Marios's page

I'm looking for ways to enrich the Alushinyrra experience for my group. I'll use the Battlebliss and Rapture of Rapture "encouters" plus some more combat encounters (some random combat of the "hey, who are these good guys?" type plus a confrontation with a local slave lord or "crime" boss in order to raise notoriety).

Still... I want more than combat. So, I'm looking for ideas for non-combat encounters that could lead to making the PCs notorious in Alushinyrra.

Any ideas are most welcome!

She would most definitely stick around sticking to her role until opportunity presents itself to do something better!

In my campaign Nurah's treachery was never found out. She managed to plant the Shadowblood in Aron's stuff, the party confronted him in an entirely miserable way causing him to run away (they later found him possessed by the shadow demon and promptly slaughtered him... but that's another story!).

I ruled that Nurah would bide her time till Drezen, see what happens there and act accordingly. To make a long story short, during castle Drezen's exploration (she had asked to tag along every major exploration / battle in order to "record" it) Nurah never had a chance to do anything because the party never found the secret door (where she was supposed to try to lock them in) and Staunton was felled in a single round by a well placed Deep Slumber spell. Thus, even though she was about to expose herself in order to help him, she promptly fell back (she was invisible as she usually was, something the PCs had agreed upon, so nobody detected any unusual behaviour).

Anyway, on to your base question! What happened next? Staunton was taken prisoner and Nurah devised (and flawlessly executed) a plan to rescue him. I intend to have both of them reappear during the Arushalae encounter!

I understand that in your campaign (where the PCs are suspecting her of treachery) such a feat would be much more difficult to perform, yet, when the siege begins the party will have so many things to do that it is inevitable that at some point their guard will lapse and she should be ready for that! At the very least she could wait to sneak away when in Drezen so that she could join Staunton.

Have her do something they'd remember her for! :)

So... my group is nearing Drezen and I just realised that the city is rather... empty!

I mean, sure, it's supposed to be ruined, but, hey, there are hundreds of human and tiefling troops stationed there and many more were there as well before Aponavicius decided to move the bulk of her forces south.

That bears the question then. What do these troops eat? The food and water reclaimed by the PC army would last only for a few days so there must be a way for them to resupply! Who repairs their weapons and armor? Where? Who provides mundane items? How do these troops entertain themselves? Who pays them and how do they spent their ill-earned wages?

Isn't there absolutely no kind of market / business in Drezen? I'm not expecting civilians, of course, but there must be some kind of infrastructure or else Drezen would collapse, in my opinion at least.

What is there for the PCs to conquer? Just a citadel and an empty shell of a city?

Help me flesh out Drezen!

Hello,

last night in my gaming session arose the question of wether SR takes effect against Glitterdust. I was certain that it should since the spell directly affected the creature but my players pointed out the spell entry which stated "Spell Resistance No".

Checking the "When Spell Resistance Applies" paragraph, it states under effect spells

Effect Spells: Most effect spells summon or create something and are not subject to spell resistance. Sometimes, however, spell resistance applies to effect spells, usually to those that act upon a creature more or less directly, such as web.

So, a caster trying to Web a creature must defeat its spell resistance first, right? Yet, Web's spell entry states "Spell Resistance No".

So...what's going on here? Does this simply mean, that the effect spell in general is not subject to spell resistance, but spell resistance still applies if there is a creature with SR in the area of the effect (and it applies for that creature only) or am I missing something?

Thanks a lot for your insight!

Well, here's what I'm planning to do for this encounter! (which will most probably run on Sunday; comments are welcome!)

a) Remove the Flesh Golem Hound entirely. Why the heck can't those trolls defeat it? They should be able to make mincemeat of it!

b) Change the trap reset to 5 minutes. Make the disable switch easy to spot. Make it such that if the switch is used while the elemental is summoned, it is dispelled.

c) Have the troll stuck where they are because of the trap. They tried to enter once and the elemental dropped one of them in the water. Unable to realise wether they were actually damaging the elemental or not, they retreated. Some time later, they tried again with the same results. They are not intelligent enough to realise what is happening, thus they are stuck.

d) Have the goblin slaves survive the battle with the trolls (unless the PCs prove to be really bloodthirsty!), then describe the troll attempts at entering the main building with as much detail as they can. The description can't be that detailed, of course, but intelligent players should be able to make out the details for themselves.

After this point they just need to make a plan which does not involve swimming (or at least not much of it)!

What do you people think?

I guess it has happened to each of us. At some point or another there would be a horde of weak (relatively to the PC) enemies who, really, have no option other than to try and pile upon the PC in hopes of dragging him down. Right?

How does it work though? The rules state that only the first creature to initiate the grapple makes a grapple check, all others roll an Aid Another check (which would be their CMB vs CMD 10, right?) to grant a +2 bonus to the grapple check. Does this imply that all creatures play at the same initiative? What if they did not originally have the same initiative? Do they have to delay?

Suppose that the grapple is succesful. In the next round the original grappler rolls to maintain the grapple. All his helpers roll again to aid him, right?

Suppose that they maintain the grapple. How many of them are allowed to perform actions afterwards? Only the initial grappler or all of them? I'd say the former, but...

What happens when the grappled creature tries to break the grapple? Does the original grappler get some bonus from his friends?

Thanks a lot for your insight!