We just wrapped up my 5E campaign for CoCT. The game was awesome, and the conversion efforts over time kept me engaged. The PCs at the end were:
Barbarian 15
Rogue (Arcane Trickster) 13 / Wizard 2
Cleric (Trickery) 11 / Warlock 4
Bard 15
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Hello all, Just a quick question - is there a published location for the Cerulean Society HQ? Or are they presumed to be within Old Korvosa? I know I can just create a location, but I like to use all the resources I have available between the AP and Guide to Korvosa. Thanks!
I may look into that Nahault, but since we're just doing a few battles from the old module instead of the whole thing, I probably won't need to. I'll be doing a custom battle to get them up to speed, and then starting with the Spire of Long Shadows.
My campaign took a hiatus last year halfway through the AoW series. So with agreement from the players, we're converting over to 4e to see how it goes. I didn't want to toss the players into the fire at 11th level however, so we're 'reminiscing' with a few of the battles. First up, some of the memorable scenes from Three Faces of Evil. I've reworked the intro to the Hextor(Bane) area, changing the skeletons and humans to minions, and using a dire boar for the one that gets released. The tiefling fighters become ranger/skirmisher variants. I'm also doing the great climb/archery trap with the grimlocks in the caverns of Erythnul(Bhaal). At first I wondered if this would be a difficult conversion, since grimlocks in the new system are ~11th level while these were between 3rd and 4th. But it was simple. Looked at the charts in the back, selected hobgoblin archers and a human bezerker to match the XP I needed. Gave them blindsight, and voila, they're grimlocks. If the rest of the campaign will be this easy to convert, I'll be a happy man.
Yikes! I guess I'll chime in, as my players encountered Xanesha last night. I was expecting a tough battle, consuming all of their resources. I even lowered a few stats, notably the SR and AC, to make it more feasible. Of course I should have anticipated the Druid flying in solo at the roof to check it out. =P Xanesha spots him coming and goes invisible, waiting and watching. When he transforms, she sees an opportunity to Charm him. It fails, and she is revealed. Druid summons a constrictor snake which fails to do anything meaningful. Xanesha uses her petrify power, it fails. The druid is on a roll and gets cocky. Casts an enhancement on himself and shifts to predator (cat) form to do melee against this obvious caster. Oops. Meanwhile, the group below knows he's in trouble, hearing him call out from above. Climbing will take too long, so they burst through the door and encounter the Scarecrow. *gulp* It starts mowing through them, taking no damage from the Wizard's spells or the Cleric's puny hits. The fighter lays in some damage, but with DR it's gonna take a while. Druid goes in for the kill and discovers that oh crap, this chick is brutal with her spear. He rethinks his strategy and flies down the inside of the tower, taking an AoO that drops him to 1 hp. As he descends, he looks up and realizes that Xanesha is flying down after him. The group meets up at the bottom floor and decides that retreat is a great option, as they watch Xanesha multiply into five forms. They stone shape the door behind them so the Scarecrow can't chase them down. No deaths, but it would have been a certain TPK had they stayed to prove their bravado. I had the sinking feeling in my stomach when they said they were going in the front door. It was really their only option to help, but ouch, it was gonna be painful. Funny thing, they know I'm eager to play some 4e, but a TPK wasn't my planned method of conversion.
I was wondering (hoping) if we'd have WAR art forever, but either way, I'm very pleased with this image.
Happy Birthday, mang!
Hrm. I'll search around for scaling advice. In my view in PS, it's showing as 200 pixels per square. I'll also see about a version with grid.
Well, here's my shot at a map using Dundjinni. It's the first level of Foxglove Manor (of which I've done all levels for my game. The map is huge, being 7.4 megs. It should come out to be battlemat sized for those who may want to use it. If people are interested in the others, post here and I can load them as well. Or let me know if it's not the right dimensions (I use mine for the projector, so I don't remember what's best for printing).
I've got a number of battle-grid scaled maps done for the first two modules. When time allows, I'll see about putting the appropriate logos and references with them and finding a suitable map host.
Ah, a nice dose of drama for the day. =)
Hi Grays. Very nice work, as I've been following your posts over at Dundjinni. I've been working on DJ maps for my games as well, using them for a tabletop projector. I don't print them out, instead using Photoshop for projection and fog of war effects. I'm a bit ahead of you, having run the Glassworks, Catacombs, and Thistletop already, but I'd be glad to share in the efforts. A lot of what I have are rendered duplications of the maps provided in the modules, so I doubt if I'd be posting them here. But if you want to email me (my username at gmail), maybe we can figure something out.
I can attribute my group of lifelong friends and even meeting my wife to this hobby and back to Gygax. I had the privilege of meeting him years ago, and he struck me as a genuine, good-hearted person. It's a sad day here, indeed.
A player in my campaign wanted to have an asian descent, so I made her cousin to Ameiko. This gave later events a very personal feel, which was great. I guess it depends on how far removed your player wants to be removed from their homeland. IIRC, Lonjiku's father is the one who travelled to the Sandpoint area, so by this point they're well adapted to Chelaxian ways.
I noticed they have no healer. What are the current hp and healing resources like? Also, don't discount certain spells like Sleep. The wizard in my group saved a sleep spell up to the fight with Nualia. I had moved Orik in that room instead of the hound, since they had circumvented his area, and he was a non-issue. He got one attack off, slept, and coup de grace. I think staggering is a good idea. Then you can mentally judge when to throw in the next combatant. Also, if you look at Lyrie, she may not join in. She's a scholar and a coward. She could very well presume that the others will handle it while she does her important research.
UPDATE: The PCs strongarmed Lyrie into going back to Sandpoint, but they weren't overly mean about it. They're even interested in having her study ancient things on their behalf, retainer and all. For them, it's a path of redemption, not quite realizing how wicked she is. There was a nice scene in the Jail with her under Sheriff Hemlock's scrutiny. He's ordered her to pay restitution for the blood money she earned from Nualia, and she'll be under a watchful eye while in Sandpoint. The perceptive PCs did notice her obvious looks of longing towards Tsuto, who was back in his cell. So all the warning signs are there. Once Tsuto is to be transported to Magnimar for trial, she'll make her move. It may be doomed to failure. Lyrie's really intelligent, but this is where her logic fails.
In a recent turn of events, two of my villains have lived due to the compassion of my PCs. Tsuto was spared, but handed over to the guards. He eventually is to stand trial in Magnimar. And Lyrie has been encountered under Thistletop, and coward that she is, she surrendered to the PCs (after hearing that they had not killed Tsuto). They will most likely let her go, as she has bluffed and posed as a not-so-innocent scholar, recruited by Tsuto, not Nualia. My question is, do I let the story end there? The temptation is to have Lyrie act upon her information and go to save poor Tsuto (whom she's infatuated with), assaulting the wagon/whatnot as it travels with him to Magnimar. I worry though, that I'm undermining the actions of the PCs. They went to trouble to capture and deal with them without bloodshed, and this could serve to punish them. It could send the message that you should kill them all, or else they come back. I love the cinematics of it, with a Bonnie and Clyde style getaway to turn up later. But I also believe in being fair to the players; not every plan they come up with backfires because I'm the omniscient DM. Opinions, oh wise ones?
If you have a recent version of Adobe Reader to view your .PDF files, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Pull up the page you want to snag your image from. For images of NPCs or monsters, select the Snapshot Tool (a dotted line square around an image of a camera). Use it to draw a square around the picture you want. This will copy it to your clipboard. From there, you can paste it into a graphics program like Microsoft Paint and save the graphic for printing or later use. For maps, you may have to take the same steps for older maps. But for maps in issues 3 and beyond, Paizo made this easier for you. Use the Select Tool from the menu. Hover over the map image you want, hold down the Ctrl key, and click it. This will copy the map image to your clipboard, minus any text that may be laid over it. This will allow you grab the image by itself for your usage. * I just tested the NPC images in issue 3, and Ctrl-click also works, so no more erasing text for people like me. If you get stuck, post here.
I misread her name before the first encounter, so to my players, she'll forever be known as Shalesu (sha LAY soo).
There's a small bit of board drama out there, mostly b/c someone discovered that the polls are easily abused. You can vote if you're not logged in, allowing people to spam-vote if they want. Kind of a shame, but as Morrus (the board admin) put, if you're looking for a robust, secure system, you probably shouldn't be looking at message board software to handle your polls. Either way, we know Pathfinder is the best.
Tonight was a bit slow, with the characters being inside of the Nettlewood, playing it cautious. They took down the druid and his animal companion, and then spent a good deal of time interrogating him and getting as much intel as they could on Thistletop. Time was running out for the game session, so they went forward to the rope bridge. Concerned about guards in the towers, they used an Obscuring Mist and sent the entire group across the bridge at once. Yep. As the trap goes off, the situation worked out perfectly: the warrior at the front making her save, the wizard in the back making hers, so both leapt to their respective edges. The druid and cleric in the middle weren't as fortunate (action points helped save their bacon somewhat). That's how the session ended. So as it stands for next session the druid and cleric are hanging from the dropped rope bridge, with the wizard and Shalesu up at the top. The fighter is 'safe' on the other side, but the guards are starting to rouse from the noise. I'm envisioning a lot of long range archery and spellslinging as they try to resolve the situation. This is why I play the game.
Yeah, I'm on the bandwagon with please do publish the synopsis. We're not talking about one module, but instead an entire campaign. I don't know about you, but with my haphazard gaming schedule, that's about a year and a half of gameplay. I have a lot of faith in Paizo, but it's good to know that 'yes, this campaign is something that's going to fit my gaming group well'.
Bah, I lost my last post. An EN World thread below has lots of info, you just have to sift through it. http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=122099 Projector Central has info on most projectors out there. Just spec sheets, not much in way of reviews: http://www.projectorcentral.com Most projectors these days are around the $600 price point or higher. That said, if you're not as picky, look on eBay. I was leery of getting one used, since bulb life is a concern (and bulbs are expensive), but there are a number of projectors out there. Good luck!
Yeah for most projectors these days you're looking at a $600 and up price point (which is far better than what it used to be). You can look at this lengthy, but helpful thread on EN World which discusses various projectors. It has good details on what to look for in a projector for this purpose. http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=122099 For a good site that lists and specs out projectors, try: http://www.projectorcentral.com If you're not worried as much about quality, you may want to try eBay. Bulb life was a concern for me, since the bulbs can cost up to half of the projector cost, and I'm a fan of store warranties, so I went to OfficeMax. Good luck!
Thanks again, Watcher. I'm a Dundjinni/Photoshop junkie, but there's no need to me to make my own when you've made such good maps. It gives me extra time which I have little of these days. And thanks, flash. I was wondering if everyone had missed the song, but I wasn't going to harass anyone. The players asked me to play it again during the glassworks fight.
New pics added (by a better photographer). This shows the fight in the Glassworks using The Watcher's excellent map.
Ardent - Chelaxian Cleric of Sarenrae
and we might have an Elven Rogue in the mix shortly.
Greetings people. I just finished my first session of RotR with my group, a great way to start the new year! I made a few acquisitions over the holidays, including a projector, so I decided to put it all into place for the first session. The link below has images of my projector setup and a few images of the second goblin battle at Sandpoint. *WARNING* - While I am fairly savvy at computer tasks, I am a horrible photographer with a poor camera. ...and since my players enjoyed it and asked, I said I would share. Here's a version of the goblin song, written by Paizo:
Thanks for connecting the dots on this info. I'm about to start my campaign, and I've set up the female fighter in the group as having previously worked for the Scarnettis. She was there for the Cougar Creek Mill torching and left their employ soon afterwards (although Titus had a quick heart-to-heart talk with her before she left).
According to the latest Pathfinder ** spoiler omitted ** Thanks for the replies. I was blazing through the material and overlooked exactly how long ago that empire flourished. I do want to find a way to emphasize the themes of the seven sins in the campaign, so I'll look around for details on that.
Hello all. Since my Age of Worms game ended, I'm about to take up the mantle of Rise of the Runelords. I like the setting from everything I've read thus far, but I'm curious as to how much information to give the players regarding the previous age. I know I have access to info about Thassilon, the Runelords, etc. and some of that is purposefully vague, but what would the standard young adventurer know. Are the Runelords boogeymen that parents use to frighten their children, or is it all mysterious with a faltering oral tradition akin to Earthdawn? If someone can point me to a good source I may have overlooked, that would be great.
So, Ruined, are you one of my players in disguise?Judging from his previous posts I would guess not, and that the person is actually a GM for AOW :-) Heh, no. I've been running my FR version of Age of Worms for about a year and a half now. It would be cool to play, I'm sure, but I have my own campaign here in NC. My group is heavily involved with the Church of Lathander, and the topic of resurrection is a heavy one (especially with the Cleric being raised during the Champion Games). So I wanted to see if there was some really good reason for Eligos to reappear. So far, it doesn't look like it will happen in my campaign.
I'm a fan of the Adventure Path series and have been very pleased with Pathfinder so far. I will be taking up the 4e mantle at some point after it comes out, as I like what I've been seeing. But I'm certain I'll still be picking up Pathfinder regardless of which version you're supporting.
Thread Resurrection!! Could some kind soul point me to when/how Eligos becomes integral to the campaign after he's brought back from the dead? I've already finished Champion's Games, and was reading ahead to Spire of Long Shadows and realized he was brought back. It's been a while since I read the last four or five modules, and I can't remember what significance he holds now. Most likely, I'll keep him dead and use another NPC in his role.
I'm about to have my players step through the portal, and I'm wrestling with reworking aGoW as well. I don't think that the material is bad, mind you, but it will be a pretty difficult stretch having my PCs negotiate with two seriously evil beings. Yes, I know that it's fine for PCs to just whack Flycatcher and Moreto, but with that the adventure feels pretty hollow. For mine, I'm reworking a portion of the World's Largest Dungeon that has a covey of hags and some sunken ruins. Good luck with yours! Are you going to use normal kobolds or more of the altered ones like Ilthane used in Blackwall?
My group just returned to Diamond Lake and are working with the survivors. They're dealing with Smenk right now, but I can't wait to bring back Filge. He was turned over to the Chapel of Tyr (Hieroneous), who hobbled him for his crimes. Now that the majority of the Tyr-worshippers died fighting Ilthane, Filge is crawling his way out, collecting all of the spare corpses he can find.
The match went well for my group. The necromantic acid breath weapon had them thoroughly worried. The bard figured out the significance of the ritual and that they must protect Auric, which was good since he lost a ton of Con from the breath wpn. All of my players contributed well, but Khellek helped a lot by successfully hitting the worm with a Ray of Enfeeblement. Helped the pally escape from the Swallow Whole. All in all, an enjoyable battle and good to see the heroes recognized as actual Heroes. (especially considering all of the bad things coming soon afterwards)
Ouch. Yeah, I ran Pitch Blade about a month ago. They charged in on the cleric and the soulknife. The next round, the soulknife took a standard move away, but the cleric only 5-foot adjusted. The pair both adjusted and full attacked the cleric, chopping him down in one round to about -20 hp (two improved criticals didn't help). It was pretty disheartening, being the first fatality of the campaign, but my players soldiered on.
Any stories from GMs regarding the final battle with the ulgurstasta? I'm looking over it in prep for tonight and it's got me a bit worried. That one-shot breath weapon could theorhetically kill my entire party, and that plus the swallow whole... Anyone here gotten a TPK from this fight?
My group is centered around the church of Lathander in FR. It was a pretty big leap to have them join the Champion's Games, but since they did, they've gone all in, calling themselves 'Divine Retribution'.
So I'm late to the party, but I just picked up Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, penned by our good Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Mona (and Jason Bulmahn, for completion's sake). I don't think I'll have much opportunity to run it, but I do love the delve format. So anyways, as I flipped through it at my FLGS and notice a picture. A cute half-elf named Tirra. Hmm, that's a coincidence. Flip the page, ah look, a familiar mage named Khellek. Pretty awesome, they included two from Auric's Warband (although Auric was notably absent in my perusal). And guess who else? Loris Raknian, after the fall from grace. Kudos for using these iconic characters again. It's especially cool for me, given that I'm knee-deep in The Champion's Belt right now, and I'm very familiar with these three.
From what I've seen, 'A Gathering of Winds' seems to be popular choice for replacement/excision. The two highlights here are dealing with Ilthane (neccesary before you get to Prince of Redhand), and getting a fragment of the Rod. These two elements could easily be adjusted to another scenario.
PC: Jonas, 6th Cleric (Lathander)/3rd Radiant Servant
After making short work of the first battle, the heroes may have grown a bit cocky. Pitch Blade charged in, one against the Soulbow, one against the Priest. While the soulbow took a standard move to adjust and blast, the priest took a 5-foot step and safely cast a spell. Next round, both dwarves adjusted forwards and attacked the healer, each critting once with the flaming swords'o'doom. Alas, poor Jonas. First death so far, although there have been several close calls, including a near TPK versus Zyrzog.
I have to admit, when running the fight tonight versus Pitch Blade, I started it out with Raknian and his amplified voice saying: "FIGHT!"
The various Counter Collections, done by Fiery Dragon, sound like what you're after. I love my miniatures, but its cool to have these as backups. Plus you get great artwork from Claudio Pozas. I checked and Paizo has a good deal of them for sale through their online store. http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/f/fieryDragon/counterCollection
Wow, glad I found this thread. I'm definitely an old-school Planescaper, but admittedly I don't follow Planeswalker as much as I should.
Hmm. Does this mean I screwed up when using the worm burrow against my group's paladin? I had it burrow in, go for a little way and expire, figuring that his immunity to disease would protect him from it. Is that not the case? I'm not too worried, as he's gone into Hunter of the Dead and if any PrC should be immune, it would be that one. But also, the group cleric is about to get Divine Health, so would be good to know.
Wow. Yeah, let us know how that goes... (I'd give advice but I'm way behind, just heading into HoHR myself)
Hello all. I'm running the campaign using the Forgotten Realms conversion notes, and have replaced the Ebon Triad with the fallen three from FR, Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul. Now, given how the Ebon Aspect is comprised of representative elements of the three gods, I was wondering if the crew here might have some good suggestions for the form of the beast using the Forgotten Realms mythos.
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