Celric's page

This order is still pending... Is there a problem with it or am I just being impatient?

Thanks for you help!
Celric

I have to say that I really liked (and was excited to read about) the four re-done classes, but was a bit disappointed to not see the Ranger, Paladin, Druid, Sorcerer, and especially, the Bard - by far my favority class to play from a storytelling aspect, though I've always felt that they suffer from a distinct lack of true survivability when it comes to "agressive negotiations". You know, the killing things and taking their stuff part of D&D that is both mindless and theraputic after a hectic work week...

I've done some noodling and would like to see something done to the spells that Bards can know. If they are the masters of music that they were imagined to be in earlier editions, then why don't they have more sonic based attack spells? And it always bothered me that they could pick up skills and songs here and there, but not spells, even though the spells on their list were drawn from other class lists... For instance, would it completely break the game if they picked up the spell entangle? Or fly? Or Sonic snap?

I guess I'm just interested in what the Bard will look like in this incarnation - or re-imagining if you prefer that phrase.

I have house-ruled that the bard can learn spells from any list, but bar any base damage spell not sonic-based (so no getting around it with energy substitution). They can also pick up spells through their travels, but are limited to their Intellegence modifier + Class level of these extra spells. They don't start with these extra spells, so a level 1 bard only knows 4 zero level spells, but a level 2 bard with a 14 INT could know 5 zero level and up to 6 1st level spells. Since the spells per day remains the same, it just made them more versitile. I found that knowing 6 1st level spells (at 2nd level) but only being able to cast 1 of them each day wasn't terribly game-breaking. Swapping spells became a non-issue because even at high levels, they could still learn a few extra spells (they only go to 6th level anyways).

Maybe you'll incorporate some of these suggestions, and maybe not, but there they are. I hope to see the "new" bard soon...

Okay. So my players are all highly apt at reading into stuff, have devoured the contents of the STAP player's guide and are actually roleplaying for a change. I would like to reward them for paying attention to the small text and using their non-combat skills and I intend to do so in the form of increased contacts and easier interplay with the savage tide non-savage denizens.

The problem is that we are in part 3 of the first adventure and they are obsessed with the 8 pointed star that "resembles a symbol on a building in the Merchant District". They think that it might be a family holding of the Vanderboren's since it was all over the Vanderboren family vault and hope that they might be able to find Vanthus nearby.

My question is, what is the deal with this lodge? Who's running it, what are it's aims, goals, etc? Is there information about this somewhere else, will it play an important role in the later adventures or was it included for the sole purpose of allowing the PC's to have a vehicle to interact with and possibly join a semi-secret soceity?

So my problem is not creating the lodge out of whole cloth and running with it past level 20 if necessary, but tying in the elements I invent with the published reality.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Celric

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts were about the new Player's Handbook II.

Personally, I thought that the material as presented was well done and mainly balanced, though I haven't inserted any of it into my campaign to be sure. I thought the Knight class was particularly well done and the inclusion of the new spells was more of an "eh, whatever," though a few were nice.

I like the *idea* of retooling a character; changing your ideals and goals as the character progresses through the ranks is only natural after all, but what's to stop a character from just leaving the group and creating a new one?

I like that the book was more of less aimed at the newer player, of which I have 4 in my group. I have no doubt that the 2 other, much more experienced players, will find useful things in the book as well, but reading the book from cover to cover (or just those sections that apply to them, for that matter) should greatly enhance the other player's awareness of the game, and thereby enhance their gaming experience.

Does anyone here - besides me that is - remember anything about Elven Thinblades? I have a foggy memory about them being in one of the dragon mags, maybe, but I cannot be certain and I (of course) will need this information by Friday evening.

I seem to remember something about it being something of a flavor weapon, much like the Chondathan broadsword is in Cormyr and the cost was somewhat more as well. At least I think so... Bah - I'm grasping at the whispy threads of the partially remembered...

Help?

... Or fields, plains, desert, mountians, hills, or any other non-creature built area, and I lost the will to miticulously describe the surroundings except for the proverbial fork-in-the-road.

Hello, my name is Celric and I have difficulty with wilderness adventuring from both the player's and DM's points of view. Now, that's not to say that I don't enjoy being out of doors, it's just that it's a forest. Woopidy-doo. No, wait - it's a forbidding forest, avoided by all who don't enter under the most harshest of duress and then only during the daylight... You see before you... a tree! And there's another one behind it! They're everywhere the further on you travel and sometimes there's a shrubbery! You travel "for some time," no doubt ever watchful of dangers, when you stumble upon a trail of some kind (which you will follow) that leads to a (insert creature built/hollowed out area here).

Basically, I'm looking for advice as a DM on how to make a wilderness area, however large, seem more like adventuring through the wilderness, rather than "you go to point A on the map and do X, then travel to point B." I don't understand how the DM can have a well drawn out map (and they usually are) and then be completely inept when it comes to travelling within that map area. Yes, I might be describing myself here, but I doubt that I'm the only one.

I'm also looking for advice on how, as a player, I can use in character role-play to fill out the shabby wilderness that the DM is skipping to help him along.

If anyone out there needs the example...

One day my friend and I were headed out to the Frost Giants Keep to stop their visious pillaging of the towns around the tundra. We headed out and saw NOTHING the first 5 days - not even snow, ice, valleys, hills, cliffs, what have you - then an iceworm attacked us, then we traveled more days until something else occured, then traveled, then reached the fort.

I know that not a lot happens on a tundra in general, and there is certainly not a lot to see if you don't live there, but all too often the more open wild areas (desert, savanna, etc) are sorely under-described. I'm sure that more folks die in these areas than cross them with ease after a few randomish encounters...

Just looking for some pointers.

This is a huge beef of mine that I've never fully backed as a DM or as a player and this thread stems from the Trapfinding thread (since that thread was partially hyjacked), so much of what I have problems with is not universally applicable to all skills.

In Short, is taking 20 the same as rolling a 20 as others have suggested?

To me, and I admit that I might be a bit old school on this one, rolling a '1' is an automatic failure, even if the roll is unnecessary, and rolling a '20' is an automatic success, even if the roll is not enough to overcome the DC (barring impossible acts).

Using the above as a basis means that if a character says "I take 20" they actually mean that they have just rolled a 20 and thereby achieved an automatic success. This is THE WORST MECHANIC I have ever heard of with regards to role playing. Let's say a rogue strolls into a room filled with traps, invisible trunks of loot, secret doors, and clues and calmly states that he intends to take 20 on his search check. If the assumption is that he will eventually roll a 20 anyway if he continues to search each 5'x5' square of the room, then what's the point of placing anything covert in the room in the first place? I actually had a player state that, since they were taking 20 anyway, I should just tell them everything that is of interest in the room!

I understand the concept of moving play along without having to deal with the delay of excessive dice rolling, but there has got to be a better way of dealing with the take 20 rule that to just disallow it on certain skills.

Yes, it's a sad day when the thoughts turn not to the iron rations of nutrition for my characters, but to the much more mundane sustainence that keeps us all alert and playing long into the night. However, I'm wondering what everyone eats at gaming sessions these days.

I remember the days of yore (middle school in the 80's for me) when a huge bowl of popcorn slathered in real butter and salt and a 3 litter bottle of jolt was the perfect afternoon snack. Chicken wings by the 50 peice and pizza until my ears were full of cheese went for food in high school and beyond - heck, I once at an entire cake because my buddy's sister made it and he wouldn't have any.

Now I find that I'd maybe like to think of starting to eat 'healthier' foods that won't get me mocked at the table. You know, stuff I can cook myself so I can spent that pizza money on gaming supplies. Any suggestions?