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We're starting a campaign soon at Level 3, and while it's technically unbounded as far as how long it will last, I don't expect we'll get much past 5th or 6th level.

So what has been your favorite class to play at that level? Or alternatively, what have you found to be the most effective? I know those often go hand-in-hand.

I'm not interested in dipping or multiclassing or prestige classing. Just picking one and sticking with it. I'm open to any kind of builds, archetypes, etc. Mostly wanting to know what people have had fun with in the past at those levels.

My PCs are currently level 13 and playing through "Age of Worms", which, for those unfamiliar with it, is a fine adventure path. The PCs have decided to search for another piece of the Rod of Seven Parts.

One of the PCs hails from a family that used to be nobles in a coastal city until they got to big for their britches, got on the wrong side of a god, and the city sunk into the ocean. A fragment of the rod was in their treasury.

I have my hands full with running AoW in our custom setting so I'm looking for a good mid-high level aquatic adventure to adapt. Characters are currently level 13. Preferably something with a sunken ruins type of setting but not necessarily. I can adapt.

Any suggestions?

A little follow up: I discussed some of the ramifications (and committment required on his part) of running for Mayor in the campaign, and the player decided against it. Instead, they did a few tasks to help support the candidate they like. The fun part, though, was that not all of the party supported the same candidate. Here are some of things we did/are doing:

--They were tasked with taking care of a menacing lizardfolk gang that had been robbing merchants on the road to town. This ended up putting them in a sketchy bar competing in a drinking game (the rules to which i had to make up on the spot, which was fun for me) to get information. It also helped to get some of the patrons to support their candidate

--They have some influence with some important people in town so they're going to use that to try to convince them to endorse the candidate.

--They will try to use their local celebrity to help the local garrison recruit some badly-needed soldiers. It seems like they plan to lead an expedition with the candidate and these new troops to take out the lizardfolk gang. Basically turn it into a PR stunt.

--We used the Vebal Duel rules to stage a debate for one particularly powerful NPC. The players just took turns making arguments for their side. I played a rep for the other candidate as an NPC to balance the teams. It was pretty fun though at the end the arguments were getting a little tired. The sorceress was basically untouchable with her 20+ charisma.

--I plan to use the lizardfolk encounter as a segue back to the main campaign . . . they'll be ambushed by some much, much more powerful foes and hopefully realize that, as 13th level adventurers, they have more important things to spend their energy on than throwing their weight around to swing an election in a backwater mining town.

Anyway, thanks for all the ideas. It was a lot of fun for the couple of sessions so far but I think I'm glad the player decided not to run as it would probably get a little stale after a whole lot more.

So in my latest campaign (Age of Worms, in a homemade setting) there is a mayoral election. Most the political folks were killed in the last dragon attack. I expected the election to be a minor diversion where the PCs support the candidate they obviously know and love against the morally-ambiguous rich mine owner.

However, our fighter has decided he wants to run for mayor. I'm inclined to discourage it since it would be hard to be mayor and a globetrotting adventurer. It's unlikely the PC would win anyway though. He's the least-known of his group and has a shady past. He'd probably most likely just act as a 3rd party candidate and siphon off just enough from the "good guy" that the "bad guy" wins.

Has anyone had this come up in a campaign? I'm curious how you handled it. Could be fun but I think I'd need to find ways to throw in something to keep the other players interested.

Thanks!

My group was running "Age of Worms" set in our own campaign setting. I needed a break from GMing so we switched to another campaign (Rise of the Runelords . . . great campaign so far, by the way) and then life happened and it's been about a year since we left off Age of Worms.

We were halfway through the campaign (just finished "Gathering of Winds" for those familiar) and of course there are SO many details, characters, plot points, backstory, world history that all play into this campaign. Things that I'm sure the players have forgotten that are important. There are so many things coming that will be so much better if they are understood in the context of the setting and campaign.

Any advice on how to give a "recap" of what's happened so far that isn't just a boring slog through everything that has happened so far? I don't want the important, exciting details to get lost in the minutia. We play online so it's really easy for the players to get distracted if I'm just talking for 10 minutes about things they did 3 years ago.'

I thought about trying to make a video with music and images from the adventures . . . or maybe writing a scene where they are talking to a friendly old wizard about everything that happened. Anyway, thanks for the help as always!

For awhile we didn't have many deaths and I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. Then the party got to the Free City in HoHR and since then everything has gotten a lot more fun :)

Name: Amadi alo Arusta
Class: Fighter 9/Rogue 1
Adventure: The Champion's Belt
Cause of Death: Madtooth

Amadi didn't really stand much of a chance. Boldly, he charged madtooth on round 1, and sadly, he missed. From then on it was a pummel-fest: Madtooth hit on 9 of his next 11 attacks. In a last ditch attempt to save Amadi, our sorcerer enlarged him to prevent him from being swallowed whole. It worked. Sort of . . . Madtooth instead tried to chew him up. The last bite attack killed him.

Amadi's death was not in vain though. He kept madtooth busy long enough for the rest of the team to whittle away his HP. Everyone else survived completely unharmed.

My PCs came up with a creative solution to get up and down the narrow, swift-moving water passage leading south from the Titan's House. It involved a picnic table, rope of climbing, ring of swimming and a starsoul sorcerer who doesn't breathe. After killing the ghouls (I replaced them with grimlocks to tie it in to TFoE a bit) they did explore that way but I got rid of the ghoul warren and just had the grimlocks guarding a secret route to the sewers.

They aren't the type to ever use divination spells and they are oddly terrified of going up to the service level so it's doubtful they'll find the secret door there. They generally don't spend much time searching for secret doors.

Ah, fun topic. Glad to see it revived:

Whispering Cairn: Wind Warrior guys the first time they encountered them. Had 2 PCs unconscious and the other 2 near death before they retreated. When they went back they were 100% prepared and had no problem.

Three Faces of Evil: Probably the crazy grimlock cliff room. I think the unusual topography threw them through a loop. We had one PC death and lot's of frustration.

Blackwall Keep: Nothing was terribly challenging. They were freaked out by the kyuss spawn, especially when the cleric got wormified. But they ended up removing it with a heal check before it got too bad.

Hall of Harsh Reflections: Definitely the toughest of the firs 4. Lots of difficult encounters but the Invisible Stalker & Zyrxog tied for the toughest. In the invisible stalker room they just couldn't get a good roll to balance on the beams and kept falling. Zyrxog killed 2 PCs, making him the most deadly encounter to date.

Champion's Belt: So far it was the Alkilith battle. All of the gladiator fights have had their moments but turned out okay. A suffocate spell killed Bozal before he could do much of anything. They were low on resources when they started against the alkilith and just couldn't keep up with his DR. One dead PC, and at the end the rest had a total of 16 HP between them.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Here's how I ended up dealing with it and it work out nicely. Originally I had Eligos tell them to search the arena for clues while he tried to get into the palace diplomatically--under the guise of wanting to start a non-profit that would raise money for arena and palace restorations.

Either the players forgot about that bit (though I reminded them every session) or they didn't care because they kept focusing only on the palace. So I had Celeste & Ekaym (who meet with them after every fight) relay the news that Eligos had his meeting with Loris and he detected a secret door in the Palace that seemed to lead toward the Arena. That got them focused on finding a secret door in the arena understructure. They then found the hidden shrine level. Bonus: a near-TPK in the Alkilith room kept them from looking for secret doors there. Also I think they're now convinced they found the thing they're supposed to find so I bet snooping will be at a minimum.

@Tiaximus - those are some fantastic ideas. If somehow they do end up still going to the palace I'll go the route of the monsters and public thanking. Sounds devious. It'll really, really make them hate Raknian.

Name: Hess Hawthorne
Class: Witch
Adventure: The Champion's Belt
Cause of Death: Alkilith's cone of cold

Cause of death could easily also be listed as "Party streches themselves too thin".

The heroes fought pitch blade, killed a bunch of kyuss spawn and fought bozal and his summoned goods . . . all in one day. That would've been a good time to call it a day.

But they pressed on, sure to find a switch or key that would turn off the scrolls and kill the giant worm monster. What they found was a hostile demon who was just a bit too much for the already-drained party. The cleric panicked at the sight of the kyuss mosaic. Hess was nauseated by a stinking cloud. The remaining 2 fought hard but were beaten and had to retreat. Hess had barely finished cleaning herself up when a cone of cold caught her off guard, making her a permanent corpsicle.

Simple one - when using spell combat and casting say, a lightning bolt, can a magus use his attacks against one target then turn around and use the spell against a different target?

My PCs are firmly into Champion's Belt. They've entered the games and won the first 2 battles (I added an extra one). The problem I'm having is that they only seem interested in exploring Raknian's palace. I've tried to subtly discourage that by:

-Eligos tells them to focus on the arena while he tries to gain access to the palace via political means (i.e. he wants to donate to the games)
-Ekaym asks them to search through the under-structure for Lahaka, never mentions the palace.
-Guards around the outside of the palace, basically described it as impenetrable
-Deleted the entrance to Raknian's palace from the service level. Only ways in are a) through the shrine or c) the front door or b) through a "skywalk" that leads directly to Loris' special reserved seats in the arena.
-Eligos DID secure a dinner meeting with Raknian and specifically asked them not to mess around with the palace and blow his opportunity.

They aren't very creative PCs. Their only idea so far is to cast invisibility and explore. Once they went upstairs pretending to just be innocent, naive gladiators and explore the service level but when the guards saw them they turned, ran and tried to release the lions (not sure why they did that). They aren't the type to think of divination spells, reading the prisoner's mind or trying to talk to him, or bribing guards or polymorphing or anything like that. Also as many times as I bring up worms, apostles, mystery . . . I think all they really remember/care about is that raknian tried to have them killed and they want to kill him back. And Raknian is in the palace.

I guess I'm at a loss. If they go to the palace they will almost surely be caught, kicked out of the games, thrown back in jail (they've already been there once as a result of HoHR) or killed by loris and his many guards. I think they'd love the final gladiator battles and finding bozal and the apostle but I'm afraid they'll blow it by getting caught doing something incredibly stupid (like going into raknian's palace, with only 9 minutes of invisibility) and miss one of the finest moments of the campaign.

Anyone else deal with this? I have some ideas but so far they've all fallen flat. (Also, did anyone have to make a "Raknian's palace" and if so any suggestions on a map to use?

I started a Ranger/Druid recently that I planned to build a martial wildshaper. Now that "Hunter" exists, I'm trying to decide which is better. The Hunter would of course use the "Feral Hunter" archetype. The R/D was going to be lvl4 druid, the rest ranger with feats to bump up wild shape. I hadn't decided if I would go the vital strike/uber-gore route or the dire tiger/mega-pounce route.

It seem, on first examination, that the I'd be giving up a better BAB, better saves, favored enemies, favored terrain, my animal companion, and combat style feats.

In return I would get bonus teamwork feats, a couple extra feat slots (on account of not needing Shaping Focus or Shapeshifting Hunter), better spells and spontaneous casting, feral focus and summon pack.

I think they both could be fun. The R/D is more solitary but probably better at combat. The Hunter can shift more often and has the benefit of Feral Focus (wildshape light) for when he's run out of shifts. However, my R/D would still be pretty handy with an earthbreaker after he uses all his shifts.

Thoughts?

Well, when I read that, I think that my adaptation of And Madness Followed might actually work for you. . .

Wow, that actually does sound pretty great. Having a foreshadowing of the Spire, etc. would be great and making it more personal is always a plus. Get them more involved with the citizenry of Diamond Lake just before Ilthane comes back for her revenge . . .

Yes, I just might do that.

If you feel your PCs are too 'whimpy' or die too easily, you could insert an extra adventure to have them gain an extra level, so they can tackle the rest of the AP with some added power. I remember inserting an adaptation of "And madness followed" from Dungeon # 134 after "Champion's Belt". I suppose you have that issue, since it contains another chapter of Age of Worms.

They definitely don't die to easily. These are the firsts character deaths. I think it's that they don't feel to involved in the adventure plot right now. "We went to the free city looking for clues to this worm thing. Not worth dying for, let's go back to Diamond Lake." So whenever anything goes wrong they just decide to go home and I have to try to drag them back in. The same thing happened in Whispering Cairn when Alastor Land wouldn't just let them in the door and when they were all caught in the windy hallway trap. Also in Blackwall Keep after breaking the siege. We don't know this Marzena, let's just go home.

None of the PCs really have an interest in adventure for adventure's sake. So unless they have a very personal involvement in the plot, the attitude tends toward just going home whenever things get a bit tough. I think they all overplay the "neutral" alignment to the point of "I'm neutral (or CN) so that means I care about nothing except myself."

I also realize that's partially on me. As the DM it's my job to get them roped into the adventure by hook or by crook. I'm glad we've made it to Champion's Belt. I think from this point on the adventures have more of a singular plot and the PCs are more intimately involved.

Two this time . . .

Name: Kraldar
Race: Ninovaan (Human)
Class: Cleric of The Defender
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Cause: Zyrxog . . . who else?

Name: Scruffin
Race: Talif (Human)
Class: Starsoul Sorcerer
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Cause: Zyrxog

The battle with Zyrxog was hanging by a thread after the death of half the party. Our BSF was mind blasted immediately and the Magus was "suggested" out of the battle shortly thereafter, eliminating the 2 primary damage dealers. Kraldar and Scruffin had trouble beating spell resistance so they tried melee even though Kraldar is only so-so at it.

An aerial battle ensued and Kraldar fell first, being whittled down by lightning bolts and scorching rays. Scruffin, seeing the battle would be lost, tried to run. A well-placed empowered lightning bolt killed her outright.

Lucky for the party, Zyrxog was overconfident because he basically owned them the first few rounds. He didn't notice the BSF come out of stun, and a VERY fortuitous critical hit did 50 damage and turned the tide of the battle.

Kraldar is survived by Amadi Alo Arustan, the BSF that he rescued from the streets.

Scruffin is survived by her Dweomercat familiar, Pokey.

Well, I spoke too soon. They were wanted for murder (it was actually a doppelganger who did the murder) and decided to turn themselves in. At the end of the session they were in a holding cell awaiting their fate. Perfect opportunity to get them into the next adventure . . .

So it sounds like my PCs are giving up on the age of worms, turning tail and running back to Diamond Lake after getting licked (2 deaths) by Zyrxog in HOHR.

Any ideas on getting them back on track? I thought I could replace "Champion's Belt" with a new adventure at Diamond Lake but I REALLY think they'll like Champion's Belt.

Anyway, more just venting about my wimpy PCs.

I'm GMing "Hall of Harsh Reflections" right now and my players are dead set on finding the and ebon triad sect in the city and taking them down like they did Faceless one and the gang.

Any suggestions on where to find a good adventure that would have something that might work for an ebon triad temple? It could even be just one of the gods; I'm looking for something short and sweet to satiate their bloodlust.

Thanks.

PS Ixiaxian replaced the fighter in our group. He played him much more violently than I think the AP calls for. At this point the party is on the hook for 2 separate murders and 1 attempted murder; only 3 days into their stay at the Free City. Does that make them serial killers?

Very fun adventure. Definitely a departure from our usual fare.

I had been looking for a way to make Diamond Lake more "real" for my players. They know all the different NPCs from the backdrop . . . well, let me rephrase that. They know those NPCs exist but largely don't bother with them. I wanted to make it more personal for them.

The idea I had (or got from these boards, rather) was an annual dragonchess tournament. The PCs were invited this year since they have become local celebrities after clearing out the Dourstone Mine -- and, of course, because Chuam Gainsworth and Lazare wanted to "buy" them from smenk. The game included Diamond Lake's "elite", including Zalamandra, Lazare, the mine managers (except smenk, plus Tilgast didn't attend), Allustan, the mayor, etc.

I used the rules I found here. It was a double elmination tournament with the players seeded according to how good their bonus was, with an added bonus if they played last year or if Lazare liked them (he ran the games and did not participate).

It was great because we had a little smidge of roleplaying during each game. They made some new allies as well as some new enemies, and got a good cross section of the big players in Diamond Lake. The fighter went out right away (not to social, that one) but the other 3 made it pretty far and the sorcerer had a great come-from-behind victory against Allustan for the win!

We're getting ready to start Encounter at Blackwall Keep. It seems like this adventure really starts the PCs on their path to destiny with Kyuss that they will follow the remainder of the path.

So far my characters know about "strange green worms and unkillable zombies". They also know the Ebon Triad has interest in these worms. Otherwise they don't know much - They have no idea who Kyuss is.

But soon they will be encountering a creature called a "Spawn of Kyuss". Certainly one of them will have a high enough knowledge to identify it. But if you know a monster is called a "Spawn of Kyuss", I would think that implies you can easily find out about Kyuss.

I'm wondering how/when you introduced Kyuss as the BBEG of the campaign. How in the dark did you keep them? Did you have the "Spawn of Kyuss" be something nobody has ever heard of, or are they pretty common?

A cleric creates a "Wand of Enlarge Person" using her spell from her Strength Domain.

My party picks it up. Can anyone use it without UMD? The party is:

Cleric - Doesn't have that spell because he doesn't have that domain
Sorcerer - It's a divine spell, not arcane
Fighter - Nope
Ranger - Nope

Would a ranger work better for this build? Cornielius mentioned a raging ranger, i couldn't find that.

But giving up rage & rage powers, DR, furious finish and some hit points seems like a fair trade for an advancing companion, a few extra spells, a couple extra feats (natural weapon style), stacking favored terrain and favored enemies.

It gets rid of the wildmess of raging but might still be pretty fun to play. Thoughts?

Can a Druid wildshape into ANY animal? The only stipulation I saw was "The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with." Does that mean I can wildshape into Megafauna if we're saying megafauna exist in Varisia? Some of those do wild damage and would mesh well with vital strike, etc. The problem with Hippo is that I don't see my mountain-forest based druid having a hippo as a go-to animal.

As for "animal the druid is familiar with" how would you play that? I'm not sure if there are Dinosaurs in Varisia but what if my druid owns an encyclopedia?

What would be the best mountain/forest-living animal for the single attack vital strike lots'o'dice build?

I'm making a new character for a RotR campaign. We made it about 1/3 through the first adventure with old characters then had a big group change up so we're starting fresh at lvl 3 (where we left off). I like the image of a barbarian/druid who wildshapes into some beast and then goes nuts with rage. Here's what I have so far:

Human (Shoanti) Druid (World Walker) 2/Barbarian 1

Str: 17
Dex: 14
Con: 15
Int: 9
Wis: 14
Cha: 12
Animal Companion: Big Cat (Firepelt)
Feats: Power Attack, ??, ??

Future:
Feats; Natural Spell, Wild Speech, Quick Wildshape, possibly Planar Wild Shape. Maybe Vital Strike?
Animal Companion: Might switch to Roc at some point. Flying is always fun and the character is a Shoanti from the Hawk clan, so that fits well.

I will start with mixing spellcasting and melee with an Earthbreaker. My plan is to mostly go druid until I have 6 or 8 levels and get pretty much everything wildshapey, then do future levels in Barbarian similar to this build. Any suggestions on feats to start with? Or what magic item to purchase with my 3000gp starting gold (minus mundane eqpt)? I'll have plenty of time to work future levels out later but I want to get a good solid start.

The backstory is that he was born of Shoanti Parents in Sandpoint but at a very young age he was called by tribal elders to be trained as a druid. Now,due to his background with more civilized areas (which also accounts for his world-walker status as he moves around a lot), he is a bit of a go-between for the tribe. He came to the festival for some reason or another relating to that. That's the start anyway. I might give him some reason to not like giants, as the ROTR player's guide says that would work well.

I've read Treantmonk's wonderful guide, I've looked at some of Raving Dork's druids, and I've also scoured the boards quite a bit. I think I have enough info to make an effective character. And a fun one, too. Any other suggestions?

Character: Noth Queha'ha, Lvl 4 Ranger
Adventure: Three Faces of Evil
Location: The Bridge
Cause of Death: Attacks of Opportunity

Noth was caught between a rock and a hard place. Specifically she was caught on a rope bridge, and the hard place was the 3 Grimlocks raining down javelins on her. After failing twice to retreat-that 10 acrobatics check is tough in heavy armor with 0 rnks--she took the 3 head-on. In an attempt to help her push the monsters off the ledge, our cleric enlarged her. It only took 2 bad rolls on repositions (we houseruled that you can reposition off cliffs but the repositionee has a +4 to CMD) for the grimlocks to rack up 6 Attacks of Opportunity and 6 regular attack. With her reduced AC she was down before any allies could even get halfway across the bridge.

Lucky for her (or her player anyway), the grimlocks kept her with just a smidge of life so they could drag her away, revive her and torture her later. She may come out of this yet.

In the "Diamond Lake" supplement from Dungeon, under the Rusty Bucket entry, it says that Chaum Gainsworth approaches the PCs and tries to form an alliance. He then asks them to complete tasks for him, mostly sabotaging the other mine managers.

Has anyone actually pursued this route? I'm curious how it went for you, and what types of jobs you came up with.

I turned the diadem into a "legacy" item (see 3rd edition) and had Allustan ooh and aah over the items. Otherwise, I can see them selling the Diadem later on and missing out because there's no hint they'll really benefit from it beyond the +2 bonus.

Yeah, that's a good point. Unfortunately they're afraid to tell allustan anything because they think he'll take it. or turn them into the police. or something, i don't really know why they don't trust him too much.

We use maptools and ventrilo. Sometimes our play goes faster, sometimes it goes much slower. Often it's hard to tell when players are thinking or just aren't paying attention, and I think playing online it's much easier for players to get distracted. I find that I need to repeat myself a lot.

We also started playing table top but now the group is spread over 4 states spanning 3 time zones.

Yeah, it went well. I'm looking pretty forward to TFoE too. It seems like AoW has a decent amount of variety throughout the campaign, which is cool.

Wow - that's pretty fast progress, if you're playing online! How often do you play, and how long are your sessions?

We've been trying to do a weekly session for a few hours, then the occasional longer sunday session. But we played a lot more in the last month than we ever have before. Mostly because nobody is particularly busy right now, but I like to think it's because the players are enjoying the campaign quite a bit.

We just completed 'the whispering cairn' tonight. Great adventure - we had a lot of fun.

Some favorite moments include:

Least Favorite Moments:

We're looking forward to the next one. We started at level 3 and advanced to level 4 in TWC, so we'll be a little more on track for the second adventure.

So here is how it played out:

They were allowed through the door by Alistor, but were promptly whipped by the Wind Warriors. They retreated back through the door (half the party had 1 hp or less) and the wind warriors closed it behind them. Alistor then said NO to opening it again or to returning the holy symbol. The party pressed him, trying to bluff first, then calling him unfair . . eventually Alistor got angry and started turning more into a legitimate threat. The party backed off and reluctantly hunted down the bones.

Throughout this time, the cleric had no holy symbol which handicapped the party a bit. He was too embarrassed to go to the temple and ask for another (it wouldn't have worked anyway). Instead he focused entirely on getting his symbol back ASAP by burying the Lands.

Fast Forward - They've defeated Filge and returned the skeletons. They return to the cairn and they find the door open again and the cleric's holy symbol lying on the beam in alistor's haunt. To reward his determination and fortitude both resisting temptation (to lie/cheat) and fulfilling his promise, the God blessed the holy symbol, granting +1 fortitude saves as long as it's worn by the cleric.

I think it actually all worked out pretty well. I'm looking forward to the second battle with the wind warriors now that they are at full strength and know what is coming. Chapter 1 is almost complete.

Thanks for the advice. We're picking up where we left off tomorrow so we'll see how things go.

Hopefully they have a change of heart and decide to help Alistor. If not, I like the idea of having him (or his family) come back to haunt them throughout the adventure path. Maybe at least someone in the party will want to help him out - although except for the cleric they are all something-neutral alignment, which I think my players sometimes like to read as "I have no conscience, no concept of right-vs.-wrong (or don't care about it anyway) and won't lift a finger unless it directly benefits me" While that may be a valid interpretation, it can be annoying for a DM.

I'm not too concerned about the observatory, I can get them there somehow. They failed the Gather Information check (diplomacy in PF) to know about the feral dog but I gave the 2 PCs raised in the town a knowledge (local) to know the information anyway and that passed. We'll see where it leads.

The only thing I haven't figured out is the "punishment" part; i.e. what happens to the cleric if he does break his promise. I still think the God would not be okay with that. I would think losing some power, maybe not enough to completely cripple him but enough to make it worth his while, until he atones. Since he gave his holy symbol as collateral, I think losing all abilities requiring a holy symbol would suffice. A bunch of spells and channeling energy would be out which would be enough to motivate.

what race was the paladin? etc. . .

edit: if you made a beast totem Barbarian with the animal fury rage power and took the draconic aspect, breath, glide, and paragon feats (from in that link i posted) that could make for a pretty solid chaotic dragon guy :)

Race of the Paladin . . . I guess I assumed Human but the jury is still out. The two races I was considering were half-orc or human though again i'm still in the beginning phases.

Thanks for the kobold heritage and barbarian suggestions. They both sound like viable options and I'll have to do a little research.

I'm making a dragon themed character. The story is he is the offspring of a great hero paladin and a good dragon. Whether that is the character's mother and father or if it's generations ago is not decided.

Any suggestions for making a dragon themed character? Dragon Disciple is the obvious choice and I've read lots of threads that cover the myriad options for that. Has anyone done something different and enjoyed playing it?

I'm looking for style more that straight-optimization but at the same time I don't want the character to suck.

I also want him to be chaotic leaning, so classes like Paladin and Monk are out.

We just got through the encounter with Alastor Land and it didn't really go too well. In general, but specifically with our cleric. Here's a little synopsis. Sorry for the length but it was quite disastrous:

The entered Alastor's haunt and proceeded to get knocked around a bit by the iron spheres and then fought the grick. THey're a level 3 party so it really wasn't much of an issue for them. Alastor was taunting and exclaiming the whole time (especially impressed when our cleric dove off the bridge and landed a flying blow to the grick's head) and then when the battle was over he spooked our fighter and malevolenced him.

Things got weird right here. First, everyone was just like "oh, ho hum" and treated it like maybe the fighter had spilled his coffee. They weren't impressed at atll. I played Alastor as much like a 13 year old as I could as he made the plea to break the curse and he would open the door. The PCs were really annoyed by him and tried about everything to not have to go back to town. None had any sympathy for him or cared about his plight. It was like a chore and an annoyance . . . which i guess may be reasonable. The cleric (he's lawful good to a lawful good god called "The Defender") decided he didn't want to be the ghost-child's errand boy and stayed at the cairn and the sorcerer went along.

The other 2 (fighter and ranger) went to the homestead, found the bones dug up, fought the owlbear, then got a lead on who took the bones with the tattooed arm (although i think there is a plothole there . . . if all of the miners from Vesst's mine had that tattoo how do they know it's kullen?) then decided it was best to go back and discuss at the cairn.

They got back and explained and I had alastor get very upset, like he was really sure he'd be reunited with his family and then had his heart broken. Out Cleric got really mad and basically told the ghost off. This scared the boy. Then there was a big silence at the table (we play online) as nobody knew what to do. The fighter and sorcerer then started to talk to Alastor more like one would talk to a 13 year old. He perked up a bit. They told him they tried and if he opened the door they promised to solve his problem.

Now as a DM, sensing I was about to have the whole adventure turn on my head and have the PCs walk out on me, I relinquished a bit. They said they would leave something important behind as a token of their good faith. The cleric said "i'll leave my holy symbol with you if you open this door i promise to bury your bones". Which of course isn't what Alastor wants. another player said something like "man that's bold giving him your holy symbol". The player playing the cleric said something like "i'll tell you about it later"

After the game I said that if he was planning to cheat the ghost-child by only doing what he "*literally* said he would do (nevermind already breaking the bargain in the first place when they failed to find the Land family) that there would be consequences because that isn't lawful good. I also told him I didn't like them planning something "behind my back", and that it was better to count the DM in so I can prepare for it. It seemed to become very PC-vs.-DM. Which i don't like.

Where did I go wrong here? Did anyone else have issues with the Alastor Land encounter? How do you feel about conesquences for a lawful good cleric breaking 1 promise he made to a child (he said he made a good faith effort, but really he sat in the tomb while his friends did the work), then making a second promise that is clearly taking advantage of the kid's lack of understanding? i don't know what kind of consequences there are for a cleric, it's not as cut-and-dry as a paladin. Am I being too harsh? Any suggested solutions? How to handle a situation like this with dm-vs.-player?> Thanks. Again, sorry for the book of a post.

An update - We've played 4 sessions now and we've just gotten past the face trap. Everyone seems to be having a great time. They got really freaked out about the water elemental and fighting it underwater . . . to the point that they went back to town and spent lots of money on scrolls/potions to beat it. Then it took the fighter 2 hits to take it down.

Maybe the best moment was that our cleric passed about 8 fortitude saves in a row, then an escape artist check to climb THROUGH the face where the wind was blowing out. So he made it to the bridge room a little early. Nobody else could make it through though so he turned around.

Starting at lvl 3 has been good/bad. There have already been a couple close calls: our ranger tried to take on Ulavant on her own underwater and she managed to surface on her LAST round before beginning to drown. Our sorceress got blown off the cliff by the face trap and was knocked down to -8 HP at the bottom. That was close. But then many encounters are far too easy; such as the elementals and the wolves.

For those who have played the whole AP before: at what point should I try to get everyone to the suggested levels? I don't want things to be easy like this for them the entire AP. But if they're 1-2 levels ahead through, say, blackwall keep? I guess I'm asking: is there a point where the AP gets easier and the suggested levels are very appropriate.

Your problem is that you're struggling to have one player be the person doing the tracking. Solve that, and they can do it using whatever their preferred method is.

Personally I'd record group treasure on my character sheet, if it were me. No different to an in-person game.

I assume you mean a paper character sheet. The problem with keeping it on each character's character sheet is that the DM (me) can't easily see what is on each sheet. Around a tabletop, the DM could just say look at their character sheet. Online I can't.

It also becomes a problem when not everyone can make it to a game. How does another player know what is on their character sheet? Plus, if everyone is keeping track of group gear and treasure, I can easily see it getting confusing "I have 500 gp written down here. I don't remember when we got it but it's on my character sheet" when really that money is already spent, just 1 person forgot to mark it off their sheet.

Avatar - How do you keep track of where treasure goes when you find it during an adventure? Do you have any "group treasure" or do you split everything equally when you find it. Splitting everything down the middle immediately would be simple for keeping track but then what happens when you find a cool magic item? Do you just automatically sell it so everyone gets equal gold? Just curious. I'm open to lots of ideas because I'm sick of always hearing "Wait how much gold did we have?" or "I don't know how much gold I have but it's probably enough to afford this" at the beginning of every session.

Thanks!

I'm GMing a campaign with some friends who have, over the years, end up spread over 3 timezones. We use maptools and ventrilo for our interface and we've been using Obsidian portal (thanks to the suggestion of some board users) for all campaign related stuff.

One problem we haven't yet overcome is treasure. How do people keep track of treasure? I want the players to do it (I have enough to do) but it's a struggle to get someone to volunteer to be the treasurer and keep track, though right now we have an obsidian portal page for treasure and it's working pretty well.

The other side of the coin is PC inventory and gear. It would be nice to have everything recorded in one place but player A likes to keep an inventory in maptools, player B likes to use a sheet of paper, player C uses google docs, Player D uses an excel spreadsheet. Does anyone have a suggestion for a system of keeping track of PC gear so it's all in one place, easy for the DM to read and easy for the PCs to use?

We've decided to take the plunge and give AoW a shot. We're adapting it to our own campaign setting and it seems to fit surprisingly well.

I'm sure I'll be on here occasionally with questions from AoW veterans, and I'll start off with this one: We've already run a couple homebrew adventures with these characters. They will be starting at level 3. My guess is that this won't significantly affect the campaign, and may just make the Whispering Cairn a bit easier. Is that about right?

I'm considering running AoW as my next campaign. How much do you deal with undead in this campaign? Is it a pretty major part of the plot, and do you have a lot of undead combat?. I've read through the background and the first adventure and it seems like there could be a lot. I ask because our last campaign was very undead-focused and we're ready for something different.

Thanks!

I'm getting ready to start a new campaign and I'm curious what people like to use (if anything) to keep track of their campaign for both the GM and players benefit. We play online so it's important that we have a system where anyone can access information when they need it from wherever they need it.

To date we have used a combination of Google Drive (for character backgrounds and character sheets) and Dropbox for Adventure Summaries, any necessary PDFs such as an AP Players Guide. We tried setting up a forum for in-character "downtime" interactions and activities but only about half the group used it so we dropped it.

What do you use for this kind of thing? I've seen blogs and heard of folks using wikis. What do you like/not like about your system? If it's a website of sorts that you could like me to (for an example) that would be great.

Thanks for the help everyone. Maybe I can narrow it down to just a couple options then have them read the players guides and let me know which they like better. There is no way I could get them to read all the players guides to decide which they like the best. Most of the group won't even read just a couple . . . but I guess then they don't get the say in which one we play.

We play over the internet (from 4 different time zones) so it's tough to sit down as a group and decide. When we do all get together we like to make the most out of the play time, doing all the prep work by email and phone one-on-one with the DM.

As for the rules, that doesn't bother me. We played 3.5 before pathfinder so I can probably handle all the converting pretty easily.

I'm getting ready to run my first AP. I played a bit of Runelords as a PC but the DM bailed (we hadn't even gotten to thistletop) so I'm stepping up.

I'm currently still choosing which AP I want to run. I'd like to have my PCs provide input, but I don't want to give away too much of the plot. Would having them read the basic descriptions here give away too much? I know all of this can be accessed by whomever wants to, but the people I play with are not likely to read anything unless I specifically tell them to--even then it can be a struggle.

I could write up my own summaries I suppose.

And then there's the question of having them wandering through town (hefty fines for Mammoth poop in Mangimar), how easily you can be recognized and tracked, care and feeding and of course the inevitable replacement mounts. Where do you go to pick out a good mammoth, anyway?

Haha, hefty fines? I was planning on selling it as organic fertilizer! All good points. I actually wasn't considering a mammoth. The prestige class allows other animals, and even more at DM discretion, and I was hoping my DM would let me advance my Roc companion to closer to the real size. It fits my Air Ranger motif quite well. Maybe Huge instead of Large.

That being said, are there any good ways to make big animal companions conveniently shrink? I see reduce animal. That would work to get a Large companion into a dungeon more easily, but would hardly be effective for a Huge companion. Also there is Carry Companion. Are there any magic items that would grant a similar ability to those?

We just began the Runelords adventure path. I'm a ranger, and I'm considering where I want to go. I think the Mammoth Rider prestige class sounds really fun.

However, for those who have played/GMd Rise of the Runelords . . . is it a campaign where I'll just be leaving my Huge animal companion at the door to the dungeon every time, thereby losing all the benefits and fun of the prestige class? Thanks, hopefully your answer isn't too much of a spoiler as I'm really looking forward to this campaign.

I'm continuing a forum from the "Rules" forum here since all my rules questions were answered. Now I need to find a way around them :)

No, but seriously. I'm hoping to make a Ranger/Druid for my upcoming campaign. The build (ranger with 5 lvls druid) fits perfectly for the character concept I have in mind. However, I don't really want to deal with 2 spell lists. Combined that's over 100 1st level spells to choose from. So I'm trying to put together a way to have just one spell list that combines the druid and ranger casting without making it noticeably weaker or stronger.

Here was my idea:
Spells Known: Either the Druid list or Ranger list, not both. Advances as you gain spells of new levels.

Caster Level: This would be the combination of the 2 caster levels.

Spells/day: combination of two classes.

So that would look like this (with wisdom = 14):

Level 8 (R3/D5)
CL: 5
Spells/Day: 4/3/1

Level 10 (R5/D5)
CL: 7
Spells/Day: 5/3/1

Level 12 (R7/D5)
CL: 9
Spells/Day: 5/3/1

Level 14 (R9/D5)
CL: 11
Spells/Day: 6/4/1

Level 16 (R11/D5)
CL: 13
Spells/Day: 6/4/2

Does that seem fairly balanced? I'd be giving up the variety of spells for a high caster level. I think spells/day would also be slightly lower--would my bonus spells from wisdom normally apply to both classes?

If not, any suggestions on how I could balance it out?

You're ratcheting your overall power up in a very different way by applying Ranger spellcaster levels to progress druid spells. The sources may be similar, but progression and power are very, very different. This is giving you full BAB progression and a fighting style from the ranger combined with progressing a full caster's spells per day / spells known / etc.

You're essentially giving yourself a de facto nature version of the Eldritch Knight, who still gets class abilities and feats from his martial levels.

Okay, I hear ya. If only there was an eldritch knight for a ranger/druid! Well, I think I've had my rules questions answered. I'm still determined to find a way to make this work with the Druid/Ranger. The rest of the build is perfect for the character concept I have in mind. But at this point I think the discussion belongs in either the homebrew or advice forum.

Again, Thanks everyone!

no your CL do not stack from separate spell lists, this is the same problem wiz/clerics have, you have two different spell casting sources, and two different lists. Multiclassing makes you lose out on some things for another, if you want to keep one spell list stay with a single class or take a prestige that still adds to your spell casting.

Right. But Druid/Ranger is a far cry from Wizard/Cleric. There you're talking 2 very different spell lists, and arcane class and a divine class, from 2 classes that are primary spellcasters (at least in the case of the wizard.

With Ranger/Druid, the spell lists are pretty similar (50% the same spells for level 1). They both come from divine sources, presumably both from 'nature'. So knowing that the caster levels don't stack, I don't see how it would make a big difference to just use one spell list (for the sake of convenience) and combine the spells/day. In the end it's up to my DM if he'll let me.

If what I'm asking would make my character way overpowered, maybe there is a good way to nerf it back to normal?

I'm considering a Ranger with dip into Druid (4-5 levels). My questions is this: with 2 spell lists, do the caster levels stack? Otherwise it seems all my spells would be pretty ineffective at med-high levels--at level 15, Druid spells only at lvl5 and ranger spells at lvl 7.

I like the build for my character, but I don't really like the idea of managing 2 divine spell lists. That's a bunch of spells to choose from! I was considering proposing to my DM that I just take the druid spell list, eliminate the ranger spells, and when I get new spells/caster level from ranger I would just add to my druid spells instead. For example, at level 12 (R7/D5 with wisdom of 14) I would have 4/3/1 plus orisons from Druid and 1/0 from ranger so it would be 5/3/1 all from the druid spell list.

I'm sure that isn't in the rules anywhere but does it seem like a fair compromise to simplify things? Or would that severely over/underpower my character?

I know there are some feats to help meld similar druid and ranger abilities (like Shapeshifting Hunter), might there be something with spells too?

As usual, thanks!