Lich-Loved's page

I was afraid you were going to say that. Obviously, this is not good and is a deal breaker for me, but I really appreciate your response.

Hi all -

Former super-subscriber coming back after several years away. I am hoping to get some clear answers regarding AP VTT maps. I realize there are a few posts about this, but they are old enough or not quite on-topic enough that I don't want to necro/hijack those threads and since I am on the cusp of making a very important, multi-year, expensive decision, I wanted to get the latest summarized information regarding VTT AP digital map availability.

Here is a summary of my needs:

* Full VTT-agnostic digital map packs (will accept Foundry modules if I must since I know I can pull the images from there, but raw images are best)
* Player-facing, gridless, lossless images that enable properly rendered grid alignment across the full image in the VTT
* Reasonable resolution
* Original artist (that is, not looking for fan-made content)

Does this exist for any of the PF2e APs? If so, which ones? I am willing to pay for these maps, so if there is any outside-of-Paizo access to this (e.g. a license direct from the cartographer), then let me know that as well if you can.

I saw in another thread that Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 may offer this kind of content for certain APs, but I am unsure if I purchased the content there that I could extract the maps in a format suitable for my purposes in my VTT (Foundry? Owlbear? Something Else? For various reasons, the chosen VTT will not be Roll20 or FG). Is this kind of image extraction available on those platforms?

My desired AP is Quest for the Frozen Flame, but if no such map pack is available, is there another PF2e AP that does have this level of support?

I know from my searches that this gets asked periodically, but the situation seems fluid / things are changing, and I could really use some clear, up-to-date information on this topic.

Thanks very much for your help!

Thank you all very much for your help! I will kick off the campaign tonight, so here is the plan...

- I have already prepped my players about Riddleport and the campaign in general so that they do not get overly invested in the place. Having played a previous AP, they are (grudgingly) willing to accept some "guidance" on how the story unfolds.

- I like the idea of having the PC's pitted against Vandercaskin. I believe betrayal is a fine thing to do to a party, but it gets old if done too much. It's about time the PCs betray someone in an AP. I believe I am going to have the PC's work as agents for Clegg Zincher to dig up dirt on Saul. It ties into the story (Zincher wants Vandercasken to fail and suffer) and it gives the PCs a motivation to take the ridiculously low-paying work Saul is offering them. If they were being paid on the side to ingratiate themselves to him, it keeps them hanging around him and trying to look like they are doing what he has asked. It also is additional motivation for Saul to eventually wipe out his new "partners". I can change up the Foamrunner scene so the rogues are not Zincher's men, to prevent the PC's from interfering with one of Zincher's operations.

- They are really going to like the first elves they meet

- Given my player's detest for elves, I am going to redo book 5 into something like Free the Queen (aka "elf-killing hero action") as psionichamster suggests. I believe it would better suit my group. I also really like the idea of the "elven racial purity" angle as ANebulousMistress suggests. I am going to keep these ideas on tap and see how it blends as I near book 5.

- I am going to make the Drow very nasty in an atmospheric sort of way to build up drow hate.

Thanks again for all your suggestions!

hogarth -

Thanks for the welcome back. I have been around, lurking for the most part, but will probably be more vocal now that I am running another AP.

For a CR11 creature Bestiary Table 1-1 indicates that a good save is 14 and a poor save is 10. Let us use the poor save. That means a 60% chance of failing the save and a 40% chance of saving.

I agree disintegrate is a bad spell (it does HP damage after all). You do realize, I suppose, that a caster hitting a poor save can cripple a foe 60% of the time by attacking his poor save. 60%! That is tremendously better odds than any melee type will get going toe to toe with a foe. Why do hit point damage when an 11th level caster could choose:

Confusion (if Will is low save)
Stinking cloud (followed by solid fog or vice versa) if Fort is low save
Acid Pit (followed by solid fog) if Reflex is low save

Note all these are 3rd or 4th level spells to ensure the caster has them on tap. No need to use 5th or 6th level magic on a single foe unless it is really nasty or one of these higher spells would hit its low save even harder and outperform one of the above for some reason.

Quarotas is exactly right.

WoF or Stone : Create wall from ground to 12" from ceiling, fly up and cast away.

Mirror Image is a fantastic spell, couple with displacement to allow combat casting without issue. Much better than any armor.

Tiny hut: often overlooked, gives the caster complete concealment from attackers and prevents counterspelling (not that any wizard would waste an action on a counterspell, but it is a benefit).

Wizards don't cast damaging spells, they cast battlefield control spells that deny enemy their actions: web + stinking cloud in the same area is a favorite of mine. The don't cast damage spells, they cast save or suck spells like Slow, confusion, charm or the like. They cast fogs, walls, webs, illusions, fear and summons to deny actions, slow actions or waste actions of enemies.

Casters summon lantern archons, the more the merrier.

Casters use reduce person and have their small air elemental carry them at 100ft per round.

Casters know their enemies and have one good spell of each type that targets the enemy's worst save. They are not MAD, so they focus all attributes points in their primary stat, stacking DCs very high. A 5th level wizard can cast a 3rd level spell with a DC of 18 (10 base + 3 level + 5 attribute). Poor saves even at level 10 are +3 (ref fighter will save of +3 at 10th level). Depending on feat mix between brute and caster, the number could get much better in favor of the caster. If Will is a high save for the target (another caster, or an aberration for example) the caster switches to a reflex attack that presents the same DC against that opponent's weak save.

Casters have power that grows every round of battle. Their actions last from round to round and every round, they stack another effect atop the previous round's actions. Melee types' actions exist only in the moment: a swing, a hit or maybe a miss and that is it. No status effects (by and large), no denying actions or ending the fight in a single action. Since hit point loss does not impact combat effectiveness, melee types have to act and act and act without real effect and at great risk until they finally kill the creature, while casters can begin immediately debilitating their target and make it progressively harder for their target to act in response.

Paizo's nerf to dispel magic made maintaining spells trivially easy.

Despite the hatred of the 15 minute adventuring day, it is virtually unstoppable. Once the caster gets teleport, it is impossible to keep him rooted and operating at low spells "just because". Once a caster gets mid level - let's say about 9 - 11 somewhere, he can't cast all of his spells in a day anyway and rests only so he can change his spell mix to be optimized against the foes he knows he will next encounter. Pearls of power, wands scrolls and potions radically increase the caster's abilities. A fighter may be able to swing a sword all day, but he needs healing and when the casters rest, so will he. Every time. I ran Age of Worms for my weekly group and over a two year period, once they got teleport, the adventuring day (which I tracked very carefully because of all the magic items creation they were doing) was about 11 minutes long. All 6 players were casters of one kind or another.

On Thursday, Aug 9, I will be kicking off this AP with my group of (very) experienced players. I have read almost every post here and know about the big issues, but as I have not yet read beyond Shadow in the Sky, I would really like to know what if anything I can do in the way of foreshadowing or laying additional groundwork for the problems found in Book 5. I know one big thing I could have done is have the party all be elves working for one of the elvish factions, but elves are not favored by my players and there is no way that would fly. I do plan on making the elves less callous toward the PCs, but that is some way off. My players already know they will ultimately be facing drow and are looking forward to an Darklands focused game, but that is about all they know.

So, if you had the chance to run all of SD again, what would you do differently early on so that the AP hung together better? Is there something I can do now that would make the rescue of book 5 more easily doable? Is there some events, side quests, exposition or the like I could add in during the first 3 books that make the fixing of book 5 more easily accomplished?

For reference, I believe the party will consist of:

Dwarf Wizard(specialization: tbd)
Oread Oracle (mystery: stone)
Tiefling Magus
Aasimar Cleric (diety: tbd)
Dwarf Barbarian

Everyone has dumped Cha, of course, which means most things will be resolved in the group's typical play style - at sword point. The group tends to be mercenary in outlook and I am certain they will chafe at the "do it for the good of all" expectations laid upon them later in the AP, so I know I will have to sweeten the pot somehow.

I really really appreciate all suggestions!

Thanks

~LL

Well, I kicked off my KotR last night and all went well after I made a few adjustments. The key issues faced in this module are the use of etherealness and the use of wind walk to bypass much of the module. Here is how I addressed each of these:

Etherealness: The city is the focal point for a permanent Ethereal Cyclone (Manual of Planes pg57) of significant force (add 20% to d100 roll, treating all rolls greater than 100% as 100% on the table on pg 58 of the MoP). The center of the cyclone is in the center of the city, extending outward about 500ft in all directions. Characters will notice the howling winds of the cyclone 1d10 rounds before moving into its effect (assuming they approach from outside the storm's radius), giving them time to consider their actions and prepare.

Ethereal characters can avoid this affect through luck (many low rolls on the cyclone results table), or can move about through the use of telekinetic sphere. This will allow some ethereal exploration while not opening the whole of the city to many characters at once.

Wind Walk: The Order of the Storm cast a number of permanent, epic control wind spells at 23rd level over the whole of the city that prevent significant winds from passing within a 920ft radius of the city center. I figure if they can create a millennial-long storm over Tilagos, they can handle this. The spell is set to force winds to Light (5mph) and with a downdraft. Any wind of any speed entering this area, be it magical or otherwise, is reduced to this new speed and direction. This will force windwalkers down to the floor of the rift canyon regardless of speed of travel.

This spell can be dispelled. Doing so requires a DC34 caster level check using a dispel magic or other spell. Since the control wind spell affects a cylinder 40ft in height, a number of these (lets say 10) have been cast atop each other to create a large cylinder of air moving downward all around the city. Given this arrangement, the DM can handle targeted dispels or use of disjunction the eliminate or supress the effect of these spells. Doing so allows the characters use of Wind Walk within the corresponding area of effect.

By inserting these changes, the characters can still make use of these handy spells, but it takes some work and ingenuity on their part and prevents the bulk of a well-written adventure from getting skipped outright. It also prevents continuity/verisimilitude issues should the characters eventually try these techniques and wonder why their foes were not using these methods rather than a frontal assault on the city all along.

In my game, the characters attempted to windwalk directly into the city but were checked at the edge of the controlled wind area. Puzzled, they set down and materialized to investigate what they might be able to do about the situation and perhaps watch the dragons attacking the city. While they were doing this, I had Necrozyte attack the group, and once again, as expected, they went ethereal. However, it was only the casters using ethereal jaunt rather than etherealness and since they had not yet reached the storms outer edge, they were unaware of the cyclone. I guess the plan was to have the fragile caster types make their way to the city's edge ethereally while the tougher types engaged in a foot/flying race of sorts against the strafing dragon. Everyone began racing for the edge of the cliff and the "safety" of the city, but Necrozyte was able to hunt down and pounce upon a few of the non-casters and force a melee. This brought the casters out of etherealness to help their friends and the module opened as expected with a rousing battle against a tough draconic foe. They won of course (thanks to a well-timed mass heal) and are now outside the city, much wiser and more cautious.

If there are other ideas out there concerning this, please post them here!

Well I think the time limit will actually push the characters to take this very approach. Why muck about in the middle of a battle trying to sort things out when time is of the essence?

I have 6 PCs, 2 are 17th level wizards and the other is a 17th level cleric, so even if I had 3 PC's the issue is the same. This means they have about 51 minutes of etherealness between the three of them and each caster can make all the others ethereal with their casting. That will give each member of the group around 1.5 miles of ethereal exploration at the half-speed travel rate on the ethereal plane. Since the entire city is a mere 850ft long they can pass through the entire city in about 3 minutes per pass slowly working their way back and forth from the highest levels to the lowest. I suspect what they will do is travel from the material plane version of Tigalos to Magepoint where they will research Kongin-Thulnir then wind walk there and go ethereal someplace just outside the siege. Even if Necrozyte attacks, they will forgo the fight and vanish the next round.

Given this, I think it is about 85% likely they will discover the vault on this exploration, as each person will travel to a likely area to determine what they can see even if they do not spread out ethereally and just walk in parallel to scour the city in a rigorous fashion. As they are always under a telepathic bond, they can communicate as needed and then agree to meet back up "someplace out of the way" one of them discovered to recast etherealness and explore further.

I believe the only counter to this is to have the dragons figure out that the phylactery is hidden in the Citadel just about the same time the characters do, because once they find the vault (and they will - the Citadel is indeed impressive from the air and will be a place they are certain to search), they will form up just outside the door and try a disjunction to pierce the ward. I can see this adventure taking an hour tops under these circumstances. I guess Brazzemal can discover them just as they drop the ward; he will have a round or two to blast his way in before they have enough courage to approach the phylactery and teleport away. Still, its going to be a footrace.

As far as having the dragons use wind walk, I doubt the characters will even be spotted by the dragons. They tend to travel at 1000ft above the surface, making the modifier for spot checks from the canyon edge above the city at -100 before accounting for their wispy nature. They will very likely give the dragons a wide berth as soon as they see the place is under siege making it far less likely they will be spotted. The Fabler will never even be encountered. Another option is to place the entire Citadel under a dimensional lock so the characters are forced to fight their way in (or float in under wind walk while invisible). Of course, this begs the question why Dragotha and the dragons haven't done the same thing already. Why have them wind walk in pursuit of the characters when they could just wind walk through the citadel? Or further, why Dragotha hasn't had a few servants searching the place under wind walk or ethereally himself rather than trying to batter their way in?

I am going to have to continue thinking about this adventure, but it really isn't runnable as-is. If anyone has any other thoughts, please post them. I will post back and let you know what I came up with, as I am sure there is a way to account for these spells and still have the characters interact with the inhabitants of the Rift. At least, I hope there is.

I read through this module and I guess I just don't get why the author expects the characters to spend any time exposed to the dragons. With 9th level magic, I see them using etherealness extensively to scout the entire area and retreating to a magnificent mansion between trips. Why would the characters venture out to any of the places by paths upon which the dragons or giants could reach them? They could also wind walk and easily outmaneuver and out-fly any dragon that approached them. I know they cannot access the vault until they have dropped its wards, but really, how hard is it going to be to discover the place where they can't get into ethereally?

This problem of apparently not understanding the character's abilities also occurred in LoLR with the Doomshroud tree and the nightmare beast. My group defeated the tree in 5 rounds without taking a point of damage or suffering any ill effect and the nightmare beast was hemmed in by a single wall of force that was open a few feet at the top; the party just hovered up there and killed the creature with no risk. They used exactly the same tactic to kill the huge aspect of the overgod in the Prince of Redhand and only one member was threatened because he was ahead scouting and took a bit of a beating before escaping.

It seems like the authors are making systemic mistakes by missing these basic uses of the core spells. Maybe I am just missing something?

When a wizard gains a level, his familiar's effective hit dice change:

Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master's character level or the familiar's normal HD total, whichever is higher.

Are the familiar's feats an "effect related to number of Hit Dice" or does this statement apply only to the effect of certain spells that affect a certain HD range? For example, assume a wizard just reached 7th level and has a small air elemental as a familiar (nominally a 2HD familiar). The familiar is treated as having 7HD for "effects related to number of Hit Dice", so would the familiar get feats at 3 and 6 HD as if it were an advanced air elemental?

ahhh MST..... This is *by far* my favorite module published in Dungeon, and I own virtually every one ever published, so this is saying something.

I ran MST for my group when it first came out. They loved the entire module and even managed to

The module was the capstone adventure on a long campaign we ran, though at the time, I did not make full use of the background material. I re-read the module several years ago and found the backstory so well done and compelling that I based an entire campaign on exploring the ancient Jezulian (?) cults and the foul Mud Sorcerers in the Iron Circle (at least I think that is their organization). Furthermore, bits and pieces of the module have cropped in in many of the other games I have run.

While there were several great authors back then (the guy that did Ex Libris comes to mind), I still rank MST as the best overall module ever published in Dungeon.

I am glad I finally had the chance to thank you for work so well done even if the opportunity came after nearly 2 decades of waiting.

I can't get over to Dreamscarred atm to check the latest PDF, but I wonder if something has been done about Astral Construct. The constructs allowed in the XPH, especially with the Boost Construct feat, absolutely shamed the capability of the party's fighter and outclass even core caster's summoned beasts of the same level (which are themselves more effective than the party's fighter after a few levels). I know Pathfinder has not fixed the massive imbalance between casters and non casters, but Astral Construct was an especially flagrant example of this.

Any word on this?

I am really glad Canada won even though I am American. Sure it would have been great to win the gold, but having Canada win on its own turf was pretty cool. I only hope Russia can shore up its program before 2014 - it sucks to lose on your home ice.

The only thing that bothered me was that all the players on both sides were NHL players. It felt more like an all-star game than a national competition. Perhaps all the game showed was that Canada has more all-stars than the US :)

Two words: solid fog

ARTHUR: Old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
ARTHUR: Old Man, sorry. What knight live in that castle over there?
DENNIS: I'm thirty seven.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I'm thirty seven -- I'm not old!
ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you `Man'.
DENNIS: Well, you could say `Dennis'.
ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called `Dennis.'
DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
ARTHUR: I did say sorry about the `old woman,' but from the behind
you looked--
DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!
ARTHUR: Well, I AM king...
DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By
exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma
which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society!
If there's ever going to be any progress--
WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh -- how d'you do?
ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
Who's castle is that?
WOMAN: King of the who?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
WOMAN: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: Well, we all are. we're all Britons and I am your king.
WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous
collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship.
A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about if only people would--
ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives
in that castle?
WOMAN: No one live there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take
it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified
at a special biweekly meeting.
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: --but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh -- who does he think he is?
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become king then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,
[angels sing]
her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur
from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I,
Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical
aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power
just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an empereror just
because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd
put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that,
eh? That's what I'm on about -- did you see him repressing me,
you saw it didn't you?

I'm not sure that ex-ing the idea entirely from the list is such a good thing. I think there is an important concept there that we all should recognize: that we play to have fun. That said, I probably did not word it as well as I could. How can I change it to be more "opportunity" than "goal"?

Heh I knew you would ask me for that and I don't have answer at the moment. My weekly game starts in a hour or so, so I am going to have to get back to you on that, but I *will* try to take a cut on it shortly.

5. All gamers are entitled to have fun. None should purposely sabotage the fun of another, nor allow their own fun to be sabotaged.

I like all but this one. What is "fun" for one person just isn't for another. While this right may seem like a self-fixing issue given the way you have written it, in practice it isn't so secure. The entire "psionics is in/out" debacle in one of the threads above is essentially an argument over this point. The player wants X from the DM and the DM does not think X is right or fun so the player continues to hound the DM. Not fun for either the DM or the player. If the DM agrees to the player's demands he is no longer having fun and if he does not agree then the player is not having fun. This means that while this right looks good on paper, it can't really be enforced in a true difference of opinion.

If you completely remove 5 from the list, you don't have this problem. The other rights remain, and if there remains a difference of opinion (which really is at the heart of the issue with both sides providing evidence of a "factual error" to the other), either 1 or 2 can come to the rescue. The local social contract will establish and guide how much "due cause" is enough to continue the debate and which of the other rights gets exercised once a situation reaches an impasse.

Rights *must* be written that ensure equal opportunity not equal outcome. Right 5 as you have it is an attempt to ensure equal outcome (in this case everyone has "fun") rather than providing an environment, like the other rights you have listed, where fun is available to be had if the participant chooses to pursue it with the local social contract acting as a balancing factor to determine how far an issue can be raised before it leaves the realm of opinion and enters the world of "we suggest you exercise Right 1 - soon."

Hmm in thinking about it, reverse gravity does not force those in it to "be upside down". It would still be difficult to use ranged weapons given the inverted gravity and fighting with melee weapons would be like fighting on your back or stomach on the floor, so you still would not be very effective with them. But whatever. I mainly wanted to correct my mistake above. Think "levitate with nothing to push against" and you still have a good idea of the condition of those affected for determining what they can or cannot do.

How is it wasting the DM's time to bring a valid character concept using appropriate rules? The same mechanics can represent many, many things. If a player detests Vancian to the point where running a Wizard ruins their fun, but wants to play a mage, a traditional tower wizard classic, using the much more sensible psionic rules (rules that are actually fun for the player), how is that wasting the DM's time? It's a perfectly valid character who the DM, by his own admission, finds 100% acceptable, yet apparently still rejects for completely unrelated reasons. The DM's reason for denying the Psion class was that psionics don't exist in the world, but this character is a magic-user, and default mechanical rules are "Psionics is magic" anyways. How, at that point, is it not the DM's stubbornness and inflexibility that's wasting the player's and the group's time at that point?

I do see what you are doing here. You are of course using the same approach in this discussion that you would in the case you are describing: endless raising of issues when the decision is already made. You refuse to accept the DM's right to decide what is allowed in his game, by fiat if necessary, by brief explanation otherwise. You attempt to engage in endless debate using definitions you are incapable of making (like your use of the phrase "valid character concept" when it is clearly been defined by the only one capable of making the decision what "valid character concept" means).

So, I will put it another way, just as if you were a player at my table and then will not waste my time further on it:

(1) My group has played together for the better part of 25 years. I have 30 years playing experience
(2) I have DM'd my group for a decade of this time
(3) I am, in my players minds, a fantastic DM. Everyone they have ever tried pales relative to my skill. My games last years and the players love them. I have not lost a player in a 10 years of weekly games for any reason.
(4) I have a had a 2-3 player waiting list for at least 6 years to get a spot at my table.

If you do not like my ruling, just go. Your chair will be filled before it loses the warmth of your butt. Something tells me you have heard this before.

Here ends the lesson.

If the target of a reverse gravity spell does not hit a ceiling and cannot fly in anyway, does it just oscillate until the spell ends making it unable to act? Can the creature cast spells or fire ranged weapons and can it move at all?

thanks

Reverse gravity does just what it says it does: inverts gravity. Think of those in the field as being subjected to a levitation spell, with the added complication that everything is upside down to them. So, can they move? Not unless they can fly, levitate or have something to push against. Can they use ranged weapons? Technically yes, but being upside down means that their missiles will fall the wrong direction than the shooter is used to to seeing or the missiles will be subject to weird gravitational affects if the shot missile is fired from reverse gravity into regular gravity. For this reason, I would rule it was "virtually impossible" to use shot or thrown ranged weapons while under RG, but if the circumstances were right, I might allow the attacks with a very big negative to hit atop the negative to hits presented in the levitation spell. As for melee attacks, they can certainly make these and I would allow them to be made at the same penalties as the levitation spell.

Many casters like to think of using RG in a "tower" of 10' cubes to hurl enemies into the air for falling damage. In practice, it can be far more effective to set the height at 10' or 20' and have enemies simply hover out of reach, easy picking for spells or ranged attacks by the caster's friends. Consider what cloudkill does if it happens to drift into an area of RG and there are hapless foes hovering in aerial "pits" deep enough to hold the cloud.

Discussion is not automatically endless pedantic bickering. Character-creation is supposed to have a lot of back and forth and dialogue on ideas and concepts, so why would you close the door of discussion in someone's face when it's about hashing out the rules themselves?

It really is fairly simple: if psions aren't allowed in the game because there are no psionic powers in the game, then we do not have a rules issue. What we have is a player not liking it issue. Hence, further discussion is not "hashing out the rules" it is "wasting my time".

Lich-Loved wrote:

Well, yes. One. One explanation.

This is my policy as well (although I allow the person to go into depth if I feel I am confused on the issue).

It is very important to note that this whole benevolent dictatorship only holds during play when I have three other people waiting for their turn. Otherwise, I am happy to hash things out.

True enough. There are times when I don't know clearly what the answer is, and so we have to work out an answer together.

In my particular case, I usually do not have time to enter into these kind of discussions "away from the game" as basically every waking hour is scheduled and planned for one task or another. I take input via email and respond if my prep session is going well and I have time to type something in response. When I do, it is usually shorter rather than longer. If I have a player that wants to ask yet another question, it will probably be sitting in my inbox for a while.

Frostflame wrote:

Seeker is correct on this one. If you came to my table wanting to play lets say a psion, but in the campaign world they do not exist, Im well within my rights to refuse you this character option, and not give a reason. You may find out the reason as the story unfolds or you may not. Same thing goes with any splat book material. A dm has the choice to disallow any material from entering his campaign world if it doesnt work. Or you could have a challenging Dm say research the PRestige class or feat you want.

Except in that case, I'm entitled to the explanations, "Psions don't exist in this world," instead of some non-answer. And in that case, it's still subject to discussion since a psion character is not the only thing the Psion class can represent. "Psionics are magic" is the default rule, after all. In which case the psionic rules can be used to represent more conventional magical characters. Or not. But either way, the player deserves that explanation of, "Psionics don't exist in this world." Or even, "No, for plot reasons." Or, "No, because I'm not comfortable with psionics." Or any number of reasons, but there has to be a legitimate, meaningful explanation.

Well, yes. One. One explanation. For example, as a DM, I put in around 10 hours a week preparing for my weekly game. I have 6 players to satisfy plus of course I want to have fun. If someone were to "demand an explanation", sure I will give them one. "I hate psionics and do not want them in this game". And then we move on, because I am not obligated to enter into "logical discourse" with them until they are satisfied. I have better things to do with my time than play 20 questions with a player that doesn't get it, especially if five other people are ready to move on.

Perhaps you don't mean to come across this way, but your point of view seems like conversations I have with my oldest son, who is 16. I respect him, my wife and I treat him like an adult. We get this a great deal:

Us: You are going to need to take care of your workout sooner tonight as you will need to watch your younger brothers.
Him: Why do I need to do that?
Us: Because we have had a change in plans and will be going out tonight so you will need to be available to help them rather than going to the gym later like you usually do.
Him: They are old enough to look out for themselves, I have other plans, they can handle it.
Us: No, you really need to take care of the workout earlier.
Him: Why can't you postpone, my plans were already made.
Us: That really isn't possible.
Him: Ok what If i get <oldest sibling> to watch them while I am gone, would that work?
Us: No, just watch them already, we are asking you.
Him: You know he could do it, I don't see why he couldn't.
Us: Who will fix dinner? He can't run the stove.
Him: Why do you think he can't run the stove? I ran the stove at his age.
Us: <grrrrr>

You see where this is going. In the end a single player is not granted the authority to waste my and everyone else's time. I am *busy*. I do not consider endless "logical discourse" to be "fun" be it at the table or at any other time; my other players do not. No one does but perhaps the one person who feels they are entitled to be heard, and heard and heard.

So, no. You get one shot. Any more and now you are wasting my time. Now, if all the other players jump in and are totally for the idea and see the conversation as worthwhile, then ok, I guess we can get deeper into it. It still isn't fun for me, and as the DM I matter at least as much as everyone else because I have invested at least and very likely more than everyone else in the game. However, if there is a groundswell of support, with my other players calling out from their chairs "No no! Please don't get on with the game, we like watching you answer the same question over and over!" well then sure, I will bow to popular demand and carry on this "logical discourse". Maybe.

Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to mention something. My group was considering destroying the ziggurat before leaving Alhaster. I think they were planning on hitting it with disintegrate spells (the two casters in my group can cast 17 disintegrates in one day without resorting to items, enough to remove 17 10' cubes from the ziggurat. Collapse? Probably. Cause it to crumble and lean? Oh yes.) While the angels *might* get there to stop them, I didn't want to handle a protracted battle with the angels that very well could result in the party getting stomped. The modified story above allowed me to improvise a good answer to their questions regarding it. Lashonna only needed to say that Alhaster and the ziggurat yet had a role to play in the Age of Worms but her divinations would not tell her whether it was for good or ill. Given the uncertainty, she did not want to move against Zeech's building of the thing for fear she would unknowingly be tampering with the unfolding of a prophesy. I used this reason as well to respond to questions why she never tried to help the downtrodden in Alhaster; her role was one of observer and reporter, to do more would be to expose herself to Kyuss' minions that still roamed free or would again be interfering in what yet may come to pass.

It worked for my group, at least :)

I really like your speech, it is well written. The problem though with long, prepared speeches, in my opinion, is that the execution of them at the gaming table can be a bit unnatural. The DM tries to stick to his speech by using his notes, which makes the interaction less natural. So if you come up with a good way to deal with that, the speech should be great.

Yeah too true. The speech in the module as written is shorter but I think it leaves so much up in the air that the conversation afterward would be much harder. Nevertheless you still raise a fair point.

I ran this speech last week and it worked very well. To break up the text, I studied the speech carefully and made frequent eye contact with the players while finishing sentences. I also paused when Lashonna took a drink in the story to take one of my own so as to maintain a sense of in-character-ness while wading through the text. I believe these small touches kept the story from seeming long. I read the entire thing aloud in about 4 minutes. Everyone sat in rapt attention and/or made notes. Best of all, they did not even question Lashonna's role in the AoW to date, they accepted everything she had to say, so focused were they on the details of the story.

Oh, I went back over Lashonna's part as written today and found this gem...

"Balakarde's journal, or what's left of it, in any event. You'll see he is quite mad. Obsessed, the poor dear, and with worms no less. Tiresome..."

I mean come on if this doesn't scream "I am a traitor" to the party, nothing will. Lashonna was supposed to be a mover and a shaker in Alhaster, knowledgeable enough about the Ebon Triad and the Age of Worms that a powerful wizard like Balakarde obsessed with the AoW would seek her out for advice. She is supposed to be tough enough to have battled against the cult for decades and well-known enough to show up as an entry in Rhorsk's book on Alhaster. Given all of this, is this how she should treat Balakarde's concerns? It just doesn't hang. Running her as written will get every party thinking she is Mother Maggot and will give them enough cause to investigate her and learn her true nature. Her betrayal will hardly mean a thing later on.

Gah I am ranting again. I am glad a few of you liked the story. Thanks for reading.

I think it ties in nicely as to why Zosiel's circlet keeps increasing in power and such. But if you cut out alot of whispering cairn and GoW, guess you wouldnt really need the Vaati backstory at all

In which module did the circlet increase in power? GoW?

I tend to lean toward simulation over gamism when I play. If possible I like the world to make some sense internally to the characters(yes this is an impossible task, I know this already, but it is a goal). For this reason, I do not like to run teleport as written precisely because it allows scry and die. I reason that if such scry and die tactics existed then anyone that wanted to ensure their supremacy would simply use the tactic before a challenger could obtain the well-known defenses to this tactic.

I am sure most people have heard of real-world despots or drug king-pins that kill off any potential rivals before the rivals can rise to a level of power where they become immune to these assassination plots. It does a coke kingpin no good to wait until his rival is capable of repelling his squad of killers with a private army of his own, so he strikes before his target is capable of this kind of defense. Translating this to the D&D world, a BBEG caster that gets a report of upstarts causing trouble at the edge of his organization does not wait until the party is capable of using scry and die on him, nor does he fall into defensive "cast a bunch of spells to ward off a possible attack" mode, nor does he wait until his enemies can defend against this very effective tactic. Instead, he simply teleports in and frags them in their sleep one night right after they hit 8th level or so and is back in his Dark Tower in time for his regularly scheduled Black Mass. It isn't very fair and it isn't very story-ish, but if you were the BBEG, that is what you would do.

Since I want to avoid this issue altogether, I simply have made a couple of changes to the way teleport works. Basically, a wizard/psion cannot use any form of teleport spell to teleport to any location he (or his familiar/psi-crystal) has not physically been or that he cannot see with his naked eye. Thus a wizard could teleport his group "atop yonder mountain", "to the edge of that line of trees", "back to the inn", or "into that secret room with the pool where we last sought refuge" but not "where my scry sensor/prying eyes/clairvoyance/arcane eye showed me".

A wizard or familiar must take a full round action to "memorize" the location and thereafter he can use any of the teleport spells to reach that spot, provided he has the range on the spell to do so. I also have done away with any teleport mishap chance to offset this inconvenience, so every version of teleport works like a teleport without error. From a game standpoint, the player of the wizard/psion keeps a list of the places he has memorized; he can then whisk the party to any of these places at any time without risk.

Where rule changes are not acceptable to the group, I have simply told them that any technique or spell they use *will* be used against them in the same manner that they use by enemies that are just as resourceful as they. This limits painful spells like disjunction but also limits "clever rules interpretations/loopholes" like various CharOp builds, chain-binding of wish-granting outsiders and the like. From a simulationist point of view, I tell the players that the world will operate on the rules they define so if they introduce something that gives them some wonky advantage, they will find the technique used against them in short order. The players all find this very fair and limit their actions accordingly. As we have been playing together now for a decade (and some of them for 25 years in the same group), I find that the group polices itself and I am rarely presented with a "can I get away with this" type question.

Admittedly not every group is like this, but this approach can work well if everyone knows everyone and trusts them to keep the game fun.

Dude, seriusly? That was very well-writen and expresses clearly a sense that I've had for some time now (and which I was fearfully attributing to my becoming part of the "get off my lawn!" crowd).

But it doesn't address the basic selfishness that is inherent in the very view you mentioned - that the player isn't considering that the GM's view is just as valid. Ironically, addressing that selfishness was just exactly the reason postmodernism and deconstructionism were created in the first place.

You are quite right, it does not address it per se, but it clearly points out that such a bias exists. Things get thorny for me here, because I am not a philosopher. I will say though, that it certainly appears that the one belief structure that postmodernism or deconstruction will not subject to its scalpel are the tenants of postmodernism and deconstruction themselves; apparently these are absolute. Irony indeed.

Edit: clarification

Viletta Vadim wrote:

I never said they were the highest authority in the hobby. I said they were the highest authority that's actually put together clear, meaningful, legitimately useful definitions for the terms.

In truth, they are somebody you stumbled across on the Internet who have a defintion you agree with, and, because they agree with you, you think they are the "highest authority" and that their definition is "clear, meaningful, and legitimately useful". It's a classic logical error on your part.

Uh, exactly.

On a related note, I've definitely noticed a strange sense of entitlement that has grown over the 3.x timeframe - back in 1e and 2e days, it was always the DM's prerogative to audit characters and allow/disallow any particular book, spell, option, etc. Even in early 3e, it was "you can't take a prestige class unless the DM has made it available specifically in game somehow." But now the default assumption is "I can take anything I want anytime I want - buy whatever gear I have the money for, take whatever p-class I can find" - and the DM trying to provide any oversight is seen as meddling.

This is a great point. The root of the issue is, as far as I can tell, the sweeping move toward postmoderism and deconstructionalism that is so very popular for those who come of age in the early nineties and thereafter. For some in this group, there is no such thing as a definitive authority, or alternately, a definitive authority can be readily found that complies with one's world view whatever that happens to be. Such a belief structure is especially beneficial to anyone that believes themselves disenfranchised in some way, be it socially, economically or what have you. If one is a minority in any aspect and dissatisfied, then any belief structure that allows a sustained attack on the status quo is satisfactory. If a belief structure can be found that explicitly decrees that there is no authority and therefore the status quo is inherently invalid or illegal, then it is all the sweeter.

Do not forget that this generation is the Internet generation. Every opinion can be found online with ample facts (or versions of facts) to make any belief system seem plausible. When this happens from birth onwards, one begins to believe that nothing is absolute or alternately, that whatever one believes is the "truth" because evidence in support of that version of truth is readily available. Other, perhaps valid evidence, is rejected as the propaganda of one's opponents. This rejection is made possible because, on the Internet, there is no clearly defined authoritative reference to establish facts. Even the much-worshiped Wikipedia, the very bastion of collective online group-think if ever there was one, has been forced to lock wide swaths of pages because so many people fervently believe their version of the "facts" as to continually disrupt the production of pages on topics they feel passionately about (ref pages on George Bush on both sides of the argument about him). As an aside, the issue of Wikipedia being used as a "fact source" is of dubious merit (and yes I am aware I used it in my links above, it *is* convenient if nothing else) because no one can agree on what the facts are; what is published is only what everyone agrees is true or worse, yet, what the oligarchy that runs Wikipedia believes the facts to be.

This is where the sense of entitlement comes from. For example, it can be shown in the RAW that the players are allowed to buy any item, spell or what have you in a town of a certain size or can be any PrC for which they qualify. This piece of evidence, which admittedly clearly exists, empowers those that believe that the game is and always should be wholly there's or at best, is a complete and equitable sharing of power at the table. The evidence that rules and advice throughout the published rules inform players that the DM has final say on any aspect of the rules, exists to arbitrate areas not covered in the rules, or is allowed to change or make new rules, is listed by some as a failure in rules design rather than having merit as a counterbalance to the power granted to players. If you want to see a postmoderist player froth, invoke Rule 0 sometime.

Someone up above said something like "only a dick DM would do anything the players (his friends!) didn't want". This is a classic example of this thinking in action. It basically decomposes to "the rules say I can do X and anyone that disagrees with me is a failure as a friend and a person" but it ignores the equally plausible and justifiable argument that the DM, who almost certainly has invested more time and energy into the planning of the game session and who is equally supported by the rules, is dealing with players that do not respect his rules-granted authority because it is inconvenient to do so. Moreover, the worldview of such players is such that the DM's opposing viewpoint is ab initio invalid because at least some evidence can be found to refute it. Any evidence the DM can produce to the contrary is just a "dick move" and use of broken, bad, rules (propaganda).

While I do not disagree with the suggestions above, an abbreviated AOW should still communicate the feeling of the campaign. I suggest:

Three Faces Of Evil
Encounter at Blackwell Keep (I find the Ilthane subplot to be a good one, skip otherwise)
The Champion's Belt
The very first part of the Gathering of Winds (I skipped all but the Ilthane portion in my full AoW campaign - see note below)
The Spire of Long Shadows
Prince of Redhand (Can be radically shortened to deal with Lashonna, Ebon Triad and finish Ilthane subplot)
The Library of Last Resort (agree you can rework this any way you want just as long as players get the info they need, so it could be greatly shortened)
Into the Wormcrawl Fissure
Dawn of a New Age

One's that you *should* skip
Although everyone gives the Whispering Carin kudos and it is a good dungeon crawl, it offers *nothing* to help the players understand the Age of Worms and even sets them up thinking that the lore learned in the adventure is somehow important. All it does it bring the party together. Any good module set in Diamond Lake will work in its place.

The same holds true with A Gathering of Winds, maybe especially true. Its another crawl into the Whispering Cairn. It's only redeeming value to the plot is Ilthane. I talk about that here.

Hall of Harsh Reflections is just filler. Its good wholesome whipped creme filler, but it is just filler.

My group loved playing the Prince of Redhand almost as much as I enjoyed DMing it. My players are currently just finishing up Zeech's Feast and cannot wait to talk to Lashonna. Who is she really? What is her relationship to Prince Zeech? Why fight the Ebon Triad and still allow the injustices in Alhaster? Is she Mother Maggot? How long has she been in the city? What about her thoughts on the ziggurat? What happened to Balakarde? These are just some of the things my players want to know. They do not yet know her true nature, but if they discover that, they will want to know where she stands as well. And you know what, so do I. The Prince of Redhand certainly went out of its way to paint a very bleak picture and this entire module as well as the end of the last one seems to have been leading up to this point - the party's meeting with Lashonna. Finally, some questions are going to get answered - or so I thought.

Imagine my disappointment in preparing to run LoLR when I read the all-important interview with Lashonna. It boils down to: "Ah yeah, so Balakarde was crazy and left some notes here, which despite my 16-year interest in them, I only managed to salvage this one page, so as you can see you have little choice but to go to this island and get some information on Dragotha, who, I know you have never heard of but trust me he's tough so this is important. Oh and, I let the secret out so now its a race for time. Right, off you go." Couple with this with the given answer for those that learn of her true nature: "Yeah so I am evil and undead. Trust me and if you don't, oh well, you can come back and kill me." Sheesh.

Now I am a huge Nicolas Logue fan so I am going to guess that he couldn't do Lashonna's story justice because of page count issues. He has a lot of module ahead of him, and there is only so much he can spend on hooking the party. However, this is just not going to cut it for my group and rather than parry a thousand questions after reading Lashonna's cut scene, I decided to do some tale-telling and give the party some meat to tear into and (just maybe) keep them from questioning Lashonna's role in the events by providing a red herring or two. Also, I wanted to do some foreshadowing so the group felt like things were finally beginning to make sense. The AoW has had enough mystery and railroading; with only 4 modules to go, it is time the party start seeing some cohesiveness.

With this in mind, I wrote the following. This replaces Lashonna's original speech, up to the point where she tells the group about Darl Quethos. You can run this part as written or play upon something Lashonna says in her story below ("...I am afraid more now know of this lore than ever before..."). Should the party learn she is a dragon, well she can handle that issue with ease ("Aren't silver dragons supposed to oppose evil?") and if they learn she is undead/evil, she can handle that as well ("I never said my encounters that day left me unchanged. That which I most loved - life itself - was lost to me that day, I exist now only for revenge, to see Dragotha fall and to stop his part in the Age of Worms". Note that this is no less than the absolute truth - this is exactly what Lashonna desires, though her ultimate goal remains hidden.)

I hope this helps at least one DM out there.

So...about this whole "Antimagic field on your familiar" idea. Are you sure this works? Share spells lets you cast a spell that you normally target on 'you' on your familiar instead. AMF doesn't _have_ a "target" field. It doesn't say "target self". It merely has an area that emanates _from_ you, under the area field.

I never realized this before, but the Target entry doesn't exist for this spell. I am going to have to agree with you.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Hmm, but if your Improved Familiar flies naturally and has Damage Reduction of almost any kind...

Yeah, this. Besides, what is a medusa, naga, beholder, lich or mind flayer going to do to an air elemental flying 10' above if they can't affect it with spells or magic weapons and it is taking a standard action to go full defense each round? With a 100ft/perfect movement, it is going to frustrate the crap out of an enemy caster-type. My books aren't at hand, but a beholder may even be (Su) for fly, which means it is like a giant meatball on the ground.

Granted, a dragon, demon or the like will beat it down in no time, but that is when you put it behind you and get protection from SLA's or breath weapons.

I have seen this work to great effect (imagine some of the encounters in Spire of Long Shadows if the enemies couldn't fly or cast spells and had to rely on plain melee attacks). Trust me, it is ruinous.

About 1-2 rounds with an archer would end an unbuffed familiar flying or otherwise... so hope the enemies don't have any archers.

I think a better tactic than flying is to have a tiny familiar that can stealth well.

Yes very true. There might even be better ways to do it than this. Homunculus as a familiar, maybe? Hmmm...

Re: Tiny Hut

Good catch on this often underrated spell. When outdoors, the (invisible) wizard can levitate/fly/dim door into the sky and create a Tiny Hut shaded to be the color of the sky (more or less, DM will get involved here). From there, it is all good as he rains down hell while being very, very difficult to spot. Since the wizard can move about in the full sphere, guessing his location is nearly impossible even if the sphere is spotted from the ground.

Re: Secure Shelter

This one is like Tiny Hut on steroids if you do it right. By casting from a scroll or wand, you can create a very handy defensive fortification in a hurry. Use it to block a 20' corridor or entrance to a dungeon room (most rooms in dungeons are bigger than 20 x 20 x 10 and have door smaller than 20' wide), so it doubles as a Wall of Stone until you can actually cast the spell. Face the door toward you and the windows toward the location where hostiles are likely to come, giving you a place to fight with cover that is every bit as good as a stone fortress if desired or just seal the corridor/doorway completely. Use a few scrolls or charges to build an instant stone fortress in the wild, complete with a courtyard, to hold off those ever-present hordes on the plains. You can also put a shelter inside a Tiny Hut to disguise it for camping purposes as their AOE's are the same.

Re: Cloudkill

You can get much more utility out of this spell by casting it and following it up with a wall spell or arcane lock on the dungeon door. The cloud moves, but only if the cloud has someplace to go, otherwise it just slaughters those inside it, remaining a 20'r, 20' tall cylinder of death. For example, a 12th level caster can put up a circular wall of stone 30' in diameter and 15' tall that fully contains a cloudkill (with some poison leaking over the top and away). If the room or corridor the enemies are in is 40' wide or smaller, a cloudkill + a wall is enough to kill them outright.

Re: Bonded Items

I understand your dislike of them, but once Teleport becomes available, losing an item is not really a big deal. Casters in my group teleport back to some very safe place once spells are depleted anyway (why wouldn't they?). Quite often, they spend only 10-15 minutes in the dangerous area before retiring for the day. Unless your adventures are always "save the world in three days", high-level types will have the wherewithal to retreat, wait a week for a new item and return to finish the job.

BTW, good job on putting together the page!

Lich-Loved: While that AMF trick may protect you from magic in a way, it removes all your magic items and defensive buffs most of the time. I'd often rather be invisible, myself. If you're mauled by a giant while in the AMF, you're pretty much defenseless.

True enough. It is only useful as a buff when facing against powerful casters. Then again, that is when it is also at its best as an offensive weapon. You wouldn't want to put it up against a group of giants (that is what mirror image + displacement is for), but you would against a beholder, lich, incorporeal undead and the like.

Antimagic field is more useful than you give it credit for. Cast it on your familiar (a flying familiar is much nicer, like the air elemental available through Improved Familiar), since familiars can receive spells with a target of You. Have said familiar hover near enemy caster types and enjoy their tears. Have them fly around to remove illusions, quench light or darkness, prevent teleporation, topple levitation or flying, and suppress buffs or (Su) abilities. This tactic ruins casters of all types and makes encounters against monsters with strong (Sp) or (Su) and weak melee abilities (beholders, medusa, naga and dozens of others) trivial.

To use it as a buff, have the familiar follow the rogue/monk/figher/animal companion or hover behind the wizard so he can cast and step "back" into a bubble that is far better than a Globe of Invulnerability (no more dragon breath, for example). With a bit of work, a caster and a familiar can use the delay and ready actions so that whenever the wizard is not casting, he is protected by AMF, or alternately, the familiar is Readied to move the AMF away from the wizard upon pre-arranged command.

Using AMF in this manner is something I equate to scry and die so I do not encourage it in my games (where the spell target has been changed from You to The Caster to prevent this situation from arising), but it is technically allowed by the RAW.

Don't forget that dopplegangers advance by class level. This means you can have a doppleganger actually be a warlock/rogue (for example) or any other class. If you are concerned about CR of the resultant doppleganger, you could ave the doppleganger just be a warlock, and oddly "fail" when making trap search checks and the like, though this takes a bit more panache on the part of the player, requires the other players to not overly scrutinize the replaced player's rolls and/or requires some of your support. Basically, the player of the rogue can play a doppleganger warlock and when doing rogue-like things, he just isn't as effective. You can hep in this as well by allowing the players of the doppleganger/warlock to roll trap checks, sneak attacks and do other thief-like things normally and just not add in the damage or tell the player that he failed to find a trap or whatever. This lets the player that is helping you have an easier time acting the part and provides the proper misdirection to others in the party. In the game world in the heat of battle or when creeping around the sewers, it is unlikely that the other party members are going to notice that the rogue's blows aren't as strong as they should be or that the rogue is somewhat noisier than usual. I am certain that between you and the player, you can fool the rest of the group.

For example, I replaced a spiked chain tripper fighter with the player's help. The doppleganger wasn't nearly as skilled as the fighter with the spiked chain, but of course had to use it to keep up the charade. The player never adjusted his to-hit and other rolls. Instead, I let him roll "normally" and then adjusted the rolls on my side of the screen to account for the doppleganger's hidden weakness. The player helped out by not trying to trip people as often and by fudging die rolls here and there when no one was looking. To the rest of the party, the fighter was just having a bad time of it. The entire group was so focused on the story and their character they never thought twice about the fighter; it worked perfectly.

*casts thread necromancy*

Just a word back to those that are interested or facing the same issue...

My players had a great time trying to hold off the wight horde and tangling with the transformed Loris. On the second day of the siege, they scraped together their gladiatorial winnings and used Planar Ally to summon a Astral Deva to help them for 12 days. With an at-will Holy Word, the Deva can render harmless all wights in an 80ft diameter for 1d10 minutes. She then bashed them with her +3 Mace of Disruption. Given the dozens of other clerics capable of this same approach in the city (not to mention the use of Planetars by higher ranking clerics), the wights were hard put to it indeed. The outcome was pretty much the same as the one I gave above, though the characters believed that the acquisition of their ally played a decisive roll in the victory.

Now that the players have seen the power of angels against the undead, I am fairly certain they will endeavor to secure another Deva for their expedition to the Spire of Long Shadows. This will ensure all undead with 11 HD or less are basically removed from every battle and all other undead must contend with a powerful foe. I may even have to bump up the difficulty of the scenario depending on how things play out initially.

Interesting...

I would give the tadpole some mental type powers, perhaps suggestion, detect thoughts, minor image or perhaps something out of the psionics handbook. Now I wouldn't necessarily run these spells as written, but instead create something a bit unique, perhaps they only function on her when she is injured, or tired, or dreaming. At any rate, you could do any of the following to her:

(1) Have her roll spot and listen checks for no reason. Whatever the result, tell her she thought she heard something but it turned out to be nothing.
(2) Have her roll a listen check while sleeping. On a success, she wakes, certain she heard furtive noises in her room or from the hallway or whatever. Investigation shows nothing.
(3) This is one I used in HoHR: announce to the group that you have something important but private to tell one of them, and in order to maintain verisimilitude, you will be meeting with each one of them for a moment away from the table. Pull each person aside and have a brief smalltalk conversation with them, letting them know that they are not the person you needed to talk to, but that they cannot let any of the other players know this. This heightens paranoia in the group, as everyone becomes suspicious for no reason. Occasionally during one of these personal sessions, tell the player with the tadpole that she notices <whoever is most suspicious in the party> has been acting strangly, but is very adroit at covering it up, and either by luck or skill, her character has noticed the behavior (all the better if you have each player bring dice with them and make a few nonsense rolls while they are away). There is nothing to accuse the other character of yet, but something is *definitely going on*. Of course, said character is doing nothing wrong, the affected character only perceives it that way. This can be very nasty right after HoHR for obvious reasons. I can assure you it played havoc with my group in the final scenes of HoHR.
(4) The character has a sense of being spied upon or watched. Perhaps she is being scried upon....?

If your players are sticklers for the rules, they may expect to make Will saves for these effects or have you make them on their behalf. If that is the case, make the save for the character using all normal bonuses (set the DC to something they might make with a bit of luck), and if the character saves, let them know that they felt a strange assault upon their senses that rapidly passes.

The idea is to start to build a sense of paranoia over time with the character. Once the seeds are planted, follow up on the player's actions and use those as a spring board for further side conversations (Last time you told me you wanted to keep an eye on <the untrustworthy guy>. While you have not seen anything incriminating yet, you have noticed that he is now careful around you, as if aware of your intent. You also thought you saw him/her secreting something in his bedroll/tent/pack/whatever earlier today, but it happened quickly enough that you could not say for certain what it was).

If you wanted to be really nasty or once you feel the players have been through enough, you could give the paranoia a bit of time to sink in and then mention to the group in an offhand manner that while you are not a fan of intra-party conflict and you would rather see issues in the party resolved through peaceful discussion among the characters, you understand that sometimes fighting among characters is inevitable and that you are prepared to handle such an event. Refuse to answer any questions the players may ask and tell them to work it out in character. You may need to be careful with this one; I almost lost a PC at the hands of his friends due to paranoia in HoHR.

-LL

Damn LL, you are in Dayton? I may have to look you up next time I take leave to come back to Springfield.

Sounds fine to me! RPG gamer population is in decline, we gotta stay in communication with each other to keep the hobby alive.

There is an outside chance I may be able to help you out. I run a weekly 3.5 game in Dayton and play in another 3.5-PFRPG hybrid game that runs monthly. Furthermore, I know of at least two other groups that are playing in the Dayton and Fairborn area that may need players and I have connections in Cincinnati as well. While I do not have an opening right now at my weekly game, I am always on the lookout for players in the area and might be able to hook you up with a group. If you would like to talk more, please reply here with an email address and I will email you.

-LL

Cosmo -

Please cancel my subscription prior to shipping The Bastards of Erebus.

Thanks,

LL

Very interesting, Lich-Loved. I was unable to run the wight catastrophe, but I was sold on the idea that 15,000+ wights swarming out of the arena would spell doom for Waterdeep/Free City/whatever. I was planning on using mob rules from DMG II when running that scenario, and a wight mob's DC to shrug off the level drain is in the upper 20s I believe. Not only would ordinary citizens be completely doomed, but even seasoned guardsmen and adventurers would be hard-pressed to pass that save. The wights would multiply exponentially within a matter of roughly 30 minutes, and within 12 hours, all of Waterdeep would be overrun, and those who survived would be running out of Waterdeep on foot, possible being chased by hundreds of wights. Powerful spellcasters like Maskar Wands and even the Blackstaff would have to flee, as there would simply be too many wights to deal with.

This is a perfectly fine interpretation of how things would happen. No one really knows how such things would actually play out, which is a Good Thing, as it allows the DM to do whatever he wants with the outcome. I think either approach is plausible and readily defended from a logical standpoint. In fact, I considered going your route and had the same misgivings you did about destroying a major city, so I split the difference and came up with my scenario - things get ugly enough for the characters to know how badly they failed and the loss of life and ruin is foreshadowing what will happen everywhere if the Age of Worms comes to pass.

Meh, there are no good ways to handle it should the PCs fail and every DM will need to devise something of this sort. I believe I have found the way for my game and I hope others can find something palatable for theirs.

I should also mention what the PCs will be doing through all of this. If you own the Heroes of Battle splatbook, then you already know, but if you do not, I plan on the PCs running through a series of event-based encounters that give them them the opportunity to take place in various battles and skirmishes over the 6 day siege of Waterdeep (think Curse of the Crimson Throne's Edge of Anarchy module but with undead everywhere). I have adventures into the sewers to aid the Plumber's Guild, rescue missions for someone important holed up inside a building, leading squads of men in battle, the desperate holding of defensive positions against hordes of onrushing enemies and the dealing of one-of-a-kind undead menaces created by the burst of necromantic energy at the arena. I also foresee a showdown with Loris Rakim, in which he may be defeated or flee to the Wormcrawl Fissure if he is routed from Waterdeep.

Could you post your thoughts on how to contain the undead so they don't spread to the rest of Breland and beyond?

Well...

IMC, the Free City is Waterdeep (a coastal metropolis) and the arena is located outside the walls proper, just outside the South Gate. Inside this gate is the South Ward, a huge group of lower-income houses. In summary, what happens is that 15,000 or so wights pour from the stadium hungry for the life force of the living. Some flee into the countryside, but most head into the city and begin causing havoc. It doesn't take long for the city guard and other interested powers to learn that their city is under attack, and they put a contingency plans into motion:

(1) The sewers are closed and grates are dropped by the Plumbers Guild.
(2) The militia is mobilized and gathers in Virgin's Square, which is in a somewhat removed portion of the city relative to the undead.
(3) Tens of thousands of ordinary citizens flee the South Ward, heading north. In their rush to flee, a number of fires begin (probably from uncontrolled smithies, cooking fires and dropped torches). Behind this fleeing mob is the wight horde, killing everyone they can find. However, the South Ward is densely inhabited and it just takes time for the wights to kill that many people. Additionally some people barricade themselves into their home and although they are eventually overcome, they delay some of the wights while the undead root them out.
(4) By the time the military is really ready to deal with the issue, about half of the South Ward is under undead control and a number of large fires, whipped by the coastal winds, are spreading throughout the ward.
(5) Wizards are coordinated and large stone and/or iron walls are conjured into key locations to block roads and thoroughfares, effectively limiting the undead to the South Ward area. Where such magical help is not readily available, barricades are thrown down and manned by troops and a cleric or two. Militia take up position in the houses nearby, so the only way deeper into the city is through these fortified positions. Clerics place Hallow spells with Death Ward embedded in these fortified areas and in other areas where the military expects a battle. All of these fortifications are initially placed well outside the immediate area threatened by the undead.
(6) The fires become extremely deadly for the undead army and basically do most of the work in killing them off. While initially accidental, the military sees how powerful simply scorching the city is. With walls of iron and stone preventing expansion deeper into the city plus the city's own walls, the South Ward becomes a crucible for the undead. The militia sets blocks and blocks of the city on fire to further contain the spread of undead. Citizens are pressed into action to keep the flames from spreading deeper into the city but spellcasters also manipulate the winds, weather and the fires themselves to keep burning as long as possible and sweeping toward the undead horde.
(7) Several pitched battles are fought as the undead try to break out of the ring of fires and magical walls that are slowly closing in on them, but their defeat is only a matter of time. After 6 solid days of fighting, the bulk of the undead are vanquished.

This victory is not without its costs. About 50,000 citizens are killed, the entire South Ward is destroyed by fire, leaving another 40,000 homeless. Portions of the Trade and Dock Wards are also completely destroyed and will need to be rebuilt.

While a horde of self-propagating undead may seem insurmountable, keep in mind that a very large D&D city has tremendous resources in terms of financial wealth and most importantly magical power to thwart such an attack. For all of their power, the wights cannot fly (so they have very limited intel on where the people are or the military is and what they are doing), are unable to craft tools of war, are completely unskilled with weapons they do find, they cannot climb effectively and they are largely unorganized. Their worst weapon is that they can level drain, but judicious use of hallow spells and death ward can do much to blunt this ability. Wizards can make a great deal of stone or iron walls in a day, which allows the horde to be channeled to points where the military is strongest and ready to deal with them. Couple all of this with flying spellcasters that can operate above the horde with impunity and you can see how the battle may not be so cut and dry as it initially seemed.

Now, I still think that the city would be hard pressed indeed if it were not for the fire strategy that mostly arose by accident, but in my version of the battle it just so happened that the accidental fires were the military's biggest ally and their use of a "scorched earth" strategy was the tipping point that allowed victory, albeit a costly one. And of course, many wights went into the countryside and some slipped into the city ahead of the barricades, so the city is going to be troubled for many years to come by these escapees; the victory was by no means complete.

After reading some of the other threads on GoW I have decided to remove the module altogether. I will still have the PC's return to Diamond Lake to rescue their former teacher from the clutches of Illithane so they will still have the satisfaction of returning the many favors Allustan has done for them in the past as well as bring closure to their time in Diamond lake.

As far as what I am doing in the interim, the party did fail to stop Loris' plans and they were suitably shocked and terrified at the outcome of the Champion's Games. The party has decided to stay in the Free City to help rectify the situation. I have taken Kang's advice and will run the ensuing effort in a Heroes of Battle-style adventure. It turns out that this approach fits perfectly with the story theme and gives the characters a chance to remedy a situation they could have prevented. It also gives me the chance to use some of the more outrageous undead in the various Monster Manuals.

Perhaps when they are finished with this adventure and return to Diamond Lake I will find a way to take the best parts of GoW (and there are good parts to it) and make it into a mini-module that is more focused on the AoW.

Thanks to everyone for the advice!

Thanks for the advice, all. Spoilers below!!

I forgot to mention a few things. My group has been playing together for 20 years or more, they know the game pretty well. Since they also have 6 characters, I have made a few adjustments to the modules so far, mainly giving certain foes max HP or adding more mooks to the fight. Also, the group plays through an entire module at one level below the recommended starting level (so they have played completely through Champion's Belt as 6 level 8 characters). At the end of each module, I level the group to something appropriate for the start of the next module and make sure they are approximately where they need to be for WBL. Thus from an XP and WBL standpoint they should be ok regardless if they run GoW as written or not.

If I skip GoW, my group will jump from 8th to 13th (I would say 12th, but SoLS is so deadly that we will do 6 13th level characters), which is a large jump indeed. They can handle the bigger characters without issue, so my primary concern is what the characters will lack if they skip the story elements of GoW. I think all that they will miss is the piece of the Rod of Seven Parts and of course they will need to get information from Allustan to direct them to Magepoint.

I can see a couple of ways I could advance the story without GoW and explain the character's power gain:

Option 1: Post CB Montage
Based upon my character's actions in Champions Belt, it is exceedingly likely that they will fail to fully thwart Loris' plans. I could see an off-screen montage where the characters deal with the longer-term ramifications of their failure under the arena, returning to follow up with Allustan after they put things aright. This gives a plausible reason to advance the characters significantly and hand out appropriate wealth without having to deal with the Wind Dukes again. Upon returning to Diamond Lake, they can hook up with Allustan, learn what they need to know about Magepoint and deal with the dragon before setting off for the SoLS.

Option 2: CB Aftermath adventure
I may run a custom scenario rather than GoW in order to deal with the problems created at the end of CB. While this custom module would not account for a full run through GoW, this module plus a lesser montage would bridge the gap nicely. Once complete, the characters can return to Diamond Lake as mentioned in Option 1 above.

Of the two of these, I like Option 2 much better. Can anyone point me to a thread that discusses running a custom CB-failure aftermath adventure? Also, if anyone has any great ideas for this, I would love to hear them!

My 6 players are just finishing the Champion's Belt. Next up is a return to Diamond Lake to deal with the events in A Gathering of Winds.

The more I read the module, the less I understand its purpose to the overall story. I sort of see how the Whispering Cairn was designed to bring the group together and all, but a return to the Cairn and the Wind Dukes - why? We are approaching the half-way point in the arc and the players know next to nothing about the Age of Worms other than what little they gleaned from the cults in TFoE. All of the other adventures have only been obliquely related to the Age of Worms. Sadly, it appears that GoW is destined to repeat this, especially because the players will know far more about the Wind Dukes than Kyuss by the end of this module. Talk about the mother of all red herrings.

My group is pretty confused at this point already, struggling to understand what the Wind Dukes have to do with the Age of Worms. A return to the Cairn, especially one loaded with Wind Duke references, is only going to confuse them further. Is there any reason (from a story arc perspective, I can see the crawl is a good one) to even play through A Gathering of Winds beyond the dragon encounter (which relates to the AoW of course) and getting the lead to Magepoint? Is there something critical beyond the conversation with Allustan the party needs from the Cairn?

Please cancel my Pathfinder subscription AFTER mailing issue #24; I would like to complete the Legacy of Fire series.

Thank you!

-LL

I gave this some thought and I dismissed it. I gave it some more thought and it made it onto my "maybe" list. And then I gave it yet more thought, and have come to the decision it is my second favorite (behind the awesome fleshwarper). This is a very workable villain; I am certain my group would be shocked to find the mastermind behind their troubles was such an unexpected and effective mastermind.

I think you are likely to go on to the next round, and that will be *the round* for you. Your Leaves of the Autumn Dryad needed mechanical work, but it was a great item. Similarly, this is a great concept as well; if you can pull off the execution, then you will be well placed to continue to advance. If you can't get the stat block right, then I fear you will eliminated, something I really would not like to see happen for it is clear you have talent.

Good luck!