David Gunter's page

I will be running the final confrontation with Zenith Splintershield this weekend and would like some advise from this august body on running the Invisible Stalkers. I will be increasing the number of stalkers from 1 to 2 or possibly 3 due to the size of the group. I don't have much experience running permanently invisible foes and I don't have any of the books with me here at the office, but I understand that to hit the IS, the PC must first, take a guess on where it is, second roll a percentage die due to concealment (50% miss chance) and third, roll to hit at a -4 due to the creature being invisible. Is this correct?

Thanks for the help!

DM Dave

I have a player who has just gotten the shrink object spell and of course the first thing he wants to to is shrink a boulder, throw it at someone, and have it returned to it's original size before it hits them. He is able to shrink a 3 cubic ft. boulder which would weigh several tons. This is not a real high level spell, and there are so many different uses for the spell that I think the high number of hp damage this boulder or a shrunken ballista bolt could do is excessive. Has anyone dealt with this issue before in a satisfactory way that doesn't lend itself to abuse? This has had to have come up in someone's game as it seems to be an obvious use of this spell.

Thanks for the help!

DM Dave

I have been running the Adventure Path for several months now with a group of 8 players. I have moved Cauldron to Sembia in the Forgotten Realms. I really wanted to run a more euro-centric adventure so I was forced to change some of the encounters to fit. For example, in Flood Season, I changed Tongue-eater and the baboons to a Werewolf and Dire Wolves. I also replaced the dinosaurs who were eating the carrion behind the Lucky Monkey Inn with two ghouls and one ghast. In Zenith Trajectory, I changed Garrek the mummy/torturer into a creature from the Fiend Folio, that was called something like a Quth Mara? Sorry, don't have it with me, but I would recommend that anyone who has access to the FF look it up as a skinless, undead torturer who can spit and ooze acid made for an excellent character. After my characters left the prisoner's in place during the adventure, they came back to find one dead, and the other one skinned and propped up to make them think the torturer they had killed had returned. The thing I have enjoyed about the adventure path is that, even though several of the players I DM for have been playing since the mid-seventies, they are not familiar with the unusual creatures introduced in the AP. These players are still scratching their heads in wonder about what that creature was.

Dave

I am half-way through running Zenith Trajectory and have been putting off telling the players where Cauldron is in the realms. I have changed the setting to a Eurocentric, subtropical location but I haven't determined where to put it on the map. I would like to have it near the Sword Coast or the Dale Lands or Cormyr, but not actually in them. I seem to remember in the Forgotten Realms Box Set (2nd Edition) there being mention of a land near Cormyr that TSR left blank on purpose to give DMs the option of filling it in as they saw fit, but I can't remember the name of the nation. Anyone know the answer? My group of players are all 40 somethings who have been gaming a long time and our kids. Some of them are Very familiar with the Forgotten Realms Campain setting so I don't want to put it somewhere they have been before. Help!!!

DM Dave

I am currently running Zenith Trajectory and, unless I overlooked it, there is no mention of why Zenith went insane (other than losing all of his comrads) or the source of his prophecies. From the background of the story, it appears to be that his prophecies involving the Huo Toa were correct. Later, when you encounter him, they are random. Does he have a prophetic power, and if so, what is the cause?

DM Dave