gundark's page

Charlie D. wrote:

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

Does anyone know if the core books will be released for sale as pdfs or will they only be available as print copies?

I really like how paizo sells pdfs of their core books for $10, and it would be nice if WotC followed that model.

Mike Mearls has said he can't comment on that yet. We don't have an answer.

Which to me is...somewhat troubling. It should be a no-brainer at this point. Though I'm generally pleased with 5E so far, the silence on PDFs and the OGL is disappointing.

I suspect we'll see PDFs of the core. I could be mistaken here, but didn't the OGL not come out until something like 6 months after the 3.0 PHB?

I STRONGLY suspect that we'll see an OGL for 5e. Mike Mearls is where he is at now because of it. There is a kickstarter campaign going on for Necromancer games right now using the OGL. I think that WotC realizes that they can't stop it. I think they'll embrace it.

I'd buy a 4e ToH for. 3.5? Nah

I'd love to see this as a 4e path. Or even dual stated. Or something officialish to convert this to 4e.

I think it would be a good idea. I understand that unfortunetly Paizo doesn't have the resources to do both. However it might be worth the effort to get back the 4e people (like myself) who like Paizo's stuff in the past but won't support 3.5/Pathfinder.

I think the fact they even have this 4e forum is a key indicator that they'll be switching over. Sure they'll want to gather customer data regarding 4e, however most gamers will make the switch. Paizo will follow.

Adventure: The library of last resort
Catalyst: Werid spell and bad saves
Who: Casper level 16 Rogue.

Night had fallen after searching for the night twist as they were close to finding the tree they hear the creature's mournful song. Casper fails his will save and begins to follow the song. The rest of the group follows as a way to find the tree. During combat the tree casts weird on the party. Casper already with a penality to his saves fails both saving throws...R.i.p. Casper. Campaign death number 9

You will want to avoid having NPCs with tokens as much as possible as a DM.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. Villian classes are soooo much nicer to work with. If you havn't then I'd pick up mastering IH and IH beastery for the Villina classes therein.

Page 31 - P5.Treasure Vault - do not remove the earth elemental gem, but add following drawback: every day after the first you are in possession of the stone, you need to make a DC 15 Fortitude save of lose 2 points of Dex, as a thin layer of rock starts to cover your skin.

Remember that the disadvantages need to outwiegh the advantages. Keeping the DC static is IMHO not the best. The DC needs to go up by one for each sucessful save the possesor makes (eg. if the possesor makes 3 successful saves the DC should go to 18). If not a DC 15 really isn't that big of a problem after awhile.

For those who have gotten there...how nasty have the fights been? Did they defeat the wormgod?

Okay time to update the grand total of the death in the AoW

Whispering Cairn- 124
3 faces of evil- 133
Encounter at blackwall keep - 22
Hall of Harsh reflections- 65
The Champion's Belt- 45
A gathering of Winds- 18
Spire of long shadows- 24
Library of last resort- 18
Kings of the Rift- 2
Into the Wormcrawl Fissure -1
Dawn of a new Age- 2
Other (side treks, random encounters,location unclear etc)- 23

Total- 475

Again not the most accurate of counts. Started from the last update. Again some deaths where unclear where they happended so let's be a bit more clear people!!!!

Payton- Cleric 13 of the Soverign host
Where? The infamous room 5 of the spire of long shadows.

I rolled high for initative and everbody rolled low. The invocation fo the worm put her down low. The warforged wizard amost went down with her but had a contigency spell on himself which saved him.

How back in magepoint they were able to secure a true res, so Payton's back in action (so no R.I.P.). However the 25,000gp was the last of the gold. So no more true rez's for them for a bit.

It's interesting to see how some encounters are nasty for some, and not nasty for others.

Well here is our nasty list

WC- Filge was almost a TPK. The party rushed in without much planning. Filge ran out of spells which saves the group. But the zombies beat the party up. No one died but everyone was beat up.

3FoE- TPK right in the start of the temple of Hextor. Tieflings, skeletons and the dire boar was way too much for the party.

EaBWK- This one was a cake walk for the group, nothing really even came close to damaging the party

HoHR- The Mind flayer. It came close to a TPK. The party won...but it was close.

CB- Nothing that bad. The party walked through this. Nothing seemed to stop them.

AGoW- The Black dragon killed a member of the group. The Oculus demon beat the party up, but no deaths.

Like what others has said is true for us. Except for enounter at Blackwall keep every "boss fight" wasa tooth and nail sort of thing.

Okay it's late and I'm a little tired. We just finished return to the whispering cairn. The adventrue ended with the PCs at 12th level. I'm looking at the SoLS and it's for 13th level characters. I'm confused.

I am running the AoW and the group is almost at the SoLS. I've heard how nasty this one is. Any suggestions or things I need to know before running it?

R.I.P. Krull shifter Scout 10
return to the whispering cairn

The party had returned to Diamond Lake and discovered that Ilthane had destroyed several buildings and killed many of the townsfolk. the party discovered that the dragon took off in the direction of the whispering cairn. Well Krull thought it would be a good idea to go up there by himself and scout the area out...until the dragon came and attacked the lone scout...Krull tried to talk his way out of certain death...but the charisma 7 came back to bite him in the butt....RIP Krull

Hmmm. I didn't think all those metal wires in a warforged brain would be so tasty for a mindflayer. Did this happen on the first encounter with Zyrxog? If not, they should have been forewarned and thus fore-armed. Zyrxog is nasty, though, and has resulted in more than one TPK. I guess you'll have to start part III with a team of unsuspecting contestants who come to Greyhawk for the Champion's Games . . .

But then again, maybe Zyrxog didn't have room for all those brains in his tum-tum. One poor sacrificial victim died, the others are languishing in his prison, guarded by zombies and drow, their equipment stashed in Zyrxog's lab somewhere. The dead PC's replacement is among the other prisoners in there with them.

yes the MF didn't eat the WF. But the fighter was slowed due to Octipins and the wizard had 0 chance for getting through his SR.

Later I realized that the DC for the mind blast was 20 not 23, that might have made some difference.

BTW rather than reroll new characters we reset the fight. They'll be squaring off with him next week.

gundark wrote:

Body count so far....

272 deaths

Whispering Cairn- 90
3 faces of evil- 90
Encounter at blackwall keep - 15
Hall of Harsh reflections- 23
The Champion's Belt-16
A gathering of Winds- 4
Spire of long shadows- 7
Library of last resort- 11

Other (side treks, random encounters,etc) - 17

Now this number might be off a bit. I counted from that last body count update rather than start from the begining, also some of the deaths where a bit unclear where they happened.

I have been surprised how deadly the first two in the series have been (90 kills each)

Your players went through 90 characters not once but twice, that is some group of players, you think they'd be so sick and tired of rolling up characters coming up with names. The whispering cairn would be feared for miles having taken that many lives!

oh man thank you, I needed a really good laugh. As has been pointed out those were the totals of the thread, not the xp of my group.

I would place the city as Westgate in the moonsea. The region is quite known for pirates I believe. Westgate is kind of a "scum and villiany" kind of place.

Last night the party faced the mind flayer from HOHR. I've just found out that the DC 23 will save for the mind blast was incorrect and should have been 20 instead (which some party members might have been able to have made). Since this encounter ended up as a TPK for the group I would like to know if there is any other Type Os that are big like that.

TPK

Hall of Harsh Reflections.
Cause: Holy &*%$ ^*@# that mind flayer is nasty.

Well the Mind Flayer in the end of the Hall of Harsh reflections basically TPKed the party in 2 rounds. Round 1, Mind blast, half of the party stunned. Round 2, another mind blast, which stunned the other half of the party. Round 3, the mind flayer happily begins eating brains....and could eat every bodies before the mind blast wore off as I rolled high on how long they were stunned ....I ended it there.

R.I.P
Syber 8th level warforged fighter
Uther 8th level warforged wizard
Krull 8th level shifter scout
Thorsen 8th level shifter Dargon shaman
Aquateri 8th level Assimar bard.

This is my second TPK in the AP, I'm thinking "holy crap why so nasty?"

Well we are in the HOHR right now. They are closing in on Telakin. Thus far it seems that they have been walking through everything. The bard was down -1 due to two AoO from the inivisible stalkers. We are plying in eberron and we use action points. These have kept the party alive thus far. I'll see how they deal with Zyrxog. If they cakwalk him then I'll up things.

Warforged wizard
Warforged figther
Shifter Dargon shaman
Shifter scout
Human cleric
elven bard

Whispering cairn wasn't too bad. 3 FoE was a nightmare with a tpk (only 4 players). EBWK was a cakwalk (this is when we added the other 2 people), but like was mentioned that was okay.

The name of the thread kinda says it all...but since the fights in the path are nasty enough...I wondering if I should. I'm considering it as

a)The group is nicely rounded

b)the group is made up of experienced D&Ders.

opinions?

well guns fit fine if they're part of the setting. I am a big fan of the Iron Knigdoms and IMHO they do a very good job of having guns, yet keeping the fantasy feel.

If you suddenly had guns in greyhawk it wouldn't fit. So he answer to your question is yes guns and cannons would fit, as long as it makes sense for there to be cannons and firearms in your setting. If they feel just tacted on then you and the players are gonna hate them.

Forget the invisible stalkers; try one mind blast from Zyrxog taking down everyone but the party's wizard. Then it turned into a spell duel between the mind flayer and the wizard; both were zipping around the room pelting each other with evocations while the wizard was *also trying to keep the octopins occupied with summoned creatures so it wouldn't eat his friends.

In the end, 3 of the 5 PCs were knocked into single-digit HP, the fourth (wizard) used every spell in his repertoire along with a half-dozen scrolls and most of a wand, and the fifth party member died after dealing the killing blow to Zyrxog.

And they still don't talk about it as much as they talk about the feast at Prince Zeech's....

I'm curious how the wizard was able to crack the Mindflayers SR of 32? Or did he cast buff spells of the other party members? Cool sounding encounter tho.

Well my group just ran through this last night. They brokered a deal with the shaman (although I think they are not planning to bring back any official deal). Once they had the captives they were like "that's it... we leave" They ignored other parts of the dungeon (they managed to find their way to the shaman pretty quick)and left. They just weren't interested once they had the captives. Not sure what I'm gonna do, maybe the spawn of kyuss broke out and killed the survivors of the battle and the reinforcements showed up and dealt with the spawns. Now the leader of the reinforcements wants the PCs to return and get an official treaty from the lizardmen as well as find out if it was the Lizardfolk who released the spawns. When the PCs return (the stronghold was a few days travel through the swamp) the eggs have been corrupted and Kyuss hatchling are everywhere.

Body count so far....
272 deaths

Whispering Cairn- 90
3 faces of evil- 90
Encounter at blackwall keep - 15
Hall of Harsh reflections- 23
The Champion's Belt-16
A gathering of Winds- 4
Spire of long shadows- 7
Library of last resort- 11

Other (side treks, random encounters,etc) - 17

Now this number might be off a bit. I counted from that last body count update rather than start from the begining, also some of the deaths where a bit unclear where they happened.

I have been surprised how deadly the first two in the series have been (90 kills each)

Jinn the Changeling Rogue. After a nasty battle with the faceless one (the Warforged fighter was down to -9 hp). The party headed out to the elevator when the overgod creature attacked them. As a DM I didn't realise how nasty this thing was. Anyhow Jinn the rogue who only had about 10 hp remaining decided to flank the creature in order to aid the figther. After the warforged fighter was reduced to under 0 hp and toppled over the creature turned it's attention to Jinn. Well after 4 sucessful hitsJinn was ripped apart by the creature's ferocity. The party ended up retreating up the mine shaft with the creature chasing after it. After an intense chase and some speedy healing they escaped and returned to Diamond lake.

R.I.P. Jinn changeling Rogue 5.

Who: TPK

Where: 3 faces of evil first room in the temple of Hextor.

How: The group entered the room with the skeletons and the bells. Since the tieflings alerted them the skeltons moved in for the attack. Well a series of bad rolls later the skeletons where still alive and the cultist, and the other tieflings showed up. The battle started to turn against them when the dire boar showed up.

So RIP. Syber the warforged fighter, Jinn the Changling thief, Uther the Warforged wizard, Krull the Shifter scout, and Thorsen the Shifter Dargon Shaman.

Instead of rolling up new characters I just allowed a "reset", with the knowledge that they had they cleared the temple of Hextor out easliy with stealth, they went on to clear the grimlock side out. Tonight they are facing the temple to Vecna, I'm expecting player character casulites, the faceless one is evil.