Dante Moradis's page

The GM also failed in this instance to properly describe the situation. Wyverns are huge, carnivourous fell beasts. Even if the group didn't KNOW that they were a menace to the land, the bones and various other signs of previous victims would almost certainly litter the area where they laired or slept.

That aside, the standard you're holding that paladin to is silly. To have to awaken and parley with every single creature to the point of losing every edge is moronic. A warning before crippling a character should be a NECESSITY. Some things are clear cut, but you can literally justify anything given enough time.

NO other class is held to the same scrutiny, and any other class could make the choice to do this killing with impugnity, paying no cost for killing the lawful good wyverns. Even a priest of Erastil (not a paladin) could get away with the "kill em before they wake" defense without losing his or her ability to cast spells (at least by the book). DM's could choose to do so of course, but thats an aside.

If you view this act as evil, what price did your good or neutral characters pay for their part in the deeds? Did you have a cleric present? Was it a cleric of a good god? Did that character pay a price for performing an act contrary to the beliefs of their diety? What about the groups rogue? Did his chaotic good alignment change to chaotic neutral because he'd committed such an EVIL act?

While I understand and agree that the paladin should hold himself to a more honorable standard, if you're doling out power loss for what is CLEARLY a grey issue, then you should hand them out across the board. Rangers used to have similar restrictions on alignment, why SHOULDN'T they lose their powers if the paladin did?

I too would have walked out of that game. Where is the fun if you have to play your character to a standard he or she doesn't even understand or have explained to them? It's a GAME, not a morality lesson.

One of my party is a former Shoanti Brave, returned to his homeland and seeking to make a legend for himself. I let him cue the party to the fact that simply killing Cindermaw would be a bad idea. His legend needed to be preserved if he were to be used to make folk heroes out of the group, and they had no real means of understanding this without a bit of foreknowledge from the shoanti. They could easily handle the creature at their current level of experience, and would almost certainly have just done so. Once they realized they needed to make a display of it, things got interesting.

The saves are more of a concern for me over the ability for them to hit. In the group we have a Paladin, a Barbarian/Fighter build that does brutal damage, a rogue, a cleric and a Sorceress (more than 4 in this group, and I've been upping the difficulty of encounters to adjust. My biggest concern is the saves against her charm. With DCs over 30, I just don't like the odds. The paladin and cleric would have decent chances, but she's intelligent enough to target someone with obvious weaknesses to her abilities. Keep in mind, the party doesn't KNOW her stat block and can't prepare for it in advance.

If the barbarian fails his save, I have doubts the party has a prayer. He's regularly having 100+ damage rounds, and boosted by the buffs Illeosa can dish out, it seems daunting at best. I'll wait till they face the encounter and report back how they fared. I've been wrong about them before, as they are a resourceful and intelligent bunch.

Ive been running this for some time now, and my PCs are as far as the Cinderlands now. They'll be hitting Scarwall soon, then on to the Crown. I've been looking at Illeosa's stat block and I'm frankly stunned. I have SERIOUS doubts the canned party included in the module could have a hope of beating her, and while my PCs are more powerful than that, how on earth are they expected to hit an armor class of 42+? That aside, DCs of over 30???? Seriously, even with a bardic boost (which they incidentally do not have), how do they take her on when they'll be charmed completely (with only a nat 20 to give them a chance of resisting or hitting) in 3-4 rounds? I know she should be tough, but this seems impossible to me. Help me understand.

Love this kind of thing too. I'm currently running the Escape from Old Korvosa. I've done a lot to lengthen and change some of the module through character background and fleshing out the NPCs.

I have a paladin of Iomedae that I offered allowed to start as a member of a noble house. I did this allowing them only to read the information on the noble houses, before we got into any other campaign materials. He chose Endrin, and we went from there. I had a half orc barbarian that had fallen for a noble woman and was seeking to solidify that relationship as the game started. I chose to combine the two backgrounds and add in some Lamm. I made the paladins sister kidnapped by Lamm, and the same girl be the love of the barbarians life.

It added a LOT of drama to the end fight with Lamm, as I had her dangling over the water where his gator was, with Lamms hand on the rope to lower her when the PCs arrived to confront him. They were essentially forced to enter the water to rescue her, dealing with both the gator and a reef shark. It was a fairly rough encounter, but they prevailed and it was very exciting.

Also, to involve the nobles more, when the group attained Saviour of the City status for their help with the plague, I granted each PC a boon from a noble house. It was interesting and I was able to grant some boons that were of great roleplay benefit without doing anything to overpower the PCs in combat.

One complaint. Escape from Old Korvosa quite simply doesn't have enough in it to justify the characters making three levels. The next module has the group at 10th level, and I just don't think there is enough meat to justify that kind of jump. I'm adding another serious adventure during the transition from this module to the next to adjust for it. I know the modules arent meant to be complete and we're expected to do some of this, but I was shocked at how little there was in this module for the expected three level jump.

I'm disappointed to hear about the endless combat of the end module, and will be reviewing that hardcore before running it. I want more story and less combat. I'll make adjustments as necessary.

You're all forgetting the original "Chainmail Rules" from 1971. It was a precursor to Dungeons and Dragons, and co-created by Gygax. He even recommended that the Chainmail Rules be used to play D&D.