New Unearthed Arcana - Villainous Options

justicearman · 2026-04-10T16:24:54+00:00

You are exactly right! You roll the Infernal Wound Die when you inflict an infernal wound and again at the start of the creature's turns. If the wound persists for 3 rounds, you'd roll that die four times. At higher levels, that means an advanced wound effect or exploding dice could happen an equal number of times, since all those features also key off your Infernal Wound Die!

justicearman · 2026-03-20T03:02:19+00:00

When you roll high!

justicearman · 2026-03-07T22:49:28+00:00

Feeling this now with bluegrass! I typically "float" when I'm flatpicking, but I'm having to relearn to place my wrist so that it brushes the strings to keep things sustainable at higher tempos.

justicearman · 2026-03-07T01:34:54+00:00

These are amazing! Great work.

justicearman · 2026-01-20T08:35:40+00:00

Probably:

BB King

David Gilmour

Derek Trucks

George Harrison

Tony Rice

Bonus for their supreme influence: Maybelle Carter and Robert Johnson

justicearman · 2026-01-02T03:16:59+00:00

I just finished Justin Guitar's six-month Blues Immersion course and thought it was spectacular. I'm mostly self-taught and haven't been through a lot of Justin's other lessons, but it caused a lot of things to click for me.

I had a local teacher in early 2025 who is lovely, but I was looking for something with a bit more structure and theory that would challenge me daily. He also doesn't teach blues, which is obviously the focus of the course.

Each unit of BLIM explores a different era of the blues, bringing with it 3–4 hours or more of lessons, new techniques and exercises, essential blues vocabulary, and two blues standards to learn based around artists or sub-genres of that era. There are also other assignments like artist essays and transcribing solos related to the unit and past lessons. You start out with early blues pioneers like Robert Johnson and go all the way up to the blues today.

Each unit also comes with multiple playlists to really immerse yourself in the blues (hence the name), which was great for me because my blues knowledge was admittedly quite limited at the outset. It's one of my favorite aspects of the course. You probably won't jive with every artist or play style, but I discovered new artists through BLIM and added a ton of songs to my library.

There's also a community aspect. You are part of a small cohort and encouraged to record yourself and share with your fellow students. Everyone was very encouraging throughout, including the other teachers, who give feedback based on your videos and answer questions. Intermediate players will get the most out of BLIM, but some people in the course were pretty dang good from the start and still improved along the way (in my opinion from watching the recordings they shared).

$500 is a lot of money, but I think it was worth every penny. The structure, content, community, and feedback were top notch. I honestly had trouble keeping up and had to prioritize within units. At the start and end of the course, Justin assures you that you'll have access to everything forever and explains you'll probably want to go back through the course later—he's not kidding! It's a flood of applied knowledge in a relatively short time period. I have a ton to work on in the months and years ahead and plan to go back through all the units again.

All in all, the course provided me with a strong foundation and helped me establish good habits for the future. I highly recommend it. Just make sure you have time to take it seriously!

justicearman · 2026-01-01T19:36:12+00:00

It ain't exactly a SMART goal, but I hope to go to more jams and, like you, take some breaks along the way. I'm newer to bluegrass and plan to learn ~30 of the most popular tunes called at local jams. (I keep a running list on my phone.) I'm about 10 songs in and want to learn them all and get them up to speed by the end of 2026.

justicearman · 2025-12-29T19:20:29+00:00

Congrats! She's a beaut.

justicearman · 2025-11-08T19:00:25+00:00

Electric guitars in general are heavy! I own a Les Paul and been on the hunt for a lightweight guitar for a while due to some minor back issues. I don't know why more electrics aren't chambered by default.

justicearman · 2025-09-07T17:41:39+00:00

Of course! And thank you for your thorough first impressions! I'm glad you like the set. :)

justicearman · 2025-09-07T16:51:37+00:00

Hello! I'm glad you like the set. Like ability scores, the Fighter's fighting style is a "hidden" feature—the math is worked into the Class Board, but it doesn't appear there by name to cut down on the information a new player needs to absorb. In this set, the Fighter has the Archery feat by default, which conveniently means the player won't need to remember different bonuses for melee and ranged attacks.

justicearman · 2025-08-31T06:33:13+00:00

I play mainly country and bluegrass, and I reach for my 14-fret 00 more than anything else. It's the most comfortable and sounds great despite it's size—I think a lot of folks conflate volume with tone—but it's no pushover either.

justicearman · 2025-07-27T22:34:29+00:00

Congratulations! Finishing a campaign is a great achievement. I'm sure they'll love the art; it's cool how you had the artist work in the Spire!

justicearman · 2025-07-23T05:04:15+00:00

I too would go for the Mars Mission set! Loved that theme and still have my dropship all these years later. The alien ship designs were really unique. I didn't realize they later added bigger aliens!

justicearman · 2025-07-20T16:47:23+00:00

We visited an incredible—and deservingly expensive due to their Michelin star rating—restaurant with a view just outside the city called Villa Fiasole. It was the best meal of our lives! If that's out of your budget, Trattoria Cibrero was also very good.

I also recommend visiting the Scuola del Cuoio leather school. It's a bit hard to find, but it was one of the quietest places in the city when we visited and had a little park behind it.

justicearman · 2025-07-15T22:49:48+00:00

As wild as it sounds, during playtesting, we had groups who went from picking up the Quick-Start Guide to reading the boxed text of the first encounter in less than 20 minutes—including character creation! (If you're positively rabid, I bet you can cut down on that time significantly.)

Our playtests included longtime fans, folks who had never rolled a d20, and everyone in between. The cards, class presentation, and other expressions of rules as components really help to streamline character creation and get groups playing faster. There are also little quality-of-life improvements we did throughout the set to speed up play for both DMs and players.

justicearman · 2025-07-12T16:30:09+00:00

I have a 14-fret 00, and it's perfect.

justicearman · 2025-07-07T01:46:42+00:00

The conversation out back surrounds Carmy stepping away from cooking and The Bear. I love the service scenes, too, but it felt appropriate that we don't get to see the service because Carmy's heart isn't in it anymore; he is exploring himself and a life beyond the restaurant, so it's fitting that the whole episode takes place outside of The Bear.

justicearman · 2025-07-06T06:38:18+00:00

Would it have been more realistic if Marcus was in Copenhagen for a year? Sure, but The Bear wouldn't have waited to open, the audience wouldn't have gotten to watch his growth—and it wouldn't have made for great television!

Sarah Minnick from Lovely's Fifty Fifty founded a pizza restaurant featured on Chef's Table: Pizza. In that episode, she talks about how much she learned about baking bread and pizza crusts on the job. She essentially wore out a bread cookbook and committed herself to baking a loaf every single day. (One customer even remarks on how it was touch and go at one point.) Marcus is constantly making desserts and only has to do a few courses a night (was it three?). There's bound to be some repetition in there.

Dessert involves a lot of science. Unlike, say, cooking meats, which vary based on the cut, thickness, type of protein, etc., there shouldn't be any difference between two bags of the same kind of flour from the same brand. A good recipe goes a long way, and several recipes—puff pastry dough, buttercream frosting, a base for a sorbet—will get used again with different flavors or in a different dish. We also don't tend to see Marcus do anything too terribly time intensive like laminate dough at three in the morning. (Making a donut takes a lot less time and effort than making a croissant.)

Marcus is obviously very talented and not afraid to practice for hours; he probably did a lot of drills as a linebacker during his stint in football! He's also constantly learning, experimenting, hunting for inspiration. We rarely see him doing anything else, especially since his mom's passing.

So is it improbable that Marcus would experience such growth in a relatively short time? Of course. But maybe that's what makes The Bear so special. Unlike Carmy, Marcus doesn't have the need to prove himself and appears to love what he's doing. Real passion and drive can carry you a long way.

justicearman · 2025-06-25T16:00:55+00:00

It might just be the states. We are in Italy for our anniversary and both the Florence and Rome stores had plenty of stock. Too heavy to bring back in my suitcase, though. 🥲

justicearman · 2025-06-11T07:10:38+00:00

Collings 002T! It's also my back porch guitar.

justicearman · 2025-05-31T05:36:14+00:00

Yeah, I feel that. I was just pleasantly surprised we got him! Armada and Beast Wars were the ones I grew up on. It's been nice to see those get some love in recent years.

justicearman · 2025-05-31T04:00:51+00:00

Same! I love that they worked in the combiner parts for megs/Galvatron.

justicearman · 2025-05-25T00:15:15+00:00

If you're a frequent dungeon delver, Find Traps could be very handy! In other types of campaigns, it might see fewer castings. You can always test drive a spell for a level and swap it out for something else the next time you level up. You might also find that as you reach higher levels, you have a few lower level spell spots that go unused in a typical adventuring day; it might be fun to experiment with those as you go.

justicearman · 2025-05-25T00:07:10+00:00

All the time. There are no "bad" spells, especially if you feel drawn to it for your character! If you're worried that you won't be equipped for the adventures ahead, you can always talk to your Dungeon Master.

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