soulfire777's page

Wow, you guys are great on this board. You don't find this caliber of high quality, thoughtful discussion very many places.

Thank you all for taking the time to write these great posts! =)

From the SRD: Action Points.

Wow, thanks. =) I went out and got Unearthed Arcana today (and a few other books with optional material beyond the scope of the core rules). It seems like this could be great for a really tough campaign like SC with only 4 PCs, but I'm not sure I'd want to use this in a "regular" campaign...it sort of seems like it might make the players a little TOO resilient?

This book seems like it has a lot of REALLY cool stuff in it (alternative rules) that sounds really fun. Thus far, I have mostly stuck to the core rules and just the extra material included in the forgotten realms campaign book (although there are a couple prestige classes in the latter I do not allow in my campaigns).

It kind of seems like the more optional material you include, the more difficult it might become to maintain balance in your campaign? While any given supplemental feat, optional rule, or prestige class might not be out of balance individually compared to the core material, I can see ways when they are combined with other optional material that they could create a synergistic advantage that WOULD make the characters significantly more powerful than what is possible using only the core rules.

Do any of you guys use significant amounts of supplemental material in your campaigns, and if so, how has this affected your campaigns overall?

Soulfire777,

Another option to consider when only running with four players may be to look at using Action Points as found in the Unearthed Arcana supplement. I have found that they have allowed my players to survive encounters where one or two bad rolls would have resulted in a TPK. An Action Point’s ability to allow additional points to be applied to a critical save or to provide a temporary boost in a character’s effectiveness when needed most, have been a nice addition to my own Shackled City campaign. I highly recommend them.

Good Gaming,
Mark

Never heard of action points before, but I'll check it out - thanks. =)

Yea, a couple extra helpful magic items in the beginning or maybe a few extra points for their point buy characters perhaps?

My only concern is that the higher level characters you mentioned becomes a self correcting situation. When they do start an adventure at higher level, after 3rd level they start earning LESS experience for each encounter. Usually the self-correcting nature of 3rd edition experience is a good thing, but in this case it seems like it could work against you.

I don't know if I can get 6 reliable players, and also I find DMing more players is much more difficult for me (and less enjoyable because I struggle more to manage everything).

I'm thinking maybe I will just "fudge" a little more on behalf of the players than I usually do running this campaign. If the players get in trouble when they did not do something stupid, maybe a few monster hit rolls will quietly miss instead. If the party was weakened due to poor luck or circumstances that are not their "fault", maybe the difficulty of their next encounter will be mysteriously toned down a bit and/or the monsters might not use all their special tactics/abilities quite as efficiently, etc.

I frequently do this to some extent when I DM, but I always try to keep it to a bare minimum. I'm a believer that characters can and should die occasionally, especially if they do something kinda dumb - but the game just isn't all that fun for anybody if characters die TOO often.

Seeing all the death reports in that campaign death thread has me a bit concerned I must admit...I really don't want to run a "meat-grinder" campaign... =(

Thanks for the info guys,

Downloadable enhancements = the web enhancements.

Hi,

Sorry for the noob question, but I'm confused:

The magazine version of these modules say it is for 4 PCs, but the hardcover book sais it is for a party of 6 PCs. As far as I can tell, the encounters in both versions are the same.

Can someone please clarify whether this adventure should ideally be run with 4 or 6 PCs?

Also, does the book version have all the downloadable enhancements, or will I need to download those?

Thanks in advance for your time,

--Anthony