Tiaximus's page

"The Memorable Appendix Crisis"

Yes, and yes. Just to counter.

Now we're back to where we started.

I would hope that anyone who had this issue in-game would simply take a time out and chat it over with the GM calmly and intelligently. Would any of you really sit for hours debating the pedantical minutia of what a book of *suggested rules* says? If that's fun for you, cool, but wasn't the reason you came in the first place to play Pathfinder?

It's simply a case-by-case basis, and could go something like this:

Player - "My fighter is nauseated--can he just drop his sword so he can hold his guts while he pukes?"

GM - "Sure, if you want. Why would you want to drop the sword though? That seems like it wouldn't really help at all."

Player - "Well, Player 2 was just disarmed and doesn't have a sword, so I was hoping he could pick up mine."

GM - "That might actually make it more difficult for him to retrieve it, not to mention the puke all over the sword. How about you hold onto it, and he just takes a move action to take it from your hand?"

Player - "Oh yeah, that does make sense."

I would have to say I have the *least* fun when the players do absolutely no planning at all and the monsters beat them up. When there is plenty of information to be gained and the players don't even attempt to gain it, I get grumpy.

On the flipside, I love well-thought out plans and reward players for good ideas. I don't mind if the evil wizard gets ripped up in one round as long as there was something beyond blind luck that caused it. If it's blind luck, it's just funny.

An anthropomorphic Dragon Turtle abducts a member of myconid royalty and is chased down by a pair of multiclassed brawler-sorcerors who make liberal use of their extended jump spells and fire element bloodlines.

Wow, I just got a fever from the heat off of that burn.

Granted: you are laid next to the true tape measure, the true protractor, and the true sun dial. You collect dust for eons.

I wish that I could speak to moustaches.

The papers in the offices in Harrowstone could suggest Knowledge checks be made on the prisoners themselves, as well as the piles of personal affects in the room full of prisoner gear.

Consider putting multiple handaxes, books, and holy symbols in the personal effects so that the players have a reason for researching the five prisoners' *actual names* instead of their pseudonyms.

Kendra could suggest this through DM fiat, or father Grimburrow. A suggestion that 'knowing the Splatter Man's name could help somehow, since the man thought there is power in names.'

The best part about players using Charm Person waaaay beyond it's means is when the PC comes to the tavern after a long day and tells the other PCs what a great guy he met at the market and how he told the new best friend all of their tactics, including a detailed list on what magic items they have, what information they know about the bad guys, what order they prefer to walk down a 10 foot hallway, what illegal things they've done (if applicable), and who all of their surviving relatives are.

Baseline--don't do things to the GM that you don't want done to your PC.

It would make bringing new characters in a lot more fun.

"Frederick, lord of the celery, dies under the scything blow of the ankheg's mandibles."

"At the tavern, an aged crone hobbles up to you, settling into the seat ol' Frederick used to warm. 'I see you fellers lost a man today. I swore vengeance against those damn bugs when they ate my whole rutabaga crop. I have a feeling in my knees that tells me vengeance is'a coming... or maybe a cold front.'"

I want to see the party of commoners come off of a potato field and rise to glory, crushing hordes of cats, skeletons and kobolds under their 20th level boots.

Necromancy deals with a lot of changes to positive and negative energy. Inflict spells, while still necromancy, aren't considered evil even though the act of channeling negative energy through your god's will is generally a rotten thing to do to someone. It's not any more rotten than swinging a greatsword at their face to most people, but regardless, negative energy is what fuels undead and keeps them animate.

Think of how skeletons, zombies, vampires, and liches are portrayed. The more powerful the undead (or more massive the gathering of smaller undead), the colder and more blighted the surrounding areas become from the constant strain of negative energy conduits on the natural world. Knowingly and willingly making such a conduit to the primal force of ruin and decay is evil--nothing good can come of the connection...

...or can it? Zombies make dedicated workers, right? Skeletons don't tire, and can work endlessly to rebuild a destroyed city or carry supplies to orphans and the wounded. Sure, you've got plenty of good intentions, plenty of bodies, and a sack full of onyx gemstones burning a hole in your pocket. Why not?

Well, because they are controlled, but only loosely. Unless you specifically command them not to fight back, they will claw and bite at anything that strikes them. Odd behavior for a creature that should be considered 'mindless,' no? It's not a survival behavior, either--a pack of zombies will chase an attacker off a cliff or into a fire. So what drives them?

The negative energy in each undead pushes them to destroy. Any uncontrolled undead seeks the nearest living thing and grinds the life out of it. Vampires, ghouls, and many other undead are forced to feed, to destroy. It's in their nature. No natural animals can stand to be around them, either.

So before you condemn the animation of zombies and skeletons, remember that they make great workhorses if properly controlled. Same goes for illicit drug use--it's easy, it gets you what you want fast and with no repurcussions, if you can control it.

Evil? Nah, creating mindless packmules isn't evil. It's just a gateway drug.

In a fit of goofy GM insanity, I decided to combine AoW with CC. AoW is the main focus (considering it surpasses CC in level/content) with the CC content adding additional fun, experience, and loot.

I figure the extra experience will make the players a bit higher level, but I really don't mind them thrashing a few weaker monsters here and there. Makes them feel heroic. Then again, there are 6 players in my game, so they will likely be more powerful than I am expecting, but that's fine.

With the CC content, I'm changing the Whispering Way to the Ebon Triad and pretty much re-writing the areas and encounters to reflect this. In AoW, the Ebon Triad was just a front for the Cult of Kyuss to gain power and hide their activity. I'm using the CC modules to flesh out the Ebon Triad and give them more depth. I imagine that, after their part in helping further Kyuss' release, they still continue on their agenda--the big players in AoW don't care about the Ebon Triad continuing their attempts to merge their three gods since it isn't affecting them. The end of CC is changed to mirror the Ebon Triad's desire to raise their Overgod.

Here is a very, very brief synopsis of the changes I've made to incorporate these two:

The Whispering Cairn/Haunting of Harrowstone:

Ravengro and Diamond Lake have been combined and remain in Ustalav, east of Celiphas (which replaces the Free City). I kept the name Diamond Lake since I liked it better than Ravengro. The Restlands is much larger due to the high mortality rate of the miners and high influx of new miners. The cemetery spills out into the surrounding hill(s), making the idea of spontaneous rising undead even scarier with so many dead. The church of Pharasma is tasked with the upkeep of the Restlands. To tie in Harrowstone, the prison was used by many of Ustalav's cities to dump their prisoners; the mine managers purchased the majority of the prisoners' sentences as cheap labor and left the more heinous prisoners to rot in the prisons.

I got rid of Trust points completely. Now that the town is larger and more tolerant of outsiders, Diplomacy checks are the main way to get info you need. Plus, if the players don't immediately head to Harrowstone, they might lose a lot of trust points. Also, I found them unnecessary. You could keep them and just offer several ways to increase them (especially now that the town is much larger and could have many more opportunities to gain more), but I don't think trust points are a good idea in a place basically run by corrupt mine managers and such.

Allustan and Lorrimer are now a duo of sages in town. Allustan has advanced parkisons (an idea I got from another post on these forums) so Lorrimer helps take care of Allustan (even though Lorrimer is older). Allustan attends Lorrimer's funeral and Kendra offers to look after Allustan--she lives out of town (likely in Carrion Hill or Caliphas) and feels bad that she hadn't spent much time with Lorrimer before his death and hopes to hear stories about him from Allustan. Also, as a burgeoning spellcaster herself, the mages' library allow her some time to study away from her duties at home.

I added an entry to Lorrimer's journal the mentions him finding the Whispering Cairn and exploring it briefly, and I hint at him finding some familiar reliefs on the walls (he finds the bas reliefs of the PCs fighting the war agains the Spawn of Kyuss as noted in the module A Gathering of Winds through the portal to Icosial's tomb). He also left directions to it, noting that it was interesting but altogether unhelpful to his research on the Ebon Triad. Since the characters in the bas relief are the PCs, this adds another reason for them to be in his will (albeit a very loose connection they likely won't figure out for a long time). The unholy books he has in his trunk are replaced with holy texts sacred to Lamashtu (The Skull of Mashaag, a treaty on the skull that speaks Lamashtu's will), Norgorbor (The Man Behind the Mask), and Zon-Kuthon (left the same).

Lorrimer's will included the mining lodge from the wormfood article in Dungeon #333. I rewrote it as Lorrimer's old manor house he left to the elements after he took up care of Allustan several years ago. This gives the players a place to stay instead of in Diamond Lake, and is also a great place for Lorrimer's zombie to visit while the PCs are resting. And if your players include several ladies in the group like mine does, you might find they like the D&D aspect here (Design & Decoration). They spent a couple of game hours buying supplies and fixing the place up (as best as they could without any Craft skills).

The players now have an option to go to Harrowstone or to the Whispering Cairn. The news in town is that a group of adventurers (Allustan and his crew) is seeking cairns to plunder, so they may go there first out of greed to keep the others from gathering their precious XP and loot. All the while, the effects of Harrowstone's hauntings are affecting the town, so Allustan and crew may go to Harowstone and stir up some trouble there (or the GM can just let the players fight all the monsters and get the loot in both places).

The course of the adventures remains the same for the first modules--just depends on what order the players want to finish them. If they go after the Whispering Cairn first, it is nice to give the PCs some extra time (perhaps making Gibs take longer in-between possessions). Also, Kullen makes a great NPC to replace Gibs with, since they will have a run-in with him later, and the group of townsfolk that harass the PCs at Lorrimer's burial can be replaced with Kullen and his gang. That makes this encounter a lot tougher, so consider having Father Grimburrow present at the burial from the beginning (although having Allustan at the burial adds a lot of firepower in case the encounter turns violent). Alastor Land and/or Filge can give the PCs plenty of info on Harrowstone if they are having issues with that area.

So with Lorrimer's will, the PCs have a whole month to explore both Harrowstone and the Whispering Cairn. They may even have time to explore the Dourstone Mine and complete the Three Faces of Evil module (I encourage doing that first). After that, they will head to Lepidstadt (which basically is the same distance away as before) and hit the next modue, Trial of the Beast.

I will type up the rest of the AoW/CC combo and post it up later! Suffice to say there are a lot of big changes to Wake of the Watcher in particular. I have more changes to the town and I might post a more in-depth list later.

In a fit of goofy GM insanity, I decided to combine AoW with CC. AoW is the main focus (considering it surpasses CC in level/content) with the CC content adding additional fun, experience, and loot.

I figure the extra experience will make the players a bit higher level, but I really don't mind them thrashing a few weaker monsters here and there. Makes them feel heroic. Then again, there are 6 players in my game, so they will likely be more powerful than I am expecting, but that's fine.

With the CC content, I'm changing the Whispering Way to the Ebon Triad and pretty much re-writing the areas and encounters to reflect this. In AoW, the Ebon Triad was just a front for the Cult of Kyuss to gain power and hide their activity. I'm using the CC modules to flesh out the Ebon Triad and give them more depth. I imagine that, after their part in helping further Kyuss' release, they still continue on their agenda--the big players in AoW don't care about the Ebon Triad continuing their attempts to merge their three gods since it isn't affecting them. The end of CC is changed to mirror the Ebon Triad's desire to raise their Overgod.

Here is a very, very brief synopsis of the changes I've made to incorporate these two:

The Whispering Cairn/Haunting of Harrowstone:

Ravengro and Diamond Lake have been combined and remain in Ustalav, east of Celiphas (which replaces the Free City). I kept the name Diamond Lake since I liked it better than Ravengro. The Restlands is much larger due to the high mortality rate of the miners and high influx of new miners. The cemetery spills out into the surrounding hill(s), making the idea of spontaneous rising undead even scarier with so many dead. The church of Pharasma is tasked with the upkeep of the Restlands. To tie in Harrowstone, the prison was used by many of Ustalav's cities to dump their prisoners; the mine managers purchased the majority of the prisoners' sentences as cheap labor and left the more heinous prisoners to rot in the prisons.

I got rid of Trust points completely. Now that the town is larger and more tolerant of outsiders, Diplomacy checks are the main way to get info you need. Plus, if the players don't immediately head to Harrowstone, they might lose a lot of trust points. Also, I found them unnecessary. You could keep them and just offer several ways to increase them (especially now that the town is much larger and could have many more opportunities to gain more), but I don't think trust points are a good idea in a place basically run by corrupt mine managers and such.

Allustan and Lorrimer are now a duo of sages in town. Allustan has advanced parkisons (an idea I got from another post on these forums) so Lorrimer helps take care of Allustan (even though Lorrimer is older). Allustan attends Lorrimer's funeral and Kendra offers to look after Allustan--she lives out of town (likely in Carrion Hill or Caliphas) and feels bad that she hadn't spent much time with Lorrimer before his death and hopes to hear stories about him from Allustan. Also, as a burgeoning spellcaster herself, the mages' library allow her some time to study away from her duties at home.

I added an entry to Lorrimer's journal the mentions him finding the Whispering Cairn and exploring it briefly, and I hint at him finding some familiar reliefs on the walls (he finds the bas reliefs of the PCs fighting the war agains the Spawn of Kyuss as noted in the module A Gathering of Winds through the portal to Icosial's tomb). He also left directions to it, noting that it was interesting but altogether unhelpful to his research on the Ebon Triad. Since the characters in the bas relief are the PCs, this adds another reason for them to be in his will (albeit a very loose connection they likely won't figure out for a long time). The unholy books he has in his trunk are replaced with holy texts sacred to Lamashtu (The Skull of Mashaag, a treaty on the skull that speaks Lamashtu's will), Norgorbor (The Man Behind the Mask), and Zon-Kuthon (left the same).

Lorrimer's will included the mining lodge from the wormfood article in Dungeon #333. I rewrote it as Lorrimer's old manor house he left to the elements after he took up care of Allustan several years ago. This gives the players a place to stay instead of in Diamond Lake, and is also a great place for Lorrimer's zombie to visit while the PCs are resting. And if your players include several ladies in the group like mine does, you might find they like the D&D aspect here (Design & Decoration). They spent a couple of game hours buying supplies and fixing the place up (as best as they could without any Craft skills).

The players now have an option to go to Harrowstone or to the Whispering Cairn. The news in town is that a group of adventurers (Allustan and his crew) is seeking cairns to plunder, so they may go there first out of greed to keep the others from gathering their precious XP and loot. All the while, the effects of Harrowstone's hauntings are affecting the town, so Allustan and crew may go to Harowstone and stir up some trouble there (or the GM can just let the players fight all the monsters and get the loot in both places).

The course of the adventures remains the same for the first modules--just depends on what order the players want to finish them. If they go after the Whispering Cairn first, it is nice to give the PCs some extra time (perhaps making Gibs take longer in-between possessions). Also, Kullen makes a great NPC to replace Gibs with, since they will have a run-in with him later, and the group of townsfolk that harass the PCs at Lorrimer's burial can be replaced with Kullen and his gang. That makes this encounter a lot tougher, so consider having Father Grimburrow present at the burial from the beginning (although having Allustan at the burial adds a lot of firepower in case the encounter turns violent). Alastor Land and/or Filge can give the PCs plenty of info on Harrowstone if they are having issues with that area.

So with Lorrimer's will, the PCs have a whole month to explore both Harrowstone and the Whispering Cairn. They may even have time to explore the Dourstone Mine and complete the Three Faces of Evil module (I encourage doing that first). After that, they will head to Lepidstadt (which basically is the same distance away as before) and hit the next modue, Trial of the Beast.

I will type up the rest of the AoW/CC combo and post it up later! Suffice to say there are a lot of big changes to Wake of the Watcher in particular. I have more changes to the town and I might post a more in-depth list later.