The RPGBOT.Podcast is a thoughtful and sometimes humorous discussion about Tabletop Role Playing Games, including Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder as well as other TTRPGs. The discussion seeks to help players get the most out of TTRPGs by examining game mechanics and related subjects with a deep, analytic focus. The RPGBOT.Podcast includes a weekly episode; and The RPGBOT.News and The RPGBOT.Oneshot.
You can find more information at https://rpgbot.net/ - Analysis, tools, and instructional articles for tabletop RPGs.
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STARFINDER 2E TECH CORE - So many nerdy classes man. Like, just nerds!
Season 6 · Episode 122
Monday, October 5, 2026 • Duration 54:06
Starfinder 2e Tech Core is here, and apparently the answer to "How much weird science fiction nonsense can Paizo fit into one book?" is "Yes."
In Part 1 of our Starfinder 2e Tech Core review, we dig into the player-facing side of the book, starting with new ancestries, moving into the Mechanic class, and then wandering through a pile of new archetypes, companions, augments, grenades, junk magic, and deeply questionable robot design choices.
The new ancestries immediately establish the tone. Living Holograms can be advertisements, mascots, emojis, or full cartoon characters with stretchy arms, which means your next Starfinder character can technically be a homicidal cereal mascot. We also get SROs, fully customizable sentient robots, Virthani, who are basically humans after somebody turned every slider up, and the Cyborg versatile heritage for anyone who looked at their biological body and decided they could improve it with more hardware.
Then we get to the Mechanic, which Ash immediately declares to be the "Chad Inventor." The Mechanic revolves around an exocortex and lets players choose between a drone, mine, or turret setup. Each option changes how the class plays, while the Modify ability lets Mechanics temporarily improve weapons, equipment, and their technological creations without burning through a limited daily resource.
The class also gets one of the most useful pieces of adventuring technology imaginable: the custom rig. It can hold and integrate multiple toolkits, giving the Mechanic a portable collection of hacking, crafting, infiltration, and repair tools without requiring them to carry half a hardware store on their back.
From there, we explore Tech Core's new archetypes.
The Augmented archetype is for anyone who believes the appropriate number of cybernetic implants is "more." Grenadier does exactly what the name suggests, although disposable explosives can get expensive fast. Junkomancer turns garbage into magical resources and is described as less of a school of magic and more of a vibe, which may be the most Starfinder sentence ever written.
Nanocyte returns from Starfinder 1e as an archetype rather than a full class, allowing characters to control clouds of nanobots that can create cover, attack enemies, repair objects, and generally solve problems through aggressive applications of microscopic technology.
Pharmacologist gives you the ability to manufacture medical consumables and literally shoot medicine into people with syringe guns, because apparently Starfinder decided healing needed more firearms.
Shield Ace makes you better at shields. It exists.
Vehicle Pilot, meanwhile, lets characters lean heavily into hoverboards and other vehicles, including the extremely important ability to use a hoverboard as a shield because sometimes game design achieves perfection.
We also take a quick look at Starfinder 2e robot companions and animal companions, including a robot that appears to be a railgun with legs, thumbs, and a knife for reasons nobody can adequately explain.
And this is only Part 1.
Key Takeaways
Starfinder 2e Tech Core functions as a major core expansion, adding new ancestries, classes, archetypes, equipment, technology, and GM options.
Living Holograms might be the most ridiculous new ancestry in the book, with options ranging from advertisements and mascots to cartoon characters with twenty-foot stretchy arms.
SROs let players build highly customizable robot characters with modular upgrades, movement options, sensors, and physical modifications.
Virthani are highly adaptable humanoids with strong sci-fi utility and excellent support for characters built around augmentations.
The Cyborg versatile heritage dramatically increases a character's capacity for implants and opens the door to extremely augmentation-heavy builds.
The Mechanic is one of Tech Core's standout additions, offering three major playstyles through drones, mines, and turrets.
Modify gives the Mechanic repeatable, short-duration upgrades without relying on a limited daily resource.
The Mechanic's custom rig provides portable access to multiple toolkits and reinforces the class's identity as Starfinder's dedicated technology specialist.
The Augmented archetype is built around getting more mileage out of cybernetic implants and increasing augmentation capacity.
Grenadier improves thrown explosives and works well with Soldier abilities, but disposable grenades may create an ongoing equipment cost problem.
Junkomancer turns battlefield trash and scrap into magical resources, equipment, ammunition, and temporary upgrades.
Nanocyte returns as an archetype rather than a full Starfinder 2e class, using swarms of nanobots for offense, defense, repair, and utility.
Pharmacologist lets characters create medical consumables and deliver medicine or poison through syringe weapons.
Shield Ace is mechanically solid for defensive builds, even if nobody on the podcast appeared especially excited about it.
Vehicle Pilot becomes much more interesting in campaigns where vehicles actually matter, especially once hoverboards start doubling as shields.
Robot companions use mechanics similar to animal companions, allowing characters to customize robotic allies with different chassis and upgrades.
Tech Core embraces Starfinder's mixture of serious mechanics and complete nonsense, which is how we ended up discussing murderous holographic mascots, rocket fists, healing land mines, syringe guns, armed starfish, and robot railguns with knives.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Meet the Hosts
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
THE PLANE OF MECHANUS (Remastered) - Where everything is lawful and orderly and predictable
Season 6 · Episode 121
Saturday, October 3, 2026 • Duration 01:04:09
Welcome to Mechanus, the only plane in the D&D multiverse where showing up five minutes early is considered dangerously chaotic. Everything is perfectly balanced. Everything runs on schedule. The gears are the size of countries. The locals are geometrically ranked bureaucrats. And somewhere, a Modron is absolutely furious because you filled out Form 27-B instead of Form 27-B-1. This week, we visit the Plane of Mechanus, where free will is suspicious, average damage is mandatory, and the Great Modron March makes your company's mandatory team-building retreat look spontaneous. Please remain orderly. Primus is watching.
Show Notes
This week on the RPGBOT.Podcast, we travel to Mechanus, D&D's Plane of Absolute Law, where enormous interlocking gears turn endlessly through the cosmos and literally everything has its proper place. If you've ever looked at the Dungeons & Dragons Outer Planes and wondered what would happen if someone turned cosmic bureaucracy into a geographic location, Mechanus has an answer.
We start with the plane itself. Mechanus is built from colossal gears, some the size of countries, rotating together with perfect precision. The gears can be inhabited on both sides, because apparently gravity understands organizational structure here too. The plane sits firmly on the lawful side of the D&D cosmology, connecting conceptually and geographically with places like Arcadia, Acheron, the Outlands, and Sigil.
Then we get to the Modrons, which is where Mechanus goes from strange to wonderfully ridiculous. Modrons exist within a rigid hierarchy governed by Primus, the supreme authority of Mechanus. Their rank determines their shape, duties, authority, and even which other Modrons they're capable of communicating with. Nobody skips the chain of command because, in Mechanus, the chain of command appears to be an actual fundamental law of reality. Even death is organized. When a Modron dies, another is promoted to replace it, the vacancy moves down through the hierarchy, and eventually Primus creates a replacement at the bottom. Somewhere in there is the most terrifying employee succession plan ever written.
We also dig into some of the optional rules for running adventures on the Plane of Mechanus in D&D 5e. The Law of Averages removes some of the randomness from damage rolls, while Imposing Order can gradually push visitors toward lawful neutral alignment. It's a wonderfully thematic way to show that Mechanus isn't just a strange place you visit. The plane itself wants you to start alphabetizing your spell components.
Key Takeaways Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
NUMENERA HOW TO PLAY - CONCEPTS AND THEMES: Pitter Patter, Let's Get Going
Season 6 · Episode 120
Thursday, October 1, 2026 • Duration 56:24
Welcome to the Ninth World, where civilization has ended eight times, nobody understands how anything works, and sufficiently advanced technology is mostly an excuse to point at a laser pistol and yell, "Magic!"
In this first part of our How to Play Numenera series, Randall attempts to explain a billion years of lost civilizations, Ash discovers that physics are apparently optional, and Tyler starts asking the dangerous questions about Edge. Before long, we have ancient nanotechnology, mysterious artifacts, cyphers that might explode if you hoard them, stat pools that double as hit points, and a GM who can literally bribe you with XP to make your life more interesting.
Also, we say "moist" far too many times while explaining a d20 mechanic. We regret nothing. Well, some of us regret quite a lot.
Welcome back to the Underdark, where the mushrooms are telepathic, the fish can invent gods, and magical radiation apparently has the terrifying power to give you a headache and ruin your wine. This week, Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 gives us a Freedom Cleric that desperately wants you to move around, a Spores Druid that has discovered the tactical value of exploding zombies, and a Faerzress Sorcerer built around creating a 40-foot cube of mild inconvenience. We also get playable Driders, almost-Mind-Flayers, god-making fish people, communal mushroom skills, and several moments where Ash seriously considers personally redesigning the Sorcerer. So grab your darkvision, protect the cheese from magical radiation, and try not to stand too close to the zombies. We're going back underground.
Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 takes us back below the surface for another batch of D&D 5e playtest subclasses and playable Underdark species. This time we're looking at the Freedom Domain Cleric, Circle of Spores Druid, Faerzress Sorcery Sorcerer, Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa, and Myconid.
The Freedom Domain Cleric starts with a promising idea: a high-Dexterity cleric built around mobility, escaping restraints, breaking debilitating conditions, and helping allies get out of trouble. Invoke Liberty can remove conditions and reposition the party without provoking opportunity attacks, while Unencumbered Grace turns the Cleric into something resembling a shield-carrying monk. Unfortunately, the later features lean heavily on difficult terrain, movement bonuses, and Dexterity checks, leaving us wondering when the subclass is supposed to get its next interesting button to push.
Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
Last time, we built Wizards who could survive long enough to become dangerous.
That was apparently a mistake.
Treantmonk is back as we take our 2014 D&D 5e Wizard builds from level 8 all the way to 20, where spell selection stops being a question of how to win a fight and becomes a question of how creatively we would like to ruin reality.
Tyler is operating his floating spellbook like a magical Predator drone. Ash has discovered Bigby's Hand and immediately found exactly the wrong way to describe it. Randall continues turning Magic Missile into a personal philosophy. And Chris is here trying to explain responsible Wizard optimization while the rest of us draft spells specifically to hurt each other's feelings.
By the time we reach ninth-level spells, Wish almost goes undrafted.
That sentence alone should tell you how this episode goes.
Welcome back to the RPGBOT.Podcast. We made it to level 20, nobody died, and reality is now more of a suggestion than a rule.
Treantmonk returns for Part 2 and the conclusion of our 2014 D&D 5e Wizard optimization builds, picking up at level 8 and taking our Wizards all the way to level 20.
At this point, the training wheels are gone. Fifth-level spells bring Wall of Force, Bigby's Hand, Wall of Stone, and increasingly aggressive spell drafting. By sixth level, the choices get even nastier, and picking the right spell becomes almost as important as making sure someone else doesn't get it first. Contingency gets selected partly because it is useful and partly because denying Tyler something he wants is apparently a valid optimization strategy.
Key Takeaways Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
DEADFALL: ARCANA UNLEASHED - Seize the Means of Undead Production
Season 6 · Episode 117
Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Duration 01:05:53
Welcome to Thay, where the dress code is red, the government is run by homicidal wizards, and your spy agency's severance package is either magical memory loss or death.
Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall takes D&D 5e from cloak-and-dagger espionage to rebel wizards, pirates, demon-powered skeletons, legendary magic items, and eventually a full-scale assault on Szass Tam's evil wizard lair. Along the way, we discover that the real secret to saving Faerûn is apparently making friends with pirates, hoarding magic items, and knowing when not to punch the lich who can cast Finger of Death whenever he feels like it.
We're wrapping up our Arcana Unleashed review with Deadfall, a high-level D&D 5e adventure that drops characters into Thay for an espionage campaign involving Red Wizards, political scheming, undead armies, absurd amounts of magic, and the small problem of Szass Tam attempting to take control of everything again.
Before the spying begins, we dig into Thay itself, including the Zulkirs, Red Wizard society, Szass Tam's long history of being spectacularly evil, and why living in Thay mostly involves keeping your head down and desperately pretending you didn't see anything. Deadfall also offers advice for running a D&D espionage adventure, complete with secret identities, codenames, magical disguises, compromised covers, hidden bases, and consequences when the party inevitably decides subtlety is for NPCs.
Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
ARCANA UNLEASHED Part 3 - Everything was fine until Tyler read the rules..
Season 6 · Episode 116
Monday, September 21, 2026 • Duration 01:17:56
We survived the subclasses. We survived the wizard subclasses. Now Arcana Unleashed Part 3 asks the truly dangerous questions: What if every wizard got a Pokémon? What if every magical faction agreed that the Ninth Quill sucks? And what if an invisible imp could carry your entire adventuring party through a wall while you relax inside a genie lamp like the world's most heavily armed first-class passengers?
This week, we're digging into the rest of Arcana Unleashed, including new backgrounds, feats, spells, magical factions, evolving magic items, monsters, and a dungeon puzzle whose greatest challenge is apparently identifying which end of a snake has the head.
Welcome aboard Infernal Air. Please keep your arms, legs, and extraplanar vessels inside the familiar at all times.
We've covered the Arcana Unleashed subclasses. We've given Tyler an entire episode of wizard content. Now it's time to dig through everything else Wizards of the Coast packed into the book, and there is a lot more here than we expected.
We start with the new Arcana Unleashed backgrounds and origin feats, where the results range from flavorful-but-forgettable to options that could seriously change how characters are built. Familiar Friend immediately gets our attention, especially once the rest of the familiar feats enter the picture. Arcane Warrior opens wizard cantrips to characters with Fighting Styles, while the new school-specific Adept feats offer spellcasters ways to steal spells and tricks from outside their usual class options.
Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
2014 DnD 5e WIZARDS Levels 1 - 7 with Treantmonk! (Remastered)
Season 6 · Episode 115
Saturday, September 19, 2026 • Duration 51:18
Treantmonk joins us to talk about Wizards, which means we're about to spend an unreasonable amount of time discussing concentration saves, initiative bonuses, spell selection, and why standing anywhere near the enemy is a terrible lifestyle choice.
We're taking the 2014 Wizard from levels 1 through 7, starting with a fragile academic who can be killed by an aggressively thrown sandwich and ending with a battlefield-control monster who can Web half the room, Fireball the other half, and still have enough magic left over to argue about which subclass is best.
Along the way, we discover the Muscle Wizard, question why Medicine is still a skill, turn a spellbook into an arcane Predator drone, and once again prove that the strongest Wizard strategy is simple:
Go first. Stay far away. Don't lose concentration.
Easy.
Show Notes
Treantmonk joins Tyler, Ash, and Randall as we start building the 2014 D&D 5e Wizard from levels 1 through 7.
We kick things off with ability scores, skills, defenses, and the eternal Wizard question: how much effort should you put into not immediately dying? That leads naturally into armor dips, Constitution saves, initiative, and why keeping concentration is often more important than squeezing out a little more damage.
Then we get into subclasses. War Magic gets plenty of attention for its defensive tools and initiative bonus, Divination continues being Divination, Illusion gives Ash plenty to work with, and Order of Scribes eventually lets Tyler use his spellbook like a magical surveillance drone. Transmutation is also discussed. We'll leave it at that.
Then comes the real Wizard experience: picking spells.
Shield, Mage Armor, Find Familiar, Absorb Elements, and Magic Missile get us started before the gloves come off and everyone starts fighting over Web. From there we hit Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Fear, Counterspell, Tiny Hut, Summon Undead, Arcane Eye, Sickening Radiance, Greater Invisibility, Banishment, Polymorph, and enough other spells to remind everyone why building a Wizard takes three hours and a spreadsheet.
Key Takeaways Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
ARCANA UNLEASHED Part 2 - Necromancer's Finally Get Nice Things
Season 6 · Episode 114
Thursday, September 17, 2026 • Duration 58:54
Four Wizards walk into Arcana Unleashed. One teleports around insisting that swapping places is exciting. One looks like somebody's tiefling dad going through a stage-magic phase. One brings an army of disposable skeletons specifically so he can blow them up. And the last one turns into a T-Rex and starts casting Disintegrate. Somehow, this is still a more functional party than most adventuring groups we've played in.
Welcome back to Arcana Unleashed, where today's lesson is simple: Wizards apparently needed more things to do.
Show Notes
Part Two of our Arcana Unleashed review is all Wizards, all the time, and Tyler finally gets his moment.
We start with the Conjurer, which continues its identity crisis between "master summoner" and "person who is really, really enthusiastic about Misty Step." Benign Transposition and its upgrades make teleportation useful, especially once Randall figures out how to combine swapping places with summoned monsters. But the real excitement comes later, when Durable Summons, Focused Conjuration, and Splintered Summons finally let the subclass lean into what everyone actually came here for: putting more creatures on the battlefield.
Then we meet the Enchanter, whose artwork immediately gets described as a middle-aged tiefling dad who took up stage magic during a midlife crisis. The subclass gets better social skills, a much more playable version of Hypnotic Gaze, and some frustratingly limited spell-twinning. Things improve considerably at higher levels, especially when Alter Memories turns magical manipulation into full-on fantasy Men in Black nonsense.
Necromancer is where things get wonderfully irresponsible. Undead familiars can finally contribute, Animate Dead gets stronger, summoned undead become tougher and hit harder, and eventually your disposable corpse army becomes a collection of walking necrotic grenades. Tyler tries repeatedly to explain the mathematical shortcomings of undead attack bonuses while Ash tries repeatedly to enjoy himself despite Tyler's best efforts.
Finally, the Transmuter arrives with the traditional Transmuter's Stone, some questionable attempts to make Alter Self exciting, and a substantially improved Empowered Transmutation. Things really come alive with Shapeshifter, which lets the Wizard Polymorph themselves while keeping their mental abilities and continuing to cast qualifying Transmutation spells.
Key Takeaways Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
D&D ARCANA UNLEASHED Part 1 - The Best Arcane Archer Ever Is Still an Arcane Archer
Season 6 · Episode 113
Monday, September 14, 2026 • Duration 01:01:30
Arcana Unleashed is here, bringing new subclasses, spells, feats, magic items, and—most importantly—fresh opportunities for Tyler to find loopholes Wizards of the Coast absolutely did not intend. In Part 1, we discover that Clerics can apparently wizard better than Wizards, the Arcane Archer has finally been upgraded from "why?" to "okay, I guess," Monks can punch people and cast spells at the same time, and Warlocks can carry around the fading remains of a dead god like a supernatural emotional-support animal. Also, somewhere at Wizards of the Coast, an editor just felt a disturbance in the Force because Tyler realized you can shoot a magical darkness arrow into someone's shield.
Show Notes
We kick off our review of Arcana Unleashed, the new setting-agnostic collection of character options, rules, spells, magic items, factions, monsters, and other magical nonsense for D&D. The book isn't quite Tasha's-sized, but there's plenty here to keep us busy—which is why this review is absolutely becoming a series.
Part 1 is all about subclasses, starting with the Arcana Domain Cleric. The old "what if my Cleric wanted to be a Wizard?" concept finally feels like it knows what it wants to be. Great Wizard spells, a nasty saving-throw penalty through Channel Divinity, and eventually access to high-level Wizard spells make this an extremely strong hybrid. Tyler immediately starts planning for Contingency and Wish, because of course he does.
Then we revisit everyone's favorite subclass to forget exists: the Arcane Archer. It is unquestionably better than the 2014 version, which unfortunately clears a bar located somewhere beneath the basement. More Arcane Shot uses, better utility ammunition, and some genuinely cool later-level abilities help, but the subclass still struggles to generate much excitement. We also spend far too long discovering that Darkening Ammunition can apparently stick to any "solid surface," which means shields, possibly whales, and whatever other nonsense your table is willing to litigate.
The Warrior of Mystic Arts Monk fares much better. Mechanically, it's essentially the Monk answer to the Eldritch Knight: punch things, cast Sorcerer spells, and eventually do both with increasingly ridiculous efficiency. The old Tattooed Warrior concept may have been more flavorful, but the finished version is clean, effective, and potentially terrifying once its spellcasting and Monk abilities start feeding into each other.
Stuff for the Show Notes Key Takeaways Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra Ash Ely Randall James Producer Dan
From there, things get bigger and stranger. We talk about Formians, the Gate Town of Automata, the power and influence of Primus, connections to Asmodeus and his Ruby Rod, and one of the greatest pieces of Modron lore in Dungeons & Dragons: the Great Modron March.
Every 289 years, enormous numbers of Modrons leave Mechanus and march through the Outer Planes for reasons that make perfect sense to them and almost nobody else. It's part pilgrimage, part cosmic census, part military parade, and part multiversal traffic problem. We also compare Mechanus with Pathfinder's Axis, explore how law and order are represented differently across tabletop RPG cosmologies, and look at what Dungeon Masters can actually do with Mechanus in a Planescape campaign. Because beneath the jokes about bureaucracy, geometry, and extremely committed clockwork people, Mechanus is genuinely useful. It gives DMs a setting where predictability itself becomes strange, where conformity can become an environmental hazard, and where breaking the rules may be the most dangerous thing the characters can do.
So grab your paperwork, calculate your average damage in advance, and please keep all arms, legs, and chaotic alignments inside the gear at all times.
Mechanus is the D&D Plane of Absolute Law, built from enormous interconnected gears operating with perfect precision.
The environment itself reflects order, balance, symmetry, predictability, and rigid structure.
Modrons are organized into a strict hierarchy under Primus, with each rank assigned specific responsibilities and authority.
Modron communication follows the hierarchy, making their entire society one enormous supernatural organizational chart.
When Modrons die, replacements move through the hierarchy so that the system remains properly populated.
The Law of Averages optional rule makes Mechanus mechanically predictable by replacing random damage rolls with average results.
Imposing Order allows the plane itself to influence visitors toward lawful neutral behavior and alignment.
Automata is the appropriately bureaucratic Gate Town associated with Mechanus.
Formians add another highly organized civilization to the plane and provide alternatives to running every Mechanus adventure around Modrons.
The Great Modron March takes place every 289 years and sends Modrons marching across the Outer Planes on one of D&D's strangest recurring planar events.
Pathfinder's Axis provides an interesting comparison for how another major fantasy RPG approaches a plane devoted to cosmic law.
Mechanus works particularly well for Planescape adventures involving bureaucracy, cosmic mysteries, inevitability, philosophical conflicts, and characters who absolutely refuse to follow instructions.
The best thing about the Plane of Mechanus may be the contradiction at its heart: a completely predictable world can become deeply weird the moment unpredictable adventurers arrive.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
We're kicking off our How to Play Numenera series with a tour of the Ninth World and the Cypher System mechanics that make this wonderfully strange science fantasy RPG work.
Randall walks Ash and Tyler through the Numenera setting, a version of Earth roughly a billion years in the future after eight unimaginably advanced civilizations have risen and disappeared. Their technology is everywhere, but the people of the Ninth World understand so little of it that ancient machinery might as well be magic. That gives Numenera its central science fantasy theme: sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
We dig into the Steadfast, the Beyond, and the increasingly strange places beyond civilization, along with the remnants left behind by previous worlds. Those remnants include reusable artifacts, one-use cyphers, mysterious oddities, and massive ancient structures that the characters may have absolutely no idea how to operate. Sometimes the players know they have discovered an elevator. Their characters definitely do not.
From there, we get into how to play Numenera and the Cypher System core mechanics. Tasks have difficulty levels from 0 to 10, with the target number determined by multiplying the difficulty by three. Instead of piling bonuses onto a d20 roll, characters make challenges easier through training, specialization, assets, and Effort.
Effort introduces one of Numenera's most interesting resource-management decisions. Might, Speed, and Intellect are not simply ability scores. They are pools that power abilities, fuel Effort, and absorb damage. Spend too aggressively and you may discover that the resource you just used to succeed is also the thing keeping your character alive.
Then there's Edge, which reduces the cost of spending points from those pools. Naturally, Tyler immediately begins investigating whether enough Edge will allow him to achieve his ultimate character build: the Edge Lord.
We also explore one of the signature Cypher System RPG mechanics, GM intrusions. The GM can offer XP to introduce an unexpected complication, while players can spend XP to reject intrusions, reroll critical checks, create temporary skills, trigger player intrusions, or advance their characters. The goal is not simply to punish players. A good GM intrusion makes the story more interesting, creates new opportunities, and occasionally puts something cool behind the wall that just collapsed on you.
By the end, we've covered the Numenera setting, cyphers and artifacts, task difficulty, Effort, Edge, stat pools, XP, GM intrusions, player intrusions, and the basics of character advancement. It's a surprisingly streamlined system hiding underneath one of the strangest tabletop RPG settings we've explored.
Key Takeaways
Numenera takes place on Earth roughly one billion years in the future, after eight previous civilizations have risen and disappeared.
The Ninth World mixes science fiction and fantasy by treating incomprehensibly advanced technology like magic.
Numenera includes artifacts, one-use cyphers, oddities, and enormous remnants of ancient civilizations.
The Cypher System uses a d20, but characters generally reduce task difficulty instead of adding large numerical bonuses to rolls.
Task difficulty ranges from 0 to 10, with the target number equal to the difficulty multiplied by three.
Training, specialization, assets, and Effort can ease difficult tasks and bring otherwise impossible rolls within reach.
Might, Speed, and Intellect are resource pools used for abilities and Effort, but they also function as your character's health.
Damage normally reduces Might first, followed by Speed and then Intellect. If all three pools reach zero, things have gone very badly.
Edge reduces the cost of spending points from a stat pool and becomes increasingly powerful as characters advance.
In the Cypher System, the GM generally does not roll dice. Players make both offensive and defensive rolls.
GM intrusions let the GM introduce complications in exchange for XP, turning unexpected problems into part of the game's advancement economy.
XP can be spent on rerolls, player intrusions, temporary skills, and permanent character advancement, creating a constant choice between helping yourself now or saving for later.
Numenera encourages creativity over strict simulation. Sometimes the explanation really is, "Ancient technology did it."
Most importantly, never tell the RPGBOT Discord you are trying to keep the math "moist." They cannot be trusted with that information.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Then we get the revised Circle of Spores Druid, and things get significantly better. Wizards addresses several long-standing complaints about the D&D Circle of Spores by improving its action economy and making Symbiotic Entity a bonus action. Halo of Spores now provides value whether the enemy succeeds or fails its save, and Fungal Body remains delightfully creepy.
But Explosive Burst is where things get wonderfully ridiculous. As written, an undead creature you created explodes when it dies. That wording potentially includes creatures created with Animate Dead, which immediately inspires the completely reasonable strategy of surrounding an enemy with injured zombies and starting a fungal chain reaction. Is that probably getting rewritten before publication? Yes. Is exploding an army of disposable zombies extremely funny? Also yes.
Unfortunately, the Faerzress Sorcery Sorcerer brings the mood crashing back down. The subclass revolves around creating areas of Faerzress that interfere with divination, long-distance teleportation, and a handful of other magical effects. The problem is that most enemies simply do not care. Instead of dangerous magical radiation, the subclass frequently feels like it has created a large zone where somebody might have trouble scrying on you.
There are pieces worth saving. The concept of an Underdark radiation Sorcerer has potential, and the discussion quickly turns toward mutations, crystal growths, radiant damage, exhaustion, and other mechanics that could make Faerzress actually feel hazardous. As presented, though, the subclass spends a lot of time solving problems that rarely appear in combat.
The playable species in Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options 2 fare considerably better. Deep Imaskari blend human traits with Faerzress mutations and radiant abilities. Driders finally offer the opportunity to crawl across ceilings as a giant spider person. Illithidkin provide telepathy, psychic resistance, and a collection of appropriately Mind-Flayer-adjacent abilities.
Kuo-toa may be the standout simply because Deific Manifestation is wonderfully strange. Their familiar can borrow actions, reactions, or traits from other familiar options, opening the door to creations like weapon-wielding weasels and other tiny violations of common sense. It feels exactly like the sort of bizarre mechanical playground Kuo-toa deserve.
Finally, the Myconid gives D&D players a playable mushroom creature with telepathy and Skill Meld, allowing a group to share a skill or tool proficiency after a long rest. Sharing Stealth, Perception, or another useful proficiency with the whole party is mechanically interesting and perfectly fits the communal Myconid fantasy, even if letting Myconids speak normally raises some questions.
By the end, our feelings on this D&D Unearthed Arcana are all over the Underdark. Circle of Spores feels close to ready, especially once Explosive Burst gets clarified. The Freedom Domain Cleric has a worthwhile theme but needs more interesting features. Faerzress Sorcery needs considerably more work, but magical radiation, mutations, crystals, and Underdark corruption could still become a fantastic Sorcerer concept.
The ideas are here. Some of them just need to be dug up, dusted off, and exposed to slightly more dangerous radiation.
Key Takeaways
The Freedom Domain Cleric has a strong concept built around mobility, condition removal, and escaping restraints, but several later abilities feel too passive or situational.
Invoke Liberty is the highlight of the Freedom Cleric and could provide useful party repositioning in addition to condition removal.
Circle of Spores Druid gets meaningful D&D 2024 improvements, particularly the bonus-action Symbiotic Entity and revised Halo of Spores.
Explosive Burst could potentially create hilarious zombie chain reactions unless its wording is narrowed to Fungal Infestation zombies.
The revised Circle of Spores is the subclass the hosts felt was closest to being ready for publication.
Faerzress Sorcery struggles because its central zone interferes with abilities that many D&D monsters and encounters never use.
The Faerzress Sorcerer concept could be much stronger if it leaned into magical radiation, mutation, radiant damage, crystals, poisoning, or exhaustion.
Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa, and Myconid add some genuinely unusual playable Underdark species options.
Kuo-toa Deific Manifestation offers particularly entertaining familiar customization and plenty of room for player creativity.
Myconid Skill Meld lets characters temporarily share skill or tool proficiencies, reinforcing the species' communal identity.
Underdark Options 2 has several strong themes, but the episode's recurring message is simple: keep the concepts, improve the execution, and please make magical radiation more threatening than spoiled wine.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
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Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
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That pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the episode.
As our D&D 5e Wizard builds move into the high levels, each character leans harder into their particular brand of nonsense. Ash embraces illusions, confusion, and magical hands. Randall continues finding ways to make Magic Missile everybody else's problem. Treantmonk builds around control, restraint, and smart high-level Wizard spell selection. Tyler keeps sending his Manifest Mind into places he absolutely does not intend to visit personally.
Then we reach seventh, eighth, and ninth-level Wizard spells, where things get properly ridiculous. Maze, Sunburst, Demiplane, Foresight, Shapechange, Power Word Kill, Meteor Swarm, and Wish all enter the conversation as the builds start moving from battlefield control into reality control. And somehow Wish almost doesn't get picked.
We also get into one of the most interesting parts of high-level 5e Wizard optimization: Spell Mastery. Unlimited access to carefully chosen first and second-level spells opens up some disgusting combinations, especially when Shield, Web, Tasha's Mind Whip, Vortex Warp, Phantasmal Force, and other low-level favorites no longer need spell slots.
Finally, we hit level 20 and Signature Spells, where everyone chooses their third-level favorites and collectively realizes that the Wizard's actual capstone might not feel nearly as exciting as what they received two levels earlier.
After two episodes of ability scores, feats, subclasses, Wizard spell selection, optimization, and increasingly questionable tactical decisions, our Treantmonk Wizard builds are complete. The Wizards have reached level 20. The spellbooks are full.The laws of physics have filed a formal complaint.
High-level Wizard optimization is less about dealing more damage and more about having exactly the right tool when everything goes wrong.
Spell selection gets increasingly competitive as the builds advance. There are plenty of good Wizard spells, but everyone starts wanting the same exceptional ones.
Wall of Force remains exactly the kind of spell an optimized Wizard hates leaving on the table. If nobody else takes it, somebody eventually has to.
Sixth-level spells show just how different optimized Wizards can become. Mental Prison, Contingency, Mass Suggestion, Disintegrate, and other options push each build further into its own playstyle.
High-level D&D 5e Wizards stop merely controlling encounters and start controlling circumstances. Maze, Demiplane, Shapechange, Foresight, Wish, and similar spells fundamentally change what the party can accomplish.
Wish is incredibly powerful, but the discussion with Treantmonk highlights the practical problem with having nearly every lower-level spell available on demand: you still need to remember those spells exist when you actually need them.
Spell Mastery may be one of the strongest pieces of the entire Wizard class. Turning excellent first and second-level Wizard spells into effectively unlimited resources creates some absurd possibilities.
Shield becomes even more ridiculous when you can cast it without spending spell slots, especially if Randall is nearby with Magic Missile and bad intentions.
At level 20, Signature Spells are useful, but after getting Spell Mastery at level 18 they do not exactly feel like the grand finale of becoming one of the most powerful spellcasters in Dungeons & Dragons.
The biggest lesson from the complete Treantmonk Wizard build is that there is no single correct way to optimize a 2014 D&D 5e Wizard. Control, illusions, damage, summons, utility, mobility, and general magical nonsense can all work if the spell choices support the character you actually want to play.
And if all else fails, become a Wizard with a remote-controlled spellbook, hide around a corner, and make the dungeon somebody else's problem.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
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Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
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Once the campaign gets moving, Deadfall becomes a rapid-fire series of covert missions. The party hunts spies, blackmails messengers, recruits dissident Red Wizards, collects increasingly ridiculous magic items, befriends pirates, meets a dragon turtle named Bitey, and watches their earlier choices come back in meaningful ways. The adventure even accounts for the traditional player solution of murdering someone important to the plot, which earns it considerable respect from the group.
The campaign moves quickly from level 11 to level 20, giving characters access to legendary equipment and some genuinely dangerous high-level D&D encounters. The final stretch turns the spy thriller into a full assault on Szass Tam's stronghold, culminating in a brutal boss fight involving powerful undead, demons, environmental effects, necrotic damage, and consequences tied directly to allies the characters helped or ignored earlier in the campaign.
We also talk about why Deadfall works surprisingly well as more than a single adventure. Its missions can be pulled apart and used as D&D one-shots, adapted into an anthology-style campaign, or mined by Dungeon Masters looking for a useful Thay campaign setting reference. There are a few missed opportunities, particularly with some disappointing monster design, but the amount of usable material, meaningful player choice, high-level treasure, and contingency planning left us pleasantly surprised.
If you're looking for an Arcana Unleashed Deadfall review, a D&D 5e high-level adventure, ideas for running an espionage campaign in Dungeons and Dragons, or an excuse to send level 20 characters after Szass Tam and the Red Wizards of Thay, there's a lot here worth stealing.
Preferably before the players steal it first.
Key Takeaways
Deadfall is a level 11 to 20 D&D 5e espionage adventure set in Thay, centered on stopping Szass Tam and his latest extremely reasonable plan for world domination.
Thay gets enough background material that the book can double as a useful Red Wizards of Thay campaign reference for Dungeon Masters.
The espionage mechanics include disguises, codenames, secrecy, compromised identities, hidden bases, and ways to recover after blowing your cover.
Player choices matter. Allies, side missions, failures, and earlier decisions can significantly change later encounters and even the difficulty of the final battle.
The adventure anticipates players going off-script surprisingly well, including what happens when important NPCs die or the party chooses violence over diplomacy.
Deadfall hands out a huge amount of high-level D&D magic items, including very rare, legendary, and even artifact-level equipment.
The adventure's monster design occasionally disappoints, especially when flavorful concepts turn out to use fairly ordinary existing stat blocks.
The campaign moves extremely quickly through high-level play, making the proposed session count ambitious for groups that like exploring every corner.
The final Szass Tam encounter actually feels dangerous, with multiple enemies, nasty environmental effects, and consequences based on what the characters accomplished earlier.
Deadfall can work as a complete campaign, a collection of connected D&D one-shots, or a source of missions and ideas for a homebrew espionage adventure.
Most importantly, make friends with the pirates. Seriously. Make friends with the pirates.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
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Battle Familiar might be one of the strongest new D&D 2024 spells in Arcana Unleashed. It looks suspiciously like Summon Beast, except it does not require concentration, which means there is very little reason not to have one running whenever possible. Add familiar feats, Conjurer interactions, Necromancer options, and Pact of the Chain nonsense, and suddenly your adorable magical pet is an active participant in breaking the action economy.
We also discover that Otherworldly Familiar lets a familiar move through walls, which naturally leads to an invisible imp carrying a Genie Warlock's vessel, and potentially the entire party, directly through the dungeon. Congratulations. You have invented Infernal Air and apparently solved dungeon crawling.
The new Arcana Unleashed spells keep the chaos going. Detonation inspires the return of bag-of-rats logic, Mordenkainen's Lucubration provides an expensive way to trade higher-level spell slots for lower-level ones, and Summon Dinosaur requires very little explanation because sometimes the spell name is already doing all the work.
Beyond character options, Arcana Unleashed includes advice for building magic-heavy campaign settings, creating magical traditions, defining society's relationship with magic, and using group patrons. The magical faction system expands that idea with organizations tied to each school of magic, complete with goals, renown rewards, relationships, player options, and Bastion facilities.
Some are noble. Some are creepy. The Crucible Keepers apparently treat magical disasters like sporting events. The Bringers of the Cosmic Dawn have decided transmutation needed more body horror. The Covenant of the Grave gives necromancy a surprisingly thoughtful treatment. And nearly everybody hates the Ninth Quill because, as it turns out, being an organized magical crime syndicate is not a great way to make friends.
We also dig into the new D&D evolving magic item rules. There are several premade examples, a simple system for upgrading items into higher-rarity versions, and a more flexible framework for adding new powers as an item grows. The concept is useful, particularly for DMs building long-term rewards, even if we wish the book gave us a lot more material to work with.
Arcana Unleashed also brings back creatures like the baelnorn, introduces archmages themed around the schools of magic, and includes the level 1 adventure Tomb of the Shadow Serpents. Venger has apparently created a multiversal dungeon-based recruitment program where surviving a few traps and assembling three pieces of a snake qualifies you for employment in an evil organization.
Which explains a lot about Venger's career.
By the end of our Arcana Unleashed Part 3 review, the mechanics remain the strongest part of the book. The feats offer some genuinely interesting character-building options, the familiar material could have a major impact on D&D 5e character optimization, and the spells contain several standouts. The magical factions and worldbuilding material provide useful starting points for DMs, while the evolving magic item system feels like a good idea that we wish had been given more room to grow.
And Battle Familiar probably needs concentration.
Seriously.
Key Takeaways
Arcana Unleashed adds ten backgrounds and origin feats, with Familiar Friend standing out because it dramatically improves familiar survivability and unlocks the book's additional familiar feats.
Arcane Warrior gives Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, and other characters with Fighting Styles access to wizard cantrips, opening up plenty of new D&D 2024 character build options.
The school-specific Adept feats provide new spells and magical abilities, effectively offering lightweight versions of the eight schools of magic to characters outside the Wizard class.
Battle Familiar is one of the biggest mechanical standouts in the book. Its lack of concentration creates extremely powerful interactions with familiars, summoners, Conjurer Wizards, Necromancer Wizards, and Pact of the Chain Warlocks.
The Arcana Unleashed magical factions give DMs ready-made organizations for Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation, complete with renown rewards and faction-specific Bastion facilities.
The new evolving magic item rules provide a solid framework for D&D campaigns where weapons, armor, wands, and other magical equipment grow alongside their owners, although the system could use more examples and options.
Tomb of the Shadow Serpents is a simple level 1 dungeon crawl built around Venger recruiting adventurers for future schemes. The loot is surprisingly generous, the encounters are straightforward, and the snake puzzle may be the greatest threat ever posed to player overthinking.
Overall, Arcana Unleashed Part 3 reinforces the book's biggest strength: mechanics. The feats, spells, familiar options, and character customization tools are much stronger than the lighter worldbuilding material, and several options look likely to become significant parts of the D&D 5e 2024 optimization landscape.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
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By the end, one thing is very clear: Wizards don't need to solve every problem with damage.
But they absolutely can.
The Wizard's biggest class feature is still its spell list. Your subclass matters, but your spell choices matter more.
Protect your concentration. Positioning, Constitution saves, Shield, Absorb Elements, and simply refusing to stand next to angry monsters will keep your best spells running.
Going first is incredibly powerful. War Magic gets a lot of love because dropping battlefield control before the enemy gets moving can completely change a fight.
The classic Wizard staples are classics for a reason. Shield, Find Familiar, Mage Armor, Absorb Elements, Magic Missile, and rituals give you a ridiculous amount of mileage at low levels.
Web is excellent. Everyone knows Web is excellent. This becomes a problem when multiple people are drafting spells and everybody wants Web.
Third-level spells are where the Wizard really starts showing off. Fireball is Fireball, but Slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, Counterspell, and other control options can be even more important depending on the fight.
Don't build around a single saving throw or status effect. Having multiple ways to attack a problem keeps you useful when monsters inevitably refuse to cooperate with your favorite spell.
Utility spells are a huge part of what makes Wizards so good. Scouting, teleportation, rituals, summons, battlefield control, and information gathering often solve problems before initiative is even rolled.
Order of Scribes gets wonderfully weird once Manifest Mind enters the picture. Your floating spellbook can scout and act as the point of origin for your spells, turning your Wizard into a magical drone operator.
And remember: dealing damage is technically a form of support if the thing threatening your party is no longer alive.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
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Conjurer is much better when it remembers that people choosing Conjurer probably want to summon things, not just teleport slightly differently.
Enchanter has some weak spots, but Instinctive Charm and Alter Memories offer genuinely fun tools for manipulation, infiltration, and absolutely horrifying roleplay possibilities.
Necromancer may be the standout of the bunch. Stronger undead, useful familiars, better Animate Dead support, and exploding minions finally deliver the "commander of the dead" fantasy.
Transmuter still has an unhealthy emotional attachment to its rock, but Empowered Transmutation and Shapeshifter give the subclass some genuinely exciting options.
The most important rules discovery of the episode is that turning into a T-Rex apparently does not prevent you from solving problems with high-level Wizard magic.
Tyler likes Wizards. Ash would like Tyler to stop explaining why the things Ash likes aren't as good as Ash thinks they are.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
Finally, we meet the Vestige Patron Warlock, where your patron is also your pet because apparently the traditional Warlock power dynamic wasn't complicated enough. Your Vestige can shift between Celestial, Fiend, and Undead forms, bringing different abilities along with it, and eventually gets some impressive summoning upgrades. Ash begins thoroughly uninterested and ends up won over almost entirely by the possibility of worshipping the forgotten god of toads. Which, frankly, is the strongest possible argument for the subclass.
We wrap things up before reaching the Wizard subclasses, mostly because making Tyler wait another episode to talk about Wizards is funny.
Arcana Domain Cleric is excellent. It finally delivers the Cleric/Wizard hybrid fantasy without feeling like somebody stapled a spellbook onto a holy symbol.
Arcane Archer is substantially improved, but "best Arcane Archer ever" still isn't the ringing endorsement Wizards probably hoped for.
Darkening Ammunition should never have included the phrase "solid surface" anywhere Tyler Kamstra could see it.
Warrior of Mystic Arts trades some of the Tattooed Warrior's flavor for straightforward mechanics, but those mechanics are very, very good.
Spellcasting plus Monk action economy gets increasingly ridiculous at higher levels, and everybody seems fine with that.
Vestige Patron is mechanically solid, narratively weird, and significantly better once you realize your patron can be the forgotten god of toads.
The subclasses covered so far are generally simple, approachable, and effective without introducing a pile of unnecessary new systems.
Wizards are next, assuming Ash eventually stops tormenting Tyler and allows him to talk about them.
Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you.
Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players.
Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings.
Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community.
Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
How to Find Us:
In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net
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