Sean, Minister of KtSP's page

GM's Initial Campaign Notes:

Finally, after quite a considerable length of time, have finally managed to pull together a group to run a full Pathfinder campaign. I have been itching to do this since Paizo first started putting out campaign info about Golarion. I'm rather smitten with the setting, and the high quality of design and flavor in this wonderful world. In particular, I have wanted to run a campaign based out of Absalom since I first picked up the Guide to Absalom. Every single paragraph seems to suggest an adventure hook, and I have longed to put it to good use. This, paired with the Inner Sea World Guide, are the basis for the campaign. I'm quite liberal about stealing encounters and stat blocks from other places, as you'll see, but the campaign is purely driven by the characters, and their interactions with the world and the hooks provided. I'm also looking at this as an opportunity, over the course of the campaign, to clear out some of the massive stacks of 3.5 adventure materials I've purchased over the years but never used, depending on where the campaign wanders.

Some of the basic mechanical decisions for the campaign -- The players have their choice of either "(4d6, drop lowest) x 6, arrange as desired" or Epic Point Build. All PFSRD standard is acceptable, and anything published by Paizo is default acceptable (provided GM has access to the material, not a problem so far). No third party stuff allowed. The GM reserves the right to impose House Rules, but none are in effect at this time. No non-standard races. No alignment restrictions were imposed, but no one chose an explicitly evil alignment, so that never became an issue. The campaign will be played without the use of minis or battlemats. Players, and more specifically characters are responsible for their own mapping, and mapping ceases the moment combat or other actiony/tense situation occurs, or the characters simply fail to posses quill, ink and parchment (that's right kids, we're doing this old school). Finally, the campaign is using the slow XP track, to really take our time and soak up the atmosphere.

Hey,

So over the weekend, I placed an order for a Gazetter, but then I remembered I already own one. Can somebody help me change that order into a pre-order for Gods and Magic? Or cancel it and I'll place a new order?

Thanks.

It is with deep, deep regret that I need to cancel my Pathfinder subscription.

I just have too many financial pressures right now.

I'll continue to purchase Pathfinder and other Paizo products as I can. You still have my loyalty. I just cannot afford the regular costs right now.

Shipped 4/8.

Okay, I know. Not officially late yet, but still. I live in CA. Why does it always take this long? No other mail from the west coast takes this long. Pathfinder #7 didn't take this long, and it was shipped the same way.

Also? While we're on the subject, I've tried to change my subscription delivery method so many times it makes the Baby Jesus cry, and it never ever ever sticks, even when I make Gary (or is it Cosmo?) change it. It lasts for the one issue, then reverts back.

Gary, I know you're horribly overworked, but please fix this. Please?

You don't like making the Baby Jesus cry, do you?

Hi everyone. I needed to gather you all here to talk about my problems with absence.

I'm really sorry that this has become such a problem. I'm even more sorry that it looks like it's going to continue. I'm getting work calls almost every day. Work surely must slow down some time, but it's showing no signs of doing so any time soon.

It's frustrating. The two PbPs I'm running right now are hands down the two best games I've ever run, and that's almost entirely due to you, my players. Every single one of the characters you've all made are awesome.

But it's not fair to you all for me to keep promising more frequent updates, and then not deliver.

Having said all that, I now have to run out the door for work (again), but I needed to get this discussion started. Three games is definitely too much.

Again, I'm really sorry about all this. I know it sucks for you guys, but let's talk about solutions. I want you all to play in fun games. I want you to play in *my* games, but I don't know how feasible that is right now.

I have some ideas I'll post when I get home, but now I must away...

I think this is sort of related to the "fifteen minute adventuring day", but I think Pathfinder would be an excellent place to introduce a mechanic for spellcasters of all types to cast beyond their daily limits, through spellcraft checks, and taking nonlethal damage equal to the spells level (with possibly double damage or lethal damage on a failed spellcraft check).

What does the rest of the playtest team think? I started another thread on this before in the OGL forum, but I thought it was worth bringing up again here.

Here's the main discussion thread. More info soon.

Matt Wagner writing and drawing.

Hunter Rose the subject.

Grendel fans represent.

I realize that's a very tall order, as the board software seems to be the backbone of the whole website, but the rate of post munching on this board is really sad making. It's very hard to have a coherent game or conversation when posts, threads, and even entire sections keep disappearing, even if they eventually reappear.

That being said, Gary and the rest of the tech crew have my utmost respect and sympathy. Dealing with this ravenous board code must make for sleepless nights, and lots of crying into your coffee while beating your heads against a wall.

So, I'm seriously considering adding a mechanic to all my games to allow spellcasters of all stripes to cast beyond their daily allowance of spells. Unfortunately I haven't hammered out the fine points, and would welcome input on this.

What I have in mind is allowing casters to make a Spellcraft or maybe caster level check to cast a spell they have either memorized and expended from their daily casting, or in the case of sorcerers and casters like them, no longer have spells per day available from that level.

But this ability needs to come with a cost, to represent the caster expending some part of herself in order to cast beyond her limits. I was thinking either some kind of CON damage, or non-lethal damage (with a failed check causing lethal damage, maybe). Damage should be serious on a failed attempt, but I also think it should come with some kind of minimum damage, even on a successful check, to put a hard cap on the number of times this can be attempted, even for maxed out PCs that can make the check easily.

The question then becomes one of setting the approprate check DCs and the amount of damage.

What do you think? Players in my PbP games are especially welcome to give input.

I have come to detest battlemats. I really have. And the five foot square grid, too.

I feel like it distances the players too far from the characters, but more importantly, it becomes too easy to reveal too much information to the players.

The fog of war isn't just a video game convention. It's a real thing. Information becomes a precious commodity in combat. Arguably the most precious. Drawing everything out in water pens on a battlemat and placing minis automatically and completly changes the players' relationship to the battlefield. And I can feel it yank everyone at the table out of the game every time I do it. I almost wince.

You want a good example?

Try running a mirror maze encounter with battlemats and minis. There's one in Dungeon 127. In my experience, it completely nerfs the encounter. Drawing anything or placing mini's anywhere gives away too much information, and destroys any kind of "You're in a mirror maze" effect you're trying to generate in your players' minds.

Another example I can think of is the hall directionless halls of mist from the pyramid dungeon in Desert of Desolation. I submit that that whole series of passageways are not playable with a battlemat and minis.

The news from Mr. Logue that a battlemat is basically essential to playing 4e is very disheartening to me.

Hey gang,

So, I keep trying to upgrade my Pathfinder shipping option, because waiting sucks. I want it sent UPS ground (the $6.69 option), and I keep trying to set it to that, but every time I check back in My Subscriptions, it has reverted to the bas USPS package service.

Can you guys make that choice stick?

Though the days still carry the warmth of summer, earlier sunsets, cooler nights and fog shrouded mornings signal the approach of autumn along the Lost Coast, and the citizens of Sandpoint prepare for the Swallowtail festival on the upcoming equinox. The small coastal town bustles with activity as the dawn breaks. The days catch is laid out for the locals to peruse, and merchants and farmers from all around make their way into town to try and profit from the festival crowds.

The festival itself is still two days away, and already the crowds in the market start early, as the dawn descends the face of the Old Light. Many merchants have arrived days ahead of Town Market, hoping to milk every last copper from the masses.

Kinmorn is helping with final preparations at the cathedral, and tending to the needs of the flock. Mitnal is likely at market himself, looking for peace through commerce, perhaps. And Gengar is probably there as well. Temptation is, after all, terribly tempting.

Kinmorn, you've met both Mitnal and Gengar in passing, and know both their names, though whether they remember yours is known only to them. You're also aware that there's a young halfling druid in the area, though you've yet to actually meet him. You're pretty sure he'll be in attendance to see the release of the Swallowtails, and expect to meet him then.

Jessa and Shantare are arriving in Sandpoint just this morning, as part of a larger caravan primarily composed of merchants. Jessa booked passage with the caravan in order to attend the Swallowtail festival, figuring it was as good a place as any to start her Pathfinder journey. She travelled with one other newly minted Pathfinder named Torrick Vey, a self absorbed, arrogant ass of a man, who first tried to get in Jessa's pants, and has been nothing but a colossal prick to her ever since. When he deigns to speak with her at all, that is. Vey is not staying for the Swallowtail festival, but traveling on immediately, heading deep into Storval Plateau to seek his rightful glory.

Shantare joined up with the caravan along the way. She had already been ranging along the Lost Coast, and decided to keep watch on the caravan as it traveled, and attend the Swallowtail festival once in Sandpoint.

Commence out of game discussion and general table talk.

Hola, all. So, I've been putting this off for a bit, as I have had a lot on my plate recently, but things seem to be clear enough these days that I can add running a second PbP game, and I want to start running RotRL, as neither of my RL groups will be getting to that any time soon.

I'm looking for five players max, preferably people in it for the long haul, but I understand how Things can Happen. You should have access to the RotRL players guide. I'm fine with players who are also Pathfinder subscribers, as I trust people to be adults and not meta game, and I plan on making some tweaks here and there. I'd prefer we use Invisible Castle for generating rolls.

I post on US West Coast time, mostly during the day, but that can be a little random. I work freelance, and will sometimes hit periods of up to a month where my posting is greatly reduced, but I usually get plenty of warning, and it doesn't typically last longer than a month. During these periods, I will do my best to post as often as I can, just to keep things moving. The rest of the time, I have enough leisure time to post at least once a day, often more, so everybody else should be able to do the same.

Starting characters should be PhB 1 base classes only. Leveling up and multiclassing among base classes can happen freely, but PrCs need to be taught, and will involve finding and joining a group, or finding some other teacher in game. I will not be stingy with training, and I'm willing to consider Complete PrCs, but PrC training must be played out in game.

More info as interest develops.

Hey gang. My Subscriptions lists my PF#3 as having shipped on 11/5, and I'm using the 3 to 10 business days shipping option.

I'm going to go ahead and call this overdue. I'm sure there's nothing to be done until Monday, but I wanted to post the thread and alert you guys as soon as possible.

I think after this I'll be upgrading my shipping choice, but I do want to close with a "you guys have great customer service" so you know I'm not too upset or bent out of shape.

Thanks,
Sean

...those stupid stick-figure family stickers with names that people put on the backs of their SUVs? 'Cuz guess what? Now I know the names, number and gender of all of your children, and usually your names and the names of your cat and/or dog, too. And I can probably find your address with your license plate number pretty easily, if I don't just follow you home.

"Hi, Tina. I'm a friend of your mom, Kathleen. She asked me to pick you up from school, because she had to take Fluffy to the vet. Get in the car, and we'll go pick up your brohters, Tommy and Billy."

It's pretty much begging someone to snatch your child.

Is there a limit to the number of aliases one can create? Can I create them as needed for NPCs in my PbP game? If there is a limit, what is it, so I can prioritize.

Not sure if this has been brought up before, but I searched the threads and got no hits.

Prologue: Wars and Rumors of War

War comes naturally to the humanoid races. 'Twas ever thus. Mere skimming of the dusty scrolls and worm nibbled tomes of the Archivists histories proves this to be true. Long through the ages have we made war -- upon each other, upon ourselves, upon any living thing that chances down the road or soars through the air above. If you believe the epics and odes of the bards, we have even made war upon the gods themselves. But only damp and swooning maidens believe bards, and even maidens only believe bards long enough to shed their knickers and collapse sweaty into their fathers' straw bales. All of which is to say that murdering other living things en masse is perhaps what the so called civilized races excel at most; though damp and swooning maidens and the painted priestesses of the Red Temples might argue different. But that is a scholarly debate for another day.

War should then be no more alarming than a sunrise, the bloom of a rose, or the wheel of the stars overhead. Just another turn in the Great Spiral of life. Yet we are incapable of refraining from alarm at any other part of life's circles, so why then should war be any different? Only kings and generals have ever seemed to grasp the dull inevitability of war, and among them only handful ever grasped it enough to be any good at it. The rest seem content to bravely throw wave after wave of their own subjects at each other, then pick through the aftermath with the crows, looking for loose coin. 'Twas ever thus.

Still, if one reads closely through the histories and silly poems, sifting carefully through the obvious calumnies and self-promotions to get at the kernels of truth, certain events and patterns begin to stand out. Moments in time when something truly important seems to be at stake. Moments when kings and generals, maidens and priestesses, the sun and the flowers and the wheeling stars overhead, bards and murderers and even the gods themselves all seem to hold their breath at once, wondering if any of them at all would continue to be after tomorrow.

Afterward, the kings and generals and bards, and especially the gods themselves, like to pour on the calumnies and self promotions, and play up their own part in things. They like to strut and preen and proclaim that the outcome was always predetermined by their hand, in whatever way secures the adoration and obedience of the masses, and the Archivists dutifully record it thus. For their part, the masses are as alarmed as any other time – it's all the same to them.

But that is never the truth of what actually happened. The truth at such times almost always lies in the actions of a small handful of people, unaware of their own significance. People just trying to get by in their daily lives without getting shanked, or catching the pox, or one of uncounted other ways to take up residence in a pine box and serve oneself up to wormy feast. People who are almost certainly ignorant of their own import because they go about their petty errands in some muddy speck-hole like the mining town of Diamond Lake.

Simpsons Movie. Saw it at a midnight showing. Thread title contains complete review.

Well, it seemed like the appropriate time to start this thread, so I did. We'll finish up character creation discussion here, establish posting rules and conventions, and I will hand out background information here. Once we've got the party assembled, I will create the play thread, and we'll be off!

I am off to the Burbank Kwik-E-Mart, to pick up a Squishee, a pink donut, some Buzz cola and some Krusty-O's.

What, no sample pages?

/greedy

Hmmm... Nope That tag never closes.

Hi guys,

I know you're all sick to death of people bugging you for new Dungeon supplements, so maybe I shouldn't even post this thread, but I want new supplements!

Anyway, I hope you're all doing well, and getting some sleep every now and then. I hope to see new supplements up soon.

And I hope all your new products sell like hotcakes.

Anybody else excited? As hard as it is to get really excited about movies any more.

Anyway, I was a little dubious when I first heard about it, particularly that Len "Underworld" Wiseman was directing, but then I heard a story that Len had the script totally rewritten because it wasn't at all like the John McClain he knew and loved. That gave me hope.

As did the 8 minute clip on Yahoo.

Okay, I know not everybody is a Beatles or Paul McCartney fan, but I grew up listening to them. I learned to sing by singing along with Beatles tunes.

Anyway, I just downloaded Sir Paul's latest single and WOW! I can't stop listening to it.

It's classic Paul -- bright, poppy (in the best sense of that word), catchy and likable, though (like some of his other songs) there's an undercurrent of melancholy or sadness that maybe comes from his age, lost friends, and his current nasty divorce.

I like it a lot, but it does kind of make me miss John and George. John was always the better songwriter, though he was the darker and more troubled one. And George, well.... sometimes I think I miss George most of all.

I've been trying to read the last two strips for two days now, and the strip pages just Will. Not. Load.

It's getting very annoying.

As inspired by a thread in the Pathfinder discussion area....

In core rules, there are only two half races -- half orcs and half elves. This brings up a whole host of questions:

How do you justify that only orcs and elves create half breeds, and those only with humans?

Have you homebrewed any other half races? Half dwarves? Half gnomes? Half halflings?

Have you created any half breeds between the non human species?

Why or why not allow something like the above?

So, after running AoW for a year and a half, and with most of the big fights being cakewalks for my players, we ran Dawn of a New Age last Saturday and, thankfully, the campaign went out with a bang.

I had done all the roleplay and prep stuff in email beforehand, so we could hit the ground in Alhaster running when the session started (we really wanted to end tha campaign that day).

And boy did they hit it running. The party teleported in to the temple of Kord (a different diety in my campaign, but I'll use the campaign standard info, so people know what I'm talking about.

Upon their arrival at the temple, the priest (whom they had befriended in Prince of Redhand) began ringing the bell, which started the "A Clerical Dispute" encounter. As the crowd gathered, and the priest began urging them all to flee the city, the prist of Hextor showed up, shortly followed by the priestess of the Scarlet Spire (whom the party had also befriended).

The party was swiftly becomming divided, but the PCs quickly rallied the crowd, just as the Kyuss Knights showed up. The party managed to dispatch the Kyuss Knights with little fuss (and no loss of life), which was more than enough to lift the crowd's hopes and get them cheering. They quickly followed the party's plan to divide the crowd up among the churches, and went on their merry way (with the two groups going to other churches being guided by party members).

This left only two PCs remaining at the church of Kord, watching out the front door for the other party members to return. So they were watching as the Advanced Overworms erupted through the buildings across the street. The collapse of the buildings allowed them to see the new, smaller crowd approaching the church, who were now in immediate danger from the worms.

The fight with the worms was much tougher than the fight with the Kyuss Knights, mostly due to the party only having two of its members present for most of the fight. This time they lost bystanders, but were able to save most of them -- certainly more than enough to count the encounter as a win.

From there, they gathered themselves back together and headed for the boneyard. They stopped at the boneyard before talking to the priestess of the Scarlet Spire, so they were just searching blindly, but they weren't too blind to catch a glimpse of the green mist, and the Broodfiend which promptly attacked them (joined soon thereafter by a second nearby Broodfiend).

The broodfiends proved to be tough hombres, but they took them out soon enough. They then consulted with the priestess and got the information about the back entrance to Lashonna's dungeon.

After being shown which mausoleum to enter, they made their way to the dragon stairs and headed down. Of course, with no rogue, they walked right into the dragonbreath trap, but being 20th level, they just stood there and took it for the few rounds they were actually in the trap.

They made their way quickly to the Unlife Vortex room and soon found themselves in a fight with four ghostpriests and eight liches at once. Of course, with the party cleric being a Radiant Servant of Pelor, the undead down there were quickly turned. I determined that none of the other occupants of the dungeon had heard the fight (it was over too quickly) so they wound up being able to study the machinery unmolested long enough to figure it out, so they shut it down and smashed the machinery, then left precisely one round before Vulras and his shadowdancer vampires arrived to investigate.

From there, they gated in a Solar, teleported to the top of the zigurrat, and were immediately involved in combat with Marilee and the Kyuss Knights stationed with her. Despite some close calls with Marilee's gaze attack, they made quick work of them, and headed up the stairs of the Spire. I had the three broodfiends who were nearby attack them on the way up the stairs.

Now, the way I interpreted the rules, the nasty negative energy effects were gone, since they'd destroyed the Unlife Vortex, however the Presence of Kyuss effect was still going because, while they'd successfully completed three of the four town adventures, they'd still not killed Lashonna. And a particular wording in part of the module led me to believe that killing Lashonna was required, not just the three out of four encounters. (If any Paizo peeps want to chime in and let me know if I interpreted that right, I'd appreciate it).

This fight was very tough, and dropped the party Paladin from Int drain. His mount dragged him out onto a protruding balcony to get him away from the fight, only to have him killed by the lightning from the obelisk. But no great loss, as the death pact on the Paladin kicked in, and he came back just in time to help finish off the broodfiends. From there, the party made their way to the top.

When they appeared on the top of the Spire, they found Lashonna, her three Blessed Angel bodyguards, Hemriss, and Lashonna's pet Pit Fiend (whom she'd sent one of her Angels to fetch after she'd discovered she couldn't just teleport herself). And Lashonna greeted them with a "Hi, nice to see you, too bad you're too late," at which point I called for initiative.

Only one party member beat any of the NPCs, and wasn't able to do much, before Kyuss' turn came, and he started emerging from the monolith. Lashonna came next and dominated the paladin without much trouble.

The battle was thick, and hairy, and several times came close to being lost altogether, but they finally were able to kill Lashonna, which ended the nasty unhallow-like effect (and dropping Kyuss to a rank 0 deity), and sent the Blessed Angels fleeing the field of battle. The Pit Fiend stayed to get a few more licks in, but when it became clear it wouldn't be enough, he tried to flee too, but got toasted on the way out.

This left only Kyuss (Hemriss had been held), and though he was still very hard to hit, they knocked him down enough to where the paladin was able to take him out with an effective charge.

After a campaign with too many cake walks (good players with well-built characters, not the fault of the authors), I was worried the final fight would be too easy and that Kyuss would go down like a chump, I was glad to see the final battle be a very exciting and challengin one, and one that came close to going south multiple times.

So, ding dong, Kyuss is dead.

It's been a fun ride, but it's nice to be done with the AP.

Okay, so the other night, I ran my party through the abandoned smuggler's hideout under Parrot Isle. They had ended the session before on a cliffhanger, after Vanthus trapped them down there.

So in the latest session, of course, they got into it with zombies pretty fast, in the first long hallway. Unfortunately they also attracted the attention of the five monstrous crabs in the water-filled room, and were soon in a combat with attackers on both sides.

Now, I frequently like to physically and vocally characterize NPCs and monsters as much as I can for my players, and had a great zombie shuffle for them. But when it came time to characterize the crabs, I couldn't help myself.

I had them make a "Woowoowoowoowoowoo." sound as they scuttled up to engage the party.

Anybody else that much of....

Just me then, huh?

So, my Savage Tide players have just been trapped in the dungeon under Parrot Island (leaving them on a nice cliffhanger).

I decided that I wanted Penkus to be a much more vivid encounter -- one that would stick with them, and maybe make them shudder a little bit.

I decided that rather than leaving a note (as much as I love the nice handouts we get from Dungeon), Penkus should still be alive. Sort of. I decided that he did, in fact, die from his encounter with the huecuva, but he has now risen as a zombie (albeit an articulate one).

So, instead of finding Penkus' last note, they will find Penkus himself, who (looking very much like Bootstrap Bill Turner, from Pirates of the Caribbean 2) will tell them his story himself.

And then attack.

I think that should be even more memorable than a cool handout. What do you people think?

Because seriously? You should be watching it.

It is truly the most unique and original series to hit TV in a very. Long. Time.

If you're at all an Eddie Izzard fan then you should definitely be watching. Eddie plays the dad of a family of Irish Travellers who wind up witnessing the death of a very wealthy couple who were on their way to their new home in Edenfalls Louisiana. Since Eddie's family is in hot water with the rest of their Traveller clan, they decide to "steal the American dream," and take over these people's lives.

And yes, the presmise is maybe a little dubious, or hard to understand at first, but the depth and complexity of the characters involved in this show is astounding. Each week, the show is by turns funny, exciting and heartbreaking, and it ponders in depth themes of family and togetherness, and the lies that stitch together so much of the lives of the very wealthy (and maybe even the rest of us).

From the first few minutes of the pilot, I have been entranced. Eddie is amazing (though his accent still needs work), Minnie Driver is astounding (and she occasionally shows off some jaw-dropping singing chops), and the kids who play their children are absolutely wonderful.

You all should start watching this show immediately (provided you get cable, and get FX with your services).

So, now that I've had a few days to chew on this, let it settle in, and get over the loss of Dungeon (and the industry classic Dragon, though I never read it very often), I WANT MY PATHFINDER #1 NOW!

Seriously. I don't want to wait. I want to get started on this adventure path now. The artwork, the adventures, the stories and articles, and especially the goblins all sound awesome, and now I'm irritated that I have to wait SO LONG for the first book to arrive.

I don't suppose there's any chance of maybe posting the PDF for that volume early, like say once you have it all laid out and ready to send to the printer. As a nice little thank you gift for us charter subscribers maybe?

Okay, so I'm trying to tweak Kagro Thundersmiter a little bit, and I don't own the Draconomicon, so I'm having a little trouble reverse-engineering his HD equation -- the math is not working out for me:

His Con (24) bonus (+7) times his 27 HD = 189
His 15d8 racial HD times avg. (4.5) = 67
His 8d6 rogue HD times avg. (3.5) = 28

He has 4 Dragonstalker levels. (15 giant + 8 rogue + 4 dragonstalker = 27 HD, so he's not an advanced giant)

189+67+28 = 284. His total Hit Points are listed as 319.

319-284 = 35.

None of the HD averages, even for a d12 (6.5) can be multiplied by 4 and give me 35.

There's some extra hit points in there that I can't account for.

Did Greg V. just do the math wrong, or am I missing something? I've checked all his magic items, and none of them account for it.

And by the way, I like that Paizo has started giving AC breakdowns in their stat blocks. If they could start giving HD breakdowns, at least when using classes from non-core books, that would be a big help, too.

So, in contrast to another thread about the religion of players, I wanted to get other people's feelings about religions *in* the game.

While I enjoy D&D, and enjoy playing the core game as written, there's something that has come to bug me about the game recently, and I wondered what others did in their games, particularly those with home-brewed worlds and settings.

I'm starting to really dislike the way gods, religions and clerics are presented in D&D, and how this affects both settings, and the overall treatment of magic.

Clerics get spells from their gods because their gods are 50' tall beings who can poke you if they want to, and in many cases because they will actually explicitly talk to the clerics and tell them what they want done.

This explicitly affects the overall way magic is presented because it creates a (in my opinion) bizarre, arbitrary and needless division between arcane and divine magic.

I myself would like to see a D&D world where we have no empirical evidence for the existence of gods (much like our own world), and the guy with the vestments is just a guy in a shawl and a hat. I think in the "real world" (in as much as that phrase can be applied in any meaningful way in this context), if magic existed, religion would just incorporate it into its world view. Sure, people who practiced magic could easily set themselves up as priest, pope or god, because look at his MIGHTY POWERS, but that would soon fade away, and those would only be cults of personality of varying size. Religions would either accept it, laying out what kinds of magic were good and what kinds were taboo, or they'd reject all magic and try to burn the witches.

Have other DMs attempted this in their home brewed campaigns? If so, how did you handle it? Did you make any changes to the magic system? What gods did you offer?

And as an added bonus question, did you ever add real world religions to your game, and if so, what stage of development did you add them (during the arrival of a prophet, a hundred years or so after the appearance of a messiah, long after the religion was established...)? I'm sure many, many people have done this, so I wanted to explore this area of the game in-thread.

I'm finally gearing up to run my PCs through KotR, and man am I excited. I've been looking forward to this one since I first read it. The introduction to Kongen-Thulnir has an almost Final Fantasy feel to it, in the scope of the vista as the PCs take in the siege.

After reading the debate about what to do about the crawler loads, I'm thinking of giving the loads a "penetrating" quality, like searing for fire magic -- that it ignores paralysis immunity, essentially.

I'm also trying to figure out how best to replace Alastor Land's ghost. I started buying the AP at EaBK, and my players didn't want to start first level anyway, so they weren't from Diamond Lake, and didn't have much to do with it, so they never knew Alastor Land, Balabar Smenk, or any of those guys. So far the campaign really hasn't suffered from excluding any of that, save that some of that middle stuff felt a little railroady (luckily my players prefer to just run what I have prepared) but Mr. Land does impart a fair bit of information it seems. I'll probably just replace him with the ghost of one of the party's (many) fallen comrades.

Either way, I'm looking forward to what more or less amounts to an adventure full of "End Bosses."

Hey,

I am running AoW, and am currently part way through HoHR. We'll probably get to the Sodden Hold next session, but there's some things about the building and its secret underground level that are glarlingly not working for me and I could use some advice on what I'm not getting, or how to tweak it so that it actually works.

First, Sodden Hold is supposed to be located on a river bank, but the typical ground by a river bank like that seems unlikely to support that type of underground tunnelling. Let alone to such a great depth.

Second, the map to the Warren Level appears to have an error in it. I presume the hallway entering room D9 from the top of the map is the short hallway at the bottom of the shaft in D8, but the text for room D8 indicates that the hallway should be running east to west.

Finally, if I am understanding the text for rooms D8 and 9 correctly, the depth math is really not working out. The shaft in D8 descends 35 feet to the surface of the water, which descends another 40 feet to the bottom of D9. The water in D9 is 40 feet deep, and the control pillar another 10 feet above that, which puts floor level of the Warren 25 feet below the floor of the Hold level, and the ceiling (presuming 10 foot ceilings) only fifteen feet below. None of that would be all that much of a problem, except that any attempt at arranging the two levels at anything remotely resembling the adventure text causes the 40 foot deept pit trap in front of the false door in room D2 to fully intrude through some important part of the Warren, making the whole thing impossible.

Am I missing something? Am I smoking crack? Am I nitpicking too much? All of the above?

Thanks.