GhostPepper's page

I gave my party a crystal that when broken created an exact clone of the wielder for one minute. Hugely powerfu (since the party effectively got an extra party memver for one combat encounter) but the downside was that all the damage on the clone got transfered back to the user at the end of the minute. So if they both got pretty beat up during the fight there was a chance they could die when they snapped back together (that caused some serious excitement).

Personally I really like giving items that are one-use per day and provide an odd utility spell as it encourages creativity. Expeditious excavation is a personal favourite, since it's almost always used in surprising ways (opening up a put in front of a pursuing horseman during a chase sequence for instance).

As a GM, I'd allow it on the "rule of cool" exemption.

It would be an exotic weapon (requiring exotic weapon proficiency) as the lance would no-doubt need to be modified for this.

The really interesting idea about this is what happens after the enemy gets grabbed by the bear-trap. They normally are tied to a spike in the ground, preventing the enemy from running, but if you were to tie it to your horse, you could drag the enemy across the ground (for extra damage!).

I think they'd probably work well on a highly acrobatic/mobile character, working in cooperation with another party member whose job is then to move in and smash then to bits (alternately you could take leadership at level 7 and just run the support character yourself). It gives the whole thing a good story hook too:

Eg./ An agile swashbuckler, who trips opponents, and his old friend the massive hulking barbarian with an oversized great-club, who then power-attacks the ever-loving crap out of the now-fallen opponent. Ordinarily the oversized weapon would be impractical, but not when your opponent is prone on the ground!

GhostPepper wrote:

Gnomalypse wrote:

For what i've seen so far, a well-optimized-build Synthetist.

Literally destroys the game.

This. 100% this. Had to put up with this in a game. At level 10. He had 9 attacks, mid-30s AC, +25 on all saves, elemental immunity, flying so he couldn't be tripped... It just went on and on.

were half of them manufactured weapon attacks? if not he was doing some ilegal stuff as even synth summoners are bound by max natrual attacks

Yup, from memory there was a way to dip into Monk to have your natural attacks treated as manufactured attacks that got him around the limit. On the plus side it turns out that all that doesn't protect you from the old "Anti-magic shell + a huge stack of dynamite" trick.

For what i've seen so far, a well-optimized-build Synthetist.

Literally destroys the game.

This. 100% this. Had to put up with this in a game. At level 10. He had 9 attacks, mid-30s AC, +25 on all saves, elemental immunity, flying so he couldn't be tripped... It just went on and on.

Honestly, if you've talked to him about it and there's been no change, I'd kick him. But if you're determined to keep him I've got two words for you: "Table rules".

Don't make it about him, even though it is, as he'll probably just get offended and make a big drama-laden scene.

Rule 1: No devices. Each player needs a printed character sheet, pencil and dice. There is a rule book for the table. This reduces distractions and prevents rubbish like him playing music.

Rule 2: During combat you have 30 seconds to decide on your action. You have everyone else's turn to hum and haw.

As for the rest of the problems: Stop letting him use knowledge rolls for things that aren't relevant, this encourages balanced character creation. Part of the problem is that you've let him get away with having a character that does one thing and misuses skills for everything else. So put your foot down, if he sulks, point out that he decided to make a character that can only do that one specific thing and is welcome to create a new one.

If he wanders off in combat when his one gimmick doesn't work, then hit him with something else. He goes into a building to explore while the party is fighting for their lives, guess what, there's a rat swarm in that room too!

Do this and he'll have to either shape up or will voluntarily leave the party.

GhostPepper wrote:

On your example: A rogue should get a chance to spot the switch & disable it, surely.

Of course, but should he miss it, I don't really like the standard "Ref to take half damage" option. It's great to see players think on their feet and do something creative.

So situations that force players to think outside the box, or put them on the back foot in an interesting way fascinate me. If the party is climbing down a sheer cliff face and giant spiders start swarming out of holes in the cliff face, this is great because the players have to think of creative solutions (in that particular case it involves the cleric using "shape stone" to create a ledge the ranger could stand on and pick off the spiders with his bow, while the monk jumped from spider to spider kicking them off the cliff to splatter on the cavern floor below).

I’ve been running a game with a group of friends for donkey’s years and I’m trying to keep things fresh rather than letting the game devolve into “Enter square room, fight monster”. So I’d like to know, what’s the coolest situation you’ve gone through/put your players through? Why was it your favourite?

I’m looking for ideas for traps, terrain challenges and dangerous situations I can throw at my party. The key thing here is that I want them to be interactive challenges (not simply a case of ‘Reflex save for half damage’). One example might be stepping on a switch that releases a wave of water down the corridor that will slam the PCs into the walls, the players could grab onto the walls, run from the wave, look for a door, cast a spell etc, but they’ve got to do something active.

In terms of arguments over the rules, something to make very clear at the start of a campaign is Rule Zero: The GM is right.

One of the keys to good gameplay is flow, if you're stopping every few minutes to look something up (a process that stalls the game for a couple of minutes) then it's going to create frustration, boredom, and open space up for arguments.

Instead, when you hit an unclear area, make a decision that seems as fair as possible and move on with the game. If you find out later that it wasn't consistent with the rules then learn from it and get it right next time. Decent and fast is better than totally correct and slow.

The usual GM instinct in these situations is to throw tougher monsters at the party until parity is achieved, and that's fine some of the time.

What I might suggest instead is taking a leaf from Tucker's Kobolds; have the NPC enemies fight smarter. By now the party ought to be getting relatively famous, so their opponents will know of them and prepare for them with better tactics (setting up difficult to reach locations where they fire ranged weapons from, nimble enemies retreating onto difficult terrain, a long killzone with a shitload of archers at the other end etc).

Then there's my personal favourite; terrain challenges/traps. The enemy might have set up traps (a net being dropped on the party, pit traps, rolling barrels down stairs etc). They key thing here is to give your party an opportunity to respond when they see these things happening, because what matters is that it forces them to diversify from their standard response to challenges ("I hit it with my sword"). Put them in a situation where they have to make a difficult choice (the artificer is dangling from a pit trap, do they help him or turn to face the enemy etc.)

They key thing is to make these things seem like challenges, rather than arbitrary difficulty-raising. They are there to be overcome, but the party will have to think outside of their usual go-to tactics to accomplish this.

I raised a Giant Emperor scorpion a while back. It's 15HD, so not quite the cap you're going for, but it gets three attacks a round, constrict and pounce.

Movement-wise it can't fly, but can burrow, making it great for getting out of dodge (climb inside its empty exoskeleton and retreat beneath the earth). It can also move fairly fast over the ground (50). Add to that it's a big bugger with great reach and you've got a pretty solid all-round bodyguard.

Oh wow, I just realised, the Necro-Jaeger totally needs a Pacific Rim-style name. Any ideas?

And thanks for these ideas guys! These are gold!

Cool!

How about a floating skull drone?

Hmm, sounds fun. Maybe the skull of a beholder since creatures that flew by magical means will still fly as animated skeletons. Better yet, replace the giant's skull with the beholder skull and use it as an emergency escape vehicle (climb into it, detach it and fly off inside it!)

Could you maybe fit a catapault of some kind onto the giant's shoulders? Or small ballistae? They'd need a way to be aimed and reloaded, but hey: it could be fun.

On that note, spiked armor seems important if you ever want it to grapple Kaiju.

ARMOUR SPIKES! YES! FEAR THE CRUSHING STABBING EMBRACE!

Catapault probably wouldn't be necessary since a Cloud Giant has STR35, he can literally just pick up and hurl boulders at people. I've got a light ballista at the moment that my character floats around on a disk of force. Given the relative sizes the Necro-Jaeger could probably fire it like a giant crossbow (which would allow him to reload it as well).

See if you can get a second seat in the skull, if your party archer or mage is small enough to fit. Also, a wagon or way to haul the rest of the party in out-of-combat situations. If you can find a way to sleep while carried by the giant, you can cover multiple times the distance you normally are able to.

We've got a Goblin Gunslinger in the party, so the old sniper's-nest-in-the-skull trick just might work. And I do have a caravan (backstory is that my character was a travelling trader who was too stingy to hire assistants and so turned to necromancy to keep his overheads down. So the fast-travel idea would totally work.

You could have a seeing-eye minion describe it to you. Depending on your race you might also have the scent ability, which could be useful for identifying things.

In terms of spell-casting, you could extend your range to 10-feet with a 10-foot pole. A 100% improvement on your current situation. (Alternately, your seeing eye minion could also give you a bearing and a distance).

Given the characters a one-pager explaining the world, with the fact that undead are present in the world listed in one of the paragraphs alongside a whole heap of other world-related information. This way smart characters can make a note of that and come prepared, yet it isn't telegraphed as being the focus of the campaign (preserving the narrative surprise).

Robert Jordan was well known for this in his Wheel of Time series, he'd have the characters mention something seemingly insignificant while discussing something important, then later on have the insignificant thing turn out to be crucial.

It was still surprising, but with that element of foreshadowing you got an "Oh wow" moment from the reader as it all comes together in their mind.

I'm running a dwarf-cleric (vanilla variety) with a focus on necromancy. Our party has run across the bones of a cloud giant and I had an idea.

The GM has ruled that it's large enough that I can fit inside its ribcage, so I'm getting a seat added and a view-port installed in its armour.

I can now ride around inside it Pacific Rim style, buffing it from within and sling spells out through the view-port.

So the question is: How can I make this cooler feature-wise. Not necessarily more powerful, just more fun.

For example, I've created what I call the skeleton-fastball. It's a barrel stuffed with corpses and straw and enchanted with a glyph of warding that sets off an animate dead spell when the barrel is opened/smashed. The giant can sling the barrel and boom, instant skeletons at the impact point.

So I'm looking for ideas on that kind of stuff, could be fun magic items, mechanical ideas, tactics, whatever sounds like fun.