A Geek History of Time - Episode 29- New Season, New Producer, Who Dis? (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 28, 2019

George joins the team to help bring up the technical quality of the whole operation. Damian and Ed initiate him by forcing him to pick the best D&D 5e adventuring party from a selection of historical figures they have statted out. It’s like “Celebrity Deathmatch,” but without the claymation or the cartoonish gore.

I said good day sir. You don't ever plan anything around the Eagles because the Eagles represent the grace of God. You heathen bastards. One of vanilla nabish name. Well, your orcs are people too. I'm thinking of that one called they got taken out with one punch. So he's got a wall, a gall, a gall, and a wall. Every time you mention the Eagles, I think done Henley.

Ha ha ha. This is a geek history of time. This is a geek history of time. I have no idea when we switch. I'm Ed Blaylock. No, you're not. No, don't lie. Okay, I'm Damien Harmony.

And I'm Ed Blaylock. And this is where we bring nursery into the real world. I'm again, Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher with a side of English in Northern California and a father to a now 20 month old, still 19 month old, a little boy, how about you? I'm David Harmony, I'm a Latin teacher with a side order of world history in northern California, falling back in love with the curriculum because the

standards have changed, which means I can actually teach about the world in 10th grade. Yeah, nice. I am the father to two little genders. One is almost 10 and the other one is seven. She has burned her way through the third of Harry Potter books. She's about to start Goblet of Fire. I assume you mean that metaphorically. She's read all the way through in about three weeks. Being a smart ass. Three really, wait, hold up.

For a seven year old, yeah. Hold up, yeah. Wow, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And her brother has become an expert on all things battlefront. Oh, okay, all right.

Nice, it's a fun little household right now. Very cool, yeah, very cool. We have actually a new member to the team. We do. We do. Indeed. Those of you who have told us how much you like the podcast, but I wish you could fix that thing with the levels

where Phil and the blank are going to be very happy to find out that we now have a producer on staff. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Hello George. I don't have my Twitter yet but we'll be working on that. I have two kids. Yeah. Like you want what kind of credit do you want me to throw out here? That works. Yeah. Yeah for now. That's that's good. I keep the levels in mind. Oh we appreciate that very much. Yeah, for now that's that's good Oh, we appreciate that very much and our way of welcoming you to the squad is Similar to gang rules of the 1950s. We're going to jump you in but in the nerdyest way possible

Each of us because it's us. Yeah each of us has I lose from the get-go because I have never been on Winston. Benstein's money. And you know, there's going to have to be an episode about that at some point where we hear that story in greater detail. But yes, as a matter of fact, my partner here has, has been on when Benstein's money. I was never on it. Oh, okay. Edition for it. Audition for it. Okay. I was never on it. Oh, okay. In addition for it.

Audition for it. Okay. We're not making it. Okay. I'm surprised. Yeah, well, I kind of feel like I'm a people who came in from Phoenix that day. So.

And I know now that there's even more of a story than I had thought. But that's not what we're doing today. Not so much. Now today, like I said, we're jumping George the producer in. Both Ed and I have created a bevy of characters for you to construct the perfect D&D squad from. These are all historical characters that Ed and I have statted out. Ed, what were the rules? The rules were it had to be a historical figure for this round. And for this round also, we needed to capture these people right before they became historical figures. So as an example,

I'm going to be opening my opening gambit, I think is a pretty strong one. I've got the Viking on the bridge at a battle of Stanford bridge and So this is essentially the night before the battle what his stats would have been so it's before they get Legendary. Yes, before they become the thing of legend Yeah, it's like either while they're in the middle of doing the awesome thing that they become known for or just a hair before that. Right, right before what Frank Herbert would have called the cusp that led to them becoming figures of greatness. Yes. So we each have stated out a number of characters from history, various eras, various cultures. I think that we're gonna make a squad of five or six.

You know what I'd say, let's make it a squad of six total, because we each have five stared out, and I think a squad of six would give us a definitive idea of who won. Okay, between you and me. I can't do the math on that, but I'll trust you. But I'm just thinking that that works.

That works. I mean, it's actually an even number, so we might wind up with a tie, but whatever you're gonna say, if we do it like five. But I like, but I like six. Okay, six it'll be. So, just some ground rules.

Levels are variable, not everybody's gonna be at level 20. You want to have the squad that is what you consider the best D&D squad in terms of, I would say, versatility. Versatility effectiveness, yeah. Yeah, like, so you'd be able to get through any and all adventures. So if you pick all fighters, you could luck with magic, you know, something like that. But it lies on you with their fate will be And to get them through The the Dungeons and Dragons world and to defeat Venger

but Make it a deep cut. Yeah, I like it of course a cut that's gonna be like not that deep to anybody in our audience Because yeah, it's a pretty you're all our specialized group. We just saying. I'm gonna be called a sanderer, really. Yeah, well, aren't you though? Yes. Okay. So, you're gonna hurt. Okay, yeah.

All right, I'm gonna start with, we don't actually know his name, so I've given him the name Hordroda's hitter because he worked for Harald Hordroda. And that is the Viking on the bridge, at the Battle of Stanford Bridge, 1066, basically right before the one that Harold won before he went down to Hastings and got killed. And so for those who aren't familiar with the story, at one point, the Viking army that was intent

on trying to install Harold's brother Tostig as King. We're in the process of retreating the head across the bridge to get away. And one lone Viking berserker as a rear guard actor stood on the bridge and scared that ever loving shit out of the Saxon army by just basically being the hardest killer any of them had ever witnessed ever. According to the stories his visage was so terrifying that Saxon soldiers refused to get anywhere near him. And so because of that I had to stat him out at a total of level 20 because there were specific abilities he had to get. So he's fighter 10, barbarian 10, strength is a 19 because he's gotten to that level

constitution is a 20. Now I'm just gonna hit the major point of why I think he deserves to be on this party. And then George can take a look at it. And then George can take a look at it and compare it. So he's got 238 hit points to start with because he's a barbarian of course when he rages by the way we're using fifth edition dnd rules Yes, so anything we're talking about here is based on that that set of assumptions

When he rages he takes half damage from any and all kind of weapon attacks So if anybody attacks him with a blade he has effectively almost 500 hit points. Yes So if anybody attacks him with a blade, he has effectively almost 500 hit points. Yes. Wow. A blade or an axe or a spear or a mace or your druid shifts into bare form and comes at him. He doesn't care. Yeah. No, he's going to turn you into a coat, motherfucker, because that's what he does.

He's a berserker. So, and then the really important bit and the reason that I had to have him at the level he's at is because of intimidating presence. Because again, the story said that after several hours, the Saxons wouldn't get anywhere near him because he was just that terrifying. And intimidating presence means opponents have to make a DC-16 wisdom save or be frightened. And so that's the culmination. He took path of the berserker because obviously, it's in the name. Yeah. And so ultimately the only way they could defeat him

was to send somebody in a boat under the bridge with a spirit of thrust up between the boards of the bridge to stab him from below. And then even after he was dead, nobody got near him for a couple of hours until they figured it out. Yeah yeah because he was still standing up some of them. And so they didn't realize he was dead until somebody got brave enough to go poke him with a stick and they figured out oh wait he's been dead for like an hour at which point the

heathen army had gotten away. So even in death he succeeded at his task. So there you go. George take a look there, see anything there that jumps out at you. And it is also noting that he is unarmored. Oh my God. But still with an armoured class of 19.

Oh my God. Yes, because it's like getting him. Because his Khan is 20 and he's a barbarian so he gets to add that to an armor class of 19. Oh my God. Yes, because it's like getting him. Because his Khan is 20 and he's a barbarian, so he gets to add that to his armor class. Oh wow. Khan and Dex. Oh my God. You put him next to a thief?

Oh, and. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, later on, I got one. I got one. Something tells me you're going to have the frontline guys. I just might. I think I'll have the remps. You might.

Yeah. So that's my opening gambit. I got nothing to compete with. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Well, one of his gear pieces is a can of whoopass. Yeah, I make sure to add that ice cold can of whoopass

just right to be cracked open. Doesn't say ice cold on the ship. No, it't you're right you're right that is a failure. No no it says I have gray eyes. Where's the mountain down? So oh man I got a Viking slang sword. It's got a plus 10. You're not that the bridge you're at the bar. Perfect. All right so that the bridge, you're at the bar. Perfect.

All right, so that's your opening. That's entry number one. That's my opening gambit. What do you get? I'm going to go a different way. I have a Warlock 17, Barred 3, one of only two level, no, actually, you know what? I ended up with three level 20,

still have a thing about it. But they're all justified. I'm not power gaming here. I went with a Warlock Bard named. Wait, wait, Power Gaming is the whole point of this answer. Oh, okay. Well, I came back naturally. Okay.

A character you may have heard of him, his name was Harry Houdini. Okay, wait. Harry Houdini is a Warlock. Yes. Who exactly did Harry Houdini sell his soul to? Who didn't? He sell his soul to. To get out of all those escapes, he had no kind of hatred.

Okay. Alright. Alright. So he started as a bard. Well, yeah. Yeah. He's got 121 hit points, which is roughly half of the boy. Yeah, yeah, fully half of Viking.

Some things to note, his charisma is a 20, but all his other stats are fairly low, comparatively. He's kind of a one trick pony as far as that goes. His personality traits, he has a joke for every occasion. He believes in fairness, never target someone who could afford to lose. Okay. And he can't resist swindling people more powerful than he. Okay, punches up.

Yeah, absolutely, because even on his cusp, he was still proving spiritualist to be frauds. Yes. He has as a bard, like he's level three bard. He is, I'm just looking back at it. He's a college of glamor. He has as as a bard like he's level three bard. Um, he is I'm just looking back at it. He's the College of Glamour Makes sense takes on mantle of inspiration in throwing performance Okay, which at the end He can he can use up to his charisma modifier and people have to save for wisdom or be charmed for an hour

Okay, now then he sits slips over to being a warlock and and people have to use save for wisdom or be charmed for an hour. Okay. Now then he slips over to being a warlock and he has another worldly patron, the Archfay. And he has a bunch of spells that are fun and I'm hoping that I did this right. But he also has a packed boon, the packed of the tom, which gave him three more cantrips. He's also lucky, took the feet of lucky. He has, let's see, his eldritch invocations, aspects of the moon, tricksters escape, whispers of the grave, the ability to talk to the dead, tell people it doesn't work. Gift of the depths, misty visions, eyes of the rune keeper and sculpture of flesh.

These are all things that enable him to prove wrong those who claim thomaturgy and are unable. I got one question for you. Go for it. Because you said that charisma was really high but none of his stats were all that exceptional otherwise. He was known to be very athletic, very, very fit, very tough. You know, the whole incident of the lead to his death was trying to tighten his whole knee.

Yeah. What conscored, he has a con of 15. Okay, so he's got a bonus of two. Okay, better than us, but not near, or grow to set it up. Yeah, well. And his strength is a 12, because he does have to be fit enough

to get out of these things. Okay. Let's see, he has the ability to call emotions. He's got blink. He can dominate beast and he's got greater invisibility. He has a number of cantrips that all that including detect magic. Yeah, which makes sense. He is a magic user. He's also his mystic arcanum. He has mass suggestion. Also, his mystic Arcanum, he has mass suggestion, obviously, reverse gravity for when he's hanging up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Telepathy, and time stop. Okay. So he can actually get to all of those locks to affect these games. All right. He also has 14 spells known with his pack magic Missly pass wall, okay, which he did famously did that trick. Yeah Polymorph telekinesis haste a few others

But so he is whom I would submit for our glass cannon as it were our heavy hitting magic user For your perusal charge. Okay, any Anything sticks out at you that is highlight worthy. Let us know. You already mentioned the jump frame location. Mm-hmm. Yep. Is it for your kid? Yes. He was known to be able to not quite forge passports because they didn't really have those back then.

But there were several documentation that he produced for local law enforcers to gain him more legitimacy than he actually was due. Oh, okay. As well as the disguise kit. Oh, yeah. Which makes sense. Yeah, because you got to hide the key somewhere. Yeah But that's It's all those stands out that you didn't cover. Yeah Who do you all right so since since you shifted left on me?

Uh-huh, and what was the spellcaster? I'm gonna go with my main candidate for Wizard okay in the party and I should say Wizardress. This individual is a Necromancer, level 16. I assigned an alignment of neutral good which seems like a little bit weird for somebody who you know dabbles in raising corpses from the dead but it'll make sense in a moment. Oh, real quick, Dan, we're up to Harry Houdini. I kept him as chaotic good, because ultimately he was trying to do good.

Yeah, trying to help people. Yeah, go on. So, this individual's personality traits I have down are outspoken, romantic and rebellious. Her, the faction to whom I assigned her is Romantics slash Goth Geeks, Romantics with a capitolar as in the Romantic movement, because it's Mary Shelley, the mother of science fiction and horror literature as we know it today, and she's an echo-mancer because Frankenstein, yes. And she's an echo-mancer because Frankenstein. Yes. Like, I don't know why I feel like I have to explain that,

but I feel like I should. Okay. And so the idea that I went with this is that, of course, by the time she wrote Frankenstein on that very famous trip to Switzerland with her husband and word Byron. The origin of the other people. Yeah, the origin origin didn't quite. She wrote the book instead of the origin.

Like guys, I'm just gonna go right. Yeah, no, you know what? I'm gonna go, you know, and interestingly, of course, one of the other people there wrote one of the first modern vampire stories at the same time because it was a challenge that the game they came up with was a challenge to tell the scariest story. She actually managed to scare herself with the idea that she came up with.

And so my, my conceit here was that this is her before, right before putting everything together to, to publish the story or write the story. together to publish the story or write the story. And she is motivated, essentially, by the fact that she was haunted by death throughout her life. Of course, her mother died when she was very, very young and she grew up spending a great deal of time at her mother's grave side. Her father never got over her mother's death. It's kind of characterized. It was something that was with her, you know, all her life up to that point. And of course, she and Percy Shelley, her husband, who at this point was not her husband yet, had

just lost a child shortly before this whole series of events happened. So she is surrounded by all of this death and so this led me to have this idea of what if no seriously she was really actually surrounded by death. Sure. Because we're talking about this is happening in a fantastical fantasy universe. And so she does not really have any kind of up close damage potential. She's a wizard that's not her thing. Everything winds up being at range. And because it's necromancy, it's not blasting. It's a lot more indirect stuff.

But notable about her being a necromancer, Undead Thralls is one of the traits of a specialist wizard of Necromancy. When she casts Create Undead, she's able to create one additional zombie or skeleton over and above what she would normally be allowed. And all of the creatures she creates have a hit point maximum that is increased by her wizard level.

And she adds her proficiency bonus to those creatures damage rolls. So no, no, I'm not going to blast you with a fireball. I'm going to let the monster go after you and you know, Frank the tank is going to take care of that. And by the way, he gets an additional plus five to all of his damage rolls because 16th level Necromancer. Additionally, in your due undethe means she does not take necrotic damage of any kind from any source. Because she's been around so long. She's been around it so much. And at the same time, her hit point maximum can never be reduced by Necromanic kind of effect. So she can hang out with the ghouls and the gasts

and the rates and the specters and not care. And then finally, I find this funny. There is the command undead ability, which means she can make one undead within 60 feet. She can force it to make a charisma save versus DC-19. Or it will become friendly and follow her commands until she uses the feature again. So like we're talking a standard zombie or a skeleton.

Well, yes, but she can actually use it against a lich. I'm sorry, what? She can use it against a lich, she can use it against a vampire, she can any, any, any undead. But so however, they have to make a charisma save however if their target is in it has an intelligence of eight or higher it has advantage on the save okay anybody with a 12 or higher can keep

saving every hour to shrug it off however I just got this picture in my head of her in the party walking into the Lich King's layer at the center of the dungeon and her going right then chuck it in a very upper-class British kind of tone and the Lich going oh my god I'm terribly sorry. I apologize. I'm so sorry. It's a terrible mess. I'm so embarrassed. You know and just that picture was just so wonderful to me that I had to share that highlights of her spell list animate dead naturally at third level because you know Frank the tank and lightning bolt I have labeled as a favorite but don't and then there's it every time I saw a spell that had something to do with spooking people, I put it on the list.

Any time I saw a list that sounded a spell rather that sounded like it would be a good background effect of some kind for somebody performing the Monster Mash I put it on there. So Fog Cloud is on the list, confusion, and a dance macabre at level five, whatever spells. So, here you go. George, take a look at that. Anything I didn't mention, go ahead and feel free to point out and just contemplate. Now you cover it all. All right. She is neutral good, since we're covering the liners. Yep.

She does have a finger, yeah. Yep. But that goes along with the neck. Yeah. And also of course necker answers at really high levels get the wonderful, you know, symbol of pain and, you know, gleefe of fill in the blank spells which are always fun. All right. Well, I brought a barred to the table.

Now again. Another one. Yeah. That's, oh, that's a good point. Yeah, this I brought a bar to the table. Now again, another one. Yeah, that's oh, that's a good point. Yeah, this is a true bar, though. Okay, this is not a cross class type bar. This is an actual bar. And this one, let's see, he is only a bar level 10. So the odds of him staying in the party are fairly low. Okay. But, well, around and you know yeah pick up the scrap skeins and experience points. Yeah. Yeah. But his hit points are only 65. Yeah it's gonna be a problem. Yeah. His armor class is only 10. Okay. His alignment is neutral neutral because he is George Carlin. Okay. So this is George Carlin Probably around Just before he hits class clown. Okay, so so this is this is definitely pre the words you can't say on television right

Just a little before that or or it's really just after that because that's when he really steps on the national stage He's another one who is just kind of a one trick pony as far as most of his stats go But I will say his constitution is a 14 because he suffered through three heart attacks before he died. So he was clearly hardy His Christmas is 20 okay He is let's see has the feet of actor which gave him a plus one to his charisma Okay, I gave him advantage on deception and performance. Okay and His insight is relatively high

His his knowledge of history is actually his highest one of his highest abilities as well as persuasion Okay, his ideals I would like to point out honesty, art should reflect this soul. Okay. And flaws, short tongue lands me in trouble. Yeah, a little bit. There was a supreme court case against him. Yes. We're involving him. Now, he's only level 10 Bard, and I gave him the Bard of, where did it go? That's an interesting college. Not familiar with that one. Oh, college of lore.

Okay. Because it gives you cutting words. You use Bardic inspiration to subtract from someone's role attacking you. Yeah. They must hear you. Yeah. They must hear you. Yeah. This is the thing that I think might keep him on the field. I don't know if he'll get to the main six,

but it might keep him on the field, because he is literally with his words, debuffing the shit out of everyone else. And with his charisma so high, the debuff, the debuff is legitimate, is legitimate thing. He also has a song of rest so in the off time He can you can get people rested. Yeah, I'll let George find the spells that he likes out of the spell list

But I will say his fifth level spell of Modify memory He can change what you thought about it. Yeah And his third level spell of counter spell. Oh, yeah, well, that's because if you're hitting him with bullshit No, no, no, no, yeah, so and then there's a few others that he might find that are fun I also gave him where was it? There's one other thing that I gave him that I thought was just kind of interesting Investigation of six.

Okay. Cause he was good at finding stuff out. Yeah. Yeah. So submitted for your approval, the entertainer background. Okay. George Carlett. All right. I should have done Rod Sirling as a wizard. That would have been good. A sorcerer. That would have been good.

I think next time I do historical figures, I have to do Jacques de Mollet as a paladin. That'll be fine. Because that'll be entertaining. No. This is a thing you can feel of movement. Yes. He pretty much got to go wherever he wanted in life. Oh, so I mean, he traveled the world doing comedy and when he did his comedy, he was a stage prowler.

He would go back and forth on a stancer. Yeah. So there you go. So that is a board. I don't think that he'll make the final cut, but I think that it'll be interesting to see how far he makes it in. Okay. So what you got? Right. Um, I have the most multi-class character I put together. He has three classes. Oh, I have one of those. Historically, I think this individual would have had even more.

Historically, this figure is the closest I can think of to a historical figure who was actually Batman. This individual was not only a police commissioner, so he's kind of Batman and Commissioner Gordon. Right. The police commissioner, Secretary of the Navy, a cattle rancher in Montana. Now where you going? Conservationist, he was an expert on the animals

and birds of North America. One appeal, it's a prize, he won a Nobel Peace Prize. French Stewart. Yes. Smart ass. No. Teddy Roosevelt.

There's a little talk about it here. Okay, well yeah. All right. There you go, John Lithgow. Okay, nice, nice. Well done. No, Teddy Roosevelt. And of course, now the terms of our,

of this competition are, that it has to be before they became the figure that we know. That legend dies. The legend dies them. And in Roosevelt's case, the major step that led to him becoming a legendary figure was becoming vice president. Right.

And so this is after San Juan Hill. Okay. This is after police Commissioner of New York. Okay. But it is before Vice Presidency and Presidency. Because famously, the Republican Party said, now look, that damn Cowboys president. Yes.

Yes. And as a matter of fact, the only reason he wound up getting the Vice Presidential nomination, I found, I got reminded, was that there was a very important Republican figure in New York who didn't want him to be governor of New York anymore. Yeah, they were trying to stick him somewhere where he'd be out of the way.

They wanted to put him someplace where he wouldn't be getting in everybody's way and being a fire thrower. And it was, okay, look, we're gonna make him vice president. Now at some point, over the protestations of the rest of the national party, it was like this deal had to be like, okay fine, he can make him vice president.

Well, but we'll park him there. That's the last time. The last time vice president, yeah, then McKinley went and died. So real quick, let me back you up, just a second. Okay, he had worked in the state assembly as well. Right? He's an assembly member. Yeah. Now, I don't know if you know this. But the reason that Bugs Bunny walks the way he does.

And the reason that Hawkeye Pierce, when Lam Pooning, uh, Groucho marks walks the way he does. So Hawkeye is walking like Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny is walking like Groucho. Groucho Marx walks the way he does. So Hawkeye is walking like Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny is walking like Groucho. Groucho is lampooning the way that hipster young men in the 1880s walked. And the people in the state assembly made fun of Theodore Roosevelt for walking in like that when he first showed in.

But this was leaning forward, chest forward, the arm behind the back, the other one swinging. That all comes from Teddy Roosevelt publicizing that walk and having it criticized in the state assembly floor. That's what leads to Bugs Bunny walking the way he does. Wow. yeah. And this is why we do that podcast. That connection never would have been made in my head. So because of where he is in his career, the mix of levels that I've got for him is fighter, five, Ranger, five for his time out west,

and Bard six for his time as politician, Glad Hand or all that. So, and I took the skilled feet at level one for him because he knew a lot about everything. Right, which made sense. So you gave him more skills? Yeah, his highest stats are his intelligence, which at this level, 16th level total

have now gotten up to 18. They would be higher, right, but true to his background, I had to spend a couple of stat increases bringing his strength up to 11 and his constitution up to a 13. Because he was historically not strong or funny. Or funny. He was as mad as. Until he did it himself. Until he by force of sheer fucking will. himself into a physical specimen as a young man. Now, I had to try to find a way to make his background work in D&D because he's a figure of the

late 19th century, early 20th century and you know. There's guns. Anachronisms are a thing. So yes, and I found the fighter archetype of gunslayer. Okay, actual gunslayer is this like a redo of like a slayer? No, no, gunslayer is the is the fighter archetype out of either run or start canners and it does still have like comparable damage to like really good crossbows. The the Winchester the revolver uses is a D6 base plus Okay, his bonus is the rifle uses is a D10 It's a Winchester repeating repeating rifle same one he wouldn't use it San Juan Hill a really bad ass long long Yeah, okay, okay, okay?

So his fighting style is archery as a fighter. Uh-huh Then when he takes his levels as Ranger he gets to pick a style then. So he gets fighting style archery a second time. And it stacks. And it stacks. Wow. If I've made a mistake here, call me out on Twitter. But I wrote it up as it stacks. So his total attack bonus is a plus 11.

To hit. To hit. Wow. I should hear a point out that the barbarian in the party has a plus 10. With the melee weapons. So plus 11 to hit with his shoot and irons. So he's a fighting ranger type. He's not necessarily the pathfinder,

although he can do that too. He can do that too, but his primary focus is to hurt people. Okay. And his archetype is Hunter. Okay. And I took Horde Breaker. Oh.

So once Per turn, he can make a bonus attack against a second opponent within five feet of the first one. Okay. So with a repeating rifle, he can bang bang bang bang. And he has three base attacks per round because of Fighter and Ranger additional attacks. And you can pull triggers a lot.

You can pull triggers a lot. Now, on top of that, he of course, has the Bard levels, which give him bardic inspiration, which at his level is a D8. Okay. And he's College of Valor, which I figured made sense, based on being the orator that he was

and being the militarist and imperialist that he was, it makes sense. And so his inspiration die can be used by his allies. In addition to the normal stuff you can add it to, they can also add it to damage rolls or they can roll it and add it to their armor class to avoid getting hit. So he's not only, I'm gonna to stand in the back and, you know, like the scene.

Yeah, it's not just going to be one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Oswald was, you know, a wimp. He can also, because I don't want to use that word, but anyway, he can also say, by the way, while I'm back here, you know, messing people up, I can also say, no, no, you're not hitting my buddy. No, no, no, no, no, no. The barbarian with an AC of 19 now has an AC of up to 8. Up to 27.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's pretty bitching. Yeah. And then notable on his Spells list. Uh huh. Rangers don't get a lot of stuff.

Hunter's Mark, I think, is useful. And Hunter's Mark is great too, because you can find that enemy in a battle later. Oh, and by the way, for his favorite enemy, I put down cattle rustlers and tavern owners violating blue laws. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. This is either one of those counts as his favorite enemy. I really like that you've completely nerfed his ability to fight right there. Well, because nobody fights the tavern owners ever. Yeah, well, ever.

You haven't played in the groups I've played in. True. And Bishop, Bishop, I know you're listening. You know what I'm talking about. You're the major D. Listen, in joke, he's the only one going to get it know what I'm talking about. You're the nature D. Listen, Joke, he's the only one gonna get it, but I don't care. So.

It's at least 10% of our listening audience. Yeah, right now. Yeah, and also, and also, are a number one sponsor. Thank you. That's true. So, but also as a Bard, he gets heroism and thrall suggestion and fast friends, which suit his, you know,

glad-ending, oh, personality traits, boisterous and maniacally extroverted. That's what I put down there. And for ideals, see Republican Party Platform 1900, and alignment is, as you mentioned, chaotic good because of Republican establishment thought he was Terrifying. Yeah, there you are sir. Anything else jump out at you Yeah, that's yeah Stuff there on his equipment. Oh, no, I didn't you're right. I should have had that there. Damn it Forgot that or oh god if he could summon a steed and it would be a

bull moose. The giant, yeah. Oh, I got, see, that would be later in his career though. It would be after the presidency. You'd have to take enough levels in Paladin to get a steed, which would be a divine moose. Yes. I like it. Oh my God, I would have played that character so bad. I like it. Oh my God, I would have played that character so bad. I think it's got a good, I'm noting that, and his rough writer uniform counts over the armor. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's a bad-ass character. I, well, that's fitting for, you know, who he was in real life. That's true. He was, whatever you may think positively or negatively of his legacy and his politics, you have to admit he was possibly the most driven, maniacal individual to occupy the White House

and possibly be in American history. You know, I would agree with you until recently. Yeah. And see, see, see, there's maniacal and force of will. And then there's, there's, there. Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to, I don't want to get, I know here you're thinking of it.

I don't want to give him that much credit. But that's a discussion for another occasion. But yeah. So. But I mean, the man never stopped moving. Like, never, he was like- He was a baller son of a energy. He challenged a baronacal boxer to 15 rounds at the White House as president and lost eyesight in his eye for quite some time as a result. Yeah, he brought

Judo laughed about the whole thing. Yeah, he brought like and Judo was a relatively new sport. Yeah, he brought Judo guys Over to the White House to teach him how to do judo. Yeah, he would he would regularly Lead the White House press corps on breakneck terrifying horse rides through a trender member the name of the park. But like they were terrified to follow him. Yeah. Because he'd just go at top speed.

Yeah. Yeah. Not Rock Creek. But anyway, yeah. Yeah, he never stopped moving. Single sticks matches. He and some naval officer who was a pet favorite of his for a while if I remember correctly. He would he picked up the sport of single stick

Which is like it's a it's a sport. It's a very much sportified form of fencing. Okay, that literally involves a retain cane Oh, using as a as a one-handed sword. Okay. And a sort of padded jacket and sort of kind of like a boxing... Just have stuff you don't fear, I hope. Just have stuff you don't lose vision in an eye. And he and this officer would regularly go at it. He was 20 plus years older than the officer that he was competing with. Beat the crap out of the kid. Like, and not because the kid was letting him win right no no just no I'm all attack

all the time and and people visitors to the White House would would whisper to each other about why does he have a black eye and he just like what he did no that was what he did so anyway funny because a few presidents later Calvin Coolidge had an electric saddle Because he liked horse riding but he couldn't get out that I'll come from his four-hour work days Yeah, and he would ride his electric saddle in the oval office. Yeah, well Coolidge was a wet noodle There's no get past that so all right You're next one. Yeah, well, before we do our next one,

I think appropriate to actually stop down for just a minute to discuss our sponsors. Yes, so when we come back from our sponsorship break, I will regale you with a monk because we have not yet had a monk. And we need doors opened. We need doors, fuck you. Ha, ha, ha, fuck you and there you have it

hey geek nation it's Damien and Ed and we're here to pitch a book at you it's from a good friend of mine and a good friend of the show Bishop O'Connell the books are the American Fairytale trilogy the stolen the foregotten the return if you're a fan of urban fantasy you're gonna love these if you're a fan of urban fantasy, you're going to love these. If you're a fan of Celtic folklore, you're going to love these. Even more, they're very well researched in terms of the stories and everything they tie into.

And he's a very good guy. And like I said, a good friend of the show. So go out, pick him up, read him, and now back to us being smart, Alex. And we're back. Yeah. So, to open the next door, we need a monk. Yes, we need a monk. And by the way, what lovely products we offer. What wonderful sponsors we have.

If you would like to be one of our lovely sponsors, please let us know. Yeah. We'll give you our Twitter Address at the end of the show. So I'm speaking of doors being opened. Exactly. Yeah. So I decided to make a monk because I love me the monk, but I can't make just a full monk. He's actually a level 15 monk 12 druid three Okay, yeah, and he's a Druid of dreams. Okay. So very bold choice, Cadillan. See how this works out for you. It's very little in the way of like turning into creatures. Yeah. This thing will have to go on to the back page 4. But he is at his very heart. He is a healer healer, but his very nature is that of a fighter.

His name is Wang Feiheng. Oh yes. Yes. All right. Legend. Yes. Wang Feiheng. Some things that you should know about Wang Feiheng, he was a real character, a real person.

His father was Wang Ke Yi. His father was one of, I believe is his father was one of the 10 tigers of China. Yes. And also fought under the banner of the Black Flag where they went and fought, yeah, they went and fought against the French in the new China. Yep. And later fought against the Japanese, a very famous group. So he has three weapons. He's got the quarter staff. Yeah. Which, legend has it, he held off 30 people on a pier with a quarter staff. Which, either means he beat the shit out of 30 people, or he beat the shit out of two people really badly and just kind of kept them at bat.

And the other 28, kind of like the Viking on the bridge, we're like, I'm not getting anyone near him. What, what, yeah, I look stupid. There's a pile of bodies. There's a pile of bodies in here. Two guys can make a pile. Yeah, you know, you know. So I do want to point out that we in the modern era,

this is speaking as a practitioner of Hema, we in the modern era don't give enough credit for what a truly, truly wicked and terrifying epitome of quarter staff really was. Oh yeah. In German schools, one of the most prominent blows is referred to as the murder stroke with a quarter staff because when you get that length of a lever arm of hardened hardwood going at enough speed you will straight up spill some of his brain outside of their head. You will. It's not, you know. It's actually, it's interesting because in, I believe, Japan,

it's a bow staff is what it's called. Yes. And you can also, the strike, I believe it's very similar is called a Toma I think it is and if you trained in both what you do and what they did you could give someone a really swift hematoma speckled, Varly. Good day, sir. So fun thing about monks. 45 minutes for this one. Thank you for that.

Thank you for that. Cool thing about monks. I'm saying that to George, not David. You're both George. I bring people together. Cool thing to know about monks is they have a lot of really cool abilities Yeah, they don't normally need a lot of feats quite honestly. You're kind of wasting feet That's true. Yeah, you spend a lot of feats on it. Yeah, stat stat bonuses are the way to go that said I did pick up two feats Because he is a variant human. I picked up mobility

Because he can't move fast enough just being a monk, right? Because I think we should have a character in the party that can move 60. Without running. Right. That's like at a walking pace. He's doubling everyone. He's doubling everyone. No, everybody else has to run to keep up with this.

Yes. Okay. Alright. That's awesome. And I also took healer because again, he is Wong Fahe-Hung. He was a doctor. That was his profession. I should point out here that his base movement speed is 60, but we're not power gaming here.

No, no. Well, to show you what power gaming, Wong Fahe-Hung only how to wisdom of 16. Okay. His decks was 18 because he was one of the greatest martial artists of all time. Yeah, well, yeah. His strength was actually a 16 as well.

He was really strong, guys. Well, yeah, because the conditioning, I mean, anybody who goes through that kind of conditioning is gonna look like that. I think it was called wire fist, like where you would wrap coils around your arms to do practice So that yeah, I mean he was a really strong dude He also was really good at the southern tiger fork, which is essentially a military fork for unhorcing people

Yeah, he was considered an expert at that so I gave him that weapon And of course the an arm strike I didn't bother putting the damage down for it because I believe at this level I think it's either a D10 or a really high D8, or like it's about to crash into the D10 territory. He probably has the highest armor class of any of the characters I've statted out. At? 17.

17, okay. Let's see, he has 12 key points because he's so high level. And again, he's only in a level 12 month. He's an open fist monk that seemed the most well certainly based on the way he's been portrayed in literature and in media forever. Yeah, let's see some things to note about him. He obviously you've got the standard deflect arrows, the extra attack, the stunning strike, empowered strikes with your key, stillness of the mind, purity of the body, all those really high level monk

things. He has something called open hand technique which gives you flurry of blows. If you hit your opponent, you can either knock them prone, push them 15 feet back, or stun them to the point where they have no reactions. And you just go up next to the barbarian and whatever guy the barbarian didn't kill, you just boom, stun. Now the barbarian is just. Paste them. Um, yeah. Let's see. See, also there was a thing I had about,

I believe he can go up vertical surfaces, I can't find it right? No, step of the wind. Yeah. No, that's where he can disengage as a bonus action. That's a bonus action, he can, yeah. It's broken. And it can be a dash. Yeah, so I can run 120 feet away from you

as a bonus action. So I get up, I will run up to where. That's so ridiculously cheap. I I will run up to where the barbarian is doing the fighting, stun a guy and run all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt. And now let's do it again next round. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just doing it again next round. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to be a riskless nut. So he's circled dreams and I'm going to have George take a look at the spells that he can do. But I also did give him alert because it gives you plus five to your initiative and you cannot be surprised So what's what's his total initial total initiative is a nine?

Cheap and it Christmas. He's he's going to strike hard strike fast no mercy sir Yeah, so So yeah, that is Wong Fehung Yeah, so yeah, that is Wong Fei-Hung. He is highest ability. He is not really an ability guy, but his highest ability would be acrobatics, followed by medicine. Okay, so there you go. Submitted for your approval. I almost did Muhammad Ali as a monk.

Yeah, well, I would have been a good monk as well. But I decided to go with Wong Fei Hung because it just, I wouldn't have to spend any points on charisma quite honestly. Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. That's a good berry. Ah, yes. So as a druid, he has a spell where he can like literally pull a berry. He gets he great 15 berries

And it gives you a hip point back Which to me screams apothecary in China. Yeah, like here's a little man. There you go. Now you feel better Have some jinsang. Yeah So yeah, good berry. Also, there was another spell on there that I rather liked. It was, um, Chalely. I gave him a Chalely. I can turn a stick into a magic weapon. Which I'm using a quarter staff.

Which there you go. And now I'm hurting you more. So that is the link what I needed. Like he needed that. Yeah. What you got? Uh, next one I have, I figured we were gonna need a cleric. And I figured I knew the discussions that we'd had,

had not involved anybody that screamed cleric to me. And I cast about to try and figure, okay, so who the heck could I do as a cleric who's actually a historical figure? Because the first one that comes to mind is Musashi Bobenke, who is not historically attested as having existed, but would be a great cleric character. But what I wound up after a moment, I did a face palm and realized, oh my god, Ed, you idiot, you're a Catholic, this should be easy.

And I wound up going with Ignatius Loyola. Well, if you're thinking cleric in D& and I wound up going with Ignatius Loyola. Well, if you're thinking cleric in D&D you might be thinking healers. Where is if you're Catholic a cleric might be more of let's see what the word I'm looking for. Marauder. I'd give you well depending on yeah time. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Or have a patron. Yeah, I'm, I, Ignatius Loyola looks down on you with disapproval, sir. Heretic. You know, thinking about it, yeah, well, he did for this round

and thinking about it a little bit longer, I actually decided that if we do this again for historical figures, I'm gonna have to go with Nietzsche Renn as a cleric The founder of Nietzsche Renn Buddhism. I think I'm gonna have to go with Jim Jones for a cleric. Oh dear god Okay Oh, there you go. Yeah, holy shit. No Jim Jones would make a good monk Jim Jones would make a good evil aligned bard. Yeah, that's it He would absolutely need to take points in monk because he takes everyone out with one punch

Oh the pain Oh Neither go night neither That's brilliant. You guys are getting for free. Oh God. Oh That's that what we're calling it. Oh I can take out not 100 people with a punch. Oh the single So Ignatius Loyola He said over the gorge rising in his throat He said over the gorge rising in his throat, I've steadied him out for right before the foundation of the Jesuit order.

And so at this point, we're talking about a cleric 18. Okay. Pretty high level cleric. Pretty high level cleric. Now, the reason for that mostly has to do with the extent of his remarkable fanaticism. Okay. Now, he had a true conversion moment, like everybody during his time period,

he was a cradle Catholic, because that's like what you were, at least in his part of the world. And he was very seriously injured in a battle. He was a soldier initially. Very seriously injured in a battle. And in the process of his recovery, recuperation, convalescence was where it was a lot of process of his convalescence. He was stuck, he was essentially immobilized. He was stuck sitting and reading for a long time. And wound up, there was nothing lying because it was in a church-run hospital, or there was nothing to

read after he'd exhausted the supply of popular fiction novels and everything they had. He had nothing to read but scripture after that. What year was he around? What year? Oh, that's a really good question. I want to say 16th century into 17th century. So 15 and 16th century? Howth century. So 15 and 16 and 16. How many books did they have available to read?

It wasn't, well, the thing is that the stuff that he enjoyed reading as a younger man was not books, it was essentially pamphlets and broadsides, that kind of stuff. But he was of enough means that he had access to the books that they had around. He was from a well-to-do family to begin with. It's a part of me that really, really wishes that he really liked word jumbles. I don't know why. Yeah, just seeing a guy why. Okay, just, yeah, just, just the idea of, healing in a medieval, well, okay,

late medieval early veterans, as well. Just with the circles and the squares. Yeah, yeah, just like nothing else. Angry that nobody spells anything uniform. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think it would have been Spanish for him,

and I don't know whether that would have been a problem at that point. I knew in English, yeah. It would have been Spanish for him. And I don't know whether that would have been a problem at that point. I knew in English, it would have been, yeah. So anyway, background is soldier because of that. Sure. Tells me his strength is gonna be higher than you'd expect for a cleric. No, not really, 13.

Oh, that's 13. That's his background. He doesn't have any levels in fighter. That's just his background is soldier. He was not known for being particularly, I mean, he was hail and a hearty, but he was not, you know, legendary for physical specimen. His constitution is a 12, but his highest stat is wisdom. Okay. Because high level cleric. And his second highest stats are intelligence

and charisma. Also makes sense. And he, I took order domain. Now that's not a domain. I'm all that familiar with because I don't, I tend to order chaos. Yeah, well, yeah, there's that. Also I put his alignment down as lawful good for the reason that he was intensely concerned with orthodoxy. Well, and if order domain is his thing,

it's gonna start that way. And the legacy of what the church did in the Americas, and all of that is certainly a checkered one, an ugly one, but his motive was in founding the Jesuit order and in becoming a priest was to defend the church from the threat of heresy and the spread of Lutheran and Calvinist ideas. And so since that was essentially his goal was to aid the church because he believed that the church was protecting people's souls. Okay. From the threat of heresy.

So that's really shore up everything and do it the right way so that people don't get pulled the wrong way. Precisely. Okay. So under Order Domain, his channel divinity is a lot of fun. He gets Order's command, which means he can charm creatures of his choice within 30 feet. They have to make you wisdom save to avoid it and they stay charmed until the end of his next turn or they take damage.

Wow. So as somebody who's going into foreign lands to convert people, right, it makes sense. Yeah. And then as it with also order domain embodiment of the law, he's able to cast enchantment spells as bonus actions. Any enchantment spell that has a casting time of one action he can do as a bonus action. Now, now enchantment spells are normally concentration based, yes? Like you you have to concentrate to keep them up. Some of the more and not all of the more. Okay. Okay. So if you cast an enchantment spell that is not concentration based, as a bonus spell, you still get tochantment spell that is not concentration based as a bonus spell

You still get to cast another spell, don't you? Yeah For example command, which is one of his domain spells Is an enchantment spell it's a first level spell. That's the that's the one that's famously sit down Right and if they fail safety if they're below a certain level They don't get a save if they're above a certain level They have to make the saver else. They just do what you tell them to do if they fail, if they're below a certain level, they don't get a save, if they're above a certain level, they have to make the saver else, they just do what you tell them to do.

So he's taking out the minions, right? Essentially, yeah, yeah, or picking, or picking the mid-level, you know, sub-chefed of whatever humanoids and saying, and you sit out, which as a teacher, I gotta say, I wish I could just you sit out, pay attention. I wish I could just get that to work without without having to engage in mind games Also on his spell list, which is where he really had the most fun. He gets dominate person That's as level as a domain spell

Divine word which just as a as a little spell, which just feels so appropriate for Jesuit. Yeah. And then protection from evil, zone of truth. That makes sense. If you're a confessor. Yeah. And then fast friends.

Okay. And so if you want to go forent, you can take friends with you. Nice. Yeah. Oh, just you, he then. Then at fifth level, again, one that I just think is funny, because it's an enchantment spell, he can do this as a bonus action. He gets a geys. Okay.

You go find me a three-legged stool. Go away. And you, now I'm going to deal with you. Right. Properly. So that is Ignatius Loyola as the cleric. And he has, his spell list makes him a controller, very heavily a controller, but I did take healing spells to allow him to fulfill that role. So there you go. to allow him to fulfill that role. Okay. So there you go. I've done it in person. Yeah. Yeah.

Is this really a big sense? Yeah. As is holy symbol. I like that. And a catechism. Right. Because orthodoxy above all. Right. above all. Right. Luffle good. Yeah. Yeah. The phonetically loyal to the Pope. Yep. That's one of his bonds. His phonetically loyal to the Pope. That only Spanish but seven other languages.

Yeah, I took linguist as one of his feats just because... Jesuit. It's... yeah, the Jesuit. It's what they did. Yeah, get them all together. Still what they do. Yep. Alright. Alright.

Alright. Let's see. I'm going to give you a run for your money as far as the best fighter, but I think there's room in this party for both. Alright. Holy shit, what room in this party for both. All right. Holy shit, what a party if they have both. This person's background is out of his soldier, but later on they'd go on in life

to become a history teacher. Hip points. I like them already. Yeah. Highest number of hip points out of all the characters, I think that I've made at a Paltry 158. I mean, you've got me beat on hip-wights. Well, yeah, Barbarian with a D12 hit.

Yeah, you know. Yeah. They went five levels of rogue, became an assassin, switched over to arcane archer for 15 levels, another level 20 fighter. Okay. You'd mill a pub de Chanco with 309 Nazi kills during World War Two. Yep. One sniper in the Soviet Army. Yeah. A source of deep existential terror.

Yes. For Nazi forces on the Eastern Front. Yes. It's fun making an arcane archer. My ludeness, my goodness. So one of her items that she's got is her husband's dagger. Now her husband went and fought, I believe it in artillery in it, and he was killed. She joined up and she's like, I want to be there. And they said, no, no, you can do the support thing. She's like, no, I want to fight. And she kept at it until she got it.

I don't think her words were actually I wanna fight. I think her words were, no, no, I wanna kill Nazis. Probably, she said, I wanna kill the sons of bitches who killed my husband. I wanna kill as many of them as I can and you can't stop me. She went on later and when she was interviewed and she says, yeah, I wanted to go into the army

because that's where there weren't many women. So she knew exactly what she was doing, knew her place in history and wanted to break through it. Probably the highest armor class besides Wong Feihong at 16 for the characters I've got. Okay. So she has, as a rogue of five levels, as an assassin rogue, She has plus 3D6 to her sneak attacks. Okay.

If they're within five feet of an ally, she gets to sneak attack them. If she has advantage, she gets to sneak attack them. Okay. She also gets a bonus action in combat, to dash, disengage, or hide. Yep. She will be hiding.

She will never be up in the confitat. She also has... Which is an interesting thing for somebody who has that many levels of fighter. Yes. To be... No, no, no, no, I'm not mixing it up. I'm back here. Don't get your filthy paws off me. Okay. She has fighting style archery. No problem. As an assassin, she gets the ability to assassinate where she has advantage against anyone who hasn't gone yet in the round. Okay, so now the next question I have to ask you. Yep, and I'm gonna, I'm already cringing it in,

just a patient. Damian, what's her initiative bonus? Plus 10. Fuck you. Yeah. Yes. What's her initiative bonus plus ten? Fuck you. Yeah, okay? She uh, so basically she has advantage against everybody everybody. Yeah always and because of that as an assassin every hit is a crit hit. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm I'm sorry back up. Yeah Every hit is a crit hit ever. If she's hitting somebody that she has advantage. Oh, okay. Yeah Every hit is a crit hit ever If she's hitting somebody that she has advantage. Oh, okay. Oh, it's a great. Okay. She goes first Nearly all the time unless unless you're you know fighting quicklings. She goes first

Dear God, okay, she took a lot of feats Okay, because you get to as a fighter. Yeah She took alert for the extra Advantage there for the for the bonus to initiative also Nobody who attacks her if they're unseen has advantage against her Right, which is a good thing for a sniper to have because the last thing you want to have happen is get snuck up on or stiped Shockingly enough she has has skulker or a sharp shooter rather.

Okay. Long range means no disadvantage. Right. So she can be off the battle map and still be hitting people with her long bow. Still. She can also take a minus five to hit, no problem because her plus to hit is a plus 12. She can take a minus five to hit.

Sweet Jesus. And that gives her a plus 10 to damage. On top of that, she's a crit hit. On top of that, she's got her plus 3d6. On top of that, as an arcane archer, she can choose one of many magic arrows, one of which being a seeking arrow or a shadow arrow. Okay, the secret reminded the secret ignores cover, right? Yes. Okay. And everybody, yeah, and she only has to have seen the person within the last minute. She doesn't even have to know where they are.

That guy. And then it lets her know where they are. That guy. And if it doesn't hit that guy for some weird ass reason, she can re-roll with curving shot to get it to redirect and hit somebody within 60 feet of where he was. So she can still triangulate that guy. To where that guy is. Fuck that guy.

But if I don't hit that guy, fuck his buddy. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like the record I've heard of what she did to the Nazis. Uh-huh. And now if she hits with a shadow arrow, she's hitting with 2D6 psychic damage, so your barbarian can't really resist that. Well, yeah, but ideally they're going to be on the side.

So, you know, but... But if we run into another barbarian like that. Like, yeah. No, no, no, I'm sorry take it. Yeah God almighty and then they're blinded. They can't see past five feet Wow that's that's I think I think you have me I got to say I might because She also just all those dice stacking on one another. Yeah.

What, just pray tell. Uh-huh. Have you done any calculation of what the average amount of damage she's gonna do on a hit is? I think average is somewhere in the realm of like 65 to 80. It could be that I doubled the wrong amount of dice for this thing. Okay, okay. As low as 40 on average, in one hit,

and she gets three attacks per round, and she could take action surge, which would give her another attack. So that's four attacks at the average of 40. That average of 40 on a low end of average. Yeah. By the way, you have to save against her arcane shot, which is an 18 with a wisdom safe. Wow. Also she has a cantrip past the digitation. You know you said you said that you had Harry who

did he as the glass cannon. Yeah. I think she's a tempered glass cannon. I think I think no no. Plexi glass. P no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no way she can notice. Yeah, because yeah. And she can read lips from as long as she can see. So, wow. Submitted for your approval, please feel free to highlight any other insanity that Ludmilla has. Interesting choice of bluff, okay. She fought for her fatherland. Yeah.

Yeah, I can't can't argue judgment These tools because she's a rogue she gets thieves tools But that can also get you into and out of any number of like a lot of yeah buildings in like say you know Kiev Was it here or was she at she was from Kiev? Okay? I don't know if she ever made it strong grad There's plenty of other snipers. Oh, there's all kinds of other. Yeah, I mean the eastern front was a Fucking nightmare for everybody in the So right um now you have one more I got one more more. I don't know how that happened But well I I did I did five. I don't know how that happened, but. Well, I did five, I don't know. I stared out five.

Okay, well let's see, I've done four here. I will give, well I've still got three that I really want to do. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. You're still going to end up with a lion's share. Okay, so I have a rogue. Oh, good. Okay.

Not a, I took a little bit of rogue in order to match a background and then like everything else is fighter because, you know, fuck the Nazis. Right. No, it's just all rogue. Oh, I was maxing damage. I was just saying. Yeah, well, yeah, because that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah, no. This is Sun Siu. I'm not going to, I'm not going to play Koi with it. Sun Siu. And, and you may be thinking Ed, I thought Sunsu was a general, wouldn't he be better as a fighter? And I say the nay, because if you've actually read his writing, he was totally a rogue mentally, because everything in his treatise is about knowing your enemy, about going to where your enemy isn't and hitting them as hard as you can to cripple them by doing so,

then getting the hell out of dodge and then utilizing every misdirection, every dirty trick and specifically for the build that I went with, every spy that you can in order to accomplish those goals. So yeah. What time frame is this, obviously not before the book because he's gone through a lot of this, actually, say before? Yeah, this is essentially right before he codified everything, wrote everything down. he codified everything, wrote everything down. So this is after the famous but not really historically a tested story about the courtesan battalion where

he was for those listening who were not familiar because everybody at the table knows the story. A king hired him to act as his general and strategos and said, all right, as your job interview, essentially, I'm going to give you my concubines, 30 women who are my consorts, and if you can train them to fight as soldiers, then I will know that you know what you're doing and Sunsu His actual name was Sun Wu Sunsu means master Sun Said to the king

So if you're gonna let me do this you need to let me do whatever I think is necessary in order to accomplish this Are you willing to do that? Do you want to you know because if you want your army to win? I got to show you what I can do and I got to have free reign. And the king said, yes, whatever you got to do, you can do. He probably regretted that later because Sun Wu stood up in front of the concubines, had all the concubines brought out into the courtyard. And he said, I'm going to turn you into soldiers because your king has told me I'm going to do this.

And he had soldiers give every concubine a hollberg, essentially. Then told them, all right, rank up, turn right. The concubines giggled, didn't take it seriously, didn't think this is the silly. We're a concubine. We're just girls and didn't take it seriously. And he said, a general is responsible for making sure that his orders are understood. I'm going to repeat what I want you to do. Rank up.

I'm sorry, I'm skipping an important point. He said, you and you, you were the King's two most favorites, right? Yes, we are. Okay, you and you, each of you is responsible for half of the women. I'm breaking up into two platoons, essentially. You were the two platoon leaders. So the first time he gave the orders, the courtesans, all giggled, didn't take it seriously. Said, okay, general responsible for making sure his orders were understood. I'm going

to repeat what I said, right. And then he gave them, he repeated it, explained it, repeated the order. And the court is in Giggle again. He said, if a general's orders are understood, but not followed, it is the responsibility of the officers. And he had the two women he'd made commanders executed in front of all the rest of the courtesans and then shows two more to be the officers. And the next time nobody giggled. So it's after that, you can tell you're a middle school teacher. Yeah, why? What? I don't know. Just how much that story impressed you.

The amount of relish I've had is relating the, you make an example of two of them and nobody fucks with you after that. You think? You think I teach 11 year olds? A little bit. So I did put down SS Floes' ruthless, sees the end as justifying the means.

Yeah, boy outy. So, and his alignment is lawful neutral because he's confusion, ethical concerns are secondary to an orderly peaceful society. Ideals are preservation of innocent lives and the wealth of the state is the highest goal of a military planner. So as a rogue, he gets access to a bunch of skills and I wound up taking the skilled feet for him twice. Oh wow. Once at level one, once at level 12. So he knows all the skills. Everything.

Yeah. Now why didn't you go Bard and make a Magyaka balltrades? Because the going with Bard would have meant focusing a lot more on charisma and his inherent. You're all gonna follow me because I'm this guy. focusing a lot more on charisma and his inherent. You're all gonna follow me because I'm this guy. And that wasn't the flavor. He was a general who said, okay, look, I got a plan. It's a great big plan.

You're gonna follow it. And if you follow it, we're gonna fucking win. If you don't, we're all gonna die. Capiche, that was kind of, I mean, as far as we know from the sources, there's nobody who ever said he was this great compelling figure. It was everybody respected him because that guy knows his shit. Okay, that's fair. So, and his archetype is mastermind. Now, I had a little used one. I had to choose and I really had to think about it between mastermind and right now

I don't remember the name of the other one. The other one was very much a direct trickster. Very, very much. No, but it was very much about, you think I'm here, I'm going to be over here. Got you. The personal subterfuge. Yeah, personal subterfuge kind of thing. And what I realized was that's not what he writes about. The mastermind fits him a lot better

because it's a lot more, like one of his abilities is he gets to use the help action as a bonus action. Okay. And when he is doing that, the target that his, when he's helping an ally hit somebody, the target can be up to 30 feet away. Nice. So he can be helping Leud Miller out with what for her

will be a very short range attack. Right. He can be like, no, no, no, you're aiming the wind is this way, aim, you know. Right. And help out that way. And the one that really was like, no, no, this is what I have to take, is the ability in sightful

manipulator. He can observe a creature for one minute outside of combat and tell if it is superior, equal, or inferior to him in intelligence, wisdom, charisma, or class levels, pick two. That's really good. Okay. How smart is this guy? Very. How smart is this guy? How smart is this guy how powerful is this guy? What away how do we you know?

and then That's very Sun zoop yeah, and his thoughts cannot be read without him allowing it and Any magic used to detect lies shows that he is speaking the truth unless he chooses otherwise lies shows that he is speaking the truth unless he chooses otherwise. So he can choose to use the knowledge that he's lying as its own weapon. As its own weapon. That's really good. Yeah. So like, no, no, I'm going to double fake you out. No, no. And his tools proficiencies, or his thieves tools, the disguise kit, a forgery kit, which he gets from Mastermind, and a way she board. That's just a game, right? Yeah.

Which is to say go, the Chinese, the antecedent of what we call go, now. His weapons are a John, which I treated as a rapier. Okay. Which is D8 plus 10 for damage. Now, John is similar to a Dow, not a Gim, right? A-John is a double-bladed straight sword. It looks very much like a Western kind of sword.

It's where a double edge comes to a point at the end. Okay. It has, you know, single-handed. Okay. It was referred to as a scholar sword. It was the kind of sword that a Confucian gentleman would carry. Right. And then he has a sword that a confusion gentleman would carry. Right. And then he has a light crossbow plus 10 to hit,

D6 plus 10 damage. Now because he's a 15th level rogue, his sneak attack is 10-dye six. That's really high. So when he gets, and of course he has cunning action, which is so very soon, and mobility get in, get out, where Leoud Miller is gonna be using it for sneak. He's gonna be using it for dash and disengage right hiding is not really gonna be this thing

No, no, you see me. I'm over here. I'm over here. Look at me. Look at me. Don't look. Don't look at lewd milla Right, you know, you're dead. Oh, man. Oh shit. How did that? Oh my god? Yeah, yeah, so That's that's I like son to And again lawful neutral. I think I mentioned cuz order orderliness Above all Nothing on the back All right Yeah, okay, so a low-end guy, but he's not there to get hit. No.

So, uh, well, that's that's quite a few characters, uh, and I would point out the amount of time that we spent doing that. Yeah. I suggest that we hold over and do the next batch of characters in the next episode. Okay. And then pay it all off in there. I like it. So Ed, what are you reading? Right now, what am I reading? Other than testing documents and work related crap, yeah, it's not a lot of fun. When I have been able to make the time, I have been sitting down with how the Scots invented the modern world.

Okay. Back to that previous episodes. And yeah, otherwise I've been chasing a toddler around and trying to just keep up with work. How about you though? Well, given that I'm a world history teacher again, I have gone back to some old Jackson's field of local survey books, which are fun, and infinitely superior to the world history book that we're currently using.

Sorry, I was drinking water, but I'm gonna ask, what book are you using? It's the one called Human Legacy, it's blue, and I wanna say it's Prennest Hall, it could be wrong, but it's the same one that we used when I was a student teacher in 2002. Yeah, see, I think I mentioned to say it's Prennest Hall. It could be wrong, but it's the same one that we used when I was a student teacher in 2002 Yeah, see I think I mentioned to you, but our audience probably doesn't know I am part of the pilot program for new textbooks

For our seventh grade world history program and we're going with TCI teachers curriculum Institute Okay, yeah TCI's good stuff. Oh I'm already way happier with this book than with the one we had last year. Well good. And the other five years I've been teaching here. Well, none of this is stuff that people want to know. No, it's not. God knows.

No. But other books that I've been reading in advance of all of that kind of stuff. No, there's all textbooks that don't want to read it. So we don't really have anything to recommend other than how the Scott's invented the modern world, which is definitely worth picking up. If you have the time, George, what are you reading right now? Yeah. Since you're here at the table. This recently finished surprise kill and vanish by Annie Jacobson, which gives the history of kind of the CIA and certain operatives and how they function.

It was really fascinating. Really interesting. That sounds like it. Yeah, I'm gonna have to move on. We're reading. Yeah, a lot more to teach you. You can tell where the teachers are. Yeah. We don't read for fun.

We don't have time to. What the hell do we, yeah? Ed, working anybody find you to tell you that you were wrong about Loyola? They can find me at EH Blalock on the Twitter. So where can they find you? At DAH Harmony. There's two H's in there. DAH and then Harmony on the Twitter.

DAH. DAH on the Twitter. And you can send me any and all arguments you want about how I've screwed up the damage on the Ud Mila and I've stacked it too higher or whatnot. You know who you are. So for producer George and Ed Blalock, I'm Damien Harmony and this has been a geek history of time. Keep rolling 20s. you