dwarflord's page

It's already been posted that Tony Moseley (Zogonia's artist) is taking a hiatus due to some real-life issues. Hopefully we'll see Kev and crew again soon (if only to see how the Zango Bango thing rolls out).

good, but why did he take all the comics of his web site?

any way, thanks

~dwarflord

i must say that zogonia is one of the best free D&D comics out there, well ,was. now i assume because its getting published in a book its gone. gone, gone, gone.
well i know very one needs money i will sorely miss those zogonia comics.

I'm trying to put together a D&D/Royal Navy combo for a campaign i want to run but I'm really getting held up looking for rules on cannons and broadsides that work with fast past naval combat in the d20 system.

i have tyred using the rules from the Seafarers Handbook put out by Mongoose or Fantasy Flight Games or something but aiming each cannon takes to long so i need faster rules. also i need accurate reload times and ranges for cannons on ships and in forts. if any one has good rules from any system or rules they made up that would be great.

also if you know about real cannons around 1800 that would be helpful to

So, as the title suggests, there seems to be a problem with parties without healers.

And noone heals better than a straight-classed cleric.

So, what's the problem here? It can't be a design issue, as the cleric is the most "ability-laden" of the characters...

decent HD
heavy armor
full casting progression
domains, with powers granted
decent weapon selection
2 good saves
no real MAD
turn undead

And there's plenty of love cleric-wise when it comes to spells, items, feats, and the like...not to mention prestige classes.

Is it that onerous to be responsible for patching up the party? Is it annoying to take on that role?

I usually end up being the talker of the group when i play, but that's easily achievable with a cleric, and of the last 8 or 10 characters i've made, 3 or 4 of them were healers of some sort.

SO......what gives? Do you regularly run without a cleric? Does someone in the group really like playing one? Do you take turns, or draw straws, or somesuch?

Typically, in our games, someone will step up and play the healer (one-off's aside, of course, all bets off on those). In my current STAP game the cleric has made the difference in ALL the encounters with undead thus far, and kept more than 1 member of the party alive when they shouldn't have.

-the hamster

well, i love playing the healer. its a great role playing type and no one wants you to die so i know ill last a long time, i key element when you have a complex role-playing character.

as i side note there is a god in the forgotten realms dwarven pantheon with war and luck for domains and greatsword for a favored weapon so my gold dwarf cleric is a total tank in his full-plate

here's my take on the good vs. evil topic.
if you divide up all the good guys and all the evil guys into two groups this is what you find.

the evil guys are a larger group that is willing to do anything to get their way.

the good guys are a smaller group that will only play fair.

but the evil guys don't work together and will kill each other well the good guys work together and will help any good creature.

so they are in balance.

as adventures the players are usually on the good side and go around killing lots of less powerful evil guys in small groups.

because there are so many evil guys a world full of adventures is still in balance.

the end

I've seen some similar pleas out there before, but nevertheless I wanted to ask one more time.

Based on some holiday gift cards etc., I am in a position to purchase a new D&D book or three. Currently I own the core rulebooks and DMG II. There are so many supplements out there, it's hard to wade through sometimes. So I'm looking for suggestions.

If you had to buy just one (or two) books, which would they be? I play as both DM and PC. Would you recommend different books for each facet? Are there books that you consider a must-have regardless of use by DM or player? Are supplement books a waste of money and I should buy something for my wife instead? Thanks for the thoughts. Happy 2007!

Dwarfloard

by the way, a very good book is the seafarers handbook from mongoose publishing. all there books look good but i only have one. there new rules are not flawless but a very good bass for naval combat in D&D. you can build ships from scratch piece buy piece like in the Meach Warrior RPG and it has good feats like parry. its also cheap as D&D stuff goes.

this probably isn't to helpful as I'm like the twentieth reply but to make it shorter and more helpful this is my final advice. to play you don't need books if you have enough options rite now but if you need more go with complete warrior. to DM go with unearthed arcana, seafarers hand book, and a campaign setting if you want. i don't like the monster books to much but that's me.

I've only been reading Dungeon for about a year, so I'm not sure if an article on this has been written, but what about an article that talks about when big plans go wrong.

An article about what you can do when a BBEG, evil plot, or campaign hook gets "destroyed" due to an oversight on the DM's part on what the PCs can do. I'm not talking about an article that tells you to never let your PCs beat a BBEG fast or solve a problem easier, but rather one on advice for what to do when something causes your ideas to become jumbled up.

Monte Cook did a series of three articles around issue 130 on winging it(making stuff up in D&D), one on stats, one on adventures and one on being ready for things to go wrong. someone can find the exact issues if you want.

OK-- dwarflord- you were getting a bit touchy there for a min, glad you reeled it back in. Everyone here is chippin in their 2 cents to help you. Nobody is accusing you of being a crappy DM.

I agree about the threads that suggest taking control of your table.

I have a gavel.

................Serously. I do.

thanks joshua for your help.

Wolfgang did write about the structure of adventures on the Wizards website.

Hope that helps.

great, but were on the site?

maybe this will help. Goofing around is meaningless which means it tells us nothing; what is goofing around specifically.

Dwarflord

Random Encounter Tables... That's what would do it for me. One for every type of land/climate: Cold Hills, Temperate Swamps, Warm Grasslands... You get the drift.

Ultradan

sorry to disagree again but, well i would like it to, its not advice but stats and i don't want to see it in DUNGEON, what to other people think?

have you noticed any particular things that are slowing down the adventure; are they spending a lot of time healing or studing for spells due to many wandering monster attacks or lots of traps or something like that? It shouldn't be too hard after a couple months to identify what things you can change, like wandering monsters, and what things you shouldn't like planned encounters.

Dwarflord

yep, hehe once again; I agree with Ultradan, dont worry about it. Throw out any preconcieved ideas about how far into an adventure you think your party should get in any given time; just be prepared so your not causing the hold up and let them do their thing; have fun. The adventure really needs to unfold at thier pace and if they want to search a lot more or have a lot more pc or npc interaction rather than race through an adventure; let em.

Dwarflord

Don't worry about it... Some rooms may just seem like an ordinary event to you, but for the players even an empty room with a chest full of nothings in it is still excititng.

Sometimes, for a DM, things may seem to be going slow; That's because you know the WHOLE exciting story of what's comming. But the players don't, so even messing with an empty chest is "fun" depending on the point of view.

So if the players don't seem bothered with it, don't be.

Ultradan

(Dwarflord)

so, now that Dungeoncraft is in new hands, don't get me wrong it was awesome when Monty Cook did it, but i think now is a good time for suggestions.
here are mine and i hope other people put in there's.
1. i would like to see more about adventures in the future, all the ones i got where about campaigns and DMing. structure and stuff like that
2. um, well that's all i can think of but i want other peoples opinions so lets here it!
buy the way if Wolfgang could respond that would be great, or if this bugs him or something, any way i think you guys like advice so, I'll just shut up.

hey belfur, so you did rant a bit but go a head, i did from the start.
so i think you are rite but i also think that the issue is out of game. in game some people make slow choices but its not that bad. if my games went slow because the characters went slow that would be OK, at least some time, but its stuff outside the game, you know what i mean? any way thanks for the input, i just might have to use that count to 10 thing some time so thanks again.

Well--First ID where the problem lies. Here are a few common causes:

1) slow combat
2) lotsa ingame roleplaying
3) Roleplaying every single trip to the store to buy rope, lanters ect
4) out of game screwing around/external disctactions (TV/nonplaying people in the room/cellphones/off topic conversations)

Most likely it's mainly 1 and 4.
So... there are many articles written on keeping combat running more quickly. Go find those. Screwing around is trickier. Is your group there to GAME or is it more of a hangout thing? If so and everyone likes it that way there may not be much to do about it. Have a talk with the players and get a feel for the direction and tone they want at the table. Is that tone diffrent than what you have now? Come up with group decisions on what to do about it if what the group wants is diffrent than what you end up with.

Also I have found that shorter sessions may work out better. If everyone knows that they have 4 hours to game, they may be able to stay more focused. I have seen groups get more done in a 4-5 hr session then a marathon 12 to 12 saturday session.

As a DM you can do several things to speed up decision making, you may want to be more assertive, using statements like:
"ok its now 12:oo- what do your characters plan on doing with the afternoon, say untill about six" then go around the table asking each player thier plans. After the plan has been stated, you can more easily group up PC's and deal with thier actions fo r the afternoon.

MAybe ID the problem and come back to the board with more specific info--

(dwarflord)
OK, first of you know this stuff way to good,those 4 things are totally spot on.
second you are correct about 1 & 2.
third I think one bigy is that some players want to role play, some to try this new character and some to hang with the group and goof around. so i think i can tell the goofy ones to chill it in my games because i made it clear i would kick kids out if it came to it. then its just a question of speeding up combat and I'm all over it. now that the group is down to 4 from 7 it wont be a problem.
thanks for your help, buy the way is there a proven method of getting kids to focus on the game, not a in game thing but out side it. i think some times the game is engaging but they start fooling and then, well, you have been there.
so thanks again

so i DM this group of people and I'm running age of worms but the guys go so slow that its been two months and they are halfway thru the first dungeon. now, i know some times its just slow but this is nuts. they all want to go faster to but just cant seam to do it. some times they seam bored but they say its fun so what do i do?
i want to run a fun game but i cant run the same age of worms thing for three years. i think i need to keep them focused on the game but its a published adventure and its a great one. have you guys ever had a group that was just to slow?
i think i ranted a bit here but so what. if you have any ideas that would be great. thanks!

I hate that the United States (and other democracys) thinks that it is their right to force democracy down other country's throats. If that country wants it then they need to fight for it, a prize easily gained is diminished in worth.

We fought for our ridiculously screwed up government, let them fight also.
Ha Ha! Take that! Watch as your legislative process becomes paralyzed with bi-partisanism, red tape, and special interest groups' personal agendas. That'll teach you to mess with ....whoever you may have messed with......

I don't hate our country but I think it takes an arrogant pr*ck to believe everyone must follow our example. We have our problems too. If we kept our noses out of other countries business and focused more on our own problems we wouldn't have terrorists biting our noses. What gives us the right to force our ideals on other countries? Arrogance? Egotistical and blind faith that our way is best?
No wonder the rest of the world hates us.

FH

I agre, i don't like to think what my country will be like when Im i adult.

About the abilitys thing,I make my players total ability modifiers added together equal the number of players times 6 so if one PCs scores are good somebody has to have bad ones.

Maybe its the rolls. The system I use is quite generous: 4d6, drop the lowest, roll 3 full sets, take the best. I did this because the first campaign we ran, two players had enormous abilities, while everyone else languered in normalcy. So, I made a system that should even everyone out. But, those two STILL get super stats, even using that system, often with more than one 18, and everyone else, though super powered, can't match them. It's gotten to the point where if you don't have at least one 18 or two to three 17s, your character is considered useless! I thought they were cheating, but when I watched, they rolled the same things!

So, I try to switch to point-buy. Only one person in the group supports me, and even he bails after trying to make a character using it and not having enough abilities (using 28 points) to build his character as he would like (which is to say, to the Siperman standards of the group). So, I switch back to...

rules question,if my rogue is hiding and readys a action to attack the first thing it sees and then a orc runs by do I get my attack of opportunity and my ready action,two attacks at once?is it flat-footed both times?

I'm looking to play D&D with people in the Bangor area, maby at Gamesunlimited or sumthing.Ellsworth is okay to.
I will DM or play a PC and I'm happy to teach the game to new players.Any age is okay but I have had bad times with people under 13 so teenage to adult is good.
I run 3.0 with some houserules and use m'i own capaignworld. I also write m'i own adventers but will run age of worms or savage tide.