namfoodle's page

Geez, sorry I struck a chord for some of you here. this wasn't meant to put down any given setting: in fact, I meant this as a way we could just put in our two cents without getting angry over it. It's fair enough. And for those of you who didn't really like my list of settings, I apologize. It seemed like those were the three people were debating about, and no one really had any problem with some other great ones like Dark Sun and Freeport. I didn't know this would spark such an opposed reaction.

So, basically, I meant this as a simply peaceful outlet for our different gaming interests. For example, Greyhawk is old news, Forgotten Realms is traditional fantasy (though mind you it has been watered down and diluted by all the various additions to it and revisements of it over the years), and Eberron just kinda sucks. But that's called an opinion. No one needs to argue with it, and if we vote correctly the answer about which setting is most popular (I apologize for my wording of "best" previously) should show itself on its own.

nam, provoking your thoughts every day of the week

peace out

Okay, so I read two different threads today about how much people like or dislike the various campaign worlds (Greyhawk, Eberron, and Forgotten Realms).

Instead, let's vote on it. When you post, include a short summation of why you like that campaign setting the best. I'd like to stick to those three, but honestly I really don't care too much.

Alright, I'll kick it off:

I have to vote for Forgotten Realms. It's what I grew up playing, and to me that's classic D&D.

1 Forgotten Realms
0 Eberron
0 Greyhawk

Now it's you guys' (and girls') turn!

I dunno, and maybe this is just me, but my main beef with Eberron is that it's so not D&D. Remember those two things? DUNGEONS and DRAGONS. For heavens sake, it seems like a good old fashioned dungeon crawl with the dragon and the hoard of gold at the end is just too plain for some people. It's always something like "Oh, well, that dragons only CR 16.....so we can take him easy" or "Who needs a hoard of treasure? We all have +5 weapons and more gold than we could drown ourselves with." To me, a dragons a dragon: I don't need a "pulp-noir warforged dragonshard lightning rail" world to make anything cooler. As R.A. Salvator puts it so beautifully in all of his Drizzt books, adventuring is about walking that windy trail with your greatest friends. To me, Eberron seems like a steroid-packed booster shot for everyone who has gotten bored with normal D&D. Which is almost impossible, because hm, let's see, D&D has pirates, tropical islands, the Underdark, the moonsea, all the classic heroes (for me, Drizzt) and a whole variety of other things.

Oh, and the other thing that really makes me mad about Eberron is the drow thing. The drows legacy is a tale of hatred and murder, all ending with their exile to the Underdark. Not no stinkin jungle, no matter how dark it is. The ultimate foes: drow vs. surface elves. Now it's just "surface elves vs....evil surface elves". The Ebberon setting doesn't even have a very cool explanation for the drow. At least with the evil humans, the Vasharan, it's explained that they were the first try (and failed try) of the gods at humanity. That's cool. Drow were made to be in the Underdark; simple as that. And that's not boring; they have an iron fist over most of the Underdark anyways.....okay sorry now i'm just ranting. Alright, well, I gave my bit.

1 vote for Eberron is bad.

peace out
nam

Okay, so I've got a new campaign world going on, with the campaign being based largely around the huge war going on here. But I, not being incredibly high in brainpower, don't really know how many people should be in each army (of which there are about twenty). One main problem is: several of the armies are primarily the undead. How do I know just how many are in their army? It would really help to know these statistics just because then my players would have a somewhat more basic measure of the power and sway of an individual army.

So here are the armies I have:

Angels-large army of celestials trapped on Prime Material Plane, trying to aid Helm's Watchers (see below)

Elves-the remaining elves, who were the first to be targetted by the Cabal (see below). Many were killed.
Dwarves
Aventi-from Stormwrack, the United Resistances underwater allies
Helms Watchers-the god Helm, trying to purge the Prime Material Plane entirely
Devils
The Cabal of Reform-the undead forces, striving to take control of the plane for the sake of......well that's a little complicated. Let's just say it's for the sake of being evil.
Metallic Dragons
Gith
Chromatic Dragons
The Fang-splinter army of the Cabal, headed by vampires
The United Resistance-the remaining mortals, fighting to recover the world from the undead
Beasts-goblinoids, savages in the wilds
Drow
Demons
Jerren-from book of vile darkness
Vashar-from book of vile darkness
The Skulls-think goblinoid pirates

Alright that's the basics of my armies. If you want more information about the setting to help you come up with some sort of numbers, feel free to ask. Any comments on these armies or any different cool armies are welcome. But mostly, I need any ideas on how big these armies should be.

nam out

P.S.: Any armies I didn't elaborate on are just what it says (i.e. Dwarves, Drow). Thanks.

Well, Nevermore is working on the construction of fortresses known as Darkprism Pylons across the globe, which will increase the range of the necromantic energy in his primary weapon (think Death Star) called the Deathlegion Prism.

Maybe Darkprism? I don't know for sure. Any other thoughts or ideas?

Thanks for reading the stuff on my thread, I really appreciate any feedback.

Anyway, you already read about my homebrew world (although I really barely scratched the surface), but I thought I might just share another little interesting tidbit about it with you.

The campaign I plan on running in about two-three months will revolve around a new form of life that has appeared during the war with Nevermore, called the On'thalgu. Though they seem at first sinister, with their ability to spontaneously shapeshift and their tendency to absorb all the light around them, they are discovered to be actually a totally nonreliant, pure form of life that was the original "blueprint" of humanity when the gods created the multiverse (Ao, or whatever creation myth your particular world has).

It'll be sort of a thing where the players are battling these seemingly evil creatures, then must side with them to defeat the true enemy.

Should be cool.

By the by, I have like thirty pages (at least) of stuff on this campaign, so if anyone wants any info at all, just post questions and comments on the "Name My Setting....Two!!!" thread I started.

I just love chatting about stuff I've written!

nam out

Must....fight......for........air.....

Okay, anybody have input?

Hey yeah so the recent Name My Setting thread seemed like a really good idea, especially since I have my own problem naming my setting. So, I'd appreciate any feedback at all (I would prefer naming feedback, but even comments on my setting concept are welcome).

Okay, so in the beginning of this world, all was normal (think Forgotten Realms or generic setting such as presented in core books). Then, app. 250 years ago, everything changed. The overlord Tineri Yuloth went crazy killing all his subjects in a massive genocide, and then turned out to be an ancient evil vampire lord named Nevermore. So anyways, he gets "killed" by an adventuring party, and vanishes.

Ten years later, the worlds climate drops twelve degrees in one month. This catastrophic drop in temperature brings about great cataclysms (i.e. earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.). Nevermore returns, with an army of undead from his genocide and the natural disasters.

This is pretty condensed, I have like ten pages of special rules and a timeline and other fun stuff, if you want to see any of it let me know. But basically, this is now a world at war, with about twenty official armies and several major deities involved in the conflict. The world is completely locked down from the rest of the multiverse, so is basically a bottled up plane of conflict.

Again, any and all feedback is appreciated. Also, if you have any questions that would help you figure something out, feel free to post away.

Wow, thank you for making this thread, Sel Carim (and nice avatar, by the way ; )).

I have to say my group doesn't fully appreciate the freedom of D&D. Many of them continue to play it as though it were a videogame and the only thing that matters is getting more powerful, beating the boss, and getting to that next level.

But if nothing else, we have learned to function as a team, at least most of us. The healer is the healer, the thief is the thief, etcetera. Of course, with a group of up to seven players like mine, it can be hard to be diverse. But at least we TRY. And that's the beauty of D&D. It's not a main character, it's a party of characters. No one deserves more attantion, and it ruins the game when the DM focuses on one player. A wise man once told me, playing D&D is like playing in a Dixieland jazzband; every part has its place, and its importance at certain points (even the director).

Anyone who says playing is a waste of time just needs to play a good game, not a powergame. And if that doesn't work, a good punch in the head will do just fine.

nam out

Perhaps I should clarify. I wish that there were more.....abstract things about Kyuss. He is completely created from the rules. This is okay, but part of the awesomeness about, say, Adimarchus, was that he had, even as just a singular entity, many facets. His two different forms was just classic, to use an example. Maybe I shouldn't be comparing the campaigns, but I felt AoW was let down. Still a great adventure, but I for one didn't feel the......how to put this....climacticity of it (oh yeah, I'm makin words on this one).

Sorry again for my impatience....I just like answers.

Let's go people....no one noticed this too?

I would really prefer not to need to necessarily /remove/ any variables aiding against Kyuss; I simply wish that there were more of them, spanning back through the campaign: some sort of more in depth aid from the Wind Dukes other than what has been presented (i.e. the Rod of Seven Parts), for example. Also, I would have liked more of a magnificent lead-up to the final confrontation. This isn't a criticism per se; more like I want more of this great stuff. Has anyone else with the magazine thought of anything to add?

Agreed. I apologize, I didn't expect those of us who haven't yet recieved the issue to be able to respond: moreso i am curious if anyone else has had this dilemma who has already recieved the issue, and what are their thoughts? Nonetheless, I appreciate any input.

Come on....I seriously need help. No input?

Alright, so I just got Issue 135 (with my interest being in the AoW Adventure Path), and a quick readthrough left me unsatisfied. I am unhappy with the conclusion; for example, SCAP ended with several pages of continued plot hooks, whereas there is none of this for AoW (barring a couple of paragraphs). Aside from that, a scan of Kyuss himself left me unconfident, even with my brutal, merciless DM ability, that he would hold up. He is fought with no allies (unless they come from lower levels of the spire) and I thought that the artifacts were too great an advantage, despite the risks of using them. While I appreciate the different variables they've given for weakening Kyuss, I think there were too many. With him taking a full round to exit the tower, I don't know how he will survive. I mean, the person with the sphere of annihilation can take out half his hit points in one fell swoop.

I for one would've liked to see a more epic battle (I came close to weeping openly at the awesomeness of the battle against Adimarchus, for example), with less focus on variables towards weakening Kyuss and more focus on chances to use Authority Points, help save Alhaster, and just coolness factor in general.

Thoughts?

nam

Don't worry about the Champions Games dungeon. It's a big dungeon, but it's explored pieces at a time.....except when you get down to the depths of it, and even then it's not that big.

In your situation, I'd be more worried about A Gathering of Winds. That is one #&$* of a big dungeon, and talk about encounter after encounter....

Overall though, I'd say AoW definitely. Saving the world, as opposed to saving a city. Whatever; that's just my opinion. As far as roleplaying goes, you're not gonna do any better than Prince of Redhand. I tell you, that is one good adventure.

Yes, and the cataclysm is caused by a hyperactive dwarven/gnome-made super robot with levels in sorcerer, who has recently attained the power of a deity and wishes to rain havoc on his creators (by destroying the entire multiverse).

Hey, I was browsing this board, you know, just reading up on the subject, and I thought of an idea.

I was looking at the issue from somewhat of the other side than you all have been viewing it, and my idea's a little out there, so bear with me.

What if, as they grow in power, a characters damage increases?

Now, for those of you that contend that a commoner should still be able to kill a tenth level were-bear dwarven barbarian with your average kitchen knife, then this won't work so well.

However, using a system like this would show the difference between your average joe swinging a stick and a highly trained warrior with a longsword.

Now, I've never actually constructed a system like this; the idea just sort of popped into my head. But you could say that higher "damage-dealing" classes (such as fighter, barbarian, rogue, and ranger) would get class bonuses on damage as well as attack.

If your contention is that hit points represent a characters ability to dodge, then this would show these classes ability to not only hit, but to hit hard.

There are problems with this system, and I might be an idiot for mentioning it even, but what do you all think?

Well, it's been about nine long months of battles, trudges through dungeons, arguments over rules, and dealing with all manner of powerful creatures; finally, we battle Dragotha.

My group was so excited to fight him that to set up the meeting with almost all of them, all I had to do was call each of them and say, "Dragotha. Showdown. Right now." They came running.

Yeah they're about halfway through with him. Possible spoilers.......
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By some sort of severe experience miscalculation, my players had an average party level of 21 when they reached the Tabernacle of Worms. So, to make up for this (I'm very cruel) I had Balakardes prediction come true: every guardian of the Tabernacle was in the Writhing Sanctum, because they were forewarned of the party's presence and motives by the ulgurstasta N'vesh-N'Kar. Yes, this includes about 10 avolakia, Mahuudril, Venk, Zyrith, and Dragotha himself. That's an encounter level of I think about 32....in hindsight, that was probably against the eighth amendment of the constitution (at least I think that's the cruel and unusual punishment one). Anyway, by some dang well thought out tactics, timely uses of the "delay death" spell, and a few lucky rolls, they've got Dragotha on his own. Still, a TPK is always a possibility nonetheless. ;')

Wowza, I guess I must have moved through this campaign pretty fast. Here my group is, about halfway through the desperate battle with Dragotha in "Into the Wormcrawl Fissure":

4th level ninja, 8th level favored soul, 10th level heartwarder female gloaming (that's right; 22nd level)

19th level wizard male gnome

20th level barbarian male human

2nd level demon lineage, 4th level wizard, 4th level cleric, 10th level warweaver male gnome

8th level paladin, 10th level vassal of Bahamut male aasimar

7th level paladin, 10th level divine crusader male human

Booyah.

I'm actually quite happy with his CR, because my players are, apparently, really stupid. I gave them a little teaser about how tough it would be (aka, itold them he had 800+ hp and was CR 27) and the laughed at me and said it would be no problem. Yeah, they're getting a little bit cocky, even though one player has died i think four times and everyone else has only barely been saved by they're buffers timely usage of the "delay death" spell (which, by the way, is cheap; any thoughts on this?). Anyways, I'm hopeful that this fight will knock 'em down a peg, say, by killing several of them. And oh yeah, has there been any word on the next AP? If so, please tell me......now.......

Wowza.....this is really odd, because i have essentially normal characters in my party, i didn't help them at all, and they did just fine in that adventure.........odd.......maybe i'm blessed with good players.

Oh man, it's a good one. As long as you can keep the campaign on the same track, without shifting focus completely to the Wind Dukes......but yeah, I certainly wish I could have tried that! My party is almost done with Kings of the Rift, so I guess at this point it's somewhat out of the question. But anyway, sounds like a great idea!!!

Plus, what of the reappearance of Alastor Land in Kings of the Rift? That was truly a cool thing. The look on my players faces was priceless.

I have found that the Age of Worms AP is much more epic in scale. True, it fails to stay focussed in a single place, fails at this miserably, but it has a scope unmatched i think by anything that the Shackled City AP had. In the SCAP, the threat was primarily to Cauldron. If the heroes could save Cauldron, then the mission was complete. With the Age of Worms, however, PC's are forced to travel the realm seeking weapons to destroy Kyuss. It focusses much more on party unity than nostalgia towards a certain place, what with team names and such for the gladiator fight, and not to mention the terrors of Kyuss they must face in only the first couple of adventures. This has bound the party i'm dming together in a way that can only be considered heroic. In short, just a much more grand, epic AP, in my opinion.

Hanexs, nobody forced you to buy the expensive, hardcover compilation of the Shackled City AP. I personally love all of the work that was done on it (man, you just cannot beat that ending, on Carceri!), and dungeon crawls are the meat and potatoes of the D&D game. True, variety is a good thing, but any group that doesn't love a few good, old-fashioned, hack-n-slash dungeons is just, well, abnormal. Plus, the Age of Worms has a few problems of its own that I would be very interested in talking to someone at paizo about!

OF DEATH!! supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

-look, a tomato

Diamond Blade

Hey all you rebels! I'm 16, and I've been playing for...about three years, officially (I played off and on before then). I would just like to say that I am so glad that there are still people who play D&D, and it wasn't totally wiped out back in the eighties and ninetys. I think that being a D&D "geek" is one of the most awesome things, just because it is so looked down upon. People should know how fun and cool every different tabletop roleplaying game is. They teach teamwork and courage, and don't contain the mindpoison that many videogames contain (though don't get me wrong, I play my fair share of videogames). As for the presence of mature content in the game, I believe it should only be used to make a more defined contrast between goo and evil (usually in the promotion of good).
Alright, well, thanks for reading my rantings, and keep playing, every one of you. I wish you all many more years of happy D&D-ing.