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Senevri
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« on: January 31, 2010, 08:24:00 AM » |
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There's still plenty of time, as our current campaign has lots of game in it, yet, but I though I'd get most out of the book. There's quite a few NPCs and locations mentioned in the book, and here's the sample encounters the book has: EL 5, CR 5 Vardalak Axebearer seeks master, nonlethal combat, serves for a week
EL 6, CR 6 Crimson Mask of Olidammara – robin hood
EL 7, 3 CR 4 Reth Dekala kill Hereth Sannaford, hunt younger brother
EL 8, CR 4 Miros Xavt, Crusader of Erythnul leading 12 disguised kenku marauders
Kostra Amnorn, highest peak of Sunspire Mountains
EL 8, CR 8 Ereth Nazbek keeps watch over necropolis near a small town
EL 8, CR 8 Doomveil lurks, helps vs. Hextor
EL 9 CR 9, Rhaskana takes anything as an excuse for duel
EL 10, CR 10 duel vs. Kuthar
EL 10, CR 10, Vaunred the Walker
EL 11, 3 CR 7 Fight Club – naityan rakshasa
EL 13 CR 13 Karthak the Indomitable hires Pcs to slay dragon
EL 13, CR 13 Aedar Windblade wanders with horse, Skychaser, gives quest, teaches
EL 14 2 CR 9 Valkyries guard paladin, drop Troll Hunter
EL 15 CR 15 Varand Thunderhand is a githyanki spy
Then there's freeing souls from Dis, the Blade of Endil and lots of less-specific fluff in the book... The idea is to build a campaign pretty much completely on the Bo9S fluff. Not sure if it's viable, or if there's way too much stuff that needs handcrafted stats - always a bother, and I would prefer not needing to stat quite as much as converting Return to Tomb of Horrors has required. I mean, I'm halfway through and it's at sixteen pages of custom statblocks at 10pt Arial. |
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Akalsaris
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« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2010, 12:23:06 AM » |
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With just the encounters given, it could work for a fast advancement game I think, where each session is maybe 2 hours at the most. Maybe have each PC represent a different school (like the Shadow Hand, for example), with some of the tasks being given by their schools.
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Senevri
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« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2010, 06:16:48 AM » |
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Mm.... Yes, fast advancement fits the genre. I also need to get them to do more duels than ganging up a lot of the time.
I also made a list of all the NPCs mentioned in the book, all the locations mentioned in the book and all the monasteries and teachers given in the book - but that might go outside fair use or somesuch.
Setting them up for gathering all ten swords would set them up against one of the Masters mentioned in the book, and I'll need some Githyanki Bloodstorm Blades, stat!
A lot of these sample encounters are VS. single opponents, which often seem to mean 2-round combats. It'll work fine with Solos... Hm, running a lot of short episodes instead of continuous blocks, forcing a fast-forward between game session, might work better.
Of course, now that I've gone through this book, I've gotten into my head building a campaign-outline out of other books, like Heroes of Horror + Libris Mortis, Heroes of Battle, and so forth. Ugh.
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« Last Edit: February 03, 2010, 06:18:26 AM by Senevri »
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Risada
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« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2010, 09:56:29 AM » |
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You could also think on some quests where your players get the Nine Swords (the Legacy Weapons) to do something else.... or actually use them...
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veekie
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« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2010, 11:40:46 AM » |
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You could also think on some quests where your players get the Nine Swords (the Legacy Weapons) to do something else.... or actually use them...
Combine them all for an Omnislash? |
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The mind transcends the body. It's also a little cold because of that. Please get it a blanket. I wish I could read your mind, I can barely read mine. "Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill
To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
There is no higher price than 'free'. "I won't die. I've been ordered not to die." |
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Prime32
Honorary Moderator
Organ Grinder
Posts: 7534
Modding since 03/12/10
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« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2010, 12:18:32 PM » |
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You could also think on some quests where your players get the Nine Swords (the Legacy Weapons) to do something else.... or actually use them...
Combine them all for an Omnislash?  |
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My workDeviantArtCurrent gamesThe tier system in a nutshell: Tier 6: A cartographer. Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman. Tier 4: An expert marksman. Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left. Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy. Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
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Senevri
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« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2010, 12:31:06 PM » |
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Well, yea.
I actually had a build which used all the classes present in ToB and still had two free levels.
It was a Crusader 1/Warblade 1/Unarmed Swordsage 1/Cleric 1/Stoneblessed 3/Ruby Knight Vindicator 1/Bloodstorm Blade/Bloodclaw Master 1/Suel Arcanamach 2/Jade Phoenix 1/Shadow Sun Ninja 1/Fighter 1/Deepstone Sentinel 1/Eternal Blade 1/X 1/Master of Nine 1/X 1
I think the X'es should probably be levels of, say, Unarmed Swordsage and Master of Nine.
...I don't digress, I just focus with fearful intensity on irrelevant matters.
Y'know, for low-level beasts, all those "alertness" and "toughness" feats they seem to favor, replacing them with Martial Study feats, would make a lot more interesting game....
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veekie
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« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2010, 12:33:40 PM » |
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Y'know, for low-level beasts, all those "alertness" and "toughness" feats they seem to favor, replacing them with Martial Study feats, would make a lot more interesting game....
Everybody was Kung Fu Fightin! |
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The mind transcends the body. It's also a little cold because of that. Please get it a blanket. I wish I could read your mind, I can barely read mine. "Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill
To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
There is no higher price than 'free'. "I won't die. I've been ordered not to die." |
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Senevri
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« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2010, 07:58:27 AM » |
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Let's see... Hobgoblins could be a clear antagonist starting at 1st level - Spec some Hobgoblin Warblades at levels 1, 3, 5, 9, I think...
Then, Githyanki and githyanki gish around ... CR 10-13 range, I think, so i can use flocks.
Looking at MM5, Hobgoblins go up to CR 8, Githyanki are CR 4-CR 10 in MM4, but extrapolating higher CR warblades seems reasonable.
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I keep forgetting my threads... |
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Bloody Initiate
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« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2010, 02:53:43 PM » |
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The "9 Swords" was actually used in an earlier campaign that is available for download on the Wizards site. It was a campaign for 1st or 2nd edition D&D. Whether the writers of ToB actually were inspired by the campaign or not is unknown to me, but it may be worth a look.
I think I found it by looking at recent entries in the D&D 3.5 archive on Wizards, finding it referenced, and then that reference was a link to where to download it. So you might be able to repeat my steps by looking for the latest Tome of Battle entries in the 3.5 archive on the Wizards site
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I don't employ memes. Mass-produced ammunition, even from reputable manufacturers, tends to malfunction on occasion.
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Senevri
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« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2010, 08:04:53 PM » |
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Didn't find it. Did find some nifty old ravenloft bits, though.
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Senevri
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« Reply #11 on: February 22, 2010, 01:08:46 AM » |
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Todo:
- Make a rough map of the world - is it greyhawk or some other place?
- Get some thematic stats going. At least hobgoblin warblades and whatnot. Remember to avoid too much optimization.
- Get some rough guidelines going on with people, and power scale. Common people = CR 1-4, Heroic up to 10, and anything above that should be a serious, serious threat. So, sort of a Eberron scale.
- Prioritize. Do not worry about encounters above Ereth Nazbek at this point, so basically plan 'til 6th level, and that's it.
...
Actually, I've noticed that working in manageable chunks and not figurin stats out for stuff TOO early is a very very good thing to do, all in all... In my games, it might take YEARS to get to the next bit.
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