I settled on a Halfling Bard. I decided the more complex classes were probably not best for my first D&D game in a long while. Her name is Lili Von Schtupp, a name I took from Madeline Kahn's character in the movie Blazing Saddles. Her specialties are Singing and Comedy, which overlap a little, but are fun to role-play. My rolls started really weak; I rolled a strength of 8, and being a halfling, I could only carry 27 pounds without being encumbered. So I chose not to play an instrument so I wouldn't have to lug it around, (though I had wanted to play the accordion). My charisma is 20, which is the most essential stat for Bards, this gave me hope. It was quite clear I wouldn't be much of a bruiser, but I hoped I could help a little. I took a short bow and a whip, which I can use to trip foes (though, admittedly, I rarely roll well enough to pull that trick off). I hope to one day incorporate my whip into my Bard performance, perhaps I'll take Dance as a skill next time.
Our quest was written by our DM, 8.5Tails. It takes place in a Germanic country, in the town of Halstater. All the basic races, Human, Elf, Halfling, Dwarf, etc, live together and mix, and there are no cultural divides. However, there are no monster races in their land, and no magic. At least, not in their society. There is a parallel world known as the Hedge, where monsters and magic reign supreme. The people of Halstater are not aware of the hedge, and are generally slow and stupid, generally unaware of much going on. They have a very 'NPC' vibe to them, like in an RPG were the commonfolk have only a few lines of dialogue. It's been a really interesting process getting to know the town and figuring out what the citizens can and can't do for us. Our biggest obstacle by far has been the endless mountain of bureaucracy.
This one of my favorite qualities of 8.5Tails' DM style. He has managed to make a D&D quest about bureaucracy. We were able to determine, through lots of frustrating investigation, that the Book of the Law has gone missing, and as a result, the laws of the land have become broken and non-functional. We have a Lawful Cleric who worships the god of Law, so he has led us on some truly pointless roundabout experiences, waiting to see magistrates and getting called into court for illegally carrying weapons through town. Ultimately, we have seen no bad consequences outside of mild inconveniences, so most of our party has chosen to ignore the law and all authority figures, which is very difficult for our Cleric Glowryn.
We are approaching the end of our quest, I expect 1-2 more sessions remaining. I've had a lot of fun developing Lili Von Schtupp into a self-promoting Bard, who is small but intimidating. She uses savagely humorous insults to get her way, and is quite effective. Additionally, I've discovered a lot of use for the basic Bard songs, and had my highest achievement using Countersong to protect my party from an Audio-based mind control effect. This spell replaces our willpower save with Lili's performance skill. Given the effects of our time in this terrible Bureaucratic nightmare has been a steady loss of Will, this really worked out for us all.
We haven't talked plans of a new campaign after this one, but I am hopeful for a chance to continue with this group.
-D
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