Bellona's page

<Casts Thread Necromancy.>

I've gone through the errata and have also taken a look at a couple of "error-finding" pages, but I'm still puzzled about the errata's changes to the orange, purple, and yellow dragons' breath weapons, as well as the ice demon's ice blade attack.

Have the dragons' breath weapons been "nerfed" to only doing damage (and disregarding secondary and/or alternative effects)? Or am I misunderstanding the errata?

Why are the ice demon's two-weapon attack bonuses (with its ice blades) identical? Shouldn't the second weapon's attack bonus be at a lower value because it's the off-hand? Or am I missing something obvious here?

Some (hopefully official) answers would be appreciated, as these particular monsters could star in an upcoming adventure for my players.

I've seen even published products messing up the "hoard" vs. "horde" issue. It can lead to some very funny sentences! :)

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I want what everyone DM wants from these fights. One PC to survive with 1 hp, and then they get the giant horde and raise everyone else.

I sincerely hope that you meant "the enormous hoard", and not a massive throng of giants! :)

Good luck on accomplishing your aims for that battle. Please let us know how it turned out.

I would also suggest Dungeon 30, specifically the adventure "Thiondar's Legacy". Some of the backstory may have to be tailored to your campaign, though.

To answer some previous posters' questions - and maybe generate more ...

Fiend Folio has three prestige classes for outsiders with the Evil subtype: Fiend of Blasphemy (specialising in creating cults), Fiend of Corruption (contracts, etc.), and Fiend of Possession. All three classes have only six levels.

Fiendish Codex 1: Hordes of the Abyss then turns the Fiend of Possession concept into an optional "extra" which can be added along with a CR +2 adjustment to a basic fiend (min. 4 HD and Cha 13). While the section heading reads "Demonic Possession", the language in the section uses the more generic word "fiend" exclusively (as far as I can tell). This leads me to believe that the intent was to allow non-demons (such as devils) access to this ability - regardless of their real world mythological bases. Maybe James Jacobs and/or Erik Mona would care to comment on this?

As previously noted by another poster, the Loumara subtype of demons are all incorporeal. As far as I know, the only Loumaras are listed in the FC 1 (dybbuk and guecubu) and in Dragon 359 (manitou).

Also AFAIK, the shadow demon only appeared in its 3.0 version in the Book of Vile Darkness. A 3.5 version (the Shadow Fiend) appeared in the 3.5 Ravenloft monster book (Ravenloft - Denizens of Dread). There may be other OGL versions, of course!

My mind is reeling at the sheer nastiness here - but also taking copious notes for later use. :)

*nods* Thank you for your input gentlemen.

I'm still working on digesting the rules. As it stands I took my (human) bonus feat in Skill Focus, UTF.

I just still find it funny looking at the class and Ep 1 "We have sent two Jedi as diplomats." "They aren't trained in diplomats, but we sent them anyway."

Qui Gon: "I'm not a trained diplomat, but *waves hand* we're going to sit down and you agree with me."

Take two Jedi Consular talents from the Core rules (Adept Negotiator followed by Force Persuasion), and Qui-Gon Jinn would have been a handy diplomat without needing the Mind Trick power to back it up.

Of course, this could just start me ranting on why the <expletive deleted> the Jedi Consular, Jedi Guardian, and Jedi Sentinel talent trees are only available to the Jedi base class, and not to the Jedi Knight and Jedi Master prestige classes too.

<somewhat off-topic>

With regard to the feat name, I'm suddenly reminded of a series of articles in the April Fool issues of Dragon some years back. They went under the title of "Bard on the Run".

Thank you to everyone who answered! :)

Basically, I just wanted to be sure that we didn't overlook something obvious. Your points are valid, and very helpful.

In a recent game session, we had a Sorcerer use the Dimension Step spell (PH2) to let another character escape from the grasp (grapple) of an Assassin Vine. Dimension Step is from the Teleport subschool of Conjuration magic.

The DM ruled on the fly that it worked that time, but said that similar situations in the future would depend upon any errata, etc. found. The same questions can be raised with regard to spells like Dimension Door, Teleport, etc., as well as characters who are manacled to dungeon walls, fellow prisoners, and the like.

Can anyone point me at some errata, FAQ, or something similar which can clear up this issue? I've already checked the Main FAQ for 3.5 at WotC, and didn't find anything which seemed to answer the question.

Does anyone have any logical houserules to cover situations like this?

Bellona, you are awesome, I don't care with everyone says about you. ;-)

These are all great ideas, that assassin on board is gonna cause some havoc. I suppose there is no reason why I couldn't use the same exact stat block as Rowyn for the assassin.

Why, thank you, kind sir! <Wonders paranoidly what others are saying about me.> :)

Anyway, good luck with giving them hell on the trip. I take it that you've already looked at the ending and made your own decision as to how to handle it? There have been a couple of good threads on this board about the final storm, etc.

You had the cabin boy deliver their belts? O lawks a mussy! Bad Turin! Bad!

Spoiler for confused persons...

** spoiler omitted **

Argh! My search-fu is weak today. Where precisely is this described, please?

Didn't Turin run two different parties through the STAP, and if so, did both get their own campaign journal on these boards?

Thanks for that PHB price, I hadn't seen that. I completely agree that this is very expensive. My players want to keep finances independent of Lavinia, but I suppose Lavinia/Meravanchi's would be subsidizing them. That's a good bit of gold to pay the players though. I'm having around 13 passengers, that'd be about 4,000 gp. The players would have to pay their own crew, but that is pennies (2-5sp per WEEK per crewmember) compared to the income from passengers. There's gotta be a way to make the profit come waaay down, like costs for supplies and such. I wish there were more detailed rules for shipboard economies!

Aside from the cost of supplies, you can have the not-too-uncommon problem of shipboard vermin eating away at their food supplies (unless the party remembers to buy a cat). Another way to bleed their profits would be Rowyn's sabotage efforts - not necessarily "Oh no, the ship's about to go down!" (after all, Rowyn wants to survive too), but a constant irritant which just siphons off that much more money from the party coffers. Or how about paying "toll"/tribute to the Crimson Fleet en route to the Isle of Dread?

Or Lavinia could persuade the party to invest in Farshore themselves. That would just add that much extra personal investment (in addition to the monetary one) in the colony.

And if you're feeling really aggressive while DM'ing and happen to off a character or two during combat, well those Raise Dead spells/scrolls/components aren't exactly cheap ...

Great for a sea battle, warmage captain? I don't know how to optimize Warmages.

(Repeating and adding on to something which I posted in another thread.)

I would aim for either the Stormcaster or the Sea Witch prestige classes (Stormwrack), and use such feats as Ship's Mage, Storm Magic, and Steam Magic (same source). The Aquatic Spellcasting feat (Lords of Madness, the aberration splatbook) could also be useful, but I would houserule a hefty pre-requisite for that one (like 9 or more skill ranks in Spellcasting, and possibly Knowledge/Nature too).

The fact that the base class is a Warmage will add some complexity to the build. Make good use of PH2's Eclectic Learning alternative class feature to allow the Warmage to gain the non-Warmage spells which are pre-requisites for the above-mentioned two prestige classes. Or consider multi-classing to Sorcerer (or whatever) to fulfill some requirements.

And load up on skills and feats suitable for a sea-going profession.

Thanks. I just looked at it again and agree with you.

What do you think would be a fair price for passengers to Farshore? I laborer costs 1sp per day to hire for a ship, a ships cook about 2sp and a ships officer 5sp. Would it be fair to say 2sp per day per passenger, so 3 months worth is 180sp? It can't be too much different than pay for a sailor, except for supply/demand, of which I guess there is less supply for ships going to Farshore. Passengers with more than personal cargo would cost more.

I couldn't find any info in the SWW from a quick skim, but here are some suggestions:

According to the PHB, in the equipment chapter under Spellcasting and Services, ship's passage costs 1 sp/mile (double that for creatures that are larger than Medium or otherwise difficult to bring on board). The voyage is slated to be over 3,000 miles, which would come out to a cost of over 300 gp/passenger.

That's a steep price for regular folks (who are on the silver standard anyway, not the adventurer's gold standard). I would suggest that Lavinia has some system in place, where she subsidises all or part of the travel costs in return for a commitment to the colony of Farshore (e.g., 10 years of residence). She might also subsidise the cargo costs for bulky/heavy equipment needed by useful craftsmen/whatever.

Avner and his horse, on the other hand ... there is no reason why the PCs couldn't overcharge him for Thunderstrike's passage (i.e., more than 600 gp). Or Avner, for that matter - but then he'd better get that private cabin for himself and his servants! :)

I'm sure that some of the other STAP threads have more ideas, so take a look there too.

Might be a little irrelevant with most of the discussions here ; but what did you think of the Sea-wolves in Stormwrack?

Lame or good idea?
(remember the sea-lion and sea-cat?)

I thought it was kind of uninteresting. Were-wolves, fine. But sea adventures should have things like were-sharks, were-squid, were-dolphins, etc. A were-wolf-seal, a bit lame.

yeah..especially the fur-underwater thing.

on a brighter note:In greek the word for salt dog(or sea dog) is sea-wolf xD

PS:I found a kick-arse kit for a seamage (adnd though)in one of my old dragon issues,but I don't seem to find anything close to that in 3.5. Conversion time?

The sea-wolf was most likely just meant as an update from earlier editions (I known that I have their earlier stats somewhere). That was the nifty thing about some of the splatbooks - seeing old monsters updated to the new edition. As to how useful/logical some of those monsters are - that's a whole different subject! :)

With regard to the Sea-Mage:
I would aim for either the Stormcaster or the Sea Witch prestige classes (Stormwrack), and use such feats as Ship's Mage, Storm Magic, and Steam Magic (same source). The Aquatic Spellcasting feat (Lords of Madness, the aberration splatbook) could also be useful, but I would houserule a hefty pre-requisite for that one (like 9 or more skill ranks in Spellcasting, and possibly Knowledge/Nature too).

carborundum wrote:

Or guys... after a bit of genderbending belt action :)

Ah yes, I should not have forgotten about the cabin boy's contribution to the mayhem.

Makes an innocent face

?!?

<other stuff>

Also, the cargo capacity from the SWW I think may not line up with the info in StormWrack. Where did the info (tonnage, etc) for this come from?

Thanks,

I had a problem with the math too, until I read the relevant section more carefully.

According to Stormwrack, a caravel has 120 tons of cargo space (p. 98).

According to SWW (Dungeon 141, p. 20), the Sea Wyvern - as a caravel - has 120 tons of cargo capacity:

60 tons of supplies for Farshore

60 tons for ship supplies/other stuff,
_of which_ 10 tons are ship repair supplies, and another 10 tons are food/water/miscellaneous supplies for the ship's passengers/crew, which leaves 40 tons for the PCs to use (although Avner's horse might take 10 tons out of that 40)

So that makes 80 (or 90) tons accounted for, and 40 (or 30) for the PCs to use (although Lavinia would like to use that for more colony supplies). Which equals 120 tons in total.

Does anyone know when this sourcebook will become available again? (I'm crossing my fingers that it's not out of print or anything like that.)

For undetectable potion-quaffing, I would recommend an opposed Sleight of Hand/Spot check.

Thanks for the replies. I have ruled out savage tide now because as a group we found shackled city to long and now age of worms is starting to drag !

I have red hand of doom so will consider that. I like to play in forgotten realms so should be able to convert some old modules to start with. Although it is not realms specific like the cormyr, shadowdale, anauroch modules it appears a better written module so that looks favorite.

Am still going to have a go at converting the temple of evil, slave lords, giants etc modules but we will probably be on 8th edition by the time I finish !

IIRC, there is specific info in Red Hand of Doom for placing it in the Realms (somewhere in the South, like just south of the Shaar).

Yet more congratulations from over here!

Unfortunately, it will probably take me at least another year before I can even _begin_ to run the STAP. <sighs> (I have too many other campaigns on the front burner right now.)

Hi

I am currently running my group through age of worms after previously doing shackled city but as we are nearing the end I am wondering what to do next My options are as follows :

1 continue with the adventure paths and do savage tide - was my 1st choice but am now thinking I would like a change from long story plots plus I would have to buy it first !

2 Convert the Randel Morn trilogy to 3.5 then run cormyr, shadowdale, anauroch series.

3. Convert the timeless classics temple of elemental evil, slavelords , giants spider queen super module - would be great but very time consuming would need alot of editing to run as a campaign.

4. Convert a host of 2nd edition modules, hall of the hifg king. haunted halls, dungeon of death etc.

Any advice on what i should run because at the moment I am changing my mind daily !

It all sounds interesting! :)

Choice 1 will be a long haul - you will probably want to re-charge your DM-ing batteries with something short and sweet before getting into the Savage Tide AP. But _do_ buy the relevant issues of Dungeon - plus Dragon for the "Savage Tidings" article series which supports the STAP - as some/most are unavailable as .pdf documents, and the licensing issues involved will not allow them to be re-printed.

If you go with choice 3, some of the work has already been done for you in published 3.x supplements. I believe that there exists a 3.0 version of the Temple of Evil (a sort of "Twenty Years Later" deal). D3's Erelhei-Cinlu was updated to 3.5 in Drow of the Underdark. Q1's Demonweb was updated to 3.5 in Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (although with a different plot and finale).

The description of Dagon's symbol is cunningly hidden in the Demonomicon article in Dragon 349. It's on page 36, in the paragraph just above the Thrall of Dagon section. I keep having trouble finding it myself, and I _know_ that it's there!

I'm currently running my group through SWW and instead of the first fort that you come to I have changed it to the module The last breaths of Ashenport from Dungeon 152. Its available on wizards site free. Very excellent module heavily involving a Dagon cult.

Its for 6th level but scaling it down shouldn't be a problem.Also incidentally the module has a makeover into 4th ed in dungeon 156 which is also available for free at wizards. I found the skill challenge info in the 4th ed version gave me some more insight on the situation + the art is better which is good for handouts.

I've skimmed briefly the 4e version of Ashenport, and it looks as though they beefed up some boss encounters which were a bit weak in the 3.5 version (at least when I ran it). This is a good thing in my view, and could easily be incorporated into the 3.5 version.

Nefaste (NE male human true necromancer 20)

Was he a single-classed Dread Necromancer 20 (20-level base class lich-wannabe from Heroes of Horror), or a multi-classed combination like a Cleric/Wizard/True Necromancer (14-level Mystic Theurge-like prestige class from Libris Mortis)?

Bad luck on the TPK, by the way! Although some GMs seem to aim at that ...

IIRC, the neogi section in Lords of Madness has some paragraphs about pricing slaves.

Combat Expertise... add +21 to my AC

Is this an epic/upgraded version of the Combat Expertise feat? The one in the PHB is limited to max. +5 to AC.

I'm a player in second darkness with a gnome illusionist with Spell focus/greater spell focus, spell penetration with an abberrant heritage. I'm looking for good prestige classes, feats or spells that might fit well within the campaign and for my character. Any ideas?

I don't have any aberrant-related suggestions (is it the Lords of Madness type of heritage, or something Pathfinder-related?). However, I can list a few possibilities for the gnome and/or illusionist side of things.

Unearthed Arcana (reproduced in the SRD) has some illusionist variants. If you're not attached to the idea of your character having a familiar, or certain other class features, then you can find some pretty interesting alternative class features there.

I would suggest that you look at Races of Stone. It has some specific class substitution levels for a gnome illusionist (levels 1, 5, 10), plus the Shadowcraft Mage prestige class (5 levels, full spellcasting). Remember to take a look at the feats in that book.

Complete Mage has the Master Specialist prestige class, which is useful (10 levels, full spellcasting). You might also like to look at reserve feats in that book (take the right ones, and you get a boost to caster level for certain categories of spells).

Don't overlook the Archmage prestige class in the DMG.

While illusions can be great fun to play with, remember to keep some spells on hand to deal with spell resistant foes, or those who are simply immune to mind-affecting magic.

Also, the Sorcerer's familiar can get the fiendish template - without having to become evil. That should be enough to scare the kids away! :)

And if you want to make someone's head hurt do it with lawful neutral and get a lantern archon as your familiar...

Yes, that would indeed make my head hurt as a DM! I think that that particular sort of familiar would protest! :)

(Technically, IIRC, the familiar getting the fiendish template is an optional class feature.)

If the character ever shifts from CG to CN, she could take levels in the Fiend-Blooded prestige class from Heroes of Horror.

It's a 10-level class, poor BAB, good Will saves, gains +1 caster level each level except for L 10. Among the many nifty class features is one which adds an additional spell known at each even-numbered level (any spell with the fire descriptor or from the schools of enchantment, illusion, or necromancy) - great stuff for a Sorcerer, who per definition has a limited number of spells known. And those spells need not be arcane spells ...

Also, the Sorcerer's familiar can get the fiendish template - without having to become evil. That should be enough to scare the kids away! :)

The aberrations supplement, Lords of Madness, has a short bit on pricing slaves in the section on the neogi (pp. 100-101).

As another poster has already mentioned, there are many factors involved. However, the base method was as follows:

cost = (CR, minimum 1)squared, x 100 gp

<other good stuff>

The Golden Purse
Appearance: Quaint, full-service brothel able to fit almost any regular request
Truth: Business of debauched old gnome illusionist. All girls are actually him in disguise.
Reason to Patronize: Prostitutes generally sell illusion anyway. Here it's purer that most. And the amazing collection of illuminated manuscripts is real.

<ROTFL>

Out of curiosity, what is your party's line-up? What little you wrote certainly describes an oddball collection of characters.

"RBDM"?

Rat Bastard Dungeon Master

Thanks! :)

"RBDM"?

Yes, that's another good feat. (I know that there are a number of "multi-class friendly" feats out there in splat-book land, but am too lazy to look them up right now!)

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I think it may be Druid only (its certainly sub-optimal, with the loss of wild shape progression...) but the Arcane Heirophant from Races of the Wild may be worth looking into.

I too thought that the Arcane Hierophant was a Pr.Cl. only for Druid/arcane spellcaster combinations, but a closer look reveals another possibility. (This is more in the nature of a theoretical exercise than a serious "character optimization" suggestion.)

The main stumbling block for the pre-requisites is the Trackless Step class feature - something which the Druid alone possesses among the core base classes (at Druid 3). However: the Scout base class (Complete Adventurer) gets Trackless Step at Scout 3, so the OP could consider some combination with a Scout. Scouts have the advantage that they have similar skills to (and more of them than) Rangers.

Another potential stumbling block is the ability to cast L 2 divine spells (there is also a L 2 arcane spell pre-requisite, but the Sorcerer side can take care of that). Rangers don't gain access to L 2 divine spells before Ranger 8.

Theoretically one could end up with something like this combination: Ranger 8 / Scout 3 / Sorcerer 4 / Arcane Hierophant 5, with some useful feats like Practised Spellcaster (Sorcerer). The final spellcasting would then be as per Ranger 13 / Sorcerer 9, but the _effect_ of the Sorcerer's spells would be at caster level 13. The Ranger's animal companion would acquire some aspects of a familiar. The character would also be able to cast arcane spells in non-metallic light or medium armour. I would recommend the archery combat style for that combination, as the HD would not be on a par with those of a front-line tank. There are most likely some more feats which would improve such a combination's effectiveness.

If the character goes into epic levels, the last 5 levels of the Arcane Hierophant would tack on 5 more spellcasting levels to both the Ranger and the Sorcerer sides for a final result of Ranger 18 / Sorcerer 14 (but the effects of the Sorcerer's spells would be at caster level 18).

Master of the Yuirwood from "Unapproachable East"?

Oooh - good idea! Thanks for reminding about that Pr.Cl.

<starts to consider how to add something like that to own campaign in that region>

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Unless you got one of the two special feats that let you cast spells with grunts instead of words you aren't casting anything though (an example of this actually coming into play would be a sorcerer with the feat from planar handbook that lets you cast spells using noise instead of words). With those feats a sorcerer would still remember casting in the past and could conceivably do so while enfeeblemind... but tactical choices about the spell are probably out.

I believe that the whole point of casting Feeblemind on a foe is to make that foe incapable of casting spells. If one's spellcasting stat falls below 10, one cannot even cast cantrips/orisons. (10 allows access to L 0 spells, 11 allows access to L 1 spells, 12 allows access to L 2 spells, etc.)

I think that this is a good idea, so thanks for posting your list of questions! It will give me a more concrete list of possibilities to present to a newly assembled group.

Out of curiosity, how did you expect your players to answer, and what did they _actually_ say?

So, which character's player is leaving?

Edward, who played Alcove and Giles. He also played Breca in my Savage Tide game for anyone who read that journal.

His characterizations will be sorely missed!

(And my compliments to Edward for running Breca, a character who survived the entire STAP - granted, with at least two in-combat-but-not-permanent personal fatalities.)

The Baron's link looks interesting, and that web page has a short summary of some rules from DMG2 for fighting in a burning building. However, I would recommend also looking at pp. 48-50 in the DMG2 itself. There is more information there on fighting in a burning building, although (oddly) they don't have rules for putting out a fire.

Rules for character catching on fire are in the DMG (pp. 303-304). A related topic in the DMG is forest fires (pp. 87-88).

It looks as though anyone can use them, so long as they can read it out aloud (either by knowing the script's alphabet or drawing upon their own knowledge of Martial Lore). Of course, to _identify_ what that weird piece of paper is requires an Identify spell/ability, or a successful Martial Lore check, or the ability to read the language (not just the alphabet).

I suspect that the martial scripts were made generally accessible in order to expedite the introduction of martial manoeuvres to a campaign. If a DM is not interested in retconning the existence of manoeuvres into the "current knowledge" his world, he can instead introduce them slowly through scripts (either from ancient cultures, or from far-off places), possibly followed up by encounters with foreign/ancient martial adept NPCs. Some of the prestige classes in the book appear to be constructed for the same purpose (Jade Phoenix Mage, I'm looking at you).

It's times like these that I really regret leaving T.O.! (Where I am now, I'm running three campaigns in 3.5, but no one else has stepped [back] up to the plate yet to run some 3.5 for me.)

So, which character's player is leaving?

You keep your original BAB, and only start improving it when you gain enough XP to advance in the Risen Martyr prestige class. (Which would normally mean no improvement before Risen Martyr 2, unless you're using fractional BABs, in which case your BAB might first improve at Risen Martyr 1.)

And don't forget to re-roll your hps for previous levels/racial HD, using a d12! :)

As I understand it, the last few print issues of both Dungeon and Dragon magazines will never available in PDF format because WotC yanked the licenses back prior to the 4e launch. This included the right to turn the print magazines into the PDF format. (I believe that the PDF was published a bit later than the print version of an issue, which is why there was a lag between the final print issue and the final PDF issue.)

So the short answer is no, there will never be a PDF version available of Dungeon 147.

you forgot Athena, she was not only goddess of wisdom, but of tactics, war and civilization

Minerva, goddess of the hunt, and she actually preffered to hunt skirts than pants

Ishtar was a very combative goddess but also quite sexual, from there comes Venus

Valkiries were warriors and guardians of those who died, they chose the champions and the courageos to head to Valhalla

there must be others, but this are the ones that came to mind... so not so strange

Ummm, don't you mean Artemis/Diana instead of Minerva? (Minerva is the Roman equivalent of Pallas Athena.)

But I'm with you on the other stuff! And you can add Sumerian Inanna as an equivalent to Babylonian Ishtar (okay, maybe not so much with regard to attitude/alignment, but they both have the "Love and War" portfolios).

I think that Victor's Luck would also be a nice one to have.

Add another "Yes, please!" to those who would love to see an updated version of Baba Yaga's hut, etc.

While I understand why some would prefer it as a stand-alone module, would that really be enough space to do it justice? I can better envisage it as part of an adventure path, with a back-up article (or two) in the same book.