Strachan's page

James,

Have you given any thoughts to making the stat block pages and/or maps into a detachable booklet. I've often thought that a detachable stat block page would be very useful (much like maps used to be with perforated edges). It avoids photocopying and avoids having to flip to the back of the book to find the stats. Now the one drawback I think most people would be concerned with is losing those pages as there is no way to keep them from coming loose and falling out of the book. Soooo.....add a plastic pocket or sleeve on the inside of the back cover where one could store any maps, stat blocks and anything else that you could 'detach' from the book to make DMing easier.

Thanks for the reply James. I'll add more when I think of it or as time permits.

Here are three more things:

1) Can you add some info to the Striders and what their goals are at certian points of the campaign? All we know is that they are investigating the cagewrights (or that they are investigating stuff that is going on). Other behind the scenes info that they could supply the PC's would help bring the Striders into the campaign better.

2)Another messageboard poster stated the fight with the Glabrezu was in too small a room. IMC, the fight happened outside where the desert was. There was a cliff face at the PC's back and while they were exploring what was in each direction the Glabrezu attacked. It was a pretty cool fight and if the PC's are smart enough or close enough to the entrance they can run back in for cover. This allows something that modules offer all too few of - the PC's choosing the environment in which they fight the bad guy. I highly recommend this. IMC, the Glabrezu used Reverse Gravity to take the fighter out of the party. Once the Glab died, the fighter fell back to earth. It was kind of funny...in an evil sort of way.

3) The Occipitus climax was very anticlimactic. There just wasn't anyway that Kauraphon could be prepared without the PC's being aware. His tactics should be changed, indeed even his spell selection or even his class could be changed to help out with this. IMC, Kaurophon was dead before he did anything as the party fighter cut him in half since he won init and rolled a crit and power attacked. One tactic I was GOING to use was to do a Mass Charm Person and convince the failed PC's it would be in their best interest to walk into the flames since it completed the party's goals thus giving Kauraphon the template. My players would then have to split resources in fighting Kauraphon and saving member of their own team. But, alas, he died before even one action.

This is my first post, but I've read the messageboards for a while and have already preordered the hardcover! Here are the changes/additions I would make and would recommend off the top of my head since I am at work. Unfortunately, I can't remember which modules had certain events so I have left the adventure name out for now.

1) I know this has been denied already but I will voice my opinion to change Keygan's rat being captured to something/someone else. My players thought this was not a very good reason for Keygan to be blackmailed and thus did not look at Keygan as a victim but rather an NPC not worth their time. Consequently, they had nothing to do with him for the rest of the compaign. I tried to portray him as a victim but they just didn't buy it. If it was Keygan's son or a daughter then that would make a world of difference. Hell, even a familiar with some special ability that made him unique would make it more plausible.

2) The Umber Hulk encounter would be vastly improved if the DM was told where the PC's are when the encounter starts rather than just saying they are walking down the street as this varies the encounter and events drastically.

3) Information on what happened while the PC's where in Occipitus. What was the result of Terseon going to Redgorge? I had to come up with some plausible explanation and some insight into this would be helpful.

4) Raising Alek Tercival. One of my PC's is playing a cleric of St. Cuthbert and they raised Alek and then fixed his broken mind. If I played by the rules the party would have been aware of the cagewrights plans so I had to come up with Alek having amnesia so he didn't tell the party what was really going on. Either kill him and give us a good reason why he should stay dead or help us keep the party in the dark in case they raise him. The nice thing about my group raising him is that they wanted to restore his paladinhood which adds quite a bit to the campaign. The downside is that since they got back they still wanted him to challenge Terseon since they are losing faith in Terseon (he is working with ogres and half orcs after all) and would rather have the Paladin as captain of the town guard. I hope you see where I am going with this.

4) The ecounter in Vhalantru's house with the bird cages. There are suppposed to be 3 naga's in that room but the house is too small to have them ambush the party (let alone have the party all in one room)

5) What the DM is to do if the party discovers some info ahead of time. My party has suspected Vhalantru for a while and decided to go fight him after defeating Ike at the Church of Wee Jas. The cleric who had the smoking eye template cast speak with dead and learned enough about Vhalantru to confront him. Furthermore, the template of the smoking eye tends to fool spells based on alignment so my cleric (who had the smoking eye) argued that Speak with Dead on Ike automatically succeeded since it effectively 'hid' his alignment and was not different from Ike's (even though it actually was).

6) Change Vhalantru's first name. Orbius is too obvious. For my campaign I changed it to Dorban which still has 'orb' in it for those savvy players to pick up on.

7) Give better tactics for Vhalantru. I am about to run this fight next session and I feel that his tactics are horribly lacking.

That is as far as we are and all I can think of for now. Please consider these for inclusion.

Thanks and PS - The AP1 ROCKS!!!