Greedy_Smurf's page

Great Thanks.

It was interesting to read about suggestions for a mine for additional income.

One of my players had the bright idea of the Kreeg's workings - they were mining right? What were they mining? Completely innocently I blurted out - Iron I suppose (they were making weapons from the mine after all). Great says my player, we can develop the mine!

My players are always good for a left field or an obvious if you think about it idea :-)

So my players have just finished Hook Mountain Massacre, and I have a couple of weeks to come up with the finances for Fort Rannick.

Just wondering if anyone else might have already prepared an income and expenses table for the Fort?

My group has just finished Skinsaw, but when they first arrived in Magnimar they had kept the head of the Bandit found in the Misgivings.

So of course, which justice happened to be the one who met with the group to give them the reward? yep Ironbriar of course.

It was hilarious when the PC's started spilling their guts about coming to town to hunt down a connection with the Skinsaw murdurer, and what they were planning to do in Magnimar - and having the key to Aldern's townhouse. They asked Ironbriar for directions to it!! :-)

So it was a very good excuse to have the faceless stalkers in the townhouse - and the PC's were far from surprised when the discovered it was Ironbriar at the sawmill.

Mary Yamato wrote:

It is fairly easy for the PCs to be unable to retreat, given that Malfeshnikor can be invisible when they encounter him. If they all enter the room to search it--and why not?--he can get between them and the door. This is an excellent way to lose half the party or more.

That's being a jerk-GM. It's a fight they can't win. If the GM won't give them a chance to retreat, he's just playing "look how great I am, I can kill your characters."

Not really. It's how the encounter is written. If he hears the party coming he casts invisbility sphere. The PC's see an apparently empty room - what do they do? go in to search it of course.

And unless you're a very generous GM, who has the beast attack the party the second one of them steps into the room, it is very easy for most of the party to be stuck in the room.

OK, my group got up this battle last night.

I haven't seen any particular reference to him in the threads so, I was thinking tough fight, but no worries. I unfortunately didn't have a lot of prep time for the session to review the set up thoroughly.

So anyway, he completely owned the party, thrashed them.

The party didn't help themselves, true, they hadn't been particularly quiet, so Malfesh had prep time to cast Invis Sphere, and the Rogue and Wizard rushed into the room to search for secret doors (the wizard had cast Detect Secret Doors so they knew there were a couple in the room.)

This let Malfesh take the Wizard out quickly (2 rounds). Which didn't help. But getting +11 and +17 (IIRC) on his attack rolls, he can hardly miss a 4th level character, and dishing out an average of 20-30 points a round he just carved through the party.

I think he was a bit overpowered really, if for whatever reason the PC's fail to simply stand in the doorway (which my party unfortunatly didn't do) they are in for a whomping.

I suppose I'm mainly wondering how everyone else found this encounter?

Troll be going as Brisbane is only a 9 Hr drive from Townsville The Troll

A 9 hr drive from Townsville? How fast do you drive?

But to the topic at hand, I live in Brisbane so will definitely be getting along to Gencon, be keen to see what is on the go from Paizo.

Michael F wrote:

Probably should put spoiler tags on this thread...

Here are some issues that I see with "living the Thistletop life".

** spoiler omitted **

What about the other goblin tribes? I imagine some of them might come sniffing around as a side quest encounter.

I definitely thought of that as an option. Actually putting my bastard DM hat on, I can see them coming back from the extended trip in module 2 to find all thier hard work in cleaning up undone by a group of goblins having moved back in :-)

I've been running Burnt Offerings for my group, and last session ended after the combat with Nuala.

But a couple of my players have been mentioning in the last couple of sessions as they were working their way through Thistletop, that it would make a great fortress for the party to occupy.

I don't have a real problem with them doing that, however I've only skimmed the remainder of the AP and don't know if it would present any problems later.

The only problems I see are they won't be spending much time there in the next 2-3 modules, and when Fort Rannick comes along, whether they will want to settle there or not. I could easily arrange for the surviving members of the Fort Guard to retake possession so the PC's don't get the offer of the Castle.

Can anyone offer me any possible problems if I let my PC's take over Thistletop?

I don't think collapsing the cathedral is a great choice, (with the advetnrue as written anyway) IIRC isn't the whole point of having to fight the beastie the fact there is a bunch of kids trapped in the cathedral?

Great work again here. I liked your country, loved the concept, if not completly the execution, of your villian. And you've got a real good entry in for the monsters.

I like the Hernes, just the sort of beasty I love to use against my PC's. I'm sort of 'meh' on the fey guys, but that's purely a personal bias, and while I don't 'like' them, I can appreciate they fit the theme and are well written. And with their abilities can actually fight a little if needed unlike pixies, et al. The Ooze? great, loved it. I love the "nature spirit" hook for it. Would definitely use it.

At this stage I think you have one of my votes.

Count me down for liking this one as well. Which is a problem because I have four votes ready after only 9 entries.

She could definitely become an ongoing campaign villain, after an initial encounter with the PC's. There was something about this entry that just grabbed me, and made me think - Cool!!!

I hate to say this, because I loved your previous entries, but I have to agree that the execution of this entry was on the poor side. (I have seen another post by you that you had time issues on this submission which might explain it)

Now that being said though, I think it will get one of my votes purely for the coolness of the idea. The horse is the real villian!! Brilliant. With some expansion on the plots/hook front, I can definitely see my PC's facing off against the Catspaw Marauders!! & their evil leader :-)

I'm still up in the air on this one.

Personally, I'm mainly glossing over the stat block on all the entries, that's a little bit of fine detail that isn't going to overly influence my voting decision in this round. I am deciding based upon who creates the most compeling villians. I want to read an entry and immediately think "I want to run this guy against my PC's!!"

Which is why I'm undecided about this one. I like fairly gritty campaigns, where evil villians do truly evil stuff, including astuff that would get you DQd from this comp for including! So I'm not put off by the gruesomeness of the suicide bombing or collecting the bits for food. However - as Calrk says it is very topical, and I suspect if I encountered suicide bombers in a fantasy game it would probably wrench me out of my 'suspension of disbelief' mode, having such a modern and topical subject shoved into my face.

I like this one. And I must admit I liked the Blink Dogs too. I can quite easily see a whole story arc in a campaign trying to fight off this girls plots.

While I have only read 5 entries thus far, I think one of my votes will stay on Mwana.

I'm going to be in big trouble here because I've only read 13 entires so far, and my little piece of notepaper already has 5 'Vote's on it.

Based on what I have now
Yithnai
Kestria
Carnamach
Bereket, &
Cyrehllan

But still have 19 entries to read.

Put me firmly in the camp of loved this!!!

Even as I was reading I was conjuring up any number of adventures and encounters there's more than enough stuff here for an entire campaign. I would love to see a full-on 10 page write up of this country.

Keep up the good work, because I'm sure you'll be gong through to the next round.

This one is definitely getting one of my votes.

Love the idea.

Probably the only thing, and this has been said already, the situation as it stands would give the PC's a couple of adventures and then that's it, it's too close to the end.

I would probably dial the dominance of nature and the druids back just a little, if only to give more game time to develop one way or the other. That being said I still love the whole concept.

I hate to add a me too post, but love this entry!!

I fully agree, that it is more a destination country than a setting for an ongoing campaign, but there is just so much stuff bubbling away here, I think you could turn it into a fabulous setting for a whole story arc within a campaign.

It was well written, I love the 'turgid fruit' it was deliciously over the top, and made me laugh. I'm echoing the judges comments here to some extent but I really love your writing style, it is just so evocative!

I'm really hoping you make it further because I can't wait to see what you come up with in the Villain category!!

Erik Mona wrote:

Even as I started to contemplate that idea (your take on their culture is interesting, and I like the idea of the kinships), I run into the comment that the blink dogs have no language and communicate by colored rock arrays and pissing on things. Cripes.

I would like to point out that one of the three sentences in the SRD describing blink dogs is: "Blink dogs have their own language, a mixture of barks, yaps, whines, and growls that can transmit complex information."

But I think Erik misread the entry, because it actually says the Blink Dogs have no writtenlanguage.

I've only read a couple of entries thus far, but I think I like this one. Quirky? no doubt! Interesting? Yes! Worthy of top 16? I have to read some more first. I like the good old idea of a clash between cultures simply based on a misunderstanding. "We had our sacred sight clearly marked as taboo!" "Yuck, this place stinks of pee!"

I'm curious in that the few entries I've read thus far, Eric seems to be focusing very highly on the countries interest/feasability as a point of origin for a PC. Unless I missed it, that wasn't mentioned as a specific parameter for this stage? If I had of somehow made it to this stage a few of the ideas I had would have run afoul of that focus.

Maybe I should mention smurf in all my posts no matter hte subject to ensure I get an appropiate avatar :-)

If I may impinge on the community for another reivew (and hopefully avoid a double post) how does the following item stack up (I ditched it after it was ridiculed by a friend):

Bountiful Sapling

I went with the time shifter because, as noted above, the reaction of a friend was "Dude, a plant? That's stupid."

Sebastian,

If it was my item, I think I would rework the mechanic something along the lines of that the tree has fruit all the time, and that a Druid may infuse a single piece of fruit with a potion effect? Although that means the sapling effectively give the Druid the Brew Potion feat for free, which I suppose is a bit blah for a superstar comp when you get to the bottom of it.

Well here is mine that didn't make it.

I suspect it didn't make the cut based on it being essentially a "monster in a box" item which was a term I saw for the first time when Clark used it in a post on the baords here, and of course which I didn't see until after having submitted it.

Anyone care to comment/critcise, creatively or otherwise. :-)

Fiendish Helm

This imposing looking full helm and gorget is a startlingly lifelike representation of a demonic head. With gnarled horns, baleful glowing eyes, flowing mane of coarse black hair and a snarling tooth filled maw. With the faceplate locked in place, it requires a Spot Check at DC 20 to determine that it is a helm rather than the wearer’s real head.

The helm is so imposing that the wearer gains a +4 Circumstance bonus on Intimidate checks, and suffers a -4 Circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks.

With the faceplate of the helm in place, the helm grants the wearer the following powers.
o Darkvision 60ft,
o Immunity to electricity and poison,
o Resistance to acid 10, cold 10, fire 10,
o The ability to speak and understand Abyssal.
o Once a day the wearer can inflict Doom to all creatures in a 30 ft radius (Will DC 20 negates)

Strong Abjuration; CL 8th; Craft Wondrous Items, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, darkvision, doom, protection from energy, resist energy, tongues; Price 85,000gp; Weight 6 lb

Oh shoot. I thought the deadline was midnight!

Oh well. Here's what I was working on, for posterity.

** spoiler omitted **

Probably doesn't help you feel any better about it but that is a cool item! Now stolen for use in my house campaign :-)

Oops, it was late when I submitted and forgot to spell check. The winning wondrous item of the RPG superstar contest has "ABILITITIES" instead of abilities.

A well endowed female wondrous item? Tre chic! :-p

I'm in the same boat. I sent a copy of my submission around to the players in my campaign (after submitting) - sort of a "This is what I wound up submitting" thing. And wouldn't you know it - one of them replied with a "you do know you had 'course' instead of 'coarse' right?" Aaaarggh!!! I had read my submission dozens of times trying to pick up errors, I even got my wife (a non-gamer) to read it just as a back stop.

A normal typo and my spell checker would have pegged it, but noooo. Oh Well.