Luna eladrin's page

What about giving the bard something to boost his charisma? Improves spell casting, perform etc.

You could add a stranded ship with savage creatures, or with a crew suffering from savage fever and slowly succumbing to it. This is a nice opportunity to add some creatures of a low CR for the new players to practice on, and it is a nice reminder of the story line (and an introduction to it for the new players).

I do not know if you have Stormwrack, but you could also have the Sable Drake stranded in the Sargasso.

You could consider using the naval battle to create a diversion. The help the PCs manage to find could stage a naval battle, so that the PCs can sneak in with their ship hidden between the other ships. They are then just one more ship. They should change the name of the ship and use a false flag.
Then they have to travel through the site of the battle and you can stage several encountes with enemy ships or perhaps even fiendish sea monsters which they can defeat before they can enter the city. And they have to maintain their secrecy, perhaps a false identity, so perhaps they have to see to it that there are no witnesses left of their coming.

Thank you. So far this campaign has been great fun for everyone. Perhaps it is the best I have ever run.

The homebrew world is 21 years old (in real time) and got bigger and bigger in the course of my DM career. I started out with 3 countries.

It is fun because it has its own history now (and some older PCs have become NPCs, historical figures and even gods).

Do not forget the sudden desires for special food (and the tantrums to go with it). "I need fresh strawberries! Now!" You probably cannot find them at sea.

At the moment one of the female PC's in my campaign is also pregnant. The baby grows very fast and the cleric has already discovered that it is CE. The player wants to eat raw fish all day long. And sometimes she wants to drink blood.
Also, a demon tried to attack her when she was sleeping. Luckily the group's cleric was sleeping next to her, with a loaded crossbow, and awoke in time...

So use these ideas if you wish. So far they have been fun in my campaign.

My party started November 2007 and consists of:

A male N half-orc fighter
A female N half-elf fighter
A female CE aventi enchanter
A female LE human ranger/fighter
A male CE human (Olman) ranger/barbarian/rogue
A female LN human cleric with 2 servants (a porter and a groom)

Lot of female characters, only one female player :-)
So far it has been a fun campaign, perhaps the best I have ever run.

Of course it is their ship, but it is Lavinia's mission.
The PC's have been pretty useful so far, so Lavinia will not fire them I guess (nice pun). But it is nice to let them negotiate a bit.
My PCs feel a little unsafe at sea. I play Savage Tide in my own homebrewn campaign and the PCs have drawn the attention of a mighty enemy with a warship. They fear that they will meet this enemy at sea, and are trying to get the sailing schedule for this ship in order to avoid it. If they negotiate with the right persons, they will probably be able to get the schedule and there is even the possibility to delay the enemy ship if they play their cards right.
I guess the bombard also gives them a feeling of safety in this respect.

I have been doing something like that with some of the items. Works like a spear!
The extra advantage is that the players do not lose the thread of the story.

Charon was in the Savage Tide Adventure Path and he is pretty high. In Tome of horrors (if you have that book) he is CR23. Charon could give quests if someone or something is messing with "his" river, or if there is a problem with transporting souls across the Styx.

Charon could give PC's the job of finding a thief stealing souls from his boats, for example. Charon has yugoloths working from him, I think these are the piscoloths (or the Charonadaemons if you have Tome of horrors - they are CR9).

If Charon is too high, just use a charonadaemon leader to give them the job.

I made a similar adventure for a high-level party. In the adventure "illegal" soul transports were taking place: some devils were kidnapping non-evil souls for "processing" in Minauros. In the adventure the group has to follow such a transport and infiltrate, and try to dismantle the whole organization. When following the transport, they have to follow the river Styx until they arrive at an unloading dock in Avernus, and follow the transport "over land". I added some river encounters such as the living shipwreck from Dungeon Magazine and several xerfylstyxes. But again, the CRs of these monsters are pretty high, but I guess there are other aquatic devils. Or you can make fiendish aquatic creatures.

A solution in the rules for the arbitrary wealth exploits might be to add a time factor to it: if the PCs decide to turn a wall of iron into iron bars in order to sell iron, then there could be a maximum amount of gp they earn per day. After all, they have to melt it all down.
In this way you make it possible for PCs to put their ideas into practice, and you still have a measure of control as DM.

A nice system for PCs earning money in business was in DMG II. Perhaps it could serve as inspiration for a new rule.

Or you could check out Pathfinder scenario 1 and 2, which are both coastal adventures, nice, short and original.

Actually I use several mini adventures for my PC's, since they have written elaborate background stories and I create incidents based on the background stories. Does the player who is not present at Parrot Island, have some kind of background story, so that you can use family problems or something similar as a side quest? E.g. something about a stolen inheritance or a kidnapped relative, or a relative gone evil? That is actually a very urgent reason for the character not to be there.

There were also some PC's in my group who had trouble with some city guards, so I created a nosy city guard bothering them (sort of like Columbo, asking all kind of troublesome questions). So that is also a possibility.

BWG has a map with several extra locations on it, which you could also use as side quests or mini adventures.

Thanks for the comment. I understand your point. I think my campaign is somewhere in-between realism and the cinematic experience of "Pirates of the Caribbean". I think my other PC's will be OK with the rule of the whip as long as there is a chance to get stuck in the rigging (the failure on a 1 is a good idea and creates some exciting and fun moments). As for the ballistas: I have reconsidered this, since the two ballista's are not side by side, so that is not very realistic. However, I am thinking about having a heavy bombard in the heavy mount, and having them fire cannon balls which are linked by a chain, with a penalty on the attack for loss of accuracy. This was actually done in reality, so it would not affect realism. However, I have not decided yet about the bombard. It is not a war ship and I do not think Lavinia is the kind of person who wants a bombard on her ship. It is OK to have a little defensive capability, but a bombard is more like an open invitation to warfare if you shoot at another ship.

I have read the rules in stormwrack. I guess the ballista could be replaced with something else, or the heavy mount could be a bombard. I will check once more what is possible.

As for the whip: this player is inventing all kinds of fun manoeuvres for his character to make him a swashbuckling hero. I think this is kind of fun and adds to the game. The fact that the whip can get caught in the rigging, could be offset by a penalty, e.g. a -2 or -4 circumstance penalty (e.g. as with shooting into melee). Then you get both the realism and the fun manoeuvre.

The trick is to make the fun manouevre so difficult that the player gets a real kick out of it when he succeeds, but not so difficult that he never uses it. If it is made too easy, it will take away from his satisfaction.

Alignment should stay. I have played the Wheel of time RPG, where there are no alignments. The players think they can kill, maim and torture everyone whom they suspect is a villain, all "for the greater good of saving the world". In D&D I would have changed their alignment long ago to at least neutral. But since there is no alignment in WoT, I cannot do it there. Since they are hiding their crimes well, no NPC can punish them. I do not like this group's behavior. They are simply not heroes, but they think they are. Alignment would be a way for me to make that clear to them. Of course players can play their characters any way they want, but they should know what they are and have no illusions about it. (The characters can have the illusions, not the players.)

I have all the published adventures I own in an Excel file, but there was nothing listed for Gehenna. I would suggest taking a regular adventure with a lot of horror and creepiness in it, and change the location to Gehenna. Make the NPCs yugoloths, and add the fiendish template to the monsters.
You could also have them travel to the Styx and encounter Charon (if they have the right level). Charon could also give them a job, e.g. "If you solve this problem for me, I will show you the way out." or "I will only let you pass if you solve this problem for me."

That sounds like a good idea. The player plays a type of dashing hero who runs headlong into danger all the time. Swinging from ship to ship certainly suits that role. And so far his character has given rise to a lot of interesting scenes, also for the other players who get to save him all the time.

So I will suggest it to him and wait what he comes up with.

My players are preparing the voyage with the Sea wyvern, and one of my players has had some nice ideas. He wanted to add 2 ballista's to the ship and then attach two ballista missiles to each other with a chain, so that they can be fired at once. The intention is that they go spinning through the air and get stuck in the rigging of an enemy ship. I know that this was done in the past with cannon balls (which were fired two at once from one cannon), but I was wondering what rules to use in this case. Would it be possible with 2 ballista's? How can 2 ballista's fire at once? Would you have to link the trigger mechanism of the two ballista's? Is there an attack penalty? Or does it take a high strength and/or a high dexterity to fire them? Would you use a special feat for this? And what damage would this do to the rigging of an enemy ship? Is this permanent damage or is it a type of temporary damage such as non-lethal damage?

Another idea he had is to use his whip to coil it around a mast or rigging of an enemy ship so that he can swing across to the enemy deck. How could this be done within the rules? I was thinking of use rope, but there is nothing in the rules even remotely referring to this possibility. If I give him a normal melee attack with his whip, this would be far too easy, since a ship is an untended stationary object (according to the rules in Stormwrack) and thus has a very low AC. And there would be some sort of jump check involved, otherwise his swing would fail and he would get trapped in the space between the two ships. And what damage would that do if he gets crushed between the ships for example?

Has someone dealt with similar ideas or similar rules in this adventure? If not, does anyone have any suggestions how to deal with this? Any suggestions are much appreciated.

You might run into trouble with the paladin. There are some tough moral questions to be made further on in the campaign. There are several threads on the forum about groups which have run into trouble with LG divine spellcasters and paladins.

Thanks a lot. I am just preparing Sea Wyvern's Wake at the moment, and this thread is very useful to me.
I like the part about the shipwreck being fated to happen. I was going to add an encounter with an albatross savage creature. It is bad luck to kill an albatros, but they have no choice killing it. Of course some of the sailors point out that this means very bad luck.
I also like giving the PC's extra checks to counter the worst effects of the storm.

I guess maintaining a grapple is a standard action and when using a spell-like ability you have to make a concentration check, just as with using spells.

I do not know about supernatural abilities, though.

In my current Savage Tide campaign 2 of the 6 PC's are fighters. And without these two, the group would be dead already.

So no, the fighter is not dead yet.

The biggest problem I have with high-level games is 1) the enormous amount of preparation time for adventures and especially high-level combat (strategy and tactics) 2) the length of combats: most of the game sessions are one long combat session with only 2 or 3 rounds of actual combat 3) the fact that there are so few high-level adventures commercially available (especially epic-level adventures).

I am DM-ing an epic level campaign at the moment, and the players and I agreed to play it as long as we have fun. And we still do. The problems such as teleporting and gating PC's I can work around. I construct the adventures in such away that they cannot solve them without using these spells. I even ran a fight in which they needed to do a time stop because otherwise they would have been overwhelmed by the number of enemy actions. They might even need a wish to solve a problem sometimes. So far this works out fine.

Because of the enormous amount of preparation time I now alternate between two campaigns for the same players: we play an epic adventure, then we play a low-level adventure with other characters, then an epic adventure again etc.

This is the only way I could solve the problem mentioned above.

I agree. War dogs and horses are also a good idee. Especially dogs. They give the PC's extra fighting power and you do not have to add an NPC, which is generally not a good idea. In the worst case you come to be playing the adventure as DM and the players are just running along, which is not what you want.

For the rest I agree with the advice given above, but I would add one more piece of advice: have fun and let your players have fun. During a game session check whether your players are having a good time, and whether you are having a good time. If you and your players do, then you are doing a great job.

What helps is to make a lot of notes during a game session. I make notes all the time and use them in subsequent sessions. E.g. when you improvise something, write it down and act as if it was part of your campaign all along. Players never notice.

Do not bother too much about making mistakes. I still do after 20 years of DM-ing. I only got better at hiding them.

What also helps is to tie small encounters to the back story of the PC's. It makes them feel more important and more involved. In this case you have to watch out that you give all PC's roughly as much screen time, and that you regularly switch from one PC to the other. This also keeps up the pace of the campaign.

Good luck with your campaing. I hope you have lots of fun.

You could make him kidnap Lavinia and teleport with her to the plateau (he can teleport because he is a fiend, or he has an item).

You could make Vanthus use the pearl to become an aspect of Demogorgon. Perhaps he wants to create his gateway to the abyss on the plateau. This would be logical since there is already an abyssal influence on the island, so it would be easier. (The plateau is already attuned to the abyss).

Another option is to let him be possessed by Demogorgon. I think there is information about possession in Book of vile darkness.

Some time ago there was a "multiheaded" template on the WotC website. I do not know whether it is still in the archives.
I seem to remember that there was some information in DMG2 as well, but I do not know for sure whether it was twoheaded, or only information about extra limbs.

Good luck with your campaign ending.

The risk you run with this idea that your players might find it suspicious that the crimson fleet has the power to make such powerful items. They might find it illogical, so that it will undermine suspension of disbelief. I have noticed my players already suspect extraplanar influence and they have just found the first pearl and think there is only one of them.

Perhaps you can avoid the risk by using the Demogorgon shrine. There might be a conduit to the abyss there which charges the pearls, and which the PC's can possibly close or destroy at the end of the campaign. Perhaps a nice location for a crimson fleet/brotherhood last stand?

We have been playing since 1987 (1st edition) and I have not noticed a decline of quality among players. I have 2 groups of players and the one is more combat-oriented and the other more roleplay-oriented. This has always been the case, and it is independent of the edition we are playing.
I have two new players since last year and they blend right in. They have taken to the game quite fast and are as enthusiastic and as clever as the rest. Well, perhaps they are a bit more careful, that is all. One player is 15 years old and new to the game. He is the youngest of my group. He even spots things sometimes that the older players overlook. So I do not think there is a decline in quality.

O, and we do have sessions when not a single die is rolled. So this happens with D&D as well. And these are not the worst sessions either. Often they are great fun, since they mostly involve unexpected PC actions.

That one is really nasty! :-) I was going to add the pirate ship from Stormwrack (with the goblins and the wererat). Perhaps I should add it to the sargasso and make them all savage.

I wanted to use the epidemic to create a sense of urgency. A threat to civilization in the background, suggesting: "If you do not hurry up, there is no safe place anymore to sell and buy treasure, etc." Just to keep them motivated. And to remind them of the ever present threat of the savage tide.
So just to create atmosphere actually.

I think ultimately you should ask the player to leave. This player obviously has other ideas about a D&D campaign than you.
I had a similar problem once. This went so far that I got complaints about this player from my other players. Some even did not like the campaign anymore because of him.
I talked several times with this player, but nothing changed. Then I asked him what he wanted from the campaign, and he told me that he liked to play a character that bothered other characters because it made his character seem so much better than the rest. He also accused players who had been playing successfully in my group for more than 10 years of bad roleplaying, which was unjustified. They simply played in a different style than he did.
I then told him we did not see eye to eye on this at all and asked him to leave. It was not easy to do this, but I have never regretted it afterward. The campaign got much better at once.

One thing you can try to prevent such things in future games is always make the plots personal. My PC's are heroic because, if they are not, a horrible fate will befall them. It always keeps them motivated and involved. I also tailor these events to their character stories and descriptions. It does not cost me much extra prep time, since I use published modules and then adapt them slightly (changing family names etc.). Or sometimes I just use one or two NPC's from a published module for this. So far it works, even with the mercenary types. Perhaps especially with them, because they tend to make more enemies. Ultimately it makes the group more coherent, since they usually run to the other PC's for help when their enemies get too powerful to take them on alone.

Thanks for the reactions.

I am not yet sure how the PC's will find out about stopping the epidemic. However, they are very inquisitive and when they have arrived at that level they will probably use several powerful divination spells. They always do. They even have a cleric with the knowledge domain who specializes in investigation and functions as a sort of supernatural detective.

I was going to include Tammeraut's fate in SWW, since I noticed the reference in BWG. But I have already tied it in to another story line. But I might still change it.

I will check out Hollow's last hope. I downloaded it last week, but have not read it yet.

We played yesterday evening and it was wonderful and exciting. They fought lots of savage creatures, taking enormous risks. Luckily they had bought a wand of cure light wounds in Sasserine. They used it up!

They met captain Javell and tried to out-curse and out-tumble her, taking such risks they easily won her respect. (A diplomacy check 32 helped a lot there too!)

Hello. This is my first post in the messageboards. I have been reading them for quite a while and find them very useful for my campaign.

I am DM-ing Savage Tide and last week my players arrived at Kraken's cove and witnessed the carnage there. Now I have been wondering about the savage fever. Even if the PC's kill every infected creature in the Cove, there are bound to be some birds and fish that escape. This means the disease is still around.

I am toying with the idea of letting it evolve slowly into an epidemic. I think this has the advantages that the PC's will be more focused on the plot, that there will be more tension and danger, and that I can add savage creatures later in the campaign.

I want the plot of the epidemic to remain in the background as a constant threat, so nothing drastic like the total destruction of Sasserine. The PC's can stop the epidemic by removing Demogorgon's influence from the Isle of Dread (e.g. by defeating Khala).

Did anyone do anything like this? How did it work? What are the things to watch out for?

Does anyone have good suggestions for small adventures featuring a remote, secluded location infected with disease? I would like to add one or more of them during SWW.

Thanks for your reactions and suggestions.