creature feature 2: electric boogaloo

Here's the leader of the gang of miscreants that seized Robilar's tower. She didn't last long after the bear-shaped druid got hs paws on her, but at least I got off a pair of lightning bolts.

SKABARELLA, GREEN HAG ADEPT 11
Medium Monstrous Humanoid
Hit Dice: 9d8+11d6+28 (118 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), swim 30 ft.
Armor Class: 23 (+2 Dex, +11 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 21
Base Attack/Grapple: +14/+20
Attack: Claw +20 melee (1d4+6)
Full Attack: 2 claws +20 melee (1d4+6)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, weakness, mimicry
Special Qualities: Darkvision 90 ft., spell resistance 18
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +11, Will +16
Abilities: Str 23, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 17, Cha 12
Skills: Concentration +21, Craft or Knowledge (any one) +13, Hide +9, Listen +11, Spot +11 Swim +12, Spellcraft +5
Feats: Alertness, Blind-Fight, Combat Casting, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Brew Potion, Spell Penetration (+2), Improved Spell Penetration (+2), Skill Focus (Concentration)
Environment: Temperate marshes
Organization: Unique
Challenge Rating: 15
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: —-
Green hags are found in desolate swamps and dark forests.
A green hag is about the same height and weight as a female human.
Combat
Green hags prefer to attack from hiding, usually after distracting foes. They often use darkvision to their advantage by attacking during moonless nights.
Spell-Like Abilities: At will—dancing lights, disguise self, ghost sound (DC 11), invisibility, pass without trace, tongues, water breathing. Caster level 20th. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Weakness (Su): A green hag can weaken a foe by making a special touch attack. The opponent must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or take 2d4 points of Strength damage. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Mimicry (Ex): A green hag can imitate the sounds of almost any animal found near its lair.
Skills: A green hag has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
Spells: 3/4/3/3 0th: create water, touch of fatigue, detect magic 1st: burning hands, command, protection from good, protection from law 2nd: see invisibility, scorching ray, web 3rd: bestow curse, lightning bolt (x2)
Equipment: Rod of Metamagic: Quicken, Lesser; Luckstone; Ring of Energy Resistance (Electricity 10)

Quote of this lifetime or any other

From Settembrini, in this thread at RPG Pundit's blog:

Hell, the forgies don´t give me no tools. They don´t give me nothing.

I want mysterious places, insidous traps, intricate scheming, ressource management, being there, play my character, act out my character, make a speech, roll for diplomacy, build a trade empire, be imprisoned, build my starship, draw deckplans, explore new worlds, be awestruck by the might of the Emperor, be a Hero, be a Villain, have a party, be terrified, fall in love, learn to hate, seek revenge, seek reconciliation, roll a crit, die, live, find a magic sword, destroy the precursor artifact, learn about magic, destroy a planet, study fake histories, make history, be history, travel back in time, travel to the future, fight the future, see the aliens, prove they don´t exist, receive gifts, be poor, be rich, help the those in need, become a god, become mortal, win, fail, struggle, hack a computer, build an arch, be an arch, destroy the arch, bomb the palace, find the terrorists, use a minigun, fly a helicopter, ride a dragon, slay a dragon, kill Kyuss, and take his place, mock the Lady, see the Planes, save the planes, teleport the fighter next to the enemy Magic User, raise dead, slay living, talk to trees, surf on a ley line, survive Nuclear attacks, die from radiation, rebuild civilization, use a shotgun, drive a tank, be a tank, meet Han Solo, play a Ninja-Dragon, laugh about Ninja-Dragons, be immortal, be a commoner, learn about history, forget reality, learn about my fellow humans, mock my fellow humans, spend time with friends, pwn n00bz, help out n00bz, munch my crackers, recite the Conan introduction, use my death grip, high five with my friends when it works, be impressed by my friends, impress my friends, stop the Old Ones, or die trying, shock the DM, lickspittle the DM, curse his dice, cherish mine, make a new character, level up, roll save vs. death, play the character I rolled up, roll up a new one, cause I didn´t made the survival roll, spend a brownie point, receive a brownie point, be a Vargr, fight the Sollies, fight the Impies, strategize, dramatize, be a part, be seperate, uncover the plot, cover up the act, bomb Dulinor, talk to Splynncrith, see the desert of despair, travel the mockerson gap, defend Constantinople, be a machine gunner, play an instrument, be smart, use player knowledge, abstain from using it, read a spoiler, stop after first sentence, flip through books, look at illustrations, talk about books, buy books, shove around minis, do without, be a juggler, kill the mime, see the seer, ride a magic carpet, be rational, eat big kahuna burgers, meet at a tavern.

In short: Gimme adventure! Where does theory help me? In no way, I say.

Star Wars Miniatures Starship Battles

Ogre Cave is passing along a Gaming Report item with an update on the new ship-to-ship Star Wars game coming from Wizards:

Starter Game Includes:

•Two exclusive, non-randomized figures
•Ten randomized figures and stat cards
•Game map
•Rulebook

Boosters Include:

•Seven randomized figures and related stat cards

Due In November

Starters To Retail for $39.99
Boosters To Retail for $19.99

I want this game out in time for Christmas so bad my balls ache.

creature feature

Here's one of the customized monsters I used for my session last night. Against a bunch of 12th level Gestalt characters they can't do much individually, but put 30 of them on the board and they were awfully fun to push around.

SMOLDERING LEMURE
Medium Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar, Lawful)
Hit Dice: 6d8+12 (39 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+4 natural, +1 Dex) touch 11, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+8
Attack: Claw +8 melee (1d4+2)
Full Attack: 2 claws +8 melee (1d4+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: -
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/good or silver, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to fire and poison, mindless, resistance to acid 10 and cold 10, mindless, see in darkness
Saves: Fort +9, Ref +8, Will +8
Abilities: Str 15, Dex 12, Con 14, Int -, Wis 13, Cha 3
Environment: A lawful evil-aligned plane
Organization: Solitary, pair, gang (3-5), swarm (6-15), or mob (10-40)
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always lawful evil
Advancement: -
Level Adjustment: -
A smoldering lemure looks much like a larger version of its more common cousin, standing about 6 feet tall and weighing about 200 pounds. They stink of sulphur and putrid bubbles in their flesh are constantly popping and emitting vile smoke.

Smoldering lemures are mindless and cannot communicate, but they are sensitive to telepathic messages from other devils, typically obeying a devil's mental commands.

Combat
Smoldering lemures surge toward anything they meet and try to claw it apart. Only a telepathic command from other devils or the complete destruction of the creatures can make them stop.
A smoldering lemure's natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as evil-aligned and lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Mindless (Ex): Immunity to mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
Burn (Ex): When a smoldering lemure hits with a claw attack, the opponent must succeed on a DC 20 Reflex save or catch fire. The save DC is Constitution-based. The flame burns for 2d6 points of damage for 1d4 rounds if not extinguished sooner. A burning creature can use a full-round action to put out the flame.

blast from the past: metal PCs

Back in the eighties my schoolchum Dave would occasionally paint up some figures for our D&D and BattleTech games. He had a real talent for it. Nowadays I mostly use prepainted plastic thanks to the official collectible D&D minis line, supplemented by some MageKnight and HeroScape figures. Sometimes I really wish I could paint worth a darn so I could add some Reaper figures to the mix. I love those sculpts. My friend Pat almost has me convinced that I just need to get some supplies and paint a whole bunch of guys. My first figure will look like ass, but my twentieth or hundredth might not suck as much. I dunno.

Anyway, as I was brooding over this situation for the zillionth time I recalled a couple of figure lines from back in the day that I really liked. The first was a little run called Custom Characters, from the nice people at Rafm. There were maybe ten or twenty figures in the line. Each figure came with empty hands and a gaping hole where there head should be. Packed with the figure proper were three choices of head and a bunch of weapons and equipment. Even better, most of the stuff in one pack would fit on the body of another figure in the line. Here's a bad scan of a photo from an old Dragon ad for the line, showing the different things you could accomplish with just one pack:

I especially like the non-weapon stuff available in the sets: backpacks, torches, wineskines, etc. Rafm is still in business, with a website here, but I don't see any Custom Character packs for sale there. Ebay doesn't have any for sale at the moment, either.

Ral Partha also had a nifty little line called 3 Stage Characters. Each pack had three figures representing the same character at low, middle, and high level. I thought some of these guys were wicked awesome. Check out this cleric:

See how his armor and weapons improve as he goes up in levels, but the ankh-like motif remains the same? Pretty cool. I've been a big fan of ankh holy symbols ever since I got Ultima IV for my Commodore 64.

I'm also very fond of this 3 stage wizard:(The middle wizard is not in scale to the others.) See how his staff, hat, and robes become more elaborate? And his beard gets bigger, too. I imagine him painted with a black beard in the low-level version, greying at mid level, and white-haired at high level. Keep the robe color scheme the same in all three versions and you end up with a trio of figures that highlight both the changes and the continuities as the character grows in might.
I found one of the 3 stage packs on eBay.

Ral Partha has been reincarnated as Iron Wind Metals. They don't sell the 3 Stage packs, but many of the figures are sold individually. There's a lot of neat stuff for sale over at the Iron Wind site. Ebay has a 3 Stage barbarian dude for sale here.

How to Be a Traveller Heretic

Anybody can take the Traveller rules and use them in another setting. To be worthy of excommunication, you need to work within the system to subvert the system. I came up with the following list while planning my next Traveller outing.

1. Charted Space? Your using the wrong chart, bub! Using the canonical Traveller universe is just giving the PCs too much information. I'm going with the Gateway Quadrant, a group of four sectors from Judges Guild. Other options included the two Paranoia Press sectors (the Vanguard Reaches and the Beyond), the Islands Clusters back when it was accessible via Jump-6, or use the map from Dark Nebula. And don't forget the timeless option of using a random subsector.

2. Cantinas full of aliens. Why use a human when a three-eyed reptile will work? Don't limit yourself to the Major Races either. Get GURPS Traveller: Aliens 4 for a lovely mix of minor races, sprinkle in some GURPS: Aliens dudes, and maybe spice it up with one of the random alien generators published in Dragon back in the day.

3. To boldy go where no human has gone before. I don't care how long humanity has been aomng the stars. Somewhere there have got to be some cool planets that humans have yet to visit. What self-respecting adventurer wouldn't want to claim a planet for the homeworld, and maybe name it for themselves?

4. Blow some shit up. The PCs and their archfoes should leave a trail of destruction behind them that leaves Kei and Yuri of Dirty Pair jealous. We're not talking simply fragging some space pirates or shoot-outs at starport customs. Whole planets need to explode. Stars should be set to nova. Heck, someone needs to use a corbomite device and wipe out a whole subsector.

5. More zap guns, please. Shotguns in space are dandy, but no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. And what PC doesn't want a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range?

6. Xenocidal War. I'm sorry, but the Fifth Frontier War is as dull as dirt. We need bug-eyed monsters lusting after our women! We needs wars of annihilation! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

7. Interstellar Stakes. Skulking around doing wetwork for megacorps has been coopted by the Shadowrun crowd. This time the PCs have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada. Now you must save whole civilizations between commercial breaks.

8. Space monsters and cackling villains. Most foes in Traveller are human or plausible alien sentients with psychologically sound motivations for opposing the party. We need more berserk robots, atomic zombies and Denebian slime devils. And don't forget the Evil Space Overlord and his faceless minions.

9. Hauling freight is for losers. If the PCs end up on a space tramp that fine. But it needs to be a helluva lot more Millenium Falcon style shenanigans and a whole lot less endlessly rolling on the trade charts.

10. Two words: Light Sabres

Don't Eat The Fish

Last night was another weird and exciting adventure in the World of Alidor. If you ever happen to be near the haunted ruins of Brunarn, don't fish in the stream that runs nearby. The party's peasant lackey pulled in some trout while we were in the dungeon. My guy was cheerily chomping on a campfire-roasted filet when our yokel mentioned that the fish continued to squirm long after he chopped the heads off. The taste of zombie trout will haunt me forever.

You'd think it'd be hard for the DM to freak us out even more after that, but Jon pulled it off. We're in a small boat looking for the local equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster in a lake of unknown depth. And we're stupid enough to be wearing our armor when the monster attacks our little boat. Were taking on huge amounts of water as we try to beat down the underwater monster. Turns out the Wookie Hole lake critter was a small black dragon. Who knew? So after a harrowing throwdown on a sinking rowboat, we are now officially Dragon Slayers. We all agreed that we should pose for a shot with it just like that great illo in the 2nd edition Player's Handbook. Anyone else remember that one? And I got to conjure up a Celestial Porpoise, a summoned monster that I never actually expected to use.