Shackled City: ECL 6 Korinth the Protector Silverbrow Human Cloistered Cleric 5/ Radiant Servant of Pelor 1: Entry 6

Journal Entry 5182

What luck!  We have found and defeated Triel.  We have also recovered one of the much needed wands for the church of St. Cuthbert.  As we scour the dungeon for the rest of the wands we show the unconscious body of their leader to the enemy and they surrender.  Of course I don't trust them, but what choice do we have.  I won't end the life of a surrendering foe and Gaje would prefer we deliver all captive enemies to the proper authorities.  There are just so many...
I don't wonder if it wouldn't be better to destroy all who live for evil, in the name of the Shining One of course.

Shackled City: ECL 6 Korinth the Protector Silverbrow Human Cloistered Cleric 5/ Radiant Servant of Pelor 1: Entry 5

Journal Entry 5181

We finally find ourselves a slight reprieve.  After destroying that vile unholy monster that was the walking skeleton of a dinosaur, I utilize the power given to me by Pelor and destroy all the zombies.  We finally manage to use some teamwork and shut off that damning alarm.  Unfortunately we have had to end the lives of pretty much everyone we have come across.  No prisoners with this group.
But now I have solidified my bond of servitude to Pelor.  He has granted me even greater power as I pledge my soul to him and dedicate my flesh to his cause. 
Along with this great gift from the Shining One, my long time "accomplice" and best friend Gaje has finally arrived to adventure with me.  This just got fun...

Class Tiers: An Evaluation of Relative Class Power

I have been reading and studying this system of class tiers for a couple weeks. This is really interesting and perhaps it can help when you are building a character or selecting your newest class level.

The Class Tier System  link

Why Each Class is in its Tier  link

The Tier System for Prestige Classes  link

So what does this mean for our group? Here is how your current characters line up in relative power to each other:

Jon: Generalist (specialist wizard): Tier 1
Scott: Cleric of Pelor: Tier 1
Dan: Warblade: Tier 3
Theo: Scout/ Rogue: Tier 4/4
Michael: Swashbuckler: Tier 5
Brian Jr: Totemist: Tier ? (incarnum classes are not in the tier system at this time)

"As a rule, parties function best when everyone in the party is within 2 Tiers of each other"

So I think a party is well balanced when everyone is on something like tiers 1,2,3 or 2,3,4 or 3,4,5 or 4,5,6. What we have instead is 1,3,4,5 which may leave some feeling much less powerful than others.

I am not going to suggest we make this a "rule" but its just something for you to consider when making your character: how your class lines up with the rest of the party.

Aryathan Jiil Gentleman's Agreement

I was reading stuff online in some optimization boards, minmaxing forums, etc. this week and I ran across something that I think is essential to any good Dungeons & Dragons game. Its called a Gentleman's Agreement and dates back to the late 1800s. There are a few such agreements I have found online that have been tailored specifically for Dungeons & Dragons. In any gentleman's agreement, it is a sort of unspoken agreement between all players in a game that they agree to play fair, etc. So I have drafted a gentleman's agreement specific to my own games that I DM, and it is understood that by joining as a player in my games that you have agreed to these things. (This isn't to call anyone out on any specific things they have or have not done. I just think its a good idea to have it in writing so we all understand what we bring to the table and we can all enjoy the game we love to play.) I am also making this a pdf available on the google drive.

Aryathan Jiil Gentleman’s Agreement

1. When playing you agree not to play Pun-Pun, to engage in infinite loops, and other things that completely takes all risk away from your character. There is no exact or complete list of things that for the sake of a coherent game should be avoided. That is not to say that your characters should not be powerful, they need to be and should be very powerful, but they and their actions should not become utterly game-breaking such as to remove the aspect of challenge in a game.

2. You agree to fully document your character's statistics, abilities, loot, etc. according to the game rules and the campaign rules completely and honestly at all times. You agree to have a fully updated character sheet before play and not just "Wing It."

3. You agree to act in good faith towards others in the game and create a environment which supports having fun. You agree to act courteously and respectfully towards one another.

4. You agree to self-moderate your character builds and actions. D&D is an unbalanced game, plain and simple. Anyone who disagrees with this statement hasn't read enough optimization forums or played enough.

5. The DM cannot audit every character sheet. You have to create and maintain your characters, possessions, etc. according to the rules and you are expected to be honest. You need to choose all of your characters stuff before creation and update as they level accordingly. This should go without saying. No "Oh, well I could choose to learn Orc right now since it'd help with the adventure." Similarly, not every DM is as familiar with psionic tricks, Tome of Battle combos, or whathaveyou tactics from the plethora of available books as you are. It must be expected and understood that you both fully know and fully follow the rules of the mechanics that your character(s) utilizes.

6. We're all playing D&D because we all want to have fun. The fun of the group comes before the fun of the individual. There is no place for jerks here, we need to all act courteously toward one another because of the innate respect each human being is due and secondly courtesy and respect toward each other are pre-requisites for group fun.

7. We have to have some guidelines and decisions to guide the easy transition from adventure to adventure. Some freedom in choice must be delegated away so that arguments are avoided and consistent standards are in place.

Shackled City: ECL 5, Osiris Eloah, Elf Wizard, and (Generalist): Journal Entry 10

Seeing the last of my spellfire scorching and blacking the undead monster, and Shoat landing the final blow that laid the horror low, a single breath was all I was able to manage before Korinth destroyed the remaining undead with the power of his faith! No matter how hard I try I can't fully contain the wiry grin that begins to escape my lips, it's the excitement that I crave not unlike a newborn baby that hungers to suckle at its mother's teat! With an overflow of power, the remaining archers are made short work of with a glitter dust spell. Now for a quick break before dolling our some more arcane might!

Xerxes,beguiler warblade-3/feral-1/ECL-4
journel 1

i have teamed up with a promising group of wayward souls
very randy group of misfits but i like there style they get stuff done.
i dont know that im any closer to finding my masters killers
but cauldrin is having alot of problems. and these bunch seem to be on it.
so hopefuly this will be my path to vengance..

BEGUILER,WARBLADE/3,FERAL/1, ECL 4

bio
xerxes began his young life as a wizards familiar. He lived a life of luxury as his master had no dise for combat or daring deeds. he spent most of his days fetching books from the librarys around town
eating the finest of foods and lazying away much of his day.

On a seemingly normal afternoon some unsavory fellows came in to visit his master, xerxes showed them to his study and left them in private. xerxes returning to his finerys resumed lazying about his day,eventualy falling asleep form all the cheese and eggs his belly could hold.

Hours later; he awoke form his food induced coma wondering why he had not been awaked by his master for some trivial book or manuscript to fetch. xerxes wanderd into the study to come apon a horrid sight. His master lay dead on the floor, slathered in open wounds. blood filling every crevice of the floor boards.....  Xerxes ran to the authoritys and told them of what he had and described the "guests" he had let into the study. the authorities investigated the matter to no conclusions..

saddened by this xerxes decided to find the vile creatures himself...
but how... being unable to read he new magic would not be his allie so he turned to a martial college
near his masters college and explained his plight. as they had a good relationship with xerxes's master in the past agreed to train him to be able to deliver revenge and justice..

months have past since that horrible day, now reayd for the task ahead Xerxes has been let loos on the city of cauldrin to find his masters killers and server the justice the have evaded all this time....

Xerxes climbs to a rooftop to get a good vantage of the city and to decide his next move.....
he thinks to himself.......I will burn this city to the ground if i have to....

DM Entry: The Cenobite Ceremony

Guild Advancement (Cenobite)

·        Requirement: You must be an active member in good standing.

·        Requirement: You must complete 2 convenience jobs. If your guild does not have convenience jobs (like the Thief Guild), utilizing the active member perk twice qualifies for this requirement.

·        Requirement: You must have never benefited from the tweak option (see Tweaking PCs, below).

·        Cenobite Ceremony: You are officially inducted into the guild in a secret ceremony by the guildmaster (with other active members in attendance as witnesses). This ceremony takes place at your guild house. During this ceremony you are required to swear loyalty to the guild and your fellow-members. Under pain of expulsion you must also swear to protect the guild and your fellow-members with all of your power. You are then invested with the title of Cenobite (the lowest title for an active member).

·        Benefit: Aside from the higher standing within your guild, once the cenobite ceremony is complete, you are given a special glyph stone. This special magic item is a granite stone tablet, measuring 10 inches wide, 20 inches tall, and 1 inch thick, with hardness 10, 30 hit points and weighing 20 pounds. Engraved on the tablet are mystical secrets of the guild that are taught to new members. As long as the tablet is on your person (in your hand or in your backpack, for example), you may gain an insight bonus any one guild-related skill check per day equal to the number of achievements you have. Activating the stone is a swift mental action. If the glyph stone ever leaves your possession, even for a moment, the tablet crumbles to powder. If the stone is in your backpack but not on your person, it will not crumble unless someone else takes possession of your backpack. If the secrets contained on the stone are ever shared with a nonmember, the stone loses its magical properties.

This appears between Active Member and Favored Member in the guild section of the Aryathan Jiil Campaign Setting.pdf and this has been updated on the google drive.

DM Post: Tweaking PCs

Tweaking PCs

It is common to make a new character, play it in its first session and decide that something should have been different in your character build. For this reason you are allowed to do some tweaking. But you must follow these guidelines. Admittedly, these allow anywhere from minor adjustments to total rebuilds. As long as players are not “gaming the system” and do their tweak in good faith, I don’t see any reason to disallow tweaks.

If the idea is to make a new character that is small to fit through an opening and then next session show up with “gnome-tweaked-into-an-ogre” to smash all the bad guys beyond the small opening that the ogre wouldn’t fit through in the first place, this type of tweak is considered “in bad faith” and an untimely demise of your tweaked character will no doubt result from this situation with loss of all treasure that would have been gained, perhaps from a house fire or a tunnel cave-in on top of the treasure pile pulverizing it to powder. Just remember, don’t be a squid-player.

·        When? You may only tweak your character before it gains its first level in game play, whether it’s a new 1^st level character or a new 9^th level character doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a new character that has never gained a level from game play.

·        How Often? Each character may only be tweaked once.

·        Ability Scores Your original ability rolls must remain the same, however you may move them around as you desire. Apply racial modifiers after you shuffle your original rolls, as normal.

·        Race and Class You can change your race and/ or class levels as you desire. Keep in mind that everything must still be legal at each character level of the build.

·        Hit Dice and Hit Points If you change your class, no doubt it will change the kind of Hit Die you gain as well. Use the same percentage of hp per HD you had before. If, for example, you had 3 hp on a d4 before the tweak (which is 75%) and then tweak-change to a class that uses a d12, now you have 9 hp for that HD (still 75% of the die). Always round down. If you don’t know what hit points you had on each HD, you cannot change your type of HD by changing classes.

·        Buying Hit Points with XP You may not buy hit points during a character tweak. Any experience points you have already spent remain spent even if one or more of your Hit Dice change.

·        Experience Point Total The current total experience points for your character does not change during a tweak.

·        Alignment You may change your alignment to any other alignment, within the limitations of your tweaked character build.

·        Gear, Equipment, and Money You have two choices:

o   Choice A) Either keep all gear, equipment, money and treasure your character has gained up to this point, or

o   Choice B) Lose all of that stuff and begin with starting gear from PHB2 as normal for a new character.

o   If you try to “game the system” by having your friend hold your favorite item while you tweak your gear, the item is still lost. Don’t be a squid-player.

·        Feats and Skill Points You may change any or all of your feats out for new ones. You may reallocate your skill points as you desire; indeed you must do so if you tweaked classes.

·        Guilds, Affiliations, Achievements, Teamwork Benefits, Owning a Home, Owning a Business, etc. You may not tweak any of these sorts of things.

o   Guilds and Affiliations You remain in the same guilds and affiliations with the same standing, unless your new build disqualifies you. If your tweak does disqualify you from being in a certain guild or affiliation, you lose membership entirely and do not automatically replace it with another membership

o   Achievements You do not lose or gain any achievements by tweaking your character, even if the new tweaked version of your character would not be able to earn the same achievements.

o   Teamwork Benefits You remain part of any team and continue to benefit from the teamwork, unless your tweak disqualifies you from the team.

o   Owning a Home, Owning a Business You continue to own these things, regardless of your tweak. If your original character was a gnome and bought a gnome-sized house, and you tweaked into an ogre and thus can no longer fit through the front door, you might want to sell your house.

Acquaintances and Events Despite all non sequiturs that occur, your tweaked character still did all the things your original character did, met all the same people, had all the same social interactions, maintains all the same acquaintances, etc., etc., etc.

(All of the above information has also been added to the Aryathan Jiil Campaign Setting.pdf and uploaded to the google drive.)

Shackled City: ECL 5 Ethel Schmidt Goblin Scout 3 Rogue 1: Journal 3

Found the head honcho of lake affairs.  Still honcho, less head.  Tragic.

Missed the shipment, too.  Tragicker.  Told em it was out of my hands, which it was, really.  Hard to pick sides before you can tell who's winnin.  They're mad if they thought I was luggin all that back by myself anyway, so if it chafes em they can bite my twat.

At least I could squeeze em for the place they took Mr. Honcho's wands.  Cuthbert himself gave me the tip right in front of everybody.  Not much for subtlety, but gods usually ain't.  I think most of em had me pegged anyway.

Oh yeah: the wands are for stoppin the flood.  I dunno, personally, I think it might improve the place if more of it was underwater.  Picture it: "Cauldron, now with bigger lake!"  They'll be linin up at the gates.  No?  Your loss.

So, we're in a cave, right?  Watch the first step.  Long drop, and water for ages.  Gotta gondola tho, which is pure class.  The rooms is cozy, too.  I could get used to livin in a place like this, only there's this smell.  Maybe dad's cookbook has somethin I could whip up for that.

That's if anything's left standin when we're through.  Somewhere between here and the Lucky Monkey, the dragon figured out how to teleport.  I know, right?  It's like if a bull could teleport into a china shop.  Tragickest yet.  Every time we lose sight a him, the place loses anotha load-bearin wall and he loses anotha few gallons a blood.  He's fallen ass first into about ten different flavors a spikes and needles, and don't get me started on the great big honkin dragon skeleton.  He don't gripe much tho.  I mean the dragon, not the skeleton.  Tho I can see how you'd be confused.

(Note to self: get this guy's blood appraised.)

Otha than that, it's been surreal.  We're like this deputized police force for the big-G Good Guys.  I never been in one a those before.  Mostly because I generally ain't given the chance to get anywhere near a bunch a magic wands whetha they been abdupted by a evil cult or not.  Apparently Osiris here has been seen about town thwartin the fell plots with a bunch of otha jerks, so they started trustin em with betta jobs.  Only the otha jerks turned up M.I.A. so now he's got us.

He don't seem too interested in claimin the leader's hat tho.  We don't got much in leaders really.  At first I thought we was all united in our love of lithe, oiled-up gladiators.  So I was lookin to our resident oiled-up gladiator and waitin for him to start barkin orders like a real army man.  But nobody seems to wanna listen to the poor precious babe.  But he don't seem to talk much either, more just stares.  I'm used to that tho.

So I guess these folks is pretty malleable.  And yet they got a lotta talent, so that's good news.  Maybe I can give em a little harmless encouragement.  Steer em to where the real money is.  While the dragon's in anotha room.