Jonathan Michaels
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Archduke of Levity
Here since TNA was still kinda okay
Posts: 18,024
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Post by Jonathan Michaels on Dec 17, 2012 5:21:18 GMT -5
Let's swap stories of triumph and failure, ones and twenties, favorite characters, adventures and so forth.
We can discuss the new edition, but if possible, can we not get into the whole edition war thing?
There's another thread for that somewhere on here I made already and I don't want any arguments starting like I just had somewhere else (not naming names) where I got practically burned at the stake for suggesting that 4e maybe wasn't the greatest thing ever.
This is a fun times thread of whimsy and dodecahedrons.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Dec 17, 2012 5:27:12 GMT -5
Meh I won't get into an edition war, though I understand why they happen. D&D players love and cherish the first edition they played/experienced. Everything else is too different, and thus of course must be inferior. That being said, let me tell the tale of how I skewered a squirrel from mouth to ass with a stick with my half elf Ranger. My party was playing 3.5 and we were just strolling through the woods and I was hunting for food. Saw the squirrel and wanted to kill it but not waste an arrow, so I picked up a stick off the ground, placed it in my bow and fired. I rolled a natural 20. Rotisserie squirrel. ;D
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Dec 17, 2012 10:03:46 GMT -5
I remember one time I played a Warforged cleric who was basically Bender with magic powers. that was a lot of fun.
one time I was DMing and for shits and giggles I had the party fight an Ocularon (if you've never seen one, it basically looks like a giant floating ass with tentacles). my one friend was not happy when it ate his eyes.
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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Dec 17, 2012 11:06:59 GMT -5
Sorry, noob here but I'd like to get into this stuff. What are the differences between D&D and Pathfinder?
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Post by Cyno on Dec 17, 2012 11:40:06 GMT -5
Pathfinder is basically Paizo (a longtime third party publisher for D&D) making their own system based heavily off of D&D 3.5 after Wizards completely redid the system with 4th Edition. A LOT of people unsatisfied with 4E switched over to Pathfinder and it's been a pretty nice success story for Paizo.
Pathfinder is basically D&D 3.75, in layman's terms.
I really wish my latest Pathfinder game didn't just quietly die off. I rolled a character I had a lot of fun playing, a half-Drow Holy Gun who was sort of a lone wanderer type who did some things in her past she wasn't proud of. She was a member of the world's equivalent of the CIA.
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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Dec 17, 2012 11:49:00 GMT -5
Okay, I've seen there seems to be an online version of Pathfinder, or at least a website using the Pathfinder rulers (Spoony used it for a few videos before the big drama with some members of TGWTG). Is it any good? Any chance for a newbie to learn how to play through something like that?
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Post by Bone Daddy on Dec 17, 2012 14:00:28 GMT -5
Is this stuff online or live action stuff?
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Post by Cyno on Dec 17, 2012 14:48:41 GMT -5
Either. It's a pen and paper game, but there's plenty of ways to play them online via chat and table programs like GameTable, MUSH servers, IRC channels, etc.
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Jonathan Michaels
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Archduke of Levity
Here since TNA was still kinda okay
Posts: 18,024
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Post by Jonathan Michaels on Dec 25, 2012 1:11:52 GMT -5
Okay, time for some highlights from my current group.
Vladimir, Dwarf Fighter (Expert in parkour, Russian accent, eager) Felandria, Half-Elf Sorceress (20 Cha, Aberrent Bloodline, 6'4", snarky) Sarah, Human Bard (Pirate, drunk, tortured past) Van Stalen, Halfling Rogue (5 Str, 7 Dex, careless)
*After our first small quest, we return to the Boar's Head Tavern, Felandria bunks with the comely barmaid, Vladimir boinks the hideous, fat hag who owns the bar and ends up becoming attached.
*We are investigating the undead problem, we enter a cavern with deep water and encounter a giant frog, Vladimir decides to allow himself to get swallowed because he has spiked armor and can just squirm around and hurt him from the inside, it does not work, meanwhile, Felandria hears the frog croak and becomes stricken with fear, but the rest of the party snaps her out of it and directs her where to aim the magic missile since the frog is swimming to the bottom, narrowly rescuing Vlad.
*We fight a necromancer who casts darkness, Van Stalen decides to attack blindly but hits Felandria instead. Twice. In a remarkable showing of restraint, Felandria does not punt him, shortly thereafter, the party replaces him.
*After being driven out of town by the jerk mayor, whom also takes the sword and shield the party looted from the tomb, we join a caravan of gypsy performers as bodyguards, Felandria bunks with an extremely attractive brother and sister, but she soon discovers they're actually elves in disguise, and she hates elves for how they treat half breeds.
The party soon begins suffering bizarre afflictions, and the caravan eventually arrives at a full inn, we are ordered to get rooms, a high priest and his assistants are nearby, and Felandria decides to try and get a room from them.
She finds one of the young male assistants and asks him to tell her about his god, while innocently flirting, he has a vessel and is showing it to her when he gets handsy, and she rebuffs him, intending to threaten to tell the priest unless he gives her one of the rooms, but he drops the vessel and gets possessed by a demon who tries to take her by force, she shocking grasps him and knocks him out.
The caravan is getting pissy about getting rooms and we decide to ditch them but not before we discover they have voodoo dolls of us that are causing our afflictions, in an attempt to make us look incompetent And not have to pay us, we get into a fight and them and they flee, we join an old man and his donkey cart, accompanying him to his home.
We fight off some bandits and in appreciation, the old man gives us the donkey and cart.
Shortly after, we are attacked by another group of bandits who attack our donkey, they miss, all six times, thereafter, he is known as Michaelangelo the Ninja Donkey.
*We arrive to warn the king about the undead problem, he gears us up, returns the sword and shield after sacking the mayor and puts us in charge of the town upon our return.
*We eventually journey into the underdark, where a handsome, mysterious vampire named Chance took a shining to Felandria, quickly proposing marriage by taking her to a lovely garden, but she's worried about her friends, the rest of the party appears, drinking tea, despite the fact that the dwarf is drinking tea, she falls for it.
Eventually she makes a will save and snaps out of it, demanding he take her to the rest of the party, he takes her hand and flies her towards them, but lightning strikes and next thing she knows, she wakes up in a tower, an elderly vampire wizard appears and knocks her unconscious.
She wakes up in his body, the party is suspicious, but she successfully convinces them she's really her, the party encounters a hulking construct who was desperately pining for his darling Lily (Yes, basically Herman Munster), there's a fight, the old man is dusted and Felandria eventually reappears and tells them everything is fine.
Obviously it isn't.
Later, after another encounter, the wizard uses his wand of Cure Mod Wounds to heal the party, when asked where she got the wand, she plays dumb and says it must have belonged to the old pervert and suspects the wizard had a....different use for it.
*Eventually, after being tricked into fighting Chance, they chase him to the old wizard's tower, where the wizard dusts him, then hits the party with a fireball, killing Sara, Van Stalen's replacement, an eleven Druid, managed to break the gem Felandria's soul was trapped in at the last possible moment, after which we climbed to the top, found the wizard's coffin where he was regenerating, set it on fire, pushed it out the window, shot a magic missile at it, poured holy water on the ashes and spat on them. Just to be sure.
*Our bard drew up a new character, an albino drow.
*We return to the kingdom, where the king holds a celebration in our honor and awards each of us a special gift (our DM's Christmas gift to us.)
Vladimir received a powerful hammer that does electricity damage, he holds it aloft and says it name aloud, admiringly, at which point lightning surges through the banquet hall, scaring the crap out of the dignitaries.
The Druid receives a leaf leshy companion, the drow receives a chainmail shirt and Felandria gets a new spell (Righteous Might), which, like Vlad, she accidentally casts, knocking a bunch of fancy dishes over as she grows.
The next day, we hit up a tavern, the drow ends up chasing a thief to his guild, where they put her in a series of deadly traps.
The Druid shows up, and starts placing bets on her, while Vlad guards Felandria as she showers the last week away using the shower in the king's wizard's tower, the wizard alerts us of the drow's situation by scrying the puddle of water on the shower floor (Sensing a pattern?), we race to save her, stopping only to smack the wizard in the face.
We arrive just as the drow successfully beats the final trap and the Druid collects her winnings, which she is hesitant to share, even with the drow.
*Finally, the king sends us to an ice cave, where we find a dais under an archway encased in ice, sitting atop the dais is an exact double of the shield we obtained in the beginning, we melt the ice and discover that it's a gateway to other realms, the dais has a slot for the sword and Felandria inserts the sword.
Nothing happens, the slot is too big.
Felandria grows bigger and tries again, the gateway is activated and she is struck with a huge surge of energy.
At which point her bloodline is changed into Giant Bloodline.
She steps back, at which point the enlarge should have worn off, it doesn't.
She's now 12' 8".
Having already known the Giant language, she deciphers how to use the gate as major tremors shake the cave, the party quickly uses the gate to transport to the first realm they find.
Olympus.
*We arrive in Olympus, and are immediately followed by an older man with a white beard, who takes one look at me and introduces himself.
It's her father, the father she never knew.
Zeus.
He explains that the dreams she has had for many years, the dream that has driven her to be an adventurer, was a sign.
She had intended to use her magic and her beauty to amass a following and eventually become ruler of the elves.
She would make them see that half elves are just as good as full elves, and would lead them to an Age of Enlightenment.
Zeus tells her that he and the Olympians created all the races and the elves were born to serve their kind, as were the other races.
Eventually as the world moved on, the gates the Olympians were meant to protect were being endangered.
He shows us a vast red mountain, it is actually a great dragon, and if he awakens, well, he must not awaken.
Zeus secretly followed us to the cave and used us to return to Olympus so he could warn us of the peril, as well as reunite with his offspring.
So now it's up to us to restore the gates and stop the dragon from waking up.
So that's where we're at, the fate of the world is in the hands of a Russian parkour Dwarf, an albino Drow, a Druid with a gambling problem and a giant sorceress.
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Post by Cyno on Dec 25, 2012 1:32:50 GMT -5
Finally got a chance to play Holy Gun in combat.
My smiting shots basically obliterated any undead I aimed it at in one shot. Got to turn zombies and ghouls into piles of ash. It was awesome.
But man I need to level so I can take Precise Shot as a feat. Stupid firing into melee penalties.
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Jonathan Michaels
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Archduke of Levity
Here since TNA was still kinda okay
Posts: 18,024
|
Post by Jonathan Michaels on Dec 26, 2012 15:01:23 GMT -5
This, incidentally, is my character, Felandria. It amuses me to picture what will happen the next time she goes to a town.
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Jiren
Patti Mayonnaise
Hearts Bayformers
Posts: 35,163
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Post by Jiren on Dec 26, 2012 15:33:14 GMT -5
I really want to get into D&D (Well that kind of stuff) but I seriously have NO CLUE where to start.
Plus me living where I live doesn't help, finding D&D fans here is like finding a virgin in a brothel
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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Dec 26, 2012 15:52:40 GMT -5
I really want to get into D&D (Well that kind of stuff) but I seriously have NO CLUE where to start. Plus me living where I live doesn't help, finding D&D fans here is like finding a virgin in a brothel Pretty much the same here. We should really start some sort of F.A.N. D&D guild and use one of the online thingies to play.
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Dr. T is an alien
Patti Mayonnaise
Knows when to hold them, knows when to fold them
I've been found out!
Posts: 31,306
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Dec 26, 2012 16:30:19 GMT -5
I don't see a point in an edition war since there are good things to be found in most gaming systems. Here are the different RPG games that I have tried and the pluses and minuses of each system as I saw it:
1) AD&D 2nd ed. - The game not only was well supported with a literal (and later virtual) library of books available as well as a couple of publisher backed magazines. The game system also had a reboot (think of it as 2.5 ed) that fixed many of its problems and added proficiencies and skills options.
The big downsides are that their were different rules for different races, the math was not always simple (hello, Thac0!), changing career focus was not possible except for humans (and the change was permanent), and some of the material contradicted each other if I recall correctly.
2) Rolemaster - This system allowed for great flexibility in developing your character. There were a multitude of races available and every one of them seemed fun to play, the descriptions for damage and spell effects added to the fun, and the system promoted creative gameplay.
The downsides? There were only two, but they were huge:
A) The character sheets were 4-6 pages long B) Charts, charts, charts everywhere! Every weapon, spell, and noteworthy skill had their own chart. Essentially, your character needed about 15 sheets of paper with data on it to play. Granted, it was fun as hell, but damn!
3) Rolemaster - This was a homebrew game ran out of Purdue by several members of the University's IT department (the main one whom sadly passed a couple of years ago). They developed a game with simple math, weekly progression for each character, and tremendous flexibility. It was very fun and at the time there were up to 140 people playing every week (we divided up into smaller groups based upon whichever adventure interested you the most that week - the GMs advertised their sessions on the boards first.
The downsides? The primary was that it was a homebrew that no one outside of those select few fortunate enough to be there would even know about. The other downside is that a few GMs would do high tech missions that let some players run around in our gaming sessions with AK-47s.
4) D&D 3.0-3.5 - The system did solve a few of the problems that came up in 2.0-2.5. The system did have flexibility, though the more you spent the more flexibility you could have. The ability to have epic level adventures was really nice.
The biggest downside is that rules-nazis that spend more on the game than the DM were a nightmare. Gestalt characters that maximized every conceivable rule were serious buzzkills.
5) Star Wars - Epic ed - This system is fun but it is not a beginners system. Every class can be fun as hell, if you know how to play them right. Jedi, nobles, soldiers, techs, scouts, and scoundrels were all uniquely capable if you knew how to maximize their abilities.
The downside? I did not like the stat system for starships. Additionally, noobs were a little outclassed by this system. You want to be useful as a noob? Better be a soldier.
6) James Bond RPG - The system had great flexibility, the hand wave power of hero points, and despite the wide array of weapons and equipment available two books are all you need to play the game and your character sheet was simply a front and back page that contained everything you needed to play.
The downside? The main thing is that the system has not been supported or updated since 1985.
7) The new Star Wars RPG (soon to be released) - I got to do a beta test for the first beginners module (the GM is a friend of the developing team). The game is played by bargaining with the GM (and can be done as a group) over skill rolls involving positive and negative dice to be added to your skill roll. I was leery but I enjoyed myself with it. Additionally, the group has light side fate coins and the GM can have dark side fate coins to spend for every session to unilaterally change the fates of the game. You can either change the dice used with those points or you can change the fundamental settings. I used the coins to say that half of the guards we needed to get around were on vacation and that the bounty hunter whose ship we needed to steal was stinking drunk when we got there.
Downsides? Can't say that there necessarily were any just yet, but it was just the beta test. They could make too much supporting material for the gaming system. The system is going to be three separate systems that are supposed to be able to coexist in the same session once all is said and done (the first is the rogues setting, the second is the military life setting, and the third is the force users setting) and I don't know if they will mesh as well as they hope.
8) Star Wars WEG D6 - You can get very good at a few select things really quickly. There was considerable flexibility in the game as well. There is plenty of support material available out there if you know where to find them.
Downsides? I did not love the Force rules. The rules regarding starship battles were clunky as well. Granted, most are outside of games like Firestorm Armada that are exclusively starship battle games, so that is not a shock.
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Jonathan Michaels
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Archduke of Levity
Here since TNA was still kinda okay
Posts: 18,024
|
Post by Jonathan Michaels on Dec 26, 2012 21:44:11 GMT -5
I really want to get into D&D (Well that kind of stuff) but I seriously have NO CLUE where to start. Plus me living where I live doesn't help, finding D&D fans here is like finding a virgin in a brothel Pretty much the same here. We should really start some sort of F.A.N. D&D guild and use one of the online thingies to play. That sounds like fun. I call not DM.
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Jiren
Patti Mayonnaise
Hearts Bayformers
Posts: 35,163
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Post by Jiren on Dec 26, 2012 21:52:51 GMT -5
Pretty much the same here. We should really start some sort of F.A.N. D&D guild and use one of the online thingies to play. That sounds like fun. I call not DM. Sounds cool I can't be DM since I don't know how
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Post by Cyno on Dec 26, 2012 22:05:16 GMT -5
My favorite system is still Star Wars Saga Edition. Fantastic, incredibly flexible system that I wish wasn't so limited in its application to Star Wars. It originally served as a prototype to D&D Fourth Edition and if that stuck then 4E would easily be my favorite version of the system.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Dec 26, 2012 22:05:38 GMT -5
This, incidentally, is my character, Felandria. It amuses me to picture what will happen the next time she goes to a town. I imagine a lot of male NPCs will stare at her boob window and her exposed thighs.
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Post by Gopher Mod on Dec 26, 2012 22:26:33 GMT -5
That sounds like fun. I call not DM. Sounds cool I can't be DM since I don't know how Absolutely agreed. However, I don't feel comfortable enough to try my hand at DM'ing mainly because I don't know how to put a coherent storyline together.
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Jonathan Michaels
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Archduke of Levity
Here since TNA was still kinda okay
Posts: 18,024
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Post by Jonathan Michaels on Dec 26, 2012 23:36:52 GMT -5
This, incidentally, is my character, Felandria. It amuses me to picture what will happen the next time she goes to a town. I imagine a lot of male NPCs will stare at her boob window and her exposed thighs. And as mentioned earlier, she's nearly thirteen feet tall.
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