The attack on their homeland, and the island now called Jelling, spurred the brunari people to design a new strategy to get back at the Children of the Slaves, as those who were free of dragon rule were called. A great forge was built just outside the cave mouth of Surma’s home.

Dragons stepped forth and volunteered to be transformed by the brunari spell smiths working in conjunction with the Daughters of Delarendel and the dragon Surma to create the ultimate weapon, essentially, common weapons that held the spirit of a dragon. If such a weapon was tossed into the air while speaking a word of summoning it would turn into a dragon and attack on its own. If the beast was slain in battle, it would return back to weapon shape and if the rite of ultimate death was not performed, the dragon would regenerate and be ready to fight again at a later day. All weapons forged this way bare Surma’s forge emblem on them.

There was one weapon found on a would be brunari assassin, that until recently, existed in the great hall in the tortoise city of Tudd, called Kingslayer, a long sword of remarkable quality. It was used in an attempt to kill Ian Russerson, the leader of the Children of the Slaves.

What inspired was the spell “Form of the Dragon I” from the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This spell and another called Beast Shape provide an excellent way to make cool artifacts for players to find while exploring. Plus, as you adventure in Pathfinder RPG there may come a time when you need a mount and Form of the Dragon cast integrated into a melee weapon could be one possibility. Of course, first you would have to train your dragon to let you ride it. But how do you train a dragon? One way, in my game, is that you befriend it, say with Diplomacy, and have some ranks in Fly and probably Handle Animal to help get you where you want to go. Dragon weapons can be the whole gamut of alignments, so maybe you get lucky, and find a dragon sword that is closely aligned to you. If you are not lucky, then maybe bribery will work, say, by letting the dragon start a hoard, and placing the weapon on a small pile of coins from time to time. Another might be to threaten the dragon blade with the rite of ultimate death.

The Rite of Ultimate Death

Over time, the knowledge of creating weapons with spirits in them faded. What is now known, is just tidbits gleaned from ledgers and journals that speak in particular of the dragons. To get a dragon to volunteer to have it’s life force encased in a weapon for all eternity is a difficult task to start with, but to have them give up their first item they ever hoarded to complete the spell, is even harder. The ones that did, never knew of the rite of ultimate death, where, according to the ritual, if you touched that single first hoarded item, be it a trinket, gem or a king’s crown, to the weapon that contained the dragon that originally gave it up, it would instantly snuff out the beast, rendering the it and the weapon to ash. Of course at the time, this was a valiant thing to do during the war, and if the dragons had known of the rite, they would have had little to fear, because the brunary spell smiths kept the lists of the weapons, the dragons and the hoard items all safe and the brunari culture was here to stay, until oh, about 600 years ago, when that last bastion of their great culture finally crumbled. Scattered throughout Alidor are great treasures and odd little books with cryptic notes and dragon blades, there are 19 known to still exist or are unaccounted for.

I think I will have to make a dungeon using this theme…. Evil GM laugh.

Some fun things I thought of: If a player confirmed a critical with a natural 20, the weapon would release a breath weapon attack that the wielder is immune to. If it were a bow or crossbow the bolt would explode into a breath weapon attack. The number of levels that the player had carrying the weapon could be used to control this effect to avoid unwanted breath weapon attacks, or to spur one on. Say, if a fighter had the weapon for 3 levels, if she rolled a natural 20 to confirm, and did not want the breath weapon, because it may kill innocents, then she could reduce the score to less than 20, and do normal critical damage for the weapon. If her confirmation roll was less than 20, say 19, and she wanted the breath weapon to be released, then she could add to adjust her role to get a twenty. The player could only control this the number of times a day equal to the number of levels they had the weapon in their possession. The fighter in this example had the weapon for three levels, so she could use this ability three times a day.

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This image shows us before round 1.

This is after we all had a chance to go once:

It took 6 rounds before we devastated everything in the room.

Can you say cheese:
Well first off, the guy circled in white is the super cheese guy in our party, he has scout levels and feats and magic that make him nearly impossible to hit. I never really checked his character sheet, but I hear the player saying his PC’s armor class is between 41 and 45. We are gestalt characters which also amps up the cheese. Normally we sit around and talk while he destroys the enemy.

Round 1, one of our players does a holy word right away to nerf nearly all the mindflayers except the one with monk levels in the middle of the room. That monk gave us the hardest time, because his AC was 40. Next the super cheese guy went and did his normal super attacks on the evil cleric. The monk mindflayer did a super mind-blast attack at my wife and she saved… Next one party wizard did a wall of force to block the mindflayers another went and did another wall of force (red lines on image). The one mind left attacked my wife. Two out of three bone devils got sent back home via holy word. The last zapped all of us with some evil spell. I went last and bumped up everyones will saves making the mind blast attack ineffective. After that, it was combat by the numbers, as we watched the super cheese guy take out the monk, and the cleric, and the other mindflayer, while we supported him, or blasted the last bone devil to pieces.

At the end of combat, we were given a choice, one of us, who was good at heart, could touch the NPC hostage, and die forever, or we travel to hell on a quest to free the hostage. My PC is a favored soul/marshal that is lawful good, so I volunteered to touch the NPC, but the party voted me out, because the DM said the optional hell encounter had more gold for the party treasure, if we decide not to sacrifice someone. The super cheese guy, in particular, wanted more gold.

Now we are on the second layer of hell… Until next week, actually, the week after.

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I like the pace so far in the Council of Thieves Adventure Path, which is basically six adventure books and a free downloadable players guide PDF. I have only read the Council of Thieves Players Guide, well, because I am playing it, not GMing it, so that is all I get to read. The guide gives enough background to help folks like me get accustomed to the game world and did I mention it is free from Paizo.

The dungeons in Council of Thieves seem to be fun too, at least from what I am experiencing as a player. From the way our GM is running us, there appears to be some degree of freedom written into the modules to make it feel more like a sandbox adventure than a clear cut, hook and line game which it definitely is not. Last Thursday was a perfect example we pretty much role-played the whole session; we bribed guards and merchants, met ladies of the night and even attended a play, we walked away at the end of the session with plenty of intrigue and more plot hooks than I can remember. We did have one short combat with a ghoul, basically, it was a random encounter for a couple people in the party who where off feeding their Otyugh pet in the sewers. This little side trek adventure had nothing to do with the Council of Thieves, but it ended up being fun for all none the less.

So far the Council of Thieves Adventure Path stands out as being very well balanced between role play and combat.

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I don’t mind being stuffed into a box full of bad guys, it will be a challenge to get out alive. I just have to survive the first three rounds of combat. If you are thinking of putting players in a situation like this without letting them do it to themselves, be ready for some pissed off people. The last thing we as players want to hear is “Oh the last encounter was just a dream you are actually grappled, and having your head sucked on by mindflayer”, even though we have rings of freedom of movement, and a zillion skills and feats to prevent this, somehow we are “box texted” by a module into being in this impossible situation.

If you like your players, don’t do it.

We are all 14th level, so it should not be too bad of a fight. The first round will be the worst.

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If you look at the D20 SRD for 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons the fighter has the following weapon and armor proficiency already:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency (3.5 SRD)
A fighter is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor (heavy, medium, and light) and shields (including tower shields).

It is similar for the Pathfinder game:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency (Pathfinder SRD)
A fighter is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor (heavy, light, and medium) and shields (including tower shields).

I was just thinking about my time in the military and how important it was for my to understand the weapons I used and how to keep them operational. Now swords and shields and armor are fairly simple weapons compared to scud missiles, but they still required expertise to create. A fighter in an RPG game is already a hero among the masses so why can’t that hero make his own weapon?

My solution is that anything a character is proficient with is also something he can make without having ranks in the Skill, this way he can use those precious skill points for something like swim or something cross class. If he really wants to be great at it, he can spend ranks get even better.

In my home game, a Pathfinder fighter can make all simple and martial weapons and all armor (heavy, light, and medium) and shields (including tower shields). His skill check is based on his class level. If he has multiple classes, the effect does not stack, but if one class is higher than the other and they both offer the same proficiency, say in light armor, the higher level would be used to determine success. If a player really wants to, they can still take ranks in craft, but would have to specify specifically what specialty, “craft light armor” and this would stack as would any feat that improves a skill.

A 1st level fighter with an intelligence of 10 (+0) would have +4 to make light armor (3 for proficiency +1 for his level and +0 for intelligence). A 5th level fighter with an intelligence of 10 (+0) would have +8 to make light armor (3 for proficiency +5 for his level and +0 for intelligence). 5th level fighter with two ranks in Craft Armor with an intelligence of 10 (+0) would have +10 to make light armor (3 for proficiency +1 for his level and +0 for intelligence and +2 for ranks).

I explain it like this, because making mundane equipment is cheaper than buying, at least in my home game, and in some of my games, the players start with virtually no money and have to be really creative to survive. Games in the City of Alidor are like this, players start with copper pieces equivalent of starting cash. In other games, players may loose gear and I always like to have an option available when times get tough.

I see this as way to use the craft skill more efficiently within the game. Some players like to do everything others not so much. With this house rule I can let players decide more efficiently what to do with those limited skill points each level…

Plus I want to see my players make stuff, I think this is incentive enough.

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