Ah, Mal. Up to your old tricks again? :)
Search Posts
Just finished STAP last night, and good news—Churtle survived. Indeed, she was vital in the group's (and more importantly, her Master's) survival! Spoilers abound for the endgame, so beware! Spoiler: Due to some misunderstanding between the Master and the Prince of Demons after the Savage Tide was stopped, Churtle was left with no way of finding her Master. A bit sad, she consoled herself by forming the Interplanar House of Gargoyle Faced Pancakes with headquarters in Sigil. She gets visits from strangers with magical gifts (usually new pots with exotic extraplanar faces embedded with them) ever year, and every so often receives telepathic missives from the Master, but she never saw Col Tobinson again.
Things were dire. The Prince of Demons had just put his hand through Master's prismatic sphere and tore Master out, quickly draining him of magical protection and life. The rest of the party was insane or gone, having mysteriously been transported away. Just as things looked dire, the missing thief/cleric finally arrived and was able to cure the priestess of Beshaba long enough for her to miracle the Master (and the others) back to full health. But it was Churtle, using the ring of wish rescued from the Master's body, that turned the tide:
"Uhm, hi. I'm Churtle. I'd like to wish for all the spells my Master had on him when we entered this fight back on him, please? And if you can do that for everyone else, that'd be great, but the Master first?" Restored to strength and health, the Master (with some small assistance from the rest of the party) fought off the Prince of Demons, stopping the Savage Tide! STAP was a blast, and I'm very please Churtle survived.
Its been a while since we checked in, but Churtle is still around and plane hoping, serving her "master", and scoping out locations for her Interplanar House of Gargoyle-Faced Pancakes franchises.
Churtle, the infernal cook who cannot die! Now that we're at the Wreck, Churtle is having all sorts of fun bampfing all over the place and cooking with hellfire. Even saved the cleric once by using the revivify scroll she's supposed to be saving for her master (got a tongue lashing for that one!). Now she's got all sorts of things to add to her menu: Spoiler: -New poison flavorings!
- Lightly roasted elite fiendish eye of the deep! - Bar-Llgura steak! - She hasn't figured what to do with snake (Yaunti), but she's working on it. :)
Rise from the Deep is a good recovery spell, but its pretty useless as a means of transport: It floats, that's about it. Which two ships (one working the other not), the damaged one can be salvaged; otherwise, its really a no go. That being said, if the players bypass it, they bypass it. Plenty of good suggestions on how to draw back the important points into the next module have already been mentioned.
The party mix and its tactics are definitely playing a role here: Paizo's APs reward cooperation/tactics and slaughter almost anything else. More magic isn't going to help this. While "the final solution" for one PC might work, it could also largely backfire. A party "cohort" more dedicated melee type to help balance things out might help, even if just in short term to indirectly point out to the players what they are missing (tactics/etc.) Or, if they are not having fun, move on to a different campaign. Not ideal, but no reason to dredge on w/ something unfun.
We've got two going on in our STAP (or did): One was the human swashbuckler that helped train Lavinia... working together like that can cause certain things to develop. The other is my mad pirate wizard's affair with Amella. That one is still going (my character is sole owner of the Wyvern and has Amella captain it for mercantile ventures); the one with Lavinia died due to the player leaving and the PC being gacked. Of course, he left behind a souvenir that just came to term... right before she got kidnapped again. ... so my crafty wizard's trying to be listed as the brat's legal guardian "for his own protection", of course. ;)
I played an archivist in a STAP PbP game for a bit. We were hurt by the lack of a true cleric. Assuming you have one, then an archivist is a great addition:
An archivist makes a great 5th PC in my mind.
There's a pic of Vulras in "Dawn of a New Age." He's not quite himself in that one, though...
"The Dashing and Daring"
Amella took a shining to my old coot of a navigator... so, no, we didn't hate her. They blamed my character instead. :)
I face similar feelings with Age of Worms, ending up chopping off most of the Dragothoga arc. Just finished Weds and we all were happy with how it wrapped up. So, if you want to do something else, I'd just finish helping Farshore and then move on to new adventures... the PCs aren't in it enough yet to have the BBEG really be known yet.
Fun was had by all, and the greatest thing is they said that it never felt like the battle was at a lull... all 4 hours of it! BTW: Apologies for all my grammatical/etc. errors in the above. Don't post tired.
Just concluded our 2.5yr run of the AoW. I had accelerated it near the end, but the last bit was a blast. It was set in Eberron, with a paladin/deadgrim/greyguard of the Silver Flame, a shifter moonspeaker, gnome warlock/enlightened spirit, half-elf artificer/windwright captain, half-orc dragon lord who worked for Manzorian, and an human archivist. They discovered their usage by Lashona and planned on killing her dead. Manzorian have the the skinny, three wish scrolls, and access to the Happy Fun Ball (Sphere of Annihilation) and guidance not to rush the tower. So instead they fly in on the airship. Two broodfiends, 3 deaths, and a narrow escape later, they decide an air approach is better. They deal with the Church squabble and slaughter lots of knights, but not before almost loosing too many. Unlife Vortex wasn't too bad for them as they didn't explore most of the complex. They considered opening a gate to the Positive-Energy Plane equivalent to shut it down, but just blew it up the old fashion way instead. Wish One: Get us the hell out of Dodge when things go *BOOOM* Without resting (time pressure), they push onto the spire. By using the airship again. You'd think they learned. On approach, three broodfiends appear. They decide to ram the tower to get away from them... and run into Maralee (Smenk in my campaign) and his backup. After everyone died or was turned canatonic except for the archivist and the shapechanged druid, they go the hell out of Dodge. Miracle + Wish Two: Bring somebody needed back to life and get the hell out of Dodge... After resting in Magepoint, they TP back in. With backp (gated in solar). The broodfiends and the abanoned airship is gone... strange... They face Smenk, much easier this time, and the solar is the only one to see Hemris. She is imprisoned long before anyone can get her story... Battle with Lashona. Druid casts sunburst three times. Hardly scratches her. His shapechanged Balor self kills the eryines with two snicker-snacks (the other was banished by the archivist). Lashona is brought low by the charging paladin after her antilife shell is dismissed. She flees. Solar follows her to the ruins of her lair. Battles the Pit Fiend for a good two hours real time before just trying to kill the reformed Lashona directly. Pit Fiend uses his one wish to get the pair of them away... so Lashona is out of the equation. Group regroups, lots of resources expended. Wish Three: Let us rest as if no time passed... Refreshed, they top the spire. Kyuss emerges while they scratch him some. Artificer used the maximized Staff of the Magi to summon lots of vrocks. Kyuss cuts off the Colossal druid's head and traps the dragon lord in a blade barrier. They think them have when... Time Stop. Harm. Harm. Harm. Antimagic field. They bring out the Happy Fun Ball. Kyuss kills the warlock in control and used the HFB to destroy the archivist. Artificer gets control and starts using it against big K. He drops the field, destroyed the happy fun ball. Time Stop. Harm. Harm. Harm. More buffs... The battle continues until the paladin manages to land a great charge just before Time Stop #3. Kyuss is defeated, and they flee Alahaster before the spire kills them all. Alahaster lies in ruins, abandoned by the heroes and is remaining inhabitants. Green clouds of mists and broodfiends appear throughout the Principalities, and in each case an airship is seen beforehand (Lashona dominated the Elemental for her own personal broodfiend delivery platform). And somewhere, an elven woman who is not what she appears picks up a segmented green worm... The Age of Worm is averted... for now.
PC Name: Cid d'Lyandar (artificer/windwright captain), Vigil (warforged knight), Oamah (half-orc fighter/dragon warlord), Keifer (paladin/deadgrim/greyguard)
By the way, since I haven't been on ENWorld since I was banned for not sucking up to wizards, can anyone tell me whether they had a "we're so broke, please give us money" fundraiser recently? Would be funny if their financial problems had disappeared overnight... Can't comment on the reasons for you being banned, but WotC only bought ads this month; EN didn't get in on the last batch of ads from them so didn't have WotC adds for a few months. AFIK, they survived on ad revenue from their other ads, the RPG store, and community supporter accounts. Last fundraiser was May of last year.
The main difference is that the title is not called out "Pathfinder" anymore; its up with all the non-D&D RPGs now at the top. Shorter than Pathfinder/Modern/AU/AE/IH/SW/etc/etc I guess. :) WotC buys adds @ ENWorld, but has no financial stake in it AFIK. Its a community website with some commercial products (the reverse of Paizo, which is a business and *then* a community site).
Just wanted to let y'all know we are in COBI right now and Churtle is alive and well, after becoming my wizard's warlock/hellfire warlock cohort. She is now on the quest to find the infernal rhubarb pie recipe...
This may take a lot of work on your behalf, but still a viable solution. I believe there are a lot of very good modules in the later half of the AP and would hate eliminating most of them. The main issue (for me) is not so much the combat (though that is part of it) but the time constraints as mentioned above. I do use such dice tricks at home, however.
My group's been going at AoW since '05 now, and we are just finally getting past AGoW. I know some of my players are going to be leaving in the next half-year, so I want to accelerate the pace (we can only play every other week). To that end, I'm contemplating gutting a lot of the latter half. I realize that will require some redesign on my end (leveling down things specifically), but I'm curious on folk's thoughts. The plan is as follows:
So, my questions to y'all are:
Any others have fun with a (modified or not modified) Moreto?
As pointed out elsewhere, I had replaced the mindflayer in HoHR with a wormified Filge. Since I wanted the players to have the pleasure of fighting a mind flayer, I decided to replace Moreto with one. My mind flayer was based on a Thoon Priest (MMV) with some Thoon Soliders (MMV). They were not tied to Drogotha (not being undead), just interested in getting to the surface to continue their daelkyr plans (being Eberron and all). Moreto was wonderfully arrogant, totally unconcerned about the party while attempting to mind-read the bunch of them. This put them a bit off their game---most bad guys don't talk to them---and they agreed to "help" him get to the surface if he helped get their friend back from Flycatcher (since Flycatcher had sent them down after Moreto in the first place). They group had not intention of going through with the full plan---just have have the flayer soften up the spider. Moreto agreed, though he suspected something was up, especially when he successfully read their cohorts mind. He even called them on it, mentioning he had no plans to "betray" them (lying, of course). This gave the group pause, but they continued with the plan. Well, they get up to Flycatcher, Moreto jibing them the entire time. The druid, confident that it wouldn't work, tells Moreto to charm Flycatcher as a distractionary tactic. But it works! (Flycatcher rolled a Nat 2 save vs charm monster). So, Moreto steps back, kindly bids everyone a fond farewell, then plane shifts, taking his guards and Flycatcher with him. The party becomes furious, but after some fuming, realize there is nothing they can do. Moreto, the magnificent bastard, is added to "The List" (right below Filge). I, however, am quite happy. :) Poor trapped gnome on the Plane of Shadow. He was a tasty brain snack.
A couple of points:
Teleport isn't that great, however, as there aren't any cities in 1-hop range, and its unlikely the PCs have been to the areas in between before. What they need is Greater Teleport. But that's impossible at that level... unless you have planar binding. HTbM Spoilers: Spoiler: Remember those teleporting ape demons? The Bar-Lgura's have greater teleport that can take someone with them at will. With a lowish Cha, they are perfect for a wizard's personal taxi service with Lesser Planar Binding.
Adventure: Tide of Dread, Tar Pit
The mother of all T-Rexes started the battle by swallowing the dwarven kensai and digesting him within an inch of his life. Luckily, the dwarf got out. Unfortunately, the former human once again became a T-Rex snack. Fortune smiled down on him when the dwarf was able to kill the T-Rex while Tollever wsa still stuck in the dino's maw; but the fall and subsequent teeth damage ended up sealing the deal, terminating his life again. The DM is threatening to reincarnate him as a phanaton.
Adventure: Here There Be Monsters, Beach
We finally meet back up on the beach after being separated after fighting a giant plant. Then the really big lizard attacked. Things when bad for the scout when he was bitten, swallowed, and then KO'd in the gullet. Though the T-rex died that same round, it was still another round before we could cut Tollever's then digested corpse. Tollever was not to happy to be reincarnated as a gnome.
The combat with Filge went as must as expected. The party knocked him out, however, though their barbarian was KO'd at the same time. On the way out, Kullen and his gang was waiting for them. They really wanted to pay Filge back for how they were treated. So, Kullen gave them a choice---give them Filge and live, or they'll take him from their corpses. Down hp, spells, and their big fighter, they acquiesced. Needless to say, Filge was eventually killed. But our story does not end there. Smenk was able to retrieve the body and sent it be buried in honor of his old friend. However, what was unexpected was that, due to Filge's exposure to the worm, he came back---wrong. Filge became a Kyuss-tainted worm-that-walks (modified for much lower level). As the PCs did TFoE and EaBWK, Filge was trying to figure out what happened to him. And he wanted revenge. He killed Kullen's gang, drove Kullen mad, and stole the corpse of the PC's barbarian (who died in TFoE). The PCs discover this, and try to find the (unknown to them) wormy Filge. In the meantime, filge is trying to do more research on Kyuss. He finds our tentacled friend from HoHR and kills him, taking over his 'operation' while doing more research. Thus, the party eventually encounters Filge. Surprised he's alive (he's in his human disguise), they fight him, their former barbarian collegue (now a spellstiched wight), and other undead. In the middle, when Filge turned all wormy, the party freaked out. They party barely won the day, and Filge fled down a convenient drain. He's now out and about plotting. :)
My crazed wizard manage to save Churtle, and she became his cook. Survived SWW and now we're in midsts of HTbM. HTbM Spoiler:
Spoiler: In the middle of the second gargoyle attack, Churtle slammed her oversized iron pot into a garg;s face for critical damage. The pot now has a garg face in it. I suggested we open the International House of Gargoyle-Faced Pancakes in Farshore. :)
Well, we had are RL session, and the attack went well. The crew scattered, a few of the folks were shaken. Ilthane tore up the elemental rig, slowing the ship, but the druid's call lighting storm and the warlock's maximized eldritch blast did finally bring it down (though not before seriously wounding said druid and warlock). Overall, a nice, memorable encounter. And the group being stuck way up the air afterwards was fun. :)
Excellent, excellent. Captain would be difficult (steering is inside on this model), but the ring itself is certainly vulnerable. She'll have to worry a bit about the ballista, but not to much as she strafes (only if they ready).
So, for AGoW, the PCs have an airship (one PC is a windright captain in Eberron). So I'm planning on having Ilthane ambush folks from skyward. I've made some modifications for the fight, but does any one have any interesting suggestions?
Started in April/May, but our group is now:
Hope to picking up a fifth for divine magic soon.
My poster map got lost before we started playing. :( Just started Wake, so I'd like a version somewhere. DMFTodd, if you could send me a version in private via email, I'd appreciate it. stonegod gmail com with the @ and the . in the appropriate places. Thanks.
Adventure: There is No Honor, Lotus Dragon Lair
The impatient swashbuckler had a tendency to jump out ahead, ignoring the pleas of our paranoid conjurer (and depriving him of a meatshield). The first time he did that, he walk down the waterline at the entrance of the Lotus lair, attracting the Ix's and nearly getting himself killed in the process (dropped to 1 hp). While we survived that, he convinced our other warrior/meatshield to swim with by themselves to this lip of land he could see. Long story short, two fighters are not enough for the three giant spider-ponies on the other side, and his head soon found itself separated from his body in less than 1.5 rounds. The fighter was lucky enough to be able to retreat to the rest of us, where we barely managed to contain the vermin horde.
Don't have the mags here, but this is what I recall. Putting it in spoilers since you don't have the "Spoilers" in your title
Spoiler: - Kyuss did not get the ritual quite right the first time. Why? That's up to a bit of speculation. Some way Nerull did not want competition and thus messed it up (assuming the default Greyhawk setting).
- Drogotha was twisted to become Kyuss servant, and wanted to insure that the monolith would be safe for his eventual release during the age of worms.
Monks are a fun class, but if he's playing him as a straight-up fighter, your player is going to be disappointed. Raw damage output isn't a monk's forte (though its better 12+), its the rest of the stuff they can do. A monks' BAB is only as good as a cleric, and w/o the built in magical buffs to stomp that up. If he wants raw damage output, someone needs to Enlarge him. Another weakness (in AoW specifically) would be the Stunning Attack, as its useless against undead. Best find some feats that trade that in for a different effect, or just go the Improved Grapple route. Get someone to give your monk some natural armor (+5) and he can hold those pesky Spawn and crush them (Grapple's really effective on Medium creatures). Improved Tripping undead forces them to stand (allowing you to AoO them, and usually trip them again), and thrown worms are missile weapons (and thus deflectable). Monks can be quite versatile, but they favor a certain play style. Of course, it also depends on the other players. If the other players never buff the monk in favor of shining in their own limelight, well, that's a social contract issue.
Adventure: There is No Honor, Caves beneath Parrot Island
Having found ourselves trapped beneath Parrot Island, our intrepid band was soon set upon by ravenous pirate zombies at an unfortunate looking sap that once was a cleric. Having barely survived that encounter (our old coot of a conjurer fell into the negatives once again, but the cleric managed to turn the huecuva), we were able to barricade a safe position for the night. Rested and somewhat healed, we faced the horde of dead again. This time, the Jared the cleric was not so lucky---the huecuva seemed to have a bone to pick with him, and beat him down until a maximal death attack finished the job. Our swashbucker/cleric and our fighter were finally able to wear the huecuva down after the conjurer once again ran out of spells. *Then* we find a silver weapon later on. Sigh.
Adventure: There is No Honor, Blue Nixie
The fight on the Blue Nixie went bad, with our conjurer dropping to -9, our dwarf to -5, and the rogue to -3. After escaping in a rowboat with our unconscious bodies, our cleric was able to get back to dock where Lavinia was there to help nurse us back to consciousness. However, the dwarf was only brought back up to 1 hp, a fact must of us did not catch at the time. Lavinia urged us to "take back her ship." Needless to say, the giant vermin crawling around on deck made quick work of the fighter as he climbed up the ladder. We quickly be a retreat at let the City Watch handle it.
We use Weapons of Legacy as well, and they work well. The first is part of our party paladin's tragic tale. Melinde was his mentor, and on the way to Blackwall Keep, she gave him as a gift a specially crafted longsword by Osgood. Well, after dealing w/ the Keep and sending work back the garrison, the party dealt with the lizardfolk. However, on the return, they heard that the group from the garrison that had reached the keep "entered the basement and didn't come back." The party faced them, and it turned out it was Melinde and a few soldiers from the town. The paladin managed to kill Melinde with the sword she made. At the funeral, the paladin gave a stirring speech. We decided that the speech along with the rest of the blade's history was enough to make it an item of legacy (the speech and the visit to the grave are now part of the Least Legacy ritual). The second is a weapon of legacy our Daelkyr-tainted warlock was given by the leader of their Dragon Below Cult (we play in Eberron). The warlock, who is redeeming himself with the enlightened spirit PrC from Complete Mage, is now fighting the rod for control. Fun times.
Thanks, I'll have a look. I based the numbers from the Dragon 302 article and doing eyeballing comparisons of critters, so hopefully the lists are reasonable.
I've tweaked the list a little bit: Removed nabbasu, jovoc, and the guecubu; moved bar-lgura and added in some more fiendish dinos. Here are the affected levels: Summon Monster V
Summon Monster VI
Summon Monster VII
Comments solicited.
My character in the Savage Tide is a mad summoner ex-pirate obsessed with understanding things about THEM, which I mostly translate as outer-planar critters. I expect him to use summon monster a whole bunch (and plans to go Malconvoker from Complete Scoundrel), so I wanted to customize a summon monster list that seemed more appropriate for him and the campaign. Thus, if focuses on demons, acquatics, and a few odd balls (elementals are iconic arcane summons, summon swarm related monsters, for example). Below is my list. I'd appreciate any comments on levels that have monsters that are too weak, too powerful, etc. For example, I do not really have any great demons for summon monster V (I'm not happy with the choices I have) and I'm not sure if the juvenile nabassu at VI is the right level for it. I've cribbed together sources from all the MMs and Fiendish Codex I (FCI). Summon Monster I
Summon Monster II
Summon Monster III
Summon Monster IV
Summon Monster V
Summon Monster VI
Summon Monster VII
Summon Monster VIII
Summon Monster IX
Our Ebon Traid is focused on a strange scheme to unite the powers of Death:
I've had similar thoughts, and the Descent into Madness scenario seems ready made for AoW ('Worms! Worms!'), but I am also hesitant of scrapping Champion's Belt. Can't say I have thought about it more than that at this time, however. :(
Over at ENWorld, we had similar issues w/ Swashbucklers. We discussed it a lot and came up with this revision. Let me know what you think: The Swashbuckler base class has the following changes: * D8 Hit Dice
Improved Disarm - As feat, even if swashbuckler doesn't qualify for it normaly. Graceful Defense - Grace bonus is also added as a dodge bonus to AC when wearing light or no armor and to disarm attempts/resisting being disarmed when using a finesse weapon. Accelerated Tumbling - When wearing light armor or no armor and not carrying more than a light load, a swashbuckler may Tumble up to their full speed instead of half their speed. Critical Finesse - When wearing light or no armor, and using a finesse weapon, the swashbuckler is considered to have the Improved Critical feat with any finesse weapon he wields. Improved Insightful Strike - A swashbuckler may add their Intelligence bonus (if any) to attack roles to confirm a critical hit with a finesse weapon. Really Lucky - May use luck a second time per day, though only once on any roll.
Since it doesn't play into the adventure itself, having your character spout out "nonesense" about the "The Fiery Eye" (ie Tharizdun) searching for the character and other non-sequiters would really add flavor. Done and done! I love these ideas! I've already accused a door knocker of bearing the Fiery Eye. :) Thanks all!
Good suggestions! I've already dropped some obscure AoWAP references (I'm DM'ing it, so I know them cold), but I'm avoiding SCAP since 1) I just started playing it and 2) with the same DM as STAP. :) I like the names of "canonical" book references; that was exactly that type of thing I was looking for.
For STAP, I'm playing a crazed archivist (Heroes of Horror) driven by concerns that "something" is out there. While this will fit with the eventual theme of the campaign, I am also interested in random occult facts on Greyhawk such as deities, demigods, weird magic, etc. that my mad one could have heard rumors of. Could be made up things (I'm doing that a lot IC), but I am interested in folks who know Greyhawk better than I who could suggest some odd things as above. I've looked at the Deity list at Wikipedia for Greyhawk, which is a start, but I'm interested in other suggestions. Mostly for fun, so my character can mention that "The Koran Horn has power to bind the Dark Mountain Walker according to the The Legends of Black Furyondy" or "The Seven Signs of Shargoth ward against specific plagues, but when used together have resonance with places curses." This is not a spoiler thread; as I said, not looking at STAP specific lore (that's what in game Knowledge checks are for). Just things appropriate to the setting. Could be fun to make up a few!
Sweet! Looks like my mad archivist may have a new feat in the future! Thanks.
The District Feats are very nice - I'm a fan of the FR Regional Feats, and these are niiiiiiiiiiice. You mind outlining the feats? I have a PC in the works and I'd like a general idea of the feats I can play with. :)
|