Canadian Bakka's page

I was just thinking about the Skills Craft, Knowledge and Profession, and how not many of my players seem to spend points for these skills. Is it because they're too vague? I understand that you can't list all the crafts and professions that exist, but how many player would spend skill points on Profession (Cook) or Craft (Basketweaving) when there's so many other more useful skills?

I'm thinking that professions could be something like a feat. An example would be something like the 'Sailor Feat' wich could give you some bonuses in use rope, swim, etc...

How does all this sound?

Ultradan

The Craft/Profession/Knowledge skills were designed as skills because they represent the degree of skill/talent/training you have in those field. Basically, it is a way to distinguish between the novice, the professional, the expert, and the sage. The skills mentioned above are also all depended on your ability to learn and retain knowledge and technical information.

A feat would be much better off in other pursuits. If your players are not taking advantage of the skills mentioned above, then perhaps you are not providing them with sufficient opportunities to use said skills or they are simply not interested. Having craft skills and knowledge skills are essential for most spellcasters, especially when they want to explore new field of magics and create their own items (hence, the Craft and Forge feats).

Just my random thoughts.

CB Out.

Time to add in one of my experiences with a rather disturbed university student.

For a lack of a better term (and plus it was an actual nickname the rest of the club gave him), let's call him "Crybaby." Crybaby was/is (?) a man with political aspirations and extremely high ambitions. He was also a man with an interest on all things Oriental that bordered on "scary." I suppose one could properly label him as a "fanboy." Most of his D&D characters either were named after popular anime characters or after himself. Literally.

He held himself in the highest regards, especially when it came down to knowing how to speak Japanese. To demostrate the level of his arrogance, he TRIED to correct native Japanese students on HOW to speak Japanese properly. I kid you not. And I assure you, his Japanese was not anywhere near the acceptable minimum to speak Japanese fluently (if I am not mistaken, he flunked his Japanese course).

He also viewed himself as a great DM. He was not. He was completely selfish, so far as to have his own pcs as the star of any adventure he ran, to have his pcs give our pcs quests so we could obtain rare items for his pcs (so he could have a legal, however weak, excuse for his pcs to have said rare items). He also had a penchant to use Klingons and other Sci-Fi related characters in his games as opponents. He also got upset everytime we defeated such opponents.

As a player, he was even worse. He developed the most extreme attachment to a pc of his own that I thought impossible. In one session (for which I was not present but heard the tale through everyone else who was there), his pc died. Apparently, he began swearing at the DM (also note that the session took place in a Common Room at an university building) and verbally threatening the DM. When that did not work, he threw a temper tantrum and hopped on top of the table (a feat for someone of his girth) and continued his tirade from there.

Rest assured that most people in the gaming club at the university did not want to hang out with him anymore (not that we really wanted to in the first place but we did not want to be rude to him since that would not be polite).

Finally, he was also a really bad sore loser, especially whenever anyone beat him in a game of Magic:The Gathering or in Spellfire. He swore profusely and threatened people who beat him in the games but would gloat like a maniac and taunt without mercy whenever he won (which was exceedingly rare).

To this day, I can still hear him cry "It's not fair!!"

I looked at the description of the spell and my current impression as to why the designers had given the descriptor "mind-affecting" to Detect Thoughts is due to the fact that the spell "probes" the brains of creatures in the path of the spell's area to determine (a) the absence or prescence of thoughts from "conscious" creatures with an Intelligence score of 1 or higher, (b) the number of thinking minds and the Intelligence score of each, and (c) the surface thoughts of any mind in the area.

That sounds very much like a mind-affecting spell to me. However, it is true that the immunities listed in the vampire's description does not include mind-affecting divination spells. So, taken literally, Detect Thoughts should work on vampires and probably most undead, despite that the spell's tinkering with a creature's mind in order to determine its Intelligence score and surface thoughts.

That being said, I always thought it was silly (and non-dramatic) that you could go around determining people's Intelligence score and read their surface thoughts without much difficulty (only exception is when someone's Intelligence score is at least 26 and 10 points higher than your own). In my own honest opinion, there should be some more risk, possibly similar to the risks taken when using spells such as Detect Evil and Detect Magic, which has repercussions based on the intensity of the detected aura and the respective differences between the HD of the spell's caster and the HD of the source of the detected aura (or caster level, in the case of detecting magic).

After all, most standard wizards (if such a term could be applied to any pc by at least 8th level) will not be affected by the difference in Intelligence scores when using Detect Thoughts on, for example, a Pit Fiend or a Solar, even though it is most likely that the affected Pit Fiend or Solar can probably make their respective Will saves. But for the sake of argument, assume they fail their save. Just how is a DM/GM supposed to convey the horrors or beauty of the thoughts from a Pit Fiend or a Solar, respectively, who are both ideal archetypes of Lawful Evil and Lawful Good to the extreme? "Oh Bob, the Pit Fiend is just thinking about how to con you into selling your soul twice over, just for good measure, while convincing your friends that he can sell them back your soul, in exchange for, oh I do not know, an item that will make him look rather dashing in front of his colleagues back home, something like maybe a smoking jacket."

So maybe I was exaggerating there, and ranting a bit, but I digress. :)

CB Out.

Touche, GGG. Tit for Tat, as they say in some social circles.

Nevertheless, I feared the thread was rolling away from the topic at hand (which was to provide a fellow DM ideas on a new campaign). Mayhaps we should endeavour to return to that topic, hmm? That way, we can manage to avoid, erm, committing blantantly obvious social blunders?

That being said, may I recommend reading both contemporary and past literature for inspiration? It need not be a work of discussing historical events (although they may inevitably draw upon it for inspiration). For example, I have just recently finish reading "The Eight," by Katherine Neville. While I would not declare it as the most impressive piece of fiction that I have ever read, I certainly would claim that it was a cleverly written piece of fiction, regardless of it being an original idea or not.

I once considered running a campaign based on the "Death Gates Cycle," by Margaret Weis, but I gave up on that concept, however cool, because it ended up being exceedingly difficult to recreate and run. Hopefully I will return to that concept and try it again, :)

CB Out.

Well, the following is/are my interpretation(s)/opinion(s):

Being blind should not be a flaw but rather, a physical condition. In the PHB, they give you the side effects of being blind (miss chance for combat and 20% spell failure for spells with somatic components, in addition to other negative effects). Also, being blind should not grant bonuses to skills, much in the same way that it does not bestow a penalty on Spot checks. You simply cannot make Spot checks while blind.

In addition, using the search skill is not only by sight but by touch as well so being blind should not confer any bonus. If sight was a primary factor in noticing something, then a Spot check should be called for, not a Search check.

That being said, I think that the player can take feats to show how his character overcame the obstacles of his blindness. For example, he/she could take racial feats such as 'Superior Hearing' (as described in a Dragon Magazine I cannot, at the moment, recall the issue #). Or he/she could take Skill Focus (Listen) and Skill Focus (Search) to show how much better that character is at Listening and Searching.

As the character progresses, he/she can focus on developing his/her other senses even more. There are numerous Prestige Classes out there that grant blindsense or even blindsight. Do not want to waste feats/skills? Buy a magic item that grant such abilities. There are a lot of them out there.

Meh, just my thoughts on the matter. In the end, just choose whatever suits you, your players, and your game best. Enjoy! :)

CB Out.

I am in the midst of constructing a new campaign that has a fair number of adaptions from other sources. Not to delve into it too deeply (because that would take way too long) but basically, I am borrowing ideas from the Matrix movies and real world mythologies to provide the background setting for a war-based campaign. The mythologies about elves, dwarfs, dragons, etc. are based on actual contact between a race of machines and the aforementioned races. Thus, when the machines enslave humanity (in the manner much like the Matrix movies), the myths that humans have are filtered and edited information.

Hence, one of the few ways for the free humans (and other races) to defeat the machines are either defeating the machines via the "Matrix" OR researching via the "Matrix" and real world ruins to find out how to awaken or summon mythological monsters such as the Terrasque (or flights of dragons, etc) and unleash them on the machines.

I think this campaign will offer ample opportunities for roleplaying and for combat-oriented scenarios. More to the point, it will let my players act like the philosophy-religion majors they claim to be, ;) (and it gives us a reason, however weak, to wear shades). :)

CB Out.

p.s., I supposed I delved into the matter too deeply anyways, :)

No, but there was a half-machine template in one of the past Dungeon magazines (not currently available to me). There's also several different 'mechanized' and 'machine' templates from various other .pdf books (Template Troves comes to mind).

Ah, thanks for the information on the templates mentioned above. Unfortunately, it's not quite what I am searching for, but that's quite alright. I will just convert, as best as I can, the sheens into 3.5 and stick to the rules as best as possible. The tricky part is deciding whether or not the Sheens are candidates for normal construct type or the living construct types. I am certain that the propagators and arcanosheens should have the living construct traits instead of the standard construct traits.

CB Out.

Edit: spelling and grammar check.

I was wondering if anyone had already came across some 3E/3.5E/d20 version of the Sheens (a machine race first introduced in Dragon #258, I think)? I have already done some preliminary versions of the Sheens (no play-testing yet) and wanted to compare other versions with my own.

Thanks for any help/insight into the matter.

CB Out.

Ah, I am at a modest mere 26 years of age, soon to be 27 within a couple of weeks.

I have been playing D&D in all of its incarnations since my first year at York University. Started DM'ing 2 years later. Have not stopped since that first day that I decided to run a Council of Wyrms game, continuing with various campaigns that often caused me headaches from trying to figure out how to judge something that my players did was successful or not since 85% of the time it was not covered in any of the books.

OF course, my choices of running games did not stop at D&D...I've run Star Wars, Shadow Run, Council of Wyrms, and the occasional oddity that had oozed out of my mind. Still looking forward to running a Mecha or Anime-based game because I think it would be vastly amusing from my point of view as a gamer and an anime fan.

That being said, I'm still waiting for one of my DM's to run the Gummi Bears campaign he has raved about during one particular bout of extreme drunkness. It certainly sounds cool, ;) Gummi Bears rocks.

CB Out.

Reading everyone else's posts on this thread is both comforting and inspiring to know that despite facing possible rejections on submissions, you all have the emotional fortitude to continue on to see your intellectual works published in an established and well known magazine.

Hopefully sometime this autumn I will be able to work out a possible working schedule between my various responsibilities to submit a proper adventure. Funny, the #1 consumer of my free time is my responsibilities as a GM/DM to provide adventures for my players and make sure they have a good time. If I did not accepted the position as GM/DM, I would surely have the free time to write out numerous adventures...but then I would not have the experience to judge whether or not it would be suitable to send to Dungeon. Cannot have one without the other, ;)

Keep on working hard and have fun crafting those adventures! Without your hard work, the rest of us would simply struggle to even run a game, much less offer a night of good fun for our friends at the gaming table. :)

CB out.

Well, as far as Prestige Classes go, I say give a good look at the 3.0 version of Faiths & Pantheons book (for Forgotten Realms). The prestige classes there tend to focus on a specific aspect of a respective deity. For example, the prestige class associated to Waukeen (cannot remember the exact name offhand) focuses on Waukeen's portfolio of accumulation of wealth and protecting that wealth. For Cyric, the Strifelords are about, well, causing fear and strife. Or the Gondsmen, focused on constructing an unique construct who is like a bodyguard and it increases in power and ability as your levels in the Gondsman prestige class increases.

Basically, if you do not want your fellow players to take your pc for granted as a "healer," then try downplaying your ability to heal (for example, offer only to heal those of the same faith or alignment, or those who offer to tithe to your church) or concentrate on a specific theme for the cleric that does not involve healing.

Personally, for coolness factor and probably how easy it is to powergame with, the prestige classes for followers of Mystra and Gond listed in Faiths & Pantheons are probably the best.

Oh, and the best cleric I have ever played was a cleric who could wrestle (back in 2nd Edition, using Skills & Powers). I did it as a joke at the time and it was worth it. I never expected anyone to take that pc seriously but he could actually hold his ground in melee. It was equally odd and amusing.

CB Out.

I've noticed something else about the Seven-Headed Juggernaut, besides the typo regarding its attack modifier for its bite. I thought the base saves for constructs are all poor, thus equal to one-third the construct's HD, plus relevant stat modifier? Shouldn't the Juggernaut's saves be Fort +15 (base, no modifier from Constitution since it has none so bonuses or penalties to it), Ref +17 (base plus +2 from Dexterity), and Will +15 (base plus +0 from Wisdom)?

Perhaps I missed out on something that drastically reduced the Juggernaut's saves to Fort +9, Ref +9, and Will +4. Also, does the Juggernaut have a +34 natural armour bonus or +36, which would make sense since it has a -4 penalty due to size and a +2 bonus from Dexterity and that makes AC 34?

Just thought I ask because I always like to know how things were done and how conclusions were reached. It is just the geek in me, ;)

you guys are 40 year old nerds who are still afraid of girl cooties\

Ironically enough, I'm a guy in his 20's who still finds the time to go clubbing with single women despite (a) my job's long hours, and (b) my geek hobbies. Never really had any problems with "girl cooties," whatever those are. Heard about them a lot, never seen 'em, sort of like the mythical gnomes who cleans and repairs all the shoes in a shoe store every night after closing hours.

Of course, your post does beg the question: "Is he afraid of girl cooties or 40-year old nerds?" The answer: It doesn't really matter as it has no bearing whatsoever on the topic of this thread. Stay on topic, junior.

Hmm, interesting things folks have mentioned so far.

Now, to my particular fears: (1) First and foremost, dying lone (seems like a popular fear to me, if my friends are any indicator); (2) the loss of anyone dear to me; (3) the harming of any dog or cat by people (I like pets and it is inhumane to mistreat a pet, in my honest opinion); (4) spiders and snakes.

I will not run away from a spider as if it were crawling in my mouth but I will maim/kill it repeatedly with a heavy object. But snakes? Run away, I say!

However, the other fears I have are more like worries or concerns than actual fears. I mean, I worry about my god-daughter but I am not in actual fear every day that something bad is going to happen to her. So, such "fears" really don't count.

Now, as to presenting a "horror" story in D&D, first and foremost, like any story, you need mood and atmosphere. Dim the lights a bit...play some disturbing music (none of that crappy halloween stuff, I'm talking about music that is sad and depressing or deeply intense...like opera music, but that's another story altogether). No need to dress up to play the part but if you want the pcs to feel the despair of, say, the townsfolk, you have to act the part. Just don't expect an Oscar Award afterwards, ;)

And finally, the pcs have to hate the villians with a deep loathing. For example, when my DM was running his campaign, the party got defeated by pirates on the open sea and were captured. Then, the pirates decided to sell our pcs into slavery. It gets worse. Pirates aren't a kind bunch, being the lonely, oh so very lonely men that they are. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what the pirates intend to do prior to selling our pcs on the slave market so we were dreading the entire thing and did everything we could to escape.

See, we were truly afraid of our pcs being violated (I think that is probably an universal fear everyone has, the fear of having something done to you against your will, whether it be a physical act or mental act) that we were nervous throughout the whole adventure because we wanted to merely escape the situation our pcs were in.

However, such extreme circumstances should be rare (unless you want to run a campaign based on fear and overcoming that fear).

Besides, the DM was playing the evil pirates exactly the way they should have been played (logically speaking) so that added a level of realism to the whole adventure.

So, I guess I should add in pirates as another fear of mine, ;)

Truth be told, I have not worked out a theme yet in terms of what the summoner would summon. However, I was thinking along the lines of either great big beasts or being capable of summoning unique individuals (which is probably best covered by the variant summoning rules from Unearthed Arcana).

Hey all,

I was just wondering if anyone knew a Prestige Class or Core class from any of the D&D or Forgotten Realms books that focuses on summoning? I know about the Thaurmaturgist and the Alienist but they don't quite have the flavour I'm looking for. I suppose I could just change the situation of the adventure to a cabal of summoners...any help would be appreciated.

Although I had to put my game on *pause*, I have re-written a lot of the Maure Castle as my players' characters were at least 5 levels higher than what the adventure was normally written for...one of the few things I changed was adding in unhallowed spells in some more areas (really, unhallowed covers a large area and it lasts a year). I also had key areas (i.e., sleeping quarters of important npcs) more warded than with a simple alarm spell.

As for Kerzit, he looks cool but I feel that as written, he is not a threat to 18th level pcs who got ACs hitting mid-30's with some effort. I'm going to try changing Kerzit a bit more to get that H.P. Lovecraft feel. I'll change a few of his feats and maybe even alter some of his abilities to make him feel creepier, more intimidating without actually increasing his ability to kill the pcs. If the pcs want to fight Kerzit, I want them to *earn* that victory (not kill the bugger with a cheesy artifact or epic item that other dms have given them).

I've changed Eli as outlined above and I'm fine with it.

Once I finish running the game, I'll post the rest of the changes I made to the adventure.

Why make it all so complicated, hm? It´s a rather easy thing to do. Just take an everyday normal rabbit and add the paragon template from The Epic Handbook to it. Done!

It has a disgusting AC, insane ability scores, and the damage it does is horrifying. All you have to do is just simply give it the ability to sever heads on a successful critical hit, which is justified by boosting its CR by +1. Or if you prefer, you can use the Campaign Guide from d20 Star Wars for called shots to make a called shot to the neck/head area and as an DM, dealing sufficient to that particular area, you could rule that it was enough to kill the poor fellow. Of course, if I remember correctly, the AC to hit the neck or head area was an additional 12 points higher than normal.

However, a paragon rabbit should not have a hard time accomplishing that given that the template gives it a +25 insight bonus to attack and +15 modifier to all ability scores. Give the rabbit Weapon Finesse and it will use its teeth to cleave left and right.

With the paragon template, the rabbit is ONLY going to have a CR of 18 or 19, if I remember correctly offhand. Not even epic. ;)

Does anyone know where I can find information on a wizard using Craft (bookbinding) to create her spellbook? Or any suggestions on how to handle doing this? Like how long it might take or how much it might cost...? I know it's been addressed somewhere, and I have a feeling I've read something about it, but I can't seem to find where or what. Any advice appreciated...

Not certain if the PHB 3.5 talks about it in greater detail than how much it costs and how many pages any given spell takes up in the spellbook, but I am pretty certain that more information is given in the Complete Arcane and Unearthed Arcana for generic D&D campaigns. However, in both Magic of Faerun and Players´ Guide to Faerun (I think), they discuss it in more detail for characters in Faerun. I think the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book also talks about it briefly but I am not sure. Unfortunately, I cannot access any of my books for a long while.

Finally, while I am not 100% certain, a Dragon or Dungeon magazine may have talked about it as well (although it may be pre-3.5E). Wish I could have been more helpful than this.

1. Can't have an animal compaion who is Awakened, per the spell.

2. Cannot use the Wild Shape ability to become a Dragon or Magical Creature subtype (through Druid levels, at least). You CAN cast Shapechange, however, but not until 17th level.

3. Cannot (with Druid levels) cast "Permenancy" on anything.

Druids are fun. . . and serve as a great role-playing opportunity. Despite what happened with the described encounter, you'll have more effective combats in the future - without having to Min/Max all your abilities. I woud suggest taking feats, skills, and class levels based on your conceptual architype (i.e. what feel the most heroic/villanous to you). You may not do quite as well...

Well I´ll be danged. Forgot all about those (since I´m on vacation and all of my 3.5 books are back home).

(1) However, you can still cast awaken on several animals and then befriend them, ;)

(2) Shapechange helps but you can also go for the Shapeshifter PrC from Complete Adventurer (if I remembered correctly).

(3) Perhaps druids cannot cast Permanency but your fellow arcane spellcaster(s) can, :) What are friends for, right? You can also buy items that grant an enhancement bonus to your natural attacks, if you so desire.

But Wereplatypus is correct though. Play what brings you the most fun. After all, the game is not about winning (although it does feel fun to win), it is about having fun and that can be accomplished through various means in the game.

With that being said, enjoy!

Honestly, druids can be very powerful. Mainly because they be customized to be either powerful melee attackers or brutual spellcasters. The wildshape ability is useful and there are at least 2 magical items that I know of that can boost your effective wildshaping abilities (either by adding more effective levels to determine your wildshape or increasing the number of times per day that your druid can wildshape).

Secondly, your animal companion. Oh boy, can you ever have fun with this. Once you´re high enough level, cast Awaken on your companion. Two, keep handy spells like Nature´s Favour and Nature Avatar (I think that is the name of the spell but I might be mistaking it for another spell). Slap permanent greater magic fangs on both yourself and your animal companion, one on each natural weapon. Learn how to brew potion or craft alchemy...make stuff that you can consume to reserve your spell slots for potent spells.

Finally, learn feats originally intended for monsters. Like the ones for dragons. Sure, they are only worth it when you can wildshape into a dragon but at epic levels, having feats like Rapid Strike and Improved Rapidstrike means you have a lot of attacks and you´re more likely than not to hit high ACs. Besides, having monster feats that you can only utilize when wildshaping means you got tricks up your sleeve that most foes don´t suspect. Having the Natural Spell feat is a must for most druids.

At lower levels, it´s fun to wildshape into critters like Girallons. Face it, Nature has given you the ability to be a monster...so use it and tag-team on foes with your animal companion, and if spellcasters are pestering you with range spells, remind them that you can do that too and generally have more means of stopping them in their tracks so you can just walk over there and start rending them to pieces.

But do not try to cover every field of the game...try to build your druid around a theme and work in that. If you like your druid to summon like mad, focus on improving what you can summon (through PrC or feats).

Hope that helped and have fun with your druid! :)

Cool Idea, I actually needed so that I could make a half-drow based off the umbragen from the most recent issue of dragon. I am glad to hear they don't suffer that level adjustment it makes things so much easier. And only having to devote 2 levels to getting those extra abilities versus waiting twice as long to go level up one level makes things a lot easier.

You might want to check out the article, http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040319a, to make sure you understand what I meant by *spending* two levels to go from half-drow to full drow.

hmmm... well i was basing my version on dragon magazine #83, where i don't believe she had cleric abilities; just druid.

after playing with the idea of giving her loremaster levels (or bard, even) i skipped it and just gave her ranks in lots of knowledge skills. seems ok to...

Ah, now I see why folks thought druid was more appropriate. I do not have a copy of Dragon Magazine #83. The only reference to Baba Yaga´s statistics that I have is from the module (The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga). The reason why I thought druid was make sense as well as cleric was because it listed Baba Yaga as being able to shapechange into animals. I thought about making one of her domains the Animal domain (if I made her a cleric). I might have to compare her statistics from DM #83 and the module and maybe do a conversion based on a compromise between the two references.

Of course, I should also check out various websites on Russian folklore for background information. It would not hurt to look and I would get a better understanding of this interesting mythology.

Now my only question is do they suffer the slow leveling of regular drow. does seem like they should but I wouldn't be suprised. Thanks bakka

In both the FR Campaign Setting book and Races of Faerun, half-drows do not suffer level adjustments. In the *racial* transition articles on the WoTC´s website, half-drow spend 2 levels going from half-drow to full drow (which makes sense since the Level Adjustment of a normal drow is +2). Otherwise, a normal half-drow is just like a normal half-elf with one (I think) different racial adjustment. Of course, you can always modify half-drow to reflect more of the drow persona if you wish, for your own campaign. Just imagine a world where the *half-breeds* are in control because their full-blooded ancestors have left the homeworld for new territory to conquer.

Actually, now that I think about that, it would make for a pretty cool sci-fi D&D theme-based campaign. *sigh* So many ideas that I want to try out, so little time to play them out.

Any one know the racial stats for a half drow?...I have been trying to find out but have yet to locate the book that has it. If someone could let me know that would be great!

It´s listed in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book, in Races of Faerun, and it has been posted on the WoTC´s website when they discussed transition *classes.*

allo

just for fun, i created a version of Baba Yaga for 3rd edition. i tried my best to make her 21st level, but it was hard because she is sooo powerful! she ended up a wizard 7/ druid 3/ mystic theurge 7/ archmage 4.

i would love to see an "official" conversion of her. :-)

messy

I talked about this with another buddy of mine who has been dming for at least a decade more than me and he suggested the following conversion for Baba Yaga: Druid2/Wiz5/Mystic Theurge10/Loremaster10. I can see the reasoning behind the levels of druid but in the adventure module (The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga), it states that she can turn undead as well as casting divine spells as a 12th level cleric. So I thought the following conversion would make more sense: Clr2/Wiz5/Mystic Theurge10/Loremaster10. We both agreed that her bonus feat from her levels in Wizard would be Brew Potions.

I´m just not sure which way to go yet but if I know they´re putting out an *official* 3.5 update of Baba Yaga, I´ll gladly wait for it.

Just a few days ago, a cousin of mine has given me some old adventure modules and boxed sets (Dragon Mountain, Planescape, etc). One of them sparked my interest. It is called "The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga." I intend to convert that one to 3.5E and run it for my players. I honestly think that adventure has the potential to be a total TPK if the party is careless or inept or plain unlucky. While it is not as frustrating as Labyrinth of Madness, it does contain a good dose of riddles and puzzles while at the same time providing a great amount of threat.

Does anyone remember Baba Yaga? She´ll be the hardest thing to convert because she got a disgusting load of special abilities. In 3.5E, she would be epic level. Hopefully I can find a way to tone her CR down without sacrificing too much of her power. Honestly, it seems like the easiest way to convert 1E and 2E multiclass pcs/npcs is by turning them into gestalt characters which lowers their total levels by a fair bit instead of converting them via the conversion rules provided by WoTC. Oh well, I´ll see what I can manage.

Although I have yet to pull any particular evil twist on my players, the current campaign I'm running does involve an evil twist, albeit a classic one. They're a bunch of do-gooding heroes (some more so than others) and they think they're on a quest right now to save thousand and thousands of lives. Thing is, at the end, they'll find out the final boss is not really the *final boss*, but someone who has been pulling their strings all along to commit the very same evil they wanted to prevent, albeit in a different way.

Sometimes I think I watch too many movies and read too many books. I have a penchant for the dramatic, ;)

Hm, the worst thing that I ever did to my players? To be honest, I'm not outright malicious towards my players' characters. Nor have I ever accomplished a TPK, either by accident or by conscious choice.

That being said, I have came close to killing an entire party purely by accident when I ran a module from Dungeon (forgot the # and name at this point) where the pcs faced a ghost sorcerer in the depths of the ocean. His spells were not that terribly impressive but the fact that he was incorporeal and did ability scores draining is what killed 3 party members. But they did manage to defeat the ghost permanently though.

One other time though, I did manage to kill the same pc 4 times in a row (he ultimately lived though thanks to his ring of nine lives). It was just a matter of lucky rolls with criticals on almost every attack the npc did in two rounds. Burned 4 charges off the ring in 2 rounds though. I was shocked and impressed by the rolls that day and I thought "Wow, this npc is even better than I thought...maybe I made a miscalculation here?"

So far, I haven't killed pcs with the intention of actually doing so. The worst I did that was not lethal in any way was to place a *barrel of poverty* in a dungeon. ;)

Rend my friend, Rend.

Dire Tiger. 120 Hit Points. 3 Attacks (even when charging thanks to pounce), two of them with a +20 to hit. Add Rend to the equation and what do you get?

CR 8?!

Aye, Rend is quite the nasty little surprise (assuming they hit, which is a fairly good chance of happening), but imagine a girallon taking feats like Improved Trip? Trip the foes first before clawing and rending them to the sweet hereafter. Just not a pretty picture for the pcs. Or the Jump Attack feat...just too many feats out there that can combine nicely with special abilities to make them far more fearsome than they were intended to be in the first place.

But as demostrated by the Knights of the Dinner Table, even a lonesome squirrel can prove to be the bane of a party of lost and hungry pcs. Did I ever enjoyed reading that particular strip. That particular squirrel was "the cujo of rodents" as Bob so eloquently put it. :)

Rend and grappling are also equally capable of TPKs. However, at higher levels, pcs can find themselves immune to grappling from opponents with a simple application of the *freedom of movement* spell or with a *ring of freedom of movement*. In both cases, grappling is useless...unless of course, the one doing the grappling is none other than a golem. If you read carefully, the golem's immunity to magic is not limited to magical attacks and effects. It applies to all forms of magic that allow SR, even (if read literally) if the SR check generally applies to the target of the spell or effect in question.

Thus, at higher levels, nothing beats a big golem in terms of being able to grapple pcs who would normally be immune to such circumstances thanks to the spell or item mentioned above. The limiting factor here is that a golem can only grapple a single creature (with all the appropriate modifiers).

And yes, almost of the games I run involve mid- to high-level campaigns. Which explains why I know a few dirty tricks. ;)

Actually, the most brutual monster I have ever fixed up was a Vampiric Shadow Dragon with the Clinging Breath feat, Quicken Breath feat, the Rapid Strike feat, and the Improved Rapid Strike feat. Normal vampires can only energy drain a pc once per round. A vampiric dragon drains a pc per every successful claw attack! Round One: quicken breath from old wyrm shadow dragon (if you fail your save, lose 8 levels, or 4 on a successful save), followed by 4-6 claw attacks from it (lose another 4-6 levels), and a bite. That's a minimum of 8 levels to a maximum of 14 levels. Round Two: Claw the pcs until they're meat or grapple with them and blood drain them. Nearly killed the entire party with that. After the first round, they were already retreating. :)

A few years ago, I ran a campaign based solely to test the limits of the 3.0 D&D system. This was back when SW (Star Wars) just got released for d20 gaming. As part of my quest to test the merits, flaws, and boundaries of the system, I decided to allow my players to select almost any bipedal life-form (within reasons) and use almost any class from standard D&D, SW, and Wheel of Time (except for the channeler classes, which I was 100% certain that they would break the game).

Bottom Line: Jedi pcs were able to do far more than regular pcs and in combat they were brutual with those lightsabers as they ignore hardness and DR (since energy-based attacks ignore DR). Let me point out a few examples of the jedi pcs doing something incredible. (1) Using Move Object to lift a Maur demon (which is Huge-sized) high in the air before slamming it back into the ground; (2) Using a lightsaber to carve off the top of a wizard's tower (the lightsaber had the extended length of 10 ft.) so the group would be able to bypass most of the tower's defences and face the wizard right away; and (3) they were able convince criminals to confess their crimes (which in itself is not really a nice thing to do since you're robbing the individual of free will) with the use of Alter Mind.

In fact, a jedi with Alter Mind is probably going to get away with a lot of stuff. "You will give me 80% discount on all of your items in stock." If the merchant fails his Will save, he'd gladly do it and sees no problem in it afterwards. And the DC is based on how well the jedi rolled his Alter Mind check.

Yeah, back then I was a mere novice as a DM. 4 years later, I'm substantially better as a DM thanks to my players who consistently try to find new ways of utilizing both new and old spells, feats, skills, and abilities. Without a doubt, trying to run a campaign with multiple aspects/rules from vastly different campaign settings can be very hard and very trying on a DM's patience and innovative skills.

But truth be told, I enjoyed it a lot and was really pleased with the end results. The biggest pleasure I got was watching the paladin/jedi go into the forest to cut a few trees for the villagers so they could built new homes with the lumber. With his lightsaber and Move Object skill, in a single day, more houses and fences were being built and set up than a crew of 20 workers could ever hope to accomplish. :) Doesn't sound grand but the villagers were definitely happy and the guy didn't need to kill a lich to make them happy.

So, do Summoning spells automatically fail within MORD'S MAGNIFICENT MANSION (even if there's no FORBIDDANCE to contend with) due to limitations of the spell's operation based upon planar cosmology?

I'm a bit perplexed on this one. The spell description of Mord's Magnificient Mansion seems to imply that nothing can enter the place from the outside unless entered through the special portal entry. Now, if this prevents teleportation magics from working to gain entry, then in theory it should stop summoning spells that were cast from the outside to bring in creatures within the mansion. Why? I base it on the fact that since teleportation magics are a subschool of Conjuration, then summoning magics likewise should fail as they are also a subschool of Conjuration.

Now, if a spellcaster attempted to cast a summoning spell within the confines of the mansion to bring in a creature within the area of the mansion...I'm not entirely sure if it work or not, due to conflicting point of views. I could eventually come up with an answer but I prefer to hear others toss in their two cents first before I ever make a judgement call for a game.

Note that Plane Shift allows you to move across planes to reach another plane of existence. It does not allow you to access extra dimensional space within items as they are not planes per se. Same thing with limited extra dimensional planes created by spells such as Rope Trick. Rope Trick creates a random pocket demi-plane which in turn allows you to access it by means of a rope that is keyed to that particular pocket demi-plane.

At least that is how I think Rope Trick works but I do not have my copy of the 3.5 PHB with me right now. Besides, even if a creature could access the extra dimensional space inside a bag of holding, it would die within moments. Why? Because bags of holding normally do not have any air inside. Furthermore, a bag of holding can only be opened from the outside, not from the inside.

I concur with allowing items that have extra dimensional space to function normally within the area of a Forbidannce. However, I would rule that casting Plane Shift or any planar travel type of spells within an extra dimensional space like bag of holdings to have the same effect as putting a bag of hold into a portable hole. You're tapping into planar energies and bringing it into your current plane of existence inside an extra dimensional space that was not designed to hold such energies. The planar energies with mix with the bag of holding and consequences will occur in the face of such folly.

The only thing I really did not like about DR was the fact that most dragons had the crappiest DR in the entire D&D game. I remember back when hurting a dragon was hard! Dracoliches were abominations in 2nd Edition. Not because they could deal a disgusting amount of damage or because they had so many hit points. No, back in 2nd Edition, dracoliches were a pain for players because the pcs could only use base weapon damage and base THACo derived from class against dracoliches.

A few DMs I know allowed a pc to use skills and attacks specifically designed to work against dragons (like the dragonslayer and slayer-mage kits) to function normally against dracoliches but other than that, it took a high level fighter to be able to hit and hurt the dracolich with a weapon...not that it ever did much.

So, in the end, I altered the existing DR of dragons in D&D to suit my taste as a DM and to make dragons worth fighting against for my players. After all, it's not much of a challenge if all the pc needs is a piddling +1 dagger to hurt the Colossal Red dragon. I merely changed the "magic" aspect of the DR to "--". In other words, no materials or magical weapons bypassed their DR. I kept the numerical values capped at a max of 15. I also changed the 10th level ability of the dragonslayer prestige class from True Strike 1/day to being able to bypass dragons' DR with any magical weapon with a minimum enhancement bonus of +1. That way, it makes it worth being an actual dragonslayer. Of course, if the dragon's DR includes requiring a material component, the dragonslayer pc still needs that component.

I know this was a different topic altogether but I needed to get those two cents out.

ok So i'm a first time DM and i play with a group of people who have been playing for sometime now. They know the rules better than i do but they get 2.0 and 3.0 mixed up with 3.5 all the time. How i understand damage redution is that if a creature has dr 10/Silver they need a silver weapon to have all the damage afect the creature. However they said that if they have a magical weapon that they still do full damage. Could someone clear this up for me

The format is like this: DR #/X. # is the number subtracted from the amount of damage dealt. X is what is required to bypass the DR. Thus, DR 10/silver means 10 points of damage is removed from every physical attack on the creature, unless the attacker used a weapon is made of silver or had alchemical silver applied to it. Nothing else bypasses it, unless you have a weapon that SPECIFICALLY states that bypasses that particular DR. Even if you had a magical weapon, if it is not silver, that is not going to make the cut, so to speak. However, damage dealt from energy types ignores DR.

Eli Tomorast, Gestalt Acolyte of the Skin10/Fighter2/Thaurmaturgist3/Warlock11/Wizard16; HD 3d4+6d6+10d8+2d10+126; hp; Init +4; Spd 30 ft., fly 30 ft. (good); AC 22 (+2 natural, +4 Dex, +6 armour); BAB/Grp +17/+20; Atk +25 melee (1d12+8, claw) or +22 ranged (1d4+4, +1 returning adamantine dagger); Full Atk +25 melee (1d12+8, 2 claws) or +22 ranged (1d4+4, +1 returning adamantine dagger); SA spells, invocations, fiendish hands, fiendish glare, glare of the pit, summon fiend, eldritch blast 7d6; SQ contingency, inherent bonuses, permanent spells, scry on familiar, summon familiar, DR 10/good, DR 3/cold iron, flame resistant, cold resistant, wear fiend/skin adaptation, fiendish symbiosis, detect magic, deceive item, fiendish resilience, energy resistance, improved ally, augmented summoning, extended summoning; AL CE; SV Fort +13/+6, Ref +10/+4, Will +17/+12; Str 16, Dex 19, Con 22, Int 34, Wis 16, Cha 18.
Skills & Feats: Concentration +24/+6, Craft (alchemy) +20/+12, Decipher Script +20/+12, Knowledge (arcana) +24/+12, Knowledge (architecture) +24/+12, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +12/+12, Knowledge (geography) +13/+12, Knowledge (history) +14/+12, Knowledge (the planes) +24/+12, Sense Motive +8/+3, Spellcraft +24/+12+2; Arcane Strike, Craft Wondrous Item, Forge Ring, Improved Familiar, Improved Spellcasting, Improved Sunder, Improved Unarmed Strike, Malign Spell Focus, Mobile Spell Casting, Power Attack, Quicken Spell, Scribe Scroll, Stunning Fist (5/day, Fort DC 23), Twin Spell, Violate Spell.
Inherent Bonuses: used multiple wishes to gain +5 inherent bonus to his Intelligence and Constitution scores, and a +2 inherent bonus to all other ability scores.
Chain Contingency in Effect: if affected by a hostile enchantment, a hostile alteration, a curse, or petrification, break enchantment is immediately cast in an attempt to remove the unwanted condition; if affected by a scintillating scales spell, he gain the benefits of a draconic might spell (+5 enhancement to Strength, Constitution, and Charisma, +4 enhancement bonus to natural AC, immunity to magic sleep and paralysis effects, 21 minutes, Transmutation); and if reduced to less than one-third his normal maximum hit points, he is affected by a teleport spell to an secret location
Permanent Spell Effects: arcane sight, comprehend languages, see invisibility, and greater magic fang +5 (once on each hand).
Fiendish Hands (Su): in addition to dealing 1d12 points of damage, the hands grants Eli other powers as detailed below:
Left Hand: At will as a move action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity, Eli can snap the fingers on his left hand to gain a +4 insight bonus to his Dexterity for one minute.
Right Hand: At will as a move action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity, Eli can snap the fingers on his right hand to gain a +3 insight bonus on attack rolls for one minute.
Both Hands in Attack: If Eli hits a creature with both hands, the victims gains a negative level and must succeed on a fortitude save (DC 26) or be paralysed for 2d6 rounds. The Fortitude save to remove the negative level is DC 26.
Both Hands in Defence: As a free action, Eli can clasp his hands together in prayer. This immediately causes writhing black shadows to leap up around him, granting a +5 deflection bonus to his AC. While clasped, he cannot make any attacks with his hands or cast spells with somatic or material components. This lasts as long as Eli concentrates; the effect can be disrupted if he fails a Concentration check. He often keeps his hands clasped during combat when it is not his turn.
Poison (Sp): can use poison 2/day, DC 26, CL 8th.
Flame Resistant (Ex): fire resistance 10.
Fiendish Glare (Su): 1/day, will save (DC 21), as a standard action, glares at anyone within 100 ft. (not a gaze attack, needs only line of effect). If the target fails their save, they are stunned for a number of rounds depending on their current hit points: 50 or less (10 rounds), 51 to 100 (3 rounds), 101 to 150 (2 rounds), 151 or more (1 round). This is a mind-affecting fear effect.
Cold Resistant (Ex): cold resistance 10.
Glare of the Pit (Su): 1/day, as a standard action, can fire 2 rays (each from one eye) to a range of 100 ft. On a successful ranged touch attack for each ray, they deal 8d6 points of fire damage each.
Summon Fiend (Sp): 1/day, summon a babau for 1 hour and it does Eli’s bidding. It cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have. CL 20th.
Wear Fiend/Skin Adapation (Su): +2 natural AC bonus and darkvision 120 ft.
Fiendish Symbiosis (Ex): type changes to outsider, DR 10/good, can be raised or resurrected normally.
Detect Magic (Sp): can use detect magic at will. CL 11th.
Damage Reduction (Su): 3/cold iron.
Deceive Item (Ex): can take 10 on Use Magic Device checks even if distracted or threatened.
Fiendish Resilience (Su): 1/day, for 2 minutes, as a free action, gain fast healing 1.
Energy Resistance (Su): acid resistance 5 and electricity resistance 5.
Eldritch Blast (Sp): range 60 ft., ranged touch attack, equivalent to a 7th spell, is subjected to spell resistance, deals half damage to objects, deals 7d6 points of damage.
Invocations: DC 14 + equivalent spell level, can cast least, lesser, and greater invocations.
Invocations Known: 8 – 3 least (Devil’s Eye, Eldritch Spear, Hideous Blow), 3 lesser (Fell Flight, Voracious Dispelling, Hungry Darkness), 2 greater (Enervating Shadow, Vitriolic Blast).
Improved Ally: see Thaurmaturgist description.
Augment Summoning: as per the feat, except it applies to all forms of summoning that Eli performs.
Extended Summoning: all spells from the summoning sub-school have their durations doubled, without increasing the spell’s level.
Languages: Common, Abyssal, Draconic, Gnoll, and Undercommon.
Possessions: +1 returning adamantine dagger, ring of wizardry II, ring of intellect +6, Heward’s handy haversack, minor cloak of displacement, boots of speed, flesh ring of scorn (automatic critical hits against non-outsiders whenever threat of a critical is indicated), Boccob’s blessed book, wand of identify (21 charges), scroll of greater teleport, scroll of stoneskin, scroll of tongues, scroll of illusionary wall, scroll of geas, four potions of cure serious wounds, contingency statuette worth 3,000 gold pieces.

Spells Prepared: 7/7/11/7/7/6/6/6/6/5/2 (DC 22 + spell level, DC 24 + spell level for evil spells)
0th [7] – arcane mark, ghost sound, message, touch of fatigue
1st [7] – enlarge person, expeditious retreat, lesser orb of acid (2), magic missile, ray of enfeeblement, true strike
2nd [11] – arcane lock, command undead, invisibility, lesser orb of sound (violated), magic missile (violated, x2), phantasmal assailants, rope trick, scintillating scales, scorching ray (2), web
3rd [7] – dispel magic, dragonskin, gaseous form, greater mage armour (already cast), lightning bolt, magic circle against good (already cast), major image
4th [7] – anticipate teleport, dimension door, dispelling screen, enervation, lightwall, phantasmal killer, wrack (DC 28)
5th [6] – feeblemind, magic missile (quickened), reciprocal gyre, sending, shield (quickened), wall of force
6th [6] – disintegrate, greater dispel magic, mirror image (quickened), transfix, true seeing, wall of iron
7th [6] – greater teleport, limited wish, project image, protection from energy (quickened), summon monster VII, wall of eyes
8th [6] – bestow greater curse, dimension door (quickened), flensing (DC 32), horrid wilting, mind blank (already cast), whirlwind of teeth (violated, DC 31)
9th [5] – arc of lighting (quickened, DC 27), bigby’s crushing hand, burning blood (quickened and violated, DC 28), cone of cold (quickened), time stop
10th [2] – maw of chaos (violated), prismatic ray (twinned and violated, DC 29)

I haven't rolled hit points yet (since it's not important now) but his ECL should be 24 (taking into account both his LA as a gestalt, as defined in Unearthed Arcana, and the +1 modifier that Dungeon Magazine included because of his fiendish hands).

What do you think? Is he good enough to pose a threat to a group of pcs who should be 18th level on average and are munchkin pcs on average?

Does one not have to be Lawfully-aligned for the Enlightened First PrC?

Hey all,

I decided to redo Eli, in order to present a more melee wizard who was throughouly enmeshed with demons & fiends. Plus, my players' pcs are much higher level than 12th level on average at the start of the module, and that means I had to make Eli higher level.

To start off, I made Eli an gestalt npc. That's already some level of evil there since gestalt combos can really be overwhelming. Sooo, with that in mind, I also considered that Eli had connections to various outsiders and a few powerful demons. Thus, I figured the Acolyte of the Skin and the PrC from DMG that improves summoning abilities (which I can't remember off the top of my head on how to spell it) would make sense.

Bottom Line: Eli is a gestalt combo of Wizard/Warlock/Acolyte of the Skin/PrC from DMG that improves summoning.

Most of the Warlock invocations were things like Fell Flight or Devil's Eye. All-round useful invocations that could be used for combat or noncombat. However, I did select Eldritch Spear, Hideous Blow, and Vitrolic Blast.

Nasty thing about that is Eli with those claws can make one standard attack with hideous blow...hideous blow can be combined with vitrolic blast. In conjunction with all that, add in the Stunning Fist (which can be used as part of the standard melee attack, I think). Add in the vile damage from Vile Natural Attack (from Book of Vile Darkness). Keep in mind that a critical hit doubles the damage done by a warlock's eldritch blast. Result: A lot of pain for one pc. >:)

Then again, my players' pcs are not exactly pushovers so it should be a fairly balanced battle. I'll send an e-mail of the statistics and relevant details of my version of Eli if anyone wants it. Oh yeah, I tended to select spells from the Book of Vile Darkness, Complete Arcane, and Libris Mortis for Eli.

[Edit: had to change a few things since I later realised that one of my players tend to spend 50% of his waking hours online surfing message boards, ;) ]