Mind Flayer

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I'm in the Minneapolis area and would be interested in knowing what people might be running. I have some friends looking for a game as well. I currently run a Savage Tide game and Rise of the Runelords campaign so I have a pretty good idea of what happens in those adventures. Feel free to e-mail me at jasonej at hotmail.com with info. I will however be a booked until after the Renaissance Festival is over (end of September).


Thanks for the quick response James!

I think having it work relatively well is the best I can hope for. I just want to avoid adventures where the party is doing things out of the goodness of their hearts or because it's the "right" thing to do.

The first adventure seemed well suited for the group as it has groups too powerful to kill right away, offers money and allows for the killing off of said powerful group later on. Also going into a drow city where their evil acts will not seem that out of place should be perfect.

Their interactions with non-enemy NPCs depends on if they think they can take said NPC or if there is more gain in leaving them alive. So that can be a problem, but the Adventure Paths often provide enough material that other NPCs can provide information and motivation if need be. Also having a thread to pull the PCs along is very helpful whereas linking random adventures runs into the "what's my motivation" problem. I also find more hack and slash adventures to be a little boring to run.

Anyway, it seems that Second Darkness will continue to be a good adventure for non-good PCs. If anyone else is planning on running this with an evil group, I'd be interested in knowing what changes they made and any problems they face.


I have a certain number of players who have been asking for me to run an evil campaign, but I haven't found a set of adventures that I thought would work well with a group of evil PCs. (I don't want to do a lot of modification, as I have limited time.)

I noticed one of the pregenerated PCs for Second Darkness is LE and another CN making me think that Second Darkness shouldn't be too difficult to adapt to some of my more "free spirited" characters. Meaning those who constantly want to kill anyone who annoys them including patrons, shopkeepers, town guards and little children.

Most of these players were in an Age of Worms campaign and they derailed the campaign by burning down Balabar's house, picking fights and running away from the half-orc then insulting the guards who came to help. Rise of the Runelords and Cauldron seem to need fairly "good" characters without a lot of modification or large amounts of restraint on the PCs part. Savage Tide seems like it could work, but some of my players itching to be evil are running through it now.

If anyone has any suggestions for adventures that would be easily adapted for an evil group, please let me know. Thanks.


Khartan wrote:
I still think you're being an enabler. Your players will never learn anything if they never die.

Yeah, I can't argue with that. The advice has been helpful. Thanks.


Thanks for all the advice.

I really like Jeremy’s comment about a rollercoaster ride. That suggests to me another solution. Perhaps the adventure has been too much of the scary drop and not enough of the triumphant climb of a rollercoaster. Maybe I need to throw in a few battles where they do very well - almost “easy” battles - then go back to the adventure where it’s pretty hard again.

I could accomplish this by also giving them the extra magic items they want in the form of charged/limited use items. I had thought about adding some items a druid would have created like a moss healing potion flask that produces a cure moderate wounds potion every 24 hours, but the liquid turns bitter after an hour outside the container. Or a bag where you can put any seeds into it to create 8 goodberries after a day, with the same idea that they go bad after a few hours. These would help alleviate the cleric needing to always be the one healing and stabilizing people. I could add one use twigs that when snapped release a fine pollen that mimics the effect of the Good Hope spell. Side effect creates fertile farm ground in the same area. Also buffing potions like Bull’s Strength, Cat’s Grace, etc. I’m hoping this won’t open the floodgates per se, but assist a little during some of the tougher battles.

To answer some questions, the party still charges into battle and doesn’t seem to be overly scared to do anything. Though they often want to skip parts of the adventure because it seems dangerous, so I add other things in to keep the level and treasure correct – they left the Lotus Dragon treasure because they thought carrying it out might hamper their fighting ability.

We have been playing ST for over two years (every other week, evenings with very slow combat and lots of joking around) so I think the players are pretty attached to their characters to want to switch out. We’ve had one death (Swashbuckler bled out as the cleric thought he could finish up the fight and heal him later) and one character switch (the monk/cleric was a barbarian/cleric that didn’t like the authority in Sasserine, so thought it best to play another character). Oddly the toughest character (Swashbuckler with a lot of hit points, normally 24 AC with combat expertise and three attacks a round applying strength and intelligence bonus damage) says that if he dies again he wants to play a character that takes a level in all the classes so he can get some prestige class.

I think we are all still having fun, but I think they feel a little like second rate heroes since they have to bring at least two members back from negative hp after every battle. (Often actually the cleric as he is often in the front lines fighting.) And NPCs die off pretty quickly when they are around. I keep a summary of the crew members and passengers on a white board (description, relationship with the PCs, role on the ship, etc.) and cross off those who die. Probably not the most uplifting DM tool now that I think about it.

The points on party mix and tactics are very true. Stressing improvements in those areas may help the players have fun and keep the characters they are enjoying.

Thanks again for the advice.


I’m right at the end of the Sea Wyvern’s Wake (in the Sargasso) and my players have said they feel underpowered and want more magic items and xp. I’ve heard mention of the Savage Tide AP being very difficult, but I haven’t seen solutions for helping the party without making things a cakewalk. I’m looking for good suggestions for magic items that I can add to the treasure without throwing the power balance too much to one character, having them relay heavily on one item or making combat too easy.

I have five players: a 1st level Rogue/6th level Monk, 7th level Wizard Evoker (going to be elementalist water), 6th level Swashbuckler, 7th level Rogue, 1st level Monk/5th level Cleric with Travel and Magic domain.

I have made sure they found every magic item presented in the adventures and added some minor ones. Everyone has a +1 weapon appropriate for them, +1 armor or equivalent, gone through lots of cure light wounds wands and a fair amount of potions. Several members get knocked out during every combat so they feel like they aren’t doing well. The cleric is complaining that all he gets to do during combat is heal damaged or fallen party members and isn’t contributing at all. He sees doing damage as contributing.

So I want to help out the party so the players are having fun, but I’m not sure what items to give, how powerful they should be, etc. without unintentionally making one character a powerhouse (if they get a +2 rapier of shocking the Swashbuckler with three attacks and tons of damage already will dominate every combat) or making combat too easy overall.

I have made suggestions to the group about employing more tactics in combat, such as flanking, taking down one opponent at a time and keeping the party together with only limited success.

Also, the granted power of the travel domain is causing some disagreements. Some players are saying that the power would activate as soon as the cleric is grappled or hindered in any way, magical or not (including swimming). I read it as magical effects cause the power to activate, negating the magical effect on that character for as many rounds as he has cleric levels. Someone mentioned there was a debate on the subject, but I never found it. Anyone know the official word or even what the general consensus is?

Thanks for any help.


My group is in the middle of the journey and keeps referring to the old sea charts they found. This would be great. Thanks a lot!

jasonej@hotmail.com


I have a player who says that the Travel Domain makes him immune to grappling, but it doesn't read like that to me. I think it's saying if a magical effect hinders his movement then his power activates as if he had the Freedom of Movement spell in effect.

Does anyone know where to find clarification on that?


I could use a copy too if you don't mind.
jasonej@hotmail.com

Thanks.


I just started running the Savage Tide and saw this post. I'd love to be added to the list and get the pdfs if you have time. My e-mail is: jasonej@hotmail.com

Thanks so much.


James Jacobs wrote:
Jason Johnston wrote:
I'm just starting HOHR and one of my players fients every time he's in combat. I'm not sure how detect thoughts will effect his bluff check. How I read the spell is that the doppleganger would read my PC's mind that he's feinting and thus never be feinted. That seems pretty harsh though. Anyone have any thoughts on how to handle that?
Detect thoughts doesn't allow any benefit into a Bluff check; it only allows surface thoughts. When a character Bluffs, you can assume that his surface thoughts are focused on the Bluff at hand and that what he's really up to is deeper. He'd sill have to make a Bluff check opposed by a Sense Motive check, of course.

Thanks James! While I do agree with Russ that it seems logical that it should be tougher to Bluff/Fient someone who is reading your mind, I think game-wise it makes sense not to give a bonus. I think doing so might give the ability more power than something of that level should have.

Actually, I solved the problem in my own way. I had the character that Feints all the time be taken over by a doppleganger. When he fights other dopplegangers, they'll know who it is and play along. He'll most likely "drop" the other dopplegangers and move on. Letting them escape and plague the party later seems to make more sense than having the spy help slaughter members of his own spy ring.


I'm just starting HOHR and one of my players fients every time he's in combat. I'm not sure how detect thoughts will effect his bluff check. How I read the spell is that the doppleganger would read my PC's mind that he's feinting and thus never be feinted. That seems pretty harsh though. Anyone have any thoughts on how to handle that?


Thanks for the suggestions.

I am making it a bit difficult for them to get the Trolls to the city. They wanted to keep one of them below 0 hit points, non-lethal, at all times and calculated the amount of damage in an hour they would have to do. So I give them points for creativity.

And I will be making it a bit tough to get the trolls in the city. One member has already said he'd go ahead and try to talk to the guards. I think it will be an amusing story and a good time either way.

One bonus for them, I'm not rolling for any more random encounters if they are riding along with two tied up trolls!

I do plan on doing 50% for magic items. They keep asking if they can trade in the items for more money and such things. I saw the trolls as a different way of increasing their wealth. I'm worried the HOHR will be really tough on them and a little extra cash might help.

I'm running the part where they bring the trolls into the city tomorrow night, Trolls and the City. Should be interesting!


I’m just starting the Hall of Harsh Reflections (the party is still fighting random encounters on the road) and the party wants to sell and buy magic items when getting to the Free City, but I’m having trouble figuring out what magic items would be appropriate for a 7th level party to be able to buy and where. I know they would pool their money and buy one very powerful item if I let them buy anything out of the book, which might leave other members of the party vulnerable.

I’m planning on having them sell most magic items at around 50% of the value and able to buy magic items at book value, if they can find what they want. Since they’ll be in Greyhawk City for a while, I want a way for them to get better items as time goes on that makes sense. My campaign is in Greyhawk so I’m using any material I have to base things on. I remembering reading that the Guild of Wizardry rewards members who donate to the guild, so I was thinking of using that as one way to moderate what they get. I was thinking an Adventurer’s Guild would work the same way, which I thought I saw in one of the books.

Is selling magic items at 50% too low if I want them to have the correct money and items for their level? Especially since everything I’ve read makes HOHR look really tough.

Also, they are debating taking two captured trolls to sell at the arena. I’m all for letting them do that as more money might help them with the next set of adventures, but I’m not sure what price would be reasonable for such beasts. Any thoughts?

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