AAhne's page

I have a group of six players about to fight Mother of All and I'm worried the battle will be anti-climatic. Mama has this great pit to work with and she's pretty smart for a plant so she'll try and drop PCs into The Maw. 100 foot drop, DC 20 climb check to get out, no line of sight past the top edge, perfect place to stash dinner. I'm giving her Improved Grab to give her a better chance to toss pesky players down the dirty hole.

The Wreck of the Thunderer is the oldest ship in the sargasso and is slippery with rot and sludge. I'm making it a DC13 balance check to move on the slick floor (which, by the way, makes players flat footed when moving). When Mama transports to the top of the Maw her weight will tilt the ship towards the Maw. DC13 balance checks every round (even if standing still) or players slip 10 feet and probably fall. That should come as a surprise to the mages gathered at the rim hucking fireballs down the hole.

I also think shooting the albatross is a great idea. I'm going to have Avner shoot it to give the party yet another reason to hate him. He'll shoot it before the first storm. When the Sea Wyvern reaches Journey's End the crew will blame Avner.

Better even than the Alaskan Bull Worm, Gary the Snail made his appearance in the waters off the Isle of Dread. He has the stats of a roper but with a big spiral shell.

The party was cruising along on its way to Scorpion Island when the ship's wheel gave a jerk accompanied by a wood crunching noise from the back of the ship. Gary was mostly submerged, trying to disable the ship's rudder. Only his eye-stalks poked out above water.

I assumed it was 40 feet from the rear of the ship to the water, so whoever looked down was within range of all six strand attacks. He pulled two characters off the deck before they started jumping down to him.

2d8 strength damage is a bugger when you're trying to swim in armor. Spell resistance 30 keeps the spell casters from ruining a good water fight.

The party ended up killing Gary, but now they're paranoid about evil, intelligent mollusks.

Yep, you're right, it resets after a minute. Thanks.

At the end of Tides of Dread, Vanthus rubbed his shadow pearl on his bleeding forehead, was struck dead, and dropped the pearl. A PC monk caught it and now is the proud owner of a bloody shadow pearl, which seems to be as dangerous as being the owner of a hand grenade missing its pin.

So, if the shadow pearl gets a good shock (equivalent to being dropped on the ground) it'll go off. Does it ever reset?

I was thinking about having it disarm once Vanthus's blood dried, but it'll be more fun to leave it open ended.

How did your PCs store/dispose of the bloody shadow pearl?

I let Hydras attack with each head during each attack of opportunity. I agree that the description in the MM is ambiguous, but since a five head Hydra's "Attack" is 5 bites (the same as its "Full Attack") I lean toward giving each head a bite for each attack of opportunity.

Our druid's animal companion tried to flee from the Aquatic Hydra and was munched to bits.

My players detonated the candles about eight times. Brute force (and a bunch of cure spells) can work this one out. Especially since there are clues for the sequence (when you light the candle on the left, the right chair pools with blood. When you sit in the blood, something shimmers in the left mirror.)

I did have to make some rules on the fly for when the candles detonate, since my players kept trying odd combinations.

In the final chamber, I made the fire pit 15' wide, and before the PCs arrived Olangru cast an illusion of himself standing on a grate in the fire poking Urol with a spear. Two PCs ended up in the pit before they caught on.

I was going to run the encounter as written, with one pirate ship. My concern is that one fireball can kill a good chunk of the crew (they've got 8hp each). The sorcerer can fire one every six seconds until she runs out. I'd think about turning around at that point if I was running that ship.

My players are about to try and run the pirate blockade in SWW, and I'm wondering how the ship to ship combat went for anyone else. If I was the players, I'd start lobbing fireballs at the pirates. Since they have 8hp each, it just takes one fireball to convince the (remaining) pirates to retreat.

Also, how much damage does a ballista do?

Chessex battlemat with water erasable markers.

My house is too small for piles of miniatures, so I make them out of vinyl floor tiles. You can get over 100 1 inch chits from a single $0.60 tile. Of course, a large creature uses a 2 inch chit. The vinyl floor tiles are already sticky, and they make durable chits.

The artwork comes from lots of places. The old module The Gates of Firestorm Peak came with cardboard chits, and has a bunch of gibbering mouthers. Glossy comic books work well too. However, the best artwork for chits came from cutting up trading card commons from MtG.

I have unique chits for every NPC. That way, the players remember who's about to be eaten by just looking at the board.

The players use regular minis. When they're grappling I just put their mini on the chit.

How did you reintroduce Rowyn in Sea Wyvern's Wake?

My party is getting ready to search the ship, and when they search the hold I want to give Rowyn a chance to dance and charm someone before combat. I'm thinking of having her pretend to be a plaything Avner smuggled in with the hay for his horse. She'll say that she's why Avner argued so strongly for his own room.

Anyway, when discovered, she'll explain in a thick accent that she's here to "shake it for Avner. Like this..."

It should give them another reason to be chapped at Avner.

I used Paizo's download map of the Tamoachan Ruins. I tore it through room 9 and half of the well in room 2 so the players wouldn't just skip room 2.

Taming the rust monster is a great idea. Rowyn might be tempted to set it loose in the hold during the trip to the Isle of Dread, or just teach it a few new tricks (she'll have lots of time on her hands).

Otto-4th level human ranger lumberjack
Eaten by Ripclaw.

Otto charged in to help the surprised rogue, who then tried to loop back on Ripclaw by going through Navesh Wyversting's ambush.

Cardboard minis work well if you back them with a vinyl floor tile. They’re self adhesive, less than $0.50 a square foot, and you get a pile of rugged minis. You can buy individual tiles at hardware stores.

I wanted my group to be motivated to stop the savage tide from spreading. Specifically, I wanted them to feel like the shadow pearls were somehow their fault. One party member lived in Shadowshore, and he was contacted by a gray market trader of oddities. Said he learned of a hidden chamber on Dead Man’s Roost, a rocky island 30 miles from town. Dead Man’s Roost was covered in ruins that were thought to have been picked clean years ago. Anyway, the trader gave them directions to the entrance of the chamber, key words to locate and open the exterior door, wax for the party’s ears (because the wail of the chamber guardians will kill you or drive you mad), and vials of acid to pour on the protective glyphs on the inner door (without looking at them, or you’ll get fried). Under the inner door was supposed to be a shaft to a small library, and the party was to bring back a book and keep whatever else they found.

They went to the island, plugged their ears, opened the outer door, backed up to the inner door, poured acid on the glyphs, opened the inner door (shaped like a man-hole cover), and out streamed a cloud of tiny black skulls and an awful smell. They all failed their fort saves, became nauseated, and now have arcane marks of a demonic symbol on their foreheads. There was no shaft, just a lead lined semi-spherical chamber under the cover, lined with magic glyphs of containment.

At this point, the party got suspicious, took out the wax, and heard a pleasant voice repeating “Danger! Do not enter. This is a containment area.” They looked at the back of the lid, and saw the mirror image of what was (formerly) on the top surface. Once translated, it said “Containment chamber number seven.”

I added tiny black skulls to Harliss Javell’s description of the shadow pearl exploding.

I’m hoping I can tie this together later . . .