Gnomish Mage

About Me

• Location: Wellington, New Zealand
• Time Zone: NZT/NZDT (GMT + 12/13)
• Age: 63

Play Style (as a player or GM)

• Pretty relaxed and happy to play with players of any experience level.
• Like RP/Exploration/Combat just about as much as each other and definitely prefer to have all three present in a game.
• Not a rules lawyer, but do prefer playing Rules As Written.
• Never allow UA or Homebrew races and classes in games I run, and prefer playing in games where the same applies.

What I like about TTRPGs

• Meeting new friends and killing stuff together. ;-)
• The unscripted nature of the game. Anything is possible with the right mix of imagination and collaboration.
• It's about the story, it's always about the story. Even when I play CRPGs I rarely play them on extreme difficulty because it's about the story.
• Those YES! moments.

Pet Peeves

• Hogs who try to win at D&D. They hog the attention, the microphones, the conversation. We've all met them.
• Players who tell other players that they're not making the optimal choices for their characters or that they're making mistakes. Some of the best moments come from non-optimal choices, and making sure that the rules are applied is the GMs responsibility.
• Players who are unprepared and don't know their characters, or take ages to decide what they're doing in combat.
• Min/maxers and murder hobos.

Favourite Moments with Favourite Characters

Gupsparkle Best - Svirfneblin Wizard

In a Curse of Strahd game he learned the secrets both to becoming a vampire and to becoming a lich. At the end of the game he decided to become a lich.
His close friend in the party was a paladin, and the interaction between the two as Gupspakle's alignment changed - due to bad choices, unfortunate circumstances, and adverse luck - from Neutral Good to Neutral Evil was epic!
During our next campaign the player who had played the paladin now played a goblin warlock whose patron was The Gupsparkle.

Brevis Facultus - Human Sorcerer

In our Out of the Abyss campaign I had to miss a session and sent the group a strategy guide for how to play Brevis as they planned an ambush on 2 demon lords. The feedback was great with one of the players saying it was one of their most memorable sessions as Brevis took out both demon lords and most of their minions almost single-handedly by following the planned strategy. It's a crying shame that I missed it.

• On the first available opportunity Brevis will cast Blink on himself.
• Brevis has to stay within 60' of Yeenoghu to use Counterspell (2@3rd level, 3@4th level). He won't use his reaction for anything else. He should be able to cast this even if Blinked to the ethereal plane as he can see what is going on on the material plane and sight appears to be the only restriction on Counterspell.
• Wall (Shield Guardian) has a Storm Sphere spell stored which will go off on its first turn to hit as many smaller minions as possible. This is what Brevis will be concentrating on. Brevis will use the Careful Spell metamagic option to give the lowest STR/best melee damage dealering allies automatic saves against the required STR save for the Storm Sphere at the ends of their turns (1/11 sorcery points used).
• Brevis will use Synaptic Static spell to take out as many small minions as possible using the Heightened Spell metamagic option (4/11 sorcery points used) to target Yeenoghu and counter the almost certainty of magic resistance. The second 5th level casting of this is saved for the battle against the victor of the Yeenoghu/Baphomet battle, again with the Heightened Spell metamagic option (7/11 sorcery points used).
• Wall will go in for melee attacks until he drops below 70HP at which point he will go back to Brevis to regenerate HP (10 HP/round), and return to melee once he gets back up to 140 HP. Rinse and repeat.
• The 6th level Disintegrate spell will be saved for the winner between Yeenoghu and Baphomet. Average damage for this spell is 57 HP if the DEX save is made and 75 if it is not, so wait until the target is at around 1/8th health (assuming 400HP for Demon Lords). Use the Heightened Spell metamagic option to negate magic resistance (10/11 sorcery points used).
• The remainder of the time it will be the the Ray of Frost cantrip as an action and the lightning attack from the Storm Sphere spell as a bonus action.
• If required 2nd level spell slots can be converted to 2 sorcery points each as a bonus action instead of the Storm Sphere lightning attack, but this shouldn't be necessary.
• If required, he will use a teleportation charge to take a fallen comrade to a relatively safe spot within 60' of the current demon lord target. If all Counterspell slots have been used, then perhaps further away.
• Of course, everything could go pear-shaped very quickly and this could all change.

... and there are so many more memorable moments!