Eric Ludy's page

What is up with my Order # 1595551 from Sept 19? I sent customerservice an email and have gotten no reply.

I'm prepping Lords of Oblivion and am wondering if there are mistakes in the stat blocks for Tarterian Gauth and perhaps any other floating eye tyrants.

There is Monster Manula errata regarding Gauths and Beholders which says to increase their Bite Attacks by +5. So in the MM the Gauth should have a +3 melee bite instead of -2. Our Tarterian version which has higher strength has a -1 melee bite but I think it should be +4 and while raging +6. And by the way exactly how long does their rage last?

Next we have our advanced beholder version of bad guy. Beholders in the MM are listed as +2 melee bite but with the errata that become +7. The advanced version has been advanced 4HD and is listed at +5 melee bit but I believe should be +10.

And so on for the other beholder versions.

Also, the errata mentions the use of eye rays as a free action. So does that mean they can perform full-round actions doing whatever they want (moving, flyby attacking, using spell-like abilities, etc) and still at any time during thier round get off all of their eye rays?

Lastly, I have had trouble adjudicating Gaze situations. In this case, for the Gauth it is a special attack so just looking at the gauth in the eye doesn't mean anything right? The gauth has to use his stunning gaze on a foe during its round. So when the gauth uses his gaze, does a character automatically meet it unless they specified something during thier turn to avoid such a thing? I'm thinking the first round the gauth uses it someone will just have to make a save as it was not expected. In subsequent rounds players can specify they avoid eye contact. Now, exactly what impact does that have in the game?

Thanks,
Eric.

As I have said in some other thread I am doing a little side trek for my players on their return from the Test of the Smoking Eye to the material plain. They have miraculously plane shifted to near the capital city (Rel Mord in my case).

The side trek will foreshadow or at least introduce a little back history on Shatterhorn. It will be brief and help them get some much needed xp (3 characters at lev 11, 2 at lev 10).

Two of my players have already expressed interest in determining whether they can retrieve their "animals." The Ranger had a dog animal companion who never entered the starry mirror in Vaprak's Voice (at least not as far as he knows). The Sorcerer has a bat familiar who he told not to enter the starry mirror.

Here we are a few weeks later and they are back on the material plain. How would you as a DM handle the reaquiring of these animals?

The players completely cleaned out Vaprak's voice but for Kymzo, the steam mephit.

My initial gut reaction is to say "no way" on the dog, and there is a decent chance on the bat. Without going into too much detail, this will cause the Ranger player to freak out. Not that I care that much, but I want to be fair. I can handle the fallout if there is any.

What do you think? How can I make it seem absolutley fair to both players? Are you like me and feel the survival of the bat is more likely than the dog? Would you handle it with some sort of roll, or just DM fiat?

E.

I don't see how my players are going to make it alive. They just got done finishing off the four whips and soldiers in the main shrine room. They've used almost all resources available. The party cleric is out of spell-casting healing and has 5 charges on a wand of CMW. The barabarian and ranger are at mid to low hp, the rogue is near full and the sorcerer is full-up on hp. The sorcerer has no 0 or 1st level spells left, but does have his 2nd (Flaming Sphere, not too good vs flying). The party is effectiely split up in this room with 3 on the floor level and 2 on the middle level balcony.

And we are 2 rounds away from Aushanna showing up. She's going to blow them away I think. I was playing as the party cleric since the player couldn't make it last session. I made a quick (fake) knowledge Religion check and had the cleric tell everyone "we better get out of here now, that statue's eyes are getting brighter and most shrines of this magnitude have summoned protection."

Maybe everyone's first action will be to run but they can barely make it out of the room before Aushanna appears. and even so, she'll quickly track them down. Say they do manage to run to the stairs out, there won't be any canoe waiting for them.

As a DM I'm just dreading the next session because I don't see a way out. Maybe if they have the guts to split up, Aushanna will have to focus on one of them and maybe that one can hold her off for a few moments while the others get away. Other than that I don't see this ending well.

If they do die, I will have a player who will get really upset. The others will take it in stride I believe and create new ones for another go. That could take an entire session however.

As a DM has anyone ever known for an extended time between play sessions that everyone is very likely to die almost immediately? Anything that can be done to lose as little time as possible? Anything you think I can do to cut the players a break without making it totally obvious? I guess I can make things happen so that at least one survives. I might have Fario and Felian show up, though they haven't been seen in quite awhile and I have no idea how they could suddenly appear many miles into the underdark.

Any tips appreciated.

Eric.