Friendship is Dragons
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Page 749 - Rings of Icarus
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Hmm, it seems Rainbow Dash does know a thing or two about how important Health and Safety really is. Especially for a barbarian.
Skill bonus-fishing can be pretty annoying when players are just trying to find every dang little excuse to squeeze a +1 out of. So when a PC finds a legit idea that is worthy of a bonus, that's when I get generous.
On the flip side, I can be pretty good at bonus-fishing. Like the time I gave the party a big bonus to break into MIT because The Great and Powerful Trixie was doing a stage show outside as a distraction, and there was nothing more distracting than a blue unicorn in a large purple hat n cape setting off magical fireworks and illusions in front of a science building. XD
...upon digging through a few surviving notes from the campaign, the reason the team broke into MIT was to research information on a professor who was kidnapped. It was the Dean of Occult Studies. Which... we didn't know there WAS one at MIT.
The humor of this missing professor having an office in the science building was not lost on us, but that feeling was quickly replaced by dread as we learned the missing professor was researching demonic summoning rituals.
Funny that the team happened to have a unicorn skilled in magic to decipher some of the professor's notes...
First off: Seriously, you need to write up your adventures in that campaign.
Second: I'd love it if a professor at some university somewhere (probably a theology proff or one who specializes in folklore and mythology) managed to wrangle an official title of 'Dean of Occult Studies'- especially if they had an office in a science or engineering building.
Second: I'd love it if a professor at some university somewhere (probably a theology proff or one who specializes in folklore and mythology) managed to wrangle an official title of 'Dean of Occult Studies'- especially if they had an office in a science or engineering building.
Anyway, let me know when you've gotten around to writing that up. I could always use another story to read during my down time at work.
How about two certain musicians having an over the top one man band musical battle to get a little girl to give them her one coin instead of the other one?
Bonus points to whoever knows what short I'm referencing.
Bonus points to whoever knows what short I'm referencing.
When you know something is going to get you banned or in trouble, you may as well press on and keep doing it to get the most enjoyment out of it.
On second thought, this is a terrible idea and you should be ashamed of yourself if you actually follow it.
On second thought, this is a terrible idea and you should be ashamed of yourself if you actually follow it.
Actually, I think all barbarians would take their health very seriously. After all, they do get a d12 hit die.
Yeah. Their bodies are what they have, just like a paladin takes care of armor and weapon (and steed, if there is one).
...now I am picturing a rampaging barbarian tribe of doctors, with flu masks and white trenchcoats over blue-to-cyan coveralls their traditional in-the-field garb, bringing health and sanitation to the unwashed city-dwelling masses. Since they leave survivors (healthier than before) but plunder treasuries, more than once their mere arrival has prompted a citizen revolt to open the gates and let them in. Wise kings know they can not hope to stand against the tribe; at best, they can assimilate.
...now I am picturing a rampaging barbarian tribe of doctors, with flu masks and white trenchcoats over blue-to-cyan coveralls their traditional in-the-field garb, bringing health and sanitation to the unwashed city-dwelling masses. Since they leave survivors (healthier than before) but plunder treasuries, more than once their mere arrival has prompted a citizen revolt to open the gates and let them in. Wise kings know they can not hope to stand against the tribe; at best, they can assimilate.
Behold, the sanitary techniques passed down through the Armstrong Tribe for GENERATIONS!
And they were known for 'weird' levels of hygiene.
So, yeah, it does seem like there's a precedence for barbarians being more well-groomed and general in better hygiene than the 'civilized' people who live in their own filth (because moving the filth out of a large city, pre indoors plumbing, was a nuisance not all cities bothered with)
Bah, Jon Snow knows nothing.
(Yeah, i know, different person, just a joke)
(Yeah, i know, different person, just a joke)
Actually, early on that was part of the problem... people thought he knew nothing and didn't agree with epidemiology.
1) Brilliant.
2) I feel obliged to make a horrible, horrible ethnic cleansing pun here, but I'm not that comically bankrupt.
I was watching Critical Role last night - just getting into it, I'm on the third episode - and there was that whole deal where Grog was brain-dead after an attack by an intellect devourer, and they had to find a cure... stuff like that never happens in 4E. After an encounter, everybody's pretty much AOK and ready to go hack and slash some more. It's really exhausting having to *invent* non-combat stuff for 4E... I'd love to switch to 5E or Pathfinder or 13th Age, but I've devoted so much time to mastering the 4th Edition rules and mythology that changing systems now would just prove that the whole thing was a heartbreaking waste of time... so FID here serves as a good reminder that 4E can be just as immersive as any other system with the right amount of imagination.
Opening with the negative this time, so I can move on and say that the new rebooted campaign is just... amazing. It's so wonderful. We play every Saturday for three hours or so, and the roleplaying is just so evocative and beautiful, it really inspires me to new heights. A major DM problem is the separation of in-character and out-of-character... my players spend so much time in-character that I feel like I'm really there. I feel like I'm the luckiest DM in the world.
Of course, I'm terrified of what'll happen next. We've only had one combat encounter, I'm absolutely terrified that the next one will just screw everything up. And I know I need to make the story character-driven instead of event-driven, and provide foils for the characters, and implement inventions of the players into future stories, but... I have no idea how I'm supposed to do that. I mentioned the right amount of imagination, but... I have no imagination.
...Huh, that turned around and got negative again. Well, what do you expect, it's me. But... yeah, that sums it up, it's fantastic and wonderful, but I'm scared. I don't know how to take the amazing stuff I've gotten and turn it into a good story, or even a story that's about the heroes instead of the things I throw at them.
If not another edition of DnD, then at least getting familiar with some other modern system.
Being reliant on a specific edition of DnD, ANY edition, is going to harshly limit the kind of campaigns you can run.
EDIT: Besides, there's a lot of rules that can be home-brewed into DnD. Or just taken into your GMing style ('Let it ride' from Burning Wheel, for example)
I totally agree on that. While I'm mainly focused on DnD 3.PF and Shadowrun, I have a solid grounding in a few games (Anima, Fate Core, L5R, DnD 5) and basic knowledge of many other (Ars Magica, GURPS, Zir'An...). It is really beneficial, and you can make use of tips or tools presented by other systems.
A sidenote concerning homebrew : while people often see homebrew as a way to change the game, it can also be a way to supplement the game where it is weak or nonexistent. For example, the Fate Fractal can be used by any GM to represent buildings or cities as a whole, which most systems don't. Even if the players don't see that, having City sheets with a few aspects may helps a lot the GM to keep the current setting in mind.
A sidenote concerning homebrew : while people often see homebrew as a way to change the game, it can also be a way to supplement the game where it is weak or nonexistent. For example, the Fate Fractal can be used by any GM to represent buildings or cities as a whole, which most systems don't. Even if the players don't see that, having City sheets with a few aspects may helps a lot the GM to keep the current setting in mind.
I'm shamelessly sharing this here because it's relevant: My friends are building their own TTRPG called Avant Core. It's not ready to be released yet but they're getting close. Avant Core is a flexible, logic-based system. You can read more about it on their website and Facebook, both of which can be found here: http://avantcoregames.wix.com/home
Ooooh welcome to the "herd" as it were Mad Moves. Critical Role is fantastic show, and it makes me happy to see more people enjoying it. I will say that you are in for a loooong haul if you wish to get caught up. If I'm to assume correctly they're currently on their third major story arc. The first being their trip through the underdark, the second dealing with the city of white stone, and the current arc where they deal with the chroma conclave. They just passed their episode 50 mark not too long ago, but it's been a blast all the way through. In any case I'm rambling, assuming you have to catch up another 50 episodes, and also assuming that each episode is about 3 hours long (and trust me, some go up to 5 for the really intense ones) you have about another 6 and 1/4 days worth of show time to catch up, or 150 hours worth of show to watch. But again I gotta say, it was worth it. The show is phenomenal.
Brief follow-up question: I've quartered the amount of XP that monsters (but not quests) are worth so as to make the story arcs last longer. Thoughts?
Oh, absolutely, thank you for the welcome. I'm sure I'll be breezing through the show, can't get enough. I was like "Voice actors playing D&D? That must be the single nerdiest thing in the world!" And that was just the tip of the iceberg. In the Q&A at the end of I think it was the fourth episode... they referenced Baldur's Gate, Tenacious D, and Gargoyles in that Q&A alone. It was like, my gosh, these my people. :D
Yeah, I sometimes wonder how do they all come up with those.
Hey there! I was curious: why would it be weird for Pinkie Pie to not be trained in Heal? It's not a Skill typically associated with Bards.
Could you imagine anyone healed by Pinkie? They'd find themselves wrapped in wax paper bandages, and liberally sprinkled with confetti, cookie dough, and icing sugar.
That look on Rainbow's face...
May god have mercy on the Dm's eardrums.
May god have mercy on the Dm's eardrums.
Thankfully, there is a medicine for one of them. Sadly it's not the loud one.
Right about now will be where I enter crunch time for the revival of a special project. Here's hoping I make my deadline on this attempt.