Keppira D'Bear

Greg Volz's page

Organized Play Member. 104 posts (110 including aliases). 6 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 2 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.



Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.

This weekend I'm kicking off The Stolen Lands with a small group. I'll be using the Warpath rules to enhance the storyline a bit.

The first scenario will actually feature Oleg from quite a few years ago. He was originally a private in the Brevoy army (Restov Regulars). The battle takes place at an outpost on near the southern edge of Rostland (not suprisingly the same location that Oleg returns to years later to make his trading post).

There I will introduce them to some Iobarian barbarians who are searching for something (a precursor to a later encounter).

I'm thinking that the fort will house approximately 40 regulars with a small force of 10 mounted calvalry vs. 20 barbarian warriors, 10 war dogs, and a druid.

Oleg will survive as a plot device to later return as he either:

1) Remembers with fondness the time that the Regulars defended the borders from barbarians (but also the friends that he lost) or,
2) Returns to the place that so many of his friends died and in their honor opens this trading post in their memory.

Having the players run both sides I'll include background information on each of the goals and hopefully get the group more involved in the whole storyline.

I'll post stat cards later as I crunch through the Warpath rules.

Dark Archive

All,

I ran Silent Tide last week at a Meetup.com event. I've made some maps for the encounter areas (they were done quickly but they should work for just about anyone)

Go to:
Cliff side Map 3.2 MB

Granary Map 4.2 MB

I'm redoing the last maps and will post later this weekend.

Later,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming

Dark Archive

I know that this will probably come up in the Aug 1 release but as a DM can I use the Critical Hit and/or Critical Fumble decks?

(the sneaky bastard in me loves some fumbles:) )

Later,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming.

Dark Archive

Please cancel the following order: 838706.

Thanks,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming
www.naturaltwenty.com

Dark Archive

I'm planning on re-writing Tsuto to be a Lvl 3 Swordsage from The Book of Nine Swords, instead of what he is now. Anyone else modify him? If so, how?

I'll be posting my revised version later today/tonite.

Later,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming
www.naturaltwenty.com

Dark Archive

On Tuesday I ran my first session of Burnt Offerings. It went without a hitch...whew!

I did have to provide some background for one character, a rogue from Riddleport. After some discussions about what his character was going to be he indicated he wanted to be a rogue/illusionist eventually. Since this was a new campaign I did have all the players make up a 1st level character. My concern is how am I going to get him introduced to an illusionist to be trained?

I came up with the following fluff story and handout.

The chill in the Rova night has come much sooner than anticpated. Good for you as more fog rolls in on these evenings. You've been working for the Stentalia Family since you were young enough to reach and cut the purse strings from a "merchant"*. The Stentalia's were never destined for greatness but they were as stable as possible in Riddleport. That was, until Darkyl came. He always wore his hood low and spoke in hushed tones. He bent the ear of the family patron Jubrayl like none you had ever seen. The families business become much more violent since Darkyl's arrival. While bloodshed was not unknown and inter-family squabbles might result in a death or two there had never been anything like what had been happening recently. It was time for you to find out what was going on and what Darkyl's influence was doing.

One quiet night when the fog muffled both sight and sound you crept up the side of the household and peered into Darkyl's room. He would not be present at this time of night because this is when he held council with Jubrayl. As you crept around his room the hair's on the back of your neck started to rise. You held your dagger, given to you by Jubrayl himself, tightly. A smallish tome lay out on a dresser. It was obviously of no small value and had a cover of leather and it was inscribed with a symbol you had not seen before.

As you reached for the tome a searing pain burned your hand. The dagger pulsed and your vision blurred and was replaced with an image of the council room where Jubrayl held his evening meetings. Darkyl held his glowing hands on either side of Jubrayl's head. Ghostly tendrils leaked from Jubrayl's eyes and mouth into Darkyl's face.

* merchant is just another word for pirate but for some it makes them feel better.

Later and good gaming,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming

Dark Archive

The following is a handout I made for Tsuto's letter. Print it out and enjoy. I cross posted to the Handout thread in General but wanted to make sure it was here as well.

Tsuto's Letter

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming

Dark Archive

I'm perusing through my plethora of OGL material, both pdf and hardcopy, determining which pieces I can insert into this new world. Note I'm not dissatisfied at all with the material as presented but I've got a relatively unknown world (to my players) and I can start to utilize some stuff that may not have fit my previous campaigns.

From Fantasy Flight Games I'll be using two races from the Mythic Races Book. The Ooloi, an aquatic race that I'll be placing a city off the coast of Sandpoint (what better way to introduce them to some Thassilonian ruins:)) and the Sendasti, a desert dwelling race. Note that these are 3.0 books (See OGL stats below) so I'll be updating these to 3.5.

I'm going through the Creature Collections 1-3 by Sword & Sorcery to add some more beasties that are leftovers from the war. I'll compile these into a pdf and post them (as soon as my PC components arrive from Dell and I have access to all of my other pdf's).

Ooloi Racial Traits
• +2 Wisdom, –2 Charisma: With their devotion to spiritual strength, ooloi are naturally focused and learned in religion and philosophy. While friendly and outgoing, the ooloi’s appearance, language, and mannerisms are somewhat alien and discomforting to most other races.

• Medium-size: As Medium-size creatures, ooloi have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

• Ooloi base speed is 30 feet.

• Swimming: Ooloi are aquatic creatures and can swim at a base speed of 60 feet without making Swim checks. They gain a +8 racial
bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. Ooloi can always choose to take 10 on Swim checks, even if rushed or threatened. They can use the run action while swimming provided they swim in a straight line.

• Water Breathing: Ooloi can breathe both water and air equally well. While especially adapted to the oceans, ooloi can also survive and prosper on land.

• Darkvision: Ooloi can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and ooloi can function just fine with no light at all.

• Automatic Languages: Common and Ooloi. Years of study of the surface world have led the ooloi to teach Common to their young, to
prepare them for the day when they too might journey out onto the land.

• Favored Class: Cleric. A muticlass ooloi’s cleric class does not count when determining whether he suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing. Their devotion to spirituality and friendly nature make the cleric’s calling a natural choice for most ooloi.

Sendasti Racial Traits
• +2 Constitution, –2 Charisma: The desert climate toughens the sendasti against many physical threats, molding their bodies to better adapt to arid conditions; however, it also socially isolates them, giving others cause to view them with suspicion.

• Medium-size: As Medium-size creatures, sendasti have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

• Sendasti base speed is 30 feet.

• Low-light Vision: Sendasti vision extends twice as far as humans in dimly illuminated conditions where vision would normally be
obscured, including starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and sandstorms.

• Sendasti are proficient with either the falchion or scimitar. Sendasti prefer these blades over all others, often possessing finely crafted weapons passed down from one generation to the next.

• +2 racial bonus to saving throws against poison, disease, charm person, and illusion spells. Desert life hardens sendasti against
the hazards of their environment.

• +2 racial bonus on Handle Animal, Intuit Direction, Listen, Spot, and Wilderness Lore checks. Sendasti maintain a keen awareness
of their surroundings and know how to manipulate it to their advantage.

• Fasting: Sendasti can function unimpaired without water for up to two days plus a number of hours equal to their Constitution score before they must make Constitution checks against subdual damage and fatigue. Sendasti can survive without food for five days in growing discomfort before they must make Constitution checks against subdual damage and fatigue.

• Automatic Languages: Common and Sendasti. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, Orc. Sendasti are also familiar with the languages of various desertdwelling species.

• Favored Class: Rogue. A multiclass sendasti’s rogue class does not count when determining whether he suffers an XP penalty
for multiclassing. Surviving in hostile conditions requires a variety of skills, including the ability to adapt quickly by employing cunning and resourcefulness. Although sendasti society discourages thievery, trickery, and deceit among its own, aspects of these talents are essential to desert survival.

Later,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming

Dark Archive

I'm chomping at the bit for more info but seeing that I have a plethora of 3.5 stuff that I've never used I was wondering what the impact of using Freeport as Riddleport and Liberty as Magnimar would be?

How much are Riddleport and Magnimar going to be detailed, i.e. to the extent of either of the previous products?

Thanks,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming.

Dark Archive

All,

I've got a group together that runs on every other Wednesday night for 3-4 hours starting at 7:00 pm CST (-6 GMT). We are currently on summer vacation until after GenCon/early September.

I've got 3-4 consistent players but I'm looking for 2-3 more (for a maximum of 7 players).

We use Fantasy Grounds - for our virtual tabletop and Skype for our VoiP software.

Most of use are in our early to late 30's but still have quite a bit of fun.

Email me at fatogre@fatogre.net or you can also browse my site at www.fatogre.net

Thanks,

Greg Volz

Dark Archive

This is a rhetorical question and a warning for anyone else who uses www.paizo.com.

The majority of the WotC downloads are available at www.rpgnow.com for 1.00 more than what Paizo offers. The dollar savings though is somewhat bogus. We, as a society, no longer live in a world of 2400 baud modems. The download speeds I'm getting while trying to download 72MB files (Complete Spell compendiums for 2nd edtion) top out at a max of 6kb/sec. Sure I could wait to download them but at www.rpgnow.com I can throughput speeds of 250K - 400K/sec.

Is the amount of time I have to wait worth a 1.00. You bet your ass it is.

Word to Paizo. Get a bigger pipe.

Later,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming
www.naturaltwenty.com

Dark Archive

Greetings,

I currently run a game using Fantasy Grounds ( www.fantasygrounds.com ). I almost exclusively use Dungeon Magazine as a source for my adventures specifically the downloadable content for maps, portraits, and images.

For those of us that use a virtual tabletop emulator (Fantasy Grounds, OpenRPG, Battle Grounds, Kloodge, etc) would you find it beneficial to have the maps that are distributed with the downloadable content to not have numbers, secret door indicators, etc. so you could share them without having to mock them up?

I know I use the GIMP to smudge the room numbers and remove any secret door notations but it'd be a real boon to have them supplied without (picky picky I know).

Since I'm in the asking mood I'd also love to see counters provided for the adventures in pdf format. I know a few years ago cardboard counters were supplied using art from the MM's so it'd be outstanding to see that process continued but in electronic format.

For those readers of the board and/or Dungeon staff I'd be happy to demo what I do with the adventures from the magazine. I'm kicking off a new campaign this evening using issue #130 -Within the Circle as our starting point. IM me on Yahoo at naturaltwenty or Skype me at naturaltwenty.

Thanks,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming
www.naturaltwenty.com

Dark Archive

All,

I signed up at the booth for a subscription for Undeafeated at GenCon 2004 (nice booth babe gave my son a tatoo:) http://www.naturaltwenty.com/gencon/images/GenCon%20Day%201%20041.jpg) and I haven't received one issue yet?

Thanks,

Greg Volz
Natural Twenty Gaming
www.naturaltwenty.com