The Bad Guy This Season Is XP Leveling | Fantasy High Junior Year [Clip] 

Murph. Definitely Murph. His DM brain is screaming for blood.

@@Birthday888 100% 😂

The wizard who has been stabbed by goblin twice😅

Well, killing basic creatures in the starter area is more of a video game thing than a DnD thing.

And in a world of DnD aware NPCs, it makes sense that it's a known strategy, just not a well respected one.

"Do I have to use the ladle? It's a bit triggering for me."

It just shows they did not have a normal first day. Don't forget there was also a murder-suicide

That would be awesome, and a good way to write villains with exploitable weaknesses

This is great, especially with the concept of dump stats 😂

Those builds that can do 200 damage to one enemy at level 5, but they've blown all their resources until the next long rest because of that one round.

I think that wouldn't make for entertaining villains though. Like, a flashy fight full of typical moments, but a decent party of players could deal with that, especially if that party kept assuming things about the world within the confines of a standard DnD setting. But in this world, the NPCs are all aware of DnD rules and stats and fears (in a general war, as Brennen said). So they shouldn't make themselves vulnerable in that way. I think it would be immensely satisfying, especially within character arcs, if the Bad Kids fight the Rat Grinders but don't win (a stalemate or loss is fine), and realize that they've been unserious about the world they live in (classes, divinity, jobs, responsibilities) and the Rat Grinders, though resentful, aren't entirely wrong. But then maybe that resentment and other consequences (like lack of faith for a cleric, or fulfilling a warlock pact) gave room for the big bad to take form and the baddy destroys the Grinders who try valiantly to stop it. The the bad kids have to grow as characters to weaken the baddy and defeat it in glorious battle. I think Brennen has the smarts to pull that off, and he knows story well enough to make something like that. At least, I think I'm seeing the seeds of it.

Im just waiting for cassandra to pull the most insane shit

I suspect that eventually the big bad will be some Pay 2 Win organization that's powerleveling the low level noobs in the tutorial dungeon while they sleep or something.

XP leveling is the season's big bad. Capitalism is the over arching big bad.

Brennan ran out of societal ills to make into BBEGs so now he’s airing his grievances about how DnD is best played 😂

@@tim.noonanthe best kind of campaign.

i can make this about capitalism

They would die so quickly on an actual quest

Exactly. Like, if they were trying to get quests like that, that's one thing. But it seems like all they've been doing is grinding without even trying to go on quests

I think the Rat Grinders are all of the worst DND player stereotypes. You have the rules lawyer, the edgy one, the one that won't rp, etc.

Reminder that everyone gets to play dnd how they want. If you want to power game and grind rats for hours, you should be allowed to do so.

I understand the stuff about fairness too, but respectfully, they’ve saved the world 3 times. Twice in a year. If they were being treated BADLY, I’d get it, but the kids who literally stopped the apocalypse 3 times by the time of their junior year getting a little special treatment is not really a big deal imo

...how did I just realize the pun in the name 🤦‍♂️

The twig gremlin. Might just be the twig blight

Given that Brennan said they'd logged 80,000 kills, if there's 6 rat grinders (a foil for each bad kid) then that's what, 13,333 kills per person? If you say that's an average of 15xp per kill that's almost 200,000xp per rat grinder. Level 16?

⁠@@Ciara_Turnerassuming Aguefort is like the US and there’s 180 days, and they grind for 3 after school, that’s 540 hours. Add in 9 hours on the weekend (assuming that’s per weekend, not per weekend day), for about 36 weekends that’s an additional 324 hours. Assuming they actually take their seasonal breaks, that’s at a minimum 1,728 hours over the course of two school years. If they’ve killed 13,333 each over all those hours, that means that each Ratgrinder kills about 7 rats an hour… which means it takes about 600 rounds of combat to kill a collective of 42 SINGLE HIT POINT RATS So not only are they farming, THEYRE REALLY FUCKING BAD AT IT

@@nateridgely6778 I'll point out that if they're the kind to spend 9 hours a weekend grinding rats, they definitely did not stick to just farming rats during the school year. Summer break? You better believe we're putting in overtime.

​@@nateridgely6778they're probably spending more time finding them than actually fighting them.

found the guy who XP farms in the tutorial dungeon.

The Rat Grinders are literally picking this fight. The most infuriating thing is that these kids actively haven't tried anything until it was a near guarantee they'd succeed. Kipperlily starts her student council run only when she has the entire school year to herself, having "found" the rogue professor. Rouge class is the only one that has an instant ace condition for a year, and likely why she is one. Ruben released his grungy sophomore album while Fig is too busy stopping the Night Yorb to release hers. It hasn't been stated if he made a freshmen one, but Fig had made a successful one, hence why her not making the next one has been a big deal for her. Mary Ann trys out for the bloodrush team in her junior year when she's finally strong enough to tackle a half orc to the ground. All three of the boys tried out freshman year regardless of their own strengths, and based on her attitude it may not even be something she wants to do.

How does any of this indicate that they are picking a fight?​@@Hypersaiyanike

@@OseEigbobo Admittedly, none of what I said does. I'm simply pointing out the most aggravating aspect of them to me, which is their absolute refusal to take risks. However, Kipperlilly has made it very clear from her dialogue towards the Bad Kids that she believes them to be getting special treatment and is indirectly coming after them for it. Ruben has spoken to Fig in a sparky and condescending manor upon literal first meeting. Mary Ann really hasn't demonstrated anything of the sort, which is why I think this conflict, much like her bloodrush tryout, is something she's just going along with.

It’s about the principle of the thing.

That instantaneous shared look of horror is truly relationship goals.

My exact thought! They've been doing this since freshman year, so where were they when Kalvaxus came back? Cowards.

To be fair, freshman don't go to senior prom

Unfortunately, Kristen's brother is a Paladin, not a Cleric. Narratively that'd be crazy, but he's also a freshman and the rat grinders are juniors by this point

@@mintmittens The strongest paladin of the god of the sun. I thought the Rat Grinders would do something like it to mess with Kristin's campaign like an even her brother isn't voting for her kind of thing

If the bad kids had been left alone to be mediocre students, they probably wouldn't feel so aggrieved though. Their pathologies are gained through their families and environments, and they didn't ask to be forced into a growth journey in which they save the world three times, lose relationships friends and loved ones, have existential crises and are all in various ways heinously tortured - but they stepped up and grew through it.

i dont count killing a shit ton of enemies that you only kill because you know they arent any actual challenge to you "training". its exploiting a loophole in the system plain and simple

​@@ashleyjohnson9651It is though. Training doesn't have to be risky

@@bestaround3323 but you do need variety. no one would call playing the very first level of a game over and over to be truly learning the game any better after a certain point. if they are only battling the same 3 types of low level monsters, they arent learning the team synergy and ability to adapt to situations that an adventuring team that went on actual adventures will. and i dont even mean "save the world" level adventures that the bad kids did. even just the regular mandatory quest that students are supposed to go on (iirc) would have provided them with more varied and realistic adventure experience. i mean, its literally a school for adventurers, this would be the opportune time to learn and risk BECAUSE you still have the school supporting you. instead of coasting through on an easy ride, to get thrown out to the world of true dangerous and deadly quests, with no actual experience of what to do when things don't go easy and perfect. like it isnt even "they arent doing what the bad kids did so its bad" they arent even doing what ANY of the other students seem to be expected to do.

training like that would normally have a cap like your not really gonna learn more after 1000 kills if rats and spiders

Listen when the game stresses xp system, you will kill everything and anyone to level up, and you my friend, look just enough to get to level 3, I NEED MY SUBCLASS COME HERE

XP is fine as long as you give lots of XP for exploration and social.

XP is fine as long as the System limits your ability to earn it off of considerably weaker opponents. PF2e, for instance, where anything less than 3 lvls below yours gives you 0 XP.

@@hawkname1234 sounds like milestone a little bit if you get xp for exploring since the only way to gain xp is to kill in 5E

You get XP for overcoming challenges. Like when I used to run beginner games to teach, I didn't care much how they did it. Put the mob to sleep, trick them, negotiate, bribe. You still defeated the mob and get XP. Exploration my not do it by itself, but the DM can reward using skills and being innovative doing it. Using cartography or some kind of divination to map the dungeon. The problem is people being trapped in old styles of gaming while complaining about old styles of gaming.

4 that we know of, but the four Rat Grinders that we know of are a foil to a Bad Kid in some way, so it's more likely there's 6 of them and we haven't met the ones who are a foil to Fabian and Adaine yet. For 6 adventurers, off the top of my head, I believe that was like 133k, or level 13? I didn't feel like pulling up the xp table or doing the math again but it was somewhere around there.

But that's the amount of rats killed by the full party. Wouldn't they each individually get 1/6th of that? Still an insane amount of XP but yeah

They'd need to make the creatures grow faster. They're killing 300+ creatures every week. That's unsustainable.

You caught with Riz insight at the end right? I am curious because Brennan linked it with the need to write 10 page essays. Like, all the bad kids are stripped from time.

​@@StilltheAp0llyonYeah, *something's* up with that. To provide those kinds of numbers, there'd have to be a frigging *rat factory* hidden somewhere in those woods.

Somebody did the math somewhere else in the comments and it was like you’d have to kill 680000 rats to get to 20. I don’t know how many rats real life exterminators kill in their career but I don’t known if it’s that high.

@@startingfromlevelone9510 It was a bit of hyperbole, but exterminators, cattle/pig/chicken processors, or anyone that kills animals for a living would be high level by the logic of the Rat Grinders.

0:35 "like 80 thousand" even if we just take Twig Blights, that's 2 million xp, lv 20 is only 355 thousand. Now if he misspoke and meant 8 thousand we can still say 200k, which is just above level 16, throw in some Rats and Spiders and you have a level 17 group easy.

⁠@@SatinFoxxthat is disgusting, that is so much, and I get that you would learn some stuff from fighting such small monsters but like they have no experience in creating a plan, or strategy, when you fight the same monsters over and over again you can reasonably get to level 20 but you wouldn’t know how to do anything else. How do you take on a world ending evil if you don’t know how large enemy’s fight?

A la Goblin Slayer? I dunno, I suspect that something about the woods must be artificial. That many monster spawns doesn't feel natural.

@@Brasswatchman I'm afraid I'm not familiar, but you do make a good point.

Riz would be highly insulted, I suspect.

ironically the problem of grinding low-level mobs in beginner regions is a problem solely found in RPG video games. XP leveling can work in tabletop play since you can't really stay in one location and kill 80,000 rats. A smart DM would turn your party into NPC exterminators. A smarter one would slowly lead the party into a horror quest against a rat king or some other eldritch horror.

@@romxxii It doesn't happen now because games are run differently, but back when store games were the default thing people absolutely did this by just cycling their same character through otherwise all new groups' demo-games until you slingshot past everybody like fucking gandalf.

I use xp as a DM and I've never had an issue. Grinding isn't something people really do in TTRPGs, that's a video game thing. My players couldn't go out and grind for xp even if they wanted to because I control the flow of encounters they have.

It seems like it might have been what Brandon was potentially suggesting but he could have also just been trying to throw them off