Legends in the Making: Crafting Your First Weapon-Wielding Character

Get ready to embark on an exhilarating journey into the heart of the Dungeons and Dragons universe as we welcome back our fellow adventurer, Joe, straight from his latest side quest! Ever wondered how to craft the perfect D&D character? We've got you covered as we dive into the mechanics of character creation starting with a weapon wielder. We make good use of D&D Beyond to guide you through each step, plus, you'll hear about our latest campaign triumph - downing a formidable dragon in a record 18 seconds!

As we create our new characters, we delve into the intricacies of experience points and milestone leveling - a vital decision that affects your gameplay. We also take you on a detailed tour of character race and class selection and introduce you to our Rock Gnome. We get creative with our Gnome's backstory, abilities, and personality traits, highlighting how each choice influences the game. We also touch on alignment, a crucial factor shaping character decisions.

Finally, we unveil the delightful background of our noble Rock Gnome Monk. We compare different methods for assigning ability scores, giving you a well-rounded view of the character creation process. Our creation saga is peppered with intriguing chatter, surprise interruptions, and an abundance of laughter. Brace yourself for an adventure that will leave you yearning to roll the dice and dive into your next D&D campaign!

Chapters

• 1:13 Character Creation and Campaign Updates
• 16:33 Creating a D&D Character
• 20:53 Experience Points and Hit Points
• 34:26 Choosing Race and Class in D&D
• 42:55 D&D Character Creation and Melee Mechanics
• 53:10 Choose Abilities for Dungeons and Dragons
• 1:06:23 Choosing Backgrounds for D&D Characters
• 1:14:55 Exploring Character Background and Personality Traits
• 1:19:38 Building a Character's Backstory
• 1:26:31 Character Creation

Transcript

Andrew: 1:14

Welcome travelers to another fantastic episode of Legends Loot and Lore. Rejoining the podcast after a side quest of several months is Joe.

Joe: 1:31

Hello everybody out there in D&D land Welcome back Joe. Thank you. Nice to have you back, I know it's been a long time I've been missing this.

Andrew: 1:43

Get yourself a little closer to the microphone.

Joe: 1:44

Joe, I've been missing this, have you? Yes, I was. As everybody will remember. I left as soon as I was helping coach some soccer and you know, every Saturday I had a lot of fun. But this was always in the back of my mind and I eagerly awaited every Monday for the new episodes and all the interviews that you did. I love them all. I hope you keep doing the interviews too and we can kind of fit them in there, because I gotta say you're really good at them.

Andrew: 2:11

Well, thank you, Thank you very much. I had my two. I had an audience of two, Geordi and Geordi and Fizban.

Joe: 2:20

They were just. Since I've been back in the room, they have told me that they loved your interviews.

Andrew: 2:26

I'm sure they do. They love just sitting here listening and getting all the attention, yep. So now that we're now that the party is back at full strength we are going to talk today about we're going to actually create a couple of characters, and so we're going to walk everybody through the whole process. We're going to use D&D Beyond to create these characters and walk you through that process so you can get a feel for what a lot of all the options are and what everything means, etc. And we will. We're going to create both a kind of weapon, what I always call a weapon wielder, like a barbarian or rogue paladin, those types of guys that primarily fight with weapons, and then we'll do a spellcaster as well warlock, sorcerer, wizard, something to that extent. So we're going to pick those at random. So who knows what's going to happen? It'll be a roll of the dice.

Joe: 3:32

Aren't you forgetting a little something, what we have to update them on?

Andrew: 3:35

the campaign. Geez, what's been happening? I need an update on the campaign, but that's what we're going to talk about today. Yes, let's, let's, let's update everybody on on the campaign. What, what has happened, what is?

Joe: 4:03

what is so when the last we spoke before my hiatus, yes you guys were getting ready. You were investigating a dragon's layer in the sea of moving ice and you guys were finally making your way into the layer and trying to get to the dragon. More specifically, he was holding hostage with somebody who had expertise that the council needed to fight the dragons.

Andrew: 4:28

Hang on one second Joe. Before you go into that, you need to go look out the window.

Joe: 4:34

Oh no, I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing tieflings for life.

Andrew: 4:38

I don't know, I don't know what you're going to say, but but take a look.

Joe: 4:50

Bards are mid Joe, who Are superior? Is that supposed to be like middle ground?

Andrew: 5:05

It's not a compliment.

Joe: 5:06

Well, I've never heard of mid as a term, as a adjective before.

Andrew: 5:11

Yes, so so our, our neighbor Fable, who is, who's, a D&D player as well, has has taken an obsession of getting back at me has taken offense to some of Joe's, joe's comments on the podcast about tieflings. So and and and since since Joe is more of a musical character, a bard to some extent. So our neighbor Fable has has declared that bards are mid, which is which is again it's, it's kind of it's the. Is that basically?

Joe: 5:48

saying bars are average.

Andrew: 5:51

Barred bars are eh. Bars are eh.

Joe: 5:54

I don't mind that. I'll be honest with you. As long as I'm not like that sucks, Then I'm in pretty good shape. As long as I'm in the average. I've always said I'm an average Joe.

Andrew: 6:03

So it's more like subpar, it's not a compliment, it's not meant to be a compliment. And then, and then, joe, who because I think I think that was Catherine, that was Catherine's comment about. I will not forget that, catherine, because because you, you have not, you've, you've been absent for so long. So so, joe, who is? Is that that barb, that barred barb? Cutting words and what, and what was the last one about tieflings?

Joe: 6:38

tieflings are superior tieflings are superior. So yeah, yes, she took offense at me, saying that the people, the races and individuals in game tend to look down on tieflings as dangerous, and when I was commenting on that, she thought I was. She thought I was personally doing it that way, or she just decided it would be a good way to rid me, which is fine too, because it is funny every time it's like tieflings.

Joe: 7:07

They they Catherine. At Catherine's birthday party they drew a picture of me. It was just a bunch of scribbles and everybody said it captured my likeness quite well.

Andrew: 7:20

Yeah, so so our, so our neighbor, has has some, some strong, strong words for for Joe today.

Joe: 7:28

I still think it's unfounded. But hey, how you doing over there Fable.

Andrew: 7:34

So, thank you, thank you. That that was our.

Joe: 7:38

That was a live interruption.

Andrew: 7:42

I got the text message from from Fable that said tell him to look out the window. So so I had to relay the message.

Joe: 7:52

So anyway, yes, you guys had been getting ready to go and face the dragon and eventually now I'm going to fast forward through a lot of stuff because a decent amount has happened you guys did go and face the dragon In only I think it was three terms, like not even three complete terms you took down a large adult dragon, which is not nothing to sneeze at. We know that I think about this, or that's 18 seconds in real life. You guys took down a live, a large adult dragon. So you know, that's pretty impressive. I need to start like mixing in, like tougher guys for you, and I did recently.

Andrew: 8:28

You really, you really do. Yeah, it's, it's. It's definitely got a little more difficult.

Joe: 8:34

The problem is is, like you know, they're supposed to be facing up against this big bad dragon and when they take him out in 18 seconds is like, ok, no problem, I'll add more creatures. And then all of a sudden, now we've got five people playing and then I have six creatures facing off against you, and the amount of time it takes for a turn to rotate. It's almost like 10 minutes, or five to 10 minutes, before somebody gets a chance to make their second action, and it just slows the game down.

Andrew: 8:59

What about just more difficult individual, that's. That's what I've been doing, yeah.

Joe: 9:05

I've been beefing up. So, anyway, you guys made it back to town. Yes, and you, I think you were going back to not Baldur's Gate, what a deep. You guys made it back to water deep. And the town, the council, sent you on a mission to chase down one of the wearers of purple, who was one of the leaders of the dragon cult.

Joe: 9:25

This one had been disgraced, but they still thought this one would have more information for you. So you guys started off hunting them, and on your way to hunting them, you come out to two encounters so far. One of them was against three hill giants, which didn't do as much damage as I was hoping, but it took a good amount of time, and the other one was against this creature that was part specter, part ghost it was. I was actually quite proud of how well that one handled. I almost took out. I think I almost took out Steve with that guy. I think you did, and so it's like it's giving me ideas of how to boost up. I'm not exactly sure what happened. I don't know if I'm not playing the enemies to their maximum capability or you guys had a boost somehow. Well, first of all, you're playing with five people and the adventure is supposed to be like five to six, but I really don't think that that's really the factor. I think they made the adventure too easy.

Andrew: 10:20

Have you, have you tried the encounter? Builder in D&D beyond.

Joe: 10:24

I have not, but I have noticed that they have their own map thing going. Yes, that looks very interesting.

Andrew: 10:29

We played that in the campaign that I'm doing on Wednesdays. We tried that a little bit and it's really, it's really pretty interesting. You can import your own maps but whatever source books you have that they have the maps for you can bring those maps in.

Joe: 10:47

Oh, so you can do that if you have the digital copy of it.

Andrew: 10:49

Yes, like Fandel, like I'll show you Well, so I actually experimented with it. I actually experimented with it.

Joe: 10:54

I took the Phandelver, I took the map of Phandelver that I use using the tabletop, that I use, yes, and I put it in there and I was like, wow, this is actually really neat. Yeah, it's obviously a prototype or an early version.

Andrew: 11:08

I think it's an alpha.

Joe: 11:09

they're calling it at this point Of what they want to do because they want to make this a fully virtual tabletop experience with special effects, dice rolling, everything. So it's like you know they're. I mean this is. This is where they've been going since they announced one D&D Right they, they, they want to revamping all the rules, and now they're bringing this out. So it's, it's going to change the entire dynamic of everything.

Andrew: 11:32

It's certainly well, but I it's, it's. I think it's super cool. I think the map feature is even even in its infancy. Is is a really spectacular addition for those that don't necessarily use a virtual tabletop program already. So if you want to keep everything in D&D, you have access to all the monsters right there and it brings. It brings everything in If you you've got the characters already.

Joe: 11:56

So it's especially for new people or people who are looking for transition, like for new people is like look, I don't have to go buy a tabletop, a virtual tabletop, and then buy the component. You can buy it all here, correct? So anyway, you guys had fought two separate encounters in the woods while searching for this guy and you had just finished the last battle. We've been having a little trouble getting advancing on the storyline, so, despite the fact that it's been about two months since he's gotten an update, we really haven't gotten that far.

Andrew: 12:26

Haven't gotten very far.

Joe: 12:29

But the good news is there's only the storyline. Only has a few chapters left. It's just getting through those chapters, Right.

Andrew: 12:37

And we'll get there eventually.

Joe: 12:39

Of course we will Absolutely. So anyway, back to the our character creation.

Andrew: 12:49

Yes, character creation. So we've, in the intervening weeks since you were last year, we've talked a lot about character creation, character backstory, we've talked a lot about the theory behind behind creating characters and how they fit into stories and things like that. So now we'll actually go into the mechanics of building a character.

Joe: 13:17

And I've noticed, when I start building a character for myself personally, I start thinking about what the character is going to be rogue, barbarian, whatever I end up creating. And then I start imagining, well, how would one come to this position? And then you come up to all the typical storylines you know for a rogue. Well, he lost his parents at a young age, and this and that, and tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. Or you know, you're a cleric or a paladin, you were really raised in a religious order, you got to, you got to, you got to.

Joe: 13:48

And then you know, you take the typical storylines and then you cushion them, you tweak them to how you want to have your character represented in this particular case. And that's how I've always approached the backstory aspect. And one of the things I like about 5e and I obviously one D&D when it comes out the backstories that you can kind of pick up the traits and everything. It gives you writing prompts. So you have a general idea, you go through on the traits, which all have rolled tables to the look 6d6 or d8, you can randomly do them or you can purposely, you know, pick the ones and they're like writing prompts to build a story around.

Andrew: 14:27

Oh sure.

Joe: 14:28

Beautiful that way.

Andrew: 14:30

Absolutely yeah, they've done a lot to to really help you kind of flesh out that, I think, the part of the character.

Joe: 14:38

I think one of the things that they're trying to do is, you know, they're making combat more effective and easy, but I think they want to try to enhance the role play of the aspect too, and that's that's this background stuff.

Andrew: 14:49

It's probably the part that I would think most people have the greatest amount of difficulty with, but it's probably one of the. The tougher parts for people is the role playing aspect, because it's getting into combat. You pick your weapon, you pick the person you're going to hit, that kind of thing. So I mean, it's kind of pretty standard, pretty standard action in battle. But but doing the role playing and really coming up with understanding who your character is and how they would interact with others is, is is probably the more difficult part of it. So I think they're doing a much better job of of helping guide newer, newer people to and to fill that out.

Joe: 15:34

And I think you know it's not required that you be one way or the other way either, because when you look at our group, our group literally has a span of everything that fits into it. Like Steve, you know Steve's great. He comes in, he rolls his dice and he goes home and he when when I forced him to do role play, he does it, but he's not exactly like a hundred percent keen on doing role play. Kat is very much into her role play, you are really big into Thorndon, frank is is like kind of half in, half out on Antonio and and a bill is like totally all in on Toma, I mean. So it's like we got all different levels of how deep people are into their role play and you don't have to be into the role play even if everybody else is right.

Andrew: 16:23

Absolutely. No, absolutely it's you, you can. You can be into it as deep into it as you want, or or as little as you want. So that's, that's the nice feature.

Joe: 16:34

Steve also happens to be the person who figures out most of the puzzles in the party.

Andrew: 16:38

Thank goodness. He's he's brilliant when it comes to four, four, four. A barbarian who loves to rage, who's just just just a monster when it comes to battles. He's got such a such a, he's got an amazing brain for for figuring out puzzles. He doesn't love to rage, he forgets to rage at the time. Well, he loves to rage, he doesn't remember to rage. There's, there's a difference. You can love to rage and forget to rage. Anyway but so let's, let's talk, let's talk about okay, so you're ready to make our first character?

Joe: 17:13

Let's make our first character. So there's 12 classes.

Andrew: 17:16

Well, we have. We don't even get to class first, we get to race first.

Andrew: 17:19

No that's true. So let's let's walk through this on a on a step by step basis. So we're again, we're going to do this in D&D beyond. So you go to the character section of of D&D beyond and even even on the free level, you can you can create at least a few characters. So we're going to go into select, create a character, and when you go to create a character, they give you several options.

Andrew: 17:45

There's the standard method for creating a character, which is what we're going to do the step by step approach. They've got pre-made characters that are ready to play that you can. You can do quick build so you can choose a race in a class and it'll it'll help you create the first little character Very quickly. Or the random is really it just randomizes the character. You have the option to set some of the parameters like level, race and class, but it'll randomize everything else for you. But for our purposes, we are going to use the standard step by step character building method. So we got to pick a character name first. So let's just use the well.

Joe: 18:34

I say we hold off on the name just for a second because we can come back because we don't know what kind of character it's going to be yet. And I find there is on. I think Andrew was about to say, and the character builder, there's a link to something called the fantasy name generator which is really a fantastic little tool and you know if you want to get. If you end up picking a dwarf or an elf, you don't want to have an elf or a dwarf name for the opposite one.

Joe: 18:55

God forbid, I mean you can if you really want to get creative and have a fun backstory but in general you tend to want to, you know try to match it up. And when you click on the character, the fantasy name generator, you can pick so many different fantasy races and it gives you suggestions.

Andrew: 19:10

Yes, so we will, we'll, we'll, we'll pause on on naming our character at this point. The other things on this page are the character preferences like what, what source books material comes from. There's other partnered content. We've got a dice rolling so you can enable or disable digital dice rolling for this character. So if you don't have your own dice yet, you can, you can use those from D&D beyond. Joe and I have our own opinions on on the digital dice. I, you know, in some campaigns I use it, some some I don't. I I prefer to use real dice because I'm a dice goblin, so I've got many of them. So so I, I just I love the feel of rolling dice, but if you, if you have and you can get dice super cheap, but if you don't have a set of dice of your own, you can easily use it.

Joe: 20:06

It also makes it easier to play if you're trying to keep it on a more quiet. You're not rolling around having dice fall on the floor, chasing it all over the place. That this is also easier for that past.

Andrew: 20:15

Yes, but.

Joe: 20:16

I agree, I prefer the hands on throw it in. You know, I have any of a dice tower. I roll my stuff down, my little homemade dice tower and I just love hearing the click, click, click, click.

Andrew: 20:27

Yes, so. So, joe, why don't you talk about advancement type? So there's, there's two ways to. So you're starting with, we're starting with a level one character you, your character, levels up throughout an adventure, and there's our two ways of of doing this.

Joe: 20:44

So you have the milestone and you have experience points. The experience points is the ones that everybody's familiar with If you've ever played an RPG online or on a count console game. You get experience points every time you kill a monster or you achieve a certain aspect of mission in the game and then, once you hit that, that point of of experience points that, for the next level, you level up into the handbook. In the basic rules and in the players handbook there are. It tells you how many experience points you need to get to each level. Most, if not all, pre-made adventures will tell you how many experience points to achieve to, to award people for certain achievements. But the monster manual, which is, you know, easily searched anywhere on the internet, will tell you how many experience points for killing each creature. If you have 10 creatures and they're each worth 10, 10 experience points, the party gets a hundred experience points each, no divided between them, because they work together, they work together to kill everything, so they get a hundred.

Joe: 21:50

So there's five people. You kill 10 monsters at 10 experience points a piece 100 experience points divided by five people, 20 experience points per person, and, as you level up, when you hit those experience points, levels. Milestone is so much easier. It's a little less personal, it's a little less involved, and I feel that it does take a certain amount away from the game, but now you don't have to have somebody tallying up experience points on the side of their page.

Joe: 22:24

Milestone is hey, you finished this chapter, you level up. You finished this quest, you level up, and adventures, especially the DND core adventures like minds of endeavor, the tomb of annihilation and the mad wizard they all have points where it's like okay, this is a milestone. This is a milestone. If you're using milestone now is when you tell your characters to level up. They'll. Also, you can just fall back on the experience points generated by each monster, but the milestone is easier. It's a set point and you don't have to really think about it. One of the great things about using experience points, though, is, let's say, bill can't make the game on Monday, and everybody else levels up. Well, bell's not leveled up yet. So you get more natural, creative, natural leveling in the party, where everybody's not at the exact same point at all the times, right.

Andrew: 23:24

You know, for me, I have my own opinions about this. First of all, let me make please do share them. I will. Let me make this point First of all. Usually it's going to be the DM that determines whether or not you're using milestone or XP. So it's not, it's not something you necessarily have to decide. So if you are, if you're creating this character for a particular campaign, ask your DM how they are, how they're doing leveling up in in their campaign. Is it milestone or or XP? So that that's one thing to to keep in mind when you see this option. For me, I think I think milestone is is lends itself better to a role playing game than than XP. Xp is great if you're you're going into, you're doing a lot of dungeon diving, killing a lot of things and and and doing that you know. So if you're, if you're into a lot of action and things like that, xp is great. You know, because I think I think when, when you drive your characters with with XP, they tend to want to kill everything.

Joe: 24:35

That's a really good point.

Andrew: 24:36

Yeah. So it's like. It's like oh, I'm going to kill stuff to get more XP. So you know, I think, I think it might. It could possibly take away from the role playing aspects of the game, as opposed to milestone, where you're not necessarily concentrated on. Do I, do I need to clear the level, kind of thing.

Joe: 24:54

We and we came across that in in in the, the, the campaign, where you know you guys had killed the dragon, but there are still extra points inside his layer that you guys hadn't explored and the debate was raging. Well, we don't have time. We're not going to be able to get a long rest in. That's just not logically feasible. We can probably take a short rest, but you know there's still other areas of this place to explore. Should we explore or should we just get out of here now? And the general consensus went out to just get out. And if there had it been an XP game, the people might have been more incentivized to go and clear the whole dungeon. Correct, that's a very good point. Yeah, so that's that's, that's my opinion on the matter.

Joe: 25:35

I I haven't really played an adventure, a campaign, in person. We've done one shots once or twice in person, but I've never done like a full campaign. I would think that when playing in person, playing with experience points would be better, because you're sitting there, you're around the table, it's easier to hey we, how many experience points did we get? When you're online, it's very hard to have that cross conversation with each other without you know, talking over the DM or something like that. So I think I think the the uh, the idea of playing experience points would theoretically work out a lot better in person also than a online campaign.

Andrew: 26:12

Yeah, it depends, like if you've got a campaign where, like the one campaign that I'm in, people kind of come in and come out of depending on their availability, so so XP for that is good, because not everyone is involved in every every battle. So so, like you said, it lends yourself more to more realistic that that some people are at a higher level because they've done, they've done more. So it all just depends, like, like I said, that's how, that's why the DM kind of sets that from the beginning, based on what the campaign is going to agree to kind of look like Um, what about the next thing? Hit point type, so fixed or rolled, what's your opinion?

Joe: 26:56

Uh, I'm, I'm all about the rolled yeah, um, this. This comes back to the exact same point here. When you have a fixed hit point. So each class, like we talked about, has a certain uh hit dice a D eight, a D six, whatever it is, and that is your basis for how you level up your hit points. What they do is they take the average of the dice of that die roll that you would roll and that would be your fixed HP increase every time you leveled up. So on a D eight, I think it's plus five. So when you roll. So so every time you level up, you get your five plus your constitution modifier every level. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with doing it that way, but I feel like it's more uh original, more uh individual. When I actually rolled that D eight, I have a chance of hitting a one, I have a chance of hitting an eight, and it creates suspense for the person. And you know interesting characters.

Joe: 27:57

My Thursday night game I am a level nine fighter. I have like 87 hit points. I should be easily in the hundreds. Yeah, I have rolled crap. And the funny thing is there have been times where I rolled like I was like, oh, I leveled up and I rolled digitally and I was like, oh, let me just roll this digitally so I don't have to pull my dice out. And I rolled the one, I was like you know what I really should do it the way I've always done it. I should really roll with the real dice, because I didn't want the one pulled out the real dice. I rolled the one again and I'm like, nah, I'm not the only get them on there.

Andrew: 28:30

It was meant to be.

Joe: 28:31

And I had a couple of instances, not that I did both, but I have a couple instances where I got ones and two. So I just did not level up. I did not, I, I, I. My fighter is still like charging into the middle of combat and it's like at the end of every combat everybody's like are you okay? I'm like, nah, I still got a. I still have like half my health hit points. So everybody thinks I got like 50 or 60 and I'm like, nah, I got like 38. That's rough.

Andrew: 28:54

That's rough.

Joe: 28:54

So that's the differences. Again, I prefer. I prefer the roll because it's more personality, it makes it more uneven and when it's uneven it seems more natural.

Andrew: 29:05

You leave it. You leave it up more to chance than than anything else. So so it's a good point. So you can. You can do it either way. It really just a lot of that's just personal, that one's more personal preference than than anything else. Other things on the on the main screen are they talk about you can, there's prerequisites on feats, multi-class requirements, things like that. We're not going to die. I don't think we want to dive too much into all this.

Joe: 29:33

Because we're still waking. Level one character. You're not going to get a feat, unless you get us human and you're not going to get a multi -class because we're level one.

Andrew: 29:40

We'll, we'll deal with that at some point at a later cast yes and the other things, encumbrance we're not again it's, we're going to make this. I want to make this as simple as possible, so we're going to remove encumbrance. I would.

Joe: 29:52

I would. I would remove it Right. So basically, encumbrance is the basic concept, is how heavy, how much equipment you can carry before your speed is actually reduced. The vast majority, I think, people play no encumbrance, which means you can carry a thousand pounds and nobody's going to care about it. And your strength of base, your, your, your capability of carrying things and I forget the exact math, but it's based upon your strength, skill. I think it's your strength times five, it might be 20. I don't remember, but you, you, you multiply it out and that's how much you weight, you can carry. But the interesting thing about this is that when you go into a place like a giant, a dragon's den, and you get all that coin, that coin actually encumbers most people. When you play encumbrance, it becomes too heavy to carry all of that corn out.

Andrew: 30:42

Well, that well, that's the. That's the other option here. You can ignore coin weight on the screen so you can ignore the coin weight.

Joe: 30:48

So so, and it's interesting because some people just don't. They refuse to throw away. Like oh I got a new sword, let me keep the old one, just in case I wanted to use it for something else. Oh, I got a new shield, let me keep the old one. Some people just refuse to throw that stuff away. Well, if you're doing cumbrance, well now. They went from 30 feet to 20 feet.

Andrew: 31:05

Well, I ran, I ran into this playing Baldur's Gate three, my character, my character and Baldur's Gate three. I was like I'm picking, I'm picking up, I'm picking up crap everywhere. Like every room I go into is like pick this up, sure, pick that up, sure. Like I picked up like a dead body and it was. It was like it was like you're, you're slow. Now I'm like you've got too much stuff. Like, oh darn, so I had to. I had to start like dropping stuff.

Joe: 31:30

To how to drop things, and that's the other thing. In a video game, you know, people will pick up literally everything take it to the store and sell it, because even if it's only one gold, hey, that's one more gold, whatever it tallies up. And it's like you know, I'm going to force you. I like that.

Andrew: 31:44

Well, I could bring it back to the camp and just dump it back at camp. But like I was in the middle of a room and it was like all of a sudden, I was like you're like you've got too much stuff, but anyway, so that's everything. What's that? On the character preference.

Joe: 31:59

So the ability score modifier, and so this is just the display. Yeah, yeah, we didn't mention it.

Andrew: 32:06

Okay, it's important?

Joe: 32:07

No, it's not. There are some people argue this.

Andrew: 32:10

Okay.

Joe: 32:11

So you can put the model. So, on the character sheet there's a big box and right beneath it there's a little sir oval, and one of them gets your actual ability score. The other one gets the modifying number, the number that you add to your attack rows, and so on and so forth. So you can put the modifier on top, which is the bigger number, or you can put the score on top and then put the modifier on the bottom. Most people, I think, go with the modifier on the top because that's the number that's most important. However, some people by firmly believe that it should be the score on the top and the modifier in the small one. It's just another option. I'm sorry.

Andrew: 32:48

Again personal preference.

Joe: 32:50

Absolutely.

Andrew: 32:50

It doesn't matter for creating a first level character. You can always change it later.

Joe: 32:56

This entire experience is based upon personal preference.

Andrew: 33:00

Yes, so let's go on to. And then there's character privacy, so you can, if you don't want to share the character with anyone else, you don't have to, or you can keep it specific to a campaign, but we're going to leave this character public and we'll probably share the link on the put on the Discord server or something, or share it in the in the notes.

Joe: 33:21

The idea of keeping it private is, if you don't want to share it with anybody else, you can actually print out the full character sheet when you're ready, and you can print out everything.

Andrew: 33:31

Now for now for some of the some of the fun stuff Hold on.

Joe: 33:34

We need a D 100 now to pick a race, I think I need more than a D 100. So oh yeah, if you include all the variants, it's probably close to two or three hundred.

Andrew: 33:44

My goodness.

Joe: 33:46

Let's filter the sources here, you know, let's.

Andrew: 33:48

let's trim out some of the more, so let's what like, if you go to like just the players handbook, right, you've got just the basics, so it is. So we've been basing everything off the nine Okay. So we've been basing everything off of the, the basic rules.

Joe: 34:06

Well, change it to the basic rules. So we say basic rules, which I think is then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, still still nine. There's nine. So do you want to do a D 10 and then ignored number 10, re-roll 10?.

Andrew: 34:25

I think that works.

Joe: 34:26

All right. So for the audience, we are looking at Dragonborn, Dwarf, elf, half elf, half orc, half Ling, human rock, gnome or tiefling, in that order one through nine and Andrews got to die. If he rolls a 10, we will just re-roll it Now. Drop it from a high distance so they hear it thud.

Andrew: 34:51

These are the solid copper ones. You'll hear it. Thud, no matter what, here we go.

Joe: 34:59

Oh, I heard that that is eight. That would be the rock gnome. I would not have chosen that myself. I would not have picked the rock gnome. I never would have thought to do that. That's cool.

Andrew: 35:11

So so we're going with a gnome, absolutely.

Joe: 35:13

The rock gnome specifically, because this is the basic rose.

Andrew: 35:16

Yes, so we'll read a little bit of the basic description here. So a gnomes. Energy and enthusiasm for living shines through every inch of his or her tiny body. As a rock gnome, you have a natural inventiveness and hardiness beyond that of other gnomes. Most gnomes in the worlds of D&D are rock gnomes, including the tinker gnomes of the dragon lance setting, and some of the. Some of the traits that rock gnomes have are dark vision, what is known as gnome cunning, and gnome cunning means you've got advantage on all intelligence, wisdom and charisma. Saving throws against magic, which is not insignificant. Artificers lore. Whenever you make an intelligence, a history check related to magic items, alchemical objects or technological devices, you can add twice your proficiency bonus. Instead of any proficiency bonus, you normally apply so many, so many different things. And what's that with the tinker? Oh my goodness.

Joe: 36:20

You basically get artificers tools and you then can use them with a 10 gold worth of materials and money to call to make a little clockwork device. It only works for about 24 hours unless you spend an hour a day trying to keep fixing it. You can also create a fire starter or a little music box, which you know it adds flair and possibly some type of usefulness. I mean, look, this is D&D. You can use anything for anything. At this point you can use your fire starter and try to convince somebody it's magic.

Andrew: 36:55

Well, what's nice is I mean here's the thing I mean to have a fire starter. As it says, you can use it to light a candle, torture campfire. So if you don't have any spellcasters that can create fire, this is a quick, easy way to start a fire.

Joe: 37:11

So and you can also use it in the idea, like you know, hey, I want to use my fire starter to light the curtains on fire so that we burn down the mansion, or something like that. Again, it's a little more flavor than actual function because, yes, everybody, most, most adventurers end up with a little bit of a Flint Flint capabilities to make it.

Andrew: 37:30

But and this lasts for 24 hours, which is always useful. Yes, yes indeed.

Joe: 37:36

So this is going to be kind of fun, I think.

Andrew: 37:39

I've never played the. I've never played a gnome before.

Joe: 37:42

No, I have.

Andrew: 37:43

I know.

Joe: 37:44

So this is so, we have it we also haven't discussed which one of us is going to play the magical character and which one of us is going to play the melee character.

Andrew: 37:50

I think we're going to have to flip for that. Ah, okay, We'll say.

Joe: 37:53

we'll say who plays what. So here's just another explanation. So the next page is more about. It brings a detailed of all the things that we just talked about.

Andrew: 38:01

Yes.

Joe: 38:01

It gives you a little drop down so you can read those things.

Andrew: 38:03

Yes, indeed. So we've got. We've got all of our details on all of our Racial traits, or species traits, depending on what version of D&D we're talking about. So so we're going to pick our rock gnome and we're going to go on to the next one, which is choosing a class. So we've got 12, 12 classes here, I believe, right, Joe?

Joe: 38:28

Well, actually 13, because they added artificer here. Okay, so the, the, the core rule book, the, the player's handbook, only has 12. The officer doesn't, it isn't included, right, and I think we should do that. We should just pull out the artificer and just do that. Yeah, just do the D12. So for everybody listening at home, it's barbarian bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock and wizard. And one of the things is that, you know, even if we pick something that is a magical class that doesn't base upon wisdom which this guy has bonuses to wisdom and stuff like that, it doesn't matter. Even if we make him a melee character, you can make anything, you can be anything. You want a strong melee character that has a little bit of magic or a very weak melee, you know, it doesn't matter. So we're not necessarily looking to make what's called min max maximize all the strengths and minimizes weaknesses. We're looking to just have some fun. That's the randomness.

Andrew: 39:28

That's right. That's why we're playing at random Now, remember, we've covered all the basic races and all the basic classes in previous episodes of the podcast. So if you want to a little bit of a deeper dive, we're just we're not going to go into each of them individually here, but you can check out earlier episodes and and listen to some more of the information about these different classes. So I'm I'm going to roll my special D12, my, my fable D12.

Joe: 39:54

Oh from fable.

Andrew: 39:54

From fable.

Joe: 39:55

Is it just the D12 or is the whole set?

Andrew: 39:57

It's just a D12. No, she just just a special D12. And so we're, we're ignoring our officer and starting barbarian to wizard, okay. And we're we're hoping for a fight Like a well, it really doesn't matter, we can go either way on this one, okay. And this is part of the point that we're either way, we're going to go either way. So let's, let's see what, what, what class this character is going to be.

Joe: 40:22

That'll be a six One, two, three, four, five. Fighter One, two, five, six. Monk Monk, A monk rock. No Nice, this will be cool. This will be interesting. You know he's got his training punching the walls in the underdark.

Andrew: 40:36

Right, right, oh, this will be cool, nice, so, so, monk. Monk is more of a more of a fighting melee fighter character, melee, fighter character.

Joe: 40:44

While they do have special abilities because of the key you're definitely not a magical character.

Andrew: 40:49

Yeah, so this is, this is a martial artist. Not necessarily, not necessarily Lots of weapons, not not really like a great axe or anything like that, more more hand to hand combat.

Joe: 41:00

But but like a quarter staff or something like that.

Andrew: 41:04

So, so that's what we're going to do. So we are, we are selecting.

Joe: 41:07

Monk. So we're going to do the same process when we make the next character, which is going to be magical, and we're just going to keep rolling until we come up with a more traditional, radical one.

Andrew: 41:16

So some of the some of the first level abilities that a monk will have. So they describe the monk as the master of martial arts, harnessing the power of the body in pursuit of physical and spiritual perfection.

Joe: 41:29

The hit dies a, d, eight, and the primary abilities are going to be dexterity and wisdom, for which is also interesting because when when we were looking at the rock gnome, he was kind of like he looks like he was more of an intelligence character than anything else. So kind of like balances out, this will be interesting yeah.

Andrew: 41:47

And so some of the things at first level for for a monk are the unarmored defense. So when you're wearing no armor, not having a shield, your AC, your armor class, equals 10 plus your dexterity modifier and your wisdom modifier. So again, when, when we start rolling out the ability scores, we want to make sure that we are paying closer attention to dexterity and wisdom, to to help beef up the armor class. For for this one, you want to talk about martial arts.

Joe: 42:22

So at first level you get martial arts, mastery of combat with unarmed and monk weapons. Those are short sword, the staff depending on how creative, there's none chucks that you can find to use in the game. But you're really not doing anything that's heavy or that has a dual wielding, I mean a two handed usage. You gain benefits, so you're using your dexterity instead of your strength when you're using these weapons. Sometimes you it's a strength modifier, but no, as a monk martial arts you're used. You're kind of more of a dexterity creature.

Joe: 42:56

Now, also, most people, most characters, if they try to do melee damage with a fist, if I'm trying to punch you, that is a straight up. Whatever your strength score is, that's what you do damage as that's it. Whatever your mod, strength modifier is that's how much damage you can do. In a monk's case you can roll a D four instead of that, whatever that is, and as you level up as the monk, it moves to a D six and then you can roll D six and then I believe it tops out at a D eight, I don't recall. Yeah.

Andrew: 43:27

I'd have to. I'd have to look at that, but this.

Joe: 43:31

This allows you to do more damage with your hands, which counteracts the idea that you're not using a lot of weapons typically. And then the last thing is you can make an unarmed strike on your turn by using a bonus action. So if you do have a short sword, or if you're just using strictly your fists, you can actually make two attacks. It does take your bonus action. He's holding his little nun checks now.

Andrew: 43:56

My pillow fighting. Nun, chucks, shout out, shout out to super sox shop.

Joe: 44:04

Are they sent you that?

Andrew: 44:05

No, no, they didn't send it to me. We bought this at at a New York Comic Con Nice. But a super sock shop is is phenomenal. They make all sorts. I had that sword, the sword up there.

Joe: 44:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew: 44:16

Is a. Yeah, they make all sorts of pillow pillow fighting weapons, but they also made our. She also makes a Christmas stockings, so all the stockings we have for the cats are from from her shop. Amazing stuff. But yeah, I bought the nun, the orange nun chucks at the, the last con.

Joe: 44:36

So the idea is that you can use your bonus action to do an additional attack. So now you're basically as long as you have your bonus action available, you're guaranteed to attacks, which is the modifier the more attacks you get, the more damage you can do. Yes, which is also something that offsets somebody who's like a fighter who has a D 10 on a sword. So it it balances.

Andrew: 45:00

Yeah. So it's yeah, it all balances itself out, which is nice, cause it's yeah, you're not going to be a huge weapon wielder as far as that's concerned.

Joe: 45:09

Again, that's mostly a creativity, personal choice if you want to or not.

Andrew: 45:15

Interesting. Okay, see, this I want to use. I'd love to use the nun chucks as a as a monk.

Joe: 45:22

That makes money.

Andrew: 45:23

You should do that and maybe, maybe I will All right, so we're going to, we're going to confirm that. So, so we have our monk, we have our our rock gnome monk.

Joe: 45:37

And to go back we chose hit points to be based upon the role. However, if you remember back to our, our episodes where we talk about characters in general, where we kind of hit on the hall of the high points, did I do that? Yeah, we, we, we did roll.

Andrew: 45:54

Okay, I said fixed.

Joe: 46:01

Oh, did we not change it? Cause.

Joe: 46:02

I didn't change it oh you didn't change it, okay, so anyway we now, we now have chose, but and and the funny thing is, it wouldn't have actually come up until we had to the second level, because at first level, when you create your character, your hit points is automatically your total hit dice, which for the monk is a D eight, yes, and then we haven't gotten there yet. So right now our level is level, our hit points are eight. Our constitution modifier will then be added into that. If we have any, will be added into that when we get there.

Andrew: 46:38

Right.

Joe: 46:38

But so right now we have a grand total of eight hit points and then at first level we get to pick some proficiencies. Yes, so we are not proficient at any armor. So if we wear any type of armor, we then become, I think, in Cumberd, it's just, it just slows us down. I think if we do that weapons or simple weapons like short swords and things like that a club maybe, even if you really wanted to tools we get to pick a tool uh, artisans tools or a musical instrument, and then we have automatically built in a saving throw against strength and dexterity. So if something is like we need a saving throw to see how long we can hold this or how quickly we can kind of move around something, we uh have proficiency in that.

Joe: 47:27

And a quick reminder of proficiency is a number that is given based upon your level. As you level up I think it's every four or five levels your proficiency bonus goes up and I believe everybody starts off with a two. So that proficiency bonus means how you're rolling for strength. You are proficient at strength and dexterity because monks have to be, you know, tough and they have to be dexterity. And then from skills we get to pick from acrobatics, athletics, history, insight, religion and stealth. So we have to pick between the tools and the skills. So we're going to start with the skills.

Andrew: 48:00

Yeah, so we get to choose two skills, so we get to. We get to choose from those skills. We get to choose two of them, so we got one, two, three. Should we? Should we randomly roll these? Since there's six skills, should we randomly roll?

Joe: 48:12

I think we should why not Unless there's something that says that we should really just sit down and have a conversation about it. I think we should definitely go with the dice, just because that's the whole point of this.

Andrew: 48:20

Like like for me. So if I were, if I were picking this character myself and not randomizing it, being a gnome and being a monk, I would probably pick stealth as what as one of my skills. What would be your other one? That's a good question. I would say probably either acrobatics or athletics.

Joe: 48:39

For a monk, See now I would have gone. So, in general, my concepts of a monk is not stealthy Not that it's that you're wrong, but I don't think that way. My thing is I'm going to double down on acrobatics and athletics. Okay, that's how I would have approached it. However, I was looking at history, because he is a gnome and he does like the history of certain things, so I was thinking of that as well, maybe, but let's roll two D six and figure this out.

Andrew: 49:05

Let's roll two D six and see what happens. All right, I'll pick this one. This one picked my, my metal D sixes here. Well, you're, you're in luck. This, this is actually. This is actually perfect for you. One in three, which would be acrobatics and history. So Joe wins.

Joe: 49:30

I don't like that. I mean I like that I win.

Andrew: 49:32

Thank you.

Joe: 49:33

Thank you, I was great, I was perfect I like to thank the heavy dice for rolling in my favor.

Andrew: 49:36

That's right. But now the dice be ever in your favor.

Joe: 49:39

But now it's going to be like, okay, if Joe wins, now it's like a competition, now I'm going to have to lose something, not at all, it's just no. Oh, how many we got here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. There's more, oh, there's the. Oh, my goodness.

Andrew: 50:00

But, but I don't think all of these are.

Joe: 50:02

Well, these are all choices, so, but I don't think these are all basic rule choices.

Andrew: 50:07

Oh, that's a good point, so I would. I would probably. I would do one of the basic ones.

Joe: 50:12

Well, let's start with the difference between do we want to pick a musical instrument for him or do we want to pick an artisan's tool for him as a monk? We can roll an odds or an even, or we can just, or you can pick it.

Andrew: 50:27

Yeah, I don't know Like what would be, and there's so many choices here.

Joe: 50:36

Well, so, so. So take a step back, Just what about woodcarver's tools? I'm good with that. I could see that. Yeah, right, okay, so we're going to, because it even kind of fits in with the gnome that's not the rock gnome, but the gnome.

Andrew: 50:50

I like it Kind of say a rock gnome, but I mean that would be, that wouldn't be Smith's tools, that would be. Doesn't even say anything about stone tools. Mason's tools. Mason's tools you want to go with mason's, or do you want to?

Joe: 51:01

I'm a good with sticking with the wood.

Andrew: 51:02

Let's go woodcarver's tools. Okay, let's go woodcarver's tools I do like that. I like that, I like that story for this guy.

Joe: 51:08

Yeah. Um maybe this is what happened. See, you know, this is what I'm talking about?

Andrew: 51:12

I don't know.

Joe: 51:13

This is what I'm talking about when when I was talking about how you start making your character and your thing Maybe what happens was he was a rock gnome and for some reason or he or she, and for some reason, as a child they developed an interest in woodworking instead and they were, you know, banished or ostracized. And they, they went out into the world and they found somebody who would teach them how to carve the wood, but they were a monk, so it kind of came hand in hand. For, I mean, like, this is how you create your backstory, this is how you start brainstorming things. Now, granted, I have a lot of time and experience going into this, trying to make backstories, but this is what you do. Yeah, what woodcarver's tools? Well, how does that fit in with somebody who's a rock gnome?

Andrew: 51:50

Yeah, but I but I see, but I could see, I could see, like I go always back to my character, my daredevil monk character. I could see being a woodcarver, like carving your own quarter staff and like like making your own weapons like carving your own weapons out of wood would be like super cool. Maybe that's what it was.

Joe: 52:10

He found somebody who would help him with the woodworking but, that person was specifically the monk to whom who made the weapons for all the monks Right. So like something that would be really cool, all right.

Andrew: 52:20

So so there's, there's. We're building the backstory as we as we move along here. Um, we already talked about unarmored defense. And the martial arts and the martial arts. So we know all about that. So there's other. Obviously there'll be other things available at higher levels, but we're we're keeping this level one and let's go on to yes.

Joe: 52:40

Before we get into the abilities, I want to go back to the home. Yes, because now that we know that we have a rock gnome and we know that he's going to be some type of monk, I think it's time we try to pick a name. Let's okay.

Andrew: 52:49

We're okay, let's go back to name picking. So let's go back to okay. So let's go to um, are there, there you give some Bumble bumble, zan Rose, bumble bumble.

Joe: 53:02

You know, I literally was just looking at that one, I kind of like it, I kind of like I, I, I, I done Well hang on.

Andrew: 53:08

So let's go to fantasy name generator and let's see. So now we're on their website, which is very, very simple to understand for the most part.

Joe: 53:16

So then you've got to go up on the top to fantasy and folklore in this particular case, and then you look for one of the races. So we're looking for gnome or rock gnomes no names. Is there a rock over there? I don't know if there's rock. Nope, there is not rock. No. So no names, no names, no names.

Andrew: 53:31

So they give you a list, I think like 10.

Joe: 53:37

So we got then just get it mid-dark Hungry, Not well, we have to figure out.

Andrew: 53:42

Is our, is our character male or female? Oh, leave it as neutral odds odds, male, even female, done, that's a two. So Female, female it is.

Joe: 53:57

So we click on the female names. Okay, herb, herbap Fen. I still like the other name, fensnuth, I don't.

Andrew: 54:05

I don't like any of these.

Joe: 54:06

No A guy Glyphlawa, kind of Luffa Dlep. I can't even pronounce some of these.

Andrew: 54:11

All right, let's see, I think so. So so, zanrose, zanrose, bumblebumble, I just love Bumblebumble.

Joe: 54:21

Bumblebumble is a great last name. I like it Okay.

Andrew: 54:24

So Zanrose Bumblebumble is, is our rock gnome monk? All right, so now we can go back to the abilities, let's go. Let's go to abilities. So we've determined race, we've determined class. Now let's go to ability. So, when you get to the ability score, you've got, you've got three options. So let's let's talk about each of these. There there's what is known as standard array, or your manual, your rolled ability scores, or there's a way, there's what you can do called point buying. So let's walk through each of these. So let's walk through standard array first. And Joe, why? What, what's so?

Joe: 55:07

standard. Standard array is is set up by the creators of Dungeons and Dragons, the fifth edition, where they give you six numbers for your stats. You remember, anything around a 10 is average. Anything above a 10 is above average. Anything below a 10 is below average. So they give you a 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and an eight, and the basic idea is look, you don't want to spend all your time rolling and then trying to decide here, use these six numbers and put them into where you need to.

Joe: 55:41

Now, you remember when we were going through the basic rules, they said, hey, on this class, you need to put you know, we recommend these two. And then, on this class, we recommend these two. So you'd put your 14 and your 15 into the top two recommended stats and then you just kind of disseminate the rest of them and putting your, your eight, in what's called the dump stat, meaning like that's all I had left. I just dumped my my lowest points into that one, right? So this one's easy, so that you can just kind of do it. It does allow for flaws in characters which, with that eight and that 10, it makes it so that you're not really a super human. There's possibilities, because an eight is actually a minus two Right, so it's a minus two modifier to whatever you put it into, which is pretty drastic in certain cases.

Andrew: 56:28

Yeah, but and remember, you can also offset that, so let's remember. So. So, for example, the gnome gets a racial bonus of a plus two to intelligence and a plus one to constitution. So if you wanted to offset the eight, you could put that into intelligence at the plus two and you're back to 10. So you're back.

Joe: 56:48

you're back to zero, You're back to zero For a modifier Right.

Andrew: 56:52

So so there, there are ways to offset them. But so that's that's. That's the first method, the standard, standard array we're going to, we're going to skip by manual, enrolled, and let's talk about point by See.

Joe: 57:05

I. I like the idea of point by. Cat has done this, I haven't done this yet. Me neither. I like the idea in general.

Joe: 57:14

So the basic concept is in constitution and in the point by. They give you 27 points. Every strength, every, every ability starts out as base of eight and then you add your 27 across the six of them. So if you do the math kind of quickly, you basically can add four to most of them and I think it's five to two of them, and you, you balance out and you're done. So now that's kind of interesting, because you now have a line that shows all eights and beneath it is a quick another line that shows you what your current total will be for that one.

Joe: 57:48

So, like Andrew said, intelligence is a plus two. So the intelligence reads eight with a total of 10. So you can take these points and adjust them as every you want. You can literally take 27 points, put them all into strength and max yourself out to 20. And now you're now. Now you're down to 20. Now, now you're down to 15 points. It gets to the rest of your stats. So you can literally put everything else at three at that point and you will end up with approximately, you know an 11 on everything, except for your one stat that you maxed out. So this allows a lot of individual creation, a lot of individual. I want to minimize my strength strategy too Right and I want to minimize my strengths, maximize my weak. I want to maximize my strength, minimize my weaknesses and just balance out everything I want and, like you said, take strategy, because you need to know. Well, I don't want to be sucking at this, but you know, I need to balance it out, right.

Andrew: 58:42

So those, those are the two alternative methods we're going to, as, as we're doing everything with these characters, we are going the the randomized route of we're going to manually roll out all of these, all of these stats. So we're going to, we're going to roll six, six ability scores, and then we're going to assign them to to the six different abilities and and see what, see what happens. Let's do it, maybe again. May the odds be ever in our favor. The dice.

Joe: 59:15

Oh, oh 18. Nice start. So. So what happens here is there. There are several ways. Before we get any further, there are several ways to roll up your stats. Yes, one of the most common ways is you take three dice and you roll them and you use that number no matter what. One of the ways in order to make your character a little bit stronger is you roll four dice and you just take the top three. Now we're using DND beyond to roll for us, and Andrew pushed the button and we got three sixes and a five. So the five gets discarded and that gives us the 18, which is massive for a level one character.

Joe: 59:56

That's as high as you can go I mean you can't go any higher as a level. One character. But except if we took that and dumped that into intelligence to make it 20, which we had to see what everything else rolls out.

Andrew: 1:00:06

Let's say okay, so that's, that's our first one. Let's let's see how the rest of these go. I'm going to get an eight 13.

Joe: 1:00:12

13. All right, so remember again now 10 is an average person. Anything above a 10 is better than average, and a 13 is actually on the upper side of where an average comes out at 12, 13. Yeah, when you start point buying and you start assigning things, so that's pretty good All right. Oh, there's an 11. There's an 11. Hey, we're going to be completely average on something. Yeah, oh, there's another 13.

Andrew: 1:00:41

Okay, another 13. All right, Another 13.

Joe: 1:00:47

We're coming out slightly powerful.

Andrew: 1:00:52

Oh, there's an eight, there's the eight.

Joe: 1:00:55

We're going to be stupid at something, exactly, exactly, all right so so our we're going to have to assign them.

Andrew: 1:01:01

So we've got, we've got six, six scores now 18, 13, 13, 13, 11 and eight. So we were we're it's pretty, pretty evenly. It's pretty even because we've got one. That's a pretty decent spread.

Joe: 1:01:14

We've got one super one, we got one that's not so good. Yeah, we got one that's a little low and the other three are kind of like middle of the road, like if you got a 15 every. If you got a 15 and you're dice rolling, that's slightly above the average of what you would get for mulling three or four dice. So ending out with 13s is actually pretty good. So, as a, as a, as a monk, we want to definitely be looking to put something good in dexterity. Yes, and we want to definitely. What's the modifier for key? I don't remember. Key is second level when you start getting to use your key points, but I forget what. The modifier is. That wisdom.

Andrew: 1:01:52

I don't recall. We can, we can roll back and Plus your wisdom, the wisdom. The key saved DC is your wisdom modifier, so key is the ability you get at second level. It's not magical, but it's similar to that stents, but the key points that you get are based on just whatever level you're at, so so there's no, we're looking, we're looking at this and we're saying okay, so wisdom is the other. Yeah, the starting wisdom.

Joe: 1:02:26

The starting wisdom are the two are the base ones that are recommended by by the by the adventure.

Andrew: 1:02:30

I probably say, dexterity should be the 18.

Joe: 1:02:35

Only because we don't have any other bonuses already built into it.

Andrew: 1:02:37

Absolutely yeah.

Joe: 1:02:39

So 18 is going to round out to a plus four on your modifier Right, which is going to be huge for us. Actually, we should also look into putting something big into wisdom, because our armor is going to be based upon our strength, our dexterity and our wisdom as well. So we should probably look to putting one of the 13s into our wisdom.

Andrew: 1:03:00

Yeah, I would completely agree. I would say wisdom, wisdom gets a 13. Absolutely, I'd say constitution, especially because we have the plus one in constitution. Yeah, give that a 13 as well, because that'll put it up to a 14.

Joe: 1:03:12

Which gives us a plus three there.

Andrew: 1:03:14

Yeah, all right, so we're going to, we're going to give constitution a 13.

Joe: 1:03:19

No, it's plus two. I can't remember. I thought on my head.

Andrew: 1:03:24

Uh, so so now we have, we have another. 13 are 11 and eight.

Joe: 1:03:30

So what's the other modifier? So our intelligence has a racial bonus of a plus two. So our question here is what do we want to do? Do we want to dump the eight into the intelligence and make it average? That's what I would do. See, that's what, okay, so? So I would actually want to be bumping the eight, one of the 13s, put the last 13 into intelligence, to bump up the intelligence, because the guy is a rock gnome. He's supposed to have. Okay, he's a rock gnome, but that's just me, so hold on a second. So what do we got? We got three numbers left.

Andrew: 1:04:03

We got a. So again we've got strength. Intelligence and charisma are three, three ability scores left and we have an 11 or 13 and eight. So I would say, maybe what if we put the? What if we put intelligence at the 11, the strength of the 13 and charisma at an eight?

Joe: 1:04:21

Yeah, he just won't be very good at talking to people. I'm liking that I think. I think that's fine he's a little intro socially awkward or, if you want, we can assign numbers One, two, three, enroll a six. I have dice. I don't know what's what's, what's still this, so do what she said. Yeah, okay. So strength of the 11.

Andrew: 1:04:41

I thought I said strength of the 13, strength of the 13. We're going to give intelligence the 11 because it's got a plus two racial bonus.

Andrew: 1:04:49

Yep, so automatically put it up to 13. Yep, and then charisma will get the eight. So we're going to do so as a review. Dexterity because, remember, dexterity and wisdom are our two key ability scores. So dexterity is going to get the 18, wisdom is going to get a 13. Constitution and strength We'll also get 13s. And intelligence will get the 11 because it's got a plus two racial bonus. So that'll bump it up to a 13, and then charisma is the eight. That's our dumb stat. Yep, all right. So I want to work the wood. That's right, he's, he's. He's a man of action, not a man of words, absolutely. So we're going to click apply ability scores.

Joe: 1:05:42

And where we go.

Andrew: 1:05:43

So now we have. So now to review. So so dexterity was the 18, so it has a mod of a plus four modifier, which is really important. Wisdom is the 13. So it's got a plus one modifier.

Joe: 1:05:57

So that means our armor class is going to be a 15, which is nice, so, which is about average for a first level character. Especially if we were playing a fighter or something like that, he would have the armor in the shield, which would bunch them up to around 14 or 15 anyway, right, so we're in good shape for that way.

Andrew: 1:06:13

Excellent. So we feel good with our, with our ability scores. So we're going to go on to next and this is going to be our description. So and again, we I've got way too many extra backgrounds in here. So in the basic rules there are one, two, three, there's six, six backgrounds All right. So the why don't you review the backgrounds? And I will roll.

Joe: 1:06:39

So we got six. We have acolyte, criminal, folk hero, noble, sage and soldier acolytes Kind of like you know you're in a temple, you just have some basic background of religion. Criminal, Obviously, is a criminal folk hero somebody who's done something relatively popular, popular and helpful in their, his own society. A noble is not gotten quite obvious. Maybe he's the youngest child of a noble family who didn't sit with the rocks, Uh-huh, Say just somebody who studies and spent a lot of time by themselves off on their own, Um, and then you know, a soldier is a soldier. So I think a lot of these could fit and and we could make and again, like like we've been, I've been saying this is how you make a backstory.

Andrew: 1:07:22

Say like I feel like if I had a, if you had to pick, I know what I would pick out of out of these six. What would you pick If I? Had to pick you do, you have to pick.

Joe: 1:07:34

I have to.

Andrew: 1:07:35

Yes.

Joe: 1:07:36

I would probably take the noble, because I would make him the youngest son of a noble family who was, you know, never really paid attention to, and when everybody else was off working with the rock, he was looking at the wood chair and he was, you know, fiddling with the wooden chair, or something like that. I think I would either do the noble or the soldier and and the after his life in this, in soldiering and, and we know he did his term of duty or something like that, and then he decided you know what I'm done? Uh, you know, these people are obsessed with rocks. I want to go and explore and learn about these trees and this wood thing. Like, maybe he's just like an outcast from that spec. That's how I would do it.

Andrew: 1:08:17

Interesting, I would, I would go with the sage background and, again, because we already have, we already have the, the proficiency in history.

Joe: 1:08:30

Okay.

Andrew: 1:08:30

So so this would this would be somebody that's studied. He's studied martial arts, he's studied woodworking to build his weapons. So I think I figure, like he's a, he's a, he's a. He's a student of the world has gone out to learn a lot of things he's he's learned how to fight with his hands. He's learned how to build with his hands.

Joe: 1:08:50

Isn't that interesting? Like you're looking at the backstory about how he came to the physical capabilities that he has now and I'm looking at the backstory of how he was like not accepted or whatever, and he decided to walk out. It's interesting how two different people approach the same back Exactly.

Andrew: 1:09:03

That, that, that's, that's again. That's what's so fantastic about building these characters.

Joe: 1:09:08

And you don't even have to do your favorite thing, because after you've made three or four characters, you stop making all your favorite things and start making the other things you're interested in, right.

Andrew: 1:09:15

Exactly so we are. We are going to randomize this again as well and see see what we come up with. We've got, we've got the four, which is noble, a noble, a noble.

Joe: 1:09:29

Am I winning again?

Andrew: 1:09:31

Again, it's not about we. Again, this is. This is like. This goes back to the one of our, one of our original questions how do I win D and D? There is no winning, it's just. It's just different choices. So we are going to choose noble.

Joe: 1:09:46

All right. So you understand wealth and power. You have a title, your family has land. You've never really had any discomfort or work. You know you might be a pampered and you might not have no anything about it. Um, you get an additional proficiency and the skills. One of them is persuasion, so you're able to talk to people, which is actually probably pretty good, because our person, we're going to need it, because we have very shitty charisma. We only have an eight yes and, and this bonus will give us a plus two, so it'll help offset that minus one?

Andrew: 1:10:17

No, the minus two. Is it a minus two at eight? That's those minus one.

Joe: 1:10:21

Maybe it is a minus one. Yeah, you're right, minus one.

Andrew: 1:10:25

So I set that minus so yeah.

Joe: 1:10:27

So anytime you're trying to you, uh, career, persuade anybody with something you know, it'll balance itself out.

Andrew: 1:10:33

At least you're not at a disadvantage when you're when you're trying to persuade somebody. But then we get an extra skill.

Joe: 1:10:38

Yes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.

Andrew: 1:10:47

Let's roll a d 20.

Joe: 1:10:48

And if it turns out to be higher. So we got animal handling or cona athletics. Deception, insight, intimidation, investigation, medicine, nature perception, performance, religion, sleight of hand, stealth and survival, three which is athletics.

Andrew: 1:11:02

Well, hold on, don't. We have athletics already. I think we already have athletics as a proficiency, so let's roll it again. Let's re roll. That Are there. Are there 15 of them? Or five, six, 13, 14, 15, survival?

Joe: 1:11:22

Oh.

Andrew: 1:11:22

I like that survival. He will survive. That's it.

Joe: 1:11:25

I think it's a good one for a for a, and if you've got a thing for you, you've got to think about this right Again. Here I am building the backstory. As a noble, he was kicked out by his family and he had to learn to survive on his own. He had the struggle.

Andrew: 1:11:38

He doesn't have the privilege of being a noble anymore, so he has that bearing still but it doesn't have the, the, the advantages of it.

Joe: 1:11:45

So he had to learn how to survive, and that's when he found this monk to help him with his wood Interesting.

Andrew: 1:11:51

So now we get to choose another tool.

Joe: 1:11:53

another tool proficiency, which is a gaming set, in this specific case, gaming set dice I so let's okay.

Andrew: 1:12:00

So there's dice, dragon chess playing cards or three dragon anti.

Joe: 1:12:07

If we're going to pick something.

Andrew: 1:12:08

I see playing cards because of of oh, no, no, I think we should just roll it.

Joe: 1:12:11

I should roll it Absolutely. Cause the dragon trust would actually work really nicely with the row with the background. Yeah, so D four.

Andrew: 1:12:16

So let's say D four, that'll be four. So that's three dragon and anti. All right.

Joe: 1:12:22

I don't know what that is, but it sounds like fun.

Andrew: 1:12:24

Probably. My guess is it's probably like three card Monty. I've never played that, you know. Do you have you ever heard of three card Monty? Yes, okay, you shouldn't have played it, cause it's, it's, it's a gimmick, it's, it's, it's a way to steal people's money. Oh, is that when you turn one up and you say oh, this is where's the queen.

Joe: 1:12:45

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Andrew: 1:12:46

Okay, yeah it's, it's a hustler's game.

Joe: 1:12:48

It's. It's a way to take your money, so All right. So, oh, this is interesting. Then this is really interesting. I have this guy's developing in a background.

Andrew: 1:12:55

But, but see, but, but, but maybe again he is. He's had to survive on the street. So this is, this is a way for maybe him to make some money. Well, he's got high dexterity, so he's got the fast. Yeah, yeah, I like it, I like it.

Joe: 1:13:06

Say okay, say okay and this is how this happens, guys, and this is in girls. This is how your character develops, and and, and. The thing is, you know you do it once or twice. You're not going to be like kicking ideas like this, oh my goodness, but but again there there's so many extra languages here. So now we get an extra language as a, as a, as a noble, so let's, let's pick something logical then. So, as a halfling, he would be dealing with other races on normal. I'm sorry as a gnome.

Andrew: 1:13:33

Yes.

Joe: 1:13:33

As a as a noble, he would probably be dealing with other races, and as a as as an a gnome, he would also be like moving crafts and and things that he created. Mm, hmm, um, he already speaks common, which is the human language. I would say, maybe, like Elvis, I was about to say Dwarvesh. Dwarvesh Only because dwarves and the, the gnomes, would seem to have a kindred between them. Okay, but I could go with the. We can go with something else.

Andrew: 1:14:03

I'm just, I'm just thinking high society, Like what's, what's like a.

Joe: 1:14:05

Ooh, that's a good point too, Like the dwarves are more workers. But if he's a noble, maybe he's a little snootier.

Andrew: 1:14:12

Like that's where I was going with it.

Joe: 1:14:13

I'll go with it. Go with it.

Andrew: 1:14:14

So we're going to Elvis, so Elvis, okay.

Joe: 1:14:19

Funny she doesn't look Jewish.

Andrew: 1:14:22

I was, I was, I was going to start singing like blue suede shoes, or you know, I'm going, I'm going that route. Um, okay, so there's, oh. So we got the background feature. Position of privilege.

Joe: 1:14:37

Thanks to your noble birth, people inclined to think the best of you. You're welcome in high society, but our guy is not going to be that way. Uh, people assume that you have the right to be wherever you are. Common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as the equal in the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local new noble. Wow, that could be very interesting. That could be, helpful.

Joe: 1:15:00

That could be very helpful. Yeah, I mean, you think about it. You walk into a town and nobody's going to believe some ragabond ruffian that he's, uh, you know, coming to give him a warning and he's like look man, here's my pet patents of nobility. Let me talk to your Lord because I have information he needs to know. Right, Interesting.

Andrew: 1:15:17

Let's oh no, let's dive into the suggested.

Joe: 1:15:20

Okay, so here this is.

Andrew: 1:15:21

This is where we get into rolling a lot of things. The suggested characteristics for for our rock gnome monk.

Joe: 1:15:30

So it suggests to pick two of these personality traits, which there's. Eight, so we'll roll a couple of D eights, yes, all right, so let's grab Uh. So the first one is eloquent flattery, makes everyone to talk, to feel like the most wonderful, important person in the world to the common folk. Love me for my kindness and generosity. Three nobody could doubt, by looking at my regal bearing, that I am cut and unwashed. Uh, cut above the unwashed masses. Four I take great pains to always look my best and follow the latest fashions. Five I don't like to get my hands dirty and I won't be caught dead in unsuitable accommodations. Six despite my noble birth, I did not play myself above other folk. We all have the same blood. Seven my favor once lost is lost forever. In eight If you do me an injury, I will crush you, ruin your name and salt your fields.

Joe: 1:16:17

And again these things are. These things are like. We talked about these background, personality traits and stuff like that. This helps you build your backstory and how your character should be portrayed in the role playing.

Andrew: 1:16:29

Yes, yeah, and again, you don't have to use these. These are just. These are just guides as to To yeah, Options for for how to build. So you don't have to come up with your own Right so we and you don't have to roll to to pick them. But again, because we're doing everything random, we are going to roll these and and just see where, see where the dice lead us. So I'm going to roll two D eights and Roll two D eights and see what, what happens, oh, these these are really good three and eight.

Andrew: 1:17:10

So we got three, which is no one could doubt by looking at my regal bearing, that I am a cut above the unwashed masses, and eight, which is if you do me an injury, I will crush you, ruin your name and salt your fields. So think about this.

Joe: 1:17:25

This is noble, who's been, who's been ostracized by his family, spent, sent to to to make his own. He's as a survival, that's where he developed his survival skills. And then when he gets out there, people see him. He looks like he's ragged, he looks like he's a, he's a ragabond. But the way he, that's how he's dressed, but the way he carries himself, he has a regal manner and a regal attitude. And the second, somebody treats him subpar. He just beats a crap out of him and he just destroys the wares or whatever. I liked it. They see, this is all character, this is all how you start your Right.

Andrew: 1:17:58

So we're going to add those two Good, right Now, ideals. So we've got a whole bunch of ideals for for our. There's six of them. So there's respect. Respect is due to me because of my position. Responsibility it is my duty to respect the authority of those above me. Independence I must prove that I can handle myself without the coddling of my family, like that. One. Power If I can attain more power, no one will tell me what to do. And these all have. We're going to talk about alignment. So so these have all different alignments associated with them. Family is another ideal ideal. Blood runs thicker than water, and noble obligation is my duty to protect and care for the people beneath me. So so some of these are good. Some of these are lawful, chaotic evil. So let's, we're going to roll. What the D six to see? Yep, one D six. You only get one of these in this case.

Joe: 1:18:52

What what is what is our? The independence is a good one, but you know we're going by Zan Ross. Zan Ross is going to be an ideal.

Andrew: 1:19:02

What's the ideal for Zan Ross Three, which is independence? Ooh again, this is really good, I must. I must prove that I can handle myself without the coddling of my family. This is, this is all rolling, really. Yeah, this is coming together nicely. So here's the idea too. Now, right.

Joe: 1:19:18

So the the alignments that we will talk about, this one's chaotic, which means it doesn't really tend itself to evil or good. It depends on how you use it, and you'll find that, indeed, the alignments really don't mean much, unless you are role playing and you decide to dive into your role play.

Andrew: 1:19:38

Indeed, this is exciting. Okay, now onto onto bonds. So we can choose one, and there's six of them. So what are the bonds for Zan Ross? So we're going to start.

Joe: 1:19:49

You're going to face the challenge to win the approval of my family. Something else that would fit in, because he's left and he's going to succeed at this my house is alliance with another noble family must be sustained at all costs Wouldn't fit in, but we can build a story around it. Nothing is more important than the other members of my family would not fit in at all. But we can find him having regret and that's why he wants to win back into their favor. I mean, you can twist a lot of this. I am in love with the air of the family that my family despises.

Andrew: 1:20:18

That works out really nice, really nicely.

Joe: 1:20:22

I, my loyalty is to my sovereign is unwavering. That could work, but you know, and the common folk must see me as a hero of the people Now this also works is like you know. The common folk would look at him like you're not working with rocks. Why are you? No? No, you have to see what I can do. I must prove myself. I mean another, another option of proving myself.

Andrew: 1:20:40

He's a hero of the people. He's not. He's not just a noble, you know. He's not not just to be admired because he's a noble, but because of what how he can help the people. There's a lot we can do with that. Let's see what this will be interesting. Three nothing is more important than the other members of my family.

Joe: 1:21:03

Okay. So now, just going off the spit on the top of the head, he's left but he is not. Or she is left because we said it was going to be a she. She is left but she's not homesick. She's resentful of the fact that she felt the need to leave and now she has to come up with some way to go back to them and prove to them that she is worthy. And as a DM, a person might find a way to input a member of that of her family into the campaign to create conflict. Now, this person has this independent streak and he's doing all this or she's doing all this and that and the other thing and all of a sudden, well, you know, somebody kidnapped your brother or your father and I was like no, I got to go save them. I mean, yeah, I disagree with them, we hate each other for X, y and Z, but they're my family.

Andrew: 1:21:58

Right Now onto my favorite part, the flaws.

Joe: 1:22:02

I keep remembering when we'd first created. Your flaws for Fianc was uh no, it wasn't really the flaw. I guess it was one of the personality traits you were supposed to give a certain percentage of whatever gold was in your pocket away every time you walked into town. That was fun.

Joe: 1:22:17

It was, it was a lot of fun, and this is where I fall down as a DM. In general, I I'm, I'm a good person to introduce somebody to the game, but I don't get into every single aspect of the game with them and that's like, that's it. I don't. I don't dive into those things I like to, but I just don't have them head for it.

Joe: 1:22:40

Oh so the flaws. I believe that everyone is beneath me. I hide a truly scandalous secret that could ruin my family. I am too often. I too often hear veiled threats and insults and every word that talked to me, and I'm quick to anger. I have an insatiable desire for decadent pleasures. In fact, the world does revolve around me and by my words and actions I offer them, bring shame to my family.

Andrew: 1:23:06

So I rolled the six, which is by my words and actions I often bring shame to my family. So this particular group of rock gnome.

Joe: 1:23:17

Rock gnomes are very heavy into and he brought the. She brought the shame by being interested in the wood. Oh, this is a nice contradiction.

Andrew: 1:23:26

I mean, this is, this is a short story. I mean, come on. This is like you know now we have to choose an alignment for for our character. So we've got chaotic, between chaotic waffle and neutral. So there's chaotic evil, chaotic good and chaotic neutral waffle, evil, waffle good waffle, neutral and neutral. Just purely neutral, neutral evil and neutral Good. Should we, should we roll this?

Joe: 1:23:57

How many of them are there?

Andrew: 1:23:58

There are nine.

Joe: 1:23:59

Well, hold on. So first, let's do this. A good character is a person who, in general, will do things that are for the betterment of society or the people that they're currently working or dealing with. An evil person in general will do what's best for themselves and for their following or whatnot. And a neutral person, kind of, is more like life happens, let it happen. Now you got the chaotic, which then I mean you got the law fall in the one hand where it's like anything I can do, I will do, but as long as it's in the law. And then you have the chaotic. That's like I don't care what the law says, I'm going to do whatever I want. That I think is right or I think is wrong. That's the chaotic aspect.

Joe: 1:24:38

And then and then the, the, the neutral concept is like you kind of toe the line between both aspects. So there's not. I kind of, I kind of want to avoid being evil, but that's just in my head. So yeah, roll out a D 10 and we'll ignore the 10.

Andrew: 1:24:53

So well, let's, let's talk about this. We don't necessarily have to roll this one. I would say, for for everything that we, we built out about this character, I would. I would probably land somewhere in chaotic good or chaotic neutral, just just just based on everything that we've rolled out for this character already.

Joe: 1:25:16

I'm thinking, chaotic, neutral myself. Yeah, because he's obviously chaotic, jordy. Jordy is playing with my, my empty water can't buy a glass and he's very fascinated by the silverness of it. See, it's from Valley.

Andrew: 1:25:32

It's like toy.

Joe: 1:25:39

I'm thinking. I'm thinking the chaotic, because obviously he's not going along with his societal norms, and then the neutral, because if he was chaotic, good, I think he might, she might decide to try to stay with her family. But I think if he's, if it's a chaotic, neutral, it's like look, I, I, I love you guys, but I got to get out of here. You're, you're, you're not. No, I think chaotic, Well, cause we're cause.

Andrew: 1:26:03

Remember, remember. The one thing that we've got going on is um, if you do me an injury, I will crush you, ruin your name and salt your field.

Joe: 1:26:13

So that's so that would shy away from the idea of making them good yeah.

Andrew: 1:26:19

Like I feel like is like we're good, but if you cross me I will ruin you. Yes, like kind of thing, okay.

Joe: 1:26:26

So I like that.

Andrew: 1:26:27

All right, so let's call that, let's call it chaotic neutral.

Joe: 1:26:30

You're right, that fits in great. Um we, let's, let's come back to the idea of faith.

Andrew: 1:26:35

Another time yeah.

Joe: 1:26:35

The truth of the matter is as, as a rock gnome, they're going to be an artisan. We can look up at a later time what type of gods that the gnomes would have worshipped, and stuff like that. We can fill that in later, but that's a lot more deeper dive. I'd be honest with you unless you are a paladin or a cleric, most people don't really worry too much about the faith aspect. Right?

Andrew: 1:26:55

Yeah, so we can. We can skip that for now. Now, lifestyle anywhere from wretched to aristocratic.

Joe: 1:27:02

I think we have to go poor because he wants to be something more. She, I keep guessing that she wants to be something more than what she can be, but she doesn't have the ability to sustain herself beyond some modest means. But I don't think modest makes sense because she basically has nothing. She left from nothing, so she's starting from nothing. So I think poor two silver pieces versus one gold makes more sense.

Andrew: 1:27:26

Yeah, but again you know she's, she's doing three dragon auntie on the street so she she could be making some money for herself, like how much money is she making for herself? But like I think poor, I think modest, modest or poor, modest or I think modest.

Joe: 1:27:42

Okay, I'm good with that Cause cause again, I'm not that strongly about poor that I would want to argue the fact that I think I think modest would work, A modest lifestyle keeps you out of the slums and ensures that you can maintain your equipment.

Andrew: 1:27:56

You live. You live in an older part of town, renting a room in a boarding house in our temple. You don't go hungry or thirsty and your living conditions are clean. If simple, ordinary people living modest lifestyles include soldiers with families, laborers, students, priests, hedge wizards and the like. So I think that's. I think I think that fits in fine.

Joe: 1:28:12

Yeah, do me a favor, just click on the pool on the um, I'm poor, I'm poor. Let's just see what that reads. You're going to corridor uh. Comforts in a stable community, simple food and lodging is threadbare clothing, unpredictable conditions, results and sufficient the probably unpleasant experience. Accommodations might be a room of a flop house or the common room above a tariff and you benefit from some legal protections, but you still have to contend with violence, crime, disease. People at this lifestyle level tend to be unskilled laborers, cost mongers, peddler, thieves, mercenaries and other disreputable types, which, which, which I think would still fit with the three dragon anti aspect, because that's kind of dishonest but I'm good, I wouldn't call.

Andrew: 1:28:53

I wouldn't call her disreputable, though I'm good with the modest, I'm good, okay. So we'll settle on modest, okay, um oh physical characteristics.

Joe: 1:29:02

So hair um, figuring a rock gnome would probably be more or less underground, uh, or or at the very least working in the ground a lot. But let's give her like a light brown hair instead of like dark brown or black, because it'll differentiate the fact that, look, she's different. It'll add into the fact that she's different than the rest of her family who tend to have darker hairs.

Andrew: 1:29:25

Well, let's go to, I'm going to, I'm going to go back to the the information on, on, on, on gnomes, to see what their, what their traits are. So we know they're between three and four feet in height, about 40 pounds. So we know that already.

Joe: 1:29:50

Um what else? Yeah, so, like you know the the, you're accustomed to life on the ground. Yeah, I'll have a lot of time when people spend outside. Their hair lightens because of the sun. Maybe she escaped from the underground more frequently than than her parents really wanted her to, so she tends to have lighter hair, so like a light brown hair instead of a dark brown or or a black hair.

Andrew: 1:30:12

Okay, so we're going to go. Hair light brown skin is olive. Sure.

Joe: 1:30:24

Because it wouldn't be dark skin, because she wouldn't. You know, in in a darker area, like the drought and the in the door guard, which are darker drought, dark elves and dark uh, dark dwarves, they tend to have darker skin as well. So she would be somebody who'd have somewhat lighter skin because she spent more time trying to go outside.

Andrew: 1:30:42

Okay, Um, what color? What color eye is doing? Doesn't gnome?

Joe: 1:30:51

Let's say, and then just spit ball in here like bright blue, something that differentiates her from everybody else.

Andrew: 1:30:59

Okay, we go. Bright blue, I get height. Now we know height should be somewhere between three and four feet.

Joe: 1:31:06

So so roll a D12 and if it's a uh, we'll go from three one inch to three to four foot, okay, so that's three feet five inches.

Andrew: 1:31:19

Boom, three feet five inches, okay, now here.

Joe: 1:31:23

Now we got the question of age, so the adulthood by 40 and they lived to about 350 to 500.

Andrew: 1:31:30

350 to almost 500 years so this actually is this I would. I would assume if, if our gnome has recently left home, they've probably reached the age of adulthood. I think so. They're probably at least 40. Let's roll a D20 and say 40 plus, yeah, 15.

Joe: 1:31:56

So 55. So my theory, again building onto the story aspect of this, is that she, xanrose, is 55. She ended up having an issue with her parents as she reached her age of adulthood and then she moved out and left. Then she spent several years on the street and then she failed into the the good graces of a monk who taught her the woodworking skills that she's always sought and gave her a home. Monks don't tend to have a lavish lifestyles. That's why the idea of a modest lifestyle fits into that as well. So like she's beyond the street slum days that she had. But she's learned somewhat, has learned not to be that extravagant person.

Andrew: 1:32:40

Right. Ok, so we've got all of this. Now we have our Xanrose Bumblebumble, the noble rock gnome monk with woodworkers tools. And so she is. She has light brown hair, olive skin, bright blue eyes. She's three foot five, weighs 29 pounds, is 55 years old personality traits no one could doubt by looking at their regal bearing. They are a cut above the unwashed masses and if you do them injury they will crush you, ruin your name and salt your fields.

Joe: 1:33:28

So she still has a little of that arrogance left over in her. Oh yeah, she will. She will crush you.

Andrew: 1:33:35

She's also independent. Nothing is more important than the other members of her family, but she still feels the need to prove her own independence of them Right, because she refused to count how to what they wanted. She can handle herself without the coddling of her family. But her family is still in, family is still important, and her flaw is that by her words and actions she often brings shame to the family. So that's her woodworking. That it would also. It's also why why she has such a low charisma score. She's always saying the wrong thing.

Joe: 1:34:12

Well, you know what the thing is again here feeds into it. She has low charisma. So she constantly talks about woodworking when all the important guests are over and her parents and her family kind of put up with it, but when these high nobles from the rest of the gnome rock gnome society comes in, they don't want to hear about it and she's like no, you don't understand. Wordworking is so much more superior than rockworking. I mean, like this is this is a pretty fun, pretty fun character. I think what I'm going to do is so we're going to come back next week to make our second character. When I done, quite done here. Yet we're going to come back next week to make a second character. But in the meantime I'm going to type up a little something for a back story for her. I'll flip it over to you. You modify it, what not? And then when we post this up on the discord, we'll have the whole thing filled in and they can kind of take a look at everything.

Andrew: 1:34:57

Excellent, excellent. So we got it. Now we have to choose equipment.

Joe: 1:35:01

Yes.

Andrew: 1:35:03

So equipment or gold.

Joe: 1:35:05

Equipment, of course Equipment. You can pick the gold and then you can go out and buy specifically what you want, but I like this better. So a short sword or a simple weapon, that's your first choice, I.

Andrew: 1:35:16

I'm opting for simple weapon. I agree, I again, I, I am going to, I am going to go to the way of being the woodworker. So I would say maybe, maybe, a club I love, quarter staff for a martial artist. I think it's a great, a great one About darts. She makes her own darts, makes her own darts.

Joe: 1:35:44

I don't know how I feel about that.

Andrew: 1:35:45

They're made out of wood right and she have sharp metal points, that's. Ok.

Joe: 1:35:50

Or they can still be wooden points. There's nothing that says they have to have a metal point. Ok, so I was thinking of dart, or I was thinking of sling, but I was thinking sling first, but then I can. Then I, then I saw the dart and I was like what if she, or, or the short bow, she makes her own arrows. She, she lovingly crafted a short bow and then made her own arrows. Oh, I just noticed, you got the boomerang there too. I mean, you got a boomerang.

Andrew: 1:36:20

How are there one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, forty, fifty six.

Joe: 1:36:27

So let's, let's roll d 20 and see, and we'll rule out the obvious ones, like a hand axe and a light hammer. We'll probably just rule those out.

Andrew: 1:36:37

I don't think there are 17.

Joe: 1:36:38

No, I think you said there are 15.

Andrew: 1:36:40

Yeah, OK, so let's go Now. Come on. Why can't I roll? Why can't I roll low for a change? She, you're right. Yeah, what's what's a? Nine? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine a sickle.

Joe: 1:36:58

I don't know how that doesn't fit. That doesn't fit what we're thinking.

Andrew: 1:37:00

No Eight, which would be the quarter stuff, quarter stuff done All right quarter stuff.

Joe: 1:37:10

I think you actually get 10 darts automatically. I just noticed, so we're good anyway, excellent.

Andrew: 1:37:15

I would probably say an explorers pack.

Joe: 1:37:18

I was actually going to say an engineers pack.

Andrew: 1:37:20

Really.

Joe: 1:37:20

Because she's coming from the underground. This is what she knows.

Andrew: 1:37:22

OK, that makes sense, I could. I could see that. So let's do the Dungears pack.

Joe: 1:37:26

That includes a backpack, crowbar hammer, ten pistons, ten torches, tinderbox, ten days of rations and a water skin 50. Fifty foot of help rope, yeah, strap to the side of it. Explorers pack is bedroll mess kit. Tinderbox, ten torches, ten rations, a water skin, have 50 for the I want to say Dungeoneering, but I'm thinking that now that she's out and she's on her own, I think the Explorer pack makes more sense.

Andrew: 1:37:51

That's that's what. That's what I was leaning towards.

Joe: 1:37:53

OK, fine. So, she has the 10 darts. Yes, as a noble, she gets starting equipment, starting with oh, what do you?

Andrew: 1:38:01

got A set of fine clothes, a signet ring.

Joe: 1:38:04

So these are going to be things that she probably doesn't wear normally. She probably has to have a pouch or a packet that she takes with her everywhere, which has what I was talking about before, that scroll of pedigree, Right, and then she has an extra 25 gold pieces. Maybe maybe she doesn't have 25 gold pieces. Maybe she has a fairly heirloom a family heirloom a minor one, but something she took from home because she values her family so much. Maybe it's a family crest or something like that that's worth 25 gold pieces.

Joe: 1:38:32

We can uncheck a purse containing 25 gold pieces, so I think it's why I still like the idea of her taking this like family, family crest, because then it's like there's that attachment. My family is still very important to me.

Andrew: 1:38:41

All right, so we'll add that starting equipment.

Joe: 1:38:43

Yeah.

Andrew: 1:38:44

Boom, all right, any, any. So we got the.

Joe: 1:38:50

Yeah, that's just the other possessions possessions items. We can add anything individually. Now, if we had a choice, we had anything specific that we wanted to add.

Andrew: 1:39:00

I don't think we need to add anything at this point. Again, we're trying to keep the simple, so. So let's not, we're not going to add anything additional at this point.

Joe: 1:39:08

Right, and we're going to change that currency from 25 gold into a family heirloom.

Andrew: 1:39:12

But we can do that, we can do that under possessions. Can't we, can't we. That's only we can only edit that one possession Can we add? We can't add.

Joe: 1:39:22

No I think possessions is just one long box.

Andrew: 1:39:26

So let's call it a Family family, if I can spell family crest heirloom family heirloom that's worth 25 and we're going to Take that down to zero gold pieces, right? Ok, good, excellent, so we've got, we've got all that, we've got all the inventory, we've got all the equipment, and that's our character. So now that's, that's, that's.

Joe: 1:40:00

Zan Ross, zan Ross. Now we have to come up with a picture for her, which will will dig into a little bit later. Yes, and we will put this all up on the discord once we have everything completed. Now you have the options. You can export it to a PDF so you can print it out for your in person game, or you can actually view the character sheet on D&D beyond. We're pretty much done here, making the character aside from this imaging and and the backstory, and this is it. I mean, yeah, it took us two hours almost to go through the whole thing, but it goes a lot faster when you're working by yourself. And then, obviously, the backstory creates a whole new process.

Andrew: 1:40:37

So now we've got our character minus minus a full backstory and and that, but we really have a pretty well flushed out character here, which I really I was. I wasn't sure where I was going to go in the beginning, but this is. This is a pretty cool.

Joe: 1:40:55

Yeah, no, I'm like in this, yeah, and, and I was like, especially like when we both said, oh rock, no, no, like neither of us have ever done it, and now like it, and half of this is your backstory. In my opinion, half of your backstory creates so much more enjoyment out of it.

Andrew: 1:41:09

Indeed, indeed, all right, so yeah, so we've got our, we've got our first character, so this is our weapon wielder character. Next is next episode. We're going to create the spellcaster.

Joe: 1:41:24

So, like we were saying, that's everything Now your characters created, except, like you were saying, andrew, the backstory, which I'm going to work on. You're going to work on the imaging. We'll swap things out. You give me a couple of options for imaging. I'll give you the backstory, we'll tweak and then, as soon as we can probably some time middle of this week, maybe close to the end we'll post it up on the Discord. Yes, indeed, next time, like I think you were saying and I had interrupted you, we'll come back and create our magical character.

Andrew: 1:41:51

Yes, Looking forward to that. Absolutely, I'm. It's funny like I could. I could go either way on on whether it's like a fighter, like a weapon, weapon wielder or spellcaster, like I. Just they both. They both have different things that appeal to me. Agreed, I like the spellcaster because it's you can cast different spells, it's customizable.

Andrew: 1:42:15

Yeah, it's it gives you some, some flexibility as far as that's concerned. So that's the nice nice thing about that. But we will do that next episode. Then we will probably take a break and we've got the holidays coming up and then we will come back after we create our two characters with our live play and and play those two characters and and have some fun with those so you can see what they, what they actually look like in in real life play. Thanks a lot everybody. Thank you for joining us. We will. We will catch you next episode.

Joe: 1:42:51

Have a great one.