previously on Dumbgeons and Dragons.
Hey, yeah, I work here. I work here.
You don't need to yell, though. That's alright.
Because now you're just drawing attention to yourself.
Okay, let's go, you guys.
Do you feel kind of a pressure on your foot?
No bottom step.
You want my bottom out of your face? What?
No, no.
I mean, yes, but no, the bottom step is
don't step on it.
It's going to be like boxes inside a box.
Right?
Are they labeled?
I'm going to grab some crates and see if they're labeled.
They are labeled with merchant names.
That also makes sense.
Oh, right.
Are we going to be able to carry these out of here?
Are they like maple syrup jugs?
No, they're larger jugs.
Son of a bitch!
Like gallon jugs?
Was I given a bag of holding from her by any chance?
That cunt.
Hey, guys, look, there's some
burlap bags over here.
Two in one, two in the other, two in the other,
and you're right, let's put these
to the side and just keep filling up eggs.
So Moot's pretty familiar with a lot of these
included in that
sticks root, goji leaves,
and sundrop.
So he knows those three real well
and can probably fake the other two if need be.
I'm going to pick up the box that says
hallucinogens and bring it back
further away from the creature.
The creature looks back up at you
and you see its teeth.
I'm going to pass the jalapeno popper towards it.
And it snatches it out of the air,
just like shredding it, there's cream cheese
everywhere.
Chu has noticed you three sneaking off.
Wide-eyed, like,
almost like, hurry up.
As you jump, you hear the cargo door open.
Ay! Ay!
Who left the door open?
Welcome to
Dumbgeons and Dragons.
We're a D&D 5th edition
actual play podcast, and I'm your
dungeon master Russ More.
And with me today is Tom Laird.
Hey, that's me. I play
Moot. He is a half-orc
wild magic sorcerer.
And Amy More.
Yep, that's me. I loved how high
Tom's eyebrows went when you called on him first.
I was very surprised.
Well, he didn't have to.
He didn't have the answer ready.
He didn't study for the test.
Teacher called on me and I wasn't ready.
And I play
Sullivan Sleight, a half-let
half-let.
That's where editing comes in.
A half-foot, no!
A light-foot halfling rogue.
Are you sure?
Maybe. Do you want me to say it again, but let's yelly?
And Carla Max did!
That is me.
I play Glim, a dragonborn
pAlydin.
Well, that didn't seem so hard.
And joining us today, a very special guest.
You know him from the blog and the book
The Monsters Know What They're Doing and his new
book, Live to Tell the Tale,
Keith Amman. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us, Keith. Thank you for inviting me.
Thanks for being here, Keith.
I feel like we should have a background.
Russ is so much nicer to us when there's a
guest, so...
Unless he's forced you to play someone
evil that we need to try to kill.
As we determined before we started
playing, I didn't force Keith to play anybody.
It's true.
It was all luck of the die.
Luck of the die.
Where do we usually go from here?
You can join us on Patreon and patrons get a special
episode dedicated to you like today's patron,
Ken Keane!
Thanks, Ken. Ken Keane? The alliteration on that is awesome!
Ken Keane is maybe a
superhero? Sounds like a superhero
name. Definitely
at least a friend of a superhero. For sure.
Yes, exactly. Sassy office mate.
Oh, I like that.
Kept in the dark, but he's got an idea.
Could be, you know,
future guy behind the computer
for said superhero.
I'd read this.
I'm interested.
We're hooked.
And now to the story. Fuck it, let's play
D&D!
Previously,
we left Mood, Glim, and Sully
who had just hopped off the Golden
Dragon with their wares,
their items they had stolen.
The ship.
Oh my god. I was like, did we get
super high? We were riding the Golden
Dragon. No, no, no. What is
happening? No?
No, right. We robbed a ship. Okay.
We robbed a ship. Quite successfully.
I know what happened. Against all odds.
Against all odds. We did it.
You rolled very well. Yes, I did.
You all successfully
hopped down to the dock where you
saw Shoe Left Hand's eye
and he's waving over to you like
hurry, hurry!
You hear a call from inside the ship
be like, hey, who left the door open?
And footsteps heading down towards
the door in the cargo hold.
I'll laugh.
It's time to go. We should skedaddle.
You follow quickly
behind Shoe who leads you across
the gangplank of the
dock and then you hear
a bell start ringing
from the Golden Dragon
and
not really coherent words
but more yelling be like, we've been robbed!
Somebody get...
And then you see, if you
look over your shoulder...
Do you look over your shoulder?
Sully definitely does.
Sully, you see
the crew that has
all recently come back aboard
this ship. They're looking over
the edge and you see one of them pointing
in your direction as you are carrying
several large sacks between the three
of you walking away from the
ship.
Shoe gets you to speed up
quickly and you head into Sarah
Loon and you see these men running down
the gangplank. He leads you down a couple
alleyways and ducks into
one of the buildings and
goes up a flight of stairs
and says, we gotta
get you out of here quick.
I know a guy who can
maybe can give us a hand.
We're gonna see how it
plays out though.
Just come on, follow me.
Yeah, okay, if we didn't have to get these stupid
jaws of stuff,
it'd be a lot easier to sneak around.
I don't...
You guys were the adventurers. I was the one facilitating
the making sure that
you know, it looked like we belonged there.
No, yeah, fair enough. You know what?
You sobered up real good too, like...
Amazing. You got us to this
very nice...
apartment?
Well, it could be somebody's
apartment. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Hey, Mrs.
Finkelstein.
Oh, so it's not just a flop house.
There's someone else who lives here. Oh, we just went into
someone's house. Nice to see you.
We're just cutting through. Don't worry about us.
Don't tell anybody. We're just gonna go out the
fire escape here up to the roof, okay?
It has a real, like, Ferris Bueller
vibe to it, and we're like, smells delicious!
Indeed.
You head out the... out Mrs.
Finkelstein's fire escape up to the roof.
Shoo, left hand, gets you
to duck down around the edges and says,
you just wait here. I'm gonna
send a signal and see
if he can show up.
A few moments pass and Shoo's kind of...
You see him kind of walking
awkwardly around, kind of waving,
and then you hear the sound
of soft foot pads land behind
you. You turn and you see...
You see
a very
lanky
tabaxi.
Head to toe,
light gray fur, with
very faint leopard
spots, wearing
what looks
somewhat like
monk's robes, but with a
very, very foreign cut.
And
he travels
light, he
has kind of a
crouch,
rests lightly on
both hands and both feet,
tail kind of waving
in the air,
and says,
welcome
seekers.
Oh Jesus, you scared the...
Are you who we're
waiting for? Is this your friend Shoo?
Shoo sees that
this character has landed behind you and says,
oh good, oh good, Flo are you here?
Look,
my friend's here.
You look and do you
want to give your current situation
a bit of a description?
What you guys look like.
Oh, sure.
I'm like, I mean like, I was like,
we're on a route. We stole some stuff.
We just went through an apartment building, I guess.
Yeah, Sullivan's light
is
kind of mocha-y skin,
dark hair, short for a
halfling.
No, he's tall for a halfling, but still
short because he is a halfling.
And yeah,
pretty little unkempt
little dude.
Glim is a dragonborn.
She's a big one. She's about six foot
five. She's kind of
wearing a robe right now because she's in
disguise as slim
because she got into a little trouble in this
town the day before.
But when her robe is not there, she's
pretty flashy looking. Metallic
brass, rose gold, platinum
strikes
quite a figure.
Yeah, and Moot is
a little on the short side for a half
orc. He's a little bit on the
young side of things too.
He was wearing a
floppy sun hat as a disguise, but
probably has ditched that now that we're
a little more mobile and we've
been seen and we're on the run.
Yeah, but did you like pocket that sun hat
or? I assume I put it in some sort
of bag for another purpose in time.
For later. Yeah.
Never know when you're going to need a floppy sun hat.
As I was saying, Floyd,
my friends here
are in a bit of a pickle. You see,
you might recognize the two of them from the
pictures around town. They were the ones
who went all blasty face on
on those cult members.
They do not post the pictures up this high.
Fair enough.
Okay, I forgot you don't come down
because yeah,
okay, I forgot you don't come down. That's okay.
So anyways, they're wanted
by the cult. And
well, they kind of just stole
some stuff off. I'm not
selling this very well. You guys, you
sold it to me really, really good.
You you explain what
you need done. Yeah, right. We're going to
need like eight pints of beer.
And
that's how we sold it to you the first time
you were actually doing kind of fine.
Okay, well, yeah, it's not
a good story. Glim here lit up a do
but in all fairness,
he wouldn't stop touching the donkey.
Glim, I'm not entirely sure on that one.
Well, remember, you were hiding
under the blankets. For good
reasons in which we will talk about at a
later time, not now in front of new friends.
God moot.
Sorry. You are
in need of beer. Why do you
not go to a tavern?
No, we're not being very clear.
What we are in need of
is getting the heck out of here.
We got in a little
trouble. Then we did some light
stealing.
Some light freeing of items
that we needed
to honor a blood debt. And now it'd be
great if we could just like get out
of this town. We're just trying to save
Moe's life. So you need to
move through the city on scene.
Yes, that would be great.
You seem really sneaky. I can help you with that.
Yes. I am
a disciple
of the Way of the Rooftop.
The Way of the Rooftop? This is the first
time hearing of that and then Moot writes
that down in his notebook.
Well, I'm surprised you haven't heard of it before, Moot.
I mean, you've worked on many a rooftop.
But yeah, I wasn't
told there was a Way of the Rooftop.
It is known
to only a few.
Now a few more. Any other
tips and tricks you want to tell us
about this Way of the Rooftop? If it's
going to help us, I mean, shouldn't we like
try to also
walk like a
Rooftopian?
Learning the Way
is not something you can do in a day.
It takes
a lifetime of
practice, discipline,
study.
Are you prepared?
For a lifetime of practice and study?
Listen, I have to get back
because I think maybe
they're going to release my friend Merv. And if
I'm not there...
Well, he...
So you are more interested
in
a short-term
services.
Definitely.
I see. Yes, yes.
A guide across
this part of the city.
Yes, you understand perfectly. That's exactly
what we need. A
very quiet, secretive
guide that can get us right out
of town. Who definitely knows where they're going.
Not who just
says they know where they're going.
Oh, we've had issues
in the past.
Yes.
If I may ask, where do you plan
to go after this?
Well, we
gotta take this stuff and
get...
Consulting notes?
Wait a minute.
It's not on here.
So the Tabaxi looks
at the amount of
stuff you're carrying.
And you look at the amount
of stuff that the Tabaxi
is carrying, which
seems to consist entirely of
a sling, one pouch, and a
water skin.
And he says,
you realize
carrying all of this
stuff is going to make it
much more difficult.
Yeah, it's kinda part of the deal, though.
A woman sent us through
a portal, and now we gotta get back to
Proska, so that we can give her
this stuff, so that
we have fulfilled
the promise that we made to her,
and so that nothing bad will happen to me.
Guys, don't they sound like they just got all
these great stories? Ah, that's where they
really hooked me.
So, out of character for a moment,
the city
that Sully just
mentioned, is that one that I
would have heard of? Is it
within this part of Symbia?
It's quite
a ways away, like it's probably
at least a 10 day travel.
But it's not on the
other side of the world, it's not something like they
have to teleport to,
or something like that. No, it's still on the same
sea. Just getting
to where we were right
now was a time crunch.
Okay, so
alright, got it.
Down from the street
level, you hear, I think they
went this way, and heavy footsteps begin
walking up towards, in
the direction of the building where you are atop.
Get low and follow me.
And I'm going to spend
two key points to cast Pass Without
Trace.
Okay, you
cast Pass Without Trace, using
key points, not even spell slots. Magic.
Okay, tell me
what your
goal is here, and everybody
How many bags did we have again?
Yeah, and I'd like to clarify
who's carrying what, because I'm very big and
strong, and I don't know that it makes sense for
the halfling to be carrying the large sacks
of things, whereas I'm a very large, strong
picture. My note says
I could take some of the burden. My note says, got all
the stuff. Perfect.
All wrapped up in a neat little package.
There it is. We got all the stuff off
the ship, we each kind of had our own sacks,
but perhaps now would be a good time
to redistribute that between the
dragonborn and the half-orc,
and maybe you can have
like, the little pouches.
The little pouches of dust. Yeah, I want
dust pouches. Okay.
I think, how many jars
were there? There were six.
There were six.
Oh, we have so much stuff.
I feel like
we're at Cust. Only we had a bag of holding.
Cargo
shorts of holding.
Maybe a fanny pack of holding.
Exactly. Yeah, six
alchemical jugs. The herbs in
the circlet, not a big deal.
Yeah, that's just all small. Six jugs.
Six milk jug size
jugs that you placed into burlap sacks.
Okay, you tell me who's got what?
I have all the
and whatnots.
Okay.
Yeah, you have all the herbs in the circlet.
The light stuff. I can fit into my
little satchel.
Yeah.
How big are you, Moot? You're big too.
I'm a little shorter than I used to be,
but yeah, I'm pretty decently
sized.
Well, maybe you can take two and I'll take four.
Sure.
Okay. Oh, my word.
I do that while I do Zumba. This ain't no
thing. I've been
working out this whole trip.
I'm jacked.
Shu, just before you guys
head off to begin
skimming silently across
rooftops, Shu turns to you. He's like,
I'll just go send them in the other
direction. You're like, I think I saw those crew
go that way kind of thing, okay?
I'll catch up with you later. Just
remember, he doesn't like to go to the
ground.
He whispers in your ear, he's like,
floor is lava.
Okay?
Okay.
Okay, perfect.
Shu, you've been an amazing
part of our trip. My ears twitch and I turn
around and say, did you say something?
No, nothing, nothing, nothing. It's okay.
We don't, we just, just telling
them not to, not to ask you to
take any shortcuts through alleyways or
anything like that. You know, you know
best.
I thought I heard my name.
Uh, I was just saying how
cool, how much of a cool dude you were
and you like to spend so much time up in the
up in the, the tops of the
buildings. It is not that I
simply like it. It is
what I have committed my life to.
You are, you are
the rooftops. I was
merely, I merely adopted the rooftops
but you, you was born in the
rooftops, that's... Hey Shu, aren't you
gonna go make a distraction? I think so, I'm gonna go
check in with Mrs. Finkelstein. She looked a little bit
scared and Shu runs off and
you four begin following
behind.
Which way,
tell me where, what floor
is lava does
and which way do they go?
That's the full name?
Yes, floor is lava. That's awesome.
That's amazing.
So topical. Geez.
So, we are right
now on the top of a two story building
and
I
lead them
in the direction of the
the way they
would have to leave in order to go
to the city that Sully named.
And it's
it's not necessarily the most
direct route because
we are going from
rooftop to rooftop with the
with the occasional
with the occasional jump.
But
the
they are
so far never more than
about five feet between
buildings.
And
we are staying
low.
I am at least attempting to move
stealthily. Everybody roll
a stealth check.
I was going to say we are all attempting to move stealthily.
You do have your plus
ten, I believe, with pass without trace.
Guys, I am going to be stealthy as shit.
You can roll to two.
I don't know.
But you should have crazy bonuses.
I do, but that's not the point.
Nineteen.
Oh hey, that's what I ended up with.
Shut up. It could have been amazing.
Is that with pass without trace or before it?
With it.
And I am twenty-two.
Jesus, you are carrying four bags
filled with terracotta pots.
It's like nothing.
Just silently leaping from building to building.
So, Floor, you look behind you
and surprisingly
I could picture
you looking at this group with these
big jugs in bags thinking
we are going to get caught in
under ten seconds.
You turn back after you hop a few roofs
and they are surprisingly
silent.
There is a little clanging, but
you are pleased, I would think.
I've got a twenty-five by the way.
Perfect.
We bow to the expert.
I think I put the jugs in my backpack.
I want my hands free.
Okay, I didn't know you had a backpack.
We all start with our adventure.
Fair enough.
Even just in case Russ was going to call me on it,
I just double-checked and I definitely have
one in my inventory.
Stop saying I don't own a backpack.
Yeah, Russ.
So it is a bit of a winding path
because it's like
finding the right rooftops that you
can jump from one to another
is
sort of like running a maze,
but very much like running a maze.
It's our specialty.
But we are not leading this.
We are making our way in that direction.
Okay, so the three of you,
after a little while, you notice
you are backtracking
and you are going in different directions.
You know because of where you came into the city
which way you should be going out,
but you seem to be doubling back a little bit.
Guys,
I don't want to be rude
to our guide here, but
maybe he's lost or something?
Because I've seen
other...
winds sometimes backwards in the backwards direction.
Well, I think he
clearly has
very strong faith in his rooftop
beliefs, so
as another person of faith,
I trust him. I think he knows
what he's doing.
What's Floor's passive
perception?
It's 15.
And I don't know if you looked, but
I do have a mixed background
and the city secrets feature.
Okay, you are
carrying on your path, hopping from
rooftop to rooftop, everybody staying
really quiet, surprisingly
behind you.
As you get, I don't know, about a quarter
of the distance that you feel you need to go,
you hear
wings and like a whistle
up above in the air.
Floor.
Okay.
I pause,
put up a hand,
and say,
this way.
And hustle them
over toward the nearest
chimney that we might be able to
hide in the shadow of.
It'll have to be a pretty large one to hide
the dragonborn and the half-orc.
I feel like you have
to hop another roof, but you're able to
carry the stealth.
Glim and
Moot, I feel like
Sully and Floor
would be able to get
into a shadow quick enough and well
enough, but Moot and Glim, roll me another
stealth check.
Okay.
Twenty-five. Twenty-two.
Geez, the wheezes, you guys.
You angle
the shadow so that it's just perfect.
And then
you're directed
you see
almost like a bat-like
creature
whip by your location just as
you manage to kind of
all turn around a corner.
And it flies up and into the air.
And how big is it?
It must be big?
It's like a little bigger than
yeah, a little bigger than it looks like
a bat, but it's like
You're making very large hands.
I've seen a bat.
The body is like a
It's like the size of a basketball?
About half of a basketball.
The body's half of a basketball?
Yeah. Okay.
Like a volleyball.
Like a volleyball with wings.
We're all such sports stars.
I'm glad we're using these
sporting terms.
These perfect
measurements. Floor, you would recognize them as
sentry gargoyles.
So much smaller gargoyles.
Watch out for them.
They are fast. They are alert.
And they attack the weak.
Now Moot, be careful.
Did you hear that? They attack the weak.
What do you mean?
I'm just trying to make light of the situation.
I'm sorry, I'm like really stressed out right now.
I have two of these jugs and you don't have any.
I didn't know we were
comparing who could carry that many jugs.
Fine, I'll take a jug.
Moot, do you need me? Moot, do you need me to take a jug?
Look, are you having trouble?
No, I'm fine. Let's just not be throwing out
insults, quite frankly.
Listen, I'm sorry.
I'm just under a lot of stress.
Okay, sorry.
Floor,
how many of these things
are there?
Many.
Countless.
It is best to hide.
But how long are we going to be hiding for?
That's a good question.
Not like I have any routes to be anything.
I'll just
peer out as subtly as I can
to see where it seems to be going.
You watch it for a while
and it kind of does a circle around
the area that you're in
and then you see
a few more kind of dart through the sky
above and then they all kind of
scatter and go out to
a different area.
You, having city knowledge, would know that yes,
there are many of the smaller ones
and you know
that there are
four
much larger gargoyles
that if they're
triggered,
if the small ones detect
something, they go back and report
to these bigger ones who then come out.
Once they
scatter, I'll begin leading them
slowly again.
You head back out
and begin making your way across
the rooftops.
As you jump over
a couple of them,
you catch out of the corner of your eye
as you're all jumping over
that down in the streets, you see
many of the helms
have come out
of their posts
and are now patrolling the streets below.
Like one or two
per street or like
masses.
You see them now on
like every street you pass by.
Cool.
This is nothing to worry about.
That's reassuring.
As long as we remain on the rooftops,
they will not see us.
Your calmness is
actually very comforting.
Have you never played Overwatch?
Nobody ever looks up.
I mean, that is
a pretty hard and fast rule.
You follow
Floor's path through the city
and he's leading you under
different areas of rooftop
and back up onto.
And you get to one rooftop
and I'm going to say
you definitely see it.
You silently land on the roof and you see
the back of one of these large
gargoyles patrolling the street below.
It doesn't appear that you've
alerted it as you land on the top of this roof.
Stop.
This one we need to be very careful of.
Should we kill it?
No.
Do not provoke it.
And I start leading
them very, very
slowly
and as silently as possible
directly away from it.
Okay.
This may take us out of our way, but
we must avoid that one.
I'm not going to lie to you. I don't think anything
has been a direct route thus far.
So, I think it's okay.
The true way is not always obvious.
Oh, that's deep, man.
Fuck. Glim is so
into all of the, like, mystical part
of this mythology. And Moose just been
frantically writing down everything
that Floor's been saying. Are you jumping with like a
rope hat? Floor's the coolest
person we've met in a while.
No offense to our friend Shue who just helped us
rob a boat.
Okay. Everybody
as you turn and begin walking away
make a stealth check.
Glim
probably with disadvantage.
Because you have four big jugs
on your back, Glim. Stop talking about
Karla's jugs.
25 again for Floor.
14. 31.
Yo!
It was going to be 29, but then...
24 for me.
I would like to point out that it is canonical
that I work out all the time the rock would not
have a problem carrying four milk jugs on his
back. That's right. Would you get the rock to roll that?
Yeah.
I would probably get the rock to roll
disadvantage on a stealth and or
strength check.
Let's make a better comparison.
Would you make Windy
the long roll?
I mean, you know, we're playing candy.
Let's use the right reference.
Okay. You all follow Floor
and
Glim as you hop up and over down
onto this ledge below
the jugs kind of clang together.
I'm 12.
Can't look at me like that.
You hear
heavy clawed
steps move across the roof that you were
just on top of as you were kind of
as you were quickly following behind
the group.
What time of day is this?
Night.
It is night? Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, I'm just going to keep
following until
I feel like I've caught up
if I have slowed down a bit
behind them while I stumbled
or whatever happened.
If we stop again,
which it seems like we are kind of like
pausing and waiting, then I
might ask Floor to like
give me a minute
and pull out the jugs and just wrap
them in my clothes so they can no
longer clang around together.
Okay. You follow behind
everybody else hears the jug
and then
hears those steps across
the top and you hear them
like grip into
a ledge a little further back
just as
the four of you kind of duck around
a corner. It's like the camera
view. You see it
and look down and around
just as the bag
gets sucked around the corner.
You have a moment to stop
and do so.
Thank you.
You take
a moment just to kind of collect yourselves
and redistribute the
the noisy makers in your bag
and you hear down below
the voice of Shu
who is
walking with a group
of the crew members.
He's just kind of walking through the streets
and you hear him yelling, oh yeah
I think they uh, yeah
excuse me sir, you're not going to believe
me but I got Spin Spinnaker and
the Spinsters here looking for
a few people. They were carrying lots of
sacks and things.
Uh, one was
shortish tallish, one was
roundish, skinnyish.
Yeah.
No? And then you hear
one of the crew members
say, if you are
leading us down a
winding path of nowhere
just so your friends can get away with our
goods, we're going to have
problems.
Oh, no problems, no problems!
Ha ha ha ha ha.
I don't know what you're
talking about, friends. I was
trying to help you being a good citizen.
You see
one of them pull a cutlass out
and move it towards Shu
who begins kind of
spacking away.
You know
I think if he had just a little bit more confidence
and just like really
sold it a little bit better and was all
like, I'm the
ship, whatever, like you know
he had his title and whatever and just like
Yeah, like when we were feeding him drinks. He was
really confident then. He was.
He just needs to pull out the clipboard that he uses
in his official duties as a dog
worker and they would believe him because you
always believe everyone with a clipboard.
Always. They look so official.
So how far away
from us is Shu
our Shu and the guards?
We'll say that they're like
down, like
not quite directly down
below you but you're about
two stories up and they're about half
of a building away from you.
Okay.
Where is the
where's the
farthest alley from
us that is still within 30
feet?
We'd say it's directly across
Yeah, we'll say it's like 25 feet away
if you go out and down this main
road. You see
floor is lava
make
a
a couple of
mystical gestures
and
point at that alley
and you hear in that
alley the exact
sound of those jugs
clanking together but louder
and then some footsteps
running away down the alley. That was a
minor illusion cantrip.
You
you hear the
the commotion stop
as that noise is made.
You hear Shu be like
oh hey that sounds like your jugs
uh they're this way
see I wasn't that far off
and he begins backing away carefully
and they start to follow him back
down the alley and he's like look
see it wraps around here
they probably went this way come on
follow me!
Wow thanks for doing that
for Shu cause I was all like
should we get him he's kinda on his own
at this point but you really took care of that
so like my conscience is clear and stuff thanks
Come this way now
we must make a faster pace
if we are to elude them
Yes of course
Alright if we're picking
up pace we're going to need
a dexterity
athletics or acrobatics
um
whichever your character
prefers
20
21
Carla
19
Floor rolled a natural
one on his
acrobatics
and um
yeah his total is only an 8
You know like when cats run into stuff
randomly
It's so funny but it's not
Someone put the cucumber
He flipped out
Yeah my foot
hits a loose
ceiling tile that I didn't notice
and it clatters
down
We're here in the middle
We sing all the time Keith
It's just what we do
Always an intro song
Keith gets it
Now can you spit us some
hot rhymes
Sometimes we try and do that and it is not good
I know my limits
It's good to know your limits
And we just keep trying to push through
But this is the point where
we come talk to you Keith
Because you have
two books
One is new that we want to tell everybody about
Where they can get it
It's called Live to Tell the Tale
New Out
Give us a little bit of
Why did you write this book
And who is it for
This book is for players
Mostly beginning and intermediate players
Although advanced ones might be able to
Pick up a thing or two by going back
To the fundamentals
Mainly it is for
Players who
Want to increase the chances that their
Beloved immersive roleplay characters
Will survive what their DMs
Are throwing at them especially if those
DMs have read my other book The Monsters
Know What They're Doing Combat Tactics for DMs
This is
Not a book about min-maxing
It is a book about
Determining
The best strategies for the character
You have created however
You have chosen to create that
Character so if you are
An immersive role player
Or you just like
Doing wacky things with your characters
There whatever you have
Whatever choices you have made in
Creating that character there
Is a way to
Optimize that character's
Chances of being effective in
Combat and surviving
Combat encounters
And living to play
Out the terrific story arcs
That you and your DM have planned
For your characters
I love it because both Tom and I have
The Monsters Know What They're Doing
And you know
It's not that
It makes it harder
But it's good that everybody is kind of on the same
Playing field with having both of these
Together now
I've started reading through it initially
Here and there's lots of great useful stuff
That I'm sure Amy and Carla are going to go
Well someone who has lost one of their
Beloved characters
I'm gonna give this a cover to cover
Someone who's seen a friend
Lose a beloved character
I'm also going to avoid that
Not do that again
Although you know I did my best but still
I'd like to not lose
More I'm the one that loses
All the characters
I was reading Keith's older
Book earlier today because I'm
DMing a session tomorrow that we're playing in
And every time I
DM I read about the monsters
That I've picked to use in my
Adventure and every single time I learn
Something new and it's just awesome
It's such a good resource
10 out of 10 cannot recommend it
Enough Keith it's an awesome book
Thank you
And we've talked about the book Where Can People Find It
Both The Monsters Know What They're Doing
And Live to Tell the Tale are published
By Saga Press
Which is a trade book publisher
Which means you can buy it at your
Local independent bookstore
You can buy it from bookshop.org
From Barnes and Noble
Amazon
Anywhere else you buy trade books
But you know this pandemic
Has really hit local bookstores
Hard
So if you've got one in your area
Do them a solid
We'll link all of Keith's information down in the description
Thank you Keith again for joining us
For these two episodes
Tons of fun
If this is the first episode the second episode is going to be
More wild for you
If this is the second episode thank you so much
For joining us again Keith and we look forward to
When we're able to sit down and play again in the future
Thanks again for inviting me
Thank you so much it's a real treat
Alright we'll get you back to the episode now
Have a great week we'll talk to you soon
Alright that shoots off as you
Begin running the three of you see it
Like slide down the roof
I'll give somebody
Who's behind floor
A
Dexterity check
Who's directly behind floor
I didn't ask marching order but
I'll say I am
I was going to say I've got good decks
But I've got crap rolls so
I'll give you a dex check
It's probably going to be a disadvantage
To try and catch this
Tile before it falls off
The building
Can I use my
Mage hand
Yeah you got to roll
On your wild magic table if you do so
Yeah you do
Which I'm at 30% right now
And you think you have to because of that
Last surge thing
This is a cantrip it's not a level one
Spell when I use a level one
Spell I have to
But you know I still have a 30%
Chance
That's a 16
So should be alright
So your floor you see
Out of the corner of your eye this
Mystical crab claw
Come out of thin air
And go and grab the tile just as it
Kind of shoots off the top of the roof
Right before it strikes
The building on the other side and catches
It silently
And then also roll a
D20 to see if you trigger your wild magic
To
Trigger it this would be the worst time
I know 18
So you're up to 6 now
35% now
It's going to happen sooner or later
I can't wait until it does will he be another animal
Will he be another 7 inches shorter
Could be something actually bad
But so far it's only been hilarious
What does your crab claw do with the
What do you do with the tile
I bring it back over
To me and I slip it in my bag
Along with everything else
I have with me
I thought for sure you'd take a hot minute and like
Fix the roof
I know you do have roof fixing experience
I just don't think we have the time for it
Do you have
Ruffertools proficiency
I have done some roofing in the past
Just some good experience in the
Matter
Okay you continue on everybody give me
Another stealth check as you're running
Through the city not at disadvantage
Oh no
Oh oh
Oh
What's happening
What a roller coaster
I rolled a 1 but I get to
Reroll it
Because it's an ability check right
Passing trait
Who am I thanking again
Who just told me that
One of our patrons
Deralith
Thank you
Oh that's better
Is our
Sneakiness still on
Yeah
I have not dropped Pass Without Trace
Until the hour runs out it's going
34
17 for me
Thank god you got to reroll
16 for me
21
And Sully slides off the roof
Just leave me behind
Congratulations
Never split the party
The four of you
Are moving silently through the shadows
And across the night
You're making good progress now
Until you
Hear that whistle
Again
It's coming from behind you this time
I will look around
Identify another hiding place
And lead them there
And we will try to sneak into it
Do we scurry into there
Do we have to roll for scurry and sneak
I didn't have to roll last time
Do I have to roll this time
You said I was small and sneaky
Not big and juggy
That's also a halfling trait
You are able to hide
No Sully and Floor are fine
Because you're trying to find the place
That's a 29 for me that time
20 for me
Russ is like
It's brought to you by jumping roof to roof
Silently without any problems
Keith is very good luck
For us we have literally
Never rolled this well
Plus 10 does help
Plus 10 helps a lot
Okay you duck under
And you see the sentry go
And it kind of goes ahead
Of where you were
And then you see it stop
And like hover its wings flapping
Like 10 or 15 feet ahead
Of where you are
Just stopped there
Can these things like
Sully points to his nose
And he's like
Like can they smell us
Floor thinks about it
And then
Kind of shakes his head no
Sully mimes the
Hand across the forehead
Like whoo
You wait for
What seems like an eternity
For the four of you
I will gesture
To my eyes
And then to the shadows below
And then to my eyes again
And then to the gargoyle
Sully looks at your eyes
Looks at the shadows
And looks at the gargoyle
And then looks at
Glim and goes
Do you want to roll an insight
To see if you can pick on
Pick up on what floor is trying to tell you
Sure
Insight
That's a 9
I look at the shadows
Nat 20
Nat 20 is much better than that
Than my 7
So definitely
Glim you get
What floor is trying to tell you
And Keith you're more than welcome to
Articulate
That they do have
Dark vision
They can see in the shadows
Amy was just as confused as Sully
Was
Describe this
Hiding location that you have found
There are many chimneys
In the city, some of them
Wider than others
Over
Bakeries, potter shops
Things with very very large
Ovens, the chimneys
Tend to be wider
So we're looking
For one of those wider chimneys
As opposed to just somebody's
Pot-bellied stovepipe
Absolutely
You've definitely found one of those
You hear the flapping of the wings
Kind of pick up again
And then you hear
Another whistle from coming from
Further down
And off to your
Right
And as you wait there
To see
Unless you say you do anything else
You see a
Sentry gargoyle zip by
Not
Get by and go out
From where you are
And then you see another one
The silhouetted
Figure against the night sky
Coming towards you
I would like to
Look
Over the edge of the
However far
I can reach my head out
Without giving us away
See if I can see over the edge
Find a balcony
Or something like that
You can see
Down and a bit into
You can see from the building
That you're on it looks like more of a shop front
It has one of those like fabric
Awnings
Down below
But you don't see like a
Traditional balcony or
Fire escape style
Just wondering, is there a window
Across from that awning
That we could maybe pull like an Alydin
Bump off and then
Through the window
Like trampoline it
There's a window over there
Floor will
Climb down the side of the building to the awning
And then
I want to make sure I'm not
Going so far that they're out of the radius
Of Pass Without Trace
But that's a
I think that is a 30 foot
Radius
Yes
So
I'm going to go
To the top of the awning
And then try to from there
Jump across
To the window which should be a shorter distance
Okay
Are you signaling to them
Or are you just going and doing this
I'm just doing it for starters
Okay
Make me a dexterity check
Okay
Does acrobatics count for this
Or just straight decks
No we can go acrobatics
Okay
That is a 19
Yes then you are able to do that
You get down to the awning and you are able to make it to the window
Across the way
Or you're going to the window in the same building
Or the window across
The window across
I'm going to
Open the window
As quietly as I can
Okay
Stealth check
Stealth is 23
With Pass Without Trace
It's 33
Oh my
And then I will
Look out the window
And gesture to them
Okay
Alright I see the gesture
And I
Kind of point at Glim like you
Or me
Uh
You
Yeah I think you should go first
Okay I'm on it
I'm going to try and recreate the exact thing
I just saw happen
Of climbing down, jumping from the awning
Over
As I see him
About to attempt to do
This
What kind of room am I in?
It's
It opens up and it looks like
It looks like a store room
Like a storage area
For what looks
To be a textile
Or a
Clothing shop
So it's got rolls of fabrics
And all that sort of stuff
Piled into this room
Perfect
I am going to use my other
Two key points
To
Drop Pass Without Trace
And cast Silence
I'm going to
Center it so that it includes
The window, the awning, and the chimney
Where they're hiding
Okay and that stops
All sound
In that area, correct?
Yes
Then roll
C and Acrobatics
With Advantage
You don't have
No plus ten though anymore?
Fair
Well that was only for stealth
Oh
Alright, first one wasn't great
With the five, so let's go
Advantage
Oh there we go, fifteen
You kind of stumble
As you're getting down onto the awning
Your foot scrapes
Against this brick wall
And you see pebbles fall
But you don't hear them fall
You make it down to the awning
And you are able to
Leap across and join floor
Okay, then I guess
It's my go
I am also going to try and recreate
This boss move
Six, that's not great
That was better
Acrobatics he said
Fourteen
Same thing
You're trying to get your footing
You moot and sully
You see the pebbles kind of
Scrape away and fall down to the awning
You don't hear the pebbles at all
As they hit the ground
You
Go to jump off the awning though
And your foot, your claws
Push through
And you lose your footing
And you fall
That's no good
That's a nine
Your foot gets tangled up
In the awning
There's no sound
If you yell out
Or
Anything hitting
The jugs you feel kind of
Pull down to the back of your
Backpack and you're kind of
Wrapped up around the ankle
Hanging upside down in this awning
You hear from
Further down the street
You're still up in the chimney
Everybody's kind of jumping down to this awning
And has moved across and silence has been
Cast over the area
You hear helm footsteps
Moving down the side street
That's coming your way
Has Glim ruined
This landing spot for me?
Just wondering if it would take
My weight as well and if we're both
Just gonna crash to the ground
It's kind of like
Wooden planks
Thin wooden planks holding it up
Okay, well I'll bAlydince
I'll climb down
And I'll bAlydince on those and I'm gonna try
To somehow help her out of her
Bind
Which I mean the silence spell
Reaches the floor so she could crash
To the ground and in theory
No sound should be made
She's hanging upside down right now
Yeah, also I'm worried
About her jugs
Oh, fair
Acrobatics check with
With advantage
Because of the silence
I'm gonna 12
Don't you have a good plus?
That's with a bonus, yes
It's with plus 5
Thinking they're
Thinking he's light enough
I am a light foot
Quickly scurries
Down and
Goes to step out and
What are you trying to do for Glim?
I'm probably
Trying to bAlydince one foot
On each of these awning
Planks
In order to get myself to where her foot is
To
Like pull her free
Like maybe I'm trying to get her
Like Glim, like
Start to rock yourself back and forth
Silence
Oh, we can't hear anything
Okay, I'm mouthing this like an idiot then
And I start
To try to wiggle her foot back and forth
So she gets the idea that she should be
Hopefully trying to
Okay
Sully's making this
Much more complicated than it needs to be
Yeah, okay
As you begin to do that
You feel the wood
Planks crack
And both of you fall through
The awning
And down to the ground
Roll a dexterity saving
Throw there Glim to see what happens
To the jugs
Oh god, not the jugs
15
You tuck and roll
Just enough, you feel them connect with each other
I don't feel like that smash
That you would expect from these clay jugs
Like you've rolled off of them well enough
That you've softened the blow
The two of you
Scramble up and look up
And you see helmed guards
Walking across the
Opening and
One of them
Turns and looks down
And stops
And turns
Its body
And begins marching down pulling its longsword
The song Long Road Ahead
is by Kavin McLeod
Up in Competech.Filmmusic.io
All other music and sound effects
can be found at EpidemicSound.com
or BoomLibrary.com
A huge thank you to our supporting producers
Gabriel Lynch, Joshua Dixon
Kat Waterflame, Devon
and the rest of the band
Thank you for watching
We'll see you next time
Kavin Michaels, Jacob Madden, Christian Brown
Stevie, Jessica Babyok
and Darylith
To find out more about how you can support
Dumbgeons and Dragons, visit us at Patreon.com
slash Dumb Dragon Cast
Where you can have exclusive access to 50 plus hours
of bonus audio content
Create in-game NPCs and items
As well as play games with the cast
Patreon.com slash Dumb Dragon Cast
Have a great week
And we'll talk soon
This Pass Without Trace really takes care of
a lot of things, doesn't it?
Dumbgeons and Dragons
is a Dumb Dragons production