Rexx's page

Yeah, this all "blows" quite honestly. After the death of Dragon and Dungeon I have had zero interest in RPGs. Weird? Then 4E was announced and I promptly boxed up all my 24+ years of accumulated RPG stuff and put it in storage. Even weirder? I haven't run a game since mid-June (much to the dismay of the gaming group) and really doubt I'll ever pick up the dice again. Maybe my kids will show an interest in the dusty tomes one day...but I'm through with "new and improved" RPGs. Sorry Paizo, I love your products (okay, I'm a homer for Greyhawk), but WotC has screwed you out this high $$$ spending gamer's interest in RPGs.

Best of luck 4E, I hope you suck the big donkey balls people are predicting.

BTW, all that $$$ I haven't been spending on gaming "crap", the family is having one helluva of fun Xmas this year. So thanks for that, WotC.

Thanks for the links, Rob. Great cartography on the BK map. New wallpaper for the work PC!

What CR is Kyss ikown it was answered in dungeon after the aow, but i cant it...

The Age of Worms search engine is your friend if Antoine7 isn't around to answer the question again:

Archived Kyuss' CR Thread

My only quandry is, who should be the cultist, Skunt, or Capt. Trask?

Trask may be in a dead-in town in the twilight of his career but I think he'd be more likely to be focused on "retiring" than potentially finding himself at the end of a rope. Lieutenants can vanish for illicit activities more easily than the commanding officer of the garrison.

Build a backstory for Lt. Skunt that ties him to Alhaster and as a worshiper of Hextor. It won't mean much to the players at this point but later on they'll have a "oh remember that cultist traitor SOB we snagged"-moment later.

A revised version would be certainly nice.

Some of the critters that were in the original (flumph, froghemoth) have since seen "official" treatment within the pages of Dungeon. Would a revised Tome of Horrors have to omit such critters now?

Last night would have been one for rolling behind the screens, except that for the last three years or so all of us have been rolling right out in the open, for all to see. It was bound to go badly one of these days.

It sounds like you have a lot of catalysts to keep the game going. I wish you luck and enjoy the AP! I (we) certainly have.

"DM's can curve dice rolls whenever necessary." Usually the words I hear frequently on the nights that I am rolling "hot" behind the screen.

Indeed a lot of discussion on TPK's in Three Faces of Evil have already happened. Using the search engine with the key words of "TPK" and "TFoE", I came up with three other unique threads and scores of other individual posts. Poke around through what has already been written and you may find some nuggets of guidance to help get your game going again.

Actually, I don't believe you can make the spell "Longstrider" into a potion at all because it has range Personal.

The potions of longstrider listed under the gear of the gnoll halberdiers must then be a complete gaff on the Rules Lawyer Supreme's part of the editing. Obviously I can empathize...

Any other nuggets of error in the rest of the stat-blocks for The Champion's Belt?

Three Faces of Evil has had a lot of great "corrective" threads that have added a lot of good material to help with PC/antagonist motivations. These are a couple of my favourites...yeah I'm biased.

How to spin the PCs slaughter in the three temples to be the Faceless One's real intention.

Make Balabar Smenk the crafty business man scared for his life rather than "the bad guy".

The point is for the party to find the lair, and spend a couple of days getting beaten up by the nasty environment before they get there. Make the lair be two days travel into the Mistmarsh, however far that is for your characters.

As for "non-trackers taking a little longer", this isn't so much a hard rule but the assumption of Mr. Reynolds that the trail would get lost, found, lost again, and this process would cost time where as a ranger with a +12 Survival and a water walking spell would cover the ground a lot quicker.

A half-full wand of cure light wounds will go a long way to helping the "non-traditional" party configuration survive below the Dourstone Mine.

Not to sound like a skipping record but make use of the Search Engine for the AoW forum. There have been a number of threads on how to survive the Three Faces of Evil adventure and should help you think of ways to adjust the scenario so your players can rest/recoup/survive/win the day.

This thread may help you rationalize the motives of the antagonists and allow the PCs a chance to rest between temples. From this tweak, the players are paranoid of killing cultists; even in The Champion's Belt the PCs are paranoid of killing gladiators/blue cloaks for fear of feeding another Aspect.

Ok, I guess I've never been a big fan of traps. They seem so... stupid in a RPG. If your rogue rolls (DC's always seem so high) not great and misses the trap, Boom. Take alot of damage, possibly die, heck TPK even.

I guess I hate that.

I guess I hate that.

::wipes sarcasm from his beard:: Monsters, traps, puzzles, NPC diplomacy...all standard fixtures of RPGs, computer games, a lot of board games, and everyday life in school/work/home. Some people don't like certain aspects of the game but for every person that doesn't like traps there's someone that does. I bet there's someone in your party that does; let them take lead and build on their trap solving synergy so overcoming the obstacle becomes a team victory rather than a reason to hate something about the game. If you're playing a rogue and hate traps, then perhaps it's time to start taking some levels in another class...

As ASEO keeps mentioning, this has been a topic of discussion for two years. This thread has Mr. Jacob's explanation and links to the previous two threads on the same subject.

This concept is doable but can put PCs in awkward positions of interaction and survivability. I tried this concept with a thieves' guild campaign back when adventures had their difficulty scaled by "total party levels". Higher level PCs tended to take the limelight and then complain when I divvied up "equal XP" to the whole thief squad. No "I" in "team" but sure is one in "thief"! Then the game where I had 14 players show up...well my head exploded with sensory overload. The pressure on me to find "episodic" situations for each session also became a burden. No matter how hard you try to wrap up a "job" in six hours, there is still some adventure that slops over to the next session and when the player make up changes it's hard to explain where Grimble wandered off and why Kinndyr suddenly arrived and didn't bring refreshments for everyone.

For this to work smoothly, you'll need to have a relatively large pool of scenarios to pull from to fit a variety of players/class/level mixes. It helps to have one steady player the designated "captain" and the rest of the players willing to fall into accepting orders and not doing their own thing (which suddenly reminds me how I tried this concept with a Spelljamming ship as well...that worked much better actually) as that slows down the scenario and jeopardizes its chances of being finished in the allotted time. Be wary of level differences of greater than six levels as middle ground is still deadly for the lower levels and boring for the higher.

Good luck and let us know how this works out for you.

Dungeon #150 will also include a complete index of all adventures ever published in the magazine.

Thank you for the memories, Tom. Give my regards to Keith and DCS III.

This order has been in "Pending" status for three business weeks now which is a new one for me compared to past orders with your company. In the past, I can usually see which items are in stock and which ones are holding things up. Generally three weeks of "limbo" would drive your typical customer away considering the abundance of other online outlets that have a much quicker turnaround. Some clarification to the status of this order would be appreciated.

~~~Rodney in CA

Getting punched in the chest is a good way to describe how I feel right now. It's like somebody just kicked my dog or something... O.o

It's been a rough week...VA Tech, taxes, death to my "kin" in Dungeon and Dragon. What's next? Prohibition returns? Ice cream causes cancer?

Like so many, I'll put my remaining tab into Pathfinder but I will need to be experiencing d20 OGLagasms with each release to commit to further months.

Loyalty to a company/brand takes a hit with events like this. TSR's death throes were survived, I suppose our favourite magazine will be too.

I just hope aspiring writers, artists, and editors will have a chance to contribute through Paizo's guidance.

OMFG!

Saddened is all I can say.

Times like this I think "Second Edition...I have all that" and am ready to just walk away from WotC/Paizo/Kenzer/Whoever.

Shutting down Dragon and Dungeon will be a grave mistake.

Yes. Second level spell (web, game over) access makes Filge a pushover. Five second level characters should easily wax Filge & Co. if they're remotely capable of keeping their entry into the Old Observatory masked as long as possible.

I'm wondering though when the PCs should hit level 3? Is it before they go to the Feral Dog, before the face Filge, or at the very end after they get to the true tomb?

Thanks.

In otherwords, *ding* before the final foray into the Cairn. They'll need it.

I asked about this a month ago. No response, so I took matters into my own hands. As a Firefox user, my overrides can override Paizo's overrides. :-) I put the following into my userContent.css:

a:link, a:visited, a:active, a:hover { text-decoration: underline !important; }

Now all links are always underlined, regardless of what the site specifies. I could have made this a little more complicated and have it affect only links in certain places on paizo.com, but I didn't feel it was worth the effort. Problem solved on my end.

Hmmm, Wiki to the rescue..."Age of Great Sorrow" or "Epoch of Magic". I guess those will not infringe on potential "Age of Empires"© issues...

Not per se. The Domain of Greyhawk forum is the AoW stuff on the Difonix site. I broke up the portions of the campaign thus far that roughly match each adventure. There are some bits of "journalesque" material there, but mostly it's a bunch of friends rambling about available dates to game. ::wink:: And a bit of morbid humour. A lot of the "original" material I've written for the campaign I've posted on Paizo to some extent, but it's all in one spot on Difonix.com if you care to sift through Part I-IV and the campaign primer info.

I'll go with "Age of Empires" for the current age unless something more "canon" pops up before game time tonight.

The Opening of the Sky (round 1)
The Razing of the Earth (round 2)
The Breaching of the Underworld (Round 3)
The Age of Eldar (round 4)
The Age of Law (round 5)
The Age of War (round 6)
The Age of Dust (round 7)
The Age of Roads (round 8)
The Age of Empire (round 9)
The Age of Dissolution (round 10)

I know I've read a treatise on the "ancient days of Greyhawk"; it was more a outline of Ages for Oerth. It may very well have been on Erik Mona's own site. Or was that his "eras" of the Multiverse going back to "The Beginning"? Senility has already begun to settle on this brain of mine. There are some true Sages of Oerth on these boards, I hope one will take the time to toss a link my way.

As for the change of avatars, there's an explanation under my profile. Besides, the sighing Doctor Lucky doesn't fit now that taxes have been done and Spring is going strong here in California. If Paizo would put up the "Beholder Tan Line" picture as an avatar, I'd use that. ::smirk::

The Age of Worms is around the corner and the goal is to stop this from happening and preserve the current Age of....? What do the majority of sages call the current Age for Greyhawk? When did this Age start? What was the Age before that?

I'm taking the Titan's House portion of the Coenoby in The Champion's Belt and making it pretty clear it was an ancient settlement destroyed by some sort of cataclysmic event. The priest of Pelor and paladin of Sehanine Moonbow have visions of the ancient settlement being destroyed (in a rather cheesy rip off of Sara Conner's visions of doom from T2...but it works) and I'd like to link this event somehow to the end of one Age, perhaps the Age that the Flan nations imploded. These visions then can become the parallels to the visions of what may happen to Greyhawk if the Apostle is loosed on the populace.

I know there's something out there on the Ages but my search checks keep failing. Can anyone provide some insight, please?

The embedded link colour for the text is too subtle a colour difference from the standard black text colour. A lot of new users would have trouble telling the difference between this and this and realizing the significance of the slight colour difference. If the font colour was cyan or magenta it would be clearer that an embedded link is in the text.

I ran *A Night On the Town* as a prelude adventure to get the PCs integrated into Diamond Lake. The adventure works well as everyone leveled after their first session in the Whispering Cairn. Also one of the PCs were culled from the gang (Gerzy, aka Gerzin, aka Spade) and is a 10th rogue at this point.

*Link embedded in text.

Supe up the sons of kyuss for this encounter, you set the precedence of all future encounters with the critters.

Rather than suping up the spawn, you may find that having 5 or 6 of them is enough; I had seven spawn and that was too many. My party of five PCs were 7th level by they time they reached the end encounter and seven fear effects to save against assured everyone but the paladin failed. Lure the PCs away from the stairs with noises and then have the spawns near the stair pop out to block their exit. I would have had a TPK on my hands if the I hadn't "curved some dice rolls"; I realized too late that I had too many spawns to overcome considering the odds of PCs making seven Will saves aren't as good as I had thought. Fear affected, kyuss worms crawling over the PCs...spawn are ugly enough as is, especially en masse.

If you need a premise for all the spawns in the cellar, run *Peter Fuesz's soldier side story* to get the numbers up. A lot of us have used this to spectacular results; I played this on Halloween last year and the players still talk about it being the best gaming session ever. I had two "sick" soldiers go down to the basement to start so there were three spawns to begins with so Duncan, Walton, Yerell, Hammond, and Santos ("where is he from?!") had their hands full. Hammond escaped, otherwise everyone both enjoyed seeing their "soldiers" attacking their PCs and hating them at the same time. Good stuff.

You may want to save your "suped" sons of Kyuss for Spire of Longshadows considering the taint of the area is enough to make them uber-spawn.

Good luck.

*Link to Soldier Story embedded in text.

I just don't want some rules lawyer PC raining on my parade.

Once upon a time, there was a 2E document that someone had done for Dwarves and Gnomes of Greyhawk that broke down Clan names by region and the like. My five minute Google search came up empty and I apparently don't have an electronic version on the work PC but I'll check if I still have it at home. If so, I'll pass that information along.

Perhaps when the "adventure" portion of the publishing schedule dies down some we will see the AoW hardcover approved.

Greetings Betote. Your grammar is excellent, so no worries errors in translation.

I was in the same situation of needing to fuse HoHR and CB into a large "Free City" installment of the AP. My reasons were the PCs were a little ahead of the game in XP and I really felt the doppelganger-based elements were a bit hackneyed for my players to do again.

So I had to lure the PCs into Zyrxog's machinations. I used the drow thralls to set ambushes and make it clear that someone wanted the PCs dead. I also had an old PC from the early parts of the campaign that had gone missing reappear with the drow and escape into the sewers. This led to a chase through the undercity until they found themselves at Zyrxog's doorstep.

I realize you likely haven't devised a lure as intriguing as a missing companion, but perhaps the drow have snuck into the PCs rooms and have stolen personal effects, items that can be used for scrying and the like. Maybe the arcane caster's familiar was stolen, or the favourite animal companion was taken. Hopefully that's enough to get the PCs to follow after.

If the PCs do not want to be railroaded, a natural instinct for some, then it's easy enough to place the hints you need in the time leading up to the Games. Eligos approaches the PCs about the Apostolic Scrolls and rumours that a powerful citizen of the City has purchased them. All the "celebrities" of the City will be at the Games and that's a likely place for the Scrolls to take affect. That should give the PCs enough material to go on to entice them into the adventure's plots. Drow, disguised as Arcane Auriga, attack the PCs the first night, sapping them of resources for the first match and making them realize that they're not safe in the Coenoby either. That may get them to explore where the drow came from and lead to the discovery of the Apostle.

Best of luck.

If I were to run HoHR over again, I would change the gaze attack to a single eye ray attack (ala Beholder). That would preserve one of their key elements but buy some time for the party to get their shots in before they are all moving slowly.

The second is The Spottle Parlor from issue 12 or so.

I used the setting and the game Spottle in the middle of a campaign I was running waaaay back when and the players had a great time. They had so great a time they asked to keep returning to "The Spottle Spot" time and time again between adventures to have some R&R. The unique NPCs in the adventure, as well as any others a good DM can throw into the mix as well as the game Spottle itself make the adventure wonderful and the site a great one for any game. We used a big rubber toy frog for the Spottle toad, poker chips for gold, silver, and copper pieces when we bet, and created fun memories each and every time we revisited the parlor.

Here's an instant that the 3.xE skills could have saved the day, especially with Bluff and Sense Motive checks. The barbarian blurts out and points behind the spottle dealer "Look, Haley's Comet!". I had the dealer make a d4+2 x WIS check on d% and ended with a bad luck roll. The dealer bit on the bluff and the barbarian bit on the frog. ::sigh:: After the dealer realizes what's happening the game session degrades into a Three Stooges episode with the barbarian spitting up the frog, the cleric trying to revive it, and the dealer calling in the toughs rough up the PCs.

Still to this day, when the players attempt a Bluff that fails, they try again with "Look, Haley's Comet!!!"

So good call on "memorable" adventure site as the memories flooded back for me!

My kids (8 & 6) liked to watch this and I had seen a few episodes out of context and thought it was okay. I had caught a Season Two episode after not watching Avatar in months and found myself thoroughly confused with the development of the "bad guys". Netflix to the rescue! We're through Chapter 5 in the Book of Earth and I absolutely love this show. Hell, my son's birthday was a convenient excuse to hit Great America and get everyone Momo plushes and my own Appa. Great characters, humour that is actually funny without losing the younger viewers, and great story arcs. The d20 info on Avatar may be enough to get my daughter interested in Daddy's "dice games". ::crosses fingers::

Does anyone have a "favourite" they want to share? Episode, character, quote, critter, or the like?

The pirate episode where the cabbage salesmen makes a second appearance was great; Iroh is wise, witty, and entertaining; "penta pox? Didn't your cousin have that?" was a line right out of my own D&D game; and Appa is my favourite critter though Momo has the exact personality of my cat Charlie and why he's a huge favourite with the wife and kids.

I haven't seen an adventure that made me think 'wow' as often as this one since The Whispering Cairn.

My most memorable Dungeon local would have to be Flame's lair as depicted by Keith Parkinson. That picture alone in the early ads for Dungeon that appeared in Dragon was enough to get me subscribing to the magazine at issue #2 and I haven't regretted a subscription renewal since, especially that one I did at the brink!

Once again, thank you folks for the input. I use the SC version in honour of the Cult of the d12, an organization seeking to integrate the d12 back into D&D society that first manifested at GC '01 with the "Adopt a d12" ad campaign.

I want to confirm that the spell reciprocal gyre spell from the Spell Compendium targeted on a adversary that has imbibed five "buff" potions before combat would be subject to 5d12 damage as potions are a "targeted spell effect" and not "magic from an item"? Is this a correct interpretation or am I off?

Agreed. just brought it up to my group to chew on. Mind you, I made it a "we don't really have an issue yet" discussion, not a "this is a new rule" discussion.

What I do, and what I suggest you do, is a tiny extra die roll, as per the Dungeoncraft article. Rather than centering an AoE on a grid intersection, you center it on a square and roll a d4. Each number corresponds to a corner of the square. So, you can get pretty accurate, but never pin-point. There's always a 5-foot variance, so there's a good chance your fighter buddy might get roasted if you drop that fireball to catch the orc. Or, you could play it safe and risk not hitting either. But there's some uncertainty and it's a very minor,...

I was surprised not to find an existing thread on this subject already in the archives. So I may as well throw these observations out to those who will be playing this adventure in the future.

The following is from a player from another game that ran Arcane Auriga for me during the first round of the Champion's Games:

Auriga errata
1) The additional 1d6 for Rennida's frost damage is not listed
2) The +2 Reflex she gets from her familiar is not listed.
3) The whole non-stacking of magical ammuntion with the magical bow limitation in 3.5 makes the Arcane Archer PC useless. If this limitation is in place, I would recommend no level in Arcane Archer, and rather just take another level in fighter for the extra feat.

Tactics
- Rennida's familiar is probably not with her. This would take away the Alertness feat, but would still allow her the + 2 to Reflex.
- Screw the memorization of Jump, Melf's and Ray of Enfeeblement. Useless in this situation. She should have memorized some more buff-type spells. There should also be some way to negate the armour failure rate for the pre-game buffs...maybe she doffs her breastplate, casts, and then the 3 other elves help her don her breastplate.
- Assuming they have made pacts with the other teams to go after the PCs first (which is probably going to be the case from a real-world perspective, as all the players are going to want to take on the PCs rather than the other NPC groups just for the sake of "ha-ha...I almost killed your character...") Their first round, all four elves should spend their entire action getting as far away as possible from each other, using a full run action. This way, it spreads out the PCs and makes them burn their high-lvl area effect spells on killing just a single NPC. The way I played it was just stupid, especially considering the area-effect spells I knew were coming. I think I was just putting too much confidence in the scroll actually working.....
- Once spread out as far as practicable, the elves should just take a full attack every round, plinking away.

If anyone has noticed further stat block errors in the rest of the scenario, would you please add to this thread. Thanks!

By contrast, the rule you have will only come into play when certain specific conditions are met, involves non-intuitive numbers not recorded on the character sheet, and changes each time the character gets hurt or levels.

Perhaps I am trying to instill the aspects of uncertainty upon the battlefield too much. I believe that is my real source of heartburn with the committee tactics. In a single 3.xE round, equivalent to a "segment" in my old 1E/2E mentality, I have difficulty allowing prolonged discussion about a tactical move. The "fog of war" should affect the PC's ability to recognize the best tactical situations. If a player can use the birds-eye perspective that a battlemat/miniatures provides to their own advantage, great! I hope that during their comrade's initiative, that player was already thinking about their tactics. When they're up, they should know immediately what to do and (hopefully) the rules to resolve the tactic. My issue is when other players interject with "no, you want to put the AoE here so you can get these guys too" or "charge and get an attack this round too". Invariably that becomes the new location of the AoE spell and the player forgoes the double move for a charge attack. Granted, our characters are typically "smarter" than the players running them, especially with wizards. The committee aspect provides a group intelligence that probably corresponds closer to the game mechanic Intelligence of the character.

That is why I am trying to come up with a mechanic that reflects that PC's ability to adjust their thinking in the "fog of war" accurately. A Spellcraft check seems logical to me for designating AoE spells. Perhaps a Level or Wisdom check would work for combat tactics derived by committee. The hit point loss variable to the target DC captures the the "fog of war" element. It always seemed odd to me that a rogue making a Climb check has the same chance of success when at maximum hit points and as when down to his last one. I'm sure such a mechanic wasn't considered because of the constant variables needed to be calculated. To expedite a fantasy RPG, some elements of realism have to be omitted, otherwise we'd all be playing Rifts. ::rimshot::

I have plenty to consider on this. Thank you all that have added input.

...less time consuming mathematics wise.

The points about keeping the combat a cooperative effort are well made. Boredom and the distractions they cause are good reasons to keep AoE, flanking, tripping, charging, and other combat tactics open to a committee. Keeping the debate to a minimum to keep the pace steady is a likely solution; perhaps a timer is due to make an appearance.

Thank you for the comments thus far!

No matter what edition of the game I've played, when it has come to using Area of Effect spells, the centre of the effect's location invariably becomes a committee decision amongst the players. It's only human nature that you want to help your comrades in getting the most "bang" for the spell with the minimal threat to "friendlies" on the board. Lately this "AoE by Committee" process has gotten out of hand in my game and I realize it's time for me to become a "hard-ass" DM about it again.

Back in 1E/2E I used to dock XP but I think there's better potential with the 3.xE mechanics to give a player an opportunity to call on the "committee" but at a cost.

The spellcaster is the sole person to declare the location of an Area of Effect spell. Once they've designated the Area of Effect, they cannot change it without making a Spellcraft check with a DC of 15 plus spell level. The DC has the following modifiers to reflect fatigue/fog of war: +5 if spellcaster is at 51-75% of their maximum hit points; +10 if the spellcaster is at 11-50% of their maximum hit points; +20 if the spell caster's hit points are 10% or less. If another player blurts out suggestions before the Area of Effect is first designated, the spellcaster must make the Spellcraft check regardless of where they finally declare the Area of Affect.

Is this a little harsh? Or will such a table rule curtail the in-combat decisions by "committee" that slows the pace of combat more than necessary?

Another backlash that should happen is that by so soundly defeating thier opposition in the first round they have effectively "tipped" thier hand as to how powerful the groups abilities really are. Their ranking should increase accordingly, making any further side bets they might arrange much less profitable.

They've certainly tipped their hands to say the least...

Thank you MattW and Eltanin (and MeanDM too!) for the immediate feedback. Seems we have a consensus that things were taken a bit too far in the context of "sport". I'm leaning that way as well, as that's my gut feeling after the round was over.

Certainly some dream warnings, perhaps with a little spanking from the god in question. The Peloran dreams are immediately springing to mind. The cleric is frolicking in a green field, the warmth of the sun upon his/her back. Suddenly, a chill wind comes up and dark and ominous clouds move over the sun. All of the plants in the field shrivel and die, leaving the cleric on a bare cold plain. The frowning face of Pelor forms in the sky, yet sheds no light or warmth on the cleric. Looking up the cleric can only cry, "I thought you were my friend?" Pelor frowns even more deeply and makes a gesture, bringing a flame strike down upon the cleric, who wakes up in a cold sweat.

Those who may be familiar with the taint rules from Heroes of Horror, would such overkill in a "sporting" event be worthy of a point earned?

MeanDM: my waffling comes from the fact that they all intended to let the adversaries an opportunity to surrender (except Renniga of Arcane Auriga) but used massive damage spells that eliminated any chance of surrender, unless sizzling third-degree burns count as a white flag. So it's a case of what they intended to do did not match their actions. Do I hold their potential alignment conflicts to the word of their intentions, or to the results of their actions? They effectively killed two nuetral/good groups they had agreed to not do mortal blows against.

Further insight and comment welcomed.

The first round of the Games have been resolved and my PCs were victorious — to the point of being cold blooded murderers.

Agreements had been reached with Badlands Revenge and the Saphire Squad to not deliver death blows. Neverless, the PCs unleashed all sorts of spell power on the other teams, massive sneak damage, and killer tactics to the point only one adversary could surrender. All others were reduced below -10 on their "death blows". They were like titans playing with kittens and not realizing their strength.

Granted, I set up Arcane Auriga to be treasonous in the eyes of the elven paladin, so I have no heartburn with their demise.

The fact that the NG cleric of Pelor was unleashing flame strikes on the agreed "allies" to deadly affect does give me some heartburn though. I've read through the Pelor article in Dragon 246 wondering if the cleric had stepped over the boundary of "good sportsmanship" but the whole concept of the blood sport we call "gladitorial combat" is pretty grey to begin with.

I wonder where I need to go with this in regards to the PC party and specifically the Pelorian cleric and the paladin. Have they broken their sacred vows by using deadly force in a "sporting" event like the Champion's Games? A cleric of Pelor, known for his help to the needy of the Free City, known for his charity, turns into a killing machine on the arena floor. How will the Pelorian faithful react to this demonstration?

Opinions, similar anecdotes, suggestions are welcome. The aftermath of the first round will be explored during tomorrow's (April 10th) game and I like to have a firm "judgement" in mind. Thank you in advance, my fellow Paizo.com peers.

As this is the Hobgoblin Ale I've had a few years ago, drink it cold, otherwise the finish is too rank.

Hobgoblin Ale Site

Khellek was only really interested in the body of Uluvant, the lost Seeker, so the party directed him toward the corpse and then beat it out of there. I got that idea of these boards, I believe from Rexx. (Thanks Rexx!) All in all, it worked very well to trap the party because I was stuck on how things should work.

I do like what you did with the trio in extricating your PCs from their predicament. That should pay off for you down the road for some heightened roleplaying opportunities.

so the description of his purple rubberiness says that he is 'wielding a staff of red hot metal'. what is this exactly? am i missing something or was it changed? a rod of metamagic is listed under his gear. but that doesn't sound like the staff he's wielding...?

The "red-glowing" was part of the visual ambiance of the staff, as per the Zyrxog artwork, as there aren't any facts about this effect as written. In my mind the lattice "cage" that surrounded the lesser metamagic rod was made of an alloy normally found on illithid nautoloid spelljamming ships (I had devised an spelljamming-based backstory for Zyrxog in the off chance the PCs wanted to explore Zyrxog's thrall network further). This alloy glows red, like "red-hot metal", in the presence of "strong" magical auras. In this case the rod the metal was binding at the end of Zyrxog's staff is the source of strong magic. When Zyrxog used the rod on his lightning bolt against my PCs, it flashed brightly before the spell was delivered. The PCs were shocked when it was a lightning bolt rather than a fireball. If time allowed a resist elements, fire may have been cast and wasted against the wrong energy type, exactly what an intelligent and durable illithid would want an adversary to do...

SO, my players finally managed to get past the howling face to get to the Grick/Sphere Trap chamber. The decided they wanted to use candles to light all the lanterns instead of the sunrods they had with them, or torches. Even though the text says to light with torches I allowed it.

However, it took them quite a while in the Sphere room, and though it didn't come up, it occurred to me, what if one or more of the light sources in the lantern room is extinguished while the PCs are still on teh other side? Does the Howling Face reappear? How would the PCs escape? SHort of finding some way to dig through the spheres to get to the Grick tunnnel (assuming they know about it) are they screwed? Can Allistor (sp?) use his manifestation ability to go to the Lantern room and relight the lanterns?

Has anyone else had this problem?

If you want to have a "time is of the essence" feel to this part, have some sort of warning for the PCs that nudges them to hurry up or get out. Perhaps a slight gust of wind passes through the sphere hall at regular intervals and begins to increase as the lantern light source nears the end of its duration, becoming a strong wind in the last minute. This should be sufficient to get PCs out the hall and out to the lanterns again. If they insist on staying...well, Mr. Land has some company for a time at least!