. All right. That's basically what I would assume many of you would do.

Or you can, of course, go inside the house. You can throw a dog into the street. Are there gargoyles on the building? Yes. So there are gargoyles. If you look at the map, there's, first of all, there's little statues. If you look at the map, there's, first of all, there's little statues. But these two right here, these two round symmetrical things are gargoyles.

Small little demon gargoyles. They're kind of like, there's one right by Danny right here. Got it. I'm sorry, maybe I'm... I was going to try to climb the facade of the house and hide. Ooh. Okay. So I'm like ready when she reappears but she hopefully won't see me okay well one second um i asked about gargoyles because i thought it'd be fun to hide behind let's go let's uh they might turn into something i'll have you do

a check for that in a second first uh jelf you doing anything uh i'm going to maybe kind of bound around. I'm going to go in this opposite direction away from where Nathan is. I guess I'll move over here. Sounds good. So that Nathan and I are kind of on either side of the doorway, and we can see if there's anything coming around the side. And you'll hold your action for her to read here. Yes.

Yes, please. And 2D? the side and you're and you'll hold your action uh for her to yes yes and 2d yeah is there any way could danny be in the shadows and still hold his action you can try to hide in the up against the building sure yeah i know looking at the map now it seems like that's what i would do it's a pretty flat okay so go ahead and pick somewhere against the building sorry to jump back i just i just opened up the and saw, or not just opened up, I looked over at it. Okay. Yeah. Pick somewhere. There you go.

And then we'll retroactively do a stealth check. Yeah, definitely. I rolled a 15 and i get like great another five or so something yep what was that five or so no it's 20 it's a okay i did i rolled I was just waiting for the number. And then great. So you really slide up against there. We've got Jelf kind of going over to the opposite of Nathan. Tootie, what you doing? I'm going to take cover over here by the side of the Is that elevated?

Yeah, it's elevated. Okay. I'll take cover there. Also holding your action and then we're going have iva try to scale it and disappear so why don't you do uh we'll do an athletics and a stuff how high up the wall are you trying to go um 15 20 feet okay doing athletics and a stealth please man okay i'm gonna use a different them because well daniel it's not good no my athletics is a four

um but then my stealth is a 17. So. All right. Well, everyone, you can barely tell that she tries several times to scramble up the building. It's just too smooth. And so you just see Iva kind of like scrambling against this smooth rock surface and then kind of play it off. Very quietly. Yeah, very, very quietly.

And then kind of drop into the shadows a bit like Danny did just, uh, over on the other side, I guess. Where do you want to be? Exactly. You want to show us? Yeah.

I'll move. Great. All right. And Nathan, are you also going to hold your action? Um, I'm actually i'm gonna run down here right to this dog uh and i'm gonna use uh because i'm a rabbit folk i have a thing called animal tongue it basically means once a day i can do speak with animals. So I'm going to do that right now. And I want to say

to this dog, who are you and what is she? It says, my name is Byron. I used to be with her. We used to be in a circle of magic users. But she betrayed me. She is what is called a creature of another dimension.

That's not very catchy. I feel like there's probably a different word that's actually probably one word, but... All right, Byron. It seems as though he's panicked and he doesn't know what to say. But she's a witch then. She's using magic and she can be killed.

Yes, yes, she's a witch. I shout that out to everybody. This is Byron. They're from a cabal of misused wizards and she's taken all their powers. She's an evil witch. You do get

the impression there is some sort of magical cabal. You also get the impression she is some sort of hag. Yeah. You would substitute witch for hag i would think um and this is taking a fun what we do in the shadows quality as i fall off the wall trying to hide from the witches turn to the dogs we lay you back We're laid back. Yes. All right. Well, on that note, you all see this happen. So as Nathan asks this, she reappears right next to Nathan.

Oh, you little. And she is going to take her fingers, which have long bony claws coming out of them. Nope. Be careful. Hack into Nathan. Is this an attack roll? That is infuriating.

Yes, it is an attack roll. Nathan's going to use one of his magical powers right now. As he sort of sees her rearing back, one of his magical powers right now. As he sort of sees her rearing back, one of his ears twitch. And every day, at the beginning of a day, after a long rest, I roll 2d20, and I keep those rolls, and I can use an ability called Portent.

And any time a creature that I can see is making an attack roll or a saving throw, I can substitute one of my Portents. I've seen this moment, and I've seen the hag swinging at me. Oh my God. Wow. And she's going to roll a three.

Are you shitting me? It's for realsies. It's an instant three. I can use it twice. I can use it once a turn. And I can use the level I'm at. I can use it twice a day and i can use the level i'm at i can use it twice a day holy crap that's cool um it's not a charm spell is it no it's portent when you finish a long rest okay roll 2d20 man you can replace an attack roll throw, or ability check made by me or a creature I can see. You just replaced an attack roll of 22.

Ooh, shit. So you feel the wind of her claws rake through the air next to you, but also she screeches as she realizes she's being manipulated through magic. She's very sensitive to it and is aware of your your trickery danny you are up you okay danny you see her materialize just uh south of you and trying to rake your friend nathan with these massive i'm just gonna mention by the way that i saw a portent head at uh lollapalooza uh but anyway let's see that's good good set So where is she? She's south of you

If you look on the map, she's I changed her token to be a hag Oh, okay Is she Am I behind her? You are She's about 15, 20 feet away And is she attacking one of my friends? Yes, she's trying to claw Nathan's head off She's just 15, 20 feet away. And is she attacking one of my friends?

Yes, she's trying to claw Nathan's head off. She's just trying to kill me. Yes. I'm right behind her and... Let's see. I'll use my short sword on her. All right. Do it. use my short sword on her alright do it roll that attack

oh my god yay it's a 2-0 yeah oh shit okay critical I like those and uh let's see

and then I have a 1d6 plus 3 on the short sword okay does that mean but what what happens with the critical with that well you're gonna roll 100 to see if something fancy pants happens okay first in addition to that, you get to double your dice damage on what your short sword does, but not the plus part. Double the dice damage, but not the plus part. Oh, shit. 91.

Well, alright. This will be fun. And then what am I rolling? Six? Six ones or twice? What does it say? Oh, it's just a one. 1d6.

Roll it and double it. Okay. A six. So 12 plus three. Jeez. Damn. All right, and then are you going to do any kind of offhand attack? Yeah, absolutely.

Do you have it? What is it? Flurry of Blows? Yeah, absolutely. Do you have it? What is it? Flurry of Blows? Yeah. Do I have full... Is it key? Yeah, you have full key points. Okay, cool.

So I lose one for this, right? Correct. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'll do Flurry of Blows. Okay. So it's a roll 20, right? Correct. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'll do Flurry of Blows. Okay. So, it's a roll 20, right? Yep, and so you guys just see Danny pull back

and he's about to just start hacking at her. 18 total. Oh, that's another hit. Yeah. Roll that damage. Uh, uh is it just regular on that one it's a 1d4 yes sir okay so two and then plus three blood jimmy oh he's 56 isn't it not from flurry of blows oh you can't you use a weapon for flurry of blows oh i i didn't think so i thought this was an unarmed strike i think you can use a weapon for flurry of blows i can look it up again

okay that's pretty cool i assumed i assumed flurry of blows was you know him just throwing more punches like two two or three punches. No, you can use a weapon for it. I think we had a lengthy discussion about this when you were in the lava caves, and I couldn't believe it was true, and it turned out to be true. Okay, cool. Well, then I would stay with the sword. No?

What? We have a point of order here. I think maybe you have to hold of order here. I think, is it, maybe you have to hold a, in your hand, like, is it, Flurry of Blows with your bonus action, but same weapon? So I'm trying to figure out if it's your offhand or not. You make a regular weapon attack, and then you, according to the, just a quick, then I think it's unarmed, right?

That's what I thought. Or maybe I guess it's unarmed, right? That's what I thought. Or maybe I guess it's special, yeah. For his bonus actions, he has the choice of unarmed strike or flurry of blows. Oh, I see. So I think he gets to keep doing it with the weapon. Flurry of blows is after you take the attack action on your turn, you can spend one key point to make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action.

That's what it is. Two unarmed strikes. Yeah, Flurry of Blows is just you get two instead of one. Nice. Okay. But it doesn't say anything about the weapon oh do it anyway yeah immediately after you take your attacks you get to spend one key point me too yeah it's just two unarmed strikes what i'm sorry we're having probably the same discussion we had six episodes

ago uh folks listening but uh yeah all right so you rolled your 1d force but he can he can the weapon attack is fine and but then correct he doesn't have to re-roll it and you roll he gets to use a weapon on the attack but not the flurry of blows right correct which he already did okay and i'm still waiting to describe what the critical of 91 did i just got just we've stalled so much at this point, I want to just hear what the flurry of blows is, and then I'll... I saw BB King in Chicago once

talk about a flurry of blows. I already rolled, right? Dan? Yeah. Oh, I got confused and forgot what the number was. What was your 1B4 roll? I thought it was 2 and then plus 3. 2 plus 3, great.

Okay, so it was a 5. Great, so then you get to do that a second time, if I'm not mistaken. I got so drunk at Mel's Diner once that I didn't know whose grits to kiss. It was a real blurry of flows. Oh, sorry, I'm getting a phone call. Hello? Yeah. Oh my god! You're kidding! Oh.

Obviously it wasn't me. They were kidding. That was a right, and then it was a four plus four plus three. Yes. Nice. So another seven. Right.

Golly. All right, you guys have done, I have 44 points of damage against the hag. So your first sword cut, you just slam it across her hand and you just see one of her fingers, like a little miniature hot dog, go flying through the air

and one of the little dogs jumps up and eats it. And then you just start punching her repeatedly in the abdomen. She shrieks in agony. It is now going to be, Jelf, you get to take your held action. Oh, okay. Hey, I'm going to, I have an elven arrow and I'm

going to aim it at her. At her. 19 plus a 4 to hit, so 23. So I have that elven arrow. I got a quiver of those last time. I'm not sure exactly what

they do but i'm about to find out so uh i guess a regular regular arrow damage is a 1d8 uh 1d8 plus four piercing so i'm panicked. Seven plus four, eleven, and if there's any pluses on damage from those elven arrows. Nice. Nope, but that's still

really good. Good work. And then I believe the next held action because Iva used hers to try to scramble up the building. We have one from Tootie and then Nathan. So Tootie, you're up. Once

again, I will swing my mighty warhammer. Do it. my mighty warhammer. Do it. Bring your token down. I think you've got advantage at this point. I'm at seven. Oh. So I get to roll again? I'll bring your token down.

That's better. That's a 20 20 that's a hit roll that damage yay nice gonna do some damages 11

ooh alright so thud into her with your hammer it just smashes 11. Ooh, all right. So thud into her with your hammer. It just smashes her in the back. She's, you know, taking it all in stride. She's some sort of hag, but you're slowly doing some pretty impressive, you know, offense. Up next, we have Nathan.

What are you going to do, sir? Um, well, this feels very scary. She's right on top of me and the dog. Um, I'm going to disengage as my action. Okay. Can I scoop up the pup and carry us back here? Yes.

Great. That's what I would like to do. I would scoop him up or maybe, I don't know, piggyback him. He might be not that much smaller than me. Maybe I'll like piggyback the dog on my back and hop us away from the monster lady. Alright.

Come along, my little... That gives you disengage. And then we're going to come up on Danny again. Those are all held actions. Okay. She's right in front of me still Sorry I was taking a bite

Oh my god yes We love you I love you too Nachos Nice I'm so hungry When you described her finger Being like a mini hot dog

I really realized Like I was like That sounded too appetizing It's not right All these dogs on the map are fucking adorable, by the way. We should always have dogs on the map. See. I also just heard my kid come running out of the bathtub soaking wet,

and he turned the corner and fell really hard. Oh, the worst. I think the exact same thing happened in my household or something similar because there's a lot of screaming those times. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's tis the season, right? Happens earlier every year.

Kids turn the corner and slamming down on their butts. Oh, it's the worst. And then there's that silence before he... Does he cry still or... Yeah. Yeah. I know that Oliver really hurt when... The beat right before he cries, yeah.

Yeah. Ugh, awful. I know he's hurt when he says, uh-uh, I'm okay. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The worst is when they tell you your kisses don't work anymore. Uh, yeah. The worst is when they tell you your kisses don't work anymore.

Where your magic, your parental magic no longer works. Okay, so... Wow. Yeah, I'm going to hack at this lady with my sword. Speaking of mortality. Yep. Ollie lost...

He lost a tooth, and we did the tooth fairy thing and you recognize my wife's handwriting it's like man he's seven this is like not getting anything past this kid uh brian did you just say a number i missed it no i haven't rolled yet i just said i'm gonna swim around here okay that one uh would be a miss okay well it was a worthy effort um do i get a if you want to if you want to use a key point yeah i'll take an unarmed strike at her that would be a hit for sure that's a 18 yep roll that damage you need a 17 to hit the hag um six total bludgeoning all right so you managed to punch her six total damage and uh as she turns around and grins horribly at you danny we're gonna find out what happens with the rest of that fight next time on nerd poker cool uh let's see uh hey, what do you think happened in episode 11 there?

Oh, I'd be happy to tell you. Please tell us. We're paid. We started out. We were paid for our previous help, which Danny declined, reminding us why super kind people are infuriating. Despite her kind Jerry Stewart voice, we don't trust Lady Mesmerine, so we attacked her. Iva tried to jump over her, but was quickly Mortal Combated down to the ground.

The old woman turned out to be spooky inside. Nathan hit her with a bolt and Tootie hit her with a hammer. Ava tried to climb a slippery house and fell down again. The old woman was revealed to be a hag and she tried to claw at us, but Nathan saved us with his sensual ears.

And then our most polite member cut off her thick fingers and beat her uh tootie hit her with a hammer again and nathan either rode a dog or a dog rode him and finally that blurry of flo's joke is the funniest thing i've ever heard and we all disrespected blaine with silence thank you sam i was so tense over forgetting how to play dungeons and dragons and having microphone issues that i just missed it uh it's okay guys that was a good one though uh anybody uh have anything going on taking time passing taking great naps lately just really just feeling i'm not actually but i feel like i could now that the world is 1% less tense. Eh,

eh, 1%. Uh, I've, uh, got, uh, you know,

my regular show every Tuesday on gimme metal. And then I've also got, um, uh, videos on, uh, posting, uh,

the band on YouTube. Hey, Blaine there. My new show on True TV with Ron Funches and Ali Colbert. It's every Thursday night now called

Top Secret Video. Please check that out. It was a lot of fun to shoot and I hope I get to do a bunch more. But, Blaine, what's going on with you and the Kitchenator? You can come and check us out. We're going to be at the Funko Pop store on Thursday and Saturday for the Mike Hammer Funko Pop release.

Bring your tits. He's going to sign them. Wow. I don't want to bring mine. Dan? Well, I mean, it'll be like distanced. He has like a Sharpie stick, like a selfie stick with a Sharpie on it. It's his Sharpie stick.

And he's really, it's very legible from a distance too. He's good at it. It's weird. All right. He's good at a lot of stuff. I love you, Blaine from a distance, too. He's good at it. It's weird. All right. He's good at a lot of stuff. I love you, Blaine. Me too, Brian.

Anybody else got anything to plug? Buggy plug? Nope. Thanks for listening. Woo! 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. it's a hit battle music welcome here right you're gonna take battle music four points

of bludgeoning gonna have right up in here look out and everybody roll for initiative you can get this and more on

Nerd Poker Soundtrack. Don't tell me what it is right away because I got to roll my own. By Dan Telfer.