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 Recent Posts
LOL! It's just the ones Nick posted on sinister ....blimey... almost two years ago. You might have them already, Ernest. LINK TO POST HERE. NSF... ANYONE! Oh Lordy, the post-holer. I won't sleep tonight!
<giggle> my apologies to your players! Admiral, I just read through the stats properly and spotted the "Olman Zombie Masters only" note for the rod of chaining. Nice touch! I was wondering about Chained Avasculate - if no-one saves do they all lose half their hitpoints, or does the initial target lose half and the rest 1/4? I'm hoping to have him make his first appearance this evening, but given how long my group do over combats, it might be next week. I'll have a squad of Violated Fireshielded undead arrive first and then let him make his entrance, fully buffed. He will demand his stuff back and give them a chance to leave. If they're smart, they'll take it.
Hmmm, that reminds me of something that happened last week. One of my players had a character underwater and he didn't want to open his Bag of Holding to put some loot in, in case it filled up with water. Luckily I didn't have to go there, but ... would it suck in a load of water or just what the owner pushes in?
Nope. If she gets to use sneak (and she has Bracers of Gravestrike for 3x daily sneak undead) then she can sacrifice sneak dice for:
Waittaminute... she can only steal spells as if the caster had cast them on her - so stealing buffs is fine, but no stealing Personal spells. Let's see, Antilife shell is... range 10'. Drat! It's up for grabs unless I deny her sneak damage - Fortification, for example. Which I don't want to overuse.
WOW o WOW o WOWEE!!!!! Turin, awesome stuff - I'd never explored the PF Sorceror bloodlines before. That 12d6 grabbing hands is begging to be a signature custom spell. The template has got me burrowing through my Advanced Bestiary and cackling!
Admiral, fantastic! Master Specialist is perfect! I'd forgotten about that too! The Monks Belt is a nice touch, and Violated spells are perfect! I also love Avasculate, and Chaining it will be sweet - especially with that DC! Point it at the guy with the most armour (and hp) then sit back and listen to them squeal! I'll have to make it some kind of evil minor artifact as it looks a little overpowering to give it to the group at this point. Or maybe let them have it but say it gives a -2CL when carried by non-evil casters. I love him - I can use him as-is! Just a few more tasty feats, I'll think about them tomorrow. My one concern is his anti-life shell. I'm pretty sure it'll only last one round. The fighter will bounce off it, the spellthief will steal it, and the shocked lich will teleport out to rethink his strategy :-) I don't want to deny the party their best tricks, but when the lich returns... some sort of Fortification will be in effect for sure! Or two skeleton champions with Tower shield delaying and giving him cover before and after casting! Thank you both - I couldn't have asked for more. I'll try to hit them with him on Wednesday, though they have to deal with a Huge, Awakened, acid-vomiting Pitcher Plant first :-)
Hmmm, getting hot in here :-) I know it's totally off-topic but I had to look it all up last week myself. For what it's worth:
The last bit is what necked one of my players too. Getting back to the topic. I've a 4th level Conjurer specialist and he's been using SMI and II since the beginning. He has a 3.5 class ability letting him summon as a std. action (loses his familiar I think). The Summons only gets a std action the first round, but is still handy. They are mostly useful as damage sponges. Sure, they have 8 hp (10 with Augmented Summoning), but when one eats a 25 point crit that would have killed a PC, it's worthwhile. In a fight with a Mimic my summons took 50 damage in four rounds - that would have wiped the party. Instead, they took it down with ranged weapons and ranged sneaks. My guys did absolutely no damage but were definitely instrumental in the victory.
I agree, I've been DM-ing ST for three years now and we're not even as far as Moonbeam's group. We play for two-and-a-half hours every two weeks. Everyone is having fun so I don't see that as "not doing my job" either. Play time, kids, illness... that all plays a role too. If we'd been playing like I played 20 years ago (about 30 hours a week) I'd have been able to DM or play all those nice Pathfinder APs too, instead of just having them on the shelf. Still, even though I love STAP I'm also starting to look at Kingmaker and stuff with covetous eyes. A single, challenging combat is taking a whole session and we're only level 12. Level 20 is going to be fun :-)
LOL, sorry, bad example!
Anyway, I still love the idea and this is a nice simple method.
Whooo! Thanks guys! on the off-chance my players peek:
It's not actually a one-eye but an Olman Zombiemaster gone (very) bad, and the reason for the empty village in STAP. Riffing from Torrents of Dread, Varnhold Vanishing and Crimson Throne Acropolis of the Thrallkeepers), I had the history as follows. The Zombiemaster, instead of keeping his zombies for defence of the village, has them digging under the pyramid. They find an old ruin (Acropolis of the Thrallkeepers) where he discovers seductively interesting relics, and also notes on lichdom. It's forbidden, but he's screwed by this stage. (It's actually a temple to Dagon, and he's been whispering in the zmbiemasters ear for months at this stage.) Using a ritual similar to the one in Varnhold Vanishing, he steals and imprisons the souls of the village in soul-jars, leaving their bodies infused with negative energy. The bodies become his fast zombies with their original class levels, and some of the souls empower his transition to lichdom. He wants more, needs more, but the digging isn't going fast enough. He needs more bodies. He sends his zombies to raid the Bullywug villages on the island. Unfortunately, the zombies stumble upon the spawning pools first and take mostly young females captive, many of whom are ready to spawn. The Bullywugs are incensed and send their crack commando's. They decimate the zombie ranks and the Zombiemaster has to send in his Mohrgs and also fight himself. He paralyses and later dominates a load of the crack fighters. They become his new defense force, while his remaining zombies keep digging for relics. He's a skilled potion maker and any backup will be well buffed on potions, as will he. As far as backup is concerned, he's used Mohrgs, PF Fast Zombies with Fighter 4 on top, and Dominated Bullywugs with class levels (Cleric 7 with Augmented and Rapid Summoning, Fighter 9 with weapon specialization bow or spiked chain, and Ninja 7). He has definite Necromantic talents, and has definitely used Dominate Person - so he can't specialize and drop Enchantment. He's an Olman Zombiemaster - possibly Caster Level 13, and in any case with 13 class levels to make him CR15. It would be nice to bump his Charisma to get the Paralysis save up. Another idea is to make him Caster Level 11 but then also let him Spellstitch himself. (This will also leave him with a few spells to use when the Spellthief has sucked his head empty.) Any books are fine, and with PC stats and equipment. He will need to stay out of melee or will die in a single round. I kind of need to be careful with Death Effects since the party have no Cleric, just a Dragon Shaman to remove effects and use a Cure Moderate wand. On the other hand, they are kind of iconic for necromancers, and they have Action Points. How's that? :-)
I was fiddling around with my latest adventure and had originally planned to adapt a lich from a module as my BBEG. kingmaker spoiler:
the cyclops lich from the Varnhold Vanishing Unfortunately he was a little underpowered for my needs and I went digging in my books for a CR14 or 15 wizard lich. Alas, no luck! I considered tweaking the one in the Monster Manual but he needs TOTALLY redone. (Who picks Toughness for 3hp?) Since I don't have the time to build one from scratch this week, I thought I'd ask.. Has anyone got a CR14 or 15 lich lying around? Preferably using Spell Compendium, Libris Mortis, Book of Vile Darkness and all the other good splatbooks for a fully tweaked challenge. If not, would you have any tips? Great feats/ spells/ items or tactics?
Can't wait to see what vileness you folks produce!
Nice - that's what my group and I were discussing for the last few weeks. We couldn't decide on a final and fair implementation as not all things are created equal. A Wizard, for example, has no feats, not so many skills, frequently no BAB, and few hitpoints. He does, however, gain access to a new level of spells every two levels. So, a 4nd level adventure could begin, the party could beat an encounter and the wizard could go for class abilities (spells) first, please. Now he can fly over all the traps, and learn two new spells. Extreme example, but that was the gist of the unrest in my group. We also sat down and made tables for the characters, to split up the levels that way. My wizard is going from 11 to 12... that's
That was better, but it made levels less special - the only thing that happened then was your caster level going up. We also considered letting the players buy steps with action points when they were far enough along in their level. That made it all the more dramatic, and fun. "If only someone could break the enchantment on that cursed sword, it's driving poor Joachim crazy!" "I've been working on that spell for weeks, and ... hang on a second.. if I just... and the thing here.. and the flux... Guys, I think I can do it." I'm sure I have the whole thing worked out somewhere. It's a great idea in theory and I was surprised my players weren't immediately happy!
I'd say it was the latter (tactics) as he later had it hang on when there was no-one in its area. The flames got it that time, luckily :-) I'm still not sure if it should be just on the players turn though - there's no real definition of "on your turn". I'm usually one for common sense and DM rules, but this split our group right down the middle. I'm for the spirit of the spell - always active, whereas others find that too unbalancing, and would rather have it 'flare up'. Except surely the spell fluff would say "flames pulse..." or "flicker" rather than simply "you burst into flames". Hmmmm - maybe we could take a vote? ;-)
Especially as it's only 2nd level! The thing is the fluff-crunch disjunct. .
Crunch: "Each round, the flames deal 6d6 points of fire damage to any creature grappling you (or any creature you grapple) on your turn."
a) on your turn and is dealt to anything involved in a grapple since your last turn or b) on your turn and is dealt to anything still touching you at that particular place in the initiative order The DM had the player grappled, said "oooh, flames" and let go of before the players turn, dealing plenty of damage but taking none back. That seems counter to the spirit of the spell, hence our discussion. (And for full disclosure "The flames created by this spell do not harm you or any equipment you carry or wear."
Balor Nimbus from the Spell Compendium is a scary spell, if you have it when you need it. It does 6d6 fire damage to an enemy grappling you (or being grappled by you) on your turn. Let's say a tentacle beast attacks you, hits, gets a free grapple, possibly does extra constrict damage immediately (depending on house rules) and lets you go as a free action - all on its turn. Ouch! Does that mean it doesn't get burned at all, since the Balor Nimbus only flares up when your initiative comes round?
I'd totally forgotten he'd been tortured - it was at 2nd level (now 12th) and two years ago! They are stuck without a lot of hints and info now though. I'm disappointed as without that story they're just crawling through a dungeon. If they had a cleric they could speak with dead, but they don't. Maybe leave a few scrolls lying around for the rogue...
Well, that was unexpected! The party stumbled across the Bullywug defending his basket of eggs from a Mohrg and slew the Mohrg. The BW said "Thanks" and the party surrounded him. "Drop your weapon!"
And that was the end of him. And the character who never gave him a chance to talk was... Lawful Good! Okay, he'd been captured and tortured by Bullywugs back in Lavinia's mansion, and lost a few toes IIRC. And okay, the previous (Dominated) Bullywugs they'd fought not a few hours before were brutal and hostile... but still... (We were running it in rounds, and when I said that the BW lowered his weapon my(very tactical) players said "Outside his turn? Not allowed!" and stuff of that persuasion. Then the Fighters turn came and he attacked.) I'm still inclined to think he crossed a line here.
Found it! In Dragon 166 there's a spellbook with the 9th level spell "Mylsibis' Arcane Contention" which lets you fight using giant monsters Big Trouble style, all fuelled by spells. I never knew that, of course, but I did know about (un)reason's "let's read the entire run of Dragon" thread on enworld. One search for the word duel later.... Now I'm off to read the rest of that spell and use it as a trap! Thanks for the idea!
Very true. My DM is quite happy as long as it doesn't touch the mechanics and looks like it still gives the same save. Swarm effects for Will saves will make for nice summoning style reskins. As a DM I love players to get so involved in their characters. The wizard in my STAP game paralyzes his enemies by wrapping them in fly paper (hold monster) and his Sending is an imp with a scroll and quill.
No, I didn't mean change the mechanics of acid. Always saying that he "splashes acid in the orc's face" was getting tired fast, you see. I was just thinking of other ways to describe it than smoking green slime.
Mechanics are sacrosanct, I agree! And the more I think about it, the more I like the crab-ankheg beastie on the shoulder... especially after watching Predator again recently!
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