The Glass Cannon Podcast - Cannon Fodder 1/25/23

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Troy and Joe discuss their excitement for the upcoming Friends of the Pod one-shot aimed at Pathfinder beginners as well as their upcoming live stream of the Blade Runner RPG. In We Are Stupid, as Inv...isiblity and the Fascinate condition get put under the microscope, Troy gets heated about antiquated ideas of what a Game Master is supposed to be. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com and for exclusive content and benefits, subscribe today at patreon.com/glasscannon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:54 all starting at just $99 a month. Stack more, spend less. The Happy Stack, only at Kudo. Conditions apply. 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, Glass Cannon Nation? Welcome back to Cannon Fodder.
Starting point is 00:01:36 My name is Joe O'Brien. And I'm Troy LaValle. He's got no nicknames, folks. He gave it up, if you remember last week. He's done. Done with the nicknames. He doesn't have any time anymore to think of funny things because he just streams all day and all night. I'm having so much fun with those video game streams, man. We got a nice little crowd in there, too, but it is so relaxing.
Starting point is 00:01:59 It's taking away from other work, but you need that break. You need that mental break. I get it. You don't got to tell me. I have loved streaming video games for a long time. And before Extra Life last year, I went on, I don't know, like a four or five month gap where I didn't do it. Gen Con was a big part of it. And then the tour was so busy in the early fall that there was just like no time to do it. And Extra Life just got me right back in. And I was like, I missed this so much. And I need to
Starting point is 00:02:26 make time for this in my life. It's just it's just too fun. We are back again. It is Wednesday, January 25th, 2023. And we've got some great news on the plate today, including one very special event, which has come up very last minute. We talked about a little bit last week. We've got more details this week. And then, of course, we're going to dig into We Are Stupid. Can't wait for that conversation. Honestly, you and I have not talked about it at all pre-show, so I'm looking forward to getting into it. It's going to be a little bit less of rules we got wrong. There is some of that, but there is going to be a good chunk of why go this way or go this way as a GM, and I love those kind of conversations. So let's kick it off with the news. Troy, you're a busy man this week.
Starting point is 00:03:06 You're a busy man this week. Yeah, not my favorite week, but it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. You're going live tonight with a new show. A new episode, you could say, of Friends of the Pod. Tell us about what's happening. So, you know, we saw this shakeup going on in the industry. And it's something I mentioned last week we've known about for a year because we got friends in high places.
Starting point is 00:03:30 We knew the shit was going to hit the fan. We didn't know it was going to hit this hard, but we kind of – we want to strike while the iron's hot, which I've said that phrase now way too many times and in emails as well. But that's the truth. We just see like a lot of people coming over to Pathfinder and we're like, well, if you're coming over to Pathfinder, you got to watch the pros do it. And so I was texting with Eric Mona right away. I mean, before they even mentioned the release of the Ork license, I was like, so what's going on?
Starting point is 00:04:02 Can you tell me anything? What's PyZizo's response going to be? But then it went right from that to we need to stream something. And initially, I was thinking, let's stream the beginner box, because that's what Mona was like, oh, you guys should stream the beginner box. And then you and I were both on the same page. Like, we don't want to spoil that for everybody who like wants to learn Pathfinder. It's a great way, the way it slowly introduces you to the system. We don't want to play that because then everybody watching won't be able to play it. So I
Starting point is 00:04:28 said, all right, I'm just going to find a Pathfinder Society scenario like we did at PaizoCon this year. We always have so much fun with that because it gives you a finite amount of time to do a mission. Missions are always great. That's why we love disorganized play.
Starting point is 00:04:44 Then when we tried to put the cast together, we're like, let's take cast of Blood of the Wild! You and Skid and Paula Deming and Mary Lou, because if people haven't heard Blood of the Wild yet, what a great chance to get introduced to the chemistry of this crew that already sounds like you guys have been playing together for 100 years.
Starting point is 00:05:00 So we're going to go live tonight, 8pm Eastern. It's going to be like a four hour stream dude and it's live live live live live live live so my mic's gonna sound like shit um but i i cannot wait and i picked a scenario that i think really plays to the strengths of this crew which is uh you know role there's gonna be plenty of role play with some interesting encounters. I don't want to say too much, but, you know, we announced what the actual scenario is going to be. So just check it out.
Starting point is 00:05:35 I think you're going to have a lot of fun with this. We want to blow it up. Yeah, and the tone of this thing, the reason for this thing is to welcome new people into Pathfinder, people that maybe at this time are investigating, right? They're pivoting, checking out what's going on with Pathfinder when they haven't before, or those of us that loved Pathfinder and were playing in D&D games, because I used to be in that realm back in the fourth edition days, trying to get your friends to play it and come over with you is tough. They're set in their ways. They have their thing they want to do. Maybe this is a chance for you to say, hey, watch this stream. Check this out.
Starting point is 00:06:07 This is Pathfinder first level with a bunch of people that are experts at the rules. And you will get a really good entry into the system. So that's what we're doing tonight. And I'm so looking forward to it. So the message is, come hang out with us live. Bring a friend. Tell a friend about it,
Starting point is 00:06:25 try to get people in your group to watch, especially if you're a 5e player, just check it out. You can always go back to playing 5e, but at least you could see a level one scenario play out in a finite amount of time beginning to end and see if you like it, see what clicks. It's a big stream for us. You know, there's just the time is now as people are coming over and discovering Pathfinder, what better way to learn than by finding a podcast to listen to? And if you're going to listen to a Pathfinder podcast, there's only one. It's the ones that the Glass Cannon put out. All six of the Pathfinder shows that we put out.
Starting point is 00:06:56 That's the only one. Factually incorrect. But we do a lot of factually incorrect stuff here on the Glass Cannon podcast. Yeah, I'm very much so looking forward to it and uh and i i i love that we're coming in with the blood of the wildcast just because we have been working together week in and week out for months now and so we don't have that i don't i don't think that awkward like chemistry issue you know early on where we can jump right in uh which is really great and and gonna be gonna be super fun and i've never played
Starting point is 00:07:22 with either paula deming or Mary Lou. I don't think. That's right. Yeah, I don't think I've ever played with them. No, you never have played with them. You met them in L.A., hung out for a little bit. We had a great night. But you have not – yeah, you haven't actually played with them. So we'll see.
Starting point is 00:07:36 I saw a tweet or a comment or something from somebody in the niche that was like, I'm really looking forward to seeing how Troy deals with this ragtag group, you know, compared to how Jared does. Well, we're very much so looking forward to that tonight. Please come out and support the stream if you can. If you can't and you're interested, don't worry about it. We got you. If you can't be there live, this stream is going to be fully produced, mixed, mastered, and released in audio form on the Glass Cannon Podcast feed. Is that correct, Troy? Yeah, it's going to hit the Glass Cannon Podcast feed next week, and that's where it will live for a while. Eventually, once Gatewalkers comes out, my plan is to really clean up that feed, give Strange Aeons its own feed, and then little things like this that exist.
Starting point is 00:08:21 We'll find new homes. But for now, that's where you can go to find it. We want to really continue to pump up the numbers of the Glass Cannon podcast feed. And then we're producing a video as well that's going to hit YouTube next week. So if you can't watch it live, you can hear a much cleaner edited, not edited, but sweetened audio and synced video version next week. But really, if you can watch it live, that'll really, it'll help us out a lot to get to pump up those numbers. That's not all that's going on this week. After we
Starting point is 00:08:49 go live all night tonight, we have Glass Cannon Labs tomorrow. We're back in the lab. No rest for the weary. We are doing Blade Runner RPG this week with Skid at the helm. Troy, how many times have you seen Blade Runner? So, I read Do Androids
Starting point is 00:09:06 Dream of Electric Sheep late in life. Maybe I read it 15 years ago for the first time, and I hadn't seen Blade Runner. Isn't it sad that 15 years ago was late in life for you? Well, late in life for, like, I think most people read that when they're a teenager, and I just wasn't
Starting point is 00:09:21 that into Dick as a teen. Philip K. Dick. But I, I had never seen Blade Runner just because I, I mean, I got into Dick late in life.
Starting point is 00:09:35 Be careful, Troy. Be careful. I, I, I have a lot of gaps in like sort of the movies that I've watched
Starting point is 00:09:43 over the years because I didn't watch a ton of movies when I was younger. So I never watched Blade Runner. So I didn't watch a ton of movies when I was younger. So I never watched Blade Runner. So I read that first. I'm like, I want to watch Blade Runner. And I hated it.
Starting point is 00:09:50 I didn't like Blade Runner the first time I watched it because I was like, the changes they made, I just didn't – I didn't care for it. Obviously, book is always better. But then I watched the new one that came out a couple years ago and loved that. So I think if i revisited blade runner now i'd appreciate it more and then free league sent me all this shit i got the starter set i've got the uh the core rule book and as always like everything uh free league does it's absolutely gorgeous um but i think jason charles miller and skid are going to uh out knowledge us very quick i think they're going to out-reference us.
Starting point is 00:10:25 I've seen Blade Runner one time about 20 years ago, and I saw 2049 one time. So I don't know anything about the setting. But I'll tell you this much. When Skid sent out the email with the pre-gen character breakdown, I was like, this sounds amazing. Just the replicants, non-replicants, the details of each character
Starting point is 00:10:46 and their like kind of position politically in this whole you know uh i don't know uh controversial landscape of this this dystopian world it's just so cool and so yeah very much so looking forward to uh to digging into that and then labs is going to be off for a week uh and then hopefully it's coming back in February with repeats. We're trying to get the cast of Cyborg back together, the cast of Sbarum back together in February to continue those stories. So keep
Starting point is 00:11:13 an eye out for news on that. But tomorrow we run. We play Blade Runner. An update, quick update on the RSS feeds, then we're doing We Are Stupid. Remember we were releasing those shows that were originally YouTube shows, and then the audio was released on Glass Cannon Network Presents. They got their own feeds. Getting the Trunk is up and running.
Starting point is 00:11:31 Thank you for those of you that went and rated and reviewed on Apple Podcasts. We greatly appreciate that. This week, Voyagers is dropping. So Voyagers of the Jump, which is a show. If you have not checked that out on Twitch or YouTube during its airing or on Glass Cannon Network Presents, please do yourself a favor and check that show out on its new feed releasing this week because it is such a fantastic show. One of our first ever long form homebrew series that I think knocked it absolutely out of the park.
Starting point is 00:12:06 Written by our one and only Matthew Cabotacaz. So it gets rave reviews. Go ahead and check it out if you've got some time. Yeah, first three eps available now. Download, rate, subscribe, and review. Thank you so much. Let's move on to We Are Stupid. We're going to hear a lot of Troy is stupid in this episode.
Starting point is 00:12:27 And not because, as I said, of getting rules wrong, but because you make dumb choices as a game master. That sounds about right. Sometimes I just drift off and read sports scores. That's terribly – that's not very accurate. But you know it is accurate that you do drift off and read sports scores. That's like an actual thing. People think you're joking, but you actually do read sports scores while other people are role playing. Very strange mind.
Starting point is 00:12:48 I'm still listening, but I have to be doing something. I think that's called attention deficit disorder. Let's get into we're going to do some physics in this and we're going to do some delving into the fascinated condition, which is fascinating in its complexity. And I think it should be removed from the system entirely because I think all it is is fodder, so to speak, for GMs and players to get in fistfights with each other. We'll get to that in a second. First, I want to talk about this comes right from Professor Eric. He believes there should have been some more maneuver in flight checks while we were all flying around by. We were all particularly, I mean, myself, Atticus and and Suki in dinosaur form, pterosaur form, flying around as if this is the easiest thing in the world.
Starting point is 00:13:38 He doesn't think it's that game changing. He thinks large, large scale. Zoom it all out. It could be pretty trivial. However, on two moving ships, even in the dreamlands, you want to acknowledge that there may be some wind, there are direct wind rules in the rulebook. If you look at movement in the core rulebook, it'll go into detail about, you know, how when you fly against the wind, it's literally difficult terrain, like you can only move at half speed when you fly against the wind. And it doesn't necessarily have to be hurricane winds.
Starting point is 00:14:08 This is on page 463 of the core rule book. You just got to factor it in in some way. So if the wind's at your back, maybe you can move a little faster. Again, it can get trivial. It can get a little crunchy, but it's a fun thing to make you feel the scene a little bit more and feel what exactly is happening there sometimes if you have to change direction quickly or if you can't do a wide arc which atticus did at one point if you just got to about face for example you need to be making maneuver and flight checks for that which i believe you can't do if you don't have uh if you're not trained in acrobatics, I think. You only know my two cents on all this. Here we go.
Starting point is 00:14:47 I don't care! It's so boring to me. Now, here's the thing. If the player is way into those mechanics, like you obviously are, then I would like you to do it the right way. But I'm not interested in that type of minutiae and policing it because it slows down the game for a podcast. And also, like, it doesn't matter unless it matters.
Starting point is 00:15:14 If I say, like, there are 100-mile-an-hour winds here, so just know that all checks are going – the DCs are going to go up by five. You know, it would be nice if you guys knew it. five. It would be nice if you guys knew it, but at a certain point in running these games, you have to take your knowledge of the game and the player's knowledge of the game and meet somewhere in the middle to make an entertaining stream.
Starting point is 00:15:34 That's really what we're doing. It's always so funny when people are like, I can't believe Troy doesn't know the rules. It's such an old-fashioned way of thinking that the GM needs to know all the rules of the game. That's insane to me. The GM should know what the GM needs to know all the rules of the game. That is just, that's insane to me. The GM should know what the GM needs to know. And then you learn more over time. The players need to know exactly what they're doing. I always say this, like, if you don't know how to do
Starting point is 00:15:54 something, don't do it. Don't rely on me to know how to do it. It's the same thing with flying rules. Like if you're way into the flying stuff, then I would love for you to do it, to enlighten us and teach us. But like, I'm not going to police that because it's boring to me, unless it's an important part of the story. Well, so you go off and fly in the air. Well, you should know about 15 feet in the air, gale force winds come in and you fall into the sea. Then like, otherwise, like, oh God, I just, as I've got, maybe as I'm getting older, I just don't, I just want to keep it moving, keep it moving. Well, keeping it moving is definitely a really important thing and you have to just hand wave a lot of this stuff when you're doing a show.
Starting point is 00:16:33 For sure, if it's not factoring directly into the story, which is why Eric laid out here that it is trivial when you look at the grand scheme of how everything played out and the way the situation was. Wind was never even mentioned, so why worry about it too much? But it is good to know that those rules are in there and they're in the book should you want to reference them or should you as a GM run across a situation where a player is flying and they feel like they can just magically do whatever they feel like because they're magically flying. There are limits. The world has limits to what you're able to do.
Starting point is 00:17:03 I do like hover. Hover is great. If you want to stay in one location and rain down pain, you got what you're able to do. I do like hover. Hover is great. If you want to stay in one location and rain down pain, you've got to spend an action to hover. That, to me, is great. All of the like, it was even worse in 1E. I think we got so used to just eschewing it because it was such a pain in the ass. Turn the boat at 45 degrees.
Starting point is 00:17:19 The minute you lift the ground and you get into three dimensions, it's all theater of the mind at that point. You've got to decide for yourself how much you want to stay beholden to the rules. I think we've kind of carried that over into Tui. Like I like things like Hover. If there's more simple sort of things like that that we can use, great. But I don't want to stress out too much.
Starting point is 00:17:42 However, if it makes it more difficult for you, then I am interested. I thought you'd like that. Let's move on to the fascinated condition. I want to pick your brain on this. First of all, explain to me exactly, Troy, what the fascinated condition does. Sure. Allow me to Google that for you. Allow me to Google that for you. You know, I'd say off the top of my head, you're compelled to focus your attention on something, distracting you from whatever else is going on around you i don't know i'd say without knowing the exact rule you take a minus two status penalty to perception and skill checks you can't use off the top of your head you can't use actions with the constant trait trait unless they or their intended consequences
Starting point is 00:18:21 are related to the subject of your fascination. Here's a fun one in parentheses as determined by the GM. That's your favorite line in any core rule book. Yep. As determined by the GM. And I say that. The only reason I hate it is because no matter what I say, you guys fight with me. That's why I hate it. I don't mind making calls, but it's just gotten worse over time.
Starting point is 00:18:44 No matter what I say, you guys are ready for a fight. That's why I'm just like – I try to pick my battles. It makes me seem soft, but like you don't understand the fragile egos I'm dealing with behind the scenes. My GM calls. People won't speak to me for weeks. This is extreme over-exaggeration. Not really. The fascinated it bothers me so much so what happened here the captain had what was that uh some sort of prismatic uh shape or
Starting point is 00:19:15 something prismatic something and matic cock let me see matic pattern yeah is that what it was something like that and you put up this spell and uh looks like Eris and Aldo get caught within it, fail their saves, are fascinated. So what Eric puts in here is that many GMs would not allow anyone to simply walk away from what's fascinating them, which is what they did. Eris was like, all right, then I can't use anything with the concentrate trade as long as I'm in the realm of the pattern, so I will walk out of the pattern. I mean, she was a gaseous form. She just flew out of the pattern. But she flew out of the pattern, and we all just let it go. We didn't even think twice about it.
Starting point is 00:19:55 But Eric's like, just so you know, most GMs would not allow that. I don't know. I think the point of fascination is it takes all your attention, and you just stare at this. Now, why don't you lose all your actions? You can still move by the rules. You can go. It doesn't say you can't move away from what's fascinating you. But and this and he says this, too. He says, strictly speaking, he does not see anything in the rules that prevents people from just walking away. He just believes that most GMs would rule fascination that you're just like sort of frozen in place there um i think that that spell is never used for what i imagine it to be used for which is like you know you are all in a um magical school and uh someone is coming that day to speak and they do something villainous and like fascinate the class and like while they're burning down the rest of the school or something. Right. So it's like it's something where you take someone's attention that you're not attacking at all, that you're just keeping their attention away from something that's going on over here. Usually, whenever we see it, it's in the middle of a fight.
Starting point is 00:21:02 Usually whenever we see it, it's in the middle of a fight. Somebody just fascinates you. And I never know how to play it because it says anything that attacks you breaks the concentration. Threat, you know, will break the fascination. So I just don't – I feel like people always end up fighting about this because it isn't exactly charm. It isn't exactly dominate. It's like this weird middle ground. We also have like a lot of 1y baggage about fascinate that we're carrying over into twoy i think um you know the condition ends if a creature uses hostile actions
Starting point is 00:21:31 against you or any of your allies that that i think that same thing was in um oney and that sentence you know the player interprets it one way and the g interprets it another, I think. One could argue that like, there are hostile actions happening all around you at every second since everything is happening in simultaneous time. So it makes fascination useless in combat. This is what we always said in first edition. Because very rarely does someone fascinate and be like, ah, finally, I get a break. No, they're going to then go do something else. And so it ends it. So you can either just say you can't use it in combat or you can say, I'm going to role play this, that like I am wildly fascinated on this pattern and nothing is going to distract
Starting point is 00:22:18 me from it right now because I'm trying to figure it out until, you know, a hostile action is used. I don't know. I was just trying to mix it up with the spells that he had. I wasn't, like, psyched about it either. Yeah, I just don't like it. I never like it in combat for that reason. I wouldn't have a problem being like, my character just zones in on it and, like, doesn't do anything else. You know, like, I'd be fine with that.
Starting point is 00:22:41 I think that that could be scary and deadly, and that's cool. Like I'd be fine with that. I think that that could be scary and deadly and that's cool. But like it's also if you know you're under attack, it's just a very weird thing to resolve. So, yeah. Trying to find what the spell was because I don't think it was prismatic pattern. I made that up by the way. I don't think – I don't know if that's a spell.
Starting point is 00:23:02 You said this fascinating pattern that you're looking at. You said that it was a prismatic something. You said those words. Yeah, it's hypnotic pattern. Hyp're looking at. You said that it was a prismatic something. You said those words. Yeah, it's hypnotic pattern. Hypnotic pattern, okay. Yeah, now that, to me, sounds like you should be slightly hypnotized by this. You create a pattern,
Starting point is 00:23:16 the target is unaffected, the target is fascinated. The target is fascinated while it's fascinated. It can't use reactions on the critical failure. Creatures are dazzled while inside the pattern. Is dazzled a condition? It is a condition, yeah. It is. It's weird that they would use that word, but then they don't use it in the success, failure, crit, failure.
Starting point is 00:23:38 Dazzled, your eyes are overstimulated. If vision is your only precise sense, all creatures and objects are concealed from you. All right. So yeah, this is the thing. Just that pattern alone, whether you succeed or fail, you're dazzled as long as you're inside of it. Yeah. Everything's concealed from you. Yeah. I don't know if we played that. I can't remember because we recorded this a while ago, but then the fascination comes with a failure. No, you never mentioned dazzled. Yeah. Creatures are dazzled while inside the park pattern um you know that would change things a little bit let's take a will yeah but nobody attacked him during that time they so it's not like they didn't roll on concealment or something like that um yeah yeah all right let's move on
Starting point is 00:24:20 yeah it's interesting you know it it's out out there. We should come to a better consensus on this before. I have an easy one for you. Never use it in combat ever. There you go. It's easy. That works. Because, I mean, there's going to be no shortage of social encounters in this AP. I have no doubt about that.
Starting point is 00:24:40 There's so many sinister people that you're, like, talking to first. And there's no reason they can't hypnotize somebody in another room. And Aldo's hypnotized in this room while we're getting attacked in the other room, and he doesn't know that. That is a brilliant use of, and terrifying use of fascinate or hypnotic pattern. I just think as, you know, the third round action in a boss fight, unless it has something in the text that says it, you know, even combat doesn't break it, I wouldn't use it it's interesting you said if your eyes are on and everyone is concealed from you if they're concealed how would you know if their hostile actions are being used one could argue that as well you're in the pattern you really can't see that it really leaves it open
Starting point is 00:25:17 to interpretation i always say if you're a player make the game and this is hard because i don't have players like this but always err on the side of making the game and this is hard because i don't have players like this but always err on the side of making the game harder for yourself because like the gm is just trying to present you with a challenge if you just try to make things easier it's it's your you're i don't know how to explain this like you're well you're taking away from the drama and intensity of the game right and if you lean into it a little bit more, like you have to trust that your GM is not going to just obliterate you for fun, for kicks. Right. Because what happens is if you go the other way, which is what tends to happen on our shows, like I then have to go the other way to balance it.
Starting point is 00:26:00 But if you just made it more difficult on yourself, I wouldn't have to do that. But like that's the balance. If you're just trying to like trick me or break the encounter, then like, okay, well, here's the penalty. I now have to drop the hammer just so that there's a level of balance. In another way. Yeah, exactly. If you make it harder on yourself as a player, you, your GM ends up making the game easier in parts to balance it.
Starting point is 00:26:22 And that is a better overall relationship for tables yep every table is going to get along better if that is what you do you don't have to be a masochist you know you just always err on the side of like making it harder for yourself if it's 50 50 make it a little harder for yourself make it a little harder for yourself there's a reason you know don't be like i'm not gonna do that you know that's yeah i mean especially yeah i mean that kind of stuff drives me nuts when it's just like, you're going to take four more points of damage for something, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:48 you're just like, I shouldn't have to take that damage, but you just take the damage, move on, just take the damage. This one. I love, thank you,
Starting point is 00:26:58 Eric, for pointing this out. I, I want to say I thought about this, but I guess I didn't really. This is an interesting conversation because it's a conversation of invisibility. And it's something that I think you also don't like to talk about. But I feel like we have to have this conversation because we are playing in a game where I am an illusionist and I will be invisible in almost every encounter we have.
Starting point is 00:27:16 And we had this conversation in Strange Aeons months ago, perhaps, where this and you were invisible at the time, I believe, where this idea of invisibility is as if you left the material plane, right? And that's not the case. I argue, I'd like to argue pretty heavily that invisibility does not make you so undetectable, that like, no matter what you do, you can't be seen or found quickly, and go from undetected to hidden, which is, you know, a mischance where they know kind of what square you're in. They can take shots at you, et cetera. Eric points out here that while invisible, even while flying at full speed, probably needed meeting Atticus while he's trying to sneak out of there with the hat, probably needed to move at half speed and make stealth checks along the way, specifically because if he didn't, he would be
Starting point is 00:28:06 making some degree of noise in this flight. Now, again, Eric lays out, you can argue, like, it's a hectic battle. There's, you know, wind, they're on boats, like, maybe nobody ever got a chance to see him or know that he's there. That's fine. That's less of what I'm talking about. It's just bringing up this larger issue of invisibility being perfect in detectability, which it is not. So you also need to use stealth, you know, when you're invisible to, to stay undetected. Now you're never going to be seen by somebody, but you could, unless they have, you know, seen visibility, but you could become hidden to them, meaning they know you're there. They just can't see you. It's something we didn't pay a lot of attention to in 1E.
Starting point is 00:28:47 And again, we're carrying over that into this. But what makes it different in 2E are these undetected, hidden, concealed and whatnot. Those steps are there for a reason because it used to be like, invisible and I'm sneaking. You can't hear me. All right. You got a plus 20 to your stealth. We didn't even roll those checks. What's the point? It's a plus 20 stealth. stealth. We didn't even roll those checks. Right.
Starting point is 00:29:06 It's like, what's the point? It's a plus 20 stealth. That doesn't exist from what I can see. No, there's flat checks and the flat checks are there for a reason. So we just have to get it into our body to be using these flat checks because invisibility isn't a cure-all like it was often overused in 1A.
Starting point is 00:29:21 It's just a really good chance that you're going to remain undetected. But that's what the flat checks are for. But you could could become hidden and for those that aren't clear on this we're this is capital u undetected capital h hidden like these are actual traits that are applied to you during the combat for what a an enemy or combatant has to roll to hit you if you're undetected they can't they don't know at all where you are if you're hidden they know kind of what square you're in, basically. So that's kind of what we're saying. It's like, just because you're invisible doesn't mean they can't get to that level of knowing what square you're in and taking a swing at you. You would still need to roll stealth checks.
Starting point is 00:29:56 Perhaps you'd get a significant bonus from being invisible, but it is not a cure-all. You're still going to make noise. So my perfect image that I loved so much was the end of the session when it was just Atticus left on the other boat and he needed around before he could wake up. And you had the wraith like coming over to him, like on the ship. He couldn't see him, but like didn't know where he was, but just like looking around and like Atticus is just trying to like hold his breath because even if he breathed, invisibility might not matter. This thing might detect that and be able to take a swing at him in that square. So anyway, just something fun to keep in mind for your games. Don't let invisibility be a cure-all. Make it a big bonus, but you can still be found and that intensity can still be there.
Starting point is 00:30:42 And undetected, if you read it, it's very clear. A creature you're undetected by can guess which square you're in trying to target you. It must pick a square and attempt an attack. This works like targeting a hidden creature requiring a DC 11 flat check. But the flat check and attack roll are rolled in secret by the GM who doesn't reveal whether the attack missed due to the failing flat check, failing the attack roll, or choosing the wrong square. A creature can use the seek action to find you. So, you know, we really should get in the habit of like when someone's invisible, like you spend an action to seek.
Starting point is 00:31:11 Okay, I know what direction they're in, you know, and then you still, they're still undetected, right? Or does seek take it down a level? If you're successful with sneak, which would go against their stealth DC. And the thing is, if you're invisible invisible you're free as the gm to give them any bonuses you want but i think by raw there is no bonus for being invisible to the stealth dc the reason is because someone who is naturally not trained in stealth and unstealthy even if invisible probably makes noises probably doesn't know how to keep themselves completely
Starting point is 00:31:41 undetected whereas if a rogue is invisible and is an expert in sneak perhaps they are much harder to detect while invisible so their stealth dc would be higher so you still just roll seek against the stealth dc and if your stealth dc is low because you're a clunky warrior in heavy armor right and let's say that you don't you're not trained in stealth and your stealth dc is like 14 and uh the seek action hits they know generally where you are you're still hidden you know what i mean like you don't need to melt down about this if it happens to you in your game they still have a they still have to roll a dc11 flat check to even connect with you but they they can they can smell you or something you know maybe you stink like there's a lot of different reasons that you could lay on for why
Starting point is 00:32:25 somebody could find somebody who's invisible. Yeah. We got, we got to get into this more because invisibility, like if any casters in the group or you're up against casters, it comes up a lot and it shouldn't be like, well, fuck they're out of the,
Starting point is 00:32:35 never going to find this boss again. No, there are rules in place to make it just cost some actions. Right. Totally. And even on a success, the best you're going to get, they're still hidden. So, you know what I mean? It's not that imbalanced. It's, I think it's great. Yeah. And even on a success, the best you're going to get, they're still hidden.
Starting point is 00:32:45 So you know what I mean? It's not that imbalanced. I think it's great. Yeah. And so we'll dig into that more as it comes up, which it inevitably will as an illusionist is in the party. Just to throw it out there for Eric, who does a lot of GMing, he said that what he would rule is probably you would roll one sneak check on the first turn of my multi-turn flight around the boats to get to where I needed to be. And if it was successful, he would just not have me roll checks every, you know, 15 feet or whatever of the movement. He would just say, you got it. And,
Starting point is 00:33:15 and you can get around there, but a failure would indicate that somewhere along that way, you made some noise and you drew the attention of the, of the enemy character. And you can decide how much you want to tinker with that because if all of a sudden you do something that isn't a hostile action that makes you visible but that might change the situation, I might be like, you know what? Let's do it. I'm going to do another thing.
Starting point is 00:33:34 What was that noise that you just made? You know, you can always keep it. I like the idea of like let's lower the amount of checks we're doing unless something changes. Yeah, I like that too. I like lowering the dice rolls as much as possible in the show, but I also want to like – I shouldn't say that. Everybody loves dice rolls.
Starting point is 00:33:50 What I mean is like I don't want to overuse dice rolls when it's not really necessary to the story and keep things moving in order to make the story interesting and like I said, keep it cooking. All right, one more little thing and then we're going to get out of here he just mentioned again you know we did this for fun it's a dream sequence uh uh suki as a dinosaur picks up her snake and flies off flies off you know into the sunset and wakes up great image great scene but professor eric just points out we're back to the same place where we were before, because the snake is small. The pterosaur is medium. Picking that up is no small feat. And it might be ruled that it's too large to carry easily. And maybe we come back to our, I think it was our first fodder this year, where you said you would rule if somebody was carrying a smaller PC, that maybe they're limited to – the carrier is limited to one action per round.
Starting point is 00:34:46 They're moving – as they concentrate on keeping the thing. And the other one might be limited to two actions per round while it's being – while it's mounting the other one or being held or whatever. So just something interesting to think about in your games. And if it's one size smaller, that's not easy to pick up. That's no small thing. I don't know how it works with like calling your's no small thing um yeah i don't know how it works with like calling your familiar back to you or uh you know i don't know enough about druids uh or just like leave it you know what is your snake gonna wake up with a madness maybe
Starting point is 00:35:15 yeah that's something that we gotta kind of work out and i have to i don't know i should talk to sydney because i don't think it's a familiar i believe it's an animal companion and the reason i reason i say it's different is because like animal companions are bigger. You know what I mean? Like they're more solid. Like whereas a familiar can be a flitty little thing that – and there is magic that makes familiars disappear and like hide inside an item and then come out and stuff like that. Those rules are into-y. I don't think those rules really exist for animal companions at low levels at least.
Starting point is 00:35:44 I could be wrong. But it's a significant animal it's a freaking constrictor python or something right like it's it's a small snake but it's a small creature overall but it's a big snake that's a big snake that's a big snake um that's all we got for this week do you have anything else troy before we uh get out of here um no no i'm good man i'm excited we uh we uh we we recorded some more episodes last night sydney is uh in in italy so we're sydney-less but uh i don't know i'm excited we're we're plowing through this story now and uh yeah i feel like we're coming to the like shift there's a shift to coming yeah that's a shift to coming. Yeah. That's a shift to coming. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:26 Hopefully it won't happen without Sid, but I'm sure, I'm sure it'll be good. All right, guys, that's going to wrap it up for us this week. Oh, you know what I do want to say?
Starting point is 00:36:33 Can I tease what I'm going to play tonight? Can I say that? Yeah, go ahead. Do people care? I'm playing a brand new class tonight. Class I never played before. A little class called the 2E Investigator.
Starting point is 00:36:45 Just wanted to put it out there. Playing a little investigator tonight. So I got to go read the rules for investigator right now. Okay. I'm not going to do that. As you shouldn't. It's an old-fashioned idea.
Starting point is 00:36:56 It's old-fashioned. All right, everybody. Take it easy. We'll see you next week. 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,
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