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I'm just wondering if anyone has an approximate time it takes to get to parts of the city? What if the party is all flying? I need this to keep track of buff spells during the various rescue missions all over Cauldron during "Foundations of Flame." Or if this is described in the SCHC someplace and I missed it, that would be great too!
Hey everyone, My group is about to finish "Lords of Oblivion" tomorrow (Sunday the 3rd). I've searched the archives for the boards on info for "Foundations of Flame." Found some really great stuff in there and I've prepped a lot of stuff in the advance. The only thing I'm really looking for is some additional events and/or Volcanic Hazards for the night. The book suggests running the events more than once to make sure the party gets enough xp/evacuation points to clear Cauldron, but I'd like not to have to do that. So far, I plan on having the Meeting of the Minds section to take place in the Malachite Fortress (since a prominent dwarf PC has been working hard to get the fortress back and in business). The attack by the psycho derro will then take place in there as well as a couple Volcanic Hazards to get the group running for the top to save the rest of the city. I plan on making the dwarves assist quite a bit in rescuing the citizens, building on the joint relationship between Cauldron and the Fortress. Any other volcanic hazards or events people used to add some spice to and already great Chapter?
My group has just invaded House Vhalantru and highly suspects he is a beholder. To that effects, the bard/sorcerer in the group has taken antimagic field as his next spell and is planning on using it walking all through the house and dungeon below. They already fought the tarterian gauths and kicked their butts with the antimagic field. Now I'm a bit worried that they'll encounter Vhal with the antimagic field and make it a cheesy and very anti-climatic battle. Any suggestions on what to do? I'm already planning on making the Oblivion doors throughout the dungeon become totally inert while in a antimagic field, so they can not open the door at all. Anything else that may help? Also important to note that I'm using the new variant beholder put up at the WotC site...
One of my PCs, an archivist/thamategurist (sp?), is planning on using the various planar ally spells since he gets a substantial cost reduction from his PrC. The thama-whatever its called is the PrC found in the DMG that focuses on summoning planar beings. Fortuneately, the SCAP gives several good planar allies that are all named and can be used (Nidrama, Celeste, and various beings from Occipitus like the couatl). He plans on using one of the planar ally spells once each chapter to get the outsiders assistance with the quest(s), using the day-per-level timeframe. This may and may not allow the outsider to assist with the entire chapter. My questions are: Will using this frequently over-power the party? Will there be a substantial power level increase with Nidrama walking around with the party all the time, or some other outsider with around 12-HD? Who controls the NPC outsider, me or him? Should there be any type of restrictions? How much, if any, of a discount should I give if the player's goals and the NPC outsider's goals "match" (meaning, and outsider gets called to fight a bunch of evil demons, which would match its goals...see the spell description)? My group started out as 6-players but we have since lost 1, dropping us to 5. Will having an ally outsider help this? I just worry that the outsider will out-shine the party. We're starting chapter 7 next week. Thanks!
Just have to let you guys know there in "Dragon" know that the recent "Off to see the Wizards" article in #347 was brilliant. I loved it. It was a nice change of pace from the more "fluff" and "crunchy" articles present in "Dragon." I thought it was fascinating to see how a standard day goes for the folks in WotC. They seemed stressed! Heck, it even inspired me to format one of my adventures and send it to "Dungeon"! Not that it promises to be any good, granted. ;-) Just had one question. And this is something I've always felt applied to video-game designers as well: When their hobby becomes their job, do a lot of the writers and workers at WotC get tired of D&D? It just seems that, by working in something that is normally a hobby for most, they'd get tired of it quickly and not want to play anymore. Any truth to this? Keep up the great work! Ryan (Ogre_Bane) P.S. If I ever do make a trip around the WotC headquarters, do they give tours? Or do you have to be a super-special "Dragon" employee?
I remember reading in one of your more recent issues a response to a letter in the "Prison Mail" section. The response was in regards to statblocks and you guys mentioned having a WotC Microsfot Excel program that allowed you to make them up quick and easy. I want that Excel program!!! Any way we (the subscribers) can download it or maybe the wonderful folks at WotC could make it available? Besides DMing, my favorite thing in D&D to do is make new monsters.
With a mane of fine white hair framing its wise face, this dragon’s many hued scales reflect light in shimmering patterns. Its long tail ends in a wide fin, not unlike some great fish. Its eyes glow with an extreme intelligence and power, but that glow seems corrupted somehow, much like the color of the dragon’s scales. Vittriss Bale CR 16
AC 27, touch 11, flat-footed 27
Speed 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 120 ft. (perfect)
Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 13th; DC= 20 + level; DC= 21 + level for conjuration, evocation and necromancy):
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 18th):
Abilities Str 15, Dex 10, Con 22, Int 25, Wis 22, Cha 30
Spells: Tome dragons automatically know all divination and conjuration spells of the sorcerer spell list. They can also cast spells from the Knowledge cleric domain as sorcerer spells.
One of the main incentives for traveling with Kauraphon (sp?) at the start of Chapter 6 is that the party is some 500miles away in a gods-forsaken desert with no chance to return. Now throw in an Archivist with the teleport spell. I'm pretty sure that, through some forshadowing and character quests/goals, the archivist with access to the teleport will actually want to go with Kauraphon, but the remaining party may not. Anyone have some ideas that would make the party want to still go with him, even though they have a way to return to the city?
I want to introduce Alakast into the campaign, but I'd like to make it a spellcaster item instead. Perhaps a bonus to Int or Wis or a bonus to DC's for spells, maybe even a couple spell-like abilities per day. Any ideas on what a spellcaster Alakast would be like? Maybe even some intersting sample abilities and costs for them?
*bump* No answer at all? :-(
I just completed the riot scene in Cauldron for the taxes. Everything went pretty well and the party controlled the scene with no loss of life. However, they did manage to obtain one of the Last Laugh guild members who was there to incite the riot. My question is this: How do I change the story line now to manage for the information they obtained? Through some very "persuasive" (warmage has an extremely high Intimidate) talking, the party managed to get the information out of the LL rogue that he was there to start a riot by attacking the guards and making Maavu look bad. So now the party has proof that Maavu is not directly involved in the riot (which they trust) and will fight against Skellerang going after the "Chisel" in Redgorge. What can I do? I thought of having Vhalantru get to the rogue first and "persuade" him to say that Maavu was still behind it all, but my PCs will probably follow that up with disproof since they *hate* Vhal. Any suggestions at all?
So I don't care much for the "Chisel" as its featured in the HC. Have people come up with better ways to have them in the campaign or alternate organizations? I just recently purchased the "Fiendish Codex 1" and it has some *great* stuff for DM's (not so much for players, though). I thought of bringing in the Black Cult of Amh as featured in the book as an alternate to the Chisel. Anyone else think this would work okay or have any ideas to incorperate them?
I'm interested to know if anyone specifically planned out any interesting character quests involving PC's that either took the "Noble" character trait or just put it in their backgrounds. I'm looking for some character quest ideas to make for my noble warmage player. He's from a wealthy family with ties to mines and plantations, similar to the Taskerhills. Anyone come up with good stories of corrupt nobles families that he might be able to stop? Drawing a blank on this one....
I'm getting close to running the "Test of the Smoking Eye" chapter and I'm wondering what hooks/persuasions I could use to get my semi-ultragood party to go on this. As soon as they meed Kauraphon, the pally will 'detect evil' and refuse to do anything with him. I've got one character (a dark-hero archivist) pretty interested in the "smoking eye" stuff, so he shouldn't be a problem, but the rest of the party may. Any suggestions on getting them to do this? I'm trying my best to run the AP verbatim.
My players have begun to get some information on the Carcerean sign and its relation to the Sign of the Smoking Eye. We are currently almost done with Zenith Trajectory and about to begin Demonskar Legacy. Two characters have the Sign (from the Scared Soul trait) and I'd love to introduce their "specialness" soon. I'm curious on how other DMs have gotten their PCs to notice this since it requires them to use a invisiblity purge or see invisibility. Anyway to throw some encounters that would make them use these spells to notice the signs, without it seeming to much a "DM boot."?
I'm curious to see how much time and effort fellow DMs put into this part of the campaign. I've had quite a bit of combat, dungeon crawling, etc. so far in the campaign and I'm looking forward to see a bit more RPing in this section. First of all I've fleshed out quite a bit of the "games" and such. I even took some of the events described in "To The Games" in the most recent Dungeon #132 (thanks Paizo!!!), such as archery games and throwing a large hammer. I've also increased the cost to enter and rewards in my game (such as a +1 returning and throwing dagger "trophy" for the dagger throwing contest). I've got games and contests to last the entire week of the Flood Festival. However, I am a bit stuck on the Demonskar Ball. All of the PCs are going to receive invitations (of course) and the warmage (another noble in the city) is going to go as Nabthatoron. I'm looking for some intersting events and encounters to happen during the ball. I had a great RPing moment between the party and the Stormblades, and there's a lot of bad blood there. The hardcover suggests that the Stormblades invited the PCs to get a chance to embarass them and save some face, but what type of event could I set up to do that?
Just finished up (for the most part) Life's Bazaar. The last fight with Kazmojen and Pyllark was a doozie. It states in the module that Pyllark doesn't really want to fight and tries to run away, but one of my PCs (a warmage) used an area effect spell and kinda brought in the half fiend dwarf to the fight. Needless to say, a well placed Unholy Blight really hurt the party. Kaz ended up getting a crit on the scout (doing about 37 dmg in one swing) and killed him. The party was able to bring down Kaz and Pyllark escaped. Since the module is mostly set to allow the durzagon to escape, I'm wondering what other groups have done with him? Was he just forgotten or did he come back later to haunt the PCs, perhaps even in the next chapter (Drakthar's Way)???
For the DM's.... I was wondering if and what character traits you were using in the campaign. What plans do you have for the PCs that took these specific character traits (such as gaining the Smoking Eye template for those with the "Scarred Soul" trait)? Did you make up any character traits specific to your campaign?
I'm about to start the Dungeon magazine adventure path campaign "The Shackled City." I was wondering if there have been any other DMs or groups that have gone through the campaign (or still going through it) and have come across any problems of difficulties I should be aware of. Bad adventuers? Bad fights? Horrible NPC interactions? Anything at all I should be warned about. So far we have this party (all level 1, using the Living Greyhawk for allowed rules/classes/feats/etc.): Human male Archivist (HoH)
Thanks! |
