Dwarfakin's page

Well thanks for all the suggestions. But i did neglect to mention that this tower like mountain is dug into the side of a cliff, with select parts visible,(i.e the roof, a window or two)so having the kobolds digging into things is entirely within reason. I really like the idea of the swarms. I never would have thought to weaponize bees. any other weapon suggestions for ordinary objects?

IMHO, AC is effective to a certain point then becomes useless. Yes you may have a 42 AC, but the BBEG has a +43 to hit. At a certain point in the game your AC is not important against the BBEG, but is essential to protect yourself from his minions that nickel and dime you to death. Cause its not always the boss you need to worry about.

Greetings! I have a home campaign that requires deadly kobolds that are on par with Tucker's Kobolds. The party consists of (all lvl 10 BTW);

Jerrick, Human Oracle/Paladin/Holy Vindicator

Elthane, Half-Elf Two Weapon Ranger (Guide variant)

Nana, Gnome Druid (Pack lord...lots of goats)

and the lvl 4 NPC which is Jerrick's squire.

The fluff is, that there is this tower like complex that is ancient, and belonged to a great kobold hero. (and is now a Mecca to most kobold)
This complex was found by juvenile blue dragon. To enslave the kobolds that worked there way to this tower, he polymorphed himself into the shape of this heroic kobold,(using the paintings as reference) and convinced them that he is awesome. So now these kobolds are becoming entrenched into this complex in order to defend their hero, and are willing to use any maniacal and painful ways to keep their hero alive.

So, I have tunnels that only fit kobolds, and murder holes, and oil in the ceiling, but what other menacing ideas can you guys help me out with to make my players rue the day they became level 10?

don't fight monsters with swallow whole?

So animated objects have hardness as opposed to damage reduction.
is hardness effectively the same the thing as DR game mechanic wise?

scrolls. lots and lots of scrolls. or wands even

Well i saw some other options in this thread that i might use to tweak the scenario. But i know my players. While yes the majority of the party is CN only the rogue would make an evil choice willingly. The CN striker in the party doesn't feel any remorse for anything that he kills as long as they attack first. He also has a soft spot for kids since he was abused as a child and would want to protect them. The druid is CN but does whatever is on her whim. She doesn't really like violence and tries to avoid it. So i guess this scenario is really geared towards all of them. It's just that the pally was singled out to do the killing blow. The paladin was an orphan raised in the church so he doesn't much of a family but i guess i could take the members of his church that he built and "murder his family" that way to get a more singular way to challenge the pally. And i have a BBEG lined up that could do it. I mean the pally is being hunted by a Anti-Pally from the rival church. An anti-pally would do something to that effect wouldn't he?

The way i read it, is that unless you have special abilities that monks and rogues have the potential of getting, you can't stand as a free action that doesn't provoke using acrobatics. What you can do is use acrobatics to "roll" backwards (5' only)away from your opponent as a move action (DC= Enemy's CMD) and stand up as a second move action, thus out of reach and unable to be struck by the enemy.

I read that in the core book somewhere...just can't remember where.

but how to do so? Still a baby GM so fill me with ideas!

think the Joker from the Dark Knight. A madman that wants the one that stands for justice and law to break and crumble. To fall in the way of chaos. The way the world was first intended. The world was not created with laws and morals. It just was, until people started to impliment law and order. He is trying to break influential people to cause society to crumble. Hence he kidnapped the noble's son. As well as any other hostages he may or may not have.

The paladin has built a church to his deity in the major city that they are in. The rest of the party has done some influential things but were low key about it. Therefor they do not have the reputation that the pally has. which is why he was singled out a bit more than the rest of the party although the rest of the PCs were tested.

actually he is. 3 CN and a LG pally. What a party.

Ok so a lot of people don't like my scenario. Well lets see what we can do to fix it. And hey i might like yours better than mine. So the the BBEG evil guy will be testing the PCs as individuals. They rest of the party isn't in real danger at the time of the test. So i ask you internet peers, i want a moral challenge for a paladin that isn't going throw the entire internet into a frenzy.

So internet, challenge accepted?

The way i built mine was Fighter 6/Wizard 4/ AA 10.

The way it worked out was that by the time i was able to put a fireball on an arrow was right when i hit Level 13. That's just me though.

As for feats i loaded up on combat specific feats for my bow until my first level of wizard. Then i started taking magic based feats. Really its all up to you how you build it. This is just how i built mine.

STR 16
DEX 20
CON 14
INT 16
WIS 12
CHA 12

Helf-elf (+2 went into dex)

1st level feats
Point-Blank Shot
Precise Shot

2nd
Rapid Shot

3rd
Weapon Focus

4th
Weapon Spec

5th
Deadly Aim

6th
Many-Shot

7 First Level of Wizard
Clustered Shot

9th
Craft Wonderous

11th
Craft Arms & Armor

13th
Mounted Combat

15th
Mounted Archery

17th
Leadership

19th
Improved Precise Shot

Now the feats that i used past Level 11 weren't part of my original game plan but when you get a flying mount, and you need to build an army, to fight an ancient evil, sometimes you need to alter your feat tree to meet the need. But hey it was an excellent campaign. Anyway, i'm not sure if this actually helped or not. You could probably ignore level 11 and up for my build but that is what i did. I had planned on taking metamagic feats in place of the ones i have but you know how it goes.

The BBEG does pick on the rest of they party earlier in the dungeon, again testing their moral code. The paladin however is the only one that has ill effects should he choose wrong. Which is why i brought this topic up. Which I may rework the scenario a bit cause in the other tests of morality no real threat is directed toward the party. I may do what someone suggested and have the BBEG push the kid into the portal and stand there to see what the party does. Do they swan dive into the portal to save the kid or do they say screw the kid chase the BBEG as he makes a break for it?

you know Ximen when you put it like that, i guess i'm not really forcing the paladin to do anything other than come up with a good plan in a short amount of time. but i do that all the time. So i guess you're right. So screw the internet! I'm Running this scenario!

well like i said earlier, the PCs are free to figure out any possible way out of this situation that they can think of. I always reward creativity. I didn't think of this as a lose-lose situation. I just didn't describe the options of escape. They exist, but perception checks need to be made, and ideas need to be thought of etc. I do plan on giving them a 5 min break when it needs to happen just so i don't totally screw them over. But the party consists of:

LVL 10 Druid (Pack Lord Archetype)

LVL 10 Ranger (Guide Archetype)

LVL 10 Paladin (Hospitaler/Holy Vindicator)

LVL 9 Rogue (Scout Archetype)

I feel that the party has the resources and are clever enough to escape this, without killing the kid, or going into hell. I mean heck they have slippers of spider climb, the druid can turn into something that can fly/hover and carry the kid. The rogue is small enough to be carried by the flying druid. The Druid can also cast fly on the paladin, or the paladin can hang on to the guy with spider-man's shoes. That is plenty of time as it is a 20' drop before they even enter the portal.

The paladin is also a goofy build cause he's part cleric, oracle, and paladin. If he does kill the kid it would be a triple whammy. But I know that the paladin won't kill the kid, and immediately begin looking for an out. His deity is extremely protective over children. Failing is not an option for the paladin. I took that into account and made escape routes from this scenario. The challenge really is can the party work together, find the out, exploit the hell out of it (no pun intended), to get to the BBEG and stop him until he dies from it. Should they be sent into hell, they have many options on how to get out.

I will tell my players that there are ways out but they have to find them. It wouldn't be very exciting if i spoonfed all the resources to them.

Good now I don't feel so bad from all the flak that I've been getting. They will be able to identify portal given the checks are made. I didn't design it to be no win, but i wanted it to feel like it. But through all the flak and hate that i have received, I may give more obvious hints that all is not lost.

well the portal to hell opens up an adventure. Should the paladin choose not to harm the boy, but save him, they will all be teleported to hell where they must find a way out. Which BTW there are many. In addition, the deity that the paladin worships, will send an angel to help them trek through plains of hell and help get them out as a reward for being pious and not failing his vow.

That being said, i didn't really think this as a no win situation.

well the scrying mirror can only see a certain amount of the room. If the rogue and his ring of invisibility are behind the mirror. Then by all means thats something. What he does from that point is up to him. If the Druid is spending the majority of his time in the walls and floor cause he turned into an earth elemental and can swim through the wall, around the pit of doom and into the room where the BBEG is and pulls the "stop the dropping floor" lever. From what i've seen my party do and i know how clever they are, those scenarios wouldn't surprise me. Like i said they have options out of this no-win, they just have to be clever.

fair enough.

Does it really seem like a no win scenario?

As someone who really enjoys playing Paladins, the old moral quandry gig gets old fast. I always choose death or the hardpath or whatever. Thats what paladins do, thats what the should do. In your scenario Dwarfakin, I wouldn't kill the kid. And if anyone in my party tried I would prevent them. I would let us all go to hell with the (in character) hope of returning and saving the other child. As a player I would know this is very unlikely to succeed and will most likely result in a TPK.

An this is how i expect my paladin to react. I've seen his role playing enough to know how he would react.But i have ways where they can fight there way out of Hell. Devils are also LE. While unlikely, the party could potentially make a deal and get teleported back. I got options. I know the job of the GM is to create an enjoyable game with interesting scenarios. Not necessarily trying to kill the PCs.

yea i have other options. But i only provided the two main options. The rest of the party can be searching for a way out while the monologue is going on. There are options so i'm not immediately condemning them to death. I leave that to traps and monsters, not role play scenarios.

well i do want the moral dilemma. I not going to kill the party if the paladin break his vows but i am going to make a neat little bit out of it. I always try to cause moral dilemmas or drama to enhance role play but i never actually go out of my way to kill the character.

Well here is the scenario. A noble's son has been kidnapped and the part has been hired on to track down and bring him back. In one of the fortresses that some of the clues has led them to, in the "final chamber" is a small boy tied to a chair, along with a scrying mirror.

"As you enter the room, you hear the sounds of a child sobbing and muffled cries of help through the rag in his mouth. The scrying mirror comes to life as the man you have been seeking appears, again his face cloaked in shadow."

The room itself is maybe a 25'x 25' room but the the platform is only leaving 20'x 20' of standing room. The remainder of the room is a pit of doom, with a small 5' rope bridge to use to cross into the room safely. The exit to the room is directly across the room with the same rope bridge set up.

"Ahh! It's about time you guys showed up. the shadowed man exclaims. I was getting bored waiting."

At this time the man pulls a lever on his end of the scrying mirror and the doors close (Iron door Hardness 10 120HP) and is flush with the walls of the room leaving nothing to stand on and the rope bridge falls in the pit.

"Now we have party! And for the party trick. You see that boy is the last boy that I have before that pompous noble's kid. But i want to see your resolve in finding him and bringing him home safely. I am behind the door in front of you with the whiney little brat. You there! Holy Knight! If you slay that boy in the chair I will unlock the door and the boy is yours. Become tainted like the rest of the world. If not, (he pulls another lever) the floor beneath you all of you will fall away into that swirling red mist to certain death. I assume mostly, I'm not entirely sure what it does. (maniacal laughter) But should any of you attempt to do this for your tin can friend, I will drop the floor and you all die anyway. Including that brat in there. (another section of the floor drops.) I'd say you have about 30 seconds to aclompish this task of yours holy man. Time's ticking!"

Now what the party doesn't know is that the swirly red mist is a portal to Hell. everyone in the room will be teleported to Hell. Now they can escape from this, but it will be difficult. So with the boy in hand they must find a way back. There will be many options out of Hell as i have planned for it. But if they kill the kid i have planned for that too.

Now is that too evil? Having the threat of a possible TPK (party doesn't know its a portal) or an atonement?

I like what Chemlak offers,

A possibly viable compromise would be to ask him to use the "20 = 30" rule, and perhaps the "1 = -10" rule, both of which make it "less" automatic, but still a significant result.

What i do (as another possible option) is that a 1 is never a fail on skill checks but if you roll a 1 something may happen. like on crafting. Unless you fail by five or more materials aren't destroyed in the process if you fail. say you have booku amounts of ranks in craft, and even if you roll a 1 you still make the DC. Well in my world if you roll a 1 but have the ranks to still complete the item, you complete the item but it has attained the broken condition. nothing a mending spell cant fix or another days work.

For natural 20s on skill checks (assuming you make the DC) you get something a little extra. Say you need to make some daggers for your dagger throwing rogue companion. If you roll a nat 20 it becomes a masterwork dagger. (assuming it wasn't going to be masterwork in the first place)

So little things like that. Maybe find a small pile of coins as you search for traps, things like that.

So i have a plan for my PCs to go tracking down a crazy evil mad person for the sake of the good of the world. I plan on having a scenario where the Paladin is forced to commit an evil act, or have himself, and the rest of the PCs cast into a swirling red abyss (portal) that leads to Hell. (Mind you there are other options for the paladin to take but they will be difficult to spot) Is this a bit too cruel as a GM, am i playing my BBEG too evil, or am I doing it baby bear style and be just right.

reguardless if you are going to use a fumble deck/fumble chart, Don't make an option where you can kill the person who fumbled. that happened to my character. It sucked.

His ruling was if you rolled a 1 you fumble. If you roll a 1 again to confirm you crit yourself. But you half to confirm against your AC or its just a normal hit.

I rolled a 1, backed it up with a 1, and confirmed the crit to myself with a 19.

I was using heavy shield with spikes, and the Bashing enhancement, in combination with lead blades. I was swinging for 3d6+6 every swing. And then i crit myself so that goes to 6d6+12. Oh and power attack so don't forget that went to 6d6+16. I went from full HP (42) to -15 and instantly died.

Rule to be cool: Don't be that GM!

Another thing you might want to consider, is if you're not going to go the Adept route and use regular PC classes for your NPC, use the 20 pt buy to make him. That way he's good enough to keep up with the party but won't overshadow.

ok...i can see the logic. Just somethin that i've used for years...tis all. Not sayin it's the best or anything...just what i'm used to

414. Someone is stealing everyone's pants. (I dare someone to make a serious adventure around that one.)

Challenge accepted sir!

416. A large mysterious cube falls from the sky, crashing into a nearby village. Inscribed upon this cube are hand prints, and odd runes above the hand prints. When the wizards and scholars translate these runes, they appear to be the names of the PCs. The PCs are rounded up to come see the cube. Upon closer examination, the hand prints on the cube appear to be the same size as PCs hands. When all the PCs place their hands upon their respective hand prints, the Cube rumbles to life and opens. Inside there is an oddly dressed man that looks at you and says, "Ahh good! I was wondering when you'd find me. We've got work to do!" So what do you do?

While I agree that while your level 15 fighter has a ton of experience in combat, combat is extremely chaotic. It is nearly impossible to notice all of the variables at all times. Given these circumstances, accidents can happen. Which is where a 1 comes into play. Who's to say the level 20 fighter that has slain dens of giants by himself hasn't ever got blood or sweat in his eyes causing him to be temporarily blinded for 1 round. Crazy things happen in combat. The fumble chart, to me adds just 1 more level of realism to my game. That being said, it's my game. I can use the fumble chart in my game. Not trying to force it on anybody. I just think it's cool. And hey, its your game. Feel free to tell me to !@#$% off!

While both of you have very good points, I like the rule. I might use it but put my own twist to it. I like the idea of having a mechanic that shows Role Playing experience where you get a little bonus here and there for role playing the scenario. There is also the option of, say an extra bonus. For example I have an arcane archer that while exploring an ancient library surrounded by a permanent cloudkill, (Pain in the neck to get in there BTW) he found a flute. He took it out of whimsy and it turns out that the guy that tended to this ancient library was in layman terms an epic level bard. Now mind you my fighter/wizard combo platter has never played a flute in his life. He got a few tips and pointers from the guy that ran the place and I learned how to squawk out a tune. Now my GM told me that if I put a rank into Perform Flute, I will get a +1 bonus due to the guy that taught me.

Now I know that a +1 isn't groundbreaking but getting a bonus for role playing instead of "roll playing" is a nice little thing to show that the character is constantly learning. That you will pick up skills that you never really intended to pick up. Now I role play practicing that flute, to justify to keep putting ranks into it. But the twist that I might put into it this homebrew is that at every 5 levels you get an extra 2 skill points to put into your skills. Now these skill points cannot go into a skill you've never used before, but neither can they raise the total ranks above three. For example if you've never used fly before but you just did a jumping puzzle, by all means you can put a little bonus in acrobatics, given that it has less than 3 ranks.

I believe that you can always get experience just by traveling the world, not just by slaying the BBEG and his minions. Cause level 8 Expert Dwarf brewer may never have picked up weapon to slay the orc things. But he has traveled the world learning how to brew the good brew.

I also agree with Ascalaphus as in fighters and wizards don't get enough skill enough skill points to begin with. Cause 3 skill points a level (2+ 13 INT) makes a fighter nothing but a beat stick and not very interesting in terms of roleplay. But say you wanna make this guy interesting. Say he constantly tries to barter and use doplomancy, on the merchant to get a better deal on his crafting materials. He puts his 3 ranks into Craft, Acrobatics, and Perform (Cause he wants to be a duelist!) and can't really spare the skill points due to prerequisites for all the feats and abilities that he attempts to gain. A little bonus here and there goes a long way and it rewards role playing.

i have a fumble chart that my PCs roll against. When you roll a one, according to the rules nothing bad happens, you just missed. IMO something caused you to miss so i made a fumble chart. i use the d100 and have them roll. For example, 1-20 your hands are exceptionally sweaty and your weapon slips from your grasp throwing it 1d4 squares. Now obviously this does not work for bows and crossbows etc... but for a melee type it's possibly horrible. Now of course it can be countered by wearing locked gauntlets making your miss just a miss. But sometimes you trip yourself up a bit or you suddenly found a bit of uneven ground that took you by surprise. In that case you are off balance and you take a -2 on attack rolls, AC, CMD, Acrobatics etc. Another option that one of my mates use is you hit your target. But the kinks in his armor cinch down and your weapon gets lodged.

So the possibilities are endless. On my fumble chart i only have it where there is 5% chance that you can injure yourself. I don't want to murder my PCs, but i do want to inconvenience them.

well i was looking forward to the polymorph abilities that the druid offers, but even if i run out of spells, he can still rage and rip things to shreds with his claws. The concept behind the character is that he is born of nature and that the wild works through him. He casts the will of nature and when things get out of hand, the wild magic turns him into an unstoppable feral beast (raging) that the wild force of nature can use to destroy it's enemies. And so i trying to get the best of both worlds. because the wild shape abilities would be extremely helpful and also i can double as a deadly striker without the wild shape as well. I'm just trying to avoid using weapons as well. Think it can be accomplished without having a s#!% character?

well, i'm also looking to get a fair amount of spell casting and full polymorphs from the druid abilities. although the shapeshifter/barbarian looks potentially nasty. plus i forget about all the variant types of classes.

So my friend is running World's Largest Dungeon and i need a new character. I was thinking of making a druid barbarian. Needs to be Level 6, 25 pt build core races only, and no third party resources. I was thinking a half orc with the plant or fire domain instead of an animal companion. Any other suggestions on how to build this? My goal is to not use any weapons as much as possible. My overall goal is 10 levels of each class with barbarian as favored class. As i take the 2 Levels of barbarian first.

Druid 4/ Barbarian 2

STR 16
DEX 14
CON 14+1 (Level 4 Bonus) 15
INT 12
WIS 12(+2) 14
CHA 11

Feats
Improved Unarmed Strike
Power Attack
Improved Grapple

Possibly swapping out Orc Ferocity for Toothy. Any other Ideas?

Set wrote:

Bearded Ben wrote:
Bardess wrote:
16. A girl living her dream to become soon a beautiful woman with magic powers... Or a boy living the same dream... (Synthetist again)
So, a boy living his dream to become soon a beautiful woman with magic powers? ;)
That's exactly how I read it. Go boy, with your magic girl ambitions!

And, as one would expect, there's already a manga/anime with a similar plot.

Didn't Michael Jackson already accomplish this feat?

hmm...challenge accepted sir. Well as for programs for building dungeons, are you talking about a mapping program that will help you draw the maps out, or something that is chock full of ideas to populate your dungeon?
If it is for the former, i use a little program called AutoRealm. I use it to build dungeon maps all nice and neat like since people without hands write neater than i do. it can be found here.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/autorealm/

As for a scary lair? Well this lair happens to belong to a powerful conjurer. He has dabbled with tapping into other planes of existence and turned his fortress into an extraplanar nightmare. Every door you go through may be a different plane of existence.

For example the foyer is tapped into the Plane of Fire and acts as such, while the water closet is the Plane of Shadow. (dark things tend to happen in the loo) Anyway the fortress is so imbalanced due to the planar instability, that the PC's conjuration magic may or may not work. (DM's choice) So summoning things and healing things will be much much harder. Or you might try to summon, lets say a fire elemental to fight the ice elemental that you're up against and a dolphin shows up. Or you try to heal someone and instead of healing the with positive energy, they get "healed" with negative energy. The BBEG Conjurer may or may not even still be there but hey, I wouldn't wanna walk in there. Which is why i'm gonna use it against my party now.

So my friend is running World's Largest Dungeon and i need a new character. I was thinking of making a druid barbarian. Needs to be Level 6, 25 pt build core races only, and no third party resources. I was thinking a half orc with the plant or fire domain instead of an animal companion. Any other suggestions on how to build this? My goal is to not use any weapons as much as possible. My overall goal is 10 levels of each class with barbarian as favored class. As i take the 2 Levels of barbarian first.

Druid 4/ Barbarian 2

STR 16
DEX 14
CON 14+1 (Level 4 Bonus) 15
INT 12
WIS 12(+2) 14
CHA 11

Feats
Improved Unarmed Strike
Power Attack
Improved Grapple

Possibly swapping out Orc Ferocity for Toothy. Any other Ideas?

7: A young boy that travels the world summoning monsters to fight his battles for him. Every time he sees a new monsters he studies it and tries to summon it himself in order to have it fight for him. His eidolon is his favorite summon though, as a small, yellow, mouse like creature that has powerful electric attacks. As a quirk this young boy tends to avoid eye contact with anybody and dislikes tall grass.

393. A dark shadowy figure cloaked in black rags and robes stand before you. It towers over you and has a very intimidating presence about it. In it's left hand is a crooked and vile looking scythe. His right hand stretches forth, robes and rags falling back revealing a skeletal hand. His hand points to you and red orbs take shape under his cowl, right where his eyes should be. As he points a faint whisper enters your ears, "You work for me now. You shall bring me the souls I desire." After hearing this declaration of employment, he utters the name of the first soul he needs collected. Apparently the army's general has avoided death for far too long.

Tiki!!!

8. The undead horde has intelligence now. Lead by liches and vampires as the generals, they wage war against the followers of the gods. Their goal is to kill the gods by killing their worshipers. Later you find out that the undead horde just wants to be laid to rest, and prevent any other undead from being brought into existence. They belive by eliminating the gods they can achieve this. Who do you side with? Do you fight the leigons of undead, or do you side with them to aid them in there quest to be laid to rest, or do you try to find an alternative way to prevent the dead from coming back?

381. The party is somehow knocked unconcious. When the wake they relalize that they aren't in the bodies they were born in. Either, Monstrous Humanoid bodies or the bodies of animals. They retain all abilities, and feats, but their physical stats have changed. Not the mental, just the physical. Who did this, Why did the do it, and how can they turn back?

while it makes sense that you should be able to i agree. So i let a player do it but i made him work for it. I told him that he needed to make an amulet that allowed him to use his claw/wing abilities an at will thing and the amulet also granted an extra use of of your breathe weapon and dragon shape. But the tricky part was the material that he couldn't buy. a tooth from an adult dragon of the same color. Made for an interesting story and encounter. He did it. But like i said...i made him work for it.

370. The prophet that never speaks finally spoke. But what he spoke sends everybody into a panic. Can the party prevent the prophecy from coming true to save man's sanity or can they form a plan to soften to blow?

117. So your uncle dies and you are his only living relative to inherit his estate. when you get to the estate you notice that it's not in the best of condition but you've definitly seen worse. Oh and turns out that you aren't the only living relative. Guess who now has custody of your infant cousin?

350. So by some twist of fate the party wakes up and all of their abilities and skills are gone, as tho they were taken. (Effectivly back to level 1) Who took their powers and abilities and why?

as tyrantherus said, when you give the players options A, B, and C, 9/10 times they will choose option Q. be prepared for your players to go veering off track from the main story and feel free to improv a little bit. Let your players guide you towards stories. For example i have the main story plot all lined up for my players but they do need side quests to level up, money runs etc. Well a story came up that my players kinda conjured and i ran with it. Don't be afraid to do that

And if you're just starting out and unsure try running an adventure path. Its a campaign all ready to go with little planning needed and enough wiggle room to let the players do what they want.