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Which Dragon magazine issue had the article explaining using a known personality to template the role playing of your character? It had a drawing showing a D&D party that included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bart Simpson, and Big Bird. I think it came out during the D&D 3e era. I also remember that the magazine changed editors at that time. My Google Fu has failed me. Might you know?
After the third adventure, I stopped keeping track of experience points. I found that there are points in each adventure where leveling feels right. For example, after Jzadirune is cleared in the first adventure, and also at the end of each adventure. Just look forward to the first page of the next adventure to find what level the party should be at the start. For three players, I'd have their characters between one and two levels higher than the adventure expects the party to be.
I've ran this campaign twice, so I'm too full of advice for new DMs running Shackled City. Please excuse my threadcrap; I just can't help myself! Have all of the characters be from Cauldron, or at least the adjacent areas. Cauldron is the inobvious but ever-present character in the Shackled City adventure path. When the players involve themselves in Cauldron's comings and goings, they will get the feeling that the town is a living breathing place and will enjoy it so much more. I found that Cauldron is the best feature of this Shackled City adventure path, which is one of the best adventures I ever ran. I really believe that the campaign works so much better when the characters are from Cauldron, with a campaign NPC or two incorporated into their background. The player's emotional buy-in into the campaign increases when they are out to "save my home" instead of "save the city", or "help my childhood friend, who is the cleric of my church" instead of "help Jenya", or "find my missing brother" instead of "find kidnapped kids." Really, why have the PCs be from anywhere other than Cauldron, or the adjacent towns? If they are from somewhere else, will they ever go back there during the entire run of the campaign? No! Find a way to connect them to the NPCs or the organizations in the Shackled City campaign. Having their characters be children of the named NPCs is a great way to do this. They could also have a relative who is a member of the Last Laugh, or have one of their parents suffer from a debilitating mental affliction that has them spouting nonsensical prophecies. This will deepen their connection to the city and it's people. In the game I ran, one PC was the daughter of the Lanthenmires, another the niece of Zenith Splintershield and her mother is a master architect and member of the Chisel, another the wife of Vortemax Weer, and the fourth was the daughter of the proprietors of the Tipped Tankard Tavern and became high priest of the Church of Pelor, expanded from the shrine that it was. Helping each player assign their PC to an NPC citizen or family already defined in the campaign has really integrated the characters to Cauldron in very rewarding ways. This has also provided an excellent venue for foreshadowing of upcoming events and to connect the players directly to the overall plot. Not only should their backstories be based in Cauldron and be intertwined with it's peoples and organizations, but they should also already know each other. Each character should have a pre-existing relationship with at least one of the other characters and share some history. Just in case you only read the first couple of sections before running the game, check the BACK of the book for suggestions for the DM about how to run the game, some options for players to select, along with some suggestions that you can give your players about how each class plays out in this campaign. Tell your players that this campaign is primarily an urban campaign and to expect a lot of dungeon crawl, a good amount of social challenges, and a little bit of wilderness adventure. The social skills are crucial for acquiring information from NPCs, citizens, and organization; also for overcoming social challenges and investigative mysteries. The knowledge skills that can be useless in other games are valuable here. K:Local, K:Nobility, K:History, etc. Without these your party will be mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed bullpoo. Regular druids and rangers are out of place. Urban druids (from Dragon #317) and urban rangers (found in Unearthed Arcana) belong here. Particularly an urban druid that has an animated cauldron for an "animal companion". However, there's also a LOT of tough combats in this campaign, so don't neglect the fighters and other heavy hitters! I hope my suggestions are helpful. Let us know what happened in your game later on.
In regards to only having three players, be upfront with your players about how this is a difficult campaign intended for six characters that has killed many characters in other campaigns. If you have three players, then I recommend that you find ways to power them up. Using the classes from the Pathfinder RPG instead of D&D 3.5 is a good start, as they have all been slightly enhanced. You can also have them simply start at 2nd level, and using action points, and especially the gestalt rules can really help. I had the four players in my game gestalt their characters with the NPC Aristocrat class, and that seems to be just right. Gestalting with aristocrat has had the effect of shoring up each character's weaknesses rather than granting additional strength and greater complexity for the player. There were several close calls, but only a few deaths throughout the campaign. And having the characters start from the upper class gave them a slight social power-up. The campaign also provides several NPCs that can adventure with them. Fario and Fellian are obvious examples, but there's also the cleric Rufus whom they save in the first scenario, and the people they rescue at the end of the first adventure can also include a helpful adventuring NPC that would complete them. Someone whose from one of the Cauldron organizations and directly affected by the events that occur in the beginning of the second adventure. Each NPC should be "guest stars" and only hang out when the adventure happens to intersect with their interests. For example, Fario & Fellian are called away on Strider business at the beginning of the second adventure, but rescued NPC steps in because he's investigating the disappearance of his missing family member who's also a second cousin to one of the PCs. Interestingly enough, the existence of the Stormblades (described in Chapter 3) provides a safety net for the campaign. If the players are in dire straights and are about to be defeated, the Stormblades can come in from behind and take down the imminent threat. Although the PCs are saved from death or capture, it comes at the very heavy cost of being saved by their douchebag rivals who hold them in utter contempt and will use this opportunity to humiliate them forevermore. Plus the Stormblades will take the lead in completing the current adventure. The RPG problem with rescuing players from a TPK is that the players resent being rescued by NPCs because it removes the threat of significant failure, which removes the "game" from the roleplaying game, and it can make the NPC the real star of the game instead of the PCs. So here's a way to avert this by dialing it up to 11 and have the rescue be a fate worse than death for your PCs while saving your game at the same time.
I have a different suggestion. Have the pre-adventure occur completely in the city. There will be several opportunities to adventure through the surrounding jungle and mountain environs later on. Although Cauldron is the underlying basis for the adventure path, almost all of the adventures take the players out of the city to adventure. Underground dwellings, abandon fortresses, and secret passageways. For a campaign that features an urban setting, there isn't enough urban adventuring. The pre-adventure should involve the backstories of each character. For example, the family of one character owns an apartment building that's being haunted and asks the character and his violent friends to investigate. Turns out that the ghost is played by someone in disguise, played by a member of the thieves' guild The Last Laugh. Further investigation reveals that the building is wanted by the noble Vanderborens and they hired the Last Laugh to do this. The building contains a secret that involves a seer with a touch of madness who lived there 200 years ago, and is an ancestor to one of the other characters. Something like DaVinci code or National Treasure, where more secrets of the town's history are discovered to be tied to the player characters or the NPCs of Cauldron. While designing this pre-adventure (or even if you aren't going to do this,) be sure to read the section in the Dungeon Master's Guide (or the SRD) about running a game in an urban environment. There's some good advice in there. The Dungeon Master's Guide II also goes in to greater detail about urban settings.
Wow. that's very good. Ah, just to be clear, I didn't make this picture. I found it via image.google.com. See what comes up when you search Shackled City.
...living as a fish in a blender. Here's also a beautiful side view of Cauldron. I use it as a watermark for my Shackled City printouts.
It just occurred to me that Anna from the TV series "V" would make a great roleplaying template for the Stormblade leader Annah, who is also a villainous diplomancer. I was already trying to play her like this when I ran a scene with her in the past. I hope this suggestion is helpful. I'm not a natural role-player, so I need to use every shortcut cheat I can get to pull off my roleplaying when I run a game.
What about you? What's the plan for your Shackled City campaign? I want to stop running it and play and run 4e from now on.
Kaurophon didn't know what it took to succeed the last challenge until it was revealed to him and the PCs. I think. It's been a while since I read that part.
Breaking a soul pillar is not hard. But cracking one open releases a mob of dread wraiths.
I think the hellknights are being set up as a diplomacy challenge. There will be a time where the PCs will move against the queen. And the hellknights can be a powerful ally (indeed) if the PCs can get them to see that the queen is an enemy of Korvosa and needs to be removed from power. At minimum, they need to be dealt with somehow, or they will move to take down the PC force as traitors.
I didn't use the harrow cards the first time. I gave everyone a harrow point and had everyone roll a d10 for the "chosen" section. But the next time I'm going to do a few practice runs before the game day. If I am not able to do a reading in a timely manner, then I will have the players draw their cards at the end of a game session, then be ready to interpret what they drew the following week. I want readings to take up, at most, a half hour. Sorry, my improv skills are full of fail. I'm sure there are DMs out there that have no trouble doing readings as intended. It is a very cool idea and I want to be able to do it as well as I can.
I also recommend allowing mithral weapons to bypass DR silver. I detailed some rules for mithral weapons. Feel free to use it if you like. Mithral Weapons are masterwork finesse weapons that deals silver damage, benefits from greater hardness, and weighs half as much as its steel counterpart. You can use Weapon Finesse with a mithral weapon, even though it isn’t a light weapon for you. If you can normally use a steel counterpart of the mithral weapon proficiently with weapon finesse, then you can use the mithral weapon with a non-magical +1 competence bonus to hit. A thrown mithral weapon increases its base range incremented by one-half. Item cost modifiers:
You can also make mithral versions of wooden weapons. They would weight the same as their wooden counterparts and only benefit from being masterwork weapons that deal silver damage with the hardness and hit points of mithral. A mithral tower shield only benefits from improved hardness and hit points. No reduction in armor check penalty or increasing of the maximum Dex bonus to AC limitation.
Since I'm so stingy as a DM that I give my players zero experience points, I also need to know at what points in the adventure to level the characters. In this first adventure, I leveled them after the second part.
Does that sound about right for six characters? Or do I need to figure it out by the ELs?
Also, be aware that the more sophisticated and experienced the player is, the more they will consider the queen a red herring. They will think that the DM must be dangling the queen in front of us to distract us from what's really going on! Harry Potter style.
More SRD info to use: City Buildings
Something else to have is a crowd watching. A persuasive PC can direct the crowd to help by forming a bucket brigade, for example. The Dungeon Master's Guide II details Burning Building as an Archetypal Location on pg. 48. There has been a couple of firefighting scenarios in the Shackled City adventure path. Chapter 5: The Demonskar Legacy has a burning inn in Event 18: A Fire In The Night.
I also remember in the movie Donnie Darko where Donnie burns down the house of a motivational speaker he ridiculed at a school assembly, thereby exposing the speaker's secret "kiddie porn dungeon". What kind of secrets can be revealed by the burning of a building in your game?
Here are the table rules and house rules that I e-mailed the new players from where I work: Okay, we definitely have enough people for a game. Since we have more than enough, I ask that you bow out if you were only somewhat interested, are not able to make the game on time almost every game day, or if you do not enjoy playing a heroic character (as everyone’s character will be limited to the Good alignments). [Followed by web links and a request to read the Pathfinder Player's Guides] [Player] has graciously offered to allow us to play our game at his house. There is plenty of parking. [Player]’s house has no pets and smoking is permitted outside. Please arrive pre-fed. Because I have experienced gaming with a large number of gamers throughout my life and am familiar with the kind of problems that can come up, I was going to post a list of expected behavior for everyone as I have never gamed with any of you before. However, I will take the fact that you have been able to successfully sustain employment at [Workplace] as evidence that the real problem points won’t come up. But just to make sure, I will ask of everyone (including myself) a simple thing for everyone’s benefit: don’t be a dick. Thank you very much. What I’ll need from you now (if you haven’t provided it yet) is: 1. Your cell phone number.
My cell phone number is: [Phone number]. My e-mail address is [E-mail address]. Please notify me by e-mail whenever you will not be able to make a game session as soon as you know. Please call me if you are arriving late to a game or not arriving at all. You can view “my gamer resume” with this web link. Core Rules: This campaign uses the Dungeon & Dragons 3.5 rules, along with the most up-to-date errata. If a rule appears in two sources, the rule from the newest source applies. I do use the D&D FAQ for clarifications and to assist me in making rulings. Dice rule (aka Protection from Evil): If I didn't call for the dice roll, and I did not see the numbers on the dice, then it wasn't rolled. Character Creation: Roll your stats as normal once. You may choose to use what you roll or build your characters stats using 32 point buy method described in pg. 169 of the Dungeon Masters Guide. Character Advancement: Roll for your Hit Points as normal. If the total of the hit points that you have rolled is less than the total average of the hit die of your classes above 1st level (3.5 for d6 for example), use the average. Any half HP from the totaled average rounds up.
Skill points: all PCs get 8 extra skill points at 1st level and 2 extra skill point at each additional level.
Cross class skills cost one skill point for each rank. Normal cross-class limits still apply when you level. You cannot increase the number of ranks in a skill passed the cross-class limit when you are leveling in a class where that skill is a cross-class skill. Multiclassing incurs no experience point penalty for uneven levels. Instead, characters gain 1 extra skill point (x4 at first level) when leveling in your character's favored class. Humans and other races with "Favored Class: Any" need to specify what their favored class is during character creation. No multicasting restrictions for Paladin, Monk or any other class. Character Feats are gained every odd level instead of levels 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, etc. Global Feats: Everyone gains Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat and the prerequisites don't apply. Every spellcaster gains Heighten Spell as a bonus feat. Every spontaneous caster gains Eschew Materials as a bonus feat. Starting Gold for your character is the maximum amount possible for your class. Retraining: You have the option of retraining your character when you level, as described on pg. 192 of the Player’s Handbook II, to swap a feat, move ranks from one skill to another, or another character adjustment. Arcane spell failure rules are not used. Wearing armor or wielding a shield will not hinder spellcasting. This rule removal and the bonus spell-casting feats puts spellcasters a bit more in-line with psions. followed by many more house rules... I am now checking with the players to see if they want to switch to the Pathfinder RPG and rebuild their characters. I'm also checking to see what system they prefer for determining hit points.
So, I decided to describe a swarm of psuedo dragons attacking a group of imps in the air. One imp flew toward the party, then four psuedo dragons flew to the imp and then grappled it. Then moved it over a silver spire and then impaled it.
Did you run into issues with party death or magic item creation? For magic items, I just removed the XP requirement. The cost for creating magic items is now money and time. Since I want my players to buy, sell, and create magic items without much hassle, this worked for me. For death, a raised PC gains a persistent negative level that goes away after a few game sessions. Multiclassing incurs no experience point penalty for uneven levels. Instead, characters gain 1 extra skill point (x4 at first level) when leveling in their character's favored class. Humans and other races with "Favored Class: Any" need to specify what their favored class is during character creation. I haven't have to deal with the XP components of spells yet. But I suppose I would limit spells that cost less than 1,000 XP as a component would instead be limited to being cast once per day, and wish/miracle could only be cast once per adventure.
I really do recommend doing away with XP and just leveling the party at the appropriate points in the adventure. Most adventures has a logical place to level in the middle, and then you level the PCs again at the end of the adventure. It has worked out great for me and my group.
Well, the zombies could have been created years ago, and hidden in a locked room. Speaking of Unhallow, I always thought that it should have been a Lawful variant of Unhallow. Protection from Chaos and such. Law is one of the domains of Wee Jas. Although the high priests are breaking the law by committing treason, attempting to assassinate the PCs, creating undead and summoning fiends. As far as who cast it, the supreme high priest of Wee Jas could have stopped by Cauldron to consecrate the temple with a mighty ward.
Dang it; I meant to say "Embril Aloustinai". Doh.
Some of the zombies could have been created and controlled by Thifirane Rhiavadi. She would then command them to follow the orders of the Wee Jas high priests.
Gwendolyn Weer, elven rogue/sorcerer golddigger, married to Vortemax Weer at the beginning of the campaign. Who was insufferable, demanding, and generally unappeasable. Which surprised the player after he had an attitude change later in the campaign and showing genuine affection and treating her romantically. The player, of course, suspected that something fishy was going on. But the truth was that she was becoming a more impressive person while she was rising in power, confidence, and self determination. Seodarin (Seo) Hillsborough, the pious halfling cleric of Pelor, good daughter of the (halfling) parents who owned and ran the Tipped Tankard, and who were very proud of her. She was surprised when the PCs found that their dishwasher was also a member of the Last Laugh. She diplomized Artus Shemwick (whom I also remade into a halfling) when they confronted him with this info and that he knew where the missing wands were. He provided the information he knew at no cost, and then started to court the cleric and was actually listening to her while she explained why it is good to be good and worship Pelor. He dated her and showed her a great time. Eventually, he proposed, but she declined, still wary of his dubious past, suspecting that he was infiltrating her group for the Last Laugh. Kyra Lanthenmire, younger sister of Cora. Kyra caught the attention of Zachary when she beat him in a wrestling contest at the temple of Kord. Afterward, she was invited by the high priest of the temple of Kord to participate in a yearly barbarian retreat, which got Zachary to participate also. During the retreat, they found a chance to be alone and he expressed his distress with his relationship with Cora and the Stormblades. Then he expressed his interest in the PC and wanted to start a relationship with her. She alluded that if he was able to defeat her in wrestling, she would consider it. As time went by, I failed to followup on this. But later on when Annah was cleverly insulting every member of the party while the Stormblades and the PCs were taking shelter from the heavy rains at the Tipped Tankard, the player countered with an awesome lament of their relationship with an expression of hope for reconciliation and friendship in the future. She delivered this statement with such class and feeling (aka rolling a 20 on a Diplomacy score while the player roleplayed a great scene) that it stunned Annah to retreat back into silence. Cora was irate that the provoked combat failed to be instigated and stormed out of the tavern, demanding "Come on Zach, let's go now". But Zachary said "No" and explained that he has given her several chances to not be driven by anger and that he was breaking up with her. And then he turned to Annah and informed her that since she has just revealed what a terribly hideously cruel monster she really was, that he was quitting the Stormblades also. At that point, Cora slammed the doors open while she was storming out of the tavern, and the rest of the Stormblades followed, stunned and cowed. Afterward, he became really good friends with Kyra, and so did Shensen. So when Shensen invited Kyra to become a Strider, she also invited Zachary, who accepted. As a member of the Striders, he was persuaded to let Annah convince him to rejoin the Stormblades so that he can be on the lookout for Cagewright activity while they adventure. The last Zach and Kyra they were together in the game when they rescued the captured Strider in the Last Laugh safehouse. One last romance: at the very end of the campaign, Kyra achieved her goal of meeting Kord, losing her virginity to him, and (as a bonus) she ended up pregnant with his baby.
As long as you didn't name your daughter after any of the NPC's in the adventure. That's just silly. The daughter will be named after the mother's character, of course. ;)
When published in Dungeon magazine, every one of these adventures also needed to work as a standalone adventure. So, basically every adventure has an out at the end of it. The thing is, is that the episodic nature of the series is a good thing. The players feel they have accomplished something significant at the end of each adventure. The "grand quest" type of campaign can be unsatisfying for players because the game is delaying any sort of significant satisfaction until the very end. The first few adventures don't feel tied to each other, until secret details are revealed later on. Although there are clues here and there, it's not until several adventures are played do the players get a strong sense about what's really going on and what to do about it. Again, I think this is a good thing. The first three adventures is about exploring Cauldron and becoming familiar with the home city. The next three adventures has the players go off to explore alien environs while taking care of problems at home. It's at the seventh adventure where "it is ON" and the players are on a path of destruction to the big bad evil threat, during which they discover why the unrelated first six adventures were actually all symptoms of a greater problem. My players decided to end the campaign at the tenth adventure. At this time, all of the players have achieved their goals. They have ascended to Cauldron nobility, one was Mayor and has met her god, one was the high priest of the new church of Pelor which her followers have built, the gold-digger finally claimed the wealth of her deceased husband while starting a new thieves guild, and the fourth player was playing someone else's character as a favor to all of us, although his character had the new high priest of Wee Jas as her cohort. So, I declared that they have taken out all of the big bad evil threat and all is good in the world. So, chapter 10 was our "out".
The mephits work; though I think I'll throw in a band of kobolds as well, though at their power level they won't be much more than a bit of environment. Kobolds can be half-dragon. Kobolds can also be 20th level sorcerers.
I was thinking that the halfling would be considered a "lucky dog". Which would include the good and bad connotations.
Oh god yes! I, Frank Steven Gimenez, authorize Paizo Publishing to use my ideas in this post however they wish.
Can I get some examples of Cheliaxian names? One of the players in my group wishes to come from Cheliax.I have used Roman names my game : Octavius, Tobinus, Romeo, Titus... I also require a Cheliax name. Where could I find a list of Roman names? Any other naming conventions for Chelaxian names?
If the party try to reason with him from the walls or in person he will talk but is unwavering with his mission to either capture or dispose of the Chisel. No amount of reasoning will change his mind or sway his resolve. Teresong will urge them to help him and see the Chisel for what they are but in the end leaves the party with a simple decision – ‘You either fight for Cauldron or defend its attackers’. You haven't accounted for being Tereson being "diplomized". I recommend including some responses, such as: "You have made some very good points that I have not considered. And I acknowledge that you may be right. Unfortunately I am duty-bound to recover the members of the Chisel at this time. I assure you that there will be a trial. And I will arrange for you to attend so that you can present your testimony. You have my word. I am confident that when you state what you have told me that the charges against the members of the Chisel will be dropped and that they will be acquitted. I regret that I must follow through on the arrest order that I have received. But please bear with us. Cauldron—and I'm sure the Chisel—would appreciate your assistance in this matter. I thank you for your understanding and patience." This represents the "Yes I will be Helpful. But I am very Lawful" response. On a different subject, you can pick up Heroes of Battle from a marketplace ("used and new") seller at Amazon.com for around $5. I did recently. I also picked up the 30 years of D&D book for a penny.
If you are planning to respond, keep in mind that there are several names of adventuring parties listed on the façade of Skie's Treasury that would be good to use: The Greenswords
Also, I request that responders describe:
Also, please keep in mind that any adventuring group in Vhalantru's mansion written up must have "retired" at most fifteen years ago, as that is when Vhalantru establishes himself in Cauldron, according to Cauldron's history on page 13 SCAP.
The chapter which deals with Cauldron suffering an earthquake is an awesome set of scenarios that is uniquely urban. Although I don't expect to see lava in Ptolus, you can use the adventure as a guide to set up a series of rescue scenarios strung together to reflect a natural/supernatural disaster affecting the city. And the need for heroes in this desperate time to help those who desperately need it and take charge of the chaotic situation. In addition, a natural disaster tends to throw a monkey wrench in everyone's well-oiled political machinations. Some well hidden secrets are revealed. Some well placed individuals are killed. The mighty fall, the clever take advantage of this opportunity to rise.
I have been thinking about how Chelaxians treat halflings while reading the Pathfinder's Player's Guide. I want to play a human Chelaxian from Magnimar. I have a character plan where my character will gain a halfling cohort apprentice. The thing is that he considers himself good and not a racist. But it is clear from the way he treats halflings that he regards them an inferior race. It's not something he says out loud or even thinks overtly. It's just in his bones. He speaks to halflings as a social superior. He commands instead of requests. He doesn't look at them when he speaks. And he ignores them when not speaking to them. He will speak about the obvious "facts" about the sad state of the halfling people and culture to others, even while in the presence of halflings. Not at all to be malicious. But the points he brings up are so obvious to him that he can't imagine halfings doing nothing but agree with these clear truths about themselves if they have any sense at all. He calls them "slips" which he considers a polite and proper term because there are uglier terms that other Chellaxians use that he won't. On the surface, "slip" doesn't seem bad. It can mean "slight", which halflings are. But the word has some other meanings that implies certain qualities to halflings.
On top of it all, "slip" is a term coined by the Chellaxians, denying the halflings the right to be named what they want to be named. The ability to name another represents dominance. He believes he is rescuing his halfling apprentice from the degredations of his race. But doesn't really believe that the slip will fully discard his slip background despite his best efforts. But he is happy to do what he can. Maybe this slip will inspire other slips to not be so pathetic. He will find an accusation of being racist extremely absurd. After all, if the speaker only knew how other Chellaxians treated slips they would realize that he is a virtual saint of the slips. He doesn't know anyone else who would take a slip as an apprentice and he suffers much scorn and ridicule for doing so.
Check out this thread: Vitrus Bale died in 4 rounds!!!! Your milage may vary.
A suggestion for the Flood Festival events is to use the Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns book. After describing the events listed in the book I went around the table and asked each player which event did the player want to do. The elven rogue player wanted to participate in dueling. Dueling goes until unconsciousness or after a critical hit or after one participant surrenders. While he signed up Cora Lanthenmire called him out to duel. They both went into the ring and faced off. The player won initiative and critted plus sneak-attacked (from the Ring the Bell feat) Cora to negatives with one hit. While he was getting his trophy plaque and after Cora was healed up by a cleric of Kord she furiously attacked the PC outside of the ring and missed. Adjacent crowd members restrained her and I asked the player what will the PC do now. He decided to make a courtly bow to Cora. I had him roll Diplomacy to see how well he made this gesture of etiquette and he rolled high. I told him that this story will be repeated as a flood festival legend among the flood festival participants through the next couple of weeks. The dwarven fighter player participated in the Crazy Ernie's Bear Wrasslin' for Crazy Folk. He did well, but the bear won. The halfling urban druid wanted to participate in the halfling toss (hosted by the halfings) by being tossed. The halfing urban ranger decided to do some jousting. He squared off against a human in full place and shield on a horse, while the ranger is wearing leather armor and riding his riding dog. He won!
He's not corrupt. He is very lawful and obediant. He follows orders. He probably hates what he is doing. Not that he'll say anything about that.
I would not recommend a large character. There a a lot of 5' corridors in your future. There are too many areas that are cramp enough for a half dozen medium-sized folk without someone taking up four squares. I would not recommend a character from an evil race, or an evil character. The adventure presumes heroic play, with no real place for those who aren't interested in the welfare of Cauldron and its people. There will be a great deal of urban adventuring and social interaction with the citizens of cauldron. Those who gets along with folk will get a lot more out of this path than those who don't.
Hey, being able to arrest the baddies is one of the advantages of urban adventuring. I encourage it. It demonstrates a respect for all life, a level of civility, and faith in the city's legal system. The Town Guard Barracks is described in the SCAP as having a five-level underground prison facility that can hold hundreds of prisoners. It probably also serves the prison needs for Cauldron's environs in a fifty mile radius.
What he saved against was a variant of the phantasmal killer spell. The dream touched book can have some prophecy. Things like what zenith and the paladin were spouting while crazy. Give him prophetic dreams of future scenes of the adventure path when he sleeps. Eventually, he will be spouting insanity just like those affected by the insanity. If he sees Vhalatru, have his character spontaneously attack him as if he was affected by confusion for a round. without understanding why. As far as ability, while taking a standard action to brandish the book, anyone who sees it can be affected by confusion. Treat it as the Umber Hulk's gaze attack.
One of my players has become Lord Mayor. She traded political power for the Vhalatru mansion. She is a figurehead tiebreaker "face of the city" mayor.
Thanks for the post. I wasn't aware of this.
Augury would reveal if an item is cursed.
I have just finished running a Stormblades encounter which takes place at the end of Flood Season. When the Order Ascendent came back from the Lucky Monkey, they were gathering information about Triel to find out where she was. While they were gathering information, they caught wind that the Stormblades were asking about Triel also, and also about what the Order Ascendent are doing. The Order Ascendent were able to catch the trail of clues to the Kopru ruins faster than the Stormblades, but Todd was shadowing them while they were doing their thing. As they were going into the tunnels, they failed a couple of Spot checks, but the Order Ascendent determined that the Stormblades were breathing down their necks. The Order Ascendent do a marathon dungeoncrawl and clear it out in one day, burning lots of resources while doing so. They felt that they couldn't rest or else the Stormblades will scoop them on the rest of the contents of the ruins. Like they did with the Malachite Fortress. But when the Order Ascendent were done, the urban druid changed into a bird and was going to fly across the phantom lake and out the tunnel to get assistance in moving prisoners and other stuff. The dwarven fighter was at 0 DEX but was working at 4 DEX thanks to a Cat's Grace. As the bird druid was flying toward the winch operator's barracks at the top of the ledge of the overlook, he spotted Todd spying through the winch window while hiding. He went back and informed the rest of the Order Ascendent (because of a tongues spell that was cast earlier and still going) about what he saw. So, they decided to have the urban ranger, two riding dogs, and a captured Skaven go up the lines in the cage. At this point the rest of the Stormblades stepped out of the barracks and stood in the available squares in front of the landing where the cage ended up. In the past, they regarded the PCs with disdain and scorn. But this time, they appeared very angry. Probably something to do with the fact that the PCs pwnd them at the Demonskar Ball. Zachary steps forward and holds the cage door closed. Annah states "Give us the wands and everything else you have taken from this site." The urban druid bird then flies by them. Todd hits him with a sleep arrow, but the urban druid keeps flying out of the tunnel. The Stormblades hold their ground. The Order Ascendent decide to bring down the caged halflings and riding dogs. At this point, they are ready to kill the Stormblades. But they come up with an idea. They use one of the control water wands to raise a column of water to the top of the ledge, which spill over where the Stormblades are standing. Annah commands them to hold their ground. Shortly afterward, the Skulvyn demon swims up the column of water and ends up in front of the Stormblades. At this point, the Stormblades run away, their plan foiled. Basically, I was working to have the Stormblades prevent the PCs from leaving by controlling the spaces in front of the cage, but without needing to directly attack the PCs to do so. Any plan to bypass the Stormblades would result in the PCs striking the first blow, which would be fine with the Stormblades. But, the players solved this political encounter with cleverness and ingenuity. And I was very pleased to see that they did so without playing into the Stormblades hands. One last note, the denouement indicates that it takes several hours of wand use to lower the lake. But at a standard action, it would only take five minutes to empty a wand. Perhaps because of the 70 minute duration, it would be best to keep some charges in reserve for when the durations of the first spells go down. But the dramatic conclusion doesn't match how the spell works.
You can use Gather Information in reverse to seed a story to a population, as described in the Complete Adventurer. His followers will probably swallow this idea without any problems. If he says he is the scion of Surabar, then he is. In addition, they can be the ones who seed the rumor in town, aiding a PC's reverse Gather Information. Add the number of followers to the Gather Info roll since half of them will be able to provide the +2 Aid Another bonus. Hiring a storyteller can work well also. The nobles will work against this. Evidence will have to be really strong before they even concede this "fact". Even then, they want to rule Cauldron and will have their own countermeasures working against that rumor. Basically, he can convince some of the population. His political opponents will call him on it and reject it unless Surabar himself crawls out of his tomb and claims the PC. My players has just defeated the final encounter of Lords of Orblivion. As they were leaving, I asked them to consider the following question during the week: do you want to be mayor of Cauldron?
Here's some foreshadowing that paid off for me. After the first adventure, the PCs were riled up because the Stormblades cleared out the Malachite Fortress after they left with the kidnapped townsfolk. The players get the good idea to find and ally with the other adventurers in town against the Stormblades. But I informed them that although Cauldron has a rich history of adventuring groups, there are currently only the Stormblades and the PCs active at this time. So, the players were probably thinking that I was using my DM hammer to squash their good idea. Now, at 13th level they are going through Vhalatru's residence, and they find out why there are no other adventuring groups in town. Awesome payoff of foreshadowing.
Okay, the imp in the Flood Season has encountered the party. The party has just defeated his plaything and is going to mess with the party. Of course, the party does not realize that they have an imp problem. Here's the thing. I hate practical jokers, pranksters, and the idea that it is okay to have fun at another's expense. However, I also believe in bringing honor to the PC's adversary by running them to the best of my ability in the manner that they should be run. I need ideas for what the imp will do with the party. How will he mess with them?
If you haven't noticed it yet, check the back of the book for a section about recommendations to players for classes for the campaign, along with traits that characters can choose. As far as the evil thing...what I do is say that in a given population, around 20% ping evil and around 20% ping good. Being evil is not a crime. Doing certain evils is. Killing citizens because they are evil is murder. There are several threads about advice for starting DMs on this board. Search for "starting" or "new".
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