Yad's page

I'm looking at this adventure, and I'm going to start in on it tomorrow, and whew. The encounter at the noblewoman's estate is just too much--so many spellcaster and spell like powers all at once. Has anyone figured out some kind of chart or anything for this scene?

I'm getting ready to run this and I feel your pain. My party has a couple of power gamers that have REALLY optimized their characters. It makes for some headaches trying to keep track as to what they can do. I'm not quite sure how I'll keep track, but I'm starting with a few assumptions.

1. These are all evil despicable creatures/people that surely will not trust each other. They will all arrive at the 'party' with the appropriate buffs in place.

2. Evil doesn't necessarily mean, fight to the death because they are good characters. These people are smart enough to know when they are outclassed, so keep an escape plan for each of them ready if things get rough. It also makes sense because of assumption number one.

3. They are also smart enough to identify the most threatening PCs, and will not hesitate to blast him/her with everything they've got. They are also smart enough to realize that it would be prudent to help their fellow guests if it makes sense.

So, I'm going to have a little spreadsheet that has each villain's name/AC/HP and the buffs (with CL) that they have in place. Next to each buff I'll have the total bonuses this gives the villain. That way, should the highest level buff get dispelled, it's easy for me to see how this affects the villain and what his new modifiers will be.

I made one big mistake DM'ing my group through the final fight which made it a lot easier for my party.

They got to the Nexus and starting tearing through the summoned creatures until the scout noticed the lich in the Nexus. This caused the fighter in the group to run forward and try to take him down. A few lucky rolls later and the fighter avoids both the harm and slay living spells. Grrrr. He gets enlarged and bull rushes the lich out where he promptly pummelled.

During the fight in the Nexus, Karauphon casts Greater Invisibility and sets an illusion of himself to keep the players from paying to close attention. He then heads toward the Mummy Lord only to discover he can't comlete the test. Here's where I got a bit sneaky.

I had Karauphon cast Otiluke's Dispelling Screen on the entrance. Of course the buffed fighters are in the lead and they won't notice any sort of magic like this. So they charge right through and loose their best buffs. The casters notice it and stop to dispel. Karauphon uses a blasphemy to futher incapacitate the group. I completely forget the Karauphon is using Greater Invisibility and reveal him to the players.

Karauphon then tries to use telekinesis to toss the gnome (seems every DM has one in the party) into the fire. I allow the Knight and Fighter to each make a reflex save to grab the gnome, adding their weight and effectively stopping the telekinesis. The newly visible Karauphon blasted by the parties Favoured Soul of Corellon and their Cleric of Pelor.

My group had very little debate about who was going to step into the flame. I know that at least one of my players has read the hardcover, and I suspect that at least one other has read it as well (He happened to step into the flame with little justification/roleplay). They've also made a somewhat illogical leap to 'guess' that Vhalantru is the you-know-what.

Building your own wiki is actually a lot easier then you'd think. There are a few underlying components that you need in place to run it. I'm running mine

yad.homelinux.com

on a Fedora Core 5 machine running MySQL, PHP, and Apache. (My web server is under repair at the moment so the pages may timeout, just refresh a couple of times and it should come up). I've given View Only access to the following account:

Username - Chad
Password - publicpassword

OOPS, I forgot to reset the password to my campaign wiki site. If anyone is interested in checking it out the credentials are:

username - Chad
password - password

My wiki is for the Shackled City campaign. My players are pretty far into it, so be warned there are some spoilers.

Not a server in the strict sense of the work (rack-mounted, quad processor, etc) Basically, you'll need a computer that you can have turned on all the time. This machine will also have to be exposed to the Internet so your players can view it.

Ully wrote:

I recently started my Shackled City campaign, and to help my players keep track of information, I started a campaign wiki. Now that I have a few sessions under my belt, I'm sharing the link to it here in the hopes that it provides motivation to new DMs.

Coming from someone who is not very computer literate in scripting or web-page design: I have looked into getting a wiki for my own campaign, but it seems very confusing or technical to try to design/create one. How difficult would you say it was to do that wiki of yours?

I think your wiki is basic in its design, and easy to navigate, but it was very good and just what I was looking for.

Thanks
Robert

Building your own wiki is actually a lot easier then you'd think. There are a few underlying components that you need in place to run it. I'm running mine

yad.homelinux.com

on a Fedora Core 5 machine running MySQL, PHP, and Apache. (My web server is under repair at the moment so the pages may timeout, just refresh a couple of times and it should come up). I've given View Only access to the following account:

Username - Chad
Password - publicpassword

Thanks! Just got it yesterday. Appreciate the response Cos.

-Chad

Yad wrote:

Hello,

I've already downloaded the PDF file that I purchased. However, the Dungeon magazine that was part of this order has not arrived. The order history says that it shipped on 9/25. To date I've not received anything. I confirmed that my shipping address for this order is correct. Can I have an update as to the status of my order?

Thanks,
Chad

Your order shipped from our warehouse on 9/25, though it looks like it missed that day's postal pickup. It shipped via USPS, which takes an average of 3 to 7 business days and, unfortunately, has no trackablility. Therefore, the status of your order is "in transit" and it should be arriving any day now.

Thanks,
cos

Hello,

I've already downloaded the PDF file that I purchased. However, the Dungeon magazine that was part of this order has not arrived. The order history says that it shipped on 9/25. To date I've not received anything. I confirmed that my shipping address for this order is correct. Can I have an update as to the status of my order?

Thanks,
Chad

Oh yeah...

and your subscription will begin with Dungeon issue #140.

Thanks!
cos

Thanks for the quick response! The email account that I have mapped to my Paizo account has gone dormant. I reactivated it, but in the meantime I was not able to receive your email. Could you resend? Without knowing what the actual problem was, I would still like to continue with the purchase. I checked with my credit card company and the charge has already gone through.

Thanks again.

Hi,

On August 29th I purchased a two year subscription to Dungeon Magazine. I've got two questions:

1. Which issues should I be expecting to reveive first and when will I receive it?

2. The 'My Subscriptions' page does not indicate that I have purchased a subscription, but the 'My Account' section does show my order. Is this normal?

Thanks!

oji040870 wrote:

Why is Demogorgon's mini going for 60.00 dollars(paizo store) when he can be purchase on e-bay for 19.99-I find some of the prices a bit over the top. Is it based off somekind of online price guide.

Well what you have to remember is that's the price the makers of the product is asking. Thier pricing could be for alot of different reasons. The main things to remember about ebay (thank god for ebay) is that yes you can get it cheeper and that's good. BUT as often as happen ebay can be buyer beware.When ordering from the source you have a better guareented. Also ebay is hit and miss.What Orcus? It may or may not be on ebay.

<rant>IMHO D&D minis are not collector items, at least not to the huge population of Pen&Paper players. Using minis in game gives players just that much more immersion into the gaming session. Hell, even WOTC is pitching minis as a gaming suppliment first, both in their Core books and in the seperate D&D Miniatures hardcover. Then they do the most idiot thing they could (from a fan perspective), they package random minis in their box. We pay an arm and a leg for some of these minis not because they are collector pieces, but because we use them in game sessions. The only alternative we have is to purchase them in bulk on eBay. I was lucky enough to get a Beholder in my first Deathknell pack. Next to dragons, a beholder is one of the most iconic creatures in D&D and I would absolutely be buying more of them if WOTC actually got their heads out their @#$@@ and really produced these minis as a suppliment to the pen and paper rather then just paying lip service to it. Sorry about the rant folks, but it drives me nuts to see these kinds of prices.</rant>