Wrathchilde's page

Generally I like giving out "special magical items" to my group. Named items like "Esheneshras Human Flaying Dagger", which is a simple +1 dagger with humanbane. But thats the DM in me.

The way I would like to see the magical item system evolve, is more akin to that of Ars Magica. I, and my players, love to build unique (min/max if you will) items for their heroes during downtime. But the DMG are full of items that do not follow the rules for item-building (like Helm of Many Gems).

Then revamp the building a magical item, to fit more in the "building a unique magical item" from ars magica. Meaning, you would need a specific "slot" on your body for an item (head for +int), and a specifc type of item (circlet for +int), and maybe even a specific type of material (celestial ivory for +int). But these should probably be "affinities" making the item cheaper.

The best thing about magical items in Ars Magica, is that you can only infuse an item with so much magic. Based on size, material and quality. Once that space is used up, no more magic can go into it. So a +4 sword made out of poor materials, cannot be enhanced to become vorpal and flaming (and not without a chance of misfire).

Basically Im suggesting to make a system that limits magical items to being "built" with the same system (like making a wand or a potion). Even by players. Get rid of all the random stuff that defies the rules. Then make a list advising DMs which abilities and materials they should "keep for themselves" to make things more special whenever they are doled out.

Im not saying get rid of artifacts or special magical items, but Im saying I dont want the players to think they can make a magical item based on a template that doesnt follow the rules for simple magical item creation.
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Here is an example of an item that one of my players made recently:

Silver Wheel of the High Note
This beautiful silver amulet hangs by a fine cold steel chain grants the wearer spell resistance 20. In addition the wearer gains a +2 bonus to his constitution and can cast protection from energy at caster lvl 5 once per day.

Crafted by the mighty Starym mage it's insignia suggests that this item was crafted for his Bard companion, Darion Meroch and can only be used by a Bard with the perform (singing) skill.

Moderate abjuration; CL 9th; Craft Wondrous Item, spell resistance, Bear's Endurance, Protection from Enegery; Price 56,460 gp. MP: 28230

// Value Cost gp Cost xp
Mantle of spell res 12 + bonus 80,000 40000 3200
Con + bonus 6,000
Protection fm Energy 8,100 4050 324
Reduced costs - Bard lmt -28,230 -14115 -1129.2
Reduced costs - Skill lmt. -9,410 -4705 -376.4
Total 56,460 28,230 2,258
Time to create 57 days

Impressive Ninja, most impressive. I think nothing brings a game to the maximum potential as a group of powerplayers; I have a group of good ones, not exactly tooled up as well as they could be, or all choosing classes wisely, but they make good. I know that when I throw something at them at +4 EL, and its their first encounter of the day, that theyll have a good chance to survive. Even if I use all the evil tactics. I appreciate that - makes the game a proper competition in the combat areas, and more about sharing in the roleplay areas.

Have to say that I 100% agree with your interpretation of the rules - meself I used "fixed forms" for polymorph and shapechange, but its not a big deal. Id say the most of the guys discussing with you here, just want to know the secrets ;) If youd be so kind as to indulge how the barbarian did 400 dam in one round agains AC 58 DR (Im assuming he had a magical bludgner of some kind, possibly with undead bane ?), thatd really interest me.

Even with 20th level chars, and especially only using core classes, Id say Kyuss have the potential to be a very hard encounter for your guys. Id agree at lot is in the tactics. Myself - Im prone to one-hit combos, and so are my players. Most powergamers will develop a few tricks over time (like like yer timestop/delayed blast fireballs). There are some really good advice above that will make it a hard encounter without necessarily beefing Kyuss - like adding a lot of minions. Grabble is an evil adversary for most characters, even at lvl 20.

That being said, the characters are going to get the drop on Kyuss, which gives them the initative. Assuming they dont use the aforementioned "nuke him to death with fire seeds in round one", and he survives till he can act - what about using the characters tricks against them ?

Exchange one of Kyuss' 7th level spells for Forcecage...

Have Kyuss use a quickend greater dispel targeted on one of the characters (Id prolly take the priest if I was a god, although the wizzy prolly poses the greatest danger), followed by time stop.
Round 1 - quickened blade barrier on top of the cleric, followed by a forcecage around him. That should keep him occupied for a bit - personally Id have cast a quickned Dimensional Anchor on the wizard instead of the dispel, but Kyuss didnt plan on fighting wizzies ;)
Round 2 - Dimensional anchor near the priest (Im assuming the group is spread well out to avoid area effects), which should take him out of the picture for a couple of rounds, followed by another quickned forcecage around the drood (for now, Kyuss will just have to content himself with annoying the drood a bit, since he might be running out of time.
Round 3-5 - Should you be so lucky as to have more than two rounds, the Dimensional Anchor/Blade Barrier/Forcecage can seriusly screw up the wizard too. The monk and the barbarian can be confined to two normal forcecages and dealt with in due time (as they are unlikely to have teleport spells, and Kyuss is out of Dimensional Anchors anyway).

Thought wall of force would do it, but since its only a sheet not gonna make it. Might be able to delay the fighters with a couple of those hastened, and then just put a dimensional anchor on the wizzy - fly over and grapple him to death. Then do the same to the priest. Ahh well Im sure itll be epic either way ;)

Also I might be completely wrong here, and stuck in some old FR novel - but arent Divine Agents immune to Time Stop ? I remember Elminster being, and possibly a couple of gods, if not all gods back in the old day. Effectively it would work like the epic feat described above.

I joined in on the adventure path with Secrets of The Soul Pillars - with a 14th level party, so my conversions might not fit all.

1) Deities:
I exchanged St Cuthbert with Torm - simply because his faith is more strongly represented in the realms, he features in the novels, and there are some very strong paladin forts outside Waterdeep - see Thornhold by Elaine Cunningham for ideas.
The Temple of Wee Jas I have exchanged with one of Kelemvor - all the benign things the temple has done for Cauldron is definitely within his faiths remit. For the moral change I have let the the absent high-priest and Ike be Cyricists in disguise (or even use Shar if you are bent on a more evil campaign), who have manipulated the rest of the temple into the faith.

2) Subtelty:
I think the strong point of the realms is that everything is straight forward. You dont need jiggery-pokery of morals, if it turns out that the good people were in fact duped by evil people ;) It just makes it easier for the players to direct their hate against a true villain. Think about the original Dragonheart movie - it never becomes an epic - because the evil guy is really not evil, just morally screwed up...

3) Locale:
I use cauldron, renamed as Silverspires, set in the Silver Marshes. This area is fairly untouched, and was declared "open land" by Alustriel - as long as you could protect it.

Hope this can help you a little.

There has actually been some pretty good official FR adventures with both 2nd and 3rd ed that deal with some of the suggestions above:

"Into the Dragons Lair" (3.0 ed) Grodd, and dealing with the goblins, and the dragon lair after King Azoun dies (Cormyr, High Road, Death of the Dragon triology)

"Dead Gods" (Planescape 2nd ed) Deals with what happened to Orcus after Vaasa, and how he tries to come back to the world of the living. It is a very good adventure, with a real good chance to include epic level play. Id highly recommend it.

Personally Id like to see more Epic Level games set in the realms, maybe branching off into some of the planes. I had great hopes for "City of the Spider Queen" but level 12 is simply too low, and the plot too far removed from the really brilliant plot taking place in "War of the Spider Queen".

Ill seriously consider looking into offering Paizo some suggestions, or maybe even some epic level adventures set in the realms.

One method could be to make a points system: E.g. assign a value of 1.000 "Faithpoints" that the ruler of Occipitus has to gather to raise the layer back to haven.

Give the player a few guidelines on how to gather these points, e.g.

+1 Getting an intelligent creatuer with a Good alignment to settle in Occipitus of its own volition
+10 building and consescrating a shrine to a Good deity in Occipitus
+50 building, consecrating and instating a priesthood in a temple to a Good deity in Occipitus
+100 Clearing Occipitus completely of Evil aligned creatures
+100 Getting sponsorship from a Good Aligned deity

Then let the players come up with ways of gaining points. You could spice it up with having various evil factions having influence on the layer - and e.g. having the heroes track down and kill Demons to sever their link to Occipitus.

This makes it relatively straightforward, and means that you only have to focus on this storyline if the heroes want to. You can of course instate some kind of "detoriation" of -1 point per tenday that the heroes do not increase the Faithpoints total.

Wow you guys have a lot of players. The group I run Scap for is about 3-4 levels higher than the expected - Ive updated the adventures, and I run AoW simultaneously with the group as well.

Darion Meroch - Halfelf Bookeeper (Bard/Arcane Devotee of Mask/Assassin - lvl 17)
Phade Darkbringer - Calishiete Priest of Mask (Cleric - lvl 16)
Caleb Bloodsworn - Tiefling Enforcer of Myrkul (Fighter/Rogue/Blackguard lvl 16)
Shaosang Shadowstrider - Tiefling Assassin (Rogue/Assassin lvl 16)

Darion has a cohort: Wulfgar of Fenris - Half frostelemental Mercenary (druid/fighter lvl 16)

For the AoW campaign we have a guest player - Rahnefereth the Favored - Gold Elf Arcwizard (Wizard/Archmage/Fatespinner)

We are somewhere in the middle of Oblivion and Secret of the Soul Pillars (run simultaneously), and finished off Spire of Long Shadows (AoW) recently. The player who plays the Maskarran Priest started off as a Lich, but gave up after being turned a few times ;)

My party started out in Forgotten Realms, so most of the references are from there. It all started with a Half-Elf Bookkeeper and information broker with ties to both the Harpers (good) and the Kraken Society (evil).

He needed help to find Blankarde (from AoW), who has a different name in my campaign. So he hired a band of tieflings to help (the rest of the party). One died, and came back as a calishiete (middle eastern type) priest of Mask (god of thievery and intrigue).

I introduced a gang-war starting between the Last Laugh, and a very small number of highlevel calishiete assassins, lead by Sheik Al Emir Abu Jafar - a high priest of Mask run out of his home country. The guys, who are 50/50 into combat/intrigue, took an instant liking to them (think Last Man Standing type scenario).

Because they didnt kill Rhiavadi, or any of her guests, they are hoping to get a piece of the pie. At the moment, they are contemplating how to win some allies, and foil the plot to turn the Silver Marshes into a demoninfested area (which will bring about meddling wizards and adventures).

I think you are on the correct path. The more you can take each character and make something unique with your campaign that appeals to that character, and his backdrop - the more memorable for the guys.

"Fear leads to suffering...." etc - Yoda ;)

If you want to be truly evil, you have to make the players fear - fear that which they dont know. Id say you have two choices to do that - a) give them what they expect, but make it seem too easy - like something is missing. Or b) do nothing.

Id say, if your heroes did not directly offend, or interfere with the plans of the evil agents at the party, they wouldnt necessarily be interested in the heroes. After all, they are there to get most possible gain, and fighting a party of 7 well-equipped heroes might be more hassle than it is worth.

Yes Velanthuu is dead, but the Sorcerer Rhiavadi was the one who promised them power. If she is still alive, why would the agents of evil expect the deal to be off ? As long as the Cagewrights open the portal to Carceri, and keep their end of the bargain, what does it matter that some heroes try to stop them ? None of the parties invited to House Rhivadi has any reasons to kill the heroes, unless asked so directly by the Cagewrights.

If it was me, Id have all the evil guys lay low. Disappear. That should make your players nervous.

Then go on with the adventure. Both the Necrocants and Mhad should have access to undead minions. Set up short encounters that are easy for the players to deal with (especially with a cleric). Keep it up. Itll be a nuisance, which might take the players focus away from the main thing, and try to track the aggressors down.

If they do, good - the party will feel they accomplished something, and you distracted them from the real issue. Let them win. You can then have the Cagewrights abduct an important NPC, and let the heroes know, in no small terms, that they could have prevented this if they kept to their course.

If they do not deal with it, hit them with that same kind of low-level encounter in the middle of something else. A recommendation might be to use Entropic Reapers (from Libris Mortis), who can planeshift in at opportune moments.

Think about it. Fear is not always about showing how powerful you are. Then again - sometimes it is ;)

"There is always a bigger fish." -Qui-gon Jinn, Jedi Master ;)

I belive that xp should flow freely, but that items should be held in more check. In the group I DM, I run a few things that might help you, among others:

XP awards: An XP award equals 20xlevel of character.

1) Each session the players get to award one amongst them with one award, for anything they find commendable. I have no say in this, but they must all back the choice.

2) Throughout a session, I will give xp awards for things I like, generally; good roleplaying, ingenuity, good planning, good use of non-combat skills/abilities, sacrifice for the group. A normal 4-hour session will see 1-4 xp awards per player (more in RP heavy sessions, lesser in combat heavy sessions).

3) The players get a "pool" of 1 award per player at the beginning of a game. Xp awards from this pool can be dealt out like 1 (see above), but the pool will only get bigger if the players complete an adventure/campaign, or do something as a team that is spectacular.

I hope this can help you.