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Character Counts – Master Abjurer Saelion

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

The 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

Master Abjurer Saelion Spellbook

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Tags: 3.5e, Complete Mage, D and D, d&d, dragons, Dungeon Master, dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and Dragons, Entertainent, entertainment, games, hobbies, hobby, NPC, PC, Player Character, pres, prest, prestig, prestige, prestige class, prestige classes, role playing, Role Playing Game, role playing games, rpgs, third edition, Wizards
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Character Counts – The Dread Pirate Simmoines

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

The 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.

Dread Pirate Simmoines

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Tags: 3.5e, character, Complete Adventurer, D and D, d&d, dragons, Dungeon Master, dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and Dragons, Entertainent, entertainment, hobbies, hobby, NPC, PC, pirate, Player Character, prestige, prestige class, prestige classes, role playing, Role Playing Game, role playing games, rpgs, Wizards
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Prestige Class Series of Character Counts

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

If 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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Tags: 3.x, 3.X Edition, D and D, d&d, dragons, Dungeon Master, dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons, Entertainent, entertainment, games, hobbies, hobby, Non Player Character, NPC, Player Character, prestige, prestige class, prestige classes, role playing, Role Playing Game, role playing games, rpgs, third edition, Wizards
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Character Counts – Delamaoh Mountaintracker

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Character Counts – Delamaoh Mountaintracker – Level 10

Character Creation Notes
Was completely made in PCGen

Character Background
Delamaoh family lived and worked in the lowest and most dangerous levels of the Dwarven city. The clan
was attacked by Duergar (Gray Dwarves) when she was young. Both of her parents were killed in the attack. The clan lost the
lower levels in the attack and evacuated to the higher levels. Delamaoh was accidently left behind. She managed to evade
capture and fled even lower underground. She lived alone for many years deep underground constantly fighting with aberrations,
magical beasts and small Duergar patrols. Several years later in her wanderings she ended up back by the lower levels of the
Dwarven city. She wandered into a battle. Her clan, after years of battle was finally pushing the Duergar out of the lower levels of
their city. She jumped right into the battle. During the fight she ended up saving the leader of the clan. The Duergar was defeated
and pushed out of their city. Now Delamaoh lives in the lower levels of her ancestral home and patrols for threats to it almost
always alone except for her constant companion, the Dire Rat she calls Sharp Tooth.

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Tags: 3.5e, character, D and D, d&d, dragons, Dungeon Master, dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and Dragons, Entertainent, entertainment, fiction, games, hobbies, hobby, Homebrew, NPC, role playing, Role Playing Game, role playing games, rpgs, third edition, Wizards
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Opinion on Character Creation in 4th Edition

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

I was supposed to post this article like two weeks ago and didn’t. So here it is now.

A few days ago I made the first of my Character Counts posts. I made a 3.5 and a 4th edition version of the character. It was my first time making a 4th edition character. I was very proud of myself for making one with as far as I can tell I didn’t make any screw-ups like not giving Arthur too many or too little powers, feats, trained skills or completely messing up HP or AC calculations. If I did, please leave a comment letting me know what I screwed-up.

Before I get into talking about my opinion of character creation in 4th edition vs. 3.5 let me share with you how I normally go about creating characters, whether a PC or NPC)

When I create a character, PC or NPC, I like to think about my character’s basic personality, goals and normal means of achieving those goals. The last of those three quite often leads me to choosing its class (at least one in the case if I [later] decide to multiclass).

Then I come up with ability scores. Sometimes I roll the dice (Normally 4D6 drop the lowest) and sometimes I just pull arbitrary numbers out of the air and place them. After that I start to think about (If I haven’t already) about the characters background. What are some of the events of a character’s history that leads them to being what they are by the time they are first level. This is also where I have chosen race for the character. Then I give the character its first level feats and skills.

Now if the character is going to be above first level (for NPCs this is almost always true) I look back at my initial vision of the character and begin leveling up the character. I normally level up to whatever level I want/need the character to be. Then I do skills and feats. If the character is multi-class or has a prestige class (there is proof that I still look at character creation through the eyes of a 3.5 player) I will level up one class at a time give skills and feats. For example, if I were making a 15 character that was a Bard [5]/Assassin [5]/Shadowdancer [5] (very similar to one of the characters I will be presenting in a few weeks in a Character Counts article). I will level the character to a level 5 bard and give skills and feats, then do the same thing for all 5 of the assassin levels and so forth)

After that I get the character equipment and spells if it is a spell caster (Remember for wizards some of that starting money will go towards learning spells that aren’t gained during the level up process)

Now that the basics of my character creation process is out there I guess it is time for me to give you my opinion of character creation in fourth edition compared to 3.5. I think character creation in 4th edition.

It SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reason I say that is it doesn’t leave room for character customization other than for combat. Here is a simple example. It 3.5 let’s say I have a character (whether or not it started that way) who is good at speaking and convincing people of things. To get that in 3.5 when you create the character you would put some skill points in diplomacy and/or bluff (and/or intimidate) when you make the character and[/or] when you leveled up. I find that the combining of skills in 4th edition adds to this limitation.

No I haven’t actually played a 4th edition game. Now after I play a game Maybe I will feel differently but I feel 4th edition character creation is way too rigid and doesn’t lead to creativity as 3x editions did.

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Tags: 3.5e, 3.X Edition, 3e, 4e, characters, D and D, d&d, dragons, dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and Dragons, Entertainent, fourth edition, hobbies, hobby, role playing, role playing games, RPGs, rpgs, third edition
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Character Counts 1 – Arthur Dannenberg

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Sometimes even the most experienced players and DMs experience a block when coming up with ideas for characters and NPCs. So here I hope to give you every week a new character pretty much completely fleshed out for you to use. For the 3.5 version of the character I am using is the SSA-X2 vs. 3 sheet which you can get at http://www.ssa-x2.com/ and for the 4th edition version of the character I used the Kiznit Character Sheet which you can get at Dragon Avenue.

Below you will find a link to a 3.5 version of the character and another to a 4th edition version of the character. These are full character sheets in an Adobe PDF file not just stat blocks. Please feel free to make simple stat blocks for your use.

Then I have any notes on my process of creating the character. After that is the background of the character. I tried to make it as complete as possible. After that is the characters personality and how it might react in some generalized situations followed by some physical descriptions.

Arthur Dannenberg – Level 1 – 3.5e
Arthur Dannenberg Level_1 – 3.5e Spellbook
Arthur Dannenberg Level_1 – 4e

Character Creation Notes

This was my first time making a character for 4th Edition. Besides being a new system I found it to be a lot more confusing than any other system I ever played for the first time before. So please be sure to double check that I put the correct information in the correct place. If I screwed something up please let me know so I make the appropriate corrections.

For Ability Scores I used PC Gens ability generator set to 4D6 reroll 1s and drop the lowest. Where it put the scores is where I left them. That is why I chose to make Arthur a wizard. I used the same numbers for the 4th edition. I did NOT give him the +2 to an ability score that humans normally receive in 4th Edition

For Starting money, height, weight and age I actually rolled the dice and used the charts from chapter 6 (Chapter 7 in the case of money) of the 3.5 PHB. The 4th edition version he got the standard 100gp.

The 4th edition sheet has no space for background, personality or description. So I put the physical descriptions in the Other Notes Section. I placed the Character Personality in the Notes/Photo Section. No space anywhere for the Background so I didn’t put it on the sheet. It is in the 3.5 sheet and on this post.

Character Background

Arthur was born to an average working class family in the city. When he was a young child he saw a wizard casting some spells on the street. He was amazed by what he saw and decided he wanted to be able to do that. Whenever he could get away from his parents he would try to find this Wizard and follow him around and always watch his performances. After a while Arthur was starting to mimic the gestures and vocals of the spells used in this Wizards performance. Obviously nothing happened when Arthur did this but his mimicry was just so perfect the Wizard took notice. The Wizards name was Dion Laughstrang and he went to Arthur’s parent’s and offered to take Arthur as an apprentice when he 8yrs old. Arthur’s parents reluctantly agreed, after all Arthur was their only living child. All of their other children died not long after child birth and were very protective of Arthur.

This apprenticeship was a little different from what most apprenticeships. Arthur continued to live with his parents and would meet with Dion two or three times a week for lessons. This is because Dion was a poor Wizard who blew most of the money he earned on Ale in one of the local inns every night and very often would forget to pay for a room and lived much of the time on the streets. Very often others would tell him not to listen to Dion. That he was a mediocre wizard at best, and that was when he was sober. However, Arthur refused to believe what they said about the man he idolized; the man who introduced, and teaching him the arcane arts, something no other wizard in the city would have done because of his families lack of social rank.

Both of Arthur’s parents were killed during a riot in the city when he was 13. He inherited the tiny home and invited Dion to move in with him which he did. The morning of his 20th Birthday Arthur had found that Dion was no longer there. He burned all of his items accept for a small wooden medallion of Boccob on a small copper chain, his diary and a note which read:

“When I came to this city 15 years ago I didn’t expect to stay for more than one or two months. Although I had all the coin I needed I decided to entertain the folk with some of my abilities and I noticed a small boy who was completely enthralled by what I was doing. So I stayed longer performing these mediocre tricks and found this boy was almost always there watching, completely mesmerized. I had to make many deals and sacrifices to do it, but it was worth it to stay here. But now I must keep up my end of the deal. It is ok though. I have taught you everything you need to know for now. The rest will come as you go along. I have left you my two most precious belongings. I hope they will serve you well.”

Arthur started to read the diary and couldn’t believe all the Dion has done, the people he met, the places he has been and how he may have influenced the world as they all know it today. He spent most of the year trying to convince the people, particularly the wizard’s academy and all the others who laughed at Dion. But they all continued to laugh saying it was just stories he probably heard at the inn of the doings of others. After a while Arthur gave up and though he had his doubts he decided to set off to see if what in the diary was true.

Character Personality

Arthur is very passionate about everything he does. He wears his emotions on his sleeve.

He would have words with anyone who would say anything against his mentor, Dion Laughstrang.

Wherever he goes he follows the laws of the city he grew up in, even if he were thousands of miles away and those laws and the principles and intent of them had no meaning where he was.

He is relatively naiveté about the greater world

Character Description

Arthur’s brown hair is short and always messy.

Hanging off of his belt is a copper chain which is connected to a wooden medallion bearing Boccob’s (Ioun’s) symbol which is tucked into his belt pouch.

His clothes, though cleaned whenever possible always seem to be dirty and to those who don’t know him he would appear to be a homeless beggar.

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Tags: 3.5, 3.5e, 4e, character, D and D, d&d, DMG, dragons, Dungeon Master, dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and Dragons, entertainment, fourth edition, hibby, hobbies, Non Player Character, NPC, PC, Player, Player Character, role playing, Role Playing Game, rpgs, wizard
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Joey’s Musings

Archive for the ‘Character Counts’ Category

Character Counts – Master Abjurer Saelion

Character Counts – The Dread Pirate Simmoines

Prestige Class Series of Character Counts

Character Counts – Delamaoh Mountaintracker

Opinion on Character Creation in 4th Edition

Character Counts 1 – Arthur Dannenberg

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