Greg Schulze's page

I was DMing Eberron's Whispers of the Vampire's Blade, and at the masked ball, when all Hades broke lose and the party-goers made a mad dash to the doors, the halfling warlock got trampled to death. Pathetic. Same player, different character, had his dwarf dragon shaman fail the massive damage save with a 1 and died.

By the way, when I DM and a PC is down, and the bad guy has attacks left and no one to attack ... no good for the PC.

I guess I got off topic with mirror image, refering to general combat, not ranged touch attacks in particular. Since ranged touch attacks tend to be more deadlier (i.e. usually death, or 20d6 points of damage from disintegrate), I can see how mirror image would trump blur in that case. Against one ranged touch attack per round, mirror image would be better than blur; against a 15th level fighter, not so much, as your chance of getting hit would increase every time the 15th level fighter attacked (assuming that he doesn't roll a 1) and destroyed a mirror image, until all your mirror images were gone.

At higher levels, a multiple attacking bad guy can go through your mirror images pretty quick. I played a fighter/wizard 12th level PC with mirror image and it only took a round or two before they were all gone; I should have taken blur (plus you cannot receive any sneak attacks with blur cast on you due to its concealment). At low levels, though, I highly recommend mirror image. Once the enemy can take 3 attacks per round, it nearly takes more time to cast the spell than it's duration.

Shield Ward feat (PHB2)

Add your Shield bonus to AC to the following:
a) Touch AC; and
b) resisting Bull Rush, Disarm, Grapple, Overrun, & Trip attempts.

I made a 15th level PC and bought a +5 buckler; so with the PR Shield Specialization (buckler) feat, he gets a +7 bonus to his touch AC when using it.

I heard today that the NHL is getting rid of 4 teams, Tampa Bay Lightning, Atlanta Thrashers, Phoenix Coyotes, and Nashville Predators since no one watches hockey in the south anyway. They're keeping the Dallas Stars since they were once the Minnesota North Stars and people in Minnesota still wear those jersey for some reason or another. The Anaheim Ducks are moving north to Portland, Oregon. The LA Kings are staying because Wayne Gretzky told the NHL not to mess with the Kings or else he'll sick his wife on them. The NHL was about to get rid of the Islanders for obvious reasons, but changed their mind at the last minute thinking that maybe Canada wants them? The Avalanche and the Wild were told to change their names to something with an "S" at the end of it.

I have a variant bard for the Dark Sun campaign that uses spell slots for poison use. A bard can use spell slots to create poison as a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity. The poison can be created on a weapon or in a drink or food. A 0 level spell slot creates a poison that inflicts 1 point of initial and secondary ability damage. A 1st level spell slot inflicts 1d2 damage, a 2nd level spell slot inflicts 1d4 damage, a 3rd level spell slot inflicts 1d6 damage, a 4th level spell slot inflicts 1d8 damage, a 5th level spell slot inflicts 2d6 damage, and a 6th level spell slot inflicts 3d6 damage. The bard may choose the ability that the poison affects. The ability must be the same for the initial and secondary damage. The DC of the bard’s poison is 10 plus the spell slot level used plus the bard’s Charisma modifier.

Dark Sun bards are entertainer/assassins.

Against my better judgement, I let a Lutheran into the group. I had to, I married her.

I would think it would be neat to read every DMs take on the Day of Mourning. They would all be good ideas. I used Sur'kil as the culprit to fit in better with my campaign since the Eyes of the Lich Queen adventure was kind of a stand alone adventure that had nothing to do with what stories I was DMing.

My LoBster:

I always wondered (and never came up with a reason why) why the destruction of the day of Mourning was contained in Cyre only and did not spread across the borders. I like Hopeless' idea that it was somehow contained by airships. I've already have my idea for the day of Mourning and will have an adventure about it: it was caused by Sur'kil, the dragon from the Eyes of the Lich Queen adventure, with the help of Khurystas. He did it because the Prophecy told him to do so, now Sur'kil wants to fix it and needs the PCs help.

I think the rhakasha was the lover of a House Orien gal or some noble in Aundair, but I can't remember. I just pulled the rhakasha deal out of thin air since their evil bad guys.

I remember Bugs in the System and Dark Side of the Moon as fantastic adventures (both UK written). I would put them up there as 2 of the best RPG adventures I have ever GMed/DMed in the past 26 years, including D&D and AD&D adventures (Night's Dark Terror for Basic D&D was another one, also UK written).

"I want to be a fairie princess", when an Athasian (Dark Sun) halfling jester named Spunt asked the rogue what she wanted to be in Queen Lalali-puy's menagerie (Asticlian Gambit adventure).

Dark Sun: Prism Pentad series. It must be good, WOTC just rereleased the entire series again. I've never heard of that before, 15 years after they first came out. Are they making Dark Sun for 4th edition, otherwise why would they do that? The Verdant Passage, the first book of the series was my favorite one. I also like the Orb of Xoriat from Eberron; it felt kinda modern James Bondish yet was D&D.

Aah, the thri-kreen, another one I get misty for from Dark Sun. A thri-kreen swordsage ... imagine his Jump check if he took some maneuvers from the Tiger Claw discipline? I like it.

I remember the phanatons from the Isle of Dread (X1) adventure I DMed nearly 30 years ago. I think the PCs slaughtered them all. Aah, the good ole days.

I played a half-giant fighter/wizard/spellsword and really liked that race, even with the level adjustment; well worth it. I have DMed 3 different Dark Sun campaigns and I missed them so. Also played a maenad wilder/monk/zerth cenobite and enjoyed him; his name was Desmond and based him on the character from Lost, Desmond Hume ("Hello Brother."). The rest of the group didn't know what to think of him with his sparkly skin and sonic shouts of rage.

I recollect that the black dragon is a half fiend guarding a temple in Q'Barra. I have been DMing Eberron for 3 1/2 years and have tried to use all the Eberron elements somewhere in the campaign, so here it goes with your elements:

House Cannith, the House of Making that created the warforged, was splintered during the Last War. Cannith North is now controlled by a rakshasa of the Lords of Dust disguising himself as the baron of Cannith North. The rakshasa wants to release the black dragon from his service of guarding the fiendish temple in Q'Barra (he doesn't want to fight the dragon, just get rid of it) to discover it's secrets inside. An ancient artifact hidden away by the Lord of Blades in the Mournland is needed to release the black dragon from service and send him back to Argonnessen. This ancient artifact is a docent imbued with a fiendish giant's presence from Xen'Drik that one of the Lord of Blades' minions wears on him.

The PCs must find the docent before the rakshasa's warforged special forces find it (two groups of warforged here: the Lord of Blades' group and the rakshasa's group). The PCs mission is to take the lightning rail from Aundair to the Mournland where the special forces warforged attack them (see the Whisper of the Vampire's Blade adventure), head off across the wasteland and fight monsters and the Lord of Blades' minions, find the docent, make it to Gatherhold, take an airship to Q'barra, then bypass the black dragon and enter the ancient temple. There the PCs are to find out what the hub-bub is all about and destroy the docent (ala Lord of the Rings-cast in into the fires from whence it came).

I hope there are some ideas in there to get you started.

-Greg

All my friends and I ever played in high school was Star Frontiers. We played basic and expert D&D in 6th through 8th grade and then switched. We never played 1st edition AD&D, but started 2nd edition a little while after it came out. Some of out best stories are from Star Frontiers games and I actually just dug the rules out a few weeks ago and looked at them. It is fairly simple with good starter rules. We weren't to hip on the Zebulon rules, but converted all the goodies in it to regular Star Frontiers. I can't count how many chases we had in Prenglar (or was it called Gran Quivera?). If I was to do sci-fi again, it would be Star Frontiers with the Alternity rules. Alternity rules seemed quite revolutionary compared to D&D, Palladium, and other systems.

When I played Rifts for a summer 15 years ago in Duluth, MN my GM got rid of megadamage (I think that's what is was called). The system seemed to work fairly well after that. Other than that, all I remember is that Duluth (cooler by the lake) was taken over by alien bugs and my home was renamed Tolkeen after J.R.R. due to the lay lines in the Twin Cities. Alternity had some cool and interesting rules and since it is fairly generic, may be a good rule substitution for Palladium. After being burned out on AD&D 2nd edition rules, I was considering using the Alternity rules for a D&D like campaign. Alternity rules would work great with a Star Frontiers campaign; I have the Dragon magazine article on that somewhere. I like vrusks.

Watch The World's Fastest Indian with Anthony Hopkins. Its about a New Zealander who travels to the Bonneville Salt Flats to race his souped up Indian motorcycle. Good movie with fantastic acting by Hopkins.

Highest point is King's Peak in the Uinta Mountain range. It is a 3 day backpack trip in and out and you must enter from Wyoming to get there.

There is a part of the Great Salt Lake that is blocked off from the rest of it that is fresh water.

Best snow on earth (according to their license plate).

Highest volunteer rate in the nation.

Thank you The Eldritch Mr. Shiny for the update/clarification on the Bush quote. Just thinking of it makes me laugh: Dick Cheney saying "Yeah, big time".

Vice Presidential Handlers Lure Cheney Into Traveling Crate
JANUARY 13, 2009
WASHINGTON—A team of nine specially trained handlers have successfully lured outgoing vice president Dick Cheney into a reinforced steel traveling crate in order to transport him back to his permanent enclosure in Casper, WY, official sources reported Monday. "He's a smart one. Once he sees the crate, he gets pretty nippy, but we've learned a few tricks over the years," chief VP wrangler Ted Irving breathlessly said while applying pressure to a deep gash on his forearm. "If we break a rabbit's legs and throw it in there, he will eventually go in to finish it off. Doesn't work with dead rabbits, though. Cheney only eats what he kills." Irving said that the latest vice presidential relocation went much more smoothly than September's diplomatic trip to Georgia, which was delayed for several hours after Cheney mauled three secret service agents and escaped inside the White House walls.

1) Definitely dodging the shoe. Reflexes of a 14th level monk. He should of deflected it back at the attacker.
2) When Dick Cheney informed Bush that a guy was "a world class a**hole" at an event, and Bush agreed with him. Funny moment.
3) His daughter Barbara Bush. Nice genes. I bet Laura was something too back in the day.

Maybe the Swordsage from 9 Swords? I can't remember if they can use shields (I don't think so), but there are boosts and stances that allow them to do cool marital arts-like stuff. They get to add their Wisdom bonus to AC too. Otherwise a fighter/rogue with boots to increase his speed; it'll be cheaper to buy boots than to take a level of a class just to get a bonus to speed. Or maybe barbarian/rogue? Scout has tumble as a skill; make him an elf and you can use a longsword too, plus they have a bonus to speed at a higher level I believe.