A slice of life.

[theweaselking]

Me: "I've just discovered an interesting new term in RPG rules discussions - the 'bag of rats' rule"
torrain: "Sounds intriguing. What's that?"
Me: "Well, D&D Warlocks get superpowers when an enemy they have 'cursed' dies. The Bag Of Rats rule says, in essence, that a Warlock can't carry around a bag of pre-cursed rats and bash them against a wall any time he needs a good, long teleport. Generalising, it's requiring that your powers have a meaningful target before they start working."
torrain: "Oh! So it prevents just having a bucket of mice and a potato masher!"

Why am *I* supposed to be the sick one, here?

Comments

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

Well, let's face it - you heard about the idea of slaughtering rats just for the sake of moving yourself a few feet in one direction from someone who had already thought of it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I just didn't know there was a term for banning it. I've though of that kind of thing all the way back to L5R and the Dragon Samurai arranging a line of peasants to allow him instant travel to his destination - after all, any time he kills an enemy, he gets to move and attack again, and peasants are obedient, easy to hit, and die in a single attack....

[endotoxin.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a legitimate spell-crafting technique to me... at least for some of the dark-aligned characters. "Igor, go round up the peasants. I've got to make a run to the grocers today." They're just spell-components.

[nomadmwe.livejournal.com]

Similarly, in 3.0/3.5, the Bag o' Rats was used in combination with Cleave and Whirlwind Attack. Drop the bag, and Whirlwind Attack when the boss monster is next to you.

Kill a rat, cleave into the boss. Kill a rat, cleave into the boss. Etc.

Then they fixed it such that you can't trigger Cleave off of Whirlwind Attack and it got better.

[ianhess.livejournal.com]

Flashback to the 1st ed animate dead spell + sledgehammer = free xp.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nice!

[pyroofone.livejournal.com]

That amused me greatly, thank you.

Similar Concept

[weaselpants.livejournal.com]

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Peasant_Railgun

Re: Similar Concept

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Legal, yes.

But the final damage is that of a single peasant throwing an improvised weapon. By the rules, you don't get any bonus damage, even if a billion people readied an action to pass the item on to you.

Re: Similar Concept

[pyroofone.livejournal.com]

In theory in 3.5 yes. Everyone delays their action until the guy behind them (presuming the thing is moving forwards) hands them the pole, then they get to act. Which is to pass it to the guy in front of them, who's action then starts because he's waiting for the guy behind him to act. etc etc etc.

Silly but the printed rules don't shoot it down such as I know.

[sanityimpaired.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of boiling an anthill.

Ah, the terrible things that happen without the Rule of Lame.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I like that rule. As a priest I had an ability that lets me hit and enemy and then load the party up with temporary hit points. It took us all of 10 seconds to decide we need to have me sacrificing chickens before a big fight

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

And, since chickens aren't an enemy, your power does nothing, in accordance with the Bag Of Rats Rule.

See?

It's pure brilliance!

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

I think you greatly underestimate just how much I hate these fucking chickens.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

*blink* So you punch your friend then load the entire party, including him, with temporary hitpoints then?

[heraldofchaos.livejournal.com]

once way back in the history of my playing.

i was once exactly 10 xp short of a level.

that's at the end of the current plot line, which was normally one to two sessions of down time where mages lean spells, fighters buff up, thieves spend time learning new skills... there's politic stuff going on yadda yadda...

but all that time would be wasted for me as i hadn't actually leveled yet...

so the session before the down time, i went on a massacre killing spree threw the town we had just saved just to get the 10 xp i needed....

ok sure i dropped a bunch of alignment. but i go that i needed...

amusingly enough... playing DDO...

i came out of a story line with exactly 10 xp missing...

*sigh*

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Any GM who'd see you 10XP short and not spot you 10 XP, even if you had to pay it back later, is just plain boring.

[mcpino.livejournal.com]

41 responses, and I don't understand a single one of them.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

*offers geek training*

[jagash.livejournal.com]

Likewise, geek training available.

[negumi.livejournal.com]

Wow, in my 4e game I joke about carrying around a bag of cats and I keep telling the DM I'm going to curse one so that I can do that.

Also in 1st edition the best free XP was opening up a chicken farm, sell the eggs sell the chickens get XP for the GP you earned.

Never heard of the peasant railgun before but I'm sharing that with my group now.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

Speaking of value judgements, I'm still amused that D&D4's press materials stated that half-orcs were removed because of the negative connotations of their origins ... and that D&D4 specifically denies letting PCs make evil characters.

However, D&D4 specifically endorses being the child of a union of human and demon, then pledging yourself to unnamed, infernal powers that grant you magic prowess, which becomes greater when you kill others in their name.

Back to being on topic, though ... there's times I've been a D&D4 cleric and I wanted to help my friend who is 5 squares away by granting him a new saving throw ... but the only way to do that was to shoot a friendly target with a hostile attack. O.o What good diety endorses that?

[sanityimpaired.livejournal.com]

That's because rape is a much more dangerous topic than consorting with demons, so they're trying to get away from it as much as possible.

In previous editions, they plainly stated that most half-orcs were the product of rape.

In contrast, Tieflings in 4th are the offspring of a culture that associated with demons but it never actually says that it mated with them. So presumably if you associate with demons long enough you start to turn into one. They've avoided the incubus scenario entirely.

Selling a similar angle on half-orcs is much harder. Not impossible, just harder. I could totally see a tribal culture selectively mating with orcs to make their warriors bigger/stronger, but there's much less precedent for that than in selling your soul for demonic powers.

[snap-wilson.livejournal.com]

I have an overwhelming urge to give this entire comment section a wedgie.