Ghray's page

A couple thoughts.

First, if everyone in town is infected, it will make the PCs job relatively easy. They can start killing indiscriminately. Or just leave. I would suggest making sure that it's only maybe half of the population. That leads to a game of "who can we trust". Which means you need to embed in-game reasons why the PCs must interact with many people. Once they figure out the overall issue, the clues regarding who they spoke to should be evident.

Second, you've got a neat opportunity to leave bread crumbs. If they have a discussion with one infected NPC, you could have another NPC aware of that conversation and refer to it. If you're subtle enough, they won't catch on.

It's an interesting challenge.

Good ideas. I was thinking of having it about half anyways. The players would investigate the murders, get conflicting reports from different npcs with some of the stories not adding up.

It would be neat if maybe some npc's kill infected people, and in turn, the demon has those people killed as well. Gives some nice back and forth (as you mentioned, who can we trust).

I'm hoping this post will be updated with the eventual story of how this plays out in your campaign.

It won't be for a bit as me and one of my players are starting a new job, which means a more stable schedule but we want to focus on that for now.

Please make sure that the demon with the ear bugs is named Khan though.

Khan isn't a bad demon name at all.

To that note, what does the main demon controlling everyone look like? Just a CR level appropriate demon or have you gotten that far yet?

I'm a fan of simple enemy designs. I don't have something concrete yet, but I'm thinking it be some kind of humanoid, tall, spindly, pale, long greasy black hair, black eyes. Freaky looking, but nothing over the top. Relies more on the creatures it dominates for self-defense as opposed to natural weapons or magic.

Have not determined stats, will probably pick something off the monsters list and tweak it to what would be a good challenge for the PCs.

Dotting for eventual story time.

What do you mean?

Vermlek sound creepy! Reminds me of that one old Star Trek episode. I'll check out the worms that walk/

It would be kind of neat if the PCs ended up getting into (and winning) a fight, and the worms would escape their host, or the hosts would get back up as zombies.

Hey everyone, in my campaign the PCs are en route to a small town (200ish people) to investigate a series of murders. What seems like the case of a serial killer is actually the work of an IT style demon. Rather then eating people, it instead takes control of their body through implanting a small bug through the ear into the brain (dark stuff). This is similar to the Dominate Person spell, but subjects cannot resist once under its control and the demon can see & hear through their subject. The dominated person is essentially a living husk at this point.

Note, the murders are not actually caused by the demon directly, but by individuals that discover that people are being replaced by the demon.

My question is, what kind of advice would you have for running a few sessions about a creature that essentially replaces everyone in the town slowly and how would it defend itself to intruders if/when they began to catch on? And is there a creature in the Pathfinders monsters list that fits this type of creature?

Edit: Currently, the average party level is 6 with three players.

No way! I did the same thing!

** spoiler omitted **

We just finished it, and it was great! But the actual high-level encounters are what we seem to be dreading.

That sounds sweet! It's funny because I combined Risk with Total War (you could auto-resolve battles or choose to fight them. Auto resolving was better).

In college, I was a player in a superhero Savage Worlds game that had a great ending. It turns out the real villains were alternate universe counterparts of the team, and we defeated them by casting them into the timestream.

It's pretty awesome when a game has a satisfying conclusion. Well done!

In the timestream? I don't know what that is but that sounds like a terrible fate! I'm still amazed one of my players accepted a deal from Death itself and became Famine. (I knew he'd accept it, but still, crazy!)

Congrats!

The longest running campaign I ran from start to end, was with AD&D 2e, the original Dragonlance series of modules (DL1 through DL14), in 1989-90. It took us roughly 18 months of weekly sessions. That definitely marks the high point of my 30 year-long career as a DM. We still talk about it today *sigh*

Wow!! I can't imagine doing that!

My players and I are on book six and year four of our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign. I suspect it may go five years. We play bi-weekly, and often take breaks for months at a time.

To tell the truth, I'm a bit burned out on it but I have some epic stuff coming up that I've been laying the groundwork for and planning for years.

You definitely have to spice it up. I've done things like, mass combat, kingdom building, extreme survival, captured with no weapons, etc. For my last session, I made a full board game to showcase the final big city battle.

Ran a five year campaign. I blended rules form Pathfinder to Tomb Rules and MAN what a blast. My players had their characters temporarily leveled to 20 to combat some crazy powerful enemies (and one player actually turned on the party after accepting the powers of Famine from Death. Year, four horsemen Famine and Death. PVP drama!)

Has anyone experienced the end of a long, drawn out campaign where all the BBEGs are defeated and the good guys won? Or simply just finished a campaign and you feel that deep breath, "it's done!" sorta thing?

Just feel like posting, it's a great high right now (although I'm crazy tired).

I like the "brave new world" concept a lot. Heck, my initial map was done with Civ5:Brave New World... XD

Works better with low-power, though. I run E6 with impeded magic.

My buddy and I are *huge* Civilization fans, hence the name of the campaign ;) We are thinking low-power, so we'll look into E6 with impeded magic. Never heard of it until now!

Another variant on this theme is using magical transport of most of the population to another area/realm/time to avoid the calamity. Note there is a RPG setting product out there that does this and if you are curious you can PM me and I will give you the info.

Also, just because you are moving to lands you do not know about or of, does not mean that others are not there or daemons, devils, BBEG's are not there before you. The same goes for magic items, strange cultures, building, lost civilizations, etc.

If you want a game like Civ (computer game/board game) then you should plan on gating to an unknown, unoccupied planet/land/created plane/etc for your people to explore and populate.

MDC

As a side note, we're going for the settlement/colony ideas because as a player, I will get heavily into that. Also, one of the other players who was in a campaign I DM'd was heavily into a kingdom aspect of the game. (She owned a small kingdom after throwing a successful coup).

Also, a big reason why we're moving away from a lot of the daemons, devils, BBEG's, etc, is because we want to focus on the 'human' aspect. What would Dwarves do? Elves? How would the different races react to this, etc. We would much rather our BBEG's be a King or Captain of the Guard who eats more then his fair share of food, thus causing starvation among a population that cannot afford that kind of crisis considering the size of the colony. That, and, in the campaign I mentioned I DM's before had a lot of homebrewed Demons and whatnot so we want to focus on something smaller.

Well a lot of component could become ruined by exposure to water, wind, sun etc. Also a loss of one or more boats could make supplies of components or even spellbooks or scrolls completely disappear just like with food or other necessities.

This is very true. We thought of an idea where there are say, 100 boats. We would make a list of nasty things like attacked by sea monster, hit my rogue wave, mutiny, smooth sailing, etc. We would then roll a d100 for every boat (probably use an auto dice roller). That way, if a king dies or the boat full of magic scrolls sink, well then everyone then there ya go.

Obviously the PC boat would have to make it, but it could make for an interesting start if you got hit by a rogue wave and the players woke up on the shore together.

If you want to push the survival theme, you might need to cut back on some of the spells that make dealing with those themes trivial.

Sounds like you got a good idea though. Roll with it.

Both of us have actually are indifferent to magic heavy campaigns, so we're looking into ways of limiting magic. He is going to be a bit harsher on magic components, making them more rare and so that you can't just buy them from a shop or something. Which makes sense given the circumstances of the campaign.

Hello fellow players! My buddy and I are looking at running a new campaign, he will be DMing. We are experienced D&D players (and both have DM'd games before) and we spent a few hours discussing a new campaign idea. Before we get to ahead of ourselves, I'd like to run it on the forums to see if anyone has any suggestions and/or ideas/feedback.

The players start off on an island with a single kingdom. Roughly half the size of Ireland. Right at the start of the campaign, the island is in imminent peril from some natural disaster and everyone has a few days to leave. Not knowing of any surrounding land, the Kingdom packs people, resources, items, etc, in as many boats as they can and people sail out. As for the players, they were randomly selected via lottery to apart of an adventuring guild to help explore new land they may find. A few boats sink along the way, storms separate boats, but you eventually find land. Because of the separated boats, different boats set up different small colonies many miles apart.

Things that would be factored in:

- We would make a character sheet for the king. Depending on stats, quirks, flaws, would depend on how the king effects the growth of the colony.
- Talking about the king, the player may or may not land with the king and the king may or may not survive the trip. Gonna roll for it!
- We would use a kingdom building system (Pathfinder Kingdom Builder, we share a Hero Lab license so this would make it easy) to handle the growth of the colonies.
- Because nobility and high ranking members of the kingdom wouldn't want to be left behind, they will either be let boats or force themselves on. Will effect initial colony growth. (Using Pathfinder Kingdom builder, as mentioned before).
- The plot would be very much devoid of Macguffins, big magic machines, crazy demon lords, etc. Very much down to earth and survival based.
- The players would get rewarded for clearing caves, cartography, providing resources to the growing colony, etc.
- Players would encounter natives and monsters they have never heard of before.

The idea is to give that first 50 turns in Civilization feel while playing Pathfinder. Explore, grow, etc.

Any opinions?

When a player rolls a 20 or a 1, they reroll said the D20 again to confirm crit. If they roll another 20 or 1 then they roll the die again. If they get a third 20 or 1, then its considered a super crit (1 in 8000 chance). This generally results in something hilariously epic. I have two of these happen over the course of my campaign.

1.) See Lorila Sorita's answer.
2.) This is pure RP. It's your job as DM to gauge what player characters think of your NPC's and vice versa.
3.) Two part answer. If someone is trying to find out about the local thieves guild, it depends how they go about finding it. They could use bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, perception, etc. It all depends how the player RP's the situation. Also, knowledge local has this in the website, "Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)"
4.) This is VERY hard to nail out and is very individual to how your players roleplay their characters. For example, in my campaign, one of the PC's murdered a king and threw a coup. She did so well with her rolls that the people LOVE her. However, one of my NPC's who knows the truth absolutely hates her (but still fights with her because of aligned goals). She may have a great reputation among her subjects, but some people do hate her.
5.) It's not your job to devote a PC to a god. It's the PC's job to devote themselves to the god. This is a roleplay subjective stat for sure. For example, a PC could be super devout to a god, but because that PC pissed in the clerics Magic-O's cereal once, that cleric won't heal them.

I know I sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but most of your answers can be summed up with "role play and go from there". Let your players do what they need to do without bogging everything down in all of these extra rules that most people might not remember or get confused about. It's much easier that way.

Hello all! As the end of my campaign approaches, so does the final climatic battle. The players have been chasing after an incredibly powerful magical artifact (and so have the bad guys) that can essentially grant wish spells. (Hence why the end). Essentially, I'm going to ask for some pointers about managing a large scale conflict, how to direct player goals, and some other generic tips. I want this to be as epic as possible!

NOTE:
1.) The artifact is going to spawn in the capital of the largest country in the world, which is also the largest city in my continent.
2.) There are three factions vying for this artifact. Each faction hates each other for their own reasons.
i.) The Demon Lord Droselgaul and his army of rascally demons.
ii.) A small but crazy powerful group of ancient Elves lead by Eladrin. EDIT: Fun note, Eladrin is the one responsible for bringing Droselgaul into this world. Biiiig screw up on his part.
iii.) The PC's and their band of trusty NPC's and misc. allies.
3.) In terms of raw power of each faction, it goes Demons, Elves, Players.
4.) This artifact is VERY unstable and needs time to use. You can't just run up to it and shout "PUT 50,000 GRAPES IN EACH OF MY ENEMIES" and expect it to work.
5.) I use the Mass Combat quite frequently, so I will be using that again.

CURRENT PLANS SO FAR:
1.) The demons are going to get to the city first and pretty much wreck the s@$# out of it.
2.) The players get there next from one side and the Elves hit from the other.
3.) The players will have to do certain objectives, mini encounters/tasks in order to get to the final boss fight. My current ideas are..
i.) Get through the main gate
ii.) Fight and destroy Droselgauls most powerful warrior
iii.) Find a magic item in the Mages College to use the artifact safely
iv.) Get to the artifact and fight Droselgaul AND Eladrin at the same time.

LASTLY:

So as I mentioned, I want the players to fight both Droselgaul and Eladrin at the same time. A triple threat match, if you will. I have been thinking of some ways of making this final fight really interesting so I'd love some general ideas of just anything to make this triple fight awesome.

Sorry for the long post, but the party and I are getting really pumped about this. Any tips about anything for this would be very much appreciated :D

Sundakan wrote:

GM Rednal wrote:

...The point is, players probably shouldn't feel too rewarded for stealing the items of enemies, or they're probably going to start doing that on a frequent basis.

...Wut? This is a game where the vast majority of PC wealth comes from killing people and taking their stuff. Stealing it just circumvents the "kill them" part, I see no reason to go out of your way to punish them.

That said, a Chaotic Evil Intelligent Item does not beg for you to "go out of your way" OR "punish them". Anybody with Spellcraft or Kn. Arcana could tel you that's bad news bears. Ego checks are no joke, because even at a low DC eventually you WILL roll a 1.

I would say 'they shouldn't feel too rewards for stealing items of enemies... they haven't killed yet'.

Loot is usually a reward for 'solving the problem'. Right now, they just annoyed the villain and then ran way with his stuff. Nice if their main goal is to protect a mcguffin, not quiet as nice when they have their main antagonist disarmed and far more vulnerable. This game is predicated on the idea that 'murder hoboing is for the good of the world, since everyone is usually better off with the enemies dead'.

If they had killed the evil priest and stole the weapon from him, then messing with them too much would just suck. But they specifically left alone a know problem, one specifically targeting them since they stole the weapon. They should know he isn't going to take that kindly or quietly.

If they didn't get XP from it (or at least not much), then they shouldn't get the same amount of secondary character advanced either.

Well, the players did solve a problem. Essentially, Eladrin ambushed them with several of his best warriors. The players made some clever moves and not only escaped, but took the buggers weapon. After the session, one of my players expressed concern that he might have ruined the plotline but I insisted it only made it more interesting.

Loot comes in various forms. Not necessarily "solving a problem" but it can come from a vast array of things. If a player has their character steal something from the BBEG and get away with it, then all the power to that player! It just means I gotta make it more interesting later :)

Have your PCs find some evidence or even just rumors that Eladrin used to be a mighty champion of good until he found this sword wich slowly corrupted him. another fun thing would be to say that the sword causes the player carrying it to detect as chaotic evil or even as a demon to magic.

Funny you mention that.... Eladrin actually was a champion for good. Essentially, the PCs found the artifact that Eladrin was looking for (before he had Demon sword) so he stabbed a PC in the back to get to it. The PCs managed the prevent him from reaching it, but the artifact activated some defenses and teleported away.

Shortly after, Eladrin found the demons prison, made a deal, and took his sword (which was located right outside his prison. Long story short: thousands of years ago, a hero fought the demon, disarmed him, casted an Imprison spell, and died moments after. The sword was just outside the Demons reach until Eladrin essentially picked it up and made the deal)

There are some neat rules regarding possession and what things like demons possessing a sword could probably do. XD ...The point is, players probably shouldn't feel too rewarded for stealing the items of enemies, or they're probably going to start doing that on a frequent basis. Feel free to make it clear that it's neither safe nor friendly, and maybe reveals nastier and nastier effects as time goes on...

Yeah I think I know what I'm going to do now. Essentially, the Demon is going to trick the players into thinking they are harming Eladrins final goal but instead it is actually going to secretly point the players towards the artifact. And once the players find the artifact and Eladrin crosses paths with the PC's... he'll call the sword back and BAM epic boss fight.

Thanks for the help guys! I think this is gonna be sweeeeet.

As a LE DM I would make sure the players didn't want the sword after a few sessions

1. Its a powerful demon in a sword. Opposed Ego check?
2. Some intelligent items have powers only they can activate. Might use scorching ray/fireball in the midst of a diplomacy check. Illusions are particularly fun to use here
3. Trickery. If its a subtle demon it would take great pleasure from getting the players to commit horrible atrocities preferably against enemies of Eladrin/himself. Disguise/Alter Other :D With minuite/lv duration it might take a while for the players to even find out they just killed their loved ones
4. If it gains power quickly enough the smart players will get very very scared
5. If the wielder is a fighter type the sword could give him the benefits of a Wild Rager(Ult Combat pg31) if he gets enough kills in a period of time
6. If the releasing of the artifact would bring about optimal destruction it is very real possibility for it to try and use the players for such purposes. Heck Eladrin could go along with this and follow along until it was unearthed then bam. Call back the sword final boss fight go

What is a LE DM? ANd to answer your points:

1.) What do you mean opposed Ego check?
2.) It has both passive and activatable abilities. When the Player held it for the firts time, it caused her PC to see images of death and destruction.
3.) I like the idea of it using illusion to mess with the players.. I'll keep this idea in mind.
4.) The PCs are already scarred of it :P (They read about the blade before hand, but they don't truly understand the full extent of its power yet)
5.) Good idea, I'll keep that in mind.
6.) I just might use this :D

I got a lot of good ideas from you guys so far. I'm honestly so glad my players did this.. it is gonna make the final arc of the campaign a WHOLE lot more interesting.

So, the party has caused some strife and discord by killing someone, will likely be in the middle of more stuff because of that, causing future discord, and the sword ends up where it wants to be? It has problems with this?

On a meta level:
. The party is rewarded for clever play, without harming the plot-line.
. The party has more hooks into the campaign, strengthening their involvement.
. The party has a chance to pick up clues and backstory, as above.
. Some ambiguity is introduced, allowing more roleplay possibilities.

Am I missing anything?

Well the party didn't kill anyone during the encounter today. They took the sword and GTFO of the situation. The BBEG still lives. One thing I did not mention though was that physical form of the demon is imprisoned and if the sword is in the hand of the BBEG, that is his best bet of becoming free. (This campaign has been runnning for a few years so all the story details at this point are a bit much to type here).

The last thing I want to do was punish the players for clever play, which is why I'm thinking what the heck is the villain gonna do now. How to make it interesting, what can I do to intrigue the players even more now. I mean, a lot of antagonists power is gone, but he is in no way a neutralized threat as a result.

I do want to have some consequences to having the sword (not necessarily punishing). I failed to mention this, but the PC who picked up the sword had images of death and destruction plus a few other things. I could drive the plot forward with those.

Can Eladrim talk to the demon any other way?

Does he have an organization willing to ransom the sword?
What information does the Demon possess?
Could the sword swing a deal like, I will help you find and kill <...>, and you can take all of his treasure, but you must leave me imbedded in his heart. Then Eladrim can just swing by and pick up the sword. Net result, sword returned and an annoying rival killed by a third party, all good for Eladrim.

Yes.

If you're wanting to know what Eladrin gets out of this, he is using the power of this blade to secure a powerful magical artifact.

Your presumption is correct. Originally, my players character wanted to use it to stab the BBEG but after talking to the Demon, she no longer wants to, the players are now a few hundred meters away from the BBEG.

The wielder of the sword can communicate with the Demon inside. The BBEG can feels its presence (similar to how a Nazgul can feel the presence of the One Ring) but he does not have a GPS saying "turn right at Mt. Doom and you'll find your sword".

More or less, the players did some stuff I didn't expect so I'm just looking for ideas to expand the possibilities.

Had a great session today and something very unexpected happened. My main antagonist, Eladrin, has a Demonic weapon that is bound to him. After a few good roles and some clever moves, one player managed to disarm Eladrin and another player snagged the weapon. This weapon has a fragment of the demons soul in it and you can actively communicate with the Demon at will. (So the player who took it already had a nice chat with the Demon). Essentially, this sword provides some evil bonuses to the wielder, but every time you do damage or kill with it, it feeds the sword thus making the soul fragment more powerful.

Now, the Demon wants his weapon back in the hands of Eladrin, but I don't want to be a cheesy bugger and say it has Returning or can simply teleport back. Obviously, Eladrin is going to seek the weapon and try to take it back.

Any ideas on how Eladrin should go about seeking it? Or maybe the Demon might have a trick or two up his sleeve? I think this will make next session REALLY interesting and fun :D

NOTE: Eladrin is based off this http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/npc-s/npc-17/shadow-cleric-elf-cleric-18

Edit: Spelling error.

Interesting premise, but what exactly would the players be doing? You need some kind of hook to bring them in. Maybe the wurm god was responsible for the planet being drifted? Or maybe the wurm god was saving the planet from some world eating entity (or a beacon that was summoning said world eating entity).

The only problems that I have is that your campaign is very specific and by limiting classes/races, then you're essentially preventing your players from playing what they want to play. Remember, as a DM, your job is to make sure both you and the players have as fun much as they can per session.

For example... instead of humanity being wiped out, what if the Dwarves took them as refugees and Humans now live with Dwarves?

Lastly, start at level 1. If you were an experienced DM with experienced players, I'd say start at level 3. The reason you want to start at level 1 is that at level 5 you won't know the power scale of your players. Making encounters would be really hard.

Whyyyyy not you do this. Same world, same premise, but instead you start your players at level 1 and have the world in the process of moving. Would give your players the opportunity to prevent the apocalypse around level 6, and if they fail, then what I said above can apply.

Good luck dude!

@Aelryinth

In my opinion though, the problem with martial classes in Pathfinder in general is feats. And remember, that chain will come when you get +16 BAB (level 16). The problem stems from what Wizards and other magic users can do.

For example, I built a Dwarven Summoner who had more HP then the fighter and my eidolon did similar damage, effectively making the party's fighter... redundant. And this isn't just a single example. Martial classes are consistently outclasses by magic users in later levels to the point that it is plain silly.

Yes, Frank/Tome makes very powerful characters (mind you, that was their intent), but to be fair, considering a medium level Wizard played right can destroy an entire city. The bonuses from a feat like TWF really don't make it seem all to powerful when you really look at what other classes can do.

In fairness, a few Professions have been actively integrated into other parts of the game. Sailor often comes up for handling boats (which is relevant in sea-based games), Soldiers is used for running armies in Mass Combat, et cetera. If the game isn't specifically using them, then yeah, they're a bit superfluous... but at least some of them do have a real use beyond roleplaying and earning some spending cash.

This is true. I use profession for mass combat, but that is about it. I took it out for Player use. They never used it anyways and I didn't want them to waste points.

Feats need to scale imo. One thing that Frank/Tomb gets right is that if you pick a feat, for example, Two-Weapon Warrior, the feat unlocks additional features the higher your BAB gets. You pick one feat and eventually unlock the Pathfinder equivalent of 5-10 feats.

Here is the tomb rule version of Two Weapon Fighting

When armed with two weapons, you fight with two weapons rather than picking and choosing and fighting with only one. Kind of obvious in retrospect.

+0 BAB: You suffer no penalty for doing things with your offhand. When you make an attack or full-attack action, you may make a number of attacks with your off-hand weapon equal to the number of attacks you are afforded with your primary weapon.

+1 BAB: While armed with two weapons, you gain an extra Attack of Opportunity each round for each attack you would be allowed for your BAB, these extra attacks of opportunity must be made with your offhand.

+6 BAB: You gain a +2 Shield Bonus to your armor class when fighting with two weapons and not flat footed. +11: You may Feint as a Swift action.

+16 BAB: While fighting with two weapons and not flat footed you may add the enhancement bonus of either your primary or your off-hand weapon to your Shield Bonus to AC.

I straight up took profession out of my campaign. It's a point dump for role playing.

Here is my opinion on the title. I posted the source of this, it is an alternative ruleset called Frank K. Tome to 3.5 (easily convertible to Pathfinder). The problem with fighters is Feats, they just simply don't do enough. Anywho, read this if you're interested.

Feats were an interesting idea when they were ported to 3rd edition D&D. But let’s face it; they don’t go nearly far enough. Feats were made extremely conservative in their effects on the game because the authors didn’t want to offend people with too radical a change. Well, now we’ve had third edition for 6 years, and we’re offended. Feats are an interesting and tangible way to get unique abilities onto a character, but they have fallen prey to two key fallacies that has ended up turning the entire concept to ashes in our mouths. The first is the idea that if you think of something kind of cool for a character to do, you should make it a feat. That sounds compelling, but you only get 7 feats in your whole life. If you have to spend a feat for every cool thing you ever do, you’re not going to do very many cool things in the approximately 260 encounters you’ll have on your way from 1st to 20th level. The second is the idea that a feat should be equivalent to a cantrip or two. This one is even less excusable, and just makes us cry. A +1 bonus is something that you seriously might forget that you even have. Having one more +1 bonus doesn’t make your character unique, it makes you a sucker for spending one of the half dozen feats you’ll ever see on a bonus the other players won’t even mention when discussing your character.

We all understand this problem, what do we do about it? Well, for starters, Feats have to do more things. Many characters are 5th level or so and they only have 2 feats. Those feats should describe their character in a much more salient way than “I’m no worse shooting into melee than I am shooting at people with cover that isn’t my friends.” This was begun with the tactical feats, but it didn’t go far enough. It’s not enough to add additional feats that do something halfway interesting for high level characters to have – we actually have to replace the stupid one dimensional feats in the PHB with feats that rational people would care about in any way. Spending a single feat should be enough to make you a “sniper character” because for a substantial portion of your life you only get one feat. Secondly, we have to clear away feats that don’t provide numeric bonuses large enough to care about. The minimum bonus you’ll ever notice is +3, because that’s actually larger than the difference between having rolled well and having rolled poorly on your starting stats. Numeric bonuses smaller than that are actually insulting and need to be removed from the feats altogether. 3.5 Skill Focus was a nice start, but that’s all it was – a start.

Furthermore, the fundamental structure of feats has been a disaster. The system of prerequisites often ensures that characters won’t get an ability before it would be level appropriate for them to do so, but actually does nothing to ensure that such characters are in fact getting level appropriate abilities. Indeed, if a 12th level character decides that they want to pursue a career in shooting people in the face, they have to start all over gaining an ability that is supposed to be level appropriate for a 1st level character. Meanwhile, when a wizard of 12th level decides to pursue some new direction in spellcasting – he learns a new 6th level spell right off – and gets an ability that’s level appropriate for a 12th level character.

Source: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52013824/D%26D%20The%20Tomes%20v.0.7.pd f

No Numeria in my games. That area is just a blasted wasteland where a meteor struck. But then I'm not a fan of sci-fi technology in my games.

Numeria was the crux for the second arc of my campaign. Players discovered a portal which lead to Numeria. The villain for that campaign arc (an AI golem) was using tech from there and trying to bring it over to the primary continent in my campaign. Let's just say a city got destroyed in the process D:

I added in a whole new continent called Verda and created a bunch of lore & history for it. I even made a full map for it.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52013824/Verda_Names.bmp

BUMP

Alright, got a new monster; the thri-kreen. Although this one is a different version of what most people would consider a thri-kreen:

** spoiler omitted **

I may have made some mistakes...

I actually really like this guy. He is very strong indeed. Be careful pitting multiple of these guys against your players, they pack a wallop!

Alright. Well, I have a few things I wanna add about the corrosive hound.

1) I want to give it something called a "horrific transformation". What I have planned is that while the beast's transformation outside of its dog form is a full round action, but, anyone who sees it from around 30 ft away must succeed on a Will DC 17 check or be frightened (or scared, whichever is the weaker variation) for 1d4 rounds. The beast will have a +2 racial bonus to the DC.

I think the horrific transformation is a little unnecessary, but I'm not 100% sure what you're getting at with it. What is it transforming into/from?

2) I was thinking of adding an even larger (like Gargantuan sized) variation, but more intelligence, bonuses on saves versus some kind of effects, and more immunities (enchantments, fear and cold being the three I have in mind). Plus tentacles that cause even more afflictions (a more powerful disease plus bleed) and even its skin will cause acid damage and disease. How high would the CR be for such a beast?

I like the idea of a larger version for a boss fight, but gargantuan may be a bit big. Huge may be the size you're looking for. If I were you, I would test the first version before you make the boss (assuming you want them in separate sessions). Before you start adding immunity's and what not, look at the capabilities of your party. I did this with a home brewed monster which was similar to yours. Play testing is the best thing you can do in this case!

With this creature I would not add more (or at least very few) new features, but instead improve what it already has. Like you said, stronger disease bite, higher AC, hp, longer tentacles (10 feet outside its normal reach maybe?)

As for the CR, not 100% sure, but it would probably be around 6-7. It all depends on your party. I DM a bunch of min maxers so they would chew through these guys like candy.

Well to be honest, your monsters are not difficult to kill. That is a good thing! You don't want some horrendously OP monster.

For the first monster, I simply gave it more mobility with the movement speed. As a dog, it should be fast. I mean, 20 feet for a quadruped? That is really slow. Also, I felt the tentacle range was a little long. And for the fort save, it was a bit to hard so I made its success chance a bit higher.

As for the second one, I just made it so that you couldn't exploit it being stuck for however many rounds you roll for. That would be hilariously exploitable :D

When homebrewing monsters it is best to base them off some other creature, just a tip

Flagged for offensive language. Thread title has the word 'homebrew'.

I'd really like to know the reasons why some people hate homebrew so much. Not to incite an argument, but I'm curious why.

My input:

First enemy:
1. make it faster, up to 30 feet movement speed.
2. Reduce tentacle reach to 15 feet
3. Change the fort save for the fire save from 15 to 13.

Second enemy:
1. For speed boost, make it once per 1d4 rounds and have it so that it move from its ending spot immediately.

Asides from those recommendations, I'd say they are fairly solid. If you want to know why I'd make that changes I'd be happy to explain if you'd like to hear it.

"Too much homebrew is wish fulfillment" imo is a very interesting and partially true statement, coming from someone who homebrews a lot. After running two of three arcs of my current campaign and homebrewing most monsters, I can tell you most of homebrewing started with "wouldn't it be cool if..."

However, quite a few of my homebrews have also been counterbalances to my minmax players. Rather then punish my players for minmaxing (which all of my players do), I introduce enemies with interesting mechanics to counter the their minmaxing. It makes for some very interesting and fun fights.

But for the most part, I do think that to much homebrew can be a bad thing.

Hello everyone!

I've been working on this new homebrewed enemy for the players but I've hit quite the pickle when deciding on its stats. Here is a brief description of the baddie:

There exists a small group of Elves in my campaign (118 to be exact) that underwent a secret ritual to tie all of their souls together. They can feel each others presence, emotions, thoughts, ideas, etc. To make this ritual complete, each Elf wears a large heavy amulet around their neck. When two of these Elves nearing death or defeat choose to smash their amulets together, the two Elves fuse together to form a new being, one that is surrounded by incredible magical energy and a very dangerous foe indeed.

This being would wield a large blade made of blue fire in one hand and cast fire/electricity from the other.

So more or less I'm stuck on the stats. My players are at a CR 13-14 level as they are all minmaxers. Here is what I got so far

Defense:
Size: Large (Magical Aura around being is considered size Huge)
AC 21, touch 14, flat-footed 20 (+0 Dex, +15 natural, –4 size)
HP: Around 300.
Defensive Abilities: DR 20/Magic, Aura: Violent Magic(2d6, 20ft, DC 25)

I'd appreciate any input or general ideas.

I live and die by home brew. My villains, setting, history, and practically every monster I throw at the players is homebrewed in some form. My players have fun and so do I.

It all boils down to preference really. I wouldn't say homebrew is a dirty word but yes there are elitists in both camps that get quite nasty. I personally would not have fun DMing a preset campaign, but someone else might. All the power to them!

In short, D&D is not about homebrew v. preset, fighters v. wizards, or if that natural 20 appraisal check on troll poop will get you a few gold pieces, but if everyone has fun

1.

My first DMing experience was home brew and I never have looked back.

Hey I actually like that. Hmm I'll work on some interesting puzzles to build around that.

Hey everyone! So I've been hankering at creating a D&D session built around a puzzle, or a series of small ones. However, I tend to be better at creating interesting encounters instead, but I want to mix it up a little.

A bit of background, the PC's are going to be heading into one of the most northern parts of the map to an ancient kings burial tomb. The PC's are tracking the main villain, an evil Cleric who lost his powers committing a heinous act but has somehow not only regained them, but has become more powerful more evil as a result.

Sooooooooo what the players are going to find out is that this kings tomb is not what it seems (as usual) and is instead the sight of not only the kings tomb, but the prison of an ancient (not so evil, sorta evil. If you really want to know more about this entity, I'll give the full story upon request) entity.

So going through this crypt, I want the puzzles to not only allow the players to advance but to hint at who & what this entity is. When the players reach the end of the crypt, they'll learn the truth + other plot stuff.

I've been thinking about for the past hour but only came up with a word puzzle. Anyone have any interesting puzzles or other fun ideas?

I have never played a Ranger, but I have played as a fighter. One huge thing about Rangers is that they have 6+ int mod for skills plus a lot of awesome class skills. Also, Rangers get favored enemy bonuses and get you get spells.

Pick Ranger. Fighters can use a bow, but Rangers can thrive with them.

Oooooo I love posts like these because it involves a few things.

1.) Get some monsters with some kind of reach. Whether they have a long lance, a chain whip, or perhaps a stretchy arm, or maybe they're just big monsters.

2.) Ranged attacks. An enemy who can simply pull out a cross bow or use a simple spell to either lock the person in place or do damage.

3.) Enemies that grapple. Fairly simple.

4.) AOE attacks.

5.) An enemy who lays traps around the map to try and lock characters in place.

6.) Status effects to slow people down.

7.) Homebrew!!! I had a party that was hilariously mobile,and I mean so mobile it was crazy. So how did I deal with it? I smudged up some Goblins who had the gear similar to the 3D gear in Attack on Titan so they could challenge their mobility. Threw in a weakness and some acrobatic checks for the Goblins and it was a fun encounter.

As a side note, as a DM, you're going to run into a LOT of these situations where X ability seems OP because your Y monsters are getting their butts kicked. Point is, that in D&D, you could have a PC wreck a huge swath of monsters but get destroyed by other simpler monsters. Power Slide, while good, is not broken. Flex your creative capabilities. Good luck :)

Although it seems odd that an 8000 year old cleric was thwarted by some upstart PCs... :)

Bahaha in the PCs defense, they are level ten and their 4 of them + 2 cohorts :) Also, they had help from another NPC. It was a hectic, but fun, session.

Hey everyone,

So my players just wrapped up the second arc of my three part campaign and one of the NPC's (whos name is Eladrin) since the start of the game has betrayed the group for his own purposes, nearly killed a player character, and almost got away with it. A smart play and some good roles from one of my players prevented Eladrin from fully realizing his plans, but they were partially successful

Now, this NPC, is a 8000+ year old Elven cleric. Because of his betrayal, his alignment shift has caused him to lose his spells and what not. Eladrin is dead set on ensuring his plans come into full fruition so I was thinking that since he has lost his powers, he goes to another god to get his spells back, perhaps becoming a dark cleric?

I am more or less asking for some ideas as to what this character may do to get his magic back, more or less anything to get the creative juices flowing :) It was a crazy session!

I would just determine the % increase from each level and the static increase and math it from there.

Just to clarify, the machine army is occupying the city. so the machines are in the walls, patrolling the streets, etc. Theybare far from hidden. the big robots flattened a part of the city center and are pretty much chilling there.

Verda has 150k ready fighters (this includes cavalry, wizards, and various other troops) to defend the land from the machines. Scion has 40 thousand machines plus 4 massive annihilator robots poised to conquer Verda.