edit-b's page

I've just finished this section of HoHR. I had the accomplice PC get arrested for killing one of the thieves during the chimera encounter, all the other PCs could claim self defence but he struck first and then second.. in the back... as the guy was running away :D Once in jail he got replaced (email RP session with that player, this also gave his doppel alter-ego some info).

I had the player play as per normal, just take a slightly lesser role and not lead in anything. this turned out to be easier than expected as his dice rolling was abysmal! LOL.

This all happened prior to the stabbing in the bar, so once the doppelganger was exposed at the bar, the party became paranoid and kept everyone within sight, further ensconcing the alter-doppel in the party :)

By the time they got into the Sodden Hold maze, they had code phrases all lined up and if all sorts of paranoia regarding players not moving out sight, it was very funny but did slow the game down a bit.

Now they're past that and back in town and are still paranoid about being doppel'd. I think I'll play on it for a little while longer as long as it's not slowing down the game too much :)

I'd be tempted to use the Black Dragon for Ilthane just to put the 'Fear of DM' into the players ;) (If only I had the spare $$$)

luckily enough i describe the colors of all potions encountered and so the pcs now know that a light blue-green potion is a healing potion. of course one time its gonna be poison or something and then throw 'em a curve ball :) as for the slow worm potions im having all the ones the lizardmen carry be in clay tubes so that they cant see inside and the mixture is too dense to see when the potion is just opened.

Match! Mine are the same colour, just with gold flecks in them. I think it's a left over from Baldurs Gate, NWN, or similar RPG.

The party love it when they find light blue-green potions, is such a perfect setup for this sort of thing.

Of course now i need to be accurate and track ALL the potions I give them... sigh, the joys of DMing ;)

My party had the shortsword but it never came into play. The sorcerer unleashed Magic Missiles and the Fighter dealt more damage than was reduced. All in all only about 3rds.

I ended up photocopying the Diamond Lake backdrop from 124 and blacking/cutting out anything not relevant to the pcs (like npc stats and dmbehind the scenes info) and then copying this new manuscript.

Worked well, gave the players 'instant' knowledge of all the relevant stores and npcs in Diamond Lake.

B

Umm...SRD? It stands for what now?

SRD = System Reference Document

It's basically the core rules for the d20 system. You can find it here at wizards (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) or here's an online version (http://www.d20srd.org).

There are several sites that have html'd it and made it available for download but I can't remeber them off the top off my head.

Hope this helps

:D B

... I plan on playing him as very arrogant. He's better than they are and he knows it...

...Hopefully the party will thoroughly enjoy killing him until he dies from it, if for no other reason than to shut him up.

--Bladesmith

If they're anything like my players it'll get right under their skins. Unfortunately my players then will tend to not want to kill him... at least not quickly...

I have feeling one of the characters at least will be facing an alignment adjust in the near future, but that's another thread for anopther day ;)

...Muscles went away years ago. They said to call them when I start working out again.

LMAO! I like this quote :D

James,

If I wanted to incorporate this into my campaign, after the PCs have spent probably a couple thousand gold on identifying items already, how could I justify it? Could I give them the gold back and say the wizard or artificer did it through spellcraft checks? Or perhaps Eligos could fill them in on some new way to use their spellcraft knowledge to accomplish this? Do you let your characters take 20 on this identify check? Thanks in advance for the advice.

In my campaign I seperate the two. When the party is in the nitty gritty of the campaign, Spellcraft (I use the DCs from the WotC site as linked above) will identify the basics of the item (+1, keen, spell effect, etc) however it won't identify charges left or activation triggers. I allow a second retry with DC +10 and then no further retries on that item.

So in RedRobe's example with my technique, he could leave it as is and as he suggested have Eligos demonstrate the 'new way' of quick identification and the 'improved' way of the Identify spell and notch it all up as advances in the studying of the magicks of the realm...

:D B.

I was an overweight 120kg (265lb) but have trimmed down to 87.5kg (193lb) since giving up drinking actually starting to exercise a year ago :D

Thanks all. I thought this was the case but wanted to make sure.

:) B

I have a player who has a steadfast dislike of therules for flanking, attacks of opportunity and the fact he can't 5' step AND move...

And he plays a sneaky hiding halfling thief who likes to hide ALL the time.

Mind you his arguements always come just after he's been 'talking'to Mary Jane outside...

I know that as a general rule selling loot nets the players half list price.

What I want to know is: In printed adventures (ala Dungeon) when loot has a listed price, is that sell price or the list price?

i.e. when the players sell a 'Foo (100gp)' do they get 100gp or 50gp?

Cheers

B

I was keen to DM something and give our current homebrew DM a chance to play. While trolling through the paizo site for 1st lvl adventures, I came across the preview for Whispering Cairn about 1 month before it came out. Bada Bing, Bada Boom, instant subscription once I got my hands on that episode :) We've all been loving it so far and are currently in 3FoE (the joys of wrangling 5x 30somethings with kids once a fortnight means we're a little slower than most getting throught them AP)

Although I don't think I'll renew my sub as I'm not that interested in pirates and cannibals ANd we'll all be 40+ by the time we finsih this AP at our current rate ;)

*Still can't figure out why the HELL! the PCs didn't use that FREAKING! +1 Short Sword against the Grick in the ball playroom in the Whispering Cairn, resulting in a hour long combat!*

Did I not mention it was covered in runes!?
And detected as magical!!?!? >.<

*Complaining and moaning of players still ringing in ears*

MORONS!

Mine failed to use the +1 Short Sword too...

Although it was only because the halfling rogue who had it, was standing on the beam busy trying to make a noose snare to throw over the Grick, so he could lasso(sp?) it and then leap off the beam to hoist it into the air... (!??!!? I thought so too...) ...

Luckily the party had a sorcerer with a penchant for Magic Missile.

It wasn't until after combat had finished that the halfling finished tying the rope noose and then realized that even if he had succeeded in snaring the grick he probably wouldn't have been able to lift it off the spheres.

Now to the one liner:
The halfling rogue to the elf sorcerer who's just picked up a couple of iron spheres... "Good to see you finally got a pair"

My PCs were having a tough time with the wind warriors, having lost lost both of their meat shields in the first half dozen rounds of combat, and the sorcerer having exhausted all of his Magic Missile uses.It became apparent early on in combat that they had missed the ceramic armour implications so after a few DM descriptives about the armour 'shattering' whenever they were dealt damage and the ceramic pieces dissolving as they fell eventually triggered a response from the rogue who yelled at the sorcerer 'to try the blasted wand he wanted soo badly earlier on'. Zip Zap POOF and the wind warriors were no longer a problem, a TPK was avoided (1 death, critical hit when you're on single digits is not the best...) and the players all left happy thinking they'd saved the day and beaten the big bads :)

Nice one! I may just have to try something like this.... :)

Cheers for posting

b

My PCs are doing this tonight, I'm going to have them be stumped and seek out Allustan who's already looking into the worms for them, for a bit of added tension I may have them cross paths with the Free City Three on the way back into town after being stumped....

My group was easy to manipulate, it was all about greed! The Freecity Three talked up teasure hunting too much and several characters being locals remembered the old haunted cairn and thought it was time for a spot of wealth gathering, to date they still don't know they're going to save the world, they just think they're completing quests to get loot (tomorrow they face Filge, they should get the idea somethings up when I present them with a green worm preserved in a jar I made a couple of months back...)

As to your guys, you could go with the St Cuthbert idea someone already posted, you could have the Wee Jas cleric get a missive about undead roaming the hills, the rogue could over hear Auric boasting about treasure hunting at the Emporium and have one of the locals (cue old codger with gout and arthritis wishing he were younger...) tell him conspiratorily they're talking about the wrong area and they need to go to the Whispering Cairn, the paladin could have had a foreshadowing that the Wind Dukes have information to aid in the dark times ahead and there's a tomb in this area...

It shouldn't take too much to get the players adventuring together, I mean that's why they're playing. If you give them enough incentive they'll find an excuse to get the party together and travel together.

Hope that helps

B

Hi all,

I have a situation where several of my PCs seem to be intent on collecting the heads of their enemies. More specifically the skulls of their enemies so they may clean them and have an everburning flame put inside the skull top make lanterns...

None of the PCs are Evil and the main instigator is Lawful Neutral (The party tends to be Lawful Neutral / Chaotic Good).

We are playing the AOWAP and they got the idea from the rumour about Fixx's head being left in Smenks bed...

The party was ambushed by the towns main thugs, who beat them up and killed one of the PCs in the process (who did ignore a blatant DM hint that this was a beating and not a TPK and decided attacking the halforc barbarian after being given a surrender ultimatum was a good idea...) and stole some of their gear. This put the thugs on their hit list for revenge.

So far they have beheaded two of the thugs they have defeated (coup de grace both, one after unconcious from wounds, the other after unconscious from poison), currently they're claiming revenge and intimidation as the reasons behind the decapitations.

They also captured the remaining two thugs, got the info from them and released them to run away to the Free City...

I can live with the decapitations, (a little unnecessary I feel, but that's my own personal preference admittedly) and sure in the heat of combat and elation at having defeated the barbarian may have lead to the LN instigator ignoring the rest of combat to hack the head off ... but planning to have the skulls polished and turned into lanterns seems a little to borderline for me.

The question really is:

Are they acting in an Evil/Out of Alignment way and looking at Alignment change?

Am I letting personal bias get in the way of my DM judgment?

Any help with this would be appreciated

Cheers

B

Try this out: http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/home.html

I concur! This is a marvelous resource and I use it all the time. When I'm at home or can access the net more easily I use http://www.d20srd.org/ purely because its search engine makes looking up obscure things easier :)

Monster Manual p. 317 Vermin

"-Mindless: No intelligence score, and immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).

This includes Sleep (compulsion, mind affecting)

Ahhh, a little more knowledge needed on my behalf. Nevermind will bear this in mind for the future :)

Cheers

B

My group cast sleep on them, after a quick flurry of various rule books I let them. The beetles failed the will save and zzzzzzzzzz. Pour on some oil, add flame and you've got crispy fried beetles.

Now this made sense to me and my players but I've not heard it mentioned. Have we gaffed and there's an obvious paragraph somewhere we have missed? Or does this work as we played it?

Cheers

B

Yeah, my pcs have made a big deal about having the Seekers rings... They dont seem to occur again anywhere in AOW though. Anyone know of a use for these rings? Any ideas?

Party Loot ;) That's what my guys did. I think I'll have Khellek see it in the store and find out who sold it to Tidwoad... should setup a nice bit of animosity for Championsbelt :)

B

Hi, I got a Dungeon subscription back in November 2005. According to your website I should have received the issue in the early part of Jan 2006. I'm still waiting for that issue and now it looks like I'm overdue issue 132 as well.

Can someone please help. I've sent a couple of emails to customer service but received no reply.

Heya I just got my 130 on Friday 17 Feb and I'm in New Zealand. It has always taken _at_least_ 8 weeks for my subscriptions to arrive, whereas they are in the stores here within a week of release to the stores... but then again I am paying about half the retail price by subscribing and my players are slooow ;) so I'm in no hurry for the issues as yet.

I have generally found the customer services guys very efficient and they reply within 3 working days, hang in there and give them another email :)

B

Saern, that's hilarious!

My PCs are so cautious they built fortifications around the opening of the wolves den at the beginning of the Whispering Cairn AND posted watch AFTER they fought the wolves (first encounter for the 1st lvl party :)

BTW did your party not think to place watch/alarm? ROFLMAO

Go for it!

Whatever the players like.

You could go to a lot of work trying to explain it, or you could just decide that everything that happened in Greyhawk was just an alternate memory or version of what *really* happened in Khorvaire. And move on.

Yeah, kinda like the Bobby dream fiasco from the TV series 'Dallas'. Remember Bobby left and the ratings plummetted so they wrote him back in and explained all the previous episodes as a dream.

I think I'm showing my age now... LOL!

:)

B

Achilles wrote:

Might just let them play two characters each....will save you're own work running extras and should not be much of a problem if they are conistent. I run a similar set up most fo the time, two players and 4 Charcters...works fine....

Problem I've had with that set up is that usually roleplaying goes out the window. It becomes mighty hard to keep track of which PC is being played. Personnaly, I much prefer VidicCold's suggestions. Work's better in my experience.

We use the multiple characters setup from time to time, mainly with the more experienced gamers, and it works fine for us. The players have no porblem rpging the characters as individuals, to the point whewre it is not uncommon for one players characters to have a disagreement on something in the game! This makes for a fun session as we watch one player bicker with himself :D

Good times. B

It's good to see Order of the Stick finally reached a high enough level to attain the Feat: Negotiate Publishing Deal :D
Well done!
B

"Garcon! This meal

Issue 128 shipped to subscribers on 9/20, not 9/30. The website has been corrected.

Sweet! Maybe #127 will arrive before #129 is shipped! Go Intl Subs ;D

If souls could return to the Prime Material Plane at will, the plane would overflow with those living and dead...there would be virtual immortality - which would severely imbalance the game.

Sure, if we were ALL playing the same game at the same time, kinda like WOW. But we're not and if the DM wants to make it work, it'll work & quite likely the players will have a blast in the process :)

F-r-ied Ch-i-mera!! Get

Are you kidding? I just got 127!

Lucky! Out here in the Antipodes we're still waiting for 127 to subscribers lat alone get into the stores!!

However, one player took it too hard. Almost on the verge of tears about losing a character. Perhaps I am too jaded, but it's just a piece of paper. We thought our group was made of sterner stuff.

I disagree with this 'it's just a piece of paper' quote. Players invest a lot of time and energy in their character creation and choices they make through out the game. They start to enjoy the character and make plans for it's future progression. There is a huge emotional attachment for some people and when a factor they felt they had no control over, seemingly at random kills their character, they can get quite ticked off.

At least when their character died heroically battling the Huge Red Dragon or was ambushed while sneaking into the King's Chambers, the ultimate reason they died (apart from dice rolls etc) was that they put their character in harms way on purpose and therefore they 'own' their characters death.

Anyway, this is just my $1.25¢ on character attachment :D
B

My party has been very careful to leave the +1 chainmail they found in the minehouse for this very reason.

So, imagine the shock when they encounter the 3 lizardmen, one with the chainmail, that moved in to scout DL while they were in town...

Heh heh heh...

LAMO :D I find this funnily compelling. Once they've retreived their chainmail "Hey this chanimail's got scales stuck in it! Dagnabit Lizarfolk!!"

Would vomiting in combat provoke an AOO?
I'm definitely going to use the Con save/vomit thing if my PCs don't figure it out :D Nice one.

"Hic! Whatsh da...

I can see where the act of eating their fallen foes is considered evil. Perhaps they were under the orders of the lizard king to do this. They are not used to battling humans, per the conversion notes from Keith Baker for Eberron. They are used to eating their prey. Would this one act modify their alignment to evil?

Let's not forget that some human tribes (mainly Polynesian/South American that I'm aware of) have performed some form of cannabilism after battle in their history. To eat ones enemy; his heart, biceps, brains, was to infuse his strength into yours and make you a stronger warrior - this act it is not evil, it is almost honouring the fallen warrior.

Of course having said that, some tribes would eat the corpses to defile their enemies. Desecrating their bodies would deny them access to the after life - this I believe to be an evil act.

So really, you can look at the eating of ones enemies in two lights if you want. But then again I'm a Libra so I always look for two sides to the coin ;)

B

except for the symbols on the doors--you'd wanna get rid of those. And the tiefling guards banging on the door to the Hextor temple. You'd probably have to leave that as the Hextor one.

Forgot about the symbols (mag at home, me at work). Yes definitely remove the symbols. The Tieflings banging on the door typically would lead to that one being done first I assume. (My party is currently in the Lair of the Architect so we're a ways off 3FoE).

You could always just make them do what ever temple you think they should. Say they open the door that should lead to Vecna first, when they step through they end up doing the Hextor temple. Who's going to know? It's your dungeon, the temples don't interconnect so there's no reason they need to be layed out as per the magazine :)
B

LOL! Nice work, especially enlisting the player to assist you in the deception! I look forward to the updates :D

B

What a fantastic thing to do :) Hopefully our donations can help to make someones day in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy.
My donation is winging it's way to the fund, all the way from the other side of the planet - Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Well done Paizo for a great effort!

Brenton

of King Kanut.

Mines a hash of my job and my nick name.

I EDIT film & tv and people call me B thus edit-b.

I used to go by editgod when I was younger and thought I knew everything ;)

Brenton

I wonder if it's got anything to do with their delivery methods?
Do they send out subscriptions via standard post and the stores via express/courier?
As an overseas non-US subscriber waiting on his first subscription #127, I hope they don't send mine via surface and the stores via air. I'll be disappointed if this is the case.

LOL! I made myself a worm from DAS over the weekend, painted it up & sealed it with a clearcote, and then stuck it in a little jar of water :)

I'm going to use this as a prop when the charaters get to Filge. The water is starting to 'whiten' the painting and clearcote and the water's starting to murky up a bit. Should look sweet by the time the PCs get it :)

B

heavily pierced left

a little known

Well, I expect mine to arrive on 15. sept...>>SNIP<<

Do you have a subscription? If so where are you in the world ?

Cheers
B