Chris P's page

My gaming table currently consists of a pool table where we put the Dwarven Forge, battle maps, Tact-tile and miniatures (depending on the situation). At one of the short end I have a small fold up table that is the same with as the pool table that I DM from. Each player has a TV tray for the characters and dice and stuff. There is a gap between player on each side that let you get to the miniatures and maps. We have a small round table off to the side for snack food.

I though about making a table that incorporated all these elements but I don't have room for it and the pool table. I may find a way to build drink holders and dice trays into the side of the TV trays.

My thoughts for a gaming table and what I have been dreaming up in my mind is this:

6'X7' table set at normal height, with a 4x4' surface placed 4-6" above the table top. the 4X4 section would be skewed towards one end leaving the DM with more of the lower level exposed for books and charts and stuff. The 4x4 section would be on drawer slides so that the DM can slide the whole top towards him to set up the combats on the top section without trying to stretch across the whole table to reach the surface.
Cup holders for each section and all that hoopla is also there.

FH

I've done the central table being 6-8" taller with the miniatures being on the taller section. We didn't like it at all. Things get lost under that section and some people find it hard to see the stuff on top. We have determined that a sunken section is better because nothing is hidden and it gives a better vantage point. but hey your mileage may vary.

Is there a druid variant that allows him to take an elemental as an animal companion? I swore there was, but I can’t seem to find it again.

Fizz

I believe it's either in the PHB2 or Complete Mage as a class variant.

Some of my players in the past have had this spell and I have had a character or two with it. I have seen the amount of info you can gain from it run the gambit. How much do other people gain or give out as a DM from this spell or similar spells. I usually run it that if you ask someone a question the answer usually pops in their head whether they say it or not. Is that too free with info? I mean think about it, if someone asks you a question don't you think about the answer even if you don't say it?

I tried to play up Avner buying the woman not like a slave, but well... let's say he was only planning to rent her for some time. I've tried to make Avner as detestable as possible and really highlight his cowardice in the face of any significant threat. Try to make it seem to your players like Avner is treating her like a mail order bride or a prostitute instead of out and out slavery.

I assumed something similar. I played it as him trying to buy a wife, which in a tribe culture isn't a bad thing. But in Avner's case his poor tact and the fact that he is an outsider is what made it a problem for the Olmans. My groups minotuar put him in his place on this one.

If you said yes, it might make the spell thief suck a little less ;)

Its not covered in the errata, but I always thought it was burn 1d6 to perform a single steal (whatever) and the remaining d6's, if any, still do damage as normal.

I agree. I always assumed that they can only steal one thing on any given attack. But if they multiple sneak attacks in a round they could steal something with each attack.

Maybe this would be convincing enough. Unless he requires a literal fire to find fire in which case this wouldn't help.

That's good information. Thanks

I thought the ability said that most living creatures count as all four elements.

Yes it does, but when I mentioned that to my DM he didn't seem inclined to support that statement.

I just started playing a Shugenja from the Complete Divine and since it is a replacement character I started at level 4. The Sense Elements ability kinda throws me a bit. So far all I have really only used it for is sensing water to tell if there are creatures in a room. My elemental focus is air so I would like to find more uses for that which should pick up breathing creatures a well. Water seems the most straight forward, but what about the others? My DM seems kinda strict about how I use it so if you could give good reasons behind your ideas that would help a lot. What I can think of so far is;

Water: Most creatures, bodies of water, potions, poisons, etc.
Air: Breathing creatures, poisonous gases, maybe if a area has a strong air current in it such as a hole to outside when your in a cave
Earth: statues, gems or gold, maybe tell a Wall of Stone from the surrounding area
Fire: Actual fires, maybe a furance, a heat source of some sort (although I can't think of one that is not fire), that's it fire is a tough one for me

I don't have my books at my disposal right now but I beleive there are two enhancements that would do that. I think one does exactly that your asking requiring a comand word and I think that's about it. The other causes your armor to liquify and go into a jar or something.

In the product description of the Wall of Smoke Markers on your order it states that this product usually ships from our warehouse in 8 business days to two weeks. This is the time required to bring it in from our distributor and your order will be considered "pending" until every item has come in as we ship it to you. You will receive another confirmation email when the order ships.

So, yes, it is normal for your order to still be pending. :)

Thanks,
cos

Cool thanks for the speedy response.

How long should an order be pending for? My order has been pending for over a week. Is that normal?

Thanks

I'll change the croc to a carrion crawler in the Lotus hideout and give a few rogues a sorcerer level too (that will keep the spellthief happy). After the Lotus Den we'll have a serious chat.

As a slight thread jack. I have a spelltheif in my group as well. It's the first time we have used the class so we are all getting used to it. What it seems though is that there is not a lot to "steal" in the first few adventures.

Oh and I swear I read somewhere that it didn't work on metamagic feats, but maybe I just assumed that because of it's description of use under the metamagic feat section.

I've used Action Points from the start on this AP and my group just finished ToD. First off you can't replicate a metamagic feat with an AP. If you have a metamagic feat you can apply it on the spot for an AP, but you can't replicate one you do not have. At least if I remember correctly. I have also house ruled that you can't use an AP to apply a metamagic feat if that would put the spell at a higher level than you can cast normally (e.i apply maximize to fireball if you can only cast 3rd level spells). Secondly I have found the mileage varies depending on characters so I have some characters that have over 20 APs saved up (something I plan to remedy) and some that are at almost zero. I think as written APs are a bit too powerful. I like the flavor of them and plan to modify them for my new game. My new plan to to give out a flat 5 AP points per level. The max you can have at any point in time is 5 + 1/2 your level. If gaining a level would put you over your max then you only acrew enough to put you at your max. I don't know if this will work since I'm just starting to try it, but it should be better than as written.

I was kinda thinking that too. It's not like the AP is swimming in loot in the early stages. Whacking in 50k worth of party resources into the ship seems like an awfully big chunk that might be put to better use elsewhere.

I was thinking that perhaps Lavinia or one of the PC's affiliations could pony up the dough (or part of it) for upgrades.

Well the NPCs did pony up some of the money since the special wood they used was from the Olman tribes and the wizard in town only charged them material costs. In the end it really made one of the players happy to deck (pun intended) out the boat. The players have kept to their sea faring ways even with all the land based stuff.

As far as treasure goes, they really don't seem to be that bad off. With the big items from the bat god and the fact that I modifiy some of the treasure in each adventure for the PCs they seem to be outfitted just fine at this point. With the use of Action Points it also makes the need for a ton of magic less needed.

Maybe I'll add in a few more water random encounters in the future adventures.

If I had gotten all that at 6th level I would be assuming that something or someone was coming for me. You have items well above your power level and more powerfu people will want them and take them. I would assume certain doom is on the horizon. But hey that's just me ;)

Absent cannon and firearms, the best way to spend money on a ship (what issue of Dragon was that, anyway??) is hiring spellcasters. Seige engines aren't worth the time when a marginally competent (3rd-5th level) spellcaster can put much bigger holes in the enemy ship and crew. A couple of wands of Quench will come in handy, too.

Tom

I want to say it is issue 353 but I don't have it in front of me at the moment. They are doing upgrades to increase it's speed, carrying capacity and it's ability to take damage.

Out of the four choices you have given I would vote for Druid because they do well in the AP. Not sure if that will conflict with the Fey Heritage person in the group. You could probably get by without a trap guy in this AP, but a class that might fill in a lot of your gaps would be Beguiler. I admit I really like this class, but besides that it would give you your trap guy and some arcane spell casting that your missing. Instead of focusing the Beguiler as a face man you could focus it more of a illusionist/enchanter type that uses his bluff in combat to increase the power of his magic. Just a thought.

I was always thinking that forgetting about a +1 l.a. was a good idea, and then maybe give the other guys a free magic sword or something so they're happy.

Does it work out pretty good?

Oddly enough now that you guys mention it a player in my other game is playing an Aquatic Elf which turned out being a +1 LA race as well but we didn't notice it until about 6 levels in since it was noted in a tabel not in the race description where it normally is. Maybe I will just ignor it.

I don't know to me the moral was to do what makes you happy in life and not the status quo or what other expect of you. In the end it took Dante to totally screw everything up, hit rock bottom and only his true friends could show him the way.

Overall though a funny movie, but probably not in my top two Kevin Smith movies.

My wife was looking at a Chaos Gnome from the Races of Stone book for her next character. Unfortunately they are a +1 LA and I would like to avoid that if possible. I was thinking of taking off the +2 Con bonus and instead adding -2 Wis and maybe removing the bonus to Chaos spells. Do people think that's enough to make it a +0 LA?

Well my group rarely multiclasses to begin with. When I read some of the feats I took them as a way for people to make interesting character concepts without hindering the mechanically. The only one I have actually seen in use is Master Spelltheif, which allowed my groups Spelltheif to pick up one level of sorcerer and up his caster level for both classes.

How many people have upgraded the Sea Wyvern. The group I run just finished Tides of Dread and with all their money they wanted to sink it into the Sea Wyvern. I have the Dragon magazine with all upgrade options and one of the players just went crazy. They haven't spent their money hardly at all up until this point so I think they spent over 50k on the ship. Has any other groups done this?

interesting - same thing in our campaign - Vanthus showed up, made a cute remeark or two, teh warmage let go of a lesser orb of acid, struck and then the warblade charged, elder mountain hammered with a holy greatsword and crited, and after some lucky damage rolls and some dust settling, Vanthus was one smashed corpse. The warblade then added a coup-de-gace on his almost-brother-in-law (he is pretty romantic with Lavinia ) , leaving very very little for the Big D to create a deathknight from, later.

Then again, the chars had been badly ripped up by the vrocks and whatnots before, so nobody really minded Vanthus going down in a whiffy.

Yeah my group had already been hurt by the previous fights so it was no big deal. The spelltheif had 3 negative levels, the cleric/stormlord had 4. The minotaur/barbarian had taked 72 points of damage from the dance of ruin. So yeah they fought tooth and nail getting to Vanthus so a tasty victory was ok with me.

Can't believe I hit the board w/ a Warlock question and found a warlock thread in the top ten posts...

I'm about to play a new character in a game tomorrow - 5th level PCs - and have run into a question. My PC is a Human Ftr1/Warlock4 and is taking the Eldrich Glaive invocation from Dragon Magic. Complete Arcane never clearly addressed (to me, at least) if a Warlock's EB benefitted from Weapon Focus (ranged spells). If the Warlock is using the Eldrich Glaive blast-shape invocation, does he still benefit from Weapon Focus, Point-Blank Shot, et al? Does Eldrich Glaive do STR bonus damage (or, in my case, take a STR penalty) on a successful hit?

I would say that Eldrich Glaive would not benefit from Weapon Focus (ranged spells) or Point-blank Shot. It now has a physical form so you would need Weapon Focus (glaive) to get a bonus to hit.

Well in the previous game we left off with Vanthus making his apppearance. So this game we started with initiative. Vanthus won and started off with a Mass Suggestion to help out the burning church in town send the Cleric/Stormlord away from the fight. So far so good, until the Shadowcaster hit him with a Hold Monster. She just gets past his SR and with his pitiful Will save he couldn't beat her DC:20. That allowed the Minotaur/Barbarian with the large evil outsider bane flail, Friendkiller, to coup de grace him dealing 29 points of damage which meant Vanthus had to make a DC:39 Fort save or die. No such luck. The players were really happy so it's no big deal for me but man what a short fight.

I had the Hydra split it's attacks between trying to sink the ship and fighting those on board. It allowed my player, who have a hard time focusing at times ;p, to get their wits about them. The aquatic halfing Shadowcaster I think is what won it all with her Umbral Hand mystery.

Lesser Invocation:

Dead Man's Tongue: Allows the Warlock to use the Speak with Dead spell.

I like Dead Man's Tongue. Frankly it's a spell that I think is under utilized. As an invocation it's both useful and nice flavor for a character.

Celestial Healer wrote:

I suppose I never use hide from undead because I'm too busy laying the smackdown.

Oh yes. I don't think I have ever seen anyone prepare Hide from undead.

That's funny we use it all the time. If you know your going into an area with undead, it let you get in there and figure out how many and even set up some good positions to lay the smackdown. For a 1st level spell its worth getting the upper hand on undead.

Blur. The 20% miss chance never seems to matter and, since mirror image is vastly superior (imo) and the same level, it is almost always the 'defensive illusion spell' of choice at that point.

I like Blur. It has a long duration which can last more than one combat and Mirror Image is easily taken care of by a good archer or a Magic Missile spell. I think the differnce is that in a single fight, definately at low levels, it's hard to see the 20% miss cahnce play out statistally. All you need is one fight where it never helped to plant the seed in your mind that it sucks even if the next fight it prevents 3 of 4 attacks.

Well, I was planning on taking the Focused Specialist variant necromancer, which means I give up THREE schools instead of two, but I get another extra spell slot (necromancy only) per day in each spell level. The three I was planning on giving up were Illusion, Conjuration, and Transmutation. I figure I can use invocations like Walk Unseen, Flee the Scene, and other things to make up for my spellcasting deficiencies. The cleric will be mostly focusing on melee combat and buffing with a little bit of healing when needed. I'm filling the artillery and utility slots.

Those are some good schools to give up. You might want to think about giving up evocation as one of your schools and keep conjuration. You can take invocations to turn your Eldrich blast into an area attack. Conjuration has Mage Armor which at the low levels is very nice. It also has all of the teleportation spells which there are one or two invocations that duplicate them but spells like Beign Transposition. You could give up Enchantments which the good one I think are replacable by invocations.

Without my books in front of me, at first glance you will probably want a high Dex and Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot ASAP. This will allow you to get your Eldrich Blast into melee as well as your ray spells such as Ray of Enfeeblement.

Why not have it stick with the initial attack as written. On the following round or I guess action at higher levels the barbarian makes an oppossed grapple check to pull it free dealing the weapons damage if successful. Granted once the barabrian is high enough level to do it in one round as a full round action she will be at a -5 on the grapple check since it will be her "second attack" in the round.

Doesn't the Complete Adventure have the two Dagger Stance PrCs in it? That helps a bit, but really people keep them as back-ups to say cut yourself out when you are swallowed whole. Maybe using a dagger in the off-hand could reduce the TWF penalties by an additional one.

Telekinesis, and baleful transposition. Telekinesis is an old favorite, of course, but what i discovered last night is that a kobold wizard being threatened by ghosts casting telekinesis can grapple said ghosts (since it is a force effect) quite effectively :) And Baleful Transposition (Spell Comp) lets you swap any 2 critters on the boards position, very useful for getting to places you prolly aren't supposed to be, and making sure the MBEG gets flanked good and early. Also good for getting back out of said places when the BBEG comes through the doorway you were inspecting :) So what are your favs and why?

I assume that Baleful Transposition can be used on two allies as well and they could not bother with the save so it works as a Beign Transposition as well. IS this true I don't have the book in front of me.

Page 86 (top left corner) of the Complete Arcane states that rays which inflict penalties cannot be doubled on a critical, and goes on to give RoE as an example.

Doesn't it say that instead of doubling it does degative damage? I don't have access to the box at the moment.

I'm working on the spell list for my new Sorcerer/Shungenja (basically gestalt build) who is focused on air type spells. When looking at 2nd level spells for him I noticed Gust of Wind. From a character concept point of view it just feels like a spell the character should have. After reading the spell it seems like a waste of a spell slot. What are people's experiences with Gust of Wind? Is it one of those underated spells or is it really a waste of time? It seems like it's really only effective on small or tiny creature which isn't as common as medium or larger. I guess I could see using it as part of a ready action to prevent a creature from advancing but not sure what else it's good for beyond that. So how bad is it?

I was thinking about replacing the DCs of non-spell critical hits with 10 + 1/2 HD + modifier of the ability score that was added to the attack bonus, Strength for most melee attacks and Dexterity for most ranged attacks. For spells the DC would be the DC of the spell.

That actually sounds pretty good. It scales with level and takes into accout PCs with high ability scores. I think I'll try that.

No it should be they are supressed for the duration of the dispel magic. It should be treated the same any other magic item. Unless someone can point out rules showing that there is a difference. Permanecy is used to make magic items. So if on a person all spell are lost becuase of a dispel then all your magic items are forever dispelled.

Permanency is not longer a requirement for making magic items that's what the Craft feats are for. I think it all changed with 3.0/3.5 and the addition of feats. Overall the Permanency spell has been reduced in power with 3.0/3.5. The being dispellable part actually makes you think about what you want permanent instead of the old days where you had every spell you could permanently on you.

Last game my group did most of the end battle with the Crimson fleet. They did a few smart things and few few oversights from my point of view. The two aquatic PCs set up some underwater spikes at the small cliff opening to Farshore so that when the fleet came in they used Lower Water to drop a ship onto the spikes. They only caught one but one out of five wasn't bad. They then proceeded to launch fireballs at the ships or the row boats with the pirates. This was quickly stopped when the four golems stepped out of the waves and started to destroy Farshore. The group spent a couple rounds learning that really only the Minotaur barbarian could hurt the stupid things. Here is where I think they kinda went astray they left the Minotaur to take care of all of the golems himself with just a little support. I had the golems split up since their comands when to destroy the town so the Minotaur took them on one at a time with a little help from the couatl they summoned using a feather and Planar Ally, lesser. And the Spelltheif did use Grease a few times to knock the golems prone. The rest of the group continued to assault the ships drawing the attention of the Yuan-ti sorcerer. He started by animating all his fireballed crew then cast Fly and followed the zombie pirates to shore. The PCs didn't think much of the sorcerer until they started losing level to Enevation. At this point they had taken so long that the Vrocks had teleported in to start the dance of ruin. I had them show up near where the Minotaur was (on the other side of a building) and near where the Spelltheif was flying. Here is where I think they made have had another oversight. The Minotaur weilding Firekiller (for the Weapons of Legacy book) got that tingling feel he gets when demons are near by. He is still fighting the last golem so he feels he can't go and investigate. The other PCs finish off the sorcerer and the Spelltheif who is nearest the Minotaur and flying so he has a good vantage point doesn't bother to check on the Minotaur or the tingling he sensed. Instead he heads off after the body of the sorcerer because he saw that magic on him (he has permanent Arcane Sight) even though the body fell into the water and he really doesn't swim well. Sad to say that by the time the Minotaur finished the last golem the dance was complete and 20d6 of damage surged out in a 100ft radius. The Minotaur took 72 points of damage leaving him at just 10 points ( good think the Shadowcaster gave him an extra 45 hit point from Bolster). They were able to destroy the Vrocks with some good uses of Hold Monster and Slow, but the dance had destroyed the Church and the Last Coconut plus a few of the citizens. We left off with Vanthus making his appearance.

I just picked up my deck yesterday and have only had time to flip through it breifly. I did notice that some of the effects are pretty harsh (sent to a random plane for example). If I read correctly the save DCs for any of the effects is whatever the confirmation roll was. Did I read that right? Doesn't that seem pretty high in a lot of cases? If that is the case has any house ruled a different save DC system?

My players hate him as well. They often talk about getting him killed in some way but never really followed through. They are just finishing ToD now so their involvement with him is pretty much over. Although they still refer to him as Magnum PI.

Having been swallowed by a T-rex when they landing on this god-forsaken island, the Cleric/Stormlord decided he would never let it happen again. When they reached the tar pits and the biggest T-rex they have every seen comes charging out he knew exactly what to do. He casts a spell charging his body with electricty and charges forward. The T-rex had been uselessly flailing at the Minotaur barbarian (I was rolling poorly that night) and was badly wounded. Seeing a smaller target (one that it could actually swallow) it seizes the chance to nab him up. He hits dealing a terrible blow to the Stormlord and prepares to swallow him. The first jolt of electricity takes him by surprise, but he fails to let go in time. He gives one last chop before trying to spit out the Stormlord but it was too late. The T-rex crushes to the ground dead as the Stormlord crawls away nearly dead.

Has anyone used action points with the deck? I don't have a deck so I don't know how powerful this would be but what if you could spend an action point to pull an additional card when you critical and choose between them (so three card total for a x3 wepon and four cards total for a x4 weapon).

It's neither of them. When the season ended, Sarah was trapped under a car possibly dying. Not sure how it will end next season, but I read that the actress who plays Sarah contract is currently in dispute so she may actually die on the show.

This came up once when we were talking about the Sudden Metamagic feats. I'm not sure if it's my DM's house rule but I thought I read that even though the Sudden feats do not actually adjust the level of the spell you need to be able to cast a spell of the level that it would be adjusted to. I would think that the same would apply to Divine Metamagic. Using the Turn attempts still save you the level adjustment and let you decide on the spot when to do it which is nice.

Sorry, I should clarify (not that my opinion is relevant to what will actually be in 4e, but still). I would expect to see a system where you prepare spells but then have the flexibility to cast any of your prepared spells. That way, you don't have to fill slots with multiple magic missiles. You just prepare magic missile once and you can cast it as many times per day as you have 1st level spells.

Isn't that what a Spirit Shaman from the Complete Divine does? I'm not sure I have heard anyone say that they are overpowered.

I am very tempted to do a sorcerer / favored soul / mystic theurge combo.

I have totally been thinking about doing that too. A raw caster of both types of magic without memorization.

Yeah the magic creation feats and an Ap can be a deadly combo. Once the PCs figure out the main enemy type for the AP they can really go nuts. Sure you'll have the usual +3 armor, +3 amulet (both creatable by level 3 if I remember correctly) and whatever ring of protection they can find (usually +2 or +3 by then). Then you take into acount that they take +1 weapons with bane of the AP enemy (undead in your case) and Holy is always a good one since they tends to be a lot of evil in APs (I think Holy should be a +3 modifier instead of +2 personally). Granted all this seems to require time which in AoW I thought only came in a few places, but it is something you can regulate. For me what it really comes down too is has it sucked the fun out of the game for you? If that is the way the players want to play, walking into every fight like its nothing and walk out unharmed, then to each their own. Personally not fun for me. Maybe try just letting it be super easy for a while. Then when they get bored talk about how things are going. When they say its too easy ask why they think that and maybe they'll see the light. 3e is definately a number cruchers playground. You can definately build something really tough within the rules of the game, the players and DM alike. I would just talk to the players and figure out if they are enjoying it the way they are playing it. If they are then you need to decide if you are enjoying it they way they are playing. Hopefully you guys come to an agreement on how to play. I wouldn't punish someone for using the rules to their advantage, but if its not the kinda game you want to run they that needs to be resolved.

My party skipped the rhagodessa pen and ixiticha...ixitchaki...shark guys altogether. Just comes with the territory of a (fairly) open dungeon.

Yeah mine skipped those as well. They entered through one of the abandoned buildings and used stealth to take them out. In fact, the kobold spellthief rigged a alchemist fire over the door of the barracks so that when they made noise attacking the folks in the dining hall the reinforments had a good suprise.