Oh well, it went a lot easier than expected!
The physical move to my new Fortress of Crunch has been successful. Not perfect, but successful.
I will pull the plug on this here blog-iteration soon. I would appreciate you saunter on to my new HQ.... just be careful not to bump in Ogre Laborers while visiting the place.
Thanks for reading, this move to swankier quarters would not have happened if it wasn't for the interest you guys have shown.
I will eventually redirect links to here to the new place.
Peace out...
P.S. I posted Sunday Night's post at the new place... you can find it here.
(ChattyDM sighs and closes the light...)
November 10, 2007
Eviction Notice
The (annotated) case reports of Agent James (Kevin) Smith: Introduction
Decrypted from a junk post on alt.conspiracy.inconnu on November 8, 2007. Author: woKened_up_S75.
It's so easy to steal copies of classified reports when you happen to be the one who wrote them... well at least, technically speaking I did.
I finally made the classes and am just one day shy of being a fully licensed Intrusion Detection Agency agent (IDA for all those Cold-War nostalgics ). Yup, I in now. I actually get a paycheck from the Department of Homeland security... How's that for irony?
Keeping a low profile has been hard. I'm surrounded by so many idiots who still refuse to see things as they truly are that I often think about shooting them as a service. They even hired some of THEM, the very ones we few Awakened were put on this good earth to fight!
Sometimes when I hear James being all polite and comprehensive with those other IDA dweebs, especially the non-human ones , I have to spend inhuman (HA!) efforts to stay hidden and bide my time! Still, I must stay calm and see what is their game in all this... Are they double agents working for the Inconnu? Or are they truly "people" with enough remaining humanity to honestly want to fight the Inconnu to be freed of possession?
Don't even get me started on Mages and Demons... What is this, Dungeons and Dragons? They should all be lined up and shot before they come and bite a chunk out of our collective asses.
Anyway, I'm just posting this as a little primer for what I got cooking for you: Front row seats to the inner workings of Big Brother himself and his "conflict" against the "Inner Enemy"... It's an alien invasion you tax-money burning morons! Even James had this one right all those years ago... and look what's happened to him last year... Poor old James, what a naive, broken-up schmuck. He's lucky I'm around because he'd have been either a Vampire's Bitch or some trophy on a Werewolf's Necklace. How I hate these bastards
But I digress,... I have to go ... James will "wake up" soon and I don't want him to suspect anything... yet. I'm like his very own Big Brother now (double HA!) , looming over his shoulder, looking out for both of us.
What I meant to say was that I shall forward you our case report notes, using our newly implemented bio-encryption algorithm. While they'll be written in James' usual dry and, frankly, quite boring, style, I'll pepper it with any juicy bits (both literal and figurative) and insight my dear alter ego might have missed... fortunately, I gathered most of the marbles he lost...
Tomorrow is our last training mission. After that we'll be allowed to go out into the world without training wheels. We're luckier than most other agents since my teammates, Dunkin (Furry), Brooks (Sucky) and William (Awakened, barely) might actually turn out to be competent...
Don't worry dear James, I'll see you through this, when in doubt, just grab your gun...
Chatty DM: Sorry for the bit of fiction-inspired introduction... I know I can never bear to read those in RPG books. I'm banking real hard on the 'You Write it and I'll read it' demographics for this particular post. So yes, starting tomorrow, the McWod campaign log is going to take the form of my character's Case Reports being highjacked by, well... my character and posted on some freak Newsgroup. Hope you'll enjoy it.
The big Move starts today!
Sketch by Veronica Pare (She's awesome!!!!)
I just secured my very own domain name (Thanks Ve4!) and opened me an honest to God Web site!
I installed Wordpress on it... you can see it in all it's empty splendor at:
chattydm.net (simple, elegant, refined... so totally unlike me!)
It will have its own email (chattydm(at)chattydm(dot)(net).
Here's my planned to do list:
- Choose a cool theme (which will change... I have a new cool banner in the works, I am waiting for the artist to finish up and I'll fit a theme to it... so far the rough sketches look absolutely fantastic!!!).
- Move all the posts with a widget, hopefully the images will follow... if not I'll see what I can do.
- Activate a simpler Captcha widget, much like Shamus'.
- Start posting from there.
- Start creating PDFs of some of my post series and make them available for download.
November 9, 2007
Generating a PC's personality on the fly
A few days ago, my good friend Stupid Ranger posted on inspiration about playing the game and writing about it in the blog. In that post I added a comment about an interesting experience I had with my friend Math. I'm reposting an expanded version of the comment here... not very original I agree, but I'd like to keep a version open for discussion over here.
Some time between this game and that one, Math dropped in on Gtalk and mentioned that while he enjoyed his PC's crunch immensely, he found that his character was quite an empty shell story wise (an extremely deadly empty shell of stats mind you).
So we started brainstorming about our game world's history. Since Math's been playing with me for more than 20 years, he is basically one of the world's architects especially with the elves.
I mentioned the recent destructions of the Elven Homelands. Our game world was the theater of a huge alignment-based war in the last campaign, and the new one starts in the year following the end of the last one. All the Something-Neutral alignments allied themselves and won the war. Elves, being Chaotic Good were part of the Beaten and had had most of their homeland forests burned by the Yugoloth (Neutral Evil Fiends) that are my current campaign's bad guys.
I then discussed about how the apparent apathy of humans toward the Elven plight had created frustration and even anger in the otherwise good-natured elves.
Math then proposed to play his character as a militant & religious elf that got fed up with humanity's lethargy and unwillingness to accept the continuing threats of the Yugoloths. His character is willing to kick some serious butt (politically and physically) to protect his vulnerable race...
He since then added to his character by making him very impatient, a trait that's almost unheard of in elves... In fact I'd be willing to say that he's probably going to gain a reputation as being rather unstable and dangerous in the eyes of the race he strives so hard to save.
All this through back and forth between DM and player on a chat program. It even got to a point where Math started answering my Gtalk comment in character! So I gave him 10% of leveling up XPs for his RPing efforts... even out of game.
So building a character's backstory or key motivation does not have to be a chore nor does it have to be a written assignment... it can take the form of two people shooting the breeze and doing some good old brainstorming.
Chatty Player's Corner: Character Genesis
Well it was only a matter of time. Franky went completely bonkers over Monte's World of Darkness d20 game and he's bought d20 Modern, the Menace Manual and other books of the genre...
I can't say I blame him... I mean look at my library... and those are mostly 3.5 books!
Anyhoo, while we were supposed to have Franky's game as a filler for when we couldn't reach Quorum for mine, Franky really really really wanted to start. He drafted his brother Mike (Kem CPU in our comments), PM and Yan as well.
Of course, with such a great opportunity to play the last 3.5 game in a world I had never touched (I'm a WoD virgin) I signed on pronto, regardless of my own misgivings about being a player.
So the 1st game is tonight. Before I tell you all about my character (Readers run away!....) here's my understanding of McWoD's setting.
The game is set 20 minutes in the future. Normal life was shattered by an event, centered around Chicago, called the Intrusion (or Incursion, I forget). It's not quite known what it is, but Supernatural entities have started invading the world. Dead Spirits of the past possess normal people and turn them into Vampires. Alien entities possess other humans and makes them Werewolves. Other independent alien minds possess matter and become shape changing Demons, etc.
Our campaign is going to be a X-files-like series of episodes centered on a group of agents, both Humans (called Awakened, think Badass Normal) and Inconnu (Vampires, Werwolves, etc) hunting down whatever it is Franky want's to spring on us poor abused PCs... (Yes Franky, I'm going to use the blog to wage a psychological war on your frail DM's confidence... better grow a spine fast because I'M COMING FOR YOU, MWA HA HA HA!...)
Huh, sorry about that buddy...
Here's the character concept I made:
Class: Awakened
Level: 1
Role: Investigator/Gunner
Character Elevator Pitch: James Kevin Smith (JK to frie.. well collegues, Agent Smith for all others) is an introverted, socially clumsy, ex-FBI agent whose mind shattered in 2 distinct personalities when he Awakened. Usually, he's an agreeable, quiet little man of considerable investigative skills. However, when he puts his hands around a gun, he becomes a loud, Brash, obnoxious action-oriented extrovert with a serious case of the Darth Vader Syndrome
(No, not the "Whinny bitch to Badass" syndrome, the "babble all the time while beating the $#!t out of you" syndrome)
I hope I'm going to have fun with that one!
Now, should Franky read this post, and I know he will, eventually, here is what I expect from the game.
I expect sessions to have Investigations/Puzzle-solving in equal amounts with action scenes. I hope to explore a lot of cool consequences of the Intrusions and get involved in dark stories that force us to make difficult choices. I personally prefer a little bit of guiding by the DM than spending long periods looking for the clue that will lead us to the next scene... if we seem to hit the same wall for more than 15 minutes, please gently guide us to the next clue.... or have Ninjas attack! Fighting Ninjas is always cool.
Of course, those are expectations, not absolute requirements... I know we'll have fun regardless... I even plan on dying pretty often so I can switch characters and explore... :)
Thanks for GMing this buddy.
Expect a new campaign journal...!
November 8, 2007
DM Chronicles, Session 5: Graveyard Shift, Part 2
Part 1 can be found here.
The players decided to go explore the Necropolis to find where the seven plant-creatures that survived the streets of Ptolus were headed for. They met once again with the leaders of the Keepers of the Veil who gave them another healing package (a 5 charge wand of Restoration and a few potions of Cure Moderate wounds).
Aside: One of our House rules is that no skills are cross-class. Each character class has a number of skill group that gives 1 rank in each skill of the group whenever1 skill point is put in a group (like Iron Heroes). All other skills are available at 1 skill point per rank. So Use Magic Device is now a skill that everyone can take. This makes the group's lack of cleric far less problematic, Lillie acts as surrogate cleric with wands of healing spells. Maybe I'll post this one day...
Cixi also offered to reinforce the Keeper's numbers with members of the Order of Iron Might under her command (Ptolus' Fighter's guild, she's a leader there), scoring a few points in the Great Game for House Khatru.
As soon as they entered the giant graveyard, they rapidly spotted a Huge Earth Elemental fighting something. While approaching, they say it squash one of the Plant like-creatures like a bug (these Planty-creatures are STRONG, as you'll soon read about, I really needed to find a way to reduce their numbers in a believable manner). They left the elemental alone and marched on toward the Druid's grove.
They were soon joined by an ancient, slightly grumpy man who was scrapping some green slime off his knuckles. That's how they met Andach the Druid. He filled them in about the Plant beings and where they were headed. He had detected the awakening of some sort of alien awareness some time ago, but never actually got around to do anything about it (Callous and Busy, I love Chaotic Neutral characters!) He was fighting the Plant-things (called Child of Sehan) because they made the awareness stronger and a direct threat to his plans.
On their way to the funeral mound where the Children of Sehan were headed (Andach told them there were 3 more inside) they found the remains of three of Navana Vladdam's (the youngest scion of an evil, demon-touched Noble House) Werewolf agents. Contact with a Child made them into Chaos Beasts. Finally a fight!
I don't remember the details but the fight was rather short. However, when I started asking the players to make Fort saves whenever they were touched by the beasts, the players started worrying and using their newly restocked action point pools (They leveled up to 8th last game).
The players then made thier way into the Funeral mound and I got to use my D&D tiles again! Yay me! (the Iron Golem is actually only a statue).
In that first room the party finally got its first taste of the Children of Sehan in all it's Pacifying Gaze, Charisma Damaging, High AC and High HP glory. The fight was hard, the players were scared, Action Points were eaten up at the speed of Smarties in the hands of a sugar junky.
Once again, player dice were bad. This combined with the creature's AC (26) and the necessity to play around the creature's gaze attack made for a hard fight. But, as always, the heroes prevailed.
Aside: Seeing the new incarnations of Nogard and Lillie was nice. I think this whole Character tweaking thing finally paid off.
A few saving throws , Slow Spells (12 rounds Lesser Restoration FTW!) , and Harry-Potteresque flicks of the Wand of Restoration later, everyone was ready to continue.
They moved to a looted side-crypt where 2 stone sarcophagus were closed and showed clear traces of green stuff (I mean that's an obvious 'do not touch' sign right?).... Well Power Hungry as always, Nogard went and opened one without breaking a sweat.
To general groans, another fight against a Child of Sehan started. Much like the 1st one, except that more characters got pacified, making the fight harder and frustrations stronger. When I described the second coffin shaking, desperation set in and the pacified Draconic Barbarian sat on it... The fight wore on and we agreed to stop for the night at that point... (You See Cruguer and Nogard "sitting" on the Sarcophagus in the picture below)
In the end, the players were happy about how the story progressed and how interesting the adventure's fluff was. However, they were somewhat frustrated about how hard the fights against the Children of Sehan had been.
But the thing is, when I look back at it, frustrations because of failures, the hardness and difficulties of an adventure and winning over them are what makes a great D&D session. However, the child of Sehan should have been a Boss Monster, not a CR 8 Mook like it is cast in this adventure (CR 8 my butt! That thing would still be a challenge to a level 10 party). Meeting 3 of them back to back was just too much for the players and I agree.
So far, Aravard, Nogard and Cruguer have been exposed to Sehan's secretions. I slipped another "cutscene" where Cruguer spaced out and got to meet with both a God of Good and a Contract wielding Devil. The God offered 2 choices around the theme of salvation for his soul...both of which Cruguer refused flatly. Oh well.... Bonus XPs for Eric.
Still, it was a great game and I'm looking forward to next week's game.
Lessons Learned:
- Tweaking adventures for your players is crucial.
- Ability damage is all right, but lethal ability damage should be used sparingly.
- Don't pull the beer pouring joke after 4 beers, I missed the empty can... by a lot...
- Ptolus coming to life through the player's interaction with the organizations.
- Stef's and Lillie's new characters.
- The adventure continues to interest the players.
- The child of Sehan are just too damn strong. Even when partially nerfed by the DM
- Franky's Buttkicking side thrives on Critical hits... Plants and Misshapen chaos blobs are immune to them.... His cries of 'I hate the Necropolis' are going to become a staple of this campaign I fear.
- Continue the adventure.
- Try to work in the exposure to Sehan and the actual significance of this Lovecraftian entity into the campaing's Meta-plot.
November 7, 2007
DM Chronicles, Session 5: Graveyard Shift, Part 1
Previously on Phil's game...
Our yet unnamed band of heroes foiled the plans of evil Fey renegades by breaking up their drug ring in the Warrens of Ptolus. Said drug whose mellowing effect hides a terrifying price for those who abuse it: complete and irreversible transformation in a hideous plant-like humanoid monster. The Heroes then return to the Keepers of the Veil in order to report their findings before taking a few hours of well-earned rest...
As I write this, it's been almost a week since last Friday's game and details are murkier so I might forget a few things. Memo to self: Write a draft of the post in the 24 hours following a game and edit after Yan hands in his journal entry.
As I write this, it's been almost a week since last Friday's game and details are murkier so I might forget a few things. Memo to self: Write a draft of the post in the 24 hours following a game and edit after Yan hands in his journal entry.
Since last game was a RPfest for Yan and Franky, my goals of the night were:
- Give the spotlight to Eric: Let Cruguer meet and join one of Ptolus Evil-fighting militant orders.
- Give the spotlight to Math: Let Aravar meet with his contact in the slightly xenophhobic Elven para-military organization.
- Give the Spotlight to Stef: Have Nogard morph from Dragon Shaman to Half-Dragon Half-Orc Barbarian.
- Play an alien evil
- Have some good fights to please the butt kickers.
- Kick the tires on Yan's and Stef's new characters.
Since we're better story-tellers than actual roleplayers I decided to allow players to invoke their keys whenever they develop their characters off screen between games, through e-mail or by dropping 'in-character' comments on the blog, or in our Google Group.
So, as mentioned by Lillee, we started the game with Cruguer offering his services to the Keepers of the Veil. Eric really likes the concept of an organization who's job is to contain the undead of the Necropolis. At that point of the story, the Keeper's leadership are going bonkers because they are realizing that they bit more than they could chew.
The act of clamping down all entrances to the Necropolis, dealing with the increasing political pressures of resolving the plant-like humanoid issue and the heavy casualties fighting these creatures is taking it's toll. But I'm playing the leaders as being too proud to to ask stronger organization for help.
So Cruguer's offer was, shall we say, well timed. Many promises were made (commander status, a place to stay at the keep, etc) if Cruguer and his pals managed to help clear the situation.
At the same time, Aravar wanted to meet with his contacts to share his findings about the Pactlords of the Quann, yet another enemy of the elves to watch for. I wasn't paying full attention, but Math and Yan had a little in-character RPing where Aravar ended up 'borrowing' a Spriggan finger. Math has developed quite an intriguing persona for his elf: an impatient, impulsive and very angry elf. It's quite refreshing... although a bit disturbing.
I don't quite remember the details but at one point I played the militant contact as trying to dump some responsibility of his on Aravar who promptly went hyper hostile and said "F#&k you!" The player's reaction was so strong and fast that I, as a DM, was taken aback a bit. I just hope that Math was just really 'in-character' and not mixing out-of game issues into his character. He later joked that Aravar takes meditation classes between adventures.... good idea!
As we were playing this, I was getting ready to move onto the next morning, when I was gently but firmly reminded that I had a Dragon Shaman to make into a Half-Dragon. So I had Stef, who was exposed to Sehan, that green transformative drug, play into a dream sequence. He was climbing a tall mountain and found a Cave with all kinds of Good Dragons playing court to a regal-looking multi-hued Dragon. The conversation was then straight out of a Bad Star-Trek TNG script where the 'dragon king' was trying to communicate mind-shattering concepts to a puny 4 dimensional being.
I played the alien card a bit too hard (and too Sci-fi) and the other players started making 'Q' jokes. But that's okay, I won't win an Oscar at every game. Bottom line, Stef refused to obtain 'Uuuuuultimate multi-universe Power' by surrendering something as trivial as his individuality. He settled for a 'gift' by Sehan to showcase it's true power: a complete re-write of Nogard's mind, body and soul. Sehan had a parting shot, saying that once such power is tasted, Nogard would be back for more...
We then 'morphed' (Ha ha) from dream to morning where Stef, strong of his new character, literally changed his personality and kicked-in Crueger's door (He a STR score of 28, and yes Ve4, I see the irony) to wake him up. Cruguer played it real cool when he saw that 6'7'' 400 lbs monstrosity dropped his door... It was real funny to have Stef play it like nothing really had happened (Oh this? Ahhh it's nothing really). It's Ptolus, things like that happen every 5 minutes right?
I completely broke the whole table up when I played the Innkeeper angrily climbing the stairs, shouting about the broken door. When Nogard leaned out the door to check what all the noise was about, I described the Innkeeper stopping dead in it's tracks, freezing in abject fear and I slowly poured beer out of my can into an empty can, making an unmistakable noise...
When everyone recovered, we were ready to move on to more crunchy adventures...
See you tomorrow for the conclusion.
November 6, 2007
A Fey’s Journal, 4th entry
After the extreme crunchiness of the last few days, here is some lighter fare. It's time for another edition of Lillie's Journal written by Yan! As promised, I'll follow up tomorrow with my DM Chronicles of the same game but from the DM's view (with a little extras that covers the things Lillie wasn't party to in last Friday's game).
Prior posts of this series can be found here. Enjoy!
As I'm writing this, we are in some kind of funeral mound, sitting on what definitively looks like a sarcophagus. Some nasty plant-like humanoid thing is inside and is violently trying to get out and get to us. (Shivers).
Aravar and "Nogard" (for lack of a better name) are still cursing about having been pacified by the last one we have just slain. Cruguer and Cixi both have a grim look on their faces. Everybody seems nervous and tired; thank Ehlonna we’re sitting tight on the last one.
You might ask yourselves "What HAS happened since her last journal entry?"
After the events in the Warrens, we returned to the Keeper of the Veil leaders to report what had transpired from our investigations. Apparently, things had evolved quite badly around the city and the Keepers where showing signs of panic and seemed in dire need of help.
They had seen as much as seven of the plant-like thingies go into the Necropolis and the last ones seemed to be more focused and more bent on fighting against the Keeper’s Knights, causing heavy casualties. Cixi, political fox that she is, offered to bring in reinforcement from the fighters and mercenaries she had under her command in the Order of the Iron Fist, which was gratefully accepted.
Cruguer then offered to join the Keeper’s ranks and, in our group’s name, offered to go into the Necropolis and investigate the Humanoid’s destination and the source of that Green Stuff that had transformed all these Warren citizens.
Any refined Ptolusite like me knows that nobody in their right minds would dare to enter, or remain in, the Necropolis after Sunset. So we split out for the night and convened to meet the next day before dawn.
On our way back to Iridithil’s House, Aravar asked me for one of the spriggan’s finger. Well, actually, he insisted pretty heavily. I was finally inclined to lend one to him when he promised that he would give it back. I’m telling you, that elf is as impatient as a Human, if not worse! Someone should remind him that like us Pixies, elves don’t actually age. That guy should try to relax.
But still, why did he need the finger so badly? There is something fishy going on around here. Next time, I'll have a closer look at all these eleven shenanigans. But I was just too tired to be bothered with more secrets and stuff. I'll have plenty of time to poke into it at a more convenient time…Tee Hee!
As promised, our Stalwart elf brought the finger back on the morning. We went to meet the others at the Ghostly Ministrel, where both Cruguer and Nogard stay. As we came in, I saw Cruguer talking with a big, ugly, dragonny two-legged thing. It claimed to be Nogard, which I seriously doubted at the time. I mean, How can this have happened overnight? It sure beats me!
Supposedly, he transformed during the night. Just like that? I know of no magic short of a Wish that can do this. Are Dragon Shamans supposed to molt into half-dragon barbarians? Arrgh! Will I ever understand humanoids?
Not only did I not particularly like Nogard's fire breathing tendencies, now he's some super-scary destructive Brawny monster. That being said, after a few exchanges with “it”, it really seemed to be Nogard (or something that ate him) and he seemed happy of his condition. Whatever suits him. Why someone would want to be that ugly is utterly beyond me.
After gathering everyone, we went to the Necropolis at dawn as planned. The first thing we did was seek out Andach the the Druid, whose groves reside on an island in the middle of the Necropolis (ChattyDM: Ptolus is the coolest setting I have ever played in, period). You know, just in case our explorations took us passed sundown and we needed a safe place to crash.
We also wanted to have first-hand knowledge on what was going within the Graveyard’s boundaries. On our way we managed to see quite a few of the plant-like beasties crushed to bits. Apprenetly this was the work of the very same druid we were seeking.
Really quite a charming chap, he not only gave us the information we needed by pointing us to some decrepit funeral mound, but he also confirmed having killed four of these green things and that he could sense three more of these 'aberrations of nature' (his words, not mine) inside the mound. Yippee, finally an underground setting other than a sewer!
He did mention something about some of House Vlaadam’s Lackey’s being in the vicinity (Chatty DM: I had Andach say “Be careful, that Vladdam girl has once again left her broken toys lying all over the place”). However, the only thing we found was some poor deformed Wolf-like monstrosities that attacked us just before arriving at the ancient mound. Well I don't know if this was their initial form or if the plant-like things were responsible for this, but it did not bode well for what was awaiting us.
Once dispatched, we noticed that these abominations where wearing the Vladdam colors and we found an interesting letter stating the urgency of finding the “Source” before we did. The letter even went as far as calling all of us “Khatru’s minions” Umph! I need to have a talk with Cixi!
Once inside the funeral mound, we met our first plant-man! It had the calming gaze we were told about and a nasty poison that would rip your personality apart. Thank Ehlonna we had a wand of Restoration.
(Player’s note: This is the worst ability damage effect I have ever seen. I mean a grand total of 3d6 Charisma damage? Memo for whoever designed these creatures, please use d4s next time you do a stat damaging effect! I still wonder how we managed to get through this with every one still conscious…)
As we reached another room, our ever greedy Nogard opened up a closed coffin that had some green stuff oozing from it's sides. I don't know what he was expecting but another one of these vegetable-beings came out and attacked us. This one was a real pain, but we manage to kill it. However,during the fight another coffin started to move. Having had more than our share of critters for the day, Nogard sat on it to prevent it from opening. Well, at least this new stronger form of his seems quite handy!
This is where we are… Let's hope that these creatures are the worst things we’ll find in this place, but I have my doubt…
November 5, 2007
Tweaking Classes for Cooler Characters: The Class Mish-Mash Challenge, Part 2
Now this is one lengthy crunchy post, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Although I must admit that I've never worked so hard for a role playing game before. Monte, Wolfgang and all game designers, developers and writers out there, you have my utmost and eternal respect!
Part 1 can be found here.
Here is a new D&D-compatible 20 level core character class (complete with old school looking tables) that combines the Monster Manual's Pixie with Monte Cook's Variant Sorcerer* that appears in the Complete Book of Eldritch Might and the standard D&D 3.5 Sorcerer class. It aims at creating a versatile spellcasting Fey class that hasa strong nature/enchantment flavour.
The class was designed (and is being playtested as the latest incarnation of Lillie since last Friday) by Yan Décarie. The class was developed and written with Philippe-Antoine Ménard (Yeah, that's my full name).
It is subjected to the OpenGaming Licence and this blog's Copyright Notice (i.e. you can use it in your game but you need both Monte's and my permission to do anything more about it. Linking to this post is, of course, all right).
It sounds more serious than it truly is, we're just a couple of 30-something D&D geeks that have decided to tackle class design and publish it. Enjoy! (I sprinkled Development notes here and there as well as at the end)
The Shaper (We are opened to a more flavorful name!)
(Version 2.0, taking into account comments up to Cayzle's)
The Shaper is the nurturer of the Fearie's homelands. They use their magic to help and protect the forests, vales and fields that make the Pixies' home. However, the wanderlust that strikes all young pixies more often than not leads them to adventuring "Outside". Those who return are often wiser and usually ready to take the mantle of responsibility historically associated with the Shapers.
Becoming a Shaper requires a level of dedication that few pixie can ever achieve. As the Shaper learns to tame and grow her inner magical powers, they change and become part of the Shaper's arts (This means we removed all of the pixie's Spell-like abilities and added the Slow-Spells, see below).
Abilities: Taming the inner powers of the shaper requires a very strong personality, so Charisma is the Shaper's key ability. Dexterity is also useful to increase reaction times and increasing the chances to successfully deliver ranged attacks and spells.
Race: This class is a racial class based on the Pixie and therefore can only taken by a Pixie character, all racial abilities of the Pixie are already factored in the class and any missing abilities from the Monster Manual is voluntary. (The original idea came to us when we were making our new Monte Cook's World of Darkness characters which combines class and race into a single character class).
Alignment: Strongly tied to nature and the preservation of life, Shapers are usually of good alignment with chaotic tendencies brought on by the growing inner powers of the class. However, some have been known to become obsessed with that power and may turn to evil. Shapers are almost never lawful, preferring to be free spirits and rejecting constraints in their lives (Yan suggested "Good Only" but I personally am of the "Give me a Chaotic Neutral Paladin damn it!" school... choose what you prefer)
Starting Gold: 3d4X10 gp
Starting Age: 110 +4d6 years (The Monster manual mentions that Sprite are supposedly unaging. In our campaign, I made elves an ex-Fey race so I'd go with aging them both the same)
Hit Dice: d4 (The d4 is used instead of the d6 equivalent of the Sorcerer to compensate the 4 extra hit dice a pixie has with this progression. The d4 progression gives a slight advantage at low level but is a disadvantage on the long run.)
The “Shaper Spells Known” table shows the total number of spells of each level that the shaper knows (regardless of her charisma modifier).
Shaper Spell Known Table
(click on images to enlarge or import in your favorite image viewer)
The Shaper’s class skills (and the key ability for each) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Any) (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Knowledge (Nature)(Int), Knowledge (Religion)(Int), Knowledge (Arcana)(Int), Listen (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Any) (Wis), Sleigh of Hands (Dex), Spellcraft 
(Int), Spot (Wis) and Survival (Wis)
Skill Points at 1st Level: (6 + Intelligence modifier) × 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Intelligence modifier
Class Features:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Shaper is proficient with all simple weapons and the longbow (Scaled to a Small Size character). They are not proficient with any type of armor, nor with shields. Armor of any type interferes with a shaper’s arcane gestures,which can cause her spells to fail (if those spells have somatic components).
Invisibility: At 1st level, A Shaper can become invisible at will as per the Invisibility Spell and This ability is constant, but the Shaper can suppress as a free action or resume it as a Standard action. This is a Supernatural Ability.
At level 4, the ability can be activated with a Move Equivalent Action.
At level 8, the ability becomes equivalent to the Greater Invisibility spell and can be activated as a free action.
Spells: A Shaper casts arcane spells from the Wizard/Sorcerer spell list (from the Player's Handbook and any other source approved by the DM) except for spells with the Fire Descriptor and thise of the Necromancy school and as outlined below (See Slow Spells). Her selection of spells is limited. At each level, the shaper gains one or more new spells, as indicated on the “Shaper Spells Known” table.
(The exclusion of Fire and necromancy spells are mostly for flavour reasons as Yan's character hates fire and sees herself as a guardian of trees and life. But then again, this might not be actually broken to allow (hmmm finger of death?), constructive critics welcome)
A Shaper is limited to casting a certain number of spells from each level per day, but she needs not prepare her spells in advance. The number of spells she can cast per day is improved by her bonus spells, if any. A Shaper may use a higher-level slot to cast a lower-level spell effect if she so chooses. The spell is still treated as its actual level, not as the level of the slot used to cast it.
To learn or cast a spell, a Shaper must have a Charisma score of at least 10 plus the spell’s level. The DC for saving throws against Shaper spells is 10 plus the spell’s level plus the Shaper’s Charisma modifier.
Eschew Material Components: Because Shapers gain their spells from their innate, inborn powers, they have no need to worry about material components. They are, in essence, their own material components. Spells with costly material components require a little extra personal power on the Shaper’s part. She still does not need to obtain the material component, but she must instead pay a price in experience points for casting the spell. The Shaper pays 1/25th of the gold-piece cost of the component in XP (minimum loss of 1 XP). Spells that already require an expenditure of experience points are handled normally. Spells with a focus still require the focus.
Slow Spells (This crunchy placeholder name needs some flavoring-up): The Shaper has access to a list of known spell which represent the versatility of the Pixie's inner power. Any spell from the druid, bard or sorcerer list can be taken as a slow spell (with the same exceptions as for regular spells). The spell on the slow list have the following characteristics:
Swapping Known Spells (Taken from the 3.5 SRD and made better, because it's just cool to play): Upon reaching 4th level, and at each Shaper level after that, a Shaper can choose to learn a new spell (Regular or Slow) in place of one she already knows. In effect, the Shaper "loses" the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell’s level must be the same level as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level sorcerer spell the sorcerer can cast. A Shaper may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.
Alternatively a shaper can choose to transfer any one known slow spell (regardless of level) unto her normal spell list and replace it with a new slow one, provided the slow spell comes from the wizards/Sorcerer's spell list (i.e. Druidic or Bardic slow spells can't be transfered). Once a spell is in the Shaper normal spell list it can no longer be cast as a slow spell and can't revert to the slow spell list.
Further Design/Development notes:
As mentioned in my 1st tweaking post, I don't much care for the power creep that appears in this or other class in our current game. But even there, my DMing instincts scream that the Shaper can be broken in a hundred ways by abusive players (Well not so much after the edit). We've played with it once (at 8th level) and so far the jury is still out. But it seems cool to play. I was absolutely enchanted about how Yan used his Slow Spells to cast Call lightning (a 1 min/level spell) before a fight and then cast Lesser Restoration (at 12 rounds per casting) in-between fights while the Call lightning's duration was slowly ticking down.
The Sorcerer's familiar as well as some of the pixie's skill bonuses were dropped. Once again more out of preference than out of any actual concern for balance. Also, we chose not to include the sleep/memory loss arrows.
However, as I was writing this today, Yan dropped by and mentioned that the class looks pretty underpowered to be really fun before level 4. At that point, pending a high Charisma score, the character only has access to about 4 slow spells and a few cantrips per day , not very useful in combat. That's why I moved Greater invisibility, originally at 5th level, down to first. At least, for the 1st three level, the class can act as an invisible flying Archer/Scout (that deals a whopping 1d6-2 damage). Still a threat that many low CR monster's can't really deal with.
We both agreed that this is a design flaw that comes with having to sacrifice the equivalent of 4 levels to merge a Pixie into a 20th level spellcasting class.
On this, and anything else, we would gladly ask for your suggestions.
*Variant sorcerer class from The Complete Book of Eldritch Might ©2004, Monte J. Cook. Used with permission. (Thanks Monte!)
** Small size, Low light vision, fly speed 30 (good), Invisibility (Standard Action), speak common and sylvan, slow spell list (Formating a table in a blog is hard!)
CaptCha activated
It seems that my strategy to contain the Spambot invasion within the same post has backfired on me as they ingeniously started throwing Sex ads... more than 10 just last night. Such links are not what I want on this blog.
So on top of deleting them all, I activated Blogger's Word Verification system for comments (Colloquially called Captcha).
Which means that in order for you to leave a comment, you'll have to prove that you are human... by retyping a series of letters/numbers before being allowed to post your comment. I know it's highly annoying and this will probably lower the number of commenters on the blog... but it's a compromise I had to make.
I strongly suggest you copy your comment to the clipboard before posting. Blogger has been known to have hiccups when you post the comment, so keep it near to re-post if something happens.
This also makes me think about migrating the blog to Wordpress, which features a lot more cooler widgets and simpler, less annoying Captcha systems.... but not right now... (Migrating 120 posts is not going to be fun...)
I urge you to try your hand at commenting here, which I also dub as ChattyDM's new graffiti wall.
November 4, 2007
Tweaking Classes for Cooler Characters: The Class Mish-Mash Challenge, Part 1
One of the core premises of our current campaign is "Play the character you want to play". As this is possibly our last D&D 3.5 game, we agreed that everyone would play along these lines, irrespective of party roles ... if there was to be no rogues or clerics, so be it, a large part of the loot was going to pay for healing and Reflex Save buffs.
As mentioned before, once the campaign started, we noticed a great discrepancy in the level of effectiveness between some characters. I tried to address it here and it worked rather beautifully for Math's Mashed-up Arcane Archer/Duskblade . Unfortunately, I can't post it as its all closed content owned by Wizard of the Coast (But reading the original post should give you enough clues to piece it together...).
However, a bit later, I noticed that Stef still wasn't too happy with how is Dragon Shaman character turned out, even with the tweaks I had implemented. We fixed that too by making him a completely new character (More on this in my next DM chronicles).
Finally, while Yan was pretty happy with the way Lillie played out (Pixie Sorcerer), he would often say how much he'd like her to have a spell-selection that was more geared toward druidic and enchantment spells to reflect the Fey link to the natural world and their mischievous/ manipulative nature.
So after we had seen Math's character in action, seeing how easy it had been to mash 2 classes together and keep the balance and reading how Monte Cook created a bunch of 20th level racial classes in his version of the World of Darkness, I decided to challenge Yan:
"Why don't you design a 20 level character class that combines most of the Pixie's racial characteristics and abilities with those of the Sorcerer variant we use."
By the way, Yan is a software developer for a telecom. I knew he'd gleefully take the bait and take a stab at such a challenge.
I gave him the following instructions:
- Start with the Pixie as Character writeup from the Monster Manual (or SRD).
- Merge with the Variant Sorcerer class from Monte Cook's Complete Book of Eldritch Might (Which I heartily recommend as one of the sanest and crunchiest d20 Sourcebooks).
- All ability adjustments and Special Abilities of the Pixie can be retained except Otto's Irresistible Dance, spread over several levels .
- Spread abilities over 20 levels, with a slower spell progression than a sorcerer to take into account the Pixie's racial abilities.
- The class should have 20 Hit Dice and 20 caster levels
- A slight power creep from the original character was acceptable as long as it was roughly equivalent to one potent feat/class feature (possibly 1 1/2).
- The spell selection can be tweaked to include more in-flavour spells by cherry picking from the Druid, Bard and Wizards list.
- I needed to be consulted over any tweaks or additional mechanics created for this class and I kept final veto as DM.
I am quite impressed with Yan's work and especially his restraints. While he is mostly a Story Teller and Brilliant Planner, he has a significant Power Gamer streak that likes to find and exploit combos.
I'm not going to post the class today, I'm sorry, but I need to edit its fluff further and clarify some things. However, as mentioned here, Monte Cook as graciously granted me permission to post it even though it borrows heavily from his Variant Sorcerer class (part of which is closed game content). I will post the second part (with full class writeup) tomorrow evening.
But here's a teaser...
One of the cool mechanics Yan created was to replace the Pixie's innate spell-like abilities with what he called Slow-spells. They are spells (from the druid/bard/wizards spell list) that the class gains 1 level ahead of his normal class progression, take 1/2 of a spell slot to cast, but take 4 times longer to cast (A standard action spell now takes 2 full rounds). The character must also perform a certain action, in Lille's case, play the flute uninterrupted, to cast them.
This makes slow-spells extremely useful for buffing and healing, but not nearly as useful for combat.
See you in part 2...
The Blog's Copyright notice and Open Gaming License Version 1.0a
Posted on November 4, 2007
I have been posting some open game content of the D&D game for quite some time now with the usual nonchalance of the internet user. While I've been joking about how having a Cease and Desist letter by Wizards would validate this blog's existence, I don't actually want any real beef with anyone. Especially if this blogging gig ever develops in anything.
Furthemore, I will soon start publishing at least one post where I borrow opened and closed contents from d20 publishers. I've already asked Monte Cook for a specific case and he gracefully agreed to let me use closed content of his variant Sorcerer class for a post and has kindly instructed me on some Open Gaming Licence legal etiquette (Thank you!!) .
So this means I have to post the Open Gaming Licence and format it in regards to material I use.
And while I'm doing a legal post, I might has well put the blog's copyright notice in there too.
I don't expect there'll be a lot of comments here...
Copyright Notice
All contents, including the Banner, of Musings of the Chatty DM is copyright 2007 by Philippe-Antoine Ménard. All reference to D&D game mechanics are subjected to the Open Gaming License Version 1.0a and are considered Open Gaming Content.
The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc ("Wizards"). All Rights Reserved.
Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000–2005, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
d20 System Reference Document Copyright 2000–2005, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich
Redman, and Bruce R. Cordell, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
The Complete Book of Eldritch Might Copyright 2004, Monte J. Cook
November 3, 2007
Trip to my FLSG: Selling out in style!
We had a great game yesterday and I'll have a lot to say about it soon. However, I'd like to post Yan's journal entry 1st so I can build on it instead of playing it safe. So you'll see it all later this week.
Yesterday before the game, I went to my Favorite Local Game Store (FLGS) to buy Franky's birthday gift (which is going to be great for his new McWod game).
I also bought an ancient copy of the AD&D Dungeoneer's Survical Guide for 5$. I've never owned it but this thing features the 1st and one of the most awesome Underdark primers there is, complete with 3D mapping techniques. Not bad for a 1st Ed product (that being said, I so don't miss this game's crunch).
Then I saw a copy of what's being heralded on the Web as the "Ultimate Book of all that's Evil and Vile about Wizards of the Coast" AKA the D&D Rules Compendium (I'm paraphrasing here).
I turned it over and looked at the price, 26$ US and 35$ CDN.
Aside: Imagine a 4 page fire and brimstone rant against corporate North America stealing Canadians blind now that the dollar has been around par for quite a few months... I won't waste energy on that.
I asked the store's manager if I could have the book at the American price and he agreed. So I bought it without even cracking it open. Why you ask? I don't quite know and I could spin a long yarn about how I might still play 3.5 after the release of 4e and bla bla bla...
Actually, the low price was a big factor, so was my desire to aid the store who's not having an easy time with Amazon and the PDF RPG market.
I'm also a bit of a contrarian. If so many bad things are being spewed about a gaming product before anyone actually saw it, I just have to have it. Sure,Wizards is making another bid at my wallet, but so what? I have the money to buy it and I was curious.
I never actually had the time to look at it before my friends started arriving for the game.
As it's bound to happen in any D&D game, we got to a rules question... something about the Concentration DC when injured during casting. As I was about to pick up the Player's Handbook, I saw the Rules Compendium lying around, picked it up and finally cracked it open...
It's organized alphabetically, hmmm useful. I go "C" just for the hell of it and there sits a one page entry on Concentration. Found the ruling is a flash (DC 10+damage dealt).
Then later, Stef asks me how to calculate a Breath Weapon's DC. Flipped to "B" and found it! It's DC 10+ 1/2 racial HD (Zero for a 1/2 dragon barbarian) + Con Modifier for those who care.
At a certain point, we needed a refresher on how to determine cover, once again it was found almost instantly.
Finally, when the players were having "fun" with poisonous creatures, there was a question about which ability loss caused death by reaching zero. Flipped to "Ability loss" and found it (Constitution only, the other render you helpless).
So that 26$ book has already been more useful than a lot of my other sourcebooks. It's well written, concise and includes mini-essays on rules and memorable game situations by the D&D R&D staff.
So I'm damn happy that I bought it and I'm looking forward to actually read it!
Cheers!
November 2, 2007
Spambots invasion
As you may have noticed, Spambots have started landing on my Four on the Floor Meme post.
I don't intend to do anything other than delete them as they come.... As long as they stay confined to this post, which, oddly enough, is the only post that has a backlink to it.
I'd really rather not have to activate a Captcha (unless I find one like Shamus that shows a unique really simple word) or activate moderation. I might have to, suggestions welcome.
But such is the price to pay for a blog I guess.
I'll deactivate backlinks.
Robots are cool! Spambots aren't.
Have a nice weekend. Next week is going to feature a lot of stuff, another DM chronicle, Lillie's Journal and Trope goodness!
Phil
November 1, 2007
Guest Post: Perspective on Weekend Wizards: A Half-orc's venture into the wild.
This is PM's second post of his Casual Player approach to D&D. Once again, PM's wry humour entertains us in his tale of confronting his fears about that nasty multi-headed beast that is Role-Playing!
Last week, my inner half-orc took a few steps out of the closet and while it was a bit scary out there, nothing bad happened. Well nothing too bad. I might not have absolute proof of this, but I did find evidence that DMs actually can imbue player dice with bad mojo. However I'm afraid it might be just the early signs of something far more sinister...
Our first game was plagued with awful rolls and I could see that it affected our DM as well (ChattyDM is our DM for those who just tuned in). I guess it's only normal to want your first offering to go smoothly and give new recruits a memorable experience but it was not to be in that game. The smooth part I mean... The evening was pleasantly memorable.
My first indicator of the evening's success is my friend Vince's appreciation of this little event. In order to setup this ND&D evening (N for Newbie), I looked for other newbies and that's how I drafted Vince into this. He had once played a tabletop RPG as a kid with a neighbor and as far as I can tell, he was not looking to repeat the experience.
It took a little bit of persuasion but overall he wasn't too hard to convince. When I explained that the guy hosting the game had 20+ years of experience doing it and that it wouldn't be a bore, he was on board.
I must admit that after selling the idea to him, I was a little concerned when the evening begun. Should he not enjoy himself, he might become completely passive (but he wouldn't disturb the game).
Well, as a tribute to ChattyDM's skills, I could tell he was in the game as soon as the first blow was landed and colorfully described. He didn't know exactly what he was into or how to act, but he was totally in it.
Bonus points to the DM for stealing one of his weapons mid-fight... I'm sure he'll be more careful next time he's asked "..so, you're still only using your long sword two-handed?" He liked it enough to consider joining us for Franky's MCWoD game that will be beginning soon. (That surprised me big time).
Personally, my experience was pretty much what I expected for a session which was a simple introduction to the basic rules. Towards the end of the evening, the DM tried to give us the reigns over the storytelling and it became scary as hell to me. I could see the plot hooks dangling in front of us, but I couldn't think of any way of grabbing hold of them.
No, that's not quite right.. I couldn't think of any cool way of grabbing hold of the hooks. Through the years, I have heard so many juicy anecdotes surrounding this game that I had set the bar very high for my own performance.
I couldn't find something really interesting to do, I just freeze up and not do anything. And to make matters worse, when I did think of things to do, I got stage fright and didn't do anything again. Yay me!
Things I wanted to do, but didn't:...
During one of the fights, ChattyDM had to dumb down the monsters some to make sure we survived the first 20 minutes of the game. The dices were that bad... even threatening the dice with a ride in the microwave followed by the execution of this threat did not improve our rolls.
In any case, one of the creature's leader purposefully set himself astride one of our fallen comrade to taunt us. I thought, alright, I'm going to pull our friend to safety right from under that guy's feet and once he's not right in the middle of the fight, I can stabilize him. With a bit of luck, the fiend might lose his balance and give us a little more time to dispatch him. Yeah, I didn't do that.
Later on, during the RP/investigation part of the game, I thought and even voiced an idea to get back at all the attention the others characters were receiving. I wanted to use a 'groupie' love letter given to our Fighter and send it to our wizard's rejected admirer on her behalf. I didn't stick to my guns however and didn't actually do any of it (Chatty DM: That would have been freaking hilarious, you should have forged on with the idea!).
Would any of these actually make a difference or alter the story in any way, I don't think so, but they would have been fun to see play out. I think I can explain this stage fright in two ways. First, I was unsure it would lead to anything... I would think "Is this even going to work? Do the rules allow for such an action".
That's a pretty stupid reason considering our DM would probably have allowed it if only because I was a newbie and he wouldn't hammer me with rules on the first night (Chatty DM: No! I would have allowed it because it was Cool, DMs are also subjected to the Rule of Cool you know?).
I guess it will take me a while before my fear of the rulebook fades.
The second explanation is much simpler... the whole thing would be out of character for me. Let me explain this better. The proposed actions I thought of are not out of character; that's the sort of things I do daily... I don't often have the opportunity of dragging friends from under a monster's feet, but I'm the kind of guy who disassemble his boss's chair and let him sit in it... Amazing that I'm still employed.
For some strange reason, I can't have a 'character' do something 'I' would normally do because I don't know enough about the game to will myself to do it. My inner Half-Orc might require some more therapy before he can make his place in the world.
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