Heroes Rise, third entry: Xanathar’s Guide to the Galaxy
Welcome, brave adventurers, to the third entry into the Heroes Rise chronicle. This episode was recorded on Saturday, 9th December 2017, and made available for download on Wednesday, 13th December 2017 at heroesrisepodcast.com
Dying Players Everywhere
This article was first broadcast in Episode Three on 15th December, 2017. Lennon: Just to check, Ostron, you mean “Dying Characters”, right? Ostron: … suuuuuuuuuure. Most DMs know that only 10% of the reason you have a screen is to hide the notes of your nefarious plans from prying eyes of the players. Most of the time the screen allows you to avoid having a roadside bandit that wasn’t even supposed to make it to melee completely mutilate the level 1 bard because you rolled a critical hit followed by maximum damage. There are very different attitudes among groups and individual players about dying. There are also differences in opinion among Dungeon Master’s in how to respond. We’re going to quickly cover three general player attitudes toward character death, and three Dungeon Master approaches to killing playe–er, characters. Knights, Big Damn Heroes, and Roguelikes We’re going to group player’s attitudes…
Heroes Rise, second entry: D&D Next
Welcome, brave adventurers, to the second entry into the Heroes Rise chronicle. This episode was recorded on Saturday, 2nd December 2017, and made available for download on Wednesday, 5th December 2017 at heroesrisepodcast.com
Getting familiar with Familiars
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two on 6th December, 2017. “You did well in your scouting, Sir Fluffykins, though I could have used less detail about that mouse’s nest you found,” Aristobulus grinned at his familiar. “Meow,” replied Sir Fluffykins wittily, because he was a cat and only had 3 intelligence. 5e’s Find Familiar is a useful spell, allowing a spellcaster to summon a magical animal companion to assist them in their adventuring, as well as letting the character partake in a fine storytelling and magical tradition going back millennia. However, while many literary familiars are intelligent and capable of speech, 5e’s familiars are limited to the intelligence of the shape they take, which is to say animal intelligence. While this isn’t terribly limiting as far as game mechanics go, it makes it more difficult for the player to express the interplay between master and familiar. Aladdin’s Jafar…
Aarakocran Druids
This article was first broadcast in Episode One on November 29th, 2017. Lennon: So, you’ll have to forgive me. As a Brit, we don’t have “Thanksgiving” over here, so I’m not really familiar with it. When “Thanksgiving” comes up, what do you think of? Ryu: Druids! Ostron: Aarakocra! Lennon: I’ve got to be honest, that doesn’t seem quite right, but who am I to argue? I guess we’ll talk about Aarakocran Druids then… Aarakocra are a race of avians from the Elemental Plane of Air who were made available as a playable race in the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion. Although gifted with the ability to fly, they suffer from a short lifespan, reaching maturity in only three years, while most die of old age by thirty. On the Elemental Plane of Air, where nigh-immortal elementals and genies dwell in abundance, it’s hard to notice the difference; whether you live 70…
Heroes Rise, first entry: Xanathar’s Guide to (Almost) Everything
Welcome, brave adventurers, to the first entry into the Heroes Rise chronicle. This episode was recorded on Saturday, 25th November 2017, and made available for download on Wednesday, 29th November 2017 at heroesrisepodcast.com