The Jade's page

not making sense

A.K.A. Thom Vincent, I believe.

Anyone out there ever wonder what I'm wondering? That this brawny ex D&D devotee may have nicked his cool surname from Deisel, a cartographer brought on board at TSR some time back in the 80's.

I first saw the latter's work appear in I6 (was it?), the Ravenloft module. It was a mindblowing new take on the dungeon lay-out, 3-D and quite detailed.

I have been playing D&D for several years, and my children are learning the rules now (and dragging my wife into the mess too). I want to know what other longtime gamers think of 3.5 edition, and if a revision was really needed.

I've been playing since I was six, back before the books came hardcover. 3.5 has been nothing but a dream come true.

I don't know if I'm the only one out there buying up every book that comes out but I read them like some read their favorite fiction. The multitudinous choices, the game mechanics that finally work, the sheer depth of content and options provided of all of the various accessories...

Manna from heaven, baby.

Wil Wheaton has written in his blog (www.wilwheaton.net) that he will no longer be writing Wil Save, apparently due to negative feedback from somewhere...Hmm....

As per the opinion of most here I have nothing against Wil, but regaining a pageful of actual gaming content over another content-light anecdote from a guy who doesn't even play D&D anymore? Lose a celebrity spokesman, gain sixty more seconds of my interest per issue. A fair trade off, I'd say.

As for Kid Dork's challenge... I just don't want to pay to read a nostalgic fan's lighthearted memoirs. There should be a special zine for that. Somewhere. Else. ;)

I'll buy the Shackled City hardcover. There's something masochistically blissful about spending sixty bucks on a book. As simple minded as it is, I'm figuring anything that expensive simply HAS to be amazing.

Gimme.

Hey, I subscribe to both Dungeon and Dragon. Wonder why it doesn't say (subscriber) next to my name?

Sir Mona,

You didn't ask for five stars or anything, but you got five stars and a qualifying explanation.

You guys deserve it.

I wrote one for Dungeon and one for Dragon.

This, single-handedly, will usher in a new era of subscribers. Little construction paper inserts accompanied by checks are soon to inundate the folks at Paizo.

True, the millions at your disposal will lead to embezzlement and hefty jail sentences, but think of the upside. D&D will become core curriculum at city schools. All immigrants into the US will be forced to learned the thieves cant before earning their green card. They might even release that silly Mazes and Monsters film on DVD!

Treasure hunt was interesting. I ran "The Sunless Citadel" with characters that started out as 1st level NPCs. Most were just commoners, but one was a Blacksmith Expert. At 500 Ex. I let them get their first PC level. I've found this to be the best way to handle/run pre 1st level Characters in 3.5 ed. Most first level adventures can be run with pre first level PCs, it just takes a bit more player skill to ensure the characters survive.

I was going to run "The Whispering Cairn" with 12 kobolds, and still may someday, but my campaign is currently taking a different direction.

ASEO out

You allowed players to play the NPCs?

Were the characters benefitted in any way by being brought to first level the long way around, or was the idea to add disadvantage in the name of challenge?

I've been daydreaming about climbing magnolias since reading your reply this morning. However, I wouldn't know a magnolia from a copper beech. Must research this.

"The Larch"

the difference between

Woe to those

his fiesty bowels

It's a tree native to the Greyhawk setting. A tree not usually found in the Cairn Hills, I would think. The Cairn hills are typically painted with drab patches of scraggly grass scattered across barren hillsides pierced by rocky grey outcroppings, with a few healthy lilac bushes and small cedars down among the streambeds.

Quote:

DEKLO TREES:
These are massive hardwoods often 15 ft. in diameter and over 100 ft. tall. They have thick, strong branches that grow almost parallel to the ground. The leaves of the tree are nearly round and grow in thick clumps. On a mature deklo, leaves will be over 1 ft. in diameter. These trees tend to grow in groves, excluding other forms of vegetation.

A strong thick tree over a hundred feet tall with branches that grow parallel to the ground? Where were these back when I was building treehouses?

Remind me to look into paying you a consultant fee when I pen my next adventure. Gadzooks, man.

Your latest solution goes deep. Not only philosophically aligned with the gravity of a coming age of despair but complimentary in regards to introducing the powers of law with their own agenda. You took Alistor, a plot device to open a door, and transformed him into a major herald of what's to come.

I'd seriously consider adding all your elements to the storyline before running a party through. They add a portentous lyricism.

The wind dukes were a race of elemental lords that predated mankind but I suppose that the Land family might bear a hint of their bloodline (as the bloodline option in Unearthed Arcana). Even the surname Land ties them to this place.

Alistor Land's legacy will be, in his own small way, to help restore the land (almost rhymes) by assisting the PCs on their way.

It's too bad Alistor disappears after this first adventure. I would have enjoyed some Resident Evil Red Queen type exposition as the storyline progressed; if he materialized on occasion and acted the part of vague advice spewing cipher, possessing no emotion but possessed by a merciless scion of law.

At worst such a device would smack of deus ex machina but properly managed we'd get to see an early NPC develop alongside the party in unpredictable and perhaps morbid ways. That's always a bit of fun.

Wereplatypus, (by day a duck, by light of full moon a beaverduck?)

Your solution has pathos and doesn't sound retrowritten.

It's my favorite thus far.

However, since there is a culture of explorative youth about these cairns I get the feeling that if the under 13 trap rule you've suggested were true, Alastor would have walked down to that last room only to find fifteen other peasant kids juggling the iron balls and riding around on Grell back during a some kind of coed Snapple party (non-alcoholic mead flavor).

Was there a medieval equivalent to the modern slip and slide?

What kept all those other kids, before the wolves came to den, from getting as far as he did? The place would be a chalk graffitti fest:

Plinth and Mertia
2gether 4ever

Diamond Lake sucks Owlbear eggs

Erik Mona wears falsies