D&D anyone? (:

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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Don Alexander »

See, I told you, no worries. :P
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by GothPoet »

I generally don't allow evil characters when I DM D&D, mainly because it causes too much grief and headaches (especially for me.)

However, this past weekend I started DMing Way of the Wicked, an adventure path designed specifically for evil characters, and with plot devices to keep the headaches and grief at bay.

I set the campaign in the Forgotten Realms, with Cormyr replacing Talingarde and the Triad (Tyr, Torm, and Ilmater) replacing Mitra.

Our dastardly villains consist of:

A human Favored Soul of Loviatar. She's a condescending sado-masochist and was infected with vampirism (currently at The Bitten stage) shortly before she was caught and sent to prison for Blasphemy.

A drow rogue who follows Vhaeraun (and pays at least lip service to Asmodeus). He tried to steal a (currently ill-defined) holy relic from a Triad church. He is efficient and skilled, though not above murdering non-combatants whether expedient or not.

An Aasimar Godling who is a bastard son of King Azoun. He has become quite disgusted with the Favored Soul, seeing her as wasting too much precious time and energy on pointless cruelty. He was formerly a paladin candidate but washed out and was sent to prison for the equivalent of having relations with a vestal virgin. (Her father pulled a few strings and got her sent to a nunnery.) He might have gotten off on his own charge, given his connections to King Azoun, but he was a little too vocal in his opposition to the rules and advocating the overthrow of the government. He was sentenced for Treason, Sedition, and Blasphemy (basically they threw the book at him.)

A Tiefling Balladmonger (who is the Aasimar's younger half-sister, sharing the same mother). She tried to help her brother escape his own charges bu murdering the magistrate set to try him, but only managed to get caught herself. She goes by the Nom de guerre Penny Dreadful, and only the Aasimar and herself currently know she is his sister. She hero worships him, and may or may not in fact be in love with him.

A serpentfolk Wizard who has assumed the form of a 13 year old human girl. Her crimes were grave-robbing and cannibalism, and has currently shown a predilection for necromantic spells.

I got a bit of moaning from some of my players over my assuring them the evils perpetrated should remain PG-13. I explained that I had precisely zero interest in describing graphic acts of torture or whatnot, and eventually the moaning subsided amicably and we all agreed it was for the best.
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

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So, me and my pals are currently running the Pathfinder "Rise of the Runelords" campaign. We made a group of first level characters, ran through the first adventure... but because we like to do a bit of round-robin-ing, once that first adventure was done my pal Zeus took up his Mutants & Mastermind modern day fantasy horror game. And because of a lot of real life issues (and an especially long adventure by Zeus) it's been months since we played the RotR campaign. Finally got a chance to address it this weekend and there was an almost unanimous decision that while they wanted to continue the campaign, everyone was feeling slightly "blah" about the characters that they had made previously. So, we're ret-conning the first adventure, and I'm storytelling the events back to them with the changes that have been inacted.

Now, the funniest events from all of this have just taken place. Because through the first adventure, the characters have a chance to find and free a warhorse with the advanced template named 'Shadowmist'. My friend Paul has a cavalier, and was going to take Shadowmist as his mount... and after reading a bit into the advanced template, realized a few quirky facts. Such as Shadowmist is going to have a 6 Int, and can take skills.

Paul - "You do realize that he's going to be able to take levels in Linguistics, right?"
Me - "He doesn't gain the physical ability to speak... it's skills, not magic. But he can take instructions in a variety of languages." *laughs* "Or written?"
Zeus - "Great, we can leave notes for the horse."
Me - (Joking as though in character) "It's all right... I left a note for him in Ancient Thassilonian. I taught him to read it last week, but it's such an obscure language that no one else is likely to understand it."

Paul - *laughing* "He'll take ranks in disguise!"
Me - "Shadowmist is not the equine equivalent of Chicken Boo from Animaniacs!"

Yup, this is me and my friends. Snark-o-holics.
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

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Best horse ever.
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Don Alexander »

Look at my horse, my horse is amazing...
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

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That horse, that horse, my kingdom for that horse. :p
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by GothPoet »

And the award for fumble of the week goes to: Romero Marivaldi, Mighty Godling

The villains were fighting a treant, and things looked bad. Most of the party was unable to penetrate its DR, and while the wizard had fire spells, she was only one person and had limited actions.

Romero decides he's had enough, and dumps 10 points of stored Spellfire energy into one blast. 10d6 damage (half fire half magic), if he hits with a touch attack, so he needed a 2 or more to hit its Touch AC of 7.

Rolls: 1 :-s

:ympray:

Confirm fumble: 1 #-o

Fumble: Backblast - hits caster and is a critical threat. Roll to confirm critical.

Rolls: 12 (vs Touch AC 10)

Critical: Hypnotic Link - Double damage and may give target one suggestion.

Rolls damage: 76 with the doubling.

Romero dead at -64 HP.
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

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Ok, thats the most messed up backfire i have ever read of in D&D(not that i played much,but still)
Shows on once again that life is a dice throw away ;)

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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Retiarius »

The worst I ever heard of was in an old AD&D 1st Edition game mixed with Arduin Grimoire rules. A character playing a Star Mage (I think that was the name of the class; I wasn't in the game myself) lost control of a lightning bolt tossed at a bone devil. The bolt amped to the point where the spell drew so much power it consumed the Star Mage and her soul, sending this titanic electrical blast bouncing around the cavern, destroying everything in its path and ripping huge chunks out of the walls. When it was finally spent, the cavern was about eight times bigger and the bone devil was vaporized along with most of the (rather large) adventuring party. The only survivors were the wizard standing in his globe of invulnerability and the ranger who grabbed the halfling thief and cowered behind the wizard.

That was a very long time ago so I may have the details wrong.
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Weertangel »

Lol Retarius. those are the sessions that stick with u, giong out in a blaze of glory and also taking out most of your allies is the way to go!! :ymdevil:

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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Don Alexander »

http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0916.html

This strip - and especially the text below it - brings back fond memories.

Spring 1998, we wrap up a Star Wars RPG game based on the Dark Forces FPS. Analog to the ending of A New Hope, we received the Coruscant Crescent, the greatest medal of honor of the Rebellion.

My best friend played a shady Sullustanian trader named Krom Varek, who was utterly uninterested in the medal, took a 10k credits reward and left us even before the ceremony! =))
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Abusing the Book of Erotic Fantasy

Post by Retiarius »

There are two particular spells in the Book of Erotic Fantasy that can be abused all to hell. The first is beauty's caress:

Beauty’s Caress
Transmutation
Level: Bard 3, cleric 4, imagist 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
When touched, the target becomes much more attractive, poised, and self-confident. He gains 1d4 per 2 caster levels (maximum 5d4) to both his Charisma and Appearance scores.

Bards and clerics get access to this spell at the same class level (7). But bards have to spend a precious spell slot on it; clerics can pray for it whenever they want it. (Imagists are a class from the Book of Erotic Fantasy that I will not cover here.) On the face of it, the spell seems a bit overpowered: yes, it's an hour per level, but it is a fourth level spell as opposed to the second level eagle's splendor at a minute per level. And the amount you get is random, and if it didn't last an hour per level it wouldn't be useful for its primary purpose, which is lookin' good and gettin' laid.

However, consider this: A 10th level cleric with the Sudden Maximize feat now has a +20 to his Charisma score, the attribute that controls his effectiveness at turning (or rebuking, if he is evil or neutral and chooses that form) undead. With that feat and a relatively cheap magic item, a metamagic rod of extend spell (go ahead, get it out of your system), a 12th level cleric can make a maximized beauty's caress last 24 hours, effectively making it permanent. (Of course, it can be dispelled, which is why any spell caster wants to obtain a ring of enduring arcana as soon as practical, as it raises the wearer's caster level by four for purposes of dispel checks on spells he or she casts.)

With other modifiers from other sources, I had a Cleric 5/Morninglord of Lathander 5 with a turning check modifier of +16—on a roll of a 1, he still got +2 to his level on the turning check. Add to that a phylactery of undead turning, the Improved Turning feat, and the scepter of the netherworld (raises turning level by 3) and his effective turning level, after that roll of a 1, is 20. Even things with turn resistances of 4 would tend to get splattered, especially since Morninglords of Lathander get Greater Turning, even if they don't take the Sun domain (which, of course, they usually do).

Never mind the boost to Diplomacy, and a cheap armor enhancement from the Book of Erotic Fantasy (confidence) that allows you to add your Charisma modifiers to the cleric's already damn high Will saves…the list goes on.

And if that isn't bad enough, at 11th level, clerics get access to the Book of Erotic Fantasy's body to body spell. It acts like shield other, except that in addition, for one hour per level, any spell the cleric casts on himself can affect a minimum of three other allies (one per three caster levels). Imagine a maximized, extended beauty's caress on three other party members, such as the sorcerer, the bard, or the paladin. Or righteous might on the fighter types. Or even heal—who needs to wait for 17th level to cast a mass heal spell?

Admittedly, the material component for the body to body spell is a bit unsanitary. (Look it up for yourself.)

Strangely enough, as bad as beauty's caress is, it wasn't my Morninglord's worst abuse, which came down to a single spell from the Book of Exalted Deeds. I played him in a Forgotten Realms (as you might surmise from him being a Morninglord of Lathander) campaign in which shadowvar (from the city of Shade, a Netherese flying city that survived the destruction of all other such cities when magic failed on the first death of Mystra[l] by escaping into the Plane of Shadow) were primary villains. He had the Initiate of Lathander feat, which (asmong other things) allowed him to spontaneously cast any cleric spell with the Light descriptor or with the word "light" in the spell name. So I searched all the 3.x books for such spells and made a list of them, which totalled perhaps a bit over 40 of them. Additionally, he also had the Morninglord of Lathander class ability Lathander's Light, which doubles the area (as with the similarly misdescribed Widen feat, it should read 'doubles the dimensions') of any spell with the Light descriptor. He also had the Sudden Widen feat and carried half a dozen doses of Sunflower of Dawn (Sunflower of Pelor from the Complete Champion renamed to make them more generic), a power component that acted in a similar manner. His Light descriptor spells could not only be cast spontaneously, but have a radius of up to eight times normal. (Continual flame? How about…continual bonfire?) Too bad the campaign didn't last long enough for him to be able to cast sunburst. It would have been glorious…

Anyway, the first time the shadowvar jumped us, I noticed they liked shadows a lot. So I looked through the list and pick one that seemed appropriate.

Celestial brilliance. (Book of Exalted Deeds, page 94.)

Imagined dialog between my cleric and the shadowvar:

Shadowvar: Ahhh! What is that? Turn it off!

Morninglord: No.

Shadowvar: But we can't use any of our nasty little shadow-based powers! No fair!

Morninglord: Too bad. You can always try to dispel it.

Shadowvar: But we're multi-classed fighter/wizards! Our dispel checks suck!

Morninglord: Yeah, and I'm wearing a ring of enduring arcana, too.

Shadowvar: Ahhh! It burns! It burns!

Morninglord: That's right, you're evil outsiders, too? That's 2d6 a round, every round. Sucks to be you.

Shadowvar: We're tough! We can wait for the spell to expire!

Morninglord: That's one day per caster level, bucky. Let me know how that works out for you. But look at it this way, at least it isn't maximized. You know, I should have something with this spell cast on it all the time. In fact, with its ridiculous duration, everyone in my group should have something with this spell cast on it. Extended. Maximized. Widened. Maybe double Widened. Or maybe not Maximized but triple Widened. Yeah. That's the ticket.

Shadowvar: [snivels and dies]
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Weertangel »

U sure know how to push everything to the bring of breaking don't u?
Altrough i love the dialogue u did with the Shadovar hehe.
I looked that spell up and youre lucky that ít is't a sanctified spell, couse it is quite broken that early in a campaign.
Now that i think about it, with a light spell that hurts evil outsiders u could go explore the underdark without a torch or having to worry about much attacks, altrough u would probably make alot of enemies(then again, only few races are friendly down there..)

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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Retiarius »

If it was a sanctified spell I likely wouldn't have used it. I did, however, make a list of all the sanctified spells in the Book of Exalted Deeds and in the Forgotten Realms books as an emergency resource, since those spells can also be spontaneously cast by clerics. Most of them aren't really all that good.

Strangely enough, my character wasn’t the most abusive in that campaign. The game master got the idea that the wizard should be a Chosen of Mystra. Anyone familiar with Forgotten Realms knows that this is a really powerful acquired template not usually given by the goddess of magic to low-level characters. It was so rife with potential abuse I actually e-mailed the game master:
I’m not saying you shouldn’t grant the template to Jade, but you should be aware of all of the consequences of granting it. The silver fire ability, while impressive, isn’t actually the most powerful. The Chosen of Mystra template has hidden powers in most of the actual powers granted.

Take the last one, the +10 to Constitution. Since many, if not most, of Mystra’s Chosen are wizards and sorcerers, this doesn’t just mean a bonus to their hit points per level greater than their hit die, essentially over doubling their total hit points. It also means +5 on their Fortitude saves, typically their worst save, and +5 on their Concentration checks (who needs Combat Casting?).

But as nice as the spell immunities, immortality, immunity to disease, disintegration, and poison and such are, the real abuse potential is in the bonus spells ability. Realize that these aren’t actually spells—they are spell-like abilities. Check the entry for those on page 180 of the Player’s Handbook: they require only a mental action to use—no components, focuses and especially no XP cost. The low level spells aren’t easy to abuse—about the most expensive 1st level spell is identify, and that hasn’t really been a useful spell since the Magic Item Compendium released.

The medium level spells have more potential for abuse: stoneskin without paying 250 gp in diamond dust; kiss of life (Book of Erotic Fantasy) without the 1000 gp cost, and so forth. Since they can only be used once a day, this isn’t too bad.

Should Jade reach 17th level, though, your campaign will have gone epic level four levels early: imagine wish with no 5,000 XP point cost, cast once daily. In one week, she’d have +1 permanent inherent bonuses to all her attributes for nothing. With some time and a bit over 110,000 gold, she could have +5 to all of them by making ten rings of three wishes and using them all up in one go. She could make a non-magical item, such as a big diamond (itself useful in lots of ways, such as for true resurrection spells), worth 25,000 gp, once daily, for nothing. (That’s where she’d get the gold for the rings, if she had to. Five days and she’d be ready to start making them.) She could make an instant magic item of similar value or an improvement to an existing item for nothing. She could transport the party from anywhere on any plane of existence to anywhere on any other plane of existence for nothing. And all this doesn’t even take into account the vast array of spells that wish can duplicate, even if those spells aren’t in her spell books or even on her spell list.

Just sayin’.

(This makes me wonder how many magic items in Faerûn are the results of Chosen of Mystra 17th-level or higher wizards or sorcerers wandering around. “Awww, lookit the cute little adventurer. Would you like a nice adamantine sword +3? Would you?” *poof* “Here you go.”)
Of course, the Morninglord of Lathander is hardly the only abusive character I've made in D&D—or even the most powerful. What saves me from being a "munchkin" (rather than a "power gamer") is that I follow the rules as scrupulously as possible and cleared things with game masters if I thought that there was any ambiguity in them, and while one could say that some of the characters I made were broken, I never played them to break the campaigns they were in, and often took on flaws that could easily be used against the character, either in terms of rules or role-playing.
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Re: D&D anyone? (:

Post by Adamas »

All one has to mention to make most GM's realize just how powerful Chosen is as a Template is...Elminster and the Seven Sisters
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