Battle-Bones for D&D

I continue to be excited about the new edition of D&D.  I got the Starter Set a few days ago.  I'll abstain from the gratuitous unboxing post since those are all over the Net right now.  As much as I am looking forward to the official Player's Handbook, I think the Monster Manual is what I am most looking forward to getting into my hands.  I love creating monsters and this edition seems to be pretty easy to stat up beasts, just enough crunch but not too much.  Continuing my theme from last time of Gonzo kinda of stuff, I present Battle-Bones!

Battle-Bones

Huge undead, Neutral

AC: 14

Hit Points: 60 (7d10+21)

Speed: 40'

STR16(+3)   DEX 12(+1)  CON 16(+3)  INT 6(-2)  WIS 7(-2)  CHA 5 (-3)

Senses: Darkvision 100'

Languages: Understands Common

Multiattack: Battle-Bones makes one claw attack and one bite attack

Melee Attack- Bite +3 to hit (reach 10'; one creature). Hit 8 (1d10 +3) piercing damage

Melee Attack-Claw: +3 to hit (reach 5'; one creature) Hit: 6 (1d6+3) Slashing damage

Immunities: Battle-Bones is immune to disease and poison.  It cannot be frightened or put to sleep.  Battle-Bones does not need to sleep, eat or breathe.

Damage Vulnerabilities: Bludgeoning

The beasts rib-cage has been magically altered to allow a rider to ride "comfortably". Battle-Bones can transport up to 12 medium-sized humanoids without suffering any encumbrance or movement penalties. .

The product of necromantic magic, Battle-Bones is the animated skeleton of a huge reptile from a forgotten age that has been turned into an unrelenting tireless combat transport, that needs neither, food, water or rest. 

 Use of a handy "Speak with Dead" spell perhaps?

Simian Saturday

Just a little Kirby Classic Kamandi art to spice up your Simian Saturday.

Doomcopter for D&D

  I was reading over the new D&D Basic rules this evening, putting off doing my paper, and thought I'd try something different.  I don't have much experience with the new D&D rules yet, and have never made up a vehicle for any RPG, so I figure what the heck, lets see what I can do...
I want my next D&D Campaign to be different, yesterday's Gonzo Mutant Future Thundarresque game, reminded me how much I like throwing crazy things at my players, so for my next D&D Campaign I've decided to not go the traditional vanilla fantasy route.  Nothing wrong with Tolkeinesque Campaigns, but I want to do something different, and I think the new D&D rules will do the ticket. I want some weird tech in my game, laser pistols, renegade robots and more, the old card art from He-Man and the MotU came to mind.  I stumbled across a crazy looking vehicle from He-Man and figured why not...So without further ado I present the:

Doomcopter  (aka Skullcopter)

AC: 16 (The pilot gains a +5 to his AC;  three quarters cover)

HP: 30 (at 0 the vehicle must make an emergency landing(i.e. crash landing, at -30 the craft is destroyed)

ATK: Chomp Attack 2d6+3, Grappling Chomp (with a successful chomp attack the pilot can attempt to make a Grapple with the massive jaws on a failed Dex save vs DC 12 the victim is caught in the massive jaws),  Rip-Rotor (See Below)

Crew: 1

Speed: Flying 200 Max Speed/100 speed when "carrying" a victim in its jaws. 

      The Doomcopter is a frightening one-man helicopter powered by eldritch necromantic energies best forgotten.  What it lacks in durability it makes up for in frightening aspect.  The front of the craft is a giant skull that can glow with an eerie green energy.  Upon seeing this glow, foes must make a DC 12 Wisdom save or  suffer the Frightened condition as detailed below.  The Frightful glow effect does not work in daylight conditions and can only be activated for 1 minute at a time (Recharge 5-6).  

Frightful Presence- A being or creature that starts its turn within sight of the glowing skull must make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw. Failed Save: the  target has the Frightened Condition for 1 minute; while frightened the affected creature must move away from the Doomcopter.  As an action, the frightened target can make a DC 14 Wisdom or Charisma check to end the effect.  Successful save; the target is immune to the Copter's Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours. This immunity also applies once the effect ends.

Damage Resistance (Necrotic)- Powered by Arcane Necromantic Energies, the craft and its pilot  gain resistance against necrotic attacks.

Rip-Rotor- As a last ditch attack the rotor blades can be launched at a foe (Range 100/400) on a successful hit does 4d6 slashing damage, doing this will cause the vehicle to crash!

                                           

                        I will no doubt tweak this one down the road, when the DMG and MM come out I will have a better handle on things, but for my first test run err.. I mean flight I kinda like how this turned out.
Good Gaming  -B.  

Deviant Database 2

I neglected to mention that Sniderman has released the second book in his Deviant Database series.  It's probably a good thing that I didn't have this in my hot little hands yesterday or the game would have gone in a completely different direction, heh heh heh. This book has some great mutant beasties that are perfect for your Post Apocalyptic World (and yes many fit right in with the Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence!).  I think the Equusaw is my favorite, a unicorn-like beast with a chainsaw for a horn!! OMG!  I must use that in my games! There are several unusual mutant beasts that will shake up your Mutant Future Campaigns!
Nice Job Sniderman!!

Last Voyage of the S.S. Sludge Minnow

     I was able to get some gaming in today.  Myself and a few friends (old and new) were able to get together at the FLGS.  I had planned on running the D&D Starter Set adventure, but my copy hadn't arrived yet.  Work has been busy, so I didn't really have time to put anything else together.  So I grabbed some books on the way out the door and we just rolled with it! Since I've had great success in the past running Mutant Future pick up games and one of my players is a big Thundarr the Barbarian fan, that's what we did.

 I did shake this session up quite a bit though.  : )
I grabbed my copy of The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence

The Metamorphica

Sniderman's most Excellent Deviant Database

And my gaming binder full of random notes, charts and tables. Oh and I also grabbed my print out copy of the new D&D Basic Rules : )
 We had an awesome time!!  It was a hybrid game using Mutant Future as the core with some D&D 5E rules tacked on. The players were a bunch of miscreants, outcasts, and criminals sent into exile to the Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence. 
They started the session with crap for gear (randomly rolled) locked in the ship's cargo hold with other dredges on the rust-bucket ship the S.S. Sludge-Minnow.  Captained by Groll The Hunchback and his first-mate the obvious android Robort the Hook, along with a crew of irritable Pig-men.  They were crossing the Slime Sea to be dumped on the Islands.  It was a Wild & Wahoo Gonzo game, that I won't soon forget and I mean that in a good way.

Mail Call!

Had a busy day today, didn't get to think about gaming stuff much at all today (The Horror!),
When I got home this evening a couple of packages were sitting on my front porch.  Inside the boxes I found a plethora of goodies that I recently ordered. I won the D30 Sandbox Companion PDF in a contest awhile back, and liked it so much I just had to have it in print.  Both it and the D30 Companion will be perfect resources for my upcoming D&D Campaign.  The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence is a sci-fantasy gonzo setting.  Not sure if I will use it with D&D or Mutant Future (or both), lots of interesting ideas to be found therein.  Warriors of the Red Planet, I mean it's John Carter of Mars done up OSR-Style, how could I not pick it up!  I'm still waiting on my Castle of the Mad Archmage pack (RPGNow screwed up my order) and my D&D Starter Pack.  I bought all this with some recent birthday funds, so She Who Must Be Obeyed is fine with it.  Woo Hoo!
It's a great time to be a gamer, I just wish I had more time to game!
Now the question is do I run a straight vanilla D&D Campaign; elves, dwarves, hobbi...er I mean halflings and such or do I go over the top gonzo with mutants, magic, ape-men and ornithopters!
Oh my!

Kickin' it Old School

Reading the D&D Basic PDF caused me to think back to my old Campaigns from back in the day.  I went and dug around in some old folders in the attic and found this!  It's the map of my AD&D Campaign from early High School to College, mid-80's+, I called the world Vaarda.  I ran this Campaign off and on for over 14 years. Great Memories.  It's not particularly original, borrowed bits and pieces from Tolkien, Warhammer, Medieval Europe, Rolemaster etc, but we had tons of fun with it. One of the original players of this Campaign died a few years back in a tragic accident.  I introduced him to the hobby in middle school, he wound up loving the game even more than I did, his parents got mad at me for teaching him the game, they thought it was Satanic (this was the 80's don't ya know).  We had some great times and some great games.  My best friend since 7-8th Grade played in this world a bunch also.  He moved away years ago, but we still keep in touch and talk about gaming sometime.  I think its time to get him to dust off his dice and get something going. 

DnD I'm In!

  Well I have to admit I was skeptical, I didn't participate in the play-tests, didn't follow what was going on with the development of 5E on blogs, or Google+ or Forums, I intentionally avoided pretty much anything to do with D&D Next.  Not that I was bitter or mad (well I did get mad when Dragon Magazine stopped coming to my mailbox) or anything, but to be honest I felt with 4E (and to some extent even 3.5) that WotC no longer considered me to be a part of their demographic.  I'm not a hater or an Edition Wars guy or anything like that, if you have an edition of the game, or a retro clone that you like and have a group that enjoys it then I'm happy for you. To be honest for me the quality of the players/group has always been more important to me than the rules system being used.  But I do want to use a rules system that allows me to run the kinds of games that I enjoy. I did try 4E, bought the books ran a mini-campaign, and eventually shook my head and sold all of my 4E books (no small thing for me, I still have all of my AD&D books and modules), it just wasn't for me or my group. For several years now, I've been content to play various retro clones (C&C, AS&SH, LL, B&T, DCC etc.) and even dipped my toes into Pathfinder for awhile.  Part of my issue is a personal one, I find I have an annoying case of Gamer ADD, with all the retro clones out there, I was frustrating my players (and myself) wanting to try the latest OSR Clone that was out, and I have to admit some GREAT ones exist ( B&T, AS&SH; I'm looking at you guys!). So that brings me to my current state, I've lost some players due to jobs, moving, personal issues and  I've been away from active gaming for a bit now, have had a few great one-shots and short 2-3 session games here and there. Even posts on my blog have diminished (although to be fair work and family have been a major influence on that). So to fast forward...
 A friend of mine has been singing the praises of 5e for a bit now (he was very active in the various play-tests), I always smiled, nodded politely and changed the subject.  Well that has changed.  At Free RPG Day I got to participate in a 5E game.  I got to play. I was handed a pre-gen, given a brief (very brief) run down of the 5E rules (Advantages, Disadvantages, Short Rests, etc...) and we started playing. And it was FUN!  I was back in the game!  One of my other friends a regular player in my various games and a DM in his own right joined us, and he had a blast also.  It was FUN!!!
But I was still skeptical, this was a playtest, not the final version.  I did order the Starter Set, I mean for $12, I couldn't resist, heck the dice in the set alone cost nearly that, well half that at least. 
 Now the Basic rules have been released, for Free!  I downloaded them, liked what I saw, sure there are a few things here and there that I may change, but the rules work, they have pulled some modern bits and pieces in but the old deep roots of the game that I know and love are still there.  Yesterday I uploaded the Basic DnD Files to Office Depot and with a coupon got them to print it up for $11, by yesterday afternoon I had the Basic Rules in hand, hopefully the booklet will fit into the Starter Set box when it arrives.
But the most important thing, I'm feeling creative again,  the ideas are flowing, I've got my muse back, while everyone was still asleep this morning I got up early and got to creating stuff! I'm ready to play D&D Again!  And you know what it feels Good!  : )