Are there any plans to release the SCAP hardcover in pdf? I have the hardcover, and it is great, but having it in electronic form would be really helpful as well.
Over my summer holidays, I am planning on converting the Shackled City Ap to a 4th Edition Eberron campaign. This obviously involves a great deal o changes to the AP as written, dropping some sections, adding others, and extending the level range all the way to 30.
After all that, it is very likely the final AP will have probably only superficial resemblance to the Hard Cover (which I have). As such, my plan is to put not just my changes, but everything I need to run the AP into a Word Document, and run from that, and not worry about the hard cover.
To do that, instead of typing up everything from scratch, it would be much easier to cut and paste from the pdf and then edit from there. (Not to mention it would be good to have the maps and other art in the doc).
Now, I'm pretty sure a pdf of the Hardcover is a no go.
However, as a next best option, I would be willing to just buy the in individual Dungeon mags in pdf format (I think I already have a couple of them). Assuming I did go this route, how much do the Dungeon Mags differ from the hardcover? Is the background and other info summarized anywhere, or was that collated (and developed?) just for the hardcover?
Just got done reading through Karzoug's entry in Spires of Xin-Shalast, and WOW! Well done! Greg A. Vaughn has done a wonderful job with the climactic encounter with Karzoug. I can not wait to run this for my PCs.
However, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this boat, of all the encounters in the AP, I really want to make sure I do this one justice. As this will be my first campaign at anywhere near this level (my only other campaigns have petered out around 5 or so) I am already starting to feel the pressure (even though we have only started Burnt Offerings).
I also want to "personalise" Kazoug a little bit, with options from outside the SRD. So what feats, spells, gear etc would you give to Karzoug? I am already planning on swapping out some of his feats for Persistent spell and Arcane Strike, and some of his spells for those from the Spell Compendium (wraith strike immediately springs to mind). What other changes would people make?
But the one thing I really am trying to work hard on is making the encounter with Karzoug feel like an encounter with a transmuter. I can't tell you how refreshing it was to see a well built high level wizard with solid tactics and a good spell / gear selection. However, I was a little disappointed that his tactics are basically "generic high level wizard" tactics, not "high level transmuter" tactics.
I want my PCs to come away thinking "So THAT'S what a Transmuter looks like up close. That was an awesome fight, and a great climax to the campaign." Instead of as it stands now "So THAT'S what a high level wizard looks like. That was an awesome fight, and a great climax to the entire campaign."
If anyone (especially Greg) has any thoughts on this, I am all ears. I was initially thinking gish (fighter / mage), after all, nothing says transmuter more than "buff and go toe-to-toe in melee." But giving up spellcasting levels for melee capability is not something I can see Karzoug doing.
So I think I am going to go with the Alter Self / Polymorph / Shapechange tactics. Basically, the way he deals with threats is to change shape into something big and scary and rip you limb from limb. This will obviously involve all new tactics, so I really want to hear other DMs suggestions before I go through all that work.
The big downside is that I can't find a decent PrC that rally works for a transmuter without giving up caster levels. The main options are probably a Master Specialist (Complete Mage), transmuter variant (Unearthed Arcana), or the Red Wizard (DMG). But none of them seem to really fit, and I might just end up going with the UA variant transmuter for access to some pretty good spells (I would probably go with blur, improved invis. and Dominate Monster).
So, what are your thoughts for personalising and improving Karzoug. What feats, spells, gear and other options do you think he should have. By combining our thoughts, hopefully we can show the PCs how a transmuter fights, and make sure we do the campaign and Karzoug (and Greg's and all the author's work) justice.
One of my general pet peeves with published adventures is the generally poor choices they make for NPC characters. Early in the new year I am starting a Rise of the Runelords campaign. There will be 5 - 6 players using 32 point buy, so I need to beef the NPCs up a little.
Figured I would post them here so others can use them, and if others have rebuilt the NPCs, it would be great if you could post them as well.
I will be rebuilding them using 28 point buy for the most part, but the significant BBEGs will be built using 32 point buy. I'm not going to worry about reallocating skill points, as it is generally not worth the effort.
As you look around the town, the signs of the sickness are obvious. There have only been a few deaths to the plague, but the death toll is only likely to rise.
Just about the only topic of conversation in the town is the plague, with the residents left with prayer as their only option. Prayer they don't get sick, and prayer that their loved ones recover.
Those of you that failed the DC 14 fort save, can feel the beginnings of the sickness.
To remind (and clarify for everyone), here are the Character Creation Guidelines again
32 point Buy
125gp Starting Gold
Books Allowed
"Complete" Series
"Races of" Series
Tome of Battle
PHB2
Anything in the SRD
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
If you want anything else, ask , and I'll check it out.
Looks like we have a pretty interesting party, with;
Flamifur playing a Druid,
Arctaris playing a Warlock,
bigbubba2 playing a Cleric,
Guthwulf with a Barbarian, and
Evil Genius with a Warblade.
If you guys can get create aliases with your characters (including backgrounds), and post them in this thread, once everyone is ready, we will start.
Races
Human
Dwarf
Elf
Gnome
Half-Elf
Half-Orc
Halfling
Here are my thoughts
Dwarven Fighter Will be wearing heavy armor, so the speed reduction of Dwarves is offset. +2 Con for a melee type is awesome. The Dwarf bonus to saves vs spells helps mitigate the poor will save of teh fighter. No Int penalty (like the Half-Orc) so the Combat expertise line of feats is an option.
Elf Bard Was going to go Gnome, but an Elven Bardic Archer who buffs and shoots behind the safety of his allies sounds like a cool character to me.
Gnome Barbarian Eberron has it's Halfling Barbarians, so why can't we have our Gnome Barbarians? The +2 to Con helps, and the -2 the Str is helped by rage. The +1 to Hit for being small helps fuel power attack, the +1 AC for being small helps with only medium armor, and the bonus to speed from barbarian overcomes the 20 foot movement of the gnome.
Half-Elf Druid Well, may as well give the Weakest race the strongest class, to balance it out. The druid needs the least help from it's race, so may as well make it the race that provides the least help. Plus the bonus to diplomacy helps at low levels to keep the Druid's grove safe. Take Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Natural Spell, Extend Spell, and Quicken Spell, and you are set.
Half-Orc Monk This one may seem a bit strange. But Monks need their strength to ensure they actually dish some damage, and the Half-Orc penalties are two the 2 stats a Monk doesn't need as much (Int and Cha). Seems like a good match to me.
Halfling Rogue Halflings to me just seem tailor made to be rogues. Small size, +2 Dex, and a +1 Bonus to saving throws, all adds up to a very good Rogue, especially if you throw weapon finesse into the mix.
Human Barbarian The extra feat and skill points really help out the barbarian who has a decent skill list to spend the skill points on, and can really benefit from a number of combat feats.
Human Cleric Like the druid, a very powerful class that really doesn't matter what race you take, but with only 2+INT skill points a level, and a great skill list, the extra human skill point is great (as is the extra feat to spend on combat or casting feats)
Human Paladin The Paladin needs most of his stats to be as high as possible, so can;t really afford to take the hit most of the other races give. Also, being in melee means he can benefit greatly from feats (Mounted Attack Line, Power Attack Line), so again, human is a great choice.
Half-Orc Ranger This could just as easily be Human or Elven as well. My favourite play with a Ranger is to take the archery style, and pick up power attack for when I do get stuck in melee. Surprisingly, a good strength helps out a ranged attacker also s much as it helps melee (Strength rated Composite Longbows).
Gnome Wizard Again, this one could have gone any number of ways, Human, Elven, or Halfling are all good options, but I choose gnome to provide a nice contrast to the gnome Barbarian. the Bonus to Con and Illusion DCs also helps.
I know the stats for the 4 Iconic Characters that come with DO have been out for a while, but I only just had my first look at them the other day, and I mus say they are some poorly built characters (and that is being generous I think.)
For those who haven't seen them, check them out here.
Now, I assume the guys at Paizo actually do know how to make effective characters, they have been immersed in the game for many, many years after all. So I have to assume that these Iconics suck (for want of a better word) on purpose.
This makes absolutely no sense to me, but reflects what I often see in "official" or "sample" PCs (or NPCs). Wizards does it all the time, and I was hoping Paizo would avoid doing it, but is there some (unwritten) rule that says pre-built characters have to suck?
I would have thought pre-built characters would have been great opportunities to show new players (and those who aren't as "skilled" in character building), how to build strong, effective characters.
These are the Paizo Iconics for crying out loud, they should be great, well built, solid characters. Not characters that will be easily outclassed by any halfway optimized class.
They should be characters that anyone can pick up and play in a "normal" party. I would like to see them as a great option for those who don't want to spend time building their own characters. They should be able to just plug one of these characters in and go (maybe changing a few feats here and there, and some skill points). If you want to play a fighter, take Valeros, swap a couple of feats and skill points, and you are right to go.
But you can't realistically do that, as they are so badly built. If you want them to match up power wise, you really need to do some serious tweaking, and when it gets to that stage, you may as well just build your character yourself.
I keep seeing references to people being from Australia popping up all over these boards recently, so I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread where we can all meet one another, (and complain about the high cost of getting gaming products in Australia).
I grew up in Wagga, in South West NSW (Where Geoff Lawson, Mark Taylor and Michael Slater grew up), and now live in Sydney (from wollongong where I was at Uni).
I hope the Aussie Dollar stays strong at least until I have a few issues of Pathfinder under my belt.
I just got issue 144 today (finally, one of the drawbacks to living in Australia), and I must say Diplomacy is AWESOME. I can't wait to run it for my PCs.
However, I have a problem in that my campaign is set in Eberron, does anyone have ANY ideas on how to convert it across. With all the planar mechanations going on, will it be worth the effort, or will it basically involve a complete re-write of the entire adventure?
I was thinking of just changing the Janni to something more Eberron, but I don't really know what?
I am going to be running the Age of Worms "End Game" (from SoLS to the end) as my campaign finale for my next campaign. I was wondering if there were any Dragon Wormfood Articles that would be especially helpful for me and my players to read to get a good idea of what is going on.
Unfortunantly I can't really afford to buy all of them (need to buy a few Dungeons for the adventures, and postage to Australia is almost as much as the mags), but the budget could stretch to a couple. But I need to know which ones (if any) would be most helpful.
I have my next campaign planned out to about level 12 or so, and was looking for a good way to take the PCs to level 20 to finish it off.
I have dungeon Issues 131 - 134 (Prince of Redhand - Into the Wormcrawl Fissure), so finishing the campaign with the AoW End Game makes a lot of sense, and works out well.
However, which would be the best adventure to start on? Looking over Prince of Redhand, it looks like there really needs to be one adventure beforehand to set it up.
My second question - Is there an early adventure that does well at setting the whole campaign up? It doesn't matter what elvel it is, I can easily chage it to fit, but an adventure that covers all the background and lets the PCs know that somehting is up is what I am after.
Well, after looking around the internet and finding nothing, I decided to write my own conversion notes. I have posted the full document on therpgenius.com, but I'll also post it here to get some feedback.
I have already started to run this campaign once, getting through the first 2 chapters from the HC. I am also planning to run it with only 4 PCs, so am aiming to have the characters be one level higher than that suggested for each adventure. So to that end I have had to completely rewrite the first few adventures to get my PCs up to 5th level before starting Chapter 3 – Flood Season. I have included my notes for these early levels; do with them what you will.
Background
Adimarchus
9,000 years ago the Daelkyr invaded the nation of Khorvaire. Eventually the Gatekeeper Druids were able to sever the connection with Xoriat and seal the remaining Daelkyr deep within Khyber. Tradition holds that there are 6 such Daelkyr Lords imprisoned in the depths of Khyber. What very few people (perhaps only a handful of Dragon Below Cultists) know, is that there are also a number of other “lesser” Daelkyr bound in massive Khyber Dragonshards throughout the depths of Khyber.
Of these “lesser” Daelkyr, Adimarchus is the most Powerful, only a few steps below the power of the Daelkyr Lords. He knows that one day, the Daelkyr Lords will break free of their imprisonment to once again wreck havoc upon Khorvaire. His hope is that when they do, he will have grown in power enough to stand along side them. As such, ever since his imprisonment, more so than perhaps any other Daelkyr, he has exerted all his efforts and influence towards any way of breaking free from his Khyber shard prison.
Over the millennia he has been imprisoned, he has pursued (with the assistance of Dragon Below Cultists) innumerable plans to secure his release. All of them have so far failed, but his latest plan, after centuries of scheming, may just succeed in releasing this malevolent force from his prison in the depths of Khyber.
The Cagewrights
There are a number of significant changes to the Cagewrights to make them “fit” in Eberron. The first is to make them a Cult of the Dragon Below working to free Adimarchus from his Khyber Dragonshard Prison. They plan to accomplish this through harnessing the power of the Draconic Prophecy and Combining it with the power of the planes. It is stilled called “The Ritual of Planar Junction,” but instead of harnessing the power of the Shackleborn, it harnesses the power of the Draconic Prophecy through Dragonmarked individuals. But not just any individual bearing a Dragonmark will do, they need to each have been born in a manifest zone linked to a different plane. There are 13 Dragonmarks (including the Mark of Death), and 13 Planes (Assume [contrary to the ECS], there is a manifest zone to Dal Quor somewhere on Khorvaire). It has taken centuries of scheming to produce, and kidnap the required 13 dragonmarked heirs without arousing suspicion.
This has most significantly involved a LOT of manipulation and scheming to reawaken the long lost mark of Death through locating long lost heirs of House Vol, and closely watching the offspring to locate any heirs manifesting the mark of Death. They have finally located one such heir – Terrem Karatys (who of course is now an elven child).
The other major change is following the suggestion of delvesdeep to reduce the total number of the Cagewrights to a total of 13. Check out his document at the rpgenius.com, or his thread here.
The changes for Eberron are to change Ike and Embril to the Blood of Vol, Change Dry’ryd to a Mindflayer Sorcerer, and he is now the leader of the cult of the Dragon Below. (He retains his 2nd Head, which is an Aberration Symbiont Adimarchus has developed sometime over the last 9,000 years, that Adimarchus controls.)
Within the “Birdcage” pendant of each apprentice, is a small Khyber Dragonshard engraved with the symbol of the Dragon Below. Each Master wears a Byeshk ring (the Ring of Thirteen), set with a Khyber Dragonshard, overlaid with the Symbol of Adimarchus in Targath.
The last minor change is that instead of contracting out the construction of the Soulcages to the Ebon Triad, they instead have contracted the Sacred Spark (a small sect that worships both Onatar and the Fury). (For more information see Faiths of Eberron, page 49).
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