Comic Genesis Forums

Mike Fang wrote:....sword of WOOTNESS?

*gives Ralph a look, slaps a hand over his eyes, and walks off laughing so hard he can't make any noise*

Oh, some other good reasons to try:

"I may have no skills, wizz-poor weaponry, and no clue where to go or what to do, but some old hermit told me I was "The Chosen One"!" (10 RPG nerd bonus points to anyone who knows what game I'm getting this reference from!)

Strangly enough, it sounds like it could be the begining of The Legend of Zelda...

"So I have no reason to believe that I'd survive a day being an adventurer, but I think I'll still give it a try since Juggy The Barmaid had a real thing for treasure hunters!"

Ah, the typical male motivation. "Chiks dig adventurers."

how about "I only have rudimentary skills and a background in farming which I can't even handle but I dream of and want to be an adventurer. so when the big shots in my home town ask me what I want to do in life I tell em tight up fromt."

...sound familiar?

Ouch. He's got ya there, Ralph.

Well he had SOME training in the militia and luxcraft before that.

Mike Fang wrote:So I have no reason to believe that I'd survive a day being an adventurer, but I think I'll still give it a try since Juggy The Barmaid had a real thing for treasure hunters!"

"Juggy" the barmaid????

ROTF!!!!!!!

*can't.....breathe*

S'aaruuk

Chaser617 wrote:PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



iiiiiiitttty bity living space.....

Thank you Genie (Robin Williams)

S'aaruuk

The JAM wrote:Well he had SOME training in the militia and luxcraft before that.

true, but does that constitute a DGR, though?

then again, they're only Ben's rules, not necessarilly Ralph's.

shyal_malkes wrote:how about "I only have rudimentary skills and a background in farming which I can't even handle but I dream of and want to be an adventurer. so when the big shots in my home town ask me what I want to do in life I tell em tight up fromt."

...sound familiar?

Dink Smallwood?

no that would be "I have no skills, I live feeding pigs, I'm an adventurer because my house burnt down and I have nowhere else to go."

one of the things I love about TOTQ was that it actually gave a criteria to the 'adventurer' class. a set of rules and a tradition to follow. without that a real life adventurer is little more then a troublemaker with something to do. unless he runs out of having something to do durring which case he becomes just a troublemaker.

seriously, look at most adventurers and in most cases (as I see them) if there wasn't an adventure to go on they would either lead boring lives or they would become troublemakers. imo

and many adventurers are troublemakers anyway. I present Exhibit A: current Goblin Hollow strips.

Sharuuk wrote:

Chaser617 wrote: PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

iiiiiiitttty bity living space.....

Thank you Genie (Robin Williams)
S'aaruuk

I was wondering if anyone else spotted that.
(Emphasis added by me, BTW. It needed some.)

If you want funny, check out the Aladdin stage show at Disney's California Adventure, it'a worth sitting through a 45-minute production. They always cast an actor who can do schtick properly for the Genie, and they do toss out the ad-libs - it's fun to watch the rest of the cast avoid losing it when he comes up with a brand new one...

We're having a wedding! Let's see, what do we need - Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and.... Me.

Shades of the Carol Burnett Show, when Tim Conway would play it straight during rehearsals - and go off on a wild riff with three cameras rolling and an audience in the seats. Priceless...

--<< Bruce >>--[/b]

LoneWolf23k wrote:

RHJunior wrote:I've argued before that NO wizard or sorceror would leave his tower till he was at least a level 10. Anything else would be suicide. And even with a party they'd be on the near side of useless for a good long period.

Well, an alternative I've considered is the use of Spell Points: instead of spending a spell slot to cast a spell, you spend a number of spell points equal to the spell level. And I'd also allow the existance of "Mana Potions" allowing Wizards to replenish Spell Points outside of the usual "Good Night's Sleep"...

Hmm, I liked the old Shadowrun spell system (don't know what the latest, 4th, edition rules did to it) where you could theoritcally cast WMD class spells. Of course the target number to succeed was obscene, and the effort would very likely kill your character. You channel energy to power the spells, the more power needed the greater the strain. Basic rule of thumb spells are harder the greater the area of affect (one target is easy, everything within a hundred yards is real difficult) the higher the strain, and the more physical effects the spell has the harder it is. Under that system a Mana bolt spell (roughly the system's Magic Missile equavilent, a strike on a single targets 'spirit', no physical world effects) could be multiple times in a single fight for little to no strain, where as a fireball (affecting everything in the area, with plently of physical world effects) could nearly knock a novice caster out. BTW medical stimulants do nasty things to a mage's ability to cast spells, so no 'upper' stim patches to help wake you back up.

The other rule was a magic user's magic trait, which is the limit that the could cast the spell and have the strain as stun damage. Beyond that you start popping blood vessels in the brain (think Charlie's dad in Firestarter), pushing your magic beyond it's limits can kill you. How many spells you fire depends on how powerful they are, and how lucky your dice are.

Okay, normally I NEVER do the "I once had this adventurer" thing.

But the most fun I've ever had has been running first-level characters. Especially those lopsided types who have mostly crap attributes, except for that ONE glistening 17 or 18 you managed...so this one night I'm visiting a friend during a gaming session and he (the GM) insists that I join in. At the same time, he sticks to the house rule that ALL new PCs start at level one. Meanwhile, the rest of the party is between levels seven and twelve. Yeah.

Well, what the hell...I decided to go for the comedy and picked an illusionist who, yes, swung an 18 for his Intel. Not that this really mattered...being exceptionally bright doesn't get you an early Fireball. But has anyone around here ever messed with Cantrips? You get one per INT point.

Normally, Cantrips are supposed to be for "game flavor" --- things like producing a Bic-lighter-type flame by snapping your finger and saying "Zippo". Snuffing candles. That sort of thing. So here I am with more INT points than there's Cantrips available for my class. Kind of like armoring the local militia with all the tinfoil they want. -:roll:

Well, the party (which I remained in the rear of the entirety of the evening) had already cleared out the upper levels of their currently-targeted dungeon, and were getting ready to take on the Big Boss, which they figured was the vampire who answered the big door at the end of the final corridor.

The vampire in butler's clothing, a bit of flavor text the party completely ignored.

So they shot their wad killing the vampire...and then the young adult red dragon who the vampire worked for stuck his head out the door and ashified the rest of the party.

Me? I'm at the OTHER end of the corridor AND around the corner. The GM ruled I had some scorched edges on my robes but was still in one piece. About now came the demands from the other players that I sneak their ashes out of the dungeon, which cleric I should go see in what town, how much money to give for the revival services...

...and I asked the GM "Can I speak to the dead?" Nope, was the answer. So, I walked up to the dragon, with cordial salutations.

"Whadda YOU want, shorty?" sez the drac.

Nice thing about Cantrips: you can cast three in a single round.

PEPPER (inside of dragon's nostrils), TIE (dragon's whiskers over nose), SALT (inside of dragon's nostrils), in that order. The dragon sneezed through its nostrils, blasting flame to either side of me, then found its whiskers tightly knotted in patterns not conducive to working with claws, AND its newly-seared sinuses lined with salt.

Through a welter of tears, the dragon cried that I could take whatever I could carry, and get lost, before he got his nose unfouled.

So yeah, my first-level illusionist (well, SECOND, now) EARNED that Orb. -:D

BWAAAHAAHAAHAAAAAA......*got tears of my own now...*

Wonderful play Cal.......*hard time breathing*

One of my first experiences in D&D I had a level one elf magic user that sorta reminded you of "Ergo The Magnificent" from the sword & sorcery movie "Krull". Somehow in a melee I ended up in possession of a black diamond magical weapon of extreme power.....and absolutely NO IDEA how to use it... When the obscenely powerful demon god that owned it made a lunge for it, I pulled the equivalent of the 'point the shotgun in the air, close eyes and pull trigger and hit most of the bad guys at 50yds." I shoved it out in front of me in both hands with my eyes closed, teeth gritted and head turned.

And promptly wasted the demon god to the tune of about 60,000 experience points.

Nobody was happy with me.. ..especially the DM.

S'aaruuk

LoneWolf23k wrote:

RHJunior wrote:I've argued before that NO wizard or sorceror would leave his tower till he was at least a level 10. Anything else would be suicide. And even with a party they'd be on the near side of useless for a good long period.

Well, an alternative I've considered is the use of Spell Points: instead of spending a spell slot to cast a spell, you spend a number of spell points equal to the spell level. And I'd also allow the existance of "Mana Potions" allowing Wizards to replenish Spell Points outside of the usual "Good Night's Sleep"...

Dude. You've just described pratically every video game console RPG magic system out there, starting with the ancient classics: Dragon Warrior, and Finial Fantasy.

You think that sort of system would translate well to a pencil-and-paper RPG system?

Palladium uses PPE (potential psychic energy (I think)) to gauge the 'mana points' for magic powers

and uses ISP (inner strength points) for psychic abilities in the same way.

just make sure each gaming session you bring a scrap piece of paper to write on in case you forget your current total.

some of the more legendary spells (E.X.T.R.E.E.M.L.Y. rare) take up multiple thousands of PPE to perform so keeping a piece of paper and a pencil handy can be a good idea anyway for this game.

Sharuuk wrote:One of my first experiences in D&D I had a level one elf magic user that sorta reminded you of "Ergo The Magnificent" from the sword & sorcery movie "Krull". S'aaruuk

Ah, Krull...now that was a silly movie.

Celidah the Bardess wrote:

Sharuuk wrote:One of my first experiences in D&D I had a level one elf magic user that sorta reminded you of "Ergo The Magnificent" from the sword & sorcery movie "Krull". S'aaruuk

Ah, Krull...now that was a silly movie.

Yeah.....but it was a fun movie. The acting wasn't all that bad and the sets and SFX were pretty cool. I loved Rel and Freddy Jones was perfect as Ynir. The concept of the Slayers and their costumes was also something I really liked.

The Glaive was the real star of the show....a friend of mine, a sfx make-up artist worked on that movie and told me a neat little secret....the blades in the Glaive were powered by.....rubber bands of all things. Releasing a trigger let rubber bands snap the blades out into position, and literally reversing the tension caused them to snap back into the main body. He even has a copy of the mold for it.

S'aaruuk

Okay, just for the record....I absolutly LOVE the concept of a sword of "WOOTness."

Werekitty wrote:Dude. You've just described pratically every video game console RPG magic system out there, starting with the ancient classics: Dragon Warrior, and Finial Fantasy.

You think that sort of system would translate well to a pencil-and-paper RPG system?

As opposed to what, tracking Hit Points?