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Green Intern posted:I am a big fan of the Bone Knight Prestige Class from LM, since part of the class features is "bad-rear end Bone Armor with skulls and poo poo," and the rest is boosting cleric abilities (including raising the cap for controlling undead. Although this assumes you care about the mechanics for Evil Guys controlling undead, it sure was satisfying when I told one of my first 3.5 groups "3 dozen skeletons and 4 ghouls lurch out from the prison cells as the man you once called your friend laughs madly." And then, just as planned, the Cleric of the Silver Hand made about two thirds of the skellies explode instantly. They loved that drat encounter. Are you sure it's in LM? I can't seem to find it in there. VVVV Thanks. MrMortimer fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Apr 16, 2010 |
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Apr 15, 2010 20:35
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MrMortimer posted:Are you sure it's in LM? I can't seem to find it in there. It's actually from one of the Eberron books, like Five Nations or something. Fake Edit: Yup, definitely Five Nations, under the section on Karnath.
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Apr 16, 2010 00:30
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Attilla posted:It's actually from one of the Eberron books, like Five Nations or something. poo poo, sorry. I realize when I was running that game, I was flipping between LM and Five Nations. The Bone Knight was a Vol Cultist. Edit: My endorsement of the class for Flavor-Mechanics intersection still stands. Green Intern fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Apr 16, 2010 |
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Apr 16, 2010 15:49
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I'm planning to run a small campaign with my group of friends and since it's going to be my very first experience as a DM, I'd like to know if my campaign idea is workable or complete crap. The basics of it is a standard "taking down an evil ruler" thing, but I was thinking that in the inevitable final fight, the evil ruler turns out more of a Machiavellian figure, with his small kingdom acting as a buffer zone between two empires and pretty much preventing a war with them. Whatever the heroes would do next, the campaign would end, with potential for a larger campaign based on what they did or if they enjoyed my DMing style. What I'm worried about is that the players will be annoyed by what they will perceive as a no-win situation (either kill the ruler and potentially start a war, or keep him alive and accept the subjugation of his serfs, or something different, if they get creative). Is this a good idea or should I try something different?
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Apr 17, 2010 00:15
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Tekopo posted:I'm planning to run a small campaign with my group of friends and since it's going to be my very first experience as a DM, I'd like to know if my campaign idea is workable or complete crap. I ran a campaign along those lines, except in my case the players were trying to orchestrate an end to a war of superpowers to set up their location as the buffer zone in question. It was interesting, especially because my players decided the best option was to go along with the separatist leader and ultimately ended up being part of a massive diplomatic incident. I enjoyed DMing it.
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Apr 17, 2010 00:20
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Crossposting from the DnD4E thread: Got a mid-combat skill challenge I want to run in my next session. The basic idea is that a dragon put her egg down to hatch in the Tree of Life, the egg develops a parasitic relationship with the tree, drawing power off it, and controlling it to some extent. So the players get to the top of the tree where some dragon worshippers are chilling, defending the egg. The egg is all tied into the tree with a mess of roots and branches in the centre, and while this continues to be the case, branches lash out from the sides, attacking the party. The players can either make a dragon omelette, or try to remove the egg's control from the tree, because holy gently caress a free dragon egg: Arcana: Mentally fights the unborn dragon for control, straight up success Athletics/Thievery: Tries to pry the physical link of branches and roots away from the egg, straight up success Heal/Nature/Perception: Spots a weak spot in the link between egg and tree, give bonuses to subsequent athletics/thievery checks. Endurance: Diverts power from the egg into themself, giving bonus to subsequent Arcana checks. Any thoughts on current skills/suggestions for how to incorporate other skills?
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Apr 19, 2010 02:58
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I'm starting a new adventure with the party sleeping in an inn as a crapton of lizardfolk attack the town they're in. The lizardfolk are torching buildings and so on and so forth - and I want to start off this first encounter with a little excitement. I'm thinking I want the PCs wake up to the sounds of combat, and they see some lizardfolk running towards the inn ready to torch it. My problem is timing - how many rounds do I give them before the lizardfolk throw their torches? How many more until the building burns down? They have to don armor and such, but I want a sense of urgency. Some might have to don hastily with help, others might have to forego armor and just get out asap. My plan so far is: 1d10 rounds before the lizardfolk get close enough to throw the torches, then the PCs have another 1d10 rounds to escape the inn before it collapses/explodes. After half of the second d10 worth of rounds, anyone inside will take 1d6 smoke inhalation damage each round they remain inside, Fort 15 save. Retarded? Not retarded?
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Apr 19, 2010 04:26
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Stuntman Mike posted:I'm starting a new adventure with the party sleeping in an inn as a crapton of lizardfolk attack the town they're in. The lizardfolk are torching buildings and so on and so forth - and I want to start off this first encounter with a little excitement. I'm thinking I want the PCs wake up to the sounds of combat, and they see some lizardfolk running towards the inn ready to torch it. You are creating the possibility for your inn to collapse into ruins in two rounds, or take a leisurely twenty rounds to slowly burn out. That's probably not a good idea. I suggest picking a set number of rounds for the torching and building collapse. If you're thinking 1d10, pick five for each.
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Apr 19, 2010 05:16
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make the inn burn until you feel like its not fun or doesn't make sense to be on fire. Then, put the fire out somehow. no one will complain that you didn't roll to see how long the fire burns.
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Apr 19, 2010 05:23
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Liesmith posted:make the inn burn until you feel like its not fun or doesn't make sense to be on fire. Then, put the fire out somehow. no one will complain that you didn't roll to see how long the fire burns. Always this.
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Apr 19, 2010 05:31
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Liesmith posted:make the inn burn until you feel like its not fun or doesn't make sense to be on fire. Then, put the fire out somehow. no one will complain that you didn't roll to see how long the fire burns. That's absurd. Next you'll go so far as to suggest that we should dispense with rolling 3d6 for stats!
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Apr 19, 2010 08:14
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projecthalaxy posted:Also, is there an official God[dess] of the Underdark? What Riidi said, only much more emphatically. Torog Torog Torog (Now he will burrow up and drag me into a prison beneath the earth, according to the DMG. See, he rules already). Forget Lolth, she's just a two-bit chiseler trying to steal the King that Crawls' rightful turf. And if your campaign is at all focusing on it, read Underdark. It gives him a good development as a simultaneous tortured-and-torturer, severely messed up god. [For one thing, based on the DMG alone, I thought he was some kind of giant worm guy. His history as laid out in Underdark is much more interesting. And his worshipers make literal Dungeons for him.] And really, how can you say no to that face?  Click here for the full 640x432 image.
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Apr 19, 2010 10:55
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Chernori posted:That's absurd. Next you'll go so far as to suggest that we should dispense with rolling 3d6 for stats! rolling is for peons who don't have a piece of cardboard to hide behind and the freedom to make poo poo up and lie about it whenever they feel like it
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Apr 19, 2010 16:10
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Liesmith posted:rolling is for peons who don't have a piece of cardboard to hide behind and the freedom to make poo poo up and lie about it whenever they feel like it Show us on the doll where your GM touched you...
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Apr 19, 2010 16:18
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Heyo, I was just posting about rebuking dead. I don't exactly know how to go about summoning a bunch of undead onto the battle field. But I want this adventure to start off that way. I guess I don't understand the game mechanics, I realize that evil clerics and other things that can rebuke dead can control their hit die worth of undead, but do they just rise up from the ground or do they have to be there before you rebuke. Could I get some clarification?
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Apr 19, 2010 21:57
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MrMortimer posted:Heyo, I was just posting about rebuking dead. I don't exactly know how to go about summoning a bunch of undead onto the battle field. But I want this adventure to start off that way. I guess I don't understand the game mechanics, I realize that evil clerics and other things that can rebuke dead can control their hit die worth of undead, but do they just rise up from the ground or do they have to be there before you rebuke. Could I get some clarification? Yeah they have to be present to be rebuked/controlled
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Apr 19, 2010 22:02
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Although I've had to cut a few sessions worth of plans/plots due to missing out on a lot more game nights than I thought, I want to go ahead with the main villain in my 4e campaign attempting to consume several kinds of iconic far realm type creatures to boost his power in bringing a far realm entity into the world. The players will witness this first hand on the next adventure when he does it with an Aboleth's brain, but I wondered what else he can go for, and maybe even clues so the players figure out where to go and try to stop him. For each consumed creature he will have extra abilities at the climactic battle. I don't think I can do more than 4 total if I want to finish the story arc before I lose half the group come late August. So far I was thinking Aboleth, Beholder, and Mind Flayer (gibbering mouther/orb is out as he already has the power to summon those), the more nasty solo style iconic stuff the better. As for clues I was thinking along the lines of a ritual scroll that requires "the mind that speaks in silence (aboleth telepathy), the unblinking eye of flame (beholder)" etc, etc. Any help would be appreciated!
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Apr 19, 2010 22:30
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NightVis posted:Yeah they have to be present to be rebuked/controlled What would be the best way to make them present? Summoning? Or just have them mysteriously summoned from outside the gates!
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Apr 20, 2010 05:10
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opposing cleric, haunted burial ground, just there for no discernable reason sky's the limit (they can fall from the sky)
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Apr 20, 2010 06:04
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best way to introduce undeads: "You enter the room from the north. in the room there is a skeleton holding a rusty longsword. the skeleton guards a chest. exits are north and east" this is also a good way to introduce chests.
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Apr 20, 2010 07:13
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Liesmith posted:rolling is for peons who don't have a piece of cardboard to hide behind and the freedom to make poo poo up and lie about it whenever they feel like it There's a whole section in the GM section of Paranoia XP about which methods of rolling to use to manipulate your players.
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Apr 20, 2010 07:20
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Liesmith posted:best way to introduce undeads: "You enter the room from the north. in the room there is a skeleton holding a rusty longsword. the skeleton guards a chest. exits are north and east" It's a good way to introduce exits and longswords as well, really. So for the opening of new campaign, I thought I'd go with the D&D-standard "ambushed convoy" opening. I'd like to make it more interesting than the usual thing though. The game world is similar to Eberron, with some technology like trains and primitive firearms. The idea is that the players are on contract to guard a train carrying provisions to a far-off province that passes close to an increasingly hostile neighbouring nation. As they enter a set of parallel tracks going through a canyon, another train on the other set of tracks appears behind them and catches up. The train, of course, belongs to the enemy nation and soldiers immediately board the player's train. The encounter would go something like this: -Train gets boarded by blowing a hole in the ceiling of the last car, players are near the train's engine at the front. Infantry storm through the train, capturing the passengers and subduing guards. -The players fight their way backwards through the train, clearing the cars one at a time. -The players' train pulls ahead for a few minutes (short rest), until a curvy section forces it to slow and allows the other train to catch up -The remaining guards (and players hopefully) head to the roof to fight off the second wave of boarders -A final elite enemy leaps across, carrying a bomb that the players have to get rid of to save their train I was thinking there could be a lot of fun gimmicks going on in the encounter: -The trains could move relative to eachother -Sudden turns could slide everyone a square -Endless chances to knock people off the trains -Of course, the mandatory tunnel forcing everyone to drop prone. I'm thinking of having train cars that are 4x8 or something like that. I know that's a bit unrealistically wide, but I don't want combat to be claustrophobic because there's no room inside the cars. I was also thinking it might be neat to have one player control a bunch of minion train guards and have his "actual" character be at their next destination and meet up with them there. I'd love any suggestions or tips you guys have on how to make this a great intro to the campaign.
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Apr 20, 2010 11:05
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Chernori posted:It's a good way to introduce exits and longswords as well, really. Do the train cars on paper that you can move them relative to each other. It'd be great if they did an Eberron themed Lightning Rail dungeon tiles pack. Then when you have the friendly train speed up you can move the enemy train back 3 or 4 squares, mess up people's ranges. Maybe let the car links be destructable so they can cut off an enemy car, or lost a friendly one if its too overrun with baddies.
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Apr 20, 2010 19:08
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When I play D&D over maptools I don't really fudge rolls. Personally, I don't have anything real against it but the public nature of maptools means that most rolls are out in the open. It works. Monsters have hidden HP and hidden panes with skills so if the encounter is too easy/too hard there's always room for activating the hidden on blooded ability to even the odds, but I think the public nature of rolls add to the fun of the combat most of the time. I don't want to make my players feel like they're invincible or that they aren't in danger and the enemies won't try to kill them, so when people drop into negative HP its less a matter of "oh" and more like "OH poo poo".
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Apr 21, 2010 09:56
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lipstick thespian posted:When I play D&D over maptools I don't really fudge rolls. Personally, I don't have anything real against it but the public nature of maptools means that most rolls are out in the open. It works. Ah ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha! AH AH AHA HHAHAHA!! When you play D&D! AHAHAHA! ajaehajrej
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Apr 21, 2010 14:16
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Riidi WW posted:Ah ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha! AH AH AHA HHAHAHA!! When you play D&D! AHAHAHA! ajaehajrej AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA Ahashgsdhgfhgdf7u8568gfh god riidi you're nothing but an one-armed bandit. also screw you at least my games are fun the two or so sessions they last. owned.
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Apr 21, 2010 14:18
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I'm looking to start up a D&D Eberron game and (assuming the players like the idea) I'd like to start them off with some kind of mobile base, like a walking tower or something like that. I'd start it off pretty small, pretty bare bones, and let them add on or modify it however they wished as long as they paid for it (or got others to pay for it as a quest reward). Here're my questions: 1) What possible problems do people see arising from this? Would it be too overpowered? 2) I know that there's a possibility that they might make a hard left turn at plot points instead of going straight like I expect them to and that's okay. 3) Would having their country hire them to run missions in it be a bad idea in general? Or is it too up in the air? 4) Anything I haven't thought of?
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Apr 22, 2010 14:18
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ItalicSquirrels posted:1) What possible problems do people see arising from this? Would it be too overpowered? quote:3) Would having their country hire them to run missions in it be a bad idea in general? Or is it too up in the air? quote:4) Anything I haven't thought of?
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Apr 22, 2010 15:35
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Maybe you should use some kind of item like the old 3.5e wondrous item Instant Fortress. A little object that upon a spoken command word, transforms into a tower where PCs' can have their home base.
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Apr 22, 2010 15:39
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Yawgmoth posted:How big is this thing going to be? A walking tower is going to draw a shitload of attention from everyone. I figured that would be part of it. I've always got a hook for a battle if nothing else presents and they could always be sent out on a 'force projection' tour as well.
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Apr 22, 2010 16:09
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Okay, I'm running a '4 shot' of 4e D&D. On one of our game nights we're alternating short runs of various systems, and I'm halfway through one for 4e. The PCs are in a frontier valley, with a single human town and lots of wilderness. In the first adventure, the PCs are present for a grand festival in the town. The locals are upset when the Dwarves don't show up with their beer. The mayor sends the heroes on an epic quest to find the beer. They travel and find some farmlands raided, villagers killed, and track down several bands of orcs. Prisoners brag about the huge horde that's going to rule everything. They go to check on the Dwarves and find their hall shattered, with goblins working the dwarves as slaves. They try to free them but are defeated. In Episode 2 they manage a daring escape, overthrowing their captors and freeing the dwarves. They do learn that a caravan will be coming to pick up the arms the dwarf slaves have been making, so they stage an ambush. They handily defeat the orc riders with the help of the Dwarves. The Dwarven prince tells them he can make two suggestions. They could run for the pass and try to get help from the human king, though that is the direction the Horde had travelled. The second choice is to seek out an old wizard that may have some knowledge. They choose the latter and meet with the old man. He tells them that orcs and humans lived in harmony many years ago, but a great war broke out in the valley, driving the humans off and leaving the orcs scattered. There was an old castle of the human empire in the mountains that keeps magical secrets meant to stop the horde if they should ever rise again. So, where from here? I'm planning Episode 3 to be exploration of the old keep to get the McGuffin, and 4 to be the showdown with the Horde. What should the magical McGuffin be? Ghost soldiers? Magic artifacts? An army of constructs? Something else? Also in the last episode I set the mayor up to be kind of a sleazy politician. Maybe they find some of the ancient orc coins, and can learn the mayor has been paid off in that same coin and refuses to defend the town. Not sure how else I want to run the final showdown.
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Apr 22, 2010 16:31
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MrMortimer posted:Heyo, I was just posting about rebuking dead. I don't exactly know how to go about summoning a bunch of undead onto the battle field. But I want this adventure to start off that way. I guess I don't understand the game mechanics, I realize that evil clerics and other things that can rebuke dead can control their hit die worth of undead, but do they just rise up from the ground or do they have to be there before you rebuke. Could I get some clarification? The answer to this is to just either have a bunch of undead pre-raised/hanging around, ready to appear in a dramatic way (like digging out of the ground). If it's dramatic/awesome enough, your players probably won't care if you didn't follow the rules. Edit: If you want to make the cleric a recurring character, then you can probably give him some special powers/artifacts to "mechanically" explain his unprecedented undead-raising abilities, but really the rule of cool is paramount when dealing with undead.
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Apr 22, 2010 17:03
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I've been working on the same campaign for a long time, but I feel like I don't have a lot to show for it. I write down a bunch of ideas or encounters, then change my mind and rewrite everything. I've just been finding it hard to decide on things or plan stuff out. I'm wondering if anyone has some suggestions on how to move forward. How do you organize your notes? What do you plan out ahead of time? The people I game with have had a series of bad games under other DMs, so I'd really like to do a good job. I guess I'm worried about the campaign crashing because I've been working on it so long. I've got DM analysis paralysis now! (  )So I guess I'm asking for a sum-up of how to organize and run a successful campaign.
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Apr 25, 2010 10:23
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Green Intern posted:The answer to this is to just either have a bunch of undead pre-raised/hanging around, ready to appear in a dramatic way (like digging out of the ground). If it's dramatic/awesome enough, your players probably won't care if you didn't follow the rules. It's also important to note that recurring villains should not directly engage in combat with players until you're ready for them to die. The escaping villain sounds cool, and is kind of a trope, but letting them get away again and again just feels like robbing your players of victory. Best bet is to let them see him, have him fire a few spells and then teleport away. If they get him near death and he escapes, they'll feel robbed. If they get to him 0 and he escapes anyway, they'll feel robbed. There is one way around this, and that's permanent wounds. If they hack him to pieces, and he comes back undead, they will still feel the victory. If they beat him down again, and now he's lost an arm, it'll feel like victory. Turning villains into Frakenstein style monsters that get more and more degenerated and inhuman looking due to PC inflicted injuries makes the players feel accomplished AND gives the villain a reason to directly come after the recurrent interlopers.
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Apr 25, 2010 16:20
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TheAnomaly posted:It's also important to note that recurring villains should not directly engage in combat with players until you're ready for them to die. The escaping villain sounds cool, and is kind of a trope, but letting them get away again and again just feels like robbing your players of victory. Best bet is to let them see him, have him fire a few spells and then teleport away. If they get him near death and he escapes, they'll feel robbed. If they get to him 0 and he escapes anyway, they'll feel robbed. This is almost exactly what I'm doing. I just ran my first game and it went pretty well. I was planning on having a character (who they couldn't have killed) leave. But there was one guy in my party who was shooting a strength bow he built at an enemy near the recurring character. He botched and missed, so I told him to roll damage. Before the guy escapes I told the player how he Pointed directly to him, jumped on his horse and rode off. I think the next time they going to meet, I'm going to introduce him as an enemy with one eye and a vendetta.
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Apr 25, 2010 18:11
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Chernori posted:I've been working on the same campaign for a long time, but I feel like I don't have a lot to show for it. I write down a bunch of ideas or encounters, then change my mind and rewrite everything. I've just been finding it hard to decide on things or plan stuff out. I have the same problem, except perhaps even worse because I've thought up and scrapped at least four completely separate concepts now.  I really need a way of organizing it together so that I can at least salvage some stuff if I suddenly hate my idea.Would you guys recommend starting with the specifics? Instead of planning out the whole thing in an over-arching sense, should I work on it one scene at a time, and then go back and tweak as necessary?
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Apr 25, 2010 21:08
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I done hosed up bad in the game I ran Saturday night  . I need any suggestions I can to remedy this.The players went through my innsmouth ripoff, finding the kuo-toa and a balhannoth underneath the town in an ancient temple, and a slew of dead adventurers and sacrifices that were tossed down there from a secret tunnel leading to the basement of the inn. At this time they capture the inn keeper and mayor who have been the creepiest, where they talk of the "Great One" (an aboleth) in the ruins across the coast on an island. I've played up the entire town being very odd, people seem wary of the group, won't give them the time of day, and have a glassy eyed look to them. The players light the inn and town hall on fire and I describe that the people, with the same look, are trying to douse the fires. At this time the assassin starts cutting people down thinking they're all a crazy cult to the far realm, at which point he is wracked with pain and blindness. The Raven Queen (who he worships) tells him their minds are not their own, and that their souls are in pain from being controlled. He stops, but the bard/sorc and rogue decide to just keep burning the town atop their flying phantom steeds. I explain that when they do, they see fisherman, crafters, and whole families trying to escape their homes as the fires spread. All of a sudden about halfway through this they understand what they're doing and feel bad, but the damage has been done, as I describe several people trapped in the fiery blazes and dying. For once I figured I'd give them a real consequence since they do things like this quite a bit, albeit not to innocent people that are mind controlled by the Aboleth. I let them know that the slight rains are starting to put the fires out, but people are escaping in boats to the sea and there is much mayhem and murder. Well once that sunk in it killed the last 30 minutes of the night. The bard/sorc was visibly upset from what she had done, to the point of tearing up and not really caring the rest of the night, and the rogue looked to feel bad about it as well and even said "Man I kind of regret that, I don't think we should have done it that way...". This was a huge issue since the rest of the night was great gaming. I'm looking for a way to fix this in-game. My ideas so far are Option A) the god that the bard/sorc worships, which is a god of love and compassion, is going to be pissed but is going to give the character a second chance, in a way to bring all the villagers back to life, and for the party to pay in both gold and time to rebuild the town. Option B is to have the players find out once the Aboleth is killed that all the villagers were slimy, sea-weed coated zombies and far realm creatures far removed from reality in the first place and the aboleth simply made all visitors to Innsmouth see them as normal people. Thoughts?
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Apr 26, 2010 16:03
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Option B feels like a bit of a cop out. If you want to still let there be consequences to their actions without just pulling a bait-and-switch to make them feel better and basically reassure them that they can do no wrong, it has to be something along the lines of option A.
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Apr 26, 2010 16:27
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I don't think you hosed up at all, nor do you need to "fix this". Your players did a brash, borderline psychotic thing and now they get to deal with that. Run with it, and make them feel the consequences of their actions.
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Apr 26, 2010 16:35
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I agree with Yawgmoth. For the first point, what makes burning crazy cultists alive any better than torching innocent civilians? As heroes, you're expected to take the high ground - then, when your enemies torch a settlement to the ground, you can be righteously outraged by it, as opposed to "oh yeah we did that too they must have had a justifiable reason I mean we sure did". And, if the bard/sorceror who worships a god of love was partaking of torching everything that'd burn, then there's something a bit wrong with her interpretation of love and she probably should feel at least a little contrite. We need a grognardsay emote, I'm probably being a bit harsh here.
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Apr 26, 2010 16:48
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