Xuttah's page

That is a very good point. This fight doesn't have to be a fight; just a preview of what to expect a few levels down the road when they're actually ready. When they reach that point, you might wanna toss in a few minions to sweeten the deal.

I also like the idea of the dragon (against all odds) being not immediately hostile. It might be bored or looking to trade for something it wants/needs, and just might be willing to sit down for tea.

If the party is out for blood though, it'll be happy for the excercise/snack. It might just kill a few people then fly away scoffing "Come back when you've grown up or learned some manners!"

]

An ancient black dragon is going to / should have a lot of reptilian mini-onions because of its charm reptiles and speak with reptiles spell-like abilities.

I didn't know that onions were reptilian, or is it only just the mini ones? I'll be careful what I order in my martini from now on. ;)

But seriously, the charmed reptiles will provide some impediments, but I'd keep them out of the main fight unless things are going badly for the dragon too soon.

That's a great idea for a The Tick villain :)[/ooc]

Or a professional archvillian from the Guild of Calamitous Intent.

I wonder for how many of us the tatzylwyrm was our first new Paizo monster.

Yeah, I loved DMing that module!

Perhaps there's even a magical element involved, such as illusion.

Or some CR appropriate monster with a scroll of Form of the Dragon III. :)

I'd say this the the ideal opportunity to have a RP encounter with the dragon. Instead of fighting, they should try and talk it out. Start the dragon as unfriendly and give them a chance to use their diplomacy and RP chops to end the encounter. If they flub, then the dragon kills one or two of them and hauls their bodies off for lunch/reanimation as undead guardians.

Read up on black dragons in your campaign setting and it'll probably give you some ideas on how it would deal with these interlopers. Maybe it'll toy with them for a while. It might just wound them or carry off pack animals/animal companions for the first while, then harrass them when they're resting, finally going in for the kill when they're exhausted, terrified and out of resources.

The upside of this is that it allows the players opportunities to hurt the dragon, partially recover from its attacks, and maybe come up with a plan/chance to negotiate.

OTOH Your party is roughly 2.5 times the average size of a normal group, so they're gonna get a lot of actions in comparison to the dragon, so the dragon may actually be in trouble if it's played badly.

Of course, they could also run away...

Sure... here's five major foes that appear in "Stolen Land:"

** spoiler omitted **

So, can we hope and pray for Reaper miniatures of monsters 2 & 3? :D

I hope that someday we'll see kobolds. They're pretty much THE first low level antagonists (D0, D1, D1.5?) and need some love. Please?

This is a good point, but being that all he talks about is D&D and his reason for not showing/calling was that it was cold (he only lives about a half a mile from my place)which is a dumb reason for not calling, not to mention we would have given him a ride. Hmm the thing with this guy is he is kind of a stereotypical nerd and he is extremely obsessed with this game (he almost cried when his weapon got destroyed) and is a bit of a rule Nazi, and I know that just talking to him will not get the point across. I don't really want to to punish his character but I just can't think of anything else to do that isn't to extreme and will get the point across.

This sounds like someone you couldn't pay me enough to game with, but since you have slim pickins in your area, I'd go with the sit down and talk approach.

When I DM, my usual appoach to an absent player is:

First time: Someone else plays their character. They get full xp and treasure, but also run the risk of being played incorrectly or getting killed by accident. Stuff happens, people miss games. This process can be repeated if the player doen't take advantage of the situation and he becomes chronically absent. If he does, then...

Second time: Exclude the character from the game and he doens't get a share of the xp and treasure for that session. Talk to the player about the importance of attending scheduled games. It's not fair to the rest of the players or GM if they skip out and leave them in the lurch, especially if it's a keystone role like fighter of cleric.

Third time: Character sits out of game until they can reasonably rejoin the party...this can be weeks of real time. Tell they player what you've done and give them the option of playing an NPC or just sodding off until the character can rejoin the party.

Anything more than that and they're obviously not committed enough to play regularly. Tell them that they can do guest spots or whatever from time to time, but they are not welcome to rejoin the campaign until they sort themselves out.

Is the grand prize a red herring by any chance? ^_^

I hope it's a shrubbery. One that looks nice...

Loopy wrote:

I'd pay $10 for a video of the two of them singing "Gonna Beat my Wife" by the Dead Milkmen.

Hell, I'd pay $12.

Did they ever do a video of "Stuart"?

Stuff about campaign goes here. Comic 1 is done, comic 2 in the works!

I'm enjoying letting my bard's kobold side come into play. The sadism inherant to the drow house we're working for really lends to letting his cowering, sycophantic suck up side run wild a free. So many plans, only eleven weeks of drow meat suit left to finish them in...

Would it be crazy to just allow him a variant on the spell when he gains a level and adds spells to his book?

Allowing the energy substitution feat from 3.5 would not be a bad option either.

I rather like the idea of a lich who everyone likes. I could see an entire town or village built up around a lich's lair to act as guardians of a sort.

In exchange for reasonable rent, he/she uses the occasional spell to encourage good harvests and to keep monsters at bay. Although he doesn't make a lot of personal appearances, he'll give gifts (nothing too lavish that people become spoiled) on special occasions and help those villagers in need.

A lich that well loved would have no need to protect his phylactery, other than keeping it in the locked curio cabinet next to his thimble collection (evil thimbles, mind you).

Nice to see the Tatzlwyrms getting some more spotlight time. Haven't seen them since, what, D0? They sure look big though!

Emily Dickenson opens up with a simile. The Architect counters with a Horn-clause.

Fight!

(nods to heathansson)

When my wife was in university, she messed with her prof's head by telling him you can sing just about everything Emily Dickenson wrote to "Yellow Rose of Texas"...but I see that Charlie already pointed that out. Super slow motion ninja'd. :)

Yes, craft construct is a feat. :) The cost I was referring to was the material components for the ritual. You can buy a dining room table and make it into an animated object (I actually lost a character to one); it's the magic pixie dust that costs.

As for the crafting rules, I wonder if the following would be a good fix:

Make mundane item: Same costs as RAW. Making a sword by yourself should take a few days

Make Masterwork item: Double time for mundane item. Adding 150-300 gp to crafting time is silly. The only problem I can see with this is the more expensive armours. Maybe double up to a maximum number of days?

Make Special Material item (silver/cold iron): Triple

Make Special Material item (adamantine, mithral etc): Quadruple.

Overall, this should drastically reduce the time it takes to make an item mundanely. Of course, a few ranks in craft and Fabricate saves you a lot of trouble.

Yes, a definite set of rules for animated object constructs would be great. They are basically only a little better than undead created with Animate Dead and have little in the way of special powers, so the price should be low.

Pulling an idea out of my hat: 2000 gp for a size medium object and you double the cost every size category you increase and halve it for size decreases. Special features (metal construction etc) have a fixed cost that you add to the medium sized baseline and then multiply with size.

I'm pretty sure I spotted him in uniform waving a sword of some description around at one point in the 2010 season preview, which seems to suggest at least occasional action sequences.

Cry havoc, and let slip the potatoes of war! :)

Action scenes would be nice though.

Xuttah wrote:

The new Doctor looks like a potato. >:P

Be careful, you may have to eat those words.

Actually, it may be an attempt to reach out to the couch potato demographic. :)

I hear that Pike had quite the razzle dazzle back in the day.

But I gotta say Janeway FTW though. Don't mess with someone who channels Katharine Hepburn 24/7. :)

The new Doctor looks like a potato. >:P

Whoaaa...my hands are Huge! They can touch anything... except themselves...

Fairly flat profiles usually mean one piece, so I'd guess yes. Great action sculpt! Alternate weapon hands (monk weapons) would have been cool though.

Kobolds? Getting tired of putting up with those non-PRPG models. :)

Kobolds?

Kobolds?

Kobolds?

If the US decides to invade Canada, we'll know about it far in advance through our special spy quarters. Not that we'd be able to do much about it, other than cut off our steady supply of actors, comedians and pop stars. ;)

zombie cows?? hmm

Zombeef.

Wouldn't that just infect the gators?

While the concept of zombie gators is awesome, the zombie virus needs to be transferred by a bite. Also, reptiles have a higher acid content to their digestive juices, which kills just about any pathogens the consume (that's why they can eat carrion without getting sick).

Apparently, Florida hasn't had a deep frost and is still in denial about the zombie outbreak anyways.

Thankfully they have gators who like to chow down on rotten meat.

FYI that funny little doodle on the steps behind the wizard (guy with the burny staff) was drawn by my son. I left it in just 'cuz. It's some sort of alien or elf, I dunno. :)

Another option is to make the PC's a ruling council of equals, either as regents for a young heir or even as a rebellion against a corrupt one.

Paint some simple law on the barn wall, and jobs a good'un.

Whopper with onion rings

Boy, you're just full of Canadianna today! I didn't know that about Frosty. Yes, the zombies have frozen solid, which makes them much easier to avoid. They're really hard on the snowblower though. I'm using a
Troy-Bilt Storm 3090 XP but have found that the arms often jam up the works, getting stuck between the blades. What brand do you use?

When it snows, the familty enjoys making the snowmen, but if it's too powdery, I use a Yardworks 20V (6Ah) / 10-in Lithium-ion Chainsaw to chop them up into manageable chunks and then put them into Hero Garbage Brown Paper Bags for pickup. It's eco friendly because the bags are biodegradable and the chainsaw can be recharged with solar or wind generators.

hmm. What's the difference between a giant kobold and a dragonborn?

Ummm...leather jackets, switchblades and dancing?

You guys have hammered at this bit all day.

It just dovetailed nicely into the thread. What wood you have me do?

I only eat Callous Jack (tm) Brand syrup though. :)

I'd have thought that your zombie problem would have frozen solid by now. My kids are already hard at work packing them in snow.

Little known zombie fact: The snowman was originally invented as a way to conceal those unsightly frozen zombie bodies until the next regular pick up day. They are usually decorated in a bright scarf and hat to get the pick-up crew's attention. The carrot nose is a holdover from when zombie pick-up teams used horse-drawn sleds. The coal eyes and buttons were a token payment for the incinerator facilities.

Also: The song "Frosty the Snowman" is a based loosly on an article from Winnipeg, where a zombie thawed out and reanimated during an unseasonal warm period. The original tale was far bloodier and ended in decapitation.

Kobolds, or giant kobolds.

A useful series of articles. Thanks for writing them.

The best fun I ever had with resource management was playing Harnmaster, when one of the PC's (a landless knight) was granted a run down, abandoned manor in Chybissa for helping the baron deal with a troublesome giant.

We had to recruit freeholders and serfs to work the land, and make arrangements with the various guilds to set up some of the essential services like a smith and miller.

The soil quality was very high, but overgrown and we lacked manpower, so we had to juggle what kind of crops to grow to get maximum yield to feed everyone and generate capital. My character (a water elemement specialst) even invented a spell to regulate the moisture in the soil to enhance our productivity.

The third challenge was our manor was on the border of the highlands; where wild tribesmen and worse roamed. We had a bloody raid in the dead of winter and had to defend what we had worked so hard to build. I tell ya, we fought extra hard for that win!

You really nailed it!

I wasn't screwing around, that much is plane. :D

And it is frakkin deadly! Get everyone to bring two characters.

It might be more accurate to say that sometimes smart people to unwise things. All too often the very intelligent have a fundimental lack of common sense (Wisdom in D&D terms).

Lengthy post explaining that I can do that quite well on my own, thank you. :)

Didn't you hear? They have rules for stairs, now. :)

(In fact, I hear they were all the rage on ENWorld during the Beta playtest.)

That is a board where I fear to tread.

(double carpentry pun, BAM!)

I call sofa bed this time! I'm sick of playing the ottoman. Or, maybe I can playtest the new wall unit rules, yes? ;)

The Handy Haversack and Bag of Holding. These go a long way to reducing the worry about hauling treasure about without encumbrance.

Wands of Cure X Wounds (light being most cost effective).

Mithral Shirt for everyone except the party tank

All I can say is that he better be dead. I spent a fortune on the flower arrangement I sent his family.

King of Arms -Chief Herald to the Kingdom. Heralds get to do all kinds of great stuff like be diplomats and keepers of records.

Marshal - Minister of Defence and Foreign Affairs wrapped into one. Ususally knows which end of the spear to stab with.

Exchequer - The guy who holds the purse strings.

Shadow-ruler -The King is a Puppet (likely not literally, but that would be fun too), The real power are the shadowy figures in the secret room.

Empty headed heir to the throne

Washer Woman - Essential for the efficient spreading of gossip to the far reaches of the kingdom

Gong farmer - Almost as essential as the washer women, 'cuz they shovel the other kind of s+$$e.

If you're talking about a medieval fuedal system, there is only one king. If you're getting into some of the older traditions, you could have many kings ruled by a high king as well.

I'd also like to see some options for different systems of government oo. Eg. a Republic, Theocracy and Magocracy, as well as a system of government unique to Golarion. Don't ask me what that is though... Maybe a government run entirely by the babblings of the residents of a specially maintained insane asylum?

It would also make a good name for the Inquisitor's judgment ability, or in-game description of it.

"The big half-orc in the trenchcoat lookjudges you, and seems really pissed... roll initiative."

And for evaluating school work. No more marking of tests of critiquing assignments, they're submitted for lookjudging. + + good!