MaxPowers's page

Thanks for the congratulations.

As the resident GM from my original group and through college I completely understand GM burnout and would be glad to help!

I will email you when I get back in town and schedule a meet-up.

I am really flexible as to location, I live in Plaza/Midwood so in addition to being a hipster I'm centrally located. My parents live in Mint Hill and I have no idea how the aforementioned gaming store escaped me but the Yelp entry and the website look really promising.

Finally, I agree the new AP looks great. I was actually going to cancel my subscription until I looked at the all-star lineup of authors. I flipped through the first and other than a grand central sized railroad it looks promising.

Look forward to an email when I get back in town later this week.

I passed the bar and in celebration of all my hard work I would like to pick up my favorite hobby and meet some of the local gamers in Charlotte, NC.

I am willing to be flexible on time/day and even the AP but so far I would like to propose-->

System: Pathfinder, with liberal use of 3.X material with GM approval.

Details: The best AP Dungeon Magazine ever published, The Savage Tide. Swords, pirates, high seas, demons, basically Treasure Island meets Land of the Lost, who doesn’t like this stuff?

Levels: Starting at 1 and ending near 20, I can easily work in the new Mythic Adventures materials but honestly I haven’t really had a chance to look at it.

Looking for Players: Yes, ideally I would like between four and six players who will consistently show up.

New Players Welcome: Always, one of the main reasons I game is to introduce people to the hobby I have loved my entire life.

Group Size: Ideally 4-6.

Session Duration: 4 hours

Time: Weekly on a week night

Reply here or email me @ lance_uppercut78@yahoo.com if you are interested.

Near TPK
Ubaldo Seahawk, CG half elf ranger level 2, Analine, CG human druid level 1, Johana 'The Albatross', CN human oracle level 2, and Ikem Inkvar, CG human swordsage level 2.

Adventure: There Is No Honor
Location of Death: the meeting room with Rowyn and Gut Tugger
Catalyst: being overconfident and refusing to retreat or rest
The entire session was a bust and almost ended the entire party.

I think it was a combination of newish players and stupidity. The ironic thing is that the best line came to us from the party's mage who wanted to retreat to Sasserine above and rest. His last line of the short discussion ended with, 'well if you don't mind that all I can do is a minor frost cantrip for the rest of the day...'

The party wasn't insulting to Rowyn (they encountered her earlier before working for Lavinia) but they did demand a little too much. The party was in such bad shape that Rowyn made her offer a choice between joining the LDs as junior members or as zombies (I made sure the party saw her wand and foolishly thought this would scare them). Since I'm not heartless I let a good Diplomacy check and some good RP provide an out, she would offer them safe passage if they forever left Sasserine. The players didn't take the cheese and instead died a number of ways but mostly to being flanked by two rouges.

The only bright spot is that the players are morbidly looking forward to facing former characters as zombies.

I would opt for one shot adventures that tease about the enemies ahead and don't give too much away. On the same side I would caution not to have too many repeat encounters because you might risk players (in the main campaign/story) that have a , "oh yea been there, done that" attitude.

Dungeon 120 - Lost Temple of Demogorgon, great introduction to Death Knights, he may even be an ally, great adventure I have run with other campaigns.

Dungeon 114 - Torrents of Dread, wold be a great mid level adventure for the Vanderboren family's first trip to the isle. I would caution about the familiarity issues here again because they will repeat some of these monsters later.

or go classic with Dungeon Module X1, the Original Isle of Dread. Haven't played it but it is good by all accounts.

or go gonzo and do an adventure or to about Phanatons or some other less seen creature of the Isle.

Thanks again. I think this was a situation of me looking everywhere for a solution except the introduction texts where it usually is.

Does anyone have any guidelines for PC advancement? I was thinking of doing it totally abstract and just telling my players when they unlock new abilities (level up).

I think an outline would be most useful here, but organic breaks in the story make more sense and so far the PCs really like it. They just reached 2nd level after a Wrecks Ashore prequel and most of There is No Honor (before getting trapped in Parrot Island).

Thanks for all the great contributors on this older AP and thanks in advance for some advice on this one.
-Ian

I am a long time gamer looking to DM a new game or play in an existing one. As a bonus I can convince my brother in law to play, he is a long time nerd who will love DnD but has never had a chance to play.

-Ian

Great thread BTW.

I think the original idea is attributed to Sun Tzu but I think it was best phrased by Mike Tyson, "Everyone has a plan, until they are punched in the face."

-The character I have in mind is somewhat of a schizophrenic, but not really. He believes himself to be somewhat of a judge, seeing no worth in mankind but recognizing the potential. He conforms to society and is very charismatic, but has a strong desire to kill anyone he believes shallow in character or just downright deplorable (think Dexter meets American Psycho, but to an extreme).

So two classic sociopaths are not extreme enough for your idea.....

Baijin did a good job answering your questions I just have to add that I like your concept and if you haven't already read the book you should. The part I liked most about the American Psycho book was the fact that the main character was faking human interaction to the point of collapse between real and fake. I think if played right you might have the only viable CN character choice, in my experience most CN players were just being evil without all the penalties.

Conceptually, why would a Sea Dog be able to find traps? I am not one who thinks this is a domain solely of a rogue but I do find it odd that this is an ability for a sea faring character.

Thanks in advance.
This will be handy for my new PF druid.

lance_uppercut78@yahoo dot com

+1 spelljammer reference
awesome thread here

I saved the email address because I will most likely be going to Campbell Law School in the fall of 2010 and I hope you guys are still going strong. I will look you up then.

I had such a hard time getting a Raleigh group for 3.0 so I know how dry the area gets sometimes.

-Ian

Thanks for the hard work here.
I agree that sometimes the text is a little too hard to see and that the cards themselves could use a single uniform size.

Also is the art for Wall of Ice a scene from the fantastic movie, Fire and Ice? If not it really made me think about watching that movie anyway.

I am not a PBPer but thanks for the website. Looks like you have put a lot of hard work into Conclave. How long has it been your default RPG setting?

A friend of mine gave me his car (and my first car) when he moved back to Belize. It was a 78' Dodge Diplomat with a slant six cylinder engine and candy green paint, shag carpet, and six inch gangster white walls. Man I loved that car.

I really enjoyed running Tealpeck's Flood, from Dungeon #137. It has underwater swarms, water naga, interesting traps and puzzles. I am not really that familiar with the Pathfinder setting but the adventure is really neutral on setting and should be easy to fit in wherever.

I mention this one because I have recently ran it because I was feeling, like you I would imagine, that my game needed a little change of scene.

If you are insane enough or desperatly poor enough to die for someonelses profit, I suggest a bowl of Steamed Vegetable and Fish (or other meat) every night as a main meal, 1-2 Cheese & Salad Sandwich with 1/2 litre Milk for Lunch, and some cereal for breakfast.

Yes, only the insane or poor serve their country and we all end up dying for it. Why would you disparage the military this way? I have a hard time believing anyone really feels this way. Other than that I would say your advice is sound. Stay away from highly refined foods, sugars and starchy carbs. You should be fine in a year. As a current service member I would advise you to make sure you have any weight issues under control before you join. I have had soldiers on and off weight control programs and it sucks, basically no favorable actions will be awarded to include promotion or medals. This is especially true if you are an officer. They are going to expect you to be an example and lead the way.

A big Thank You! to everyone for their service.

I am an 11B with 4 years in and I run a game with another army recruiter and two air force guys (some type of coumpter nerds). To be fair the high military concentration in my group is because we are near a rather large US Air Force base in Germany.

The 12B is now changed to the 21B Combat Engineer.

The problem with the shield aura is that the enemy has to actually hit. I played one in the last campaign I was a player for and it was insane doing massive damage from feedback from myself and the tank, until the DM read a little further and for the shield to damage, the enemy needs to hit. I don't think I used it at all after that until I took the twin aura feat (the earliest level is 12).

I would go with Senses. It was my default aura for the bonus to initiative. You might also consider that you have no auras that are useful outside of combat right now and this one is a great pick for a constant effect.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

without hyperbole I probably watched this movie at least 13 times over a year in Iraq.

I have been reading over the books for the past week and there is a lot of things I like about the streamlined ability system. I am not sure how fighting creatures with 1,450 hp is going to make it faster but having not had the chance to play test it I cannot say for sure. The layout of the books is great and the DMG and MM both will be a great resource for new DMs. I really love the creature classification and defined roles, just not so much for the PCs. This will help the DM design encounters and maximize warbands. Yea I said it.
They should have called the book Miniatures Handbook II. It would have been a great game for that style of play. It would also help sell the miniatures which I am positive is the main objective of WoTC and Hasbro.

I enjoy (some of) the complexity and balance of 3.5 and just don't see myself playing a RPG that is so overtly reliant on the use of battlemats and Minis.

Thanks this is awesome. I will be running by the local Toys R Us soon.

There is an American (ie english speaking) group in Kaiserslautern which is about 30 minutes from Hamberg. I know because the wife sometimes drags me off to the flea market there. Just post if you are willing to travel that far to game.
Thanks for the DnD Gate link, ich lerne Deutsche. So hopefully this will be of use soon.

I just started playing in a Ptolus campaign and I thought what a great time to try the urban druid. After reviewing the class I decided that it was time to try a cleric instead. I really like the theme and flavor, the change in wildshape was a nice touch but the spell list left me a little befuddled. The spells an urban druid gets are just awful in comparison to the other pure casters.

The problem with making it ability based is that it does not scale well. I think that is one of the main design considerations with Pathfinder. If the feat is only really going to be good at low levels all but fighters are going to avoid it. If a 1st level fighter with the same STR as a 10th level fighter are equally good at sacrificing attack power for AC then what is the point?

Excellent point Rob. Its easier for me to imagine the ranger slipping past the front ranks of spear men to attack the general barking commands. They are hunters after all.

My point with barbarian tumble is that I can see an acrobatic nimble barbarian. It is the fact that an enraged barbarian can still or would even bother to tumble is what I don't like.

Good use of concrete language. I was imagining the skilled monk rolling to his left and spring back right to attack his rival, not the types of examples you illustrated.
I am sold.
But I do think the barbarian, as a frenzied character would just shrug off AoO and get to the target of his wrath.

I don't buy the argument that keeping track of a point pool is any more difficult than keeping track of hit point or the x/day method. But I do think it is a good idea to scale it back some from the 8-16 range into a smaller amount. I like the rage abilities I was just looking for Paladins and Clerics to have a similar combined pool for turning and smiting.

You could even build feats around specific pool abilities. Any paladin has smite but if you pick the feat Smite Focus every time you smite it only costs 1/2 the divine power points.

Just an idea but I think a point pool for abilities allows for much more flexibility.

I have been working on this for a little while now. If we are going to do a point based system for rage, why not the same for paladins and clerics with divine power and druids with wild lore. I was saddened to see that paladin had the same x/day methods. There should be a divine reserve for all the paladin abilities that increase you damage (smite) and that buff you. A cleric could benefit from this as well adding the whole turning mess into the equation. I have known clerics that refuse to turn undead because of all the book work involved.

I like tumble and I like the new rage but why are they together? If i am so mad that my strength and constitution increase why would I be able to swiftly tumble past enemies and attack? More likely I would barrel past enemies and hit hard with my two handed weapon. Ignoring any extra (ie.. AoE) from my movement.

NM it was hiding in the printer friendly version

I've been hoodwinked

Outstanding I'll email you today when I get back to my computer. Im actually moving there from Baumholder so I hope to see you soon.

do we have any on these boards?
im moving there in 2 weeks and dont think ill be able to commute to my current group. Id love to find people from these boards for an english speaking campaign here in Germany.

($) as a typo??? seriously

Is it too late to get in on this great resource? I would gladly pass it on to others.

please and thanks in advance

my email is lance_uppercut78@yahoo.com

thanks for the quick response
ill have a laptop with most of my resourse books in .pdf format

i was specifically looking for something with easy character creation, npc creation, encounters, ect... also does it have the tables to reference easily?

does anyone have them and are they worth 30 bucks?
im getting ready to go back to iraq and i was wondering if it would save me from lugging more books with me.

im an american soldier stationed in Baumholder germany
currently i live in beautiful Neubruke with my wife
right now im in the Hohenfels training area in Bayern.

things i love about Germany:
1. the people (mostly super friendly gregarious people, im from the South of America so it reminds me of people back home)

2. bundeslege (sp) european soccer is awesome and the fans at FC KU (kaiserslautern) are awesome

3. pet loving people are everywhere and i love to bring my behaved dog everywhere i can go

things i dislike about germany:
1. the MTV culture, yea i know it is destroying america also

2. the multi colored hair on females, its cool wen she is 16 but a 40 year old woman just shouldnt have neon pink hair

3. the lack of food options, i find german quisine generally bland and choices for resteraunts are limited to doner, pizza and snitzel.

4. my biggest peeve about germany is the tremendous cost and crappy service from telecom services here... but i understand they were recently privitized.

all in all the good far out weighs the bad and im having a blast living here i only wish i wasnt always in the field training

as an 11B going to Iraq soon id first like to say thanks for doing you jobs out there and continue mission.

as a 12 year DM/Player its good to hear i will still be allowed to make time with my curent gropu (we are all in the same company).

about the house rules im familiar with

the bell curve is great for skill checks and almost every other situation except combat. IMHO i found that the high frequency of criticals was more realistic in the fact that death from a single blow was still possible at most levels. also dont forget monsters and villians can take advantage of the same weapons and feats to sorta balance this out.

i personally restrict all ressurection and leave it to something more along the lines of divine intervention. raise dead is OK but even there they stay few and far between in my campaigns.

the defense and DR for armor is the only way to go when i play. i love the idea of armor doing as it does in real life and absorbing damage. the defense bonus to level is great allowing armorless characters to stay combat effective. tried these rules once in a high tech setting and never looked back.

hope all this feedback helps

again, thank you