Bards and Barrels
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Bards and Barrels
S5 Ep. 1 - Let's Kick off Season 5
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Join the guys as they give a sneak peak into what you can expect during Season 5 of Bards and Barrels as well as get some insight into their favorite classes in D&D.
Let's kick off season five and talk about our favorite classes. Oh, and there's the opening crack. It's time for another episode of Bards and Barrels. We're back for season five, fellas. Hold on. I'm doused. Mike got stuck. He's doused with some form of beverage.
SPEAKER_01This is we're going off the rails already. Welcome to the season.
SPEAKER_02I was not in on the triple crack on that one.
SPEAKER_00All right. Next time. Next time.
SPEAKER_02All right, guys. So season five. First of all, I think we say this at the beginning of every season, but did anybody expect us to be at season five?
SPEAKER_00We're still going. We're still kicking, that's for sure. I know. It's kind of bizarre. In a good way.
SPEAKER_02I think the the best thing is is like at the end of every season when we start planning the next season, we have like a dock full of potential topics. And we maybe get a third of them, if that, into the next season, because we're like, oh, we should do this, and we should do this, and we should do this. Best laid plans. Yeah, absolutely. There's a few squirrel moments in there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02So let's talk a little bit about what we have planned this season. So I think the first thing everybody's gonna notice is hey, this is podcast number one, but you can see us, you're there, you're you're watching us. Welcome. Uh, and if you're listening to this, go check out the YouTube video. Uh, because you can also see us there. Uh if you want to see our beautiful faces, you know, go watch it on YouTube. If you just want to listen to our uh lovely voices, then you know, wherever you find your podcast. Just like watch the train wreck happen.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if I like this. Like they can see my facial expressions. That's true. That's good or bad. I don't know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Um, we have we we came up with a pretty ambitious slate of things for this year. Uh, first of all, is you know, the 30 to 40 YouTube videos that we're going to be posting, uh, which buckle it's testing our ability to get things done. Let's put it that way. Uh, in a good way. Uh, but weekly you'll be able to go over on YouTube and watch a video about whatever. Those won't be released as podcasts. So if you want to hear us talk about why uh you should or shouldn't TPK a party or something like that, those you're gonna have to find over there. Maybe we'll talk about that on a podcast at some point, but at least this season that's gonna be over there. And they're quick bites, they're not a whole podcast podcast length, they're a shorter bite-size piece of it. It's it's not us rambling for 40 minutes, you know, about a topic like we're gonna do tonight. We're gonna focus a little bit. Focus, focus a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Uh, and but then we're still doing our normal or pretty much normal slate of podcasts as well. So we're gonna still be here talking to all of our fans out there, uh, doing a whole bunch of things. So, like we have uh episodes where we're gonna be talking about Dungeon Crawler Carl and doing some um I think we would like them to be like companion episodes. So, like after you read book one, come listen to our podcast and talk about the the show or show talk about the show, talk about the book. Uh, and then um the opening cracks aren't going anywhere. We're still gonna Damon's gonna join us for opening cracks as well. We gotta figure out our beer slate for this year and uh get those rolling.
SPEAKER_01So let us know if you have ideas of beers we should try.
SPEAKER_00Uh send all your pickle beers for Damon.
SPEAKER_01But don't tell him.
SPEAKER_02So I actually reached out to somebody the other day that uh made a dungeon crawler Carl beer. Wow. And I was like, how do we get this beer on the show? And they were like, Oh, we're from I'm not gonna say the state because I don't want to be offensive to a state, but come on, get your crap together. And they were like, our state doesn't allow us to ship beer. I'm like, way too many states. Frickin' freaking furk. Like, that's not cool, bro. Because I really wanted to try their uh mango beer, which was like has mango on the label. That'd be cool, which would have been fantastic and right up our alley for everything. But yeah, you know, send us your pickle beer uh thoughts. Yeah, road trip to to uh the the east coast. We'll say we're going to the east coast for that one.
SPEAKER_00We doing another system check in season five, yes.
SPEAKER_02So system check, okay. So here's the thing. Here's the thing about system check. We're gonna do it in the spring. I think the system we're going to check is still a little bit up in the air. Uh our original plan was to do Call of Cthulhu. Uh, but then Phil's gonna have the brand new Dungeon Crawler car the PDFs, the TTRPG for that, which we could go through.
SPEAKER_00I already have the PDFs.
SPEAKER_02Uh and then there's only about 50 other systems that we could potentially do too. So it's just we just need to figure out which one we want to do and then like lock that down for the spring. So I'm not gonna completely commit to which one we're doing just yet, but we're gonna do one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Open to suggestions. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02If there's one anybody out there or everybody wants to see, you know, put uh put that in the comments, email us bardsandbarrels at gmail.com. Let us know what you want to see. Like we're open to suggestions, let's put it that way. Uh, what else this year, guys? Am I forgetting anything else that we're planning on doing? The mailbag is coming back. Mailbag will certainly be there. I thought for better or worse. I thought about doing a surprise mailbag for episode. Oh god.
SPEAKER_00Which that on video, surprise mailbags on video will be a treat for all of you.
SPEAKER_01Phil, surprise mailbag for Ross sometime.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you could have seen their photos. Surprise mailbag and they were just face of dread. Face of dread. Uh okay, so I think that's enough about season five. It's gonna be a fun season. We got a lot going on. We're excited to be back. We'll see how this one goes. And based on kind of how how we handle the amount of content this year, we'll determine like what we do going forward. We may cut back. It just kind of depends on a lot of things. I will say, if you have not followed us on YouTube, please go do so. We're trying to really push to that thousand subscribers, uh, just to kind of see like what this amount of content will do as far as like helping us along the road to you know share with your friends, doing something. Yeah, a lot of good for us. So absolutely. So please head over to YouTube and subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already. You can also follow us on all of our socials. You can follow us on, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Threads. Those are the three that we're probably the most active on. Uh, and if you ever want to reach out to any of us and you want to yell at uh Phil for something Phil did, uh, you can always email at us at uh barsandbarrels at gmail.com. And I really hope somebody's never gonna get an email. It's just never gonna happen. So hey, I will say one quick story before we talk about our favorite classes. Uh we probably came this summer to like feeling the most famous we have ever felt in our lives. And we didn't tell the story in the lit rpgcon episode, but we were on our way to Denver uh for Lit RPG Con, and we stopped in North Platte, Nebraska at a Raisin Canes. And Phil and I are just sitting there eating, and we get I hit like my phone buzzes, and I get this message from like a random person who's like, new achievement, you've been spotted in the wild in the wild, yes. And it's like in that moment, we're like, holy shit, somebody recognized us. And I think I was wearing my polo, you had your hat on. It's like, oh, it's like the nirvana of like, you know what? Somebody did recognize us. Nerd, yes, it was. It was fantastic. And we actually ran into it, it was a female. Uh we actually ran into her at the convention and we gave her a couple hats for her and her husband. Uh, and they were from here in Nebraska. Well, so it was fantastic to run into them and and just have that moment where it's like, wow, somebody recognized us out there. Besides just people we know. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Wasn't friends or family. So just just to clarify there. Uh okay, so let's let's get to talking about uh our favorite classes. And I already know what Phil's is, so we're just not gonna talk to Phil this episode. You lean into it. You I typecasted my took us. You gotta be kidding me. Um okay, let's go through and say what our favorite classes to play thus far of the characters we've played, and then we can kind of circle back around and talk about you know, include classes that maybe we haven't played that we're interested in playing, perhaps. So, Brett, you you kick us off. What have you played that's your favorite?
SPEAKER_01Um I like charisma-based classes. Yes. Umity classes, sure. Where you can be a little bit more varied in what they do. I don't really like fighters, barbarians, like the smash, the the muscle. I don't really like the muscle characters. Sure. Uh so something like um uh a bard, a warlock, uh a druid, even like those are kind of my comfort zone is those characters that you can do more than just smash things. Sure. Absolutely. Phil, tell us yours and why it's a rogue.
SPEAKER_00Uh hi. My name's Phil, and I like to play rogues. Only rogues.
SPEAKER_02I thought you were gonna say I thought you were gonna say, I'm Phil and I have a problem.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's not a problem. He makes every character in my rogue. I don't like to play charisma-based characters. It's just not really my thing. So uh, yes, I enjoy playing the rogue. Really, I just like to be like the sneaky little bastard, right? Like, that's the type of character that I like to play. Fair. So I lead into rogue. Um I've been I've played a couple barbarians recently that I actually really enjoyed. And I don't normally just go for the big smash part, but weirdly enough, I blame you guys. But I'm playing I'm playing a rogue in one campaign whose name is Brussels Sprout, and he's like the chef on a ship kind of deal. And he he ends up being this semi-charismatic character, which I kind of hate myself for, but he's so fun to play. So I I don't know. I but outside of that, what I really like playing too, so I I love the warlock. I just like the magic system that goes along with the warlock. I think it's it's easy to run. Yes, that's a charisma-based character, but you can run it not to be in a lot of different ways, yes. Like clear ways. Um, and if not, uh I tend to pick up a cleric if the party needs it. I I like playing clerics as well.
SPEAKER_02Sure. I just I'm having flashbacks to the rogue I played and knowing I spent weeks upon weeks playing it incorrectly because I just could not get it's just not my character, not my class to play. I'm gonna go to the city. Supernova's sticky fingers. Still haven't come back to supernova yet. He's in jail somewhere in in Barovia. Uh I I like playing paladins. I think I like playing paladins because they're a mix of almost three classes. They're a mix of a fighter, uh, a warlock, or a mage of some sort, and then also a little bit of cleric in there. And so it's it's a nice jack of all trades character. The downside is you don't get a whole lot of power in any three of those. Like you're a bit of a tank. You can punch pretty well, but you don't get super powerful spells. You don't get a wide variety of spells as a paladin. You like smite though.
SPEAKER_01You like the characters that you have to write out a list of the things that you're gonna do before you're gonna be.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, yes, I do. Like all of those. I am a glutton for punishment, and I hate I hate myself every time we go back to like the main part of our campaign, and it's like we're in combat, and I'm like, crap, I gotta think this through because I gotta do this, which triggers this, which means I can also do this. And then if that's successful, I can also smite the shit out of this person. Uh, but if I don't write it down, I forget everything. You know how you can avoid that? Play a rogue. Yeah. Which is why I hate playing a rogue. So you and I are both like living oxymorons because you hate playing you hate charisma-based characters, but you love the one you're playing. I hate writing shit out, but I hate playing characters where I don't write shit out. So it's like, you know, that's just how we're gonna live life, apparently. Um, I'll start on the other side, just including any characters, not just ones I played. I I think I would really like playing a warlock. And it's just it, it's that you know, patron deity thing. I love having magic and to be able to do things like that. Also, if anybody out there has seen the trailer for the warlock game that's coming out, oh my god, it's so good.
SPEAKER_01Oh, amazing. I think this one is long.
SPEAKER_02Tasha, Tasha is the the patron for this character. And then there's like it right after that happens in the trailer, there's like this little interaction between the warlock and an imp she has with her, which I was just like, oh, I gotta figure out how to work some more imps into my my uh my games.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it looks amazing.
SPEAKER_02So characters for what other classes for you, Phil?
SPEAKER_00Other class that I would want to play. Um I've I've actually started to try to play some of them. So um I recently played a Ranger because that was something that I really wanted to try after we had talked about building a ranger on the show. Um and I enjoy playing a ranger, but I I almost lean the other side of like what characters I don't know. What classes don't I want to play? Yeah, um, I I don't typically have the desire to play a wizard. I've done it like once. I didn't love it, but not really for me. I would rather do even sorcerer or any any other wizard or any other magic casting class. Um bard. I don't know that I would ever play a bard in my entire life. Fair maybe. I don't know. If someone said, hey, we're gonna play surprise roll bards, I'd probably show up. But of course you would.
SPEAKER_01Why not? On the flip side, I want to try a bard. I I but I don't I don't know what I want to do. I think it's like I don't want to do a singing bard.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to do like the token like I need to get out of that mindset, I think, and then maybe I'd be willing to. Like in my mind, like I just have the stereotypical bard in my mind, and that's never a character.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think a Scandlin from Vox Machina, and and he is a singing bard, like he does that, but like in the riff is all like right, yeah. So it's not like a full-on like singing in a tavern kind of bard, although I'm sure he has in his story somewhere, but you don't have to play. He's an air guitar bard. Yes, you don't have to play them like that way.
SPEAKER_00No. I this is giving me the the idea now, right? That if I would play a bard, write it down. It would be write it down. He would be a master of like guitar hero. So instead of like actual music or anything, he would just work out a plastic Ubisoft guitar and like click buttons. Yeah, that would be the style of bard I would play. Nice.
SPEAKER_02Uh I'm gonna go back to the wizard. Oh, actually, Brett, you go, and then I want to come back and talk about wizards. Bard, that's what I was gonna do. Oh, yeah, you said bards. That's right. Okay, so let's talk about wizards really quick because I think wizards get a bad rap, and I get it. So, like a paladin, like when when here's what I don't like about wizards. Let me preface this. This is where I'm going with this. Like, as a paladin or any other uh spell casting class, like you have a narrow enough spell list that this is what I have. I have made my selections and I use them well enough that I can get to the point where I know what this does. I don't have to constantly reference my sheet, I don't have to conference constant constantly reference DD beyond to know what these spells do. The thing that I find frustrating about wizards, and it has nothing to do with playing them. It's well, it has everything to do with playing them, I guess, but it has nothing to do with like role-playing them. But it's like that constant management of here's my spells. So many spells that I have, but I can constantly like read my spell book, rewrite my spell book to like interchange that, which is fantastic if you want to do that kind of management, but I just think that sounds freaking awful to me. Am I wrong?
SPEAKER_01Uh no. And it's always frustrating when you don't have this one spell you do want. Right.
SPEAKER_00Eldritch Blast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Fair. I I don't know. I kind of like the the push to make sure you're picking different types of spells. And having a balanced pool available to you is kind of like a fun challenge. I like a little bit, but yeah, when you have to constantly keep changing it, you start to lose weight.
SPEAKER_02I I think that's where like because cause I played a wizard right out of the game when I started playing DD. I think that was my problem. Is like is like I didn't understand the balance, so I was just picking things that sounded cool, which is not the correct way to really go about that. I'm not really all damage. I'm not always, yes, exactly. I'm not always a min-maxer, but it's like yeah, I think of it in terms of like when I started playing it, I want things that do damage. You're exactly right, not necessarily support.
SPEAKER_00I think so. When I played the wizard, the way I kind of went with that, which I actually I didn't hate it. I just don't think I would play it very often. I wanted my wizard basically to be an aspirant towards Legitim. So actually they were picking up like a lot of necronic spells and were interested in like what the BBEG was doing and like that, because that was they lost someone, so their thought was the ultimate goal of that the legend would be able to like speak with or bring that person back to kind of their long-term storytelling.
SPEAKER_01Another way I um would be interested in doing it is uh focusing on the intelligence aspect and trying to do somebody who has some sort of like focused nerdom in one specific area, and all of their focus is dedicated to that like track.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I get that. I've we always talk about like fighters that like learn some magic. What if you went the other way and you're like you admit you you know this magic, but you don't like to use it. So, like, how do you melee yourself with a wizard? It's like what do I do? A wizard be a wizard monk, yeah. Like that'd be a different way to play that. A mizard.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, a wink? A wink, yes, wink.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Uh I I will say, as a as a DM though, I I do like role-playing wizards though, because I don't have to do any of that management. I just need to know a few specific things in order to play them. Like um, when you guys were in Candle Keep, Mags, the little mouse dude, he was a mage, and he had a few specific spells in case I needed them in certain situations. But like again, I didn't have to manage a full spell list by any means. I just needed to know he could do this, and then here's some things if I need them, which would have been highly unlikely or very bad had you gotten in a situation where I needed to use those. So right? When in doubt fireball.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02When in doubt fireball, that's right. Uh, any other thoughts on your favorite classes or any classes in general? I I will say if you haven't checked out our class reviews, these are all from the prior to 2024. This is the original DD 5e. Uh, there's a whole playlist on our YouTube channel where you can find them wherever you find podcasts of uh class reviews that we did where we went through all the classes in DD 5e and talked about them. So check those out if you want to hear us go in depth in every single one of those.
SPEAKER_01You know, what uh one more tangent. Yep. Uh the one I'm playing right now on our little side quest of our main campaign is an artificer. And I still feel like I haven't fully given artificer a solid enough try.
SPEAKER_00I was thinking of that one too. Like it's not something that I've played before, but it's one I would be interested in learning. But there's similarly, there's there's some nuances to it.
SPEAKER_01It is, and I think it's one of the most complex to play.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I would agree with that. But I I think the Bloodhunter class that Matt played too in our like regular campaign seems super cool the way that he leaned into that. But I've haven't played one of those either.
SPEAKER_02Right, and the Bloodhunter class was from um uh critical role. Yep.
unknownYeah. Alright.
SPEAKER_02Are we good? Ready to get out of here? Yeah, we're good. All right, let's keep season five. Stay tuned. That's gonna be great, right? Uh that's gonna do it for this episode of Bards and Perils. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel, uh, our YouTube channel. We'd love if you should join us on our social channels as well. Facebook threads, Instagram, uh, TikTok. Forgot about TikTok earlier at Bards and Perils. Until next time, may your dice be hot and your beer be cold.
