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It took us a LOT of time and a global pandemic, but we were finally able to complete this beast. I posted some thoughts on my blog: The Age of Worms has Passed. Belated kudos to the Paizo team for this epic adventure path. We had a great time, and it's just a crying shame we never saw the hardcover compilation that Age of Worms deserved.
I hadn't noticed it either, but it goes all the way back to OD&D.
Wall of Fire does double damage against undead. An evoker's elemental wall "deals acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, determined when you create it. The elemental wall otherwise functions like wall of fire." Does the elemental wall do double damage to undead, regardless of energy type?
As a few others have pointed out, mechanically this seems like it would be hard to execute. But after finally reading all of the entries, I think this is likely the best written monster concept. While I can see some of the flaws, the writing really makes me want to see what Nicholas could do deeper into the contest. This one gets my vote.
A buddy and I were going to try and go Saturday and play some pickup games, but he couldn't swing it. I have heard good things about it -- next year, I swear, I'm going!
Somerset County, represent! Awesome to see a Mainer in the top 32 this year, and I really dig this item. Colorful, funny, and useful. If my Rise of the Runelords campaign ever reboots, I suspect some of the goblins will have a very special surprise for the PCs . . . Getting into the top 32 is a huge accomplishment, and I can't wait to see what you do in future rounds.
Eric. The pulpy goodness of his adventure really grabbed me.
Thanks for everyone's support, and best wishes to the final four!
Many thanks to everyone who has swung by and posted here. The competition for this round is pretty amazing, and I greatly appreciate people taking the time!
Eric, Many thanks for cranking up the awesome on Vashkar -- I had a blast with his lair. And great job on Hec's pad! The gelatinous cube was a wonderful touch.
Trevor, It is extremely cool to see someone else take Hecataeus and run with him. Very nice work, and good luck!
Randy, you NAILED the mood and demeanor of Vashkar and his palace. The details and minions are great! Thanks for choosing the palace as your lair. Thanks, man -- that really means a lot. You really gave me some fantastically evocative stuff to work with. I really dug both the second and third round versions of Vashkar, and tried to pull in as many Easter eggs from both as I could. I think it's really cool that you ended up doing Hecataeus. Once I've digested it, I'll post over in your thread, but good luck!
In the wastelands of southern Qadira, a palace lowers under everlasting night -- a place once known as the Palace of Abundance, where visitors found debauched and otherworldly pleasures, where nearly a thousand slaves toiled in the palace's kitchens, spice gardens, and pleasure halls. But that was all long ago. And, now, like its master, the palace has fallen to ruin; the entire area is shunned as thrice-cursed and demon-haunted. These are the halls of Vashkar, the False Maharajah. The palace is actually a walled compound located in a particularly desolate area, with no inhabited villages for several miles. The entire complex, which sprawls over several acres, seems always cast in shadow, even in the brightest noon sun. Anyone passing over or through the cracked, sagging walls immediately discovers that the palace grounds are always bathed in full darkness. A powerful idol (area 6) suffuses and shrouds the palace grounds with energies from the Plane of Shadow. Although the grounds are vast, much is abandoned or ruined. The fabulous gardens are all dead, the magnificent buildings slumping and broken. Only the main residence still stands tall, albeit worn and battered. This massive building of crumbling green stone is supported by enormous columns, its every surface decorated with rows of arched windows and elaborate Vudrani sculpture, the features elided by the passing years. A pyramidal roof rises to a steep peak nearly eighty feet high. Only areas of specific interest to the PCs are detailed on the map of the residence. Unnumbered entries should be considered empty, though the rooms might contain the rotted remains of a once bustling palace. You might choose to either expand some areas by adding additional encounters, or you might consider making some areas completely inaccessible due to collapsed roofs, floors, or so on.
Creatures: About the exterior loiter 3d6 human slaves (LE human commoner 1) and 1d6 ash jackals. The slaves are half-naked starvelings with painted faces and vacant, dreamy expressions: the last descendants of the palace servants. The slaves spend their waking hours in drug-induced reveries, barely conscious of the world around them and utterly devoted to their rakshasa masters, whom they consider divine. These wretches can't actually perform any real work: they are now kept solely for fodder or amusement. For any slave to enter the actual residence building, both their hands must be first broken backwards in imitation of their master, a cruelty considered a great honor. A slave is AC 10, has only 1 hp, and fails all saves. Slaves cannot attack or, for that matter, take any independent action. They do not resist any attack and cheerfully lay down their lives or subject themselves to any other debasement. ASH JACKALS CR 1
Creatures: Two nalfeshnees are snacking upon a couple of slaves while 4 other slaves idle only footsteps away, oblivious to the slaughter. NALFESHNEE AMBASSADORS (2) CR 14
PALACE SLAVES (4) CR 1/4
The bowl, the Bane of Ascension, radiates both strong evil and necromancy magic to detection spells. A DC 30 Knowledge (religion) check identifies the bowl as made from the hollowed-out skull of a nightwalker. Any creature reduced to -1 hp or less while in this room must make a DC 17 Will save or be affected by a death knell spell. In addition, any creature slain in the room must make a DC 23 Will save or be affected by a soul bind spell, with the soul being absorbed into the bowl. After 24 hours the soul is devoured and cannot be recovered. Destroying the bowl (AC 3, hardness 5, hp 50) frees any trapped, undevoured souls. Creatures: The room is occupied by 4 vampire rakshasas and 6 palace slaves. SERVITORS OF THE FALSE MAHARAJA (4) CR 10
PALACE SLAVES CR 1/4
The heads once belonged to two maharajah rakshasas. Whenever intruders enter the room, the heads yammer in a strange, bestial tongue, creating a song of discord effect (CL 18th, DC 17 Will negates). A DC 30 Knowledge (the planes) check reveals that the murals depict a rakshasa ascending through a series of reincarnated forms. Creature: The statue is a golem, ordered to attack anyone unaccompanied by a rakshasa. TUSKED GUARDIAN CR 16
The well drops straight down 40 feet, ending in a stone floor littered with bones. The shaft is veiled in magical darkness, impenetrable to normal vision and darkvision, though undead can see normally within the effect. Creatures outside the well, even undead, cannot see into it. The effect cannot be dispelled, though a light spell of fifth level or lower will negate the darkness for 2d6 rounds. Living creatures in the darkness take 10d6 negative energy damage each round, with a DC 20 Will save for half, while undead heal the same amount. Destroying the idol in area 6 permanently dispels the effect. The secret entrance to Vashkar's tomb (area 8) can found at the bottom of the well on a DC 30 Perception check. Creatures: Six vampire rakshasas pounce on any intruders. SERVITORS (6) CR 10
The idol is the focus of the magical effect that plunged the palace into eternal night. It radiates overwhelming illusion (shadow) magic. IDOL OF LINGERING NIGHT
Creatures: The idol is guarded by Vashkar's newest consort, a marilith demon. CHARUNDRA CR 17
Development: Destroying the idol dispels the night effect shrouding the palace. If this occurs during daytime, all vampires immediately flee for the stygian well (area 5).
The entire room is so strewn with rubbish that every square counts as dense rubble. Creature: The master of the palace, overcome with melancholy, has sought out this chamber for solitude. In this bleak humor he is oblivious to anything else in the palace save the destruction of the idol. The sight of intruders in this place fills him with seething rage. VASHKAR CR 20
Vashkar and his servitors hide their coffins here.
Thanks again to everyone who has stopped by and posted here -- there have been some very interesting comments. As with the last round, I'm reading everything and if I'm fortunate enough to make it to the next round, I'll certainly be bringing this feedback with me.
I just want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read through my entry for this round. I certainly hope you will think of Hecataeus when you're in the voting booth, even though he almost certainly wouldn't give you the same courtesy!
Took me a while to track down where I had heard of it myself. Turns out it's from an official FAQ on 3.5 that giving an NPC classed dude or a monster equipment as a PC level equates to +1 CR. It does specifically say that there's no "hard and fast rule" about this. Thanks for tracking that down and satisfying my curiosity. I *had* noticed the Pathfinder NPCs that got +1 CR for exceptional stats and PC gear, and that seems about right for higher level characters. For lower level NPCs (say, up to 10th level) I would guess PC gear alone would be worth a +1 CR bonus.
Okay, in the SRD, it says that you can give an NPC a PC's gear for a +1 CR cost. Where *is* that in the SRD? I don't think I've ever noticed it before.
I'm afraid I don't know anything about these "treasure parcels" that people seem to dislike. What I'm talking about is no different from what is already described in the Pathfinder RPG or 3.X: NPCs have a standard amount of gear by character level, expressed in gold pieces. Using item levels is just a shortcut to accomplish the exact same thing.
So, while I was developing my submission this round, I built a spreadsheet that takes all magic items from the Pathfinder Beta and assigns them an Item Level -- a great time-saving concept from a certain closed compilation of magic items. I then retooled Pathfinder Table 14-9, NPC Gear, to express gear by item levels, rather than gp. So, for example, a 10th-level heroic NPC would be expected to have 1 9th-level weapon, 1 8th-level protection item, 1 8th-level magic item, 1 5th-level limited used item, and 1 3rd-level gear item. You want to outfit this cat? Just go to the item list spreadsheet and pick the right number of items from the right item level. It seems to make item selection (always the hardest thing for me) a lot easier. Would anyone have any objections to me sharing this tool? And if not, would anyone be interested?
I'd like a confirmation, too, please. It seemed to go, but if it didn't . . . I'm not sure I'll be back before 5:00pm.
Male human wizard 16 Description: In his own mind, at least, the imperious Hecataeus has no peer: he cannot listen without interrupting, speak without insulting, or smile without sneering. To his credit, Hecataeus is possessed with formidable intellect, talent, and determination, all of which allowed him to rise swiftly in the ranks of wizardry. Unfortunately, these gifts are subverted by his callous nature and a blindness to his own failings. Unable to empathize with anyone, Hecataeus abuses his servants, cheats his allies, and taunts his enemies. He disdains a fair fight, and is prepared to flee the moment any conflict begins to turn against him. Hecataeus is so insufferable to all around him that he has been forced to create his own companions and followers. His construct creatures are obedient, silent, and ever-reliable servants that cannot contradict or abandon him, unlike those frail, incompetent fools he was forced to employ in the past. One cannot mock the dead. And while Hecataeus might slay an enemy inadvertently or, more rarely, by design, far better to torment and humiliate these imbeciles. Why merely blast a rival to ash, when one could polymorph them into a titmouse, or transmute them into granite? Render their minds to custard, or disintegrate their most beloved possession? Thus does a master deal with inferiors. Tall and thin, with a jet-black goatee, Hecataeus dresses in purple and gold robes festooned with pseudo-mystical symbols, and fashions most of his creations in this image. Motivations/Goals: What Hecataeus wants is very, very simple: he wants respect. After all this time, his superior intelligence and his mastery of wizardry must finally be acknowledged! Schemes/Plots/Adventure Hooks: Hecataeus dreams of reanimating the wreckage of a Thassilonian colossus and transferring his consciousness into its mammoth frame, effecting an unstoppable fusion of constructed might and arcane power. In the interim, Hecataeus seeks all secrets of construct creation that he can place his grasping hands upon, which may lead to any of these hooks:
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And so, the rabbi rubbed away the first letter of the word "EMET" from the golem's forehead, leaving "MET," the Hebrew word for death. Prerequisites: Craft Construct, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item. Benefit: You can attempt to issue a single new command to a construct creature, even one you did not create or one that has gone berserk. As a standard action that draws an attack of opportunity, you touch the construct and make a Knowledge (arcana) check. The base DC is equal to 15 + the construct's HD. If you created the construct, you have a +8 bonus to this check. Typical commands, and any additional modifiers to the check, are detailed below:
A successful check indicates that the construct obeys your command for 1d6 rounds. If you beat the check by 5 or more, the construct obeys your command for 1d6 minutes. If you beat the check by 10 or more, the construct obeys for 1d6 hours. Once the duration ends the construct resumes any previous instructions, though berserk constructs are no longer berserk.
Check out the "Creating Nonplayer Characters" chapter in the Pathfinder RPG beta. If I read it aright, you can use the old familiar ability arrays from 3.5.
I just want to thank everyone again who read through my entry and took the time to post in this thread. I will certainly take all input (good, bad, and ugly) into consideration going forward.
I just want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read all the way through my entry and comment here. I know a lot of great villains were submitted in this round, which makes me extremely appreciative of each and every vote for Hecataeus. Thanks for your consideration!
Well, it does say "as if wearing armor of heavy fortification," which protects against both, so I'm pretty sure that's what it's going for--I assume the "or" just means whichever one is happening to the wearer, not that he has to choose which one to protect against. Still, you're right, it would be clearer if it said "and" instead of "or". I think Jeffrey has it.
Vic, Can you confirm mine was received? It seemed to go, but I didn't get a confirmation screen. Thanks!
Hecataeus, Master of Constructs Male human wizard 16 Description: In his own mind, at least, the wizard Hecataeus has no peer: he cannot listen without interrupting, speak without insulting, much less smile without sneering. Hecataeus is so insufferable to all around him that he has been forced to create his own companions and followers. He is a master of building construct creatures -- obedient, silent, and ever-reliable servants that cannot contradict or abandon him, unlike all those frail, incompetent fools he has been forced to employ in the past. Even in a world where wizards are real, Hecataeus' very appearance seems cliché. Tall and thin, with a jet-black goatee, he dresses in purple and gold robes festooned with pseudo-mystical symbols. Though the response he hopes to evoke is awe, in practice this tends to more reliably elicit ridicule, or perhaps puzzlement, from all but the greatest of rubes. And most of his creations are fashioned in his image. Despite his buffoonish appearance, Hecataeus is possessed with a formidable intellect, innate arcane talent, and unquenchable determination; he quickly rose to become a formidable wizard. Unfortunately, all his gifts are undermined by impoverished judgment, a craven nature, and his imperious manner. Hecataeus does not generally kill his enemies; he prefers to merely humiliate them. Motivations/Goals: Hecataeus does not seek godhood or lichdom. He has no wish to release an archfiend, acquire an artifact, or usher in some new cosmic age of horror. What he wants is very, very simple: he wants respect. He wants his superior intellect and his inestimable command over arcane forces to be acknowledged, and he stews in perpetual exasperation that, despite all of his accomplishments, he remains generally unacknowledged and unappreciated by the mundane world. Schemes/Plots/Adventure Hooks: Hecataeus seeks to amass all the secrets of construct creation that he can put his grasping hands upon, and use that knowledge to work magical wonders so mighty as to make even the most jaded adventurer look upon his works and tremble with awe. The following adventure hooks might be used to set up an encounter with Hecataeus:
...When worn, the wearer seems a little larger and somewhat slower...On a pedantic note, what bonuses and penalties does this translate into? Good question. My inclination would be: none at all. This represents a significant shift in my design thinking. A few years ago, I would have either omitted this line precisely because it had no mechanical effect (waste of time!) or I would have tried to add in some minor thing like "-5 ft. to speed" or "+1 to Grapple checks against Medium or smaller opponents." But there are a couple of problems or limitations with that approach. One, while it's kind of nice to see a mechanic matched up with flavor text, at a certain point it's just not worth anyone's time to track because the game effect is so small. And second, sometimes I find that the moment you assign a mechanic to an effect, it kills the romance stone dead. A free-form cool idea can suddenly become limited by defining it. In a campaign once I had a +1 sword that shone with a green, fiery light whenever the wielder encountered someone he hated; if he struck such a foe with the weapon it flared brightly for a moment. Absolutely no mechanical effect whatsoever. But the ability really captured the imagination of the player whose character had carried the sword. Later, when the same player turned away a genuine +1 flaming sword because it just wasn't as cool as the sword he already had. So, if I can, I try to add a little bit of non-mechanical coolness to items to spice it up without adding unnecessary complexity.
If I'm not mistaken, the three effects can't be stacked: a character is permitted only a single immediate action per round. That's my understanding, too. Because immediate actions are still relatively unfamiliar to many, I had originally included a couple of lines in the item description that reiterated some basics of the action type ("Immediate actions can be used at any time, even when it is not the wearer's turn. Only one immediate or swift action may be taken in one round.") I eventually removed this in case it would be seen as redundant, but based on the comments here, I think I should have kept this info. Immediate actions are tricky; can you wait until a crit is confirmed before declaring it, or do you have to declare it as soon as you are attacked, or as soon as you are hit? Still, as I said with another item, that's a problem inherent to immediate actions, not your item. I looked in vain for some clarification on this question, and came up empty. Most of the reroll mechanics I am familiar with (which are somewhat similar in that they are reactive) call for using such a power before the DM announces whether the original roll was successful or not. I would personally let players activate the helm any time before damage dice are rolled, so the player knows they have been hit, and they know they got critted. I know some DMs would find this too generous. As far as the pricing on this, I'll admit I struggled with a lack of precedents to use for comparison, and like many of you I suspect I erred on the side of conservatism. But I still don't know how much lower the price should go. Most closest comp, the helm of teleportation, is at 75k. And yeah, the name isn't quite there. I played with a lot of different variations, none of them very satisfying ("Helm of Golem Power," "Helm of the Golem"). The "perfect" name will probably come to me in the middle of the night six months from now.
Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. (And thanks, Clark, for giving the helm a second look!) I love immediate and swift actions -- I think these were a great innovation from late 3.5e and remain one of maybe two or three of the most promising mechanics crying out for exploration. Other than a handful of (generally closed) things from the XPH, PHBII, MIC, or Spell Compendium, it's really a wide open field.
Thanks for the thread . . . I'm not sure mine went through either
HELM OF THE GOLEM MASTER
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, antimagic field, stoneskin, limited wish; Cost 38,250 gp
And if I may make a wish I would love to see the Lichway redone. That was one of my absolute favorites (and one of the first adventures I ever ran. I can still feel the eerie mood. I'm here for you, Black Tom: 3.5e conversion of the Lichway. Enjoy!
I uploaded another 3.5e conversion of a WD adventure to my website, The Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire. It's a pretty nice, short mix of wilderness and dungeon exploration, though marred by a rather ham-fisted hook. (Personally, I'd ignore the whole opening scene and just let let the PCs discover the adventure by wandering around the map.)
Here's what I did in my retro 3.5e campaign, which ran for about 2-3 years or so: 1. In Search of the Unknown (home conversion)
I really didn't know where to go from there. Sent the PCs to the City of Brass, thought about running "The Harrowing," maybe "Maure Castle." After the ghoul arc I just didn't see clearly what I wanted to do next. In any case, the campaign ended as some players moved away, and to tell the truth I wasn't too jazzed about high level play.
On a personal note I'd love to see "The Eagle Hunt" from [I believe] WD40 put on the conversion wishlist... its a great urban adventure, which has some tough encounters and some [potentially] wierd endings. I'm not familiar with that one, but I've read other people give it high praise. I've also got that issue, so I'll definitely give it a look.
One question for those who have more of the WDs -- how do you decpiher the "MonsterMark" experience notation in their "Fiend Foundry" section? The Monstermark was an interesting and early attempt to develop a formula for assessing the power of a monster -- essentially, this was a precursor to Challenge Ratings. The monstermark system was developed by Don Turnbull, who was WD's editor and went on to be an editor for TSR UK where he was instrumental in producing the 1e Fiend Folio. The system was first described in issue 22 of Owl & Weasel, a fanzine predecessor to WD. Turnbull then expanded this in a three part series that ran in issues 1 (Jun/Jul 1977), 2 (Aug/Sept 1977), and 3 (Oct/Nov 1977) of WD. The series was reprinted in Best of the Whit Dwarf, Volume 1. Roger Musson updated the system in "Son of Monstermark" which appear in Imagine No 26 (May 1985). (Imagine was, for a brief period, TSR UK's answer to Dragon and was edited by . . . Don Turnbull.) The monstermark formula tallied up all the monster's vital statistics, including average damage output, assigned values to special abilities, and output a challenge rating. The monstermark was based on a scale of 1 to 12, 1 being the easiest and 12 being the hardest. For some reason this was usually denoted in roman rather than arabic numerals, maybe to distinguish from all the other uses of the word "level." Back in the day, monsters were rated according to the dungeon level in which they would normally appear. Easier monsters were on the upper levels, while tougher monsters were down in the lower levels. Kobolds would be "Level I" while beholders would be "Level XII". (Note that AD&D would actually use a 10-point scale.) As a very, very gross rule of thumb, a monster's "dungeon level" translates directly into Challenge Rating up to about 8. A "Level IX" might map to anything from CR 9-10, "Level X" from CR 11-13, "Level XI" from CR 14-16, and "Level XII" from CR 17+. While the Monstermark was a noble attempt to codify monster power, it was fairly fiddly and every bit as wonky as challenge ratings, for much of the same reasons. It's very hard to codify monster abilities into a formula, and in 1e abilities were rarely standardized. Still, for the time, it was better than nothing.
Thanks for all the kind words! I have a lot of fun doing these conversions, but it's also nice to hear when other people are able to use them in their own games. It was surprising how neatly Maldred converted over to 3.5e (and that's a good illustration of the continuity between the different editions). Other than needing to reduce the number of monsters in one encounter and change a couple of magic items that were too powerful, this is pretty much a direct conversion. I was pleased to see how well the Paizo adventure format worked with an old-school dungeon. Calling out all the traps and dungeon features with stat blocks should make this complicated adventure much easier to run/ My all time favourite WD article, for you to redo (hint hint ;-)) would be Irilian ... now that was a memorably ahead of it's time D&D city. Irilian is definitely on my list -- many people cite it as the best of the many good things WD published. Though its sheer size (six separate installments!) is admittedly daunting.
I figured that the active community of old school fans and 3.5e players over here on the Paizo boards might appreciate this news. In case you didn't know, White Dwarf magazine wasn't always just a propaganda/marketing tool for the Warhammer line. In fact, for about its first 100 issues or so (that is, most of the AD&D 1st edition era), WD was the premiere UK magazine for all RPGs, especially D&D. I'd even argue that, at some points, White Dwarf was at least as good and sometimes even better than its sister publication, The Dragon. WD was extremely influential with gamers on both sides of the Atlantic, and the 1e Fiend Folio was largely drawn from new monsters submitted to the magazine. All that was a long time ago, and WD's contributions to D&D are largely forgotten. But I've been working hard to convert some of the more worthwhile pieces to 3.5e and posting the resulting to my website. In addition to a slew of monsters, I've done the classic adventure "The Halls of Tizun Thane" and I've just posted "The Lair of Maldred the Mighty," a nice classic dungeon that compares favorably with both White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors. A thousand years ago, Maldred, an evil cleric/wizard . . . [built] an empire of evil. The Arch-Devils that Maldred worshiped were pleased with this expansion of evil and so Maldred was elevated to the level of High Priest, but, as with all such evil creatures, this was not enough for Maldred. So, even as his armies expanded his empire, Maldred would secretly depart from his palace (leaving behind a simulacrum of himself) and search the world for some means of making himself immortal and as powerful as his devilish masters. Journey to Maldred's Lair, brave the deadly traps, illusions, and guardians placed there, and stop him before his transformation is complete!
BTW, my offer still stands. If you want a copy of Artificer's handbook, just email me. Take him up on the offer -- the Artifcer's Handbook is one of my most used third-party books. Even if you didn't use his system, just moving toward function-oriented item creation feats (which Monte Cook also did in Arcana Unearthed) is a huge evolutionary step forward.
Its doable but currently I don't think it would work all that well with SCAP which leaves you with just Age of Worms and Savage Tides. Honestly I think these two are so good that ruining them by just playing the last few adventures seems like a bad idea to me. Furthermore I don't think they'll feel as epic and exciting as one might suspect without the long build up. You loose to much just jumping this late IMO. I think there's no question that the adventures will be somewhat diminished by not having played through the entire sequence start to finish, but there's also no question that I will never have a chance to run all of these APs from 1-20 level. If I were going to restart a campaign tomorrow, I would probably go with Pathfinder. I wish I had time to run them all "the right way," but that's just the way it is. That said, while it may be suboptimal, is it *reasonable* to start one of these APs 3/4s of the way through? Or are the first 75% of the adventure paths crucial for what follows -- either by establishing an essential mesh of background, or setting the characters up with critical abilities, contacts, or items that are necessary for completion of the adventure path?
So I've got a fun little group, and we've been playing for 2 or 3 years now. This all started out very casual, with no real long-term plan on my part and has evolved into a weekly, ongoing campaign. I ran them through some 3.5 conversions of classic D&D adventures, including "In Search of the Unknown," "Keep on the Borderlands," "Isle of Dread," "White Plume Mountain," the giant/drow series, parts of "Night Below," and they just finished up "Kingdom of the Ghouls." Now they are in the City of Brass while I figure out just what the heck to do next. The party is currently 15th level. I never thought the game would last this long, nor did I think the players would want to play at such high levels, but there you go. So I want to finish this campaign with a bang, and I've been thinking about using the end pieces of one of the three Dungeon adventure paths. Obviously, this means jumping into a story mid-stream, but the reality is I will probably never run all three paths in this lifetime. (It took me 20 years to finally run D1-2-3!) My questions are, is this idea even feasible? And if so, which of the adventure paths would be the easiest to jump into at 15th level? Which path would best fit my ad-hoc retro-campaign?
Awesome -- glad you liked it. Now here's looking forward to seeing phrenic scourges in future paizo adventures!
An absolutely great resource for open content monsters, in addition to the excellent ones already discussed above, is Ari Marmell's Iconic Bestiary: Classics of Fantasy. This book has awesome, open "equivalents" of those classic but closed D&D critters. I think every d20 publisher should use this, along with Tome of Horrors, Advanced Bestiary, and the Book of Fiends as their monster canon. The Iconic Bestiary, for example, has the Ei’risai: "As the fiends are to evil, and the angels to good, the ei’risai . . . are to pure, primal chaos. Found on many of the wildest planes, they bask in the churning forces and bursts of energy that are chaos and madness incarnate." Good, open stuff.
Yes! That is it. An interesting note: the allip horde follows the rules for mobs in the DMGII, except for its CR (11) and that its Strength drain seems to have been increased from 1d4 Wis to 2d6 Wis (the size difference between Medium and Gargantuan damage). Both differences seem like logical deviations from the DMGII rules, though.
Or maybe it was a mob of allips? I'm desperately seeking an example of an incorporeal mob for er, research purposes.
I seem to remember a fairly recent adventure that featured a mob of shadows (using the mob template from DMGII. Can anyone point me toward the issue?) Many thanks!
The LAs given in the 3.5 update booklet are as follows: Average Worker: +2
Take with a grain of salt.
I am thinking about using an older monster from Dragon 298 in an upcoming game: the brood mother, a very cool, very nasty drider-like thing. But there's something really wonky with its stats -- it's a Large 18 HD monster with 26 Str and a primary attack bonus of only +14. By my math, that ought to be +13 BAB, +8 Str, and -1 size = +20. The AC is 21, but it's +3 Dex, -1 size, +12 natural. Also, the advancement line goes right to Gargantuan with no stops at Huge. It looks like the monster was heavily edited from the original manuscript. Perhaps someone made a size change but failed to catch all the other changes. Was errata ever published, or was this monster ever updated to 3.5?
So far I'm loving issue 343 -- lots of good, nay, great stuff in here. There do seem to be few more problems with editing this issue than normal. I notice that two swarm monsters -- the ettercap brood swarm and the wormswarm -- lack the swarm subtype. I don't have MMIII, so I was wondering if this just an omission or has the swarm subtype been removed from the game? |
