J-Rokka's page

I agree with Rynjin on this. My fun is typically the first thing I consider. Next I try to decide if the player will either fill a gap, or support an existing role (i.e. play a cleric vs. play a second melee fighter). Next I try to make the character have a special ability to contribute to a group (scouting, mobility, a good grapple to remove powerful enemies, etc.)

Hey so my campaign is starting, finally, I was wondering if we could get a campaign update and manybe stats for that zombie swarm?

Intelligent elf bane weapon used by a drow would be an interesting campaign idea...

There's plenty of focus on "fine dwarven spirits", "dwarven fire ale" beer, and mead. Occasionally discussions about beds/rooms.

I learned that, if something is expensive but still mundane, you should buy and use it. I was scouting without a spyglass (not related to the above post) and wound up being chased by an army. It was not fun.

I have previously learned that, no matter what is going on in the bar/city/5 foot square occupied by a PC, the most important, attention demanding things are always The bartender and the bar maids.

I loved the ending, but I wish there was more of the story!

Maybe from another angle the PCs come on NPCs attacking the noncombatnts with warriors nowhere to be found?

Never tried the redemption angle before, might have to use that sometime soon

bump

RashidAli wrote:

So they took the character and tied her to a table inside of a portable hole. Then they said that way each of their characters (including the dad's DMPC) had their way with the daughter's character that was tied up whenever they wanted.

As disturbing as this is, this is not the first time I read about female players' characters being raped by other player characters. It's not even close to the first time I read something like this.

I always wonder: Are there so many sicko freaks out there that have unhealthy sex/rape fantasies AND play RPGs AND think it's totally okay to tell some woman about it AND make her avatar the victim? Or is it just one guy who really gets around?

The other times it wasn't usually the GM's daughter. It was some girl/woman, and usually, the rapist guy would apparently get a kick out of telling her all of this.

Maybe I wouldn't make a good woman for being too squeamish, but I never understood how none of these stories end with "And then she broke out the mace (i.e. the pepper spray) to take the guy down and then she ran away screaming" (or, even, "then she broke out the mace (i.e. the blunt instrument) and beat his head in").

In fact, even as a guy, if that happened in a game I was playing in, I'd get hold of something dangerous and beat the guy's head in out of sheer self-preservation. Call me squeamish if you will, but I couldn't stand the idea of this person being anywhere around me or anyone I know and/or love.

We're not talking about groups consisting of years-long friends who know when they're joking and what everyone considers to be over the line creepy etc, by the way.

This times 1000. I'm a teenager, all my gaming friends are teenagers, and even we don't have problems with overly sexual/violent encounters. What's more, I garuntee that if something like this happened even in a first time group where noone knew each other, Myself and at least one of my guys would proceed to kick the guiy out. There's a line, this kind of behaviour is way past it.

Some type of waterbreathing, spell components by the armful, and put some money into the raw materials for traps, in case you guys need to hunker down. Also, some items like healing kits only have so many uses per purchase, so several copies, as well as an extra copy of things like climbing kits and thieves tools. wands are way better than potions for cure spells.

bumping this back to the top of the list, and awaiting more of Master Arminas's unmatched storytelling skills

...Steve WAS a bastard...

Since Bards get whip proficiency, an S&M bard with Catch off Guard to wield whip and manacles

Clerics are worth their weight in gold, and now your players learned. You really did all you can, sometimes the dice just don't treat you well. Zombies are a good thing (especially since it sounds like these were early in the adventure) to just run from while peppering with ranged attacks, if you become overwhelmed.

Clerics and Druids (Paladins if in an RP heavy campaign)

MeleeMonster80 had a whole thread about this here:

http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz4xzt?Zombie-Apocalypse

Basically, several people did number crunching and found that channel isn't a deal breaker. Also, if it's a true zombie apocalypse, they might have way more than 3 encounters per day,there could be dozens of zombies in each, and they might not be able to sleep or replenish abilities every night due to safety. If you really want to horrify them, let them build their supposed "Undead destroying menaces", and then laugh as they burn all their abilities before they even kill the first horde. Simple probability says even a few dozen zombies can seriously mess up a mid level party. Now imagine how many there would be in a city, where all the food and magic items are >:)

dot. thinking of running the same thing. love the ideas.

J-Rokka wrote:

Give them a reason or, better yet, talk them over to your side. Also, noone says the other PCs HAVE to know your alignment. Pull them to the darkside slowly.

But do this in a party where nobody has alignment constraints, because most people don't like their character breaking and a divine caster who's already one alignment away from their deity (or true neutral for druids) can potentially be ruined by alignment shift.

Thanks for adding this on, I typed this up right before bed so my mind was a little murky. This is really important because, if you ruin the other PCs, group relations will drop at amazing speeds. If you want a practical reason for this, consider these

First off, read this
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz508x?Evil-parties-how-they-fail-and-how-to-fix- it

Also, here's my opinion.
1) Evil v. Stupid: Just because one or more PCs are evil, does not mean they are completely wanton and shortsighted in their actions. To use a quote from the above link, they won't walk across the street and kick a puppy in the face just for laughs. Everything they do benefits them or their friends (see point 2). They will also look for the long term, because actions DO have consequences.
2) Everybody Needs Somebody: Evil, with the exception of outsiders (whom are pure, concentrated evil) is still human(oid). All social, sentient creatures have SOME desire for friendship and love. Even if their heart is 4 sizes too small, there's still some room in there. The other PCs can easily be childhood friends, who stood up to the evil PCs bullies, which leads me to...
3) Evil Has A Purpose: People aren't born evil, nor are they born good. Most people are born neutral, and are shaped by their values and environment. WHY is your character evil? Somewhere on the WOTC website (try the 3.5 archives), Greg and Andy Collins did a fantastic series on evil. One of the biggest points was that you need a "Why?". Was your character bullied? Was his family murdered? Betrayed? Something made them who they are.
4) PC Interactions: Mixed alignment parties have some of the Best roleplaying situations EVER. Period. As long as your group is mature, the decision of what to do with the prisoners, or the captured boss, or the disarmed enemy fighter, can lead to shining examples of RP perfection. Does someone have an issue with you raising the dead? Picking a pocket? Give them a reason or, better yet, talk them over to your side. Also, noone says the other PCs HAVE to know your alignment. Pull them to the darkside slowly.

Like has been stated, backstories are key, out of game relationships also help. I GMed an evil campaign once, all of us had been close friends for a while, PVP wasn't an issue, noone did anything to cruelly graphic to make the others uncomfortable, and they raised an army by doing favors and jobs for other groups. In the end, they ransacked a city. One of my favorite campaigns ever.

I love the idea of the heroic last stand, and most of my players do too. in our last game, my alchemist refused to leave the dwarf behind, and when he was knocked unconscoius in a fight, the dwarf dragged him back to safety, while running from enemies (there was only the 2 of us that session).

Check out our Call for Submissions thread (or the last couple pages of Wayfinder #6!).

All is revealed there......

Thanks, I must've missed it in my search

I'm kind of feeling a base class, are submissions for them still fine?

If a player is ineffective in a campaign for reasons that are not their fault, we usually allow them to reroll. If characters die, a different kind of character usually emerges

Before I say anything, I want to congratulate you guys on a job well done. Most of my campaigns are run homebrew, but it's SO helpful to have all the content in the wayfinders, you guys are doing a great job. Where/when do you accept submissions for the next issue?

Chaotic neutral but leaning toward chaotic evil. He killed Otis but if he didn't, most likely both of them would have died. If he sacrificed himself, he wouldn't be able to ensure that Otis would succeed. In his mind he traded Otis for Carl which to him was fair because Otis shot Carl. For the most part he does what seems practical regardless of whether or not it is good or evil.

If you've read the comics, the mayor is what I would call chaotic evil in that universe.

I haven't read the 14th book yet, so if this pretains to that I'm sorry, but do you mean the governor of Woodbury? or the mayor from later?

NE, like Chuck Wright said. The only good things he does are to protect Lori and Carl, and now he's doing less and less of that

Congrats, and happy holidays!

I play with a group of some of my best friends, and it's always a great time. The only thing I would change is how much coffee we can make in one pot, and make a couple people more available to play more often

Quote:

Tucker's kobolds

This month's editorial is about Tucker's kobolds. We get letters on occasion asking for advice on creating high-level AD&D® game adventures, and Tucker's kobolds seem to fit the bill.

Many high-level characters have little to do because they're not challenged. They yawn at tarrasques and must be forcibly kept awake when a lich appears. The DMs involved don't know what to do, so they stop dealing with the problem and the characters go into Character Limbo. Getting to high level is hard, but doing anything once you get there is worse.

One of the key problems in adventure design lies in creating opponents who can challenge powerful characters. Singular monsters like tarrasques and liches are easy to gang up on; the party can concentrate its firepower on the target until the target falls down dead and wiggles its little feet in the air. Designing monsters more powerful than a tarrasque is self-defeating; if the group kills your super-monster, what will you do next—send in its mother? That didn't work on Beowulf, and it probably won't work here.

Worse yet, singular supermonsters rarely have to think. They just use their trusty, predictable claw/claw/bite. This shouldn't be the measure of a campaign. These games fall apart because there's no challenge to them, no mental stimulation—no danger.

In all the games that I've seen, the worst, most horrible, most awful beyond-comparison opponents ever seen were often weaker than the characters who fought them. They were simply well-armed and intelligent beings who were played by the DM to be utterly ruthless and clever. Tucker's kobolds were like that.

Tucker ran an incredibly dangerous dungeon in the days I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C. This dungeon had corridors that changed all of your donkeys into huge flaming demons or dropped the whole party into acid baths, but the demons were wienies compared to the kobolds on Level One. These kobolds were just regular kobolds, with 1-4 hp and all that, but they were mean. When I say they

...

Thanks for the explanation, I can feel the PCs horror, and pretty soon my gaming group will too >:) mwhahaha

Hey guys, I fell off of the threads and everything for a while, so I was just wondering if someon could explain the references to "Tucker's Kobolds" on the threads? Thanks!

If the out-of game talk doesn't work. have something totally benevolent but annoying happen to him at the bar. For example, if he's an elf, have a half-orc start flirting with him, or have a dwarf insulting him repetitively, or charge him more and more money for each drink, etc.

Man, I learned when I was 9 with full 3.5 rules, all these kids have it easy :P
Seriously though, Try to find a movie or book they like and emulate that. Instead f dropping the core rulebook in their laps, have them describe a character (as GM DSP said) and help them build that. Pile on the rules bit by bit, and try to get a friend involved around the 3rd session if they enjoy it.

WhipShire wrote:

I hear you... Try some brainstorming! List all races on one side of a piece of paper and classes on the other. Use a modified die roll to pick race and another die roll for the class. Do it till they are all matched up and see what you have. You never know what causality might bring your way...

I know I know. Have the forum pick. We type what you need I order Race, class, skills, feats and you take it. The goal is not to optimize this character but make it fun.

I guess I get race so......half-elf

I guess I'll take class then, so... bard

Sounds like it was a fun game, but one question- did the PC that kept taking fire damage pcik up some kind of fire resistance-granting item after the adventure?

I was DMing this about 2 years ago. I think the party was a half-orc barbarian, 2 dawrven orc fighers (they were brothers) and a human monk (named Zebot, who gave us one of the greatest recurring jokes in history in the form of Zebot's Pole, a 10 foot pole that became magical and sentient, and hated Zebot). The player's were evil, and had a lot of gold. One of the dwarves said "I'm gonna buy a ton of oil from every place in town. and Ale." He stached the ale outside of town, then put barrels and barrels of oil in the sewers under the main square in a city. He lit the fuse and the party ran like hell, all the way to the sewer exit where the ale was. They poured a mug, then watched the fireworks.

I see almost solely fighters rangers and barbarians in my games, I have a martial party, albeit in high fantasy games. We do get wizards and clerics sometimes. I have a player that was talking about playing a bard in the next game, although he may have been joking (no insult to bards, in was the context and material of the discussion that make me unsure if he was serious).

I just built a base class for homebrew that got the ability to do large amounts of damage on a single attack with crossbows, and begins with repeating crossbow proficiency. They're built for steady amounts of high damage at long range (yes, the class is named sniper.) and get a few other useful abilities.

Sometimes I do like running/playing a 1 on 1 session, 2 person parties are fun too, if done sparingly. I've found that 4 or 5 is best, because my group has the most experience in the form of me and 2 of my friends (I'm 16 with about 5 years under my belt, another is my age with 4, and the last is also my age with about 8 I think), so I usually GM unless one of the others wants to do a stint. That leaves 2 experienced players to guid the less experienced and streamline things.

Evil PCs, one is an elf sorceror, level 6. He starts hitting o a bar maid, next we know they're going upstairs. At the end of the encounter, the sorceror fired a lightning bolt out of his "Wand". The lady was killed, and a hole got blasted through the floor so everyone could see. Fighter looks at the sorceror dead in the eyes, completely serious, and says "so I guess there was a spark?". It took a while for play to resume.

Ahh this post brings back some memories...
In 3.5 we were playing The Sunless Citadel (or something along those lines) at 1st level. Our wizard decided to kill the kobold that kept his tribe from killing us. Trying to save my own skin, I ran back and told the queen, a sorceress. Her and her guards tracked us all down. TPK squarely on my shoulders.
In another game, we all got into a fight over the division of a small pile of magic items, the first those characters had found. At first it was just yelling, but then one of the fighters got particularly mad and attacked another PC. Soon enough, everyone's weapons were drawn and people were dying left and right. Someone was dumb enough to kill the cleric, then got killed in the next room. TPK again.

I think the summoning thing was a little below the belt, but the lich's preparedness was definitely not.
Happy Holidays everyone!

Are Morlocks balanced against core races?

We had the morlock trailing a few levels behind, overall i felt the halflings we actually better at everything except damage output and mobility.

I did have 2 PCs play halfling fighters (they were going for a mary and pippin thing), and they wound out being less effective than the morlock rogue in fights. that being said, they had good ACs and staying power, and the magic didn't faze them as much.

I was rather fond of a minotaur NPC I created for a campaign set in H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands. He was a tragic creature built from the Conundrum Creature template in Creature Collection II.

Conundrum Creatures are beings cursed to live as animated puzzles. They lose the ability to communicate except to recite the riddle that will set them free. The only thing that will break the curse is for someone to assemble all their pieces and speak the answer to their particular riddle. In the case of this minotaur, the party found his parts scattered throughout a labyrinth and needed to rebuild him in order to escape the maze. They'd been led to believe he had a key for them and eventually found all but one piece that was needed to attach his tail. Without his tail, he could still recite his riddle:

"What force and strength cannot get through, I with a gentle touch can do. And many in the street would stand, were I not a friend in hand."

However, he couldn't be freed from his curse until he was completely rebuilt. Over the course of the next several days, the party explored and fought through the massive, haunted labyrinth and bonded with the minotaur as they searched for his missing piece. His construct traits and other abilities made him a useful and powerful ally but, rather than take advantage of his strengths, the party treated him as they would a good friend. On the final level of the maze, the party discovered his missing piece and the lock that would free them from the labyrinth, a large indentation carved into the floor and shaped like the minotaur, complete with restraints.

The party had figured out the answer to the riddle days ago, but it was only now they realized how terrible a price they would have to pay to be free. The answer to the riddle of course was "A Key" and that is exactly what the minotaur was intended to be, a living key.

If the party had treated the minotaur as nothing more than a tool or been unkind to him, I was prepared to have him fight for his life....

This is an evil, soul wrenching, sickening idea, and i will promptly be using something like it in my campaign. :D

Someone get RavingDork on this forum, PLEASE.

Ogre fighter who had 26 strength, grapple feats, and spiked armor. He earned the nickname "The Cheese Grater", because he would rip peple to shreds and then use their corpses as clubs/throwing weapons.

I wish a miniature giant mantis was available for a familiar.

I mean it would just be so cool.

So... basically just a normal mantis? XD

So I had an interesting campaign arc going on in which the BBEG was manipulating the PCs into doing his dirty work for them (unbeknownst to them of course). The party wizard, a powerful mind-controller, decided he could use his powers on the BBEG in order to get more compensation for the jobs they have been taking.

Because there is a paladin in the party, he did this away from the others in order to save face. He asked the BBEG for a private audience, successfully dominated him (beating SR and getting lucky with a natural "1" roll despite mind blank), and then proceeded to force him to answer questions pertaining to money and profit (the enchanter is greedier than most rogues).

Because the BBEG's grand scheme stands to make him nearly unlimited wealth, the party wizard inadvertently stumbled upon information he and his party isn't supposed to have for another several levels/adventures.

The enchanter now knows EVERYTHING about the BBEG's plans.

Rather than warn his companions and end the campaign prematurely, however, he has decided to keep it to himself so that he may "win" the end game. Essentially, he has become the new BBEG (though he is currently true neutral). He is going to keep the old BBEG dominated (easily done with visits every several days and instructions to "lower your defenses") while ordering the BBEG to continue with the scheme.

The only difference, really, is that the enchanter will end up ruling the world with unlimited wealth and power rather than the BBEG.

The enchanter player and I are now working together to ensure the campaign continues for its full duration and that everyone still has fun all the while. Essentially, it's now going to be a kind of PvP campaign with NPC co-stars (though the big reveal and true PvP until the end of the campaign arc).

I'm hoping to get some advice on how to handle this situation. I worry it may somehow spin out of control (more so than it already has) and prematurely ruin the campaign for one or more people. What should I be watching out...

I can't offer much in the way of advice, but after seeing some of your posts, I can honestly say I wish I played in one of your campaigns. lol

Alright, here's my attempt:

Dwarf Wizard 1 (20 point buy)
School: Earth
Bonded Object: Battleaxe

Str 10
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 17
Wis 12
Cha 8

Earthglide at level 8 is amazing, and Acid Cloud is actually very good battlefield control. I also just remembered: never being slowed by encumbrance means feel free to dump strength!

Str 7
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 18
Wis 12
Cha 8

Of course, to take full advantage, we need a way to increase speed...

Fleet, or a multiclass to BBN (RP opportunities and a slight increase to his ax skills)