Mike Mearls's page

Then Mearls (I mean Keldrick) had a sudden inspiration! It took him a few minutes (of real time) to convince Jacobs (I mean Zulshyn) and Tim (I mean Visoka) that his plan was genius. After they became convinced, Visoka handed over his bag of holding to Zulshyn. Keldrick then cast enlarge person on Zulshyn (and her gear, including the bag), who then chopped off the mother-serpent's head and shoved it in the now-much-larger bag. Zulshyn then snatched up the still-blind Amai (Zulshyn carries Amai around a lot, but as of yet Amai has not complained) and we all ran for it.

Those are Hardy Boy plan creation skills you pick up only by playing 1e!

You forgot the fight with the ghost snakes!

The tomato thing - I had a salad container with the cherry tomato remnants of my salad in it. When Stephen pointed out that I hated tomatoes, I shook the container and made vaguely angry barbarian noises.

Apparently, my barbarian noises are close to my zombie noises. OTOH, I do play a sorcerer, so they were out of character for me.

Will there be any quotes, or did we swear too much?

I am most impressed with the burgeoning growth of our hobo body of knowledge.

Yeah, that was intentional, but if you house rule it in there shouldn't be any balance issues.

(These are all IMO. Things may have changed after the book left my hands.)

1. Jesters can cast in light armor, as can the savant.

2. Jesters should have trap finding.

3. This is deliberate. Jesters aren't really the calm, collected, searching types. They're a bit too chaotic for that. I can definitely see the logic for giving them Spot and Listen as class skills, though. I don't think it unbalances the class by any means, but I think at that point they get a little too rogue-like. I see a jester as precisely the kind of guy who sneaks into the room, and accidentally blunders into the weapons rack he failed to notice.

Try this:

Assume everyone in the party constantly takes 10 on Spot and Move Silently checks, except in fights.

Never ask them to make a check - just check the result of MS or Hide against their take 10's. You can write them down on a post-it on your DM's screen.

If a player chooses to roll a check, he has to explicitly tell you. This takes a move action (the equivalent of stopping for a moment to concentrate).

Much goodness snipped...

Very cool stuff. If the Age of Worms shows up in collected, hardcover form and I'm lucky enough to have a go at fixing up 3FoE, this is the sort of backstory I'd like to use. Very cool, and very much in keeping with my vision for the cult of Vecna.

That's very strange. I have a copy here at work. I dipped my fingers in a cup of water I have here and tested getting a page wet. Nothing happened.

It might be simply a misprinted copy or something.

Rock! That is seriously awesome. Made my day.

I'm really happy that people like the Faceless One. If I have my way (and I just might!) I'll get to delve into more details on him and others like him.

I've long been fascinated with the cult of Vecna. My basic concept for it is, as you ascend through the cult ranks, a cultist learns more and more secrets that allow him to fade into the background of the world. The Faceless one has managed to escape his identity. No one knows who he is, and it's possible that even he has forgotten.

The most powerful cultists of Vecna travel like whispers on the wind. They plant an idea here, a thought there, a sudden desire here. They manipulate the world from behind a veil of secrecy, orchestrating an immense play with a climax that none can even begin to guess. The mightiest of Vecna's servants can walk through a castle's front gate, sit beside the king, and whisper counsel in his ears, with no one, not even the king, suspecting the evil at hand.

At least, that's my basic concept for them.

Someone in this thread made a comparison between Three Faces and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. That's a very apt comparison - if you didn't like RttToEE, you probably aren't going to like Three Faces.

I have an adventure design style that veers about as far into 1e and away from 2e that you can get. I write adventures that let the PCs, rather than the NPCs or the DM, drive the action. If the players want to roleplay, they can try to negotiate with the denizens of the mines. If PCs want to kill them, that's what they're going to do. There's nothing in the adventure that dictates a specific course of action that the PCs must take to "solve" the adventure.

Ever since I wrote TFoE, I've pestered Erik a few times to let me write an article detailing the cult of Vecna. As I see the cult, it places a tremendous emphasis on secrecy and power.

The Faceless One, as an initiate into the second layer of Vecna's secrets, has cast aside his identity. None can say who or what he once was, and none can say what he will become. Some believe that, in time, an initiate of Vecna becomes a living enigma, a mystery so deep that the human mind cannot comprehend its presence. Casting aside all trace of physical identity is but the first step in this process.

There are those who say that the deepest loremasters of Vecna slip into the firmament of the secrets within the world. They walk amongst men, but none see them. They whisper counsel into the ears of kings and archmages, advice that the subconscious hears and heeds even while the waking mind is blissfully ignorant. Who can say if a flood was a natural disaster, or the result of a sinister, unseen hand?

Such is the way of Vecna, and such is the way of those who would follow him through the Gate of All Secrets.

Uh oh! I was supposed to write rules for this - I may have forgotten. Check at the start of the grimlock section of the dungeon - I think I meant to put the rules there. If they aren't there, I can post something. In essence, the grimlocks look for tell-tale signs that a target is holding a torch or lantern - sounds, the target's movement and posture, and so forth. Non-standard light sources, like a light spell on a shield or weapon, would foil this tactic.

In essence, the grimlocks know that if they destroy the sticks and small metal boxes that humans carry, the humans act as if they're blind.

I think Ted Zuvich works on computer games. His adventures were some of the most memorable ones I ever ran.

Steve -

Those stats sound good. Basically, I wanted the box to be difficult, almost impossible, for the party to open. As James pointed out, sometimes we have to take liberties with the rules for a story to make sense. Believe me, I cringed when I had to deal with the box, since I really don't like DM fiat, but in this case it made sense to me. Otherwise, the entire story falls apart.

I also liked the alternatives that a few people mentioned - making the box contain a potion to break the curse, or an otherwise worthless item that is very useful to Aubreck, is a great idea. If I ran/wrote Salvage Operation again, I'd do something like that.