Grunk's page

Hey All,

After my AoW campaign stalled out at a Gathering of Winds (largely due to system slow-down of 10th-12th level) my group has been having fun playing other games. However, we would like to get back to the campaign but with a different system. I just picked up SW: Explorer Edition and it looks great for our purposes (Fast! Fun! Furious!).

I was wondering if anyone has any resources, tips, experience or advice porting D&D 3.5 (specifically the AoW AP) into SW.

Any help is appreciated!

Grunk

The first round of the Games was ridiculously easy for the party. I knew that PB as written wouldn't be much of a challenge for them (6 characters, plus Dire Lion Mount and Dire Wolf Companion) so I added an extra member. Then I customized their equipment and buffs a bit to deal with what my party was dishing out (Protection from Evil to ward against domination and the Malconvokers summoned creatures).

I subbed out improved sunder for a different feat for each barbarian (throw anything led to a surprised caster with a bastard sword embeded in his chest).

I gave each of them a different weapon property (Stygian (level drain...ouch), Somewhere on the board I read of the tactic of trying to bullrush or throw players out of the arena and that worked really well for getting rid of spellcasters. It was a tough fight, but not ridiculously so.

Heh...Thanks Panda!

Name: Wom, Male 1/2ling Sorcerer 9
Location: Arena Battle vs. Pitchblade (Champion's Belt)
Cause of Death: Trying to bull rush Pharbol out of arena (almost worked too!) and ending up next to a raging barbarian.

Name: Elkor, Cleric 7/Radiant Servant of Pelor 2
Location: Altar Room in Shrine of Kyuss (Champion's Belt)
Cause of Death: Prayer Bead toting Bozal Zahol Harm (CL 15!) Save for Half (75pts.) brings him down to 1 hp. Followed by death touch (11d6)= Dead Cleric.

Anyone tried an RPG adaptation of the show? At two local cons (DunDraCon/KublaCon)they ran a Cthulhu/LOST crossover but I haven't heard any reactions to it.

A pseudodragon walks into a bar. The bartender, wary at this strange creature asks, "What'll it be?"

The pseudodragon shrugs his little shoulders and says, "Got any grapes?"

The bartender responds, "No. This is a bar. We don't serve grapes." The dissapointed pseudodragon leaves.

The next day, the pseudodragon comes back and asks, "Got any grapes?" The bartender curtly replies, "I told you yesterday. We don't serve grapes." So the pseudodragon leaves.

The next day, the pseuodragon comes back and asks, "Got any grapes?" The perturbed bartender pulls out a hammer and replies, "Look, you stupid pseudodragon. I told you the last two days that we don't serve grapes here. Quit asking me that or I'll take this hammer and nail your little pseudodragon feet to this bar. Now leave!" The pseudodragon complies.

The next day, the pseudodragon comes back and asks, "Got any nails?" When the bartender replies that he doesn't carry nails the pseudodragon inquires, "Well, then. Got any grapes?"

Also:
A:Knock Knock?
B:Who's There?
A:Inturrupting Cow.
B:Inturrupting Cow W..
A:**MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

PC Name: Cedar Tree (Male 1/2 elf Ranger 7)
Adventure: HoHR
Location: Drow Caves
Catalyst: Confused Duskblade + Attack Closest Creature + Full Attack + Critical Hit

PC Name: Cimber Whetstone (Male Dwarven Duskblade 8)
Adventure: HoHR
Location: Drow Caves
Catalyst: Confused and Poisoned Duskblade + Fully Buffed Drow Priestess + Smite Good w/ a critical hit

Confusion is a heck of an opening spell. The funny thing is that the Duskblade owed the Ranger a life debt after the Ranger saved his life in an earlier adventure. Guess he wanted to get out of it!

My group has just ventured into Greyhawk and I have a few questions:

Where would a temple/shrine to Wee Jas be in the Free City? I have a dwarf duskblade (loong story) in the party who is a worshiper of the Ruby Enchantress and would like to pay a tithe. Doesn't seem like Wee Jas is generally to well supported in the area as she is primarily a Suloise goddess. I'm thinking a small shrine over by the graveyard, tended by a Suel man who will give the dwarf a hard time.

Also for the dwarven duskblade: Where would a brothel catering to those who have specific desires for elven women be located? (Even longer story). I'm figuring he's not going to be welcome at the Star of Celene (and anyways he's not really interested in talking ;) I don't even think your average elf would consort with a dwarf. Maybe the best he can hope for is a dopple? >:)

More questions may be forthcoming. Thank you in advance.

FIRST PC DEATH LAST NIGHT!
Name: Leto (Warblade 5)
Location: Shukak's throne room, Twisted Branch Lair
Catalyst: Running ahead, the rest of the party not sticking to the plan, double teamed by Shukak and Kotobas.

After talking to Hishka, the party decided to help in the little coup that was planned. Hishka drew them a map of the lair and showed them where the King's throneroom was. The party followed the path that Hishka showed them. Unfortunately, the Warblade was faster then everyone else and ran ahead while the rest of the party covered the rear to make sure that the lizardfolk wouldn't close in on them. The rogue was the only one who followed the Warblade and contributed some sneak attacking against Shukak. Unfortunately, a raging Kotabas was able to deliver the death blow on an already weakened, flanked Leto.

Services will be held at the next session.

Possible SPOILERS from HoHR, Murder at Oakbridge, The Styes, and Mad God's Key.

I'm probably going to be replacing/refitting HoHR for my group. They're all relatively new to gaming so I don't think they'll dig the dopple replacement.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Keep Events 1 and 2 from HoHR. Seem to be a good intro to the Free City and an oppurtunity for foreshadowing.

Keep Part II (Eligos and the Crooked House)

Now I diverge:

I'm thinking Murder @ Oakbridge (Dungeon #129) changed to be set in the High Quarter or Garden Quarter in Greyhawk. As they investigate become more and more public figures, the changeling (dopple in Greyhawk) tries to frame them ala the Crooked House. They solve the murder. Raknian catches wind of them.

Perhaps the murderer has been mind controlled (or replaced with a Doppleganger) by Zryzog. The captured murderer draws insane drawings of Greyhawk being eaten by rising undead(foreshadowing Champions Belt).

Raknian taps Zryzog to take care of them and get him the Apostilic Scrolls. Zryzog sends his minion Mr. Dory from the Styes (a member of the Thieves Guild in Greyhawk) to take care of the problem. Zryzog lends Mr. Dory some Drow thralls (replacing the Skum) who are sent after the PCs to assassinate them.

Unfortunately for Dory, his fellow guildmembers have caught wind of his involvement with evil cults (spies and tails have seen him with the Drow). He has circumvented the assassins guild as well with the recent hit on the PCs. As such the PCs are tipped off by some mysterious patrons. In Dory's ship, they find empty crates from Alhaster which contain receipts for the Apostilic Scrolls and the assassination for ZXryzog. After Dory's defeated, the patrons reveal themselves and the Sewer Rat division are able to identify the mold and guide the PCs towards Zryzog's lair.

As an alternative, I may scale up Mad God's Key. Bozal Zohal will replace the priest of Vecna, but the PCs will still be assisted by the Thieves Guild.

Some ideas there.

Party just faced a (healthy) owlbear and found a certain gangmembers remains.

Jarmin Kell Lysander (Male Human knight 2) A recent commitment to Heironeous after needing a cure for ghoul fever will lead to a very paladin-esque character.

Tharivall (Male Elf Druid 2) He is on the second animal companion, (the first was almost claimed by the face trap and eventually eaten by an acid beattle swarm).

Elkor (Male Cleric 2 of Earth and Glory) Worships Pelor but is seen as a bit of an odd fellow amongst the clergy. Currently hangs out with the dirt worshippers at the Bronzewood Lodge.

Yohan (Male Rogue 2) Native to Diamond Lake, he was the one who knew about the unexplored Whispering Cairn.

Cedar (Male Ranger 2)A feral ranger from the woods outside Diamond Lake, he has recently tried making friends after facing a weird unkillable worm sheep zombie thing.

No arcane caster, but they do frequently ask Allustan for advice. They have been fine so far, but we will see how they fare as the adventure path goes on.

Some good suggestions for "fixing" 3FoE
AoW Wikipedia Timeline
Dragonchess as a skill (with a nice ruleset for the game)

Hey All

I am trying to design a prestige class for my Cleric of Brandobaris (Planescape setting, Faerunian Deity). I have largely based the class on the Thamautaragist (sp?). The main thing I want in this class is full spellcasting progression and Evasion. I haven't given everything a flavorful name yet, this is purely a mechanical question. Let me know what you think.

Hand of Misadventure
Prereq: Ability to cast 7th level Divine Spells
Domains: Luck or Travel

HD: d4
Skills and Skill points: Same as cleric

Class BAB F R W Special Spells
Level 1 0 0 0 2 Fast Movement +1 Caster Level
Level 2 1 0 0 3 Endurance +1 Caster Level
Level 3 1 1 1 3 Spectral Hand 1/day +1 Caster Level
Level 4 2 1 1 4 +1 on all Cha based skill checks +1 Caster Level
Level 5 2 1 1 4 Evasion +1 Caster Level

What is the best way to phrase questions for a commune? I'd like to get the most bang for my spellcasting buck.

In Planescape:
My party needs to assault (or otherwise infiltrate) a temple of Mask and my character (a cleric of Brandobaris) wants to commune with his deity with some questions about what we're getting into (guardians they might have, resistences we might need, etc.). We need to deposit an item behind a statue in the temple so I was thinking of asking if the statue is warded with death magic or something similar.

Some pertintent info:
I'm a Cleric 10 so that's 10 questions. We are currently on one of the planes of hell (which doesn't exactly make sense...isn't Mask CE?...earlier the DM thought we went to the abyss, maybe this is a plot remenant). Most of the party is Good or chaotic (though my cleric is True N) so they are taking major penalties just being in hell. Hopefully, the chaotic forces of Mask will take the same penalties.

Also, if anyone has any specific tips for ya'know...assaulting a temple feel free to put them here. Our party sucks at Gather Information (even more so in the hells), but some sort of scrying before the commune would probably be a good idea.

I got mine last week. Don't know how soon it'll be useful to me since I prolly won't be running the STAP for a long time. But I likes. Also, if I ever run the SCAP again, Sasserine will be a fully detailed city instead of a faceless blob where you can get cool magic items "somewhere to the north" of Cauldron.

A good game that I recently came into is Over the Edge. It's called the the game of surreal danger (think X-Files, Twin Peaks, Lost, etc.) and is designed by Robin D. Laws and Jonathan Tweet. It's OOP, but I believe you can find it still at your FLGS or the paizo store. It's very rules light and has a very easy learning curve. The setting is pretty intensive (included in the book and numerous source books) but you can always just adopt the rules and leave the rest. Character creation is very open ended, takes all of 15 minutes and IMO, makes for a instantly roleplayable character.

Call of Cthulhu is always fun (and often, brief) but the character creation takes too long for a one shot.

TMNT is also fun for a break, but can take a while to create a character (Damn you Palladium). However, they have a nifty random character creation tables in the book and that can make for some fun mutants.

Diplomacy (board game) can be a lot of fun, but IME, takes a long time to play out. Backstabby, friendship ending goodness!

Lost, IMO, has the ideal feel for a d&d game. Character driven, where part of the mystery is discovering who the other characters really are.

I always thought of Hurley as a lowlevel rogue or maybe a luckstealer PrC.

P.S. THEY TOOK MY SON!!!

ArchAnjel
I had the same problem in the evil campaign I ran before the SCAP; the wizard kept making everyone items, which was wasting all sorts of in-game time, draining experience, throwing off what I thought would be challenging and generally was not heroic/villanous/exciting in my opinion.

So when we started the SCAP, I banned craft feats for PCs. The players were a bit upset at first, claiming that if its in the book I should allow it. However, I don't think of endless hours crafting items when I think of fantasy.

One thing I did though to balance this was make magic items relatively easy to find. The treasure levels in SCAP are a little generous, but I allowed them to sell all their stuff in Sasserine and find pretty much anything they wanted their (given enough time.) The postive aspect of this was that the spellcasters didn't really lag behind too much in XP (besides the occasional commune or permanent *blank*) and they also got to spend their feats on cool stuff like metamagic and spell focii.

One player took the leadership feat in order to establish a church in Cauldron and his cohort had brew potion and craft arms and armor...so they still got some stuff at a discount.

The players had enough money to twink out their characters without these massive discounts anyways, so I think it worked out.

Unless someone has a specific idea for an artificer/crafter I plan on doing this in future games I run.

Basically, if cast within the same round a character is killed, it restores them to -1 hit points, stable, with no level loss or experience loss. But it has to be cast right away to work, or so I understand.

Exactly right. Frontline fighter (barbarian) keeps Adimarchus distracted for the most part. The party cleric would revivify the fallen comrades while the rouge or paladin (secondary healer) would bring them back to consciousness. A couple of cure critical wounds potions/pokes with a healing wand later and they were good to go.

It's been a few months since we finished the SCAP. Going chronolgically in modules here are the encounters that stand out.

Tarkilar handed out a free beatdown to the party as well as scaring the bejoombas out of them.

I would say that the 1-2-3 combination of fully buffed Mangh-Micto, whips, and Aushanna in Zenith Trajectory definetly tested my party. They survived but barely and mainly because I pulled my punches a bit. Later, the players said that this module was their favorite.

The two huge fire elementals in Demonskar killed a party member pretty darn quick but that was mainly due to a ranged fighter being engaged in melee.

Nabathoroton had his way with the party but then again, that's how the encounter is supposed to go.

The 1-2-3 combo of Fetor (Skaven in my game) the bone naga and Orgo was also a good series of fights that tuckered the party out. Vittris Bale was also quite good though not as much of a whompin as I expected.

Vhalantru was one of the most drawn out battles of the game. From round to round the PCs were alternately completely screwed or making amazing headway. Really memorable!

The Morkoth...Ah, memories. The wizard cast disintegrate 3 times on the Morkoth only to have it reflected thrice! The wizard also had SR so most of the time it had no effect. Unfortunately, probability caught up with him and he disintegrated himself. The Morkoth got away and the players were maaaaad!

Moltenwing almost killed the party barbarian (no small feat) by pulling him under the lava. Were it not for his protection from fire it would have happened but he hacked away at the dragon under the magma (taking massive amounts of damage in the process) and forced the dragon up where the rest of the party could pepper him with attacks.

Fish kept sneak attacking the paladin in the party until the paladin fell. They eventually dominated him and got a lot of information out but man, he really cheezed the party.

The spellweaver also spanked the party with polar ray and finger of death. He eventually was downed but not before killing 2 PCs (who were subsequently revivified).

The paladin started a fight with Byakala and once again got his butt handed to him. That was funny!

The final battle with Adimarchus had every character going into negatives at least once, only to be healed/revivified. It was also by far the longest battle we ran.

Thanks for letting me take the trip down memory lane!

Chamber of Antiquity Spoiler!!!
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I ran this as a side trek at the recomended level and the "security system" that's in the main room almost killed 1/3 the party. They retreated (one of the only times the party EVER did this) and returned buffed and prepared and it still was a long, difficult, and above all, memorable encounter.

Hey all
I had a question about the aura shroud ability (or whatever its called)...It means that Adimarchus is both good and evil for determining and thus spells with the good or evil descriptor don't work on him...Does this mean that detect evil won't work? What about smite evil?

Also, how necessary is Nidrama to defeating Adimarchus? I only have two players now, each running three characters (see Campaign ending early thread) and adding a fourth for them to run would be a little much. I suppose I could run her.

Also, for the battle with Dark Myrakul, I'm going to have him have already cast create greater undead, and create undead making a mhorg and a spectre respectively. He will also use his summon monster scrolls first while in his antilife shell. With the demonflesh golem, is this going to be too much of a resource wasting fight in your opinion?

One more thing:
One of the players lost his uber-axe to a Nightwalker in a sidequest adventure. When he returned, he woke up one morning to find the ax by his side. Of course, this ax was put there through the madness of Adimarchus and was a cursed item...tainted etc. The other player (or characters) don't know about this. But I've been using the taint rules from Heroes of Horror. Right now he's mid level mental degradation and is aggressive and distracted (hearing voices). I'm thinking that the madness will truly begin after they have defeated Adimarchus, cackling madly and then plane shifting away...but I was also thinking, what if he turns before and goes nuts on the party...this could easily swing the encounter into a TPK but it would be a great end to the campaign.

I've been reading the watchmen and came across this Nietzche quote which will definetly figure into either Dark Myrakul or Adimarchus' final monologue (Paraphrase):

"Battle not with monsters, Lest ye become a monster yourself. And if you gaze into the abyss, know that the abyss gazes back."

If you don't mind I steal it ;)

But of course. Gotta love these messageboards!

I saw this for work (don't ask) and it was actually pretty entertaining in a Troma films kinda way. And yeah, this movie owes A LOT to squirms and creeps, but it def. acknowledges that.

SPOILERS:

There are actually a few cool scenes that I was thinking of using (if/when) I run the AoW campaign particulary if the spawn of kyuss from Blackwall Keep gets out. Theres some really good stuff in there about small towns being overrun.

The worms kidnap a woman to be their 'queen' and lead the heroes back to her lair just when she's about to give birth. The woman has swelled to the size of a barn and just when the start talking to her, she bursts, sending a swarm of worms over everyone. It was really creepy and gross and could certainly scare the bejezus out of a party.

Also, the worms have kind of a hive mind (telepathic bond), which could be an interesting variation to put into the kyuss worms maybe even going back to Kyuss himself? Everything they see, he sees? This could also allow the spawn to work together a little more and increase their deadliness.

[/SPOILER]

If you're looking for a funny, gross, horror movie...this one's a good choice.

IMC, Skaven also made it out of the Kopru ruins unscathed. I used him to replace Fetor Abradius and basically had him as double agent of the Ebon Triad and the Cagewrights.

He really was an insane worshipper of the Adimarchus who helped spread the madness throughout the Cagewright organization. IMC, not all of the Cagewrights were aware of Adimarchus, some mereley wanted to open the gate to Carceri for generaly anarchy (although Adimarchus madness was the true reason). Skaven also was charged with infiltrating the Ebon Triad, which he did succesfully. All without letting the leader of the Triad, (whose name I can't recall and who also was a double agent for the Cagewrights) figure out that he who he was working for.

I also did a little Bedknobs and Broomsticks maguffin. When the party encountered him, he cast enervation on one of their henchmen(zenith's brother, also a shackleborn) and then began to dimension door away. Unfortunately, his secret diary started to fall out of his cloak as he did so. The party wizard grabbed for it and a tug of war ensued. The book ended up getting ripped in half. Upon later inspection, the wizard discovered it was magically encrypted and required lots of time (and decipher script checks) to decipher. I used this information to give some background that the players would not be privvy to such as the history of the kopru ruins and some information about the monsters they had faced. However, I also hinted to some OTHER organization that Skaven was feeding information. I staggered the gain of information over the next few chapters (up to Test of the Smoking Eye), finally hinting that Skaven was actually not working for this sinsiter shadowy organization but some God like figure and his name is...that's where the book was ripped in half. >:)

This technique allowed me to foreshadow a lot of neat background information. Also, when the party eventually defeated Skaven in Karran Kural, they found the other half of his diary which detailed more background information (including some information about the Cagewrights, hints about Lord Vhalantrus true identity, some of the guests at LoO party, etc.) The party wizard (who invested a lot in this aspect of the story) really enjoyed being a font for this information...
Oh ya, I also used this diary to infect his character with some of Adimarchus' madness.

Whew, that was long. Hope it helps.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

We've been playing with 2 characters per player since the begining. We just didn't have enough players at the time to run the AP. I agree that it makes roleplaying a little weird, but we still manage. Things tend to happen in the third person if that makes sense

I started making the sorcerer character with Player A last night and will make the ranged fighter w/ Player B tongight probably. Three characters a piece is going to be interesting. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Hey all,

My group has reached a breaking point. One of the players does not have a car and lives all the way on the other side of town. In addition, he has made time commitments that conflict with our normal gaming time on the weekends. We've tried playing during the week but the inconvinience of picking him up coupled with the short amount of time we get to play (most have got 9-5 jobs) has made this unfeasible.

The rest of the players all live very close to me and we could easily get together at a moments notice. We've decided to proceed without the player. But there's a few problems:

1. How do we break this to him gently? He's our friend and such, but we're all just sick of driving him around and changing our schedules to coincide with his.

2. Each of the players (there are 3) plays 2 characters a piece so if this guy stops playing that will take out 1/3 of the party. I was thinking that each remaining player would adopt another character, but this could slow down our play considerably.

3. The player in question plays two very important characters. The arcane spell caster and the smoking eye ranger. I could justify these characters jagging off somewhere else, but they both are pretty integral to the story (esp. the smoking eye character). The arcane caster is Vortimax Weer (who post-eruption) is looking for money to re-open his shop. I can just have him go back there. But what of the smoking eye character...I guess he can go back to Occipitus and supervise there, but what about the final battle? What about Vhalantru's return.

4. The party is currently ~18th level and being run through the final rooms of "Root of Evil" (side trek). How can I justify 1/3 of the party leaving all of a sudden. If I do bring in more characters, how do I justify their arrival?

5. What characters would you recomend for a replacement? The previous party composition was
run by player A:
Paladin of Heironeous 18
Barbarian 17
run by player B:
Human Rouge/shadow dancer/fighter 18
Cleric 17
Run by player C:
Wizard/Archmage 18
Ranger/Aasimar/Smoking Eye 17 who's pretty much full on evil outsider bane (arrows, bow, favroed enemy)

I was thinking bring in a sorcerer 18 or 19 for Player A since he's not playing any primary caster. But what would you guys say I need for player B? He was thinking of going ranged fighter build as well, but I think that's not very powerful unless it's with a ranger (favored enemy evil outsider) at least for these last few levels. I dunno maybe a monk or something.

It really is a bummer that we can't put the campaign on hiatus but I may be leaving the area soon and thus, want to get it wrapped up. We've been playing for more than a year and just want to get it finished. So what do y'all think?

I remember this encounter well, although its been almost a year since I ran it. The party was severly weakened by Mangh-Michto and the other Kuo-Toa when Alushanna appeared. However, they were still pressing on; climbing up the stairs to where a locate object said the Splintershield standard was located. Unfortunately, none of the party members had any ranged weapon that could bypass her damage reduction so despite many hits and very slowly hacking away at her hitpoints it was looking rather grim.

I went easy on them. Something I kind of regret, honestly. First, she didn't fire all of her four arrows at one member of the party, instead firing one per party member. Also, realizing that the party was so weak, I had her teleport closer for melee. This gave the party barbarian a chance to jump from the third story and tackle her to the ground. Once engaged in melee, the party paladin was able to deliver a smite evil attack which did the trick.

In the end, noone in the party died; but they were all really close. They should have retreated while they had the chance. If your party decides to do this, I wouldn't punish them. Having them be chased out of the temple by a mad eriynes should be punishment enough. Maybe she won't cross the threshhold of the exit to Bhal-Hamatugn. Then, fully rested, they can face her when they reenter the big room and you can play her to maximum deadliness.

I love this campaign.

Agreed! My PCs slaughtered the rest of the Cagewrights last night (except for Embril and Theyeryn Louvel) At one point half the party died, though a well placed revivify scroll alleviated that situatation.

The rouge found the secret door in the Egg room and everyone was confused as he hastily climbed the ladder. They were downwright flabbergasted when he grabbed Embril's body and cast Plane Shift ("I didn't know the rouge could do that?!?")

Ghath (the dominated barbarian...see the Shatterhorn Prep thread for more detail) climbed up after the Rouge and saw all this happen...he saw the Spellweaver and teh spell weaver cast crushing hand, which managed to grapple him! The spellweaver is going to be an interesting fight, to say the least. This is where we left the session and we won't be playing till the sunday after next (blasted superbowl!). I am looking forward to it!

We finished up this module in the first week of January. The rest of the rooms were explored and didn't pose too much of a problem, although of particular note:

The barbarian went into Zomph's menagarie by himself and faced a horrid umberhulk mano a mano. They traded blows of 50+ a round back and forth. The barbarian won, but barely. Meanwhile, the rest of the party followed him in and faced two...not as much of a challenge for them, but still fun.

The party spanked the three invisible nalfashnee thanks to a glitterdust followed by a prismatic spray (man the archmage loves this spell!) which turned one to stone. My party severly favors evil outsiders (paladin, rangers primary favored enemy, almost everyone has holy weapons, oh yeah and alakast (SCAP).

The party were wary of the gold and black dragon statues and especially the Naga. They took the black and gold statues and the gold one went to the paladin's church while the black one was sold.

The water elemental was dispatched relatively quickly by the slaying arrows (used by the ranged ranger) but the party totally misdiagnosed the waterfalls. The ranger stuck his hand in the "clear" one and lost it! The expression on his face was hillarious! One regeneration spell was all it took (after some rest) and he was back in the game.

The dragon heads also were great to roleplay, as the party attempted to keep them all entertained and happy as they giggled maniacly and spun around the room.

Over all, a very fun module. My party especially liked facing the Juggernaut and I found Arodnap to be a good (albeit unexpected) role playing oppurtunity for the right party.

I simply used the Chamber of Antiquities as a side quest (Using the Codex of Dead Names as a source of information on demonic politics

>>>>>>>SPOILERS>>>>>>>>>> ;>

such as Nabathoroton's gang politics, and information that led to the discovery that the remaining Cagewrights were hanging out in Shatterhorn.

I'm thinking about buying the Maure castle module (online) based on my players reactions and running a different party through it. I also can't wait for the next installment!

My party had too much of a cakewalk with 13 cages...they recruited NPCs like Shensen and the Stormblades to help out and looking at the encounters, I thought there was no way they'd survive. Thus, I've made Shatterhorn the Cagewrights last stand. (THough some of them may escape to Carceri)

Also, Fish was dominated by the party wizard during 13 cages and thus gave alot of helpful information to the party. Then when they destroyed the tree of shackled souls they grabbed him teleported out and while still dominated, cast mark of justice on him and set him free. Fish then limped back to Shatterhorn where he was severely chastised. This gave him a good grudge againt the party while still providing them with the information that they needed to flesh out the story...I do like the fallen 3rd reich analogy...could make for some interesting RP oppurtunities...like expatriate german scientists, the knowledge of the cagewrights (1 or 2) is necessary for the greater good...it'd certainly be an interesting moral quandry for good aligned party members....hmmmmmm...

I started running Shatterhorn last night.

The fight in the ruins didn't last too long. The will o' wisps gave the party a little drummer, but Ghath was dominated by the party archmage 1 round after he appeared. This significantly swayed the encounters under Shatterhorn.

The party searched the keep and found the staircase leading down. Nahazir cast crushing despair when they entered the room and moved back behind a pillar. Ghath squeezed into the room and took an attack from the Mhorg (made his paralysis save). Ghath dealt damage to the Mhorg while the other PCs rushed Nahazir. They were placed in such a way that noone (save the archmage with see invisibilty) saw the Fish (who survived 13 cages) sneak up behind the paladin and deliver a sneak attack.

Ghath was commanded to grapple Fish, who promptly dimension doored to room 7 to regroup and begin concentrating on his death attack against the paladin (who he holds a grudge against for that whole mark of justice thing...long story.)

Meanwhile Nahazir flew back over the pit trap hoping to draw the PCs over it. The party barbarian ran after him but made his save to avoid falling. The party wizard cast fly on the rouge with a wand and then dropped it. The party rouge picked up the wand and cast fly on the ranger. The next round the party rouge caste fly on the wizard again (a pretty good solution to the quandry).

The PCs pursued Nahazir to the other side of the pit trap, where Alurad and fleshripper came charging down the hall. The PC paladin has Alurad in his backstory so he was please to be facing him.

Ghath charged as well and tripped the trap falling in. The PC had the good idea to jump up (ring of improved jump) and try and grab Alurad and fall back in to the pit. He tried to jump out and failed taking the damage all over again. Fleshripper was quickly dispatched and Alurad was felled by the barbarian. Just as he was delivering the telling blow, Fish death attacked the paladin (who made his save) and it wasn't long 'till he died too.

Ghath made his way out of the pit. The party spent 3 rounds healing up, when Mhad and Hate (who had been alerted by the shadow) emerged from their vault.

Mhad sprung attack the ranger with spider climb, bestowing negative levels. Meanwhile Ghath ran to meet the Wraith head on (which surprised the wraith..."Haven't I seen you around here before?") The party barbarian did the same. Mhad retreated (via mist) into the sniping room and dominated the Ranger who hit his allies with several arrows.

The archmage disintegrated the wall and the farastu and the vampire were exposed. Mhad dominated the party barbarian but it was all for naught, because she was hit with a devestating searing light from the cleric. The farastu was soon dispatched.

It had been 5 minutes and three rounds since the party approacehd the ruins of Shatterhorn. They had been underground for 1 minute and three rounds. That's when the party decided to investigate that weird ring in the column room. Their was a fair amount of debate over whether to put the ring on or not, and finally, the Wizard said "we can just take it and put it on later"...heh heh. The medusas were released and everyone rolled their saves; the wizard turned to stone...That's where we left it.

A few questions:
would Ghath still be dominated? After reading the description of Dominate Monster and Flesh to Stone, I decided he would be as long as the statue is intact.

Anyone else have any similar experiences running this? Anything you'd like to share?

My party really enjoyed the "enemies in waves" scenario. I found it a pretty effective way to make it just a wee bit more challenging, though Ghath certainly swayed and helped the party. For the remainder of the dungeon, I am planing on making the following changes:

Theryn Louvel is found in room 10 (which he has set up the same as his room in 13 cages). The party never faced him, and I did so much prep work for this that it would be a waste not to do this. He will be fought by himself (well, and his familiar and summoned monsters) I'll also prolly up his level a bit.

The half-iron-orc-whatevers will attempt to grapple PCs and walk with them down towards room 20. Once the Cagewrights hear the Faithful Snake Gaurdian, Xokek is sent ahead with his Sladdi, who try and further draw the PCs into room 20. The cagewrights have all used 1 of the runes from the Egg (everything except heal and teleport). I'm hoping to make the big battle include Kyan, Xokek, Viirdan, 2 death Slaadi(implosion...oooh!) 2 farastus, and the 2 half iron golems (Assuming they can get the PCs there (prolly be pretty damaged by that time)

Embril and the Spellweaver I will probably run as is. Nooone in the party ever casts protection from evil so I don't think possession will be a problem. The medusa rouges shouldn't provide too much of a challenge either (what with the party rouge and barbarian being way higher level). Not sure what'll happen if the party decides to keep treking throught the dungeon without a wizard (don't think anyone has any stone to flesh...well he had some scrolls...whahahah). In any case, I'm looking forward to next week!

not sure if goliaths are giants or humanoids, but in any case, i allowed it the first time, so I allowed it the second time.

We ran another marathon session on sunday. The party cleared out the rest of the rooms besides the secret doors behind the pentagram. The party barbarian almost fell (again) to the hellcat while the wizard with permanant see invisibility was flabbergasted. After a few rounds of the barbarian being mauled (to the negatives: he was dragged out and saved by well timed cure mods. from the cleric and the rouge) the cleric made a knowledge planes check to identify the bright light equation as a probable Hellcat. An area greater dispel magics on the chandelier and the party had enough shadowy illumination to quell the beast.

The party was uberconfused by the spellchisel room. They tried a few things, but gave up in the end. Did anyone's party make any headway? Is there a way to dispel an antimagic field or is this a puzzle with no solution. Just as well, I didn't want to give them the spell chisel anyway.

The dragonmasters of lynn asked the party to leave the room when they entered and the party almost complied, but stalled too long so the dragonmasters attacked. They weren't too effective as combatants, though they were kind of fun and alien (jumping from platform to platform in full plate?cool!)The party wizard tried to use mass hold monster or some such and was surprised when the dragonmasters laughed at him.

The room with the rakshasas and furniture and wraiths was a bit tedious for the PCs, but they still had fun and survived. They figured out after destroying the first statue that they all probably had wraiths in them, so they tried to avoid damaging the constructs. I advanced three of the rakshasas so that they were effectively 9th level and that made it a little more interesting. One of them would cast Evards which then would buy the other two advanced ones a chance to cast their buffs while the remaining three (lesser) rakshasas cast haste lightning bolt, etc. The uber rakshasas unleashed spectral hands that held touch of idiocy, as well as rays of enfeeblement. This coupled with the dread wraiths con drain damaged many of the party members, including the party wizard AND paladin (who after being dropped to negative 1 and back up to his max hp of 1, got the h377 out there.) The paladin did manage to give a deathward to the cleric and the barbarian though, so they effectively defeated most of the wraiths themselves.

The party found the robe of transmutation and identified it, but the wizard wants to keep the ruby robe of spellwarding and they're going to sell it. O_o I was surprised by this but you know, players perogative. They'll certainly have no trouble finding a buyer in Sasserine.

Arodnap was a weird experience. The party dispatched the outsiders and the wizard made a knowledge check to see if he had ever heard of Arodnap and rolled a twenty. I gave him a fair amount of the background (cleric for Wee Jas, dimension in a box, she's the guardian) and through the evidence in the room, they figured that they should probably take the rock off of the sarcophogus. Arodnap thanked them, and said she would take care of the outsiders, but as the party hadn't yet discovered the chute trap or the other end of the dungeon, they couldn't offer any reasonable alternatives. Some good RP, but it'll have to wait for next time.

The cleric and the wizard slept in the restorative pool for 4 hours, made their saves, and the cleric restored everyone. The party then approached the pentagram hallway. They found the note detailing the process for deactivating the trap. The rouge and the ranger approached picked up some of the residue and rubbed it on the north globes, activating the trap. The orb made its spot against everyone except the wiz and the cleric (rolled two consecutive 1s) and the remaining party members disappeared into the trap. This is where we left the session. Fun Stuff!

I'm in Southern California too...although it's a big place...Where are you located? I'm near downtown LA. I'd be interested in playing the AoW, though I'm not much help in terms of a regular place to play. Also, I do have a subscription and thus, have read much of the AP, but I could seperate my meta-game and ingame knowledge quite easily.

heh...not sure which threat to post on so i'll pick this one arbitrarily.

I found this encounter to be deceptively easy...sure it has a whole heap of baddies but take a look at the tactics.

Mhad and Hate leave ASAP; these are easily the two most deadly combatants in the room and as long as your players leave them be they will leave.

This leaves Rhiavadi; IMC she was attacked first and since the party got a drop on her initiative wise, she took enough damage to cause her first action to be retreating.

The rest of the combatants are either not really pleased to be fighting (Adrick and his minions), or fighting amongst themselves (Zarn and the half-fiend last laugh dude).

The baddies will probably not work together very well; for example the BauBau's spell like abilities (darkness) will probably be more of a hinderance to everyone else including their fellow combatants.

The close quarters also are quite the hinderance to the baddies (i.e. my party started with a web spell that pretty much spelled d-o-o-m for most in the room. Coupled with a prismatic spray (? whichever spell it is that fascinates creatures) or even a burst spell and you're party'll have it under control.

How many players are you running this with? What level are they? I had 6 players and they were a level below the recommended amount (which works out to be just about right). Most of these combatants are around CR 10 which for a party of around CR 12 shouldn't be too much of a challenge; My party ripped through them like so many paper tigers.

Party tactics are certainly important in this mission; some of the party disguised themselves as halfling servants while the rest scryed on them and waited for the right moment to teleport in. Thus they got a little bit of a drop on them and were privvy to Rhiavadi's speech. If your party just waltzes in a TPK is very possible, but then again they should understand that a meeting of the evil minds is happening and waltzing in is a bad idea; if they do this, they deserve what's coming to them.

The primary purpose of the encounter is giving the PCs the explicit information of who is behind the recent events in Cauldron and the fact that trouble is brewing. It is also a chance to spank a whole heap of badguys (which they'll prolly love after being besieged by Wee Jas assassins, demons, and so forth in recent adventures).

The real challenge about this encounter, IMO is running it. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

I'm definetly keeping it simple, but one of the players is a veteran of my other SCAP campaign (currently on holiday hiatus) so most of that stuff is out. I definetly don't want to overwhelm the new players with too much information but the veteran will enjoy it. Also, I find knowing what's coming up (as in the SCAP) allows me to introduce NPCs before hand and thus foreshadow a little. For example, I plan on introducing the diviner from Final Resting place and her uncle Kai Rifter in the next adventure that I'm running (Devil Box)

I was planning on setting the campaign near the Dreadwood (which I will be using for Mellorn Hospitality). It should be near forest or in forest with a river and hilly plains nearby.

Other adventures I may use

Life's Bazaar (one the Players for my SCAP campaign joined after this adventure and I loved Jzadirune so I may have some adventure in the town ~70 years after or before the SCAP)

Drakthar's Way (see above, probably strip it of most of the SCAP content and place it somewhere else)

Beast of Burden: I love this one!

Practical Magic: Seems like a good mix of RP and site based
Forest of Blood: Adapted for greyhawk...should be good for the druid

As for the arc, I don't forsee this campaign lasting too too long...maybe till 10th level. I plan on having the mind flayers as the background evil dudes, introducing the threat in Final Resting Place and then dropping a few hints here and there. Also, find another adventure around 9 or 10th level to reveal the threat.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but prep is the kind of thing that I live for.

Hey All,
I'm starting a new campaign that is going to have 3 brand new (never played D&D) players. It is going to be set in the woods and one of them is a druid. Thus, I've incorporated as much wilderness as possible yet I also want to have some other stuff to spice it up.

I'm using:
Cry Wolf
The Devil Box
The most recent issues goblin adventure (maybe)
Shut In (Maybe)
Final Resting Place
Mellorn Hospitat
Racing the snake
The stink

Any suggestions incluiding non-dungeon material...Do you have a good idea? Something that worked that you did?

I am running the Chamber of Antiquities as a side-trek dungeon for my SCAP by making the book of dead names contain background for Adimarchus, Grazz't, and Nabathoroton.

I made the chamber leap around the multiverse randomly once a week, so it's no longer part of Maure castle, having disappeared some 300 years ago. It "happened" to appear in the hills outside Sasserine and noone had returned back from it, so the party went exploring.

The party consisists of:
5 15th level PCs and 1 with the smoking eye. Their classes are paladin, rouge/shadowdancer/fighter, cleric/contemplative, barbarian, wizard/archmage, and ranger/fighter.

First, they went shopping in Sasserine. They made the logical leap that anything that was guarding such a place had to either live a really long time or be immortal or a construct. The ranger bought a bunch of construct and undead bane as well as evil outsider (favored enemy) which he's been forgetting to buy at every oppurtunity. They also bought some scrolls of raise dead and deathward.

They approached 1 and looking around the room (and towards the M's to the east and west) activated the traps. Within three rounds, the ranger, paladin, and wizard go insane. The rest of the party subdues them while the rouge moves quickly to disable the traps. The cleric had to rest two days before all 3 greater restorations could be cast (they left the paladin for last) so after the second day, they decided to do some exploring.

The wizard stayed at the bottom of the stairs (outside of the map) and scouted the room with prying eyes a few times to get a gist of where the M traps were. The rouge then entered the room with the cleric. The cleric cast an antimagic field on himself and kept the rouge within 10 feet as he disabled the traps just in case one were to activate. They disarmed the trap at the south end of the dais and then moved to the southeast bookstacks.

The rouge entered the stacks and the mettallic doors began to close. Thinking quickly he tumbled out of the room(I had him make a reflex save and he rolled a 20). Just then, the cleric turned to see the Juggernaut spring to life. The juggernaut trampled the rouge and cleric who immediatly began withdrawing but not before taking a fair amount of breath weapons (slow, fire, and ice). The barbarian ran up the stairs into the room and helped evacuate them by throwing them down the stairs. Bruised, the party rested again so that they could restore sanity to their paladin.

The next day, the party cast a fair amount of buffs before entering the chamber including fire, ice, acid, electricity resistance 30, fly, haste, and deathward. The barbarian had greater heroism.

They moved in and initiative was rolled. The party barbarian was first in and did a fair chunk of damage (he had a very magic, construct bane adamantine great axe). The paladin approached but his sword was wholly ineffective. The rest of the party moved into position along the balcony while the rouge and cleric hung back.

the party rouge attempted to disarm the M traps that were around the room but failed early on and was affected by fear.

The juggernaut captured the barbarian in a forcecage and tried toasting and freezing him to little avail. It succesfuly dispelled the greater heroism. Over the course of the battle, the force cage was disintegrated by the cleric and wizard and greater heroism was cast again but again promptly dispelled.
This tactic was repeated adnauseum by the juggernaut as the barbarian was really the only one that could hurt it. The party ranger's construct bane arrows were not adamantine and were thus slightly less effective. The battle lasted 7 rounds and did not have a single death although everyone in the party had been slowed, poisoned, buffs dispelled, or forcecaged.

All in all, the juggernaut easily could have killed the party were it not for the energy resistances and the teamwork of the cleric and wizard with well timed disintegrates.

The party continued searching the chamber after resting. They disintegated the door to the chaos room which gave me one of those "oh s$^#" moments, until I read about the antimagic field. That could have been BAAAAD. They sent the barbarian in after checking the room with the old mirror on a ten foot pole trick. They found the room cool and trippy.

They searched some of the treasury rooms and greedily lapped up the robe of spellwarding and the shoes of farstriding. They then ventured into the room of changes. Some of them had the acuity to don the protective armor but some did not.

The party all entered the room and all made their saves the first round...except for the barbarian who rolled a 1. I rolled the percentile dice...elemental change...rolled the d6...OWCH...Odd number.

The party barbarian (nigh indistructuble mind you, believe me I tried) exploded in a ball of electricity. The party collectively crapped their pants, grabbed his body and ran. They ran all the way back to Sasserine and got him reincarnated. The character had previously been a goliath, then was reincarnated as a halfling so he felt it would befit his character more to be reincarnated again. and he rolled half-orc. Boy was he happy!

The party then set into the room with the skullreaver who they quickly dispatched due to the rangers favored enemy (outsider) and the clerics domains (law).

That's where we left it! I can't wait to get back to it in two weeks. The players are challenged by this module while still having a good time. Great stuff!

actually the church of pelor had moved into another (similar looking white circular) building over by the church of Wee Jas...so it wasn't really an issue. The church of Wee Jas wasn't too pleased about the appearnece of a new church, and Kord was indifferent/condescending. But Cuthbert and Pelor were glad to see one of there fold in Cauldron.

The paladin in my campaign (also of Heironeous) wanted to start a church as well. First there was the matter of getting real estate. IMC, real estate is rented by the city to the owners. Thus, anytime real estate comes up it is auctioned off by the city to the highest bidder. The only real available piece of land was the ruined church of pelor. Knowing this, the paladin began soliciting donations and saving his money. After soliciting donations from the townspeople, including merhcants (paladin had great diplomacy rolls), as well as borrowing a lot of money from his fellow party members, he had enough money.

Around Flood Season (during the festival) I had the auction for the ruined church of Pelor. Lord Vanderboren and some other nobles bid on the property. A bidding war ensued and the vacant lot was purchased for around 12,000 gp. Then came the matter of building the building back up. The paladin travelled to Redgorge to hire stonemasons and paid them ~5,000 over the course of building it. Construction began at the end of flood season and was completed right before Secrets of the Soul Pillars. During this time, construction materials became scarce because of all the destruction that had befallen the city and the paladin pumped another 5,000 grand or so in materials.

The paladin also took leadership, which attracted a cleric of Heironeous from Sasserine. He became the high priest and since the paladin was spending all of his time adventuring, the priest ran the church. Over the course of the campaign, the cleric crafted some minor wands and potions, but these were paid for by more funds from the paladin.

So all told, it cost about 25,000 to build and buy the temple (located near the Chuch of St. Cuthbert). This doesn't include all of the items crafted by the church.

It has been pretty advantageous for the party. Not only does it make the PC feel like a real paladin (donating all his money for the glory of his god), but the church has helped his leadership score and coupled with his great acts, has attracted many followers. In the post-Foundations Cauldron, the Church of Heironeous will play a mighty role.

One player joined mid-campaign (between The first adventure and Flood Season) and wanted to play a rouge, so I had him meet the current party rouge (an NPC who was Keygan's assistant) and after some talk, they decided that he was a better fit for the adventuring party and she needed to take care of Keygan's shop anyways soo...

Another PC replaced the NPC cleric, a shackleborn who was killed by Skaven in flood season. The PC made a Wee Jas cleric. Ike sent him to the funeral for the first PC to express his condolences. He told her to keep an eye on the PCs. Ike also ended up killing this PC in Soul Pillars. The player then made a cleric of St. Cuthbert, who was born in Cauldron but had been "busting heads in the name of the Lord" in Sasserine. A contemplative, he recieved a vision telling that his home was in trouble and to seek the Heroes of Cauldron (which just happens to be the party's name.)

Another PC played a gnome wizard from Sasserine. He was from a big family of nobles and was often competing with his fellow wizarding brothers. While in school, he indadvertantly caused a disaster that killed his entire alchemical class. Disgraced, he changed his name and fled to Cauldron. It was really cool backstory and secret too (i.e. the cleric healed him and noticed all these scars under his robes (burn marks?) Unfortunately the wizard was killed by Kaurophon in the Test of the Smoking Eye.

The party new that he was from Sasserine so they went there and asked around the gnome quarters. Eventually, they found his family which had effectively blamed him for the disaster. They were hunting for him, but they had placed that particular task to his lazy older brother, who had instead been spending his budget getting drunk and high in Sasserine. His father forced him to join the party (more just so he would get out of the damn house). Unfortunately, the wizard was killed by 3 reflected disintegrates in a row from the Morkoth (damn heroics.)

This PC was replaced by Vortimaax Weer, whose shop was destroyed during Cauldron's evacuation.

Hopefully, this'll be it for character replacements but the party is about to finish the climax of Thirteen cages so I guess we'll see.

I was wondering if anyone else used NPCs in the PC's assault on the fiery sanctum. I did this for Sunday's session, using 14th level Shensen, Fellian, Cora Lathenmire, and Annah Taskerhill. The party already had 6 members, but I felt that for a big, assaulting the BBEG's type adventure, some of the other heroes of cauldron would step up.

Unfortunately, this slowed down gameplay considerably. I ran two big battles in the last session. The first was Freija, 2 Kelubar, Dericini and 4 Flamewarders. The Second was Nulin, Grehlia, Ardeth, Ti'irok, and the other 4 Flamewarders. Including the summoned creatures in Freija's battle that's 10 Baddies, 6 PCs and 4 NPCs...20 total, 14 of which were controlled by me.

Cora Lathenmire was relatively ineffective. She couldn't get past the damage reduction of all the evil outsiders. She helped by flanking.

Shensen was a little more useful. Her Ice Storm was effective against the Flamewarders and Ti'irok. Her flamestrike was semi-useful against the evil outsiders. She also removed disease to get those that failed their nausea saves against the Kelubar.

Fellian used some of his spells to help bulstor the allies. His Pathwarden levels came in handy when they were in acid fog, and he could move unhindered.

Annah Taskerhill was by far the most effective. She used her greater dispel magic to remove an acid fog that hampered the party. She used greater invisibility on the alakast wielding rouge which allowed him to beat down the harankin. Her bardic music helped the group score a lot more hits and damage.

For next session, I think Shensen and Cora are going to depart for the surface. They have not been particularly effective, have taken a fair amount of damage, and Shensen has used almost all of her spells.

Annah Taskerhill only has a few spells remaining, but maintains a lot of her scrolls and 6 more uses of bardic music ability.

Fellian has a fair amount of his spells left and a stoneskin from Shensen.

I would definetly warn against using NPCs if you don't want to slow down gameplay A LOT. I did a fair amount of prep work (about 20 minutes an NPC) and their turns still took forever. Caveat DM.

I was wondering if anyone else used NPCs in the PC's assault on the fiery sanctum. I did this for Sunday's session, using 14th level Shensen, Fellian, Cora Lathenmire, and Annah Taskerhill. The party already had 6 members, but I felt that for a big, assaulting the BBEG's type adventure, some of the other heroes of cauldron would step up.

Unfortunately, this slowed down gameplay considerably. I ran two big battles in the last session. The first was Freija, 2 Kelubar, Dericini and 4 Flamewarders. The Second was Nulin, Grehlia, Ardeth, Ti'irok, and the other 4 Flamewarders. Including the summoned creatures in Freija's battle that's 10 Baddies, 6 PCs and 4 NPCs...20 total, 14 of which were controlled by me.

Cora Lathenmire was relatively ineffective. She couldn't get past the damage reduction of all the evil outsiders. She helped by flanking.

Shensen was a little more useful. Her Ice Storm was effective against the Flamewarders and Ti'irok. Her flamestrike was semi-useful against the evil outsiders. She also removed disease to get those that failed their nausea saves against the Kelubar.

Fellian used some of his spells to help bulstor the allies. His Pathwarden levels came in handy when they were in acid fog, and he could move unhindered.

Annah Taskerhill was by far the most effective. She used her greater dispel magic to remove an acid fog that hampered the party. She used greater invisibility on the alakast wielding rouge which allowed him to beat down the harankin. Her bardic music helped the group score a lot more hits and damage.

For next session, I think Shensen and Cora are going to depart for the surface. They have not been particularly effective, have taken a fair amount of damage, and Shensen has used almost all of her spells.

Annah Taskerhill only has a few spells remaining, but maintains a lot of her scrolls and 6 more uses of bardic music ability.

Fellian has a fair amount of his spells left and a stoneskin from Shensen.

I would definetly warn against using NPCs if you don't want to slow down gameplay A LOT. I did a fair amount of prep work (about 20 minutes an NPC) and their turns still took forever. Caveat DM.

The party rouge (who had not yet previously died; one of the longest surviving party members) was killed by Nulin "the Fish" Wiejeron's Sneak Attack on an attack of oppurtunity. He will probably be ressurected when the PC's have a chance to rest.

I too was looking forward to the encounter with the Derro, but unfortunately, it wasn't as deadly as an encounter as I had hoped. The Derro and his barbarians teleported in, invisible. The barbarians, noticing the heroes immediatly went after them and quickly lost their invisibilty. The sorcerer attempted to disintegrate the party wizard and failed. The party wizard then moved under the flying sorcerer and cast a maximized lightning bolt. The ranger then turned the derro into a pincushion, killing him. After the sorcerer went down, it was only a matter of time before the barbarians were dispatched by the rest of the party.

I would recomend having the barbarians start by attacking the nobles (Taskerhill) or Jenya. This will give the PC's a sense of urgency. Also remember that they are hasted, invisible (sneak attack!), and if memory serves, have poisoned weapons and are flying.

The Derro sorcerer has so many cool options available to him, so I would say maybe give him another buff spell (like windwall or mirror image) to make the combat last longer. Also, that insanity scroll that he has is just too good of a flavorful oppurtunity to pass up. (this was my plan for the next round; unfortunately, I never got there.) I believe its a fortitude save so have him cast it on a spellcaster.

One thing that was really fun about this encounter was roleplaying a totally insane little sorcerer. I was skittering around the table, shouting periodically, giggling, etc. It definelty put my players on edge. But they had to take that away from me! >:(

Seriously though, it was a fun encounter but definetly one of those situations where it shouldn't be too much of a challenge for a fully rested 15th level party to defeat (especially with help from the striders, maavu getting the nobles, etc.)

you have Vortimax Weer as a player? hehe...

Yes. In an attempt to keep this thread relatively spoiler free, please see the "How Many Character Deaths" thread for why and how he's now a PC.

I just wanted to say what a great time I had running this portion of the encounter. The players had a great time roleplaying with the movers and shakers of Cauldron. One of my players was a PolySci major in College so it was a great oppurtunity for him to shine.

The party convinced the rest of the attendees to vote in a democratic way. Each party present would have one vote, except the party, which would have two. The party paladin quickly nominated Jenya for election after Aslaxin's suggestion. Flustered, the nobles quickly nominated eachother. The striders nominated the party rouge (who they have taken a shining to) and Maavu stood with him as well (the PC's father is in the Chisel...*cough*Freemasons*cough*)The party paladin (who had maxed out diplomacy) went around and first convinced the rouge to concede, then went through the merchants and religious figures. In the end, it was a landslide decision for Jenya. While this was happening, the party and the council discussed moving to a system by which there would be three branches of government...etc...etc.

A really fun encounter and the players had a blast. Of course, they were rewarded with that big chunk of XP. Anyone else want to share?

The party gnome wizard (the player of which has killed the most PCs this campaign) succumbed to multiple reflected disintegrates from the Morkoth in FoF.

This last wizard was the brother of the players previous wizard. The other players joked that they should not approach that family with anymore requests for kin.

The players new wizard is Vortimax Weer. His shop freshly destroyed, he wants to get back into the adventuring lifestlye to help Cauldron, get revenge on whatever malevolent force is doing this to the city, and of course, make enough money to reopen his shop.

After Foundations of Flame:

Simon Trueblade Male Human Paladin of Heironeous 14
Bonebreaker Male Halfling (Ne: Goliath) Barbarian 14
Toric Gremgurn Male Dwarf Cleric 10/Contemplative of St. C 4
Erasmus Buefont Male Human Rouge 11/Fighter2/ShadowDancer1
Azurius Foundling Male Aasimar-type w/ Smoking Eye Ranger 13
Vortimax Weer Male Wizard 13/Archmage 1

Ran this yesterday. I ran the encounters in pretty much the same order that Big Jake used (thanks, it saved me a lot of prep time!).

They started with the fire. The paladin and cleric cast resistance Fire on the paladin, barbarian, and ranger. They ran in and after some excellent search/listen checks managed to get the commoners safe. Hearing the squeels of the orphans they ran over to see the massive fissure and the orphans at the bottom. The party wizard cast fly(using a wand) on everyone in the party(and had already cast fly on himself)so they rescued them without incident.

As they flew over Cauldron they saw the Morkoth emerging from the lake. They freaked out and flew straight at it. The Morkoth summoned the Vroks and they moved in to distract the party. The Morkoth was hurt and just wanted to get out of town, but seeing the party rush at it kind of freaked it out. The party wizard cast disintegrate on the Morkoth and it reflected, but the wizard made his save. The paladin and the barbarian tangled with the Morkoth in melee, while the ranger and the rouge tangled with the vroks. The cleric released an order's wrath (law domain) on the penetrated its resistance. The following round the Morkoth blasphemed everyone except the wizard and cleric (out of range) and they plummeted to the ground. He then began to flee. The vroks clawed at the plummeting heroes as the wizard telekenised them so that fell safely onto the shore and not in boiling water. The cleric attacked the Vrocks. What happened next blurred the line between stupidity and heroism.

Seeing his compatriots on the ground and the Morkoth fleeing, the wizard casts a quickened disintegrate on the Morkoth, and it relfects again. The wizard makes his save, and...he casts disintegrate again. Once again, it fails to penetrate the Morkoth's spell resistance and...the wizard failed his save. DISINTEGRATED! The morkoth flees for cooler waters. The cleric slays the two vrocks and goes down to remove paralysis on his fellow party members.

Once that is done, the water of the crater is rising and the animals are stampeding. I honestly thought that the party was screwed on this one, but the paladin summoned his warhorse who commanded the horses to march out of the exit. The party rouge located Shensen who helped calm down the remaining animals.

Next the party rescued Tomash and his kids. The flying really helped on this one, but they freaked Tomash out by charging. In the end it took some scrambling to find his daughter and pin him. They barely escaped the collapsing building but I didn't run the trapped ecounter since there were no casualties.

Flying also helped tremendously on the lake of fire encounter.

In the southwest corner of town, the heroes faced off against the Farastus and Kelubar demodand. The party mopped the floor with them.

In my previous post, I actually forgot that the Paladin (having almost no useful skills in the opinion of its player) had maxed out diplomacy. Coupled with the paladin's reputation (starting a church, donating massive amounts of money) as well as that of the party (heroes and massive amounts of aid rolls) they managed to use diplomacy in almost every applicable situation.

I opted out of running the Hookface encounter, mostly cause I was tired, but also I didn't really like how it was set up. I will probably run it after 13 cages and buff up Hookface a bunch.

Overall, I felt the evacuation of cauldron was an allright encounter. To be honest, I couldn't wait to be done with it. However, it did afford some nice roleplaying moments and some chances to use rarely used skills for the players. I wouldn't say that the party enjoyed it, but it defintely gave them a sense of doom for the city of Cauldron (in which they have invested so much) and a chance to flex their muscles as the True Heroes of Cauldron.

PLUG: See my other posts about Foundations of Flame.