hanexs's page

Wow Thread necromancy hah! Ever get reeealllly bored at work?

I definetely didn't login to complain about Pett's work, as I said somewhere upstream he's actually one of my favourite authors. We LOVED sound of a thousand screams. But sadly your right I don't have the time and did greatly suffer from DM burnout. I tried 4e, cause in a lot of ways I wanted to run a simple combat game, but I still wanted the ideas and themes to be creative complex ect. I never got that from 4e, instead we got rooms and rooms of more 1hp minions or 300HP bosses and too much of a feeling of hack and slash. On the other hand, with Dungeon - I never really had the time to "appreciate" the 5 paragraph backgrounds of something that happened 1000 years ago but has nothing to do with the adventure, or even worse, when I did appreciate the story, my players never found a way to hear it so it hardly mattered.

In the end a lot of the read alouds continue to fail my test, -- heres the test: read it to your players during an adventure. You shouldnt have to add anything else to explain the scene, you can answer questions sure, but you shouldnt have to highlight or reiterate things because if it was worded properly it you wouldnt have to.

Hanexs, you said earlier that reading a module and preparing for play beforehand is something you don’t like, and that’s why you prefer ready to play scenarios. You make DMing sounds as microwave cooking (1. put away the tinfoil; 2. Ting! It’s ready!). For you, preparation time seems to be a chore, something you don’t want to do unless the very last moment.

I truly can’t understand your point on that. For my part, I love doing preparations, and often giggle to myself insanely while imagining in advance my players’ reaction to a given situation letting the creative juices flowing. I am often planning one or two adventures in advance, which lets me plant some hints, rumors or false leads foreshadowing what is to come.

I reread modules sure, but I like to have a lot of content deliverable "as is" to my players. Maps, readalouds, handouts ect should be in the form that an average player can appreciate. I much prefered simpler 8 page adventures that I could add onto then adventures where I had to reread 6 times with sticky notes all over the place just to understand what is going on.

Loving pathfinder tho! Who would have known back when this thread started the APs would grow into such an awesome product.

Im thinking about skippin book 3. Heres why:

We have been rushing along, 5 sessions or so and the players have already defeated the stag lord, and started they're city. But they havent really explored the green belt a lot. They are 5th level do to my tendency to be trigger happy on giving out items and xp (we dont play RAW).

Anyways, I was thinking about taking some of the encounters from book 3 and plopping them into the greenbelt... and sort of skipping the whole go rescue a town to the east story arc. I kind of want them to feel like the greenbelt is their home... so the longer we stay in it the better

Would I lose out on anything by doing this? Anyone who played book 3 have opinions?

So at the beginning of RRR a charter and builders come to build the PCs first city.

Who are some characters in this caravan?

I am thinkin:

an old wise npc, sort of a guide
a tough worker npc, who gives the real news to the pcs
a saboteur who looks for ways to ruin the job
ect ect

Does anyone have any interesting pilgrims to share?

for buildings , and assuming you build naturally (ie not castle. cathedral, marketplace in the first few months)

Year 1: 8 buildings , 3 of which are big plus 4 houses
Year 2: 12 buildings, 4 of which are big plus 6 houses
year 3: 15 buildings, 6 of which are big plus houses if u wish
year 4: repeat year 3,

dont forget to build new citys

Hexes: id claim 10 per year, assume farm on 7 of them, Then an extra 2 more hexs each other year (year 2: 12, year 3: 14, etc) and equivalent in farms

Roads: put down as flavour dictates

Wow thats exactly what I was looking for.

Age of Worms - Champions belt and the prince of redhand.

Kingmaker - River Runs Red

We just finished stolen land and are begining the second book, and I would like to say that this AP is amazing! By far the best module I have ever played or DMd.

But I must confess, I don't want to run the kingdom build rules, I dont even really want to read them... Maybe its the style of D&D we play, highly narrative, tons of rule fudging ect, but I dont see the actual rules to kingdom building being good for me or my players.

Instead I am going to "force" my players to take a year of every now and then, in between years we will adventure, then building will continue through a handwave and our next session might be a year later in game time.

My players will still be in control, but it will be more like they are ordering the builders to build these 10 things in this order. Then after a year, or after coming back from the quest, some or all of them are done.

So could anyone who has ran kingdom building rules, answer a couple questions for me?

q1 - How many build points on average would they be able to spend in the first year? I know that this could be effected by a hundred things, but if there are no major screw ups and no major boons, what would be a good number?

q2 - If I got a number from q1, would I be able to just use that for the rest of the years (e.g. the second year)? Or should I add a percentage to it because kingdoms grow faster as they get bigger?

The answer to these questions will enable my players to just tell me the 10 things they want to build, and allow me to eyeball how much of it gets built without running phases ect.

Any comments are welcome :)

It's been a while since they took care of the Thorn River Camp. They came back a few weeks later to finish exploring the forest hex and the ranger lost the track of a few horses in the camp. They took the time to explore the whole map and they haven't encountered any other bandits yet(3 months in game more or less). I guess the bandits might have thought of the password during those couple months/weeks without news.

Only been a day or two for my group, this was pretty much the first thing they did.. maybe I dmd it that way.. but mostly I just think they like semi direct hooks, not really a wandering group.

For you I would change the password, certainly. 3 months would be lots of time for word to get out that the camp was destroyed, or that oleg has rebelled, or that the shipment of booze isnt coming (lol). Also it would be lots of time for information to come back to the fort that some new party of adventurers is wandering around the green belt like they own the place.

hanexs wrote:

Alexander Kilcoyne wrote:

Its not up to you to worry about their strategy.

I dont think of it as me strategizing so much as me enabling them to have strategies... if I dont remember the important details, then it will turn into he gets drunk... they kill him in his sleep... and then they wander around room to room killing... boring and been done.

Unless they are extremely quiet about their attack, it won't really be room-to-room, it will be one big battle, followed by the basement (if they find it)

Im not really following the encounter exactly as described.. My main interest is making the encounter fun and different... I was thinkin maybe donovan would offer to provide a distraction (spell, or even just some event outside or something), during that time the players may be ablke to off both characters... Hmmmm :)

Its not up to you to worry about their strategy.

I dont think of it as me strategizing so much as me enabling them to have strategies... if I dont remember the important details, then it will turn into he gets drunk... they kill him in his sleep... and then they wander around room to room killing... boring and been done.

Just looking for ideas to create the intrigue, thanks for helping. Im going to find out what you mean about the owlbear? Guess I missed that, I just wade through so much useless (to me) information that I guess I miss the important parts to making the encounter interesting.

Dovan approaching them about assasination is a great thing at least.

This is incorrect, the zombies are NOT on the path to the fort, they are on the other side. The bandits don't have to run a gauntlet of zombies to get inside each time they want to make a delivery lol.

The Stag Lord will come out, tell Akiros to reward them and go and get drunk. Play Dovan as a little suspicious and with probing questions, but involve the PC's with the bandits in drinking with them, playing card games etc. As far as the bandits know the PC's are just another group of independent bandits- and Dovan may see them as a useful tool for getting rid of Akiros...

They should avoid the zombies, as they are walking straight in... And they have the passwords.

Alexander, I like where your going with this.... This could form the basis for an INCREDIBLY interesting session.... They walk in, get drunk with everyone, and get to know them. Dovan, approaches them in secret with a job (why not, no one else knows them, maybe he sees the assasin in them). They kill Akiros with Dovans, help... then they move on to the stag lord, and by the end of it theres almost no one in the building. Sort of a pitch them against themselves approach.

Only problem is it will take a LOT of roleplaying from me that Im not necessarily sure I can do.. still good general story for the session...

Any other ideas? These kind of things really get my brain rattling more then mountains of text in the books..

our mighty kingdom maps invilve the pdf too, so no posting for them either

Novalord, if you have them would you email them? hanexs at gmail dot com. It would be much appreciated, if you could. I have all the books, I am just tryin to gloss over the building part and more like when they come back they ask their commanding team what updates have been made....

So, we ended our adventure, with my players discovering the shipment of booze, disguising as bandits and planning to sneak into the fort. They are now in view of the fort, and that is where I ended our session.

I must confess I really don't know how to run this, Ive read the book a few times, but its not really giving me a feel for what would/should happen.

I presume theyll roll in, tell some bandit they have the booze, and the Stag Lord will come out and start getting drunk...

Then what? How do I make this interesting? How did or do you plan to run this?

I just posted Session III of Stolen Land to my blog. You can check it out here. Within you'll discover a searing tale of indecision, disturbing radish fetishes and savage owlbears.

You can check out earlier sessions by hitting the "Kingmaker" tag in the word cloud on the right-hand side of the screen. Also you in fancy seeing how our Age of Worms campaign went before it's rather abrupt and disasterous ending, you can hit the "Age of Worms" tag.

Wow, great read. Really makes the campaign come alive and gives me an idea what to stresss. I notice that my party flies through encounters a lot quicker then yours (we do this by design...) so I am beginning to fear we will quickly outpace you. Still your stories are definetely giving me a handle on what the start of the campaign can look like

The AP doesn't actually start in a city, it starts on the road near Olegs. The backstory starts in Restov, and any number of Gms have chosen to push events back there, but that isn't inherent in the first adventure (mainly because, as I recall, they didn't want to get the campaign too tied up in Brevoy, the storyline mainly being about the Stolen Lands and all).

That all being said, it would have been nice to have more detail on Restov and the Swordlords from the get-go, given they are your initial patrons.

For sure, considering all the unneeded backround that we get in Pathfinder AP's (e.g. history lessons, the prodigal sons story line, ecology of monsters ect), it would be nice to use this space for short intro to getting the quest or an explanation of npc's who help build the city in book 2 ect.

I would really have liked some description of the key players who come to help build the players city, this seems like something we will have to roleplay and I find it odd that I will have to make every npc.

Course I understand that Restov isn't in the scope of the adventure, and if it was it would have taken a whole book, I was just looking for a nearby city that has been mapped.

Hah, for sure. I just find it odd that considering how WELL MAPPED Golarion is, they chose to start the campaign in an unmapped city. Really? I kind of want my players gettin used to Golarion, as I plan to use it in the next few (all?) campaigns.

Maybe Ill move it to Absalom though, I really like that city and want my players to play in it...

hanexs wrote:

I havent started the campaign yet, but I am planning a pre-adventure where the pcs save a noble/princes life and in exchange the king gives the pcs the charter to explore the stolen lands. I am looking for a map for this city. It could be Restov, or any city in the area (I was planning on using Absalom, but I know that is far away). Any ideas on a city that has a published map that would fit the bill? I was hoping for it to be a large city, to justify the players being able to go there if I need to run some large city adventures.

Restov (the seat of Rostland, the southern canton of Brevoy, as opposed to Issia) is the assumed starting city for Kingmaker, though there's no map of it; there is, however, a brief writeup of the city in The Varnhold Vanishing along with its location on the hex map.

The nearest mapped city is Pitax (the seat of the city-state River Kingdom of the same name), which gets a full gazetteer section in War of the River Kings, although its stats list it as a Small City, with a population just shy of 6k. If you're not too turned off by the size, I'm sure you could work your intended pre-adventure into it, and since Pitax shows up later in the adventure path, it could be a great way to tie things together.

I was thinking Pitax might not be a good city to use as the starting city because it shows up later... I havent read that adventure yet... but the leader of this city in my campaign gives them the charter, this would conflict with the reason they are there right?

Maybe Ill just take some random city map, and call it restov

I am thinking about handwaving the growth of my players towns in my upcoming campaign, it would be nice to still show the players how their city grows (we use an lcd table). Does anyone have maps of how their city has grown (e.g year 1, 2, 3 ect).

I havent started the campaign yet, but I am planning a pre-adventure where the pcs save a noble/princes life and in exchange the king gives the pcs the charter to explore the stolen lands. I am looking for a map for this city. It could be Restov, or any city in the area (I was planning on using Absalom, but I know that is far away). Any ideas on a city that has a published map that would fit the bill? I was hoping for it to be a large city, to justify the players being able to go there if I need to run some large city adventures.

Also I wanted to reiterate how useful I as a dm find this type of thing... I read the first two stories in the back of the adventure paths and shrugged... not sure what they were supposed to do to improve my game. But this type of narration of what the players see provides me a simple and effective way to think about how my sessions will go. Sometimes I read an adventure 2-3 times and still dont get a sense for the flow or the things that happen in between encounters. A resource such as this helps me be a better DM. I think :)

So, thanks

Im reading t fyi, got your site bookmarked. We are about to start in a month or so, and its nice to read your story before I dm mine. Very well written!

But don't skimp on the kingdom events.

Totally agree. I loved reading the events in the second book and think my players will love these. The slain townsfolk, the rabble rouser, the cult, as well as the random events were all AMAZING ideas and will definetely help give the immersion I'm looking for.

Maybe every time they get back, a simple updated map of where the grainary, the armoury or whatever was built would be simple enough to get the feel for the actual building

Hi, Im reading this AP, and really loving it. Planning to play it in a few months. I am stuck however on how to run the Kingdom building and would like to hear some advice/discussion.

Heres what Im thinking:

-handwaving the kingdom building, this has the advantage of being quick and simple, while Im sure my players will LOOOOOVE having a kingdom, I doubt they want to spend an hour every couple games spending build points. We don't really like rules, or rulebooks, we play a more story based D&D (thats why we ran away from 4th), and part of me thinks this type of resource tracking will just make the sessions worse.

-running the kingdom building as described, I would normally do this, except for whats mentioned above. I like the amount of options available to the players, things and buildings that we would never think of, and this method might drive home MORE that its a real kingdom, especially since I doubt I have the abilities to make it feel like a real kingdom just by storytelling.

-a third way. What is it? Any ideas? Im looking for the players to be as immersed as possible in having a kingdom, witout caring about the rules. I was thinking something like every month or so they give their general orders to the mayor, but how does the mayor keep track of what can be done? Maybe Im following the rules in the background.... I was also thinking it would be cool if we used some video game (a la simcity) and just allowed 10 minutes of play a month :) We play with a tabletop lcd projector so this could be doable, if there was a fantasy building game that sufficed.

Anyways, Im a rule breaker, we wing things all the time, but Im just looking for feedback/ideas with this. How did following the rules work in your campaign? What did you change?

Thanks for your feedback!

Couple years later, I'm running the Kingmaker path, and I still disagree. The only reason I get these adventures is that I don't have the time to make my own. So often I rush to a session with little but some of the monsters strategies, a hook, and some general layout in my mind. I use the italicized descriptions to describe what the room looks. Still bugs me when 3 out of 4 of my players (and often myself) have no idea what several of the words in the description mean.

I was just laughing at the idea that Tureen and Marzipan are two words that are commonly used. As I was saying years ago I suspect that they might not be as commonly used as some former Dungeon subscribers might think. So I thought of a simple test, I did a search in google for "tureen marzipan", I mean these words are so common that they should be all over the Internet right?

http://www.google.ca/search?q=tureen+marzipan&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8& ;aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

See you guys next year. I'll have to subscribe to a new AP so I can complain about something.

Actually I have a few of the APs and wow. Too bad my group is playing 4E now...

As a side question, wouldn't it be easy for Paizo to create generic adventures that are really just stories and then provide a second booklet with stats for the different systems (e.g. pathfinder or 4.0)

I mean all I ever used dungeon for was the maps and the stories anyways, I guess that depends on the DM, my monsters die when I want them to, and they do enough damage to scare my pcs, other then that I don't need much stats :) Just cool story.

As Bill Dunn points, the Delve format is not specifically a Dungeon crawl but instead a style or layout used in adventures (any adventure) thats meant to emphasize ease of use during tactical encounters. This comes with a price in terms of ease of use and understanding outside of the encounters. Grander over arcing plot lines are harder for the DM to follow and hence its more difficult for the DM to riff off the material and modify the over arcing plot lines and such.

My feeling is the format is great for the DM thats time pressed and is happiest to just figure out what the players next three or four encounters are going to be shortly before play. The Delve Format will make that style of DMing a snap.

On the other hand it really does not easily lend itself to modification so if your the kind of DM that wants to take such material and incorporate your own significant spin on it. Maybe by converting it to a different campaign setting or maybe you want to step back and look at how the actions of the PCs and monsters are going to interact with the politics of nearby cities or sum such.

Essentially the Delve format locks the encounters down so they really need to play out as described. Thats great for a DM thats short on prep time and was not planning on modifying them any way and hard on the DM that looks at adventures more as a frame work and plans to put some kind of spin on them to suite his or her own tastes or campaign.

Interesting. I think the Delve format is similar to what D&D is currently doing with their adventures. The whole section just for encounters makes it feels like a mini game.

I want a cool story, a cool hook, an original idea and and adventure that puts it all together (just like paizo always did in Dungeon, but without the 3 extra pages of fluff).

I sometimes look through my old dungeons ( I have almost all of them) and when I am sifting through to find adventures I have to skip past the first page and a half every time. It's always some story about how a hundred years ago some NPC found an item and yada yada the the NPC or the item is in this adventure. I have my own campaign with my own backstory, I'd just like the adventure please :) Isn't that the whole point of a generic setting?

...
The price of this being that it makes the material difficult to follow or understand in its larger context. Its unusually difficult, with the Delve format, to figure out where all the encounters fit into the adventures over all plot line.

In any case those who would agree with you, and hence would like what the Delve format does, have likely moved on, by and large, leaving behind an even higher concentration of posters that like history lessons and big words with their adventures - Paizo's APs obviously cater to such tastes.

I think you summed it up quite well. I have noticed a different type of adventurer/reader from Paizo, I can't imagine the average roleplayer lining up to be part of a Adventuring "Society", my how prestigious. I am obviously looking for something different then what Paizo offers.

If by delve format you mean dungeon crawls, I would say that the reason I loved many Paizo adventures was that they were not dungeon crawls.
The many players I know and DM for do not want Dungeon crawls, they want interesting situations to roleplay in. Interesting encounters are the goal, but history and vocabulary lessons are something I'd like to avoid.

And just to put the word out there for adventure writers (although I think I said this a year ago)...

I miss the old AEG adventure keep pamphlets, I own them all but I wish they would have kept going.

In 5-6 pages they would cram a full adventure with new ideas, maps, and always had something new and different (an item, monster, npc ect)

That is something I would subscribe to, something I could pick up an hour before my players get to my house. If I wanted an ecyclopedia I would be playing in Forgotten Realms

Wow, someone resurected this thread. As the OP it brings back memories for me, though some of the elitism is a little much.

While I love the work Paizo used to do with Dungeon, I sometimes felt that along with vocabulary, it just felt like the authors were trying to be TOO grand. Too often I would find a 2-3 paragraph history lesson with an otherwise GREAT adventure. How many of your adventures felt the need to explain the history from "hundreds of years ago" in a fake and generic setting?

I wonder, how much of the setting, history, vocabulary ect, that you print is said to the player anyways. Does the average player of this 5 star adventure (Prince of Redhand) hear the word "Marzipan"? I would bet your average DM skips that readout, and instead focuses on playing a great and unusual adventure that for once does not involve combat.

I modify my adventures a lot. I can add my own flavour to my campaign. What I find hard to do is make INTERESTING scenarios that involve alternative, original solutions. I also find it hard to make scenarios that are genuinely exciting, swinging off of chandeliers, not clearing dungeons. That is why I used to subscribe.

I find that reading through pages of history lessons and over descriptive text, crowd what I am really looking for, a core ideas that my players will have fun with.

Does anyone know a reference for an Armour and Shield system a little different then standard D&D?

I am looking for a shield system where the player rolls to see if he blocks the attack. And an armour system where the armour has hitpoints. Nothing TOOOO complicated, but just to add a little bit of flavour.

Hi, in my last adventure my players did some good roleplaying and won a "story" award, 4 dragon hatchlings. Two of my players worship Bahamut, and one of my PC's is a half dragon, so I think these hatchlings may be a major campaign theme.

I have some ideas for them:

- the players find the local cleric of Bahamut to help them rear them for a year or so while the players adventure, this way by the time they reach level 10 or so the players can use them as cohorts/mounts

- the players find some druid that can fashion them some sort of statuette to summon them, (yeah, just like Guinivere in the Drizzt novels)

- one of the hatchlings turns evil, and a campaign arc will be to destroy/turn him with the help of his brothers

- each dragon hatchling turns into a different colour, maybe I can give them each different powers to add to the flavour.

Anyways, I am looking for ideas to use these things in a campaign, in a fun not too game breaking sort of way. Anyone got ideas?

I have always noticed these two classes to be overpowered in 3.5.

Most of my players have complained about these two classes overshadowing the wizard and being pretty good at martial fighting to. Of course this could just be my campaign.

I am wondering if Pathfinder has took any steps to fix this possible issue.

It's a White dragon, I guess that fits the frozen dungeon theme. Thanks for the help so far!

I am running a quick self made adventure for a group at Level 4, and I am looking for some help. Here is the story,

They have been asked by an NPC (Helvec) to climb a mountain and kill a dragon. Helvec has also loaned them an NPC Warrior (Dart) to help them in their quest. They know that Helvec hates dragons and wants them wiped off the face of the earth, but they do not know how mad he really is. This adventure is going to be used to make them question whether to continue following Helvec or resist him and possibly defeat him.

Below is the Dragons dungeon.

Room 1 - There is an interesting pool, what should I put in it?

Room 2 - I think this is a good spot for a trap? how about you?

Room 3 - Treasure and a dead dragon. If the players do not notice the secret door, Dart will. See Dart knows that they were not sent to kill a Dragon, they have been sent to kill the Dragons offspring.

Room 4 - I think the entrance to this room should have another trap....
In this room is where the intrigue starts. Dart will immediately want to kill the hatchling dragons. I expect the cleric of Bahamut or the Dragonborn PC to have a problem with this. This adventure can end two ways, either the PC's allow Dart to kill the hatchlings or they decide that this is an evil plot and resist.

Any ideas how I can make this more interesting? What should I put in room 1 and 2?

The dungeon map is here -> http://sportnet.ca/temp/A3draglair.jpg

Notes on the map, The tile was taken from a battlemap product that I own I make no copyright claims whatsoever on this product. To purchase the tile, go here http://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufactur ers_id=6&products_id=561. I intentionally lowered the resolution because I realize that these people are trying to sell their product..

I am looking for an adventure where the PC's climb a mountain to kill a dragon. I have most of the Dungeons and can order any adventures that fit the bill. I am able to tailor enough of the adventure to fit, but I am just looking for a cool storyline/encounters on the way to kill a dragon.

Anyone know of any adventures that fit the bill?

PS - the adventure can be from any system.

My players are just about finishing an adventure and I want to give them a reward (or rather a powerful NPC wants to give them a reward). I remember a cool artifact in the Age of Worms Path, it was a fountain that gave you a blessing and a curse, so like +2 to Dex but you also got some negative. It was one of the highlights of the AP for our group. So I am looking for something LIKE this? Anyone got any ideas or remember anything cool from old adventures or issues of dragon/dungeon (I have a big collection, I just don't know where to look).

So I am looking for some kind of artifact that gives the PC's a one time random boon. (Doesnt actually have to be random... just cool and different).

Well this story ends well. I found out Amazon will take my return with postage FREE.

I felt bad abandoning 4E, but I kind of felt like wizards screwed me and my group. We were so pumped up by all the computer/high tech stuff in these manuals, and then we find out they don't even have a character generator! I bought this game for DNDInsider and the computer aspect of everythin, and I was thinking I am going to have to wait months for this feature? Then I see Pathfinder as a free PDF (not to mention there are already many pdf versions of 4e around). So, I sent back my core books. I emailed my group, gave them a heads up so they might too.

Too bad I sold all my 3E books for 20 bucks. But then again, I wanted to make the jump to pdf anyways. Less crap around my house, searchable content, and I get to read the product before I buy it so no more bait and switches, unbeatable.

Well, I bought the core books for 4E and the first adventure. I convinced my group to buy them. We sold a lot of our books too... And then we read 4e. Quite simply it does not feel like D&D, and it seems like rules are more important then ever.

Anyways, I will probably also buy the Pathfinder Handbook when it comes out, maybe that will be our new system. I am very dissapointed with Wizards, I think the last straw is them publishing Dungeon this month without an intro adventure (no doubt to boost sales of their published adventure..)

We had a great adventure the other night, which basically revolved around exploring some caves, a medusa and some nagas. Basically the whole thing reminded me how cool monster can make a fun night. I am definetely a story DM, but my players LOVED the simple adventure with interesting monster for a change.

So, anyone know any cool monsters and possible some adventure scenarious I could follow up with?

My players just fled a village to go to the city of Ptolus. They fled a small army led by an inquisitor that is eliminating wizards and magic users ect.

Anyways, one of my players is an Oathsworn (from Arcana Evolved). He made an Oath that he would kill this inquisitor. I never expected this, I was just looking for a reason to drive them to Ptolus because I heard it was a good setting. Anyways I need an adventure where they can do this, hopefully a fun one. Anyone know of any that would fit?

The players are currently 4th level, but they might not end up doing it till later so anything 4th - 12th level would be good.

Any ideas?

Im looking for some programs to run on my laptop while we are playing. Im particularly interested in anything that will help with combat (keep track of this ect). I have tried DM's familiar and liked it, but I just want to see if there is anything comparable and free instead.

Anyone have suggestions?

I have the first issue right here.... I cant seem to find a summary of the campaign.. what page?

Oh, I found them, hidden in the world pages as sidebars...

Thanks!

I really like having the city watch arrest them instead. Maybe Viktor tries to frame THEM.

But the PC's hiring Viktor would be a little difficult. Unless I railroaded them I would imagine they'd want to do the investigation themself. Plus it would probably feel a little hokey if the detective ended up being the murderer

Im thinking maybe he kills the father. Then his other murders continue just like chimes at midnight. The players know its the same murderer (same style ect), so thats there hook into chimes... But I will definetely have the watch bust the pc's, that will really anger them :)

Thanks for the ideas!

Is there a summary (like AOW Overload) available? I need to know where the campaign is going before I commit. Im about to start a campaign in a few days, but if this one looks good I might just switch to this and subscribe.

I particularly want to know what type of adventures Im getting myself into. Is it mostly dungeon, urban, wilderness ect.

I just think when they are intervieiwing him in the prison their needs to be a revelation. Like "you notice he has a ring with the enchantment aura on it". Or they push Viktor around untill he confesses that he hypnotized a guard, and that guard is the Raven ect. I just want my players to know it is really Viktor. As it is written they might finish the adventure thinking that Viktor has little to do with it and I want to make sure that doesn't happen.

But, yeah, that is easily solved.

Ok so here is how I want to use these adventures. I am starting a new campaign. Three of the pc's are brothers, they all picked the Giant race from Arcana Evolved. They live in a small town, and they have to flee to the city of Ptolus. They choose to flee to Ptolus because their father lives there and it is a safe place from "evil inquisitors". It will probably take them 4 levels to get to Ptolus (I am using the first 2 adventures of "The burning sky campaign").

When they get to Ptolus, they find out their father has been murdered, or will be murdered shortly. I want the hook for "Chimes at midnight" to be "Who killed our father?".

Any ideas on how to change the adventure to make it fit this? Why would Viktor kill their father? Maybe he works for the noble who angered him? Maybe their father is part of the Guild that he was applying for? I didnt really want their father to be powerfull/rich though. Maybe their father died as a caravan guard when Viktor freed his allies.... any other ideas?

Also how would I make sure Viktor lives so that I can reuse him in "Quoth the Raven"? I was thinking maybe a city watch NPC finds a murder confession and busts in on the adventurers as they are fighting Viktor, the NPC would then force an arrest. One of my PC's is a champion of Death, and I am pretty sure he will want to kill Viktor outright.

Just fishing for ideas :) Thanks if you have any!

Well that's lame - You should have at least given Viktor a Power Ring forged out of vibranium or something to explain it...

Hah, well even if I might agree I would never say that to Mr. Logue, because you make wicked cool adventures. BUT I will say Ill need to insert something like a ring or a spell or psionics ect. With my players, if there wasn't a reason they would NEVER piece together that Viktor had anything to do with it, and therefore much of the coolness of the adventure would be wasted. In fact I find that a great many dungeon adventures require me taking subtleties and highlighting them for my adventurers. Sometimes I wonder what other peoples campaigns are like if I have to "dumb down" published adventures.... shrug.

Anyways, a couple minor changes and this is going to be epic for my players. I am making viktors first kill a relative.

I read the adventure a couple times, maybe I missed it as I scanned through Eberron parts that I wasn't intersted in, but I just specifically searched for it.... Anyways

What does viktor have to do with this? And how has he freed people if he has been in prison?

Thanks, Im sure I missed the answer in the adventure........

I'm about to run a Ptolus campaign, I also have the SCAP hardcover. I am just wondering if there are any chapters that would be easily ported to a different city. I am looking for urban adventures, I really don't want to put my players through the "evil demon has some sort of a plan involving a prophecy campaign again" (we just finished AOW.)

Any good urban plots in SCAP I should take a look at?

I made xp really easy for AOW. And now at the almost end of the campaign I think it worked really well. Here were the simple rules:

Everyone starts and gains levels at the same time
If you die and are res'd you lose a level (gain it back after 2 levels)
If you reroll a character you start one level lower
We did some house rule stuff for XP sacrifice in magic items ect

And thats it! It is so much easier to say ok, you finished prince of redhand, you gain 2 levels!