Mark A. Simmons's page

Great idea, Callum. I'd certainly buy this as long as it was of the same high production values as other PF releases.

Shorter, less background intensive/dependent adventures are also better introductions for new players, and help to inspire 'filler sessions' within a larger campaign or when a GM is missing a few regular players.

Pathfinder Quarterly ?

Many posters in that thread echoed what we've also seen here: that ganging up, particularly from a distance, works well on these guys but one or two attackers up close could be in for real trouble.

Weirdly, in my example the Cryohydra was mainly brought down by a two-weapon wielding fighter, who severed 4 of the creature's 7 heads over about 5 rounds.

Mind you, he was lucky, as I kept rolling badly and only landed about 8 bite attacks out of the c. 30+ the hydra attempted in the melee. In addition, the sorceror and the ranger opened up on it at range, while the cleric poured waves of channel negative energy onto the creature(he has the select feat so ignored the fighter...).

So, perhaps we're right: gang-up at a distance, and be prepared for a a nasty breath attack. Resist Energy all round, me thinks, as it would protect from each breath attack.

Kolokotroni wrote:

In my experience hydras have been single PC death machines.

Charm them, feed them, give them names.

-James

Ah... once my players had dealt with the Cryohydra, the cleric of Wee Jas (my PF game uses GH as a background) decided to speak to it's departing spirit, and convinced it that it should be reanimated to help the party. As it was only 5HD, his animate dead spell worked wonders... and 'Frosty the Zombie Cryohydra' was (un)born...

Oh, good times... Frosty blundered through the underdark like only a pet zombie hydra can, gumming all threats before him (it?) with his seven wonky bites and glassy eyed stares, and before eventually surcoming to a critical from the world's luckiest Kuo Toa guard.

Oh how my players mourned...

Hi Folks...

Good call, and the discussion has reminded me of something about Hydra's which has been bothering me for a while...

Does anyone else think that they are too tough for a CR4 creature?

A few weeks ago, my players encounted a seven-headed cryohydra (CR6)in a well known scenario. Out comes the mini, the hydra gets the initiative, and moves in for the kill. I turn to the Beastiary for a detailed look at the stat block, and notice that each head can breathe cold damage of 3d6 in a 15ft cone. Hurmm, that's 21d6 in a single attack which could (in this case)reach 2 PCs. Average damage of 73.5, but allows a reflex save for half of 36.75. Ouch. Party of 5x 5th level characters: only the fighter and the ranger have more full HPs than the half damage (other's are a sorceror, a druid, and a cleric).

Can you say TPK machine?

So, I fudged it spread the breaths around to avoid mayhem, and got a good long hand to hand fight out of it as they made sunder attempts to effect each head (as the rules stand). Still, the Hydra got multiple attacks of opportunity as no-one has improved sunder.

Great fight, and great fun (which is the point), but surely too hard for the CR as written.

What do other people think?

Woo... ! I love the city mapping aid... can't wait to print and cut out some of the buildings and build a city... excellent idea, folks. Break that mold...

oops: my finely crafted post seems to have been junked, and copied the text of an earlier post.

Doh... back to sleep...

I was just curious if anybody had any thoughts on how feminism has affected and influenced fantasy role playing games, especially a Dungeons and Dragons type game. In my opinion I believe the new 4.0 D&D is partially a failure to do feminist influence. No half orcs because it suggests rape. Before we just had to deal with the foolishness of having one page start every sentence with 'HE' and the next page 'SHE' for the core books, which to me was very annoying. Why can't it read 'The character', or 'the adventurer' ( I guess because it's easier to print 'He' and save money on publishing costs.)

To me the idea that you can't play a half orc because it suggests rape is just lunacy, but it's alright to chop up people with sword? What if in the D&D world the creators decided to just make everyone asexual? Then you don't have to worry about sex and you can change your books from He/she format to an It format. Hey that's a pretty good idea, I might have to go call the makers of D&D now.

Is there really even a place for feminism in the fantasy game market, where all of the different sexes are equal? What do you guys think?

My crew are now starting Zenith Trajectory...

Count so far is 3

1.) Life's Bazaar - Jaffar the Blessed, Half-Orc barbarian 2 - eaten by the minic in the treasure room of the the Malachite Fortress.
2.) Drakthar's Way - Didn't play this. Instead, the players went east up the river in my own version of Heart of Darkness. Surprisingly, they all (eventually) got back... a bit diseased but still standing...
3.) Flood Season - Jasper, Gnome Fighter 4 - Killed by Triel Eldurast, and Ruphus Laro, Cleric of Cuthbert 4 - also killed by Triel Eldurast.

Last night Gottrod's breath weapon almost claimed both Shensen Tesseril (Sorceror 5) and Six Lucky Jaguar (Druid 5), only falling to Elohir (Ranger 5) and Cryscar's (Fighter 4)final blows as they staggered on single hit points.

Just a few observations about what seems to be happening in England and Scotland.

Initially, 4e sold very well through specialist game shops, mainly to a targeted younger audience and die-hard collectors. There was also a major split between traditionalists (who looked forward to PF being released) and the "must-have-it-now" brigade who immediately jumped onto 4e. The latter characteristicly dumped one for the other, especially as many LFGS owners started to accept 3.5 items as trade-ins on 4e for future resale.

So, I found that I could buy up tons of 3.5 stuff for reasonable or even bargain prices right throughout 2008 and 2009. Then two things seem to happen: the credit crunch and the release of the PF playtest. A number of my LFGSs went under, and others pulled back on stock.

What's interesting now is that 4e seems to be sitting on shelves, while PF hardbacks tend to go quickly and require restocking. The Pathfinder modules however rose horribly in price due to the worsening exchange rate from about £10 when Rise was released up to £15 each by the time of Thieves, and from what shop staff say definitely only now sell to "those already in the know". You can also pay £12 for a new relase PF module or background book, well too expensive to break the market here.

Consequently, older PF paperback stuff now seems to be moving into sales and bargin bins across the land. This should worry PF publishers, as it encourages people like me in their core audience to wait until prices drop off considerably rather than buy straight away. So, as an example, on Saturday I bought The Pazio Treasure Chest for £7, a copy of PF23 for £7, a module for £2 and the Combat Tracker for £4. That's £21. Full prices before Christmas were a total of £62.

Sales through bookshops however are negligible. Bookshop stock over here is very different to that in the US or Canada, and game books have never really been heavily stocked due to distribution issues. Ergo, I've never seem PF in a bookshop.