Apologies, my return and an update.

Apologies for not posting such a while as my life has been beyond hectic. I will be playing D&D this tuesday and will hopefully have a story to share. Thanks to any who still care about my blog.

A quick catch up and some points on death

I haven’t posted in 2 weeks or so but there’s been a bit of family tragedy. You see in the early hours of yesterday morning my Grandmother passed away. This isn’t a joke but I was watching Spartacus at the time. Anyway she had pancreatic cancer with a 0% chance of survival so I haven’t been shocked but it’s very upsetting especially since she was so close to me and my section of the family. Like I would see her on an every other day basis.  Speaking of cancer the be here and now documentary about Andy Whitfield should be coming out soon. I look forward to that. Cancer eh, first Andy Whitfield then Pierce Brosnan’s daughter and now my Grandmother or “Nanny” as I called her. I’m going to miss Nanny and I’m not religious but I hope for her sake that there is actually a better place for her to go even if I can’t believe it’s there.

So I don’t know what to say really I mean this has turned into a sob story, I haven’t been this emotional since Bioshock Infinite. I must make a joke. Hmm. So there was this gladiator right. This gladiator was having a rough day at the arena-his opponent had sliced off both of his arms. Nevertheless, he fought on, kicking and biting as furiously as he could. But when his opponent lopped off both feet, the gladiator had no choice but to give up. He was now both unarmed and defeated. Haha get it? I know it’s awful. In all fairness I’m surprised the gladiator survived, he must be an immortal. Maximus MacLeod.

And now for something completely different. So I was playing Rome Total war today and by messing about with files and all that gubbins I was able to play a campaign as Spain and somehow I am doing ridiculously well. It’s really funny how good it’s going.

I know this blog is meant to be about Dungeons and Dragons but I haven’t been playing it that much lately. I worked out this morning, serious.

I wonder if the black Knight off of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an immortal. There can be only- none shall pass!

By Jupiter’s cock I’ve just looked over this and it looks like I’ve got ADHD.

If I could give you one piece of advice from this it’s to take no one for granted because in a world where we have diseases such as cancer people can be taken from right in front of your eyes and before you know it they’re gone.

“There are loved ones in the glory,
Whose dear forms you often miss;
When you close your earthly story,
Will you join them in their bliss?”

The death of a player character

I apologize if I seem a bit absent in thiis (<–There we go see a mistake already) post but I’m deciding whether I should watch Highlander 3 or Spartacus Gods of the Arena episode 3 hmm…  N-Knee-whey in my last D&D session two player characters died :'(. Really it was just an average dungeon with a mini boss. Now I know you may think that to be bad Dungeon Mastering but i had planned all the monsters in there before hand and quite frankly the reason they died was because they allowed themselves to become isolated. very often it becomes a game of numbers. When there are enough enemies so that they cannot be all killed in one turn they are very likely to do damage. For example one player, a human female ranger named Blitzkrieg ran off ahead and was immobilized by spiders then 3 large spiders moved in for a simple immobilize with webs which is +11 so it almost always hits against level ones players and then the other spiders move in and bite which does half damage if it hits so it’s pretty easy to ruin a player if you have them out numbered with a decent spread. I’m going to watch Spartacus. That being said who would win if Connor MacLeod fought Spartacus. What’s sad is that the players who ran off actually survived and the ones who were behind got the brunt of the attacks. The Half-orc rogue, Grant Wallace, was killed by he and the Cleric being backed into a corner and the cleric fled leaving Grant stuffed by a wight and some ooze in a corner and he fell tragically but bravely. The other was a dragon born wizard called Jocko he was left unprotected again by the cleric and was practically disintegrated by 2 fireball throwing blazing skeletons. Now the question is do I make the game easier? Of course not! They died because of strategical error, cowardice and no doubt a bit of bad luck. The game stays the same the players get better.

D&D character portraits

Some of my players decided that they’d like to draw there characters and I want to show you the photos. Keep in mind all of these players are 15/16 years old. 

This first picture is of Jocko the dragon born wizard. Famous for the ghoul incident.Jocko was later redrawn in Dwarven armour.Now here we have Meeko of Redmarsh, Dragonborn fighter. Look at the abs.This last one is of ex-commander Grant Wallace (formerly Nicholas Shepherd) of the Albion Navy. There’s a clear void in the level of skill in drawing here.

The Spartacus coincidence

As you may know I love the Spartacus tv series. Over the last 4 days I’ve watched 3 or 4 episodes a day until last night I watched the season 1 finale. Now today the very day after they release a Spartacus free to play arcade game. What a coincidence. Also Spartacus’ second in command is called Crixus who was a very formidable gladiator himself. Crixus is a Gaul and his name in Gaulish means “One with curly hair” and believe it or not I have curly hair. Also Andy Whitfield (R.I.P) is Welsh and I’m Welsh. That’s 3 coincidences, what or the odds? Or perhaps it’s not a coincidence at all…

Permanent Injury rolls (The Ghoul incident)

If you’re in the mood for shitting bricks Google image search Ghoul and look for a bit. Anyway last time we played we were using the Castle Ravenloft set and the adventurers were all separated into 5 separate tiles of a large chamber and basically I fudged every next tile so that it formed a maze but it kept the adventurers apart for as long as possible. I’m currently watching Spartacus so I’m a bit distracted at present. The little Gay one just died and everyone is having a pop at Spartacus for it. Annnnyway the most in danger player was the level 1 dragonborn wizard called Jocko. Now he has 6 HP. Now this encounter had one enemy for one person, weak stuff 2 skeletons, a zombie and a rats swarm. Nothing a Cleric, Fighter, Ranger and a Half-orc rogue can handle. Oh my word Spartacus wants to take on six guys, I seriously need to homebrew a gladiator class, by Juno.  Anyway the enemy I put closest to the wizard was a ghoul. I did this because that would have the most effect. So the wizard thinks he huge he mage hands the door open and he rolls a 1. A ghoul has an armour class of 16. The role is officially botched. Spartacus is amazing. My turn comes along so the ghoul moves in on the mage for his bite which is either a +6,7 or 8 for 3 damage. I roll a 20. Crits for double damage. The wizard is down. One hit. We agreed that’s it’s 3 turns before you die absolutely so the Ghoul moves on to the cleric but a skeleton moves onto the same tile as the wizard as it was driven back by the ranger. We agreed that you can only use a healing surge with zero monsters on your tile. Si the battle ended in one turn. So the fight is over but he couldn’t use a healing surge because the fight is over so the rule is if you last the battle then you get up with 1 HP. I’ll have to cut the short for now because my laptop is dying more on this later. Peace out.

Alright I’m back and I don’t think I’ve had any views since I left so I could just cut that last bit out but no. The truth shall remain. Alright where was I? Hmm… Oh there! Okay anyway when your character gets up I’ve added the house rule of permanent injuries. This after the event of getting up the DM rolls a 20-sided die. Sounds simple enough right? Well it’s is simple. The number on the die indicates the severity of the injury. For example if you roll a 1 they get a tiny barely noticeable scar on their left forearm. If a 20 is rolled (critical injury?) then they get stabbed in there stomach so far that every potion they drink in the future has -1 to whatever effect. The wizard got a 16 but I lowered it to a 14 because it was the first time I did this. You don’t have to tell them anything about it just give little hints where relevant. The wizard got a chunk of his right bicep bitten off and although it’s healed  he is prone to getting cramp in that bicep. This can be a great reason as to why they fail checks. For example if they fail a thievery check on a lock you can say “As you attempt to pick the lock you arm cramps up forcing you to straighten it hastily causing you to snap your lock pick” The fact they have the injury doesn’t cause them to fail the check it just explains why they failed. Very rarely I will bring it up in combat but it can be done. For example “You arm begins to cramp forcing you to expose yourself to attack. You lose 1 AC for 2 turns” Or if you’re really mean D4 AC for D4 turns… Mwhahahahahaaaa. Also why the flumph are numbers so small on this font 123456789 and they’re irregular and inconsistent. What’s going on there? There’s continuity errors with this font. Just for a example of a natural 20 severity roll “You’re previously damaged knee pops and gives way causing you to fall. You can’t move for 1 turn and all rolls on that turn halved” What’s important here is balancing disadvantages with frequency. Good role playing and character development can come from this.

I’d also  like to thank someone called Len who writes something called The Kraken’s Wake, I haven’t properly looked at it yet but it looks cool and has some good art. They were the first person to like one of my posts.

Greetings from a far away time.

Errrm Hello? Yes, you! I’m making the blog to document my experiences as a first time DM for a game of dungeon’s and dragons (I play sports, no lies). Now first thing’s first my username is nonmacleod I don’t know if you can see it or not but there it is. Why? You might ask. Well it’s the combination of of Non from superman II and Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod from the Highlander series (There can only be one!). 

I was inspired to do the blog by Noah Antwiler, Chris Perkins and Bill Cavalier none of whom I know personally.  

The blog may seem a little bit pointless but I’m funny and my group is ridiculous at times, gimme a chance? For every time you read my blog an under privileged player somewhere in the world rolls a natural 20. So if you’re Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic good you’re bound to read this blog or I’ll have to drop you a level.

Oooh, ooh, ooooh, wait I would also like to do Q&A so if you want to ask me a question sent it to slatewildmer@yahoo.com, thanks.