remaai's page

Ideas

Big Blue Dragon – Masquerades as a red dragon, uses magic item/veil to appear as red dragon. Trying to foil Mr. Employer. Sent a band of kobolds to sabotage Noragh’s (wizards) work and ensure a hybrid is not made. Kidnapped the contact and are torturing him for information. Destroyed Thratuc’s (fighter’s) village because he suspected they were getting close to a dragon hybrid, so he personally went to take out the town. He didn’t bother with illusions as he planned on killing everyone (which is why the fighter knows/suspects he is actually blue).

Mr. Employer – contracted Noragh to make dinodragons. Trying to create a new breed to use against dragons (they have draconic traits and immunities but dinosaur intelligence and therefore can be trained and controlled by him). Has contacted other wizards and alchemists to make hybrids for him. Might be evil/lots of dragons might be evil, etc.

Also - general DMing question - is it better for me to plan out what the dragon cult or whatever is doing, or let what the players do shape what's going on more? I've found while DMing that I improvise a lot of the story but for something big like this I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Well off the top of your head is great! Dragon cult is something I hadn't thought of, and it could lead so many places...

So I'm going to try my hand at DMing a Pathfinder campaign. We were trying to get a Path home campaign together, nobody was really excited to DM, so I volunteered. I'm excited; this'll be my first time DMing anything very long. However, I'm a little stuck. I want the campaign to revolve around their characters, give them a believable reason for adventuring together and goals that match their characters.

I've given them a lot of leeway with races/classes etc. because honestly I almost always want to play a monster race.

They are playing as:

- Human Saurian Druid (kid who loves dinosaurs)

- Tiefling Paladin of Sarenrae (dino kid is his half-brother)

- Tiefling Teleportation Wizard (likes crafting and experiments)

- Half-dwarf Half-orc Fighter/Barbarian (family killed by a dragon)

So far, my idea to get them together is to have the wizard contracted to create a bunch of dinosaur/dragon hybrids, which then escape his lab. The others hear about it and pursue it because they think it's a dragon or dinosaur, respectively. I was going to have them start in the town that the wizard had his lab in, and have them track and neutralize the escaped lab experiments, but I've hit a bit of writer's block at this point.

What's going to keep their "characters" interested? The fighter still needs to pursue any dragon leads he hears about, the wizard might want to know why his contact for the job is missing, but I'm not sure how to 1) tie them together and 2) keep the other two "characters" interested. Perhaps they stumble upon some other mission while taking out the dinodragons?

Any input, brainstorming, or feedback would be appreciated.

I'm interested in your choice of Magical Beast over Dragon type. It's a good choice, but I think the "all good saves" and immunities to paralysis and sleep would make sense. Godzilla is so massive and powerful I'm left thinking it would be rather underwhelming to see him stopped by a simple Hold Monster spell. I'm sure you've seen as many Godzilla movies as me so I've no doubt your choices are informed. It just seems the big guy could be more resilient.

I also think flavor-wise it makes more sense. Well, depending on which version of Godzilla we're talking about. In the original Gojira I believe he was a radioactive dinosaur. So if radioactive = magical and dinosaur = beast then yes?

Thanks, that clears up a lot. The rogue in my party won't be happy to hear about the sneak attack, but he'll have to live with the -8 to dex and the fact that grappled targets can't threaten. I'm sure he can find a way to flank.

I have a few questions, if anyone could help me. The answers may be somewhere out there, but I can't seem to find ones that completely answer my questions:

Does the -4 to Dex from being entangled (net) stack with the -4 to Dex from being grappled? Does the -2 to attack from entangled and -2 to attack from grappled stack?

Does being entangled (net) allow you to sneak attack if it denies them their entire Dex bonus to AC, even though entangled doesn't specifically say it denies their Dex bonus to AC?

Does being grappled allow you to sneak attack if it denies them their entire Dex bonus to AC, even though grappled doesn't specifically say it denies their Dex bonus to AC?

I have a theologian cleric mainly blasting Burning Hands, and I'm taking the Elemental Metamagic feat. I know that acid is the least commonly resisted out of the available types from that feat, but I'm still preparing Burning Hands in my level 1 slots, so I'll still have fire available as a type of damage. My question is, what types of damage resistances are usually paired with fire resistance? Which elemental type would be the most useful to have, if I encounter something with fire resistance? My first instinct is cold damage, but I've seen things with fire and cold resistance. So which damage type would most reliably not also be resisted by a creature with fire resistance?