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My group approached Kullen and company in the bar, and confronted them directly about their involvement in the grave robbing. The party threatened to report them to the Cult of the Green Lady (Kelemvorites in my FR game). A successful intimidate check was made, and Kullen and his boys spilled their guts. Not a single punch was thrown.

Remember in the labyrinth, that even though torches only shed 20' of light, there is shadowy illumination out to 40 feet.

I am currently DM'ing a group through the new Age of Worms AP, and the theme that my players came up with on their own was to model their characters after characters from Marvel. So, we have Angel, an aasimar favored soul with wings (via wing of the celestial feat), Pyro, a fire genasi evoker, Nightcrawler, a rogue shadow walker, Thing, a dwarven fighter mineralized warrior, Colossus, a goliath cleric, and Sabertooth, a barbarian feral human.

The group was formed by Angel, who assembled a contingent of like-minded, down on their luck vigilantes who were looking to clean up the decadence of Diamond Lake, and make a little money while doing it. They call themsevles the League.

I agree with the idea about NPC's having magic items in treasure chests that they don't use. When the party I DM fought the Hextorite priests, I had the femal priest take the wand of Enlarge Person from the treasure chest, and use it to enlarge the half-orc priest.

Here's another editing error that I noticed. All of the priests of Hextor are equipped with shields and heavy flails. Heavy flails are two-handed weapons. However, the damage listed for the flails is 1d8, so it may just be a typo that they are HEAVY flails.

philarete wrote:

In Three Faces, on the other hand, the only evil the cultists are up to is worshipping Hextor/Vecna/Erythnul. They aren't doing anything illegal at all...

The only way for the PCs to get through the Hextor section is to become cold-blooded murderers. That may fit some groups, but not either of mine!

Actually the worship of Vecna and Erythnul is extremely illegal. The only place worship of Hextor is kosher is in the lands of the former Great Kingdom, but putting this aside. The adventure is written in such a way that the followers of these deities (in the case of Hextor the sentries are half-FIENDS!) don't just sit around and say hey adventuring dudes! Pull up and stool and let us tell you the great oppurtunity that is before you, become a worshipper of Hextor, and thats not all, he is about to become an ubergod combined with other awesome depraved evil deities! Yes, join us and help usher in the Age of Worms!

No, as written the worshipers of these evil cults are pretty proactive about exterminating any invasion into their temples, which is what you might expect.

You are right about the Hextorites/Banites. The way the adventure is written, they are pretty much on the offensive from the beginning. In our game, once the two tieflings below the elevator realized the PC's didn't belong, they attacked. Then, the second the PC's entered the skeleton guard room, they were attacked by the undead, followed up by the cultists, and the other two tiefling guards. From that point, it was a running battle. Near the end, Thedrick made a half-hearted overture, but by that time, the feral human barbarian in the party was in full rage, and no quarter was given.

Well, my group just had their first session in TFoE tonight. Here is a brief summary: Smenk coerced the group into undertaking a mission to the mine (we are playing Forgotten Realms, btw). In order to infiltrate, they bribed a miner who they met in one of the taverns. By flashing a lot of gold, they convinced him and some of his buddies to create a late night distraction. This took the form of them setting to fire to a supply shack inside the compound. While the majority of the guards were occupied, the party made their way into the mine and down the elevator shaft.

Once in the cathedral, conflict started almost immediately with the tiefling guards. Luckily, the party took care of the guards before they could warn the skeletons. When they entered the skeleton room, a large fight broke out, involving the skeletons, the cultists, and the two other tiefling guards. None of the bad guys were able to make a complete run for it to either release the dire boar, or warn the rest of the compound, so the group was able to continue their infiltration. When they came upon the group of tieflings guarding the entrance to the priests' quarters, only then was a general alarm sounded. The priests and remaining guards rallied in the battle hall, and this is were the climax battle took place. In the end, the party was able to defeat all the bad guys, with no PC deaths or incapacitations, though there were some close calls.

As for resting, as long as the other factions aren't yet aware that the complex has been infiltrated (it states in the adventure that the three groups may go for days without interacting), I see no reason why they can't rest in the area they've just cleaned out.

I am running a Forgotten Realms campaign. Our group has taken an interesting tact and modeled themselves after Marvel superheroes:

"Angel" Favored Soul/Aasimar (took wings of celestial as a feat)

"Pyro" Wizard (evoker)/Fire Genasi

"Colossus" Cleric/Goliath

"Nightcrawler" Rogue/Shadow Walker

"Thing" Fighter/Dwarf, Mineralized Warrior

"Sabretooth" Babarian/Feral Human

Note, each character has taken a template with a +1 ECL adjustment.

I'm reading through this adventure and have some questions.

1. How many cultists are in the temple of Hextor room #3. I'm guessing 9 by the CR and EL.

I think the number of cultists should be 8, because in room 2, which is the same EL as room 3, there are 8 skeletons, which are CR 1/3, just like the commoners.

Well, actually our group has SIX PC's, and it was still a tough fight. Some of them started heading for the wind column, and I had the warriors opt to defend that first, so they charged headlong into those PC's, bringing them into melee range. One of the more brute PC's grappled one of them, and the warrior was unable to break free.

Is it just me, or are the wind warriors in the true tomb a TPK waiting to happen? What is to prevent them from just hovering over party members 20 feet, and blasting them with sonic attacks every round until they are dead? Most third level PC's will have no means of flying, and peppering them with arrows or Magic Missiles is chancy, considering they don't have to roll to hit, and can do 2d6 per round.

My solution was to treat their sonic attacks like breath weapons, ie, they could only be used every d4 rounds. Also, one of the PC's in our group is an aasimar, who took the feat celestial wings, and could thus fly (though he was the first to fall in the combat).

Just wondering...

Joseph Jolly wrote:

EbbTide wrote:

You know, an interesting way for the party to defeat the swarm that nobody has mentioned is that they could run for the lantern chains, climb up them, and drop burning oil on the swarm. Unless you decide that the swarm is going to climb up the walls to the ceiling and come down the chain, or, if you think the beetles can jump that far, spring straight from the walls onto the player, the players could escape the encounter completely unscathed.

We had one player, the rogue, do this, but after he'd climbed up thirty feet, he failed his climb check with a natural '1', subsequently falling forty feet and taking himself to -5 hp...oops.

You do realize that a roll of "natural 1" on a skill check is just a 1, not an automatic failure, don't you? Climbing a chain is the same DC as a knotted rope, DC 5. If your player rolled a 1, he would have to have a total Climb PENALTY of -1 before he actually fell off the chain. If he had any bonuses at all, from Str or skill ranks, all that rolling a 1 would do for him (or rather, TO him) would be that he wouldn't be able to climb any higher that round. You have to miss a Climb DC by 5 or more before you actually fall. And most importantly, "Unlike with attack rolls and saving throws, a natural roll of 20 on the d20 is not an automatic success [for a skill check], and a natural roll of 1 is not an automatic failure." (PHB 3.5, p. 63)

Sorry to rules lawyer this, but it seems like that error might have killed a PC thru rules ignorance.

Actually, my friend, the DC for climbing the chain, as it is clearly stated in the adventure on page 26, is 15. I realize a natural 1 on skill checks is not an auto failure, but in this case, even with skill points added, his total climb check was less than 10, thus he failed the check by more than 5 and fell.

This is mainly directed to Erik, but I would welcome any other input. I think the group that I DM may have stumbled upon an unexptected easter egg. In room 23, the one where Alastor is encountered, the floor is filled with "softball sized" iron balls. Iron balls...in a mining town dependent on iron ore. My group, which includes an engineer, figured this out. The room is 20 feet wide, by 50 feet long, and is filled to a depth of 15 feet with the balls (as indicated by the room's side view). Now, assuming approximately four of these balls could fit in 1 cubic foot, that would make a total of around 960,000 of them. We estimated each would way in the neighborhood of 10 pounds. In the PHB, it states that one pound is iron is worth 1 sp. So, that would make one of these balls worth 1 gp, or, in total, the whole horde is worth 960,000 gp. My group is wondering if this means a new group of mine managers has just entered the scene, dealing in pre-smelted iron balls. I'm sure this was not intended in the module, but it has left a very interesting door open.

BTW, it's my understanding that swarms take NO damage from conventional weapons, because the weapon can only target an individual creature in the swarm. By the same token, targeted spells generally have no effect, but area spells do.

You know, an interesting way for the party to defeat the swarm that nobody has mentioned is that they could run for the lantern chains, climb up them, and drop burning oil on the swarm. Unless you decide that the swarm is going to climb up the walls to the ceiling and come down the chain, or, if you think the beetles can jump that far, spring straight from the walls onto the player, the players could escape the encounter completely unscathed.

We had one player, the rogue, do this, but after he'd climbed up thirty feet, he failed his climb check with a natural '1', subsequently falling forty feet and taking himself to -5 hp...oops.

Hello all. I'm the one who ran that Shackled City campaign where one of the players was a trumpet archon actually, not a deva. Name was Pez. It worked out fine. We just didn't give the PC all his abilities at first level. They advanced as he did.

We are about to start running Age of Worms, and ALL the PC's are ECL +1 templates. They are modeled after marvel super heroes/villains. First, there is Angel, an aasimar favored soul with Wings of the Celestial feat. Then, there is Pyro, a fire genasi wizard. Next is Colossus, a goliath cleric of Grumbar. Thing is dwarven fighter/mineralized warior. Last is Nightrcrawler, a rogue shadow walker. Best of all, the backgrounds that the group has come up with make them fit beautifully into Diamond Lake.

There's a similar thread going on about blasphemy in another thread here. In short, it's a pretty rough spell and in the future, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on when it pops up in adventures in the magazine.

A glance through the Book of Vile Darkness reveals that the demon lords therein have their spell-like abilities capped at Caster Level 20. If I had the power to reverse time, I'd change Adimarchus's Caster Level down to 20 for his spell-like abilities. And if/when we release the Adventure Path as a stand-alone product in the future, I'll do just that.

That said, blasphemy (and its related spells like word of chaos) isn't unstoppable. First off, anyone that's outside the spell's 40-foot radius escapes its effects entirely; the area in which Adimarchus is released is fairly wide open, so it's possible that PCs aren't going to be caught in the spell's area when it goes off.

And even if it does, there are a few spells that can provide protection against the effects of...

I appreciate your input and advice. That may be what I'll have to do. One other option brought to my attention was to substitute Wretched Blight from the BoVD. Allows a Fort save. If failed, does 1d8 per level (max 15d8) to all non-evil, plus stuns for 1d4 rounds...twenty foot radius.

I'm am DM'ing a Shackled City campaign, and my party is very near to dealing with Adimarchus. I was just reviewing his stats tonight, and my question is this: has anyone else noticed that he can cast Blasphemy once per day as a 30th level caster? This means that if most characters entered this adventure at 19th level (as written), and even if they advanced one level to 20th over the course of the adventure, they are still ten levels below Adimarchus, and thus are subject to being instantly killed by this spell...no save! Therefore, Adimarchus can destroy the entire party, in theory, in a single round.