Txn Templar's page

CONGRATULATIONS TOM!

Well done! Also I just want to say hello. I know it has been awhile but things have been very busy. I am finally going to be able to sit in a PFS game this weekend. I miss all of y'all and the laughs and good times. Hopefully I will be back in Phoenix as soon as the dealership decides to send me to the Harley Davidson University there for some extra training. I will keep my fingers crosses. Just an fyi, but I still don't have any internet or a reliable computer but once these things are up and running I will be in better communication.

Ok I found my notes:

Mending Needle
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 11th
Slot -; Price 14,850 gp; Weight - lbs.
Description
This magic item appears as an overly large mithril sewing needle with a length that is usually between 4 to 6 inches. The needle’s enchantment has the means to fully mend a destroyed, damaged or broken item. The needle can perform this function three times a day.
To operate place the needle in or on the damaged item in question with damaged parts next to the equipment – if applicable. Speak the command word and the magic from the needle will restore the item to its previous condition. However if a magic item is destroyed - the item itself, such as a magic weapon, will be restored to its master work quality, but the magic bonuses will not return.
If the owner wishes to restore a magic item with its original benefits, they need to put the needle in or on the item and speak the command word three times. This will activate the needle to repair the item and its magical properties, but will also destroy the needle.
The mending will not work on magic items that need a wish or miracle spell for repair.
Construction
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, mending, Make Whole; Cost 7,425 gp

Ok, at the moment I cannot find my original notes - the curse of working and going to school full time - too many papers to keep track off. But I created a magic item called the Mending Needle. Maybe some of y'all saw it, but I followed the full format for posting - sorry that this is a little incomplete.

It costs just over 14K gold and had the basic capability to mend a broken item 3 times a day. It also had the capability to make whole one magic item - but this drained the magic of the needle making it useless after that. It could only use the make whole ability when it had all three charges not used for the day.

Feats: Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, Spells used mending and make whole (make whole was maximized).

So any thoughts or feelings about this submission would be most appreciated.

My first time entering the contest too. No matter what happens I am certainly excited about it and just wanted to say, "Good luck to all of you."

I've been reading a lot of the posts regarding the RPG Superstar event,and posts from other people on this site. I have to say that it is certainly a nice change of pace being in a contest that is filled with people of good sportsmanship and great character.

Me too, I will keep an eye out for the character guidelines and what books are allowed. Sounds well put so far.

Count me in, but my schedule is really tight - so what is the time frame?

I agree the Alchemist is a tough fit, but one of the reasons I thought of the Irda is because they were Isolationist. It was also never made clear if the Towers of High Sorcery was aware of them or mandated the test upon them. From what I have read of the Irda - they were extremely powerful magic users and did not reveal themselves to others as secrecy was their greatest ally. If the Orders knew of the Irda's actual existance - they never mentioned or hinted at it. But personally I doubt it as they were powerful enough to release Chaos from the Graygem of Gargath, and it was hinted that their community was even capable of hiding from Takhisis and her most powerful minions.

Due to their unique situation, and that they may not have been mandated to take the Test of High Sorcery - I can see where they learned, developed, or was "gifted" Alchemy to enhance their abilities and to defend themselves against Takhisis' forces.

As far as curing goes - I see your point of removing healing, or you could allow it but remind the player that he or she will be lynched as a "witch" if the locals found out about the healing. Or limit the healing only to that character - a special Irda ability or blessing from Paladine or Mishakal as the Irda never stopped believing in the gods like the rest of the races.

Hmm, my opinion, but I would be hesitant on the Alchemist and Gunslinger - even for gnomes.

Gnome creations were usually more detrimental than helpful. So, maybe for the Gunslinger - increase the chance of a misfire.

Alchemist is more magical than mechanical - I would not allow it for the Gnomes since they are more mechanically inclined, and I don't think the Dragonlance Gnomes have the propensity to trully grasp magical workings - although some did have a natural curiosity about it.

I can see an alchemist maybe more in line with the Irda, the First Ogres, since they have a natural magical talent that exceeds the elves, and used shapechanging abilities to hide their nature and heritage. Or even a Dark Elf - banned from elven society due to the nature of Alchemy...maybe they view it as an affront to the gods of magic.

The Witch - I could see as a Dark Elf, Half Elf, Human, even Minotaur. Now were you going to use the witch as a member of the Orders - taking the test. Or as a group or faction opposed to the Towers of High Sorcery and their mandated test. That would make for an interesting antagonist to the Order. But the catch is who will supply their powers? Almost all the gods respected the god of magic. Except Takhisis and her knightly order created after the age of despair.

Also are you going to allow the good draconians to be a playable race too? I did and it was fun to mix see the roleplay of a good draconian hiding his heritage to everyone both good and evil.

About the only Dragonlance class I liked was the noble. In the hands of a good roleplay gamer - that was fun to work with.

How about a dream/nightmare sequence imposed on them by Lamashtu. maybe impose a penalty of some sort - temporary. But when they actually go back into the adventure - rewrite the encounters and creatures.

Well it all sounds well and good until you face a evil cleric or necromancer.

Oh, look you can control undead - so can I, and watch the party get scared as the NPC wins the opposed check, takes control of the undead and have it pound the wizard and then the rest of the party into pulp.

Lol, I've been there.

OHHH! I CANNOT BELIEVE I FORGOT THIS...I was looking over some old character sheets remembered this encounter. A good friend of mine is known to be vicious, but can run some great adventures. This was a 3.5 campaign and we got an offer from some local nobles to kill a red dragon marauding the lands. So we figured, "sure why not?"

He was easy to find and we approached the base of these mountains through some woods. But the closer we got to the entrance of the lair - the trees were burned and had no branches - just massive tree trunks. Strange, but really nothing to catch our interest.

Well at the mouth of the cave the six of us split up in a semi circle. All fully buffed with fire resist, fire protection, etc, etc, etc. Y'all know the drill.

As we got close enough the dragon comes soaring out of the cave - at an angle. He buzzed us - just out of our reach and went sky ward. On his way he grabbed two tree trunks! This got our attention! After some more spot checks it was noticed that the base of the tree was carved and cut into a point - the ranger noticed that all the base of the trees surrounding us were without branches, carved at the base and basically rammed into the ground.

Then the dragon acts, yeah these were his personal javelins. He threw both at the wizard huge tree trunks being thrown with the strength of a dragon - it was not pretty. Wizard is dead. Well the shock of losing the wizard and this entirely new strategy spooked all of us.....The dragon acts again and flys down grabbing two more tree / javelins, and flys back up. We asked if the cleric had air walk to combat the dragon in the air, but no. After a second volley from the dragon we ran screaming like little girls, and the dragon claimed three more people - including my Warblade.

No, I don't think it is not dumb. I had a world I created where teleportation was not available. The way around this was ley lines of magic that ran in different patterns around the continent and world. All Teleportation was only available through these paths. Naturally major cities developed on these lines and a mages guild constructed (for lack of a better example) Stargate like portals. For a fee they would teleport people, goods, and stuff like that to other cities.

I created a formula that player arcane casters can add their level and ability modifier times 10. If they were within this distance, in miles, of a ley line they could tap into it and use the residual magic emanating from it to teleport or Dimension Door.

Dimension Door was the only way to avoid using a gate as an exist, but that is why it's distance is limited. But Teleport - you had to exist a portal and pay the fines for not using the Mages Guild services - per person.

Oh and the clerical spell Word of Recall was a closely guarded secret by the clergy as this bypassed the Ley Lines. This world history had some bad blood between the arcane and divine powers. Naturally, this idea was when Stargate the movie and series was just kicking off.

Ok, this is an old story, but in the 80's I just got into AD&D and have been playing it for a few years wih some other people. Well our characters were between 12-15 level, when we get a adventure to investigate why all contact with a mining town in the mountains has been lost. The king had sent in patrols but no one ever returned.
Us being the awesome group that we assumed we were - went into the mountains. We came to the town first, busted windows and doors, things strewn about, but no bodies and little blood to no blood.
Farther up into the mountains we go and we find two sites where combat took place a few broken and melted weapons and armor but again no bodies (again weird).

Well soon we were at the entrance of a mine and proceeded to enter. As we went along deeper into the mine we started to find strange formations that was unnatural to the mine exterior or anything else we had seen.

Finally we were attacked. These things had enlongated heads, outer jaws of teeth and inner jaws with teeth that can project outward, bipedal but with great climbing abilities, and a whip like tail. They attacked with their hands, teeth, and tail, and even had acid for blood.......

Yeah, this right around the time of Aliens and the DM thought it would be cool to create the critters and throw them at us......

Well there was seven of us of various classes, the wizard and elven fighter mage quickly went through their spells as waves of these things kept coming. My character and another person failed their save (if I remember he based it of paralyzation) and were victim to two face huggers. The rest retreated as gear and weapons was getting destroyed by the acid. But the exit was blocked off by more of these things. The wizard casted a wall of fire and the cleric a blade barrier. But the DM (in glee this latest creation) declared that the blades were also effected by the acid from their blood. So these things kept charging it until it was gone. At this point the Wizard, who had his girlfriend at the time playing with us said ok we are out of here.
He pulled out a scroll of teleport and took her character with his - leaving the rest. We were even more upset - until he rolled a 97 and fatal mishap.

Essential the story the DM created is that a super high level lich went exploring to other worlds and dimensions and brought back some eggs to study. Since he was undead, they did not react to him and after some experiments he got bored with them and left them in the mine to be discovered by the miners. He had a queen, eggs chamber, hatching chamber all that. We just never got that far.

Needless to say the group fell apart after that.

I am new to PFS and have only played a handful of scenarios and GM'd 2. But as far as some of the newer write ups, I like the challenge. I play several RPG's and a few MMO's, but find myself prefering the older editions or expansions as there was more of a challenge. Yeah it can be unfortunate if a character gets killed, but part of the fun for me is starting over too.

But as far as challenges I look for the opportunity to find tactics and teamwork to overcome these difficulties - yes sometimes the dice will hate you, but that is part of the game and flavor.

I have played in only one scenario where I did not like the challenge and it was because the GM seemed to have an attitude of how many can I take out. Which I disagree with, as a GM you run the game not treat it as a death trap to kill people - unless the player or players do something incredibly stupid. But that's just my opinion though - games should always be challenging and fun, in the end.

Thanks for the ideas Indagare.

1. I had thought about teleportation but figured it would not be good for mass use (maybe for a single kingdom but not everybody). So far I'm leaning to a mix of both options I said (have most land masses quite large but still make air travel decently common).

2. As for having the planet act as the plane of air honestly I had never even thought about that and is something I need to think on. I had planned to have a surface just make it extremely inhospitable (granted the common person would have no knowledge that it even exists), though still trying to decide what makes it that way (high gravity pressure, demons, covered in lava, ect).

This is just my two cents worth for number one and two. As far as transportation, I used the idea of ley lines that ran in eratic patterns around the world. Think of them like Stargates, a wizards guild that specialized in teleportation would activate them and control them (usually for a hefty price). Being near these lines people and goods can travel through the line to another gate. so a lot of major cities were on these ley line paths.....Naturally this guild was extremely powerful and rich. Things got interesting when the party destroyed one, trying to stop the guilds power and perceived corruption, lol a few bad apples can ruin the barrell.

But for the ground being inhospitable, why not utilize the Drow or Aboleths - something like that. One of these forces was finally able to take over the surface world and rule with an iron grip and slaves. Giants, Orcs, Hobgoblins, etc are in their employ. They fight amongst each other, as the Drow or Aboleths manipulate them to work for them and keep these creatures divided. The only catch about the surface being inhospitable is the good dragons (if you use dragons at all)

But try to find the old box set Night Below: An Underdark Campaign. It is an epic adventure from AD&D time when the Aboleths are trying to contruct a major artifact to control all intelligent beings as their slaves. The threat is so great that devils, Drow and Mind Flayers are willing to team up with the pary to stop the Aboleths and destroy the magical tower. This box set has the party starting at level 1 and finishing in the 17 - 20 range.

Man I have ran it three times and only once the party succeeded. It is a deadly, fun, and an unpredictable adventure. Maybe you can incorporate this idea into your world - have the aboleths build several of them all around the world.

Hi, A friend of mine ran one campaign in which he had the world mostly fleshed out, but it was kept secret from us - other than the local area. The higher knowledge skills in Local, History, or Nobility - those players would have access to a little more information of that nature.

He allowed only core classes at first (and Cavalier), but as the party started exploring, questing, leveling, he would expose more of the world he created and open up other classes. So when characters died, they could roll up in one of the newer classes discovered in that region or area.

It was a lot of fun as it forced us, the players to communicate more with eachother (especially with players who ran more knowledgeable character) to learn of this world and societies the GM created.

He also said it made things fleixible to add, remove, and change things to make his world more interesting - based on the party's actions and progressions. I asked how he built his world, and he said he started with a small map area that concerned two to three kingdoms / countries......he fully fleshed these out and kept an outline of other things to add and build upon as the party advanced in experience. He also wrote up a lot of the religions, kingdoms, wars, etc - several months before drawing the actual map.....maybe that was easier for him - I dunno. But this is what I learned from him and it was a fun game.

Anyways, Good luck overseas!