Ix's page

Or it could be a woman of plain appearance that attracts women and men of all species. She has some sort of power that's that strong.

That's an interesting way of looking at it, but yeah. That's kind of our theory behind the whole thing. We'll be posting more details about the contents of Pathfinder as the days roll on, especially over at the Pathfinder Blog.

Alright. Thanks for the response Mr Jacobs. I've got to say though this is a huge deal. I mean this is massive. The magazines of Dungeon and Dragon have always been synonomous with the game itself. It's like losing a part of the game. Though I'm sure Pathfinder will pick up in a way, it'll be a learning experience for everyone involved: for players, DMs and you the publishers/writers.

Fungeon is mainly adventures for the DM to run players through.

Man. I love me some Fungeon. :D Thanks for the response.

Here's a quick question or thought I suppose. Is Pathfinder basically a merging of the content of Dragon and Dungeon magazine driven toward a single campaing setting (Pathfinder) and adventure path (Rise of the Rune lords)? Each issue is basically going to be (for example) the adventure path and a whole lot of support articles that aren't open ended like the ones in Dragon/Dungeon but written specifically for the setting/adventure path like savage tidings and worm food were. Am I kind of in the right frame of mind?

Yesterday I was reading through Dragon 315 (the issue with the regional feats) and on page 95 there's a couple prestige clases bassed on Aztec warriors (Eagle and Jaguar) from the Maztica setting. They seem pretty close to the Olman's flavor so it wouldn't be a stretch to add them as Olman prestige classes. There's a paragraph or too about the various "Maztican" weapons such as Macas (Stone edged long swords) etc. Hope that helps.

The idea of tailoring items for parties was mentioned by James Jacobs when the topic of no shopping opportunities came into question. It once again appears in Dungeon 143 (along with a post-attack on Farshore 6 month trip to Sasserine) but I was wondering if anyone had done anything else to introduce a chance for the PCs to shop for gear and spend their well earned cash before the attack on Farshore occurs. I was even thinking about having a travelling Elocator(Psionic prestige class) show up. I realize that that would be kind of cheap and against the topic that had showen up earlier about how PCs should make do with what they have but I'm just tossing ideas around.

Worry not, Occam. If you recall back in the Savage Tide preview in Dungeon 138, Vanthus will make at least one more return engagement with the PCs near the end - and as a death knight to boot... ;)

Yup yup. Was going to mention that he's not out of the loop yet. This is by far the most exciting part of the campaign so far. I'm sure the players will like the fact that they have 2 months to prepare for war. The battle is looming on the horizon like a coming storm. It's a good thing (and rather coincidental) that I just picked up the Hero's of Battle.

Has anyone tried this approach and not had to fight them?

Nope. My players did what yours did by fireballing the crew from afar and taking out the rest when they approached. They even spread the crews/passengers from the other two ships to add the pirate ship to the "armada". My group's "captain"(Aventi Swashbuckler/Rogue) is pretty resourceful.

dont have the adventure yet... hell, even missing HTM!! (bloody slowpoke post/retail..!!!)

Anyway, cannot Lavinia make those checks herself.. she's after all maxed out her diplomacy. Add a diplomacy +10 item ... and she should have the job in her back pocket.

Seriously. This is the second time this has happened to me. 13 Days and it's still not here. :(

blunderbus wielding ogre.

and everthirsty however

Still nothing. I called customer service and they said that it would 1-2 weeks from date of shipping (2 weeks is today) but that it might even take a week longer because of thanksgiving. I don't want to keep lamenting my situation but after reading everyone's posts about how great the issue is I'm starting to feel like the only subscriber without a copy. : (

Ben Taggart wrote:

I just got my first issue of Dungeon (January), but I ordered the subscription before the December release, so you may not get yours until next month, depending on when you ordered.

I do feel a bit of concern over such delays in this high-speed information age, but I don't know all the factors in magazine subscriptions.

Send customer service an email... they can tell you which issue youll recieve first.

I know which one I'm getting I was just under the assumption that getting a subscription was faster.

I was wondering if anyone else had received their issue of dungeon yet. This is my first one shipped to me and I was wondering if it normally takes this long.

Well you cannot hide all the dinos on the island.. LOL! Chances are theyll go out at on a point or another to fetch a few.. if only to eat invading pirates ;)

Good point. I guess a dinosaur might not be too bad. They're slaughtering everything as it is. I'm having trouble making my monsters survive longer than 2 rounds.

Atleast that one team that handled the masher, will love to handle & train their own t-rex.. maybe even train it to work, how to fell trees and carry them to the ship..

"fetch tree!" -Roarrr!!

Please no! I have too much to deal with them. Hahaha.

So far, there haven't really been any energy resistant or immune critters along the path to date. But for the particulars of my campaign, I was wondering if cold resistant/immune/type critters are going to be present at all in the path.

I ask because my party's sorceror is going into frost mage (Frostburn) and has several of the cold spell feats. Granted, he has to use his own spells to lower the temperature to take advantage of his own spells, but looking at the monsters I know from the Outline, I see him doing full damage every step of the way.

He's specifically boosting caster level and DC, through all relevant feats. He has NOTHING besides magic missle for a "not-cold" spell, but once he gets Piercing Cold from Frost Mage, he ignores resistance, gets half through immunity, and is only fully blocked by the cold subtype. He also completely ignores any magical energy resistance or immunity.

I can't fault him for the progression, its in character and he's been woefully unable to use his feats due to inability to radically alter temperature until higher level.

But will I as DM have to replace monsters to have any chance of him getting even remotely stymied by something? Or has he picked a class progression that equals an Entropomancer in Age of Worms for sheer end-game power?

Actually I'd say acid or sonic. Not a whole lot of regular monsters have resistance or immunity to those. And if you haven't gotten to it yet the Mother of All in the Sargasso has resistance to cold.

Just as an example, Stormwrack has "magical assistance" in shipbuilding provide a +5 bonus to the required skill checks, and "major magical assistance" (spellcaster capable of casting 4th-level or higher spells) granting +10. You could apply similar rules to ship repairs.

I'll have to check that. Don't remember seeing that.

Repairing a busted ship requires Craft (carpentry) checks and days of work. The use of spells like wood shape and similar spells can certainly speed along the process of repairing a ship, but you still need to know HOW to repair the ship; they don't replace the need for the skill check. As detailed in "Tides of Dread" (when the adventrue path sends the PCs back to repair the ship), nine of the Sea Wyvern's hull sections and all three of her rigging sections are demolished. It's a DC 20 Craft (carpentry) check to fix one section, and up to three sections can be worked on in a day. The repairs are far more extensive than a single wood shape spell can fix quickly, and the size of the ship prevents the spell from being any use at all for larger sections of ruin. Remember also, one casting of wood shape only lets you affect one piece of wood. The damaged ship sections are comprised of dozens if not hundreds of pieces of wood.

Complicating matters, of course, are the surviving NPCs. While some of them (particularly Amella Venkalie) will be all for staying behind and working on fixing the ship, most won't be, especially after the wandering monsters start to investigate. The adventure has the castaways being attacked by a tyrannosaurus and a flock of terror birds. If the PCs remain on the beach, feel free to have other creatures attack as well. While the PCs might not care about these creatures, the NPCs certainly will, and eventually they'll try to make their own way overland to Farshore (and likely end up being eaten).

One thing you should do, though, is impress upon the PCs the fact that the Sea Wyvern CAN be repaired. It'll just requrie more time, resources, and physical aid than the PCs can front right now.

Of course, all that said, if the PCs insist on rebuildig the ship themselves, and if they have the skills and resources to do so successfully, by all means let them! You'll need to adjust the next adventure a little bit, of coruse; the sidebar on page 45 of Dungeon #142...

Thanks for the insight. I did inform them that they would need craft carpentry to be able to fix the boat but they do know that it will take some time so I'm sure they'll be happy either way (waiting for the boat to be finished/taking the over land route).

Well my PCs have done a few things to throw me off track. They actually captured one of the ships from the pirate blockade which they promptly named the Exploding Butterfly and they managed to charm/animal handle the masher (don't ask me how they just did). Now I have them talking about plans to fix their ships (The renamed Sea Wyvern and the Exploding Butterfly) which I crashed into the masher's reef. Now do you think with the materials at hand (the 10 tons of supplies for repairs) and a druid that can cast Wood Shape that a party would be able to fix the ship or ships? Of course there would be a long time frame included in the repairs.

Edit to party: We saw the temporary use of an Elven wizard who left to study at the local school of magic. Also there was a short lived human fighter that left to take up another merc gig (the party "hired" him to take on the Thieve's guild). He introduced the party to another mercenary, a shifter barbarian/sorceress.

If the Rhagodessa chooses to lose the grapple does he still get to do the damage with the barbs/claws that are in the pedipalps? I remember reading (stats not infront of me) that when someone breaks free they get wounded by barbs on the Rhagodessa's pedipalps.

Fourth batch sent.

Adventure 2 encounters stats doc should be available next week.

I'd appreciate a copy of that.

Speaking about tanglefoot bags, I was wondering what other DMs do when the players get ideas of an alcehmical nature (fixing alchemist's fire on the end 10' poles, pouring multiple vials of acid into one large glass container to throw, hitting an enemy that's already hit with a tanglefoot bag with another tangle foot bag). I know there's some adapted rules for different alchemical weapons like long burning alchemist's fire from Dragon 334 but I'm sure things like this have come up in everyone's campaigns at some point or another. I know in the Age of worms we filled a bag of holding with the alchemist's fire vials that were found in a storage room beneathe the arena and dropped it on the undead worm (the name of which escapes me but it was rather discouraging for our DM). Any thoughts or previous experiences would be appreciated.

So my party came upon the Huecuva in the tunnels of Parrot island and maybe I wasn't pronouncing it correctly but our wizard said "Baklava? We're fighting a desert?" After the ensuing laughter a joke came to my head so I turned to the party and said in my best russian accent: "Yes. In Sasserine, Baklava eat you!" I was actually scared at how quiet it was afterwards and I actually started to feel bad but then the wizard (who is the perveyor of the horrible joke) pointed at me, laughed and said "Hahaha! I get it!"

Well, if first level characters do not mind sitting on thier kiesters a bit, they can actually earn some significant cash without leaving town. For example, albiet rather unpleasant, take a first level cleric with the Healing domain and his 3 1st level spells for the day. According to the PHB, said cleric should be able to - just on those 3 spells per day - earn 60 gp per day (10xcaster level for 1st level spells). Throw in an extra 15 gp per day for the 3 orisons. Not bad ... you can earn 75 gp per day as a 1st level cleric. Hmmm ... daddy needs him some full plate armor and hasn't hit Middle Age yet ...

They can earn the cash to pay for the gun - if you're willing to let them *earn* the cash to do so after the campaign starts. In some ways, it encourages them to cooperative play - or at least, it should in theory ...

Also a good idea. Thanks. Also there is that Merchant Quarter feat from the STAP players guide PDF that lets them start off with 300 extra gp.

The PC's benefactor in the game could always loan them enough money to buy one. Repayable out of their share of future treasure along with a favor of the benefactor's choice -- meaning the hook to the next adventure. Or simply replace some of the treasure found in the Lotus Dragon's lair with a small pistol wrapped in oil cloth to keep it from rusting. Hide it in the room with Penkus on Parrot Island or have Soller Vark have it in his possession on the Blue Nixie. Soller doesn't know how to use it, but he's just the sort of braggart to carry it for looks & intimidation.

That's a good idea. Thanks.

However, the party bard took the wand of ray of enfeeblement (29 charges) after they took down Nemien Roblach at the Taxidermist Guildhall, and totally used it to maximum effecienty the rest of the session.

Yeah I was wondering if that would happen with anyone. My party is pretty smart (they figured out the Vanderboren vault lock in only a couple minutes) but I don't know if they'd use that wand. We'll see *crosses fingers*

DM's Description: Swam followed the screams of the poor animals burning to their death in the hold of the ship during battle with Soller Vark and his thugs. He witnessed the rhagodessa killing Mera and fought a short fight (2 rounds) until the vermin dropped him to -3. When he didn't move anymore the vermin started killing monkeys again. Then Nando found his way down to the hold. He tried to heal his wounded comrade, but fell prey to the rhagodessa, too. The party stripped off its healer was desperately searching for Nando. They found their way to the rhagodessa together, but were not able to take it down. The improved grapple ability followed by a free bite attack were simply too powerful for them. Although they could have shown smarter tactics it was bad luck that delivered the killing blow.

Alas, the terrible grappling spider claims another victim...

So I've only taken my party down into the tunnels of Parrot Island so far but I've noticed an abnormal (in my opinion) amount of grappling enemies. The thugs on the nixie didn't but the Rhagodessan (grappling fiend), Small Monstrous Crabs ("now the rubber band is on the other claw!") and the zombies all grapple. Craziness! I'm not so experienced with the grapple rules so I had to look them up every encounter. It was grapplefest 2006!

oji040870 wrote:

We statrted last weekend and I ask my players to surprise me with new exciting characters! Boy was I!

A Barbarian Treant(Male)named BARK CN

A Female Flumph Rogue named Messy NE(Nobody knows this yet and she secretly worships Graz'zt)

A Aboleth male Ninja Named Swooshplash NE-"Swooshsplash gonna sneak attack"

A human male cleric named Tom LG-Worships st. cuthbert the player insisted he is blind!and uses a rather huge heavy ended cane

A troll male sorcerer named Quennarossussurrekoroluthorrinngorgag
CN he only speaks to those that call him by his full name and he specializing in fire magics

lol

You got to be joking right?

Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that myself. Don't know what got me more, the flumph or the Aboleth...ninja..

We have a small platoon running.

You've got that right. I'd dread combat with your group.

Not an obituary so much as a warning. My party is down in the tunnels on Parrot island w/ the zombies. The crabs already tore into them pretty hardcore.

Maybe they're compinsating for the fact that there was so little gold/items in AOW.

Can wait. I from Denmark and is going to be so cool to get it.

Not to sound off topic but you reminded me of the guitar player Toki from that Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse.

My party:

Aventi Swashbuckler1/Rogue1: Her name is Umi but she demands that people call her Captain Umi (all she owns shipwise is a rowboat).

Human Ninja2: Miyamoto Suguhara, a sneaky ninja with a thieflike thought pattern.

Killoren Druid2: Kayden is an explorer of human society sent by his race. He is confused by mannerisms and basic conversation. "That's cool!" "It is cold? I actually feel rather hot."

I'm allowing firearms in my campaign as well but the problem I came across was that 1st level characters can't afford to own and opperate a gun (per DMG rules) and when they get up a level they don't want to waste a feat on an exotic weapon proficiency.

Rd 3: The rogue/psion made an incredibly amazing lucky guess, and threw a tanglefoot bag in the square with the lich and hit, including miss chance. The Lich then used maze against the rogue/psion. The others moved in on the now-outlined figure and began to do damage, ending in being grappled by the NPC fighter. The bard cast haste on the party.

You forgot the dragon cone : P

Seven rounds and two party deaths sounds like a pretty good climactic battle to me--and this is holding off a party of 5-6 characters. Would have lasted several rounds longer, probably, if not for the extremely lucky hit with the tanglefoot bag--so the PCs were actually lucky Makar didn't completely clean their clocks.

You're damn right we were lucky with the tanglefoot bag. WOOT! Go IX!

HoHR: The players killed the mimics in Sodden Hold and move on to the next room to free the prisoners. After they killed the "prisoners" that attacked them, they saw the bodies change from their human forms.

One player: "Wow... they're, like, SUPER mimics!"
Another player (Ix): "You mean, like, DOPPLEGANGERS?"
First player: "Oh..." with a sad little look on his face.

That was pretty funny.

I was wondering what has been the most humorous moment in everyone's AOW campaign so far. I've got a couple I can think of. *DM places model of a Vrock on the table* "This is just a statue." "Ha. He wouldn't actually place that out there to be a monster and say that. He's knows reverse psychology won't work on us. Hahahaha...." "The statue comes to life." "...hahaha wha?!"

of moosey fate.

seemed to have

window was opened

The roof exploded

My players have a tendency to push the warrior (fighter/paladin/barbarian) into traps to spring them, rather than risk their precious necks. Thus, they have dubbed themselves "Meat Shield and the three Wise Guys."

What does the warrior have to say about that?

Since the PC's very public face-off with Zyrxog - The Mindslayers!

Nice play on words.

The next time the party will confront Filge they will encounter the zombified body of Caeldrin with a magic mouth saying:"I am greatfull that I am allowed to serve the magnificient Filge after my stupid friends left me to die a slow painfull death while they cowardly fled from their treacherous and pityfull attempt to attack him.

Man that dinner table was creepy. Maybe you should stick him there.

So my party encoutered the ulgurstasta and my Elocater was hasted, ran to the lower level of the colleseum and threw the 60 vials of Alchemists Fire into a bag of holding. He then proceded to dimentional door above the beast and empty the bag out. I believe my DM was more then generous by giving me 15 hits on the beast but this was after he had rolled and said that I had gotten 39 through. After rolling 39d6 I got 136 which was a tremendous ammount of damage. We deliberated on how this would work and another one of the players said that since the ulgurstasta has those hairs that it should get concealment. The DM thought that logically even though the hairs stop all mundane projectiles eventually they would be burned away enough for the Alchemist's fire to break through. Now I've been thinking of keeping a bag full of a good ammount of vials for just incase situations and even though the best bag of holding can hold 1500lbs or 1500 vials I would never do that to the DM. At what "level" would you as DMs allow this to go? The ammount of damage that you would allow and such.

When joining the gladitorial games our DM wove in the notion that our party would have to subit a name. After wracking our brains for a couple of minutes and coming up with some really bad ones we came up the Blink Dogs(based on my Elocator character's ability to use dimentional door). We were thrilled. IT fit, it was short, it had a great ring to it and within seconds another member of our party even created a gang sign for us (make 2 ok signs infront of you so they read "bd" now move your hands so that they can be read from someone facing you except your right hand should be on your left side and vice versa). Well that aside I was wondering if any other parties had done this and if so what your party's name is. I'd imagine you'd just use your literal party name instead of coming up with one just for the games.