Story Time – Chicken Mage

chicken-hatIn a discussion of encumbrance rules, we got onto how chalk is weightless according to D&D (and I will often buy 200 pieces of chalk at chargen just to wipe out my starting gold and mock the encumbrance system while I’m at it).

And from there, buying senseless cheap animals (guinnea hen, mongoose) in 2e was mentioned.

Well, along those lines is my Chicken Mage.

Essentially the first character I ever made in 3e, using that character builder program from WotC, I decided to make an elf wizard.

And after buying the tiny amount of gear I needed, I had about 10 gp left.

So I tried to find something else to buy, and came across the trade goods tab.  I bought a goat, and spent the rest on chickens.

But these were not useless, pointless chickens.  Oh no.

These chickens were to be used as spell components.

Chicken Mage: “Magic Missile!”

Chicken, being thrown: “Buckaw?” *whap*

CM: “Fireball!”

Chicken: “BUCKAAWWW!!!” *FWOOMF!*

I never got a chance to use the character, however.  We’re still not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

I’ll post more of my insanity in the future, for sure.  How about any of you?  Any crazy character concepts you never got to play and wish you had?  Or did you play them?

There are comments!  Use them! 😉

6 Comments

The Chatty DM  on December 26th, 2008

Ahhh yes, the chicken mage! I’d have loved to see you go for the Extra Crispy combo! :ninja:

My favorite NPC concept back in early D&D 3.5 was a halfing god of food.

His Holy symbol was an unending, always fresh roasted chicken leg and his weapon of choice was a mug of some spirit or other.

I once explained how the PCs in our game never had to eat by the fact that they did a great service to that cleric.

ironregime  on December 30th, 2008

I had a chicken mage when I was much younger, too. Instead of using them as spell components, I named each one (Abdul, Raoul, Night Chickee…) and managed to teach some of them tricks. Their little chicken brains could handle only about one trick each. Ah, good times, good times.

Graham  on January 1st, 2009

Both totally awesome, guys!

Keep em coming!

Sandrinnad  on January 10th, 2009

huh! I wonder what it is about chickens – one of my favourite longest running characters had a chicken companion who ended up following her through battles, time shifts, death….everything really 🙂

one I never did get to play but that sounded kinda fun (and kinda creepy) was for Heroes or Champions (can’t remember which) and had all her powers involving instantaneously created (and usually exploding) turtles. Just a cosmetic effect, but darn startling I imagine 😀 (I also can’t remember if we’d come up with a way to make invisible non-exploding ones, but if so that’d be pretty sweet 😉 )

Ishcumbeebeeda  on March 19th, 2009

Customization is one of the reasons that I still like D&D 3.5 better than 4.0. I like to play mid to high level campaigns so as to have room to play with templates and such that require LA. Some of my favorites have been Thak, the Half-Ogre Goliath Duskblade (so named because it is the sound that is made when he bitch slaps you), Onyx, my Half-Dragon Stonechild Dragon Adept, and the one I haven’t yet played, so I’ve forgotten if I’ve named him yet, the six armed two headed Goliath Sorcerer I think. I also like my Katane (sort of a Blade-ish part vampire) Watcher (half Gargoyle half Dwarf) who was a male Witch. Ahhh, he would be so fun to play….

Graham  on March 19th, 2009

While I do miss a bit of that as well, nothing about this character was 3e-specific. In fact, it wasn’t anything system-related that made him cool at all. I could just as easily remake him in 4e, 1e, or Shadowrun.

But level adjustment and the strangeness in balance that comes with that? And the utter cheapness of some combos like Half-Ogre Goliath?

No, I can’t say I really miss that all that much.

…well, maybe a little.

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