Nerd Poker - S5E0 Session Zero

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Before every campaign, there is planning! And we thought that this time we'd let listeners be privvy to all of it. Enjoy hanging out with all of us as we contemplate whether to create new characters, bring back old ones, or create a spin that ties both together (which is what one of us does). Soon these five folks will delve into the dark castle of Vyndairea, solving puzzles and slaying evil beings in the hopes of slaying an archlich. We're excited to be back! For merch, social media, and more be sure to head to nerdpokerpod.com.

Hi listeners, before I get to the episode, we want to take a moment to address the June 24th, 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. This decision stripped away the right to have a safe and legal abortion. Everyone should have the freedom to decide what's best for themselves and their families, including when it comes to ending a pregnancy. This decision has dire consequences for individual health and safety and could have harsh repercussions for other landmark decisions. Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health and independence of all Americans. And on a personal note, everyone here at NerdPoker is horrified by this Supreme Court decision. And I encourage you to not only educate yourself

on what reproductive health is now being held up by lawyers and judges while people suffer extreme health consequences, but take a look at what Clarence Thomas snuck in there with the decision. He's coming after everyone else's rights. So please, learn more by visiting podvoices.help. If you're able to support others, please consider donating to abortion funds. We encourage you to speak up, take care, and spread the word. Now please enjoy some very nerdy silliness. 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, Blake, Chris. Now it's time for another episode of Brian Poussaint's Nerd Poker. Hey, it's Billy. Season five. Hey, everybody. My name's Brian Poussaint. You're listening to Nerd Poker with me and my friends.

Season five, episode, get this, zero. Yeah, we're starting at zero this time you guys uh Dan's gonna take over in a minute but let me uh introduce my pals that are back for a fifth season thanks for listening thanks for sponsoring us on Patreon if you do if you don't

uh I wish you would cause it really helps. We've lost some, and we get some new ones when we lose some, but it's really important to keep the show going for me to be able to pay these guys for playing, especially during the pandemic, but down the road. We want to keep doing it, so keep supporting us. And let's see. Here we are. Dan doing it, so keep supporting us. And, uh... Let's see, here we are.

Dan, hey, what's up, buddy? What? What do you got? Oh, don't lick a cactus. Oh, no. I... I... The cactus.

Oh, that's a terrible way to start. You're not going to be able to talk. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, well. Chris, go over there and help him. You live close. Listeners, we all live inside

one house. You're going to love this show. All right, let me go help Dan's tongue. Blaine? Oh, hey. Hi, Brian. How are you? Happy season 5-0. I'm good, thanks. I'm gleaming the cube. Go downstairs and help Chris help Dan. Oh, I will. I'm good, thanks. I'm gleaming the cube. Go downstairs and help Chris help Dan.

Oh, I will. I'm going to take the dumb waiter. Ken's here. Howdy do. I'm good. When you're done cleaning the basement, go up and check on those guys. Alright, I will. Hey, Sarah. Hello.

Aren't you glad you don't live with those assholes? See what I did? It's like the monkeys over here. I'll never forget them ever again. I wake up in the middle of the night on the floor when I fall out of my bed and I'm yelling, Sam! Oh, I thought you were making a reference to when I fell asleep on the floor. When I fall out of my bed. And I'm yelling, Sam! Oh, I thought you were going to reference to when I fell asleep on the floor at Earwolf.

Oh, yeah. Hi, everyone. By the way, hi, sweet children. How you doing? I'm good. Rahm is here with me. Ever since it peaked above 100 degrees in LA, he's doing that dog thing where he hasn't had a bone in his body. He's just a puddle of like...

It's just complete... You have a little fan or something to help him cool off his little pink buns? I do, and I put wet washcloths in the refrigerator, and then I put them on him like a blanket, and he falls asleep and he goes to sleep. What a treat.

Dogs can't sweat. I read that on a bazooka gum thing once. I know that's true. I read somebody on the internet said dogs don't have lips. That is not true. Do their lips sweat? I don't know, but Mavis definitely has lips. They have lips that are black.

Yes. Yeah. I think lips that are black. Yes. Yeah. I think they'd be like part of it that like curves out at the edge. That's a lip. That's what a lip is. A lip is any part of around a mouth. To find that person. You introduced everybody, right?

Let's get into it, Dan. Yeah. Let me thank a few folks. This be a session zero, and it's a time to reflect that I appreciate Patreon supporters who go by names like Tom F. Thank you, Tom F. Thank you, Tom.

Thank you, Jared Gwynn. Thanks, Jared. Thank you, Metal Mac the Battle Bard. Fun. Thanks, Travis Wasco. thanks jared thank you metal mac the battle bard fun thanks travis wasco or waste Travis thank you jared adams thank you glum be done thanks vortisbin thank you classic nerd poker patreon supporter voodoo beef thank you thank you macaulay Cockgun. Thank you, Hasrack. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Baron Von Fiend. Thank you, Don Doty.

Thank you, the Reverend Dr. Johnson. Thank you, Orcish Torso. Dan said that one time to describe why Bodhi couldn't fit down that crevice to rob a safe. Thank you, Justin Whitaker. Thank you, Ichabod. Thank you, Ren Espiritu. Thank you, Justin Whitaker. Thank you, Ichabod. Thank you, Ren Espiritu. Thank you. Brian Postlame. Oh, no.

Wait a minute. Wait, what? Shit. He's stepping to you, Brian. He looks mad. Brian looks really mad right now. Brian's pissed, you guys. That's some weak sauce, but whatever. Thank you, FreeLikeNew spelled G-N-U. Thank you FreeLikeNew, spelled G-N-U. Thank you Aiden the S is silent,

Gervais. Thank you Hbar. Thank you Stefan. Thank you Raging Mustard. Thank you MuchADickABiteNothing. Thank you Nathan Pierce. Thank you Adam McNeish. Thank you Nate Capp. Thank you Jason Rankin. Thanks Neil Meyer. Thanks Juergen Lurs. Thanks Huggin and you nathan pierce thank you adam mcneish thank you nate cap thank you jason rankin thanks neil

meyer thanks jurgen lurs thanks huggin and munnin thank you thank you blurp blarpson thanks make fake name i don't know that's his christian name thank you magical playlist thank you cheeses christ superstar thank you thanks, Bruce Ravel. Thanks, Chris Clary. Thanks, Charles Murphy. And finally, thank you, TikTok the Mechanical Man's Sexual Energy Sustains Me. Blaine, thank you.

Who are those supporters brought to us by, Blaine? Oh, uh, those supporters brought to us by I&I Block. We do your taxes, mon. Real couch, a couch you can fuck. And Monster Energy Cat Chow. Chow, chow, chow, you fucking pussy. Monster Energy Cat Chow.

Dan. Wayne. That terrified me. A couch you can fuck. Wow. Season five ads are aggressive. That's extreme. Watch the fuck out!

Alright, new team. It's time, you guys. Fade in. We see a pixie the size of a chihuahua with a greasy black mullet steering a boat full of refugees north to Cloddenheim.

This boat contains much cargo hiding inside, heroes planning to sneak past the armies of Vendaria and raid the castle to destroy the Lich King. Hey, guys. I told you it'd be a chill episode, and it's not. We're gonna... No, I'm just kidding. For...

You really scared me. It was my turn to scare you. I've got this outside one of Kalen's shows from a random person who saw... This is a high noon sun sips vodka and soda in a can. I'm going to be drinking that during this episode. You're going to get fucked up so yeah what if that's laced with weed yeah i think he's gonna get fucked down you chugging that shit room tempered you uh chill it oh it's chill baby oh good good good uh we have been asked a crazy episode already

every season people are like on social media patreon hey you should just like do your session zero on air if you're unfamiliar session zero is this tradition of you just sit around and talk about what you're about to do um let's talk about especially the characters that you guys are going to bring as i have teased in both a bonus episode and a trailer that listeners would have heard last episode sean bryant is currently drawing a very detailed map. If he's not done with it, I'm going to give you guys my rough version in advance. But this is going to be the Raid of a Giant Castle. And I want you guys, you've already been thinking about who you're going to play, but I want you to talk through as much of the process

as possible. And ideally, you haven't decided yet. and we get to hear you kind of hem and haw about it, because I think that's really interesting. You can bring a new character. They have to be level eight. This is a level eight dungeon that you're arriving in. You will be leveling up within the dungeon should you survive the monsters and traps hidden within. You can bring a season one, season two, season three,

or season four character, or brand new character all i ask is that if your character has deceased died become former within one of the main campaign episodes it does not return uh brian have you put some thought into who you would like to play i think we were assuming i was just going to do Gold Bar, right? No. Oh, okay. Here's the thing, Brian. But we can.

I think you've been having a lot of fun with Gold Bar, so that makes absolute sense. And I don't want to just go one by one each person. This is not a formal episode. I could also play him on bonus episodes only like I did. Yeah, that's the thing. When Bodhi died and then I went on, or not when that Bodhi one ended, and I played him when we were having Dark Starth,

or whatever his name was in the beginning. You could bring back the sarcastic Hot Topic Priest from the Earwolf days. You could bring back Bodhi. You could do a brand new character, whatever you want. Hmm. So now that I put that bug in your ear, anyone else want to talk through where they're kind of at?

Yeah, well, come in anytime, Brian. We're not going to go down the line. I'm going to D&D Beyond right now. I love the logo with the pride flag. I definitely wanted to do a new character because I get excited about trying different classes. And we played that one for a long time. So I like Iva. But yeah, I'm still kind of thinking.

I wanted to see what other people were going to do. So we don't... Yeah. I know like Blaine is very often a spell caster of some kind. And it melts. So many of the classes now you can use spells and like so many different types of character. So I kind of wanted to sit back and see.

But yeah, I was thinking about playing something i haven't played before or at least some variation on it um just for funsies because why not um and also with the hint that dan is saying this is going to be a very kind of dungeon crawly season um i feel like i have a or characters who are more talky talk so helpful but i'd like to get someone who can get who can mix it up a little bit more too fair and like i do you say yeah i'm sorry when you say mix it up do you mean you want somebody that's more combatty no they could dj really well oh like somebody who can fight when the when a fighting time happens or like you know it doesn't mean not even like a barbarian but someone yeah i was thinking about like if i was a cleric maybe there's like maybe a trickery or war you know or something like that i will say borrowed with more

perception and insight are going to come in very handy because of the amount of traps and puzzles that are going to be in this well too bad for too bad for Ida then. She would have had a great time. It's not too late to change your mind. I was thinking about being a cleric just for the healing of it all. Somebody needs to, so definitely. Yeah, I was thinking I'd be a cleric. If anyone's willing to do that, it'll definitely balance the group out nicely.

Yeah, clerics are awesome. I love them. I was actually going to do the same thing. I was going to be a cleric because I've never been a cleric before. You could be a battle cleric. There's a storm cleric is very fun as we've noted. Oh, okay.

Because I was looking at all the different clerical types and stuff. I've just never been one. And I like the magic usury thing and the fighting side of it. I wondered if it would be better to wait for a an entire campaign where i would bring one up from like raise one from a kitten do you know what i mean like first right so you could learn it that way yeah it would be fun to go from first to uh to eighth level with a clara because i've never done it before but then again it's like you know it would be a lot of fun uh uh the other option would just be uh having dr who would come back out of the woods oh my god you know kind of still i will like find

what he's looking for i will try to it was fun i had a lot of fun with with dr i try not to interfere with this stuff too much i know i almost i don't know how much you tell me chris how much i bullied you to make nathan a wizard i know you were leaning rogue at first oh i i don't remember that you were you were going back and forth between the two and i think i said like there wasn't like a spellcaster yet um but but like that could be no no i'm talking about just you know last season um right my my point being like i want to try to nudge just one of you to bring a character back. It doesn't matter who or which season, but when he says Dr. Ud, I'm like,

I mean, I'm glad to hear one person's thinking about it. Like I said, I would love to play a cleric. If Chris is going to be a cleric, I don't want to step on that. No, I can have two clerics. There are so many

different types of yeah point where you can like battle that's what we should really talk about is the subclasses are now really like a lot of variety so like i think it's much more about the function than it is the the name of the class there's there's there's enough variation in all of these you could have two of one class they just have to be kind of different if you want to mix it up. And I'm not super locked into it, Plain. If that's something you were thinking about, I am totally fine. Another thing I was thinking about was Paladin, because

I like the combination of combat and spells. But I was kind of steering away from that because we just had Tootie. So my brain was going more towards Cleric. But I can also take a second and find that's how it falls about monk too because i was like monk i is totally new you thought about doing one last season right i did and so then i was like maybe i'll do one this

season but then we did just have danny so i don't you know i don't want to step on danny's toes now that he is dearly departed i mean especially after you killed him. Oh boy, here we go. I killed him. You never even, you called a history so many times during the season and then you never actually said, Denny, when he died. You just ignored it. Moved on with your life immediately. That's because you listened with your ears and not with your

heart. Chris, whatever makes you be able to sleep at night, but I think you know what you did. She's kind of right. There we go. Very Willem Dafoe in Platoon. Yeah. Like the people want it.

Paws out, drops to his knees. Or can I play Dark D'Souza? The guy, the Dark D'Souza. Where a new one came out of his hat every time every time I get killed oh the blue guy I'll let you do any character except that character wow

he's so much fun I did like him a lot he was a sorcerer right did you ever decide what his race was exactly or was that just like he's blue and furry Susan is a homebrew race of

just a Susan yeah just a furry guy I'd like to bring Queep back if you brought Queep back oh my god people would be thrilled and since we're going to be in a dungeon, I probably won't have to lift anybody anywhere.

Sam, Sam, turn this camera off. Sam, I'm a bird. Sam, Sam, Sam. I'll be so happy to see you. So yeah, I'll bring Queep back. Well, that's great. Now Dan gets what he wants and Queep returns. When I said there was a season five on Twitter right around the corner, someone immediately was like, tell Ken he has to bring Kweep.

Oh. Well, there they went. Easy. That was fun, man. Easy. You know, and there will be high ceilings and stuff. Like, there will be stuff to do to fly. There will be bird moments.

You don't want to trudge around not flying. You think I'm not going to. Carrying people. Well, maybe you don't have to trudge around not flying. You think I'm not going to... Well, maybe you don't have to carry anyone. Okay. All right. Okay. Perfect.

Hey, in case there are people who are new to season five, Ken, do you want to maybe break down... Yeah, please let them know. ...clean for like a minute? If I can remember. Yeah. He's an Aarakocra barbarian, so I'm a big bird. What kind of bird?

An Aarakocran. Oh, you mean like a big bird. What kind of bird? An Aarakocra. Oh, you mean like a parody sort of. You're like bright orangey. Yeah. Very bright colored. Can you give us a classic war cry? Fancy. Fooka-laka-luka-kai-lai.

If we hear that all through season five, I will just be so pleased. Cuckaloo. It just always brought a smile like a kiki whenever i can can't wait to discover which character of sarah's will roll her eyes when you say it at a weird moment dan i'm rolling a new guy i'm rolling a new guy so uh oh brother okay milestone or xp we're doing Milestone. I like to do Milestone because I have so many homebrew monsters and stuff. Oh, okay.

So am I allowing the sources, Eberron content and Magic the Gathering? Yeah, you can allow the critical role stuff, whatever you want. You've got full access because you're a part of our special little account. Okay. Um, but yeah, are you doing this just to experiment Brian or have you already kind of decided what you're going to do?

I know my guy now. Oh shit. Whoa. Tell us, uh, Ronnie yen. It's, uh,

it's Danny's, uh, older brother that, uh, has come to, uh, uh uh find him and off well there's heard that something happened to him and is uh here to you know either find him and avenge it or avenge his death either or oh shit is he a monk yes okay dang well here we go okay then i then guess what? I'm going bard. It's happening.

Ooh. Oh, my God. I'm excited. Now, so is Ronnie Yen, is he going to be a half-elf like Danny was? Yeah, they're brothers. Well, sure, but, you know, half-brothers. Tell us. I don't know.

You should make his brother be a troglodyte and constantly have to explain new listeners that's a voice that Chris does a character named William Rogers Monison the fifth I didn't know he had a full name like that

Dan what are the advantages to not doing that to not having him be a half-elf? Just the very basic... Just to make it different? Yeah, he's an elf or he's a human. I think the stat differences are very minor. An elf has dark vision or something.

But it won't be... It'll mostly be role-playing fun. Could I play him as a like, a dark elf? Yeah. Oh, 100%. But I don't want to, I don't want to be the, you know, chaotic asshole in the group. I don't want to be a bad dude. I kind of want to, you know.

There's a very. He's a little selfish because he's really about his brother, but he also will abide. It's a fun bit of backstory. We find out that Dany was half drow the whole time. Yeah, maybe. Have I played a drow? I have. Didn't I do a... Darkthor was half drow.

But he was half drow. Darkthor Sturry, right? Yeah. If you went full drow, that'd be fun. What's one thing... What is full drow, that'd be fun. What's one thing... What is full drow? But that doesn't make your alignment change, does it? No. First of all, I apologize for Ernie

who's excited that a door creaked. But... Ernie can do whatever he wants. Alignment has become kind of outdated. I don't think they really do it anymore in 5th edition. But the basic thing with alignment

is you can decide. It's up to you because it's more fun to let your character be completely episode to episode. What do they feel like morally they want to choose to do? And drow are usually chaotic evil, yes.

Or sometimes lawful evil. So it's only given me the options of high elf, wood elf, or sometimes lawful evil. So it's only given me the it's only given me the options of high elf, wood elf, or eladrin elf. Oh, well let me hop on in. It should be an option for dark elf. And I'm going to go ahead and

make a character two, because I think they might call it something different now, based off of where they're from but like I don't know man I forget technical stuff like this all the time the the big benefit if you are a drow is fairy fire drows come with fairy fire which is a spell that lets you make an enemy glow and have to be more likely to get hit. Yeah, I used it. It's fun.

You know what? The character might have to join the nerd poker. I'm going to go ahead because this is a good conversation topic. They have to join the nerd poker campaign. Once you're in the nerd poker campaign, you get access to all this stuff. How do I do it?

I'm going to drop the campaign link in our Zoom chat. I'm having the same problem. I don't see it either. My character is, I think, a part of the campaign, but maybe not. Let me see. Well, what I'm going to do is just make sure there is

space. Go back to the beginning of this. If you go into the link I just sent and make your character through that, you should be able to easily access whatever you want. But it is

tricky and like... Just let me know. It's tricky to rock a rhyme. Rock a rhyme that's right on time tricky tricky tricky oh yeah i think i can't i yeah you're right how do i add to a can how do i don't know if i can add to a campaign or if you need to you should be able to again the link should be able to take care of it yes and i just switched uh content sharing which is the special thing off and on again to make sure there's no glitches but ah there we go okay but um i also freed up some room i took some

of our former bonus episode guests out of the campaign to make sure there's not like a limit because i know the campaign's got like only so many slots available. Let's just get stitches. Yeah, like you guys could Did you send me the link here on the chat? It's in the chat. Somebody talk. Yeah. Dead air. Sorry. Put Zeppelin on. Anyway, yeah. Blaine, what are you thinking

between Cleric or something else oh you know i'm right now i am looking at uh uh i'm just updating dr uid i think i'm just gonna bring him home it would be fun fun so dr uid what type of uh what type of character is he? Is he a fighter? Dr. Uwud, well, he was a half-elf, and he was a former professor

at a university where he had tenure. I just want to point out that he was a tenured professor, very well respected among the faculty and the students. I build up a lot of tenures, what I'm saying. And they chased him into the woods where where he became just, you know, sort of a little more tuned with nature than he normally would have been or like.

Can I fill this little bit of silence with an actual question? I feel this little bit of silence with an actual question. When you were just picking a character a minute ago, you said something like you could choose between a milestone character or... XP, yeah. What does that mean? So, you ever play a video game where there's an XP bar? Oh, yeah. Experience points.

Basically, a lot of monsters are built where it says how much experience they're worth when you kill it. Okay. But I like to give experience points for finding treasure or solving a puzzle, and it gets really complicated. And so, for me to do experience points, I just end up making too much work for myself. Milestone is easier because I can just go, oh, they hit an important part of the story. They're resting after a big fight they feel themselves become empowered from their new experiences and either through thumbing through a spell book they just found or whatever each

character has access to new abilities because they're either remembering something or learning something got it very cool i don't know one thing it's honestly the lazy version and i like it for that reason but also like because we break these into episodes i feel like it's so easy to see where the milestones are you know it's not like some people like including myself with like you play a 12-hour session and everybody get drunk and you're on your third pizza like you're just like oh wait where are we even in this adventure? Pizza. Then it helps to have math to kind of like have rails that'll guide you where you're going.

How many of the XP points do you get when you do finally climb up the boat? 13,000. For some reason, creep is great out here. When I signed in. Oh no. Well, maybe,

maybe that is an issue, but I have creeps sheet out here when I signed in. Oh, no. Maybe that is an issue, but I have Queep's sheet right here. Weird. Do you have too many characters? I think you're only allowed to have six. That's probably what it is. That's the link to Queep's character right there.

You can at least go to it. I don't know why he's grayed out, but you probably just have too many characters. If it's in there, then I'm not worried about it. Okay. He's level nine. Yeah, I'll bring him down. That's probably for a bonus episode. The Queep's character.

This sounded cool. Oh, yeah, I see it now. Here I am. There you go. Perfect. So, Sarah, what were you saying about uh dr uid um dr uid i just was wondering what his you know it's an interesting class yes but his class is what i mean i can't imagine what dr uid it took me actually the first time i've really long time. Because I never saw it written down. So, that's all.

Well, I just... Just a doctor. Like I said, a tenured professor at the university. We did get that. Don't yell at us again. I'm not yelling. Trying to keep my powers at bay. So, one fun thing that we custom did for Blaine with Dr. Uid,

which I think we've stated a couple of times, but is worth calling out, he rolled really high stats, and he felt bad about it. And I said, guess what, Blaine, you can keep them, but now I get to punish you for it. So when he casts a spell, he has to roll a 100 sided die every single time and if it's high

it falls onto a table of wild magic effects that suddenly take place like sometimes he might hover his hands might turn to jelly something might explode inside of him all kinds of weird shit so uh yeah looking forward to

it and he role plays it delightfully as if the magic is causing a vein in his forehead to throb angrily i enjoy it very much it hurts when i spell but yeah now is the part where everyone's just starting to stare at their character sheets mindfully should we go ahead and make a character then? If I'm going to go ahead and be a cleric? Yeah, I cleared up space for everybody if you want to go right in

and add them to the campaign. Totally, totally. Are all the ones that I put in here on D&D Beyond? Yeah, and I'll link you Dr. Uid. I have Dr. Uid's link, so I'm going to grab that for you.

Okay, yeah, I'm working on it right now. Lovely. Perfect. It says that your username is Blaine Kapach, so you might have to find that login. But Blaine, the most recent link in the Zoom chat is to Dr. Uwud. Ah. So, wait, Dan, should we start rolling things up is that what you want

yeah i think you should because you get to decide things and you can share on the air i think people are going to want to hear it you know and like we'll do you know a little bit of discussion about your starting equipment and stuff but it's much more interesting to listen you guys talk about like especially your your race and class and some of the abilities you're picking up why you did it brian did you finally get dark elf working yeah and i'm uh i'm dark elf monk oh fun i never did slow fall i don't think danny ever used slow fall that's some good stuff fuck uh so level eight my friend yes sir okay i i always have a there's a big drow subplot from season three too so i can i can work that into the story if you like uh so it automatically did my hit points it says max hp is 43 you can

edit that oh how do i do that? So, I'm going to go into a character as an example. It's at the beginning. It says you can pick whether you want to do it manually. What do you think's the advantage? It's the fun of rolling your hit points. That's all it really is.

I feel like every time I make a character, which is not nearly as often as I would like, you get to have your 20 have your 20-sideds out. And the thing I like to do for NerdPoker, my standard, I think you all share this with me, is, you know, you roll 20s for everything. There's six tributes you're rolling for.

I say for each one, you don't roll 20s, you roll six-sided dice. You roll four of them and you drop the lowest number and re-roll all ones.

You do that seven times and you cut whatever the lowest total is and then you arrange them into strength dexterity constitution intelligence wisdom charisma wherever you want that's kind of that's pretty much what we did cut the lows and re-roll the ones yeah you know i i think that keeps it fun that keeps keeps anybody from having to have a character with a three. Like, everyone at the very least will have a six. Okay, but I'm at HP now, so what do I do about that? Well, you can roll. It says manage hit points.

Got out of the... Do you override? Is that what you're... Yeah, like, I'm trying to figure out how yeah because they rolled they rolled eight or d8 eight times is that what it is it's it's whatever your hit dice so yeah it says um if you go to like the first page of your walkthrough it says first page of your walkthrough it says what your hit dice are um and it should be like like for instance i have one that is a level five warlock named gago uh and it says five d8 d8 is his hit dice he's level five so you're doing level eight. You're going to do whatever the hit die is from Monk,

which I don't remember off the top of my head, but I can find out in two seconds. It says D8. Yeah. So eight D8. Eight-sided dice. Roll it up. Or let me pick.

Is there a way to do it with the website? I mean, with the... Yeah. Sarah, you look like you might know did you just oh i just was doing it for myself so oh no i mean yes but yeah you know the little die in the bottom left hand corner oh does that show up on the screen too oh yeah it is there okay and then if you click you can click the d8 eight times and it'll it'll roll them all at once. Yeah.

So that's the digital way to do it. This is the kind of thing I like to bust out the old physical dice for and enjoy the weird analog feeling of holding physical things that create the health. Feels

blacksmith-y, weird homunculus vibes creating my person that way right but uh please once you find out interesting things like uh your hit points your stats i love to hear what you guys start coming up with and names especially for the new characters and you know um ken i feel like if you've decided on queep you've got some loot we should probably talk about do you have queeps loot available to look at i'm looking right now because there's you know some magic stuff that could make this a little wild and we might want to negotiate it. He's got a lot of nice stuff and I don't want to take

anything away. I just want to kind of be reminded, you know. Don't take my stuff away. Okay. Let's see. Well, all I'm seeing... He's a great artist. There you go. Uh... Well, all I'm seeing... I know he has a great axe. Dual blade of Kukla. There you go.

I have the messaging stone, I guess. He's got a great axe. He's got a battle axe. He's got a heavy crossbow. He's got javelins. He can do talent attacks. Yes. Got all that.

Oh, and eighth level, I could add a feat, so I added Lucky, because I like that one. Mithril. Or Clucky. Or Plucky. Why do I have Mithril Ulnar here? What does that mean? Ulnar. Armor? It's got to be have Mithril Ulnar here? What does that mean? Ulnar?

Armor? It's gotta be armor. Right? Ulnar. Strange skeleton, orange leg bone. Hmm. My notes are wonderful. Yeah, we're gonna do great this year. We're all gonna take awesome notes. Will you also... awesome notes will you also I have that you also have

fireball bead bomb the dual blade of kukla can do a 30 foot boomerang attack yeah and I don't what's the damage it glows 30 feet plus 7 to attack

yeah plus 4 to attack. Yeah, plus 4 to attack, plus 7. So, but what's the, what is the hit dice? It is the same as a greataxe, so it is 1d12 plus 3. Okay. And

I think if you look, your greataxe should be like customized in there, but I'm not sure. Um, we tried to customize it. I don't remember if it worked in D and D beyond. I don't know how easily you can customize the weapons. Oh, into, into the blade of Kukla. Yeah.

And like, um, well, I can just do it every time I can look it up. I have it in my notes. You can also leave a message inside the ax and it's sentient and it has feelings. Oh, that's, I see that. Yes.

Um, you have claw boots. Also you have, you have claw boots that you got from the, that I don't see from the air from a crashed airship in season three. So folks specifically, Queep is from season three. Um,

he is from the continent of Clottenheim that we were all going to. Uh, Chris is very helpfully putting the, uh, how to roll your stats in chat. So if anyone needs a reminder, Chris, that's what I was just asking.

Yeah. Sorry. I was just trying to, no, super, super helpful to have it in writing. Cause even as i'm saying it out loud i'm like okay gotta go over it very slowly very helpful to have it in writing so okay 4d6 pick the top three out of four dice re-roll any ones do this seven times then keep the best six out of seven

jesus christ i just rolled one of my hit dice and subtracted that much for mine to do the level. If that sounds complicated, Brian, just roll four six-sided dice and do it one step at a time. Reroll the ones and then... I'll be okay. I was just looking at

some of the old stuff of getting re-familiarized with Dr. Uwud here. I had a poison spray and produced flame cantrips and I would use it to produce flaming poison. That was fun. And also that I have a wild shape that I can

change forms into like green moss covered other forms. Oh, by the way, I'm covered with like plant life. I'm like a chia professional. Yeah, you've got mushrooms growing out of you and you have a soft green fur over your entire

body. Yes, it's unfortunate. Veggie mammal. Dan, I'm going to be a variant human. Ooh, tell me about the variant part of this human. The variant human is Not as sexy hopefully

Or not hopefully But I don't think your reaction is Very excited It means you get a feat And can take two plus ones As opposed to a plus two And some plus ones And so for the feat

Because I'm thinking of a cleric, I'm picking a, I think it's like heavy armor or heavy. Oh, nice. I know Sarah loves this gives you the big thing is it gives me a proficiency with heavy armor. Heavily armored is the name of it.

Um, uh, and so for that, I get get uh proficient the big thing is proficiency with heavy armor so i can take some damage hopefully and and not die after a round by the way i'm looking in the nerd poker like campaign and all the different characters that all of you have made and a couple of them that I have made for you and stuff. I love looking at your templates of you guys as you go. I see Ronnie Yen in there.

Also, I see a character named Sarah New Karachter. The word character is spelled Karachter. I was trying to rush to put it out into the campaign. You're calling me out. Jeez Louise. Listen, this is the kind of dumb fun you get to have in a session zero. Well, I hope that you're excited that I'm picking as my primary instrument a horn. Because I think it's going to be great in the depths of this Lich dungeon.

I'm stoked to have a bard. I'm bringing a horn. I'm bringing a drum. And I'm bringing a lute or a lyre. Now, I have a big question for you. loot or a liar. Now, I have a big question for you. Are you going to do a very popular, very classic

bard roleplaying move of singing a song to represent the spell you're casting each time you're doing it? I think we're going to have to wait and see how that goes. I don't think anyone really would want me to do that. Oh, I disagree.

You haven't heard me sing that much i think that's why people want to hear it theme song so people want to hear a doors unlimited themed song every time oh that does sound fun again if you're just tuning in to our podcast stores unlimited was a store in suburban new jersey i think anyway the commercial was very funny uh and i listened to it a lot growing up in uh philadelphia and they had a very bold loud dumb theme song that only had four words actually it only had two words repeated back to back and it went a little something like this ch, take it away. Doors Unlimited.

Unlimited. Well, with that look, I will not be continuing your bit, Sarah. No. How does it count, Sarah? How does it sound? I ruined it. No, how does it go, Sarah? Who else wants to sing the Doors Unlimited theme? Ken wants to!

Factory direct low prices. Doors Unlimited. Unlimited doors. Unlimited doors. Unlimited doors. Oh, I don't need that last part. What happened? Doors Unlimited.

Unlimited doors. Wow. Doing that the whole season? I don't think so. Are you kidding me? Is that it? Nice. Doors Unlimited.

Doors Unlimited. Doors Unlimited. Doors Unlimited. And then your slogan is Unlimited Doors? We got it the first time starts too high starts too high I like Sarah's new challenge

this season though which is to challenge someone to do something they've never done before and then to harass them I look forward to this new bit how does it feel because I'm turning it back on you Chris listeners you will learn is one of the cruelest I look forward to this new bit. How does it feel? Because I'm turning it back on you. Chris, listeners, you will learn is one of the cruelest people that you can possibly imagine. Just head to toe filled with bile and hatred.

Yeah, he's one of the worst people. Oh, my God. Deeply narcissistic. Yeah. No, that's okay, Sarah. We're having a lot of fun. Universally beloved. Whatever.

Well, if you guys are still polishing your characters... Come on, guys. I gotta swing by in the van again and we're all gonna go to the Queen Mary. I'm gonna come toot this horn at everyone. Okay, so how do you put... I got my numbers. How do I put them into D&D Beyond where it says score calculations and all that?

Score calculations? You playing pinball with this little man's? No, it says ability scores. Oh. I think you pick manual. That's where you roll the dice and then manual. Yeah, yeah. It's manual.

Oh, where? There should be a drop down somewhere, and I'm looking there now. Oh, choose a generation method. That's it. Folks, this is an extended commercial for D&D Beyond. You're welcome. I was just going to say if there's any downtime,

I can catch listeners up a little bit on this arch lich that you're fighting. The main thing you guys as listeners should know is like this is the big evil on the entire plane of existence in previous seasons so the character is headed to kill this guy he is currently the most powerful at least most powerful well-known being on this plane of existence and what's especially curious about him is he was originally a simple sun elf king and then a comet hit this planet the city of elves he lived in he had them blink out as a safety measure blink this this castle out of the plane of existence to protect it and they went to the feywild um but time went in a different pace in the feywild and this castle aged thousands of years

and through dark magic that they had just started practicing before they blinked into the Feywild, the High Council all made themselves liches. So there is a Vendarian High Council. The head of it is King Valix. The arch lich that you are going to kill is a necromancer king. He was originally just the king of Vendaria, but when Vendaria came back and all of them were undead, they decided that they were going to harness some new power that was gifted to King Valix to take over the continent. This was, of course, a power that was discovered by the main heroes of Season 3

that they thought they could trust King Valak because they thought he was but a simple elf, but they were hoodwinked. And this was a part of a very disappointing finale for our heroes in season three. Not every campaign in Dungeons and Dragons ends on a high note. Sometimes there's what they call a TPK, a total party kill, and sometimes the dungeon master's a real asshole and doesn't prompt the heroes to do an insight

check when they're potentially being lied to. And everyone trusted a Dan Telfer non-player character, and where it got them was a very unfortunate place. Thanks a lot. You're welcome.

I remember it. So now what? I'm picking my college right now, which is cool because as a bard, it looks like I get at third level, I get to have picked a college. And since I'm eighth level, I am going to go to Bard. Bazan. Yeah. University of Chicago is supposed to be very good. I,

yeah, their math department. I'm going to, um, I'm going to go to a state school because I do not want to be saddled with this debt. And I feel like everyone knows where I'm coming from. No,

I'm going to pick the college of swords though. Doesn't that sound fun? Doesn't that sound delightful? Yes. Doesn't that sound like a great pick for my bard? Yes. I got a horn in one hand. I got a sword in the other.

Let's go. And unlimited doors. Kill a Lich King. And unlimited doors to open. That's what this campaign's really going to be about. And you know what? Nice. Sam also loves,

wait, no, Sam doesn't love. No, Sam does love doors. I forget. Sam loves it. When we rest,

he loves the amount of doors in this game. Oh, he's back. He doesn't have pants on. Okay. Sam, are you wearing pants? He sat down.

So it just looked, yeah, okay. I do, I love, yeah, you listed all the things I do love. Sam, our sound engineer, loves rests, long rests and short rests, but I think particularly long rests. And I realize you've been doing a lot of, for new listeners, recapping of old things, and the reason I'm so excited was because one time during an episode, despite listening to everything that was going on for over a year, I just pieced it together when I heard the term wings and very delicately turned to Ken and was like, are you a bird?

Can you and then asked, can you be birds? And everyone had had to explain to me just how fantasy D&D is. Yes, there's many exciting many exciting things in the game. And I was so blown away and thrilled. Were you aware Chris was a rabbit in the last game? I was. And only because, I'm not kidding, I'm pretty sure he made an in-joke reference to me

and was like, I am a human-sized large. And I was like, got it. I got it. I am a human-sized large. And I was like, got it. I got it. And now I know everything there is to know about the game. Found my old hero forge.

Oh, there he is. Yeah, I can't stress enough. At the faculty. Even if we never get to play in person, going to hero forge and making a little figurine of your hero is going to be a very satisfying experience sarah i'd like to update my list to add one more thing i like yes when we rest like when we climb up the boats i like door like the doorstep i also i realize how much i like this when we do the q a's at the end of the season and dan explains what he was going to do i like when dan explains that he has

this incredible world built but you guys never did it because you essentially stopped in the driveway and then just did a small like dug a hole in the mailbox for all i i've had my revenge on the many times over nothing thrills me more than that too and you guys go well there's a octopus in there and he goes goes, mm-hmm. Like we were just doing the training part of the video game. We're like, wait, oh, there's a whole game. Oh, man. I thought we were just That gets me very good.

We should spend most of our time in this campaign outside of the castle. Yeah. Well, I think, Chris, we don't know a lot about your character yet. Have you gotten a little more? I'm thinking I'm going to be a cleric human variant. I think, Chris, we don't know a lot about your character yet. Have you gotten it? Sure. I'm thinking I'm going to be a cleric, human variant. I think my – how does it work? The class stuff.

I think I'm going to be – what is the – my divine domain, I think, is going to be a light domain, which i think kind of steers me towards sort of a lot of kind of like fire powers i don't think exclusively but i'm thinking sort of so a guy who kind of like worships like i don't know light and the sun maybe he's got like a little sun sitting on top of the yeah you know where we had talked about a couple of sun gods in just the finale of the last season when you were going through some god temples so yeah yeah so i was there's a sun god thing called i think it's called like the silver light i gotta find the silver flame um the quintessentially pure abstract entity of goodness and law so i'm thinking maybe that

might be good somebody who's just sort of generally devoted to goodness and burning evil so i think he might be somebody like that fine has he got a name yet no i mean i'll try once i kind of figure out the fire stuff makes me kind of i'm trying to look at spells and just get a sense of it um but you know you can take the week to figure his name out because that's a very special part of the character so don't worry about that you know if i just like to find out where you're at and get where uh you've built so far. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking. Cool. Sarah, do you have a name for your character yet? Name is going to have to wait because that is going to be the last thing that I do, probably.

But I will say that I just picked a new feat. And I think you're going to like it. I picked the feat called Keen Mind. Oh, I know that one. Which means that I have a mind great thank you that can track time okay um direction could be helpful uh and detail with uncanny precision which means that i get to increase my intelligence score by one i always know which way is north even when i'm underground say um i

always know the number of hours left before the next sunrise or sunset but best of all and this is the one that i'm i'm psyched about you can accurately recall anything you've seen or heard within the past month so when we have these moments where we're rolling to be like oh do you remember what this guy said or what direction we were supposed to turn or i will be able to just say dan i use my keen mind and the notes that i took because i'm gonna do a really good job this season taking notes as i've promised everybody and i will keep promising to make myself keep saying it yeah well i'm trying to force it to actually happen um so yeah, that's keen mind. So I've got a horn. I've got

a drum, hand drum. I've got a sword. I've got a keen mind and I'm ready to go. I don't have a name yet. What race is your character? Variant human. We have two humans? I don't know that we've even had a human in a long time.

You know what? I like humans. I'm a fan of humans. I think they get a bad rap in D&D. I like getting that feet. Love them feets. Love the feets. We should have their own wiki. Nobody look at me askance whatsoever.

I simply love feets. Why would we ever make a joke about such a harmless, wholesome phrase? Hey, that reminds me. I'm going to send my friend Euro Tarantino some.3048 picks. Well, one thing we can definitely discuss over text is like, if you want to give Brian, Sarah, Chris, your new character, like one item that kind of fits their class i will totally allow it um in particular if there's something you want to have gifted to them from your season

four character uh that that is a really easy fix because your season four characters are all on the same boat that these characters you guys are going you like queep ronnie n dr uid sarah's character chris's character you're all some of the refugees that are going to raid this dungeon now that season four characters are on this too i want there to be this idea that there's this bank of like 20 heroes all on this boat that are all going to kind of go separate ways once you arrive on the banks of the castle. At the end of their journey? Yeah, but like I want you to know when your character dies, there's heroes that are also trying to make their way through the various dungeons and rooms. So there's easy segue into saying, you know, Iva appears because

blank. Not necessarily because Iva's the character you're excited to use, but not Agatha, because Agatha, as we know, is dead. No, she's out there, and he specifically said that Iva's small bird creature friend, Agatha. We'll see.

Now, I will say one character that has very close ties to this from season three is Halcine. Yeah. Halcine's father is Vincenzo Eberlo, who is in the Vendarian High Council. So one of the big liches

hiding in this castle is a season three character's father. Whether you ever want to bring that in is fine with me. But also I will allow you guys, if you wanted to like talk to me over text about like having a weird cameo, I will allow it. But I want to make sure we organically work it in because I want these new listeners we have for season five to be able to understand what's going on so it's not just like a sudden drop-in. But like Sarah, for instance, if you're like, oh, I want Hal Seen to deliver

this one item that I know the party is about to find, just text me and we'll make it a fun surprise for the rest of the cast. Sounds good. Yeah, that's about it. And you you know like uh anyone have any questions do we feel like we're at a good uh point to uh you know go our separate ways brian you seem like you've got most of it figured out how you doing yeah eye color on drow eye color and drow is usually a variation of like red or pink um because they're sunlight sensitive but it's up to you okay cool and then uh what was the religion that um

my brother uh followed oh that's a good question i'm not sure does anyone else remember we can go back and listen. No! How do you add personality traits? Nothing comes up. Well, that's kind of in the back end. The last few choices you have when you make a character in D&D and beyond is their background and stuff like that. That'll be there, but a lot of that is up to you

to just kind of work in. I'm excited to meet the three new characters and to have a couple of callback characters is going to be really fun. I'm glad that all of you had my back. All of you had my back and helped remind new listeners

who say Dr. Uyghur and Kweepor and anytime we can do that in these first few episodes, especially episode one or next time, it's going to be really useful to listeners. So I'm one more quick thing. Yeah. What's up,

right? Alignment. It is coming up on this. So what, what you can pick, whatever you want. It's, it's really flexible.

And I, I like to play like I've, I've messed with penalties. What do you think he is? Like what, what a nomadic monk that's out for revenge. Sounds like chaotic neutral to me.

Brian, do you think he likes hugs? Probably not. Well, I think we're going to test that. I'd say he's chaotic neutral or if you want to make him a devout believer in his God, he'd be lawful neutral.

Chris, have we ever talked about this? You know, that used to go around that I didn't like hugs. And then Melanie, my wife, was told that before we went on our first date, the girls in our group, like specifically, I think it was Janine and like maybe Sarah told, hey, just so you know, Brian does not like being touched or hugged. Now, when you say the girls in our group, you mean when you went to prom, right?

Imagine, well, basically, I was set up. Somebody went and told Melanie that I liked her and then Melanie was like, really? He doesn't say a word to me, which was true. But wait, Brian, do you like hugs?

From her and from people that I love and that it's real. I hate hugs that are fake. I thought you, Brian. And yeah. And like, I'm going to come. Specifically, there was a there was a woman who hosted an open, and she would make you hug her when you got on stage, and that's what got around because I would recoil when that happened. I'm the same way.

And when you're 6'7 and you recoil, everybody notices. Some people want to greet. Some people, and I don't have a problem, but I mean, I'm not a hugger either, but some people, when they meet you, want to hug, you know? And I'm always taken aback because it's the last thing. I'm like, oh, we're hugging now. What's happening? Bro touches drive me crazy. If a dude

touches my shoulder or near my neck, I want to flip them off the planet. I really do. You've also flipped me off the planet. What about a kiss behind the ear? What about just a gentle, like a butterfly kiss? Or like a little soft breath in your ears. What about a kiss behind the ear? Yeah, what about just a gentle, like a butterfly kiss? Or like a little soft breath in your ears.

What about when I caress your ear? I think it's violence. I think my answer is violence. Oh my gosh, what a great season. I'm excited. Got to be packing up my massage chair. I'm wearing a forced birth of violence t-shirt right now. Now we're getting into it.

Oh, that's great. You guys made that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's protest. But yeah. Yeah. When I was just like drinking, I went to Tijuana and a guy scooted a chair up behind me because my roommate told him to give me a shot and i was already drunk and so i saw the

chair scoot up behind me and this dude comes starts to come over me and my friend had to go no no no no because they can see that i was like adjusting my weight oh no to fucking wwe this guy under the under the fucking ground and that's like is that's exactly where my head, I'm not a violent guy, but that fucking, that feeling. It's a reaction. It's a trigger. Well, Brian, speaking of you attacking strangers, are there any live show dates you'd like to plug?

San Diego Comic Con. We will be appearing at the American Comedy Company. Together. Yep, downtown San Diego in the Gaslight District, where what it is is they pretend like they're not gaslighting you, but they are. They're totally gaslighting you. If you want to be gaslit, go to the Gaslight District.

It's right next to the Mansplain. go to the gaslet district and there's it's right next to the mansplain uh and remember brian will deny telling you that he's a man's man's queen neighborhood i heard both those places were really good all right uh anybody else i think when this goes live i'll be doing my show in la called my friends kill this This is live? No, next Monday. Can you imagine? But yeah, it'll be at the Glendale Room in beautiful Glendale, California. So I would love, it's 8 o'clock

there with Adam Quinnell, Yasser Lester, Gray Delisle, Jackie Cation, and Danielle Perez. I would love if listeners wanted to check it out. That's a fantastic lineup. That's a really good lineup. July 5th, yeah.

And I think this goes live on the 4th. What's the name of the club again? Are you at Flappy's or where is this? Glendale Room. Glendale Room is this cool. I have not been there yet. Oh, come on by, man. I'll be like, great.

We'll talk about it, but it's- Blaine likes it? Blaine did the show in, I want to say, March. Glendale Room. I've never even heard of it. It's a new, it's cool. It want to say March. Glendale. It's cool. It's like a converted library. No kidding. It's not in Arcadia? It's like doing a show in a

NPR studio. It looks like one of those shows sound. Sure, it's not in Venice. It's not in Venice or Santa Monica. The Glendale room is in Glendale. Just wait until you see the address. Of all places.

And that's City of Industry. And that's City of Industry or Whittier. How long can this go? Brian, it's in Glendale. I don't get it. Why isn't it in Irvine? If I wanted to go to Irvine to see the Glenwood, thanks for listening.

Wait, no. Not yet. Oh, what do we got? First, I want to know. No, first I want to know. Blaine's fake news? No, no, no. Sam, what do you think we talked about on this episode?

Oh, shit. I don't know why. Why bother asking? You know the only piece of information that I kept is that Ken is, again, a bird. Oh, listeners. only piece of information that i kept was that ken is again a bird oh listeners the delight this is gonna keep bringing us in and i got to hear his voice i yelled from my kitchen when he did the voice but yeah you know i do what you look you look like an extra in a movie where you yell hey what the? You're wearing a tank top that says Brooklyn right now. Yeah, he's in a

Spike Lee joint. I'm in a pack of bullies. I'm small one. I know that. I go, you gonna take that? But not for me so other people fight. I go, ooh. Yeah. Yo, check this guy out.

And I meant to say this earlier speaking of me being small the way your reaction to the shoulder thing uh i more than once in a life it's for some reason people big guys think it's very funny to pick me up and like a huggy thing which will i also am not violent at all but will trigger an immediate face punching like more than once I've punched someone directly in the face and they've recoiled and I've gone I don't like that. Hey Sam. Hey Sam can I crack your back Sam?

Now that one I enjoy because I can tell you are implying that you would crawl into my bed next to me and delicately do it. I can tell by that voice that's what you mean. So yes. I've had people try to jump into my arms. I've had young people try to jump into my arms. I've had young people try to jump into my arms. They've been dropped.

I don't even attempt. Why would you? Brian, I also assume you would have had a good amount of you're in the concert and people try and like crowd surf onto you or something where you're like, I'm not. Wait, what's you're in the concert? You are in the concert. It's a new show going around the country. It's R. Kelly at the... Dan, you've never're in the concert? You are in the concert. It's a new show going around the country.

It's R. Kelly at the... Dan, you've never pissed in the pit? Oh, dude, a circle pit while you're pissing is the best. What? Wow. Well, hey, I am curious, Blaine, what happens on the next episode of Nerd Poker?

On the next Nerd Poker, lightning brings Brian's George Foreman grill to life and it beats the shit out of him. Ken finds a genie in a bottle and flits those chewables. And Sarah races airliners with Bruce Dickinson all the way to Patagonia. Winter gets the sole snow. On the next Nerd Poker.

Nice. Your listening is appreciated thanks for listening to another episode of nerd poker you can follow us at patreon.com slash nerd poker and you get bonus episodes from there and you can also uh send us anything at p.o box one six zero six in Encino, California at 91416. Thanks for listening.