Crystal Cantrips

[SilverClawShift]

So my group has recently started a new campaign, one that our DM says should last a good long while - which usually means we hit level 20, or even go epic at some point. By this point we're up to level 2, and we seem to be picking up traces of the central plot, or at least are on the right path.

Some interesting stuff has come up though, and I'd be interested in getting some outside insight into things.

The campaign world has an large central island, give or take equal sailing distance from every major continent. Naturally the island is a port-city metropolis, with a smattering of races and cultures from everywhere on the world. A lot of trade, import, export, ect. Not much you can't find there, and not many places on the world that you can't find a relatively direct path to.
The player group is as follows:
I'm planning on being a Human Warlock (with the classic "dark, mentally unstable witch" archetype). My current plan, unless something catches my eye, is to drop most of my feats into extra invocations to expand my versatility. I'm also probably going to carry around a handful of throwing daggers and the hardest poisons I can find, just in case.
One player is being a Dragon Shaman (race: Lesser Aasimar turned Dragonborn). They're manifesting wings as a dragonborn, are boosting their CON and CHA almost exclusively (with a little into INT), and are going to take a lot of meta-breath feats. They're going for an "unkillable heal-battery with a hard to resist breath weapon" motif.
Third player is a kobold factotum, with a one-level dip into barbarian for fast movement. They're also taking the Wild Talent feat to become a psionic character, and then taking the Speed of Thought feat for a +50 base move rate. The rest will be Font of Inspiration abuse, so there's not much else to say. A tiny, hard to hit, lightning fast, versatile scout/rogue who's everywhere we need him to be. He's bugging the DM for a chance to add the "Dark" template to his character for another +10 feet too.
Fourth player is a human Swashbuckler/Barbarian. Probably wind up being a power attacking shock trooper or something.

Anyway, onto the meat (and the questions).

Our group had a few small confrontations heading towards the island in the first place. We had an attempted boarding by a group of pirates, but with some flaming oil pints and quick thinking, we made it too much effort to continue attacking us, and forced them to turn off into another direction. Stuff like that.
We had a larger confrontation when the captain of the ship we'd purchased passage on realized we were smuggling the kobold in our luggage (the kobold having been wanted for questioning at the loading docks regarding a string of thefts), but we resolved it by palming him 5gp to upgrade our tickets to include a "no questions asked" policy.

We still wound up swimming the last 100 yards to shore when the swashbuckler said something rude to one of the deck hands. But at least the captain was nice enough to toss our luggage onto the islands docks instead of into the sea. He even told the dock master we'd been with him, so we didn't have to deal with too much hassle signing the log sheets and getting our stuff. Tough but fair, I guess.

We started looking for work on the island, and something big sprang up almost immediately. One of the trading companies was searching for an "exterminator". We tracked down the owner and started talking. Seems one of his ships had been visiting a desert nation to acquire some recently unearthed treasures out of a long-dead emporers tomb. It wasn't until they'd gotten back and started opening things up to examine them, that they discovered some kind of pest had apparently been sealed up in the packaging.
They were fist sized scarabs, with seemingly metal carapaces and crystals growing out of their back. The problem was, they were EATING metal objects during the voyage, but now they were eating the metal weapons and armor of anyone who tried to deal with them. And they could apparently cast cantrips, because they were spitting little fireballs and acid splashes at anyone they saw. They'd allready killed four men since they were unloaded.
The owner finally had to seal up the building they'd unloaded the cargo into. The local authorities considered it his problem. He agreed to give us 50 gp each if we successfully cleared all the bugs from inside.

Well, to make an allready long story short, the fight was brutal. We found out that we could strip the crystals out of the dead ones and cast the cantrips with them, which saved our butts when we realized that the white and gold scarabs could cast Cure Minor Wounds. No way we would have survived otherwise. It was brutal, but finally we killed them all and collected their shells to get the gems out.
At the end of the day, we were level 2, and had a fair number of shiny little gems that could cast cantrips. That was the end of that session, so we're trying to decide what to do with the stones at this point.

Anyone can activate them as long as they're touching their skin, just by concentrating on them. I can actually fire them along with my eldritch blast, which is cool, but doesn't seem remarkably useful.
We have:
12 Acid Splash
10 Ray of Frost
7 Cure Minor Wounds
5 Daze
5 Open/Close
3 Light
3 Create Water
2 Mage Hand

We also have 2 that can cast True Strike, and one that can cast Reduce Person, from one of the scarabs that was larger and meaner and could apparently cast higher level spells.

Our DM agreed that the Cure Minor Wounds gems could be activated while we were in negative hitpoints, to stabilize ourselves. So we're each carrying two of those, except the dragon shaman who is carrying one.
Right now we're just carrying the rest in a bag so we can grab them if there's something we might want them for, but I'm thinking of asking the group of I can have the offensive ones set into some quick and dirty (and cheap) rings so I can wear a whole mess of them at once and activate them with my eldritch blast as needed.

Anyone have any clever thoughts on how these gems could come in handy? Or is it more likely they'll just be a novelty we find interesting, but not so useful?

[Coidzor]

Are they at will? Or at least at will with a recharge time? Or is it more of a "times per day" thing? You should find out if they're using charges or what...

As an at-will magical item, even for cantrips is pretty valuable.

[TheCountAlucard]

My opinion? You can get a lot of use out of these. Not necessarily in direct combat, but nonetheless, these should be very useful. If it's useable at-will, that pretty much guarantees that every fight will start with your party at full health. Likewise, if you can create water at will, that's likely to save a lot of time and effort during travel, as well as never having to worry about darkness, thanks to your light crystal. Not only that, but walls and doors should never hold the party back, since you can dump an infinite amount of acid on them.

[SilverClawShift]

Are they at will? Or at least at will with a recharge time? Or is it more of a "times per day" thing? You should find out if they're using charges or what...

As an at-will magical item, even for cantrips is pretty valuable.

Oh no. I guess I should have been a little more explicit. They're one use items.

[Lycanthromancer]

You should've captured some of them, so you can raise them as pets/resources.

You could love them, and hug them, and pet them, and squeeze them, and name them GEORGE.

[Sinfire Titan]

You should've captured some of them, so you can raise them as pets/resources.

You could love them, and hug them, and pet them, and squeeze them, and name them GEORGE.

Agreed, though I get the feeling the creatures in question were from the MM5 (and thus each crystal is limited to one use only, as they crumble to dust afterwards).

[Starscream]

I kind of hope that they aren't at will, True Strike whenever you want is pretty broken.

I'm pretty sure those things are from MMV. By RAW the crystals are worth something like 50 gp each, so you can always sell the ones you don't want. Then again, I think that as described in the book they don't retain their magic once removed, so the DM must have changed that.

If anyone can use them, you could argue that they are worth as much as disposable magic items of those types and sell them accordingly. The 12 Acid Splash ones are probably as valuable as an Acid Splash wand with 12 charges left, for instance.

But you won't make that much money anyway, so I'd just hang on to all of them. I like the idea of using your Eldritch Blast in conjunction with them, though. Having a Reduce Person Ray or a Dazing Blast could be fun.

[woodenbandman]

Well, that's different. Umm... market price for one of those things is 25 gp, except the true strike one which is 50 gp. For your level these things are extremely useful. Kudos to your GM by the way for a kool custom monster encounter.

[SilverClawShift]

You should've captured some of them, so you can raise them as pets/resources.

Not likely. They were fast, vicious little buggers.

But on that same page, you're right. We want more of them. And when we mentioned sailing to that continent to see if we could hunt down some more at some point, our DM got his traditional "good, they picked up the trail" smile.

[Lycanthromancer]

Do some Gather Info checks to see if any of the bugs are hiding out anywhere else in the city; some are bound to have filtered into the rest of the city.

If any have, set up some traps and start yourself a coleoptera-factory.

Once you've got them contained and breeding, see if you can get some slight mutations going, and a training academy. An exotic pet that can cast prestidigitation at will would fetch one hell of a price on the open market.

Set yourself up as an exotic pet shopkeep, and you're set for adventuring on a (greatly expanded) budget.

If all else fails, go find their original habitat.

[edit] Partially ninja'd. Oh well. You sound like you have one helluva DM, and I'd love to be part and partial to that game.

[Sinfire Titan]

I kind of hope that they aren't at will, True Strike whenever you want is pretty broken.

I'm pretty sure those things are from MMV. By RAW the crystals are worth something like 50 gp each, so you can always sell the ones you don't want. Then again, I think that as described in the book they don't retain their magic once removed, so the DM must have changed that.

The MM5 says you can remove the gems from the beetles easily once they are killed, but not before then. Trying to remove one before killing it causes it to shunt the energy from one gem into another, which causes the gem you are trying to remove to become worthless.

True Strike at will is only broken if he can use it as a Swift action, and can get it to apply to a Full Attack. Once per two rounds auto-PA for 20 is ok, as the spell takes a standard action to use. This means it can be Dispelled by anything with Quicken SLA (Dispel Magic), thus making him waste actions.

[The Glyphstone]

[edit] Partially ninja'd. Oh well. You sound like you have one helluva DM, .

Well, we already knew that. :)

[SilverClawShift]

You sound like you have one helluva DM

The man definately knows what he's doing.

[Lycanthromancer]

Gah. I have so many suggestions on that Horror Campaign, and yet it's waaaay over.

Lots of crusaders (all using White Raven maneuvers), some dragonfire inspiration bards, and some clerics (all using protection from evil and a bunch of buffs to keep the kids safe)...

If only I were around back then...

[Olo Demonsbane]

Gah. I have so many suggestions on that Horror Campaign, and yet it's waaaay over.

Lots of crusaders (all using White Raven maneuvers), some dragonfire inspiration bards, and some clerics (all using protection from evil and a bunch of buffs to keep the kids safe)...

If only I were around back then...

I know...I occasionally just reread that when I am about to make a mission.

OP: I'd recomend you keeping the Ray of Frost and Acid Splash ones...right now, they basically function as a 1-use empower spell-like ability on your eldritch blast.

The other ones...you probably should just give them to random members of the party without much spellcasting ability.

[Lycanthromancer]

Spoiler'd for off-topicness.

Spoiler

Show

Along with the aforementioned, I'd train everyone that didn't want to be down on the ground and all the elderly and children in the use of bows, and have the party's spellcasters make as many pieces of paper/parchment with explosive runes as are physically possible. Tie them to the arrows, and have the people all fire them in a barrage at the strongest kythons when they show up. Then have an AoE dispel (cast at minimum CL) available to deal hugely massive damage to anything nearby (when they fail to dispel the explosive runes, of course). Including unavoidable force-based damage to that damnable slaymaster.

Hoorah for broken Vancian casting.

[SilverClawShift]

explosive runes

I don't think we would have been able to make enough to change the battlefield the way our other strategy did. Not to mention a cheesey enough tactic that it working would have been called into question by our DM.
Not to mention that our wizard didn't know explosive runes


Anyway, we had another game session last night, and the plot thickened. Significantly so.

Upon wrapping up the debacle with the bugs and counting out the gemstones, we went up to the owner of the shipping company to get paid. The owner noticed we'd collected the gemstones and a few of the bug bodies for further observation, and started getting really, really shady. At first he just told us that the bugs were part of the cargo being shipped in, and told us to hand them over if we were going to get paid.
To which our factotum pointed out that, no, they weren't part of the cargo. We'd skimmed a copy of the shipping manifest inside the building. Nothing on it about any bugs. Which meant it was either an accidental infestation issue, or a SMUGGLING issue concerning foreign animals.
The owner actually started to draw his sword in anger, but caught himself and re-sheathed it. He then calmly explained to us that the bgus WERE an infestation, but that the owner needed to recoup the losses of the cargo and crew-men the bugs had killed, and that he might be able to find some use from them.

We actually thought that pretty reasonable, or WOULD have if he'd said that from the start. And not almost attacked us when we'd pointed things out. I decided to test the waters, signaled my party that I was up to something, and told him he could keep the 200 gold, chalk it up to a free extermination, and let us on our way with the gems.
The owner drew his sword but held it loose at his side, and said "Listen little girl. Those bugs belong to me. Hand them over, or there will be trouble."
The swashbuckler calmly said "Trouble with the authorities, that is.".
The owner makes eye contact with each of us in turn, before sheathing his sword again and muttering "Fine. You four can enjoy your dead bugs, I'll keep the pay. Wait, you said you were looking for work around here right? I just lost four dock workers. How about you take their places? I'll pay you each 15 gold a week."
Our Dragonborn immediately said "I beleive we'll seek employment elsewhere for the time being".
The owner laughed at us, smiled, and muttered "Good look getting hired anywhere looking like you do."
We decided that instead of turning it into a fight, we should just turn tail at that and consider ourselves having come out ahead. If nothing else, it seemed like the owner had been up to something, and we'd obviously been a hiccup in his plans.

So the first thing we did then was track down an herbalist/arcanist. At first he wasn't that interested in us, until we used one of the Open/Close gems to open the window behind his counter. We gave him one of the bug corpses, showed him the gems, and told him where they'd come from. He was EXTREMLY interested after that. He asked us what we had in mind, and we said we'd let him keep the bug on the counter if he let us know anything he found out about it. He smiled and agreed happily. We also sold him two of the gems for 50 gold, and took off, but not before warning him of how shady the shipping owner had been acting, and letting him know he should probably keep quiet about the whole thing. He told us that everyone on this side of the island knew "Charles Therin" (the owners name, we'd never asked. The arcanists name was Maguiller by the way) had been up to some shady activities for months now, but no one had any evidence to warrant sticking their nose into things. We also warned him that the bugs had killed four grown men, so the be careful with whatever experiments he had in mind.

So after that we did some small shopping, mostly mundane equipment we could use, and rented a night at a local bar/inn. We told the bartender that we were looking for odd jobs if anything came up, and rested up for the night.

The very next morning, the arcanist was waiting for us at the bar. Told us to come back to his shop, and not having much else to do at the time, we followed. He seemed a little strung out actually. Said that two of Therin's workers had come and harassed him about what we were doing there, but he told them we were just shopping for some generic ingredients and that aside from having a Dragonborn and Kobold with us, we hadn't really stood out.
What was more immediately relevant though, was the state of the bugs, and the corpses that the bugs had killed.
The corpses? There were no corpses. In fact, asking around, no deaths had been reported yesterday at all. The arcanist was more inclined to beleive us, all things considered, but it did raise the question as to WHY you would cover up four accidental deaths.
The bugs? Not just bugs. On the surface, they seemed like normal insects. Even at a glance dissecting them, they still looked like normal bugs, with a few oddities like some crystallized organs, but that seemed almost expected with the gems growing on their backs.
But looking real close? Part of them were clearly metal. And not just metallic, but actual forged, tooled, and bolted metal. We took a glance through some magnifying lenses and saw what he was talking about. Obvious traces of sanding, tiny little bolts, and a stray gear.

Weird.

So the arcanist notices one of Therins dock workers watching through the window, and asks if we'd agree to be his night guards for the time being. Therin wouldn't be so stupid as to attack in broad daylight, and the authorities would come running if Maguiller was attacked, but us actually being on the scene might be the difference between a scuffle and an assassination.
So we just spent the day exploring the island. We had a few little side quests. A wealthy noble girl had lost her engagement ring out at sea, but the dragonborn just weighted his ankles and let his natural water breathing give him the edge over the divers looking for it. Found it, she rewarded him and gave him a peck on the cheek, saltwater and all. So 100 GP and a friendly noble on the island, not bad. Very handy to have courteous higher-ups, especially if you clearly don't look human.
Stuff like that.

At night, the Dragon Shaman and Swashbuckler took up guarding the front entrance. I spiderclimbed up onto the wall of a taller building nearby and hid among some of the tattered canvas signs on it to keep a lookout on the surrounding area.
We sent the kobold factotum back to Therins loading docks, to see if he could find out anything about the bugs, bodies, or Therin's shady activities.
While he was messing around there, we did actually stop an attack. Two of Therin's dockworkers had gone and started breaking in the back door, figuring the two blatant guards at the front were all Maguiller had going for him. So I tossed a stone onto the sand in front of Maguillers shop to let my buddies know that our little gamble had worked, and spiderclimbed down to meet up with them. The three of us tried to just rough them up and drag them inside the shop for some interrogation, but they were actually fairly good in a scuffle, and it wound up turning into a fight to the death. Which was loud enough to draw the attention of the local authorities.
Standard operating proceedure apparently involved putting the three of us in a holding cell until the whole thing gets straightened out. We actually didn't find that to be too unfair, since it was our word against the word of two corpses. Maguiller promised he'd vouch for us to the higher-ups that he'd been harassed by Therin's workers the day before.
Luckily, our Factotum didn't get caught. He also didn't get too far into the loading docks before the commotion started. it was loud enough that the entire beachfront was lit up with guards, onlookers, and whatnot. He wound up tucking and running back to Macgiullers shop to hide inside for the night.

So the next day Macguiller comes and vouches for us that he'd been harassed just the day before, while Therin is there calling us cold blooded murderers. Said his workers were on their way home for the night, and that they just happened to be passing by. It was more or less a hear-say stalemate. We figured it was going to turn out sour for us, but the husband-to-be of the noble we found the ring for camme in and vouched that we were good and honorable people.

Truth is way less useful than a blue-blood's thumbs up.

So we get released, and the local authorities tell Therin and the rest of us that, whatever is up between us gets dropped now. Any shady activity from either of us, and they'll bring the hammer of justice down on us with full force.
Considering this is a D&D world, the hammer of justice might be an actual physical hammer, we're inclined to avoid it.

So we laid low for the next few days, keeping an eye on Maguilers shop while he did experiments, and just avoiding trouble. On the second day, Maguiler called us all in to his shop to show us what was up. He'd managed to grow/heal/and cobble together enough of a bug to grow another two living bugs. Essentially clones of the first one (a cure minor wounds one at that). That's when we found out another interesting bit of info.
The Bugs weren't naturally aggressive. The two just chittered happily around Maguillers shop, landing on things, exploring them a little, taking off little nips of a metal stick Maguiller was feeding them. He said that whatever these things were, they weren't aggressive by default, the ones that had been attacking were violent for some other reason.
One of them landed in our Swashbucklers hair, seemed very friendly, and he asked Maguiller if he could keep it. Maguiller agreed, since he still had the original and a new living one to toy with. So our Swashbuckler aquired a pet with Cure Minor Wounds twice a day. Cute. Not incredibly useful, but cute. He named it Chitter.

Now we HAD to know what was up. So that night the Factotum went back to the docks, while the rest of us stayed nearby in case trouble sprang up. Uneventful for us actually (we had to pause whlie the kobold adventured solo, it happens). He found some creepy stuff though. The dead bugs we hadn't collected (stripped of gems still) were locked up in a glass case together, labeled to be shipped back to the continent they'd come from. Along with other crates full of miscellaneous replies. Everything was going to set sail in the early AM.
The factotum cracked one of the cases? Dead body. One of the dead dock workers, to be precise. With THINGS pushing at his skin from the inside. The factotum debated for a moment, before deciding against slicing open the corpse, instead re-sealing the crate and stealing copies of the shipping and receiving manifests, along with the record of all purchases made by Therin's sailing company.
Him and the Swashbuckler (high INT, recall) both pured over the logs and manifests until they'd proved, conclusively, that what Therin listed as being shipped out COULDN'T be what was in those cases, because he didn't HAVE any on hand. They outlined the relevant parts in red, wrapped it in a bundle, and the factotum snuck up to the local sherriffs office and left the bundle sitting on the front porch.

Which turned out to be a miscalculation on our part.

The local authorities, including customs, went to Therins at just past dawn. They demanded to see what was in the crates that were, at the bare minimum, mislabeled and a gross oversight, and at worst a major crime.

We were watching this from a safe distance away mind you.

Close enough to see what was going on, but far enough that our presence wasn't an attention grabber.

So there wasn't a lot we could do when Therin sighed, scratched the back of his head, and in one smooth motion tore the throats out of two of the guards with his bare hand.

Then he started running for the boat, shouting for it to leave the rest of the cargo and set sail. Naturally we took off sprinting in its direction, but by now, things had gotten crazy. The other dock workers were all pulling weapons and trying to defend the area around the boat from the local guards as the ones on the boat started chopping at the ropes keeping it in place.
We fought through them as fast as we could (I even started spiderclimbing UNDER the pier to avoid direct confrontation), but we couldn't make it before the boat took off. Then the dockworkers started setting fire to Therin's entire building. And themselves. They didn't even scream while they burned.

We stood at the edge of the dock, watching the ship sail, with Therin glaring at us from the rear, watching his place go up in flames. A few quick skimmers took off to try to catch up, but he had gotten too much of a head start. Then we fought our way back through the flaming pier and could do nothing while everything else, including anyone who could answer a question, burned to ashes.

******************************

At least the local sherrif had seen the entire debacle first hand. He obviously beleived that we were on his side. We apologized for the anonymous clues, but told him they'd been from us. He was mad that we'd taken things into our own hands, but understood why, all things considered.

So that's where we stand now. We know what continent Therin is headed to. Or at least where his LISTED destination had been. We figure with the cargo going to and from there so often, it's likely he had a reason to be heading in that direction. The local authorities are on our side, but they won't be doing anything at this point but attacking on sight if Therin and Co show their faces again. Anything off the island is outside their jurisdiction.

We're gearing up and getting ready to buy a charter ship to take us in pursuit.

Crazy.

Oh, but the acid-splash laced Eldritch blasts have come in handy after all, at least :-p.

*EDIT*

Oh, I almost forgot to ask the question which was the whole reason I posted.

Any thoughts on catching up to Therin directly? I can't think of any good way for a group of level 2's to catch a ship on the high seas, but if there's a trick or obscure rule that we might be able to take advantage of, I'm prepared to board that scary punk.

[Lycanthromancer]

I don't think we would have been able to make enough to change the battlefield the way our other strategy did. Not to mention a cheesey enough tactic that it working would have been called into question by our DM.
Not to mention that our wizard didn't know explosive runes

Yeah, I figured that second part out later.

Incredibly awesome campaign, and just as awesome retelling, SCS. Have you ever considered a career in fiction?

[edit] See if there's a bounty on this guy's head, or if he's done anything against some of the nobles directly.

If there's a grudge going, maybe you should talk to your noble friend and see if she can hook you up with a teleport without error spell, or a wind walk, or something similar.

If you have a wizard with a REALLY fast movement speed, have him cast Tenser's floating disk and set out to sea. Make sure he has enough prepped for all of you (preferably multiple times...).

[Lycanthromancer]

Hmm. How much thrust do your eldritch blasts create? Get everyone on a small boat and use your blasts as a propellant?

[editedit] Find a druid with an aquatic animal companion, and have it tow a canoe?

[SilverClawShift]

Incredibly awesome campaign, and just as awesome retelling, SCS. Have you ever considered a career in fiction?

I don't think I can assemble a coherant story. I AM my groups ghostwriter for homebrew content, if we ever finish/publish the Dustlands campaign, I'll be the one doing the actual writing.

But making something reasonable? Plot structure? Characters? Dialogue?

Maybe if my DM lays it all out for me ahead of time

maybe you should talk to your noble friend and see if she can hook you up with a teleport without error spell, or a wind walk, or something similar.

Unless he specifically says otherwise, our DM builds his worlds on the idea that there are maybe a few thousand people level 3-5, maybe a hundered 6th level and up, and a small handful that can get to double-digits on leveling.

And usually half of that small handful are villains

[Lycanthromancer]

Check out the swan boat feather token in the DMG.

Pool your resources and nab one.

(Save thanks for K.S.Lillian if you ever meet her. T'wasn't my idea...though I was about to go start looking at the feather tokens, and would've hit on it shortly. )

[pingcode20]

Or, you know, you could just charter a Pinnace or something. A Caravel if you can swing it with your blue-blooded friend. Sure, Magic's all well and good, but the plain old mundane tends to work a lot better for large scale stuff. Like crossing an ocean.

It's a bit problematic that you scared the guy and sent him packing - he might have managed to leave light enough to keep a good pace against you, if he's using a pinnace or caravel himself.

Stormwrack sets both the Pinnace and the Caravel as the tied third fastest ships available, at 3mph/wind strength level. If you load up your caravel with 'only' 60 tonnes tons of supplies, you're likely to get the speed advantage on Therin, assuming he's using a larger, slower cargo ship or managed to load up the majority of his cargo before being caught.

Now, if you can swing a 5th level druid or wizard in your favour, Therin is going to be screwed, as far as escaping goes. Stormwrack gives the 'Favourable Winds' spell as 3rd level on both their spell lists. In short, strong winds (9mph for one of the fast vessels) for 10 minutes a level, giving you an 'extra' hour and a half every day.

By playing the mundane game, you might just have a chance at running him down at sea, rather than having to play catch-up.

(The swan boat is a nice idea, but given it's clearly a continental trip and it only lasts one day, you're just asking for trouble, even if you are going twice as fast. It puts the pressure back on you to capture him before the day is up, or you die. Strong winds would kill you, too - a sailing ship can move faster than a swan boat can paddle in good winds.)

[SilverClawShift]

Check out the swan boat feather token in the DMG.

It's interesting, but also kinda questionable. He's allready got a massive head start on us, and we probably won't be able to catch up to him just by matching speed.

It's a bit problematic that you scared the guy and sent him packing - he might have managed to leave light enough to keep a good pace against you, if he's using a pinnace or caravel himself.

That's what I'm starting to think. I get the immpression that between the head start, and the near-suicidal determination to get to his destination while evading authorities, we're probably not gonna catch him on high water.

I'm gonna suggest at our next session that we just re-group and focus on tracking him down once we reach the desert/egyptian-esque continent he ran off to.

[Kosjsjach]

Man, I'm really disappointed I wasn't around for the "Horror Campaign" days, because your re-tellings are spectacularly entertaining. How often are your sessions, so I know when to tune back in?

Not only that, but I already have a favorite character. Your mobile do-everything sneaky kobold party member is a reptilian humanoid after my own heart.

[SilverClawShift]

Yeah, the little lizard-ninja thing is a pretty cool character concept, I don't deny it.

And we game twice a week most of the time. Sometimes we can only get together once though.

[arguskos]

And we game twice a week most of the time. Sometimes we can only get together once though.

...I want your group, so veeeery bad. My group plays twice a MONTH, at BEST.

[Kosjsjach]

My group plays twice a MONTH, at BEST.

I haven't had the best luck finding groups, but I always thought that was pretty standard. Twice weekly with the kind of quality you've expressed seems phenomenal.

Btw, I'm sure your kobold player already knows about it, but he can wait around save up to get the Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis, which grants the Dark template for 10 minutes per day divided up as he sees fit, or save up a bit more for a continuous version.

[SilverClawShift]

Twice weekly with the kind of quality you've expressed seems phenomenal.

Well, my group are all friends. We STARTED playing D&D as a group because we all agreed it sounded fun. So we'd really be hanging out two or three times a week anyway, and we're just playing a tabletop game instead of doing some other random activities.

The quality is directly related to our DM. I'm our backup DM, but when I'm running things our games aren't nearly as fun. It's still a good time, but I just can't keep up with things the way our main DM does.
He just thinks on his toes really well, usually has an entire list of backup plans and alternate plot paths for when we go off in a random direction he hadn't counted on, and knows the game really really well.

Not to mention, he knows us all really well, so he's usually three steps ahead of whatever plan we concocted.

Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis

That is cool, but I think he's persuing permanent boosts. I'll definately mention it though.

...I want your group, so veeeery bad. My group plays twice a MONTH, at BEST.

Are there scheduling conflicts, or is it just disinterest?

Find a group that actually plays

[Olo Demonsbane]

My serious 3.5 group meets ONCE every TWO months, if Im lucky

I meet perhaps 1/month with my 3 other groups.

I feel sad now...going to cry in a corner


Where does your group meet anyway?

[SilverClawShift]

One of our players houses most of the time.

Sometimes we meet at our DMs place, but his girlfriend prefers we do it somewhere else, because she's one of those people that doesn't 'get' what we're doing