David Spaar's page

Unlike Shadow Magic and Demi-Shadow Magic, it seems that Shades can duplicate *any* lower level Conjuration spell on the Sorcerer's spell list. This would include Teleport and Planar Binding.

So first, is that right?

Second, would that result in Teleports that have an 80% chance of working?

Third, would that result in a Planar Binding on a real outsider that has an 80% chance of being effective, or a Planar Binding on a shadowy duplicate of an outsider that is 80% as powerful? If that latter, is any gift required with the Binding, or is it just an illusion of a gift for the illusion of an outsider?

In my game, no, Shades works with the same limitations on conjuration(creation) and conjuration(summoning) spells as Shadow Conjuration.

Frankly, I'm a bit irked that Paizo didn't bother to take the time to clarify the rules on spells such as this. Explicitly stating the intent would have been a kindness, after the numerous, unresolved discussions that took place about this very spell under the 3.5 rules. I really don't care which way they would decide, but leaving it ambiguous was a cruelty.

How about it, Paizo employees? Care to help a guy out and take a stand?

If I'm understanding this correctly, the only way to avoid getting this if you're a PFRPG subscriber is to cancel your subscription prior to the release of the product, is that correct? Seems a heavy-handed way to have to deal with it, but I guess I'll do it if I must. Any chance we can get a more detailed long term product schedule so I can cancel as early as possible and still have time to rejoin before missing something I actually want?

David Spaar wrote:

Interesting items, but I was kind of hoping the link was referring to the Wacky Packages I used to buy as a kid. :/

Man, now I'm feeling nostalgic...

I collected those too! Man, those were a blast, weren't they?

-Lisa

They really were! :) My friends and I used to collect and trade them all the time, back in like 1970-72 time frame. Although checking out the article I linked, I see that they're apparently still making them! I may have to search around for some...

But it was nice to have a little "blast from the past," even tangentially. :)

Interesting items, but I was kind of hoping the link was referring to the Wacky Packages I used to buy as a kid. :/

Man, now I'm feeling nostalgic...

Great sheet, we're preparing to start Kingmaker and your work has made ours MUCH simpler! :) Thanks!

I'm playing an alchemist, and I appreciate all the available options, but one I couldn't find was a place to list my selected formulae. Is that something I'm simply missing, or should I just use available generic space to list the chosen options?

Thanks again for your efforts! :)

Hello, I'm trying to find a tracking number for my latest order, #1269653. It's supposed to arrive in five days, so I was hoping to see it would arrive today some time. If you could help me find the tracking number I'd appreciate it, thanks.

/dons asbestos underpants, suit, mask, helmet, gloves, etc.

I am going to say.. Huzzah for 100% total blanket immunity.

I am a player.

The ONE thing worse than death is to have the DM take your character from you and play it for awhile.

I would rather die. Yes, die. At least then I can reroll a character.

When the DM is controlling my PC however I can't even do that. I'm stuck sitting there, having suddenly become a spectator to a game I was playing only moments before.

Protection from Evil is the players cure for this. Sure, the PC's don't always have it cast.. so the DM occasionally gets to have his fun.. but if it happens too often the PC's get to start stopping it- permanently if need be. And it should be that way.

Don't take your PC's from your PC's and they won't have to lay down the Protections against it.

Now pardon me while I step into my fireproof chamber. :)

-S

Consarnit! I left my flamethrower at home!! ;)

I have no problem with the protection against mental control (as James explained it a few posts up). I just wanted to be sure I could still Confuse or Hold or Hideous Laughter the players. I agree it's no fun to take away control from the players (though I have no compunction about doing it if the story/situation/their choices warrant it). I just want to torment them a bit, not ruin their fun.

But now I have ammunition to throw in their faces and say HA! HA HA! USE your precious Protection from Evil and ignore the vampire's gaze!! But maybe you'd like to hear her tell a little joke...

I don't know about you, but I absolutely hated how Hideous laughter was essentially hold person minus free coupe de grace, and anytime I lose control of my character to confusion I want to destroy a puppy. Perhaps you should be asking why nerfing enchantment is necessary in the first place, rather than why is protection from evil spells so strong.

Well, the hideous laughter and hold person allow saves (and more than one in fact) whereas the protection is a guarantee of immunity. I understand your sentiment completely - it's because of seeing my characters subjected to these types of effects when I'm a player that I want to use them in kind when I'm a DM. A no-good, lowdown, rat bastard DM. ;)

It does not grant total immunity to enchantments; it grants immunity to mental control. DIRECT mental control and possession. Basically, that means the dominate spells, and spells like demand. Spells like charm person or suggestion do not excercise actual mental control; they're influences and compulsions.

Protection from evil/good/etc. basically grants immunity to something using you like a puppet and directly controlling your actions with its mind or voice. So again... that basically means things like a ghost's malevolence, the magic jar spell, and dominate effects.

Otherwise, yeah. It'd be WAY too good for a 1st level spell to effectively shut down an entire school of magic.

We tried to make this more clear in Pathfinder, but I don't think we accomplished that, alas.

Thank you for the clarification James. I have to say, though, that the wording in the PFRPG, for me at least, makes the situation less clear than in 3.5. Perhaps some errata could be useful.

From the Pathfinder SRD (emphasis mine):

"Second, the subject immediately receives another saving throw (if one was allowed to begin with) against any spells or effects that possess or exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment [charm] effects and enchantment [compulsion] effects). This saving throw is made with a +2 morale bonus, using the same DC as the original effect. If successful, such effects are suppressed for the duration of this spell. The effects resume when the duration of this spell expires. While under the effects of this spell, the target is immune to any new attempts to possess or exercise mental control over the target. This spell does not expel a controlling life force (such as a ghost or spellcaster using magic jar), but it does prevent them from controlling the target. This second effect only functions against spells and effects created by evil creatures or objects, subject to GM discretion."

Well, I didn't look through EVERY enchantment spell (to the best of my knowledge) but I did click through every wizard spell of the enchantment school, and they are ALL of the enchantment[charm] or enchantment[compulsion] subschools.

So if I'm reading this correctly, a first level spell can make a creature completely immune to an entire school of magic. Is that REALLY the intent of the spell? I know it says the effect only functions for spells and effects created by evil sources, but it still seems WAY too powerful to me.

This portion of the protection spells was also problematic in 3.5, where the language was slightly different (the 3.5 version's relevant text(s) are "(including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person). " and "This second effect works regardless of alignment.")

Soooo...does anyone allow this level of global immunity? While we were playing with the Beta game over the summer (and then using the core rules when released) we were still learning many of the details of spells and such. I had the party facing a vampire bard, and protection from evil basically made the foe worthless as a spellcaster, since her best spells were things like hideous laughter and confusion and such.

I thought the 3.5 version of the spell was fine with respect to this second feature, except that it was ambiguous. Now it seems that we're being treated to a version that for the sake of expediency was given short shrift. The way this spell should have been fixed was to take the time to determine exactly what other spells it would protect against and compile a list. At any rate, that is how it will work in my games, and I'm going to limit the list to spells that can lead to the caster having direct influence over the subject's actions (like charm, suggestion, domination) and NOT things that simply cause the subject to lose control (hideous laughter, confusion, symbols). Also, the alignment limitation will be removed.

Anyone else have any experience with/thoughts about this?

So I think that if publishers ever get "realistic" about PDF prices the market for them will actually take off. I guess they will have to get over their fear and/or greed for that to ever happen, though. I am pretty sure the consumer will never get dumb enough to pay such high prices, in general. There are obviously exceptions since PDF's presumably do sell. Probably to the few people in the market where PDF's are a better option to them rather than print.

I agree that the prices on these products seem too high to warrant their purchase to me. I'll never understand the logic behind this type of scheme...why charge an outrageous price for a pdf when the supply is effectively unlimited? It costs close to nothing to distribute a pdf...it's not like you have to build the system for distribution, it already exists and will cost you regardless of what products you offer.

My dad always said that fast nickels are better than slow dollars. As a thought experiment, how many of you would buy this product at this price? And what about the others in the line? Now what if the price was half listed? Would that make you more likely to buy it, even if you weren't really convinced it would be useful?

Setting a price point at this level will draw in those who REALLY want the product and maybe have been unsuccessful in obtaining a hardcopy. A few people who are only vaguely interested may sink the money into the purchase. Personally, I will spend up to $15 on a pdf if I think it will be interesting, and if I want to see the company succeed. Getting above that, I want a hardcopy for my money. $30 for a pdf just feels like gouging to me, especially since I know that the supply is unlimited.

That's a shame, because the book is worth every penny. It's 400 pages, and in my opinion the absolute pinnacle of 3.5 ed campaign setting books.

That does sound pretty awesome, but I've already got a few 3.5 settings, none of which are currently being used. I usually buy a product not because I need it but because I want it. I believe Privateer Press is making a mistake with this pricing scheme because it deters people such as myself, who enjoy supporting creative efforts, from contributing to their success. They will definitely attract the people who want the setting and plan to use it, but those who might otherwise make a purchase even though they wouldn't necessarily use the material may be put off.

I just believe that pricing the pdfs at, say, $30 for BOTH the character guide and the setting book would attract more than twice as many buyers as the current pricing scheme. But what do I know, I just code web pages for a living. ;)

$30 for a pdf? Seems too pricey to me. Maybe $5, $10 if it's really large. Perhaps Paizo broke the bar with the pricing for PathfinderRPG's pdf! :)

They would accumulate without limit but fade 1 hour later.

Awesome, thanks for the clarification! :)

Hi, I'm running a game in which the characters will be facing off against a bunch of vampires. The vampires have the energy drain ability which states (from the 3.5 SRD) that "Living creatures hit by a vampire’s slam attack (or any other natural weapon the vampire might possess) gain two negative levels. For each negative level bestowed, the vampire gains 5 temporary hit points. A vampire can use its energy drain ability once per round."

I can't find any rules on temporary hit points stacking in PFRPG, but I seem to recall that in 3.5 the rule was that each instance of something that grants temporary hit points overlaps with previous instances. What I'm wondering is how exactly the energy drain temporary hit points would work...is each attack that bestows two negative levels a single instance and the vampire gains 10 temporary hit points which are replaced by the next successful energy draining attack? Do the points accumulate without limit? I'm just not clear on exactly how this is supposed to function, so if anyone has any rules they can point me to or opinions to offer I'd appreciate hearing about it. Thanks in advance for your help and/or advice.

Hi, I've been mulling over an idea for a simple but powerful template that I'd like to use, and I'm not sure what LA to assign to it. I've always liked the paragon creature template from the Epic Level Handbook, but it's way too powerful for normal play. In that vein, however, I'd like to create a template which I'd call "Perfect Specimen". The template would grant exactly two things: all ability scores are 18 (then modified by race and increased by level adjustments as the character progresses) and all HD grant maximum hp. Note that this template preempts rolling for ability scores or point buying.

My feeling is that +3 is around the right value for the LA. However, my statistical skills are weak, and I was hoping some folks with a better head for how this would work out might have some thoughts. I don't intend to let my players use this template (until it's fleshed out) but I think it would be cool for some NPCs.

Thanks in advance for any ideas! :)

I found mine waiting when I got home last night. I would have posted about it then, but I spent the evening flipping through this tome, admiring the detail and artwork, casually checking a rule here or a spell description there. Our group is still running through Shackled City so we'll be continuing with 3.5 for the near future, but our summer game has been using the Beta rules and we've all been enjoying them.

Congrats to everyone at Paizo for their amazing work! I'm sure all of us fans will be devouring this for the next few weeks! :)

Also, Bastards of Erebus looks pretty awesome too!! :)

I would echo some of the sentiments already expressed here, and recommend that the giant's immunity to illusions be treated as immunity to mind-affecting illusions (patterns and phantasms) as well as any illusion-based effects that could or do target the giant and allow SR (such as anything resulting from shadow conjuration or shadow evocation). You may wish to include an automatically successful will save for any interaction with an illusion.

That said, I still believe invisibility would work against the giant unless it had activated its see invisibility option with its summoned spirits.

Yep, that's a good call, standard mail was what I had. Maybe we got a new carrier, 'cuz as I previously stated, I've never had this problem before. But I've changed to UPS now, so I'll be able to track as well as have that insurance. Thanks for the insight! :)

OK, I guess there's nothing to be done from the Paizo side of things. Can anyone tell me for sure what carrier was used to deliver my package so I can contact them directly and ask that they not bend packages labelled "DO NOT BEND"?

Hi, I just returned home from a few days' vacation and found that my order had arrived while I was away. Normally this hasn't been a problem in the past, however this time the delivery person stuck the order in my mailbox. This despite the "DO NOT BEND" in large letters on the front of the envelope. All previous deliveries have been left in between my screen and front doors, and have never had a problem. I was hoping to get a point of contact for the delivery company in order to ask them to ensure that such deliveries in the future are dropped on the porch instead of shoved into the mailbox. The damage to the products was minimal and probably not noticeable if you aren't aware of the delivery condition, but I'd prefer that no bending at all take place. :) Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks for the thoughts, Hogarth, I'm pretty sure we'll be running this as you suggest. I still get a kind of skeevy feeling like the situation ain't quite right with grappling in general, but I suppose that as long as the thing is balanced mechanically it's survivable.

...the restriction against picking divination as an oposed school was just dumb and non-sensical.

I was under the impression this rule existed because Read Magic is a divination spell.

I like the basic ideas behind combat maneuvers, but in our game the other night we still had questions arise related to grappling. Specifically, the rules seem to adopt the concept of one creature as the initiator of the grapple and the other as the resistor, with those roles maintained throughout the struggle. However, we had a situation in which a skum grappled a dwarf PC, and rather than try to break the grapple, the dwarf wished to move both creatures in a particular direction, as part of a successful grapple maintenance check.

Since the dwarf hadn't started the grapple, but was indeed grappled by the skum, how exactly is this resolved, and more importantly, what happens when the dwarf fails to "maintain" the grapple?

The way it played out, the dwarf used a standard action to attempt to maintain the grapple and move both creatures. The attempt failed, but clearly the grapple wasn't broken since the dwarf hadn't attempted to break free and neither had the skum. On the skum's turn, it too failed to maintain the grapple, at which point I ruled the grapple was broken. But it seemed to me the rules default to the position that there will always be one creature attempting to maintain the grapple and another always trying to break free. That wasn't the situation we had in our game. The resulting situation got me to thinking about how you determine unequivocally if a grapple is broken due to failure of the roll, and I still don't understand how to make that determination. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks! :)

As of now the feat hasn't been a problem. I mentioned to the player of the party cleric about it, and he was aware of it and planning to take it at 5th level, but wanted some other feats first. The big bad evil guy they'll (hopefully) get to face will have it, and he'll be high enough level to really dish out some damage. But these players are smart, and I'm sure they'll take account of this in some way - death ward, powerful ranged attacks, etc.

My overall suspicion is that it'll be more of an advantage to the party than to the villains. :)

True, but what about the flip side? An evil cleric who has Quickened Turning would be doing a blanket xd6 of damage for free each round (until his turn attempts were spent) PLUS any damage spells and/or attacks. A first level evil cleric could have this feat and you could see a TPK of a 1st level party in a couple rounds...

Has anyone ever seen this scenario in game?

Haven't seen it yet, Larry, but we're playing tonight, and the party will definitely be facing some of Lamashtu's goblin servants who will use this. They're low level so only 2d6 per use, but the party is only level 3, so it could be brutal.

BTW - great last name, very appropriate for a thread I started because of Libris Mortis! :)

I like the idea of a Charisma prerequisite, Larry, that limits the availability somewhat...with the ability to do damage/heal with channel energy, unlimited quickened channel can be pretty powerful, especially if used by a higher level cleric. I dunno, maybe it's something that lets them be really cool and totally worth playing in that context.

Hey Dustin, I already gave the dude the Tomb-tainted soul feat. Might as well heal himself as he sucks the life out of the party!! :)

Yeah Curt, I had that thought as well. I am interested in seeing how it plays out, maybe I'll just leave it as is and go with it. Our goal this summer is to get some familiarity with the Beta rules, so it's not like it's a serious campaign with long term emotional investments. :) Think I'll let it go and see what happens.

Hey everyone, I've been working on a BBEG who is going to hopefully be the campaign capper for our summer game, and I've been looking through Libris Mortis for some appropriately themed magic items, feats, monsters, etc. One of the feats I came across is Quicken Turning, which allows a user to turn or rebuke undead as a free action (but still only once per round). Awesome ability, right? And no prereqs but being able to turn or rebuke undead.

So since my bad guy can channel energy, I'm planning to give him this feat, but it will be way powerful with the way channel energy works in PFRPG. My thought is to limit it in some way, such as to impose a three per day rule as for Quicken Spell-like Ability, or to charge an additional use of channelling per quickened use. Or maybe both. Anybody have any thoughts, including if I should just let this go? Since the party has just reached third level then no matter how I implement it I'll give the party cleric the option to take this feat as well so it's all fair.

Thanks everyone, those are some good insights and fall pretty much in line with what I expected. Even though PFRPG (well, at least Beta) makes it much less tragic to have a cross-class skill, I still think I'll make Acrobatics a class skill for fighters. I don't believe that it undermines balance too awful much.

Just curious about it since with the mechanical advantages of tumbling it should be something that every fighter learns about. Not warriors of course, but fighters are focused on fighting, they're not simply soldiers.

I'm planning to make it a class skill in my game as a house rule, but I was wondering why it isn't one already (and for that matter, why Tumble wasn't one in 3.0/3.5).

Cheers! :)

DM_Blake, if I understand your take on multiple poisonings, you feel that it would be more realistic to treat multiple doses of the same poison with an increasingly harder save to reflect the cumulative effect of the poison, yes? I agree this is much more realistic, and maybe I'll try it sometime. For the time being, tho, I think I'll stick with one save per turn per poison effect, and treat each instance separately. Not as realistic I know, but hopefully easier to track. We'll see...

Thanks again to everyone for helping me grok this! :)

Wow, thanks for all the responses everyone! :)

I didn't even think about multiple poisoning. I'll try to take it easy on the characters so that's not such a pressing concern for the moment...they're just 2nd level and I don't want the players to get discouraged.

Hi, I've been reading up on poison in the Beta, getting ready for a session. I guess I'm kind of thick, because I'm not understanding exactly how they work (or at least I'm not confident I correctly understand the mechanism). Based on what I'm reading, the way I perceive poison to work in general is that when exposed to the poison the victim makes a saving throw. If successful, that's that, no more waiting a minute to make another save. If the save fails, then each round the victim takes the damage and gets a new save. Once ONE save succeeds, the effect of the poison is over. If no save succeeds, the damage continues for the number of rounds specified in the Frequency entry for the poison, then the poisoning ends on its own.

Is that correct, or am I way off base? Thanks in advance for any insight.

but is there an error on page 194 of the beta? The section on arcane schools doesn't show a bonus 4th level spell at 8th level. Doesn't make much sense to me to skip only that one, is this a typo?

Sorry also if this double-posted, I clicked submit instead of preview and it seems my original post disappeared into the ether...

We are bringing, literally, 10 times as many RPG hardcovers as we did of the Beta. The Beta blew us away and we hope 10 times as many copies of the hardcover won't suffer the same fate.

Well, from the perspective of a consumer, I agree, and I hope everyone who wants one can obtain a copy.

Then again, from the perspective of the success of PFRPG, I hope you sell out completely in short order! ;)

Wow, The Wraith, that's some awesome work! I've been off the board a couple days so I hadn't seen it before, but thanks! :)

Despite the best of intentions to do exactly that and convert the whole 3.5 SRD list of monsters... I don't know of any resource quite like that.

However, you might check this thread. It's mostly conversions of NPCs, but some monsters are converted I think.

Thanks for the link Majuba, I haven't had a chance to go through the entire thing but the first page does seem to be mostly NPCs.

I've got to admit that I'm surprised! I'd've thought that the creative folks around here would have compiled a huge list of creature stats for Pathfinder over the last year. Oh well, at least I don't have to wait too much longer until the bestiary is here. But I will have to work harder over the summer... ;)

Hello,

I just started a campaign last week using the PFRPG beta rules, and while I'm aware that a bestiary is due in September (already pre-ordered!) what I'm wondering is if some of the creative souls that frequent these boards have compiled an online resource of monsters that I might "borrow" in the mean time.

I did try searching for a link to a discussion of this type, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Essentially I'm looking for any conversions of 3.5 monsters to PFRPG stats that folks might have laying around.

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

Regards,
Dave

Hey Alison, just wanted to let you know that the books arrived today. Thanks for the responsiveness! :)

OK, will do. Thanks Alison! :)

Hey there,

I see from my account info that this order was shipped on March 19th by priority mail, which is supposed to have a max delivery time of 5 business days. As of yet I haven't seen this shipment. Any way you can track it down? Thanks!

Regards,
Dave

I use psionics frequently in my games, both as a DM and a player (I'm actually playing in a gestalt game where my dwarf is a factotum/psion(egoist)). I like the differing mechanics that separates psionics from magic, although there are many functional similarites. Still, the flexibility of the psionics system is great.

I know that there are people who have optimized psionic characters to godlike status (did I read or hear about psionically "possessing" the tarrasque?) but many parts of the 3.5 system can be abused if not sensibly regulated by the DM and the players. I'd like to see a PFRPG version of psionics, and I'd definitely buy a book for rules to use in the game.

#56 here. Got it late last night when arriving home after our game. It's a nice complement to the used copy of Ptolus I finally snagged off Amazon a while back - although that has no number.

I second (or second thousandth ;) ) the vote for reprinting Ptolus, BTW. Everyone should have one...

Good to know, thanks for the info! :)

Hello, I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered but I wanted to know if the Pathfinder RPG book will be automatically included in my existing Pathfinder subscription or if instead I'll need to order a copy specifically. Thanks!

Last game my PCs managed to kill easily Mak'ar in the Spire of Long Shadows.

The wizard casted on her pseudodragon familiar 'Piticli' an antimagic field. This trick made the spellweaver lich to worry more about avoiding the familiar than in using his attack spells. Only a Wall of Force stopped it till the wizard casted disintegrate over the Wall.
I'm thinking on how to counter this tactic. Any idea? It seems a good trick for evil wizard only encounter.

I'd have to say if I were DMing this session, I wouldn't have let it work. If you look at the spell description for Antimagic Field on page 200 of the PHB, it doesn't have a target, and it's range is not personal. I would say that it can't be cast on anything, and it can't be shared since it's not a personal range spell and it doesn't have a target of "you".

On page 16, the class ability description for bard spells in the fourth paragraph states that at 5th level and every third bard level thereafter, a bard can switch an existing spell for a new one. However, tables 4-3 and 4-4 show that a bard gains new spell levels at 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th and 16th level. Not sure this is errata or not, but a clarification would be nice. I seem to recall that spell switching usually occurs when a new spell level is achieved.

Hello,

I recently began running Age of Worms for my group, and things had been moving along nicely. The players had been very proactive in the development of their characters, and had accomplished quite a few tasks from The Whispering Cairn sans violence. Or with limited violence. They managed to reach the iron ball trap in area 23 and came to an agreement with Alastor Land, tracked down his family farm, located Kullen and his group, cajoled (25 Diplomacy check by the sorceress, plus gold and booze) them for information on Filge, whom they defeated but kept alive for questioning.

When they finally confronted Smenk, none of the conditions for him being hateful to them had come to pass, so I had him being helpful (and manipulative). By providing some outline of his experiences in the Dark Cathedral, he gave them somewhat of an advantage as to its layout (the main chapel and part of the labyrinth only). Allustan had been working closely with the group, since he was a mentor to the sorceress, and had worked to help them secure a claim to the land on which the Whispering Cairn is located (basically told his brother he wanted it for historical research purposes - which is true, in fact). He helped them with a few healing potions and other one shot items when they entered the Dourstone mine.

As expected, they followed the two tiefling guards into the temple of Hextor and, after a protracted series of skirmishes that saw one character killed, managed to defeat Theldrick and his minions. The deceased's player rolled up a new character that was a prisoner within the temple of Hextor, a dragon shaman from the south that had stumbled upon some cultists in the midst of searching for information about green worms and unkillable undead.

The new character joined the group, and then they made their fatal mistake. Although they were all level 3 at this time, and well on their way to 4 after the sacking of Hextor's temple, they chose to enter the labyrinth, of which they had a partial map, rather than explore the unknown area behind the unmarked door. They had some knowledge of the nature of the Ebon Triad, and Smenk's intel identified the Faceless One as the de facto leader of the cult. They entered the labyrinth and proceeded to have a cat and mouse game with the kenku. They managed to kill most of them, but the leader did some damage with a 5 hd fireball from his necklace, then fled to warn the wizards of the incursion. The assault on them stopped at this point, and the players gathered themselves in one of the kenkus' rooms and healed up, then followed their map and proceeded through the area to the laboratory. They managed to get to area 25, from where they tried to spy on the Inner Sanctum. They spotted the two wizards, the allip and the boss kenku (still wounded), and made an assault. The allip wasn't surprised and leaped to the attack, while the dragon shaman rushed into the room to assault the wizards. One wizard was taken down relatively easily, but the other used his scroll of web to snare the remainder of the party in area 25, save for the halfling bard who was closer to area 24. Sorry, been rambling on here, the point is that the battle drew in the other two wizards and the Faceless One, and with the web separating them, the allip was tearing up the party while the dragon shaman was bitten by the summoned huge fiendish centipede, then burned to death by a flaming sphere. The party was getting free of the web, but the flaming sphere coupled with the burning webs took down the cleric of Kord, who did get revived briefly by the rogue, but when they should have fled completely, the rogue closed the door to area 24 with the Faceless One and his flaming sphere on the other side, then when it opened he bull rushed the mage, managing to knock him into the remnants of the web. Everyone started filing back into the room, and when they were in a nice line the Faceless One zapped them with a lightning bolt. That was pretty much the end of it, the sorceress was still on her feet and made a brave stand, but a magic missile spell dropped her and that was that.

OK, I guess all that detail wasn't completely necessary, but it may help with the reason I'm actually writing this in the first place...continuing the story. My players are great, they didn't skip a beat, as soon as everyone was dead they started talking about the new characters they wanted, to go kick some Faceless ass. :) MY problem is how to balance out the ensuing situation. Obviously TFO isn't going to sit on his hands and do nothing...finding the sketched maps would likely lead him to Smenk, and the sorceress had Filge's spellbook with her. The party had also collected most of the booty from the temple of Hextor, including holy symbols to use as evidence of the cult's presence.

So, realizing that someone is on to him, and that the map could only have been provided by Dourstone or Smenk, I'm trying to establish tactics for TFO over the course of say two weeks...I ruled that the amount of time that passes in game will be the same as in the real world for this period, to reflect the fact that the new characters aren't just sitting around waiting to enter the mines, and probably aren't in Diamond Lake. Allustan will send out a call within a day of the fall of the characters, but it will still take time to have the new team arrive and get prepped. With the loss of the kenku the defenses of the labyrinth are weakened, but more pressing, I think, is the rise of the Ebon Aspect. The module doesn't spell it out, but I am operating under the rule that the cultists are engaged in some series of rituals that will eventually manifest this big baddie. Since the rituals for the temple of Hextor can no longer be completed, will this cause the beast to rise? Or can the other two branches of the cult continue on, and the aspect will be limited with no Hextor special power maybe? Or maybe they can go into a stasis mode, and call for another priest of Hextor to join them. Which would be fine, if time and secrecy weren't factors. No, there's only a few options open, and I'm not certain of the best way to proceed.

So if anyone out there has any ideas on what they might do, I'd really appreciate hearing them. I'd like to bring in the new characters in a smooth way, allow for Allustan's involvement in some way to provide guidance in routing the cult, and also account for the feeling of impending doom that would afflict TFO and Grallak Kur on discovering that they are known and being hunted to some degree. Some basic ideas I'm toying with:

1) Smenk has fled Diamond Lake already, once he is sure the party went into the mines to rout the cult - probably hiding in the Free City for the time being

2) TFO arranges to abduct Filge from prison and press him into service. I wonder where he'd get some bodies to make zombies...>:) And on this topic, how does a 3rd level wizard create undead, anyway? Last I checked, Animate Dead is a 4th level spell...but whatever.

3) TFO places a call for a new priest of Hextor to join him, with about a 1% cumulative chance per day of having that call answered. Probably generous on the chances, but also subject to the immediacy of dealing with the fact that the presence of the cult is known.

4) The cultists somehow abduct Allustan, after discovering that the sorceress was his student, and try to silence anyone with direct knowledge of their presence.

Anyway, please add your thoughts and ideas, and thanks! :)

Regards,
Dave