Qwildurn Goes Racing

Although this really isn't the forum for "personal" stuff, (then why do we take this game so personally), different players have expressed an interest in my attempt at being a Race Car Driver and have asked me to post a picture or two.

Six months ago, my brother Pete (logon "aura8440") and I bought a 1973 Datsun 240z to turn into a hobby racer. We have been fixing it up in our spare time and finally made it to the track. The track is Willow Springs Raceway near Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Dessert of Southern California.

Pete Russell on left, Bob Russell (Qwildurn) on right. Yes, I'm an old fart. The "X" is to let the other drivers know that we're noobs. Separately, we have both taken a High Speed Driving Class using our Dad's Alfa Romeo. I was able to drive Dad's racer enough to get my Time Trials Licence, while Pete was recovering from two broken legs. After Pete gets some more experience (points) and a TT Licence (level-up, ding), we will work on our Full Competition Licences.

It was a near perfect weekend for racing in the High Desert of Mojave, California. Last year at this time (January) it never got above freezing. In our summer, it is between 100-120 (Fahrenheit). On this day, we had a few sprinkles of rain, gusting wind and about 50 degrees. In the early morning, a HUGE rainbow covered the track leading a storm front away.

Driving hard through a right-hand sweeper. The skid marks show where the "losers" have been.

A pair of Alfa Romeo's past me like I was standing still. Very well built cars with excellent drivers.

A Mercedes SLK ready to overtake me. I was hoping to hold him off longer than I did. Notice the stock street tires tucking under. I'm probably doing 70 MPH and turning sharper than the tires look. The stock 240z throttle steers quite well. Lift the gas to turn in sharper, push down to lift the nose and turn out. Weapon Finesse is the key feat here. To much throttle change and it's Devastation Critical.

A different view of the same turn doing about 70 MPH. Yes that's Q driving. Notice the daylight under the right front tire. The stock suspension allows for a lot of body roll. The two inside tires are not doing any work.

Our Dad's Alfa Romeo GTV blew the transmission, so we let him drive our Datsun 240z. During our last practice session the battery fell out ending our weekend just before the main event. All we missed was the last 5 laps of our weekend. We have our own in-car-timer and recorded our laps.

1. Dad = 1:55
2. Bob = 1:56
3. Pete = 1:57

Had we have been able to compete in the "timed event", the winning car of our class recorded a time of one minute, forty-five seconds. We would have been dicing it up for fourth place.

Racer Z
(LOL - my logon in the other forum)

Big Bertha Butt

I was talking with Psyammy about stuff and one of my characters came up, Big Bertha Butt.

The name comes from an old comedy act (so I thought) that I had heard once many years ago. Bertha Butt and the Butt Sisters. I couldn't remember much except that it had been on a Vinyl Record and I had been quite stoned. So I did some Internet digging and found some real information.

I found two songs (might be more) by The Jimmy Castor Bunch. Troglodyte and Bertha Butt Boogie. Then I found the original music video to Troglodyte (about 30 years before MTV) and a hilarious home-made video with the original sound of Bertha Butt Boogie.

Troglodyte (U-Tube)
Bertha Butt Boogie (U-Tube)

Although not a comedy act, that is where my toon, Big Bertha Butt got her name from.

Another One Bites the Dust

Cuinoe has been permanently banned for cheating. His toon, Arcane Wall, a Bard / PM / SD, had tons of extra feats. Feats exclusive to Barbarian, Fighter and Ranger as well as just plain to many feats.

When questioned by Glub DM, he wouldn't say much. Too bad Glub didn't take a screen shot.

Some of the player started talking about Cuinoe being bothered that others could kill Bosses and such while he couldn't. Amazingly, he didn't have any feats that could help him kill Bosses.

Badlands Builder's Challenge

There's been some talk lately about what is the highest AB possible in the Badlands. After some thought, I thought it'd be fun to get everyone's ideas for a build with maximum AB. There are a few rules though:

1) Use of True Strike is not an option. Here's why, it only lasts for a few seconds and there are no scrolls available to purchase in the Badlands.
2) Furthermore, you can only use scrolls (or wands) available to purchase from a store (no transferred scrolls or wands). As of my writing this, I think the only purchasable scroll that will boost your AB is Bless.
3) It is assumed that any activated skills, feats, or spells will provide maximum benefit. (for example, empowered Bull's Strength will give +7 to STR).
4) Obviously, you can only use Badlands subraces and items/equipment available in the module.
5) All builds are assumed to hit maximum level (60 for ECL 0)

Here's my first attempt at a maximum AB build. I was hoping to hit 90, but I only got it up to 89. Here's how I did it:
Barbarian21/Cleric15/Bard4 (Barbarian 1-20)
Half-orc/Ogrillon subrace
Strength: 23 (starting)+10(abil)+12(uberBB)+9(legend abil)+10(GrtSTR)+8(mighty rage)= 72(+31)
AB = 30(BAB)+31(STR)+3(EWF)+1(EpProw)=65
Buffs= +7(wpn)+5(divine fav)+2(battletide)+3(prayer/aid/bless)+1(bard song)=83
with maxed Taunt and full effect (lowers opponent AC by 6), I get 83+6=89.

I look forward to everyone's ideas. Maybe next week, we'll have a builder's challenge to see who can come up with the highest AC possible!

The Building of an Ogrillon

Like all races and classes, an Ogrillon has it's good points and bad. +4 to strength (str) and constitution (con) is offset by -4 intelligence (int) and charisma (cha).

The easy choice here is to go pure Barbarian and use the Greataxe and Tower Shield. Only Earth Genasi and Ogrillon are large enough to wield a Greataxe and a Tower Shield. With all this str and con, they are a perfect choice for Barbarian.

On BadLands RPG, you can become an UBER Barbarian. This allows you to use your Rage bonus after reaching the +12 cap. With 35 Barbarian levels and all three Epic Rage Feats (Thundering Rage, Terrifying Rage and Mighty Rage), the Barbarian can gain +12 to str and con during Rage. This use is added to the existing rage use from Greater Rage to allow for extra UBER Rage turns. UBER Barbarian and UBER Rage is unique to BadLands RPG and probably not available elsewhere.

This leaves 5 more levels before starting the Legendary Levels (levels 41 to 60). Taking Rogue or Bard for UMD and Tumble skills is a good choice. You will need to buy 25 UMD points to be able to read any scrolls and use most items like Helms. Every 5 points of Tumble will gain you 1 AC, 40 Tumble is +8 AC. The Ogrillon's low int actually makes this hard to do. Bard Song is a real plus just as Rogue Sneak would be a good thing to have.

Both Rogue and Bard will have a short time limit on spells cast from scrolls. Bard would have a slightly longer time and higher DC to reflect their natural Arcane Spell ability, rather than the "Gee, I hope this works", approach of the Rogue.

Another good approach is Barbarian/Bard/RDD (Red Dragon Disciple). 10 levels of RDD will get you a lot of choice improvements. +8 str, +2 con, +2 int, +2 cha, +4 AC and immunities to Fire, Sleep and Paralysis. Taking 20 Barbarian levels first will insure the max BAB (base attack bonus) of 20 at level 20 and 30 at level 40. Take the first Bard level at 22 so you can buy 25 Tumble and 25 UMD. Take all 10 RDD levels and the last (2nd) Bard level at 40 to finish with Tumble 40. Staggering Barbarian levels and RDD levels here is recommended. Epic Rage Feats can only be taken on a Barbarian level-up. Don't forget to take Overwhelming Critical and Devastating Critical.

Another idea in Ogrillon building is to start with Ranger. This will get you all the two-weapon-fighting feats that you would not otherwise qualify for. Taking 20 Ranger levels first will insure a max BAB of 30 at level 40. Ranger 21 will allow you to take Bane after you start the Legendary Levels. Bane will get you extra +2 AB and 2d6 extra Damage to all favored enemies. This is on top of the +1 damage per 5 levels of ranger.
Example: Ranger 21 with favored enemy ELF and Bane would be damage 4+1d6 and +2 AB (attack bonus, not enhancement bonus) while fighting an ELF.
+2 AB and extra damage 5 to 10 to kill a Mage or Monk Elf? Sweet!

One weapon choice is to train for Dual Scimitars. The Ogrillon does not get as much of an AB penalty as does a smaller race. When in a situation where Dev Crit can't help, switching to Greataxe and shield would work. I did this on a build and my AB ended up being the same. It ended up as a draw for damage, but my AC was better.

The other weapon idea here is the Double-Axe. The Ogrillon can two-hand this for extra attacks, of hold a Tower Shield and the Double-Axe.

Taking Pale Master (PM) 10 would gain a nice AC boost and immunity to Critical Damage. PM 15 will qualify you for Epic Warding (damage reduction) or Epic Mage Armor (+25 AC) "note: Epic Mage Armor is 5 AC to each type of AC and will not stack with existing armor". This will stack with Dodge AC (on boots) and will show +5 AC as shield AC while not holding a shield.

Taking PM 16 will get you another boost in AC and the ability to take the second of those two feats. The problem here is that we spent 3 levels (probably Bard) just to get to PM. Since we want another Bard level at 40 to top off Tumble to 40, we have a problem. We can't get Ranger 21, Bard 4 and PM 16. That's 41 levels.

What to give up?

• Bane? (Ranger 21) Extra and Damage.
• 15 Tumble? (Bard 4) AC +3.
• An epic feat and +2 AC? (PM 16) Damage Reduction 50 and AC +12.

In these terms, +3 AC from Bard Tumble is the looser.

Cleric would be a good choice as well. The Ogrillon does not gain or loose Wisdom, leaving Cleric as a usable class. Most other classes are out because of the terrible loss of int and cha.

As a tribute to bygone days of table AD&D, my recent naming convention for Badlands toons has been based on the original Monster Manual and Deities and Demigods. One such build has been an Ogrillon named Orcus. It's really too bad that Ogrillons and other non-standard body types can't get RDD wings, cause that'd be badass. But I digress.
It seems like there are a LOT of common criminals and other PKers running around the Badlands lately... more so than usual. If you're not familiar with the mythology behind Orcus... he's sorta the Roman version of Hades, he is the "...punisher of broken oaths." Today, Simon and I had a rare opportunity to hunt some PKers. After Osiris Ellow bashed Syndie Shadowblade, dano logs in (who else?) Shady Shadowblade (part of our plan, btw), Badlands #1 prick and most hated (as voted by pretty much everyone I partied up with over the holidays! lol). Shady teams up with The Assassin and heads to the NP docks for an old-fashioned game of chase Shady around for 10 minutes. The Assassin falls quickly under an IGM storm from Osiris, which leaves Orcus to chase Shady around in circles. Unlike the giant in 'A Princess Bride' or the gladiator in 'The Life of Brian' (two analogies there- one for US and the other for UK), Orcus does not tire from chasing... instead he just gets more and more mad. After several KDs, lots of grt restores, and Simon's usual verbal abuse of "runners", Orcus smites Shady. True to form, Shady blames Osiris and wants to fight Orcus 1 on 1. (*footnote- this exact situation occurred before, and Shady always brings help). Little does dano know that Orcus was designed specifically to deal with Monk20/Cleric15/SD5 builds. Orcus agrees and after much waiting outside the UD sanctuary (while he buffs/rests/buffs again) Shady comes out and the throwdown ensues. In typical anti-climactic fashion, once Shady quickly realizes he has no chance against Orcus, he says "one min phone", and runs to the sanctuary. My next version of Orcus (currently under construction) will include Dev Crit. That will (hopefully) reduce the amount of chasing.

Cave of Tits.

This is exactly why nobody would let me DM a pen & paper DnD game.