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The main involvement of the Free City Adventurers is that they appear in the Champions Games. The PCs enter this competition in the Free City, and the Free City Adventurers are among their primary competition. It doesn't matter too much whether your PCs strongly dislike the others, or actually get along with and respect them, in my opinion. But they need to know who the others are, and understand the others are a pretty competent group (have the impression that the Free City Adventurers are still a couple levels ahead of the PCs).

Just as an example of how this can be used - In my campaign, I added a scene at the end of TFoE where Ragnolin Dourstone and Balabar Smenk get hauled out in chains to the big square in Diamond Lake to be accused of their crimes (as shown by the evidence the PCs gathered). Ragnolin started shrieking insults at Smenk; then Ragnolin pulled a ring off his own finger and threw it at the ground in front of Smenk, and it transformed into two Chain Devils who promptly started to attack Smenk. The PCs of course leapt into the fray, and so did the Free City Adventurers (I raised them a level or two from the Overload, and adapted the wizard's spell list slightly, too). I had the Free City Adventurers be kind of friendly, but also a little bit "superior" or condescending, offering advice to a couple of the PCs during the fight. When it was over, I also described the people of Diamond Lake treating the Free City Adventurers kind of badly ("What are these big city folk doing here trying to claim the glory? It was our local boys who saved us from the devils, anyone can see that!") and the Free City Adventurers cleared out of town pretty quickly. So when they meet up again, the competitiveness will be there but theres still a lot of room left for the PCs in my group to decide how they want to react to the others (save Auric from a big nasty monster or not? try to kill the others or not?).

I decided to change the idea that the spawn in the keep had been there for 2 years. Instead, one of the lizardfolk from the seige had been infected with a Slow Worm, and when he died, the thing was able to animate soon after (not sure if this is entirely by-the-book but it seemed close enough). So the guys in the keep are still cleaning up everything (after the PCs have left) when the critter animates and starts attacking. When the PCs returned to the keep, they find all the survivors camped in tents OUTSIDE the keep, whining about some scary critter that started attacking them at night and hauling folks down into the basement. (My group is oversized, so I also had a total of 5 spawn instead of just 3.)

I'm also just starting to run HoHR, set in Eberron. In the conversion notes, Keith Baker suggests that the doppelgangers in this adventure be a separate group, unaffiliated with the criminal organization already established in the city of Sharn.

So I read your post and it got me thinking. What if one PC is kidnapped and replaced by a doppelganger from this group as established in the adventure. But another PC gets kidnapped and replaced by a doppelganger from the separate criminal organization, who want the PC to help them understand what the first group of doppelgangers is doing on their turf. ("See, there's this other group that has kidnapped your buddy Joe, and we want to know why. So we kidnapped you, ya see, and replaced you with one of our best spies, so they can keep an eye on the fake Joe. And we want you to come with us as we follow your friends, so when we confront them and go after fake-Joe, you can vouch for us, ya see...") Funny stuff.

You could have the doppelgangers include a few Changelings (from Eberron, also in Monster Manual III) and let the one taking the role be a Changeling Rogue/Druid.

Alternately, make sure the doppelganger has maxed out ranks in Use Magic Device, and provide your druid with a couple of wands sometime before that adventure. If the others are used to seeing you use the wands, they shouldn't have much reason to be suspicious.

I'm running for a group of 7. Each adventure tells you what levels it's for, so if they start to fall behind, it should be easy to notice it ahead of time and add a couple of extra encounters every once in a while. Another thing you may want to do is add a bit of extra treasure occasionally; I know with my group of 7 that they were starting to fall behind the recommended wealth levels, I assume the same would eventually happen with your group of 5.

I'm currently running Age of Worms with seven players, a few of whom haven't played much D&D before this campaign. I run it at a gaming store, so there's plenty of chaos around us, too.

Prior to each session, I tend to re-type the major NPCs and sometimes I'll add a bit of power to someone, but I haven't found it necessary to change much. When I did increase the power available to a couple of NPCs (beyond the kenku maze in TFoE), it almost became a TPK. I guess I've increased the number of low-level grunts a few times so everyone will have something to do... In general, I recommend starting with what's written, but keep reading ahead and try to think about how everyone can be kept involved. You may want to widen a couple of hallways so that people aren't stuck in line in 5' halls in some adventures, but I've actually done relatively little of that, too.

You will need to add additional encounters and extra treasure. Actually, for my group, I decided that I'd just have them level up at specific story-appropriate times, rather than tracking exact XP. But I have needed to add in more treasure, because they're splitting the stuff they find across more folks.

Some things I've done to make it easier to manage:
- Limiting animal companions etc. Unearthed Arcana has some alternatives.
- Restricting classes to those in the Player's Handbook
- Requiring prestige classes, and any non-core feats/spells etc. be cleared with me prior to being used.
- Everyone has to have their own copy of the Player's Handbook so they can look up their own rules references.
- Use initiative cards (numbered cards) which I hand around as we determine initiative.

Question for James Jacobs - The various types of "spawn" critters in Red Hand of Doom have no visual descriptions, just a stat block, so I have no idea what these things should look like. The needed info also is not in the Web Enhancement at Wizards' web site. Are they actually published in some other book? Or is this information available/forthcoming anywhere else? (Can you maybe give a single-sentence visual description of each?) Same question for the Bonedrinker, is it from some other source or can you say what it should look like? Any help would be appreciated.

By the way, this adventure is simply superb. It is imaginative, taking the characters in directions I've never seen in a published adventure. The "Designers' Notes" and the "Developments" sidebars both contribute tremendously. I highly recommend this module to anyone who hasn't seen it yet...

From what I can see, it looks like Paizo doesn't offer PDFs for sale until they are sold out of a particular issue.

Are there any gaming stores in your area that you can call? One of the gaming stores near us (middle Tennessee) has a fairly random assortment of Dungeon back-issues at any given time.

Actually, bards should exist. In a pre-literate society, they are the teachers and keepers of history. Think of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which survived in the oral tradition for centuries before ever being written down, and yet we still know the name of the creator.

Wizards might need mild adjustment, but it shouldn't be a big deal. I visualize wizards drawing intricate runes rather than recording spells in a spellbook. Consider the spells that would normally be in a "spellbook" as the ones that a wizard is able to draw from memory. This does strengthen the wizard a bit, as they can't have their spellbook stolen, but as a DM I don't think I've ever taken someone's spellbook from them...

Done correctly, your idea of sacrificing wealth to the gods in exchange for magic items could be extremely cool. I imagine you'd need to select the appropriate god for the enchantment you're seeking. Make sure there are plenty of overlapping choices - for example, in the Greek pantheon, if you wanted a weapon, you could choose Ares (god of war as destruction), Athena (goddess of war for defense), Apollo (god of soldiers), Artemis (the huntress), or any of several others.

You may want to have a couple of "nations" that have developed around agriculture. In the Greek motif, the empire around Athens was based on agriculture and scholastic achievement, whereas the empire based around Sparta was based more on warfare and taking the necessary resources from others. Both groups could worship the same set of gods, and in fact, the gods might be encouraging each group into competition with the others as part of their own internal politics. Or if you want something less recognizably related to the Greek mythos, adjust it from there, but in history, there have been many highly civilized populations that have eventually fallen to more agressive conquerers from rival, more primitive cultures.

I'm trying to come up with minis for my Age of Worms campaign. Looking ahead, the main one I'm struggling with is Froghemoth. Does anyone know if the Small Cthulu Plush from Paizo's store would be the right size (not larger than a 3 inch square base)?

I'd like to see an additional section in each adventure, up front with the Synopsis - a sort of "Adventure Path Checklist." This would be the things you should make sure to introduce/accomplish if you're playing the entire adventure path, and should be a brief bullet-point list that includes a note on why each point is important. For example, the Encounter at Blackwall Keep might have the following bullet-points:

- Build PCs positive relationship with Allustan (so they'll be affected properly when he gets in trouble later in the Path)
- Defeat the beseigers (lets PCs see how far they've progressed since 1st level)
- Introduce Slow Worms, and learn more about the green worms of Kyuss (builds on the sense of Bad Things Coming)
- Learn hints about the black dragon Illthane (sets up her return later)

This checklist would help those of us who are adapting to a different world (Eberron, in my case) to be sure we don't change something important, and it would also help clarify some of what the author intended to accomplish that we might not have recognized clearly or in places where we didn't catch the importance.

ALSO, I'd like to see more detailed conversion notes, rather than rules-lite versions, although this is a preference rather than a necessity as I expect that the online community here will be my main source for conversion ideas.

One other thing that I think would be handy... I like the idea of all the adventures published within the adventure path being related to the path itself, but sometimes I need an extra adventure in between things (it gives the sense that other stuff is happening in the world, and it lets my over-large group of PCs get some extra XPs and wealth). I'd love to see a paragraph at the start of each adventure (other than the 1st one) that says something like, "If you're playing the Adventure Path and need an additional adventure before this one in order to get your PCs to the appropriate level, you might want to consider one of the following:" and then list two or three adventures previously published in Dungeon magazine. At least one should be from an issue that is within the last year, and/or that is still available as a back-order.

Well, it doesn't give XP for item creation, but it doesn't take any away, either... Check out the Mark of Heroes campaign rules at the Wizards site (for their RPGA Eberron games). Because you bring your own character to each session, they need easy rules that lock in exactly how much money worth of stuff people can have, so basically, they just let people with item creation feats get items for 75% of the normal GP cost, instead of 50% gold plus the XPs. So at least someone who makes a living making magic items doesn't have all their experience drained away...

I agree with you about the skill point system. In my current campaign, I gave everyone 2 more skill points per level than normal for their class (multiplied by 4 at first level). I also only charge 1 point per rank for cross-class skills (but they're still limited to half the max ranks of a class skill). This means that everyone is able to justify the occasional purchase of Knowledge skills or even an extra language every once in a while.

The viability of the sorcerer depends almost entirely on the attitude of the DM towards availability of magic items for purchase.

If you are able to buy a scroll of just about any spell you want, a sorcerer becomes a very interesting and flexible character. You only "know" spells that have DCs, with maybe one or two utility spells that you want to cast frequently (like Fly) - everything else you buy on scrolls. If the fighter in your group wants to have you casting Bull's Strength on him, he needs to buy (some or all of) the scrolls of that spell for you to cast on him.

On the other hand, if you can't buy scrolls fairly freely, and you seldom or never find scrolls and wands as treasure, sorcerers become far weaker than wizards.

I'm of the opinion that the core rules support the former approach, allowing PCs to spend their money on whatever they want to. But many DMs don't like that idea, and it adversely affects certain character types...

Gestalt characters are supposedly about as powerful as normal characters that are two levels higher. I'd recommend calculating all XPs as though the opponents are 2 CRs lower than actual. (If you do it the other way, calculating as if the PCs are 2 levels higher, you end up giving way more XPs, particularly once you start increasing the power of the opposition.)

That's because you weren't so far off. The actual total is 605. (I've got 'em all in a database.)