Scarred Lands: Ask the Sage [This keeps up, I'm gonna need a bigger notebook!]

So here we are again folks. Ask questions. Answer questions will I.

So go for it!

Does the hardback books for both continents give an idea of how large the the world is, the color of the sun, the distance and location of the continents, etc? This may sound like a real dorky questions but I have always found such information important to give an over-arching flavor to the campaign setting. I imagine the Scarred Lands bathed in the light of a huge orange-red or full red sun. How do you imagine it?

By the way, Nightfall, with all these questions do you ever sleep???

3.5E Conversions of Relics and Rituals?

3.5 Conversions of Relics and Rituals?

Are there any plans to convert any of the Relics and Rituals I & II spells to 3.5E? Some are analogous to buff spells which changed, but was curious of others. A few spells seem a little potent for their level. I've listed a few below that I've noticed. Do you think any of these would be revised in 3.5E?

Also, a suggest list of spells from R&R I&II that one could use with permanency would be nice.

Manaspear (fireball plus spell loss)
Filch (no need for rogues and needs clarified for more complex objects-door pin, bolt or clasp piece of lock, etc)
Quick Sober (0 level that counters a 2nd level spell)
Elemental Kiss (heal spell for arcane users plus immunities, etc.)

XanthorDrathos said:

Manaspear (fireball plus spell loss)

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...well, not exactly like Fireball. Manaspear only hits one target, you have to make a ranged touch attack roll, and then the target gets a Ref save for half damage anyway, plus a Will save for spell loss if necessary.

It's definitely a weird spell design, though. You don't often see an attack roll paired with a save for half damage. Whether that's enough of a drawback for it to qualify as a 3rd level spell, I don't know, particularly since it's a Force spell and therefore heinously useful against incorporeal enemies.

You want to see some real sickness, check out:

Blaise's Iron Bead (+4 unnamed bonus to AC and protects like Stoneskin but with no expensive material component)
Chains of Binding (one target, d6/lvl bludgeoning damage and target is grappled for 1rd/lvl; the only balance seems to be that the save is Reflex negates)
Iceshards (up to a +10 enhancement bonus to AC for 1rd/lvl, can freely throw the shards as 1d6 piercing weapons)

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i almost always have them racked, but i do feel a little ashamed about it
ryan

Perhaps this has been asked before- and please forward me if it has- but if you could list "The Five Essential Scarred Lands Purchases" what would they be?

I recently got some free sample books (mithril and the Ghelspad Gaz) from WW with a recent purchase- and i'm getting interested, budget level interested. =)

Player's Guide to Fighters and Barbarians, Creature Collection Revised, Termana Hardcover, Vigil Watch: Asaatthi and Edge of Infinity... why? because I wrote in all of them! Ahahahaha!
</end narcissism>

In all seriousness, if I had to limit to five, I'd pick Relics and Rituals I, Creature Collection Revised, either Ghelspad or Termana hardcover, and you could fill the other two books to need. A game I have in the back of my mind set on the Silverisle I would pick RRI, CCRev, Termana, Echoes of the Past, and Vigil Watch: Asaatthi. If you were wanting to run a game on Ghelspad, I'd suggest a setting book (Calastia and Hollowfaust being my favorite) and then perhaps a vigil watch book or something like Secrets and Societies.

I suggest these in order to choose five books to develop your own little corner of Scarn. I don't there is any good way of getting an idea about the whole setting from just five books. These suggestions would develop a small section to make your own.

To justify myself, R&R I is, IMO, a far superior book to R&R II. It introduces arcane heat and several magic items that have worked there way into canon. It also details true rituals which is strongly apart of the Scarred Lands. The same reasons hold for my choice of CCRev over CCII or CCIII. The creatures in CCRev (pick up the Revised version, CCI really is obsolete now) are more iconic in my mind to those in CCII (and I don't own CCIII as of yet). Divine and Defeated is nice, and deals a lot with the mythology of the Scarred Lands but much of this can be picked together from R&R I. I think with the books I've said you have enough to detail the churches and philosophies that might come up in your game. Divine and Defeated will go into a lot of details of the Divine War, the motivations of the gods, and the mystique of the titans. It's a great read for one who loves the setting but not neccesary, IMO, to start a campaign.

I also left out the truly excellence Player's Guide series. The more I read them the more I think that this is how splats should be. However, if you were to buy one, I couldn't tell you which one. My suggestion, if you run a game in the Scarred Lands... make your players buy them!

Hope this helps,

Werner

Firstly, the Sage would like to apologize for not getting to these questions sooner. (Real life intruded and thus I had to go to Pittsburgh International to pick up my youngest brother who has been away in Russia for a year now.)

Secondly, thanks to Werner for filling in admirable in my absence.

Now to answer the questions!

Rl'Halsinor said:

Does the hardback books for both continents give an idea of how large the world is, the color of the sun, the distance and location of the continents, etc? This may sound like a real dorky question but I have always found such information important to give an over-arching flavor to the campaign setting. I imagine the Scarred Lands bathed in the light of a huge orange-red or full red sun. How do you imagine it? By the way, Nightfall, with all these questions do you ever sleep???

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The hardbacks do not give any idea of the size/scale of the world, or the color of the sun. Blood Sea: Crimson Abyss, does detail the distance between Shelzar and Termana. There's no exact location yet but we'll see maybe down the road as Asherak and the rest of the world gets more detailed. As for how I imagine it, Termana is southwesterly of Ghelspad, with Shelzar being the closest port and Rahoch the next closest. The sun is a red giant like our own. It also has two moons, 16 constellations and that's it. As for sleeping, I get 2 hours in here and there. If Da Vinci can do it, so can I.

XanthorDrathos said:

3.5 Conversions of Relics and Rituals?

Are there any plans to convert any of the Relics and Rituals I & II spells to 3.5E?

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I don't know about R&Rs but R&R III will have some conversions from other S&SS sources (the softbacks).

XanthorDrathos said:

Some are analogous to buff spells that changed, but were curious of others. A few spells seem a little potent for their level. I've listed a few below that I've noticed. Do you think any of these would be revised in 3.5E?

Also, a suggest list of spells from R&R I&II that one could use with permanency would be nice.

Manaspear (fireball plus spell loss)

Filch (no need for rogues and needs clarified for more complex objects-door pin, bolt or clasp piece of lock, etc)

Quick Sober (0 level that counters a 2nd level spell)

Elemental Kiss (heal spell for arcane users plus immunities, etc.)

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As I said earlier, no idea if these in particular will be revised but they are working on some conversions in R&R III. So we'll see.

Regarding those spells, manaspear, as Herpes said, it's a weird spell but it's hardly fireballish. It's a good spell if you like fighting undead and incorporeal undead, but there are better spells around. Filch, I'd say, for more complex items, it fails. I didn't realize Quick sober counters a 2nd level spell. My understanding it just affects inebriation. Now Elemental kiss is a weird spell but again it depends on how often and since it's a druid spell, they can be limited IF you choose so.

Permanency…no idea but I'd certainly like to use a permanency on, say, Mesos' Containment or something else by Mesos.

Herpes Cineplex said:

You want to see some real sickness, check out:

Blaise's Iron Bead (+4 unnamed bonus to AC and protects like Stoneskin but with no expensive material component)

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I could have sworn this was a Luck ability…but I could be wrong…

Herpes Cineplex said:

Chains of Binding (one target, d6/lvl bludgeoning damage and target is grappled for 1rd/lvl; the only balance seems to be that the save is Reflex negates)

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Yes but it's hardly in the same league as the trouble Miasma caused.

Herpes Cineplex said:

Iceshards (up to a +10 enhancement bonus to AC for 1rd/lvl, can freely throw the shards as 1d6 piercing weapons)

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I thought they erratta'ed this to only go up to 7 shards total…I could be wrong.

clark411 said:

Perhaps this has been asked before- and please forward me if it has- but if you could list "The Five Essential Scarred Lands Purchases" what would they be?

I recently got some free sample books (mithril and the Ghelspad Gaz) from WW with a recent purchase- and I'm getting interested, budget level interested. =)

Click to expand...

Well since you already have the Gaz, get SLCS: Ghelspad for a more complete picture. R&R I and R&R II are also a must. Divine and the Defeated is the last but if you can swing it, one or all three of the CCs are very, very useful. (CC 1 I'd ignore in favor of CC Revised. But get the others in order.)

eryndel said:

I also left out the truly excellence Player's Guide series. The more I read them the more I think that this is how splats should be. However, if you were to buy one, I couldn't tell you which one. My suggestion, if you run a game in the Scarred Lands... make your players buy them!

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Yeah but my rangers and rogues book is the best! Even if I'm biased.

Nightfall said:

I could have sworn this was a Luck ability…but I could be wrong…

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The text never says, actually; when I was putting together my spell list, I scoured the description looking for what type of AC bonus it was so I could keep all the stacking/nonstacking stuff in one place. I suspect it's an omission, but even if you make it Luck, that's an awfully rare type of AC bonus.

Yes but it's hardly in the same league as the trouble Miasma caused.

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True. But then again, nothing is in the same league as Miasma when it comes to awful spells.

I thought they erratta'ed this to only go up to 7 shards total…I could be wrong.

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I didn't even know they had an errata for R&R2; is there one? I can only find the errata for R&R1 on their website. And even a max of 7 shards is still a hefty AC bonus and an excellent last-ditch damage spell.


I should say that I'm not really opposed to these spells, it's just that I've come to realize that they're more or less the backbone of my wizard's typical spell rack; they are so useful so often compared to other spells of their level that if I need a very specific reason to even think about swapping one of 'em out. And even then, I end up wishing I could still memorize them.

They're not game-breakingly bad, just so desirable that you suspect they may be priced too low. On the other hand, if they were like most of the spells in the R&R books (i.e., innocuous and less useful than spells of the same level out of the PH), then my wizard wouldn't be using any setting-specific spells at all, so maybe it's a good thing that these are just a little bit better than the rest.

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though i'd admit that i probably wouldn't take iceshards if it was a 3rd-level spell


\/\/\/\/\/\/ Bummer about no full-on R&R2 errata. I'd just gotten my hopes up, too.

I suspect our GM may at times think Iceshards is a bit abusive in my hands, just because I tend to layer it on top of a bunch of other stuff (Mage Armor and Shield, for example) and end up with a nicely untouchable AC which I then use to stand right in front of bad guys while casting spells and making fun of them. And then when the cavalry arrives or the spell's about to run out, I spray some unlucky bad guy with as many shards as I can hit him with.

Like I said, it's one of my wizard's most-often-used spells. At 2nd level, you won't find many better.

Herpes,

I forget exactly WHICH S&SS Insider had it...but there was errata, and I'm sure Iceshards was mentioned.

I for one have had people use Iceshards. It's not a game breaker by any standards, since the sorcerer that uses them keeps shooting them off.

Course he's also a Blessed of Mesos...so who knows?

(Still think that was a luck bonus to AC. That or insight.)

[Edit= Sorry Herpes. I was mistaken. There was Errata for R&R 2 but only for Stone Missile and Shocking Missile.]