Make sure you vote in the 2010 Ennies
2010 Ennies
July 18th, 2010
How much do you know about Star Wars?
July 14th, 2010Except for the majority of alternate Han Solo’s I knew all of this about you?
[Source: Online PhD]
Do you have any other coll Star Wars Facts. Then please share them
The Undead kicked Freya’s Butt – Play Report
May 3rd, 2010So this past Saturday was my first week not behind the DM screen. It was definitely an interesting perspective. One I hope I get to keep for more than this encounter (and the next). Unfortunately, my characters weren’t as useful as I would have liked. They are good characters, just this encounter they weren’t as useful as I would have liked.
We came out of the portal into a giant room. On both sides was a wall of Force. On the left side of the left wall were golden colored orbs of energy and on the other were Blue ones. They had tentacles coming out the top of them and they seemed to have some sort of eyes (What are characters were presuming to be eyes). In front of us were three rows of tables, 4 rows per table. Going from one end of the room to the other under the tables were 6 cables, 3 white, 3 black. They ended at boxes at the end of each row of tables. Our group, learning to be very cautious stood there for a second and looked around. Nothing seemed to be an immediate threat. Charlie, our sorcerer (yes the character’s name is Charlie), walked and examined each table. It became quite obvious that this was some sort of alchemical lab. The tables had lab notes, beakers and vials and human body parts. Frey, My Whisper Gnome, couldn’t see past the table in front of her so she climbed up onto the one table. She noticed the bodies, body parts and So held up her arms (her bracers are her holy symbol) and attempted to turn any undead, just in case. The only thing to happen was a wave of positive energy flowed out of the golden orbs of energy towards her, and the white cables began to glow a little. She then noticed some sort of script some sort of script engraved into the tables. Upon further investigation she realized it was infernal, but she couldn’t read it. At about the same time Recyn (My Elven Archer) noticed past the tables were rows of tiles, some black, some white. Beyond that were big glass cylinders with bodies, and body parts suspended in some sort of green liquid. Stinky, the parties Half-Orc Barbarian began moving forward out of boredom. Then we heard a high pitch voice, which seemed to come from nowhere threatening us.
The green liquid started to drain out of the cylinder containers and the glass slid down. Several zombie like creatures stepped out and began walking forward. Freya, who despises undead, more so then any other person any of the party had ever met, charged forward. She tried turning the undead creatures, but only one ran away from her. One of the bit her and she became dazed. Stinky turned invisible and moved forward. Charlie cast Meteor Storm, but only one was taken out of commission, or so we thought, while the others, though obviously damaged were just fine. Recyn hopped up unto a table and began firing her arrows. Then, the undead creature which we thought was done got back up and began putting itself back together. Freya, took damage, but wasn’t sure how. Two of the creatures bit Freya again and she became much weaker (Taking 5 points of strength damage, when you only have a 10 strength sucks, let me tell you). And then Stinky came charging in swinging and dismembering one. But she was then bit. Recyn shot one with an arrow and a loud boom was heard as it hit the undead creature knocking backwards off of a black tile and unto a white one, on its back. Charlie sent a bolt of lightning through another creature, taking it out of commission. Then the ones which were hit, which all except one, were on black tiles got back up again. Freya, who was still dazed was able to figure out that the black tiles radiated negative energy, and the white tiles radiated positive energy. Freya was bit again and collapsed onto the ground (6 points of strength damage this time) unable to move. The only saving grace she had was her arm collapsed on top of her chest. Recyn hopped up unto a table and began firing while yelling, push them to the white tiles. Stinky went into a rage and pushed one onto a white tile, while Charlie cast Prismatic Ray and sent two of them to other dimensions and frying a third one. The damaged undead creatures rose once again and began to attack, but Freya managed cast Greater Restoration on herself and crawl to a white square avoiding the one zombies attempt to squash her. Stinky then pushed another one to a white square while Charlie disintegrated one and Recyn shot one up full of holes (6 holes to be precise). Stinky was then bit again, while Freya made one of the blasphemous creatures from an undead creature, to just a dead creature. Recyn shot one up again with her arrows while Charlie side stepped to get a better angle for his next spell. The one Recyn shot suddenly fell and stopped moving and Stinky was able to smash the other. Stinky and Freya charged after the fleeing zombie like creature, which was no longer afraid of Freya. It moved to a corner of a room in the back and Stinky and Freya smashed at it repeatedly while Charlie and Recyn moved there way forward in the room.
So the encounter is half over. All that is left are the balls of Energy (Energons from Manual of the planes (Called something else which starts with a Z in previous editions)) and the (Gay) lich in the other room. So overall, my Undead hating Cleric (Hierohant, Contemplative) and Recyn haven’t done much, but hopefully once we see the lich Freya will get to do a little better.
Character Counts – Freya
April 29th, 2010Here is the second character I’ll be using. Freya, a priestess of “The Creator” who will be replacing the party’s priest for the one encounter.
Freya preparing to cast a Divine spell
Originally I was trying to pose her to be praying, but I couldn’t quite get it right so I decided to make it like she is casting a spell.
Freya’s full character sheet – Freya – Character Sheet
Character Counts – Reycn
April 28th, 2010I get to finally take a brake from DMing for a few weeks because two of players are going to run some encounters in the infinite dungeon I have been running. So to make up for the loss of there characters I have created three. Two for one encounter, and one for the other. I also am using this opportunity to create character pictures because I haven’t used Daz3D in so long and desperately need to practice with it. So this is the first of the three characters, Reycn, the Elven Archer, who was created to replace the paladin we’ll be losing for the first encounter.
If she can see it, she can shoot it. If she can't see it, she can still probably shoot it
Here is the full character sheet. Recyn – The Elven Archer
It’s wrapping around the column
October 3rd, 2009
Playing with Lucia and the Lights in the Dark
September 20th, 2009So last night my D&D game was cancelled. I have 2 RPG related projects I am in the middle of, one is my new campaign which I woud like to start in December or January. The other is my Web based D&D 3.5 tools (Something which may never be publicly seen). So what did I do instead? I decided to play with Daz. What I decided to do was play with lighting effects a little because still no virtually nothing about it.
If you have any comments, tips or suggestions for my renders then don’t be shy.
For these renders I used Victoria 3.2 Base, Luzia Ice Queen morph (One of the few morphs which don’t require the V4 Morphs++ (which I still can’t afford)), Ella Eyes, Stily Outfit, Glamour hair, Ice Queen Rose and the PPackdrop4. With the hair, rose and backdrop I played with the shaders a little, and I used one of the poses that came with V4. I focused the camera in close on her. After that the only things to change is the lighting, whether it is type of lighting, color of lighting, intensity or number of lights.
The picture above is the rendering with no lights added what so ever. Next are links to all the renderings I did.
Below is the last rendering I did. I think it is my favorite because she looks like her eyes aren’t there. Gives her that cool, freaky Event Horizon Dead Zombie look.
Character Counts – Master Abjurer Saelion
August 6th, 2009The prestige class Master Specialist is from Complete Mage. It is actually 8 different classes, one for each of the arcane schools of magic. As you level up in this class you continue to gain new spell levels. What is even more important you gain special abilities based on your school specialization. For example as an Abjurer you gain a bonus to dispel checks, a Necromancer gives undead allies Fast Healing, Conjurer’s summons gain extra HPs.
Character Personality
Saelion is extremely friendly and kind. He hates to hurt others and uses his abilities to protect everyone he can. Even when battle he tries to encourage his allies to show mercy and not kill.
Character Background
Saelion was born to a wealthy Elven family. In his early childhood he lived a life of luxury. When he started his apprenticeship to his wizardry master war broke out. Saelion’s master was asked to help with an offensive and he took Saelion with him. Saelion saw the destruction that magic could cause. His master was killed during the offensive and Saelion vowed to use his magic to protect others.
Advancement
The two best ways I see to advance Saelion is to increase his wizarding levels giving him access to higher level abjuration spells. The other way is give him cleric levels. The cleric levels will give him the ability to heal which would work great with his personality.
Master Abjurer Saelion Spellbook
Character Counts – The Dread Pirate Simmoines
August 5th, 2009The prestige class “Dread Pirate” is from Complete Adventurer and as you are probably thinking is based on the Dread Pirate Roberts from the Princess Bride (or at least I am presuming so). What makes this class interesting, just like the character it is based on, reputation is everything. For all practical purposes alignment doesn’t matter. Many of the class features only reputation matters. An Evil character could have a good reputation and a Good character could have an evil reputation. A good reputation (Avoiding unnecessary bloodshed and honoring truces) would make it more likely for others to negotiate with him and give his allies bonuses to diplomacy and rerolls on failed saves. An evil reputation gives bonuses to intimidate and attack rolls.
Character Personality
The Dread Pirate Simmoines is extremely cruel and takes pleasure in torturing his victims. He is very intelligent and when in battle is tactically and strategically minded. He loves his reputation and uses it to its fullest potential to intimidate his prey and enemies. His crew on the other hand he treats fairly well.
Character Background
The Dread Pirate Simmoines was born to a semi-wealthy family though he doesn’t know much about it. When he was only 8 years old his family was journeying by sea. Their ship was attacked by pirates. All were killed except for the Simmoines who was taken captive by the Captain, the Dread Pirate Charlie. Simmoines was taken because Charlie wanted a cabin boy and another human onboard his ship. From Charlie he learned about seafaring and piracy amongst other things. He worked his way up through the crew to eventually become the second mate of the ship at the age of 16. His cruelty towards those ships preyed upon made Dread Pirate Charlie look tame and merciful. His cruelty made much of the Goblin crew fear and respect him. When he reached the age of 18 he led the crew against the Dread Pirate Charlie and the First Mate. As Captain of the pirate ship Lost Hope, he took piracy to the absolute evil it could be taken. When he attacks a ship he doesn’t just kill its crew and passengers. He tortures them; he rapes women and children before killing them. He quite often keeps one person alive, though mentally scarred for life to tell the tale. He has gone so far as to occasionally sneak into a port at night to secretly deliver the the lone survivors to ensure the tale is told. Because of this he and his ship are the most feared pirates on the sea.
His crew however he treats a little differently. He fears that one day they might mutiny against him. So he ensures that they receive an equal share of the spoils, though keeping the best for himself. However, any crew member who shows sign of weakness, or mutinous actions or thoughts is tortured or killed.
He shuns any type of organization between other pirate ships. He is not for hire and will only consider any type of negotiation if he feels the other party has something truly worth getting. After getting what he wants he kills the one(s) he negotiated with and leaves no survivors.
Advancement
This is a level 16 character so it is already pretty powerful. However, making the Dread Pirate Simmoines more deadly is easily done. Depending on what you need done there are several ways. The simplest method would be to improve his equipment. Gives his weapons additional pluses since they are only +1 items. Add keen to them to increase the critical range from 18 to 17 making it more likely to critically hit. Give him gloves of dexterity to increase his dexterity which would make it more likely to hit his targets and make him nimble thus harder to hit and improve his balance and rope skills.
Adding class levels is obviously a good way to go if you need his CR to be higher. Adding levels of Rogue would give you loads of skill points to make him extremely skillful as well as improve his sneak attack and give him Improved Uncanny Dodge. I would add to those Jump, Tumble, Use rope and Intimidate skills to make him most interesting. Adding levels of fighter would give him extra feats and greatly improve his combat abilities. Adding sorcerer would improve his will saves and add some low level magic to his repertoire. Adding Bard would give him many skill points and limited magical capabilities. Druid could be an interesting choice, especially with the aquatic animal wild shapes. However the druid’s necessity to not have metal would greatly limit him in the long run. Barbarian, cleric, ranger and wizard, though could be interesting really don’t offer anything. Monk and paladin are out of the running.
The most interesting way of improving upon him is to make him a vampire. Now I know what you’re thinking. “But Vampires have problems with traveling on the water and as Captain of a ship he may need to be out in the sun.” Well it is a simple problem to resolve. Give him a magic item or an artifact that allows him to cross water and be in the sun.
Prestige Class Series of Character Counts
August 4th, 2009If you ever played D&D 3.x you know that just about every supplemental book has a bunch of prestige classes. I don’t know how often you have ever used any of these prestige classes but I know my play group has never used them. I am currently running what I call Joey’s Infinite Dungeon. It is a high level game where all options from all books are available for the players to use. The sky is the limit. When they made their level 17 characters I worked with them and encouraged them to take a variety of prestige classes. All but one of my players just kept to leveling up the base characters. The player who did use a prestige class took the Dragon Disciple, though a great class, he has used it before.
Now as I said before, I don’t know how often you use prestige classes from the various sources out there, but I bet it isn’t often. So for the next few Character Counts articles I am going to focus on prestige classes from the various non core books. I will give the normal background and personality so even if you don’t play D&D 3.5 you can still use the character in your campaign.
To make the characters I will use PCGen to get the ability scores. It is set to Roll 4d6 drop the lowest. With the exception of that required to use the prestige class all skills, feats, abilities and items are from the core books and RSRD.
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