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In a perfect world, the ability to summon a familiar would be a feat, and wizards and sorcerers could have the option to choose it or some other magic-related feat as a bonus feat at first level So do you have any other ideas on what to give to wizards and sorcerers at first level? And would you restrict the possible bonus feats to a limited list? Just a couple of questions...it is an intriguing idea, since most of my players never choose familiars...
The woman was sincerely intrigued by the place names on the map; she noted the Dry Steppes as a region that looked interesting. When I took my maps to a local sign shop to get them laminated, the worker there also seemed intrigued on where I obtained the maps. The quality of them made him understand why I wanted them laminated. I hate to burst your bubble, Amaril, but I paid $18 for all 4 maps to be laminated. It pays to visit a college campus...things tend to be cheaper there. And everyone that has seen them seems to wonder why I have maps of such strange places.... The quality of the maps after lamination was wonderful. The colors of the map seem more vibrant now. My thanks to Dungeon for the wonderful work. It was well worth the wait for all 4 parts.
That's interesting, I used Mad God's Key to springboard our campaign. Odd, I ended up using the same adventure to start everything off. Things have progressed nicely, and I am starting to find more ways to add undead to the campaign. One of My players really helped out with character backstory... Any other undead mayhem going on out there?
When running an evil adventure, try to keep in mind that other parties of good adventurers will be trying to stop them. Those will provide the most memorable encounters...coming up against a group of do-gooders bent on defeating them and stealing their stuff. And, to make them even more upset, make the good guys use non-lethal force...take them alive! (insert evil [or good] DM laugh)
Hey Greg. I just wanted to say thanks for the stats on Fedifensor. I had been needing those for a long time. I have a character that retreived the broken blade in the Interlopers adventure and I wanted to be able to have it fully restored.
If my memory serves me correctly, then those rules/prices can be found in the Stronghold Builders Guidebook. I have had many a party wish to do that exact same thing. The odd thing is, they seem to forget about it, and when the come back to town, it is in shambles because no one bothered with upkeep...
Thanks, James. I do not have a copy of the Eberron book yet, so I had wondered. However, since this is a SINGLE Warforged set in the World of Greyhawk, house rules may be an option... (insert evil DM laugh here) PS. These boards are great. Thanks again for all of the wonderful information. It is nice to see the editors posting here too. Keep up the great work!
With all of the use of Death Knights in the latest Dungeon, I had an interesting dilemma. Can a Warforged character become a Death Knight? This is an idea that I came up with for torturing My PC's. I am just curious what everyone else here thinks. Thanks!
Hey everyone. I am starting a new campaign (now that my group has ended the Adventure Path) and I was looking for interesting ideas. I had wanted to revolve the campaign around the new monsters in Libris Mortis. I have not a clue where to set it, however. As a default, I have put it into Greyhawk. This will allow me to use the new maps as they come out, and the first adventure I used was "Mad God's Key." Anyone else have an idea (or 6) to help influence the shape of this campaign? Thanks in advance.
In running the Adventure Path, my party had begun a first level adventure prior to the publishing of "Life's Bazaar." We had been playing with "The Sunless Citadel." I just threw Life's Bazaar at them afterwards, and skipped Flood Season altogether, though I did make sure that I added Shensen Tesseril of the Striders to the campaign first. Of all the adventures in the entire path, Flood Season was the only one I was disappointed with.
Most of the players in My games tend for one "Tank" or "Mobility" fighter. Then the rest pile up on either arcane or divine smackdown in the form of spells. My personal favorite is the Ranged Fighter. I have one currently that has gone into Order of the Bow Initiate, so even at close range, the bow is his only choice. Manyshot from 5 feet away, anyone?
I've been running games for 4 years now, and I still consider myself a new DM. However, it is your job as the DM to sit down and let people know that their screwing around is detracting from the game experience. Not everyone is the best roleplayer, but at least some of them should be in character. The best way I know of to try to keep the players in character is to use XP as an incentive. If only one player is acting in character and taking the game seriously, then only that player should receive a full share of the experience for that session. But be sure to announce this to your other players that you will be doing it. There have been times in my games where the roleplayers will receive full XP and...at worst, the rest of the players get NOTHING!!! This should only be used as a last resort, however. But deducting as much as 50% of the total XP that would have been gained would not be too unreasonable. It is not to punish the others, just to encourage roleplaying. Check out some of the recent articles in Dungeon for this matter. There have been some really good tips in there as well.
Treasure balance has actually been working rather well for my group. Because I have had 8 PC's for the majority of the campaign, I have offset the numbers by simply adding a few extra things here and there. But, to prevent the encounters from becoming too easy, I have held back some of the loot. I only add one or two things other than what is written in the given treasure for any encounter... One other question. I am looking for some suggestions on trap xp. My party rogue is good, and thorough (I quit giving xp for all the darn Jzardirune door traps after about the first four and eliminated them all together after awhile... I just add the encounter to the total party XP and divide evenly. The entire party gets a share of overcoming the traps, not just the rogue. And if the rouge gets too far ahead, find a way to hold him back, or possibly encounter a creature with an energy drain attak. Nothing like brining a character that is cocky down with a loss of level...
Just my two cents: Anyone ever noticed that Ragnara is the name of the female Maenad Psychic Warrior that Wizards uses for an iconic character? So I would definately agree that Ragnar is a male name.
How's this for funny? The only PC to gain the template in my campaign was the monk that ended up taking Vow of Poverty. Since Occipitus is not really a posession, I ruled that she could keep the template and still gain the benefits of the template. However, since she did not gain the full benefits (she's not a caster), I eliminated the level adjustment for the template. (she also lost a few other traits to level everything out)
I've been running the Adventure Path since shortly after the first installment came out as an ongoing campaign. The NPCs that I used most often were Jenya Urikas, but as for one accompanying the PC's, that one will not work with the storyline. I'd reccommend some of the lesser members of the Striders, possibly even Shensen Tesseril. But be sure not to introduce her until "Flood Season." If nothing else, introduce your own NPC. Some affiliations that work are The Chisel, or maybe even some other organization of your own making. Just remember not to use that NPC to "steal the thunder" from the PC's. Just my two cents worth...
I've been playing this as an ongoing campaign for so long, I do not think I can remember everything...but here goes: First death I think came during Zenith Trajectory: Human cleric fell to Zenith's Axe...Party dragged Zenith back to Cauldron and handed him over on the provision that he was to be punished for slaying their companion. (Which Celeste agreed to wholeheartedly). Plus, as an added bonus, the player did not want the character resurrected, but didnt say anything until AFTER the spell was cast--with no effect. Kiss all that gold goodbye! Adventure continues, party hires new cleric... No deaths in the Demonskar, though one player did go on hiatus... Smoking Eye...one character died sacrificing herself to the fire column...only to be healed by the powers that be. (kudos to her for thinking of it). She did technically die, so that counts. NO DEATHS in Soul Pillars. Damn. Come to think of it, the only other deaths have been from Hookface. The dragon took out the Fighter/Sorcerer/Spellsword in one breath. Then, afterwards...one party member tried to become the new Lord Mayor. (That action, combined with others, made his alignmet switch to lawful evil. The paladin and the exhalted monk noticed his aura change, too). He was assassinated shortly after. Party has made no desire to try to resurrect, either. (bad blood, unfortunately) Add to that the rogue getting smashed into a pulp in the ruins of Shatterhorn and the second mage in the party being "soul-napped"....it has been exciting. But wait until they get to Carceri...hehehe.
My party size has fluctuated due to real life throughout the campaign. But the smallest the party has ever gotten is 6. As of right now, the party consists of the following:
In "Strike on Shatterhorn" the party's rogue was killed by the Hill Giant outside, and then the other wizard was "soul napped" by Embril. The Neraph has yet to join the party, and they have just completed Shatterhorn. The new rogue just happened to step out of the Plane of Shadow, right into the Archon. So that is how things stand....and Now I am about to toss them onto Carceri--forcefully if necessary. I too have had difficulties with large parties. I have simply added more characters, rather than the same ones with more levels. Minions are great fodder, and waste some of the most powerful spells of the party when they dont realize there are bigger and badder foes ahead... I am curious if anyone has any ideas that I could throw at these guys? I'm always looking for more ideas to make them quake in fear.
Of course, the theme song for my party for the entire campaign has been Drowning Pool's "Bodies"... *evil DM laugh* "Let the Bodies hit the floor...."
Here's another one for you. The soundtrack to Gladiator. Check out Track 3...the Battle, I believe it is called. Wonderful for setting the scene where time is of the essence!
Scourge of Worlds was one of my best gaming purchases ever. I turned it into a gaming night with one of my groups of players: Adventurers deciding which path to take, DM in charge of the remote...It was a blast. Keep us updated on the idea of the drinking game! Anyone else find the awesome animation on the displacer beast and Mialee's decision about how to deal with some orcs... Hope that is not spoiling too much!
After careful review, I think that the Trap the Soul question is correct in that it would have to be cast upon the phylactery rather than the Lich-Queen. However, I am not about to go changing the ending of the story to fit the rules when the way it happened was so incredibly exciting that it was better as a story-line. As far as Sundering the Scepter of Ephelomon, take a look at the description of that item in the adventure and in the Planar Handbook. It states that the weapon can only be damaged by the claws of Bahamut or one of his chosen vassals. The paladin in my party WAS a Vassal of Bahamut. That is the ONLY reason why he was able to sunder the Scepter. It was also the main reason why the party even attempted to destroy the Lich-Queen in the first place...but that is another story entirely. Thanks for the imput, everyone!
So your PC's had enough time to research how powerful the Lich Queen was to create the Gem used to trap her soul? I'd say it would take at least 1 day per HD of the creature being researched... Actually, they used a gem of the right cost (by accident, much to my surprise) that they had on hand, and the spell itself was on a scroll. I ruled that using part of a magical artifact was enough to meet the requirements of the spell. And it was great flavor text as well.
My party has just begun to delve into the depths of Maure. They are paranoid already, after meeting Arley and having him disappear on them (or so they think, muahahahaha). The party's tank: the barbarian, has already fallen to the pack of bodaks, and they are extremely cautious, not daring to go beyond the Great Curtains yet. It should be a great trip, if they can find their way down to the next level, that is. (They've already passed right over the secret entrance to level 2 three times...)
My game sesson on Sunday afternoon was just too good to pass up posting, to get reactions. After reading through the "Lich Queen's Beloved" adventure in issue #100, I would have thought it near to impossible for the party to succeed in the endeavor of destroying the Lich-Queen. But, much to my surprise, they actually succeeded. Granted 4 out of 6 player characters met their demise, but it did work out. This is my first attempt at using the message boards, so I am just curious as to how much info people would like for me to post about this final, epic encounter. Here is a list of what the party consisted of:
I suppose it is worth mentioning that in one of the previous adventures, the party hunted down and obtained Concluder, one of the nine Swords of Answering. The Fighter/Weaponmaster had the privilage of wielding that sword. The Paladin/Vassal went straight for the Lich-Queen, took a few disintegrates to the face (6, to be exact, and saved on each one) and then managed to Sunder the Scepter of Ephelomon. Then he tried to sunder the Lich-Queen's sword--and much to my chagrin, succeeded in that as well. *blink, blink* Since the Lich-Queen's spell resistance was almost impossible to beat, the mage in the party used a scroll from ages ago in party treasure: a Scroll of Trap the Soul. And, darn my dice, it came up a natural 1 on the save.... To make a long story short, a quick plane shift to Celestia and the Lich-Queen was no more.... So, I'd like to hear what everyone thinks of this. The adventure was great, My players loved it, and were just as shocked as I when they survived! |
