KC's Age of Worms

Game Master Kobold Catgirl

I know Tanith could wrestle these things but it wouldn't be thematically appropriate. He wrestles people (and maybe beasts), not tentacle monsters!

He never eye gouges? C'mon, grab the eyeballs and smash 'em between your fingers. Wrestling monsters is way more badass than people. IMHO.

Tanith will get there but he's a lowly level one character. He needs to grow into his hercules-esque role.

Yes, grapple the creatures based on strangling their enemies. I support this idea. :)

Yes, grapple the creatures based on strangling their enemies. I support this idea. :)

Well if you can't make grapple checks against them when they're strangling you, obviously they can't make grapple checks against you when you're strangling them . . .

Also 4d6 ⇒ (5, 2, 2, 2) = 11

You don't have the strangle ability because you are not a living loop of muscle.

(In reality, the rules conversion was a little big vague, as the statblock gave no information about breaking free. It's quite possible you were meant to simply kill them before they killed you, but I decided to give an out.)

I'm curious, was there an official pathfinder conversion for this AP or was it fan-made?

There was no official conversion, no. I'm using GM Blood's, as mentioned in the Recruitment thread, and converting myself here and there.

Ah. That's cool. Did GM Blood run the entire thing with a face to face group?

I believe so, though I never checked.

I'm on one of his games on the boards, he's running us through Rappan Athuk.

He's got some cool rule ideas. In a similar vein to Kirthfinder.

So looking back, I'm seeing a bit of confusion.

Farrukh enters the elevator and looks for anything suspicious at the bottom.

1d20 + 7 ⇒ (14) + 7 = 21 +2 vs Traps

I actually initially assumed that Farrukh was entering the chamber, and planned to run the trap as advertised--it would close its jaws in two rounds, assuming Farrukh didn't immediately back out.

Then, though...

"I don't think I want to get in there."

I realized here I'd misread. I also realized I'd misread Farrukh's roll and he'd easily spotted the trap, but I decided to just keep running, since it looked like the party had caught on to the trap anyways and nobody ever had to know.

Then Cuetzpalli ignored Farrukh's warning and enters the elevator, and I suddenly find myself faced with penalizing him for something that is pretty much my own blunder.

I apologize, and will work hard to avoid making this sort of error again. In the meantime, the trap's attacks will be slowed to 2d6 per two rounds, rather than per round (so, what the IC post says, in other words).

Cuetzpalli (and those outside) can try to pry open the doors with something, or just smash through.

Again, I'm very sorry for this mistake, and I promise that it will not happen again.

Wait, what? There was a trap in there that was spotted? Why the hell would I go inside then?

Yeah, that's what we were talking about. I figured you knew.

He said there were crushed corpses in there and Farrukh was like "Yeah I don't feel like going in there now" and you were like "Yeah I'm going inside the thing Farrukh was afraid to go inside of".

I think this is a good time for a minor retcon though, since it was poor communication all around.

Since Farrukh saw the trap (which I was not informed of), he would have told the group, and unless Cuetz had a deathwish he wouldn't go inside.

My initial poorly worded posts "He goes inside but wait no he doesn't" (since I saw the "crushed corpses" bit after I said I was going in), threw everything off.

At the very least, it's likely Farrukh would have been the one actually in the elevator when it went *SQUISH*. At which point he'd be unconscious, but c'est la vie.

Arright, arright. I shall wave the magical GM wand, then. None of what just happened happened. Farrukh saw the trap, warned Cuetzpalli, and the party is now blissfully unaware of the alternate reality in which Cuetzpalli got flattened.

Since all that drama has been undone, you continue to be faced with the choice of exactly what you now intend to do. ;)

Sorry if that post came off as snippy. It should go without saying that this has been an extremely embarrassing twenty minutes for me.

Acid beetles and randomly collapsing elevators? This violates all kinds of building codes.

Screw adventuring. Let's get a class action suit going.

Guess I'll be the bad guy and post what we're all thinking.

I also apologize if I came off as snippy. But you being willing to retcon it makes it all totally cool. We all make mistakes while DMing/playing, it's nothing to be embarrassed about unless you won't admit them :) Thanks for being cool about it.

Erip had 50 feet of silk rope, if anyone wants it.

Farrukh follows, and puts himself in a position where he can see ahead and scan for danger.

1d20 + 7 ⇒ (3) + 7 = 10 +2 vs traps.

Dice pls

Suddenly, a chute opens in the ground before the adventurers, and another elevator comes up. Farrukh thinks it looks completely safe.

One way or another, I'm making this trap happen, dammit.

No problem, Farrukh.

That post took half an hour to write. It's now past midnight.

I just want to say it was a blast. Definitely the most fun I've ever had seeing an encounter get quashed. You guys had a good plan and some lucky rolls, and I've always thought that that's really the best combination you can hope for in D&D. Hats off.

Now, I'm gonna go get some sleep.

I'm crashing too.

Fwoom will be the word of the day tomorrow.

I can never resist the urge to use "fwoom", even though the squiggly red line would really like me to cut it out.

Carina: Stabilize the beetle and drag it around for death knell as needed. That's what Erip would want you to do.

Oh well. I tried. :)

Farrukh: "I AM HERE! FIGHT ME!"

According to this guy we should be dead about now.

And I think he's right, dammit. Swarms are immune to stuff that targets a single target, so no aiming a Bomb at them, which means Splash damage is the only option.

=/

5=/

Well, I for one am quite glad we're not. :)

We still would have won, it just would have taken another bomb. She's doing six damage per bomb just from the splash+50%

I definitely didn't realize that swarms only took damage from splash on alchemist's bombs though. That guys is right. Which means I need to run that differently in my own games in the future.

According to this guy we should be dead about now.

And I think he's right, dammit. Swarms are immune to stuff that targets a single target, so no aiming a Bomb at them, which means Splash damage is the only option.

=/

5=/

Frankly, I hate to start rules arguments, but I've seen that interpretation before and I completely disagree with it.

Swarms are vulnerable to splash weapons, not splash damage. Splash weapons are explicitly listed as one of their weaknesses. In addition, the interpretation means that alchemists fire and acid flasks are almost entirely useless, which makes this make no sense:

A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells.

Note "splash weapons". It doesn't say the area effect itself is the only thing that has effect. The fact that the weapon does do splash damage is enough, because splash weapons themselves are an exception.

However, my main point there is the fact that this rule was made before bombs existed. So why list splash weapons if only the splash damage applies? You can't add half to 1 point of damage, so it's redundant.

Finally, from the Kobold Quarterly Erik Mona FAQ:

One of the things that eats a lot of characters in "The Whispering Cairn" is a swarm of acid beetles that boil up out of an elevator shaft. That swarm killed a character in our playtest, it's killed hundreds of characters. If you read the Age of Worms Obituaries thread on paizo.com, you'll see that beetle swarm has delivered a nice crotch blow to a wide spectrum of D&D players, and I did that very intentionally.

There certainly are ways of dealing with that swarm at 1st level. Maybe your wizard should be packing burning hands. Bring your flask of oil and be prepared is the message.

Maybe alchemists fire and acid being useless is RAW, but it's not RAI. It's a dumb rule, and I don't read it that way.

Rant over.

I'm just wondering what the orange lumps are...

My bottom line is that if the rule means your party's main reason for bringing a flask of alchemist's fire (aside from trolls) gets erased, it's not a good rule. Splash weapons are how a non-magic party deals with trolls swarms. It's ridiculous to disallow that.

EDIT: I'm a bit tired.

I'm just wondering what the orange lumps are...

I'm sorry, I completely missed your post.

No worries! :)

Here, have a thread that about sums up my views.

Yeah, good point. Bombs should blow up swarms.

I was a bit aggressive in my previous posts, sorry about that. I was just recently in an argument about this very issue, and I still had all the points I made fresh in my head.

One thing I'll point out, though, is that swarms have an Armor Class. This indicates that some targeted attacks will work. :P

No worries. I think you'll find I'm the last to cast stones in the "Aggressive rules argument" arena. =)

Speaking of rules arguments . . . Tanith, I think gentle repose is a 2nd-level spell for clerics/warpriests, unless you were using some sort of special ability. (Noticed that while working on this cleric.)

You are absolutely right.

That's what I get for taking my roommate's word.

I believe one of the column titles in Dragon was "Wormfood" . . .

Also, what time of year is it in-game?

Astraden Limhaare is ready, barring any edits you guys or KC would like me to make.

Writing her backstory, I was reminded of one trick a ?RotR? campaign used - each player made two characters with integrated backstories. If their original character died, the player could quickly bring in their secondary character, who would have presumably been going on their own quests and adventures and would be the same level as their counterpart. Given the deadliness of this campaign, at later levels it might be worth looking into.

e: Also KC went offline an hour ago (though that may be obvious).

The adventure begins in late spring.

Could you guys aid Carina on an Appraise check for the pearl? Otherwise, Astraden has Spellcraft and can identify it when they meet.

Thanks, KC.

Your character looks good to me, Gark.

Proceed to the game thread, Gark 2.0!