monkey-x's page

im really looking forward to seeing what you guys are gonna do for the last few issues of both magazines, sad as i am to see them go. btw thanks for getting the modrons back to 3.5 before you went. cant wait now for demonomicon in 149.

im so shocked at reading the statement. ive been buying dragon magazine for for so long now that i cant envision not getting any more issues. i will take a look at pathfinder but i haveta say that still being only halfway thru age of worms it'd be so long before i might use em that i really hope they can justify 20 bucks a month.

hey. ive been asked to pull up some info on heraldry and coats of arms. i believe an at least one article contained a lot of info about this but i cant remember which. my decades worth of dragons are all boxed up so i was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this please? i tend to remember i was around the intro of either 3.0 or 3.5 ed.

wow. its only after reading this thread that i actually see just how long we have been playing AOW. i think we started about a year ago and the group just encountered zyrog at the end of HoHR. we average 2 sessions a week at around 3-4 hours each. the only drawback i have about playing such a great campaign is that i can see how savage tide is going and want to play that too. gahh.

ok im DM'ing the AOW adventures and one of my players has a dread necromancer, the question is when he finally reaches 20th lvl and becomes a lich does he gain any new addition abilities or has he gained them all thru lvl progression. just looking for some confimation please.

i work in a store that sells DVDs so my copy of invasion is already put aside. i dont know if the guys in the US have seen how cool this release is gonna be. episodes 1+4 were lost and have been animated with the audio track. it looks really cool too.

yup the hand is the doctors', hope something is made of this later. a cameo by lethbridge-stewart would be sooooo cool, he would have retired from unit by now with bambera being the lass in charge there. i must say im warming up to the series more now so hopefully by ep 13 were gonna have a great show. oh and btw... erik mona's a who fan????? wow, super cool :)

episode 3 was an improvement but it doesnt have the sytuff i wanna know yet. where was jack from originaly?(not 1944) howd he get a time ship? i really hoping that these and other more who-lonked questions are answered. i am a little annoyed that the whole cyberman-dalek battles throughout the world were just excused as a government ploy. hmm. thats kinda stupid that the entire population that had ghost living with them for months just dismissed the whole thing. fingers crossed for episode 4

huuugely dissapointed by torchwood. was really looking forward to it after being a long time who fan. thought episode 1's "plot" was barely strung together, the weavel was wasted in that it had nothing to do with the story i wanted more... whoness. this should have been a show of how regular humans deal with aliens and stuf whilst the doctor isnt around and so far ive found it lacking. as for episode 2...i was bored after 5 minutes. no bloody aliens except a swirly cloud of gas. i think that rusell has swung a bit too far away from who and lost sight of where he came from. im hoping the ep.2 is the clunker episode that both season 1 and 2 of who have suffered (boom town, and that olympics one.) so ill watch ep 3 in the hope that it inproves. fingers crossed

it looked like my groups ranger was gonna try this up until he took the alt ability form PHB 2 and didnt take an animal companion. the baby owl bear sits in the pcs base and chews the furniture for most of the time. the arms and equipment guide does indeed have details on how to train an owlbear so it does seem possible. i think savage species is the way to go to gauge how to handle its progression but id wait a few levels before the owlbear becomes combatative.

your players aren't MMORPG players too are they? ive knownn the powergamer gene to run heavily in that sepcies too. the mirror of opposition seems to be a fantastic idea as it gives the pc some of their own medicine. i also agree with an earlier post that if you decide that kyuss is gonna last at least 3 rnds have him do so. simple as that. i find that my group always find encounters where they survive by the skin of their teeth much more fun than ones they pummel in a round or too. above all though, as long as it's fun play whatever way you want and good luck :)

love the part about the frost bow gift. i hope i can inspire my players to play in character like this. as for the whole non-commital to searching for the guys sister how would you treat this if it was the plot hook to a stand alone adventure? if they know of the underground tunnels but cant be bothered to go look then i say let em have it. if they are playin in the games then let the urgy pop up and start chewing and if the threat of a few thousand wights running around doesnt get em motivated id allow that to happen to as an apocalypse event but allow the pc to fight free and hopefully upping he stakes for later AOW adventures and get em back on track. of course this mean a city of undead but im sure the free city will have a few high levels to clean up the mess.

isle of dread is one of my fondest memories from basic DnD and i sought out the original one year at Gencon just for nostagia purposes. the new STAP is something im really looking to and the idea of running X1 first is a really interesting one but mite ruin the impact of all those cool dinosaurs when they are bound to show up. just as a note my best memory was when our group finished the adventure and was allowed to go dino-hunting. the fighter was swallowed whole by a t-rex but used a Horn of blasting in it guts to get free. ahhh memories...( drys eyes)

heh. all it needs now is for Erik to announce that the book is indeed a Dark Sun revival and all this discussion will be for nothing. to be honest ill buy it pretty much whatever it may be as i try and get anything put out by core Wotc. if i ever get to use it is another matter with age of worms and savage tide most likely gonna take up all my gaming time. as for Wotc not supporting Greyhawk, techinically any non- eberron or FR book can be seen as a adding to the setting. Scuttle cove in vile darkness being in the new adventure path, saltmarsh in DMG 2 these and more are greyhawk locales that can be used in a campaign.

as someone who has never played thru any version of castle greyhawk id like to see something official but even thou Erik is a fantastic writer i do feel a little sad that mr Gygax wouldnt have something to do with it. admitidly we're not even sure if it is the castle being written. all i can say is that if it's and official WOTC Greyhawk product with nice FR masthead and everything then id be very happy indeed.

i have 2 player each with 2 pc's and myself playing a DM druid. i have to agree with the last guy that a rogue is almost essential in the first adventure as there are a lotta traps that can make the cairn quite tough. we are just about to start blackwall keep and so far no one has died ( two pcs came close) and the ranger has just gained his alternate ability from the PHB 2 that gives him a distracting attack that means that he and the rogue are owning a lot of the non-undead creatures in the adventures.

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.

a PDF is coming right???? being in th UK id not really wanna order it because the cost of the P&P outways the book itself. please say this'll be soon.

i just read this 3 pages in and i HAVE TO KNOW. im crossing my fingers for a nice proper 3.5 greyhawk book. im sure we will get lots more hints (PLEASE!!!!) before its arrival.

yup check out civil war 3. as for cap being on the side of the rebels in gues thats where he stands for LIBERTY and justice. hes has his own concept of this and unfortunatly it conflicts with his shield buddies. i thought i was gonna hate civil war but my comic guy slipped issue one into my monthly parcel and im hooked. as for more Thor if youve not read the Loki mini series then thats worth a look. and i agree that i would be interested in a new series when it arrives.

unless im mistaken the close up of the horseshoe passage is too lon by around 10' when compared to the side view. i must say we did this part 2 nites ago but it played out slightly differently. only 2 pcs ventured into the lowere caves so the snipers waited on firing. a tough battle later they killed the 2 chokers but shouted for help causing the worst ever rolling of climb checks ever. three 1's. anyhow i added a rope to the horse shoe cave so that the other grimlocks could get down to the cavern floor whilst avoiding the chokers cavern.

the lists in the wormfood article are to make the possible use of summoned help more unique rather than just summoning up another celestial whatever. from what i can see thers nothing in the adventure saying that these creatures need to be summoned to kill the big boss guy.there is a possibilty of my group using them but only the cleric has any type of summing speels and im guessing that he will be using them for something else.

thanks for that james. my group now has to face a cleric of zuggy tonite. yay. im glad that this has now been addressed as i really wanted to add more demon lords to my campaign.

ok , i dont know if this is cleared up in the new fiendish codex( waiting for mine to come thru the post)but in the zuggtmoy article it says that clerics worshipping her are possible. now using my best WOTC referance the boook of vile darkness it says that demon lords cannot grant spells to clerics unless they have divine rank 1 which zuggy appears notto have. do all demon lords now have the abilty to grant spells? i would normally just wait til the book arrives but im gonna use this in my game tommorrow nite and wanted to know for sure.

yup i learnt this in art too. a friend of mine painted one with lots of angels in.it surprising how much u can learn from a game like D&D or sci fi. i tend to bewilder people with my knowledge of norse and egyptian gods that i got from the old deities books.

the nearest we got was rolling characters up for an all thief mini-adventure to assault a castle. that took most of the session with 7 players all doing so then the remainder of the session we planned our assault. then next session our regular dm came back and that was it :( sinse the menzobarenzan (sp?) box set i alway wanted to run a totally drow campaign and that is getting more so as i read the war of the spider queen novels. maybe one day.

ahh yep. duh. thanks. gonna make sure that i get that right when we play it. i suppose the ebon triad cult has been active under DL for about the same time so having a spawn running around a few years ago seem plausable.

1 question (and not having the adventure to hand) is it reaaly a few years since the blackwall guard returns to the garrison and is barricaded in the keep? i always assumed that it was no more than a few days before the PCs arrive.

at the moment i plan on having kullen and the gang lording over the ruins of DL after the attack. the initial encounter with the gang didnt end in ant violence with a fantastic intimidate roll being made by the steely-eyed dread necromancer. they need a scuffle to tie up loose ends.

all i can say so far(and we are just finishing up the first adventure) is read all the adventures before hand. this should inprove the flow of the whol AP and if possible make the big reveal at the end of the giant adventure not seem to jarrring if u can forshadow some time before hand ( i plan on having the wind dukes hesitate slighty before attacking as theyu recognise the pcs for what they are). i was wooried that allustan would not be liked by and used by the pcs so play up the connection to him too. if you spent a lot of RP time on diamond lake then yopu should have a great time there.

i was worried that my groups wouldnt advance quicke enough. i think that the characters in AOW are encountering a whole lot of nasties in a relative small area. in my FR campaign a lot of time is used to travel around taking a lot of time. the AOW a largely centrallised with handy telepotation hooks to get the pcs to the locations quickly. i for one am looking forward to my group reaching epic levels for once as this has never happened except in old red box dnd.

just thought id post this to let people know how this is working out
-tomb mote. a regular fight the DrNe sits back whilst the ranger and rogue pummel this thing, the ranger getting infected with disease in the process.
- the skeletons are alerted when the rogue botches 3 open locks rolls! crossbows are fired at the rogue as she opens the door and the rough terreain stops her and the ranger getting to them in a round of movement. the DrNe controls undead and succeds then uses the the skeletons to search the level with the pcs traing. they come across the zombie banquet and kill em all without activating the magic mouths(shame)
-the group proceeds upstairs and the DrNe instructes the skeleton to remove the coin from the mouth of the trap setting off the alarm. the ranger runs over and throws the head out of the window. by now the contol is wearing off so the pcs spend the next few round destroying the skels so the y dont turn on them. they then search the room.
- filge is alerted by the alarm and the sounds of battle. he retreats the behind the tank in the SE corner his skel next to him and casts mage armor and waits. the rogue sneaks to the top of the stairs and filge misses his spot roll so they know where he is. The pcs line up on the stairs and the rogue fires at filge missing him. filge realeases the zombies from the teanks( i wanted this to be as dramatic as possible so i didnt do this whilst the pcs were down stairs). the ranger rushes to engage a zombie followed by the druid. On the DrNe turn he attempts to control the skeleton and succeds.
next round filge takes a 5ft step from the skel and cast mage hand instructing a zombie to take the space between him and the skel. whilst the ranger and druid take damage from the zomibies the rogue shoots filge and the DrNe makes the skel attack the zombie. a few more round of combat has the druid severly beeten failed turning attempts from the cleric and a few more bow shots into filge.
the DrNe decides to try a control attempt and roll his best possible roll enought to control the bugbear and 2 of the trogs whilst stil controlling the skel. they advance upon filge and on his initative he decide to surrender( hes on 4 hp and facing very bad odds)they question him and allow him to live telling him to research more about the worm he has and leave him in the observatory without his spell book and the express instructions not to create more undead.
i think the encounter gave each pc a moment to shine and thew DrNe may have made a tough encounter a little easier but no more really than a good turning attempt by a cleric. considering the limited spell list he has im happy for the DrNe to continue to do what he does best.

i told the ranger in my group to take undead as a favoured enemy at first lvl because i didnt want him to waste the ability in the early adventures( he usually takes goblins). from now though im gonna let him decide what to choose, hopefully making his decision based on past encounters.

i really like the new feats. lots of them have a high prerequisite (+12 base attack etc) so will be more usefull to high level characters than a +1 on weapon focus etc.
no major spells that i had to add to my groups spell lists like i did the day after i got the spell compendium bt im sure one or two will make there way into the campaign. the altenate class features are ok for a little flavour and i know the ranger pc in the group is gonna take distraction because he and the party thief have a double team shortbow thing going. this is gonna make them super effective.:)

my druid is looking to take the MOMF class but im a little confused about the improved wild shape ability. normal wild shape allows you to take the form of a creature that is the same HD as you so when i hit MOMF 2nd lvl does this also mean that my giant form can only have the same HD too? this would be around 7HD if i take MOMF as soon as possible. are there 7HD giants ?

excellent. im looking forward to this as so far the poor dready has been outshone by both bow wielding ranger and thief. the necromancer is only lvl 2 so i doubt it will make too much trouble but i cant see him letting them go afterwards either once he is shown that this is what he can do. ill let everyone know how it works out in the end.

i have a dread necromancer in my group and we are just about to hit the observatory in the whispering cairn. this is really the first encounter with undead so the guy is so gonna start commanding undead, my question is this, does he just need to command them using a normal turning check is is there some kind of opposing roll for filge because he is the one that created the? im guessing that the former is true. help would b gateful but i got 2 weeks now to figure it out due to holiday.

the way i plan on doing this is not to make any rolls except those that effect the characters. compare the teams before hand and decide who you would like to see win between them and have that happen as long as the pcs dont intervene. you should know by the beginning of the battle which groups are allied with the pcs (if any) so its a good bet that they wont be attacked by them.if u roll every attck that doesnt directly effect he PCs then this will slow down to a crawl and be very uninteresting. better to describe the fighting going on around them and taking a few hp off of targets later on in the fight to suggest the fighting they have been in. maybe someone who has run CB can help more.

1982, i was 7 and my friend got the basic red box for his 9th birthday. my character was handed to me as he rolled up one of each calss for the group. he was a thief called Keldar T Sly. i cnat remember which modules we played first, as my first memeories come from Isle of Dread. i remember escaping on a raft from loads of lizardmen down a set of river rapiids and remember after we completed the adventure we decided to go dinosaur hunting for XP and the fighter was swallowed by a T-rex which he killed by using a horn of blasting in its stomach. cnat remember what happened to Keldar but i know i had 3 characters in basic, the other 2 being clerics. the greatest of these was fleetwood dragonslayer who i took all the way from 1st to 36th lvl and ended his career in vengeance of alphaks as the keeper of the green realm after being reincarnated into a halfling after distracting a room full of wizards for the rest of the party. then we moved AD&D...

i almost expected theis to happen with my PCs, trying to give them an open ended start so instead i gave each pc a quick background linking them to some of the others and had the thief overhear a tale in the emporium about the adventurers and aquire a map to the area. session one started with the group meeting at the mine office ready to head into the cairn. as u already started the sessions i would suggest thatsomeone needs to employ the pcs for any of the above reasons but giving them enough motivation (the promice of greater treasure) to not stop dead when the small task is over. so when they rescue the child or whatever they decide that there may be gold in them thar hills and enough of it to make their lives better and maybe get them out of the lake.

monkey-x wrote:

of course u also need a buyer. we just spent a lot of the last session haggling over prices at Tidwards cos he buys non jewels at 30-50% of there value. the more the pcs move around town lookin to sell stuff the more diamond lake seem to live. we didnt rool anything except bluff, sense motive and diplomacy checks all session. its nice once in a while and hopefully later events have the required impact.

Okay, now I'm just confused once again. If the PCs get the rusted Skeleton armor which is worth 100 gp and go to Osgood's do they PCs get 50 gp or 100 gp? Which is it?

And what about those statuettes which are "each worth 200 gp". If the PCs bring those to Tidwoad's do they get 200 gp per statuette or do they only get "30%-50%" of their true value and instead only get 60-100 gp per statuette? I am confused.

this is exactly what happened. tidward was happy to pay 45 gp for the ruby worth 50 but didnt really want to pay anything like the 200 gp for each of the statuettes so at this point in time they have held onto them until they can fiund a private buyer. if u wnat to make things simple then by all means payout the full GP worth for non magical treasure i just like playing the stubborn NE gnome.

of course u also need a buyer. we just spent a lot of the last session haggling over prices at Tidwards cos he buys non jewels at 30-50% of there value. the more the pcs move around town lookin to sell stuff the more diamond lake seem to live. we didnt rool anything except bluff, sense motive and diplomacy checks all session. its nice once in a while and hopefully later events have the required impact.

my group just hit 2nd lvl in the middle of whispering cairn and i let them lvl there and then. we just make the assumption that the character is practices and researching during all there off time and slowly gained an insight. it easy to assume if u just spent the last 2 day shooting arrows then u get better at it. i am thinkin of using the old system that chaosims call of cthulhu used which is when a PC used a skill it is ticked and only ticked skills can be improved. also measn that a lot of characters are now using more of there skills in the course of an adventure :)

Unholy Toughness-I know it's been discussed previously-but I can't find the thread-what is it exactly and what book is it in?

i believe its in liber mortis

we all konow that greyhawk is used so newbies can just use the core rule books to run some kick-a$$ adventures. i decided to run AOW in greyhawk even tho ive palyed FR for nearly 15 years. im now really looking forward to another set of adventures set in greyhawk to expand my knowledge of this
very cool world.

mad gods key had vecna cultists in it ans i believe there was an adventure with an awakened gargantuan toad in it that had vecna bad boys as well. this one maybe?

season 2 started last night. very good episode all in all. tennant is still growing to be one of my favourites. preview for episode 2 looks amazing. queen victoria, martial arts monks and werewolves :)

in our group im the only one who buys books so i introduce the players. whn we roled up the AOW pc i gave acces to the phb, the complete books and heroes of horror after one guy wanted to play a specialist necromancer wizard but changed his mind to the dread necromancer instead. in looking to add more stuff from heroes of horror and liber mortis and gonna give some weapons of legacy to the group too. added a huge lump of spell compendium spells to the druid, clerics and rangers spell list a few days after getting that too. after spending out for the books i do try and use em as much as i can.

But not Canada ... season 2 starts in the UK this week, but it won't be on the CBC until Sept/Oct ... oh well.

My kids (6 and 8) love the new Doctor Who, so I dug up some old episodes, and they like it too! Whoo hoo!

excellent, i used to watch who when davidson was doc then didnt like it when they changed( the 6th doc is one of my favorites now) and apart from a few seventh doctor shows i didnt get back into it till the 96 movie. its great to have such a back catalogue of shows top watch new and im glad your children will have this experience.

i played a 2nd ed ravenloft game that drew pcs from all the campaign worlds. we ran feast of goblins but a TPK put an end to it. quite a while after i sentanother group in a FR campaign into the mists and finished feast of goblins after finding the dead bodies of the other guys, they then went on to as the black rose blooms which i thought was great mainly cos lord soth is one of my favorite villains. way before it had the campaign name i played thru both ravenloft and house on griffon hill which were very good but i do remember lotsa deaths. i really like the setting and may look into playing it after the age of works.