Looking over the 8 leveling NPCs in the back of the book, there appear to be a lot of mistakes and things that don't make sense. Annah Taskerhill has a bonus feat, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (whip), which I can't identify where it comes from. She doesn't even use a whip, so why does she have this feat? For Cora, they forgot to give her an ability increase at 4th level, which means that her ability increase progression doesn't make sense. The skills are just a mess. Skills in general are a b+@!# to figure out in reverse, but I worked out that some important synergy bonuses are missing in a few cases.
Creative Director
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Looking over the 8 leveling NPCs in the back of the book, there appear to be a lot of mistakes and things that don't make sense. Annah Taskerhill has a bonus feat, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (whip), which I can't identify where it comes from. She doesn't even use a whip, so why does she have this feat? For Cora, they forgot to give her an ability increase at 4th level, which means that her ability increase progression doesn't make sense. The skills are just a mess. Skills in general are a b~@#~ to figure out in reverse, but I worked out that some important synergy bonuses are missing in a few cases.
Annah's a bard. Bards get Exotic Weapon Proficiency (whip) as a bonus feat. Just cause she doesn't have a whip the feat doesn't go away.
It wouldn't surprise me if there were errors in the skills, but in the end if a character's skill points are off by one or two, that's hardly a game-breaking issue. If there are missing synergy bonuses, they're easy enough to add in as appropriate, but if you forget them, again, it won't kill the campaign.
Cora's ability increase at 4th level should have been put onto her Intelligence score, so she starts at 4th level with an Intelligence of 15. This has no impact on her stats until she reaches 16th level, when she increases her Intelligence by one more. As a result, her AC goes up by one point, and she does one additional point of damage when using insightful strike. It also gives her 4 additional skill points in her last four levels; go ahead and put them anywhere you want.
Frankly, these tables were easilly the most complicated part of the book to do. If these are the only errors that crept in, I'm incredibly pleased with how they turned out!
actually, the biggest problem I have with the stat blocks is that they aren't in the new format. Of course, given that the new format didn't exist when James compiled the book makes that a pretty irrelevant problem. Oh well.
Anyway, I find myself converting everything I run to the new format. it's just so much easier.
Ah, I didn't realize the authors/editors would be reading this. Obviously this must have been a lot of work to do, so please don't think I'm criticizing. I'm just pointing out errors where I've found them.
Yes, now that I look at it, bards are proficient with whips, but that's part of the class's weapon proficiencies, not a feat. Bards are proficient with lots of other weapons, too, and you don't need to list a feat for each one. It was just confusing to see it, that's all.
Other things I noticed: Shensen doesn't have bard spells picked out. As she only has 2 0-level bard spells, this isn't a big deal. Also, Jenya's skill advancements are not described. Trivial issues, I'm sure, but annoying nonetheless. Haven't looked at Zach and Todd yet.
Chef: The new format presented in DMG2 takes up a lot more space. It might be easier to read, but in a book this size it would be pretty inconvenient.
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Creative Director
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Ah, I didn't realize the authors/editors would be reading this. Obviously this must have been a lot of work to do, so please don't think I'm criticizing. I'm just pointing out errors where I've found them.
Yes, now that I look at it, bards are proficient with whips, but that's part of the class's weapon proficiencies, not a feat. Bards are proficient with lots of other weapons, too, and you don't need to list a feat for each one. It was just confusing to see it, that's all.
Other things I noticed: Shensen doesn't have bard spells picked out. As she only has 2 0-level bard spells, this isn't a big deal. Also, Jenya's skill advancements are not described. Trivial issues, I'm sure, but annoying nonetheless. Haven't looked at Zach and Todd yet.
Chef: The new format presented in DMG2 takes up a lot more space. It might be easier to read, but in a book this size it would be pretty inconvenient.
No worries! Criticism is always welcome; that's how we make things better the next time around!
How to deal with bards getting whip proficiency (and similarly, how to deal with rogues getting hand crosbows) is something that has always plagued me when building stat blocks. If you look at the various rogue and bard stat blocks through the issues of Dungeon you'll see it handled differently every time. For Annah, I decided to list the feat since it's something that I suspected people forgot a lot, and those NPCs needed to be super detailed since they pop up all over.
Shensen's missing bard spells look to me like they got eaten during layout. I know Sean threatened to stab me in the neck many times due to the nightmares I gave him with the logistics of how to present these tables (for the record, he did an outstanding job with them). I'd suggest giving her prestidigitation and summon instrument. She wouldn't use these minor spells as combat resources.
Jenya's missing skill advancements are easy, since she only gets 4 per level and never multiclases. Add 1 rank to Concentration, Diplomacy, Knowledge (religion), and Spellcraft each level.
As for the new stat format: The point at which we started working on this adventure was about the exact same point when WotC first showed us the (then still prototype) new stat block. By the time the hardcover came out, we were using the new stat block in the magazine. In fact, the new adventrue that Chris Perkins wrote for us actually used the new stat blocks, and I had to rebuild them old style for the hardcover.
Issues of space were certainly one concern, but also issues of time. We had a very short window to put this book together. I wanted to go through and rebuild all the stat blocks, but I simply didn't have the time; doing so would have taken about a month, and we didn't have a month. So there it is.
Silent Wolf Goblins....
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Here is a different error that I noticed, nothing big or really important or anything but in Life's Bazaar one of the things that Ghelve will tell the players is that the kidnappers spoke in a strange language which he doesn't understand(undercommon). That part is verbatum but the quote is something similar to that anyway. However if you look at Ghelve's stat block he does in fact speak undercommon.
Like I said it wasn't anything big, just a little disagreement between information in the text.
Well, to throw my two cents in. The whole language thing is a bit messy in LB. Yuathyb speaks Common at page 386, while at page 59 the PC's can negotiate with him if they speak Gnome or Undercommon. Same for the Skulks, according to page 376 they speak Common, but at page 61 and 62 only Undercommon.
So it's just how hard you want it to make for your players to get info, or to negotiate instead of a having a fight.
I just started to play the SCAP with my group. They are now trying to negotiate with the Mimic through a captured Skulk.
That's gotta be fun!
I just made that mimic speak common. That's too juicy of a role-playing opportunity to let slip by just because of language barriers.
Of course, my group just attacked him after he said hello.... :(
~Qualidar~
One other npc mistake I noticed when running my group through Zenith trajectory last week is the stat block for Mangh Mictho, the mighty kuo-toan cleric, lists him as having three attacks (at +19/+14/+9) after fully buffing himself with his spells. The thing is, his BAB just isnt high enough to have three attacks per round even after applying the divine power spell. Anyone else notice this? Or can anyone explain to me why he has three attacks? ( maybe I just overlooked something, I dunno)
Thundergawd
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One other npc mistake I noticed when running my group through Zenith trajectory last week is the stat block for Mangh Mictho, the mighty kuo-toan cleric, lists him as having three attacks (at +19/+14/+9) after fully buffing himself with his spells. The thing is, his BAB just isnt high enough to have three attacks per round even after applying the divine power spell. Anyone else notice this? Or can anyone explain to me why he has three attacks? ( maybe I just overlooked something, I dunno)
Thundergawd
Well, I think it's wrong, but maybe not as wrong as you might think. Kuo-toa have a BAB of +2 for their initial 2 HD. Notice that Mangh has a +8 BAB unbuffed, where an 8th level cleric would normally have +6. So his BAB after Divine Power would be 8 for cleric and 2 for his HD, for +10 total. I think, IIRC, the +19 is correct for first attack, but of course at +10 he would only get 2 attacks. I went ahead and gave him 3 anyway though, as the front line fighter in my party had a 32ish AC in that fight and that 3rd attack would need a 20 to hit anyway.
Well, I did notice that some of the NPC/monster stat blocks are out of alphabetic order. And the Silent Wolf goblins don't have their actual levels listed. I think the MM has a mistake on the Hobgoblins for their flat-footed AC, too.