Loviatar's Whipping Boy's page

saw this yesterday...

anyone else?

The Jade: i haven't been bombarded so yes please

mwbeeler: your point is valid but IMHO not for those who knew about the giveaway and would have downloaded it if they could have

CURSES! i forgot about this and i missed out on Monday's goodies. Does anybody want to help me out with DCC #51.5 The Sinister Secret of Whiterock. wassupdarren@hotmail.com. much appreciated if anybody can, thanks!

i realise that this debate seems to be over, therefore i am adding to it :)

here's how i see the sequence of events were i to try it on my group:
1. characters make a deal with Ahazu that they can contribute to and their alignments/consciences can live with
2. demon lords and the Abyss lose all cred
3. players lose interest, are easily distracted
4. and THAT'S WHEN they look down and notice the train tracks they're on, use that as an excuse to quit game and find one they can believe in

On The Abyss and Demon Lords and Their Plots
- good characters should feel that their sanity is under attack, the air they breathe is conspiring to corrupt them from within and tempt their flesh from without the instant they set foot in the joint
- you have to dirty up your soul so it's not recognised and EATEN
- you play by their rules on their ground - if this isn't the place for unreasonable moral/ethical absolutes and having to choose from horrible choices with no room to dictate or maneuver, then where is?
- if it was possible for mortals to vex demon lord plots and get away clean, they would not bother starting them

On Ahazu's Deal (mag not to hand)
- he's not in a position to totally dictate terms given his circumstances, IMHO the deal is as sweet as any out there - 66 days grace instead of a soul now? SWEET
- i would expect some measure of bad faith in a deal made with a CE being
- grabbing something else out of the Abyss to replace Shami: not even a little bit evil IMHO
- a soul deal WITH AN ESCAPE CLAUSE: questionable but only if the characters believe they're not up to the job or they think the DM-as-Ahazu is not going to honor it - if you don't trust your DM not to screw you then you have bigger issues as a group than this quandary

On Deus Ex Machina
- sure experienced players can spot it, doesn't mean they want to get off the ride. Unless you're jaded beyond recognition, I don't see how it's possible to get bored with this standard of raw material - I think Wells is one of the best instalments yet

In Short
- want to stop the savage tide? this is what it costs, otherwise enjoy your purity in a world gone mad (sorry i couldn't help myself)

having said that, i also will be beefing up Shami's advice to be more specific and practical. Even toying with the idea that Ahazu's book gives the PC's some control over her in some capacity so she can accompany/vouch for them/advise in Enemies (perhaps remotely).

rant almost over, i just felt that Big D (et al) deserved some respect before we squish one of his icky heads off (or whatever's happening). Now back to my pit of despair to wail some more over the END OF THE MAGAZINE! WAAAA

hmmm....
things the grapple rules were not made to deal with....
the female PC in my group is a certain type of maniac who may accept the offer/s, thinking it's some part of the ritual needed to get to Shami (as i have tested her similarly in the past). Or she might do it just for the jollies. Now i don't want to get into compatible anatomy discussion or exactly what the succubi have to do or how long will it last. What I want some advice on is this:
I assume that there was one succubus per gorallon in the past. Assuming the PC can keep 3 occupied at once, will the 4th one attack out of sheer frustration?

maybe the delivery gods are fickle this month...i think some wayward #138's may have come Down Under since I got mine last week, about 3 weeks ahead of schedule for Oz! hadn't even finished reading #137!

i would also dearly love to see the archive links reinstated (particularly for AoW) so i can browse. the archives answer questions that i didn't even know i had, before i have them...

Adelaide here too

this info may be of no use to you but anyway:
i'm reasonably sure that these two included trips to the Plane of Shadows
issue #31 "beyond the glittering veil" by steven kurtz
issue #35 "twilight's last gleaming" by the one and only james jacobs

don't ask me....i did a double take when i first saw the worm-thingys in King Kong!
and as a side note, can we make sure to continue on with some more phallic imagery in ap3 please (volcano on the verge of erupting, slimy worms writhing in rifts and fissures...i mean REALLY)
:)

Have you guys seen these?

I'm interested in your thoughts, as DMs, on using a product like this.

Thanks!

--Erik Mona

bit of a bump for this thread, just spent the last few minutes reading it, very entertaining

so has anyone actually used the cards in a game yet? any comments on their practicality, durability etc

i'm surprised no geezers like myself have chimed in on their experience with the 2e card sets (wizard spells, cleric spells, psionic powers, and MAGIC ITEMS) - don't get me started on the 1e monster card packs! how quaint they seem now
all still happily gathering dust in storage, never used. despite how primitive they compare to the new art, my first thought was "am i going to let my pizza/chip/chinese food eating, hygiene-questionable-enough-to-attract-carrion-crawlers group of drooling card-benders get their greasy paws on these? NEVER!!" an opinion hardly likely to change even if my 3e group seems interested in the new version. i say let them buy it themselves or let them eat photocopy!
point taken about lamination but that would perhaps spoil their resale value in the year 20xx when someone as desperate as me to recapture their youth and beauty wants to buy a pristine set at a premium to get a transient rush of nostalgia (which i just got from a few minutes of reading these boards - luvly!)

mayhem out

so...when is the Overload for AP3 going to be available?

it'll be out when it's out

i want it NOW!!

give the dungeon staff a break, they do a good job and this is free bonus material

i don't know you but you must acknowledge my outrage and senses of betrayal and entitlement, waaah!

hahahaha

can we break 700 posts next time pls

:)

you may also want to check out the "samurai vs knight" article in dragon #323. a comparison of blades, fighting styles and just about everything else

thanks again for the super-fast reply!

i guess in essence i wanted to make sure that whatever plans may need to be devised to get the pc's on track weren't going to conflict with AoW canon, if there is such a thing. yes i know what you're going to say, AoW canon = whatever works for you and your group. just a dose of premature panic really as my group is nowhere near this juncture and probably won't be until d&d 4.0! when kyuss will probably be ceo of paizo

thanks again

i'm still not sold on the idea that the supposedly neutral Order sees fit to take these secrets out of the world, sacrificing themselves in the process, only to rig it so that anyone who succeeds in the trials unintentionally hands them back to all and sundry (including their enemies). just seems incredible and counterproductive. i guess i'm with Sayren-lei on this one. of course you can shred a lot of fantasy situations by applying too much logic. oh well, i'll get over it.

i would however be VERY careful of letting the pc's know beforehand that this is going to be the result of accessing the fountain. i am playing it so that the wild watchers don't know what's going to happen (as written, it seems that they are dropping a subtle hint). either that, or have Darl Quethos and company be a LOT more successful in their efforts ie they'll do it if the pc's back off.

once they've played through the vision and are back on an empty Tilagos Island, i would stage a scene to let the pc's know what they've done, basically thus:
the storm clouds are still there as is the fountain. a tornado/vortex forms directly above the fountain and the clouds are being sucked into it. the fountain froths, bubbles and eventually explodes/implodes and disappears, sending countless ribbons of floating black script into the heavens which then speed off in all directions (mostly southwards).

ok, next problem, back to the beginning of the adventure.
my main worry is this: all of my players have skill focus (paranoia), so they're very sensitive to being manipulated into doing other people's dirty work. seeing as Lashonna virtually has "hidden agenda" tattooed on her forehead, i'm concerned that they might balk at the idea of finding Dragotha's phylactery when it seems he doesn't want to do anything while it's hidden. so, assuming these aren't answered in #133/134, the questions are:
1. is Dragotha actually doing anything about the AoW or is he waiting on his phylactery
2. does Lashonna know or share the answer to question 1 if the pc's ask her about it
3. if the pc's guess that they are being used as pawns to fulfill the prophecies and that the AoW won't come to pass without their involvement, how can an anti-climax be avoided if they want to sit back and see what happens instead of going to Tilagos? can Dragotha start tearing up the countryside looking for his phylactery? (why he hasn't been doing this already or making any guesses as to its location for 1500 years is another question which i hope is answered in #133 or so). can the vision of Darl Quethos and co onboard ship be expanded to let slip that Dragotha is their financier/co-conspirator? some better motivation than a page out of a mad wizard's journal and the agenda-tainted advice of Miss Silver Tounged.

all advice and suggestions appreciated, thanks in advance

thanks for the super-fast reply!

ah the joys of deus ex machina and supposed "neutrality" ie "we know what's good for the world"
real balance would be non-interference and non-secret keeping to begin with, me thinks
the arrogance! perhaps i'll stage it so that my pc's can see just how manipulative this band of upstarts are before they encounter the wild watchers
then again, i don't want a TPK lol

huge heaps of praise also from me. just compare the amount of consternation & errata on the boards from the start of the AP to now, markedly declined, well done all.

spoiler questions about the Library of Last Resort...
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1. is the concept art in the Overload supposed to represent anything in the published adventure? or was it just a red herring designed to lead nosy players astray...lol
2. it's been niggling me: other than advancing the story, i don't understand why the druids would have designed the library/fountain to essentially "fail" to keep it's secrets the first time it was successfully accessed. i know it's well protected by the trials, but why should the end result be "secret knowledge for everyone"? imc, i would portray this as an unintended & unforeseen side effect, perhaps with the pc's accidentally doing something extraordinary to unleash the lore. would not this seem more logical? any thoughts? am i missing something?

other than that, keep up the good work

You guys are the best.

--Erik

on behalf of all posters:

thanks for the reply!
i'm in total agreement about some of the later efforts in the WG series, apart from being non-Gygax it seemed they weren't even trying to "keep the faith"
now i know why
thanks again!

well of course intense interest has been piqued and i was wondering, Mr Mona:
which adventures make the "stinker" list? anything non-Gygax or non-Hickman, or is it a bit more specific?
do tell :)

(erik - i was under the impression that any post on any thread could be used as a letter - are the threads that boring?)

Dear Dungeon/Erik,

First of all, let me add my voice to the chorus of praise for the Age of Worms Adventure Path. Now I have an entreaty for you - PUHLEASE pretty please devote more space to the last few adventures in the series so that the statblocks don't get the lion's share of the page-space. I'm reminiscing on dreadful memories of reading the last three SCAP instalments and how the atmosphere and story (which the Paths tout as their reason for being) seemed to devolve into a linear series of high-power combats with nothing else to fire the imagination. Fine for some - not for me: if I'm not engaged in reading it, I'm not inclined to run it. If you're going to use a truckload of templates, get a bigger truck!

And my vote for AP4 (seeing as AP3 seems to be decided already)
More MORE MAURE! I don't want to be a senior citizen by the time I see the entire dungeon in print...but I would settle for an entire Path written by you heeheehee

Love your work

Darren Tietz
Adelaide
South Australia

first of all, i add my voice to the chorus of praise for the majority of both Paths. I cherrypick them mercilessly for my own use. (Naturally) I have an opinion on how they can be improved as a series concept, or *shudder* even abolished! Read on if you dare....

for AP3, PLEASE TRY TO AVOID: intricate and convoluted apocalyptic cults and conspiracies that are either impenetrable to characters who aren't in the know or useless when trying to motivate them. i just don't know how many more doom-laden "it's up to you to stop the end of the world" sagas my players can take.

also PLEASE TRY TO AVOID: the railroad doomsday timeline of one campaign year at most. my gripe here is as much with the xp award system, but in the AP model it is taken to an extreme that shows it's limitations. namely, once the AP is over, the characters still have their whole lives ahead of them and nothing to do (or prove, being epic level). (assuming they started young) the wet dream for power gamers comes to a screeching halt when they retire at the rheumy age of 20! this doesn't engender a whole lot of respect for the campaign world and it's important (and much older) personages. if this becomes a trend in the AP's, wily players may catch on and might start having thoughts like:
"why should i be content to defeat Adimarchus/Kyuss (etal) when i can take his place?" (dm headache ensues)
"why settle for a fixer-upper like Redhand when i can squish Manzorian like a bug and take Magepoint?" (after all, he is a lackadaisacal dawdler for not having found the fast track to epic level himself) (dm headache ensues)

shouldn't epic levels take many many years of game time to be earned? imc, combat xp awards are calculated based on teamwork and original initiatives to overcome obstacles, character development etc etc boring, but more realistic i feel.
as a bandaid to this, i suggest that characters age irrevocably (2-3yrs/instalment?) for exposure to otherworldly forces of corruption. no good deed goes unpunished!

a LOT of the board discussions and criticism of AoW seems to be directed at: (lack of) motivation, the use of plot devices & cliches, inconsistencies from one instalment to the next & other elements "unsuitable for my group of players"

so here's the kicker you've all been waiting for:
i hereby suggest that EACH and EVERY adventure in the magazine be de-fluffed of it's story, and given a sidebar treatment ("Scaling the Story"?) suggesting plot elements for those of us who like 'em, and also linking the adventure via bridging hooks to adventures in other issues. this could (imo) be helpful in alleviating the burden of extraneous story and leave more space to be devoted to the detail of the scenario, plus making it more generic and easily adapted to home campaigns and different tastes.

so i'm effectively calling for the abolition of the finite AP model in favour of a more open-ended approach. this is bound to be as popular as eating mold, but i and my players would rather have an independent choice of mold than be force-fed through a tube while in a coma (dramatic visualisation for effect)

rant over

BUZZ!!! talking to myself again "sigh"
also,
my personal solution (when i get round to running the Istivin arc which may end up being next millenium) will be one of two options:
your original submission ie Belgos by himself, somehow robbed of his free will by Derakhshan and augmented with some EEE powers
or
(despite my personal distaste and lack of expertise with templates) some kind of unholy spawn from a hidden nursery in hex R247, spirited away and raised (ie parented) by Derakhshan, vampiric succubus? or abyssal vampire?, again with some EEE powers

i think that solves my "18 years of loyalty" question

(back to some heavy Petting)
(Tjs Qfuu, uif tvckfdu tffnt up cf bddvtupnfe up uif tztufnbujd tisfeejoh pg ijt bewfouvsf eftjho mphjd, j tvhhftu zpv uijol pg bopuifs xbz up voefsnjof ijt NBTTJWF FHP)
too much time on my hands today :)

Hey, I said it was just Belgos in mine and the rest was the foul plottings of...well, just look above.

Actually you bring up a good point in regards to Belgos and Silussa. Belgos sat around for some time with a stake in his chest (not conducive to leveling) before being found and "resurrected" by the drow. And Silussa spent a while dead before the two retired to guarding their little backwater cave. That being said, you will note that Belgos did gain 10 levels and Silussa 8, so it was intended that they show the progress of the years in their passive guardian careers.

I agree with you. Such blasts from the past should not be static (unless the story has them in suspended animation or something). An attempt is made to avoid this, but if unsuccessful the failure is mine.

first off, hope all of u had a great xmas and new year celebration!

i'm certainly not seeing a failure in including 1e in new adventures, it's just the context, seeing as it's meant to appeal to those of us who remember the classics with fondness

i can't help thinking that if Vault of the Drow were converted to 3.5 that Belgos and Silussa would get very similar write ups to what they have in #119, "on par with the threat that they posed 20+ years ago." ie 12th level PC's. if 1e vampires, demons, et al (monsters) could have had class levels, apart from being too ghastly to contemplate, it just wasn't possible. so pardon my rudeness, but to say that they only earned their levels in the interim seems like a cop out based on the differences between editions

how long did u figure that they were dead before the drow revived them? for the rest of the events in D3 and Q1, a few months at most? (see *** below)

to quote myself again, "haven't really moved on in the world": powerful CE beings, i wonder at just how loyal and grateful they should be to be revived. their current situation seems like a step down from who they were in VotD. are they so easily cowed into (what seems like) prolonged guarddog servitude? for how many years i can't remember offhand - 18***?

i just have fond memories about the encounter with these two meriting a "special lethality" warning from EGG in VotD, a feeling which i guess is what all this nostalgia guff is on about, esp in these days of CR and EL (blecchh, for me the dragons don't go on holiday just becuse you're first level)

***PLEASE forgive me (and correct me) if i'm amiss in the timeline or story (the mere thought of researching my opinions makes me feel ill), i would love some expert input. *slurp* i think the Istivin arc was the best thing in Dungeon at the time and jumped from a great height on the SCAP resolution which read like a piece of dry toast in comparison. *extract nose from unmentionable area*

What do you mean petrification? You have to be prepared to make a save against their blinding beauty.

GGG

having just seen Erik's pic, i second that

Careful, legend holds that he possesses a weapon of legacy: an orange rubber mouthball gag named Whammo The Muter.

Laugh now but that thing really irritates your lips on the side.

Jade, can i confirm on behalf of my Dark Mistress your witching hour appointment with the lash? and given this arrogant outburst, i dare say She will insist on the gag this time.

nice to see how we can reduce a reasonable feminist argument to giggling sexual perversion

i mean if the lady in the ad WANTED to solicit herself, then that would be OK by me and by Miss L, just the ad doesn't make it clear if she's in control or just desperate for a sale. a sale of what i hear u ask?

So you want me to slag someone?

If we are talking about least favorites, or to paraphrase Erik: things that just don't fly for me, then bending time and space to squeeze a bit of sentimental thought-candy into print does kinda bug me.

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have never played in my favorite D&D worlds, with my favorite villains and would look at an encounter like the one I discribed as overstated monster-in-a-box fare (especially without any sort of foreshadowing or development). So why not just save some space and put in a new monstrous couple as perhaps a wink-and-a-nod to the originals, but make them significantly different. I doubt the word count would have changed considering the set up they had to give to resurrect these characters.

To be clear. I have no problem with resurrecting old modules for 3.5 (like what WotC has done with "Tomb of Horrors" and "White Plume Mountain"). I have no problem updating settings (like Greg's triology does). I also don't have a problem with winks and nods to other settings and adventures (like Tenser's speech in a recent Dungeon or the editors adding bhuts to the monastary in "The Winding Way" in homage to X4, which was quite cool but robbed me of a proposal). What I do have a problem with is updating a setting and then leaving the characters the way they where when most of us were in junior high (at least by the "Average Age of...

I've never really given this that much thought before but I think I agree with GGG. The buzz of nostalgia suffers when you see that these iconic villains haven't really moved on in the world. Belgos and Silussa even in their current hermit-like existence should be closer to epic level villains instead of on par with the threat that they posed 20+ years ago. So if your group is a bunch of 30+yo dinos like mine who remember the classics, then it's a letdown.

BUT I have to disagree with "the kids" going and finding something else to do. Isn't it all new to them?

my 2c....
IMHO the more offensive things in recent Dragon & Dungeon mags are the "Goin' Postal" ads where a lady in a convention booth has to flaunt herself physically at a guy to get him interested in PBM!
what up with that?
what are the pros and cons of being a pro... at a con?

heh - still waiting for issue 129 in Australia :p

hmmm Thalendor

I just read The Spire of Long Shadows last night, having received it over the weekend and I, too, noticed and appreciated this. I actually logged on to start just such a thread myself! In addition to the prophecies, several of the artifacts mentioned I presume have been included in Dungeon adventures. They include:

Black Blade of Aknar Ratalla - #119 Tomb of Aknar Ratalla
Tome of the Black Heart - ???
Obsidian Eye - #120 The Obsidian Eye
Dread Forge - #120 Lost Temple of Demogorgon
Bindings of Erivatius - #123 The Quicksilver Hourglass
Hand of Vecna - ???

Here are the references I could find:

Spawn of Kyuss- Age of Worms AP
Demon tree - #122 Root of Evil
Fane of Scales - #106 The Black Egg
City in Shadows - #117-119 Shadows Over Istivin Arc
City in a Volcano - Shackled City AP

I can't believe I could have missed a Hand of Vecna adventure. That sounds so incredibly cool.

Tome of the Black Heart was of course none other than #112 Maure Castle

so what have we learned so far?
- RANDOM dice rolls can result in easy combats or TPKs
- campaign taste is individual
- a series of adventures written by different authors isn't going to be as cohesive as from the one author or as good as a homegrown campaign
- the writers and editors are human

at the risk of repeating myself from an earlier post on an old thread, what did Dungeon provide before the Adventure Paths? a series of seemingly unrelated adventures that those of us with enough magazines and little time to spare must have somehow strung together into something resembling a campaign. has so much changed that campaigns are now falling apart due to lack of interest?

i have always treated ANY Dungeon adventure, even the AP instalments, as one-shot deals and if they fit into a grand design of my own, then all well and good, otherwise they're out. the campaign overview which has been provided is IMHO just added gravy which ABSOLUTELY needs to be tweaked by individual DMs for their groups, foreshadowing etc etc whatever your group needs to keep interested.

i do agree about the errata - there's no easy solution but neither do i see it as a new or AP-specific problem. i suggest wait for the hardback if you don't have time to make fixes.

(LWB scurries back to She Who Must Be Obeyed for his deserved punishment for conversing with mortal scum)

C'mon, Lads, you can do better than this! I've decided to drop "return to the Temple". I may be way off here, but I flipped through it at a local store and it just seems so...plain. I just noticed the diary for the Shackled City, so I'll browse through that and see what happens.

what exactly are you looking for? it depends on what your party gets off on, whether they care to feel involved in an epic story or if they just want to bash things til they're open/silent/compliant/dead.

as i said in my original reply, i thought RttToEE was chockful of 1e-style goodness reminiscent of ToEE (duh), but it is a lot less varied than the SCAP, which has more of a 'storyline' with a whole organisation of bad guys and their nefarious plots and associates to discover and dismember, not to mention a flooding lake, erupting volcano, a couple of Outer Planes trips etc

depending on who you talk to, the SCAP plot is either great or too convoluted or boring or just right so it's all subjective. the RttToEE 'plot' looks a lot more straightforward and logical in comparison (but I am a diehard Monte Cook fan). IMHO i think ultimately the vision fractures a little in the hands of so many authors, which is why i'm reserving my judgement on the AoW (now if Erik Mona had written the whole thing I would give it a thumbs up sight unseen)

my Mistress wouldn't like this, but I think calling Tharizdun and the Elemental Princes 'plain' is asking for trouble!

(LWB slinks back to receive his due torture, only to find that She has gone to Glasya's Beauty Shop to have her nails sharpened, so he has to be content with self-flagellation:
'ow! oh yes! u BEAST! ooh! owie wow wow WOW!')

i think RttToEE was designed for a lot of 1e players like ourselves, very much like ToEE (some town & surrounds preamble then a massive multipartite dungeon crawl) but light on roleplaying, although a group that wants roleplaying is going to concoct it from any scenario.

the SCAP on the other hand has a lot of roleplaying opportunities built into the storyline, and more diverse locations (12, mostly dungeons too, one Abyss level, and more focus on the town and it's residents/conspiracy)

of course, the RttToEE is ver3.0 and the SCAP hardback is ver3.5

so if you want some 1e nostalgia, choose RttToEE, but if you want the latest and greatest choose the SCAP hardback (help this is starting to sound like a sales pitch)

although it looks very good so far, i reserve judgement on the AoWAP until i've seen it all, and in another thread i rambled on about the idiocy of starting a campaign when you haven't got the entirety of it in front of you (so i guess the 'shared experience' thing is lost on me, smacks of a nerd club, although the fact that i'm on the other side of the world from most of the action and we get our magazines at the very end of the cover month doesn't help)

(LWB looks behind him; is that enough independent thought for today Mistress?
booming but strangely enticing voice answers; YYYYEEEESSSS!
LWB bellycrawls naked over rusty razors back to She Who Must Be Obeyed to receive his deserved punishment...
ow! ow! ow! more! ow! OOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!)

just in case anyone is remotely interested in my 2c about this thread and APs in general...

i agree that all campaign background info should be made web-only in order to make more space for the adventures. not trying to quote policy, but even the AP instalments are intended to be easily used as generic one-shots. i wrote a letter some months back saying something similar about stat blocks & how they were compromising magazine space, particularly in high-level adventures (notably the last few instalments of the SCAP).

it boggles my tiny mind to think that maybe some of the DMs who have needed Overload so badly have been playing these adventures in the absence of a campaign overview. why even start if it's something you need and you haven't got it?
'sigh' what did we do before we could complain about the APs? we strung together seemingly disconnected adventures, and made the rest up! but i suppose those of us who (thanks to the generosity of the magazine staff) need to be led by the nose without having to use their own imagination and want everything at their fingertips yesterday are the ones more likely to complain when it's not 100% to their liking

hehehe i know this is raking over dying embers, i just don't want this thread to die!! and i wanted to be 666!!

(LWB goes back to his mistress to be flogged)

Dragotha's Lair may come in useful, any chance of posting some more links to old RPGA/Greyhawk adventures?