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My wife and I have a friend who is deaf and we're thinking about inviting her to our game. While my wife can sign pretty well, my signing skills are pretty rudimentary and the other players at the table don't sign at all. My question is, has anyone here had deaf players at the table in a situation like this, and if so, what did you do to help the hearing and deaf players communicate with one another and how did you help everyone feel included? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.
In order to avoid repeating myself, I think the best place to start is here. Once you're finished reading, follow the link I include in the top of my blog post, or just click the following link. Once you're done reading, please let me know what you think. In particular, I'd like to know if there's anything that you think seems broken. If you'd like to post sample spells crafted using this system, that would be really cool too.
I just posted a new class to my blog. I'd like to get some feedback on it. The link is provided below. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
So while I'm technically DMing a 4E game for one group, I'm now playing a character in another campaign, and in many respects it seems like playing a character is a totally different beast, and right now I'm struggling to understand how you're supposed to calculate damage. For example, let's say I'm playing a 14th level character with a 22 Wis, and I have a power that says it deals 1[W] + Wis modifier damage. However, on my character sheet, I have two Wisdom modifiers. I have my base modifier (+6), and I have my level modifier (+13). I looked under the rules for modifiers in the first chapter of the PHB, and it seems to suggest I should use the latter. However, the group I'm playing with thinks it should be the former. Which one is it?
My wife and I both got a good chuckle. :-)
I find it a little surprising that people who complain about point buy often say that it allows players to min/max their characters. It surprises me because our group actually started using point buy in order to prevent players from min/maxing. For example, we noticed that DMs rarely expected players to keep their ability scores if they rolled poorly, because it put them at a disadvantage compared to players who rolled well. We also noticed that DMs never expected players to roll again when they rolled exceptionally high on their ability scores. Because of this, we noticed players in our games often wound up with characters that had ability scores far higher than anything they would have had if they had used point buy. I'm curious to know what sorts of experiences people have had with point buy. Have you noticed that it results in min/maxed characters, or have you noticed the opposite? Let me know.
Nevermind. Found it.
I guess some people didn't want to post on my thread because they didn't want to mess up its organization. Here's a thread you can use to comment.
I figure people can use this thread to post pics of their Dwarven Forge reconstructions of the Age of Worms Adventure Path Battle Temple of Hextor Module: Three Faces of Evil (Dungeon #125) Sets used:
Overhead Shot
The room is about 20 feet (4 squares) shorter than the one from the module. I'm sure you can guess that this is entirely because I started to run out of pieces.
One of the players in my group is playing a wizard, and she asked me if her character could have a pet squirrel. I thought it was a cool idea, and wanting to make the game enjoyable for her, I told her yes. I then put together a stat block for the creature, based on the rules for creating companion characters from the DMG2 (see below). I told her that for right now, the squirrel is just a pet, and that if she wants to use it to attack other creatures, or the like, she'll need to use Handle Animal to teach it tricks. Of course, now that I sent this out to her, I'm worried that it might be a little much. I'm also worried about what happens if the rest of the party starts asking for pets. This is particularly a concern since I'm running Age of Worms in 4E, and the party hasn't found the baby owlbear yet. I've thought about maybe adding in additional rules (like maybe she needs to make a Nature skill check to get it to perform a trick it knows). However, given that I've never even run a 4E game before, I'm not certain if that's necessary, or if it would just be better to let her run it the way it is. What has been your experience with giving players pets in 4E? Does it unbalance the game? Let me know. Squirrel (Level 1 Striker)
Bite (standard; at-will)
Agile
Alignment Unaligned Languages —
Campaign Hook: "In the Age of Worms Adventure Path, all of the players begin play as residents of Diamond Lake who share one common goal—escaping to a better life once certain financial obligations have been met." This is the background for players as presented in the Age of Worms Adventure Path. The assumption is that players will want to explore the Whispering Cairn and use the treasure they find there to leave Diamond Lake. This sounds like a pretty good adventure hook, as it provides incentive and gives players some great ideas for character creation. However, after playing through the Age of Worms campaign three times, I have to say, it doesn't always work out as well as you'd think. In the first two games I played, the DM used this adventure hook exactly as written, and the players all created characters with a burning desire to leave Diamond Lake. In both games, everything proceeded just fine until the PCs traveled to the Land Family Graveyard and discovered that someone had taken all of the Land Family bodies to Diamond Lake. At this point, both games ground to a halt."You mean we have to go back to the town?" The players whined. "You realize I wrote into my background that my character doesn't ever want to go back there, right?" The players then debated over whether it was worth it to continue exploring the Whispering Cairn, or if they should just take the lanterns they found in the Hall of Honor, and sell them in Free City. This is, of course, when the DM chimed in. "The adventure assumes that you guys will remain in Diamond Lake for several adventures. If you travel to Free City now, you're basically blowing the whole adventure." The players grumbled amongst themselves, a few of them even saying that their characters would just stay behind and wait for the rest of the party to come back. However, after some careful coaxing from the DM, who went on to explain that the whole second module also takes place in Diamond Lake, the players reluctantly decide to play along. In both of these campaigns, the games eventually fell apart somewhere around the second module. The third time I played, however, the DM decided to ignore the adventure hook listed in the module, and instead, created a wizard NPC, named Olaus. In this adventure hook, Olaus is a mutual friend of the PCs who lives just outside of Diamond Lake. Olaus sends a letter to each member of the party to come visit him for a dinner party. The players agree to go and are greeted by Olaus's servant, Jiles, who escorts them into the dining room. There, they are ambushed by a band of rogues. Eventually, the players learn that Olaus has been killed by the rogues, and that Jiles is actually a doppelganger member of their gang in disguise. They also discover papers in Olaus's office that talk about the Whispering Cairn. Now there were some big plot holes in this introduction. First and foremost, what are the rogues doing there? If they're there to steal Olaus's stuff, why didn't they just kill him, take his stuff, and leave? It also seemed a little contrived that Olaus just happened to get attacked by bandits some time between sending the letters and the PCs' arrival, and that the bandits just happened to have a doppelganger in their party who could disguise himself as Olaus's servant, Jiles. That said, it was interesting enough that I decided to go with the basic premise of this introduction, with a few minor changes. In my campaign, I decided to make Olaus an expert on the study of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa. Through research, he stumbles across a reference to the Age of Worms prophecy and belaboring to understand the role that the Wind Dukes’ played in it, he traveled to Free City in order to conduct further research. There, while poring over ancient records of the city’s Great Library, Olaus ran afoul of the Ebon Triad. Barely escaping from the city with his life, Olaus returned home, where he immediately penned a letter to the PCs. Sadly, Sharlin, a doppelganger assassin, accompanied by several Ebon Triad Cultists, got to Olaus first. There, Sharlin killed all of Olaus’s servants, and for several days interrogated the old wizard under torture. During the interrogation, Sharlin learned of the letter Olaus wrote to the PCs. Now, disguised as Olaus, Sharlin waits for the PCs to arrive. I like this introduction because it ties everything together quite neatly; even going so far as to introduce the doppelgangers from Free City, who don't come in for several adventures. I also like that it gives the PCs an opportunity to meet Allustan, who played a big part in our games, but who, for the life of me, I can't remember how we met. Running the Game: I decided to divide this introduction into two encounters. The first encounter occurs, as it did in my friend's game, in Olaus's dining room. Sharlin, disguised as Olaus, decides to raise a toast to their mutual friendship. Only then, when the PCs are poisoned by the wine, does she call for the Ebon Triad cultists, who are hiding in the kitchen, along with the doppelganger disguised as Jiles. The second encounter occurs in Olaus's study. There a couple of cultists, assisted by an Ebon Triad priest, search for any notes Olaus might have on the Age of Worms prophecy. If Sharlin escapes from the first combat, she is here as well. If the PCs defeat the cultists, they eventually discover Olaus's notes about the Whispering Cairn. They also learn about Allustan (Diamond Lake, Dungeon #124), with whom Olaus planned to explore the tomb. This introduction worked pretty well. The PCs each created backgrounds explaining how their characters knew Olaus. It was also nice to open the game immediately with a little combat. Finally, I have to say that I really enjoyed the looks on the players' faces when I had them make saving throws for the poisoned wine. "See?" one player cried. "This is exactly why you can't trust the NPCs!" Unfortunately, because the players spent the first half of the night working on character creation, they didn't get to the second encounter. Not that it mattered. The party was so injured from the first encounter that it's unlikely they would have made it through another fight (see below for details). Things I Learned: Running a game in 4E is really nothing like running a game in 3.5. For starters, in 3.5, the game assumes that the PCs will need to rest after roughly four encounters (a little less if the encounter levels are higher than the party's level). Thinking in those terms, I thought that I would create a really challenging encounter for the first room, and a second encounter that would be pretty easy by itself, but which assumed that Sharlin might make an appearance. I thought that if I designed the encounters this way, it would make for a pretty challenging introduction, but one that wasn't so challenging that it would kill the party. With that in mind, I designed the two encounters thus: Dining Room
Olaus's Study
What I didn't take into consideration is that in 4E, if you have different monster groups all interacting with one another, you should really treat the whole thing as one, giant encounter. The reason for this is because the players typically take a short rest after every encounter in order to regain healing surges and encounter powers. Unfortunately, I didn't take these factors into consideration. As a result, what I thought would be a fairly well balanced pair of encounters turned into an uber encounter that nearly killed one party member, and left all the players so spent on powers that they had to barricade themselves into the dining room to keep out Sharlin and the cultists from Olaus's Study while they rested. If I had this encounter to do again, I would probably lower Sharlin's and Jiles' levels and design it thus: Olaus's House
That said, I think it worked out. While the PCs were resting, Sharlin and the other cultists ran off, presumably to regroup. I haven't decided exactly what will happen next, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Sharlin and her gang make an appearance at some point in the catacombs of the Whispering Cairn. :P
A friend of mine asked me to DM for a new group he's forming, so I wrote back, that I'd love to, that I've been wanting to run the Age of Worms campaign for a while, and that this would give me a chance to do that. I then went and downloaded all of the modules. Perhaps I should have waited because later, he wrote me back and said, "You realize we're playing 4E, right?" Anyway, rather than eating 60 bucks, I decided to try and convert the Age of Worms to 4E. I've already converted the first module with no problems. However, I'm working on the second one and I have a question. In the Citadel of Hextor, there are a lot of different groups in different rooms who try to lure the PCs into the Battle Temple of Hextor. There, they have a pretty epic battle with all the different groups attacking the PCs at once. Now this works fine in 3.5, since a party can basically go through five encounters before they need to replenish resources for the day. However, since resources in 4E are encounter based, and since each of these encounters occurs one right after the other, I'm worried that if I try to bring multiple encounters together like this, it will be too much for the party. Now I've thought of a few ways to overcome this problem. One is to give the PCs an opportunity to recharge their encounter powers throughout the combat the way some monsters do by rolling a 5 or a 6. Another is to just count up the number of individual encounters in the temple and allow the PCs to use their encounter powers that many times. Still another is to adjust the levels of the cultists so that all of the encounters are treated as one large encounter. Personally, I like the first option the best because I think it prevents the players from just burning through their encounter powers all at once. However, if they don't roll those numbers often enough, it could turn into a blood bath, which is why I'm thinking maybe I should give them all their encounter powers up front. Personally, I don't like the last option at all, because if the players are smart and are somehow able to take the different groups on one at a time, it will be way too easy for them. However, maybe that's the way to go. Since this is really my first ever 4E game, I'm curious to know what others think. How would you handle this combat scenario?
I'm a little fuzzy on generating new ability scores for monsters from scratch. The DMG says that the highest ability scores for a monster should be 13 + one half the monster's level, or 16 + one half the monster's level if it governs the monster's primary attack. However, it doesn't tell you what the lowest scores should be. Right now, I just find a monster in the D&D Monster Builder that looks about right for the role I want, strip out all of its powers, and then add in powers that I think are appropriate. However, I want to know how to do it from scratch. That way, I can better understand how to build my own without working off the backs of others.
I'm writing a story right now, and I have a character in it whose wife has just asked him for a divorce. Although I've had no problem understanding this character up to this point, I find I'm having difficulty getting into his head space now that the moment has finally arrived. Unfortunately, I don't know very many people my age who have gone through divorce, and the ones who have, I don't know very well, so I feel uncomfortable asking them about it. That's why I'm turning to the boards. I figure there are at least a few of you who have been through divorce, and I'm hoping I can get your perspectives on it. Here are some questions I'm trying to grapple with right now. What was your first thought after the divorce? Were you upset with yourself? Were you angry at your spouse? Did you fret about finances? Did you wonder about the future? Right now, I feel like my character is just surprised that life goes on. For example, he hears kids playing out in the street and he reflects on the incongruity of such joy contrasted against his own misery. At the same time, though, I'm having difficulty trying to figure out what happens next. What was the first thing you did afterward? I feel like my character would call his buddy and want to get out of the house. However, I don't know what they do once they get out of the house. For example, what do they talk about? Personally, I'd just want to sit on my buddy's couch and talk for hours (it's what I do now when I get into an argument with my wife). However, my character who is going through the divorce also has a six month old kid, and kids typically don't sit still for long. Maybe they could go for a walk, or something. Hmm... How did you and your spouse deal with the interim period between one or both of you moving out? How did you handle things like showers, meals, and TV? Personally, I can't imagine my character would want to spend much time with his wife after she told him she wants a divorce. However, when you share the same refrigerator with someone, it's hard to maintain your physical and/or emotional distance. That, to me, is probably the most confusing thing. How do these two characters interact with one another now that they're no longer a couple, but still living under the same roof? Any thoughts that you're willing to share about these questions, or any personal stories you might want to share about your own experiences, would be a great help. Thanks.
Min/Maxing is so over done. I think it's time to start a new trend. In this thread, we will try to create the most underpowered character possible. Using 25 point buy, and any sourcebook you'd like, try and create the weakest 10th level character imagineable. Someone so weak, that they have trouble lifting the milk carton out of the fridge. Okay, go!
You become more adept at fighting with a weapon in each hand. You can make one extra attack with the second weapon for each attack. Prerequisite: Dex 15. Benefit: Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced. The penalty for your primary hand lessens by 2 and the penalty for your off hand lessens by 6. Except when making attacks of opportunity, whenever you make an attack with you main hand, whether with a standard action or a full attack, you may make an attack with your offhand. These off-hand attacks suffer the same penalty as the main hand. When making a standard attack with two weapons, you apply precision based damage (such as from sneak attack) to only one of the attacks. Normal: If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. When fighting in this way you suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. If your off-hand weapon is light the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.) Special: A 2nd-level ranger who has chosen the two-weapon combat style is treated as having Two-Weapon Fighting, even if he does not have the prerequisite for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.
In case you don't know, the economic theories of Friedrich von Hayek and John Maynard Keynes are the ones that Republicans and Democrats frequently use (and often distort) to defend their own economic theories. For example, if you hear the Democrats talking about using defecit spending to boost the economy during a recession, they're paying homage to the theories proposed by Keynes. On the other hand, if you hear Republicans talking about free markets, and the dangers of government control over the economy, they're relying on theories promoted by Hyaek. Spike TV recently put together a rap video of these two economic theorists. It's pretty old school. Check it out.
This is one of those things that has bothered me for years, but I have yet to get a definitive answer. I hope someone here can help me out. The book says that crafting a construct is the same as crafting any other magic item. However, take a look at the clay golem. If you assume that it's a continuous magic item, with multiple abilities, its minimum price should be 421,500 gp (including the cost of the body). Yet the Monster Manual says 40,000 gp. So what's the deal? What am I missing?
"Topics That Don't Belong Anywhere Else" That's what it says at the top of the Off-Topic Board. I think that's discriminatory. Our topics belong here! They are positive, and fruitful (sometimes), and they don't deserve to be treated like outcasts. We need a different phrase to describe our off topics. Something that is less pejorative, and more... uplifting. The time for change is now! Who's with me? :D
Regardless of what your stance is on the current healthcare debate in the U.S., I think the following report, produced by NPR's "All Things Considered," requires a listen. The Telltale Wombs of Lewistion, Maine Note: I don't want this thread to turn into a debate about single payer heathcare plans. I also don't want it to turn into a debate about President Obama's proposals for a public option. This thread is dedicated solely to the discussion of waste in the current U.S. healthcare system, whether doctors should be paid on a fee-for-service basis, and/or whether the legislation currently being debated by the two houses can help prevent the kinds of unnecessary procedures mentioned in this report. If you want to debate single payer options, or President Obama's proposed public option, kindly take it somewhere else. Thanks. Additional Note: Try to keep the discussion civil. :)
My wife and I are traveling up to Washington in late October. Since we're going to be in the area anyway, I was wondering if Paizo or Wizards do tours of their facilities. If they do, I was wondering if it costs anything, if I need to make an appointment, if there are fast pass kiosks that I need to be aware of, etc. If anyone has any information that might prove useful, I'd appreciate it. Take care.
I am not a Creationist. I find the evidence for natural selection and a 5 billion year old earth much more compelling than the evidence for creationism and a 6,000 year old earth. I think the 'water canopy' theory used to explain Noah's flood is fallacious. I think the idea that Job 40:15-18 describes a dinosaur is ridiculous. If someone tells me that carbon dating showed an allosaurus bone to be much younger than 65 million years, I politely point out that carbon dating cannot be used to date objects older than 60,000 years. On the other hand, I do not find Christianity, to be a threat to science. Pseudoscience wrapped in Christian trappings, yes, but not Christianity. A person can believe in God, yet accept that science can offer no proof of his existence. A person can accept the wisdom of Genesis, without believing in its literal truth. The Bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. If you cannot see God, then you cannot prove that he exists. That does not mean that you cannot accept the idea that science can prove other things. It simply means that you cannot use science to prove the existence of God. As long as you accept that fact, as long as you can accept that science cannot prove faith, then you can have faith in God and still accept the validity of science. Yet many atheists seem to believe that religion is anathema to science. They seem to believe that people who believe in God do not, or cannot, accept the validity of science. I find fault with that line of reasoning. Just because you recognize that God cannot be proved by science, does not mean that you reject science's validity. Just because you find power and meaning in the written words of the Bible does not mean that you cannot feel awe and humility when gazing at the cosmos or studying nucleic acids. Science and religion both have power, they both have meaning, and just because they operate in separate spheres does not make one any more or less valid than the other. I am a Buddhist. However, I don't believe that the Buddha's mother, Maya, was literally impregnated by a white elephant who entered her side. In fact, I question whether the Buddha's mother was even named 'Maya.' I understand that the elephant is a symbol of divine wisdom and truth. I also understand that the name 'Maya' is a Hindu word for illusion. I read this story metaphorically. I read it as saying truth impregnates and is born from illusion. What truth there is in that. How well it describes religion. Yet many atheists cannot see this truth. They see the story, but they do not see the metaphors. As such, they see my faith as a delusion, a psychosis. They think I delude myself by finding meaning in the story. It reminds me of what Christ told his disciples when they asked him why he speaks in parables. He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'" (Mark 4:11-4:12) Many atheists see the problems with religious fanaticism, but they often fail to see the problems with anti-religious fanaticism. They believe that atheism is enlightened, and that religion is not. They point to the atrocities of religion as evidence to support their claims. But they forget that it was atheists who exiled the Dalai Lama from Tibet. They forget that it was atheists who raised the Iron Curtain. In a debate with Christopher Hedges, called "Is God Great?" Christopher Hitchens, a well known spokesperson for atheism, said of the Iraq War, "[The soldiers in Iraq] are guarding you while you sleep, whether you know it or not. And they're also creating space for secularism to emerge, and you better hope that they are successful." I do not know what to think of the Iraq war, but I find the idea that it is some sort of crusade (and I use that word deliberately) for atheism to be a very chilling one indeed. I am an agnostic. As such I think there are very good reasons to doubt the existence of God. I think there are very good reasons to doubt the existence of the supernatural. I cannot say definitively whether either exist, but I cannot say definitively that they do not exist either. I see both as not proved. Yet many atheists and theists see this position as indecisive. They believe that the evidence is already there, and that I must accept one position or the other, or I am ignorant. I think that this is a flawed analysis. After all, we don't know everything. We don't know where matter comes from. We don't know if there are other universes. We don't know what dark matter is, and we don't know if there is life on other planets. With all of this ignorance, how can we say definitively, one way or another, about something as unknowable as God? At the same time, I do not feel threatened by atheism. I do not feel threatened by theism. I cannot say that either is right, or either is wrong, because I have not had the same experiences as other people. I have never felt the power of God filling my heart. I have never seen conclusive proof that God does not exist. However, I do not doubt that people have religious experiences. I do not doubt that people find arguments against God's existence compelling. In some ways, I even envy people who have these experiences, because I imagine that such certainty is fulfilling. I do not believe that an ideology should be judged by its zealots. I believe that all ideologies are only as enlightened as the people who espouse them. I think we need to recognize these truths, and not clutch so tightly to our own ideologies when we are confronted with ones that we don't understand. We need to listen, we need to be compassionate. That doesn't mean we can't speak out against bigotry, zealotry, or demagoguery. We just need to be aware of what we're saying, and not resort to these same tactics ourselves.* Otherwise, we become what we hate. We become the zealots that we wish to eradicate, and we fail to see the humanity that lies in all of us. *I speak of me here too. :-)
Your fans and critics are filling up my favorite discussion board with too many memorial threads! That is all.
Why do they ask you to punch in your telephone number, medical record number, AAA membership number, etc., if they're just going to ask you for it when they get you on the phone? Why do they interrupt the music every thirty seconds to tell you that their operators are still assisting other callers? The fact that you're listening to music, as opposed to actually talking to someone, should be a pretty good indication that you haven't been assisted yet. When they give you nine different options to choose from, and none of those options are what you want, why is there never a tenth option to connect with an operator? After you've successfully navigated your way through their automated voice system, why is it that some companies only pick up long enough to say, "Can you please hold?" On that note, why do they ask you, "Can you please hold?" Like if you say "no," they're going to help you right there and then. Riiiiiight! Anyway, these are things I wonder about whenever I get an automated answering system.
I'll admit it. I'm a literary snob. Every year, I read On Walden Pond, by Henry David Thoreau. My favorite author is John Fowles. I read Leo Tolstoy for fun. If I enjoy a book, I'll sometimes go to the library and look up literary essays on the subject. If I really enjoy a book, I'll sometimes write an essay of my own. The thing is, I don't go around recommending that people read what I like to read. For example, I don't tell people that they need to read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I recognize that what I read is not necessarily something that other people are likely to read or enjoy. Also, I don't get offended when people say they don't like what I read. For example, I don't get all huffy when my friends say they can't get through Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation. I recognize that it's a dense text, and it's not to everyone's liking. That's why I don't understand people who get all upset when I say I don't like fantasy. Seriously, I've read enough fantasy to know that I don't like the genre. That doesn't mean I look down on the people who do like it, and it doesn't mean that I think they should stop reading it. It just means that I don't like it myself. Now of course, there are exceptions. For example, I enjoy Tolkien's writing, I like The Neverending Story, and I love Neil Gaiman's Stardust. However, as much as I can appreciate the quality of writing in an author like Ursula K. Leguin, I just can't get into her writing. To me, the fantasy in her stories is just way too high to suspend my disbelief for long.* And that's Ursula K. Leguin! A lot of fantasy authors, I find, just aren't good authors. They write formulaic stories, with shallow characters, and they use a vocabulary that's aimed at somewhere around 5th grade. That's not to say that I think there's something wrong with people who like that sort of thing. Some people prefer stories with great plot over great character development. However, that's just not my cup of tea. Also, it's not like fantasy novels are the only thing I don't like. For example, I don't like romance novels, either. However, people don't give me a hard time because I won't read Sandra Brown's latest romance novel. They only give me a hard time when I won't read R.A. Salvatore's. Seriously, am I not allowed to say that I don't like something without people acting like I'm throwing down some gauntlet in the name of literary integrity.? Just because I won't read the Wheel of Time series at your recommendation, does not mean I look down on your reading, or think that my reading habits are better than yours. It just means that I have enough experience with the fantasy genre to know that I probably won't enjoy it, any more than you're likely to enjoy Rene Girard's essay, "Triangular Desires of Don Quixote." And just for the record, I absolutely despise anyone who says that I can't read for enjoyment. I'm sorry, but I don't read Dante's Inferno in order to torture myself. I read it because I enjoy it. So let me read what I want to read without feeling guilty about not reading what you want me to read. End of rant. *Note: I don't know why I find LeGuin's fantasy harder to swallow than Tolkien's. I just do.
I just want to say thank you for providing such an amazing web-based community. Seriously, I can't tell you how nice it is to talk again with people who enjoy the same game I do, and not have it turn into an argument. I also think it's amazing how I can discuss other issues I'm passionate about (like politics, science, and religion) with people in the Off-Topic forums and not have it erupt into a flame-war. Finally, I think it's great how active you all are in the web-based community. The fact that you take the time to answer questions, address concerns, and take feedback into serious consideration, makes me feel like you are doing everything you can to make the game that we all enjoy even better. Thank you.
An interesting article on using Wikipedia to teach writing. Thoughts?
I'm honestly not sure why they didn't change this when they came out with 3.5. After all, they changed the name of teleport without error to greater teleport. Why didn't they change the name of this spell as well? However, let's not dwell on the past. The future is now, and it's name is greater darkness! That is all.
The modules are pretty explicit about the fact that the Blessed Angels are not Kyuss's minions(which is why the are unaffected by Manzorian's dimensional lock on the city). However, it's not really clear why they've chosen to work for Lashonna or, by extension, Kyuss? So what do you think their motivation is in all of this? Why would a lawful evil race dedicated to harvesting souls for use in the Blood War want to release a chaotic evil god dedicated to destroying all life? It seems a little counterintuitive, don't you think? I'm asking this question more because I'm trying to write them into my own epic continuation of the Age of Worms campaign. I do have some of my own ideas, of course. However, I'm curious to know what others think. Let me know.
A player in my group has this item, and I have to say, it's a real headache to deal with. Here are some of my problems with it. -While the item restricts players' movement, it doesn't really matter. My players get together inside the 10-foot cube, one of them casts dimension door, and they all move across the battle field to where they want to go before unloading. -The item is way too useful. All it takes is one standard action and suddenly, the players are all but invincible against my monsters' most potent attacks. -There's almost nothing I can do to shut it down. Granted, 30 points of damage takes off one charge, and spells, like disintegrate take off 6. However, when the item has 36 charges, and it only takes 6 charges to activate the item's most powerful ability, even if I have a sorcerer casting disintegrate every round, and two golems doing 30 points of damage each round, that's still 4 rounds where my monsters are completely ineffective. Meanwhile, my players are either busy spelling up inside the cube, or busy killing my monsters off, so I can't spend the entire combat beating on the cube until it comes down, even if I wanted to. -The item is way too cheap for what it does. For 62,000 gp the player can be immune to damage from all magical attacks, all nonlinving matter, all living matter, or just plain everything. Compare that to a robe of eyes, which costs 120,000 gp, and grants the user darkvision 120 ft, a +10 bonus to Perception checks, some rogue abilities, and has the downside that a player can't avert their eyes from gaze attacks. So I'm asking people, how do you deal with it? To me, this item seems to be artifact level, and yet it's something that any reasonably high level PC can afford quite easily. Meanwhile, I've tried throwing everything I can think of at this thing, from beholders, to undead, to purple worms, to giant spellcasters, and nothing even phases it. Help!
This isn't a request to revisit the power level of the spell. I have no problem with the power level of this spell, either in 3.5 or in Pathfinder. What I have a problem with is how this spell works mechanically. Personally, I think the mechanics of this spell are too complicated. I used this spell once in 3.5, and it took about twenty to thirty minutes to resolve its effects as players rolled for every item, and struggled to understand the rules for magic item saving throws. Granted, I haven't had any experience using this spell in Pathfinder, but mechanically, the spell isn't that much different, so I don't really think that matters. Here are some ideas that I think should be discussed. -The rules for magic item saving throws need to be revisited and made simpler. As is, it's a real pain when players with low Will saves have to look up the caster level of every single magic item on their character sheet in order to determine whether their personal saving throws are higher than their magic items. -The spell should disjoin all spells, consumable items, and unattended magic items automatically. Permanent magic items must make their saves individually or be disjoined. -The spell should disjoin all spells automatically. All magic items must make a d% roll equal to the spell's caster level or be disjoined. -The spell disjoins all spells and unattended magic items automatically. Attended items must make a Will save equal to their owner's or be disjoined. Now I'm sure there are other ideas about how this spell could work, many of which are better than the ones presented here. I'm also sure there are people who think there's nothing wrong with the way the spell works now, and that's fine. However, I think the rules for this spell should at least be reexamined, even if the final decision is to leave things the way they are.
Shoot! I meant to make Cheat Death a general feat for the boards. I made it epic for my game because, well, it's an epic level game. |
