Eleazar's page

Tasmanian_tiger wrote:

About no rope, while venturing into a complex of caves, my party discovered no one had brought a rope. They ended up using the whip of the rogue. Which leads me to the strange quirks, nearly everyone seems to insist bringing a weapon they can't use properly. Like the whip.. or a two bladed sword that nearly decapicated the cleric twice.

Always wondered how you sheath a two-bladed sword. Any suggestions?

FH

Carefully?

I'm with James on this one. Poison is no more of an unfair advantage than magic. It should be a personal choice between the player and the DM whether or not using poison causes any alignment conflicts.

Oh, yeah - H.P. Lovecraft, for anyone who may be wondering. Thanks!

I'm developing an idea for a horrific adventure, and my bad guy is going to be a creature left behind from the primordial chaos, a la HPL.
Is there published canon I should be aware of for the Big Bang theory for Greyhawk? I've read the Races of.. series, so I'm familiar with each of the races' creation myths. I wanted to check to see if there was anything else I should know about. As always, thanks for the feedback!

Way back in the AD&D days, my girlfriend at the time ran a female elven magic user named Ellaflandria. Sadly, she was killed by a white dragon that almost TPK'd us - my elven fighter-thief was a widower before we'd even had a proper honeymoon - he never recovered. Very sad...

One of my players raised the question - since remove disease can kill a kyuss worm after it has invaded a body, will a periapt of health make you immune to the kyuss worms as well as all diseases? They've already spoken with Manzorian and are gearing up to check out the Spire of Long Shadows.
Thoughts? And thanks as always.

My son likes to have his PCs known exotic languages, so we happened to have a PC who spoke Auran. He cut a deal with the air elemental - the air elemental gave him the full history on Zosiel and the tomb.

I'm trying to figure out how to supply the party for the trip from the Free City to Magepoint - no teleport spells in my world. We're playing the AoW in Greyhawk - any ideas on whereabouts MagePoint would be? Same question for Redhand. Thanks.

Eleazar wrote:

My party handled this with a nice simple ambush.

For the adventurers to encounter Zyrxog they must first pass through room M8 (the Stone Brain). Being that the item can speak telepathically with Zyrxog (a free action) and that the personality of the item is a clone of the Illithid's (Int 19), it would certainly take the opportunity to alert its master of intruders. Zyrxog should be well informed of the player's approach, and in my game, wont be "just floatin' around" his spawning pool when the players find him.

I never said the mind flayer didn't know the party was coming. However, after we destroyed the stone brain, it wasn't in much shape to update the mind flayer that one member of the party stayed behind.

My party handled this with a nice simple ambush. Elven ranger hides on the balcony to the cathedral of the mind while the rest of the party goes in through the front door. The mind flayer floats out and starts gloating. The ranger whispers something unflattering about the mind flayer's mother and lets fly. A couple of (admittedly) lucky critical hits later, we're looting the body and checking for traps.

Assuming the infection is contained before wiping out the city, once the dust settles, how does the party convince the city populace / authorities that they were not aware the potion was infected? Human nature is that people want someone to blame when things go to hell, bureaucrats all the more so.
"Hey, didn't that cleric give Cedric a potion to drink right before he got sick?! HE'S THE ONE WHO CAUSED ALL THIS!" Cue the lynch mob.

I also like the idea of modifying the stats on elves so that the receive bonuses on certain skills like, knowledge and craft, as well as certain feats and get level adjusted. Does anyone else do this?

Would anyone like to see the elf template I put together?

Or I am better off letting this thread die?

I'd like to see the template. Thanks.

Thanks, that worked like a charm. Could it be a file size issue? I've got over 100 megs d/l's on the page. Also, how do I delete files from my assets once I've successfully d/l them? Thanks again! Your service is the best!

Unrelated to my earlier question - upgrading my version of Adobe Reader worked!
Is there a problem with the My Dowloads pages? I'm getting HTTP 500 error, page not available trying to access to PDFs I jus purchased. Thanks.

If I got to choose, elven ranger. No question.
If I had to remain human but had been thrown in several years ago (before the wife and children), a true neutral monk or a cleric of Boccob.
If I had to remain human and were thrown in tomorrow, commoner expert, but I'd start taking training in wizardry as soon as I could.

Rexx,

Excellent! I ran the same group of players with different PC's through the mini-adventure Road to Oblivion a while back, and it was great to see so many pre-conceived notions about what is a monster shattered. Giving them an encounter with a lich ought to be a blast, and will give them a taste of what life will be like shortly, when they are allying with the silver dragon vampire. Thanks!

Scaling up the adventures hasn't really been all that big a challenge. I know the PC's by now, so I know all their strengths and weaknesses. In this case, I bumped up Ilthane to an old adult black dragon with all the bells and whistles - charm person spell is especially sweet against fighters with low will saves!
We haven't started the adventure yet, but I've already prepared bumped up versions or alternates to several of the monsters and traps during the adventure - I've got several pages of notes. It's a lot of extra work, but the party is committed to seeing this campaign through and we're all having a blast so I don't mind at all.
As to your concerns, duly noted, but I can always downscale or scrap the idea altogether if they are too banged up come the end of the dungeon.
Thanks.

Presuming the party is successful in killing Ilthane and surviving the Wind Duke tomb, I'd like to have a surprise waiting for them just as they emerge, weary but triumphant, from the Whispering Cairn.
I need a CR of anywhere between 17 and 20, as they are already pretty high-level, and smart, and lucky. I'm not looking for a TPK by any stretch, but I do want to give them a good fight. Any thoughts on what kind of encounter should be waiting for them? I was thinking about bringing Ilthane back as an undead, or maybe having a couple of young black dragons show up - her children, looking for vengeance?
I figure it has to be something specifically attracted to Ilthane's corpse - if it was something local to the area all along, they would have found traces of it their first time through, verdad?
Thanks in advance!!! And thanks to everyone who helps make these boards such a great experience!!!

On some of the Dungeon message threads, we've been discussing whether and how nit-picking a DM should be - do you track arrows/bullets fired, days' rations eaten, that kind of thing. Along these lines, I'd love to see some articles on the often-overlooked or ignored details.
An article on weapons care - how many spare bowstrings should an archer carry, and how much do they cost? How long should a bow string last? How long does it take to sharpen a dagger with a whetstone? How often should it be done? How many times can it be done before the blade wears down and becomes unusable?
I'd also love to see an article on the care of mounts - there has to be more to it than you hop on your horse, ride at a gallop all day, then hop off and fall into your bedroll. What kind of equipment does a PC need to carry for daily care of a mount?
Thanks.

Waaaay back when I was playing 1st ed., one issue of Dragon featured an article on non-magical healing. The premise was that a half-dead fighter stumbled across an old woman's cottage and collapsed in her herb garden. He gasped out that their cleric had been killed in the first rush, so he had no way to heal himself. She proceeded to take care of him and teach him first aid and wound care without magic - using wine or vinegar to sterilize bandages, using moss to soak up blood, etc.
I'd love to see a re-print of that article or a re-write of it.

Yeah, the same thought occurred to me about 2 minutes after I posted this. Thanks for the lightning response!

I've ordered several PDF's and seem to be having problems downloading them. I"ve tried to download one PDF, the Temple of Elemental Evil, 3 times now. Each time the d/l seems successful, but Adobe Reader 4.0 is giving me a "viewer cannot decrypt this document" error. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Thanks, everyone!

Interesting question. I don't have the magazine here with me, but I do seem to recall there was a logical reason for the PC's to travel to the nursery and to suggest to the lizardfolk that Ilthane might be behind their green worm problems. I'll re-read it tonight and post again.

I've played NE characters before and DM'd parties with evil characters in them. If done right, which I'll grant you is rare, I've seen it work very well and make for a very interesting dynamic.
Bear in mind, if an evil PC is played right, IMHO, the other members of the party shouldn't be able to figure out he/she is evil, discounting CE, which would be absurd as a PC.
A well-played NE or LE character isn't going to walk around introducing himself, "Hi, I'm Ragnoth, LE 3rd level fighter. I'm a Capricorn who enjoys murder, rape, pillage, and long walks on the beach at midnight." He's going to get into the fight when the opportunity arises, either to preserve his own skin or to keep the fools he's adventuring with unaware so that they will continue to act in such a way as to further his own goals.
But he is going to hoard his own healing potions and spells, while accepting any the party is willing to hand out. I played with a NE cleric once who hid it so well we didn't even figure out he was a cleric until 3 adventures into the campaign, when he was caught casting a spell. We just thought he was another fighter.

For the first time in my D&D life, my gaming group contains 17-18th level characters, so I've been reviewing the Epic Player Handbook for ideas on how to continue to challenge them. Over all, I am not really impressed with the whole epic concept. Once a PC attains 21st level, something magical happens and he sudden has access to +7 vorpal flaming keen swords of sharpness? Also, there are a number of the epic feats that I have a hard time rationalizing.
I'm considering disallowing the entire concept in my world, and coming up with save/attack/ability progressions beyond 20th level, but I'm looking for opinions, experiences, etc. for or against the whole epic concept. I'd particularly like to hear from anyone who played high-level characters back in the days before epic levels. Thanks in advance, and as always my apologies to anyone who has already seen this topic done to death.

I try for a middle-of-the-road approach. I make all my players carry 10 days' rations and spare bowstrings, but I don't bother tracking the number of arrows they shoot, within reason. If/when we have a high-enough level ranger to arrowstorm, I'll track it then - I always hated movies or TV where the good guy fired 18 shots from a revolver.
As for tactics, I agree completely. Monsters do not hang out in their little area whittling until the PC's come blundering around the corner. My players know they need to stay sharp and quiet, or they can find themselves with no notice up to their eyeballs in wandering monsters.
Also, they know by know to mount forward and rear guards, to keep outriders when they're out in the open, to watch in shifts at night, and all the gods help the PC who falls asleep on his/her watch.

Eleazar wrote:

Did the Survival skill become Wilderness Lore somewhere between the 3.5 Player Handbook and the the Epic Player Handbook?

Nope. The other way around.

3.0 Wilderness Lore became 3.5 Survival

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Thanks. I've been out of the game since the 1st edition Player Handbook, and just got back in with 3.5, so I've got some catching up to do :)

Did the Survival skill become Wilderness Lore somewhere between the 3.5 Player Handbook and the the Epic Player Handbook? The latter mentions Wilderness Lore as the skill requirement for Track, which the PH bases on Survival. Apologies if this was previously covered and I missed it. Thanks.

I keep it challenging by bumping up the bad guys, which has worked pretty well. As one example, in Champion's Belt for the fight with the frogemoth I bumped up its hit points, speed, AC, and gave it 20/adamantine DR, and fudged its rolls as needed to make sure the fighter got grabbed and swallowed. For Auric's team, I made his flesh golems stone golems, added a 4th, and fudged their rolls to make sure they scored on the party. I enjoy the challenge, and I make the PC's sweat :)
As to how we got here, we started Whispering Cairn as 3rd fighter, 3rd ranger, and 1st for the others. By the time we finished, my 2 3rds were low 5th level and my 1sts were mid-way through 3rd level - all just treasure and XP's - I don't remember having to bump anything up in that adventure.
Anyway, the challenge now will be introducing epic items into the adventures. I don't know how Ilthane is spec'd in A Gathering of Winds, by my Ilthane will be a great wyrm with all the bells and whistles!!!

You could always have one of the PC's get hit by a Kyuss worm and have a wandering cleric or ranger just happen by to cast remove disease on him right before he turns. Might be just the smack upside the head to get them into the story arc.
If all else fails, have a little off-line chat with everyone and agree that either they are going to get into the story or resign yourself that you are going to be running a "kill the monster, grab the loot, advance in levels" game and let the NPC's worry about saving the world from Kyuss.
Or let them get further along and see how they respond when the countryside is crawling with spawn of Kyuss, a la Dawn of the Dead. That could be pretty cool to play, actually... Hmm...

'Cause it always makes sure to chew its food thoroughly?

Seriously, I don't have the mag here with me, but I do recall it only had one mouth. What was it's speed? Is it fast enough to bite at two opponents in one round?

I've been pronouncing it "Kuh-yuss", or just "the worm guy" :)

Eleazar wrote:

Can someone be resurrected after being fed to an ochre jelly and then having the ochre jelly burned to ashes? Forgot to mention that part earlier - the PC's were feeling really mean :)

Oh well, I can always introduce a henchman or another member of the Kyuss crowd to fill in for Raknian... Thanks all.

I assume most your party is nuetral or evil, because that came off sounding kinda evil to me. Maybe its just out of context. I haven't received the Champion's Belt yet, so maybe that will explain it all.

Yeah, it was kinda evil, but he was willing to let loose the urlgastasta (am I spelling that right?) on the whole city. Not to mention trying to kill the party twice - once from the mind flayer and once from the frogemoth. But the icing on the cake was the dancing girl.

Jemini, human 11th fighter, 4th tempest
Eleazar, elven 9th ranger, 6th deepwood sniper
Hogarth, dwarven 13th barbarian
Kane, human 14th monk
Terra, human 13th sorceress
I'm also making everyone take one level of gladiator for winning the Championship Belt.
So far, we haven't run up against anything we couldn't handle, except for the demon in this last adventure - only one is good alignment, so that was challenging. But I have had to beef up the bad guys and the treasure to allow for the higher PC levels.
On a related note, are other parties gaining levels faster than the adventure progression calls for? Jemini and Eleazar were 3rd level, everyone else was 1st when we started the Whispering Cairn, and we haven't run through any extra adventures. Thanks.

Can someone be resurrected after being fed to an ochre jelly and then having the ochre jelly burned to ashes? Forgot to mention that part earlier - the PC's were feeling really mean :)
Oh well, I can always introduce a henchman or another member of the Kyuss crowd to fill in for Raknian... Thanks all.

We just finished the Champion's Belt last night, and we had a blast! I had to pump up the other teams a bit and fudge some dice rolls, because several of the PCs had some experience prior to the AoW adventures, but it has been great! The look on my son's face when I told him his favorite PC had been swallowed by the frogemoth was priceless! Kudos to everyone involved for an awesome adventure!
To my question - after winning the Games, the party decided to do for Raknian in retribution for his killing the dancing girl, so the cornered him in his mansion, roughed him up, then took him down to the dungeon and fed him headfirst to the ochre jellies. Does he have any further role to play in the campaign? Thanks.

I compromised and allow the effects to stack after the PC reaches 10th level. I figure that by the time you've lived to reach 10th level, you're going to hit what you're aiming at.

I don't allow psionics in campaigns I DM. I played psionic characters wayyyyyyy back in the early days, and thought even then it was more trouble than it was worth. Now that there are no PC psionics in the PH, that's good enough for me. Psionic abilities, like the mind flayer's mind blast, get replaced with magical equivalents.

My two cents worth (even though it's probably not worth even that much ;)

Thanks much!!!

I've introduced my son to D&D, and he now has a sorceress with the Craft Magic Armor feat. He asked me a pretty basic question, but I can't seem to locate the answer. What spell does the caster use to add an AC bonus to armor? The DM guide lists the spells that add abilities, such as energy resistance, but not the spell that adds the +1, +2. etc. Is it magic vestments, or a version of magic weapon, or something else? Thanks. Apologies if this topic has already been covered to death elsewhere.

Forgive me if this question has been asked before, but what software do the artists use for the maps? My son picked up issue 98 recently at our local gaming store (The Days of Knights in Newark, De - shameless plug:) and the map of the inn for Flood Season was just fantistic! Keep up the excellent work!

Just wondering if anyone has 128?? Just off to local store to pick it up and do my ritual coffee and devour of magazine. Is it me or are the months coming by so quick. Here's hoping its a good one

SC

Just received mine in the mail today!