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EvilBenEvil wrote:
Actually, the fact the rogue was inside Skull Rot (this was prior reuniting with him) meant we didn't have a "quiet" door opener (we did have the barbarian though;) and we were trying to be somewhat stealthy, it seemed like a viable option.

Ah, this one was thing you missed. You wind walked there, and Skullrot is made of bone, which is porous. While you were all clouds, you could've just squeezed through the wall at any point. You didn't have to go through the front door.


Gonturan wrote:
Which AP will you play next?

The guys have been joking about everyone rolling up dwarven barbarians and running through an adventure to see how long they survive. So this seems a good way to get to know Pathfinder too (we'll all get to know barb rules really well).

They also stipulate that the adventure must in no way be tailored for dwarven barbarians. They expect to never even see the actual dungeon and probably fighting town guard on their way to drunken looting.

So I'm looking at the first PF AP, Council of Thieves, but I haven't read it yet. I don't expect we'll get much past the first adventure, but you never know.


I forgot Hot Toddy!

Back in the first meeting with the Stormblades our group got in a bar brawl with them. I believe it started with Todd throwing a biscuit.

In order to get all the regular townspeople out of the fight, the dwarven cleric (at the time) yelled, "Free ale on us!" up at the bar, and the halfling rogue gave Todd a hotfoot.

Todd forever after became known as Hot Toddy (later spread by the bard), and the group became known as the Aleslingers.

Another high point (for me) was the recurring villain, Skaven Umbermead. They first met him down in the Kopru Ruins, and he escaped. Then he hired some Alleybashers to go get his books out of the Aleslingers' quarters, but Bob the Mimic ate the alleybashers. Then he went along with another group of Alleybashers, killed poor Bob, and got his books back. He later took part as a lieutenant to the Stormblades in the battle of Redgorge, and eventually set up an ambush on the barbarian and rogue which led to one of the deaths of the rogue. In their last encounter, he yelled, "I will get you eventually, Aleslingers!!! I am your nemesis!!!"

All the Aleslingers were like, "Who are you? Have we met?"

Everytime he fought them he had been invisible, "offscreen," or hadn't bothered to identifiy himself. He considered them his nemesises (??) but they had no clue who he was.

And yeah, that could be called bad DMing on my part, but he just never got a chance to go into a villain monologue, and I'd been using him as a recurring character ever since around 4th level.

The other was just this one moment. Back in Life's Bazaar, the first level adventure, as part of the Kazmojen's treasure trove there are "four large iron keys shaped like demons." Slashgoule kept them all those years, and when they were standing outside Skullrot and I told them the doors were locked he said, "Remember those demon keys? I try them on the doors."

And lo and behold, those keys opened the doors to Skullrot. Just because it was cool.


We finished SCAP.

Two of the original players made it all the way through the campaign, ending with a level 19 arch-mage evoker, and a level 18 spell-thief rogue. Also on board were our bard/sorc, our cleric, and our Barbarian/Fighter.

After years of making fun of the cleric for taking Turn undead feats and even some levels of a prestige class in a campaign focused on evil outsiders, in the third round of fighting he turned Dark Myrakul, who then went down like a chump.

The battle with Adimarchus lasted 8 hours. In the end one of his aspects had 9 negative levels and the other had 23 (!!) negative levels. His snake appendages couldn't even hit anything anymore, and the spell thief had stolen all his spell-like abilities so he was down to Detect Good. Yippee!!

Nidrama and Fario both died in Skullrot. The bard died twice in the fight with Adimarchus, but quick use of the revivication spell kept him on the field. He had the smoking eye, after all. The arch-mage took both an implosion spell and a disintegrate and sucked it all into his rod of absorption. In the end, it was massive damage from the Barbarian that brought Adimarchus down.

So everyone really had a moment to shine in the last battle. There were close calls. And once Adimarchus disappeared they went back to Occipitus and had a long discussion about whether to throw him into the plasma jet or not. In the end, the Barb said, "Will you all please SHUT UP!" and tossed him in.

The bard is now in charge of Occipitus at level 20. The spell thief has turned chaotic evil because of his tribulations on Carceri and spends his time in the shadows in Cauldron making sure no thieves' guild ever takes hold there again. The arch-mage and the cleric are spending the next 20 years arguing over whether to use the Soul Pillars or destroy them. Eventually the cleric will gather the people and resources he needs to destroy them, and then a great war will break out among the Powers of the continent.

The Barbarian has headed west. His best friend used to be the "little guy" (spell thief) but since getting back his friend has changed and pushed him away. Eventually he will find an entire city of wild gnomes in the jungles, and he will become their protector. Most importantly, he will have an entire city of "little buddies."

And now, years after everyone else, we begin our first Pathfinder campaign.


Wow, good for Decrihni!

I looked at that encounter and said, "Wait, the bad guy has his back to the door and is playing a very large pipe organ made out of bones?"

Here's how things normally go for Decrihni--

Party opens door stealthily or Decrihni fails his listen check because he's playing a pipe organ.

Party pauses a moment to consider whether this is a good guy or bad guy.

Party notices the bones and (rightly) concludes this is a bad guy. Initiative is rolled, mostly to see which of the party members go first during the surprise round.

Party unloads on Decrihni. Decrihni dies without taking an action.


In order to stop a party split with the bard and evoker at 18th level and the cleric and barbarian at 14th level I had Alakast ask to be broken over the Tree of Shackled Souls.

I was going with Alakast, the brother of Nidrama, giving his soul at the forging of the quarterstaff Alakast. It's a nice intelligent item whose progression was posted here somewhere and I yoinked for my campaign. The party had used a Wish spell to fully awaken it, but the cleric couldn't match Alakast's ego, so kept doing the bidding of the staff instead of the other way around. After he was fully awakened, the party pretty much wanted him gone, as he was a pain in the butt.

So, with two of the party dead, two blind, and the Tree shackled, the Evoker broke Alakast. The spirit of the Deva fused with all the energy coming off the Tree and used it to True Rez the two fallen party members and Heal everyone else. Alakast will now guard the Tree for the rest of time, his spirit is bound to it.

So now I've got two 18th level characters and three 16th level characters who are rebuilding Cauldron and doing the research and such necessary to get them to Shatterhorn.


Olaf the Stout wrote:
I've found that my group hasn't had anywhere near the amount of deaths I expected in the SCAP so far.

We didn't have any deaths until Occipitus. Since then we've had an awful lot of deaths.

You'll notice my deaths are all two characters dying over and over again. Those players are the newest to D&D and don't seem to have the survival skills the others have.

Also, my players insist that I be actively trying to kill them at all times. I asked them. I always thought it was much more fun to almost die, but not quite. They say that is correct, but it's only fun if they know they pulled it out through their own efforts and not me pulling punches.


We just finished Thirteen Cages and there were many more deaths.

The Cleric died in the first fight in the Fiery Sanctum when, in the midst of a demondand fight, the minotaur Cagewright attacked the party from behind. He saved the wizards and sacrificed himself.

The Bard's cohort, the Quetzalcoautl (affectionately named Chicklet when they couldn't pronounce his real name) died to the pyroclastic dragon's disintegration breath weapon, leaving the rogue who was riding him suspended in mid-air over a pool of magma like Wile E. Coyote. The rogue survived.

The Barbarian expired when the pyroclastic dragon held him under the lava for too long.

The Cleric died again when Alakast (now fully awakened and in control because the Cleric failed his will save) had him fight the haraknin. Mooks ganged up on him and killed him.

The Barbarian died again while shackling the Tree of Shackled Souls when Dyr'ryd turned his full attack towards stopping him.

The Cleric died again because he was wielding Alakast (again) and was the only one with a prayer of fending off Dyr'ryd once the Barbarian was dead.

I haven't been keeping count of how many deaths, but at this point both the Cleric and the Barbarian are thinking about rolling new characters simply because they'd be higher level (APL-1) than getting Raised yet again and losing a level (APL-2). They've already gone off to the big city and used their "absolutely one and only" True Res scroll, and I threw in another True Res scroll in the dragon's hoard just so they could continue.

BTW, the only character who hasn't died is the party Evoker. He's come close a number of times, actually dying once but popping right back up with a Revivify spell the next round. He's had his share of save or die moments, but always made the save.


Since December we've had three more deaths and a toading as the party has gone through Foundation of Flame and Thirteen Cages.

Our bard tried to hit the Fiendish Morkoth with a baleful polymorph, but didn't get through his spell reflection, so turned himself into a toad. That lasted most of the rest of that adventure, as he was the guy with Break Enchantment. Once Cauldron was evacuated, our evoker had time to rest and untoad him.

Our barbarian experienced something worse than death, a farastu disarmed him and held his magical greatsword in the cleric's blade barrier until it shattered. He complains more about that than all the times he's died.

Once in the Fiery Sanctum, our cleric of St. Cuthbert died when the minotaur Cagewright attacked the party from behind. He saved the wizards, but he paid the ultimate price.

And last week we had the Moltenwing fight. Chiklet, our bard's cohort (a Quetzalcoatl) was turned to ash when the pyrochlastic dragon breathed his disintegrate breath, and then the party barbarian died again while being grappled in molten lava by the wyrm.

I'm not even sure how many deaths that is now.


I'm running The Fiery Sanctum now, and there's another bonus in there. A room where the character with the template gets a free Wish.

That ain't just whistlin' Dixie, and it shows what's possible when you have a campaign-specific template or prestige class.


I haven't checked in around here in awhile, though my Pathfinder subscriptions are getting read (slowly).

We're coming to the end of my Shackled City Campaign, and starting to talk about what's coming next. I really liked RotRL, one of my players wants to run a separate CotCT campaign, and now I'm about halfway through reading Second Darkness and thinking about that.

Last year I ran a session of Hollow's Last Hope with normal 3.5E rules with one group, and then with Pathfinder rules (maybe alpha 3?) with another group. The 3.5E group barely got through, with the standard problems like the mage getting knocked out in every encounter and such. The Pathfinder guys just breezed through it, never really being in danger.

So, uhm, if I wanted to run RotRL as a Pathfinder campaign, how much conversion would I need to do? I'm a lazy DM (read, I have a job) who wants to pick up the adventure, do a bit of prep like making some character sheets for NPCs, and then go run the thing.

Right now I've got enough Pathfinder 3.5E material to keep my group running for at least the next 5 years. I'm interested in the Pathfinder RPG's fixes, but not if they break all previous campaigns so I have to redo the stats on every NPC and monster.


I killed Ricros, the party's rogue/spell thief for the 4th time on Sunday.

It was during the big meeting to determine the new government of Cauldron. Ricros and Boulder the Barbarian decided that they were unsuited to politics, didn't care who ruled Cauldron, and would spend the day on a pub crawl instead. These two have become somewhat friends, ever since Ricros infiltrated House Rhiavadi and Boulder kept watch (of course Boulder was easily distracted, started harassing some passing clerics of Pelor, and eventually ended up at the temple of Kord breaking things to honor the God. Luckily, Ricros was okay.)

So the entire diplomacy meeting and subsequent attack happened with one of my players playing his DS and the other texting his wife. I felt bad for both their missing out on XP, and wasting about 2 hours of their time with an encounter they weren't part of.

So the next session I put together another encounter for them, of a similar nature. Since the party was down their fighter and rogue I only sent 2 berserkers in with the sorcerer, so the other 2 berserkers took part in a simultaneous strike on the rogue and barbarian. For teleportation duties and magical backup, I sent a leveled Skaven Umbermead along.

It shouldn't have been a big problem, but Ricros blew his save on a Finger of Death thrown his way. Boulder took down the berserkers, but Skaven got away again, shouting, "This is the third time I have escaped you, Aleslingers! Bwahahaha!"

Boulder showed up at the town hall in tears, carrying his li'l buddy, a la Superman carrying Supergirl.

The entire party now thinks they have an evil nemesis that they never even noticed (and they do, Skaven was always invisible or something when they faced him, they've never actually seen him.)


I had the same problem with the party wanting to find the Fiery Sanctum instead of bothering to help evacuate Cauldron, except in my case they sent the bard alone to help with the evacuation and the other four of them went down into the underdark.

One corridor full of poison gas, and 6 Con damage on two of them later, they teleported back to the surface to "catch their breath."

The bard and his cohort dealt with the "baby in the window" scenario alone, but the rest of them then got into rescuing the family trapped in the collapsed building.

From the Barbarian: "It's nice to actually save people instead of just killing things and taking their stuff."

Word came from the lower streets that there was a strange mist coming off the lake, and that's where we ended the session. We won't face Hookface until January or February.


Well, in the month since our last session the party worked out a way to get around the Oblivion doors-- polymorph someone into an Umber Hulk and let the Umber Hulk chew a new path around each door.

At first everything was fine. The UH chewed through his first wall then turned back to say, "Hey guys, there's treasure in here!"

Result: Two confused fighters-- the barbarian starts attacking the Umber Hulk, the NPC fighter flees at top speed.

While the rest of the party is dealing with the confused barbarian, the invisible rogue decides to check out this treasure. He yoinks the first thing he sees, and two stone golems rise up out of the floor!

Oh it was a beautiful thing.

Long battle short, they vanquish the golems and grab the loot, but now they're definitely tapped, so they head back home (222B Obsidian Ave., it's a townhouse, y'know) to rest up.

They head back at full power and the bard turns into an Umber Hulk this time. They burrow around and there's nothing much left in Oblivion but Vhalantru. They finally get to him and we only have 15 minutes left to play.

So we did 1 round of the fight. At the end of 1 round:

Vhalantru is down about 50 hp, but he's out of reach of the barbarian who only has a throwing axe as a ranged weapon.
The Bard/Umber Hulk is stoned.
The Cleric is paralyzed by Tarterian spit.

Still up and kicking:
Rogue/Spell Thief who does the most damage with a wand of sonic orbs.
Evoker who has gotten lucky with some disintegrates and fingers of death in the past.
Cuoatl cohort with empowered fireballs.
Ineffective Barbarian with his returning throwing axe.

So at this point, even if Vhalantru goes down in the next round (I think he's got at least two more in him) he's scared them silly and proven a worthy foe.


Chef's Slaad wrote:


If you want to leave the party a couple of hints, planting a partial map of Oblivion, including the spells needed to activate the doors Lady Rhiavadi's room should help the PC's quite a bit. She's been staying in Oblivion for several weeks before the start of LoO, so she should have had plenty of time to do some exploring.

Actually I planned on doing that with the notes in Lady Rhiavadi's study. The party has them, but the wizard hasn't even given them a cursory glance yet. He's "waiting for some downtime" to properly study them.

He's going to be pissed when he finds out he's been carrying around the answer to the puzzle the entire time.


My players hit these today. I gave them a major clue: when the wizard cast Detect Magic and stared at the doors after three rounds he could tell the school of magic that was dominant on the door. This was the school of the spell that would activate it.

The first door they tried a Dispel Magic. I know it says the doors are impervious to all spells except the trigger spell, but it seemed to me that Dispel Magic should work. So I ruled that for the 1d4 rounds that Dispel Magic cancels out a magical effect in an area, the door would be non-magical. It didn't open, but it was non-magical. Once it "woke up" again, the force beams would strike.

Rd 1: Barbarian tries a strength check to open it. Fails miserably.
Rd 2: Rogue tries Open Lock. Fails.
Rd 3: Wizard says, "Oh ferchrissakes" and disintegrates the door.

Now normally casting a Disintegrate on the wrong door would trigger the force beams, but since the door had become non-magical for those rounds, it disintegrated.

They've now seen more doors, and tried a Charm Person on the Charm Monster door, activating 7 force beams and scaring the bejeesus out of themselves. They want to rest and get spells back before trying more.

Mostly I'm wondering about Oblivion sapping the resources of the party before they get to the Beholder. I thought between House Vhalantru and the first demondands in Oblivion they'd be at about half strength to meet the Beholder, but they went down to the third level first and now they're feeling tapped out. They want to rest, which means they'll be nearly fully strength when they meet Vhalantru. I always saw the doors as a way to suck the high level spells away, which still might be true.

So, DMs who've run this, how close to fresh was your party when they fought the Beholder? How much did the doors suck out the party's spells?


Cambridge, MA, here, and the FLGS is Pandemonium Books and Games. They keep putting Pathfinder on the "New Products" wall, plus there's a section of Paizo stuff on another wall. They've got an odd selection of AP's, not really all of them, or in order. Maybe they've sold out of some.

More importantly, three times now, as someone came over to watch/listen to our 4E game, they were carrying an issue of a Pathfinder AP.

I'm actually torn, because while I'd like to support my FLGS, I'd rather get my Patfinder Advantage discount directly from Paizo, so what happens is I look at Paizo stuff down there, then come home and order it.

I've been making it up to them by buying novels there.


An evil party will get no help from the Celestials that are involved in SCAP, so in Demonskar Legacy when Nidrama appears to the party, the first thing she does is detect evil on everyone. If someone is evil she just shakes her head and leaves, so no hints there.

Later she wouldn't speak through Alex if he's killed in the fight with Nabthataron.

And eventually she joins the party, because she's been cast out of Celestia for helping them, but if she never helps them, then I can't see how/why she'd be cast out.

Of course, you could reverse all this and just have her help evil people, but that's not how it's written.


Actually my party was almost TPK'd by the grell too. It was the first time I sent F&F in, and they promptly got grappled/dropped and knocked unconscious. It was the lamest rescue ever.

BUT, the round that they were busy getting toasted allowed the party cleric to heal the party fighter and get him back on his feet, which allowed the party to finally deliver the killing blow.

Then the party revived their rescuers.


Their current favorite tactic is to send the Cuoatl in both invisible and gaseous to scout, then dim door in to unsuspecting baddies if they can be assured of the area (on the other side of a door down a hallway).

With House Rhiavadi, they sent in the Cuoatl with the wizard's familiar, "Mr. Squeaks." Mr. Squeaks has always been a rat, but recently the wizard upgrade to an imp. He sent his "flying, invisible rat" along with the Cuoatl, and no one in the party even batted an eye at the rat's new found powers.

The Cuoatl has now registered strong objections with his leader (the party bard), having done a detect evil on the rat and found it thoroughly evil. Next session, probably before the assault on House Vhalantru, there will be a confrontation, and either the Cuoatl will go or the imp.

I warned the wizard when he upgraded to an imp that there would be consequences. He is Lawful Neutral, but as he grows in power he's been going to the dark side.


Why not have them wake up at the Church of St. Cuthbert, their bodies dropped off by the two mysterious elves? The elves paid for the Raise Deads, but left a note saying the party now owes the Striders of Farlngn 4000 gold?

That way:

1. They don't have to roll new characters.
2. You've introduced the Striders yet kept them mysterious.
3. They're a bit in the hole starting out, though no reason the Striders have to call the loan right away...

Just a thought.


As I said in the other thread, my party was feeling pretty poor and underpowered during Occipitus. Now, if anything, they're loaded for bear and we're on the tail end of Lords of Oblivion.

I think from here on out they're pretty rich.


My players were really getting their asses kicked when they went off to Occipitus (around 11th level) and immediately after coming back with the assassins' attack.

They felt they were poor and underpowered, so they decided to go back to Occipitus to the Plain of Cysts...

Basically, after gaining a level, they went back and cleaned out Occipitus. With a dragon hoard (I thought that poor black dragon had a crappy hoard, something like a +1 mace and some plate, so I made it reasonable as per the Draconomicon) in their bag of holding, they headed to Calimport (my campaign is in FR) and bought whatever they wanted, since it's such a huge city.

Which was fine. They still lost the two fighters in the temple of Wee Jas, but after Vitriss Bale, that was two dragon hoards in pretty quick succession.

They just broke up the party at House Rhiavadi without really breaking a sweat and I'm now worried they're a little overpowered. If they waltz through House Vhalantru next session, then I'll do an audit.

So if your party is missing treasure and feeling underpowered, why aren't they being more thorough? Why don't they go back to an area they feel they've "beaten" and look around? If they're leaving treasure behind, I'd just outright tell them, "Look, there's plenty of treasure in the adventure, you're just missing most of it. Maybe you should search more often."


The sheer amount of text each month coming my way is somewhat overwhelming. I'm looking at the August order and boy, that's a lot of stuff to read.

I'm already seriously behind. I just finished reading the Guide to Korvosa and Pathfinder #7. So I've just started AP #2 and Paizo is finishing it. Reading a Pathfinder book is roughly equivalent to reading a 300-page paperback novel, and frankly, I still read a whole bunch of books.

I think I could just read Pathfinder and keep up with Paizo's publishing schedule, except when they send me a hardcover and three other books in a single month.

Don't even get me started on running these things. I'm still running SCAP, and have been for the last three or four years.

So do you skim this stuff? Look at the pretty pictures? Are you all speed readers? What's the deal?


The taxes were announced as part of a "Never Again" speech after Flood Season. The taxes were supposed to pay for gnomish surveyors (now back in Jzadirune) to survey Lower Cauldron, then construct a series of levees to keep the lake from doing property damage during the flood season. Since the party members were the heroes that saved the city from flooding, they were asked to pose for a number of woodcuts that would go on posters exhorting citizens to pay their taxes for the good of all.

So I made the party complicit.

In the spring, they were asked to support an "adventurer's tax" which would be 10% of all loot brought into Cauldron through "exploration, extermination, dungeoneering, pillage, and the other adventuring arts." Since adventurers are in a different economic class than most commoners, they were asked for their civic support. The lawful good cleric ended up paying the entire tax out of his share.

The party wasn't happy.

I kept the party pretty poor up through the tax riot. They were very happy about the repeal of all taxes for a 3 month period afterwards.


Aren't the pdf's of those issues still available? I know I've bought a pdf of an issue I needed.

pdf's never go out of stock.


Vic Wertz wrote:
That's not a charge—it's an authorization.

Thanks Vic, good to know.


Vic Wertz wrote:
Sharoth wrote:
Ok. I can live with that. So, what that means is I get a free one with my Pathfinder subscription and then another one with my Pathfinder Companion subscription? If so, then that will work out perfectly fine. I like having one for me and one for the players.
I think that's the less common preference. We'll be assuming that you only want one, but it will be free. So if you want a second, preorder another after you subscribe.

Hi Vic,

After hearing that I would only be getting one Pathfinder Companion even if I subscribed on top of my other subscriptions and that it would be free, I went ahead and subscribed over the weekend.

And today my card was charged $8.49 for the first issue of the Pathfinder Companion.

So, uh, could I not be charged for the first book, since I was already getting it with my normal Pathfinder subscription?


We're not switching. We play once a month for 8-10 hours. We're at Lords of Oblivion.

Some months they burn through a chapter, some months they do not much of anything. Last month they shopped in Calimport (my campaign is FR) then argued for 2 hours whether to kick in the door of House Rhiavadi and blast anyone who was there, or to do the stealth thing and listen in on the meeting.

Two more weeks until the next session.


Wow, I love how you think. Of course, it's going to take some research for my cleric to even figure this all out.


Same here. The order (#945413) just got here today and I got Pathfinder #9 but no Gazetteer. I just sent an email to customer.service@paizo.com, but figured I'd check here too.


Well now that the party has unfettered access to the Soul Pillars, and the evoker and bard are willing to bend their morals a bit to ask lots of questions, the lawful good cleric of St. Cuthbert has decided (rightly so) that the Soul Pillars are an abomination.

He wants to destroy them.

So, I would consider them a major artifact chock full of all sorts of necromantic and divination magic, how would a party go about destroying them?


That's awesome, and reminds me of our rogue's shenanigans.

After Flood Season he got a Hat of Disguise, and since the mayor had announced that taxes would be raised in order to construct levies to stop Cauldron's dependence of nonrenewable foreign magic, our little halfling saw an opportunity.

He became a gnome called Roger Taxwell. He studied tax law and put a couple of ranks into Profession (tax collector). We had a couple of months of downtime there, and he rolled for how much taxes he collected every day. Every evening he made a Forgery roll as he cooked the books and skimmed some off the top. He also made friends among the other tax collectors, and was the first to twig to the fact that Vhalantru (Cauldron's Chancellor of the Exchequer IMC) wasn't such a great guy, because he followed the money and found that none of it was going towards levies, and most of it was going straight to House Vhalantru.

It was weird having this accounting minigame while the others were off making magic items. Like the one tax lawyer in the Untouchables.


We've had a good couple of sessions and they've just finished Soul Pillars and they're halfway through Lords of Oblivion (it's kind of out of order, because the mage scryed on Vitriss Bale who rolled a 1, so they went on to LoO because they were scared of the Dracolich).

They finally bit the bullet this weekend and finished going through Kurran Kurral, and the fight with Vitriss was epic, mostly because they knew he was in there when they went in, they were scared witless over confronting him, and it added tension to the entire session.

So their tactic was to send their cohort Couatl into each room to scout first. The Couatl is invisible and in Gaseous Form, of course, and this allowed them to take basically everyone else in KK down. Modus operandi:

1. Scout with gaseous, invisible couatl until you find a baddy.
2. Return to party with report.
3. Buff.
4. Dim Door in right behind said baddy, kill him in the surprise round.

So the couatl finds Vitriss and is leaving through the cracks in the doorway. "Make a move silently check."

"He's gas."

"Yeah, and this is a dracolich, make a move silently at +10."

He got a 26, which wasn't nearly enough. The party freaks out, because now Vitriss knows they're coming. They buff for 4 rounds, and so does Vitriss. They dim door in and Vitriss is up on the wall.

He breaths.

No one goes down, but the casters are all in single digits. The fight begins. The bard starts doing his various things. The barbarian throws his returning axe and gets hit by a ray of enfeeblement. They do some damage, Vitriss does some damage...

4 rounds later, he's ready to breath again and this is going to kill some people. The only one who gets to go before Vitriss is the mage, who casts Disintegrate. The save is DC 20. Vitriss rolls an 8, and just gets a 20.

The bard says, "What about the -2 to attacks and saves from my song?"

Ooooh yeah...

Vitriss disintegrates.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that bards are useless. One little debuff was all it took.


Timespike wrote:
dodo wrote:

If I had a choice, I'd rather fight with a comfy chair.

Or better yet, have an entire squad of Valkyries armed with... pillows.

Mmmmm... pillow fight.

I think Valkyries would just smother you with them. I seriously doubt asphixiation would be as sexy as you imagine. ;)

No, they fight each other, I just watch...

Or how about wet towels? Snapping a rolled up towel just right could leave a nasty welt.


If I had a choice, I'd rather fight with a comfy chair.

Or better yet, have an entire squad of Valkyries armed with... pillows.

Mmmmm... pillow fight.


Doug Bragg 172 wrote:


Actually, with the spellcraft check, you may not have impacted the wizard much at all. A universalist would still be able to use the Hand of the Apprentice just fine; cantrips are all likely usable (which is why I keep Mage Hand always prepared... on the off chance I do end up losing my staff, summoning it back is relatively easy). There seem to be enough ways of getting the spellcraft check high enough (skill focus, high Int., Precocious Apprentice, and I'm sure there is equipment available).

Yup, but you're using feats for a contingency instead of making your character more powerful. You'd be better off choosing a ring or amulet and not spending the feat. Once disarmed, your wizard now has access to much lower level spells and possible access to his higher level spells, so I've effectively given him some negative levels.

I suppose your wizard could have a locking gauntlet. That would be cool. :-)

Doug Bragg 172 wrote:
And here I thought it was because the choice was either killing me outright or stealing my staff, letting me get another round of spell casting and a chance to run away... and the death to wizard option won.

You've never had a fighter with Improved Sunder whacking at everyone's weapons just to see the surprised look on their faces? I had a player who did just that for an entire campaign. What does the villain who put all his feats into wielding a greatsword do when his greatsword breaks?

Or how about a wizard with Telekinesis? That just became a much more useful spell.

My party won against the Erinyes in SCAP by casting Shatter on the buckle holding her quiver of arrows. Her entire build was devoted to making her the most badass flying archer she could be, but without arrows, she went down in two rounds.

Doug Bragg 172 wrote:
But, I also play in a group that has hardly ever used disarm against the party's tank or against NPCs with big weapons.

Bottom line is, you don't seem to think it's a useful tactic, and in plain vanilla 3.5 it's questionable whether or not it is. In Pathfinder I think it's a more useful tactic that players will pick up on. Part of playtesting is pointing out possible unintended consequences to the designer, so that's what I'm doing.

Doug Bragg 172 wrote:
Is a Wizard's familiar in 3.5 magical? To the point of glowing with a magical aura? Or does it look like a normal animal, even with detect magic? I thought it looked like a normal animal. Yet, it grants certain specific benefits to the wizard connected to it.

According to the PHB, "A familiar is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a sorcerer or wizard."

So if my players were looking at a murder of crows wondering if a wizard was using his familiar to spy on them and the mage of the party cast detect magic and looked at them all sitting there in a tree staring at him, then yeah, I'd rule that the one that was a familiar would glow with a magical aura. It's no longer a crow, it's a magical beast that looks like a crow.


Last night in our second playtest Our Fearless Party went up against some Darkmantles (MM pg 38). If the darkmantle hits with its slam attack it can then "attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it attaches to the opponent's head and can constrict."

My darkmantles found grappling much harder under the new rules (or I was rolling poorly) as it only happened once in 5 rounds of 2 darkmantles attacking.

The one time it did happen, the darkmantle only beat the player's roll by one, which would make them "Held." On page 42 that says, "your target cannot move to a space that is not adjacent without first breaking the grapple, but is otherwise unaffected."

So here I have a player who has a darkmantle on his head (like a hat?) that can constrict, thus doing damage, but he is otherwise unaffected EXCEPT for the fact that he can't move more than 5 feet? The one thing he should be able to do is run around like a crazy man. I think of these things like facehuggers from Alien, and this basically sets off my "common sense" alarm. If you've got a leathery octopus on your face that is choking the life out of you, your attacking ability should be affected.

It was exactly the opposite of the common sense view of what was happening.

This adventure I'm running is grapple and trip check heavy (lots of wolves), and I'd like to echo what others have said-- the new CMB rules are no less complicated than the old ones, they're just differently complicated.


Doug Bragg 172 wrote:


A fighter sees a Wizard holding a staff, a wand in his belt, 2 rings, and wearing an amulet. Which is the bonded item? Which do you try to take? And why do that and risk the Wizard casting lightning bolt or some other fun big damage spell at point blank range (in case you guess wrong).

You go for the staff that he's holding because, as it says on page 11, "If a wizard attempts to cast a spell without his bonded object worn or in hand, he must make a Spellcraft check or lose the spell."

So it's either the staff, or something he's wearing (like the rings or amulet). If it's the staff, you've substantially reduced his power. If it's the rings or amulet, then you can't easily get them off him in battle (which would mean he's a smart wizard), and he's using the staff for whatever it does. By removing it from his possession, you have again substantially reduced his power.

Doug Bragg 172 wrote:
I've played a lot of wizards, and I've used the bonded staff for several sessions now... never once have I had a wizard disarmed. Beat down and killed, sure, but no one ever bothered taking the time to try and remove all magic items.

That's because your players and/or DM aren't thinking the way anyone who has lived and adventured in a world with spell focuses would be thinking. It's new to everybody. It's a trick that people will figure out and start using like a ten-foot pole on a dungeon floor.

Doug Bragg 172 wrote:


Seems to me that until it has been enchanted with some sort of magic property, it wouldn't be magical. It'd be a focus. So, it's as magical as any spell component or other focus would be.

Then what makes it different from any other ring, amulet, wand, or weapon? A cleric can just pick up and use any holy symbol of his god. The wizard must use this one particular object. At the very least, it's worth a sentence in the rules to clarify, because you're speculating just like I am.


Late to the party here, but some issues came up during our character creation that I don't see mentioned here.

1) "If a wizard attempts to cast a spell without his bonded object worn or in hand, he must make a Spellcraft check or lose the spell. The DC for this check is equal to 20 + the spell’s level."

So if I were a wizard, I'd want something that would be hard to lose. Right off the bat, I'd cross out weapons, staffs, and wands, because every fighter who ever wanted to render me less powerful would try to separate me from my bonded item. Conversely, every wizard the party ever meets should be disarmed (or diswanded, or distaffed) ASAP. It's the same thing if you see a wizard with a raven on his shoulder, you put an arrow into the raven.

So that leaves rings and amulets. My player asked what the minimum gp value of a bonded item was, and, as far as I can tell, there is no minimum gp value. Does it make sense at first level to pour your money into jewelry? No. Especially since jewelry is the first thing taken by nasty rogues when wizards are asleep or unconscious. Also, rings are harder to remove than amulets, so a ring it is.

A ring worth 1 sp, and hopefully tarnished. Then later, the wizard buys more expensive, gaudy jewelry for rogues to take (should he ever be unconscious) while leaving the crappy 1 sp, tarnished ring behind.

The big question is, would the ring show up as magic for a detect magic? I would think so, but what aura would it show, since it can help the wizard cast any spell he knows?


Last night we played D0 - Hollow's Last Hope using Pathfinder. We had a dwarven fighter, a human cleric, a halfling rogue, and an elven wizard. I DM'd and I didn't really do any work on converting monsters to Pathfinder (though they didn't really encounter that much.)

For those unfamiliar with the adventure, the first half is a wilderness romp followed by a pretty classic dungeon crawl. We got through the first half last night. There are a number of skill-based challenges (convincing people to give you information, making your way through a forest in the correct direction, seeing hidden things).

The skill system as it stands doesn't seem to work right. If someone had the appropriate skill, then they were super experts and could beat the DC easily, but if the skill wasn't one they had picked, then they would try it untrained, in which case the DC was pretty challenging. If it was a skill that couldn't be used untrained, they'd shrug and just do without.

One of my players was running the fighter and cleric and decided to make them both dumb as rocks. That meant they got one skill choice each (-1 Int modifier). The fighter took Survival, and the cleric took Heal. Survival was great for some things, but without any Knowledge (nature) he just didn't even know what some things were. So, for instance, they found some Glow Moss on some rocks. No one had Knowledge (nature) so they had no idea what it was, but the fighter very easily got it off the rock and wrapped it in a damp cloth.

We ran 4 combat encounters, and only one seemed to put the players in any kind of jeopardy. They went up against the Tatzlwyrm which is a CR2 monster and the only reason it even did damage to anyone was because it surprised them and won initiative, so it got two attacks (one of which failed) before they could even react. They then beat it dead in another round (it would have been a single round, but the fighter missed the first time).

There's a pretty deadly feat combo with Power Attack and Overhand Chop at least at 1st level. The fighter's first attack was a full Power Attack and an Overhand Chop. If it hit, it would do 20+ damage and pretty much kill whatever he was aiming at. The Overhand Chop makes you do one attack as a full round action, but if you're 1st level and only have one attack, it's not really a sacrifice.

A question came up over whether the rogue could sneak attack an animated cauldron. Constructs are no longer immune to sneak attacks so it came down to whether or not the rogue could see a "weak spot." The player was arguing that there certainly are weak spots on cauldrons-- you could potentially see a crack, or where one of the feet joins the actual bowl. I ruled that the cauldron was homogeneous, and he couldn't see a weak spot, but I think this change will make for many arguments around many tables.

The interesting thing is I ran this same adventure a week ago with straight 3.5 rules, and in every one of these encounters there was a great sense of jeopardy and use of skills throughout the module. Yes, the wizard spent most of his time unconscious, and the rogue couldn't hit to save his life (literally), but those were sources of entertainment for the group. With Pathfinder it felt more like 3rd level characters were waltzing through a 1st level adventure and just laying waste to it without paying too much attention.

For our next session I'm going to beef up the monsters so they might provide a bit of a challenge.


So Cauldron blew up and everyone died?

And your players are happy with that? It seems like a bummer to me.


PulpCruciFiction wrote:
The easiest fix I can think of would be to have the Striders maintain the surveillance of House Rhiavadi and allow one of them to get the information. You can then have most of the Striders get wiped out by the badguys when they try to put a stop to them but allow one to get away and report to the PCs, or you can just have them track the characters down to fill them in on what happened at the meeting as soon as it's over.

That's a great idea, except the party specifically told the Striders NOT to go near House Rhiavadi in order to keep them safe (since Fario was kidnapped while on a stakeout there).

Though there's no reason the Striders have to listen to the PC's...


After a number of party deaths, my players were feeling a bit overwhelmed by the SCAP, so, after raiding the church of Wee Jas, they decided to go back to Occipitus, grab all the shiny things they saw in the Plain of Cysts, and track that black dragon back to his lair, and presumably his hoard.

So they did. But for a couple of nights before they did, the bard went from tavern to tavern performing the story of how the Blue Duke bowed down to Nabthatoron at the Battle of Redgorge, and how Lord Vhalantru is not the lawful leader of Cauldron.

Basic rabble rousing, then the party headed off to Occipitus for 2 weeks.

They come back to Cauldron to find the Tipped Tankard overrun by low-level bards (about 50 of them). The bard took the leadership feat, so his followers have arrived. He teaches them an abridged version of his "Ballad of the Battle of Redgorge" and sends them into the city.

Meanwhile, the party wizard has a scrying list of people he's checking on every morning. He gets to his day for checking on Vitriss Bale, and poor Vitriss rolls a 1 on his Will save. The wizards sees a dragon skeleton with a greenish tinge talking to a pillar made of grayish white flesh. He puts two and two together and, understandably, poops his pants (figuratively).

So they're not much interested in going to Kurran Kurral. When they get back from Occipitus, Fellian (who has become a cohort) gets the telepathic call from Meerthan about Fario and we start on Lords of Oblivion. They save Fario and put house Rhiavadi under surveillance.

The rogue follows Kazmojen (who is replacing Adrick Garthun IMC) leaving House Rhiavadi, and misses his Listen check, so instead of hearing Kaz grumbling about how everyone's waiting for Lord Ashmantle and they'll give him 2 more days until they hold the meeting without him, only hears "Lord Ashmantle."

Meanwhile the bard sends half of his followers off to take over the Lucky Monkey, and the wizard researches Kurran Kural and finds out where it is. The party decides to head off to Kurran Kural!!!

Argh. So long background leading to a request for advice: I've set the LoO meeting at House Rhiavadi for 2 more days. The party could quite easily be at Kurran Kural longer than that, so they'll miss the big meeting. If so, the wannabe Cagewrights are going to come after them.

Step 1: The Blue Duke and Kazmojen lead the Town Guard (who they now run) on a massacre of the remaining bards at the Tipped Tankard.

Step 2: A simultaneous assault on Fario, Fellian, and Meerthan at the Drunken Morkoth by Khyron Bonesworn and Velior Thazo that should pretty much kill all three of them.

Wait one day for the party to show themselves, if not, target more of the party's known associates (Skie, another assassin strike on Shensen who's now in Redgorge, Jenya).

I'm hesitant to run these things "in the background" while the party is away dungeoneering, but I find it ludicrous from a story point of view to postpone the LoO meeting indefinitely until the party can be a part of it. They're going to miss a big reveal for the campaign overall (the Cagewright plot), and I'm afraid of the larger implications of having them miss the meeting, then basically having the Striders wiped out as a political force and its impact on Foundation of Flame.

So any thoughts? How do I keep the bad guys moving their plot along w/o screwing over the big reveal the party needs?


barsoomcore wrote:
Dreamweaver wrote:
I thought this thread went the way of the Dodo.
What makes you think the Dodo went quietly?

What? I'm still here.


I gave them 25 points if they just rolled up a character, 30 points if they wrote a character background based in either Cauldron or Sasserine.

I had one guy who promised me a background, then showed up to the first session with nothing. I told him he could either write the background then and there (people were still arriving), or rejigger his character with 25 points. He went with 25 points.


It sounds like a side quest to me, but they're going to have to work for it.

The bat shouldn't be a big problem, since he's a familiar and has a telepathic link as long as they're on the same plane.

But the best would be to have the ranger think his dog is gone, have him go on the quest to find him, and at some odd moment (he's drowning his sorrow in the tavern) have the door open, and Fido, mud covered, with numerous wounds and scabs, maybe even missing an eye or part of his ear is chewed off, wanders in with the next band of travelers, crosses to his master and puts his head in the ranger's lap, hoping to be petted.

I'm tellin' ya, there won't be a dry eye in the house.


I've considered what we're going to do after SCAP (although, we're in the middle of Soul Pillars and in no danger of finishing for another year or two). I had always thought I'd go to AoW, because by the time we were done with SCAP the hardcover for AoW would be out, if not the hardcover for Savage Tides too.

I don't even own all the issues for either of those, because I was lax in picking them up, figuring they'd be collected into a hardcover eventually. Now it doesn't look like either hardcover is ever going to happen, so in order to run either of the other AP's it would cost a pretty penny for all the pdf's.

I'll probably go straight to Pathfinder, which will have three or four AP's by that time.

My players were excited that eventually they'd start new characters in the same world as SCAP, and hear about their former characters' exploits. Ah well, things change.


My players took the "last words" from Nidrama via Alek very much to heart. I had the army marching on Redgorge, so they had a ticking clock. Nabthataron had pretty much cleaned their clocks even with Alakast, and there's the voice of Nidrama telling them that if they go back they're dooming Cauldron and that they should trust the smoking eye.

And there's a guy standing there with a big smoking eye on his tunic.

They decided to rest the night, and Kaurophon actually encouraged it, as Occipitus is a dangerous place. Going back to Sasserine was right out, as they had the army bearing down on Redgorge.

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