Sexi Golem 01's page

Does anyone know of a weather archive online? A place where you can find such information as the date, temperature, amount and time of any showers or dense cloud covering, wind velocity over a small region with the follow up weather conditions of the rest of the week or longer.

I'm hoping to find such information for, say a temperate forested region in the midwest, so that the weather is accurate for my players who happen to be adventuring in a temperate forest. If I can find out the intensity and duration of rain, fog, clouds and the like that would go even further toward my goal of realistic weather conditions.

Okay, something has been bugging me about the flame blade spell.

The spell description states you wield this bladelike beam as if it were a scimitar

Does that mean an attack with a flame blade crits on a 18-20?

Shortly after a TPK about this time last night I was thinking about the two halfling characters that I had enjoyed playing so much. In particular I thought back to how useful the produce flame spell was for my druid and how much fun it was to tumble around with my rogue and make sneak attacks. In one poof of inspiration I found the character concept that would replace my fallen PC's and continue on in their stead.

A halfling with three druid and three rogue levels that casts two produce flame spells and flies into combat with a ball of white hot fire in either hand. Rolling into the center of the largest group of enemies and lashing out with flaming melee touch sneak attacks. Thanks to a 22 dex, a ring of protection and a size modifier, the tiny flaming terror has an AC of 18 with no armor and one +1 ring.

With a mage armor spell (either from his sorcerer companion or a potion) and a barkskin, that AC rises up to 24.

Further more if he really wants to be a bastard he can use combat reflexes to pull his +4 BAB into his AC and with fighting defensively he can take another -4 to attacks for a +3 bonus to AC (+3 due to his tumble ranks) for a maximum AC of 31 for a 6th lvl character wearing no armor (25 of which is all touch AC). Sure he takes a -8 to attacks but that still leaves him with a +1 on his melee to hit a touch AC and he is most likely going to be flanking so I still like those odds.

His personality and backstory are the best part though. His insecurity and abandonment in his youth led to a twisted form of vigilante justice in the emotionally damaged halfling. He protects the few (few meaning ONE person for right now) people he trusts with saintly self sacrifice, and visits a decidedly terrible vengance on those who sought to harm them. He sees no need to get needlessly involved in fights that don't concern him, but if one force appears to be bullying or simply toying with obviously inferior opponents he snaps. Petty bullies are likly to recieve painful burns in sensitive places as punishment for their thuggery. More aggresive violators recieve horrible deaths.

Just the idea of a feral shirtless halfling rolling through dozens of attacks completely untouched surrounded by foes, his body a whirling demonic thing bearing flaming death in both hands, seems like a really cool idea (if quite possibly the most unsettling character to my name)

I honestly have no idea why I posted this, other than the fact I love and am proud of the concept and wished to share it.

I love to play chaotic characters, and for the most part I like to DM for chaotic characters. But the overall vibe I usually get from posts on these boards is that chaotic characters lead to lots of abuse and DM headaches.

I've also noticed that chaos is sometimes thought of as inferior to law. The idea that the demons only compete in the blood war because of limitless numbers, since their chaotic natures would make them easy to skatter and they would not do well in large battles as they lacked organization.

I figured I'd throw up this thread to facilitate some discussion about what chaos means for DM's and players.

What chaos means to me
I always think of chaos as the embodyment of change and adaptation. Chaotic creatures are never sated with the Status Quo for long, and are constantly and rapidly trying to pursue their goals by the most immediate means. They create short term plans and may abandon their original target objective altogether if they see a new goal within their grasp. Such characters are resistant to anything that would impede or restrict them. Thus obligations are typically avoided, in a manner consistant with the rest of their alignment. Chatic characters are driven by their emotions and feelings more so than other characters. Emotions are fickle and unpridicatable and giving oneself over to them removes the control that lawful characters thrive on. Chaotic characters revel in the flood of feelings, rage, lust, fear. There's lots more but iI'm really interested in what others have to say.

What chaos does not mean to me
A chaotic alignment is not semantics for "criminal". Chaotic characters can and often should take a cavalier stance on authority because they dislike restrictions. But manacles and prison cells are even more gross restrictions and chaotic characters would likely be quick to avoid them. Stealing is not any more chaotic than killing is evil. Chaotic good characters cannot go about pickpocketing strangers without an alignment change. The randomness of targets and opportunities is certainly chaotic but harming (even if not physically) of multiple and complete strangers out of greed is evil. A cat burgler who trains for months on one big "score", going over exit routes and contingency plans religiously is a Lawful character because his internal mechinations are direct calculated and meticulous and consistant.

Chaos does not mean stupid. Chaotic creatures are independant and quick to adapt. The hoards of the abyss might be a barely contained surge of violence compared to the perfect battallions and formations of Hells armies, but they have a very strong ace up their sleeve. Their troops are capeable of thinking for themselves and acting as independant units without loosing their effectiveness. A lone vrock will continue to go for his target without waiting for orders or commands. He won't hesistate to try something else if one tactic is failing, in fact he would probably change gears faster than the armies of hell could. If a demonic battallion is scattered then the surviving soldiers are really no worse for wear and will quickly try something more effective. If a regiment of devils finds themselves cut off from command the lack of leadership would cripple them. Creatures that are not capeable of change and adaptation are just as handicapped by those with no consistancy.

What is the most horrendously destructive thing your characters have done? A huge chain of feats and a greataxe crit, a rogue rolling max on a sneak attack, a devious application of enviromental hazards.

I ask because I was recently thinking back on some moments in my D&D past where me and my friends just looked at the dice and said "man... thats rough"

Highlights include a frenzied berserker crit/cleaving/power attacking/raging all over two ogres with a SCYTHE.

And an archer pulling a double crit on two fighters on the same arrow (an exit wound enchantment allowed arrows to go through enemies to hit others).

Looking forward to the harrowing tales of somemore experianced players however, thanks in advance.

I've been building up my homebrew over the last couple months and I recently made a breakthrough. I was trying to give every core race a distinct and interesting place in the world. So far I had been struggling a lot with gnomes. Gnomes are my favorite player race and I wanted to do them justice by giving them a society better than the secluded hobbitish towns and villiages they are given in the core rules. I've decided the gnomes will live on a series of volcanic island chains and they will have a large navy and trade operations. The small sailors thread was a big help for what i've designed so far.

But I started thinking about how dangerous it would be to trael with a large group of humanoids supported by one vessel. After all pretty much any creature with a swim speed and a hatchet can severely damage a ship. Anything more fierce, like a dragon or kraken, would simply rip the hull open and watch the crew drown. So with these things in mind I decided that D&D ships should be outfitted with the proper counter measures to deal with the many underwater threats.

Thats where I could use some help. So far I've got detection spells for radar. Perminant illusions of underwater targets (a fake rudder or an illusion to make a reinforced area look like a weak spot to slow down sabotage attempts). And razor wire that fires out from the back of the ship perpindicular to the way the ship is facing, arcs out in a wide loop, then travels to the front of the ship where it connects to a chain and is quickly and powerfully retracted, severing any tenticles or claws that may have attatched themselves to the ship and making a mess out of any climbing borders. These death cables would be on both sides of the ship and there would likely be several rows of them per side.

So if anyone gets any ideas for gnome flavored ships or countermeasures plase feel free to post.

thanks

Spawned by an earlier thread I wanted to bring up the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of D&D's two paramount melee fighting styles. Two handed weapons vs. two weapon fighting.

Two handed weapon: Obvious pros
1. Power: The option of power attack is a no brainer to any combatant and with this in mind it makes one of the most destructive melee forces in D&D. This is especially effective against damage reduction
2. Simple: The fact that this is so easy bears repeating. A decent strength and 1 feat is all it takes to create a very effective fighting concept. A little deeper into the feat chain and you get cleave, a very useful feat especially when coupled with power attack.

Perhaps not so obvious pros.
1. Very universal: Even if your fighter gets his favorite weapon destroyed/taken away two handed weapons are easy to come by. A fighter that looses his great axe can pick up a club or long sword or any one handed weapon and fight on with a relatively small decrease in his effectiveness depending on how much they invested in their weapon.
2. Hard to disrupt: Every fighters worst nightmare is to have their tools taken away. Most combatants are crippled when they are disarmed. Two handed weapons get a boon in this particular category. +4 to resist disarming and the larger weapons are harder to sunder or destroy. Also even when this event does pop up the two hander has other options; see above.

Obvious cons.
1.Need help here.

Perhaps not so obvious cons.
1. Scary: NPC's and villains with any amount of intellect will be aware of the destructive power of a hulking brute with a huge weapon. Barbarians should not be surprised to find themselves hit with rays of enfeeblement and will save spells on a constant basis. This problem rises exponentially if the antagonist had the capability to use mental domination spells. Two handed weapons are always just as deadly, if not more so, to PC's as it is to the villains.

Two weapon fighting. Obvious pros:
1. Really cool: I realize that this is not really an argumentative point but I deeply believe that there are few things as cinematically beautiful as an agile combatant reducing foes to ribbons in a dervish of combatic grace.
2. Very appealing to certain classes: Easier for rangers, very efficient in the hands of rogues. Adding extra damage like sneak attack dice and favored enemy bonuses is a huge boost to the lethality in these cases. Often this can be further augmented by utilizing high crit range weapons, this is especially true of rangers as their favored enemy bonuses get multiplied. The dervish prestige class (complete warrior) also makes this style more appealing.
Catalyst: The two weapon fighting tree increases the impact of many other feats if the weapons wielded are the same. Weapon focus, specialization, and improved critical are the most obvious and arguably the most famous in this regard

Obvious cons.
Difficult: The two weapon fighting feats have relatively steep requirements and require secondary and tertiary feats to keep up the fighting style in higher levels.
Expensive: In many campaigns heavily enchanted weapons are extremely attractive, sometimes necessary, options. Two weapon fighting creates a severe problem as the upkeep of their weapons often leads to quickly consumed funds.
Low base damage per it: due to the typically lower str of two weapon specialists/their typical favor of smaller weapons/reduced enhancements on their weapons/and penalties the style suffers to damage from the off hand the characters can be reduced to very situational roles. When the rogue and ranger cannot benefit from their extra damage they are many times left to "chip" away at stronger enemies or attack the weaker minions to make effective use of their skills. This problem is compounded in the face of damage reduction.

Perhaps not so obvious cons
Easily disrupted: Disarming is easy on two weapon wielders, fewer weapons are suitable to the task, and backup weapons are rare as many two weapon fighters have enough trouble keeping their primary tools properly upgraded. Damaging a combatants dex score is very painful. Not only do they suffer the obvious penalties of dex drain but if reduced enough they can lose their ability to use their two weapon fighting feats. This is especially harmful to PCs that make use of weapon finesse, a popular choice for many two weapon fighters.

Well this is all I've personally come up with. From what I can tell two handers have a mechanical advantage over two weapons.

That said that will never stop me from playing a two weapon fighter. I think it is an extremely impressive concept and despite it's disadvantages it is still one of my favorite character attributes. Before anyone feels the need to denounce me as a munchkin I feel I should clarify that I did not create this thread to find the mnk2/ght3/drgn?5/Wrm7 super concept that creates the unstoppable two weapon fighter. I'd actually prefer those to stay out of the discussion entirely. What I'm looking for is discussion and debate on the two fighting styles that seem to go head to head in many discussions.

I see a lot of discussion fly up because of feats, races, classes, and equipment that comes out of suppliment books. I have recently begun playing a game with nothing but the core rules. (And what I have created which at this point involves one spell and several monsters). I stopped using suppliments because in my last campaign I had an awakened owl cohort druid throwing boulders at an adult red dragon. Several instances where a character was spawned into a campaign just to "test" a new class/prestige class and then discarded because either problems arose or the player got bored. That and it got very frustrating not owning a book my players did, like the spell compedium, and having to deal with spells they wanted to cast which I had no idea what they did and not enough hours in a day to give all of them a good "once over".

So for the above reasons and more I use the DMG PHB and MM. This is not to say I do not like some things out of suppliments but on a hole I feel that the juice is not quite worth the squeeze.

What books do you all use? Specifically what books add to your campaign and why? Which books draw your ire? (I left off the "and why" on purpose to avoid turning this into a debate)

Has anyone ever come across this concept. All this talk about aromor and defending spikes got me thinking about spiked shields.

That train of thought, after a fashion, turned into an idea for a fighter taking two weapon fighting and improved shield bash and dual weilding spiked shields (light sheild in his off hand). At first this just seemed like a really cool NPC to throw in my games. But the idea feels a little too good. I can see a powergamer grabbing the idea and with armor optimazation and two weapon defence and likely some other supplimental crap quickly turning into an AC monster. Anybody come across this befor?

Any Idea what the stats of a red fox are?

I've got ideas but I have one as a pet in Grimcleaver's online game and I feel too biased to make it myself.

I guess physically speaking giving it the hit dice and abilities of a small dog would work but I have no idea where it's intelligence/skills would be.

Any ideas would be really appreciated.

I was wondering what people thought about changing the death attack for assassins into a reflex save instead of a fortitude save. I always wanted to alter it just because a fort save didn't quite sound right. I always envisioned a survived assassination attempt as a last second avoidance of a mortal wound. Not because you character was too tough of a badass to die just because of some knife in his kidney.
High fortitude saves are often more common than high reflex saves so this may make the assassins ability more reliable. I don't neccesarily see a problem with the power boost though.

A death attack takes three rounds to set up, doesn't work on creatures immune to criticals, must be delivered by a successful sneak attack so it requires a successful attack roll and classes like the rogue and barbarian are largely immune due to uncanny dodge. A sussesful sneak attack is already hard to accomplish and it is the core ability of the entire assassin class.

A full spellcaster however can gain access to multiple death causing spells. Some killing multiple creatures, most killing at a far greater range than the 30ft max of a sneak attack, requiring no attack roll or stealth and taking no more time than one standard action. These spells are meerely small parts of the classes total abilities and due to spell preperation can be exchanged temporarily for more useful abilities should the need arise.

My point that most instant death effects are not half as difficult to pull off as that of an Assassin (a class devoted to administering blows of instant death). And so I propose their are no game balancing issues that arise by forcing a reflex save (what I believe to be a more realistic representation of an assassinaton) instead of the standard fortitude save.

But as always, before I change something in the rules. I defer to the wisdom of the Paizoians. So I like the idea but is their anything that could come back to bite me?

I like just about everything about my D&D game. I've got most of the rules where I want them. Which is where I can justify them to help add realism to what happens in the game.

The one thing I can't seem to grasp is arcane spell failure.

Having just recently worn a steel breastplate and chain link gloves (man college is fun) I can attest that they are uncomfortable, but not neccesarily in the manual dexterity area (the gloves were an amazingly good fit). I find it annoying that most mages find it more difficult to cast while wearing a chain shirt than while on a galloping horse.

Just how game breaking would it be to remove it?

I just had to watch 3 hours of various T.V. award shows for a school project(don't ask). However I made the mistake o trying to complete the assignment right after working on sections of my new campaign that I'm running, and nothing robs me of my concentration more than D&D fresh on the brain.

As such whenever I heard "Best Actor" I thought Doppleganger...

When I heard "Best supporting role" I thought Bard...

I started thinking about all the talent that the D&D universe had been thanklessly supplying for all these years and decided to bestow my own honors in the form of nominations to made up catagories.

For Best Monster Design, extend a nomination to my personal favorite the Beholder for seamlessly combining three cherished and traditional villanous qualities. A floating disembodied head combined with an evil mastermind flavor and topped off with eye mounted death rays!

For Best Rule Book Persona, I nominate Ember the Monk for her simple yet convincing example of pure monkdom despite the curiosity of being the only african persona portraied in the phb with the only clearly asian proffession in the phb!

For Best Illusion Spell I nominate Phantasmal Killer. For being a milestone as earliest available instant kill spell as well as being a uniquely brutal and horrific spell to contimplate. making adventurers and monsters everywhere even more afraid of gnomes.

I expect to create more of my own catagories and nominees soon but I am looking forward to what fellow paizoians can come up with?

Seriously! Inventing fake award shows for RPGs is the most fun you can have at 4:30 in the morning! Well... next to sleeping.

Okay I've got a game lined up with a buddy of mine. He wants to play a pair of LE halflings (a sor and a bard) that plan on destroying the government of the human nations. They hope to "reset" the humans by reverting them to the simpler existance they had before their massive cities and armies granted them plane spaning power.

I think this has the potential to be a great campaign and I don't want to blow it. However I'm afraid that my own personal dreams of upsurping world powers has clouded my vision to the possibilities and challenges a fantasy world presents. Black mail, assassinations, and framing dignitaries are fine ways to ignite a massive war on earth but in a world where ressurections and divinations can be utilized I find their applications limited at best.

I was hoping that some of you Paizoians could offer some ideas or personal experiances in destroying fantasy civilizations.

Any plots or schemes to encite rampant destruction and worldwide harm would be highly appreciated.

Why do I get the feeling a government spyware just invaded my system...

Hello,

I was wondering If I could borrow the collective intelligence and experience or the Paizo board community. I understand that some of the posters on these boards have played or are currently playing role playing games in colledge. I'm headed to my freshman year of colledge myself soon (soon meaning 10 hours in this case) and I am ferverently hoping to continue gaming with a new group very soon. So... where exactly should I start looking?

I payed attention during high school. The jocks and cheerleaders stayed after school for practice. The nerds ran home to their computers (no offence guys, and you know who I'm talking to) the goths went to therapy or the nearent collection of shadows and the rednecks hopped in a truck to go kill something or drive some place where they could drink and talk about killing something. But me and my friends weere the ONLY gamers in our entire high school. As such I have no idea what the gaming clique actually acts like. Please help.

And also please feel free to include any advice on choosing or scouting a potential gaming group. I remember a thread now buried in the archives about the worst players/DMs/human beings gamers had ever met. An alarming percentage of those posts started with "Back in my colledge days...."

I am curious to other gamers connection to dragons. I keep seeing a lot of "Dragon" stuff being thrown around. Dragon Shamans, dragon spells, dragon prestige classes, new dragon oriented monsters and races, Ebberronn (I'm with you FH), Dragon feats, Items, Draconic heritage feats, and the new proclimation that this year all WOTCs stuff will be easily dragon accessable.

I'm extreamly tired of it. I know Dragons are one of the D's in D&D. I believe they should be important, special, and valuable to the game itself. However part of being important special and valuable entails being RARE.

Back when I first started playing D&D (Just the 3.5 core books in my case) We fought a dragon. It was scary, it hurt, and it was a hot topic of discussion for the next few weeks. Now any party can walk up to a dragon and A: completely negate all of it's awesomeness by using dragon specific spells and turning it into a fight with an arrogant lizard, B: befriend it because two thirds of the party worship it or are related to it, or channel it's spirit (Dragon Shamans why can they use lay on hands x2? WHY!?) or C: pretend to be its children because every peice of equipment they wear makes them look more like a dragon.

If I'm the minority I'm expecting I will be on this issue then fine. I accept that these are just my opinions and if the greater part of the gaming community wants lots of Dragon stuff then WOTC is doing a great service. Personally I would like to thank them for the advanced warning So I will know to spend my money on other things.

I know the challenges presented by a high intelligence creature. It's undeniably smarter than the Dm designing it so It is hard to give a great Wyrm all the craftyness it deserves. Animals are gided by instint and basic logical ability. But what about mindless creatures? They cannot learn. They have no ideas. They can observe (wis) but to what extent can they use this information?

I assume that a creature with no intelligence but sentience will be driven by a process more primal and simple. But what? Hunger for oozes. Anger for undead. Self preservation/hunger for vermin.

I got started thinking about this in a recent sesion where we fought a lot of mindless stuff. A skeleton weilding a longsword was chasing down our wizard who was running away from a fight gone bad. The wizard jumps off of a 20 ft balcony and risks the falling damage rather than face the skeleton one on one. He jumps, the skeleton runs around down the ramp back to where the rest of the party was fighting.

If you were Dming how would the skeleton act? Jump after the prey without regard for self destruction? Or something even simpler like throw it's sword?

I've got a sorcerer thats looking for a feat. I have a heavy dependance on illusion spells and I want a way to mask my spells from enemy casters. It's not going to be very effective if they know I'm casting an illusion before the image even manifests. I have a high bluff skill and I assume I could make a skill roll in conjunction with the feat but I don't know how it should work. Any ideas?

If you had a vast scientific arsenal of kooky inventions and a near limitless supply of undead pawns to tweak. What would you do?

In one of our current campaigns we have a gnome sorcerer, and a cleric of Wee Jas. Both lvl 7 and between the two of us we have knowledge engineering, alchemy, blacksmithing, Weaponsmithing, and armorsmithing all at full ranks.

Right now we have bugbear skeletons encased in full body metal shells (functions and costs as a suit of full plate)

Potential plans include spring loaded small skeletons for jumping attacks, and attaching leather flaps where the wings of creatures would be to give back their flight.

And my gnome is developing unstable explosives for the undead to deploy.

We have the storyline figured out nicely but I feel like our undead manipulating capacity is far from maxed out.

Has anyone else seen this book? If so what are your thoughts.

For those of you who haven't I suggest you look around whether you like it or not it's very interesting at least. It details three new systems of magic. Not suppliments like the complete divine or arcane but completely new magic systems. Pact magic (binds a spirit to the character granting many ablilities and bonuses to the summoner) shadow magic (basically a very stealthy and powerful sorcerer whose dark spells become spell like and eventually supernatural abilities over time), and Truename magic (a caster that uses the ancient language of creation as spells but unlimited times per day, with the contingency that it is devilishly hard to pronounce the words themselves and every attempt may fail)

As someone who looked at (and still does) the psionic rules with disgust and scorn I found myself very surprized at my positive reaction to these new systems. In fact I'm trying out a shadowcaster soon in a campaign.

I always wanted to see new magic systems introduced that would add more flavor to the worlds without having a 6+ lvl NPC to take advantage of some prestigue class so they look and fell different from other casters. Actually I take that back, most prestige classes need a few lvls before they are different enough to notice so thats more like 9th or 10th lvl.

I'm trying to figure out how Ottolukes resilient sphere would work if it was duplicated with a greater shadow evocation spell.

If The creature makes a will save it can try to act with only a 60% chance of the sphere stopping it like it would if it were 100% real. But what about the protective side? I would assume that anyone targeting you specifically with a spell would have to make a will save and even then the sphere will still interfere 60% of the time. But what about an area effect. I don't see a disbelief save stopping a cone of cold, but how would it take effect? Would It have a 60% chance of breaking through the sphere with normal reflex saves and damage or would it block 60% of the damage?

(I can't remember but I think 60% is the spells "reality value", to invent a phrase)

What exactly are specifications required for a weapon to be called a rapier? I always thought that they were blades that were only a teeny bit wider than a Foil but the pictures n the PHB look like sabers to me. Plus a curved tip doesn't seem to be very ideal for stabbing someone.

Could someone with a more enlightened veiw of melee weaponry give me some insight.

I know there have been some discussions on the value of familiers but I felt like a continuance was in order.

I like familiers. Most of the time I keep mine safely tucked away in my robes. As long as she's in there I do not see how he can get killed. I do not see an enemy tageting a tiny snake over me (not that they were likely to see her). And the only thing thats left is an area affect. Improved evasion which all familiers have allows for two things. One, if I make the save and take half damage the familier (that is using my save) is unharmed. Two, I fail the save and take full damage. If the familier also fails he takes half damage. The familier always has half the casters hit points. The only way she dies is if I die first.

But to avoid beating a dead horse please throw in some personally experianced scenario that proves your point. One where a familier contributes significantly or one where the familier is the instigator of certain doom.

Here's mine.

I currently have a gnome sorcerer 2nd lvl that has a familier.
Thumps, a tiny viper with a minor eating disorder. So far the party has just crawled out of their first dungeon so there was not a lot of time for Thumps to shine. However My gnome makes constant use of her poison. Milking her once a day to smear it on one of his crossbow bolts. And in the first dungeon it managed to strike a drow dealing 6 (max) con damage.

It pops up every now and then. A rule/spell/feat/action/class race from a supplemental book or campaign setting doesn't sit right with a DM or player. Those are some of my favorite discussions and I would like to explore these thoughts.

Me first. Hate the orb spells, everything that directly attacks with fire or ice or electricity or sonic or force (exept mage armor is conguratuion for some reason) is evocation. But someone apparently wanted an attack spell that doesn't have to worry about that pesky Spell resistance.

I think the warmage is just a sorcerer that saves you the trouble of munckinizing it yourself and It steals a large niche from the sorcerer

I do not like all of these feats that swap ability scores for determining what stat applies its bonus to where. (with the exception of the force of personality feat)

Yes I know this looks like the rant thread but there is a small difference, I want replies, discussions. I love talking about this kind of crap so I figure this was a good way to start.

We ran a very successful and fun (if short lived) campaign where me and another player went through so many player options we ended up fully making three different characters apeice but were unable to decide which one's we wanted to play.
Since some of our players were absent, and the long term goal of our characters was to establish a guild of adventurers, the DM decided to put the other members players on the backburner for now (normally we would just play them for them) and let us use all of our characters. We were asked to clear out an ancient keep hat had been commandeered by a necromancer. In return we were given the Keep so long as we were able to make it hospitable for a own within the next two years. So after a long time spent deciding how much money we had to spend on what and the bard and paladin going off to convince people to come, (not hard, on of our draws was a free house for a three year contract to live and work here)

Aftr we got our town and our adventuring guild set up we started going out on quests. But by now the other players were able to join us and they wanted multiple characters too. So now we had roughly 10 high lvl adventurers, and hoards of low level PC underlings, going out on quests for huge amounts of money. And for each quest we had to decide who left and who stayed behind to protect the town. So we had to assemble a team that we thought would be the best for the job.

We ended up with huge amounts of money but we spent most of it on the town. A lyre of building to aid constuction/reconstruction, golem guardians, a trap proctected vault for the towns coffers, building mansions to attract more nobility. ect. And it was all a huge blast but since it was so short, maybe two or three sessions, I was unable to tell if there would be any long term problems. Because if there isn't I want to push for something similar again soon.

Anyone else try this and have as much fun as we did?

When I'm down I could always use a good hug. I also find relief by making monsters to crush my PC's. And with the combined efforts of a naturally haywire psyche and falling asleep next to a freshly open can of paint I started to wonder what monster would give the best hugs.

I think a Bullet would be fun to hug because it's like a giant shiny dog/armadillo thing. I find dogs very comforting and though I've never met one I've heard good things about armadillos.

Oh and if anyone wants to post anything with Nymphs or Succubi try and keep it in a humorous yet non offensive mask of lude innuendo.

What is the greatest interaction you have had between your gods and your PC's? Ever sent a celestial as a cohort? Ever had a bright flash of light transport the soon to die PC's to safety? Just wondering how Other guys gods are being used in campaigns.

Personally I have my gods set up in a very tightly locked system of interconnected power. Whenever one god exerts his/her power outside of his/her sphere of influence , such as the material plane where no god rules, that frees up some slack on the other end of the cosmos which often gives a god of an opposing alignment the chance to throw their weight around, so such meddling acts are few and far between.

Loyal worshippers however act as a living sphere of influence, sort of like gaining territory. So there is an arms race of sorts to gather the free willed creatures of the realms to a divine cause. Thus the most powerful gods are the most popular.

And to answer my own question the gods have had very little interaction with my parties. But what about you guys?

I like the craft feats and I love to have characters that build things on a regular basis. It's cool.

But I can't help but look at the skill with a little scrutiny.
My sorcerer cannot become diplomatic because that would take to much time away from his spellcasting practice and he wouldn't be as effective.

However building houses is another matter and he can do that just fine.

I am not looking to change any skill lists or remove craft from the lists I was just wondering how you guys deal with this. This is the kind of thing that gives me aneurism *if this is spelled wrong blame my math teacher*

My player keep using commune spells to ask their gods what to do.

No problem with the spell itself but I run pretty loose campaigns without a whole lot of things planned in advance.

I have the story and all planned out and the direction I want the camaign to be headed in but the nuts and bolts (like monster X is in dungeon Y doing Z) are generally not in writing until the next session.

My players seem to be happy with this style and I am too but when it comes to divinations I'm not sure how to accomadate the PC's needs because so many of my answers are on the fly.

Any suggestions?

There has been some interesting discussions flying around about what a DM should do it fit the campaign to his/her players.

Specifically how a DM should accomadate non-standard parties that might face problems in normal campaign settings.

Personally, I do not tailor very much to my players. They never have a typical party. I try to think very little of what presents a larger versus a smaller challenge. I just get an idea for a scenario and then I play it out with their characters as I think they might play them. If they breeze through a tough fight, so be it, they have an unusual array of talents and when certain situations arrise they are bound to shine and shine brightly. But the same is true when they have a difficult encounter, they have a lacking in many areas that can be crippling in some situations. However if I smell a TPK I try to provide an exit stratagy.

This does two things. One it allows characters to shine. For instance if you have a radiant servant of pelor you probably would not use a vampire as a major boss because one turning attempt and there goes the big baddie in one fell swoop. I would. I would let a specified ablility be used for the reason it was developed. To destroy large threats easily. As a player I would not like a dungeon where
room 1: the fighter uses his str to bust in the stuck door.
room 2: the rogue disarms the trap
room 3: the cleric turns the skeleton
room 4: the wizard deciphers the ancient text
room 5: the boss fight where everyone can do something significant

thats boring.

Two, the players that get their weaknesses tested on a regular basis learn quickly to strengthen them. This keeps higher intellect baddies from looking at a party and saying hmmm..... a party of gnome illusionists? And then gets a scroll of mind blank gives it to a red dragon with blindsense and thre goes the cute little gnomes because they had no backup plan.

Plus once again I wouldn't want the only skills needed to get through a dungeon only be the skills the party has and comming up with a room 1-5 scenario.

And neither would I want my big bad speciality only represented when the DM felt like making me feel special. Its the wizards turn to shine in this dungeon so I'll throw in a prismatic wall so he will be responsible for the teams progress this time.

If someone in my games has an abscure talent they should expect to find a use for it rarely. But when they do chances are it will have a big effect on the party.

For instance, I'm going to play a srcerer soon at lvl 1. My two spells are color spray and ray of enfeeblement. I am useless against undead. Bt I would be pissed off if we never fought any at all. I wouldn't mid if we fought a lot. It's and opportunity for my character to develope. Hmmmm.... my skills are not very effective, I need to diversify and consider other options.

Just my opinion and I am looking forward to yours.

Hey everyone, My character just got brutally murdered. I've tried every single class in the PHB and some outside of it, except for a sorcerer.

I've always felt that wizards were far better arcanists. Lots and lots of different spells to chose, and I'm especially fond of "Combos" with specific spells working together to a great effect, not very easy with a limited spell selection. And although sorcerers do not prepare and that is nice and all the slow spell progression is killing me.

I want to play a sorcerer, but I don't want a crappy character. I assume I'm either mising something from the class or it IS in fact inferior to the wizard. However, I would like some input from you guys. What do you think about Sorcerers? Is there something I'm not considering?

I noticed a little druid discussion in the DM horror stories thread. I love this kind of stuff so please continue it here if you please.

I have changed the economics in my campaign. I didn't like the fact that the party would be walking around with a fortune by 4th lvl. And that the hoi polloi get by on one silver a day when the PC's take a one day trip into a gnoll cave and come out with 6000gp worth of goods, goods that the gnolls were assumed to have stolen from the village. Well maybe they attacked a noble, or a merchant caravan, thats all fine but the players come across troves like this every week. How many nobles and merchants would be left in the world by the end of the year?

I changed the system so that one gp is the equivalent to $10 US dollars. But I left magic Item prices alone. This has changed a few things. One nobles are now much richer and can afford heavy enchantments and protectins on there homes and goods. Two, low level NPC's, commoners and such, have a good chance of having a decent weapon (instead of just clubs and walking sticks). Three a profetional NPC might have something valuable that goes with there job. (a succesful inkeeper might have an unseen servant permenantly, or the 2nd lvl warrior captain of the village guard might have a masterwork sword). Three, at low levels especially the PCs are hurt by loong periods of down time. A nice Inn might charge 8 or nine gold a night. Four, when they walk into town with 3000 gp in loot after one night of work they are still rolling in cash but it won't last them long with expensive tastes and split four ways. Five, if the PC's ask for an item with no price or pricing formula I can make up an ad hoc value easily by comparing it to what it would cost today.

So far it doesn't seem to have posed any problems but I was wondering if anyone else had done something similar or if I'm not seeing something I should. I guess I'm looking as I leap here but better late than never.

I have a potential problem. In my homebrew campaign I have a radiant servant of pelor, a fighter/barbarian, a bard, and an abjurer that sacrificed the evocation domain. all 9th lvl

The radiant servant has a phylactery of undead turning and is an absolute atom bomb when it comes to undead as the class was designed, however undead are common as random encounters, the party will just stay back and let the cleric destroy them easily rather than waste the time and resources to attack. So the cleric fearlessly solos against weak undead, (mummys, skeletons, ect) the problem is that none of the xp is divided up so it stacks up very fast. Two encounters (three mummys and later a chimera skeleton) were enough to give the cleric 2700xp ahead of the rest party. Not a problem yet but if this continues I could end up with a cleric thats three or four lvl ahead of the party, That means I'll have a group of 10th lvl guys running around with a cleric that can drop undead of twenty hit dice or higher undead like nothing.

It's already a severe problem creating a threatening undead encounter without somehow nullifying the clerics turning, which I will NOT do.

I have tried using singular encounters to allow other party members one on one fights for xp boosts, for instance the fighter is a heavy drinker so he got ambushed after leaving a bar drunk and flashing a little too much coin. (eight poisioned crossbow bolts dropped him to 2 con but he made mince meat of five of his assailants). And that seemed to work out okay.

But the bard and the wizard are worrying me. The bard of course works best when he is surrounded by his team but cannot handle very much on his own. The Wiz has given up the evocation school and has mainly utility, buffing and mage fighting spells but he doesn't have much for damage potential. He can delay and harrass the hell out of everything but he has few spells capable of actually finishing creatures off in combat.

How do I ensure that these two characters are not left behind? But I don't want to just split the party up, give them an easy encounter, and repeat until things are balanced agian.

P.S. I have no problem with a character getting a level or two ahead I just worry the gap will grow too wide

I am currently playing a gnome wizard that has taken the Craft constuct feat and is 8th lvl. According to the MM I qualify for the min caster level required to make a flesh golem. My character wouldn't create one (he has an aversion to grave robbing). But As I looked over what it would take to craft one I was supprized to find almost all the required spells well out of my characters abilities.

I looked on to other constructs and found that many of them required ressurection spells. I have two problems with this. One with this spell requirements it means that no wizard can create any of these constructs without the help of a cleric, or at least the ability to cast wish. requireing the casting or wish, the materials required for ressurection. bump up the monetary and XP costs to a frightening extent. So much so that it is far less painful to just buy a construct servant. Two golems are powered by elemental spirits which ressucetion spells do not work on.

I have talked to my DM and he has agreed to go over the spell list and devise a new list that is acheivable by a caster of the minimum required level.

Any comments?

I would like to tell you a story. Read it or skip to the bottom the post to see the relevant part

Once upon a time their were two gnomes a druid and a wizard.

The gnome wizard was brutally slaughtered by scrags. The druid (his brother) reincarnates him into a human. Now the gnome that was once not even three ft tall has rolled max on his random height chart and is now 6'6" and 240 pounds.

Now the very depressed Gnome/Human 8th lvl has decided to exterminate creatures in the sewers on his own to gain Xp for item creation. He plans to sell the items as his party has fallen into dire straights.

After coming across many things that will not even give Xp (small centapedes and the like) the DM asks the player if he would like him to use a more challenging random encounter chart. Wanting to speed things up the player agrees.

The DM rolls. The DM double checks that the player is fine with a higher mortality rate. The player agrees.

The DM rifles through the monster manual. His eyes widen. He asks finally that the player understands he will have to face whatever it is no matter how powerful. The player nods.

THe DM starts to describe the purple worm bursting through the base of the sewer tunnel 50ft away and swiveling to look at the 8th lvl Wizard. The wizard wins initiative. Deciding that his chances of escape are narrow he decides to go down fighting. (the gnome/human character has been secretly hoping for death so that he has another chance to return to his natural state)

Round 1: The gnome/human bites off his pinky and spits it on to the sewer floor as he doubts that otherwise their would be anything left of him for the party to find and reincarnate. The DM (mostly out of mercy) allows the pinky severing to be used during a move action (much like drawing a weapon). Now the Wizard is 80ft away and he ends his turn by casting Phantasmal killer. The Purple worm fails his will save but (of course) makes the fotitude save easily. 10 damage to the purple worm

Worms turn: Uses the run action and is now right in front of the wizard. looking hungry.

Round 2: the Wizard defensivly casts his last Phantasmal killer spell (in this case the word last took on a much deeper meaning). The purle worm fails its will save. Then It rolls a four on it's fort save.

Now the 8th lvl wizard is standing in front of a dead purple worm that he killed on his own.

He would have escaped the fight without a scratch had he not bitten off his pinky. (which was now somewhere under the 20 tons of worm)

Now the Wizard is 9th lvl and wants to use permanency to return himself to his true form by using a permanency and an alter self spell to become a gnome once more.

(THE RELEVANT PART)
Is alter self an exceptable addition to the list of spells that permanency can be applied to? What other spells (if any) do you thing should be added to the list? Please include Xp costs and required caster lvls.

P.S. sorry about the long useless story but I knew I was going to end up putting it somewhere on these boards and decided to get it out of the way.

I was thinking about a mechanic that would allow sunder attempts to be used on the bodyparts of creatures.

does anyone have any methods out there already that are balanced?

I desperatly wan't to switch my campaigns to point buy system but I can't seem to come to terms with it.

Currently we use a system of Roll 3d6 reroll the lowest and use the best out of three sets. This produces VERY powerful characters that (although I've found a way to handle this in my world I still don't like it) excel in everything easily, except... the one guy who only gets average stats, or worse yet LESS than average sets. Since I have to amp up the power on my monsters, traps, ect. This poor guy always ends up depressed that his character can't contribute and just waits until his character dies to try his luck again. I HATE that both for the player and for the integrity of my world.

However I do not want to use point buy because I don't want every fighter to become, a brutish idiotic hulk, and every wizard to be a brilliant skinny pansy with no common sense or social skills. And I don't think I can ask the players to add point's in near worthless attributes just so I have a better feeling about the "flavour" of my campaign.

I've had an idea that combines a point buy with a rolling. A modified point buy that allows stats to min at 7 and max out at 14 then roll a d4 and add it to their total but I stiil can't decide.

If you think you can help please share because this is driving me more crazy than normal.

Also I'm sorry about all the threads If been throwing out recently but I have only been playing for a few years and just found out about this site and it has blown my mind how much all of your ideas have added more to my campaign in such a short amount of time. I deeply appreciate the help.

Am I a munchkin or not?

I had a character die in Aow and I had to make a new one. I decided I wanted to play another rouge but I ended up rolling an eighteen and I thought it would be cool to play an immensly strong "combat" centric rouge (this as opposed to the freakishly agile dual shortsword weilders I normally play) I wanted a two handed weapon but I thought a feat was two big a price, so I decided to take a level of ranger since the BAB was nice tracking was nice the saves were nice. Then I took Undead as my favored enemy because they are immune to criticals (my sneak attack) and very common monsters to fight.

During the process I created a backround for the character that I think made sense. Originally he was the typical rapier weilding rouge in a party headed to the Aow starting toen ( I can't believe I forgot the name) despite his best friend Gurdenen (a halbard wielding dwarf) constanly harassing him that a Man his size should use a "man's" weapon. The party and their supplies were torn to peices by the undead surrounding the town and , in reverence to his friend he picked up his halbered and "It" (now called Gurdenen) became his weapon of choice. Lost for months in the surrounding woods he whent into survival mode. Thus his ranger level. He stalked around making progress only at night, and in Gurdenen's name tearing any undead he found to shreads with his fallen comerades weapon. Thus his favored enemy.

I always want my charaters to be cool concepts and powerful as well. Because a cool concept stops being cool (for me) when it can't accomplish all the great things that It's coolness suggests.

I assume that this is a clear cut example of power gaming but I haven't been playing for that long and my hometown is so small that I don't know of any D&D groups outside of my own small pack of friends. (plus I haven't known about any D&D message boards until a week or two ago so I'm trying to get a grasp on all the slang)

I won't get my feelings hurt so don't worry about holding back what you really think, but as I originally asked am I a munchkin?

I Define hit points as overall ability to reduce or avoid bodily harm. Since even a charater fighting at 1 hit point has no penalties I say that he isn't really all that wounded he just has been harassed and beaten around to the point that he has lost the coordination to properly defend himself, so the next time a troll hits him with an uprooted sapling the outcome would be a lot closer to what you'd expect if you got thumped by a 8ft tall cretin that can benchpress a sedan

I think I'm pretty happy in this area but it gets harder to define when magic is involved, particularily healing. Cure light wounds can take a commoner from the brink of death to full health in under 3 seconds but the same spell used on a barbarian of high level and you might as well be giving him children's tylenol.

Then you have odd spells like Phantasmal Killer that does damage on a successful will save, A commoner is still scared into the grave, but a sturdy character it barely......ummm........frightinjured?

Just wanted to here some feedback on how to represent/explain some of this stuff
P.S. I realize the game mechanics can never be completely rationalized but the closer I get to understanding the more real my world seems to become

My characters die CONSTANTLY! I love to play high risk characters with a no guts no glory attitude. Irronically enough my characters often end the day lacking both glory and their guts.

One time i decided to play it safe an 8th lvl gnome cleric with magical full plate. I had high hp high AC and since my strength sucked i stayed in the back.

Trolls attackeed the party and the palidin and the barbarian were both drained from a previous fight so i decided that I would wade up and try to draw some fire. Remember HP AC (including a +4 racial bonus against giants) THEY SHOULDN't HAVE TOUCHED ME!

Three critcals later I was gnome chunks.

Ever found a rule, ability, or spell or any combination of these that could be really powerful out of context of what the spell could be for?
If so please post here.

For example huge amounts of cash can be obtained from using summon monster IV, Summon a lantern archon and have it use it's continual flame spell like ability on as many torches as possible, no cost whatsoever and each everburning torch generates 55 gold selling at half price

Also I realize that as a DM i would never allow something like this but I constantly comb through spells, magic items, and abilities looking for obscure and powerful combos to use on my players, and (when I'm not DM'ing) for my characters to use. I just love it when I find oversights like this one.