DM Mogney's page

Remove some of the nastier traps, and tone down the lamia at the end of skinsaw and you should be golden.

I have had this come up before. Here is what I did. Not sure if it is right or wrong, just what I did.

If the players new race has an adjustment, then you begin applying that immediately. e.g. if the new race has a +2 adjustment. You don't drop the character by two levels, however he is now on the LA+2 chart for levelling.

example.
The entire party is level 8
player x dies, and comes back as a level +2 race.

when the party reaches level 9, player x is still level 8
when the party reaches level 10, player x is still level 8
when the party reaches level 11, player x is level 9
when the party reaches level 12, player x is level 10.

etc.

This is a good opportunity for having help during the battle with Xanesha aka Miss TPK

You could have Ironbriar escort the player to the tower , have him speak with the golem and have it let the PCs pass

Then, a good fight against Xanesha with Ironbriar help
And when they come down again : Bang , the golem attacks them with Ironbriar flanking ...
Nasty but logical :)

except that Ironbriar is such a complete and total wuss that the space he takes up may actually be a determent to the party :)

My players just defeated Justice Ironbriar last friday but they did the most unexpected thing... they started apologizing to him, the story goes like this, they arrived at his office in the sevens saw mill after battling the cultist and started figthing with him and two henchmen, In the figth they exchange a few words so I ask for a sense motive check and one of the players realices hes under a charm effect and tells the party, they start using subdual damage a beat him up, at this point Im thinking they want information and are curios why would he be under a charm, they dont know who he is but do know he is a cleric of Norgorber (he casted some spells and after looting him they found a holy symbol) so hes unconcious and since the party doesnt have a dispel magic prepered they decide to stuff him in their bag of holding and go out of the city to interrogate him the next day

So the next day in the wilderness hes bound and gaged thinking how to get out of this predicament when the party cast dispel magic and he realices Xanesha has being using him, at this point I think of doing what the book says and ask the players to look the other way for a few hours and sold Xanesha but the player playing the figther tells me "while I untie him I tell him we are deply sorry for having him tied up like this" and the other players follow him apologizing, so I acting as Ironbriar start yelling at the characters "do you know who I am, Im justice Ironbriar you are in deep trouble" It was really funny and unexpected, they started talking and Ironbriar blamed Xanesha for the killing and said he was being used, everything was going well (for Ironbriar) untill one of the character asked him "you are a cleric right? we foud this on you" handing him the Norgorber symbol, so I thinking he was busted said "Yes my order was being used by that monster, we are the protectors of magnimar if one of its rulers is not good we must eliminate him..." I was thinking now their are going to see the lie and we can move on, but they bougth it, I mean...

Extremely funny. You have to find a way for this to come back and haunt the characters later in the campaign. That is really awesome, and some good quick thinking on your part.

OK, i'm coming into this problem and been working my own angles for this type of situation. I'm curious what everyone else has done. I'm sure some have had to do it after looking at and posting on the obitiuaries thread.

What do you do when all of the original Heroes of Sandpoint have died in the adventure and you have to introduce new PC's? How do you keep them tied into the "Heroes of Sandpoint" venue that sticks so much throughout the AP?

I've only recently had to do this...my closest character left in the party is "2" generations away from being an Original Hero of Sandpoint!

I think you should look into some house rules for death and dying. The -10 and you are dead thing only works well at very low levels.

From reading the scanderig it seemed to me that he wouldnt let them rest since he continually does hit and run attacks until they fight him in his lair room.

If the party retreats up a level they will need to pass through the reduce trap twice more, big incentive not to retreat.

And if they go away and rest, it is perfectly reasonable for Mokmurian to set up an ambush for them when they return. Maybe he could even go and get some more stone giant minions or something...

I really like to discourage resting in the middle of a dungeon though :) Combat isn't really about killing the players it is about consuming their resources (spells, potions, wands, per day abilities, etc) so letting them rest basically negates the warm up fights before the big fight at the end of the dungeon. In larger dungeons it is necessary for them to rest, but this isn't a particularly large dungeon, and so long as they entered the lower levels fairly fresh they shouldn't need to rest again IMO.

My players were able to clear the level without resting.

how does a klar work with the two weapon defense feat?

DM Mogney wrote:

I allow the player to control his animal companion unless I see that player is having his companion do things that are outside of that companions ability. Examples: An animal intelligence companion starts taking actions that are beyond the tricks he has been taught. (setting up flanks, blocking escape routes, targeting obvious spellcasters without being directed to, etc) Or to the ridiculous where a player had a summoned celestial buffalo attempt to grapple a human opponent.

I'm not sure that's as ridiculous as you think... An intelligent creature the size of a buffalo (Celestial creaures have greater intelligence, remember) could very well "bull into" a human, pinning them against the floor or a wall. Just because they don't grapple the same way a humanoid would doesn't mean they can't grapple.

SRD: Celestial Bison has an int of 3. You would need to spend time training it to pin.

Another simple solution to weed out most of the obnoxious powergamer builds is to limit PC's to only two classes. e.g. 2 base classes, or a base clase and a PrC. Most of the broken builds take lots of levels of lots of different classes to cherry pick powers and abilities that work stupidly well together.

Also you might ban some of the more broken books (spell compendium, and the good and evil books whose name escapes me, etc)

Major spoilers below!

My group is about half-way through Sins of the saviors. Skinsaw was their favorite book as well for the flavor and descriptions of the manor. They are actually still haunted by it. On the rare occasions when the party returns to Sandpoint they always stop by the manor and try their latest array of spells trying to figure out how to burn it down.

The only major problem with skinsaw was the actual encounters. The lamai was insanely overpowered for the characters level, and she also had all the terrain advantages with little in the way of escape opportunity for the vastly overmatched players, again it took DM fudging for the party to escape with their lives.

Foxglove was a wuss, but his wife was a pretty good fight.

The biggest disappointment though was ironbrar, that was a two round fight, his minions were all one-hit-wonders (took exactly one hit to kill them) and he wasn't much better. They couldn't believe he was the dungeon boss after they killed him pretty much the second he nixed his invisibility.

There was a common theme among all the books save Sins of the Saviors, and that being that most of the encounter areas were not appropriately sized, Either too big, or usually too small. Some fights were in rooms where once you added in 4 or 5 PC's and the figs for the monsters, there was no room to move at all. I remember one room that described a dozen large sized statues, some of which where combatants, I wanted to put in a dozen large figs as the rogue wanted to sneak explore the room. And I found that the room could not hold a dozen large sized figs. I believe that was in fortress of the stone giants.

Overall great AP. I can't wait for crimson throne because I get to be a player instead of a DM :)

My plan for the transition to book 6 though is to introduce a new NPC, to give them the information of the sandpoint sage. For one I can't fathom that the party is going to return to sandpoint after sins, there seems to be no reason to. And also they have made numerous snarky comments predicting that the so far worthless sandpoint sage will have all the answers at the end. (they used to always try to ask him stuff, but he never really new anything, now they view him as pretty much a boob) Maybe it will annoy them less if a competent scholar tracks them down after hearing of their exploits, not really sure.

RIP Thomas, gnome bard, cohort to the party paladin.
Adventure: Sins of the savior
Catalyst: Freezemaw the dragon.

Freezemaw swooped down on the party blasting them with his icy morning breath. He rolled around and came in for another dive snatching the halfling paladin up right off her dog. He took the paladin up to an altitude of 200 feet and chewed on her a little. Meanwhile the sorcerer cast fly on the Shoanti barbarian below.

The barbarian flew up to engange the dragon in aerial melee. Freezemaw wheeled around and blew ice on the trapped paladin and the barbarian. The barbarian retaliated by charging and missing. Freezemaw dropped the halfling snack, thereby creating a large impact crater and leaving the poor dear in the low negatives on hit points. Freezemaw opened up a can of whoop ass on the barbarian.

The barbarians next move was to bravely run away. Fleeing into the cave. Freezemaw randomly chooses a new target, and swoops down snatching up poor Thomas. Freezemaw's turn ends within reach of the party on the ground. The sorcerer runs up puts his hand on thomas and on another companion and dimension doors up to the cave! The elementals make their presence known by moving up the stairs. The cleric has by now reached the paladins impact crater and has brought her back from the brink.

Thomas bravely steps away from the sorcerer and dim doors down to her masters side, planning to take the rest of the party up to the cave.

Freezemaw circles and dives at the remaining ground based PC's. Again snatching up a random opponent, again it is Thomas the bard. This time though Freezemaw rises high into the air, and poor Thomas is out cold (bleeding in the negative hit points)

The sorcerer dim doors to the ground in order to get the paladin and the cleric safely by the elementals.

Freezemaw, high in the air begins flying towards his lair. On the way he stops to perform a coup-de-chew on the bard, ending his tiny life.

Eventually the party did confront the dragon in his lair, and after a nearly four hour battle and nearly three more deaths they did prevail. But not before poor Thomas had been eaten.

What a fight!

I allow the player to control his animal companion unless I see that player is having his companion do things that are outside of that companions ability. Examples: An animal intelligence companion starts taking actions that are beyond the tricks he has been taught. (setting up flanks, blocking escape routes, targeting obvious spellcasters without being directed to, etc) Or to the ridiculous where a player had a summoned celestial buffalo attempt to grapple a human opponent.

In cases like that I will step in and control the NPC.

Let in all the books, but install a house rule of no more than two classes for any given character. That is either two base classes, or a base class and a PrC. This does limit some fun stuff (Mystic Theurge) but it also breaks most of the silly power builds.

Just wanted to throw out a suggestion on the monk.

Watch a kung fu movie or three before making any changes. The monks really need more of that kung-fu flavor. And that means monk weapons that folks will actually use.

Monk weapons should not be inferior to unarmed strike. What they do now is fine for a non-monk, but in the hands of a monk a monk weapon should do their unarmed strike damage plus something extra. (Sort of like the drunken master Prc) Here are some suggestions off the top of my head

nunchaku - +2 to the DC of a stunning fist attack, +1 damage
staff - +1 to AC, +1 damage
kama - +2 to trip
sai - +2 to disarm, +1 damage
singham - +2 damage

I would also add spiked chain to the monks weapon list.
spike chain - reach

of course you should still be able to flurry with any monk weapon.

I just noticed in the latest Pathfinder that Ezren (the iconic wizard) has his deity listed as "atheism". That makes me wonder what it means to be an atheist in a world where the existence of the divine is so obviously real. Since atheism means to "reject theism" (theism: the belief in the existence one or more divinities or deities) it probably has a different meaning in Golarion. Ezren has an intelligence score of 17 and a wisdom score of 15, he is both smart and insightful enough to realize that the deities are real. So what does it mean to be an atheist in Golarion?

Here are a couple of ideas..

1. It's just wizardry with a bunch of smoke and mirrors. They pretend their spells come from gods to further their massive wealthy churches and keep their thumb on the common man!

2. Oh yeah, they get their spells, and these so called gods make themselves known, but they are little more some over pompous extra-planer with delusions of godhood. No way are these petty creatures my creator. Sure take the spells and gifts they offer, but to worship them, Ridiculous. I am all powerful to my dog, but that doesn't make me his god.

Those are amusing, but then again this is why the DM is the ultimate authority. Honestly if a player tried one of the many power loops that are available through the various power builds, it might very well be the last time that player would be in my group.

Can't say that I am all that excited by the general concept. Here are my concerns.

1. Is anybody still playing 2nd edition now? In a few years any variant on 3.5 will probably feel like an old game. I can't imagine playing 2nd edition now, 3.5 is soooo much better. If 4th-ed is anywhere near as big an improvement over 3.5 as 3.0 was over 2.0. I can't imagine this idea lasting very long.

2. If Paizo wants to stick with 3.5, more power to em, but I wish rather than re-inventing the basic game mechanics, they would put that effort into making their adventures better. Pathfinder is great, but there is still tons of room for improvement.

3. Most of my group is really looking forward to 4ed. I run store bought modules because I have neither the time nor the inclination to build my own campaigns, the same can be said for converting a module from super-secret variant 3.5 to 4ed.

4. If I did want to convert to 4ed, I suspect there will be conversion guides out there that will be rendered useless by this new ruleset.

anyway, that is just my opinion.

I appreciate the effort anyways.

I love Rise of the Runelords.

I'm having so much fun!

That is all.

Totally agree, I have posted several annoyances I have had with the modules, but given the massive size of this campaign, those problems are relatively few and far between. The story is great, the encounters are interesting, and my group is having a hoot. Great job Paizo. This is about a thousand times better than Shackled City, or anything I could cook up myself.

Lotan "The Destroyer"

9th level Hexblade/Green Star Adept.

Lotan is a varisian scholar who is interested in the ruins that dot the landscape. During his explorations he learned the power of the green star metal and has begun his slow transformation into a freak of nature. He hides his changes by wearing a burka. Lotan fights with a longspear and is usually under the effects of an enlarge person spell. Lotan's nickname of "The Destroyer" is not one of his choosing.

The party made it's way up the long ardous climb to the Kreeg clanhold at the summit of hook mountain. After a long tiring walk up the hunting trails they rounded a corner to see three alert ogre sentries (I added a 3rd because of the extra large party) Both groups see each other and there is no surprise round. Most of the party wins initiave over the foul brutes. The halfling paladin charges on her valiant pooch and skewers an ogre, injuring it grievously. Then the sorcerer grabs ahold of Lotan as well as the Shoanti barbarian/ranger and casts dim door to take them right behind the ogres, cutting them off from the quick escape of their cave.

Then it is the ogre's turn. One of them draws up his ogre hook and charges the enlarged Lotan. He rolls a 20, he confirms the crit. He does 54 points of damage. Lotans DR drops the damage to exactly 50, then we all check the rules as the halfling paladin recalls some such nonsense about death from massive damage, sure enough a DC 15 fort save is required. Lotan generates a 12.

After the battle one of the PC's brand new cohort, a 7th level gnome bard, solves the parties problem by producing a scroll of raise dead which he is happy to sell the party for only a 10% markup. He then lectures them of the folly of adventuring without such an item. There is much grumbling about the future demise of a certain greedy cohort. :)

Sorry, I was feeling a little dogpiled on because I dared voice a complaint. Thanks for the re-assurances all.

I can't believe anyone is surprised by the ending... I mean come on..

Well apparently most folks feel that I am out of line expecting that paizo account for a rotating DM in a group, and folks also seem to think I am out of line for expecting paizo to try to keep a lid on spoilers.

I humbly apologize for me erroneous beliefs. I was under the impression that each AP was self contained in a shared world, maybe that is not the case, maybe the 2nd one is a continuation of the first. If that is the case then this product is probably not going to work for my group since we like to rotate DM's.

First of all, Mogney, I owe you an apology. The sarcasm was unnecessary, and now I'll stop with the sarcasm.

But the point remains.

Your player has still made assumptions, wrong ones, and because of the circumstances (with you being the intended player next time) you're unaware of your player's assumptions. The final Runelord villain is never identified by Sin or Name.

I can't explain it to you without spoiling it for you. You're the one who could be surprised.

Unfortunately, I can see why your player jumped to an assumption, it's not completely unreasonable how they arrived at that conclusion, but it's still spot on wrong. By the time your player gets to Chapter Five or Six, he'll realize that too.

Thats good to know, at this point my players are mid way through book 3,and I have only just started reading book 4.

nevertheless I would like to hear from Paizo that there wont be any fun shattering revelations in book 7 about ROTRL. Or if there are that they can post a nice "don't read page xxx" or something, it really can ruin the fun to know whats coming. Even just a little bit, the players I have go to great lengths to avoid spoilers of any kind. Most of them do not even know the current AP is named Rise Of The Runelords.

Wait a minute...

Despite being a subscriber I only just read it myself this morning. And when I read this post, I went back and skimmed the whole thing again, before writing this.

It says in so many words, that a Runelord attempts to come back- and is put down by stalwart adventurers. Giants, demoralized, lick their wounds. The End.

Have your player pick up the preview and actually read just the specific sentences that divulge the ending of Runelords. Because I stongly suspect that what I've written above is all it actually says.

And if that's it... if that wrecked it for him?

::Shakes Head::

That's like looking at the title of the AP and saying, "Don't spoil it for me! There might be Runelords in this AP, and I want to be surprised! Don't wreck it for me, I don't want to know if we actually have to fight these Runelords!"

I mean there is a line between what's bloody obvious and what's a spoiler.

I just skimmed the whole things again, just be sure I didn't screw myself before posting it. The spoiler is so damn vague it amounts to nothing. "PLayers defeat a Runelord." BIG ASTONISHING REVELATION THERE.

Sorry, the vitrol in the OP's post has riled me.

Come on, how idiot proof does this have to be?

I didn't know exactly what it said until this thread. My player just mentioned it at the gaming table last night, and said he was dissapointed to know who the final villain is. He also expressed worry about learning even more as he starts reading the next AP in prep for running it.

The actual text isn't as bad as I was lead to believe, but it is still obnoxious. After reading that excerpt I don't see how that in any way is relevant toward the preview of the next AP. Can you explain to me why it is necessary to even MENTION the previous AP? It sounds like just patting their own backs for no good reason.

And the person who mentinoed that anyone reading it is already completely familiar with the current AP is obviously in error. It is a poor assumption.

I am currently running ROTRL and one of my players is going to run the second AP. I let him read the preview that comes in book 6 (I didn't look at it cause I don't want to ruin the fun) and he said that it gives away the ending of the current AP! What the H**l! Why would they do that, can you say brain dead?

Just giving warning, the preview is NOT safe to show to a player in your current campaign even if that player is going to run the 2nd campaign.

Wise up paizo, he is very sad to have read this, it is an absolute fun ruiner and I am EXTREMELY upset!

I hope when I hand him book 7 unopened it doesnt continue to spoil more of the fun of the current AP. If it does I will cancel my subscription.

I am currently running my group through RoTRL. And one of the players in my group wants to DM the 2nd pathfinder AP. Because of this I am staying out of the forum for that AP, and trying to learn as little as possible about it. This player is concerned that because I have DMed RoTRL I will have secret game breaking world knowledge that may ruin the fun of the 2nd campaign. Is this a legitimate fear?