It's very cool to see a Houston gamer thread on Paizo! I've got a group of seven down in Pearland playing 4e Eberron.
There must be a lot of gamers in town, because the 3rd and 4th edition books always seem to sell well in the bookstores.
Have fun!
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Mechanical Engineer -- reactors and pressure vessels for refineries and chemical plants. It's nice to see the mix of business, technical, and artistic jobs on this thread.
I've had some of the same thoughts on action points as the rest of you. I want an incentive to keep adventuring until healing runs out (the characters are tired) and I want to avoid the 15 minute adventure day. I also want whether to spend (or save) an action point to be a hard decision. In the rules as written, it is in the best interest of the characters to take an extended rest whenever possible to regain any per-day abilities. Accumulating action points that you can only use once per encounter does not seem enough of an incentive to keep going. Obviously, my adventures often have a timeline, but when they don't the characters are usually pretty cautious about going into combat without all their resources. So here is what I'll do: ------------
Action points are gained after encounters 1,3,5,etc. instead of 2,4,6,etc. Action points can be spent once per round instead of once per encounter.
Hopefully, this will create the dynamic I want. I welcome comments :)
For a different wrinkle on this idea, I once had an alienist repeatedly summon the PCs to fight horrible monsters on an insane landscape. The alienist was an ALIEN alienist, so of course he summoned "regular" creatures to freak out his tentacled foes. The PCs were often summoned alongside normal bears, boars, etc. The PCs were just mad at first, but they eventually realized that the summoner had valuable information concerning the PCs' far realm enemies. Their attempts at communicating with the alien alienist were classic.
My group spent most of a week arguing dozens of names both serious and comical. In the end, they chose a comical one -- Mass Lesser Violence They still chuckle about it on their way to Alhaster.
The first round of Champion's Games was the single most complicated battle I have run in DnD, but also one of the most fun. I've got eight PCs, so I needed to boost the other teams if I didn't want a cakewalk. I decided to to make the fight as much of a spectacle as possible. The players were wondering why the other teams had such few members in the Coenoby, and then they were raised to the arena floor... Arcane Auriga got trained cryohydras to protect them. The PCs' reaction to these was priceless. Sapphire Squad got advanced griffins instead of horses. This was especially fun because the PC paladin, riding his pegasus, got to go one-on-one in the air with the lance-wielding griffin riders. Badland's Revenge got some dire bears. To speed things along, I had the players rolling d20s for the attacks from one NPC against another (especially the archers and hydras). It was still pretty easy for the PCs. They wiped out Badland's Revenge in a few rounds, and still had little problem when Arcane Auriga and Sapphire Squad joined forces against them. My favorite part was some of the PCs trying to 'accidently' kill Korush without the PC paladin knowing about it. Tirra, an agent of House Phiarlan (Eberron) in my AoW, told the PCs they would get 7,500gp if Korush didn't survive the first round. I replaced the offer that Tirra makes in the adventure with this one. The fight was very difficult to prepare for and run, but it was definitely worth it for my group. That session had enough cheers and groans to make any DM smile :)
There's no way they will pull that lever again :). They would keep everything dry and use their rope of climbing to get out. Anyway, I'm going to let them see Zyrxog's secret door because I WANT them to go in the sewers. Hopefully, they'll be mad that Zyrxog mindblasted a few of them and got away. sorry for the minor threadjack...
Seeing the two 'deaths by octopus' in HoHR above, I have to grind my teeth. I had a beefed up version of the octopus (with stunning fist!) ready to smack my 8 PCs around (though hopefully not kill them). The druid changes into a squid and is made invisible by the bard. The invisible squid jets away from the octopus when he sees it, changes back into a halfling on the platform, and pulls the lever. The octopus looks for the druid by touch, but can't find him because he is now an invisible pelican flying around above the platform. As the water level goes down, the octopus retreats :( I was impressed by the players' creativity, but I really wanted to use that octopus!
The PCs are currently fighting Telakin and his guards. It's looking grim right now :) Deaths so far: PC: Angel, tiefling rogue
PC: Ethrain, elf monk
PC: Helrak, dwarf fighter
PC: Morgan, human warmage
PC: Loxi, human cleric (yes, the one that shot Morgan)
Thanks, Sol! I'm flattered. My group is starting the Hall of Harsh Reflections now, and the 'Allustan as coward' idea has worked out well. My PCs did respect (and fear) Allustan, right up until he teleported away in front of Blackwall Keep. When he got back, they had been adventuring with Marzena, and the contrast in styles was poignant. Marzena is a "what is the next *** we are going to kick" type of mage in my campaign. When the PCs complained to Allustan about his behaviour, he started lecturing them on preparing for opponents and how "kicking the door in" will get them killed. The hot-headed party cleric cast silence on him, and Allustan walked off in a silent rage. It took some serious diplomacy after that to procure a letter of introduction to Eligos :) One thing I noticed when I first started reading the AoW is the everpresent research wizard in the background that is finding out information the party needs. All these wizards seemed the same to me, so I set out to give them very different personalities. In case anyone cares, Eligos is a young adult copper dragon in my Eberron campaign, and a member of the Chamber. I'm setting up the AoW endgame to have dragon factions on both sides (differing prophesy interpretations), which will explain why Manzorian and company are not more heavily involved in defeating Kyuss. Manzorian, leader of the chamber, will be busy neutralizing other dragons who want to ally with Kyuss.
(some spoilers) My solution to Allustan's split with the evil-fighting Manzorian (Tenser) was to make Allustan a good-hearted, bookish coward. This also explains why: He is disinterested in exploring the Whispering Cairn until the PCs have cleared all the dangers (or so he thinks). He wants to teleport for help instead of actively fighting the lizardfolk. He hangs out in Diamond Lake during events leading up to the Age of Worms, even though he is a fairly high level wizard (for Eberron). I also have Marzena (Blackwall Keep) tell the PCs that she and Allustan were fellow students under Manzorian back in the day. Allustan was the most talented, and Marzena had a thing for him at one point, but could not respect his lack of courage. In my campaign, Allustan wants nothing more than to tend his garden, research what interests him, and watch over his wayward brother. It's a big deal for him to travel to the outskirts of the King's Forest (Mistmarsh) to visit Marzena when there are reports of increased Lizardfolk activity. |