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Myself and one of my group who had played in the old days of "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" loved it, of course. Dimension Hop saved them because the beast was pounding them to dust. Once I had the tank grappled I figured it was over. Definitely fun, though.

In the Champions Belt, I got my party to finish the ritual. :)

To bad they couldn't stop the Apostle before it ate a bodyguard.

Mine almost did the same thing without any prodding from me. They hated Auric so much that they toyed with the idea of Dimension Hopping him straight at the ulgurstasta or bull rushing him at the thing when it broke through the ground. Only the fact that they didn't know what it was or if they could take it stopped them. (Thank the gods for obscure FF monsters that the players don't have memorized)

We've now completed "A Gathering of Winds" and you can add the oculus demon to our list. Before anybody really closed to fight it, the cleric was paralyzed and the duskblade and rogue were fleeing in terror. The duskblade was soon unconscious. The tank was the only one left and he kept getting whacked while fighting his way through multiple castings of Mirror Image. Good times.

My best guess is that the concept of failure/surrender is utterly foreign to them. They haven't lost a single fight since 1st level, or even come close to losing. The notion that they might have to run away is a completely alien concept to them.
I'm hoping to introduce them to the notion of "we can't beat this, we should run" when their new 5th-level characters see their old worm-infested epic-level counterparts making their way towards them.

I can certainly relate to that sentiment. My characters were being throttled by the alkilith in Champion's Belt. One was completely gone due to the Symbol of Fear trap and two others were forced to flee due to nausea from the Stinking Cloud. By the time the last character fell to the effects of the Stinking Cloud, the party's tank had gotten over his nausea and launched a second assault on the demon by himself. After pummeling him with a second straight round of four slam attacks I called for a break in the action and flat-out told everybody that if they were EVER going to run from a fight in their lives, this was probably the one. The fighter still hung around for another round and only escaped because I was in a forgiving mood.

Every TPK that I was worried about turned into a cakewalk" the ulgurstasta, Xyrxog, the Faceless One, etc. Admittedly, I outsmarted myself on the ulgurstasta - I had beefed up Auric (who the ulgurstasta focused on) on never rolled above a '5' while trying to bite him.

The five toughest (roughly in order) for my party thus far (just finished the Champion's Belt)

5. Pitch Blade (CB) - I beefed these guys up a bit because I knew my party would pound them into dust - I may have overdone it, swapping out some barbarian levels for exotic weapon master with crushing blow (or whatever it is)

4. Invisible Stalkers (HoHR) - I took pity on them because there were only three PCs (although Ixaxian did a great job of making useless attack attempts and interfering) and invisible enemies with reach are devastating at that level

3. Froghemoth (CB) - had it not been for two Dimension Hops to get out of grapples and a munchkin of a tank in the party they would have been annihiliated

2. Ebon Aspect (TFoE) - 1 character left standing and it happened to be the rogue who has complained all along about the adventure path being impossible; with his three companions unconscious he got in the killing blow while running and tumbling around like a rabid squirrel to deny the Aspect full attacks

1. Akilith demon (CB) - nobody died (although I could have killed the idiot Tank of the party) but I did manage to convince them to retreat for the first time ever; 1 PC was sent screaming into the service level by the symbol of fear and he and two of the other PCs were put out of commission by the stinking cloud

I agree with dungeonblaster, who also hit on all of my recommendations for the repercussions of such an act. I'd allow them to do it - just because something is great at keeping people (or demigods) in, doesn't make it necessarily good at keeping people out.

As worried as I was about a TPK at the hands of Xyrzog my party destroyed him pretty handily...and that was after he blasted the tank fighter. That damn Eversmoking bottle they picked up along the way somewhere came in handy.

They had a much harder time with the Invisible Stalkers (giving something invisible reach is just cruel).

IIRC, #134 says that if the PCs bribe Dragotha with the phylactery, he'll fly off to hide it someplace but still return to Kyuss' side for the final battle. I'm at work, so I don't have it in front of me.

As for the other questions/issues - I don't have #135 yet so I can't help there.

I say it's going to be the battle to stop Cthulhu. Heck, they already used the King in Yellow - why not have a Cthulhu cult in the Amedio trying to contact the avatar of Hastur for assistance in raising R'lyeh?

God, I love HP Lovecraft

So my group finally started "Hall of Harsh Reflections" yesterday. Along the way, I used the troll brothers random encounter.

When the first one went down, the second begged for his life as written. The party relented, not only sparing him but not torching his brother either. Once they got the description of the adventurers who routed the trolls, the party agreed to let them both live in return for a "future service". There was some debate over whether or not the party was actually supposed to fight Auric and friends, but they hate them (him, in particular, enough that they really don't care).

Once they got into town and started hearing about the Champion's Games, though, they've started to talk about bringing them into the fold as teammates. Obviously,it would be easy to rule no on that, but it might be fun. Thoughts?

For the DMs who went ahead and replaced a character: how did you handle the party's exploration of Sodden Hold. As it turns out, the best candidate in my party (who's in love with the idea) happens to be the rogue. He therefore knows about the ladder (which I removed anyway since it didn't make sense, as has been beaten to death on this board) and the fake door. What about the dopplegangers in the cells? What about the invisible stalkers? I've considered allowing a Reflex save on the door trap (complete with an unmentioned bonus since he knows it's there) and maybe a hand signal that he can slip to the stalkers, but I'm open to some input.

Two points:

#1. your players don't know that the adventure depicted on the front is actually from the Age of Worms,admittedly there were only one or two in which it wasn't

#2. the names Dragotha and Kyuss came up much earlier; although I can see where this may not help if you're far back in the Path.

The only one that I really wasn't thrilled with was the Hall of Harsh Reflections one, but since they have no clue that there's a mind flayer ahead I just told them that it didn't pertain to the AoW adventure.

Has anyone actually taken the time to look at how overpowered all of the magic items in this book are? The Belt of Magnificence gives +2, +4 or +6 to all abilities and the weapons all seem to apply special critical effects to opponents that aren't affected by crits.

"AoW and Eberron Don't Mix"

Of course not, D&D and Eberron don't mix. Sorry, had to be done.

Call me the old guard or a fanboy or whatever - I despise Eberron. It's the only reason I didn't jump into the MMOPRG and it's why I dread v4.0. My D&D charcaters should not be robots (sorry, warforged) and shouldn't be riding trains and airplanes to the next dungeon. If I wanted to play Gamma World or something, I would.

That being said, converting a Greyhawk or FG adventure to Eberron is far simpler than the opposite. Add some lightning rails and make some of the NPCs warforged. Don't have the PCs recover a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts, have it be a dragonshard. If, on the other hand, the point of the module is to uncover why the Artificer's Guild caused a lightning rail to skip the tracks on its way past all of the dinosaurs of the Talenta Plains while on its way to some summit aboard an airship between the halflings and one of the dragonmark houses...well, good luck converting that to any other setting.

At the end of the day, Eberron will die out soon. It's too cliquish and those settings (see Dark Sun, which I loved, Mystara, Spelljammer, etc.) always die because they're too far removed from the core.

In the beginning of the plastic D&D minis made by Wizards of the cost. I would just use what ever. Now Im beginning to be a snob about what I use. Theres enough different varieties to have just about everything you need.

In the first encounter I plan on having a pack of hill giants, 6 fire giants (regular, King Snurre, and repainted Aspects of Kord and Moradin to represent them). I just hope they create a Huge green dragon before then. For the gargantuan reds I may find something that will work. Either a repainted Gargantuan Black, or just use the huge red. There making a Collassal red but Im saving that for Dragotha.

The second encounter, theres no real way to have all the dragons on the board at once. I plan on roleplaying most of it.

Still Im about a year away from Kings at the earliest. Who knows what all the neat figs we will have available by then. :D

The shortage of minis for anything above Large has been a pain already ad will be down the road. What have people used for the Urlgurstasta(sp?). Whatever it was, I'm guessing that'll also be my Mother Worm. Yes, the shortage of dragons that we have in our gaming room will also be an annoyance.

End of grumbling...

I'm just finally getting around to reading through the whole AoW series at once (well, the 5/6 of it there is so far). In chapter 7, Eligos, murdered at the end of chapter 5, turns up alive, having been raised by Agath. I'm just wondering how important this is - does he serve any important part in the plot for the rest of the campaign? I'll get the answer eventually as I have all the issues in question, I'm just looking for a quicker answer than I'll get that way.

The reason I'm asking is, I want to run the AoW in a setting where raising the dead is pretty much impossible (there are instead numerous mechanisms for keeping PCs from dying in the first place). This rather goes against the grain. Would I hurt anything by dropping him entirely, or would I be better off replacing him with a different NPC?

I've finished reading "Kings of the Rift" and I can't think of any other appearances of him so it shouldn't be an issue. Of course, if raising the dead is well nigh impossible in your campaign having him turn up could speak volumes as to the power of Tenser and his friends.

In response to the initial post, the PCs will still have to do some research to find out precisely where the ruins are. In addition, Teleporting to a location you've never seen before can be dicey.

If all else fails, IIRC Dragotha learns more or less instantly where the phylactery is once the PCs complete "Library of Last Resort" and unleash that knowledge upon the world. A flight of dragons should be able to get there in plenty of time to trash the place before the PCs can learn its exact location.

I like the idea of rumors surfacing about the dragons hammering the city and I agree, if that doesn't light a fire under them then that's their problem. Lashonna warned them that others were looking for it and it was alluded to that once that knowledge returned to the world, Dragotha would be able to home in on it so they've been given ample evidence that time is a concern.

To really salt the wound, you could have the PCs FINALLY arrive at the Rift Canyon in time to see Brazzemal(sp?) and friends winging off to the Wormcrawl Fissure with the phylactery. Heck, don't even let them know for sure that they've captured it - let the PCs deal with the remaining giants and the enraged keepers at the citadel first only to find out that they're too late.

On a somewhat related note, it's not just the swarms in WC, it's swarms in general that are a pain in the arse. We played through an 18th-level adventure this past weekend and were confronted with a Hellwasp swarm (or something like that). My 18th level Paladin was relegated to running back and forth through the mage's Wall of Fire to try and kill them off.

The irony, of course, is that DM'ed the Whispering Cairn and one of the (1st level) charcters happened to have alchemist's fire so the first swarm was a non-issue.

I haven´t read any official reason I could remember.

Looking for reasons, one look goes to alignment: Tenser is LG while Allustan is N. So it would be quite logical to assume philosophical differences between the two. Tenser fights actively against evil, while Allustan is perhaps more of a sage, collecting informations and willing to give them to the right people (I´d say his alignment should probably be N(G)).

Stefan

This is basically what I've used...or plan to, my group hasn't broached the topic with Allustan yet. IIRC, in "The Whispering Cairn" or the backdrop they made a passing reference to the falling out being over adventuring or something like that. I took it to mean, that Allustan wanted to take a less proactive role than Tenser. Why either would get hotheaded enough about it for Allustan to refuse to say Tenser's name for years is beyod me.

We use the Expanded Psionics Handbook in our game, and by using the variant (Psionics is different)rules it made for a quick TPK. Between having enough time to cast the displacement spell, and some well placed mindblasts it made for a quick battle with some very frustrated gamers.For the way that I read the variant rule spell immunity would not work against the Mindblast. I personally think that dungeon should have had some type of side bar for those who play with the Psionics Handbook to take this into consideration.

With that said its an excellent super module.

(P.S. The advanced Monster CR in the Monster Manual on page 293 deals with Associated & nonassociated class levels. Well I find this to be very unbalanced for this rule pertains to monsters with extra levels but not to PC's or NPC's. So how can one creature from the monster class that has A CR of 8 and Adds 7 more levels have a Cr of 11. While an NPC (Human) that is an 8th level fighter, 7th level sorcerer have a CR of 15 for they still are nonassociated class levels. I know as a PC which character I want to fight for my Experience.)

It was acknowledged in an earlier thread by either Mr. Mona or Mr. Jacobs that if you're using psionics with Xyrxog it will make for an entirely different encounter and one that the PCs may be ill-equipped to handle. As an earlier response pointed out, though, if you're using that variant rule than you'll want to tweak a lot of stuff along the way, particularly treasure, but that may leave the PCs ultimately unhappy because it'll be of precious little use through the rest of the Adventure Path.

The nonassociated levels were also addressed in an earlier thread, which I can't find now. It's not as obvious a balancing factor with the illithid sorceror but if you look at a Frost Giant sorceror, then it illustrates the balance: it he's using his giant strength to beat on you then he isn't casting spells and vice versa so nonassociated levels don't beef up a critter as much as they would an NPC.

Thus far I have refused to purchase an Eberron book on general principle. Okay, perhaps funds has a bit to do with it, but I can usually find a few bucks for other game supplements.

I admit that I'm a Greyhawk fanboy. I've played Forgotten Realms and Eberron (I appear to be the lone holdout in my gaming group) as well as the quasi-settings like Dark Sun, Ravenloft and Krynn and of all of them, Eberron is dead last. If I really wanted to take a train out to the dungeon alongside my robot...err, warforged...party-mate there are plenty of other role-playing games that I can play.

I'm torn myself. I enjoy MMORPGs I played Ultima Online for years and years), but the last time Turbine tried this it was a disaster. Plus, I loathe Eberron. I suppose there's something to be said for the fact that I still haven't ruled it out, though.

Sir Kaikillah wrote:

so here is a combo:

A sixth level paladin with STR16, CHR 16 weilding a +2 great sword uses full power attack (+12 dam), divine might (+3 dam/ 3rds), and uses smite evil (+6 dam) will do 2d6+27 hp.

From a DM's standpoint I wouldn't have a problem with this at all. It's when people start talking about 200,000gp magic items that I start raising an eyebrow.

...plus, this paladin would be +0 to hit, so what the hell is he going to do the 2d6+27 pts of damage to?

This defense against the Power Attack breaks down at higher levels when characters take the Shocktrooper feat/combat style and can trade points off of armor class instead of attack bonus. Sure, your AC for the rest of the round is horrible but there may not be anything left to hit you.

I don't have it yet, so I'm just shooting from the hip based on what I've read in the previous adventures, but didn't the dragons start up their assault after Dragotha learned of the place in "Library of Last Resort"? That would explain why the giants have spent years cultivating these cool weapons that suddenly don't work so well.

persistant spell can not be applied to righteous might b/c it uses a spell slot 6 levels higher making that an 11th level spell

The character in question has Extra Turning and Divine Metamagic (burn 6 turn attempst to knock off those pesky six levels)

I ran this with a different group of characters as a side trek when it showed up in The Age of Worms path. I let them get off the Egg free and clear because the party was pretty well devastated - that half-fiend dragon was more of a killer than I thought...and that was after the Symbol of Death trap.

We're finally onto Encounter at Blackwall Keep. They just took down the lizardfolk at Blackwall Keep and headed off into the swamp. Starting after Three Faces of Evil, and ending after Gathering of Winds, I'm mixing in some side treks with different groups of characters to hit some of the adventures that Manzorian mentions in Spire of Long Shadows. This has the added bonus of letting me play a character from time to time to recharge the batteries.

Interesting you should pull out the +1 stat adjustment for advancing hit dice just like PCs and NPCs. It's never been specifically mentioned in any of the core rule books as something that occurs. I advance stats by +1 every 4 HD (base 4, then 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, etc) for monsters in my own games, but am wary about doing that for adventures I write for DUNGEON. From now on I'll take your words as gospel.

Monster Manual, page 290

To be fair it was only a young adult and he was Large - I didn't know the two size rule, though.

Thanks...another great example of me outsmarting myself.

Persistent Righteous Might on a monk with the Monk's Belt can be a real killer

OK, so I've never really looked at the math behind advancing monsters before, so I'm sure this is simple and I'm just incompetent.

MM has an Otyugh's abilities as
Str 11 Dex 10 Con 13 Int 5 Wis 12 Cha 6

By my math, the racial modifiers for an Otyugh are
+2 CON and WIS(?)
-4 CHA
-6 INT

The abilities of the Advanced Otyugh is the Lizard Man lair are
Str 14 Dex 14 Con 17 Int 5 Wis 14 Cha 4

The Int 5 means that the base was an 11, but there's no 11 in the elite array. All of the other abilities work out, but the only way I can come up with a 5 Int using the elite array for this thing is if the base was 10 and it added to it's Intelligence when it got the "freebie" ability point at 8HD (which seems odd).

Again, it's certainly workable and the abilities aren't a big deal but I've never really messed with advancing/advanced monsters before and I wantto make sure I'm understanding it before I get into some of the crazies in the higher level adventures.

Thanks!

If any DMs out there have a monk in the group kill the character at a low level...it gets outta hand fast.

Here are the latest debates that came up while my party's uber-monk grappled every opponent that they came across...

#1.) can a pinned opponent use a breath weapon?
#2.) can Flurry of Blows be used to make four grapple/pin attempts?
#3.) if a pinned/grappled opponent has multiple natural attacks, do they get an attempt to break the grapple/pin for each? If so, do they retain any remaining attacks after successfully breaking the grapple? For example, if somebody grapples a dragon (6 natural attacks) does the dragon get six attempts to break it? If the dragon does so on the second attack, can it make its remaining attacks?

Yes, the monk grappled a dragon...as well as a pyrohydra and a cloud giant to name a few. Someone really should look at the sort of chaos that can be wrought with these newfangled v3.5 rules.

One session in and you've already stumbled onto every DMs worst nightmare...you, my friend, have a Munchkin.

As was already said, the fact that it is in a published book does not mean that it was playtested thoroughly or is balanced. That's why there are errata pages (check the Wizards site). The powergamer is my group was gung-ho to be a Citadel Elite...until the errata for that book came out and reined in the class, now he's going in a completely different direction. Sadly, it's not unique to Eberron - check out the Vow of Poverty in Exalted deeds or the new thorn in my side: the dragonborn from Races of the Dragon.

The key is to say up front what you will and won't allow. The classes in the Player's Handbook and the prestige classes from the DMs guide are all pretty well put together. I'd be hesitant to allow the other books until you get a firm grasp of the rules and can effectively gauge them for yourself. That said, most of the stuff from the "Races" and "Complete" books are fine.

Thank you both

I probably care too much about a minor point (or three)

I know that the Spawn stats in the MMII are 3.0, but are all of the differences between those and the stats in EBK from the conversion process, or are the ones in EBK wrong?

Specifically...
1.) the addition of Weapon Focus (slam) and the corresponding +1 to hit
2.) different Hide, Jump and Move Silently numbers

Also, why do they have a Base Attack of +1 and a +6 grapple? Shouldn't the base attack be +2 (4HD)? If the BA is +1 then shouldn't the slam attack be +5 (as opposed to +6)?

Again, I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Sadly, I've got a number-crunching, metagaming, rules lawyer in my party and on more than once occasion he's dissected creature's ACs and whatnot to determine where all of the modifiers are coming from and verify them.

Thanks

1st, 6th, 11th, etc.

Typically, if you get the added ones at 5th, 10th and so on the text will specify that you get it at each level that is divisible by five. I'm sure that someone out there has the text to prove that I am wrong. And they will post it...

now...

The easy answer is that the portal goes both ways - that's the way it seems to work in the book. Way back in the Whispering Cairn they stated that "visitors" could travel between the tombs to pay their respects when they were created.

If you've already stated in your campaign that this is not the case, then the next easiest solution would be to give Allustan another one of his infamous Teleport scrolls. Your players will probably ask why he didn't use it to get back to town when Ilthane showed up, but you can always say that he planned on using the dragon's appearance as an excuse to continue his exploration, figuring that the dragon would get bored and leave.

I don't have the Overload or the modules handy, but it's possible that some of his skills got a little bump from synergy bonuses, i.e. 5 ranks in Knowledge:Arcana=+2 bonus to spellcraft.

I'm an idiot :(

I don't know why I'm letting this bug me as much as it is...but it is.

Has anybody taken a good look at Allustan's skills (Encounter at Blackwall Keep, reiterated in Gathering of Winds)? By my math he has 73 skill points. Knock off 11 of those points for bieng an 8th level human (4 at 1st + 1 for the next 7) leaving 62 points. None of the schemes I've tried add up to those 62 points. If he had an 18 INT all along, that would give him 66; if he had a 17 originally and added the 18th point at 4th level, that would give him 60.

Obviously, it's not a big issue. It's both easy to fix and unlikely to matter. I'm more worried that I'm doing something wrong or missing something.

Follow up question. I assume it's common knowledge that Tenser and Otiluke were killed by Rary. Is it commonly known that Tenser returned?

On a related note, I've never read "Return of the Eight" - is Otiluke also back? Assuming Rary isn't back, are there "eight" again? Just wondering.

Thanks

"Rubberbanding", as we call it always bad. That is, the classic "Oops, those last five attacks didn't actually hit, so let's go back to round one." Sometimes it's unavoidable like when I forgot to have the party's elf make Spot checks for the secret doors in a maze, but usually it's easier to just nerf the bad guy a bit to make up for damage that they should/should not have taken.

I'm usually pretty thorough on documenting the baddies (I, too, make big giant notes in the margins for abilities that I know will be a factor) and prep the heck out of pre-published stuff. The kicker is once the PCs start screwing up the battlefield. "What? I'm shaken? OK, I'll jot that down so I can forget about it in two rounds." I actually think a lot of it is because combat in the game has gotten so complex - two rounds may be ten minutes later the way higher level battles go.

As for not using magic items, a lot of that is easy to explain if players even question it. In our last session, the characters took down a stone giant mercenary who still had some potions of Cure Moderate or Serious (I don't remember) on him. Of course, by the time he might have started using them, he had three characters just waiting for the chance to drop Attacks of Opportunity on him.

I ran huge and potentially challenging encounter last night, and I found the PCs pretty much cleaning up the bad guys. Looking back at the NPC and monster information this morning, I realized I forgot to use a lot of special abilities and magic items that the NPCs and monsters had at their disposal. Now I'm beating myself up for screwing up such a potentially challenging encounter and turning it into a cakewalk. Has anyone else had this experience?

Constantly. The usual culprits for me are any environmental factors (light, terrain, etc.) and for some reason I seem to have brainfarts when it comes to remembering Spell Resistance

Those are just some random ones out of Complete Divine, Complete Warrior and Exalted Deeds

My party found themselves in a similar pickle. The barbarian made his way to the other end of the cave (by the rope bridge) and tried to flank the archers only to get stopped cold by the Grimlock barbarian. The wound up taking down the archers with a Wand of Magic Missiles and a Spiritual Weapon. This touched off an interesting debate on whether or not a Grimlock would realize that a Spiritual Weapon was even there.

I've got two questions about the higher levels of cleaving.

With Greater Cleave, a character can make unlimited cleaves; would this also apply to the various attacks? If a character has three attacks in a round, drops a foe on his first attack, cleaves, makes his second attack and drops that foe, can he then cleave again assuming he can reack any enemy?

Secondly, can a character make a five foot step using Supreme Cleave if they've already made a five foot step in that round? On a related note, are they limited to only one five foot step between cleaving attacks?

These crazy fighter feats give me headaches once the players start getting uber-powerful.

I'm a raging alcoholic both as a DM and a player. Fortunately, it takes A LOT of alcohol to impede me much, that's all based on bodyweight and sadly, I weigh about a metric ton so we've never really had any drunken gamer run amuck issues.

As for food, I have two groups that I play with. One plays on Sunday mornings so it's whatever we happened to stumble through the door with (Burger King and sodas are quite popular). A Saturday night group that I also play in is straight pizza and beer. We typically play at one friend's apartment and for awhile his girlfriend took up cake decorating as a hobby so the three or four of us would divvy up a cake as well. I guess that explains the weight :(

Anyone wonder how they came up with the handful of prestige classes that a paladin can take and still be able to progress as a Paladin? They all seem to fit the classic paladin (like the Hospitaler), but I'm wondering how some others didn't make the cut - like the Divine Crusader, Pious Templar and Shining Blade. Just a random observation because I was bored.

Having worked for years in retail and then in a support role, I know the cardinal rule: only the people who are unhappy will say anything.

I just wanted to post this note to give you guys a break from all of the complaints and problems. Although you certainly need to be made aware of such things so that they can be corrected, this post is to let everybody looking through these posts know that I got everything I ordered a few days earlier than I was expecting.

Thanks - job well done!