The Black Bard's page

My group was "Ekyam's Surprise". When we found out the truth of Ekyam's reasons for sponsoring, we laughed out loud at the delicious irony.

Members of Ekyam's Suprise:
Kor (Raptoran) Angel of Darkness
Stewie (Half-Ogre) The Night Titan
Cyric (Human) Shining Steel
Dage (Human) The Feline Frenzy
Nevil (Kobold) Pyroclasm

Our group's cleric is a Raptoran (Races of the Wild) entropomancer (Complete Divine), terrifyingly powerful, (shadow and mind domains) and has the standard entropomancer fascination with speheres of anihilation.

But we need some help, as she's about to take a side hop to the negative energy plane to play pokemon with these things "Gotta catch em all!"

1. Issue 135 gave good examples of what you can and cant do with a sphere. But here's a question: Would it be possible to store a sphere in a leomunds secret chest? It seems similar to the portable hole example, but also bears similarity to the "its not actually an object" argument. Which is the case?

2. What type of action is the control check for a sphere? Standard, move, or free? It says after control is established, you can move it as a free action, but it doesn't say what type of action establishing control is.

3. The cleric took one level of sorcerer to qualify to use the Talisman, so would the talisman and entropomancer abilities stack, equating a TRIPLE mod of the level+int control check? It's a typeless bonus, so we think it would.

Answers to these would be great, especially from one of the design team. We have a firm rule in our group that we must know the official rules or closest thereof before we begin tweaking and houseruling.

Thanks all!

Because Im a LUCKY B@$TARD, I can trust my players, at least not to metagame off of maps. *Does a happy dance* So I print them out, use the numbered one for me, and let my players use the blank ones to draw in the map for me on our nice 6'x4' Chessex battlemat. That way I'm not wasting time drawing, and I can instead review the encounter aspects with a little peace and quiet while they draw.

Just my two coppers.

Currently mid-HoHR (All bent rules were bent in attempts at making the game more fun for those involved, we like to think we know what were doing. WoTC sources, Dragon magazine, some rare third party on DM approval.)

"Cyric" Human Paladin/Bard. Known for inspirational rants build up dramatically and have incredibly abrubt endings. Likes to "goad" enemeis (as the feat, Complete Adventurer). Been seen to appear like a blood filled suit of armor occasionally (Diehard feat).

"Dage" Human Were-housecat Spelltheif. Extremely cowardly, yet has a devil-may-care personality in his recently acquired hybrid form. Likes to throw alchemical items and activate wands. Known for being absolutely devastating in combat, when he actually enters it.

"Kor" Raptoran Cleric/Entropomancer. Nearly indestructable, (18 con) she beleives there are some things that just "shouldn't exist" (darkness, magic for domains). Modeled after Anne Bishop's "Witch" character from the Dark Jewels Trilogy. Potentially the scariest character we have, considering the role spheres of anhilation play later on.

"Neville" Copper-dragonwrought Kobold Sorceror/Luckstealer. Born unlucky (flaws for auto failure on 2 as well as 1) Neville was outcast from his tribe. We rescued him in the 3FoE, and he has been a loyal, if occasionally troublemaking friend since. Likes to stare at people and steal their luck.

"Stewart" Half-Ogre Ranger/Barbarian/Beastmaster. Stewie wants to be human, and hates his ogre half. Commisioned a falchion, as axes are not "elegant weapons". Kor made bottles out of the glass of the lanterns in the Wispering Cairn, which the rest of the party then put freely given blood and kind words into. Stewie then sent the glass to be fabricated (as the spell). The process somehow created a Legacy Weapon, which he named Bloodwind.

Just my two coppers.

When I DM or play, I try to keep this rule of thumb in mind: A PC (or monster) should be using a special ability/power/attack(see below) every other round.
This lets PCs feel like the abilities they chose are making a difference, and lets the monsters show off their strange powers without absolutely hammering the PCs into the dirt. Obviously, smarter monsters, and PCs, may use their abilities more often, but I find every other round a good benchmark to use.
Through this, combats last a little longer, but the PCs actually come out a little more unscathed, because they actually remember to use their special abilities and often have better teamwork as a result.

(A special ability would be anything besides a normal, straight off the character sheet attack roll. Fighters make use of feats, mages cast spells, rogues feint and sneak attack, clerics buff then attack, etc)

Just my two coppers.