Sben's page

So the videos of Lou Zocchi currently making their way around the internet are making me nostalgic for the terrible old dice that came with Blue Box D&D. In particular, I have "fond" memories of a blue d12 whose edges were so worn that it rarely actually came to a stop by itself, and certainly was incapable of producing random numbers.

However, Google is failing me; I'm unable to find pictures of these horrors.

Does anyone have pictures, or know where I could find any?

My players are going to try to recover the Wyvern in the next session.

Aquatic spells: It's not at all clear, but it seems to me that Skephilipika's freedom of movement should let him move on land as he does at sea (40' if I remember correctly). (Otherwise, why does he bother casting it?)

Is there any reason why he wouldn't stay submerged while casting all of his spells, especially his summoning spells?

Finally, I think I'm going to give Bloodtooth a 20% chance to capsize a rowboat. (He doesn't have a hard shell like a dragon turtle, but he should be able to knock the thing around a bit, and it'll foreshadow the encounter with the Glutton in a few sessions.) Is there any reason not to do this?

Repairing the Sea Wyvern: "Repairing a hull section requires a day of work and a successful DC 20 Craft (carpentry) check -- up to three sections may be worked on in a day."

Does this mean that a single carpenter can work (or supervise untrained work) on three sections, or that up to three carpenters can each work on a single section?

The encounter with Tonatiuh (the couatl in the rakasta temple) indicates that couatls remained on the Isle after the first savage tide for a variety of reasons. Does this mean to suggest that Tonatiuh was alive and present for the event, or is he merely a descendant of those who were?

Ah, my players.

We're partway into "Tides of Dread", and the phanaton PC's player mentions that his village had to move because of demons raiding from the central plateau.

Another player's reaction, referring to the climax of "Here There Be Monsters": "I thought we'd handled the demons?"

Ha. Ha ha ha. (Insert uproarious DM laughter here.)

How do Temauhti-tecuani's ability scores add up? Based on guidelines for applying the elite array to a standard stat block, I'm guessing he should have ability more like 32, 14, 25 or 26, 2, 17, 8 -- very similar to his printed 32, 16, 26, 2, 16, 8, but it's annoying me.

(I'm fearful for my party's chances against Temauhti-tecuani, so am considering dropping his stats back to somewhere between his current ones and those of a standard tyrannosaurus, so am trying to "reverse-engineer" him. (I'm still of two minds as to whether or not I want to do this.) Right now, lowering his hit dice to 21 and removing his Improved Toughness feat should do nicely.)

Before I spend the time to do the research and math on my own, does anyone have a feel for how level progression goes in "Tides of Dread"? My players' characters were barely 9th level at the start; is there enough XP in the standard encounters to reach 11 by the final battle, or should I toss in a pseudo-random encounter or two?

There are entire threads devoted to certain encounters or opponents (e.g. Khala, Olangru, Vanthus in Farshore). For the other ones that don't really merit their own threads, let's put little "tactics summaries" here to share with other DMs.

Here's one:

Scenario: "Here There Be Monsters"
Encounter: Ilzytik [sp?], the spirit naga in the shrine to Demogorgon
Tactic: When the party proves tough to defeat, Ilzytik will move to the east end of the room and order a charmed character to trigger the ice storm trap (she is fully aware of it), hoping it will catch most of the party (she will be outside its 20' radius). This shouldn't be considered something the PC "wouldn't ordinarily do", but a DM may rule that it breaks the charm (see charm person). In any case, the party naturally would receive normal XP for encountering the trap.

Behold a bad Photoshop job!

Inspired by vikingson's post in this thread, I found pictures of the reproduction of the Nina, traced the Monster Manual picture of a wyvern, and put them together.

If anyone with more experience and/or patience with Photoshop wants to try their hand, here is a vector image format of the wyvern silhouette.

So a known issue with Savage Tide is that there are few shops for buying new magic items, or NPCs for upgrading the enchantment on weapons and armor.

One of my players' characters currently has a weird weapon (a +1 spiked chain, that he commissioned before they left Sasserine). Are there be any potential problems with providing an "upgrade kit" as treasure (say, instead of a different magic weapon that's of no interest to anyone in the party) that would upgrade any weapon it's applied to?

This upgrade kit might be a +1 weapon upgrade kit, or a flaming weapon upgrade kit, or a arrow catching shield upgrade kit, or whatever. Its value may obviously vary, depending on the enchantments already on the weapon it's applied to. Aside from that, is there any problem with valuing it at the difference between (the current value of the weapon it's applied to) and (the resulting value of the weapon it's applied to)? (Thus, if a flaming weapon upgrade kit is applied to a +1 spiked chain, its value would be 6000 gp -- the difference in value between a +1 spiked chain and a +1 flaming spiked chain, or a +2 spiked chain for that matter.)

One suggestion that just occurred to me: Give the player-friendly sections of the book a quick visual distinguisher, so that players can safely page through the book without too much fear of spoilers. (For example, dark page borders visible when the book is closed.)

I don't know how much you've thought about repackaging. One thing I thought of was selling PDFs of groups of setting articles that aren't specific to a given AP (e.g. a religion PDF, a gazetteer PDF). This way, future purchasers can "catch up" with the state of the setting in a cost-effective way.

I'm still reading through #146. Everything is excellent so far (I've read the Scuttlecove backdrop and a little way through "Serpents of Scuttlecove"), except one little nag: The population of Scuttlecove as presented in the little statblock in the backdrop is ~16,000. That's higher than Sasserine's (~15,000), which (1) doesn't match Scuttlecove's much smaller physical size, and (2) just "feels" wrong.

Was the population set that way to produce the proper gp limit and assets? Or is it really the population the authors wanted?

Avast, ye spoilers!

...

So, my players dealt with Kraken's Cove with only one rest (and one PC death), and are going to beat Drevoraz et al back to Vanderboren Manor.

I've got a few weeks before it's an issue (I'm assuming one session getting through the festival to Vanderboren Manor, a bit of tension as they explore the empty house, someone entering as they're upstairs (Lavinia), and then preparations for the siege, culminating in the initial breakin), but I want to start prepping now.

I count 21 bullywugs, plus five named enemies (Chief Lorpth, Lorb-Lorb Tub, Bua Gorg, Drevoraz, and Chunkus). On top of that, they will have (and probably need) five NPC allies (the Jade Ravens and Lavinia).

That's a lot of dice to roll. I've been in scenes where the DM rolls more dice than the players, and it's not much fun for anybody. So I'm tentatively planning to let the four players each handle one of the Jade Ravens in combat. I have some misgivings (I don't want them getting the idea, even subconsciously, that the Jade Ravens are "theirs"); I'll try to mitigate that by handling all the roleplaying outside of combat.

I know the Black Bard has DMed this as a siege; has anyone else? Any words of advice? Anyone think letting the players handle the Jade Ravens is a bad idea?

Is it possible to catch the same disease twice? E.g., if a character fails his save against the savage fever, would he need to check again if wounded by the same (or another) savage creature, and risk more intelligence loss (and possibly a faster decline into savagery)?

Let's imagine a character fails his initial save against a disease, and is exposed to the disease a second time. I suppose that the possibilities are as follows:

* The second exposure doesn't have any effect.
* The second exposure requires a save; if failed, no additional effects are suffered, but the character needs to save twice each day (once for each failed exposure), and all saves need to be successful for two days straight to beat the disease.
* The second exposure requires a save; if failed, the effects of exposure are applied again, and subsequent daily saves could apply effects twice if both are failed.

I couldn't find an answer in the DMG, though it may well say somewhere.

The medal, as described, is only effective in Sasserine. Is there any reason not to make it also effective in Farshore?

Just received #142 today. I've read most of "Here There Be Monsters", which looks like another enjoyable installment of The Savage Tide, dragging the characters closer to a confrontation with Demogorgon. Very nice.

The only qualm I have (just from reading) is the Shrine to Duplicity (in the shrine to Demogorgon); I'm slightly concerned that the players won't "get" the puzzle, esp. if they get discouraged (read: damaged) from trying the wrong thing. (In a way, it feels like a 1st-edition Gygaxian puzzle.) I'm curious to know how it went in playtest.

I have no concerns at all about the rest of the shrine, or the rest of the scenario for that matter. Kudos!

The obituaries thread is great. Here's the opposite thread: Moments of glory for the PCs.

PC: Tholnak Hugenheim, dwarf rogue 1
Adventure: "There Is No Honor"
Location of Glory: The Blue Nixie
Summary: Tholnak is dropped to 0 hp, and comes up with a Clutch hit

Long Description: The characters found themselves unexpectedly in a fight on the deck of The Blue Nixie. The situation was still up in the air when more thugs burst out from the cabins under the quarterdeck; one of them dropped Tholnak from full hp to 0 with a single lucky blow from a rapier. Things were looking grim for Our Heroes. With his last strength, he made his way over to Soller Vark, flanking Vark and killing him with a single blow from his morningstar; Tholnak then keeled over, unconscious and bleeding.

This was the turning point for the battle, which otherwise may have gone badly for the party -- Tholnak, though a rogue, is one of the main "muscle" characters of the group. As it was, Vark's death demoralized the thugs, and Tholnak himself was quickly healed by the party's cleric. If it weren't for Tholnak's clutch attack, I may have been adding to the Obituaries thread instead.

We've recently started There Is No Honor, but the PCs haven't yet confronted Soller Vark. One of my players had the bright idea to get Lavinia and Vark to submit to Discern Lies, at which point the district watch would be more or less obligated to step in and help repossess the Nixie.

I don't see any particular reason why this approach wouldn't help the PCs, though maybe not as much as they'd like. They'll probably get a few watch members on their side in the boat fight, plus the weight of moral and legal authority (which some of them are concerned about).

Obviously, Vark has no interest in this plan, and won't be setting foot off the ship. It's in Lavinia's interest, however, and should cost only 280gp (7th level cleric casting a 4th level spell, assuming they can't find a paladin).

I think I'll run it like this:

• They present the plan to Lavinia. She agrees, but says that the cost will have to come out of their reward -- she's low on cash, which they know.
  
• They talk to a member of the watch and convince him to accompany them to the Nixie to get Vark to come to a cleric. (No cleric will be found who'll accompany them to the ship.)
  
• Vark's not going anywhere, and the watch can't compel him, so they'll have to go just with Lavinia.
  
• They go to a temple -- any one of Fharlanghn (Merchant District anchor), the shrine to Zilchus (monetary transactions), or the Azure Cathedral (seaborne commerce) -- and pay for the spell. It's found that Lavinia is telling the truth. The watch now has evidence supporting Lavinia's case.
  
• Three watch members accompany the party to the Nixie, with Lavinia remaining on the dock. The thugs get Vark, who allows them on deck.
  
• At this point, I play it by ear; a couple of possibilities are:
  -- Vark decides the deal is worth the risk of antagonizing the city watch, so attempts to disarm them and tie them up, intending to skip town after the deal that night. Chaos ensues.
  -- Vark decides to bail on the deal; he shouts for the cages to be burnt and tries to jumps ship. Chaos ensues.
  
• Assuming the characters find Lavinia's money and return it to her, she'll reward them the originally-agreed-upon 200gp, but no bonus.
  

If Vark escapes, I may have him end up joining the Lotus Dragons -- if they can keep him on a leash, they probably wouldn't mind having a brute in their ranks.

I plan on statting watch members as level 2 warriors.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

"There Is No Honor" has lots of backstory, but it's scattered pretty well throughout the scenario. The way my brain works, I prefer to have a compiled timeline; I'm posting in case anyone else would find it helpful.

Most dates are approximate, and a few are interpolated or otherwise guessed at.

-23 years: Lavinia born
-21 years (?): Vanthus born
-10 years: Sea Princes overthrown; Dawn Council formed
-5 years: Lavinia sent to academy; Vanthus sent to plantation
-1 year: Lavinia and Vanthus return to manor
-1 year: Vanthus taking up with seedy characters
-4 months: Vanthus involved with Brissa Santos
-3 months: Vanthus steals mother's signet ring
-1 month: Vanderborens killed; Lavinia inherits
-3 weeks: Vanthus hits Lavinia; disappears
-3 weeks: Vanthus kills Penkus
-3 weeks: Vanthus starts stealing from the vault
-1 week: harbormaster impounds The Blue Nixie; places Soller Vark in charge
-3 days: Lavinia pays Vark; denied access to ship
-1 day: Lavinia invites the PCs to dinner
0: Go!

The only thing that I find a little difficult to reconcile is the fact that Vanthus stole his mother's signet ring well before he started stealing from the vault. It's not hard to come up with reasons, but I haven't come up with one that's entirely convincing.

If you have additions or corrections, please post them!

The Sasserine to the Abyss campaign journal is excellent, and a great read.

It's a nice mix of DM (Steve Greer) posts and players' in-character posts. If you haven't read it, you should.

(I'm posting here, rather than to that thread, so as not to dilute that one.)

One of my players is considering a character who briefly joined a pirate crew, before realizing the life wasn't for him and deserting. To help tie him in to the adventure path, I'm planning to make him a former Crimson Fleet crewmember. (Ideally, he'd be with the ship that's involved in adventure #2, issue #140.)

Does the Crimson Fleet have any initiation rites for basic crewmembers ("able seamen", or perhaps not even able yet) that I should know about? He certainly shouldn't know about the secret activities of the fleet, but I imagine nobody but the captains really know what's going on (and maybe not even them).

I'm going to be DMing STAP; my last D&D experience was with 2nd edition rules. I've read the overview in issue 138. I can see how almost every class has a role to play, except for the bard. After #1 and #2, the only real place I can see for them is #8 (Scuttlecove).

Actually, I think my problem may be that I don't see bards excelling in general. Educate me: Are bards useful with v3.5 rules? If you have an anecdote, give me one! I'd love to be wrong, or missing some key aspect of the class!

I'm wrangling up some commitments for a Savage Tide campaign, and would like to know how much time I have to subscribe so I can get issue 139.

Your subscription FAQ says that labels are printed two weeks before shipping to subscribers, and also that labels are printed three weeks before. Perhaps I'm trying to split hairs here, but ... do I have (approx.) one week to subscribe, or two?