hopeless's page

Still waiting to get my copy of this, but I remember that intro from the original players handbook.
As it stands the only thing keeping me interested in d&d is Paizo, it also used to be Eberron, but 4e is making me seriously reconsider whether I'd be better off converting to say Runequest but I'm hoping the copy of the Player's Guide will help me finally get a game up and running and this particular issue is far too tempting not to try...

Take care and all the best!

PS: I was thinking of introducing Bargle as someone who's been sending various groups to their deaths so he could profit off of their gear. I don't know if its worth having him be a changeling so he could literally be anyone and perhaps have some doubles who the Pc's are tricked into fighting so they may never know if they're fighting the real villain. I was thinking more fleshforged than warforged by means of an alter self or disguise self effect that only ends when the double is slain so it keep them on their toes so to speak.

Let us know how your own games develop, there can never be enough threads when it shows just how good some of those old ideas can be.

I am running Savage Tide for a group of players and I have some good players although 2 are causing me alot of difficulty with the Tome of Battle and some different feats from different sources

I originally allowed Core, Complete series, PHB2, Magic Item Compendium, and ToB. These 2 seem to have found the most broken and horrible mix of ToB and other stuff to make them impossible to challenge without killing the non-super-optimized characters in the group.

What exactly is causing the problem?

You could ban the use of these books at the table asking they keep photocopies of the bits relevant to their characters with their character sheets to avoid penalising the warlock player however without knowing what has caused this problem I can only surmise they are making use of books you don't have or are hogging too much of the play and this is frustrating you as you want everyone to have fun not just two of your players.

Hmm, employ anti-magical fields to disrupt the items, make use of mirrors of opposition to create duplicates of themselves to act as longrunning foes, have a villain use a ring of wishes to strip the more troublesome books out of the game after he/she/it is about to be defeated by the pcs and have the ring be possessed by the villain so if they try to reverse whats happened they now have a character under the control of a villain who wants to be ressurected after sending the pc's somewhere where they can't stop him/her/it...

What exactly have they got thats so overwhelming?

Is it true tieflings is a confirmed race for 4e?

And that the Warlock a confirmed class?

Its just that tieflings have a level adjustment or used to and I find it rather absurd that it qualifies as a core character race when it should really only remain an optional extra in a splat book.

And as for the warlock although I despise the favoured soul more this class should have never been anything other than a prestige class at least thats my point of view.

Would you mind explaining how 4e is still a roleplaying game instead of a powergaming exercise in futility?

And if you don't mind explaining the reasoning behind the choice of these two as at the moment I'm seriously considering packing in d&d altogether if this is what I have to expect.

PS: About the only reason I didn't just quit involves a certain Hollow's Last Hope, a Crown of a Kobold and of course Pathfinder, now that is what I call a point of light in the darkness!

Bruce Cordell says he's working on Keep on the Shadowfell; an adventure for 4e.

The name reminds me of Keep on the Borderlands from waaaaay back when. Not complaining, not whining, just noticing and conjecturing.

That one was originally for the original d&d system, a remake was done for 2nd edition dated a decade or so after the original perhaps its time it was done again this time for 4e after all it has the making of a campaign in one adventure alone!

Any of you Eberron guys go to making cool 20th century gadgetry for Eberron based on magic?

Isn't that what artificers are for?

Personally I had mentioned about minature airships designed to carry one or two people essentially an airborne motorcycle if you will so why not motorcycles?

I couldn't help wondering why they didn't stage a play test there and then just to show some of the ideas they were planning.

Okay it may not have been ready but it would have been a better crowd pleaser if they gave members of the audience a chance to see for themselves.

I could just hear someone yelling "Oi" and tugging that second character back and then saying "Why didn't you say something before i opened the door!" for that clip where one character sees a poster warning about a beholder only to have his comrade open a door and realise there's one in the room for themself.

I really would have liked them showing 4e in that video not just some flashy images and no backing to prove themselves.
It didn't even have to be complex like;

First there was original d&d and you see the group around the table selecting their characters from the original choice list human fighter, cleric, magic user, rogue or dwarf, elf or halfling.

Then moving a few years on to see this expand introducing the extra classes for 1st edition ad&d maybe even indicating the limitations wizards had for adding spells to their books, then on to 2nd edition and have it show Mystara or whatever it was called with a brief voiceover of the audio discs they released with it.
Perhaps even showing Forgotten Realms with a bit of a teaser showing a dwarf, a podgy halfling with a mace and a ruby pendant and a cloaked elf with paired scimitars and a panther animal companion, you know get them interested...
Then show 3.0 by having the group around the table with updated versions of their original characters perhaps going over the same adventure introduced at the start before heading to 3.5 and having them run an Eberron game with a brief scene of airships, a fierce battle even if taken from Stormreach or D&D online it would have been something...
AND THEN introduce 4e showing them around the table with the dm using his laptop and them going over their game revealing that its being run in the next room LIVE giving people a chance to sit in and see it in action, it doesn't hve to be long just enough to make people want to know more and not treated as morons like they did!

Apologies on the length please reply especially concerning what you'd rather had seen.

I am a big fan of reactive villians, and such, like to hash out their motiviations to determine their response to when adventurers strike.

Response to Adventurers: Given how close Nualia is to freeing Malfeshnekor, she refuses to abandon her efforts in Level Two. Instead, she sends Brathzamus, Orik, or Lyrie (in that order of preference) out with a band of goblins to track the party and kill them. Once Malfeshnekor is freed, she sends him instead (or in addition to, if one of the prior mercenaries has already failed). Meanwhile, she returns to the Catacombs of Wrath to await news of his mission. Should he fail, she puts into place a desperate plan to have the goblins attack Sandpoint while she rouses sinspawn with whatever sacrificial victims she can muster. Unfortunately, after the destruction of the Thistletop goblins and the defeat of Malfeshnekor, the goblin tribes cannot be sufficiently roused to make the attack, and Nualia makes it her mission to hunt down and destroy the party.

Haven't got my copy yet but thanks for the low down it has provided some interesting ideas to go with it.

My plan if using Eberron and it strikes me that bypassing this ward could be done with the aid of a siberys dragon shard, by that I mean the villain has learned of a shard that acts as a protection from item and using this can bypass the binding allowing the entity to escape but only if it agrees to aid her (so by agreeing the binding is passed into the form of the agreement so it can escape but has the added action of binding it to her will of its own free will).

Now until I can get to read more of this I will assume you could have some material that can help increase her chances of breaking the binding ward perhaps by multiple worshippers who are ritually killed to enhance her spellcasting ability say one per +1 to the casting level adjustment.
This might allow for it to be rleased of course you could turn this completely on its head by revealing the ward will only go down once the surviving descendants of the one who bound it are slain...
There's nothing to say it couldn't include one of the pcs or an npc who becomes a minor enemy and is usurped into her schemes until he is killed as they confront the cultists/goblins & others allowing the barghest its freedom or perhaps thats a little too dark...

I like to throw in a little bit of supply and demand. Falcon's Hollow has what? Maybe 10 or so halflings and no gnomes that I'm aware of. Maybe there's a few smaller sized weapons lying around already (though probably not many) and the group shows up with a bunch of nice magic items and masterwork items.

All of them small sized. Masterwork/Magic items are expensive and I doubt the few halflings in Falcon's Hollow would be able to afford them even if they did want them, so why would the shopkeep want to buy them off the PCs?

I might change a few weapons to medium size, espescially Man-feller seeing as it's one of the nicer treasures in the game.

Minor point that it is the owner of the lumber business is actually a halfling and whilst they might not get the full asking price by selling them, there should be someone willing to buy them if only to sell them on at a wealthier district since they could get more money for them.

It also depends on what setting you're using of course.

I've been noticing while running D1 that the treasure really isn't useful unless you have a group of small PCs (and sometimes, like with the ranger in the slurk room, it's not even put down as a small weapon since small light crossbows do 1d6 not 1d8) but there just seems to be little treasure actually useful for the group (and there's only so much small gear Falcon's Hollow will probably buy)

Is this resource restriction intentional?

Well are there any gnomes or halflings in your campaign?

I'd say you could sell them for the same price at least given your local store might not stock such items... well except for the one run by a gnome or a halfling...

In a greyhawk campaign I asked if my halfling could buy a tent but was told the price was increased to cover for the fact it had to be small sized.

Initially I did this because the dm had the village burnt down in an attack by the undead so i was using part of the reward to get a temporary home for her cousin who lived in the village and had been letting her stay... the dm then promptly said the mayor hd already arranged free of charge access to the materials to get the village rebuilt and then when the group travelled to greyhawk charged the party to stay in the inn whilst i kept quiet since it wasn't the first time he had forgotten what had happened in his games...

Anyway at the very least you can sell the stuff on even at half price it still increases your monies...

I just fudged the numbers; especially considering I had to roll for loved ones the earliest one of which would have died after 10 days of them being away. My group took about 6 days (they had to rest once or twice while working through the Monastery)

The big issue with the map is that the forest slows down the hiking time and that isn't taken into consideration. Trails would help out a lot but I highly doubt there was a direct path from the lumber camp to the monastery and there was certainly no clear path to the witch's hut.

I was thinking the mortality rate could be stablised for the short term, but I was also thinking of explaining where the actual disease had come from.

Making the victims go into a coma with the cure only ending the actual disease and uncovering the fact something else was responsible would make things interesting!

Have tried posing this question in the Eberron section but got no reply so I thought I'd try here.

I'm looking to set D0 and D1 (when i finally manage to get hold of the copy I ordered) in Q'barra set roughly a little after the signing of the Thronehold Treaty.

Have pregenerated my own characters (this is before finding out there are some already done on this site) and am looking at running it as a 0th level with currently thinking about it consisting of a Cyran warrior, a brelish aristocrat, a warforged commoner, a halfling expert, an Aundairean expert and perhaps a Shifter Adept.

What do you think?

Should I let them design their own characters or stick with the ones provided by Paizo?

mevers wrote:

Are you objecting to the use of the elite array for ability scores? That's cut-and-dried standard when designing for D20. That's because the harmony of the game mechanics and the Challenge Rating system have built-in balance checks with the party of four PCs designed with the elite array. So I don't see a problem there.

You forgot that whilst 8pts my seem a lot theives with that low an Int will find multiclassing as a fight a positive boon to overcome those problems... but if they're fine with them so much the better but not everyone would be thats the real point made.

mevers wrote:

...is there some (unwritten) rule that says pre-built characters have to suck?

Can you be more specific here? What exactly about these PCs "sucks" so badly. You were wanting a fighter with a high Strength and Power Attack-Cleave, perhaps? Or a rogue with the highest possible ranks in Disable Device, Open Lock, and Tumble? If these PCs don't match your playing style, that's one thing. But, in my opinion, to say they're...

Perhaps a note saying the fighter is more dextrous than normal and then ignroe the fact it might have worked better as a ranger, the use of skill focus for concentration is to be blunt silly as the only use they would have for it would be for defensive purposes which is why you have Combat Casting and only a spiteful dm would argue otherwise (and still be wrong please note).

Personally a bit of background might have helped you know that the thief was hit on the head as a child and became a thief as other occupations were out of the question, especially as wisdom doesn't play that much outside of profession skills and will saves.
The fighter should have come from a poorer or seafaring background explaining why he came out the way he does but the cleric and the sorceror should still have had combt casting instead not waste a skill focus on something that should have been added AFTER combat casting not before...

Anyway look forward to reading the next bit!

And finally we come to Merisiel.** spoiler omitted **

I just have to sow, wow, she is really a badly built rogue. First, rogues are about the skill points, (perhaps even more so than dex), and she has an Int of 8. yep, 8! That's seven skills maxed. Assuming a "normal" rogue selection, thats Disable Device, Search, Spot, Listen, Hide, Move Silently, and 1 more (probably open lock, or tumble).

Yes I'd agree perhaps swapping Wisdom of Intelligence might help perhaps dropping it to 12 so Wisdom would then be 9 so it can be raised at 4th level if desired.

And she carries 6 daggers, obviously she is concentrating on throwing them, ie not getting into melee, so she has.... dodge. Actually, if the future plan is to go Spring Attack, then dodge makes sense, but that is a long way off, as Weapon Finesse is needed as well, meaning it isn't a possibility until level 9. In the menatime, you are stuck throwing daggers, without the benefits of point blank shot or precise shot.

Point Blank shot and Precise Shot would be helpful there is a prestige class in the Complete Adventurer which would be helpful and requires two weapon fighting specifcally in mind with someone who uses daggers but I don't have the specifics handy.

Rogue (along with the arcane casters) is one of the classes that really benefits from being a small race (+1AC, +1 to Hit, and most of your damage comes from Sneak attack, so the strength penalty doesn't matter), so why not make the rogue a halfling? The +1 bonus with thrown weapons will also come in handy.

So a halfling, specialising in throwing daggers. The feats we want are Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot (so we can throw into melee), Quick Draw (so we can throw more than one dagger), Rapid Shot, Weapon Finesse (for when we do get caught in melee), and weapon focus dagger.

Yes even though i object to halflings being treated as kleptomaniacs and are the one race that should have any as their favoured class...

But it is hard to set up sneak attacks with ranged weapons, so maybe we should concentrate on melee sneak attacks, and go with a TWF rogue fighting with two short swords. Feats will be TWF, Weapon Finesse, Weapon focus (Short sword).

30' range or 10' given they're daggers

Stats (assuming halfling)
Str 10 (12 -2)
Dex 17 (15 +2)
Con 13
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 10

Feats (Dagger Thrower): Point Blank Shot

Feats (Spring Attack): Dodge (Precise Shot or Weapon Focus or Improved Initiative maybe multiclass as ranger for 2 levels to get two weapon fighting automatically)

Feats (TWF): Two Weapon Fighting

Skills (10 to max): Search, Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, UMD, Listen, Spot, Disable Device, Open...

I'm fancying multiclassing my halfling sorceror into a ranger I've even considered rogue but she started as a sorceror and am the only player dumb enough to give a good reason WHY she has to multi-class of course I'm only considering multi-classing as a ranger so i can pick up Favoured Enemy Humans as there's a paladin in the party who's been allowed to commit cold blooded murder, torturing captives and ignoring the rest of the party when they're more LG than he ever could!

Sorry very old wound there, the guy running that game has yet to start it up again about a year or so later and I've stop going as the Paladin's player is the chief gm specifically Faerun and I was just tired of having to try and stop his acts of spite and repeatedly not get any help from the others when I've proven him wrong...
As for the halfling one day I hope to either get over it (been at least 8 months since I stopped going to that club) or figure out how I'll get him to realise the mistakes he's made and that was just a brief outline. (Shutting up now!)

Fine work with the rogue corrections though

OK, onto Kyra** spoiler omitted **

Again, not a bad race choice as human. Clerics have a great skill list, and need all the skill points they can get.
But the feats!!! Why oh why? Iron Will? For a Cleric? The class with the best will save in the game? I think ANY feat in the players handbook would be better than this. For a cleric, Skill Focus (Concentration) actually makes sense, since they will be in melee ALOT.

What about combat casting then?

And Martial Weapon Proficiency (Scimitar)? What? A feat to go from a Mace (1d8 20 x 2) to A Scimitar (1d6 18-20 x 2)? That is so not worth it. This is possibly the one feat more worthless than Iron Will. If you want to use a scimitar that much, use the stats for sickle and call it a scimitar. For this feat, I would probably prefer Extend Spell. Sure you can't use it yet, but there are that many good feats to take later (Item Creation, more metamagic, even Power Attack), that I would grab it now. Failing that, what about Die Hard, great for keeping the cleric up and ensuring you don't lose your healer as easily (especially at low levels).

Doesn't she have access to the war domain?
I've played a cleric of Helm and made the effort to be able to wield the faiths favoured weapon and after finding myself the fifth wheel of the party decided after the dm aged the character 60 years to multi-class as a sorceror with a decent explanation as to why but then he made sure I couldn't use the character properly by making all the spell selections himself, turning it into a blaster sorceror even though I'm not sorry going too far there.

But even though Kyra has the worst feat selection of all the Iconics, for her it probably matters the least, because clerics are just that good.

Where exactly are these iconics released in?

So basically just change the feats to some combination of Extend Spell, Skill Focus (Concentration), and Diehard, and she is good to go.

I'd agree with Extend spell, replace Skill Focus with Combat Casting but is she 3rd level then?

I'd suggest either Combat Expertise to improve her AC by reducing her base attack bonus or perhaps something to enhance her turning abilities...

Now it is Seoni's turn to get a power up.** spoiler omitted **

This time it actually makes perfect sense for her to be a human. The two things that Sorcerers lack are feats and skill points, so human is a great choice.

I agree Combat Casting makes more sense than Skill Focus as its +3 instead of +4 and CC is specifcally for casting defensively.

Spell wise I'd have gone for shield as it has no material components, magic missile is ok as its the only spell that automatically hits and hits practically everything from ghosts to golbins and so on.
As a sorceror you might want Toughness instead of Dodge as while it would be nice not to get hit its making sure you survive when you do that should worry you more.
Maybe light armour proficiency may help so when you pick up mage armour later you have the components to cast tht spell (strips of cured leather I believe) yes you have to make arcane spell failure checks and whilst Eschew Materials is nice I can still remember 3.0 when I used 3.5 rules (Mongoose Pocket Handbook) to design a halfling sorceror and then discovered Dancing Lights was the best 0th level spell I've ever seen of course 3.5 ruined it since they took the will save away but it was a nice spell back then.

I design my characters along the lines of not needing spell components however the gm I ran with then revealed sorcerors were dependent on wizards for their spells and I had to pick up Read Magic as a result since I thought sorcerors were a new character class not a sub-class and poor cousin of the wizard, which they shouldn't be.

Anyway lets see what you think of this.

I know it's the easy sell: take some enchantress, put her in a jiggy little outfit, slap some bangly jewelry on her and call her the personification of lust. But it's too pat and will rob the Runelords of their majestic menace.

/brainstorm off.

What if this particular runelord lost their physical body long before the event that left them sleeping?

What if it needs a host and what better way to prolong such a nemesis by having them take a succession of hosts having been awake a lot longer than the rest using the device of a supposed secret artefact th hide its presence so it has been using and abusing a succession of hosts across the ages and its only know being revealed as a result of the first runelord's defeat?

Personally I've been looking at this and thinking... what if I ran it in Eberron?
I know, I know, its hasn't been nice between Paizo and WOTC but when I first heard about this i though make the Runelords giants... make it a return of the Giants saga and in the process reveal what really happened in Xendrik.
I apoligise again if this offends some of you but still it only makes me want to buy it more as some of the things sorely lacking as far as I see it is more lower level scenarios especially set outside of Sharn and this, Hollow's Last Hope and Crown of the Kobold Kings has reawakened my interest.

So more the merrier, now to see how I can afford all of this...

Maybe it has a way to make some golem-type critters or has forged a pact with another entity that can to have something made for the occasion. Dreadguards would work, look the part, and are fairly low powered. A flesh golem in full plate would work also.

On the magic item line of thought, an item that allows 1 or 2x a day usage of an illusion spell would do the trick. Maybe a band or something to fit on the Nightmare.

FH

How about a curse where once the fighter or paladin slays the rider he/she is cursed to replace them since they were also tricked and thus the new rider is used to corrupt or slay future heroes...

Nobody realises the steed is the source of the curse unless they somehow get the info from another denizen of the hell planes since the item the nightmare has should be a ring or barding of mind shielding preventing its identity being revealed...
To save their comrade they have to make a deal with another devil and even then this is to further the campaign of the real villain to whom this has just been a pleasant diversion...

Rift wrote:

So the general opinion is; change it so both spells work, or neither works.

I...guess I think they both work, but they're both pretty much next to useless. I think for delivering a coup de grace on a passed out drunk invisible guy, it'd work great, but for an invisible guy with his wits about him, who sees you pointing at him and muttering weird stuff,...meh...

Just a thought but it would have made more sense for this detect evil caster to point out the area they're sensing to others.

Detect Magic on the other hand doesn't need to discern what kind of magic is going on, YOU KNOW there's something enchanted in the area and if its moving around you're going to be warning everyone else pretty sharpish!
Still a mite harsh, but i had a dm where he used a scroll of flame strike doing major damage using earlier edition rules and then my cleric got access to that spell the range reduced pretty sharpish (230' according to him now 40' or so) and I dodged that scroll thanks to roleplaying my character who had been aged 60 years by his previous use of a ghost of a black dragon having only covered barely 45' of a 300' distance thanks to being heavily encumbered by armour I needed to survive the foes he was throwing at us (Start at Yu'anti and then go up to Slaad of all types by MM I fortunately)and then he had my cleric rendered insane by a symbol even though when it was activated he was behind a pillar and facing the opposite direction holding some undead at bay so there are worser fates with some dubious rulings on spell use.
Thats why they claim the dm has the final say, the fact he's wrong might come up but if it persists all you can do is find someone else to dm for you instead.
Take care!

Can anyone give me any more information on this series of Forgotten realms adventures?

Gave my issues to the dm who runs the Faerun campaign what i do remember is that the first adventure involved a fort home to a group of female mages who had an astronomy fixation which introduced the Eye of Myrkul it turned out an undead druid was trying to wipe out the place and the head of the order was a 1st edition form of undead something about a floating woman's head that fortunately for us didn't kill everyone who failed a saving throw (as it apparently does under 1st edition), the next part I believe involved a shrine run by priests of helm who were kidnapped to persuade a group of Pcs to go into the mere to find the twin crowns.

Tht group got lost literally so a second group went in, pretty much found the place instantly (by travelling in from the sea) and there my cleric was aged 60 years by the ghost of a long dead black dragon. Got ambsuhed on the way out as the dm decided the PAIR of black dragons had no interest in returning the captives (alive anyway) even though my cleric insisted the first crown would only be handed over in return for one of the captives they claimed to have them as proof of their "word".
The mage fireballed them after we slew one of the dragons and this we elarned later immolted the two captives the dragon actually had in the bag he was carrying.
The remaining priests were left to drown nd were found by a new player character who went into the swamp for another reason alongside some troops though only she survived the battle before meeting with the rest of us after we cleared out a temple of Yu'Anti.
My character had to die to recover from that aging effect and that was after a full year of adventuring to get the money for the cure after being told it would cost 28,000gp because the dm decided the faith didn't care for its priests multiclassing even though an 80 year old cleric in full plate wasn't going to be moving anywhere fast.
Sorry got a little carried away there, hope this helped.