Jebadiah U.'s page

Congratulations, Steve. Great milieu. I can totally see why the Dungeon staff would want to see it expanded beyond an adventure.

I recently returned to the game after nearly 15 years away and despite my best efforts, I find myself building a homebrew. In truth, I'm just stealing the best bits from other campaign settings. Very little original thought on my part. Yet it's tremendous fun. I'm playing with the Arcana Evolved rules. AE has no true "cleric" class because it draws no distinction between divine and arcane spellcasting. Playing in a ruleset without clerics, it seemed to me there was no need for gods, and I created a campaign world where the gods had died long ago and magic is simply a remnant of their divine spark. This is an example of what I think is most important in building any setting: The best way to make your world come alive for the players is to dramatize the unique aspects of the world through gameplay. And I think it better to create a world that fits the rules, rather than rules that fit the world.

Interesting thread.

First off, my opinion on the movies: The original trilogy, despite its flaws, was excellent. The prequels, despite some great moments (Yoda!), are terrible. The great virtue of the original trilogy was its simplicity; the prequels are needlessly complicated, from body doubles to midoclorians (?!).

Moving on...I'm not familiar with d20 Star Wars, but I did play the d6 version when I was in high school. And my games were terrible. But all my games in high school were terrible, because I was a terrible DM. At the time, my AD&D game was DragonLance, and it shared two huge problems with my Star Wars game. 1) Me. 2) Both campaign settings share a common source: heroic fantasy. And what makes heroic fantasy great as fiction is the same thing which makes it unsuitable for gaming. First, it's predictable (the heroes will be betrayed from within, the lovers are torn apart, the final battle with the dark lord will be epic, cool monologues, etc). Second, it's heroic. And what makes gaming great are the moments beyond the DMs control, when the players act unpredictable and unheroically. Trying to match the tone and spirit of heroic fiction such as Star Wars or DragonLance to the unpredictable nature of gaming requires a better DM than me -- now or in high school.

I really liked the NPCs in this adventure. Lots of flavor. Lots of fun. They're worth seeing again. I want a sequel in which Victor, now imprisoned in a hellish prison, stages a riot and seizes control. The PCs must enter the prison, battle their way through the most vicious cuthroats in Ebberon, and defeat Victor before he murders the warden, or the warden's dog.

Mr. Logue, consider that a freebie.

I'm a recent subscriber, just getting back in the game after 15 years away. I've been reading the AoW since "A Gathering of Winds." Right now I'm not even a 1/3rd of the way through "Kings of the Rift" but it is BY FAR the best adventure I've yet read. And I don't mean in the AoW. I mean in DUNGEON.

Greg, if you're reading this, you've managed to completely capture my imagination. I can think of no higher compliment to give.

Both the action and the setting are pure cinema. Kongen-Thulnir is so well-conceived -- basically, a giant Anasazi cliff dwelling on the edge of the Grand Canyon -- that I've already swiped it for my homebrew. Dragons and giants? They're like chocolate and peanut butter. And the 3D map is exactly the kind of premium content I was hoping for when I subscribed -- a map I could never draw in an adventure I would have never imagined.

I want more adventures like this.

Lots more.

Let's not forget Rexx. The background he came up with for "3FoE" was FLAWLESS. Certainly someone I'd want at my table.

I have no personal experience with sorcerers. And, like Sexi, I have concerns about how they stack up against wizards. However, I just bought Monte Cook's Complete Book of Eldritch Might, which contains a variant sorcerer class. The changes seem to be minimal -- a small bump to the number of spells known and d6 for hit points.

I hate people who can't spell "rogue" properly. Seriously. No, seriously. I may have never met them, but I hate them personally.

Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved has a rare, high-level spell called "Immortality." If you allow such a spell into your campaign world and follow the game logic through to its end, the acquisition of such a spell would be the probable goal of many if not most of the world's powerful creatures and individuals. Furthermore, the world's most powerful creatures and individuals would actually be immortal, and would have had an influence/impact on the campaign world for perhaps thousands of years. In other words, the world the player characters are born into has literally been shaped by a small group of powerful immortals. Which I think is a very cool idea. And one I'm using in my homebrew.

I've never played an Eberron campaign, but am putting together a homebrew that includes nearly all of the new playable races from Eberron. It's in the new races that I think Eberron really shines. To me, there's something fresh about changelings, shifters, and warforged, yet they fit comfortably alongside traditional D&D races.

I'd let them hold on to it until you can find the worst possible moment for it to hatch. Then roll for initiative. If you haven't found the right moment before they try to sell the egg, have the buyer take one look at it and walk the other way.

Mike Mearls, I just bought TRANSCENDANCE for AE and I love it. You're really good at this stuff! You should consider doing it for a living.

Thought I'd add my two cents since James has had the patience and kindness to read and respond to so many of our postings.

Before I begin, let me just say that I'm a recent subscriber, and I've not played either adventure path. I have an idea of what happens in Shackled City, but no idea how it happens. I've read only the last three adventures for Age of Worms, so what I'm about to say is based entirely upon limited information.

What I'd like to see in AP3 -- that I don't see in Age of Worms -- is some sort of thematic integrity, for lack of a better term. The antagonists presented in Worms are undead led by an evil cleric turned demigod, Kyuss. Wouldn't Kyuss' natural enemies -- and therefore the PCs natural allies -- be clerics? After all, divine affairs are their concern. Instead, the PCs are bounced from one wizard to another. Worms would have been more satisfying to me if the PCs had been aided by a church. Good clerics, bad clerics, whatever. To defeat Kyuss, maybe the PCs would have to find the lost relics and holy scripture of a good church whose influence has waned over the centuries. Or maybe they find themselves allied with an evil church that doesn't want Kyuss ruling the world because they've got world-ruling plans of their own. You know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That kind of thing.

Regardless, thanks to everyone at Paizo for their hard work, and thanks to everyone on these boards. It's a great community.

Rexx, as others have said, great stuff. What I like the most is that the Faceless One's plan is so clearly insane to an outsider, but perfectly sane to the Faceless One. I wonder what would happen if the heads of the other temples found out about the Faceless One's scheme...? I presuming they wouldn't like being marked for death. If the PCs discovered the scheme, could they use it to recruit the leaders of the other temples to their cause?

By the way, I'm not playing the AP and haven't read the adventure, but I like your set up so much I might just have to swipe it for my homebrew.

Don't characters with attitude make the game fun? The real question is, what are you gonna do if he does the same thing to every opponent he defeats?

Interesting thread. Couple thoughts: First, I would imagine that the cleric's old church would not be happy to see him go, and would work to kill him or at least thwart his schemes. If your campaign goes this direction, I hope you'll share the outcome with us. It sounds like fun. Second, I think a cleric operating without spells should get an XP bonus, for two reasons: 1) they got no powers! 2) good roll-playing put them in this position, and they deserve a reward.

Also an emphatic nay. For all the reasons listed above. Plus, I like making up cool characters and making them ENEMIES of the players, not allies.

Let it stand! The game has a way of making all characters equal in time. A character with all 18s is just as likely to take a critical hit from a great axe as anyone else... In the end, I think the intelligence of the player determines characters success more than stats.

Wow. Sounds like an awesome fight.

I just want to give props to Rob Bastard, who, judging from that last post, seems to run a great campaign that benefits from all the prep time he puts in. Nicely done.

Is anybody here familiar with the variant bard presented in Monte Cook's Complete Book of Eldritch Might? I'm not. But I've been thinking about buying the book, and I'd love to hear thoughts on the variant bard from anyone in the know.

Sounds interesting. However, a character class is just a skill set. It is not an origin. There are many ways to explain why a character -- especially a multiclass character -- might have abilities like rage, damage reduction, and uncanny dodge without being an illiterate savage. This is discussed explicitly in one of the Eberron books (I don't remember if it's "Races of" or "Campaign Setting")in reference to the warforged. The barbarian skill set makes a great fit with the warforged even though there are no barbaric warforged within the campaign setting. Just a thought.

How to get the spellcasters ready for the fight? They might just have to take a back seat...after all, they put themselves in this position through faulty judgment. Or, you might allow them to quickly recover useful scrolls and potions from the dead bodies of their captors. An elixir of firebreathing, or maybe Tenser's Transformation.

Can't think of any specific suggestions off the top of my head, BUT...THIS IS VERY COOL. A once in a DM's lifetime opportunity for an amazingly cinematic action sequence. Have fun! And make sure the players do, too.

Erik...dude, it's Sunday. Put down the mouse and step away from the keyboard.

I don't have any specific room suggestions, but one thing which disappointed me about "A Gathering of Winds" -- I haven't read "The Whispering Cairn" -- was that the tomb of the WIND Dukes was in the GROUND. Why not a castle in the clouds or a city in the sky? Original? Maybe not. Very cool? I think so.

Perhaps Kullen could come out of the encounter missing a few limbs, and you could eventually re-introduce him as an iron half-golem. I think the half-golem template is great, and iron half-golems are particularly cool. They're a sort of fantasy version of Darth Vader.