Nerd Poker - The Fog Campaign - Episode 32

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

As the crew enters the darkened cellar of the old gnome stoneworks building, their darkvision comes in handy. But can our lean, mean, thief detective team hold up against stone-hard monster wrecking crews, or will they get smashy smashied? For 3 bonus episodes a month and more, subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/nerdpoker . For merch, social media, and more be sure to head to nerdpokerpod.com.

Hey, it's Brian Posein. Nerd Poker. We're calling it. The Sod campaign. My friends are here. Chris, Blaine, Ken, engineer Sam, and of course our kick-ass DM, Dan Telford. Dan Telfer. Welcome to Nerd Poker.

Hey everybody. It's Brian Passain and you're listening to Nerd Poker. Episode 32 of the um Fog campaign. You heard me. Uh, my friends are here. We're doing a Zoom episode.

Chris. Hello. Hello. Dan Hi Yeah Ken Hey there

Yay Yay Blade Georgie girl walking down the street So fancy free Oh shit Now we own that song

That's the Steamboat Willie version Kidrock didn't write that right We should be fine My name is Dang Dang Georgie girl Oh no No, no. Run of the show,

keeping us on the rails from the cool part of town. As always, Sam, everybody. Hello, sweet children. Oh, it's Crypto. I finally saw that movie. I had a lot of fun finding all the fucking

mini-DC references hidden throughout the movie. Yeah, is that supposed to be mixelplex when they're, uh, when they're fighting outside? I was just thinking about that. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's his dimensional thing. It's an imp, so yeah. Yeah, it says that imp, right?

Yeah. So that's, that's like his imp, probably. Yeah, it wouldn't be Batman. It would be a Mixelplex. Yeah. Batmites my other favorite DC imp. James Gunn posted a picture of Batman today, by the way. Oh, no shit.

Superman at Batman. man together. Which Batman? Yeah. Don't even know. I saw it for a second. Oh, well, this is really important. I did recognize his name. I did not recognize his name, but he's the new guy. Yeah, he's handsome. Handsome and brooding. Right. Relax. Jesus. I'm handsome too. Yeah, you're pretty brooding.

You can easily be Superman. You're just bitter about that callback. Thank you. I'd be impressed if we had our first ever Batman that I had not heard of the actor before. Had to be crazy. I just wanted to play Roershack. Horcac? Sorry. Ron Polillo as Roershack. Hello, grunch, grunch.

Oh, Alan Richson is what I'm reading. Yeah, you found it. Yeah, fella. Never heard of him. The Richard guy. Is it the reacher guy? He seems strong. Reacher.

I think so, yeah. Oh, wow. Reacher is Batman. That would be something else. Yeah, you take Batman's mask off and it's Reacher. It's like, oh, put the mask back on. Do you think Tom Cruise, like, would throw a fit if you find out a different Reacher actor got to play Batman? Or, like, reach around, right, ladies?

I'm telling you. Ladies love a reach around. Ladies specifically. Diddle the nuts, right? Yeah. Ladies. Ladies love when you diddle their nuts.

It's just a hand job comes to your town and just beats the shit out of everyone in a parking lot. Nothing about ladies. Ladies love a good reach around and when you diddle their nuts, right?

Yeah, yeah. Tickle the old fallopians. They like it when you reach around and do the dishes. Am I right, guys? Who's married here? When you reach around the criminal justice system,

to take away all their rights. Anyway, folks. Dan! Hey. There's a picture. Oh. Oh. Oh, that's cool.

It looks like they're at the opening of that, the opening of a P.F. Chang's. Hey, check it out. Food's great. I'm getting that whole honey walnut chicken to go. Oh, man. I always get diarrhea there. Is that unlike James?

That's not what I order. that's not what I order but that's what I get when I get on something and then deleted it right away I don't even know if it's it could even be it's real I can't tell well I

we can talk about the yeah legitimacy of it later it's Pattinson yeah yeah and it's AI oh it's Patenton no

I'm on record the Patinson Batman movie was fantastic I really really it was a great Batman best batman since the 60s. Yeah, there's like a viral image going around and now I'm seeing it and

yeah. Good. That muscle car. So great. Yeah, badass. And there's already a build-in penguin in that one. In the, if you look closely, can, apparently Batman has two left shoulders in that photo.

Oh, then it's the action figure problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I find it to be completely Mr. Mixelplitsit. Who do you think they're going to cast as him? Missileplex? Tom Lennon. Patton.

I was going to say Danny DeVito, but I like Patton. Yeah, that would be great. Tom played him on the TV show. Yeah. That's true. He'll hear that. New mitzell pick scooting. I can't pronounce his name.

Try it backwards. It's a look good. I'll let you real nerds handle it. Patton already has the hat. And the imps. Yeah. Well, it should be Warren Davis.

Let's play some D&Ds. Let's play D&D and talk about what happened last time. Oh my God, what an idea. You snuck into the basement of a mining guild or Mason building, one or the other, but it has been in disuse. All you know about it is it has a Mason's sigil

on a brick out front. and that the building is very old from two different versions of Delsmith back into history. You are breaking in because you're trying to get down to where the Tide Gnomes have, their old civilization built beneath Delsmith. Down there, there's some sort of, I don't remember exactly what details I gave you, but there is a disturbance created by perhaps being or beings. And they involve worms. And fog.

The fog coming up from silt being leaked into the Bay of Delsmith. It's my favorite Burtman movie. Bay of Delsmith. Worms and fog. Oh, my gosh. And thank you for the reminder. I need to thank listeners. I got so wrapped up in bullshit.

I would need to think listeners. Me too. That was my fault. Sorry. No, it's Superman, you guys. I lost my fucking mind. I like Mr. Waterpick. He's a great villain.

Yeah, if you say his name backwards, your teeth get filthy. And his pimp was in the movie. Did you see his pimp? So, yeah, not his imp, get it. I want to thank listeners that are top two tiers of support. They have usernames like Dick Trebushay. Thanks, Dick Trebush. Thank you, Ben Cavalick.

Thank you, Devona Opi Rock. Thank you. This is an oldie but a goodie. Thank you. Wiener Tits McGee. Thanks, Wart Hog. Thanks, Scott Parker.

Thanks, I just farted a little, but I think something came out, prepare for the smell. Thank you, Penn 17 Club, the Penn 15 Club with two fingers in urethra. Thank you, Hayden Grant. Thank you, Apriarix. Thanks, big, angry NPC.

Thanks, Kugel Bear. Thanks, rolling on Molly with Friar Jolly. Wow, you would be fun fucked up. Now, we're just going to explore each other's physical horrors. It's silver. Thank you, Cougal Bear. Thank you, Roland on Molly, Fire Jolly. Thank you, Nathan's Hot Dog Scoop.

Thanks, Pabst, Blatz, von Schlitz, and White. Congrats to me for saying it. Thank you, Saga Nadau. Hello, Saga Nadau. I run a game for you. And finally, thank you Uncle A-Cab's famous boot liquor. And liquor spelled L-I-Q-U-O-R, but we all know what that means. Blaine, who are the supporters brought to us by?

Spore was brought to us by the Dogo-Lingo Dog Translator. Ever wonder what your dog is saying? Find out with the Duo-D-O-Lingo Dog translator. Heads up, it's just quit watching. me shit. The Dogolingo Dog Translater, now in Cat and Fish. Stop eating me. I have feelings from Doggo Lingo. Dan. Thanks, Blaine. It's time to say I talked about what happened last time on Nerd Poker already. So, you guys have entered a basement, and if you were to head over to Roll 20, I believe I have the map that will work for this. Oh, cool. Yeah, it took a little bit of

tweaking given that this was originally intended to be in person but here you go it is very it is very donkey con country oh think blink blink

think think ming listeners should have control your tokens over we are at the southeast corner it looks like like an abandoned mine

place so trap creepos short round you don't see any creepos but there's cobwebs over everything and I bet you there's creepos so

well there's your potatoes eyes two eyes and then one of those it seemed to pivot on like an axis and reveal that there was a third eye yeah so that's can you ping where the eye is is is or at least in which direction

it's too far to see details but it is in this direction you can kind of see the edge of a mine cart. It's over there. Maybe it's just a spook house, right? Spook house. Or is this, Dan, does this still feel like no-mission industrial? Yes.

I mean, I'll whisper quietly to the group. I'll be like, I mean, it could be mechanical, but like, can we tell if it's a machine based off of the way those things you said were sort of rotating in and out? versus organic, like a beholder? As you whisper mechanical to your friends, you see it kind of like close its eyes and duck down and you hear a rumbling noise. The eyes are now no longer glowing.

You don't see them anymore. So they close? It wasn't a spider. Rumbling, yeah. I'm looking at the old passive. perceptions as I say this, but the rumbling goes for a little while and then dissipates.

It's going to come up underneath us and eat us. Probably. Maybe it's a mole. I mean, with your passive insight, yes, it did seem Blaine like maybe it was burrowing. So, okay. Should you guys want to spread out then? Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, we could still go with the notion that Ken and I can be Yeah. Dan, can we just kind of move ourselves? Like, we're not in combat, right? Yeah, staying away from open areas. You're not in combat, correct?

It was over the... Staying over a rock or rock wall. Yeah, it's going to stand on some rocks. Yeah, that's a good idea. Okay. For a while, you feel like there is some white noise rumbling in this chamber. As you climb up under rocks, things are quiet again. And I will reveal.

reveal a little bit more space as soon as I am done tweaking something on the map out of your visual range, which is definitely an amazing secret that will blow you over there. Cool. And now that we've moved in more, especially with Siam being up there, is there possibly more map? Yeah, exactly. I'm just trying to tweak it. Yeah, yeah. That's what I was getting at is I have to kind of do some like blip-l-blib-blub-bloup with the paintbrush tool. Because again, this is this was being tweet from what was going to. It's a pre-made map that I got on someone's Patreon, but it had to kind of fit what I was going for. So I'm now ready to reveal more. You can now see farther into the chamber.

You can see more of the mining pit. You can see. That far. Do you have dark vision, Blaine? I do. And that's 100 some feet. Is that 120? I think it's 60.

60. 60? Okay. So I think I got it right, actually. Ooh, I'm off by like a little bit. I'll reveal a little bit more since you are the farthest west. There you go. and this thing up here that's the mine shaft presumably that's what that's presumably that's presumably

the mine shaft yeah okay so at the very least we would need to get some kind of control of this room because i think we're supposed to go down the mine shaft right like isn't that the notion like i don't know it's literally that's the thinking so whatever's in this room we have to kill I mean I get a perception check from everybody sure Dan I'm going to go with my passive perception of 20

oh my goodness that was a lot oh boy my non-passive was nine what you got for is Brian I'm just trying to log in to roll 20 still. Oh, of course. And this would be on your character sheet as well. Oh, I can look.

What do you want to know his passive? Joffrey. Or he can roll his persuasion. He can roll his perception or take the passive. Does you know, Brian, your passive is 20. Oh, my. Yeah, I'll take that. It's highest shit.

Yeah, I'll take that. Okay, so with the 20, you guys can see that And what did you get, Blaine? My passive, 20. Yeah, Blaine, you look down and see it too. It looks like a series of spikes are silently poking up out of the ground around the rock that Blaine's a character Siam is standing on right now.

What the heck? Like whatever that was swam through the dirt and is now like trying to spike up around the edge? With your passive insight, that is quite possible. Blaine, I'm setting it timers or anything you'd like to do about this. Yeah, I'm going to a misty step to a different rock. All right, will you drop your token? Which one?

Is that about 30 feet right there? Yep. And as you do that, everybody please roll for initiative. Oh, boy. Well, well. That happened. 16. Oh, and I got funny. I have to see initiative. Sorry, I'm looking for my gift of alacrity. And I forget that you guys don't have to.

have the plug-in, so I have to redo everybody's turn order. 21 is my... Here we go. Cool. As always, I am hearing them before I'm ready for them. So I'm going to be asking everyone to repeat themselves. You got my 21. That's good.

If you keep saying it, I do. 21, 21. Blaine, what'd you get? I got a 16. Brian, what'd you get? Uh, shit. I just rolled it. Sorry.

Thank you for downloading the plugin, Chris Tallman. 12. 12. How do I do it? Yeah. I would do it. Beyond 20. If you get the plug in Beyond 20, all of your roles in the D&D beyond will be transported

in here. Oh, I do have it. For instance, you will... I think it works on Chrome. True. It's a Chrome. It's a Chrome. It didn't Chrome.

But on that note... Synchrome. here is I can roll it on the thing So we can deal with that another day All right Oh no we have to do it right now

Wow Go ahead So Chris what would you like to do Oh me first Mm-hmm Yeah I see that thing or I just see spikes You

What thing? Well, that's what I'm trying to gather. You said we see like spikes. You see little spikes kind of coming up out of the ground around this rock that I'm pinging right here where Blaine used to be standing. Got it. Okay. Is it reasonable to think if I did like a ranged attack at that thing, it would like, yeah,

I could just like fire something at it. Well, you're assuming the spikes are some sort of teeth or claws and they're small. the majority of whatever this thing is would be underground according to your theorem so if you were to fire ranged attack it would be difficult to hit given that it's mostly obscured

and I would have you roll with disadvantage if it was a ranged attack okay if it was something that affected something you can see you would not be in the same cool all right now that's you you've answered you've answered my question I'm going to see it but you can't see it well

It's obscured. I'm going to cast minor illusion. Okay. I can create a sound or a thing, but not both. I'm going to create a sound, and it's going to be, let's see. Like, it'll sound like me whimpering going, I'm hurt. I'm hurt on top of the rock

that Blaine has jauntoned off of but like basically I want to try and create the sound of like wounded adventurer hopefully trying to get this thing further out up on the rock great

so that's my that's my thing and then movement wise can I climb up onto this wall a little bit just to kind of not have my feet be on the ground at all? And are you trying to do it sneaky? Then that would be a stealth check.

Certainly. If you're trying to get a hide going. Yeah, if I get. Okay, stealth you say. This would be a stealth check against something that is not visually looking around the room. Does that make sense? I understand.

There we go. 11. Can they give myself guidance on this thing? I'll allow it. Because it's me. For you? Oh, no, I'm sorry. That sounded terrible.

I apologize. No. So I total of 14 with the three unguidance. I understand what you meant. You can reach yourself. So I was giving you a hard time. Absolutely. With a 14, you feel like you are at least being careful

as you climb up onto the little rocky outcropping. along the wall. Okay. Thank you. Ken, it's Shalab's turn. Going to shoot a firebolt at the basis of the rock race on this bike. Oh, right. And that is a spell attack,

right? Sure, we is. As was previewed on Mr. Tolman's turn, this is going to be a disadvantage. Oh. Wow. You're shooting at a little pointy thing sticking out of the ground.

Right. Got it. Um, okay. So that's a 25 for good. A bunch of kitchen knives sticking out of the ground that you're trying. And a 21 for bad.

So 21. Ha-timachi. That's a hit. Roll your damage. Yeah. And what kind of damage is it? Fire damage. Okay.

That's right. It's a fireball. What are we even talking about? Five parts of fire damage. Oh, Ali. Fish fight. Yes. Just open the door and leave it.

Everything's fish with me now. It's all fish. And second. Hi, kitty. Hi, kitty. Do you guys hear me? Yep. I have to go on Do Not Disturb.

I just got a phone call from a spam number. Boop, poop, poop. Okay. Don't answer. Oh, Dan, that was me. I just wanted to tell you about AT&T and it's great new products. My number got on some fucking awful list and I've been getting multiple calls a day. It's not good.

Maybe it's the spam corporation calling to send you free spam, yeah. We're kind of like ham, but we're already spiced in a can. Have you tried us? They love us in Hawaii. I would love to blame a conspiracy blame, actually. So, uh, all right. You hit. Good work.

Anything else you'd like to do for your turn, Ken? Watch it die. Well, that's not happening. Not yet anyway, but it could. Who knows? I'll just hang out here on my rock then. Okay. Up next is Blaine. What's Siam up to these days? Working on any scripts? Uh, yeah. It's his turn. I mean, whatever he wants to do with his turn is up to him.

If he wants to take a meeting, if he wants to fight, that's fine. Right now I'm at a coffee shop. I'm trying to write, but I'm just scrolling on my phone. You should put together a pitch deck. Yeah, here's an idea that I have in a form that we'll never, ever see the light of day. So we haven't seen what it is yet. It hasn't come out of the ground yet. Not much, but, you know, Shalab hit it by focusing real hard and smashing it with a firebolt. So you saw a fireboat go smashing right around those little pointy kitchen knives sticking out of

ground. I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to hit it with a fire bolt. Great. You're rolling with disadvantage. Okay. Ken got a 21 with disadvantage. I got a, okay, well, there's a natural 20.

And there's a natural 10. Hmm. I'm assuming you don't have a big bonus to it. And the 10 plus 6 or 16. That's a miss, unfortunately. a miss, unfortunately. So that one's going to... It's still better than a tip.

Biff into the ground around the pointy things. Anything else for your turn? No, I guess that's it. And I just... I roll twice and take... Disavantage, I roll twice and take the lower one, right? That's right. Okay. Yeah.

Brian. Yep, your turn. Are you ready for the thing about to explode out of the ground and murder everyone? What? Sure. Better not be Ed Sheerun. What's your turn to tell us what you're doing? How does it happen?

Do you have a good sense of the layout of what's happening, Brian? Or would you like me to kind of re-describe it? Yeah, I can't. I couldn't get a roll one to or roll 20 to load. Ah, okay. You didn't even get roll one to live. Got it. Well, then for your reference, Brian, you are near the entrance still,

but you climbed up into a rocky outcropping. So I'm going to pick one of those for you. that is not super in danger at the moment but you're like standing on a rock near the right hand side of the room. Up ahead a little bit Blaine's character was

standing on something but he missed he stepped off of it. It looked like something had silently gotten into the ground maybe the three-eyed thing and was positioned underneath the rock about to explode and mall Blaine. Chris just made a noise on top of the rock to make whatever it

is hopefully think Blaine is still there. And just you know, Dan, that that minor illusion lasts for a minute. So it is this sort of loop of wailing in for help. And it did have a couple of firebolts already fired at it, Brian, even though it's barely poking out of the ground. I'm going to use something I don't think I've used much. So I might need your help. uh chill touch cool yeah i think that is cool exactly so let's see i'm looking up chill touch

and i'm looking up chill touch and i'm the chill of the grave make a melee melee spell attack against target within reach on a hit the target takes one d10 necrotic damage and it can't regain hit points until the end of your turn. Whoa. That's not what I thought it was, but it's still cool. Can I try that? Very pertinent. Yeah, because you might be able to try it, you think. Try an insight check for me, Brian. Okay. 17.

All right. And that'll get you a pretty good amount of information. How far is your movement? Do you see that on your character sheet? I'm pulling up your character sheet so I can try to help you more, Brian. Is movement? I mean, it's probably 30, right? Or 40? 30.

30. So your movement's 30 feet. You can. almost get to it but the trick here is whether or not as your bonus action you can dash because you are a rogue yes you can so here's what you could do brian you could rush it because you have to touch it right yeah so you could rush in with your dash bop it with your hand like a boop, right? Chill touch

its little claw or whatever it is sticking out of the ground and then it can't I'm telling you this because you got a 17 on your inside check. It can't get an opportunity attack as you run away from it because it's barely poking out of the ground. Nice. Right. Okay, cool. So you could

chill touch it and then use the rest of your dash to run away and jump on a rock and I'm just going to measure on here for my reference how far away you can get because you can get like on top of a nearby mine cart, but not back to where you came from. Does that sound good?

Yeah. I think that should give you what you'd like if you want to use chill touch. If you found something else you'd like to do, uh, I I, I, I, I, I'm down. To attack? 22. Yeah. Yeah. Great. So you guys see Spikoli rush in. He does

not have to roll a disadvantage because he is close enough to touch it. And 22 is high enough to hit. So roll your chill touch damage, Brian. As you're about to... 12. Woo!

So you just see this terrifying green light extend from Spicoli's hand and like a lightning bolt. There's just like a bang noise as it arcs away from his hand into these claw-like appendages. And then he lets go and bounces back onto this mine cart just a little bit south of where the rock is being attacked. I'll take it. That was cool. Hey, Spacoli. Chill touch. Yeah, man.

It doesn't get old for me. Excellent work. Pass. She'll touch you on the left hand side. That's all I got. It's not going to be the monster's turn. I'm going to ask you to do a deception

check. Chris, normally I would I would just follow the basic minor illusion where you have to investigate first, but this is about it being distracted by Brian. Copy that. Deception, you say. Yeah, deception will determine if your illusion can be more distracting

than Brian chill touching its claws. Could I give myself guidance? Yeah. All right. All right, so it's a 25. So as Brian does this, you're narrowing your eyes to try to, 26 total.

So that's some fucking pro-level deception. You see Brian Cass chill touch. And what is the extra loud thing you have the illusion say? I'm like, oh, I'm going to slip. Help me, please. Help me. It's going to get me. Just real classic cowardly Talman shit.

All right. That is some real classic cowardly Talman shit. And honestly, you don't go full coward very often. So it's a treat. Well, I mean, I don't want to get eaten by whatever this fucking ground razor is. You see all of you, three scaled arms explode out of the ground, each of them, with three claws on them. Zorn. It grasps the rock, bursts out of the ground.

And you see it's got these giant maws wrapped around the rock with. huge fangs pressing against it. And it crushes the rock that the illusion was on. Rocks fly everywhere. It's three glowing red eyes looking around the room for its next treat. Because you rolled really high in the deception check, it is going to wonder what is going on and do an intelligence check because of how

deceptive you were. Otherwise, I would say, oh, he just destroyed your illusion. But he could be wondering where it is and be a little distracted. Cool. He rolls of 14. This against my spell DC. Save DC is 17.

So it doesn't mean that he's focused on what happened, but he is waiting for his treat. He feels like he got it. Yes. Great. Cool. Cool. And so here is him on the map.

And, uh, yep, it's a Zorn. Okay. Nice work, Blaine. I know one can call out his monsters. I know monsters. Chris, you are up. Oh, great. Rock monster.

Yeah, I will, uh, rock monster. I'm going to do, do, do, do. Um, I'm going to cast Bless. I'm going to, at second level, maybe. Like an additional greater three. So four targets. So I can target my three friends and, uh, is that better for doing it at second level? I'm going to cast it at first level.

Sorry for being a dilly dally. I'm going to cast Bless on, uh, my three friends. Uh, oh yeah. And then, which means you guys get to add a D4 to attacks and saving throws for the next minute. So that'll be that. They're blessed. And how tall is it? Can I try and climb further up?

How high up? Just to get a little. not like crazy. I just want to get like, let's say if I'm, well, how high am I like 10 feet up right now? No, the ceiling's not really out of reach more than 10 feet. So right now you're like three feet up.

Oh, okay. No. Okay, well, maybe I'll get, try and get a little closer. Don't be shy. Like your position feels good in a movie tremors sort of sense, but the way this thing blew up out of the ground,

it could easily reach you. Who knows? Yeah, but I, I trust your Fred Ward reference. I'm in. All right. So I will, that's it. Oh, and you know what?

I will give Bardic Inspiration to Spicoli, which means you can add a D8 to any role of your choice for up to the next 10 minutes. Nice. And I will help you keep track of that. Even more nice. All right, that's my turn. Ken, you're up.

Agonizer, scorcher. I saw them open for Mastodon. So this is a spell attack? Deck saving throw, 17. Oops. 13. That's a fail. Then it takes

28 points of... What? Fire damage. Oh! Is there a particular like ocean-like smell to this fire?

Yes, it's a fish. It's fish fire. Oh, my God. Yeah. It smells like a fish fry. It's the worst operating system. What color is it, though?

Red. It's fire, guys. Yeah, I'm with you. I don't like any of this fantasy shit. All right. Anything else for you, Shalab? I think that's quite enough. I am. It's you.

I'm going to do some more firebolts to it. Wee. This time you don't have disadvantage. Isn't it nice? I love it. Aren't I a generous dungeon master? 17. Plus you get a D4 from that blast.

Oh, okay. It sets it, 18, and a... It's a 19 plus 1. So, 20. 17 and a 20. Wait, wait. Are you rolling... Wait, you're rolling with...

Two bolts. Two bolts. The 17 is amiss. The 20 is a... hit. Okay. Should we try to talk to this thing? Nope. You could. It does appear to be

you know, humanoid size, but it's not humanoid. Oh, it's a friend. You're so mean. 14. I'll wait to assess that properly until the end of the turn. How many points is that again? 14, you said? 14. Oh, no.

Sorry, 7. No, it's 14. It's 2D10. I like that Ken like cooked this thing with fire and then goes Hey, did anybody try and talk to it? Like, oh, huh.

You never know. You just tell it we were scared. Brian, it is your turn. You are standing on a mine cart turned on its side about 10 feet away from this Zorn that exploded out of the ground. Zorn.

you are muted also in real life it looked like you were it shouldn't be how about now yes you're good I'm going to firebolt them great be okay

yeah 22 that is geez that is a hit cool roll that damn damn 10 fireball damage. Oh, baby.

All right. There's an explosion of rock. Explosion roll. And you just think you see chunks of scales fly off of this thing. You've guys been hammering it pretty good. Yay. Yay for our team. Yeah, go a...

Ice for action or no. R-IP Second action or no? Do you get two attacks per action is my question. Not as a rogue. You have bonus actions. You can like bonus action hide, bonus action dash.

That kind of shit. If you want to... Okay. Nope. Also, you know what, Brian? I don't know that this has come up yet, but it might have, and this is really cool.

I don't know if I've seen this with rogues. But it makes sense and is rad. You have a bonus action fast hands, and that can be used in three different ways. You can make a slight of hand check. Tickle it. Pick a lock or disarm a trap with these tools. That's, that's, use a magic item is the thing I have not seen before.

So as a bonus action, you can use a magic item that requires that action. Oh, wow. Yeah. Kind of wild, right? I feel like there's probably some... That's like a second attack if you do it, right? Yeah, some O.P.E. elements to it almost. But there's ways you could turn that into attack if you have a magic item. But I'm looking at Spicoli's inventory, and I don't know that you have like a magical grenade or anything that would come to my mind. The Holy Hand grenade. The Holy Hand grenade of Antioch?

Is there any other Holy Hand grenade? I mean, you guys didn't buy anything off of Tim. when you encountered him, so it's not my fault. Being naughty and I are. Shal snuff it. Nerves. Next. I don't we remember this ship.

Zorn is now going to go. He's going to take a swing at thin air. Is that me? He thinks it's half you, half elusive. of of uh of twidden so he's he's swinging it like this hybrid of illusion and you great then I will keep that running I guess um so he's I clicked it just for the fun of it but he's swinging at nothing he swings and it feels like it really should have connected and it

doesn't so he's going to blink for a second he He thinks it must be on his face somewhere, so he swats at his face. Oh, an idiot. Hilarious. This time he swings even better and misses once again. And so he is going to roll again. He is multi-attack for three attacks so he can make three claw attacks. Once again, gets a real stupid roll, and he thinks he's still swinging at this thing.

So here comes that claw That final claw attack He's still missing But he's going to get to do He doesn't have any more attacks he can do But he's going to check in with reality And be like, what the fuck He really can't beat that deception check

That you made, Chris And so he's just completely befuddled Can I get you to roll another deception check please? Certainly Am I Is this a thing I can add guidance to or is it Yeah Because you can see him swatting at it

And you know you're really going to have to do something creative with this illusion to get him to keep focusing on his face? Well, this will be interesting. Holy shit. I rolled the 31. So what I'm going to do is, again, with the sound, I'll be like, oh, my gosh, it's right on top of me. And maybe I will physically drop the sound because it was sitting up on top of the rock that was no longer there. I will now drop the sound so it is beneath the zorn. Like between its legs?

I guess so, yeah, as though like, again, as though this person somehow is screaming for help from beneath it. Somehow it missed seeing them slide and fall beneath it. Well, it works for me because he's just been swatting at his face. And so I think instinctively he would be easily convinced by something that was now, underneath him because he would almost be like, too, of course it's underneath me. That's why I couldn't hit it. And you rolled such a high deception check 30 that he's going to have a really hard time not focusing on it, but he is getting frustrated.

So if somebody hits him hard, he is probably going to break off. However, I'm going to have everyone roll a perception check before we get to the top of the turn order and you again, Twitter in. We're going to do some narrative bottom of the turn order stuff before you take your actions and such. 25. You said, right? Perception, yeah.

That's a four? 29. Oh, that's not good. 29, though. I got a 25 also. Nice. All right. So, Tuddin, you see

knives appearing claws, appearing coming up out of the ground around the rock that Siam is on Yeah Who did I just say Saw that? Did I say Twiddin or Joffrey? I said Twiddin, right?

Quidden. And so Jaffrey, you're going to see it on the rock underneath Shalab. There are sets of claws coming up underneath both of them. Son of a. Call that shit out.

Yeah, bro. Dude, there's some thing under there. guys it's important can I can I jump on your turn maybe okay it depends I know that claw I know that claw it depends one of them got a 20 on its initiative the other one got a three okay the one that got the one that got a 20 is underneath can okay so there you do have that going for for you.

Yes. You should be able to jump the way you think. But that is just you going le-oh, as it is now Chris Tallman's turn, then Ken's then one of the Zorn. I'm going. Now three Zorn incoming. Two incoming one. So many Zorn.

Three total. Three total. What's the plural for Zorn? My God. Zorn. So any kind of ranged attack will be a disadvantage, right? with these under-the-grounds zorn. If you want to be hitting tiny little claws poking out of the ground, yeah.

All right, then I'm going to keep my focus on this one up here, who's momentarily being a dingbat. I'm going to fire my firebolt at it. Okay. Shoot. Critical fail. Can I get a 100 roll, please, Crystal. Certainly.

Oh, it's only magic. Ow. Ninety-one. Oh, my gosh. Oh, no. Oh, no. Dude. Oh, boy.

That would be pretty fun, wouldn't it? Well, John Zorn would be. Oh, my gosh. Some of the stories. Bringing up the old botched table PDF. Yeah. It's like the Bristol stool scale for players. Okay, so do you have a weapon equipped?

I mean, I guess it would be, if I have a physical weapon, it would be my rapier. Is it magical? It is not. All right. That is bad news. You shoot your firebolt while your rapier is in your hand. And unfortunately, you point your finger so it goes like right into the hilt of the rapier. and you just absolutely explode the rapier right in half. Oh, shit.

A shard of metal flies into your eye. Aye. Why would you do that? And you take 15 points of piercing damage. You are now blinded. Your rapier is destroyed. Okay. And I'm going to ask you to do a.

dexterity saving throw to save your hand. God. Oh, my God. Hey. Hey, critical success. So hot tamales, you pull your hand out real fast and are able to avoid nuking your own hand as you blast the tilt of your rapier, part of which is now in one of your eyes.

You're blinded because of the shooting pain. it's affecting your other eye uh outchy ouchy ouch anything you'd like to do with your bonus action chris well that was a well i guess i can bonus act because that way well wait now can be cast as a bonus action no firebolt is it's got to be an action right um yeah yeah it It definitely is. Unless there's something special with... Oh, no, but sometimes you can do like a can't trip in it. No, I can't do anything else.

I will, I guess, maybe try and use my wounded hand to stanch the blood out of my eye. Sure, it looks great. Well, this would be handy for binding a wound. I'll let you do a medicine check. Cool. You'll have a makeshift eye patch if you succeed. Oh, look at that shit. Look at that.

Another, where were these crits a moment ago? You managed, you managed to find a bit of bedroll. You can easily tear off and with a swift movement, wrap it around your face. Also, because it's a crit, I'll say that you get the shrapnel out really quick. Great. And manage to stop it up, like at the same time with that bind. Okay. But it was a puncture wound.

So I'm going to actually, now that I'm thinking. about it, I'm going to give you a choice. Do you pull it out or not? Well, I think I wouldn't pull it out right away because it would, then it'll just leak goop, right? Right. Because it's a puncture wound in your eye, you get to choose with that crit whether you pull it out or not. I would say probably not, right? Maybe we can use some magic and fix it. Then we'll just, we'll just pad your binding of the wound with the rest of That crit energy. Can I, can I hang the binding off the edge of the rapier?

Like, you know, like when you've got like too long of a pole hanging out of the back of your car, you're supposed to tie like a red thing. Yeah. Sure. But your rapier is toast. Your rapier is now a glowing, heated hilt with a little chunk of metal sticking out of it. the majority of the blade is shattered and flown around

Jesus Christ terrible there were a magic weapon I would have just said it got knocked out of your hand but alas oh that's not that rapier we were looking for

the needle the president oh okay that's a different a convicted one yeah it's a rabious so that sounds like it's it

for your turn Chris unless you're going to hop to another chunk of rock, so that's going to go to Ken. This will be our... I'm going to fly. Oh, where are you flying? Hawaii. Flying away. Flying away. New Zealand? Any of those are good.

Over here, I'll fly over here. Help out my kitty friend. Okay. Now when you say help out your kitty friend and you're flying over there, are you just going to hover? Are you going to attack? What are you doing to help? Well, I can't really attack because that's my...

turn so casting ready to help you're ready to hell I got it okay you should to see if these other Zorns can talk oh yeah maybe they're friendly we just wanted to play oh all right so this 21 is going to burst out of the ground where you were standing and sure he is going to look around realize he missed you and these guys don't move super fast so he's going to look for who's nearest oh he gets to choose I think he's going to go how high up off the ground are you flying there Ken it's 15 foot as a ceiling 15 feet up near the ceiling okay then he cannot easily reach you and he will go for Chris Tallman hello actually it's twit I'm not he'll go for

twitten um i guess but what i really wanted is to hurt the ego of christ tall uh terrified because i'm i'm very i'm very fucked up socially and i need this is how i get my anger out um oh chris tallman lucky he botched does my sword explode into his eye So he's going to punch He's going to punch the wall And be very humiliated by his miss And he's got two more claws He's going to try to hit you ass

Oh my God With his dick 18 and a 26 crit You know the crit for sure The 18 yes hits as well All right so that is going to be Do do do 20 points of slashing damage.

All right. I can give a reaction on this shit. Let me, let me not be an idiot. Reaction. Torbellments. Oh, yes. Uh-huh.

I will use shield. Great. And raise my AC by well, hell. I will let you retcon saying you raised shield when you heard yourself. I'm not going to raise shield. What I'm going to do is. is

I'm going to take the first hit, the 18, and then as a reaction, I'm going to cast silvery barbs where I magically distract the creature

and turn its has to re-roll a D20 and use the lower roll. So I'm making it re-roll on the crit. So I'll take the 18. And then that reduced the damage by three. He's still got a 21.

I'll take the two regiments. Eight points of slashing damage. So 17 total. Yoakes, goyks. I'm all bloodied. Now he's going to try to bite you. Now? Oh, my God.

17 to hit? Misses. All right. He misses. And Blaine will have to see how your action. goes on our next episode, hopefully in person, of nerd poker, the fog campaign. And you can hire me to be a dungeon master at Danalford.com. Also, you can catch me on Twitch.

I've been playing a lot more Twitch lately. You can watch me play video games with some of my friends and my daughter. My daughter, a professional athlete in her own right. She's just being, she won an award. She has 12 national archery records. And she's on the national archery team. She started her own Twitch at twitch.tv.tv slash Nova's version. My daughter's name is Nova, and it's a Taylor Swift reference.

So I've already had her on my stream, and it was a lot of fun. And she is 17 years old, very snarky and fun. So, yeah. She didn't ask me to plug. I am just doing it because why not? I have got a few tour dates left this summer. I've got New York and Philadelphia coming up next week, City Winery, both of them one night or one show each night in each city with J.T. Habersat.

And then I've got a Terrificon coming up in Connecticut. I've got Calgary three nights at a comedy club in Calgary, Brian Passain.com for that information. and I'm with Johnny Taylor on those shows. And then this week, I'm signing Grommets and Rifters at Comic-Con. But more signing's coming up. Check Brianpessane.com for that. Blaine.

We attribute the success saved mankind for us for joining us on this episode. You got walls and a roof. On the next dirt poker. Magic Comet Week continues. This one brings a bunch of toys to life, and the Nerd Poker gang has to fight a bunch of antique Tomoguchi's and Funko Pop shaped like Maroon 5. Can Sam throw a blanket over them and bash them with hammers

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