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?

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 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?

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'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? :/

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.

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.

I ran 4e for a little bit but eventually our group decided that 4e was not the right kind of game for us and so we've switched back to pathfinder. However, I do enjoy some of the ideas 4e had and was curious to get some opinions on ideas that I had about adapting certain rules to 3e.

Idea #1) Some groups have this problem where their cleric must become Healbot 9000 in order to keep the group alive. This isn't always the case. Our group in Crimson Throne has not had this problem (yet). But our last game (Runelords) I played cleric and the last half of the game (essentially when the great bloated bags of hitpoints started to show up.. not sure if thats a spoiler or not) I found myself being forced to heal others almost exclusively every single round because the enemies simply did so much damage that to ignore the plight of my comrades for even a round meant their demise.

This is a problem for some groups and I had an idea, borrowed from 4e that might address such issues. What if:

Clerics were given an ability, say 3/day, when they were using a curing spell (perhaps of 5th level or lower) on a willing ally, they could make the casting of such spell a swift action.

Do you think this would be too powerful? Essentially, it would allow a cleric, at least 3 times a day, to quicken a lower level curing spell when casting it on an ally. It would give the cleric at least 3 rounds a day where he didnt -just- have to heal his allies. The cleric would still have to spend his spells curing (these aren't free spells) so resource management remains an issue and it might relieve pressure off the player who is playing a cleric. Does this sound too powerful? Too useful?

Idea #2) On a similiar vein as above, what if you allowed a character to, say, set a certain number of potions on his belt or forearm strap or whatever, and he could drink those set potions as a swift action. You could make it based off of dexterity or some simple arbitrary number like 4. Is that too useful?

Idea #3) I like the new pathfinder Monks. When I say I like them, I mean I like them (to be perfectly creepy about it). I'm playing one now in our group's Crimson Throne game. But something has always kinda bothered me about Monks, and it's their special weapons. Let's face it, after a certain level, a monk simply will not use any special monk weapons (such as sai's, kama's, quatersatff, ect) because his own unarmed damage is quite simply superior. I suppose in 3.5 a weapon could be enchanted, and have crit ranges and such, but if you are going to add enchanted "handwraps" for monks (seen that somewhere here) then that point is gone too.

So I had an idea. What if:

You made a feat called "Monk Special Weapons Training." This feat would allow the monk to use any special monk weapon and use his own unarmed strike damage, or the weapons damage dice, whichever was greater. Something like this, I think, is totally acceptable! Now you can craft a totally cool nunchuck or sai weilding monk and still keep your damage potential. Sure, the monk would gain a crit range for his weapons, but he would lose out on his ki strike, stunning fist and quivering palm delivery through attacks unless the weapon were also a "ki focus" weapon. It doesn't seem unreasonable or over-powering in any way, especially if you are allowing enchanted "handwraps."

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So there it is. Comments and alternative ideas are most welcome (especially on the monk thing). Please let me know what you think about my ideas.

These last two weekends some of our regular group has been on a break so I decided to run a quick and easy one-shot module for those who were still around. I chose "Hungry are the Dead" by Tim Hitchcock. I also decided that since it was going to be a one-shot, we might as well play with the Beta rules a bit. This was our first time actually using the Beta rules and I wanted to give them a try before our next campaign begins with Curse of the Crimson Throne, which will be our first long running campaign with the Beta rules.

As we played through the module, we noticed several interesting things about the new rules, and I thought I might share some of our observations.

1) The first thing we all noticed was, or course, the CMB system, which at first glance appears to be a god-send. It's simple and easy to use and understand, and it consolidates so many different combat maneuvers into a single roll. It is definitely a step in the right direction.

One of our players played a monk, and it appears the the new rules for monks make them combat maneuver gods, giving them a cmb on par with a fighter, and all sorts of powers and bonuses to movement make them ultimate skirmishers. But as we continued to play, I noticed that our monk was almost too good at these things, especially grapple.

Now I like the new grapples rules somewhat, again, simple and quick. The monk's preferred tactic against all the scarier monsters was to run up and grapple them immediately, then opt to use the pin option every time. Now, maybe it was because he was fighting undead, but he was always pinning (and thus rendering useless) every creature he grappled. His sole goal was to grapple the scary thing, and have the dwarven barbarian hit until it was dead. I'm not saying this is a bad tactic, but it seems unfair that with a single CMB check, the scary monster basically loses his next turn trying to escape. Then even if he does, we get into this cycle of grapple to pin, he escapes, grapple to pin again, etc. Basically, the monk is giving up his turn to ruin the scary monster's turn. This sounds fine, but typically, the players outnumber the monsters, especially the big scary ones.

It just seemed to be a unusually cheap tactic to render a big monster pinned (which means basically useless) with a single check. Now I understand the idea behind this was to give the players a better chance in grapples with those big scary grapple-monsters, but this seems like it was pushed too far away from that.

2) One of players played a Ranger, and I couldn't help but notice how powerful he was in the module. The combination of his ranged power was thus: the feat deadly aim, the feat manyshot, and favored enemy: undead +4. So with the first attack in a full-round action he was hitting for 1d8 +1(enchantment) +2 (strength comp.) +4 (undead bonus) +4 (for taking -4 on deadly aim), then doing that TWICE for manyshot; so basically 2d8 +22 every first attack. Maybe thats the way its suupose to be but it struck me as odd and little too powerful to be applying deadly aim and undead bonus to both arrows of a manyshot. There is no clarification on whether they should both be applied to manyshot or not, only that precision-based damage is not applied twice (and it doesn't say if the undead bonus or deadly aim are precision-based or not). I would like some clarification on that.

We also noticed that the Ranger's new ability to apply half his favored enemy bonus to all allies within 30 feet as a move action is far superior to any Ranger animal companion he might have had.

3) The new rules for staffs are rather unlikable. Now, I like the idea of being able to recharge a staff. But the rate of which one uses a staff, plus the large number of charges one must sometimes use to cast a spell with it, make it very very unwieldy. The cleric was using a staff of healing. It now has 10 charges. By the time they stopped to rest, they had only 3 charges left. But at the rate they were going, they'd be out soon the next day, and they can only recharge ONE charge everyday? It's too slow. Especially, for the astronomical price most of these staffs exhibit. This basically means that the staff is a last-ditch weapon, because even casting one spell with 2 points, or two 1-point spells, means that without downtime, the staff will rapidly be useless. The limited number of charges and the very limited way of recharging staffs makes them difficult to use. I would definitely recomend a re-thinking of this new rule.

I recommend either cutting the price of staff in half (or maybe even less) if you really want to keep the rules as they are. Or, maybe allow for the recharging of more points by spending a higher level spell. Perhaps by spending a higher level spell than necessary, it recharges two points instead of one, or maybe it recharges more points based on how high a spell is expended in the recharging. Something must be done to justify how much money must be spent on these supposedly powerful items.

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That's all I can think of for now. I might post back with more if I remember anything else from our playtest.

Thank you.

So there I was at a local bookstore, browsing their horror section when I came upon a book called "Heaven's Bones" by Samantha Henderson. It looks interesting so I read the back of the book. About halfway down the description I see mention of a Vistani named Trueblood who is gifted with Cursing.

Wait, what is this?? I bought it instantly and read it only to discover that it IS indeed a Ravenloft spinoff type book set mostly in the late 1800s, in a Victorian era London. The Mists of Ravenloft featured admist the old real world.

The book offers absolutely no mention of Ravenloft in its title or description. Nothing on the cover even nods toward the Demiplane of Dread. The only thing that tipped me off was the mention of a Vistani on the back, and the Wizard's Logo on the spine. More so, there are 4 other books listed in its index.

Is this new?? Or have I simply missed this, and its been around since forever?

I am familiar with the Masque of the Red Death stuff, but this seems to be an entirely new spinoff of Ravenloft. I did a little digging but all I could find out is that it's referred to as "Ravenloft: Dominion."

Does anyone know anything more about this? I'm a major Ravenloft fan and some insight into this (presumably) new series would intrigue me.

After 9 hours and 3 rousing games of Arkham Horror, I've got a severe itch to scratch.

I'm a Lovecraftian fanatic(a cultist, if you will) and I was thinking of running Call of Cthulhu a bit for my group of regulars.

I think I wanna start with a module or published campaign of some kind since I only have a few games worth of GMing under my belt, and I was wondering if any of you more experienced Call of Cthulhu veterans could recommend any good 'adventures.'

I already own "Shadows of Yog-Sothoth" and have run my few games out of that book, so if you can recommend any other material, I'm all ears.

Anything from one session adventures to full-length campaigns are on the table at this point in time.

Thanks in advance!

(bump)

Okay, I know the post is long but theres some neat stuff in there, I swear!

-.-;

Me and a gaming friend ran into a bit of quandary today and since we could not find a satisfactory answer in the books, I turn to you for insight.

My player is playing a summoning type class that focuses on using fiendish creatures against other evil things (I believe it was called Malconvoker). To prepare for this class, he starting making all sorts of fiendish-templated creatures ahead of time so he could just pull them out when needed.

As he was creating his creatures we had something of a problem. He was giving his new fiendish vermin (centipede to be specific) new feats for his new Int of 3. Now, the fiendish template tells you to use the base creature for everything except where noted, and even tells you not to recalculate BAB, saves, skill points, etc. (though curiously no mention of feats).

So my question is, does this new fiendish centipede gain feats retroactively for gaining the template and thus gaining an Int score? My idea was that, as a centipede with no Int, he has no feats, therefore the fiendish template shouldn't really change that. But my friend has a point: The creature didn't just gain the template, it was born with it, and thus born with a Int 3. Shouldn't it have gained feats as it "advanced" it it's magical beast Hit Dice, which grants skill points and feats?

I am unsure how to rule in this situation since I want to be fair, and don't want to seriously hinder the fun and usefulness of his class's primary power. Then again, I am also unsure if giving feats and skills to creature who should not have them might be too over-powering.

Your opinions will be appreciated. Thank you.

For the years that I've DMed 3.5, not once has any of my players ever really used summoning and calling spells. They just didn't. It wasn't really something we put emphasis on.

Recently, one of my players finally made a wizard dedicated to this stuff and soon a very interesting question arose that I wasn't prepared to answer:

Is there a limit to the number of summoned creatures a single player can summon into play? In other words, can a wizard use summon monster spells round after round bringing in more and more monsters each turn? If so, does anyone find that a little ridiculous? I understand that summoned monsters are not very powerful, but that seems like it could very quickly become and army of nonsense. Moreso, I fear for game slow-down with so many creatures being forced onto the field, plus some of those "weak" but huge monsters really give the PC's a huge advantage, more than I thought a spell like that might warrant.

To be fair, we're only dealing with Summon Monster 3 or less right now at level 5, but I fear for the higher levels. Is my fear unfounded and these spells will prove to not be so bothersome later on?

If there is a direct answer to my question please cite where I can find it so I can show it to my players on an official level.

Thanks for any help.

Nicolas Logue, you are a brillant man.

Last weekend our DM interjected the module, Carnival of Tears, into our Pathfinder Campaign (he put it in right after we dealt with the Skinsaw man and the haunted house but before we proceeded any farther).

This Module is one of the most creative and entertaining things I have ever been a part of. What really, truly, gets me is that this module actually affected me. I could almost experience a moment of true horror when I realized that the carnival was a cover for murderous fey and that everything we (our group) had been doing was actually inadvertantly torturing innocents.

You should have seen one of our player's face when she found out the true meaning of "You're as strong as three men" at the Titan's Wheel.

There were two parts that really got to me. Like really got to me. The first was the Ice carving contest. I don't know why, but for some reason that whole tableau bothered me. In a good way, mind you. I like to be scared.

The second part that got me was the pie eating contest. I almost felt really ill. Then my character really did get ill when he realized he had eaten some of that pie earlier! I want you to know that because of that little scene, my character, a cleric of Sarenrae, is damaged. He now is violently afraid of pie (goddess help the cook who tries to serve him meat pie!) and will now only eat things that he personally has cooked. I even started taking ranks in Profession(cooking)!

Story nonsense aside, this mixture of twisted cruelty and grotesque violence really had an impact on me. As I said above, it's a good thing because I enjoy being scared or bothered by a good bit of horror.

I guess I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your work and can't wait to see more of it.

As an aside, I can't help but notice our game group is getting a whole lot of Logue. This module... then Hook Mountain is soon coming... and in my own Savage Tide game, our group is currently doing Bullywug's Gambit!

Thanks for the excellent work. I look forward to seeing even more.

P.S. The true meaning of the Blind Peep Show was downright brilliant. Thank you for that.

Once again, I feel a need to share the silliness. As before, no mentioning of what lies beyond what I'm describing please! :)

A Bridge Too Far
Imagine this scene if you will. Our intrepid heroes tramp through a forest and successfully sneak through a goblin-infested briar maze with the help of our silly little gnome druid (the very same who soundly defeated an Ridiculous Quasit with an equally ridiculous eagle and dog trick). We managed to avoid ALL the encounters in the Briar maze, and so we arrived at a bridge spanning the gap to the goblin fort, perched up on the rock.

Here we stopped for a full 20 minutes of real time, trying to come up with a sound plan for sneakily crossing the bridge without goblins in watchtowers noticing us. One of our better plans included painting a goblin on the dwarf's tower shield having him "sneak" one person across at a time. In the end, we decided to say "screw it" and just rush across and tackle whatever we came across head on.

So the fun starts. Dwarf goes first, I, the cleric go second, and then the third person goes and *snap* bridge goes out. The third person jumps back successfully but me and the poor dwarf go plummeting into the drink. Upon impact, my cleric takes enough damage to go unconscious and starts to drown. The dwarf, while surviving the fall, is so encumbered by his armor (-14 armor check?) that he cannot swim correctly and sinks.

Our gnome decides to tie a rope around his waist, hands it to our nimble third, and jumps off the cliff so he can reach me and save me before I drown to death. DM not-so-secretly rolls Use Rope: 2. Gnome falls into the water as well. The gnome then summons a Dolphin to save me and bring me to shore while he climbs back up the rope. At this point the dwarf begins the long slow march across the bottom of the ocean toward dry land, holding his breath all the while.

So then the murderous BUNYIP appears and eats the Dolphin's head. Hmmm. Now it's right next to my unconscious form, ripe for the head-eating. At this point, the rest of the party on the cliff is desperate coming up with plans to distract the Bunyip away from me; everything from crossbow bolts to Dancing Lights.

Suddenly, our gnome gets another bright idea! He dashes back into the briar maze and taunts a group of 10 goblins hanging out in the maze, then proceeds to dash for the cliff! What is his plan you say? He jumps off the cliff, rope still tied to his waist, and leads the pursuing goblins, 10 in all, over the edge! The gnome slams into the cliff side because of the pendulous swing of the rope and goes unconscious, never to witness the sight of goblin bodies splatting to the ground around my half-drowned form.

Somehow, all of this distracting nonsense gets the Bunyip to flee. Eventually, me, the gnome, and the dwarf are hauled back up onto the cliff face and awakened. All of this nonsense because of a stupid, simple bridge. And the very worst part? None of the goblins in the watchtowers noticed any of it! We yet retained the element of surprise.

Creators of this ominous Bridge: I salute you!

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The Pickle Plan
Nothing so long-winded as above, but much hilarity ensued and soon as we found a bag of pickles in a goblin watch tower. Our DM slipped to us that there was actually a intricate and convoluted story concerning a bag of stolen pickles. For the rest of the session we continued to devise ways to use the bag of pickles to taunt and trick various goblin encounters. Goblins playing 'Kill Gull' (as our DM describes)? We threw pickles at them from hiding and watched the funnies unfold. Battle with the Goblin chieftan and his cronies? Throw pickles at them and let them fight over the goods! One of our more complex plans included trying to plant the pickle bag on one of the human collaborators (perhaps our wayward Aasimar?) and let the Goblins draw their own conclusions!

This is seriously excellent stuff. I am in total awe of the creativeness behind these madcap situations. My hat is off to you, oh creators of Rise of the Runelords. So far, this has been a campaign to remember, and we're still in the first chapter!

Much love, and thanks for reading. :)

Okay, so I'm starting the Savage Tide AP soon and after poring over all 12 Dungeons (plus 12 Dragon Issues) I think I have it.... except I have one problem I wanna try and troubleshoot ahead of time:

This concerns the intensely convoluted subplot concerning Malcanthet.

Let me try and figure this out:

1) Malcanthet has a demon-bat steal a Tooth-thing of Ahazu and stash in with Camazotz stuff.

2) Takes a Camazotz idol to Tomoachan for PC's to find.

3) PC's find it, so that when they get to Isle of Dread, they can conveniently turn it over to the aspect, which in turn, grants them access to his hoard, which in turn, allows them to come across the Tooth.

4) PC's carry around mysterious Tooth for another 8 Levels of play....

5) PC's inadvertently discover Tooth can be used to Bargain for Shami-Amourae's freedom, and thus, do so.

Does any of this seem excessively complicated? And there are holes up and down this thing...

For one, the entire AP assumes the PC's will find and KEEP both the bat idol, THEN the Tooth of Ahazu. What happens if they lose one of these things? Or they decide having a crazy tooth in their mouth isn't worth it and try to sell it? Does Malcanthet intervene and arrange for the object in question to bounce back into the party's belongings? And this all assumes the PC's even TAKE the Tooth at all. I can easily imagine a generous player offering said Tooth to Camazotz's Aspect. Or just plain leaving it there because it isn't theirs.

The whole idea is based on some oracular "feeling" Malcanthet got during Sea Wyvern's Wake and assumes the PC's will keep said mysterious objects with them until they are needed 8-10 levels later. It feels very awkward to me.

I do understand that the PC's don't NEED the Tooth to bargain for Shami's freedom, but still, what's the point to all this? Some obscure reward for being a pack-rat the entire game? It just seems overly convoluted to me.

Maybe thats the point. Malcanthet is a convoluted jerk.

I would love to know how the designers thought of this subplot. Perhaps it could give me some insight into why it's all necessary? -.-;

Opinions on this? Thanks in advance.

I have always felt that the current falling rules in D&D are too lenient. I understand that the idea behind the rules is to be fast and easy and not to distract from the game, but still, the rules have never sat well with me. So I decided to try and come up with my own alternate rules for falling to make it a little more scary a prospect. Please understand that I still want to keep falling somewhat of an abstract and do not want to delve too far into the realm of realism. I've seen plenty of threads discussing how falling should work physically and am not interested in being that precise. I only wish to make falling more dangerous, not real. So here it is:

First off, the damage from a fall is still 1d6 per 10 ft. fallen. Now with the changes/additions:

One: The damage cap for falling is increased to 50d6. I figure that after 500 ft. one has probably reached terminal velocity, and even if they haven't, I didn't want to stray too far away from the abstract.The reason I changed the damage cap is because I have always been dissatisfied with the 20d6 cap. It seems so small when compared to the kind of HP higher level characters will possess. The current system caps out a maximum of 120 damage. Now, while that certainly is nothing to scoff at, it really isn't very scary after, say, Level 10. While even very high level characters will eventually be able to shrug off this damage, it is likely still high enough to provoke concern.

Two: Institute death by massive damage ruling. I'm not sure if death by massive damage applies to falling or not per actual rules, I decided to enforce it here as follows:

If character takes 50 points of damage or more, they must make a Fort Save DC 15 + 1 for every additional 10 damage taken or die from system shock of the fall. I figure that with the risk of real death, falling becomes a lot more scarier.

I do recognize that this scaling of the Fort save may be a bit too much, especially if I'm also allowing a higher damage cap from falling, and am thus open to the possibly of being more lenient here. Perhaps DC 10 + 1 for every additional 10 damage? Or perhaps DC 15 + 1 for every 20 damage? Or even increase the threshold from 50 to, say, 60? 70?

Three: Falling from great heights is traumatizing to the body, no matter who you are, and so I added the following to simulate the shock:

If a character falls 200 ft. or more, they must make a Fort save DC 20 + 1 per every additional 10 feet fallen (DC 21 at 210 ft, DC 22 at 220 ft. etc).

On failure, character is nauseated for a number of rounds equal to the DC minus 19 (1 round at DC 20, 2 rounds at DC 21, etc) and then sickened for twice that length.

On success, character is only sickened for a number rounds equal to the Fort DC minus 19 (like above).

Why nausea and sicken? I believe that these conditions can adequately simulate the shock one's body takes from falling so far without delving too deep into realism. I wanted to remain somewhat abstract concerning falling and I feel these conditions do a decent job of representing that without going into things like ability damage (something I was trying to avoid). After all, if you really fell from such a distance, chances are you would be in shock for a lot longer than just a minute or two, so I'm still being somewhat lenient here.

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So there it is, part and parcel. Tell me what you think of it or tell me to go home, I'll appreciate either. :)

nothing? anybody..?

*chirp chirp*

Maybe not the place for this, but whatever:

www.white-wolf.com/graduation

For those who cannot link it...

Does anyone else feel as insulted as I do right now? Suddenly I'm playing an immature game? And what are they doing with those PHB's?? Burning them?? I feel ill...

My gaming group is participating in the Rise of the Runelords adventure path and our last session featured a battle so ridiculous (in a good way) I felt I had to share it.

And before I begin, a word of caution: I'm -playing- the game, not -running- it so please don't say anything about what happens beyond the part I'm describing. :)

Me and four others are currently Level 1. We had just beaten the Glassworks, and descended into an underground complex beneath it. We wandered a bit until we eventually found a room with two pools and a Quasit who was obviously a summoner of some kind. It's here that we got officially stuck. Now, I'm not sure if this Quasit was designed to be this hard, but he was extraordinarily difficult for us to beat. I mean, come on. We're level 1. But this guy could be invisible... he could fly... he had damage reduction.. hell, he even had SR I think! We literally couldn't efficiently harm him!

Finally, our little gnome druid pulls out all the stops. He summons an eagle. An eagle. But, as I watched, I couldn't help but wonder what he could possible do with it. I mean, if we couldn't hurt the little bastard, what was the eagle going to do?

The eagle grappled it. Proceeded to pin it. They both fell out of the air into the pool. Then the eagle promptly vanished. His summon duration is, after all, only 1 round. ;)

Finally, to ensure the little bastard wouldn't fly out of reach again, the druid's dog (not wolf!) companion grappled it so that the rest of us could wail on it til it finally died.

It was the funniest fight we have ever done. Our DM was shaking his head the whole time.

Now, hilarity aside, I'm wondering if this monster is really meant to be like this. I mean, seriously. Flying and DR at level 1? I just don't see how many people could really defeat this thing without a party of archers (or grappling it with an eagle, hoo!)

I'm just curious if anyone else who has played or ran this part had as much difficulty with the little bugger as we did.

Anyway, cheers to Paizo for a fun and unique experience!