So, I have been playing with wordpress...

[Green1]

Be glad.

thac0 means "To Hit Armor Class 0". Instead of just adding a number to a d20, you had to confer with a chart. The chart showed you what you needed to roll to hit Armor Class 0. Armor class went down, ranging from 10 to -10. 10 being completely unarmored.

It was one of the first things tossed with 3rd Edition. Now, instead of charts, you still roll a d20 then add modifiers. In 3rd, this is BAB (base attack bonus) + ability modifier + any feats/ magic weapon plusses. 4e did away with BAB, instead you add a modifier dependent on level plus all the stuff. 5e, that level based number is now called Proficiency Bonus and is "bounded". IE: in 5th, even if you are level 20, level 1 things can actually hit you and mess you up. Previous versions, you could just wade by hordes of low level things and they could not hit you except on a natural 20.

5e does a bit more though to reduce maths. In 1e to 4e, you had A LOT of situational modifiers to add in addition to BAB/level based mod/ and ability score mod and weapon plus/ feats. +2 for flanking. + another for some spell effect (which STACKED up until 5e) to where in some situations you could be adding like 5 or 7 numbers to the attack roll. Now, you use an advantage/disadvantage mechanic. If you have advantage, roll 2d20s, take highest result. If disadvantage, 2d20s take lowest. No more insane modifiers.

[Buster's Uncle]

Crap.  I remember those tables.  I wasn't a good DM, but I did have to start out as one.  I remember those tables.

[Green1]

Crap.  I remember those tables.  I wasn't a good DM, but I did have to start out as one.  I remember those tables.

I ended up DMing because the other folks DMing made the other players mad. They were very "control" oriented DMs. Think villains who overshadow PCs and are Mary Sues, impossible to hit enemies, railroaded plots that things "must go" a certain way. Another DM had a comic book fetish were NPC concepts were straight out of the Marvel or DC universe character encyclopedias than classic sword and sorcery.

I also made a ton of mistakes. One was that Star Wars d20/ 3e DnD cross I wanted to do. My players basically refused to play unless it was 3e.

A lot of player behavior management, attendance, and listening. I could imagine with 2e. Particularly if you got conned into Weapon Speed (I dropped it after 1 session) and all that Chainmail legacy cruft. You know, 2e never was played by the book it was so clunky. 3e had a lot of house rules, too, outside of RPGA play. (Take that back. RPGA had to house rule some, too.) But, RPGA stuff was always kind of lame.

[Green1]

I have heard people talk about how it is hard to get length of posts. I seem to have the opposite problem. I am having to divide Thraxus up into 4 parts. The way I do items itself is a friggin post itself, and if I think about it, I could do 3 posts on items! I originally intended to do items and spells one post, but did not work out that way.

But, hey. 3 releases this week is pretty good. Time off from work helps.

[Buster's Uncle]

I take it something new's up since I checked by this morning...

[Green1]

Yes.

https://frugaldm.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/npc-creation-lady-thraxus-dragonborn-priestess-of-tiamat-part-3-items/

Items are such a cool topic to go on about. I guess it is the gear-centric culture of MMOs, but I always thought MMO items were bland and just a treadmill instead of an actual piece of a world.

[Buster's Uncle]

Always link here, always.  I'm may or may not be the only one who's bookmarked, but more for SEO than anything else.  -And this isn't a bad crowd for what you're putting out, and you never know who'll find it here, but here and everywhere you can find time to at least for the Search Engine Optimization.

[Green1]

True. I will do. Just did not want to gunk up your forums.

[Buster's Uncle]

This is your project thread.  Within AC2 rules and community standards for I'm trying to run a decent place, you cannot gunk up your own thread without bypassing the swear filter, more-or-less.

Please don't do that, but drunk, personal stuff irrelevant to the blog project - it don't matter; it's YOUR thread.

[Buster's Uncle]

I like Peakston Silverblade.

Have you considered visuals for Lady Thraxus?  A little googling around might turn up something right - and a hot visual to print out and show the players will not hurt the value of the NPC to the campaign...  Why do I picture her scale armor as green?

[Green1]

I did look around and did not see anything. Plus, need to be careful with art. Does not matter much now, but I really do not want someone whining that I stole something they were trying to sell on Deviant Art.

Actually, she is more likely to be seen in robes than the scale mail. She really hates armor and her position means lots of wearing nice dresses and such. It is considered a faux pas to be seen with the same dress on twice in her circles. Of course, when performing her high priestess duties, it is acceptable to wear a Tiamat high priest robe. The scale mail is just for travel or if a battle is anticipated.

No, it isn't green. Green would clash with her red skin. The scale is greyish, but would be worn underneath robes of some sort. Which robes depend on what position of hers the fighting is for. She has various noble dresses, Patia Governess robes, and of course Ceremonial Tiamat High Priest robes. She usually does wear it for expeditions and visiting another Tiamat temple, assassinations and all.

She has to keep her Tiamat stuff not very overt. There is a human Lord Paladin who has a knightly order in her city known as The Macemen. While the Lord Paladin is of advanced age for a human and overlooks her Evil Dragon fetish, he really does not want Empire troops in the city any more than she does which open civil war would do. That city is not really a city-state but a border city vassal of King Elijah the 8th right before the border of another kingdom.

Our PCs are in Sol City, also a vassal but of Hawklin the 4th in Peakston, a monarchy-confederacy of 4 cities. Sol city is not really a city, but it is getting there. It is a glorified refugee camp for a bunch of humans and orcs who evacuated a dying world. King Hawklin just wanted to kill two birds with one stone. Appear to be benevolent by granting the refuges land along with shipments of wheat for 2 years AND start building a city right near the border to solidify his claims on the pass on his kingdom's side of the pass across from Lady Thaxus' city. And, stick a giant finger up at King Elijah's empire who he believes fiddles around Peakston and he believe assassinated his Master at Arms and a few other figures.

It get a bit more complicated than that, too. This game is a very diplo game. Last two sessions, no combat.

[Buster's Uncle]

ISTR teaching someone I know a lot about using GIMP - if he ripped off a videogame image or something from pros, changing colors to fit isn't rocket science.  I would gladly advise such a person if he got stuck.

[Green1]

Awesome.

You know, I should probably do an article about how I handle groups, factions, diplomacy, and reputation.

I also need to go over my mass combat rules. I did not like the combat rules in the 5e DMG. And, Mike Mearls (author of 5e) did come out with a Unearthed Arcana playtest article a while back on it that I took and tweaked. Needless to say, with all these henchmen and units, war is nasty and to be avoided. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Of course the philosophical underpinnings of neckbeard-herding are probably MORE important than the specific rules ton your fun-and-pizza goal, but the philosophy tends to mostly come automatically with your colorful story-telling style.

Thing to keep in mind, though; it would be easy for some spazbo DM to follow your rules w/o understanding the philosophy and screw it up, thereby.

[Green1]

Well, everyone has got to start somewhere. A lot of my stories were pretty contrived at first. But, I did have a story.

I used to draw stuff up for a DM because he did not have time. Unfortunately, he just used my stuff for railroaded encounters which was not the purpose. He was supposed to do it sandboxy and create a story around it. Even with me drawing up, he lasted 2 sessions before his players did not want to go.

Even if you are going a Final Fantasy Tactics type game where it is just a series of combats, you HAVE to come up with interesting combat scenarios. Not just lay down on a featureless battlemat. He also had to realize that the PCs probably would not storm the gates with Griffin riders around and dudes in Plate with halberds. The evil PCs of that game opted to turn invisible, foiling his encounter then started throwing down high level spell nukes in the market place and raising the town as undead. Turned invisible again with the Griffin riders and gaurds coping with a zombie apocalypse along with townspeople freaking out, then heading straight to the town leader.

He did not even have an interesting concept nor could work on the fly for his town leader and guards and pulled some lame deal to let the NPC escape. He banked on the big battle to crush the PCs at the gates and had a capture scenario planned and went in a tizzy when things did not go as planned.