Fiendish Dire Weasel's page

No worries, we've set sail, but it's a LONG time yet before we reach the Isle of Dread. Tonights adventure should get us to Fort Blackwell, but not before a nice little random encounter I've thrown in featuring a few sahaugin and a wereshark. :)

For the answer to your Q, Alarik, I'm pretty sure it's fine for you to do that sort of thing as long as you don't turn around and re-distribute your creation...especially if you do so for profit.

Aye, points to Fletch. Another option would be to have characters drowning. I forget the exact rules, but it is roughly three saves until you die.

Except that the majority of my party has a natural swim speed, and about half can breathe water. The rest are good swimmers. :)

Enough water is coming over board that someone could be knocked unconscious and have to be dragged to a safer place (I would not kill them outright since that just stinks). It sounds like your crew of 8 is all sailors so the rest of the passengers are colonist (no sailing skills) and it takes 7 to sail the ship. Each N/PC out of play for a while, makes handling the ship that much more difficult. Especially if it is the person at the helm. Or they get knocked out and crank the wheel as they fall. It may take a little while for the rest of the crew to recover the ship (half move on an unstable surface) and by then, well...

That point certainly has potential. A pulley breaks loose and comes right at the helm, high DC reflex save to avoid...

OK, now it's showing. I'm not sure what was going on with my browser last night, I was missing 2 or 3 of these messages.

Now that I do see Fletch's idea, I like it. It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? :)

Last night, we did all the voyage prep and character downtime stuff, and then set sail. We got 3 days into the journey, and they've had good wind. The PC's worked out a work shift schedule on their own, between the captain and first mate, with overlapping 14 hour shifts. Essentially, each shift will have 12 hours duty by itself, with 1 hour overlaps at beggining and end for shift change, and to maintain good communication and such.

Anyway, since they've got the shifts set up, it seemed logical to have the weather rolls match up to them, so I am doing 2 a day. I have, however, decided to roll several ahead going forward, for a number of reasons. One, it will speed up and streamline the game. It doesn't take TOO long to roll 2 percentile rolls and consult charts, but why do it in game if you know you can do it ahead of time?

Also, and more importantly, it turns out that one of my PC's found rules somewhere for relatively accurate weather prediction. It was a DC15 check, and for every 5 you make the check by, that's another 12 hours of accurate prediction. I'm PRETTY sure the relevant check was Knowledge Nature, with synergy bonuses from Prof (Sailor) and Knowledge (Navigation), but I might have that switched. I'll look and see if I can find the rule again later.

At any rate, so far the voyage is going pretty well. And once I get this little weather plan streamlined and such, it should go even more smoothely. I also appreciate Patrick's table, I'll most likely use it with a few minor additions of my own.

Thanks again for all the help, and if anyone has more to add, I look forward to hearing it! :)

It MIGHT!!

If they insist on selling it...

Have Lavinia purchase it.

...but she doesn't have enough money at present, so she'll just have to pay them some money now and the rest when they reach Farshore.

"I can give you 2000 now, plus 15 when we reach Alder-shore".

Everybody liked "Fletch"'s solution, but I don't see a post by anyone named "Fletch". Did he change usernames, or am I just unable to see the post?

All of the stuff posted thus far is good. I still have plenty of time to work out the exact details, as of the end of tonights adventure they are only 3 days out of Sasserine, and trying to work out who is responsible for the pickled water mephit. Keep it coming! :)

Yeah, the poor girl has been through a LOT these past few weeks. She is still just a young girl really, who just lost her parents through betrayal by her brother. She's been thrust into this adulthood thing under horrible circumstances, before she was ready. So naturally she's going to be trying hard to "act the part" while she finds herself. Her mother was a great adventurer and explorer, so she wants to honor her memory by following that path. She's torn between wanting to be the proper, courtly, matronly noblewoman she was trained to be, and the rough and ready adventurer she aspires to be. Her outfit should show that dual nature as well, and as I said, that figure does that.

I made mine fight the whole Manor and Stiltwalker battle fatigued, because they had sailed all night with minimal crew on the Wyvern to get back to Sasserine, RIGHT after the encounter with Captain Javell. So I agree, it's not that harsh. I think I'd DEFINITELY make them fatigued for ROWING all the way back!! Have any of you ever rowed a decent sized rowboat for any length of time? Even on a calm lake or stream it's tough work. I can't imagine doing it for 8 hours at sea. "Fatigued" doesn't begin to describe it; especially after fighting their way through Kraken's Cove.

If you're really nervous about their being able to handle it, tone down the Manor encounters a little. But I'd definitely say they'd feel SOME ill affect from rowing to Sasserine non-stop.

I felt that way too, and in fact it was ESPECIALLY true since they dealt with Diamondback by grappling her. Our Mulhurondi Cleric is a master grappler, and while she kept using her escape artist to get out of the grapple, she couldn't do much else.

I accused the cleric of trying to cop a cheap feel on the hot chick (Cha18) in skin tight clothing, and he had no suitable comeback. Very James Bond-esque.

Particularly since I decided to give Diamondback one of the ultimate villain weaknesses, voluntarily giving away vital information because of their overconfidence. As she attacked, she said "The Kellani family sends it's regards!" because she was just sure they'd never live to tell anyone. Classic Bond villain blunder. :)

But yes, that was a really good scene, and the guys around the table really seemed to be getting into it. :)

Scrolls and Oils of Magic Weapon are pretty cheap.

Yeah, but they're not going to know what is waiting for them in Kraken's Cove. Do you think they'll just happen to buy those before making the trip on a whim?

It's that initial contact with them (esp. Ripclaw) that's the worst. By the time they know what they're dealing with, they're stuck in the Cove and there's nothing that can be done about it until they've gained a few levels and more loot anyway. I think the next time they have to fight the Savage template is (maybe) Farshore, by then they're MUCH more capable of dealing with them, magic weapons or no.

Yeah, I noticed that right as this AP was coming out, they seemed to put out a large number of pirate and nautical themed figs. I'm certain that was not coincidental.

You and I use the same Lavinia Patrick. She is a great fig. The feathered cap just screams "noble trying to pose as pirate".

Yeah, the crest is well done. And I can't believe I was thinking it was a snake in the middle instead of a griffon. *sigh* oh well it all worked out in the end.

As to the question of a fig for Vanthus, we haven't had to use one, yet. I hadn't really given it much thought. By the time we see him again, he'll have wings so a standard human fig just won't cut it.

Awesome, I knew somebody would have it.

By the way, not that it's really directly related, but I thought I'd show everyone the fig I'm using for Lavinia.

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/inc/sdetail/1297

But that musketeer chick is great too. This one is also from Reaper.

That would make a pretty good Lavinia fig. The good news I have for you is that somebody on here actually made up a really nice Vanderboren Family Crest, I'm betting if you did a search and worded it just right, you'd find a link to it or some such. Essentially it was crossed swords in the shape of a "V", along with the "Seekers" symbol (see the family vault in TINH if you don't know what that is about), and a snake in the middle iirc.

I have it saved on my computer at home, but alas I am currently at work, where I don't have access to it.

I think we came to the general conclusion that at medium to high levels, the savage template is not that scary, and the +1 adjustment is about right, but that at lower levels, especially anything under 4 or so, it's really nasty. The extra 10 hit points, the DR5, and final bite attack, and disease save, the acid splash when they die, it's all a lot to handle. Even the savage monkeys are pretty scary.

Also, you could just reduce the XPs they earn by half until they're back in line with the adventures.

For Age of Worms with my group, I'm not even awarding XPs as such, just telling them when they level up based on story benchmarks. It's working fine, and I've seen others post here that they do something similar.

I don't think I'd put an artificial limit on XP, people feel like they're being cheated or punished when you do that. I'd just leave the adventures as is for a while, and the PC's wont level as fast, due to the sliding nature of XP and level gain. Eventually the problem will take care of itself.

I started everybody in my party at Lvl2, and even through in an intro side-quest at sea, and they are already back on the schedule for levels. Most of the party is Lvl5 with a few at Lvl4, and we're starting SWW.

Our party begins Sea Wyvern's Wake tonight, although I don't expect us to get terribly far tonight because we're starting with some much-needed downtime. Then, after that, I can pretty much guarantee that my PC's (one or two particularly) will take a very keen interest in the exact nature and specs of the ship's cargo. So, while we might set sail tonight, I don't expect them to get too far.

Anyway, the reason I am writing this is that I have a couple of semi-unique problems that I forsee with the adventure as written, and I'd like some input and advice on them.

I should state before hand that, as I have mentioned in other threads, I have a relatively unusual party in a number of relevant ways. One is that it is a large party, consisting of no less than 8 PC's. Also, I have converted the campaign to run in the Forgotten Realms, in case that matters to anyone's advice. The other is that they're all good sailors, with all of them having at least 3 or 4 ranks in Prof(Sailor), many much more than that.

The reason that's a problem is that I feel like it's going to be rather obvious when I railroad them into a shipwreck at the end of SWW. I understand that it's a near-hurricane storm they're facing, and that the ship is rolling and turning, but these old salts have been through some rough storms at sea and know how to manage themselves.

Even if I made the modified Prof(Sailor) DC about 40 for them to stay off the reef, they'd have a pretty solid shot of making it, especially a few levels from now. Any more than that and you're talking Epic difficulties, which is also not especially believable. I know that the adventure doesn't even CALL for a Prof(Sailor) check, as I said, I feel I need something to prevent the feeling that they're being railroaded, which I know most gamers hate when they know that the storyline dictates a given outcome no matter what the PC's do to stop it.

The good news is that this particular issue won't be a problem until the end of the journey, which is several sessions away. But I'd like some input on that one from you all.

The next issue I have is that it's been made relatively clear that the adventure encourages romantic interactions with the NPC's, including Lavinia. I've been really trying to play up Lavinia's character as being cute but somewhat damaged by recent events (death of parents, brother's betrayal, etc etc) and in need of some caring companionship. So far, nobody has really taken the bait (There haven't been many opportunities, the PC's have acted pretty independently for long stretches of the AP), and now they're going to go 3 months with VERY limited interaction with her, since she's going to be on the Nixie.

Now, I don't want to split up the PC's between the two boats, it would cause a ton of logistical problems. And I know Lavinia needs to reach Farshore for the adventure after HTBM (the name of which has left me) before the PC's, for storyline reasons.

I could see lots of great roleplaying interaction with Lavinia and the PC's over the course of the 3 months' sailing adventure that would REALLY do some wonders for getting her hooked up with one of our fine eligible bachelors, but she's going to be on the "other" ship. I can very much imagine the guys being very happy to teach her soem tips about sailing and sea voyages, where to tie off the ropes and what not. Wouldn't there be any way for us to have her on board for long stretches, maybe 2 or 3 days on one ship and then 2 or 3 days on the other? Or would that be too much hassle for boats to keep swapping passengers all the time? Is that something they'd ever really do? If so, I could just have her row over to the Wyvern for a few days at a time, and then conveniently be on the Nixie when the Wyvern hits the saragasso, and the 2nd storm and so on. Is there any reason I couldn't / shouldn't do that?

Related...since all of my guys are good sailors, Amella is going to seem and feel like a third wheel. To be honest, she'd probably make more sense on the other boat. But then I'd just be trading one single female for another, I'd rather keep her on the Wyvern but I'm not sure what to do with her. As I said, I'm really interested in trying to begin to play up the romantic interactions in the campaign. What's a good pirate movie without some play with the fair damsels?

Final thing, I'm planning on playing up the actual day-to-day events of the sea voyage more than the module. My group was made for this, and I want to make use of some of the Stormwrack stuff more than it is assumed in the module. I am going to roll for the weather and wind at least once a day, maybe twice, I haven't decided yet. I'm also going to have random encouters at semi-regular intervals. I want this to FEEL like a long, arduous journey to the players and the PC's, so that they really feel the enhanced sense of gratitude when they arrive (which will be about the time the T-Rex shows up). Do you think 2x per day weather is too much?

I have a lot of PC's with a lot of aquatic abilities, and many/most of them were largely wasted in the first two adventures. I understand this, and so do they...you need time in a town with people to build up a proper storyline. But now that they're setting out, I/we really want to play up this part of the campaign to meet the abilities and expectations of the party. Also, I have some of my own of course, but can anyone recommend any particular places I could/should look for some extra side plot ideas? I have a neat idea for a deserted "volcanic" island with a smoking volcano, for example, which, as it turns out, is actually just a sleeping red dragon in an extinct volcano, who happens to be guarding the one fresh water spring on the island. And the PC's need it to replenish their suddenly fouled water supply. I also have a plan with sahaugin and an evil druid, and some other goodies. But more ideas are ALWAYS welcome. :)

Sorry, I know this is a hugely long post, but you guys have always been good with very quick and good input, and I'm counting on some more of that again. Thanks!

Yeah, that'd be great! :)

Hey, and a mighty fine avatar you've chosen for Jaatu as well. :)

Please steer clear of the thread I'm about to start re: "Sea Wyvern's Wake"...it could contain spoilers. Otherwise, see ya tonight!

SWW = Sea Wyvern's Wake...the next episode in Savage Tide after BWG. Essentially it involves the very long (3 months or so) journey by ship from Sasserine to the Isle of Dread.

Here...have a towel. You've got some egg on you... :)

Nothing. Most of the PC's will have to overcome DR5 because they won't have a magic weapon at low level. Yes, those savage creatures are NASTY.

On the other hand, if you have any monks, their bare hands count as magic weapons in terms of DR, so they'll get through, plus as you said that +1 rapier will help, if they get it from her (our party did, she died trying to down her potion) Everybody else will just have to do 6 damage to scratch the things.

I was one of those whose party of PC's took the Nixie. I warned them of the extreme difficulty of navigating the coral of the cove without maps, so they parked it outside and left Gut Tugger to guard the boat (yes, they killed Rowyn and convinced him to join them - side story)

Anyway, my party has 8 PC's and they are all good sailors, because I told them ahead of time what kind of adventure it would be and stressed to them the importance of it. I also started the campaign with them as hands aboard a small merchant pinnace, so it was in their storylines to be able to find their way around a boat.

Anyway, just so they wouldn't feel like they were wasting all those skill points, instead of having the maps negate the 12 DC30 Prof(Sailor) Checks, I instead said that the maps would allow them to find the best way through, and that would allow them to cut it down to 8 checks, at only DC 20, since they would be able to prepare for the next obstacle more efficiently.

It turns out that for my crew, 8 DC 20 checks in a caravel meant that our captain needed to not roll a 1 generally. All 7 of the other PC's made rolls to assist the captain in his skill check (each giving a +2), and then the caravel itself gives a +4 bonus to the skill. That's a total of +18 before the roll, and not even counting the captain's skill in Prof (Sailor) which was the highest in the group. In the end, it just meant that about half the crew would have to fail to assist in the roll just to force the captain to even make a roll in at all.

But obviously, this is not the average party of sailors, so of course not everyone will have the same scenario.

They were in a hurry to get back to save Lavinia from Drevoraz, so they sent the Water Shugenja (who's not so hot in a fight anyway) back to the Nixie in a rowboat, to meet back up with Gut Tugger, so he wouldn't think everyone else had died and desert. The rest of the Party high-tailed back to Sasserine with excellent wind to try to warn Lavinia, but of course they were just a little too late to prevent the Bullywugs from attacking the Manor. After they cleared that mess out, they sailed the Wyvern back out to Blood Bay along with Lavinia and the Ravens, as well as 3 or 4 cheap hirelings, so they could sail both boats back to Sasserine. I made both of those trips pretty uneventful, just because the party was split between the 2 boats (their skills were needed to sail both ships), and it would have been a pain in the arse to work out encounters for both ships and keep everything working smoothely. Plus, they'd already had a really long day. :)

Also, Balance is important for fighting on a ship's deck in rough seas. Otherwise, the skills the two of you mentioned are key.

I converted to the FR, but as far as I can tell it hasn't had a huge effect. The primary reason I did it, in all honesty, is that I own most of the FR supplements and wanted to use them. And it's the CS I'm most familiar and comfortable with.

It has helped in that it is given my players more options with spells and feats and such, and I relate with the FR gods more than the Greyhawk ones. I also throw a few random encounters from Monsters of Faerun and such when I want, and so on.

But as I said, by and large the actual difference in terms of the game play so far has been negligible; our party just finished Bullywug's Gambit last night. Maybe it will feel more "Realmsy" after we get out of Sasserine.

I am pretty sure it's written in stormwrack somewhere that you have to be able to breathe underwater something to be able to cast spells with verbal components. In other words you have to be an aquatic creature, or be able to breathe water either through natural or magical means.

And as another poster mentioned, Fire-based spells are tough to pull off underwater as well, whether you can speak or not.

My PC's have still not talked to Lavinia as a group since clearing out the Guildhall. One went and asked to borrow the Blue Nixie (and return her recovered funds from the LD) while the rest were resting up, selling loot, checking out the flags in the LD map, and getting ready to set sail. They haven't even told her that Vanthus killed her parents yet. They just immediately made their way to Kraken's Cove.

Now, of course, they're back in town, (mostly, 2 decided to stay behind on the Nixie while the party made haste back to Sasserine to head off Drevoraz and crew) and haven't gotten a chance to chat with her yet, despite the fact that most of them are back in her Manor. They're first being forced to deal with this amphibian infestation. :)

I am planning, however, on having Lavinia pay them VERY well for all they've done. Probably beyond their level max, just because I know they've got a lot of sailing ahead of them with minimal merchant interaction.

Our general consensus is that at low levels, the Savage Template is VERY nasty for CR+1. They get Natural Armor, Damage Reduction, A bite attack with disease (variable fort save), 10 free hit points, a death throes bite attack, and an acid splash when they die for d6 if you fail your save.

With a higher level party, that's not that scary. 10 extra hit points on a guy with 60 is barely noticed. But when they only have 10 to start with, it's double. That's a big deal. The DR only amplifies that. Then, as you point out, it's not real common for everybody in a low level party to have magic weapons. Not so with the more experienced group.

What I'm getting at is that I don't think you need to do anything about the magic weapons issue in terms of the template. I'd consider adding an extra bad guy or two here or there, since they'll all lose the DR, but other than that, I'd just let it go as is. It's still plenty nasty.

Psionics are cool, don't be hatin'!

I don't have a problem with people who use them, they just don't fit into my idea of fantasy roleplay and magic. Incarnum is the same way. The vast majority of my PC's agree with me, at least 6, and those that don't aren't bothered about it much. To each their own.

Then you will wish you have done away with simulcralike spells too... few things as fun as having the players create 5 or more copies of the last semi-unbeatable supermonster as allies..

I don't know about those I guess. Simulcralike spells? I thought my group had thrown just about everything in the game at me already, except psionics and incarnum, the two things I don't use.

1) We used a stat rolling that was very liberal. Roll 4d6, reroll ones. Roll 7 times, take best 6. If you do a point buy, do it high. I also put mine on a side quest where they started as sailors on a boat and sailed to Sasserine, and they all started at Lvl 2.

2) As already experienced professional sailors, I gave everyone a job on the ship based on their class and character personality and such. Each job had a few relevant skills associated with it, and I gave them each 5 free skill points to assign to those relevant skills. For example, we had a ship's navigator. That PC was allowed 5 skill point to put into Knowledge (Geography), Knowledge (Navigation), or Profession (Sailor), as long as they didn't go over the minimum skill points for a Lvl2 character. Those were forever after class skills for that character as well. This is a very heavily skill-based campaign (or at least it is the way I'm running it), so I felt it was justified.

I'm using Stormwrack, and adding a lot of aquatic encounters and ship battles to the base story line to play up the nautical aspect of the game more, with comparatively less focus on the land-stuff, which really seems to dominate the AP as written (mostly because they can't expect everyone playing to have Stormwrack necessarily). My view is how many chances do you get in most D&D games to see the aquatic stuff? Aquatic Elves are almost never viable player race because of their attachment to the sea. Dread Pirate and/or Legendary Captain is almost never a viable prestige class because most of it's coolness is lost when you step off a boat. Most of the ship rules and swim speeds and stuff are wasted in most campaigns. I wanted this campaign to be different, so I'm playing all of that up as much as possible.

It has worked very well for me. Like you as well, I have a pretty large party, 8 PC's. Having them all start on a ship together served the purposes of setting the theme for the AP, giving them all a reason to work together and be acquainted with each other's abilities, to fight sahaugin on the first night and nurse their damaged ship into Sasserine (which the captain then retired and sold the ship, making them suddenly unemployed at just the opportune moment), and so on.

I have increased the encounters slightly, but I'm in Bullywug's Gambit, and the level thing has pretty much taken care of itself. The party is entering Vandeboren Manor at Lvl4 or 5. The adjustments seem to have been about right. I've had one PC death, and many, MANY close calls. Many of those close calls would also have been deaths if not for the healing aura of the Dragon Shaman in the party. Saved a guy tonight who was at -9 in fact. So it's scary enough to keep the party focused and on their toes; yet not so deadly that people lose interest or get frustrated, not to mention sick of rolling up new characters every other session. Everyone seems to be having a great time.

3) No relevant experience.

4) What was already mentioned about the Obits thread is dead on. Pun intended. :) Just because you have a big party, don't feel the need to inflate everything too terribly much. If you DO inflate, do it by adding more creatures, not by making the existing ones nastier (generally). You can add a hit die here or there, but mostly you just want more zombies/pirates/thieves. For example, in the Parrot Island encounter, I had 16 zombies instead of the written 12, but I grouped them into bigger groups. Instead of the PC's encountering 3 at a time, they found 5 twice, and then 6 with the huevuca for the big nasty encounter of the night. That fight ended up being a minor disappointment, because the cleric rolled really well on his turn undead roll and turned all the zombies, leaving only the huecuva, who was then grappled/pinned, and poked repeatedly with the silver dagger then had just found until dead, while the rest of the party finished off the cowering zombies.

The other thing I would recommend is that you buy Stormwrack before you start. Make sure your characters know this is an aquatic/sailing/piratey campaign, and that they should consider the races and stuff from Stormwrack. You might get some Shoal Halflings, or Aventi, or Aquatic Elves, or even a Water Genasi like we have, in the game, and that's always cool. Read up on Stormwrack, and the DMG section dealing with water environments. Before you set out to sea, become really familiar with the special rules of ship combat.

Think about how you might have different skills work underwater. For example, water transmits sound very well, but very diffusely. Therefore, I've ruled that you get a +5 to listen checks in water to hear the sound, but a -5 to tell what the sound is, or what direction it's coming from. Stuff like that.

Just food for thought. Use what you like, ignore what you don't. :)

<--- ever more grateful that I outlaw psionics in my D&D games. :)

Best of luck. Being a rookie DM is always a blast. Just roll with it and try to be consistent, and everybody will have a good time. ;)

You could use the Forgotten Realms conversion name, the "Rundeen", even if you don't play there. They're a relatively nefarious merchant's guild and they own a substantial fleet with which they impose their rule on the sea.

interesting I whould sugest that when they leave in the SWW thay enlist the ixits as an escort to the ships, maybe even helping aginst the river hydra.

They might do that; it would certainly do them more good than defending a hideout to which they might never return. Of course they don't know that. :)

Ooh is this the same tribe of Ixitxachitls that the lotus dragons drafted into service? I thought that they would have moved on by then.

In my campaign, my PC's decided after cleaning out the LD guildhall to keep and maintain the area as their own personal domain, instead of continuing to stay at the Pearl and Parrot Inn in the Noble District. They also decided to keep paying the ixits to guard the water entrance, and since they are paying them double what the LD was, the ixits were also willing to attack any LD members who may still have survived the PC's "invasion".

Awesome thank you!

So, just to get the final word, clearly and concisely, what exactly is the AC (w/full breakdown please) and DR for a vine horror SUPPOSED to be for the AP?

Shar. I'm certainly not going to argue with her.

I'm starting to think ole "Toolbag the Conqueror" just added 5 extra syllables to his name to throw everybody off.

:)

I don't think I've ever said anything on these boards that would make anybody block or ignore me, let alone have a mod delete my posts or something.

I hope I haven't offended anyone. If I have, I apologize.

Before this totally degenerates into a flame war...

I have a Q about the savage template as well. I think I've been misreading it as the DM, and I think I've made it more than a little tougher on my PCs as a result.

The Death throes bit (and bear with me, I'm at work and don't have my material in front of me) says that when the savage creature is "killed outright", it does the d6 damage acid splash to all within 5 feet, DC15 Reflex negates right?

So that means this only occurs when the creature is sent below -10? As DM, I always fudge it and play that when the bad guys go to 0, they "die" and are removed from play, unless there's a particular reason the PC's don't want that to happen (they want to heal the guy to ask questions, or to have a prisoner, or a witness, or whatever etc etc).

Anyway, I've just been doing it so that every time a savage pirate dies, DC15 saves all around to everyone near him to avoid the acid. I should only do that if he's dropped to -10 or worse, right?

We once again had 4 people in negative numbers at different times tonight, and if not for the healing aura of the dragon shaman, all would likely have died. As it was, one still did. His story is told in the obits section.

Of the 3 that did survive, one was put down by the phanaton, who came in on the party just as they had managed to take down the big dog things whose names escape me for the moment (I know it starts with a K), and the sneak attack brought down our water shugenja.

The other two were dropped by Ripclaw, who was everything he was cracked up to be. I have no idea how a standard party of 4 PC's at level 3 could hope to survive him if he gets the surprise pounce on them. Fortunately, I run a big party at Lvl 4.

He still dropped the swashbuckler to -6 before he even knew he was in combat, while the aventi barbarian fell to -4 the next round as Ripclaw turned on him. The barbarian was able to crit him the round before, and this had really angered Ripclaw, drawing a full attack back (4 of the 5 attacks hit too -- yikes!)

After many near misses, we are saddened to report our first entry into the obituary thread.

PC: Tokler Ness (commonly known as "Murk"); Water Genasi Ranger, Lvl3 (ECL 4 due to water genasi adjustment)
Adventure: Bullywug's Gambit
Location: Cavern "maze" in Kraken's Cove (room 12)
Catalyst: Savage Pirates

The party, after a nasty run in with Ripclaw, who was able to get the drop and use his pounce to full effect, had healed up somewhat and had pressed on. The Water Shugenja had felt it prudent to bestow the gift of enhanced scent upon the Ranger to enhance their ability to sense danger. This had proved successful on a few occasions; unfortunately the "maze"like quality of the caverns in area 12 had thrown this ability off. Murk sensed danger, but could not discern it's direction very well. He did know it to be the by now familiar acrid smell of the savage fever infected creature.

He was nonetheless caught flat footed when the three savage pirates popped out at them from around a tight corner. 2 of them were able to immediately charge him, and both rolled critical hits with their scimitars. The resulting 34 points of combined damage sent him to -9, and with the protective aura of the dragon shaman nearby, all was not lost: Murk immediately stabilized.

Sadly, however, it was his comrades' attempt to save and protect him that cost him his life. The savage pirate that laid Murk low was charged from the rear by the raging barbarian, who easily killed the pirate outright, and the resulting acid splash finished Murk off.

Long will the memory of Tokler Nass live fondly in the hearts and minds of his comrades. TO MURK!!

A well organized thieves guild need not be so overt as killing Lavinia or being seen all over town to be successful.

If the PC's side with Rowyn, have her send them on errands around town to collect protection money from honest merchants. Send them to city guard barracks to build trust with them (aka bribes and gifts) so that they are more disposed to turn a blind eye to LD activities. Have them sink ships of people who resist or oppose the growth of the Guild. Do recruitments in Shadowshore for new trainees. And so on.

Also, they will need to get LD tattoos to show their allegiance.

You WOULD have thought that, wouldn't you? His high fort save was actually the reason I had the barracuda charge him...

He failed the first check by one. He will make his second test tomorrow night (the barracuda encounter was the last thing we did that night, I cut it off just before they entered the caves).

We had a similar situation...but not QUITE as bad.

We had one swashbuckler PC with the silver dagger he'd gotten from the previous room with the Crabs as the only one who could deal damage to the huecuva, and the cleric who was out of turning attempts was pinning the huecuva to the ground while the swashbuckler stabbed him slowly to 0. We also had no big damage guys and no power attackers, so everyone else was dealing with the zombies I had involved in the encounter too, that the cleric had succeeded on turning with his last turn attempt.

Yeah, when I told the party how close to impossible it would be for them to get the Blue Nixie into Kraken's cove, they dropped anchor just past the cove entrance and dropped the rowboats, just as I figured they might. I had overland stuff planned and water stuff planned, and the overland stuff went totally unused.

Half my party is aquatic with a swim speed, so they eschewed the boat entirely and just swam up the cove, at a much faster pace than the rowers, so they were the lucky ones who bore the brunt of the savage dire barracuda. The Aventi Barbarian in fact failed his save by one and has contracted the disease. Fortunately for him, though, he's not your ordinary Barbarian; he has a 16 INT, which he felt was necessary for skill points, since I made great efforts to pound into my guys' skulls how important skill points would be in a nautical adventure. So anyway, he probably has a few days of extra buffer before he succumbs. He also had the pleasure of killing the barracuda with a particulary nasty crit.

My aquatic encounter leading into the cove featured a savage dire barracuda, and 2 uninfected large sharks later on. I had assumed the sharks would come in later and feast on the chum from the aftermath of the pearl releasing; and that if they had caught the disease, they weren't showing signs of infection yet. However, there's no reason you couldn't put the savage template on the sharks if you'd prefer.

That is unusual terrain monkey....sure there are 4 savage monkeys and only 1 ripclaw...but ripclaw should be able to surprise the PC's, definintely AT LEAST one of them, and the Pounce ability means that when he does charge he gets all his attacks (5 total I think; 1 bite, 2 forearms, 2 talons), all against the surprised PC's flat-footed AC. And he's diseased, with a higher save DC than the 1HD monkeys.

Yeah, Ripclaw is a bad mother (Hush your mouth)!