Dungeons & Disciples

Tony Benda 0:19
Music, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's dungeons and disciples.

Josh Shaw 0:32
You know my throat. I was wondering how you were gonna start this, and I thought, Hello folks, welcome back to another episode. No, no, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do No, you will not you will not restart that. That is the only way we start episodes here. Hey everyone.

Tony Benda 0:50
I like option one better. I think that'll work. I'll keep option one. Keep option one. Yeah, hi guys, welcome back. Welcome back. It's been so long. It's been way too long. You can blame me. It's okay. I blame myself. No,

Josh Shaw 1:03
listen, the holiday season is a season for greetings and a season for family, and that's exactly what we did. We also had a lot of time to plan content and some amazing things coming. Yes, I

Tony Benda 1:17
will say, when you work at a church, Christmas and Easter to the biggest seasons of the year. It is at the very least overwhelming. It

Josh Shaw 1:28
was overwhelming from Jesus on the cross too. So Well,

Tony Benda 1:31
you know,

Josh Shaw 1:34
I'm sorry,

Tony Benda 1:40
dunking, dunking in the first two minutes.

Josh Shaw 1:44
That was the most like stereotypical Christian joke you could ever make. That's fantastic.

Tony Benda 1:49
No, I get it. I know. You know, Jesus was born, he did his thing. And, you know, 30 plus years of growth, and then he did his ministry. Yes, he went through more than we do in ministry here.

Josh Shaw 2:03
I like to think sometimes that when Jesus was born, and they kind of all the events kind of settled the Sun, sun rose the next morning. I don't think I'd want to be Joseph. I'm serious. Like everything's done. Like, think about the story, like angels open up the heavens to the three wise men, and they're singing Glory to God. And then they walk and they see Jesus, the Son of God, and they're bestowing gifts and all these things. And it's like when everybody leaves the party, they wake up and they're like, Oh,

Tony Benda 2:38
Mary, there's a pile of dirty diapers in the corner. Um,

Josh Shaw 2:42
he's crying and, uh, by the way, he's the son of God. So

what are we gonna do?

Tony Benda 2:50
Yeah, there's a lot there.

Josh Shaw 2:52
Like, I wouldn't even want to, like, I wouldn't want to spank my baby. Like, not

Tony Benda 2:56
if you're Joseph in that season. No,

Josh Shaw 3:00
I wouldn't spank my baby. I wouldn't put my baby in time out. I'd be afraid of some prophetic word coming at like, six years old. Can you imagine Jesus was without sin? Let me, let me just throw that out there. I can't come. He was an obedient child. I can't comprehend like anything like, that's crazy. Yeah, nonetheless, my name is Joshua Bucha, and I'm Tony bend, and we are so excited to be back. We've got such a good episode today. But I mean more I jump off topic, more already so than we have, because I have to open up the episode with this, and I'm going to provide some context. I was driving over. I've not even been given context full No, he hasn't, because I I was wheezing. Lord help us. I was wheezing. I was driving over with my wife, Jayla, and I was like, trying to I had something pop into my head and I say, I think this would be fun to do, just like a little laughing moment. She's like, stop texting. I'm like, well, texting. She's like, What are you doing? I'm like, I'm like, I'm researching something. She's like, well, just hand me the phone. Let me help you. And she looked it up or what she when she saw what I was researching, she just looked at me and she said, why? She said, Why are you doing this? And I said, I don't know. Is this on my mind? She's like, why is this on your mind? I said, I don't know. And then when we went down to because Tony always so graciously makes me coffee every time we do our episodes. And I finally was telling him what I was doing, he's like, why

Tony Benda 4:33
it was less of a concerned, why more of just like, where did this come from? This is funny. This is

Josh Shaw 4:39
how my brain works, folks. So essentially, what I'm going to do is we're just going to do a little laughing moment, and it involves the King James Version of the Bible. Because in my mind, I thought, man, How funny would it be to take the lyrics, the chorus, just some of the chorus. Of our most famous songs and see what would happen if we put them in King James language. So our good friend chat GPT Did, did it for me. And I'm telling you, I was not disappointed, not as not a single bit. I just did 10 of them, and I'm just going to read a little bit of them, just a little bit. The first one Happy by Pharrell Williams,

just simple. It says, Because I'm happy. Clap along. If you like a room without a roof, because I'm happy. King James Version,

for I am filled with gladness. Ye Rejoice with me. Clap thine hands. If thy heart be as a chamber without a ceiling,

Tony Benda 5:42
it's continue,

Josh Shaw 5:44
say my name, Tony. Hit me up. Sing it. Yeah, we all know you're all I don't remember the whole thing, but yes, listen, that's far enough. You all know the song King James Version.

Utter my name, ye. Speak it aloud, if I in heart be true and thou lovest me still, let thy words not falter nor thy love grow cold.

Tony Benda 6:16
Shakespearean pop songs,

Josh Shaw 6:18
thinking out loud, yep, sing to me. My

Tony Benda 6:22
legs don't work like they used to before.

Josh Shaw 6:25
So sing the chorus. Oh, go for it. So honey, now let's go noon. No, I don't remember 70

Tony Benda 6:34
something like that. Oh, beloved,

Josh Shaw 6:37
draw near unto me. Place thine arms around me, for my love endureth even as the days grow old.

It's so sweet. I know waiting on the world to change. By John Mayer, because I'm waiting, waiting, waiting on the world to change, we tarry here awaiting the world's renewal. For though the power lieth not in our hand, we trust the times shall surely

shift.

Oh, classic one, Tony and I did this before we started. This

Love has taken to long me, she said goodbye too many times before

this love hath worried my soul, ye it is burnt. Its burden is great. She hath turned me away, leaving me forlorn. Yet I am bound to this path. Oh, yes, we're getting to the good ones now my goodness umbrella,

Under my umbrella,

beneath mine, umbrella, shall thou dwell in The Tempest and in the storm? I shall,

I shall cover thee, thou and I shall endure together.

Tony Benda 8:00
Oh, have mercy.

Josh Shaw 8:02
Stressed out. Wish we could come back time been a good old days. Anyone would say you're still sleeping that was just out,

yep. Would that? Would that we can turn back the Sands of Time to the days of our youth when we care, when care was far from us, but low, the burdens of life weigh heavy upon us now.

So like deep, this is where it gets so good. This is where I started wheezing. Debbie just hit the wall. She thought she had it all. What song is this? Bolt, 1985 what? Yes, you

Tony Benda 8:50
do. All right, quick. Listener, break, 1919 819, 85

Josh Shaw 9:01
I also just realized I messed up the first two lyrics. But neither, either way, famous song, right?

Deborah struck the wall of time.

Her youth is fleeting. God. The days of your butt of memory and the music of the past echoes in vain.

Oh, this, this is, this is where I lost it. Tony. Honey, I'm good.

No, no, no, honey, I'm good. Could

Tony Benda 9:40
have another better, probably shouldn't

Josh Shaw 9:44
nay, nay, beloved. I am steadfast. I shall not falter. Though temptation draweth nigh, for mine, heart remaineth true.

Tony Benda 9:58
What? What an inch? Sing rendition, to say the least,

Josh Shaw 10:03
don't stop the music. Please don't stop the music.

I intrigued thee because not the melody, let the rhythm continue for my spirit to stir within me,

Tony Benda 10:24
Help us, Lord.

Josh Shaw 10:27
I hope that you listeners are also laughing as much as me, because it made me laugh. And if you're not laughing and you've probably skipped the last two minutes of the podcast, I encourage you to go back and listen to it, because it made me, tickled me slightly, so all I can say is, we're going berserk. Tony. Now, is that what we're doing? We're going berserk. Oh, oops. Did I do it? Did I drop it sounds like you did. I did because who doesn't like a cheesy episode title drop in the middle of an episode. You know, most people do like the cheese some. I mean, listen, folks, you guys heard our if you haven't go back and listen to our, like, 10 minute, I say, year recount, but it's like a partial year recount, because we started in like, May of last year. So it's like partial year recount, but if you go back and listen to it, you can listen to all the analytics of that, our mission, our vision, some goals for the year. So you can help. We can join with us in prayer. You can come alongside us and those things, some of those analytics are really, really, really cool, just to take a look at Yeah, no, I agree, but nonetheless, that is our title today, and as we are about to go berserk. So the end of season one, we had introduced a topic, but we also introduced some new content that we have for the year going ahead, that's right, and for a good first half of the year, I should probably say, y'all, we're just going over character classes, yeah, we're just going right down the line, yeah. And I'm excited, because some of the things, even just briefly looking at them, some of the content for these topics, is going to be absolutely insane. Is going to be absolutely insane. So if you gathered anything from our title for today, we're about to go berserk. And also, if you can pick up that, we're probably just going to go in alphabetical order. Um, we are starting with the barbarian class. Oh,

Tony Benda 12:40
yes, the barbarian class, and also just FYI. As we're going through these classes, we are going to be using the new player handbook, 2024

Josh Shaw 12:48
I heard like an audible boo, probably from a

Tony Benda 12:51
couple people. I heard it myself. You know, I'm I'm still a fan of the regular 5e the 2014 rules. I am too. That doesn't mean we're not going to still play games in that rule set. Or anything like that. But a lot of people are starting to get the 2024, players handbook, yeah, which is out. This is not a sponsored segment, but could you imagine, oh, goodness, it is out. It is available. I think some people are starting to use this. So that's kind of why we're going to start, you know,

Josh Shaw 13:21
talking about it. I think really semantically, a whole lot's not that different.

Tony Benda 13:25
Yeah, there's just little nerves here and there for a good amount of the characters and or the classes. But yeah, overall, the rule book, I think, will have better longevity, especially with the podcast like this. I think we're talking about a podcast in 2025 and we're using the 2024 rule set. That's pretty good. I mean, I think two or three years from now, when most people are going to be starting D and D with the new rule set and looking for information on it, this might be helpful. So I think that's why we're going to start using the 2024 rule set, and we're going to just start talking about it, starting with the barbarian class. So

Josh Shaw 14:03
one thing we're going to do, I'm actually, well, Tony's probably pulling it up too. I'm going to be pulling up my, my the character class for the barbarian and the handbook, just to make sure we don't miss anything. And mostly just because folks is a very open ended conversation, and we, I mean, yes, we do have a script for majority of it, but for particular character classes we wanted to just have fun with this. Yeah, but the one thing we are going to do, and something that I just recently started doing, and I feel like I should have done that more when I started D, and D is reading the actual description of like, what these classes are, because it really provides some good insight of how to play a character, what you want to do with a character, and really creates like fun imagination with the character, yep. So starting with bar Barians, right? First thing you should know about, primarily about barbarians. If you want to build a barbarian. When you do when you roll for your traits and stats, focus on strength and constitution, yes, because you're going to be a mean and beefy boy. And if you want to be mean and beefy, you want to be strong and you want to be able to take a hit, yep. So the saving throw proficiencies include strength and Constitution as well. Your weapon proficiencies involve simple and martial weapons armor training, typically trained in light and medium armors and shields, however you want to play that. If you're a Barbie and just once around running around with a shirt and pants on, wielding a battle ax, you're more than welcome to do that too. And then I don't really need to go over starting equipment, do we? You guys can look at that. But Tony, do you want to read us the opening of what a barbarian is? Sure?

Tony Benda 15:48
So this is directly out of players handbook 2024. Barbarians are mighty warriors who are powered by primal forces of the multiverse that manifest as a rage, more than a mere emotion and not limited to anger. This rage is an incarnation of a predator's ferocity, a storm's fury in a seized turmoil. Some barbarians personify their rage as a fierce spirit or revered forebear. Others see it as a connection to the pain in the English of the world, as an impersonal tangle of Wild Magic, or as an expression of their own deepest self. For every barbarian, their rages is a power that fuels not just battle prowess, but also uncanny reflexes and heightened senses. Barbarians often serve as protectors and leaders in their communities. They charge headlong into danger so those under their protection don't have to their courage in the face of danger, makes barbarians perfectly suited for adventure,

Josh Shaw 16:45
don't y'all just love Tony's voice,

Tony Benda 16:49
thanks.

Josh Shaw 16:52
That's a perfect character voice.

Tony Benda 16:53
One of my favorite barbarians is grog from critical role. That's the one

Josh Shaw 17:03
my favorite character, my favorite um. Grog, Oh,

Tony Benda 17:06
you do it so well, oh, still, locker can't quite get low enough. Grog,

Josh Shaw 17:12
well, my favorite barbarian is dead, and our campaign is over two and a half years, folks, two and a half year campaign, as opposed to an end. There's a slight tear going in the middle of my left eye. I cried significantly, but Tony made a sweatshirt I did. Maybe we could post that picture. Oh, we should. You guys have to see it. So one thing we want to go through with the barbarian is we're going to talk about how to kind of build this character, a little bit, how we would build the character now, just for sake of time, because there is other content that we do need to talk about. Yeah, we're only gonna be talking up to level five, yep. Reason being, there's a lot of cool things that happen at higher levels. If you're interested in this class, you can go back and get a player's handbook. You can get so on D and D beyond digitally. You can go to your local bookstore buy it. I almost said spiral bound. That's not correct. You can buy it in a physical copy or or you can go do both on D and D beyond and do the same thing by physical and digital.

Tony Benda 18:14
But I would say, support your local bookstores. Support your local game stores, yes, please. These places are wonderful places. It may be $1 or two more, don't be offended, but it's worth every bit, because these local stores are just amazing. It's great to build a relationship, and they're also great places where you could probably have games. Yes. So support your local bookstores and gaming stars,

Josh Shaw 18:41
yes. So let's kind of dive into it, right? Tony, where do you think we should start? At

Tony Benda 18:48
the very beginning. At the very beginning, start

Josh Shaw 18:50
us out. Well, Tony, actually, hold up. Let's start with this look. We're gonna start at the beginning. Quick spin. You build a barbarian, yes. What's his name? What's he sound like? How do you do it? Um, this is just off the cuff. No, no room to think, correct.

Tony Benda 19:12
So I'm gonna open my DVD beyond because this is what I do. I'm a nerd. I'm gonna go to characters. I'm going to create a new character.

Josh Shaw 19:22
Oh, you're doing all this. I've already got it. I'm already, like, thinking you've already created a character in your mind. Uh, well, I mean, there's, like, semantics, but like, I'm talking about, like, just like, you build a barbarian, what's his name? What's he wielding? What's a little bit of a backstory? Um,

Tony Benda 19:36
I don't know. Like, he's kind of sound for a barbarian. For me, it would have to, like, have a tough sounding name. So like, what is a tough sounding barbarian name to you gorlak,

you sticker?

Josh Shaw 19:57
Would I had an answer? I. Don't

Tony Benda 20:00
know was gorilla barbarian. I don't think he was. What do you mean? Was gorilla Trello barbarian? Great. Now you have me questioning, why

Josh Shaw 20:09
was I don't know. It just sounds like I just came to my mind, did

Tony Benda 20:12
it? Yes, gorlag trail was my character for my Star Wars 5e campaign. That's where it came from. I was like,

Josh Shaw 20:20
honestly, that's hilarious. Okay, here's the thing, though, that's that name just came on my mind. I didn't even remember the context of that. That's funny. Okay, so, well, I literally just thought of the name. I was like, gorlak. Sounds cool, yeah.

Tony Benda 20:32
Well, gorgug is the fantasy high barbarian, played by Zach. Oh, yum, in all three seasons of fantasy high on dimension 20, hosted by dropout. Anyway, gorlag trail was my character that I played in a Star Wars 5e campaign with my brother Aaron. And Steven was our DM, and Aaron's wife Jesse played that one. So it's three. That was the one that I had the I was the same species as Dex from attack of the clone. Yeah, I don't remember that species, though. I don't remember the name of it, but he did a comedy thing to get off the planet. Anyway, long story, gorlag is a fun name for a barbarian, yes. So, okay, you would use the name gorlag For barbarian, yes. Then where would you go from there? If

Josh Shaw 21:19
I use the name gorilla from there, I would think, for me, I think of a backstory. Okay, so gorillas from a small village raised got severely beat up as a kid, and like as a young child, his parents were farmers, and he spent a significant amount of time working the fields, and while the other kids were getting highly educated. He spent most of his time in the fields because the other kids were highly educated. Let's say he's just thinking, let's call it a mixed village around a couple, a couple elves and a couple, maybe some halflings, maybe some scattered, let's call them some scattered, like dwarves, perhaps maybe kind of a mixed village, but gorlag has been, while he may not be the smartest, he has spent most of his time developing strength in the fields, carrying hay, watching the oxen plow the fields, being with his family, well loved by his family, well adored by his family. But his rage gets inwardly built up by a particular kid that has always been bigger, that has always been stronger, and gorlag takes his rage into the fields to become one of the strongest kids in the community. And as he goes, as they get older, he finally has had enough of what do we let's do it. Let's say this bully is a dragon born this, this bully dragon born kid who when they're when they're of matured age. You know, obviously dragon borns get really big to really big study. They're dragonoid creatures. Let's say this dragonoid challenges into a fight, and in the midst of this fight, gorlag discovers his inner rage and barbarian strength that is pulled from the fact of a background that actually in the middle of this time, his father, who is his biggest influence, had just died a couple of years prior. So he's trying to be the man of the household, maintain this farm, and in the middle of this fight, the rage that consumes him is the rage of him losing the only one of the most important male figures in his life, and he he beats this dragon born in a fight, ultimately discovering his rage and discovering his in tuneness with with where his rage comes from. And as he learns that at his age, let's call him 17 at the time, as he discovers that he runs away from everything he's ever known, from his from his mother, from his farm, from this town, and then has to go and ends up in a separate town, let's call it, probably 60 miles away he's been venturing for a while. Ends up in a town with a group of adventurers with nothing but a wood cutting AX that he had from the farm that he's working on to chop wood for the fire to support, and him learning how to develop his strength and learn, learn the ways of the learn the ways of rage that he has within him, trying to discover both himself and how to grieve through his rage and fight with it.

Tony Benda 24:20
So that's all off the cuff. Yes,

Josh Shaw 24:23
what was his race? Again? The race? Oh, didn't even think about that. Let's call him,

hmm.

Oh, that's a good question. Let's see he fall. Let's say, What did I say? His farmer, his bully, was a Dragonborn. I

Tony Benda 24:39
think it'd be fun to have, like a gnome, or

Josh Shaw 24:42
I would make him a half orc, a half or I would make him a half orc. Half orcs are kind of like, almost like they're little more. They're you little humanoid, obviously that humanoid ish half orc, easy bullying target, but an easy, an easy race to have for a barbarian future. Yeah. I. Gnome would be fun too. Well, even the 2024,

Tony Benda 25:03
rules now use full works,

Josh Shaw 25:05
do they? Yeah, wow. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. That's

Tony Benda 25:10
how I build a character. That's fantastic. Tony's

Josh Shaw 25:14
way is also really good, because I don't even think about opening DND beyond, because when I build a character, I'm thinking about I take that part and I just build like a story in my head. I'm like, Okay, I need to know the story. It's kind of like Skyrim. Like, you start, everyone knows Skyrim. You start on that wagon. And he says, Good, you're finally awake, or however that actually is, yeah. And like, I just, I think about in the life around me, and I'm like, man, what kind of character am I? Like, who am I in this moment? What am I doing in this moment? Yeah, so Tony, what's your method? Because I think he's been working on it this whole

Tony Benda 25:50
time. No, I've been listening, actually the majority of the time there. I kind of just go through in like, see, it all depends. Each character is different for me. But if I were to do a gore lag also pick, I'll pick an orc just for the sake of making it easy for DND beyond, I think I developed the background later. Ooh, I think I kind of like pick what species and things I like first. If there's, like, a thing from, like, if I'm drawing inspiration from a book or from a movie or something like that, like, I would have probably read it recently, or, I don't know, something of that effect. There are, there's different types of orcs. I picture in my mind, in the world of Aragon, they didn't really have, like an official orc. They had what's called an ergal, U, R, G, A, l, or an urge. Girl, however you say it. Christopher paulini, hit me up sometime. I'd love to, I'd love to chat. So these are like horned creatures. They like remind you of, of what an orc would be in a fantasy world. They're kind of like the outcast, the misfits, the misunderstood, but they actually have this really deep historic like fighting culture. They fight for dominance, fight for their clan. They fight for different reasons, but it's mostly for status in their clan. If they don't fight, they don't gain more status. So these creatures that are constantly attacking other, you know, outposts or villages or whatever, are seeking status in their clan, as opposed to just doing it for the sake of ransacking villages and murdering and doing things. So an urgal, in my mind, would be a fun orc style person or character to play. So I'd go full orc, and then I would just go through D and D beyond and just pick things like that. But then I would, I would eventually decide, like, what kind of motivations I would have and different things. And it also depends on the genre we're playing. That's true. Depends on who the other players are, D the DM would also kind of give us some insight as to what style or location or things that we're playing, so we can kind of start writing a little back story

Josh Shaw 27:53
based stuff for that. But, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of just off the cuff thing. I don't really have that's good. Yours was fantastic. I that's how I think though, like when I build I've also built two barbarians, yeah, I'm not. I've built a halfling, level two druid, level two barbarian. Ooh, okay, so he was a multi class, level four character. Ah, yeah, a lot of fun. See, I'm so used to building barbarians that I'm excited about future episodes because actually spoiler my next campaign in building a bard. What never done a bard before? Don't really know a whole lot about it. They're very passive characters, and they're very inspirational characters, yeah. So they don't do a lot of attacking, which I'm not used to, very true. So he goes hard, I really do. So I'm gonna step out of my I'm gonna step out of my comfort zone. I'm gonna build a bard, and I'm just gonna have fun. Is

Tony Benda 28:47
this the next assumed game with Steven? Yes, oh boy. Anyway,

Josh Shaw 28:51
so moving on. So you build this character, you can take any way you want, want to spin with it, but you want to build your characters. I think really the good reason to read the first five levels or so is because if you're gonna do a big campaign, you're gonna start at level one, most likely, yep. But even most one shots I've seen, you're typically building your character between level like a level three to a level five, like one shot character. But again, your one shots pretty much start with like that, level two, level three. Ish, I've seen some pretty fun one shots get to like level like, levels five through seven, really cool stuff. But most campaign, like, most big things I've done, I've never really gone past like a level 12. But it's really essential to know like, the first five levels, because they really defined the character. Which the defining character for a barbarian is that level one rage. You can imbue yourself with a primal power called rage, a force that grants you extraordinary might and resilience. You can enter it as a bonus action. Keyword there to enter as a bonus action. If you aren't wearing heavy armor. You can enter your rage the number of times shown for your barbarian level and the rage is column. Of the barbarian features table, you regain one expended use when you finish a short rest, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. While active, your rage follows the rules below this one I remember pretty clearly, because it was fun. When you're in rage, you do have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and any kind of slashing damage, the rage damage that comes with it when you make an attack using strength with either a weapon or an unarmed strike and deal damage to the target, you gain a a bonus to the damage that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian. It'll kind of define that as you build the character. But that's something to take into attack or and some to take into consideration, especially if you really just want to build a character that just wants to hit things that nature. Because you do have a barbarian you will have advantage on strength checks and strength saving throws. That's natural to the to the character itself. One downside when picking a barbarian class, you need to commit or go home to the concept of really being in the front and striking, because you can't maintain any kind of concentration, and you can't cast any spells. The fun part about that is, because you're you don't have concentration, you can really make a character with very little intelligence, and it makes for some really incredible storytelling. Yeah, it does. It's a hero you want to be. Now, the written now, it says specifically for the rage. It lasts until the end of your turn, and it ends early if you don't, if you don heavy armor or have the incapacitated condition, if your rage is still active on your next turn, you can extend the rage for another round by doing one of the following, making an attack roll against the enemy, force an enemy, to make a saving throw or take a bonus action to extend your rage. That's really cool part about rage Tony. What else we got kind of going to as we go into levels and things like that, we don't, obviously, we don't have to read verbatim, kind of just we can take key points. So

Tony Benda 31:59
still, keeping with level one, you could do unarmor defense, which is, while you're not wearing any armor, your base armor class equals 10, plus your decks and constitution modifiers. You can use a shield and still getting this benefit, but you cannot do it while wearing armor, because it's obviously called unarmored defense. Level one also gives you weapon mastery over two kinds of simple or martial or melee weapons, which, yeah, so that gives you the mastery property. So whenever you finish a long rest, you can practice weapon drills and change one of those weapon choices as well.

Josh Shaw 32:31
What's your preferred weapon? If you're a barbarian gun? I like

Tony Benda 32:35
war hammers. There you go. I honestly do, and that's because I read the Inheritance Cycle. So that's Aragon eldest brisinger, and what's the last one inheritance? Duh. Yeah. So that's Aragon eldest brisinger and inheritance all for those books, the cousin of Aragon Rory. Strong Hammer was his nickname because he wielded a hammer in battle. I

Josh Shaw 33:00
also like the war hammer. I also love doing just two handed damage. There is a difference between doing a one handed damage versus a two handed damage. For example, if like my character, Ezra in our previous campaign, if I wielded my long sword one handed, I could only deal a one d8 plus six, yeah. Versus my two versus the 200 200 weapon, which in theory, gives you more strength, more control, more ability. Yeah, my damage dice was a 1d 10 plus eight. So of course I was gonna go two ended,

Tony Benda 33:29
yeah, drop the stinking shield and just go to town. You know, sometimes you just gotta do it. Going

Josh Shaw 33:36
on into your level twos, into your level two, you start again. You gain a couple of really cool abilities. The first one, I haven't really used that much. Um, you get a danger sense when you enter into level two. You gain an uncanny sense of when things aren't as they should be, giving you an edge. When you dodge perils, you have advantage on deck, said, dexterity saving throws, unless you have the incapacitated condition. Um, that can be a really big passive thing if you're not being fully self aware of your character. Yeah, so just keep an eye out for that. But my second one, I've always used that reckless attack, yep, you basically throw, throw away all all care in the world for any defenses, and you just attack with just such vigor, essentially, when you make your first first attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly in that moment, but it has to be the first one. You can't decide after the fact. As you do so, you get advantage on your attack rolls using strength, but the attack rolls that you got to be careful the attack rolls against you have advantage during that time as well. Yeah. So if an enemy is going to decide to attack you and you attack recklessly, they have those advantages personally. Just be careful your health where your health points are at with that,

Tony Benda 34:47
yeah, and that's until the start of your next turn as well.

Josh Shaw 34:51
Moving on Level three is when you get your subclasses. Yes, there's a lot of subclasses that we'll touch on here in just a moment. Do you want to go through primal knowledge? Yeah,

Tony Benda 35:00
primal knowledge, you gain proficiency in another skill of your choice from the skill list available to barbarians at level one. In addition, when you when your rage is active, you can channel primal power when you attempt certain tasks. Whenever you make an ability check using one of the following skills, you can make it as a strength check even if it normally uses a different ability, acrobatics, intimidation, perception, stealth or survival. When you use this ability, your strength represents primal power coursing through you, honing your agility, bearing and senses. That's actually

Josh Shaw 35:32
a really cool feed. Yep, it really is. So as you go into level fours and level fives, you can start you get into an ability score improvement. You gain the ability score improvement feat or another feat of your choice, which you would qualify for. One reason I really like D and D beyond is you can start to explore the advantages. Tony taught me that always make a character in D and D beyond, that is similar to the one you have, because then you can mess around with the fake character that you're not using to kind of give yourself a couple of different scenarios and then be able to for your actual character, finalize that.

Tony Benda 36:05
Yeah, there's this wonderful option when you're on your character page where you can see the list of all of your characters. It gives underneath the name of each character, there's four options, view, edit, copy and delete. Be sure to make a copy of your character. That way, you can do all sorts of manipulation with it without actually causing your real character to go crazy. Yeah, it all messed up. Yeah, I've made so many copies of my primary character, Zuck, that like, I've gone through deleted a bunch of them just so I can, you know, see which multi class I wanted to take and why and all that stuff. See, that's

Josh Shaw 36:38
intelligence. I just would start clicking away and reading a whole bunch until it fit for me. And then level five, best thing ever for me and for barbarian is just taking that extra attack you can it's simple. You can attack twice instead of once. Whenever you take an action on your turn, the attack action, yeah, pretty simple, folks,

Tony Benda 36:56
yep. And then you get the fast movement as well. So your speed increases by 10 feet as well. Yes, yes, that's when you're not wearing heavy armor. The

Josh Shaw 37:04
last thing we want to touch on is the sub classes you gain as a barbarian. You know, I've realized that when I built Canaan, I didn't really do this. You didn't, I know, I think I either did, no, that's not true. That's not true. I took a path of the Berserker because I had frenzy. Yeah, I had frenzy. So there's a couple different paths you can take here, and we'll just briefly touch on them. You can hit the path of the Berserker. Barbarians who walk in the path of the Berserker direct their rage primarily towards violence. Caden's character background, that's kind of what it was. Their path is one of untrammeled fury, and they throw in the chaos of battles. They follow their rage to seize and empower them with Frenzy. I loved it because it was super funny and says, if you use reckless attack while your rage is active, you deal extra damage to the first target you hit on your turn with a strength based attack to determine the extra damage rule, a number of d6 is equal to your rage damage bonus, so you can begin to do some real, real big damage with that. Tony. What else we got next up, we

Tony Benda 38:10
also have path of the wild heart. Barbarians who follow the path of the wild heart and view themselves as kin to animals. These barbarians are in magical means to communicate with animals, and the rage heightens their connection to animals as it fills them with supernatural might. So they gain the I guess it's called Animal speaker. You can cast the beast sense and speak with animal spells, but only is rituals and wisdom mirrors your spell casting ability for them, which is kind of

Josh Shaw 38:39
cool, which is funny, because barbarians can't really cast spells. Yeah, I always found that this allows you to, right? I always, I always found that sub class to be interesting. That's cool. And you get rage of the Wilds as well. Yes, you get to tap into the power of animals. So you can actually, you don't embody the actual animal, but you have, like Bear, Eagle and Wolf, and they do different sorts that. They have different impacts to your damage, and they also have resistances that are actually kind of cool. Yeah, all right. Next is path of the World Tree. Barbarians who, who follow the path of the World Tree, connect with the cosmic tree, Yggdrasil through their rage. I think I said that right this tree grows among the outer planes, connect them to each other and the material plane these barbarians draw on the trees magic for vitality and the means of dimensional travel. Super cool. That is really cool. So you tap into that, you get a vitality of the tree at level three, and a vitality surge when you activate your rage. You gain number of temporary hit points equal to your barbarian level. So adding to that, adding to that health to kind of give you a little bit more beef at the start of each of your turns with life giving force, while your rage is active, you can choose another creature within 10 feet of yourself to gain temporary hit points. To determine the number of temporary hit points roll number of d6 is equal to your rage damage bonus, and then add them together. Yep, that's. Super cool, and then that last one, Tony path

Tony Benda 40:02
of the zealot. Barbarians who walk the path of the zealot receive boons from a god or pantheon. These barbarians experience their rage as an ecstatic episode of defined union that infuses them with power. They're often allies to the priests and other followers of their god or pantheon. So divine Fury is something you get at level three, and then there's also warrior of the gods. But divine fury, you can channel divine power into your strikes on each of your turns, while your rage is active, the first creature you hit with a weapon or an unarmed strike takes extra damage equal to one d6 plus half your barbarian level round down, the extra damage is necrotic or radiant. You choose the type each time you deal the damage, and then, warrior of the gods, a divine entity, helps ensure you can continue the fight. You have a pool of four dwells that you can spend to heal yourself. As a bonus action, you can expend dice from the pool, roll them and regain a number of hit points equal to the rolls total. Your pool regains all expended dice when you finish a long rest, the pool's maximum number of dice increases by one when you reach primary level 612, and 17. That's

Josh Shaw 41:13
really cool. I actually that would have been such a really cool path playing with Jarek, Ooh, yes, that would have been such a good path playing with chair that would have been fun, because he was a Paladin, yeah. But to be of his, but to be like a barbarian, were the gods, right? Yeah. Well, he if at the time, what? What for him? Yeah, well, for him. So, like, for example, he was, what? What idiot was he following in the game? Um, avandra. Avandra, so if he was following evandra, I take that path of the zealot. It's like, if he's doing, if he's, like, praying on behalf of that, basically taking and following, like him being like a divine leader of that, yeah, of that particular, um, whatever you would call it, but like, essentially, like following him and protecting him. That have been cool. That had been really cool story. So that is probably the real basics of the actual barbarian class. There's definitely a lot there. There's definitely more to explore within the character and just us having fun with that. But if you want to take a look, look more into the barbarian class, like we said, go on to D and D beyond. Get you get out your source books for the new 5e manual, 2024 and be able to explore that a little bit more and build characters based off of that. Yep, as always, we transition to our Gospel conversations, our courageous conversations, because we're willingly and boldly posting content like this on the web for everyone to listen to about Jesus. So one thing that we look at with the barbarians, they are fierce leaders, and they base a lot of their stuff off of rage, or we can commonly see that as anger, a lot of their other formations of anger. So that's kind of like their spiritual topic, essentially, is anger and leadership.

Did you know the two can coexist?

Tony Benda 43:11
They do with some of my bosses.

Josh Shaw 43:13
Just kidding. No, but, but it's true. It's true. It can exist. They can't. The two can coexist. You can have anger and you can be a great leader within the church. Yes, see, barbarians are the leaders of their community, since I have d and d, but lead out of rage and anger. So the question then becomes, if we take that to a gospel context, how do we lead? Well, the Bible is kind of clear on it. All right, says, Therefore putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil an opportunity. Ephesians, chapter four, verses 25 to 27 and actually, interestingly, pulled from Psalm, chapter four, verse four, be angry and do not sin. Reflect in your heart while on your bed and be silent. I find that verse kind of cool, both of those. But Jesus is allowing us the room to be angry, but is instructing us in the way of not sinning in the midst of it, yeah?

Tony Benda 44:24
Anger is an emotion that we were given, yes,

Josh Shaw 44:27
and we will definitely touch base on that, yeah. So one thing that we're probably that our listeners, you guys are probably understanding, is like, okay, Bible says Be angry, but do not sin, right? First question I would ask is, What about stuff in the Bible? Yep, where do we look at that? Tony, you have any interesting examples of the Bible about maybe moments of anger from men, like just from man throughout history? Yeah,

Tony Benda 44:52
one of the very first ones that we see is in the book of Genesis, when the Lord said to. Cain, why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Genesis four, so this is Cain, who's jealous of Abel offering the better sacrifice to God. And we obviously know that he eventually, you know, kills his brother in committing the first murder, which, you know, sin, if not dealt with, could lead to more sin. So be advised to deal with your sin accordingly. No repenting Hearts is what we're supposed to be doing. That's what God is seeking. That's right. Another good one is King Herod. When Jesus was born, King Herod had the wise men come through. And, long story short, he felt like his throne was going to be undermined by this new by a baby Messiah, this new king by a baby. So what did he do? He tried to keep wealth. He did. He slaughtered NEW BIRTH newborns and babies up to the age of two, I believe, is what it was. That's why Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with baby Jesus, and they safely got away,

Josh Shaw 46:18
which Funny enough, interestingly, if you read the accounts of the crucifixion, I don't remember if it's Mark or Luke. I don't remember one of the two. Jesus actually gets delivered to the to the courts of Herod. So the King Herod, that's actually mentioned there, King Herod died, and then, if I remember correctly, the next king took his place. Yeah. And he actually brought together Pontius Pilate and the king of the time. So G so this new king was ecstatic to me Jesus, and they actually, they both kind of mocked him and glorified him at the same time. It's kind of odd, but through, through Jesus's mocking and through their, through, essentially their persecution of him, Pontius Pilate and Herod. It says they brought a kingdom together that was never together, yeah, which is kind of interesting.

Tony Benda 47:09
Pontius Pilate of Rome and King Herod of Israel, yeah?

Josh Shaw 47:12
Like they came in unison of the crucifixion of the king, of the one true King. It was just, it was, I don't know how that really applies, but it was just interesting to me. I

Tony Benda 47:24
remember pretty fast we have more angered moments of the Bible, for sure, one of them being Jonah. Oh, Jonah. So this is after he had preached to Nineveh, yep. And you know, Jonah ran, or tried to run. And then, you know, tried running on the ship to Tarshish, and then got eventually delivered the boat by throwing himself overboard, being in the belly of this fish for three days and emerging at the shores of Nineveh, only to have to still preach. He tried running, but God's like, nope. He said, No, son. He's like, watch this and turn that fish around. And brought him to Nineveh, where he eventually did preach. And that town was becoming delivered at the Word of God. And was delivered at the Word of God. Yeah, every it says every citizen, yes, they were delivered. And which is an amazing thing, yeah. And Jonah was just like, not having it. He was so upset that these people turned he was like, but these are the bad people. They should not be doing this. So it says he prayed to the Lord, please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country, that's why I fled towards Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, God slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. The Lord asked, Is it right for you to be angry?

Josh Shaw 48:57
Jonah literally verifies that you are gracious and compassionate and slow to anger. Yeah, crazy. That's and, I mean, it's so wild, because, literally, Jonah's like, See, I told you this would happen, yep. And God's like, what you told me that a people would repent and turn to me, and yet Jonah somehow, like, it's like crazy. It means that Jonah walked him with the expectation that, all right, fine, I'm gonna preach the gospel, but you were gonna kill them all anyway. So he was hoping, might as well, I literally was hoping for it. He, like, knew, Jonah knew the saving grace of the Word of God, yeah. And yet, that's honestly, everyone says that there's so many different books that, and depressingly, Jonah is probably one of the most depressing endings I've ever read in the Bible, because the whole book ends in Jonah chapter four, where Jonah is still angry and relentful, yep, to the saving of Nineveh. And basically just the book just ends with God being like you. You're You're missing the point. Yeah, and the book just ends with Jonah still being angry. So we don't really know what happened to Jonah. I'm curious

Tony Benda 50:08
if Jonah, who, being a prophet, had knowledge of Sodom and Gomorrah and expected it to burn. Oh, I'm curious that that would be a really fun thing to look up sometimes. That's Whoa. Oh, now I like now in a sidebar for we're gonna continue as podcasts, but that's a good that's a fun little thought. I'm curious if Jonah knew about Sodom and Gomorrah and then wanted to, wanted to watch the same thing. Yes, like, watch the world burn. I'm just kidding. He didn't tell me. He didn't want to watch a bird. But anyway, everyone said, do it, Lord. He was hoping we're gonna see some fireworks. The last of the ones that we made note here of. Anger for man was King David. King David was kind of angry at himself, but didn't know it. A little bit of the story, the backstory is, well, we all kind of know that story of David sees Bathsheba on the roof, knowing that it's Uriah. His wife calls Uriah back from war after David got her pregnant and decided to try to pin it on Uriah, saying, Uriah, go have relations with your wife and hoping to get her pregnant. And he was like, No, I'm gonna sleep at your door. This is what we should be doing, is guarding our King during war. And so he sent him out to die after that. And David then took Bathsheba as his wife. And you know, the prophet Nathan comes back in second, Samuel 12 and rebukes him. He talks about a little parable of a rich man and a poor man having different flocks or herds. The rich man had many great, a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except for one little ewe lamb, which he bought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and his children. They would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and was like a daughter to him. Now, a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then, David's anger burned greatly against this man, and he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion. Nathan then said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, it is I who anointed you king over Israel, and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul she I also gave your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these. Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword. Have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Emon. Now, therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of your eye the Hittite to be your wife.

Josh Shaw 53:10
Goodness, gracious. Has anybody ever felt like the deepest and hardest conviction ever, because David has basically Nathan just looked at the king, yep. And said, Hey, that story, that's you, Your Majesty. Um, excuse me, Oh, he didn't even say that. He didn't even, he didn't even say, he didn't even say, you know, with, with all due respect. King, no, he was like, Hey, man, that's you, by the way,

that's, that's wild,

Tony Benda 53:38
yep, just straight up. Just like, it's, it's cool how he does it too. Yeah, he just, he just goes hard with the with, with the word and

Josh Shaw 53:50
so now, Tony, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall there. So, yeah, imagine being the Magister, like, just being magistrates, people just in the course was like taking notes, just like, oh man. So now transitioning to we can see definitely how man was angry. That makes a whole lot of sense. So here comes the big theological thing, moments of anger from God. Yeah, let me just dispel this fact, and it's a fact I think we all need to be aware of, and I think it's a fact that we all need to just kind of openly kind of openly accept, to be honest with you, Jesus Christ led, bled, fed and guided people with love, grace and truth. What does that mean? That means that God can both simultaneously love and does get angry. I was actually convicted at something. I had heard something, and I wish I can remember where, but they essentially said, if you don't think that God is an angry god, you need to re look at the god we're serving. Yeah, God is an angry God. Y'all, I'm not saying he's burning with anger all the day long, because even Jonah verifies in his anger, said, God, you are gracious and but compassionate, slow to anger. So what does that mean? Jesus Christ came to die the penalty for our sins because God was angry at his people of disobedience and required a sacrifice in order that we may live. Yeah, y'all God. God hates sin. Don't believe me. Read Proverbs, chapter six. I think it's chapter six, I'm pretty sure. Read Proverbs six. There are abominations to the Lord, and it's, it's clear in the Word of God, it's itself. So we need to kind of touch base then on a couple of key moments from from God's anger for it, for where it is justified God. Things are not, are not just random in occurrence. There are everything is justified by God. So we need to look at a couple of key points we've we start to see moments of anger from God, starting in the book of Exodus, in chapter four, God gets angry with Moses that he has doubted himself and who God created him to be. I mean, Moses replies when he's in the middle of God being like you Moses are going to go before the people of Egypt and help set them free by my power says, Please, Lord, I've never been eloquent, either in the past or recently, since you have been speaking to your servant, because my mouth and my tongue are sluggish, and Lord just simply replies to him. Like, who do you think placed mouth on humans like, what? What do you think makes a person muted or deaf seeing more blind? Is it not me? Like, that's what, that's what God is saying. He's like, go, like, why are you still here? And even Moses replies, like, send someone else, God, because it's not me. And then finally, the Lord is like, Are you kidding? It literally says in the words, then the Lord's anger burned against Moses, and that's when Aaron comes into the picture. Like, well, Aaron's your brother, right? You know, he'll go with you. He'll speak for you, right? Travel more to Exodus 15, it says, Lord, Your right hand is glorious in power. Lord, your right hand has shattered the enemy. You overthrew your adversaries by your great majesty. You unleashed your burning wrath. It consumed them like stubble. And this was Israel's song, after all the plagues after escape through the Red Sea, that's Israel's song, and they're recognizing that it was God's anger that was burning against the sin and the disobedience of which the Egyptians were taking on behalf of his people. Even more so in this in Exodus, 32 Moses goes up to see God, to be with God, to spend time with God, and comes down, and they have literally built themselves a golden calf, and are worshiping this golden calf. And the Lord replies to Moses and says, I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them, then I will make you into a great nation. And what we don't see is that Moses intercedes on behalf of the people and essentially saying, like God, and I believe it's in that scripture says, like God, recall your promise that even after the floods of Noah, you wouldn't destroy them. But see, this is the key indicator that we need to understand. Moses is reflecting the story of Jesus. God's anger and wrath burns against the sin and disobedience of the world, and we needed an intercessor to come in to pay the price for our sins. Moses could not do that, but Moses reflects the very character of Jesus Christ, and that's what Jesus does for us. God's anger burns at the fact that man continues to walk in sin and disobedience, but the character and the personhood of Jesus Christ intercedes on us for groanings too deep for words. But y'all, Jesus still does get angry too. Jesus went to the temple and throughout all those buying and selling in Matthew 21 verse 12, it says He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. Some scripture. Scriptures say, like he fashioned a whip, yeah, and walked in there and drove them out of the temple.

Tony Benda 59:29
I just picture that scene in my mind in slow motion. There's a buddy of mine in college freshman year, and all of that, all of that Nancy University, I was there for two years, down in bourbonnavina, Illinois, two hours south of Chicago, roughly. Anyway, we were a freshman in the first floor dorms. I think it was Chapman. Yeah. Chapman was our freshman dormitory. His name is Samuel colado. Loved doing filmmaking, stuff in digital media and all that kind of things. Anyway, he wanted to be a filmmaker. So, like we were talking about, like, do. Really cool things you can do with, like shorts from the Bible. This was, I don't know, 1213, years ago. Would have been fun to go like, shoot a slow motion version of Jesus flipping the tables in the temple, just seeing, like, all these things and like, doves flying in slow motion, tables flying a whip crack, like the whole thing would have been amazing, just but

Josh Shaw 1:00:26
can you imagine, like being around rabbi, your rabbi, going to a temple, just flipping tables, it's unreal. And that's that's but that's righteous. I know that is being angry at the sin and disobedience of people, right? And let's be honest, like we we all get upset. We take things out of proportion. We take things too far. Yeah, while situations that make us angry are very real to us, we tend to let them control us and cause us to sin, which is exactly as Tony had talked about that. Recall back to the garden with Cain, God told Cain like you must control your the you must control sin, or it will take you captive. You must take control of this anger and this frustration you have. It will take you captive. If you just do what is right, you will be accepted. If you just do what is good in my Oh, that's good when you do what is good in the sight of my eyes, you will be accepted. Yeah, there's a key difference here. We have to notice it. See, God never gave up on his people, but he allowed the consequences of their disobedience to play out. Right? The Babylonian exile is a great example of that. God vowed to never destroy his people after the flood, even though God recognized that they would continue to sin and be dis have disobedience. So God allowed the slowness of his anger. Allowed the people to say, You know what fine partake in what you want to partake in. He allowed the consequences to play out, even today, when we sin and let our anger take a foothold of us, when we let that sun go down. In our anger, consequences abound, like you can't sit here and tell me that the the consequences of our anger are not shown. The only difference is that we can't see them when we're the ones angry, because we're the ones partaking in sin, and sin results in a covering, a covering of our eyes, a blindingness. Look at the sin in the garden Tony, when sin abounds, they covered themselves. Yep, right. It is not God. And see where we make the mistake is, God is not causing the consequences of our anger, but our reactions are causing a chain reaction.

Everyone's like, oh, but oh, I'm God. Did this to me. Why Am I Suffering? Why am I doing this? Do you remember that time you got angry?

Like, folks, I'm sorry. I'm a married man. I've been through my marriage struggles. I've been through those things when you do something that makes your wife frustrated or makes them angry, and she like, I don't even know, like doesn't make you dinner. Let's just say that I was gonna go worst case. But like, doesn't make you dinner, you're like, what? Why am I not provided for? Why? God? Why are you doing this to me? Well, maybe because you just got frustrated at your wife and she was too upset to make you dinner that night, so you were forced to put it in the effort yourself. That is just an inherent consequence. Y'all, I'm sorry, but like, it's the sleeping on the couch method. Y'all, I'm telling you, you get mad for God for sleeping on the couch, and you blame God for sleeping on the couch. But the true fault is when the anger abound in you and you let it control yourself. Because when anger abounds, we're no oh boy, when anger abounds, we're no better than Cain himself. We are no better than Cain himself. Hold up Tony. This is why Jesus Himself. Sermon on the Mount. You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to tell to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister will be subject to the court. Whoever says you fool will be subject to hellfire. I know that's like, pretty harsh language, in a sense,

like, and I get it, but like that, it's your anger. He's saying that anger is the same as murder.

That's that. That's Yo, that's red lettering. That's red letter. So, so when I make the biblical justification that burning with an anger makes us no better than Cain himself, is a biblical statement, Old Testament and New Testament, Old Covenant and new covenant. Yeah, Tony, what do you got on that? Because I'm about. Oh,

Tony Benda 1:05:02
I really don't have much more than what you gave. You spelled it out pretty well. Yeah, you did it, right? I mean, you connected them dots. I get I get frustrated because I get convicted. Yes, I've been angry. But see here, I've been angry too. Oh, oh, I had, I mean, I had, I had to go to therapy for my anger management, yeah, there. There have been times, even working in a church that I get angry like I don't understand how Christians could be I'm not, I'm not gonna I don't

Josh Shaw 1:05:33
understand how Christians think that anger is something that's that is unallowed, because a righteous anger should be allowed to prevail when you see unrighteousness, it should make you angry, yes, but it should prompt us to a to God's response to anger versus man response Correct. What do I mean? Man's response is this, react out of self righteousness and pride, more concern with ourselves in the moment. Common example, when you get into an argument, I'm going to win the argument because I'm right. Yeah, God's response to anger in these situations. Actually, the Bible project talks about it in a podcast that they did an incredibly, beautifully crafted statement from John Mackey. He says, Yet God's response is to continually bind himself to humanity rather than destroying them. His justice is Measure for Measure, delivering back on the people the consequences of their own actions. God allowed the actions to happen, but continue to bind himself by his promise to humanity. That is the beautiful thing, because Jesus Christ came to pay that debt, and we have love and forgiveness of those wrongs, and we are filled by His Holy Spirit, and we can truly learn how to manage our anger and still lead effectively. Yeah, so Tony, how if we say that we provided some biblical basis, how do we lead? How do we lead and feel these emotions effectively? Well,

Tony Benda 1:07:16
we have to understand biblical teachings we lead by being led like living in spirit led life. Because if you live according to the flesh, you're going to die, but if by the Spirit, you put to death, that deeds the body, you will live. For all those led by God's spirit are God's sons, and that's straight out of Romans, eight, yeah, 13 to 14. If we aren't in the Word, we will be consumed, just like Cain was

Josh Shaw 1:07:44
James chapter 119, through 21. Says, My dear brothers and sisters, understand this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. We that is like a common James 119, Scripture. We can pray that over our own lives

like y'all be be be quick to listen you see yours so to speak, so to anger,

not a bad biblical teaching. But what does the Bible also say? For human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness. Come on somebody, therefore ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word which is able to save your souls. It says, For human anger does not accomplish righteousness. What are your thoughts on that Tony, for

Tony Benda 1:08:31
human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness? That's a fascinating statement. How so and oh so ever true. Well, God gave us the emotion. Our emotion does not give us the rights, the permission, anything, to surpass the one that gave it to us in terms of action. Um, we need to be like it says, slow to speak, slow to anger. God will give us, if we're being led properly by the Spirit, God will give us the right words to say to people. He'll give us the right actions to act out, whether that's inaction or, I don't know, just not responding in a negative or inappropriate manner or I don't know. Well,

Josh Shaw 1:09:21
it also says, to your point, therefore ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent. Humbly receive the implanted word, yes. So it's like saying you're angry, yeah, your emotion is not going to accomplish God's righteousness, yeah. Get rid of these immoral, filthy, evil feelings that you're feeling that are not led to God's righteousness and humbly receive the things that I'm trying to tell you to do. Yeah, because Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Yep. Number two in that first we are we understand biblical teaching there. There's a lot to dive into with anger. Number two is just as important though. It's understand your feelings, and it's kind of like a sequence, get in the Word. If you get in the Word, you're going to understand your feelings. All right, we just recall Ephesians 426, that anger is a God given emotion. We need to understand that anger is not a sin. It's not but what we do with it determines whether we sin or not. In fact, I actually have a book that Kathy gave me. Kathy Reinhardt, wonderful and cruel man, if she ever listens to this. She's an incredible woman of God, I tell you what. But she gave me a book by Dr Tim Clinton and Dr Ron Hawkins in regards to biblical counseling, and their understanding of anger is incredible. They define anger as anger is best understood as a state of readiness. It is a natural response to a real or perceived injustice, and it inspires a powerful alertness that allows us to defend good or attack evil. That's so good it's a positive end to take it like when you look at a barbarian, that's what barbarians use their rage for. They use it to defend other people. They use it to put others before themselves. They Yes, barbarians, essentially, if you build it, even build a character, right? Rage can be a powerful and effective and beautiful tool righteous anger, right? God uses that anger to defend the good that he has made and attacks the evil that is so pressing against our hearts and our minds. That is why God hates sin y'all, because it's it is, and God's anger is a natural response to the real and perceived injustice that the enemy, the deceiver, has done since the beginning of the Garden of Eden. Yep. And we need to realize that the goal is never to be anger free. Everyone, when they go through anger management's like, Okay, how do I stop being angry? I think you've already lost the fight because you're not. You're trying to stop an emotion that is God given and natural. Yeah, Tony, you just look, look, I look like you want to say something profound, nothing.

Tony Benda 1:12:06
I'm just excited for where this is going.

Josh Shaw 1:12:10
He's excited because it convicted both of us, I think so. How do we do this? Then, practically, right now, let me just say this. I'm not a licensed clinical mental health counselor. Same we're not those things. This is just some tools that we've utilized. And this comes from the same book in which I quoted about how they kind of state anger, and we looked at it, and it's just a really cool thing. Also, we'll get to that part time. Forgot I wrote, that's what I was looking at chuckle. So first, identify the anger. Where is your where's your anger coming from? What is it resulting to you? Need to take a moment to see why you're angry. In fact, God was even trying to show Cain in a way, like you're angry for what? Yeah, because I was displeased at the offering you gave me. We need to identify the anger its origins. What is causing that anger, because when you begin to expose that thing, when you get to bring to the light, those things that are in the dark, the darkness shall not overcome the light. Expose those things. Number two, delay the anger. Sounds really weird. Sounds like opposite, right? We identify it now we're just going to delay it. I didn't say, stop the anger. I said, delay the anger. Yep, because delaying and delaying an explosion from a grenade, right? Anger is imagined like a grenade. It is a thing that you pull the pin to you throw and you wait for it to explode, and once it has enough pressure, pressure and the detonation goes off, it wreaks havoc. Tony and I have both thrown grenades, yeah, don't ask, because

that was such a weird

thing, right? So how do we delay that? We pray. We talk to a friend. We read scriptures such as Proverbs, 1632, Proverbs, 2911, we do those things. I did, write it. I have to do it. My personal favorite, oh Lord, don't miss hear us. Don't mishear us, please. It's the what I like to call and what one of my counselors that I've been through therapy with taught me, the I don't give a duck, D, U, C, K, method, I don't give a duck method, all right, the story behind that very briefly, I walked into a counseling session one time, and I I noticed three ducks on the table. I always grabbed one because I like to fidget one, especially when I get nervous and when I'm talking through things. After about seven sessions, the Ducks remained. And I said, Chris,

why are these ducks here? I said, I've never told you the story. Said, No, he's like, Dude, it's the it's you don't you don't give a duck. And I said, What? So?

He's like, it's, I don't give a duck. He said, Imagine yourself battling an anger management problem, and you're coming to me and you're saying, I want to solve my anger and I want it to stop. He said, Okay, you know, we cutting cold turkey is really hard. Think about smoking, thing about alcoholism. Cutting cold turkey is hard. So he said, Imagine you have three ducks that you have to give during a day, you only got three ducks that you can give, right? That's right throughout the entire I know throughout the day you're allowed a moment of anger, grab your duck. And he told me, he said, specifically, grab a duck with a squeaker and squeak your duck. Because if you squeeze the duck, a duck squeaky sound typically resounds all linger anyway. He's like, squeeze your duck hard and allow yourself to not give a duck. After you use your duck, you put it away and you have two ducks left you. And then he looked at me and said, You have the choice of how to spend the rest of your ducks in a day. But when the ducks are gone, they're gone, yep. Ultimately teaching us what self control when we can give a duck, I pray that we were heard right and received right, or else I'm going to be getting a very negative, severe, negative email, Amazon

Tony Benda 1:16:22
searching for squeaky ducks. Squeaky ducks. Third

Josh Shaw 1:16:26
one is controlling the anger, learning to respond to anger, not reacting in the midst of it, right? I struggle with this to my kids. If I'm being perfectly honest, kids are wild and crazy and I'm overwhelmed. I'll typically, I try not to yell, but sometimes sin abounds in those moments, and I get angry. My wife taught me this actually. She said, Josh, and I want you to react to them. I want you to respond, which is a very big conviction, and ways you can do that. Just maintain distance from these situations. If you feel led to confront the situation and to restore those situations, not destroy leave the things that you have at the altar. Leave the altar, go and restore that relationship. Sometimes restoration is not always going to be the immediate response, but a later fruit that will be bore and realize that restoring that situation, you need to be very cautious of how you restore that situation and walk in with a proper heart and mindset and surrendering your right to revenge. Revenge is mine, Thus says the Lord. Remember that and finally, settle it. Settle that anger. When you're angry, have a plan to manage that anger. Be angry and do not sin. And Tony, I want you to hit on our last point, because this last point, I feel like you have a lot of and do very well

Tony Benda 1:17:53
this last point, allow yourself grace. Don't believe that you can't get through this, and don't think that as you start the process, that you can't ever be angry, just like barbarians, we can use righteous anger to advance the kingdom and help others. Yes, it seems backwards, but we must always lean on biblical teachings and insight, which means Jesus had a righteous anger that doesn't give us pause or excuse to utilize anger towards other people. It gives us pause, to pause, essentially, and reflect on that anger. Yes, delay it for a moment. Talk to people about it, dig through Scripture about it, control it, settle it, and then respond or react as needed in an appropriate manner, in a godly manner, because we as Christians, it's our right to show the world how to properly live like Christ. So he controlled his anger. I know it looks different. I know he, you know, flipped tables and had a whip, apparently, and but he controlled his anger in a righteous way.

Josh Shaw 1:19:04
All right, ready for the last off the cuff thing? Sure. I'm gonna give you a scenario. Okay, tell me how you respond. Ready? You are at work, and you're sitting at your desk doing your own work, trying to get through some assignments that are in a day, and you sort of get overwhelmed with the assignments that you've been given, trying to wonder how you're going to do it. In fact, you've actually kind of prayed about how you're going to do this. So my daily life, yeah, and you pray about how you're going to get through this, the Lord gives you a plan. However, you're still kind of filled with anger at the assignments that you have to do, but you know they have to get done. Someone pounds into your office and starts not only demanding things of you, but then immediately starts accusing you of things that you know you haven't done wrong.

Tony Benda 1:19:50
So still, like my daily life, accusing you. You start

Josh Shaw 1:19:54
to you start to get too accused, and it starts to get to the point where you begin to boil over. Or you're not sure how to respond, but this barrage just keeps happening upon you, and anger begins to set in. How do you respond?

Tony Benda 1:20:10
My initial response is, after my eye stops twitching, I will wait for them to either leave my office, or if they don't leave my office, I'd be like, can we schedule time to talk about this? Or can we do something else later? I'm in the middle of something, let me think about it and get back to you. In the midst of that thinking getting back to them, what I'll be doing, my initial response is to go talk to someone about like, first of all, why is this appropriate for this to be happening, like, ways of appropriate, ways of settling things conflict, especially if there's conflict. Yeah, my flesh would want to just be like, smack people upside the head with right just two by four. Sure. I think truthfully, how I respond is like, I'm the type that wouldn't bury things, and which is also not a healthy manner. You can ask my wife, I'll I'll push things off, act like it is not usually affecting me, and it does. And if enough time passes, then I've kind of cooled off, and I don't confront the person just yet, still, I will find the best solution to, I don't know, just to kind of have that next conversation be like, Why did you feel this way? How? How do we work alongside each other and find a solution to this? Because I can't keep, you know, coming to the office, whatever it is, you know, expecting, I can't be just awaiting this barrage on a daily basis type thing if there's something that needs, you know, we find ways to adjust fire. Sometimes you can get a manager involved, or that next level up, so to speak, to kind of sit in with you, or whatever you got to do. There's ways of having things done appropriately and mediated, if there needs to be a mediator, but I don't know it's every every situation is different, and especially since I work in a church, sure, you almost expect there to be Grace be with people. But there are the instances where that still happens, like I will be sitting at my desk and people will come into my office frustrated about the printer not working or something. I mean it at the moment is kind of in my wheelhouse at the church and but it's getting handed off. Fortunately, I was just like, I need someone else to take it off my plate, because I'm doing other things at the moment that I'm focusing on So fortunately, that's not gonna be in my wheelhouse. However, I still have people today. I had people two or three. It problems that I had to fix and I had to be like, Okay, let's go tackle it. And, you know, it problems annoy the snot out of me. I love computers. I love diagnosing and fixing things, but when it comes to ministry, I feel like that stuff gets in the way. So that's just it. Yeah, all that to say for me to not sit in my anger, it takes, it takes me a minute to be like, Okay, let me come meet with you in like five minutes, and let's work through this situation. I think me putting it off or delaying it helps me, personally, just like, chill for a second, not get frustrated with the situation, and allows my brain to think about, like, how do we go about fixing this? So I don't know if that answers your question. It does okay now

Josh Shaw 1:23:39
you're sure, come up

Tony Benda 1:23:41
with the situation, yep, oh, you're crazy. These off the cuff things I've not prepared.

Josh Shaw 1:23:47
Come on. Come on. DM storytell.

Tony Benda 1:23:58
Okay, real world. You've worked a full day. You come home, your wife is frustrated from work. Your kids are running around the house. They're kind of picking on each other as children under the age of seven, do and you walk into the house, and it's not like a calm, relaxing place. You wish it could have been. What is your first initial response when you would walk in the

Josh Shaw 1:24:38
door? We have to take you into account two different situations. Okay? One, there's a there's two distinct sift situations. You have to sift through Sure. First one, that's separate. Long day of work. What are the contents that happened at work? Right? You don't have to describe those correct, but you have to take into account and. That a majority of our day is spent around, working around, working with people, and sometimes, whether it's inside of a church or outside of a church, it can be stressful. Employing the method of leaving it at the door of your workplace is something powerful, oh yes, that you need to develop, not very much, not carrying the weight. Because if you carry a weight that's not meant to be yours, you're going to carry it and distribute it to your family. One, I need to assess the day and leave it at the door. Two, let's address family situation now. Wife also had a long day at work. Kids are also riled up if I employ the method of not being angry about my day, but I start to apply this biblical principle, it is better to give than to receive. We typically apply that to tithing. But how can it apply to this real world situation? It is better to give somebody something that you wish to receive. If I walk in the house and I wish that somebody would listen to me, how can I first give someone the ability to be listened to? That's good, honey.

How was your day? Talk to me about it,

kids, you guys are being a little loud.

How was your day

involvement? Yep, handle the kids. Get through their situation. Get all their stuff done. Listen to the wife. Make sure they're taken care of. It is better to give than to receive selflessness over selfishness. Yep, after all of that is said and done, approaching a conversation with the wife, saying, Hey, I had a really long day at work. Can I tell you about it? Allow an opportunity to be listened to and then to listen back, employing methods of patience. Why? First? Corinthians, chapter 13, verse four, love is patient and kind. Yep. So I would love to respond. Flesh wants to bump in the door and say,

You guys need to stop. I had a long day. You honey. I need to speak with you now because my day was long. That's selfishness,

not intentional stress impacts everybody. Yeah, it is better to give than to receive. Yep, it's how I would respond. So real world applications we both kind of employed thinking through those things off the cuff, but when it comes we're just recapping those quick how to lead and feel effectively. First, understand those biblical teachings being in the Word. Number two, understand your feelings of being in the word and understand and talking with those that are educated and trained about how to really understand those feelings, and three, allowing yourself the grace that you're gonna make a mistake, that you're not gonna be perfect, but learning and growing through that process. Yeah, well, Tony, I'm sure this podcast, this podcast feels like three hours long. It feels like it's going into the third hour. Oh, man, I apologize for such a long episode, but it had a lot of good content. So Wow, way the first one off of the year. But, uh, Tony, do you want to just kind of end up with some closing thoughts recaps things of that nature? Um,

Tony Benda 1:28:32
I think just my closing thoughts of today, it's good to be here in 2025 Yes, it's it's crazy that we're here and doing this, and I'm excited for where God is leading this. And yeah, each each class brings something unique to the table, and we can lean into the anger side of the barbarian. But I also think the barbarian is a great storyteller in its own right. Yeah? Anger being part of the tree of emotions that God has given us, I think the barbarian is an important part to the D and D campaign. Yeah, so don't be afraid to be a barbarian. No,

Josh Shaw 1:29:17
absolutely not. Tony, can you beautifully promote our socials.

Tony Benda 1:29:22
Yes, love it. About those socials, here they are. You guys can find us on Instagram and Facebook. We are dungeons and disciples on Instagram and Facebook. That's the word and spelled out, dungeons and disciples. And then you can email us at dungeons disciples@gmail.com without the word end in there. Again, that's dungeons disciples@gmail.com and we look forward to hearing from you guys. We've got some good emails and all sorts of things in the past, and we have are still getting cool people responding to things, and I'm loving it. You. So it's gonna be a good year. Absolutely, we'll look forward to some pictures coming out of our Nether dweebs. So the nether dweebs is the name We bestowed upon our campaigning party. Finally, after two and a half years of playing, I was like, Guys, please come up with a name, or else I'm boycotting D and D, I literally said that in our text thread. And they finally started getting together some names. So we, after playing the call of the netherdeep, we called ourselves the nether dweebs, and it has stuck and is now officially embroidered on some hoodies, and they're super soft, and I think all sorts of T shirts and hoodies and hats and things, and we're gonna be putting out some merch this year. We got to Yes, so mostly for Dungeons and disciples. But yeah, it's all gonna be good. What happens gonna

Josh Shaw 1:30:52
be a good year? Thank you guys for listening and tuning in. We know it's long, but we believe this is Spirit led and yep, spirit worth it, Father, Jesus, thank you for this time. God for this content. Lord God, even though it is long, we thank you for those that diligently Listen, even when we take breaks, God, Father, I pray you just continue to honor this content. I pray that we continue to honor and glorify you through your word and through the things that you teach us through Your word. Lord God, may your presence and your spirit ever abound in this place and when we never stop seeking or fire. God, Lord, we love you. We thank you for your sacrifice, Jesus to die for our sins, to God to bear the anger of the Lord in that regard, thank you for you. Let us never forget who you are. Holy Spirit, continue to speak, continue to move and continue to convict Lord. We love you in Jesus name,

Tony Benda 1:31:53
we pray. Amen. Thanks, guys.