Best of 3E and 3.5

I had a halfling sorcerer named Pezzle in one campaign, and you could say he had impulse control issues. For example, the party was in some tiny, half-buried old fortress (or something like that, this was quite some time ago) and we came across a door with a barred window in the top of it. The regular-sized folks could look through it, and saw what looked like the coils of a giant snake. I convinced one of them to hold me up, and with my arms dangling through, I decided to cast Fireball at it, just to see what would happen. For the record, "what would happen" is that your party frantically exits the building, halfling in tow, to escape an inexplicably angry snake. >_> That was just an early episode in a campaign that ended with us causing the downfall of the entire pantheon of gods, pretty much by accident.

My favorite character from 3.5 was my Human Warblade Elenora. I typically play a spell caster and/or a social oriented character, so she was different for me.

Her story started with her stealing her father's armor and sword and traveling to the nearby town to join the military, which did not allow women to join. After besting two fighters in a row, she goaded (with gestures alone as she refused to remove her helmet or speak) the battle master who was testing the potential recruits into sending out a dire badger. Elenora narrowly won the battle and was recruited.

A short time later, she encountered the party as each was summoned by the king's steward. He selected various individuals who were not important enough to be missed, but useful enough to complete a difficult mission: Travel to the Dwarven lands, across the northern mountain range and speak with their leaders to obtain help in the coming war.

I loved to play this character because she had no knowledge of any of the creatures that we fought, but would come up with new names for them, like flying earth golems (Gargoyles), or Squid-faces (Illithids). She would always bravely push to the front of every battle, throwing aside caution for brazen glory, but was terrified of tiny spiders that landed in her hair. My DM even threw in a romance sub-plot with a Paladin (an officer for the enemy side of the war) which was a lot of fun for me.

It was a lot of fun, it was completely optimized and it was a character I will never forget.

Glordinauk "Graystone" Nural, a Shield Dwarf from Baldur's Gate.  Psion (Shaper), happy to use his abilities in the continuation of dwarven crafts, but very interested in figuring out how he came to have these abilities (and fears his ancestry may contain some Duergar corruption).

Lam, a Changeling Wizard.  The unknown 13th son of Alustriel Silverhand and the Doppelganger Phlynk.  His backstory at the start of the campaign was that he had been a fairly potent wizard, but a disastrous encounter with a pack of wights left his adventuring companions dead (or undead); he barely got out alive, and lost much of his gear and levels.  So now he's looking to refill the holes torn in his mind/soul... and tries not to get too frustrated when encountering situations which he could easily solve, if he could just remember!

Richard Oldeman, Human Psion (Shaper)/Constructor/Renegade Mastermaker.  A skilled sculptor who discovered his ability to create objects and creatures (astral costructs) with a thought.  Captured by evil cultists and forced to make statues for them, which they'd animate as clay, iron, and stone golems; forced to watch as they sacrificed his mother in one of their rituals.  Went a bit mad, and became convinced of the superiority of constructs over living beings, and of his own burgeoning divinity.  Adventured through the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.  Saved a group of hobgoblins one one adventure, who formed the core of his cult.  Eventually did become a quasi-deity (Divine Rank 0) of crafts (particularly armor, weapons, and other military crafts) and constructs.

Odokwarque, my Epic character.  Began as a Human Psion (Egoist), when last I played him he was a Doppelganger Psion (Egoist)/Chameleon/Mindpsy/WarShaper.  Favored the forms of Aberrations, Oozes, and Vermin; a favorite combat trick was to fly over someone as some sort of diminutive insect, then shift into a black pudding and fall on them.  He & his party traveled to many alternate worlds, including the Star Trek verse, where they fought the 'Borg.

Shujinko Sanako, Crab Clan Shugenja/Reibai Medium (Oriental Adventures/Rokugan).  Retired after a life of adventuring to tend to the shrine of Grandfather Mountain, and is quite happy doing so.  Tries not to dwell on how all her previous adventuring companions were either killed or corrupted by the forces of the Shadowlands.

The character I enjoyed most was Jack Sintelston, a Human Bard 7/Lore Master 5. He was completely focussed on knowledge and forseeing. His only function in battle was to analyse the enemy with his knowledge check and spells and shouting hints at the players. For the party he was also a free identifying machine... But they did use my castle and peons a lot. Jack had the Leadership feat and this had resulted in a giant flock of followers who wanted to learn from Jacks wisdom. His follower was a Dwarven Defender who kept Jack safe during battles, because he was rather poop in actual combat. He mostly did the healing and his only weapon was a defending longsword, keeping his AC up a bit.

So at some point we faced a lich in the Ethereal Plane. It got me with its paralysing touch, but then erected an Anti-Magic Field. The lich's touch being supernatural, it was surprised, but inside the Anti-Magic Field my sword wasn't magical, so couldn't hurt him. It was a rather uncomfortable situation. Of my four fellow party members (five if you count the defender) only one other was standing. Luckily he got the lich so far down that the lich died. Or so we thought. When riffling through the liches inventory to identify everything before plane-shifting back to the Prime Material Plane I stumbled upon a beautiful gem. The DM asked me to roll a Will saving throw, which I failed. He then took me apart and told me the lich switched his soul from in the gem with mine. So I could now play the lich, but I had to work to kill the party. The lich was a 17th level sorcerer, but completely out of spells at this point. So I decided to go with the party, pretend to be Jack and assault them when they (and mostly I) was rested and prepared, DURING the next encounter.

Then the next session: After a night of sleep, some preparation (selling off Jacks gear, because the armour was more restricting for a sorcerer than a bard and I needed some spell components) and an encounter with some city folk held at bay with a Repulsion, we went back into the adventure. We numbered seven total now, with me, my follower, the original four plus another party member that couldn't be there last session. We travelled back to the Ethereal Plane and continued after the liches chamber. Suddenly we saw two golems. Two of the more fighty character charged forward, my follower staying at my side and the other three starting to prepare buff and healing spells, I set off my plan. I cast Time Stop, followed by Prismatic Wall, cutting off the forward fighters from the back guard (and incidentally obscuring their vision), a Horrid Wilting (which we learned later wasn't possible, but meh) and a Pristmatic Ray. I took out all the support immediately, though one of them had a Contingency ready with Mass Cure Light Wounds, which put them all back on their feet (except the petrified banished cleric). The mage tried to cast a lightning spell on me, which was useless. I took out the healer with the paralysing touch. Then the mage cast a spell that did hurt a little bit, but I was miffed by the dwarf trying to get in my face. I took him out with a Feeblemind and the Mage died the round after to a Fireball.

Having taken out the support, I started buffing with Greater Invisibility, Reverse Arrows and Mage Armour. By that time the monk and the rogue had found a way to tunnel around my Prismatic Wall and a quick skirmish took place. I took out the monk and severely hurt the rogue. Then the rogue cast see invisibility on himself (Use Magic Device and a scroll nut). I got him down to 1 HP until he took out an arrow of greater undead slaying and fired it at me. At first we though Reverse Arrows would return it to him and slay him, but we found out just in time Reverse Arrows only works on non-magical arrows. Of course I failed my fortitude save.

Consequently... the rogue looted everyone and teleported away. He did leave one party member at a temple though, just to not be a complete jerk.

The faces of the party members when the Bard cast time stop though is what made this a memory for the ages.

In another post someone said my games sound awesome... so I thought I'd come back to share some stuff from a couple of the games I've ran or am running now in 3.5 that I'm kinda proud of.

The two games that are currently still considered "running" even though one is on an indefinite hiatus: "The Church Jerks" and "The Evil Game".

The Church Jerks game has had some change in players over time... it started with a paladin and her warlock twin brother and a gnome bard. As things evolved? That paladin is now a paladin/monk saint. Her twin brother was relegated to NPC status and became an antagonist that was eventually overcome and converted to good again. The gnome was lost to the ether. The most current roster of characters... the paladin/monk with leadership (straight class cleric cohort), half-celestial sorcerer, 1/2-elf bladesinger. These folks are rocking Exalted feats/spells... and they know how to use them. Area spells that don't hurt good-aligned folk? Area spell blinds all evil folk seeing the light (no save, no spell resistance) in a 1/2 mile radius? Everyone using Holy weapons? Yeah, these guys bring Lathander's light everywhere. They've got their own town with teleport circles to/from their home town and their home country's capital. They've defended the capital from an army of undead. They overthrew the paladin/monk's demon-dealing sorcerer father and wiped out the city of demons he was building.

The Evil Game started as a single-player game but expanded... so there is a noble Drow arcane and divine necromancer that gets to add her arcane and divine caster levels together for the purpose of necromancy spells and for the purposes of rebuking undead. She has Leadership and Undead Leadership... so a small town of drow and undead all to herself. There's a brother/sister pair of commoner drow composed of a single-class druid (that turns into dragons and continues to blast out druid spells like an arcane blast-sorcerer) and a drow/half-fiend fighter/rogue. There is also a human/were-rat swawshbuckler that gets up to 3 attacks of opportunity against anyone generating one while he threatens... and if he threatens you and you do anything but attack him AND miss, he gets those attacks of opportunity with his keen rapier that drains levels on crits. The party is rounded out by an illithid monk that has 4 tentacle extensions and used a wish to upgrade his "plane shift at will" ability to "plane shift greater at will". I'm just waiting for this group to go thermal... but so far each of them having an "out" is what keeps them working together. The illithid can planeshift at will, the wererat swashbuckler has boots of teleport, the drow has teleport on her own and a telepath with a vested interest in keeping her alive cohort to do some too, and the brother/sister pair... well the sister druid has her own transportation too, so they're good (he probably isn't but he's a male drow so who cares?).

Heh. It's called Church Jerks because they're holier than holy...

...but the phrase 'Church Jerks' itself? It comes from a Homer Simpson quote.

The scene? Sideshow Bob's 'funeral', the Simpsons walk into the church and...
Homer: I don't know about you, but I still can't stand him.
Homer's echo: Can't stand him... can't stand him.
(Everyone gasps)
Homer: I don't care about these church jerks!
Homer's echo: Church jerks... church jerks...
Marge: Homer, you're behaviour is heinous.
Marge's echo: Anus... anus... anus.