Callum's page

I did something similar - I made the Swords of Kyuss only able to use the invocation of the worm ability every three rounds. Otherwise, their most effective combat tactic is probably simply to each fire it off every round (unless they're fighting a fully death warded party).

Only T1, G1-3 and D1-3 in your list are by Gary Gygax, so you might have to look for some other adventures if you really wanted it to be a "classic Gygax campaign" - S1/3/4 & WG4-6, perhaps?

If you are intending to run the AP in 3.5, then that's a good idea to extend the utility of Sneak Attack, and to do so in a way that doesn't tax the PC (as with a feat or forcing entry to a Prestige Class).

I would suggest that you consider amending the Turning rules as well.
There was an alternate method in Unearthed Arcana, which was similar to that in Pathfinder, where turning caused area damage.

I'll explain my reasons. I started the campaign with 3.5 rules, while PF was undergoing the playtesting. I had a player ask for a paladin, who I persuaded to try the Alpha PF version (since I believed the 3.5 paladin was awful), I also had a cleric, and a fighter who multiclassed into cleric, so it was a very heavily divine party.

And they still had terrible problems dealing with undead via Turning.

Yes, I have a single-classed cleric in my game, and he's hardly ever succeeded at turning anything (we're near the end of SolS at the moment). However, he's taken a feat that lets him spend turn attempts to extend the range of touch spells to close range, which is very helpful. At higher levels, the mass cure spells are very effective - harming undead and healing the party - especially with the feat that adds 2hp per spell level to each cure spell.

The rogue has taken the Alternative Class Feature that swaps trap sense for the ability to deal half sneak attack damage to creatures that are normally immune to it, when flanking them.

These choices have made them very effective against the undead they've encountered.

I'm pretty sure you're thinking of the Conversion Manual, which was a half-size booklet that was included free with one of the issues around the time of 3E's release, and was also available free in game stores. It's available on Scribd, here.

Can anyone give me some suggested tactics for the corrupted ghaele eldarin and sword archons in TSoLS? The eladrin has a massive list of spells and SLAs, and there's basically no guidance as to what they will do (apart from one line about the archons releasing the wormswarms)...

Thank you!

I don't believe there is official support for any VTT, but there is a community-built Pathfinder extension for Fantasy Grounds that is frequently updated.

If you play in a well-defined campaign world, it's best to replace those generic prophecies with customized ones (I did part of the job for Greyhawk, if someone is interested).

I'm interested!

My group's plan to find Raknian (when they failed to catch him during a chase through his mansion right after the final fight in the Games) was to scry on him, then teleport to his location - not much investigation required there!

It's not a direct answer to your question, but Raknian did reappear (post-Games) in "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk", which was written by Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs and Erik Mona.

I would never import characters from another campaign. If some players wanted to join my campaign, I'd make them create new characters using the generation system that all the other characters in that campaign used. Is there any good reason why your GM didn't do this?

No, I don't believe so. This would make permanency rather less than permanent. And who hasn't investigated a dead wizard's tower, only to fall prey to some of his magical defences?

In G1, is there an early encounter, probably the first combat encounter, with Big Johann the Frost Giant and his thugs in a village?

No, that encounter was added in "Queen of the Spiders". G1 doesn't have any encounters prior to the Steading; it's essentially just Chapter 3 of "Queen of the Spiders".

"Weasel" - Gnome, Wizard/ Warlock/ Arcane-Warlock prestige class - 18?

Not sure of some of the specifics like the arcane-warlock prestige class, I can't remember and it wasn't my character anyway.

Eldritch Theurge, from Complete Mage. I know because I have one in my current AoW campaign - but we're only about half-way through. How did that character work out in your campaign?

Why not tap into the vast resource that is the Paizo community? In this thread alone, half a dozen people have commented about their ability to put together NPC in a short (or not so short) amount of time.

Every time you need an NPC and don't have the time, simply open a thread titled "NPC request: 8th level Drow assassin" or whatever it is you need. Drop a few key points about the character concept, and what type of gear, gp limit etc. you'd like. I'd be very surprised if you didn't have a handful of different options to choose from within a day or two.

Well, then, I have a surprise for you! I tried that approach four weeks ago, and it came to nothing. You can see my thread here.

I tried implementing bandoleers and such to keep track more closely of the items the party had at the ready. They rebelled and said "We're all allowed one free set of clothes at the beginning of the game. We're adventurers. Isn't it possible to assume the clothes we have include something like pockets or a belt with pouches?" It became more of a struggle than it was worth with them to argue for keeping track of that kind of thing. If it was an obviously combat item, such as a potion or scroll or wand, it was assumed to be somewhere readily accessible because the adventurer would have made certain of that before leaving town.

There's also the fact that drawing a weapon is a move action (or a free action when combined with a move if your BAB is +1 or more). My players felt it odd that the fighter's sword should be readily available but not the wizard's wand (and, even more oddly, that the wizard's dagger should be more available than her wand). The house rule we adopted in the end was for each PC to have four "quick-draw slots" for items they wanted to be able to grab in a hurry while in combat.

Yes, this is a great idea.

The 12th-level barbarian in my group has plumped for the Leadership feat, and would like a bard as his cohort. Now, I've never played (or even NPC'd) a 3.5 bard, and examples are hard to find, so I'd really appreciate your help. The only constraints are that he must be human (or half-elven at a push), chaotic good or neutral, and 10th level, ideally using core rules only. The party of four has all the main roles, though the rogue has dipped into fighter, and the arcane caster is a sorcerer/warlock.

I think the player wants to get a smattering of spellcasting, as well as someone to sing songs about how great he is! I was considering giving the bard cohort a few levels of fighter, so as not to dump too many spells into the mix at first, and to make him a more likely follower for the barbarian. Any suggestions you have are most welcome!

Thanks for sharing that! I'm looking forward to this moment, too, but my son is only 16 months old, so I think I have a while to wait. How old is yours?

Thanks for the reply, lynora. I agree that the language is pretty vague, so I'm amazed that I haven't been able to find any sort of official ruling on this.

Does anyone else have an opinion? How about people who've played with warlocks using these invocations - how did they work? Were they over- or under-powered?

Can a warlock use flee the scene and path of shadow on others? Many other invocations only affect the warlock, but they usually specifically state this. These two have no such specification, and the spells they are based on (dimension door and shadow walk) have multiple targets. However, the descriptions of both invocations have additional elements that suggest they are warlock-only (with flee the scene you leave behind a major image of yourself, and with path of shadow you regain hit points every hour you use the ability).

Does anyone else share my urge to climb on Erik and pull out his eye?

The Pit is still open, but they carry practically no gaming stuff now - it's more of an internet and game cafe. A Wednesday night Pathfinder game does run at the shop, but that's the night I run Kingmaker! When did you visit the Pit? We might have bumped into one another.

A long time ago - it was a "Summer of Magic" tournament, celebrating 10 years of Magic, so 2002? I lived near Totnes until 1996, before moving up Bristol-way, and still visit the area regularly.

What are the game shops in Bristol like? I'm in Torquay and we don't have any. Given I occassionally stop at Bristol, I'm wondering if they are worth a visit.

The Pit has closed, then? I won a Magic tournament there once...

Sadly, the Travelling Man shop in Bristol closed a while back. We do, however, still have several game shops! The newest addition is Excelsior! in Bond Street - it's small, but friendly and conveniently located. There's also the local outpost of the Forbidden Planet chain, now to be found on the Triangle. Finally, there's the venerable and well-stocked Area 51, located a bit further out of the centre up Gloucester Road.

When I played one I was a multiclass Sorcerer/Warlock/(Complete Mage Prestige Class that combined Warlock and Sorcerer and I can't remember the name of it right now...) and it wasn't until I reached epic level that my DM declared my character annoying and broken.

I'm DMing an Eldritch Theurge at the moment, and it certainly doesn't seem broken so far. I'd say it's only just catching up with the single-classed characters at around 11th level.

Age of Worms in the World of Greyhawk, using 3.5 rules.

I DM a weekly 3.5 campaign with four players. We play online using Fantasy Grounds when we can't get together in person. I've previously played 1E and 2E with most of the players in the group.

Yes, it makes more sense for the secret sewer tunnel (D19) to lead into the planning room (D13) - that's how I had it in my campaign. I also took out the whole flooded U-bend and elevator pillar mechanism, making it so the water pit (D8) just led straight down to the level of the warrens, with a water-tight door at the bottom leading to a corridor (with drains and spare barrels in it) that gave into the trapped hallway (D10). I put a well-hidden lever below the level of the water in the pit, which activated the door below, making it possible to operate the "water lift" from either end. I can provide my altered map, if anyone's interested.

Excellent - thanks so much, everyone!

Does anyone know of any adventures set wholly or partially on the plane of shadow? I'm looking for some ideas to steal for my 3.5 group who will probably shortly be making a trip there, so I need some fleshed-out encounter and location ideas, not just generic information about the plane. Thanks in advance!

The oculus demon will be reappearing in a slightly different form next year, in my [url http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=672278]Expedition to the Demonweb Pits[/url]. The main change is that he no longer gets the eyebolts as free actions, but only as swift actions. He's too deadly right now, and that's the easiest fix.

Looking at Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, I notice that the oculus demon's eyebolts are still free actions. In fact, the only changes that I can see are that its flight manoeuvrability has been improved to perfect, and its claw damage die has been increased to 1d8. Did you decide it wasn't too deadly after all?

Admiral, I agree with what you say. However, what I'm wondering about is if the 10-foot-radius of the scrying doesn't reveal anything distinctive about the location - is that still enough for casting find the path? If you see the subject sitting on the throne of Krondor, then you can definitely use find the path to take you there. But what if you see them sleeping on a patch of grass?

Yes, that's just the sort of answer I was looking for - thanks!

However, I don't believe that divinations in general are blocked by "3ft of wood, 1 foot of stone or 1 inch of lead". That's true of most of the detect ... spells, but not other divinations. Scrying is blocked by lead sheeting, but not the other physical barriers you mention.

If a PC uses scrying to see a creature, does that give enough information to then use find the path to travel to the creature's location?

Is that a "no", then?

Well, I'm DMing this part of the Age of Worms right now, and these boards don't let me send a message to Peruhain directly, so...

Dennis, I like your ideas! I wish I'd had them before starting AGoW.

Looking more into my initial questions, I've actually come up with an answer myself. Scrying only allows viewing "10 feet in all directions of the subject", and the tempest globe is 20 feet across - so all they'll see is the inside of the globe, all blue light and lightning, with Allustan floating immobile in the middle. That'll probably be enough to put them off teleporting there - and even if it doesn't, the teleport spell description says that "Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible" - and I think the tempest globe counts as an area of strong magical energy, which would make teleporting there impossible.

So, when the PCs arrive in Diamond Lake and discover that Allustan is missing, with a black dragon after him, their immediate response is to prepare scrying and teleport in order to find him and go to help him. Now, I don't like stopping the players from using their characters' abilities, but it seems a shame that they'll miss out all the fun of returning to the whispering cairn and discovering the active portal, not to mention all the earlier parts of Icosiol's tomb (I'm pretty sure they'll teleport out again). Of course, the spells may fail (about 50/50 for scrying, assuming Allustan is allowed to make his normal save, but only 6% for teleport after that), but even so, they may just wait a day and try again. There's nothing in the adventure that suggests ways of handling this approach, yet it seems that it would be a fairly standard one for PCs of this level. So I'd like your opinions on this, if you'd be so kind.

Should I decide that something about Icosiol's tomb or the tempest globe prevents scrying from working?

If not, should Allustan receive his normal save against scrying?

Finally, do you have any other suggestions as to how to handle this situation?

I've got a different solution to that problem, which is to eliminate the teleport painting in Tenser's castle and add some travel encounters and a side-quest to figure out that Bucknard went to the Spire of Long Shadows. (I've invented a very Greyhawk-specific sidequest, and I'm still detailing it, but happy to share my ideas if anyone is interested).

Yes, Peruhain, I'd love to hear your ideas for this!

This is a confusing encounter. ANother question I have is: which sqaure is the portal in? The text refers to "the sqaure the protal is in." But on the map on page 44 of Dungeon 129 shows that the door is ten feet wide. It looks like characters can walk around the portal guardian if the portal is ten feet wide.

The map and description in Dungeon 129 are daft, since the portal is clearly supposed to be an intact version of the broken "mirror" the PCs found in the opposite alcove in The Whispering Cairn. The end of the tunnel should be curved, as shown in the map in Dungeon 124, with the "mirror" standing shy of the end. This solves the issue you describe, since the mirror portal is only 5 feet wide.

Also, it's possible that Callum might want more artwork than the PSSs have. Is that the case, Callum?

Yes, I'm looking for something with the production values of the Adventure Paths - a top-quality periodical that I can read on the train, with differing adventures of all types that I can be inspired by, plunder for ideas, use as one-offs or fill-ins in campaigns, or assemble my own campaign from.

Please could you put the character levels up front on the blurb for the Pathfinder Society Scenarios, like you do for the Modules, so that they can be seen when browsing. Thanks!

+1

Paizo isn't interested in getting back into the magazine market. That's a good way to go broke.

How about my suggestion of a Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-style publication with three stand-alone adventures per issue? Do you think there's be any mileage in such a product (Pathfinder Adventures, say) for Paizo?

Thanks for those links, guys. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "magazine" in my original post, as that wasn't quite what I meant - "publication" would have been better. I was imagining something pretty much identical to a Pathfinder Adventure Path, but with three stand-alone adventures in each issue. I'd find that very useful, for the reasons that Mark A. Simmons outlines.

Incidentally, how does one get hold of Pathfinder Society Scenarios?

anthony Valente wrote:

hogarth wrote:

Stefan Hill wrote:

Chewbacca wrote:

D&D 1st ed was much much simpler.

Cool, explain the initiative system to me then... :)

Specifically, a ranger (3 in 6 chance of surprising) encounters a drow (1 in 8 chance of being surprised). Please show all your work. ;-)

Sure ;)

Converting to %
3 in 6 = 50%
1 in 8 = 12.5%

Add together: 50% + 12.5% = 62.5%

Divide by two: 31.25%

Closest die equivalent: roll a d6, with the ranger surprising a drow on a 2 in 6 chance (33.3%)

Just having some fun Hogarth ;)

I call high: d6

Yay! In your face, drow!

That standard chance of being surprised is 2 in 6. A ranger increases that chance by 1 in 6 (which is 4 in 24).

A drow's chance of being surprised is 1 in 8 (which is 3 in 24). Therefore, a drow's chance of being surprised by a ranger is 7 in 24.

7 in 24 is pretty close to 2 in 6, so you could opt for that if you liked, but it would erase the drow's slight advantage over creatures surprised 1 in 6. To maintain that tiny edge, why not roll a d12 and a d6? The drow is surprised if you roll 7 or less on the d12 and 1-3 on the d6. :-)

Unfortunately, you can't call high in this system, Vic. :-P

But that's surprise, and the original request was about initiative. Fortunately, that's even easier: each party rolls a d6, and the group that gets the higher number has initiative, meaning they get to act first that round.

Now, I love the Pathfinder Adventure Paths, and the Pathfinder Modules are cool, too. But don't you think there's a market for a monthly (or bi-monthly) magazine with three or four shorter adventures for differing levels of play? Many of these could be written by freelancers or newcomers (giving another way of discovering new talent, in addition to RPG Superstar). I'm sure Paizo has the skills and experience necessary to produce such a publication, and I know that I'd subscribe from issue #1! Perhaps it could be called Paths Magazine?

I've always imagined that they're selectively erasing the glyphs used to set the traps - the equivalent of cutting the blue wire or the red wire.

Thanks for your feedback!

While I agree with hogarth that, technically, creatures are the only things that can get entangled in a web, I'm inclined to make rulings along the lines that andrew dockery suggests. After all, the web is a physical object (while it persists), and force objects like spiritual weapons are solid - they couldn't fly through a wall, for example. The question then becomes how much they are hampered by the web.

I think, in principle, I'll require ability checks for force objects moving through webs. Extrapolating from spiritual weapon using the caster's Wisdom modifier as its attack bonus, these checks will use the caster's key ability for spellcasting. (I considered adding in a size bonus as well, but I reckon that the lesser chance of getting stuck is offset by the greater effect when stuck.) For vortex of teeth, I like the idea that the flying piranhas shred any web they come into contact with.

The web spell tells you a lot about how it interacts with creatures and with fire, but not much else. So what happens when a wizard catches some foes in a web, and then she and her allies cast other spells at the trapped creatures? How does the "many-layered mass of strong, sticky strands" affect the later spells? Let's take for granted that we correctly apply the effects of cover and entanglement, where appropriate.

Presumably the web doesn't block line of effect, unless there's 20 feet of it between you and your target, which would give it total cover. So you can fire magic missiles at trapped creatures.

But what about using a spiritual weapon against a foe 15 feet into the web? Does the web hamper the attack in any way? "Attacking a creature in a web won’t cause you to become entangled", but I take that to refer to a character standing outside the web. The spiritual weapon would have to move through the sticky strands, yet it's only the entangled creature that gets a penalty to its attack rolls and Dexterity (and probably wouldn't even get the cover bonus to its AC, as the spiritual weapon isn't more than 5 feet away from it).

To go a stage further, what about the Spell Compendium spells manyjaws and vortex of teeth? These both create force objects that fly through the air and attack foes - targeted for manyjaws, and area for vortex of teeth. Can these spell effects fly through a web with impunity, biting the creatures trapped within? Would the whirling maelstrom of the vortex damage the webbed creatures each round, while not damaging the web or being hampered by it in any way?

Your thoughts would be appreciated!

Hey Callum! Thanks for coming back.

As of right now, with James jumping in as a player, I am hestitant to go beyond 6 characters right now.

Can I keep you on an alternate list for now?

Yes, of course - six characters is plenty! I'll poke my nose in every now and then to see if anything has changed.

If this game is coming back to life, I'd be happy for Marten to rejoin it! Unless that makes no sense with the current story, or you have more than enough players. Let me know, either way!