Colin McKinney's page

Suppose you’re a car manufacturer, and your marketing department is assigned the basic task of convincing people to buy this year’s car.

Marketing strategy #1 that you will see all car manufacturers use: "New car is great! Shiny, fast, roomy, affordable, good traction, lots of zoomy camera shots in the commercials! Yay!" This strategy, sadly enough, works really well.

Marketing strategy #2 that you will see manufacturers use if their cars are too similar to other manufacturers’ cars: "New car is better than Other Guy’s New Car! Better mileage, better handling, people like our cars, new improved new car smell! Yay!" This also works fairly well.

Marketing strategy #3 that you will hardly ever see manufacturers use: "New car rules over our car from 5 years ago. You know, the one that had the big factory recall, and terrible mileage, and the parts were really expensive, and things tended to fly off at freeway speeds. You remember. Sure, it looked great, and the kids loved it, and it’s paid for, but still, it kind of sucked. You need to buy a new one. And we’re the people who are going to make it! We’re fixing everything! Honest! Yay!" This really doesn’t work very well.

Marketing strategy #4 that I’ve never seen, and the people at WOTC don’t necessarily realize they’re using: "New car rules over our car from last year. Better mileage, better handling, fancier styling, whatever. Last years model? Sucked. This years model? Won’t suck. Honest."

See, the people playing D&D don’t think of it as a five-year-old game system. They feel like it’s still fairly new, and that the supplements that they’ve been buying have been constantly updating the game system, the way some people feel they still have a new car after five years of routine maintenance: that 3.5 with all the Completes and the Races of and the new Monster Manuals and Fiend Folii isn’t a five-year-old game system, it’s a game system from this year, like an encyclopedia with 10 years’ worth of Annuals. And so, with WOTC using marketing strategy #4, they’re like owners of a one-year-old car, thinking, “Well, sure, I could stand to get a little better mileage, and that door handle does kind of stick, and I did have to replace the brakes… but now it’s got new brakes, and I can get a tune-up to improve the mileage, and I still like the way it looks and handles, and it’s still got a few years left on it, so I’ll keep driving it, and, a few years from now, I’ll read up on what Consumer Reports has to say about New Car.”

I ran the Kuo-Toan shrine fight last weekend and figured the party would probably get through, but they might have a kind of a rough time with it if they handled it badly.

They handled it badly.

Aushanna's basic tactic after the first few rounds was to keep knocking the wizard and the hound archon unconscious so the cleric would spend all her time running back and forth, healing two pc's back to consciousness, even though they couldn't actually hurt Aushanna.

PC's, all 6th level:

Hound Archon
Dwarf Fighter, primarily axe/shield
Human Fighter, primarily long sword/shield
Dwarf Ranger, archer
Human cleric of Pelor
Fire Genasi wizard with Bloodline of Fire & signature spells, so 8th level fire attacks
Human Rogue, spiked chain wielder
Human 5 druid/1 Beastmaster, with a leopard companion

A couple minutes in the life of Aushanna:

first round: (poit) Okay, what now? Adventurers again? Hey... most of the Kuo-toans are down. This should be interesting... let's see, there's a fire genasi wizard. He probably can't hurt me, but it never hurts to be careful. (thunk) (plop) Well, that was easier than I expected... And there's plenty more to shoot... (thunk thunk miss). Tee hee. (critted the wizard, 44 hp. Wizard is at -7 but regenerating 3/round).
Party: apparently didn't get the "44 hp in one shot" message and ignores her.

Aushanna: Let's see... there's a cleric going to heal the wizard. Can't have that. (thunk miss miss miss). Dang. That's some good armor.
Party: wails on the kuo-toans some more.

Aushanna: Oh, look. The wizard's up again. (thunk) (plop). Hee hee... oh, look. They have an archer. (thunk thunk miss).
party: (miss miss)

Aushanna: Okay, the archer's not much of a threat. What else do they ... holy crap, I'm hovering next to a hound archon! (flap flap flap Unholy Blight). Boy, it must suck to be a good Outsider. That looked like it really hurt. Oh, and now they have a second archer.
party: (thunk thunk miss miss) Ow. Quit it.

Aushanna: Ah, I see the cleric is going to heal the archon. I'll see if... oh, my. A dwarf who thinks she's an archer. (thunk thunk miss miss).
party: (thunk thunk miss miss miss miss miss) Ow. Quit it.

Aushanna: Okay, they have two dwarf archers. That's just wrong. (crit thunk thunk miss)
party: (thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk miss miss) Thank you, Damage Reduction!

Aushanna: Oh, the cute widdle wizard thinks he can (zap) ow. Fine. (thunk thunk) (plop) hee hee. Where'd that archon go? (thunk miss).
party: (thunk thunk miss miss miss miss miss) Ow. Quit it.

Aushanna: (big bad guy head evil Cleric type shows up and distracts half the party from fighting the devil) Let's see if those people down there are my sworn enemies (Unholy blight) dang.
party: (thunk thunk miss miss miss miss miss) Ow. Quit it.

Aushanna: Those archers are really beginning to piss me off. (miss miss miss miss) WTF?
party: (thunk thunk miss miss miss miss miss) Ow. Quit it.

Aushanna: Those archers are really beginning to piss me off. (thunk miss miss miss)
party: (thunk thunk miss miss miss miss miss) Ow. Quit it.

Aushanna: Those archers are really beginning to piss me off. (thunk miss miss miss)

Aushanna: Aw, crap. I'm out of arrows. Hey, you, human archer. I wink the suggestive eye of charming compulsion at you. Could you lend me your quiver? I'm out of arrows.

Aushanna: Hah hah, now I have your arrows!
druid: warp wood on the arrows; good thing they aren't magic...

Aushanna: Okay, that's pissing me off pretty badly now. Fighter, do you have a magic sword? Good, give it to me.
Archon: takes sword from fighter.

Aushanna: This is probably not going to end well...
party: Cleric begins to pray for divine intervention because she's out of healing, the wizard has nothing that can affect her, the fighters are starting to fail their saves, and none of the melee types has any potions of flight. leopard companion leaps, bites, falls 60 feet, lands on all fours (meaty thud).

Aushanna: Well, that was entertaining... Fine, I'll use this stupid nonmagical long sword. (hack hack)
Leopard: (far) run run run run run (near). Cleric summons celestial griffin.

Aushanna: (Unholy blight) Still a good Outsider, I see, mr. Hound Archon.
Leopard: Pounce (hits with bite and two claws, bears Aushanna to the ground). Griffin: pounce rend tear.

Aushanna: stupid griffin (dies).
Celestial griffin, to party: "Buy potions." (poit)

In the wee small hours of a morning, Triel and her band of thugs attack the Lucky Monkey. Combat ensues and Sarcem is mortally wounded; he retreats to the basement and casts his Sending spell to send a message to Jenya. Shortly thereafter, Sarcem snuffs it and Triel loots his body, taking the wands. She hies herself off to Cauldron. It's an 8 hour trip.

Jenya gets a rude awakening that morning in the form of a Sending spell, which she reacts to poorly due to being woken out of a sound sleep. She tosses on some clothes and awakens the temple, and, being a quick thinker once she's vertical, sends some runners out to gather Our Heroes, sends another runner to wake the stable master and start saddling horses. She meets them within an hour or so and fills them in. They accept the commission and collect horses & adventuring packs and hit the road, heading towards the Lucky Monkey. It's an 8 hour trip.

Assuming that Jenya doesn't take more than 8 hours after she receives the Sending to assemble the party, at what point in their travels do Our Heroes meet Triel on the road?

How did you handle this in your campaigns, if at all? Secret path from the LM to Cauldron? Teleport? Flying? Invisibility? Just Didn't Happen?

So there have been some sightings of goblins in town. There's been some graffiti which nobody can read, some vandalism, some theft, and they caught and killed a group of goblins. Our Heroes get contacted by the guard captain to Do Something, that something being, find out what's going on and, while you're at it, if you happen to kill any goblins, we'll pay you 5 gp an ear.

Is that per goblin, or per ear?

But that's not the real question. The real question is, does graffitization, vandalism and petty theft normally carry the death penalty in Cauldron? Bear in mind that the party has already been privy to a certain amount of destruction of private property in their attempts to hunt down the kidnapped children in Chapter 1.

Even better, does just being the same race as some other people who are suspected of graffitization, vandalism and petty theft carry the death penalty? The exalted character in my party was Quite Concerned at the abject racism involved.

I'm fairly new here, and haven't read many issues of Dungeon, so there may be a fairly simple answer to this. Is there any possibility of an epic adventure path, starting at, say, 15th level and going to 35th?

I'm going to be starting this campaign this weekend, and one of my players wants to have an Ancient Relic. For those of you who aren't familiar with the feat, it gives him a magic item that he can sacrifice gold or other magic items to, pray over, and end up with a magic item of his choice. He has to spend a day per 1,000 gp in the final value of the item praying, and there's a progression chart for how expensive an item he can get at each level.

I'm generally okay with this; if he wants to blow off gold and magic items to get something exactly like he wants, that's fine with me. The problem I have is the time involved--at 12th level, he can get an item worth 33,000 gp, which means his character is sitting in the Shrine of Whoever for 33 days... and I don't want there to be a month-long gap in the middle of chapter, well, anything. By 15th level, it's up to 100 days.

Am I reading this feat right? Is this as much of a problem as I think it is? I've already told the players that if they have their hearts set on having a +N whatever by a certain level, let me know and I'll see if I can work it into the plot, so this is mostly unnecessary. Plus, I'm really not keen on having month(s)-long gaps in the story...

I have some questions and comments about the atmosphere of Cauldron, both literally and figuratively.

I'm setting this in the Forgotten Realms, in Chult. So, subtropical jungle. I'm wondering how the other people who chose a jungle setting dealt with the weather?

I'm thinking it's pretty warm. Upper 70's in the late fall, upper 90's in the spring and summer. Tanks in full plate are likely to not be happy, but the party should be several adventures down the road by the time they get to summer so they can beg the clerics (if there are any, but that's a whole different matter...) for some spell that protects them from the heat.

I'm also assuming that the town gets fairly cool at night and a heavy fog fills the caldera most nights. The town's only about a quarter-mile across, and it would be weird to be able to spot things happening on the other side of town; elves, on a clear night, could snipe from clear across town (with a hefty minus, but still...). Light, drizzly rain making the cobbles a little slippery at night, also helping to mask some of the sounds from the other side of the lake.

Also, given that this is a trade town which makes perfumes, incense, dyes and spices, I'm figuring that just about every window box in town has some sort of flowers growing in it, so even though the buildings are all a dreary gray-black, there is a riot of colors and smells; a lot of the wood used in town is the more aromatic wood used for some incense... all the people are wearing these colorful native outfits...

I cannot wait to start running this campaign.

So, when I start running this in a couple weeks, once the wizards have some money they're going to want to buy spells from somebody. They have the following options:

1. Keygan Ghelve. W1. Woo hoo.
2. Maavu. W4. At least he has 2nd level spells.
3. Meerthan. Also W4. And they don't know him. And he's hiding the fact that he's a wizard.
4. Embril. Effectively, W10. But, not too likely to be interested in selling spells to the party.
5. Weer. W10. Probably their best bet.

Is that it? The only other wizards I see are Fetor, Skaven, and Thifirane, and I don't see them selling spells to the PC's. Granted, they'll be able to pry their spellbooks from their cold, dead hands, but still. That's a ways off. Is Weer really supposed to be the go-to guy for selling wizards spells? If so, why isn't he more detailed than "retired adventurer, any potions, elixirs, pastes or goop in the book" and nothing else? Should I assume that previous adventurers have traded a spellbook or two with 3rd-5th level spells for piles of potions?

Also, aside from teleporting to the Big City, once they're past 10th level (note that none of the people who will sell to the party level up as the party does...), are they expected to teleport to a real town?

Just a bump for the weekday crowd...