treehouse916's page

I'm putting together a VTT game with some friends, and my wife is thinking about joining up. The only problem (and it's sort of a big one) is that she doesn't want to go in without a firm understanding of the core rules. She hates feeling like she's out of her depth and she hates asking questions even more.

I've tried to show her how to play before, and I am horrible at it because so many things are second nature to me and I never know where to start. Is there something resembling a 'tutorial module' for PRPG? Something that goes about introducing all the major game concepts in a methodical sort of way? If there isn't...well, first I'd humbly suggest that someone put one together, because I think it would sell. My kids are very young, but when they're older I'm going to try to turn them on to tabletop RPGs and something like this would be very useful. But it'd be good for anyone who is just learning to play.

Second, how would you start a process like this? Previously, we've started with character creation and worked our way out from that, but I think that's a bad way to go. I think it'd be better to start off with a pre-made character or something so we aren't bogged down in source books at the outset. It needs to start off fun and simple, and slowly court all the nuances in the ruleset in a way that isn't overwhelming.

I'm rambling now, but any advice is much appreciated! Specifically, what concepts must be tackled and which ones can wait, what order to do them in, that sort of thing would be very helpful.

My party is in the middle of Encounter at Blackwall Keep right now, so I'm trying to get all of my ducks in a row for the next adventure.

I'm running Age of Worms as a high-powered, gestalt game set in Greyhawk. My party lineup at the beginning of Hall of Harsh Reflections should look like this:

Khalavas - human bard/barbarian 5 // dragon disciple/dragonsong lyrist 2
Kellen - human ninja/cleric of Nola 5 // ninja/shadowbane stalker 2
Quince - human warmage/wizard 7
Darion - human fighter/knight 5 (cohort)

I basically want to run this adventure as written (it's really quite excellent) with one exception: I want to tailor the opening portion to Kellen a little bit more. He's a crime fighter by night, and I explained to his player at the beginning that there really weren't going to be too many opportunities for him to play this aspect of his character up in Age of Worms. But Hall of Harsh Reflections, especially the doppleganger section, seems like an ideal time to let him shine. The problem is that, as written, the events that lead the party to the doppleganger lair are driven by the dopplegangers. It would be far cooler if Kellen sniffed out the place using his investigative skills. So I need to add in a short section in between the doppleganger attacks on their inn and the moment they arrive at the Sodden Hold. Instead of having one of the dopplegangers they defeat drop a key, there needs to be some other, more subtle lead-in.

Any ideas?

Kharadad is your best work yet! Love it! -thumbs up-

That is all.

Oh, and as long as I have an active query, I may as well add my other question to avoid opening up another thread - the tag by my name says "Pathfinder Subscriber" rather than "Pathfinder Charter Subscriber"; did I fudge up somewhere in the process to become a charter subscriber?

I'm running Age of Worms as a gestalt campaign in Greyhawk. I used Whispering Cairn almost straight out of the box, but The Three Faces of Evil is modified heavily - I like all of my changes, which focused on eliminating 'mobs' of weak enemies and replacing them with fewer, more powerful enemies. In the case of the Vecna temple, I eliminated all of the original labrynth denizens and replaced them with a 10 HD half-fiend gauth beholder. It was a challenging (and frustrating) fight, since the beholder was able to use Flyby Attack to dart from one hidden passageway to another, blasting the party with eye rays midflight before disappearing from view.

But the beholder encounter was just a taste of what was waiting for them in the Inner Sanctum. For reference, here's my party lineup:

Kellen - ninja/cleric of Nola 5 // ninja/shadowbane stalker 1
Khalavas - barbarian/bard 5 // dragon disciple/war chanter 1
Quince - wizard/warmage 6
Darion - fighter/knight 4 (party cohort)

I made the Faceless One a necromancer/cleric of Vecna 8; I kept the allip the same, but raised the acolytes to 3rd level and made them sorcerer/wizards.

When they arrived in the Inner Sanctum, the Faceless One had fly, greater invisibility, mirror image and a host of other buffs active. He hit Kellen with a bestow curse (Kellen failed his Will save) and picked the '50% chance to act' option. One acolyte cast web and the other cast glitterdust - Kellen failed his save vs. the web and became rooted to the ground. Everyone else succeeded their save vs. the web and the glitterdust, and were merely entangled. This still put them in a rough position, which the Faceless One capitalized on by blanketing the area of the web in a stinking cloud (Quince failed his save and became nauseated). The allip showed up at the same time and entered the area of both spells without any difficulty. All of the PCs made their saves against its babble, but it still managed to drain some Wisdom from Khalavas before Kellen was able to destroy it with a greater turning.

Things got pretty bad after this; all of the PCs started failing saves or Strength checks to get out of the web and stinking cloud, but they had total cover and total concealment from the Vecna mages on the other side. The Faceless One put the hurt on Darion and Khalavas with an empowered lightning bolt, but quickly ran out of damaging area effect spells. The acolyte who cast web dismissed it so they could finish the PCs off, but the PCs started running at this point, egged on by a potent casting of fear from the Faceless One. Khalavas failed his save vs. fear, and since he was the only one in the group who hadn't been nauseated by this point, he was able to outrun them by a good distance, darting through the labrynth and out into the Dark Cathedral.

Being the wicked DM that I am, I decided that the Faceless One would take his acolytes with him via dimension door to the Dark Cathedral to cut the PCs off. When Khalavas arrived a few rounds ahead of his party in the Cathedral, he found the Vecna mages waiting for him. They all cast charm person simultaneously - he was able to shake off all but the Faceless One's casting. They had a battle of opposed Charisma checks at this point as the FO tried to convince him that his friends had betrayed him and left him for dead. In the end, the FO only managed to get him to agree to stand aside and watch the battle.

Luckily, when the rest of the PCs arrived in the Cathedral, Kellen opened up with an area dispel magic, which knocked out some of the Vecna mages' buffs, but more importantly dismissed the charm person on Khalavas. Battle was resumed - the acolytes managed to take out both Quince and Khalavas with hideous laughter and Darion was brought into the negatives by various direct damage necromancies delivered via ghost touch (inflict serious wounds, vampiric touch, chill touch, etc.)

This left Kellen (who was using ghost step to remain unseen) to manage the battle as best he could while the hideous laughters wore off. It was a pretty close thing, but the acolytes were down to their cantrips. The Faceless One tried to murder Khalavas with a phantasmal killer, but he made his save. Once Quince and Khalavas were back up the battle ended fairly quickly in the PCs' favor.

The best part of this was that the PCs got to witness the Ebon Aspect's 'birth'. They are extremely tapped on spells and resources (Darion is still down) and the Aspect is seriously bolstered (I made it a 14 HD Ebon Aspect and gave it light flails for its three functional claws to wield), so I gave them a short reprieve. The Aspect left the Dark Cathedral, compelled by the nature of its birth to an act of vengeance beyond simply killing the temple intruders. The PCs will no doubt rest before they track him back to Diamond Lake, where he has begun destroying the temples of Heironeous and Saint Cuthbert. If they don't intervene, he'll raze the town in a day or so. Allustan is currently on a delve in the recently cleared Whispering Cairn, so he isn't around to aid them. Besides, the PCs (as a group) are much more powerful than him at this point.

A side effect of all of this is that Filge (who is currently being held prisoner at the church of Heironeous) will be able to escape during the pandemonium. I love recurring villains...

I have a question about the address that my copy of Dungeon #146 was shipped to. Here's the facts, as I know them:

1) I just moved to a new place. I updated my address here the moment I moved.

2) My original copy of #145 never arrived at my new place. I recently ordered a replacement. The replacement hasn't arrived yet, but I think it just got shipped. Keep in mind that at this point, #146 has also shipped.

3) When I got my confirmation email about the replacement issue of #145, my old address was listed instead of my new address. I replied with my new address, and I'm pretty sure you all got the new address punched in before the issue shipped.

4) ...but, I was thinking...if you all still had my old address listed when you tried to ship my replacement issue #145, then you almost certainly had my old address listed when you sent me my copy of #146. Right?

It's probably too early to worry about it, but if I end up asking for a replacement issue of #146, that will be the third time in a row, which seems a little bit excessive. At the same time, I -did- change my shipping address the moment we moved, so it's not really my fault if #146 ends up going to the old address, right?

Hmmm, now that I'm done typing this, I'm not really sure what I'm asking for. Could you all just check and make sure that the address you are sending my magazines to matches the one I have listed in 'My Subscriptions'? Thanks!

I've heavily modified Three Faces of Evil to suit the high-powered needs of my gestalt party, and they really seemed to enjoy the results. So I thought I'd share...

For future reference, here's my party:

Khalavas - human barbarian/bard 5
Kellen - human ninja/cleric of Nola 5
Quince - human wizard/warmage 5
Darion - human knight/fighter 3 (party cohort)

First of all, I scrapped all of the plain vanilla, classless grimlocks, replacing them with two varieties of gestalt grimlock (grimlock elites, as I called them): there were the archers (ranger/fighter 1) and the mashers (barbarian/rogue 1). I added a fiendish five-headed hydra to guard the entrance, along with three mashers in the next room. The party handled them all fairly easily, though the hydra gave them a fun scare.

I restatted the grimlock beastmaster as a druid/ranger 4. The beastmaster had a fleshraker dinosaur for his druid animal companion and a swindlespitter dinosaur for his ranger animal companion (both from the MM3). The beastmaster used fog cloud and his blindsight to split up the party and perform guerilla tactics on them, but he rolled terribly on his attacks and didn't last very long once they cornered him.

The grimlock barbarian became a gestalt barbarian/fighter 3, but she pretty much maintained her original set of tactics in the horseshoe tunnel. I gave her Tunnel Runner and Tunnel Fighting (Underdark feats), and made the horseshoe tunnel even narrower so the PCs would be squeezed. That fight was a little bit tougher, largely because the party was split up (Quince and Kellen failed their Climb checks and fell to the bottom of the cavern, where they tangled with a pair of shadow chokers while Darion and Khalavas fought the barbarian in the tunnel).

At the rope bridge, I used a masher and a pair of archers to stall the party and make them use up some buffs - they were able to force these grimlocks into a retreat fairly quickly, only to run into them again in the cliff chamber.

I restatted the grimlock chieftain as a barbarian/fighter 3 and then added the gravetouched ghoul template. He was accompanied by a pair of ghasts as he came at the party while they were in the middle of their battle with the surviving grimlock elites. That encounter was particularly tough, and they rested shortly afterwards.

Which is good, because I pulled off the kid gloves for their fight with Grallak Kur. I opted not to make him gestalt so I could give him more levels of cleric without raising his CR. I also gave him the voidmind template (his personal history in my campaign has him as a former mind flayer thrall who broke free of his psionic bonds and slaughtered his masters, freeing his clan in the process and proving that he was a chosen prophet of Erythnul). Grallak Kur's final build was voidmind grimlock cleric of Erythnul 7. I gave him the Madness and Trickery domains. I also ruled that his beholder eyes effectively gave him regular eyesight in place of his blindsight, because Kellen hadn't been able to get in any sudden strike in a while and I knew his player was getting antsy. Finally, Grallak had Extra Turning, Quicken Spell, Divine Metamagic (Quicken) and a nightstick in his inventory, which allowed him to quicken a few of his high level spells.

When the party arrived in the Temple of Erythnul, Grallak won initiative and opened up with confusion - Quince and Darion both failed their saves, and were effectively out of commission for the entire fight. This left Khalavas and Kellen to face Grallak Kur alone. Khalavas approached the grimlock's perch first, and had to endure a hold person and a quickened wrack (he made both saves) before Grallak put up divine power and waded into melee. Kellen was able to hit Grallak with a throwing star, prompting Grallak to use his cone of slime on the pair of them. They both made their saves, but still took a crapload of acid damage in the process. At this point Grallak executed a full attack on Khalavas with his morningstar and tentacle; when all was said and done, Khalavas had two hit points left and was being grappled by the sentient tentacle. Kellen then healed him, so Grallak smacked Khalavas with a touch of madness, dazing him for the rest of the battle. This left Grallak Kur and Kellen alone, and Kellen was continuing to use ghost step to remain unseen. Grallak decided to mop up Quince and Darion at this point, since they were wailing on each other at the edge of the battlefield, but Kellen managed to toss a tanglefoot bag at the grimlock priest, who promptly failed his Reflex save, becoming glued to the floor. Kellen followed this up with a round or two of extremely lucky Rapid Shot shuriken-tossing, killing Grallak just as his last use of ki power was exhausted.

Overall, I was quite happy with how everything turned out.

One of my players is running Savage Tide, and he told me recently that there is a festival in the first adventure called 'Wormfall'. I'm sort of wondering now...how much does it give away about the Age of Worms plot? Is he now aware of the endgame events?

I'm not sure why Dungeon writers put spoilers for past APs in current APs; I will probably never play Shackled City because of a major spoiler for it that is casually inserted into a couple of Age of Worms adventures.

May I humbly request that authors for AP #4 not spoil the end of Savage Tide in the same manner?

Is there any way to order a back issue of a magazine and have it shipped with my regular subscription? I am running Age of Worms and I need Dragon #336 solely for the favored spawn of Kyuss template, but the shipping expense is over $5 - that's almost as much as the magazine itself, which means I am unlikely to get it at all. There's no way I'm shelling out twelve smackaroos for a template.

As a side note, I am sort of irritated that the favored spawn of Kyuss template was never listed in Dungeon. Considering how often the template pops up in the adventure path, it -should- be available to Age of Worms DMs who aren't also subscribed to Dragon.

Hi - sorry to be a bother, but I see in my subscriptions that #144 shipped on the 23rd of January, and it still hasn't arrived thirteen days later. I know media mail takes a while, but is it safe at this point to declare it lost en route?

Well, we're two sessions into Whispering Cairn, and I think it's going pretty darned well! It's a tough module - all but one of my four players is a veteran, and we are using a high powered point buy along with the gestalt rules. No deaths so far, but we've had some very close calls, which is something considering that I have run it straight out of the magazine so far. Last session, they went through the Lair of Laborers and nearly died fighting the water elemental (who managed to snuff their light source) and Ulavant back-to-back. I sort of wonder if that combat area shouldn't have been fully submerged, because the warmage/wizard couldn't do -anything- underwater. Maybe that was the point, but it still made for a boring hour for one of my players...

Progress Report: They've tackled the Lair of the Architect and the Lair of Laborers. They have all of the lanterns and understand the puzzle, but they took a one week break (in game) to rest, sell their treasure and level up. When they get back, they'll discover that their exploits have reached the ears of Auric, Tirra and Khellek, who they will discover upon their return in the false tomb, trying to figure out the sarcophagus puzzle. I hope they don't jump the gun and attack - I'm looking for a tense roleplaying encounter rather than a TPK.

No questions or anything, just sharing my experience so far. My players are having a blast, and so am I.

I was thinking about the spiders some more, and I thought of one major problem - how do the bigger spiders get in and out of the Lair of the Laborers? They certainly can't use that malfunctioning elevator, even if they had the brains to operate it, and it seems odd that the ettercap would play bellboy for them when they go out on hunting forays.

Two possible solutions I'm thinking of:

-get rid of the elevator altogether. It collapsed a century ago when some previous adventurer tried to use it, and the Seekers cleared out the rubble later on, before they were wiped out.

-add some sort of secret, hard-to-access-without-a-climb-speed tunnel that connects the Lair of the Laborers to the Hall of Honor or False Tomb.

The first one is easier, while the second one lets me keep the malfunctioning elevator intact. Did anyone enjoy that trap, by the way?

Also, looking at incorporating the spiders into the adventure path a bit more - the aforementioned ettercap could be the minion of a harpoon spider (MM3) who has recently arrived in the area. This intelligent, malicious aberration plans on turning the greater Diamond Lake area into his own personal hunting ground, so he sent his trusted ettercap lieutenants to secure a few safe havens around the town. One such nest is the Whispering Cairn. The harpoon spider could be encountered at a later date, possibly between the Whispering Cairn and the Three Faces of Evil. An early look at that adventure makes it pretty obvious that the PCs will need to come in at a higher level than Mike Mearls recommends.