Distress Signal
This month’s Patreon poll asked, “Which unlikely duo is forced to work together?” After the votes were tabulated, our winning duo was clear. This meant that 1) Thief and Summoner would have to wait to work out their differences, and 2) I would have to write a Witch / Horsepower script. That presented me with something of a challenge. Here were two characters with nothing at all in common. They’ve never met each other, much less established a relationship. If you think about it though, that is exactly the sort of interaction you get all the time in-game.
When you’ve got a diverse set of characters running around a world, it’s only natural that unexpected combinations will pop up. You’ll get these bizarre situations in which the drunken pirate captain and the awakened corgi paladin meet in the tavern. That goblin pimp you improvised (and immediately regretted) way back in session one is now the last aid and refuge for the deposed queen-in-hiding. These characters that shouldn’t have anything to do with one another are suddenly in the same room together, and now you’ve got to figure out how they get along. Happily, this is great fun.
Take today’s example. Once I began brainstorming concepts my consternation gave way to amusement. I found myself giggling at the image of Witch and Horsepower chained together in a in Sakaar style tag team match. Or maybe they would need to save the princess / save the princess’s royal tears? What if they had a mutual enemy? A mutual obligation to attend the annual heroes and villains mixer? Maybe they both use Mane ‘n Tail?
My point is that you shouldn’t look at oddball pairings as a challenge; think of them instead as a source of inspiration. Reaching into the grab bag of available NPCs and pulling out a pair of disparate weirdos is exciting! Even if you run the risk of getting “orange juice and toothpaste,” you can just as easily wind up with “hot wings and blue cheese.” And trust me when I say that it’s worth the risk.
So here’s the question of the day: What is an unexpectedly awesome combination of characters that entered into one of your games? Let’s hear your best stories of mix ‘n match PCs and NPCs down in the comments!
REQUEST A SKETCH! So you know how we’ve got a sketch feed on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon? By default it’s full of Laurel’s warm up sketches, illustrations not posted elsewhere, design concepts for current and new characters, and the occasional pin-up shot. But inspiration is hard sometimes. That’s why we love it when patrons come to us with requests. So hit us up on the other side of the Patreon wall and tell us what you want to see!
We were being forced by enchantment into our first dragon fight.
We had a paladin. We also had one lady who didn’t really know much about religion. During our preparation, she went to the local temple, got down on her knees at the altar, and swore to the powers that be that she’d be a dutiful servant her whole life if they helped her get through that fight in one piece.
…And that’s how we had a paladin in the same party as the sworn servant of a demon lord. (No, she didn’t know who she was swearing herself to until afterwards.)
Nice! Did they manage to get on well together, or was it a case of constant bickering?
They didn’t bicker much, since she was still learning the details of her new religion through most of the game, and the geas kept her from most of the more time-consuming acts of evil she’d sworn to do (also, she was a bard, and it’s hard to stay angry at the one who spends their time making you more awesome).
At the end of the campaign, they all got wishes as an ultimate reward. The Paladin, satisfied that they were no longer under enchantment, simply wished to bring the group home. The bard neglected to go with her, using her wish to shortcut her transformation into being a powerful demon so she could begin serving her patron properly.
The inquisitor joined her in wishing to become a demon, and together they prevented the rise of communism and annexed Russia to serve as a demonic staging ground for the forces of their patrons (the inquisitor’s patron was technically chaotic neutral, but did often employ demons).
Sad times from the paladin’s perspective. Nice background for a sequel campaign though.
“In the wake of the Demon Wars, after the hero Paladin fell in battle against his one-time friends….”
A long time ago, some friends tried for the first time to set up a school D&D campaign. We ended up with a lot of potential players, but for some reason the people in charge decided that they would only have a few DMs, so my group ended up with eight players under one DM. The alignments went thusly:
Lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, law neutral, chaotic neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil. We eventually ,managed to get it worked out, as several players finding it not to their taste and leaving got the group to become slightly less hectic.
Fast forward to our current campaign, when our gunslinger/cleric went on a side quest, no other PCs, just him and an NPC wizard. They ended up being too similar, as they were both ranged, both considered themselves the smartest person in the room, both wielded strange devices and powers, and both did not want to get into melee combat. And they were both true neutral, to, so they weren’t itching to rush out front to be the meatshield. So they went and hired some muscle, that muscle coming in the form of a neutral evil drunken master monk dwarf pirate. So we had two characters who were to similar, and then one who was simply insane and evil, but necessary for their survival.
The words “neutral evil drunken master monk dwarf pirate” fill me with inexplicable glee.
I’m imagining a pair of bow guy from Bleach pushing up their identical nerd gasses and sighing every time they hear: “A tree falls in forest, yar harr harr!”
“Pirate-monks. I honestly have no idea what we’re supposed to do about pirate-monks.” – The Dark-Spectacled Admiral, Sunless Sea.
Back in high-schools, we had a party that consisted of a grig ninja, an incubus Beguiler, an elf paladin who wielded a bow aboard her dire-squirrel mount, and a kalashtar wilder. Individually, none of these characters were out of the ordinary, but to be grouped up and working together would’ve raised some eyebrows.
I mean… I could see a paladin and an incubus getting along together. They have high charisma scores in common and stuff. But a grig and a kalashtar? Fugetaboudit.
Back in my old party, I was playing a crazy pink-haired Fetchling girl, expert in Intimidation. She loved pretty things and princess dresses, but also perpetually had blood stains on her face that she forgot to clean.
A fellow PC was a badass half-orc druid carrying a Greataxe. The typical muscle brute slicing-things-in-half archetype, but with bonus bear companion and angry flaming sphere spells.
At one point, we had a mysterious assassin that we caught captive. We were gonna interrogate her, so we took the obvious course of action – we dressed the bulky half-orc up in a fancy suit, my character put on her cutest dress, then we had a tea party for the guest.
Somewhere between the beheaded stuffed animals, the continuous axe sharpening and the glass shards in her tea, she decided that we were fucking crazy and she was better off confessing for her own sake.
GM: So how exactly do you interrogate the prisoner?
PLAYERS: First, we’re going to need some crumpets….
Once in a game my group was making an all paladins party shivers, one of my friends didn’t get the memo, so a three paladin party ended saving the world and defending innocents along an barbarian CE half-demon. each and every time we saved some poor folk we needed to give such extensive explanations.
Also once in a lazy outbreak of DMness in a village the tavern, the church, the brothel, the whorehouse, the bawdy house, and the mill were all owned by the same innkeeper, pimp, priest, farmer. That NPC was a really renaissance man.
On anoter note. Why Brutus have the Hedgehog and kaiju subtypes? Where is his “cute” subtype? Also that toothpaste chips are real? Are they tasty? I really hope yes 🙂
Don’t be ridiculous. “Cute” is a template. 😛
Also, those chips are an abomination that have happily never existed in this plane of reality.
Well then. Three paladins and a CE half-demon. That’s certainly… a thing that could happen.
I’m not sure whether that game was hilarious or terrifying.
“I’m not sure whether that game was hilarious or terrifying.”
Yes.
Ok, I got out the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Dragon Magazine Issue 289 and calculated Brutus’ stats
Brutus (kaiju hedgehog)
Size/Type: Colossal Magical Beast (augmented animal)
HD: 40d10 + 440 (660)
Initiative: -4
Speed: 20 ft., Burrow 20 ft.
Armor Class: 27 (+29 Natural, -4 dex, -8 size), flat-footed 27, touch -2,
Base Attack/Grapple: +40/+75
Attack: Bite +51 melee (4d8+19)
Full Attack: Bite +51 melee (4d8+19)
Space/Reach: 40×40/20ft
Special Attacks: Battle Roar, Breath Weapon, Poison, Improved Trample
Special Qualities: DR 15/Epic, Darkvision 120 feet, Defensive ball, Immune to Non-artifact mind control, Fire Resistance 50, SR 16
Saves: Fort +33, Ref +18, Will +14
Abilities: Str 49 Dex 2 Con 32 Int 2 Wis 12 Cha 25
Skills: Hide +9, Listen +19, Spot +19
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Battle Roar, Improved Trample (kaiju only gain feats per 4 hd above 32 hd)
Breath Weapon(su): 100 foot line, 10d6 fire damage. Reflex DC 41 halves
Defensive Ball (Ex): Rolls into a ball as a standard action, granting
a +2 circumstance bonus on saves and AC. Unrolling is a free
action.
Poison (Ex): When in a defensive ball (see below), spines poison
foes touching the hedgehog; injury, Fortitude DC 10, initial and
secondary damage 1d2 Dex.
Battle Roar (su): Move action. Causes All creatures under 6 HD within 1200 feet to become shaken. Creatures with 7HD or more receive a DC 37 will save to avoid being shaken. Deafened creatures are unaffected. A bard may use countersong to allow allies within 30 feet to use the bard’s perform check in place of their save roll. This is a mind affecting sonic effect.
Improved Trample: Can run over a gargantuan or smaller opponent as a standard action. Deals 4d12+10 damage (4d12+0 damage in defensive ball). This does not incur an attack of opportunity. Deals double damage to structures.
Immune to Mind-Influencing Effects: Immune to mind influencing effects except those originating from powerful artifacts.
By the way, I changed the DR from 25/+5 to 15/epic to update it to 3.5e
Just realized the DC for the poison should be 41, not 10
Well you’re the bloody hero of the comic today. Good show!
I tell ya though, I cannot for the life of me imagine what a hedgehog roar sounds like.
I would imagine both adorable and terrifying, and capable of provoking sanity checks if those optional rules are used.
Thinking over that template in retrospect, a 40 foot stance is kind of short for a kaiju. It works for Brutus, but in general that’s a lot closer to the giant ape range, like King Kong or Mighty Joe Young, than a kaiju like Godzilla or Gamera or Yongary
Yeah… The game gets weird when you get to that scale though. Colossal things taking 5′ steps is goofy, you know? At a certain point, the monster becomes more of a setting than an NPC, and tactical grids smaller than your whole rec room floor stop functioning.
Also, it just occurred to me that if he’s about 40x40x40 that 100 foot breathweapon will only reach about 90 feet ahead of him (100^2-40^2=90ish^2)
I happened to rewatch Monty Python’s Personal Best recently, and now I kind of want to see Brutus fight Spiny Norman
https://hedgehoghugh.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/spiny-norman-demotivational-poster-1210023291-gif.jpg
In the mirror match, it’s all about winning initiative.