WampaX's page

selunatic2397 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

coyote6 wrote:

Was the glue used to hold the poster map in stronger than normal? I ended up tearing the map trying to work it loose.

I had the same issue. Not too big a deal since it's less than a dime sized white spot, but annoying.

The glue definitely seemed stronger than usual.

Same for me as well.

Same here. Ripped mine.

After seeing all these, I hatched a cunning plan for my map extraction. The glue becomes much more pliable when warm, so I basically wrapped it up in a blanket with me while I watched some TV.

After a couple of hours, the glue was much more yielding, but I still had to patienly work the map free. Realizing there were TWO globs also helped, since lifting it from the spine side out freed it from one glob. Patience and a bit of scratching got the other one. The map was freed without a blemish.

More enterprising individuals might try a hair dryer for faster results with a higher temperature.

My problem with the rock is that as the party sailed past it to check it out at a distance, I made the lookout tell the Lady what was happening so she would have used the farglass clairaudience to listen to their plans, and they were planning on how to attack and take the tower. What precautions would/could she take since she KNOWS what they are doing?

Tidewater Rock is another nice chance in the AP to solve a problem without combat. Lady Agasta isn't gunning for a fight and would generally rather ally with the PCs than kill them, especially if they present themselves well. She's only looking for a way to rebuild her holdings and the PCs really just want the bump in Infamy OR a base of operations to monitor the Fevered Sea with. If given the opportunity and foreknowledge, I think Lady Agasta would try and subvert the attack through diplomacy. But should negotiations break down, she would definitely work to lay a trap for the ship should it sail into her harbor with hostile intentions. Something kept her safe from the wrath of Harrigan so many years ago, perhaps it is still around.

My party took the marriage option as they didn't want to have to stock the fortress themselves or worry about its upkeep. Given their common enemy, Harrigan in this case, they thought this a wise course of action. They are also using it as a staging point to begin reclaiming Iron Bert's abandoned fortresses on the other local islands. Getting in good with the locals gave them the information on where those holdings used to be and a dedicated guard force for TR. They put their second captured ship to use clearing the other islands, making cargo runs, and generating plunder from clear cutting and resource gathering (and some pirating). All while their main vessel prepped for sailing into the Shackles proper to continue the main story.

so my party is probably going to wanna take the dominator when they face it....anybody have that happen in their game?

I hedged my bets against this course of action by the party. They had just come from raiding a plantation (beefed up village encouter which sapped some of their resources) up the river, when they spotted the Dominator anchored at its mouth. The Dominator would not be able to come up the river, but they did appear to be prepping for an upriver journey when the PCs arrived. This gave me a good excuse to have the high level NPCs off the ship, but threatening to find the PCs ship hidden behind a bend in the river soon.

Under time pressure and about 1/2 down on combat resources, they came up with the plan to disable the tiller all on their own and sneak past the ship before it could bring its guns (and high level NPCs) to bear. The cavalier, which would have been a cakewalk if the party was at full strength, posed a serious threat and made the encounter pretty tense.

If your party is more gunning for a fight, press upon them the ruthlessness of the Chelish captain as you may have done with Harrigan. Heck, even letting them know that pirate fleets are formed just to take down ONE of these ships and they may back down. If none of that works, there are a good number of marines on the ship. Pepper in some advanced or leveled ones to press the point that they are out of their league in this fight and need to find an alternative.

A full set from the last booster in the case, whew.

The sculpts on the elemental series are phenomenal.
The Clockwork Reliquary is so intricately detailed, it boggles the mind how you didn't lose any detail when it was painted.

But my favorite mini of the set has to be the alchemical golem. The number of translucent colors on that model is ridiculous and when lit correctly (like from my laptops monitor), it appears to have a green glow coming from the solid colored tubes thanks to the entire model being a translucent base. Its so eerie and colorful . . . simply beautiful.

One complaint about the packaging. Alot (about 75%) of the large models were bouncing around the interior when I opened them up. This wouldn't be too bad, expect for the fact that in about one or two boosters a brick, the free roaming large had broken one of the smaller models. The hill giants and trolls were the main offenders, literally disarming their fellow packmates.

So, fair warning. Be sure to listen for the tell-tale sound of mite arms bouncing around when ripping open your boosters. Otherwise you'll have a nice double amputee spider-rider. I'm thinking of making mine a crippled master monk.

Sorry, but I also wish the ooze was colored different. It looks like something you really don't want it associated with.

Is that... is that hair gel?

Hmmm I don't recognize the 2008 card so yea mine that I have start with 2009.

But second that...people were upset with the 08' card?

WampaX casts Legend Lore.

Sean K Reynolds' old Blog Post hosts one of the last vestiges of the fracas left with a link to the original offended blog post. (Also, a neat summary of products SKR had worked on and their relative racist content.) Do realize that all this was 4 years ago and many things have changed since then . . . like SKR posting to this blog. ;-)

I could probably dig around for a bit more, but just from the images, I'd like to think that the '09 card was a response to the reactions to the '08 card. Warms the cockles of my cold, snowbeastly heart.

SirUrza wrote:

Skeld wrote:

I'm disappointed that there isn't a scantily-clad iconic on the card this year, but only because the ensuing "Paizo is sexist!" blogs and threads are entertaining.

Did that happen both times Seoni was on the card, or only the time she was riding the candy cane?

Now I want to see those cards...

2008 Card - link to larger image HERE

I like the 2011 one, myself, as it captures the goofy holiday photo perfectly. Valeros' smile makes me chuckle every time I see it.

Some harder(-ish) numbers to back up the claims of value above.
This is all based on the current prices of Paizo products.
1x $20 hardback book (based on 256 pages = $40)
1x $10 PDF of hardback
6x $13 FlipMats
6x $9 PDF of FlipMats
1x $11 55 Face/Item/Quest cards
1x $10 Paperback Novel
1x $7 PDF/eBook of Novel
9x $3-5 Miniature (based on common/uncommon prices of medium miniatures)
Total = $217-$235* value for the $200 pledge
PDF-only = $71* for the $75 pledge
Print-only = $119 for the $105 pledge
*This doesn't include the other digital goodies you would get at the $75+ level (soundtrack, MMO access, MMO content, etc)

And it just gets to be a better value after the funding mark.

Heck, even at the $175 level (+ $100 for print), the double miniatures means I'm getting a $244-$290 value for my $275 pledge.

(its only 9 minis for 1mil. 2 for 300K and +1 every 100K thereafter = 9)

Rocket Punch, FTW! (Shogun Warriors would be proud)

Or if you don't want to visualize it detaching,
Dhalsim-esq strechy limbs.

The price increases I noticed the other day and haven't seen any real dicussion on it either (don't frequent the forum as much as I use to) but I do believ, or want to belive they are using it to make there product better and not line there pockets. Perhaps by getting more editors to help with the work load, or different packaging material to help with delivery of products. While it sucks the prices are going up it was bound to happen. At least it is not a GREAT increase.

Product changes and new prices were first mentioned HERE in the blog, with discussion.

I am really looking froward to this Deluxe edition and glad my wife conviced me to go ahead and purchase it.

It should bring about 10lbs of fun (depending on what you put inside the case). Thankfully, it does not deliver a full ton of fun as that would be too great a strain on the back.

Fair warning, you might want to do some reps before trying to carry it around Karzoug-style. Hmmm . . . maybe a sling or Papoose for it to distribute the weight . . .

I would have loved 20 more pages, at least. The amount I had to trim down to fit into the tiny word count was pretty staggering. Originally each room was to have some weird time-lock event, and Rozimus's party played a much more significant role. My main goal was to use as much space as possible with my map, and doing that put me in a very old school AD&D vibe, so I continued to go with that. Glad to hear you liked it!

Feel free to drop that culled material into a supplemental PDF.

Seems like shortening the time before they see Man's Promise might be a good idea. AS I sayd we are on day 6, so I will probably do reefclaws on day 7 and build up to the storm at night and do the storm on day 8.

Maybe I will lett them see some headbashing from Capt. Harrigan or one of the other officers to let them know they have no chance of mutany onboard the Wormwood.
Maybe spread some rumors among the crew of where they are heading or something to keep them interested in staying onboard for a while.

Also,

And don't be afraid of letting the PCs know that the top officers are a force. If the PCs encounter them, the trap and lock DCs should be a good indication of the power they might face in an early mutiny. Having a random encounter show up before the Man's Promise that establishes the Officer NPCs' level of badassitude could also be helpful. That also helps establish them for later on when the PCs meet the crew in their tortured states.

Gotta vote for Meepo as the iconic/referenced in the book. Little dude tugged so hard on my player's heart strings, they listened to his tale of woe, did his side quest of dragon wrangling and even let him and his tribe live. 1st level PCs . . . NOT killing kobolds indiscriminately. AFAIK, they are still there, ruling over the Sunless Citadel.

Anyone else notice how well maintained all the lawns are? Grass is cut, bushes are trimmed, roads are weeded, sidewalks are edged. And I'm not talking about the community, just watch whenever anyone makes a supply run. Its a little disconcerting that lawn care seems to be a top priority when zombies are about.

(Obviously, it would be pretty intensive cgi work or take some time to let the lawns really go to pot.)

No, no no, Pluto belonged to Mickey, I don't know if Stooge McDuck had a dog.

Yes, his butler Duckworth was an anthropomorphic dog.

And so this isn't completely un-tangential,
I think Marvel and DC should start running some "Save our Hostess" adds a-la the classic one page spreads in the 70's where a hero defeats a villain by tossing him some Hostess snacks.

I grew up with the Saturday Afternoon Kung-Fu Theater on the local UHF.
Shaw Brothers, all the way.
When you saw their logo come up, you knew you were in for a treat.
Lau Kar-Leung and Chang Cheh probably directed almost everything I saw there and almost everything by them was good.

The Water Margin, Five Deadly Venoms, Five Element Ninjas (aka Chinese Super Ninjas), 36th Chamber of Shoalin (aka Shaolin Master Killer), The Brave Archer Series, Shadow Whip, etc, etc. just tons of fun films in there. Legendary Weapons of China and Heroes of the East (aka Shaolin challenges Ninja) were required viewing to know what all the different weapons were.

I love the fact that Celestial Pictures is releasing them out in restored formats (mainly through Dragon Dynasty) and I can get rid of my bootleg DVDs of VHS copies off those old UHF stations.

Maybe people here can help me track down one film I have been trying to find for some time. I know it has flying guillotines as the main weapon, BUT it isn't Flying Guillotine, Flying Guillotine II, The Fatal Flying Guillotine, nor Master of the Flying Guillotine. I think it may have been one of those hack jobs where two films were cobbled together and all I have to go on are the main weapon and a scene involving booby trapped rickshaws. But that ambush scene is forever seared into my memory and I will know it the instant I see it.Does anyone know of any other films that prominently feature the ridiculous weapon?
(Master of the Flying Guillotine is probably the best of those I've found and its even a sequel to another classic, One-armed Swordsman)

Thank you random thread.
The purple border just showed up one day and I actually thought it was a "low poster" indicator or something.

Good to know it is just an indicator of my OCD. Everything must remain complete and up to date.

Mine has been standing amongst the family photos since it arrived last month. Its starting to get creepier and creepier the deeper we get in October.

I'm almost certain I'll eventually have to fend it off "Trilogy of Terror" style, but right now, it seems content to stand and stare with its eyes . . . its red eyes . . . should they be glowing like that?

7 gold trophies = Sihedron
Year of the risen rune, indeed!

Feathers and Steel

Tengu.

Strix: They got a BIG flavour hit from Nightglass, but sadly not all players read novels (but you can totally drop a plug for Nightglass in there). What makes them different than humans, and feats for fliers.

The last part of the book and call me crazy: Flying options for other PCs. Take your campaign to the skies! Flying mounts, Dwarf Mechanical wings (you think the quest for sky ended at just looking at the sky?), Shori historian feats, racial variants for winged elves, flight granting archetypes, updated Sable Company Marine archetype. The last part of the book should appeal to players of all races who are interested in the skies over Golarion.

This.

That's insanely harsh. No wonder the captain's looking for more crew. They're required to drink a poison that will likely kill them in a couple of weeks. (Average of 2 Con/drink, heal 1/day => -7Con/week)

Or do repeated doses not stack the Con damage?

PRD wrote:

While taking multiple doses of a drug at once rarely has any benefit, taking additional doses as the effects wear off renew those effects but increase the ability damage and potential for addiction.

That implies the benefits don't stack but the ability damage does.

Sure you can probably come up with ways to avoid it, but that breaks genre: Pirate ships full of pirates desperately trying to avoid drinking doesn't match either literature or reality.

Without breaking the genre, you might want to take the second sentence from the rum ration description and let the pirates water down the ration to grog. This could possibly remove or limit the block as a drug.

I'm probably going to say that if watered down to grog, the Fort save is reduced to 2, a +1 CHA bonus lasts for an hour, it does 1 CON damage, but the fatigue still sets in for d8. This way the pirates remain docile and controllable per the description, but won't run into the cumulative CON damage issue of drinking the ration straight up every evening.

The PRD has everything you need on the rum ration effects.

The Fortitude save only affects the possibility of addiction, correct?

It has no impact on the damage or effects of the rum ration at all?

"When a character takes a drug, he immediately gains the effects, an amount of ability damage, and must make a Fortitude save to resist becoming addicted to that drug"

Also, the 1d3 Con damage, is that only a temporary effect or does that persist? Because the way I read it it would seem pretty easy for a PC to die from alcohol poisoning well before Day 21. Or does it assume that a PC would spill or dispose of the rum before that happens? Its a relatively easy check, but the penalty for failing is fairly significant, I can easily see six lashes from the cat and a damaged Con score pretty much guaranteeing that a PC enters a spiral of destruction with no easy way out. Especially given how many tasks require DC 10 Con checks.

Reading on in that same paragraph above, the d3 Con heals like normal ability damage, so 1 point should heal a day later, but 2 or 3 points would stick around and force a character drinking their ration to make their fort saves vs addiction at increasing DCs. The PCs should probably watch the rest of the crew and get cues on how they handle the rations, or have an example made of one of the other new recruits so they understand the danger presented by drinking the rum ration each night. On the other hand, they may plan to gain the system and use the CHA boost to help with influence rolls, but they will run the risk of addition and take the CON damage for the next day's task.

Lastly, what impact does the 1d8 hours of fatigue play for a PC? Does that affect their night actions only? Just the first one, or all of them? And does the +1d4 Charisma bonus last as long as the fatigue?

+1d4 CHA lasts as long as the fatigue, and would affect their night activities, should they attempt them while fatigued.

I was going over the map of the Wormwood last night and something occurred to me... how the hell do the ship's non-officer crew get back and forth between the main and middle decks?

There are only two sets of stairs that lead from the main to the middle deck - one in the Officer's Quarters and one in the Captain's Quarters. Both are kept locked and trapped with the Officer's Quarters having Owlbear chained to the bottom of it expressly to prevent anyone from coming up the stairs into the Officer's Quarters.

Do they get hauled up and down through the cargo hatches? That seems a bit unusual.

Am I missing something obvious? Should this be hand-waved? Do the captain and/or officers let the entire crew come traipsing through their quarters every time a crew member needs to relieve themselves?

Just from perusing the rest of the adventure and the fact that some of the jobs and events require PCs to move about the ship freely, that during work time and leisure time, the doors and stairs to the officer cabin are open. The harpoon traps are probably set and the doors locked for the evening, to prevent the majority of the crew from easily getting around the ship.

Owlbear's chain is probably shortened or he is waylaid by the press of bodies in the morning and evening. I would say that anyone moving about the ship at other times has to deal with Owlbear making noise and possibly grasping for them, but knowing the length of the chain, might be able to squeeze by. This way, he can still act as an alarm for the officers at night, but not be an impediment to the normal ship's routine.

Looking at the other stuff I have most of it seems to have made the final cut so I guess the NPC is the only extra I'll have this time - ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!

I was a little surprised that there were no dwarven crew members included in the published product. But this will do nicely. I may replace Cog or Shortstone with Dungrin. Thanks Richard!

Pirate Punishments and Death

A few people have mentioned concerns about the ambush in the bilge as being dangerous to PCs, but I'm unsure about the various punishments doled out. 3 lashes here, 6 lashes there. Every lash is 1d3+2 nonlethal, according to Scourge's stat block. Once your nonlethal damage is equal to your Max HP, it becomes lethal afterwards.

let's say a smarmy rogue with a decent Con... lets say his hitpoints are 9 at level 1.

He shirks his duties to explore the ship and gets caught. Scourge gives him 6 lashes.
Three nonlethal, six nonlethal, nine... he's staggered by the pain... twelve... the pain is so bad by the fourth lash he drops unconscious. He now has 9 nonlethal and 3 lethal damage. Two more lashes put him at 9 nonlethal and 10 lethal damage.

Am I doing that right? He's now Dying. Let's say because they're nice they help him stabilize.

So they throw him in his bunk and he rests all night and gets back 1 nonlethal per hour and heals 1 lethal damage. He still has 9 lethal damage.

He's Disabled, and can't work, so he get a dozen cats 1d4+2 lethal each... so 12d4+24 damage. Very much dead.

That's what Sandara is for. She can get the PC back on his feet (OR the PC can use a healing resource he may have acquired already). This should help impart a greater desire to rescue her once she is kidnapped by the grindylows and that having friends and allies among the crew is important.

I am concerned about the lack of information on the "Other Officers". The AP is clear that they will have significant roles later on, but as-is we dont even know their general appearance. I realize that there's no room to have a full write up on, say, Peppery, but since she's slinging spells around like nobody's biz (a big part of one of the fights), I'd like to know more about her than her race and level.

Descriptions are from what I can tell from the paper mini images:

Peppery Longfarthing - Trim female human wearing an overly large wide brimmed black hat, a long reddish brown cloak, and covered head to toe in finely tailored red clothing (shirt and pants) with brown leather boots. Black hair, black or brown eyes, fair complexion. Also has a long staff topped with a large green ord or crystal.

Habbly Quarne - Older male human wearing a black short brimmed hat, blue doublet, and a short brown carpenters smock over black breaches and black leather boots. He is also wearing belts and braces from which hang the tools of both his trade (carpenter and surgeon equipment). Scruffy short greying brown beard gives him a "weathered" look.

Kipper - Fit mid-twenties male human wearing a sleeveless leather jerkin, brown leather bracers, blue pants and black shoes. Wild brown hair pulled back under a red bandana. Also has a heavy crossbow.

Patch Patchsalt - Hagish (looks like an Annis hag or classic witch) gnome female wearing a grey vest, white shirt, large red belt/sash, black pants, and no shoes. Fair skinned with long brown hair exploding from under a patterned red bandanna. A small cutlas and dagger are tucked in the belt and a thick gold chain hangs around her neck.

"Caulky" Taroon - Waifish young female human (she's small) wearing a much too large for her red with gold filigree sleeveless captain's dress coat, tattered white pants, and no shoes. Dirty blonde hair held back with a bright purple headband. Bowed head with sad blue eyes.

Richard,
I have two nitpicky questions for you.
Its specified that 4 others have been press ganged along with the PCs, but no names are mentioned. Did you have anyone particular in mind as to who these other 4 would be?

Area A10 specifies that 18 lockers are in use, but not who their owners are. Subtracting the 4 press ganged crew and the 6 officers with their own lockboxes elsewhere (Captain Harrigan, Mr. Plugg, Master Scourge, Riaris Krine, Peppery Longfarthing, and Habbly Quarne) leaves 20 potential crew members . . . so who doesn't have a locker? Magpie and Owlbear would be my gueses.

Second, I have hand picked miniatures for each (prime) member of the crew and plan to add others as they become relevant to my story.

Having this strong visual/physical association with the personalities will help you GM them and your players to relate to them.

I was thinking of doing this too, but realized I probably don't have enough unique non-metal-armor-wearing human or near human minis to represent the entire crew . . . so I went and purchased the Paper Minis, which has the entire crew!

The first thing that struck me as I read through the adventure was that 30 NPCs is alot to keep track of. Even with some of the crew being un-influencable future villains, having the crew spread out over several pages and then a few focused on for several pages, and then the appendix of several pages again was a little inconvenient. Without a chart to print out, I had to make a spreadsheet.

The contents of which is being transferred to index cards with notes on description, mannerisms for roleplaying the NPC, job, actions that can modify influence checks (and their modifier), locker contents, and a color coded post-it strip to indicate their current attitude toward the PCs.

The plan is the cards will enable me to keep track of where on the ship the NPCs are with having to move around 30 miniatures. I can also pick up the rigger stack or the swab stack and have a good idea of who the PCs are interacting with during their daily tasks. This should help to build up the NPCs as people and give the players a better sense of the future crew members they are attempting to turn friendly or helpful. Also, anyone who is indifferent at the end of the adventure will still throw in their lot with the PCs (should they win), but could be people the PCs need to keep their eye on.

Hopefully this works works out as well as the only other time I've ever resorted to index cards (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil). I look forward to this being as fun for me as it is for the players.

Despite all rumblings and grumblings, I'm definitely looking forward to an AP that has its related Player Companion and Campaign Setting books coming out near the front of the AP rather than at the tail end.