Blacksheep's page

Updated at the Interlude 3 level change:

PLANESCAPE
~ A CAMPAIGN OF MYSTERY ~

I. Character Creation

A. Wherein a Half-Elf, an Air Genasi and a Variant Human walk into a bar

B. Wherein the Heroes learn Nowhere can be found almost anywhere

II. Interlude 1: Second Level

III. The Great Modron March: The March Begins

A. Wherein the Heroes make their way to the ordered city of Automata to right an old wrong on behalf of a Book and a Cat, only to witness the start of the Modron March

IV. Doors to the Unknown: The Thuldanin Gargoyle

A. Wherein the Heroes learn Past can be Prologue, and a blasphemous Dwarven Preacher enters the Cage

B. Wherein the Heroes are mistaken for a famous Solver of Mysteries, and hired to recover a ledger from beyond an impossible door

V. The Great Modron March: The Unswerving Path

A. Wherein the Heroes discover that although the Modrons are lawful, their passage may produce unwelcome Chaos

VI. Interlude 2: Third Level

VII. The Great Modron March: Ambushed

A. Wherein the Heroes learn that no place is Safe, and that there’s more than one use for a Modron

VIII. The Infinite Staircase: Planewalkers

A. Wherein the Heroes first learn of a Tobacco Cabinet most strange

B. Wherein the Heroes make their way to the Infinite Staircase searching for a Guild of Travelers, but find a Barmy Fiend instead

IX. The Infinite Staircase: Lost Sovereignty

A. Wherein a Formian City faces a Terrible Flood and struggles for Survival

X. Interlude 3: Fourth Level

Bless you, bookrat, I owe you so much! Well, technically I don't owe you because I left five bucks for each of the Modron March and Dead Gods adventures and will do the same thing again here, but still, I owe you.

You see, I started a 5e Planescape campaign and had already decided to use the Modron March and Dead God material because they dovetail into a single extended campaign. Coming across your conversions (which have worked pretty well with very few changes) was a Godsend, or a bookratsend in this case.

That said, I needed more material for the mid ranges (I plan on squeezing it all in levels 1-9 or maybe 10), and had already selected -- you guessed it -- the Infinite Staircase for my work-in material. Knowing now that I don't have to convert even that much is, well, another bookratsend for a busy GM.

If you're interested, here's the campaign outline so far:

PLANESCAPE
~ A CAMPAIGN OF MYSTERY ~

I. Character Creation

A. Wherein a Half-Elf, an Air Genasi and a Variant Human walk into a bar

B. Wherein the Heroes learn Nowhere can be found almost anywhere

II. Interlude 1: Second Level

III. The Great Modron March: The March Begins

A. Wherein the Heroes make their way to the ordered city of Automata to right an old wrong on behalf of a Book and a Cat, only to witness the start of the Modron March

IV. Doors to the Unknown: The Thuldanin Gargoyle

A. Wherein the Heroes learn Past can be Prologue, and a blasphemous Dwarven Preacher enters the Cage

B. Wherein the Heroes are mistaken for a famous Solver of Mysteries, and hired to recover a ledger from beyond an impossible door

V. The Great Modron March: The Unswerving Path

A. Wherein the Heroes discover that although the Modrons are lawful, their passage may produce unwelcome Chaos

VI. Interlude 2: Third Level

VII. The Great Modron March: Ambushed

A. Wherein the Heroes learn that no place is Safe, and that there’s more than one use for a Modron

Happy to update the outline every Interlude if anyone's interested. It's so good to be home, home on the Planes again!

I'm GMing the 9th level of the Spire tomorrow night, and our campaign is rocking right along. Having full battle maps for each dungeon level has been awesome.

Early on I had Signifier Hast talk the party into signing a Dark Pact where (1) they get a true up each level to get them to average treasure per level (the module as written is woefully inadequate treasure-wise), (2) he'll raise each of them from the dead once during the campaign, and (3) he'll obtain anything they can afford that costs over 7,500 GP (order it one night, get it the next; anything that costs less I make available In Ft. Inevitable), in exchange for their performance of a "significant favor" when asked.

That favor will come at the end of the campaign, when the party will be asked to represent the interests of Hast and certain benefactors back in Cheliax in the upcoming Damnation Epoch played out in the Rite Publishing module Coliseum Morpheuon, in which I will use the Sympathy for the Devil story line.

I really enjoyed this book. Very helpful in bringing the awesome (though somewhat daunting to describe) Coliseum Morpheuon dream world to life. I am definitely tacking that module (which starts at 16th level) on to the end of my current campaign, and now have a better perspective and vocabulary for doing so.

The new PHB is excellent IMO. Streamlined & intuitive but still interesting and complete. I look forward to mixing in a Hoard of the Dragon Queen / Tiamat campaign on nights we don't have a quorum for our usual PF WotR campaign (which, btw, now that we're already up to 7th level / 2nd tier despite only being halfway through book 2 is a seriously awesome AP).

PF has the hyper-granularity my 40-something professional friends want and need (maybe the better word is crave), but this version of D&D will make alternative game night a joy to run.

It's true there's no maps (had to buy the set for Hoards from the artist for $17.50), but for speed I was thinking about accepting the default gridless approach anyway. How weird will that be after all this time: "How far away are they?" They're a closing round away," used to work fine in 1e & 2e, I guess I can get my mind around it again now.

No D&D PDFs for art cannibalization either. Flip maps and PDF artwork are things I love about Paizo products, they just bring the extras in a way D&D never did and never will.

Still, kudos to Wizards and (esp.) Mike Mearls for pulling the franchise out of the fire.

DDN looks like a streamlined, intuitive, easy to learn system that, if properly supported (and it looks like the first two mega modules involving Tiamat would qualify), would be a lot of fun to play.

A few problems DDN has when compared to Pathfinder are:

1. PF has everything on PDF, which lends itself to easily printed art, maps and text excerpts I can bind, mark up and so on w/o damaging the original books; DDN does not.

2. Paizo's flip maps are simply awesome. I can't even imagine Wizards having the snap to produce something like The Emerald Spire with full maps of all sections.

3. Golarian >> Forgotten Realms. Not even close. Though the Realms are still cool, they are also pretty tired by now; Wizards needed a better game world. In short, Golarian is basically all of the old D&D game worlds and much more, all Pathfinderized.

4. Paizo has excellent customer service whenever a problem comes up (which is very rare). Relate to it, Wizards. The D&D branded franchise has seriously jerked me around many times throughout the years: AD&D 2nd, the short hop from 3.0 to 3.5, the whole 4E debacle, the recalled earlier edition PDFs after I paid for them online, a generally snobby & inattentive attitude, and so on. Screw that. In contrast, Paizo has been awesome since inception.

5. Paizo has a bazillion products, virtually all of them bad ass (and again, with maps, PDFs and customer service support). In view of points 1-4 above, tell me again why I want to trust Wizards to handle my gaming needs?

The bottom line: I don't think Wizards can lure me back at this point. Given the way Paizo has handled PF they deserve my business.

The story of Aroden, as a man, then a god, and what actually happened when, well, you know.