Losing the foundry discount is incredibly disappointing. I play/run games exclusively online, and I'd buy the pdf first to see if the adventure is something I'd even want to run, and getting a discount on the foundry module for it was nice. I can't see myself paying for both the pdf and the foundry module at full price for each. I'd rather extract the images and maps from the pdf and do all the work myself to set it up in foundry.
Hopefully some kind of discount program that isn't a subscription service will be implemented at some point.
Asking from a GMs viewpoint, since megadungeons are more fun as a GM than they are as a player, at least for me.
Spoiler:
I know there are bits from Abstalar about gaining her forgiveness as well. But since Nualia at that point is a cleric of Lamashtu, isn't her fate after being judged by Pharasma is to be sent to Lamashtu's realm and eventually become a demon of some variety? That seems like a pretty good deal from the POV of one of her clerics. Assuming there is no intervention or influence from the PCs that successfully change this.
Maybe since it is initially presented as "Let's forgive Nualia" I let my interpretation of Abstalar (perhaps unintentionally) being condescending about it color my reading of the rest of it. My first thoughts when I read that part was "You condescending a&~~@!$."
All the lines about apologizing to her and gaining her forgiveness just felt minor in regards to the narrative of forgiving her. It feels like it is saying that Nualia was wrong to feel the way she did, and that it was wrong for her to retaliate. While her method of retaliation was indeed wrong, the desire to retaliate against those who had wronged her for her entire life is not.
Maybe I'm reading subtext that wasn't intended or something, but the entire thing just feels s@%#ty. When I do get around to running it, I do plan on reframing things as earning her forgiveness, rather than the (intentional or not) condescension of forgiving her.
Anyone feel like it is more than a little condescending?
Explanation:
The first chapter is based around summoning Nualia's spirit and forgiving her for trying to destroy the town 17 years ago. To me, it reads very much like an oppressor forgiving their victim for retaliating. Yes, Nualia went too far, but the actions of Sandpoint's people 100% drove her to that. It would have never happened if they had treated her as a person instead of an object of veneration.
It makes me wonder why Nualia would want or even care about Sandpoint forgiving her. There are a couple throw away lines about Abstalar wanting to get her forgiveness too, but it is 99% getting the town to forgive her rather than the other way around.
It feels like, at best, she'd be indifferent, but more likely she'd be pissed at the audacity of Abstalar and the PCs. Especially when you consider that according to the adventure, from Nualia's perspective, she hasn't been in the boneyard that long. She hasn't had time for her rage and hatred to calm, so it feels like offering her forgiveness would just make her angrier. She'd need to be in a place where she could forgive the people of Sandpoint before she'd even consider accepting their forgiveness.
Maybe I am overthinking it, but that is just the way it is coming off to me.
What happens if the devil Sandpoint has already been defeated in the past?
If you are playing this with the same players that killed the Sandpoint Devil in a past game, you can potentially use The Spectral Devil from Monsters of Myth. It is the ghost of the Sandpoint Devil. You might need to adjust The Spectral Devil's level and stats depending on where in the adventure The Sandpoint Devil was supposed to show up and be defeated.
For me, Molthune only exists to contrast Nirmathas. Without the latter, the former becomes completely irrelevant to me, but at the same time, I can entertain campaigns and adventures set in Nirmathas that have nothing to do with Molthune.
In other parts of the world, I frequently forget that Katapesh and Qadira are two different nations, and I constantly forget about Jalmeray. All three do have some interesting things to them, but so little has been done with them that I just cannot maintain interest.
I am planning on doing this. Going with the hybrid variant, and in addition to the parts collected from various monsters, I was planning on replacing most coins and the various vendor trash items (i.e nonmagical jewelry, trade items and similar) with usable monster parts. Given that there are no scripted merchant encounters in the first module, I would not want my players to feel weighed down with things that have no practical use in the situation the module puts them in.
I was also thinking of having most Burning Mammoth followers have refined items and/or monsters parts as befitting their creature level, but I would otherwise leave any consumables and permanent magic items alone.
found something on Pathfinder infinite that looks built for this adventure path looks really useful, it's on my wish list for next payday so haven't read it yet.
this could be a good trend where the people writing the adventures are able to use infinite to publish the material they came up with but didn't fit in the page count required.
So, I bought the Mammoth Pack. It adds some new backgrounds, one for each house in the Broken Tusks, that has a variable feat depending on that particular house's animal spirit/totem you choose. Said feats seem to be a bit on the strong side to me, but they are only useable once per day. There are also a few non-house backgrounds that are more in line with the standard backgrounds, except for two, which are more akin to the wonky rare backgrounds, though only one of them is marked rare. One grants a once per day bestial mutagen, usable only on yourself, and said mutagen has an item level equal to your own. The other, which is marked rare, just grants a flat immunity to fear effects. I would be hard pressed to allow the latter one.
Aside from backgrounds, it adds several region appropriate animal companion options, though it locks them behind a feat. The options are Smilodon Cub, Wooly Mammoth Calf, Glyptodon Pup and Megatherium (Giant Ground Sloth) Cub. I've not done a line by line comparison to official animal companion options, but at first glance, they do not seem to be more powerful than the standard options.
Next it gives a gazetteer of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, going into detail of the different regions. I don't know how much is rehashing official info and how much the author made up on their own, but it seems useful none the less.
The last bit, which is separate from the .pdf, is a collection of battlemaps to use, gridded and non-gridded, and some of them are nighttime variants.
All in all, outside of the backgrounds of questionable power, it seems to be a really good resource.
The authors also made a level 0 prequel adventure, called The Feathered Valley. I've only just skimmed it, so I can't comment too much on it. There is a sidebar stating that the adventure is deadly for 0 level characters, and as such it might be best to adjust the rules for level 0 slightly, granting additional skill and weapon proficiencies at the start.
Was leaving the hex maps out of the interactive maps pdf intentional? It feels weird for the map pdf to not have all the maps for it's associated module. Will there be an updated version that includes them, or will they be available as a separate file? Or am I just going to be out of luck on that part?
With the exception of the first game I ran regularly, all the games I have been in had at least one woman in it. The first game I ran, on the other hand, was something of an inverse, as I was the only guy in that group.
I got nothing for dragons, but the spell point system came off as more, if not realistic, sensible, than the vancian casting that is currently being used.
But anyways, lessons learned, sarcasm is not the way to go here, so I apologise for that.
Huh. So a large flyer only needs a 10 foot square to execute a 180 degree turn, without sacrificing any noticeable forward momentum or hurting itself in the process. Who knew? /sarcasm
Okay, well thanks for the help on that, onto a new question, does anyone know of homebrew or 3rd party rules that makes flight more realistic without complicating matters too much?
So, typically, as a GM and player, I have avoided non cinematic uses of flight since the rules for it have me completely baffled. Mostly in relation to turning while flying.
I understand the checks needed and such, what has me completely stumped, and I cannot find anywhere, is something that tells me how many squares of movement it takes to cover a given 45-180 degree turn. Or if it varies based on various factors, how to calculate those factors to determine the amount of squares the flyer needs to cover to complete their turn.
Would someone help me understand how this works, or link me to a chart or something that does explain it? As it stands, when I GM, I avoid flyers in combat and disallow flight based abilities/races/items because I have no idea how to calculate these things, and would like to be able to bring these kinds of things into the game.
Thanks for the replies and help. Talked to a few of the people in my group and it turns out that their complaining about a game is their way of expressing enjoyment. Odd, I know.
bbKabag wrote:
With the few scenarios with limited Loot rewards, it is also a thematic feel of an adventure. You have slain the villain, the villain only had one medallion, or one Snakeskin Tunic. It makes more sense that way regardless how many people there are in the party. Why would she carry 6 Snakeskin Tunics?
Yes, but in the adventures that the scenarios are based on, there are more rewards beyond the "minor amulet of plottiness" or the "tunic of chekhov", which allows everyone to get something.
All I have is the RotRL base set, so it might be different in the subsequent adventure decks, but all the scenarios save the last one of Burn Offerings grant rewards to everyone. Then the last one rolls around, and after completing it the game basically says "Everyone that is not this one person, F@#$ off." With only one person getting a reward, I can foresee issues arising. Makes me wonder why the devs designed the game that way.
Anyways, as a possible fix, since regardless of reasoning I can not see that feature as anything other than a problem, would it be unbalancing to let the players who did not get the 1 of a kind loot to take a semi random (basically magic and elite gear only) card of the type of their choice from the box?
So, I've just started playing with a group and a couple of things have come up that I was hoping to get clarified.
1. Loot rewards. I am not sure how it is in other adventures, but Burnt Offerings only has a single Sihedron Medallion. Thus only one player can acquire it. Do the other players get some kind of alternate reward, or is it a situation of "Congratulations, you won! Your reward is a handful of nothing!" for those who choose not to or can't take the loot reward?
2. Monster Banes. My group generally dislikes fighting monsters, as there is no real tangible benefit for doing so. Whenever they have the option, they prefer to evade the encounter, saving their offensive ability for the henchmen and villain of the scenario. And when they can't evade the monsters, they cite it as the lamest aspect of the game, since it is almost always better to evade a monster rather than fight it. Am I missing something in the rules that allows some benefit for fighting monsters, or is the only benefit is having the monster removed from the location deck?
Bonus Question. The barriers like Skeleton Horde or Goblin Raid that summon a henchmen for each player to fight, after defeating said summoned henchmen, are we allowed to try to close the location we are at, or is it only the scenario henchmen that allow that? This card has popped up a couple of times and each time it has made the scenario incredibly easy.
Sorry for the lateness of my reply. First thank you for your suggestions, but with the exception of Dasrak's prestige class, all of the suggestions for blood magic have been of the damage yourself to increase DCs/retain spell slot/etc variety, which I was desiring to avoid. Like I mentioned in my first post, I find that approach to be mechanically boring.
Perhaps it is the word "Magic" that makes people want to link it to standard casting, which is fine but not my cup of tea. Hoping to find something that had the flavor of blood magic, without being a resource to make casters even more OP than what they already are.
Anyways, thanks for the help. Since what I am looking for doesn't seem to exist in any complete state, I am going to try my hand at creating something, and get it posted up here in the next few days for review.
I've always liked the flavor of blood magic, using your blood to do incredible things no caster can without using blood. Unfortunately, every implementation of blood magic I've seen in 3.x/PF has been "deal minor damage to yourself to increase DCs or add metamagic to your regular spells" variety, and that just seems boring to me.
Now, I thought about making my own homebrew blood magic system, but thought to check and see if anyone knows of a blood magic system that is unique and interesting, and not of the style mentioned above?
