Nerd Poker - S5E22 Sleigh Ride (Plus Monster Murder)

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

After an official, heavily rehearsed Christmas Carol, our crew just might focus enough to take down the gigantic gelantinous cube and the clutch of will-o-wisps. Will they save the mysterious wizard, or will they kinda forget he's there and let him get annihilated? Hell, maybe they will straight up forget they're in combat and do impressions the whole episode. Guess and take bets. and Happy Holidays dear listeners!  For merch, social media, and more be sure to head to nerdpokerpod.com. And for 3 bonus episodes a month and more, subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/nerdpoker.  

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 Posehn's Nerd Poker. Hey, it's Billy. Season five. Hey, everybody. My name is Brian Posehn. This episode.

Wow, Sarah really did like that voice. It's scary. It's pretty weird. Episode 22 of nerd poker if you're counting and we are my friends are here look at them uh chris hey buddy hey man i love your new voice keep it up all right is that a knock on Toby Plaza shirt? It sure is. Wow.

Yep. I've already watched that movie like six times this Christmas. Watch it last night. It was awesome. Yeah, we just did too. Dan, hello, pal. Hey, Brian. How's your mistletoe hanging?

What you got in that coffee cup? You got coffee in there or something else? It's just dry marijuana. It's just dry marijuana. Yeah. It's delicious. I like its face. Your coffee cup has a face.

It does. Yeah. Sarah's here. Oh, wow. Somebody handmade that for you? Yep. Her shop is called Skeletal Dropkick. I had that made

specifically right before we rebooted it for Patreon. I brought it to your house a couple of times. Oh wow, cool. Sarah, how are you? Hi, I'm good. Should I try out a new voice too? Yeah, do it. This is the voice I'm going to

use for the entire episode. we'll see how it goes what do you think do you like that one I think I love it Chris is really into it yep we talked to Ken but have we formally introduced Ken no hi this is my terrible

voice audition this is how I'm going to talk for the rest of the show. What do you think, guys? Hi, everybody. Love you all. Ken's finally using his real voice. Oh, God, it's such a relief to finally let myself

go. Be the real me. There's a little bit of Emo Phillips in there. Speaking of Emo Phillips, Blaine's here. Hey, how you doing? I don't get no respect. It's me of Emo Phillips in there. Speaking of Emo Phillips, Blaine's here. Hey, how you doing? I don't get no respect. It's me, Emo.

Hey, no respect. I'm Emo Phillips. Oh, hey, no respect. Telling you. This fucking guy. And Sweet Angel. Our shirtless millennial engineer, he's in the cloud. He's helping.

He's making other podcasts. He's alive. He's not in those clouds. Yeah, he's here. He's not like that Scientology lady. He is alive. Yeah, he's bumming out people that have been in Lord of the Rings. That was amazing. I hope he's posted that on social media.

That's fucking amazing. So people that don't know, look up Sam's profile on social media. He dressed as a hot Gandalf, which is apparently a meme that the old people weren't aware of. Me being one of them. But yeah. He sent it to group text, I think, before he posted it. And there's

really nothing like my situation where I was at a nerdy convention busting out my phone and just noticing my phone was suddenly full of photos of Gandalf with his titties hanging out. That was really a... at a nerdy convention, busting out my phone and just noticing my phone was suddenly full of photos of Gandalf with his titties hanging out. That was really a...

With Sean Esten and... Yeah, oh yeah. With some ooze. Elijah Wood. Elijah Wood. Posing with the actual people who are in the Hobbit,

making them look at Gandalf's titties. They're making a face like I made when he said the thing, like, okay? Like, that's their face.

Like, this guy. Sean Astin was doing that. But Sean Astin had a little bit of like, oh, all right. Like, he really was very expressive. A lot going on. You know, at lunch, they were like, what was up with that one guy? He made a. He made his.

Yeah, he won it. Yeah. All right. if that's a meme yeah he won it yeah alright do you want to thank some people I do and guess what we thanked all of our upper tier Patreon supporters for the year so but also it's our last episode before Christmas

so instead of just thanking folks by name, we're all going to now sing our very well rehearsed Christmas carol that we have all been planning to sing at the same time over Zoom. And a one and a two and a three. Let's hear those sleigh bells jingling, jingling, jingling. And it's lovely weather for us to lay right together. And because it's a Christmas song, here's a weird line about Christ. Because the Christian church has infiltrated our holiday.

And then we got a thought. Stop! That dick flew out of all the hats. And everybody put a hat on the snowman. Lingers your money into the tax free cult. They're taking all of your well-earned money. Everybody put a hat on the snowman. Giddy up, giddy up, giddy up, let's go. Give the church a little fardo. Then one day, they were something, something.

And Frosty said, hey, I'm going to run away from you and try to stay alive. And Frosty melted in hey, I'm going to run away from you and try to stay alive. And Frosty melted in the caustic snow. Frosty was summoned by an evil necromancer. The end. Merry Christmas, everybody. So sorry. That went just like in rehearsal. Move over, Captain Beefheart.

There's something new you can't listen to. Blaine, who's that song brought to us by? That song brought to us and our Patreon supporters brought to us by... Hi, I'm old Schwarzenegger. You might know me from a series of hit movies. I was also the governor of California and I was there bodybuilding for a while. Anyhow, I lost my wallet and all my money. That's why I'm going

to tell you about Boston Market. It's a great place for the holidays. All the food is fresh and a lot of selections of beef, chicken, pork, and turkey especially for the holidays. They have a salad bar, all sorts of salad if you're not into the meat.

They also have the soup. Like the Boston Clam Char, of course, Boston have, they also have the soup, like the Boston clam chowder, of course, Boston Market, but also Manhattan clam chowder because they're not about hate. So take this from me, former governor of Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Boston Market, it's where you need to go if you lose your wallet to call your mom. Where have you been? I've lost it. I tried to repress my step. I got back.

I got out of the Hummer. I talked to Maria. I had a child with my mom.ressed my step. I got back. I got out of the Hummer. I talked to Maria. I had a child with my maid. Boston Market. Perfect for the holidays. If you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, you drop your wallet. Dan? What the?

Wow. I can't believe we got Bobcat Goldthwait. There are so many voices. There's Father Guido Sarducci. Actually, there was Grover. There was like a guy from Young Frankenstein. That's so great. Also, he apparently had been dosed

because that was the most active Arnold Schwarzenegger I've ever seen. He was fired up. There was definitely some Sarducci going on. I think there's a little bit of Father Guido in every character Blaine does oh my god that was good is there a Mother Guido

right Blaine if that could be Dr. Good's new voice I'd really appreciate it it's hard to maintain clearly yeah but you know what someday I would love to hear you maintain it

which one I swear I was doing I was doing a show at the old Luna Park and Arnold Schwarzenegger came back to talk to these

burlesque girls and he was very very excited and friendly and he was like I help you if you anything you need

I would get to help you with the costumes if you need to get props onto the stage he just was not. He was nonstop. Wow.

He's helpful. He's a helpful guy. It's almost like a side of him is gross. He was leering at the time, I'll say. I love him so much, though. The videos. Have you seen the ones where Will Sasso has the voice that have you seen the ones where I like him? I like the voice.

Have you seen the Will Sasso Arnold videos? Because Will Sasso just does an exaggerated Arnold. Very well. But it's so close to the real Arnold. But it still makes me fucking. Sasso is a force of nature. He's one of the funniest guys. Yeah, but the baby horse thing,

when he had a donkey and a baby horse during COVID in his house, do you know those videos? Oh, right, right, right, right. What? Yeah. He's got the greatest house ever, I guess, because he lets a miniature horse walk in, and then he's also got a burrow, like a fucking donkey.

And he talks to them. Something to fall back on. Yeah, and they're allowed just free reign, I guess. They just walk through his fucking nice ass house, and he's like, well, I got a donkey in the house, and I can't do the voice. He's, yeah.

Did you remember when he would do the egg thing? Eggs coming out of his mouth? Yeah. I'll watch anybody who puts a donkey in their house. My cat's nickname donkey. So I got a donkey in mine right now. Right on.

Get a shit. A donkey. A donkey. I call him donks. Donkey. Dumbass. Dumb fuck. All kinds of play some.

We should play some nerdy pokers some nerdy pokes yeah I mean we'll do what I call an approximation from last week oh I missed it nerdy pokes

oh nerdy pokes what's funny is that when you flip someone off on zoom it's like we all... Yeah, no one has any idea. Thank you for letting us know it was directed at Dan. It's not for you. If it was for you, it'd be like that. I feel special.

I'm actually over here. No, you're over here. You're here. Sarah is there. You're down. Brian's there. Chris is there. Dan. Here's there. Chris is there. Dan. Here's one for Chris. I'm pretty bunched.

Yeah. This is great for the listeners. We're all trying to figure out who we're pointing at. It doesn't even work for us because it's different for everyone. Somebody get some pictures. Go, everybody. A monkey in a slot machine. Can I?

You get a figure. Admit something that I've been doing for the duration of the pandemic. a monkey in a slot machine. Can I? You get a figure? Something that I've been doing for the duration of the pandemic is arranging the Zoom windows to be in the same pattern as we were around Brian's table. Oh, interesting. How dare you call a nostalgic

act of love weird, you son of a fuck? Oh. Whoa, he just gave me three middle fingers while slipping his elbow that's not a third finger Dan those aren't heroes last time on nerd poker

our heroes destroyed a monstrous gelatinous cube, some quill- Fuck yeah, we did. And some pile of treasure. But unfortunately, the wizard that was fighting them that might have been able to tell them what the fuck was going on got smooshed. We now take you to this weirdness already in progress. So you guys are inside the Royal Hall. You just started to get closer. Did people

collect the treasures? Not yet. Yeah, it's still got guts on it. Per, is the wizard okay? Is he laying there? No, he's very much not okay. Oh, shit. And there's still one more Will of the Wisps, right? Correct. And we're back at the top of the turn order. It feels

like you're probably going to knock this little last chunk of combat out pretty quickly, but I always like to make sure I'm taking away as many hit points from you all as possible. Ron, you're up. I'll say. I will

get close to the Will of the Wispen attack. Great. You are capable of running over there. I'm going to run over there and swing my arm blade. All right. Roll to attack. Ew. I used to hate it when he did that.

Oh, it's the Jetsons. Dee, dee, deons. Here we go. Rolling, you know, two games in a row. This is a nice one. 24, 18 plus 6. Very much a hit. Yes. Damage piercing.

A high roll. Five plus three being eight. That's a hit, and it's smush. So you're hitting him pretty hard. Not quite dead, but you did get one more attack this action. All right, I'm going to swing again. Keep swinging. The other way.

Oh, very low. Eight. Probably not a hit. Nope, that's gonna swing again. Keep swinging. The other way. Oh, very low. Eight. Probably not a hit. Nope, that's a whiff. These guys are real bastards. They have a 19 AC to reflect how fast they are. Fucking whiffed it. I'm gonna take an unarmed strike, though.

Is that cool? Yeah, it's cool. That's my bonus. I call it cool. 17. yeah it's cool that's my bonus I call it cool um 17 11 plus 6 that is a miss unfortunately love having a plus 6

really 19 these are the official will-o-wisp ACs as much of a pain in the dick as they may be then we're coming around to Dr. Uwud I am going

to run over to the wizard and cure wounds lovely how wounded is he? Is he like like is his head on?

The right side of his face is blackened and there is just like a charred marshmallow just like rise lines on him. He's pretty fucking on his best. Does he have a heartbeat? What was that? Does he have a heartbeat? If Bl that? Does he have a heartbeat? If Blaine wants to do a medicine check,

I can tell you. Can I do a quick medicine check on him before I do any of this stuff? As long as it's quick, otherwise I'll resent you forever. A 16 plus 4, 20. You do not feel a heartbeat. I'm gonna... Can I cast this at second level

so I do 2d8 plus my plus my spellcasting ability modifier which is my wisdom which is plus 4 so 8 plus 1 so that's

9 plus four is 13. Okay, 13. He gurgles a little bit. And this little foam of blood comes out the side of his mouth. He's not breathing. Ew, gross. I kill him again. I'm kidding.

Oh, no. I don't kill him, kidding. Oh, no. I don't kill him, Dan. Oh, no. I have to emotionally act out his subconscious when you threaten to pretend kill him. Cool. Then, Winifred, you're up. I guess I'm going to also do a medicine check on him

to see, like, is there anything that can be done before I start to waste spells on him? Yeah, it would be a shame to waste a healing spell when y'all got beat up. So my medicine check is a 12. I'm going to say you need to kind of run over to him, too, to do this. So I'm going to run over to him. So I'm going to move your tokens on either side. Okay.

Not that we're going to necessarily be in the battle map for much longer. What was there being a bunch of you and only one willow is left, but yeah, go ahead and roll that medicine check. Um, Oh, 12. Yeah.

Is what I see in y'all's D and D beyond game log. And yeah, he, uh, he's pretty fucked up. He has a heartbeat now. He is breathing now, but it does look like he is on death's door.

OK, I'm going to I will cure wounds. I'm going to cure wounds at second level on him. Oh, great. Let's hear what that sounds like. Number wise. That is 17 points back. Nice. All right.

So, you know, he's pretty scarred, but his airway is clear a little bit as he coughs some blood clots onto the ground. He's like leaning over and kind of like, it's gross, but yeah. Just, you know, I would say I haven't hit you guys with body horror as rough as you saw in season two in a while so any day now i'm gonna have some inside out people just run at you

be ready but yeah a little blood clot action um but that's a lot of healing that you've done and so you get a feeling as soon as he is done gagging, he will be quite grateful. Friar Jolly, you're up. I think Friar Jolly's kind of watching them healing in his attentional care, like probably kill this fucking monster, right? And I'm going to cast Toll the Dead against the Will-o'-the-Wisp. It needs to make a

DC 16 wisdom saving throw. Okay. Pardon me, my dice app crashed all of a sudden. Oh, interesting. Mr. Digital Dice. Crashed. You know what doesn't crash? Real dice in my hand.

I really miss using real dice. I started getting in the habit because I've just been packing and moving. Oh, no. You were a phony dmd-er with your digital dice. I vow that if we play at Brian's house, no more digital dice. That'll be a three. Say that again. Three.

That's a fail so it's a going to take ooh 11 and 8 17 plus 5 22 points of necrotic damage whoa how would you like to see this willow is die of necrotic damage fryer jolly i would like for it to immediately stop where it is and liquefy and just boop into the ground great so this will-o-wisp which is essentially a ball of sentient energy suddenly becomes a solid ball just so it can liquefy and yeah it is i guess we're now out of combat gandalf yeah gandalf's just laying on the floor lamenting how he's just not as attractive as Sam. He doesn't have the boobs for it. No.

I forget, did I tell you his name? No. He has a name. Okay, great. Well, he's gurgling and trying to pick himself up. Yeah, hello, gurgling and trying to pick himself up. Hello. See?

Greetings, I am Malor. Malor, so. I take it you are also here to destroy the Lich. We certainly are. I rode over on the boat with the drunk fairy. He dropped me off on the cliffs. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. Been there.

Sucked. It sucked? What part sucked? Getting here. Yes, this is not a pleasant trip. Not like Big Sur. Big Sur is a great place to drive with your family. I have, you know, a place if you're interested

in a timeshare. Oh, nice. Yeah, just, you know, place if you're interested in a timeshare oh nice yeah just you know a few thousand dollars here and there i mean gold uh platinum pieces platinum pieces uh yeah so he describes to you what his plan was he was trying to be stealthy he was trying to solo the Lich's Keep, and he was hoping that he could gain some intel, find somewhere to camp near the Inner Sanctum, and impart wisdom on someone or a group of someones that would help them defeat it. abilities that allow him to slip in and out of other planes of existence and be uh quite stealthy he thought okay if i go solo i should be all right but he went into this chamber and inadvertently walked right into the gelatinous cube which then caused a pile of uh treasure to animate willow wisps to summon it felt like he accidentally tripped a trap sorry what was his name uh mallorth ill i will paste it in yield mallorth ill yes mallorth though where you from ballast oh i am from weston the hotel chain yes the weston hotel chain it's like homewood suites

but it does sound familiar interesting yep remind me there you've met npcs from there before what where what is it which continent yeah weston is a large continent to the west. It is a place that is sort of fascist. A lot of soldiers in green armor. I'm not going to make you roll history check for any of this because I don't know how important it is, but listeners may remember all of that. They may remember a certain drow from season three was from there. They may remember that you were all on a ship full of soldiers and it was headed there in season four.

And yep, that is where he is from. Anybody with you now? It's just it's just me, although I can do this. He snaps his fingers and a magic hedgehog appears on his shoulder. Oh. What? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. People don't know this.

Normal hedgehogs are assholes, but Fidge is a very nice little boy. Fidge. And what is your motive for destroying the arch lich did did i miss that as well or is it just implicit in him being an arch lich he tells you it's an act of empathy that he came over here when the call went out that someone must destroy it weston was planning on allying with the lich but he was one of the dissenters in his homeland are we really fucked up could we use a uh like a long rest i don't want to be the long rest guy i feel like we just took a long rest you did but you did get slapped around a bit ronnie was

certainly inside a cube for a second there you might all want to share what your hit points are. I have lost none. I have lost some spell slots. I'm right half. I'm at full, but I am down some spell slots. I can. Brian, you're muted. Shite.

My back. Yeah. If we do a short rest rest i can sing a song of rest which will give people um they can spend their hit dice and they can get an extra 1d6 yeah yeah i need 20 points is also down i mean sure us just seems so it's like if we're going to do that, you can roll hit dice. I know, but it's like,

what's the, it almost is like an, you know, when you're actually playing it, I just feel like it's not that much more valuable than a long rest, unless you have those special things that can like regenerate after a short rest. Well,

let me go ahead and throw you a bone too, without an insight check, just because we haven't been out of combat in a while. No, it's a song of sixpence. But we're going to kind of recap for listeners, too. You're in a chamber just inside the Royal Keep. There's a longer hallway and a short hallway that lead to it. And then there's a door on the far end of it up to the north if you're still in Roll20.

It's like way up here just off the map. But this chamber is very vast. There is no cover in this chamber. It's very ominously large and now silent with everything being slain in it. And you just came from a hallway with a bunch of doors. You really only opened one other door in that hallway, despite there being six doors. And inside that door was a lava pit for some reason. And then you booked it out of there and went into this chamber.

So if we're talking about rests, I would say all of you are thinking, okay, this chamber feels a little exposed. Might not want to do that here. There are other rooms we haven't explored that might be good to rest and if we wanted a chance to lava pit room we could but there was talk of you guys thinking maybe things were summoned here or destroyed in the lava pit and so um that's what your characters would remember disgusting wasn't the the one wizard was the guy who was like training and creating fucked up creatures yes so guy who was in the tower right so does it seem like that might be what this was like where that those animals are stored and also didn't someone oh fun and someone told us that at the beginning i think too i have a go ahead and

roll an insight check well i was gonna say i have a um a feature a trait if we recall my memory is shit but winifred oh is it a keen keen yeah winifred has keen mind um she can accurately recall anything she's seen or heard within the last month awesome you feel like this might have been not the entire collection but some of the creatures that he was tasked with creating it definitely felt like you've all heard of gelatinous cubes this thing was much larger than the ones you thought you would encounter got it okay so this is sort of his like stable of creatures that he was a stable right like like it feels like this uh especially from the way malarthel was describing it, not exactly easy to see.

And the creatures were sort of like triggered awake somehow. Okay. So, yeah, do we want to check out? Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, Malarthel, which door did you come through? Maybe that can help us eliminate some choices. How did you get into this big room the one you came through and uh he

points to the door to the south where lucas is currently like leaning against the door like shaking while holding the brain in a terrarium got a king brain over there uh what somebody else was holding that somebody else was holding the brain because he was... Oh, is that right? Yeah, because he was getting a little enthralled. Yes. I thought Dr. Ooh had had it for some reason. It was like, I was going to take it and then somebody...

But yeah, somebody else took it because he was getting too into it. Got it. Well, then retcon that statement. Blaine, does that sound right? You think you got the brain strapped to your back or something? Do I? I don't remember having the brain strapped to me. We'll have to re-listen.

I have a note on this. I might have a note. I would remember something like that, a brain strap. Hey, listeners, let us know who has the brain. I think I said I would take it, but then I don't remember if I actually, I don't think I actually did. Why don't we just sit aside right now? I can carry it. Oh, maybe I did because it was whispering.

It's whispering to whoever has it and i told it to shut up because it went via message but it was like whispering stuff i don't but i don't yeah i don't know who it is who actually has and you did speak to it at one point but not in a while elder in the third so whoever has it has presumably been hearing it bitch and moan for a while great well then it hasn't spoken up just now but lucas without the brain still quivering in fear at the door to the south where malice all says he also came from he tells you all oh it's when i got to the center of the chamber it's like it formed around me i had to teleport myself out of it

okay well i feel like we should try other doors just to like clear everything out of the way and if people want to do a short rest or a long rest we can but i can we can also short rest you should be able to use a hit die to get back hit points if that's all we need. Also, treasure on the floor. And the treasure on the floor that we need to pick up. Pile of whatever it was. Yeah, let's sort through that stuff. Okay.

Well, why don't we get an investigation check from everybody as you do a comb of the floor for loot. Again, this is a big exposed chamber. Nowhere for things to hide, but it is all covered in slime and spread out.

So it would take you like a day to like completely comb through it. Eight. Which I think four. What are you doing? Investigation? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Couple of low rolls so far 10 oh no we're not finding shit dr uid ronnie what you got

12 brian you're muted sorry what am i rolling here a 14 plus 12 investigation 12 14 plus 317 nice finally you got a higher roll so you all find it's gonna be five platinum worth of moolah wow not terrible it's mostly gold coins but there is some copper pieces mixed in there and it's just like silver pieces like it just spread throughout the whole jam um there's yeah you find a couple of gems not sure they're magical but there is a cut ruby and a few smaller, uh, gems that are very,

very tiny. Some like glittering diamonds that are like the size of a grain of sand. Um, you're not sure what they're worth, but it's probably like a selling thing, or you could double check to see if they're magical. The cut Ruby seems the one most likely to be magical. If any of them are. And I was just going to say,

Dr. Uid, you find an iron scepter. A scepter, eh? Yes. Doesn't look like it would be the best mace. It's a little small for bludgeoning, but it does look like it is meant for some kind of ceremony. Hmm.

Does this look like a mace would be better in the hands of a cleric, like a friar of some sort? Maybe. All right, I'm going to hand this over to Friar Jolly. Hey, you're a god guy. What's the deal with this? Is this something you could use? It looks like a scepter, but yeah, sure, I'll take a look at it. Can I show this to King Brain?

Oh, okay. Hail your majesty. Looky, looky. Let's see. So you hear a voice in your head, everyone. And he says, I do not recognize this thing. Well, why has it got your tits in a grinder?

Okay. He's upset that he's basically blind, and so I'm kind of working in that you're describing it to him, and he's a little frustrated. That puts his tits in sort of a permanent grinder. He's also kind of a dick, so I feel like it's part of it. Yeah, he was known as having an army.

Your scepter. You don't recognize it? It's not of it. Yeah, he was known as having an army and a scepter. You don't recognize it as your scepter, your highness? Iron is not for me, thank you. Do you think that would be from an age after you, perhaps? Ugh. Perhaps or

before people had taste. Ooh. Shots fired. Well, I mean, always looking for you to have the hot take, but we're also trying to find out what the fuck it is. So if you could maybe suspend your catty bitch for

a second and help us out a little bit. Sorry, ever since Twitter became over, I just have nowhere to put my feelings. Got it. So you don't recognize it. You got no insight. He really, again, it's tough because he's blind, has no hands. He's a floaty brain. He can only communicate telepathically. You're not sure you can completely convey it to him, but it doesn't seem like a special possession of his

that he recognizes. Malthill, do you think this is magical at all? He's going to think on it. He picks it up and looks it over. When we go up a level or switch out. I wasn't there. Hang on one second. I just had a thought. He's not sure.

He thinks it's possible. And he tells you if any of you have a way to magically look this over, it might be worth it. I do not believe I do, but we can certainly put it in the bag for later. Yeah, and are you guys going to... Go ahead. I was going to see if you're going to rest. That's all.

Yeah, the next time we take a rest, perhaps I'll sit and commune with it a bit see when I can figure out about it yeah I'm going to try to when we go up a level I'm going to try to get either detect magic or identify in my spell list

as a known spell because we definitely need it okay well I'll hang on remember if you remember it is uh there are options i just described where you could rest yeah um so heal and rest okay let's do what if we do a short rest in the lava room because there's that we can bar the door there's a it's a one area? And if we do a short rest, it's not as long,

but we can still, I can sing a song of rest, and then you'll get back an extra 1d6 if you use a hit, right? Isn't that how it works? You just hit die and short rest? Yeah. Sound good to you guys?

Sure. So I'm going to just move tokens in case because there are other nearby doors you might be exploring soon you all head over to that room and as soon as you begin to rest you think about just how many things you've slain already and you all reach level 9

wow smokes Bullwinkle so if you like, I would encourage you to check out D&B Beyond and what this means for you exactly. I've been waiting for the surprise

when you would rest. I was like, oh, maybe they won't rest. Maybe next year we'll level up, but you have not leveled up this season yet. It's a nice little holiday gift. A little level up you're welcome yeah so level nine let's see i'm going to be leveling up bunk

and so we actually we don't i don't need to sing the song of rest because I think when we level up, you just get all your hit points back. Right. And in my book, you do in our, in our homebrew. Cool. Exciting.

I shouldn't do this right now, but I get a fifth level spell. Yeah. We're not going to, are we doing, we're not, we're just going to finish out the game today. Right.

And then, or do you want us us to it's up to you guys i i think listeners like hearing this stuff but i don't want y'all to be bored i would say if you were wanting to speed it along go through the basics and roll your hit dice so your friends can hear how many hit points you have these days okay i feel like yeah somebody's got to fill the dead air while we're reading because there's a lot of reading then right in my in my experience this is always something listeners want to hear and that we run away from so i wouldn't feel too bad as long as you vocalize what you're doing i think people will find it interesting i have 75 points sorry god i vocalize that i am raising my level to level nine. And now in a song.

No, this is Sarah speaking, vocalizing, vocalizing. This what you want? All right. What changed? Yeah, what changed? Okay. Ooh, additional magical secrets. sixth level you and blah blah and then i get to do okay i'm choosing a couple of my favorite things about level nine that go

go for everybody your proficiency bonuses all go up by one oh i think that's cool um those of you who are a spellcaster uh you now get three fourth level spell slots and one your first fifth level spell slot dang and those things are pretty damn rad but all your classes have unique level nine things to them that i am kind of leaving on you whether you want to get into it right now or not but i would i would say all of you would uh know your proficiency bonus is a little more awesome and the spell casters have the ability to cast a pretty useful level five spell now and we got uh we got three spell casters so yeah the mine has a um it's like uh they're not counting as okay it's

like it's confusing but basically i'm adding a bunch of spells right now so that i'm gonna have to do some some research into but i will definitely take identify for sure awesome nice i'm gonna i'm gonna take shit together and i'm gonna be able to get my shit together on a fifth fifth level what level are you gonna do yeah okay get my shit together on a fifth level. What level are you going to do? Yeah, fifth. Okay. Fifth level, get my shit together. Can you believe it? Oh, we get a feat. This is saving guys' wisdom. Oh, you got to tell us what feat you take.

I know, but that's another one. I can't just decide. This is like, this is hours of poring over tomes and materials, weighing my options. Feats are pretty awesome because they all are very hyper-specific. There's a lot of them and their descriptions are pretty heavy.

Here's the other thing, Dan, is we have to sort of figure out what you've got coming up your sleeve and try to, like, what would Dan do? What do I need in a Dan world? What kind of spells do I need in Dan's universe? I will say this is our most dungeon crawly season slash campaign. And that if I were you, I would be thinking about what it means to traverse claustrophobic maps full of obstacles that you would find it in closed spaces.

Hmm. would find it in closed spaces hmm i don't want to get any more specific than that but i do think that is very different from like if you were running across continents like you had been in some previous situations so i definitely am going to have to all my spell stuff i want to take some time with figuring that out because that's the most important thing I think here. So for me, that is what I have vocalized. And my vocalizations are complete. Next up, Chris Tolman. I have 75 hit points. Like Blaine, I get one fifth level spell and I'm going to need to take some time

to figure out what it is because they're all like contagion geese hallow things I am not familiar with so I'm going to have to figure it out flame strike is

one of them that seems but like you said seeing as we're coming up on some sort of lich it might be smart to have something a little more lich-minded. Yeah, Malorthil tells all of you while you sit, and I want to hear what you're about to say, Chris, because you're an interesting person. I just want to throw in Malorthil is telling you that he believes there are going to be a series of halls and chambers from here on out rather than the long long hallways you've been running down you're sort of at your final destination and you will be finding ways to go into lower levels at this point you mean descending underground lower levels like that yeah you you have intel that's probably where the witch hides. Deeper level. Yeah.

I'm looking at a really nice spell actually called Anti-Life Shield. Anti-Life Shell. Which is like a Leomund's tiny hut that keeps out undead. Oh, well there. Oh, I'm sorry. Creatures out

other than undead end constructs. It's just a thing that keeps anything. It's also an Anthrax song. Anti-life shell? Mm-hmm. No, I'm just guessing. Creep, what are you looking at? Well, I have something called brutal critical,

which means I add an extra damage die. Nice. For a critical hit. That's new. It is cool. It sounds like Bodhi has done that in the past. Yeah, so I can use that shit if I ever roll well enough. I forget lately because of your low die rolls

that every time you attack, the Charlie Brown Christmas music starts playing. Yeah, it's fucking bullshit is what it is. Don't like it. I think... I don't know what else. Still have my Lucky. I haven't used that

lately. Nice. It's not new. Yeah. You sound very depressed about level nine. No, fine. I got some extra damage points and stuff.

Brian, did you just points went way up to you uncover something? No, my hit points and I've got, uh, I do more, um, uh, we're not, I do the same amount of damage

but my hit DC went up on my attack and my unarmed strike that's a 7 oh wow cool nice nice I'm not seeing any new abilities or anything but yeah I'm not seeing any new abilities or anything, but, uh,

yeah, I'm just tougher. And, uh, I have more hit points. Brian, every spell in the book could be the title of a heavy metal song. No,

I know. Fucking. It's just amazing. Well, that's part of the appeal. I mean, uh, it always felt like that, you know, and I think metalheads always were drawn to this game.

Elemental weapon. Bunk is going to get indomitable at level nine. He is a fighter and he can now re-roll a saving throw that he fails. If you do so, you must use the new roll and can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

You can use this feature twice between long rest, starting at 13th level and three times between long rest at 17th level. But by the time you're 17th level, you can also sort of summon moons to crash onto your opponent so that'll be a ways off i think hey brian yeah it's like at ninth level you have a

thing called unarmored movement at ninth level you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling during the move where did i find that it's just part of your it's in the player's handbook i looked up okay um monk and there's you know how every uh class has like this little chart thing in the player's handbook. So for ninth level, I just moved across and it says features the bit, your big feature is unarmored movement improvement. So you, so now you can run across the water and up and across walls.

Oh, that's pretty fucking, that's pretty bad ass. As far as monks go. Yeah. holy that's pretty fucking that's pretty badass as far as monks go yeah cool yeah i'm looking at it right now now dan i can my beast shape i can change into uh i can change into any animal or creature that i've seen would i be able to change myself into a 40-foot square gelatinous cube? Or a gelatinous cube at all?

Would I be able to change into a monster that I've seen? I have to look up the rules, but a gelatinous cube is not even like a monstrosity. Its creature type is large ooze.

And I'm not sure you can transform into an ooze or but i am i permitted to change our rating isn't that what it is is it only animals and not monsters and i'm allowed to change it i i it might be and i am trying to find the CR rating which I normally don't look at but I think it's a 2 and you're asking specifically for wild shape right I was just sort of just curious just uh at 10th level I can expend oh here we go at 10th level I can expend two uses of wild shape at the same time to transform

into an air, earth, fire, or water elemental. So the creature type would have, for that other thing, would have to be a beast, but the other is elemental. Interesting! Yep, they're just ooze creatures

and I think ooze creatures are something you can't really become, but you could summon or create in certain situations creatures wow they're a cube a cube that you shouldn't touch that was that was the uh theme from cube finger right yeah played by Gert fuck it I love

trying to put cube into Gert Frobe I really hurt my back Gert Fube they have to dub all of his stuff in with an actor later because he was unintelligible he couldn't really speak english to german oh yeah it's too german and all of his voices were dubbed well i've got a run uh i think you guys should uh go over plugs and such and uh and all that but i think we're gonna have to use our levels on the next level of nerd poker. That'll be fun.

Hey, thanks, Dan. That was fun fighting a giant cube and a thing made out of cash. I'm glad you killed it and got some cash. Anyway, keep an eye out for me in Chicago. Happy holidays, everybody. I'm going to let everyone else say their goodbyes

while I bounce by. Bye, Dan. How rude. All right. I think we should keep going. Let's go kill the lich. Yeah, let's go do it right now. Hi, I'm the lich. How you doing?

Whoops, I turned my back. I cast Fireball in the head of his penis. Oh no, my penis. I needed thatball in the head of his penis. Oh no, my penis! I needed that to live in a lich way! How would you like to see this lich die, you guys? Fireball bursts the head of his penis. Heal it back like a banana. Oh!

His penis? While he laughs in an episode of Tree's Company. What? That feels perfectly reasonable. I'm sure it doesn't upset any of you. PrimeScene.com for tour dates. Dynasty Typewriter, the 17th of December. It's called Headliners. And then I've got comic books coming.

Anybody else? Blame? We attribute the success to save mankind from the dead. Thanks for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof? Well... On the next Nerd Poker, Sarah falls out of Sam's window, where Chris said that she shouldn't sit.

Brian and Ken tried to catch her and they all got eaten by toilet rats. Biting your ass. Look in your toilet and you will see rats. All this and less on the next Nerd Poker. 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 one six zero six nine encino california nine one four one six thanks for listening