Professor Jimbles Presents! A Rant: Does anyone else die a lot?

Like, a real lot?

Hi! Jimbles here to ask a question of you: How often do you die in your games? All the time? Occasionally, but only because you make stupid decisions?

I can tell you that I die all the time in Pathfinder, but it’s generally my fault. Whenever I develop a high-concept character with tragic backstory and a good reason to set out adventuring, I often forget that ever so important stat keeping most of us alive… The armor class.

That, and I roll terribly when someone’s life depends on it.

Aside from the misadventures in the Crow (See earlier post for THAT particular embarrassing tale.) I’ve had characters die in the following ways:

  • Battle Toad (Boggard Barbarian Chieftain) exacted revenge with a warhammer for causing general chaos in the area and invading his shrine.
  • Lich fingered me to death in a oh-so-calm response to taking 38 damage from my surprise round greatsword attack.
  • Teleport mishap sent me to the Elemental Plane of PAIN. (Fire burns!)
  • Learned the hard way that Black Puddings are not delicious.
  • Felled by the Orc Hireling in a single strike.
  • Crushed by a brainwashed dragon after a Sudden Maximized disintegrate missed.

And that’s just in my Pathfinder and 3.5 games! Here, let me explain some of these stupid, stupid adventures…

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Shattered Star: The Crew.

Our Blog-master decided my post was competent, and made him want to post here more himself. Perhaps in a manly “possession” sense. I can dig it. Because of that, it’s now my job to throw the occasional ham-fisted attempt at bloggery.

I’m playing in the Shattered Star game. I’ve played Aeros Rasta (Remember that guy who smacked himself in the face with a hammer?) finding a cool image and writing a simple fun backstory for him before we all died in the spider-holocaust. And yet… I wasn’t that upset when he died. Actually, I was a little pleased. It seems healing is not for me, or… Change is fascinating.

In an attempt to make this new party more permanent, evocative and interesting, I’d like to set out a small outline, and perhaps a brief description of each of the characters in our new party.

[Editors Note: having read this, it occurs to me that Jimbles has been adding a few flourishes to these characters that don’t exist in the personalities that the actual players have given them in game. And by a few flourishes, I mean he’s making stuff up out of whole cloth. That said, it’s pretty awesome… so I’ll allow it.]

Michael Best
Benjamin Dawson
Michael Aranda
Evan Radovanovic
Myself, James Woodman.

The paladin Gregor Roth, worshipper of the mighty god ____ known for his philosophy of “manning up” and “getting the fuck on with it, our paladin also exemplifies these traits. seeming something similar yo Sten the Qunari. on many an occasion, he has “cut the knot” by stating something similar to “It’s a devil. Kill it.” He fights with a massive falchion, given as a present from his order, the reward for being the strongest candidate in a year.

Zogalypse, Wildblooded Sorcerer of Umbra: A dark man, some say born from shadow, darkness and power, Zogalypse lives to prove himself and bring glory to the Pathfinder society. Collecting the Shards is a good start. Burning things to the ground is only just a means to an end. Dominion over the forces raging through him is a the only reason people can see past his dark heritage, and that used to hurt. Perhaps he can ride these idiots to glory.

Azaezel Blightblade the Magus: Another party member of demonic heritage, Azaezel has seemingly made a pact with a blade of dark, hypnotic metal. He’s found a way to cast some spells THROUGH the weapon. He makes devastating huge swings that crackle with Eldritch energy, lightning being a favourite. And yet, this power hides an even darker secret: Azaezel is not sure of himself. How should he react to hellspawn? Why does he feel uncomfortable in churches occasionally? And more importantly, why does Gregor seem less scary on some days?

Zamnil Blackaxe the spell-less Ranger:
Zamnil Blackaxe is a dwarf hailing from a century of trench warfare in the most brutal fashion possible. It has carved a name in his soul and mood. As a lead trail-blazer, the underground became his home and parade ground. While Zamnil can track smoother than an elf, he feels no kinship with the earth. He has learned the texture and feel because it was life or death… Mostly death. Zamnil wields hand axes with a talent borne of experience. He sees these companions as a way to earn a living without having to see Orcblood ever again.

Keira Strongarm, Human Archer: Keira lives in a world that was supposed to be denied to her. At first it was “You are too weak to use the longbow effectively.” When she drew the night watchman’s longbow at 8, it changed. “Your… Body makes true mastery out of your reach.” When she skewered an apple at 60 paces, the complaint changed. Father took away her weapon, and stated “You have duties at home, stop pretending to be a soldier.” She snuck away at night and carved her own bow, starting a life of a traveling trapper. It was only natural to come across the pathfinders.

That’s the basics. We’ve managed a few sessions without dying horribly, though Gregor came close. While we are relatively devoid of healing (PALLY IS FOR FITE) we are playing cautious.

Any questions?

Listening to: Hands Like Houses’ new album. I can’t place a genre on these beauties, but I do know they’ve matched the power and energy of the first album, avoiding the “Sophomore slump” like pros.

Still here…

Good evening all.

I just wanted to put up a quick update assuring people that I haven’t mysteriously disappeared or anything. I’m still around, I’ve just been utterly swamped with work at the moment, and am finding it hard to do any writing when I am getting spare time, since my head is still racing with work stuff.

Rest assured, I’ll have plenty more updates soon. I need to get the first proper entry for the Shattered Star journal written, and I’ve got some more characters for the Unusual Suspects. Work on my home brew campaign settings is also proceeding, albeit slowly, so I hope to be able to get some more updates for Cooking the Cosmos done at some point soon.

Right now though, I need some sleep. I need to get to work at 7:00 AM tomorrow, then get home and do prep for a Pathfinder game, so rest is necessary.

I’ll promise I’ll be back soon. Until then, keep safe, and keep your dice rolling.

Shattered Star: The Quest Begins…

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the campaign journal for my Shattered Star gaming group.

Shattered Star is the Pathfinder Adventure Path that just wrapped up a couple of months ago, and I’ve recently managed to put a group together to play through it. It’s a campaign that ranges from investigation through to old-fashioned dungeon delving and Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider artifact hunting.  It’s also a direct sequel to the earlier Adventure Paths that have taken part in the country of Varisia, but for the most part avoids retracing the same ground – As far as I’m aware the only revisited locale is the city of Magnimar.

Anyway, onto the journal itself. At the moment I’m undecided about how I’m going to write this. Since I’m pressed for time at the moment, the first update is just going to be an overview of the party and a bit of an explanation about optional rules that I use. Later on I’ll be doing recaps of each session, but am still unsure as to whether or not I’ll be doing it as a story with notations about out of character details, or just summarizing events.

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Argh!

Well, I did have a proper update for tonight. I spent the last two and a half writing up a recap of the first session of the Shattered Star Pathfinder group I’m running.

However, my browser died and when I reopend the draft, the last autosave was from an hour and a half ago. Since it’s now after midnight here, and I have work in the morning, I’m not going to rewrite it now. Right now it’s time for sleep.

Expect to see the completed update tomorrow night, when I have time to sit down and re-write it. Goodnight all.