Mistah Green's page

What makes a person, especially someone who has had over 10 years of online roleplay experience, such a cynical min-maxxer? No one event convinced me. Rather, it was being jilted several times followed by seeing the light of Min-Maxxing over a period of time. For the zero people besides me interested in this tale, here we go.

It was the summer of 2002. I had no job, no college ambition, and no real plans. Why? Well, I had already taken the oath of enlistment for Naval service in February so I was just killing time until I had to ship off. My D&D mania was at the time at its height but I had no real source for gaming. Also at the time, I lacked places to roleplay. OldeMUCK was long-dead and though I didn't know it at the time ChaosMUCK was on its last legs.

Confronted with a serious dearth of distraction, I did what I never thought of before: I went to a MUSH. I was pretty desperate, see, and at the time I had carried over some irrational fear of venturing outside of this codebase. I can't give a reason. It was irrational. But that's not important to the story. Keep in mind that I was just expanding my horizons at the time.

Anyway, after a few dead ends, I had the choice between Winter's Edge and Treyvan for my D&D fix. I was originally hunting for some multi-themed anime place but I had just gotten Sword and Fist, one of the first 3rd Edition supplements. This was burning a hole in my bookcase. Back then, they made supplements of a softcover in black and white with a glossy color insert. Also, pretty much only two artists did the entire project. The production values were nowhere near the level of the oiriginal book, or, later, the supplements made for 3.5E edition.

But to me and many new fans of D&D it may as well have been manna from heaven. I loved that damn book. I haven't enjoyed that book the most out of all of the RPG books I own (I derived a lot more enjoyment from Oriental Adventures, Book of Nine Swords, Exalted 2nd: Scroll of the Monk, and Shadowrun 4th: Street Magic for starters) but that book still meant a lot to me. Almost as much as the core books. I even remember where I bought it. April '02, Hastings, with the last bit of money I had saved up after getting fired from my old job. Knowing me, I probably had those chocolate-covered cookie dough bites they sold, too. I think I also rented Rhapsody, too.

Of course, I had never before followed an RPG. Bitter fans of D&D 2nd Edition, right before it crashed, could have told me through gritted teeth that when Dame Success shoves a fandom's object into her shoddily augmented, veiny boobies that only tragedy follows. I was unaware that my favorite game was going to be intellectually bankrupt by a flood of material just like this and experience the same death of oversaturation that the previous edition has. Of course, that's a separate rant and has yet to happen for a couple of years. As far as I was concerned, Sword and Fist had friggin' Drunken Master, un'errated Ninja of the Crescent Moon, Pain Touch, and a ring of Shocking Blows.

I decided to check out Winter's Edge first. The basis for my decision in no small way due to a little website called When Online RPGS Attack! Imagine if Something Awful tried to review online roleplaying. That was WORA. Anyway, Treyvan was getting slammed heavily on the boards at the time. A lot of the criticism and snark stemmed from the perceived ineptitude of the staff there to bridge the gap of a face-to-face pen-and-paper game to an online textual mass roleplaying game. I can cut the game some slack in retrospect, because the actual honest-to-god D&D game itself was undergoing a paradigm shift. If there was bitter conflict between the game designers on how a game should be run then how much could you fairly expect from a group of amateurs doing it as a hobby?

For those of you who haven't played Icewind Dale (which the game is pretty much a homage to), Winter's Edge is supposed to be the mechanism for the tale of several adventurers who settled at the frontier town of Vintermor. For people who couldn't pick up on the three 'cold' references of the last sentence, the town is located at literally the edge of civilization bordering an unliveable tundra. For such a relatively small city, there are a lot of strange things afoot in this area. It's up to you and your team of plucky adventurers to set things straight. Or load up on cash and whores. They didn't judge you.

Of course, it was an application-only game and the application process required me to put a lot of detail into the character I wanted. I gave my character some consideration, but not as much as you'd think, since I had wanted to play the archetype I was going to apply for a long time. I had always liked to play the 'outsider' characters. Not necessarily social misfits of exiles, but characters that had just something about them that didn't fit into the genre scope. Not so much, say, an extraterrestrial character in Dragonlance but more say if one of King Arthur's knights decided to forgo armor and weaponry and fight with his hands and feet.

As you might have guessed from the previous sentence, I have a soft spot for characters that are skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Dungeons and Dragons had catered to my puerile need in the form of the monk class. I wanted more of an anime martial artist feel to my character than the Mortal Kombat martial artist feel that the monk class has in the book, but hey, that was pretty much my only option for hand-to-hand. And the options on paper looked pretty sweet. Self-healing? Death touch? Flurry of blows? SPELL RESISTANCE? Where do I sign?

However, as a lot of min-maxxers will tell you, the monk class sucks eggs. I mean from a mechanical standpoint. The best summary of why this is so is contained in an analysis done back when 3.0E was in full swing and monks were at the supposed top of their game thanks to a sourcebook called Oriental Adventures. It's old but highlights a lot of the basic problems of the class. Here's the link right here.

At the time, though, I didn't know I was making an inherently sucky character. I was used to freeform games where characters operated by fiat and gentleman's agreement instead of numbers. If I stated that my character concept involved hitting things with his fists and doing backflips all over the place, he did that and performed competently in the story. And in D&D, I was a monk, ready to punch evil right in the Hitler-stache. Winter's Edge cushioned the suck I was going headlong towards with a very generous point-buy system (As in, all increases were 1-for-1 and it was 32 points).

Unfortunately, due to what I just stated in the last paragraph, I packed a lot of points into typical monk dump stats. I believe I had a 16 in STR, a 16 in CHA, an 8 in CON, a 12 in INT, a 14 in WIS, and a 14 in DEX. Amazingly crappy distribution, I know, but the personality of the character was much more important to me than the fighting. Well, not really, but like a lot of 'roleplayers' I had put unwarranted, self-deluded trust in the system I didn't understand fully--the game wouldn't have provided me with options that would screw me over, right?

I don't remember my character's background well. He was an upper-middle class fop who lived in a big, temperate city who 'wasted' his times as an athlete and a socialite. He diddled a lot of his time working on a martial art style he made up. After a fight with his parents, he, on a whim, left with a caravan heading to Vintermor to establish a new outpost. The hardship, like he had never faced before, almost turned him back until he fell in love with a rough Amazon-like woman going with him. They hit it off and my character actually considered putting down his skills and completely abandoning his old life and living an honest life as a pioneer.

Unfortunately, she died in one of the typical monster attacks and his new family ostracized him. So he went back to Vintermor, nearly broke and only his self-taught style to his name. Desperate for money, he hung out in the worst parts of town and preyed on burglars until he had saved up enough money to get a regular place to stay. Of course, he had found that he LIKED danger and violence and loved to beat on the scum of society. So he decided to take up adventuring.

And ah, the personality. He was sly, cosmopolitan and even-minded with what I thought at the time was a wicked sense of sarcasm and humor. Of course, I'm not that good at snarkiness. So to other people his antics were more silly than sardonic. But I liked the feel, it made him feel less dark and even a little goofy at times. Made my character seem like a bright spot in a pretty dour and grim setting.

His name was Joel Leonwright. Yes, Joel. I named my character after myself--that's pretty much one of the classic Sue traits. I was trained by a couple of years of reading fanfics given the MST3K treatment. Self-conscious, I strived to avoid this impression like the plague to the point where I gave the staff a fake first name for registration. But I went through character creation, applied, and I was accepted. Now that my character had been given life, it was time to search for adventure!

Unfortunately, one of the biggest failings of trying to do P&P on a MU* is that you do not have a dedicated DM to hand-feed you adventures. You could spend hours--days even--looking for someone to set the scene you so desperately wanted to play. Of course, games like these tried to mitigate things by letting non-staff run their own pltos (with monsters, death, treasure, and everything) but since I was new to the game I couldn't just muscle into a group or whip one up from scratch. I was going to have to establish both the out-of-character and in-game connections first before setting Joel down the path of kung-fu justice in the arctic. I was going to have to do some regular slice-of-life roleplay. I was goint to have to do some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Gasp! Shock! Horror! Shameful masturbation! Stay tuned. We'll back that ass up with more tales if anyone cares.

Well, okay. Here's part II.

Damn, this thing is long. WTH, man?

So there I was. Mr. Leonwright the kickass monk was freezing his butt off while looking for the next adventure. I was beginning to discover that just because you imagined your character as a swashbuckling landstalker who had considerable experience in his background didn't mean that adventure would just come to you. Both me and my character explored the city (metagamedly, of course) to get a feel for our surroundings. Vintermor, despite being populated by weather and battle-hardened frontier people was surprisingly advanced. The sewer system was built in such a way so that the geothermal vents kept the city at a reasonable temperature--undoubtedly with magic--and Vintermor was relatively culturally tolerant. I became familiar with the overall layout of the city and learned where to get supplies. I especially scouted out the bad section of town. Since I was still OOC, I didn't expect to have to deal with dangers like muggers and murderers.

Still, after a few hours of this, I wished there WERE a couple of vagrants to beat up on. I hope you won't think of me a lesser man for leaning on the +whereis function and heading over to the primordal soup of role-playing plot generators: the seedy tavern. Joel sauntered over to the Bloody Dryad, a charming joint most noted for the roughness of the clientele and the imagery of crucified forest creatures carved into the walls. A badass joint for what I thought was a badass character.

My character, a blonde, clean-cut guy who screamed 'city-boy' was almost as out of place as a charming young bard named Alaeria. Both me the player and my character had no idea what she was doing here. Since we were the two biggest misfits in the joint, my not-very-shy monk went over to her and had a conversation. We hit it off, but to my character's dismay she already had a boyfriend, a sorceror by the name of Rayne. We became fast friends, since an antisocial adventurer is hardly an adventurer at all in the world of D&D and agreed to talk to each other later.

I took a break from the game for the day. Inuyasha and Cowboy Bebop were the mainstays of Cartoon Network that year and I watched the hell out of those shows. So the next day, since it was summer vacation, I got up real late and connected again. I had parked my character at an inn and went downstairs to continue my quest for adventuring partners. And lo and behold there was Alaeria, Rayne, and a stately looking paladin I had never seen before. He was clearly a friend of the two based by how they were sitting. Joel traded some good-natured barbs with Rayne just to show that he was cool and then sat down and had a serious discussion with Lothar.

Both my character and I liked these guys. A brief description of their characters is as follows:

Alaeria- A single-classed human bard who had a very sweet sort of innocence to her except for the fact that she liked to charm men into doing her bidding. Not with her magic, mind, just with her cuteness. She, being a D&D character, had a penchant for violence and hardship that only seemed to enhance this quality. I think she had the spells of charm person and silent image and I KNOW she had cure light wounds. The other spells are a mystery to me, lost in time.

Lothar- Lothar is a human paladin played close to type. Serious, dedicated, and prideful. But he had an innate sense of warmth to him and wasn't against creature comforts like sleeping in beds or drinking ale. He sort of insisted, in fact. If Alaeria was the brains of our operation then he was the heart. Like my character, he had sort of weaselled (or in his case, invited himself) into Alaeria and Rayne's somewhat private world. But he had such a fatherly, stately manner to him that no one cared. I don't remember his build too well. He was 2nd level when I met him and I don't remember if he had a fighter or ranger level in there. Regardless, he packed quite a punch in battle. Along with Daniel and Miria (later additions) he was the real contributer of butt-kicking for goodness for our ragtag band.

Rayne- A half-elf sorcerer. Unlike a lot of sorcerers, he was very mild-mannered and gentle. Rayne, more than even his girlfriend, didn't seem like much of the adventuring type except for his fascination--almost obsession--with dragons. Or rather, his dragon-heritage. This was his impetus to continue risking life and limb even though with his knowledge and his unoffensive charm he could be living a very comfortable life. One also got the feeling that he allowed Alaeria to convince him to take on things he normally wouldn't do on his own. He specialized in evocation spells, especially magic missile.

One of the many shady things going on in the city was the disappearances of the city's few homeless. Since the shelter and the sewers were the only places people could live through the night, the sewer was the obvious point of investigation. We pooled what meager information we had together and more-or-less came to the conclusion that a cult dedicated to the goddess of undead (not Wee Jas, a more sinister one in this mythology) were using human sacrifices. For what, that could not be made certain, as there were no signs or reports of undead.

The conversation and bonding lasted through the evening and none of our characters noticed a ratlike man in tattered robes departing the inn after listening to us for awhile. Except for our table, everyone had retired to their rooms for the night including the barkeep. We were about to, as well, when we noticed the floorboards buckling.

It seemed like a good idea to build the inn on higher ground, I suppose, to make it look more stately. The bad thing (which I'm sure the lowly NPC commoners who ran it didn't consider) was that three fiendish amalgams of human and rats could tunnel through and ambush people who were getting too close to their affairs. It was fortunate that they decided to attack now rather than later, when we would've been separated. But regardless, the time for contemplation was over. It was do or die.

There was definitely some supernatural element to the monsters. Rayne and Alaeria ran away screaming in fear at the first sight of them. Lothar held his ground and reached for his intentionally plain bastard sword. My monkly advantages seemed to be working well for me--I barely made the will save and unhooked my nunchakus. Convinced of my character's invincibility, I was about to charge into until Lothar--the more levelheaded one, used his free action to tell me to wait behind raised cover to make things easier.

So I stood by him while my other two compatriots were in the corner. Since we were blocking the path to our temporarily incapacitated friends, they had to get through us. They approached but couldn't get past Lothar's armor and cover nor my imagined expertise at dodging. Lothar's blade swung and struck first, nearly felling the beast in one. I, the player, was amazed at that kind of damage. Even at full power-attack, his chances of hitting were higher than mine ever hoped to be. And the damage wasn't even comparable. 1d10+8, at an average of 13.5 damage a round.

He rolled low, however, and I ironically took heart again. I had picked up the feats of power attack and cleave with my eye on great cleave. My plan was to invest in the great cleave / spring attack chain. I had imagined my character would one day become like that of Kasumi Kenshiro, a fearless martial artist who moved so fast that his enemies couldn't hit him and unleashed a flurry of attacks so fast and punishing that hordes of monsters would go down within seconds. Of course, as even an amateur D&D player could tell you, these two feat chains--especially when coupled with the low offensive output of a monk--were completely non-synergistic. But that thought hadn't even occured to me. To me, the book promised me speed and power.

It was my turn to take my attacks. I had a strength of 16, masterwork nunchakus, and a height bonus of +1 to attack. Of course, Lothar was to thank for that bonus, as I didn't even know it existed. My damage was a paltry 1d6+3. Yet I was second level and could power attack. And I also had cleave. And flurry of blows. The smart thing would've been to attack the wounded one and count on cleave. But that would not do. I was so amazed at the casual damage output Lothar applied that I felt I had to take a big risk. Knowingly or not, he was one of the first people to challenge how I felt about this game of D&D and my character and I had to prove that my choices weren't a mistake.

I took a flurry of blows and power attacked for +1 damage. I would've easily pumped more into if it I could. 1d6+4 damage. If this worked, things were looking up. The first attack missed by a long shot. But I had an extra attack--and it hit! I rolled well on damage and the monster fell. I used my cleave feat, posing something cool like holding the rope and crushing the creatures windpipe with the sakon and cracking his skull open with the ukon simultaneously after the first one fell down. Another minor miracle and my second attack hit. I almost caught up to Lothar!

The ratmonsters retaliated. They showed no sense of grief for the death of someone so like them, only the driven fury of a mad animal. They lashed out with claws, splitting their four attacks between the two of them. Even though their attack bonuses were low, they managed to score a hit on poor Joel. And I balked at the damage, admittedly well-rolled on its part. 7 hp? I was a monk and I had a constitution penalty, because that part seemed the least important to me. I just passed it off as my character having chronic asthma, never dreaming that it would come back to haunt me. Another attack like that and I would be going down.

Of course, the reinforcements came. Alaeria and Rayne's fear effects wore off and they came to aid their new comrades. The bard rushed towards me with a Cure Light Wounds. It was a low number, but it had already eliminated the chance of me getting killed by just one lucky roll--barring a critical hit of course. Rayne came forth with a magic missile. I think he was surprised more by how little it did than I even I was. I had played some Baldur's Gate on my PC and magic missile was a staple. You could always count on it. But in 3rd Edition? Rayne was 2nd level and he could've dumped all of his spell slots trying to kill with magic missile and had a good chance not to drop any of them.

Hero Lothar fought as before. Another sword swing, not power-attacked, and he effortlessly killed the assaulting rat-being. To my relief, he didn't have cleave, or the fight would've clearly been his. It was my turn and operating under the mentality as before, I did the power attack + flurry of blows thing. Both of my attacks missed, alas. The rat was lucky on the attacks, scoring two hits, but not so lucky on the damage. Even though Lothar was down by an equal amount of hp I overall had less. Alaeria came with another cure, bringing me nearly to full, and Rayne shot another reliable but puny magic missile. I couldn't tell you whether or not he was in the same state of denial that I was, or if it was because he had literally no other option.

Lothar rolled a natural 20, but no critical. Regardless, the rat died and we were the victors. Our battle of less than a minute had woken up the entire inn. Rightly so, the innkeeper said that we couldn't stay here until things had calmed down, as he feared for his patrons. We agreed, more mad at the ambushers than his rules, and decided that we had to complete the investigation as quickly as possible if this kind of thing was going to happen. Experience was handed out, but no loot. I was a 4th of a way to the next level. Since it was a relatively long session, our players decided to break it up and call it a day.

It was a good battle. Nobody died and it was very good experience. But the entire thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I was very lucky with what I did do. I was almost a noncontributer to the battle. But unlike Alaeria or Rayne, the one thing I could do just wasn't enough. I was second banana, practically a leech. I looked over to my player's handbook again, trying to figure out what went wrong. I was entitled to a second attack in 4 more levels. By then, I would have a speed of 50 feet and I would have an extra +2 to AC just by my levels and the dodge feat. I was going to have magical items that would boost my imagined superiority of monk AC so I could stand firm in battle like Lothar. And my fist dice was getting bigger.

I then looked ahead to level 20. I was entitled to an attack many times bigger in my eyes than any weapon ever printed. I would've gotten damage reduction that would've made those rats look like fools. Self-healing. An instant death attack. The ability to fall from the abyss and survive. To leap over entire buildings! And the holy grail of monkdom, SPELL RESISTANCE. Why, combined with that and my saves, I would be an invincible punisher of evil.

I then opened up Sword and Fist and looked at my expansion options. Pain Touch. That would've turned the tide of the battle had I gotten it. Of course, with my wisdom score I would have to put a point in it at level 4 and then picked up a +4 peripapt of wisdom before I could take it. And a ring of shocking blows. Why, if I had that, my damage output would've been phenomenal! And I eyed the (unerrata'd) Ninja of the Crescent Moon. The BAB bonus and the sneak attack and the other LITTLE options that to someone who didn't know the rules but would've definitely aided the conception off the character was appealing. But the spell resistance was so appealing to me that I thought I was just going to stay the course.

Regardless, going through all that did help me feel better and reaffirmed my faith in the game.I felt better again. All I would have to do was stick out these unsatisfying, no undignifying levels for awhile. I remembered a meme I had heard from somewhere. I had never seriously played a game before now but even I knew what it was: Disappointment now, power later. Wizards start off weak but end up the most powerful. I had just picked up a class that was a late bloomer. One day I would be standing firm against the hordes and be the one the party would give thanks to.

As I logged off and spent the rest of my day idly, I had no way of knowing that that last battle would be the high point of my career.

Author commentary: By the way, back when D&D was new and we were all idiots, was I the only one going OMGOMGOMGOMG SPELL RESISTAAAAAAANCE FAPFAPFAPFAPFAAAAAAAP in regards to the monk?

I don't think anyone cares about spell resistance anymore. I mean, clerics get it at a lower level than monks and have a much better version of it to boot. Oh, well. That somehow didn't come up back then.

Yes, after more than two years the next chapter comes out.

I don't know what inspired me to finish the tale. I guess it was Hick's sharing of his tale of why he became a Min-Maxxer, too. I have to say, there are few feelings worse than having a character concept you really love and trying to have it come to life only to make it fail miserably.

My character, Joel Leonwright, is in a way the character I've known the best. Maybe it was because of my enthusiasm at the time, maybe it was because of the work I put into the character, who knows. But I haven't played that character in over eight years and I can still remember more about the character than I should.

Note: This is all off of memory so I can't tell you for sure exactly what I had. For example, I do know that I had the power attack and cleave feats and I also had some magic nunchakus and some bracers of armor. For example, I don't know exactly what Lothar's stats were but I remembered the system and I knew that people could start out with an 18 in strength. Since he used a smaller sword and then a bigger one it's kind of easy to guess what he had and what his damage was.

So, reading the Player's Handbook and Sword and Fist and fantasizing about what a kick-ass monk I'd eventually be if I held out long enough, I (ICly, remember this is a persistent IRC-like session) went to the bar and chatted for awhile with Lothar. The paladin seemed to sense my mood was flagging so he gave me a pep talk about believing in myself and it's the job of us more manly fellows to be able to protect the weaker members of our party, no matter what. He gave me some pointers, all of them sadly in-character, on fighting. It was agreed that with my superior tumbling skill I would charge past a monster and attack while Lothar flanked him with me; the +2 bonus for flanking would offset the penalty for flurry of blows! And then maybe my damage could match that of Lothar's--maybe even be better! You know, since if I hit with both fists I would get a 2d6+6 to damage (2d6+8 if I power attacked), which was almost as good as Lothar's 2d6+7/+9 (he switched to a greatsword and got magicked-up)! Which should have clued me in that something was amiss, but hey, monks were a long-term investment. Less power now for more power later.

Still, I guess I should have been grateful for Lothar's magnamity, brief as it was, because I was about to meet someone who wasn't as understanding towards the whole issue of monk suckage.

So after comparing life stories and putting up with Lothar's teasing of my character's 'city slicker wants to become a Real Man', Alaeria came to join us at our usual table sans-Rayne. She had someone different with her; apparently she gave him a sob-story about needing the help of someone like him and the priest ended up joining. Remember this was a PC petitioning another PC so Alaeria's acting had to be pretty convincing. Or maybe he just wanted to get in on a group that was involved in a plot. I forget many of the details, but I do remember that his name was Daniel. He was a priest of some justice-god of some unmemerable name--DMs love to slather their homebrew deities onto their homebrew settings at the cost of recognition and this MUSH was no exception. My eyes lit up. That's what our party was missing! A cleric! Why, I hadn't played much D&D before that but everyone knew that the classic D&D party consisted of a:

Fighter: That would be Lothar. He's not a 'Fighter' but no one would dispute his skill at arms.
Wizard: That would be Rayne, though since he was a sorcerer his wizarding was sadly restricted to spamming the magic missile spell and another one I never learned about.
Rogue: That would be me, though I had even less of a claim to the title than the previous two; rogues could pick locks, disarm traps... you know, the usual dungeoneering staples. But what I lacked in thievery, I made up in fisticuffs. A notion I would sadly be disabused of in the future, but later.
Cleric: Daniel.
Fifth Wheel: Alaeria, the bard.

I didn't really know what a bishounen was at the time but that's what Daniel described his character as. He rolled his character rather than taking the super-generous point buy and ended up with huge stats; he had an 18 in strength, like Lothar, wielded a bastard sword (from his War Domain, I reckon; I don't remember if his deity granted that domain or not) and most importantly healing spells. So after making introductions we decided to bond over drinks. Alaeria, being an irrascable flirt even with her 'boyfriend' of Rayne, drew the somewhat stuffy Daniel out of his shell and got his interest. Lothar, being a paladin, looked upon with amusement but my not-quite-assauged ego decided to get into a mild pissing contest with the cleric, comparing what we had done to advance the cause of religion. I'd have to say that Daniel was a little surprised to learn that my monk knew anything so after awhile, out the dice came to compare Religion scores and I won--solely due to how the d20 works.

Feeling even better about myself after that, I volunteered for legwork to put my 16 charisma and 2.5 ranks in gather information (honestly, aside from tumble, I can't think of a single ACTUAL monk skill I invested it) to find out the cause of the ratmen. Alaeria and I would be part of this group--getting another win over Daniel--while the others petitioned for help at their churches. We put in our legwork request to staff but Alaeria warned me not to fight with Daniel too much; the power of the 3.0E clerics was unknown to us at the time and clerics were at a premium. I told Alaeria of what me and Lothar discussed, presenting it as my own idea in an attempt to impress her... me and Lothar in the front, Alaeria and the others in the back providing covering fire while they protected them. In my defense, relegating Daniel to the back ranks were done more out of my impressions of how D&D was supposed to work rather than any ego on my case. She thought that it was a great idea and she'd discuss it with her scatterbrained boyfriend.

It came to our attention that, keeping in accordance with standard DM uncreativity, that there were rumors from the homeless (a near-fatal occupation considering where the campaign was set) that there was something going on in the sewers. We presented our findings to the others the next day and thus went to saddle up and investigate in the sewers.

The DM running our plot didn't have much time to give us so we went right to the action--after 30 minutes of exploring, since after all sewers, even sewers in arctic cities, are really expansive catacombs we came across some naked, ripped-into bodies that were apparently eaten. Worried, we set up standard formation (me and Lothar in the front, Daniel in the back, Alaeria and Rayne in the middle) and turned the corner. Lothar and Daniel's armor gave the ratmen plenty of heads up so they abandoned their meal and charged us.

It was a pretty easy scuffle, all told. Apparently the ratmen were homeless who were stricken with some kind of disease so they were little more than Warrior NPCs with enhanced stats rather than actual monsters. Still, we activated the plan and went into action. And let me tell you, this was pretty much the highlight of my career. I was able to flank the first one with Lothar and tore into it with my Flurry of Blows. Two hits, one of them a critical even! On maximum damage, too. 18 damage (I forget what the first hit was) was not something to sneeze at. That took care of the first one, so I cleaved to the next--a critical hit as well, which almost dropped that particular rodent as well. The DM was about to describe my character causing said rodentmen to explode into a shower of gore until I reminded him that I was doing subdual damage. So the outcome was instead me sending the monster sliding across the grimy sewer floors. I was delighted.

Lothar did his thing and Daniel joined the fray after one slipped right past my whiffed AoO. A bashing from the cleric showed that he had some game as well. All in all, it was pretty much as squash match; with my criticals and Lothar's sword, we won in three rounds. Rayne of course went for his crossbow and missed every shot, wanting to save his magic missile for later. We were victorious and the DM said that he had to pause the game right there, since he was out of time. So we were just winding down.

Then Daniel announced that he was performing a coup de grace on the ratmen (the two I didn't knock unconscious were all driven into negative hit points rather than outright killed) to behead one of them.

I have to admit being a little horrified at that. Even though I never spoke my concerns, I was under the impression that these ratmen, even though they had engaged in the capital crime of murder and cannabalism, were victims rather than monsters. To even more of my shock, Lothar said a prayer for the ratmen while he watched what Daniel was doing, apparently unperturbed by this breach of 'heroism'. I mean, killing unarmed, unconscious men... that just was Not Done.

I tried to get Daniel to stop, who ignored me and coup de graced the next one. His justification was that monsters don't deserve to live. We got into a heated argument. I felt very strongly about what Daniel did and was prepared to escalate it, until Lothar and Alaeria told me that they agreed with the cleric. Supposedly it was all in-character, but I was more invested in it than I should have been because it was my character being helpless to stop an act of clear villainy in his midst. The other ratmen, slashed up by the others, died of their wounds making the only coup de graces the ratmen I knocked out. Completely defeated, I tried to extract a promise from the others not to do this kind of thing anymore, that we should always search for a way other than killing... until Lothar gently reminded me that I didn't exactly show mercy to the ratmen in the initial encounter. Oops.

Chagrinned, I dropped the argument altogether and Daniel posed his character smirking at me as we got into formation again. I was livid, but there was nothing I could do, since the adventure was over for tonight and I couldn't even go blow off steam at the tavern since were were in the middle of a 'scene'.

A couple of real-life days passed and we resumed the adventure just from where we left off.

We were joined by a female elven ranger who specialized in archery. Honestly, I can't remember her name at all; she was a very stock personality of 'cold, distant sniper' who for the brief time she was with us barely interacted more than the bare minimum to be involved in the plot. Her biggest contribution to this admittedly generic plot was shooting arrows. I remember feeling a twinge of jealousy from the fight at her being able to shoot two arrows at once at 1d10+6 damage (due to rapid shot, full 18 strength bonus, and a +1 enhancement bonus to damage), but other than that...

Anyway, Daniel and Lothar's petitioning to the local churches came through; Lothar was a respected member of his church and even though they were short on manning they did offer what they could, hence their hiring of said ranger from a sister nature-worshipping congregation to help. Not to mention sending a nice NPC team to offscreenedly investigate another part of the sewers.

So with our party size now six members, we trudged further into the sewer-catacombs, following the trail of blood and gore until we heard chanting in the next room. Alaeria volunteered to scout, having a better hide bonus than the ranger, and reported her findings: a half-dozen ratmen, a half-dozen decayed ratmen, and a priest who was conducting a suspicious ritual with a poor (virginal, white) maiden strapped to an altar, being tortured. This was apparently enough for Lothar, who stated that he was going to give anyone 20 seconds to change his mind before he went charging in and whupping ass in the name of the sun god. Daniel concurred and I, not wanting to be left out at the chance of further heroics, agreed.

Initiatives were rolled and it was do or die time. I don't remember who went first but I was near the top of the list, which is how I was able to lead a dramatic charge of rushing the head priest past the disorganized enemy lines. In an incredible display, Joel tumbled past the line of cultists and vaulted over the altar, doing a somersault over the girl for a dramatic flying axe kick. Remembering that blurb in the DMG, I amended by action to swing by the horns of the idol on the altar, that being my 'chandelier'. Bonuses accrued like crazy: +1 for higher ground! +2 for my dramatic action! +2 for charging! I didn't know what the AC was so I elected not to use Power Attack as I rolled the damage die.

After all that, I rolled up a grand total of 4 points of damage. Chagrined, I also announced that I would be using a stunning fist; one of the two I had budged for today. The DM announced (with typical gleeful sang-froid) that my stunning fist had no effect and while I kicked this blood-stained cultist, black ichor oozed out of the rotting wound. Oh dear.

Having forced myself into a very bad situation, I became acquainted with the first time one of the game's 'f~~# you' monsters. That being the ghoul. He hit my pitiful armor class and I became paralyzed. The rest of the party, who originally cheered my bullheaded charge into glory, groaned in dread at the situation--I was no longer a participating party member, but dead weight that needed to be protected.

I quickly became quite frustrated at this turnabout. Lothar valiantly tried to get over to me but there were just too many foes surrounding him, due to plot-bias causing the enemies to swarm the tank; I don't know where we learned to obey that trope, but everyone knew that enemies should instinctively attack the tank. Regardless, the situation was he would have been torn to ribbons from the attacks of opportunity. Daniel was in much the same situation, too. Rayne, well, he planned to unload with his magic missile, somehow aiming to turn the tide by doing what would be described as 'cute' damage per round. Who was going to save me? That ranger we brought along was already earning her money by dropping two cultists, so that left Alaeria. Fortunately she had the tumble skill practiced up some. Unfortunately, she didn't roll too well on the tumble check and took two attacks of opportunity trying to get to me. Fortunately her rapier struck true and got the head cultist's attention.

At this point I became disengaged from the fight. There was no point in sticking around at all so I read Sword and Fist again, daydreaming about how strong my monk would become if I just endured more of these plots. I was snapped back to attention in the real world a second time after Alaeria went down by the ghoul's claws as well. The other party members had performed an admirable job of taking down as many monsters as they could, but the threat of coup de grace hung over our heads again. Alaeria didn't react to the axe hanging over her head as well as I did, complaining OOCly at the situation, but the battle was won the next round anyway.

Yet the feeling of victory had completely eluded me. My efforts made no impact whatsoever on the battle. Someone (I don't remember) made a joking remark about assigning the party extra experience because they only fought with five members instead of six. That comment, in addition to my uneasiness at how not only this battle but the entire adventure proceded, wounded the pride I had in the character but not mortally. Yet That moment would be in a short time coming.

We finally got all of the rewards for our plots; it was enough to advance me a whole level. An extra point of base attack bonus, a feat, and enough money to buy those bracers of armor and a new pair of nunchakus! Those were suggested by another monk on the game, stating that there's nothing worse than coming across an enemy with damage reduction or incorporeality. He was higher-levelled than me, at least 2 levels ahead, and had his stats arranged in more of a 'power-gamey' manner. By which I mean half-orc, penalties to intelligence and charisma and maximum points in strength/wisdom/dexterity. He of course was garnering a reputation for being a powergamer so after the advice for my level-up I asked if he had a hard time the first couple of levels. I got a 'nope' and I was left wondering where I went wrong.

I was able to get my character levelled up in a short period of time, but rather than feeling glad at being able to avert a potential disaster, I actually felt resentful. My nunchakus were now a better weapon than my own fists, having an edge on attack. So logically I would use those. But I didn't want to use nunchakus, g%@#~@mit. My character had a rich and complicated history of how he learned to use martial arts doing little more than begging for money for lessons and how he had impressed the 'brawler' barbarians of Vintermor by besting them at unarmed combat despite his cityborne background and foppishness. I did for the first battle, but that was only to supplement the sweeps and snap kicks. The nunchakus took a backseat to my fists and feet; I wasn't dependent on them, or so I thought.

I was planning to put my feat into Mobility, that way I could complete the Spring Attack chain by level 9. I wasn't on the WotC boards at the time, but I don't think that there's a single person who ever played a monk who didn't look at this feat with a twinkle in their eye. The concept is just awesome; a monk being able to zip across the battlefield like a speeding bullet and dancing circles around their slower-witted foes, unable to be struck back. Holy s*+&, that's the holy grail of monkdom, I thought! Unaware that thousands of other newbie monks had stumbled upon the same idea, excitement swelled through my body at my discovery. This would be my secret weapon, the weapon that established my worth once and for all. I looked through the DMG, hastily searching for items that would make my character go from 'very fast' to 'unfathomably fast'. I saw the boots of Springing and Striding and cackled with glee. At level 9, I would be moving 80 feet per round! That's just what I needed to become a dervish of death. And I'd be able to easily afford those, too!

Then I noticed the Wings of Flying. 5500 gold pieces. I felt the press of obsolesence on my throat even tighter. 90 feet a round? Holy god. That would best as fast or even faster than my monk could ever hope to be. Let alone they would be flying, too! My poor monk, rather than being the untouchable badass who effortlessly beat the sluggy fighters and barbarians with superior technique would be the earthbound punk flailing helplessly at foes that they would never reach. Oh, sure, I could get wings of flying too, but that would defeat the point of my character--a wiry little fellow who rather than taking the easy path of muscles and metal, trained day and night despite his illness (at the time, an 8 in constitution wasn't a crippling disadvantage, but a chance to enhance the poignance of my story) to be able to beat his foes with grace, not power. But if they were as fast as me, then where was my advantage?

As I often did when I had those nagging moments of conscience that my character wouldn't be as awesome as I thought, I went over Sword and Fist again, basking in the promise of future awesomeness. Oh yes, Circle Kick--that would go great with my Spring Attack! Though I hadn't quite mastered the action system yet. Knockdown! Imagine, I would be able to punch so hard that I could send ogres flying! And my personal favorite at the time, Eagle Claw Attack. Yes, the feat that did nothing at all. But I was in love with the concept. With this, I would be able to shatter the weapons of my foes with my unarmed attacks, leaving the big dumb brutes helpless as a baby as I further established the superiority of fists once I effortlessly whupped their ass after that.

Now to the magical item section. My eye caught the sight of the three section staff. Ugh, that thing. What a damn trap option, I thought before today. 1d8 damage? And a feat, too? Why, that's just not as good as my 1d20 fists I would soon possess, especially once I loaded them up with goodies. Such as the ring of shocking blows, sandals of the tiger's leap, ki straps... oh yeah. And to top it off, an Amulet of Mighty Fists.

It was at that point I noticed how damn expensive those things were. On a whim, I compared those damn +2 amulets to a +2 weapon. I was not pleased; they would be able to get a whole 'nuther plus on me! I then looked at the next one. Two whole pluses! Then three whole pluses! Then four whole plusses... why... by the time I could get +5 amulet of mighty fists I could get a +5 shocking, flaming, frost, vicious three section staff! That's 1d8+5d6 extra damage! Since I didn't know how to calculate average damage dice and I erred on the side of awesomeness, this meant that this staff would be doing over 20 more damage than my regular fists. Not even the ring of shocking blows could keep up with that.

Determined to prove the worth of my concept, I then did for the first time a character build. Until then, I built my character by imagining how I want them to be. This meant that somehow, by level 13 when I had diamond soul I would also have Spring Attack, Power Attack (for casually crushing boulders with a flick of my wrist), Eagle Claw Attack (for humiliating the dumb weapon users), Pain Touch (for causing the big dumb brutes to curl over helplessly while I wailed on them some more), Circle Kick (so I could attack at a completely blinding pace), Improved Sunder (can't do the Eagle Claw Attack trick without it), Improved Trip/Knockdown...! All of those worked better with unarmed attacks, so that would be where unarmed attacks made up over that stupid old three-section staff, which I was beginning to despite since I realized that no matter how good my fists were I would always be dependent on a weapon to some extent.

As if the entire universe was conspiring to make me realize what a failure my concept was, when I actually plotted out the course for my feats, I realized that I just didn't have the slots for everything I wanted. The spring attack chain, which I hadn't given up on yet, wouldn't be completed until level nine. Then I had three more feats to pick. Ever. I would have to wait until level 15 if I just wanted to do my trick of breaking weapons and leaving my foes staring at their useless hilts--after all, the idea of actually drawing AoOs to crush a foe's weapon was unthinkable, since it would make my character look like the amateur. But that just would take too long! Diamond Soul was to be the cherry atop of my monk sundae, the summit of the mountain I had climbed for months, even years. Everything was supposed to be in place by then, synthesizing my character into a legendary unarmed fighter who fought toe-to-toe with masters of the art like Kenshiro, Spiderman, and Captain America. But at the moment of my graduation, I still wouldn't be able to do things I was dreaming about since level 3? Something was very wrong, I thought.

Then I was struck with inspiration! I didn't need power attack and cleave! Well, sure, I would need power attack--after all my character would eventually be able to shatter boulders like it wasn't no thing. But my attack bonus was just a little too low for the boulder-crushing as of yet, so, I would instead go for something else. Spring Attack. I asked staff if I could retrain all of my feats; an option not allowed by the rules, but I heard that one of the staffers was a friendly guy so I pled my case to him after turning in my case for items (with a backup feat of Weapon Focus: Unarmed Strike), crossing my fingers. Sure, 40 feet wasn't a LOT of movement but I would just need to hold out until I got boots of springing and striding! Which I could afford next level, too! To my great relief, the staffer agreed to the change.

I got a @mail shortly thereafter notifying me of the update and I gleefully looked at my +sheet. Just looking at those two words on my electronic character sheet at the bottom of the page made all of my earlier misgivings fade away. Spring Attack. My secret technique, my ace in the hole, what I would hope would be the finest weapon in my arsenal. Joel Leonwright was back in business, b@+$&es.

I was planning on talking to Lothar again, to boast about my newest Spring Attack technique. I even gave it a name: Strike of the Frozen Wind or something pretentious like that. But connection times being what they were, I mostly roamed the city and did quick 'in the dim of the night' roleplay with passerbys until I decided to settle back into the Bloody Dryad. I was a level 3 guy now and was also instrumental in helping stop a cult, so I was 'up there' in the population of city badasses I thought. I even boasted (none too subtly, I'd imagine) of my unarmed prowess to two bored adventurers which only served to make them more bored. Pretty soon RL called and I took care of some offline things.

When I came back, though, I was treated to a rather welcoming sight; Alaeria was back in the bar and she was singing of our praises to a crowd comprised of both PCs and (spoofed) NPCs, who were cheering and paying attention to her and it was so awesome. My monk had ranks in the Perform skill (mostly awesome-looking katas) so I debated joining her up on stage... but she OOCly paged me politely asking not to steal the spotlight. Oh, well, she had a point. So I just sat back and enjoyed the performance.

One thing that I perhaps did not get across in my previous posts was how cuckolded Rayne, Alaeria's alleged boyfriend, was. As far as I know she didn't actually do anything but flirt with all of the horny adventuring males interested in getting their paws on a pretty bard, Rayne seemingly didn't care that she was getting questionable attention. Daniel, who in retrospect was a lot craftier than I gave him credit for, decided to use this opportunity to worm his way in. Also in retrospect I think that he picked his god the domain stuff since he didn't RP like a stereotypical priest of a justice god. Or maybe I was just projecting my limited D&D stereotyping onto him. Anyway, I will always remember that Daniel had long black hair and glasses, mostly because that kind of thing REALLY stands out against an image of a priest.

He didn't act much like the fatherly, soft-spoken, healriffic clerics D&D unconsciously pushed onto the players either. He WAS a very altruistic sort, since he ICly spent a lot of time going out into the streets and healing the homeless. But despite being kind of a loner Daniel was also sarcastic, bold, and arrogant and had eyes for the party bard. In another story he'd be the perfect 'rival' type and coupled with our clashes from earlier I imagined myself as the 'rough-around-the-edges' but still mostly nice-guy hero in a power struggle with a slightly skeezy 'jock type' who won most battles but not the war. And like those stories I imagined my character getting a victory where it counted the most.

So the performance died down, Alaeria was a big hit, and Daniel and Rayne went to congratulate her. So I did, too. We showed off our trinkets to each other as adventurers are wont to do and I can't remember what anyone besides me had. Daniel suggested to Rayne that he used his money to buy a lot of potions of mage armors, who took to the idea. He did the same for me, saying that a front-liner like myself needed to have durability. I informed him that I wouldn't need the mage armor potions because I had bracers of armor. He made a rather convincing case to me that I could get more armor bonus for cheaper if I just learned to drink potions at the right time. He also suggested a couple of potions of enlarge person and some shillelagh oil + quarterstaff to get my damage up there. I don't know why, but that last suggestion somehow struck a nerve. I was already feeling pretty steamed that I had to resort to nunchakus but I could deal since I could still pretend that I was mostly using punches and kicks with just the occasional nunchakus strike. But a quarterstaff? A g&!~@*n quarterstaff? There's no way I could claim to be a legitimate martial artist with one of those things. I would be like every other crude weapon user out there.

I flat-out told Daniel at this point that if I wanted to really on poncy magical items and weapons then I'd become a wizard or a priest or whatever. He asked me why I wouldn't, since I had no problem magicing myself up anyway. I gave him the standard monk schpeel about being able to adventure anywhere without a weapon, being a tumbling master rather than being weighed down by armor, and never being disarmed. Those more than made up for those disadvantages--and unlike him, I would never hide behind magic. It was just me, my fists, and my awesomeness versus the world.

The conversation was getting pretty heated at this point, no doubt helped by Rayne's gormlessness and Alaeria's 'oh my!' ness. Someone in the bar overheard and said that if we were going to fight then we should do it at The Pit. My eyes light up at that. Sensing my trump card, I told Daniel flat-out that he should stop suggesting ways to do my job better or I'll challenge him to a fight there in front of everyone.

The Pit was this makeshift arena literally dug out of the ground on the outskirts of town. Being that Vintermor was a frontier city, people relieved their tensions and settled disagreements in that bloody place. As the aforementioned staffer was a bit enamored with violence, it was lovingly detailed and... you know what? The MUSH is still open. Let me just copy-paste the description.

The floor of the pit is pure volcanic glass, burnished smooth both by the tremendous energy unleashed here millennia ago and by the ensuing eons of rainwater slowly eroding it until it's smooth as a dinner plate. The glass is black, blacker than night, so black that looking down into it one can see a ghostly shadow of one's self, reflected back from an infinite void. Portions of the glassy field are crusted with blood waiting for the next rain or snow to wash it away. Even today, the glass is warm--superstitious people say it still harbors the malicious energies of its creation, while practical folk mumble about geotherms. Snow melts as soon as it touches the glass, and when blood covers the surface it will visibly steam.

The Field of Bloodied Glass has a reputation far and wide as being about the least auspicious place in which to die. Perhaps that, and common idiocy, accounts for why so many people choose to die here? Wizards still come here to bask in the arcane energies of the place, and many an unscrupulous warrior has sought to consecrate his blade with blood spilt here.

Obviously, there wouldn't be any killing there since we were all PCs. But as the arena of confrontation of a smoldering rivalry in which I was 'losing'? Oh hell yeah. anyway, the challenge was made and I thought would be the end of that, since I couldn't imagine that anyone would be stupid enough to fight a MONK there. After all, the biggest rule of The Pit was that weapons weren't allowed. Overwhelming advantage: Joel Leonwright.

To my surprise, Daniel agreed. My character hid his astonishment but we established some quick rules. No weapons, no outside help, and no spellcasting in the pit. Joel wanted to have the confrontation as soon as possible, but Daniel told me OOCly that he had some things to do first but would be happy to settle things in the evening. Daniel existed stage right... giving me the rest of the day to preen and pore over books. Oh yes, the awesomeness of a monk would soon be proved. He had a puny 1d2 and would have to draw attacks of opportunity, I had an 1d8; four times as much damage! I moved faster, had flurry of blows, and had years of grueling martial arts training behind my belt.

The fated hour came and I headed to the Pit. Since PCs are always starved for action, a few people whom I don't remember the names of and of course Lothar and Alaeria were there to see us throw down. The big paladin clapped me on the back and wished the best of luck, even though a monk like myself wouldn't need it. I told Lothar that I wouldn't normally fight another party member, but Daniel needed to be taken down a peg. And also that I had some cool new tactics to go over with him to make the Monk/Paladin team-up extra awesome.

Daniel swung by and asked Alaeria to hold his weapon, who did. Not wanting to be outdone on the 'impress Dulcinea' score, I kissed her hand and asked for the favor. She said something flirtily ambiguous and we headed towards the middle of the pit. It was on. It was payback time for showing me up and making me look bad.

I rolled first for initiative... then I suddenly realized that Spring Attack wouldn't help me here. I couldn't move fast enough out of Daniel's range and there wasn't any cover for me to take advantage of attacks of opportunity. Well, it didn't matter, I still had the unarmed attack advantage. So I yelled 'Strike of the Frozen Wind' or something like that since everyone knew that monks had to call out the names of their techniques. In an attempt to impress the crowd, I sprung-attack anyway and ended up 'behind' Daniel and attacked. I hit him and even used a stunning attempt, which managed to stun him.

Wow, this was easier than I thought. I flurried next round, even though it wasn't necessary, describing my attacks as a whirlwind of punches towards the helpless monk... which both missed, due to his armor (which I had unwisely said it was okay to wear). That's actually kind of embarrassing, throwing dozens of punches and none of them managing to connect. Too bad I couldn't have a stun. ICly I bragged that I would finish Daniel off next round with a Strike of the Frozen Wind. I had him right where I wanted him. Daniel took a 5' step back and readied an action. He didn't pose it in any fancy chop-suey way. Just that he had a focused look behind his glasses.

Making good on my promise, I decided that I would go all out. By 'all out' I mean showboating, which newbie monks can't resist doing and hampering their effectiveness moreso beyond being a monk. I ran back 15 feet and rolled a Jump and a Tumble check. I don't know what it was, but it must've been pretty good because I felt fully justified in posing that my character did an incredible serious of acrobatic flips to build up momentum before charging right at Daniel. Oh, how I wish I had Power Attack--but Spring Attack won my heart first.

Daniel's readied action popped off. Just a simple unarmed attack. Even though I later learned that it wasn't true, he told me the reason why he did this was because people couldn't take opportunity attacks on their own turn. Well-played, Daniel, but the advantage was still mine. Or so I thought. Unbeneknownst to me, Daniel had beforehand cast an Inflict Moderate Wounds spell and held the charge. His punch hit me on a 'lucky' roll (though not that much, since he had an 18 strength and at least a BAB of +2, which means that he only needed an 11 or higher to hit me), discharging spell and fist. Double well-played, Daniel. This might actually be a challenge!

Damage dice was rolled. Remember that 8 constitution I told you about earlier? This is when it completely bit me in the ass. Winter's Edge allowed maximum hit points for the first two levels but had to roll after that. Meaning that I had 15-22 hit points. Probably on the low end, because Daniel rolled about 20 points of damage for his unarmed strike AND his Inflict Moderate Wounds spell. And that's all she wrote. I was completely waylaid even before completing my cinematic attack. It was like something out of a motherf&%$ing cartoon.

I stared at my computer screen in disbelief at what just happened. My monk, my martial artist, got knocked out by a CLERIC of all people in ONE PUNCH. Well, yes, he pulled a dirty trick, but g~% d&#n! That wasn't a battle, that was a curbstomp to end all curbstomps... in my area of expertise no less! Just when I thought that things couldn't get any worse, they did--Daniel, not just content with beating his rival, decided to humiliate him as well. Right in the middle of the Pit, in front of everyone, he opened his pants and peed on my unconscious head.

I disconnected immediately after that. I would want to say that it was a Rage Quit, but it was deeper than that. I had my character concept and my illusions of awesomeness forcefully torn away from me. I still had a couple of months to burn before I went into the Navy and I already had a monk character on Tenebrae. But I never played Skyae with as much enthusiasm as before.

And I never played Joel on Winter's Edge again.