Min/Max Boards

I tried to post this the other night, but a series of laptop mishaps got in the way (not the least of which was forgetting I didn't have my battery in and getting up to go smoke).

Anyways, the Night Below is an iconic adventure. I played through the first and some of the second parts when I was younger. I ran a group a while ago through the first part of it (well, most of it, they were getting ready to pounce on the orcs when the game fell apart). However, there are some criticisms of it:

• The first book is awesome. I have no complaints, but my large group was split on role playing and wanted something a little more hack and slash. Plus they felt like they were more on a wild goose chase and "having one guy send them somewhere just to be sent to another place." That's on me.
• The second book, from limited experience and from reading forum posts, is a drag. The players find out about their end goal and are essentially told to power level to reach it.
• The third book I haven't heard much about other than it's a great tactical scenario.

Given my experience, this'll be limited to the first book for now.

The biggest complaint I have with Book I: The Evils of Haranshire is two fold, and both involve the map: It's barren and cramped. Seems contradictory, right? First, look at the map for Haranshire. There's nothing. Forests that take up huge tracks of land with little added in, Howler's Moor is just empty. There's two villages and the Parlfray Keep in terms of population. Some Hobgobs in the canyon, and you could added a small Elf or Dwarf settlement in for variety if you wanted.

But it's also very cramped. Look at the scale of the map. It's tiny. Adding in some extra adventures would mean the players are just stumbling across shit every five or ten miles. That's not bad if you like Skyrim/Oblivion style adventures but I like mine to be a little more balanced.

I feel like The Night Below is more of a framework, somewhere between an adventure and a campaign setting. Just enough meat that you could have a meal, but to feel satisfied, you'll need a side or two. However, ever the tinkerer I am, I see a framework and I see an example implementation (like when I started picking up Flask, you build a basic blog with it, nothing fancy but just to see how it works). I see the plot as something that should take place in somewhere a little less backwater but not necessarily in the most populated area. I needed a new map. One with plains, mountains, forests and most importantly, to me, a defining river. Lucky for me, I hoard maps. You'll never know when they'll come in handy. My old harddrive was a graveyard for maps and I'm sure I still have most of them on one of my externals lying around the house (no, seriously, I have three from 750GB to 3TB and they can be found anywhere in the house sometimes). There's one map I know fairly well, not by heart but the general layout, that fits this criteria perfectly it just needs a bit of coercion to fall in line with my idea. So I did a thing.:


Click for full resolution.


The forests aren't too pretty, but for a first time Photoshop (GIMP, actually) I'm not too upset about that. Many of you will recognize that as The Valley of Obelisks from The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde. I ran a solo campaign for my ex here and I've spent a lot of time looking at this map over the years.

I stripped out all the place names despite the fact that I'm not changing many of them (or any, really), but I feel like a good map should have consistent fonts. Also, I removed Shul Vaarth and Shul Shennek from the map. One of these is permanently gone, I'm not sure which. Maybe one'll be just very secret. I'm not sure yet.

This is an on-going process that I'm just beginning and I wanted a place to collect my ideas and get feedback on them. I'll be going into more details later, but here's the base of it all:

The Night Below plot is a regional adventure. Potentially, I want to make Book I an entire campaign arc that leads to about level 12ish. Books II and III might be explored later on. I'm attempting to limit my stuff to just the SRD/Core (not including psionics, since if I ever ran this with my current group there's no interest in that). I'm also going to add in short, area specific adventures to each village (for example: Hemyulak gets The Sunless Citadel). I enjoy more a Skyrim/Oblivion style setting but not one where the players are going to get sidetracked because they're coming across a mine or fort or cave every time they move across the map. I'm also going to be shamelessly lifting quests from Skyrim, Oblivion, Dragon Age and other games as well.

Go YouTube a Knight Artorias fight video if you want, but I won't blame you for it if you don't. spoilers and all that...but I totally spoiled some stuff right there. Also, Dark Souls: Prepare to Cry Edition, y'all.  ^ infinity

Now, how to make this dude? I figure a bastard sword and power attack and leap attack and einhander with lots of ranks in Jump and Tumble and Warblade. Natural Bind and Wild Cohort for a wolf (Sif).

I'm rambling a bit, but I'm on my phone and inebriated.

Edit: Sober and on my laptop now. Here's what I have up to 6th level, I might even throw this fucker at my players because why not? Noted HR: Spring Attack's only requirement is +1 BAB and allows a standard action while moving (maneuver, spell, attack, whatever) and maneuvers only have a IL requirement.

Einhander didn't do what I thought it did (grant actual bonuses for fighting with one hand), so that's out. Oh well.

Warblade 6
Feats: Wild Cohort (Wolf), EWP (Bastard Sword), Power Attack, Combat Reflexes, Spring Attack
Maneuvers: Steel Wind, Sudden Leap*, Claw at the Moon*, Wall of Blades*, Bonecrusher, Emerald Razor*
Stances: Punishing Stance, Leaping Dragon Stance

I suppose at the time when he's fought in the video, Sif isn't around to aid him, so Wild Cohort could be replaced by Power Attack, Spring Attack goes to 3rd level and I pick up leap attack at 6th Planned feats for the future: Combat Expertise, Imp. Trip, Whirlwind Attack, Adaptive Style. Iunno. Trip is a must since Int is a boosting stat that applies to it (and I'll be provoking AOOs like crazy with all the movement, so I suppose R's Gambit might be nice, too, so I can smash right back).
 
Basically tactics would include jumping at folks to smash them with a power attacked bastard sword and then tumbling/jumping away, assuming enough movement is left. I think I'll read up on the Hood (wait...he took a break from the boards, I wonder if sending up the Hood Signal will bring him back) and see what I can learn from that.

If this fucking post gets lost one more time...

Long story short: I might in a low level gestalt game of indeterminate length. I want to play a Human Crusader//Binder. Probably no flaws, unsure of multiclassing and dual advancement, so I'm sticking straight Crusader//Binder and optimizing on a level by level basis rather than one culminating in something awesome (though I'm thinking Combat Reflexes + Stand Still or Combat Expertise + Improved Trip for some lockdown type stuff.) I'm thinking Improved Binding and any one of Extra Granted Maneuver, Improved Initiative or Stone Power/Power Attack (depends on if retraining is allowed).

I'm stumped on the vestiges, despite having read them multiple times nothing jumps out at level 1 and goes, "PICK ME!" Aym looks interesting because of Halo of Fire and Dwarven Step, Sunder is whatever and hitting objects isn't something I'm going to preoccupy my time with. Naberius may be good. Ronove would be good for when I have a reach weapon, that way I still threaten my immediate area, increased speed and ranged bull rush are pretty awesome, too. Savnok may be cool, full armor is pricey (and completely in character for a CN person to sell and then recall).

But that's it. So....help, please?

I often get ideas for a campaign or a quest that I don't know how I'll end up running a fraction of the ones that could fit into my current campaigns (The Night Below and a solo campaign in the Valley of Obelisks), let alone the ones that would be an entirely different campaign or even system. @_@ So, instead of dooming my ideas and thoughts to a hell stuck in my head (or written on a post-it note that gets lost or a wayward email to myself), I'll share them.

The two main ones I've been pondering lately are a Mutants & Masterminds game and a Delta Green/CthulhuTech game.

Memphis In Mayhem (a play on the festival Memphis in May, if you've never been here...when it happens...which is May, just so you know; I've also always thought that'd be a cool name for a rock/metal/hardcore festival during May, too...I digress): A meteorite (or whatever the proper term is) strikes Memphis at the height of Memphis in May -- Musicfest (read: Mudfest) at Tom Lee Park! After the damage clears and a state of emergency passes, people begin to develop superpowers (DUNDUNDUN!). However, their strength is relative to how close they are to Tom Lee Park (in terms of tens of miles or something so a quest that happens in Germantown doesn't cause much power loss compared to an expedition to Nashville or Little Rock). Eventually, a group known as the Cult of the Dragon emerges as the main antagonists -- their powers focus around breath weapon (read: Blast), flight, natural armor and higher ups would possess the ability to absorb, nullify and manipulate powers. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! The heroes would uncover evidence that the meteorite was actually a genebomb fired by aliens -- the Dragu! Who are attempting to conquer Earth because of it's rich genetic diversity or something. The dragu come in three flavors: dragonoids (think 4e Dragonborn), full on dragons (elder dragu who have undergone a transformation into what is essentially a living weapon of massive destruction, think...well a fucking dragon, under CR'd of course) and Elder Dragu (dragonborn who have remained in their form and lead the race). The aliens would either be aided or destroyed (or completely ignored?) by the heroes.

Delta Green/CthulhuTech -- I'd run the Delta Green portion of this game with the Agon conversion (search for DAGON, the character sheet alone makes me want to run/play), most likely. But, it'd follow a plot that several scientists discover an ancient grimoire and alien technology and reverse engineer it eventually leading to a follow up campaign that was run with CthulhuTech. So, the Delta Green is what ran up to CthulhuTech verse. This campaign might actually be harder to pull off because only about half my players/friend are really into Cthulhu/Lovecraft/Horror and only a couple are into big mecha animu Though, if it did progress to CT phase, I could also bring in some Eclipse Phase stuff (assuming it's as awesome as I've read about, I'm yet to read through it myself).

Both campaigns would be more episodic than what I usually run (especially since I have some players that always show up and some players that usually show up and some that wouldn't want anything to do with either of these). And I'd use a GITS:SAC style set up with "Stand Alone" and "Complex" episodes -- basically not everything HAS to relate to the campaign arc, there's other stuff that happens as well (that may or may not be tangentially related to the main plot). But investigation, combat and stealth would be present in both (in varying amounts, there's not much stealth or investigation needed when the evil cult knows your super powered ass is coming to demolish them, but it is when you're looking for their hideouts and double agenting as as member).

So, take a story, leave a story?

I've been trying to groom my players to feel comfortable DMing. Now, I have two volunteers -- both semi-serious but hesitant. One is my girlfriend who has played on and off with our group for the last several years and the other is a newer player who is still learning how to flank and sneak attack.

Aside from making sure they are both versed in the rules, what other things should I train them in, for lack of a better word.

For me, it was as easy as taking my knowledge of how combat works and extrapolate that out to how running multiple creatures would act with the motivation of staying alive, killing the PCs.

They are both decent story tellers, which is something I wouldn't be able to teach, so that isn't a concern.

I'm thinking of finding a very simple module (Scourge of the Howling Horde or The Sunless Citadel) and annotating it and giving it to one of them to run with me as copilot if they had any questions. But I don't know.

For questions midgame!

I have a barbarian who wants to pick up a table and throw it. Opinions?

Wildshape doesn't allows you to keep any extraordinary abilities EXCEPT those derived from classes; all supernatural abilities except for breath attacks and gaze attacks are, however, kosher. So monks can flurry, paladins and smite evil, rangers retain favored enemies, swordsages can be kung-fu bears, et cetera. But a Druid/Dragon Shaman or Druid/Dragonfire Adept are robbed of one of their core features: the breath weapon.

Would it be to terrible to allow these guys to keep their breath weapon because it's derived from class levels and not a racial ability?

I had an interesting situation come up last night. I have a player who maxed his tumble and jump ranks and has started to turn into a mini-hood (he just doesn't know it yet). However, they were fighting in a forest and he asks me if he can climb up a tree (which I said yes to, duh). Alright, next turn, "Can I jump to that tree over there?" He was trying to avoid the one-two punch of entangle AND undergrowth movement restrictions. So I told him, "Jump check, reflex save to grab the tree, climb to stay on it." He makes those. The next round, he wants to shimmy down the tree and stab a death dog with his glaive. I told him, "Climb check, attack roll." He failed his climb check, but I still let him attack at a penalty that he missed his climb check. He hits and I give him an extra d6 on his damage roll and he rolls a successful tumble to avoid falling damage himself ("You use the death dog as leverage to avoid busting your ass." or something).

Never minding that I later forgot about not being able to run through hampered movement squares, would you say I ruled on this correctly or am I letting my player get away with too much? I try to let my players have fun, especially when they come up with interesting ways to do combat. Like my dragon shaman player jump tackled a derro down a flight of stairs last session and and in this same session, I had my barbarian player roll a 20 and then another 20 when she threw her Double Orc Axe at another derro, so I went ahead and let her apply her strength to it (no power attack, and before you ask, I don't understand why not either) and treated it as a bull rull against the poor guy (he was one single digit hit points anyways).

I think we had a topic like this, but maybe that was on the BG board. Iunno. Anyways. DICE! How many sets do you have? Do you care if they match? Do you remember your first set? What do you keep yours in?

I'm such a nerd, I took pictures.

These are all of MY current dice. Kristie has about three sets she keeps to herself. My dice are typically at home in their busted tupperware container -- except for some of them, which got mixed in at the end of last session (doing things at 1am doesn't lend itself to being particular). Before I got so many, I washed out a Goober container (that ready spread peanut butter and jelly hot mess) and used that for a dice holder for years and years, it's probably still around somewhere. But this thing holds a lot of dice well.


Here are the complete sets that I let my diceless players use at the table, but they always come back to me at the end of session. The pure red, white and blue are new (also didn't realize that I bought such a patriotic set when I did, just grab a few I liked that where cheap). The pink were a going away present from a close friend a few years ago (it's missing a d6, though ), and the black and grey speckled were my very first set, followed shortly by the green speckle and blue speckle.


These are my extra dice: an incomplete set, a few random dice that have appeared over the years, my d30, an old Pokemon Yahtzee die and a stonewood d6 one my players got for me when she went to New Mexico last year.


These are my dice. I don't let anyone else use these except under certain circumstances (all other dice are currently being used or they ask very politely or their dice have been behaving poorly). I don't want to see these dice get lost because they are some of my favorites, unlike what has happened in the pass to a set of bronze/black marbled dice I had that slowly disappeared over the years. These ones don't ride around in the tupperware usually because then players will grab 'em up.


Instead, they ride in Cthulhu's belly!!! This pulshie/dicebag is the best D&D related gift anyone's gotten me and ranks among best gifts of all time anyways. My seriously awesome girlfriend/fiancee/my woman bought it for me for Christmas 2010 (I think). She gets me all the best gifts. Cthulhu does a good job holding my dice but that's all the more that's fitting in there; even with those dice, he has a hard time zipping up. I also have Cthulhu dice from SJG, and when we play, this guy goes in the middle of the table.



Now, I just need to get her a nicer dice bag. Maybe I'll be able to sneak pictures of her dice later, but she's even more paranoid of losing her dice than I am. She counts them before, during and after sessions most of the time but is better about letting others use her dice.

Also, I just ordered Chessex's Pound o' Dice and (another) purple set with white numbers from Amazon. Looks like I need a bigger piece of tupperware.

I'm sure you all are so VERY eager to read this. Yep. That's why I'm reserving posts.

Thunder Soul

A couple of class features are inspired by Risada's Shining Blade of Heironeous

Chassis
Good BAB
Good ref and fort
d8 HD
Skill Points (4 + INT): Balance, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (Arcana/Geography/Nature/Religion/The Planes), Listen, Move Silently, Perform, Search, Sense Motive, Spot, Survival, Swim, Tumble

Class Features
01 Breezes, Charge Weapon, Create Water, Grasping Winds, Static Charge (1d6)
02 Armor of Winds, Lightning Resistance 5, Thunder Stone Immunity
03 Gust of Wind, Water Walker
04 Feather Fall, Static Charge (2d6)
05 Wind Wall
06 Lightning Bolt
07 Static Charge (3d6)
08 Lightning Resistance 15
09 Lightning Splash, Wind Walker
10 Static Charge (4d6)
11 Control Water/Wind
12 Chain Lightning
13 Retributive Thunder, Static Charge (5d6)
14 Lightning Resistance 30
15 Sky Walker
16 Static Charge (6d6)
17 Whirlwind
18 Call Lightning Storm
19 Static Charge (7d6)
20 Born of Three Storms

Armor & Weapon Proficiencies: Thunder Souls are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, but not any armor or shields.

Breezes: Thunder Souls have an inner repository of chi that they can tap into to power some of their abilities. Each day, at dawn or dusk, he may refresh it while mediating on storms. This repository is equal to 3 * (Thunder Soul Level + Wisdom Modifier). Spending a breeze is not an action but part of the ability that consumes it. A thunder soul may only access his breezes while he is wearing no armor and carrying no shield.

Charge Weapon (Su): By spending one breeze as a swift action, a thunder soul may charge a single weapon in he is wielding with electricity. This charge is equal to his static charge (see table above) and lasts until he successfully attacks a target – or until discharged another way (it will naturally dissipate in about 1 minute). A weapon may only have one charge at a time, but multiple weapons could be charged on sequential turns. A weapon made only of wood (a club or quarterstaff, for example) may not be charged in this fashion and ammunition (for example an arrow or bolt) is charged individually (effects that cause a piece of ammunition to split only deals the static charge damage once).

If a thunder soul has electricity resistance or immunity, he may spend an extra breeze to lower his resistance by 5 (paying 1 breeze per 5 points) to overcome an equal amount of resistance on his target or to drop his immunity (4 breezes) and automatically over come any resistance or immunity to electricity on his target. This lasts for one round, during which he is just as vulnerable to electricity as if he had the lowered resistance or no immunity.

Create Water (Sp): By spending one breeze as a standard action, a thunder soul may use create water as the spell as a wizard of his level.

Grasping Winds (Sp): At 1st level, a thunder soul may use mage hand as the spell as a caster of his level except that it is [Air] effect and not a [Force] effect. He may use this ability to retrieve his weapon if it is within (5 + Wisdom Modifier) pounds or if it's magical (but not if it is attended), this is the only exception to the rule.

Armor of Winds (Su): As long as the thunder soul has at least one point of breeze left, he gains his wisdom modifier to his armor class. This bonus apply against touch attacks and even when the thunder soul is flat footed. However, this bonus is lost whenever he wears armor, carries a shield, carries a heavy load, or runs out of breezes.

Lightning Resistance (Ex): At 2nd level, a thunder soul gains electricity resistance 5. This negates the first five points of any electricity damage dealt to him. At 8th level this increases to 15 and at 14th it increases to 30.

Thunder Stone Immunity (Ex): At 2nd level, a thunder soul becomes immune to the effects of a thunder stone.

Gust of Wind (Sp): At 3rd level, a thunder soul may spend 2 breezes to use gust of wind as the spell as a caster of his level.

Water Walker (Su): At 3rd level, as long as a thunder soul has at least 3 breezes left, he may walk on any liquid as if it were firm ground. Mud, oil, snow, quicksand, running water, ice, and even lava can be traversed easily, since the his feet hover an inch or two above the surface. (Crossing molten lava, he still take damage from the heat because he is near it.) The thunder soul can walk, run, charge, or otherwise move across the surface as if it were normal ground. This ability may be activated or deactivated as a swift action.
If this ability is activated underwater, he may spend 1 breeze per round to gain a swim speed equal to his land speed. He does not need to make Constitution checks to hold his breath as he can maintain his lungs with his inner ki. However, if he runs out of breezes while underwater, he must begin making Swim and Constitution checks as normal to swim.

Feather Fall (Su): At 4th level, a thunder soul may use feather fall as the spell as a caster of his level an immediate action by spending 2 breezes.

Wind Wall (Sp): At 5th level, as a standard action, a thunder soul may use wind wall as a the spell as a caster of his level by spending  3 breezes.

Lightning Bolt (Sp): At 6th level, a standard action, a thunder soul may use lightning bolt as the spell as a caster of his level by spending 3 breezes.

Lightning Splash (Su): When a thunder soul charges his weapon, he may spend an additional 3 breezes to deal extra damage to adjacent opponents. When he strikes with a charged weapon, he deals electricity damage to in a 10ft cone equal to half of his static charge damage dealt to the main target.

Wind Walker (Su): At 9th level, as long as he has at least one breeze remaining, a thunder soul is immune to wind effects (such as strong winds, the gust of wind and wind wall spells and the like). He also gains a +10 to jump checks and doesn't double a jump DC for not having a running start.

In addition, if there is at least a strong breeze he can ride (either from natural means or a spell or similar effect), he may spend 1 breeze per round to move at his land speed on the wind. The maximum upward and downward angle is 45 degrees. If he runs out of breezes while wind walking, he gently descends towards the earth at a rate of 60ft per round (unless the ability was negated by an antimagic field – or similar – in which case he plummets towards the earth as normal)

Control Water/Wind (Sp): At 11th level, a thunder soul may spend 5 breezes as a standard action to use either control water or control winds as the spell as a caster of his level.

Chain Lightning (Sp): As a standard action, at 12th level, a thunder soul may spend 5 breezes to use chain lightning as the spell as a caster of his level.

Retributive Thunder (Su): At 13th level, as an immediately action, a thunder soul may spend 4 breezes to deal retributive damage to a creature who just damaged him. This damage is electricity damage equal to his static charge. This damage has a range of 80ft and requires line of effect and sight.

Sky Walker (Su): At 15th level, as long as he has at least 10 breezes left, a thunder soul may fly at a rate equal to his land speed with perfect maneuverability as long as he spends 1 breeze per round he remains aloft. There does not need to be any sort of wind for him to use this ability (nor would wind affect him if there was, see Wind Walker ability above). If his breezes drop below 10 while using this ability, he may choose to remain a float by spending 1 breeze per round and if he runs out of breezes while flying, he gently descends towards the earth at a rate of 60ft per round (unless the ability was negated by an antimagic field – or similar – in which case he plummets towards the earth as normal).

Whirlwind (Sp): At 17th level, a thunder soul may use whirlwind as the spell as a caster of his level as a standard action and expending 9 breezes.

Call Lightning Storm (Sp): At 18th level, as a standard action, a thunder soul may use call lightning storm as the spell as a caster of his level by expending 9 breezes.

Born of Three Storms: At 20th level, a thunder soul becomes the living embodiment of a storm. He becomes an Outsider with the (Air, Water & Native) subtypes. He gains fly and swim speeds equal to his land speed (and no longer needs to spend breezes to activate the Water, Wind or Sky Walker abilities). Any effect that changes his land speed also effects these movement speeds in the same fashion. While swimming, he does not need to hold his breath as his body becomes one with the water, allowing him to traverse even extreme rapids with ease. He also gains immunity to electricity damage and Damage Reduction 30/epic.