Chris P's page

I just started a new game and one player chose Orc Spirit Shaman as his character. While I really like the idea of swapping out there known spells each day, the number of known spells per day looks like it should be bumped up by one per spell level. Is that too powerful? Is it used as game balance to counter the fact that they change every day? Any other comments on the pros and cons of the class?

Thanks in advance.

Do most DMs just hand the player the character sheet of their cohort when they pick up the leadership feat? That's the way I have seen it done in the past but my player just picked up leadership and I'm considering keeping the sheet. I've told the player in rough terms all the cohorts skills and abilites and still plan on letting the player roll all the dice. The only reason I hesitate on give the player the sheet is I what it to be a little less metagaming/number cruching when asking the cohort to do things. It feel a little more mysterious and organic I guess not knowing the exact number of this person who follows you around. Does that sound worth it or too heavy handed?

Ok I'm still learning the whole Eberron setting and one of my players want to play a Centaur. What region would they most likely come from? I'm not sure I see anyting specifically about them in any of the books. Should I just pick a planes area? Insight from anyone more knowledgeable on the setting?

We just started a new game and one of the players is playing a Knight. In the second game session he challenged his opponent. There is no save involved per the book (i don't have the book in front of me so I could be wrong) and there is nothing that says of opponent has responde to it. Am I missing something? How have other people run it? In this case the opponent's concept definately had him accpt the challenge so it wasn't an issue, just curious for next time.

Almost ready to start my Eberron compaign and have been working on props for it. Have all the coins and gems ready as well as a few of the more obscure props. Now I'm looking at scrolls. My current thought is to actually print out each spell on parchment paper with the by the book rules for the spell in small print at the bottom. The top of the page will have the verbal and somatic commands for the spell. If the player actually roleplays the commands when using the scroll I plan to have the spell affected by a metamagic feat or a caster level bump of my choice. Sound like a good idea? Other suggestions?

I'm getting ready to start an Eberron game and my wife is going to play a Talenta halfling druid with a dinosaur mount/companion. The thing is she really has no desire to wildshape. Any suggestions for an alternative ability. I considered swapping it for the barbarian rage ability but not sure how balanced that would be. She is most likely gonna be Dragonmarked with the mark of healing and swapping out spontaneous summoning for rejuvenating healing from the PH2. Any ideas?

Does the upgrades to the paladin for Pathfinder make it too powerful for a normal 3.5 game? The standard paladin is lack luster so I wanted to swap the pathfinder version in but don't want it to outshine the other characters. If it is too powerful any suggestions to balance it a bit?

My cleric5/alienist1 picked up Leadership at level 6 and got a Darnu (from Denizens of Avandu) as a cohort. It's a magical beast that can speak and understand any language and looks like a medium sized dog. It's an ECL 4 so it worked out well for a 6th level character. When I hit level 7 I assume I just add a level of magical beast and do that everytime I level, right? It states that after so many hit dice (I think 7) it becomes size large. Is the a level adjustment for becoming size large and if so do you earn that level first then increase in size or increase in size and spend two levels for it?

I have a Dragon Shaman in the game I play in and she is looking for a feat to take at 6th level. There are a few feats in races of dragons but are there more in other places? I was almost thinking of a feat that would let her coat her weapon in her breath weapon for 1d4 rounds but not sure if that would be too powerful. Any suggestions?

My wife is thinking of playing a pixie from the Savage Species book in my next Eberron Campaign. I know in a few places that some people have played pixies before. What are the pitfalls she should look out for? Is it tough to get through 5 levels with only 6 hps? She is not sure what class to take at 6th level. She was thinking druid to keep with the nature theme but not sure she wants an animal companion or wild shaping ability. I considered having her take sorcerer levels but swap it's spell list for druid spell list and swap the familar for Wild Empathy. Any suggestions?

I wanted to get people's opinion of the Knight class. Is it fairly balanced? Is it fun to play? Where does it lack? I have a player who is trying to come up with a character for my upcoming Eberron game and he was leaning towards Warforged Paladin but doesn't want the mount or spells, so I suggested the Knight class. I also thought about doing some Warforged sustitution levels that would remove the mounted combat stuff and add some flavor like maybe adamantine knights and Mithral knights (with the path choosen at the substitution level). Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

This is somewhat of a follow on to my previous thread of must have books. As I have started to work my way through the books I'm starting to get campaign ideas. The Explorer's Handbook had a Black Dragon (CR:23) that will most likely be the main villian pulling the strings. His main goal is to get free of his prison (I'm at work so I don't have more details than that). Elements of Eberron that I know I want to use are as follows:

The lightning rail - probably a train ride adventure similar to Dungeon issue #143
Airships - one of my favorite things about Eberron
Warforged - maybe a recueing some from a cult who wants to make them slaves again
Archeology - a lot of item finding which will be needed to release the Dragon (probably a Dragon Shard in there somewhere)
Dragon Marks - not sure how to use them yet

Any other suggestions or ideas on things that are very Eberron?

I recently picked up the Eberron campaign book since it was really cheap and am now thinking about running a campaign using the setting. What are peoples must have books for the setting? I am thinking of an adventure that is really about exploration and the use of air ships which I love. Here's what I have so far:

Campaign Setting book
Explores Guide
Races of Eberron
Players guide to eberron
Magic of Eberron
DM Screen

Ok I have what is probably a stupid question. Is there a limit to the number of homunculus an artificer can have at one time? In my mind I have always felt that you should only have one homunculus but that may just be me. I don't see anywhere where it actually gives a limit.

I have a player in our D&D game who is currently a 5th level whisper gnome rogue. He is considering adding some additional flavor to his character by multiclassing or taking a PrC. I threw out Soulknife as an option and he thought it would be pretty cool. The problem is he doesn't want to fall too far behind on his thieving skills like Open Locks and Disarm Traps. Does anyone know of any PrCs that combine the two? Any suggestions on if he just multiclasse the two what the best approach would be? I also picked up Dreamscarred Mind Blade pdf which would allow him to get just the mindblade as a feat.

On a similar note under the description of the Soulknife it says the mindblade starts as a short sword and you can apply Power Attack. Since short sword is a light weapon can you use the Weapon Finesse feat with it? He has the feat already and has a high Dex so he doesn't want to give up that benifit.

Does using this ring require proficentcy in Shields? As an ideal ring for wizards it would seem silly if it did.

Due to recent medical bills and the summer coming up (my wife works in the school system) I need to cancel my Pathfinder Module subscription. I really love you guys and maybe in the fall (assuming my wife gets her job again next fall, its always a gamble) I may be able to subscribe again. I will continue to recommend you to all my friends and will to support you with any of my gaming pruchases that I do make.

Chris

Normally I don't play clerics and when I do they are usually good. I'm in the rare case now where I'm a neutral cleric to an evil god so I don't tunr undead, I rebuke them. The description in the book is pretty short so I wanted to get feedback from folks as to how to use it. The initial roll and all that is pretty clear. Undead that are more than half my level is pretty clear (cowered for 10 rounds giving the rest of my group +2 to hit). Now it gets a little foggy when they are less than half my level (where they would normally be destroyed). It says I can command them, but only up to my levels worth of HD. What's not clear is how long to I command them. The same 10 rounds as if they were just rebuked. I assume I can make them do anything.

Here is last night scenario. We see 10 skeletons coming our way (I am level 4). I make my roll and my turning damage is 12HD. Since my level is only 4 I can command four of them and we assumed the remaining 8 were cowered. I then commanded the 4 to destroy the other eight which worked fairly well. Did we do that right?

Has anyone taken this feat before? Was it useful? Did it cause more problems than it was worth? For those that don't have the book, it makes a 5' radius cloud around creatures you summon for one round. Creatures in the cloud are sickened except the creatures you summoned. You can choose not to have the cloud with a conjuration and you can leave a cloud behind when you teleport. Visually is sounds cool and would add flavor to my character but I'm worried that since you typically summon a creature into the heat of melee that I wouldn't be able to use it much for fear of sickening my friends in melee. Anyone have experience with it?

My character just found a Bag of Endless Rats in game last night. My character is very much into summoning creatures but he summons aberrations normally and would like the change what the spits out. There is an artificier in the party so I have someone with the right skills to modify the itemm but not sure what it should cost if anything in xp and gp. If I just have the artificer change it to an equivalent CR aberration should is cost anything other than a day of time.

This may have been talked about already but my search-fu is not so hot today. So the subject has the base queation but here is why I ask. I live about an hour north of San Francisco in wine country and we have one gaming store. I go into it once in a while but overall I don't enjoy the experience. It's poorly run in my experience, it has one third of it's floor space dominated by folding tables for people to play mostly on which is usually dominated by MtG. They sell comics as well which is fine. The staff is not all that helpful or well informed. Now ignoring that I live near a bad gaming store (or maybe that I'm old and overly critical) we have the computer age. You can get book at Amazon for a fraction of the price you can at a local gaming store. Plus folks like Paizo who I buy most my stuff through because I love them and want to support them. You have a lot of books being only in PDF format or in dual formats so you can just download your next product.

Is there really a place for a local gaming store five years from now, ten years from now? Does it have to have the gaming tables so that its a hang out as well to get people to buy while they are there?

And just so I don't sound like I'm here to complain about my local gaming store, the reason I ask is that I'm considering doing something about having a bad local gaming store, opening my own. So input from folks that own their own shops would be great. What does a store need to survive? Does it need to have gaming supplies, comics, food and a gathering area? Just trying to get an idea what other people think.

I'll try to make this as brief as possible. We just started a new game where I actually get to play (I almost always DM). The DM is running pretty much nothing but Dungeon Crawl Classics with enough to get us from level 1 to 15 (we are currently level 2). The rest of the party consists of a Whisper Gnome Rogue, Human Fighter, Human Brass Dragon Shaman and a Dwarven Artificer. I'm playing a Human Cloistered Cleric. My concept is that as a teenager and being overly curious I found myself watching a dark ritual of an evil cult. They opened a gateway to the Far Realm at which point what reached out killed them all and touched me before the portal collapsed. It left me slightly deformed (gaining two flaws from Unearth Arcana) and a little mad. But for that brief moment I got a glimpse of what I thought was the origin of all the planes. I started studying and hearing whispers from beyond. I started whorshipping Mak Thum something or other (can't remember at the moment) a enity from the far realm. My belief is that by making sense of the Far Realm I can learn the secrets of the universe so to speak. Character wise I have the Madness, Summoning and Knowledge domains (the Knowledge domain was a bonus from Cloistered Cleric) and my current feats are Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Entend Spell and Divine Metamagic (Extend Spell). My DM has allowed me to make my own summon monster lists and using the PHII option I spontaneously exchange from my Summoning Domain rather than Inflict Wounds (I'm Chaotic Neutral but my god is Chaotic Evil). Using the Summoning Circle article from Dragon and Unearth Arcana as guidelines I summon nothing but Anarchic Aberrations. The problem is I'm torn as to what to do for feats from this point on.

I considered Cloudly Conjuration which would look cool but the 1 round of sickening and cover I'm not sure would be worth it. I found a feat called Chaos Summoner which would makes my Summon Monster spells have a range of medium at no level cost, but since we are in dungeons a lot I'm not sure I need more than close range. I had this thought of taking Leadership and getting an aberration cohort. If I use Savage Species I could get something like an Attach, Ettercap, Drider or Umber Hulk as a cohort (using this book just to make the mechanics easy). Something I could use as a body guard when I summon and a strong arm (for Strength check mostly not combat) since no one in the party has a Strength above 16. Sure I could take Rapid Spell, but so far the 1 round of casting hasn't been an issue. Any suggestions? I have access to most WotC books and a decnt amount of third party stuff. Also see Kalivak's Journal in the Campaign Journal section of the boards for how thing have gone so far.

I recently placed two order within about two days of one another the order I placed second (order#1085273) actually shipped first on Nov 24th. The order I placed first (order#1080477) shipped two days later on Nov 26th. I received order#1080477 on Dec 2nd even though it shipped two days later than the other order. As of yesterday Dec 8th I still hadn't received the othere order enough though it shipped two days earlier than the order I got a week ago. Should I wait another week before I assume the order is lost in the mail? The orders were roughly the same thing so I wouldn't think one should take longer because of size of the package or anything like that. There's no way to track them right?

We just started a new game a few eeks ago and I have been trying to keep an incharacter journal to help the whole group keep track of what we have done. The group is composed of the following:

Female Human Fighter - Babbette
Female Human Brass Dragon Shaman - Lexi
Male Dwarven Artificier - Luddock
Male Whisper Gnome Rogue - Finn
Male Human Cloistered Cleric - Kalivak (me)

Here is what I have so far:

11/14/08

Day 1
I entered the town of Churro per “his” request. It’s a small town Northeast of Bladeblue Lake and not much different than any other of these dirty little towns. “It” whispered to me that it has problems that I might be interested in. Possibly others from “home” have made their way to this town. The town wasn’t very friendly but what little I could get from the people in town, apparently maggot like worms the size of house cats creep into town and attack the villagers. Those unfortunate enough to succumb to these worms rise again as an undead abomination. “His” guidance alone will not be enough to resolve this issue and find these things, I will need help.

Day 2
I tried to contact that council but the concerns of one of his “chosen” do not carry much weight in this town. Trying to get the members of Pelor, St. Cuthbert, Heironiuos, Obdahi and Jovanist (one I have not heard of before) proved a task beyond “our” capabilities. “We” decided to find help on our own. Maybe others would be willing to help if there was the prospect of fame and fortune. I asked around and left notice at every tavern on town. I hope “his” luck looks down upon me.

Day 3
“He” has chosen to look favorably upon me. Others have started to heed my request although they all seem to be new to the area as well and just as out of place as “we” are. A dwarven gent named Luddock offered to help. He seemed more concerned about finding if maybe magic was causing this issue. There is something different about him as if he is out of synch with this realm. Maybe he has been touched by “home” as well. I was approached by two human females both bearing an array of weapons. The first, Babbette, seemed carry hers as if they were an extension of her body. The help of someone who wields an axe and a punch dagger will definitely be useful to keep these worms off me if I find them. The other, Lexi, while a striking woman seemed to handle her weapons with less familiarity but she had a feeling about her that reminded me of dragon kin. The last to appear was a gnome. Finn lacked the usual jovial nature of kin but I have never seen one of his kind that moved with such stillness about him. “We” think that five of us should be enough for a few little worms. Lexi was able to determine that many believe the worms originate from another small town three days travel northeast of here.

Day 4
Travel goes well with very little trouble. I believe I will be safe with those that have agreed to help use.

Day 5
The land is starting to show signs of conquest. It appears that many a battles have been fought around this parts and that they have taken a toll on the land itself. If memory serves a pair of Barons make it an annual thing to fight over the Barrow Down plains. The toils of battle can be seen in every direction. It is becoming more barren with each step we take.

Day 6
We have finally reached the town. There is little left of it with its most prominent feature a large well. A stone orifice some twenty feet in diameter with the smell of an open grave. Approaching slowly, we could tell that it must have something to do with it all the strangeness. The walls of the well were coated with some kind of slime and the bottom was beyond Luddock’s special vision. While Babbette anchored the rope to herself, Lexi lowered Finn into the well to investigate. This yielded little information before things with went bad. The water is some seventy-five feet down with a fissure just about gnome size some ten feet above the water level. We would have determined more but a worm secreted itself from the wall above Finn and attached itself to him. Finn’s body went limp as the woman yanked him back up out of the well. Luddock used his crossbow to attack the worm on Finn but missed. Four more of these worms crawled from the well approaching Luddock and me. I reached into the beyond and pulled forth a fiendish rat to help. Babbette hacked the worm off Finn but he remained motionless. Lexi stepped up to help Luddock and I could feel a shift in her aura that made my body feel invigorated. Babbette kills two more worms and Luddock smashed one with his morning star. My rat failed to do anything before returning to where I had pulled it from. I will look for a better specimen next time. The last worm was finished off and we assessed Finn’s condition. Finn’s condition was bad and we decided to rest for the night hoping his condition would improve by tomorrow. “We” used our sight to sense magic at the bottom of the well. Maybe it’s the source of the worms. We retreated a mile or so back to sleep the night.

Night 6
We were woken up by a call for help from Lexi. Two villagers that had been turned by the worms shuffled their way into camp. The woman made relatively quick work of the zombies after I cowered them with the awe of his “his” presence. They seemed to be filled with several smaller worms, perhaps baby worms.

Day 7
We returned to the well with a plan to remove whatever was at the bottom of the well. Lexi and Babbette flanked me to protect me from worms while Luddock took up a cover position with is crossbow. We left Finn still weak away from the well out of danger. Luddock had imbued the armor of both woman with magic to protect them from any potential danger. I reach into the beyond a pulled fourth a fiendish octopus commanding it to retrieve the item at the bottom of the well. I then reached once again to pull fourth a fiendish hawk to grab what the octopus found and carry up to us. It dropped it to the ground before returning to where it came from. The item appeared to be a dagger with a jagged blade. Luddock held the dagger for several seconds and determined that it was magical. Its appearance gave no indication of it origin but once again Luddock after a few moments of concentration learned how to activate the daggers power. He determined it was capable of injecting a deadly poison into its victim on command once a day. Lexi chose to carry it instead of her normal dagger. Our only choice now was to attempt to enter the fissure in the well. We decided to rest again hoping that the next day Finn would feel well enough to lead the way into the fissure.

Day 8
We lowered Luddock into the well to open the fissure large enough for us all to enter. After several minutes he was able to bash the opening large enough for us to fit. It took us several minutes but we were able to get everyone into the fissure which had a small passage way on the other side. With Finn leading the passageway opened into a large natural cave. We found six more villagers in small alcoves covered in slime. As we entered the room, three of them came to un-life and attacked. Lexi, Babbette and Luddock set up a front line against the attack. I once again cowered them with “his” presence and Lexi and Babbette made short work of the zombie. We burned them all. It appears that the worms use the bodies to incubate their young. Luddock fell through the floor while walking the room’s perimeter uncovering an additional passage leading off from the room……..
11/21/08

Day 7 (rewind)
While “we” prepared to reach into the beyond for the appropriate creatures to retrieve the item at the bottom of the well, Luddock set himself up a make-shift desk of wood and stone. He spends several hours working with herbs, crushing semi-precious gems and some powders that he had on hand to form some kind of a liquid or ink. He then spent another hour carefully penning a scroll, a skill I didn’t know he had. He is a very surprising individual that “we” will watch carefully. When he is done he then hands the scroll to me and I realize what he has done. He had penned a scroll that when read by someone of the clergy it allows them to partially returns the recipients stolen abilities (oddly enough a power Mak has not seen fit to teach me yet). I use the scroll to return some of Finn’s health to him so that he is mostly back to normal.

Day 8 (con’t)
….Luddock inspects his knew surrounds obviously spending too much time as a faint skittering sound tells him that he is unwelcome in this new area. Two spiders that size of small dogs attack Luddock while he is trapped below. I was able to skewer one with my crossbow while Babbette pulled Luddock back up to the rest of us. That left the remaining spider to flee but before it could get away I pinned it to the ground with a crossbow bolt.

We spend several minutes searching the upper level and burning the bodies such that more worms would have no food. While the bodies burned Finn quickly snatched something off one of them only to revel a small pouch hold several coins and a precious gem.
Finn then dropped down into the newly uncovered area to inspect what Luddock had uncovered. This area appeared quite different. The walls looked like they were deliberately lined with bones, armor and weapons. Upon closer inspection we even found a standard. The standard appears to be that of the Breakers. The Breakers were a group of dwarves that some 20 years ago tried to stop the war over this land between the two barons only to be completely slaughtered. We followed Finn’s lead done the new corridor until he dropped out of sight through the floor.
Finn found himself in a decent sized room with three large pits being maintained by a couple of these worm zombies. They were stirring the pits and with every stir you could see several small worms float to the surface. The zombies began to make their way towards Finn but before they could reach them Babbette pulled him back up to us and we quickly passed by the hole in the floor.
The passage way ended in a what looked to be a 20 x 30 foot room. Finn wisely stopped at the room entrance and inspected the doorway. He found two things of interest; first was a portcullis above the door entrance and secondly a level which appeared to lock the portcullis in place. Not the most ingenious of traps but without Finn’s keen eye sight we would have fallen for it. Finn locked the portcullis into the open position and waited for the rest of us to join him. Upon entering the room we found the other half of the trap. A worm zombie was chained to the walled presumably to be released as the portcullis came down. It proved little effort for Babbette to put it out of its misery while it was still chained to the wall.
The room itself was filled with old rotten supplies. The crates and barrels bared the mark of The Breakers as well; presumably they used this area as a base of operations. Searching the supplies found little of use expect for maybe some wine, now turned to vinegar. We had no choice but to return to the pits. We spent several minutes as Luddock used his special skills to enchant both Lexi’s and Babbette’s armor and to enchant his crossbow such that it was a bane to any undead creature. We returned to the opening to the pits with a plan. Lexi and Babbette dropped down to form a human walk while Luddock dropped down behind them with his new magic crossbow. I followed preparing to reach into the beyond for assistance. Luddock’s aim was not as true as before but the Fiendish Badger that that heeded my call torn one of the zombie to shreds while Babbette cut the remaining zombie to pieces.
We tried pouring the wine/vinegar into the pools to kill the worms but to little avail. In the end we decided to systematically pick one pool at a time and with our ranges weapons we each choose a target and fired. Within very little time we were able to destroy the worms in each of the pools. We then shift our focus to the passage that leaves the room….

11/28/08
Day 8 (con’t)
Finn led the way out of the room following another natural passageway. It leads to a fairly large room with a demonic base relief dominating one wall. The demon’s mouth was open and periodically one of the worms would slide out of the mouth and fall into a pool of blood at its base. There were also valuable offerings next to the relief. Finn spotted two zombies and a strange dark skinned dwarf on an adjacent ledge before the dwarf fired off a crossbow bolt at him. Finn returned to us to determine a plan. Lexi got impatient and entered the room to face the zombies that were now on the floor waiting at the entrance. Lexi and Babbette dealt with the zombies while Luddock and I fired crossbows at the dwarf. The dwarf fled and the zombies dropped quickly.
Finn grabbed the gems and coins at the relief as well as three potions that Luddock determined were curing. Babbette and Luddock each drank one since they were still wounded from before. Lexi, Babbette and I worked to move a large boulder that was concealing a secret passage. After much work we moved it releasing a half a dozen feral elves that pounced on Babbette. The elves dropped quickly and Finn led us into the new passageway. The passage was a network of natural passageways and alcoves with a large underground pool of water with cave fish. At the far end of the cavern Finn found an old rusted portcullis with lock. Finn quickly undid the lock and entered a very large room. He quickly spotted a large worm at the far end of the room roughly the size of a large farm pig. The dwarf was also here and must have heard us because ran across the room and behind a large curtain. Babbette and Finn focused of getting to the dwarf who had released a large ogre zombie whose head was barely attached and had legs that were chopped at the knees. Lexi moved to kill the worm. After Finn activated his natural silence the dwarf moved to protect the worm. The group killed the worm and then the dwarf. We then avoided the slow moving zombie until Luddock could kill it with his enchanted crossbow.
Search of the room found a little treasure including a golden idol of a cult of dwarfs who learned to fight drunk. The ogre’s body appeared stuffed and upon opening we find a partially digested elf body. The body has some valuables which include a spell book and a ring that Luddock determines is magic. We decided to leave feeling that the worm problem has been destroyed.

Day 9
Travel back to Churro goes well. I have determined that the ring found radiates faint abjuration magic so we give it to Babbette to protect her better.

Day 11
We finally return to Churro and explain what the problem was and that it was resolved.

Day 13
Luddock and I have spent the last two days penning curing magic to scrolls for later use. This should help us to not have to rely on my daily curing so much.

Day 14
Verditus the Druid calls us before the council to tell us about a theft. A prayer rug, stone idol and a golden censer were all stolen and when the thieves dug in to steal the items the collapse kills many of the guards. They believe the theft to be the work of The Broken Knives. A group of thieves composed mostly of kobold and trogs that make the Churro castle ruins their home. Corporal Cale and Private Ovirt offer to come along to help us in hopes of getting some revenge on the thieves.

We head to Churro castle ruins and find the entrance covered with a strange mist. The castle is rumored to be haunted but this is most likely tricks of the thieves. Finn descends the stairs and is attacked by a friendish raven that he quickly kills with his rapier. The stairs end at a door which after a little inspection Fin opens the door. It opens to a large room with many statues that magically babble. Some of the phrases spoken are:
“Someone what’s its skull back, don’t hurt it”
“The earth under the water is unstable.”
“Beyond the prisoner you will travel.”
“The couch is hungry.”
“The spiders worship the idol.”
“What you can’t see is the key.”
The room had two exits, a wooden door on our right and a stone door directly across from us. The stone door has a statue guarding it on either side. We wait out of the room while Finn inspects the doors. Lexi goes in to talk to the statues and gets confused. She runs for a bit then tries to attack Babbette and a few other strange things. We wait for her to regain her senses before Finn opens the wooden door.
The door opens to a room with a fountain producing water that changes color. Near the pool is a kobold with multiple cages of rats. Finn sidesteps the door and by the time we get to the room the kobold is gone. We inspect the fountain for a bit testing the magically properties of the water at various colors based on notes from the kobold. Finn finds a secret door leading out of the room. It enters a passageway that ends in another secret door. The door opens into a room with two sleeping trogs. We try to talk to them but they attack. The room has areas of slowed time and sped up time which makes combat difficult. Four kobolds and a kobold priest join the fight making things difficult. We finally kill the trogs and the four kobolds while the priest runs off again.
We exit the room following Finn’s led again. The wide passage ends at an octagonal room where there are areas that crush you to the ground and areas that crush you to the ceiling. Finn confirms that one door led’s back to the statue room before we go across the room to the passage on the other side. This passage has three doors with one of them being open. The open door reveals a lushly decorated room. The run reaches out a tentacle to grab Finn and drag him into the room to a mouth in the floor. We fight it for a bit but then just shut the door and move to one of the other doors.
The next door opens to a long room that is sunk 10 feet below the door. The room has a lot of little holes in the walls and several small spiders are running around. The walls appear slick. We grab a ladder we saw in the octagonal room and Lexi goes in to search the holes. Finn joins her and they find the stone idol in one of the holes.
The remaining door had one of the city guards in it working. He seemed to be under some kind of charm. Corporal Cale commanded him to return to the city guard and we led him out. Back in the room, half of the room had a shimmer to it and when you stuck something into the shimmer it tried to pull it in. We tied the ladder to the spider room door with some rope and threw the ladder into the shimmer. The ladder, rope and door all disappeared. We decided to leave the room alone and go back to the living room.
After a combination of ranged fire and Lexi and Babbette attacking the tentacles we kill the room. There was another door at the other end of the room that opened into a room while a vortex of air and debris. Finn spotted a chest in the vortex and after tying a rope to him he entered the room and grabbed the chest after a couple of tries. The chest was crushed but Luddock figured out how to get it open to reveal some notes of some events that led to Churro’s death. It also had a key. Finn enters the vortex again to find a door on the other side of the room. Using the key he finds a closet with a dead kobold. The kobold clutches a gold cow idol and a spell book. The idol is the mascot to a magic university and the spell book has every basic arcane spell in it for a beginning wizard.

We returned to the octagonal room to descend the stairs….
12/5/08
Day 14 con’t
We descended the stairs into an area of unnatural darkness. Finn led the way having to stay closed to the group to use what little light our light source provided. The stairs ended at a four way intersection and Finn’s keen eyes could barely make out a room to our left. It was just a short distance away and was once a crypt as best as we could tell. There were cubbies in the walls but after a thorough search we found that they were all empty.
We returned to the bottom of the stairs and went right to a door that caught our attention. Finn made sure it was safe before Lexi and Babbette opened it. Inside we found a spectral form sitting on a throne its feet propped up on a sarcophagus. There were arcane runes everywhere. The spirit introduced itself as Thulso the Thoughtful. He was the great-great grandson of Churro and was trapped in the room. Apparently the trogs and kobolds came in and took a few things including Thulso’s animated skull. He offered us a reward if we would return his head. We agreed and set off don the last corridor to find it. We didn’t have to go far as we found the skull banging around just down the next hallway. After a couple of attempts Lexi was able to capture it in a sack.

We returned to Thulso with the skull and once we entered the room the skull hopped back to the rest of the body. Thulso gave us a magic key as payment that helps with picking locks and it can magically cast a Knock spell as a wand. With that we continued down the corridor that we found the skull in to another four-way intersection. There were doors in all directions and we chose to go left to the first door. Inside we find a trog meditating on an elaborate rug. Luddock tried to talk to him but the trog attacked us instead. Lexi and Babbette held the line while Finn tumbled past all of them to get behind the trog. My god sent me the aid of a war worm after I requested help. It was a hard fought battle but we defeated him. He had some treasure and the rug was worth something but the most interesting item was a contract. Kethos, leader of the Jovians, had contracted the Broken Knives to steal the items. We took everything and moved onto the next room.

As soon a Babbette opened the door we were all shed in a blue light and sucked into the room. Once we got our bearings again we found ourselves in an octagonal room dominated but two tall statues. They were both 18 feet tall with one hand upheld. One statue was the god of knowledge and the other the god of magic. Scrawled in Draconic on the wall was the phrase, “Of the mind is the key that you can’t see but can find in your hand.” Finn climbs up and finds and invisible key in the god of knowledge’s hand and Luddock finds a trapdoor in the floor. The key opens the trapdoor and we descend into the room below.

This room has another sarcophagus and a skeleton haphazardly tossed on the floor alongside it. Inside the sarcophagus we found the rug and censor we were looking for. We took the items and returned the skeleton. There was a ladder out that led us to the hallway just outside the door that sucked us in. We had everything we were looking for but we decided to check the last door before leaving.

The last door opened into a small room that had a wall dug out. The dug tunnel looked fresh and led away for a bit. Based on the location and the amount of water dripping from above the tunnel it’s possible that they were digging under the druid temple. We followed Finn down it for a bit until he stopped us having found more trouble. There were four kobolds and a trog around the next corner. Lexi and Babbette charge in and confront the group. Luddock and I provide cover fire while Finn dives through the group although he ended up on his back. Babbette and Lexi made quick work of the group. This seemed to be the last of the ruins so we returned to the council.

The council was happy to have the items returned, but was upset with Kethos’ actions. He was oddly not there when we returned. With that we decided to rest for the night and work on getting more provisions the next day.

Day 15
I spent some time with the elixir we found and through magic was able to discern that it was an elixir of swimming which we gave to Luddock in case he ever found himself trapped in water. While searching for better weapons and armor Babbette was attacked by magic from the shadows. Yelling wildly Kethos attacked us. He was no match for us and went down quickly. I stabilized him and we took all his equipment. We returned him to the council so that they could punish him as they saw fit.

My wife is starting a new fighter and since she is doing two-weapon fighting she has a fairly high Dex score (17 at 1st level). I was thinking of having her take Combat Reflexes to take advantage of the high Dex but does it really come in handy that often? Do you really end up with that many opportunities to get in those extra AoO? Do you get more out of it at low levels than high levels (lots of little monsters at low levels typically)? Do you only take it as a prerequisite for another feat? I think I had it on one character in the past but to be honest don't really remember if it came in that handy. She is the primary front line fighter if that makes a difference.

Do people think that say Sudden Empower or Sudden Maximize would be benificial for a summner? If you cast from a list of creatures below the spell level you can get mutilple creatures. Woud a Sudden Empower or Sudden Maxizie beworth the extra dreautres?

We just started a new game and I have decided to work my way towards this PrC. I'm playing a Chaotic Neutral Cleric to the god Mak Thuum Ngatha (from Lord of Madness book). His concept was that as an overly curious teen he walked in on a ritual that a cult was trying to do to open the Far Realm. They were not strong enough to control the opening or make it big enough for something to fully come through. What it did allow was an entity to reach through and touch a single being, me. I was forever changed from that point on. My eye turned a milky white (no irises at all) and one of my legs became twisted in an unnatral way (both resulting in the flaws Murky-eyed and slow from Unearthed Arcana). The most major lasting affect was the whispers I heard from that point on. Mak speaking to me, expressing that I could only be whole again if I found the Far Realm and unlocked it's secrets. Possibly completing what the other fools failed at. I now adventure following Mak's guidance to gain enough knowledge and power so that I can touch the Far Realm once again.

Now to the PrC. It is obviously geared towards a wizard or sorcerer. It allows the level to stack with your other levels for your familar's abilities and later on adds a template to it. I would like to slightly change the PrC to better suit a Cleric follower. Here are my thoughts on changes I would make.

1st Summon Alien, Rapid Summoning (cast summon monster as a standard action)
2nd Alien Blessing
3rd Metamagic Secret
4th Mad Certainty (add a +1 caster level to any Summon Monster spells))
5th Pseudo Legion (whenever you use a summon spell to choose from a list a level lower that the spell level you get a +1 to the number of creatures summoned or +x where x is the differenet in levels between spell level and summon list level)
6th Extra Summoning
7th Metamagic Secret
8th Insane certainty( add a +1 Hp per level in Alienist PrC)
9th Timeless body
10th Alien transcendance

The 2 skill points per level bothers me too but I can live with that. What to others think.

I think I already know the answer but I thought I would ask anyways. Because my god is Chaotic Evil (I'm Chaotic Neutral) I can't summon Celestial creatures. There is no reason I couldn't summon a Fiendish Dog or Fiendish Owl instead of the Celestial version? I'm just looking for summoning varity.

I was looking at these last night and was thinking they are a pretty cool item. If I understand them correctly you expend an arcane spell of an equal or higher level of the spell you want to use from the staff. This being said it becomes a valuable item for partial arcane spell casters. Say a Beguiler with a Runestaff of Evocation now has a pretty good offensive cabability. What drawbacks am I missing?

Well I have received another wrong order. This is the second or third time now. I received the Rise of the Runelords dice (they look awesome by the way) but instead of the the Goblin shirt I got your standard Paizo shirt. I was so excited to have my dice and shirt for this Sundays Rise of the Runelords game I play in, but now I'm shirtless. Is there something going on in your warehouse? I order through you folks to support you guys because I think you're a great company with great products but if my orders keep getting mixed up I may just start picking the stuff up from my local gaming store. I know youre customer service has been great and you're always happy to give me what was left out of my order but man I get all excited then I open the box and it's a total let down. I was just so excited. I'm sure you'll make it right.

On a total side note that you might find funny. My local gaming store is using two of the 4E stand ups to sell all of your Pathfinder products. I just thought it was ironic.

I was looking at my order history yesterday and noticed I still had one order pending. It's the the Pathfinder Hardcover that won't ship until Aug. 09'. As much as I like to support you folks I must have totally clicked the wrong button when I ordered that. I meant to order the print version of the beta. Is it possible to get that changed?

Thanks

I guess received my order and while I got it very quickly from when I ordered it neither item was correct. Instead of the 2cp coin that I ordered I got the 20cp coins and instead of the 5pp coins I ordered I got the 50pp coins. Can I please have the correct coins?

Thanks

So on Friday my group got into Vardak's fortress. They deal with the greater Barlgest(sp?) with some difficulty. The Beguiler finds the throne room and hears spell casting on the other side. The Warblade heads to take him out with Manfeller but is passed by the druid/wizard in wererat form (Bite of the Wererat spell). He runs right at Vardak and hits the first pit trap failing his same and shooting out the side of the mountain. The Dragonshaman goes next and hits the other pit trap shooting out the side of the mountain. Being two people down I start to get concerned that they may not survive. The Warblade swings and misses Vardak. Then it happens the Beguiler hits Vardak with a Hold Person. One Coup de gras with Manfeller and VArdak is down. DId I mention that the Beguiler almost single handedly killed a Flame Drake by casting Deep Slumber on it while it was flying causing it to fall 100ft.

Sadly funds are tight these days so I have to cut back.

Please cancel my

Pathfinder Adventure Path and
Pathfinder Companion

subscriptions.

Thanks

How many DMs "wing" their adventures. When I run other systems I tend to have a written outline of key points that need to be made and key NPCs and then kind of fill in the rest as we play in a way that best suits the players and their characters. When I run D&D I feel like a really need to have things fully planned out and it feels restrictive to me. I have been using the PAizo modules a lot to get past that since I can read them once and mostly "wing" it from there. My problem is I want to run a more homebrew with my own adventures and I keep getting stalled on details.

DO other DMs wing it ever and if so how much if planned out? Any tips on the best way to go about it? DO you have a basic map and some key monsters or is it a bulleted layout of each area and a monster and a treasure in each area where you fill in the description when the players get to it? Any hints would be great.

I just received this order today and realized that instead of a Curse of the Crimson Throne deck I got an Elements of Power deck. Do I send the Elements of Power deck back so I can get the deck I ordered?

It's there a Shield Wall feat in one of the WoTC books? I want my hobgoblins for my next adventure to have two guys form a wall while another uses either a bow from the cover of the shields or a reach weapon. Anyone know where its at or am I just making it up?

As of now our group is staying with 3.5 but one of our members bought the 4e books so I have been looking through them. My first reaction is that there are a lot of modifiers to keep track of and a lot of options for the players to do in combat. I'm not here to debate whether this is good or bad per se what I want to know is if it will work for my group.

See my group is composed of players who are all 30+ in age and we game roughly twice a month. The group plays mainly to hang out and spend time with each so needless to say they are not the most focused group. They have a hard time staying on track enough to make a plan and follow it through (not the best at teamwork). I get the feeling that 4e will have too many modifiers that last a round or too many power choices for my players.

For those that have played does it require the players being more focused to keep track of everything or does it just seem that way on paper?

I have been waiting for my Gazetteer for almost three weeks now because I asked it to ship with my Classic Modules. The modules were avaliable at the time I ordered but now seem to unavaliable. I don't mind the extra shipping costs I just don't want to wait anymore for my Gazetteer.

Thanks

Is there a feat of something that allows a Druid to improve their Animal Companion once they have switch to a PrC that does not advance them? Would taking the Leadership feat count or is there some kind of feat that adds four levels to the Druid levels (no higher than character level) for determining the Animal Companions traits?

Last game my group was clearing out the top floor the dungeon. This was actually well after that had found the kids and returned them to town. In fact they had even dealt with a Fey issue as well (Wingclipper's Revenge from Dungeon) so they were really just doing a thorough clean up to make sure they had gotten everything. Well at this point they had found the magical gauntlet (can't remember its name) and had a magic eye from the other adventure. They didn't know what either of them did so were reluctant to do anything with them, especially the eye.

Well then comes the Allip who drops the Warblades Wisdom down to like 2. They have no restoration at the time so they are standing around deciding what to do next. The Warblade, who is carrying both the gauntlet and the eye, decides that the gauntlet must be something cool because its magical and puts it on. They party only half paying attention to him turns to see his hand curl into a permanent fist. The Warblade thinks oh cool in his Wisdom impaired state. Then the Druid makes the off-handed comment of, "what are you going to do next cut out your eye and put the magic one in?" Well before anyone can react the Warblade cuts his eye out and pops in the magic one. The group is dumbfonded at this point and the Warblade just smiles, well until the next day when they fix his Wisdom.

Now first this was all player driven. I had nothing to do with it. I know and the player knows that a Wisdom 2 doesn't make you completely stupid but he figured the gauntlet would be harmless enough. What they didn't count on was the off-handed comment the played to the Warblades ego. You see he is a halfling Warblade with a little man's complex so he rarely turns down a challenge. He took the eye comment as a challenge. Needless to say the player is fine with it all and it made for a great moment in the game.

Just finished reading this again in preparation of running it. When I listed all the treasure in the module is didn't seem like very much compared to other modules. I'm not complaining per se I was just suprised. Am I missing something? It looks like a lot of treasure if you take into account the halfelf's (I can't remember his name) treasure but you don't defeat him you free him so you don't get his treasure.

In the game I play in on Sundays I play a Sorcerer/Shugenja. It seems that I'm always looking ahead and planning what spells I'm gonna learn at each new level since my spell lists are so small. I'll have it all planned out then I'll read some more and change my mind or I will notice what the other folks in the group are constantly doing and switch to a spell that better fits the group. It seems like I spend a lot of time doing this (I know part of it is my own nuerosis).

Another player in the group is playing a rogue/psion who rarely picks up his expanded psionics book. He picks his new psionic powers based off the short descriptions on the psionic lists and seems fine with it all. I sometimes think that if I knew less about spells or just kind picked them quickly each level and never looked back then I would be less frustrated sometimes. I'll admit that picking the spells is a love/hate relationship for me because I do kind of like planning them out but sometimes I can work myself up over the whole thing.

Am I the only one or are more people like the other guy?

My wife is playing a gnome Beguiler in my current game and is the face-man of the group. She is four level now and even though she knows a lot of languages she still comes up short being able to speak with some creatures. We were looking ahead to se when she gets the Tongues spell and realize it's not on her spell list. It seems odd that a class about interaction does not have Tongues on its spell list. I know they have speak language on its skill list but so does the Bard and it gets Tongues as a second level spell. I'm thinking of adding it to her spell list but I'm not sure if I'm missing something. I also am unsure as to what level to make it. Should it be 2nd like a Bard or 3rd like a Wizard/Sorcerer? Any suggestions?

There is a series of wizard/sorcerer spells in either PH2 or Complete Mage called Heart of Air, Heart of Earth, Heart of Fire and Heart of Water. Has anyone taken these spells and are they any good? I have my eye on Heart of Air because it fits my character concept but I'm not sure the spell is worth it. It gives a +10 to Jump and +10 to fly speed (which I assume stacks with the Fly spell) and Feater Fall once. It's a second level spell so I guess I shouldn't expect much. It might be nice to combind it with Heart of Water to get the Light Fortification benefit. Any thoughts or comments?

We starting to think about the new campaign and based on what my group is talking about playing, I wanted to add a DMPC to the group. I was thinking about adding some kind of monster type using the level progression from Savage Species and had this idea that I wanted a Lantern Archon to follow them around. Savage Species has level progression for the Hound and Trumpet Archon but no Lantern Archon. If I understand the rules for the level progression correctly you take the moster HD and it's level adjustment and thats how many levels the level progression should take. Now the Lantern Archon has 1 HD and no level adjustment which would mean that its should only take one level, but that seems a little too easy since it has so much stuff that it gets like DR, spell-like abilities, an aura and a ray attack just to name a few. Now I know its a DMPC so I can do what I want but I want to do what makes sense for game balance. It almost seems like it should be three levels to get all of it's abilities. What does everyone else think?

This came up the other day in a game that I play in. It's D&D 3.5 set in a more wilderlands setting and we came across a metal fortress. Keep in mind that we got there by accident in a strange flying box that we found. The place had metal doors that slide open when the correct piece of thin rectangular metal was put into a slot. We were attacked (well we provoked it) by a metal contruct that had two pincher arms and two metal tentacles. The tentacles stunned you with electricity when they hit you and it also fired small darts and energy beams. That's where we stopped for the night and we'll pick up there next week.

Now I DM alot and know it hard to find good modules and even more difficult to come up with your own stuff, so I don't really have an issue that the DM is running this adventure. The problem is that I'm having a harder time staying in character. This just provokes so much non-fanatsy images that it is a struggle to stay in character. There was a lot more OOC talking once we got to this with references to The Black Hole or Start Trek.

Am I the only person that has a difficult time with modern or sci-fi stuff that trying to pass itself off as fantasy. You know the Bard in a Box or similar items. I know that there were a few modules like this way back in the day, but for me it's just an odd mix.

What do folks think of this feat. I'm planning on taking it on my sorcerer since it seems fairly good on paper. Since I have such a small known spell list as a sorcerer, I have a few spell levels that have more utility spells than say damage or spells that require a foe to save. By taken Heighten Spell it would seem thatI could just bump up my lower level damage spells or debuff spells to make them more difficult to resist while using up a daily use of a spell level that doesn't get as much use. Is this how it works out in practice or do most folks find that you never end up using it?

I would guess exact number wouldn't be right, but can we get an idea of how many people entered? I have no sense of how many people frequent these boards or heard of the contest. Is it a choice of 32 out of hundred or thousands? Just trying to see if I have better odds playing the lottery. ;)

Is it known what level E1 is for yet. I don't really see it under the product description. I'm hoping it's for 5th level to be kind of a bridge to W1.