Adventures of the Knights of the Silver Quill: Glacier Season

[Artoomis]

Of course... by the rules that dragon would've been dead after I Harm Touched it and followed up with a hasted Beeyyatch slap.

Assuming he didn't have, say, a contingent Teleport. Which I would do were I running him. Too bad the boss decided to emasculate Harm on you (or did you all agree on that?).

I'm not sure why he didn't start this battle by casting an Antimagic Field. Maybe he was just showing off? Letting the Knights know what they were really up against! "See, I can crush you even when I allow your magics to work!"

 

[Urbanmech]

Harm has pretty much been rules by almost everyone as truly broken, so giving the dragon a save isn't that outrageous. Plus you would have had to get through the dragons hefty spell resistance for both the harm and the inflict spell.

 

[Victim]

Assuming he didn't have, say, a contingent Teleport. Which I would do were I running him. Too bad the boss decided to emasculate Harm on you (or did you all agree on that?).

I'm not sure why he didn't start this battle by casting an Antimagic Field. Maybe he was just showing off? Letting the Knights know what they were really up against! "See, I can crush you even when I allow your magics to work!"

Because Antimagic Field has a 10 ft radius no matter how big the creature casting it is. Any parts that stick out aren't protected.


I'd assume that the focus point of the field would probably be the centroid of caster. For a huge White dragon, the field would probably only protect his stomach or something. It might be nice to cast after he swallows someone though. The poor character would have a tough time escaping.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Nice, Richards!
How's our big secret project coming along?

I'm not sure why he didn't start this battle by casting an Antimagic Field. Maybe he was just showing off? Letting the Knights know what they were really up against! "See, I can crush you even when I allow your magics to work!"

At that point, the Knights were "bluffing". They cast a few spells and didn't teleport. They waited to see if he buffed up on spells before deciding to go. He only cast a few spells and waited, so they took the risk.

Harm has pretty much been rules by almost everyone as truly broken, so giving the dragon a save isn't that outrageous.

Yeah, you'd think that, right? Try dealing with the endless crybaby kvetching you get, though... I told Vek before this session even began that I was going to allow the dragon a Will save, and I even showed him the sidebar paragraph where it's actually recommended by the adventure's author.

At this point, I think I'm going to allow 15hp of damage/cleric level for harm, with no save (this will be for every creature, not just the dragon).

 

[Richards]

If I remember correctly, there was actually a sidebar in the adventure in question recommending the save against the Harm spell that Dr. Midnight gave to Acessiwal. Apparently during the playtesting of "Glacier Season" they discovered what a major affect that Harm has on an epic battle like this one, reducing it from a mighty clash against powerful beings to a relatively short one-two punch. Personally, I prefer the mighty clash, despite the frequent requisite PC death count that goes with it.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Because Antimagic Field has a 10 ft radius no matter how big the creature casting it is. Any parts that stick out aren't protected.

We hadn't seen that in the rules, and I thought it'd be 10 feet away from the dragon, but hell, mistakes were made that hurt both sides.

I completely missed the dragon's blindsight... and Vek dealt some hefty damage via improved invisibility.

So... shrug, oopsy. Next time we'll all be much better prepared.

As an exercise in high-level combat, it served me very well. I'm "getting my sea legs" at it.

 

[Richards]

Whoops - Looks like you posted during the time it took me to type up my last response, Doc!

As far as the secret project goes, I've got a few ideas worked out already, but nothing on paper just yet. (I'm also working on a few other projects for Dragon and Mongoose that are keeping me busy, and they have shorter - although admittedly self-imposed - deadlines.)

By the way, has anyone noticed that "ACESSIWAL" is an anagram of "ICE ASS LAW?" I'm not quite sure what to make of that - maybe that ol' ICE-ASS is the LAW up there in the north?

 

[Dr Midnight]

ACESSIWAL is also

I SAW LACES

I suspect he saw these in Vek's undergarments.

 

[JesterPoet]

It just floors me that they got away so easily.

And Wee Jas can whine and moan all he wants. There's no way a reasonable DM would let that harm touch through as it is written.

>Jester<

 

[Matchstick]

LOL! That's the second time today Richards!

Oh, and great googly mooglies the Harm saving throw is the right thing to do. Without it that spell is really nothing but a big old hunk of foul smelling european cheese.

Nothing wrong with getting your feet wet DrM. Plus the players got to have a taste of a high level battle. Good for all of you!