The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 11/13/24

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Troy and Joe analyze the climax of the last eight weeks of non-stop Gatewalkers life-or-death combat! Plus, the conundrum of using NPCs in combat, the tricky wording of the Sleep spell, and why a Rousing Splash isn't really rousing at all. In Listener Mail, a thinly veiled attack on the integrity of the Network as a whole! Submit your questions for Listener Mail at https://forms.gle/v5huj25dkVSmkbLEA Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/QYnH98-2dnQ Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at http://www.jointhenaish.com. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Condition supply ends January 31st, 2025. Complete offer eligibility criteria by March 31st, 2025. Choose one of five eligible charities, up to $500,000 in total contributions. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Welcome to Cannon Fodder, a behind the scenes look at the Glass Cannon Network. What is going on everybody? Welcome back to Cannon Fighter.

It is Wednesday, November 13th, 2024, and I'm your old pal Joey O'Brien. And I'm Troy Fa La La La Valley. Fa La La La Valley. Welcome back, buddy. You were off last week and it is now officially the La Valley Christmas season. Sure is, buddy. It is upon us. It is upon us. It is upon us.

Ugh. Have you started celebrating? Have you joined the cult of joy? I just got out the Thanksgiving decorations. This is such a thing as a Thanksgiving decoration. You got big turkey in your line? The ol' Johnacopia, you know what I mean? You turn that thing around, there's just vegetable spillin' out of it. Some cornacopias from from me as a kid. But again, it's such a weird thing.

People always come back, oh no, it's going to Thanksgiving. It is a part of Christmas. It's a part of the holiday season. Once you tune your mind into Thanksgiving, it's a part of the larger holiday season. You never turn back. Oh man, well Merry Christmas, Nesh. It's good to see everybody. Welcome back to Cannon Fodder.

The traditional fodder, the Troy and Joe Fodder has been off for a week. And very, very shady week to take off there, LaValley, as man, some intense shit going down in Gatewalkers. We're going to get to all of it today. Some juicy news with some fun content coming up this week. The news from Gatewalkers is huge. And then we'll delve into that deeply with a chunk-tacular We Are Stupid from Professor Eric. And then of course, some listener mail, including there's a spicy listener mail in here, Troy.

There's a spicy one. There's a hater in listener mail today, and I love it. A hater in the niche? Let me run this by you. So I've got these headphones here, right? And I put the cord behind me like this, and then it looks a little bit better on screen. But now I have to put my glasses on from time to time. And if you don't know, it looks, I look like an old lady who's got those like connectors

at the end of her glasses. Oh, yeah, yeah. So they don't fall off. So I can't do it. Like it looks, oh, continue. Oh yeah, yeah. So they don't fall off. So I can't do it. Like it looks, oh, continue with your show, Mr. Joe. Oh man, I've, you know. That's not just for old ladies, man.

I've used those before. You're fishing, you're leaning over to grab your fish. You know what, your sunglasses falling in the river. You have the, yeah, you have little contraptions like that, like your fucking headlamp. You've got a lot of weird old timey like depression error contraptions. Depression error, clockwork contraptions. I mean, look, you can just make fun of it and say that it's like, oh, that's what old people would have. You know what, man? Old people are wise. They do things because they've realized over the years,

like, yeah, this might look stupid But man, is it effective gets the job done? Speaking of effective and getting the job done, man, this party came together in a big way. Sure do gatewalkers We are holy shit. It is over The forever combat has ended and we're going to dig into it today. But quick news updates. Portland is coming out this week. Our Portland live show, we mentioned on fodder, we tragically lost some video from this show.

First time in 98 shows. First time in 10 years too. We've never lost any footage whatsoever. We've never lost any footage whatsoever and a strange bizarre coding hiccup has created a corrupted file that has lost some video footage. However, all audio captured, you'll be able to hear it, but we are airing. You're going to have to see 75% of the show. Yeah. If it's a two and a half hour show, it gets into like a buck 53.

An hour 53 is when the video cuts out. But we're working on a visual solution. And come hell or high water, you'll see something this Friday. And it's a hell of a show. Yeah. So I mean, it's one of my favorite shows we've had this year. Unbelievable crowd. Yeah.

Unbelievable crowd. Huge space. It was awesome. So it's gonna be up this Friday, 8 o'clock Eastern. It'll premiere on YouTube, so keep an eye out for that. And that's the lead up to next week's LA premiere, right? So next Friday, LA will premiere. Also 8 p.m. Eastern. We'll remind you of that on Fodder next week.

And then coming up right after that, what, two weeks later, is The Philly Show. So here we are. It's crazy. Coming up to the end of the year. The climax of the year of Strange Aon's shows is upon us. It's crazy we got to start the... I mean, I just thought we were going to be doing Strange Aon's for Extra Life and this video hiccup fucked that all up.

So now we'll be starting The Philly Show where LA ended, which is not where I thought we'd start it and it kind of changes everything, but it's actually changes everything. I don't want to say too much to them. I want to spoil the LA show for people who haven't seen it, but it's amazing. But the ending is now it's crazy. I feel like we need to get another session. We got to get another session.

We got to jam another session somewhere. I don't know. Well, we'll let you know if we figure something out on that accord One more piece also on Friday this Friday 4 p.m. Eastern 1 p.m. On the West Coast We're gonna be returning to Wildermyth myself Paula Mary Lou and Sydney We started that two weeks ago had an absolute blast starting a campaign in Wildermyth We're gonna be doing that live on twitch twitch.tv slash the glass cannon That's this Friday 4 p.m. Easternpm Pacific. Join us live for this continuing campaign. It's been amazing watching everybody create this story live in Wildermyth. It's been awesome.

So hang out with us for that. All right. Let's talk Gatewalkers. Gatewalkers has been on a stretch, unlike anything I've ever had in all my years of gaming. Never have I felt like I've had like five to six straight encounters, no rest. And I don't mean like choosing not to rest in a way. I mean like no rest, like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Absolutely brutal string of combats. We've been talking about this throughout, you and I, and now here we are, and finally the combat has ended. And it is not a TPK.

I'm very, very excited about that. Tell me what some of your first thoughts are as you look back at the whole thing, knowing where we are now, where we sit now, out of the immediate danger and not having TPK'd. What are just some of your thoughts and takeaways in general? It's funny, we haven't recorded in a long time. Yeah. So as you're watching this-

Well, we were supposed to record and you had your back injury. I had my back. And it created an inability to record. So it's been a while since we've been in there. Yeah, it's been a long time and we only have this week's episode recorded. We're actually in studio this week to record some more stuff.

Next week's up. So I keep forgetting what happened, but I can kind of remember. Yeah, I mean, as always, as always, when you guys have your backs up against the wall, you come out on top. Very seldomly does it not happen that way, but- That's wild.

It certainly, it felt, I went into each session session assuming I just didn't see how mathematically there couldn't be at least one death or multiple and so I got duped by it as well but my my rolling was I knew my rolling was gonna come around at some point because I had been rolling so high like statistically I'd have to start eating shit and it came at the right time for you guys when all hope was lost. Having the NPCs jump in finally and that's something we can talk about as well because I think that comes up in a lot of games like NPC heroes, how to play them and whatnot.

It felt organic to me and their additions gave a little boost but it doesn't take away from like Kate's crit and just well timed well timed hits when I was just missing in what would have been kill shots left and right but man yeah it's great that's why it's like it's hard I think it's hard to go through it week to week as a viewer because you can't see the end and so it just seems like a slog. It just felt from the Drake fight on, it felt just like nonstop action to me. The Drake fight, first gate. Yeah, it felt like rocket fuel to second gate, third gate.

You come through, fourth gate. I thought it was very strange the way it was written, how you start the book Like thrown into combat with the possibility of two combats because it's as written. It's it's it's it's like that And obviously deciding not to level you guys up may made added to that. But I mean How awesome is it when you just have no resources left? You have no spells you've used your daily abilities and you still find a way to win. It just makes it all the more satisfying. It's cool. Yeah. It was really cool. I would say, and we'll get into it in We Are Stupid. There's definitely some asterisks to be discussed. I think that their rousing splash really comes to mind as

a potential, I mean, as to me, the game changer that really turned things around. Without that, I think you're definitely looking at a TPK, but we can get more into that in a little bit. I think overall though, the rolls did turn around. You have to roll well eventually or you will die. And we had a really, really cold streak. People were missing left and right, lots of fumbles. You were rolling rocks and that's what got it so, so dire. But then the roll started to turn around. And without that

natural 20 from Kate, there's no way. And you have to get those really big rolls. I mean, talk about Kate. You can go back to the reactive strike when Kate attempt, when Zephyr attempted to pull Buggles away. If that hit is a crit, and you were critting left and right, it's over. If the two of them are down and basically dead outside, we don't have the ability to fall back. We don't reconnect with Sakawachi, who's able to cast Bless and all this stuff. There's just, and what you would call it, Hubert.

Even though you kind of use them mildly, Hubert being able to flank, for example, is huge. Creating just an off guard for Asta, it matters. All of those points mattered a great deal. You mentioned that a second ago. Why don't you talk a little bit about how and when you decide to make NPCs a part of a combat that the PCs are struggling in? You know I hate it. This goes back to before we had a network.

I just don't like it. I don't like it for several reasons. One, it's extra work that I don't like having to do. I feel like focusing on the enemies is, I get a lot more mileage out of that than focusing on learning an NPC as well. I also think you have to be careful because it's very easy for an NPC to sort of overshadow the PCs. You know, if the NPC starts doing all the work, then the PCs don't feel relevant.

I as a player, when a GM is playing an NPC and the NPC gets a big hit, I feel like, I don't know, it just feels a little off to me. Yeah, I agree. I don't like it. It also feels kind of like master purtory, like let me attack myself real quick. And you know, I just, I don't like that part of the game. So I try to use it somewhere in the realm of sparingly to not at all. And then you go, no going in like when there's an NPC that Troy's

Playing and that NPC is around during combat Don't expect nothing. It's window dressing. You know what I mean? but As you know, I also like to read like as written What does it say and it's pretty explicit about Sakawatch is like Sakawatch is not a fighter it's not gonna get involved in the fight but can help with a couple of things and explain what those things are. And so he used his fortune telling lore and whatnot to give you guys some aid and then ended up helping here and there.

And then with Hubert, it just felt like Hubert has been such a thorn in your side in many ways ever since you met him, that it felt like a great story moment for, especially the developing relationship between Asta and Hubert, for Asta to kind of push Hubert into doing something that he wouldn't do. And this is this other part of Hubert that I think, as his character is oddly developed since you met him, like he feels, especially now that you've taken him into your world, there's a part of him that feels like he needs to pull his weight. He knows that he's not liked.

He knows that he is like an extra mouth to feed, but like he wants to help. And so that kind of all added to that moment for him to come up and see if he could hit and he was able to hit and then he got hit and didn't go down. Yeah, very interesting. It's a tight, you know, all these fights as a GM, you're really like, you're holding a rope, right? You're just like you're pulling, sometimes you're pulling it super tight and other times you're relaxing the rope a little bit.

And that's what like using the NPCs is just like relaxing the rope. I don't think it has to be, I like to play up this like dastardly mustache twirling villain because I think it adds to the tension. But I do that even as I'm sometimes letting the rope go because as the game master, you need that balance. You can't just always be tight. Otherwise the players are gonna, they're gonna feel, it's just gonna feel too adversarial.

But I like to kind of play on the emotions while relishing. Mechanically loosening the rope. While mechanically loosening, you gotta have that back and forth. But you know, that being said, you easily could have died. Like if I had rolled well, even kind of like doing that push and pull, a couple of good rolls and there's multiple deaths.

Just the gods did not want to see you perish this day. The gods did not want to see us perish this day. I'd seen a lot of comments on YouTube about this campaign being cursed, about the dice gods being like, they don't want you to play Gatewalkers anymore, it's so obvious by the die rolls. And it did feel that way, like right up until the end where it gets turned around, which is just huge. What do you think about this?

What do you think about the concept of, I've tossed this around, I might've done it in the past, I don't really remember. I also strongly dislike running NPCs in combats with PCs. I don't like NPCs even exploring with PCs because I hate as the GM being like, let's go look around this corner. It's like let the PCs completely drive the story. The NPCs are just there to support their actions and support what they want. Now, of course, sometimes does that mean supporting?

I'm kind of answering my own question. But basically, basically, it's a little masturbatory show hosting right here. No, basically, it's like, is there something to be said for removing NPCs from the mechanics of the game and making them purely narrative. As in, Sakawachi, you know, cast bless, that's great. What if Sakawachi is like, oh, and you know he's not a fighter, you know that he's unarmed, you know, whatever, and you describe Sakawachi like, you know, picking up an improvisational weapon, an improvised weapon, and attacking at a hobgoblin and just missing, but never rolling anything. Just being like, you see him lunge and he, nothing, you know, and he misses and he falls back but now he's in danger of getting hit.

What do you think about that as a GM? Like basically doing narrative elements that do not require you to roll dice because you're describing them doing something rather than just standing there inert, but you're also not making the mechanically part of the combat. Yeah, I think if I was going to do it narratively, I'd never have it give mechanical benefits. Do you know what I mean? I only have them. That's where I answered my own question. It's like the danger becomes like, well, what if you just say he hits somebody that had one hit point left? And he puts them down for you without rolling. It seems weird, but I hate rolling as a GM against my own monsters with the NPCs and vice versa and vice versa. I hate monsters hitting NPCs that I'm looking at their AC to see that I'm tracking their

hit points. I hate it. It just irritates me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just, I feel like the way that I like to play him is like they're there and sometimes they may contribute and sometimes they won't. I try to do it mechanically, but I think I've also from time to time done what your suggestion is like they're trying to help. They're like grabbing, you know, you're explaining what they're doing without going into the

economy of actions. Yes. And like what they're doing is going into the economy of actions. Yes. And like what they're doing is inconsequential, but adding to the narrative. Right. I think you can go back and forth. You can do that though, as long as you maintain that they never help the party. They basically would always have to be a null result if you're just going to pull them out of the mechanics and make them just narrative, right?

I think you could do it both ways. Like, you know, Sakawatchee and Hubert, this was probably an eight round fight or whatever, and they only did actions in like two of those rounds. Do you know what I mean? The rest of the time they were just kind of like, scrambling, they were using their actions to like, ugh, I think you can go back and forth.

You just, the unwritten rule is you can't narratively have them help. If you're going to have them try to help in any way that's going to give them mechanical benefit, go back into the rules. But the rest of the time, if they're just fumbling, and vice versa, you can't have them do something that is going to hurt you without getting into the rules as well. But I think you can play with both of those things. Like if it's an eight-round fight,, four rounds they're not really doing anything and then

four rounds maybe they're doing one out of three actions or two out of three actions. I think you can do that. I agree with you. I think though that the question becomes, the point of emphasis becomes when is a null result directly hurting the party? When is doing nothing having a very negative impact on the party? You would think it's not unusually negative seeing as like what if the NPC just wasn't there?

That's essentially what you're saying. Is there a situation where the NPC could be there and make it worse for the PCs by doing nothing? Probably not, but anyway, it's an interesting conversation. It's something that, by the way, comes up all the time. All the time. Because the writers of these modules, and even if you're homebrewing, there must be some degree of,

you're not only creating enemies in the world. that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense unless like you're writing a pure dungeon crawl where the story starts with the PCs in the dungeon. Outside of that, there's always going to be innocents around or allies around and getting them pulled into combat is something that maybe the PCs want. And so you're trying to say, yes, send them. Yes, send them. And then all of a sudden you get yourself into this position. It happens all the time.

I would honestly be interested, you know, comment on YouTube on the video here and let us know like, do you enjoy running NPCs as a along with the party in combat or out of combat? Or do you also hate it? I'm curious, like where other people stand because it just bothers the shit out of me. Yeah, I don't think there's any firm answer. It's like whatever you want to do. For pre-written adventures, they're balanced for four PCs

in Pathfinder. So you're not going to win or lose if the NPC does or doesn't help. They're meant there as a bonus, I think. That's the way I look at it. I very rarely read pre-written stuff where it's like the NPC is going to do this, this, this, this, and this and thought like, oh my God, that's game-breaking what they're about to do.

It'll usually be like they'll provide some light healing if someone goes down or they'll help to aid or cast a bless. Like you said, you don't want the NPC to become the hero of the story or even the hero of the moment even. It's kind of lame. But you also got to feel out your table. Like you said, you felt that now was a good time for Hubert to shine. He kind of needed it narratively.

Feel out those moments as a GM. Those moments help as well. And a revealed character about Sakawachi as well. You haven't had a chance to talk to him and now he's showing like, this is not my jam. Let me see what I can do. Oh, that's interesting. He's got some fortune telling lore.

So like, there's a way to do it. Now you're revealing character and not just making it a little bonus. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. And it's also with Sakawachi in particular, it's like, I love when you have honest NPCs that make you realize that not everyone in the world is a fighter or an adventurer. There's some people that are just terrified and can't fight. You know what I mean? In fact, that's probably most people you come across.

So, yeah, anyway, man, we took a while on that, but I think it's a good topic of conversation among GMs. Let's get into Professor Eric's notes from the last couple of weeks. We are still mad. Let's talk about fucking sleep for a second, for Christ's sake, sleep. So I- Dude, I've watched that clip so many times.

It's so, I feel like such a loser. I keep laughing. I'm gonna show myself. That's the one that gets me, because I laugh so hard and your eyes are like looking into the void. It's so fucking funny. It's so funny.

I knew that clip would blow up on TikTok and it did. Yeah, yeah. That was an insane moment. Just a look behind the scenes that we can give you on fodder. We talk regularly with our friends at North's Foundry. They're sponsors of the show, so we're always kind of discussing businessy kind of stuff and occasionally narrative stuff will come up. And so yeah, I had this meeting with Norse Foundry when we recorded this weeks ago. It was just like, man, you guys, there is something coming up with a Norse Foundry die that's going

to blow your mind. Can't believe the way it went down. But yeah, that was incredible. I actually wasn't even talking about the clip when I brought this up. I had forgotten about it, mercifully for a moment. But yes, I had a meeting with McD and he was like, people love the clip, dude. People love the clip. You rolling two natural 20s for the enemy. I'm like, God damn it. It's brutal.

Brutal moment. But I mean, that was pretty incredible. I mean, we just left that day being like that, all of us still talking about it. Like that is insane that that happened. It's just, the probability alone is just amazing. Amazing. Let's talk about probability of non-combat spells working in combat. It should be zero.

So this is what really drives me nuts. Is one of my pet peeves, as you know, anytime anybody mentions fascinate, anytime anybody mentions sleep in combat, this kind of stuff, it drives me crazy because you feel, I feel, I shouldn't say you feel, I feel very strongly when you read these things that the game is designed to give you interesting mechanics for non-combat encounters. Not everything is for combat that's mechanical. There are infiltration missions. There are, you know, social engagements.

There are, like, social encounters. Interesting ways to do things that aren't fighting. One of the best ways as a heroic party to break somebody out of a jail or to get past an innocent guard is fascinate or sleep or this kind of stuff. When you're deep in the middle of a fight and you're toe to toe with a dude wielding the sword who's about to swing it at your face, the Jedi mind trick put him to sleep.

It irks me a little bit for something like this. Now, Professor Eric writes this in and says, if you're unconscious and have more than one hit point, typically because you are asleep or unconscious due to an effect, you wake up in one of the following ways. You take damage, obviously. You receive healing other than the healing you receive from resting. Okay. Someone shakes you awake with an interact action.

Great. And now here's the big one. Loud noises around you might wake you. It gets super vague. At the start of your turn, you automatically attempt a perception check against the noises DC, or the lowest DC if there's more than one noise, waking you up if you succeed. If creatures are attempting to stay quiet around you, this perception check uses their stealth DCs. That makes perfect sense. Some effects make you

sleep so deeply that they don't allow you this perception check. So does the sleep spell, is that one of them? Like I don't know and I don't see any indication that it is a spell that puts you in such a deep sleep that the screaming and dying and fighting for your life around you of an intense combat wouldn't, you know, immediately wake you up. And so if you are simply asleep, the GM decides you wake up either because you have a restful night's sleep or something disrupted that rest. So basically, I don't like the vagaries around

it where the GM is meant to ask by the players is meant to be asked like, well, I don't think the combat's that loud. And the GM's like, I think it's very loud. You know, like, it leaves it in that gray area that you typically hate. And I do as well. I think that to me, it's pretty obvious that sleep doesn't work in a fight, like in the middle of an ongoing fight. Now, work is a strong term. You know, you make somebody doze enough that they lose an action or two, that's great, that's valuable, you know, it's good. But I just don't think that, I think a lot of players read the spell

and then come to the table assuming I cast Sleep in the Middle of the Fight and they just laid down and the fight is over. You know, like for them. I think as written, the non-heiden version of it, having had this discussion and really analyzing the spell here, at the very least failure should mean

you have to use one action for that perception check. You know what I mean? So like on your turn, there's noise obviously going on around you, you could lose an action. You're also prone and you've dropped your weapons. So you could lose a turn. You fall unconscious, you drop prone,

you fall your weapons. So your first action is you roll a perception check against the DC of the noise, which the GM could set at 10, 15, 20, whatever. Okay, so that So your first action is your roll a perception check against the DC of the noise, which the GM could set at 10, 15, 20, whatever. OK? So that's your first action. Let's say you're going to wake up, unless you biff that roll, OK?

Now you've got to grab your weapon and stand up. Those are your three actions. So you lose a turn. It's pretty good use of the sleep spell. Now on the- Hold on a second. Real quick. Professor Eric says in analyzing episode 59, quote,

moron sleep, as discussed in the band, sleep would not normally drop a character prone or have them drop their weapons, unless Troy is being extra generous. All that you typically get is one attack with them being off guard. That's Professor Eric's analysis of it, is that you don't completely drop everything.

You just sort of doze. I would disagree. Just digging into the unconscious condition. It says you're sleeping or you've been knocked out. You can't act, blah, blah, blah, blah. When you gain this condition, you fall prone and drop items you're wielding or holding unless the effect states otherwise or the GM determines you're in a position which you wouldn't.

So, I mean, just digging into straight up unconscious, it seems like they fall unconscious. So sleep spell, first level sleep spell, boom, you hit the floor, you drop the deck, you drop everything. Now in your turn, you're going to roll a perception check that you're probably going to hit. Natural one, natural two, maybe even a natural three. If you have really low perception, you're not going to wake up. Now you're going to spend a second action that turn. To me, that's a win for the sleep spell. But basic case scenario, use the perception, you're not going to wake up. Now you're going to spend a second action that turn. To me, that's a win for the sleep spell.

But basic case scenario, use the perception, you wake up. Now you've got to decide, do I want to use my last two actions to stand up and grab my weapons? Now, critical failure, I would maybe set the DC a little bit higher. The creature falls unconscious. If it's unconscious after an hour, it wakes up automatically as opposed to a minute. I think a good compromise here is have the GM set the perception DC just to be a little bit higher.

You know, you've fallen into a deeper state of unconscious, but by the rules, you still should be able to hear what's going on around you. Now we dig into the heightened version. With the heightened version, I don't know if I would allow it because straight up it says the creature falls unconscious for one round on a failure or One minute on a critical failure they fall prone and release what they're holding and they can't attempt perception checks to wake up So for the heightened version of sleep, I think it's it's a great Spell for combat. Yeah, it's like, you know, you're good

They're they're going out for a round and God forbid they critical fail. Now they're out for a minute and nothing is going to wake them up through the traditional perception method. But someone can still shake them and there's other ways, healing, harming, an AOE spell can do it. But I would agree that first level sleep isn't a great combat spell, but we've learned that someone just losing a turn, losing an action can turn the tide of battle. While it may be intended for out of combat use, I think there's still

some good use for it in combat, just losing an action or a turn. It's just tricky. I just don't necessarily... Here's my problem, like you read the unconscious text and that makes sense. However, the failure condition says the creature falls unconscious. And so you, you know, that's the rank one version. And then you point to unconscious, it says you fall, whatever. Like, how come it doesn't then how come only in the heightened version does it say they fall prone and release what they're holding, and they can't attempt perception checks to wake up. That's what irritates me. It's like, I don't know. It's all about, you know, whatever the GM adjudicates at your table. I think it could go both ways. It also has the incapacitation trait, right? So like, it's not something you

can spam in combat like we did in first edition with the fucking yetis in the Jade region. Yeah, so in Jade region, a friend of ours was Land Keith. Land Keith played a witch and he had her just spamming sleep every combat. Everybody would just lay down and then we would just assassinate everyone with coup de grace. I mean, it was so funny because he would do misfortune and then sleep. So you'd have to roll twice and take the worst result. I mean, it was so funny. But yeah, you can't spam it and you're not going to really harm a higher level creature

with this because even a failure is going to be a success. So yeah, interesting stuff. But yeah, sleep is one of those tricky spells similar to the fascinating effect. It always kind of like always toes that line. Yeah. Okay, so let's move on to Professor Eric's rousing splash discussion. Rousing splash is going to be the big topic of conversation here. Okay. I said it last week on the show with Matthew that I did see some comments to this effect. During the time while it was happening, I felt like it probably was like something must

be wrong because this is too good to be true in a way. But I did feel that there were certain negatives which lent, like, because here's how I generally, and you know this, how I generally determine whether something is right or wrong when I can't find it in the book in short order. Does it benefit me? If it feels too good to be true, then it can't be right. Yeah. And if it feels shitty, then it's probably right. And so that's like my general state of mind going into these things. And the thing with Rousing Splash was it seemed too good to be true. But I felt like it had a pretty strong negative compared to Stabilize, which is another cantrip.

The question is, why wouldn't you always just rousing splash rather than Stabilize if it's actually waking you up? That is because the temporary hit points only last for one minute. You are immune to the spell for 10 minutes after that, and that creates a situation where it's more deadly than stabilized. Because you are bringing somebody back, but if you don't have a healing solution for them within one minute, and so treat wounds would not work, is they will now return to dying with a higher wounded condition. So it is more deadly to use this.

It's a higher risk, higher reward play. So I felt like it might be right. Well, here's where Professor Eric says that it is not right. Quote, this is from Player Core page 410. Some spells and abilities give you temporary hit points. These are tracked separately from your current and max hit points, which, you know, I know. When you take damage, reduce your temporary hit points first. I know all of this, generally speaking.

Just to clarify, though, is the issue that we remove the dying condition? No. The issue is that you don't regain consciousness. Now, here's where we get to. Player Core, now we got to jump from Player Core page 410 to Player Core page 459. If you're unconscious because you're dying, you can't wake up as long as you have zero hit points. If you're restored to one hit point or more via healing, you lose the dying and unconscious conditions and can act normally on your turn. You have zero hit points and some number of temporary hit points, you would still fall under the you can't wake up as long as you have zero hit points clause because your actual hit points are still at zero. So he says, yeah, so that is the by the

book. That's the raw. There was a lot of back and forth on it. There were people that said they felt it could be used this way. The temporary hit points could wake you up. McDermott's opinion, which I hold in high regard, is that if it does not do what it did in this combat, then it's a poorly named spell. Yeah, why is it called Rousing Splash? And it should not be called Rousing Splash. Like just because you're in the middle of a fight and you need to go like, you know, like it roused them.

That's exactly, it did exactly what it seemed. If it doesn't do that, it should be called, come on. Come on. Hey, please wake up and save us. Please wake up and save us rank one cantrip. And then I wonder if there's any more notes. Okay. So then this is now a follow up. This is a week later after professor Eric reads a bunch of comments. And he says, I think after a week of discussion over Reddit, discord, and YouTube, I think the analysis from last week is still the strongest rules as written rules as interpreted argument. There are some further confirming details coming in one of the newer books, but I don't

have my copy yet to confirm that the quoted text is correct. So this is interesting. His opinion is that it is, and this goes into what I was saying earlier, is that it is not a busted or broken solution. He says, yes, it's better than stabilized in many ways. It has a longer range and it also wakes you up, which is great. But as I it's basically reiterating what I just said, there's a 10 minute cooldown, it raises the player up with single digit hit points, and if they go back down, they'll have a higher dying value. It is a high risk, high reward if you're using it, and it's already a completely desperate

situation. From my perspective, quote, it's fair as long as it's table consensus. I felt it made the episode better, but I acknowledge that there are strong opinions all around. So yeah, I do think, like, my opinion is, I love it. I'm glad we did it. And I'll never do it again. That's sort of like where I'm at. It's like, I won't wake anybody up with it because I respect the idea of temporary hit points being separate from hit points. However, I felt that not knowing that word for word text in the moment, I feel fine about it. I don't have a shred of guilt. Oh, good. Did multiple people wake up from it? Or was it just one? It was two. It was Buggles and then Zephyr.

So you have any means of bringing them up besides Rousing Splash? No. Yeah. So that they administering healing potions. So. Splash? No. Yeah. So that administering healing potions. So, right. So in my opinion, it is a TPK without rousing splash doing what it did in these fights. And so it feel, you know, I don't feel like I was gaming the system. I totally made sense to me. Temporary hit points. You wake up, you've got them temporarily. But this idea from player Core page 459 of,

you can't wake up as long as you have zero hit points and they're tracked separately. That's a good lawyery reason to say that Rousing Splash would not raise you up from dying. I respect that lawyery version of it. However, I think in the spirit of the moment, I think that it was totally fine. And-

I mean, you'd like to get everything right as best you can. There's a lot of rules in this game. I don't give it an asterisk because who knows how the rest of the fight would have turned out. It was just no way of knowing. Like you look back at Giant Slayer,

there's a lot of moments that after the fact, we're like, oh, you weren't supposed to do that. It was like, I remember the Wicker Man fight with Baron. There was something there that we like, let the Labras like do something. We let Pembroke like dimension door into the Wicker Man to like pull him out, to pull Baron out of the burning Wicker Man. And I believe something to do with that was like, he could not have done that in the way that it was done.

Yeah, I mean, this is how you learn. I'll certainly never use Rousing Splash again. I disagree that it would definitely because you never know how these things are going to turn out. Might have been a TPK, might have been a multiple death. We get rules all around. Let he who gets all the rules right cast the first stone. Right, exactly. I mean, all I know is that it was a fucking roller coaster and everybody at the table had a great time and, you know, that's all. Oh, I thought it was thrilling. I remember trying to choose whether to cast Rousing Splash on Zephyr or not because it was more deadly for her, I felt, to wake up in that moment than to just stay

dying for a round, tactically, purely tactically speaking. And so I put it out there. Kate says, put me in coach, like, just wake me up. Fuck it. It's super dangerous, but like, it's the only chance we have to try to hit this thing. And then she rolled a natural 20. It was the best. It was so much fun. And I think that's the most important thing. Yeah. All right, so let's see if we have any other. Those were the big ones. I don't think that there was anything else major.

Oh, there is something major. Backlash on Zephyr. So this seemed to be a misunderstanding, perhaps, on our end of the rules slightly in against ourselves. So, I think that, so basically, Professor Eric says, I think this was either a DC five or DC 10 flat check with a mild backlash to moderate backlash on a fail or a DC 15 flat check with no backlash.

Sorry, this is a little complicated to read. But basically, well, we have to keep in mind, getting multiple backlashes in a day is what increases the severity of the backlash. That's how you go from mild to moderate. It's like you have to cast it again in the same day, fail the flat check, right? However, we have to remember when you get the backlash, it resets the DC. So multiple times a day, the DC doesn't keep going up. So basically, to sum it up, Professor Eric just says, there is no circumstance where a third deviant use in a single day would be both DC-15 and a moderate whatever, kickback. This is just weird.

It's like you're never have to fail the DC-5, you have to fail a DC-5 check on the third one, you know, in order for it to happen essentially. Yeah, which is, I kind of like it better the way we did it, but yeah, we'll have to look into that. But I mean, there is one way it could happen. If you, the way that we do it, the deviant ability uses are not that powerful for us. If they were very powerful and you used it six, eight, 10 times in a day, you could totally do this.

Because- Yeah, it's just like so seldom you're going to have this many encounters in a day where this would even come up. Exactly. And now it's even hampered further. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely right. On a success, you use your deviation and the DC for subsequent checks increases by five to a maximum of 20. On a failure, you use your deviation and then suffer a backlash effect after which your flat check DC resets to five.

Yeah. So you're not going to have the high check and the higher John Jamsky. I guess well, yeah, exactly. So it could happen, but it couldn't happen on the third use in a single day is what he's saying. It could happen if it was the eighth use in a single day where you kept not getting the backlash and then it was at DC 15 and you fail it and you go to moderate, that could totally happen. It just couldn't happen on the third attempt. As written, it's encouraging you to use your backlashes more often. Like, can you use them multiple times in a combat? I don't see why not.

Yeah. Maybe you guys just aren't using them. I don't think they're that valuable to us. They're not very powerful. Yeah, maybe, yeah. Especially the risk reward, because even the mild backlashes are pretty intense. Yeah.

I mean, mine is like frightened three. That's my mild backlash. And when it comes to, you know, Ramius, pretty intense. I mean, mine is like frightened three. That's my mild backlash. And when it comes to Ramius, I mean, that makes his AC to the point where every hit would be a crit, essentially. And it also changes his saves and his spell attack roll so low that he just wouldn't be able to do anything.

And that's mild. So yeah, it is pretty dangerous across the board. But we'll see. One more note before we move on to listener mail. Nesh members were wondering about the spell strike on North Kesa not triggering a reactive strike. And this is the point where Professor Eric brings in his knowledge of the module because he's running this. Yep, she doesn't have it. She is different from the other grunts. So just so you guys know, Troy did not miss a reactive strike there. She does not have it. Yep. She doesn't have it. She is different from the other grunts. So just so you guys know, Troy did not miss a reactive strike there. She does not have one.

The professor, Eric says, not sure the party knew that yet. So probably a bit risky, but we lucked out on that one. And Cindy didn't even think about it. So she did it like not knowing. Cindy thought about it. It just took the risk. I have a feeling North case it doesn't happen. She doesn't know what's going on.

I think Sydney might have forgotten for the 70th consecutive time that spell strike provokes a reactive strike. All right, let's get into a little listener mail here with the niche has to say, including a bit of an intense one coming up. Spice? A little spice in our coffee? Spice, a little spice in our coffee? Spice! Chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh What's going on? Thanks for writing in with listener mail.

Suburbanite from Burlington, Virginia, Suburbanite, a frequent hang, hangar outter on Twitch. Good to see you Suburbanite writes in with given all the benefits of you or given all the benefits of using Foundry VTT to automate conditions, buffs, debuffs, et cetera. Has anyone at the GCN looked into using it for character sheets? Yes, suburbanite 1000% Remember, we have this Demiplane sponsorship, and that sort of delayed things off to start. But now that that has phased out, we've absolutely discussed this, it's going to start happening at a certain point. Once we get everybody involved into plugging everything in by hand, their sheets and stuff like that. Well, you'll probably see more of it. Yeah.

So anyway, the quick answer is yes, we've discussed this multiple times. A lot of people like their character sheet the way that it is, the automation of it, they prefer that. They also don't really like rolling digital dice. We have a physical dice sponsor. And then saying, like he goes on to say here, you could roll physical dice and then plug in the results that could help automate some of the mundane PF2E math.

That's just, it's more work than it's worth. Yeah. But, you know, I think you'll see some more of it. We're gonna play around with it, yeah. The quick answer is, yes, we've definitely discussed it multiple times. Yeah, yeah, let's see what happens. Yeah.

I love that, I mean, for my monsters, it makes running these games a fucking breeze. All right. Here's a juice, tacky, or listener mail from Jerry on Jerry Perez Valdez from Norway. Not a real name. That is a pseudonym because he knows he's about to ask a spice tacky. He's he's he's got this question is I don't know what this is going. I better put my phone down.

I was reading an email from McD. Get ready for this. I'm going to read it word for word. I just fucking love it. I hate it. Here we go There have been several instances across shows. Oh, we're GM's keepers and Handlers pad players with plot armor so thick it is uncomfortable on our network Hold on. Not finished the question yet, sir. Please wait till the end of the question.

Sorry, your honor. PCs seem to get free potions, unreasonable rests, additional sanity, ridiculously impossible feats, and other aids just for the sake of keeping them alive. Is the cost, emotional, narrative, logistic, of introducing new PCs to a game getting in the way of being true to the spirit of the games being played? Cloaked in the disguise of an actual honest question, This is just an angry dig. Every GM handler and keeper on the network, I guess.

No, I am half kidding. I am half kidding. I will get to a core of an honest question that I feel like is here. Do we fiddle around with things a little bit as GMs, handlers, or keepers because of the labor of bringing in new characters? I certainly don't. I know people think otherwise. No is the answer that comes to mind for me.

I can only speak for myself. Have I been in situations at a player where I was like, what's going on back there behind the screen on this network. Yes but I know for myself. Hi I and I know people would disagree with that and the one they always point to is the. The house was a dragon or something in ashpeak with Baron where I chose to capture you guys instead of kill. That wasn't because of plot armor. It was because I had a story element that I wanted to bring in with the capture and the reintroduction of Nestor. And to me, that was more important than just outright killing.

You know, as a player at that table, how I actively tried to kill Baron from like, so many times. We cut it out of the show. I was like, I'm going to fucking kill this character. It's going to happen. So like, I was never worried about plot armor. I went into that last fight being like, I'm going to kill you. Now it was a competition. It was like, you've beaten my game so far.

Now I'm going to take you out. For years. You've had a hell of a run, but I'm taking you out. I hate the gunslinger. I hate this character. I'm going to kill it. So I never thought of it as plot armor. I mean, two characters have already died in Gatewalkers at like very inopportune moments that like really wouldn't didn't make sense. Narratively, if you're writing this as a novel, it was like bad. We had to bring another carrier. You know, I think of the way I always think of the Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider, Tomb Giant that took out Lorc.

Like of all the ways for a character like to go of that magnitude. Like a very long term character. Yeah, who we'd already brought back several other times in many different ways. That story, it's just not at all how I wanted that to go. But all of these instances I bring up is a point that like I, there is no plot armor in my games. People may think differently, but I, you know, I go to sleep at night knowing what goes on behind the screen. And I, while I, there are times that I'm actively trying to kill, I really just let the dice tell the story. It just makes my life easier. I think to a point where you don't even enjoy it sometimes, you're like, we just fudge the dice,

but it's not like we're live and watching DC. I don't do it because like I'd rather let the dice happen and like, let's see what comes from this. Sometimes it might be boring. Look, I'm the first to admit, I will, I'll be like, would you just fudge the dice and it has nothing to do with keeping characters alive. Usually it's because I'm like, this show is boring. Like, let's move it along and you won't do it even if it's boring and makes a

bad show. You'll always keep the die what the die are. I don't see what you're seeing here, Jerry. I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about. I'll tell you, here's one, here's one that I suspected, but now my mind has been changed. I suspected as a player that you in the, you loosened that rope a little bit at the very start of the observatory encounter by Sakawachi handing out a bunch of healing potions. You said, after the fact, that this is in the book. This is what he says he does. And I was like, okay,

I believed you. But as a player, I was like, he's being a nice guy because we haven't rested and we've been through so many combats and I'm basically dying too right now. I'm wounded too. So he's just trying to be nice. And then you said it was in there. So great. nice. And then you said it was in there. So great. I'm not sure what other examples to point to. Burl died in the first episode of Strange Aeons, in the first combat outside of the dream encounter. Died. Do you have? We were live in LA at a sold out show, our first live show of what would be the tour,

because we had done some other live performances. It was the first live show of what would be the tour, you know, because we had done some other live performances. The first live show and your character straight up died and you had to build a character. I mean, nobody has plot on it. And I was truly and genuinely and honestly angry. I was very angry on stage and you can see it. It gets captured there. How about this? I'm going to take it point by point. Free potions.

Not sure what you're talking about. If it's the observatory, it's part of it. As RIP. Unreasonable rests. Show me a goddamn game that doesn't have unreasonable rests in Dungeon Crawls. Man, it happens. In fact, I would argue that that is the spirit of these games. The way PF2E tactical gameplay works,

there's unreasonable rests all the time. However, what we really have to do is define reasonable. What is and is not reasonable in a completely fantasy world depends on what's happening at your table. I would venture to say that in our games, there are very few and certainly not more than the average unreasonable rests. How about additional- You a seven encounters in a row, by the way? You have to be not built for seven encounters. No, how about additional sanity? Is this something that you have ever done in time for chaos?

No, I we we do an advancement stage And I'm going to assume adventure and you do the advancement stage at the end of each Book and you have a chance to gain back sanity. And there's also ways you can go to therapy. And we've played those all out and had you roll for the sanity. Sometimes we've done these amazing scenes, and they roll, and they could get like 20 something sanity back, and they get like three.

You know? Yeah, so I don't know where that's going. So if that is pointed at, if you're listening to Get in the Trunk, or that's pointed toward Impossible Landscapes, there is some sanity recovery in that game. I can tell you that is straight out of the book, and is, when you know a little bit more, like the handler does, it's a little bit tougher because they keep so much information from the players in Delta Green. A big part of the reason behind that is because in actuality,

you are going more insane. Some of this hasn't aired, so not going to go into great detail, but the idea of regaining sanity in these parts in Impossible Landscapes is not to carry characters in a baby cradle to the end. It is because it represents the fracturing of the mind in such a way that it's getting to a point where what is becoming sane to them is insane to everyone else from when they started the adventure. So anyway, neat mechanics. Those are in the book and that's super fun. Ridiculously Impossible Feats. I don't really know what those are. The first thing I thought when I read that ridiculously impossible feats was, oh, what are you talking about? Fucking star gazing feats. Like the archetype of the stargate that couldn't be less powerful.

It was a fun thing. I don't know if that's what it's about. Oh, yeah, maybe that's it. And other aids just for the sake of keeping them alive. I don't feel like we've played that way. I could tell all of you guys that I talked to Troy and the whole team behind the scenes of Impossible Landscapes as we now enter, we're kind of ramping up toward the end here, the end of the campaign. The climax is upon us. And I had a conversation off air where I basically said, you could die at any moment with a single die roll and you're not going to bring in another character. And so as far as like,

is the cost of introducing new PCs getting in the way of being true to the spirit of the game? No, because you're not bringing in a new PC at this point. And I don't mind if you die several episodes before the end because we'll figure something out together. It'll be fun and it'll make it interesting, but we're not gonna start a new character at this stage. It's just too late in the run, but you could die.

So be emotionally and mentally prepared for that. I had that conversation off air. So yeah, anyway, I get a little fired up from this stuff but I do wanna just point out the- It sounds defensive, but it's just a silly question. I think, I get a little fired up from this stuff, and I do wanna just point out that- We sound defensive, but it's just a silly question. I think, I don't listen to other podcasts, but I think this is a major complaint of other actual play podcasts is plot armor.

And I think people listening to the Glass Cannon Network because our shows do not have that. Yeah, so I guess maybe specific instances would help, but I mean, just the list here, I think that I can debunk them in my own mind. At least I think that it's a little bit paranoid. And also, finally, is it getting in the way of being true to the spirit of the games being played?

The spirit of the game being played is not an objectively definable thing. The spirit of your game might be to just relentlessly mechanically, like a robot, go after your players until they're dead. That's the thing is like a GM, a handler, a keeper, you wield the power of God in the game. And so like, what is the spirit of the game? Is it to give everybody plot armor?

Like maybe that's how some people wanna play, that's fine. Is it to give nobody plot armor and be cold and methodical with the execution of all characters, regardless of narrative? That might be the spirit of the game to some people. To us, I feel the spirit of the game is story, great story, and you can't get great story without having true actual danger.

Real, the real feeling like your character could die is essential in our feeling of the spirit of the game. However, the spirit of the game is not just doing only what the rules say. And that is exactly what the rules will tell you on page one of the rules. So you know, it's all a matter of opinion here. But I am curious, let us know in the comments. do you see instances of plot armor that you haven't mentioned because you don't want to anger the Glass Cannon superfans? Because I'm curious.

I'm curious to see if this is something people are saying because I don't think it is. But it was a well-worded and reasonably put question, so I felt like we should answer it on fodder. And I definitely felt like we don't have examples of this. I can't really think of them. So I say, no, we do not give characters plot armor because bringing in new PCs is too much work. We love bringing in new PCs.

Oh my God. It's like our favorite. Sometimes changes the course of a show. I think of like the end of season two of Parks and Recreation, just like bringing in Adam Scott and Rob Lowe. It made the show. That's how you got me to start watching it.

And I went back to the beginning. I liked those early stuff, but it's great. It can be exactly what a show needs to turn it around. Such a shot of life. Yeah, it's fantastic. All right. That's going to wrap it up. Good thought. Good thought. Well, I'm late for my family. Oh, I'm sorry, man. What are they off from? Are

they off? Yeah, it's working for Veterans Day. Yeah, we're recording this on Veterans Day. Thank you to all of our veterans out there. I'm sad that my kids aren't off of school. I feel like everybody should be off for Veterans Day, but well cuz they're not veterans Well, yes, your kids are veterans. Yes, they fought fictitious wars They fought many fictitious wars Guys, thank you so much for watching hanging out listening. Please. Let us know in your comments a lot of opinions on this pod We'd love to hear you weigh in on it and more to come. We'll be back again next week Remember to watch the live stream of Paula and Mary Lou and

Sydney and I on Friday 4 o'clock Eastern. You got Gatewalkers continues exciting new beginnings happening this week and then Friday night Portland show airs. So lots coming up. Hang out with us and we'll see you around. Have a good weekend and Fodder's back next week. Peace! Do you like what you hear? Well, then it's time to make your membership official. Peace! Bye! and use code GCN30. That's GCN30 to gain access to exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and live streams you can't find anywhere else. Once again, it's jointhenash.com,

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