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You just have to find the right moment to "dispose" of Avner. Here is an excerpt for JollyDoc's excellent STAP story hour on ENWorld where the PCs find a creative way to get Avner out of the picture:

"Another six days at sea, and the expedition reached the Maztican village of Renkrue. This was to be the last continental stop before they put out to open sea. Lavinia planned to take on provisions and do some trading with the villagers, and suggested that the crew of the two ships take some shore leave.

Anwar and Thrisp, realizing that they would be dealing with more Mazticans when they reached Farshore, took the opportunity to mingle with the villagers and learn what they could of the local customs and language. It was while they were speaking with one of the village elders, that a young boy came running up, out of breath and chattering rapidly in his native tongue. The elder’s face darkened and became visibly angry. He turned to Anwar and Thrisp, scowling deeply.
“Is there a problem?” Anwar asked.
“One of your people,” the elder snapped, “he try to buy young girl. Offer parents coins and beads for her! You bad people! We no trade with you! Go now!”
Anwar looked at Thrisp and the gnome nodded, “Avner.”
“Please,” Anwar said placatingly, “we apologize deeply for this insult. What is the penalty for such an offense among your people?”
The elder continued to frown. “Man must make payment to family, or else be flogged in square.”
“I see,” Anwar said, suppressing a smile. “Good sir, I promise you, this man will be brought to justice. I will bring him before you tonight. You have my word on it.”

“What’s your plan?” Thrisp asked as they walked back to the Sea Wyvern.
“The less you know, the less you incriminate yourself,” the bard smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle everything.”

Anwar found Avner sulking in his cabin.
“What do you want?” the young noble sneered.
“I heard you got yourself in a bit of trouble this morning.” Anwar answered, grabbing a chair and making himself comfortable.
“What of it?” Avner snapped. “They’re just savages. They’d sell their own mothers for the right price.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Anwar said, holding up his hands, “I understand perfectly. We’ve been at sea for weeks, and the scenery tends to get…routine, if you know what I mean. Lirith strikes me as a little spitfire, but even the spiciest soup gets cold after awhile.”
Avner stared at him skeptically. “What are you getting at?”
“Well,” Anwar continued, warming to the part, “it’s just that we’re going to be laying over here tonight, and it just so happens that I’ve come upon the location of a…hospitable establishment that caters to the tastes of a gentleman such as yourself.”
“Where is it?” Avner asked doubtfully. “I asked around myself, but everyone looked like I’d just killed their pet.”
“Subtlety, my friend,” Anwar replied. “You have to know whom to ask, and how to pose the question. Let’s just say that, if you’re still interested, I can promise you a night like you’ve never had.”
“What’s in this for you?” Avner asked, suspicion in his eyes.
“Nothing,” Anwar shrugged, “at least not now. When we reach Farshore, however, and you establish yourself in your uncle’s household, you might just remember a friend who did you a service.”
Avner smiled, and Anwar extended his hand, which the noble shook enthusiastically.

Later that night, Anwar and Avner slipped into the village under cover of darkness. The nobleman was dressed in his best finery, and clutched a bottle of wine under his cloak. Anwar led him to the only stone structure in town, built several years back by a Tyrite missionary. It was currently used as the chief’s dwelling and a communal hall, but Avner didn’t know this.
“Here?” he asked. “Isn’t this a bit…conspicuous?”
“It’s not a fixed operation,” Anwar answered. “Due to the somewhat stringent sensibilities of the villagers, these arrangements are made by appointment only when dealing with trade vessels. Don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”
They approached the building, and Anwar opened the door, motioning Avner inside. No sooner had the noble entered, than he was seized by a pair of burly warriors.
“What is the meaning of this?” he cried. “Unhand me! Do you know who I am?”
“Indeed they do,” Anwar chuckled behind him. “It seems that one option for repaying an insult as grave as yours is for the offender to serve as an indentured servant to the family for a period of one year. Consider your sentence a light one. Another option was for them to simply castrate you.”
“You can’t do this!” Avner screamed. “Don’t you think I’ll be missed? My uncle will have your head!”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Anwar said quietly, pulling his cloak over his head, then leaning forward where only Avner could see his face in the shadows. When the nobleman peered within the hood, he saw his own reflection looking back at him. “I believe your uncle will welcome me as a beloved nephew.”
“Nooooo!!” Anwar heard Avner shriek as he turned and disappeared back into the night."

Jolly, I'm a big fan of your Story Hour on ENWorld. However, I would really recommend avoiding Epic creatures. They are not really designed for 3.5, despite the slipshod conversion. In fact, after the beating "The League" took in your latest update, I would think that multiple Broodfiends and elite Mortal Hunters ought to do the trick.

If you don't think that's enough, I believe Darl Quethos is looking for employment . . .;)

Only problems with this are that it renders most of his abilities null, including his divine blast.

Antimagic field does not suppress Salient Divine Abilities. From the SRD, "A salient divine ability functions normally within an antimagic field, and is never subject to spell resistance. "

The other problem though is Kyuss is much bigger than an area of an anti-magic field so your PCs might go for his legs ;)

Age of Worms: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=161499

Shackled City: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=85618

Joseph you can't put dragotha in a forcecage. Forcecage is limited to a 20 ft cube and dragotha is bigger than that.

Forcecage = 20 foot barred cell

Also you make one concentration check for each continuous damage effect, not all of them added together.

Highly debatable.

I think you botched that encounter. Bracers of Armor and Rings of Force Shield only apply to touch AC against incorporeal touch attacks, not standard touch attacks. From the Monster Manual,

"An incorporeal creature’s attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it."

Nobody in that final encounter in the Writhing Sanctum is using incorporeal touch attacks.

Thus, your touch AC should've been,

10 Base
+8 Dex (26, the result of buffs & items)
+10 Wis (30, the result of buffs & items)
+5 monk (20th level monk w/monk's belt)
+5 deflection (shield of faith)
+1 insight (ioun stone)
+3 dodge (fighting defensively w/Tumble synergy bonus)
---
41

Also, once Dragotha disjoined your group, how'd they get all their buffs back so quickly? Also did you make Will saves from preventing the items from being disjoined?

Energy substituion is not a feat in the core rules. Thus no sonic fireballs.

If
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I'll have to wholeheartedly agree w/ Phil L on this one. D&D is all about overcoming challenges and to do this the DM has to present the PCs with legitimate threats.

If the PC's truly come up w/ a supremely creative strategy within the rules, then they should be rewarded for their novelty. In this case, however, it seems that rules were bent and broken.

On a final note, power playing and role-playing are absolutely not mutually exclusive. Simply b/c someone plays fast and loose with the rules, it is absurd to assume they are good role-players.

Barbarian is the favored class for Minotaurs.

So, Barb 10 + Minotaur (CR 4) should work out to CR 14.

But with all the gnarly new feats in the PHB2, I would probably make him a Fighter 10 instead (or maybe bump to 11 for Greater Weapon Focus).

Well if you are fond of Swords of Kyuss, you will be seeing plenty of them in the Library of Last Resort.

There is some precedence in official WotC adventures for powerful beings intercepting divination magic. For instance, the first D&D adventure path ended in the planar-hopping module "Bastion of Broken Souls." One of the party's main antagonists is Demogorgon whom the module says intercepts diviniations regarding himself. All such questions are met with mysterious silence.

Wow, lot of heat on this thread. No need to take such extremist positions. It is very possible to be a good character optimizer and a great role-player, one certainly does not exclude the other.

And look, we are not dealing with LARPing, this is a pen-and-paper RPG. Furthermore d20 is VERY numbers oriented, there's a rule for everything which is one of the things I like about it.

Also, AoW is for the most part a dungeon slug-fest (Prince of Redhand being a notable exception). After Spire of Long Shadows start, you'd better pray that your PC's are optimized or they will die very quickly and violently.

If it helps, I played the Spellweaver as incredibly arrogant. He just didn't believe that the PCs represented a credible threat to his existence. Besides, if they had the temerity to attack him not only does he have his own arcane prowess to protect him, but three Kyuss Knights next door, not to mention a Gargantuan Kyuss Worm outside his door.

Besides, these creatures have been imprisoned for so long one could rationalize that their psyches collapsed. In other words they spend their time imagining their "fantasy" worlds. Not too dissimilar to what happens when people are placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time.

Ultimately that's one of the fundamental flaws inherent in the dungeon crawl. Why don't the monsters all try to gang tackle the PCs at the same time? True the denizens of the Spire can't leave on their own, but I would imagine that a newcomer that enters every century or so would definitely bring everyone to the front door.

It should not be a problem, per se. However, some abilities that evil PrClasses get like "Smite Good" and items like "Unholy" weapons will be nigh worthless b/c virtually all the adversaries are evil. You might want to swap these out to something more useful, e.g. "Smite Good" --> "Smite Infidel"

Also, make sure there is a strong basis for keeping the party together. Evil parties tend to be selfish and may go their separate ways or (even worse) turn on each others.

It would be better to stick with LE (perhaps NE) characters that are sanctioned by a powerful evil organization. This should help them stick togethr and give the group focus.

Do a search on the Boards and you will see that this has been answered a few times. James Jacobs recommends treating it as a CR 27 encounter though deities technically don't have CRs.

Ich bin aus USA, aber ich war einen Austauschstudent zwischen '96-'97 in Frankfurt. Leider ist mein Deutsch nicht besonders gut, weil ich keine Gelegenheiten zu ueben hab.

The Talisman doubles your caster level and Int bonus for the control check IF you can cast arcane spells.

So, assuming 20 Levels of Wizard + 24 Int (+7) = +40 + 14 = +54

6 or higher on a d20 ain't bad odds.

Rules for controlling a Sphere of Annihilation can be found here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/artifacts.htm#sphereofAnnihilation

Rules for using the Talisman of the Sphere can be found here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/artifacts.htm#talismanoftheSphere

No problem. With the tons of supplements 3.5 has become very complicated. Always glad to help if I'm able.

Warlocks need somatic components to cast their invocations. I would suggest sudden extend in Complete Arcane.

I used my rod of meta-magic (quicken) to Dimension Door and get in his face and still be able to get a full attack (not to mention avoid his Aoo).

I don't mean to be the rules lawyer, but this is not possible by the RAW. In the text of DD, you will find, "After using this spell, you can’t take any other actions until your next turn."

Of course you could still full attack and then quickened DD away, but the reverse is not possible by RAW.

Just saying :)

Of course if you had a good time then all is well. But you did not follow the rules as written for Polymorph Any Object. The first sentence in the spell is, "This spell functions like polymorph, except that it changes one object or creature into another."

Polymorph has a HD limit of 15 (much greater than a Titan) and doesn't allow changes to Outsiders (among other Types).

Also, if you fail the Reflex save in the Grease spell you fall to the ground, you don't slide. The Grease spell from a Ring of Spell Storing would be @ minimum caster level (e.g. Reflex DC: 11) which I'm sure Dragotha could've made anyway, at least 95% of the time.

Well, this past weekend the tactical nuke that was Disjunction was detonated. It basically did end up as an auto dispel, because most of the PC's Will saves were in the upper teens. Only a few minor items got toasted, although the annointed knight almost lost his ancestral weapon because one of the Sinfire monks had disarmed him, and dropped the weapon on the ground. In the end, I had mercy since he'd devoted about 14 levles to improving this weapon, and I said the monk had kept it in hand. The monk subsequently made the Will save for the sword.

Glad to hear that it worked out well for your group. Though I have to ask how the party fared after having all their magic stripped off of them. Did the Psion get his comeuppance?

I don't have the issue yet, but based on AoW Overload I think I can venture a guess about AP's. Probably the character with the most AP's is the one who Zeech challenges (and loses to) and thereby inherits the kingdom.

Give us the skinny on Savage Tide!

Jolly, I would be careful re: Mage's Disjunction. Some of the party's prized magic items may go down the toilet as well. One thing you may consider is to house rule the spell like I did. It is now basically an auto-dispel (no checks required) but it doesn't affect magic items/artifacts.

dosen't Kyuss' mace turn foe's into undead when it hits them?

If that's the case, I think my PC's will be lining up to get whacked.

"So, let me get this straight. If Kyuss hits me, I become immune to crits/sneak attacks, stunning, mind-affecting effects, etc.? I head-butt his morningstar!!"

The other issue is that the mast is a moving target. You said that your group took ~ 2 minutes to buff. I imagine they would teleport into the middle of the sea in the midst of a raging storm! Teleport seems like it is really meant to travel to fixed locations.

No. Tiamat likes 'em young.

Dragotha's body is too big for an AMF. It has 10 ft radius centered on the caster. You could house-rule it I suppose like putting it near his claws so that those he grapple would be screwed. However, he's pretty darn powerful as written. I think the tactics in Dungeon are more than sufficient to challenge the party.

Pop n' Fresh: That sounds very cool, I wish I was playing in your campaign. But I do think you'll have your work cut-out for you substituting in monsters -- the CR system is imperfect and you never know how things will fly.

But I think what you are doing is right. PCs in the Conan setting would never be able to get past the Spire of Long Shadows.

Touch of Idiocy is Mind-Affecting and doesn't work on Undead.

Bestow Curse would work since it is Necromancy and doesn't require a Fort Save (Will). But I hardly think it is worth the risk to touch Dragotha and (a) risk getting mauled with a full attack and (b) rely on the doubly dubious chance that he will fail his Will save and the caster will breach his SR.

Very cool! My players are running through the Wind Dukes Tomb in Gather of Winds right now. Hopefully they will kick the role-playing up several notches because I'd hate to sic the Blessed Angels on them for disturbing the peace in Alhaster.

I can see it now . . . Lashonna visits them during their parole hearing. :D

Spell Immunity (Clr 4) can render you immune to Mind Blast.

One quick question (don't have the issue yet),

Can each PC get up to 40K instead to commision a magic item to be made instead of choosing a pre-made item?