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Tortle Tank: Birthday Spells, Necromantic Healers and The Potion of Last Resort (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-04 07:35:00
Edited:
2025-04-04 18:24:59
Imported:
2026-06
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AD-FREE EPISODE FOR $5+ PATRONS!

Welcome to Tortle Tank, the show where the world's richest reptiles review your D&D homebrew and decide whether or not to invest their hard-earned eggs. This week, the Torts hear pitches about in-game birthdays, reclassifying healing spells, and a death-defying potion that could help kick your home game into high gear. Let's dive right in!

Check out the digital version of Caldwell's Instant Minion Generator here! (Thanks Reed W!)CREDITS

Production and Editing by Trevor Lyon

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Comments

Clever Innuendo

I love the hours you pick to post. Such a gift to the insomniacs.

Benjamin P Parson Gomberg

Glad that Caldwell remembers that Smeagol’s birthday is actually pivotal to the lore of Lord of the Rings. But alas, no one mentioned that Bilbo’s birthday is also very important to the story. Like, they couldn’t have picked a worse example to argue that “high fantasy doesn’t talk about birthdays”; Lord of the Rings is chock full of them. That’s a tiny l for the Birthday Grinch.

GaiusOrpheus

All that discussion about wizard healing and none of them considered that artificers are basically baby wizards with healing.

Droknar

Listening to this at 4am instead of sleeping for my shift in the afternoon is truly my mew all night earn all day 🛌🏽🤑

Teo Tamashiro-Harris

I'm dying at how hard Murph is going against the birthday spell. He has three players so he'd max have to sing happy birthday to them three times a year and that's too much for him 😂

Jeremy G

Emily rolled my birthday

Jeremy G

Still have some chocolate

Tavitafish

My face actually hurts from the mew all night, earn all day stuff

Steve

Re: Shield up-casting. Use Elemental/Magic Weapon's upcast rules as a base. So instead of it increasing every spell level, it's every 2nd spell level. I already use this method for Mage Armor when it's cast with a spell slot (looking suspiciously at warlocks with Armor of Shadows who'd try to argue that they're spell slots are automatically higher so their AoS Mage Armor should be more powerful)

Courtney F.

Who's only playing once a month???? Full time work, full time student, and single mom, I'm playing weekly!! Murph taking his all too familiar Ls 😂

Thomas Hegarty

For the shield up casting I think it would work if it was like scorching Ray where it doesn’t improve until you’re upcasting it at a certain level. So at level 5 it adds plus five but it does nothing until then. And then at level 8-9 it could be a mass shield that dies plus ten.

Crnlstache

I'm loving the new TTank logo Caldwell!

Reverend Chatterbones

Revivify=necromancy. My pious paladin had to slap our cleric, Reverend Chatterbones, because she wouldn’t have that dark magic cast on her under any circumstance. She died in Barovia.

Colonel Condor

Great episode! Jerry turtles is pretty cool @jerry_turtles on finstagram

Shane Jordan

I came here for this, lord of the rings literally starts with a birthday party lol

coladrimk

the Murphday ceremony spell summons Amir who will punch anyone of your choosing (females allowed/encouraged)

Matthew Sands

Shield upcasting: ups the AC based on level against that attack, or all of the attacks in that action. +5 after that as normal. Agency without invincibility

Arliden VanGrants

Yes Jake rolled up my birthday! Guess we'll have to have a joint birthday party now

Wil Kauffman

Listening to this... ON MY BIRTHDAY! Thanks for the ep! 🧁 Edit: What the fuck, Murph?

KestertheJackal

Thank you. Your eggs will be used for ethical purposes.

thiswayjose

DMs And Players alike! HEAR HEAR!! There’s a RAW way of getting healing as a wizard!!! Mark of Healing Halfling!! Look it up! It makes for a fantastic wizard!

Luke Peterson

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure in past editions necromancer more aligned with cleric anyway. I can’t remember if it was pathfinder or 3.5 but I played a cleric necromancer. I had a skeletal drider following me around. Pretty sweet.

Katie S.

Tysm for the baseball and the belated birthday wishes! (my birthday was last week)

xatlern

The shield spell conversation made me think that what I really want is a new kind of metamagic for sorcers where you can spend a sorcery point to cast a self-only spell on another character.

David Allison

I mean...egg-uity was RIGHT there, guys

Michael Glander

Life transference is a great spell, i play a death domain cleric and im the party tank. Since i have such high hp i can sacrifice like 1/3 of it and fully heal our wizard

nvsblty

2024 healing spells are abjuration not evocation

Jimmy Place

I’m so out that I’m in on this sode

Ryan M

For upcasting shield, it could be a +5 AC for the caster, as normal, but each additional spell level adds +1 AC to a target of the caster’s choice, to a maximum of +5 per target. So a 6th level spell would give the full benefit of the normal shield spell to two targets, or it could be 5 points split across a party

Hannah

it sounds to me like that necromancer is just too cowardly to play a cleric. /s Just play a dang grave cleric. I play one and she is SO powerful. I think it's one of the top cleric subclasses. also s/o to Caduceus from Critical Role campaign 2!

Hannah

I play a grave domain cleric who also gets life transference! I love the grave/death domain subclasses

HepcatGreybeard

Frodo's is also the same day. A double birthday.

Hannah

my birthday is August 17th!

Professor Pratt

The birthday spell cracked me up. I’m a summer baby and I was always jealous of the kids who got to celebrate their birthday in school. (Typical 3rd grade jealousy) . Fast forward, now I’m an elementary school teacher and someone gave me the idea of “summer birthday” celebration. Turned into a nightmare. Option one: celebrate 8 or more birthdays in one day. Sing Happy Birthday a gazillion times and overload on sweets. Option two. Spread out summer birthdays over a number of days at the end of the year. Try to give a reason why we are literally partying every day till end of school and deal with “aww, so and so isn’t here to celebrate my birthday, this is the worst day of my life!” All examples come from real life. I agree with Murph, screw birthdays. Don’t get me started on Valentines Day in school or freaking food allergies. I always had the peanut free room! Love ya tortles !!!

Shel B Kennas fav SG is welly’s number one felly

I have a holiday birthday (01/01) and my birthday always gets forgotten for a few days (usually around the 3rd or the 4th i get the "oh fuck it was your birthday") and everyone is broke and burnt out from the holiday rush from TGiving thru christmas so I've gotten to the point where I just dont care lol. I'd like a little ceremony spell for my character instead, and a birthday torte in her honor instead of my own. Murph is being a grinch, but Grurph is my favorite murph

Professor Pratt

I will now celebrate 10/4 in honor of Murph’s truly happiest day.

james jacobs

This is super out of pocket, but I was planning to end things today. Then I got the notification that this was uploaded, and I stuck around a few more hours, then a few more. You might never see this, but you saved someones life today by bringing a little bit of happiness into the world. Thank you for that

Matt

Worldbuilding- What if the Scroll of True Lies was a blank sheet of parchment with Asmodeus’ signature across the bottom? The parchment was brokered as part of a deal for a powerful character within the setting, and was torn from the journal of a former aspect of Asmodeus from a previous edition. The scroll functions as described but Identify and Legend Lore do not reveal its true purpose.

katie potato

Happy belated birthday fellow Katie :D

thiswayjose

Upcast shield isn’t a bad idea! The limiting factor isn’t spell slots, it’s the reaction!! Sure, get a +9 to your AC, but the bad guys can still cast a level 9 spell at your party and fuck everyone else up.

rosebramblewolf

"It would just be birthdays all the time!" Skill issue, you as the DM control how fast time is passing outside combat.

Denali Smith

For the necromancy thing, in Pathfinder 2e at least, necromancy is the school for healing magic so it does kinda check out in a way

Potatochip Jenkins

Literally listening to this on my birthday. So weird. 😆😆😆

Bulbarat

Mass Shield is already a spell 😂

Arliden VanGrants

Come join jake and I for our joint birthdays. I'm sure Jacob would rather chill with us than his friends for his B-day

Ilana Galpert

I could see necromancy spells giving temp hp maybe?

Benjamin P Parson Gomberg

Hate to break it to you, but that’s homebrew or from a different game/previous edition. No such spell exists in 5e, but seems like something Pathfinder may have.

Tony Cappellino

Cancelling my birthday plans next week to mew and grind instead 😤😤😤

pedalinpigeons

Fun timing: I’m reading up on subclasses from the Obojima source book, and one of them has an ability at level 15 that’s Shielding Spirit which you can expend a spell slot to extend it to nearby allies.

Hammy

There are more egg puns in this episode than a Sonic adventure book

Suzanna DePeri

Its so funny what trends and stuff they latch onto — know so much about mewing but not about finstas

Xaiver Broadhorn

Woo i share a birthday with Emilys test birthday roll

Dimitri

Emotional support severed hand but make it a familiar option?? is this anything

Bryce Peterson

I really like the roll for birthday system. For the birth-year, I wonder if you could roll two d100s and multiply them. Then do +/- x years to adjust for the time period. Also weirdly, today I was listening to the Survivor Man episode of the Office Ladies podcast and just listened to their deep-dive on Carvel’s Fudgie the Whale and the origin of soft-serve ice cream.

Caleb

after going all in on the hand, did you have to file for tankruptcy?

zizeksmom

Agreed. I was just saying counterspell over and over again haha. Might need to save that reaction.

Gearbox

Lord of the Rings literally starts with a massive birthday party!

Dylan McCollum

If you are healing someone, they are not dead. It's not necromancy. Clerics already have Necromancy spells. Revivify is a necromancy spell. Just play a Death or Grave cleric.

Kira

I was just thinking that. I am also convinced that Merry and Pippin would insist on celebrating their birthdays while on a quest.

Chase M.

Emily rolled my birthday!

Ilana Galpert

There is a spell called shield others and mage armor protects squishy wizards. There are also loads of barrier spells that protect multiple people. Shield upgrade is wildly broken

Jeremy Voigtschild

“Can you imagine the night before the final battle and you whip out that birthday cake” yes Caldwell, I can imagine that bc that’s pretty much what you did with Beverly announcing his birthday right after confronting his dad

Evil Anagram

Right? It's one of the turning points of the plot!

Monk3yTouch3r

Seems at least 3 commenters were conceived around late may. The probability that Em's roll was multiple persons bdays ...the moon charging might be a thing.

Evelyn!

I think that an upcasted shield could add maybe like 1D6 temp hp per slot above first. Whatever you’re fighting gets a 26 to hit or something and there’s just no way you’re avoiding it but you can at least absorb some damage

Pyt

I mean why do you need Birthday Ceremony when it seems like Coming of Age Ceremony is exactly that. Isn’t Death Domain Cleric basically a healing necromancer?

Dimitri

im thinking more like third helping hand vs one of your two hands 😂

Logan Welp

For upcast shield, make it a bonus action and you must decide what level to cast during your turn to apply for the next round

Jay Taylor

Listening to this ep on my birthday feels appropriate

Stefan UrKILL (Figgy)

RE: soft shell turtles — they feature very strongly in Vietnamese folklore. There is a golden turtle-god named Kim Quy who gives one of his golden toenails (claws but it was always translated to me as toenail lol) to a king to be used as a trigger for a magical crossbow that insta-kills all your enemies (sick as hell). At Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi VN (supposedly where this gift was given), there’s a nice little museum about it with a preserved soft shell turtle in a case you can look at.

AlbireoRising

The Instant Minion sounded so fun, so immediately paused the show to type in the link. Weird! It didn't work! I kept listening and it turns out I had paused it before Caldwell was done the url. Ah, that will fix it. Alas! Still doesn't load. Kept listening, heard I needed to add a dash. Finally it works! So I spent a few minutes rolling fun minions (like an uncomfortably muscular imp with -4 strength). Tuned back into the show to hear the link was in the description the whole time XD

BT Bishop

When I was a kid I had a huge backpack that got me nicknamed Yurtle the Turtle

wizard wearing a poodle skirt

No lie, I actually have a very birthday-focused campaign I am planning complete w birthday gods being central to the society, soooo I will be geocaching eggs for that!

aiyana graham art

I think moonshine had it for a bit which is what I was thinking of. but I was mostly talking about the mechanics, not it literally being the players hand lol

Rena DeLorenzo

I actually did place a sorcerer with a subclass from the adventurer’s domestic handbook and it allowed me to cast shield for other people and have some bonuses to healing and I could take cleric spells It was for a one shot and my character ended up being the mvp with many clutch moments I’d recommend it And when I was telling my partner about the comforting severed hand he loved it and said it’d be interesting if there was actually a spirit you couldn’t see that was connected to the hand and you’d have to cast one of the many sight based spells to see them I said it’d be sweet if it was like the ghost of a mother comforting you and he said she’d have to look like the stereotypical anime mom who always dies XD

Myckeli

Another tweak to the true lies scroll: once the character knows it's true nature, they can no longer use it, ie. it can only be used by someone who doesn't know it's an alter reality spell. This prevents exploitation and fits into the devilish theme, where you can only use it to "lie" if you believe the lie the scroll is telling you.

Ellie P

I’m sorry Murph, Wizards have never had spells like Raise Dead. Not revivify or any spell that can restore life.

Matt Kilsby

I’m so confused by Murph’s take on the birthday thing. Emily’s absolutely right: time always travels so slowly in campaigns. I’ve been DMing my campaign for 4 real-life years and we’ve traversed 8 in-world months. 2 characters have celebrated their birthdays so far, and they have been lovely moments. I’m calling wrongful grinching here.

Leo

Murph hating the birthday submission is really giving Boomer Pooh mad about millennial participation trophies

Michael Beck

I actually have an idea for improving healing spells that I kinda thought about. Combine spells, so you take either an extra turn to charge one spell, or if an ally uses their turn to help you can charge it and cast in one turn, and then you cast two spells at once. DM's discretion on which spells work together and what the effect is. So for example could cast healing word and shield together and give someone a boost to AC for the one turn after they've been healed so hopefully they don't get knocked back down again.

Dimitri

i completely forgot that moonshine had deadeye’s hand since they used it maybe once afterwards? wondering where that hand is now… lol

Verdigree

It should be said, it even came up in Critical Roll that in older editions of D&D, healing magic was classified as necromancy because Necromancy referrs to the manipulation of both life and death energies, but it's a question of game balance, as long as you can hold off on the temptation to use Wish for actual Wishes, wizards can have access to every other spell below 9th level, the game makers put out a whole thing on their conception of the purposes of Arcane and Divine magic, but there's of course no reason not to twist, change, and homebrew whatevet u like, there ARE gods of knowledge and of all magic like Oghma and Mystra, the wall between Arcane and Divine, Clerics and Warlocks, Druids and Wizards isn't necessarily impassable https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/135-arcane-and-divine-magic-in-dungeons-and-dragons

An_Armed_Bear

Shield's already one of the best spells in the game and this person wants to give it more lmao So many of the submissions on this show are just "Here's a way to make casters even more busted". No shade to the crew, still love it.

Nitzan Harel

I mean, there is a pretty important and well-known birthday in The Lord Of The Rings. It just takes place at the start.

Nitzan Harel

My friend has a very powerful archfey in his world with a ring making whatever she says come true, like the scroll.

Cody Zimmer

Murph is 1000% right on the healing Wizard issue. There is a reason the Thaumaturgy wizard subclass didn't make it past unearthed arcana. Way too broken. If a wizard wants to heal, there is "Wither and Bloom" and "Life Transference"

Penny Garbo

Speaking of birthdays, my brothers and I still say "now it's your Murph-day," from an old jake and amire episode, whenever it's one of our bdays. then we try to get eschother in a head lock.

Cody Zimmer

I think the Shield spell scaling with spell slot alteration breaks bounded accuracy too much. You could do something like what us done with Bestow Curse where you get additional effects from higher level casting. Like casting at level 3 allows you to cast it on another player within 30ft. I Don't fear the high level worries, because counterspell gets really important in later levels and is competing with this for your reaction.

Stephen Fike

In this house we believe potions are enemas and we mew all night and earn all day

Katie P.

Emily as a Cleric of the Holidays has Muppet Christmas Carol energy - like simultaneously all three

Rachel

August 19 is my actual birthday

Matt Davis

The scroll of lies is absolutely some Feywild bullshit. You make it available to your players from a tricksy merchant there who is super shady, and he explains it to them using very precise language about what it does. If they still use it after that, that's on them. I think this is a very cool item as long as it is sufficiently foreshadowed.

Penpen

I feel like the Upcast Shield spell would only really work in a balanced way if it started at a lower bonus. Maybe you can start at 3 defence for level 1 instead of 5, meaning if you want to hit a +10 defense, you'll have to cast it at an 8th level.

Cooper Erikson

You clearly missed Murphs point on this. What you are describing is exactly what he was condoning which is having characters birthdays come up organically in game. That's exactly what happened with Bev's in C1 and Murph very clearly states he likes that. His issue was with attaching a baked in mechanic to birthdays. This isn't just something with birthdays if you spend any amount of time on the internet people are always throwing out ideas to codify and add concrete mechanics to things that should just develop naturally in table top play. When you attach something quantitative to these in the form of mechanics is generally ruins the spontaneous and natural way these things can come up and adds unnecessary emphasis to the benefit of them.

Cooper Erikson

The reward or benefit from those kinds of things happening organically is a good story telling experience and a world that feels engaging and imersive without being forced. Also inspiration is already a thing in game and these kinds of situations when they happen organically are the perfect opportunity for a DM to hand out inspiration as the in game reward. This mechanic just feels unnecessary and drawing additional emphasis to something that doesn't need it while taking the magic out of it by adding an implied mechanical benefit for going through the motions.

Christina Michaels

I love that Caldwell drew little smiley faces!! 😊

Hemlock

Super late to this, but I made a Thrown Shield spell. 2nd level spell that gives +3 AC to a creature you can see within 60 feet