30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 29-What is the number you always seem to roll on a d20?

Well this isn't a very interesting question for me, to be honest.  The original author of the 30 Day challenge must've been running out of ideas at this point, or they must have a really good answer to this question.

The number I always seem to roll on a d20?  Its 14.  Yeah, not that exciting, huh?  But that's the case.  Now, we've all got those buddies who can't help but roll 1's whenever the chips are down.  We all know that guy.  He's got a good answer to that question and a lot of dumb stories.  Or we know the guy that is just the crit-master, rollin' 20s like its his job. We all suspect he's using loaded dice, but we don't say anything because we really needed him to finish off that beholder.

But I'm not either of those guys.  I roll 14s.

Now, I'm not saying 14 is a bad number.  No, its a pretty good number.  That combined with a not-terrible attack bonus against a standard AC is pretty much going to hit.  So I usually hit when its my turn, which I'm glad about.  Just doesn't make that interesting of a post is all.  Still, gotta love d20s.  Keep 'em rolling.

UPDATE: I've been informed that there will be a guest post for Day 30 of the 30-Day D&D Challenge here on the Vorpal Chainsword.  I haven't been told exactly who it is, but I have some guesses.  I look forward to reading it!

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 28-A character you will never play ever again

This one seems a little negative at first glance, but my answer has a more positive spin.  Who's the character I would never play ever again?

Quinn

Yes, that's right folks.  My favorite character I've ever played is also the character I will never play ever again.  Why won't I play Quinn again?  Simple.  He might die from doing something stupid, or the game might just peter out from my fear of Quinn dying from doing something stupid.

Quinn is a 2nd ed AD&D character who's survived far more than his fair share of dangers.  And these aren't D&D 4e Millenials "dangers" where if you run out of hit points or fail a save you simply go unconscious or need to rest overnight or something to be back at full health.  These are the many, many Saves vs. Poison, Spells, or Dragon Breath, with death, level drain, or complete incineration as the failure effect.  After surviving so much, he's become something of a Socratic Ideal of a Hero in my mind over the years, and I wouldn't want to change that.  If I played Quinn again it would have to be 2nd ed AD&D, and with that comes the possibility for ridiculous or inescapable deaths.  As much as I like old-school D&Ds ridiculous Saves vs. Death, after all these years I don't think I'd enjoy putting Quinn in such danger again. And being afraid of dying is the opposite of what Quinn was all about, so the game wouldn't be fun.

Keep in mind I really want to play Quinn again, but its kinda like Indiana Jones.  The third movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was awesome.  An absolutely great way to end the trilogy.  We all thought it was over and loved it. We dressed as Indiana for Halloween, we'd re-watch Raiders when theaters would play special screenings, we all owned replica whips and hats.  It was great reminiscing about Indiana Jones.  Then 20 years later they came out with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  If you're reading this blog I don't need to tell you how that movie turned out.  We thought we wanted to revisit Indy, but as it turns out, we really, really shouldn't have.  That's what re-playing Quinn would be like for me.  With my adult responsible personality and carefulness I wouldn't be able to do the gothy hipster-fatalist undead-hunting Quinn justice in our modern age.  So I'll just leave Quinn right where he is, at Last Crusade.

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 27-A character you want to play in the future

Hmmm.  A character I want to play in the future?  I guess I've always wanted to play some sort of Tinker Gnome.  You know, a little guy who wears goggles, invents stuff, Jan Jansen style (Baldur's Gate II).  Never have played a Gnome I don't think.  Not in OD&D anyway.

He'd be Gnomish Mage/Thief or something to justify his wacky inventions.  His name would be Grizzgold Scrufflebottoms.  Maybe he'd even pilot an airship, The Exuberant Turnip.  He'd travel around the Realms with his merry band of adventurers seeking out riches and collecting hummel figurines.

Here's to Gnomes!

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 26-Favorite nonmagic item

Well for this one I have to hearken back to my own characters and can't do an impartial general item post.  I have to go with good old Ghoulslayer.

[UPDATE: This post had some incorrect details which were pointed out by my DM from those days.  Mistakes were due to my spotty memory. Corrections are inserted below in italics.]

Ghoulslayer is a Masterwork Longsword my beloved Undead Slayer, Quinn, wielded from his first combat.  Back in 2e D&D days a fighter could actually purchase a Masterwork weapon with their starting gold, as long as they were willing to skimp on everything else, which I was.  Masterwork weapons gave +1 to hit but no bonus to damage, and cost like an extra 100 gold above the regular sale price. Quinn rolled just enough starting gold to afford one and bought his first Masterwork Longsword.  That incredibly expensive sword, along with a set of leather armor and a pack of Iron Rations was all he carried as he set out to become the greatest hero of the Realms.
[CORRECTION: Masterwork swords cost way the hell more than that.  Ghoulslayer was not bought at outset. They are way too expensive for a first level character to buy at creation. It was bought shortly after Quinn started from some Dwarves who needed help removing a Necromancer from their lands.  Earning the opportunity to buy a Masterwork Sword specially crafted for the user was actually a really cool reward that I had for some reason totally forgotten about.]

In Quinn's first combat of his first session ever he came upon a group of travelers (who became fellow PCs) being attacked by some ghouls (yes, we were all first level PCs being attacked by a pack of freaking ghouls, that's how our DM rolled).  Without hesitation Quinn lept through the forest into combat with one of the cunning beasts, and on his first attack roll ever he rolled a natural 20, decapitating the ghoul with one blow.  (Back in 2e days, undead weren't immune to crits).  Right then and there his sword was christened through blood into Ghoulslayer, Bane of the Undead.

[UPDATE:  As mentioned above, turns out that sword wasn't the sword that became Ghoulslayer.  But that's how I remembered it.  Probably because that would've been a cooler reason to name the sword that than "I don't like ghouls."  But he totally did decapitate a ghoul with his first combat.]

Quinn continued to use Ghoulslayer throughout his adventuring career.  Sometimes dual-wielding it with Val-Kasil, the magical Longsword of Accuracy that a fellow PC dropped when he died (Val-Kasil was later melted by acid I believe), but most of the time he fought with Ghoulslayer in one hand and a kite shield to deflect missile attacks in the other (see comment on acid melting stuff above).  Ghoulslayer was destined to become enchanted after Quinn found a mysterious but powerful magical recipe written in Ancient Runic in a White Dragon's lair [Pirate Ship's treasure hold].  He searched far and wide for the components listed in that list, but alas, the quest was never finished before Quinn, er... I, had to go off to college and the campaign petered out.  So nonmagic Ghoulslayer remains, and therefore will always be my favorite non-magical item in D&D.

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 25-Favorite Magic Item

Ah yes, Magic Items.  One of the most fun reasons to play D&D: getting magic items.  There are a lot to choose from, between weapons, potions, rings, amulets, rods, staves, boots, cloaks, armor, helmets and so on.  But for my money my favorite magic item has to be:

The Wand of Wonder

This little puppy is the random hilarious story generator for D&D.  It's use results in random effects each time it is used, using my favorite of old-school charts: The percentile effect chart!  One of the best things about this Magic Item is that any character class can use it (in 3e+ editions it is known as the "Rod of Wonder"), and any GM worth his salt will make the activation of the wand either written right on it or better yet make a big red button right on the side of the darn thing, begging to be pushed.  The point is to make it so anyone can use it as soon as its found, and allow them to completely muck up/save a perfectly normal combat by doing something ridiculous.

The reason I prefer the Wand of Wonder over the more infamous Deck of Many Things is that the Wand isn't a campaign-killer.  The Deck of Many Things has so many powerful cards that violently swing between summoning demons to kill the party or giving the party godlike-powers that once it is present in a campaign then you know the campaign is about to end, for better or worse.  The Wand of Wonder gives the party a good amount of random effects that can be quite powerful, but aren't game-breaking.  The stories of using a Wand of Wonder are frequent and fun, and never end with "So then I drew a Jack of Clubs..."

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 24-Favorite energy type

Original D&D used to be just Fire, Ice, Lightning, Acid and Sonic.  But with the onset of 3e-3.5e/4e D&D there came a multitude of new energy types to list after spell names, like Negative, Holy, Unholy, Dark, Light, Steam, etc.  These were put into place so the writers had an excuse to make a spell effect that nobody was immune to.  Unholy Fireball?  Damage is half "fire"/half "unholy!"  Which means that a creature with a ring of 50% fire resistance would only be resistant to 25% of the damage instead of just 50%, because half of that is Unholyness.  And that's only if the damage separation was even.  Sometimes it was 75% one energy type and 25% the other energy type.  So if you were 50% fire immune to a spell that onIy dealt 25% of its damage as fire, then you reduced damage by 12.5%.  Yeah, it got weird.

However I'm just going to roll with the five original energy types.  And my answer is:

SONIC

Almost nothing is immune to sonic damage simply because people forget to list it in the monster description.  One thing sonic really has going for it is that in many editions it does double damage to golems and construct-type monsters.  Sometimes its just crystal golems that suffer double damage so no one cares, but whatever. And while the sonic spells aren't that powerful, I like the idea of casting a cone of vibration to shatter weapons and stuff.

Fire and Ice Wizards are cool and easy to visualize, sure.  They can throw ice spikes and fireballs around and everybody is down with it.  However, I like the idea of a Sonic Wizard.  He would look exactly like Dio. And while there aren't that many purely sonic spells to benefit from, I think a Sonic Wizard could make up for his offensive casting shortcomings with the ability to spout pure Rock n' Roll at any time.  His magic Staff would in fact be a Magic Rock Lute and whenever he cast spells there would be a sweet guitar riff and a lightning bolt would hit a volcano off in the distance.

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 23-Least Favorite Monster Overall

I hate Stirges!

These damn giant mosquito things travel in huge packs, are quick and extremely hard to hit unless they are already latched on to your neck sucking your blood, and then if you hit them you take half the damage.  But what choice do you have?  You gotta clear them out otherwise they drain 1d4 Constitution/round!  The other reason I despise them so is their prevalence.  All low-level D&D characters everywhere has been Stirge-slapped by their fellow adventurers at least once in their careers.

Yes, there are a lot of really stupid D&D monsters out there that are well worth hating, but running into a nest of damned Stirges takes the cake for me.  Too common and too annoying!  Down with Stirges!