Damien_DM's page

The group I ran refused to swear loyalty to the dragon overall (although a couple were willing), so we ended up in combat. One breath weapon later, the PCs decided to stand down and retreat, and I decided the dragon would let them. After all, having them escape would mean they'd likely report the dragon's presence and add to its notoriety (and maybe win it more converts), while killing the characters didn't really benefit it.

It's important to note that the characters' mission is NOT to kill the dragon; it's to retrieve information on what happened to the ship and about the anomaly. My group ended up with full success after good RP with the cultists at the end. I did have to give the Concordance player a strong hint with an Int roll that they might want to try recruiting the cultists, though, since there was nothing obvious in the scenario prior clearly calling this out as an option.

I think it took my group about 4-1/2 to 5 hours, but they did battle both crab groups in the first part.

We see the return of nonsensical questions in the encounter with the spawn of spheres. I thought I'd generate a list of questions to throw at the party for the encounter. Here's what I have currently. If anyone wants to add more, be my guest!

Note that the first two come from the scenario itself.

1. How do you add the sand to breathe?
2. Why are arms more colorful than legs?
3. Is the pivoting of dreams the heart of sentience?
4. Why is a heart without heat better than a tree without wisdom?
5. Why do you use the same orifice for ingestion, exhalation, and conversation?
6. Why are 11 and 56 different in your conceptual structure?
7. What is the bristlestick?
8. At physical termination, do thoughts ensoul?
9. When breath is held, why is it not contained within your appendage?
10. Why do you travel in four dimensions?
11. Does flesh part with the burning ice?
12. Why do you kill to cure?
13. How is the wind different from eternity?
14. What sensation does quality yield?
15. How can cognizance exist in such a modular framework?
16. How is victory defined?
17. How can spells without mouths bite my eyes?
18. What is your truth?
19. Why do you describe death and taxes as inevitable, but not breathing or poetry?
20. Under what circumstance do you conduct gravity?

Make sure she doesn't have any special qualities modifying her initiative. The statblock went through significant changes from my (frankly, way overcomplicated) original version, but I think she originally had one. At the very least, the initiative modifier may have slipped through when her feats got changed around.

I took another look, and I don't see anything that would cause her a -4 penalty to initiative. I do note that the Subtier 5-6 stat block does factor in her Improved Initiative feat.

If the stat block underwent significant revision though, it could be something that simply wasn't caught in the final version. Or maybe I'm just missing something.

Just went through Verazaz's stat block, and I note she has a greensting scorpion familiar. She also has Improved Initiative, so her initiative modifier should be +10 at low subtier and +11 at high subtier.

Also keep in mind that if she has her scorpion on her person (and I assume she would, she'd gain the benefits of Alertness, for an effective +2 on Perception and Sense Motive.

In high subtier, her tactics are copied from the low subtier, including a mention of casting scare in melee, which is not on her high subtier spell list (understandably since it caps at 5 HD).

Instead, here's a nifty tactic to consider: if she gets init over some of the party, have her ready an action to use stone shape to seal the entrance to whatever location you put her, splitting the party. If there's an alternate way to the location you placed her, that's a good place to put a trap or hazard...

I plan on running this next Friday. There's a lot of good stories to pick from, but I've decided on one (raising the dead) and chosen treats...er, threats and locations. Also thinking about loot placement (I may have some of the "potions" for example, be magical gems studding the walls, which they can pry out and swallow to use; the curative potions will definitely take the form of mushrooms).

I agree about the typo/layout issues. Most were easily understandable, but there's a section of text missing (can't find the location offhand), but only a line or so, so nothing critical.

IMPORTANT! Unless you want to spoil the investigation right at the outset, be sure to trim off the player handout headers for the letters from Sheila, since each one specifically identifies the vault they'll be going to!

For Miss Feathers, I don't mind the PCs visiting her, but she won't have any good rumors for them--nothing going on impacts her social circle. She can direct them to the warrens, however, and maybe give them a reference that will give them a circumstance bonus on their Diplomacy checks for thinking to speak to an old contact.

I'm in! Looking forward to a nice, relaxing afternoon...

Mohrg (can't believe no one's done this yet)
PFS venture-captains
Small and Large octopus
Aboleth
Lantern archon
Gargantuan T-rex
Gargantuan kraken
Huge elephant and/or mastodon
Froghemoth

I ran this on January 1st, low tier, for six players with levels ranging 1-3.

Unusually, I had a much longer block of time to work with than usual--up to 7 hours total. However, we got it done in about 5 hours.

A few things I noted during the playthrough:

1. Running the optional encounter in low subtier will almost certainly result in the destruction of Nira. She was engulfed and destroyed in about 3 rounds, before the PCs could damage the cloaker enough to drop it or get it to flee.

Since Amenira/Nira's soul is contained in the locket, which survived, I decided to allow its retrieval to be sufficient to fulfill a secondary success condition. I did not feel it fair to penalize them for losing out on a success condition simply because we had time to run the optional encounter.

2. The group figured out about the dolls and the enter image scroll. they actually did take the time to do untrained Craft (dollmaking) skill checks in Amenira's house to create a reasonable facsimile of the party's wizard. However, they could not immediately come up with a way to infiltrate the PC-doll into a villager's house, and because they were ready to hunt for the cloaker after talking to Nira, we moved into the bat encounter and thence to the final encounter before they could follow up further on this.

3. The party seemed to forget for a while that they had the scroll of speak with plants; I gave them an Int check near the end to remind them they had it, and they decided to use it on the Verdant Spark. They went back and forth on whether to take it; in the end they decided to take it back to Katapesh with them. (The fact that half the party were Dark Archive-aligned had an impact here.)

4. At low subtier, the party's Diplomacy bonuses were low enough that making checks to get information was hit-or-miss; they lost out on several opportunities to get information by failing these checks.

5. From a combat perspective, the gnoll encounter is mainly a matter of how quickly the PCs can reach their foe; once they get to melee range the battle ended quickly.

They had trouble with the bat swarm, in large part due to low rolls with splash weapons and touch attacks. However, they eventually took it out with a burning hands.

As previously mentioned, the optional encounter with the cloaker resulted in its death, but not before it had managed to kill Nira. Its ability to make tail attacks + Combat Reflexes meant it did fair damage to the PCs. Then too, I rolled really well on almost all of its attacks.

The final encounter with the yellow musk mother/zombie was not too much trouble. Their biggest challenge was the damage the zombie inflicted, as again I rolled well and hit frequently with its slam attacks.

One question that came up that the adventure does not cover, is what the impact is on the plant growths and the lifecycle of the villagers. The named NPCs are listed as augmented humans, but it never specifies what benefits they receive from growing up under the influence of the Verdant Spark. I decided it probably gave them increased longevity, faster natural healing in sunlight, and resistances to magical effects of the Mana Wastes. But I would be curious to know what the author's original intent had been.

When GMS decide which boon they want (for Serpents Rise), they must cross off the others. Because of this, when running Trouble in Tamran, if you have a player with a GM Serpents Rise chronicle sheet, and no one else with the Zurnzal boon, you'll need to have them state before the scenario if they want to apply it to Zurnzal or not, since it affects Cetenna's loadout in the final act.

The chthonic simple template (from the Monster Summoner's Handbook) grants the templated creature the earth subtype. It also grants the creature a burrow speed equal to half its highest speed.

Per the earth subtype, "Earth creatures with a burrow speed possess tremorsense."

My question: what range should this tremorsense have? None is specified as a default.

I see no indication that applying a subtype would not grant the abilities listed in the subtype (otherwise a Fiery creature would not be immune to fire, which seems rather unlikely since no fire resistance or immunity is otherwise called out in the stat block, the way it is with the other element-based simple templates.

I plan on running 2-12: Below the Silver Tarn (7-11). Stormy isolated town besieged by horrible eel-creatures, and a truly harrowing final battle.

For modules, Midnight Mirror is a decent alternate choice. I seem to recall Carrion Hill being pretty good as well.

I'm in.

I wonder if I can locate Freckles II from a S&W pickup game two years or so ago. She was still level 1, IIRC...

You might also modify the initial point buy and tell them they cannot use any build points for Constitution.

More specific build rule:
Build as a normal character, except for the following:
1. Type becomes undead.
2. No build points in Constitution. Constitution becomes --
3. Gain the usual undead traits and immunities (Bestiary 310)
4. Not proficient with any armor or shields except through class abilities.
5. Pick one of the two:
a. Fleshy - gain DR 5/slashing and a slam attack (1d4 small, 1d6 medium)
b. Skeletal - gain DR 5/bludgeoning and two claw attacks (1d3 small, 1d4 medium)

If you want more varieties of undead, I'd increase the number of options and abilities in step 5. For example, for the fleshy option you might grant Toughness as a bonus feat and +10 ft. movement; for the skeletal option you might make it bloody and grant fast healing and channel resistance. Then you might add an incorporeal option and a ghoulish option. You'll need to adjust the effective starting level of your campaign, of course.

Incorporeal is the ability that is most problematic and subject to abuse; if you allow it be sure to exclude Strength from build point expenditure as well, and maybe reduce the number of points overall to spend on attributes slightly.

All the old 3.5 Paizo modules converted to Pathfinder and republished as a hardcover book, with Pathfinder Support for all adventures.

Okay, that's more a pipe dream than an expectation...

"Stepping up" is pretty vague; it could refer simply to your character's participation in combat, or your overall participation as a player in the game.

It can sound mean-spirited, but I've seen and run groups as a DM where one or more players invested far less attention and effort into the game than others, resulting in frustration on everyone's part. For example, in one campaign, whenever there was significant roleplay or negotiation, I had a player who not only not contribute, but would start doing other things--even heading off and taking a nap "until combat begins." In such cases, it's better to talk things out as a group, and it could be that your other players/DM are afraid to approach you for fear of offending you or pissing you off or something. Hard to say, not knowing more about the situation.

Plenty of good advice given above. Here's my contribution to how one might be more effective as a character in a game and a player at the table.

1. You don't have to be optimized up the wazoo, but your character should be at least competent at what he does regularly. For example, if you spend a lot of time shooting a bow in battle, you should probably have some archery-related feats. If you have a Dexterity of 18 and a Strength of 10, and like to get into melee, you should probably take Weapon Finesse.

2. Give your character options in and out of battle. The more things you are at least decent at, the better you will be at making a useful contribution. For example, say you build a character who's great at flanking, sneak attacking with two weapons, etc. What if you run into monsters which are immune to sneak attack? Or ones that have DR that you can barely penetrate? Or ones that you cannot reach because they fly or are otherwise unreachable? By planning for various contingencies in advance, you have a better chance of being useful in a variety of combat situations.

2a. As a corollary, also consider things you might be doing outside of combat. Rogues usually excel at this sort of thing, being skill-based characters. Obvious activities include diplomacy and roleplay, searching for traps, loot, and secret things, keeping an eye out for trouble, and scouting.

3. If you don't already, develop a firm grasp of combat rules and maneuvers. Rogue types especially benefit from fighting smarter, not harder. Understanding tactical movement, difficult terrain, flanking, delaying, readying, and doing combat maneuvers like grappling and tripping opens up more possibilities for what you can do in battle, and also perhaps what you should steer clear of doing.

4. Know what your fellow players' characters are capable of, and try to plot tactics and maneuvers that work well with theirs. If the party has an archer, for example, then try to keep his line of sight clear for his shots. If the party arcanist likes blasting enemies with fireballs, then consider delaying until he gets a blast off before rushing in to do battle. This works both ways; spellcasters in particular have many spells that can be of immense benefit to a rogue, like greater invisibility or longstrider; if you go to them and request these spells, then you show you are participating more in your group's overall tactics, while at the same time running a more effective character.

5. Tied to 2a. above, if you haven't done so, try to invest an interest in the game outside of combat. It can be frustrating for DMs and fellow players if your character sits around and does nothing, especially in roleplaying situations. The best way to be more proactive here is to develop an interest in your character. What's his backstory? What are his interests? What are his goals? If you were in a particular character's situation, what would you be doing? It's impossible to cover the breadth of options available when it comes to character design and interaction. One good rule of thumb though: be wary of building characters who by their nature are isolative and shun social interaction. Sure, your druid raised in the deep woods may have a distrust of communities and prefer to spend her time in the park while everyone else is at the inn carousing, but what fun is that from a roleplaying perspective?

6. Another thing that might help: if you are not doing so already, consider taking on one of the mundane out-of-game tasks, like mapping, tracking loot, etc. You could also be of assistance to the DM, such as by keeping track of initiative, what spells and effects are active and when they wear off, etc.

I've been using MapTool now for a couple years. I ran an entire Red Hand of Doom campaign using it, and am currently playing in a Savage Tide game on MapTool. I am hoping to get a Slumbering Tsar game going soon on the same platform.

Here's a couple more tips:

* They often release new development versions; if you are interested in beta testing and commenting on bugs you find on the RPTools boards, feel free to update to the latest version. Otherwise, stick with a somewhat earlier version; we've been using version 1.3.b50, which is pretty stable. (A final release version is coming soon for version 1.3.)

It is important that everyone in your group uses the same build version, since different versions are often incompatible with each other.

* As a player, I like to build a whole series of macros into my token for ease of use during play. You can define values in the token properties list (like ability score bonuses, BAB, and armor check penalty) and use them as constants in a macro formula. Thus a grapple macro might look like this: Judan grapples his foe with a result of [1d20+BAB+Strength+GrapMod]. In this case, GrapMod is an undefined variable that you will be prompted to provide when you run the macro. You can get a lot more complicated with macros if you desire (e.g., to indicate when you have rolled a critical threat with a weapon).

* I tend not to use the line of sight and lighting properties in MapTool; I had tried them before, but they often caused problems for me. This may have been fixed in later development versions (including the build I'm currently using), but I find that these properties are not important enough to justify setting up in my maps.

* Expect to spend some initial setup time building a library of tokens and textures for your maps. You can import maps as image files in MapTool, then adjust the grid to match the grid spacing on your map, but you may often find yourself needing to build your own maps (e.g., for random encounters, or if the map you have has secret doors and the like that you wish to conceal from your players). The MapTool mapping software is fairly robust yet simple to use. I do recommend going through the video tutorials on how to do this.