You mean you wouldn’t devote your life to studying the arcane arts just so you could one day spend the time, money and possibly health and create a Saw of Mighty Cutting? C’mon! If given to someone with 18/00 strength he can cut through a 2’ thick maple in only ten minutes! Tell me that wasn’t the envy of every adventuring group…
In his defense, he was pretty good in Requiem for a Dream.
Jophiel wrote:
To say nothing of creating the highly revered Spade of Colossal Excavation, with which an 18-strength fighter can dig a 3-foot-wide by 3-foot-deep hole in only one minute.
Or all those cursed items, like Gauntlets of Fumbling and Boots of Dancing. You’ll be the envy of everyone else at the magic-user academy when you create items designed to fool thieving adverturers into thinking they’re stealing something useful!
On the other hand, I’ve always liked the “Ring of Delusion” - the one where you think you’re invisible, but you’re not. Maybe they can put one in the flick, have an Erik the Viking scene:
“Now you see me - now you don’t!”
In the first issue of Fantasy Gamer (1983), they had a table of “Outré Magic Items” – that is, magic items that are powerful but useless.
Among these items were:[ul][li]A rod of rulership that only works when submerged in the blood of Cthulu.[/li][li]A coin which, when flipped and asked a yes-no question, will always land on edge.[/li][li]A ring of invisibility – when worn, the ring turns invisible but the wearer does not.[/li][li]A mace of sharpness.[/li][li]A silver arrow suspended from a string, which always points to the person holding the arrow.[/li][li]A scabbard of sword resistance – no sword can be sheathed in it.[/li][li]The Lance of Quixote: +10 vs. windmills, -2 versus any other target if a windmill is within 400 yards.[/li]A ring of invulnerability – the ring can never be damaged.[/ul]I kinda liked the idea of “plate mail of ehterealness”, too. Upon command, the plate mail would turn ethereal. Its wearer, however, would remail solid.
Stupendous Man wrote:
Hey, I’m grateful they didn’t give Steve Gutenberg a call.
Yeah, they shoulda cast Samuel L. Jackson as a paladin. Why, even the name “Mace Windu” sounds like a D&D weapon!
tracer wrote:
Jules Windu: [pointing his sword] Say “Orcus” again. SAY “ORCUS” AGAIN! I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker! Say “Orcus” one more goddamn time!
And we never DID get to see what was in that treasure chest…
Come, come. It was quite obviously Treasure Type G.
JULES Okay now, tell me about 3rd Edition?
VINCENT What so you want to know?
JULES Well, humans can multi-class, right?
VINCENT Yeah, it’s called multi-classing, but it’s kind of like dual-classing. I mean, you can’t start out as a mage and a thief, and start doing both right away. You’re only supposed to advance in one class at a time.
JULES You choose which class to advance in?
VINCENT Yeah, it breaks down like this: everybody goes up levels on the same chart, and you decide every level what class you want to advance in, and as long as no two classes are four levels apart, there’s no XP penalty. Every race has a preferred class, which doesn’t count when checking for an XP penalty an – get a load of this – there’s no race restrictions; you can play any class you want. You can play a half-orc paladin/monk.
JULES That did it, man – I’m fuckin’ playin’, that’s all there is to it.
VINCENT You’ll dig it the most. But you know what the funniest thing about 3rd Edition is?
JULES What?
VINCENT It’s the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got in 2nd Edition, they still got, but there they’re a little different.
JULES Examples?
VINCENT Well, in 3rd Edition, you can cast cantrips. And I don’t mean as a first level spell either. They give you zero-level cantrips, like in Unearthed Arcana. In 3rd Edition, priests can cast cantrips. Also, you know what they call THAC0 in 3rd Edition?
JULES They don’t call it THAC0?
VINCENT No, they got the d20 System now, A.C. Zero don’t mean shit.
JULES What’d they call it?
VINCENT Attack bonus.
JULES (repeating) Attack bonus. What’d they call a Armor Class?
VINCENT A.C.'s A.C., but now it goes up instead of down.
JULES What do they call a Hit Dice?
VINCENT I dunno, I didn’t get the DMG. But you know what the damage cap on Flame Strike is in 3rd Edition, instead of 6d8?
JULES What?
VINCENT 15d6.
JULES Goddamn!
Bravo!
Now if only you still got one Experience Point for every gold piece worth of treasure you got out of an adventure…
Oh, wait, I know:
“The way your dad looked at it, the Hand of Vecna was your birthright. He’d be damned if any of the orcs were gonna get their greasy yellow hands on his boy’s birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long years, he stored this severed hand up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the Hand of Vecna. I hid this uncomfortable piece of mummified flesh up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the Hand of Vecna to you.”