This weekend I got a chance to get back into Dungeons & Dragons after a few months of incompatible schedules. Our secondary DM set up a hack and slash mission that got a fourth player interested in joining us. This new player had a psychotic gnome, who’s first action was jumping out of an airship, having his parachute fail to open, and land on the ground nearly dead from the impact. Awesome.
Since this was a “secondary” sort of campaign, more or less “filler”, my story line as the ascending “Lord of Blades” didn’t get advanced directly through the DM’s actions. What did happen was that we, as a group, slaughtered nearly an entire goblin army without reinforcements.
At one point, I had an epic cleave streak going. I had used my barbaric rage to boost up my stats, then SLAUGHTERED dozens of goblins. Before my streat, we were at the point where the party was surrounded might even need to retreat to protect it’s weaker numbers. Then I started rolling kill shots and it was a bloodbath of Brock Samson proportions. We went from being surrounded by Worg riders to putting their forces into a panicked retreat. While everyone did their part to keep the party alive, everyone was yelling “HOLY SHIT” when I started slaughtering dozens of goblins a turn. I certainly felt like the bad ass tank character they hoped for at that moment.
Due to the epic slaughter, I got to level up once again. I took a new feat, Leadership, which means I can start to gain followers. This was a story line decision as much as it was a player decision. I like the direction the DM wants to take the character, and I’m embracing the whole “Will lead his people to a glorious future battle” thing we’ve got going on. Picking Leadership was cool, because I got to pick up a new secondary character to play in addition to the bad ass killer I play now. This new follower got to be anything I chose, and I got to fit him into the story line and play a different style character.
Since I’m the aspiring “Lord of Blades“, hoping to slaughter those of my kind to acquire my original parts and get new abilities, Pokémon style, I naturally decided my companion was going to be a fellow Warforged. For contrast, instead of an armored badass, this one will be weak, trying to perfect his body and become more humanoid instead of more monsterous like my other character.
I decided to go a comical route with his class. Since he is supposed to be a loyal follower, I decided he’d be my bard, singing my praises to the unconverted masses. “Brave, brave, brave Sir Robin…” Since the Warforged are humanoid construct beings, I decided the theme would be “Terminator with a guitar”. He’ll carry around a guitar and assult our enemies with awesome 80’s glam rock. He’ll play songs to boost my party’s stats and try to lure monsters into his power ballad thrall.
I’ve emailed the sheet I used to create him to the DM, and it’s getting worked into the next play session. This new character is a complete 180 from my main “Story Line” character. I’m already imagining all the trouble this new character will bring about by being this rocking bard. As much fun as slaughtering everyone is when the dice roll your way, it might even be more fun to have a sillier character sitting around too.
