Peruhain of Brithondy's page

kahoolin wrote:

I thought in Old English it was more like "lick", not "leak," with the "ch" being a Scottish/German type throat noise. It sounds kinda cool if you say it like that. But screw it, I say "litch." Words change. Sword used to be prounouced "sward" not "sord." There is such a thing as too much accuracy.

When I used to drink Old English, I said all my words kinda funny.

ROFLMAO

Well, this post has forced me to look up a few things, and I found out that I've been pronouncing chimera and wyvern wrong for several decades, according to Webster's, which insists on kye-MEER-ah and WYE-vern instead of KIM-er-ah and WIV-urn.

The linked wiki article indicates either pronunciation is OK for drow. It is etymologically related to the word "troll," if that makes a difference. But I've always rhymed it with "cow," and don't plan to change anytime soon. (Think I avoided ambiguity there).

Buh-STARD may have been the Middle English pronunciation of the word, which comes from Middle French, but in contemporary English it is unequivocally BAS-terd. (BAH-stahd for those of you who speak the queen's English). Bastard sword has mostly been abbreviated to B-sword at my gaming table, because my son was uncomfortable saying a slightly bad word, even though he wanted to use the sword that does 1d10 damage but still lets you use a shield.

I looked up Sahuagin on wikipedia some time back, as that one has always puzzled me. Apparently the creator (I think the late Tom Moldvay) sort of randomly pulled the word from a religious tract that was discussing the efforts of the Spanish missionary Bernardino de Sahagun to convert the Aztecs. Somehow it got mutated to Sahuagin, and wiki (as of last year) said either to pronounce it Sa-ha-gun or to pronounce it per Spanish phonetic rules. I'm sticking with sa-HOO-ah-ghin.

Anyhow, to each his own. I've spent time in China, where people pronounce words differently in just about every city--and after a while you get used to it. As someone above put it, people in different parts of the campaign world probably say it differently, so we'll have to be tolerant at our game tables.

Anyone know where the rope bridge from the NW side of the Baeldictum actually goes to? It says it goes to the deck of the Two Faced Wretch, but that's 40 feet below and it doesn't have far to go laterally. Maybe it connects to the F2 piling? But that would make the piling 100 feet tall, and it was said to be only 60.

Maybe I'll just have it be a rope ladder down to the Two Faced Wretch.

If anyone can paint a clearer picture, please do, otherwise its going to be a vertical rope ladder.

I was a bit puzzled by this when I reviewed the adventure as well. The forward mast of the Baeldictum (near I1) should be directly over F2, so I don't see how the bridge in question can do so, unless it is a ladder that curves back under the hull of the Baeldictum. Instead, I would make it into a nearly vertical rope ladder connecting to the NW corner of the Two-Faced Wretch (H1). That seems to make the most sense.

Also, Greyhawk Method, a regional feat in one of the older Dragon magazines (I think it's the "campaign classics" issue with Strahd on the cover). It allows you to learn four spells per level instead of two. In general, I'd say drop arcane scrolls into the treasure liberally, and just make sure a lot of them are of spells your wizard doesn't have. The ships in the sargasso thingy, the various dungeons on the Isle of Dread, the Crimson Fleet lair treasury are all good places. I'd be willing to bet Farshore has a mid-level wizard who is a representative of the Witchwardens, too--maybe 12th level. You can always arrange his death if you don't want him around during the Crimson Fleet attack. At higher levels, well mercanes are perfect for this purpose, and who knows, maybe the big I can be conned into letting someone peek into her spellbooks, in exchange for certain favors . . .

One of the posted AoW campaign logs details a party primarily composed of elves that is in tight with Ellival. I can't remember what this DM did with Ellival, but he definitely had a role in mentoring the party. IMC I haven't developed Ellival much, but I have him set up as both mine owner and broker--elves from several other nearby communities (e.g. Celadon Forest) have also sent representatives to Diamond Lake to conduct these groups' trade with Ellival's mining concern.

To paraphrase Elan from OOTS: "Work, work, work, work to earn our consumer dollars."

There--with the plus 2 morale bonus to efficiency you ought to be able to squeeze in just a touch of log-writing for us, eh James?

;)

In regards to delay death, it is also worded quite ambiguously. It is an immediate action, but it does not clearly state that it applies you apply the "death" condition for being -10 or lower. However, it also does not state a time limit for how soon it has to be applied after the moment of death to work, so that leads me to believe that it only works if someone is at -1 to -9 (or can be cast on someone who looks like he's going to be dropped soon). Once cast, it keeps the guy's heart beating even if he bleeds out, or even if his skull gets smashed and he's at -20, but it can't revive him if he's gotten to -10 before the casting. (To me, this fits with the spell's classification in the necromancy school--it keeps him unnaturally alive, but does not restore him to life). That would be my interpretation of it, anyhow.

Basically if your comrade is down and bleeding, or is about to be pounded to mincemeat by a hill giant's club, or something like that, you can cast it out of initiative order, and save him from bleeding, or keep him alive even if the club smashes his skull. As I understand it, an immediate action can be taken at any point in the initiative order, maybe even as you see the hill giant's club swinging downward toward your friend's skull, but it can't be retro-inserted after the giant hits and drops your ally to -10.

My ruling on this spell would be that you can cast it after the attack is announced but before the attack and damage rolls are made. If you announce you are casting it after the DM makes the attack roll, the action happens immediately after the attack roll, and if the attack drops Krusk to -10, he's dead and the spell is of no help.

So, actually, you'd be better off pairing the best cure wounds spell you've got available with this spell, which can keep your friend alive for a few rounds while the hill giant stands over his bleeding body and you can't come to his aid.

A further comment: I think the SC has all kinds of cool and interesting spells in it, but many of them (like spells in many other recent WotC sourcebooks) are worded ambiguously, or at least the wording hasn't been carefully thought out to cover all obvious applications or contingencies. My usual policy toward this book is only to make these spells available through research or the occasional scroll found in treasure. This allows me to look over the spell, determine whether I think it is appropriate for my game as written, and modify it or nix it if I find a problem with it. There are certain spells in that book that I won't allow in my game, such as the various energy orb spells, which I think are very overpowered.

An additional comment: close wounds, delay death, and revivify need to be viewed as a sequence of "death prevention" spells of increasing power, and when ruling on the effects of the individual spells, we need to ensure that the lower spells in the sequence don't trump the better ones.

A final comment: Thanks to the posters above for bringing these spells to my attention. I'll make sure to have a delay death spell prepared next time I face a monster with a "swallow whole" attack--that's an ideal use for the spell, since there's generally a one or two round delay between initial grapple and "down the hatch."

Several points regarding this debate:

1. Regeneration. I play the same way as Doug Sundseth regarding regeneration and negative hit points. If you are attacking a troll, you can chop it into itty bitty bits and drop it to -100 if you want. However, you are doing non-lethal damage to it. So I don't think that case is particularly pertinent to this situation.

2. The phrase "In case it matters, a dead character, no matter how she died, has -10 hp." This phrase has been taken out of context above. It comes from p. 292 in the DMG, under the heading "Death Attacks." What this means is that a character slain by a death attack is considered to have -10 hp. Since the PH is considered the "primary source" for combat rules, the "-10 or lower" phraseology on PH 145 (the section on "injury and death") should trump this phrase in the DMG for any case of death due to damage, as opposed to death due to a death attack.

3. Close wounds is actually a bit ambiguously worded, but I believe the intent is that the caster can instantaneously restore a few hit points to a fallen comrade, and the number of hp in question is applied prior to assessing whether the amount of damage taken would be enough to kill the character (i.e. drop her to -10 or lower hp). While hit points are notional, as I describe the action, it would be as the poster above said--"the orc's scimitar slices Krusk's throat open. Jozan speaks a desperate word, and a golden glow suffuses Krusk, stanching the flow of blood and knitting his windpipe back together." We have to keep in mind here that this is a 2nd level spell that is clearly meant to mitigate a blow that is mortal, but not spectacularly so. If you were just bitten in half by a dragon, it shouldn't be able to "close your wounds." And it certainly should not be allowed to trump a death effect, despite the wording on DMG 292. (No one here has raised that argument, but I can imagine it being raised by a rules-lawyerly player).

4. When you're at the level where your enemies are prepared to dish out 30-40 hp per hit on a regular basis, revivify is the spell you should have prepared, if you're using the Spell Compendium.

So yeah, he's dead, Jim!

Any update on when this eagerly awaited product will ship? I pre-ordered it last month along with some other stuff. I was under the assumption it would be out this month, so the rest of my shipment is pending, but your material here now says Downer won't be out until June. If that is the case, is there any way to change my shipment on the other stuff I ordered, and perhaps order some additional back issues to come with that?

Yes, Ronin--the lowest deck should be a cargo hold. Generally, you have some water sloshing around in the bottom, and you don't want your cargo immersed in it, so you build a deck a couple of feet above the keel to serve as the lower deck of your cargo hold. Normally, for a working ship, that space is filled with barrels and crates and dunnage to hold them in place. It's hard to get in and out--so you'd only go down there if you needed to break out some cargo. For these ships, though, the lower hold could be empty, or it could be used for some kind of storage. The ship floorplans aren't very realistic for working ships anyway, so I suppose we'd have to say that after using magic to perch the hulls on huge tree trunks, they had a bunch of carpenters remodel the interiors to serve as living quarters and such.

I just plodded out to my FLCS to pick up my copy and...my GOD. She is HAWT! I have a male efreeti NPC in my game, but once my players take a look at her, he's going to try to turn him into a cohort just for a trip to a bordello on the plane of elemental fire...

That ought to give the old Johnny Cash song a bit of a different twist!

. . . And it burns, burns, burns,
That ring of fire, that ring of fire!

;)

This may be a nitpick, but the island map shows each of the two islands on which Divided's Ire rests are little over 1,000 feet acrosss. Since the prison is 2,000 feet above sea level, this means the way from the cove to the prison is just short of a sheer cliff, with an average slope of about 60 degrees. (Ten degrees is too steep for a car to drive up with any ease, and anything steeper than 30 is pretty hard to walk up without things to hold onto). This would be far too steep to hold much jungle, let alone harbor a number of dinosaurs. It is certainly within the realm of abyssal possibility to have such a steep island, but it seems to conflict with the island's portrayal in the text. I'm planning on altering the scale of the map so that each island is around 3-5 miles across, which allows for something besides a climb check to get to the top. (That way the coves on the back side of paradise will be large enough to shelter ships from the waves of the abyssal sea, and to anchor a caravel in--keeping in mind that you need an arc of safe water with a radius about six times the depth of the water where you drop the hook.

Gongxi! Gongxi! Does this mean I have to send you a hongbao stuffed with cash? Zhu ni hunyin yukuai, bai tou xie lao! And all that.

Where else on the boards does the CEO appear "in person" to rub elbows with the hoi poloi? Lisa, you have my thanks as well. Clearly you set a great tone in the workplace and it shows in every facet of your business.

I know that maybe you can't answer this question without compromising some things that need to be kept confidential, and I may be reading something into your statement above that you didn't intend--but is the consensus in the industry that the market for D&D is contracting? Or that it's saturated and everyone's retrenching? Kind of curious, and all of the recent license pullings and related movement in the business have us all speculating wildly--those of us who aren't in the know, that is. Should we all be running beginner games at comic shops to try gain new converts to the hobby?

A bit curious, G3, how you guys picked this and the other Chinese-sounding names. Jin Niu in Chinese could mean a few things--the first that sprang to mind was "golden ox," which would have made sense if she was a yak folk (maoniu ren?). But it could also be "golden twist" or "golden girl."

Hey, how do you pronounce Seoni, anyway? See-OWN-eye? SAY-oh-nee? SHOW-nee?

Names are very important. On the whole, recent APs have done well in this regard, so I trust the Paizo staff to do well for NPC names in the new campaign world.

As for standard naming conventions, the list of names in PC race explanations are useful starting points, but YMMV. Some suggestions that capture the flavor for two or three major human cultures is good. Some suggestions that retool halflings so they aren't Tolkienesque and gnomes so they aren't silly might be a good tone-setter too. But I've already got my own preconceptions about names that probably will be different from everyone else's.

Toponyms are very important, too.

But, also note: some of the names in my favorite campaign setting (Greyhawk) are downright dorky, (Verbobonc? Melf the elf? Zagyg Yragerne?) but I've come to accept them as part of the setting over time. When you go to a foreign country, often you'll hear things that are strange and entertaining to the ears of English speakers, but which make perfect sense and sound quite mellifluous to the native speaker. The same might be true of fantasy places. In my homebrew, Snarbats, Zizzle, Mundletode, Vraxlemuir, and Gnumruck are major gnomish settlements. These names sound hilarious to the humans living nearby--but they are nothing of the sort in gnomish ears!

Note that any commands that force the subject to act against her nature force a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. So the cleric might have a chance to break free if forced not to pray for spells (a deeply ingrained daily habit), and would certainly get a 2nd save if forced to do anything directly against her friends. Note also that once detected, the dominate effect is easily blocked with a protection from evil spell--so dispelling is not necessary.

Hmmm! Maybe Zyrxog would just wait until the party arrives in his sanctum again, and try to get her to turn against her friends. While waiting, he occasionally concentrates on his victim to figure out where she is and what she's doing, and perhaps has her try to prevent, say, being dragged off to Jaikor Demien for an exorcism. It's sort of an all or nothing tactic, but I can't really think of anything better to do with the dominate, except maybe ordering her to try to kill her fellow party members in their sleep or something--and I'd give a new saving throw for every party member attacked. At least. If not every swing of the mace. Did the party kill off all the octopins? If so, maybe three party members against Zyrxog and the party cleric is an OK matchup. Or, the party gets wise when the cleric refuses to cast the buffs they've been planning to use. (And of course, even if they then take steps to block the domination, he already knows what they are planning.)

Anyway, just throwing out some random thoughts. Hope they are useful. The important thing is to make this fun, and not a TPK. Could make for some good roleplaying if you just tell the player she's dominated and what Zyrxog's orders are, and let her run with it.

Of course, parents know their children more intimately than others, so her mom should get a circumstance bonus on the sense motive. Mom might not come right out and say "So who's dominating you miss smarty-britches," but might well react in such a way that it gives strong hints to the party that something weird is going on. Enough so that maybe they'll subject the cleric to a few divinations, perhaps. Of course, the possibilities are limited, since it's the cleric who's dominated, and her superior, as I recall from your previous updates, has disappeared.

Anyway, the Big Z won't want to do in his mole right away, he'll want to use her as a lure to snag all the others. And hang them out to dry because they have no effective clerical support. Could be nasty. Does the player know she's dominated?

I've read into the Maw and don't see how it conflicts with anything there. Good idea. Might have to yoink this one, Luke.

It's all in the timing. You've got to (a) make sure that said villains really have a means of being warned and ready for combat--which usually takes at least 5-10 rounds in a complex the size of the vanderboren mansion--and (b) throw them into combat at just the right time to make the PCs feel challenged but not overwhelmed. If need be, let the PCs rest 2-3 rounds, and just as they start to loot the bodies of their victims throw the next set of bad guys at them.

I generally agree that more combattants of modestly high level compared with the PCs makes for a more challenging combat than 1 BBEG and a few mooks. But a lot depends on the BBEG and mooks in question. If the BBEG can neutralize PCs on a regular basis (mind blast, paralysis, hold person, etc. with decently high saves), this can really turn things against the PCs in a hurry.

I have taken to the AP model of throwing BBEGs that are several CR's higher than party level at a party along with some mooks. It usually works. But it's OK once in a while to take out the BBEG quickly.

Usually I agree with Eltanin, but come on, would you be comfy camping in the room where Zyrxog has been storing dead bodies? And what did the party do with the prisoners? I think the business of not giving up ground taken gets taken to a bit of an extreme. If Zyrxog can muster up any more thralls who are presently outside his lair, then they are likely to visit in the middle of the night and create an inconvenient scene, disturbing the party's rest and making it difficult for spellcasters to be at full capacity in the morning for the showdown with the Big Z. If he can't muster any more followers just now, then if he moves minions out from the inner lair during the night while the party is sleeping at the inn, all he's doing is spreading his existing defenses thinner, and the party will be fighting them on terrain that is already familiar.

At the least, if the party hasn't taken out the octopins in front of the door and the naga, those two should visit during the night. If you're gonna camp, you've at least got to make sure your immediate environs are clear. But personally, I'd have the Big Z pay a visit in the middle of the night. A nice, tasty midnight snack of brains! Ohhhh yes. Have Zyrxog go until he either gets his midnight snack or takes damage, then make his getaway, plane shifting to the ethereal if necessary.

Camping in the dungeon should be situational, not an automatic response to being a little worn down. There are many times when it's appropriate to retreat to a safe spot and rest; there are occasional times when the situation dictates underground camping. Since it's a hop skip and a jump back to the surface here, the party should (a) ensure the outer lair is completely clear of enemies, and (b) retreat to rest if they don't feel ready to take on Zyrxog.

My party rested once inside Whispering Cairn, because 3 of the 4 were unconscious but stable after the battle with the wind warriors. They rested two nights inside the Temple of Hextor in TFOE--the adventure was designed this way, since it was not easy to sneak in and out at will, for my party at least. They rested inside the Twisted Branch lair, but they had already killed the chief and reached a bargain with Hishka, so they were guests. I just don't think it's that situationally appropriate in either of the dungeons in HOHR to sleep in the dungeon rather than at the inn where they are relatively safe--since it's easy enough to get in and out of the dungeons. If they do retreat to rest, reward them by spreading out Zyrxog's defenses a bit more--maybe have him put one of the octopins from his sanctum in ambush where the drow sentries were. Have him scry on this octopin so he knows the PCs are coming, but since there'll only be one octopin in the final encounter, that will be a bit more manageable for the PCs. (As written, the Zyrxog encounter is one of the toughest in the AP, for sure).

It's actually not all that hard to make it straight through to Zyrxog with plenty of fight left. If the PCs haven't burned too many resources on the drow, anyhow. If the PCs are smart and have done their divination homework, they can easily bypass the stone brain (protection from evil), the advanced octopin, and the vrock. So they should have plenty left for Zyrxog at the end. As long as they have the right spells handy (spell immunity vs. mind blast is ideal, fly or a barrage of rapid shot arrows is very handy, as is summoning a flying ally, and of course resist energy). If they haven't done their homework by contacting their friendly local deity, they are in for a rough ride whether they're at full strength or not.

Thanks James (and others!)-- Hope you feel better. If it's not the G-I thing that is making the rounds, have a hot toddy and sweat it off. (Grandma's home remedy, works well for nasty colds and such).

The Styes! Or the Weavers!

I'm reviewing the Serpents of Scuttlecove, and I have a few questions for the author, or editors, or those who have already run this section of the AP.

1. What is Harliss Javell's precise relationship to the Crimson Fleet? In the Bullywug Gambit, she was portrayed as a Crimson Fleet captain, but it is apparent in Serpents that she is not part of Cold Captain Wyther's inner circle--he didn't bring her to Lemoriax to be transformed, unlike his other captains. Serpents indicates that all of Wyther's captains faced a choice of serve the Big D or hang from a yardarm, and presumably this happened before the Crimson Fleet started shipping shadow pearls, so if Harliss were a Crimson Fleet captain as of BG, she should have been transformed into a Lemorian already. Should she be portrayed more as a smuggler who fences goods for the Crimson Fleet, or something like that? That would seem more in keeping with her ignorance of the shadow pearl plot during BG.

2. Where do the active Crimson Fleet ships anchor when they are visiting the Fleet's home base on Sekorvia? The creek that houses the base is only 10 feet deep in its deepest parts--a caravel (average draft 10 feet) would have difficulty maneuvering in these waters without running aground, except perhaps at high tide. And the layout of the docks is such that there isn't really enough lateral clearance to move caravels in and out. The caravels by D3 and D7 must have been pulled in at high tide and had the docks built around them. Is there an outer harbor where the captains ordinarily anchor their ships when visiting? How did the six ships that form the strange structure of areas E-I get where they are? By their dimensions, they were originally the size of greatships (draft 20 feet). Were they moved to their positions via telekinesis? They certainly could not have been sailed in, and it's unlikely that they could have been dragged in.

Perhaps I'm a bit too hung up on consistency and verisimilitude here, and I can certainly concoct my own answers to these questions, but I'm interested in hearing the thoughts of Rich, Nick, and/or James on these questions, if you have time to share.

Not sure it was designed to be a one-solution-only room. Maybe Wolfgang's idea was that players could avoid combat with the elementals by jumping instead of flying. Feather fall can negate the worst consequences of falling, and presumably the party has kept the ring they found in the first module. So, if players want to burn 4 fly spells and have a nice dust up with the air elementals, they can take that route, otherwise, it's time to break out those potions of jump and have some sort of safety line for those who might fall anyway.

Uh, me? (OK, OK, no track record, not a professional fiction writer, etc. etc. But I think I could do a good job if I were able to focus on such a task.)

Seriously, though, what about Thomas Harlan, who wrote a series of interesting stories for Dragon some time back set in a sort of alternate "Crusader Earth." I thought they were some of the best fiction I've read in Dragon.

Edit: Hey, what about a short-story contest?

The Rhennee take their barges across the Nyr Dyv and other large inland lakes, though, so I think their barges are more akin to a keelboat than the barge in the Arms and Equipment guide. They've got sails and oars, but a shallow draft so that they can be poled through the channels of the Gnatmarsh, and whatnot as well.

OK, in the vein of reminiscence about our beloved and soon to be departed Dragon, what are your favorite Dragon covers?

Here are mine:

#292 Elf (?) patrol riding giant weasels--Wayne Reynolds
#296 Dragon-slayer--Sam Wood
#306 Succubus--Arnie Swekel
#310 Mage and Fighter--Todd Lockwood
#346 Panicked Adventurer--Wayne Reynolds
#329 Medusa and Victim--Scott Fischer

And two old ones from way back:
#37 Maid and Unicorn--artist unknown
#49 Dragon Flamesprays Castle--Tim Hildebrand

Well, my 1st ed. collection went the way of my baseball cards (thanks a lot, Mom!) But looking at the old covers on this site, the first one I clearly remember as being part of my collection was number 34, but I think I may have started collecting as early as 27. I didn't have a subscription in high school, and kind of got more interested in girls and getting into college around the end of my junior year, so I probably stopped somewhere in the early 50s. The last of that series of issues I distinctly recall owning was #49, with Tim Hildebrand's awesome dragon, and I'm quite certain I quit playing by the time #62 was out.

As for since I took up the game again, #291, I think--the gnomes issue. I've been subscribing since #312.

just wondering if anyone can point me towards a speed of A Greyhawk Rhennee barge? say open water and other.

Use the keelboat from the DMG. It's a pretty close approximation of a barge.

This query might be better placed in another thread.

Sounds like the stuff of Norse sagas. Beginnings of a huge feud between the paladin's order and the elves. Etc. etc.

Yeah, I would have to concur that this guy clearly turned his back on the paladin's code. If you're into playing with evil party members, you could offer him the opportunity to turn blackguard, but he doesn't sound mature enough to make it a workable solution. Not sure I'd keep playing with this guy, but if I did, I'd definitely let him know who's boss.

Summon Monster is a full round spell, so you really have to be anticipating to block a fireball with it. And unless the summoned creature has the arrow-snatching feat or some-such, I don't think it's at all fair to use it to fly in front of the bead and detonate it. You're better off counterspelling. Or just making a ready attack with a missile weapon so that the mage has to make a concentration check to get the spell off.

A most enlightening discussion.

We have to keep in mind that you can target the bead over the heads of the combattants, as long as you have some clearance. If they've got enough room to swing their weapons, presumably a human or elvish wizard can zap a fireball bead to the right spot, say 7-8 feet above the floor. A gnome would have more trouble doing this, and might have to aim higher. I interpret 20 foot radius spread as defining a spherical volume, so you could target a higher spot with the fireball if there is overhead clearance to do so. I figure 10-15 feet above the surface reduces the area affected at the surface by 5 feet of radius, and subtract another 5 feet of radius for every five feet of altitude above that.

I also recently learned that fireballs can travel around corners, since they are a "spread" effect, rather than a "burst." (Cf. definitions for those two effects in the PH/SRD). This should largely negate cover bonuses, IMO, since if you detonate a fireball ten feet outside an arrow slit, it means everything within ten feet of the inside of the arrow slit in any direction is toast. This can make it very tricky to calculate where to let one off.

Probably the fairest way to adjudicate fireball damage radius is to make sure your sorceror/wizard fully understands how the effect works, then have him tell you where he's going to target the thing on your battle mat, and at what altitude. Give him a time limit of 2-3 minutes (use a boggle hourglass or whatever), so he won't take all day to calculate down to the gnat's rear-end how he can hit the most orcs without fragging his buddies. This will make fireball useful mostly in the earliest rounds of combat, before the melee starts, and stop people from using it as a precision spell, which it is not, unless they take the feat that lets you shape the blast, in which case they've earned the right.

I believe that the only time attended magic items get fried by a fireball is if the owner rolls a 1 on his saving throw. Unattended items are a different story.

If a fireball goes off in a house, at least it should set the curtains on fire, and other easily flammable items. If it goes off in a forest, unless it's raining or the forest is really damp, it should at least set some of the undergrowth on fire, if not trees. You should remind your players when they are in a flammable setting, just so they have fair warning.

As for fireball vs. lightning bolt, the answer is it depends on the situation. Just like magic missile vs. burning hands. Fireball is generally a bit more powerful and useful than lightning bolt, but there are many situations where a lightning bolt is much, much better. It's a more precision spell, for one thing. Of course, lightning can start fires, too--at least IRL--that's how most forest fires start.

Figure out what kind of odds you want to have of the PC succeeding in controlling the sphere on a round by round basis, and set the DC accordingly. I'd shoot for a 50-50 chance, which probably means a DC of at least 35, and maybe as high as 45, depending on how maximized your rogue is in the UMD department. Your fears sound pretty cinematic to me. And if the rogue takes one for the team and meets the same heroic end that Zosiel did in the final battle of the campaign, well what could be a better way to end the campaign than a bow to the old legend presented in the first adventure!

Another alternative would be to swap Alhaster for the capital of the Hold of the Sea Princes (or a vassal principality on another nearby island). You'd have to do some significant modifications either to local history of the Sea Princes or to the Alhaster backdrop, but you could do it. Just say that this particular Sea Prince turned coat right away when the Scarlet Brotherhood did their coup d'etat in the Hold of the Sea Princes, and managed to toady his way into maintaining a tenuous autonomy with the SB looking over his shoulder.

Another location for Alhaster, not excessively far, would be the Pomarj. Alhaster would fit in just fine there--maybe just make Alhaster into Port Blue, have Zeech as a semi-independent prince, whom Turrosh Mak finds convenient to leave that way because he provides an outlet for trade.

Last option would be to use Alhaster as Naerie, the capital of the old County of Idee. Make Zeech an Aerdi prince sent to govern the region after the Great Kingdom subdued it (during the Greyhawk Wars?), and have him be a very reluctant vassal of the crown of Ahlissa now.

All three of these options place "Alhaster" a fairly short sail away from Sasserine and with a few minor adjustments to Greyhawk canon it's pretty easy to fit in a wicked minor prince who has enough autonomy to call the shots in his own territory.

Hmmm. An interesting idea, but how do you get a herd of ankylosaurs from Tanaroa to Farshore, which is on an island. Ankylosaurs are considerably larger than a horse, and trying to get an untamed one into a sling to put him on a ship has to be tough, though druid spells could probably make it possible. Teleportation might work, but that will limit the size of the herd you can get to Farshore. And do you let them run around in the little town, taking the sides off of buildings with their spikes? Or wander through the plantations outside town, angering the farmers you're supposed to be protecting? One awakened ankylosaur might work OK, since you could explain that the houses and farms are what he's here to save. A herd of un-awakened ankylosaurs might generally herd after the awakened leader, but they'll still behave like big wild herbivores. Imagine a herd of oversized bison stampeding through town and you get the picture.

I'd reward creativity by allowing the druid to bring the awakened creature to aid in the defense. Not quite sure how you would direct the rest of the ankylosaur herd in battle anyway, unless you can somehow either train or ensorcel them all to get them under direct control.

BTW, shouldn't this thread be in the Savage Tide section?

Well, I'm not sure I agree with you on this one. If I ever get to this point in the AP, I'm not going to let my players get away with not trying a little diplomacy. The best way to get killed is to get the factions to unite against you!

Well, they aren't supposed to know where the pieces are and they got the end of the rod that doesn't tell you where the other parts are. If they want the whole thing, and you think they won't give up until they get it, just use that as the motivation to go through the AP. You can find ways to drop hints on where the pieces are--have Balakarde going after that instead of on the trail of the Kyuss worms. (Or maybe the Kyuss worms were a cover for finding this powerful artifact. . .) You could give a piece to the Harbinger in SOLS, hide one in Lashonna's stash under the healing house in Alhaster, put one in Kongen-Thulnir--in the possession of the aging Cloud Giant king, one in Brazzemal's horde, or Dragotha's, etc.

Then all you need to do is figure out what powers the rod has while united and make that the key to defeating Dragotha. (I.e., maybe cut out some of the bonuses for Balakarde's spirit fragments or for accomplishing the various tasks in Alhaster in Dawn of a New Age, or don't give them the sphere of annihilation, to even the odds a bit).

In this way, you'll need to do a modest amount of work (stat up the full rod, modify the adventure hooks a bit), but you'll be able to preserve most of the AP as structured without having to generate endless side quests.

Either that or plant info that leads them to conclude the other parts of the rod have been destroyed, and remind them somehow that this adventure is about Kyuss, not the Rod.

Libris Mortis is your friend.

I would second the notion that you don't need to beef up every encounter. Look at the "Biggest Cakewalks" thread and find which encounters have completely lacked challenge for splatted up characters, and focus on the ones of out of that subset that you want to be memorable. Also review the obits thread and see which encounters have been consistently deadly and avoid beefing those up. E.g., I wouldn't beef up Zyrxog in HoHR, or the Alkilith in CB.

A third suggestion: have the dungeon denizens react more dynamically, so that when a party raises a ruckus, have the folks next door come to investigate and join the fun. This makes the individual encounters more challenging without boosting the total amount of XP given out.

Finally, if you find your party blowing through Spire of Long Shadows (which is fairly unlikely, I think, but conceivable), you can reduce or eliminate the story award XP so that they don't level as fast and are facing greater challenges relative to level in the next couple of adventures.

Not to mention alluring succubi lolling on sheets made of human skin. (Cf. Dragon 306). Yikes. Maybe we should all be taking Steve Greer's advice on this one.

LOL. Silicon balloons. Must be a special spell granted by Wee Jas, who is, after all, the goddess of beauty. I don't think that even Boris or Frank Frazetta would approve of these silicon monsters. But UDON are very much in the anime tradition, so I suppose it fits the style.

Hey nautical-historical buffs, how deep should the draft be on these ships? How high should the ceilings be for interior ("below-decks")levels, and how much draft is left below the floor of the lowest interior "habitable" levels shown on the map?

I sketched out the layout and understand the ship's placement and connections. It works, but it's not simple to see. (IMO, another diagram should have been included with the maps. It's a lot of work for a DM to prepare this set of encounters given the confusion the maps create.)

To pull it all together, I need to estimate the horizontal dimensions of each ship. Should I assume 20 feet from main deck to keel, with 10 feet of height (floor to ceiling) for interior levels, leaving 10 feet of bilge or balast space below the interior levels? Thoughts?

They should all be caravels, so keel to main-deck height is about 20 feet. IRL, you'd probably have 2 decks plus 3-5 feet of bilge space above the keel on such a vessel, but I think the maps only show one level below main deck on most. I'd have the lower holds be accessible only by hatchway and be empty except for empty barrels and miscellaneous dunnage. It's lightless and fresh-airless down there, so people normally wouldn't live in these spaces. Or, make the lower level about 12 feet high (room for lots of cargo) with 8 feet of bilge.

Since a paladin can summon his mount, a paladin can use the mount where it gives him a tactical advantage and send it back to the celestial stables and go on foot otherwise.

A ranger with animal companion can bond and dismiss companions as needed to provide suitable mounts for different kinds of adventures.

On the whole, though, even in HTBM and ToD, which are more outdoorsy than the other adventures, mounts aren't consistently useful. Not enough to invest a lot of feats in mounted combat, anyhow.

I've already had my say above, but let me add with regard to both AoW and STAP that if either has a significant weakness it is in the transitions or hooks to get PCs out of one adventure and into another. I think this problem stems from the nature and format of the enterprise--different writers writing each adventure with the editorial staff trying to make sure the transitions work reasonably well, plus the nature of a serial publication. In running AoW, I've done very little to modify the adventures themselves, but I've modified the published transitions considerably, and have plans to continue doing so. There are frequent discussions about these kinds of modifications on the boards, so if you review the archives, you'll find lots of ideas. For the parts of AoW I've run, you can flip through my campaign log on this site ("The Company of Light") and get some idea of how I did the transitions through the first four adventures. (I'm still working on my log for Champion's Belt).

I am definitely moving the Spire of Long Shadows far away inland, into the jungle. I want to make getting there into a "Heart of Darkness" style adventure, and putting it within 50 or so miles of Sasserine just doesn't do that. Check out the download Scarlet Brotherhood, an old Greyhawk sourcebook that can be downloaded on this website, which can be used to pick a site farther into the jungle and has lots of info on the Amedio to bring the treck alive. (I'm also doing away with the teleport paintings, to force the PCs to use surface travel on their initial voyage to Kuluth-Mar. So, this would be one way of avoiding having the Spire "move 300 yards" to downtown Sasserine.

You could easily change the backstory of Sasserine to make it Alhasteresque, or even have the PCs change its name after they take it over, to mark the city's rebirth. You could also cannibalize the Styes and blend elements of it in with the Alhaster backdrop, to give the feel of a creepy, run-down port city; then fast-forward twenty years for the Savage Tide AP.

Alternatively, you could site Alhaster somewhere down the coast to the east, and make Sasserine into the Free City. It has an arena, so this would work perfectly well. Alhaster could be close enough to be a place of origin for some of the new PCs in the STAP, or it could become a tributary state or ally of Sasserine as a result of the PCs' actions. Either way, it could be used for sidequests, and possibly threatened as part of the shadow pearl scheme, making the threat seem even more diabolical to the players by threatening not just their hometown, but the hometowns of the last three sets of PCs they've run.

OK, I could concede this point, based on your line of reasoning. Not much else for a rogue to do against Kyuss anyhow. I would have the rogue make a UMD check every round, though, and increase the DC mightily, since he's messing with artifact-level magic and not your garden variety magic item. The rogue should be at a disadvantage manipulating the sphere, compared to an arcane caster.

Flattered. I'll put my tongue to work and see if I can come up with a bit more. In honor of Scuttlecove, which will need much more of this sort of cant than Sasserine required.

Yeah, well anyhow, rogues are nothing if not versatile. Max ranks of UMD and you can do all kinds of stuff by the upper levels of the class. Not to mention getting past nasty traps, finding every last ounce of gold in the dungeon, and gathering the info the party needs to survive, by stealth or charm. It's nice to contribute directly to battle, but many high-level battles negate the key abilities of one or more party-members. With UMD and a staff of healing or some such, the party rogue can free up the cleric to cast all those bad buffs on himself and go kick some demonic tail.

Peruhain of Brithondy wrote:

Sebastian, are you telling me that I've been reading a Derridean gaming comic for two years and didn't even realize it? ;) Oh well, I'm an academic, I'm supposed to enjoy this sort of thing, and then tell you pompously that once you employ a post-colonial deconstructionist Lacanian framework to analyze the strip, that by creating a simulacrum of a simulacrum, Downer is actually a metaphor for suburban youth alienation in the age of ersatz satisfaction of consumer desire. ;)

I thought it was obvious, but I guess not to everyone. ;-)

My impression of Downer is that it has taken a sharp turn towards resolution ever since the fight with the chronotryn. I could be wrong, but it seemed like the stop in the pirate city was going to cover a handful of strips and involve the neogi conspiracy, the pit fights, and raising the gnome guy from the dead. It seemed like the whole thing was thrown into no-time-for-that-mode when the Needleman arrived and Downer was rushed off to Sigil. There are a lot of hanging threads that were left back on the prime material (the devil impersonating the illithid, Downer's bro's transformation into a drider, Downer's prior relationship with a medusa). I could be totally wrong, and maybe we are barreling towards a to-be-continued with no continuation, but my sense is that at least the main storyline is being ushered to a conclusion post-haste.

Hmmmm! Surprise surprise. It all fits now. Truncated plot--foreknowledge of the impending demise of Dungeon. Should we be hoping for some of the interesting side-plots to be taken up in the book (which I've ordered), or a future one? I guess I somehow got hooked on Downer after not liking it much initially, and now I want to know the whole story!

OK--just had another idea for a monster submission to pathfinder: Chinese fox-fairies, very similar to Japanese kitsune. Sometimes evil, sometimes a benevolent if treated right, but always dangerous--a bit like a CN succubus, I suppose. (I call dibs, and will follow up with a proposal as soon as the Pathfinder monster submissions path is opened up.)

Two comments on D&D images and uses of fey:

1. We tend in contemporary Western society to view untrammelled nature as a good thing, and therefore in D&D the nature spirits that protect nature are also labeled as good. We are also profoundly influenced by Tolkien's portrayal of elves as good and miss the undertones of peril that he conveys when mortals venture into lands controlled by powerful elven enchanters. We need to get back to a more medieval view of nature as both source of key resources needed for life and something to be feared--and fey as a sort of adversary in this process--to be fought or placated, not trifled with. Read a little Celtic folklore, and you'll get the idea. Fey are in a certain way minor local deities, spirits who have supernatural powers and control certain sites or features on the local landscape. Ordinary people know not to cross Usheen's Bridge after midnight or to enter a fairy mound when invited in. They leave milk and bread for the brownies so that their home will not be visited with misfortune. They're canny enough not to be deceived by the leprechaun's gold--look what happened to old Seamus O'Leary in the next village over. And if you go deep into the forest by yourself, you're liable never to come out again, or to return greatly changed many decades later when the fairies have tired of you.

2. Contemporary images of "fairies" as cutesy little girls with wings (and perhaps our use of the term as a pejorative for gay men) have completely overlaid the original concept of a strange, eldritch otherworld that can be reached by venturing far from the known paths of civilization--in wild reaches or inside the mounds and monuments left behind by peoples no longer remembered. This has been a progressive evolution--the powerful and otherworldly Tuatha de Danaan in early Irish literature (and their counterparts in the Welsh Mabinogion) reveal faeries as beings of godlike power, demigods who live in a world separated from our own by a thin veil. The evil side of this community of magical beings is represented by creatures like the Fir Bolg, or the germanic Grendel, or the Trolls that inhabit medieval Scandinavian literature. By early modern times, faeries begin to be diminished--the Tuatha and their ilk disappear, and we are left with the various minor fey, who are still perilous and capable of great mischief, but not as awe-inspiring as their forebears. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the beginning of the end for the faeries--mischievous they are, but they can be rationalized away as the products of dream and fantasy. Peter Pan, I think, marks the replacement of the grim, otherworldly, maliciously magical beings with the innocent and childlike ones.

A dryad or a band of pixies can be fearsome enemies if played well. And PCs, especially human and dwarven ones, are usually viewed as the enemy by fey, automatically. Human society is generally lawful and believes in taming, civilizing, and harvesting nature--fey are diametrically opposed to this. They may not march out in a big army and whoop the humans, because that's not their style or their strong point. But they will certainly fight tooth and nail with the resources they have available to prevent logging, hunting and trapping, etc. And this means visiting all kinds of unpleasant misfortunes and accidents on those who are behind such abuses of nature. Fey are the consumate eco-terrorists, if they were alive in our world, they'd be spiking trees and blowing up dams, and forest service rangers and logging company executives would regularly meet with strange accidents.

You can't run fey in the sort of melee slugfest or battle arcane that we typically run in D&D. Fey are more prone to hit and run, to do things to screw with their adversaries without moving in for the kill, and to use their spell-like abilities to befuddle, annoy, or mislead their opponents until they give up and go home. I recently ran an adventure for my nephews and nieces that involved the PCs being hired by a frontier baron to investigate a series of mishaps that have stopped work on his new castle. His serfs attribute them to evil spirits of the forest, but he is skeptical and wants to find out what's really going on. Needless to say, I taught them a few lessons with a splinterwaif and a very prank-happy grig, before they were induced to serve as go-betweens in negotiations between the forest denizens (backed by a gnome druid-illusionist) and their original employer. If they try to back out, I'll have to sick a band of pixies on them. (There's a reason why Otto's Irresistable Dance is an 8th level spell).

For inspiration on running creepy, anarchist, or eco-terrorist fey, read Henry Glassie, "Irish Folktales," look at Brian Froud and Alan Lee, "Faeries," and read two of my favorite books Ernest Callenbach's "Ecotopia" and Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang" (not about fey but about eco-terrorists and a hippy utopia, respectively, and very useful inspiration for thinking about how those dedicated to preserving untrammeled nature might look at the world and deal with nature's despoilers).

It's not all about Good vs. Evil. There's all kinds of good adventuring to be done that plays on the Law vs. Chaos conflict.