Gurubabaramalamaswami's page

I'm confused. Is this Shebeleth/St. Cuthbert connection something you've done in your own campaign or is this mentioned somewhere in the published AP?

It's been a while since I've seen a bulette in any decent art. Cool stuff Hugo!

To supply some context to the OP's postings. He's running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. He's apparently in the Crater Ridge Mines portion of the adventure.

There are almost no non-evil creatures/beings in this place. Even the elementals are evil (i.e. Elemental Evil). The paladin will indeed be a shining beacon in this situation.

The key, folks, is to mob the one-hit wonder with a mob of underlings and keep him too busy to get at the evil priests and whatnot.

The dragon in question, Vranthis, is a juvenile dragon. In 3.0 he was CR 7 and in 3.5 he would be CR 8. A single monster even 2 CR levels above the party average is still only going to require the party to expend about a third of its resources (maximum and assuming some bad luck). Which is about right for your paladin's single use of Smite Evil.

Beware however that as things progress in the adventure you are going to see a swing in the other direction. Evil clerics abound in this thing - it's a magnum opus on using evil clerics. The way negative channeling works in Pathfinder your party is going to get roughed up.

Pathfinder has yet to give us a blackguard so you're going to have to modify the 3.5 version. Assuming smite evil works like smite good you are going to have to be very, very careful when your group runs into a certain prince.....

One small tweak my group is using in my 3.5 game is to make smite evil work more or less like the 3.5 version except that it lasts for 3+Cha modifier rounds and works against all evil creatures during that duration.

I can see what the OP and others are talking about...but, having played the game through all its incarnations over the past thirty-odd years, I still like 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder best because of the customization.

I tried playing AD&D at a con and THAC0 gave me a headache.

What "rules lite" system are we even talking about? It sure isn't the Gygax-designed system with all its tables and shoot from the hip decisions.

The Basic D&D line of products was as simple as it ever got.

What's so rules heavy about 3.5 or Pathfinder?

More linnorms?

Anything in here that we've never seen anywhere else?

What? As in - what is this thread about? Context please. I wish to be enlightened.

The published setup leaves a very wide range of possibilities...

Yes, your players might run though the final adventure as the designers expected, dealing with Lashona at the base of the tower, Maralee before the top, and so on.

Or, they might go more along the lines of my players, who decided they wanted to get the drop on Kyuss before he became too powerful, and before they had their resources whittled down getting to him. So they by-passed the tower and just went straight to the top (with a bevvy of summoned help). After a couple of warm-up rounds, they found themselves fighting Kyuss, Lashona, Maralee, etc all at once. It took them a long time to get rid of all these "minions", barely surviving, then it became a bit of a stale-mate between them and Kyuss until, after many hours of real-life time, they finally whittled him down and defeated him, having used nearly all their resources on the way. That was a pretty epic ending, where the players really were scratching their heads on ways to win (playing it out in two sessions helped there).

So I guess my point is that a lot depends on your players - how well prepared their PC's are to combat Kyuss, and then what approach they take in the final adventure. As a DM, you can try and prepare for some of that, namely how well designed the PC's are to fight Kyuss etc, but in the end it still comes down to exactly what spells they have on the day, their tactics in the fights, and whether they take out all the "support crew" before they reach Kyuss, or if some are left alive and can come and join in the final battle. You can't predict that, and I think that open-ended nature is a great feature of the final adventure.

Overall, I think the adventure is pretty well designed and allows for a wide range of possibilities. It's good to allow the players actions to dictate the overall outcome, including just how hard that final fight is. It's a fitting way to end a very epic campaign.

There's only one thing I would quibble with, and that's the severe...

I'd really love to read a "play by play" of this fight. Especially details on tactics and resources used by PC and NPC alike.

I think that positive energy channeling thing will actually even up the odds a little bit when Swords of Kyuss start blasting away with their Invocation of the Worm ability. A cleric can either blast back or undo the damage of the blast.

I believe in no down time for a player that wants to play. Farshore and the Isle of Dread are big enough to have one or two shiftless loiterers ("off duty" adventurers) lazing around waiting for something to happen.

Make him a pirate that changes sides in mid-battle (because he was shanghaid against his will in the first place). Or an Olman tribesman fresh out of the jungle coming to help out.

[End moment of silence]

Just for curiosity, is it possible to see the "uncut" version of this adventure? Me and my players are all zombie/gore movie maniacs and would like to experience this module in all its graphic and explicit original glory. And you probably know what it means for an horror movie collector to know there is an "uncut" 12 seconds bonus out there he can't see.

I am referring to "Well, almost perfect. Nick went a little… over the top, shall we say, in places. A few of the scenes in his original draft were things I can never unread. They’ve scarred parts of my mind that I thought, after growing up on a steady diet of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and John Carpenter, had been as traumatized as they could get."

Needless to say, i was HOOKed!

Alas, reading the entirety of this thread will reveal to you the numerous times that it has been stated no "uncut" version will be made available.

We all grieve for the lost material. [Begin moment of silence]

What's a vanguard? What's a proselyte? What books are these coming from?

Quah-Nomag is statted out in BoVD p.138-139 in the section about Orcus. He's described not as a half-ogre but as a unique human (ogre-blooded) cleric 14/Thrall of Orcus 3. CR 17. He's pretty nasty but nothing compared to what your PCs should be like at this point in the AP.

I'd be careful about introducing anything "new" to the encounter. Giving Kyuss a bunch of mooks wouldn't be a bad idea. Some broodfiends, some badass ulgurstasas, and whatnot.

Read further on where I grumble about change. I know that Paizo's focus is now the PFRPG. I can't get excited about it however (especially when I tally the cost of everything they want to sell me). I've got the pdfs for the Core Book and the Bestiary but that's it.

I'm still 3.5 and I'd like to see the 3.5 threads stick around for me and those like me. Even if we're now in the minority. Besides Monte Cook's message boards this is the only site I regularly visit and post on. And many of those posts are about the three Dungeon Era APs.

Joela's right to call me out on the "lose me as a fan" thing. It was a kneejerk reaction. But for a moment I was feeling like I had even less reason to stop by the Paizo site. That would be a shame.

This is why many parties have a "stay away from puddings and oozes" policy. The things are a Huge pain in the butt.

Nevermind. I found them by following the "Older Products" links. I would like to changed my complaint to a mere grumble that it is more of a pain in the ass to find them now.

Plus, do we really need an active 2008 RPG Superstar thread?

Maybe I missed an announcement somewhere. What happened to the threads for the Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide APs? If they are gone forever you've definately lost me as a fan. Those APs were great and shouldn't be cast out like old smelly socks.

I'd like to see the rest of the monsters that got left out. Gricks for instance. I think anything that was in the Core monster book for 3.5 should have priority over "newbies."

Example: the rest of the sphinxes.

What would qualify the warlock to have Acrobatics?

Wait...I see, the stupid decision to roll Jump into a single Dex-based skill. Gosh, now the warlock could balance, jump, and tumble for one skill investment! What a great design decision.

Sorry...that turned into a threadjack.

I'd lose the Acrobatics skill.

I suspect the Alchemist will be mechanically similar to the Binder from "Tome of Magic." He'll drink elixirs instead of binding vestiges, but he will still get a suite of powers that he can change every day, making him highly versatile.

I also think the alchemist might be a good candidate for a skill monkey (6 or 8 skill ranks/level) that doesn't step on the rogue's toes.

THAT would be fricking awesome!

As an aside Binder might be a better description of what they say the Summoner is and does.

In 3.5 I believe the Sage somewhere sometime confirmed that smite is multiplied on a critical. No big whoop back then...now, however, I believe a ruling by Mr. Buhlman is in order as he is now the defacto Pathfinder Sage.

So is a child born of Norgorber-worshiping parents called a Norgorber Baby?

I apologize fervently.

Will the upcoming new base classes be OGL and therefore usable by other publishers in their products?

In regards to Vital Strike and critical hits, if I read it right and I'm playing a half-orc barbarian with a +1 flaming greataxe and I use Vital Strike and roll and confirm a critical hit I do: 4d12 + Str bonus x3 plus 1d6 fire. Yes...no?

I argued against changing the 3.5 DR system at all. I hated the idea of enough plusses overcoming things like DR/evil or DR/adamantite. As the basis for my counter-argument I pointed out that Greater Magic Weapon would guarantee bypassing DR at certain levels.

So Greater Magic Weapon doesn't bypass DR. But it's the basis for creating magic weapons with Craft Magic Arms and Armor. That balances the spell but kind of creates a question of logic about why it can bypass DR when its used to enchant weapons permanently.

I hate that. But it's a small thing.

The "Dummies" books are hardly dumb. The D&D for Dummies and Dungeon Masters for Dummies were really very good reading. The title "Dummies" is self-deprecating humor. Being too highbrow to look past a title on the cover is a little...lowbrow.

In order for Pathfinder to survive it will need new players. Not just converted players. Publishing a quick and easy introductory book is a good idea on every level.

As a (tongue in cheek) quick fix I offer the following new Half-orcs only flaw:

Orc Regression
You are butt ugly and sharp as a marble.
Effect:You take a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Charisma.
Special:Gnomish bards with Perform (Comedy) are always making "Your momma is so fat..." jokes whenever you are around them.

Hmmm...having them carrying thunderstones is pure evil. Can't even hearthe buggers if you're deaf.

Agreed. At least they kept the part where you don't die until you reach minus your Con.

Hmmm... Neat.

I like bringing it back to the original inspiration.

Awesome link dude. Thank you.

What's a palandin?

Well...why not do a Pathfinder RPG for Dummies book? They've got a couple for 3.5, at least one for 4E, and I've seen one for GURPS. It seems to be fairly easy to get the Dummies folks to let you do one.

They're certainly lighter than most of the hardcovers.

Lol! I read it. I just didn't agree with it.

But...we can agree to disagree because its a matter of personal preference in this case.

And ultimately we've got what we got. Maybe Paizo will give us an "Orcish Upbringing" trait or something to recapture the classic half-orc of yore.

Somewhere around here Vic said the PDF bookmarks (and other bugs) would be fixed after Gen Con was done. He also mentioned we'd be emailed when it was done.

I think there was no real common consensus on which way worked best and the designers decided that any variation from 3.5 would best be left for GMs to houserule as they saw fit.

As a side note, while I approve of the direct removal of save or die effects, I would prefer if instead of 10 damage per CL it dropped foes to -8 or -9 hit points.

Then it would be called Power Word Coma. ;p

I think in some ways you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Your argument about making a character against type is true in reverse - you can still very much make a half-orc to type. Whether by point buy or by dice roll it's still completely plausible to have a dumb and ugly half-orc.

But why mandate that the half-orc be dumb and ugly?

Awesome! I'm so glad that PFRPG has kenk...uh...tengu! I love these guys! The sword thing is really cool, as is the Linguistics thing.

Don't know what I'm talking about? It's in the free Bestiary preview.

Well, there's the whole "unruly savage" thing that they have going for them too (with which orc ferocity helps), but you could get that by playing a savage human with diehard. Every setting has at least one flavor of human barbarian; some have several.

I'm really curious about this. If you say they're still orky 'nuff for you, then what do you think it is that makes them so?

What was so orcish about them before, besides being stupid and ugly? In 3.5 all they had was darkvision, +2 Strength, and ability to use the orc double axe as a martial weapon.

They've lost none of those things (if you put your +2 into Strength). They've gained orc ferocity and a bonus to Intimidate.

The only thing they've lost is penalties. If you want your "classic" half-orc, use point-buy character generation to lower Intelligence and Charisma in favor of physical attributes.

But now you can create half-orcs that favor their human side too.

Lost: penalties. Gained: flexibility.

Yup. Just keep clicking "check back". It took me two hours to do mine - at 1 in the morning.

It took me a couple hours of constant refreshing to get to download the PDF last night so I can heartily sypmpathize with all those still waiting.

As for cats and reading...mine generally will lay down on my book so I'll pay more attention to them. :)

The PDF is not without its little bugs. While reading the section on grappling several of the links that are supposed to take you to the "grappled" status condition in the appendices weren't working for me. Anyone else experience this with theirs or is it just my crappy PC?

...is a thing of wonder. I especially like all the little linkies scattered around in it. Very helpful, especially the ones found in the spell lists that take me right to the spell description. Uber cool.

No more stupid or ugly half-orcs (unless you want them to be). Hello half-orc bards, sorcerers, and wizards!

Awesome!

I refer of course to the new and improved half-orc of the PFRPG Core Rules. Bravo!

So...any word yet? Anyone at Gen Con get the low-down?