Chris Manos's page

I found Tealpeck's dungeon confusing as well. Rooms mentioned secret doors in the east wall and showed no doors on the east wall. Descriptions of rooms stated the canal widened out into a room and the number corresponding to the room was next to a section of canal. It seemed very disjointed and almost as if a lot of things were assumed.

I liked the idea for it, it just didn't seem to flow well.

I had no problems with the Lair of the Spider Eaters. Thought it was a great mod.

Haven't read the last one.

Fake Healer wrote:

What programs do you use to create the maps?

Almost all of my work is done in Adobe Photoshop. I sketch the maps by hand first, scan them into my computer, and build the imagery on top of the sketches. I'll occasionally use other software or even digital photos to generate new textures for things, but even these are then tailored within photoshop to suit the map.

And if we were so inspired as to submit maps for the MOM page, is there a format you prefer working from? You probably can't publish maks made from Campaign Cartographer or Dunjinni.

I tried this, but the issue I had was that I had it in my head that the PC's couldn't deviate from the plot. They felt severely railroaded. That was how I destroyed the last "campaign" I ran.

Since then I have been running some of the published Eberron mods as "one-off" games (that happen to last 3 months), but I do have it in the back of my head to run the campaign arc I had planned, but keeping in mind that the character's actions shoudl impact the plot.

Wow! Erik Mona is a very nice DM.

Erik isn't just a nice DM...he's the Editor in Chief od the Magazine the AP is printed in. Perhaps this description made it to the Editor's Circular File.

We get together every other Saturday from ~5:30-~11pm, so..around 5.5 hours. Gone are the days of the 24 hour gaming sessions we used to have back in college.

Granted there are times I get together with the college friends, for a weekend of gaming.

Friday Night = Shadowrun for 8 hours.
Saturday = Warhammer 40K for 12 hours
Saturday Night = Shadowrun for 8 hours
Sunday = Warhammer 40K for 6 hours
Sunday Night = Shadow Run for 6 hours
Monday = Drive home on VERY little sleep.

artwork on the 'back' by Wayne Reynolds....love his Eberron stuff.

I haven;t gotten to that adventure yet. But in general, advertisement's don't bother me at all. They help keep our costs down, and they bring to light some really cool products.

um...rusty iron?

Seriously, I haven't run into it yet.

I need to look through that article. Since I don't own 3DA, I'll have to figure out if I could do it with a normal deck of cards or a tarot deck.

D1-3: Making adamantine drow weapons fail in sunlight was Gygax's way of allowing drow to all have +1 or better chainmail and shortswords without the party walking out of the Underdark with 473 magical items.

Trust me, it was MUCh more than that....I figured it out one time....there were something like 473 +1 daggers alone...

coolio

We have the following

Elven Archivist
Elven Scout
Half-Orc Barbarian
Dwarf Rogue/Fighter
Dwarf Paladin
Human Sorceress
Human Fighter

A little light on the healing front. I personally don't see us geting to far without a full-fledged cleric, but that is just my view.

While we are suggestion....you have the Reaper minis organized by type (humanoid, elf, dwarf, etc), but you have the D&D singles ordered by their expansion pack. Personally, I would consider buying single minis if I didn't have to browse through every expansion set to find where all the, oh lets say, drow are. If there was a link to Elves->Drow, or even just Elves, that would be much easier than searching by expansion pack.

For example...if I know I need 4 Sahuagin, 10 various Drow, a Bulette and 10 Emerald Claw Soldiers, I personally think it would be easier to look in a "Humanoid" directory for the sahuagin and the EC, a "Humanoid->Elf directory for the Drow, and a "Magical Beast" directory for a bulette, instead of browsing every expansion to find them.

Looking forward to hearing more. You seem to be doing just fine getting into the mindset of a warforged.

Um...it's my name?

Personally, if it were my campaign, this is the option I would go with: the statue builds up power for 20 rounds until it is sufficient to summon the devil. However, unlike Marcos, I think that because the statue is nonmagical when it is successfully dispelled, the built up power is lost, and requires 20 more rounds once it becomes magical again.

I do not have access to the area, but this is they way I would play it. You disrupted the effect with the dispel magic and it needs to start from square 1 again.

So I have read Gary Gygax's rules for Dragonchess (it reminds me of the 3-D chess of Star Trek Fame)

Oh I am sure it was inspired by the ST3D Chess...I wish I still had my rules. I had built a board for it back when I was in high school.

Planting 18

Dear Shalana,

You see? I am getting better. I was at Bronzewood Hall and you barely saw me. Tending to Sara took much of my time, but we finally got the illness out of her.

We got back to the house this morning. I had sent Eldit to talk to Alustan about the carvings I had found in one of the sublevels. Alustan mentioned he would be willing to trade them for information or identification of magical items. After discussing these items with Moonmeadow, the elf had offered him 150gp each! Personally, I would have never have gone to Moonmeadow. The offer of information from Alustan would have been to much for me.

Eldit had alst done some checking around town about this other group of adventurers. Seems their wizard leader, named Kellek, spends tile at Lazarz, while the felame elf likes to play at the Feral Dog. Little bit of a rough and dumble girl there. The third one, a pompous warrior, is always going on about the champions belt he won at the gladiatorial games in Greyhawk.

Tanith spoke to his uncle and found out where the Land’s land lay. We head out for there this afternoon. It lies just on the other side of town.

We found the Land estate in worse repair than our humble castle. Heading around back we found the graveyard, but the graves were empty. Tracks, from what Sara said, about a month old lead to the house. We followed the tracks, and noticed bloody meat on the front stoop of the crumbled home. Spreading out, we prepared for the worst. Eldit sliding around the side of the house, whole Tanith and Sara moved to cover toe door, Sara from behind the wall and Tanith planting his halbred in the ground, ready for a charge. Rork called out to whomever was inside.

With a great roar, a creature emerged. An owlbear. The beast mauled Tanith pretty good, but the combined might of arms, arrows and magic we threw against it. While I patched Tanith up, Eldit called from inside that he had found, what he termed, an opportunity. An ownbear cub too young to survive on its own. I know it should be left to live or die as nature takes it, but I feel responsible for it as we took away its mother. We’ll ave to consider its fate carefully.

In among the creatures’ nest we cound an arm, bearing a tattoo. Eldit, and some of the other more town oriented people, said they recognized it as the mark bore byu a gang of thugs who work for Smenk. Seems like we have a group of thugs to talk to about some missing bodies.

Until later,

Galen

Planting 16

Sara woke this morning feeling ill. The bite and claw wounds she had sustained were angry with infection and she felt sick and clumsy. Brom and I discussed her condition and determined she may have caught some form of disease when she was wounded by the ghoul. I decided to take her to the druids for healing while the others went to town. I guess I will see you this evening.

Galen

Planting 15

Shalana,

Rork and Sara decided to go back in the Submerged chamber again. Ghostly after they had disappeared beneath the murky surface, Sara reappeared. She gasped out that Rork was in trouble before disappearing again. Brom, Tanith, Ivy and Eldit headed into the water. Ivy let lose with a bolt of magical power . Eldit goes in to get Ivy but comes out sputtering. I tried to help but Brom pushed me out of the way and helped her cough up the water. The others come out dragging a corpse. I didn't know what it was but Brom and Tanith confirmed it was a ghoul. Rork said to heal him up because he was going back in. Sara decided to go back in too. They found a door and another chamber. In the chamber, they found a body wearing a backpack and a shortsword. The backpack contained the red lantern we had been looking for and the short sword proved magical. Sara laid claim to the sword.

Sara went back in one more time and found some spare change in the clothing clogging a drain in the chamber where the ghoul resided.

Wer decided to go up and hang lantern. Filling the lamps and lighting them Sara headed up to the passage and tripped the trap. Instead of the colored eyes and the rush of wind, there was a soft click and the mouth of the face opened . Beyond the mouth lay a strange room, a pit really, with a narrow bridge crossing it. The walls were honeycombed with geometric patterns and the floor was covered with iron spheres.

Eldit went up and checked the bridge for traps. About halfway across he found something that he could only consider a trip plate but there was no obvious mechanism and no obvious way to disarm it. Sara said she had a way to disarm it and started walking back towards the door. Eldit saw the look in her eye and hustled out of the room. By this time we had all made it up the chain and were standing in the hall before the face.

Sara took a running leap over what Eldit had pointed out as some form of trip plate and landed on the bridge abour 10 feet from the other door. As soon as she crossed the point in space, the balls started flying. She quickly made for the other door, only to find it locked.

Dropping down below the bridge she started to walk back across the spheres when something erupted from the balls behind her. Eldit yelled that there was something behind her taking a shot at it with his bow. The arrow bounced right off of it. Sara reached the wall and Eldit moved out on the bridge and shoot again. From the passage I heard him call out that arrows weren’t hurting it. From below I heard Sara cry out in pain, just as Tanith, Rork and Eldit jumped down off the bridge. Finally able to move into the room, I looked down and my stomach sank. It was a grick. I called out that they can only be hurt by magic and reminded Sara of the sword we had just found. About to collapse, Saraturned to Rork and pushed the sword into his hand Brom rushed into the room, and dove off the bridge, landing on the creature, wrapping his arms and legs around the creature. With a savage cry, Rork brought the sword down on the creature, slicing deep into its tentacled maw. The creature quivered one last time and died.

As I tended to Sara’s wounds, the voice of a little buy congratulated us. A transparent whitish image of a boy approached us, asking for our help. It seems the boy, named Alistair Land, had run away from home after his father had fallen ill about 30 years ago. He beleives he has been cursed after dying in this chamber, forever stuck here. He cannot pass the face to leave the cairn, but he has offered to open the rood on the other side of the room if we would bury his bones with those of his family. Among his bones we found a suit of fine banded mail, which we decided would be best used by Brom.

We decided to head back to the house, and here we sit, supping on slightly stale bread, some cheese and dried meat, and potatoes cooked in the fire. Tomorrow we head for Silver Lake to talk with Tanith’s uncle about the Land land so we may lay this boy’s soul to rest.

Until later,

Thorn

what you see in the SRD is what you get. In doubt? Check it out on the Wizards page.

What you are missing is things like the experience point chart for determining how much a character needs to go up a level. Granted this is a very easy formula. You also don't get the chart on how to award experience. Character starting wealth is curiously absent. Trust me, there is a lot missing in the SRD.

The idea behind the SRD is it is a fishhook. They put it out there for people to use and play with, in hopes they bite and start buying WotC products.

6-8 hours

The rules allow you to take as many classes and PrC's as you want, as long as you qualify. You could be a Rogue, Fighter,psion, Swashbuckler, duellist, dread pirate, shadowmind if you had the requirements.

If you don't want to deal with it, than your word is law. I know several DM's who don't allow PrC's at all.

we are just barely through the whispering cairn. While we have had a lot of item drops, the actual GP drops are few and far between. If my archivist would have taken the 3 statuettes to town to sell, he would have kept the cash for scribing things into his prayerbook. Not having the cash to scribe for an archivist or a wizard sucks. Hopefully it will change.

First....the Quotes...

"We need to figure Out a way to breathe under water'" Tanith

"Like what? A giant straw?" Brom

---------------------------------------------
"Anything is hard to blow under water." Sara

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"He’s gonna do me and she's gonna do him." Sara

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Entering the room beyond the face trap above the blue lantern alcove - "It’s a ball crawl for iron golem children." several people

------------------------------------------------
Sara,finding banded mail. "Looks like it is masterwork."

Brom, looking on the back of the GameMastery card. "Why so it is! "

Game is on tonight. I wonder who gets to go swimming...

we're still in the cairn and there isn't much gold to be found...granted I have a couple statuettes to sell...

Thank god it is not only me that thinks AoW is a little low wealth.

My thoughts are that Big D is either a Raja or a Daelkyr. Until I see the adventure, that is going to remain a bit vague. As to where the Abyss would be in Eberron, Mabar, Krythi or some sunless sea deep in Khyber which is a huge manifest Zone for whatever plane.

I haven't worked too much with the Eberron Cosmology yet. My players are still exploring Khorvaire. In their next adventure, they will be running after one of the PC's AWOL captian from the Last War.

My first thought when I saw the cover of this issue was, "American Beauty". I haven't been able to find the movie still that I'm thinking of, but there is one shot where Kevin Spacey is fantasizing about Thora Birch surrounded with rose petals. I could swear that it was extremely similar to this cover.

EDIT: Actually I don't think it is Thora Birch he's fantazizing over. The pic I am referring to is the cover of the soundtrack.

DMs can roll wherever they want. If the players don't trust the DM to be fair, it is probably best that those players go off anf find a different group.

The only time I fudge die rolls is when it will end in a TPK if I don't. I don't fudge die rolls in favor of the bad guys. If I am going to do that, there is no need to roll.

That said, there are some rolls for player skill checks that I roll in secret.

OK I received my Item pack the other day and they are completely different than what I expected, in a very very very good way. I was expecting something like the old 2nd Ed box of magic items which had the information on the item all printed out on the back. Having the picture on the front with the blank space on the back that you can write whatever you want in is excellent. The art is good, not great, but good, the card stock is perfect, not too thick, not too thin.

When I first heard collectable cards, I have to admit I was dead set against them. But I bought the first pack and that opinion has changed. I'd like to change my official opinion on these to EXCELLENT.

Planting 17,

Shalana,

Rork almost died today. He's fine, but swears he will never go swimming again.

We descended into the sublevel with the mold. Ivy used the unseen servant summoned by the wand to pick up some of the mold and place it in the chest. We're planning on using it to cool the locked room in the basement of the house for cold storage for food. After we had enough, I called upon the chill of winter to freeze the mold. As frost rimed the brown mold, it quickly died back and allowed us to enter the room.

Beyond was what looked like a workroom. Tools laid on stone tables and a half finished statue stood in one corner of the room, it's hands holding a wooden staff. In the opposite corner sat a large black stone carved in the shape of an egg, decorated with runes portrtaying the personal symbol of Ogremoch, Elder Elemental God of Earth. Brom said it was evil and should be destroyed, but I cautioned him, saying the egg could be a prison for an evil greater than we could handle. He informed me I needed to find out soon or else it was going to be destroyed.

WE left the egg and the statue and returned to the Lantern chamber, where we again descended into the green hole. Rork was persuaded to go for a swim, but no sooner had he gone under than he returned with some fresh bruises claiming something had attacked him. Something he couldn't see. Tanith and Brom descended into the water this time, and I entered up to my waist. Shortly after Rork had gone under, he returned, and before he could get out of the water, he slupmed, releasing all the air from his lungs. With the Aid of Sara and Ivy, we pulled him out just as something appeared in the water, a turbulence of some sort.

I let lose with all the celestial light that surrounded me, striking it and dissipating it before it could take another of us down. I quickly turned to Rork and muttered a prayer of healing over him. Fortunately he began to cough and choke up the water that had entered his lungs.

Rork has vehemently avowed never to go swimming again, but he did describe a chamber, beyond the first underwater chamber. If it comes to it, I may have to go for a swim to discover if this is where the red lantern lays.

For now

Thorn

Pictures and Quotes from last session

Pictures:

WARNING: There is a bottle of frosty adult beverage with a suggestive label in one of the pictures. You have been warned.

Chamber of Lanterns

Lantern Chamber Alternate View

Party Descends to the Architect Sublevel

Rork Meets a New Friend

Rork Runs Like a Girly Ork

Quotes:

"Don't give me that look! What's the worse that could happen?" Mark - Eldit's understudy

DM: "You see the legs of some unfortunate soul sticking out from under the block of stone."
Thorn: "Who killed my sister?!?!? Who killed the Witch of the East?!?!?!"

Excellent, Gary. Thanks! Exactly what I wanted.

Mad Dog Flint

never had the chance to eat abalone...and probably wouldn't as it is endangered, (probably because of James' abalone fetish)but the shells are AWESOME

OK, one of the guys at the game last time around brought his digicam and we took some pics. I wanted to post pics of the Hirst Arts walls we're using in our Age of Worm's campaign. How does one go about posting pics in the forum? I already have the pics uploaded to photobucket, I just need to know the code to put it in the topic.

Number two...some of the pictures feature a prominently displayed bottle of Frosty Adult Beverage with an interesting name. Any rules prohibiting the posting of pictures of alcoholic beverages, or alcoholic beverages with interesting double-meaning names?

Planting 16

Wife,

It was good to see you last night. I am glad you and Ivy got along well and I thank you for her for yuour hospitality. The scrolls of Priduce Flame and Winter Breath will be invaluable. Ivy and I were finally able, with the druids' help, to identify the wands and the goggles. One of the wand creates an invisible force spirit that obeys commands, and the other causes objects to shatter. The goggles help the wearer find mechanical traps. The latter go to Eldit, and the two wands went to Ivy and myself.

We returned to the house. Tanith and Rork had been busy in town and had stuffed the larder full with food. I had told them to pick up a small chest while they were in town. I thought it would ne good to create a cold room to keep the food longer. We could collect some of the brown mold and place it in the chest for transport, before destroying the rest. We had a grand meal to celebrate our lives and our success so far. Tomorrow we head back to the cairn and to the room beyond the mold.

Unil Later,

Galen

OOC: OMG...it is a terrible thing when you forget your own PC's wife's name....no nookie for Thorn tonight.

Planting 14, Later

Shalana,

After watching Eldit fall from the blue shaft a couple times, we decided to light all the lanterns, apart from the red one that we didn't have. Sara climbed the chain this time, with the feather ring on, and triggered the trap quite nicely. She immediately noticed that the eyes of the stone face, which had sqirled with all the colors of the spectrum, now were completely red. We took this to mean that we needed to find the red lantern and light it, before we had any chance of figuring it all out. Sara also noticed the face could move, somehow.

BEfore deciding which sublevel we should enter, we decided to look in the sarcophagus. Brom muttered something about having no part of robbing a coffin, and stomped over in a corner to watch. After a burst of fire caught those liftingt he lid, they moved the lid and found absolutely nothing

So we had a choice of moving the stone block or going swimming. We opted for the stone block. Moving it did indeed fill the room with gas, which weakened Sara something terrible.

The block moved to reveal a passage lined with statues with cupped hands. The passage ended in a chamber with three exits. One exit led to what looked like a bed chamber, and one exit led to the privy. There was also what looked like a closet, with a stone door that looked like it had fallen on some unfortunate soul. The corpse was wearing magical chain mail, which ivy identified as having a very weak protection aura. Within we discovered some magical goggles and two wands. Neither Ivy nor myself could identify the items. We decided to have Tanith wear the chain shirt, as the corpse really had no need for it. Brom again seemed a bit disgruntled at our plundering of the dead.

The third exit was choked with a brownish gunk, which upon closer inspection proved to be brown mold. Knowing that it feeds and grows on exposure to head, and dies on exposure to cold, I had the idea to return to Bronzewood Hall and ask for a spell to freeze it.

We are planning on staying in the cairn and heading out tomorrow. I will see you soon enough.

Thorn

I’m thinking of selling some of my old D&D stuff (1st and 2nd ed), but I’m not sure how to go about it. I’ve never used eBay, and I wouldn’t know how to evaluate whether something’s “Mint” or “Very Good”, or “Average” or “Bad” condition. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to under-grade something.

Can anyone offer advice, please?

I sold all my old D&D on half.com. One guy bought 3 things, and then e-mailed me if I had any more. I sold him one of those photocopier paper boxes full of stuff for around $200. Much more than I would have gotten selling it one at a time, and shipping was much less for him, so we call came out good.

we all know Lilith can make miracles with potatoes, a matchbook, 3" of aluminum foil, and a standard garden rake;)

Lilith is the MacGuyver of the Kitchen???

And now she is morphing into Red Green.....

DM rules that in addition to the pluses and minuses incurred by the potion, I also lose my +4 ac vs. giants because I am no longer smaller and thus would lose my racial ability.

The Dwarven racial dodge bonus is not due to size. It is only applicable against giant types. It is not applicable against other non-giant creatures whom are the same size as giants, therefore it is not bonus due to size. The size modifier, if the character is small, as gnomes are, stacks with this bonus. You do not lose this racial bonus when you are enlarged, but your size modifier for being a different size does change.

-4 ac for fighting in 4-5 foot of water on top of losing Dex bonus and minuses to attack and such.

I am not 100% conversant with the rules of fighting in water. Realisticly, if you are a dwarf...fighting in 4-5 feet of water should give you close to total concealment, not a negative to your armor class. Also, if the DM is arbitratily handing out the penalties to you, is he handing them out to his NPC's as well? Share and share alike.

FH (stumped)