Planning to run AoW - Any problems to know about before I start?


Age of Worms Adventure Path


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After 3 years of play my group finally completed the Shackled City AP a week or so ago. I gave them a few different options and it looks like Age of Worms will be the next campaign we play.

In order to make this the best game possible I plan on taking my time to really prep beforehand. I'm going to read through all of the adventures and the Age of Worms Overload document.

For those that have played or run the campaign before are there any problems that need to be fixed?

Are there any points in the plot that are a bit disjointed and could be improved upon?

Do any of the main bad guys or NPC's need to be foreshadowed better in earlier adventures so that they don't seem to appear out of nowhere when the PC's finally encounter them?

Thanks to a lot of help from other DM's on the Shackled City board, I made a number of changes to the campaign that improved the game a whole heap. This included removing some of the minor bad guys, foreshadowing many of the NPC's better, adding in basically 2 new adventures, creating my own final adventure and changing the ending of the campaign considerably.

So, given that, I'm not afraid of putting a lot of work into the game to make it a better overall experience for my players. At the same time, if others have already gone before me and done the work, I'm not too proud to "borrow" heavily from it! :-D

Olaf the Stout

Scarab Sages

Whoh, man, I have to bookmark this.

I've no time to go into detail, as it's 3:25 am where I am, and I need to go to bed, but yes, there's a few parts that could do with some work.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Make sure you tell the players this is going to be an undead heavy module and to plan accordingly. Probably the best advice you can give them.

Any Melees should be building a Sun Sword. If you've got Augment Gems, you'll want the anti-undead ones.

This module highly supports good min-maxing. The encounters can be brutal if you aren't prepared.

==Aelryinth


The players will have access to just about all of the WotC splatbooks, so I expect their characters to be a bit stronger than characters made using only the PHB.

I had expected Shackled City to be a meat grinder, and warned my players accordingly. However, there was only about 5 or 6 PC deaths in the whole Shackled City campaign and a few of those could have been avoided if the players were a little more careful. On a couple of occasions the party was very close to a TPK.

In general though they breezed through a lot of the encounters, including several that I expected to be quite a challenge. I rolled all my dice in the open last campaign, so there was no helping out from me in that regard. There were 5 PC's and 1 NPC in the group, which definitely made things easier for them. I will be dropping the NPC for the AoW campaign (no one wanted to play a Cleric last campaign).

I'm aware of the heavy undead nature of the campaign and I have told the players to expect a lot of undead. I will be putting the item that lets Rogues sneak attack undead into the game so that player isn't made to feel useless in combat most of the time.

Olaf the Stout


Absolute number one advice : forum search engine is your friend. Check out all the adventures, one by one.

By now all the major plotholes, inconsistencies and broken or not-so-interesting encounters have been identified and adressed by one DM or the other : you should find something suiting your DMing style on the forums.

Here is my modest contribution (and others' even better ideas) on the first two modules.

The link between EaBK and HoHR/TCG could be reworked too. But the solution I came up with is PC background dependant.

Scarab Sages

Olaf the Stout wrote:

I'm aware of the heavy undead nature of the campaign and I have told the players to expect a lot of undead. I will be putting the item that lets Rogues sneak attack undead into the game so that player isn't made to feel useless in combat most of the time.

Olaf the Stout

If you are intending to run the AP in 3.5, then that's a good idea to extend the utility of Sneak Attack, and to do so in a way that doesn't tax the PC (as with a feat or forcing entry to a Prestige Class).

I would suggest that you consider amending the Turning rules as well.
There was an alternate method in Unearthed Arcana, which was similar to that in Pathfinder, where turning caused area damage.

I'll explain my reasons. I started the campaign with 3.5 rules, while PF was undergoing the playtesting. I had a player ask for a paladin, who I persuaded to try the Alpha PF version (since I believed the 3.5 paladin was awful), I also had a cleric, and a fighter who multiclassed into cleric, so it was a very heavily divine party.
And they still had terrible problems dealing with undead via Turning.

It wasn't too bad at the lowest levels, they forced the occasional creature to flee, but the turning point came during chapter 2.
Skeletons, they dealt with, but then came the allip.
Despite being a CR3 creature, it had 4HD, and +2 turn resistance, meaning it was effectively 6HD for the purposes of turning.

With three divine PCs in the party, it required higher than average rolls, but wasn't impossible to turn it. The problem was, what then? It simply walked through a wall for ten rounds, then came back. They couldn't spend their whole day with readied actions, and even if they did, the incorporeal miss chance was making the tactic ineffective.

The players and PCs had performed well, done so many things right, yet were in danger of TPK from a peripheral creature (ie not a BBEG or plot-relevant foe) of CR=APL-2.

After about the third (of four) successful turn attempts, I just thought "No more; I'm not having a campaign nosedive due to this.". I didn't give them a free pass, by removing it, or having it drop dead, as my players may have known the stats and suspected fudging, but I added the possibility for the allip to be defeated in a similar way to a haunt.
It was tied to the temple by the events of its life, so if they wrecked the altar or killed the Faceless One, its tie would be severed.

They did both, after the third successful Turn, so it went to its final reward, and never bothered them again.

I discussed Turning after that chapter was over, and suggested we playtest the PF Alpha version, which they were cautiously willing to do. I was never asked to revert back.

It's not just the awkward incorporeal undead that are a problem (of which there are many), but the fact that the Hit Dice of undead scales far faster than their CR.
Eg Minotaur zombie, 12 HD. CR4, but requires a minimum cleric level 8 to have a hope of turning, and only then via the max result (Turn roll 22+). Throw in a desecrate effect, and the situation just gets worse (target DC 25/28).
At level 8, a party should be facing groups of these, and you can't blame the cleric for reaching for Turning as the first option, yet... it's useless. One of their iconic abilities.

Plus, I loath having to track fleeing creatures, and am bored by the rolls to hack up cowering creatures.
Using PF Turning Damage means you don't get the auto kills, nor the flees, but you can more easily predict the results, and allow for them. It helps wear the undead down, but you don't get the swingy feast-or-famine (mostly famine) results, that make an undead encounter TPK or trivial.

Dark Archive

OK, I ran this about 2 years ago and got to part 10 of 12 (darn you military deployments for once again breaking up my group!)
I'll try to do this from memory without any of my books here. Heh.

The metaplot overall is fantastic. I don't remember any real whiplash moments where a bad guy came out of nowhere. The lead-ins are all very good or are explained later (some of the villains you don't find out more about until much later).

The problem at the start was keeping the PCs on the main plot. Diamond Lake is an amazingly interesting location with lots of fun places and NPCs. Be prepared for your PCs to want lots of sidetreks and RP encounters in and around town. And this is great! It gets them invested in the town and makes Ilthane's attack in book 6(?) more of an impact. Between feuds with nobles and taking over mines, my players would sometimes go a few sessions "off the rails" just having fun in the town.

Now the fights (and forgive my vagueness on some of this. It's all from memory):

Whispering Cairn: swarms at low level are brutal. Swarms + a giant spider-thing are more brutal. We almost had a TPK in the second room of the very first dungeon. Just be forewarned

Three Faces: the avatar at the end. Oh the avatar. He's a tough customer as is, but having to face him after going through at least one wing of the triple dungeon... wow. My group was tapped to begin with and he would have wiped the floor with them if I hadn't toned him down considerably.

The mindflayer at the end of book 4: make sure you get the correct DCs on his abilities. Should be able to find them on the boards here but I used the printed ones and it was almost another wipe (almost impossible for an "at level" party to make the DCs if I remember correctly)

Book 6: if your PCs are as invested in the town as mine were, consider letting them be "big damn heroes" here. Have Ilthane arrive with an army of blackscale lizardmen from the swamp to the south that occupy the town. Let the PCs muster up their own allies in town and liberate the town before heading into the Cairn after Allustan.
I got this idea from the boards here and it's STILL talked about by my players as one of THE high points of the AP.

Spires of Long Shadow: Oh Spires. The notorious "player killer." This one is rough but I recommend running it straight as written. Surviving it is a player badge of honor. 4 of my 7 AP deaths came from this module.

Library of Last Resort: the BBEG with the Hand of Vecna has a LOT of allies with a LOT of abilities. Make sure you review this fight beforehand and plan out a basic battleplan. I had trouble juggling all the bad guys and effects in this fight.

Those are the ones that really stuck out that I can remember.
Hope that was some help!


+1 to all this. Make sure to read all the location backdrops and make the towns feel alive. Diamond Lake is an awesome starting town. My biggest gripe: You will definitely need to rework the "hook" for the Three Faces of Evil.


It has been a while, and I was a player so I do not have the book.
Firstly over all impressions. We stopped at the end of book 6 and started with Monk, Barbarian, Psion and Cleric. The monk dies early and was replace with a monk. The Barbarian died in book 6 and was replaced with a Ranger/Rogue. The first 6 books are not particularly undead heavy .

Book 1. Swarms are deadly; the air creatures at the end are very tough.

Book2 This book has some continuity issues, from a players point of view it raised some unanswered questions (cannot remember what, but I remember them being unanswered)
The individual temples are tough but do-able. The aspect was tough, do not know if the DM fudged it but we were running on empty.

Book 3. This need beefing up. It was laughable. My psion could have done most of it on his own. The town wizard travelling with you and then teleporting away was weird.

Book 4. I remember the air elements being very very hard and the mindflayer an epic finale
Books 5 & 6 Nothing springs to mind


Read the Age of Worms Obituaries Thread in its entirety. Note how many deaths are accrued in The Whispering Cairn - which is very tough for beginners that don't have their shit together; and then note how many more are accrued in the now infamous Spire of Long Shadows.

I'm with Jenner regarding Spires: CHANGE NOTHING. Make your party earn their reward in this one, especially since they are likely to be given a 40,000 gp cutsomized magic item for each character before it even begins. If they don't choose a Ring of Freedom of Movement it's their own fault if they die die die....and die again.

And I agree with Snorter about Turning. If you are using 3.5 substitute the alternate turning system in Unearthed Arcana or the better-balanced and feat-supported Pathfinder version. If you are converting the whole thing to Pathfinder, that's another can of worms entirely (I made a funny!).


Snorter wrote:

If you are intending to run the AP in 3.5, then that's a good idea to extend the utility of Sneak Attack, and to do so in a way that doesn't tax the PC (as with a feat or forcing entry to a Prestige Class).

I would suggest that you consider amending the Turning rules as well.
There was an alternate method in Unearthed Arcana, which was similar to that in Pathfinder, where turning caused area damage.

I'll explain my reasons. I started the campaign with 3.5 rules, while PF was undergoing the playtesting. I had a player ask for a paladin, who I persuaded to try the Alpha PF version (since I believed the 3.5 paladin was awful), I also had a cleric, and a fighter who multiclassed into cleric, so it was a very heavily divine party.

And they still had terrible problems dealing with undead via Turning.

Yes, I have a single-classed cleric in my game, and he's hardly ever succeeded at turning anything (we're near the end of SolS at the moment). However, he's taken a feat that lets him spend turn attempts to extend the range of touch spells to close range, which is very helpful. At higher levels, the mass cure spells are very effective - harming undead and healing the party - especially with the feat that adds 2hp per spell level to each cure spell.

The rogue has taken the Alternative Class Feature that swaps trap sense for the ability to deal half sneak attack damage to creatures that are normally immune to it, when flanking them.

These choices have made them very effective against the undead they've encountered.

Dark Archive

Callum wrote:
...especially with the feat that adds 2hp per spell level to each cure spell.

Ah, Augment Healing. Almost mandatory for "healbot" clerics in 3.5

Callum wrote:
The rogue has taken the Alternative Class Feature that swaps trap sense for the ability to deal half sneak attack damage to creatures that are normally immune to it, when flanking them.

I think there's two of them. Penetrating Strike from... uh... Dungeonscape? And Death's Ruin from Complete Champion. I think they both give up Trap Sense.

Other options are Deathstrike Bracers or Greater True Death augment crystal (both from the MIC). Might be good to allow a rogue to get one of those a little early to participate in the undead combat. Shrug. I didn't have any rogues in my AoW group.


I just found this post. I played through half of SCAP, and I was not nearly as good as I think I am now, and I only died once. AoW might still kill me now, and I know what to look for.

I think the key to AoW is deciding how brutal you want to be as a GM. If you plan to fudge for the players all those splat books probably won't be needed. If you plan to let the dice fall where they may then be sure to post the results here for our amusement. :)

The ability of the players to build good characters is also to be taken into consideration.

The Spire of Longshadows is just wrong. It made me glad I was a GM, and not a player. :)


You might have started and this message is too late.

But in the first scenario, the whispering cairn, a lot of players skip up when they have Alastors bones. Some go to the house, some go to the city to get healing/shopping and a 1 or 2 players go to the farmstead.

It can be quite a hard match for 1 or 2 players to face the owlbear.

Dark Archive

Missed some of the other comments and not sure if you're even still tracking, but here goes:

Haldrick wrote:
Book2 This book has some continuity issues, from a players point of view it raised some unanswered questions (cannot remember what, but I remember them being unanswered)

You might not have played far enough thru the AP. I seem to remember most of the questions being raised in Book 2 being (finally) completely explained in Prince of Redhand (Book 8). I think that's where you learn the real story behind the Three-Faces Cult from Book 2.

But WhiteKnife brought up another good point. The hook to Book 2 was weak. It's better if you have one (or more) of the PCs already friendly with one of the other mine owners. In my campaign I had a dwarf working with the Greysmere Covenant. They noticed some shady happenings going on and asked the dwarf and his "whispering cairn" friends to investigate. It flowed pretty smoothly that way.

Haldrick wrote:
Book 3. This need beefing up. It was laughable. My psion could have done most of it on his own. The town wizard travelling with you and then teleporting away was weird.

Honestly, after the butt kicking that my PCs endured after the Whispering Cairn and Three Faces of Evil, I let them kick a bit o' butt of their own in Book 3. In fact, I kept throwing lizardmen at them to kill until they started feeling sorry for them (ok, ok... not quite that many but you get the idea)

I'd play it by ear. If the PCs have walked over the first 2 books, definitely beef this one up. Otherwise, let them have a chance to actually be heroes defending the Keep. Shrug.

But Haldrick's right, do NOT send Allustan down to the Keep with the PCs. Have him ask them to travel down there and help but he's far too busy with other things to go down there himself. Otherwise -as Haldrick said- it's just makes him seem weird and unlikable.


My players thought he was a coward for leaving. It is better if he never goes along.

Dark Archive

wraithstrike wrote:
My players thought he was a coward for leaving. It is better if he never goes along.

Totally. I think someone else summed it up along the lines of:

"Hey Allustan, could ya maybe spare a fireball or two before you go? Just a couple into the treeline there would really go a long way towards breaking up this assault on our keep... No?... ok, well travel safe then ... jerk."

Much better if that situation doesn't arise. :)


Hey guys. I'm still tracking this thread, so keep it coming. We haven't started playing yet, but will do so in about a month. I'm giving myself plenty of prep time so that I can read through all of the adventures first so that continuity issues or plot holes don't come up, foreshadowing can be done in advance and weak plot hooks replaced with stronger ones.

As it is, I'll probably be doing what several other DM's have done and actually start the campaign with Mad God's Key and then go on to the Whispering Cairn from that adventure. Mad God's Key involves Vecna cultists, so it meshes in without too much trouble. I plan on the book from Mad God's Key to have some information related to Kyuss in it.

Oh, and wraithstrike, I'll be allowing the PC's access to the splatbooks, but I'll be doing the exact same thing I did for the Shackled City AP and make all of my rolls in the open (apart from rolls that should be kept hidden like Search, Hide, etc.). So there will be no fudging either way on my part.

I had expected lots of player deaths in the Shackled City AP, after being told it was a real meatgrinder. In the end I think my group had maybe 5 deaths for the entire campaign, and 2 of those came in the combat against the Dracolich, where the PC's totally got their butts handed to the the first time around. The second time they faced the Dracolich they were much better prepared and wiped the floor with him.

I do have 5 players (and there was as NPC in the Shackled City campaign, so effectively 6 for that) so it should make things a little easier for them.

Olaf the Stout


SCAP is hard, but it is not on the level as AoW IMHO. I can probably get through SCAP without dying if I have competent team members.

It is good if they get a level or two in before AoW. It would take a lot of look getting through that first dungeon(the whispering cairn) at first level.

I think I have my groups a few extra hp, a and generous point buy, but I will also admit only 2 of the players were really good. I would like to try it with a table full of good(mechanics and strategy) players.


Olaf- An easy way to tie Mad Gods Key to AOW is to have the ripped out pages of the book be the Apostolistic Scrolls found during The Championss games.


I pretty much reworked the links between adventures in every single chapter (I go into detail on the links in The Three Faces of Evil Thread that Smarnil linked above). I also went into some detail on the new links for the Encounter at Blackwall Keep adventure. Blackwall Keep Plot Tweakings.

Spacelard's idea for the Faceless One went over very well, my players absolutely hated him.

The one thing I did that also went over very well was bringing back NPC's (when possible). The characters encountered Theldrick, The Faceless One, and the Mind Flayer at least twice each. I introduced Darl Quethos very early on too by tying him into the backgrounds of one of the characters.

There is also a thread discussing the use of other modules in AoW which has a lot of good ideas as well for incorporating outside elements in the campaign. Other Modules in Age of Worms.

My campaign is just about to reach the Spire of Long Shadows (I added a ton of outside stuff and side character development quests) and I am looking forward to seeing how deadly this visit to Kyuss' old haunt will be.

Good luck!


We just finished EaBK, so we're not too far in. My group consists of two somewhat experienced players and two brand new players.

Whispering Cairn: 1 death, from the swarms. I would suggest putting a gap between the swarm attack and the mad slasher attack.

The encounter with Kullen and his gang in the bar was great fun. Merovinn Bask was bull rushed into the dog fight pit and torn apart by the fighting dogs.

Three Faces of Evil: Read all the threads here about for tips on this. The dungeon should be split up. Its kind of stupid otherwise. I replaced the maze with a smaller series of secret doors. The maze is pitch black, but none of the occupants have darkvision. That makes no sense. I also replaced the allip with a shadow because the whispers of the allip should have been damaging the acolytes. The Hextor branch is easily the most lethal, due to their preparedness. Fun wing though.

As for hooks for TFoE, I was fortunate that the party cleric tried going to the mines to administer aid to the poor workers, and was turned away so gruffly that he mentioned it to Childramun, the old priest at the garrison. He even asked CHildramun to check it out. This led to old Childramun being snatched by grimlocks, and the PCs searching for him. He was found alive, chained to the wall of Grallak Kur's lair, with his leg having been chewed off below the knee. "Fresh meat!"

EaBK: I had Alustan accompany them. Rewrote his spell list as a diviner. When they reached the keep, He dimension doored to the balcony and used his wand of magic missiles to fight the lizard folk. I added a few extra to the horde just for this purpose. Him teleporting away is lame, especially when the whole purpose of him going is to get the PCS to like him.

I also had Marzena at the keep, having just returned from a peace mission with the lizardfolk shaman. She was sick with exhaustion from the battles at the keep, and begged the PCs to go after the soldiers taken by the newly hostile lizardfolk. Allustan offered to teleport to Diamond Lake to get reinforcements. While the PCs were away, Marzena succumbed to the slow worm from the potion she rec'd as a gift from Hiska, and turned into a spawn.

Then, after the PCs had slain the lizard king and saved the eggs, I had the players play four soliders preparing lunch as Marzena erupts from her room as a spawn. This was a great idea from these boards. I eliminated the fear effect. The soldiers tried valiantly, but in the end, only one made it out. The other three became spawn, along with two soldiers who were sleeping upstairs.

The PCs return to the Keep and go to fight 6 spawn in the basement. They were at full strength with undead bane weapons (from the worm paste) and it was a good fight. The party wizard was feared with a burrowing worm, and they were able to cure disease him with only a round or two to spare...

I didn't like that the PCs travel to Blackwall Keep only to find that the person they want to meet has been kidnapped. Seemed lame. This way, they still traveled to the lizardfolk lair, but were saddened and surprised to find Marzena the spawn when they returned.

HoHR: I am setting up a 'side quest' for the party rogue to be tasked with sneaking some poison into the Free City and delivering it to the thieves guild there. On the way back from that, its doppelganger attack time. With any luck, he'll be replaced.

The turn undead suggestion sounds great and I am going to suggest it. I hate having to track fleeing monsters, and I don't like them to just cower while being beat, I think that's stupid and a waste of time.


We play 3.5E rules, but we've decided to use the Pathfinder Channel Energy rules, instead of the Turn Undead rules for the campaign.

I've never really liked the 3.5E Turn Undead rules. Having to look up 2 tables to figure out the result was always a bit unwieldy. On top of that the result was generally totally ineffectual (turn attempt fails) or auto-win (destroyed or fleeing/cowering while the rest of the party pepper the undead with ranged attacks).

The Channel Energy rules seems like a nice middle ground, as well as a way for the Cleric to heal up multiple PC's in combat if he wants to use his ability for healing instead.

Olaf the Stout


Awesome, I envy you. I have DMed the whole campaign from 1 to 22, and it was terrific.

There are certain things you must pay attention to, and this board is your very best friend in this. Search for the titles of every installment, and read up. Many many good advice.

Overall, the right party setup makes the difference. Let them plan their party, and make sure they know it is about undead, among other nasty things. Make them pay attention to: Saves. You won't survive AoW without good saves. Teach them the lessons of teamwork, buffing others, delay and ready.

You should get your head around the WoTC splat books. It is easy for you to say: All of them, all content. But this opens up several severe gamebreakers, and lots of work on your behalf afterwards. My advice: Ban the most obvious nonsense. Open all non-core books "conditionally". Make it a policy to change/ban content that does not work in play; often enough, pathfinder has the right answer, especially in high-level play.


armnaxis wrote:

Awesome, I envy you. I have DMed the whole campaign from 1 to 22, and it was terrific.

There are certain things you must pay attention to, and this board is your very best friend in this. Search for the titles of every installment, and read up. Many many good advice.

Overall, the right party setup makes the difference. Let them plan their party, and make sure they know it is about undead, among other nasty things. Make them pay attention to: Saves. You won't survive AoW without good saves. Teach them the lessons of teamwork, buffing others, delay and ready.

You should get your head around the WoTC splat books. It is easy for you to say: All of them, all content. But this opens up several severe gamebreakers, and lots of work on your behalf afterwards. My advice: Ban the most obvious nonsense. Open all non-core books "conditionally". Make it a policy to change/ban content that does not work in play; often enough, pathfinder has the right answer, especially in high-level play.

I agree with you on several points.

The players know that there will be a lot of Undead in the campaign. The party is looking like this:

Wizard
Cleric
Rogue
Ranger
Fighter/Barbarian/Bo9S class (player is still deciding)

So all bases are covered.

As for the splat books. I allow all of the WotC ones, but anything outside the core 3 rulebooks needs to be approved by me before I will allow it in the game. I also retain the right to remove anything from the game should it turn out to be too over-powered.

Our group has a set of house rules and table rules, which spells all that out up front. So it won't be a surprise to the players if I turn them down on something.

My players are also pretty good. There is only 1 powergamer in the group, and even then, if I say no to something he wants he doesn't complain about it. He just deals with it and finds something else to take.

Olaf the Stout

Edit: Why do you envy me though if you have already run the AoW AP from start to finish?

Dark Archive

Olaf the Stout wrote:
Edit: Why do you envy me though if you have already run the AoW AP from start to finish?

Not Armnaxis, but I suspect he -much like myself- had an absolute BLAST running this AP. It was seriously the most fun I've ever had DMing.

Maybe it was the great players I had, maybe it was the fantastic story; but it was all around a lot of fun.

I envy you as well because its a long endeavor and I'm not sure it's something I'll ever get around to running again. Besides, running something the second time never seems to be quite as good. All the "new and shiny" starts to wear off. :)

Again, apologize to Armnaxis for stepping in and answering, but I envy anyone sitting down to run this GREAT AP for the first time as well.


Jenner2057 wrote:
Olaf the Stout wrote:
Edit: Why do you envy me though if you have already run the AoW AP from start to finish?
Again, apologize to Armnaxis for stepping in and answering, but I envy anyone sitting down to run this GREAT AP for the first time as well.

No need to apologize, you pretty much nailed it down.

You can build up that much foreshadowing, tense and sense of urgency; you can give them the feeling of overpowering evil at every corner; you can give them sweet moments of triumph... make it count :)

@ Olaf the Stout:
You say there is a rogue; when I played this campaign even before DMing, our rogue was at least mildly frustrated more often than not. When I DMed, we had a rogue/bard who could seldomly make his sneaks count. Will you use pathfinder rules for sneak attacking? Or help him/her out with items? And please tell him/her to pay attention to his/her willsave :)

Good luck!


armnaxis wrote:
Jenner2057 wrote:
Olaf the Stout wrote:
Edit: Why do you envy me though if you have already run the AoW AP from start to finish?
Again, apologize to Armnaxis for stepping in and answering, but I envy anyone sitting down to run this GREAT AP for the first time as well.

No need to apologize, you pretty much nailed it down.

You can build up that much foreshadowing, tense and sense of urgency; you can give them the feeling of overpowering evil at every corner; you can give them sweet moments of triumph... make it count :)

@ Olaf the Stout:
You say there is a rogue; when I played this campaign even before DMing, our rogue was at least mildly frustrated more often than not. When I DMed, we had a rogue/bard who could seldomly make his sneaks count. Will you use pathfinder rules for sneak attacking? Or help him/her out with items? And please tell him/her to pay attention to his/her willsave :)

Good luck!

Given the high amount of undead, I'm just going with the simple solution for the Rogue. I'm just going to allow him to sneak attack corporeal undead. That should allow him to sneak attack a lot of the time still. It makes Rogues a little more powerful, but I don't think that's a huge deal as they generally aren't the most powerful class to begin with.

In terms of time, I am hoping that it doesn't take as long to finish this campaign as it did Shackled City. It was a lot of fun, but it was about 3 1/2 years of fornightly play to finish the campaign. The story was awesome, but running a high level game (we finished at 18th/19th level) was not the fun that I thought it might be.

Olaf the Stout


Just been reading through a the threads on The Whispering Cairn and Three Faces of Evil. A couple of the ideas are absolute gold.

1. Alastor Land bloodline traces back to the Wind Warriors. He was "called" to the cairn and, because of his bloodline, he could get through the face trap without setting it off.

Him finally being laid to rest is also inadvertantly a part of the Age of Worms beginning.

2. Having the Faceless One and the Kenku be stalking the PC's in Diamond Lake. A PC will spot the Faceless One out of the corner of their eye in a marketplace or inn in Diamond Lake. Then, when they look again he will have disappeared. Kenku using their mimicry ability to impersonate the PC's so the PC's hear their own voice. Just generally freaking the players out and making the encounters with the Faceless One and kenku more memorable.

I love foreshadowing. It adds so much depth to the campaign.

Olaf the Stout


Olaf the Stout wrote:
Given the high amount of undead, I'm just going with the simple solution for the Rogue. I'm just going to allow him to sneak attack corporeal undead. That should allow him to sneak attack a lot of the time still. It makes Rogues a little more powerful, but I don't think that's a huge deal as they generally aren't the most powerful class to begin with.

You might consider giving him half his normal sneak attack damage against corporeal undead, instead. The rogue in my AoW campaign outshines the mighty barbarian in combat, when he can sneak attack (which is most of the time), so it's nice that the barbarian is top dog when fighting undead.

Olaf the Stout wrote:
In terms of time, I am hoping that it doesn't take as long to finish this campaign as it did Shackled City. It was a lot of fun, but it was about 3 1/2 years of fornightly play to finish the campaign. The story was awesome, but running a high level game (we finished at 18th/19th level) was not the fun that I thought it might be.

I'd anticipate the same with AoW - it's a long campaign, and the PCs should be 20th level at least by the end. I'm not enjoying the high-level part of it as much, either.


SoLS nerf (I believe from James Jacobs looong ago...)

Nerf the swords of Kyuss and their invocation of the worm special ability. 1d6 damage per 2 Hit Dice, once every 1d4 rounds up to 3 times a day.

Also I remember vaguely something about starting it at level 14.


Callum wrote:
Olaf the Stout wrote:
Given the high amount of undead, I'm just going with the simple solution for the Rogue. I'm just going to allow him to sneak attack corporeal undead. That should allow him to sneak attack a lot of the time still. It makes Rogues a little more powerful, but I don't think that's a huge deal as they generally aren't the most powerful class to begin with.

You might consider giving him half his normal sneak attack damage against corporeal undead, instead. The rogue in my AoW campaign outshines the mighty barbarian in combat, when he can sneak attack (which is most of the time), so it's nice that the barbarian is top dog when fighting undead.

Olaf the Stout wrote:
In terms of time, I am hoping that it doesn't take as long to finish this campaign as it did Shackled City. It was a lot of fun, but it was about 3 1/2 years of fornightly play to finish the campaign. The story was awesome, but running a high level game (we finished at 18th/19th level) was not the fun that I thought it might be.
I'd anticipate the same with AoW - it's a long campaign, and the PCs should be 20th level at least by the end. I'm not enjoying the high-level part of it as much, either.

I might go with the half SA damage instead. I just want to avoid having the Rogue be a bystander for all the undead combats (of which there are a lot).

And yeah, I am expecting the AoW AP to be as long as the Shackled City AP. Hopefully the story is just as cool as SCAP was and that offsets the extra work that high level play brings to DM'ing.

Olaf the Stout


One thing I noticed about AoW is that the GM gets background info that the players don't. I would find a way to get this info to the players. It makes the story more engaging that way.


wraithstrike wrote:
One thing I noticed about AoW is that the GM gets background info that the players don't. I would find a way to get this info to the players. It makes the story more engaging that way.

I've got a few ideas in mind for this. Firstly, I used a "newspaper" in my Shackled City campaign. Basically it was a handout that I would provide the players every so often in game of the Cauldron newspaper called the Cauldron Chronicle.

It would have various stories about things that had been going on around town, including various rumours (some true, some false) that had been circulating as well as advertisements for various businesses.

I only ended up writing about 10 issues, but I found that it was a really useful way for me to introduce rumours and red herrings into the campaign in a way that didn't feel forced. It was also useful in fleshing NPC's out a bit more and giving out background information.

It also was a great way for me to foreshadow events in the campaign. For example, one of the rumours I put in an early issue was that Hookface, an ancient red dragon, had been sighted in the Cauldron area. Many game months, and a couple of real-time years, later and the party finally got to face off against him. The fact that I had basically called it out so far in advance made the encounter much more memorable.

Another thing I will be doing for this campaign is a wiki on Obsidian Portal. My aim is to have all the NPC's, locations, groups, significant items, etc., in the campaign included in the wiki. I'll also add background information included in the adventures into that (assuming one of the PC's has a high enough knowledge in an area/topic that would enable the party to find know that information). This should also help the players get a bit more invested in the campaign and help them to piece together the puzzle of what exactly is going on.

Finally, I plan to make use of Allustan as a source of background information. He will be the mentor for the party Wizard and I'll be introducing him into the campaign from Day 1 (the PC's will be travelling to Greyhawk city with him as his "protection", despite the fact he doesn't really need it). So whenever I feel it is appropriate for him to know some background information on a subject (or I just want to give some info to the PC's) I can use him as a DM mouthpiece.

I'm hoping those methods will be enough, but I'm grateful for any other suggestions. I hate campaigns where all this cool and interesting information is written for it, but there is no easy way of passing it on to the players.

Olaf the Stout


I know I have mentioned this in another thread. One of the ways that I disseminated information was by tying it to the character backgrounds. I used to run Vampire the Masquerade (in fact I am actually starting a Vamp PBP here on the boards) and one of the interesting features of that system is the Backgrounds system. The players start with a number of background points to spend in different categories. Through their choices I place selected bits of information into a back story for them which we collaborate on. I have used this technique to introduce most of the major NPC's to the characters so at least one character knows or has heard of the NPC prior to hearing their name in game.


Dennis Harry wrote:
I know I have mentioned this in another thread. One of the ways that I disseminated information was by tying it to the character backgrounds. I used to run Vampire the Masquerade (in fact I am actually starting a Vamp PBP here on the boards) and one of the interesting features of that system is the Backgrounds system. The players start with a number of background points to spend in different categories. Through their choices I place selected bits of information into a back story for them which we collaborate on. I have used this technique to introduce most of the major NPC's to the characters so at least one character knows or has heard of the NPC prior to hearing their name in game.

What NPC's did you tie them to? I'm planning on having the Wizard be an apprentice to Allustan. I could have the Rogue or one of the other PC's have worked for Smenk before.

Any others?

Olaf the Stout


One PC was tied to Loris Raknian and Bozal Zahol - they killed his sister when he was young and framed him for the murder. The same PC has the Vampiric Bloodline from the Unearthed Arcana book and Lashonna is one of his descendants. This same PC is also a descendat of the Oredr of the Storm druids.

Another was tied to Darl Quethos - his father was friends with Quethos and Quethos ended up slaying his father in a falling out.

Another was linked to the Faceless One as they were both "creations" of their maker. The faceless one was a Flesh Golem ("Frankenstein Monster" in my game. This same PC has past lives one of which was as a Wind Duke and the other as a member of the Order of the Storm Druids.

Another was related to Theldrick who was his uncle.

Another was related to Eligos and Allustan. His mentor knew both of them as a young man.

The last PC who had a tie in (which was a bit more obscure) was part of the Guild that stole the Apocrypha and brought it to the Free City.

There may be some other links as well but those are the ones off of the top of my head. To say the least the players feel that their characters are very enmeshed with the storyline.


In my campaign I collaboratively tied some of the pc's to NPC's, but to a fr lesser degree than Dennis. To spread background information, I've found a remarkably easy way is to start every important session with a "cutscene". For instance, I'll describe Zeech's wars against Iuz's hordes and his gradual descent into cruelty and debauchery before the group attends his party. I usually waggle my fingers ala Waynes World and state "A long time ago in a region far, far away" or somesuch, to let the group know that I am giving them exposition for campaign background purposes before I begin, tho.


I'm slowly making my way through reading all of the adventures. I'm almost finished Encounter at Blackwall Keep. I totally respect Sean K Reynolds, but damn that adventure would have to be one of his least impressive efforts.

The plot hook isn't great to begin with. Then Allustan buggers off as soon as they arrive at the battle. He really couldn't stay for a couple of extra minutes to help take out the Lizardmen? Because realistically that is all the time it would have taken.

Never mind the fact that he is taking off is to get reinforcements and if the PC's complain he supposedly tells them that they can handle the situation by themselves. If the PC's can handle the situation by themselves then why does he need to get the Diamond Lake garrison to help out?

Then we have the siege with the Lizardmen. Sean goes to great lengths to point out how attacking the Lizardmen head on is just asking for a TPK. Yet multiple posters on the boards have mentioned that the whole siege is one of the biggest cakewalks they have pitted their players against. I'm guessing no playtesting at all was done on that.

Then we move on to the keep itself. I hope Paizo learned their lesson with the map. Poster map = good. Not replicating the ground level of the keep in the magazine = bad and confusing. Not numbering the rooms on the poster map = just adding to the confusion.

Once you get past that there is the whole issue with the Spawn of Kyuss boarded up in the basement. Surely the soldiers must have thought they were re-enacting a horror movie. Hmmm, our friend is turning into some strange undead creature. I know, instead of killing this undead beast, let's board them up in the basement of the keep. We totally won't regret that decision at a later point!

Then we move on to the Lizardmen lair. Oh look, one of the Lizardmen has worms growing inside of him. If we cure him then the Lizardmen will be our friends and stop attacking. Except it requires us to make a heal check on someone that is likely to attack us on sight.

Somehow I don't see my players randomly asking to roll a Heal check on an enemy in the middle of combat. If they did I would ask them how far into the AoW AP they had read up to so far! So the first sign of the worms in the Lizardman is going to be after they kill him, at which point it is too late to cure him!

Looks like I'll be doing a fair bit of reading on the boards for this adventure to fix the problems with it. I really like Sean and Paizo, but this adventure really had me shaking my head as I read it.

It wasn't a good follow-up from the misnumbered rooms in the tactics section for the Hextor temple in Three Faces of Evil and the numerous stat block errors throughout the adventure. Here's hoping things improve in the next adventure. I'm certainly glad that I'm running the AP now and have the wisdom of dozens of other AoW campaigns to make use of.

Olaf the Stout


IIRC, I used a different NPC (instead of Allustan, think it was a Ranger type guide) when I ran it. My group did a suicide run through a squad or two of Lizard Men before reaching the keep and holding them off before the doors opened and they were reinforced. On their run through, I had garrisoned archers providing some support until they reached the keep. This initial big battle broke the siege as I staggered the Lizard Men's response because they weren't expecting a come from behind surprise. It was pretty cinematic.
The remaining half (or third?) of the Lizard Folk fled immediately when their leader was cut down and double timed it back. The PCs set out after them the next morning and didn't wait for the ranger type guide to return with reinforcements.
This chapter got quite Abit of negative feedback iirc, we made it into a very memorable part of the campaign and my group loved it. Ymmv of course.


My group also loved the undead in the basement thing. Just play up the garrisoned troops as an extremely tight-knit unit drawing the bad luck assignment of swamp duty. They don't want to abandon their own and are hoping to get an incoming cleric medic escort to possibly save their squad mate or captain.
I don't recall if it was one of their leaders that was infected but if it wasn't, I'd make it their leader and play up the squads loyalty. It was a long time ago. :)


Isn't there in-fighting within the lizard folk tribe? Getting the chance to help them shouldn't be that difficult.
My biggest problem with this chapter was....
This.


Olaf the Stout wrote:

I'm slowly making my way through reading all of the adventures. I'm almost finished Encounter at Blackwall Keep. I totally respect Sean K Reynolds, but damn that adventure would have to be one of his least impressive efforts.

The plot hook isn't great to begin with. Then Allustan buggers off as soon as they arrive at the battle. He really couldn't stay for a couple of extra minutes to help take out the Lizardmen? Because realistically that is all the time it would have taken.

Never mind the fact that he is taking off is to get reinforcements and if the PC's complain he supposedly tells them that they can handle the situation by themselves. If the PC's can handle the situation by themselves then why does he need to get the Diamond Lake garrison to help out?

Then we have the siege with the Lizardmen. Sean goes to great lengths to point out how attacking the Lizardmen head on is just asking for a TPK. Yet multiple posters on the boards have mentioned that the whole siege is one of the biggest cakewalks they have pitted their players against. I'm guessing no playtesting at all was done on that.

Then we move on to the keep itself. I hope Paizo learned their lesson with the map. Poster map = good. Not replicating the ground level of the keep in the magazine = bad and confusing. Not numbering the rooms on the poster map = just adding to the confusion.

Once you get past that there is the whole issue with the Spawn of Kyuss boarded up in the basement. Surely the soldiers must have thought they were re-enacting a horror movie. Hmmm, our friend is turning into some strange undead creature. I know, instead of killing this undead beast, let's board them up in the basement of the keep. We totally won't regret that decision at a later point!

Then we move on to the Lizardmen lair. Oh look, one of the Lizardmen has worms growing inside of him. If we cure him then the Lizardmen will be our friends and stop attacking. Except it requires us to make a heal check on someone that is likely to...

Yep. Usual advice is :

1) do not involve Allustan. Let him send them to Marzena, or use a completely different hook. I did made her into a specialist about fringe cults, the same way that Allustan himself is an archeology buff. IMC he directed them to her for investigation of the Ebon Triad lead.

2) as the scenario says, it's very possible that the PC's intercept the prisoner-dragging lizardmen before they get back to their lair (as my PCs did). Prepare for that, as the scenario assume they don't. To give them an incentive to investigate further after freeing the hostages and bonging the kidnappers, I moved the worm-infested lizardman scene there ("oh my, those worms are suspiciously akin to the one we recovered earlier, aren't they? Something untoward must be happening in the marsh"). If don't investigate further, no matter : whip up some scenes with Lizardmen of Kyuss shambling out of the marsh some days later. The campaign will continue anyway.

3) DO NOT use the Son of Kyuss as written. IMC, the lizarmen healed some of the prisoners with potions before dragging them into the swamp(slow worm included, courtesy of Ilthane), as their ordrers were to bring them alive and in one piece. I did mention it to the PCs during the prisoners' debriefing. They might have a Night of the Walking Dead surprise at their return...

4) move the head shaman out of the lair, make him contact the PCs outside to propose them a deal : snuffing the new chief, against lasting peace with the lizardmen. He knows that retaliation will come : no way he will sit on his hands in the next to last room of the lair to borker a deal to save his tribe (who tries to negotiate a treacherous deal with assaillants who already killed half the tribe, just next to the chief you try to get killed?). A good occasion for roleplay, BTW, sorely lacking in the scenario as written.

5) make up a village in middle of a lake bordering the mangrove lair. The later is only an heavily guarded hideout for the eggs. Where are the females and the youngs ?

I must forget some... If you read french, try our campaign journal for full explanations.


Spoilers below.

Our group has made it to the Hall of Harsh Reflections.
Things I would suggest from running it to this point:

A good background for each PC that enmeshes them in Diamond Lake. Its a great setting. Introduce the PCs to Auric, Khellek, and Tirra early on, so they get a bad taste for these rivals. Likewise they should know that Balabar Smenk practically runs Diamond Lake, and does not have the town's interest at heart.

Three Faces of Evil could use some work. There are a lot of great ideas hereabouts regarding splitting the dungeon up. Many of the fanatics of Hextor might be citizens of Diamond Lake, including friends of the PCs.

As for Allustan at Blackwall Keep, I rewrote his spells to make him more of a diviner/item creator. He used dimension door to get into Blackwall Keep to support from within with his wand of magic missile so he wasn't such a wuss. The PCs assaulted from outside. I also had Marzena at the keep, looking haggard from the lack of sleep due to the recent and constant raids. She told the PCs about the new tribal leadership, as she had just visited the tribe a week ago, exchanged gifts with the shaman as usual, and returned after being frightened by how anti-human Shukak was.

Marzena was at the keep because I felt it kind of lame that the one person the PCs are there to meet just happens to have been kidnapped.
She and the soldiers remain at the keep to hold off any of the routed lizardfolk who might return. Allustan then teleports to get reinforcements.

Marzena is infected with a slow worm, which is really why she looks so haggard. While the PCs are at the tribal lair, she succumbs to the worm and becomes the spawn, rather than having the spawn locked in the basement for two years.

There is a post on the boards about running the guards vs. the spawn. I did this, and the players loved it. The soldiers were tasked with fixing breakfast for the troops. One of them went to feed some broth to the sick Marzena, and was greeted by the door crashing open and a worm filled Marzena. I did not use the spawn's fear aura, but left it all the same. It was an interesting break, and made the later encounter much scarier, as they knew there were multiple spawn below. One soldier made it out alive, and was able to give the PCs the play by play when they arrived. The combat against four spawn was brutal, but the PCs were fresh when they arrived and it went well.

In the Hall of Harsh reflections, I have made ample use of the dopplegangers to instill a sense of fear and deception. The dops have used detect thoughts on the PCs during shopping expeditions, they have posed as the PCs and Pollard to cancel meetings with Eligos. Sadly, Iaxian's attempt to replace the rogue met with failure due to a series of lucky shots and crits on the rogue's part, but it only served to scare everyone even more. The confusion and mistrust has been incredibly entertaining to DM. I constantly remind the players that the PC mage was off by himself all day, or that the PC rogue left the bar alone at night - ample time for either to be replaced...The PCs laugh but have devised passwords. Of course, with Detect Thoughts...

I am not going to have Zyrxog show up in Sodden Hold. Instead, the PCs will most likely detect the scrying during the fight with Telakin. He will send his thralls to try and assassinate the PCs, who can then gather clues from the assaults. Zyrxog will most definitely NOT have a ledger detailing who paid him what to kill whom, as that is just ridiculous. They will learn that the Apostolic Scrolls are in town, and Eligos will explain why that is scary.

I have linked one PC with Orokal, Loris Raknian's bodyguard, as a hook for the champion games, and that will serve. Ekaym through Celeste will help the PCs get close to Orokal if they will look for his sister. I plan on having the Ulgurstasa pop up during the final match, as I think that is definitely an awesome scene and will scare the PCs greatly, versus just fighting it in a dungeon.

A Gathering of Winds seems frightfully boring. I am thinking of replacing it with the Tomb of Horrors, as this will introduce the sphere of annihiliation. I am wary of ToH though, because its such a death trap. Perhaps merging the two...

I am also debating on not taking the path all the way to the end. The other campaign I am running is at level 14, and I am not a fan of the higher level stuff. We'll see.


The WC was good and Diamond Lake is a rich and complex setting that begs to be enjoyed. Feel free to establish all kinds of relationships with the various NPCs. There's all kinds of fun to be had in town. I wouldn't bother to encourage the PCs to make the old mining shack a headquarters since a short time later they will leave Diamond Lake behind them pretty much forever. But do establish connections with some of the townsfolk who make great recurring friends/foes.
As it has been noted in numerous other posts, the Ebon Aspect in 3 Faces of Evil is way too much. I've been playing more than 30 years and that adventure was the first TPK ever.
Others may complain that EaBK was a cakewalk. It was for my players too but it was a nice break between the meat-grinders of 3FoE and HoHR.
Others complained about the dopplegangers in HoHR but my group had a ball with them. The room with the invisible stalkers was harsh - play that carefully. I didn't have Zyrxog show up in Sodden Hold, that seemed a too obvious tip of the hand. I had fun with the open sewer search using just random passageways but one must be careful or it gets tedious pretty fast.
The intro to Celeste and Ekaym needs tweaking in CB. Orokol and Raknian make awesome recurring foes. Save the ulgustasta for the final battle in the arena for maximum affect.
aGoW needs some tweaking, especially the dragon. I really played up the horror of the devastated town and how the PCs friends and neighbors are now homeless, wounded, missing and/or dead. You need to adjust the dragon or her battle isn't as epic as it should be. Some of the tomb "guardians" are pretty lame or even nonsensical.
I adjusted the PCs interaction with Tenser in SoLS because it seemed stupid to me that he sends them running all over the place before and after the adventure. The Fountain of Fame & Folly (or whatever it was called) in Tenser's basement was great fun and probably the best part of this particular adventure for my players. I had the devils appear in between and try to regain the piece of the Rod of Seven Parts. That helped establish what an important artifact it was. You need to scale the different encounters in the Spire, especially when there are several tough-guys at once. The PCs are depleted just when they meet the fiercest opponents it has the potential for TPK.
tPoRH is heavy role-playing and can be boring for players who prefer the hack-n-slash. I served real food to my players mimicking the courses at the dinner and it was a bit hit! I also spiced up this episode by bringing in Raknian and other NPCs from previous episodes. In fact, I think the whole adventure path runs smoother when you carry NPCs from previous adventures into future ones as much as possible.
The challenges from B'Kuss were really lame - I'd advice dropping that entire interaction. The challenges at the party itself, however, were fun.
tLoLR is a good play as is, for the most part. I found play at the higher levels less fun in general. The evil titan and the numerous girallons is a surprising tough fight. Don't let the players stumble into it blind or they'll quickly get overwhelmed. The Harrowdroth is much tougher than it initially appears. The roc was a cakewalk. Darl Quethos is so cool it seems a shame to kill him. His minions were also well written.
I loved the giants and the dragons in KotR but I would suggest spending weeks in prep time. Read it thoroughly, like, a hundred times before you try to run it. Otherwise all the interesting participants become mere windrow-dressing. The troglodytes - at 18th level - why? It is a stupid waste of time to include them.
The ulgurstasta in itWF was ... (yawn). The stained glass golem was cool but needs to be run carefully. Dragotha's reveal on Lashonna's true motivations is the best part of this whole episode. My players were talking about that bit of conversation long after the whole adventure path was finished.
The Dawn of a New Age was good but at this point we were all just looking forward to ending the adventure path. Don't get me wrong - I think Age of Worms is the best adventure path ever, but playing at high levels is really draining.
Anyway, sorry this post is so long. I hope you find my advice usefull.


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Necroed

Another gold mine of ideas marking this for further reading

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