Morrow's page

Council of Thieves related, but really applies to all the APs-

I'm still hip deep in Savage Tide, it's not like I'm going to be running another campaign any time soon. And yet the Paizo Adventure Paths area awesome and if past history is any indication I will be running another campaign after the current one wraps up. I'd like to be able to hand the group teasers for each adventure path and let them decide. I've looked around this site, but the product descriptions and blog posts aren't focused enough on the player perspective and the player's guides are too much info.

I'm too lazy to do the work myself, and besides I haven't played or run any of them yet. So I challenge you. Which is your favorite adventure path? Give me two or three paragraphs that I can hand to my players that will give them a sense of what the campaign will be like and convince them, "This is The Best Thing Ever. You Must Play This One."

Thanks!

Just idle curiosity at this point, but whatever, would a player be happy with a wizard in this campaign? Are there any schools that are particularly valuable? Conversely, what schools can a specialist can do without? It is always a drag to play a wizard and then find no scrolls the entire campaign, discover only one spellbook (formerly the property of a necromancer and necromancy is one of your barred schools), and now that you think about it the campaign would have been just as much fun with no arcane caster in the party at all.

Not that I've ever had a bad experience. The only thing I can think of more irritating than the useless wizard is the ranger who took favored enemy undead and finds himself in a campaign where he never comes across a single zombie.

My players have brought a certain level of paranoia to the Savage Tide Adventure path. This has lead them to make effective and frequent use of divinations. Good for them, right? I like that they're thinking about the mysteries of the campaign and working things out. If it takes away some of the surprise down the road, so be it. They did the work, they know what to expect.

So anyway, we're at the end of Serpents of Scuttlecove, about to start the attack on the Crimson Fleet Base. They've been worried about the whole Tooth Ahazu thing since Zotzilaha's shrine way back in Tides of Dread. So they've been working on the problem. For example, every time they cast commune, which has happened three or four times so far in the campaign, there's always several questions about the individual who they've taken to referring to as The Manipulator.

As an aside, since Lavinia was snatched a leading theory is that she isn't who she seems to be and has actually been playing the party for fools the whole time. This is causing no small amount of consternation for the party rogue, who is married to her.

Anyway, through the communes and careful guesswork one member of the party has pretty much worked out that The Manipulator is another demon lord. So he wants another commune to basically play twenty questions: Is it Orcus? Is it Graz'zt? Is it Malcanthet? Is it Obox-ob?(I'm paraphrasing here, the list is much more extensive and the questions are more carefully worded.) There are some non-demon lords in there also, like Lavinia, Vanthus, and Rowyn.

So I could cheat and have The Manipulator interfere with the commune or something, but it hardly seems sporting. It doesn't derail the campaign for them to have this piece of information now and hard work should be rewarded. My problem is they get the answer now, but at this point it will seem completely random and won't actually matter until Enemies of My Enemy. Cool we figured it out - and that information is largely worthless for two and a half adventures.

I'm not looking for ways to weasel out of this. I'm just looking for suggestions on how to make this information matter earlier in the campaign. Any thoughts?

My group played the Age or Worms adventure path until it fell victim to DM apathy during the Spire of Long Shadows. In the year or so since I've had the opportunity to familiarize myself with the rest of the Adventure Path which we never completed. It seems like it would be relatively simple to turn the second more Kyuss focused half of the adventure path into its own high level arc to use in some later campaign. So help me with this thought experiment: What information from earlier in the campaign would have to be introduced if you were beginning Age of Worms with The Spire of Long Shadows? What aspects of later adventures would have to be changed?

Examples:

*TFoE is the major opportunity to establish the Ebon Triad as a threat prior to PoR. They should be swapped for a group that has some group already established as a threat in the campaign.
*EaBK and tCB introduce the Spawn of Kyuss. They'll have to be established as a major threat some other way.
*Ilthane is introduced in EaBK and killed in GoW. PoR will have to be altered to account for the fact that the PCs will have never heard of her.

And here's the bonus round. My wife was one of the players in our abbreviated AoW campaign, so she's already played SoLS. She's likely to be a player in any future campaign I run. So what additional changes need to be made if the arc starts with The Prince of Redhand?

In all cases assume that the new high level AoW arc is set in a completely new campaign world and is not a sequel to the earlier campaign.

Please help me out. What are the updated stats for Farshore once they establish communication with the mainland (new gp limit, population, etc.)? We're having some work done on the house and I put all the dungeon issues I wasn't actively using in the attic to get them out of the way. Oops. Thanks.

I give up. How do you say Iggwilv?

I'm looking at the Seeker affiliation description in Dragon 348. A seeker that "wrecks a ship" takes a -4 to their affiliation score. How strictly did you interpret that penalty? I hit my party's seeker with the penalty when the Sea Wyvern was wrecked, but I'm inclined to remove the penalty when they retrieve and repair the ship. What about ships that don't belong to the party? It seems really cruel to levy the penalty if the party sinks one of the Crimson Fleet ships at the end of Tides of Dread. I'm not entirely sure what the intention was, that penalty doesn't seem to have much to do with the rest of the affiliation modifiers.

At the end of last session my group reached Journey's End. We've got four sixth level characters, so I've been running the path as written with no problems. Next session we will likely have a new player and a couple special guest stars, so I'm looking at seven sixth level characters. I need to adjust the challenges for Journey's End, and likely for the rest of Sea Wyvern's Wake, to accommodate the larger group.

Our two special guest stars are first time D&D players, so even more than if I regularly had a group this size I'm concerned with hitting the sweet spot where the combats are challenging, but I'm not going to wipe out the party. Any suggestions?

Has anyone worked up a Stormwrack friendly stat block for the Silver Trident for issue 345? Thanks.

I was planning to reanimate the old The Styes thread, but it appears to be quite happy in the afterlife of the archives. So how about a new thread?

Thats realy nice of you Morrow and Rauol, Porphyry is one of my favourite dungeon adventures, its got a great grimness and taint about it which i think is a marvellous setting for adventure as no-one can be trusted - Morrow, let me know how your players get on! I'm thinking of unleasing my players on Freeport soon, its a great setting, with some fantastic adventures - not to mention some superb artwork.

Rich

Nearly two years ago I promised to check in with a status report when my players completed The Styes and Porphyry House Horror (both transplanted to Freeport). It took us quite some time to get here, but better late than never.

Both adventures went very well. In both cases the PCs managed to circumvent some parts of the adventure, but it just meant they got to the hurting faster.

In the Styes the PCs started their investigation by shaking down Constable Jute. High intimidate rolls and threats of violence lead them directly to Mr. Dory. The wizard's quasit familiar scouted the warehouse invisibly and spotted the manticores. The party decided to bypass the warehouse and fly and dimension door to the hulk, to my eternal regret. I had planned to blow up the warehouse at the slightest provocation.

The running battle aboard the hulk ended when the party's undead-lovin' cleric subdued Mr. Dory. During the subsequent interogation Mr. Dory managed to convince the cleric that even though he was a murderer and cultist he was really just a misunderstood member of the undead community who deserved compassion and mercy. I practically cackled with glee when the cleric slapped a mark of justice on him and told him to take the first ship out of Freeport and never come back.

The following day the PCs took the fight to the Whisperer. Sadly, I wasn't as prepared to handle its many illusions as I thought. However, although I know things could have gone better, the players still had a challenging and satisfying final battle. Two PCs were blind and several others had unloaded a fair portion of their resources on illusionary cultists and shark-golems before they ever discovered their true target. In spite of a hearty round of, "Slime for everyone!" they managed to hang in there long enough to take down their foe. The poor thing could have gotten away, but I got cocky. "I can take it for another round," I thought, "I'm going to dominate the fighter!" Unfortunately the fighter had protection from evil up. Oops- squish.

With the enemy directly in front of them defeated the PCs went home to celebrate, never bothering to investigate further. So the baby kraken is still out there, growing. I've worked up 30-HD and 60-HD versions of a half-starspawned kraken, ready to spring on them when it strikes my fancy. Right now they're just hearing rumors about some sea monster sinking ships and plucking people off the docks. They don't seem concerned.

Porphyry House Horror started with a bang when the PCs decided to use their newly acquired lute of building to tunnel into Porphyry House from an adjoining building in the middle of the day. This quickly brought down half the population of Porphyry House down on their heads. They faced waves of pureblood and halfblood Yuan-ti, a Yuan-ti abomination cleric, a stone golem, and a huge fiendish half-dragon viper. While I didn't manage to kill any of them, I eventually wore them down to the point that they ran away.

Comically, before they left the cleric managed to control the corpse creature sucubus, so yet again the party ended up making nice with an undead monstrosity. Firmly controlled she gave up alot of information about the Yuan-ti's plans, their remaining forces, and the 'back door' leading to the chambers beneath Porphyry House. She also had plenty of opportunity to gloat and describe, in graphic detail, what the Yuan-ti, and their demon allies, were going to do to the PCs.

The next day the party returned and headed straight for the final battle. Even the Retriever, which I was looking forward to running, didn't last a round. One Dismissal, one failed save, and off they went.

The final battle was pretty tough. The orlath demon opened up with a Blasphemy, which made everyone very unhappy. Ultimately what decided the battle was the large number of friendly forces involved. Four PCs, three cohorts, and the sucubus- that's a lot of actions every round. It also helped that they hit 11th level before the final battle. The cleric's 6th level spells and the fighter's extra attack were huge. The fighter pretty much waited it out until the strength drain from Blasphemy wore off and then chopped everything into little bits.

I made some mistakes in the final battle, I let the fighter get close enough to Wulvera for a full attack and forgot the orlath demon's gaze attack. I also waited too long to use the abomination clerics special abilities. I was too enamored of their spells and big swords. By the time I used aversion on the fighter and turned the rogue/ sorceror into a snake it was too late.

All in all, both adventures were quite satisfying. I think my players, not a group notable for their weak stomachs, did find PHH somewhat 'icky'. I'd say that The Styes was easier to run, the huge number of varied opponents running around in a relatively small space in PHH made it difficult to track. Both adventures left me with loose ends that I can follow up on later, a boon for any DM. Many thanks to Rich and James for a couple of excellent adventures.

Coming soon - the Weavers. It looks like the PCs will be 12th level by the time we get to it. Any additional ideas to beef it up (beyond the 'scaling the adventure' sidebar) would be welcome. And by the way, where do I find weapon stats for the scourge?

Morrow

The Savage Tidings column in Dragon #351 suggests some non-PHB races that might be used for replacement characters on the Isle of Dread. Just out of curiousity, does anyone else have any suggestions for unusual creatures to make available as PCs for STAP?

Morrow

I have a question about the demontainted weapons introduced in "Lost Temple of Demogorgon" (Dungeon 120). On page 69 in the Demontainted Treasure sidebar it states, "A demontainted item is an evil item, and bestows a negative level on non-evil users...," while on page 82 in the description of the Dread Forge it states, "A demontainted item is an evil magic item... and bestows a negative level to a lawful or good bearer or wielder (2 negative levels to a lawful good creature)..." These two descriptions of the demontainted property are inconsistent, and which one I use could make a big different to my largely neutral party. Any suggestions?

Morrow

Spoilers Ahoy!

I'm going to be running Salvage Operations (Dungeon Issue #123) as a one shot to introduce a couple new players to the game. I'll be running it for three 3rd level characters. I think it will make a good introductory adventure because it offers a limited space to explore, is an unusual setting, and has some really nice cinematic moments (such as the climax).

Before I start working to make sure it works as an introduction, I thought I'd get some input from people who may have run it. Here are the questions that spring to mind:

Are there any obvious things that need to be done to convert it from four 2nd level characters to three 3rd level?

I'd like to swap out some of the vermin to show off a greater cross section of D&D monsters. Any suggestions?

Salvage Operations has plenty of combat, but I'd like to add a non-combat encounter with a neutral or friendly creature to highlight other parts of the game. Any suggestions?

I'd appreciate any other suggestions you might have for using Salvage Operations as an introductory one-shot. Thanks.

Morrow