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I'm making some modifications to the two adventures in the free city to tie them more closely to the Ebon Triad.

First, I'm including a Vencan assassins guild populated by Kenku, because I really want to have a combat in an old crumbling tower. As has been mentioned in the past, I changed the Faceless One into a simacrulum, and the simacrulum will be of the greater doppelganger whose stats can be found in the sodden hold, which explains the flaw in the face.

Second, I'm going to make Raknian's ties to Hextor more well known, but emphasize how his connections in the city make him a difficult person to target.

Third, I'm making the doppelgangers in the sodden hold devotees of Erythnul, and give them all access to the Krenshar's scare ability. I'm currently trying to figure out a good villainous boss for the erythunul cult. Perhaps an ogre Mage or a hag?


I saw a post in another thread which I think should be mentioned. Allustan doesn't teleport away immediately. Instead, he sees Ilthane flying in the distance, and activates his fly spell to distract her for long enough. He teleports away at the end of the fight, but has messed her up enough to make her unwilling to attack blackwell.


Didn't realize that about pathfinder. I'd still suggest telling the players that there's a lot of undead.

My party has a bard/warmage and that's the only healing, so I've done a larger rework, stealing some ideas from other games for healing. I gave pcs a hit point bonus equal to their constitution at level one, and they get to roll their hit dice + con modifier with a short rest.

Something about the way you said "totem" gave me an idea! Give them a figurine of wonderous power with healing and buffs with a limited access (a few minutes at first level) per day, and it has to sleep for a week if it dies. An NPC healer becomes another body, something else for you control. if you make him too weak the players will have to defend him, or worse, you ignore him in combat and break verisimilitude.

I'm not sure the party's alignment, but give them a unicorn figurine of wonderous power which is also a level 1 cleric. Load it up with buff spells, and give him to players to use however they want. Takes the healing out of your hands, gives the players a healbot which is good between encounters. Further, if they bring the unicorn into combat it will be in their hands, they'll do the rolling and so on.


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The last few boss fights have the players fighting gargantuan opponents (the boneyard of Kyuss, brazzemal and dragotha,) and I had a sudden image that when Kyuss emerges from the monolith he's a medium creature instead of a huge one. I imagine this making the fight at the end more vivid, since instead of dodging attacks from a giant the players are able to duel him. I think I'd keep the stats the same (even ac, weapon damage and attack bonus) except for reach. The only thing I think this might effect is that it would be easier to get into melee against him, since he wouldn't be able to use engulf as an attack of opportunity. I'd keep engulf working on large or smaller creatures. Bull rushes and other abilities based on size will become more effective. Is there anything I'm missing?


I would not suggest making it nonmagical, since I guarantee the players will pawn it. I'm not super familiar with pathfinder items, but I went through the headband slot and found the "headband of intuition," which grants augury 3/day.


I would heartily discourage having an NPC follow them around is the worst possible solution. A few options:

TELL your players that they'll be fighting undead. You currently have two sneak attack reliant characters. I know this might ruin the "surprise" a little, but trust me, they'll thank you for it later.
If they're set on not changing classes, it'll be ok for a while. The ability damage doesn't really ramp up till they first encounter the spawn.
One of the posters mentioned that giving them a wand with restoration is broken, because of the gold they'd get for it. Here's a sneaky workaround! Instead of giving them a Cleric wand with level 2 lesser restoration, worth 4,200 gold, give them a paladin wand of lesser restoration which is only worth 750 gold!

By that time they'll have hit level 6, give encourage one of them to take leadership to acquire a cohort (not sure if leadership is still in pathfinder, but still)


The one thing that was really lacking in this diary was Lavinia's relationship with the Jade Ravens. I was interested to see how that would've played out.

Another thing that might have been interesting would have been how Lavinia fared in the open ocean without the PCs around. If they were harried with dangers that the PCs could have stopped, they'll have felt validated.


Zotzilla, Camazotz? No?

Well in my campaign setting the bat god was a weak deity. The players had the opportunity to kill Camazotz, but they missed out.


My players are ruthless, which is why when they defeated Vanthus, they captured him and chained him up. The party assassin cut off Vanthus's wings and stinger. Vanthus waited until the party let their guard down and eventually used suggestion on the Warforged Guard and tricked him to let him out.

The rogue Vanderboren then escaped, dominating several town guards and sailing the Hellfish out. The fiend then left for the Isle of Dread. He then set about taking control of several of the Olman tribes. He eventually solidified his control by challenging Camazotz (who was not an avatar, but the actual representation of the deity) for his divinity. Vanthus won the duel, so now he has minor powers of a god of Destruction behind him.

As a final act, Vanthus summoned a squad of Bar-lguras and abducted Lavinia.

Now, I'm planning on having them meet Vanthus in Into the Maw. He will have fought Saureya and stolen his wings. My image of Vanthus in the final fight is a whirling fury of fiery destruction. I'm definitely thinking of increasing the damage that the flaming swords deal.

I'm removing the death knight template and giving him a few more levels and several of the powers of Camazotz. I'm also going to give him the power to smite evil from Saureya, as a few of my players are evil.

What do you guys think?


Of course, it is possible that the masters of trickery decide to disguise there presence for quite some time.


For starters What I did for olangru I did for all Bar-lguras. I gave him teleport 8 and the ability to shift 4 squares as a move action. Bar-lguras have no place being brutes.

Then I gave Olangru a fly speed and gave him a special 1d6 extra damage every time he charged. IMO this should be the capstone fight for heroic. I imagine he'd have more than a few ranger levels.

In addition, once you get past Olangru, things become exceptionally easy to stat. Stating the volcano god would be a bit difficult, but the Crimson Dawn fight lends itself particularly well to the minion system, and the players won't have as much resources to say, turn into a hydra and sink the ships one by one. Vanthus is simply a high level Cambion ranger with a few fighter feats.

The avatars of demogorgon may give you a problem, as will the rest of the Temple with it's Save or Die traps where ever you look. The solution to that is altering the mechanic. After an attack on will, the characters take damage and lose healing surges.

Malcancethet can be handled as follows. She fell into the gaping maw in the astral sea that is the abyss, and quickly established power. Eventually, she did escape, but not before her betrayal was detected by Demogorgon, who trapped several of her succubi. Macancethet is striving to recover them.


It depends on your players. If they're my players, they're going to get bored going through a session without fighting, you will want to glaze over the gaps between the planned encounters.

However, if the players enjoy roleplaying, let them.

Basically let the players drive the sessions.


Although because the final magazine was super sized, the grand finale may have been improved because of the shutdown of the mag.


I'm skeptical about any encounter which pits the PCs against annoyingly powerful enemies that they aren't supposed to defeat. I would not suggest doing those things with Orcus.


Also, The characters with higher charismas are used to interacting with NPCs. They've generally built their characters around it, and welcome the idea. The low charisma character is surprised and may even say "Me? No, you mean the sorcerer. He's got a much higher charisma."


Could you send me the journal as well?

chris_lamere @ yahoo.com


Well, I'm running Tides of Dread now, and my characters have finished every encounter in twelve days, except for Temauhti-Tecuani and the retrieval of the Sea Wyvern. They see no reason to go to the tar pits, and have decided that a sea encounter

What should I do? I don't want the players to sit around for the rest of the adventure in farshore, waiting for something to happen.

I haven't let on that they may have finished everything on the island, because there's certainly more things. They haven't established any connection with the locals, and haven't

I also plan on having a subplot where a mysterious figure is murdering people within Farshore. Avner will have been driven mad by his captivity by Olangru, and begins sacrificing people and binding them together.

The players are also going on a diplomatic mission to the main enemies of the Crimson fleet who have a covert presence on the island.

now, i really want to work in Temauhti-Tecuani, but can't quite figure out a good way to do it. Any ideas?


My players have taken a liking to the ship and have decided to keep it as their own. However, the adventure didn't provide a very good description. I, while improving, came up with a sort of amalagrim of styles, trying to convey that it wasn't a very good ship. But, after I thought about it, I realized that the Hellfish was more appropriate for the second act. And in any case, the players spent far too long on the Sea Wyvern, so I'd like to reward them.


Speaking of Father Ferez, that was the ships cleric. He passed himself off as a cleric to Lavina, and so she was duped.

That said, if you want to have another cleric show up at Fort Blackwell, that's perfectly understandable.


I think that, at least for the purposes of Sea Wyvern's Wake, every ship should have a Pintel and Regetti character. For those unaware, these where the pair of comic relief pirates in the film "Pirates of the Carribean." Now, I'm not suggesting that these characters be focused on, or even follow the same patters as Masters Pintel and Regetti, but the idea of a humorous duo who become more important as time goes on is appealing to me. Another part of it was that while they were comical, they also were competent in combat.

Now I'm going to share my pair with you.

Axegrinder and Golthanok where once guards for the Kellani house. However, when the telepath Alexi tricked his way in, Kellani had the pair of them fired. While the two of them where looking for work, they heard that the Vanderboren house was hiring for a long sea voyage. Figuring that this was exactly what they needed to get away from the Kellani house for a while, the pair joined up, only to find to their surprise that the same Alexi who had got them fired was second in command on this ship!

Axegrinder is a dwarf from the Eastern Mountains. Well, that's what he tells folk anyway. In truth Axegrinder is a dwarf of Sasserine, born and bred. Fortunately for him, he has acquired a ring that allows him to float in any fluid, no matter what he carries. This allows him to travel over the sea for long periods of time without any fear of being drowned.

Golthanok was an orcish slave. Taken by the Plainsrunners at birth, Golthanok eventually killed his captor and escaped, teaching himself the intricacies of unarmed combat.

The fun part about this pair is that Golthanok the savage orc is Lawful Neutral and Axegrinder the noble dwarf is Chaotic Neutral, and they get along great.

Just a fun little duo that I threw in. They're now my players favorite NPCs.


Olangru is a Bar-Igura demon on the Isle of dread with teleportation abilities and such. He is the villain of issue 142. Since he is an ape, maybe he was accidentally reincarnated in ape form.

As to the actual Savage tide, perhaps Demogorgon initiated the fall of the angels and demons by activating the Savage tide, but this time his plan will cause the gods to fall to hell and the demons to ascend to heaven?


Wow! that sounds amazing and like a lot of fun!

Who's Olangru going to be represented by?

I'd simply set the IOD in South America. You may need to change the names of the gods depending upon your location, but otherwise that area is rich for IODish experiences.


Actually, it doesn't make that much of a difference, the main thing is the fact that the Players have less reason to rush to Lavina's aid during the Bullywug Gambit. If you wish, however, you can modify the adventure to make the Bullywugs attack the Lotus Dragons, as this was the last known position of Vanthus.

After that, you're pretty much home free, with the exception of Tides of Dread.


When a demon takes interest in a person because of their words, it usually goes something like this.

"Huh. You make a good point mortal. Let me finish slaughtering these other mortals and then we can talk."


Ah, I see.

If I wanted to use this method, what would be a good place to do it? Olangru?


Also, How will you lead them to the city of broken idols and the the lightless depths without Vanthus's journal?


The only problem I see here is getting Vanthus to rise from the dead to Capture Lavina, but otherwise it's looking very cool. Well done.


DMFTodd wrote:

Perhaps after killing the Captain, the Captain makes a deal to serve Demogorgon and he's brought back as one of the two generals. As a newcomer, he's hungry for power thus the willingness to betray the other general.

You mean... similar to Vanthus?

I don't like that. A bit to many Demonic Death Knights.


If you don't plan on using him, I would suggest including an agent of Kyuss following them (possibly with similar stats as the fabler). The Fabler's ability to teleport adds a lot to the final encounter, and it should be kept in.


Alternately, she could use a "scent bomb" made mostly of stuff found in the Kitchen. Spices and such.


In my Savage Tide Campaign, I am Restructuring the entire final Adventure so that it becomes a short trek over land to get to the inland sea to open the Witch Queens portal. The Sea wyvern sails out of the Gates, followed by hundreds of Eladrin ships and demonic hordes. The PCs hop on their ship. Every encounter is going to be ship based.


how would one trick the Gnoll god into drinking of the water?

Additionally, how would one introduce this plot hook? And what aid would he send?


Would you mind posting that list? I'm sure that after the sea wyvern crashes, my players will probably want to hire a new crew.


No, Pellas is the equivalent of Quetzecoatl. Kulas is the eighth of the Seven, from the city of broken idols.

I changed the Olmans viewpoint on the ocean, and decided that they believe that the sea is like the sky, but closer.


Not incarnations... They ARE the gods. They are not true gods, of course, they are just beings that have used excess divine power for their own gain.


My campaign has a very strict pantheon, and as such new deities are rare. However, in the ancient past before the rise of man or elf, eight creatures set off from their home and set out to create a haven for those who feared the gods. Using the still fresh magic used to create the world, these beasts made a place for beings like themselves.

Eventually man discovered the isle, and made their own civilization there. However, without the healing of the old gods, they where at a severe disadvantage. And so, in desperation, they began worshiping the monsters of the forest. And it worked.

Seven of the beasts swelled in power and such, save one. One stayed hidden and weak, biding its time and waiting to strike.

I don't like the idea of using actual south american gods, nor do I like the idea of them simply being variations of the base deities. So I created this.

Zotzilaha or Camazotz, god of bats
Pellatin: The Mother of all. She is the goddess of the sky, animals, sea, and fertility, and is the leader of the Olman pantheon. She loots like a huge scaled woman with the lower half of a snake and huge wings protruding from her back, with a face without eyes. Whenever Pellatin is displeased her face opens, and within is a giant eye. Anything the eye's gaze touches melts away from reality. It is said that she gave birth to everything on the isle, the insects, the dinosaurs, everything. Whatever the truth of this, she is constantly followed by an entorage of animals. She is represented statistically by an old green dragon.
Tzamoth god of rain and crops. Tzamoth is represented by a Kracken with the earth glide ability, and tentacles made of stone.
Sojamir, god of the moon and war. Sojamir has the statistics of a Dragon eel. It has a segmented body which glows with moonlight, and when it sleeps its shape represents the phase of the moon. Instead of a bite attack, it has a long spearlike protrusion. Instead of fins it has get propusion like a squid.
Tolijas. god of the sun. Tolijas is represented by a Dragon turtle who's shell burns like fire.
Zantellios, or the Snake Father, god of dreams, death and undeath. To sleep near the lair of Zantellios is to be plagued by nightmares. Zantellios is statistically represented by an intellegent, half farspawn scorpion
Gothamos: King of the Fire mountains. He is represented by a two headed pyroclastic T-rex. Instead of skin he has magma flowing beneath cracked volcanic rock.

The eighth god is known as Kulas. It was he who showed the other gods how to create an the isle, and they where thankful at the time.


My party decided to stash all their loot there for when they went to the free city, putting up an illusionary wall to hide it all.


Kruelaid wrote:
114. The Mobius Pit. Prominently, in the middle of this otherwise empty room is a pit that descends into darkness. Above the pit is another opening of the same size which rises into darkness. The pit is harmless, but if someone throws anything in it will soon reappear, falling upward into the hole above, then down again, quicly reaching terminal velocity. It will continue to fall up and down ad infinitum. Anyone who flies into the pit, up or down, will just keep returning to the room, just flipped around.

Now you're thinking in Portals.


See, Thing is I don't think he CAN go ithilid slayer. He has to destroy an ithilid singlehandedly, or something.

I think.


Its not so much a problem with BBEG, it's more an issue with the "big scary monsters." Either they're unhitable (will o wisp) or they're way to easy to beat (that demon thing in tamoachan)


My players have been breezing through the AP. I talked to my two most experienced players and they told me what the problem was. They are VERY good at single combat. Specifically the blaster mage. A single foe usually goes down against him quite easily. However, he's not prepared to face many foes (yet). I'm working on a pair of more difficult encounters, a goblin tribe in between tamoachan and the Climax of the campaign for the session before winter break, an encounter with a Pirate Alienist and his monstrous brother.

What are some other encounters that I can beef up with cannon fodder?


My players are in the midst of Sea Wyverns Wake, and they just reached level five. Yes, I know this is partially my fault, but they decided that scaling the wall to Lavina's room would be the better idea. I need an adventure idea. Preferably on an abandoned (or mostly abandoned) island. Anyone have an idea?


Big spoilers for the plattsburgh campaign. Don't read it.

Yes, I know, some people wonder "Why would you want this campaign to be MORE complex?" the real reason is that I didn't feel like it foreshadowed enough of the plot with the low level opponents.

Ok. So here's my quick summary.

Vanthus's story is going to stay mostly the same. I did, however, change the crimson fleet to a branch of the navy of the evil Empire that dominates my campaign world. Sassarine is a colony of these, and the lotus wished to change that.

I am, however, adding two new piratey vilians. Their story to follow.

Captain Domiel. Captain Domiel was the original captain of the Sea Wyvern. When his corpse was thrown overboard, he begged and pleaded with the nightmare lady of death, Latrodectus (orcus), and regained his life. He is bound and chained to the ship, but he is able to leave. (his chains are very long.) While he remains on the Phantom Wyvern, he is effectively a pseudonatural marlith, although he appears far different. When he leaves the ship, he regains the stats that he had as a mortal. Domiel has shown up in the SWW, and I plan on having him catch up with the players on Farshore and again at scuttlecove, as well as EoME and PoD, although to what capacity I'm unsure. However, he dislikes Vanthus much more than he dislikes the players, and so with some convincing the players will be able to set the powerful pirate against the crimson fleet. I will, of course, expand the fleet a bit if I let the phantom wyvern attack. His largest limitation is that the Phantom Wyvern can only sail at night. During the day the ship is dragged back to the plane of shadow. He stands against the savage tide. He will also be Latrodectus's messenger for the war council, and his ship will likely stand against Akatun in the Phantom Wyvern.

The second captain is a bit different. As a not, I am changing the aspect of Obonox-ob to Moth-igura, exiled from the world before this one. This change is to give Moth-igura a prescence in my campaign.

Captain Goran. Captain Goran was once a respected scholar in the Merchant states. Indeed, he did not need magic, he had money to pay people to do that for him. However, one day he discovered an ancient text. One that his translators refused to translate, and his mages refused to look at. Goran, however wanted to read it. So he pieced together the first chapter from fragments of translated text. After that, the entire book got a lot easier. He read it every night. He kept it under his pillow. The book was the tale of how the first world was created, and what spells where used to populate it. The knowledge of these spells cracked Goran's mind. He saw visions of the three mouthed one, Moth-igura. He knew that he needed to do something. To find something. And that something was in the sea.
Goran has learned about the savage tide, and indeed a large amount of his crew is infected with this disease. He believes that the large amount of madness in the world will cause it to revert to the last world. In LD he will be speaking with the Aboleths, they who have been here since the last world. They will learn about the impetus, who may or may not be the party sorcerer.

He may not be wrong.

I plan on using him in SWW, LD, EoME, and PoD.

Any suggestions on how best to use these guys? I'm planning on having Goran and his crew be a real threat to infecting places, and using Domiel as a kind of sheepdog, but using him sparingly and logically.


Yup. That's a good choice. Rolling or half. When my two d4ers asked about leveling up for the first time, they said "Do I roll or do I take half?" I told them to choose. One rolled a four. The other rolled a one.

Anyway.

My favorite variant is my critical miss system. It evolved from my rhagodesas rolling far to many ones. So instead of describing the rhagodesa trip and fall and dealing damage to itself, I simply gave the player it attacked an attack of opportunity. Soon I was doing this for all my monsters, even the ones with things that they can drop.

This rule works far less well against ranged attacks. The string usually snaps back and busts the bow.


PC: Alexi the Psion
Adventure: "The Bullywug gambit"
Location of Glory: The Lavina Mansion
Summary: Successfully bypassing nearly every encounter in the mansion.

The players where wounded after the battle in the streets, and had used some of their power points/spells. They knew they didn't have time to dilly dally and rest, so they where desperate. The psion, a telepath, lifted himself off the ground with levitate and hovered to Lavina's window where Tolin, the half-elf, Lavina, the halfling, Churtle, two bullywugs, a bullywug chieftan, and a half orc where in "A mexican standoff."

Alexi broke through the window and charmed Drevonaz. While Alexi attempted to talk him down, Tolin was readying to attack. He did so, and Alexi manifested recall pain, blaming the spell on Buo-Gorg.

The sides then began fighting each other due to failed diplomacy checks from either side. The party, who had by now entered the room, watched as Drevonaz dropped both the Bullywugs. Buo-gorg then stabbed him in the side, slaying him outright.

It was quite entertaining. And, because I didn't want the players to feel like they couldn't turn to anyone but themselves (bad precident for the end of the AP) the guard showed up and arrested the tribesmen.

Also, during the beginning of the bullywug gambit, the new elf ranger who dual-wielded a bastard sword and a short sword. He battled the savage creatures, consistantly missing with his bastard sword. At first we didn't notice it, but eventually it was more and more clear.

His shortsword was lucky.

Every time he swung it, it seemed to connect. He even switched dice, saying that "The blue one is now the bastard sword." The next roll, the blue one rolled a five and the black one rolled an 18.

And that is how Surestrike was born. I made his shortsword a masterwork weapon.


I'd be partial to something that's been suggested before in other threads. Have her show up in Scuttlecove running a Diner or something.


Well My players got the exact wrong impression during the second half of the bullywug gambit. Harliss Jarvell told the players that Vanthus jumped off the ship and swam away. They took this to mean that Vanthus would be coming back shortly with a crew of savage pirates to attack Sasserine.

How should I alleviate this?


Heh. I'm not sure that will work quite as well as suspected. It is a Pirate campaign that we're talking about here. So maybe making a noble NPC is similar to painting a big X on the NPC.


My Party originally hated Lavina, mostly because she was a noble. But shortly after hating her, I had her help them with the puzzle in the Vault. Of course, they didn't get XP for the puzzle, but that helped a lot in redeeming her in the eyes of the players.

I believe one player's quote was,

"You're actually competent?"


Because that's what they where created to do. They where designed to guide people through the dreamrealms, before the existence of the Fey, the eladrins, or the equivalent of the tan'ari (there where still major and minor nightmares which haunted the dreams of mortals since the beginning.)

The split is representative of the geography of the dreamrealms. On one side is the beautiful eladrin, and on the other is the monstrous nightmares. Between is the ocean of thought.

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