Darklone's page

Tinkerbell.

So what about the rest of you guys? Have you ever had a division in the party between "let's adopt 'em" and "let's kill 'em?" Did it create good drama, or just pointless infighting?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

Always. The players either love a newly encountered NPC or hate him. Often without any reason. They love to discuss how to dispose of any NPC ... Sometimes I have a hard time to protect the storyrelated ones at least for some time.

Yes, alignment changes from bad to worse occur. Often.

Hmm... could hurling rage powers be taken to increase the range ingrement of bombs?

Zen Archer 4 and then Inquisitor is surprisingly effective. Dont forget the trait +1 to dmg against undead and magic knack.

The mix is extremely versatile and can sneak and fight the whole day and night. Rocks for hordes of enemies/zombies.

Well, not a full caster but any inquisitor will so.

Corset of dire witchcraft UE 214.

Non magic Elfiest Elf evah:
Zen archer monk. You have an archer monk (with spider step feat) that can run over water and ropes, can shoot (if not grappled) without AoOs, can bash, kick, headbutt and stab in melee with arrows and shoots more arrows than anyone ... except sohei archers.

Hire some mercenary archers (see the zen archer threads or similar stuff) and get them enough arrows to skip the DR. :)

I don't really know about that. Especially when the they don't gain racial HD and get the cool stuff. Oh no, SR that will never go up! DR X/magic! The best things Dragons typically have are number of natural attacks(which PCs can rival), a fly speed(which PCs can get and be better at), and a breath weapon that might, based on subspecies, have a neat effect instead of just area damage(and PCs have ways to get both).

You're right, they are not strong as combatants. But their huge array of perception and movement abilities are very unbalancing to have in a party.

We had a dragon PC in a game once... it couldn't fight a lot (yet won the day a few times the evil spellcaster was left alone far behind) ... but the party NEVER got surprised and they nearly always surprised the enemies. All due to the dragon scout.

Oh, the good old "Good dragons eat humans too" debate. Funny. That's what we play the game for in shades of white, black AND grey.

White campaign: Good is good. PCs don't kill non combatants. And it works (e.g. goblins don't come back later to eat the humans).

Grey campaign: Good PCs don't kill goblins, goblins eat children from the village a day later.

Black campaign: Good PCs kill bad goblins. End of story. And it works.

What's your preferred style of game? That's what the question is all about. VERY simplified here.

Black or white campaigns are easy, grey are difficult. That's why fantasy used to be about black and white. Not realism.

Can you post his stats and his classes plus feats?

I think this is the key here. Actual real weapons from the time were way lighter than what we make now.

Right. We had a Viking broadsword here for metallurgical tests that was at 800g fighting weight. Imagine... 100g more than current fencing weapons. And it's a BROADsword from 800 AC with high quality steel!

As for katanas and bastard swords... look for actual old ones that were used. Museums and books are full of iron pricks that never saw a battle or were made for battles.

If you have a real bastard sword, you'll see that it's length, weight and balancing are within millimeters identical to GOOD katanas (again: used ones). Logic tells us why: Why make a weapon longer than it would be ideal when wielded in two hands?

Interestingly the size difference between Europeans and Samurai doesn't matter much for sword handling.

Back to the matter on topic: I use elven curved blades as two handed sabres similar to the ones used by double mercenaries in Germany.

Weight - katana is lighter than most other blades of it's size, and certainly than all other two-handed blades save perhaps the ninjato which is basically a shortened, crude katana.

Balance - the two-handed grip allows this to be controlled more effectively, the length of the hilt itself adds balance.
Strength - you have both hands on it, you can apply more strength.

Actually, bastard swords weigh exactly the same (original one and a half hand sword: 1,1kg; Italian greatsword at 1,5m length: 1,6kg) and exhibit the same flexibility plus all other advantages commonly reserved for the katana.

Compare medieval sword fencing books. Even the techniques are identical.

Actually it's even more difficult to craft a straight blade with two edges than a katana with one edge ;)

Greetings, your neighbourhood metallurgy scientist.

Dodge bonuses to AC stack. You can use both.