6/17/2015

d30 Challenge Day 17

d30 Challenge Day 17
This is my 17th entry in the d30 Challenge, which is a bastardization of an idea I first saw on Mark "CMG" Clover's feed. Now I'm a sucker for these things and I know some folks aren't so while I'm committed to answering one question about my favorite hobby each day, and putting together a d30 table before the end of the month, I know not everyone is so interested. I'll put the question & answer after the break, posting late in the day, and not promoting this on G+ so those who don't like this kind of thing should be exposed only minimally.

I think this is the best I can do....
Day 17's question is "Favorite Animal/Insect/Arachnid".

Overall my favorite "animal"...and I'm going to be a bit more generic here...is the dog. Dogs are great animals that can be companions, hirelings (of a sort), monsters....and NPCs. I don't know too many players that can resist a dog in need, but I try not to abuse this.....much.

HackMaster 4th Edition had a monster called the Anthraxian, which was basically just a cute baby animal that was riddled with disease...in this case Anthrax. It was an over-the top "joke" monster that I used once...but in the same adventure (the whole adventure had "diseases" as a theme) I did use some rabid and disease ridden dogs. As a GM nothing is as much fun as having the party rescue some cute little puppies from the BBG only to come down with a disease a few days or a week later.

I know that is evil....but it did work for the adventure at hand and the larger story-arc overall. Besides Cure Disease was readily available...if the players figured out they were diseased.

Now as a player I love getting access to a trained dog in the party. They often track as good, if not better, than the Ranger, fight better than a good portion of the party, and they do a bang-up job as guards at night. A good dog is worth his weight in silver (remember I play HackMaster....it is a silver-based monetary system).

Orkin Wardog by Anthony Carpenter
In fact, dogs are so damned valuable that even Orcs have their own dogs. As a player I don't like these so much.....Orkin Wardogs come in two varieties and honestly they both are not much fun to fight against. The "Lesser" wardog "only" does 4d4p+1 on a successful hit where the "Greater" version does 4d4p+5...basically you are screwed if they latch on to you.

 My party has faced off against more of these dogs than I care to admit, but we've eeked things out before. I haven't used them in my game yet.....



......yet........

0 comments :

Post a Comment