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Another question about Moreto; the text, from the tactics section, mentions summoned undead besides the morghs. Is this something that was left from Moreto's earlier incarnation (a vampire I think)? I see nothing regarding any ability that allows Moreto to summon undead or summon anything for that matter.
Name: Anso
This thread is started for those characters that left the campaign for other (and happier) causes than character death. The last session she played she helped the rest of the party fighting the grimlock chieftain, healing partymembers and even getting a good hit and providing flanking opportunities. We all knew that she wouldn't be able to play through the whole campaign almost from the start. It wasn't that noticable from the start but gradually everone noticed that she took more space on the couch, ate more than her share of M&M's (leaving us with the pickles we bough for her), wasn't able to be there each week and/or left early. We did appreciate every time she did come (especially the last few times), driving herself to the session even though some of the players asking her whether she wanted to be picked up and brought home. She bashed baddies as before even though some sessions were stopped by the message:"he's kicking", or when (a Vampire session this time) she would grap your hand put it on her belly and whispered:"do you feel him kicking?" Well she did, 2 weeks ago she delivered a healthy baby boy and all are doing fine. We're debating if he will take up roleplaying (as his mother) or computer gaming (as his dad) but we think he will take up sports (as eh neither).
The calculations look sound but I think you forget some things. First, Raknian bought the place years ago. Even if he could pay for the arena himself, in full, when he bought it, a sizable amount of the profit should be regarded as recouperation of the initial loss of money when he bought it (eg. the price of the arena). It would be more likely that he either payed the price during a longer time or loaned money from other people, in both cases he would have to pay interest. Second, he doesn't own the arena for this particular week only, he owns it the whole year round. For every day of the year, regardless whether the arena is used, he has to pay for maintenace, repairs, staff, advertisment and security. Sure, there are other battles and such during that year and they might bring some nice profit but he might there might also be quite some shows and battles that make a loss (the yearly interpretive mime and kazoo festival comes to mind). Effectively an arena, theater or opera house starts each year with a large number which represents the cost of maintaining, staffing and interest and especially the main events (like the Champions belt games) are needed to cover this cost.
PC Name: Zyneb, 5th level gnome bard
After their first day in the swamp, trying to save Marzena, the party opted to camp in a small island close to the path. Zyneb used his trusty rope of climbing to make himself a nice hammock above the moist ground. Unfortunately (thanks Eric for the great encounter idea) the party found out that they had chosen to camp on the island a Green Hag and her entourage of 2 merrow called home. They attacked in the middle of the night but luckily were beaten. In the aftermath of the victory the party used almost their fully available vocal range while discussing the fight, their newfound wand and the skulls of the hags former victims. This ruckus caused 2 nearby huge crocs to check the island. If the hag was dead they would have first dibs on any fleshyly goodness or if she were still alive, she might give them some of her victims as she was wont to. When they arrived and sensed no live hagginess they attacked to claim their rightfull prey. It was a though and hard battle with many partymembers ending up into, and escaping from, their toothy maws. Zyneb approached the melee to give a party member a well appreciated invisibility spell and taunted the croc (or flat-headed, broad-mouthed, short-legged swampdragon) to give that partymember the chance to hit the croc with an unsuspected great blow. Unfortunately the taunt worked too well and even though the other partymember got to give the croc a well-deserved great-axe injection to the brain Zyneb got caught between the snappity snappity instrument of his doom.
I have found that the 28 points point buy works quite well. My party has just finished 3foE and suffered 2 casualties, although it has to be said that they were mostly because of some carelessness of the players in question and some occasional hiatus in the groups strategy. I must say that I do use heropoints so if you will not 30 or 32 points might be in order
I did the same as Ghettowedge did. However after 2 session playing tag with the kenkus in the maze they gave up (with one kenku escaping) and went to the cleared out Hextor temple to recover hitpoints and spells. During their rest (only 4 of the potential 8 players were present) they heard chanting in the central cathedral. They went to investigate and, with much of luck and good stratigies, they managed to beat the faceless one and his remaining henchmen in the catedral before finally luring the emerging Ebon Aspect and defeating it in the arena of the Hextor temple using the same tricks (and some good bluff v.s. sense motive checks) that the former Hextor templars used against them. In the end they managed to beat the Ebon aspect also in spite of me and them dreading a TPK many times during the session. I must give my (then present) players credit here. In the end they were happily frustrated with the maze, the sneaky kenku and the secret doors. It brought out the best in them in tactical thinking (expect the giving up at the end) and they managed to prevale through some very tricky situations.
I like to chime in as another "foreigner" (no offence taken but it did strike me as really 'merkin). As another European (a Dutch one this time) I can only afirm the above reactions regarding the visibility of medeival history around me. I have visited many museums and castles in the Netherlands and abroad and many of the older cities around here have remnants of medeival buildings and in some of these cities the original layout of the cities is still apparent. Regarding foreign lands and languages closeby, this is especially true for the Netherlands. From where I live Germany is 2 hours away by car as is Belgium, Luxembourg and France are only about double the distance and Great Britain and Denmark aren't that far either. Basicly we are surrounded by "foreign" countries with foreign languages. The mythological background of D&D is largely european, 2 of the writers you mention (Tolkien and Moorcock) are British themselves. However I do disagree a bit with Bocklin as I tend to like the more historicaly european-like settings more, like Ars Magica, WoD Dark Ages and some described in some dutch, german, french and british roleplaying games or assesories. This as opposed to high fantasy settings. I do agree somewhat with Bocklin on Games Workshop's Old World as this setting is more an extreme caricature than an alternative magic Europe, although I do like the greyness of the setting. I totally abhor the manga-ised fantasy except for those that are rooted in japanese mythology. In all I think our sociological and mythical backgrounds aren't that much diferent as the main mythical background of the american (D&D) fantasy is largely european. I think it is safe to say that there is more interest, in the U.S.A, for european geology, history and mythology because of D&D and fantasy, the same way I've done research into the U.S.A. because of my playing and storytelling Vampire the Masquerade cronicles in New Orleans, Chicago and San Fransisco (I have a Rand McNally Road Atlas especially for this). Roleplaying games broadens your horizons and not just to elves and dragons but to history and foreign lands also.
Name: Thelo
After dealing with the grimlocks on the ledge and the 2 chokers below the party tried to check out the small tunnel below the ledge. Anso, the enlarged cleric, boosted Thelo up and he started tying down a rope, so the rest could follow him. That's when the barbarian suprised him. Thelo tried to defend himself but the barbarian's knives found his heart and he was thrown down below to his shocked partymembers. The enraged party managed to take her down after but before that she also almost killed Leto, the human swashbuckler (-9hp).
Try to find Dragon 336, it has an article describing the "becoming" of most undead found in the MM.
Kullen and co. are still alive but that may change tonight! After having found the Land graves empty and killing the owlbear the party went to Diamont Lake. As one partymember knew the Kullen boys (he is the nephew of Smenk) and was afraid of them they figured bribing them might be best. The gnome bard tried to chat them up, buy a few rounds and made them friendly enough to be bribed and they told him about Filge. He had to promise to bring Kullen Filges eyes though. All's well at this point. However the party bungled their attack on the observatory and had to flee. The next day some partymembers spotted Kullen and co. coming out of the observatory, being very, very pissed off. Sneaking close they heared Kullen and co. complaining about having to drag zombies around and vowing to get that frigging gnome and his friends. The party spent the rest of the day dodging Kullen and buying equipment for a second attack on the observatory (one member got killed in the first attack and they wanted revenge). Unfortiunately Kullen and co. caught the party's monk and told him to bring another 200 gp and Filges eyes to the Land farm this evening or Kullen would hunt them down and kill them all. Before letting the monk go Kullen asked the monk to give the gnome a special message and he bashed the monk's nose. "and that bastard gnome had better have a broken nose when he brings the money tonight, otherwise I will have to hunt you down again for not doing as I say!". Later that day the party say Kullen and co. again emerging from the observatory this time briefly followed by an angry screaming Filge. Again the ranger followed them and listened to their conversation. "It's a win-win situation," he heared Bask explain Kullen, "either the kill Filge first and pay us and we're in the clear and rich as Filge only communicates to Smenk through us" (Bask is wrong here) "or the come to pay us without killing Filge and we ambush them and both Filge and Smenk will congratulate us for killing those that attacked Filge". "You better be right or I'll organise a special fight in the Feral Dog, between 2 champion dogs and you, handcuffed." The ranger snuk back to the party and told what he heared. What followed was a 2 hour discussion. In the end they opted to attack Filge first and deal with Kullen second. Btw, they are really scared of Kullen and co., even thought the party consists of 8(!) members. We stopped playing halfway through the attack on the observatory. In 60 or 90 minutes from now (realtime) the story will continue.
As it is your first time as a DM don't be afraid to limit players choices by what you know or are confortable with. As a new DM much of your energy will be used with dealing with the basics. Special exotic classes will need more DM attention than the "basic" classes. If you explain this and ask him to rather choose a class you're familiar with he might understand. Not allowing something from books you haven't read beforehand is a very good policy (I use it). When asked myself I always reply that I might look into it (reading books and understanding the texts takes extra time on top of the normal DM preparation time) and tell them to that a negative answer is a possibility and they should plan accordingly. If the first few levels are similar to a basic class I might even allow a rebuilt later. Foreshadowing that the class can provide problems later, as already mentioned, is also good advice. These problems are not only a problem for the player but will result in more work for the DM. The main thing is that the player should understand that requesting "exotic" classes from books the DM hasn't read is asking for the DM to spent more time on that character alone. When this basis is understood there is less chance that there is a conflict over disallowing something, even though there have been other seemingly similar instances where the DM did allow something. And last but not least, congratulations for taking the step to take up DMing. I hope you will enjoy it.
The partty is busy with their second attack on the observatory to avenge a partymember they lost in the first attack. although they managed to get the 4 Land skeletons dealing with Filge has become something personal. after that they must deal with the Cullen boys because the boys are looking for them for bungling the first attack and getting them into big problems once Smenk finds out they sold his buddy Filge.
Ì think that the main divide between real world and fantasy stories (or just stories at all) is that in stories the motivations and actions of people and states should be logical or rational from the viewpoints of the given people or states. This is bevause the actions and motivations are there for a reason, being a part of a plot within the story. This is the case especially when talking about fantasy stories where the main part of the role people and states play are defined by their ideological opposition (good v.s. evil, chaos vs. law, tradition vs. change etc., love vs. hate)to other people and states. This role provides of them to act locigally or rationally according their creed. in the real world there is no preset plot with roles, nor real purely ideologically opposition. Happenings in the real world don't have to make "sense" or are the results of claerly motivated actions. Arjen
Then again: http://paizo.com/dungeon/messageboards/ageOfWorms/couldItBeDigitalFootageOf EricMonaSAOWCampaign Might, just might, alongside all that unjustified stereotyping and anecdotal evididence of female players and happily married players, there be, deep inside.....? Entirely hypothetical and inconsequential off course. Then again we're male...., gamegeeks/nerds (well you all are indefinately, even if you're female) and such. And still, there's nothing to ashamed of, eh look at Vin diesel for instance, well just look at him, tight macho muscular male testosterone body. Ehrm, you see? But maybe a tad, a little wee bit? :), Arjen
A creepy guy like Filge, with probably some powerfull connections, might have little problems to convince other people to let him leave them alone for a, relatively, small sum. This said I can say that my initial plans with the corpse of Caeldrin was thwarted. The last session stopped with the party retreating and leaving the body of Caeldrin. Tonights session started, mostly because of the presence of a player that wasn't there the session before, with a revigoration of the spririt within the party. While the survivors of the last encounter harassed Filge outside of the observatory by throwing rocks through the groundfloor windows and rapping on the door and running away, the monk (who was on the lookout outside during the fatal encounter last session because the player had to leave early) climbed to the top of the observatory to retreive the body of their fallen friend. Not only that but he managed to defeat the last skeleton of the Land family, which was sent to investigate the breaking of glass in the above. Filge, at the time, was directing his zombies to guard the front door and was busy to recreate the dinner scene (He's quite maniacal about that). The monk escaped with both Caeldrin's body and the last skeleton. They will vist Filge again because now they have a personal grudge. It was not something I had envisioned to happen when I stopped the previous session but I must say that I'm very pleased with the results and the daring actions of the party. Kudo's and hero-points were given, drinks all around. While I like it when a devious plan comes toghether I like it more when a devious plan is thwarted, by the players, in a way i didn't think of before. Arjen, going to sleep now (Central European time here)
My players are currently working their way through WC in the Greyhawk setting. When the campaign started I thought to use the greyhawk calender (http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~fey/DD3/calendar_GH.html) to highten the atmosphere. This had some nice roleplaying concequences for especially the religious characters. The players chose a date to start (25th of readying) and are using the calendar to keep a log. The fortunate coincidence was that they found the empty graves of the Lands family on the 10th of Coldeven. Looking at the calender at the start of the session they asked what the Bloodmoon festival was (11th of coldeven), I told them: 11th= Festival of the Blood-Moon. Sacred to worshippers of Nerull and most lawful evil cults as well, this grim festival technically begins on the 10th and ends on the evening of the 12th. It commemorates the blood-red moon which appeared all over the Flanaess on this day in 294 CY. (Some sages postulated common volcanism as the source, but proponents dwindled quickly after several sages disappeared under mysterious circumstances.) Elaborate ceremonies are held in fell and shadowy places, many of which are grisly and unpleasant in the extreme. This festival is now honoured in Iuz' lands as well since the Wars, in mocking celebration of the surprise attacks which decimated the Heirarchs of Molag in 583 CY. The players immediately linked the graverobbing to the festival and were even more determined to find the bodies of the Land family than before. The unfortunate part of the coincidence was that they tried to tackle Filge the same day they fought the owlbear (luckily they were able to bribe the Cullen's gang rather than fight them). Needless to say they were a bit unprepared and almost without (healing!!)spells. This and some bad luck and bad tactical moves almost caused a TPK, luckily they only lost one (see obituary thread) but had to leave his body. The good thing is that the rest of the party is now very motivated to defeat Filge. The bad thing is that Filge is now ready and will sick the Cullen's gang on them (with a very small chance that they can be bribed again).
PC Name:Cealdrin (elf wiz.2)
The party decided to tackle Filge the same day they battled the owlbear and directly after they bribed Kullen's gang. The cleric was out of healing spells and the wizard (Caeldrin) had prepared the wrong arsenal of spells for this occasion (he thought this would be an information gathering day). While the rest of the party where battling the zombies at the top of the stairs and loosing (only one of them had a slashing weapon and that was a glaive) Cealdrin ran past the zombies to engage Filge with his longbow. A rusty scimitar brought him down into the negatives. Right after that 2 nother party members were dropped below 0 forcing the rest to flee with those unconcious members they could grab. Filge will animate Caeldrin body to replace the 3 skeletons the party stole from him. The next time the party will confront Filge they will encounter the zombified body of Caeldrin with a magic mouth saying:"I am greatfull that I am allowed to serve the magnificient Filge after my stupid friends left me to die a slow painfull death while they cowardly fled from their treacherous and pityfull attempt to attack him.
Most of it can be found in the "Prelude" paragraph on page 18 and "Getting the players involved" on page 64. The best way to start the campaign is to talk to your players during their character generation and weave their backgrounds into Diamond Lake (uninteresting jobs) and explore how the characters know each other. Next make it clear that DL is not the place where anyone, who can help it, wants to live. Basicly your players' characters are waiting for their Big Opportunity to change their dreary lives. Next give one character, through his or her background story, the map which shows the cairn and let this character recruit other partymembers. Depending on the characters your players are making this can take some work but the best way is to allow your players to help you with this part. In my campaign for instance the rogue found the map when archiving papers from a former mine-manager for his uncle Smenk. As no-one else knew about the map he figured that no-one would miss it, so he took it for himself. Sometime later he was fired from his job by Smenk because of similar offences and his bad attitude. As his income dropped below what was able to support his hedonistic lifestyle he needed more money. He remembered the map and asked 3 others to join him, 2 miners (an impoverished swashbuckler and a barbarian ex-slave) and a wizard apprentice. The swashbuckler asked his friend the monk with him and the wizard asked a cleric of Wee-Jas. Finally the bard overheared their planning and joined in exchange for his silence. This whole prelude took 1 character genertion session, one roleplay/planning session and some personal conversations and e-mail. This extra planning has payed back in some very interesting backgrounds and inter-party roleplaying. Arjen
Apparently it didn't, the last chances were easily done. I uploaded the file to http://therpgenius.com/Default.aspx?alias=therpgenius.com/ageofworms . So you only have to wait for it to be approved and available on the site. I hope it works alright, I'll hear from you if you have any questions.
At this moment I'm working on improving the spreadsheet to make it less big (1/10th of the original 7 meg). When it is ready I'll submit it to the RPGenius - Age of Worms site. As I'm largely self-taught in Excel and as I still have to do some reverse-engineering to find out what I did in the original (I keep encountering groupings of cells that do things and are apparently essential but I can't remember what), it might take some days.
Why not switch the wolves with some stirges, maybe the explorations of the rival party in the "stirge-nest cairn" caused some of the stirges to relocate. You might also use some myconids and other fungi i.s.o. the insects in the laborers rooms.
What effect the amount of treasure will have on the characters during the the Whispering Cairn adventure I will have to see as I have just started the adventure. However the backgrounds of the PCs suggest that they will spent quite some money on lifestyle, family, healing and the renovation of a certain abandoned mining office. The amount of treasure given and the amount of treasure in their possesion when they start 3FoE will differ significately. If the party wants to buy magical items I will refer to the items described in the Diamond lake backdrop. Also healing potions can be bought in the temples (provided they know people there) and maybe some minor magical potions at Benazel the alchimist or scrolls from Allustan. If they want anything else they will have to go to Greyhawk or convince Allustan or one of the clerics to make one for them and be prepared to pay heftily. For other towns and cities I will use a method I devised in an earlier campaign. I made some charts for the possibility that magical items are for sale in a given city or town (see below). I loosely used the treasure tables for encounters from the DM's Guide. Below you will see the chance if one or more magical items are for sale and the max amount of possible items that can be for sale. For example I will roll 3 times with 20% each to check whether there are any minor magical items for sale in a Large town. Next I will roll the kind of item on the charts from the DM's Guide, if the worth of the item exeeds the GP limit of the type of city that item is not for sale (so you will still have less chance for a magic item for sale in a Thorp compared to a Hamlet). Thats a lot of rolling but then again I made an excell sheet to do all that for me; a 7Meg of inefficient use of numbers and buggy but it works, kinda. I even added a chance that the item is cheaper/more expensive, broken, buggy or fake. The party will have to spend one day making a DC 25 gather information check to track these items down (one check finds one item) and decide then and there whether they want to buy it or it might be sold the next time they come around. So far the players enjoyed searches and debate wheter or not they should grasp this one-time opportunity to buy this used wand of web. Here are the charts:
medium GP limit % change # items
Major
If the PC's want a particular item they will have to find a wizard or cleric to make it for them, which will also take some gather information and diplomacy checks and a lot of money.
Just started the campaign last week, they have killed the wolves and the slasher, they ran from the beetle-swarm. The party: -Anso Haystack, human cleric of Wee-Jas 1st; not present yet. Ex-slave and from what I heared an opportunist.
In a nutshell, a group that can easily provide action and conflict without me having to add external conflicts like hungry wolves or beetles.
The map can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20050622a I found it in the art-gallerie section.
As a reply to the first post, I thought this was a bit harsh too. However the nature of the worm might give the characters some clues. I would think that the worms themselves are necromantic, evil, undead-ish entities given the source of their existance. Detect magic could show a faint necromantic aura next to the aura of the poition itself, detect undead/evil might, faintly, register their presence ("I sence undead, and... they are located... IN YOUR BACKPACK!!!!). Also the profession:alchemy skill might detect something unusual. The scrupulus DM's among us could try to give the players an extra hint in the form of an extra question akin to "how are you going to open the door". Those players that indiscriminately quaff every potion they find will get what they deserve.
I'm going to start AoW in a few weeks and I'm looking forward to it but I was wondering how you all handle PC deaths. Of course when PC's die in the first adventure it isn't difficult, the player will start with a new 1st level character, but what about when most characters are 4th level or higher? I intent to use Hero Points so that there might be less deaths, however deaths might still happen (the Hero Points will result in less fudging in the players advantage). On one hand a 1st level character in a mean 4th level party is very vulnerable but on the other hand the character will advance in level very quick due to the large amount of XP it get's if it survives. Thanks, Arjen
I wonder whether the price of grimlocks and kenku's have risen in the past month compaired with other commons of their set?
Hi Daniel, The first paragraph ends with the words:"If you read this, Theldrick, you have either slain me and doomed our cause, or the time is nigh for our final victory." This would mean that the faceless one would give Theldrick the encryption-code whenever the time was right. At that time Smenk would be unnecessary and should be killed. This suggests that when the time was right the faceless one would not be around any more. It might even suggest that the faceless-one planned to be dead at that time (a self-sacrifice to call the Ebon Aspect?) and that he either foresay his death, beleives to play a role after death or that he has such a commitment to the Ebon Triad that this means more to him than death. We're talking about a devotee of Vecna here, death, even the death of oneself, has has a different meaning for these people! (That's a lot of "death" in paragraph, ah well; Vecna) I would say, leave it. Your players might not see it or better be as puzzled as you and be paranoid as a result (they don't see the whole picture). Not everything has to be logical within an adventure especially when there are different antagonists with different convictions, mindsets and religions
Greetings, Arjen
In the tactics section you can read that Velikar bumbs his morningstar to +3 with an extended greater magic weapon every day. Mystery solved.
For calculating what base EL to use for a party with more or less than 4 members I use the same method used to calculate EL from CR. If one CR 1 creature is EL1, than 2 CR1 creatures is EL3 (doubling the amount of creatures adds 2 to the EL rating). An encounter with 1 CR1 creature is EL1, 2 CR1 creatures is EL3, 3 CR1 creatures is EL3 and 4 CR1 creatures is EL5 (as noted in the DM's guide this will run askew when extrapolated). So a party of 4 1st level PC's an EL1 encounter is the basic encounter, for a party of 5-6 1 st level PC's an EL2 encounter is basic and for a party of 7-8 1st level PC's an EL3 encounter is basic. The last example works better when the EL3 encounter consist of multiple lower CR creatures than 1 Cr3 creature. The lone CR3 creature might be brought down by 8 1 st level PC's as quick as by 4 3rd level PC's but there will be a higher chance of dead PC's for the party of 8 1st level PC's. Then again, I must say that when I design, use or adapt adventures the encounters can deviate very from the basic party EL, some encounters can be overcome very easily ( the "one fireball" or "one round of great cleave" encounters) or are very, maybe too, hard (the "why aren't you running yet" encounters). I have explained the real possibility of the last encounters to my party and it keeps them on their toes. Arjen |
