Ultradan's page

In the beginning, a quarter-century ago, I was a Human Magic-User named Thrag. He had a very high intelligence but a very low wisdom, making him very innocent and fun to play. In a time when we didn't bother with things like weight and ecumberance, Thrag had accumulated in his fourteen levels of existance a fine collection of about thirty magic staves which he carried with him everywhere he went (Today I can only imagine him like a golfer with a caddy). I chose a magic-user on the flip of a coin... we were two players and the DM wanted a fighter-type and a caster-type.

I mostly DM now, but when I do get to play, I tend to 'fill in the gap'. I see what's needed in the group and make a character accordingly, and try to play that character to the best of my ability. I tend to play simple characters just to prove to the other players that you can make great things with a single class human.

Ahh, the memories... Kog the Dwarf (remember in those days when Dwarf was a class?), Araman Pathfinder the Human Ranger (who always wore a chainmail and a two-handed sword), Qwerty the Dwarven Cleric (never went anywhere without his handaxe), Khi the Half-Elf Magic-User (who turned out to be from three different space-times), The Great Ozaki the Human Bard (yes, the Great Ozaki HAS seen it all!), Graycen Angelthorne the Elven Wizard Summonner (who despite his young age has accomplished great things).

Ultradan

I usually try to avoid the "invent as you go dungeon". I'll keep that for outdoor travel when their going from village to village. I usually tell my players in advance that the trek will be mostly random encounters, and what I roll is what you get, no matter how big the monster. This leads to some pretty neat encounters where the players know that the Mountain giants I've just put before them are not part of the story, and they can flee anytime (if they can). But then, there's always the treasure that awaits if they win the encounter.

But for indoor exploration, I say it's a must to have SOMETHING ready in advance. C'mon, try saying to you players "Ok, do you go down the left tunnel, or the right tunnel?" and the player answers "what difference does it make what way we pick, we'll end up in the same place anyway, your making it up as you go!".

Ultradan

This is giving me a brain cramp, I'm finding that I have no idea how you would calculate straight line movement with a hex map. Can somebody explain this concept to me?

The squares or hexes are there to make it easyer to calculate how many feet your character has (or will) move. The actual path your character takes, say on a charge, is actually a straight line you can trace between your starting point and your finishing point. Your character doesn't REALLY move to the center of each square (or hex).

Ultradan

Holy Misconceptions!!!

How do these people sleep at night??? Talk about fear of the unknown! How closed minded can people be? If there's anything that can develope a child's mind and imagination it's roleplaying games. I'm all for having beliefs and a certain spirituality about the universe and all, but to think that some people would actually think you're the devil for playing Dungeons & Dragons, it just blows me away. These "enlightened" people aren't so "enlightened" at all, and just goes to show everybody that NOTHING beats good old common sense.

Gees...

Ultradan.

I think that if you are strong enough to command it, you are in control for as long as you want. There is a limit to how many and how strong of a thing that you control (your Hit Dice), and it's a pain to maintain in that you have to constantly give the darn things commands (taking a standard action to do so). The only indication as to ending your command over an undead is if you voluntarily do so, and that is if you're trading up for a more powerful undead beastie. As for what the newly independant undead would do... I'd think it would most likely be cowed due to your power, so no real hostility. Although if you are talking about an intelligent undead, there might be problems, but that'd be based on the individual.

Sorry Sharpe, I dissagree. I would rule (in my game, of course) that the player has control over the undead for the normal 'turn undead' period (10 rounds). After wich, they would go back to doing whatever they were created to do, as when a 'turn undead' expires... Like attack the players if they are still in the area. Remember, this isn't a spell with a permanent duration.

But if you rule otherwise in your game, that's totally fine with me. After all, the DM always has the final say.

Ultradan

My players come in with new books from time to time. I stopped going to the big gamming stores because everytime they didn't have what I was looking for (mostly new adventure modules), they just answered "Two Weeks... We'll have it in Two Weeks!" And NEVER followed up on it. Since I have practically all the stuff I'll ever need to roleplay for the next thousand years, just my subscription to Dungeon will do fine. The rest is icing.

Sorry, no list.

That sounds right... But, to my knowledge, usually those creatures with the Rend ability have claw/claw/rend (if both claws hit)/then a bite. Natural weapons don't seem to have extra attacks for high base-attack bonuses. I'll have to look it up when I get back from work.

Ultradan

You might think I'm old-school, but I'd stick with what you have in pdf. As far as I can tell, there aren't many ways to speed up the creation of an encounter. The E-Tools help a little, but I find them not flexible enough for my needs.

For Treasure, NPC, and other Generators, I go to a website calles dndadventure.com... They have a gazillion links to such generators, PC portraits, maps, anything you want really. You can generate what you want, then copy/paste it onto whatever format you're working on. I find it priceless.

And just so you know, I have nothing to do with the website, so I'm not just saying that.

Ultradan

I have E-tools and, frankly, don't use it very often. I find that's it's not so easy to manipulate the information it generates. I more often use all the ressources that are available on d&d websites to generate NPCs, maps and treasures. If you don't have access to the net where you're going, I guess it's an alternative.

Ultradan

I put 25% of all experience earned in a pool and divide the rest equally among the rest of the PCs that were present for the encounter (be it a monster, a trap or a situation). Then, at the end of the session, I divide the XP in the pool into shares. I give more shares to the characters who have illustrated themselves more than the others (like if a rogue dissarmed many traps), roleplayed well or simply just had a good idea. Abscent players still get their equal share of XPs, but get no shares from the 'pool'. This gives the players different XP totals (so they don't always gain a level at the same time) and rewards them for being present and active during the session.

It works for me...

Ultradan

Since I don't have a car, I transformed my double garage into a full-fledged D&D room. I painted it like a real dungeon, to mimic large stone blocks, with swords and chains on the walls. There's my desk with an old PC on it, wich stands in front of an immense library/bookshelf with everything I ever bought for role-playing games (I have an extensive collection of old D&D stuff). My players sit in front of me at a large table with six chairs. We have a chalkboard, and two white magnetic marker boards (one having permanent 1-inch squares on it). The room/garage has many props like big candles in large silver candlestick holders, swords, daggers, shields, posters of dragons and wizards, etc... Although it always was my dream to have a place like this in my house, it isn't all that unusual.

I guess the most unusual place I've ever played D&D was on a picnic table in a neaby parc.

Ultradan

I'm playing an almost evil cleric in my friend's brand new FR campaign, using 3.5. My cleric made 2nd level and then managed to "command" 9 skeletons. How long does the "command" power over undead last in that situation?

10 rounds like the rebuke? 1 day/lvl like the spell? I couldn't find anything clear on that.

Also, my friend penalized us XP because we used the skeletons in a subsequent battle with orcs. I told him that the DMG doesn't penalize players for having cohorts, hirelings or followers, so I didn't think that was correct. I also pointed out that PC's don't get penalized XP for using summoned monsters in combat. He relented, but I'd like to know how this should be handled.

I read the XP award section in the DMG and it didn't state anything about that. Any advice or references?

Well, it really doesn't say does it. Since we know it's really not the spell Command Undead, I would give it the same duration as the Turn/Rebuke Undead (10 rounds).

As for the XP penalties for using skeletons in combat, I totally disagree with your DM. You shouldn't get any penalties for using a class ability. It's just part of what the class can do. Just like you get no extra XP for fighting an enemy wizard who has summoned a creature to fight for him. Now if a vampire decided to join you on an adventure (say because you have the same enemy), then the vampire would count as an extra character in the group and take his equal share of XP.

Ultradan

Holy Never-ending Stories!!!

Murkmoldiev, your post was longer than the opening credits on the first Superman movie!

(Good thing it was interesting.)

Ultradan

I only read the first three books when they first came out and got overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and speed they were comming out. It too far back. Sorry dude, can't help you.

Ultra-old

Has your group tried starting a high level story arc. I tried it once, cause my group wanted to play high level heroes. We all realized that it DID get very complicated (especially for the DM) and we all decided to stick to low to mid level. We got more story done and less flipping pages of the rule books.

Gee, he didn't go to "all you can eat" places... He went to "all they can cook" places. IMy players tend to bring exessive amounts of food to the game too. But their the "skinny-always moving" kinda guys. It's a sort of competition every session to see who'll go the most overboard with soda, chips, candy, cookies, pastries, chicken, pizzas, six-foot subs, etc... Luckily, we don't eat all of it. Lot's of leftovers though.

Ultradan

Let's see... Here's some other things I've seen in my years of playing this wonderful game:

Dice throwing (players and DMs),
Dice EATING (I've seen a player do it... He went to the bathroom later that night and rolled a 20!),
Dice Cursing/Blessing,
Character Sheet Ripping (Players only),
Character Sheet Eating (Incredibly, not the same player as above!!),
Binder Throwing (inculdes dice and sheets),
Self Mutilation (burning, cutting, hitting ones head against the table),
Talking to God (not sure wich one),
And my personnal favorite... all out brawl.

(No, I don't play in the jungle)
Ultra

Welcome Capitain. First of all, no question here is idiotic. If you want to see idiotic, read the "Weird Gamers" section. And try not to laugh.

About your dilema... It's true, most DM's don't particularly like playing with those 'hard to contain' races (or abilities)... But eventually, as the characters gain levels, it becomes more and more available to the players. So eventually, the DM has to face the music at one point or an other in the campain. So if you guys are starting at first level (or any low-level), I suggest that the power of flight (or turning invisible) is simply not available to the player. Maybe it's a curse, or even the power of flight was taken away from the character when he was exiled from his tribe/speicies. You could turn it into a character quest, at some point, to regain your flight status by proving yourself worthy to your people, or by finding a way to lift the curse.

Think of it, by the time you get your power of flight or invisibility back, most other players will already have access to spells and/or magic items to do the same. It gives the DM time to adjust to your new race, and you get to do something different.

Anyway, that's what I would do if one of my players came up to me with a similar demand.

Ultradan

I agree with what has been said. I never penalize players for being abscent (especially if the reason is school or job related). I have presently five players. We still play if one is missing (he becomes an NPC wich I or another player will play). With two being abscent, we usually agree to play something else (like poker or boardgames). With three abscent, we just cancel. If the same person is constantly missing games (we ONLY play once every other week), I ask the player if it's okay to "write off" his character for a while, until he's more available and he could join back anytime if he wants too. That way I keep a good friend and the game goes on. Even if the game is very important to us, friendship will always be above everything else.

Ultradan

The last game with the Mongrelman...

It was the worst game I DMed... It was a disaster. It happened about ten years ago. Imagine this: At the table, I had the Mongrelman, there was also two guys (the two players I still have in my group today) verbally destroying The Mongrelman, another guy (we'll call him Revenant)who showed up for the game totaly whacked on drugs (he was there, but he wasn't there), this other guy (who we'll call Gibbering Mouther), who kept talking about what happened to him at work that day, and a girl (we'll just call her Tarrasque) who just didn't care. Here's a brief moment...

During a street fight, the barn next to the inn where the players were staying caught on fire after one of the players cast a fireball too close to it. After the battle, as the players watched the barn burn, Revenant sadly said: "Poor mule."
(The players had a mule in the barn). Then one of my friends said : "What about our greek fire bottles?". Then the barn blew up in a giant ball of light.

Meanwhile, Mouther was wandering why there were little chunks in his glass of pepsi. I exclaimed : Mongrelman is eating chips!! Then my friend exclaimed : HE DRANK FROM THE BOTTLE!! And we all screamed : EEEwwwwwwhh!!!

I must of drank the equivalent of 19 beers before the night ended. And, incredibly, showed up for work the next morning!

Ultradan

Every group has or has had one... That weird player that just doesn't belong. That weird player that thinks that he's playing better than everyone else. The player who seems to take the game WAY too seriously (even by our standards). Have you ever had one? What did he (or she) do to make you wish you had a wish?

Here's my story... About ten years ago, I started with a completely new group of six players (three guys and three girls). They were all about 8 years younger than me and some of them had never played before. This one guy from the group (we'll call him Mongrelman) was one of those weird players. He was playing a theif and actually always showed up at games dressed in black, wearing ONE black glove. He would always bring an Ace and Jack of Spades and to the table, wich he would kiss before every roll. He would constantly flick his lighter, making everyone angry. He knew the 2nd Edition books by heart and actually call out the page number when someone was looking for a rule or table (he got it right only about 10% of the time wich made it very annoying!). Still, as long as he played and was present for the games I didn't mind.

Then Mongrelman started to actually worship me. He would show up at my front door every morning and walked me to work discussing game rules and possible story twists for his character. Now this happened in the middle of winter (in Quebec) at a chilling -30c. He would show up at my sister's work place and walk her home... Of course, she'd drop him off by my place before continuing to her house.

Then one day, he got tired of having everyone one his case and decided to leave the group, saying that the game wasn't good enough for him.

I still have two of those six players in my group today. And sometimes we still talk of the days of the Mongrelman, and laugh ourselves silly.

Ultradan

Here are a few of my favorites...

Tenser's Ten Sirs :
Summons ten knights to fight for you.
Mordenkainen's 'More Than Canines' :
Gives your animal companion (dog) a few extra levels.
Rary's Raries :
Lets you use an artifact for a limited time.
Otto's Autos :
Calls into being a gnomish traveling contraption.
Leomund's Lee Owmens :
Predicts the next accidental death of the (Bruce) Lee family.
Bigby's Big Bees :
Summons a swarm of giant bees.
Djwami's Jammies :
Creates fashionable sleepware for your character.

Sorry. I just couldn't resist.

Ultradan

I agree on what Rothandalantearic said... Good for you Onrie! I also started at school, in third grade on a 'do anything' day. I had brought a chess board and was having fun with that until something caught my ear in the back of the classroom. There, a few kids brought their character sheets, a few dice and a module: The Tomb of Horrors. It drew me in like a moth to a flame. Being one of the rare adventure modules at the time with a booklet of pictures, it opened a doorway to another world for me and I've been living there ever since.

When I started, all I had was an adventure module (B1 In search of the Unknown (wich I STILL have today!!)), a d4, a d10 and the ideas that were errupting out of my mind. I winged it from the start, I made up most of the rules, anything to keep the story going.

Onrie, I envy you. You have something now that I didn't have when I started... Help on all your questions! All these people here are knowledgable people who will be more than happy to help you out with anything you don't fully understand about ANY rule of the game. They (we) are an infinite ressource for you. Good luck on your game!

By the way, you CAN lay concrete and still live a normal life.

Holy Stinking Clouds!!! No... NOTHING can possibly be worst than the first D&D movie. I was actually drained two negative energy levels while I sat in the theater. Whoever made the movie never actually played or had any idea what this game is about. I'd like to throw a couple of dice-twenties at him if I saw him.

Well, Hellacious, it seems you just had to look inside yourself to find all the friends you needed. Do you play with your multiple personnalities, or with imaginary people? (Just kidding, of course!)

Ultra.

Hello Lilith,

Apart from the fabulous work of Dungeon Magazine, I take a little help from a few websites wich offer map, character and treasure generators. There's one in particular (dndadventure.com) wich has a gazillion links to all sorts of useful stuff for DMs and Players alike. A real time-saver. It's really worth a look.

Hello fellow DMs and Players. I'm curious about the real people behind the characters and DM screens. Would it be too much to ask a few questions about who I'm talking to. I'm not looking for specifics (no names or adresses), just what age category you find yourself in, what area are you from, what type of work you do, are you a DM or a Player, and how did you come to know about and play role-playing games. And, of course anything else you would want to add.

Guess we'll start with me. I'm Ultradan. A 33 year old office technician from Montreal, Canada. I've been a role-player since around 1982. I started out as a player but have graduated to DM for the last 15 years or so. Played D&D (All Editions) for the most part, but tried several different games... Star Wars (old system), Battletech, Call of Cthulhu, Blood Bowl, and a few others. This game (D&D) really changed my life. I just couldn't imagine what I'd be doing if it didn't exist. What a pleasant passtime.

I DMed a few games of Call of Cthulhu (Cthulu? Cth-whatever...), and I can say for a fact that just reading the printed adventures for this game will send chills down your spine. Something about the unknown terrifies people.

In Cthulhu, a zombie is a scary thing. You only encounter one (at the end of the adventure). In D&D however, you encounter dozens and act as deli meat for your fighters.

Also, the relative weakness of the characters compared to the semi-invulnerability of the foes scares the players. Knowing that by the end of the adventure, maybe one or two of the starting six characters will make it out alive.

I'm not saying that invulnerable creatures are scary, but unknown or new creatures with a good resistance to damage and a dark setting where the players feel alone is, to me, scary.

Thanks 'Green'. Nifty advice.

And stat blocks in pdf files? That would be outstanding!! I too re-write the stat blocks to avoid page flipping during the game. And, as it turns out, that is exactly where I loose most of my time while preparing. Hear THAT Dungeon magazine? What an improvement it would make on an already great product.

Don't get me wrong... I've been DMing for almost 20 years too. I miss the old kinds of modules with "drop anywhere" dungeons. Now, it seems, that all the printed adventure have complexe political plots (and sub-plots) with more NPCs than I can account for. Maybe I'm just having plroblems adjusting to the 3rd edition rules. All those skills and feats (there's so many of them!), I can't possibly retain what every on of them does.

And what do you Dm's do for random encounters between cities. I used to roll on tables and my players would face a multitude of monsters along their paths. Then I wondered, where are all these creatures comming from? How do commoners get from town to town with all the dangers lurking out there?

Too many questions?

What I would like to know is, as DMs, how long does it take for you to prepare your games? For me, it seems to take forever. I can't just throw "empty" monsters at my group anymore. Now with the feats, skills, special attacks/defenses, etc... It takes me major preperation and even if I use printed adventures (thanks Dungeon!) it still takes hours of studying to make sure I get everything right (or I don't forget that special skill wich makes the foe a threat). It can take me several days to prepare for ONE session. I must be getting old. Got any pointers?

Apart from the obvious character and creature sheets and general game preperation, I made a spreadsheet on Excel that calculates the growth of a city/town. It gives me everything like population growth, costs for rebuilding in case of natural disasters... It even gives me the detailed population breakup! Also, I converted the entire random weather generator in the DM's Guide on a spreadsheet, so I can get an entire year's worth of weather at the click of a mouse (printer friendly). My weather generator also accounts for seasons and regions. Pretty cool stuff! What a time saver.

Orange Dragons? What's next... Plad Dragons?!?

Well, back in my high school days, we would play like four or five times a week, with some sessions during entire nights. But now, with the busy schedules, we only play once every two weeks, and RARELY get more than four or five hours of gameplay. I would surely like for my games to last longer, but I think that once every other week is just fine. The adversaries are just getting too long to create (thanks Dungeon Magazine!). I mean every NPC (and monster) now have different skills, feats, special attacks etc... Especially in the higher levels. I remember when I could just open the Monster Manual and throw a monster at my players. Well that time is long gone. Now I need major preperation and intense studying if I'm to come up with something interesting. I just couldn't play multiple nights like I used too.

Hello, I'm 33 and have been playing/DMing since I was about 12. I DM a group of 5 players, who are all pretty much experienced. We play only once every two weeks, so every one tries to be present when we play. Usually the adventures I have my players go through are for the full group, but I find it fun to have them play solos or duos from time to time. Then when they get back together, it's fun to watch them tell each other what happened on their seperate adventures. On another note; I have another question to all you DMs out there... Is it just me, or am I the only one to have a problem with the real-time hours it takes to resolve those pesky high-level fights? Man, I feel like I'm playing Battletech sometimes. I feel like the story doesn't move forward as fast as the old (or low-level) games.