Interesting fix/nerf for my Soulbow's Saves

   My character is broken. Almost completely broken in the most amazing way. One way he is no longer broken is his saves which I am actually fine with. The godly saves was actually and accident on my part because for the first six levels only one class did I take twice and that was Soulknife so I could qualify for Soulbow. This meant that without trying my Fort save was +8 and my Reflex save was +9, of course with a wisdom of 28 my will was up there at +18 but when your stacking a stat like that it is to be expected. Anyway long story short the DM did not like that even  my worst save was better then some of the other players' best saves. He figured out a good solution for this as well along with improving my base attack bonus. My saves where broken because of having so many classes (same with the BAB but in the wrong way) so he figured out how to normalize it. To put it simply he just looked at how quickly saves and BAB advanced and that is what I got. For saves there are only 2 kinds, good and bad. If a save has a bad progression then for that level you get 1/3 of a point, for a good save its a little trickier if only because first and second character level (not class) you get 2 then 1 and from then on you get 1/2. Saves round down of course. This mean that my Cloistered Cleric 1/Soulknife 2/Fighter 1/Monk 1/Soulbow 1 my saves before stat bonuses was Fort 4, Reflex 3 1/3, and Will 5 1/3 which was a lot more in line with what everyone else had. Of course lets not forget BAB which has 3 different advancement speeds good, average, and bad. A good one advances +1 every level, and average one advances +1/2 every level, and a bad one advances +1/3 every level so my character ended up with 4 1/6 (remember Cloistered Cleric has a bad progression). Of course I lost more then I gained and would definitely revert back to the old way in a moments notice though thats just because of how broken my guy is in combat. The worst bonus to attack I can have if within 30' is now 17 where before it was a 15, not much difference though it does mean I can potentially get a +21 to attack but really most of what we fight I just have to roll to make sure its not a 1. Also we just went up a level which is nice though it did not do all that much for me. Its next level I look forward to because of how our group does stat increases which is you get +2 instead of +1 to a stat. Everything I do in combat is based off of Wisdom so basically next level I get +1 to hit, to damage, and to AC automatically. Also my BAB goes up 1 but until it hits +6 where I get another attack at +1 I don't really notice it that much, I mean really whether I am adding +20 or +21 to my roll is meaningless when anything but a 1 is a hit but when suddenly its a +22/+17 then it matters. Combine that with my making it so I can use flurry with my Mind Arrows means that in reality it would be +20/+20/+15 which matters quite a bit, especially when the damage I do is 1d6+1d4+14. Now the 1d6 and 1d4 are a little boring and I don't really care about them and would replace them with a solid plus instead of a random number its the +14 that I like as its dependable. So yeah, I broke my character and the DM is slowly fixing him though I don't think it can be done that easily especially since I am only about 3k gold away from upping my Periapt of Wisdom from +2 to +4 and thus at level 8 I will almost definitely have a Wisdom of 32 and as I said before, everything I do in combat is powered by my Wisdom.

The end of another game for me

   I am no longer DMing a D&D game as next week we will be going back to having the guy who normally DM's and starting a new campaign with characters at level 6. The basic problem with me is that I opened up the world so they could go out and create their own story and mostly everyone in the group would prefer a more structured story then that. I tried to give them hooks though not that well I guess. Maybe some other time. I hate to admit it but I knew this was coming when the one guy had to drop from the campaign. He was basically holding the game together by actually interacting with the world in a search for something to do sorta way.
   Anyway I am going to be a Soulbow which is a psionic ranged character that is a prestige class of the Soulknife. I don't quite know how I want to make it but I have thought about it before and basically I have to start at around 6 so I can actually be of use as before that I am just a melee guy trying to do ranged combat without a good weapon.

I think my group is now tired of centipedes

   So yeah, centipedes. My group, they fought them. Anyway I now am out of my pre-made caves so I will actually have to prepare for next week. Besides a cave full of centipedes there was a lot of fun to.
   The session started slow with them not wanting to go to town so finally they decided to follow the river. This was nice as I could fill out some interesting features on the three tiles there. First night nothing much happened till near morning. One of the players decided that after their watch they would sleep in a tree and of course there was some jokes and such and someone offhandedly mentioned a squirrel attack. So of course I had carnivorousness squirrels attack the character in the tree because he slept on their nest. Only three and they where mostly speed bumps but it was exciting. The player in the tree was not woken by the person on watch shouting so the squirrels got a free attack on him. Then the rock goblin archer type with a freaky ricochet ability destroyed 2 of the squirrels. The player in the tree was awake so he tried to tumble out because he was a ninja or whatever. Rolled a natural 1 so the group decided he should be stunned for a turn and I picked up on this and said he was. Of course the last squirrel tumbled down onto the ninja perfectly and hits him again. The rock gobbo then critted it and did over 3 or 4 times its total health. I decided the two that where killed to start where shot through the skulls and the arrow was stuck in the tree so it was just a couple squirrels hanging on the tree. Next day of course the party decided they should cook them but I said just the skulls where left on the arrows and that even that had scratch marks like something squirrel had been gnawing on them. At the end after we finished they joked about vegetarian wolves so I joke of course there where some after all the squirrels needed mounts after all. Yeah I wasn't joking, I hope they go back there sometime. Not much else happened but the seconded night they found a cave to sleep in and it had a slightly hidden spot which had a gold piece worth of silver coins.
   On a slightly sad note for me as I liked him the new player will be leaving the group because of military service. Of course he did go into it by choice so its not a bad thing but he was fun to have in the group. Also he is the one that was on the side making deals with the goblin who originally guided them to their cave home. Because he is leaving I can say that he is getting paid on the side by said goblin for basically spying on the group and is getting extra money for useful information. The location of the cave with nothing much this time and  the location of the cave from the session before where the one scarred gobbo had his treasure where particularly good information so he got a good bit of money. Of course since he is leaving and I can't have him just vanishing his character will become a NPC employed by the goblin. Also I am having him level up for next session. No I am not doing this because he is leaving. I would have had him level up anyway because I was basically counting his spying and such as providing bonus XP. I tried to let the other people in the party do similar things but one stayed at the cave so could not, another was getting fitted for plate which is fine but then a second one went with him because he did not want to go to a bar and the final ones first action on getting to the bar was to get drunk, completely and entirely drunk all the way till night time so yeah the only person who was going along with their freedom is now leaving. I have no clue how I am going to get the party moving besides a nice set of rail road tracks onto some structured quest. I don't know why I expected any different a that is basically what the other campaigns where I was a player where. I will mourn the loss of a player who knew what to do when given freedom. Oh and as a final note the rock goblin in the party will become known in town as squirrel bane while the ninja is going to be squirrel bate, about 3 in 10 will recognize the squirrel bane while 1 in 10 will recognize the squirrel bate and if they are together if one is recognized the other will be too.

Wolves and more wolves, or how I terrify my players

   First off let me tell you how the group has decided to do our campaigns. As it stands we lost 1 person from D&D and 2 from BESM but we got someone new for D&D. Since everyone in the BESM game is in the D&D game we have decided that whenever the odd man out who is only in the D&D game is present we will be playing my campaign. I of course was totally unprepared to DM today so it went quite well except for the first little bit.
   We had a little problem to begin with as one person did not have a character yet and another person did not bring theirs but the one borrowed a character someone else had on them and the other knew enough to put theirs onto paper quickly so that worked out. This of course means that next week instead of a fighter there will be a ninja but whatever. Once the game actually started they went to town and sold stuff then a 3 of them loaned money to another so they could have plate. This of course managed to split the party. The rock goblin to start with did not even go to town, the guy getting plate needed time to have it fitted and the cleric turtle did not want to go to a tavern so went with him. The last 2 decided a tavern was a good place to go. Predictably one of them got totally wasted. This of course means I ended up with only one person doing something interactive with me. He benefited quite a bit from this though I won't say more as I don't know if any of them will be reading this or not. Anyway he got the quest for them. A goblin who was horribly disfigured told them where to find some treasure he hid and said they could have 10% of it if they get it for him as he could not leave the town because of something.
   They decide this sounded grand so they went home first then onto the cave. Not much to say about the cave. It was one of the small maps I think I posted here at some point and there was not really anything to it except a hidden area. What I decided they would fight is 10 wolves but I could not just throw all of them at the party at once so I did something slightly different. I decided they could handle 4 wolves at a time so whenever they killed one I would have another wolf join the fray after the last wolf moved. This of course was interesting as the first time it caught the players off guard and the wolf was able to get right at the sorcerer. After that when they kept coming the party really got worried. Even though in the end they killed them all easily enough the worry that they would keep coming was quite strong until they finish exploring the dungeon. I was also able to easily explain why the wolves would have treasure. They did not have any, the treasure that go rolled was the 10% they where allowed to keep though I made sure to ask if they wanted to try to keep more. Overall it was a good session and I hope that I can keep it up.

Splitting the party

   Literally splitting the party in this case. We just have too many people playing and too many who want to play. I will be taking the group who is mostly the experienced players as I am a new DM so its not going to affect me that much. The other DM is going to be the original guy who has mostly DMed up until now. I don't really know what this will end up doing to the group but since we will be playing on the same day and time I don't think it will break us up and honestly unless the new people stick with it we will probably shrink back down to the old group plus maybe one or two people.
   Speaking of losing players we lost the girl from the BESM campaign as life got too busy recently. I don't know if this means the end of the BESM game because  she was the reason for it or if it just means well I don't know what else if might mean. I like BESM and had finally figured out what I wanted my character to specialize in but I won't be that sad to see it go and if it does that will probably mean my game will be every week instead of every  other week. Ah well, life goes on.

I got nerfed quicker then expected

   Not much today beyond a ankheg followed by three cockatrices. The ankheg went down just after I used expansion but luckily it had a couple minutes for a duration so it lasted for the next fight. Anyway for the nerf what happened was that I can't use a trip attack as an attack of opportunity. The DM just said no the second he realized that my it was likely my character was going to completely lock down all three cockatrices that he sent against us by never letting them stand up. Of course we still dominated them as they only have such a high CR because of their gaze attack. Me being in front and large meant that I was the only target and only one managed to hit me and I got a 28 on my fort save. I actually only needed to roll a 4 and I would pass the save so it was not really going to get me barring bad luck anyway. With the trip nerf of course I will have to redesign my later levels but thats okay as I don't think the trip attack was going to be sustainable. I still plan to get the feat that gives me AoO even when a caster is casting defensively and I still am having the artificer in the group making an item that lets me go large as I want as it works with my setup even without the uber trips so nothing really changes though I probably will see if I can change out the feat imp. trip to something else as I don't really need it anymore. Now that I think about it nothing really is changing that much anyway as more then half my build is still valid, I just have to change the trip elements to something else.

Elephant like creatures

   A number of things had happened when I was gone. First and most important is that we leveled up so I now have elasticity which lets me stretch a limb up to five times its normal dimensions so I can not attack up to five squares away from me. Of course the DM decided that does not mean I can have attacks of opportunity out to that far and so it was decided by the group that it was like Luffy's stretching ability.
   One of the players forgot his character sheet and decided instead of just remaking it he would be an entirely new character. So anyway the group was out and about on a planet and heard screams so we went to where they where coming from. It was a zoo and the "new" character was fighting some escaped elephant like creatures. The zoo's defense system helped us because otherwise we would have been dead as each of the creatures had three attacks of which the first two did something like 2d8 plus Strength. We managed to hold out fairly well though in the end we only killed three of the creatures when there had been like nine of them. Once all of the alive ones where paralyzed by the zoo defenses the handlers came out and took care of the rest. The new character what unconscious so we basically kidnapped him. This did not jive for the honorable samurai so we had a little inter-character drama. In the end though it all worked out.
    Also apparently we had found a ship on the planet and this had been the reason to go there in the first place. Yeah that was about the order I found out about it as well. Anyway long story short, we got some coords to a place outside of known space and used our ships superdrive to get there in about a day when it normally would have taken something like three months. On the only planet with intelligent creatures we found huminoids that looked nothing like any others we knew of and spoke a highly accented version of the Esper language. When we landed and met some locals they called the Espers in our group "Sky Gods". We ended with most of the group in a car we had for some reason driving towards the nearest city.

More Frogs (though technicly toads)

   The party today acquired some more members but lost others. With the new people coming in bring the number of players up to five those of us that had two characters had to give up one of them and so I gave up the cleric and kept the warblade. As for what actually happened we fought more frogs. Lots and lots of frogs through the power of a messed up form of swarm rules. I have probably already explained this but basically the DM wanted us to fight hundreds of small frogs which is impractical so he just chucked them all together in groups of 25 and called it a day. Anyway we faced the final boss in the swamp area which was a giant frog. Technically as the title of this post suggests it was a toad. More properly a Dire Toad with advanced hit dices but the DM could not find any proper frog monsters for us to fight so used what was close enough. After some lucky rolls on the percentile for treasure we ended up with a ton of random magic stuff and a load of gold. Of course after such good events obviously the good times would continue so the people that captured us decided that they wanted us to stay in the swamp and try to find our way back to the town on our own with only a quick point in the correct direction to guide us. All is in the end forgiven though since we had enough XP to level up so next time we will be third level.

The Prosperous Shesheme

The Prosperous Shesheme

   That is the name of  the groups spaceship. It is a high tech wounder created to assist my group in finding out why every X number of years all of civilization gets thrown back to the stone age like clockwork. Basicly a play on MtG's Alara except with each shard being a planet plus earth. Now the name of the ship may make more sense to you if I tell you we disguised it as a traveling restaurant but that would be a false sense of reason as we just threw together that cover story a bit after we had already named the ship.

   It took our group a while to name the ship and speaking of my group we grew a bit. A girl the DM knew joined us and some random guy who happened to be in the card shop on Wednesday joined as well then today the one guy who was not able to make it suddenly showed up and had time to make a character. So yeah, the group for BESM has 6 people and we may have 5 or 4 for 3.5 now depending on the guy from the past and whether he can keep coming all the time.

   Anyway as for the BESM game not much happened except for killing some space pirates because we spent at least half the session in what can only be called a unending bout of laughter brought on by the most intensive anime nerdery. Basically it was tons of fun and I would have honestly been okay with it even if we had not gotten any gaming done.

Frogs, Lots of Frogs

   The group fought as you might guess from the title, Frogs. Not ordinary frogs but a swarm of frogs though not a swarm as in swarm rules but swarm as in the DM wanted up to fight a couple hundred frogs at once but not have us take for ever killing one a turn. Basically it was some figures on the field that each represented twenty five frogs so if you did a lot of damage you killed a lot of frogs.
   During this fight we found out something interesting about the party. Almost everyone uses a reach weapon of some sort and has decent AC. The "swarms" had a move of 5' so we basically hacknbacked them to death.
   Oh yeah I ended last weak with us being captured so I guess that should be explained huh. Anyway we woke up in a cell which could magically silence us and freeze in place so we are stuck there. The people keeping us prisoner are using us as test subjects and the frogs where a test. After the little frogs we where given the option to return to the cell or stay outside so of course we stayed outside.
   This meant a fight with two Dire frogs. We managed to not get hit once except when the cheating frog the everyone but one person who tanked the other exploded and caused a good amount of damage. Of course even badly damaged we cleaned up the last one easily. After this we decided to take the go back to the safe jail cell option. When there we got healed back to full by the jailor dragonborn guy and then sent to a "town".
   The town was just a place to keep other people like us captive so not really that much besides an adventure restock place. We also acquired a keep of significant size. I got to play my cleric as very picky about his religion. Though in the end everyone will be getting exactly the room they want as the place is like a mix of a tardis and a haunted house with a little bit of magical experiment gone wrong thrown in to sweeten the deal. Lots of fun and next time we probably get to fight what would classify as a boss level monster. The DM based it off frogger so who knows what will happen besides that we are fighting a frog.

Woot! Back to actually playing D&D

   Well we finally started the new campaign today. The guy that was playing the odd half a lot of stuff Sorcerer from the last one is now DMing. For this session we basically just had a short little pregame meet and greet for our characters...   Or more properly while I am sure we would have greeted each other instead we get sleeped as part of the plot when fighting some things so we could be captured and put into where the real campaign will be happening.
   Each person has two characters with 4 humans, a gnome, and a...   Kender...   Yeah, a Kender. Anyway we all started somewhere in a town that is getting overrun and we are the good guys and yet who we are fighting are dragonborn, the reborn children of Bahamut, you know the Dragon God of Good. We manage to kill one and we will be waking up somewhere else with all of our stuff and a shiny new level so I guess technically we are starting the real campaign at level 2. Here is what my guys where at level 1 and what they will be once leveled up:

Kiron son of Kiron
Human                  Neutral Good      Warblade 1

Lvl    Class        BaB    HD      F/ R/ W  HP FEATURES (F=feat)
1      Warblade     +1     d12    +2/ 0/ 0  12 Battle clarity, Weapon aptitude,
			Weapon Finesse(F), Exotic Weapon Proficiency[Spiked Chain](F)

STR: 10      0    BASE: +1                     S W
DEX: 18     +4    Init: +4 [Dex]         FORT: 3 2 /+5
CON: 16     +3    HP: 15                 REF : 4 0 /+4
INT: 14     +2                           WILL: 0 0 / 0
WIS: 10      0
CHA:  8     -1

AC: 18 (10 +4[Armour] +4[Dex])/ 16 (-2[Stance])
Touch: 14  Flatfooted: 14

Melee: +1 Ranged: +5 Finesse: +5
Spiked Chain       [2d4, crit x2, reach weapon*, 10lb, piercing]
Chain Shirt        [+4 AC, max dex +4, check penalty -2, 25lb]
*A spiked chain can hit adjacent foes as well

Feats: Weapon Finesse, Exotic Weapon Proficiency[Spiked Chain]
Skills: Concentration 4(7), Tumble 4(8), Spellcraft 2(2), Balance 4(8), Jump 4(4), Swim 4(4), Climb 4(4)
Abilities: Battle Clarity, Weapon Aptitude

Warblade Maneuvers:(3/3)     Initiator Level: 1
Moment of Perfect Mind*, Leading the Attack*, Sapphire Nightmare Blade*
Stances: Punishing Stance
*Default readied maneuvers/stances

Languages: Common, Draconic, Dwarven

Kiron son of Kiron
Human                  Neutral Good      Warblade 1

Lvl    Class        BaB    HD      F/ R/ W  HP FEATURES (F=feat)
1      Warblade     +1     d12    +2/ 0/ 0  12 Battle clarity, Weapon aptitude,
                  Weapon Finesse(F), Exotic Weapon Proficiency[Spiked Chain](F)
2      Psy Warrior   0     d8     +2/ 0/ 0   6 Combat Expertise(F)

STR: 10      0    BASE: +1                     S W P
DEX: 18     +4    Init: +4 [Dex]         FORT: 3 2 2 /+7
CON: 16     +3    PP:  0                 REF : 4 0 0 /+4
CON: 16     +3    HP: 24                 WILL: 0 0 0 / 0
WIS: 10      0
CHA:  8     -1

AC: 18 (10 +4[Armour] +4[Dex])/ 16 (-2[Stance])
Touch: 14   Flatfooted: 14

Melee: +1 Ranged: +5 Finesse: +5
Spiked Chain       [2d4, crit x2, reach weapon*, 10lb, piercing]
Chain Shirt        [+4 AC, max dex +4, check penalty -2, 25lb]
*A spiked chain can hit adjacent foes as well

Feats: Weapon Finesse, Exotic Weapon Proficiency[Spiked Chain], Combat Expertise
Skills: Concentration 5(8), Tumble 4.5(10[Syn]), Spellcraft 2(2), Balance 4(8), Jump 5(5), Swim 5(5), Climb 5(5)
Abilities: Battle Clarity, Weapon Aptitude
Psionic Powers: Expansion

Warblade Maneuvers:(3/3)	Initiator Level: 1
Moment of Perfect Mind*, Leading the Attack*, Sapphire Nightmare Blade*
Stances: Punishing Stance
*Default readied maneuvers/stances

Languages: Common, Draconic, Dwarven

Heklatis
Human       Neutral Good      Deity: Pelor

Lvl    Class  BaB   HD      F/ R/ W  HP FEATURES (F=feat):		
1      Cleric  0    d8     +2/ 0/+2  8  Augment Healing(F), Extend Spell(F)

STR: 10      0    BASE: +0                     S C
DEX: 10      0    Init: +0               FORT: 3 2 /+5
CON: 16     +3    HP: 11                 REF : 0 0 / 0
INT: 10      0                           WILL: 4 2 /+6
WIS: 18     +4
CHA: 12     +1    Turning: 4/day   Turning Damage: 2d6+2

AC: 16 (10 +4[Armour] +2[Shield])
Touch: 10   Flatfooted: 16

Melee: +0 Ranged: +0
Morningstar         [1d8, crit x2, 6lb, bludgeoning and piercing]
Longspear           [1d8, crit x3, reach weapon, 9lb, piercing]
Chain Shirt         [+4 AC, max dex +4, check penalty -4, 25lb]
Heavy Steel Shield  [+2 AC, check penalty -2, 15lb]

Feats: Augment Healing, Extend Spell
Skills: Knowledge[Religion] 4(5), Heal 4(8), Concentration 4(7)
Abilities: Turn Undead, Spontaneous Healing
Languages: Common

Domains: Healing(+1 healing CL), Sun(Greater turning)

Default Memorization’s:
Level 0(3):
Detect Poison, Light, Create Water
Level 1(2+D): 
2x Lesser Vigor - standard action, heals 2 and 12 rounds of fast heal 1
Cure Light Wounds(D) - standard action, touch, heals 1d8+4

Heklatis
Human       Neutral Good      Deity: Pelor

Lvl    Class  BaB   HD      F/ R/ W  HP FEATURES (F=feat):		
1      Cleric  0    d8     +2/ 0/+2  8  Augment Healing(F), Extend Spell(F)
1      Cleric  1    d8     +1/ 0/+1  7

STR: 10      0    BASE: +1                     S C
DEX: 10      0    Init: +0               FORT: 3 3 /+6
CON: 16     +3    HP: 18                 REF : 0 0 / 0
INT: 10      0                           WILL: 4 3 /+7
WIS: 18     +4
CHA: 12     +1    Turning: 4/day   Turning Damage: 2d6+2

AC: 16 (10 +4[Armour] +2[Shield])
Touch: 10   Flatfooted: 16

Melee: +1 Ranged: +1
Morningstar         [1d8, crit x2, 6lb, bludgeoning and piercing]
Longspear           [1d8, crit x3, reach weapon, 9lb, piercing]
Chain Shirt         [+4 AC, max dex +4, check penalty -4, 25lb]
Heavy Steel Shield  [+2 AC, check penalty -2, 15lb]

Feats: Augment Healing, Extend Spell
Skills: Knowledge[Religion] 5(6), Heal 5(9), Concentration 5(8)
Abilities: Turn Undead, Spontaneous Healing
Languages: Common

Domains: Healing(+1 healing CL), Sun(Greater turning)

Default Memorization’s:
Level 0(3):
Detect Poison, Light, Create Water
Level 1(2+D): 
3x Lesser Vigor - standard action, heals 2 and 13 rounds of fast heal 1
Cure Light Wounds(D) - standard action, touch, heals 1d8+5

And so the end has come to the game yet the future shines bright

   So yeah, the others in my group got tired of our current campaign and decided to end it. We plan to take the next couple weeks off and then the Sunday after I get back from Pennsylvania we will start a new campaign with someone else as DM. The guy that was playing the Sorcerer was learning to DM 3.5 so he's going to be given a chance to give it a whirl. Since there will only be three players we each get to play 2 characters. I am going to have a Warblade and a Cleric.
   I plan to have a couple small dungeon crawly things myself just in-case the new DM doesn't get everything prepared quick enough. Probably using some of the maps I already posted here.

And the bandit spits mini bandits at you!

   We made it to the bandit cave and in the finest tradition it had multiple entrances. The first one we found and just went into was of course a dead end trap. A giant stone covered the entrance and water was starting to fill the place after the person in front triggered a pressure plate  when getting a scroll that basically said that the person did not beleive we would be stupid enough to fall for the trap. Unworried I simply stone shaped the rock away and put a message in it which was what the scroll a said followed by "I'm a ****ing dwarf, [female dog]!".
   We searched for more entrances and luckily one of us got a nat20 and found the other 3 entrances. I followed this up by rolling spot checks at each to spot how much activity there had been at each. The entrance next to the first was the correct one.
   Inside the correct tunnel I went in the lead and proceeded to ignore the traps we came across. Then I went around a corner and found a ballista firing at me. It missed me and the operators retreated. We went on and around the corner was ambushed by bandits. The bandits then spit 2d4 mini bandits at us. They would have been more of a threat if not for the fact everyone had at least DR1/- so they could not damage us though if they did hit you there was a DC15 fort save or lose some wisdom. Most of the party being either fighter types or dwarven this did little though the fighters did manage to get pretty low in wisdom. My dwarf was only hit a few times even when he had twenty of the blighters stacked on him attacking and saved every time. We killed them all finally, and it helped that the little ones only had an hp apiece so my fiery burst auto-killed them. In case you are wondering about the spitting mini bandits at us apparently the DM was using monsters as bandits. They where not what he was thinking they where so the next fight he switched out to something else.
   The group continued forward after a little bit of healing on the DMPC and found an actual room. It had
"rogues" with a fly speed. There was a good number of them but we cleared a large portion of them quickly. the mage helped a lot by using a bead from his necklace of fireball. This fight had everyone but me get knocked out though luckily I was able to throw down a mass lesser vigor on them all. After a little healing on the psi warrior to get him on his feet I proceeded to get extremely lucky. The enemy was rogues so if they saved against my ability they would have took nothing but in all the times I used my ability only once did any of them save. We managed to find a great number of interesting magic items on them including a Hand of the Mage and an Everfull Mug, both of which I commandeered. There was also a wand of cure light and a couple scrolls of bull strength which will be nice. There was also a number of other items but either no one needed them or someone else took them.
   We are not finished with the cave system but with the wand I should be able to get the group on their feet quickly. Probably will finish the cave next week. The group has also decided that we should make an adventuring group of 1st level characters to go quest with as well. I have a Warblade set up already and will probably have to make the group healer as well. At least this time I will be able to make a pure healer so he can do his job better. The extra feat from being human should help as well.

Not much but I healed the enemy

   Because the other players in the group where tired today we only did one encounter today. It was against some fire dinosaur things. The male shifter from before was with it and started off strong and kept it up. First round crit, hit, hit, miss. Second round crit, hit, hit, miss. Yeah, I think having him along will greatly improve our DPS. As for the heal thing I mentioned apparently fire healed them. I knew they probably were not affected by fire but healing? I think I would at least get some form of notice of this. Wounds closing up as they bask in my fiery conflagration should be something a cleric would figure out. Worse yet they kept up the tactic every enemy has adopted after I attack them, IE keeping spaces between themselves so my burst attack can only hit one of them. Sure they were not stupid but if they don't care about my attacks they should not be purposefully moving to make it so I can't hit more then one of them. Anyway we took them down right fast anyway. Going to have to look up if you can make a check to notice if an enemy takes damage or heals it.

Escaped the fort and then suddenly shifters

   We basically died again. All the monsters but one where killed and the one knocked us all out and then hightailed it out of there. Its partly my fault, it really creeped the enemy out when it kept knocking us out and we would keep coming back. Extended lesser vigor tends to do that. Later we woke up healed up and then went back to town.
   In town we found a disturbance around a peasants shack. There was a dead guard and the captain of the guard was wounded. The story was a merchant had met some travelers who joined him then when they got to just before the town they beat him up and took some of his stuff. Also they where lycanthropes. After aquiring a masterwork silver long sword for the melee PC we went into the hut to face the foe...
It was a guy and his pregnant wife. Also they had apparently been hired by the merchant for protection and all they had done when he had refused payment was beat him up a little and then take what he had said he would pay them. Of course being unwillingly cursed is illegal and cause for you to either be killed or put into slavery. Now to make it even better they where not even lycanthropes but actually shifter, the half lycan types who don't go mad at the full moon. We solved the first part of the problem of them being illegal by having my character just declare as of the day before the event happened being a shifter was no longer illegal which was fun. Next was the fact that killing a guard was cause for death or slavery, IE back to square one. This we solved by having the guard raised in exchange for the shifters agreeing to work for us. After the session we found out they where both level six so for 5000 and change we acquired some heros who until we leveled where of higher level then us. Oh and we leveled.
   Finally I can stop worry about traps that cause reflex saves. Currently at level six my save is three which is horrible but with the feat I am taking once an encounter I can instead of making a reflex save make a concentration check which basically takes my 3 and making it a 13. For anyone currious this is what I am using:

From "Tome of Battle"

   "Martial Study" on page 31-32
By studying the basics of a martial discipline, you learn to focus your ki and perfect the form needed to use a maneuver. As a result, you gain the use of a combat maneuver.

Benefit: When you gain this feat, you must choose a discipline of martial maneuvers, such as Desert Wind. The key skill for the chosen discipline becomes a class skill for all your classes (current and future). Select any maneuver from the chosen discipline for which you meet the prerequisite. If you have martial adept levels, this maneuver becomes one of your maneuvers known. If you do not have martial adept levels, you can use this maneuver once per encounter as a martial adept with an initiator level equal to 1/2 your character level. If you do not have martial adept levels when you take this feat, and you later gain a level in a class that grants maneuvers known, these new maneuvers can be used only once per encounter and have no recovery method. If you later gain levels in a martial adept class (crusader, swordsage, or warblade), you use the recovery method for maneuvers learned as a result of those class levels, but your previous maneuvers (gained through this feat or through prestige class levels) do not gain a recovery method. A maneuver learned through this feat cannot be exchanged for a different maneuver if you are a crusader, swordsage, or warblade (see the class descriptions in Chapter 1 for details on swapping out maneuvers as you gain levels). Once you choose a maneuver with this feat, you cannot change it.

Special: You can take this feat up to three times. Each time you take it after the first, you gain one of two benefits. You can choose a new discipline, gaining one of its maneuvers and its key skill as a class skill, as described above. Alternatively, you can choose a maneuver from a discipline to which you have already gained access by means of this feat. In either case, you must meet the maneuver’s prerequisite.

   "Action Before Thought" on page 62
Diamond Mind (Counter)
Level: Swordsage 2, warblade 2
Initiation Action: 1 immediate action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Your supreme sense of the battlefield, unmatched martial training, and simple, intuitive sense of danger allow you to act faster than the speed of thought. When a spell or other attack strikes you, you move a split second before you are even aware of the threat.
Your mind is a keenly honed weapon. Other warriors rely on their physical talents. You know that a mix of mental acuity and martial training, along with a strong sword arm, is an unbeatable combination. This maneuver epitomizes your approach. Your mind, rather than your raw reflexes, dictates your defenses. You can use this maneuver any time you would be required to make a Reflex save. Roll a Concentration check instead of the Refl ex save and use the result of that check to determine the save’s success. You must use this maneuver before you roll the Reflex save. A result of a natural 1 on your Concentration check is not an automatic failure.

Masterwork Frenzy

   We did not quite clear the fort that we needed to attack this session but amazing things happened. First off the fort was taken over by some odd creatures that disguised themselves as the guards so we wasted most of the time arguing out of character about how to get in diplomatically. Of course unlike the last time we tried diplomacy it was not possible this time. That's right, we actually tried to talk to the people and not just go away. Probably because out of game we knew this was where the text one of our players needed for his next level so he could take a prestige class. Anyway we killed some really tough monsters with a lot of HP then found some nice loot. One of the first rooms we searched was an armory and basically we where just going to find some random masterwork gear so I half jokingly suggested to the DM that we should just masterwork all of our current gear. He said yes so now everything we have that was either a weapon of armor is now masterwork. I had like five different random weapons so I could cover a number of damage types and ranges.
   Now that was nice but the biggest find was in the library. Of course we did find the text we wanted but all the treasure in the room was scrolls or similar so when we rolled for treasure if it came up as something that was not that the DM upgraded the treasure level and we rolled again. We managed to get a twentieth level treasure, a Manual of Gainful Exercise +3. Soon as we get to town our Melee guy is going to go from 18 strength right up to 21 strength. Sadly we are not allowed to sell anything we have so we can't instead use the book to fund a major gear upgrade instead. We probably could have outfitted the whole party in above level gear with the money from it.
   Of course we still have to clear the rest of the area and the monsters while few and far between are tough with hit points well in excess of a 100 each and we know there are at the least three more to go. My character is doing good so far but I definitely want to invest in some more stuff to raise my AC and DR.

Cool wizards and conquering the world one city at a time

   We managed to conquer another city in which the magical macguffin that will unlock a prestige class for one of our party members resided. We still have to actually go dungeon crawling to find the thing but whatever.
   The way we did the combat for army versus army was not at all in-depth but was quite fun. We "found" a bunch of gold on the battle field which we promptly dumped most of into repairing the defenses there. Overall it was fun and we did actually meet the enemy general and beat him. It was about as fair a fight as any three on one fight can be where they are all the same level.
   An interesting thing we have is that the wizard from the tower from before now makes magic stuff for us. 1000gp of magic junk a turn. The first stuff we had him make was a couple lesser Iron Ward Diamond augment crystals. At 500 a pop we got two so that was nice. To be able to use them I also upgraded to Masterwork Full Plate. The crystal gives a DR of 1/- and absorbs 10 points of damage before it becomes inert till the following day. Once I get some magical pluses on my Plate I plan to upgrade my crystal. Least versions cost 2k and provide DR3/- for up to 30 damage and Greater does DR5/- for up to 50 damage. The DR also stacks with other sources of DR so when I upgrade to Adamantine the DR3/-  will stack on.
   I plan to make a new character to fool around with. He is going to be a soulknife going onto soulbow at 5th level. Of course because it will be going for ranged combat the first few levels the guy will suck. At first unless he buys a ranged weapon he will be going off of 12 strength. Second level soulknives can throw their blade so he gets to use the 14 dexterity and finally at third level I take the feat Zen Archery which will finally let him use his 18 wisdom. Why wisdom? A soulbow does extra damage using wisdom so by making him also aim with it then its the only stat that needs to be improved and seeing as the DM lets us get +2 to a stat every four levels instead of just +1 this is quite a powerful thing.

Golems and bad rolls

   Those two things sum up what today went like for me. In the wizard tower we continued on from the room of animated objects and found two force something or other golems. Having generic construct immunities basically took half our party off line until the sorcerer tried magic missile and had it work. They where large creatures with the ability to do a ranged touch attack and if they hit you where moved and knocked down. Apparently they where meant to be something in a room full of traps where they just shift you onto them over and over. They did just fine pushing us into each other though. We managed to beat them so after a good minute or two of healing we moved on.
   In the next room was two more golems. This time they where some kind of magma golem. The party preceded to continue to miss them over and over again. When they died they burst damaging anyone next to them and turning all the squares adjacent to them into molten rock. We ended up with one of our party members seperated from us and at negative eight health. For the longest time the only one damaging the last golem was the sorcerer who after using up all his ray of frost spells started using a sling. We managed to win but are quite low on health and I am out of spells above zero level though I do have a second level spell, heat metal, which I will not cast as it lets me use my fiery burst feat. Lot of good that did me this time.
   Overall we missed a lot of attacks and failed a lot of reflex saves. The treasure was nice though as I found a wand of heal light wounds with ten charges. We also found some other stuff including a masterwork heavy wooden shield, masterwork tower shield, and mithiril heavy shield as well as a wand of mage armor. This meant that everyone got to upgrade their armor in some way.
   There is another room before we finish this level. There may or may not be another level though I assume since it is a mage's "tower" there will be multiple levels to it. Good thing we did not finish this and get back to the risk mode of play. I was the only person who made any characters to act as heros. I slightly cheated in that all three of mine where the same stats but different names. This is perfectly fine though and they are only meant to stay at the three cities we have without any heros and give their bonus to the armies residing there in case the place gets attacked. I named them Allen, Branden, and Carl Broscows. Here is the stats for all three of them:
Neutral Good Human Male - Figher Lv1
AC: 17 (Touch: 13, Flatfooted: 14) - HP: 12
Str:10(0) Dex:16(+3) Con:14(+2) Int:8(-1) Wis:10(0) Cha:18(+4)
Fort:+3 Ref:+3 Will:+0 - BAB:+1 (Melee:+1, Ranged:+4/+5[Heavy Crossbow])
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload, Weapon Focus[Heavy Crossbow]
Skills: Intimidate:4(8) Ride:4(7) - Speaks Common
Heavy Crossbow [1d10, crit 19-20/x2, range 120', 8lb, P]
Sling          [1d4, crit x2, range 50', 0lb, B]
Dagger         [1d4, crit 19-20/x2, range 10', 1lb, P or S]
Scale Mail     [+4 AC, max dex +3, check penalty -4, 30lb]

Interesting campaign development

   First I have learned a new and interesting meaning to halfway. You see it means that after 5 waves we are halfway and have x number of waves left where x is the number of waves it took to breach our wall. We still won the overall battle but what ever.

   The interesting development is that we are now not only going to be dungeon crawling but also playing a Risk like game. We currently control 4 areas on the map. Each area can in a amount of time that we just called a turn produce either a number of soldiers or an amount of gold. We also have a city that can train heros. A hero is basicly a PC we make and our current characters count as heros. Training a hero takes a turn for every 1000gp it costs. A basic first level hero costs 1000gp so takes only a single turn to make. You can furthur train a hero in a city that can train heros at the cost of new level times 1000 but the highest you can train a hero this way is our main characters level.
   In a Turn you can move as many soldiers or heros from their current area to an adjacent area on the map. In each area there are a number of dungeons with varing levels and if a hero is in the area they can instead of moving go and try to clear it. In this way heros can gain levels and basically act just like our main characters. This is also the only way to get a hero that is above our main characters highest level.
   A hero may lead an army and gives a bonus that is equal to Charisma mod divided by four plus the base attack bonus divided by three. The highest mod of all heros in the army is the one used. The Charisma part represents the ability to lead and the base attack bonus represents the knowledge needed to lead.

On the map we currently control Harwin, Campos Proelii, Peregre, and Nanum Protegamur. We have two first level heros and a third on next turn who are going to be spread out to provide their bonus to armies. We also have but do not control a powerfull mage hero in Nanum who once a day can make a portal between their and any other province we control allowing any number of troops to pass through and a 15th level hero who is a changling with that one class that lets you at the start of the day be whatever type of class you want who we also do not control but will be roving around as she wants. We can only currently make human heros because we only control a human city that can train heros though I think if we either take another races town or make friends with them we may be able to make them as well.
   Currently all of the main characters are in Peregre and doing a dungeon crawl in a Mad Mages Tower. Outside the tower had two gargoyles guarding it. Inside we only managed to clear the first room...   Literally as everything in it was an animated objects. Three chests, three candlesticks, and a table. The table had over 70 hp and hit quite hard. I see a theme going on here and believe that from now on before we touch anything in the tower its getting a nice flaming burst to the face.
   Of interesting note we had reached forth level and apparently the DM lets us have +2 to a stat every four levels instead of just +1 so I now have 20 wisdom.

Today I helped defend a city

   We actually managed to get through a session without any of us dieing. What happened was after last time we got teleported to a big city to help defend it. By doing this we basicly just joined the rebellion seeing as when we get there we find out that the goblins and such are attacking because the evil king made them. The baron did not want to register his magic with the king so obviously the answer is to send a hoard of evil creatures.
   I believe we survived because of something I did. The DM let us design the section of wall we are defending. I made it a gate with a double door and had a screen of peasent houses in front of the walls. The houses where set up so as to funnel the enemys at us without letting them get volleys of ranged attacks against us. This turned out to be a wise disicion as we only got six 1st level fighters to to start. The only problem and the closest to having a character dieing that we had was that the psionic fighter type decided he wanted to stand right in front of the gate. He has a better attack with ranged weapons and he chose to try to melee.
   The first wave was fine because it was only goblins and they died quickly enough. No real problem here as we basicly killed a third of them and the rest ran away. Between waves the DM rolled to see how the rest of the fight was going and one place did badly so we lost two of our fighters.
   Next wave was a group of six wolves and they got close enough that I could actually attack them. I am perplexed at my team mates at this point and onward as they complain that my burst 5' 2d6 fire damage attack is lame when even if the enemy saves it is a minimum of one damage attack that always hits. Anyway the wolves die quickly enough. The rest of the fight was even keel at this point so we neither lost nor gained fighters at this point.
   Now a fun wave. Three ogres come at us. Mr stand in front of the gate of course gets his block knocked off and goes down to negative nine hp. Luckily I had put a lesser vigor on him already because the wolves did some decent damage to him so he auto stabilized. Without him we did quite well against the orges. The sorcerer in the party had just learned the spell Power Word Pain which does 1d6 a turn for a number of turns depending on the current hp of the monster. Combined with my 2d6 every turn and a barrage of bolts the orges fell quickly. Before the next wave I had to rush out and drag him back in. I also used my domain heal to get him conscious. He stayed inside this time.
   The forth wave was some troops with tower shields covering a battering ram. This wave managed to take out the first gate but other then that died quite handily. That is except for some crazy fire resistant goblins which where manning the ram. Everyone else had to take care of them. The fight went well somewhere else so we got another fighter this wave.
   The fifth wave was a siege tower with a number of enemy fighters in it. This was the first wave where any of our fighters got damaged. In fact every single one of them got hit once. We where able to do a good bit of damage to the people before they got to use. Once they did they had a bit better luck then before but no one went negative. It helped us that the DM decided that you could 5' step and change out your weapon.
   This was the last wave we did and the DM mentioned that it was half over so I guess five more waves are to come. For thouroghness here is the stats for the fighters we had:
12hp 18ac +4melee +2ranged 1d8+2melee 1d8ranged
and because I put arrow slits and such on our wall they where at 22ac till the final wave when the enemy actually got into melee with them. After the fifth wave the fighters where at 6, 10, 9, 10, and 8 hp so if we have any taken from us because of the fight going bad else where I plan to give them the first one. I do have a scroll of Mass Lesser Vigor though so some of them may end up being healed depending on how many extra people I can heal beyond the rest of the party.