4e redux

Im gearing up currently for my first 4e campaign and I wanted to share with you background and character info for my Dragonborn Fighter, Balthazar Al-Mua

Character Stats:
Ability Scores
STR 18
CON 14
DEX 13
INT 11
WIS 12
CHA 12

29 HP
19 AC
14 Fort
13 Ref
11 Will

weapon of choice is the battle axe with shield, I've taken the "guardian" path but will def be picking up some Damage dealing skills on the way up. Im attempting with the Battleaxe (a d10 damage weapon) to go with a hybrid build, with the ability to do damage and stay alive, we'll see how successful I am.

with this campaign our DM is planning to incorporate personal histories in the form of personal quests, one for each of the three level tiers and appropriate in difficulty. The format is for heroic tier (1-10) the quest would be to find somebody involved in your life, or in your overall goal. For paragon (10-20) tier is to find an item giving it a sort of artifact status be it related or not to your overall goals. the Epic tier (20-30) would involve doing something "epic" or world altering (i.e. your overall goal etc.)

What follows is what I've come up with for my personal quest and personality.


The Al-Mua clan of Dragonborn is as ancient as the race itself. As is such, the family is a very pure clan of warriors and defenders of the ancient empire of the Dragonborn, a family integral in its defence and government, even related by a thin branch to the ruling family. Since the disbanding of the clans, and the demolishment of the empire, the Al-Mua clan almost completely alone stood together on the island of Dalmasca intending to carry on the old ways, making it their goal and destiny to one day to reunite the clans and forge anew the great empire of the Dragonborn. To achieve this goal the clan elders have aligned themsevles with the King of the Ordelia Empire (a hodgepodge civilization); thinking that service to an established empire can afford benefits that could prove useful. To this end, the recent son of the Al-Mua clan, Balthazar, a student of the God Erathis has completed his training in the Dragonborn tradition and goes abroad in the service of King Ordelia.

The three quests that we came up with are as follows.

Heroic: I intend to seek out an avatar or recieve a prophecy of Bahamut the patron of the dragon born who will hopefully point me in the right direction to re-establish the dragonborn empire

Paragon: i will seek out the Hydra Armor of Dartharos Baldiem, the first leader of the dragonborn civilization

and of course my epic: Reunite the sprawled Dragonborn clans and establish a nation for our own use.

4e

if you are a classic nerd like me, hell if you even know me you probably have at one point in your life leafed through a Dungeons and Dragons book. Though most of you reading this have even participated in such an event as a campaign, there are those of you out there who have not been touched by its greatness.

Last week the much anticipated 4th edition of the classic paper and pencil roleplaying game was released with a rousing cheer in the nerd community, and a whisper elsewhere. I started playing the game towards the tail end of 3rd edition with the Spaniard and some other friends from Connecticut days and we got pretty into it. When 3.5 came out it didn't seem like a lot was changing so the transition wasn't too bad. Granted by this point I had moved to North Carolina and our 3.0 campaign was on indefinite hold. Once when I came back up to the CT we played a bit after converting to the new rules. In college I got involved in some pretty lengthy 3.5 campaigns that were tonnes of fun with Nate and that crew and we pulled a bunch of people into the lifestyle with us.


After graduation, getting a job, and moving down here I found I was hurting for some DnD so after a few trips to my local games store I landed myself in a campaign with some kids who work down in the Depot where I do my contract work. These cats showed me how to really do the "game" aspect of 3.5. Twinking out your character, min maxing, all that fun stuff, it was a totally different game experience than with "its the gnome" or "whatever Nate called his campaigns"

Anyway on to 4e. They changed everything. No joke, no exaggeration. Combat system, class system, magic items, character creation, there is very little left from 3.5 that went unchanged. Its going to be a totally different experience for a lot of people, and there will be some that will reject the change. Personally I'd be excited to play either version, since they both have their merits, but I can see where Wizards was going with 4e. They wanted to make it more accessible to the general public in a world dominated by World of Warcraft and I don't really blame them, they are trying to run a business. I just hope they don't completely abandon support for the 3.5 ruleset, since I know some people who will still play it.

Alias

The internet is a funny place. To me now I feel comfortable pretty much anywhere on the nettertubes but this didn't used to be the case. Do you remember when the interwebs was a scary place? I do. I remember stumbling upon sites in my youth with flashy banners and sounds and freaking out closing browsers and such thinking somebody was haxxoring my box. I remember getting stupid email viruses and keyloggers and spyware shit all out the ass and then going through the tedious process of cleaning it all out.

Then came web2.0 and as I grew older and wiser the internet began to feel like a second home. A place to re-invent oneself if one chooses to do so. A place to be anonymous in a sea of other anonymous people. I wonder sometimes whether the internet is still dangerous, and I've just become more immune to its dangers...

I was right!

I was just reviewing my post history and came upon an entry regarding the future of American television where I predicted the Discovery venture "Smash Lab" would not see past its pilot run. Well I'm fairly certain I was right. I haven't heard word one about that show in at least 6 weeks.

Uncle Niko Says....

Since getting my Xbox360 my other systems have fallen to the unfortunate wayside. I had the distinct advantage of grabbing games I knew were good, as was the case with Mass Effect, Assassins Creed and Bioshock, and then this month with GTAIV and the Penny Arcade game (which is FANTASTIC for a non full length game). Another pickup for me this month was the latest burnout incarnation, paradise. The open world is pretty inventive and the new crash system is fun, but I miss the individuality of the races in previous games. Its great that you can fuck around whenever you want but you have to hunt out when you want to do a new race if you don't want to repeat the same tracks over and over again.

My PC is currently fascinated with World Of Warcraft still...this is probably because I have nothing else to do during the week and parts of the weekend, and its a pretty good time sink for me. Im the Rogue officer in a guild on Greymane US in a raiding guild 4/5 5/9 in T6 content if that means anything to any of you. I'm probably going to give Age of Conan a try once a buddy of mine comes through with a guest pass primarily for the reason that I hate the WoW PVP system and am yearning to try something new. And the fact that MMO's have been my heroin since Asheron's Call.

In non-gaming news, my boss recently informed our group that we have no future work outside of 1 year so I have once again taken up the mantle of jobseeker in my spare time to solidify my future.

Keep on truckin

Genius and madness, a fine Culinary line

In the ever increasing war on food boredom I have added a few recipes to my stable. Please indulge and elaborate at your leisure

Sosage Mc. Pasta
1 package Johnsonville Sweet Basil Italian Sausage
1 jar Classico Traditional Sweet Basil sauce

Cut the sausage into small pieces ~4 per link and cook thoroughly in oil in a fry pan (I dont fuck around with pork so mine are 90% done with a decent crust before I take them off)

Simmer in the sauce with additional oregano till your satisfied in its doneness

serve over pasta of your choice

Omega's Universal Marinade
I use this on chicken, pork, beef, what have you, anything in small pieces to be fried in a pan w/oil

Teriyaki Sauce
Worcestershire
Barbecue Sauce (this is where I lose a lot of people Im sure, I only use Bone Sucking Sauce)

its pretty tasty, toss the remnants in towards the end of cooking for a good coat.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_25143,00.html
this is fantastic btw I use baby portabella for the mushrooms though
ProTip, dont use a high wall pan or you end up simmering instead of thickening the sauce at the end

Nostalgia

This evening, I pulled out my trumpet (she without a name) and blew some notes for the first time in almost a year. I learned that when you spend 13 years doing something, you don't ever forget how to do it. Much like Sam did at school I came to the realization that I've spent over half of my life with the harsh mistress of the trumpet and I shouldn't be so quick to let my fingers and lips lose those hard earned callouses.

Of course playing could be hard considering I live in a relatively well populated apartment complex. Tonight I played softly with my most noise deadening mute. The walls are thick enough that nobody would have been disturbed by that much, but I think I could be a little bolder during the day, when Im usually the only person I see in my building.

Getting to another topic. Recent comments from old friends Mike, Christine, and Rebbecca have led me to believe that this thing I'm doing here is accomplishing at least one of my goals, communicating with friends far and near. That being said, I still get very little communication from people I know. I can be stubborn so feel free to bug me on this front. I leave my current contact info below to that end

Email: CRSchaller@gmail.com
AIM: TheWookie13 (unchanged note :D)
Phone # 252-288-7177 (highlight)