An attempt to start a campiagn

Once again we will go to 4e. Not a very long post.

Paranoia XP: Patch 1.000003215b

Citizen: Friend Computer, we had an excellent time playing PARANOIA, now can we get back to D&D?
Friend Computer: Why Citizen, Why would you want to play D&D, when you can be playing Paranoia instead?
Citizen: Yeah bu-
Friend Computer: Arguing with the Friend Computer is treason citizen.
Citizen: Look I enjoy both games but I do want to do D&D, can you at least give me a reason?
Friend Computer: Certainly Citizen, what is your clearance color?
Citzen: er... Red?
Friend Computer: I am sorry citizen but a higher clearance is required to know that information
Citizen: ....


Working and planning next week adventure will lead to Paranoia AGAIN this week. Have a nice day!

Paranoia XP

Attention Citizens,
The Computer has requested on Friday in exactly 17 hours, that you all play paranoia. The Computer has requested that you join us in Paranoia. What!? What do you mean you have played Paranoia last Friday. I am sorry citizens but I will have to request that all of you will have to be terminated due to treason. Please step into the nearest Termination Booth and have a nice day!


But seriously, I now know the "Offical Rules." Bring a pencil. And preferably print of this conivent link.

And now for an actual update... (Long Post)

Things have been chaotic lately, Marc, a good buddy has left the group thinking from what I can tell he thinks I hate him. We can get more into that later. Its Easter vacation for me (finally) so now I will have time to post some stuff on the blog.

Campaign Setting, during my campaign I have been using a generic setting. FOr the better or worst I have decided to use an actual campaign world. I looked through forgotten realms and it was... meh. Alright, but I have played through forgotten realms before. Its alright, but nothing extraordinary, I liked some of the ideas butcome to think of it most games already run Forgotten Realms for RPGA. I searched the net for the world and then I discovered Eberron. Now Eberron caught my intrest due to some intresting ideas. I can give up a link that gives you a good feel and history of Eberron overall, althrough it is rather breif. This motivational poster does give a good summary of all possiblities with Eberron. Ok maybe not so much, but I like a lot of the ideas.









Next order of bussiness, devoloping characters. All characters have motives and reason why they are doing what they are doing. The follwing is taken by a good post by Oakspar77777:
characters or often refered to as being drawn from the "concept up" or "story up". Concept would be "I want to be an archer type character" or "I want to be a mage focues on electricity spells". The mechanics are worked out, and a backstory is created to flesh out WHY the character wants to be that. Story would start with the character's story and lets the mechanics be dictated by that story. This usually results in weaker, less synergistic characters. Some would say that this is an extension of power gaming or roll vs role playing, but I would disagree. The real key is having a full developed character, since even the most story based of characters are usually created with some background decisions already made, such as martial, aux, divine, or arcane based character.

That said, a fully developed character should have all of the following before the campaign begins:

Gender - Duh
Race - Duh again
Class - Tripel duh
Appearance - Elf female is not an appearance. A green eyed elven female with shiney brown hair and a stout build for her race, wearing a deep purple hooded cloak and the brown leather work outfits common to most northern villages IS an appearance.
Origin - Your character needs to come from somewhere (or have a distinct reason for why he does not know where he came from).
Background - Where you came from is not everything about you. Why are you still not there? What are your relation to that area? What, if any, adventuring caree have you already had? Where are your parants and family? Do you have any friends?
Insertion - Each character MUST have a reason for being where they are in the campaign world. This is much harder with a larger group or even a small group with major regional or ethnic difference (ie, a Halfling from the Southling Swamp, a Human Monk from the far north land of Ishgar, an elf from Syvanistad in the east, and a northland half-orc barbarian originate thousands of miles from each other).
Motivations - Why is your character adventuring?
Goals - What does your character want to acomplish? (these last two are super important for DMs to know. If you want your character to be a Paladin out doing good while seeking to avenge the death of his father at the hands of the Blackguard(Evil Paladin) who murdered him, you have a motivation that will help the DM build story and adventures. If you let your DM know that you hope for your character to slowly grow more obsesced with revenge, rather that vengence, you DM can plan for your eventual goal of becomeing a Blackguard yourself and timing it with the eventual slaying of your father's murderer.
Personality - How will your character relate with other characters? Chiper? Gloomy? Moody? Morose? Happy? Energetic? Lethargic? etc

-end of quote-

I think this gives a good idea what should be done with a character. A character should'nt just be a bunch of numbers and powers on a sheet.

Next thing: Recently Marc, seems to have left his group. One day he wrote me asking me if I kicked him off the blog, the following part aka subscribing. Now me not really messing around with that kind of stuff (Hell I don't even know thats pssibele). So I simply replyed "No." He then asked for an explanation, then sent this email before I had a chance to respond, I quote:
"Paul,

1. no gas money after i offered to take a pal home, way outta the way
2. asked to mooch my paid subscription
3. booted me from your blog

did i do something? i know i continually encouraged you, backed your efforts as gm, brought & kept guys at your table, and made characters on my own time for you. i thought i'd make some friends and enjoy some gaming at game theory.

thinking you, Paul, have really ruined my experience there."

I then responded with this email:
"I didn't do anything I swear. Honestly. I didn't kick you from my blog, hell I really haven't done anything Honest swear-to-god. One day, not sure when, it no longer showed your name, I thought you just canceled your subscription/following. Did a message appear telling you I kicked you or something? Because I have sorta of forgotten about the blog. I am grateful for all the things you have done for both me and our group. My only guess, is Google's servers glitched out. Your an awesome player, all the favors you have provided for me, Would I repay you by simply booting you? I would of never done that; That would be both cruel and cold hearted. When I asked what you what I owned you simply said a Reese's cup, I thought that was a bit too cheap but I agreed. The subsciption, I just figured it was worth a try, my persitence, I can say I was tired of staring at all the shiney untouchable dragon articles. Tell me how much really money I owe you for gas, I can pay you next week. I am just as suprised as you are, with this whole blog thing. You may not believe me, but honestly I did nothing with this whole incident. It probaly would of been avoided if I asked you a week or so why you stop following my blog, but I assume you checked. "Weird shit happens" is the only justification I can make. I appologize for this incident, and I hope I didnt ruin you experience, and our friendship. I wrote this email close to midnight so excuss my lack of grammar and spelling.

-Paul"

Of course, he doesnt respond after this, which makes me rather both sad and frustrated. I have lost a friend over a stupid siatution. I guess its my fault and I do appologize. Marc if you are reading this, I hope you forgive me and find a better gaming group, good luck and I hope you find a better one in comparasion to some 15 year old's game. However if you want to comeback you are more then welcome to, the decesion is yours. I honestly didn't cancel you from following. The others I guess were my fault. All this has made me feel like I am banging my head against the wall in frustration.

Lack of updates

I appologize for not having the chance to update my blog as of lately, I just completed a major essay and history assessment. Both which majorly important. Keeping a balance between school and other hobbies is rather annoying but necessary. I will post more when I have more time

Buried... Alive... By... Homework...

Hello this is Lich,
Er... If you have gotten this message,
This means I have been buried alive because of homework. Been busy mostly this week, since I was sick for a week. I now have to make it up, so I have been making up homework non-stop. So I appologize for not having a chance to write any summaries. In fact, life has been heretic for me. So, I have some sad news I won't make it this Friday, however a certain character who will not be named will sub for him. I don't know what his diabolical plans are, and how he will kill off your character, but I hope you have fun with him. To make up for the missed time, I will be DMing next Friday and a one shot game on Poly's Gameday March 21 on Saterday (The Tomb of Horrors... Most likely). Well I guess back to making up HW, have a good week and keep up with the journal entries Marc. You know if you want to you could make your own blog journal. Its not that hard... Have a good life peoples
-Lich D20

all coming together

working on next weeks adventure. Hope to see you then!

Sick...

Right now not feeling good, I have been sick for 2 days, hopefully I will get better by Friday. I haven't really posted much lately because my brain has sorta of been clogged. I will hopefully see you then.

Some House Rules

These are my current house rules,


1. Karma

Karma in D&D is basically "Good Luck," it can be used to spend points, spending points can result in your character suddenly getting bonus. This bonus can be range from a simple +1 bonus to pierce the armor of a monster, to rerolling for a skill challenge, to getting a critical hit. However extraordinary good luck, is often rare, and can only be used once per session. If one character spends karma, none of the other characters in the party can use it. However you do not acquire Karma from simply slaughtering monsters and completing skill challenges, that is the standard way to acquire xp. However gaining karma quite diffrent in compasation, to gain karma, you can:

• Amuse the DM, do something clever or funny, taking example from others
  
• Roleplay Well, just do a good job roleplaying, perhaps your character has qui
  
• your character has an interesting background/backstory

These are just the general guide lines how karma is aquired, there are many ways, most which either require creativity or simply good roleplaying. However the price of karma costs varys according to siautions. (I am still working on the karma house rules will edit eventually to add more)

Daar I think you will like the Taint Rules

4th Edition Taint Rules
The corrupting influence of evil is a concept explored in numerous books, films and games, including D&D which came out with taint rules in both 3.0 and 3.5, which provided penalties to players who were exposed to (or committed) overwhelming evil. While the rules for such taint provided considerable flavor, they were uneven in their implementation, with some providing penalties and others providing both penalties and bonuses and limited players to displaying 3 symptoms of taint for depravity and 3 for corruption. This system intends to capture the feel of taint rules for past editions while ironing out the mechanically wonky bits that have plagued such systems in the past.

Acquiring Taint
Characters can acquire taint in several different ways:
Committing acts of unspeakable evil: in cultures throughout the typical D&D setting certain acts earn universal condemnation amongst races and peoples with even the slightest moral code-murder, torture, genocide, and rape as well as fouler acts warp the mind of those committing them and result in the offending character gaining depravity. This does not represent external evil creeping into the character’s mind, but rather represents the wearing away of one’s moral compass as characters begin to treat others as pawns and toys rather than as individual creatures worthy of respect. Even characters that describe themselves as “hardened” or “jaded” are not immune to gaining depravity in this fashion-indeed, one could argue that being extremely hardened to or jaded about the suffering of others is a sign of one gaining depravity.

Exposure to areas warped by evil: whether due to the presence of demons, foul creatures from the far realms, or simply areas forever marred by evil of a less supernatural variety (such as the execution of an innocent man by a corrupt court, or the shack where a serial killer went to hide his “conquests”) can result in character’s gaining corruption through no fault of their own. Typically, there are only certain areas in the blighted zone that bestow corruption (the area around the altar where innocents were sacrificed to dread gods), but in the cases of extreme blights, every square foot of the area might potentially bestow corruption. This corruption is typically applied to a character after a certain length of time and is accompanied by a feeling of instinctive disgust that warn both the player and his or her character that it would be wise to spend as little time in the location as possible.

Certain sanity-rending locations that warp the minds of those who travel through them, like an area tainted by the energies of the far realm might very well bestow depravity instead as character’s minds break under the strain of sights alien to any sane man or woman.

Exposure to dread items: While tools and weapons both magical and mundane have no moral significance in and of themselves, the uses they are put to or the techniques used in their creation can sometimes result in them being a vessel of corruption or depravity. A blade carved from the bones of a whimpering slave carries with it an imprint of the suffering of the one who “donated” the material for the blade and might whisper words of condemnation and hatred to a character who chooses to carry it, slowly increasing his or her depravity. A weapon wielded by a demonic general or an unknowable far-realm entity might have acquired some of it’s master’s inhuman corruption, and might plague a wielder with disgusting growths. Then of course, there are weapons and other items specifically crafted by mad cultists or vindictive spell casters that slowly drive their wielders insane with lust for power, or that cause them to rot from the inside out.

Taint Rules for Characters
Every character has what’s called a depravity threshold and a corruption threshold, these numbers are determined by multiplying a the higher of the character’s constitution or strength score by 5 and the higher of their wisdom or charisma scores by 5 respectively. These thresholds indicate the maximum level of depravity a character can possess before going completely insane (and thus becoming an NPC) and the maximum level of corruption the character can possess before dying of it (and likely transforming into an undead creature). Example: Brandis, a human fighter has a constitution of 14, a strength score of 16, a wisdom score of 12 and a charisma score of 11. Taking the higher score of constitution and strength (16) and multiplying it by 5 we determine that Brandis’s corruption threshold is 80. Multiplying the higher of his wisdom and charisma scores by 5 (12) we determine that his depravity threshold is 60.

The degree to which a character has been consumed by corruption or driven mad by depravity is measured in 3 stages- mild, moderate, and severe. A character reaches mild depravity when he manifests his first mental symptom (at 5 points of depravity) and reaches mild corruption when he manifests his first physical symptom (at 5 points of corruption). A character is considered to possess moderate levels of depravity or corruption when that form of taint is above ¼th but below ½ of the character’s respective taint threshold and is considered to possess severe levels of depravity or corruption when that form of taint is above ½th of the character’s respective taint threshold. These distinctions are useful for seeing how deeply a character has been affected by taint, and serve as requirements for the tainted feats listed later on in this article. Example: Brandis’s adventuring companion Liara is an eladrin warlock with a constitution score of 12 a strength score of 10, a wisdom score of 8 and a charisma score of 18. This gives her a corruption threshold of 60 (5 times the higher of her constitution or strength scores) and a depravity threshold of 90 (5 times the higher of her charisma or wisdom). This means that she counts as mildly corrupted at 5 points of corruption to 14 points of corruption (at 5 points or above but below 1/4th of her corruption threshold) moderately corrupted at 16 points to 29 points of corruption (at above 1/4th of her corruption threshold but below ½ of her corruption threshold) and severely corrupted from 30 points to 60 points of corruption (above ½ of her corruption threshold). Note that when Liara’s corruption reaches 60 points she’ll die, as her body simply gives up trying to resist the disgusting changes that evil has wrecked upon her.

For every 5 points of depravity a character possesses, she manifests a mental symptom-a sign of the toll that great evil has taken on her psyche. For every 5 points of corruption a character possesses she manifests a physical symptom as evil twists and warps her body. Each symptom offers a bonus and a penalty to a character afflicted with one-madness often brings power in fantasy and horror fiction and a decaying and mutated body can often hide unearthly strength and strange and horrible new “talents”. Some symptoms may even be chosen multiple times, increasing both the penalties and bonuses that such as symptom provides to the one afflicted with it.

The symptoms your character gains should be decided upon by yourself and the DM together to decide which symptom makes sense for your character, is compatible with your character’s abilities, and which one makes sense based on the circumstance that caused your character to gain taint in the first place.

Explanations for how to remove taint will be explained later

Thanks JohntheDM7000 for the taint rules.



I have a feeling a certain character who claims to be evil will enjoy this



Let me know what you think

Quick Question

What was you steam ID again, I'm sure we would like have a chat. I don't seem to see it.
EDIT: This blog post is no longer important, move along nothing to see here. This post is now unpersoned

Cheaps laughs and some info for tommorow (friday)

OK, just finished up this weeks adventure, this should be rather interesting, I think this image provides a good vision of what this weeks adventure will be. Er... not really but a cheap laugh on my part. Ok mybe the word Zombie is the word.

Oh I found this quiz, take it, it tells you your playstyle for D&D, and gives me an idea and how I should tailor the adventurers to everyones' taste. Its fairly interesting, at least to me, when I first took this quiz, it told me I was a power gamer, now its changed to to storyteller. Of course I took it when I was first introduced D&D.

Storyteller

92%

Tactician

83%

Butt-Kicker

58%

Specialist

58%

Power Gamer

58%

Method Actor

50%

Casual Gamer

Intresting stuff, See everyone friday, leave comments of what you got for result.


yes this is a strange post

The Story so far... Part 2

After our heroes managed to complete that adventure, they rested for a couple of days, then they realized they didn't have any work. Adventurers without work is like er... not having a job, and so they went to find a job (duh). Felix give them two contacts one was the wizards college the other one was the Doctors Guild. The wizard offered them the job as a ressurationist, a slang term for this who steal fresh corpses in exchange for a good coin. The party members found that slightly morally wrong. (and probably slightly disturbing) They discovered the reason he wanted these corpses was to make a bone golem, (Think Frankenstein's monster without the inteligence, just mindless, and obident) for his "work." The wizard seemed like the type of person who devotes their entire life just to his lifes work althrough the Party hasn't found out what his life's work is yet. They politely said they would think about it, and exited. Then they bumped into a sorta of half crazy villager, whos village was being attacked by undead, that happened to build right next to a graveyard. (Funny conscidence, Eh?) He explainecd that his children had decided to play near the cypts, and apparently disturded some ancient evil, thus causing zombies and other unnatural monstrosities, unleashed. Now that his wife and children are gone, and zombies are attacking the villagers. The party wished to help so they followed the villager to his village. Along the way of these travels they found tracks of undead all going one direction, torwards the village. As soon as they found it, a small pack of hounds came rushing out of the underbrush. Of course these werent ordinary hounds, they were zombie hounds, who attacked the party, thanks to a combination of teamwork, the party sucessful slayed all the hounds expect one, who tried to run away, the wizard dispatched the creature with a well place magic missile.

I think I will contiue writing the summary later,
More to come later...

EDIT: Just added a view counter to keep track of how many people actually read this
Also yes I know I made a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes, need to find time to proofread
-Lich D20 aka Paul Jacob

A couple of notes to my players

I would like to make a couple of announcements

• I would like to tell my players to start looking through the players hand book or the adventurer's vault, to make a wish list, a list that tells me all the awesome magic items you would like. This doesn't mean you may actually get them, but it will give me the general idea of what you want. The item must be between level 1 to level 3.
  
• Some Roleplaying tips that are useful
• I will post this weeks summary of our game very soon
  

The Story so far...

Here is the story so far for...
Two weeks ago on this very day, our campaign began.
Our Party met in a setting very similar to Medieval Rome. In a city known as... er... haven't really thought of the name yet. Anyways they were greeted by a contact a NPC known as Felix the Drunken Half-Elf Paladin. Felix was eager to give them some "work" to do. Felix took the PCS to the arena. Then showed them the catacombs under the arena left over from some temple century's ago. Apparently some evil temple due to the religion checks. The arena from what they can muster was originally a sacrifice pit, to some forgotten god.

Felix was eagered to give the adventurers the job. The job consited of finding Bob the halfling janitor of the arena,in the catcombs... who dispeared about a week ago, Felix wanted them to kill whatever managed to kill Bob. The PCs party consited of a dwarven paladin, a fey dragonborn warlock, and an elven fighter. Along with a wizard who joined later.

The PCs went down into the catacombs, after some exploration they manage to find Bob's Right Hand. They found bloody hand prints that belong to the wall, I wasnt sure how creeped out the PCs are but it was fun. Eventually they found the lever to open the door which open the door, and possiblely something not good and possiblely evil but thats not important right now.

The PCs then found the wizard laying there on the ground. Using advanced stick poking skills they manage to wake him up. I am not entirely sure how the wizard got there but oh well explanations can be made later. The players then ventured down the hallway with their new campanion, and found Bob's Torso. Then they entered the trash room. Where the fey lock (with his darn natural 20) noticed the ooze. Which ate bob's right hand. The PCs were furious and began fighting this evil creature. As soon as they bloodied it, the blob suddenly split into 2 oozes.

After this epic battle, the characters buried Bob, and got 100 gp each from Felix.

EDIT: Please excuse my grammar and spelling, I wrote this last night and I was just trying to get the ideas across

Hello and welcome...

Hello,
I am Lich, you might know me by my real world name Paul Jacob. Anyways I made this blog not so that I can write every aspect of my life. I simply made it as a log for me and D&D 4e games. I am a DM and hope to start a ongoing campaign rather then doing RPGA all the time. I will post my summary of my sessions and hopefully this blog will be a "personal diary" that everyone can read about my games, and where my "victims", I mean players can ask questions. A couple of useful links related to 4th edition D&D

Scribd- a useful site where one can upload their pdfs
Translation: missing a D&D book? Search it at Scribd and you will most likely find it
Character Builder
4e character builder althrough it only goes up to level 3 on the free trail its useful for
building your starter character. Also less math f0r you a more for the computer

On my next post I will give a summary of last weeks game