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 Recent Posts
The Bullywug Gambit offers a great opportunity to introduce the constitution dependent Incarnum classes. Can anyone offer some input on this new soulmeld and NPC? Our group has never used Incarnum before and I just started reading the book so I probably screwed up a few things. Note that the example NPC has the Froghemoth soulmeld but doesn't actually bind it. The extremely high DC (21 with the potion) needs a cool offensive ability to go with him. Unless someone can think of a good offensive ability for the Froghemoth soulmeld? Froghemoth Mantle
Chakra Bind (Shoulders)
Chakra Bind (Totem)
Glug Gloop CR 5
They only one I am adding is a small House Sivis outpost. Another one is House Kundarak. The Eberron version of the Vanderboren Vault screams "dwarf". In our game I made the clerk a greedy dwarf with rings on all of fingers. The party was very suspicious of him, especially after Lavinia told them her father didn't like men who wear jewelry.
It technically takes about 63-65 sessions to get through a 1-20 progression (assuming 4 encounters per session). Yep, that's about what we had for Age of Worms. We've been playing every Saturday (with only a tiny number of sessions missed) for about 5 to 6 hours each session, and we expect to finish the adventure path in February, give-or-take. This matches the Black Bard's estimate and the amount of time it took for our campaign.
With Age of Worms we played for exactly 60 sessions at 4 hours each to get from 1st to 20th. That's an average of 12 hours per level. We played once a week from July 2005 to September 2006. We have a timeline on our website detailing what we went through for each session (spoiler warning): http://www.rpgyubasutter.com/ For Savage Tide we are playing much more aggressively, doing each module as monthly sessions with a lot of downtime and roleplaying done with play by email. This will get us from 1st to 20th at about 5-6 hours per level. Ironically this campaign will have a lot more in game downtime than AoW, which used craft points. We are also starting Shackled City tomorrow, which will be more freeform and include a lot more roleplaying. We may take 2 years to complete with one, for about 20-25 hours per level.
We just finished our first Savage Tide marathon session yesterday. Starting at 9am and ending at 9pm I ran the party from the Blue Nixie to the final confrontation with Rowyn and Gut Tugger. We had quite a "savage" party - Hondor: Underfolk Scout
Part 1: A Noble in Need
Part 2: Trouble on the Blue Nixie
The rust rhagodessas dropped the psiforged, cleric and sahuagin but in the end the party prevailed. (One of our house rules allows spending action points to cheat death.) The party decided to keep the 100 pp and tell Lavinia Vark must have spent it on animal smuggling. The bluff worked. Afterwards, the kobold merchant had to spend a few days on the market trying to pick up items for the party while the monsters slept on the ship. After a few days some of Islaran's other flunkies approached the Nixie and the party decided to bail. Lunch Break
Part 3: The Vanderboren Vault
Part 4: Peril Under Parrot Island
Dinner
Part 5: The Lotus and the Dragon
At the entrance to the Lotus Dragons, the Sahuagin decided to take a last breath underwater. The party didn't follow him and he ended up being pulled under by a swarm of ixitxachitls. By the time the party checked on him and defeated the manta rays the fish had to spend all of his action points to come back. The thieves guild was relatively easy to get into. The two guards yelled and ran in opposite directions and the party decided to split up. The dwarf went to fight cruncher (who he now wants to heal and keep as a pet), the psiforged scout and rogue fought the rogues in the barracks and the druid, bard and fighter went into the training room. Obscuring mist was extremely useful for neutralizing the rogues. The party prevailed, and Rowyn, gut tugger and a few remaining flunkies called out to the party for a truce. The night ended with the PCs accepting Rowyn's offer. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and I think we got through the adventure much more quickly than if we had played our normal 4 hour weekly sessions. We're starting Shackled City this Wednesday, and the first week of November will be our next marathon of the Bullywug Gambit. Does anyone have that adventure yet? Does it seem playable in the timeframes similar to those described above?
We have quite the monstrous crew with plenty of weakness to bright light: Kobold Bard (using 25 point buy)
No backup plan. We get them in from Keith and Eric, we edit them when we get a chance, we put them through layout and put them online ASAP. I think the question was directed at me. My "backup plan" is the way I'm running this campaign. Instead of a weekly 4 hour session that takes 4-5 sessions per module I'm running this campaign as a monthly 12 hour session per module. I was planning to trim a lot of the background setup and, in true Eberron spirit, focus on cinematic action, Indiana Jones style. The first adventure is very good. You really don't have to have any interesting ties to use it. So far, the Sasserine backdrop article really isn't needed. You can very quickly go from an assault on a ship to an escort through a guarded vault to a 'caved in' scenario with zombies to a fight your way out of the middle of a thieves guild (using the Crucible). It's a lot of great action that doesn't need a lot of backdrop setup to appreciate it. Will all of the adventures be like this? Probably not, but it sounds like most of them will. As a side note, last week our group started a daily play by email to kick off the campaign. While I don't think you need a lot of background roleplaying to get into the action the adventurers have already done a lot of investigation and interviews around Sasserine. As for conversion notes, please see my Expanded Eberron Conversion Notes thread.
So let's say a miracle happens and you get this conversion before this session... how long do are willing to wait for the next one? Just curious... A few weeks after I get the magazine. I am always shocked when I see that people who are looking at conversioins are willing to jump in and run things before far more adventures are out. But more power to you and good luck. I think you are in for more work for yourself than others who wait to start are. (I am a firm believer in waiting for the entire series to be out prior to running... so now I am looking at AoW). Well more power to you, but I buy the adventure path so I can use it, not so I can wait for 12 months and then use it. My players want to have access to Eberron material (and so do I) so I need to adapt the setting. Paizo is going through the trouble of buying the notes, but what good are they if they're months behind? The longer the magazine is out the more likely players are going to read them. 4th edition is coming, and when it does my players will want to try that. Savage Tide is probably the last 3.5 AP. So whatever. Be a firm believer all you want, but please respect my desire to run the adventure I paid for without waiting for months to do so.
i need firm motivation even for my evil PCs :) thanks again for your assistance! It's not just revenge. You should play the Lotus Thieves as a constant thorn in their side until they finally confront their guild. If the PCs are evil you should encourage them to betray Lavinia and join the Thieves Guild. Although I wanted to run this as an evil campaign, my players preferred to continue the goody too shoes route. I was hoping they would kill Lavinia in the Vanderboren vault, steal her gold and then have a changeling in the party disguise themselves as her. Off little Miss Whistlegap and take over the estate permanently. Have Vanthus send an invite to his sister to meet him at Parrot Island. You could have one of the PCs initiated into the thieves guild. There are plenty of opportunities to use the NPCs and locations for events an evil party would enjoy.
Wow that was rinky dinky! *ducks* Just kidding! Thanks for the info.
The "fanboys," as you call your fellow boardlords, are right about one thing: things are the way they are on this particular issue, and that's not going to change no matter how many times you post about it. Mr. Jacobs has implied several times that there are other ideas on the table. This is the first that I've heard that it's set in stone (other than from the previously referred to "fanboys" (or the more PC term - "boardlords"). This was especially true after 135 came out. If that's not the case, and you would rather present yourself as a bureaucrat rules-for-rules sake with no reasoning behind them (other than to please the "boardlords" by sticking it to Takasi) then so be it. The decisions have been made, both regarding how the notes will be released (in PDF format) and where they fall on our list of priorities (distinctly after production of the magazines and other time-sensitive products). The fact is, this is a business, and we're busy - we're doing the best we can, but at some point every company has to conduct a little triage and say, "This is what we can get done today." That's why the PDFs are "late." Thank you for the misdirection and straw man reasoning, but no one is arguing what your priorities are. The question here is about the notes and why they are bundled. Now, I can see both advantages and disadvantages to sticking plain-text format conversion notes on the boards What are the disadvantages? And also what are the disadvantages to adding them not to the boards but to a web page? I've yet to hear this from anyone, other than as an insult to these "rinky dinky boards", where no one really cares what is posted I guess. :) before the PDFs release, but even if powers higher than me say "go for it" - we still have to wait for the conversion notes to come in from the authors, and we still have to take an editing pass (some standards shall be observed no matter what). I've never complained about that, if it's the authors fault then fine. However, I can point to several posts where the blame was shifted to the art design team and layout. Probably the biggest delay, around last Christmas, used this excuse. Could it happen? Sure. But this would contradict the rules for rules sake attitude listed above. So how about we all play nice, eh? The fact is, every time we take time out to respond to one of these threads, the conversion notes get a little bit later... Then just post the notes and ignore these rinky dinky boards. And for Pete's sake, please quit throwing back that "rinky dink" comment - they're our boards, and as such we have the right to refer to them however we want. I kind of like it. I'll wear it as a badge of honor. :P And the online supplements *are* free, dude. But they cost you time and money, and if people run their campaigns before you print them then you're wasting both. Whether the delay is hours or months, you're still getting something extra for nothing... If it's delayed and the campaign is past the issue then you're giving nothing for nothing, and for what? That's what makes this "constructive" criticism. I'm 33% of this magazine. James is admittedly a Greyhawk fan, but so what? As far as I can tell, Jeremy doesn't care about it either way. One Greyhawk goob on a magazine does not a conspiracy make - if that were all it took, Dragon would be some weird combination of Eberron, Planescape, Mystara, and Ravenloft (probably more of the latter, as Wes would probably shiv us all for a chance to run Ravenloft in every issue). I wouldn't quite sing the "Ding Dong the Mona is Dead" song yet (just kidding btw). The proof is in the print and while Dragon has done a great job lately I've yet to see Dungeon shake off its Greyhawk bias in their adventures.
I originally planned on skipping a lot of the flavor of the campaign and focusing instead on the "cinematic" aspect of Eberron in this campaign by making mechanical changes. However, we started doing some of the build up to the Blue Nixie campaign through email so I've had to add a little more background. While we're waiting for the conversion notes, here's the district conversion notes I created: Azure: Azure = Deep Brethren (Old Gods the Host refers to as Devourer and Mockery, see the AoW Eberron supplement for The Prince of Redhand for more information on this new religion)
Furthermore, I don't really see a groundswell of public opinion demanding early conversion notes, which leads me to believe that most other people have a similar attitude with respect to waiting for the pdf supplements. There have been several threads that have popped up here and there in the last few weeks, though nothing as big as the AoW Overload thread. And you didn't see my name in any of those posts. Ultimately, if a conversion outline posted on these boards would save us from these threads, I'd say go for it. But it won't, so I'm not sure I see the point. Sometimes a rusty wheel needs grease, and sometimes it needs to be thrown away. I think experience tells us into which category this wheel falls. Although I would prefer them as a web supplement, if they were posted on the boards you shouldn't hear complaints from me. I have never criticized the content of the conversion notes. In fact, I have never criticized the timeliness of the supplements when Paizo specifically says they are waiting on the authors to send them the notes. I do complain however when they say they've had the notes for weeks (and in the case of AoW months) but can't find the time to bundle everything together (yet they find plenty of time to post every five minutes on multiple boads). And it is especially more disturbing when you consider what huge Greyhawk fans the editors are and how much they have openly criticized other settings in the past for not being "Core D&D". When they sit on these notes it only serves to contribute to the grand Greyhawk conspiracy at Paizo.
That's just another classic example of fanboy logic though. "This is the way things are, thus it must be the best so there is no reason to voice disagreement. Things should never change." I'll add a few more questions: 1.) If Paizo is going to provide text only notes, how does publishing these notes on the web or on these "rinky dinky" boards prevent them from bundling these notes with art and map supplements two or three months later? The notes can still go out as scheduled. 2.) If Paizo is trying to run a quality commercial site, wouldn't it be embarrassing to admit that (from just a technical perspective only) it would take them months just to publish a few paragraphs of text on their site? Again, this is a technical issue only. To say "we don't have the time to post a few paragraphs on these crappy rinky dink boards or press send to a webmaster that can have up to a week (vs three months) to post it online" is just silly when the whole staff spends hours at EN World and other boards (including these rinky dink ones) defending the skill selections of an NPC. 3.) What good is text only notes designed by an excellent layout, design and artwork teams if it's a day late and a dollar short? Who cares if it's free if it's useless, and to DMs who are trying to get a 1-20 campaign in before 4th edition time is important. 4.) It's been almost half a year since the preview article in 135 and what do we know about running Savage Tide in Eberron and FR? Nothing. Oh wait, we know that Demogorgon is Demogorgon. While the first adventure is fairly generic enough to stick into Stormreach if you just play the mechanics, the backdrop given for Sasserine has so many world dependent notes for history, organizations and geography that are pretty much worthless to anyone who chooses to place the campaign somewhere else. And I would like to point out that I would just post my questions and wait for a response (if any) from Paizo, and that these answers (and even the notes themselves) really aren't that big of a deal to me, but this constant stream of pointless insults to counter anything that doesn't pile on to the Paizo love train is what keeps the boards "exciting" as Mr. Jacobs put it. It's like trying to present a Maybe and immediately getting kicked in the groin by a mob of Yes Men.
What is this, good cop bad cop? "You are a d*#k...shut up and do it yourself...Constructive, my @ss. You've been anything but constructive. " "I love your dogged determinism...You have some valid points..." Or should I say good fanboy bad fanboy? "worthless @ss...they have had to ALL help packing up stuff to ship when overwhelmed with orders. " "That decision has led to an increase in sales, higher quality, and award after award...To me, that's good customer service, not unprofessionalism." Whatever, it all ends up the same: "C'mon, FH. Let's keep it civil?" "Sorry about taking this too personally."
Whatever, you can bash my style all you want with a bunch of rhetoric, but the point is that they are providing us with the supplements and they are trying to have a professional quality site that caters to selling RPG products. (Their goal is probably to be one of the best online distributers of rpg products, as it should be.) So... 1.) If Paizo is going to provide text only notes, how does publishing these notes on the web or on these "rinky dinky" boards prevent them from bundling these notes with art and map supplements two or three months later? 2.) If Paizo is trying to run a quality commercial site, wouldn't it be embarrassing to admit that (from just a technical perspective only) it would take them months just to publish a few paragraphs of text on their site? I may be asking these questions "over and over" (what like twice?) but the real repetition here is from all of the fanboys who constantly whine about any criticism at all, whether it really is constructive or not.
Hee hee. Picture it: Paizo's crack team of webmasters, lined up at attention and ready to go. Looking sharp in their snazzy white uniforms (and oh, those little caps!). We await your text! Text is what we do. It's just text. I run multimillion dollar sites so give me a break. If you are honestly trying to be sarcastic here, please try harder. The webmasters already have to post when the download is going to take place. For just a few seconds of their time they should be able to append the preview section of the magazine with conversion notes or a link to them. Sheesh, to think this is supposed to be a professional site for buying all your RPG needs, yet they can't even post a few paragraphs on their website without a three month delay...
The editorial staff does not have the software (or honestly, the skillset) to produce finished web supplements. There's nothing to finish. Send the text to one of your webmasters to post as a new page. It's just text. You have a previews section for your Magazines, it should be in the same format. Posting text-only notes, say, as a messageboard post, is an option, but it's a rinky-dink option. If we're paying to have these conversion notes done, it makes sense to do them nice rather than sloppy. Having a nice pdf might not be worth the wait for you, but it's worth it for us. I honestly don't see how denying everyone the notes until everything is "just right" (which can takes months after people have the adventure and are ready to run it) is helpful. You can always continue working on the "finished" product. I don't see how posting notes, on the boards or as a web posting like your preview articles, degrades the value of the PDF. And the map/art supplement and the covnersion notes ARE seperate now. But the people who produce them are the same, and when they're busy (as they usually are), something has to slip. I don't know what this mean at all. How are the two separate? I was referring to the end result: 1 pdf. You have document that makes every piece dependent on coordination between multiple departments to compile the finished product. As I said earlier I see the usefulness of having everything combined, but I don't see how posting the notes as text on a web supplement or even on these rinky dinky boards would prevent you from creating the pdf. Those who want to wait can still wait, and I don't see how posting the notes degrades the value of the PDF for those who want a unified document.
Wrong. We're doing all three as seperate downloads, like I said. Yet that doesn't change the fact that, as seperate downloads OR as one download, the same people have to work on them. I don't see why the art department or layout has to work on conversion notes. They are text only documents right? They belong on a web supplement. WotC does a great job at doing this for their products. The player's guide is now available. The map/art supplement and the conversion notes will be available soon. We could split it up even further, with seperate map/art downloads for each article, or for seperate conversion notes for each setting, but at a certain point, the extra work of creating a half dozen PDFs over only two is gonna break the system down. At a certain points sure, but there are two basic components that even you specifically pointed out in your statement: the map/art supplement and the conversion notes These are distinct enough, IMO, to warrant separation. A web supplement for the conversion notes just makes more sense. Having a nice pdf "product" just isn't worth the wait. The text for the notes are used for actually planning the campaign, whereas the art can be downloaded and printed out later for running the campaign.
All three of these things are now seperate processes. Ah, and there's the rub. They are three separate processes yet you've decided to bundle them together. This is fine (and for some preferable), but I've yet to see a good reason why you don't post the conversion notes separately as well. You've probably had the Eberron notes for some time now, and I don't see why you couldn't post them as a web article like WotC does. Is it really that important to most DMs to have their conversion notes in PDF? I can understand the maps and handouts maybe, but the notes are just text. It's very easy to publish text without tying up your graphic design department and meanwhile people are waiting for weeks. In the case of AoW there were several stretches that lasted for months after the magazine hit the stores, let alone subscribers. Not a big deal or anything, but I think this would be a huge process improvement. You said you would consider it for Savage Tide, but for now we're seeing the same pattern.
We're scrambling to get issue #141 off to press this week, so the #139 art/map supplement might still be a while before we get it online, alas. Woh now hold the phone. I thought getting all this put together was a cakewalk, and now it's the conversion authors who are getting the blame for the hold up? The conspiracy continues...
This is very difficult to do in an adventure module. I liked the way Savage Tide started: everyone gets a note from a stranger. They could meet there or know each other beforehand, it's up to them. They can come up with a small backstory to give a reason why Lavinia would notice them, but you don't have to play these backstories. In the end this is really more about the player's character and less about the NPCs, so it's nearly impossible for Paizo (or any publisher) to come up with something that works for everyone. The Blue Nixie encounter really IS the prelude, as is the Vault. Each of these events don't really need to happen but they help bring the characters together and foster a relationship with a patron. Really "inspiring" hooks are IMO campaign specific and based on the world the DM is building and the characters the players bring. Paizo is creating adventures for a large number of DMs, and did Mr. Jacobs did a perfect job with this hook as far as utility is concerned. The mysterious note can work in pretty much any campaign. In our campaign the "greater" hook is built into each character's background. If you could give us more info on your party I'm sure we could help you out. You can also use the Sasserine article, the Player's Guide and the first Savage Tidings in Dragon to create plenty of character hooks. It really depends on what your players are looking for.
That's a very intriguing concept Takasi - is that the sum of the "Expansion Slot" house rule, or is there more details that you want to share? There's more information in the original post for players. For instance, players who opt out of expansions get higher point buy. There are a few other things I'm trying to iron out. One player asked if he needed an expansion to buy twine from the Arms and Equipment guide. I told him his character would need to find a merchant who is selling it. Also if a character finds something, like a magic item, that is not in the core books he can keep it without using an expansion slot. If he wants to buy it without doing any work for it he'll have to burn a slot. I've also toyed with giving expansions a set gp amount so that players can purchase up to a certain amount of non core equipment. For spells I'm considering allowing players to trade expansions later on, provided they never use the old expanded spell again. Also, as always I reserve the right to ban certain material. I put the Expansions list under Possessions in the stat block. I like being able to see all of the non core stuff a character has at a glance; one of the minor issues I had in our previous campaign is the number of sourcebooks I had to reference just to understand a character concept.
Could you please explain what you mean by expansion slot? Are you talking about extra feats? I am guessing that you are talking about something else. See my original post: "Players use expansion slots to "buy" feats, spells, classes, magic items and other game mechanic options outside of the PHB." In our Age of Worms campaign it was a free for all, use any book you want campaign. The players liked that, but it's a lot more work to balance the material from the AP (which is more or less built from core only material) with characters made with very diverse builds. IMC if you use expansion slots you get to choose 3 noncore resources at first level. This can be a feat, a spell, a race, a class or an item; anything that's not in the Player's Handbook requires an expansion slot. You then get one additional slot at every odd level (3,5,7,etc.).
My suggestion is to get a real URL from a host like namesecure and either forward it directly to your meetup or create an intro page with a link to your meetup like we did: http://www.rpgyubasutter.com/ Post a flyer with the URL in all your FLGS's. We've had pretty good success at keeping our numbers up.
The final battle before resting is tougher, not easier, because resources are already expended. And 1st level characters, no matter how optimized, just don't have many resources to expend. That's true. I only emphasized that it was the final encounter because the loss of items would be even more severe if they had additional encounters before they could get new gear.
This thread is the first in a series of threads to collect suggestions for infusing additional Eberron material into the Savage Tide Adventure Path. I've already posted a little info on the Rust Rhagodessa (type = aberration with vermin traits, pedipalps do 2d6 automatic no save damage when grappling with warforged). Someone suggested that this may be a little too tough, so feel free to pull off one of its legs (reduce its climb speed to 30 and shave off some of its current hp). Make sure the cage is bronzewood. Another suggestion is to make the Blue Nixie an elemental bound vessel. Personally I'm thinking of using a bound water elemental. The ship will function like a House Lyrander galleon (ECS 125) being able to travel without wind. During the first encounter with the pirate thugs, if Vark is able to yell his command then change the scene to allow the thug to actually start a fire in the hold. The easiest way to put out the fire is to have the water elemental that's bound to the ship pull it underwater for a few rounds until the fire is out. To infuse even more "high fantasy", you could have the water raise up instead; only at first would it seem like they were sinking. This could occur while the rhagodessa(s) are fighting the PCs in the hold; if they are rust rhagodessa they can climb to the ceiling and rust the iron grate for an exit while the hold fills with water. The fact that there is a bound water elemental under the ship could be a secret. Lavinia could tell the PCs that there's a special lever under a platform on the quarterdeck (revealing an embedded dragonshard that controls the elemental) to be used in case of an emergency. If she tells you where to look its just a Search DC 10, otherwise it's DC 25. Lavinia shouldn't reveal exactly what the lever does; this makes the discovery more exciting. When the fire breaks out and if the players discover the dragonshard they can use it to communicate with the elemental. There are several ways to get the water elemental to temporarily half-submerge the ship. Whoever makes the attempt must touch the dragonshard. Anyone with the Mark of Storm can attempt a Profession (Sailor) check at DC 15. Players probably won't have access to Charm or Dominate Monster, but these methods would work if they did. Clerics with the water domain can expend an elemental rebuke attempt to command the elemental for 1 minute, enough time to supress the fire. The most likely method is to simply communicate with the elemental and coax it into getting rid of the fire. A successful intimidate check at DC 15 can be made if the PCs tell it that it will be bound to the dragonshard on the bottom of the sea forever. Promising to free the elemental will work with a diplomacy check of just DC 5 if you intend to do it or a bluff check of DC 20 if you don't.
If you toss in a monster that tough that can also disintegrate their armor and weapons, you could be looking at a TPK in the very first set of encounters. We have eight players with optimized characters; I think they'll be OK. :) One of them is an orc druid, and between his summons and the astral minion of the shaper I think they'll be OK. I'm even considering throwing two of them at the party since (IRRC) it should be the final battle before they rest. The cage would have to be bronzewood though (ECS p126). When Vark yells the command the rhagodessa breaks free, I'll probably have one of them climb up to the ceiling and rust the iron grate above the hold. The PCs will smell smoke from below and see one of the rhagodessas grab one of the thugs, bite a chunk into his neck and consume his dagger with its pedipalps. In another round or two the other one will climb up through ladder entrance and take the back row by surprise (hopefully getting the Psiforged in the process).
FINALLY received 139 (for some odd reason it didn't seem like my issues were taking "too long" for 136, 137 or 138) and am prepping for my first marathon game. Still waiting for the conversion notes, but if we don't see them soon I may just replace Sasserine with Stormreach. Since I'm running each adventure in 12 hours I'm not going to go too much into converting (or even using) much of the Greyhawk inspired background fluff; instead I'll primarily focus on the action. (Characters will be leveling before the assault on the Lotus Dragons.) The primary mechanical change I'm going to introduce is the Rust Rhagodessa. This aberration will still have vermin traits but its pedipalps will deal 2d6 damage to all metal possessions of a grappled victim with magic items receiving a save at DC 17. Unlike the rust monster, the rust rhagodessa automatically deals 2d6 damage to a grappled warforged. (FYI I have a player who wants to try a Psiforged Shaper for this campaign. I told him to make sure he brings backup characters.)
The first thing I do when I'm going to run a Dungeon adventure is type all of the stats in all possible encounters into a Word document. I then go through all of the spells and spell like abilities and add some quick reference notes. For example, if one of the spells prepared is fireball I'll replace it with fireball (long, 20' rad, 10d6 fire, Ref DC 18 half). For higher level encounters (15 or higher) I add average damage numbers to speed up play. For example: Melee bite +31 (4d6+19 (35) / 19-20) and
I then make minor tweaks and modifications for my campaign. For example, I may change a race or bump up the CR. After everything is written up I print out each monster on a sheet of paper (or two and staple them together) and paperclip them into encounters. I also have sheets for all of the player characters. During combat I sort the PC sheets and monsters in order of initiative. I then use the sheets to keep track of damage, spells used, etc. It would be helpful if I could have a web enhancement to cut and paste stats. It's not that big of a deal though; copying the stats helps me to get familiar with the encounters I'm going to run.
(I assume your website indicates that your group bestrides the Feather River and lies in the shadow of the Sutter Buttes. I lived in Davis for 10 years, and miss the Central Valley!) Yep, we're right near the Buttes. Awesome. Why/how did the warforged explode? Righteous Aura from the Spell Compendium.
Congratulations, Takasi. Great timing as well, like you said, since STAP is coming out. Are you going to dive right into the new campaign or are you guys going to take a little break and let the first few magazines come out? One of the other guys wants to DM Shackled City during our 4 hour Wednesday games. I'm going to run Savage Tide once a month. I plan on running each module as a marathon session once a month. We're going to play There is No Honor during the first weekend in October. We will be done with the game next September. I'm afraid 4th edition may be coming out after Savage Tide and I want to be finished with this campaign so our group will be ready to try a new campaign when it comes out. I'll be running Savage Tide in Eberron. The other DM is going to run Shackled City in the Old World of Warhammer. We're taking a break until October though; one of the players is going to run a few sessions of a short Star Wars campaign set in the Knights of the Old Republic setting.
Our Warforged Exorcist of the Silver Flame exploded during the final battle when Kyuss killed him. I rolled a natural 1 and the blast was enough to put Kyuss over his hp. Just in time, because blashemy almost killed everyone! We played the entire last module in exactly 12 hours in a final marathon session today. FYI, this was session 58. Each session is 4 hours, for a total of 240 hours for the entire campaign. That's 12 hours per level. Here are some major spoilers for the campaign with info about our party: http://www.rpgyubasutter.com/ We finished just in time. I haven't received issue 139 yet to start Savage Tide, but I'm hoping it comes in on Tuesday.
*lurks around the corner, "what? no Takasi?" I'm still waiting for conversion notes for the preview in 138. It would be nice to have an outline of the Eberron conversion and just some basic answers to questions posed months ago after the 135 editorial. My main concern is that they're not going to do anything creative for the Abyss and simply shoehorn it into the Eberron cosmology. They've said there would be notes, I'm just wondering: how much, how often, and how well will they be done. How will we get them? Will they be in the magazine (hopefully not), will they be online as pdf or will they be presented as web supplements like WotC provides (my personal preference).
The Age of Worms campaign is almost done (Dragotha is next week and we have a marathon Dawn of the New Age on Labor Day weekend) and I'm gearing up for Savage Tide. I've been thinking a lot about character options. In the Age of Worms I let the group build pretty much whatever they want from any WotC source. The group tried out warforged, psions, radiant servants and a whole slew of spells from the spell compendium. It was a lot of fun, but it seemed like the Adventure Path was aimed more towards core only groups. For the most part I had to ramp up the challenge rating on every adventure. For Savage Tide I've decided to go with a system that's very similar to the expansion system used by the RPGA. Players use expansion slots to "buy" feats, spells, classes, magic items and other game mechanic options outside of the PHB. For players that decide they don't want to use expanded material I'm allowing a higher point buy. Here are the options I'm providing my players: (1) 32-pt buy, ECL 1 core only character: no expansion slots at all. No prestige classes. Just bring your PHB. (2) 28-pt buy, ECL 1 core starting character: no expansion slots at first level, one expansion slot every other level starting at 3rd level for a total of 9 non-core character building options. This player gives up quite a large number of starting feats, races and classes. (3) 25-pt buy, ECL 1 expanded character: 3 expansion slots at 1st level plus 1 slot every other level for a total of 12 non-core character building options. (4) Elite array (15/14/13/12/10/8) ECL 2 expanded character, full expansion slots (12), 1 bonus feat *or* ECL 2 race at ECL 1. (5) Non-elite array (13/12/11/10/9/8) ECL 3 expanded character, full expansion slots (12), either (a) ECL 3 race at +0 ECL *or* (b) 1 bonus feat *and* ECL 2 race at ECL 1. I had toyed with the idea of allowing ECL 4 for the standard array (11/11/11/10/10/10) to allow for races like gnolls, but there are some templates like half-dragon that I didn't think was fair even with the ability score reductions. I'm adding the ECL packages because I have a player who wants to start as a first level grey orc druid (ECL 2) from Forgotten Realms. (The game takes place in Eberron, but the grey orc follows the flavor of the Eberron druid very well). LA penalties for primary spellcasters would make the build sub optimal, so this sytem should help balance this out. It would also let some players choose a drow without being overpowered from the rest of the group. I'm also thinking of giving everyone a bonus feat from the Savage Tide Player's Guide. Is anyone else doing this?
10 Swords of Kyuss win initiative. 10 invocations of the worm, 14d6 (50 average) negative energy damage. Of 9 charactes in the party, 6 are dropped far below -10, even the ones who made all their saves (for a measly 250 damage). Only the characters with evasion survived to see the Boneyard which finished the job. Fast forward and everyone is OK. My players want to know if anyone actually survived this encounter, and if so how did they do it? I did not bump up the encounter, despite allowing every legal feat/spell/magic item/prestige class in all WotC D&D books (excluding Forgotten Realms), 32 point buy, action points and 7 players (two of which have cohorts). Can you defeat this encounter? Is there ANY POSSIBLE WAY to defeat this "core" adventure using only the core rulebooks and a balanced party of four 16th level characters?
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