BlazingTornado Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 3 minutes ago, TheAuldGrump said: A command from She-Who-Knows-Me-All-Too-Well - No Adam West impersonations! Then what's even the point? ;) Me, I need to figure out how the party's cleric converting from the worship of Dionysus to Ares will affect the general course of things. I don't want this to devolve into a Chaotic Evil party but the consequences of the deal with Ares to get out of this strange white empty void still need to be felt... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unruly Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 4 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said: A command from She-Who-Knows-Me-All-Too-Well - No Adam West impersonations! The Auld Grump - what can I say - she knows me, all too well. I've got a workaround for you - impersonate Ralph Garman. He's got a pretty spot on Adam West that he does all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jokemeister Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 (edited) 9 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said: The trap did not work at all as planned - what happened was I described the slope, and told the kids about the goblins rolling out the barrel, and the wizard immediately shouted 'Ohcrapit'sabombFIREBALL!' All as one word... then rolled a twenty on Initiative - so I am pretty sure that was also what came out of the wizard's mouth in game. Moments like this are why I love RPGs. Edited May 25, 2017 by Jokemeister 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 I got home later last night than I had hoped - and Megan had started the Kings of War Game For Kids (From here on called Kids of War) without me. By the time I got there she was telling them war stories about the grownup version of Beyond the Borderland... The player of the Faerie Princess is getting a Forces of Nature/Elves army for her birthday.... apparently she really enjoyed the first game she tried, and wants her own army. Tonight's game for Curse of the Crimson Throne picks up just as they arrive at the old fish packing plant Fishery. Making Mr. Lamm a little more horrible this time around - he is going to feed one of the Lamb's to the shark as a distraction, unless the PCs can rescue the kid in three rounds, the water is going to be stained crimson, and the child is chum. If they don't save the kid, then the shark will be getting a +1 to hit and to damage in the event that any of the PCs (or Gaedren Lamm, for that matter) as the shark will be a bit frenzied... The Auld Grump 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 You guys ever get that feeling when you've been building encounters and you're kind of tired of just doing either one creature of the relevant CR or a bunch of identical/similar creatures whose CR adds up? I kind of ended up giving the young white dragon "boss" of the adventure this strange crew of assorted humanoids and critters as bodyguards just before his small lair: an evil knight ("Feathergale Knight"), an allosaurus, a cockatrice, a vine blight, a troglodyte, a purple fungus, a flying sword and a drow. I guess I can justify it in that it's a young white dragon so it had to hire and coerce an assortment of different things to aid him on his vengeance quest. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaganMegan Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 On 05/07/2017 at 3:58 PM, TheAuldGrump said: Heh, the Pathfinder Camp Out we were invited to is the same weekend as the Maine Blues Festival.... It is a hard choice to make - I love camping out, I love Pathfinder, and I am pretty sure that I have a few dozen ghost stories I can tell around the fire.... On the other hand, I also love the Blues - and have been practicing a Blues version of the All American Rejects' Move Along. (The only thing that needed changing is the pacing....) But... I think that the camp out wins, over all - while Megan likes the Blues, she is not as much of an aficionado as I am. (A punk concert might have the opposite split - depending on American or European punk. Megan... likes Ramone.) A baby on a camp out is better than a baby at a music festival, I think. (Who knows... maybe I can sing my version of Move Along at the campfire?...) The Auld Grump And our anniversary! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auberon Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 2 hours ago, BlazingTornado said: You guys ever get that feeling when you've been building encounters and you're kind of tired of just doing either one creature of the relevant CR or a bunch of identical/similar creatures whose CR adds up? I kind of ended up giving the young white dragon "boss" of the adventure this strange crew of assorted humanoids and critters as bodyguards just before his small lair: an evil knight ("Feathergale Knight"), an allosaurus, a cockatrice, a vine blight, a troglodyte, a purple fungus, a flying sword and a drow. I guess I can justify it in that it's a young white dragon so it had to hire and coerce an assortment of different things to aid him on his vengeance quest. Different systems have various ways of officially adding variety to a group of creatures. You might be given rules for adding class levels or templates that will make your monsters different from each other. Others give you variety right in the MM. I haven't made it to the 5E MM yet, but from your question I'm guessing it doesn't go either of those routes. A simple way of creating variety it to simply reskin another monster to "match" what you already have. Say your dragon hired some bugbears to protect it. Take some bugbears out of the MM as your rank and file. Then grab a fire mephit, cross off fire mephit and write Bugbear Fire Sorcerer (at least in 3E a mephit has a small breath weapon and a couple of fire spells; maybe not in 5E). Depending on how particular you are you might tweak a few things, but mostly you can just handwave it. Take an ogre, cross of ogre and write Bugbear Brute. Describe it to the players as looking bigger and tougher than the others. Repeat as needed to create an interesting group of "bugbears." 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 (edited) Yeah there's enough ressources that I could've done that with, say, Hobgoblins or Orcs, and did that with Kobolds (and some dromaesaurids for variety) but that's the thing, I was just burnt on "here's this bunch of samey guys", regardless of reskinning. Wanted something that felt like more than a "mob". EDIT: In fact I just did that with the Gnoll encounter. It was originally just five "flesh gnawers" (CR1 each) and now it's a Gnoll Pack Lord (CR2), a Gnoll Flesh Gnawer (CR1), two Gnoll Hunters (CR½) and two plain Gnolls (CR½). I kinda like the setup, since primitive people will speak of the dragon's attack, they'll be talking of "The White Death and its Hounds of War" (ie the dragon, the kobolds, the gnolls and the dromaesaurids) and I'm curious how much my players will piece together from this... Edited May 27, 2017 by BlazingTornado 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auberon Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 Ah, I took your question differently than intended then. In that case.. not really. I like mixed and matched encounter difficulty as far as that goes, but I'm fine with an adventure having an overall theme. There'll be some some oddities here and there but I'm fine with a kobold cave complex containing mostly kobolds. As player or DM. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 Yeah, but I started with Keep on the Borderlands which ended up being a LOT of "here's this lair and it's got this creature theme going!", so maybe I'm just burnt out on it more than most. I might revise it. Make the "bodyguards" a Fang Of Yeezgoku and a different Kobold spellcaster. Or maybe an evil fey, there's already a Redcap and a Ghast earlier, plus the Green Hag... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Jack Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 On 5/17/2017 at 6:22 PM, Unruly said: Yea, and they also went on to say in the podcast that unless otherwise stated a spell is blocked by stuff like a pane of glass, because even though you can see through it, it still provides total cover. And if the spell is something like a fireball, it would explode on reaching the glass. They do point out that the cleric cantrip of Sacred Flame specifically doesn't get affected like that though, because it says it ignores all cover, so you could be hiding behind a Wall of Force or something and even though the wall provides total cover you're still getting hit by it. So yea, it's a sort of weird situation where seeing isn't required unless it says so, but not seeing still provides total cover in most cases so you can't hit them for that reason. Unless they're behind glass, where they get total cover even though you can see them, meaning that you can't cast the spell at them, unless it says it ignores cover. Actually, it's much simpler if you still think of it in 3.5 terms as Line of Sight vs. Line of Effect, and consider them two separate things... Something can be excluded as a valid target for a spell due to either one or the other, or both. Even if you can see it (Line of Sight), you may not have Line of Effect to it for various reasons - a glass wall is still effectively a wall for the purposes of the spell's targeting, and even if there's nothing actually physically preventing you from firing off a spell at someone (Line of Effect), the wording of the spell may prevent you from targeting them due to Line of Sight issues such as darkness, blindness, etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 (edited) Down to six players for Curse of the Crimson Throne - I did not feel like trying to get it to work with eight. The game for tonight is going to be Rise of the Runelords - for three main reasons. 1.) Kingmaker is a bit too much like Beyond the Borderlands, and I wanted something a bit different. 2.) I have never run Rise of the Runelords, but have read it through a number of times - I want to run it, dangnabbit! 3.) Goblins... lots and lots of goblins.... *EDIT* Goblin song.... The Auld Grump Edited May 27, 2017 by TheAuldGrump 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 You know, when the little Kobold NPC that tags along with the party failed all his death saves today... I didn't expect the gang to be that devastated. So I fudged things and gave the medusa not only a scroll of regenerate for the handless ranger but also a scroll of revivify for the poor little guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 On 5/24/2017 at 4:28 PM, BlazingTornado said: Then what's even the point? ;) Me, I need to figure out how the party's cleric converting from the worship of Dionysus to Ares will affect the general course of things. I don't want this to devolve into a Chaotic Evil party but the consequences of the deal with Ares to get out of this strange white empty void still need to be felt... So, play with Ares a bit - change him from being a god of slaughter to a bad guy wrestler - *Clouds gather, thunder rolls and a voice rings out as the darkness parts* Here he is, the Legend, the Myth, the one and only GOD OF WAR! Are you ready to RRRUUMMBLLE?! *The word Rumble echoes with the thunder* The Auld Grump - when a paladin in my game had a liche ancestor, I made it an embarrassing liche ancestor... 'You don't call, you don't write... of course I come find you! Have you found anybody special yet? I wouldn't mind seeing some great-great-great grandchildren....' 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unruly Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 3 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said: The Auld Grump - when a paladin in my game had a liche ancestor, I made it an embarrassing liche ancestor... 'You don't call, you don't write... of course I come find you! Have you found anybody special yet? I wouldn't mind seeing some great-great-great grandchildren....' For all you knew I could have been DEAD! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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