The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 1/24/24

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Troy and Joe are IN STUDIO for the Fod today with special guests Skid Maher and Sydney Amanuel! They'll talk about the reveal of Syd's newest character class, an upcoming Rambo live show (!), and their suspicions about the newest NPC in the GCP. In Listener Mail, ideas for what to do with dead characters! Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/DfEISqlDp14 For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for hundreds of hours of exclusive shows and benefits, make your membership official and join Glass Cannon Nation today by becoming a subscriber at jointhenaish.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and getting the last. Where it just hits in all the right ways that you to get one multiple times a day yep McCafe just shouts order your McCafe on the app or in restaurant today must be McCafe at participating McDonald's in Canada app download and registration required 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. Yeah! What's going on, everybody?

Welcome back to Cannon Fodder. It is Wednesday, January 24th, 2024. And I'm your old pal, Joey O'Brien. And I'm Troy. I'm pretty sure Joe is looking into the wrong camera, LaValle. Who's looking into the right camera, Francis? Bam! Wait, it's over this one?

It's all the way over here, dude. What the hell? We've never done this. We've never done this before for the audio listeners. This is coming to you live from the GCN studios. What? This is weird. I'm sitting in Matthew's seat, and I haven't sat in on a booster seat since I was like eight. Since you were getting your hair cut at the barber at eight years old.

You can't see it, but I'm actually sitting in a fire truck. We just wrapped some GCP episodes, and we're like, hey, why don't we shoot the FOD live from here? Francis was like, I don't want to go home and have a good night to myself. I want to hang out with you guys even more than I already have. And we gave him his wish. So here we are. We're going to do the FOD from the studio today. Very excited to be doing it in person, buddy.

It's just nice. Oh, man, I would like to do this more often. Yeah. But now we have families and it's hard. But like in an ideal world, I've got like 20 ideas for shows that are just this and we're gonna play games we sit here and hang out and talk because this looks so much better than zoom and shit yeah that's i can touch you no matter just squeeze my boob yep no matter how hard we try uh no matter how hard man you really threw me off with the boob squeeze it was a light caress no matter how hard we try to get things looking better from our homes, it just never

looks as good as this. It's as good as being in studio in person. Well, we've got a hell of a FOD for you today. We've got a lot of news we're going to hit you with, some exciting stuff, including a live show that I don't think a lot of people know is coming that is like off the beaten path from the glass cannon, usual MO. So that's going to be really fun. We'll talk

about episode 18 of Campaign 2. We've got a chunky We Are Stupid from Professor Eric. And of course, Listener Mail, we'll wrap it up with. But the biggest news hot off the presses here on today's FOD is we've got a couple special guests today. I mean, as if going live from the studio, not live, but recording the studio wasn't enough. What if we made it more complicated? the studio wasn't enough. What if we made it more complicated? What if we made it even harder, technically, to put on a good show?

It would be worth it for these two folks. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us on the FOD today, the one and only Skidmar and Sidney Emanuel. Hey! Hey!

Oh! We got dropped! FOD drops! Too soon. Too soon. They got lucky. It was such a good drop and we got to use it, what, two times? Yeah, twice.

Why three? You only did two good things. One drop for every good thing you did. He had the drop on the board for like four episodes. He just never could hit it. I'm keeping it on there just in case someone gets lucky. It doesn't have to be because that's a cool thing thing about like your name is also a a a state of being an adjective yeah but also the true meaning is just to be to get lucky right yeah yeah exactly

and so a great drop to you take the place of this right yeah or use it for an actual lucky roll which would be really fun no No, it's just about sex. Understood. She's put the sword down. What's going on with the sword? A lot of people are wondering. Do you want to talk about it? Nope.

Now's the time. Do that again. She also does that a lot when we're not on the TV. She does this weird semicircle around the computer. And I kind of point it at each of you, and it's a little threatening, but also fun. And also, it's a dagger. I keep calling it a sword. I keep calling it a sword. Either a sword for a tiny person or a dagger for you. I thought it would be a fun little

prop. So for all those wondering, now you know. It's just a fun little table prop. And sometimes, like, I don't know, so much action in the game, you're like, I just want to swing something around. You bought that? Yes. That sounded kind of judgy. Where would I,

what, I didn't find it. I didn't, well, I didn't make it. I did buy it. Yeah. Okay.

But no one like gave it to you? No, no. You went out and like specifically bought it? I feel attacked. I feel attacked on this pod. I like this. Doesn't it?

You're the one with the knife. Like Conan O'Brien, doesn't he have like a little coffee cup of Truman or something? And that's on his desk. Yeah. He did back in's on his desk. Yeah. Always. Yeah, I think it's Truman. I can't remember.

It's like a pencil holder. There he is, Truman. And you've got your dagger. We all have props. Yeah. It's great. It's a great little. I've got my phone.

It's your phone? Yeah. I've got this light. Look how natural Troy looks under that weird under the chin light. Like I said, we got some news off the top. So glad that Skid is with us today because Skid and Troy and I, no offense to Sid, this is a very weird situation. Not a glass cannon even situation. This is a production from Evil Genius Games, who make Everyday Heroes.

We played their, Skid and I played their Escape from New York game at Gen Con, which was a blast with Eric Mona running it, and Rob Kirkovich, your good buddy Rob, and Jared Logan. And Jared, yeah. That was a really, really fun run. Well, they have produced several of these, and they have asked a few of us to come out to a comedy club in New York City in a couple weeks to play a live session of their Rambo game.

So it's Everyday Heroes RPG Rambo. The Rambo Cinematic Adventure. And we're going to be creating heroes in the Rambo universe and telling our own original Rambo story at a comedy club on the Upper West Side. Yeah, Stand Up New York. I mean, I lived on the Upper West Side for six, seven years when I first moved to New York. And I used to walk by Stand Up New York all the time. So it's just so incredibly cool. Skid and Troy and I are going to be doing this with Khalees Hawkins

and Natalie Cuomo, two comedians that we've never worked with before. In fact, Skid and I, or no, we're going to meet them tomorrow on a call for the first time, but we're going to start chatting it out, making characters. I've been looking at their stand-up and stuff on Instagram and YouTube, and they're very funny.

Yeah, I mean, I'm really excited for this. So, this is all to say, if you are in or around the New York area, you can totally come to this show. My sister's singer's coming to the show. Get out of here! Oh, great! She'll be there. Oh, it's good to have a friendly face.

And we want more niche faces in there. Yeah. You know what I mean? We need friendly faces because, like, you need to laugh at us. Exactly. It's going to be tough, especially if, like— We'd love to have Sid there, but unfortunately, Stand Up New York has a very strict no weapons policy.

She doesn't go anywhere without that dagger. Yeah, they also won't let me back after last time. After last time. No, I'm going to try to come to the show. That would be amazing. And heckle you. That would be awesome. Because that's what you do at comedy shows, right? That's right.

You hustle the people. You know what? It is a comedy show comics love that notoriously comedians love when you love it here's what i'm most excited about uh it's great to be back in the stand-up club again and it's like you talk about intimate also we have no plans for a glass cannon live show in new york this year so like this if you live in new york and you want to see us this is the opportunity it's it's limited oh it's it's very small room there's and we're just going to see us, this is the opportunity. It's limited seating. It's a very small room. And we're just going to be there just hanging out. It's going to be really, really fun.

It's Friday, February 9th. So put it on your calendar. Put it on my calendar now. Friday, February 9th. It's an 8 p.m. show. Doors at 730. You can go to StandUpNewYork.com for tickets. Check it out.

Come out and see us if you're around. It's going to be really, really fun. We're going to improvise a Rambo movie. That is exactly what we're doing. Basically, yeah. We're improvising. It's going to be really, really fun. We're going to improvise a Rambo movie. That is exactly what we're doing. We are improvising in a two-hour slot, because they've got comics coming on after us. It is a two-hour tight slot. We've got to create a Rambo movie.

It's going to be amazing. Also, in the top of the news, Time for Chaos Season 1 premiered last week. So intense that it broke YouTube. It broke YouTube. I didn't find out about this until the next day, and I was sick to my stomach. You must have been thrilled on Friday. I was right down my house.

I was right down my house. This has never happened before. Never happened before. I mean, we just started premiering on YouTube with Gatewalkers. Sure, sure. But why doesn't it happen on episode 13 of Gatewalkers? it happens on episode one of season two but it wasn't like after like the minute it went down the entire thing was available yeah you could watch it right away but we lost that sort of community feel we had like 700 people

watching together it was nice and and then you could watch it in comment but it was just different whatever it was it wasn't the end of the world i feel like we're doomed with premieres it happened with gatewalkers when it was like wasn't available till of the world. I feel like we're doomed with the premieres. It happened with Gatewalkers when it wasn't available until HD until afterwards. The premieres was at like 160p. What's wrong with the resolution? Why does it look so shitty? To our credit, our production coordinator, Michael, really

tried to explore what the fuck happened. The best we got was an apology from Google. Yeah, Google. It's like a glitch. It's the internet. It happens to the best of us. This week we have more Deadlands coming on Labs. Deadlands has been really fun.

That's going to be tomorrow, the 25th at 2 p.m. Eastern, continuing that story. And then you're still playing Baldur's Gate 3 on the channel. Today, that's right. And I am going to stream again on Friday. I'm going to try out the new Prince of Persia game. I saw you were going to play that. I didn't even know there was a new Prince of Persia.

Yeah, I stumbled across this and I was never big into Prince of Persia. I played it in like 2008 maybe, something like that. Have you seen the movie with Jake Gyllenhaal? I have seen the movie with Jake Gyllenhaal. I actually did and I used that music, fun fact, I used the And I used that music.

Fun fact. I used the Prince of Persia music for the Pathfinder Society scenario that I love so much. The element, what is it called? You ran like 10 times. Yeah, I ran it like five times. It's the one that's like out, it's that fortress out in the desert. Oh, is that the Thuvian thing out with that fortress out in the desert. Oh, oh. Is that the Thuvian thing?

Is that what it was? I can't remember. It was like revealed by the blowing sands. It's like an ancient Citadel of Flame. Citadel of Flame. Citadel of Flame. If you have never played this PFS scenario and you're still interested in 1E or you want to try to convert it, what an amazing scenario. It's kind of an old citadel that was covered by millennia of sand.

And then it gets blown away. And a wizard who happens to be flying over the desert, like, en route from one thing to another, like a high-level wizard, happens to notice it and, like, writes into the Pathfinder Society. It's like, you should send a team out to check this out. Oh, didn't we play that up in Massachusetts, like, when we went up, like, that first year? I think we did. And I had already played it, so I was just playing dumb. So just playing with friends, you could use unlicensed awesome cinema music.

And so I used the Prince of Persia soundtrack. Dude, I remember original Prince of Persia. That's the only one I've ever played. I could swing on... It was the first game since Pitfall that you could swing on ropes, and it was very janky and polygon-y it was just like a cube person yeah swing on rope is that a broderbund game originally broderbund man i haven't heard that name in a long time i'm thinking of some something like that it was maybe yeah i don't i don't know it's super super old school it came

but word on the street is the new Prince of Persia rocks. And it is. Awesome. It got a nine on GameSpot. It was Broderbund? Yeah, 1989, Broderbund. Good job, Skid. Broderbund. Got a nine on GameSpot.

Wow. So I'm looking forward to checking it out and seeing how it is. Abu was hyping it up on social, I saw. Yeah. Awesome. Oh, cool. Oh, yeah. Because he's got his new game coming out in March.

The Tales of Kanzara. Yeah. We should try to coordinate to stream that. March, The Tales of Kanzara. Yeah. We should try to coordinate to stream that. That would be fun. It looks really fun, and he's super excited about it. Yeah. Awesome. That's going to be Friday, 12 p.m. Eastern on Twitch.

All right, let's get into the episode. We're going to do a little bit of episode talk, and then we'll go into We Are Stupid. Before the We Are Stupid, though, I think one of the bigger things from this app, and Sid, this is why I'm so glad you're here, is the first time we see Asta in action and the first time we find out what class you're playing. Magus! All right, talk us through the decision. Why Magus? How did you come to this decision? Lucky was a fighter, and we had built our group knowing the roles we needed to fill. I was really excited about playing that because also I love playing Casino. That was my first tank character in Legacy. Casino is this blood rager. She's so dope. When I made Lucky-

That's similar, right? Yeah. A fighter with magical properties as well. Exactly. Yeah. Blood rager is like a sorcerer and a barbarian. When Lucky was a fighter, I was like, great, I'm going all in on the fighter class. And then when she died, I was like, man, I don't want to make a replica of her. I don't want to be a fighter.

I don't want to be a champion. I don't want to be a barbarian. I was like, I want to do something that I still get to fight, but I also want to have something else interesting about my character, because I just didn't want to make a carbon copy of Lucky. And I found out about the mages. I never knew about this class.

Didn't know it existed. I thought it was so interesting. Not a fan of the Glass Cannon podcast. Well. So Sydney would talk about listening to Giant Slayer. And now, like, over the years, we've, like, dissected and figured out exactly where she stopped. Episode 6.

Which is, like, right around episode 9 or 10. Yeah. I know the hits. I know the hits. I know the hits. We're like, how about that riverboat in Giant Slayer Sydney? And she's like, I didn't get to that part yet. I know some of the characters' names, and I know many of the deaths.

But the stuff in between, a mystery. It's all filler. It's all filler. It's all clip shows. But then after I decided, I talked to Matthew about it, and he was like, ah, be careful. Like, have so much fun. Be careful.

It's an interesting class. Yeah, because I would say, I don't know much about the class at all. But one of the things I would say, and this is what Matthew probably ran into, is it's a powerful, damage-dealing, frontline class that is not tanky. Yeah, exactly. A glass cannon. Yes. A glass cannon, if you will. A bit of a glass cannon.

Yeah. But yeah, I was interested in the class, and I figured, why not try something new? Now is the time. You know, I get a new character. And yeah, Asta kind of formed from that idea and had the idea of a kitsune. Weirdly, you said it.

Yeah. Unrelated, but you had mentioned it. You were like, what are you going to be? A kitsune? Are you going to die and come back in a kitsune? Yeah. Did that plant the subconsciously the idea in your head or did you always think? Maybe.

I also thought it was interesting that like the Fox aspect and like the, we're kind of in the wild woods. And I was like, yeah, kitsune, like they live in the wild woods. Like they're from there. So yeah,

but she kind of formed after I came up with the magus idea. And then I was like, okay, an interesting kind of like magical creature kitsune, like cool. So yeah, that's, that's what sparked it.

I have a question and a thought. The question is, you died very quickly in that episode. Yeah. And then you had the whole episode to sit, go back and watch. You're really looking at the computer. Now I had to ask you guys before,

do you have backups? And nobody really had backups maybe light concepts was it during that episode that you were like magus i think it yes yes it was during that episode i had like three things i had three this is what i always do i make a few and then i kind of narrow it down based off of once i start to build the character i'm like like, does this make any sense? You know, is this a useful character? And the mages still learning. I mean, in episode 18, that was like my first fight. So that was a real like baptism by fire kind of thing because I made a new character, made a new class that I've never played before and then did a combat. At level two. At level two.

So, yeah, I came up with it during the episode. Yeah, if you watch the episode, we're like he does. I look miserable. And yes, I was sad, but also I was just very focused on trying to get my character ready to come back. And I didn't have much to do in the rest of the episode. So I had some time. Yep, I've been there. I've been there, done that.

Glass Candle Live, episode one. You can watch it happen over the course of—he comes back later in the episode. The second thing was a thought is like, I love Kitsune cause I'm way into anime. And also Jade Regent, we played, there's an important Kitsune character becomes like an NPC. I think it's book four,

the forest of spirits. Do you guys remember? Yeah. What are they called? The fucking, the little creatures that are forest spirits. Kodama. Kodama. Kodama. What?

Kodama? Kodama or yokai. It begins with a D, doesn't it? I don't remember. I can't remember, but the kitsune was an important part of that. I guess yokai is, those are the bad guys, like the oni. Anyways. Yeah, the bad guys were the oni.

Kitsune. We had a magus in that campaign as well. Yes, we did. Oh, did you? Forgot about that magus. That's right. Maybe it was subconscious when you said it, but also as a fan of anime. Yes, we did. Oh, did you? Forgot about that, Magus. That's right. Maybe it was subconscious when you said it, but also as a fan of like anime

and stuff, like Naruto, the whole story is nine tails, like the Kitsune, the fox. And also I wanted to be a catfolk, and I didn't get to do that, so maybe I went with another animal-human hybrid sort of thing. Yeah. Another college mascot.

Go foxes! Killin' Kits kill them get soon foxes well in this episode i felt like it was a uh a real uh testament i mean you know us is a big part of it but a real testament to how leveling up to seven second level completely changed the dynamic against these Gorgas. It felt like we were much more in control. And mashing, Skid, is that kind of the vibe that you got? Like, does second level Buggles feel more powerful than first level? Yeah. You don't think about it very often, but it is like an occasion where you're doubling your level.

It's the only time that ever happens. Right. And doubling your hit points, basically. Yeah. And you're doubling your hit points yeah yeah and you're doubling your level yeah uh you know it's just like uh so yeah that's it's it's you know you feel like you finally are getting some kind of uh you know battlefield effectiveness and you're feeling a little bit more like a a less a little less like a regular guy a little more

like a super person. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. I don't normally think about it because it's like you just kind of breeze through those early levels sometimes in your mind. We also saw some cool foundry stuff in this episode, particularly because they were coming out of the darkness and then Umbral leaping back into the darkness as part of their tactics during the fight. Good job. Because we had the campfire.

Yep, because we had the campfire and that was like emanating. That was really cool. But I loved how Skid at one point, you as Buggles, were just like, I see them. We were like, oh, well, we can't see them. I'm going to delay. And I think Talitha may have delayed as well at one point. And you were like, well, I'm just going to go hit it because I can see it right there because you're Darkvision. I guess you're the only character

with Darkvision and that's very important in the party. I guess that's true. It is cool. It really is cool to have a virtual tabletop that has that feature and have it actually work. Yeah. It's really neat. It's very immersive. Yeah. It's something I wish I had on other shows. Yeah. No, it's. It's very immersive. Yeah, it's something I wish I had on other shows.

Yeah, no, it's great. It also helps you to not metagame. It's so immersive that you, the player, when you can't see, it's like too bad, you know? Well, there's some tactical stuff we'll get to in a second. Professor Eric wrote in, as I said, a chunky review

on We Are Stupid, but always very professional and friendly, as Professor Eric has wanted to do. But let's move on from the combat for a moment as we patch up our wounds, get the rest of our sleep, and then head out towards Thinland Farms and have a random NPC encounter on the road. Which is always, I feel, very unsettling, right? Like in a place like the Wildwood, where you don't know who you're going to meet on the side of the road. I remember Brother Ramius is doing perception checks

immediately for like bandits off the highway, like ready to jump us because this guy's like, oh, hello there, travelers. Yeah. Because you never trust this guy. The second he starts talking, oh, hello there, traveler. I'm like, this guy's going to kill us all. It's like seeing a hitchhiker in the middle of I-70,

like Kansas. Just speed by. Yeah, just keep going. Don't slow down. That person killed someone. Just speed by. Well, I'm just going to put you on the spot here. It's so early.

We don't know. We have no idea. Buggles and Brother Ramius in character, which I thought was really fun, decide, make the decision. We're going to trust this guy. Asta, not so much. Now, let's just talk about as players for a second, long

term prediction for Malkior. Is he a bad dude or a good dude? My initial, I'm sticking with my gut, my initial instinct, it felt exactly like you said exactly like you said too skid person in the middle of the road help oh i'm hurt or oh i'm lost and it's like you will murder us you will murder us in our sleep the minute that you get

the chance to you're gonna steal from us whatever i don't know if he has like a bigger story with what's going on, but everything has been so weird and everyone is so weird that the fact that a normal guy shows up that just like wants help. I don't think so. I think. I think either his friend is made up and he's going to steal from us or he's just like a thief or just a thief. Yeah. Or his friend is real, but they're like planning something together. Like he's like,

my friend is lost and then we're going to meet the friend. And then they're both going to turn on us and be like, we were actually demons. So you think this is, this is going to be bad that we brought him along with us. Skid, how do you feel as a player? Flip of the coin. How does this pan out for us?

I don't know. I mean, you saying this now, it reminds me of Red Dead Redemption 2. There's the guy looking for his friend. He's like, Gavin! Gavin!

I never did finish that quiz. It's just like, he seemed alright. He always shows up in every new town you discover. Gavin! Have you seen Gavin? So, that guy was harmless at worst annoying annoying yeah definitely annoying um but uh i think a bugle certainly like i think he's a little more optimistic naive i guess than asta would be so i think he genuinely does

see the actually someone reminded me that it that it's a similar kind of trait. We talked about Silverado so much a couple years ago, and I was just reading Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He does a sub stack every week, and he was talking about Silverado. He was talking about this Kevin Kline's character in that movie. He gets jumped by these guys, these cowboys. They go out in the desert, and they end up jumping him because they like his horse but he's just like as i was like i guess that but it's like the reason that he let that happen was because he also like just tends to see the best in people and it blinds him yeah and so it's like that's like oh it's like i think buckles like

kind of has the same kind of malady. And Kareem was talking about it. It's just like, I wish I had that. And it's just like, well, sure, but you also don't live in a fantasy world where there's like giant spiders. Yeah. Who can look like people. Right.

It was consistent with your character because you did the same thing when Asta joined the party. Yeah. Everyone else was kind of standoffish. You were like, we should help her. She's like us. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true.

That was a great moment. I love that moment. That moment made the tease, right, Frances? Yup. Yup. I think we should trust her. We should help her. It was really nice.

Let's really dive into Asta with a little We Are Stupid. Oh. Courtesy of Professor Eric. We're going to hit on a few points here before we get to listener mail. Got a couple questions from the nation. Who, me? That we're going to get to answer

with Skid and Sid in attendance, which is great. All right, so regarding Asta's forms, and then Eric writes for three and a half pages, single spaced. I'm going to commit seppuku. Now we see why she has the knife. Alright, so just a quick summary for those

that don't know. It seems that you came in sort of implying that you could at any time switch between all three forms. That's not really the case. Yes. I've remedied it. I realized after I had misread something, I do get a Fox form.

My other form is a Kitsune form. I remedied it in a cool way in one of the recent EPs that I think everybody- It hasn't aired yet. It hasn't aired yet. It's not out, but I think story-wise makes sense and like character-wise makes sense. Professor Eric, thank you so much.

Yeah. It feels like it doesn't really make a difference. It's more like social. Yeah. It feels like it doesn't really make a difference. Except for like social. Yeah, more socially. If this was more of a social campaign, it doesn't feel like that so far, though. This doesn't feel like a political thriller campaign. This is like monsters and horror.

Right. If you walk into a town and there's a big sign that says, no fox people, then you're going to be in trouble. Yeah, I talked to Troy about it too, and Troy was like, I don't really care. That doesn't matter to me. But yeah, like if we enter a metropolitan city and they've never seen a kitsune before, sure, maybe.

But we're in the woods right now, and they exist. Right. You also described her luxurious nine tails, but also something that comes with time, right? Yeah, I thought it was a flavor. I thought you could pick however many tails that suited you. I mean? Yeah, I thought it was a flavor. I thought you could pick however many tails that suited you. I mean, every time I see a Kintsune in my mind, it's a bunch of tails.

When you level up, you gain... It's kind of ambiguous, but you gain another tail at each level. So it's sort of as you grow, you grow in power. That's cool. And it is cool. And the tails have a power. You can do stuff with them. So that's fun. In other words, they're going to make you earn it.

Yes. Fox form. We did sort of just imply that it had dark vision. We just assumed it does because foxes seem to actually hunt at night and stuff like that. Don't get skid started on Pathfinder nerfing animals. Real bugaboo. It seems that that has carried over to second edition. Yeah, I googled it too.

I was like, can foxes see in the dark? Well, we might be wrong on this, but it seems that in fox form, because of the pest form spell, you're not actually a fox. You're using a spell called pest form. You would get low light vision and scent for 30 feet, but not dark vision.

Yes. It is a change form action that you can do. And yeah, the fox traits, I get low light vision. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about arcane stance. So this is something where you enter a stance after you cast a spell. Yes.

Or what's the other thing? You cast a spell or you basically do, it's you cast a spell. Yes. Or what's the other thing? You cast a spell or you basically do, it's you cast a spell. Anything is like casting a spell that takes one or two actions. And the idea is the magic that you cast or use. Or use a spell strike, sorry. Or use a spell strike. Which to use a spell strike, you have to cast a spell but uh the magic like reflows through your body so it's similar to the monk stance you stay in the stance as long as you're not like stunned or something that would make you not be able to do the stance but it costs an action to do and like the magic reflows through you from the spell you just cast so depending on

the magic type you get a plus one damage or more if you have weapon specialization to your next attack. So it's cool. But again, You become like a conduit for your own magic. And it says like through your breath work and your foot stance,

you like keep the magic circulating in your whole stance the entire time. So it's super cool. But as I'm learning with the mages, the action economy is so important that you do, you know, this step. Then I do my arcade stance, the arcane stance. Then I do this. Then I do my spell strike.

So I'm getting the hang of it. There's a lot of moving pieces. And we also, like, I believe you went into that stance around after casting a spell as your last action. But we're pinpointing here in the rules that it seems that you need to do that in the same turn. Yes. So it's worded and they've made a change, right, in the wording that says within the same turn. Requirements for the stance, you used your most recent action this turn to cast a spell or make a spell strike. You need to meet this requirement only to enter the stance, not to remain in it. Yeah. So you can't round the corner, so to speak, and like cast something and then next turn use the stance.

It has to be. So the action economy becomes very important. I like the round the corner idea. That makes sense. All right. How about Stunning Fist from Zephyr? Pow, pow! Pow!

We stunned one of these dogs, or Zephyr stunned one of these dogs, and then you gave it an attack of opportunity. We now know you can't do that when it's stunned. It can't take any action. I stand by my – You can't act – yeah, I figured you would. I stand by my – You're wrong.

You're wrong. But you missed anyway, so it didn't really have any mechanical impact on the episode. But good to know for future reference. Man, that Stunning Fist is going to be awesome. So dope. But it does have the incapacity trait. So it's going to be dope against things that are about our level or lower, but not things that are going to be awesome. So dope. But it does have the incapacity trait. So it's going to be dope against things that are about our level or lower, but not, you know, things that are going to be higher level.

Oh, one more, one last thing before we get off of the Magus is the spell strike does provoke an attack of opportunity because if you use a spell within it that has the manipulate action. Yeah. And we did that right. Yeah. Yeah. But there were some comments on the YouTube video that suggested that maybe it does not provoke an attack of opportunity, but it does.

The thing is, most spells that you would cast have the manipulate trait and would provoke. I don't know. Maybe there is one in the list. But something like shocking grasp, does that not? Because it's meant to be used in melee, right? But I believe because you're – I can look it up, but I'm almost positive. It's not to ner used in melee right so but i believe because your cat i can look it up but i'm almost positive it's not to nerf the mages like they're very powerful but i think the idea is that most creatures don't have an attack of opportunity you're taking a risk if they do and

maybe you get hit but also you should be like the tank so maybe that hit also they're never going to have more than one uh right and and they have to crit to interrupt it. So even if they hit you, you still get the spell strike through. Yeah. But they would have to crit in order to interrupt the action. In first edition, it was cool that you could cast it, then move, and it was just a boom! Charged up. And hold the charge in the blade.

Yeah, you could hold those charges, but everyone had an AOL. So now, yeah. It's also balanced a bit that if you use your attack of opportunity, that's your reaction. You can't theoretically do anything else that would cost a reaction until you're confirmed. Right. All right. Last thing on We Are Stupid is just the sideburst, which is buggles ability to uh uh how do you describe the cyburst what is that just direct mental damage it's like scanners it's just like boom

hitting a uh god that was i can't remember like a first edition dnd and the psionics thing that was like it was just like mind blast i think it's basically that you're just like shooting psychic energy like into, harmfully into another person's brain. But the one thing we did is I believe you did that without having already unleashed your psyche. And so that's what we just have to keep in mind for future records.

I forgot that it had the, in the moment, that it had the psyche trait. So I can only use it when I'm unleashed. All right. So this is what, this is the way that your spells, your abilities,

the trait, if they have the psyche trait in them, you can't use them unless your psyche is unleashed. That's pretty much the overall rule. Makes sense. Also, just want to say to answer that question because I was curious too. Shocking Grasp does, it would provoke because it has the somatic trait, which almost all spells have. Because it has the somatic trait, which almost all spells have. Because it has the somatic trait, it gains the manipulate trait.

And that's, I think I mentioned it in an episode, like the magus doesn't have to do hand movements. They can use their weapon, which is cool with the somatic stuff. So like they get to cast up close and do whatever, but it's, yeah, it does have the attack of opportunity. They would take it. Very cool.

All right, let's kick it over to the nays. Let's get a couple questiones before we get out of here. Ben, if we do this again, if we know that we're doing this again, we have time ahead of time. We should just tell Nick to come be on the FOD. Live? Sing us in live.

Sing? Oh, I don't know if he can get him to sing. On cue? He's so shy. On camera? I don't know. Yeah, he'd be too shy. I'll go to work on him.

I'll try to soften him up. Maybe. Maybe you could break him out of his shell. Yeah, break him out of his shell. He's texting us right now. Are you guys talking about me? Do you want me to sing live? I could never.

All right. We got a question here from Chris in Salem, Oregon, who is a longtime fan. Home of the witch trials. Home of the witch trials. No, no, no. Oh, no, no. The lesser known second round. The lesser known Salem, Oregon witch trials. They had them, too. Well, no, no. The lesser known second round. The lesser known sale of Oregon witch trials.

They had them too. Well, just call this place out. Chris has had something come up in his game a few times. He's running this. This is ideas that he has perpetrated with the players that he first started running games for because of the Glass Cannon podcast. Oh, cool. And he said that they've had this kind of theme that's been going on, and he just wanted our thoughts on it. I think it's really, I wanted to grab this because you guys were going to be here, and

it's really just a, would you ever do this in your game? What do you think about this? He says, I like bringing dead player characters back as undead. We've done it a few times, much more than I've seen on any actual plays that I listen to, and I wanted to get your thoughts. I only bring characters back if the player is interested, and narratively I try to match the kind of undead to the character. If the PC died before they resolved some big part of their backstory,

they might come back as a ghost. Or if the PC died a particularly violent death, they might return as a white. What do you think of this? Is having an undead PC a good way to give the party an edge in potential role play, or does it cheapen character death too much? Troy, would you ever

do this? Man, I do think it cheapens it, right? But that doesn't mean that... Are they bringing it back as an enemy to the party, or someone who joins the party? I think it could be either way, but I think it joins the party. I think it joins the party. I think it cheapens it, but every instance is going to be different. I think you've got to, like anything, be judicious about it. You can't do it all the time, but I think it joins the party mainly. I think it joins the party. I think it cheapens it, but every instance is going to be different.

I think you've got to, like anything, be judicious about it. You can't do it all the time. But if you thought of a really cool way to make it work, it seems like 2E has the capabilities for you to reskin. Right, to do like a ghost sort of template. We were just talking about Blood Lords. Part of that adventure path, I feel like, deals with this. In the Book of the Dead that came out, I could be

misquoting this, but I feel like there are rules in there on how to give your characters these skins to come back. Yeah, I mean, in SideQuest SideSession, I played a skeleton, right? And the skeleton was... Old champ. Old champ. Old champ kindly.

The skeleton was a playable ancestry now because of that book, but it also sort of is informed by the, you know, just the kind of template where you can give skeleton to multiple different things. So Champ was like a human skeleton or humanoid skeleton, but you can also have like a stat block essentially for, you know, a giant skeleton or a lizard skeleton or whatever. Like there's different ways that they put it together. But yeah, let me keep to you, Sid. What would you, is this something you would ever do in a game? Yeah.

Bringing a PC back as an undead? Yeah, I would. I think it's fun and I think it's interesting, but only, it's hard because I don't know what the circumstances. Sure. But it sounds like with what he's saying, like if the character had unfinished business that like the party was aware of

that they brought them back, like they came to this city that the character had this unfinished business in and it was going to happen all along and their, you know, their player character died. It's cool to bring it back in a way where they show up in the city and the whole party's like,

oh my God, you know, like, yeah, clearly we have to take care of this unfinished business for our beloved character. And to me, that doesn't cheapen the death because it enhances the story and it moves the story forward. But I think, yeah, I think if every time a character dies, they just like- You know they're gonna reappear at some point.

Yeah, it's a little weird. Sometimes it's like, you gotta move on. And if you do, you can put enough focus into that new character that it's going to make your game better for that reason. You also don't want to – I say you, but here's the situation I worry about getting into. You have a player with two characters there. Well, I was going to say – Which has happened to me before and it's not enjoyable. I don't think you give it to the player.

I think if you bring the character back, you discuss it with the player and maybe they can do some like role play and speak as their character. But I think if they assist you in like a combat or a few combats for like a scenario, the GM would play for them and roll for them to like have them do the attacks and stuff. Because I think almost that's, I don't know, I wouldn't appreciate it if my character died. My ghost would never do that attack. No, but i wouldn't do that i think if the gm was like your ghost comes back and now you have to deal with that i'd be like oh thanks like now i have to manage two characters in this combat it would have to be a group effort yeah i don't know that's tricky skid would you ever do it would you ever consider it the first sketch that conan o'brien ever wrote for Saturday Night Live had, it was John Lithgow was like a professor of anthropology.

And he's teaching his class and he has a skeleton next to him. And he's just like, yeah, so as you see, as the human evolved, the brain becomes like, ah, ah. And like every time he looks at the skeleton, ah, he gets scared. And so he has to go to the, you know, the chancellor. And he's just like, we're getting all these complaints. Like you can't get through a class. And he's just like, I'm just scared of the skeleton. He's like, what if it was like a tiny skeleton? Would that be scary? He's like, no, I think that'd be okay. So he gets a tiny skeleton. And he's just like, so if you look here, if you look very closely, they're at the third

rib. And he's just like, no one can see it. He's just like, well, no one can see it. He's just like, why don't you put, what if I put a pirate hat on it? I said, okay. So he puts a pirate hat and a patch and a parrot on it. And every time he looks at it, he starts laughing. And then the chancellor comes in to check on him, and he's scared of pirates. So he's like, ah! He takes the pirate hat off to check on him, and he's scared of pirates. He takes the pirate out.

He's like, oh. It's a good sketch. Hopefully that answers that question. I think that about sums it up. I'll say two things. One, I think it's much better if the player isn't there anymore either. Right? So, like, if your player that died or for whatever reason is not in the game or moved on or whatever,

fun way to bring them back because you completely control that character as the GM. That to me is interesting. We've done it before, kind of. Have we? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We kind of have before.

Yeah. You know what I'm also thinking about is our... I mean, when I say we, you, Troy. That is true. You have done it before. You know, what I'm thinking about is- I mean, when I say we, you, Troy. That is true. You have done it before. You know, what I'm thinking of is there was a home game that we had, and the final, this was with Merwin back in the day, us and McD, where like at the end, the last final climactic battle,

I think McD's character played this cleric, and he was a crazy high level, and like a god offered him the chance at like godhood, and he took it. And then in the final battle, wasn't he fighting alongside us as a demigod? No, he turned on us. Yeah, he turned on us. Well, no, he fought alongside us right up until the end, and then the god offered him to rule over a layer of hell, basically.

And he said, yeah, so he— He left us. But he became a demigod. Yes, he became a demigod. He kind of like cinematically was fighting against it yes yes yeah and uh yeah i think some of the epilogue scenes had him just like fucking with our lives or something like he did in real life every time we got together well you did kind of do it that is true but it was to me it didn't feel like uh we were adventuring together ever right like it was kind of in dream sequences and kind of...

I'm not sure what you're referencing, though, because there's been so many tangential ones. Okay. You don't want to say it? It's the whole Gormley storyline from Giant Slayer. I mean, that's kind of a good thing. Well, there's that, but there's also, I was thinking of Raiders of Lost Commonwealth.

Raiders, yeah. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, well, Chiefers, yeah. There's a lot. Unfinished stories. Unfin a lot. It's a lot. Unfinished stories. Unfinished stories.

But what was I going to say? Oh, one other way that I think you could do it, interestingly, for missions is if they are a revenant. So, like, if you had a player die to a monster creature boss who got away, that I think is really fun. Like, bring them back as a revenant for one mission. And when they kill this thing, you will release their spirit. That it seems fun to me. That was my concept for Nestor.

After the events of Giant Slayer, that like he would come back as a revenant. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. There are some creatures, I see this a lot in 2E and I remember seeing it in 1E as well,

where they like have an ability where it's like if uh uh you if if you uh go up to a dead creature you can do this ability and like turn them so like some creatures have the ability built into their stat block that you never get to use because usually you're going against like a mob of five or six of them and you overwhelm them but like if you die you could this creature could turn you into something and if that ever happened you know i guess my initial thought was like well now you're fighting the evil dead version of your person but what if you were able to beat that fight and that person's turned and now you have to like convince them to continue fighting alongside you that might

be interesting yeah if it was like happened in the mechanics of the game, it'd be something worth exploring. I see it all the time. It's already been in three-step blocks of gatewalkers, at least. Of little things. I'll never have the opportunity to do that. But if I did, it'd be interesting. That's cool. That's a cool concept. Alright, let's get one more in here and then we'll

get out of here. Eric from Canada. Canada? Eric from Canada. Is he coming to the Toronto show? Toronto's sold out yet? No, no. There's still like six VIPs and a handful of tickets. Alright, so get on it, Toronto. Eric from Canada says

you brave fools. Make sure you bring your poutine forks and your knitted knickers. All of us Canucks cannot wait to see you up here. Awesome. Okay, this is great. And I did not expect this to have more people in the room to talk about it, but man, is this a tough one.

Have you ever had to break up with another player? I need to gently let a player know that we don't mesh, and they need to search for another game. Any advice? It's not me. It's definitely them. So the normal platitudes won't do. Now, Troy has done this before.

Yeah, we've talked about it several times. Troy has broken up before. Sydney, have you ever broken up with a player before? Yeah, recently. Recently? Really? Were you the one that had to let them go? No, it was for my D&D.

Or were you the one that let go? No. It was only one or the other. So it was for our D&D campaign with my group of friends. And I was super pumped that we were playing because I haven't played D&D in a while. And it was with three friends who I'm really tight with and then two others who were new and then two others who were also new. So it was a good mix. Two of them, of the new people,

they live in Massachusetts and they would drive down on the weekends and they would stay at the other couple's apartment so we could all play D&D. And to me and my two other friends who I knew very well, we all were like, that's a big commitment to like drive down. And then the people are hosting them. And then we play for one day, one session, and then they like drive down and then the people are hosting them and then we play for one day one session and then they like drive back up so we said to the couple who was hosting them we were like hey they are not our friends we don't like they're your friends but like isn't this a lot like isn't this silly shouldn't we just make a smaller group and kind of branch off and they were like oh yeah like i don't know maybe like, blah, blah, blah.

They must like it if they come down. Yeah, they didn't care. So I was kind of like, oh, dang it. Well, now how do we deal with this? So me and my three friends, we kind of just said in our group chat, it's surprisingly easier than you think it is. It seems like a big deal to break up with, like, a player. But we kind of were just like, hey, you guys can only play on certain dates that like

never work for anyone else in our group. It's unfortunate, but like, I think it would be better if we split off for now. And if we can find like a better time to all play together, great. If not, you know, like, so be it. It was fun while it lasted. And we were very nice about it. There's no bad blood, but it was more so just like, find a different group. Find a better group that you can hang with more and play. And we felt bad. And then, honestly, they were just like, yeah, you're right. Bye.

We all worked about it. We were like, oh, I don't want to be mean. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do this. And then eventually we were just like, who cares? We're not playing anyway. We haven't played in two months. We're not playing anyway. We can never played in two months. We can never play.

You should have just called me in like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. Yeah, yeah. I'll just wolf the- Wolf, wolf. Skid, have you ever had that awkward conversation? Have you had a player you had to kick out of a game or anything like that? Yeah, and it is difficult. What I ended up-

You had a lot of drama back in the day. Nothing but drama. Look, you could see the weight of it on his face still yeah the one mild-mannered just the drama around some of those games i much of it was i maintained a lot of it wasn't my fault but agreed uh but uh the one time uh we really had to uh it got bad was we took a tiny little bit of crack cocaine and stuck it in his jacket when he was in the bathroom. There you go.

And then when he left, we called the police. And he was in the system so long that by the time he was done with that, we forgot all about it. So you never had to have that awkward conversation. Never had to have a conversation. That's smart. That's probably the best way yeah yeah to do it so that was completely unhelpful but it really works sorry eric but uh it it is true that skit had a lot of drama and yeah that game and there were a lot of conversations that that had to be had here's the thing it if

you're playing for fun, because not for work, like you only have so much time to do it. If you're not fully enjoying the experience because of someone in the group, odds are other people aren't as well. Ain't enough time in the day. So find a way to get that conversation over with because you only have so much game time

you want to make it. It's also miserable for you. Like I never got to play with this group and when we did, it was like such a hassle and i was like i do this for work one and this is the one game that i'm playing outside of work right now if i'm not if my heart's not in it like i'm not gonna play it yeah so which stinks it feels like bad it makes me feel bad but yeah i mean it's a shitty situation always but i think you have to be direct yep and i think that you have to talk to the other people in the group because it

might be, he says it's not him, but like, if you go to the other people and you're like, look, I really don't like playing with this guy. Do you, do you want to play with this guy?

And it's all nose. Then like, if it's gotta be you, it's gotta be you that rips the bandaid off and just has the hard conversation and be direct. Yeah. And just be direct. Don't beat around the bush.

I just don't think that our play styles mesh well. I hate you. I hate you. We don't want to, we don't want to continue playing this game. Yeah, and just be direct. Don't beat around the bush. I just don't think that our play styles mesh well. I hate you. We don't want to continue playing this game. And then if they find out that you went off and then added somebody else and played a new campaign or something with other people, so be it. It is what it is. Also, do you work with them? Are they in your friend group? You might never see them again.

Is it your mom? Is it your mom? Hard to wake up with your mom. Do they have blackmail material on you? Yeah, yeah. Blackmail. Do they have compromise? Before you put crack cocaine in their pocket, do they have blackmail on you?

Well, because you could even the scales then too. Skid knows all the answers. A lot of tricks in a GM's toolbox. Don't put that in the remastered GM's toolbox don't put that in the remastered gm they don't put that in the gm course what is a role-playing game on that page like they would cover it like on that page how to frame your mom like how to frame one of the hell why is this on page three i normally skip over this page i've played so many role-playing games but did you see this oh my god well this was awesome guys thank you so many role-playing games, but did you see this? Oh my God. Well, this was awesome. Guys,

thank you so much for coming and hanging out, playing with us, hanging out on the FOD with us. Sydney, Skid, this is awesome. Francis, CJ, thank you guys for producing an in-studio FOD. We appreciate it greatly. Troy, I need to thank you. You're obligated. You want me to grab you again?

You want to come? Chess fight? Son of a bitch. Francis is cracking up over there. All right. This is a really good time. I can't wait to be remote again and away from this crazy person. He loves it.

Man, we got a lot of stuff this week. We got more Gatewalkers on Thursday night. We got Time for Chaos Episode 2. It's Friday night. Troy is streaming. I'm streaming. I'm sure Skid will be up on GCN. I will be streaming, too.

I got a new game to me that I want to start streaming. Let's go. I might stream, too. Yeah. Boom. Check it out. Follow Sid. Yeah.

All right, guys. We're out of here. Take it easy. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. For more podcasts and live streams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. And for exclusive shows and content you can't find anywhere else, subscribe today at jointhenash.com. you