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Sorry, I know that this thread is a few days stale but I wanted to chime in here. Anyways, here goes.

To be honest, the idea that the Pathfinder universe contains, or even could contain, all other fantasy universes is one that I'm not 100% on. Personally, I'm quite the purist when it comes to keeping individual settings and mythos separate. With all due respect to James Jacobs, while any fantasy setting could exist inside the pathfinder universe, here are my reasons why they shouldn't.

First, as several posters have already pointed out, some fantasy universes just can't coexist together. Trying to explain how the futures envisioned by Star Trek and Warhammer 40K fit together is difficult at best.

Second. If we assume that Earth exists as we know it and other fantasy universes also exists then we find ourselves in a bit of a bind. For example, we have not only the Star Wars universe with Jedi and the X-Wings but also we have George Lucas and documentaries on the creation of the Star Wars movies. I can ignore this once to allow for both the existence of Paizo here on Earth and the Pathfinder universe. However, every time I ignore this continuity paradox suspension of disbelief is stretched a little more thin. You can only do this so many times in one setting before it becomes ridiculous. Earth becomes some kind of cosmic epicenter where fantasy and science fiction writers are not in fact creating works of fiction but channeling the truths of reality.

Third. Perhaps the most important point, does any of this make Pathfinder any better? I don't think so. In my humble experience, Pathfinder has been at its best when it was charting its own course. This is especially true in instances where Pathfinder took creatures that we all thought we were familiar with, such as goblins, and turned them into something new and exiting. Pathfinder is a perfectly good setting that I care about with it's own unique colors and flavors. It certainly doesn't need to go about co-opting another universe's ideas. Every time the star ship Enterprise (or whoever) show up it spoils things a little bit. After all, if you mix too many paint colors together pretty soon you get a dull, unsatisfying gray.

Now, the idea that real world mythologies is fine. Nobody owns these I.P.s so they're up for grabs. Also, no DnD setting has made said assumption before so that helps set Pathfinder apart from the crowd just a little bit more which is good. I've also heard Grimcleaver's explanation for how this all fits together and it's pretty smooth. Here's another idea. Perhaps there is a group of space fearing aliens looking for their fabled homeland ala Battle Star Galactica, but it isn't actually the group seen on TV, just something similar. Plus, this is a great opportunity to put a new Pathfinder spin on these ideas.

Well I've played the official adventure on DnD day and skimmed the books. I'm slowly going to be picking through them over the course of the next week. Over all I'm feeling fairly good about the whole thing. This may or may not change depending on what happens when I get to read the books in fuller detail. Here are my thoughts so far.

First off, it seems that things are a lot more strongly front loaded. For first level characters we were pounding out some serious damage and had a fat stack of HP to boot. Felt more like a 5th level 3e or 3.5 character as far a power level. I think that the new system of powers worked well. I liked having a list of daily, encounter and at will powers. Gave everyone some fun stuff to work with as well as a few big guns to pull out during the course of the game. To be honest though some of them seemed a little over powered. The ranger's ability to deal 1d8 damage with his "Hunter's Quarry" ability automatically felt like too much. (I'm hoping that the player just read the ability wrong) I liked the idea of characters being able to take a rest and get some HP back with the second wind ability, though I'm not sure if those HP should be temporary or not.

Anyhow, once agian my first impressions were favorable and I'm looking foreward to giving 4e a more rigorous campain length test.

Well, as one of the players in Grim's game I have to throw you some props for handling the new system as well as you did. Not an easy task to be sure. Certainly a good game and enjoyable afternoon.

First off, I like the idea of changing the favored class bonuses. The 3.5 version seems a little arcane, adds a bunch of book work and might not even benefit you depending on how much multi-classing you plan on doing. One simple universal bonus each level seems like a more elegant and simple solution. I'm just not sold on the 1 HP bonus. I think that a 1 skill point bonus might be better. First off, an extra skill point is universally useful regardless of class. Sure, so is a hit point but I think that a skill point makes more sense in light of what is being represented. The time spent by others developing the basic abilities for a class that comes naturally to your race can be used to build other skills.

First off, I think that making 0 level spells useable at will is a great idea. It gives lower level casters some more bite and high level casters some fun special abilities that are helpful at any level.

When I read the latest play test rules I noticed that Cure Minor Wounds had been replaced with a new spell "Stabalize". I know that this is what most of us used cure minor for, to stop a character who was bleeding from falling any further into the negatives. It makes sense to change the name and function of the spell to something more resembling what we all used it for. However, with the re-thinking of 0 level spells I think that it would be beneficial to keep Cure Minor Wounds as it is. Anyways, I'm not sure if this has been discussed yet but here are my thoughts on the issue.

1. It saves on down time. Instead of breaking between encounters to heal the party and decide which precious spells to use to get the groups preped for the next batch of baddies we can simply assume that the cleric takes the time to top off everbodies HP. After all, it doesn't consume any resources or spells per day. This also should cut down on the amount of times the party needs to camp. It's annoying to have to camp all the time, sometimes after a single encounter. With cure minor as a use at will ability, parties can skip a rather dull step and get on with whatever it was they were doing.

2. It wouldn't effect game balance. Allowing the party cleric to cure one HP per round at will isn't going to change to flow of any battle. I don't think that one HP a round is going to keep even a level 1 party afloat. In battle you need to use the more potent healing spells to keep people going. But if you just need to stabalize someone cure minor is still available.

3. It's kinda cool. The though of the cleric kneeling beside a wounded character and praying over them while their wounds begin to close is a fun mental image. Not the most compelling reason perhaps, but there you have it.

Just wanted to add my thanks to the pile! I had a totally awesome time. It was great to meet and game with everyone. Thanks to those who planned the event and organized everything and thanks to the paizo staffers who showed up to answer or questions and thanks to everyone who ran games for us. Can't wait for Paizocon 2009!

Just saw an e-bay auction for the limited edition sell for 550 British pounds... wow

Anyhow, I just placed an order here for a copy of the book, please let us know what the chances are of Paizo being able to get enough copies. Thanks!

I have high hopes for this book and am looking foreward to getting my hands on it. Warhammer 40K is one of my favorite Sci-Fi setings, well a fantasy/sci-fi/gothic mix really. All the parts come together to form a unique and interesting whole. However, one of the problems with introducing a large panoramic setting like this one is the entry point. I think that introducing players as inquisitors is THE perfect place to start off. It adds plenty of character variety, you are gonna need your warrior types to deal with traitors, pykers to root our liers and priest to purge chaos and other taint, and that's just for starters. Plus what better way to get to know the Imperium than as the guys who travel back and forth across it with a fine tooth comb. It will be easy for developers to branch out from there into other groups and races.

EDIT

Just read what you guys were saying about the cancelation of this line. What a let down :(

I'm gonna chime in here, so far I have really loved the Iconics that have appeared. They have even made an appearance in our home game! Fleshed out interesting characters add so much flavor to the game. I for one would love to see the list continue to grow forever.

For taht reason it would be great to see new iconics in future releases instead of old ones. I'm not trying to be greedy, but I do have a great respect for the work that the Paizo staff does. I hold the Pathfinder universe in the same esteem as Star Wars or Wheel of Time (both favorites of mine), and the characters presented are some of what make these worlds so much fun to explore. In that sense, it would be strange to see George Lucas tell a new star wars story with Luke Skywalker once again as a young man with no knowlege of the force on a planet other than Tatooine. It just wouldn't seem right. Keeping that in mind, I would love to see more of Valarios and the others in future adventures, just not as level one characters again. It would be fun to explore what they do after they defeat the rune lords and continue on into epic levels! For new adventures starting at level one though, I would prefer to see new faces.

Once again, I'm not trying to be whiney and I hate asking for more when I've already gotten a good pile of great materiel from writers who are already probably handeling huge work loads. However, if you all have the time I would appreciate it.

Here we go. The party, with the rescued viliagers make our way into Turtleback Ferry and get a heros welcome. Free drinks, food and rest for everybody. We take some time to enjoy and catch up on our sleep. In the morning we eat a huge breakfast and take a look at the town. The place is in quite a state, for starters it looks like the church has been sat on by something huge and there is mud and muck on everything. We are told that not only has the town been flooded recently but that an enormous creature washed down from the north decided to attack the town. Fortunately however a previous group of adventurers were able to repel the beast and deal with the flooding. The viliagers also mention a fort that is a short march north. Apparently the place was attacked and taken by ogres recently but was retaken. We figure that we should travel to the fort and at least warn them about the things we saw in the ashwood. We decide to resuply before heading out. Gorav sends his armor to be cleaned and repaired. After being through several battles, a sewer and the ashwood without proper care it is in a pretty sorry state.

We are approaced by a young man, about 20 who seems nervous. We ask him what the matter is. He tells us that some of the children in the town are missing, 4 to be exact. He says that the mayor has lost many sentimentally valuable artifacts in the church, and while he would never ask anyone to risk themselves to get them, it is well known that their loss has saddened him greatly. These four children decided to enter the ruins in an attemp to get some of them back for him and give them to the mayor as a suprise, however they have yet to return and he is nervous for their safety. The young man asks the party enter the ruins and look for them. We agree. Gorav goes to pick up his armor which has been sent to someone named Iron Tooth. Iron Tooth turns out to be a particularily disagreeable sort who doesn't like Chilaxians. The armor is in a heap and hasn't been tended to at all, just hasn't gotten around to it. However he does have a breast plate that he is willing to loan Gorav, the only problem is that is was crafted for a woman. Deciding that some armor is better than no armor, and certainly not willing to cringe infront of the oafish blacksmith Gorav dons the armor and leaves, wraping his cloak all the way around himself.

We head down to the ruins of the church. The front door is still intack, though it is lying almost flush with the ground by now. We have to enter one by one and crawl almost on our bellies to get in but we manage to get in. We crawl into what is left of the main room of the church. There is just enough space in some areas to stand. We light up our sunrods and get to searching. The ruins seem about ready to completly colapse and we have to be extremely carefull not to distub the precariously balanced rubble. During our search we hear noise, sounds like scampering through the rubble, Gorav immediately worries that it could be goblins. Whatever it is it is keeping just out of range of our light. We form a tight group and keep moving now even more worried about the children. We call out but get no response. Zoy manages to hear what sounds like muffled sobbing coming from the end of the "room" we are in. We move over towards it and find a piece of an old door held against a cubby space. The door has large tooth gouges in it. We try to pull it away and hear the voice of a child from behind it telling us to hide or we will get eaten. More scampering sounds ensue. We tell the children that we are going to get them out. They come reluctently, afraid of the creatures that are lurking about.

We start heading for the front of the ruins with the children inbetween us. Halfway there we are attacked by what we now realize are giant salamanders. One of them attacks Gorav and gets it's tongue around his neck and starts dragging him backwards. The other one gets a dart from Zoy and retreats for now. Gorav manages to pull himself foreward enought to get his dagger out and slashes behind himself severing the tongue. The giant salamander is enraged but backs off. Aucshawn is busy getting the kids out the door, we ask them who is missing and they tell us his name is Ander. Zoy calls out his name and we hear a reply from deep within the ruins. He keeps saying that he almost has it but that it is stuck. As soon as he speaks we hear the sound of scutteling going towards the back of the church and Ander, we quickly throw the last child towards safety and move as fast as we can to intercept the salamanders.

At the very back of the church we find the ruined remains of what was apparently the reliquary, there is only a small ruined passage of what used to be a door that allows entry. Zoy goes in first, but both Gorav and Aucshawn must take their time to squeeze through. When Zoy gets in she sees Ander behind some fallen rubble trying to fend off the grasping tongues of two giant salamanders. She throws a dart at one of them and grabs it's attention. By this time Gorav is through and make an attack on one of the salamanders but fails utterly, the salamander takes this opportunity to get it's jaws arround Govar and sucks him in up to his waist. The other salamanders is taking shots at Zoy but hasn't been able to hit so far. Aucshawn enters the room and sees the situation, he immediately attacks the salamander eating Gorav and guts the thing (critical hit plus skirmish bonus YAH!) at which point Gorav starts to pull himself out of the things dead mouth. Next round Aucshawn rounds on the other salamander, pushing himself off a fallen beam into the air and burries his axe into the things skull (WOOT nat 20!). We quickly grab Ander and head for the exit, but before we can crawl out we see a very large salamander blocking the exit, it sees us and rams it's head into the small opening, it can't get through but each time it rams we hear the cracking of wood and dust starts to fall from the celing. Time to leave. Aucshawns grabs his axe and Gorav casts stone hands and we start trying to beat an exit through the back wall before the entire structure falls on us. Zoy trie to keep the thing at bay by throwing darts at it through the opening. As we are breaking through Ander reaches out and grabs an object that has now been freed by the shifting stucture. Aucshawn manages to break through the wall and the party jumps out just as the room we were in dissapears in a cloud of rubble. We check Ander who is shaken but alright. The object he grabed was a bow made of antlers, apparently blessed by Old Deadeye himself. We take the children back to mayor who is overjoyed to see them, he tells Ander to give the bow to his father and to never risk his life like that again.

That night the party is invited to tell their tale to the viliagers in a town gathering. Gorav starts the telling (whoping 7 on my performance roll :P) but is quickly interrupted by Zoy who finishes the story in a much more interesting fashion, using ghost sound and prestidigiation to enhance the story in places. After the story everybody ends up eating and chatting with the viliagers. Aucshawn notices a tall thin woman with long ears and large whiteless eyes, odviously an elf. Having never gotten a chance to speak with the other side of his heritige he decides to speak with her. The elf introduces herself as Mericial (I know I probably just butchered the spelling there, but once again Grim has my books so please bear with me). Anyhow, she says that she is from fort Rannik and that she is interested in our tale. She and Aucshawn get to talking and eventually the chat gets around to the strange sitings in Ilsurien as well as the information we received from Zoy's patron. She says that we need to come tell that to her friends as they would surely like to know. During the party, Zoy notices several tattoos that she recognizes on several of the young men in the viliage, the look similar to the ones she saw in Ilsurien. We head out to Fort Rannik. Once we get there Mericial tells us that we should speak with Sioni, after all she's the one who is into thinking and plans and all that. We are shown to the top room and meet a young man dressed in armor standing next to a large keg that has been brought up and a woman dressed in what is odviously varisian clothing and tattoos. We give our information to Sioni, including the part about the child of oblivion. She is grateful for the information and tells us that the child must be destroyed or it will surely ravage the countryside. However, she asks us not to tell Valarious just yet as he would surely go charging off after the thing without a decent plan. We work together and decide that until we know what the creatures weakness is we won't be able to defeat it, infact it is unlikely that we will even be able to damage it. We decide that the best way to study it is to trick it into fighting another large creature in the are and observe the fight. A dragon would do nicely... Dragons however are in short supply and we don't have a great deal of information on where to find one. Sioni says that she has scholar friends in Magnamar who could certainly help, so we make arrangements to leave for there shortly. (we get to hang out with the iconics SWEET!!!)

Whew, here we are. After finals, the holidays and a particularily nasty cold my gaming schedual is back on track and I am ready with the next post of what has been a pretty hair raising campaign so far.

After bringing the survivors back from the ogre camp we take a good solid rest. The next day we head out to find the missing women, or at least acertain their fate. Our plan is to search for a trail near the camp where we first battled the ogre-kin.

We head back to the camp and find it pretty much the way we had left it, the bodies however have been picked clean of meat and there are three fuzzy, dirty white creatures about the size of bear cubs squaling loudly while pecking the remains. Were not quite sure what to make of this until we hear heavy thumping through the underbrush and see a large female owl bear heading in our direction. The creature is odviously alerted to our presence though it is still sniffing to find our exact location in the underbrush. Much to our dismay we realize that she probably sees us as a threat and is coming to defend her cubs. Zoy dosen't want to kill the creature, after all it is just defending its young and is hasn't quite found us yet though it is sniffing searching dilligently. We start heading off as quietly as we can away from the camp, attempting to go around the owl bears when we hear crashing in the other direction behind us, yup it's the bull owl bear. We realize that we are pretty well trapped. Gorav gets an idea, albiet not a very good one. He yells to Aucshawn to go find the trail while he destracts the owl bears. Gorav sprints out of the bushes and the two owl bears howl with rage and start stomping after him, Aucshawn takes his que and darts for the edge of the camp. Gorav's distraction is working well, except for the bait, with the owl bears in close persuit things aren't looking well for the battle mage. Fortunately Zoy manages to intercept us and casts color spray at the two beasts stunning them, they then start cooing confusedly and batting staring off into space. Gorav and Zoy run for it.

Aucshawn finds the trail pretty quick, seems that the ogre-kin weren't taking much trouble to cover their trail. By the tracks there are 2 ogre-kin and 8 women. Their trail is heading straight for the ashwood. We follow the trail for almost a day, at which point we hear the sound of a sword battle going on slightly to the left of the trail, thinking that this might have something to do with our quarry we go to check it out. We quietly poke our heads out of the brush and are witness to a pitched battle going on. A group of Shuanti raiders are figthing a group of mounted horsemen. We check the horsemen to and determine that they are from Ilsurien, most likely the patrol sent to track us down. The Shuanti are quickly overpowing them and the party decides to move on and not get involved, after all neither side would bear us any good will if they won. Shorly later we find a body, one of the women apparely didn't last, her body was unceromoniously cast aside in a pile of bushes. We pull the body out and burn it, the least we can do. We also find where the ogre-kin made camp, by the tracks we discover that the women have been tied to a beam by their hair which the ogre-kin have been holding between their shoulders. We push on as far as we possibly can cosidering the darkness and camp at the border of the forboding ashwood, a tall dark wall of close trees.

During the night we light a small fire, at which point Gorav takes first watch, as everyone is preparing to go to bed the fire flares up, Zoy sees nothing but Gorav and Aucshawn both see the face of the girl they buried earlier that day. He face is nearly consumed by the flames which lick hungrily through her nose and mouth, and in an instant the vision is gone. Gorav (who made a 15 on his will save) is chilled but manages to shake the image from his mind, Aucshawn isn't so lucky. He feels extreemly cold and miserable, the only thing that seems to make it better is the fire. He drawns closer and closer. Gorav notices something is wrong when Aucshawn's blanket starts to smolder. Gorav shakes him awake and douses the fire which screams into the night, by this point Aucshawn has already lost 4 con points and is feeling pretty sickly.

The next morning we follow the trail into the ashwood. The trail is getting harder and harder to follow as the ground starts to get more and more soggy. We spend one night in the ashwood, completely in the dark camped in a tree with nothing but the sounds of the now swampy ashwood to keep us company. We awake and press on into what has become fully swampy terrain. During the evening of the second day we find ourselves in a more open part of the swamp, placed several metters from each other we see small, alter like stones set in the swamp. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of alters, each one has a bundle of lit tinder. These alters make it possible to see the swamp well for the first time. We are certain we are near the final destination of the women we are looking for, but this certainly seems like more than a simple ogre-kin viliage. We move foreward quietly and on our guard. We notice that the alters are set up in a large circle. We head towards the center and notice one alter that seems to be different from the others. Instead of a small hollow, the top is adorned with a carved head, three eyes, long ears and a mouth with jagged teeth. Inside the idol is a fire, smoke and light spill forth from out of the eyes and mouth. None of us recognize the idol right off so we all make knowledge religion rolls...clatter... 1 for all of us. What are the odds? Anyhow, the idol is covered in blood and there is fire burning in it right? Red color and fire can only mean red dragons right? Yes, this must be a cult dedicated to red dragon worship, good thing none of us are in the mystery buisness...
As it turns out the idol is actually made to venerate the mother of beasts, that could have come in handy.

We soon leave the idol and continue are trip inwards, shorly after Zoy climbs a tree to get a birds eye view of the area and try to get an idea of what we are up against. She is in the middle of climbing when she hears a voice from down below. Gorav and Aucshawn fall back into the shadows as a young woman steps into view. She is covered in swamp muck and appears to have undergone ritual scarification. She looks up at Zoy and asks her what she is doing here, stating that she is impressed that we came all this way. She smiles and wonders if we came to rescue the women who were captured. Well, she sure isn't acting like a prisoner so Aucshawn and Gorav noch arrows to bow and wait for this stange person to make the first move. The woman starts to sniff the air and invites us to come out saying that she smells a Cheliax man and a strange Shuanti (bad sign, very bad sign). Zoy asks her if this is her home and what kind of place this is. The woman responds by shapshifing into a half human, half wolf hybrid. 8 other people step out of the bushes and do the same. Great, were-wolves. Everybody starts sweating d20s about now and combat ensues. Zoy gets initiative and tosses a tanglefoot bag on the leader, who gets stuck in the gooey mess. 4 wolves come after Gorav and Aucshawn, sniffing the ground to find where we are hiding. Gorav and Aucshawn let loose with arrows, landing solid hits but revealing our position. The wolves move in while the 4 remaining ones try to climb the tree that Zoy is in. Zoy lets loose with color spray (perhaps the best used casting of color spray in the history of DnD) most of the wolves are blinded and some are stunned, however none of them can continue climbing the tree and so fall to the earth in a heap. The leading starts to cut herself loose of the tanglefoot bag with her claws. The wolves are closing in on Gorav and Aucshawn, we are hitting them solidly with both arrows and ranged magic but as soon as our shots hit, the wounds heal and the wolves and up moving again. The pack is closing in, and it become clear that we are fighting a losing battle. All the damage we have done so far has been healed leaving no effect and the pack now has us surrounded, the wolves at the base of Zoy's tree are regaining their sight and are starting to climb back up despite Zoy's best efforts too keep them at bay. At this point the wolf leader has freed herself and howls to her pack mate. They all turn around and run off.

Nobody is sure why they left, they could have killed the lot of us easily. Something is terribly wrong, though we are happy to be alive. Suddenly the swamp is filled with a low, rhythmic drumming noise. Aucshawn goes to check it out, rubbing mud all over his body to mask his scent. What he finds is a small viliage of tents places on stilts above the swamp. On one side are more were-wolves. On the other side are ogres and ogre-kin. In the middle is a cave, fire light is pooring out. Aucshawn heads back. Our best guess is that the wolves left because they didn't want to be late for whatever ritual is about to be performed (a theory which is partially true). The women must be inside the cave. We agonize with the decision at hand. We certainly can't fight the whole viliage seeing as a handful of wolves almost killed us and there seems to be no way into the cave which is guarded by several large wolves. However, we can't just abandon those we came to rescue to a certainly gruesome fate. We come up with a plan.

None of us are sure what to do about the wolves and their invulnerability, until Aucshawn has a brilliant idea. He pulls into his coin pouch and pulls out 8 silver coins. We all smile and start tying them onto arrows. The plan is simple, we climb over the rocks on the cliff wall overlooking the cave, from there we shoot the guards with our new arrows. We deal with whatever we find in the cave and have Zoy use her trap making ability and ghost sound spell to break up the pack of wolves which are sure to come after us. We reason that if we can break up their pack, we might be able to deal with smaller numbers at a time. Short on details, but high on determination we make our way in. The climb down the rock face is difficult, but we find to our surprise that the guards are gone. We enter the cave which is a long tube at first but opens up into a large vaulted cave shortly after. Down a side tunnel we hear sobbing. We peer down the tunnel and see what we came after. The women are untied, but are guarded by two nasty looking wolves and one old woman in a bone mask similar to the idol we saw earlier. We nock the silver loaded arrows into our bows, Gorav casts true strike. Everybody hits first round, Gorav and Aucshawn both roll great damage, taking down the elderly cleric in one shot and heavily wounding one of the guards. Zoy dazes the final guard. The next moment we all rush in and push the dazed guard on the ground hacking him to pieces until he stops regenerating, after that point we turn and finish off the wounded one.

The women are malnourished, cold, hungry and tired. Gorav casts what healing he can and prepares for the perilous treck out of the camp. From deep within the cave we hear the allarming sound of slithering. This sound however sounds like it is coming from a creature that weighs about the same as a bus. We take that as our cue to leave. Keeping the women between us we head out of the cave. Zoy summons a celestial eagle and commands it to take Gorav's last vial of alchemists fire and drop it on the far side of the camp. The vial bursts into flames and lights one of the tents on fire, as well as some of the walkways connecting it to other tents. Using this as a distraction we head out of the camp with the captives in tow. Once outside the viliage we run for it. The captives are tired and hungry but we push on anyways, from back towards the camp we hear the sound of howling and bellowing, but the cries sound fightened and in pain, not angry. We decide to leave that mystery be and continue our rush our of the ashwood. Several hours later we emerge near a fishing viliage on the shore of a large lake. (sorry can't remember the name of the town off the top of my head). There we colapse, exhausted but alive and well. The rescued captives tell the viliagers what has happened which quickly earns the rest of us free lodgings and all the beer we can drink!

Little curtain raise, we asked Grim about the camp and the were-wolves afterwords and this is what he told us. Turns out that a tenticle of Black Maga, cut long ago found its way into the ashwood. A camp of were-wolves found the creature and decided to worship it. The leader of their tribe, a cleric of the mother of beasts, apeased the child of oblivion by brining it periodic sacrifices. The were-wolves used the ogre-kin as slaves to go out and round up people for the child of oblivion to eat. When the ritual was to be enacted, all the members of the tribe would go within their tents, anyone inside was spared (hence why there were no guards the second time we went to the cave) The child of oblivion would leave its cave and go hunting. As long as there was suficient people to eat, it would leave the tribe alone. The were-wolves we meet earlier wanted to draw us into the viliage so that we too could help to satisfy the creatures hunger. Unfortunately for them, when the sacrifices were nowehere to be found it quickly turned on the tribe and began to feast on them instead. Yikes.

I was interested in getting a friend a gift subscription to pathfinder. Appart from just giving him the money, is there anything else that could be done? Please let me know.

Molech makes a good point, here are a few things that I think separate the good GMs from the great ones.

1. The ability to make the world come alive. A great GM can make a session feel like a trip to somewhere else. The game becomes more that just a collection of source books and stats, it becomes a living breathing place. If after the game it feels like you've come back from a trip to another place then you know you GM has done an incredible job.

2. The ability to make full characters and places. This has a lot to do with number one. A great GM can make every country and land encountered feel like somewhere fun to explore. He or she can make the monsters you find seem terrifying and dangerous regardless of their level. He or she can make NPCs that you love, hate, fear, respect or all of the above.

3. The ability to correctly properly manage difficulty. I know this has been mentioned and any GM worth his salt should be able to come up with a challenging, but not too deadly adventure. This requires a pretty fine hand. The great GMs I have had the privialge of playing games with can walk this line perfectly. Great GMs can make an adventure that feels like a chalenge where you fight tooth and nail for your goals but at the end feel like a hero.

4. Above all, the GM must know how to tell a good story. A great GM can weave all elements of a game into a complete whole greater than the sum of its parts. The story is, after all, the only thing you can really take away from a game. I remember some games that I was fortunate to play in where we could tell the story of our adventure to people who didn't even play the game and they enjoyed it.

I'm sure there are plenty of other factors that add up to GMing greatness, but these ones stick out in my mind particularily.

My feelings depend on the kind of death I received. It helps to soften the blow if you get a nice, well described and (hopefully) glorious death scene. I remember one time when after a character of mine had died, the other characters got a orator to speak at his funeral. It was kinda cool having some guy extol the crowd on my characters deeds and accomplishments. Fortunately they politely skiped my characters somewhat unglorious last words "hey guys, I think they have rifles!" (this warning was shortly followed by three successful his two of which were crits, at least they took the warning seriously after that!)

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I was once in a game where I was playing a samurai and my friend was playing a ninja. My friends first mission of the game was to assassinate me...That character did't last the first 45 minuts of the game. To be honset I felt a little cheated that time. But, glorious or not, I keep a red folder in house which I call the Honored Dead folder where I keep the sheets of all my dead characters.

Well, my school is into finals week once again starting today. My best wishes of luck to anyone who, like myself, still have to deal with these beastly things. My everyone roll the nat' 20 they deserve!

Getting this card really made my day! Though I was gonna die laguhing. Its stuff like this that makes being part of the Paizo community so great. Thanks loads and happy holidays!

Round three. BTW, Galin the player of Aucshawn has just let me know that I've been spelling his name wrong, heh heh, oops. Anyhow, I'll spell it right from here on out.

Bellow are several spoiler tags. This particular adventure invloved ogre-kin. Grim didn't hold any punches describing the horror that these creatures were responsible for. If you are one of the people who would prefer not to read some pretty intensly gory sceens, then please don't open the spoilers.

anyhow, here we go. Last time our party had just parted ways with Fard and his family, now safe to go make a life for themselves somewhere else. In thanks for our help, Fard offers Gorav his old adventuring sword. Gorav gratefully accepts.

We head out, keeping to the back roads and being carefull to cover our tracks to prevent anyone from Ilsurian finding us. We make camp for the night exhausted from a full day of hard traveling. During the night Gorav had a dream. He is standing in a pristeen and beautiful forest surrounded by the sounds of wildlife. He hears the sound of an arrow whistle through the air and land at his feet. Gorav reaches down and picks up the arrow, noticing that it is gold and covered with what appear to be holy symbols. As he picks up the arrow the birds in the forest take flight and sunlight beams down upon him. (Gorav has now taken his next level as a favored soul of Erastil)

Zoy and Aucshawn take their next level as couatl servant and scout respectively.

During the same night a visitor aproaches our camp. Turns out it is Zoy's patron, the couatl she serves named Zactatoen. Both Gorav and Aucshawn are a little suspicious of their midnight visitor but Zoy manages to quiet their fears. Zactatoen tells Zoy that he is pleased with her actions, especially with the assistance that she provided for Fard and his family. He tells her not to worry about her injured friends back south, he has been there and taken care of them. Zactatoen then casts hero's feast, after being held in cells, forced to climb through sewers and chased by guards the feast is a welcome thing indeed. Everybody digs in with gusto.

Zactatoen starts asking up a question and answer seesion. During our conversation we are told that the people we are after are part of a larger organization, even if they don't realize it. We are told that the rulers of an ancient empire, the Rune Lords are beggining to wake up and are making moves to reclaim their old empire. Gorav and Aucshawn aren't sure they belive such a fantastic tale, but the warning is dire enough they decide that they must at least check it out.

On a humerous note, Gorav forgot to ask Fard what kind of magic the blade he gave him has. Gorav tries to figure it our himself and rolls knowledge arcana... 1! Critical fumble, Gorav determines that the sword is "obviously" a dancing long sword and decides to throw it at the first enemy he sees. (the sword is in actuallity an Eager +2 long sword)

We decide to head back to Korvosa to gear up and wait for the heat to die down before heading back but our plans are changed by a Hell Knight who crosses our path. He tells us about a small thorp near the ashwood, everybody has dissapeared but there simply aren't enough kinghts to deal with the situation right now. He tells us that if we help the Knight out they will be sure to return the favor later. We decide that heading to Krosova can wait for a bit and the missing people need help now. We head to the thorp known as Widow's Glen. There we get a few necesities and plan to go to Cutter's Camp (the missing thorp) in the morning.

One of the villagers tells Zoy about a local legend. Supposedly there is a creature that stalks the forrests in the area, they say that it looks like a donkey rat (capibara) at first glance but is a good bit larger than a nomal donkey rat on inspection. It only seems to attack when there is fog and is belived to be able to appear and dissapear at will in mist. It has the power to freeze its victims in place with its eyes and then procededs to feed on them while they are still alive. A chilling tail to say the least. The villagers don't have the means to slay the creature themselves but they have pooled some money to offer as a bounty if it is captured and killed. The party makes a note of this but decide that the missing people from Cutter's Camp are their top priority.

Once again our night is interrupted. Zoy nottices that the night is particularily misty, she looks out the window and notices movement in the night. It isn't a monster however, but a wounded young man (appears to be about 15 or 16). Zoy rushed downstairs and calls to the rest to follow her. She gets to the wounded person first. He sees her and colapses from exhaustion. The wound is easy to find, it seems a long piton like spike has been nailed into his shoulder. Gorav and Zoy carry the wounded to the inn and clear off a table for him. The innkeeper comes downstairs and offers his assistance. We determine that before he can be healed the spike must be removed. It's in there pretty tight but we manage to get it out at which point Gorav heals him with his new divine spells. The young man is coherent but haunted by what has happened. As soon as he is ready to talk he explains that he is from Cutters Camp. Their villiage was attacked by horrible looking mishapen men. They took everyone back from the camp and kept them in a pit. Every so often they would take people out of the pit, there was screaming but he doesn't know what happened. He and a few other made an escape attempt but he was the only one who managed to get away, the other were recaptured. Gorav makes a knowledge role and realizes that they are up against Ogre-kin...
Nobody can sleep so we get an early start knowing that anybody still alive needs to be saved immediately.

We make our way through the woods. These aren't happy woods though, they feel close, greasy, misty, muddy and dark. We see a small clearing and see what appears to be a person standing in it.

It seems clear that some kind of magic is holding the person is place. Gorav makes a knowlegde arcana role and rolls a critical fumble. He feels that no one could sustain such injuries and still be alive. It is clearly undead and the best course of action is to destroy it before it moves in to attack. He throws his "dancing" long sword at it to no effect...after which point he kills it with his non magical sword. The poor soul has a relived look in his eyes as the blow swings in. Further inspection reveals small bloody paw prints in the mud. It appears that perhaps the legendary donky rat creature is in the area. The party remains on guard.

Following the tracks of the wounded man, we find one of his companions. He was unfortunately killed shorly after he was recaptured, the wounds howerver seem to indicate some sort of wolf like creature, not ogre-kin. A third set of tracks are in the area and we follow them. The trail ends abruptly at the base of a tree with a thick copse of brush around it. He start to poke around. Fortunately we are saved by Aucshawn's trap finding ability. The entire area around the base of the tree has been filled with a variety of make shift, but dangerous traps. We are pretty convinced at this point that whoever made these must be still around, after all why would you fortify an area so if you were'nt going to stay there at least for a little while. We begin searching the area CAREFULLY. In the midst of the branches we find what appears at first glance to be child, but is in fact a wounded halfling, also with a large spike driven into his shoulder. He in unconcious and the wound seems infected. The party gently take him out of the tree and tend to his wounds. Healing potion for the damage and herbs for the infection (no cure dissease potions unfortunately). He wakes up before the treatment is over and while still sickend from the infection is able to travel and speak.

He explains that he lost the strength to travel and decided to make his last stand here, hence all the traps. His name is Omner and he tells us that there are still about 12 people left alive that can be saved. He also tells us that there is some equipment we can use in Cutters Camp, including weapons, food and traps used for hunting. He also tells us that it's not just ogre-kin we are dealing with. The ogres are lead by a pack or worgs (great, just great). There are six ogre-kin and at least that many worgs. Omner is willing to fight, despite his sickness.

We decide to attack during the night, best chance of success. In the mean time we head to Cutters Camp and get what we can. Eerily enough, the place does not appear to have been attacked, everything is set up and replaced carefuly. We find some armor, weapons and heavy hunting traps which we intend to use in our plan.

We head back to the ogre-kin camp. The pit is in the center of the camp and we can hear the moans coming from it, at least they are alive. Two of the prisoners are being forced to fight each other for food

The ogre-kin appear to be in the center of the camp while the worgs are patroling the edges. We currenly only see 4 ogre-kin and three worgs. near the pit are three crudely constructed huts that look like potato cellars (long thin buildings build partially underground). We assume that the rest of the monters are in there.

We get into postion. Gorav and Aucshawn poison 5 arrows apiece and get ready. Gorav casts true strike and fires. Good thing cause I rolled a three. Gorav rolls max damage and combined with the poison takes out a worg. Aucshawn wounds another. It howls and more worgs, including a big one with paint on its fur (clearly the pack leader) come out of the huts. 7 worgs total, 6 now that one is down. They spot us and come charging. Aucshawn manages to fell the worg he wounded earlier but Gorav misses. The worgs run into the traps which work great, three are felled but the leader and one other catch on to what is happening and pull up short. Gorav launches a fire orb at one of them but misses. They worgs run to the side of the traps and dissapear into the woods, circling around for an opportunity to attack. Neither of us can spot them. Aucshawn starts moving to clear a way through the traps so that we can move into clear ground while Gorav takes up a deffensive position. No good, the leader springs out of nowhere and get a good solid bit off of Gorav's arm, his armor soaks some of the damage, but it still hurts. The second one grapples Aucshawn and they start rolling through the traped area. Gorav tries to hit the chief worg but rolls yet another critical fumble and plants the sword deeply into the roots of a tree. He casts stone hands and goes after the leader but rolls one again (what are the odds?) Gorav loses sight worg who has dissapeared again and is setting up for another suprise strike. Gorav casts sanctuary just in time to avoid the cheif worg's attack. Aucshawn is still grappled with the other worg. The worg has been trying to bite him an has been missing by a hairs width. Finaly Aucshawn manages to get the thing off of him and draws his hand axe. The worg charges, jumps and opens its jaws to bite. Aucshawns attacks first though (just barely) and lands a nat 2O WOOOOOT! He rolls huge damage and knocks the beast of course, where it lands in one of the traps and is finished. The cheif worg, unable to attack Gorav moves in to attack Aucshawn. Gorav casts magic missles and finally manages to bring the beast down.

In the mean time Zoy and Omner aren't sure what to do, the worgs are distracted but the ogre-kin seem more interested in tormenting their captives than helping the worgs. They decide they can't delay any longer as the two men being forced to fight don't look like they can last much longer. Zoy summons a giant centiped to distract the ogre-kin, and distracted they are as it grapples onto one of the monsters and begins to sting it. While the ogre kin deal with the centiped, Zoy and Omner move in to help the people, they lower the ladder and start handing out weapons. This plan goes well until the centiped is dead and one of the ogre-kin notices Zoy. She summons another centiped but one of them is still coming. The two men who were out of the pit try to attack the ogre-kin, but wounded and mal-nourished as they are, they don't last for long. Zoy moves in and color sprays one of the ogre-kin to buy some time. While it is blinded Omner gets enough of the prisoners out of the pit that a true counter strike is mounted. Between Zoy, Omner and the remaining prisoners the tide of battle shifts.

By this time Gorav and Aucshawn are done with the worgs and are heading back to help Zoy and Omner. The two remaining ogres don't last long when everybody gets in on the fight.

Gorav tends to the wounded, but there are still two ogre-kin missing. The party feel that they must check inside the huts, if there is any chance at all that some one is still alive in there, they deserve a chance to be rescued. We enter the huts.

We leave the place but realize that it will be a long time before any of us stop having nightmares about this place. Worse yet, there are still some people, all women, who havn't been seen dead or otherwise. The prisoners are taken back to Widow's Glen. The viliagers take them in and feed and tend to them. Gorav tells the viliage leader that there are still missing people and ogre-kin out there and that they must be found. There is no excuse for leaving people in the hands of such monsters, even if there is little chance for success. Grimly, the party makes their way from Widow's Glen in the morning determined to find the rest of the missing viliagers.

Here we go, round 2

The party climbs down to the secret door which is in a small gully dug out by the river. We find that the door is hidden by a large rock rolled infront of the enterance. Through strength and leverage the party manages to get the door open.

As soon as the door is open Zoy enters, we make some spot/spell craft checks and realize that we have just set of some kind of glyph ward. Sure that we've set off some kind of alarm, we decide to press onwards and deal with what we find as we find it. Searching we find that the caverns appear to be some sort of abandoned mine. The place seems to be purposefully set up like a maze. We find a door and begin to work on getting it open when we hear a noise behind us that sounds like people.

Everybody makes hide checks, Gorav and Zoy do fair, Acshaun does great. We wait and see a halfling move around the corner. He spots Zoy and Gorav (no big surprise there) but misses Acshaun. He cries out to his friends and tries to run. Garov beats him to the punch and successfully graples him. Surprisingly he identifies himself as as scout for the city guard. Garov and Zoy really don't want to start killing city guards, even if things seem suspicious like crazy. We agree to go with the guards and speak with the captain, hoping that he isn't part of this conspiracy.

Zoy and Gorav are taken to spend the rest of the night as guests of the city guard, we even get complimentary slop in the morning yum. We give our story to the captain. Turns out he's not to pleased that we found the tunnels. They were going to be used as a secret escape route incase the city was ever attacked. The captain is convinced that Garov is a Korvosa agent coming to case the town before an attack. Not good for us... We explain our story and tell the captain to talk to the bartender, he was attacked too and can back up our story. The captian agress to look into it but explains that we will be his guests until he can be sure of our good intentions.

Meanwhile, Acshuan is left inside the cave. He manages to make his way out without too much trouble, just two guards who were left behind. He manages to knock them out without killing them. He sneaks back to the inn and asks for some answers. He finds out that the bartender used to be an honored member of the city, but his son was born with down syndrome. One it was learned that the child would never be able to contribute to the defense of the city, the towns folk demanded that the child be expeled from the city. The bartender, Fard, refused to abandon his son and has since been unpopular in the city.

Fard continues with the hisory lesson. Seems that the town was founded by a man name Ilsur, who was a Korvosan ex-patriot. He founded the city to be a future staging ground against Korvosa in the future. His plans took too long however and he was dead before they came to fruition. As generations past, most people forgot about Ilsur's plans and were simple willing to maintain their independance. A few however, calling themselves the "Blades of Ilsur" were not willing to let the past die. They were looking for a way to take the fight to Korvosa, no matter the cost. Seems like we've found our culprits. He explains that all the major buildings in the city, including his inn, have pathways that lead underground. Acshaun is convinced that the only way that our assailant could have attacked us in our beds was by using the secret tunnels. He decideds that he needs to have another look around, hopefull he can find something to get Zoy and Gorav out of jail.

He goes underground and after some searching finds a blocked off tunnel, he digs and finds what appears to be a secret tunnel within a secret tunnel. Exploring he finds what appears to be a ritual chamber. Chanting and the like. He over hears a conversation between to men who are complaining about the creepy creatures that they have locked up. Yikes... They also complain about Surien, saying that he is Ilsur's little pet. Double yikes... We're hoping that their current leader is just taking the name to give himself pull with his men. Nobody even wants to think, powerfull free willed undead at the moment.

Acshuan leaves hoping that what he has can convince the captain to let Zoy and Gorav go.

In the morning who should wind up in our cell but Fard. Seems that he and the captain has a disagreement. Fard though that the captain was there to take him for questioning and that more men would come for his son while he was away (a theory that turned out to be true) He got in a fight with the captain and wounded him severely. Guess who is up to take his place? You geussed it, Surien. Gorav and Zoy feel that their chances of getting out of here without a rope attached to our necks just fell to about zero. Plus, we can't let Fard get hung considering that we were somewhat responsible for him getting into this mess in the first place.

When the jailer comes to give us our slop, Fard in the oposite cell throws the contents of his chamber pot at him. The Jailer lurches foreward, close enough for Gorav to grapple him. Gorav holds him while Zoy takes his keys. We escape and knock out the jailer. He head to the equipment locker and get our gear back, at which point we head for the seweres. Fard used to be town guard and knows his way around the underground tunnels which attach to the sewers. A few hours, and a ruined set of clothes each we find our way into the main tunnels. There we hear the sound of crying. We find Fard's wife and son crying and lost. They ran underground when guards came to take Fard's son.

The Blades of Ilsur will have to wait, the party decides that the first priority is getting Fard's family out of danger. We go back to the inn, the guards are gone by now and we plan our escape from the city. We can't go through the tunnels, they are being guarded now. We plan stage a distraction and head through the front gate. The distraction goes well and we run for it. Fard's family is in a cart. We throw smoke sticks to cover us and thow spells and arrows to give cover. Between the smoke and cover fire we manage to get out intact. We head out of town with all speed. Fard goes his way and the party plan to go to a nearby town to rest and gear up before heading back to deal with the blades of Ilsur.

Hello again all! Havn't posted for a while, but here I am again. Anyhow, first and foremost I have to say WOOOT PATHFINDER!!! Big thumbs up from me, keep the good stuff rolling. Anyhow, here's whats been happening so far.

We'll start with me, I'm playing the warmage named Garovostrino (Gorav to his friends and associates). Things seem suspicious to say the least. After seeing the prisoner enter the city at night, wounded and in prison clothes without so much as a question lifted Garov drops the idea of speaking with the city guard, after all it seems like as least a few of them are in on things.

The first thing I discover upon entering the town is that they don't like strangers, especially strangers that look or sound like they could be from Korvosa(sp?) Seems like people are fairly certain that either Korvosa or Magnimar are going to attack and conquer the sooner or later. In fact, the entire city seems to be a cleverly disguised fortress, with major buildings build with archer firing positions and carefully stashed bundles of suplies where soldiers could easily get to them in case of attack. So it seems pretty clear that getting any help from the citizens is going to be pretty tough.

Garov sets himself up in an inn, the only one in the city that is friendly to outsiders and begins looking for other travelers to assist him in his search, after all they seem like the only ones he can trust at this point.

Zoy, enters the town and goes to find Surien and deliver the gem to him. She finds him easily hanging around with some of his friends in a tavern. He takes her in the back room and takes the gem but refuses to pay her on the grounds that she isn't the one who he made the bargain with. Zoy protests, but is surrounded by thugs, too many to fight, and so leavs empty handed. She decides to follow Surien to see where he takes the gem.

Acshaun, the half-elf scout enters town and finds Surien pretty quick. Surien is a member of the town guard in high standing. He gives his offer to Surien who turns him down out of hand telling him that the reason he has always been rejected is the fualt of his personality, not his ears. Acshaun is angry, but notices someone following Surien (Zoy). The two see Surien drop off the gem at a local temple to a god of fighting and valor (sorry, can't remember the name exactly and Grim has my books, if he could fill this part in later I'd appriciate it)

Zoy explains the situation to Acshaun. Acshaun agrees to help, looking foreward for a chance to get some revenge on the man who insulted him. In the Morning Garov finds Zoy, an odvious outsider, and explains the situation to her. The mutually agree to help eachother with their problems, finind the murderer and seeing the Surien honors his side of the bargain.

They begin their search in the morning. Garov heads to the temple to check it out and winds up in a worship service the involves wrestling bare chested until exhaustion, followed up with getting drunk. Good times. During the party, Zoy slips into the back for a look around. She finds where she thinks the gem could be kept, but can't get through the locks. Zoy sneaks out in the hope of getting more tools later and leads a now quite drunk Garov home to his inn. In the mean time Acshaun has been scouting around the woods and has found a the enterance to a secret tunnel that appears to lead under the city.

The group agrees to check it out after sunset. Before we can get up and move out however we each receive an after hours guest. Each member of the group is assualted in his or her room by a mob of men, each wearing black robes and skull masks. Due to surprise both Garov and Acshaun get pretty severely beaten, as well as the bar tender who tried to help us fight the mystery attackers. Zoy manages to dart away from her attackers and they eventually give up chasing her shouting threats that if we don't leave town, things are going to be worse next time.

After a few healing potions, we get back on our feet. We agree that there is something big going on in this town and it is likely that our seperate trouble are likely connected. Together we head out town and towards the secret tunnel.

More to come soon!

Is this the first post in this section? Anyhow, I'd just like to ask what games outside of d20 other people play, or have played.

My personal favorites outside of d20 are (in no particular order)

Legend of the Five Rings
7th Sea
Shadowrun

As it turns out, most of the players in my gaming group have tried World of Warcraft MMORPG including myself. Anyhow, after playing for a while I became intereseted in the backstory and history of the various characters and areas in the game. I went and read the history section on blizzards site as well as some other fan sites and was surprised and the depth of background the game had. This lead to the proposal among our group that a warcraft RPG campaign would be a cool idea.

I ended up with a copy of the World of Warcraft RPG book and have been reading through it. It's got some definate good points. There's some background info that you don't get anywhere else plus new spells, feats and classes related to the game. On the downside however, some of the classes felt as though they were more or less directly ported from 3.5. Though all in all, I'd say it's a worth picking up for anyone intereseted in the game.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, I'm currenty trying to remake a few of the classes using the abilities found in the warcraft games. This is an attempt to maintain the flavor presented in the warcraft setting. If anyone is interesed, I'd be happy to post what I have been able to do so far. I'd also be happy to hear comment from other folks on the boards!

As far as the 2nd big question is concerned. In my experience when a character dies, espescially in a story intensive game, a good well played death sceene tends to soften the blow. Giving the character a chance for last words or a final act can turn a death sceene into a cool moment.

I've always been a fan of the horseshoes of zypher. The mental image of a mounted warrior in full armor charging across a lake or something has always seemed cool to me.

If you don't mind me mentioning it, this thread reminded me of a comment my cultural anthropology proffesor said one day in class about roleplaying. He mentioned that the vast majority of game in our society revolve around winning or loosing with some kind of point system to determine the outcome. Gaming in different. There's no points, no scores and no teams, if you had fun playing you win. That's it. Infact, the game is most enjoyable if everybody wins. He felt that that is probably one of the reasons people don't get roleplaying. Anyhow, never got a chance to find out if the guy had ever roleplayed, but I though it was an interesiting veiw on the subject.

Hi all, first off, sorry for the hiatus (school and work have had me pretty busy as of late) My experience with game day was pretty good. Our local game store closed about a year ago, however a comic shop in town is picking up the reins and starting to host gaming events, the first of which was world game day. Honestly, considering it was kindofa first for the store owners, I'd say things went very well. While I didn't get a chance to play the module due to the amount of players there, I did get the chance to play in some side games that other GMs were running. All in all, a good experience.

I hear your point Grimm. Honestly, there are very few dissasters large enough that magic can't put them back together again. Indeed, if FEMA had a few mages to their name (even low level ones) huricane Katrina would have been a completely different story. However, as tragic as such things are, they rarely topple nations. Usually people pull together and life goes on. Historicaly the one element that has toppled more nations than any other is the human element. When you put too many people together, the worst parts of human nature begin to crop up. Greed, pride, lust for power etc. No matter how many fancy toys you give to people, they are still people deep down. Maybe their nation will last a little longer, but it is just a mater of time before internal corruption spreads and they fracture and fall appart.

I personally think the mutilated children mini-thread says rather more about the people posting that about warfare or even roleplaying games.

Whoa, easy there big guy. Everyone has a different tolence levles for things like violence, sex, strong language, etc. That's fine, and if something is making you feel uncomfortable go ahead and let us know (I'm sure nobody was trying to offend anybody). However, this sounds a lot like a personal attack, so if tempers are rising than maybe we should all take a step back before feelings get hurt.

Here's a thought. I know you wanted the world to fairly recognizable by DnD standards, but here's an idea to throw kinda of twist on things. Perhaps in this world the high and low plains have co-terminous points. Certain areas are subject to a kind of cosmic "bleed through" where one of the high or low plains manifests on the material plane. This could be due to long term worship, or single great acts of faith. This process can be reversed either by negligence on the part of the worshipers or and act of direct opposition by an opposing faith.

What do you guys think?

His Domain I don’t know where it would be yet? He appears as a Male Gnome with blue skin and green Mohawk, and a set of dice at his side. He is the father of Gnomes and creator of mischief.

Sounds intereseting, an entire race being created by accident is a pretty cool twist on things! Perhaps his domains could be Trickery, Creation, Chaos, and Earth (to represent his interest in gems and such things. How does this sound?

All of these are pretty solid ideas. Here's one thought that might help you get a little bit more milage out of your upcoming atrocity sceene. I think the situation you are describing would be a lot more potent if the characters knew the people in the viliage. Let them go there as a waypoint between adventures, or even go through a couple of adventures that involve the towns people. Go through all the standard techniques to make fun and interesting NPCs that the players like and care about. That way instead of a nameless mangled corpes, each body has a name. Let them sift through the rubble and find the charred body of the boy who always listend to their adventure stories, or the raped and mutilated corpse of the barmaid who had a crush on one of the adventures or whatever else you can come up with. This should put them on a warpath to send whoever was responsible to the 9 hells.

Alternatively, you could let the PCs find evidence that some of the vilagers were taken off to be enslaved or something, thus giving the PCs even more reason to hunt down the people who destroyed the vilage.

I think that this question (and many more like it) are a great opportunity for the GM to throw some extra flavor into his campaign. Different towns are going to have different rules, depending on size, culture and whatnot. A small lawless town is likely to be a lot more lax than a large, well organized city. Likewise, carrying a large axe and wearing full plate in a dwarven city is going to get you a different reaction than if you try the same stunt in an elven city, or a human city or whatever. Perhaps an oppressive society only allows for guards to carry weapons, or perhaps every citizen is expected to carry a sword to help defend the city. Maybe weapons and armor are a status symbol to one culture and the bigger badder equipment you have the more respect you get.

Anyhow, my advice would be to change things up every now and again to help add some flavor to your campaign. On the other hand though, things like this should never be done as a means of messing over the players.

I pretty much agree with what has been said. When gaming, I like to keep to the action/drama/intrigue/whatever as much as possible with a few acceptions. For example, if I ever ran a Dark Sun game, I would probably make people keep track of their water and food, but then again that IS part of the adventure in Dark Sun. So I guess what I am saying is, I wouldn't keep track of such things unless I felt it was adding to the story or if the players were enjoying the extra detail.

Dragon #310 has five paladin variants which cover all then non-evil alignments (except for lawful good) and Dragon #312 has three evil paladin variants.

I've read both articles and they are both very good. Really opens up a lot of options. Anyone who thinks that the paladin class is too restrictive should really read them.

On a further note. In earlier editions of DnD, the paladin was an extremely rare paragon of virtue. Not everyone did, or even could become a paladin. There were no prsitige classes back then, and multiclassing was a lot more difficult. Some classes (such as the paladin) had steep requirements and thus few people ever became them.

When 3rd edition rolled out and prestige classes were added in, core classes became pretty much universally available with a few minor exceptions, such as alignment requirements. Anyhow, I think that WoTC wanted to keep the paladin a core class but couldn't justify prerequisites for a core class that just didn't fit in the game anymore. So the paladin's class requirements were droped significantly, keeping the alignment restiction and thus the demenor, but lossing the mystique.

Did this work for everybody? Well, apparently not. But I honestly think that is the reason for why the paladin is what it is today.

Honestly, I've always enjoyed the paladin class, though I think that a setting where paladins were a rare prestige class could be neat. It would definately add to the flavor and give a hearty dose of glamour.

hmmmm, an interesting problem. First off, I wouldn't suggest direct confrontation with any of these guys. They are just too high of level.

Now, you are going to have to play a war of attrition with these guys. Keep in mind that a wizard's power comes from his spells and that he needs a full night's sleep to prepare new ones. Make sure he never gets the chance. Harrass him inccessantly. Alert city guards that there is a dangerous criminal in their city, lead wild animals to his camp when he is on the road, tip of local bandits or theives guild members that this guy is a potentially hot mark or anything to keep the guy on his toes. None of these ideas are going to bring him down, but you should be able to make him use up valuable spells and prevent him from getting enough sleep to prepare new ones. Only once he is low on spells, HP and exhausted do you make your strike.

It could be a bit ticky to pull off, but it sure beats facing a fully prepared high level caster.

[evil] doesn't mean they randomly drown puppies because they are ideologically opposed to cute things.

It doesn't!?! hmmmm, might need to work a little bit more on that evil character I was planning to play...

honestly yah, jumping around randomly doing whatever pops into you head randomly does not equal chaotic neutral, it equals dangerous mental condition. I can attest to this, having worked in a phychiatric facility for three years.

One of the best examples of CN I have encounterd was Thorin's daugter Shaunali (read "deciphering the mirror" and "ultracannon experiment" in the campaing journals section for more details.) She was interested in seeing people for who they were, not for the lables people put on them and was constantly reminding her father Thorin (a LG hardliner) that everybody deserved a chance to be understood. If anything, she was the voice of reason, not a raving loon. Just one example of a CN person that feels like someone who you might actually meet outside of an asylum.

You bring up a good point. I hate to use another movie refference on a book forum, but it's the only example I have in my head right now. Neo in the matrix is kind of the fate character, uber powerful by no virtue of his own. However, if all you do during the movie is oggle at neo's chalenge rating, then you've sort of missed the majority of what the movie has to offer, that is to say a rich setting that makes some interesting philosophical points.

I figured I would post this here, though this particular problem plauges all forms of story telling. I've noticed that lately there seemes to be more and more Cliche characters popping up all over the place. Seems that todays protagonists tend to fall into one of three catagories.

1. The brash, angry hero who has a problem with authority and is a prodigy in his chosen field regardless of any training or lack thereoff. He alwasy seems to win despite lack of forethought and rational judgment and never EVER learns from his mistakes.

2. The dark brooding hero who is also a prodigy of his chosen field (probably because the only thing he does to occupy his time is brood and train). He never speaks more than one sentance at a time and beats his enemies because he's badder than all of them combined.

3. The fated hero, who for some unknow reason is bequethed by a god/genetic experiment/uber powerfull alien race/whatever with some kind of super weapon of powerful ability that makes him unstopable. He usually doesn't want his powers and sees them as a horrible responsibility that he just can't avoid.

I know this is a bit of a rant here (sorry for that) but it seems like fantasy and sci fi are kind of in a rut. Most of the new books and characters that are out there revolve around the same themes. Some uber powerful guy who is just that much better than anyone and everyone who stands against him.

I don't have a problem with powerful and competant characters, they can be a lot of fun, but I would much rather the story be about a person who is powerful, that just about oggling at some guys awesome abilities. V for Vendetta being a example in my oppinion, sure V is powerful, but the story is less about V's abilities and more about the philosophy he is trying to show people.

Sure, we all like to hear stories about extrodanary people who are larger than life, but it's been take to extreemes. It's as if story telling is suffering from hero inflation, anymore stories about characters who can't crack the world with their nostils aren't worth hearing about. I think that is a shame. I can enjoy a story about a character who is deep and three dimensional who maybe has to struggle for his victories and maybe even fails on occasion.

I don't like this for the same reasons I don't like GM PC showboating. Anyone can give a character all the best abilities and specials in the book, that's easy. What's hard is making a character who draws you in and makes you love them or hate them, or who feels so real you think that you could meet him on the street, or who says something that makes you really makes you think.

Sorry for the long rant-like post. As always, I'm one man with one oppinion and I could be totalally off base here. Let me know what you all think.

First and foremost, I will say...

Grimcleaver, you won the bet.

You ran that game in rare form and yes, DnD is a cool setting.

For those of you who may not know, this game started over a year ago, before I started posting on this site. Though I had gamed for many years, I hadn't played much DnD and to be honest, I didn't think much of the DnD in general. My oppinion of DnD has improved dramatically since then, I've come to love Forgotten Realms, Plansescapes, Dark Sun and others.

One of my favorite sceenes in the game was the moment when Selicia put on the powered up helm of alignment reversal. It was a tense moment. Thorin had caught Selicia trying to steal the helmet from Rhondel's study. Thorin stopped her from assaulting Rhondel but upon realizing that she wanted to use the helm, pleaded with Rhondel to let her use the helm. Rhondel agreed to go and fetch the helm. When he returned he suprised us both by using temporal stasis on Selicia (nat 20 iniative).

Then he told Thorin the prophesy. If you save Selicia, many will be sacrificed. You must choose between saving her, and saving countless others. Rhondel continued "you are a paladin, you know what the right choice is. Will you save the one or the many"

Thorin, with a tear in his eye drew his weapon and took a ready stance "I choose the many"

Then Rhondel surprised me, he hit Thorin with he ring of Telekenesis and pined him to the wall saying "You deserve happines Thorin, but you had to make the right choice. I have already commited many atrocities, If anyone will doom the world it will be ME! This act will be on my hands." At which point he dissmissed the temporal stasis and handed the helm to Selicia.

Anyhow, I thought it was a great sceene that deserved to be detailed. Grim ran in wonderfully and Galin did a great job roleplaying Rhondel (when he pulled the ring of telekenesis I was completely shocked).

Generally in my group, the GM will usually own the main core books for whatever setting we are playing in. These books are available for anybody to look at while we are gaming. If anybody want's to use anything non-standard or out of some supplement it's their responsibility to bring it to the table when we play.

Another possible suggestion: play homebrew settings. A lot more work, but infinitely cheaper :)

Grimm does bring up a good point. The "no association with evil" tennent of the paladin code can be a sticky one. I recently finished a FR campaign in which my paladin character's wife turned to evil after the birth of their first daughter. Trying to balance my characters paladin hood againt his love for his wife was a challenge. It was a roleplaying opportunity I enjoyed emmensely, however I will be the first to admmit that it was a delicate juggling feat.

I am a huge fan of the pladin class. The concept is just seems so cool to me. As far as abilities go however, I think they get some pretty good ones. Special mounts are especially useful when paired up with the spirited charge feat. Also, divine grace is an often underestimated ability. Gaining a plus to your saves equal to your charisma bonus is staggaringly good. If your paladin has a bonus of +3 at first level, then you are a good step ahead of everyone in the party.
Not to mention they are immune to dissease and fear, both nice abilities.

Anyhow, as far as alignment restrictions, there are some articles in dragon (can't remember which issue right now) that detail classes for "paladins" of other alignments, kind of like blackguards. One example was the lawful evil overlord. If you want more options, you should look up these articles.

Also, I have to agree with what has been said about paladin personality type. Sure, there is the cliche up tight holier-than-thou option, but are a lot of other options as well. The paladin's code states that a paladin must "not commit and evil act. Respect legitimate authority. Act with honor. Help those in need. Punish those who would threaten inocents and never associate with an evil person knowingly" There's a lot of wriggle room in there, for example, what is the definition of honor? Sure they give some examples in the book, don't use poison or lie or cheat, however I could easily see two paladins getting in a huge debate over exactly what"honorable" behavior is.

Just look at the Forgotten Realms pantheon. Torm, Helm, Tyr, Lythander, Mystra, Selune and Gond (just to name a few) can all have lawful good follower, and thus are eligible to have paladins. Give them all the same challenge to overcome and I gaurantee that they will all come up with a different solution.

Steve Irwin was a man who loved a cause and fought his entire life for it. The world could use more people like him. My prayers go out to his family. Truley a sad loss for everybody.

I remember when a friend of mine tried to explain what gaming was to me over the phone. I didn't understand a word of it and sat around for a week end wondering what the heck he was talking about. Then I went over to his house and he said "just try this". I've been hooked ever since. I guess what I am trying to say is the best way to explain the game it to try it, otherwise it just come out sounding weird. I know the game has a lot of stigma, most of it unfair. I belive however, that if people can try it or at least see people playing it then they will see for themselves that the hype really isn't true. If they won't even do that, then it's their loss not your's.

BTW, amen to what Fake Healer said, don't let a bunch of hormones get in the way of a fun and rewarding hobby. Lust goes away, but the friends and experiences you have with them gameing will not.

Wow, that is a pretty cool site. The less math I have to do on my own the better! Something you should keep in mind Punk, EL is a useful guildline, but it is just that, a guideline. Don't get too surprised when things are either more or less difficult for the players than you might have thought.

Though I hadn't though about this before, I kinda have to agree with Seren (something I tend to do on a regular basis). I don't see any problem extending darkvision to "normal" sight ranges. I might impose a modifier to find any kind of detail due to the fact that you can only see in black and white. I'm not sure if this is really how things would work, but it's harder for me to spot detail in an old black and white movie (this could just as easily be due to the relatively poor quality film of the era).

First off, don't worry your players are not overpowered. This is just part of the game. Because it is a game based on probability and dice rolls, every once in a while something improbable is going to happen. Either the players are going to have trouble with a really easy foe, or they are going to completely own something that by all rights should have killed them. It's just going to happen from time to time pretty much no matter what (unless you fugde die rolls, something I only recomend doing in the players favor).

This is ok however because players LOVE it when stuff like this happens. Nothing makes a group of players feel better than sweeping the floor with guys who were way more powerful than themselves. After all, everybody likes to win right? If the players had a memorable time then you've won too.

If this messed up your story, I'm sorry, believe me I know how annoying this can be. (messing up plot lines is another thing players will do from time to time no matter what.) However, you have a whole week to come up with a patch for your story. Either rez them like others we posting or say that they were only henchmen or that their friends want revenge now, or whatever. Its like stage acting, when someone messes up their line and you adlib it, as long as you pretend like everything is going as planned the audience will never be the wiser.

Plots can get a bit complicated, especially once you get to the world shaking portions of the game. One thing I do is keep an NPC sheet. I list every major NPC, his location, his goals, and any general actions he is currently involved it (leading an army, planning a govenment takeover or whatever) and if it applies, a date by which the NPC will acomplish said goal and move onto the next. This way I know what the NPCs are doing when and if the players bump into them. At the end of play I update the sheet. This way I have a whole week to decide if and how the NPCs are going to react to the NPCs actions.

Secondly, it's amazing how often players can fill in the details for you. I was running a futuristic game once and some NPCs had set up a road trap for a VIP who the PCs were supposed to be protecting.

PC1 "I'll bet they are using some kind of holographic projection to make it look like the road is clear"

GM (thinks to self) wow, that's 100 times more clever than what I had originally come up with, "make a spot check" PC rolls the dice "now that you look you notice there is a slight distortion around the edges of the road."

PC "Awesome!"

Most players a constant resource of good ideas. If you plan just a random encounter, but the player spin it into some incredibly convoluted conspiracy, go with it. You can use some or all of the ideas to boost your own campaign notes. On the other hand, it can be just as fun to let them run after red herrings...

Don't remember any particular spell with that effect, but wouldn't a regular scry spell do it? You would need to have all the pages lain out open or carved into a wall or something. I'm pretty sure though, that would work. As long as you can "see" the writing right?

but even with the +8 LA from Vampire, I'm a little to a lot cloudy on how that works out.

Quick overview, Level Adjustment is basically a game balance tool. Some races/monsters and naturally more powerful than others due to high stat bonuses, large numbers of special abilities or both. To compensate, these races are given a level adjustment. This basically adds onto the creatures total level. Thus a creature with a LA of 3 and no class levels should be a fair match for a character of third level. Characters with LA can go on to get class levels, no problem, but their first "level" is considered to be one higher than their LA. Therefore, said creature with an LA of 3 who takes a level of fighter, would be considered level 4 and would have to gain as much XP as a normal character trying to progress from level 3 to level 4.

Things like "vampire" are templates. These work slightly differently. Plent of books have templates in them, the monster manual being a prime example. Templates can be added to any creature that meets the templates requirements. Then you just add on the special abilities, stat adjustments, dissadvantages, whatever to the creature and there you go.

Anyhow, hope this helps.

anyway, this is just a preliminary idea and I'm more interested in hearing what I need to do to become a DM first, advice on encounters especially.

Well, since you asked, I'll go ahead and throw in my two coopers on the issue. My first advice, don't worry if you make some mistakes your first time around, or even your tenth time around. Every time you make a mistake, figure out what you did wrong, decide what you need to do not to make it again, move on and don't worry about it.

With that said, here's some things that I keep in mind when I run encounters.

1. For the most part, your players are going to understand what the numbers mean, (especially if they are experienced players) it's your job as a GM to bring the numbers to life. Make sure that the things that the players are fighting seem as "real" as possble. Cardboard cutout foes can be dispatched and quickly forgotten. Make sure however that your players see the sneering stubble covered faces of the bandidt, smell the chlorine shench of the green dragon's breath and hear the creaking shuffle of the undead's feet. Also try to bring the actions to life as well. Combat can quickly fall into a long waltz of "roll initiative, I roll attack you roll attack". For example, if you a giant throws a rock at a player and misses, let the player see his hair get whipped back by the force of its passing and hear the thunderous crash on the wall behind him. A quick, vivid description (no more that a few words) can help bring and encounter to life and draw the players into your world without loosing the pace of the encounter.

2. Keep in mind that no one come to the table to get beaten. Players like to win. Sure, in good to have a fight that takes them to their limits. This is good when used in moderation. For every tooth grinding, hard core fight, you should have at least one encounter where the players really get to show their stuff. Let the snarling gnolls seems like tough foes, and then let the players go to school on them. Giving the players the occasional chance to mop up a few bad guys makes them feel cool and will add to the overall enjoyment.

3. In conjunction with number two, if the players get lucky and totally school one of the creatures you had planned as a boss or something, let them. Don't fudge the numbers in the enemies favor. In a homebrew setting I once ran, I had designed a particular monster to be a truely fearsome opponent. After a long build up, the players and the beast faced off, after a mere two rounds and some spectacular rolling the beast lay dead. I thought that the players would be upset, or feel cheated by what I though was an anti-climactic fight. I was surprised to learn that they loved it! Even though it was over a year ago, they still talk about how they owned that monster.