The Gaming Den

OgreBattle wrote:Could a "Wish" spell restore Ashardalon's heart?

You must be one of thos special snowflake munchkin powergamers. You'll take what the DM gives you and like it, DAMMIT, 'cause this isn't about you making a story of how awesome you are. Did I cover it alright, Shad?

You'd think so, but the whole gods-be-damned adventure is written without mentioning it.

Appendices
Okay, I lied. It turns out Appendix 1 doesn't start until 2/3 of the way down page 34. The remainder of the last chapter consists of a column of "Epic-Level Benefits" for players and Meister Caverns who don't own the Epic Level Handbook. This is actually worse than the ELH, which is saying something, but not by much. Basically, for every level above 20th you get to pick one "Epic Level Benefit" which includes +1 to an Ability score, +1 to your Attack Bonus, +1 spell level (10th level slot, 11th level slot, etc. - if you have 20 levels in a spellcasting class), and +1 effective class level (you gain class features, skill points, max skill rank +1, but not hit points, attack bonus, or saving throw bonuses).

Anyway, Appendix 1: NPC Statistics is exactly what it says on the tin, using the popular condensed block o' stats format. Just a few random notes on these:

• Every NPC has a little "power up suite" sidebox, ideally but not always placed somewhere in relation to its statblock. So for example The Cathezar casts divine favor, haste, magic chain (as magic weapon, but only applying to her chains), and unholy aura before she wades into battle.
• Cordell managed to slip some pseudo-psionics onto Nurn (NURN!), giving him some spell-like abilities called Psionics and obviously just psionics from the Psionic Handbook - he even explains what metafaculty is, so I don't know why they didn't just point to the PH.
• I completely forgot there was a winged triceratops in this adventure. Why wasn't that on the cover?
• The half-dragon ettin barbarian has two axes: "Bloody" (+3 greataxe) and "Bloodier" (+4 greataxe). One day I shall run a dungeon with a +5 greataxe named "Bloodiest," and I will not explain the joke.
• Unlike all the rest of the NPCs the PCs meet, Ashardalon is so gimped in favor of the PCs (as much as an advanced half-fiend Great Wyrm Red Dragon can be gimped) that he doesn't even have his power-up suite cast when the PCs meet him.

Appendix II: New Monsters are Monster Manual-style entries for the new critters: the Crystal Screamer and the Energon Pokemon (Soulsipper, Soulmarauder, Soulscaper). Four critters so instantly iconic they have never appeared in any other product since.

Appendix III: New Spells and Magic Items - because the base books were not enough. There are two spells, dream image (which the PCs never use) and positive energy protection, which they probably will want to. Most of the magic items are random crap - really random. The bracers of exit negates a dimensional anchor 1/day; ring of positive energy protection is exactly what it says on the tin, the torture bracelet - which is a magical-mechanical torture device that constantly chews at your arm, which on the Positive Energy Plane is useful to not explode - and a handful of major artifacts including the Soul Totem, most of which are a bit meh. Especially the totem, which like the rod of seven parts gains powers the more pieces of it you have, except the powers are shit and if you have all three at once there's a straight 10% chance a month that the gods murder you and break your shit.

One of the major artifacts is the half-dragon balor's whip - which, depending on how many lashes hit you, can bestow on your character 2, 4, or "as many as they have" negative levels. On the other hand, each time the whip lands the demon gets temporary hit points, which means that eventually it should just fucking explode from those when it fails it's Fort save (15% chance per round).

Appendix IV: Pregenerated PCs gives the stats for Jozan, Lidda, Mialee, and Tordek as 18th level versions of themselves. I think this was a bad idea, because if you run them straight then Mialee is the only person in this entire adventure with access to wish, and all of these guys have better equipment than the bad guys (aside from major artifacts).

The last part of the book is a "map" of the Bastion of Unborn Souls, and that's the book.

So, recap: this was the unasked-for end to an adventure path that had lost the thread of the plot about five or six books ago, that includes a bunch of new stuff used nowhere else for no real reason, and mysteriously doesn't use a bunch of stuff that could have been useful (to a degree), like Deities & Demigods or Epic Level Handbook. The plot is almost nonexistent, the hooks aren't much, and nothing goes anywhere. Bruce Cordell promised a plane-skipping adventure into epic awesomeness, and fails on about every level short of doing the math wrong on the NPCs - I didn't check. Great pains are taken to box the PCs in to the set-piece scenarios, but zero energy is given on actually shuffling the PCs between these scenes. It's a railroad you're expected to murder-hobo your way through, for stakes that seem retarded to a child of six, and most of the adventure of this book is going to be taken up by long-drawn out fights (assuming the PCs aren't maximized), and then the boss fight is made as easy as possible.

As I said, this is like 48 pages (50 with the covers), and there's just not a lot of adventure here. Sunless Citadel was better because there was more to explore, more to do, and that was fewer pages. Cordell tried to squeeze epic into a 48-page booklet without actually calling it that, and he failed.

OgreBattle wrote:Could a "Wish" spell restore Ashardalon's heart?

Oh man... Yes, this. And then with a restored, beating heart, Ahshardalon falls in love with one of the PCs, turning into an epic level romantic comedy romp across the planes in the next adventure module: How the Dragon Got His Groove Back.

A lot of the story here has some coolness, doesn't work terribly well within D&D rules though. D&D doesn't support "injured god" type characters since yes, a wish probably should work, Ashardalon's issue is apparently just some organ damage and there are D&D spells which would, restore him if he'd been cut into inch-wide cubes or had his entire body reduced to atoms and spread across a decent swathe of the cosmos (True Resurrection), even if a Regenerate couldn't fix the heart problem. Deciding to instead somehow use a balor to pump blood through his body (???) was weird. As is, it needs either:
*some dodgy explanation of why the damage is irrecoverable (e.g. stabbed by something like a Vassal of Bahamut, rather than a random druid), or
*having the dragon deliberately do the whole balor-implant thing for extra power. Keep Dydd if you want as an evil druid heart transplant surgeon who left an "off switch" on his implant to double-cross the dragon.

Or dump the whole heart thing. Since D&D does at least put limits of whether ageing allows resurrection, it could just be very old and so off eating souls as a way of extending its lifespan.

CCarter wrote:A lot of the story here has some coolness, doesn't work terribly well within D&D rules though. D&D doesn't support "injured god" type characters since yes, a wish probably should work, Ashardalon's issue is apparently just some organ damage and there are D&D spells which would, restore him if he'd been cut into inch-wide cubes or had his entire body reduced to atoms and spread across a decent swathe of the cosmos (True Resurrection), even if a Regenerate couldn't fix the heart problem. Deciding to instead somehow use a balor to pump blood through his body (???) was weird. As is...

"It's a ____ with a heart made from a living ____"

Use two rolls of: http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/encounter/ to fill in the blanks
I got "It's a mature Adult Gold Dragon with a heart made from an Iron Golem", which is pretty cool and seemingly thematic.

"It's a Cleric Mummy Lord with a heart made from a living Tarrasque"

It's a hobgoblin with a heart made from a fire beetle.

Oh noooooo

It's a dog with a heart made from a living light warhorse.

It's a Tiny Animated Object with a heart made from a living Worker Giant Ant.

I could do these all day.

I'd like it better if it included a random organ generator.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Not sure why Stan is the only one with an exclamation mark and without a last name though.

That's Stan Brown. He likes to be credited "Stan!". He's an unremarkable workhorse game designer, but people actually know who he is because he puts an exclamation mark after his name.

-Username17

I found this by him: http://paizo.com/products/btpy9376?The- ... t-Shoggoth

So, does the book tell you what happens if the PCs respond to the offer to hang out and eat souls together forever with "cool, we brought beer?"

Because, really, I'm not seeing a downside there.

Well, supposedly the dragon finds out one of them is the Chosen One and freaks the fuck out and goes all murder-y on them, or else the PCs end up fighting the next group of adventurers because hey, they're downing goodberries souls like soda-pop.

So I found a group through meetup and we are going to run this adventure. We start at 17th level with effectively double wealth. I am going to play an incantatrix with shapechange. Another guy is going to play an Incarnate (the magic of incarnum class). His backup character is going to be a martial adept. The third guy is going to play some third party psychic class that does I don't know. The DM is going to have a background NPC type cleric be there for hints/raise us from the dead if we die randomly to continue the story.

Anyways, I think I'll play a grapplemancer with Extraordinary Spell Aim to exclude myself from my own antimagic field. Not sure what the last 2 levels of the build should be though. Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/ Something full casting 2. The first session is next week. I will report my experience.

fectin wrote:I found this by him: http://paizo.com/products/btpy9376?The- ... t-Shoggoth

How could you not link this career-defining masterpiece?

//

TheFlatline wrote:

OgreBattle wrote:Could a "Wish" spell restore Ashardalon's heart?

Oh man... Yes, this. And then with a restored, beating heart, Ahshardalon falls in love with one of the PCs, turning into an epic level romantic comedy romp across the planes in the next adventure module: How the Dragon Got His Groove Back.

deaddmwalking wrote:I'd like it better if it included a random organ generator.

Here you go.
"It's a Formian with index fingers made from a living Mummy "

Ashardalon Generator wrote:It's a Weasel with a rectum made from a living Wolverine.

That's beautiful.

Hey_I_Can_Chan wrote:

Ashardalon Generator wrote:It's a Weasel with a rectum made from a living Wolverine.

That's beautiful.

Close enough, right?

Prak_Anima wrote:Here you go.

"It's a Lantern archon with breasts made from a living Dire Bear."

Wait, what? How do you even tell that the bear is supposed to be boobs?

RadiantPhoenix wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:Here you go.

"It's a Lantern archon with breasts made from a living Dire Bear."

Wait, what? How do you even tell that the bear is supposed to be boobs?

Like this:

The internet contains the answers to all boob related questions.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

RadiantPhoenix wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:Here you go.

"It's a Lantern archon with breasts made from a living Dire Bear."

Wait, what? How do you even tell that the bear is supposed to be boobs?

Like this:

The internet contains the answers to all boob related questions.

-Username17

It's a Lantern Archon, not a humanoid creature. A Lantern Archon doesn't have a torso, or limbs to reference -- it's just a ball of light.

"It's an Adult Blue Dragon with a mouth made from a living orca".

I'm not sure that makes it more terrifying, really.

"It's a Purple Worm with fallopian tubes made from a living Very Old Blue Dragon".

There we go, much more terrifying.

"Do purple worms even have fallopian tubes?"
"Sure, just look for the dragon-shaped bit."

Hmm... I thought temp hit points didn't stack?

malak wrote:Hmm... I thought temp hit points didn't stack?

These do, because they say so.