I'm the designated healer in a Fantasy Age campaign. One of my fellow players recently acquired a dagger that, if you kill someone with it, gives you a chance to essentially steal their soul and keep it in the dagger to unleash later on. ....we just had an ooc discussion and agreed that next time someone in the party is really, really dying I'm not going to try to revive them,, we're just gonna let him stab them instead. For science. .....we do not plan on letting the rest of the group (or the DM) in on this plan >:) ((ofc ill still do my best to ensure they don't end up dying n the FIRST place, but. THE TEMPTATION. SEEING EVERYONE'S FACES WOULD BE SO GREAT.))
OH ALSO i cant recall if ive mentioned on kintsugi already but my cousin's character in this campaign is THE BEST: she's a communist frog. ((she's from a race of humanoid frog people who just plain don't have the CONCEPT of personal property, she's a rogue with a 4+ bonus to all her dex rolls (3d6) and a -2 in communication aka she'll steal anything that isnt nailed down and if caught she'll give the most unconvincing 'but it belongs to EVERYBODY!' ever heard. we all love this tiny frog person.))
my boyfriend has made a hellfire shooting gay cowboy it's wonderful his most recent character is a grumpy former fortuneteller who accidentally picked up real magic and an adopted child. said child is a baby swordsperson who is very good at stabbing but very bad at social stuff.
I realized a little ways in that, alas, arcane trickster works off Int, and the game I'm looking to bring the skeleton to already HAS an Int-based caster. And two Wis-based casters. So, clearly, I need to think about Cha-based casters. And there's so many options there! Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, even Paladins! Paladin would be a poor choice mechanically speaking, since Skeleton = +1 Con and +2 Int OR Dex... neither of which is really helpful. But all non/light-armored casters love Dex! And Con!! The game in question is looking for replacements; they've been going a while, and had a few people become less available to participate due to life interfering, so the gm wants more people to be main party sorts. They're investigating a huge series of caves with some cult-like group that's experimenting on ways to capture souls. So I'm thinking, my skeleton was an adventuring/thieving sort, who'd explored in the caves (possibly when they were still officially settled) and died in there. A sorcerer of wild magic, or a warlock who'd already sold their soul, so the cultists' experiments didn't quite work as intended, or some multiclass of these things (new characters are starting at level 5). Yeah, skelefriend got brought back as an undead, but they're awake in there, and able to decide and act on their own. I have spent way too much time copying and pasting bits and pieces about all the cha-classes and their respective major abilities and the possibilities of multiclassing from an optimizer's pov the last two days. eta Fun fact, skeletons can pull off an arm and wield it as a weapon. Funner fact, it's a finesse bludgeoning weapon. Finesse means you can sneak attack with it. So she can pretend to be just a dead skeleton, manacled to a wall or something, and then when an enemy isn't looking? Whack upside the head with sneak attack bonus damage.
My favorite D&D war story. This one requires a bit of background. I have been building and tweaking my campaign world for a very long time. It's a high magic world, magic and it's users are abundant. Almost everyone has at least a little sensitivity to magic. This incident happened shortly after the big antagonist, a major demon (they were still called demons at the time), of this sub campaign had menaced the party. They had started to interfere with his plans, but he chose against wiping them out. The demon's plans centered around a magical virus that infected magical items, this virus spread by repeated contact with uninfected items. It caused infected items to discharge their energies during use, at random times, in random ways, I made a table. The discharging of the items caused permanent loss of power in the item. It was a big loss, a sword or armor would lose a "plus", a wand would lose 20 charges, etc. Anyway, to get out of the cave complex they were now trapped in they had to negotiate their way around a dragon. In my campaign world dragons are a order of magnitude more powerful then the standard dragons you will find in the supplements. Dragons were designed as weapons of mass destruction in a mostly forgotten war. This low to mid-level party decided to sneak by the dragon, who was awake, and maybe steal something from his horde on the way. They used various items and abilities to turn themselves invisible and started to creep past the dragon. I believe in playing my intelligent monsters intelligently. This dragon has quite a few magic items in it horde, and was using the one's he could. Thus he was wearing an item that gave him true-sight. The dragon interrupted them mid-sneak and started talking to them. It was fully inclined to let them go, for a favor, a secondary quest. The ranger had sent her animal companion out to flank the dragon at some point in all this, and the dragon casually whipped the creature across the room with a tail swipe. At this point the player decided the ranger lost it, drew her infected sword and attacked the dragon. The rest of the party thought it was a good idea and joined her. Meanwhile I'm frantically thinking of ways this won't end up with the party massacred. I think total party kills are bad form. Except in Paranoia, where I kill the bastards. The ranger gets initiative on the dragon, gets a very solid hit, and I roll the percentage to see if the virus caused a discharge. It does, then I roll on my chart: "Target teleported to random outer plane. Wielder knows general location." I roll again, The Abyss, Then roll 3D6, the home plane of our demon shows up on the dice. I then roll percentage dice and use them for height above ground in feet: 36' Now by long standing habit when using percentage dice, I roll percentage myself and then use whatever I roll as the middle of the range. This was to deal with the uncanny luck of a particular player. I never caught him cheating, but he always made the rolls he wanted to. I also changed how I roll initiative for this reason as well, and it works. Now, I could have stopped this here, but I was silly tired, and I like to see where things go. So, I have my player roll percentage again. To determine if the demon is aware of a dragon popping into his plane. I was thinking maybe they could get together and complicate the players lives down the road. Yup, the demon noticed. Percentage again: Can the demon see the dragon's arrival? Yes. Is the dragon close to the demon? I gave this a 1% chance. He matched my roll. Is the dragon very close to the demon, another 1% chance, he nailed it. I sighed and put hands over my face and then said.... Roll to hit. He rolled a natural 20, followed by 19. I make players roll again on a natural 20 to determine if the 20 was a critical hit. How much damage do you assign to a full grown dragon plummeting from 36' and critically hitting an 8' demon. I decided it was a lot. So to sum up: A low-to mid level ranger destroys a major demon, on his home plane, with a dragon, in one blow... The other players commissioned a painting of that scene: Comfussed looking ranger in the foreground. Confused dragon falling in the background. Demon in the shadow of the dragon, looking up with an "Oh Poop" expression. It's hanging in a popular Inn. I had to take a week and rewrite the whole campaign for those characters. Sometimes player characters will still find infected items, because the demon was the only one who knew the cure.
D&D5e, there's a class combo and mechanics thing that I want to find ways to abuse the hell out of. Not in a game-breaking munchkin minmaxer way, per se, but a way where it's sensible that the character does this deliberately: Rogue (Swashbuckler, from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide) and Warlock (Fiend, Blade). Someone who dances around, making it dangerous for enemies to move and difficult to hit her, sapping their life force as they die. Somebody who can dart in and out, attacking people and making them unable to opportunity attack her as she steps away. Using the Booming Blade cantrip to give those enemies a reason to stay still, not pursue, and if they do try to follow (or run away) doing extra damage that just might turn into health for herself. Pact of the Blade means it's almost impossible for her to get into a combat where she doesn't have a decent weapon available. Hell, maybe even dip a level of Monk: as long as she's using a monk weapon she'd be able to use an unarmed attack for her bonus melee attack, add dex to that unarmed attack instead, and have Wis bonus to her unarmored AC. Most of the simple weapons, non-heavy weapons so that halflings with their dex bonus can use, are monk weapons anyway. ETA!!! I missed that, since Booming Blade means a Casting A Spell action, she can't use a Bonus Action to make a melee attack with a weapon in her other hand. :( :( :( I gotta rethink this.
so! brief update on Kintsugi's own Maze of the Blue Medusa campaign, DMed with style and precision by @The Frood Abides! occurrences of note so far: party consists of True Neutral human bard who pretended to be a wizard (@swirlingflight), Chaotic Neutral half-orc ex-gladiator "war-potato" (@missoyashirou), Chaotic Good dragonborn paladin performer whose reaction to New Things is "what happens if I poke it" (@Wiwaxia), Chaotic Good elven wizard whose reaction to New Things is "MUST TAKE NOTES" (@thegrimsqueaker), and Chaotic Neutral half-elven ex-golddigger/conwoman rogue whose reaction to New Things is "can I seduce it" (me) party encounters very first NPC; upon freeing her from prison three of them immediately hit on her (she was Artistically Naked okay) NPC immediately betrays party by trapping them in extradimensional prison-dungeon; general player reaction was "called it" immediately after that party has first hostile encounter with ambulatory plants which splatter a 5-ft radius with psychoactive acid when killed rogue, who is apparently the tank, deals 89 points damage in three turns/five attacks, most of which is massive overkill (gotta love sneak attack damage) bard thunderwaves five enemies at once via terrible punning paladin takes 16 points of acid damage; as their HP total is 17 (at level 5) this is somewhat concerning in conclusion, we are going to die very quickly, but we're gonna have fun first, dammit.
The interesting thing about having a persistent campaign world is the fact that the political, social, and economic changes made by PC's last a long time. A good example of this is when an entrepreneurial PC wizard noticed that a lot of magical items require various parts of monsters to produce. So he commissioned, at great expense, several modified bags of holding. Anything in the bag was held in temporal stasis, and the extra-dimensional space of the bag could be accessed by another item, separate from the bag. He then set up a business where equipment was provided at a discount to cash strapped adventurers if they promised to put those valuable monster parts into the bag. He would even pay them a bit for whatever they brought in. He then sold these parts on the open market for a profit, undercutting the given market price. A supply of very fresh, cheap, monster bits brought the prices of certain, more common items, down. The prices of potions for example dropped quite a bit. He then sold these back to other adventures, or armies, or what have you, again at a profit. That wizard eventually retired, quite wealthy, but his business still exists. Since the vast majority of people don't follow the adventurer's lifestyle, real and significant chance of death and all. I really don't have to worry about monsters being hunted to extinction. The reason I brought that up was my second favorite war story. A time when PCs have had a social and geological effect on the world. A bit of background here: All PC's at first level in my world are given, by various means, an amulet, an amethyst stone with a sliver chain. When donned the amulet melts into their flesh and disappears, it cannot be removed. They are not given a choice about this, I present it as a mere point in the characters background. I dislike strong-arm tactics but this one is important. I call that item "The Second-Chance Amulet" it a excuse for me as DM to save a PC's bacon. It can only be used once. It will bring a PC back from any form of death, disintegration, falling in a lava pool, you name it. It will also bring back all the equipment that they had on them when they died, in the condition it was in at their death. Since this is ultimate level magic at work, the other PC's have a chance to save the dead PC using conventional means. I don't kill PC's for the sake of killing them, but sometimes crap happens. Sometimes PC's are just stupid: I had a lone fighter try to take on a huge 16HD Grave Elemental, a Ravenloft critter, by himself. The rest of the party sensibly ran. Anyway it gives me an out when crap happens. Back to my story. This is a 10-12 level party. The party is in a cave complex under a small mountain. The place is filled with magically modified monsters. The complex was being patrolled by Displacer Beasts, that had been granted spell-like powers in place of their normal abilities. The party had just walked blithely past the secret door leading to the next level up, and were a bit gun-shy having just fought two Displacer Beasts with the ability lob fireballs and lightning bolts respectively. They spy another patrolling pair ahead. I'm not sure of their reasoning here but here's what they did. One PC used an item to "Stoneshape" a piece of the floor into a thick wall, about 5' high. While another makes said wall invisible. They then attempt to start lobbing spells at the Beasts, Of course the chanting alerts the patrolling pair. These Beasts have been modified to be able to teleport, line-of-sight, as a normal movement action. A side note on teleportation, the most common for of Teleportation in my magic system is noisy, you leave a vacuum in the place you were, causing a "pop" noise. Then you push the air out of your way, explosively, upon arrival, a "bang". I knew that the Beasts would immediately teleport into melee range an attack, so I questioned the players thoroughly about the size and shape of that invisible wall. There was no way the Beasts could avoid it. So I started rolling dice. Could they detect the wall? No dammit. Would they go past it and attack from the rear? No. So in the end, I gave them a 70%/30% to avoid it anyway. They both teleported smack into the middle of the thing. I did a little math in my head, this was gonna be a very big bang. After figuring the blast, plus the destruction of all of the PC's magic items, and eventually everything magical in the dungeon... They blew the top of the mountain off, killing every last thing inside, and on it. One player asked if he could save for half-damage. I said sure, he made his save. He only took 500million points, lucky him. All but one of the PCs were careful and still had their "Second Chances". I brought them back after the worst was over. Whenever a large amount of magical energy is released in one spot it tends to cause weather issues in the area. So now there is a caldera whee the mountain was, with a semipermant thunderstorm parked above it. A lake inside, and a young river flowing from it. Collateral damage was to a Hobbi- I mean "Halfling" Village, and a mixed-race farming town was pretty devastated. The PCs took it upon themselves to repair the damage, the Cleric and Paladin used the chance to build temples. They even helped carve a bed for the new river. They retired there eventually. Mount Murielle, and the river Grimlock, both named after the makers of the invisible wall are now on my maps.
I just started playing my very first DnD campaign! :D My girlfriend, Lilly, has been doing campaigns since she was a four year old child (no, really, no one could watch her, so her nerd mother took her to game night with her and made her a character sheet too) so she knows the ins and outs of the game well and has constructed something forgiving for moirail (Aya) and I so that we can learn the mechanics of the game and get used to playing it. We're doing a pretty modified campaign in that every player character (Aya has two, I have one) is a dragon and the DM has a few elf NPCs to help every once in a while. This makes it hard for Lilly because she has to make up a lot of numbers to make dragons into player characters, but the two of us OP bastards have a safety cushion as we learn how to play. One of Aya's dragons, a silver, has an elf form she can turn into (but she still acts like a hilariously pompous, commanding dragon) and I have a ***FAIRY DRAGON*** which has resize as a feat, so I am sometimes a foot long, because that's what I THOUGHT a fairy dragon would look like, and sometimes the size of a small fucking town, because that's what a fairy dragon of her age actually looks like. So in town, we're a weird, shouting elf with a dragon 'familiar' on her shoulders, nipping her when she doesn't like her bad choices. It's really fun!! I'm glad I decided to start playing, even though I'm kind of slow and I know most campaigns frown on you asking for a minute to think about what to do. (To compensate, I made my fairy dragon easily panicked and emotional, so that when she makes a bad choice in a split second decision, it's in character. One of the first things I did was spray one of her dragons with euphoric gas, something that dazes people and makes them high and giggly at its strongest, because he snuck up on me and startled me. He was out of commission for an hour. This taught them to not do that. Euphoric gas also got me a 20 foot long dire boar friend because I hit it so hard it started snuggling me. I love this attack.)
A lovely article on alignment. I really like this! A list of suggestions of what purpose of the alignments, rather than the rather broad categories. All the better to direct the characterization.
so my gf, me and couple friends're starting up a for-giggles campaign characters we have so far are 'shitty mallgoth tiefling' and 'sufjan stevens but a halfling' and the whole thing starts in a denny's at 3am this is gonna be so stupid
I like this article on alignment. 'Kind-hearted non-traditional' is both a good description of my level 8 fairy dragon and of me. She's motivated by keeping her small collection of fairy princesses safe, she's just doing a weird way around it because she is a dragon and doesn't have normal ways of keeping things safe.
this is the best play report i've ever read http://parisianqueen.tumblr.com/post/151477580689/dd-horror-cooking-warella
A quick word on "Arduin:" Originally a supplement for D&D published in the late 1970's. It was the brainchild of David S. Hargrave, it expanded to three books then eventually led to a alternate gaming system in the 1980's. The Arduin Trilogy, was badly printed, in a terrible font, and was photo-reduced almost to the point of illegibility. On the other hand it was chock full of ideas, some good, some bad, all over-the-top. There were a total of 20 races, including the Centaur, the Kobbit ( a kobold/hobbit cross ), the Deodanth (a sort of undead elf ), Kahi-Shang ( formerly star-faring weasel/otter creatures ), Khai-Zirin ( evolved from the lynx ), Phraints ( insect men ) and Amazons were considered a race too. There were 24 classes, Psychics, Technos, Courtesans, Martial Artists, and lots more. I will make special mention of the Saint class, a priest class that believed "violence was never the answer," and had powers to back this idea up. His job is to convince the characters to talk to the monsters. It had rules for using firearms. It had tables for almost everything, Critical Hits, and Fumbles, just to name two. On the bad side, magic was massively over-powered, magic items were ridiculous, and the monsters were deadly. There was a sixth level spell that would turn you enemies inside-out, automatic hit, no save. The monsters included: The Nelia Parasite (The Xenomorph from the movie "Alien," acid blood and all ). The Vampusa ( all the strengths of a Vampire and Medusa, none of the weaknesses, it reflection can't be seen ). The Ice Dragon ( its breath weapon was a stream of liquid oxygen, had a thick layer of ice over it draconic armor ). You get the idea. There were some good magic items but they were all overpowered, for example: Misty Boots of Silent Speed ( allowed the wearer to walk silently at double speed over any surface, including liquids, clouds, frictionless surfaces, even illusions ). The Bart Ring ( allowed the wearer to take 10 normal actions in one round, and it stacked with other haste magic. A mid level warrior with this thing could conceivably, shoot 160+ arrows in one round, he would then collapse for a while ). Drops of Heavenly Essence ( would fully resurrect a creature from the smallest piece of ash ). My favorite was the Ruby of Runaway Regeneration ( It would heal your wounds but stood a big chance of messing you up along the way, Eye-stalks and Tentacles anyone? ) I have used material gleaned from Arduin in my games but a little bit of this goes a long way, your mileage may vary. Emperors Choice Games and Miniatures Corp now owns the rights to Arduin and they have made the first part, the first 8 chapters, of a revised and more readable version of of the collected work available for download as a .PDF here: http://empcho.bizhosting.com/arduin_ii_ca.html
Holy shit. Deodanth? Drops of Heavenly Essence? These are things my Dad referenced when talking about his D&D experiences growing up! I could never find any reference to them in writings about the oldest D&D editions so I assumed his DM invented them. This is tripping me out right now! He must have played Arduin!
Oh man you guys. So i started running a Pathfinder game, using the Skull & Shackles adventure path-- pfinder's Pirate adventure! i'm a very experienced player, been playing ttrpgs for... christ, almost 20 years. but i've never GMd more than an isolated game here or there. so i was really nervous about GMing, even with an adventure path. but... the players fucking love the game. they asked me to play again the next night! everyone agreed they want to play this game twice a week! man, i find that flattering. the starting levels are really interesting, because the PCs wake up having been press-ganged aboard a pirate ship, and they're given ship jobs to do each day (with related skill checks) or they get the lash. and i thought the routine might be boring for people, but everyone really digs it so far. at the end of book 1 they get their own pirate ship, which is of course what we're really waiting for. and then! there's rules for ship to ship combat! and treasure maps! and sacking cities! and diplomatic pirate marriage! and and and, it's just a really cool adventure path that is kind of different from your standard fantasy adventure.
