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Referring to something earlier about not allowing paladins, I am running Tides of Dread right now, and one of the PCs is a paladin. However, this is a very strong Player who is a great roleplayer. I actually told her when the campaign began that playing a paladin would present some very serious challenges for her down the road, but she said essentially that she didn't want it to be easy. During HTBM, her PC was captured by Olangru, and I had the Player play an NPC, Captain Amella Venkalie, to whom I had been giving rogue levels. The party rescued the paladin, and it was a very thrilling adventure.

As for druids, I agree that they are potentially extremely powerful on and around the Isle of Dread, where dinosaurs roam. But the way I figure it, every class can have a chance to shine in this campaign. Those disallowing druids may not be considering the later adventures in the Abyss, where, I have no doubt, my paladin PC will shine.

Finally, let me second what everyone said about Lavinia and Vanthus. In my campaign, using Pathfinder rules, Lavinia has become the girlfriend of a male witch PC. It's been a lot of fun, because they have really grown to care about each other. When the party reached Farshore after IoD, she ran to him and hugged him, and it was a touching, tearful reunion. Oh, and just FYI, I went a different direction than most above - I gave her bard levels. It made sense to me, given that there is specific mention of her having learned violin at Thenalar Academy.

I started using the Pathfinder rules when I started running this campaign. We only play once a month, so I have plenty of time between adventures, just FYI. We are now about two-thirds of the way through Sea Wyvern's Wake, which is just the third adventure.

At first, I was like you - conversion seemed very daunting. But don't be afraid. Sure, you'll make a few mistakes at first, but that's how you learn.

For basic monsters and low-level opponents, conversion is super easy. You could almost certainly use everything exactly as written in the first adventure with no changes, and your Players wouldn't even notice.

As the AP advances, though, you'll want to start pumping up the bad guys a bit - PF rules make for PCs who are a bit tougher and more versatile than you'll be used to. Follow the suggestions above, if you don't have much time. If you do have time, though, I feel like I learned a lot about PF rules by converting named NPCs. A lot of times, this just means adding a feat, but I had a lot of fun "building" them all over again from the ground up. Was that necessary? No. But it was kind of like when they tell you in high school to copy your notes - you can learn a lot just by writing stuff down. And as was mentioned earlier, anything you can do to familiarize yourself better with the villains and other NPCs, the better you'll DM them, and the more fun your campaign will be.

Good luck - keep us updated on how it goes.

I treated the doors like magic items. My party had a sorcerer with lots of Knowledge (Arcana), and there is a variant rule somewhere that if you cast detect magic, and get a high enough skill check, you can identify magic items. I also let them use identify and like spells to determine the correct spell needed. Once the pattern became clear, a Knowledge (Dungeoneering) determined what a beholder's various eyes can do, and off they went to buy a scroll for each for which nobody could prepare a spell.

Defeating the beholder was easy for my party. One of the party members is one of the best archers I've ever seen. He's mostly an Arcane Archer build, but the guy who plays him has him tricked out very well regarding feats and magic items. I'm here to tell you - beholders hate arrows!

I don't think it's TOO generous (although it is QUITE generous). My only objection comes from the Player's standpoint. Some Players are going to benefit a LOT more from your gift than others, and that's not fair to the ones who benefit less.

But then, I made the decision years ago to go with point buy, the only system that starts characters off on completely fair and equal footing. I don't know about you, but I always used to seem to have at least one Player, if not more, who came in with a couple of 18's and nothing below a 12 or 13. I have never liked the rolling dice method UNLESS I was there personally to see the rolls being made. Even then, I kept a set of house rules with fairly generous "unplayable" exceptions that would allow the dice to be re-rolled if the scores did not meet some minimal acceptable standard.

All that said, I certainly don't think your ruling is bad. What you have read is true. My party is about halfway through Demonskar Legacy, and it has been a very rough road! A little extra oomph is probably going to do no more than make the PCs more likely to survive -- I honestly don't think you need to worry whatsoever about them being unbablanced.

They all agreed, with the caveat that the act can't be evil in nature (though nothing was said about a neutral act that serves evil ends...).

I would assert that a neutral act that serves evil ends is an evil act. But then, I never did earn my "Evil DM" badge!

I am getting ready to start Zenith. I'm reading the beginning and I cant see where it indicates what level characters should be at for the beginning of this module. (using the HC book).

What is the official level PCs should be for this chapter?

That's odd. I am running the adventure from the original magazine publication, and it clearly states that the PCs should be 6th level when they start the adventure, and 8th level by the time they complete it.

Thanks, everyone. I ran the encounter today, and the point was moot. The gnome illusionist first sent an illusory party down the stairs, provoking the hydra to move out and breathe on the illusion. Basically, the party said, "Uh-oh," and headed off to prepare spells before facing it.

A bit less than a day later, they returned, ready with protection from energy (cold), fly, improved invisibility, and also many buff spells. Three of the PCs used different spell effects to fly down, the gnome stayed at the top of the pit and cast spells from there, and the archer (actually a fighter with heavy bow specializtion) stayed up there with the gnome and shot the hydra. They didn't even touch the stairs until after the hydra was already dead!

The hydra's fast healing 17 was pretty good, but the fighter using Power Attack, the rogue under the illusionist's improved invisibility sneak attacking every round, and the archer's shooting took it down in good order, no head sundering needed. One factor that really helped the party was that I play creatures with 2 Int as though they really have 2 Int. So, it was clueless that its breath weapon was ineffective (remember protection from energy?), and never switched exclusively to melee attacks. (I even made two of the PCs roll Bluff checks because they were pretending to be hurt by the cold, but the hydra failed its Sense Motives.)

The party beat it handily.

However, that's one thing I love about my group of Players. They do things to gain intelligence, and then use that intelligence to plan highly effective tactics. Their teamwork is excellent too. The cryohydra never really stood a chance.

We'll see if they fare as well against Aushanna, the erinyes!

OK, call me a stickler, but according to the adventure text, the cryohydra cannot, mathematically, collapse the stairs. The cryohydra deals 3d6 cold damage per attack. Given that it breathes from 7 separate heads, that means that each breath should be treated separately. Maximum damage per attack would therefore be 3x6=18 damage per attack. The text says, "Quarter the damage (because it's cold damage against an object), subtract 10 for the hardness, and apply the rest to the pegs." One-fourth of maximum damage (18) is 4.5. If you subtract 10 from that, you always get 0. Therefore, the cryohydra cannot collapse the stairs.

Naturally, I can see that you might treat all the damage as coming from a single source, since there is only one cryohydra. However, doing so seems to go against a strict interpretation of the rules. Maybe I'm thinking about this encounter in the wrong way. I plan, for example, to give each head its own turn in the initiative. Maybe that's why I'm thinking of the cold damage originating from separate sources.

When you ran (or when you plan to run) this adventure, did you collapse the stairs? Do you think the stairs' integrity is even important to the encounter's outcome? I can see how it could be -- a collapse could potentially divide the PC party, allowing the cryohydra to kill one or two PCs who have been cut off from the others. How did this scenario play out when your ran it, or, alternatively, how do you plan for it to play out?

I understand what you mean about how the PCs could be level 5 by the time they reach the Lucky Monkey. I am running the AP straight out of the magazines -- I don't even own the big book, and therefore I don't own and didn't run Drakthar's Way. After the Malachite Fortress, which my PCs explored quite thoroughly, it only took one relatively tough side trek encounter to get the PCs up to level 4. I don't know what the book said, but my understanding was that the PCs should be a group of five level 4 characters when they reach the Lucky Monkey. Therefore, I can certainly understand why your level 5 party wouldn't have much trouble. For my party, the fight with Tongueater himself wouldn't have been all that tough, but the Inn got alerted and the thugs and Alleybashers were attacking almost simultaneously. When Tongueater entered the fray, the fight got very difficult, with two characters going to negative hp before the party emerged victorious.

I think your best solution is to do nothing. So they had one easy encounter, so what? When my 4th level party defeated Tongueater and the rest of the Lucky Monkey encounters, they earned enough XP barely to make level 5 prior to heading to the kopru ruins. According to the tables in the DMG, level 5 characters earn considerably less XPs. Therefore, they should still be level 5 when they get to the kopru ruins, which is right where they should be. I don't think you have anything to worry about -- Players love the occasional cakewalk.

My group immediately recognized the creature's friendliness. I gave it a good Australian accent and it complained, "I'm starvin'!" Having just killed a dark stalker in that very room, they fed it the corpse which it gratefully consumed. It then willingly followed them at their invitation, and they later used it to guard their backs at the top of the elevator shaft into the Malachite Fortress. Meanwhile, the mimic expressed its personality somewhat: "I like to eat, but I don't like movin' around too much," was pretty much how it summed itself up.

When the party returned, I had a special surprise awaiting them. Two more dark stalkers, Jzadirune having been mostly cleared out and the jig therefore now up, had tried to escape, intending to head out the Underdark entrance. The mimic caught one of them and killed it. Having just eaten the other stalker, though, it was too full to ingest it completely. That was the in-game setup.

Meanwhile in the real world, I, the wacky DM, had visited my daughters between games. I asked them if they had any old Bratz dolls they never played with anymore and they gave me one they were sure they didn't want. I pulled her legs off, and kept the legs in a pocket for when the party came back up from the Malachite Fortress.

When they arrived, I turned aside and stuck the legs into my mouth, one on either side, so that just the calves and feet were sticking out. Then, I turned around and spoke in a voice of someone huffing and puffing because of how full he is, and also with a mouth full. "I'm stuffed!" the mimic exclaimed as the party came into view. Hilarity ensued as the mouth-full mimic described how it had caught its new meal.

Before long, the PCs "sold" the mimic to Skie, which I thought was the perfect solution. As a sentient being, what actually happened was more like Skie interviewing the mimic as a potential security specialist, and Skie paying the PCs a "finder's fee". Skie has been very happy with her low-cost & effective guard; the mimic gets all the food he wants and doesn't have to move around very much; and the PCs have a pretty friendly working relationship with the gnome at this point.

My party has just finished Flood Season, and so far there has been only one character death. The character was a human Rogue 3/Fighter 2. I don't remember if I changed the spell choices, but what killed him was that the halfling diviner Skaven Umbermead cast enervation in the surprise round on him, and then hit him with a lightning bolt in round 1 while he was still flat-footed. If not for the negative levels, the lightning damage would not have killed him.

Some battles have been touch-and-go. The grell in Jzadirune very nearly took out our wizard; two different characters reached negative hit points fighting Tongueater at the Lucky Monkey; and the T-Rex skeleton in the kopru ruins sunk its teeth very deeply into almost every member of the party and killed an NPC hireling they had with them.

On the other hand, some battles have gone shockingly (to me) easily. They killed Kazmojen in 3 rounds; Triel Eldurast failed some key saves and died very quickly; and the large demon in the lake inexplicably lost mutiple opposed grapple checks against the party's dwarf fighter.

This campaign has been a blast for me to run, and my Players definitely seem to be enjoying it. Next up: Umber Hulk Smash!

First off, thank you to all who answered. You've given me some valuable insight.

My PCs are finishing Flood Season. Tarkilar's quasit still possesses the final Wand, but the PCs have only a bit of "clean up" in the kopru ruins remaining to handle. An interesting twist in how the PCs won in the ruins will provide just the opportunity I'm looking for to introduce the Stormblades.

What happened was that the characters fought an extremely tough battle with Skaven Umbermead and several hirelings. By that time, they had already killed Triel, and cleared out most of the northern half of the ruins, so Skaven had very little left to fight for. He called for a truce and negotiated with the party. He would hand over the Wands in his areas if the party swore to stay out of his areas (he trusted the oath of the PCs' cleric of Heironeous). To this, they agreed, but later, they reported the deal they had struck with Jenya.

Being the lawful neutral cleric that she is, Jenya was not about to let Skaven remain remain comfortably where he was. So, despite her distaste for dealing with the chaotic Stormblades, she asked them to investigate Skaven and bring him to justice or kill him. They agreed.

That's where I left off last session.

My plan for tomorrow's game is this. The Stormblades succeed totally against Skaven and start to exit the ruins, when the quasit finds them. Sensing kindred spirits, the quasit takes a liking to the Stormblades, especially Annah, who would be clever enough to flatter it shamelessly. The quasit turns the final Wand over to Annah, and the Stormblades take the cage to the upper ledge.

As they are about to leave, the PCs will exit the kopru ruins. Jealous of the attention the PCs have been getting, the Stormblades decide to play a little prank on them, cutting the rope as the first load of PCs starts ascending! The Stormblades figure a little dunk in the water should cool their heels without doing any real harm. What they don't know about is the existence of the outsider (forget what it's called) and the kopru, who attack in succession!

During the battle, or just after it, the quasit will swoop in and taunt the PCs, telling them "we" have the Wand they're seeking. We who? "We, the Stormblades!" it will answer triumphantly.

Once the PCs get out, they will find that the Stormblades are planning to conduct a demonstration of the quasit's Wand at the lake, creating quite a stir about town. The threat will be that the Stormblades are claiming to have recovered ALL the Wands, and we shall see how the PCs react to this potential indignity, since they have already turned all the rest, safe and sound, over to Jenya.

Feedback on my plan and suggestions would be much appreciated!

My party is halfway through Flood Season and still hasn't even heard of the Stormblades. How important is this sub-plot? Can I leave them out altogether, or would one or more of the adventures suffer significantly if I did? There's just so much going on in this campaign, SO many NPCs, that I'd just prefer to omit them if I can. What do you think?

Mine debated quite awhile and ended up with The Jzadirune Company, seeing as how that was the first place they liberated. A gnomish noblewoman has moved a large contingent of employees into the mostly-cleared city, and she plans to re-open it for gnomish occupation at some point. The party has met her, and also a dwarf interested in re-opening the Malachite Fortress. I'm not sure where all this will lead, but the group is still fairly new; they are currently only about halfway through Flood Season.

... but I thought that maybe it would be more interesting if there was a cure more appropriate to the region, something out of local Olman lore. Any Aztec/Olmec/Mayan folklore buffs on the board have any suggestions for curse-lifting cures or beast-warding rituals that might work?

I know of no such folklore, sorry, but I did want to commend you on a good idea. There really is no reason to keep the region European flavored. As a matter of fact, I see Savage Tide AP doing quite a bit with the Olman concept. For your campaign, you could probably fudge it, and nobody would know the difference. Just make up a plant name that starts with a Q, and has a TL somewhere in it, and voila!

My group has recently invaded the kopru ruins in Flood Season, where they killed Triel Eldurast toward the end of the last game session. They still have over half the complex left to explore, though, because they happened, by luck, to enter the ruins as close as possible to Triel's quarters.

The party's makeup:

Brenvia, male human Rogue 3/Fighter 2
Cigwyn, female gnome Illusionist 5
Keira, female human Cleric 5 (Heironeous)
Kepkal, female halfling Rogue 5
Moridoc, male human Fighter 5 heavily specialized in archery

I don't think I could have made up a more balanced party, class-wise, if I had assigned the Players the classes they would play. They made all their choices on their own, though. A couple of them have some fascinating ideas/plans, too, for branching out into prestige classes.

They've done very well so far -- no deaths yet!

Thanks to everyone for all your excellent and informative answers. You have given me lots of good ideas. I am running the campaign directly from the magazines, because I don't own the hardcover at all, and in the magazine it was indeed 2 clerics, and there was nothing about them being murdered.

I run my campaign only once a month. My PCs begin Flood Season on November 4. I'll try to remember to let you know if they even ask.

I didn't see anywhere in the adventure where it described the skulks and creepers as being in opposition. Quite the contrary, I recall that both factions were presumed to have assisted in the kidnappings. In my campaign, the two sides did not work together physically, meaning that they didn't associate with each other in groups, but neither did they oppose each other, violently or otherwise.

The main reason why the Temple of Pelor can't help the Temple of St. Cuthbert recover the Wands of Control Water is because, "Last spring, it lost its two most powerful priests to a tragic accident." How? I consider myself a pretty good DM, but one of my weak spots is coming up with creative explanations where the situation seems significant but there is no hint given in the descriptive text I'm using. In this situation, I am torn between tossing the party an enormous red herring, and presenting a perfectly logical explanation. On the one hand, I don't want to make things too easy on the PCs, but on the other hand, I don't want them going off on a wild goose chase, trying to track down the veracity of a strange explanation for the clerics' demise. To those of you who are more creative than I am, please, put on your thinking caps: what would you say if the party asked Kristof Jurgensen (Clr4) how his two higher-level superiors died?

Please help! I am running the SCAP from the original DUNGEON magazines; I don't own the book. This is driving me crazy, and maybe the error (if it WAS an error) was corrected in the book. In the magazine, the Jzadirune description contains two "Z" keys and no "A" key. The two "Z" keys are in areas J34 and J52 in DUNGEON's descriptive text. Should one of these be the "A" key? My party has just defeated Kazmojen, and will probably re-enter Jzadirune to make sure there's nothing there they missed. Right now, they possess neither the "Z" nor the "A" key. I'd like to run the unexplored areas the way they were intended. So, should one of these keys be the "A" key, and, if so, which one?

If they would prove their further worthiness he would a) give them his key und b) show them the way down to the Malachite Fortress and c) take his children and vanish into the Underdark under the dwarven hold. He asked them to bring back his missing children, the one that disappeared in the grell workshop and the ones upstairs...

... very good roleplaying opportunities...

Amazing the parallels with my own game! Yuathyb, the dark stalker, sent the PCs after the grell to prove their trustworthiness to him. He then told them that the lord of the Malachite Fortress was a half-troll and that to defeat him they would need acid and alchemical fire from the alchemical room with the ragamoyffin (which he accidentally inaccurately called a "poltergeist"). After completing that mission, he asked them if they wanted to retrieve Keygan's rat familiar before they went down, which they did, setting up an encounter with another skulk, and one with the mimic. (When the party pursued the skulk into the mimic's room and killed it, the mimic asked, in an Australian accent, "So, we're under new management, then, are we?" Lol!) Finally, Yuathyb revealed the way down to the Malachite Fortress. Even there, usually separated from the party, he pursued his own agenda, but his goals, by then, were mostly in agreement with the PCs. Finally, at the end, he gave them his Key before departing into the Underdark forever, for he would not need it there and the party had treated him well.

The Malachite Fortress is tough! I can be a brutal, let-the-cards-fall-where-they-may type DM, though, so, thinking about your situation, this is what I would do. Let them go down, and then kill them. The ogre in the first hallway, coupled with the elemental there (forget what it's called) will clean their clocks. Do a TPK -- they're first level, so what's the big deal? After they're all dead, have them roll up new characters, and try again. If they don't get the hint, kill them all again. They'll learn eventually.

If that solution does not appeal to you, here's what you do. Check the Players' character sheets before the first game. Note the highest Search check in the party, and then change the DC to find the secret door to one point higher than that. Cheating? Yes. But so what? This step saves their lives.

In my game, the PCs did not find the secret door themselves. In one room, you will find a Dark One named Yuathyb. I expanded this NPC's role enormously, and it was he who eventually told them how to get to the Malachite Fortress. He did this in exchange for the PCs bringing him a cure for the Vanishing -- a scroll the party cleric bought from Jenya in the Cuthbert Temple. If you're feeling bold, simply rule that the PCs cannot find the secret door without his (or another NPC you designate) help.

My adventurers just completed Life's Bazaar, quite successfully, but not without some touch-and-go spots!

The Jzadirune Company:
1. Brenvia, human rogue 2/fighter 1, an orphan raised by halflings, discovered that one of the child kidnap victims is his half-elven half-sister.
2. Kepkal, halfling rogue 3, Brenvia's "big sister" who stole Fellian Shard's belt pouch without him knowing it.
3. Moridoc, human fighter 3, who plans to take a house-modified Arcane Archer-like prestige class that we call Arrow Whisperer.
4. Keira, human cleric 3 of Heironeous, the conscience of the party.
5. Cigwyn, gnome illusionist 3, with 18 intelligence and 6 strength (we used point buy).

I don't own the hardcover, so I'm going to have to get them to do some other stuff before Flood Season in order to get to 4th level. I'm thinking they'll probably finish cleaning out the areas they didn't explore in Jzadirune (they wiped the Malachite fortress up); maybe have a run-in with the Stormblades; and/or take a shopping trip to Sasserine with one or more "random" encounters happening.

Obviously, we haven't played through much yet, but I am loving the SCAP so far, and loving these message boards!

I would like to reiterate again that it has a set of benefits for those who join that is seperate from the prestige class.

Sorry, Sean! When I read yours, I read DMFTodd's statement about the prestige class immediately afterwards, and I guess my mind just assumed that the prestige class he mentioned pretty much comprised the "set of benefits" you mentioned. OK, well, that's good for me, because that should fit right in with an Affiliation's benefits. Additionally, if I want, I can use "Pathwarden" as one of the Affiliation titles.

So, while I am curious about what those benefits are, and what abilities a level or more of Pathwarden provides, I'm still not convinced that discovering those things would make it worth it to me to fork out the, what, $60? it costs. So, if you have a minute, I'd appreciate it if you'd answer me a question: If you owned all the magazines, why would you buy the hardcover? What would make it worth it for you, other than the "coolness" factor?

No affiliation but it does have a prestige class you can get for joining them.

It seems to me that an Affiliation would make more sense than a prestige class. Dungeon #97 says, "This is a loosely run organization of adventurers who watch the horizons for signs of great evil and strive to preserve the balance of power in the realm." It doesn't say they have common abilities, and in the magazines, the members don't share a class: Fario & Fellian are both rogues, the former also a fighter, the latter also a cleric, and Meerthan Eliothlorn is a wizard. Not a very consistent pool of abilities to meet a common prestige class's prerequisites!

Because I own all the Dungeon issues containing the entire SCAP, I did not buy the hardcover. Does it contain a description of the Striders of Fharlanghn as an Affiliation, PHB II style? If so, I would be very curious what it says, because, since buying the PHB II, I have been thinking of making the Striders an Affiliation in order to provide my PCs with benefits for joining them. If the hardcover does not provide such a description, I would be particularly interested to hear what people who read this would set as such an Affiliation's Affiliation Score Criteria, and Titles, Benefits, and Duties, in particular.

M:TG and miniature sales are some of WoTC's most profitable product lines, so if there is a 4E, you can probably expect a D&D3.5E/M:TG CCG/Miniature game hybrid. That sounds ridiculous, but I guarantee some R&D manager at WoTC has done extensive research/prototyping on just such a game.

I can't wait to see D&D Atogs, and their accompanying small, medium, large, huge, etc. minis!

I guess by manipulating I mean things like getting enchantments on hand x-bows to fire 10 shots per round and firing one in each hand, things like that they have done in other peoples games.

Where's the roleplaying?

Player: Can I have a crossbow that fires 10 shots/round?

DM (me): Who are you asking?

Player: You.

DM: You don't know.

Player: Huh?

DM: Your character has never seen such a crossbow. If you wish, you could inquire at Skie's Treasury, or at the weaponsmith.

Player: OK, I go to Skie's.

DM: As you enter, Skie enthusiastically says, "Welcome back, adventurer! What can I sell you today?"

Player: "I want a crossbow that shoots ten shots per round."

DM: "Ten shots per what?"

Player: "Um, 10 shots every six seconds."

DM: Skie laughs. Then laughs some more. Her face begins to turn red, and she continues to laugh, until she finally ends in a painful coughing spell. "Oh, my, that's the best laugh I've had in a long time!" she says, wiping a tear from her cheek while still chuckling. "Son, there is no spell that can accomplish that. Perhaps with multiple Wish spells . . . you don't have a few hundred thousand gold on you, do you? If so, wonderful! I'll contact Tenser and get him to work on it, and you'll have it in a couple of years at the latest."

(the Monster Manual is probably the most important book for them not to have open at all times).

My Players, fortunately, are sufficiently mature that I don't have to worry about them looking up monsters as the monsters are attacking them. On the other hand, I insist that anyone who can cast Summon Monster bring his or her own MM; no, you may NOT borrow mine during the game, lol. If you want a spellcaster who knows that spell, get your own MM!

First I got a BS from the US Military Academy. After I got out of the Army, I got an MA in Psychology. After practicing as a licensed counselor for a few years, I got out of that and went and got an Associate's degree in computer programming. As a programmer, I'm making two-thirds more money than I did in counseling. It's been a weird life, job-wise, but it's the only life I have.

And when the other characters are way ahead of said PC in class levels and hit points, keeping that PC alive becomes a hog of party resources.

Why does it befall the other PCs to keep that PC alive? Why is it anyone's job but the Player's? Now, I hate it when a PC gets killed in my game, but it does occasionally happen, and my Players see this. Consequently, the system is self-correcting. If you want to play something with a big LA, you stand a greater chance of getting killed.

In any case, the original question on this thread has no right or wrong answer, only what is right or wrong for your group. Personally, I dislike lots of weird combinations because I run a human-centric campaigns in the world of Greyhawk. In one game, I just started the PCs at first level in the SCAP. Before the game, I provided a specific list of available races, and limited the classes to the PHB. So far the game is going great and it's lots of fun.

In my other game, where the PCs are level 12, I'm seeing increasing diversity, but my PCs have made an effort to fit into the world in their campaign design. I'm currently running the Istivin: City of Shadows mini-path and here are two new PCs, just brought in:

1) Half-dragon (gold), half human, consecrated harrier of Pelor. In the second adventure, it's revealed that the Pelor Temple priests have been killed by a maorti (sp?), so this PC has been sent by the temple in Hochoch to investigate. Knowing how I run things, the PC chose a Hat of Disguise to help avoid drawing attention to herself.

2) Half-celestial, half human paladin of Pelor. This PC came in just BEFORE the Pelor temple was wiped out, so it was kind of pure luck; he'll be taking over operations using the followers he has from his Leadership feat. Although he usually glows due to the Nimbus of Light feat (Book of Exalted Deeds), he tends to keep his wings hidden under a special cloak barring special circumstances.

Both came up with character histories that fit in well with the campaign history, both take into account their PCs' unusual appearances and compensate in some way for it, and both are fully aware, I am sure, that they'll get no special treatment because of the lower hp's they have because of their LAs.

And that's about as exotic as I like to allow my PCs to get.

I am currently playing in a game where I have a cleric who just made 9th level (12 levels total -- he has taken 1 level in each of fighter, ranger, and justiciar) and I'm loving it. He's a cleric of St. Cuthbert with the Strength domain, the granted ability of which does indeed stack with his favorite new spell: righteous might. In the last combat, the party blasted an orc army's siege weapons at range for a little while; while the wizard was casting lightning bolt and such, my cleric let loose with flame strike and earth reaver (from the Spell Compendium). Next, when we challenged the orc leader, who was willing to take on anyone in one-on-one combat, it was my PC, not the paladin, who went up against him. Why? Righteous might! (The wizard's haste spell didn't hurt, of course.) It was great fun.

I'll agree with some other posters too -- when you add in all the new spells and domains from the Spell Compendium, and you include, especially, the cool feats in Complete Divine, I don't see how anyone could NOT get excited about all the possibilities for clerics. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by the variety of spells to choose from. I'm finding that IF my character proactively casts enough buffing spells before combat, and enough ranged spells during combat, the party tends to achieve victory more efficiently, thus reducing the need for as much healing.

Sure, my PC probably still tends to have healer as his primary role, but, I use that all the time to reinforce his dedication to his god. "You are wounded? May your suffering be ended by the will of the Cudgel!" As often as my PC talks about him, you'd almost think St. Cuthbert was a recurring NPC in the game.

Finally, if it's necessary to perform healing during combat, I have discovered what I believe to be a fantastic spell: close wounds (again, Spell Compendium). It won't cure a LOT of damage, but it'll always stabilize someone who has reached negative hp, and usually make them conscious again. For me, though, the best thing about it is that you use it as an immediate action; this allows my PC to keep using a full attack action even while healing. It means I get to be the hero of the group for saving dying comrades' lives AND enjoy putting the beat-down on the monsters. Fun!

It seems to me that the campaign will be over with the end of the Blackwall Keep adventure. If the party has made Allustan sufficiently angry at them, I don't see why he would pick them to go to Eligos for Hall of Harsh Reflections.

In my campaigns, I tell people before they bring in their characters that I run a "heroic roleplaying" game, that I do not allow evil PCs, and that if they want even to play a chaotic neutral PC, they need to have a good RP reason why the character will want to cooperate with other party members. I further tell them that if, for any reason, their PC's alignment changes to evil, that character immediately becomes an NPC controlled by the DM, at which point they have to bring in a new character who is 1 level lower than the old character.

I haven't had a problem.

Oh, absolutely! I suppose I neglected to state the fact that, more often than not, the PCs are utterly superior to their opposition.

Personally, I tend toward a sometimes-usually-sometimes bell curve:

Sometimes the PCs go up against something much weaker than themselves; I like reminding them how far they have come in their power level. I don't think I've ever had a Player complain that an encounter was too easy!

Usually, I offer them level-appropriate encounters, because, to me, that's where a lot of the fun tension of the game comes in. The outcome of such a combat is in doubt, and the PCs must do well and try hard in order to succeed, but, if they do, they will probably win.

Sometimes, I present them with an opponent they cannot defeat. Most recently, I had a green dragon send the party on a mission. It was basically, "Do this for me or die." It was very scary for ME to do because I was afraid somebody would cop a paladin "We do not truck with evil" attitude and then I would have had to lay the beat-down on them, because that's what the dragon would have done.

Anyway, you sound like a fellow DM who likes it when the adventurers win, who throws in too-high AND too-low encounters to add to the game's realism, and who enjoys running a campaign based on the concept that the heroes are supposed to be heroic and that they can become renowned. There are too few of us, it sometimes seems.

Not fitting in at all with my icon (who merely happens to be my current most-fun NPC to annoy my Players with), I would be a half-celestial (half human) cleric of St. Cuthbert. This would allow me to beat the tar out of mean, law-breaking people all day and feel totally righteous doing it.

Additionally, this choice would allow me to heal and otherwise help people, and I would even eventually be able to raise people from the dead! I would be able to fly with my angel wings, and their mere existence would mean that people would automatically take me seriously whenever I deigned to dispense tidbits of wisdom.

I'd get darkvision right from the start, and I would gain bunches of bonus spell-like abilities as I advanced. For equipment, I would try to get some enchanted mithral chain to wear so I wouldn't get slowed down in my flying too much. Eventually, I would also try to acquire an adamantine holy mace, the better to bust things up with, including the melon heads of rogues, drow elves, demons, worshipers of Erythnul or Hextor, orcs, red dragons, and other agents of chaos. (I wouldn't spare those d1ck$ who worship Pholtus, either.)

Not sure if this is really salient to the conversation, as I am addressing evil monsters, not the neutral lizardfolk, but there are two monsters in my campaign world that my PCs have come to expect PREFER to dine exclusively upon sentient beings: vampires and dragons. They're just somehow more satisfying! Vampires actually find more sustenance from sentient victims on a necromantic level, and dragons consider other sentient life to be further down on the food chain than themselves, but still delicacies.

I ran a "random encounter" style fight fairly close to the lair, prior to the party reaching it. It was actually the survivors of the siege who had fled -- I was too lazy to add their numbers to the lair. Anyway, the party took one captive. I decided the captive knew the bare bones of the black dragon's involvement with the tribe, and did not like the current king. He agreed to talk to the shaman for the PCs, and did. Then the shaman came out and made its deal with them regarding letting the prisoners go in exchange for brokering a peace treaty. The party's sorcerer had invisibility which he cast on everyone but the shaman, who led them straight to the king, no intervening encounters.

After the party killed both the king and his lieutenant in a pretty long-lasting battle, the druid simply asked them to kill the "special kobolds" the dragon had guarding the chamber. The druid (in my opinion) considered the kobolds a danger to the eggs and feared that they would try to keep the eggs hostage once they discovered the king had been killed. Therefore, the druid had to ask the PCs for help, or the situation would soon go right back to what it had been before the PCs killed the king, because the dragon would simply appoint another one just as bad, or worse. The PCs happily complied, and spotted the chests and the dragon egg after killing the kobolds.

These particular Players of mine are very goody-goody (which I like), so they felt sorry for the poor, misguided lizardfolk. They were careful not to step on any lizardfolk eggs, got the chests' contents, and then TOOK THE BLACK EGG WITH THEM! Yes, they decided they needed to show this to Allustan. So, with the egg out of the chamber, the lizardfolk eggs were safe, and there was no battle. Naturally, the lizarfolk plan an immediate move to a new lair, because the dragon will be angry when he comes back.

The funniest part was when the party returned to Blackwall Keep. The soldiers begged them to help with the Spawn, which I had increased in number to three. The party's fighter failed about six straight saves over a long, hit-and-run battle against the Spawn's fear effects -- she never landed a single blow. I was forced, of course, to sing the Monty Python "She bravely ran away" song.

I plan on a hopefully-gross dissection scene when the party gets the egg back to Allustan in Diamond Lake. They'll have lots of specimens to take to Eligos for viewing!

With a little luck and a dash of encouragement from James Jacobs, "Siege of the Spider Eaters" has become my first adventure published in Dungeon.

Congratulations! I have submitted a handful of queries to Dungeon over the years, and never got a second look. However, I'm not sure my ideas are all that great anyway.

I do have the issue, and your adventure immediately drew my eye. I have read only the intro so far, and leafed through it, though. Now, I know you had nothing to do with it, but, are you not absolutely thrilled with the cover art? I recently began DMing for my 13 and 8-year-old daughters, and they thought it was extremely freaky-looking.

I will not be running them through it, though. Instead, I am strongly considering it for a different group I run. This party has recently begun the SCAP, and has just defeated Kazmojen, the BBEG in Life's Bazaar. Since I do not own the hardcover, I know it's a good idea to run an adventure between this one and the next one from the magazines, Flood Season. Before receiving this Dungeon issue, I was thinking of just a trip to Sasserine with a tough, random-monster-style encounter on the way back.

But, your adventure could very easily be placed near Sasserine, so it definitely is getting my imagination stoked on how I could run it.

Once concern I have is that my PCs are level 3. While I could amp up the difficulty as the adventure sidebar recommends, a previous poster here raised an interesting point about the ELs seeming too difficult for a level 1 party. I may leave the adventure as written, because sometimes it's fun to play an adventure that's not terribly tough (and Life's Bazaar, which took three game sessions, and will take part of a fourth, was VERY tough!). Would you consider the adventure way TOO easy for five level 3 PCs? Or do you think it would remain pretty fun as written?

I roll both in the open and behind a screen. If there is a reason to keep the roll secret, such as my NPC's Hide check, I roll behind a screen. Combat and saving throws I roll all over the place, just because a) I'm disorganzied that way, and b) I like occasionally to make the point that I'm not afraid to show the Players that I am going to let the dice fall where they fall. In the Shackled City game I just started, Kazmojen failed two saving throws against a 2nd-level illusion spell (don't remember the name) and went to 0 Dex, and there was no doubt in my Players' minds that I didn't fudge those rolls, even though they were about to get their tails handed to them, and even though I rolled them behind the screen.

In another game I run, a barbarian frost giant killed the party's 13th level monk in a single round of combat using the full attack action. I made this giant's rolls all in the open. Although I felt badly for the Player, neither had she any cause to doubt me nor to complain.

Long ago, I found out D&D just isn't as much fun when cheating or fudging goes on. I both DM and play an honest game. So, I can tell you this, the first Player who "demanded" that I re-roll a roll he didn't see would be out of my game faster than a purple worm can swallow a halfling commoner.

Cheating -- I hate it. I have come to firmly believe that rolling up characters is where it all starts. Players who come in with multiple 18s cheated. They cheated by rolling and rolling and rolling, maybe, so, yes, they honestly did "roll up" those scores. But, cheat they did. It's why I now use a point buy. I am all about the even playing field.

Here's another way my Players know that *I* am honest. When I make a roll behind the screen, and I say, "Oh, crap!" with a genuinely stricken expression on my face, they know something bad is about to happen to one of *them*. How? Because, over and over again, I demonstrate to them that I want them to succeed. I want them to find the trap, and to defeat the bad guy, and to get the treasure, and to rescue the helpless. Time and again, they see that I feel no glee when the bad guys win. They learn, over time, that my theory is that winning without real risk is hollow, however.

The moral of this story: be honest and expect your Players to be honest.

I wrote about a 4,000 word backstory for a character I currently run, who started first level as a human fighter. It was a tale of romance, marriage, tragedy, and the intense need for revenge. As the game began, my character had begun praying to St. Cuthbert for the power he would need to bring justice to the criminals who had stolen his wife and burned down his house with their young son inside. At a temple, he had heard, "Transgressors of the law, by the divine right of the Cudgel, must be punished." He badly wanted to punish!

My DM has used practically every detail from my story, such that, now that he's level 12, he has attained his revenge. It's been a blast!

I had a few things going for me, though. One, I simply wanted to write that particular story, because I was badly wanting to play the character to whom that story belonged. Second, I knew my DM was a campaign-style DM who liked continuity, meaning that, in the absence of very bad luck, I would be playing this character long-term. Third, one of my fellow Players is a very experienced gamer and excellent roleplayer who my character plays off of well.

In short, it's been a blast to play a character with an enormous backstory. However, as other people have said, I wouldn't recommend going to so much trouble if your DM isn't going to do anything with it.

Sorry, I've never heard of giving experience for finding secret doors. Doing so could establish a bad precedent -- feeling rewarded for finding them in the past, the PCs start Taking 20 on every 5' section of hallway they go down.

I feel that the reward for finding secret doors should lie in what the PCs find behind them.

In short, no, the player is mistaken. It sounds to me like he is mixing this up with another rule, maybe the rule about Grappling. When you attempt to start a Grapple, it provokes an AofO. If you succeed on a Grapple, you move on into the opponent's square, but if you fail, your movement stops. In other cases, anybody who wants to take the risk may threaten attacks of opportunity and keep right on moving (assuming he lives, of course).

This being the very first encounter, I think it would have been a mistake for the publisher to pinpoint its exact location. Apparently, like you, however, I need good reasons for things, and I realized that I didn't want the encounter to occur on the side of town opposite the Lantern Street Orphanage and Temple.

So, I used a hook. One of my Players agreed to play a character with a long-lost relative who is a resident of the orphanage, a relative the PC has never yet met. He arrives in Cauldron in the evening and heads straight to the Orphanage first. As he draws close, a brown-cloaked figure (Ruphus the Cleric) is just leaving.

When the PC knocks, the Orphanage headmistress looks through the peephole and says, "Visiting hours are over." And that's that. Off this, and the other PCs, go, initially heading in the same direction as the brown-robed figure. Up ahead, they see him suddenly dragged into an alley. He shouts for help! And, voila, the PCs rush to his aid and the SCAP begins!

This is a very interesting thread for me, because I just ran my first SCAP game. Naturally, it did include lots of RPing, with first Ruphus then his boss Jenya; the next morning the PCs visited with Gretchyn, the headmistress of the orphanage; lastly, they did a great job getting Keygan Ghelve to 'fess up.

After that, they explored a few areas in Jzadirune before we ran out of time. It was thinking about the dungeon since the game that I came up with some in-dungeon RP ideas I want to spring on them. In particular, since they seem to be heading that way, there is the dark stalker Yuathyb. Yuathyb has the Vanishing, so I'm going to play him as willing to provide the PCs with information in exchange for a cure. I'm curious to see if the characters will deal!

Soon, they'll need to exit, and I have their initial meeting with Alek Tercival planned, who basically will just introduce himself and use his Lay On Hands ability if they need it (which seems likely).

As for future stuff, thanks for the suggestions!

One never-fail way to get PCs to roleplay is to spring upon them an encounter with someone obviously bigger and badder than they are. I recently sent a level 9-10 party on a mission at the behest of a huge green dragon. The plot was rather complex, and it involved freeing a fellow dragon from enslavement by an evil half-orc king with plans of conquest who possessed an artifact-level sword, so they did well to listen carefully and ask questions. Not that this party needed a nudge to RP -- they're extremely competent at it, but the question reminded me of the incident. The dragon was vaguely-to-outright threatening, but his manner of speech was refined and he presented his case in rational terms. By the way, the party accomplished the mission, but they have resolved to find and kill that green dragon someday!

In a game I'm playing in, I came up with a character who decided to worship St. Cuthbert, the god of retribution, because he wanted to find, and wreak vengeance upon, the people who had abducted his wife, and burned down his house with his 8-year-old son inside. I wrote out a fairly long story about how I'd met my wife, about the traumatic event, etc.

My DM ran with it! By level 10, the character had found his wife, learning things about her he didn't know, and he discovered that his son had not been in the house when it burned down after all -- we found him alive, being cared for by a ranger. His wife is now the cohort of the party's (female) paladin (a PC of one of the other players), who took the Leadership feat, and his son is fostered in a safe place.

But that's just the happy ending. The DM's plot revolved around the reason HE made up for my PC's wife's abduction: she knew the location of an artifact, and a city's thieves' guild had finally caught up with her, taken her, and were trying to torture the information out of her. Even still, that's probably not the whole story; the party is off on another track right now, but it's awfully suspicious that the "thieves' guild" was employing half-fiends and just generally seemed uber-powerful!

For another family example, I am about to start the SCAP, and one of my Players is playing an orphan who, only upon attaining manhood (ie - he is now 1st level) has learned that he has a half-sister who is a half-elf, who is one of the orphan abductees in Life's Bazaar. As DM, I plan not directly to threaten his half-sister anymore in the future, but I am looking forward to having such a powerful beginning to the SCAP.