Saint Malice's page

I agree it's a bit expensive. But, I'm going to go ahead anyway. Looking at what's listed it looks like a bi-monthly thing? Cool.

However, since it's an "adventure path" does this mean their maybe one big book at the end of it all for those who either a) want the whole thing in a complete volume or b) in case some issues just sell out.

I'm only asking because say you wrap it into one and perhaps cut a deal on that say... 30%, it's still $84 roughly BEFORE shipping. That's A LOT of money considering it's an adventure that only goes from 1st to 15th level.

In the past, prior to Paizo taking over Dragon and Dungeon, I had never had a subscription. After seeing how awesome the adventure paths were and how dedictated Erik and his staff were, I decided I couldn't miss an issue.

So naturally it's a no brainer that I transferred over my account for the month to month basis.

Looking forward to the Pathfinder!! Although I will miss Dungeon and Dragon (rolled my first character in 1979), I consider myself lucky to have been a part of it's heyday.

I don't ever want to tell a DM, I told you so, but he's thrown down the gauntlet. We've rolled stats for a Dark Sun 3.5 game. Check out www.athas.org for more info on Dark Sun 3.5. The DM has asked, because Dark Sun is a very harsh environment and he is equally a tough DM, that min/maxing is highly encouraged.

So... I've chosen to run something I've never played. A Thri-Kreen Psychic Warrior. Only the core books are allowed and that includes Savage Species as well as all the Complete class books, and naturally Expanded Psionics book. No Forgotten Realms stuff.

I'm very open to some suggestions here.

Thri-Kreen by the way get...
+2 STR, +4 DEX, -2 INT, +2 WIS, -4 CHA
They start as a 3rd level character. (+1LA, 2HD)

Everyone. You've all had some pretty sweet ideas and I can't wait to put them into place. It's going to be a while before they address the affairs of the Island. I will return to follow up. I plan on using, at one point or another, just about every idea that was posted. I will let you all know the outcome of your devious plans.

thank you, thank you, thank you

Say Kamelion, an interesting thing came up at our "character creation" meeting for the new Dark Sun game I'm in. Athas.org is recognized as being the Official Dark Sun for 3.x versions of D&D as well as content creation and such. Who if I may ask, would I hit up at WoTC for more along the lines of the Intellectual Property rights? See, my friends and I absolutely LOVE Dark Sun and the whole setting. Just the sheer idea of it, is fantastic. Well we think there are more people out there that feel the way we do. Since the people I play with are somewhat corporate savy, etc. We're actually interested in somehow getting printed a new "boxed" set (big hardcover really) piece of material. If we have to purchase the "rights" to the setting... we decided, so be it.

Sexi Golem 01 wrote:

Pit trap that drops a specialized Iron wall spell that has holes in it that allow the spikes to pass through, reflex save to avoid or 10d6 damage, plus falling damage if they don't fly, plus the spike damage (I maximize the spike damage due to the crushing weight) plus crushing damage and the max spike damage per round until they are free.

Then after they are almost done they find that the true treasure is inside the body of the golem. But now they have the power and equipment to take it down.

Another death trap. An advanced purple worm magically transmuted to look like a long tunnle. 80ft into the tunnle/digestive tract the worm comes back to life with the party inside

Nice Sexi Golem 01

Yes yes, see Zogonia in Dragon #338; pit trap with falling block - it's classic!
The big golem is cliche, but hiding the treasure IN the golem is wonderful.
Mmmmmm purple worm tunnel, another wonderful idea.

I posted a desciption of a standard pit trap with reverse gravity activated on bottom and area dispel greater magic on top in another thread but here is the gist of it:
Camo pit trap with spikes (50 feet deep); falling onto spikes activates Reverse Gravity spell; fall upwards 50 feet past companions and up another 50 feet impacting on another set of spikes and unleashing an area effect greater Dispel Magic; PC now fall the 100 feet back down to the spikes. Rinse and repeat if necessary.
You can do other evil things like put oozes in the pit traps, or half way down them for extra effect, eg arcane ooze (MM3).

I take it that this is not set in Eberron? If it was you could have things from the destruction of Crye land up on the island.

I love MM3 for some interesting high powered foes. Necronaut is nigh unturnable. A trapped Eldritch Giant could make really good use of the magic items available.
Anyhoo that is me done, anyone else with cool ideas?
igi

YES!!! I love that camo trap. There's going to be an abundance of contructs, some gone horribly wrong in creation, some used by Gods for a time and then discarded here.

I thought that since they're being brought in by "special" ship, there'd be a welcoming party waiting for them. I was thinking something like 3-4 mountain giants with 10 or so levels of barbarian tossing rocks.

Gah!! This thing took like over 30 minutes before it showed up. You'll see I posted this "topic" twice. One has a little more info then the other.

My players are about 17th level rightnow. I plan to take them all the way to and through 30th level (Quicksilver Hourglass). To help get them there, I invented a this island. It's a typical lost island. No one returns, very dangerous, etc. Original I know. But, I'd like some assistance filling it with horrible things to challenge them, especially of the Epic quality. I'm hoping to land them on the island at or around 21-22 level. With that, I'm hoping to achieve 4-5 levels out of this "module." I'm using a huge map, The Dungeon Under the Mountain (level 1) pdf, I downloaded earlier today. So some epic style traps would be cool too.

The island is billed as something filled with powerful magic items and rare gems and cool treasures. Well, it is. But, primarily (because no one really knows) it's a dumping grounds for the gods. Bad ideas, goofy magic, messed up monsters. A place when you cast the banishment spell, some have been banished to. So... any ideas???

I'd love some input from you guys. So here's a little background.

A rouge in the party (avg partly level 17) is going to come across a map. The rouge is the sort of rouge that's like Indiana Jones. Finder of lost treasures etc. He's heard about this map, it's legendary. Everyone seems to know something, but nothing really ties itself together. Remember the Island of Lost Toys from Rudolf? It's something like that. It's the hiding place of rare items (or so they've heard). What it really is, is a dumping ground for the gods. It's a secret almost unfindable island without the map. Over the years and through evolution, monsters have come to live here, even some humanoids. It's a very strange, magical, POWERFUL island.

It's planned the party will land here when they reach 21-22 level. So, I need some nasty ideas. I'm using an Undermountain Map I downloaded from Paizo. So some trap ideas would be cool too. They'll need to be around 25-26th level once it's complete.

You ahtas.org guys are kick ass. I can offer up another artist, he might want money (don't they all?), but that's something you could talking to him about.

His name is Reilly Brown. http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/

He did some commission work for me and he's always looking for other stuff. He's top notch, and has done work for Marvel Comics.

Anyway... my "group" is celebrating. A DM in the group has just announced he's kicking off a massive Dark Sun campaign. I was lucky enough to be named as one of the players he wanted to run. So thanks a TON for ALL the hardwork you guys have done at Athas.org. Oh the character contemplations are the good stress I love.

I have a barbarian/bear warrior in my group and when he transforms into bear form his strength goes to 44. I'll allow infinite abilitiy scores. It's only fair, otherwise make sure they know ahead of time how restricted the game is going to be. Not allowing someone to reach strength 23 when they start with strength 18, is sorry, lame. Want to level the playing field on a strong fighter? Will saves. Seems like a low blow, but it wakes up the rest of the party into overcoming a messed up fighter.

In my game last night, the cleric (14th level) and the party were struggling the Helmed Horror from dungeon issue 101, "Prison of the Firebringer."

They were getting their butts handed to them with this thing, so the cleric tried a harm spell on it. The horror made it's save, but still took 70 points of damage. Now... Should the horror, which has no CON, so no vitals, have taken any damage at all? Specifically since it's pretty much an animated suit of armor, you'd only "harm" the armor.

What do you guys think?

I'm old, so I like what I'm familiar with. That being said, I honestly believe Wizards would have done better to re-invent Dark Sun instead of venturing ahead with Everwrong, umm... Eberron.

I think I have the Dragon issues, but if I don't, what were they? And I must have missed the Dungeon issues, what were those?

I've had great successes over the years with story based games, more so then the BAG games (bash and grab). It seems the BAG style games became more prevalent with 3rd edition. I never had this issue with 2nd let alone 1st edition games. I attribute this to the video game genre, where there is a story but no one cares. Because the next day people are talking this item they grabbed and what level they are. Not how the princess praised thee and granted you safe travel in her homeland.

Here's what I've discovered works well for me.
1) Figure out your story. What levels do you want this to spread? What resources are available? (Dungeon issues are a nice tie in).
2) It's YOUR game, so it's YOUR world, regardless of whether it's homespun or Forgotten Realms, clearly things are subject to change.
3) Always keep it changing. Don't center it around one character. When Fighters start taking feats they're not accustomed to, you're doing well.
4) To take a video game stand on the process, create only the "bosses" they're likely to face. Everything else is just a supporting cast. With that in mind be accurate and odd at the same time. If the last thing they'd expect is a hill giant, toss in a hill giant, just to keep it interesting.
5) Take notes. Sometimes you just need to step off the path of the campaign (ie get someone up a level before moving on). This will allow the chance to go back on a side adventure, which might open doors to other things.
6) Introduce NPC's early. How often is up to you. But, keep them to a minimum. The less work the players have to do the better.
7) Fight like mad to get the story back on track.
8) Be patient, sometimes players just want to go mental and kill something. Give it to them.
9) Be consistent. Don't be so techinical in one area and so bland in another. Take time off to recoup and evaluate the storyline and campaign.

Nothing is more frustrating then being a useless character. Make sure that in designing your "story" not to let someone run a druid, if the story is never going to see a forest.

I go through a professional artist. I'm running one of the best campaigns I've ever ran and the players are making it awesome. So I decided to go professional for character work.

www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown

Check out his gallery. Keep in mind professional artists rely on commission work, so it isn't exactly cheap. I'm paying $70 for high quality work and if Reilly is slow on work can have something in 7-10 days. He's TOP NOTCH, as far as I'm concerned and I collect a LOT of fantasy art. For my best friend in the game as well as a birthday present, I asked for something spectacular. So we did a full background in a larger format. Cost me about $100. Printing it cost about $100 as well. It came out in 30x40 size. Stupid AWESOME. Most of his work is 8x11, but will adjust to whatever size you want to print it on. 8x11 image to 30x40 will look bad, so we made it 30x40 native and it's stunning. If you check out his color gallery, please do, the work he did for me are...
Ogre (my half ogre barbarian in another game).
Dwarven Cleric/Hammer of Moradin (notice animated sheild)
Dwarven Barbarian (that's the big one)
Ranger (kick butt flame sword)
Rouge (+3 flame whip) as the DM I hate that whip.

It's a little bit of a stretch, but aside from the Horde (which was pretty awesome) there was also the Viking handbook from 2nd edition. Not so much on the "nomadic" side of things, but lots of great ideas that nomadic cultures are likely to have. I'd say they were more of a raiding culture.

Mr Sutter. Paizo NEEDS this artist doing submissions for them. His name is Reilly Brown and he's done some work for Marvel Comics. Here's his website http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/

His color gallery is here. http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/color/index.html

As a gift to my players, I had him do some work for me.
My 1/2 Ogre Barbarian. http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/color/ogre.html

Dwarven Cleric: Notice the animated shield http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/color/dwarf.html

Dwarven Barbarian: http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/color/berserker.html

Human Ranger: +1 Flame Tounge Greatsword
http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/color/ranger.html

Human Rouge: +3 Flame whip
http://www.oddgodpress.com/reillybrown/color/firewhip.html

This guy is GOOD and he can deliver everything you ask for. You seriously NEED to contact this guy.

35...been playing since I was 9 when my older brothers group looked at me and said, "He can play the cleric."

I've hated clerics ever since.

If you're looking for old adventures in general or something more specific, check this guys website out.
http://www.paladinpgm.com/wyrm/

Not every adventure from Dungeon is in there. Most of them consist of all 3.X edition though.

An idea for the Dungeon staff. How about your own monster manual? The pages of Dungeon are filled with some really cool modified and homespun monsters. Why not a book that chronicles them?

Would people here be interested in something like this? Sure... you can flip through all the magazines trying to remember that cool monster, or you can conviently have it all in one book. E-tools might be interested in that as well.

Ya know, I totally understand where you're coming from, but it's a players right and totally with in the rules. So, really it's the rules.

I'm look...I was where you were when these rules came out. Now, I have a couple minor, very minor, house rules. You can't go denying characters because they take feats or skills that best benefit themselves.

What your saying is basically you don't want to allow a human barbarian to take exotic weapon and power attack feat with spiked chain. WHY? Is there something there that says they can't? No. You're basically telling them not to play that character.

I have played SO MANY and run SO MANY games that it all boils down to one person. The DM. Set your story, set your guide lines, set house rules, etc. You're only going to get trouble if that's what you bring to the table.

Bottom line. 3/3.5 rules have forced DM's to be better faster thinking DM's.

Reilly's work only proves one thing. It's a tough business out there. Especially when you're this good.

Anyway Reilly, have you ever pondered commission work? This would be a great place to put that offer out there. Every campaign I run I search the internet for artists to do character work for me. Heck, ya know what I think I got one on this computer, I will email it to you. Check it out, I paid $50 for it. Got a bulk deal :)

But, seriously dude I easily pay that for any of yours. Okay, now to stop thinking of myself, I've seen art less of quality of yours going for $100 no problem. The sorcerer with the green stuff, AWESOME!!!

Check this website out... It's a haven for artists like yourself. www.illuminatorsguild.com

I've foolishly missed a few issues so the "Age of Worms" is new to me. I'm bouncing off the walls with glee and excitement. Just finishing Shackled City path and that was a huge success with my group.

Paizo needs to heavily consider this as a MUST HAVE in Dungeon. The only reason I bought Dungeon was for the Shackled City. Otherwise I never bought an issue. Now...With Age of Worms coming, I'm getting a subscription.

I would like to iterate what others have mentioned in some other threads. I think more maps need to arrive online for download. Those maps for Shackled City were PERFECT!!