sobusTooms's page

I apologize if this topic has been brought up before. I did a search and didn't find anything relevant.

As a DM I use the Pathfinder online reference document during my gaming sessions. It helps speed up the game with all the hyperlinks; just right click on the link, open in new tab, and bam, instant ruling. My players all use the print core rulebook as a reference doc during play. Well, long story short, we've discovered quite a few differences between the two. Last session I had a player ask, "which rules set are we going to use, because this can cause some confusion". Agreed. I am inclined to rely on the "living" web reference document as it can be changed to the most up to date rulings.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I am estamating that we will be useing it in three weeks in our epic battle againt Kyuss and friends(no fair peeking Aaron). If your group will delay your action till the end of round i will be happy to send when finished. Please contact Camarroz28 for setting up the detailson where I need to ship as I have no personal email address.

I will email z28camaro90 and square away the details. My group missed last week and we're not playing this weekend (Easter), so the final session is looking like May 6th.

If it works out, great! If not, no biggie, thanks for the offer. :-)

We are also working on building the Kyuss tower and we will also be shipping that out in about 3 weeks to follow the Dragothia project arround the way.

Our group plans on working out a model for Kyuss temple and will be more than happy to do the same thing with it to those who would like to see use it.

Sweet! I don't know if your Kyuss temple would be done in time for our final showdown, but we begin the final module tomorrow (Dawn of a New Age) and probably be getting to the final Kyuss encounter in about 3 weeks. Sunday April 22nd if everything goes according to plan. Soooooo... I you're done with it, we'd love to use it!

I understand that it's short notice, so if it doesn't happen no worries. Thanks for offering!

In our campaign the worms are neutral vermin, not undead, so the protections you describe are ineffective. However since they do transform the recently dead into undead via their INT drain ability, I rule that they emanate necromantic magic if detect magic was cast. Just my 2 cents... ;-)

Where are you at in AoW ?

We just finished the 11th installment where the characters defeated the great dracolich and are now moving onto the Dawn of a New Age. Should be wrapping up the AoW in about 4 more sessions and, whew, although it's been fun, the end game is beginning to become a grind; we're all ready to move onto something different. I think the high level play is really taking it's toll on all of us. ;-) It's taken us about 14 months to get to this point meeting 4-6 hours every week, minus holidays and the occasional b-day, etc.

Get Stabbity to join in this thread!

I gave him a call and let him know about the props he's been getting. I'm sure he'll stop by and fill us in on how he made the lil monster.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted to share what one of my players did for our campaign by showing off his custom Kyuss mini. I added a few pics of the truly frightening mini to my photos site. Please take a minute to check it out. He did a phenomenal job. I wonder if he realizes that his creation will be the downfall of him and all his companions. ;-)

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/sobustooms/albums

Great job Jason! (FYI - he goes by the name Stabbity Death on these forums if you'd like to toss him some props)

...if you guys could let me know who will need it sooner and I will get it ready to ship on Monday.

z28camaro90, might I suggest holding off on shipping the terrain until the week before the next scheduled game. The reason I say this is that if the next known game is 4 weeks away and the terrain is shipped 4 weeks prior, it may become apparent that a different group needs it in two weeks. The terrain may then have to be "re-shipped" and double-up on shipping costs for someone. This probably made no sense. LOL

Anyway, the terrain is out of my hands now, so hopefully it will work itself out.

I'm currently crafting my own Kyuss out of a ring wraith figure. I'll post pics once it's completed; he looks pretty menacing.

Along that note, I need to post what one of my players did as a sculpt for Kyuss. It is awesome! I thought I saw a thread for Kyuss minis somewhere. I have to see about digging it up again before posting a new thread.

Our group is fighting Dragotha this Sat. I was going to try and make one after seeing this sweet terrian. If no one else is useing it our group would love to have it for the game and we would be happy to pass it on to who ever would need it next. You can email me at Jsmit4@uis.edu Thanks and great setup.

Well after reviewing several posts I just realized that Hierophantasm has already played out the Dragotha scenario, he most likely won't need it. So yeah, that's cool. I'll shoot you an email and we can discuss the specifics.

Thanks. I'm gonna have to try a 3D terrain encounter with my players in the near future. Perhaps Kyuss...

That's great! I anticipate doing a setup for Kyuss as well. My players keep saying that I will have to "out do myself" for Kyuss after seeing the Dragotha setup.

Hierophantasm, I have an offer for you... The problem with "static" terrain pieces is that they are a one time use item. Ususally I would recycle the terrain by cutting it up, repainting it and making new/different pieces. But in this case I'd be happy to cut it down and ship it to you so it would get some use other than the one time at our table. It would ship like a big puzzle, probably in a 3' x 3' box, and probably weigh in at less than 2 lbs. LOL Right now its taking up space in my office anyway and I can see the wife in about a week or so looking at me sideways wondering when I am going to get rid of the thing. LOL FYI - it would come with the temple and the "to scale" laminated paizo map broken down into 1 inch 5' squares.

My only request would be that if someone else wanted to use the setup you would send it to them in a timely fashion once you're done. I would cover the initial shipping cost and you could cover the shipping cost when it is forwarded, kind of like a "paying it forward" type thing. Certainly make me feel good knowing that the terrain will see more use.

Now, I imagine if you've already played the Dragotha encounter than you'd have little use for the terrain and perhaps someone else might be interested in the offer. If anyone else would be interested let me know. Happy to share. ;-)

Well, everyone enjoyed the setup. It turned out to be the most memorable AoW encounter so far (Temple of Hextor and Darl Quethos coming in second and third). All in all we spent about 6 hours battling in the 3D cavern, 4 of which were the battle with Dragotha himself. I may post the last round of combat in another thread because it was the kind of thing that makes D&D great.

I updated the photos to show some of the combat that ensued. FYI - I added Mahuudril and 5 avolokia clerics to the final battle. So, in the pictures the ankhegs are avolokia clerics and the chuul is Mahuudril. The big blue is obviously Dragotha. ;-)

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/sobustooms/albums

Anyway...

Say, where do you go to get the tools for making this kind of setup? A hobby shop, or would something like Target have it?

Here is the list of materials I used to make the cavern:

The tool I used to cut the styrofoam can be found here:
http://hotwirefoamfactory.com/home.php

Specifically I used a device similar to the "sculpting tool" initially, it was one that I had from years ago. That was used to make the interior cut out. Because this tool was small (only a 3" wire) I had to do each piece separately and layer them. That was the first night and it took about 2 hours. Lame. I then went online and ordered the "Crafters Scroll Table Set" and used that for cutting the exterior edges. This reduced a 2 hour job to 15 minutes. This tool is awesome and a must for crafting using syrofoam. It also allows for very precise cuts, allowing me to make the stairs on the temple in about 5 minutes. This tool would be the tool to use for cavern type cut outs, but more importantly it allows for very straight cuts if you wanted to do hewn walls or even masoned walls, etc.

Once I cut out all the pieces, the remaining time was put to painting. That was a time killer. All those damn nooks and crannies. ;-)

How did you make the walls?

I used to play Warhammer 40K, but gave it up about 8 years ago. That is a very "terrain heavy" miniatures game. I still have all the tools to build tabletop terrain stored in the garage, so it was just a matter of digging them out and putting them to use again. As far as the specifics of how I made the walls, it is simply 1" thick sheets of styrofoam cut using a "hot wire tool" then glued together. The hot wire cut creates the appearance of a cliff face. If you'd like more specifics feel free to email me. It's really very simple to do. This project from start to finish took about 6 hours. Basically a couple of hours each night after the kids went to bed.

Also won't the walls get in the way of moving the figures around?

The cavern at the top is more than 6" wide at the entrance, that should be plenty of room. Might make people stand a bit more at the table to see what's going on inside, but that's part of the fun in my opinion. Either way, we'll find out today. ;-)

Greetings All!

SPOILER ALERT!

SPOILER ALERT!

SPOILER ALERT!

OK, so my AoW group will be making their way into Dragotha's lair tomorrow. We had last weekend off because Shawn (player of our Heironian cleric) had to leave town for the weekend and no one wanted to venture into Dragotha's lair without divine support. Since I had the weekend off I decided to do something special for the group. I made a 3D model of Dragotha's lair. I've posted pictures of it here:

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/sobustooms/albums

(FYI - You need to double click on the photos to get a full sized image)

Just thought I'd share.

Peace out all!

Mike S. (aka sobusTooms)

To all you wise DM types...

I know that the earth domain grants a cleric the ability to control creatures with the earth subtype similar to the turn undead ability. Does anyone have an idea what would happen if a wizard summoned an earth elemental and then an opposing cleric with the earth domain tried to control it? It seems as though the wizard has some control of the elemental considering it will obey his commands, but there is no opposing control check for non-cleric based characters.

I had this come up in a game recently. I ruled that the wizard could make an opposed control check based upon his intelligence modifier to oppose the clerics turn ability. Don't know if it was right or not, but heck, sometimes you just gotta wing it.

Anybody know of an official ruling for this kind of situation?

Thanks!

Dude this rocks. Thanks!

If you use music in your campaign, there's a tune on the Midnight Syndicate D&D album called "Beasts of the Wizard" that I think will be great for the beginning of the competition. Give it a listen if you have it.

I use a laptop as a DM aid. My twist on the Champion Games was to drag my stereo into the dining room and plug the output from the laptop into the input of the stereo. Then I blared a looping sound file of a crowd cheering. It was awesome! I also had several trumpet "fanfares" that would announce the games and the victories, etc. Oh yeah, I also had a "booing" crowd sound for when something happened that displeased the crowd.

This little extra work made the Champion's Belt one of the best mods of the adventure path so far.

I would also like to thank sobusTooms for giving me the idea...

Hey I got props! Thanks! LOL If the players liked playing the soldiers during the assault I HIGHLY recommend running the "alternate" Kyuss zombie encounter proposed by Peter Fuesz. That was the icing on the cake for an awesome Encounter at Blackwall Keep adventure. You can find that here:

http://paizo.com/dungeon/messageboards/ageOfWorms/howIChangedTheBlackwallKe epAdventureSPOILERS&page=1#73577

BTW - I agree, these boards rock! And oh yeah, great job with the Keep!

Mike S.

My group just defeated Telekin. The really tough encounter up to this point was that dang octopus! They "entered" the room 40' below the surface only to run into 8 nasty tentacles with a 20 foot reach. That encounter took out the party wizard and nearly TPK'd them all.

FYI - The party rogue pinned Telakin down by "readying" his action to fire at Telakin when he went to cast a spell. That was a key move to help end a killer encounter. Nicely played.

New group (DM + four players currently) has two openings for a Forgotten Realms campaign. The first adventure/roleplay session will take place on 27 May.

The location of the game site is on the southwest side of town near Trop and 215.

To recruit additional players for your game you might want to try posting to the the following Las Vegas based gaming group (Sin City OGREs - Organization of Gamers and Roleplaying Enthusiasts):

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SinCityOGREs/

Good luck!

I hand out XP bonuses to players that update the campaign blog each week. So I told her that if she could pull off this dinner I would give her the equivalent of the blog XP reward for each course she completed.

I know this is a bit off topic, but... Vyvyan, I have been toying with the idea of giving out xp for summaries, blogs, etc, for our AoW campaign. Just out of curiosity, how much XP do you give? Does it change at higher levels?

Thanks for the head up. My group has just recently realized that their minds are being "probed" while wandering through the streets of Greyhawk. It will be next session that they take on Sodden Hold. We have 5 players and I have opted to not do the "doppleganger swap", so hopefully they will have a better experience.

BTW - I did cringe at the invisible stalker encounter when I read it. The "environment" makes that encounter particularly tough.

Little DM help for my game on Sunday. The players have run Rangolin out of town, gave him 24 hours to bug out or else they turn him over to the authorities for the cult stuff etc...

The PC's want to buy the mine. They've mentioned on numerous occasions that they want to "save" Diamond Lake. I'm not opposed to the idea, so this might be a good way to start.

My question then is, how much would the mine cost? And what kind of revenues can be generated from the mine? I expect to give them a hard time hiring miners, running the mine, etc, but I need a general place to start for purchase and ongoing revenues etc.

Any ideas?

Thanks all!

Mike S.

We finally got to this part of the adventure last weekend. Great fun indeed! I put a twist on two of the soldiers to add a bit more role playing flare for the players. One of them had the Gift of Kyuss and was just about ready to turn in the full blown Spawn. His con and wis were waaaay down. It allowed me to bring in another baddie (i.e. have him "spawn") at just the right moment. Nothing like having your buddy turn into one of the zombies you're trying to run away from while hiding in a closet together. LOL That was fun. Here was his background:

Soldier 1 (in our game he was "Willie"):
"It was 2 days ago that you were on patrol on the northern fringes of the Mistmarsh when your group encountered a horrible abomination. A walking undead zombie, festering with worms crawling all over its body, attacked your patrol. The group managed to drive the fell creature back into the swamp, but not before it managed to maul yourself and a few fellow soldiers. You’ve been recovering from the wounds it caused you, but ever since the attack you have been feeling more and more ill as the days pass. When you woke up yesterday you realized that your condition had worsened, but it was quickly put "on the back burner" when the lizard folk of the Mistmarsh attacked the keep. You managed to keep to your post during the attack, but today you are finding it difficult to get out of bed. You have sores all over your body which are slowly oozing puss. Under the circumstances you are doing your best to keep your illness a secret from the rest of the soldiers."

The second change was the grief that one of the soldiers had to deal with:

Soldier 2 (in our game this was Trevor):
"You have a horrible secret that you’ve been hiding from the rest of the soldiers in the garrison. About 2 years ago, Kezrung, the battle mage of Blackwall Keep set off on a self-initiated diplomatic mission to visit the lizard folk of the Mistmarsh. When he returned he wasn’t quite himself, seemingly struck with an unknown illness that kept him bed ridden. The rest of the garrison went unaware while you tended to your ailing friend. It was after several days of nursing the mage that the unthinkable happened. While down stairs in the basement you discovered Kezrung hiding himself among some supply crates. When you stepped closer to help your friend, he lunged at you in an all out attack. You realized that he was turned into a horrible abomination, an undead zombie. You and several other soldiers managed to lock the creature behind a basement door. Because of your friendship with the battle mage you and the fellow soldiers kept the locked door a secret from the rest of the garrison, hoping that there might be way to save him from his fate. The rest of soldiers who knew of the zombie in the basement died during the last Lizard folk attack leaving you the only one who is aware of its presence. In order to save your friend Kezrung you will do whatever it takes to hide the secret. You think some of the others might be onto your secret and that has put you on edge. So much so you feel a bit jumpy and tend to overreact at any questions being asked of you. With all the stress you’ve had to deal with paranoia is starting to set in."

The different names of the soldiers came into play because I gave the players control of the defenses of the keep during the first assault. They immediately went to town and started naming their 1st level warriors. The names carried over from there.

Thanks again for an awesome idea! The group loved it!

Mike S.

Keep in mind this is meant to be a diversion from the main game and only worked with my group because they enjoy diversions from the main story from time-to-time. The guard characters they played were meant to die in this story, the players were just there to help tell the tail. The fun was in how they interacted with each other during this crisis.

Absolutely Peter! This idea is very much akin to the one shot adventures you'd see at a convention. More horror role-playing I think. In fact it is very "Cthulhu-esque" for those of you who have played in those games where the real fun is having your pc "go insane" or perform the "best death scene". I suppose you're correct in saying that it isn't for everyone, but I know my players will love the small side story... Thanks again for the idea. Honestly, I really wish they would include this in the hard cover. :-) This would be a good way to make the adventure path different.

Thought I'd share our version of Blackwall Keep. In addition to adding 2 Blackscale Lizards, 4 Monitor Lizards, 6 more lizardfolk and a "mobile battering ram", I also did up a basic 3D mock up of Blackwall Keep. It was simple, but man did it make for a great gaming session!

Supplies:
1) 1" to scale print outs of the upper levels of the keep
2) Thin Cardboard (I used an old shoe box)
3) White Glue
4) Wooden Kabob Skewers
5) Scissors

Glue the print outs to the card board. After the glue dries cut out the 3 different Blackwall Keep levels. Make a small starting hole for the skewers on all the cardboard levels. Run the skewers through the top level then continue down. The "tightness" of the cardboard around the skewer holes should be enough to keep it in place. I kept about 3" between each level so fingers could get at the minis. I think that does it.

Man it was a huge hit! I posted some pictures here that one of my players took:

http://photos.yahoo.com/sobustooms

FYI - I also created a small ladder which the lizardfolk used to scale to the second level. That was a hit too. LOL

Enjoy!

This is awesome! Great idea. Thanks!

It's a similar situation that Zuggtmoy faced in the original "Tomb of Horrors." It's hard to get people to sign on to a gross cult. You need to use existing cults to springboard your yucky worm or mushroom cult into popularity.

Wasn't that the "Temple of Elemental Evil"? ;-) I certainly understand your point however.

Wow. We had a great time with the Labyrinth. We've been fortunate enough to play with an LCD projector mounted to the ceiling. I get the maps from Paizo then alter as needed in Photoshop. Because of the setup I was able to reveal portions of the maze, then when they moved on, "black" them out again. We all loved it. The players did get disoriented at times as to which tunnel lead where, especially when they "back tracked".

They were soooo frustrated that the Kenku could get around so quickly. The highlight of the night was when a kenku stumbled out of a secret door to reveal "how they were doing it". The players looked for a couple of secret doors and we're blown away when I could reveal the secret door on the projected map. It took a while to get the layers setup correctly in Photoshop and alter the "top layer" map so they wouldn't suspect "hidden" secret doors, but well worth it! Best use of the setup yet!

Thanks Paizo for the perfect use of our projector.

Mike S.

I'm a 30 year old professional relocating to the Las Vegas area and wondering if any groups (IGR? SG?) are seeking new members.

Try the following Las Vegas based gaming group for RPG stuff (Sin City OGREs - Organization of Gamers and Roleplaying Enthusiasts):

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SinCityOGREs/

Good luck and welcome to Vegas!

I think I am in the minority here, but I like the fact that the adventure path is MINE! I took the time to collect all the individual issues, waited patiently for them, and now I have my own campaign which takes players from 1st to 20th level. I like the fact that my issues are "collectors issues" and are worth more because they are hard to come by.

Feel free to call me selfish, but I'm disappointed that the hardcover is coming out. I think Dungeon should keep the adventure path in the mags which will inspire more readers to subscribe and make the pages of Dungeon more coveted.

Just my two copper pieces.

Let the flames begin... Please be gentle...

C'mon all! I have to agree with Quex Ul and lobby for the Keep on the Borderlands. This was the adventure that got it all started for me and my group. Any others feel this way?

C'mon... [inspiring chant] Keep... Keep... Keep... Keep...