Shimrath's page

I too was not fond of the "watchful eye wreathed in flame" symbol for the city. The fact that the town is on top of a volcano is foreshadowing enough that there may be some fire involved at some point. Surabar Spellmason was obviously fond of the element of earth, having built both the Basalt Bastions in Redgorge and the Lakeside Pavilion in Cauldron.

In the end i made my own symbol, using a stylized eye from some vision advertisement. I wanted to be sure the eye looked human, and not monstrous or demonic at all. I also wanted to incorporate some brown into it, to represent Surabar's chosen element. In the end, i tried to make the inner-eye a small version of Cauldron from above, with the lake as the pupil.

Copy & paste the address below to see it, and feel free to use it if you like.

http://www.geocities.com/shimrath@sbcglobal.net/CauldronSymbol

It has been mentioned more than once that the PCs need to be made aware that the half-orc mercs are being smuggled into the city. If Drathkar's Way wasn't part of the original adventure path, then how was this fact presented to the PCs in the Dungeon version?

I'm scared of him. And I'm the Dungeon Master.

My advice is to run it as written.

I just ran the fight with 4 PCs of 2nd level. They were getting beaten badly, and having trouble getting any damage to stick to Kazmojen. The players were smart (they're all long time D&D players); When they realized that they had little chance of bypassing Kazmojen's high AC, they started to use tactics such as aid another or grappling to prevent the dwarf-troll from attacking. In the end, i did have Fario run in to help, because things were taking way too long and i really wanted things to end one way or another. They used the aforementioned tactics to help Fario land the killing blow, and no none died.

With your 5 PCs of 3rd level, i think it'll be fine.

Look at it this way: If the PCs win, great. If they lose, well, Kazmojen sells slaves, and any PC that hasn't bled to death is another body for him to sell. You can have Fario & Fellian rescue them. This is what i had planned (before it took the party 4.5 hours of real time to end the fight with mighty Kazmojen).

All of this assumes that the players choose not to negotiate the release of the children, and avoid fighting the powerhouse that is Kazmojen. By the way, Prickles is nothing to laugh at. . .

The common raggamoffyn detailed in the back of the SCAP Hardcover lists skill bonuses of +10 to Hide and Move Silently, and feats of Dodge and Stealthy. The MM2 has no skills or feats listed for any type of raggamoffin.

Any thoughts?

All is well.

It seems that the SCAP authors actually took the time to re-work all the 3.0 creatures to 3.5, giving them different pools of skill points and better feat progression. (I was already impressed with the SC Hardcover, and am now even more so.)

All raggamoffyns are constructs, but since they have an Int score, they get skills and feats as per the 3.5 guidelines for constructs.

CHAPTER ONE

Common Raggamoffyn (Appendix IV, p350-1)
Skills: +10 Hide +10 Move Silently.
Feats: Dodge,Stealthy.

No feats or skills listed in MM2 (p175).

Scratch that. The SCAP guys actually re-worked each creature according to 3.5 skills/feats, so many of the MM2 creatures will differ in these areas.

CHAPTER ONE

Common Raggamoffyn (Appendix IV, p350-1)
Skills: +10 Hide +10 Move Silently.
Feats: Dodge,Stealthy.

No feats or skills listed in MM2 (p175).

Maybe the SCAP statblock assumes skulk/creeper host?

That was my first thought as well, but the skulk has skills of Hide +22 Move Silently +14, and feats of Stealthy and Weapon Finesse. (The stats for the captured skulk seem correct.)

Unless i have some early printing of MM2 where skills and feats were left out of the statblock for raggamoffyns, i guess i'l assume this is a mistake in the SCAP Hardcover.

The common raggamoffyn detailed in the back of the SCAP Hardcover lists skill bonuses of +10 to Hide and Move Silently, and feats of Dodge and Stealthy. The MM2 has no skills or feats listed for any type of raggamoffin.

Any thoughts?

I've never seen Man-O-War, so i don't know how loud that is, but i have seen Acid Mothers Temple in a small club here in San Diego.

On the third day after the show, i began to worry that the ringing was not going to stop.

Probably not much good for your RPG music needs, but if the AMT comes to your town, DO NOT miss the chance to see them play live. If you love Rock & Roll, these guys are incredible. True heavy metal gods. Well, psychadelic rock gods actually.

Acid Mothers Temple Soul Collective

I just thought that you all might find this amusing. Would it make a good soundtrack to The Age of Worms?

Kyuss

Ha ha, I listened to Kyuss while reading the first few Age of Worms adventures. It seemed like the right thing to do. As for playing it during the game session: music is a good mood enhancer, but Kyuss needs to be played loud, and that might be a problem.

Funny story: One time a friend came over and threw a Kyuss CD in the stereo and cranked it up. Not 5 minutes later the undesirable neighbor (nicknamed King Crackhead) was standing in the doorway saying "You guys like Kyuss? Cool!".

Gotta be careful with that Kyuss.

Want some doom and gloom that might go better in the background of a game session? Try Sunn0))) if you can stand it. Whatever you do, don't blame the messenger.

No DM should be using a die that rolls lots of 20s. I have one, but it only gets rolled as a player. As a DM i use a nice green d20 that rolls absolutely random.

If your players are Min/Maxing, annoying, or unlikeable to the point that you want to see them killed, then you should dump them and find better players.

(Or play HackMaster where it's DM vs. Players. Just my philosophy, different strokes for different folks and all that).

Still not here! And the mailman is getting tired of me asking. . .

Please put the Overload arguments back in the Overload thread.

This is an excellent and informative thread about the 3FoE. Thanks for all the comments, criticisms, and ideas.

I was actually frustrated to find out that AoW content was released in Dragon. Months ago i cancelled my Dragon subscription and started getting Dungeon instead. Now i want those articles that expand on AoW. Oh well, that's what i get for being cheap.

Anyone play via OpenRPG? I've been using it for around 6 months now, and it is pretty darn close to a live session.

YO! Great work so far! As far as i am concerned, take as much time as you need to get things the way you want. I will be smart and wait for the needed resources before starting the campaign. All the hard work is appreciated, and thank you for going the extra distance with the web resources.

-Shimrath Nimrod, PLD.

OK, this may sound harsh, but here goes....

I didn't think that was harsh.

The DM does invest more time and effort in a game than do players, and it's only fair that you safeguard your investment.

As long as you are up-front about your expectations and limitations, players are free to decide if your game is for them or to pass.

Do you think 3rd Edition (3.0 / 3.5) encourages power gaming more than previous editions of the game?

Role-playing vs. Roll-playing: The battle has been around as long as RPGs have. There are players that enjoy one, the other, or both. As a long-time Role-player, I like to believe that, once exposed to a more serious gaming experience, players will tend to shift their priorities and evolve into the true spirit of the game. (The true spirit of the game is, of course, mine!)

The answer to your dilemma, Airwalkrr, is this: Surround yourself with players that play D&D on the same level as you, and do not descend to a level that you feel is beneath you.

Of course, you have to play with them to know what type they are, so I suggest inviting new players for a short, one-nighter game session to see if they fit. (Perhaps an adventure from the pages of Dungeon?) If you cannot find players you like in your area, think about playing online with a program like OpenRPG, also nice for continuing to play with good players that move away.

Actually, your 2nd Edition adventures will convert to 3.5 better than 3.0 adventures will convert to 3.5.

This statement is ludicrous.

Converting adventures from 3.0 to 3.5 is way easier than converting from 1st or 2nd Edition to 3.5. Although there were some major changes from 3.0 to 3.5, you are still dealing with the same edition of the game. Some of the “hot spots” to watch out for would be npc Rangers, creatures with damage reduction, and monstrous races with class levels. At times like these, you might want to do a little research to insure that the challenge ratings are correct. But most of the time, you could crack open a 3.0 adventure and run it for a 3.5 game with no major problems.

Converting from early editions to 3.5 is a whole different ball game. If all of the creatures and items in the old adventure are present in 3.5, it should be fairly painless, but keep in mind that the final product might not be challenging enough, or too challenging, for the party level for which it was originally intended. If the adventure contains creatures and items that are not present in 3.5, you are going to have to convert them from scratch, and that can be a lot of work. Sometimes, the whole premise for an early edition adventure becomes impossible, because it hinges on the abilities of a creature or item that no longer functions the way it did in earlier editions.

If you converted anything from 2 to 3, go back and do it again for 3.5.

Now that is sound advice. If you have already converted an old adventure, and done it recently, it should be fresh in your mind, making it easy to go back and check each portion for differences between 3.0 and 3.5.

All in all, converting adventures is a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Some of the older material is fantastic, and it’s sad to see it lost to the evolution of the game. It would be nice to have some sort of “official” space where people could share their conversions.