DM_aka_Dudemeister's page

I ran Varn as a super friendly man's man, (like Elaine's boss from Seinfeld). The players liked him.

It has not "given up being fantasy", rather the rules allow for a broad spectrum of different fantasy options. Steam punk is but one subgenre, tolkienesque high fantasy is another. A GM is free to include or exclude anything from the rules to suit the flavor of their particular game.

It went awesome for my party as well, I ended up using a bunch of the official Chase Cards, (The room with the eyes was where Kankerata attacked) it was very high drama as some PCs spent valuable rounds trying to dig out Xamanthe, the Dwarf Cavalier got into a brutal duel with Kankerata (who I statted up as a Giant Advanced Bullette for my 6 slightly over-powered PCs). I used NPC cards placed face down beneath every card with a blood stone. Many of my players chose to bleed each round rather than cut themselves again and again, so every time they moved through a card they took 1d6 damage (I ruled that the race would take hours, and each card was merely the "highlighted" portion of each section) it was a lot of fun.

My players are really enjoying the politics of the Nomen tribe as they try to resolve Aecora's hope to end the conflict between humanity and centaur-kind with Danide's desire to extract vengeance for every Centaur life lost in Varn's colonial expansion.

I also am just about finished with Talon Peak and I'll post that up either today or tomorrow. As well as the full stats for Danide.

Hero points (see Advanced Player's Guide).

And candy cane clubs!

By levels 6+ no character is realistic. Fighters are crazy death blenders, rogues are silent winds of doom, clerics can routinely bring back the dead, wizards can fly and bend time and space like liquorice. This is a wonderful thing, embrace it.

The 10-20 second round is another good suggestion.

I like to sacrifice realism on the altar of fun.

Asuras are awesome, particularly if you can put a group against the devils.

I commend you for letting low-level characters visit other planes. Too many GMs reserve planar exploration for high levels, but waiting sucks.

Blame the Kobold ninjas.

Tucker's kobolds

This month's editorial is about Tucker's kobolds. We get letters on occasion asking for advice on creating high-level AD&D® game adventures, and Tucker's kobolds seem to fit the bill.

Many high-level characters have little to do because they're not challenged. They yawn at tarrasques and must be forcibly kept awake when a lich appears. The DMs involved don't know what to do, so they stop dealing with the problem and the characters go into Character Limbo. Getting to high level is hard, but doing anything once you get there is worse.

One of the key problems in adventure design lies in creating opponents who can challenge powerful characters. Singular monsters like tarrasques and liches are easy to gang up on; the party can concentrate its firepower on the target until the target falls down dead and wiggles its little feet in the air. Designing monsters more powerful than a tarrasque is self-defeating; if the group kills your super-monster, what will you do next—send in its mother? That didn't work on Beowulf, and it probably won't work here.

Worse yet, singular supermonsters rarely have to think. They just use their trusty, predictable claw/claw/bite. This shouldn't be the measure of a campaign. These games fall apart because there's no challenge to them, no mental stimulation—no danger.

In all the games that I've seen, the worst, most horrible, most awful beyond-comparison opponents ever seen were often weaker than the characters who fought them. They were simply well-armed and intelligent beings who were played by the DM to be utterly ruthless and clever. Tucker's kobolds were like that.

Tucker ran an incredibly dangerous dungeon in the days I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C. This dungeon had corridors that changed all of your donkeys into huge flaming demons or dropped the whole party into acid baths, but the demons were wienies compared to the kobolds on Level One. These kobolds were just regular kobolds, with 1-4 hp and all that, but they were mean. When I say they were mean, I mean they were bad, Jim. They graduated magna cum laude from the Sauron Institute for the Criminally Vicious.

When I joined the gaming group, some of the PCs had already met Tucker's kobolds, and they were not eager to repeat the experience. The party leader went over the penciled map of the dungeon and tried to find ways to avoid the little critters, but it was not possible. The group resigned itself to making a run for it through Level One to get to the elevators, where we could go down to Level Ten and fight "okay" monsters like huge flaming demons.

It didn't work. The kobolds caught us about 60' into the dungeon and locked the door behind us and barred it. Then they set the corridor on fire, while we were still in it.

"NOOOOOO!!!" screamed the party leader. "It's THEM! Run!!!"

Thus encouraged, our party scrambled down a side passage, only to be ambushed by more kobolds firing with light crossbows through murder holes in the walls and ceilings. Kobolds with metal armor and shields flung Molotov cocktails at us from the other sides of huge piles of flaming debris, which other kobolds pushed ahead of their formation using long metal poles like broomsticks. There was no mistake about it. These kobolds were bad.

We turned to our group leader for advice.

"AAAAAAGH!!!" he cried, hands clasped over his face to shut out the tactical situation.

We abandoned most of our carried items and donkeys to speed our flight toward the elevators, but we were cut off by kobold snipers who could split-move and fire, ducking back behind stones and corners after launching steel-tipped bolts and arrows, javelins, hand axes, and more flaming oil bottles. We ran into an unexplored section of Level One, taking damage all the time. It was then we discovered that these kobolds had honeycombed the first level with small tunnels to speed their movements. Kobold commandos were everywhere. All of our hirelings died. Most of our henchmen followed. We were next.

I recall we had a 12th-level magic user with us, and we asked him to throw a spell or something. "Blast 'em!" we yelled as we ran. "Fireball 'em! Get those little @#+$%*&!!"

"What, in these narrow corridors? " he yelled back. "You want I should burn us all up instead of them?"

Our panicked flight suddenly took us to a dead-end corridor, where a giant air shaft dropped straight down into unspeakable darkness, far past Level Ten. Here we hastily pounded spikes into the floors and walls, flung ropes over the ledge, and climbed straight down into that unspeakable darkness, because anything we met down there was sure to be better than those kobolds.

We escaped, met some huge flaming demons on Level Ten, and even managed to kill one after about an hour of combat and the lives of half the group. We felt pretty good — but the group leader could not be cheered up.

"We still have to go out the way we came in," he said as he gloomily prepared to divide up the treasure.

Tucker's kobolds were the worst things we could imagine. They ate all our donkeys and took our treasure and did everything they could to make us miserable, but they had style and brains and tenacity and courage. We respected them and loved them, sort of, because they were never boring.

If kobolds could do this to a group of PCs from 6th to 12th level, picture what a few orcs and some low level NPCs could do to a 12th-16th level group, or a gang of mid-level NPCs and monsters to groups of up to 20th level. Then give it a try. Sometimes, it's the little things—used well—that count.

Roger E. Moore

There used to be a website. She is gone.

Climbing a 20 ft ship's rigging DC 10 climb check lets you move up to a quarter of your speed. Assuming a STR bonus of +0. Will require 4 checks.

First 5 ft - Take 10 (failure results in no danger - you don't get hurt falling less than 10 ft)
Second 5 ft - Take 10 (you aren't 10 feet high until you succeed)
Third attempt - can not take a 10 (failure by more than 5 results in a fall dealing damage Aka a threat).
Fourth attempt - can not take a 10 (see above).

Now Amiri tries (STR bonus +3, 1 rank, +3 class bonus). Amiri CAN'T fail by 5 or more. There is no risk so she can take a 10 all the way up.

Remember folks except for UMD there are no autofails on a 1.

Now let's apply that to Diplomacy:
Reducing a foe's attitude to hostile poses a risk of combat, but the DCs are known factors. If you don't have a risk of failing by 5 or more of course you can.

If you're good enough at Disable Device there's no need to fear triggering the trap so why are you rolling? Or if you're overconfident you could take a 10, and if you fail by 5 or more, trigger the trap.

Invite some friends over to play?

Otherwise here's my general advice for solo adventures.

The APL for a single PC is character level -3. This means a single goblin presents a standard challenge. Furthermore encourage her to play characters with companions: druid (animal companion), from APG summoner or cavalier.

The core rules have details on hirelings so subservient NPCs shouldn't be a big deal.

The point of Vital Strike is to use it in situations where you couldn't full attack.

Thus you shouldn't compare vital strike to a full-attack, you should compare it to a standard single attack.

A monster that eats the food out of a PCs stomach, with a long probiscoid face.

Monsters based on Buffy, like those creepy gentlemen.

I got rid of xp because I hate bookkeeping. I discovered there are so many advantages, now I can just write adventures and expansions for adventure paths I run without worrying the PCs aren't going to get ahead of the expected level progression.

My players have maintained the game really came alive when I got rid of xp. I have an ensemble group of about 10 players and 15 characters between them. We couldn't do this with xp, because a single stray fireball, or angry Bullette could kill a lower level
PC. The reward for playing the game is playing the game. The punishment for missing a game is missing a game.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

Tragic, but narratively satisfying deaths. The naga must pay!

Give each PC a "follower" card (or two if a PC has a relationship with the follower). The PC may spend a card as a free action to have the NPC perform an action. (attack, pass an item drag a PC out of danger, or unique class abilities such as Bard song, sneak attack or channel energy). Or make a skill check ( such as a knowledge the PC has) the skill check will auto-succeed.

This gives an element of resource management and let's the PCs choose when their followers get spotlight time.

The thing is it used to be you couldn't take a longbow or greatsword as your bonded item because "wielding" it required two hands. I remember because I had an arcane archer I wanted to build using this niftiness.
FAQ.

Here's a tip: Find an AP your homebrew is similar to, steal the traits from that AP, rename and reflavour. VOILA.

See "Bastards of Erebus" for a good sewer crawl.

Gandalf Nooooooooooooooooo!

I don't use xp any more. It's too niggly. If players can't show up because they got other responsibilities to deal with then so be it. All of my friends are bummed to miss out on a session, I don't want to punish them in game for it too.

The only way I'd do xp is "party xp" (take the xp values to level and multiply by the number of players in the campaign - when the party reaches that xp level the party levels up!)

The only problem that makes books 1 & 2 harder to hook the PCs, since the adventure assumes scoundrels abound. It does mean changing some hooks and encounters.

She's the last encounter of the campaign. Does the XP value matter all that much?

Nice.

Well nothing really breaks by letting them use the area above for farmland.

Mountains is the most expensive/time consuming terrain listed. You're free to homebrew beyond that but it's barely worth the effort.

I never was going to buy the plastic minis, too expensive and take up too much room for my tastes. The pawns are nice and flat, and easy to store, it's a brilliant option and hope that we see these become a regular release at the end of each AP, along with map packs and item cards, it'll make running campaigns easy :-)

Got a rope? Lasso time.

Treat it as Mountain Terrain, say that there's only enough room down there for X Districts (where x is what you're comfortable with) tell them that they can't build farms on that hex (as the underground city affects soil quality/irrigation) but they can expand their city overground (more districts using whatever the prevalent above ground terrain is).

The duke in my kingdom is a dwarf so that's how I'm handling it :-)

I've run everything from 3-12 players. 5 is the magic number, but 6 is what I usually end up running. 5: Breaks ties immediately during decision making, moves at a decent clip and divides the spotlight fairly well even during short sessions.

I tell players before hand that committing to a campaign is like committing to a sports team. Yes we're there to have fun, but attendance is expected and if you think you have somewhere you'd rather be do not commit to the campaign. This has fostered a healthy attendance rate, and the ettiquette to let me know when players are not going to show up.

I created a Pink Dragon somewhere on here which was a white dragon with the half red dragon template.

Most.

The Inn of the Prancing Pony is an interplanar franchise that has appeared in every campaign I've run (including a seedy bar in a noir universe and a high class hotel in Mutants and Masterminds).

A good god based on Batman would be awesome.

Short answer no.

I treated it as a single trap of CR 6, like facing multiple monsters of a single CR. In any case unless they "encountered" every single trap treating the traps as their CR + 4 or 5 is fair.

What turns a Man's heart to neutrality?

Overall that's a fun "Tuckers Kobolds" style scenario. Tricky, but not impossible, and even hordes of goblins pose little threat to PCs of those levels. I'm sure there were aspects the players enjoyed.

Secondly, it's not railroading to say: "The adventure I wrote is here."
PCs can always just sit outside and have a tea-party, but I don't think there's much experience in that.

Daemons are rapidly becoming my favorite of the evil aligned outsiders, nihilists on a cosmic scale are really cool.

Since many of the Daemons are anthropomorphic personifications of death-types, does Pharasma have many Daemons serving her? Is there a stance the church of Pharasma takes with the summoning of various Daemonkind?

Perhaps they were proving a nuisance to Narrissa so she palmer them off on Hargulka? He in turn sends them to sabotage PC buildings, causing 1d3 BP damage a month until they can be found and driven out?

I'm not familiar with that monster sorry :-( so that's a rough idea.

I'm really excited these are perfect for my needs and will complement my paper minis collection well :-)

Dip her familiar in bright paint.

Are Morlocks balanced against core races?

Here's why Halflings and Gnomes belong on the battlefield:

MOUNTS!

Your human paladin or cavalier needs to leave his niftiest class feature outside. My halfling or gnome fighter/barbarian/cavalier/paladin/druid or summoner is totally on his mount tripling his damage RAGELANCEPOUNCING or SMITELANCING or Casting from Roc-Back.

Or how about spellcasting:

Oh hey +4 size bonus to Stealth checks: Consistent Sneak Attack yo! or you can send wave after wave of summoned minions and remain well-hidden.

Oh what's this? DEX Bonus or CON bonus with CHA bonuses, AWESOME SORCERER.

Plus: Luck Bonus? A +1 Bonus to ALL SAVES? Any Save, any time a halfling passes by 1 BAM that was halfling luck.

In conclusion: Small Characters - Better than big characters.

If I run CotCT again I would cut Skeletons of Scarwall entirely and just give the PCs the McGuffin. Then when they get back to Korvosa, I would run the rebellion with street fighting and mini-dungeons to deal with the Grey Maidens, The Acadmae and the Church of Asmodeus. I'd also grab the stuff about undermining the devils contract Illeosa has, somewhere on the boards and incorporate that.
If the PCs go into book 6 a little lower leveled it's no big deal. PFRPG characters are tougher than their 3.5 counterparts.

@RuyanVe: Thanks! The praise of the people on this board sustains me.

The bonuses/penalties described in the GMG are more than adequate for leveling the playing field.

Some errata: Kankerata is not a participant in the chase. Give him Dodge and Spring Attack as bonus feats. Whenever a character (PC or Centaur) fails a check in a card marked with a star Kankerata bursts forth from the ground making a single attack against the PC before burrowing back into the walls or earth beneath the PCs.

trust scores switch Friendly/Helpful next to Diplomacy Attitudes.

@Ellegua: Thanks very much for the praise. The material in Kingmaker is easily the most inspired I've come across.

Finally, to everyone: the above can be a very complicated encounter. So be prepared. You'll be juggling new rules, a series of Centaurs, Kankerata and keeping track of whether PCs have marked the stones. I intend to put together the cards as a PDF that people can download on Google Docs. Each card will be about half an A4 page.

I ruled that Jhod didn't have any cleric powers until the bear was defeated.

In my game players can bring along 1 NPC (I've been levelling them a level behind the players). During the game the players gain an NPC action card each. They may spend the card to have the NPC perform an action with an automatic success (otherwise the NPC mostly fades into the background and breaks ties when PCs are voting on a course of action).

For example: 4th level party brings Jhod along on a quest. Jhod is a 3rd level cleric. So a player can spend a card to have Jhod channel energy for 2d6 healing. Cast any 2nd level Cleric spell, or pass a Knowledge (Religion) check.

1,900 words so far, probably another 1,900 before I'm done.

After that a quick word on Archaeology and Lord Varn's Dig Sites. In my version of the Vanishing Varn is partly responsible for his own doom.

Trust and Centaurs

Part 1

Trust Scores
PCs start with 7 Trust for 4 PCs or 5 Trust for 6 PCs.

PCs can Lose Trust points in the following way:

Gaining Trust:

Information Rewards:

Approaching the Centaurs:

The Kankerata Run AREA M (The Blood Furrows):

Next Up: Scaling Talon Peak and Wanted: Manticores, and the full stat-block for Danide.

Don't ask about how he spreads pink eye.

I prefer the white backgrounds, they are much quicker to recognize "At a glance"

The Godling setting should be tightly focused so we can drop it into any other setting without major rewrites of the campaign as written. Much like Ptolus can be dropped into any campaign world without too much issue.

Hey all,
Just an update on where I am with this. I'm currently at about 1,500 words into the changes. Including using GMG rules for Chase cards in the Bloodfurrow run, tribal
tattoos with manticore needles, and turning Talon Peak into a 6 encounter mountain climb with a fragile egg the size of a man complicating the situation. This is going to be a BIG expansion (unexpectedly so). So please be patient, I hope to get some writing done on this by Tuesday!