Friendship is Dragons
Updates Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays
Page 108 - Grand Line, Part 8
Author Notes:
I've got a few guest comics lined up now, but there's still room for more. Send your ideas to spud@spudlink.net and I'll work with you. The only requirement is that the final image width is within 800 pixels (and that it fits the theme of Friendship is Dragons, of course).
That is all.
Seriously, though, these guys are trying the GM's patience. I wonder if people have stories about that?
Also, I'm first? Wow. How'd that happen?
Ape with a lazor pistol.
Infant berzerker.
Irish ninja doctor.
Italian plumber monk/sorceror.
Minotaur bard. "I've got a fever! And the only perscription, is more COWBELL!"
Shaq-Fu monk.
Batman wielding nunchucks made of sharks.
One-man-band bard.
Robocop on a unicorn.
Deadpool. Just Deadpool.
Anything from Dwarf Fortress.
Warforged Artificer. "Robots making robots!? What is this madness!?"
And my crowning achievement in the subject...
We were getting ready to play a pokemon game of all things. I was having trouble thinking of what pokemon to play, so I spoke with the DM. He sugested doing what the others were doing, picking a character from TV or comics or whatever and picking a pokemon that reminded me of them. He also told me the team didn't have a medic.
And then it hit me. I made my character. Then, when we showed them to each other I had to REmake it because the DM managed to tell me no once he had managed to stop cracking up.
My idea? I had to play a pokemon that reminded me of a doctor.
Wynaut Zoidberg?
Well, Dr McNinja is OP.
(LOL irish joke)
Except with Deadpool. And Robocop on a unicorn. And Batman with nunchucks made of sharks. And Dwarf Fortress. And the one-man-band bard. And the Shaq-fu monk. And MAYBE the infant berzerker, but I really did have a plan for that one.
Aside from that everything on my list was totally me actually trying to make a genuine character.
Oh, and Wynaut Zoidberg I guess. A little.
But everything else I was TOTALLY taking seriously!
Well, maybe the minotaur bard, but that was only because my troll bard who used clubs as drumsticks and enemy character's heads as drums was already declined.
Everything else, TOTALLY legit. I swear.
At level 2.
....
Oh you beautiful magnificent bastard. :-D
.....in a space RPG game that I'm developing, there is a crustacean race. For the purpose of alpha testing, I made a character the others asked for so we could have a good size party. They asked for a Crustacean Medic. He was named Zoibert.
I had the idea for a half-sand giant halfling monk with gigantism and the compensating for something flaw, which allowed him to be huge size, wield colossal sized weapons, and when using a stretcher, allowed him to carry somewhere in the vicinity of 30 tons. Oh, and at this point, he was too big to enter dungeons and most buildings, seeing as how he was 35' tall, and weighed over 2500 lbs. His halfling heritage would be his huge bonuses to thrown weapons. He'd specialize in grappling, which meant that he'd basically make a roll to see if he managed to grab the target, and then he'd wield them as weapons or throw them with precision accuracy.
I created him purely to show that yes, I can minmax for combat, and yes, I can do it very well for not having ever found a group. It turns out that I am not, in fact, allowed to have any character that can literally carry off the evil castle to sell it in town.
I also created a pixie rogue with dwarfism, and some other size reducing flaw, that basically made her the size of a housefly, who had such a massive bonus to sneak and thiefy skills, it would blow your mind.
Also, creating Deadpool is just plain cheating. I would create wizard Deadpool. That would be way more fun! Can you imagine all the horrible uses for prestidigitation and mage hand? Heck, off the top of my head, I can think of dozens of ways to horribly abuse dancing lights alone. And none of them would be remotely feasible with a sane character.
edit: I was looking through my character concepts folder, and found that the character is actually a jungle giant, and the half-halfling template is actually unimportant, unless you really need another +1 to thrown weapons. +10 Str, +18 Dex(important)
His traits are Gigantism, which increases his size by by one category, and Compensating For Something, which grants him the ability to wield a weapon one size category larger, but gives him -5 charisma penalties, -10 penalties to seduction, and reduces his man tackle by the equivalent of one size category. In addition, the character has the feat Gigantic Weapon, which lets him wield weapons one size category larger than normal, without the penalty.
The final total is that he is a huge-sized creature with high strength and dexterity, who can wield colossal weapons, but instead prefers to grapple or use throwing weapons. Grapple in this case means picking the enemy orc up and wielding it. A fun character to play around with.
drmcninja.com
Enjoy the McDonalds Super Mime, the robot Draculas, and the velociraptor riding banditos.
I was joking to the DM that I wanted to be a Unicorn Pony Wizard, showing him the Ponyfinder page for Unicorns, he initially did not like the idea and I personally was already busy building a more normal character. When I came back for the actual character creation the whole group was so excited about a Unicorn Wizard that I had to oblige. None of us is regretting it as of yet.
Although, admittedly, I haven't been looking very hard...but, oh well...
I consistently play well thought out characters that acknowledge their team mates goals, and are fairly altruisitic. Even my Evil PCs are still team players.
And yet somehow I also consistently manage to cause problems as well. Kind of hard to place what exactly that is.
For what it's worth by this point, after all these characters had been rejected, I'd stop and ask myself if I really want to play in a game without earth ponies with the half unicorn and half pegasus, or sapient excuses for puns, or master barbers of death. A lack of those things probably is better for *me*. But not sure about these guys. There's something to be said for understanding the level of the game, which the grand line 3.5 crew seems to not.
Although upon further reflection? I can't say I blame them. The campaign just has been blasted to pieces. The DM doesn't know what it is any more either! In that context what this group is doing seems less aggravating. Yeah they aren't getting the hint that they don't want munchkins in the group, but how would they know what they could play?
Communication!
Ban goblins and commoners in your 3E game on Tuesday morning and you'll have four goblin commoners submitted for play before sunset.
No Warforged Fighters?
I just have no interest in such campaigns.
Deny it all you want. Just remember what books Johnny 5 retained for further review.
- Mechanical servants built by Hephaestus, Ancient Greece
- Golems made of clay, Jewish
- "Clay Giants", Norse legend
- Galatea, carved by Pygmalion and given life by Aphrodite, Ancient Greece (again)
- Talos, a giant man of bronze who protected Europa in Crete, Ancient Greece (yet again)
And that's just a handful of the deliberately-created "living constructs". Sometimes, an object may come to life on its own, like the Tsukumogami or Japanese myth, which are household items that come to life 100 years after their creation.
But the point is, there are plenty of non-sci-fi "robots" from before Pinocchio, and as such calling the warforged "puppets" just because of that one story is a little closed-minded. If the guys who put them in the game intended them to be living puppets, then they'd probably be more similar to Pinoccio, both in backstory AND appearance: after all, considering that metal and stone play a greater part in their construction than wood, warforged could just as easily be called "living statues", or even "living mannequins". In fact, those descriptions might be a little more accurate, since I have yet to see a warforged with a) strings, or b) a place to stick your hand. Plus, they're Medium-sized, built BY Medium-sized creatures. Besides, warforged don't even have noses...
Then again, that's not to say that living puppets are a BAD thing. Anyone see the episode of "Angel" called "Smile Time"? Ah, good times...
And of course, though their puppet-status is debatable, feel free to hate warforged all you like. We all have our Race and/or class peeves; for instance, I'm kind of bugged by Shifters. It's just that some of us can be a bit touchy about inaccurate descriptors. If you're interested in some different slurs, I might suggest:
- "Magic Robot"
- "Emo Golem"
- "Goddamned Walking Dressmaker's Dummies"
And so on.
Then again, those of us concerned with accuracy will probably also sympathize with you in some respect. Warforged in Dark Sun? Not good if they're not SUPPOSED to be there, especially if the players keep trying to go behind your back after you say "No".
Me: "Hello, I need to purchase a cloak."
NPC: "Sure, what color would you like?"
Me: "What colors am I allowed to chose?"
NPC: "Um, any of them."
Me: "..........I am sorry I don't understand. What colors may I chose from?"
NPC: "Any of the ones on display."
My character just stood there, dumbfounded by this simple idea untill the party's ranger came over and told me to buy the yellow one, which I then did.
NPC: "I don't see why they decided to let you things go free."
ME: "Neither do I. I often wonder what we did to met such a horrible punishment."
So yeah, not only does he not get the whole 'freedom' deal or understand how to really make choices, he doesn't want to be free. He was raised believing he was a tool, he fought believing he was a tool, and then years later was told he wasn't a tool now go out into the world without war and live on your own. Such a radical 180 shift in world view is not just disorienting, it's downright terrifying.
Another player with a Warforged joined in later, and she played the typical "Oh woe is me, I am a person yet they treat me like a weapon" sad sack. She found my character annoying (in and out of character)whereas I found her character cliche and my own Warforged found hers to be "frighteningly defective".
I.E. Nordom from Planescape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inevitable_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)
Although, there was this one campaign where we were a little too lax and ended with two werewolf PCs running around with the rest of the party (in a setting where werewolves were not common).
We didn't know about racial lvl adjustments at that point either (we were knew to RPGs and it was 3.5).
Well, come to find out, werewolves in this setting had a lvl adjustment of +5. While everyone else was running around at Lvl 2, the werewolves were being counted as Lvl 7 characters!
No wonder they were murdering everything the GM threw at us!
After a while, it got so bad that the GM had to step in with a nerf bat. He actually cursed the werewolves with some debilitating magic that weakened them severely - just so the rest of the party could feel like they were contributing.
Before anyone claims you can't have too much awesome, let me give you an example:
Making out with your sweetheart on a sunny day can be pretty awesome.
A game of touch football with your best buddies can also be pretty awesome.
Trying to mix both of these things onto the same field is not awesome at all.
Always prioritize your awesomeness.
one of particular interest was the one in witch two players were building their charters to play of each other. the first was a half ork that specialized in throwing weapons. the second was a gnome rouge with a really sharp pointy helmet...
see where this is going? if you can;t guess their envisioned attack combo I'll spill the beans but I bet your imaginations are powerful enough to come up with some pretty funny scenarios
I am lucky enough to have had a certain character shot down by a fairly open-minded DM. He had two character sheets due to a backstory situation. The first was a pretty basic human fighter, nothing special. Once his magical ring is destroyed though, his soul is unsealed and he goes full epic Fire Demon (think Ignan/Infernal mix with Celestial sprinkles in a human body). In keeping with the game rules, I only gave him powers that match up to powers and spells in the book, AND i gave him a pretty decent sized flaw: Allergic to Water. Using Pokemon logic, if he gets varying degrees of wet or submerged, he subsequently gets varying degrees of weakened, injured and dead. I thought it was a pretty good balance, relative god-level character able to be killed by a fire hose, and even the basic fighter form shared the flaw (to a lesser extent).
And now that I think about it, the primary reason he got shut down wasn't that he was stupid overpowered. The DM wanted to run a lower level campaign (we just ran one that started us at level 12), and I had rolled him out at level 16 just to get all of the feats and skills about right. That and he didn't think we'd be spending enough time near large bodies of water to make the flaw viable.
Interesting side note: The character just so happens to be a certain OC Fleet Commander in a certain Armada.
It was all because this guy's brother just barged his way into MY campaign (I wasn't the DM, but I was the one who decided to host a campaign, got the group together, got the DM, arranged a time, etc. I put a lot of work into making this happen.), started playing his brother's Druid, and made him into a complete moron.
He was carrying around a chair and using it as a weapon, and acting more like a barbarian than a druid. (i.e. not casting spells, just running around hitting things.)
Just as we got to the boss room, his reaction is (verbatim, might I add) "I kick in the door and attack the first thing I see." We didn't let him do it, but the ensuing argument over why it was a bad thing to just do the first thing that pops into your head in a TTRPG made the DM quit on us.
Then we got a new DM, switched to Pathfinder, and kicked him and his brother out of the party, and have been having a kickass campaign since.
It's a level 5 Pathfinder campaign, and our starting characters were limited in that they had to have a legitimate reason to attend the prince's coronation ceremony, since the king was dying. I wanted to be a plain fighter for once -- I've almost always gone rogue or arcane caster -- so we decided I was captain of the Tenth Legion, the segment of the King's Legions formed of all the soldiers whose houses were thrown into dishonor for whatever reason.
I named him John D. Moriarty of the House of Cambridge. His friends call him Jack, and his subordinates simply call him "Hammer." I instituted a flaw that basically made him a.) an alcoholic
and b.) have to pass a will save whenever he sees an adult female humanoid who isn't directly hostile.
In exchange, I get pretty hefty bonuses on my diplomacy check to seduce her. I'm not allowed to use it to further the quest, gain information, or anything like that. Just to get laid.
I am debating on what to name it. It's a tossup between "Captain Hammer Syndrome" and "Anything with Legs."
Also, +10 points if anyone can tell me all 6 references I made with his name.
And possibly a reference to Dragon Age's Legion of the Dead, the brigade of dishonored dwarves who find glory and redemption in a glorious fighting death.
OH! does the D. stand for Dorian? As in John Dorian, or JD from Scrubs? I think that's a solid point to me.
7. 7 references. That one wasn't even intentional.
The 6 I had were:
Captain Jack (x2)
Captain Hammer
Moriarty, of Cambridge.
D. from One Piece.
... I guess I miscounted. There were 5.
and now there are 6.
For example, if you sift through enough sources, this sentence will have an infinite number of references. Huzzah, the confusion has been doubled!
" -- so we decided I was captain of the Tenth Legion,"
1. Captain Hammer from Dr. Horrible
2, 3. Captain Jack from PotC
4. Moriarty, from Sherlock Holmes
5. D, from One Piece
6. Anything with Legs probably references Jack Harkness
I'm sorry, I can't find any more.
We were drawing with crayons. After a few minutes I realized we were both drawing the same thing... Twilight Sparkle. Apparantly Twilight is this little girl's favorite character.
I had forgotten the target age of this TV Show.
Wow.
Why'd he get banned anyway? He didn't even describe him. Does the Doctor exist in the player-verse?
Also, the Pinkie Pie's face in the 2nd panel is pure win.
The situation is merely that he made a character which used some magic item to enhance his speed, but which took the "big eater" flaw to afford it, probably far before his level (which indicate that either the houseruled flaw-system works differently from 3.5, where they just give feats, or he don't actually understand the 3.5 flaw system).
Said character happened to look like Doctor Whooves with wings.
Or it might've just been kinda... dumb.
He probably got banned because he was brokenly fast or had other things we weren't told about that were just NO worthy. This has, again, nothing to do with the Doctor.
Yes, Pinkie is the adorable.
This was a group that I only played with a couple of times over the summer years ago before I found a group more to my tastes. They were all rules-lawyer power-gamers with no concept of good role-playing. I wasn't sure how the DM put up with it, until later.
In the last session I played with the group, I was getting pretty frustrated. I was playing a Dwarven Paladin and quite frankly I was fed up with my party's unsustainable behavior. We were in the main city and split up; I went to get supplies and the others went off to do well frankly stupid stuff like robbery, intimidation, and just randomly killing people. So while I was going along I came across a figure in a black hood and cloak attacking a man in an ally.
Me: I rush in and attack the cloaked figure.
DM: Um, you sure about that?
Me: Why, does he look like a guard?
DM: *in a suggestive voice* Well no, but he looks a lot tougher than the rich guy on the ground.
Me: So it's a robbery then? I definitely attack the cloaked figure now.
DM:*concerned* Are you sure you want to attack the big strong guy, and not the helpless old man?
Me: Well that changes things, I don't attack the cloaked figure.
DM: *smiling* As the figure slowly closes in...
ME: I charge and Smite Evil on that bastard! Only an evil person would attack a helpless old man! Charge!
DM: What!?
Me:He was going slow so I definitely have time to attack.
DM: ...fine roll your attack.
Me: *rolls a confirmed crit with great-ax* Let's see, three times my level is 21, three times my strength bonus is 12, and three times the dice roll of *rolls* 12 is 36. So that is a total of 69 damage.
At this point the DM ended the session because he had no idea what to do. See, I wasn't supposed to act like a paladin and slay the evil assassin before he could kill the poor old merchant, I was supposed to help in the killing, getting the party membership into the assassins guild.
ME: What?! That's completely out of character for my guy, not to mention morally repugnant!
DM: *confused as all heck*...so?
So yeah, the reason the group seems to be nothing but power-gaming rules lawyers is because the DM encouraged and actually actively rewarded that behavior because it was so easy to plan for. It also explained why our plots were so shallow and repetitive.
So yeah, I never again played with the DM who expected the PC paladin to side with the evil assassin in killing a helpless old man.
So, to get the party together, he has me getting really drunk and then staggering outside (in the bad part of town) to see a noble standing around looking confused. "She looks like she's in the wrong part of town and has no idea what to do here."
...so I tried to rob her. It turned out she was one of the other PCs. Oops.
I also really like morally conflicting parties that don't stay together out of neccesity, but out of mutual understanding. The Paladin despises the warlock, but he understands WHY he went down that road. There's not immediate need to stop him. Hell, the two could even be friends based on their humor or personalities!
"My father lies dead on the floor!"
"Well, he's out, then."
Or...
"Hey, look, that guy is possessed.I should probably kill him and stuff, but he's fighting werewolves, so meh, I can sit on my arse and have a few drinks, and finish off whoever's left."
Now, that works in most games, but in a Star Wars game, you'll have people who want to fly fighters, or own their own ships. The regular group actively discouraged that, to encourage party unity. And it wasn't exactly what I wanted from a Star Wars game. So I thought this other group would be fun to game with.
They were all playing bounty hunters or mercenary scum. I built a similar bounty hunter, with a skills and tech for space-sealed power suits, grenades, and heavy guns.
We were in a hostage situation on an asteroid, the mission to extract a wanted murderer who had gone pirate. We infiltrated the base, grabbed the pirate, and wound up in the middle of a 15-person standoff, with a gun screwed to the pirate's temple.
On my move, I asked the GM what all our people were wearing. I was told they all had custom battlesuits, and were all space sealed. Okay, I said. Then I asked what the target was wearing. Because we wanted to reduce his threat level, we'd forced him into a space suit so he'd be unable to pull random weapons on us. Okay, I said. I asked if the pirates were wearing spacesuits, and the GM sort of "looked" at me and said no.
Then I pulled out a thermal detonator with a sticky shell, and threw it at the overhead skylight. The ceiling blew out, venting everyone in the room into space. We used a combination of grapnel guns and rocket packs to get back to our ships while the pirates drifted into the black.
I think I shocked the players with my ruthlessness, because they didn't invite me back. I'm really not sure what they were expecting, the solution seemed to be the most sensible at the time... :P
DM: Well I guess that is fine, just let me look at your character sheet to make sure that you didn't miss anything....Wait, why does your background information say time lord? And how does the flaw: hate pears justify the feat: immortality?
Luke: I was hoping you didn't catch that.
AJ: How in blazes did you manage to afford that?
I took "Spamming facts", "comfort object", "incredibly loyal", "merciful", "magical mania", "daredevil", "thinks aloud", "technophilia"....
AJ: ...Are you a masochist of some sort?
Cory: ...No, the GM we played with banned him from taking that particular flaw ever again.
As annoying as it can be to get character concepts denied I mostly feel that they've been justified. I just can't help my desire to play as weird things like pixies, demons, harpies, lizardmen, giants, etc in any game system. You know you want to too.
Me? I want to try playing a Beholder.
Who's a monk.
Or would it use nunchucks via eye-stalk or telepathy?
The training montage must have been amusing in any case.
I can see it now: A beholder with a 2 meter long beard and huge eyebrows, forcing another beholder to polish his dojo floors.
The other was an Animate Gold Piece monk. He would do things like sit very still in the pocket of another player's character, and wait for somebody to pickpocket him. Then, once he had been slipped into their pocket, "BAM! Sneek Attack!" He also hated the concept of material wealth, and took it upon himself to destroy every other coin he ever came across. Since he got a little bit of quest xp each time he did this for his self given quest to rid the world of coins, he was nicknamed "The Goldlander."
We can agree though that Pinkie Pie is best owl.
hoooooooot
Speaking of which, owlicious would totally work as a were-owlbear. Or a owl were-bear.