2nd Edition Bard Character Sheet

In keeping with posting all of the interesting character sheets from the 2nd Edition Complete Handbooks; we continue bravely through the alphabetical list of character classes to Bards. Bards of course introduce as a playable class for a level 1 character in second edition, and weren't quite what we know them as today. They had thief skills like Climb walls and pickpocket, etc. They could cast a small amount of wizard spells (including the damage dealing kind) starting at level 2. And Bardic Knowledge was a little less powerful. Lets take a look at the sheet.

This is my first time actually looking at this sheet, but it seems pretty standard to what we have come to expect from them. The first page has a large focus on combat. Which makes sense: it is what you will be looking up the most. And given the jack-of-all trades nature of 2nd ed bards, combat won't be far behind them.

The second page is a list of your bardly abilities, including a section to bring the information from your kit onto this easily accessible page. The top is mostly devoted to handling your non-weapon proficiencies, with the bottom covering thieving skills, and spells. And racial abilties? That one seems out of place, but I guess they are grouping it with the rest of your character abilities.

I am not seeing any place to put my weapons proficiencies. But perhaps the ATK/Both/DMG section on the first page is designed to cover that.

The third page has your physical characteristics. I always love this part of the sheets, and was a little sad to see it pushed to the side in 3rd and 4th edition. Nice to see it making a bit more of resurgence in 5th ed. Anyways... here you have a space to record your personality, patron and reputation; underlined by a huge section for equipment. I would prefer a more detailed section for my followers, rather then all the space and info about my patron. But to each their own.

And of course the final sheet gives you all the space you need to properly record the information for your chosen character kit.

Not a bad sheet, but I am not sure it adds all that much to the usual 2nd edition sheet. And mine has a much large place for companions and followers.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

Carthen: From Hymns of a Vagabond

For my first (and soon to be second game) of Hymns of a Vagabond I played (will play) in my home town of Carthen.

To say it is a tiny village is some what of an understatement. Aside from farm houses in the surrounding country side, Carthen consists of 4 houses, a long house style tavern, an old Stone church, and a ring of stalls for the farmers to sell their wares.

It is a simple place, not the sort you would expect adventure to find. But times are changing. In my first game there were bandits, goblins, and even signs of a dark cult. Whatever happens next, my new character's simple life certainly take a turn.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

15mm Druid

For last week's round of JADE's 1st ed Campaign Ivershill, Matt decided that for his first go in a tabletop roleplaying game, he would play a Druid.  So after making his character sheet, I sat down and painted this 15mm Druid from Splintered Light Miniatures Warriors of Nature line.

In my first wave of 15mm fantasy miniature purchasing, I did not bother to get any minis for druids. It is just one of those classes that rarely sees action around our table.

It is not that we have any animosity for Druids or anything. It is in fact quite the contrary: Druids can become absolutely powerful characters! It is just that in most of our games a Druid Player Character doesn't fit the setting.

I often find that it can be quite difficult to keep Druid's in the party. The nature of their class tends to lead to a solitary woodland existence, and finding a reason for them to live their beloved woodlands can be difficult.

Since Ivershilll is just a small one-off scenario: an in depth character back story wasn't necessary, and Matt was able to explore the class unabated. Sadly his adventure was cut short when he was killed defending a farm form a ghoul. A noble death to be sure, but no less disheartening.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

#Characteroftheday Dice: Update

UPDATE: The dice are now available for sale here: https://jade-gaming.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/characteroftheday-dice

Wow! We had not suspected such an overwhelmingly positive response to our #characteroftheday dice! You guys are all awesome!

So to keep you as informed as possible here is an update with some more of your questions answered:


Q: When do they go on sale?

A: November 27th at 8:30 AM (Eastern Time Zone, UTC-05)


Q: How much will they cost?

A: They will cost 12.99 USD. Now remember our store is Canadian (as are we) so our prices will be listed in CAD (making it 17.25 CAD)


Q: Is there a Wholesale Price?

A: Yes there is. For anyone interested in purchasing 12 or more sets, you can buy them at 8.99 USD (12.00 CAD).


Q: What will shipping be like?

A: Shipping will be anywhere from $10-$20 CAD depending on how far away from our home town of Toronto you happen to live.


Q: Where can I get them?

A: You will be able to buy them from us on our store: https://jade-gaming.myshopify.com/


Q: What do I get when I buy a set?

A: When you buy a set you will receive all 4 #characteroftheday dice.


Q: How many sets do you have available?

A: We have just under 1000 sets available. It will be first come first come, but we plan to produce more when the need arises.


Q: What RPGs do they work for?

A: These dice are designed to work with D&D 3, 3.5 as well as Pathfinder.


Q: What are they missing to make them work with 5th Edition?

A: The race die is missing Tieflings and Dragonborn. And the Class die is missing Warlock.


Q: Are you guys making 5th edition dice?

A: Yes we are! But we need your help! Using our hopeful profits from the 3rd edition #characteroftheday dice we are planning on making a 5th edition set.


Q: Any ideas for other dice in the future?

A: Yes we are bursting with ideas! Aside from making 5th ed character dice we also plan on making 1st ed and 2nd ed as well. We are not making 4th edition... sorry? But you really need to start playing a better edition of this game. No excuses. We also have plans for loot dice, weapon dice, armour dice, and random encounter generators.


If you have any other questions, or ideas for more dice lets us know in the comments! And remember to buy your own set of #characteroftheday dice November 27th 2015!


Written by: Andrew Gregory

15mm Halfling Theif

For my D&D game last Friday I prepared this 15mm Halfling Thief for one of my players to use as her player character. I modelled the paint job off of her concept. While admittedly she was playing a gnome... At this scale there isn't much of a difference.

The mini itself comes from Khurasan Miniatures, and is part of their 15mm Fantasy line. I really like this halfling, she is just the perfect size! I often find that places make their halflings a little too big, so it is refreshing to see one the right proportions and with high detail.

I gotta say that I am finally getting the eyes down at this scale. It is still huge (and I mean huge) pain in the ass, but they just look awesome.

Playing small characters as thieves is a such a classic choice, as they often get bonuses to sneak, and their natural size AC modifier makes up for the light armour they are usually forced to wear. All in all a popular choice around this table.

I am hoping to get a couple more of these small folks to fill the my 15mm D&D miniature ranks. But in the mean time, she will have to do.


Written by: Andrew Gregory

Last Week With JADE: It's All About the Dice

Counting today there are only 5 more days until you can by your very own #characteroftheday dice! They will be available on November 27th from the JADE store on this very blog! They will cost 12.99 and we will be shipping worldwide!

You can get your very own set of these for 12.99!

With all the dice stuff happening so quickly, we haven't had a lot of time for games, but I did manage to play a round of Star Trek Attack Wing with my friend Wesley.

The Kreetcha VS the Hathaway

We decided to do a pairing, the Star Trek the Next Generation episode Peak Performance S02E21. I was in command of the Hathaway ( what with Constellation Classes being my favourite ship) and Wesley took Command of the Kreetcha: the first ship in his plans to create a Ferengi fleet.

It was a great battle! These ships are wonderfully matched, with a slight advantage on the Ferengi side since they have more useful abilities right out of the pack. Despite this handicap, I emerged victorious! Using some fancy flying I was able to back Wesley’s Ferengi marauder into one of the corners, and used by superior firing arc to hold him at a safe distance. In the end my ship took quite a pounding but I was able to take the day! So far it has been my favourite game!

Sorry Subbuteo! You will have to wait.

I had planned on having a Subbuteo tournament last week, but was unfortunately unable to get the board from my parents place. Its size makes it difficult to move around with any more then 1 passenger, and sadly it would not fit in the car this weekend.

That means that the next time I will be able to get it to my place will be after Christmas. So our Subbuteo Tournament will have to wait.

Next Week, Elijah and I are playing our first round of Sails of Glory: his most recently acquired miniatures game. I am really looking forward to it I have heard good things about it, and it will fulfil Elijah's love of Napoleonic Era Sail ships. I will keep you all posted with updates on how the game goes!

This coming Saturday I playing my next round of Hymns of a Vagabond: the First Edition Campaign my Cousin and I have been playing. I will of course be starting my new character... Since my last one died. I am very much looking forward to getting things back on track.

And of course, To say it again (because we are excited and can't say it enough): check back here November 27th and get your very own #characteroftheday dice!

And as always... Happy gaming!


Written by: Andrew Gregory

Nikki's 15mm Giant Snake

It has been a while since JADE's friend Nikki painted a mini, and she was feeling like it was time to pick up the brush again. The problem was that most of my minis I have for other people to paint are in 28mmm and since I was switching over to 15mm, it would mean that almost anything she painted would sit off to the side; only to be rarely used.

And that was when I remembered that I had this snake from RAFM's Call of Cthulhu Amazon set. After a quick check of the rules I realised that it could easily be used as a 15mm Giant Snake! With its purpose realised, it was ready to be painted.

She spent a while looking up patterns on different snakes, and figuring out how to match the pigmentation changes in their skin from back to belly. I think that the research really paid off. It is always a good idea to look up so reference, or at least inspiration for your painting. It will make you minis more life-like

The irregularity of the patches really gives the skin an organic feel, and I love the brightness of the orange. The colours makes it look tiger like and very deadly.

I am really looking forward to using this great mini in game. Even just playing around with this final picture was a ton of fun, and I am looking forward to battling it myself!

Written by: Andrew Gregory

2nd Ed Barbarian and Shaman Character Sheet

After looking over the Ranger Character sheet from the Complete Ranger's handbook, i decided that I want a digital copy of every Complete Character sheet I could get my hands on. I also wanted to share these digital copies with you guys so that everyone could have their own copy available!


There are two character sheets in the Complete Barbarian's Handbook, one for Barbarians and one for Shamans.

It is a pretty straight forward sheet, with a strong focus on your weapons choices.

The Shaman's sheet has much of the same focus, but also adds a large section for dealing with superstitions.

I also think the Barbarian's generic character sheet is pretty awesome. Having a place to record rations is really useful. Especially if your DM (like Myself) enforces that sort of thing.

Hope you enjoy these sheets and that they brighten up your 2nd Edition Games.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

15mm Female Barbarian

This mini from Khurasan Miniatures is fantastic example of how to do standard characters a little differently. Her fur attire clearly denotes her as being a barbarian, but rather than the usual axe/sword she wields a spear and shield, with what I am sure is the same ferocity.

For her fur clothes I wanted to make it look like she had skinned a wolf to make them, rather then my usual brown bear skin I make most fur I paint. I am really pleased with the result. I did it by doing dry brushed layers of greys, light browns and white.

Her eyes look a little better from a distance then from close up, but I am still pleased with their shapes. I am getting better at working with this scale.

I painted this barbarian with the idea that I could encounter her in a nearby crabbing village in My Cousin's campaign: Hymns of a Vagabond. Sadly I died before that happened, so perhaps my next character will get to meet her.

What ever she ends up getting used for I am sure that she will grace the table with luck and skill.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

Custom 1st Edition AD&D Character Sheet

At JADE we like our character sheets to be as comprehensive as possible and I have spent many hours searching the web for a suitable sheet that covers everything. Not just the basic stuff. I wanted to go into the advanced rules. I wanted to a place to record all of my info.

After scouring the web I found the sheet above, which came pretty close to having all I needed, but it was still missing some important information.

So I needed to make a few modifications. I first added a "weight carry" to the strength stat to the main page for a quick reference without the need to trun the apge over. I then removed the Psionic section at the bottom. I personally never use those rules so it was just wasted space. Using the room it freed up I added a larger special abilities page, a section to list your Non-Weapons Proficiencies, a section for honour and finally a spot for comeliness. Essentially I added place to record all of the advanced rules that you need to keep track of.

I find it a much more useful sheet then the standard sheet, and I highly recommend using it!

There are two other pages to the sheet as well, that I did not change, but you can of course get them here none the less!

I hope you like these sheets! If you would like to use them for yourself, save them to your desktop and enjoy!

2019 Edit: So everyone has complained that these images are too low res.

Here is a link to the first page and here is a link for everyone to view the second and third page which we did not change.

Enjoy everyone! And let me know what those comeliness scores are! For Flint, mine is a whopping 17!

Written by: Andrew Gregory

15mm Goblins 1

For my first 15mm fantasy monster, I decided to go with something a little bit more utilitarian than some of my stranger creatures. Goblins are one of the more classic monsters in the game and they make for a wonderful low level foe.

These guys come from 15mm Co, and you get 16 for about $10. Great deal, and about as many as you need.

I regularly use goblins at the start of my campaigns. I think they are a good lower level monster as they can easily be tied to something larger, or left behind in the journey as nothing more than a local phenomena. And that is exactly how we used these guys.

In the recent Hymns of a Vagabond campaign, three of these creature made up my first encounter, that myself and two others defeated: taking only light wounds. The only problem with using goblins in campaigns, is that the higher level your players get, the more of them you will want, and at basically any other scale the cost of it makes it impossible.  Thankfully 15mm is nice and cheap.

After painting these guys, I am not totally sold on them as my go to goblins. so I may end up looking else where. It is not that they are low quality or anything, but rather they just seem a little tall for goblins. Perhaps they would be better as Hobgoblins?

I am sure we will see these guys on the table again and again, and in greater numbers as I paint the remaining 12!

Written by: Andrew Gregory

Raiek Elden is Dead: a Hymns of a Vagabond Campaign Update

For months now, Adam and I have talked of starting our epic 1st edition AD&D Campaign: Hymns of a Vagabond. In it I would take a single level 1 character from a meagre beginning and try as hard as I could to grow them into a great hero of legends; using all of the expanded 1st edition rules.

After many hours of preparation on our parts (from miniatures painting to story writing), we finally played our first game. It started very strong: I was interacting with NPCs, my roleplay was on point, the story was interesting and compelling. Everything you want out of a D&D game. I even managed to survive two seperate fights taking a goblin and three bandits our in the process. But my great usccess was not without its high price. As I delivered to the killing blow to one of the final bandits, he had mortally wounded me as well... and I fell in the field as my three other comrades slew the final bandit.

And so it turned out that after all of our preparation, Hymns of a Vagabond ended on the first game.

Adam and I were a little devastated. We had put a lot of work into things, and so we desperately searched the rules for some way of resurrecting Raiek. But sadly aside from some incredibly rare artifacts or a level 16 cleric (none of these we had) it seemed impossible. Raiek was dead. He died saving his village Carthen from Bandits.

With the only player character in the game dead, we were a little at a loss for how to proceed. We figured I might die early on in this adventure, but neither of us thought it would be this early in the game. But being RPG gamers, we new there was only one thing to do: roll up a new character. And that is what we did for the rest of the evening as we discussed his back story, and relation to Carthen. Adam figured he needed a week or two to write the next stages of the game and work my character into Carthen as the story unfolds around Raiek's death.

So meet my new character:

That's right... Using the same mini.

His full name is Aeklius Flint, but he just goes by Flint. He is the the son of a gravedigger in Carthen, and much more of an outcast than Raiek was. The unusual nature of his profession He was in a rather unsavoury profession (Gravedigger) and belongs to a different religion than most of the town. And though having grown up there the people of Carthen never fully trusted him or his father.

The next game will pick up with myself, digging Raiek Elden's grave... and I am sure will spiral out of control from there.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

#CharacterOfTheDay Dice: FAQ

Update the #characteroftheday dice are now available here: https://jade-gaming.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/characteroftheday-dice

For more than a year now, we have been promising to bring you guys our own #characteroftheday dice, and I am pleased to say that we have done it! We have the dice produced and are ready to share them with the world.

It has been so long that I am sure you all have questions so I figured I would answer some of the most common ones that I have received.


Q: Why the 12 day count down?

A: There are still a few odds and ends we need to get sorted before we can put the dice up for sale, and we need the time to do that.


Q: When will they be on Sale?

A: Friday November 27th 2015.


Q: Where can I buy them?

A: they will be available through the JADE store: https://jade-gaming.myshopify.com/


Q: How much will they cost?

A: One set will cost $12.99 USD + S&H.


Q: Where will you ship to?

A: We are shipping from Toronto Canada, and will ship world wide!


Q: What Games do the dice work with?

A: They are designed to work seamlessly with Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition and Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. They can work with other versions of D&D but will either be missing or adding classes and races to that edition.


Q: Will you be making other dice in the future?

A: Yes! we plann to create a whole line of character building and Dungeon Mastering dice to help you make decisions in your RPG's on the fly, in any edition.


I hope that answers all your questions! If you have any others I will be happy to answer them in the comments below, and keep your eyes peeled for the different characters of the morning, day and night.

Written by: Andrew Gregory

Last Week with JADE: #Characteroftheday and Heroclix

As I am sure many of you have seen by now on our twitter account (@jadegmaingnews) we have rolled our first #characteroftheday dice you using JADE's very own dice. We finally have them produced and are ready to show them off to the world.

Last week we spent a lot of time preparing things for the dice. There were quality checks to be done on the packaging and dice, advertisements to make, and plans to lay in place. It has been a very exciting time for JADE and I am proud to reveal the very first #characteroftheday rolled on JADE's very own dice:

There will be more news about the dice coming today on the blog and on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account. Follow along there for details.

And for those curious, the last roll of the old #characteroftheday dice from Chessex was this:

Fairwell old dice. You served us well!

On the games side of JADE there were also some exciting developments! I pleased to say that my cousin Adam and I finally started our epic 1st edition Campaign: Hymns of a Vagabond. In it I take a single level 1 character from a meagre beginning and try as hard as I could to grow them into a great hero of legends; using all of the expanded 1st edition rules. I will give you all an update later in the week of how that game went.

JADE also recently decided to check out DC Comics Heroclix, and just completed our first order:

Too much?

That is of course myself, Dave and Elijah's clix combined, but it does look impressive. We will see how we find the game, I haven't heard the greatest things about the system, but Dave and I really love DC Comics, so I am sure it will be grand!

After gawking at our new minis for a while and packaging a few #characteroftheday dice, we decided we would try out a new game I recently got for my Birthday a month back: Munchkin Conan. Shockingly none of us had ever played Munchkin before. Strange I know with it being such a classic!

We all loved it, and played two rounds with Dave taking the first and myself taking the second. I am looking forward to trying it again with more than 3 people!

The week ahead brings us ever closer to the sale of the dice, and of course closer to the games! This week we have Portal The uncooperative Game of Cake Acquisition, Subbuteo and a game of 1st ed AD&D in Ivershill scheduled. Should be a good week.

Written by: Andrew Gregory