Craig Shannon's page

I was just curious if there had been a problem with Pathfinder #8?

It isn't just that I haven't received the print copy, the PDF isn't showing in My Downloads, so it isn't a lost in the post problem, I doubt it actually got dispatched. #7 and #9 are in My Downloads, and it looks like I am due to get #9 imminently.

So, I wasn't sure if it was just me or it had affected others. I did e-mail customer services, no repsonse as yet but it was about a week ago. Any advice?

Well I received my Pathfinder #1 in the post and it looks great, apart from page 53. It hadn't been trimmed correctly and still had excess margins that had colour samplings on, that obviously extended beyond the cover size. The printers then helpfully folded it over so it didn't extend, which has helpfully added a series of triangular creases. Joy :)

Now I'll obviously look into what to do about this with Paizo Customer Services (although I live in the UK so international returns promises to be fun). Just wondered if anyone else had experienced something similar and there had been a bad batch?

How does this work with Outsiders? Basically Outsiders bodies and souls are one, they are not seperate, thus the need for very powerful restoration magic for outsiders. Some of their make-up, or essence, is made of a plane.

So an Outsiders body is them in their entirety, body AND soul, so if the Abyss (Occipitus) reforms anyone who dies (and all their gear) are they effectively true ressurected, as their flesh cannot be reformed without their soul intrinsically being reformed at the same time? If this is the case is it fair for non-outsiders? As it is the Abyss that is reforming them and it is Abyssal planar essence they are being made out of do they inherently become fiendish, or a demon?

If a humanoids body is taken from the prime (or wherever) when they die and is reformed upon Occipitus (with all their gear) where does their soul go in the interim? Does Occiptus take it and try and corrupt the owner into accepting demonhood?

I am inviting said associate around (whose character has the Smoking Eye template and was/is lying in state), we shall drink heavily and ruminate on the dark of this conumdrum but as some of you have guessed I have put one of my players in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't position". Fortunately he enjoys that sort of thing :)

Just curious on other peoples take on this, it becomes less rules driven and more story driven I think. Sufficed to say in our campaign when Adimarchus dies upon Occiptus the 507th will have a new and willing demon lord :)

Guess not :( Mind you everyone would want it anyway :)

Any reason why this doesn't exist as a .pdf Paizo? Keep losing e-Bays bids for it, and been after it for years as a .pdf.

Too late for me as my party have finished Test of the Smoking Eye but I just got FC1 and it is jolly good. So maybe a thread for using content from FC1 in Occiptus is a good idea. Maybe not :)

To start, nothing special, but I never really got the fiendish centaur rangers. I spent time trying to figure out why they where there and when they arrived, their culture etc. Replace with scavenging armanites FC1 page 28, adjust numbers downwards to keep the EL the same.

For after the campaign using Athux from FC1 page 118 seems a good start.

Also as Erik and James authored FC1, and both where involved in AP1 (particularly James with the SCHCAP) some words of wisdom, as well as shamelessly plugging something they authored, would be nice :)

In Test of the Smoking Eye the PCs meet a small band of evil Wee Jasian's on the trail of powerful magic item known as the leans of the blacksun (page 190). Any details on this? Is it from another old module. I have searched high and low (as the name rings a bell) but I just cannot place it. I may need to descend into my cellar. Think I failed my Lore check :) Or did David Noonan just make it up as a throw away comment?

The main reason I am asking is one of the party I run for is a Mystic Theurge of Wee Jas. He will be very interested to learn of this item, and as he is likely to end up with the Sign of the Smoking Eye he would probably want something to hide the fire behind, to literally have a blacksun for an eye.

I also infer it is in Occiptus as the lawful Wee Jasian's are really too low level to be grasping at leads, their response would be targetted. Also they cannot have gotten there on their own very easily (Occiptus seesm to lack portals as it no longer has a Lord/Prince), so presumably a more powerful Wee Jasian sent them. Embril possibly, if the item turns out to be interesting I may make it a sub plot and have them as her minions, or alternately seeking a weapon to smite her for her heresies, they could become strange allies of the party.

If nothing meaningful turns up on the lens I'll have them hunting the PCs, dispatched by Embril/Ike to slay a Heretic who has broken from the Cathedral and who is Excommunicated i.e. the Wee Jasian PC. I'd rather use the lens though, the name is very evocative :) Can Paizo ask Dave please, I tried finding his homepage (he doesn't seem to have one) in case it was something from a homebrewed campaign.

Just read the Overload download and was interested to see Dragotha being involved. Also received my issue #126 in the post as well. I'm a little confused by this. I thought Dragotha was linked to White Plume Mountain and Keraptis? His heart is in White Plume Mountain (Return to White Plume Mountain page 42 actually has his heart as item 8) and Bruce R Cordell wrote an RPGA adventure in which he is still trapped in his lair which although for 2nd edition is still at the Wizards website http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20010817a

Anyone at Paizo care to rationalise this :)? I can handle Kyuss moving between Sulm, to the Rift Canyon (this doesn't fit too well now though and it would appear the Wormcrawl Fissure formed when he came back with Dragotha and after he had been freed from the monolith), then to Amedio and Elatalhui(?)/Spire of Long Shadows, then (back?) to the Rift Canyon as a monolith to Dragotha's Lair, which has moved from right next to White Plume Mountain and into the Wormcrawl Fissure, from which Dragotha's phlylactery was stolen by the druids.

My biggest problem is it would appear that up until now Keraptis enslaved Dragotha by stealing his heart and it can be inferred this act made Dragotha into the Undead Dragon. The Overload makes it appear Kyuss "restored" Dragotha by bringing him back as a dracolich in the Wormcrawl fissure after Tiamat killed him. Help required from Eric and James I guess.

I love the new hardcover but I have encountered an impracticality in running games with it. The stat blocks are in Appendix IV page 346 to page 387 (397 including recurring NPCs). To say that flicking back and forth is getting annoying, as well as shortening the life span of the book's spine binding, is an understatement.

Now I can just photocopy these pages, although doing 40 to 50 pages from a hardback can be a bind, or I could scan them. However permission to copy for personal use seems to be notable in it's absence from the book. Is Paizo considering releasing these pages as a .pdf at this site at all? Do it in greyscale by all means but please consider it as it would be really, really helpful.

My party have just got back to Cauldron after journeying to The Lucky Monkey. They captured three Alleybashers and a couple of the fighters, although Wart surrendered and oddly enough they seem to quite like him as he helped capture others (me being bored and messing with some eithical concepts).

They have just handed them over to the Guards, and Shensen has said she recognises some as those that helped Tongueater kill Sarcem. So, murder of the High Priest of Saint Cuthbert. Death sentence virtually guaranteed then, trial after the Flood Festival, but as the Saint Cuthbertian player stated: exactly how is it carried out?

My players had several ghoulish ideas:

1) Drowning. Chains and weights and throw them in the Crater Lake (indirectly feeding the half-fiend morkoth below but they don't know that). Oddly enough the Pelorian crusader (paladin variant) favoured this as it was punishing them by "casting them down into the airless darkness, beyond the grace and Light of Pelor".
2) Hang, draw and quarter them as Cauldron has four gates from which to display the "fleshy remnants" afterwards, as the Wee Jasian put it.
3) Hand over to the Cathedral of Wee Jas, so those clerics with the Death Domain get some practice, and as it is a Death effect a resurrection is required. The Wee Jasian player liked this as he has the Death domain. They corpses of murderers who have been executed will most likely end up here anyway.
4) Standard hanging (possibly from the walls) or beheading by the Lakeside (as Cauldron lacks a civilian meeting square).

So, what are your ideas? Have the players captured villains that would be executed? Did they turn them over to the authorities? How did you cover it? As the Saint Cuthbertian in my game says "It is not enough that we slay the law breakers in dark places, the people must openly see lawful justice being served".

Saying that I have had Jenya Urikas declare holy war upon the Hextorians as at this point the players are utterly convinced that the Church of Hextor is behind everything and that it is trying to brutally dominate Cauldron. Probably has a lot to do with me running Evil Unearthed and the fact Kor Bloodaxe was in it (a Hextorian cleric) and I had him have orders from someone called T E. What I am driving at is the cleric of Saint Cuthbert has not been ordered to bring Triel back, he is merely to carry out the application of her sentence, which involves her repeatedly colliding with his war mace. This will be fun as the paladin wants to bring her back alive. This seems hypocritical at face value but that leads to another point.

How do you cover civil law and religious law in the game? As can be seen elsewhere my party are all lawful humans and all have some divine spellcasting capabilities and one each worships Saint Cuthbert, Pelor, and Wee Jas. Creates lot's of intersting roleplaying. How has the law affected your players?

It would be interesting to know what the designers of Cauldron think about this "officially", and whether any of it is broached or covered in the new hardback.

Just read Dragon 333 page 94 Forlorn (Flaw). This would appear to be the same as the Loner (Flaw) Dragon 227 page 93, except Loner is more flexible (in more classes could take it) and gives more information and detail on gaining other potential familiars or companions at a later point from other classes i.e you don't, ever.

There is also the mild potential for abuse, with a level 1 wizard taking both Loner and Forlorn to get two feats (for what is fundamentally the same flaw) utilising the argument that he might wish to become a druid later and has to make the decision now about whether he wishes to lose his potential future animal companion. The true could be the same for a wizard who eventually becomes a ranger.

The answer is simple really, bin the Forlorn (Flaw) and stick with the more versatile Loner (Flaw). Odd thing is these feats only appeared 6 issues apart, but the more flexible one (in my opinion) appeared first.

Noted a slight inconsitency with backstory, similar to the one I noted in Life's Bazaar involving the skulk, Ghelve, and the language Common not being a common language for all protaganists.

Filge is summoned to Diamond Lake from the Free City by Balabar's letter. It says go to the Feral Dog and show this letter to the albino half-orc, he'll know what to do. The seething psychotic, violent, alblino, illiterate half orc barbarian. The one who cannot read.

It might just be me but someone of Kullen's less than sunny disposition would be less than pleased with his illeteracy being raised, and I doubt Filge would be happy with yet more people being exposed to his introduction letter given it's content.

Easily sorted by saying the other side of the letter includes an easily recognisable mark/sigil/symbol that Kullen uses to know when Balabar has sent people his way.

However, I find it somewhat ironic that the first adventures in both AP1 and AP2 have language/communication barriers between their NPCs within their back stories :)

PS I really like The Whispering Cairn, I just can't seem to help spotting things like this. Given that my party are in Flood Season at The Lucky Monkey at the moment, by the time I start running Age of Worms with a new party the hardback will be out and this "issue" will have been creatively edited out of existance :)

Fairly basic question: are the articles going to be presented in a re-edited and updated for 3.5 ruleset format? If not, why not?

The reason I ask is I already own the Dragon Magazine Archive CD ROMS, so I have issued 1 to 250 covered, and I physically own copies for 251 onwards. The older DRAGON articles are of limited use, some of the FR ones are great for "fluff" but not "crunch", and some of my favorites, like Wyrms of the North, where given a third edition upgrade by Sean K Reynolds for the WOTC website anyway.

If the articles in the compendium have been given the same sort of treatment that would be great, if not I really fail to see what relevance the Hardback would have to current gaming groups.

Just been looking at Thirteen Cages and working out what might be left of Cauldron if the PCs suceed. Losing a significant part of the southeast of Cauldron is a big impact. Assuming the town is split into eight 45 degree segments, and the south-east segment is from 125.5 degrees to 157.5 degrees (assuming North Gate is 0 degrees), then Sure Foot Livery (18), Weer's Elixirs (22), the Cathedral of Wee Jas (23), the Shrine of Pelor (25), Westkey Map Market (26), and House Rhiavadi (37), could all be effected (effected as in destroyed). The only magically reinforced building that I know of is the Cathedral, and if it survived it would have a stunning view over the Crater Falls (that's what I intend to call them anyway). Obviously not all are effected, particularly those at the edges but in your campaign what buildings are you going to destroy? It's a bit like being King Cong :)

I'm after an image of a watchful eye wreathed in flame, as it is the symbol of Cauldron. I'm not after the obvious LotR type, something more like Lareth the Beautiful's Moathouse bandits symbol (Elder Elemental Eye unholy symbol). Essentially exactly as it appears in Troikas Temple of Elemental Evil. Obviously Google brings nothing back except Sauron stuff for many pages. Anyone got any ideas, I'm sure I have seen the image seperately in some D&D product or other?

Just noticed a slight inconsistency in their levels. In DUNGEON #111 page 40 Fario is listed as a Ftr6/Rog6 and Fellian is a Rog3/Clr9. However in DUNGEON #113 page 61 they are listed as Ftr5/Rog5 and Rog3/Clr7, back down to the levels they where in DUNGEON #109 page 16. Obviously a typo but should they really be Ftr6/Rog6 and Rog3/Clr9 or Ftr7/Rog7 and Rog3/Clr11 (following the 2 levels each per AP adventure)? Fairly important for the campaign I am going to run as the party has no Rog or Brd.

Between Life's Bazaar and Flood Season Jenya Urikas goes from Clr5 to Clr6. The Flood Season Web Enhancement has her taking Leadership as her 6th level feat. Her leadership score is 8 so thats a 4th level cohort. I know who I'm adding (backstory NPC from the main temple in Sasserine that is a friend of the PC Saint Cuthbertian), what did you add?

Dungeon #116 has been out for a few days now (weeks for subscribers). What is the usual lag time for the map resource .pdf's for each issue, and what is Paizo's target for these. I personally cannot see why they aren't available on the newstand release date, but then again I'm an impatient aggressive go-getter (I'm kidding but I am curious about the delay).

Whilst I'm on a silly one do you have a road map for playing catch up on downloadable retrospective resources, particularly for the Shackled City Adventure Path.

In other words, Paizo sort it out :)

Bit of an issue with inconsistent backstory. Keygan Ghelve speaks Common, Dwarven, and Gnome. How did the skulks make him craft a master key when they can't speak Common? Yuathyb the dark stalker speaks Gnome but it specifically states the skulks made him (Keygan) craft it and also Keygan never met their leader, even if they had one (as he doesn't know about Yuathyb). Incidentally, that won't cut much ice when I run it, one player is up for playing a puritannical LN Ftr/Clr[St Cuthbert), he'll probably hang him for treason (people have died due to his inaction). Also, the skulk that is guarding the shop can overhear all it wants, it can't speak Common!

Also, Ghelve specifically knows that they share a common language that he doesn't understand (Undercommon) so making him speak their shared language for the sake of brevity is unrealistic (strange phrase for a fanatsy game).

The gist is that the dark creepers and skulks cannot talk to Keygan, and vice versa, and he has never mey Yuathyb. Not good as the whole story arc is based on the premise that they can communicate and that the skulk can eavesdrop on Keygan.

As a solution, that is partly satisfying, I have made the skulk in the shop a slightly smarter member of it's species (Int 12) but slightly dafter (Wis 7), and have had it put 5 cross class ranks in Sense Motive, which with Wis 7 means it has +0 to it's check (as opposed to -1). It's extra language is Common (or a heavily basatrdised version as per FF 154). They can all be like this if it helps, for those that envisage swapping guard duty in a rota.

If anyone has a more elegant solution I'm all ears,
or eyes as this is the internet :)

Now to ponder what to do about the unpolymorphable (in 3.5) Xukasus (I'm going with just a dirty ogre), and the fact that various CRs have shifted as per the 3.5 update booklet and knocked ELs (and thus treasure balance), all out of wack.

Paizo really should release an official eratta PDF from 3.0 to 3.5 for the first two parts of the Adventure Path (the naughty little gnomes). Saying that I have already done it, I will post on the web somewhere when I start running, or mail me if you can't wait (and modify to your hearts content).