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Dhrakken's page

Organized Play Member. 141 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 3 Organized Play characters.


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Grand Lodge

Zhangar, you have some amazing ideas! Thank you!

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

That's a very interesting concept and actually makes sense!

Grand Lodge

Reckless wrote:

They released the first mod in the Reign of Winter Path yesterday, so Yes.

Click Doug's link in the post right before yours, and like a genie your wish is granted.

Wow, that was timely!

Grand Lodge

Any hope that one day we'll see Reign of Winter?

Grand Lodge

DM Corerue wrote:
Review pending come tomorrow!

Where is this review you speak of???

Grand Lodge

Perfect, thank you. I will go check it out.

Grand Lodge

Quick question, I currently GM using a TV table top and I use my laptop for the GM info (Roll20, Realm Works and Hero labs) and the TV Table as a second monitor, hooked up to the laptop, is where I display the player board/map. I use two roll20 sessions/accounts to accomplish this. Being a download, can I have a player and a GM session running on the same machine with fantasy grounds?

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

You know what... so many people have been waiting for Realm Works to release their content market... this release by FG could be the nail in their coffin.

I just looked it all over on the FG website and I may be jumping ship myself.

Grand Lodge

Tangent101 wrote:

Maybe it's just that my brain is drained from work, but I must admit I'm confused about one of the encounters in the START of the adventure, with the animate dream.

** spoiler omitted **

This encounter just seems vague and could be expanded upon just a tad. ^^;;

Started book 3 last night and I really had issues with this encounter. It was frustrating for me and the players and I had to concede the encounter. I wish I would have spent more time on it and maybe tweak it a bit before hand to make it smoother. I have to agree that it could definitely have been expanded on.

Grand Lodge

Manuelexar wrote:
Dhrakken wrote:
Manuelexar wrote:

Great work Zhangar! I'm thinking about running this again, but with mythic, but I'll give them just 3 or 4 mythic levels, one as the mantle of the black rider, one after the aeon pit and one after Rasputin (or with the destruction of the world engine).

Since we had problems with our magic stuff the last time we played I think I'm going to add some scaling magic items.
Be prepared to re-write every single encounter... Mythic is that broken.
Really? I hoped that slapping an advanced simple template and doubling the HPs on everything would do...

I have the added issue of having 6 players. I'm sure that contributes to it a lot.

Grand Lodge

Manuelexar wrote:

Great work Zhangar! I'm thinking about running this again, but with mythic, but I'll give them just 3 or 4 mythic levels, one as the mantle of the black rider, one after the aeon pit and one after Rasputin (or with the destruction of the world engine).

Since we had problems with our magic stuff the last time we played I think I'm going to add some scaling magic items.

Be prepared to re-write every single encounter... Mythic is that broken.

Grand Lodge

Sorry, I didn't realize this was a Starfinder post!

Grand Lodge

Trying to get my head around this... this only applies if you have more than one attack per round correct?

For example, if I'm a bad touch cleric, I could release a stored bestow curse on my first touch attack and then use touch of madness on my second touch attack if I have at least two attacks per round?

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I play behind a computer monitor as I use a TV table top and behind my monitor is a pin laden voodoo doll of the most optimized character at the table...

Grand Lodge

Rogar Stonebow wrote:
I think dragonlance gnomes had the +2 con +2 int.

Just checked the Dragonlance campaign setting book and it says they had +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, –2 Strength, –2 Wisdom.

Grand Lodge

Interesting arguments... except this is for PFS so scribe scroll is off the table.

Grand Lodge

Hmm, that's interesting... and opens up so many possibilities, probably too many in fact! lol

Grand Lodge

I'm thinking of doing a Rebirth Psychic for an upcoming PFS game next week. Are they still considered strong? Does the floating spell option actually allow you to bypass UMD?

Grand Lodge

Yikes, with that approach, I sure hope the whole tower doesn't come to help the dragon once they engage it! And even if they don't react then, they surely will when the dragon is dead and it's time to leave.

If I were the GM in this case, I would have troops waiting outside below the tower and also guarding the exit/entrance to the dragon's lair.

Grand Lodge

Slim Jim wrote:
I like Community just for what you get at 1st level (which makes it ideal for dipping).

I did a 1 level cleric dip and took Travel and Luck domains with my 12th level slayer and it was a game changer for me. Turned a very lackluster class into something relevant.

Grand Lodge

Everybody knows you never go full Mythic... unless you're ready to re-write each and every encounter.

I went full Mythic...

Grand Lodge

Ah, for some reason I thought you were at the end of book 2!

Grand Lodge

Book 1 was a blast! And so is book 2!

Grand Lodge

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Lawful Evil is relatively easy as long as there's a common goal the group is working towards. To be honest, I find Chaotic Neutral to be much more difficult to manage.

Grand Lodge

In my experience, players don't give a crap about the GM, GM has to make his/her own fun. Can't say I really blame them, the game is centered around the players after all... heroes always get the spotlight.

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Matthew Downie wrote:
Klorox wrote:
Opuk0 wrote:
I've stopped playing with DMs who don't roll out in the open, been burned too many times.
You know the DM can downplay his rolls as well as he can decree a critical, right? I've known several who went out of their way NOT to kill PCs.
For players who like the dice to reign supreme, fudging to save a PC is just as bad as fudging to make the bad guy pass a Will save.

One of the challenges I've been faced with is that I'm running an AP that was designed for 4 PC's with 6 players that are mythic and as you can imagine, balancing has been difficult. And yes, I knew what I was signing up for when I decided to run this. I love the challenge of creating challenging encounters but there was a least one encounter in particular I remember where I realized I misjudged and created an encounter that was much too strong for the party.

Had I not fudged the rolls, it would have been a TPK. There was no way I was going to allow a TPK because I built the encounter badly.

How upset would you have been to have your PC die because the GM screwed up the CR of an encounter? Sometimes dice rolls need to be fudged.

Grand Lodge

@Luna: Are you going to jump into the witch war legacy after book 2? Or after book 6?

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

What people fail to realize is that Paizo is slowly killing the GM with every new book they release and the only way the average GM (the one's with full time jobs) can cope is to start banning more and more new material. The player has to know ONE class but the GM has to know about all the classes that might show up at any given table and any classes that might show up in the adventure (not to mention all the monsters they have to learn before each and every encounter). This is the biggest reason why I do not GM PFS for the general public; and never will.

I know I posted earlier that I didn't allow OA because it didn't fit the setting and I've reconsidered my position. The reason has more to do with material gloat and trying to manage it than anything else.

Grand Lodge

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Tyophelis wrote:
Can someone recommend a module to substitute rasputin must die with? I am really not to keen to bring my table to a WW1 scenario in russia. The ap already feels very disjointed between the books.

This is THE number reason why my players want to play this AP. If I were to remove/replace this book, I would need to go into a witness protection program....

Grand Lodge

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Funny, I just posted for a game on Sunday on roll20.net and I specifically called out no OA (or the vigilante book).

Personally, as some have said before, I don't think they fit in the setting and as such, I have not bothered to buy the book and/or read up on the classes. If I wanted to play these classes, I would run a "beyond the supernatural" game.

Disagree with me if you want, it's my opinion and will run my games how I want to and in a way that is not only fun to my players but also to me. If that rubs someone the wrong way, move on to the next game, no hard feelings!

Grand Lodge

sadie wrote:

Since the party is leaning towards letting the kobold talk first, I think I'm going to keep Logrovich as a dragon. Having his idol be a selfish idiot is just too flavorful to set aside. And his player is resigned to character death if that's where roleplay takes him.

So, falling damage from a 70 foot tower...

Oh that's going to smart! Give the dragon uncanny grapple and master grappler for added goodness!

Grand Lodge

I only want the illusion to last 3-4 rounds so as to keep the players confused. I want to see if they can figure it out themselves. "What do you mean it's immune to fire" or "I just got poisoned by it's tail?" or "What do you mean I can't use dimensional slide to get away from the big bad?"

My guys have fought bone devils in another campaign so they may catch on quickly but who knows!

Grand Lodge

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

-- Hm: thinking it over, one other possibility comes to mind. Have the dragon actually be a Bone Devil.

Backstory: There was a Logrivich once, but he turned out to be too damn greedy and uncontrollable. He was snatching people off the streets to eat them and take their stuff, and when Elvanna called him on it, he turned on her and tried to bite. That was the end of Logrivich. But he'd actually been a really effective terror weapon, so a replacement was required. Boom: one Planar Binding later, it's actually a Bone Devil up there in the tower.

Why a Bone Devil?

1) They have constant Fly, and then Invisibility and Major Image all at will. So, all those times Logrivich has been seen flying around town? It's the devil flying through the air, keeping up an illusion.

2) They speak Common and Draconic and have Bluff +17. That gets the devil through most casual encounters. (And it's not like a lot of people want to casually chat with a dragon anyway.)

3) They're bound by the terms of their contract / binding, so they are utterly reliable as long as the binder was competent. Which, for our purposes, we'll assume Elvanna was and is.

4) It's a CR 9 creature, which is pretty much exactly what you want for a party of 5th level PCs with one mythic rank each. If you think that it's still not quite strong enough, give it the Advanced template -- super easy to apply, and boom, now it's CR 10.

5) It's a great replacement for the dragon, because it is comparably challenging and pulls the same trick of flying around the tower, but has a totally different powerset which will not be what the PCs are expecting. It's immune to fire, so all their fire spells are useless! No flyby attack, but Wall of Ice is incredibly useful for clever tactical play. No breath weapon, but wait until your PCs meet "creature takes a FRA, then simply disappears" aka Quickened Invisibility 3x/day.

6) If you feel like playing fair, you can have someone mention the dragon blocking off a street "by creating...

Oh... this is so juicy! I may steal this idea! The only thing I don't like is that image disappears once struck.

Grand Lodge

I would recommend cities of golarion... lots of great ideas for subplots.

As for Ringeirr, they really don't need him. Part of the adventure could be letting them figure out how to get into contact with the heralds.

Grand Lodge

This is what I decided to go with. The party has an APL of 8. This almost seems under powered for an event that will ascend them to mythic level 2....

Logrivich, Juvenile CR 10
XP 9,600
Male advanced juvenile white dragon Champion 3 (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 100, 288)
CE Medium dragon (cold)
Init +11; Senses dragon senses, snow vision; Perception +16
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Defense
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AC 27, touch 14, flat-footed 23 (+4 Dex, +13 natural)
hp 177 (9d12+69)
Fort +12, Ref +10, Will +8
Defensive Abilities hard to kill; Immune cold, paralysis, sleep
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Offense
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Speed 60 ft., burrow 30 ft., fly 150 ft. (average), swim 60 ft.; icewalking
Melee unarmed strike +13/+8 (1d3+13 nonlethal) or
bite +13 (1d8+19), 2 claws +13 (1d6+13), 2 wings +8 (1d4+6)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. (10 ft. with bite)
Special Attacks breath weapon (30-ft cone, 8d4 cold, Reflex DC 20 half), mythic power (9/day, surge +1d6)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 9th; concentration +11)
At will—fog cloud
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 25, Dex 18, Con 23, Int 16, Wis 15, Cha 14
Base Atk +9; CMB +13; CMD 30 (34 vs. trip)
Feats Alertness, Flyby Attack[M], Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Suppress Vulnerability[M], Vital Strike
Skills Acrobatics +8 (+20 to jump), Bluff +9, Climb +19, Diplomacy +7, Fly +16, Intimidate +14, Perception +16, Sense Motive +8, Spellcraft +15, Stealth +16, Survival +11, Swim +27, Use Magic Device +6
Languages Draconic
SQ amazing initiative, fleet charge[MA], ice shape, master grappler, mythic weapon training (natural)[MA], recuperation, uncanny grapple[MA]
--------------------
Special Abilities
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Amazing Initiative (1/round) (Ex) As a free action, use 1 power to gain an extra standard action (can't be used to cast a spell).
Blindsense (60 feet) (Ex) Sense things and creatures without seeing them.
Breath Weapon (30-ft cone, 8d4 cold, Reflex DC 20 half, usable every 1d4 rounds) As a standard action, affect an area with elemental damage (Ref half).
Burrow (30 feet) You have a Burrow speed.
Darkvision (120 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Dragon Senses (Ex) See four times as well as a human in dim light and twice as well in normal light.
Fleet Charge (Ex) As a swift action, use 1 power to move speed & attack (+3 bonus, bypass all DR).
Fly (150 feet, Average) You can fly!
Flyby Attack [Mythic] Flyby Attack does not provoke AoOs. 1 MP: move twice fly speed during Flyby Attack.
Hard to Kill (Ex) Automatically stabilize when dying, and only die at neg Con x 2.
Ice Shape (At will) (Su) Can shape ice and snow, as stone shape.
Icewalking (Ex) Climb and move on icy surfaces without penalty & no Acrobatics checks to run or charge on ice.
Immunity to Cold You are immune to cold damage.
Immunity to Paralysis You are immune to paralysis.
Immunity to Sleep You are immune to sleep effects.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail.
Master Grappler (Ex) You do extra damage with Uncanny Grapple.
Mythic Weapon Training (Natural) (Ex) Add tier to CMD vs. disarm and sunder attempts against selected weapon group.
Power Attack -3/+6 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Recuperation (Ex) Fully heal after 8 hrs. rest, use 1/2 remaining mythic power and 1 hr. to heal half and restore all non-mythic abilities.
Snow Vision (Ex) Vision is not hindered by snowy conditions.
Suppress Vulnerability [Mythic] Lose vulnerability against chose energy type.
Surge (1d6) (Su) Use 1 power to increase any d20 roll by the listed amount.
Swim (60 feet) You have a Swim speed.
Uncanny Grapple (Ex) You can throw, crush, or swing a creature you are grappling.
Vital Strike Standard action: x2 weapon damage dice.

Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Pathfinder® and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Inc.®, and are used under license.

Grand Lodge

Kill the kobold. It's the only way...

Grand Lodge

Ironically, I just re-stated Logrivich last night while prepping for my game night tomorrow. The party will enter the clock tower at that time.

Party has 6 players, at level 6 and have 1 level of mythic. I kept Logivich as a young dragon (I think given how small the tower is, keeping him as a medium sized creature makes the most sense) but I gave him the advanced template and gave him 3 mythic champion tiers. Path abilities include fleet charge, climbing master (not only will it fly, it will climb around in the rafters), Gozreh's Grace (renders arrows useless and maybe tanglefoot bags?) and debating on adding elemental fury - fire to shore up it's one weakness. Lastly, I am maximizing it's hit points. Too much? lol

Grand Lodge

As a GM, I have ruled in my games that the DR only works against evil creatures.... hence the name of the ability, doesn't make much sense otherwise to me.

Grand Lodge

Personally, I don't think anyone was being hostile in this thread. You asked for opinions/advice and that's what you're getting. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you. The point Gorbacz was trying to make is that you do not need to build PC's specifically to combat the cold/elements.

I'm midway through the second book as a GM and I have to say that the challenges posed by the environment to the PC's has been one of my favourite parts. It was refreshing to see the group come together and burn precious resources to combat the elements. Now that they are level 5, it's no longer a real challenge and I have work to find other unique challenges.

You can prep/build your PC's to completely negate the cold hazards in this AP but, I think you would be missing out on an element that makes, at least the first book, so much fun and so memorable.

At the end of the day, you are the GM; run your game as you see fit.

Grand Lodge

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Poldaran wrote:
Poldaran wrote:
Planning on spicing up the huecuva encounter by having the spirit of Radosek, which has come back fused with his goat into a weaker variant ice based witchfire hunt them down immediately after. Calling him a witchrime.

Did that tonight. Everyone except the brawler had failed the DC on the haunt and was still under its effects when the ghostly man-goat came calling.

Won't talk about much as far as how the party itself handled him(that's for the journal, yo), but it was a pretty intense fight at times. What really made it, though, was the entangle combined with high speed strafing attacks.

Additionally, we're pretty loose with the people at the table knowing HPs since whoever's GMing has someone else running HPs, but I ran him without letting the HP minder know what his total was, which made things kinda tense.

It gave Radosek the sendoff he deserved, since we really half-assed his fight due to exhaustion. And interestingly, due to the morale I gave him(he started focused on the person who scored the killing blow and would switch to the best, most dangerous target if necessary), our usual face tank was the only person(aside from Nadya's kids, who cowered in the monastery doorway) who didn't take a single hit.

I added in a mythic grave knight for this encounter... totally obliterated the party cleric. Radosek is still at large but will likely make another appearance during the final encounter of the book.

Grand Lodge

DungeonmasterCal wrote:


Is that Paizo publication or 3PP?

It's 3PP. I would also highly recommend Mythic Solutions (http://paizo.com/products/btpy9ehv?Mythic-Solutions) I've implemented many of their alternate mythic rules in my game.

Grand Lodge

I gave my group Mythic in Reign of Winter instead of the normal mantle from the black rider. But, I heavily modified the rules to prevent as much power creep as possible. For example, mythic points don't replenish every day, they only replenish when they kill a mythic creature, and even then it's not guaranteed as it's dependent on how many mythic points the creature had left when it died and random luck through luck of the dice... so my mythic system is more like an elaborate hero point system, something to be used in a clutch rather than in every encounter.

Grand Lodge

It won't be Rokhar, Elvanna has made an alliance with a powerful being on Krynn to supply her with Draconian troops.

Grand Lodge

I'm only starting book 2 in a 3 weeks so I still have time to decide but I want to start weaving in plot elements from it now. As I mentioned above, I'm thinking of using Krynn instead and as a means of foreshadowing a bit, while the party is still in Waldsby, there will be a night attack on the village led by Rohkar (he got away at the end of Snows) with a force of Draconians (Baaz and Kapak) to level the town. Reinforcements came in late to help him at the Pale Tower...

It will be interesting to see the reaction from the players once their weapons get stuck in the "lizard mens" bodies...

Grand Lodge

It seems this book in the RoW series has the least amount of posts on these forums and I'm wondering why that is? Did most people skip it, replace it with something else entirely or was it so uneventful that it's not worthy of comment?

I'm personally thinking of relocating this AP to Krynn but wondering if it's worth the effort.

Grand Lodge

I marvel at all those who said they have finished an AP in less than a year. We're 2 sessions away from finishing Carrion Crown and that's been ongoing for 5 years!

Grand Lodge

Serisan wrote:
My wife gets that feeling looking at the CRB. She's gamed historically, but she won't do Pathfinder because of feeling overwhelmed once she gets to the Feats chapter. It's not a unique issue to HeroLab and you can use HeroLab to sort and filter much easier than either dead tree or PDF books. It's not perfect by any stretch, but there's something to be said about not having to look at Improved Critical's text when you don't quality for it.

Granted, but unless you look at the improved critical feat to see what you need to qualify for it, you'll never know. Heck, it won't even show up for you if you only have the tool show you valid items that you qualify for at any given time. I do this by default just to trim down the list. That's one thing I wish the tool did better; better management of feats and feat trees.

Grand Lodge

Not sure if someone has mentioned yet or not but Hero Lab (was mentioned in the initial post) does not tell you which options are the best for your PC. It only tells you which options are available to you... the advantage of course is that once you pick the option, the results are calculated on the spot and the character sheet is built for you. That is hardly mastering the system as a player; if anything it allows you to be lazy.

As an example, a couple of weeks ago, I built a few PC's with my players for our new Serpent's Skull game using Hero Lab and the sheer volume of options was overwhelming to them... "what do you mean I have 489 traits to choose from????" Having all the options available was daunting and discouraging and I had to step in to make suggestions on what they should take.

Grand Lodge

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I ran the challenge of the fang from the old margreve as well but I made as the black rider test. Its flavour blended in well with the AP.

Players don't look!:
When the black rider dies, the party is enveloped by crackling lightning energy and they pass out. Unbeknownst to them, they are transported to a dream world where they are to complete the challenge of the fang, once they complete it, they received the power of the black rider (which was also a geas in itself) and they each gained a level of mythic. If at any point they decide to not save Baba Yaga, they lose their mythic powers

Grand Lodge

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Thanks, I made it the power they received from the black rider as opposed to what was in the book.

As for the encounters, as I mentioned before, I've had to re-write all of them (hero lab is amazing for this) and in many cases, completely replaced them with 3pp Mythic creatures. I have a few experienced players who have no experience with Mythic; curbs down on the metagaming immensely.

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