catsclaw's page

Hey guys --

I'm not sure where to post this, but I just put my huge Ptolus Vinyl map up on ebay as part of a Moving sale. I am sad to let it go, but I just don't have the wall space anymore, so it will end up rolled up for good.

I would prefer if one of you other Ptolusites wanted to do it some justice.

It's the big one (they did a smaller 48" wide one) measuring approx 70" wide!

Ptolus Vinyl Map

I'm a bit confused over which maps your after? Tintagel has done a version of the Glassworks and catacombs but not Thistletop as far as I am aware.

I may have a copy of Watchers maps on my laptop but will need to check. However the man himself is still lurking these forums and so perhaps he can supply them.

I have the Glassworks map. Excellent stuff(!), but I think the Catacombs he did were simply blow-ups of the Paizo maps. Tintagel's stuff is really nice.

I had seen that Watcher had maps for Burnt Offerings for Thistletop and the Catacombs, so I was wondering if someone still had them, since the link in your post(s) is dead.

Anyway, Watcher, I see you replied as well. If you want, it would be awesome if you can email a link to the Thistletop and/or Catacomb maps. My address is matto323 at yahoo dotcom. No worries about quality. :)

Hey Gang --

This is some great stuff. I have decided to run RotR for my online 4e game, using Map Tools. I was a Paizo subscriber while this was coming out and I was VERY tempted to run this for my 3.5 game, but I was immersed in DMing Age of Worms at the time.

But with the whole PDF fiasco and the new Paizo sale (which I bought a few other items), I have rediscovered how good the STORIES are in Paizo's APs.

This 4e conversion stuff is just the thing to push this choice over the edge.

Quick question, though. Watcher's map links for Burnt Offerings aren't working anymore. Does anyone have these files that can host them? I'd love to see his takes on the battlemaps.

Tintagel, I have your 4e Powercard templates and his Cardsets, and if did a nice Dundjinni map of these area's I'd be stoked, but I see you have the blown up Paizo versions. I want a higher-res 5' square...

Anyway, does someone know where to find these maps?

2nd copy, I think. ;)

I had 3 of them at one point.

Exactly. I have three of them.

They're both pretty heavy. Also, with Priority, you get free insurance and for an item that will likely be over $100, it's worth it.

Hey gang --

I just posted two new auctions on ebay, one for a copy of Monte Cook's Ptolus City by the Spire Hardcover, totally rare and out of print, and the other for a copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded from Necromancer Games.

These are listed very low right now, so you can get in good before the auction ends.

Here's the link to the Ptolus Auction.

Here's the link to the Rappan Athuk Auction.

Thanks!

Hey gang --

I just posted a copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded on ebay. It's new, never used, but the shrink wrap has been removed.

This one will make you Official Killer DM #369!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT &item=270277454699

Thanks!

In my campaign, Smenk appeared to have the upper hand because while they were finishing of the Whispering Cairn, he started a smear campaign against the PCs accusing them of Breaking and Entering, Kidnapping and Attempted Murder. With Sheriff Cubbin in his pocket, even their claims of graverobbing and experimental necromancy didn't seem to hold much weight.

Smenk had Filge killed for spilling the beans anyway, and the PCs were investigating the Dourstone mines under the uncomfortable employment of Smenk. All in exchange for dropping the charges against the PCs.

Remember, busting into the Observatory, beating and taking Filge in is not their duty as PCs and could be construed as quite illegal.

I am the opposite. I love Pathfinder, but I will be going 4e, so I likely won't buy it unless it is 4e. And my subscriptions to Gamemastery and Pathfinder will likely drop after PF:2 unless PF:3 is also 4e. I'll get Curse of the Crimson Throne, for sure, but that will be my last 3.x AP (heck, I have so many of them already!!! :))

I think he means the adventure handouts. I haven't started Rise of the Runelords yet, so I am haven't gone through the process of making it player friendly yet.

Since I've delayed my gammastery to ship with my pathfinder, will the GM modules still be available for download at the same time?

Excellent question. Will subscribers get access to the PDFs when the product releases, or when the product ships?

And I has the same question as Dreamweaver above. I set it Pathfinder first, but if both are going to be shipped soon I'd like to set mine to whichever will get both soon. If there is a 2 week wait (or so) then I'll leave it as is and get D2 with the next Pathfinder.

This is a good question. To ensure that pathfinder comes as quickly as possible, which option should I choose? Delay GameMastery to ship with Pathfinder?

This is an EXCELLENT 2008 release schedule, looking much better than W*TC's. But does this mean...

Maybe the gang at Paizo has some inside information about the whispered v4.x version of the worlds most popular role-playing game?

I can probably sign a whole mess of them once they are in. I'm frequently at Paizo for Erik's Age of Worms campaign.

So what do we have to do to get a signed one? Preorder? :)

We have no insight whatsoever into Wizards' future plans for the content we produced under license for them.

However, we now have PDFs available of every Dungeon issue that included a Shackled City adventure.

I see. Unfortunately, the individual Dungeon PDFs aren't the same thing as the SCAP Hardcover. :) I will have to adopt a "wait-and-see" attitude about it.

The default assumption of all Greyhawk adventures in Dungeon since I joined the staff (#106 or thereabouts) is that the last digit of the year in which they were published corresponds to the last digit in the Common Year calenday of the Year of Greyhawk: 59X CY (X = last digit of real world year).

So adventures published in 2004, for example, take place in 594 CY.

Acutally, I do recall that. I guess then that I can start my AoW campaign in 595. I am looking for the time of year for AoW in The Whispering Cairn adventure, and can't recall seeing it anywhere. Which (Greyhawk) month should be used to stay consistent with the upcoming adventures?

Hey gang --

Are there any suggested starting dates (in the Greyhawk Calendar) for the three APs? If I want to assume that Shacked City starts on a certain date, and the two other APs follow in succession, when should they start (month and year)?

CC

Hey guys --

I know that as of 18 months ago, there were no plans of putting the Shackled City hardcover in PDF form. With WOTC putting a LOT of their D&D 3.x books in PDF form on OneBookshelf, do any of the Paizo gang know if they plan on getting a Shackled City PDF anytime soon?

Thanks --

CC

We do keep hearing that Paizo and Wizards remain great friends, and that there is a very good chance the two companies will work together on projects in the future.

Wouldn't it be great if they collected the existed Core Faiths articles, as well as wrote additional ones and put them out in a single volume (hardcover like the Dragon Compendium or softcover like the Monster Ecologies special volume). I would think it would sell very well.

I thought I heard that the Core Beliefs articles, as well as some of the other regular articles, like Demonomicon, will continue in WOTC's DI.

BTW -- I downloaded the Living Greyhawk Deities PDF (v2.0, March 2005), and while it's got a lot of gods, it needs some more writeups for a lot of 'em. Sounds like a grand idea for a fan project. :)

Heck yeah.

But our license doesn't allow that.

Let's hope that WOTC gets a lot of this up in their digital initiative.

When Paizo was internally storing articles, were the final edits saved and keyworded or was the final Quark (or whatever publishing software) file the last word? i.e. did you keep a database of articles tagged by keyword/category?

Yep - each quadrant is about 30" x 21" @ 144 dpi (4320 x 3024 pixels).

Sweet. Looks like I am gettin' me some PDFs!

I was wondering if the Dungeon issues in PDF with the Greyhawk maps actually have the Hi-Res versions of the maps in the PDF itself.

Pathfinder and the Player's Guide are scheduled for release in August. The hope is to have them ready for Gen Con. They're off to the printer at this point... and that pretty much locks things in; they can't come out any faster as a result.

Hollow's Last Hope can certainly work for a lead-in adventure for Rise of the Runelords, although it takes place in an area far from Varisia. The easiest way to change that is to simply rewrite the wilderness portion of the adventure. However... your PCs will then be 2nd level, and the start of Rise of the Runelords is very much written for 1st level characters.

BUMMER! :)

OK, well then I will have to send a different group through the Rise of the Runelords. Or maybe I can get these newbs primed and run a few "learning" scenarios.

I have a new gaming group that starts play in early/mid July. I am bandying about APs for them, and I want to run Pathfinder/GameMastery, but I don't really have any players guide or something to provide them with some background. So far, the winner of my AP search is EN Publishing's War of the Burning Sky.

Granted, WotBS is great and I am already running it in an online group, I wanted to run something different for this F2F group, but I think Savage Tide (and AoW, SC) is too tough, they are new. They are itching to start, want some campaign background, and I am afraid if we have to wait another month and a half, they will decline and we will start another campaign.

How can I use Hollow's Last Hope as a lead-in for the Pathfinder AP? Are they in a fairly similar region of Varisia? Will a player's guide/campaign guide be released prior to the first adventure? BTW, this is why I loved WotBS, I was able to whet the appetites of my players prior to the first adventure coming out.

Is there a more specific release schedule for the Pathfinder adventures, the PDFs, players guides, etc, than just August 2007?

You can buy all the issues to date, here on Paizo's website. http://paizo.com/dungeon/products/issues/savageTide

Though, in truth, this is a tough AP for new players. I have had a similar situation as yours: my wife playing (inexperienced), my friend (very experienced), his girlfriend (novice player). I have had to provide a DMNPC, not necessarily to guide them but to provide firepower. This is definately a 4 PC series, unless you use some house rules to power up the PCs (give them all an extra feat, give them all extra skill points, or give them all 35 point buy, things like this)

Good luck on your endeavor!

I was just curious about when we can expect to see the online supplements for issues 144 and 145?

Is there anymore word on this? :)

If the Mother has the Transport via Sargasso ability, how will they party ever get a chance to kill her? Won't she just transport herself to another part of the sargasso if she gets to like 1/3 or 1/4 her hitpoints?

Or is this addressed in the adventure and I just didn't see it?

Thanks!

I just created a map of my own, that you can see at:

http://nhicontent-old.erei.com/rpg/SWW/UrolForolMap.jpg

Let me know what you think!

I was wondering what others used as Urol's tattered map of Tamoachan, mentioned in Part 4: Tamoachan, in Sea Wyvern's Wake.

Was it a small overland map of the path to the entrance or a map of the ruins itself?

Did anyone make this map to present to the players?

This is some great stuff! My players were only 2 days out of Sasserine before we had to quit gaming last session. I imagine that this next one will make for some great RP!

We did, however, have the encounter with Lavinia's celebratory dinner and the mephit.

In the Bullywug gambit several areas have descriptions of deformed corpses supposedly deformed by the Savage Tide, yet when creatures take on the Savage Template they get the Death Throes (Su) ability, which means when they die they disolve into puddles of acidic goo leaving nothing but a skeleton and their gear. Hence no deformed corpse.

I originally had this question as well, but I wrote it off as those that had started incubating the disease, yet died before it went full effect.

Awesome James, thanks for the update!

hey gang --

Just checking on when the #142 online supplement will be coming. Keep up the good work!

No one has some stories to tell about the trip south?

Ditto --

Once you get the next installments done, will you send them out to all your "subscribers"? :)

My group is about to start The Sea Wyvern's Wake and I would love to hear all your NPC interaction stories for this adventure.

This one, in particular, just ooooooozes roleplay, and I am sure there are some great stories about how the PCs interacted with the NPCs on board, how you re-introduced Rowyn, if there were any "love interests", etc.

This week, as a matter of fact. I'd like to get issue #141's up this week too, along with the 3rd conversion note set. And since Thanksgiving is now behind us, along with the latest issue's deadline, I'm pretty optimistic that we can do that.

That's awesome James, thanks!

Hey gang --

I know you are all very busy, but I was wondering if we could get a timeline out on when #140 PDF will be posted? We start Bullywug Gambit next week and I have been making such extreme use of the pics from Supplement #139, that I am afraid that my players are spoiled!

Great job on all of this, BTW. Dungeon has never been better, and I've been reading it off and on since Issue #1.

These are great -- could you compile them somewhere and put a link to them in your sig? I'd love to get them all by I can't seem to be able to access the archive threads.

... nonetheless i think xp should be awarded when the foe is subdued or circumvented by whatever means, not necessarily "killed".

I am with you on this too.

Soller Vark CR 2 = 600 XP

Vark's Thugs 7xCR 1/2 = 1050 XP
Rhagodessa CR 2 = 600 XP
Iron Cobra CR 2 = 600 XP
Vault Puzzle CR 2 = 600 XP

Oh well this may be why. I made the thugs CR 3/4 by making half of them Rog 1 instead of War 1. I guess this is my extra XP. --

So...

Soller Vark CR 2 = 600 XP
Vark's Thugs 7xCR 3/4 = 1575 XP
Rhagodessa CR 2 = 600 XP
Iron Cobra CR 2 = 600 XP
Vault Puzzle CR 2 = 600 XP
RP Bonus for 2 game sessions = 150x2 = 300XP

Comes out to 1069 each. That's how things went.

I was curious about the XP progression as well. I am using DM Genie and it calcuates XP fairly accurately, and the party just hit 2nd level after the the Vanderboren vault (they figured out the combination on their own, so I awarded the suggested 2CR XP). This is with 4PCs.

I'll see how things go as they venture into Parrot Island.

In any event, Lavinia does know her mom was a druid, but she doesn't know they were Seekers until she goes to the vault and sees Seeker signs everywhere.

James -- what would the PCs learn with a Gather Information about the parents? Assuming they did all this adventuring on behalf of Sasserine Nobles and Guilds, there must be something that they'd find out.

Also, what additional information do we have about the seekers? Maybe there is more coming, I have only read through the first adventure.

I am curious about her parents as well. My PC group just emerged from the vault and with the knowledge local check determined that her parents were part of the seekers guild, and because of the information in the ledgers, they were fairly renown in the area for doing dangerous work for the nobles and guilds of sasserine.

if my players dig around, what would they find out about them? Is there more information available about the seekers guild -- the next place they are going to poke around.

Thanks!

Catsclaw

I'd love the statblocks too! Count me in, if you are still sending them out.

molivia [at] sbcglobal [dot] net