Sean Brown's page

Thanks for the thoughs all. Much appreciated

I've tried searching for this stuff, but no matter what I search for, it's says there is nothing on it (even topics I know have posts...), so sory if these have been asked/answered already.

Having trouble sorting out what abilities are used when.

Playing a fighter with the two handed build. Greatsword, including feats cleave, great cleave, power attack and cleaving finish. Also have overhand chop. So my questions are..

1)is the damage from overhand chop in addition to the 50% bonus to strength damage I already get from wielding with two hands? Ie. my str bonus is +6, so when I do one attack, do I add 9+12=21, or just the 12 (higher bonus?).

2)is overhand chop damage multiplied on a crit?

3) overhand chop says it's applied only if you make a single attack in a round. Let's say I charge, hit someone, the deal damage. Obviously I then add the extra damage. What happens if I then cleave? Does that negates the extra damage ,as it's now another attack? If it doesn't negate the extra damage on the first strike, is it then applied to any other hits that may happen through great cleave? What happens if you make an attack of opportunity? Do you have to go back and subtract that extra damage?

My interpretation to date has been..

1). The two damages are added together, since it doesn't state that damage replaces the normal +50% yo usually get. So it would be +21

2) yes

3). Not 100% sure what I think yet. I'm leaning towards saying that cleaves and aoo's don't count as extra attacks for this ability (despite the wording calling them attacks), solely because going back in time to undo damage already done is a pain in the butt, and I don't think it falls under what's "normal" for the game.

I realize many people will have opinions on what they'd let into their game, butid like to try to keep this to a "I think X is permitted by the rules as written because of Y"

Appreciate any input on this.

I am worried though about my party's ability to heal/detact traps. The medic is alternating rogue/cleric levels. These rolls are not being filled by anyone else in the group and the DC's will go up faster than his abilities. (let's not forget about turn undead!) I have a feeling that if a couple of PC's die, they will not be raised, and true clerics/rogues join the group.

This is what happened in our group, though its a rouge/wizard. The DCs do rise much faster then he'll be able to keep up - he'll be able to make his search and disarm checks, as he can still keep his search/disarm/open skills at max level, but its the spellcasting that is giving us grief. Caster/non-caster combos screw the caster - their spell levels are too low, and their spell resistance checks aren't up to snuff. We found that the number of spells per day wasn't even sufficent. Learned this the hard way, and won't be doing it again.

Did you try *preparing* for any of these encounters? Death ward, spell immunity, etc?

Indeed we did - those that we knew about. For example, when exploring the temple we came across those Kyuss knights (the ones with the negative energy blast ability). We used death ward and spell immunity, as well as a bunch of others. However, since the cleric can only cast so many spells a day, and there are only so many scrolls to go around (since they cost $$, of which there is very little relatively speaking in this path), not everyone got one. And since the temple was so far away from civilization, its not like we could "pop back" to town to buy what we needed. And of course, since we didn't even know what they could do, or that they were even in the room (did a listen check, but since undead don't breath/talk/move around without reason, couldn't hear them) - so of course we had to meet them to find out what they did. You guys can do the math, but in that room 3*14d6 damage against level 12 (I think) PCs is enough to kill any non fighter type outright, and possibly kill the fighters, as reflex saves aren't their forte.

Same goes for the big battle later on. And since we were ambushed by Darl, couldn't prep for that, but even then, how would you? We could fight them but unless we killed all the wish/raise dead casters, they'd just be back. I guestimated, but I think the ECL of the encounter with Darl was on the order of 23..against level 17 PCs.. Heck - the titan was 21 I think.

I will agree with the previous poster though who said some of the encounters were cakewalks. We strolled through the keep, and even the doppleganger portion wasn't that tough. The Whispering Cairn and the Temple were meat grinders. It seems like this was an all or none thing - either easy or murderous.

Finally - while I thought the idea of Zeech's party was a good one, what character by this point in the adventure has been pumping up their diplomacy skills? There hasn't been ANY call for them to date to speak of (after Diamond Lake) - and with spot/listen/search checks at a premium, who has the extra skill points?? Its one thing to have a character concept as a diplomat, but if you don't get to use those skills untill the last third of the path, your character is usually dead by that point.

I appreciate that its hard to make a level specific adventure, and even harder to include enough XP for the characters to go up the number of levels needed. However, I wonder if super hard encounters that could really only be consistantly won by metagming (not that our group is immune to that...to the contrary) is the right answer. Perhaps more story awards, magical XP bonuses or other methods might not be more effective and less frustrating.

Oh - and I AM one of the guys with 20 years experience, and the only PC to live through everything to date - and I played the Tomb or Horrors (essentially the same way this guy is staying alive - stand back and stay out of the way, while assisting from range/with spells) - we made it to Acerack before getting snuffed ;)

if any of these adventures were ever actually playtested?

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I'm a player, and can't read any of the other threads.

Seriously though, we've just finished up the 4th last adventure (with the library/fountain). Our party consists of 6 PCs (and for a time, there was a cohort). All of the players have been playing D&D for at least 5 years, and there are a few of us who have been playing 20+ years. We have only 1 character who is from the original group. Everyone else has died - multiple times. And I don't just mean 2-3 times. A few guys are in double digits. Its ridiculous.

The temple was just a meat grinder - those knights with the negative energy blast wiped out most of the party except the rouge (go evasion) in the first round! So we think "hey - that wasn't thought out very well - I'm sure they'll recognize this and make sure it doesn't happen again". Fast forward to the island - where the party gets sent back to fight the army of undead - and 10! of them crest the hill in the first wave. Guess who wins initiative? 10*14d6 with a reflex save of what? 22? Our fighters had reflex save bonuses of +8, and even if they had +21, they'll still fail 5% of the time. And they can do it 3 TIMES!!! So after the first round of combat, the only people still standing are the rouge and the fighter (he's got a whopping 8 hp left - guess how he made out?) This time everyone had rings of evasion, and they still bought it.

If this was supposed to be a "party killing" scene, why not just script it. Its very frustrating at this point to KNOW you are going to die again. And since the party keeps dieing, there isn't any money left (can't afford to raise dead at 5000 gp a shot cause there isn't any money in the campaign - its all magic and gems, which get sold at 50%). Its probably just as well, as everyone would likely be level 6 at this point, instead of 17 like we are.

And just to finish off my rant, can someone please tell me how the battle(s) with Darl's group can actually be won without metagaming? At level 17, even with 6 characters, we still got the boots handed to us. Meteor storm to open, following by a butt whupping by the efreet/nightmare. Assassin hiding in the wings to snipe, and demons set up to go. Of course Darl being ths smart guy he is, called for help, using his planar ally spell to get a PIT FIEND before hand, since he knew where we had to go.

All in all, this is just ridiculous. The worst of it all is....I REALLY LIKE THE STORY ARC!! I think this could have been really great, but most of the encounters just seem way overpowered for the groups that will face them - turning it into a killing field.

Anyway - thanks for the rant - looking forward to the next adventure path, and I hope that lessons from this one will be carried forward....

THank you!

Sean Brown wrote:

I too have not received my last issue of Dungeon

What was the number of the last issue you did receive?

The last one I got was 133

I too have not received my last issue of Dungeon - I know people near me got theirs last week, and I was only concerned as I had received a notice saying my subscription had run out (despite me having renewed a while ago, and the web site says I'm good) - is there any way to check and see if it was actually sent out?

We can send a replacement issue, but since it's the first issue of your subscription that has gone misisng, could we ask you to verify that your mailing address is correct? Just click on the "My Subscriptions" link in the upper right corner—you can change it right there if you need to—and let us know back here that it's ok, and we'll reship the issue.

-Vic.
.

Ahh...ok...much appreciated!

Except I renewed several months ago - and the notice explicitly says I received my last issue 2 weeks ago - which would seem to indicate that it was sent within the last month, no??

So I received a notice in the mail today saying my subscription to Dragon has expired...and that I have to renew. Now, thinking back I thought I had recently re-upped my subscription, so I check online...and I see:

Remaining Issues: 24
Issue #342 shipped 02/28/06
Issue #343 ships 03/28/06
Final Issue: #366

So....what gives?? Anyone??

Hope you caught it - thanks for the prompt reply on my missing issue though...stupid Canada Post..

*sigh* - so I wait until after receiveing issue 133 to ask about 132 - I get a VERY prompt reply from Paizo saying they are sending me a copy right away - and what happend? My actualy copy arrived today. If Paizo hasn't sent a replacement copy yet, then don't - if not, I'll try to send it back... Thanks anyway!

I too received issue 133, but have not received issue 132 yet - since its over a month late, can I get another one sent to me?

I will say, this is the first time in a long time I've had problems receiveing either my Dungeon or my Dragon mag...

[From this thread and others, it sounds like there were a number of things that didn't work out in your favor to combine for a bad scene. Not understanding what your party was up against was a bigger problem, though. Until you know what to use, all the cold iron in the world...

Thanks for your comments - very helpful to be honest, and you are right - there were things that simply "didn't work out" which may have contributed - one of the reason I like to come and point out our problems to see what everyone else thought...

DMFTodd wrote:

The graffiti about town is rolled randomly. You might not have found the graffitti that is was a good hint. "Drakthar is dead, Long live Draktha" though is written on the wall at the bottom of the stairs immediately when you enter. Either your DM missed it or your PCs don't read goblin. ".

That would be the latter - no one in our group reads goblin. We got the stuff in town translated, but couldn't do anything with the stuff in the dungeon. :(

Bryannt wrote:

Actually, what got me into a LOT of problems were the 'cursed' items in Jazadrune (spelling)....

Identify has changed DRAMATICALLY in 3.5.... How did you allow your characters to discover which items were cursed?

This hosed us as well. I missed one session, and at that time, the group never thought to tell Skie about the "curse" on the items. I show up next week to find Skie is looking for us - wants he money back for the cursed items she was sold, and we had to pay restitution for the curse. Now she won't buy any items from us...which drastically reduces our ability to get $$.

Depends on what you mean by "down" - our Druid was dominated and out. Our fighter was unconscious (brought back up after the druid got (and made another saving throw). That was the only two I can remember (if I said three it was in error). AT this point though our mage was out of spells, and our thief had just shot his 11th arrow at a single goblin before killing it - and was now out of arrows (this had nothing to do with the adventure - just bad luck - but since the thief couldn't overcome Drakthar's DR, it was kind of moot). I was the second fighter and was "fine" though limited in the damage I could do - 1d8+6 I recall - so I could do between 0-4 dmg per hit depending on luck.

Had we been able to read goblin or had we been able to retreat things would likely have been different. I don't consider these to be "flaws" of the game itself - more (as posted above) that the part would have to have access to certain spells and items that were never really included in the game. Perhaps I'm a bit old fashioned, but whenever I DM'd I always made sure that that PCs had access to (ie - found or read about) the way to defeat an upcoming monster.

BTW - just curious how all your PCs found out the weakness of vampires? Did everyone ask Jenya (assuming she knew..), or did many groups metagame and simply rely on player knowledge - it was moot in our game as we never got that far, but was curious.

My campaign is in the middle of Flood Season at the moment. I was having a few of these concerns myself. Especially Drakthar. That DR made me nervous, but when my party finally encountered him, I ran him as is. After a few rounds of not damaging him, the cleric of Wee Jas (oh that's gonna be fun later on isn't it?) managed to get a stupendous rebuke undead roll on him. The party regrouped and started thinking about what they knew about undead. Then someone came up with the idea of using Cure spells against him.

We did that as well - however, as I mentioned, we had already suffered significant damage, and most of our cure spells had been used to heal the wounded party members. Remember - we have a lvl 4 druid and a level 2 cleric - not an abundance of cure spells here..we rely heavily on cure potions which cost $$

And sure enough they had him on the ropes not too long after that. Many of my players in fact told me that the fight with Drakthar was one of most challenging and most fun they'd had in a long time. Book did it's job if we all had fun, right?

This is absolutely true for your group - and we are trying to make it true for ours.

I was also nervous they weren't getting enough treasure for their levels. In fact, I was about to drop them an extra reward on them. (One of the player's characters is a Lathenmire... was going to play the "we gave your sister some money for her adventuring party...") But then every character started regularly shopping at Skie's. They were starting to ask her to order and were paying for +1 weapons. So I'd say the treasure distribution is just right.

Well - unless I'm mistaken, Skie's place for us was a "you see what's available, and if not, come back later and see what's there then" kind of place. Even selling everything we found in the dungeons, we had to scrounge to buy the +1 scimitar after getting our hands on all the healing we could.

And as for that one spell in the spellbook that's 3.0 instead of 3.5? Well, ours went something like this.:

"That spell isn't in the Player's Handbook."
"Oh, well substitute Spell X with it."
"Ok"

I'm sure by now you and most others have realized this wasn't anywhere near close to being the main problem - it was one of many we encountered, and listed because we've only played the first dungeon and a half - we (the players) have no idea if this repeats itself later on (and it shouldn't) so it was mentioned. I hope the horse is sufficiently dead so it can stop being flogged on this one.

Sean Brown, though I disagree with most of your criticisms of Shackled City, I agree with you that you are entitled to your opinion about it and should feel you can voice it without being subject to personal criticism.

Thanks - I sincerely appreciate that :)

As for Drakthar's vampire nature, my group guessed he was a vampire the moment they read the graffiti about "Drakthar is dead, long live Drakthar" and "Drakthar is lord of rats" or something like that. .

Our group never got those quotes - from what I could see from what our DM was doing, it looked like the grafitti was randomly rolled - was that the case, or just what he was doing? If it were random, this would seem to be another issue - clues like this can make a big difference, no? We also thought he was a wererat/sorcerer after fighting the lycanthropes outside the bathhouse - later a werewolf after hearing the howl. We tried to "undominate" the underlings, but Jenya didn't have the ability it seemed...

Still, either way they went to buy silver weapons. Also, after fighting the lemures in Life's Bazaar, the barbarian had decided to buy a silver +1 two-handed sword by selling his other items. He had time to get one made because the adventure suggests giving the characters time to do what they need for a week or two before starting Drakthar's Way.

We actually spent the time recovering from the previous battle - we didn't actually start any of the next adventure until a least one (if not two) weeks had past..didn't know anything happened until this point..

Once the group captured and questioned Orak at the bathouse, they realized after a sense motive check he was dominated, which further suggested they faced a vampire, and further prodded the cleric to get protection from evil. Note, a wizard or sorcerer can cast protection from evil, not just a cleric. With the time the characters are supposed to have before going to face Drakthar, any wizard or sorcerer should be able to get a scroll of protection from evil if your party lacks a cleric. Now if your character has no cleric, wizard or sorcerer, then you are missing so many basic spellcasters that the DM should realize that he has to adjust the adventure some to your unorthodox party composition.

As you can see at this point, a series of events led to the fact we had no idea it was a vampire - our cleric/ wizard (2/2) didn't have the spells available, we didn't have any silver items, let alone magic, and didn't know it was a vampire until we were in the thick of things , with 3 out of 5 party members down - escaped only by luck really (and I'm sure a bit of DM fudging to keep the campaign alive). Had we realized at any point before having people down, we would have fled to try to buff up, but knoledge came too late - and I still haven't seen any clues that could have helped us - I am interested to know why your group felt the goblins/Orik was dominated and not simply charmed, and why they felt it was a vampire and not a spellcaster (as we thought)?

I do see how, with the right information, things might have been a bit more "even" shall we say - I hope someone can enlighten me about the grafitti..random or not??

As for the dangerous nature of Drakthar, he is not as powerful as a normal vampire. He's tough, but he should be, considering there are so many clues to the party that they are facing a vampire before they run into him. My group bought a silver magic weapon, alchemical silver, holy water and wooden stakes before even entering Drakthar's Way. The cleric prepared protection from evil to cast on the fighter types to protect them from domination. Any party expecting to face a vampire should have prepared at least one or two such spells.

Just wondering what "clues" were available in your campaign that pointed at this. As I mentioned earlier, we didn't have any indication what we were coming up agianst other than it could magically influence goblins..

And one of the "puzzles" in Drakthar's Way is for the PC's to figure out they are up against a vampire before fighting him, not finding out after the fact.

Ahh this was part of our problem (and may just have been the issue with our group). We couldn't find out anything about him. We interrogated the goblins, but because they were dominated, they wouldn't tell us anything. We tried speak with dead, but they kept making their saves. We heard a "wolf" howl in the dungeon, but none of us knew what it was, and the Druid's familiar could only tell us that it wasn't "natural". FInally, because we had a wolf, it could track the scent directly to the vampire - hence it was the 3rd encounter we had in the dungeon. Once it started, we didn't recognize that he was a vampire until we were already in hand to hand -he had already dominated the druid, the fighter was down and our thief was mostly dead. We did manage to pull it out (so yes -we all survived - but that wasn't the issue), but would like to have retreated but couldn't without losing over half the party - which seemed pointless at that juncture...

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that you're not having...

Thanks James -we were actually using SCAP as a break from AoW (which we are enjoying!), so we're going back to that soon - we may pick up SCAP later on to see if things are better. We didn't want to just drop it without finding out if others had the same issues or if it was something we were doing that could be corrected -we did spend money on this after all so we wanted to try to make the best of it!

Wow - didn't realize that disagreeing the this isn't the best thing since the wheel was such a crime - We appreciate James' comments, but vitriole like this just isn't necessary.
Interestingly, noting from a lot of your posts below, you didn't actually read what was written, as your "summaries" are wildly wrong in a lot of cases - allow me to clarify.

So, to summarize, the "large flaws" are:

1. The CR system, which is more art than science, and upon which many a flame war has been based, didn't give the precise numerical rating to the challenge that the group felt was warranted.

It isn't the CR per se - its the fact that a creature was included in an adventure that was beyond the capabilities of most of the party members to deal with. The thing has CR magic AND silver so in our group the archer could do AT BEST 4 HP damage, and the fighter could do 9 - many times the archer could do nothing. Our mage is multiclassed so at this point he had a whopping 2 offensive lvl 1 spells and color spray didn't seem to do much against the vampire. Finally, the dominate ability is countered by protection from alignement spells -assuming you have them available when you fight him. I have a problem with encounters that rely on the avilablitly of specific spells or abilities to have a chance. What if the group has no divine spellcaster??

2. The DM doesn't understand racial weapon proficiencies. Nor does he appear to understand that an urgosh is "some kind of two-handed weapon." Dual weapons can be used as two-handed weapons or as a one handed weapon and a light weapon. That's why they are (almost) worth a feat.

He misspoke on the two-handed weapon - he ran it appropriately as a dual weapon, but admittedly didn't realize that he was automatically proficient in it.

3. There's not enough loot.

No - nothing to do with loot - everything to do with how encounters are structured. Higher CR creatures assume in a lot of cases that the appropriate level PCs will have access to the means to defeat them. This includes things like magical weapons, scrolls, potions and armour. Level 4 PCs should (according to the DMG) posess some sort of magic armour/weapons. Our party has a magical scimitar - that's it. PCs without magical weapons/armour/items/etc are going to be overmatched by equivalent CR creatures in many cases because they simply can't hit it or damage it. So no - not a case of not enough loot - its a case of weakening the PCs so they don't stack up to encounters like they should - and note that I'm not suggesting things should be EASY - just that they should be fair.

4. Jzarduine has too many traps.

Again - no - the traps weren't the problem. The issue is including things in an adventure that normally give out exp, but you can't realistically award the xp for avoiding the traps as it unbalances the game. The beef (as with the ideas above) is that this book/adventure has NOT been balanced appropriately for the PCs in it. What would you say if every 4th encounter the DM said "Sorry guys - I know you used up resources, hit points and time, but because the game is poorly written you don't get any experience or reward from this encounter"? It would be crap.

5. A boss type monster has low CR guardians.

There wasn't a complaint about this - not sure where you got that from other than it was mentioned as part of an explanation of something else.

6. One spell in one book in one dungeon (out of twelve) wasn't converted to 3.5.

Um - again, as noted above, we are only part way through the second dungeon - I don't know what's going on in the rest, and what's been converted or not - just as we mentioned.

Did I miss any other "large flaws?" Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying SCAP is perfect, I'm not even saying it doesn't have flaws, but for someone who came ranting and raving about how terrible it is, this is a pretty weak list.

I was unaware that your opinion on why we should or shouldn't be enjoying the game is necessary - whether you feel the reasons are weak or not is irrelavent. Aaron posted to see if anyone else had the same impression/ problems, and it seems not. We posted our issues and you've made an attempt to belittle them and pass them off as "rantings" - thanks for your constructive input.

Finally, 3 and 6 are so easy to fix that it hurts to think about it. Not enough treasure? Pull out ye old dmg and roll on the table a few times. Is one spell wrong in one spell book? Replace it with another spell.

Great - since you seem to have the free time, how about doing it for us. We bought a predone adventure as we didn't have time to be doing it all ourselves. I NEVER expect things to be perfect - I've DMd a long time, and know things often have to be changed on the fly - but some things just shouldn't be missed - like power/game balance.

As has been mentioned, just about everyone else on these boards who has run the game has had a good...

We are glad for them - though it doesn't really help us with our problems. Please remember that pointing out that "everyone else" didn't have problems doesn't make ours go away. It does, however, make people reluctant to come to the boards to try to find solutions to them when posts are going to be attacked

I'm one of the people in Aaron's campaign, and we've noted several problems so far (BTW - I post here as my DM has linked this particular discussion to our group message board). Please keep in mind I have not read the adventure as published - I've played it and we've discussed it as a group, so there may well be things I don't know about because of that...

How is a vampire who has ALL the abilites of a full on vampire a CR 5 critter? I mean, it can still dominate (against our fighter types he's got a 50-50 chance of succeeding every time), can still summon a pile of wolves, has crazy DR (could only be hurt by 2 of or 5 party members - though our mage was able to do SOME damge with spells) and can turn gasseous?

Why was the main fight in the first chapter fought by a guy NOT PROFICIENT in his weapon??

Why does there not seem to be enough magic for a party of the appropriate level- and a lot of the magic that does exist has a curse on it..?

Why are there a million traps in one dungeon, with the chance of finding the keys - but if you bypass the traps with the keys, you can't get the exp as you are supposed to (according to the DMG) as the party would then by insanely high level for the part they are in?

Will see if I can come up with the rest of our issues as I remember them - Aaron might know a few more.