Things That Grind My Gears #1: Grinding!

Hello again, dear internet!

Today, I thought I'd start yet-another article type thing.
This one is about my gripes about games, gaming, and gamers.

The topic this time:
GRINDING!

To begin - I LOVE JRPGs. And dungeon crawlers. And pretty much any sort of video game that has RPG elements.

However, something that bothers me about most of those games is
HOW.
MUCH.
GRINDING.
THEY.
REQUIRE.

I recently bought Xenoblade Chronicles on my 3DS.
And made it through a good portion of the game without having to grind.

But then, around level 70, I encountered a boss at level 75.
For those of you that aren't aware of the math/combat of Xenoblade, that much of a level difference means I would hit that boss once in a blue moon.

Not hitting at reduced damage.
Just not hitting.

So, I decided to try to do some grinding to gain some levels and even the playing field.

It took me two weeks, gaming for about one hour for each of those days, to gain one level.

Suffice to say, I will not be completing Xenoblade.
I give up.
I refuse to invest that much of my time in just leveling up a couple of characters to advance a story that is fairly typical of the genre.

But why grind at all?

What drives game designers to continue to use this mechanism to "increase play time?"

Anyway, that's just my most recent complaint about this practice.
What sorts of experiences do you all have with grinding?
Do any of you enjoy it? Hate it as much as I do?

That's the end of that rant. Stay tuned for more fun sometime next week :)
Until then, may the dice (virtual or physical) fall in your favor!

Difficulties in Getting the Group Together and Other Gaming Group Discussions

Internet people! How goes?

So, Sunday fell through.
As usual.

But, Hekatonchires' and Rellon's players showed up and we hung out anyway.
And discussed a campaign that Hek's player wanted to run.

For those of you that are familiar with Giant in the Playground, this campaign is called "The Test of Ice and Mettle."
For those of you that recognize that, you can stop reading now.

For the rest of you:
This campaign takes place in a fantasy-version of Scandinavia/Norway.
It is cold.
The whole thing is an escort mission.
Death is expected more often than not.
The classes are all homebrewed (and pretty freaking cool!).
The rest is pretty crazy (bloodlines, feats from anywhere, traits and flaws, one homebrew item, any race, etc.).
Full information here.

So, there's that.

I'm playing an eighth level Pengu (refluffed tundra halfling turned sapient penguin) Pathfinder with a major Titan bloodline and feats that focus on his "backstory" of being one of the spawn of Loki.
Might tack on some other stuff...

So... yeah...

Anyway, I've decided to stop saying that the group "will meet," because I'm constantly surprised.
However, I can say with certainty that I will not be doing any gaming this weekend, so any updates will be on completely random tracks :)

As always, may the dice fall in your favor!

Ask the Audience #2: LARP?

Hello, everyone!

I have been kind of rambling along in my thoughts and realized that I should probably post more than just things about my 5e campaign here.
Because this is For Gamers, By Gamers, About Gamers.
And, part of me thinks maybe I should start posting twice per week...

Anyway, I thought I'd try the Ask the Audience column again.

This time: LARP!

Okay, so my questions for you all are:
Do any of you have any experience with LARPing?
If you do, what did you think of it? Fun? Boring? Way-too-childish?

I'm just curious what everyone thinks of this oft-misunderstood pastime.

On my experiences: I have none.
The most detailed portrayal I have experience with is from "Knights of Badassdom," which was filmed in the woods near where I live (Spokane, WA).
If you haven't seen it, I'd suggest changing that. It's pretty entertaining.

But I am interested in giving LARP a shot.
I'm thinking of trying to write up some basic rules and put something together with friends and family, see where it takes me.

In the Spokane area, I know of two groups that exist that do things of a similar nature ("Society for Creative Anachronism" and "Stormhaven"), but they don't really do the RP portion of LARP (from what I can tell).
So, that's my take on the subject.

Hopefully the gaming group will meet on Sunday (looks good right now).
And hopefully Washington state will not be smoldering ashes by then.
Stay safe out there folks, especially those firefighters taming these blazes.

Until next time, may the dice fall in your favor :)

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 8

Evening, everyone!

Sunday was certainly interesting for gaming, and here's how!

To begin, the phrase "rub your butt on the enlarged man" was uttered.

This week, we had Sabah and Ulic in attendance, and Saito's player introduced a new character named Rellon (information on the character page). Hec and Trinity's players couldn't make it, making this the first time that Trinity was on DM-autopilot.

As a note, there was a lot of improvisation on my part as the DM this week. And, you know what, I think everyone enjoyed it that way.

----------------

Rellon was en route from the Arcanum to Rosewood to locate the prophecy that was underground.

After some trial and error, he was able to find his way into the tunnels below Rosewood (the same pit that Kara and Ulic had used when they first went there).

It was about that time that Ulic's amulet "ping'd" and set Sabah on guard.

She assumed a defensive posture and approached the hallway while Trinity and Hec enjoyed "brain over brawn." Ulic was ill from trying the stuff.

After some quick searching of the nearby tunnels, Rellon discovered an ancient armory where everything was marked with elemental runes. As a researcher, this tickled him in a powerful way.

Sabah and Ulic decided they might want to seek out the mage that triggered the charm, so made their way slowly through the tunnels.

After some bungling about on both parts, Sabah and Ulic located Rellon and Sabah attempted to sneak up on him.

Rellon, however, has unusually keen ears and heard the approaching priest. With the snap of his fingers, he produced the sound of a rattlesnake near her feet, freezing her in place.

Rellon took advantage of the situation to knock over a table and take cover.

However, it turned out that such movement triggered some sort of elemental windstorm in the chamber, snuffing out all light sources and making it hard to hear.

At this point, Ulic cried out "I think I know him..." and the player's cell phone indicated a text message with two silenced pistol reports. Much laughter ensued.

After settling down, Ulic and Rellon confirmed each other's identities and the party gathered once more.

Together, they looked about the room for anything interesting or important.

And, in a stack of odds and ends, Rellon found a shortsword that was strangely clean.

He wrapped and stowed it and the party moved onward.

This room had several entrances, and they tried one of the doors.

Sabah heard something on the other side and warned everyone, getting them into combat positions.

Without warning, she kicked the door in.

And it bounced back from something.

With another kick, it was revealed that the room beyond was full of zombies.

Thankfully, Sabah's Channel Divinity feature was ramped up at this point and could destroy any undead of CR 1/2 or less. And so, only one zombie (an ogre) was left in the room.

And it failed its saving throw.

It made a very hasty retreat toward some stairs that it stumbled down and promptly went to pieces under.

As Sabah torched its remains, the other party members examined the room.

It was a way-shrine to the traveler god Fharlanghn.

But, the question was asked, what was it doing here?

With this mystery ever-building, the party headed downstairs.
And discovered a large summoning seal in the floor of the first chamber.
With a little remembering legends and lore, they discovered that this was part of a long-lost labyrinth complex described in some passages of Old One literature.
And it was hiding under Rosewood the entire time.

With a little wandering, they mapped out a good chunk of the southern portion of the map.
There, they found a chamber for guards to rest in and a place where they stored their food.
While passing through the storage room, Ulic set off a trap that launched two walls at each other.
Thankfully, his checkered past prepared him to jump out of the way.

With a few minutes of work, he was able to dismantle the trigger to prevent any further trouble.

Beyond this, they saw a strange sight - a shrine. It was apparent that this was not part of the original construction.
Shortly after entering, Sabah approached the alter, knelt down, and said softly "so, this is where I died..."
It turned out that a ghost was residing in this room and possessed Sabah to communicate with the party.
During a rather pleasant conversation, the party learned that this was the ghost of Arroh Hartsight, a member of one of the races they call the Old Ones. She was once a huntress, but became the high priestess of the god Trykus (knowledge and light, symbol is an open tome with a scepter along the spine). And, much like the party, she was unsure as to how she got to where she was presently.

Rellon decided to see if Arroh could recognize the summoning seal in the other room, and so led Sabah/Arroh to the door.
Where the two promptly separated, with Arroh's form floating in the doorway.
At this point, one of the ghost's natural defenses kicked in and everyone had to make a Charisma save to avoid being frightened.
Sabah and Rellon were fine, Trinity and Hec were frightened.
But Ulic got hit the hardest. Having failed his save by more than 5, he also aged 40 years, making him go from his youth to middle age in the blink of an eye.

Arroh did not expect that happen and apologized immediately.
With short order, however, her specter vanished from sight.

With some puzzling over the situation, Rellon decided to become a willing vessel for Arroh.
While the two were connected, they did a very high-speed information exchange. Rellon ended up converting to the faith of Trykus in that time.

Then the joined-souls struck upon a plan.
Using his conjuration ability, Rellon created a holy symbol of Trykus to act as a focus for his beliefs.
The theory was that this would allow Arroh's spirit to leave her final resting place.

So, with a deep breath, they crossed the threshold...

And it worked!

Now free of the shrine, the group went back to the summoning seal and let Arroh analyze it.
Unfortunately, she knew nothing of it.

With their new ghostly companion, the party returned to Rosewood to try to establish a more permanent abode for Arroh and restore Ulic's youth.

And that's what happened.
Lots of fun for everyone, like I said.

But what sort of strangeness is going on in the tunnels below Rosewood?

Tune in next time to see what happens!
Until then - roll the bones :)

Yet Another Late Update

Hey folks!

Sorry for a delay in posting. The reasons are many-fold.

1. My Sunday group ended up not meeting after all due to assorted scheduling troubles. So, there's that.
2. I haven't worked on any homebrew in a long while, so that wouldn't be updated.
3. I've been working on a pet project of mine that has been tormenting me for over a decade. But, now I'm making great headway on it and hope to share it with you folks in the near future :)
4. I had an interview for a new job this morning, and got a call back just 1 hour later saying I got the position. So, was freaking out about that for a while, but I am overly happy now :)

So, nothing terribly new to report for the time being.
However, everyone seems to be on board for Sunday.
If it fall through, though... maybe I'll see about a new game...

We shall see then.
Until then, may the dice fall in your favor.

Funny Things

Greetings, internet!

So, Sunday passed in a rather funny way.

As Sabah's player and I were walking to check her mail, Hec's player called to say that he couldn't make it.
That's okay - I can run the game with three players!

On the way to the store to get some food stuffs for the group, Ulic's player sent me a text. He wasn't showing up either.
Darn. Guess we'll inform Trinity's player...

She responded saying that she couldn't make it either.

And so, Sabah's player and I grabbed some lunch and headed back to our apartments (we're neighbors).

And that was how Sunday passed :)

--------------

Now, on to other business: why is this post tagged "Pathfinder?"

I've been following the business of the Vigilante class since the beginning of the playtest.
And it amuses me that pretty much every single post in the "Final Thoughts" board is negative (my opinion is in there as well, btw).

It seems to me that Paizo is on the verge of losing a lot of money if they don't change their thoughts on this particular class.
But, I also know just how staunchly RP fans defend things from their favorite publishers, even if they are flawed beyond reason.

So, more like a "snarky funny thing" here, I guess.

But, I do hope that Paizo learns from this experience. I still rather like some of the improvements from 3.X that they made, and would love to see the game continue.

Anyway, due to having my desk at work moved, posting is going to be slightly more difficult and/or later in the day than normal.

May have more for you all later this week.
Who knows?
Until then, may the dice fall in your favor :)

Ask the Audience #1 - Edition Wars

Good morning, people of the internet!

Today, I thought I'd start up a short article on reader opinions.
This will be the first of many, I hope.

Even if you just stop in for a second, feel free to leave your opinion. I enjoy reading comments on things, even if they are detrimental to my calm lol

So, today's "Ask the Audience" wants to know:
Which edition of Dungeons and Dragons is your favorite? Why is that? (this can include Pathfinder)
Which edition of Dungeons and Dragons is your least favorite? Why is that? (same here)

And, here's my input on the matter:

My favorite edition to-date is 5th. It combines so much that I like about the previous editions, but it also makes it so that I actually enjoy running a game for once. I don't have days of prep work. Things are so much more streamlined that I can just wing it.

My least favorite edition is probably 2nd. Admittedly, I have limited experience with it, but it is just so much more complicated than even 3.X that I sometimes end up scratching my head in the process of reading through the books.

As far as I know, the Praerus group is going to meet on Sunday. So, I will update you on their misadventure sometime next week if that pans out.
Until then- you know the rest :)

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 7: Back in Black

Hello, dear readers!
This week's update on the campaign is coming just a touch late due to not having my notebook with me at work.
Better now then not at all, though :)

This time, our characters included Ulic, Sabah, and Trinity from the earlier arc.
Eos has been retired for the time being and replaced by a character named Hecatonchires, a half-orc barbarian/fighter/warlock who has a thing for hands (his name means "hundred handed one," btw).
We lost one player from the game, and another one is out of town for the next few sessions, so his character will be introduced then.

------------------------

To begin, Ulic had just returned to the Arcanum and was told, almost immediately, to go back to Rosewood. A highly important prophecy was hiding in the caves below the town and it was imperative that he recover it.
Ulic set off and arrived in Rosewood at the same time as Bloodbane's caravan palace.

After Trinity finished making her potions, she decided to pursue the criminal syndicates of Rosewood.
Not to stop them.
To force them to follow her.
She tried intimidating someone for information.
Long story short, she wound up in jail.
And stayed there for most of the session.

Ulic, having an idea as to who might help him in his quest, decided to head towards the pub.

Sabah, who had spent the night getting all sorts of plastered, decided to head into town herself.

Along the way, the two crossed paths and continued to the pub, where Ulic told both Sabah and Angus that he needed some assistance for a trip back into the caves.
They both agreed to help. Angus gave the pair a list of names of militia members and other townsfolk that would be most likely to help out.
First on the list: a half-orc named Hecatonchires.

Before leaving, though, Sabah noticed a fellow cleric that was proselytizing about turning "away from the light."
If you recall, she is a follow of Pholtus, a god of the sun and light on Praerus.
With some quick words, she was able to remind the folk listening of the folly of trafficking with shadows and told the cad to leave. He obliged.

With that taken care of, they decided to try to locate the half-orc hermit.

At this point in the day, he had been trading and partying with the caravansary and was well past "illuminated."
When the other two found him, he was playing a beautiful glass drum in the glassblower's tent.
After some one-sided conversation (he replied with drum playing), Hecatonchires was on board.

And then the obligatory party scene was had.
And Trinity was still (blessedly) in jail.

The next day, Sabah woke in jail with Trinity.
Hecatonchires was alone in a tent in the caravan.
And Ulic had wound up spending his night with Sonata, the master glass blower.

With a little bit of asking around, the party reunited at the jail.
The guard was leery of letting Trinity out, but decided that the others would keep an eye on her.
When he was giving them their confiscated items back, Sabah's holy symbol was strangely missing. He told them that it hadn't been with her the night before.

With a quick search of the caravan, they found it laying face-up in the middle of the road.
When Sabah looked it over, she saw that someone had scrawled "I am Watching" on the back.
She didn't want those words blaspheming her holy symbol, so she asked Hecatonchires to fix it.
He wrote his own name under the words.

After this slight break in tension, the party gathered their remaining supplies and departed for the caves once more.
In the entrance, they passed by some goblins that were quite clearly three sheets to the wind and headed for the caravan to continue the party.
At this point, Ulic finished describing to the party why they had to return to the caves.

Thus, they climbed back into the pits. (Though, thinking on it now, why didn't they ask any goblins for a hint of the prophecy's location?)
At the bottom, they got their bearings straightened out and headed for a tunnel they hadn't explored previously.
This path led to some over large mushrooms that were blocking some sort of mining office.

Before anyone could fall for the clever trap, someone noticed that green slime was growing in the same area as the mushrooms.
With a call to her god, Sabah channeled daylight into the area and cleared the slime away, thus freeing them to proceed.
Unfortunately, the room was largely deserted.

Undaunted, the party returned to the labyrinth and chose the fork opposite the last one.

Here, they found the remains of a kitchen that was being used by the goblins during their campaign against the warforged of the area.
Having been at this for some time, the party decided that some refreshment was in order.
Hecatonchires, being the cook, went back to the mushrooms to wrangle some up for flavor's sake.
Ulic decided to scout ahead in the tunnels.
Trinity wanted to work with some acid she had gathered from the green slime so as to - you guessed it - weaponize it.
And Sabah decided to investigate the kitchen a little.

Not much happened for the rest of the party, but Sabah thought she saw shadows moving in the corner of her eye in the kitchen.
She approached, flames at the ready.
And then she was picked up from the floor.

A grell had been floating about, waiting for just such an opportunity.
Unfortunately for it, Sabah wasn't paralyzed and a scuffle ensued.
The grell tried floating away with her, but Trinity was able to jump up and join combat (though, only because she had reached a stopping point in her research...)

Trinity tried to throw her magic spear at the thing, but it missed by a wide margin.
Sabah was able to burn it and set herself free.

Around this time, Ulic and Hec heard the noises of combat and decided to investigate.

With some quick thinking, Ulic used his wand to create a web that caught the grell.
Sabah, knowing that these particular webs are flammable, was delighted.
The webs, now aflame, did nothing to keep Trinity from jumping onto the thing and trying to club it to death.

And that's how this particular grell died: screaming and burning.

Now, properly roasted grell in hand, Hec took the party back to the kitchen to make his famous "Brain over Brawn" dish. Whatever that might be...

And that's where we left off.
We should meeting Sunday assuming that nothing major happens in real life.
Until then, may the dice fall in your favor :)

Why U No Update?

Sorry for the enormous delay in posts, dear readership!

Normally, I work on the blog while I'm at work, but I've been stupendously busy due to having my job title change.
Sadly, only a horizontal move, not vertical.

However, my group is planning on meeting up on Sunday, so hopefully that will pan out.

In other news, I have finished work on the Incarnate class and made good advances on the Artificer and Tome of Magic class 5e conversions. So, feel free to use them at your leisure. And, remember, feedback is appreciated :)
I still need to finish the soulmelds for the incarnate, but that should be done in the near-ish future.
I intend to continue work on the Psionicist, even though WotC has pushed out the Mystic class in the most recent Unearthed Arcana. In part because I've already come this far, and also in part because I just want to finish it.

So, that's it for me. Hopefully there will be more to say after Sunday.
Until then, may the dice fall in your favor :)

An Interview: Dan Van

Hello, great big world!

Today, due to no progress on either homebrew content or the Praerus campaign (still updating/changing characters for the party), I will be starting my interview project.
And, to get the ball rolling, I thought I'd ask a few questions of Dan Van, the man playing Saito (though he plans on changing to a wizard during the next story arc). Whose birthday was also on Sunday :)

Without further ado, here's a transcript from the interview (done via Facebook, whole thing [sic] with very minor editing):

Interview time! You ready for this?

sure

Cool. To begin, when... 

42

When did you first delve into the darkness that is roleplaying games?

So much typing lol

In college , I met some people on the same dorm floor i lived on who were gamers .

And the game you played that forever set you down this dismal path?

Ya, I suppose what appealed to me was the idea of making something up. Pretending to have the power of a Wizard or cleverness of a Hobbit tongue emoticon

So, D&D then?

Actually no the very first game was L5R but d&d wasnt that far behind.

Neat! That makes you relatively unique from most gamers. If you had to choose a game that you would have started with, which would it be? If not L5R.

That is a pretty tough question. At the time of me starting it was pretty much 2nd ed D&D and L5R that my friends were into. 3rd edition happened not to long after i started gaming. Which was much simpler a system to understand.

Indeed it is unsure emoticon
Of all the games you've played in your illustrious career, which system do you like best?

Again with the difficult question. There are some very unique systems that are fun but you have to have the right group. So for all around id say pathfinder. it got rid of most of what was wrong with 3.5 though now its getting to bloated as we have talked about.

Indeed it is unsure emoticon
That is twice I've said that now.
Sorry for hard questions, but that's what interviews are for lol
Alright, how about this one: favorite character you've ever played?

Oooo... that a good one. Best concept i only played for a short time. He was a young prince who struck a deal with a Demon to save his kingdom, but the demon turned on him and used the prince to murder everyone in the kingdom except him. The prince then became a restless spirit driven to find this demon and kill him. While his kingdom because this haunted legend. So my character would appear every so many years tracking this demon down , it was great in concept but hard to play in with a party.

Wow. That's pretty awesome actually. But I can totally see that being hard to have in an actual group. Now, on a similar vein: any characters that you've regretted playing?

Not so much regretted playing but regretted actions. early on in gaming before i understood things as well . I always felt my characters had to succeed. And i remember just blatantly cheating, and it just killed the mood of the game. Just felt bleh .

Understandable. But those days are behind you now, yes? (Says your current DM)

Other than that D6 yes lol

Yeah. But I let that thing slide anyway lol
So what are your honest impressions of 5e, anyway? Feel free to blast it to pieces of you'd like smile emoticon

It's not really that different to me from past things. I like the proficiency idea and the way spells slots work. But id like more skills even just double where there is now. And more player options. Like fighter has 3 types it can go into. And you cant do that till 3rd level.

When you say more skills, do you mean more skills to choose from, or more skills trained? I'm assuming the second one.

Bit of both. Even more secondary things. I like a player who takes something kinda goofy and makes use of it. Like fishing, farming, or blacksmith.

Gotcha. Well, Dram is planning on being the cook... Now, if not 5e, what would your preference be for our group's next game?

Tough call. Id like to see people in a super hero game because we talk a lot of comic stuff. But a anime style game could also be fun if we can keep keep certain people away from tentacles.

I couldn't agree more! Lol Dialing of super heroes, time for the required question of every interview: if you could have one super power...?

That is supposed to say talking, not dialing.

I have the cheating answer the power cosmic (cause im a big silver surfer fan). or Immortality.

Both good answers. If not a little OP...
Well, I think this is enough for the blog for now and I feel weird interviewing someone I already know, so that's a wrap! Thanks for your time smile emoticon

No worries. (More was said after this, but this is end of transcript)

And there you have it!

As for this past Sunday, many laughs and raspberry-lemonade cupcakes were had.
We spent the whole time we would have normally gamed with 5e playing "Runebound" by Fantasy Flight instead.
I may do some sort of review here in the next few days for those folks that haven't experienced it yet...
Anyway, everyone enjoyed themselves Sunday. And that's all a DM can ask for :)

As previously mentioned, this coming Sunday is a no-game day (it's my 7th wedding anniversary and I have schemes in motion).
So, next week's update(s) might be... another interview? A review? Who knows.

Until then, may the dice fall in your favor!

Lack of Update

Hello dear readers!

Sorry for the lack of any sort of update these past few days.
I haven't made any new posts but I have been working on updating/maintaining the homebrew items I've put up.
Particularly the 5e artificer, because it is the closest to being completely done.

Also, tomorrow is one of my player's birthdays.
But we have changed the plans slightly so that we aren't running the Praerus game.
Which means that I won't have an update on that front for about two weeks.
Instead, we plan to enjoy cake, friends, and Munchkin. And things of that nature.

I may get around to starting that interview project that I proposed a couple of weeks back.

Now, I have a question for you fine folks of the internet.
Subject is tabletop wargaming (Warhammer, WarmaHordes, etc.):

What is your number one problem with that particular hobby?

High prices on models?
Difficulty painting/modelling exactly the thing you want?
Problems with interfaction balance?
Problems with intrafaction balance?

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated :)
Until next time, may the dice fall in your favor.

My Spin on a 5e Artificer Class

Howdy, everyone!

I hope everyone enjoyed the 4th. I sure did, though several towns near mine had big fires due to absurdly dry weather in Washington these past few weeks.
I sure hope everyone is alright from those blazes.

Back to business...
My gaming group didn't end up gathering this past weekend. Which is a bit of a drag.

However, I did get a wild hair last night and decided to create something for folks to look over.

5e Artificer

As usual, this is a WIP. But it is mostly done up at the moment.
Created this in part because I don't quite like what WotC has done with the class, and because most of the other "fixes" I've seen aren't quite my style.
So, I just got some crazy inspiration last night and created this in about an hour's time at work this morning.

Please enjoy :)

As for the rest of the week, my group and I are hellbent on meeting, so we should have a new update soon.

Until then, may the dice fall in your favor!

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 6: Anal Beads of the Underdark

First, I'd like to apologize to anyone that this slightly-immature post title offends. My players wanted it this way, and it is strangely story related.
Secondly, I'd like to apologize to anyone that had to Google what anal beads are.

Now, to get on with the show!
Our players this week were Saito, Sabah, Trinity, and a-slew-of-NPCs-because-no-one-else-was-able-to-make-it.

-------------------

To begin, the party had just defeated the warforged and were taking a rest.
At the same time, Saito had recovered from being ill and asked the flumphs for directions to his allies. They were more than happy to oblige.

Saito arrived in the room that the spectator was guarding and did his damnedest to convince it to allow him to pass, but it wasn't having any.
Then Trinity showed up and tried to help, leading to both of them being locked out.
Thankfully, the rest of the party had finished patching their wounds and decided to exit the forge chamber.

Reunited at this point, the party decided to try to get more answers from the beholder about who arrived, when they left, and if they took anything. From this, the learned that:

• the intruder was a friend, yet not a friend, to Vecna
• they killed the second spectator that was down there (hence the gas spore)
• they had arrived about two zemf (14 days or so) ago
• they left with some warforged, one of which was exceptionally large

After that hullabaloo, the party decided to head back into the tunnels.

But not before Trinity gave the parting shot "Screw Vecna!" and flipped the beholder off.

It became irritated, but neither of its eye-beams affected her before they rounded the corner.

Lucky for her, the spectator had to guard that chamber.

Once again in the branching tunnels of this world's equivalent of the Underdark, the party decided to try the tunnel directly across from themselves.

Down that path, they discovered a chamber with a single stalactite.

Not wanting a repeat incident with darkmantles, Trinity threw an arm from one of the warforged at the thing.

And it broke.

Because sometimes a stalactite is just a stalactite.

It was at this point that Saito's ears started to bleed.

Hazmi, resident necromancer and medicine student, gave him a one over and recognized this as signs of an oncoming madness that tended to befall those that stayed underground too long.

Saito was slightly worried, but bandaged his ears and soldiered on.

With a little bit of snooping, the party found that there was a narrow tunnel in the back of this chamber. Everyone could fit, but they would have to crawl through.

Ever the brave one, Trinity decided to head in first.

Sabah was close behind.
Saito saw Hazmi's nose turn into a carrot.

Once Trinity finished the crawl, everything went black.

Because sometimes darkmantles ambush their prey.

To make matters worse, the thing used its darkness aura, leaving Sabah in the dark too.

Thankfully, they were able to alert Saito that something was wrong.

Thinking quickly, he secured a rope to himself and crawled the tunnel, his plan to drag the other two back with him.

Trinity successfully removed the darkmantle from her head, but was still in pitch blackness.
However, she lost dear Squidsy in the exchange. Truly tragic.

This is when the anal bead reference becomes relevant.

Sabah grabbed Trinity and Saito grabbed Sabah.

He then gave the signal to pull.

Sabah didn't duck in time and knocked herself silly, but Trinity was able to contort herself quickly for removal.

The whole effect... well... yeah.

Anyway, thus extricated, the party healed Sabah and began lobbing spells down the tunnel.

Eventually, the darkness aura stopped.

The thing was dead!

But no one, not even the vindictive Trinity, wanted to return down the tunnel.

Thus, they tried another branch from earlier.
It was around this time that Sabah noticed that everyone's faces appeared to be covered in bark, thanks to her traumatic head injury and the curse of the tunnels.
Saito also noticed that everyone's faces had become similar to those of anthropomorphic snow people. Carrot noses, coal eyes - the works.

This branch led them to an ancient chamber that appeared to be a place where the dead were prepared for burial. Several slabs still had bodies on them.

"Fool me once" thought Sabah, who used turn undead.

The three skeletons in the room failed their saves and went screaming from the room.

Now properly secured, the party searched the room.

Not much was found here, though they did discover two paths leading down, further into the darkness.

Also, Trinity replaced Squidsy with Baelzabone, a tiefling skull from one of the slabs.
And the madness of the underworld made it speak to her.

A collective "yeah, no" later and they were back in town.

We then engaged in down time activities for one week worth of time.

The goblins came to make peace with the village during that time, which was well received by all.

Sabah researched more about Vecna.

Saito researched more about the making of the warforged in the temple.

Trinity made some perfume and came out slightly ahead in selling them.
And then the caravan palace arrived...

And that concludes the first adventure for this campaign.

Pretty amusing overall.

At this point, I've given the players the option to start new characters if they so desire, or they can continue on with the same folk for the next part. So far, only Saito seems like he'll be out of the running, but we shall see.

Either way, we are advancing past 3rd level and we will pick back up at 4th level.

It is still in the air as to whether or not we will have our weekly meet-up on Sunday. It seems rather shaky, however, given that Saturday is the 4th.

On that note, I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day!

Until next time, may the dice fall in your favor :D

1000 Apologies

Hey everyone!

I promise that I'm not dead or anything.

I feel pretty bad about not making some progress on any of the homebrew material or the interviews that I said I'd start up.

So I offer an apology to any of my regular readers.

In lighter news, I have been working on several other projects, including:

• a new board game for my company (I own a game company)
• several different RPGs (both ones from my past and new ones)
• a webcomic idea that my wife and I will try to start up soon
• and several other things

But, I'm still sorry for not having updated anything on here in nearly a week.

Hopefully, after Sunday, I'll have at least something to put up here.

As it stands, we might not be doing the 5e campaign yet again. We might be down 3 people, and that would just be bad. But, the current adventure is nearly done, so we might just BS our way through it anyway :)

Until then, may the dice fall in your favor!

The Long-Awaited Pathfinder Homebrew

Hello dear readership!

Sorry to be slow to upload this, but better late than never, right?
For your perusal, as promised, I have some homebrewed material for Pathfinder that I've been sitting on for some time.

To begin here are:
Some Random Races.

This list includes:
tilli - a race of faeries you may-or-may-not have seen somewhere before...
gurao - a wolf-people from some stories I've written
xartyyl - hulking blue brutes from another dimension (I think I got the idea for them from a random generator)
yrsig - cruel fey that once enslaved the xartyyl
the betrayed - the undead descendants of a necromantic empire (a race of undead that are balanced for playing at 11RP!)
enderen - a race of spiritual parasites that cause mutation in their hosts
the Ulganish trio - three races that were engineered to excel at one particular role
terox - very powerful beings that were built to fight in apocalyptic battles (also, an exercise for me to see what the biggest race I could build was :D)
dormin - a race of half-ghosts (not complete, they were an exercise to see what the "cheapest" monstrous race I could build was)

None of the races are in a clear, readable format like you would find in a PHB or some such. Some of them are also missing some bits of lore or rules data. But, here they are just the same!

Next, a base class that I built to utilize what I felt were an untapped resource in the Pathfinder game: race points.

I present:
The Chimeric

The class is kind of like a mad scientist that develops mutations as they gain levels. Such are the risks of experimenting on oneself.
This has been looked over by folks at the Paizo boards, and got many good reviews. It just needs some actual testing now.

And that's all I have for the time being.

As a PSA, avoid spending money on Steam summer sales. They don't treat your wallet kindly.

No gaming on Sunday, which should allow me some time to work up some stuff for my players.

I think I might start up my series of player interviews this coming week.

Until then, may the dice fall in your favor :)

Where Have I Been?

Greetings, readers and wanderers!

Sorry for the lack of updates and other items. I've had a hectic few days :/

So, this last Sunday, my gaming group ended up meeting, but only about half of the players showed up. We spent some time playing Munchkin and having a generally good time (except for some of the ridiculous back-stabbing that happened - you know who you are).

I then looked into my upcoming schedule and noticed that the Sunday game would only be happening every-other-week for the foreseeable future.
Which is only a minor bummer.
To make up for that, I will be doing a feature where I interview my players about their experiences with 5e to fill in the blank weeks. So, expect that sometime soon.

Outside of actual gaming, I do still intend to get some of my Pathfinder homebrewed things up on the site. It's just taking me longer than expected.
Also, the primary reason that I haven't updated any of my 5e homebrew in some time (if anyone even noticed) is that I've been working on a random project that was inspired by something I saw on Facebook. Gaming related, and I'll share the fruits of that labor once I feel it is closer to completion.

Now, for a non-dice gaming topic: the new Smash Bros. DLC fighters.
Roy, Lucas, and Ryu.
Roy and Lucas, I feel, are just silly clones. And I'm tired of clones. There are subtle differences from Marth/Ike/Lucina and Ness, sure, but I didn't notice anything that was substantial enough for my liking.

Now Ryu... there's a bag of mixed feelings.
At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about bringing in a character from another franchise (I was cool with Snake, btw). But I dismissed it for the "cool factor" quickly enough.
When I took him into Training, I was having the hardest time actually getting any of his special moves to work.
So I'd dismissed him as garbage with clumsy design.
Then I read that you can use them with either the B or A buttons.
And now I need to try him again to see if he really is top-tier material for Sm4sh.

And that's my world in a nutshell.
Gaming is cancelled for this coming weekend, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully I can get some of my Pathfinder stuff up on the site for everyone soon.

HADOUKEN!
...
I mean, until then, may the dice fall in your favor.

A Short, Simple 5e Homebrew and "I Think I Broke 5e"

Hello readers!

So, to begin, I have one minor, simple homebrew project for 5th edition that crossed my mind the other day and I largely jammed out in about two hours.

Here you have it:
Tome of Magic

Includes the vestige otherworldly patron (features complete, working on vestiges), shadowcaster sorcerous origin (needs the most work), and truenamer arcane tradition (completed).

I may or may not expand on each of these as their own classes. I don't really feel like these classes need to be their own in 5e. But I might be convinced by a good argument :)

Now, on to the bit that people are probably most curious about:
How I broke 5e.

See, I've been scouring the internet to find anything that is genuinely "broken," and so far my searches have proven unfruitful.

Then I started reading my DMG.
And hit upon a genuine, RAW, "bork" powerhouse!

So, to do this thing, you need a rod of security and at least one copy of each of the tomes/manuals that improve your ability scores.
As written, the tomes/manuals will improve a score and its maximum by 2, without a secondary maximum indicated (such as "to a maximum of 26"). However, once you've read from a tome, it becomes non-magical for 100 years.
The rod creates a pocket dimension that you can dwell in for (200 / [number of occupants]) days. You do not age there.
So, it should be pretty obvious that this is pure cheese, but you could literally spend eternity in a pocket dimension, bumping your stats to over 30, and becoming even more powerful than the Tarrasque.
If you need even more aging reduction, learn how to make potions of longevity and/or be a high-level druid (or incarnate with my homebrew).
Thankfully, deities don't have stats at this point in 5e, so they can still (theoretically) squash you, but you can still overpower everything on the material plane single-handedly.

And that is how I broke 5e.

That is all I have for today's update. Later this week I will try to put up some stuff from my Pathfinder homebrewing days, just to show you all that I'm not a total 5e fanboy.
And because I still enjoy Pathfinder :)

So, until that time, may the dice fall in your favor.

Psionics 5e Conversion, Part 3

Finally!

I'm sure at least one of you has been waiting for the final piece to the puzzle.
So, here it is!

Psionic Character Options

This includes three new races:

• the bioengineered elan
• the subterranean dromite
• and the otherworldly synad

Also includes options for several classes, a pair of new feats, and may include some spells down the road.

As usual, this is a work in progress. I just felt like getting the rough draft on the site for your perusal. I was debating adding in another race or two, but these are the only three that really strike me. Maybe I could try to port over shardminds from 4e... or work on playable gith...

At any rate, no game on Sunday, so this will have to do to tide everyone over for now.

I do have a couple other homebrew projects for 5th edition D&D en route. Nothing too fancy.

So, dear readers, I have a question for you:

What would you like to see me homebrew next?

I don't have to stick to 5th edition D&D, it just happens to be where my current gaming is.

I could share some ideas I had for 3.X, or some other systems entirely.

Or I could post some of my own systems/creations. Most of them are REALLY ROUGH but some of them can be ran in their current iterations.

So, if you have any requests, just put them in the comments!

Until next we meet, may the dice fall in your favor :)