Forum: Public Forum

James,

Thanks for the head-up. See you next week hopefully.

I will probably bring "Cuba", just in case we do not have enough people.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Last session and near TPK.

As you may have noticed, I do not like having to cheat  in my game, but had to give you an extra two rounds  yesterday to avoid a TPK. Now the question remains: "Why were there that many monsters in the first place?" Your choice of the method of entry into Jorgenfist was only one of many, but one that clearly called for hit-and-run tactics unless you believed the party to be strong enough to take on the whole citadel in one go, with one load of spells. The map given to you mentioned "to the small tunnels", I described the place as having 40ft ceilings for rooms and 20ft ceilings for corridors, except the tunnels you came from. Enga Keckvia was called "Ratcatcher" because she was the only one small enough to shake-up the Redcaps should these little fellows decide to stop serving Mokmurian's army.
Why did you not attempt to draw Enga into the tunnels? There would not have been any love loss between the Stone Giants and the Kobold, "She is gone? So what?" Would have thought Galenmir. Stone Giants cannot go in the "small tunnels" unless they squeeze. In fact they do not care. They had beaten the crap out of the Redcaps a couple of months ago, Mokmurian recruited the Kobold mercenary, the Redcaps were paying tribute, the complex ran smoothly.
Now of course they see the small tunnels as a security issue. Technically this is no longer an issue as they are now sealed.

Hitting Enga and staying there until you had finished with her was not the best choice ever. True, the Stone shape charges from the staff were a clever trick. I should have had Galenmir leave a couple of Giants hammering at the first wall you created. The Ogres played as planned, the Giants in the workshop could not really hear the sound of battle, and would not really bother about the smelly Ogres shouting in the first instance.
Now, as for Galenmir and his six Stone Giants:
The six Stone Giants were the patrol or guards on duty, they would have joined any fight on this floor within a couple of rounds. The time of the day being afternoon, they were in the mess hall, i.e. not far from Enga's room. Had the alarm been sounded from the top of the pit, they would have been at the pit entrance with Dire Bears, had it been night, they would have been sleeping in the room beyond the armoury.
Galenmir happened to be in his quarters, with those pretty close to the action, hence him joining the fray.
You pursued Enga to the armoury, thus bumped into its workers, I cannot be blamed for dropping three Stone Giants there.

I hope this tactical explanation alleviates your fears of "The GM threw the kitchen sink at us to kill us!". The other monsters had their reason to stay in their respective areas:

• The Lamias at best obey Mokmurian they basically do not give a damn about the site's security. Well, up to the point when adventurers show-up in their room of course.
• The Red Dragons have a reason to stay where they are, one for the party to discover.
• Lokensir, a gentleman you do not yet know about, is behind a stone door and like the Lamias keeps to his own business.
• Like in any big enough D&D dungeon, meta-gaming should inform you that there must be some help somewhere, a disgruntled employee, a powerful prisoner, that kind of person. Nope, this was not Enga .

True, the party's class distribution is pretty poor when it comes to flexibility, but I stand by my "you play what you want to play" attitude. I am against imposing by implication that one player plays a Cleric or another class usually seen as not as funny to play, such as a Thief or the likes. If some of you want to swap their PC for another one, I can find a way of introducing the new character. What I do not like is the "We live by the sword and die by the sword" attitude once voluntarily, and somewhat stupidly, cornered in a room waiting for the enemy's cavalry to show-up.
This means TPK, and yes this means more work for me to restart "Fortress of the Stone Giants" as an adventure. I just want to run Rise of the Runelords to its conclusion.

Forgotten loot, extra XP and GM mistake.

I should have given you 50% more XP for Enga Keckvia since she had received the "50% HP increase" due to her being a major NPC. I put two more Stone Giants in the patrol and one more working at the armoury. I sprinkled three more Ogres on top of the standard nine, so the XP count is what you should get. Enga chose not to drink her last CLW potion, the party would have had the time to pick-it up. I assume you will be looting the corpses for magic weapons and gold later.
For some reason I believed Enga had to drop out of rage to heal herself. This should not have been the case, then again she gained no advantage for doing so (the AC going back to 23 did not affect anything as Gideon's AoO had been spent on an Ogre). Dropping a Barbarian out of rage in the middle of combat is not a good idea, Enga should indeed have been fatigued for a number of rounds equals to double the number or rounds she had been raging! However, she did not need to drop out of rage to heal herself - drinking a potion is not an activity requiring special movement coordination - thus I shall retcon that she never dropped out of rage.
I forgot to mention that every enemy dead body sports an obvious Sihedron rune as a tattoo. In other words, every dead monster or NPC with a tattooed rune is one more soul for Karzoug's runewell.

Nagri is missing in action.

The party will need to role-play the fact that Nagri is not with them.
As for Nagri, he will hear some interesting conversations and will be given choices to make. Hiding in a little nest manufactured by yet another stone shape spell is a valid course of action.

Another way in.

As mentioned earlier, the other entrance, the one through the pit, is designed for LV10 characters too. While mass-combat involving sixty plus Stone Giants or CR11 equivalent monsters would be ill-advised, Mokmurian receives every now and then emissaries, mercenaries, etc.
Nagri is the only one with a "key" to the small tunnels now, only him in the party can open them again quietly. Hammering at them would of course see again a lot of monsters being crammed in this little room! The problem is of course that Nagri is currently on the wrong side of the stone wall.

By the way, a PRPG staff has only ten charges, but is rechargeable. Disregard the number of charges given in the 3.5 description of the Staff of Heaven and Earth.

Advanced Player's Guide and house rules.

As mentioned at the game, I am currently reviewing the APG and have found nothing wrong with it so far. Contrary to a game with "4" in its name, or the last couple of years of Third Edition for that matter, PRPG accessories are actually play-tested before publication and it shows. So, for your next level, I will allow you to re-build your character using feats and spells from the APG. The "rebuild" part means that you will be able to swap feats and such, but I will trust you to keep those your character tends to use all the time. For instance Nagri would not be Nagri without his trademark fireball or Phantasmal killer, neither would Gideon be Gideon without his silly critical friendly character build.
The only restriction to the APG I will put on pre-emptively is: You may not multi-class with the new core classes. If you want to play an Oracle up to LV20, you collect 20 levels of Oracle or some of a prestige class the Oracle can evolve into. Same rule as before for prestige class, if it is "prestige" you want it so once entered, you are in for the whole ten levels (or less for those with less than ten levels of course).

For those of you with an eeeevil bent:

• You do not benefit from Protection from evil and similar spells with alignment references.
• Good Clerics or merchants who could genuinely have access to Detect evil spells or equivalent abilities will charge you 20% more or even refuse your custom. Evil merchants sell to everyone, so do not charge good people more, unless "stupid evil" and lacking business acumen.
• For real life social reasons you are not allowed to steal from the party or otherwise hinder the party by "in game" self-centred acts. To some extent you may leave some members to die if risking your life for them is too much to consider unless a strong motivation is present.
• Evil sucks, therefore other party members are entitled to act according to their alignment. Evil characters cannot bully the party but can be bullied by the party for their own good (pun intended). Only LE and NE PCs are tolerated, CE being too disruptive.
• Conversely Good characters do not benefit from Protection from good and similar spells or effects, unless extreme circumstances allow for the effect to make sense, as in fighting a creature with the Good subtype, or of good alignment, that is subjected to mind-controlling magic or similar effects. Evil being always evil, even against evil, means that this exclusion clause does not apply for evil.
• In other words, it does not pay to be evil. Anti-Paladins would suck in a standard adventure for instance (most of the class abilities would never see optimal use), however they would make pretty good opponents.

Laurent,

have to agree it was kind of suicidal, but thats kind of how we have been going (i.e. runing head long in to the fights with out much thought). had a quick work out and discussion with ginga and we both agree what we did equated to a CR16 encounter. the fact that we all walked away alive is quite an acheivement, i do beleive. yes we are all alive (just!) and yes we have techncally split the party (alass poor nagri we knew him well ) looks like we may have to come up with a new plan as attack plan delta and the pointy end goes in the other guy plans have not seemed to work. hope sir marcus, sharrak and tellas can talk the groups way in as gideon is not the brightest star in the sky.
heres hopeing we can find nagri in one peice

Well, looks like I didn't miss much then!

Shame... I thought that tictactically we were getting more organised, but it's always harder with players controlling more than one character, particularly at higher levels.

"Like in any big enough D&D dungeon, meta-gaming should inform you that there must be some help somewhere"

Now this is a real dilemma for me. As with trying to bluff our way through the main gates... meta-gaming tells me that it's probably possible with luck, or at least trying won't mean instant death. Meta-gaming also tells me that there's very likely to be back door or secret entrance... because there always is. There's usually also the possibility of prisoners, inciting rebellion etc.

Without meta-gaming, Marcus is probably wondering whether these hostages are even worth bothering with in the grand scheme of things, and whether they're better off trying to organise a defence on home turf, rather than taking the fight to the enemy. He also thinks that there's only a tiny chance that he might be able to bluff his way through the gate and he and all his mates are as dead as THAC0 ((c) Order of the Stick) if he gets it wrong.

So... what's the balance between playing the character from the character's point of view, and allowing meta-gaming knowledge to creep in and influence decisions? I guess it varies. I'm sure I can come up with a reason for Marcus to want to try another alternative way in, rather than cutting his losses and heading home.

Some replies in order of post arrival:

Ian.

I did not calculate the EL myself but it should indeed have been in the EL15+ ballpark, i.e. "very challenging". I am still saying "Encounter Level" (EL) and "Level Adjustment" (LA, well this one I do not really use it anymore as PRPG has no rules yet for players as monsters) by the way, even if Paizo has adopted "CR" for everything. That being said, I discussed it with Andrew yesterday early evening and commented that the notion of CR should only apply at adventure design level and not at the tactical encounter level.

In common terms this means that if the players decide to open all the floodgates, they should not complain about the EL being three level higher than they are expected to handle.

To be fair, even a very cautious party would have had to face a serious challenge, Enga on her own would have been tough had the humble GM been graced with only average dice rolls, and not the sucky series of "two out of three below five" that had to be endured for that poor Kobold Barbarian.

Enga was meant to be backed-up by the Ogres then the Stone Giant patrol, so only a party that decided to fight along a tactical retreat plan to pull Enga Keckvia would have faced the manageable list of the other EL11-EL12 encounters.

The CR system is good for design but gets on its head pretty quickly as you should know:

•It works fine at adventure design stage: it makes it easy to balance threat, XP and treasure rewards.

•It is "rule of thumb" okay for the GM who needs to increase the challenge when handling six characters; hence my own encounter difficulty increase rules.

•It falls apart when players meta-game it as the well known paradox of the encounter becoming more difficult as more people fight it, rears its head.

I know this is being pedantic, but no, you did not face a CR/EL 16 as the encounter was not designed for you to face all of the actors at once. The party's decision to push-in to finish off Enga INSIDE THE COMPLEX was the one that opened all the gates.

When Jason Bulmahn dropped the CR/XP level related table for Pathfinder RPG and went back to the earlier D&D editions habit of having a fixed XP allocation per monster I thought it was a mistake, but now I have realised that it addresses indirectly the EL paradox. The amount of XP is now fixed per adventure, not per encounter; i.e. whether the party progresses slowly or not, they will level-up at the same speed.

Assuming you had managed to kill or rout all the opposition at the last session, after a couple more encounters, the old D&D 3.5 way of XP allocation would have REWARDED the party for acting stupidly because more XP would have been dished to LV10 PCs when these LV10 characters would have been doing the job of LV11 characters. With the simplified approach, it no longer serves the party to be punching above its weight, thus the GM is less likely to have to hold off punches from tougher monsters.

Nagri has all it takes to exit the complex safely without breaking a sweat. He can be invisible, cast spell silently and even fly. If he uses the main entrance/exit to get out of his predicament, he can indeed get out away pretty easily. There is no reason for the monsters to use see invisibility by default. Of course, if Nagri chooses to do things that void this assumption, things could indeed get nasty very quickly.

Adam.

Well, looks like I didn't miss much then!

What are you talking about, three hours play without dropping of initiative!

That was epic.

Shame... I thought that tictactically we were getting more organised, but it's always harder with players controlling more than one character, particularly at higher levels.

They pushed too hard, racial hatred of Kobold etc. I was also sadistic in sending them all these easy Ogres… then once enough time had been wasted, entered the Stone Giants. Hmm... why did I want to use the word dragon here?

Now this is a real dilemma for me. As with trying to bluff our way through the main gates... meta-gaming tells me that it's probably possible with luck, or at least trying won't mean instant death. Meta-gaming also tells me that there's very likely to be back door or secret entrance... because there always is. There's usually also the possibility of prisoners, inciting rebellion etc.

The party should be motivated by kicking Karzoug in the gonads. To do so, they obviously need to deal with his minions first. Mokmurian is one of them. Besides, not doing anything would lead to Mokmurian's army reaching critical mass and overpowering all of Varisia, thus ending the campaign. Prisoners, hostages or not, Jorgenfist must be stormed. Oh, and there may be some loot inside too.

Karzoug, who is to be encountered in two adventures from now, is on the cover of the Gamemastery Guide, he has crap loads of ioun stones encrusted in his forehead, a very nice glaive, all sorts of magic items, and an expensive wardrobe. Why would a greedy party retreat to their grotty little castle and forget about all of this?

The diplomatic entrance "We are here to meet with..." to Jorgenfist is now closed, unless a large amount of illusion magic or disguise skills is used. This does not mean that the party has to go through all the encampments either. Ironically knocking on the door of the guard-tower and choosing "Attack plan DELTA: Charge, Power Attack", then conspicuously walking from the guard tower to Jorgenfist itself while keeping the gatekeeper in check would to the trick. The gate-keeper will be made aware of the incursion, but not the troops, who believe the place to be impregnable for morale and motivational purposes.

Then of course, Galenmir and his Stone Giants patrol would wait for the party at the bottom of the pit. The key here is to realise that Galenmir has not had a good look at the party, those who have are dead. Galenmir will check with the Redcaps and will obsess about the small tunnels. To him, the Redcaps have recruited some mercenary help to retake the lower level of Jorgenfist. The party has done nothing else but kill people on that level. They have not even freed the Dwarven prisoners! Hence all points to an assault and not a rescue or infiltration mission. In other words, the above ground troops will not be concerned with the incursion, or again: the party will not be expected to show-up from above.

Laurent,

I guess despite having all 6 characters we were short two minds for concieving plans. I guess the fun now comes in working out a clever way to get the party back together and kill the things that remain.

Dear players,

I know we play PRPG, but I forgot to give access to the reviews I mentioned last time about the "4e traditionalists" and the "4e-ess" (for 'essentials') crowd.

This is Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

It is a bit long-winded at times, but the argumentation is pretty decent when it comes to market split and specifically the comments on the aim of bringing people back to D&D after the "4e misunderstanding" that the Essential line is supposed to address.

As for the current line of design for Paizo, they have clearly moved from:

• Developing Pathfinder RPG to support the Pathfinder line; as in "The stock of 3.5 D&D Player's Handbook is dwindling, we need a system in print."

• To something more like "Pathfinder RPG has been more successful than expected, i.e. it is more than just 3.5 on life-support for people to buy Pathfinder (the monthly adventure), thus we are developing Pathfinder RPG as the informal leading product.

Their release schedule is more like a playtested system book per quarter than the "hardcover tosh by the monthly shovel" from WotC (as of the dying days of Third Edition), but the Advanced Player's Guide and soon to be released Ultimate Magic are slowly changing the game too. The latter literally brings in a new system, a bit like what Tome of Magic did at the time.

I have said already that for your next level I will allow you to retouch your PC and make the use of the Advanced Player's Guide "legal" in the Rise of the Runelords campaign; but we need to realise that our system is shifting ever further away from Third Edition. It still smells like, and still is, D&D though. Well at least for the time being:

Our PRPG Magic missiles have always hit and our archetypes of Fighter, Mage, Priest and Thief have always been true to the game as in distinct, essential (no pun intended) and requiring party cohesion (Fighter does melee, Mage does attack spells, Priest heals and Thief gets the trap) instead of the 4e mush of "Fighter can heal himself", etc. So far the new base classes complement, without replacing, the core classes but we will need to keep a proper watch on the new Pathfinder RPG options and developments if we do not want to see ourselves turning into heretical "4e-ess"-like fanboys.

Laurent,

No.1 Thank yo uall for the awesome prezzie have been reading the web PDF all night and was full of some really cool and interesting stuff

No.2 and on a more thread related post, last night was a bit of a debacle was it not. Once again proving that a party of pretty much pure fighters and melee doesn't work as well as a well rounded party. Yes it was a nasty monster, yes it was going to be difficult without a divine spell caster and of course we've just come across 2 things over 3 sessions that the party is just not equiped to deal with. Disease and Poison.

Disease and Poison two real life dangers that are translated well into roleplay. You don't want them to happen to you and without the invention of antibiotics and a hot lemony drink they seem to really mess up a party.

Goodbye Gideon, We'll miss you... kinda, sorta, well we will find your suspiciously look a like friend in town and fill him in on what the feck happened. Feel free to say no when you feel the mass of lies and half truths

Dear players,

The Therassic Monastery massacre.

As you know, I like to run challenging games, games that provide satisfaction (hopefully!) to the players when the encounter is over, but do not like killing PCs even when you play badly. Last night you did not play badly. In fact on a tactical basis the party did the right thing, namely by getting your Protection from evil up. Some of you may have forgotten that their PCs were flying, It certainly felt that way because apart from Paul asking about a volumetric fireball, everybody else acted as if on the floor.

As I discussed with Adam at the bus stop, the party paid dearly for their ongoing strategic mistake of not having a healer and/or user of positive energy. Undead CRs are calculated for the standard party of four including a Priest. With the right weapons (positive energy, fire) the Black Monk was not really a threat, even with the 50% HP boost I gave him. Basically his abilities were kick-ass, but with his facing a standard party he would normally not have been able to use them all, I would have needed to make choices between using the gaze, the breath or a melee attack because the HP total would have been dwindling pretty quickly. With only one "fire guy" who represented the only credible threat to the Black Monk it was quite logical for him to concentrate on Nagri, first by disabling him, then attempting to finish him off after swatting the others.

As pointed out in the earlier post by Andrew, the party is unprepared for poison/disease/curse and Undead. These sadly are going to be recurring problems considering the level we are currently playing at. The undead issue is always an issue whatever the level: Looting the Tomb of the Dark Lord in the Iron Hills at first level without a Cleric means getting whacked by Skeletons with annoying DR, at LV4-5 in the same context, Shadows pump strength from the Fighter who may lack a friendly Magic weapon spell but surely would prefer a Priest burning the things away with positive energy. At high level, Undead have a lot of DR and DR-like abilities that protect them from melee and ranged combat. Last night you were even lucky that the spell-like abilities were not relevant, in fact they were contrary to the role of the Black Monk as the guardian of the place. Had they been aligned more along the "despair" line or of the "mental command" variety, you would have been even more toast than you were.

Therefore, although I do not like imposing a party composition, I must tell you in the end: "Get a healer or holy warrior or something!" Granted, RotRL is not an Undead heavy campaign, but it has some; you can no longer ignore this type of monster and hope for the best.

The mummy rot problem.

I got one scalp yesterday and potentially two more unless a 5th level cleric, 7th level Wizard or 8th level Sorcerer with the right collection of spells can be found then paid to cast Remove curse and Remove disease on the other two individuals who are losing 1D6 CON and 1D6 CHA damage a day. Yep, I forgot to mention the CHA damage, you may check mummy rot on the PRPG Reference Document. Also note that the two spells must be cast within one minute of each other. You may stock-up on potions and scrolls of lesser restoration for the sake of countering the ability damage.

I made a mistake in the past about Ilsurian this is not a big city, only a village. The only big cities around are Korvosa and Magnimar, where you can find NPCs with enough levels to assist you at LV10 with restorative or support spells. You may still consider Ilsurian as a gateway to Korvosa for trade purposes as the village has been established thirty one years earlier than Turtleback Ferry, thus should be slightly bigger.

Unless the new PC is a Cleric or Paladin with access to Remove curse and Remove disease and comes with open or unprepared spell slots, thus requiring only one hour or prayers, you will need to buy the arcane versions of the scrolls and get Nagri or Marcus to cast them; bearing in mind that Nagri would have lost 1D6 CHA for his Use magic device roll. If cast from a scroll or wand, the CL is that of the scroll or wand, not Nagri's by the way, so the DC17 could still be a problem.

In Pathfinder RPG, more than in Third Edition, DISEASES AND POISONS CAN AND WILL KILL.

Let's randomise things:

You will have 30% chance of finding a visiting Cleric/Paladin/etc of level high enough to help you in Turtleback Ferry on the day of arrival. The Therassic Monastery fight happened at night, so you get a "free" day off for your disease checks. Next check is in the morning after the night rest to keep things simple. There will be 50% chance for the NPC to have 1D3 unprepared, thus free, spell slots of the required level. The NPC level will have 30% chance to be higher than minimum with 1D4 level above that minimum if this is the case.

The chance of finding the right NPC would be 40% in Ilsurian, but a day later due to the need to travel there.

Magnimar is a week away and Korvosa four days (I think) from Turtleback Ferry. The trip to Korvosa would not have any dangerous random encounter as the region is pacified., the usual 10% a day for the Magnimar trip. Magnimar would give 40% off for healing due to your patronage from the mayor.

Reforming the party.

Unless a significant amount of cash, some luck with percentile rolls or a very well timed introduction of a healer PC happens soon the Mummy rot problem may kill Nagri and Sharax. Cash can the short term solution for restoration and lesser restoration (scrolls, wands, potions) to fight those two separate 1D6 ability damage.

Because you will be "in town" or "out of the dungeon" for at least a week of game time, anybody can change their PC. Technically Gideon could be brought back from the dead too. For campaign continuity I would advise that Marcus remains and carries on with leading the party, unless the new arrival(s) for some reason can show a link to a former party member, thus be aware of the Rise of the Runelords storyline.

Also those who have access to the Advanced Player's Guide can amend their PC built within the "behavioural limits" mentioned earlier.

The gate spell.

Consider this a talisman or token that the coven of Hags would have given to Sharax when he made the deal with them and gave away the remains of his "could-have-been-best-friend-ever" Pit Fiend. This is obviously a one-off and indeed a plot twist as the cards are intended to be.

You have arrived in the courtyard of Fort Rannick. Gideon's remains will most likely be stored in the crypt with those of Elswyn the Mad and Eigan.

I will update the game page and post a calendar event for next week later.

Edit: The Rise of the Runelords game page has been updated. I have also posted the event for next week and those for the first two weeks of January.

Laurent,

Hi,

I am thinking of benching Pacu, he's not playing quite as I originally wanted him too. I have been working on a Dwarven Druid focusing more on spell casting and summoning.

I have a question about spell slots that I can't find the answer to. If, for example, you have 4 spell slots for a given level, can you prepare 4 spells of that level, or is the amount you prepare different to the amount you can cast?

Also, if I prepare four different spells, in a level with 4 spell slots, can I cast up to 4 times any of the spells I've prepared or can I only cast each spell once as prepared (so that if I wanted to cast the same spell twice it would take two slots)?

Finally, I was hoping to get some Darkwood Armour (+2) with Wild (+3) which adds 25k to the original price, but I can't work out which basic armour I would get this put on?

Hope those questions make sense. I was planning on setting aside some of my starting fund in order to get some wands/scrolls which would be useful for the party, once the character has met the group (2-3k), plus life insurance for myself.

Ding

Dear players,

A few things to sort out on Wednesday.

Level.

Things are more complicated than first thought with running a 3.5 adventure in Pathfinder RPG when it comes to XP total. Basically , I will give enough XP so that the party is now at LV11.

Druid spells.

Druids select their spells in the morning from the list of all spells they can cast. These spells cannot be changed, they can only be cast. The Druid works like the Wizard, Cleric, Paladin, or Ranger.

Druids can "drop" a prepared spell for a Summon Nature Ally spell of the same level or lower.

Laurent,

Thanks Laurent,

So to calify, because I don't want to be accidently cheating or missing out on something obvious.

If I have four 1st level slots, and in the morning I prepare, four 1st level spells. For example, Entangle, Obscuring Mist, Cure Light Wounds, Faerie Fire.

Can I cast each of these only once in that day?
or could I, because I have prepared the spell, cast obscuring mist upto four times that day?

Thanks again
Ding

you got it right first, You prepare which spells you want to cast then they are set for the day.

i.e. if you can cast 4 lvl 1 spells and you prepare 4 cure light wounds then you can only cast those 4 cure light wounds. Spontanious casting will let you change them to 4 summon critter I but thats it.

On a lighter note should Sharak the Mighty die i've prepared a passive mystic theurge (Lvl 10) with lots of buffs and item creation (potions, wonderous and scrolls), a legendary +5 to hit in combat (thats total not BAB) and a amazing AC of 15 (including spells and miricles ) but he does have burn of flesh and a cool history to go with the no offensive magic idea... (maximised fireballs anyone?)

If we are going to be level 11 then i'll need to retweak him a little but nothing major...

EDIT!

Dark wood armour is a no no, it says that it can only be used for weapons The next best thing is Dragon hide which allows for you to wear heavier armour than Hide but you need to take the Heavy Armour Training Feat to do so. A suit of MW Dragon Hide full Plate cost 3600gps (not a massive expenditure at this level) with the enchantments you were looking at 28600gps for suit of armour is awesome value at a mighty +11 to AC and max dex of +1 and can cast spells in wild shape (which again can boost AC) you can make a fairy nasty tanking Druid who can cast spells while beating 7 shade of black and Blue out of someone...

Thanks Ginge,

I thought that was the case, it just wasn't clearly spelled out in the book, or as clearly as I would perhaps like it.

I need to therefore reconsider my armour choices, given money/feat/playtype restrictions.

I was thinking of playing it as more of a terrain manipulator and summoner (high WIS and DEX), transforming into something tiny (for further increased dex) and hiding out of reach somewhere whilst causing havok from affar. As is normally the case with all my builds, this will go horribly wrong.

Looking forward to introducing Thor'ak.
Ding

Dear Players,

New PCs.

For those who are bringing in new PCs, start at LV11 with commensurate gp amount.

Build them with a 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 array, the two stats increases and roll your once 6D6, twice 5D6 and thrice 4D6 on Wednesday. Get a free feat from the Player's Guide to Rise of the Runelords and two traits from there too. Do not use traits from elsewhere. Alternatively you can witness one another's rolls if you drop by the shop before the game session.

Those with an animal companion are encouraged to prepare a separate character sheet for them.

If you desire to enter an Advanced Player's Guide prestige class that requires multi-classing with the new base classes, I will allow multi-classing with them. If not needed, you may multi-class only with core classes, and not the new base classes.

Upgrading the party.

For the other party members, remember that you can pimp-up your PC with the contents of the Advanced Player's Guide, except for the free first level feat and two traits of course. Get yourself your eleventh level in any case. You may enter an APG prestige class if you so wish.

Again sorry for the jagged levelling-up. The old 3.5 XP progression chart is not really compatible with any of the new PRPG ones - XP tables were not OGL. Thus we carry on with standard XP allocation and from time to time I drop an XP and gp bag.

Laurent,

Dear players,

The last session of the year went fine, with definitely more balance to the party composition.

Too much choice!

As usual, it is good to remind spellcasters that they need not cast every single round. Consider that Jorgenfist must be done in one go, you will not be able to set-up camp in any of the rooms in the complex unless you find a very valid reason to do so. For instance walling yourselves into a room by using the staff would no be a valid reason because the Stone Giants have also access to stone shape, and even if they did not, they would certainly attempt to break any wall that would magically appear (pun intended).

Of course, "one go" can mean several visits, and by removing the named NPC, i.e. the mini-bosses, subsequent forays should be easier. However, a party of six can indeed do it in one big overwhelming assault.

Cheating against the Harpies.

They should have enthralled Marcus.

Just read again the description of protection from evil there is no "second roll". The way it works is that it protects before the effect, and if someone is under a charm effect that someone can roll their save again when the spell is cast. This by no means allow for saving again after a fail.

Marcus was buffed against evil, like everybody else, but he still failed. Marcus should have walked towards the singing Harpy to get methodically eviscerated.

Send in the Rocs.

I should have sent the two Rocs in fly-by attacks, and thrown a couple of boulders from the Stone Giants manning the towers... but hey! I guess I was eager to bring in an named NPC to create a proper challenge to the party. Galenmir should at least get to whack some of you. I am not sure that the reinforcements will make it on time though, as they require six more rounds to show up. These would be four to six standard Stone Giants, the same patrol as last time.

2011 sessions.

With two adventures remaining after this one, I hope to finish Rise of the Runelords around June. Higher level adventures tend to have less encounters overall, so even if they take longer, the adventures tend to run quicker. For instance Burnt Offerings lasted forever but the current adventure only features the defence of Sandpoint and the dungeon crawl that is Jorgenfist. Previous adventures had many more theatres of operation.

See you all, or at least most of you on Friday for Kingmaker and/or the drink session afterwards.

And thanks for the item cards! My collection is going to explode. I dread the time I will have to move to another flat or house. I have some much RPG related tat it is frightening.

Laurent,

As I said at the time, that spell description is horribly unclear.

The second saving throw could refer to pre-existing conditions, or it could refer to new spells cast on the recipient. The second saving throw only suppresses the effect, not saves against it as success the first time round would. I think the wording supports either interpretation.....

The description also states that the recipient is "immune to any new attempts to possess or exercise mental control over the target". The text earlier includes charm and compulsion effects as examples of mental control. However.... this might only apply if a pre-existing condition has been saved against.

Ambiguity notwithstanding, I think the most likely interpretation of it is:

If the target is not controlled

Immune from natural attacks from summoned evil creatures (subject to SR, not attacking back etc)

If the target currently controlled, then the above, plus.....
They get a new saving throw at +2 morale bonus against the evil spell control
This +2 morale bonus does not stack with the spell's +2 resistance bonus
If they succeed, the effects are dampened for the duration but resume afterwards
The target is immune to any further control attempts for the duration

Never again shall I wish to create a high level Mystic Theurge. Never.

It sounds awesome until the point you realise you're actually creating 3 characters which exist in one body Wizard, Cleric and Mystic Theurge. All of which are characters who are 8th level for purpose of creating a lvl 11 character. Paper work, balancing, accounting, spell lists (notice the 's') and feat selection are all pain in the asses. Look again at the character sheet and you can see the feats where i just kinda went well nothing left to take thats worth having so that will have to do...

But turns out he is an awesome character and a little money grabbing bastard. May have to use him as an actually character in a short story to see if he builds up any better...

Just so that you know: I am in Luton at the moment, waiting for a flight at Heathrow. The airline (Delta Airlines) customer service is appalling, as in "cannot talk to anyone".

Not sure where I will be for Christmas...

Laurent,

no where to go, only just up the road man, just give me a call, i'm at the flat for christmas