Alex Weiss's page

I love the web supplements dearly, particularly the maps. My players love to see them too, since they are so much nicer than my sketches on the whiteboard. I went to print up the maps for COBI this afternoon and realized that they still had the traps and secret rooms marked on them. So I popped them open in photoshop and took all the secrets off. If anyone else wants them, they're up at http://www.cacography.net/projects/dungeon145_tabootemple_maps/.

Only just reading it now, won't run it for a while yet, but I just couldn't resist making them: rotated maps.

The problem with this is the math on Identify:

Say our party wizard has appraise +x (eg +10); if he takes 20 using multiple detect magics (or just keeps casting until he gets a 20), he gets a 20+x (eg 30), identifying items of CL 5+x (eg 15) and below. But if he casts Identify he gets a single roll with an extra +10, no retry without casting again; he rolls 1d20+10+x and gets between 11+x and 30+x (eg 21-40), identifying items of CL x-4 to x+15 (eg 6-25).

My problem with this is that when you cast Identify, you have only a 50% chance of getting any benefit from it over just casting detects for free all day.

I think my PCs would continue sailing to Farshore and wait for the Nixie folks there.

Sadly we're already into HTBM, since I really like this idea, but I talked about it with my players and they said they would do exactly that. Not too much of a problem though:

There's a simplified version of photoshop that adobe just released that runs right in your web browser: photoshop.com/express. It mostly has simple photo adjustment tools, but the touchup tool will do just what you want here. Click on the blast disc, drag to get the size (of the area you want to replace) right, and move the red circle around to the middle of an empty square; photoshop will copy what is in the empty square to cover the blast disc and match the textures pretty well, so there won't even be weird cut lines. With a little work, your players will never know there wasn't a supplement.

"Legerdemain"?

Although I must agree, if OL gets merged in with DD then calling the remaining Slight of Hand skill "Slight of Hand" is probably best.

Count me in, if you get a chance.

algrs at cacography.net

Thanks!

I find that encounters where they need to protect the weak can be very difficult.

The hydra is a good spot for that-- I had most of the passengers go swimming (lush tropical paradise and all) for a few minutes before one of the PCs took a dive and saw a dark shape the size of a bus rising up towards one of the passengers. The PCs were all over the place when it happened and had to swim to the hydra before it killed any of the red shirts; then they fought a sort of rear guard action while the panicked passengers swam back to the ship. It was one of the most memorable fights of the SWW for us.

I'd also recommend buffing the basilisk. I got the players good and worked up with Urol's descriptions of the monster they were going to meet, then they snuck up on it and splattered it all over the walls in two rounds. A bit of a let down for all of us.

The vine horrors may be good as written, since they just keep coming, but maybe giving the mother of all a few points of regen to make sure she's a memorable fight. For us, she wound up pinned down by fires with only a few hit points left and fled back down into the pit. The PCs freaked, thinking she had run to heal; I wish she actually had.

On Renkrue, when my PCs found out about Avner's undiplomatic proposal, two of them hauled him away to the ship and used a selection of enchantments and a gallon of rotgut to get him hammered (player: "Have another drink Avner.... Have another drink Avner..."), while the others arranged for the Olmans to accept Thunderstrike as a consolation gift. Some diplomacy and intimidation of the crew and passengers followed, and when Avner awoke the next day, the ship had sailed and he had no memory of the night before, but everyone assured him that he had traded Thunderstrike to the girl's father and clearly had a good night.

Oddly enough, the PCs were really more bothered by the horse than by Avner (at the gala at the end of TINH, one of the players actually asked if there were any nobles making eyes at her; I mentioned Avner and the character still has fond memories of that night). Having Thunderstrike in the hold for three months seems to have offended their sensibilities.

Green sculpey painted with a brown sharpie...

I think carving up the inside of a creatures digestive track is a pretty good definition of hitting a vital spot.

On the other hand, carving up the vitals might just not get you out. Most real critters have stomachs next to the abdominal wall (it's nice when a full meal distends your belly outward, rather than squeezing in and restricting the freedom of your lungs to expand); likewise most critters keep the really vital stuff further in. So it might not be unreasonable to say that you can turn your blade inwards towards the big thumping bits and do sneak attack damage or you can head for the abdominal wall and try to cut your way out.

Hop-Toy Dan:

** spoiler omitted **

Thank you for these diaries -- it was your story that convinced me to forsake homebrew and run STAP as our next campaign and we are all loving it.

We've used a number of different sailing rules over the years, including Corsair. Its rules for ship movement are great for fast paced chase scenes if you are quick with the math and willing to wing it, especially if you want to run a scene with multiple ships near coastal features, for example in a narrow channel between two islands. The rules for ship to ship combat are not so great; they are most like a wargamer's rules, for times when you are more concerned with what happens to the ship then what happens to the people on the ship.

In the end, we've found that the Stormwrack style "cut to the boarding action" method is almost always best. Where Stormwrack really fails is in the chase scene, as it relies too much on skill ranks and randomness and doesn't leave much room for tactical decisions. It also really only works for two ships on the open sea. If you want more than two ships involved or to include coastal terrain, then Stormwrack is inadequate. So what we're trying now (or in a month or so when we get to SWW), is to use the Corsair rules for chases over long distances and then cut to the Stormwrack rules when it gets neck and neck.

But then, my current players are neither wargamers nor sailing enthusiasts, so accuracy sometimes takes a back seat to pacing and story. For large scale ship to ship interaction, Corsair is one of the best out there. Highly recommended. Also makes you want to get your hands on some 1:1200 miniatures.

What happens when this 15'x15' pudding splits?

But a pudding doesn't fill the whole 15' x 15' cube like Gelatinous Cube; that's the rough area it undulates over in combat. Huge is 2 - 16 tons, MM1 gives typical pudding as about 9 tons, so when it splits into two 4.5 ton chunks these are both still huge. The issue is how to describe it to the players so that they understand that there isn't a spontaneous increase in the amount of ooze.

How I plan on running it (a long time from now, still in TINH):

As your sword slices into the pudding it begins to tear along your cut, peeling apart as though magnetically repulsed, rapidly splitting roughly in half

Now there are two huge oozes that are squeezing to each occupy half of the original 15' x 15' space. On the oozes next turn (I'd assume they would act on the same initiative) they move away from each other.

The two halves of the ooze begin to slide away from each other, each one rapidly spreading out to cover almost as much of the floor as the whole did before, although noticeably thinner. One of them slides partly up the wall and begins to dip down towards your head from above...

I figure that the ooze will attempt to spread over the whole room, trying to grapple any characters that are standing in the way. If they are foolish enough to keep slashing at it, it will wind up covering the whole room, floor, walls, and ceiling.

There are some room descriptions of, I believe, dead savage pirates in the cave system of Kraken's Cove, which of course contradicts itself since they explode in goo.

Or give them a 75% chance of exploding into goo. Explains some remains and unpredictable enough to keep players on their toes.