Search results

  1. Robert Ranting

    What are you currently using?

    For the Banewarrens game I am currently DMing, I'm using a mix of Ptolus and my pre-existing Arcana Evolved homebrew, Thraevin. Tomorrow I will begin running Crown of the Kobold King as a sort of mini-campaign for another group of friends, in a modified version of the Pathfinder Chronicles...
  2. Robert Ranting

    Load me up with Eberron!

    The lack of detail about the Last War in most of the early Eberron books always irritated me. It just seemed incredibly unhelpful to say that the war is a recent memory that has affected every character in the setting, and then simply gloss over the war as "100 years of shifting allegiances and...
  3. Robert Ranting

    Any female game masters?

    My college gaming group's on-again off-again president is female, having served several terms as an undergrad and then running again when she started grad school a few years later. She ran several long-running campaigns set in a modified Forgotten Realms, and co-DMed with her husband a 3-year...
  4. Robert Ranting

    What's your runner up D&D setting?

    The Varisian Candidate Excluded: Homebrew + Ptolus Runner-up: Pathfinder Chronicles / Varisia Robert "OGL Adventure Goodness" Ranting
  5. Robert Ranting

    Renaming the G-word (hint: fighter-mages)

    Being an AE fan, I of course default to "mageblade". However, I do also like: Spellsword Mageknight Warmage Witchblade Athame Arcanamach Robert "Honestly, I don't really mind 'fish' either" Ranting
  6. Robert Ranting

    Core Classes: More magic or more abilities?

    I agree that the paladin and ranger should not have spells, but rather, a more robust set of extraordinary and supernatural abilities (or whatever their equivalent in 4E). Many of the "good" spell effects these classes can make use of in the current edition are things that might work just as...
  7. Robert Ranting

    What are they going to call wizards?

    Harry Houdini, Harry Potter, Harry Dresden...honestly, I can actually see "Harry" being a synonym for magic user ;) Robert "I prefer the term 'Mage', honestly" Ranting
  8. Robert Ranting

    If you play DnD, how old are you?

    23. Robert "More of a 3rd Party OGL d20 Fantasy Guy, Really" Ranting
  9. Robert Ranting

    Racial insults for humans to toss at non-humans

    The use of the word "Piggart" for orcs and half-orcs in the webcomic Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire has had some traction with me, mostly because it is such an ugly word.
  10. Robert Ranting

    101 bits of gnome fluff

    30. Gnomes genuinely believe that they are superior to halflings in every way. In fact, gnomes believe that their small brethren are called "halflings" because they're only half as good as Gnomes. 31. The real reason Gnomes invent such crazy devices and mechanisms is that they secretly...
  11. Robert Ranting

    Anybody played D1: The Crown of the Kobold King? (/w SPOILERS)

    I recently got the chance to play through this module, and found it quite enjoyable. I'm fortunate enough to live next door to a pair of gamers, and one of them had picked up Crown of the Kobold King at our FLGS and offered to run it for his housemate and myself over the course of three...
  12. Robert Ranting

    Hate for new look for Green Dragon

    I hate to quibble over the art of people who have mastered anatomy, composition, and color use far beyond anything I could do, but the nose horn really does bother me. It looks very tacked on to the end of the snout, like a sort of afterthought. Part of me hopes that the fighter will chop it...
  13. Robert Ranting

    What's left of 3e that you want to buy?

    I'm looking forward to buying: Pathfinder's "Rise of the Runelords" AP (Paizo) Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale (Paizo) Gallery of Evil (Paizo) Creature Collection II (Sword & Sorcery) Creature Collection III (Sword & Sorcery) Tome of Horrors II (Necromancer Games) Tome of Horrors III (Necromancer...
  14. Robert Ranting

    D&D 4E But 4E is already available....

    Amen. My local group has embraced Arcana Evolved as the standard for our fantasy games. We borrow here and there from 3.x sources like monster manuals and published adventures, but most of us don't even own the 3.x core books. Why should we have bought the core books when we had the free SRD...
  15. Robert Ranting

    What do you steal from published settings?

    My homebrew borrows liberally from a good number of sources. Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved is the basis for my setting. While I don't use the Lands of the Diamond Throne, I built my own setting around the races, classes, spell system, etc. The Akashic Memory, the Green/Dark dynamic, the Totem...
  16. Robert Ranting

    What Is Your Adventuring Groups Name?

    Party Names Generally, the groups I play with don't seem to worry too much about party names, but there were a couple exceptions. Our group for the Shackled City adventure path was named The Cauldron Irregulars. Interestingly enough, we ended up recruiting so many NPCs to our cause that it...
  17. Robert Ranting

    "How to make a Monster Manual Pt II" article

    I'm certainly finding these articles (and MMV itself) entertaining. I can certainly vouch for the comment on spell-like abilities cluttering a statblock and making me waste time while looking up the spell in the PHB (or heaven forbid, some other sourcebook I don't own). Also, despite the...
  18. Robert Ranting

    The printing press

    The Power of Print? In addition to Ptolus, several realms in the Ravenloft setting have access to the printing press. At least one DM I know who's been running the setting for years had a party steal a book of poetry by the master bard Harkon Lucas, and using a printing press in another...
  19. Robert Ranting

    What size groups are you most comfortable DMing for?

    Oh @#$% Eleven! I voted 4-8. I'm hesitant to run a game with less than four players, since I'm not terribly comfortable with reducing CRs to compensate for the lack of party resources. In my experience as both a DM and a player, 5 seems to be the ideal number, allowing for a good mix of...
  20. Robert Ranting

    How Dangerous is your campaign world?

    Between the relatively high level of technology (ranging from Age of Sail to the Age of Steam depending on the region) and the large number of monsters per square mile, most people in my campaign setting don't have the luxury of being low level for long. The stress of working a job in an...
Top