ITCampbell's page

You're welcome! Let me know if anything seems off once you test drive it. I've never made a complex flow chart before so it might have some issues in actual use.

Sorry, my Google drive situation is super convoluted. Here's the good link.

Third time's the charm

I also made it so strangers who have this link can make comments, so, future viewers, if anyone has any gripes or suggestions feel free to go nuts.

Latest installment of my obsession with this AP: using my list of second wave colonists, I wrote short bios for all the colonists aboard the Peregrine. I figured everyone being packed on a small boat for that much time, everyone would have at least some knowledge about everyone else.

If you are like me and feel compelled to flesh these people out, I hope you enjoy:
Second wave colonist bios

I scoured the internet for anything other GMs had already written about these characters, so some of this is admitedly theft/derivation of other people's ideas for some of these people. I'm sorry, I didn't keep track of my sources to give proper credit. I also did the same for pictures.

Quick note: Konch Ariti is just a total fabrication. He's an NPC I made to help out my squishy party, and as a Gillman he's a wildcard for me to use as the GM later in the game. So don't be confused about where he comes from. Tesswyn's bio directly references him, though, so if you ax Konch make sure to modify Tesswyn.

Disregard any characters after #50: they are my players' PCs.

Eliza and Rayland's hitpoints.... Shouldn't those be reduced on account of the slime? Their Con scores are lowered, and there is a note that the slime ability has been taken into account in their stats, but they are still enjoying +10 and +12 hitpoints respectively. Shouldn't that be lower?

Seems like at 10 Con Eliza should have 22 (3.5x5 + 5 [toughness feat]) and Rayland should have 39 (5.5x6 + 6 [toughness feat]). But the books have them at 30 and 49. Even if NPCs get favored class bonuses (they don't, do they?), they still have more HP than they should. Or am I missing something?

Chance Wade wrote:

Hello all,

I'm currently running a Ruins of Azlant campaign for some friends and we're nearing the end of book 2. The campaign hasn't featured a substantial amount of underwater combat thus far so we've been keeping things fairly simple for the most part, but after skimming through book 3 it looks like it'll play a greater role in the coming books. That being said, I was wondering if anyone knows of a pre-existing cheatsheet for all the aquatic rules (including those introduced in Aquatic Adventures) that I can print out and have handy. I was planning on making one myself, but I thought I'd save myself some trouble and see if someone had already beat me to the punch.

Thank you,
Chance

Hi Chance, did you ever end up making one of these? I'd like to make a flowchart, but condensing everything together in the form of a concise cheatsheet seems like a necessary first step before turning it into a chart.

Nevermind, made it already. Does this seem to contradict the rules that you compiled anywhere?

See this post.

More questions for the hivemind... These are about light levels in Talisantri

Page 5 says that Talisantri's coral dome is only 250 feet below the surface, yet on the next page states that no sunlight penetrates as far down as Talisantri and the PCs will need to have darkvision to see down there.

This doesn't make sense to me, and my players are bound to notice and point this out. Coral needs light to grow, first off. Second, the sunlight zone (the real-life one, anyway, which Aquatic Adventures seems like it's emulating with its "zones") extends down to about 650 feet. It's gotta be lighter than darkness at just 250 feet.

According to this website, violet, blue and green light would be the wavelengths that would travel down to 250 feet (no reds, oranges, yellows). So it'd be alien and less colorful, and certainly feel dark. But does anyone dive? What would the realistic light level be at that depth for human eyes? I'm guessing "dim," but... I can't see how darkvision would actually be needed.

EDIT: I guess there is also the big coral dome over the city. But that's a lattice, so although it'd undoubtedly dim things a bit versus on the outside, it also wouldn't block out the light entirely.

What about an eel companion? Eels live in little hidey holes and sunken wrecks--seems to go nicely with the palette of Zogmugot. Looks like you'd have a choice between an electric eel, which has the amphibious special quality and a 5ft move speed for some reason, which means it could come on land with you and be hilariously ineffective as it writhes around, or a giant moray, which you could use as a mount but which would have to stay in water. But honestly, giant moray's bite attack looks pretty devastating, especially if you buffed it.

I also have a feeling that an aquatic animal companion will not be something that you regret having in the next couple books.

Ow. For those who thought grappling was bad, here comes underwater combat.

Aside from the spelling of buoyancy it looks right to me.

Ah, thanks for the catch. Fixed it. I also caught some of my own minor errors this morning; made it into a PDF so it's a bit easier to edit. Here's the link to the new version:

Updated Aquatic Combat Flowchart.

Hey folks, I started running Ruins of Azlant for a group and have been trying to wrap my head around the aquatic combat rules that are presented in both the CRB and Aquatic Adventures.

I made a flowchart to try to get them to be as black and white as possible. Even with Aquatic Adventures supplementing the CRB, there were still some things that struck me as grey. I'd love other people's thoughts on this, if I missed anything, or if it seems like I got something wrong.

Aquatic Combat Flowchart.

Hello all,

I'm currently running a Ruins of Azlant campaign for some friends and we're nearing the end of book 2. The campaign hasn't featured a substantial amount of underwater combat thus far so we've been keeping things fairly simple for the most part, but after skimming through book 3 it looks like it'll play a greater role in the coming books. That being said, I was wondering if anyone knows of a pre-existing cheatsheet for all the aquatic rules (including those introduced in Aquatic Adventures) that I can print out and have handy. I was planning on making one myself, but I thought I'd save myself some trouble and see if someone had already beat me to the punch.

Thank you,
Chance

Hi Chance, did you ever end up making one of these? I'd like to make a flowchart, but condensing everything together in the form of a concise cheatsheet seems like a necessary first step before turning it into a chart.

Sorry, it was CorvusMask's reckoning I looked at. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

I'll also just go ahead and post the link to my roster of second wave colonists as well as my version of the Talmandor's Bounty Original Charter.

I also think I found a more straightforward continuity error, too, that has similarly escaped detection. At least two places in book 1, the number of original colonists is said to have been 100. But in subsequent installments of the AP, the headcount is stated to have been 60, which is the number that John Wood seems to use in his wonderfully helpful calculations.

Is this just an error or did those 40 people fall off the boat?

Assuming 60 is the right number, I took Ted's awesome Roanoke-based charter and modified it to include only 60 colonists, and I made sure to put all the names of all the 1st wave colonists on it that appear later, like Armin, as well as modifying he dates so they leave in Neth of 4716, which situates the beginning of book one in mid spring, which is when Adam said he originally imagined it taking place when he wrote it. I also made the spelling a little bit more antiquated and frustrating to read by replacing all the "s"s that come in the middle of words with "f"s and all the lowercase "v"s with "u"s, and I added a bit more to make the charter mention rights and taxes going to Almas for future exports and other "sundry discoveries," trying to wink at the elephant in the room that this is an economic venture hopeful of finding lost secrets as well as resources. All my players are English PhD students so I'm sure one of them will thoroughly peruse the charter and treat it as more of a binding document in dealings with Ramona than just a GM prop. Willing to share if anyone wants. I'd love for someone to check my work and make sure I didn't forget any colonists, too.

I also took John Wood's accounting of all the second wave colonists and made a passenger manifest that (1 includes all named 2nd wave colonists through books 1-3, (2 satisfies the given numbers of how many of each profession were among the 50 second wavers without changing anyone's profession from what is listed in the book*, and (3 comes out to 50 people even in total, minus the PCs. It's also color-coded so a GM instantly knows which book X character is introduced in, and who is a total fabrication. I'm happy to share this, and I would love for that work to be checked, too.

*John Wood's reckoning comes out to total 52, and I wanted it to be an even 50. So I listed Carver Hastings as a soldier because even though he's one of the named NPCs, it's also mentioned that he signed onto the voyage masquerading as a soldier and that there are "about" six soldiers. Therefore, having five actual soldiers and one guy who is ostensibly a soldier seems about right. I also made Milo, who gets caught in the quicksand, a soldier because the first time he's introduced, it states he has one rank in warrior, even though later he is cited as using the "farmer" stat block on page 29. This makes the numbers come to 50.

Hi folks,

I've been looking through all the forums for this AP and, if my question has been discussed, I missed it. I'm just starting to run this AP for a group. They seem very, very interested in pricing together as much minutae as possible about the events that transpired with the first wave of colonists. I know the AP leaves those details deliberately grey, but I want to be able to tell them things now in response to their sleuthing that align with other tidbits of information they will glean from later books about how the colony got depopulated. I'm posting here because, in thinking about this and looking through other books for tidbits, I think I'm gonna have a hard time making everything for together for them in the end due to several conflicting accounts.

First, we know that Rayland Arkley got replaced by a Faceless stalker. My understanding is that the replacement of the Colonists occurred slowly, like happens again in book 2, until people got too suspicious and it came to blows, perhaps starting with Silas Weatherbee. Hearing this fighting is why Edwin Fox ran and hid and got eaten by the Ankheg.

But the explanation for what Fox heard was a fight between dominated colonistS and non dominated colonists, and Rayland wasn't dominated, he was Thanaldhu. This leads me to my first question: who are these other colonists that were dominated instead of being replaced whom Fox heard people fighting with? (I'm assuming a dominated Eliza returned to the colony, so I mean besides her).

This gets more interesting because in book 3, Armin recounts Ochymua coming into the colony in human form, being friendly, and then dominating people. Based on the fighting that made Fox flee, this must have happened sometime early or in the middle of the replacement scheme before people got too suspicious and it came to blows.
But this also leads me to my second question: why would Ochymua roll up into the middle of the Faceless Stalkers workplace like this, while they're at work, expose himself, and then dip after dominating some, but not all, of the colonists? If the fighting had already broken out,I could see why he would come to "clean up" a situation that had grown messy. But fighting couldn't have broken out yet because Fox fled at the start of the fighting with the dominated colonists. So Ochymua would have had to have come before then to do the dominating so there were dominated colonists to fight. So even if I play the "Armin's memory is jacked up" card, it still seems like Ochymua would have had to openly visit the colony at some point while his Faceless Stalkers were at work.

That also seems like a detail that would have made it into the log books/almanacs for the colony. Are those last few missing pages from that one logbook in the government building ever brought up again? That might provide a reason they were cut out, to hide Ochymua's visit early on or in the middle of the Faceless Stalker replacement.

Has anyone thought about how these two tactics - open domination of colonists and covert body snatching of colonists - dovetail in the backstory of the campaign? Anyone had a player balk at Armin's recounting of this purple eyed man showing up being friendly after they've already dealt with the Faceless Stalkers in book 2?

It explicitly calls out damage to creatures, and only to creatures.

If it dealt damage to every object in range, that would affect every wielded object on every humanoid in range, effectively being a mass sunder, and you'd have to roll a separate save for every object in the radius, so that's obviously not meant. If it only applied to unattended objects - which is more reasonable - it would still need to be called out as such. But no, it just doesn't mention objects, so there's no interaction.
Also, then it would have to have "Fortitude partial (object)", and it lacks the (object) tag on the saving throw.

In any case, I think "No harm to natural vegetation" is there to remove any ambiguity regarding trees (and, possibly, protect plant creatures).
A living tree is likely a creature too, because (fun fact) Disintegrate only deals damage to creatures or disintegrates nonliving matter, which would mean that an object made out of living matter (as a tree would be) is either immune to Disintegrate, or also considered a creature.

** spoiler omitted **

Yeah, I am gonna agree with Pan. It saying that it does not harm natural vegetation has no logical implication that it would harm anything else. If anything, I think the inclusion that it doesn't harm natural vegetation is meant to clarify that it only harms its target creatures, not anything else, like a lightning bolt spell or a fireball would have the potential to.

But it also seems like its being written to have no interaction with objects at all, whether intentional or collateral, is a bit odd. Like, contrary to Pan's guess in their first post, and unless I am very mistaken, there wouldn't ever be a case where a spell like this auto-targets all attended objects in its range and makes the DM have to roll a ton of saves for every object someone is wearing, so I don't see how removing all interactions with objects was done to simplify an otherwise cumbersome mechanic. But being how fine the specificity of its targeting capacity is, it seems odd to me that I couldn't, if I wanted to, have one of my stormbolts hit an unattended object intentionally if that's what I wanted to do with it, ya know what I mean? So I wonder if there is some other intention behind the design of this spell that explains why it can't damage objects explicitly and why undead are also immune to it RAW. It's just odd. I still don't feel confidently that I what its RAI is. Like, was it intended to be drawn towards living creatures as lightning rods, or something?

Hi folks,

I'm trying to pick spells for an unlettered arcanist in a Carrion Crown campaign. We just started Ashes at Dawn, so there's going to be lots of vampires. I'm using the Witch spells based on my archetype, and I'm trying to vet them to make sure they work on undead (a lot of them seem like they would at first blush, but then for some reason won't either due to needing to target a living creature, spell wording, or some undead immunity that I forget about [like polymorph]).

Anywho, I believe that the general consensus on the forums about light spells harming vampires is that the spell needs to specifically call out that it has an extra effect for creatures harmed by light, but the spell "Unbreable Brightness" seems ambiguous to me because it does call out an extra effect for creatures sensitive to bright light, and it does counter magical darkness, but it doesn't specifically mention damage anywhere (probably because it isn't a damaging spell, normally).

Unbearable Brightness Description:

School evocation [light]; Level alchemist 4, sorcerer/wizard 4, witch 4

CASTING

Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S

EFFECT

Range personal and 30 ft. (see text)
Area 30-ft.-radius emanation centered on you
Duration 1 round/level
Saving Throw none and Reflex partial (see text); Spell Resistance no and yes (see text)

DESCRIPTION

Your body glows with a terrible light. Creatures within 30 feet of you that can see you are dazzled (no saving throw). Creatures with light sensitivity must succeed at a Reflex saving throw or be blinded. This light counts as daylight for the purpose of affecting darkness effects (and vice versa). If the emanation enters an area under the effect of magical darkness (or vice versa), both effects are temporarily negated so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist in the overlapping areas of effect. Dazzled and blinded conditions from your light end when the spell ends or when the creature is out of line of sight.

So, if you flipped this spell on around some vampires, it seems clear it would blind them if they failed their save, but would it harm them like sunlight would?

I'm leaning towards an interpretation of no based on what is written, but then I think about the fact that it counters magical darkness and the fact that the spell first appeared in the Undead Slayer's Handbook, and I start to think that maybe it was intended to count as sunlight for these sorts of purposes.

So, first question: What do you all think about this spell?

Second question: Any confirmed anti-vampire spells on the witch spell list that you can think of up to level 6 that I should look into that might let me kill vampires without trailing them back to their coffins? The only one I have come up so far with is Banish Seeming to force them back into corporeal form once they are reduced to zero hitpoints, which, I think, will then allow me to season it (aka stuff garlic in its mouth), stake it, and decapitate, which should do the trick. But it'd be nice to have a less labor-intensive option, since Banish Seeming will only keep it in solid form for about a minute.

So, if a GM subscribes to the "probably an oversight" idea regarding damage, would the undead roll fortitude saves for half (which is a weird thing for undead to do) or just automatically take half damage?

Hi folks, I searched the forums for this and... I don't think it's been discussed before, but I just noticed something about the spell Stormbolts that I'm surprised has never come up.

It requires a fortitude save for half damage and to negate its stun effect. This is cool, because it is a blasting spell that doesn't rely on reflex.

However, read as written, doesn't that mean that undead are immune to it? Or at least that they necessarily take half damage from it, since they are immune to effects that require fortitude saves?

Aggressive Thundercloud has two saves: one for the stun effect (fort) and one for the damage (ref), but since Stormbolts relies both on fort... That's got me scratching my head, because it makes no sense in regards to what kind of spell it is (an evocation blasting spell) that its damage would be ineffective against undead.

Thoughts? Has this ever come up to anyone's knowledge? How do you think it was intended? How have you played it?

Thanks!