Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer (For DMs)

[wotmaniac]

Q30: What is the origin and precise meaning of this "Mister Cavern" phrase I keep seeing? (I can infer some of its meaning from context but someone please shed some light here).

Thanks,
Necro

"Mister Cavern" is what the Czech word for "dungeon master" translates to.
It became a real hoot because of this.

[Necrosnoop110]

Q30: What is the origin and precise meaning of this "Mister Cavern" phrase I keep seeing? (I can infer some of its meaning from context but someone please shed some light here).

Thanks,
Necro

"Mister Cavern" is what the Czech word for "dungeon master" translates to.
It became a real hoot because of this.

Thanks for the link that was ridiculously awesome.

[Necrosnoop110]

Q31: Any good (preferably official) ways/rules for a character to taunt another character?

Thanks,
Necro

[Littha]

Q31: Any good (preferably official) ways/rules for a character to taunt another character?

Thanks,
Necro

depending on what you mean by taunt there is the jester class from the dragon compendium or the knight class.

[rot42]

Q31: Any good (preferably official) ways/rules for a character to taunt another character?

Thanks,
Necro

The Goad feat from Miniatures Handbook offers a not-as-good version of the Knight class feature, and just using the Intimidate skill has some of the effects as a good taunt (demoralized, not using rational tactics, &c.). I would probably use Bluff for the standard "no Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" situation to get the villain monologing.

[kevin_video]

Bump

Q 18 Just read Dungeon Magazine 152's Moagim's Clone. It's not that bad. However, one thing they didn't do was give you what Moagim's stats were should he come back as a clone, or what his epic-level wizard self was. At least not in that particular adventure. Were his stats ever released/published? Did anyone run this campaign before hand and do up stats for him?

Q21 Any really good city adventure(s) you can recommend? My party is sixth level but I would willing to scale the adventure, if need be.

Not really a "city" adventure, but Torrents of Dread from DUN 114 takes place in a village. There's also The Menagerie from DUN 126. However, I really, really recommend The Chimes at Midnight. Once you're done that, you've got two more modules that follow afterwards. I know it's Eberron, but it's a really nice trilogy of adventures.

[braininthejar]

I know Kenders have a +4 racial bonus "when using bluff skill to provoike someone" so I guess normal taunting is a bluff/sense motive opposing check.

[Necrosnoop110]

Q32 The tome series mentions a "Tome of Virtue" with rules for high level play, has this ever been completed? If so got the link? If not anyone know if it will be completed in the future?

"More detail will be gone into in the Tome of Virtue, as the high level world is a really strange place."
LINK: http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Gears_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29/Playing_the_Game#The_Rigors_of_Command:_Playing_at_High_Levels

[PhaedrusXY]

Q32 The tome series mentions a "Tome of Virtue" with rules for high level play, has this ever been completed? If so got the link? If not anyone know if it will be completed in the future?

"More detail will be gone into in the Tome of Virtue, as the high level world is a really strange place."
LINK: http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Gears_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29/Playing_the_Game#The_Rigors_of_Command:_Playing_at_High_Levels

No, it wasn't, and no it won't. Frank and K aren't working on the Tomes anymore. There are people at the Gaming Den website who still make some D&D 3.5 stuff, but mostly they've moved on to other systems. Here is a link to some celestial-related material on their website. It is by other forum members, not Frank and K, though. A lot more can be found here: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50239

[kevin_video]

Q 33 Got a dick move here that I need to know about. Mostly for my own sanity. Now, RAW, it says that a party does not get XP for any summons that they face when going up against a spell caster. That it's part of that NPC's CR (which sucks). Here's my question. What do you for that when a summoner who spams the begeezus out of every summon spell they have, while they themselves are 100% protected from any kind of attack, suddenly teleports away and leaves you with all those summons that'll likely stay for about 30 rounds or so? Do you give them the XP for all the creatures they fight, or just the CR of the guy who left, but didn't actually run away?

[Necrosnoop110]

Q 33 Got a dick move here that I need to know about. Mostly for my own sanity. Now, RAW, it says that a party does not get XP for any summons that they face when going up against a spell caster. That it's part of that NPC's CR (which sucks). Here's my question. What do you for that when a summoner who spams the begeezus out of every summon spell they have, while they themselves are 100% protected from any kind of attack, suddenly teleports away and leaves you with all those summons that'll likely stay for about 30 rounds or so? Do you give them the XP for all the creatures they fight, or just the CR of the guy who left, but didn't actually run away?

Off the cuff, I'd give out 50% of the XP for the guy who left.

[kevin_video]

Q 33 Got a dick move here that I need to know about. Mostly for my own sanity. Now, RAW, it says that a party does not get XP for any summons that they face when going up against a spell caster. That it's part of that NPC's CR (which sucks). Here's my question. What do you for that when a summoner who spams the begeezus out of every summon spell they have, while they themselves are 100% protected from any kind of attack, suddenly teleports away and leaves you with all those summons that'll likely stay for about 30 rounds or so? Do you give them the XP for all the creatures they fight, or just the CR of the guy who left, but didn't actually run away?

Off the cuff, I'd give out 50% of the XP for the guy who left.

Thanks. I'll be hoping to get at least that much.

[veekie]

Q 33 Got a dick move here that I need to know about. Mostly for my own sanity. Now, RAW, it says that a party does not get XP for any summons that they face when going up against a spell caster. That it's part of that NPC's CR (which sucks). Here's my question. What do you for that when a summoner who spams the begeezus out of every summon spell they have, while they themselves are 100% protected from any kind of attack, suddenly teleports away and leaves you with all those summons that'll likely stay for about 30 rounds or so? Do you give them the XP for all the creatures they fight, or just the CR of the guy who left, but didn't actually run away?

Off the cuff, I'd give out 50% of the XP for the guy who left.

Depends on if he did anything as well. If all that happened was a crapton of monsters showing up(Summons normally take a full round to cast after all, he couldn't have dumped that many), I'd just bill the PCs for the monsters CR.

Done it myself with a superbuffed familiar of a powerful mage vs the whole party.

[Necrosnoop110]

Q 33 Got a dick move here that I need to know about. Mostly for my own sanity. Now, RAW, it says that a party does not get XP for any summons that they face when going up against a spell caster. That it's part of that NPC's CR (which sucks). Here's my question. What do you for that when a summoner who spams the begeezus out of every summon spell they have, while they themselves are 100% protected from any kind of attack, suddenly teleports away and leaves you with all those summons that'll likely stay for about 30 rounds or so? Do you give them the XP for all the creatures they fight, or just the CR of the guy who left, but didn't actually run away?

Off the cuff, I'd give out 50% of the XP for the guy who left.

Depends on if he did anything as well. If all that happened was a crapton of monsters showing up(Summons normally take a full round to cast after all, he couldn't have dumped that many), I'd just bill the PCs for the monsters CR.

Done it myself with a superbuffed familiar of a powerful mage vs the whole party.

He could have realized that the PCs were coming and summoned like mad for several rounds before the PCs made it too him. Summoned a few more rounds into combat with all the previous summons blocking the PCs from approaching him and keep on summoning until the PCs got within striking range and then teleport out. Or have been invisible. Or used illusions. There are many ways to make this happen for more than one round.

[PhaedrusXY]

Q 33 Got a dick move here that I need to know about. Mostly for my own sanity. Now, RAW, it says that a party does not get XP for any summons that they face when going up against a spell caster. That it's part of that NPC's CR (which sucks). Here's my question. What do you for that when a summoner who spams the begeezus out of every summon spell they have, while they themselves are 100% protected from any kind of attack, suddenly teleports away and leaves you with all those summons that'll likely stay for about 30 rounds or so? Do you give them the XP for all the creatures they fight, or just the CR of the guy who left, but didn't actually run away?

Off the cuff, I'd give out 50% of the XP for the guy who left.

I think that sounds about right, because the guy did use a bunch of his spells per day against the party. So technically, they "fought" him, even if they never actually even saw him. Encountering an opponent is worth some XP, whether you "defeat" them or not. Right?

[Agita]

The PCs overcame the challenge posed by the NPC, whether they actually defeated him or not. I'd say they should get the full XP for defeating the guy. Giving them only the XP for summoned monsters isn't much, since CR of summoned monsters is generally rather lower than that of the character summoning them, even if using the highest-level possible Summon Monster spell. Alternatively, you could give them a level-appropriate actual monster encounter and just handwave the monster(s) as having been summoned, giving them the XP for that encounter.

[kevin_video]

The PCs overcame the challenge posed by the NPC, whether they actually defeated him or not. I'd say they should get the full XP for defeating the guy. Giving them only the XP for summoned monsters isn't much, since CR of summoned monsters is generally rather lower than that of the character summoning them, even if using the highest-level possible Summon Monster spell. Alternatively, you could give them a level-appropriate actual monster encounter and just handwave the monster(s) as having been summoned, giving them the XP for that encounter.

I don't know. Three CR 11 and five CR 8 with only two spells cast might start to add up pretty quickly after a while. Especially if they're augmented in any way. But I get your point.

[kevin_video]

Q 34 If you'd like to eventually run Red Hand of Doom (lvl 6-12 module), what adventures would you first want to run from 1-6?

[Necrosnoop110]

Q 35 How does darkvision interact with dim lighting? (D&D 3.5)

Let's take a Dwarf for example, daylight no penalties; darkness no penalties within 60', normal darkness penalties after 60'; now what happens in low light? Does the dwarf's darkvision remove the shadowy conditions 20% miss chance? Shouldn't it?

[PhaedrusXY]

Q 35 How does darkvision interact with dim lighting? (D&D 3.5)

Let's take a Dwarf for example, daylight no penalties; darkness no penalties within 60', normal darkness penalties after 60'; now what happens in low light? Does the dwarf's darkvision remove the shadowy conditions 20% miss chance? Shouldn't it?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Darkvision lets you ignore natural lighting conditions up to 60' away, the way I understand it. So yeah, they wouldn't suffer any 20% miss chance in "shadow illumination", unless it was magical darkness. I'm not sure if that's RAW, but it sure seems like obvious RAI to me...