Monster Builder in Beta!

Blarg...

I keep missing posts due to school related business, but I have good news!


The Monster Builder is out in beta!

Go check it out!

A New Twist on the Peasant Railgun (4e)

Ghaa! I missed two days of posting, but to make up for it I have an awesome post:


Just about every one has heard of the peasant railgun. A mechanics experiment that requires a large number of peasants to ready an action to pass a spear (or any other item) to the next peasant when it is handed to them, causing the spear to travel a large distance in 6 seconds, effectively making it a far more deadly weapon than it was before.


Now, for the twist:
I plan to attempt this with a player character.

At level 1.


Its really simple, actually. All you need is the Fighter's Bloodrager vigor talent and the rogue's Speedy Response feat. As a human, this is possible at first level either as a fighter multiclassing into rogue or a hybrid fighter/rogue using hybrid talent to get bloodrager vigor. You want a score of 15 in dexterity, and as much as you can into constitution. For armor, you want nonmagical cloth of no armor, you want to get hit!

Ok, get your army of peasants (closest thing in the MMs would be the human rabble on page 162 in the first MM) in two rows 5 ft (one square) in between them, and tell them to attack you with an opportunity attack if you get close. Then, run down the middle.


For each 5ft you move, two peasants will get opportunity attacks against you. Two things happen if they hit you: after damage is settled, you gain temporary HP equal to your constitution modifier, and you gain a +1 bonus to speed for the move.

Now for some math!
If you have no armor or cloth armor, your AC will be 12 (due to having 15 in dex, giving a +2 to AC) and the peasants have a +6 to their attack. This means that they have a 14 in 20 chance of hitting you, that's a 70% chance.

If you have 1000 peasants (two rows of 500) then approximately 700 will hit you, causing you to move about 700 squares plus your speed (i assume 6) in 6 seconds, that's 3530 ft per 6 sec or...

Times 10 seconds = 35300 ft/minute
Times 60 minutes = 2118000ft/hr
Divided by 5280 ft = 401.1363636... Mph

That's about an additional 0.4 mph per peasant you have, assuming 70% of them hit you.

And the best part is, after all of this is over you have full health (down 4 hp with 4 temp hp) to help you survive whatever it is that you crash into!


Just over 400 MPH at level one! Sure, it needed 1000 peasants, but using rules as they were (sort of) intended I only got to just over 200 MPH, and this could even be scaled up more.

A million peasants could get you to around 401136 MPH, if my math if correct.


What makes this better is that this build could actually be useful in a battle! Though you might want to get some decent armor. If you want to get through the minions to get to the Big Bad or want to cheat at a race (and have an excuse as to that you weren't cheating).

and here is a thrown together version, named Spear:




I hope you liked it! Any questions, comments, etc? Leave a comment!

Go Read A Book (Here Are Some Suggestions)

Go read a book from one of these series:

Discworld by Terry Pratchett.

Myth Adventures by Robert Asprin

Shannara by Terry Brooks

Xanth by Piers Anthony


I've only read books from the first two series, but have also heard great things about the others.

Any agreements with the series above or other suggestions?

Making 4e More Like WoW: PVP And Raids!

There have been many people who have complained that 4e is too much like World of Warcraft. I say, take a few more ideas from it.

PVP
I can see many options for this, one on one, free-for-alls. team battles, and multi-team battles. See who can build the best character and play it best, see which team works together the best, or just get a buch of people together to kill each other.


Raids
Why would a 6 person team be able to take down a mighty dragon?
It would definitely be tricky to pull off, but to have a large group play through a dungeon might be fun. The dungeon, and possibly the enemies, would have to be modified to make it accessible to a larger group.

It might work where there is one DM in charge of a certain amount of players and they each group take their turns at the same time, when everyone is done with a round, then the GMs start working on the monsters.


Well, I don't know if they would work, but I think it would be interesting to try. I'm going to try to convince my gaming group to try some PVP (shouldn't be hard) and depending on how it turns out, I'll try to post about it.

WotC Finally Give Psionics Sufficient Fluff and It's WHAT?

WotC released their design and development article for the psionics power source and from reading it I think I got a glimpse of how exactly it is said to be.


Now before I get into what I think they said, let me point a few things out:

A) Psionics usually do not get sufficient fluffing. Instead the psionics usually tend to be a great deal of new mechanics, but lack decent explanation of how it fits into D&D's fantasy setting.
B) Psionics, by their nature, tend to be powered by one's own mind power, as martial classes tend to be powered by their own physical strength or dexterity.
C) One of the (many) complaints about psionics is that they are too similar to wizards. I don't exactly know how, but its something that is mentioned in the article.


Here is a summary of the new psionics back story:

Recently, as the Far Realm's incursion into the world has grown more aggressive, psionic energy has become more common, stronger, and easier to control. Previously, only monks could tap into it with their rigorous discipline and self-control. Now others can utilize it, from psions who study and unlock its secrets to others who acquire psionic powers seemingly at the universe's whim.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like it's a power that leaks from the Far Realm that those with the ability can tap into. How is that separating it from the wizard? If I make a psionic character, I want it to have power oozing out his ears because it comes from his brain! I don't want my mentally powered character to pull mental energy from some source leaking from the far realm.


Though now that I think about it... It somehow starts to fit into one of my growing theories...

divine power comes from the astral sea, primal and martial come from the material plane (primal also a little from the feywild), psionic now from the far realm, elemental will probably come from the elemental chaos, and shadow will probably be from the shadowfel.

As interesting as a power source from the far realms seems, I much more like the idea of psionics and the martial power source being parts of a ying-yang of the intelligent creatures of the D&D universe. if you train your body hard enough, your body becomes a weapon, it seems more fitting to me that if you can train your mind enough it too can become a weapon as well. Its possible that the far realm is somehow causing radiation that makes more people able to use psionic powers easier, but only time (and the PHB3) will tell.


Agree with me?
Disagree with me?
Comment!

Race Origin Stories: All Decended From Humans

Some fantasy settings describe humans as being "a young race" compared to the elves and dwarves that have been in existence for ages upon ages. But, what if the humans are the old race, struggling to remain on top, while the world becomes filled with new races trying to make a place for themselves?


Perhaps, long ago, humans left the material plane to colonize other worlds. The people who would later become the elves left for the feywild, and those who did not come back long ago became the eladrin, and those who went instead to the shadowfell became drow. The ancestors of the dwarves went to a plane of elemental earth with high gravity. Halflings and gnomes have a similar ancestry and the gnomes also spent some time in the feywild.

Make sense?


Orcs and goblins, on the other hand, make me wonder where they could have come from. Perhaps they went to some far plane and became twisted by the lack of resources, some struggle that they had to endure, or maybe the plane's evil aura. The orcs went to some savage plant filled world and at some point began to become plant-like, gaining their green hue.

Dragonborn's ancestors went to some world with frisky, shapechanging dragons. TMI there.


Of course, its not required that planar travel be required, with the above stories it kinda implies that this is a future version of our world. If you want it to be from a fantasy setting, maybe the human peoples are seperated long enough for them to gain further different traits, or maybe it was just random or magical mutation.


How about a story?
The dragonborn were once half-dragons, spread across the world, separate from each other. One day one of them helped a great king who offered him anything that he desired. He requested for a small portion of the kingdom to create a place for his kind and for the king to send messages around the world to let all the half-dragons know they had a place to call home. Their descendants later rose to take over that kingdom, but that's another story.


Kinda a random post, haphazardly thrown together (more than usual), but how do you like it?
Comment!

Psion: How to multiclass?

I was really excited yesterday to find that the D&DI was releasing a new class with the character builder update: the Psion! I was quite surprised to see that the psion uses a new system for their powers, I think it should work well, but I noticed something.

The way it works is that it eliminates encounter powers, but you not only get to gain new at-will attacks, but you can augment them with power points (which you start with two of, and gain more every few levels). The problem is that if you try to multiclass into another class (or try to multiclass into psion) you don't have any encounter powers to trade for powers from your new class.


I suppose you could lose your new at-will and the added power points in exchange for your multiclass encounter powers, but it seems like it would be weakening your character or at the very least, making things very complicated.

APSC: Arcane Paladin Problem, Part II

Alright, I think I figured it out the solution to my problem.

I'm going to associate certain weapon types with an element, and upon character creation, you pick a weapon type. That weapon type will be what you can use as an implement, and the associated element will be the damage type.

I think this both solves the problems with damage type of the attacks and what implements to use. This also gives me some options for some new feats specifically for the arcane paladin. A feat for a new weapon type as an implement (and therefore a new damage type when you use that weapon type) or even just the ability to use a different damage type with the weapon type you have.

Now that I think about it, I have not done any new feats for the APSC project. Expect a post with feats soon... Either to make them fit in with their new power source or to adjust their current feats to fit the new power source... or something like that.


So, What do you think of my new plan? Any questions, comments, or blindingly obvious errors in my thinking? Leave a comment!

APSC: Arcane Paladin Problem

I began working on the arcane paladin for the APSC project, and I kinda ran into a problem. Several of the paladin's powers are radiant typed, and there are a few ways that I could handle it to make it fit the arcane power source.


I could simply fluff if so that they originated from the Divine paladins and were able to channel arcane power into radiant attacks. But that seemed like a bit of a cop out. I searched on.

I could give the choice of what damage type to replace all of the radiant attacks with, but that may give too much flexibility or would give some options for feats or just to give your character an elemental theme or focus.

Or I could go through each and every power and meticulously pick an element and add fluff for every single power. Um... That's a bit much for my tastes.


There are probably more options that I am missing, which is why I am writing a post about it. That and that I had nothing else prepared. So, any ideas? Like one of the options I have above? Think my attempt at the APSC project is a joke? Leave a comment.

One Page Dungeon: Zoo of Death

Well, by the time that this post goes up, the one page dungeon contest should have it's winners announced. So, I feel its about time that I posted my entry, The Zoo of death.


It can be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16988246/Zoo-of-Death


It is a reference to a part of the story that was removed from the movie, and one of many reasons why you should read the book.