drsparnum's page

Hi.
I pasted below a list of core spells that are either bard exclusive, or spells that bards get at a lower level than at least one dedicated spellcaster (cleric, druid, sorcerer, wizard). I just made a new bard, and I looked for these spells first when filling out my spelllist, and thought others may find the list useful as well.

Level Spell School
2 Blindness/deafness necromancy
4 Break Enchantment abjuration
3 Charm Monster enchantment
6 Charm Monster, mass enchantment
3 Confusion enchantment
1 Confusion (lesser) enchantment
3 Crushing Despair enchantment
4 CCW conjuration
5 CLW, mass conjuration
2 CMW conjuration
6 CMW, mass conjuration
3 CSW conjuration
3 Dispel Magic abjuration
5 Dispel Magic, greater abjuration
4 Dominate Person enchantment
3 Fear necromancy
3 Geas, lesser enchantment
1 Hideous Laughter enchantment
4 Hold Monster enchantment
2 Hold Person enchantment
6 Irresistable Dance enchantment
4 Legend Lore diviniation
2 Locate Object diviniation
1 Magic Mouth illusion
5 Mislead illusion
4 Modify Memory enchantment
1 Obscure Object abjuration
6 Project Image illusion
2 Rage enchantment
3 Remove Curse abjuration
3 Scrying diviniation
6 Scrying, greater diviniation
3 Sculpt Sound transmutation
5 Shadow Walk illusion
6 Shout, greater evocation
5 Song of Discord enchantment
2 Suggestion enchantment
5 Suggestion, mass enchantment
0 Summon Instrument
6 Sympathetic Vibration evocation
2 Tongues diviniation
1 Undetectable alignment abjuration
4 Zone of silence illusion

Under the leadership feat, it states:

"The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level (see Creating NPCs)."

Once I aquire the cohort who pays for the cohort's equipment? Me? Or does he receive some magical funds from the DM to maintain level appropriate NPC wealth?

I had a free PDF hypertext downloaded copy of the Pathfinder SRD, and now I can’t find it on my computer. Does anyone have a link? I particularly appreciated its nononsense, text-heavy, appearance … which looked like a detailed report … which made it look like I was actually reading a detailed report to people who casually passed by my computer…. in case I wanted to read it from a place where I should be reading detailed reports and not the Pathfinder SRD.

I've seen a few threads allude to this question, but I haven't seen any address it head on (my apologies if I missed one). (This will also be my first post with BBCode tags, so apologies for that too)

Tireless rage:
[/QUOTE Starting at 17th level, a barbarian no longer becomes fatigued at the end of her rage.]

There are a handful of rage powers usable 1/d. For purposes of this discussion let's focus on one I consider particularly good, Unexpected Strike: "
[/QUOTE The barbarian can make an attack of opportunity against a foethat moves into any square threatened by the barbarian, regardless of whether or not that movement would normally provoke an attack of opportunity. This power can only be used once per rage. A barbarian must be at least 8th level before selecting this power.]

Finally, some relevant information from the description of rage itself:
[/QUOTE A barbarian can enter rage as a free action...A barbarian can end her rage as a free action and is fatigued after rage for a number of
rounds equal to 2 times the number of rounds spent in the rage....]

So let's put these three together.
1. Can a L17+ barbarian turn his rage on and off every round, renewing his once/rage rage powers on his action every turn? For example, could a barbarian with unexpected strike and tireless rage turn his rage on and off each round to always get 1 AoO/round on enemies who simply approach him?

2. Even if possible, is this a cheap tactic? Or is this just fair reward for a L17 barbarian struggling to keep pace with a L17 fighter or paladin? A reward for slogging through levels 4-16, when the barbarian may not have held up as well, comparatively.

Edited for grammar. Sorry about the tags.

The barbarian gets into a fight with a corrupt barkeep who tries to overcharge the barbarian for his ale. The barbarian gets angry, activates rage, uses strength sure and knockback on the barkeep, and pushes him into the wall.

A waiter smashes the barbarian with a broom handle in retaliation, hurting the barbarian.

The barbarian holds his action until just before the paladin goes, ends his rage, and is fatigued.

The paladin helps his friend out. The paladin uses lay on hands to heal the bruise the barbarian took from the club. The paladin friend also wisely selected the mercy to remove the fatigued condition.

The fatigueless barbarian re-enters rage, and uses knockback and strength surge on the waitor.

....in essense, my question is, is this legal? Is it a loophole? Can a barbarian loaded up on 1/day rage powers turn his rage off as a free action just before a paladin (who selected the mercy to remove fatigue), uses lay on hands. Can the barbarian then use all his 1/rage powers again (at least until the paladin runs out of patience or lay on hands powers)?

Is it possible to further enhance the specific armors and weapons in the book?

I'm specifically interested in building a better celestial armor (more AC bonus, and/or more Max Dex bonus). I see challenges though. For example, with celestial armor, you would need to retro fit the cost of a suit of +3 chainmail (easy enough), the cost of adding a 1/day fly (possible...probably a +x gp type ability), and a very high max dex bonus (I'm not sure how you would determined the cost of this/point of dexterity, but it should scale exponentially).

Are you supposed to be able to do this? How would you do this?

It seems like a lot of interesting items like celestial armor don't see much use at the game table because for any given PC they're only good for a few levels. Before that the player cannot afford it, and after that the player can afford something better. If you can't upgrade them like normal weapons and armor they can be a bit costly.

FYI...

Celestial Armor (22,400 gp)
This bright silver or gold +3 chainmail is so fine and light that it can be worn under normal clothing without betraying its presence. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus of +8, an armor check penalty of –2, and an arcane spell failure chance of 15%. It is considered light armor and allows the wearer to use fly on command (as the spell) once per day.

I'm not the expert on this.

How much would a pair of glasses that permanently gave the wearer true seeing with an unlimited range cost?

Am I the only one who thinks the L19 ranger power (improved quarry) is better than the capstone ranger power, master hunter?

I actually don't see the master hunter power working very often (a ranger with a generous 16 wisdom has a DC of 23). An evil outsider, dragon, or undead at L20 (3/4 of the most likely favored enemies a ranger would pick, along with human) all will have good odds against a DC23 FORT save. Plus the ranger has to trade his full attack for a standard attack, or only use it on rounds he could have only used a standard attack. And it's only 1/day. And it's only against favored enemies.

I'd much rather get a sure-fire +4 to hit for free against one creature every 10 minutes.

Granted both give bonuses to tracking, but that seems nearly irrelevant to any comparison. At L19-20 people don't run away from you. They teleport away, or planeshift away.

FYI:
Master Hunter (Ex): A ranger of 20th level becomes a master hunter. He can always move at full speed while using Survival to follow tracks without penalty. He can, as a standard action, make a single attack against a favored enemy at his full attack bonus. If the attack hits, the target takes damage normally and must make a Fortitude save or die.
The DC of this save is equal to 10 + 1/2 the ranger's level + the ranger's Wisdom modifier. A ranger can choose instead to deal an amount of nonlethal damage equal to the creature's current hit points. A successful save negates this damage. A ranger can use this ability once per day against each favored enemy type he possesses, but not against the same creature more than once in a 24-hour period.

Improved Quarry (Ex): At 19th level, the ranger's ability to hunt his quarry improves. He can now select a quarry as a free action, and can now take 20 while using Survival to track his quarry, while moving at normal speed without penalty. His insight bonus to attack his quarry increases to +4. If his quarry is killed or dismissed, he can select a new one after 10 minutes have passed.

Is there a magic item (core) that grants permanent low-light vision. I had assumed there must be one, but couldn't think of one.

I posted a summary of the last session in my regular campaign journal, but I also wanted to highlight the details of the final fight in my game in its own post as well. I apologize for the double-post of sorts.

So you have a basic reference for who is on both sides the battle came down to these individuals:

Good Guys

6 PCS: 1. Commander Dennis Slaughter (mostly warmage; human), 2. Abel (mostly fighter; warforged), 3. Agretha Deepseer (mostly druid; dream dwarf); 4. Salvador Marino (mostly arcane hierophant; human); 5. Phiery (mostly ranger; phoelarch); Valon (mostly rogue; elf).

3 Cohorts/animal companions: 1. Judel (mostly marshal; human), 2. Gustav (air elemental), 3. Leonidus (celestial dire lion).

3 Summoned Allies: 1. A Phoenix (summoned just before the battle … I believe by using a powerful item Malchor Harpell gave the party), 2. A Solar (gated in during the fight by Salvador Marino, which I named Vanna), 3. An air monolith (summoned during the fight by Salvador Marino).

There is also a Sacred Fist in the party named Dutch mentioned below...but that player missed the session.

Bad Guys

Wormgod: Kyuss...weakened because of the PCs destruction of the unlife vortex and lifted despair…but I gave him +50% HP (990 hp) because I have a 6 person party, I also gave him 2 enlarged antimagic field spells (enlarged because I wanted to avoid any debate of whether a 10 ft radius field could completely hold a huge creature … so I just enlarged it), and I left him with the divine blast power because the battle just wouldn’t have been interesting otherwise.

Dragons: Both Vermirox (made into a colossal blue to match my WOTC mini) and Dragotha – the two dragons who had survived the previous two adventurers, showed up here. Because Dragotha was here I let the party receive most of the benefits from the Belekarde soul fragments (how else do they hit AC 60??), but the fragments mostly only worked against Dragotha.

Dream Larva: Mid-battle Kyuss will gate in a dream larva, which I will dub Pallid Mask. The dream larva is from the epic level handbook and super-super-super-tough.

Without further ado….

Has anyone ever let the party redeem Lashonna? She was a Silver Dragon subverted by the cult only because they killed her and turned her into a vampire. And I know she's been working harder for Kyuss than anyone (and she has a legitimate beef with a coward like Dragotha out-ranking her), but that might just reflect her industrious nature. Anyone, I'm considering allowing it but even if I do, I would only do it with concrete steps, which are difficult for the party to accomplish.

Does anyone have an image of how room A8 is laid out. It's the room with the trapped Mosaic tiles on the floor in Lashonna's Dungeon. I can't picture it.

Also, Lashonna is waiting in room B2 of the Alhaster Spire. I don't see B2 on the map on p73. Am I missing it? Where is B2?

Here's an email sent by one of my players to all of the other players....

Okay, here’s some strategy for the Dragotha fight.

I have a list of spells I think we need to make sure we have (buffs and counters). I think we should break the bank if necessary on this one. I’d rather live and spend a lot of money then die. The casters need to figure out how many spells slots they can devote to this. The rest will need to be scrolled.

Thoughts?

Dragotha is likely to have allies with him, but we don’t know for sure yet

Will likely his best save

Fort likely worst

Immune to all mind affects

Immune to poison, sleep, paralysis, stun, disease, death effects

No crits, energy or abiltity drain damage, fatigue and exhaustion

He WILL be vulnerable to positive energy (so heals will hit for 150 a pop—with 3 heals Matt, Hil, Sam) that’s 450 damage

We’re going to need to be buffed all to hell, and we MUST be able to get a dimensional lock in the area

We’re going to have to be hitting him with greater dispels at the start

Chris—read the spell gave strike, and buy a wand of this—it’s a swift action

Spells we’ll want

C=cleric, D=Druid, W=Wizard

Name c
Duration
Benefits
Misc

Heroes feast c6
12 hours
Breakfast of champions
1d8+10 hit points from 20th level caster, +1 morale to attack and will and immunity to fear

Bears Endurance C/D/W 2
10 minutes
+4 con
Not everyone will need

Barksin D 2
10 min/level
+5 to natural AC
Just for melee?

Break Enchantment C /W 5

Just in case

Blur W 2
1 min/level
20% miss chance
True seeing negates, but hopefully he won’t have it or we’ll dispel it off him . Displacment is better but it only lasts rounds

Bulls strength

See beastland ferocity

Cats Grace w/d/c
10 min
+4 dex
I don’t think anyone will need this

Death Ward C 4/D5
Min/level
Immune to death spells, effects, energy drain,a nd negative enrgy
Everyone needs this (mass is C 8/D9)

Dimensioanl Anchor C/W 4
Min/level
Will prevent dragotha from fleeing
Ranged touch attack

Dimensioanl Lock C/W 8

SR negates—even better cuz it prevents reinformcements but a high level slot

Disrupting Weapon C 5
Round/level
Will save or die
Only lasts rounds but I don’t think a save makes you immune in the future, and it only takes a 1

Enlarge Person
Min/level
-2 to dex and -1 to hit but +2 size to strength and negates reach
Mass is level 4

Faerie Fire D1

Worth having if we have invisible creatures

Fire Shield
Round/level
Half damage to either fire or cold, and creatures attacking take ad6+15
Slaughter can cast this right before the start of a fight (mass)

Fly
Min/level
60 feet
Sam, Chris, and John HAVE to have this (mass version is level 5)

Owl wisdom
10 min
+4 wisdom
Not everyone will need

Freedom of Movement
10 min/level
Various immunites
Everyone should have this

Mass Heal C 9

Not sure if matt will have this, or if we want to invest in a scroll, but this would be a nice oh s##@ thing to have on hand (breath weapon recovery?)

Invisibility purge c3
1 min/level
5 ft radius/level
Worth having

Magic Vestment c 3
Hour/level
+5 at level 20 enhancement bonus to weapon and armor
Everyone should be at plus 5 if possible

Greater magic weapon c4, w/3
Hour/level
Get everyone up to +4 (+5 at level 20)
Sam, chris, lisa, john need this

Haste W3
Round /level
+1 bonus to attac (untyped), +1 dodge to ac and reflex, 30 feet movement, extra attack with full attack action

Mass Resist Energy C/D3 w 4
10 min/level
30 points resistence per attack
We should probably have this for the 4 major energy types

Protection from energy c/d/w 3
10 min/level
120 points of absorbtion
We should have this for fire-see also energy immunity

Prot from evil
Min/level
+2 defelection/ resistence, immunity to possession and summoned creatues
Probably worth it for the possession and summoning immunities

Remove blindness/deafness C3

Just in case

Reniove Curse C 3 W4

Just in case

Renove Disease C/D3

Just in case

Remove Fear C 1

Just in case

Remove Paralysis C 2

Just in case

Lesser restoration c/d 2

Just in case

Greater restortation c 7

Just in case

Spell Resistence c5
Min/level
Resistence 12 plus caster level
This might be too expensive for minimal benefit—, but the mass version is only level 7

Stoneskin d5/w4
10 min/level
150 points of physical absorbtion
A must for all melee, useful for all

True Seeing c5/d7/w5
Min/level

Everyone needs this in some capacity

Greater Dispel

Anyone who can cast this (which is sam, hil, matt, and myself) should probably have at least one

Anti Dragon Aura C/W 3
Min/level
+5 luck bonus on ac and saves vs dragons (at level 17)
One spell will cover everyone

Assay Spell Resisstence c/w 4

Overcomes SR for dragotha and is an instant cass. Make sure you have this

Aura of Evasion C 5/W6
Min/level
Gives anyone within 10 feet of the caster evasion vs breath weapons, and a +4 bonus if they already have evasion

Beastland ferocity D 1
Min/level
Lets us fight and take actions between -1 and -9 and give a +4 ehancement for strength

Blessed Aim C1
Min/level
50 ft radius, +2 morale on ranged attack s

Mass Conviction c 3
10 min/level
From an 18th level cleric gives us a +5 MORALE bonus to saves (stacks with resist bonuses)

Divien Agilty (c 5)
1 round/level
+10 enhancement to dex
Doesn’t last long but might be worth hitting lisa or sam with

Divine protection C2
Mi/level
+1 MORALE to save and AC
Save is overwritten by mass conviction but the AC bonus is still good

Energy Immuntiy c6 d6 w7
24 hours
Immunity to fire (see also fireward)
Well we know that this is coming…

Fell the greatest foe C3
Round/level
+4d6 damage to all attacks against colossal creatures
It’s rounds, but that’s a lot of bonus damage we can add to team physical attacks--

Fireward D 5
Hour/level
20ft cubes per level—no fire magic works in the radius
No saves, so we could have hil just cast this at the start of the fight, but do we want to use the round for this

Forutnate Fate C 7
10 min/level
If hit with a killing effect immediately casts heal
We all NEED to have this

Owls Insight D 5
1 hour
Grants wisdom bonus equal to half caster level (insight)
Hil should cast this on herself, sam, and matt

Recitation c 4
Round/level
+2 luck to AC, attacks, and saves
Has to be cast in combat, may not be worth the action

Renewel pact C 7
Permanent until triggered
Basically cancels out the first time we’re hit with a spell effect (ability damage, fatigue, insnatiy, etc)
Costs 500 gold but we should each have this going in

Mass restoration c 7

Worth having this at least on a scroll for an oh s&!# moment

Revenance c4

Brings subject back to life for 1 round per level at half health—dies afterwards
Good to have this handy if a caster goes down

Reviiviy C 5

Stabilizes at -9 if cast the round after death
Scroll

Mass shield of faith c4
Min/level
+5 (cl 18) defelction bonus

Spark of Life C3, D 4
Round/level
Eliminates ALL undead protections/ immunities
Requires a touch attack and has a will save and SR, but this opens a ton of options—our heal damage trick won’t work though

Stalwart Pact c 5
1 round/level when triggered
Once triggered (half health) gaisn 35 temp hps, dr 5/magic and +2 luck on saves
Costs 250 gold but it adds 35 hp to everyone essentially

Undead bane weapon
Hour/level
An extra +2 bonus to the weapon plus 2d6 damage
Worth it for all physical attackers

Take a look at death pact in the Spell compendium—you sacrifice +2 con PERMANENTLY, but upon death you are instantly hit with a true ressruection spell. It would take a wish to get the con back, and the spell costs 1000 gold. I think this may be worth it nevertheless

Also, Chris, the artifiact you had came ‘alive’ near dragotha, and gave you the following powers

+10 insight to beat sr, +2 insight bonus to save dcs (oh boy), immunity to fear (and everyone within 30 feet of chris) and a +10 luck bonus to will saves

Is that custom made Wormcrawl Fissure complex still floating around? My PCs will reach Dragotha next session, and I'd love to use it and then send it on to the next person.

Dragotha's death wind does 22d10 points of negative energy, which heals undead in the area. Can he breath on himself for healing?

Has anyone fleshed out wormcrawl fissure. The adventure suggests a horrible creature lives in the southern lake and that Brazzemal's lair is no longer unoccupied.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Does anyone have a good pic/scan of the art from this issue's cover? For some reason this image was not included in the web supplement.

Thanks!

Jib asked this question on the STAP boards, and I'd be curious to see people's answers for AoW. If you're a player who finished (or nearly finished), I'd also welcome your thoughts.

How did Darl Quethos get through the portal and reach the island?

Here's my Age of Worms campaign log. My campaign is non-conventional in two ways.

First, I'm rolling my party in from another adventure (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil), so I'm starting them at the Prince of Redhand. To catch them up I had Manzorian do what essentially amounted to a data dump to start the campaign. Plot wise, I made it so that Manzorian, concerned about the recently fulfilled prophesies, decided to follow Belekarde's footsteps and travel to Kuluh-Mar. There, Manzorian wrote down the visions and drew the images he saw. Then, when Manzorian hired the party (where my log starts), he gave them this handout and sent them directly to Alhaster.

For the insanely curious you can read about my party's entire adventures so far here, on Monte Cook's site:
http://okayyourturn.yuku.com/topic/11015
For the still insanely curious but not quite so insanely curious you can just jump to the last session write up the epilogue, and probably make total sense of things.
For the above average curious (you'd need to be at least mildly curious to read my boring group's stories), reading the paragraph above probably sufficies.

Second, I will run the campaign in the Forgotten Realms. That means I converted Manzorian to Malchor Harpell. On top of that, Malchor Harpell is one of my player's (Rhelyx) dad's uncle. Malchor Harpell's also another one of my player's (Max) mom's uncle. That makes Rhelyx and Max second cousins. Max is played by a new player, who didn't participate at all in my Temple of Elemental Evil campaign.

Here's the first session, The Prince of Redhand...

For Darl's ambush, I know I can engineer it to happen when I want (including after a tough encounter, if I really want to maximize the difficulty). I've been thinking about it though, and my players (who have a druid) might be able to cross the island faster than Darl's group (who can't teleport since the island doesn't touch the astral plane). So, I think my players have a reasonable chance of actually ambushing Darl. If that happens, is it a valid use of the efreet's wish for Darl to wish his party had *buffed* (or whatever the word would be outside of videogame speak) before the party attacked?

I'm new to this high level play, and I don't know if that's too much for a wish, but it sounds right. I also find at these higher levels buffing become unbelievably important. For a major encounter like this (it looks like it's easily the toughest encounter of the adventure), I'd really rather both sides be fully buffed.

1. The Octopus Tree fear affect:

The effect says PCs need to make the save every round that they're in range. Then it says that once they make the save they're immune for the day. Aren't those two points mutually exclusive?

2. The Roc King

If the party raises the roc king to steal his feather he will only have 26 hp (1 hp/HD, as per the raise dead spell). If my player's go this route, is this the encounter intended for the glorious roc king?

The Octopus Tree's frightful presence says (p67):

All creatures that have fewer than 26 HD must make a DC 26 Will save each round they remain within 30 feet of the octopus tree or become shaken as long as they remain in this area. A successful save leaves that opponent immune to that octopus tree's frightful presence for 1 day.

Aren't those two sentences mutually exclusive?

p70: General info on Tilagos Isle - characters who fly straight up find that no matter how high they fly, they can never fly further than a mile from the surface of the sea.

p 79: The Roc King lies atop Bloodfeather Peak, the mountain itself as an elevation of 10,000 feet (~2 miles).

I also feel like I read the peak was 500 feet up - but now I can't find that in the adventure.

Anyway, how high can you fly, and how high is the Roc King's peak?

True Seeing reveals "the true form of polymorphed, changed, or transmuted things."

I interpert that as:

True Seeing will tell you Lashonna's a silver dragon, but won't tell you she's a vampire. I recognize True Seeing's a powerful spell, but I also realize True Seeing's only a L5 cleric spell, so it has limits. I just want to run it right though. Will True Seeing tell you she's a vampire*?

*Of course True Seeing + Detect Evil will raise eyebrows when the silver dragon registers as evil - probably more eyebrows than an evil elf would have raised. But who isn't evil at the feast?

I have a group about to finish up Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and I want to roll them into Age of Worms. The group has one session left of the Temple adventure, and I expect them all to reach L13 by the end of the session with some players knocking on the door of L14. The group consists of 6 skilled* players, slighlty undertreasured, with a 27 point point-buy. My question is when to start - Spire of Long Shadows or Prince of Redhand. Any tips?

*I DM'd two groups through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and this group died many, many less times than the first group.

Are you going to work one of these into the STAP?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786941677

My friend just got one and I'd like to put it to good use, pluse I know ST will be a touch swampy. I know there's some effort by WOTC to create "synergy" between its product lines. I don't know if that effort extends to Paizo. If it does, you guys should work one of these in somewhere.

Issue 138 has an article about some new uses for skills like heal/bluff and some guidelines about when to use certain skills (spot/listen/search).

In my game we use a house rule for bluff and sense motive. If the monster is hiding and the PC spots them I let them make a bluff roll opposed by a sense motive roll to pretend they didn't see the monster ... if they want. Many times you'll just shoot the monster who tried to sneak up on you, but sometimes you don't want the monster to be tipped off that you're on to them. Similiarly, when a PC is hiding, and they tell me they're wondering if the monster spotted them I ask for a sense motive roll. It seems like about 1/3 times someone spots a hider they don't want the hider to know he was spotted.

I also like it because it gives some additional uses for bluff/sense motive. Any new options I can add to skills that aren't in the big five (tumble, listen, spot, spellcraft, concentration) seems like something worth considering. Along these lines, I'm incorporating some of their advice on heal checks.

I ran my party through Home on the Range. I used this adventure as a filler in my larger campaign, where I'm currently running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I chose this adventure because my players had just stopped off in a large dwarven citadel, so it made alot of sense. Furthermore, only 3/6 players were available to play, so I wanted something with a recommended level below their current level (5-6), that I was sure could be completely done in about 8 hours. In fact, I used this diversion adventure instead of my regular game, because I only had half my normal players and didn't want so many people to miss out on the main plot line.

The adventure involves the party being hired to escort some scarab beetles, capable of dispelling darkness, to a dwarven outpost being assaulted by tieflings. The dwarves built the outpost because they want to search the area for the remains of an ancient dwarven hero who died there in a battle against a devil, so his remains can be properly put to rest. The Tieflings are interested in the area because the devil's intelligent animated rope, who is given stats as a monster in his own right, seek to recover the remains of their parent, the devil who also died at this old battlesight. The dwarves need the beetles because they need a way to counter the tieflings magical darkness. The adventure is extremely straightforward, the party doesn't even really have a choice of path. For me, this was an asset because I wanted to keep it simple but you may want something else.

I boosted one encounter, the final one, by adding a Xeph Soulknife (L6), primarily because I'd just gotten the 3.5 psionic book. The other small change was to make the ancient dwarven hero a Goliath (Races of Stone, friends of dwarves) who died there while battling alongside the dwarves, since one of my player's was a Goliath. I made the recovered weapon more suited to this player, and I tied it to his long term goal of entering the dawncaller PrC (also from Races of Stone), by making the weapon the weapon wielded by the first dawncaller.

This was the party:
Kethash'las Wild Elf Targeteer 2/Ranger 2/Wizard 2 CG
Amnok Goliath (+1) bard 4 barbarian 1 CG
Rannyn Nightfall Elf Swashbuckler 3/Bard 2 NG

The adventure went well, and was suitably challenging without being too difficult. I think if anything it could have been a little harder but:
1. I didn't want it to be that hard, actually.
2. Up 'til this adventure I was letting my party use Vest of Healings (from Dungeon) and only charging them 1250gp. If you don't know what they are, I wouldn't add them to your game because they are too good. At least up their price to 6k gp.

The last battle required a little cooperative meta-gaming for me and my players since it was so vast. The room the battle occurs in is about 1200x1500 feet, and would be tedious to adjucate without mass combat rules. I particularly liked how the encounter with the stone giants went, which added a bit of roleplaying. My players aren't used to being able to role-play through an encounter and I want to encourage them to try that by letting it actually work once in a while. My party also fell perfectly for the two tiefling traps with no fudging on my part, reducing the quota of beetles to exactly the minimum recommended amount. The adventure says the party should escort six beetles minimum to the cavern, but I don't recall it explaining what to do if the party only gets a couple there. It wasn't an issue in my game since my players got exactly 6, but I'd recommend penalizing them by having more of the tieflings go for the party over the dwarves, and having the darkness stay around longer then the recommended 1d4 rds before a beetle can reach it. The battle against the rider wasn't difficult for my players, thanks to the archer blowing him away in rd 1 with an awesome critical hit. Finally, the adventure contains an encounter with a chocker hiding out in the mouth of a dead purple worm. The encounter mentions how it might confuse the party into thinking the worm is alive when they're suddenly attacked and the encounter did exactly that. However, a round later, when my party figured it out, they quickly beat down the chocker. He's got low hit points, and lets not forget, they're L5-6 on a L3 adventure.

Finally, the trick the dwarves had of generating the runes with the black dragon scale dipped in acid and then pressing it against the wall was really impressive to my players and an ingenious idea by the adventures author.

Without further background, if you're interested, here's the write up Rannyn's player wrote for our ongoing log:

Saturday March 8

“Finally”, Rannyn thought. “We’re finally here!” “We’re finally at Citadel Adbar!”
It was a long trip and she was really looking forward to relaxing a little before heading to the town of Rastor where their group was planning on investigating the cult.

“Well, since we’re here I might as well check in with the Ardent Legion and see what they are up to in this city. Plus, maybe they’ll help us out if we need it,” she thought.

Rannyn decided to go to the Ardent Legion headquarters on the west side of the city and find out what was going on in Citadel Adbar. She learned that not too much was going on regarding the Ardent Legion. Almost all of the main forces of the city's regular army were already at Mithrill Hall helping to defend against the orcs (these were mostly dwarves). The remaining troops were few and they were simply patrolling the town. As for an Ardent Legion presence, there was almost none to speak of - just a few men who looked like they made better paper pushers than soldiers. Rannyn figured Janpour wisely directed most of the legion where it was most needed, in the east. She also learned that Rastor was only 15 miles North of here, so she figured that she would relax while she could. However, the Ardent Legion recommended that Rannyn visit Steward Farhorn who was running Citadel Adbar while the king was away with the army. Rannyn set off with the gang to find out what she could learn from Steward Farhorn.

Steward Farhorn was extremely pleased to see a group of adventurers. After going through the routine pleasantries and explaining their mission to Rastor, the group began questioning the Steward to see what he knew of Rastor and the cultists. They learned that Rastor, originally a city about 2/3 human and 1/3 dwarf, used to trade with a Dwarven mine. About 100 years ago, the cultists supplanted the Saltheart Clan of dwarves, shutting down the mine, and much of the trade in Rastor dried up. However, the few human stragglers and dwarven refugees that remained in Rastor needed to survive somehow, and the humans began trading with the orc trappers that would frequent the area. The orc population swelled to rival the human population, and the dwarves in Rastor where not happy about this, but even Farhorn had to admit these orcs were not the evil, pathetic fools the group was used to dealing with, so it was not that suspicious that the humans had begun to trade with them.

Finally, the Steward broke down. He admitted that he was desperate for a hearty group to help out some dwarves that had gotten themselves in a pickle at an outpost about a day away from town. The dwarves were on a special mission to recover the body (and weapon) of a revered goliath, Thalham, who had died in a great battle about 120 years ago against an Eiyrene. Thalham was born in the same Goliath tribe as Amnok, not to far from the citadel. By single handedly holding off the devil, he allowed for many dwarves to escape the large battle unharmed, while the entire cavern was collapsed around Thalham and the devil. Thus, this goliath became a hero in the eyes of all dwarves of Citadel Adbar. The battle site had been rediscovered a few weeks ago, and a group of dwarves had been given this special mission of recovering the goliath’s body so that it could be properly put to rest and worshipped. However, the mission turned out not to be that easy. The group that had established an outpost was being relentlessly attacked by strange humanoids that create a darkness that is not easily overcome – but not drow, the dwarves know what drow are, thank you very much! Normally the dwarven clerics could easily counter this but most of them are in the west. All of the humanoids seem to possess tattoos of a pouncing lion. Just when the dwarves were ready to give up, they came up with a great idea: break the strange darkness using large scarab beetles that emit a super-bright light. However, one challenge remained: how to get the large beetles down to the outpost under siege. The Steward explained, that’s where our group comes in. The steward needed the group to help bring about ½ dozen beetles down to the outpost about one day away.

After some discussion, and Amnok mentioning several times that he is exceptionally good at herding for some reason, Rannyn, Keth, and Amnok decided to take on this task. Megatron was absolutely convinced that there were NO giants down in the caves (they would bump their heads), so he didn’t feel the need to go, and would instead patrol the mountains around the citadel; Agretha was going to try to persuade the dwarves of Adbar to try to send more military assistance to Mithril Hall; and Nox insisted that he had some “business” to attend to in the city and couldn’t leave.

Sunday March 9

After a day’s rest and purchasing of some much needed items, the trio set off to meet Hark Underbounder, who was to take them to the beetles and direct them to the outpost. He informed them that the path would be marked by a series of special guiderunes that were created using acid and a dragon scale. The entire trio thought this was one of the coolest things they had ever heard and made a note to get some acid and a dragon scale in case they ever needed such a marking method.

“EWE!” said Rannyn, “these things stink. And what do they eat??” The group arrived at the beetle “farm” where there were about 20 beetles or so. They were large creatures that looked disgusting to Rannyn, but she tried to deal as best she could, thinking of the poor dwarves being attacked down below. The group learned that the beetles are mostly scavengers that will eat meat or fungus, however they were not tame. Good thing Amnok is so proficient at herding! Amnok was able to herd 10 of the beetles so the group decided to make it down with them. Also, Hark gave them a jar of nectar that would come in handy when the beetles got excessively out of hand (hopefully, this wouldn’t happen more than 10 times).

Upon entering the caves, Amnok was very successful at herding the group of 10 beetles. As the group progressed, they came up a tunnel that was covered in a pale luminescent mold. The group was forced to use torches to see throughout the underdark tunnels and caves, though. Keth, who had been leading the group through an opening in a tunnel, came running back into the tunnel. “There are TWO stone giants out there!!” he exclaimed. “Well, what are they doing?” asked Rannyn. It seemed as if two large stone giants were picking up boulders and throwing them at some stalagmites in the center of a large cavern. “They’re BOWLING!” said Keth with a large smile on his face. Keth is very familiar with stone giants and he advised the group that there was no way they would win in a fight. (All three of them looked at each other and said, “Thank the Gods that Megatron isn’t here!!) Nonetheless, the group needed to make it across the cavern to another tunnel on the other side. After successfully calming the beetles with the special nectar, Amnok, who speaks giant, decided to go out on a limb and talk with the large beasts. Right before one, named Xeb, was about to throw another boulder Amnok stepped out onto the ledge and said, “Hello there, me and my friends were wondering if you would allow us to make it across the cavern down there without getting killed.” “Well, you can try,” said Xeb with a laugh and a look to his friend Revox, who didn’t smile back as he was not too happy about his current position in their game. Revox openly wondered why the two giants didn’t just kill the goliath now and Xeb, maintaining his light tones replied loud enough for Amnok to hear that, “killing the little ones usually just brings more little ones.” Amnok, his feathers not the slightest bit ruffled by being called a little one, spoke further with Xeb trying to determine if the group could actually make it across, when Xeb said, “Well, I’ll make you a deal. You go down there and reset some of those stalagmites for an hour so me and my friend here can finish out our game and I’ll let you and your friends get by.” “Sounds like a plan,” said Amnok as he raced down to the bowl shaped cavern in the middle of the huge room. Amnok did as he said and reset the stalagmite “pins” for the giants for about an hour when Xeb started laughing as Revox skulked away, muttering about how this was Xeb’s first win in years, so he shouldn’t be too proud. Amnok realized the game was over and he went back to the group to herd the beetles across the huge cavern.

Rannyn decided that she would lead the group to check for traps while Amnok could stay in the back to help herd the beetles. Some time later while trying to navigate a tricky ledge the beetles became very nervous and got a little out of hand. Keth and Rannyn ended up with pincers right in their face as the beetles’ tongues came out to give them big kisses!! “Yuck!!” said Rannyn and Keth in unison. This beetle-babysitting was becoming a little too much to handle.

A few hours later the group was working their way down a narrow tunnel when Rannyn heard a click and then was suddenly blinded. She realized she had missed finding a trap that opened up a crate of mucus-covered cave crickets. Rannyn was glad to see that several of the beetles started eating some of the crickets and the cloud dissipated. Unfortunately, the beetles that ate the crickets soon began to get sick and keel over. Two beetles started fighting with each other in the raucous and became injured. One beetle, that had eaten a cricket, died from the apparent poison that was covering the crickets, and Rannyn and Amnok began to heal them. Only the ones that had been fighting were actually healed by their magic, which was unable to undo the effects of poison.

The group came across several small caves in the underdark that contained many different creatures. At one point Keth put a quick end to a violet fungus that agitated the beetles. In another room, the group was faced with something that was causing a strange darkness. The group thought they had encountered the strange humanoids they were warned about, but alas it was just a phantom fungus, which is naturally invisible. Amnok used his ability to detect magic to determine where the creature was and then, after 18 seconds of concentrating, he and Keth put it to a quick end.

Soon after, the trio encountered a giant purple worm. Luckily, this worm was already dead. When Amnok went around it to guide the beetles with the nectar, a flash of fire came out of the worm’s mouth. Rannyn and Keth were confused – is it dead? Is it alive? Amnok moved away from the mouth as Rannyn and Keth prepared for battle. When a small beast with super-long arms came out of the mouth, a choker known as The Throttler, and attacked Amnok, the group was almost relieved that the worm was indeed dead. However, the thing began to choke Amnok. Fortunately, the beast did not realize how good Amnok was at strangling things himself. Amnok broke the Throttlers grip, then drew his weapon lightning fast and knocked the throttler on the ground before crushing his skull with his flail.

After Amnok got the beetles settled down, he was able to tally his reward. Actually, Throttler had many items on him – a wand, two potions, a jar of millipedes, a snowglobe, a red slaad skull with candles in the mouth...okay, so not all of the items may be useful, but Amnok was glad to have them nonetheless. Rannyn was even considering holding onto the slaad skull as it made a very nice candle holder.

A little while later the group was faced with a strange room. The room contained 3 pools of water and 4 exits. Luckily, they knew which exit to take because it was marked by the rune, however they needed to get across to get there. Keth found some strange tracks but didn’t know what to make of them. As they started across, a flying shark with a humanoid rider jumped out of one of the pools of water and stampeded towards Rannyn. Rannyn thought, “This is a great vest,” as she would have felt a lot worse if not for the newly purchased vest of healing. Right away, Keth strung an arrow, pulled his hardest, and aimed his best. A second later the rider was on the ground. Keth had managed to shoot an arrow through the small exposed crease in the armor near the rider’s armpit, and his shot had found the heart. The shark beast was diving back into one of the pools. It all happened so quickly, Amnok barely had time to calm down the beetles, and suddenly the shark popped out of the pool again. This time the trio each took their turn on the shark and, finally, he was killed as he was hovering over the pool. With the help of Amnok’s strength and some rope, Rannyn went down into the pool to retrieve any items that were on the shark as well as the nice hide saddle. Keth grabbed the blood red composite long bow that had been on the rider as well as some smokesticks and some coins. Although the group was happy to collect some extra items, these small battles were starting to wear on them. It had gotten a little easier to herd the beetles since there were less of them, but by this point Amnok had used almost half of the special nectar. Rannyn couldn’t stop thinking about her new vest and ring of protection and wonder how many times they had saved her on this sympathetic adventure for the dwarves. “Wasn’t this supposed to be easy?” she thought. “Well” she figured, “it is only the three of us. Best to pay attention to the trail otherwise I’ll miss another trap.” And the group set back on their way. It couldn’t be too much further to the outpost...

Just when the group thought they must be home free, they came across a fairly small room with a cliff to one side. As they were crossing the room to follow their trail with Rannyn leading the way, total darkness encompassed Amnok and Keth. Rannyn turned around when she heard Amnok’s call instinctively, despite being unable to see through the total darkness. They slipped out of the darkness and, on the other side of the room opposite the cliff, she saw several figures. Two of them had what looked like flaming armbands on their arms. Suddenly there was a wall of fire in front of her, separating her from the darkness, as the armbanded humanoids dunked their arms in what Rannyn would later realize was a cleverly hidden crevasse filled with oil. Amnok quickly used some of the nectar, but it was too late for three of the beetles had already gone over the cliff in fear of the fire. Six beetles were left and the group really needed to bring at least 6 to the outpost. Amnok tried his best to keep the beetles from running away even though he was in utter darkness. One of the beetles went to him, though, and used its amazing light to disperse some of the darkness. Unfortunately, the darkness quickly returned followed by another wall of fire very close to Amnok. They barely had time to think, but all three of the adventurers was struck with the thought, “Could these creatures be the ones that the dwarves were speaking of? Is this the reason we are down here?” Amnok and Keth struggled to move toward an unaffected area while avoiding the heat from the non-magical firewall. Meanwhile, Rannyn, whose aim had improved much although she still favored her rapier, managed to knock off one of the guys with the flaming arm bands and then another with a light crossbow. Once Keth and Amnok were out of the darkness they quickly surveyed the scene and started attacking. Keth knocked his bow and killed the other with the flaming arm bands. Amnok was able to take out the other humanoid with a light crossbow and the wizard began to flee into the darkness. By the time Amnok and Keth could see the wizard again, he was rounding the corner never to be seen again. Once again, the group took a breath. Amnok successfully herded the 6 remaining beetles, but not before being covered in beetle-slobber. Amnok had grown rather close to the beetles as he was the only one who was able to herd them, and they could be awfully affectionate sometimes. Amnok surveyed the dead bodies and collected the items he thought would be useful to the party. Then the trio took back to the tunnels in the hopes that they would soon arrive at their destination.

The group was now in a cheerful mood as they were pleased they had been able to survive their previous struggles and realized they must be close to the outpost. Amnok successfully herded the animals on their way even where there were some tricky ledges to maneuver over and some tight tunnels.

Finally, the group arrived at the top of a huge cavern about 1200 to 1500 feet across. They estimated they were about 30 feet from the bottom with several ledges descending down to the outpost, which was at the lowest point in the massive cavern. One section was strewn with rubble, so the group thought this must be the ancient battle site. They were able to survey the scene and counted 6 groups of humanoid archers all aimed at the dwarves in the outpost. The outpost was blinking in and out of sight as the magical darkness was doing its best to keep the dwarves panicked. Suddenly the beetles’ instincts kicked in, and they hovered over to the darkness revealing more and more of the outpost and the surrounding area. The dwarves, realizing what was happening let out a cheer and fought all the harder. However, the trio observed that the dwarves at the outpost still wouldn’t be able to last that long given all the attacking archers. Amnok looked up and yelled “In the name of Thalham” then charged down to the first group of archers. Rannyn and Keth tried their best to catch up, and Rannyn despite her lungs burning from the run, started singing a song to bolster the courage of the group. Keth was able to take out several from the first band while Amnok attacked and then started running ahead to the next group. Rannyn was able to finish off the first group and then she and Keth followed Amnok. There were two bands in the next level down that posed a challenge to the group. While Keth was shooting the band to the right composed exclusively of archers, Amnok and Rannyn went in to attack the band on the left. They quickly realized they would need Keth’s help. They were being covered in the strange darkness and prayed to the Gods that a beetle would come over to aid them. As luck would have it a beetle did come over and relieved some of the darkness, but unfortunately not all of it. The bards were not able to regularly attack, but Amnok was able to fall a couple of the crossbow wielding foes. One of the foes seemed like a wizard or sorts, wielding daggers composed entirely of green energy, another a swordsmen wielding a strange sword Rannyn believed was a katana. They were also accompanied by a “snake-like” friend that almost looked like a rope. As it came closer to Rannyn and Amnok, they realized that it was a rope, but it was animated and heading right for Rannyn. Rannyn found herself entwined in the snake-like rope and she was unable to free herself. “Damn rope!” she thought, she was usually good at wielding rope, but this was totally different. Try as she may, she could not get out of the grasp of the rope and her rapier did not seem to harm the thing. Meanwhile, as Keth took out the smaller group of archers, Amnok went to town on the other all the while blinking in and out of darkness. Rannyn, still hindered by the rope, teamed up with Amnok against the samurai, bringing him down. Finally, Keth was also able to join the fray and killed the one that looked like a wizard. Rannyn was still “all tied up” when Amnok was finally able to turn his attention to the animated rope. After a few swipes of his slashing weapon, Amnok forced the rope to reconsider, and flee through a crack in the wall, and Rannyn was finally able to stand up. From the looks of the battlefield, the dwarves had driven back the rest of the archers and the group was finally able to call it a day.

The group of dwarves was extremely thankful that the three adventurers brought the beetles, however they had to turn to their business and resume the excavation of Thalham’s body.

Monday March 10

After resting, the adventurers were able to make it back to town and tell their tale to the others in the party.

Tuesday March 11

While eating at the local inn, the adventurers were suddenly interrupted. “Excuse me” said a familiar dwarf. It was Hark Underbounder who had been so helpful with the beetles. He seemed to be out of breath, “but the dwarves are back from the excavation and they found something I think you’re going to want to see.” Amnok, Keth, and Rannyn immediately excused themselves and followed Hark to the Steward’s chambers. Once there, Amnok’s eyes grew large and glassed over – they could see a flail resting on a pillow on a podium and Amnok was just totally consumed by it. The Steward proceeded to tell them that the dwarves were able to recover the body of Thalham and his weapon, Thalham’s Peacechaser. Not only that, but the group learned that Thalham was the first Dawncaller, a group of specialist bards unique to the Goliath. Amnok was especially excited to learn this, as he had always dreamed of becoming a Dawncaller. He was so enamored with the flail, however, that he was not able to express a fraction of his excitement regarding that news. The Steward realized he was taken with the flail and finally announced that he had a gift for group. Since they were so instrumental in finding the goliath’s body, he thought it fitting that the goliath of our party, Amnok, be given Thalham’s sacred weapon, the Peacechaser. Amnok, Rannyn, and Keth (but mostly Amnok) were extremely grateful for the generosity. They gave their sincere thanks and with the Peacechaser in hand, turned to head back to Inn.

Strangely, as they approached an empty hall, Rannyn could swear she heard something. It sounded like a voice saying “wield me” and “use me wisely” and finally “I am Thalham Peacechaser.” Soon the group realized that the voice they heard was coming from the light flail in Amnok’s hands. Amnok did not seem surprised to hear the voice – he must have been hearing it back at the Steward’s chambers. All three stopped and listened to the flail. The weapon proceeded to explain that it was the spirit of Thalham, now imbued inside of this weapon, which once was his own. As strange as that seemed, the voice continued to explain how great this weapon was. Finally, after learning, among other things, that its purpose is to slay devils, it detects magic at will and speaks common, Goliath, devil, and devil, the weapon explained to Amnok that it could teach him the way of the Dawncaller and that it sensed their souls were aligned. Furthermore, Thalham said that his soul was still being “called back for a second dawn” and he thought over time he might gain strength. “Well, he’s sure full of himself,” thought Rannyn, and she shrugged her shoulders. However, it cautioned Amnok that he must decide his path now, and the weapon would still allow him to relinquish it. For once Amnok started down this path the two must be like one. If they disagree the flail could compel Amnok to act, but such compulsion was against Thalham’s nature. Amnok chose to keep the flail. “I guess we should head back to the gang,” said Rannyn and she started off followed by Keth. Amnok stared at the flail in his hands, gently placed it in his pack, forgot all about blood mages, and followed as well...

If a sorceror enters a PrC that grants +1 caster level, can they still unlearn spells at every even caster level, or is this a feature only of the base class?

Yesterday I needed to look through all my issues of Dungeon to find adventures designed for parties at L6 and at L10-11. After doing it I thought I should make a database, but I started thinking a sortable index would have been really useful. Ideally, this index would let you select all of the issues you have (and constrain the search to those issues), or at least restrict the search to a certain version of the rules (1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5). The only other search terms I'd like to see would be level, although I could think of a few other people might like (side trek, campaign setting).

I figure that an index like this must be out there somewhere. Can anyone direct me to something like this. Being able to hit a few buttons and having the index spit back all 3.0 and 3.5 adventures in Dungeon for parties L6 would be really nice, for me at least.