0150: Another Day, Another Character

Yesterday's shift at work wasn't that bad, though the Guest Care clerk didn't show up until 930a. Well, there was this $150 order right after I began checking at 6a, and the woman wanted half of it in one basket, and half in another, and was nitpicking about whether the school supplies were tax free (they were) and whether she should run them separately. Meanwhile, the line behind grew and grew, beginning with another basket (though this was nearly full, it wasn't overflowing like the one I was working on). And, I may curse with the worst of them, but is it really necessary to go around tossing the F word out? In a public place? When you're talking to your children?

Well, that was the biggest thing I had to worry about while checking, and fortunately, no one said a thing about the line. Tthough I did have one woman much later who -- trying to be conversational and friendly I'm sure -- asked if we were short-handed. I replied, "It's before 8am on Sunday morning. There's no one else scheduled to be here. If not for large orders coming through, there wouldn't be a line now." Less than appropriate, sure, but I tend to lose all sense of tact when I'm under pressure. I said it politely, though. *innocent smile*

After work, I came home, vegged out for a few, and went to my D&D game.

Yeah.

Remember that post on Saturday night, asking for suggestions on how to make my cleric in lordreaibn's game different from the one I was running on Sunday? Yeah. Not an issue now. :-p We has a party wipe on a level one adventure. In our defense, though, I personally doubt that a Dire Weasel and 8 rats, or 8 kobolds and one kobold sorcerer2, or an orc cleric 5 really are appropriate for a true level one party. (The numbers are just too high on the first encounters, really. And a 5th level cleric?! He *was* the "boss" of the dungeon, but that's pretty hardcore, since we'd have run into him after fighting the 8 kobolds and the sorcerer.

So, Rodney is taking a break from running, and nyminal is picking up the reins. He's doing so, in part, because he's tired of coming up with new characters, which I can understand, beacuse I was just about to volunteer to run a game myself. :)

I'll detail the rest of the night in another post, so as not to bore the non-gamers. :)

0151: D&D musings, & how they are affecting my Sunday game.

So my party wiped on Sunday night, and we chose to swap DMs and reroll to start over again.

After the game, we hung around longer than usual, and discussed what we were going to do with this new game. Nym's first rule? "The roll method will be 4d6 six times, drop the lowest. If it has at least one 13, and is a +1 character, then it's playable." No rerolls of 1s, no fancy things to make powerful PCs. strieson wasted no time in beginning to roll, and had to roll three times to get a playable set of stats. Meanwhile, I began rolling mine. I only had three d6s (I had 3 sets of dice with me, and wasn't expecting to have to reroll), so I just grabbed my glittery silver and glittery gold dice, and just rolled 2d6 12 times. :)

My first roll was a 17. Cool.. There's my power stat. My second roll was a 9. Okay, there's my character builder. Please don't let the rest suck. (Traditionally, if I roll really well on the first stat, my numbers go down from there. I've had characters with an 18, a 15, and nothing else above 10.) Four rolls later, I was staring open-mouthed at my paper, and said to Nym, "Hey, you watched me roll those!"

My final stats were: 17, 17, 15, 15, 14, 9. Talk about awesome. That's all but twinked. :)

So, here's my dilemma: My stats are too good for me to be able to easily pick a class. I know, I know. It sure looks like I'm whining (and to be fair, I probably am, since if I'd gotten a 7 like someone else, I'd be unhappy about that, too). I sat there, offering tips to others about what class to play, yet unable to choose one of my own. I didn't want to make a cleric, since I'd just made one, and he just got killed. (If I could just get a full cleric past level 1, I'd probably be a heck of a lot more likely to continue playing him.)

Nym outlined the allowable races, which are:

• Human 
• Half-Elf 
• Half-Orc 
• Halfling 
• Elf 
• Dwarf 
• Gnome 
• Tiefling* 
• Aasimar* 

As for classes, he said that only those in the Player's Handbook were allowed, unless you did a good job of convincing him. Frankly, I was blatantly looking at other sources last night, hoping for inspiration. In addition to the eleven core classes, I'd also be open to:

• From Complete Adventurer:
• Scout


• From Complete Arcane:
• Warlock
• Warmage


• From Complete Divine:
• Spirit Shaman


• From Complete Warrior:
• Swashbuckler -- Nevermind about this. He said absolutely none of these, period. (No love for pirates! :( )
• Hexblade


• From Expanded Psionics Handbook:
• Psion (not sure of discipline, though)
• Soulknife 


• From Tome of Magic:
• Shadowcaster 
• Truenamer 


• From Eberron Campaign Setting:
• Artificer 

The setting we're using is "the default D&D world", aka Greyhawk. (I could write another post, ranting about D&D adding a "default" world to the core rules!) I like the idea of Greyhawk, though. It's high magic, but not like the Forgotten Realms. It's firmly medievail-style fantasy, unlike Eberron. We know nothing of the world, unlike Dragonlance. It's not Ptolus or PlaneScape, but I can ask only so much, eh? :)

In the end, if you can think of something that works with those stats, feel free to suggest it. This is a brainstorming session, and no reasonable answer will be ignored. "Reasonable", though, doesn't include 5 classes, like a Beguiler4/Rogue2/Wizard7/Arcane Trickster5/Archmage2. That's just a little silly. :) Oh yeah, and as for prestige classes, they are allowed, but they have to fit and make sense, and I'm assuming that the rule that you can't take one before level 10 is in force, too.

Anyway, thanks for any help you can give! :)

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* - He felt, and I agreed, that the benefits of the tiefling and aasimar -- if you remove the native outsider bit -- don't justify a +1 LA.

0152: Hehe.. My class issue, solved? :)

You Are A:Chaotic Good Elf Bard Fighter
Follower Of Hanali Cenanil
Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value ofgoodness. They have little use for governments and other forces oforder, and will generally do their own things, without heed to suchgroups.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of allraces, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They aregenerally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of theirlong lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other racesfrequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal,although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simplypass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to makeother people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend todabble in magic a bit.

Secondary Class:
Fighters are the warriors.  They use weapons to accomplish their goals.  This isn't to say that they aren't intelligent, but that they do, in fact, believe that violence is frequently the answer.

Deity:
Hanali Cenanil is the Chaotic Good elven goddess of love, beauty, and art. She is alsoknown as the Heart of Gold and Lady Goldheart. Her followers delight increation and youth, and work to spread happiness, love, and beauty.Their preferred weapon is the dagger.

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What D&D Character Are You? courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)

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