Another quick update

my new campaign is starting in about a month I will be uploading audios of it and more new player guides.

I have been gone

I have been gone for a long time, but that changes soon working on some new stuff including a comic (actually not about D&D) I will be posting again soon.

Good Parties Gone Bad #3

Sent to me by Panther

The Great Paladin Fire

So, as I promised, I am going to tell you how our party of lawful good (except the rogue), level 1 PCs slaughtered a town of 20,000.

It was the start of our adventure, we had a Halfling bard, a Dragonborn Paladin, an Eladrin Monk (me) and a Tiefling rogue.

The DM started us off in a port town tavern, where we were supposed to meet up and get a contract for our mercenary group. Right off the bat, the Tiefling tried to pickpocket an off-duty guard, and gets himself thrown out of the tavern. He comes back in, and starts some more crap with the off-duty guard, who blows his whistle and summons more guards.

The rest of us let the Tiefling get arrested, and we collect our contract. However, we REALLY need the Tiefling for this job, so we decide to break him out of jail. We scope out the jail for a day, and we can't find any way in, except through the front door.

We eventually decide that the bard and the paladin will cause some kind of distraction, so that I can make my way into the jail and punch out the only guy on duty. We decide that this is best done at night, so that the guards are tired, and there aren't many on duty anyways. We decide that the best distraction at 2 AM would be a building on fire...

However, none of us are cool with setting an occupied building on fire, and potentially getting someone killed, or ruining livelihoods... So, we find an abandoned building block that we can set on fire.

We use magic to signal each other, and the dragonborn paladin uses his breath to set the abandoned buildings on fire. The bard starts running around, telling guards that the building is on fire, and I get prepared to sneak into the jail and free the rogue.

The DM decided to start rolling to see if the fire was contained, or if it spread to any where else. It spreads.

I encounter resistance at the jail, but it isn't too much for me to handle, and I manage to free the rogue. Meanwhile, the fire has continued to spread, and our paladin has joined the firefighting effort. However, the city keeps failing the "contain the fire" rolls, and eventually the entire ghetto is ablaze.

The fire eventually spread through the city, and most of the port was leveled by dawn. It was not totally contained until the army showed up with some wizards who could conjure rain. All told, some 20,000 souls knelt before The Raven Queen that day.

Our paladin went into a catatonic state, and did not speak for weeks.

Good Parties Gone Bad #2

The Stockborough Killings

Sitting in the prison of Wildmure on some trumped-up charges, the four men of my party and I were approached by the mayor. He had a smug look on his face, the kind you just want to slap off.
"We had nothing to do with those thefts!" pleaded Zhet, our paladin. "I have no idea how those rubies got in my bag! We are good people! We're trying to save the world, for Pelor's sake."
"Oh, that is because I put them in there," the mayor said matter of factly.
"Why would you do that?" whined Zhet
"I have a job that needs to be done, and from what I hear you lot can do that for me."
"Why should we help you?" snapped Swayne, our mage.
"Well, I can make this little theft charge go away if you agree to help me. If you don't, I can make sure that you stay in here for the rest of your lives"
"Ok," I said. "What do you need done?"
The mayor explained to us that a caravan would be leaving the town of Stockborough. In the caravan was a merchant. The merchant was transporting some rare goods in a package, and we were to retrieve it. So we were released and started towards Stockborough.

When we found the caravan we saw it was well guarded with near thirty men. In the center of them was a carriage where the package would be. We began to make a plan on how best to get the package. I, being an accomplished rogue, wanted to sneak in and steal it. Zhet, our Paladin, wanted to simply pool our money together and buy it. While we were discussing it, Thrien our Necromancer decided to attack the guards with a spell, in what he called a "surprise attack." The rest of the guards charged at us and a battle started. I snuck around and attacked people from behind while the paladin was chopping through foes like butter, and Swain set a fire ball at the carriage driver / archer, setting the caravan on fire.

After we were the last ones standing, we went to the carriage and tried to open it, but it was locked from the inside. We could hear voices inside; it sounded like a small family.
"All we want is the package," called Zhet.
The door opened, and a man holding a dagger and a package started to jump out. Zhet, with quick reflexes, knocked him back into the carriage, making him drop the two items. I locked the door to make sure he wouldn't try to attack us again. We heard screams of protest from inside. Thrien picked up the package, while Bash, our ranger check out the bodies of the guards.
"So these don't look like real guards" said Bash. The rest of us came over to inspect ignoring the yelling from the carriage.
"They must of just been some towns folk hired to go with this carriage" I said
"Oh Pelor, what have we done we murdered innocent people" said Zhet.
"Um, guys?" interjected Bash
"Why did you just attack them!" Zhet yelled at Thrien.
"guys" Bash said trying to get our attention.
"I though the element of surprise would be best" Thrien snapped back.
"GUYS!" Bash yelled
"WHAT?" Zhet demanded
"I thought you would want to know that the carriage is on fire" Bash pointed to the carriage, it was now engulfed in flames.

Knowing that if we went back to jail we wouldn't be able to save the world from the Demon Lord, we killed some drifters, gave them some basic gear and scattered their bodies throughout the scene.

We opened the package and found that these "rare goods" the mayor wanted so badly, were just some drugs he probably addicted to. To make sure he never did something like this to another party we poisoned half of it and sold the other half. When we gave the drugs to the mayor he told us we had 1 day to get out of town and to never come back. The next morning on our way out of town we heard he "overdosed" on something. We smiled as we walked down the road to finish out quest.

..................................................................................................................

This was a dramatization of a story I read by QuizzicalOstrich. About the horrible deeds his party committed. I love hearing these stories and if you would like me to share yours, send me a message at my reddit.

-Thanks for reading

Charisma: Mental Ability Score or Physical?

Charisma is an odd ability score due to the fact that it has both a mental aspect and a physical aspect.

As defined by 3.5 PHB

Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting. Charisma is most important for paladins, sorcerers, and bards. It is also important for clerics, since it affects their ability to turn undead. Every creature has a Charisma score.

On one hand, charisma is the power of your personality, how well you influence others.
But also, charisma is how attractive you are.
I know that the "attractive" bit doesn't really have any effect on the game from a numbers perspective, but it does affect how you interact with PCs and NPCs.

Some people don't believe it is fair that just because they have a low charisma, their character should be ugly, and neither do I. So the way I view charisma is that you are either influencing, inspiring, etc.. through either your personality (think William Wallace), through sheer good looks (think Zapp Brannigan), or some combination of both. Now I know that none of this actually affects the mechanics of the game, but D&D isn't just about mechanics; it's about role-playing that character for a few to 12 hours at a time.

The simple little way I like to set up charisma as both a DM and a PC (note: as a PC, just explain this to the DM; if they have an issue with it, remember: they are god. There's nothing you can do):

I spilt my charisma into two different parts: looks and personality. Since the average score of a human is 10, that would mean 5 in looks is average and 5 in personality is average.

If you're a fighter with a charisma of 7 and you don't want to be ugly, just put 5 points in looks, and 2 into personality (that means you look average, but you are  bad with people).

Ideas for RP,

• A Bard with a charisma of 17 (16 in looks, 1 in personality) have Gaston like personality, you are abrasive and you think the world revolves around you.
• A Wizard with a 12 in charisma (10 in looks, 2 in personality) you are a book worm you talk way above peoples intelligence and it rubs people the wrong way, but you are good looking so people put up with it. 

That's it. Like I said: simple, but it's a lot more clear for the DM and other players to know why you can influence people the way you do. If you have questions or comments leave them below or message me on my reddit.

P.S. I claim no ownership to this system or originality, I just picked it up over time.

-Thanks for reading

Good Parties Gone Bad - #1

Story #1

What can make a generally "good"-aligned party do something evil and horrible? This will be a regular feature exploring the complicated moral decisions that a really great DM will make you face. (inspired from post on reddit by jayded777)

Poor Poor Jeffery

This one is a personal experience when I was the DM,
The party woke up in a strange place, and each of them had been transformed into a child about the age of 7. They looked around and it appeared they were in an orphanage. A woman came in and told them it was time to go outside and play, but they demanded to know what was going on, so she slapped one of them, told them not to be rude, and sent them outside.

They found themselves in a small town with high walls right next to a single mountain, but having traveled most of the continent they had no idea where there was a single mountain. Confused, they attempted to start to gather information and figure out how they had been transformed.

They found very little important information. For example; some sort of celebration called "the festival of the Guardian", in honor of the Guardian who keeps the volcano from erupting, would be held 3 days after they initially woke up in the town. Other information included things like "the mayor is sick", or "the kids would be playing pirates on the 2nd day if they could get someone to build them a boat."

At the end of the 3rd day of them trying to figure this all out, the volcano erupted, and killed everyone in the village, including the child-party. They woke up back in the orphanage, the woman came in and told them to go outside and play, and again the festival of the Guardian was in 3 days. This time they tried to go straight to the volcano, but found out little kids weren't allowed outside the walls. So they kept watch every day until the 3rd, when the the gate was no longer guarded due to the festival.

At the base of the volcano there was an entrance to a cave. Inside they found a door and a wall with 10 levers on it. Above each lever was a question: What is Jeffrey's pirate name? What burned down the pet shop? etc. etc. They attempted to pull the levers but none would move. Figuring they needed the answers to pull the levers, they waited until the volcano erupted, (starting the time loop over) to go out and find them.

This was what I thought to be a fun side quest and puzzle, but I was wrong.

The players were mostly mad at the fact they couldn't figure out who put them there and rushed through most of the puzzles - some were fun, most were not. Each of the kids had stats based off their adult forms and had items to go with them being non-proficient with weapons. They each had something that they were proficient with; the spear-wielder for example had a long stick. None of them liked the idea of using the clever, kid-appropriate weapons I gave them, and stole real ones to take the -4 penalty.

Now they got the answer to almost all the questions, but they were stuck on "What is Jeffery's pirate name?" They didn't want to figure out how to get a boat so the kids could play pirate, so instead they kidnapped Jeffery, age 7, and took him into the woods to first interrogate him, then tortured him through various means, almost drowning him, cutting off fingers, skinning him, (you get the idea). They had multiple attempts at this because of the time loop; he would give them an answer, but it didn't work. What they didn't know is, if they played pirates Jeffery changed his pirate name to the name of the boat maker. In the end they ended up getting the boat made and got the name.

I was personally shocked this party of adventurers trying to save the world would torture a little kid. I shouldn't have been. They ended up adopting a "by-any-means-necessary mindset," but it led to a funny story and a good memory.

Well, that's the end for this one, if you have a good story leave it in the comments or send me a message on my Reddit I love reading these stories, and if you are fine with it I might share it in another post.

-Thanks for reading

It's a Small Small World After All.

Every now and then I get an idea for a campaign and just like to write it down, so I thought I'd put one here to see what you think. (In this universe, the spell Plane Shift does not exist)

First Session

Your party is exploring a dungeon, looking for a powerful magic item that is said to be in the deepest layer. When you get to the room, you can feel the magic power radiating from a chest in the center of the room.

You walk up to the chest and open it, and a powerful blast sends you flying and falling, falling, falling, till you hit warm and moist dirt.

Dazed, you try to look around, sunlight blinding you. You are now outside in a massive forest. You start to stand up, and can see your party staring at something. It is a
Massive
9 foot
Hideous
Rat?
Your party prepares for battle...

This is a giant world where everything but the party of adventurers (and some small pockets of humanoids that have been dumped in this world) is 3 size categories bigger. Most humanoids (the giant ones) are simple, can't use magic, and live in small villages. The party can either quest to find a way home or try to find a new home in this terrifying land.

This world can lead to a lot of interesting situations;
think of hiding in a cave to get out of the weather (since in a world were everything is huge even rain can be deadly) and discovering that it is a snake's den.
Capturing and taming a cat to be your mount.
Shadow of the Colossus-like fighting where you have to climb your opponent to kill them.
Watching a wizard cast fire ball and it having the effect of a fire cracker.

Well that's it. So far, at least. It needs some more work, but this is a good starter concept. I love reading new and interesting ideas for worlds, cities, or campaigns. For example, I was just reading a great concept the other day about building a city around a Tarrasque: here is the link if you want to check that out. If you have a great concept send it to me I'd love to hear it.

-Thanks for reading