Campaign Chronicles

Sunday, when you get up to celebrate Easter, search for colored eggs, filch candy you got for the kids from their baskets when they are not looking and biting the heads off of chocolate bunnies, I'd like to remind you that sometimes the bunnies bite back. With that in mind, I present to you my picks for the Top Ten Deadliest Rabbits of All Time. 10. Bunnicula the Vampire Rabbit: Instead of a rabbit's buck teeth, Bunnicula inexplicably has fangs, which enables him to bite vegetables and suck the juice out of them.  He also has the unusual ability to get in and out of his cage without using the door, and can open a refrigerator door by himself.  So far he seems harmless to everything besides vegtables but heed the warning of Chester the Cat "Today vegetables, tomorrow the world!" 9. The Trix Bunny (a.k.a. Silly Rabbit): This master of disguise preys upon children by continually attempting to trick them into giving him a bowl of Trix cereal.  He is di

Players can get attached to the magical items that their characters acquire.   But, as those characters increase in level, sometimes they “outgrow” their favorite sword, staff, or armor.   One of my players developed this spell in 2 nd edition so he could take the abilities from new items he discovered and transfer them to his older gear.   When we converted to 3 rd and then 3.5, he wanted to make sure that the spell carried over as well so we sat down and worked out a “ritual” version based on rules in Unearthed Arcana. Meld Magic Item Transmutation Effective Level: 8 th Skill Check: Knowledge (Arcana) DC25 (1 success per item to be melded), Spellcraft DC25 (2 successes per spell used or enhancement bonus transferred from one item to the other) Failure: Disenchantment of both items Components: V, S, M, Xp, Backlash Casting Time: 1 hour/transferred enchantment Range: Touch Duration: Permanent Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: No This incantation

(in the style of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”) All: Ohhhh, aye-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di! #1: We gathered ‘round the table #2: with all our books and all our dice #3: with pizza, chips and Mt. Dew #4: (We drink it without ice). #1: We’re all a little geeky. #2: We’re all a little strange. #3: The game is called D&D #4: And it is what we play!   All: Ohhhh, aye-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di! #1: Thank you, Gary. Thank you, Dave. #2: For these worlds of dwarves and elves. #3: The books you wrote fill up my room #4:   And my groaning shelves. #1: I don’t worship Satan. #2: I swear I’m not a witch. #3: but I wish I had a girlfriend #4: so I could touch her…lips.   All: Ohhhh, aye-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di-dee-di! #1: Let me tell you ‘bout my wizard. #2: He’s level Twenty-Four. #3: He’ll reduce your bones to goo #4: and leave you lying on the floor.

My very first character was a Dark Elf Ranger/Magic-User (don’t judge, I’d been playing for about 5 minutes and hadn’t read any of the novels) named Gray Wolf. I didn’t really know much of anything about Dungeons and Dragons at the time, just what I’d read over the shoulder of the kid who sat in front of me in Mr. Quick’s Sophomore English class. I had decided that I was going to use flails as my primary weapon.   I had visions of Gray Wolf going all Bruce Lee on his enemies, smashing and bashing and nuchuking them to death in the most awesome of ways. Sadly, this was not to be. My very first encounter was with a bear.   I’d seen Crocodile Dundee.   I knew how Animal Empathy was supposed to work.   I held out my hand and made cooing sounds at the bear but apparently, holding out your hand and making cooing sounds at a bear translates into “Please, maul me”. The bear was happy to oblige. I was shredded before I could even lay a hand on my weapons to defend myse

We’ve all been there.     Or, at least, those of us who have had more than one character over the course of our gaming career have been there.     We sit down with some dice, a notebook, our rulebooks, and a pen or pencil and start hammering out our Next Character.     We choose our race, class, skills, and feats.     We come up with something resembling a back-story and develop a personality in our head.     After everything is said and done, we sit down at the table for our first session with the character we have lovingly crafted from strands of imagination.      Then it happens. The character you play is nothing like the character you created.  There are dozens if not more of memes dedicated to this very premise.   Sometimes, this is a result of interactions with other players, sometimes the DM presents you with a scenario that catches your attention or provokes a reaction you hadn’t expected and everything changes. Over the years, I have two characters standi

Humor is not that unusual in gaming sessions.   When it happens on accident however, it can create long-lasting memories. Once upon a time, I ran a solo adventure for a dwarf named Happy Jack.   Happy was a psychic and an inventor of sorts.   From the pressurized wooden keg full of alchemist’s fire worn on his back with the spray nozzle and sparker to his own brand of beer, Happy Jack was an innovator.   His player always made sure to take good notes of his adventures so he could review what had happened and plan Happy’s next move. For the adventure, I adapted the AD&D 2 nd ed module “Wizard’s Challenge”.   I placed my telling of this tale in Eveningstar in northern Cormyr.   The village, a favorite retreat of King Azoun’s was ruled over by Tessaril Winter.   She was known for mentoring mages of all talents and was a magnet for hopeful apprentices. Several years prior to Happy Jack’s adventures in the village, mysterious circumstances caused the sudden demise of several ap

In keeping with yesterday's theme regarding combat, I thought I would share another story about an encounter that didn't go the way a player thought it would... There was this one time, while my players’ characters were adventuring through the Jungles of Chult, when the party encountered a tribe of blue-skinned goblins.   The highest level character in the group was around 10th-12th level Fighter who dual-wielded cutlasses.   He was accompanied by a 7 th -ish level Evoker, and a second fighter who also around 7 th level.      The player immediately (and sarcastically) quipped "Oh no! Not goblins! Whatever will we do?"   That's when the goblin leader, a psion of no small level, dropped most of the fighter’s party with a mind blast. The rest of the fight suddenly became much more dangerous than he had originally expected. The fighter did manage to hold off the goblins long enough for his companions to recover from the psychic attack and together, they defea

A big part of Dungeons and Dragons is combat.   But let’s face it, combat can get boring sometimes.  DM: Roll to hit. Player: I rolled a 12 to hit.   I deal 4 damage. DM: Your opponent swings and misses. Player: I roll to hit again…13…4 more damage. *YAWN* But, every once in awhile, something truly memorable happens - something that your players will talk about for years to follow. I once handled a fight between a Fighter 8/Rogue 4 and a Fighter 4/Rogue 4.   The lower level character was facing the curbstomp battle of his life until he whipped off his cloak and threw it over his opponent’s head (ranged touch attack followed by opposed Dexterity checks).   The higher level character rolled poorly and was blinded, losing his AC bonus and setting him up for Sneak Attacks. The lower level fighter/thief bore his higher level foe to the ground and began beating on him, punching him in the head and stomach with the hilts of his weapons.  The first attack in each round scor

I was just a fledgling Dungeon Master.   My stories and the characters that inhabited them were fairly one-dimensional.   That is, they were, until one player came up with the idea of Kiki. Kiki was, in most respects, a fairly standard wizard with one exception.   She was a witch.   According to “The AD&D 2 nd edition Complete Wizards Handbook”, witches gain their magic by making a deal with an extraplanar entity, usually a demon or a devil.   Her player and I worked out a story where Kiki was the servant of some sort of serpent spirit and was plagued with nightmares that were caused by glimpsing into the entity’s inhuman mind.   For us, this was pretty advanced stuff – up to this point our adventures consisted of me flipping open to a random page in the Monster Manual and having us fight whatever appeared therein. Kiki joined an adventuring party (I can no longer remember who her comrades-in-arms were) and the group set out on a quest.   They may or may not have had a

Demonic Fryer CR: 4      Large Construct      HD: 4d10 plus 20      Hp: 45 Init: -2      Spd: 20’      AC: 15 (-1 size, -2 Dex, +8 Natural); t: 7, ff: 15 Attacks: (BAB +3; Grap +11); +6 Slam: 1d8+4 or +1 Bite: 1d6+2 SA: Breath Weapon SQ: Aura of Despair; Construct Traits, DR5/- -; Wheels Align: CE      Saves: Fort +1      Ref -1      Will +1 Str: 18 (+4)     Dex: 6 (-2)     Con: - -     Int: - -     Wis: 10     Cha: 1 (-5) Skills: - - Feats: - - Advancement: 5-10 HD (Large, 5-vat) The Demonic Fryer uses the rules presented in the d20 Modern core rulebook but is compatible with all d20 systems with minor modifications. Demonic fryers resemble normal commercial fryers with several deep vats of grease, caster wheels and an assortment of buttons.   Most of the time, the creature is dormant but every few weeks it needs to feed.   It does so by spraying its victim with scalding hot grease from one of its vats and then slurping up the liquefied remains with

A long time ago in a galaxy... No, wait.  That's not right. Once upon a time, in a much warmer and hospitable land (except for in the summertime when you would swelter and broil under the blazing sun and needed gills to breathe through all of the humidity in the air), I ran a short-lived Star Wars campaign.   It was based around a group of rebels who traveled from planet under the guise of a podracing team. I wanted the campaign to be as “realistic” as possible – despite the fact that it was a science fantasy setting with lightsabers, the Force, blaster pistols, interstellar travel and the hazardous racing of sleds attached to large jet engines. My roommate and I went out and bought a copy of the Star Wars Podracing game for the PS2 and we sat down and proceeded to MAP OUT EACH ONE of the race tracks and recorded the placing results of the NPC racers so we could then determine gambling odds.   We spent weeks on the game, unlocking characters and generating game stats.   I e

Sometimes, characters will take on a life of their own. Sometimes, that life spills over into the real world and can get people into trouble. Take for instance, the tale of Duncan Brontoskin, a character I played in one of my earliest campaigns. Duncan was a barbarian from the village of Triboar and like many members of his clan, he was disdainful of magic. The only exception were spells cast be priests of the war god Tempus. Sadly, He was also illiterate. His ability to count consisted of “1...2...more than 2...many”. On one occasion, the adventuring party he was a member of was offered 10,000 gold pieces to rescue a princess (or other important personage) and Duncan scoffed, “Feh! Make it FIVE!” Like many barbarians, he prided himself on being a “True Warrior” and loved to test himself in battle by wrestling his enemies into submission. He’d wrestled wolves, bears and zombies and even tried to wrestle with Wooly Mammoths and a Frost Giant, loudly proclaiming “Feh! I will wrestle