Tessius's page

Darkvision doesn't work in magical darkness though.

I'm not sure if "Draconic" is a Template or a Race by itself. What do you think?

I don't have the Draconomicon but I checked the Draconic template from Races of the Dragon. I thought that the +1 Lvl Adjustment seemed low but what you have here is pretty much exactly what they have there. What is different seems to be more in line with what a green dragons descendant might be.

I don't recall ever seeing one for drow, but the orcs in Eberron came up with something like that. Called shaders, it's a piece of bamboo or wood with a thin slot carved out of it. Negates their light sensitiviy but imposes a -1 penalty on Spot checks. Costs 1sp. Or maybe drunk dwarves came up with them to help with hangovers on bright days.

They don't want to mess up their sleep cycle? Although it is more realistic I guess. Just because they had no encounters doesn't mean they'd want to jump right off their horses & fight stuff. Also gives the casters a last chance to think about what spells to prepare for the delve.

They also had their fair share of kin-murdering and ethnic prejudice.

Been awhile since I read up on Krynn, but it's not much better on the FR side. Ethnic prejudices laid to waste entire elven nations & were part of an entire elven subrace being cursed by the gods & cast down into the darkness during the Crown Wars. My favorite part of the Lost Empires of Faerun was that one. Shows that elves can be just as self-destructive, arrogant, & narrow-minded as any human or drow. Some of the events leading to the decline of Myth Drannor aren't much better.

IMC, the Stormblades claim-jumped the PCs at the end of Chapter 3 and stole the wands of control water as they emerged from the Kopru ruins. The party suffered no lasting harm, but every chance I got thereafter, I tried to show the public hero-worshiping the Stormblades. It made for a great subplot.

I played in Chairborne's campaign, and man was this frustrating. Paladin that I was, I had to keep the group's rogue & sorcerer from trying to attack the Stormblades every time we saw them after that. Despite the fact I was royally pissed about it myself...

So, when will you tell them that a dwarf's speed is never affected by his weight carried? :)

its probably for the best if I retire this character, rather than sidetrack the campaign.

Or hand the sheet over to your DM and let him do what he will with the character :)

as the duskblades, fighter and rogue all wear light armor,

If you get a chance check with the duskblade players to see if either of them plan on taking the Battle Caster feat (p. 75) from Complete Arcane. It would let them cast in heavy armor without spell failure after they get Armored mage (medium) from their class at 4th level.

EDIT:
I was worrying so much about the specifics of the feat & level for it, forgot the reason for it. If one of the duskblades winds up going with heavy armor will mean you won't have to be the tank for the grp. They're probably going to be in or near the front line ideally anyway.

In this 20+ year campaign, have the characters been rushing forth without pause the entire time, or have there been periods of relative peace & calm when the heroes couldn't find a crisis no matter how hard they tried? I appreciate the scale of time that can come about from building up long-favorite characters. Sometimes though, change takes great leaps forward, especially in dynamic times. If you want to slow it down for your campaign, that's your call. It might be better though if you take key plot points, locations, encounters and relocate them into a plot that better supports the pace you & your group are used to. Or you could also talk with your players about the changes in the xp/level system and ask their opinions on such rapid climb to power. If you are planning on bringing details from your previous campaign, you might retro-actively change some of the npc's/previous pc's to be higher level to represent their longer careers.

A few power components I would recommend for said summoning: Rice Krispie Treats & Starburst. If those do not bring the were-platypus out, they are a great help into tricking it into granting you entry to its apartment/burrow/den(?).

*SPOILERS*
Depends, has he already told you that he will *always* have it up so he doesn't need to particularly mention it? Also, if there is no limit to what lvl of spell it sees thru, he'll probably also see Miss Riavaldi accompanying Orbius when they come to claim Terrem. But I do believe that she wears a veil over her face, just in case. Here's an idea though. Say the slavers have put hoods over the childrens' faces so they're less likely to try to run. They could just be putting the hood back on one of the children when the pc's enter. Or you could also see that because of whatever fel means give the warlock his powers, he see's mysterious marks, shadows, whatever on most people. Pass these off to him in notes so the other players won't be clued in. He won't think anything odd of it probably until he sees that Zenith has one also. If the player said he had cast the invocation that day :)

So I was going to throw in a random encoutner or two and/or beef up the Heucava and allies somewhat.

When SCAP was being published, some dm's posted their own variant versions of Tarkilar to the boards. Not sure what all the changes were, but I know our dm made Tarkilar more of a mohrg. The two posters who I definitely remember were Glassjaw and Chairborne Ranger. Should probably still be able to find the stats.

It was "Spell Thematics" out of Magic of Faerun, I believe.

They revised it for 3.5 in Player's Guide to Faerun. Basically it raised the spellcraft DC to identify your spells by 4. You could also choose one spell per spell level as a thematic spell and cast it at +1 caster level.

For my 2 cents, I usually visualize MM pretty much as Marc Chin described them, maybe with a variation of color depending on where/who the arcanist learned it from. When one gets hit I somewhat imagine a stinging burn that quickly fades to a chilly numbness over about 10 seconds.

Gah! What the hell avatar is that?! Don't sacre me like that- put some warning in. That's just creepy. Looks like something from a nightmare I had when I was little. (shudders)

Yeah, I just noticed that avatar also (I think the admin keeps adding new avatars without telling us). My guess it that it's an over-caffeinated owlbear under black-lights, but that's just IMO.

It would seem that the older version is substantially more powerful, and I like it better. I think the spellcasting of the newer version is much too weak to be very useful, and I don't really see any reason to use the newer one. Does anyone have anything to add?

One of my gripes about the 3.0 version was the exclusive spell list. The 3.5 version has + lvls in existing spellcasting class so it's a lil more flexible although it's not a 1 for 1 progression like the 3.0 one. You lose the bonus feats but you get to cast in armor sooner. You get Song of Celerity earlier with the 3.5 version as well. I'd say it depends on how you approach your spells: make you better at melee or give you options other fighters don't have.

WotC did a press release back in 2001 about a FR series to be developed by Fireworks Studios (careful on Fireworks Studio homepage - it's Flash). I haven't heard anything beyond that, though.

Yeah, I don't remember seeing anything on this for a cpl years, probably. What I do remember was that R.A. Salvatore was supposed to be involved in someway but that it *wasn't* going to be a Drizzt series.

You get 2 or three at the same worsening to hit.

igi

I think you get one attack roll that is applied to all the arrows fired. Only reason you would really need to break it down past the -4 for 2 arrows, etc, would be if you were using arrows with different enhancement bonuses. I.E. if you were using 4 arrows that were exactly alike, you would just roll once to attack with a -8 penalty.

I don't think you could use Many shot with rapid shot which makes many shot pretty much useless. Does someone have any idea why/how many shot is better than rapid shot? If so, please explain.

You can't use them together. Many shot is a standard action while rapid shot is a full round action. I don't have my PHB handy but i think an archer's options would be: Standard attack, full attack, Many Shot (standard action), Rapid Shot (full round action). I think the choice between Many Shot and Rapid Shot comes down to what you need at that moment. Use Many Shot if you need inflict some major damage on a single target and need to stay mobile, especially if they have a low AC or your attack bonus is fairly good against them. Rapid Shot if you're not in immediate danger and the target's AC is high enough that you're not sure about hitting with Many-shot or if you have a bunch of smaller guys to hit or you think you're likely to drop your first target before you're out of attacks. Just thought of this too: Many Shot as a readied action against an enemy caster. Getting Hit by 4 arrows is sure to distract him a little.

Way my group has always done it: Manyshot is a standard action itself, it's not something you do as part of a regular attack or a full attack.

I also wondered: if they can't gaze into eachother's eyes, where do baby medusas come from?

Love with the torches out?

The Head of Vecna is a fake.

It's great for killing off stupid PCs who try to use every
artifact they find.

Even when I just heard about it as a second-hand rumor, I knew it wasn't the real head. It's +5 Munchkin-bane preserved head, plain and simple and that is why I still laugh over a whole party but 1 killing themselves over it.

I'm tempted to throw in references to the head of Vecna. ;-)

heheh. A friend of mine mentioned hearing about that a convention event. Then it popped up in "Die, Vecna, Die" about a year later.

as an aside: constructs, elementals, oozes, plants, and undead are generally immune to critical hits, which means no favored enemy damage.

I just skimmed my 3.5 PHB to be sure about this. There is no mention in the Favored Enemy ability description that says creatures immune to critical hits are also immune to favored enemy damage.

Ranger Pros:

When wielding 2 weapons, if possible, the ranger should have a "defending" weapon in his off-hand. This way if he's not performing a full attack, he can use his +4 defending dagger to raise his AC instead.

Think I read in Sage Advice a while back that to get the benefits from a weapon held in the offhand, you have to use a full attack action. Otherwise, everyone would run around holding a +1 Defending cheese-grater.

That was true in 3.0. In 3.5, the designers removed that bit of lunacy. The CR now accurately reflects the creature's strength.

I wondered about that but I didn't remember reading it anywhere. Thanks for the heads up.

Can you at least give the CR?

Wonder what it will be considering that most dragon's CRs are lower than comparable creatures because the 3E designers figured that players would know ahead of time that they'd be against a dragon and prepare accordingly.

Ooh! A threadnapping! Gosh guys, at least you could tell me if you think my magic items suck or not. :p ;)

Love the history on the weapons Peruhain. Although I think the blade could seriously distract a devout wielder while he's in Alhaster. Can just about see a schizophrenic looking cleric/paladin arguing with his sword in the street, saying "No! I'm not going to start killing the people in charge!" Although, it shouldn't be a problem at the dinner since weapons (intelligent or otherwise) aren't invited.

\.

Does anyone have any spoiler-free hints or tips, including rules (I'm not very familiar with d20) that might help us?
Thanks.

The best place to start asking this in character would be someone with ranks in Knowledge: Religion. With a suitably high check you can discover the abilities, strengths, & weaknesses of a particular undead creature. Your party cleric/paladin could possibly hear your berserker muttering about his loathing of the worms and ask your DM if he might remember something with a knowledge check. That way it's still in your Dm's hands in terms of information flow. If he's been infested a few times, you might also look into the Wormhunter prestige class in Dragon magazine. It lets you draw strength from your exposure to the worms and makes you better suited to combating them and other related undead.

Tessius wrote:

I don't have the Overload or the modules handy, but it's possible that some of his skills got a little bump from synergy bonuses, i.e. 5 ranks in Knowledge:Arcana=+2 bonus to spellcraft.

I'm an idiot :(

Don't worry about, we all miss stuff like that occasionally. It wasn't until after I posted that i realized that was the exact amount your counts were off by.

I don't have the Overload or the modules handy, but it's possible that some of his skills got a little bump from synergy bonuses, i.e. 5 ranks in Knowledge:Arcana=+2 bonus to spellcraft.

While I'll let Mike decide if he wants to reveal what server he plays on (and by extension, the server that most of us at Paizo who play WoW play on)

Too true, I didn't mean to pry. I was only curious because I remember seeing the name several times and it stuck in my mind. I can also think of better places to slum than Org, regardless of your faction.

Slight take on using Manshoon in place of Manzorian here. If you're wanting to use one of the Night Mask leaders in lieu of Manzorian, make it Orbakh II. He's a stasis-clone of Manshoon who was 'freed' from becoming a host body when a vampire found his dormant body and turned him. Means he has all the Zhentish Mansoon's memories but is completely independent of the Zhentarim. He is the top of the food chain in the Night Masks and by extension Westgate pretty much.

Hai, hai. I was wondering if someone would call me on that. ;) Neko was named after the pet of one of my World of Warcraft characters. Since naming him I realized I messed up my grammar. So now Kol's animal companion's name is officially Neko. Just Neko. No noshi. Or should I say, no shi. Ha ha ha!!! ;D *bad editor humor*

Neko, Neko...sounds very familiar when put in context as a WoW pet name. I swear i've seen a big white cat with that name running around Ogrimmar quite a few times. What server do you play on MM?

I'm editing the updates for #129 and #130 right now.

If you're editing them right now, what are you doing reading the boards? hmmm? Or do they have it set up, something like a human-hamster wheel, where you have to flip through a certain number of posts on the boards before you can actually work on stuff again?

"Am I a procrastinator? Let me get back to you on that..."

How would Vhalantru react?

If he's already interested in the party, he might charm her and use here as insider with the group. If by some chance she discovers his true nature or at least that there is a beholder involved, he could try to trick her into thinking that he'd been cursed into that form by a rival. If she doesn't realize that Orbius & Vhalantru are the same, he could (as V) say he's being manipulated/blackmailed/whatever by the beholder and needs here help, but she can't tell the others.

Or...I think we would discover that Vhalantru was the person(?) responsible for the creation of the garden gnome statues. Then he might send his doppleganger minion in to replace her with the group...How conniving is the gnome's player? :)

Hey guys,

On the plus side, the tardy map supplements for recent issues should be hitting the web in about a week,
-James

While maps you can cut out and clip to the inside of your dm screen are great, I hope you only omitted the AoW conversion notes in your post and not the supplement itself. :)

in "The Spire of Long Shadows" page 79 last sentance of the 1st paragraph it reads, "The sea of worms does not possess the obey the wormtouched special quality, and thus does not follow the commands of Kyuss' undead."

I have no idea what "possess the obey" means

Anyone?

thanks,

mike

That line refers to a special ability or quality introduced in the adventure called 'Obey the Wormtouched'It pretty much allows the more intelligent or humanoid undead to direct the Int 2 or 3 critters in their vicinity.

Uh...I hadn't really thought about that. I had forgotten the Underdark sea in Night Below was called the Sunless Sea. I guess it could be the same. My first impression was that it was probably not because I don't recall that box being campaign world specific (I played it in the FR when we ran it long ago), and it seems like the whole sea and all its encounter areas were illustrated without mentioning Erelhei-Cinlu or the Drow Vault. However, once again, I would say that it could probably very easily be placed there. That's a really great idea. I'm going to have to pull out my old box and check it out.

I'm going off memory here because my copy is in the depths of my closet somewhere. They mention some high level npc's in the intro for when the pc's might go looking for help. Etiene D'Ambreville is one and there's a FR one too but i can't recall if it's Elminster or Khelben. They went with Greyhawk deities names but also provided the alternative names for FR and one other TSR settings' deities. As for the connection to Vault of the Drow, there is no direct mention of drow in the Sunless Sea environs beyond if the dm wanted to add side treks, it said you could create a tunnel to a nearby drow city among other things. One of many reasons I like it though was that it was the set was in the Underdark and there wasn't a single drow in it. Great...all this has got me thinking of trying to convert and my grps only 1/3 into 3FoE. :\

In fact it seemed like it lay along the north shore of the Sunless Sea whose western tip is introduced in D3 The Vault of the Drow.

Just a little off topic, but would that happen to be the Sunless Sea that was used in the 2ed. boxed set "Night Below?"

I’ve Got Reach wrote:

The new characters the players made had to fight their way through their old characters animated by Zohal to replace undead he had lost earlier.

That's just mean.

I like it! :)

I did the same thing with a drow rogue and bard/barbarian who died in my groups first attempt against the temple of Hextor in 3FoE. Course they hadn't had as much time to get attached to the characters by that point.

I'm a fan of all the main settings and I try not to rule things out that are specifically mentioned in the campaign setting. But...a paladin of Sune? I'm just thinking of all the snide remarks from other paladins and evil foes, "Watch-out!! Here comes the 'Paladin of Luv!!'

That would have been my fault, running 3FoE, Theldrick being the cleric.

I did exactly the same thing, forgot to have Thedrick use his potions & scrolls. I've been going back and forth over whether to include them in the loot since we stopped right then and they haven't gotten the loot list yet.

I worked closely with the developmentally disabled for nearly 6 years in Indianapolis.

Chris, thanks oh-so-much for saying that you 'worked' with said people instead of 'played' or 'gamed' with them :)

Wonder what Chairborne Ranger would say about this....hmmm.

Do you mean the bit where he takes them to blackwall and then teleports away? I'm not going to be running that part in that way at all. It would destroy the effort I've put into making them trust Allustan. Or are you hinting at some betrayl by the wizard in the future I've missed by reading Overload?

One of the bosses in Hall of Harsh Reflections is a doppleganger (greater?) who takes on Allustan's appearance when the PC's first enter his chamber. Quick idea for keeping him teleporting for help in your game. Before he and the pc's leave Diamond Lake (if you're having them take him at all), have him, with the pc's in tow, stop by the town garrison and have him apprise Commander Trask that he'll be out of town. Try to give them the impression that he's trusted by the local garrison. That is assuming they don't have a low opinion of the town's soldiers.