A Simple Guy

What do I do?

How about I beat your head in, give you a demonstration, huh? You're lucky I'm feelin' merciful or you'd just be a red smear on the wall. And if the town guard think they can catch me then they don't know me any better than you do. See, I run. That's it. To hear some of these other fellas go on you'd think you'd need fifteen suits of armor and a lifetime sitting in a tower with your nose stuck up a book's ass to get anything done. B.S. All you really need is your own two feet and a good pole to smack some sense into the world. Simple.
But that's just it. I'm a simple guy. I know what I want and I go for it. And boy do I go. Zoom! Hah! You couldn't catch me with an arrow. And any idiot gets in my way, I put the hurt on them. Hit 'em 'till they stop moving. Never let them catch up.

There are hundreds of reasons why D&D 3.0 is better than 3.5
There are thousands of reasons why it's better than 4th edition
At least 90% of these reasons involve the Boots of Striding and Springing. Less expensive than the cheapest magic weapon, these boots are (without a doubt) the goddamn best magic item ever. Why? They double your speed. If this fails to wow you, then you need to read up on the three fundamental laws of Dungeons and Dragons:

1) Wisdom is worthless.
2) Chaotic Good is a wussy alignment.
3) Formians always win in the end.
4) Speed is more important than anything else.

EDIT: The three fundamental laws are actually four in number. This is one of the great mysteries of life.

Knowing these laws, it's no wonder I never make a character without the Boots. But Sneer, one of my more recent characters, has put this footwear to greater use than I would have thought possible. Sneer is an acrobat (a base class from City Works, a D&D supplement I heartily reccomend for DMs for although it uses 3rd edition rules the content about city construction is edition neutral so it will work just as well for you 4th-ed types). Sneer's acrobat-hood means that... Well, I don't need to tell you. After all, you just heard from him!

See, I run.

And boy does he. Acrobats make all other (i.e. slower i.e. worse) classes obsolete.

If Sneer sounded a bit like the Scout from TF2, it's 'cause they're very similar. Looking back over that passage at the top of this article, I keep expecting to see a "bonk" or two. Sneer's actually become slightly less of an asshole and more of an erratic coward over time, partially because I want to distance him from any Scouty influences. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm probably going to retire (or kill off) Sneer soon in favor of one of my many other character ideas. You know, the obsolete ones.

And oddly enough, despite his immense speed, the Scout is my third least-played class (out of nine). Go figure.

Dungeon Delving

In case you haven't noticed, I've been dumping a lot of stuff I've written in the past on this site. Don't be alarmed. It will all be okay. This particular item is one that I'd completely forgotten writing. It is based off my D&D group. We are highly functional. It changes tense halfway through, for which I am sorry.

“Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?”
The answer was, of course, no. Josh was experiencing intense video game withdrawl, Sharon was wondering when snacks would be provided, Trevor hadn’t finished making his character sheet, and Cooper was wondering if playing this game would deny him access to eternal salvation. The DM had been known to eat babies. Or at least rumored. Cooper had seen what looked like a rulebook lying around with the words, “Kobolds ate my baby” on the front, and made the natural connection. The point was, the DM would mess you up something bad if you didn’t agree with him.
So, naturally, they said yes.

They were plunged into a world of violence and beer. The scene was a tavern, the setting a bar fight. A hulking fighter and lithe man with a tiny sword were in a fight over some peanuts, and were, quite naturally, messing up the bar something bad. Guards rushed in, and the big man rushed upstairs to his room, while the little man dived over the counter to hide behind the bar. Seeing no-one else to arrest for this outrage, the guards blamed Rove, Trevor’s character, who had been sitting in the corner doing nothing because Trevor was assigning his skill points.

“What the hell is Survival anyway? That’s not a skill! If I throw someone off a cliff, do they get to make a Survival check? How about if I stab them? Why are Rangers so much better at not dying than other people? What happened to Wilderness Lore?”
“Stop complaining, Trevor,” sighed Sharon. “It’s not that big of a deal. It’s cross-class for you anyway.”
“3.5 Sucks!”
“You suck!” quipped Josh.
“No, you suck!”
“No, you suck!”
“Oh yeah? Well this is you, and this is 3.5!”
The DM interrupted Trevor’s hand gestures:
“You find yourself in a dark cell…”

Rove found himself in a dark cell. He looked around, but couldn’t find anything because he rolled a 2. He pricked himself with a sticker burr, then looked into the adjacent cell. He could easily see by the light from the street, and made out a woman in the adjacent cell.

“I thought you said it was dark.”

Rove really shouldn’t have gotten so close to those bars. Due to the warmth of the day, he took 1 damage from static electricity, and another for complaining about the first. After shrieking like a little girl, he took a closer look at his “prison-mate”. She had long, dark brown hair…

“I’m blonde!”

…blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin like the Nazi Aryan-supremacist bitch she is.

“I am NOT!”

She is.

“No, I’m not!”

Yes, she is.

“You’re a jackass, Brian!”

Oh no! The prison collapses on her, killing her instantly.

“This is retarded. I’m leaving.”

Rats eat her corpse.

Sharon got up from the table, taking care to knock the dice on the floor, and stormed out of the room. Cooper shot a disapproving look at the DM, then left as well. Trevor was too busy looking at the floor to notice anything. Josh looked at the door, at Brian, then back at the door. He scratched his head, then posed a deep question,
“What’s her problem?”

The rats didn’t know what her problem was, but they did know she tasted delicious. Meanwhile, Rove took 10, climbed out of the prison, and walked away a free man.

Evan Graves

Here's a possible replacement D&D character for when my current one (an elf acrobat who runs the shit out of things) kick the bucket, as he certainly will. I've fooled around with a few ideas and have narrowed it down to three.

The first is what my D&D group (lovingly?) refers to as a Paco. A Paco (named after dim-witted cohort I introduced in our longest-running campaign) puts all his feats into toughness or one of its many variants and gets his constitution as high as possible. As a result, a Paco is only really good for absorbing massive amounts of damage. My guy would take advantage of this by using a vicious weapon (+2d6 damage per hit and 1d6 damage to the wielder). With around 150 hp, he could afford a few d6s of damage.

The second is an attempt on my part to make good use of a much maligned (at least in my circles) aspect of D&D - summoning. Summoning is not that good. There, I said it. But, it's only not that good if you use the summoning list the PHB provides. I made my own list. The DM will have to approve it, of course, but all the critters on it are the same CR as those on the "official" list. Plus, since he's a cleric, I can always just ditch a summoning spell to heal my allies, and that's something we desperately need (in our great wisdom, we formed a group without a healer).

The third is this guy:

Evan Graves
Male Anarchic Human Aristocrat 8
Medium outsider
HD 8d8 + 24
HP 63
AC 23 (+6 armor, +4 dex, +1 deflection)
Speed 60 ft, fly 90 ft (good; as fly spell)
Initiative + 4
Str 18 (+4)
Dex 18 (+4)
Con 16 (+3)
Int 13 (+1)
Wis 9 (-1)
Cha 16 (+3)
Fort + 5
Ref + 6
Will + 5
BAB +6/+1
+1 Halberd +11/+6 melee (1d10 + 7) x3 crit
+1 Mighty (+4 str) Longbot +11/+6 ranged (1d8 + 5) x3 crit
Masterwork Scimitar +11/+6 melee (1d6 + 4) 18-20/x2 crit
Skills: Appraise + 8, Bluff + 13, Diplomacy + 13, Forgery + 8, Gather Information + 10, Intimidate + 13, Ride + 7, Sense Motive + 9
Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Expertise
Darkvision 60 ft
Acid/cold/electricity/fire/sonic resistance 5
Immune to polymorphing and petrification
Smite law 1/day (+8 to damage)
Fast Healing 3
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Languages: Common, Infernal
Loot: Belt of Strength +2 (included in stats), Bracers of Health +2 (included in stats), +1 Elven Chain Armor (light, +6 AC, +4 max dex, -2 check penalty, 20% spell failure, no speed reduction, 20 lbs), +1 Halberd, +1 Mighty (+4 str) Longbow, Ring of Protection +1, Masterwork Scimitar, Boots of Striding and Springing, Wings of Flying, Hat of Disguise

About 10000 gp left to spend. I'm thinking of getting a worthless intelligent item, like an everburning torch.

This guy may not seem that special to you. If he doesn't, you maybe missed the part where HE HAS FAST HEALING 3. Also, the level adjustments from being an NPC class and having the anarchic template cancel each other out, so he'd be able to advance just like the rest of the party. At 12th level, he'd get damage reduction 5/+1 and his fast healing would raise to 5.

Exciting.