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All of the hooks in Seven Days to the Grave are of the “NPC tells the party to go to X” variety. I want the PCs investigations to lead them to the various hooks, not for NPCs to lead them there. Also, the story of the Direption has some issues as noted in other threads. My ideas for changing the adventure to give the PCs clues to follow-up on:

The cult is going to spread disease by having others unknowingly spread it for them. They find some greedy merchants willing to turn over some of their merchandise, the cult infects it, gives it back, and asks the merchant to sell it quickly and cheaply. In return for this, the merchant is paid handsomely. Unfortunately for the merchant, the cult is going to kill the merchant shortly afterwards so that no trace is left.

The cult also used an intermediary, Girrigz and his gang of wererats, to make the deals and distribute the Death Head Coffers (DHCs).

The merchants in question:

Giotorri's Toys: Infected items were some simple rag dolls. Giottorri put these out for display on the street where many children played with them and they were quickly stolen (not that Giotorri cared). Brieena is clutching one of these dolls when the PCs come to see her. At the temple of Abadar, they might also see one or two other sick children with the dolls. This is the major clue to start the adventure.

At Giotorri’s, the PCs hopefully find the Death Head Coffer (DHC) and the key to the vault of Abadar. Using Locate Object, they can track down other DHC. At Abadar’s, they can check with the sick priests to see if anybody else unusual made a large deposit.

Kreel McGee: Runs a small stall in the Reefclaw Run Market that sells crackers. The Red Mantis assasins found Kreel, killed him, and stuffed him into his flour bin (the ragged cut across his throat being a chance to forshadow the Red Mantis). Kreel had finished with the DHC and tossed it in the small creek behind his stall. PCs can find this with Locate Object.

Brio Sage: The elder member of Hessim, Newby, and Sage; Brio was happy for a chance to earn some corn he doesn’t have to share with the others. He happily received dozens of small tainted jars of white paint. Brio can come to the PCs attention because of the priest that was made sick when Brio came to open a new, private account. Brio can be found in his home, his throat cut out by a Red Mantis blade. The assassins took the DHCs with them.

Ruis Vindmel: Ruis worked at the West End docks selling fish dumplings on a stick. His tainted sticks have infected dozens of dock workers. Rius got nervous about the deal and decided that it would be best to leave town in a hurry. He booked passage on the Direption and sailed away.

He would have made it except for the Red Mantis that were hot on his tail. The Red Mantis ended up having to kill all of the crew and they then burnt the ship to hide their tracks. (So, rather than the Direption being a plague ship coming in, it is a ship that burns and sinks in the harbor as it was leaving.) Bodies that float ashore have the jagged cut throat that Brio and Kreel do.

The PCs can learn about Ruis from a sick priest of Abadar who describes a very nervous Ruis emptying out his account. Ruis’ home is ransacked by the Red Mantis. Gather Information at the docks will let the PCs know that Ruis was on the Direption. Locate Object in the harbor (it’s too far out and too far down to have worked from land) will lead to the Yvicca encounters (might move that to sea caves rather than remains of the ship).

Lavender: Received several bottles of tainted perfume from the cult. She happily sprayed thes on her customers. Once all of her customers got sick, Lavendar needed a new line of business and started selling fake plague cures. (Lavendar hasn’t put 2 and 2 together though to realize she helped do it).

Lavendar still has the DHC in her office and it can be found with Locate Object. The spawn that killed Giotorri were supposed to kill Lavendar but they never got around to it. If Lavendar can be made to talk, she can lead the PCs to the inn and identify the gang member who was her contact. That member will give up the location of the wererats in the sewers. Papers in Girrigz lair might implicate the doctor again or perhaps he has a doctor’s mask.

Carowyn Manor: The Queen wanted the Carowyn's gone and got that message delivered to Dr. Davalus. Dr. Davalus approached the Carowyn's and told them of his desire to be "introduced" to Korvosan society. He gave them a large supply of tainted money for them to throw a party in his honor.

Unfortunately, Lord Carowyn turned this money over to his servants without touching it. The servants spent it at the Three Rings tavern buying the party supplies. Once Davalus saw that the Carowyn's themselves were not getting sick, he told Rolth to finish the job (who then sent Jolistina to do it).

The PCs can learn of the Carowyn's by questioning the sick staff at the Three Rings.

Well, Jolistina is crazy. Rolth could chalk this story up to that, give her more bolts, and send her on her way. That's the easy solution. Let the players then stop her when she shows up.

The PCs didn't follow her?

Again, on the keeping it simply side, Rolth may be afraid that he has screwed this up and decides not to tell anyone for fear of the repercussions.

Or maybe Rolth tags along with Jolistina to make sure this gets taken care of correctly. It is a masquerade party with the guests in costume right? Figuring out who Jolistina is during the party, watching her to identify Rolth, and then foiling the attack once the spring it sounds like fun (ignoring the part of the adventure that says Jolistina just bursts in and starts firing).

What do the they plan on having the Sklar-Quah do? Are they going to attack the city? I don't see them being disciplined fighters, only engaging the Queen's guards. And I don't see much of the city tolerating a Shoanti attack. Seems like a bad idea.

Now, borrowing a small group of elite fighters for special missions, that could work. I'd probably run the adventure as written and just throw in some flavor text as to what the Shoanti do in that time. Give the players some victory points for the good idea.

Eh, Jeffery Steingarten's "The Man Who Ate Everything" is next, I think, along with "What You Eat", a book about grocery stores and the madness behind it. Used book stores are awesome.

Just finished this. What did ya think? His intro was very funny, the rest of the book more informative than funny though some great lines throughout. He comes across as an ass on Iron Chef but in print, funny guy. I skimmed the "why food X is not really bad" chapters, past over some things not of interest, but certainly a book going through for a foodie.

Link above is good. Book 1 is The Lightning Theif, #2 is Sea of Monsters, #3 is The Titan's Curse. That's as far as I've gotten so far.

My eight year-old found The Olympians series at the library (first book is The Lightning Thief). Modern day America and the Greek Gods are still alive living on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. Young Percy Jackson learns that he's the son of one of the gods, adventure ensues. Ares as a biker dude, summer camp for half-god children, and all sorts of other wacky, fun stuff.

A disease has an incubation period, then a Fort save, and then WHAM! the victim has something very nasty happen to them. The bit of nastiness seems to come without warning - make a Fort save, if it fails, take the consequences.

Should players get some warning of the coming disease -- they start feeling sick but don't yet have any consequences? This would give them time to Remove Disease before the nastiness. You'd have to let them make the Fort save in advance to see if the disease will actually progress.

Or maybe after incubation and the Fort save, the disease manifests in a minor way (say 1 point of ability damage) then quickly does it's full damage (within 6 hours let's say). That gives them time to adjust to it.

Thoughts? Do diseases come out of nowhere to do too much damage?

The links for the various adventures just seem to return to this thread.

Where did the big, long thread on the Direption go to, my Search-Fu is failing me. (The one about the sinking of the ship not making much sense).

I thought RPGenius was a great idea and resource, but it was kind of a pain in the butt to use. Too much hassle to upload something, no good way to make comments. A wiki to replace it would be nice.

Two weapon fighting feat.

BAB 6 + 5 (Dex 20, Weapon Finesse) = 11
Masterwork, Weapon Focus = 13
Fighting two handed = +11.

I'd be very hesitant about letting a new player in that insisted on playing any one thing especially if the DM has discouraged it.

Players should be rewarded for the clever use of spells but if they do the same thing over and over again, it gets boring. I would have:

A) Not had the 2nd, 3rd, etc. mob even appear if they are automatically going to avoid it.

B) Or, I'd change up the mob encounter so that they wouldn't want to just go by it. Have the mob attacking poor helpless innocents. Replace the mob with a couple Otyughs (scent) on the rampage.

Lastly, with the APs, experience should be governed by where you are in the story. Don't be a slave to the math. Your players should accept "hey, we're too far ahead on XP for this part of the adventure, so no XP for the mobs".

The invisible person doesn't need to be carrying a potion or a magic item though. Detect Magic will detect the invisibility spell. A Spellcraft check of DC17 (15 + spell level) would identify the school. As noted, it would take three rounds of concentration to pinpoint the invisible person (and they'd have to stay still and let you do it).

You can't use Identify on an invisible object someone else is carrying. You can't use Alchemy to identify an invisible potion someone is carrying. You have to see and handle the item for both of those, IMHO.

>> the Akata's should fare poorly against Zincher and his men as compared to the Cyphermages and Goldhammer's men

So? The Akatas attacked once, got spanked, and are now afraid of the camp? Doesn't sound like the aggressive beasts I picture the Akatas to be. And it doesn't explain why new Akatas don't attack (the other ones tell them to stay away? They hunt in packs?)

How about this: Zincher learns of the Akata's vulnerability to salt water some how. Those trenches around the camp are filled with salt water and that's what keeps the Akatas away.

The Goldhammer dwarves, in the dock buildings, have been wiped out. The Cyphermages, holded up the remains of Witchlight, are nearly wiped. The PCs see an attack on the Cyphermages with 2 dozen Akatas.

Cleeg on the other hand is camping in the open and seems to be doing...OK. That doesn't feel right. Without defenses, seems like they should have been wiped out first. Are Akata's supposed to be afraid of the bonfire? Is something else going on?

Darwin the bard successfully negotiated with Devargo Barsavi and obtained the incriminating letters. This was not good enough for Darwin though, he was determined to leave Eel's End with Majenko, the pseudodragon.

Much diplomacy, games of knivesies, and pooling of party treasure ensued. In the end, Darwin walked out of Eel's End with Majenko on his shoulder.

The Other Players: Why in the world did you want that pseudo-dragon so badly?

Darwin: Cuz when he grows up, he'll be an awesome ally to have!

Other Players: It's a PSEUDO-dragon!

Darwin: Wait....what? You mean it's not going to grow up into a big dragon?

Darwin's player didn't realize the difference between a pseudodragon and a dragon. Gotta love a player that hasn't memorized the Monster Manual.

For Edge of Anarchy there are a couple set encounters you can run to show the anarchy going on in the city. I like the Skill Challenge idea from 4E, so I stole and adapted it for this.

Whenever the players want to move about the city (and the DM wants one of the encounters), start a Skill Challenge. Every PC can make one skill roll to influence this. Skills the PCs might use to avoid problems when moving about town could be:

KS: Local (to know what part of city to avoid): DC10
Hide (to duck into an alley): DC10
Intimidate (to scare off anyone who wants to mess with them): DC10
Diplomacy (to talk way out of problems): DC15

Skill checks can be modifed depending on what area of town they are in/headed to:
Old Korvosa: +4
Heights: -5
Midland: 0
North Point: +2

Count up the number of successful skill checks and make the encounters easier depending on how many checks were successful. Some examples:

Mob Encounter: The mob starts with 2 Renegade Guards and 4 1st level warriors. For each success, change a renegade guard to a warrior. For each success past 2, remove one warrior.

Imps: The number of rounds before the pseudodragons arrive is the # of party members - # of successes.

Oytugh: The number of kovosan guards to help = number of successes.

I created a rough map to use for the Shingles' Chase in Edge of Anarchy. Used Goggle Earth to grab a rooftop view of Toledo, Spain and then added some red boxes to mark the 15 areas the chase can cover.

Shinges' Chase

Haven't seen this thread yet for this AP so here goes. Post the stuff you've created yourself for use with Curse of the Crimson Throne.

This game has an opening again.

DM's Familiar datasets are now available for Skinsaw Murders, Hook Mountain Massacre, Fortress of the Stone Giants, and Sins of the Saviors in the download section.

Started the campaign last night and two players out of the blue decided that they live in Old Korvosa. Does this become a problem during Escape From Old Korvosa when it gets quarantined?

I suppose the quarantine could happen while the PCs were gone thus providing a need to sneak back in? Or maybe the PCs are all IN Old Korvosa when the quarantine is placed, thus "Escape"?

You're a step ahead of me - it's still on my Amazon wish list.

Delay.

Diverting them to Corwyn manor is a great idea.

You might also stress the delicate political nature of the situation and have Cressida ask for a little bit of time to investigate and get more information.

Or stress that the players don't want to tip their hand and invade the hospital without the doctor there. Cressida will set out some spies to watch the hospital and let the PCs know when the doctor is on site.

Entanglements with beloved NPCs could also lead to some of the other "side" quests before they can tackle the hospital.

With Halloween right around the corner, time to break out Betrayal again!

Well, page 12 says keys are important, but the other adventures list specific cards that are important. Going through the deck, I'd make these cards important: Uprising, Empty Throne, Courtesan, Tyrant, Betrayal, Liar.

Now, since I play online, I can stack the deck for my game. My harrow reading will look like:

Good: Empty Throne, ?, Courtesan

Neutral: ?, ?, Uprising

Evil: Unicorn, Betrayal, Tyrant

The true matches are Empty Throne, Betrayal, and Uprising. I'll stress those in the reading.

Unicorn is a misaligned partial - poisoning. The other cards are thrown in as some flavor of things to come.

The "?" are cards I'll actually draw at random.

As a DM, the Sargasso sounded great and I looked forward to running. My players though were kind of blah on the whole thing. They took to the air, saw the middle part, slogged their way their, and had the fight. We missed out on the whole cthulu aspect of it.

If you run it, I changed it so that middle part is not obvious. Make them find the clues to get there. Make them fight off a night of attackers.

If you don't run it, no biggie. There's nothing of the plot in the Sargasso.

Well, if you have to climb down a rope to get to Gaedren, then Yagrin "fleeing to Gaedren's side" doesn't make a whole lot of sense - especially since Yagrin has no ranks in climb.

A minor, minor issue. I'll have him run out on the dock and start screaming for help.

The other adventures list some cards that would have importance in the harrow reading. Edge of Anarchy doesn't (or I missed it?). If you were going to "stack the deck" for the harrow reading, what cards would you use?

How are you supposed to move between the upper floor and the lower? The text has mentions things being lowered down multiple times but it also mentions Yagrin running to warn Gaerden. Does he climb a rope from are A8 to A12?

We're getting together this Thursday to discuss characters. Email your skype name, be ready at 6pm on Thursday, and we'll put you on the call. todd at paladinpgm com.

thursday night, 8pm eastern, existing group has opening for 1 player. starting paizo's Curse of the Crimson throne, 3.5 d&d.

using kloogewerks and skype.

Name: Most everybody
Adventure: Prince of Demons
Catalyst: Demogorgon

After cruising through many of the battles in the last adventures, the PCs found themselves totally overmatched by Demogorgon.

Deter, the party wizard and bearing the Queen's Kiss, whispered vile words from Malcanthet for Demogorgon to hear. Demogorgon tried a Feeblemind in retaliation. That failed, so the demon closed and full attacked the poor wizard with his other action. Dead wizard.

Madaha, the tiger companion of the our druid who has been with the party since Darkmoon Pass, grabbed the Master Pearl and tried to flee. Demogorgon couldn't allow that, teleported after the tiger, and a full round of attacks dropped the big cat as well.

Ayah (the druid) and Edgar (her lover, dragon shaman) had been hanging back in the battle and Madaha had run to them in the large circular room. Nulonga returned from one of his many deaths at this point and sealed the rest of the party in oyster room with a Wall of Force. The two PCs fought as best they could, repeatedly sacrificing themselves so that the other would live, but in the end they were no match for Demogorgon.

The rest of the party raced around the Wall of Force, frantically trying to come to the aid of their companions. Issek, the lizardman barbarian, arrived about the time Edgar and Ayah died. He fought the demon alone, barely hitting, doing little damage, but taking a severe punishment in return.

By the time Pinkus arrived (thief), Issek was on his last legs. Pinkus managed to attract the demon's attention and fought defensively for a few rounds while Issek managed to drop a healing potion or two. Healed up some, Issek charged back into the fray and was decimated by Demogorgon.

Kelric (cleric) and the just raised Deter arrived at this point. Seeing Malcanthet's proxy sent Demogorgon into a new rage. Deter wasn't able to get away from the beast and suffered his second death of the battle.

This left enough time for Kelric to raise Edgar. Once Kelric's expended his Disintegrates that couldn't get past the SR, he simply worked to heal Pinkus and Edgar as they fought. Eventually Pinkus and Edgar manage to drop Demogorgon with Kelric healing every round to keep them up.

(I had to "forget" the gaze attacks, Nulonga, the rot, and Demogorgon's Heal for the party to have any chance. I also had Demogorgon fight in a blind rage, rolling randomly for targets. If he had simply concentrated on the cleric first, the party would have had no chance.)

Another completed campaign here. After cruising through many of the battles in the last couple adventures, the PCs were totally overmatched by Demogorgon. As the battle went on, I had to "forget" Nulonga, the gaze attacks, big D's heal, and the saves on the rot to avoid a total party wipeout. Still it was an epic, 12 round battle before big D fell.

When Illiwig (I can't spell any of these names because I don't use them in my campaign) showed up to claim the the soul, the party could only groan in frustration. They were far too damaged to do a thing about it.

When the crown formed, Gromsfeld, Noltus and a minion of Orcus suddenly joined the party to claim Demogorgon's crown. The party's rogue (worships a god of suffering) and the wizard (Malchatant's kiss) tried to claim it as well. The the dice settled, it was Gromsfeld with a natural 20 that claimed the crown.

While an NPC claiming the crown might have been an unsatisfying end, it was a nice twist for our campaign world:

Gromsfeld ended up being Oleg, a PC in a previous campaign. Oleg started life as a pirate captain who eventually betrayed his party to take control of a pirate city (which became Scuttlecove).

As an NPC, he eventually lost control of the pirate town and had to flee. Looking to get his power back, he aligned himself with Demogorgon, thus playing the role of Cold Captain Wethers for this campaign. The players rejoiced when they finally got to kill their old nemesis at The Wreck but heartily cursed the DM when Demogorgon brought him back to lead his Navy (turning him to Gromsfeld as punishment).

The PCs grit their teeth when striking a deal with Oleg to stay out of the coming war but knew it would come back to haunt them. It did. Oleg lives on and will undoubtedly play a part in a future campaign.

Any desire to turn that into a Wiki so everyone can contribute?

Have Lavinia's ship damaged as well during the storm. Sorry, we barely made it to port ourselves.

Meravachni is not willing to send any other ships. He's none too happy to see Lavinia and has no desire for those loyal to here making it back to town any quicker than normal.

A DM's Familiar dataset for The Skinsaw Murders is now available from the DMF website, click Downloads on the left side.

My program, DM's Familiar, does all of the combat tracking you are looking for. Since it's rules-lite, it handles Pathfinder with no problem. There's even a couple datasets available for Paizo adventures with more to come. And it's available from the Paizo store (both the free demo and to purchase).

Question. What if someone ....

Wizard's can revoke the GSL from a company at any time, for no reason at all, so any "what if" discussion is pointless. Even if it was somehow legal, if WotC doesn't like it they pull the license from you and you no longer get to sell that product you put all that time and money into.

I'd add the limit of 4 + CHA or some such. As noted, you don't want a dragon shaman healing an entire army, the entire crew of the boat, etc. At high level, my player's shaman was healing up the party, the druid's animal companion, the three summoned creatures, the mounts, familiars, etc.

I didn't like the "feel" of the dragon shaman either - what's a dragon got to do with healing? And he does overshadow the cleric with his ability to heal WAY more per day. It does keep the group adventuring though. It was SOP to heal to half after every battle and then have the cleric/bard step in to top everyone off.

The pending Shoanti invasion can be removed with just a hand wave. How about this:

* Rather than taking the Seneschal to Harse, they take him to the Shoanti. (Or, if the insist on staying in town, the Red Mantis starts taking out their family and friends. Eventually, they'll want to get the innocent bystanders to a place of safety. Maybe a little adventure there? Use "Racing the Snake" for that journey?)

* Once the innocents are safely with the Shoani, the PCs express their interest to go back and kick some butt. The Shaman says he has info for them but they have to become members. Run some or all of Ashes at this point.

* Shoanti gives them the info on Shentiel (? the sword). But put the sword in the pyramid under the castle. PCs can stay in town making forays into the castle dungeons. Can use rooms or entire levels from Scarwall. Some of volume 12 might happen here.

* Then volume 12, moving against the Queen. I found all of the "you need to accomplish this" for volume 12 to be too much of a nice, neat package. Might be nice to intersperse those missions with finding the sword. Or, while looking for the sword, they can encounter some of the NPCs from 12, making the actual showdown with them more meaningful.

Personally, I didn't like the Sunken Queen part of volume 12. The whole campaign focuses on the city and for the dramatic climax we venture out to a swamp? No thanks, the Sunken Queen will be beneath the castle for my campaign.

Amargeddon Echo: Who's at war in Celwynvian? Is that a elf city? mixed city? The battle has been a stalemate for "some time" - is that elf time (decades?) or human time (months?)?

Endless Night: Why would the elves ask the PCs to go? Why don't they do it themselves?

Golly, news right before GenCon telling us that WotC has gone all soft and cuddly on us. I'll wait to see the reality of these changes which, coincidentally, will be after GenCon.

If you fail the Will save for the dance, do you continue taking 1d4 CON drain each round? Do you get to make the save each round?

Tools > Select & Zoom > Select Tool. Click on the map, Ctrl+C to copy (or the Mac equivalent) and then Paste into your graphics program. This gets just the map without the text that is on it.

Like here, let me give you an example: Privateer Presses' OGL license claims that the names of supernatural abilities are closed content. So they have a creature, the Cephalyx, that has an ability called chirugery. According to privateer presses OGL document, that ability name is closed content. But it's a necessary part of the stat block. How you can make the name of a special ability that is included in the stat block closed content when the licenses forces the statblock to be open content?

The OGL says nothing about stat blocks having to be open. I don't know where you've gotten that idea.

And then they try to claim that the description of what the ability does (allows the Cephalyx to apply the drudge template to other creatures) -- which is a pure expression of rules mechanics -- is closed content.

Which is perfectly fine as well. The OGL does not require expressions of rules to be open - unless you're using OGC from somebody else.

Now, if you want to use copyright law rather than the OGL, you can maybe go ahead and use that expression of the rules. OGL doesn't supersede copyright. If you agree to the OGL though, you can't use it.

and the next guy, man he's really screwed because there aren't many other good synonyms.

Correct, unless you made your terms for it open.

Yes, a company can phrase their OGC declaration to make their OGC content nearly impossible to use. The OGL does not require that the OGC be structured in a nice, easy to use manner. You don't get to change what is OGC to make it easier.

It seems like if making a particular element of a monster (like its name) closed content makes it impossible to use, then that content must actually be open. And you can't very well include a nameless stat block and hope anyone will understand what creature it represents.

Ah, no. You don't get to decide that someone's stuff really should be open. You have to go with what they say. Take a stat block and stick a different name on it.

Great game. We break it out every Halloween and play a handful of scenarios. Then it goes back in the closet until next year.

The only drawback is that it can be much too easy or much too difficult to conclude depending on the layout of the house (or who ends up being the traitor) at the time of the reveal. It's a little disappointing to play 30 minutes to get to the haunt, and then have it all resolve in 3 minutes.

I really enjoyed the series and would recommend them. But, I had about the same feeling you did on them. They start with a very interesting setting and characters, the middle tends to bog down a bit, and then there's a great ending - though it's somewhat standard fantasy "battle comes to a conclusion" ending. I found the endings so good as to make up for the the lackluster middles.

The political intrigue picks up, there's lots more traveling and new places/cultures/people, and a interesting plot.

The second series, focusing on the child, I'm not as interested in though book 2 is sitting here beside me.

Ran this last night with lots of problems.

#1: Shami has at will blasphemy. All of the PCs are her level or lower, so automatically dazed and losing 2d6 STR. So can't she just sit there doing that over and over until the PCs are out of STR? They're dazed, so can't attack back at all. She can then walk up and coup-de the helpless PCs.

#2: The Chokesnake has an AC of 39 and 39 hit points. Shami's AC is 40. There's no reason to attack Shami at all. One hit on the snake and it's likely gone -- which is what happened for me to make a really anti-climatic battle.