Carl Cramér's page

Copied from another, less appropriate place.

The new Rise of the Runelords players guide got me thinking.

Having just got my players to actually like Greyhawk 1/3 through the STAP campaign, I wonder if I should use Varisia in its own world or in Greyhawk. I figured out where I would put it; to the east of the Great Kingdom, across the sea, as a lost colony of said Great Kingdom. The back stories match decently enough. Of course, there will be loads of details that needs to change, and once the players go continent-hopping, things might go critical.

I mainly want to avoid introducing a new pantheon of gods; though the pantheon of Varisia is mercifully small and simple, some of my players are getting attached to the Greyhawk gods.

Of course, by the time we are done with STAP, the entire Rise of The Runelords run will have come and gone, along with lots of supplemental material. So by then I'll know a lot more.

Anyone else gave a thought to this?

The new Rise of the Rulenods players guide got me thinking.

Having just got my players to actually like Greyhawk 1/3 through the STAP campaign, I wonder if I should use Varisita (the new Pazio setting) in its own world or in Greyhawk. I figured out where I would put it; to the east of the Great Kingdom, across the sea, as a lost colony of said Great Kingdom. The back stories match decently enough. Of course, there will be loads of details that needs to change, and once the players go continent-hopping, things might go critical.

I mainly want to avoid introducing a new pantheon of gods; though the pantheon of Varisita is mercifully small and simple, some of my players are getting attached to the Greyhawk gods.

Anyone else gave a thought to this?

PS: Maybe it is time for a new Rise of the Runelords sub-forum here at Paizo, and if so this thread belongs there and not in transition.

Carl Cramér wrote:

Just a note off my head. In the OP's post, it seems like your character gets visible when ordering her summoned creatures to attack. Isn't that one of the examples in the PH of things you can specifically do while invisible and not break the spell?

Tristan can summon and command my creatures without becoming visible. When she targets enemies with spells or attacks she looses her invisibility. It takes a standard action to regain it.

In the fight I described earlier Tristan lost her invisibility when she targeted the enemy spell caster with a dispel magic. She lost it again when she targeted the Yaun-ti with magic missiles (even though it failed to penetrate SR).

Ok, I don't think I would have let Dispel Magic break invisibility (it targets spells, not creatures), but that is a DM call. As a DM, I run a very lenient game.

Mine is on Hastur Wiki.

About to tackle the temple of Demogorgon in Here there be Monsters.

The Heal skill works wonders to work off the long-term effects of disease, even at very low skill values. Getting a second roll at +3 or so is a huge boon.

Just a note off my head. In the OP's post, it seems like your character gets visible when ordering her summoned creatures to attack. Isn't that one of the examples in the PH of things you can specifically do while invisible and not break the spell?

Don't let the characters buy magic items.

Edit: Other than potions and scrolls.

Which pretty much makes character building a DM's puppet process. Magic items are such a significant portion of a DnD character, it really should be under the players control.

I think I have to cede this point. The first paragraph of the SRD quoted gives the general case; the special case later on is that if they have different types, then they stack. My previous reading was the other way around; in general they stack, but not if of the same type.

I often find the SRD clearer than the PH in these cases.

So just as it animates with a dual fury borne of the abyss... it melts to brine with a horrible howl. Hilarity ensues.

These guys win a prize! Coolness.

A simple flask of oil or alchemists fire is a very good weapon against most golems. So are the various Orb of [Energy] spells from Complete Arcane / Spell Compendium.

In my Dragonstar game (DnD space setting by Fantasy Flight games) lasers do non-magical fire damage and blasters do non-magical electricity damage. Golems would be scrap very quickly, so to maintain the challenge I gave them Hardness rather than Damage Resistance. You can do this here too and say it only applies to non-magical energy damage, but that is a bit contrived.

Ray of Enfeeblement is an ability penalty, not ability damage or ability drain, [snup] unlike ability damage multiple applications of ability penalties overlap rather than stack, so it is completely impossible to reduce the Lemorian Golem's strength to 1 unless you can somehow pummel it with a -24 strength penalty all at once. Assuming the 9th-level caster is using an Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement and gets a max result on the die, the absolute maximum possible strength penalty is -10.

Is this quite correct? Ray of Enfeeblement has an un-named penalty. If the penalty was named, it wouldn't stack, but since it is not shouldn't it stack with itself?

There is no rule n DnD that says that a particular effect cannot stack with itself it it is possible to apply it several times. That is why we have named bonus/penalty types.

Or am I out on a limb on this?

I used the storm, and let Emrag make a cameo at the start of it. Some players are wondering why he didn't actually appear to claim the wreck (I guess he's just being evil and want to pick the wreck clean without opposition - you don't grow that old by being forward).

The players failed just the right rolls to make the entire process not seem forced, so I'm very happy with how it played out.

I once had an NPC necromancer goth girl who hid her body on a VERY secret extraplanar location, then used Astral Projection to create a new one on the Prime. This made her immortal, of sorts - which she used to commit suicide every now and then, mostly for shock value.

Nos, she wasn't evil, she just used a lot of evil spells.

And I concur that it takes some special effect made to target silver cords in order to harm them - such as a githyanki Silver Sword. Guess why they work so hard to keep them safe? After all, it is the only such power described anywhere in D&D canon as far as I know.

More likely, once the Dungeon staff is back to working one job, we'll be able to get the backlog of art/map supplements up online and I'll be able to start pestering Keith and Eric for conversion notes again.

Sorry for my thread necromancy (am I resurrecting or reanimating it?), but this is good to hear. I guess most of us are not yet past the PDFs you have produced - I certainly am not.

The only thing that is really different is the cost of the wand. The arcane wand would be more expensive since animate dead is a higher level spell for sorcerers and wizards (and would thus cost them more to create).

Quite a lot more, as it also allows the animation of more HD of undead. And each HD of undead animated requires 25 gp of black onyx, which must be included at creation and increases the price of the wand.

A divine animate dead is Spell level 3, CL 5 at minimum. Each of the 50 charges can animate 10 HD of undead. This means the material component cost of each charge is 250 gp. Add the 11250 for the wand, and you get a final price of 23,750 gp for a fully charged wand of animate dead. IIR the wand found here was not fully charged, but even so each charge is worth 475 gp. Quite a prize at this level.

I am using recharge magic. My players STILL use wands of CLW. They are that good.

I'm about to run the storm at the end of Sea Wyvern's Wake. Because the players have various abilities that make a storm hitting them out of nowhere unlikely, I've decided to let Emrag the Dragon Turtle make an introductory appearance.

The PCs spot the Isle of Dread, and as they approach they might or might not spot the Dragon Turtle spying on them. Either way Emrag casts Control Weather to cause the storm, figuring it can always clean out the wreck later.

I know Dragon Turtles are not normally spellcasters, but my players are not rules-lawyers (at least not where monsters are concerned) so I can easily get away with this. I simply give him Control Weather as a spell-like ability 1/week. CL = HD, (25), so no worries about dispel. It should build some animosity against him for later. Of course, they might go our of their way to hunt him down once they get powerful enough.

* Can anyone find a serious flaw in this as a plot development?
* Can I find a suitable underwater dragon lair (and treasure) someplace?

If they used Astral projection on the prime, they cannot form a new body on the Prime; they will instead return to their original physical body.

The Astral Cord is visible as an extension to the astral body while in astral space. When you enter a plane to form a physical body, you no longer have an astral body, and thus no astral cord is visible.

At least this is how I understand things; it is pretty complex and subject to interpretation.

I fully expect my players to have to drag their whole crew and passengers through "monsters" - not just the five main NPCs. While they can potentially fly there themselves (I use recharge magic, which is great for such things), they won't be able to carry everyone along.

And the reefs makes a naval rescue impractical.

If they really go for the air/naval route, then I will run Foghaven later.

In fact, between this other issues of Dungeon, their first time on the Isle of Dread is going to be extremely busy!

Well, ¤148 is finally here.

There have been no online supplements for Dungeon since #143. Which is a shame, really, as they do save a lot of work making handouts, tactical maps and such.

Can we please get these again, so I can keep up the great production values my players have become used to?

Ok, so not everyone can print 38 inch wide maps from a roll, but I know some people are using projectors and so on; production values keep PnP RPGs competitive.

No 148 here yet (Sweden). And I tend to get mine early.

When do you suppose it would be time to contact Paizo officially?

PS: notice how agilely I avoid the word complaint :)

Yeah, I've heard about the mob template. Of course you can't run encounters when using the mob template...you can only run instances.

Gah! I finally get it. Wrong mindset I guess. And I'm fighting MoBs ar this very moment.

Anyway, thanks for the DMG2 reference.

Instances?

Actually, I was aiming at making a Troop template on the pattern of the mob template.

I remember reading about a mob template - sort of a swarm, but for medium-size creatures. But now I can't find the reference.

Anyone know where I might have seen it?

I see no reason not to allow a natural recovery, and in fact this is what happened in my game - the one person who got diseased threw it off with the help of some good Heal rolls.

I posted in another thread that the Blue Nixie is much larger thanthe Sea Wyvern from the maps we are given in the scenario. One of my players is into modeling, and has made models to use for these two ships. The models are to scale with the maps in Dungeon, and you can really see the difference.

http://hastur.net/gallery/v/SavageTides/ship/IMG_0250.jpg.html

Or this could be the beginning of the path of redemption for her. Her evil is pretty childish and besides it is a social heritage - if exposed to some decent behavior, she could reform. Or not.

It's really all about what makes the best story.

Each DM has a certain style. The die rolls described in the adventure will let most any DM create the feeling of a storm. Making the rolls meaningless in game terms does not mean they players don't feel the impact.

Of course, some DMs (myself included) use other storytelling methods, but the one described is basic, simple and works. DMs who feel they can do better can do so on their own.

I bet they knew and didn't tell us!

* Works up to a peak of fake indignation *

I'm not a regular at the WotC website - it is too messy for me. But I'd like to stay on top of whatever their "online initiative" is. Basically this is a request for WotC to advertise in the Pazio newsletter. Op perhaps I'm just counting on the crowd here to report whatever initiative they take.

I'm willing to give WotC the benefit of the doubt here. I am hoping they have some form of plan, because as market leader their plans are important and it would be a disaster to the hobby if they didn't.

I play CoH, mostly on Justice and Union (EU sever). I don't think my times will mesh with anyone else's, since I'm in Sweden.

Name is @starfox

I've been thinking of letting the players take over the Jade ravens and play the Porphory House of Horror with them. The main characters will have outleveled that scenario by then, buy the Jade Raven's haven't (or needn't have). They might think/hear that Lavinia has been taken there.

That could serve as a great introduction to Scuttlecove. And if it ends badly - it makes a great introduction for when the PCs arrive.

I like to do these little switches once in a while, let the players play some NPCS - who just as often as not meet terrible ends. Makes up for the lack of mortality in my "real" campaigns.

I think Dungeon made the right call here. It's pretty easy to make your own ship encounters, and there are even a few in Stormwrack that you can use straight away.

The secret to sailing a caravel with only 7 crew is that most of the time, you only need a helmsman and an optional lookout. The ship basically sails itself, and the wind is very much constant in tropical waters unless there is a storm.

I rarely use adventures in their original setting. That's something different about the Adventure Paths - a series of adventures where the setting is really integral to the story. I think I would have loved Cauldron had I played that part, and Sasserine is lovely too - though you leave it pretty early.

But Scuttlecove is more special than most. When I played Porphory House of Horror, Scuttlecove was a space-pirate hangout in the Dragonstar universe. Some of those players are in Savage tide now and might recognize the place.

The places I've mentioned are all recent, but I do have a lot of old magazines (issue 4 and on); it just seems the more modern places are more memorable to me.

We do intend on continuing the supplements, but things are crazy busy these days. I'm not sure when we'll get a chance to catch up. Hopefully soon.

Please do!

I've sadly noted that there has been no image sections for the last two issues of Dungeon, and I also failed to locate some of the old ones. I really hope Pazio is not giving up on this excellent service!

I made out the iconic people on the illustrations to BE the Jade Ravens. Thus:

The Tattoed man is the (normally dwarf) druid.

The dwarf is the (normally human) knife-fighting rogue.

The blond human woman is the sorceress.

The pointy-eared woman in green leather is the half-elven ranger (Tolin), after a (planned) encounter with a sex-change device.

How do these two compare and contrast with each other? I'm trying to determine whether or not it would be worth buying the backdrop if I already own Dungeon Issue #95.

What is this backdrop you would purchase? Savage Tidings from Dragon?

My team used the earth elemental from Parrot Island to pull the Sea Wyvern through the reefs (yes, they had the maps). After some harrowing rolls to get the sails raised, they were in Sasserine in no time.

I gave them an A for effort, a decent XP bonus to encourage the creative use of the one-use item, then ran the adventure exactly as planned; the Bullywugs still beat them there because it made the best story.

Those Jade ravens really need illustrations to catch the player's imaginations. I suppose it is a little too late for you to add them in now.

I changed their races around some and used the generic hero illustrations for Savage Tide. Predictably, one of my players now have a romance with the blond sorceress. :) He is Lawful Good or even Lawful neutral, she is Chaotic Neutral - it will be fun!

I missed the fact that the ranger-type in the illustrations was a woman, so Tolin is in for a rude surprise with a magic pool once we get into some ruined city.

The Blue Nixie is almost twice as long as the Sea Wyvern. We are buiding models for them, and the Blue Nixie is MUCH more massive.

Of course, this can be fudged.

I changed my Jade Ravens around a bit so I could use the "generic npc" in all the illustrations for them. This means the dwarf druid is now a human. The biggest surprise stil lies in the future; I belatedly noticed that the ranger-ish person in the illustrations is a woman. Tolin the "handsome half-elf" is up for a very rude surprise. :)

Anyway, I find that having heroic illustrations for the Jade Ravens made them much more romance-worthy. Now if I could only get my swashbuckler interested in Lavinia...

Looks like a great project. If this is still open: cramer dot carl at gmail dot com

Spell Immunity can be a nice stopgap; specify silence and suddenly only the players are getting hurt.

Still no downloads for this issue? I find the downloadable maps to be very useful, as I am blessed with a huge printer and can print them directly in miniature scale.