Asberdies Lives's page

In another post on these boards, a user mentioned carving a monster's lair out of Styrofoam using a set of foam cutting tools. My players were coming up on Glacier Season (issue 87), and Christopher West's rendering of the multi-tiered, jagged glacial lair of Acessiwal completely inspired me. I immediately purchased one of the tools and hit the Home Depot for a couple packs of foam sheets.

The session was an amazing success, with the players able to envision the effect of all of the various alcoves, shelves and spires. Afterwards, I stored the fairly large setting in my basement, doing no good to anyone. So I set up some minis, snapped some photos, and posted them in the hopes that someone else might be inspired to have more fun with the game.

Check them out if you get a chance:

http://www.rachelconstantine.com/glacier.html

In another post on these boards, a user mentioned carving a monster's lair out of Styrofoam using a set of foam cutting tolls. My players were coming up on Glacier Season, and Christopher West's rendering of the multi-tiered, jagged glacial lair of Acessiwal completely inspired me. I immediately purchased one of the tools and hit the Home Depot for a couple packs of foam sheets.

The session was an amazing success, with the players able to envision the effect of all of the various alcoves, shelves and spires. Afterwards, I stored the fairly large setting in my basement, doing no good to anyone (other than getting me to stare with pride, like my child just stuck out the other team's best hitter, every time I go downstairs to grab the vacuum). So I set up some minis, snapped some photos, and posted them in the hopes that someone else might be inspired to have more fun with the game.

Check them out if you get a chance:

http://www.rachelconstantine.com/glacier.html

So after a relatively easy go of Krathanos after an empowered enervate beat his spell resistance and wiped out his most powerful spells, the players are preparing to "silence the song of the Doomshroud Forest". Here is what I gather about the Twist: if you beat its song, you're in pretty good shape. If you also beat its fear-effect spells, like weird and phantasmal killer, it is essentially powerless given its speed.

The heroes will prepare with a Heroes Feast, which makes them immune to all fear effects. I believe that wipes out nearly all of the Night Twist's fun spells.

They plan on approaching in the midst of a silence spell, figuring this thing's song is not a good thing. They will also most likely have a holy aura in place, making them immune to compulsion / mind-affecting spells, which makes them immune to the song anyway.

Does that sound about right to you folks? Is this battle essentially over before it starts? My only hope is that they don't engage silence or holy aura until they see the enemy, and that will most likely be within the range of its song. But the thing doesn't have an amazing spot check, and as written, it should only sing at night.

Any suggestions?

Hey there kids. I just ordered the Critical Hit Deck, which looks like it will be an awesome way to spice up the game. As I read the sample cards online, I started thinking about how my rules lawyers might interpret some of these results. Specifically, the "Knockback" effect, which pushes the target 1-6 squares directly away.

Would this movement provoke attacks of opportunity from other combatants along the path of the creature knocked back? That seems a bit abusive, which goes beyond the intent of using the cards. But I can hear one specific player saying "so if it runs by me, I get an AOO, but if it is knocked by me, making it more defenseless, I get no AOO???"

And what if the target is flanked - would it be knocked through the flanker? Allow the flanker a Reflex save to duck or else he / she is knocked prone?

And what if the target is waaaay bigger than the attacker. Having the party's human barbarian knock Dragotha back 30' might be a little silly. Maybe it should only work against creatures up to one size category bigger?

Just trying to stay one step ahead of my players, so any advice or opinions would be fantastic.

Thanks!

Based on a house rule thread in here somewhere, I am considering a new feat that only allows results in the upper half of the die spectrum for cure and mass cure spells (i.e. a result of 1-4 would be re-rolled). Realistic prerequisites: cleric, able to spontaneously cast cure spells, healing domain.

Does that seem too powerful for a feat? If so, maybe require the cleric to spend a turn attempt to juice a cure spell, which would limit the number of times per day that it could be used?

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

I call upon the combined experience and wisdom of the Paizo board DMs! I'm running a campaign that I'd like to culminate in a Hell setting. The party is preparing for a huge war, and will ultimately track the enemy general (a devil prince leading an army of goblinoids / giants) back to its kingdom. The party will be 15th-16th level at that point, and I want to find an epic (not "Epic") adventure taking them across a plane of Hell and through the prince's stronghold.

I read the thread about everyone's favorite non-WOTC material, and realized how limited I've kept my D&D universe. Have any of you seen or played something (module or accessory) that would fit the bill?

I occasionally use a version of MapMaker that came with the old Core Rules Version 2.0 CD-ROM, and I think it's about time for an update.

I checked out Campaign Cartographer 2 in the Paizo store, but the screencaps (and my experience with CC 1) show the software to be very cartoonish. I want my maps to look realistic - I want the stone walls to look like real stone, the water to look wet, trees to look like trees, etc. Dundjinni (also in the Paizo store) looks pretty good.

There was also an older version of MapMaker that let the user do a first-person walk-through of a designed dungeon. I'd love that feature in a program with more sophisticated graphics.

What do you folks use? And to the folks at Dungeon Magazine, what did you use to create the maps for The Obsidian Eye in issue 120? They are absolutely incredible.

XOXO - Asberdies Lives

On a recent trip to England aboard British Airways, I was delighted to find that I had a choice of 8 movie channels to watch. One of the choices was 'Shaun of the Dead', a British romantic comedy centered around an infestation of zombies in suburban London. What followed was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, and an incredible zombie flick to boot.

I brought some friends to a free screening in Philadelphia last night, and was relieved to be able to laugh out loud without risking upsetting a small fleet of flight attendants and sleeping travelers. The director, writer, and star of the movie had a Q&A after the screening, and talked about how much they love the old Romero zombie flicks, which is completely obvious in their movie. The writer's first words to the audience were: "Who agrees with me? Slow zombies good, fast zombies bad?", which was met with a roar of approval from the packed theater.

If you are a fan of zombie (shambling, not kickboxing) movies, comedy, romance, drama, or England, see this puppy. The release date for the U.S. is September 24. Cheers!