The Gaming Den

How likely is it for someone to play an awakened Badger Jester, Berzerker-Magus in your game?

Which oddly enough, I made possible when I wrote up the PrC, but soley b/c I knew that Badgers get Rage as a racial ability, and Jesters can use any weapon as a 'humor' ability. Not because I have any fondness for playing a mad badger. Really, I'd rather play a avian or feline over a badger. The badger-jester is more of a "can I shove the video-tape into the mail slot" sort of question.

Judging__Eagle wrote:How likely is it for someone to play an awakened Badger Jester, Berzerker-Magus in your game?

Which oddly enough, I made possible when I wrote up the PrC, but soley b/c I knew that Badgers get Rage as a racial ability, and Jesters can use any weapon as a 'humor' ability. Not because I have any fondness for playing a mad badger. Really, I'd rather play a avian or feline over a badger. The badger-jester is more of a "can I shove the video-tape into the mail slot" sort of question.

Sadly, not likely.

I had to do some explaining about the Frank and K design logic to two of them to sell them on the game. One went with it because he likes the simplified basic combat system, and the other was initially hesitant because he saw it as pure power gaming (particularly the scaling feats), but spent a day thinking about it in his off-time and decided that the scaling feats would actually allow non-casters to help keep up with the casters.

I've recommended they pick a class and stick with it. If they want to pick up some extra features, that's what TMs are for (Thank you, Koumei).

The one playing the Fighter has already expressed an interest in Poison Use, so I guess we'll try it out like that...

Maxus wrote:If they want to pick up some extra features, that's what TMs are for (Thank you, Koumei).

You're welcome!

Perhaps a level of Assassin might be recommended to the would-be poisoner?

Perhaps write up a Poison use feat that scales to Craft.

With that in mind, Craft could be re-worked the way that Perform got re-worked when Frank re-wrote the Bard.

Craft is like Speak Language, each rank gives you a new type of crafting that you can do or can learn if you feel so inclined.

At this point the types of crafting are now more specific, so blacksmith, goldsmith, jeweler, carpenter, sculptor, painter, etc.

Your total craft ranks are used when crafting anything.

I half-wrote a poisonmaker feat called 'frogs and mushrooms'. It was for survival based characters, but I'm sure you could come up with something that works.

Frogs and Mushrooms [Skill: Survival]

• You can spend 5 minutes and make a Survival check (modified by location) to gather and create 1d4 doses of a nonmagical poison with DC no greater than 10 + your Wis + 1/2 HD. The DC of the survival check is the DC of the poison. This poison remains potent for a day.
• Poison use (no risk of accidental self-poisoning). You become immune to one poison.
• You may harvest the venom of a creature (living or dead...or undead). This requires a Survival check (DC = poison DC). The poison remains potent for a week. You become immune to a second poison.
• Poison you use now has a minimum DC of 10 + your Wis + 1/2 HD. You become immune to a third poison.
• You can make a Survival check to combine any traits of two different poisons. The DC is equal to the sum of the DCs of the two poisons. You must have both poisons on hand, and you physically combine the two. You become immune to a fourth poison.

Well, looks like first session is going to be tomorrow. I've got to figure out a few encounters (they're in temperate forests, so I might throw some bugs at them aside from enemy soldiers.)

I will, of course, give a report here.

First session turned out to be all roleplaying with a few skill checks.

After seeing how eaqerly they entered character, I decided to sit back and let the players settle into the roles and let me see how they'd act. I picked up a fourth member who requested to be in the game.

I'll know better how it goes when I put them (and myself) up in combat.

Yeah, it's funny how supposed "Hack and Slash" games just 'somehow' have more RPing done than games run by "storyteller", I mean "fuckwad", GMs.

Just some puttering today...

One of the players is playing Knight 1 / Fighter 2, and is then going back to Knight.

His character is a spiky, extremely intimidating, tank. He's got very good AC for his level. As a personality, the character is the idea soldier--his whole life is centered around orders and battle, and he's already declared that he, personally, will consider another character his commanding officer.

So I talked with the player about what Knightly Order this guy will eventually take. He was thinking either Great Knight, or Imperial Knight. I'm looking at the list, and have a half-formed idea about some sort of Order of the Iron Mountain/Bloody Big Wall/Roadblock.

I'll tinker on it some.

Maxus wrote:Just some puttering today...

One of the players is playing Knight 1 / Fighter 2, and is then going back to Knight.

His character is a spiky, extremely intimidating, tank. He's got very good AC for his level. As a personality, the character is the idea soldier--his whole life is centered around orders and battle, and he's already declared that he, personally, will consider another character his commanding officer.

So I talked with the player about what Knightly Order this guy will eventually take. He was thinking either Great Knight, or Imperial Knight. I'm looking at the list, and have a half-formed idea about some sort of Order of the Iron Mountain/Bloody Big Wall/Roadblock.

I'll tinker on it some.

IIRC, the Knights of the Iron Glacier from It's Cold Outside were pretty cool (pardon the pun), if you could/would fit them.

Bigode wrote:

Maxus wrote:Just some puttering today...

One of the players is playing Knight 1 / Fighter 2, and is then going back to Knight.

His character is a spiky, extremely intimidating, tank. He's got very good AC for his level. As a personality, the character is the idea soldier--his whole life is centered around orders and battle, and he's already declared that he, personally, will consider another character his commanding officer.

So I talked with the player about what Knightly Order this guy will eventually take. He was thinking either Great Knight, or Imperial Knight. I'm looking at the list, and have a half-formed idea about some sort of Order of the Iron Mountain/Bloody Big Wall/Roadblock.

I'll tinker on it some.

IIRC, the Knights of the Iron Glacier from It's Cold Outside were pretty cool (pardon the pun), if you could/would fit them.

I'll take a look when I can (along about when I walk over to the neighbor's and ask for it back).

It may help, though--The character is a hyper-intimidating mountain of muscle. With my help, the player made up a War Hero background--thanks to an incident, the enemy is quite aware of his identity and has a healthy respect for his abilities, and he's a figure of inspiration to the normal troops on our side. So when he's in a fight aginst them, he gets a bonus to intimidate and an option to inflict a general morale penalty against the enemies, and when the occasion arises for the players to have their own mooks to do their bidding, the mooks get a morale bonus.

He wears a ton of armor, uses a tower shield, and, once he was persuaded to have taken off his helmet, was revealed to have a glass eye and a lot of scars--some fresh from his recent venture--and so on.

Matthias Garrison has a code of honor, which the player says could lead to him becoming a Paladin. But for right now, he's completely and totally dedicated to being a soldier, and has come out and said that his opinion on anything that isn't war doesn't matter, he's just a kind of thinking weapon--thinking, but still only meant to make people dead.

Player said alignment is LN.

So, yeah, either a hyper-defensive Knightly Order, or, if he's taken Paladin before he's reached Knight 10, something both holy-flavored and defensive.

Allrighty.

The Knight of the Iron Glacier has a couple of interesting abilities--the morale bonuses, mostly. Certainly interesting enough to warrant its own Knightly Order.

I'll see what the player's reaction is...

You know.... owning and using a Rime Hauberk and Ice Aegis might very well be pre-req's for an Iron Glacier.

Judging__Eagle wrote:You know.... owning and using a Rime Hauberk and Ice Aegis might very well be pre-req's for an Iron Glacier.

Prerequisites or perks?

Something like the Oni Samurai's Demon Armour ability?

Could work.

I was thinking something along the lines of "abilities that beef up those two items" instead of "you now count as having these two items."

Judging__Eagle wrote:I was thinking something along the lines of "abilities that beef up those two items" instead of "you now count as having these two items."

I was thinking along the lines of 'You now have these two items' instead of 'you now count as having these two items", but either one would work. The ice aegis is fucking badass, the best shield in the book (not including specialized builds).

I could totally see 'rime hauberk a la demon armor' as one ability, and 'ice aegis as a symbol of office' as another.

Well, the player didn't much care for the Ice Knight knightly order, but I like the idea, so....

Knight of the Iron Glacier
You're one cold motherfucker. In fact, you're so cold, any armor or clothing you wear gains the special properties of a Rime Hauberk and ices over, gaining an additional 3 AC at the price of 1 point of Armor Check and Armor Stealth penalty. The ice also lets you float in water.
You also get either a magic Ice Aegis, or a Freezing weapon (Book of Gears property) as a badge of office. You're also immune to cold, even if you're stripped naked and dumped out in the arctic.

Edit: How's that?

Not in additon.

That's bad.

Make them also be allowed to float in water. B/c they have ice on them, and ice floats. Yes it's bad science, but it's interesting and the drawing made me think of that.

Heh, cool; where's the picture from?

There are a lot of answers to that.

If you're familiar with the Soul Calibur series, that's Siegfried and Soul Calibur. That's right, the man who used to be Nightmare. That's him in Soul Calibur IV.

As for the picture itself, I got it from www.creativeuncut.com

The first combat session went well, although cirumstances forced me to cut the session at the end of it.

One of the players didn't make it to the session but fortunately, the character's personality gave me a graceful reason as to why he wouldn't be present at the moment.

Anyway. The dice went against the Samurai for most of the fight. The number "6" kept on popping up on attack rolls. It's not a good number.

On the other hand, he dropped two of the five enemies. The first, he got in an AoO, and the other, a level 2 Warrior with 16 or 17 HP, got Kiai'd for around 43 damage.

The other two characters teamed up and kicked some serious ass.

It went well. The players had fun, I had fun and learned a few things about Tome combat. I'm satisfied.

Due to scheduling conflicts, I haven't been able to run the game for a while. I'm going to run a quick solo adventure for one of the characters, to keep the game going.

In other DMing news, two people I know expressed interest in me running a solo game for each of them. One is interested in the Kantian Paladin, and the other is still thinking about what she'd like to play, although she admits a Drunken Master would be fun.

I'm thinking of letting the solo characters be able to keep a large section, if not all, of their skills maxed out to keep options opened, and to help a character be someone thing like self-sufficient, at least when it comes to climbing and jumping and the like.


Edit: Oh, I forgot.

The player interested in the Paladin was asking about Prestiging into Anointed Knight from Exalted Deeds. I don't have Exalted Deeds, but he gave me a summary of the abilities/theme of it, and mentioned he loves the idea of a sentient weapon. I aim to please, but I'm leery of him actually taking the class.

It seems to me gaining abilities/buffs by slathering yourself with holy oil seems like it could be a Ritual, which you earn the right to undergo by completing services for your church and dedicating magic items to the patron deity and so on.

Does anyone have any thoughts about how this can go? I can see it self-writing adventures ("Sir Gered, to prepare this oil, we need powdered mithral and the living flower of the ElfBlood plant. Which we don't have.")

And if he wants to make a sentient sword...well, that can be arranged.

Maxus, I don't know about that particular prc from boed but when I looked at VOP from boed for one of my friends when he was virgileso's one-shot tome game as he was going to be playing a monk, it came up to be underpowered even at the mid-levels.

boed really doesn't do much justice in the Tome-world.

Just look at the flavour and abilites.

You want a sentient weapon? Ok, it's a PHB Sorcerer of your lvl -2. It gets its own actions on your initiave position.

I know the BoED is all sorts of crazy crap, but from the sound of it, the Anointed Knight can be duplicated with rituals and items and maybe the Craft (Alchemy) skill.

This might be a good game in which to use some Exploits, so, offhand, I'm doing this:

If it's acquired in game, by roleplaying (possibly with a couple of dice rolls involved), it's an exploit. Just like what's said in the Races of War.

So after some training with a wizard and a brewer, he can pick up the Brew Potion exploit (similar to the feat), which, for him, will be mostly concerned with brewing oils to smear on his weapons and armor for temporary enhancements/buffs, and the much more complex brews for his anointing rituals.