Noxweather's page

We don’t need any boring old libraries and laboratories! :)

Any adventuring spell caster worth his cantrips shouldn’t forget to check out all those old ruins, abandoned tribal huts, lost caves, rakasta haunted dells, exotic barrows and many other strange and unusual places your wizard might find spellbooks or items for arcane research.

Any half decent DM should make sure that spellbooks can be found in all shapes and sizes not just as dusty old books on shelves in cities, especially for this campaign.

Sources of new spells could be found on stone tablets, dinosaur skin wall hangings, sword sized horns or teeth covered in spidery arcane etchings found driven into the holy ground of the Gwqango tribe and other weird looking tomes might be made from large tropical leaves bound together with vines and wads of chewed up gum tree sap by the bright green tree frog people of the Rrbyytt valley.

Shame my pals wont roll up a spellcaster!

I want to have a jungle tree lab/observatory, how cool would that be? With a landing platform above the canopy for my dire mage-bred Archaeopteryx mount!

Humph! That does it! I’m gonna have my very own DMPC wizard and screw what the players think! ;)

My pals haven’t made any characters for this yet but none of them like spell casters much and prefer to be warriors so I bet we end up without any casters or rogues at all. Once we had a campaign with three fighters and a monk. I don’t see it as a problem, some encounters might be harder but they’ll have the HP, AC and ten ft pole to get through most things.

Going by what I've read here I might let them start at level two because it might be a "difficulty setting = hard" campaign anyway. :)

One of my gaming buddies used to get a call from whatever girl he had wrapped around himself at the moment, and would go on and on for upwards of 15 minutes, completely ignoring us and the rest of the game, chatting and laughing up a storm about things that weren't relevant to what was going on at all and could easily be worked out later. Finally, he'd hang up and give a lame "sorry," only for it to happen again five minutes later. This might occur three times in a game night. The general consensus among the other players was to wait for him, since he was also a friend outside of gaming, but no amount of talking could convince him to turn the thing off.

This is exactly our problem, one of our players is a man whore! The other phone using player is a guy with wife/kids so I understand his need to keep his phone on for emergencies but she (the wife) keeps calling/texting him every five minutes to check up on him, if he dosnet take the call right away she throws a strop and he sits looking worried for the rest of the night; he jokes about it but I feel kind of bad for him, can only imagine the hassle it causes at home later. His wife seems to resent the game and has made comments like “Oh your going off to play with your little toys and leave me alone all night, again!” even though he only plays with us once a month (or even less). The DM has invited her around and even asked her if she’d like to join in but that wasn’t an option and she can’t get a baby sitter. (Although, she somehow manages to find a babysitter in order to go out clubbing every other weekend!) Normally she is cool and she hangs out with us when we all go bowling or to the movies or whatever, it’s just the gaming she hates.

I'm sure my old geography teacher used to have Truestrike relating to the ranged missle weapons: chalk and blackboard eraser! He could hit a kid in the temple from 30ft!

I know its probably not a very popular request (because most fantasy role-players tend to abhor the idea of anything remotely sci-fi in D&D) but I for one would really enjoy an updated article on the sheen (not Charlie) and how to incorporate them into the current settings, deities attached to them and planes of origin.

It might help them become excepted by more gamers if the sheen were re-vamped with a more archaic makeover and looked less like something from the movie Virus or the sentinels from The Matrix, something still techno fantasy in art style but adopting a more medieval looking form of cyberpunk and not necessarily steampunk either.

I made a list (with good old pen and paper) of the various threats and friends the players might come across during the first two adventures. I intend to paint up what I need or (if theres a lot) buy them in plastics. It's a pitty D&D miniatures are random.

Do a lot of you guys use minis and scenery during play? We do when needed to show placement of monsters, players, objects and stuff but sometimes it can detract from the game and hampers roleplay as people start to focus on the wargame aspects of the map/models in front of them. I'm in two minds whether or not to use them in my DM'ing run although probably will, mainly because I love mini painting and modelling.

You could use the cellphone thing.

Have a friend who's game call the characters up ingame on their cellphones, to roleplay "voices in their head," maleficent sendings from the evil one...That sorta thing.

Thats a cool idea but I dont wanna encourage them!

monte cook did an article on 'table rules' in dungeon a while back that should be a good starting point. don't remember which issue though....

If someone could find out that number it would be cool, I could read it out to them to make my point and it wont seem like I'm being a dick. :)

What would be a satisfactory set of basic rules for good gaming etiquette in your opinion or more importantly, how to tell people firmly but politely to switch off their stupid phones at the games table and wait till we break for answering text messages and what have you?

In the new year I hope to start a new campaign and could do with some advice. The DM of the current group I game in is a nice person and all, we have a blast and the guys are a good bunch but after seeing how my gaming buddies behave at times (texting is the main thing) I wish to avoid falling into some of the same pitfalls and lay down the law right away as some of these phone addicts are going to be in my group!
There’s nothing worse than when DM is describing something or trying to build tension then all of a sudden someone’s phone emits a loud obnoxious ring tone!
The DM has told us a few time that he wants phones turned off and its not on (and 50% of the group comply) but the same two guys always ends up (conveniently?) forgetting and saying sorry after an interruption, one guy has wife/kids and says he has to keep it on just in case he’s needed but it is still annoying as hell even when its only on vibrate.
Any tactful ways I can reasonably put across my views and enforce a code of conduct when I take over as DM without making them think “The new DM is nazi and makes us feel like school children?”

Depending on how lengthy a pre-STAP adventure you want to run, I might suggest running "Mad God's Key" from Dungeon #114 if you have it. It is nominally set in Greyhawk City, but is easily adaptable to Sasserine. There is a chase across barges that is really interesting, and would fit well in Sasserine- particularly in the Azure District, and the Green Dagger Gang could be either a part of the Lotus Dragons, an affiliated faction, or a rival faction, which could help to set up events in "There Is No Honor."

Additionally, as there is an interlude of sorts in that adventure, depending on where they are xp-wise, you could take time out after the first part to get them into Savage Tide, and eventually get back to the rest of that adventure at a later time.

I have Dungeon #114! Excellent...

Urgh...

Well the guys I game with have already wrote some brief histories for each of their PC's so I have to stick with what they already have down. Each one has made it so they are Sasserine local and have lived in the city all their lives. Three are from Shadowshore and one is from Noble. None of them know each other yet and the players dont even know what each of them are using yet when it comes to class and race, so the first game will be a suprise for everyone.

A good book to reference this would be <i>Cityscape</i>, I think that it will answer alot of your questions.

Whens it out? Does it have a section on tropical places?

I showed him this thread and he has allowed me to play a dvati (favored class: pychic warrior) without splitting the actions between twins now and gaining a full hitdie per twin, but for an LA of +2 and they are going to gain xp and levels as normal serparate characters do!

I hope it works out ok.

I going to DM the new adventure path and after reading the first couple of adventures I decided it would be best for us to have a preliminary adventure, taking place a day or so before There is No Honor, allowing the PCs’ to get to know each other and to give Lavinia a reason to have heard of them and contact them via the note handout. I might even include a scene wherein the PC’s see Lavinia’s parents ship ablaze in the harbour from a distance.

I’m having trouble thinking up a suitable getting to know you adventure, I guess it should allow the party to explore Sasserine and soak up the atmosphere, then establish the direction the path is headed in?

A spontaneous exciting chase through the city could work, by having all the characters just so happen to be in the same area when something goes down? A monkey or something takes off with a noble ladies expensive brooch or a local mages sceptre?

Whatever the scenario, it will have to be something that spurs the all the players into action immediately as a group. I like the idea of starting the game off with the words “Roll for initiative!” and think it will get the players thinking fast and working as a team right away.

To underline the exotic flavour of the Sasserine setting I could do something very OTT and have a pterodactyl fly off with some important personage or item that’s somehow central to the city (or the wormfall festival?) and then use some good old emotional blackmail (like having an NPC tell them the local petting zoo/orphanage is going to suffer now) or something worse if the party doesn’t go after it, it is rail roading a little but maybe its worth it to get things off to a cohesive start.

Going with the ideas from the other thread I started about the dangers of living in Sasserine maybe I could have the party go on a low level hunt for certain components for use in alchemical vermin repellent items or snake warding incense? A lot like one of those World of Warcraft quests you have given to you by some NPC who has this checklist of things needed from the jungle? Any ideas for a cool checklist of items?

1 piranha tooth
7 monkey toes
5 monstrous centipede legs
7 wild dwarf beard hairs
1 partridge in a pear tree etc

Any adventure hooks for a pre-path introduction adventure in which the players can’t earn too much xp are most welcome.

I thought as much but figured there would be some sort of protection like special anti pterodactyl units of guardsmen or low level druids or mages stationed around the battlements of the cities tallest buildings or what have you?

Alchemical "bug-away" incense and oils, maybe magically treated "dream catchers" only for vermin/snakes etc?

Sounds like it could all make for some fun games, I love messing with the players "ick-factor" when I DM.

Does anyone know how much these alchemical or low level items would cost to make/buy roughly? It would be neat to add these to my game.

I wanted to know was how safe people are in the city from bugs, snakes, poisonous creatures, roaming dinosaurs, stray leopards and other nasties?

Are the Sasserine canals safe from parasites, how clean is the water, do you get slatwater crocs there? Are they protected by grills or nets in places stopping most troublesome animals?
Do crocodiles, aquatic monsters, trolls etc ever snatch people from right in the city?
How safe are the skies what precautions have the people of Sasserine made to make sure flying creatures don’t swoop down and carry people of to be eaten in the jungle?
Is it common to wake up and find a spider the size of a dinner plate eating your poor little toes?
How about large insects?

Really? Well, it does make much more sense.

My DM says that for a dvati, a round of actions are split between the two twins? So if one twin performs a standard action (like attacking) the other twin can only do a move action etc… Strange...

I thought this was pretty dumb and messed up an otherwise good race so he agreed to change things, only he wishes to bump the dvati LA up to +2 or even +3? Which again nerfs them IMO.

We’re going with a party of seven characters but because we only have five people in our group (including the DM) I’m allowed to play two characters at once so I have a pair of individually levelling home made dvati. ;)

Human wizard (party leader)
Goliath barbarian
Raptoran fighter/favoured soul
Human dread necromancer (this ones the DM’s NPC)
Elfcrafted warforged fighter
Pair of Dvati psychic warriors (my PC’s)

erin wrote:

this is where it gets difficult, do dvati do everything together, what if we start going out? does that mean both of my dvati twins are going out with the rogue? what about marrige and children? can dvati mate with humans?

Hi there. I know this thread is rather old now, but I just came across it for the first time and, as the guy who created the Dvati, I hope I can shed some light on their rather complex and admittedly confusing ecology.

The main thing to remember about the Dvati is that they are identical twins, not clones. Despite the theological notions that they share a single soul, they are, pretty much just like real-life twins in that each tends to develop a distinct personality. That being said, however, the relationship between a Dvati and its sibling are far greater than that of other humanoid twinnings. They tend to be very similar to each other, in that non-Dvati often have great trouble telling them apart, even when they speak, but to those who really get to know them, the difference becomes more apparent. Dvati twins share a strong emotional bond that is extremely difficult to sever. This is why they never part after reaching adulthood and tend to do everything together as a set (well, that and the fact that separating a set causes them to shrivel up and die, but that's beside the point right now).

Dating outside their race is very difficult for them. The Dvati (their language is roughly Slavic, BTW, "dva" being Russian for "two") see the world in dualities. Although I didn't emphasize it in the old Dragon entry, they're a very lawful people who tend to put everything in even, equal terms. When they mate, they mate pair-to-pair, each partner in the mating sharing time with the others equally. It's unusual for a marriage to produce only one set of children. Usually, the wife-set will become pregnant simultaneously. Indeed, it takes donations from BOTH males of a set to make a dvati female pregnant. Since overpopulation can be a problem, it is...

Hey there, cool race man!

Have you gotten around to doing your version of the dvati yet? I’d love to see it, sounds exactly what I’m looking for. :)

A few questions:

What are the dvati homelands like?

If you were going to put the dvati into forgotten realms or eberron, where would you pu them and what changes would you make to them? I DM eberron while my friend DM’s FR; any chance of a “dvati conversion download” or at least a post with a few pointers? ;)

Do you think they make for a cool "psionically inclined" race?

Hi! The dvati intrigue me very much but I can’t help but feel they are a bit of a missed opportunity mechanics wise (for me) and I was wondering how I could modify them into something more suitable for my needs?

I love twins in general and the whole duality, mythical/otherworldly status twins have.

I once played a pair of identical albino “thunder twin” dwarf fighters (basically me just running two characters in the party at once, sometimes its good not to have enough players ;)) the DM created an additional feat for the twins (they both had to use a slot for) that allowed a telepathic connection and gave them the ability to share damage if they wished. The feat was actually called “Two Bodies One Soul” funnily enough!

I love the dvati as they are one of the coolest concepts I’ve seen in a long time they’re fresh and I love how they put a whole new slant on the way characters work in the game. I like how they really are “two bodies, one soul” and rolled one up right away… but then, looking over the rules, one thing jumped right out at me; the dvati doesn’t get a full set of actions per twin?!
At first I thought they did but the Dm says otherwise; I think this kind of makes them too slow and pretty much a sitting duck in combat, especially with their favoured class being fighter?

I still like them a lot but I’m now working with the DM to make them a more appealing and balanced race (for me anyway) and allow for both twins to have a full range of actions per round? The Dm thinks this would be ok as it is just like a player running two different characters (only in this circumstance they really do need each other and if one dies its very bad?)

We are going to change their favoured class to psychic warrior (as they scream psionic to me) and might make each twin gain hitpoints normally instead of half each.

Has anyone had much experience using the dvati? Whats your take on the race? Is it balanced? Should we modify it or not?

Hi!

I’m looking for any planes based adventures that may have been printed in Dungeon since the mag went 3rd edition. I’m particularly interested in adventures featuring the plane of shadows.

New stuff is simply new. It's fun to try new things but I guess we shall see if any of these new things stick around and really become much loved architypes (like elf mage) with the release of the 4th edition players handbook, lol! ;) :P