What Was I Saying...?

Milestone the First

After much wrangling and introspecting and generalized fretting, laurie_robey and I are moving back to Virginia! Specifically, to Reston. SirFox is a fine landlord, and if anyone is looking for a very reasonably-priced place in Germantown, drop me a line and we'll set you up. :) But for various reasons Maryland just isn't working for us.

This move also signals an indefinite pause on our California plans, for a variety of reasons I might get into in some other post. But for now, it's back to NoVA for us for the foreseeable future.

Milestone the Second

The files for the first Rough Housing collection are off to FurPlanet! It's gonna be pretty beefy at ~120 pages, and I'm not gonna lie, I love that cover.

Milestone the Third

NaNoWriMo starts on Wednesday! This will be my fourth whack at it (currently standing at 2/1) and will be an experiment: my first attempt at a furry novel. It's a fantasy featuring my little catfolk monk Kihai, my big catfolk barbarian Arshan, and a story something like Iron Monkey meets The Hidden Fortress. So, that should be fun. ;) But as of today, I have no outline, no supporting cast, and only a vague idea, so that's what I expect to be working on for the next couple of days. If the end result is good, I'll float it by FurPlanet as well! In the meantime, I'll be posting daily(-ish) progress reports to my Patreon for subscribers. :)

So! Life is good. And busy. I'll take it. :)

-The Gneech

Our gaming group meets from 0-3 times per month, probably averaging around 1.5 times. There are two regular GMs, of which I am the GM about 65-70% of the time. The net result is that I get to be a player about five to seven sessions total in any given year.

That is really depressing. :P Unfortunately, I don't have a good solution for it. Finding another group to supplement the current one would be good, except it takes an act of congress to get together with the one I've already got.

Thus, as much as I love Obsidian and wish she could get more attention, I always have more characters I want to play than I will ever actually get to play. I'd love to do a modern version of Arshan, not to mention seriously jonesing for a chance to play Elsa, the support NPC in my Silver Coast game, as a player character. Also, inspired by my recent watching of Gurren Lagann, I have a new character for the stable...

Kamadan, the Forger of Destiny

Medium humanoid (human), 1st level paladin
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Armor Class 16 (chainmail)
Hit Points 12 (1d10 + 2)
Speed 30ft
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Str 16(+3), Dex 10(+0), Con 14(+2), Int 8(-1), Wis 13(+1), Cha 16(+3)
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Saving Throws Wisdom +3, Charisma +5
Senses Divine Sense, passive Perception 11
Skill Proficiencies Animal Handling +3, Athletics +5, Insight +3, Survival +3
Tool Proficiencies blacksmith's tools, vehicles (land)
Languages common, (one other based on campaign)
Challenge 1/2 (100 XP)
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Armor Penalties Disadvantage on Stealth checks.
Divine Sense Take an action to know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet not behind total cover. Use up to 4 times between long rests.
Lay On Hands Restore up to 5 hit points by touch or remove one disease or poison between long rests.
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ACTIONS
Longsword (two-handed). Melee Weapon Attack: +5, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d10 + 3) slashing damage.
Handaxe. Melee Weapon Attack: +5, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft (thrown), one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 3) slashing damage.
Two Handaxes: When wielding two handaxes, Kamadan may make a second attack or throw the second axe as a bonus action.
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Equipment longsword, three handaxes, chainmail, shield (which he almost never uses), emblem of courage (holy symbol), explorer's pack
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Alignment Lawful Good
Background Folk Hero
Feature Rustic Hospitality
Personality Trait I constantly make pronouncements of my credo, which are occasionally vague or contradictory but always sound impressive.
Ideal Courage. A coward dies a thousand times– a brave man, only once!
Bond My spirit is a raging fire, pushed on to a great destiny that I have yet to discover!
Flaw I will face any danger on my feet and call out my foes by name, no matter how hopeless the odds! What's the use in running?
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Origin
Kamadan was merely the blacksmith's apprentice in a tiny nameless village far from civilization when the raiders came. Many villagers tried to flee, only to be cut down where they ran; others were grabbed up and thrown into cages to be sold as slaves. Kamadan cowered in the corner of his master's shop as the raiders' chief ransacked it, taking all of their best weapons and armor, and murdering the blacksmith when he tried to resist. Then, Kamadan saw it: the bandit chief wore an amulet depicting the head of a leopard, entwined by snakes– an emblem of the very creature Kamadan had been named after– and something in him changed. Scooping up his smith's hammer, he launched himself at the bandit chief in a fury of retribution and smote him on the spot. Braced by this victory, Kamadan claimed the amulet for himself, then took up a sword and shield from the smithy and went on the offensive, slaying bandits and releasing prisoners, who then rallied behind him. Before the bandits knew what had happened, their raid had backfired, and they fled in terror before the fearsome youth and his followers.

Kamadan stayed in the village long enough to tend to the wounded and help them bolster defenses, then set out with several volunteers to wipe out the raiders who had escaped to keep them from returning. Not being trained soldiers, their losses were heavy, but at the end of the day victory was theirs– and Kamadan knew he had been chosen by the spirits of heaven for greater things.

Personality
Kamadan is, as he describes himself, "a raging fire," full of excitement and enthusiasm. He sees life as a great "cosmic forge" in which people's destinies are shaped, hammered, and tested again and again, and he relishes the struggle. The bigger the challenge, the more eager he is to take it on. The tougher the foe, the more sure he is that he will conquer it. It's sometimes hard to tell if he's simply wildly exuberant, or if he's slightly unhinged, but whatever life around him is, it's never boring. He knows roughly that kamadans (the creatures) are great jungle cats with serpents that come from their shoulders, and equates them with strength and courage.

A Quote
"What do you think you're doing, sleeping in crypts and draining the blood of the living? The celestial spirits might tolerate such a thing, but not me!"

Appearance
Kamadan is tall and leanly-muscled, with a mop of dark hair, angular features, and almost always a lopsided, cocky grin. He wears the kamadan amulet he took from the bandit chief long ago proudly around his neck, showing it off to friends and enemies alike. "When you see this symbol, think of me! Kamadan! The great man of destiny that sent you scurrying back to your holes!"

You'd be fun, dude. :) Into the vault you go.

-The Gneech

I really miss playing Arshan. Heck, I really miss playing.

-The Gneech

Arshan, 4E style. See below for the Anthro (lion) racial writeup.

Arshan of the Desert (Anthro {lion} Fighter 1)

Alignment unaligned
Languages Common, Feline

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Init +0 (Dex); Senses Perception +1, low-light vision
AC 19 (+7 armor, +2 shield); Defenses Fort 16 (+4 Str, +2 class), Ref 12 (shield), Will 13 (+2 Cha, +1 race)
hp 34; Surges 11/day, recover 8

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Speed 5 squares (-1 armor)
Basic Attacks
Melee Battleaxe +6 (+4 Str, +2 Prof), 1d10+4 (Str)
Melee Dagger +7 (+4 Str, +3 Prof), 1d4+4 (Str)
Ranged Javelin +6 (+4 Str, +2 Prof), 1d6+4 (Str), range 10/20
Ranged Dagger +3 (Prof), 1d4, range 5/10
Exploits
At-Will Cleave, Footwork Lure*
Encounter Bell Ringer*
Daily Knee Breaker*

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Feats Toughness
Skills Athletics +11 (+4 Str, +5 trained, +2 race), Endurance +7 (+2 Con, +5 trained), Intimidate +9 (+2 Cha, +5 trained, +2 race)
Abilities Str 18/+4, Con 14/+2, Dex 11/+0, Int 10/+0, Wis 13/+1, Cha 14/+2
Racial Features Ferocious, Imposing Size, Lionheart, Mighty Roar
Class Features Armor Proficiency (cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale; light shield, heavy shield), Battlerager Vigor*, Combat Challenge, Combat Superiority, Weapon Proficiency (simple melee, military melee, simple ranged, military ranged)

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Possessions Scale Armor, Heavy Shield, Battleaxe, Dagger, 2 Javelins, Adventurer's Kit, 4 GP

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Battlerager Vigor Each time an enemy hits you with a melee or a close attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Con mod (after the attack is resolved). When you gain temporary hit points by hitting with an attack that has the "invigorating" keyword, those temporary hit points stack with any other temporary hit points you already have. When wearing light armor or chainmail, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close weapon attacks whenever you have temporary hit points. This bonus increases to +2 if you're wielding an axe, hammer, mace, or pick. (MP 6)
Bell Ringer (Encounter, Fighter Attack 1, Invigorating) As a standard action, make a Str vs. Fort attack. On hit: the target is dazed until the end of your next turn. If you are wielding an axe, a hammer, or a mace, the attack deals damage equal to your Con mod. (MP 7)
Cleave (At-Will, Fighter Attack 1) As a standard action, make a Str vs AC attack. On hit: 1[W] + Str mod, and an enemy adjacent to you takes damage equal to your Str mod. (PH 77)
Combat Challenge Every time you attack an enemy, you can choose to mark that target. The mark lasts until the end of your next turn. while is a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that doesn't include you as a target. In addition, whenever a marked enemy that is adjacent to you shifts or makes an attack that doesn't include you, you can make a melee basic attack against that enemy as an immediate interrupt. (PH 76)
Combat Superiority You gain a bonus to opportunity attacks equal to your Wisdom modifier. An enemy struck by your opportunity attack stops moving, if a move provoked the attack. If it still has actions remaining, it can use them to resume moving. (PH 76)
Ferocious When bloodied, you gain a +1 racial bonus to attack rolls.
Footwork Lure (At-Will, Fighter Attack 1) As a standard action, make a Str vs. AC attack. On hit: 1[W] + Str mod damage, you can shift 1 square and slide the target into the space you just left. (MP 7)
Imposing Size Lion anthros are on the cusp between medium- and large-size creatures. As such, they take up a 2x2 space and may treat large one-handed weapons as if they were medium versatile weapons.
Knee Breaker (Daily, Fighter Attack 1, Invigorating) As a standard action, make a Str vs. AC attack. On hit: 2[W] + Str mod damage and target is slowed (save ends). If target is already slowed, target is immobilized instead (save ends). If you're wielding an axe, hammer, or mace,, the attack deals extra damage equal to your Con mod. On miss: 1/2 damage and target is not slowed or immobilized. (MP 9)
Lionheart You get a +1 racial bonus to Will saves; in addition you get a +5 racial bonus to resist fear effects.
Mighty Roar You can use "Mighty Roar" as an encounter power.

Mighty Roar (Lion Racial Power)
Encounter, Minor Action, Aura 5
Targets: All non-allied creatures in area
Attack: Cha vs. Will
Hit: Targets have -2 morale penalty to attack and damage rolls for a number of rounds equal to the lion's Cha mod (minimum 1)

*From the Martial Power sourcebook

Anthro (Lion)

I based this on the dragonborn writeup, with modifications.

Ability Scores +2 Str, +2 Cha
Size Medium
Speed 6 squares
Vision Low-light

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Languages Common, Feline
Skill Bonuses +2 Athletics, +2 Intimidate
Ferocious When bloodied, you gain a +1 racial bonus to attack rolls.
Imposing Size Lions are on the cusp between medium- and large-size creatures. As such, they take up a 2x2 space and may treat large one-handed weapons as if they were medium versatile weapons.
Lionheart You get a +1 racial bonus to Will saves; in addition you get a +5 racial bonus to resist fear effects.
Mighty Roar You can use "Mighty Roar" as an encounter power.

Mighty Roar (Lion Racial Power)
Encounter, Minor Action, Aura 5
Targets: All non-allied creatures in area
Attack: Cha vs. Will
Hit: Targets have -2 morale penalty to attack and damage rolls for a number of rounds equal to the lion's Cha mod (minimum 1)

Lion Feats (Heroic Tier)

Greater Roar
Prereq.: Lion
Benefit: You gain a bonus of +2 to your Mighty Roar Cha attack; you also gain combat advantage against targets currently suffering the effects of your Mighty Roar.

Hunter's Haze
Prereq.: Lion
Benefit: When bloodied, you may take a healing surge as a reaction and gain a +1 morale bonus to damage rolls in melee for the duration of the encounter.

Lion Feats (Paragon Tier)

Words of the King
Prereq.: Lion, trained in Indimidate, Cha 13
Benefit: You may reroll any Diplomacy or Intimidate check, taking the better of the two rolls.

...what do you think, sirs?

-The Gneech

I haven't talked much about gaming lately; part of the reason is because we haven't been able to do much gaming lately, but there's more than that going on. The truth of the matter is that the whole 4E thing and particularly the murder of Dragon and Dungeon put me into a real funk about gaming, particularly fantasy gaming. Plus, I just haven't had the time necessary to put any prep work into running a session; I've been making an effort to crank on my art and not only stay ahead with SJ but also clear out my backlog of other projects. (Speaking of which, today is "AC conbook day"!)

Fortunately, sirfox ran his "Furry D&D" last night, which I always enjoy because I get to play Arshan, my 9' tall room-clearing lion barbarian. Unfortunately, due to his "kick open the door" policy, he spent last night being the first one to find anything painful in the dungeon.

Arshan: "Say, what's in this pool?"
The Dungeon: "A huge monster that attacks you."
Arshan: "D'Oh!"

Arshan: "What happens if I jump over to this little island?"
The Dungeon: "You get electrocuted, and then a monster attacks you."
Arshan: "D'Oh!!!"

I was also controlling camstone's fox rogue "Watt," who aside from attempting to nick some ceremonial wine and a few handfuls of silver spent most of the adventure providing moral support. Most of the monsters had DR, and Watt has no magical weapon, so unless he flanked for the sneak attack (which, being a squishy lil' rogue he wasn't inclined to do), he couldn't hurt them.

The problem with this game from a mechanical standpoint, is the same problem I had with jamesbarrett's fighter/barbarian Dragor -- anything tough enough to hurt the fighter, tears the rest of the group to shreds -- only magnified. camstone's, jamesbarrett's, lythandra's, and hantamouse's characters are all size small, which means their weapons do d3's and d4s of damage and their movement is lowered. I, on the other hand, am playing a size large barbarian, which means my weapon does 2d6 plus 1d6 fire bonus, and my movement is 50 feet. So I have to be very careful in any fight that Arshan doesn't steal the show. It helps that I suck at rolling dice, so Arshan misses a lot, but even so, some of the encounters we've gone up against, Arshan could almost as easily have done solo.

The main balancing factors for Arshan are his relatively low AC, and his cruddy Reflex save. If Arshan tanked up in full plate, he'd still have a cruddy Reflex save, but he'd be a virtual juggernaut. Which is fun conceptually, but in practice wouldn't make for a great game 'cause he'd just roll over all the monsters and everybody else would wonder why they bothered to come.

Arshan did get to level-up at the end of the session, making him BBN 4, FTR 2, +1 LA, and giving him 70 hit points at EL 7. I thought about giving him Improved Toughness, which would have given him +6 hit points and an additional +1 hp per level from here on, but E-Tools choked on it* and it seemed like overkill anyway. So now I'm vacillating between Great Cleave or Lightning Reflexes, but leaning towards Lightning Reflexes -- which would give him a Ref save of a whole +3!

-The Gneech

*The program is rapidly falling apart without the help of Code Monkey Publishing, sigh!

Arshan of the Desert
CR 7, CN Large Furry (Feline (large)) Bbn4/Ftr2
Init +1 Spd 50
Senses Low-light Vision (Ex) Listen +7, Scent +4, Spot +5
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AC 18 (FF 18, Touch 11)
hp 70 (HD 4d12+2d10+18)
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +3, Will +5
Trap Sense +1;
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Atk +9/+4 base melee, +6/+1 base ranged; Grapple +14; Face 10'x10';
   +9 Melee (Bite 1d8+4/crit 20/x2) and +4 Melee (Claw 1d4+2/crit 20/x2)
   +10/+5 Melee (+1 Battleaxe 2d6+5+1d6/crit 20/x3)
   +6/+1 Ranged (Longbow, composite ( +1 Str Bonus) 2d6+1/crit 20/x3)
Barbarian Features: Rage (2x/day), Fast Movement, Illiteracy, Uncanny Dodge, Trap Sense +1;
Fighter Features: Bonus Feat (2), Proficiency: Tower Shield;
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Abilities: STR 18, DEX 12, CON 17, INT 11, WIS 14, CHA 13
Feats: Armor Proficiency: heavy, Armor Proficiency: light, Armor Proficiency: medium, Cleave, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: bastard sword, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Shield Proficiency, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Tower Shield Proficiency.
Skills: Balance +4, Climb +6, Diplomacy -3, Escape Artist -1, Hide -5, Intimidate +10, Jump +18, Listen +7, Move Silently +0, Scent +4, Spot +5, Survival +7, Swim +0, Tumble +2.
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Weapons: +1 Battleaxe: Flaming; Arrows (20); Dagger; Longbow, composite ( +1 Str Bonus).
Armor: Chain shirt, Masterwork. Shields: +1 Shield, heavy steel: Arrow Catching. (Arcane Spell Failure 35%).
Goods: Coin: gp (1722).
Magic: Amulet of Natural Armor +1; Bag of Holding, type II; Helm of Comprehend Languages and Read Magic.

Lion Warrior, by Solidasp

Lion barbarians FTW!

-The Gneech

Oh yeah, I was driving it. Never mind. -.-

We did the first big push of the move yesterday, with the generous help of jamesbarrett, hantamouse, and sirfox. We didn't move much in the way of furniture, since most of it still has stuff on it, and that's what next weekend (and a team from "Two Guys and a Truck") is for. We did move the miniatures, a ton of books, and a variety of things that fell into the "too small for the moving company and too big to fit into Bruce" category.

Most of us escaped with only "being tired", although hantamouse's shin did get on very intimate terms with the U-Haul trailer hitch. Three times. Aaaaiieee!

After all of this, sirfox was eager to finish up the current scenario in his Furry D&D game -- now that's hardcore. 0.o But since for the players all that requires is sitting around a table, we were more than happy to oblige him.

The group is comprised of Arshan, my grumpy lion barbarian, size: large; camstone's fox rogue, size: medium (whom I played using an ad-hoc character sheet based on a half-elf as camstone was out); an NPC badger cleric, size: medium; lythandra's cat scout, size: small; jamesbarrett's pooch bard, size: small; and hantamouse's rat wizard/rogue, size: small.

You might notice a size disparity, there. You might also notice that Arshan is the only melee specialist of the group. My weapon does a base damage of 2d6+5+d6 (fire) -- most of the other weapons in the group do a base of d4-or-so. 0.o So basically for this group, combat consists of "everybody plinks away furiously long enough for Arshan to get up to the monster and lower the boom". I'm also wearing a hole in my character sheet from adjusting my hit points constantly. (Monster wounds me, monster wounds me, cleric heals me, bard heals me, monster wounds me, monster wounds me...)

The good news is that we rescued the wayward young noble from the Cursed City o' Weirdness and came out with a pile of loot besides. :) Everybody else got up to 5th level, which is where Arshan (with retrofitted LA +1) has been floating since the beginning. He's out of XP debt now at least, and maybe the rest of the party will buff up a bit. Attention hog that I am, it's probably not a good thing for me to have a character that's so much more of a combat monster than everybody else! ;)

Nevertheless, next time I get a feat, I suspect it will be Improved Toughness. ;)

Today, camstone and mooivos have kindly offered to come over and help us out some as well. We don't have that much ready to go at this point -- most of the packed stuff was moved yesterday thanks to a five-person crew! So lythandra and I are going to spend this morning emptying out the rest of the bookshelves and the hutch on the credenza, so those can go. Beyond that, there's not that much that can move without serious disruption of things here. So today will probably be much shorter. That's a good thing, tho -- I still have to put next week's SJ stuff together!

-The Gneech

sirfox has been after us for a while to help him test his Furries for D&D system, so tonight we gave it a shot. It was a fun game, although I have some concerns about how his system will work if you try to integrate it with off-the-shelf D&D. For campaign house rules, they work fine, tho.

In order to be completely predictable, I figured I'd go with my lion barbarian, Arshan. It didn't occur to me until we were actually on the way to the game to try putting him into E-Tools -- when I did, I discovered that, as usual, my math was off, particularly in terms of skill point assignment and equipment funds.

I had to go through some particularly odd hoops to get him into E-Tools, once we got back from the game. For some reason, if you have a user-created race that is larger than the Medium size category, bastard swords (and dwarven waraxes) fall off of the Exotic Weapon Proficiency list -- a bug that took me a good hour to track down. I finally had to create a workaround for Arshan by giving the "large felines" race the bastard sword as a free proficiency, then spending one of Arshan's actual feats on a worthless "dump feat" in order to keep the number of feat points correct. For those who are curious, I picked up Exotic Weapon Proficiency (gnome hooked hammer).

Anyway, I finally got him into E-Tools, and here are his revised stats!

Arshan of the Desert
Furry (Feline (large)) Bbn2/Ftr2
CN Large Humanoid
Init +1 Spd 50
Senses Low-light Vision (Ex) Listen +6, Spot +4

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AC 17 (FF 17, Touch 11)
hp 45 (HD 2d12+2d10+12)
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +0, Will +4

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Atk +7 base melee, +4 base ranged; Grapple +12; Face 10'x10';
     +7 Melee (Bite 1d8+4/crit 20/x2) and +2 Melee (Claw 1d4+2/crit 20/x2) OR
     +8 Melee (+1 Sword, bastard 2d8+5/crit 19-20/x2) OR
     +4 Melee (+1 Sword, bastard 2d8+9/crit 19-20/x2) power attack OR
     +4 Ranged (Longbow, composite (+1 Str Bonus) 2d6+1/crit 20/x3) OR
     +4 Ranged (Dagger 1d6+4/crit 19-20/x2)

SQ: Barbarian Features: Rage (1x/day), Fast Movement, Illiteracy, Uncanny Dodge; Fighter Features: Bonus Feat (2), Proficiency: Tower Shield;

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Abilities: STR 18, DEX 12, CON 17, INT 11, WIS 14, CHA 13
Feats: Armor Proficiency: heavy, Armor Proficiency: light, Armor Proficiency: medium, Cleave, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: sword, bastard, Iron Will, Power Attack, Shield Proficiency, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Tower Shield Proficiency.
Skills: Balance +4, Climb +5, Diplomacy -3, Escape Artist -1, Hide -5, Intimidate +10, Jump +16, Listen +6, Move Silently +0, Scent +4, Spot +4, Survival +7, Swim +0.

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Weapons: +1 Sword, bastard; Arrows (20); Dagger; Longbow, composite ( +1 Str Bonus). Armor: Chain shirt, Masterwork. Shield: Shield, heavy wooden, Masterwork. (Spell Failure 35%). Goods: Coin: gp (110). Magic: Amulet of Natural Armor +1.

Enjoy! But be warned, he should probably be +1 LA at the very least. Note also that he can drop the shield and wield his sword two-handed, giving him an AC of 15 and damage of 2d8+7 (or 2d8+13 w/ Power Attack), as well as one point less of armor check penalties.

-The Gneech