Sorry. I mean thanks "John Wood" for the game mechanics dot com suggestion.
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Well, thanks to grrtiger (and I do mean "thanks" it was an enlightening experience), I have learned just enough html to be happy I don't have the time or energy to learn more. I miss being a high school/college student where I could and would spend hours putting together a program or algorhythm but those days are sadly gone. Mary, thanks for the game mechanics dot com tip. I am going to check them out shortly. I like the initiative card idea a great deal and think I will give that a try as opposed to my frequently over-written and illegible notebooks. I think what is really killing me is mid-battle spell research (particularly with the WotC penchant of putting out a new book every month with new spells in it). Is anyone aware of any good spell spreadsheets available for public consumption (you know, an alpha list with range, duration, damage spread, sr and saving throw info....)? I do like hearing everyone's suggestions though. If you have a different method that hasn't been written up yet, please add your ideas to the mix. Take care all.
I like Luz' idea for the knights. It seems to me that if I were The Harbinger, the first thing I would do in any combat with a person wearing a holy symbol is Extended Power Word Stun him. The suggested actions in the module ignore the fact that a good cleric with a good turn roll could put the Big Bad out of the fight in one round. Generally, I would let the battle run its course even with a tricked out PC like yours. BUT, there is no reason why an intelligent monster would not be aware of its Achilles heel and act accordingly. Let him spend 2 to 8 rounds on the deck and see what happens. If the logistics work out, Enervation (particularly Empowered) is also your friend here. But I think PWS is your answer. Don't worry too much -- a min/mazed undead turner Spoiler: will be of limited utility for most of the adventures between SoLS and the final module.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I usually don't plot much out past the opening salvos but I suppose a game plan made up without reference to the PC's in advance makes some sense. A "Here's how I like to kill adventurers" outline. Majuba -- Good suggestion and for the first 7 or so modules I have been working from one of those old composition books where I would format the monsters, lists key spells and stats, etc. But as we get more advanced, there is just too much for pages that size. I started thinking about expanding to use bigger sheets for each item etc but it seemed like a downward spiral. I have resisted using a laptop at the table but grrtigger seems to have it all together. I don't have any experience with wiki's or even a CSS whodjawhatsis but I generally have plenty of prep time between sessions so I may just try that. I may also be back here pleading for grrrtigger's help. Keep the suggestions coming folks!
As the players work their way through the Adventure Path, my group is getting to higher levels than we have previously played. I am finding it increasingly unwieldy to keep a handle on the powers and abilities of some of the bad guys during combat (particularly spell casters). What are some of the techniques for keeping all this information handy and available so we can run a combat without the DM keeping his/her head buried in the rulebooks the whole time?
I guess we have a pretty unique group. A decade ago there were six or seven of us who played only sporadically. With the advent of WoW, our numbers were decimated and some people (namely, me) moved 300 miles away. Now three of us play about 3 or 4 marathon sessions per year (meaning one long weekend, minimal other gaming or activities, usually a total of 15 - 18 play hours, including accounting). Usually we play with two players having two PCs each and the third man DMing. We have, however, been working harder at staying with particular adventure paths. I am DMing Age of Worms which we have been doing pretty exclusively since August 2006 and are currently 1/3 of the way through SoLS (this actually seems to compare pretty favorably to some of the other groups on this thread); another player DM'd the Eberron Whispers of the Vampire's Blade and its sequel (I think); and a third is about three or maybe four episodes into the Cauldron adventure path (the name eludes me). Talking about kids, we were having trouble with scheduling due to one player's childcare duties so we actually have played two long sessions with his 11 year old daughter picking up a fifth character. It's kind fun seeing how excited she gets by the novelty of playing. On the hand she is 11--a good 11 to be sure but still 11. This has the complimentary effects of limiting how much I can swear at the players but it also sends us to bed sooner (so I am less likely to be tired enough to want to swear at the players). At our current rate and with some abbreviated action in PoRH, I think we will finish this year (or we will have a series of TPKs resulting in disillusionment).
Thank you all. This has been a helpful round of comments and suggestions from a variety of gaming styles. I appreciate the suggestions both on the module and on the care and feeding of players. I will let you know how it goes (as we are a widely scattered and irregularly meeting group, it may be a while before I hace an update). Again, gracias.
Frank, I think the long way down the central pit to the lower layers protects the players from a full Lucky Monkey but my group of 5 PCs was hard pressed by the three first level encounters when taken one at a time. Spoiler:
My rationalization (and really, all it was was a rationalization) was that the librarians were reservists guarding the knowledge worms. As for the eladrin and archons, a close ready of the encounter could prove me wrong but I saw them as enraged and insane as result of their torture and conversion but not reasonably interested in serving Kyuss (lacking a Helsinki my world also lacks a Helsinki Syndrome).
The bigger problem comes with the lower level. That lich should be zipping all over the lower level (at least) taking pot shots at the adventurers. I rationalized by giving the lich a plan to offer the party a quest if they could find a way to release him from the city without killing him (something along the lines of creating a new phylactery for him). How did the rest of the module go?
We are fast coming up to the Prince of Red Hand module and I am dreading GMing the "gather information feast" that is the cornerstone of the module. This is most definitely not my players' cup of tea and as carefully as these things are written (a menu, for pete's sake?!?)the path for certain types of players is very hard to find. On the geek continuum from World of Warcraft on one end to LARPing on the other my players are all purist WoWsers who occasionally come out of cyberspace for the nostalgic tonic of a slow-paced D&D adventure. They clearly enjoy the clever manipulation of their character's skills and abilities to handle (or side-step) a fight very much more than haggling with the shopkeepers or beguiling the noblemen. [We still talk about the costume ball from Whisper of the Vampire's Blade as a mind-numbing debacle of epic proportions.] For my part, I can get myself into the characters but with acting-resistant players I could easily find myself doing all the work and leaving them behind. I am very willing to play the feast set piece with a very light hand but I would appreciate any advice from the various DM's who have already run this module. Thanks.
I think you set Stunty and me off on the same rant at the same time. We would never run our campaigns like this but, honestly, if you and your group are having fun, keep having fun and tell us to $^%# off.
Don't fret about Nezzarin too much. He is an intro monster and, like Rakshaka said, you can just have him in one of the internal rooms when the PCs arrive. Alternately, what I did was justify that Nezzarin and the Beetles were on the other side of the Ziggaurat stalking around and then come in behind the PC's when they enter cutting off an easy escape -- that also prepared me with an encounter if the party split up and went in two groups around either side of the Ziggaurat. I did not have Nezzrin call out the other monsters on the first level because it seemed to me that both sets had their own reasons for staying where they were and no particular reason for going toe-to-toe at the side of Nezzarin. However, both of the other first floor encounters were ready and waiting with an "open door, get a blast (or blasphemy)" attack based on the noise of their battle with big N. I try to avoid what my group calls the "Lucky Monkey" syndrome (based on a bar in the Cauldron adventures where our initial battle called out all of the bandits in the ransacked inn to attack us at once (I still miss my monk from that adventure). There is no real reason why any assaulted dungeon would not marshall a real defense to a series of attacks (particulary with the D&D "attack and retreat to sleep" mentality of most parties). This would always create a Lucky Monkey scenario, though, so I settle for a middle ground where all of my monsters with brains know something is coming and they are bunkered down and spelled-up in their rooms by the time the PCs blunder in.
Compare this garbage with the thread about the 13th level cleric cake-walking though SoLS. Both GMs are dealing with problem created by the publishers putting new &#^$# books every 45 days to try and make more money without real regard to content. That guy, arguably, tailored his skills during the campaign. You have a different problem. You need to get a grip on your campaign, dude. If your player can actually come up with an entertaining story about how a silver dragon and a kobold got together in the first place then he should be hailed as the next Tolkein and publishing his own freaking books. Otherwise, make him play a halfling. At a minimum, I hope this wondering circus of yours isn't able to simply walk into town and buy things. At least half of them should be burned at the stake by every villager around. As for justifying the speedy and efficient termination of these characters, monsters don't like freaks. Freaks make monsters nervous and the freaks get targeted first. Just to be sanctimonious AND hypocritical, though, I think Bender Bending Rodriguez with a portable hole in his chest is a riot.
Does anyone have the original AD&D DM's Guide description for Hand of Vecna kicking around? There has been a suggestion that the current version of the Hand of Vecna might be best used for nasal excavation compared to what my players fondly but incompletely recall as the original Hand's powers. Anybody got an archive version of the old manual and willing to share?
What's that you say? A dishonest bookie leaving town with a prince's ransom rather than coughing up 350k? Shocking! Unheard of! Why, the fact that bookmakers can't be trusted when the host of the contests is an evil miscreant planning on sacrificing his entire city for poorly defined reasons? To what is the world coming? Be sure to have the bookie show up as a new (and popular) noble in PoRH.
Well, would you like to share what you came up with? Sorry I didn't respond to your first post but, I a)missed it and b)don't have anything to offer on this subject. I'd love to hear what you came up with though! Well, the long and the short of is we did not get there. Spoiler:
We were starting in Gathering of Winds after they had defeated Ilthane so I thought things would run pretty quick. They followed Allustan's trail without interruption or distraction right to Flycatcher, then Allustan then Moretto. I thought they would bypass the whole dungeon and find the tomb instantly. They then meta-gamed themselves into a hole by figuring a branching cave off the waterfall could not possibly lead any place interesting. The then went on a room by room dungeon CRAWL and triggered every trap and blundered into every monster encounter. As for the spire outskirts, I never did a map but decided I would just play it as low ruins, occasional cover. As for the creatures and role-playing, Spoiler:
I simplified the outskirts to thirds instead of quadrants (so I didn't have to to stat out non-human spellcasters and warriors--and four quadrants seemed like a lot of critters in a small area) and statted out the Beholder and Trolls; the outsider; and a 12-headed hydra (which I am considering doubling to 2 hydras). I decided if they explore I would have the first area be with the outsider because I like the exiled evil bureaucrat character suggested by the manual decribition (and it will appeal to my player group of non-exiled bureacrats). My characters describe themselves as "good" and I describe them as "good at going after whatever treasure is dangled in front of them." I think I can get the fiend to talk them into taking out the beholder and maybe the hydra for a price. A beholder will make them wet their pants and they will immediately go into attack mode. I suspect though, that given their crawl in AGoW, they will again try to rush into the big adventure as quick as they can. We'll see. Let me know what you did.
All set. Looking forward to playing it this weekend.
I am getting ready for the Spire of Long Shadows module and am really happy with Paizo for publishing a module with 3+ major encounters outside the obsidian ring outlined but neither mapped nor statted out. Anyone have suggestions for existing ruins maps I can place the Spire in? Anyone statted out the monsters surrounding the ruins and willing to share? There are some nice role playing opportunities outside the obsidian ring. Anyone want to share their experiences on how they handled this area?
I may be wrong but I think it is in A Gathering of Winds (Dungeon 129) when the party opens Icosiel's tomb. |