Crowheart's page

Anyone know what happened to the website? I know that it moved to dungeonaday.live.subhub.com, but now that's gone too. The company that owned it, Super Genius Games, seems to be gone, too, and their website is now adware.

Anyone know what happened to the Dragon's Delve?

Ok, our characters have been made in herolab. I don't really know how you make them on the forum, though.

I've got an idea for a Synthesist Summoner as a kind of front-line character, or a Swashbuckler if that doesn't fit. I can also play healer with an Oracle, if no one wants that job.

Sometime in the future, I'm planning on running an Eberron game for my group of players. I ran an Eberron game several years ago, but we had to drop it for various reasons. I now wish to start it back up, and convert to the Pathfinder system.

Most of the conversions are pretty easy, and I've been having a lot fun with it.

I've been working on a conversion for the Artificer class. I am posting the link below, and I would appreciate some constructive feed back about the class. I will summarize the changes below.

Here: PF Artificer Draft

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Summary of Changes

A link to the original 3.5 Artificer can be found here for reference.

Infusions
This is the only part I haven't done yet, but I was thinking of pulling primarily from the Alchemist spell list, and adding some Eberron spells. What do you think?

Craft Reserve
I've changed the points in the crafting reserve from XP to a gold piece value. The reserve will represent an essence of magic that the artificer can call on to replace gold (instead of XP) in the crafting process. The numbers you see here have been converted from XP in the old 3.5 system to an amount equal to half the value in gold that XP is normally worth. This seems in line with Pathfinder's rules regarding crafting.

The biggest change here is that I'm allowing players to carry-over excess reserve to new levels, whereas old rules required players to spend all their reserve or lose it on level-up. To temper this ability a bit, I'm requiring that no more reserve than is default for that level can be spent on any single magic item, so players cannot save up several levels worth of reserve and blow it all on some ungodly powerful item way earlier than expected.

Artificer Knowledge
I've changed and upgraded this ability to represent the Artificer ability to discern the nature of magical items. I feel the upgrade is in line with powers similar to Pathfinder's powers.

Item Creation
This is roughly the same as the original, except that I've removed the ability to create "weak" versions of spell scrolls and simplified it. Now artificers simply create items at an effective level +2, period.

Bonus Feats
I removed most of the old feats and added a ton of pathfinder feats that I feel are in line with the artificer. I'm retaining some old Eberron feats for this game, however, and you'll see some here.

Craft Homunculus
I completely gutted the original rules and replaced them with Paizo's rules for making Homunculi. The rules presented here are a direct copy from the PFSRD.

Transfer Essence
This ability replaces "Retain Essence" which allowed players to basically eat magic items and add it to their reserve (which was lost on level-up). Instead, I'm making it so players must eat the item during the creation of a brand new item, so that they can't just add to their reserve indefinitely; the gained essence will have to be spent on the brand new item, and any excess bonus reserve is lost.

Metamagic Spell Completion
Only changes here is that I lowered DC to use this ability (the x3 modifier seemed a bit much), and now the uses per day are taken from the Artificer Knowledge ability above.

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If you have been reading to this point, I applaud you good sir and/or madam. Please leave any comments, criticisms, or new ideas that you may have. I'm happy to read them, and may even use a few.

Thanks for reading!

I also found this.

Double-Axe Fury Orc Barbarian.

Checking his attack ratings would seem to confirm your assessment. I noted that both his TWF attacks use full strength, but then I noticed the Double Slice feat.

My only question then, is there a post from a Paizo developer that says otherwise? That was how this argument initially started in my group: supposed word from a developer in a post. I've been looking over Double Weapon posts in the search bar, and have yet to see any official ruling from a developer thus far.

I know this topic has come up before in many other posts, but I would like to ask it anyway. My group has some confusion on how double weapons are treated and the strength/power attack bonuses they should get when using a double-weapon.

1. When two-weapon fighting with a double-sword, do you add strength-and-half to the primary attacks and just strength to the off-hand atacks?

2. Or do you add strength to the primary attacks, and half-strength to the offhand attacks? (like normal TWF)

The reason this came up is because some in our group claim that a Paizo developer responded to a similar post about this issue, claiming that the first answer above was the correct way it was supposed to work.

That didn't make sense to me, to allow double weapons to essentially be wielded like a 2H + 1H weapon. I always thought they were treated like normal TWF, i.e. 1H + light weapon.

Now, it does make sense to me that if the fighter only makes primary attacks (forgoing offhand attacks) he would use strength-and-half bonuses because the double weapon can be wielded like a 2H weapon in this instance.

Regardless, if anyone has a link to this developer who responded to a similar post, please post it. If you do not, tell me your opinion on the matter.

If this has been answered elsewhere, I didn't see it, so apologies.

This mythic power (and a few others like it) make an enemy who critically hits you provoke an attack of opportunity. My question is this:

Do you resolve the attack of opportunity before the critical hit, or afterward? Will you get a chance to potentially kill your attacker before he can resolve his critical hit?

In my opinion, the spirit of this mythic powers seems to be that you lash back against your attacker when you are struck, thus you get hit and suffer the crit as well. In that regard, I would image both combatants could potentially take each other out at the same time (you from the crit, the opponent from your AoO).

Is this how the mythic power was intended? Or was it intended to interrupt the crit, potentially saving you from any damage at all if you killed your aggressor?

Why not just run them as ordinary PCs without Mythic ability? That's still quite viable for most of the AP. Book 2 would be problematic in places, but outside of that....

The Mythic abilities are precisely what my players are looking to try out. I'm just trying to push things down a little, keep it from getting impossible to run, while not cutting pieces out of the Mythic book.

Truth be told, I'm am curious to see how Mythic plays out for my group. This is a mythic AP, and I would like to try and run it that way. However, I can tell just from a few of the threads that Mythic can make things spiral way out of control. I'm just looking for a way to run damage control, without just flat-out denying options.

Well, this thread makes me nervous.

I'm about to starting DMing this game. The majority of my players, unlike me, are looking forward to some real high level content, so I want to do my best to preserve the bulk of the mythic stuff, but I also understand some things have got to be house-ruled.

Here were my thoughts, based on some of the posts I have read so far:

1. Limit in-game quest boons/ tailor them more to player.
2. Ability score bonus divided into two +1 increases to two different stats.
3. Amazing Initiative power for extra standard action now costs 4 mythic points to use, or 2 mythic points for a move action.
4. Use Scorpion's adjusted enemy stats.
5. Add minions to singular boss battles.
6. When selecting mythic path powers and mythic feats, players must spread their selections between offenseive, defensive, and neutral options; judged on a case by case basis.

Do you think this might be enough to keep the game from going completely insane? I don't mind if there are crazy moments as that's what mythic is all about, but I am striving to push the power level down a bit without severely restricting options.

Currently running the Kingmaker Adventure path. This question may have been answered elsewhere and I just haven't noticed, in which case apologies in advance.

I suppose this question applies to any adventure path paizo has made, but I was curious whether or not I, as the DM, am expected to divide the xp listed as rewards in various completed quests among the party, or if the amount listed is given to each player in full.

For example, in Kingmaker, players receive 100 xp per hex explored. Is that divided up (like 25xp for 4 players) or is that 100 xp for each player? Likewise it will say something like "Each quest is worth 51,200 xp when completed." Is that divided up, or given to each party member in full?

Thank you for your consideration.

So a friend of mine brought up an interesting point:

Can a pair of 7th level druids live forever through use of the reincarnation spell?

Since the spell creates a new young body, the two druids can reincarnate eachother over and over again through the ages. I suppose the only point of contention is that one would have to kill the other, and then vice versa. Kinda creepy actually...

Another kind of interesting note: is that a player who makes an old character effectively negates his age penalties to physical stats when being reincarnated, but would logically retain his age bonuses to mental stats.

I prefer intent and logic over RAW.

An example: my group recently got into an argument over incorporality concerning shadows, ghosts, wraiths, and the like. They argued that such creatures should also suffer 50% miss chance when attacking. While the strict rules of incorporality seem to favor this (or are fuzzy on it), I believe the intent was that such creatures did not suffer from their own advantage. We eventually had to agree that, when I DM, such creatures will not suffer it, which they didn't seem to mind, so long as I was clearly stating I was deviating.

Actually, if you say it semi-fast, it rolls pretty nicely off the tongue.

eye-Oh-miday.

I must admit, I like "ee"-Oh-miday a little better. ;)

I've been converting my Second Darkness campaign to PFRPG ever since I downloaded the PDF and I have run into a snag:

All of the Drow Priestesses in this adventure path, including the final villianess, make use of old 3.5's Magic Domain ability to use wizard activation items. Many of the priestesses have wands and scrolls of wizard spells as a result to supplement their arsenal, especially the final villianess. The new Magic Domain for Pathfinder gives no such ability, thus I am stuck.

Should I redesign these priestesses, or should I fudge the rules and allow them this ability anyway, perhaps justified by their association with Abraxas? :/

The PS3 is far prettier, but I think the Xbox has more games going for it (at least for my taste in games). For library, I'd say Xbox, for graphics, I'd say PS3.

Can't recommend Wii. I have a friend who owns all three systems, and he almost never plays the Wii. Not enough games to pique his interest, I suppose.

Interestingly enough, Space Marines fit perfectly on my battlemat squares.

..Not that we ever used Space Marines for stand-in minis before... <_< >_>

To be honest, the whole Spellplague things doesn't really bother me. I find it kinda interesting. To see what survived, what did not. Kind of like a "Forgotten Realms: Survivors Edition."

I can understand how die-hard fans of the Realms might be disappointed at the change, but sometimes changes is for the better. Okay so you don't like 4e. Why not try the Destroyed Realms with Pathfinder? Thats sounds fine by me. Fun, even.

I need them to exist so I have pre-painted plastic minis.

Hear hear!

Who knew the true arcane secrets of lichdom involved mass intake of Twinkies?

Oh, I knew it!

Oh, what the hay, I like it. Maybe I'll try Bard next...

I'm glad we can have civilized and mature discussions about such topics on this board (says the guy who makes Wayne's World references >_> ).

I have to kinda agree with 4e on handling rust monsters. Losing your holy avenger because you struck the creature is retarded and lame. So then the DM either fudges it or doesn't use the creature.... so then there's no rust monsters anyway.. which defeats the point of them existing in the first place.

Anything that destroys equipment irrevocably (such as black puddings) is a major bummer and let-down for most players. I hope this issue is addressed in Pathfinder.

"Sha-wiiiiiiiiiiiing...."

"When I entered the service of my god, I pledged my sword, my life and my honor in her service. Such an oath is not to be broken or amended. I do not know if my mistress is truly dead, or simply slumbering, waiting to rise again. I do know that for all the days of my life I will serve her. It is for theologians to debate where my powers come from, if not from her. I see it as a sign that she yet lives. Others may speculate to the theoretical nature of divine power, and bonds that cannot be broken. Yet even if she is truly gone, and she no longer has power to give me, my lady had allies and friends among the deities, and I suspect that they too might be honoring her by allowing me to act in her name."

Excellent. Just excellent. Inspiring, even. I might just play a Paladin of Aroden.

I still don't understand the MMO representation.

I play with a group of friends. We interact. Occasionally(okay, more often than not) we kill things with our minds.

I do not "ding." I do not grind for levels or gold, endless for hours.

4e is not even close to MMO. It's way more wargame. Kinda like a small-scale Warhammer 40k. Sometimes I enjoy that.

D&D shoes sound silly to me. :P

But hey, if you like 'em, go for it.

And extreme pardons but: calling out a company for making themed shoes sounds a little elitist.

Point in fact I was running a pre-written module (King of the Trollhaunt Warrens). That specific encounter called for six(might have been five) worgs and a troll worgmaster. The first few rounds were good, with the troll using all sorts of pack tactics to move amongst them and whatnot, but once he was brought down, the players did not enjoy the prospect of slogging through five/six enemies who weren't very threatening to them.

It happened more than once too, as most of the module called for encounters with multiple trolls. :/

Edit: Considering that your doing the Rise of the Runelords Conversion, Scott, I would be interested to see how you avoid this issue when designing encounters for all the giants later in the campaign.

Similar experiences as above. Our battles took about as long, but more rounds went by.

Unfortunately, the "slog" as someone referred to it, got the better of my players. Even I had to admit that more often than not, the last half of every battle was a slog of at-will attacks that took forever to grind down the monsters. One of my players got quite exasperated when he found out that a group of six worgs had 120 hp each, and the party only did an average of 15-20 damage every attack.

This is a problem that I have been unable to account for with 4e.

The damage seems too low for the kinds of HP some of these monsters (and players) have.

These have been my experiences anyway. I'd love to actually play 4e rather than run it, but I'm the only one in my gaming group still interested in 4e.

I was first and foremost into MMO's. I had played D&D sparingly when I was a kid. I didn't really get into hardcore roleplaying till I bought NWN1 and then joined A Land Far Away (a roleplaying community for NWN). It was really fun using the 3.5 rules and playing in a Persistant world dedicated to Faerun. What was even better was this was a place full of roleplayers and not powergamers and little kids. These people became their characters.

ALFA had/has it's faults, but I enjoyed my time there. I managed to really get into 3.5 there. Bought tons of books just so I could DM better for the folks who joined my server. If it wasn't for NWN1 and playing on ALFA I wouldn't have gotten back into D&D.

It should definitely be worth noting that NWN 1 had a pretty excellent RP community. Like Danubus, I joined an RP server (once called the Magic Bubble, later called the Legacy of the North) and it was ten million times better than the single player campaigns. I'm not sure if those communities are still around, but if they are, it might be worth looking into them. They could be so much fun.

I'm looking forward to trying Mysteries of Westgate, and I'd probably buy a NWN3 as long as it didn't use 4.0 rules.

While I prefer Pathfinder over 4e, I think 4e would make for a pretty excellent computer game RPG system. It's fast, simple and easily repetitive (plusses for computer games, not so much for tabletop interactions). Adding flashy spelleffects to go with your 4e powers would make using them repeatedly much easier to digest.

4e makes for a very excellent tactical game and computer RPG's can thrive on such things.

But I'm wondering what the backward compatibility would be? If I whip up a Shackled City campaign, or Age of Worms, or Rise of the Runelords, etc., those adventure paths don't have the benefit of the beefy new monsters, but my players are drawing on the beefy new versions of the core classes in Pathfinder.

I anticipate some challenge imbalance that will probably require some DM interference to make the fights more interesting - but that may result in more XP for those fights causing faster level advancement which would keep the PCs ahead of the AP challenge curve...

I'm currently running a monthly Shackled City game with some friends using the Beta rules and let me tell you, they were sufficiently challanged for many of these battles which I thought were easy.

Two CR 1/2 Hobgoblins gave them trouble just by standing in a bottleneck.

Kazmogen gave them a super hard time just because he wore fullplate.

As to the power creep thought, I believe it says in the Beta book after the spells chapter that a DM should generally consider the PC's one level higher if he(or she) is not converting 3.5 published material to Pathfinder. As Jason said above, however, this increase might not even be necessary at higher levels.

I had a duel-weilding rogue in a 1-20 campaign (Shackled City), and the truth is that the power is right on par with what a spellcaster can do, or even less. By the end of the game, I had seven attacks and did nine d8's for sneak attack vs. evil(prestige class and feats got those) and it still only took one Implosion from the level 20 cleric (a lichfiend) to ruin me.

What you are referring to is the problem with high-level D&D. There are many "gotcha" effects as levels increase. Things like Maze, Forcecage, Destruction, Slay Living, Finger of Death, Planeshift are caster "gotcha"'s. Six 9d6 sneak attacks is a rogue's "gotcha" and, comparitively, it's far less effective and effecient.

I honestly don't know how fighters keep up unless they have the power attack feat.

I still think Wish or Miracle is the likely culprit.

Definite emphasis on the fight with Valantru at the end of Lords of Oblivion. In my game, I plan on making Valantru a patron of the PC's so his betrayal hits more to home. The battle royal in House Rhiavadi is pretty awesome, too.

Oh come on, nothing in Thriteen Cages?? How about a fight against a ridiculously crazy Lava Dragon? Furthermore, you can play up the fights with the Thirteen by having them team up more so they are bigger threats. 2-4 Other cagewrights, plus Dyr'ryd at the base of the Tree of Shackled Souls makes for a very awesome climax, I think.

I will admit Strike On Shatetrhorn seems somewhat weak (only because it seems kind of tacked on). You could consider adding a story element that Embril is trying to wake Adimarchus since the original plan failed. A big finale on that chapter with Embril and the stupidly ridiculously powerful spellweaver and the greater shadows seems pretty epic.

Asylum is just nifty all-around, really. Travelling to Carceri, fighting lots of demons, a Lichfiend, and a suitabley awesome killing machine that is Adimarchus himself. In my opinion, even though the campaign is pretty dragon-heavy (six I believe), I think a Tarterian Dragon (Draconomicon) would be a fine addition.

Story-wise, I understand that some people see some weaknesses, particularly concerning the Cagewrights and Adimarchus. I played in the campaign once a long time ago, unaltered, and I still found it one of my most enjoyable games.

As mentioned above, Red Hand of Doom. Played in and ran. Excellent module that covers levels 5 to 10, if I recall. It's a mini-campaign that centers on fighting various dragons and their minions.

Thirded.

I ran this mini-campaign for my group a while back and it's still one of the best-received and remembered modules we've done in a while.

It's got every evil dragon (except white, but I added one anyway as a side mission) and some very cool combat scenes and terrain.

An excellent and epic ending battle, too. If you really want Dragons in all their forms and glory, you definitely cannot go wrong with Red Hand of Doom.

Well that clears up an issue or two.

So you can crit a touch of idiocy, but not a ray of enfeeblment, yes?

Btw, how DO you crit a touch of idiocy? 2d6 to each mental stat instead of 1d6? Yikes!

So wait, what about enervation? can you crit enervation even though it doesn't do "damage"?

So, wait, you can't critical with ray of Enfeeblement?

Can you tell me where it says this? I've always felt this way, but most of my group believes it can be criticaled (but not stacked).

The best theory I can come up with is Wish or Miracle as a spell-like ability.

So the question is: What kind of Monster has Wish/Miracle as a spell-like ability? Pit Fiends, sure, but I can't imagine MiTD is a devil. High Level Angels might have Miracle, but again, I can't see MiTD being angelic.

The only thing we know for a fact is that it IS a real monster from the books and not a made-up one and that Rich knew what it was since #100 (he's said as much in other sources).

Someone on the GiTP forums suggested that maybe the creature is used to getting what it wishes for? Mentioned here.

I'm going to be starting a SCAP campaign soon, and my group of players are really big on Minis. They've already started to order pewter figures so that they can paint them in time for the campaign beginning.

I'm not much of a painter, but they asked me if there were any particular villians or allies that might reoccur enough that they might warrant there own mini.

Now, because of the shadowy nature of the villians in this adventure, an individual mini for each of them seems pointless (since the PC's will likely only ever encounter them once). As a matter of fact, the only reoccuring minis I might have some use for would be demodands and a glabrezu.

I found some Glabrezu minis online so I might buy one as we approach the end of chapter 5, but there aren't any minis for demodands.

So, does anyone know of any good minis or good proxies that might fit for the various demodands the PC's might encounter in the game? The best proxies I can come up with are the Dolgaunt Monks, but suggestions are welcome.

Also, if anyone can think of any other reocurring or even semi-reoccuring enemies the PC's might face, let me know and what you might recommend for the mini.

Thanks in advance.

There remaking the Neverending Story?? Good God, WHY??

Top Gun without Val Kilmer? Argh!

The Karate Kid?? Is nothing sacred?!

To be fair, our DM was simply running the adventure as written so it wasn't like he was consciously throwing ridiculous things at us. I suppose that also brings up the notion that Epic Level adventures can be notoriously diffcult to write broadly; it must be a pain trying to cover all the bases high-level PC's might bring to bear.

As an aside, those gargoyles were not typical paragon gargoyles. I remember quite clearly being told "no" when I rolled a 20 on spell resistence, but that is neither here nor there. ;)

drashal wrote:

Erik Mona wrote:

What is an absolute deal-breaker?

switching the system to the Vatican system.

I agree. I don't want psionics to be reduced to clerics with fancy names, all paying homage to a pope who lives in some far off (to me at least) country.

I don't want it to switch to the Vancian system, either...

Seconded.

On both accounts. ;)

I hope Psionics see use, but please don't convert it into another sorcerer/wizard/cleric type of class.

"How does a 2 oz bird manipulate a 2 pound object again?"

Obviously, he grips it by the husk.

---

On another note, I would like to extend my appreciation for the difference in Dispel Magic now. It's a nifty, still very useful-but-not-so-broken change to the spell, that I enjoy.

[Warning: Rant to Follow]

I played in an Epic Level campaign adventure path called "The Drow War." We stopped playing after 2 sessions of level 21.

The problem with the the system as it stands is that there is simply too great a disparity between possible actions versus target numbers. For example: good saves vs. bad saves.

At level 21 we fought a crazy three-headed cat monster, each bite causing a DC 40 fort save vs. poison. The numbers are just too massive. Our fighters were generally have a normal challanging time of it, but us mages and clerics couldn't even possibly save against it without 20's.

Another time we were fighting paragon gargoyles, these are CR 19's, though they are still considered epic because of the paragon template. I, as the mage of 20th caster level (behind 1 because of a prestige class) could not penetrate their SR with a 20. I could not RANGED TOUCH them, without a 20. They we ME-bane.

Now I understand that at certain levels, some things just "gotcha" and some don't. But at Epic play, there was just too much of a difference between those who "had it" and those that did not.

When we fought a monster with an AC so high our fighter had to roll a 19 to hit it, we had had enough.

The other problem with Epic play is Epic spellcasting (this coming from the party's wizard!). In certain ways, Epic casting can be broken. I went onto another forum once and asked for help about the above mentioned problems. One replier went into detail about a spell that increases my INT and spellcraft, so then I could cast ANOTHER spell that increases my INT and spellcraft, so on and so on, until I had the requisite stats for another Epic attack spell with super high DC's, I wouldnt have managed on my own. That just boggled my mind. That's not even FUN. It's not even D&D at that point.

Ever since I have been a 100% non-epic level advocate.

Now, if Paizo tackles the problem and maybe makes their own version that isn't so functionally retarded, I might be willing to try it again. However, if Paizo NEVER makes epic level material, I will not shed one tear.

As for high (not epic level) modules, I would most definitely be interested, especially if they cap out pre-existing adeventure paths like Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, or Second Darkness.

Damn cliffhangers are killin' me...

This movie was fairly terrible.

Argh:

The whole thing was suppose to have some kind of environmentalist message that got mixed up somewhere between Dumb and What?

Also:

Sixth Sense was great. Other stuff rather hit and miss for me. This was pretty bad, conceptually. Mostly I found it humerous, which I suppose is something.

Rent it? Sure, why not. Its bad, but it is kinda humerous. Just don't spend any money on this. I regret actually seeing this in theatres when it was a total "rent-only" film.

Our group recently finished Curse of the Crimson Throne and I would like to give my opinion and take on the adventure path.

Overall, the campaign was enjoyable. Mostly, for me, it was the idea that the characters lived and adventured in the same city for a good chunk of the game. This is the same reason why I loved Shackled City so much, because the entire campaign revolves around one city, so the players literally "live" there for the whole game. I particularly like this approach to campaigns because it allows players to really get to know the city and live within in a meaningful and interactive way. They get to know their favorite blacksmiths and shopkeepers, they get to know the mayor and the church leaders (especially those that can raise dead :P ). The city isn't just another loot selling place, it's their home. This idea alone held me enrapt for the first half of the game (the latter half isn't based in the city).

The second thing I noticed is that the campaign is relatively dungeon-light and more event based. This is only good news for me as over the last few years of gaming I've been slowly drifting away from dungeon-based campaigns and more toward event and exploration style games. I still do enjoy the odd dungeon crawl, though, and so this campaign was fairly good to me on this front as well. It was a good chunk of exploration and events, with a light sprinkling of dungeons. Fairly perfect set-up as far as I'm concerned.

The campaign also features some particularly interesting and unique encounters that were fairly enjoyable (then again, every AP paizo has put out has it's share of really cool encounters somewhere in it). The trial of the giant worm Cindermaw was particularly fun, especially after all our preperations, we simply were not prepared for a un-hungry worm! The demilich was nifty if slightly disappointing; it became suddenly clear why the spirits gave us a free avoid-death card. As for our disappointment, it was only because the battle was won rather swiftly for the creature's reputation, but then again, if we hadn't won swiftly, we likely would have lost swiftly. Such encounters tend to be tricky to make totally engrossing so I won't fault any design there.

As a slight aside, the encounter with the genie was hilariously ingenius. Whoever came up with the idea of the genie granting the angry thug's wishes as they fled is a brilliant human being. I was never so amused at being struck dead.

One slight bit of disappointment was the almost total lack of blue dragon or blue dragon-like encounters to be had, given that the real villain was a dead blue dragon. This may have simply been our groups expectations not being met, I for one was hoping for a grand final battle with a blue dragon dracolich (I have the mini for it ;) ). I was, however, fairly impressed with the final villain. I don't think we ever expected to fight such a powerful Bard, certainly not as a final villain! She was exceptionally tough for us in the early and middle of the fight when she still had her Erinyes and Dread Wraith allies. She was a pathfinder Bard too (since we were pathfinder characters I suppose it makes sense) so she was really harsh with her new Paralyzing Song (or Dance, in her case) and she ended up killing the Duelist round one when an Erinyes coup-de-graced him. The DC's on some of her spells and powers were pretty retarded though; our Duelist and just bought a cloak of resistence +4 and had taken Iron Will and he still had to roll natural 20's against some of her powers, which I felt was a little unfair, but I suppose at high level D&D, such things tend to happen. In any case, had I been the DM, I would have been sorely tempted to include one final bout with a blue dragon dracolich at the end of the game. I guess I'm just a cruel DM. ;)

I also enjoyed the Harrow Point mechanic, though it was never really very interesting except for the Strength and Charisma chapter (at least for me). That last ability to force the DM to reroll a d20 roll was very nifty. At one point when the Queen was targeted with a destruction effect (or some such) several of us had the DM continue to reroll his save against it in the hopes she would eventually fail (she didn't, of course :/ ).

Finally, the inclusion of the Harrow Deck of Many Things was a very cool idea though fairly harrowing for us players at that late stage in the game (yuk yuk). Still it was the first most of us and really ever gotten to see a deck of many things in a real long running game so of course we all had to draw from it. Annoyingly enough, while everyone else drew good to mediocre, I (of course) drew mediocre and bad. Thankfully it wasn't bad enough to screw my character really (those 15 1st level accident-prone fighters were pretty funny for 10 minutes before the encounter with the Horned Devil).

All in all, I give the whole campaign a solid 8 out of 10, which is fairly par for the course when it comes to Paizo's adventure paths. Now, me and the Dm have switched up and now I am running Second Darkness for the group. Perhaps when we finish that I will post again on my thoughts and opinions concerning it.

Thanks again for a good game.

The whole Reese going back in time thing to father John Connor makes as much sense as the chicken and egg debate. But I am good at putting such problems aside, and settling into a good special FX extravaganza.

Slight tangent:

If you think terminator's timeline is bothersome, think about this from the movie Back to the Future 2:

(going to assume you saw it)

Old Biff steals the Delorian and travels back to give the Sports Alemnac to young Biff, thus beginning the "skewed timeline" as Doc explains later. BUT, why did old Biff return to the RIGHT future from THAT point?? Shouldn't he have gone forward in the "alternate timeline" and incidentally stranded Doc, Marty, and his girlfriend in the normal future?

ARGH.

[on topic]

I rather enjoyed this movie for the most part as the machine war has been something me and some of my friends have always been interesting in for a while now.

Some minor points of interest:

Also:

All in all, an enjoyable sci-fi action flick.

Our group was somewhat standard fare: 1 fighter, 1 rogue, 1 warmage, 1 cleric, all 10th level.

On round 1 reverse Gravity got most of us. On round 2 power word stun removed the warmage for the battle. After that, one full round attack drops Alek, and on round 4 he decapitates him and teleports off with the head.

I don't think he got hurt for more than a handful of damage from the warmage before the stun, or the cleric hovering in the air with his searing lights.

I got the impression that he wasn't meant to be fought straight up at that point in the game.

Fortunately, we got to have a more meaningful fight later when we were level 12. He was still very tough for us (he had some babau buddies with him that time) but we managed to triumph and feel pretty good about it.

I don't believe the actual adventure path calls for a second fight with him per se, but if your PC's are itching for revenge for Alek, you should consider giving them a rematch at a later level (like I assume our DM did).

I suppose a follow-up question might be:

If PFRPG isn't going to do a Call of Cthulhu game (which is perfectly fine) will they still be stating up the creatures from the Mythos? Will we get to see a Pathfinder-ized Cthulhu? A Cthonian? Nyarlathotep?

Me thinks that would be spiffy.