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As promised, here are some Harthagoa stat blocks, building him based on the PF kraken rather than the 3.5 kraken.

First, just a straight conversion, taking the kraken and adding the half-fiend template:

Then, because just about anybody can take a standard monster and slap on the half-fiend template, I went a step further to give people something truly special. I added the advanced simple template,increased his HD by 50%, and increased his size. The CR I have here is probably low; if this were a true turnover, I'd look a lot closer at it. But for this, it should be close enough.

In both instances, I recommend GMs plan his treasure carefully, and make use of it. He should have an ass-ton of stuff and so should take advantage of that. Stat boosters, armor boosters (his AC is a bit low), wands, staves, etc.

Also, if you use him, don't forgot about his dominate monster ability. He should almost always be encountered with a bevy of animals to serve as meat shields.

Thanael wrote:

So the Fiend Below, Harthagoa, was converted from 3.5 to PF as "a unique, new creature that closely mirrors the 3.5 stats born of from adding a [3.5] half-fiend template to a [3.5] Kraken.".

Who will be the first to upgrade this to a PF kraken with the PF half-fiend template? Or will FGG be so kind and post this version of the CR21 Harthagoa as a web enhancement maybe?

I'll put it together. Might take me a few days, since I have other stuff that's due soon...

I'll be throwing this together this weekend. I plan to do a bit more than just take the PF kraken and applying the template; expect some Hit Die advancement and other tricks to make one bad-ass mo-fo. I'm figuring he'll be CR 23, maybe 24. After all, anybody can take a monster and apply a template; I'll give you a bit more than just that.

So happy to see this one come out. When Wolfgang approached me at GenCon last summer to work on this, I was giddy at the idea.

So this class came about entirely because one of my players wanted to play an archer, but didn't really like the flavor of the ranger. She didn't want a lot of favored enemies, and didn't want an animal companion. But she liked things such as combat style, tracking, and the various "woodsy" features of the ranger. She knew fighter could give her some feats, and that rogue could give her some skills and neat tricks like sneak attack and evasion. She also knew there were some nifty prestige classes out there. (This is probably a good time to mention: the class was originally designed in 3.5.)

And so she looked at all that potential multiclassing, and had a small panic attack. So stepped in and built her a class that had the stuff she wanted, but kept things fairly straight forward. In fact, the entire reason the class is named "elven archer" is because she was wanted her character to be an elf. Honestly, had she wanted a half-orc, the class would've been the half-orc archer from the start. And, honestly, I'm glad she went elf because when Wolfgang talked about putting together KQ20 he mentioned it was a loose elven theme. "Hey! I have this class. You interested in seeing it?" And so was born the published version of the elven archer.

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One of the things I wanted to do in this expanded version was steer it away from just being about elves. My original article in KQ20 had a paragraph about how to adapt to other classes, so this was my chance to stretch that idea a bit. And so this product has the halfling sling master and the dwarven crossbowyer - two different racial classes that use the basic chassis of the elven archer, and swap a few things out. I had a grand time coming up with "sling tricks" for the halfling, to be honest. On top of that, I also created the mystic archer, a class for any race that melds archery with mysticism and arcane energy to do some nifty things. My favorite? Using an arrow as a dimension door effect.

I didn't really get to explore everything I wanted. At least in depth. As publishers often do, Wolfgang put me on a word count limit. So there's also two archetypes: the royal guardian, sort of an urban-themed tweak; and the plains rider, which takes mounted archery and gives it some love.

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And there's other goodies. Cool feats, alchemical arrows, an arrow made from a dragon's tooth, new spells (LOTS of new spells), new magic items.

My other favorite feature in here is an idea Wolfgang planted in my head when I started - the arrow tracking sheet. Never lose track of how many arrows of different types you possess again. The sheet is designed to allow you to fill in numerous different types and keep track of what you have, and what you've used.

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Anyway, I've talked a lot. I'll happily answer questions. I'm really excited to see this one finally out, and thankful to Wolfgang for giving me the opportunity. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful editing work of Amanda Hamon. She was a pleasure to work with - she kept me in the loop for any important changes she was making, to make sure I was OK with what she was doing. It's always a pleasure to work with the folks over at Kobold Press!

Fire as She Bears is the name of the book. "Fire as She Blows" is something about Lou's personal life that's best not discussed on the forums...

What exactly are the 8 indulgences? I get that they are supplements, but can someone provide a list with a brief description? Thanks.

Sure.

"Art of the Duel" by Craig Shackleton presents historical information about dueling, both with blades as well as pistols. (Craig has actually been in the news lately up in the Toronto area because of his expertise in the field.) After going over the historical aspects, there are some new weapons and new feats.

"Blood Waters" By Greg Vaughan is a 7th level adventure set in the Razor Coast. It's designed to fit into the campaign, without being absolutely necessary. There are places within the book, though, where it'll say, "Hey, here's a good place to put Blood Waters." Blood Waters takes PCs under the waves with some great encounters.

"Dajobas, Devourer of Worlds" by Nick Logue presents all the info you need about, well, Dajobas - an evil god bent on destroying everything in the world. Along with the usual god text, there's a new domain, info about his followers, a new monster, some new feats, and some magic weapons. There's also a prestige class so you can make your villains even more frightening.

"Death Beneath the Waves" by Wolfgang Baur is a look at running adventures underwater. It goes over the rules, expands them a bit, gives the GM ways to lure the PCs there. There's some spells to help PCs cope with the environment, and a wicked nasty CR 11 critter to challenge your PCs once they're there.

"Mysteries of the Razor Sea" by Nick is an adventure designed for 1st level PCs. It's a fantastic intro to some of the lore and such of the Razor Coast.

"Shrine of Frenzy" by Brendan Victorson and David Posener is a 7th level adventure that deals with cultists of Dajobas and the superstitions of the native people, the Tulita.

"Still Waters" by Rich Pett is a 6th level adventure that takes PCs into the marsh. Good depth and the typical creepy feeling Pett injects into his adventures.

"The Warrior's Way" by Nick goes into depth about the Tulita, natives of the Razor Coast. Some feats, items, and lots of flavor and background.

Those are quick summaries, anyway. There's good stuff in all 8.

Heart of the Razor = unlocked! Woohoo!

Woohoo! We broke $60K!

I'm willing to bet that same list applies to the names I called you. Well, maybe not - my list was probably better. I'm more creative than you. :P

Anybody have any extra brain bleach? blargh...

--John Ling

Is there a link to the kickstarter?

No, because the kickstarter doesn't start until December.

Better. Now go make me a sandwich!

For those who have looked but not chipped in yet (or for those who might ant to raise their pledge), I want to take a moment to point out that Erik has gone and tweaked some of the higher priced pledge rewards. In particular, I think he's insane with what he's giving out for the top pledge level now.

For $500, you get dinner at the Palomino restaurant in Indy during GenCon for you and up to 3 guests, up to a $500 tab. Dinner will include me and Erik, and he'll invite along everybody else involved in the Production of Fractured Phylactery as well. We'll talk about the adventure, gaming in general, the industry, what it's like to be a super-sexy freelancer (I'll have to let somebody else answer that, though). Whatever.

But... you also get: PDF copies of Fractured Phylactery, Citadel of Pain, and All Stars Take on the Mega Dungeon; a signed (by me) print copy of Fractured Phylactery that you can pick up at GenCon; the Mega Dungeon map pack; four rolls of gaming paper; and print copies of Citadel and All Stars!

Frankly, I think Erik has lost his mind. ;)

Thank you to those who have pledged. And thank you to Lou for sharing his soul with Leander. I'm sure we can work something out to get it back later...

Hey! Watch where you poke that thing! Some of us are hiding in here!

Glad to hear folks, overall, are digging the elven archer class. To address a few points that have come up:

-- on playtesting: Yes, it has years of playtesting. The class was used in my home game for quite a while. (And yes, it started as a 3.5 class.) When we started our game, my friend liked rangers but wanted more to go with it, such as bonus feats and sneak attack. We talked about multiclassing and moving around in a bunch of classes - including 3 different prestige classes! - but in the end, it was just easier for me to build her a class that had what she wanted.

-- on the d8 Hit Die: Two reasons, but both come back to balance. First, the elven archer draws abilities from several classes, including ranger, fighter, rogue and arcane archer. It gains a lot of benefits from that mumble jumble, and so I opted to go with a die size that was (more or less) in the middle. Second, the other full BAB classes are (for the most part) melee-centric, and so they need the higher Hit Die for survivability in combat. The archer wants to be out of melee (though close combat shot lets them function in tight spaces eventually). Since they're not really built for going toe-to-toe with the monsters/villains, it made sense (to me at least) to keep their Hit Die down one step.

-- @Paul Watson "Elves are better than you" syndrome: I understand your point, and it's something that concerned me a bit, too, with taking the class from my home game to the published realm. Frankly, the only reason it was the elven archer in my home game is because my friend wanted to play an elf. If she had said she wanted to play a half-orc, it would've been designed as the orc archer. That said, I did take some time to include "variants" in the write-up, such as tweaking the racial requirement (or removing it all-together) as well as some quick ways to make it apply to thrown weapons and/or to crossbow snipers. Still, I do appreciate that the class isn't for everybody. However, if you read it and like the "crunch" pieces, there's really no mechanical reason you couldn't just drop the racial requirement and tweak the "fluff" slightly to suit your needs.

Cheers!