Vattnisse's page

Ok, these are my questions...

1. Could someone please explain the point buy system in a bit more detail for me. I get the underlying idea, but I am not sure I understand the specifics. (~grins~ Well, what can I say. I am from the old "roll 4d6 and take the highest 3" days in 1st edition.)

2. If you use the point buy system, how do you use it? Also, what would you go with? 24, 28, 30, 32?

3. If you do not use the point buy system, why not?

The reason is that I will be running 3.5 edition for the first time and I want to (pretend to) be fair to my players.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

We used to do the "roll 3d6 8 times and take the six best" system, but now overwhelmingly embrace the point buy system, simply because it makes it more or less impossible to cheat during character creation and, more importantly, it gives everybody an equal starting point. It also puts a end to those annoying characters who were great just because the owner happened to be lucky with the dice; of course, this strikes both ways - I once played a first edition Ranger with 16 as the lowest stat... However, now we all feel that the point buy is fairer in the long term that rolling stats.

The mechanics are fairly straightforward - if your baseline is 8, each stat increase costs 1 until you reach 14, before then becoming progressively more expensive. Thus, the best score for most starting level characters will be a 15 (which costs 8 points).

Personally, I use a 16-point buy scheme with the baseline being 10. This is actually a bit better than a 28-point buy (it makes it easier to get a starting 16 or, potentially, two), but to me, the more important thing is that it also eliminates the problem of very low stats - in particular, I'm sick of dwarven Fighters with CHA 6 or barely-sentient wild elves with both INT and CHA 6...

Otherwise, my experience is that 24 points is a bit on the low side, while 28-point buys fits most campaigns. Of course, this would depend a lot on your campaign style - a combat-heavy campaign will require better stats than a less lethal style of playing.

farewell2kings wrote:

If I lived anywhere in the state of Oregon, I'd drive to play in one of Lilith's games (even if they tracked my mileage from space so they could tax my hybrid just as much as my SUV).

Considering gas is at least $3 a gallon for the crap gas on this side of the mountains, that's a heck of a commitment. :-D

Down here in Eugene, it is only..., um.. $2.75? As an expatriate Norwegian used to gas prices well in excess of $7.50, I'm just smiling.

Energy Substitution if you pick up any arcane levels so you could change a spell with an energy discriptor to another type of energy (cold, fire, acid, etc.). PHB2 has some neat offerings also, check it out if you can.

FH

Something else that occurred to me - the best way to summon tons and tons of monsters to do your dirty work might be to multiclass as a Wizard (Conjurer) and then go for the Mystic Theurge PrC. That gives you a LOT of Summon Monster spells, and makes the Practiced Spellcaster (Cleric) a little more useful. Thus, when the campaign concludes at lvl 21, you'll be a Cleric 3/ Conjurer 3/ Mystic Theurge 10 /Thaumaturgist 5 - the ultimate summoning machine. Of course, you'll be terrible at turning undead or engaging in combat, but that's the price you pay for your special power. Your planar cohort can watch your back anyway.

Just a thought.

Don't forget terrain and line of supply. Those factors have caused more battles to sway the other way than I can count.

Good point. If you have the time and inclination, read Martin van Creveld's "Supplying War" for some good historical references.

Not to be rude, but just imformative. The Elemental Savant is in Complete Arcane. Though it might be in what you said two. I like the way you are making your character. I have a nineteenth lvl sorcerer and since you are fire and earth, you could summon the Magma Paramental once you get summon monster 9. If you wanna know where to find some extended summoning list, check Dragon issue #302 I think. Hope that helps.

~Flabulater OUT!

True, but there is also a cleric-themed elemental transformation PrC in the FG book. It might be called something else, though.

Vattnisse wrote:

If you want to be REALLY nasty, you could make the magical torch the lich's phylactery - the lich and the light are inextricably linked due to the circumstances...

The amount of pride that one feels when you stumble across a thread all about your adventure, the pride... ;)

There is actually two reasons why Vargnin is a lich in this module...
a) Nerull considered his 'raising' a blessing, a second chance to prove himself by allowing him the chance to destroy Pelor's Pyre (which he did have a hand in creating). Giving him the form of a lich skipped most of the research part of the trasformation, so he could not hide his soul away, if he failed, he died.
b) Back in the ol' days, the only monsters available to us writers were in the MMs. The adventure is a monster, with little room to put in new monsters (which I did try, the Grimlock were initally to be Urd). The adventure was initally lower level too, making Vargnin a vampiric cleric, but neither I now the Dungeon people liked it, so lich he became.
c) At the time of writing there was no 3.x adventures with liches in it, someone had to step up to the plate.

As for the quoted comment above, the lantern's primary purpose was to repel all evil from the village. It was a beacon of hope and light forged with the help of a god that stood against all things undead, had Nerull gotten away with that I'd be reconsidering my godly position ;)

My suggestion for the new rules? Vargnin would make a great corpse creature (makes a lot more sense) with the corrupted template. Vargnin is not really much of a fighter character, he was initally the burgomaster for the village and fled once he was discovered, hardly a brave act.

Ah, the dangers associated with suggesting changes to an adventure one has not read... Obviously the Pyre cannot be the phylactery, then - I just thought that it would make for an interesting conundrum for the PCs. Thanks!

I am trying to make a character, who wants to become a "Master of the Elements" in our AoW game. I have started her out as cleric of Obid-Hi with Domains of Fire and Earth and picked my first three feats..Practised Spellcaster, Spell Focus(conjuration),and Augument Summoning. The Idea for her was to summon Elementals and let them do the fighting for her. Could anyone please send me some ideas on feats and or Presitge classes. Thank you.

Hmmm.... There is a class called "Elemental Savant" or some such thing in the Faiths and Pantheons book for FG. While this class is not a specialised summoner, it does eventually turn the character into a half-elemental. Combine this with the excellent Thaumaturgist PrC in the DMG and you've got an elemental summoning badass- that is, if you can get your DM to OK the FG PrC (whoa, lots of abbreviations at once there).

Augment Summoning is a must-have. Though normally a waste of time, Practiced Spellcaster is actually a bit useful with this combo, as the Elemental Savant has a somewhat delayed spellcasting progression. Greater Spell Focus (Conjuration) is great for flavouring, while Scribe Scroll lets you carry a bunch of summoning spells around in your pocket. Other than that, perhaps you'd like to create elemental-themed magical items, such as bound elementals trapped in gem-like bombs, or staves that summon monsters? If so, item creation feats are a must.

Hope this helps.

I noticed Queensryche put out a follow up to Operation: Mindcrime, which remains one of my top 3 non-Rush albums ever. Mindcrime II--I'm going to get it pretty rapidly.

"For a price, I'll do about anything, except pull the trigger, for that I'd need a pretty good cause."

F2K - if Mindcrime II is any good, would you let us/me know? Operation: Mindcrime is ridiculously good; "Revolution Calling" is practically my mantra.

I was lucky enough to see Metal Church with "possessed" and it still rates high on my list of live shows. I get crap from other friends who didn't appreciate "the dark" when it came out, but I love that record! I was also lucky enough to catch Kreator right after "pleasure to kill" was released. Old Kreator is some of the best thrash of all time. Those crazy Germans are still touring now, but it will only ruin your good memories if you go see them haha

Old Kreator vs. new Kreator is a bit like the old Metallica vs. new Metallica discussion... I like the new Kreator albums a lot, but they are nowhere near as good as "Endless pain" or even "Terrible certainty". Of course, not many records are...

Working late tonight, with only one disc in the sound system. However, it happens to be perhaps the finest piece of music ever recorded - Obituary: Cause of death.

Vattnisse wrote:

A conversion would depend a bit on setting - if you use the Greyhawk setting (which you should...), Death Knights are powerful individuals cursed by Demogorgon. As there are only 13 or so of them in total, suddenly introducing one would be a bit..., well... wrong. Other settings, of course, ignore this potential problem.

Totally setting it in Greyhawk. I hate ripping adventures out of their context. I am a nut about continuity and canon. I am really new to Greyhawk also, however so had no idea that Deathknights had a specific history there. Absolutely won't do that in light of their established place in the setting. Thanks for the info. I will take another good look at the huecuva again. That might just do the job. I'd probably have the same problems with a mummy as I would a lich, since they are prepared and animated in special ceremonies that the cleric just didn't recieve. I'll check it out though.

A couple of years ago, back in the day when Dragon still occasionally ran their Living Greyhawk feature (grumble, grumble...), there were two very good articles about the Death Knights of Oerth - they had full stat blocks for the three or four most interesting ones, as well as the names, levels and motivations for the rest of them. Essentially, they were a company of powerful knights who were betrayed by their leader and were cursed with eternal unlife. Some of them have embraced their new nature, while others hate it. Of course, one of those recaltricant Death Knights make an appearance in the excellent Dungeon adventure "Lost Temple of Demogorgon". Naturally, I can't remember any of the issues mentioned... However, despite being powerful and unique individuals, the Death Knights are not "iconic" Greyhawk monsters, so it shouldn't be too problematic to sneak one more into the setting...

If you want to be REALLY nasty, you could make the magical torch the lich's phylactery - the lich and the light are inextricably linked due to the circumstances of the light's creation.

Metal Church: The Dark is a great album from a very underrated metal band. The lyrics alone are sheer poetry. I was and am a GIANT fan of Metal Church (notice my name?). Glad someone else appreciates good ol' fashion, high-pitched, metal.

Yeah, I kinda figured the handle had to come from somewhere... I LOVE "The Dark" - I was actually considering using "TonOfBricks" as my avatar name - but I have no real use fot the post-David Wayne stuff they've put out. Still, that album is a Hall of Fame effort. Respect the howl!

I have 80's flashbacks all the time. I wish I could go back.......heck, I listened to Jan Hammer the other day, even though I no longer enjoy Miami Vice (it was a phase, then I bought some socks...)

Best 80's flashback album for me-- Aldo Nova [/END QUOTE]

Too true... Aldo Nova was pretty cool - "Fantasy" is still one of my favourite tracks from the Jurassic Era...

I don't have an Ipod, but in the CD player today (8+1 -disc changer):

Opeth: Still life
Opeth: Blackwater Park
Slayer: Seasons in the Abyss
Metal Church: The Dark
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Soul to Soul
Opeth: Ghost Reveries
Napalm Death: Harmony Corruption
Nuclear Assault: Handle With Care

and

Rush: Rush in Rio, disc 2

So I got to thinking. What would be the downside of making him something else? Something that a god like Nerull would actually make him, something that doesn't require study to become and which doesn't require a phylactery. Offhand I was thinking about making him a Deathknight. He serves a god of death, the main prerequisite, and while he isn't one of the main fighter classes that usually are changed into one, he is a cleric and they're fair combatants so that seems to work. He'd even be able to keep his spell list since Deathknights can cast any spell they knew in life.

So what do you guys think? Not used to adventures much so I'm not sure what the consequenses of this kind of change might be. What do you think of the idea in the first place? Any of that kinda' stuff. I look forward to hearing from you.

A conversion would depend a bit on setting - if you use the Greyhawk setting (which you should...), Death Knights are powerful individuals cursed by Demogorgon. As there are only 13 or so of them in total, suddenly introducing one would be a bit..., well... wrong. Other settings, of course, ignore this potential problem.

IMO, the Huecuva suggestions are good, but I'd probably make him a Mummy - the fool wanders in, gets trapped, starves to death and transforms into a dried-out husk animated by anger and malice. Drop the bandages from the description, replace the mummy rot with some other unpleasant supernatural side effect (I'm thinking something akin to the Touch of Idiocy spell - call it "Caress of Madness", or something like that), give it a Blackguard-style Aura of Despair instead of the fear effect and then kick back and enjoy the confused and panicky looks amongst the PCs.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Hey, I like jazz and Steely Dan. What sort of primitives are you lot? :-)

Aubrey the Beret-wearer

Primitive Motorhead fans.

the ace of spades...the ace of spades

Indeed! Most groups of PCs look a lot like the band photo from "Iron fist" anyway...

I'm curious to find out which of the core classes and races see the most(and least) gametime in your experience. Is there a way to conduct a poll on this website to generate a breakdown based on feedback to this post? I'm not asking about the most bad-a** combos...just the most/least played for whatever reason. Thanks for the replies.

This could just be me, but as a 3.0/3.5 DM, I don't think I've ever had a Bard or Druid PC. Paladins are extremely rare, and while I love playing a Ranger, none of my players seem to share this enthusiasm. This becomes extra strange as I DM lots of wilderness adventuring. Most common classes are Fighter and Cleric - generally, a 5-man party consists of a Fighter, a Rogue or Monk, 2 Clerics and an arcane spellcaster (evenly split between Sorcerer or Wizard).

As for races, nobody likes gnomes (least of all me...), and half-orcs are generally avoided, except for the odd novely half-orc Paladin. If anyone plays a halfling, which is quite rare, it is either the Rogue or the Sorcerer (but not, for some reason, the Wizard). The most common race by far is human, with half-elf finishing a distant second.

Anybody remember ol' Sakatha? Granddaddy of all templated creatures? Not only was he a lizard man, not only was he a lizard king. He was a vampiric lizard king. I2- what a hack'n'slasher's wildest dream. Strap on your door-kickin' boot, tuff guy. It's splattering time.

Ah, the undead super-lizard... I had actually forgotten about him; thanks for reminding me. Yeah, like the old Lizard King wasn't awful enough already, they had to make him a vampire as well. Didn't save him from us, though - he went down eventually, as did all his minions. Still, that "skewer with trident" special attack was one of the nastier things in... was that FF? I can actually remember the illustration, but this is sooooo long ago...

[lol, The Koga just found that out, he gave us info, were just rolling a bunch of dice bassicaly, alot of the other players don't quite get it but The Koga is a quick learner and got it almost immideatly. He's looking up the organization he's apart of called the FCCC-P, ofcourse he can't help the other players out TOO much, because we were told to keep our sheets to ourself and the GM, so The Koga doesn't know how much he can trust his team, but rather will tell them just enough to insure they get killed before The Koga.

The Koga looked up information about his employer??? That sounds like he is doubting the information he is given, and, by extension, the computer. And that is a crime punishable by, ... well, death. Just like all other crimes in Paranoia, when you think about it.

Remember: don't drink the Commie-Cola!

Vattnisse, what part about the gnomes did you like? I've often had issues with coming up with a believable way to fit in gnomes & halflings into my campaign and I do like the solution I came up with for Sharendur. I'm kinda lookin' forward to writing up the history of the Sarapti War (the war between gnomes and halflings/hin, for those that haven't been keeping track). Since the Saraptin monks are an order of hin monks, there will be an interesting confrontation between the Saraptin monks and the gnomish jarylni.

To start off, I'm generally no friend of the wee folk - in my latest destined-to-fail homebrew, there are no gnomes or halflings whatsoever. However, I DO like the way you've introduced both as newcomers, as this solves a lot of those "why are they still around" questions that bother me a lot as well. I like their orientations towards travelling (explains the CON increase, as travelling is a hard life) and their bardic traditions, which makes more sense to me than the old preferred class of illusionist. And, most of all, the thought of gnomes being the slavemasters of the halfling race makes me all warm and gooey inside...

Good luck with your history writing, and keep us posted!

Greyhawk has the best bad guys - IMO, Rary wins hands down, but Iggwilv is great too; she's never seen but always felt. The exception, of course, being that little snippet in "Return of the Eight" that probably still has players bragging about seeing Iggwilv and living to tell the tale.

I don't care all that much for Iuz (he feels too much like a Sauron rip-off to me), but his cadre is suitably nasty, with Kerwin Mindbender and Althea as the most memorable. However, despite the very minor role he plays, I kinda like Greyhawk's other resident demigod - Wastri, the Hopping Prophet and the Hammer of Demihumans. Seriously, how can you not like anyone called the Hopping Prophet?

Okay... Minor spoilers for the end of Age of Worms, but I gots to know...

... There are what seems to be DOZENS of Liches running around Alhaster for the finale. I know that Kyuss attracts intelligent undead like moths to a candle, but Liches? Where did they all come from? Where ARE their placetries? Liches as disploseable adversaries? I know it's the end of the world, but this is kind of silly.

Am I missing something? It's a great adventure, really, but what is UP with the liches?

The way I saw it, they are liches just because that happens to be a handy way to build a bunch of relatively powerful undead spellcasters. They do not burn as easily as mummies and they do not have the spectres' or vampires' vulnerability to sunlight (just to mention some alternative types of undeads), all of which makes them more tactically flexible. Of course, if you want to throw a wrinkle in the players' plans, you could for example make 'em into wights with 11 levels or so of wizard - voila!, pesky undead wizards without the hassle of phylacteries. Or, if you are playing FG, make them evolved spellstiched death knights or some such thing. To me, the main point is to have a strike force of flexible undeads, not what their specs actually are.

I've been working on filling out some fleshy details about classes and races, bit by bit. I'm trying to Keep It Simple Sister (as was suggested by FH) and not stray too far from what's presented in the PHB. Most of what I'm shaking up has to do with origins, cultural details (which I love) as well as a "method to the madness" to many of the "givens" in D&D. (One of the things I did change was the favored classes for Elves and Half-Elves...you might want to take a peek at them; gnomes have a strong bardic tradition and halflings have a different background, as well as dwarves.

Piece by piece, I'm filling things out.

Smart approach - the incremental thing is a lot better than creating everything from scratch (I tend go for the all-at-once approach and usually get nowhere...). I like your "new" gnomes a lot, for what that's worth.

BTW, would this be a strictly online game?

Adventures. Big ones. My last three purchases have been big adventures--City of the Spider Queen, Red Hand of Doom, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Coming up with a great adventure is so, so hard, and I want all the help I can get. I like the scope and ambition of longer adventures, how they allow the players to change the status quo, not just maintain it.

Me too! Specifically, I'd love some kind of supermodule set in NE Greyhawk, perhaps as a continuation of the "Howl from the North" and "Five from the North" modules. Stonehold and the various barbarian tribes are very underdeveloped (besides "Iron Orb of the duergar", I can't recall any other adventures set in that region), and Sevvord Redbeard is one of the coolest and most iconic characters of the Greyhawk setting. It could combine harsh weather conditions and grandiose vistas with barbaric Erythnul cultists, white dragons, frost giants and all sort of other goodies - in short, it would be awesome, and should appeal all those who liked both "Ill made graves" and, hopefully, "Kings of the Rift" adventures in Dungeon 133, as well as oldies like the "Steading of the hill giant chief" and "Glacial rift of the frost giant jarl".

Speaking of Rolemaster, Middle-Earth Role Playing was my first game, and yes it had a lot of charts, but my God, what great source books. Just throw an Angus McBride cover on it and I'm there. I actually like it more than 3.x D&D. You never get adventurers retiring from D&D because they've lost a leg to a war troll's axe, but you do in MERP. Oh, yeah and none of that fighting at full-strength-until-you-die crap when you get hit bad here you feel it.

Right on. However, even as a Rolemaster/MERP devotee, I can't honestly say that the later editions got any better; I actually think the earlier versions were easier to plasy and understand, especially as we just ditched the ridiculously differentiated perception rules and just went with "Spot". Still, the sourcebooks were the best - I still have them all out on the shelf, even though noboby plays RM anymore. As for the unfortunate side effects of combat - well, that's what we have the Black Company Setting's horrible injury chart for.

Other old faves - Runequest and Twillight 2000. We still occasionally play Twillight. The setting feels a little off now, but it was great when it came out, and we're old enough to remember it.

And me... After reading these warnings, no less!

I do the minimalist, low-tech thing: Their Armour Class, Initiative and Saving Throws, as well as the passive skills (Spot etc.). Everything else I ask them for or just make up as needed. So far, it has been more than enough.

Methinks it was in 1983, but possibly a year or so later. Me and three other pals, having worked all summer and being flush with cash, decided to go to town and buy something cool. We were all 10 years old, BTW, with something like $30 each... Naturally, what we bought was the Battlesystem box. No DMG, no PH, no MM - just the mass combat system. Naturally, it made no sense whatsoever, and it certainly didn't help that we hardly knew any English (choice quote: "What the hell does 'dice' mean?"). But over the next couple of months, we picked up the core rulebooks, and then the Bloodstone Pass module. I still think what really got us all truly hooked was the scene when the high priest of Orcus get enveloped in that mile-high pillar of green flames and the undead start bursting out of the ground. Thus, my first AD&D character was a level 16 Wizard...

Of course, it was only then we tried real roleplaying, starting with the Temple of Elemental Evil. High point: badly missing my save at the electrum pillar and ending up freeing Zuggtmoy - and then killing her IN SINGLE COMBAT with my relatively dweeby Assassin. Low point: playing in "The Random Dungeon", a dungeon made with the Random Dungeon Table, populated in its entirety by critters from the Random Demon Table - all made up as we went. Ah, those were the days...

Hmmmm... I've got most of the non-overlapping 3.0 and 3.5 stuff (I only updated the three core books, and can't really be bothered to get most of the FG and Eberron books), as well as five seasons or so of Dungeon and Dragon. That is in itself a lot of books. However, if we start counting all my Warhammer codexes and White Dwarf magazines, as well as all the MERP and Rolemaster stuff, then the number becomes very high. I never had "The court of Ardor", though (jealous now).

On the other hand, I have about 8000 other books, so my problem isn't really game addiction, it is more akin to book addiction...

Vattnisse wrote:

Phil. L wrote:

An aspect of demogorgon before you fight the big, bad momma himself. A sahuagin death knight blackguard/ranger. A thesselkraken (combining AP II and AP III). An aboleth vassal of demogorgon.

Ummm..... A chimeric thessalkraken - rust monster, perhaps? Being ridden by an undead sauhaguin blackguard thrall of Demogorgon?

Now that's just being silly. An undead sahuagin blackguard would never be caught riding a chimeric thesselkraken - rust monster. Now a vampiric half-fiend aboleth grafted wereshark is a different story altogether!

Absolutely - the chimeric tessalkraken - rust monster is a very unfashonable mount. Let's make it a fiendish chimeric tessalkraken - rust monster, so that it can be the undead sauhaguin blackguard's fiendish companion while he jaunts around on his vampiric half-fiend aboleth grafted wereshark!

Seriously, though, I love the idea of a tessalkraken. Props to you for that one, Phil.

... when you use the "he has high INT but low WIS" line to explain why smart people do stupid things.

Incidentally, a gamer friend of mine explained at a recent party why Reagan got reelected in 1984 this way - "he might have been a bit dim, but he had a great CHA score". And was totally flummoxed when I was the only one present who got it.

An aspect of demogorgon before you fight the big, bad momma himself. A sahuagin death knight blackguard/ranger. A thesselkraken (combining AP II and AP III). An aboleth vassal of demogorgon.

Ummm..... A chimeric thessalkraken - rust monster, perhaps? Being ridden by an undead sauhaguin blackguard thrall of Demogorgon?

Um, coming to think of it, that same paladin who staffed his longhouse with battle-captives also rode a polar bear instead of a horse and wore a wolverine helmet over his walrus-skin cloak. I guess that last flourish might possibly be something of a Norwegian quirk.

As a Norwegian who has lived in Belgium, Russia and the UK (and is currently living in the US), I'm less than entirely certain about which influences come from where, or whether they are meaningfully traceable to being European. Like everyone else, my first experience with fantasy was Tolkien about 20 years ago, but I also read a bunch of other fantasy stuff, like the Conan comics and Stephen King's "The Stand". Still, I DM very differently from the Americans I've met, so there might be something there...

Also, I would like to strongly second the conceptual differences between heroism in the US and elsewhere; read the Older and Younger Edda (the Old Norse viking sagas), and there is little classical heroism involved. Instead, you get large amounts of shockingly messy violence, and a stoicism that is at times highly entertaining (In one memorable sequence, one guy comes out of a house with a poleaxe sticking out of his back. When asked if the house's owner was home, he answers "No, but his axe was" - and only then dies). Perhaps this lack of chivalric purity is why my groups rarely play paladins - and when they do, they are never actually likeable, but rather foam-at-the-mouth holy warriors? One of the paladins even owned thralls he had taken in combat. Even though he treated them well, that is quite a bit away from the Arthurian concept of the pious knight...

The whole thing is also at WotC's website, complete with maps and everything. Just scroll down the page to "Greyhawk Campaign Setting, and download it all. It's great - enjoy!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads

This may not be an "error" as such, but I am wondering about how some of the CR calculations for the giants were set up. That the fire giant fighters in the Citadel are CR 14 apiece seems about right, and, by the same logic, it seems reasonable that Bram is CR 18 and Charlgar is CR 17. However, Kagro, with four more character levels than Bram, is the same CR; again, this isn't too unreasonable, as few of his extra special abilities are useful against the PCs. Still, he is significantly tougher than his lieutenant (a bit more hp, much better saves and AC), and CR 19 seems better to me.

However, why is the frost giant CR 18 with 16 levels of sorcerer? He's a super-tough melee fighter with good saves and a huge array of very useful spells. Surely he warrants a higher challenge rating - probably CR 20?

Wouldn't a permanent Forbiddance or a Dimension Lock effect keep ethereal and other dimension-hopping trespassers out? Dimension Lock would probably be the best option, as the Forbiddance could possibly put all kinds of requirements on the PC (alignment, race etc.).

Secondly, though I don't have the adventure yet (buhu!) and thus cannot gauge the thickness of the doors' supports, it should not be too hard to Disintegrate your way around them by vaporizing a tunnel through the stone next to them. It might possibly take four castings or so, but hey...