what experience path for age of worms?

[Xavier319]

which one should we use? Medium or fast? Considering it's for 3.5

[Mathias Vencar]

Our group uses the medium track for our campaigns and it seems to work fine. I just started my Age of Worms campaign, and it seems to be on track for what I am expecting. I have 6 characters, so I have to add a few side-treks here and there though.

[Xavier319]

alright, thanks. ^_^

do you know what level the party should be by the time they get to the second adventure?

[Gideon Black]

I'm dming it and I originally started my group at fast. By the 3rd book I realized they didn't need it. The difference between the 3.5 and pathfinder pcs leveled it out.

[Xavier319]

well, i just wanna make sure they hit level 20 by the end of it. that's the entire point

[Mathias Vencar]

They should be lvl 3 to give them a snowballs chance. As the Worms AP uses the 3.5 xp chart (13 encounters per level) and the PF chart is loke 20 encounters, I have/am adding in side stuff like Mad Gods Key, Dymrak Dread, and bandits to even it out. I also am planning on having them find a collection of maps with notes they can have translated so I can use the cardstock, single page adventures that came in my Greyhawk boxed sets. Lots o' tombs in there.
I am figuring on the players being lvl 24 at the end. Granted, thats a rough guess, but since I tend to make things tougher since they have 6 PC's.
I should prolly post my campaign progress while it's still fresh in my memory.

[Xavier319]

alright, so we find out where we are in between sections, and then i run side stuff until they level up to be ready for the next one. is there somewhere that it says what level each party is supposed to be at the start of each section?

[Dennis Harry]

Each adventure should state what level the PCs should be at the beginning in the overview. If the PCs miss encounters though and they may depending on what they discover or don't discover you will need to add side treks. You could also just award discretionary xp to avoid having to do that. I have 9-10 players so it throws off my progress a bit, plus I added a ton of stuff to the adventure.

[wraithstrike]

Chapter 3 is short on XP so you may have to put in extra content or just give them extra XP.

[Samnell]

Your players might not like this, but mine are fine with "You level up when you hit the right plot point, or close enough." Sometimes I forget and it happens a little late or they're having a lot of trouble and it happens a little early, but it all works out.

[Dennis Harry]

I had a DM run the 3.5 Dragonlance Epic 3 parter that way and it worked pretty well actually. That would certainly remove the need to add side treks and what not.

[EATERoftheDEAD]

Personally, I have given up on tracking XP. I plan set points for the party to level and just tell them when the time comes. It cuts back on bookkeeping significantly.

As far as Age of Worms is concerned, the written levels are as follows:
1 Whispering Cairn - 1-2
2 Three Faces of Evil - 3-4
3 Encounter at Blackwall Keep - 5-6
4 Hall of Harsh Reflections - 7-8
5 Champion's Belt - 9-10
6 Gathering of Winds - 11-12
7 Spire of Long Shadows - 13-14
8 Prince of Redhand - 15-16
9 Library of Last Resort - 17
10 Kings of the Rift - 18
11 Into the Wormcrawl Fissure - 19
12 Dawn of a New Age - 20

However, when I did the math out there were some parts that were XP lean and some parts that were XP heavy and a 4 PC party would hit level 22 before the final confrontation. This lead me to outline a new XP progression that balances with the CRs of the adventures in a way that reflects the math of 4 PCs using 3.5 XP distribution and also seems to adhere to the flow of the encounter CRs.

1 Whispering Cairn - 1-2
2 Three Faces of Evil - 3-4
3 Encounter at Blackwall Keep - 5-6
4 Hall of Harsh Reflections - 7-8
5 Champion's Belt - 9-10
6 Gathering of Winds - 11-12
7 Spire of Long Shadows - 13-14
8 Prince of Redhand - 15
9 Library of Last Resort - 16-17
10 Kings of the Rift - 18-19
11 Into the Wormcrawl Fissure - 20
12 Dawn of a New Age - 21-22

As was stated earlier, the differences in power between 3.5 and Pathfinder will probably balance if you use the first level ranges. The medium XP track will probably put a group of 4 or 5 PCs on the first scale.

[Xavier319]

we tried the medium xp track, and we ended up level 2 at the end of the first adventure. there is no way we could have possibly completed it or hte next one if we hadnt gone to the fast track. and we have five people. we were level five during the fight with the faceless one at the end of book three, and we still almost wiped. so it's scaling nicely, dont you worry. our DM is concerned that we'll out-level the module, and i told him that if we ever look like we're getting ahead, just tell us we stop leveling until the next book.

[Are]

The 3.5 XP track most closely resembles the Fast XP track in Pathfinder (both assume approximately 13 encounters of XP equal to APL per level).

But for APs, it's often better if the DM simply chooses leveling points, rather than tracking XP. That way you'll never risk gaining too much or too little XP compared to the needs of the modules.

[Cylyria]

Are wrote:

The 3.5 XP track most closely resembles the Fast XP track in Pathfinder (both assume approximately 13 encounters of XP equal to APL per level).

But for APs, it's often better if the DM simply chooses leveling points, rather than tracking XP. That way you'll never risk gaining too much or too little XP compared to the needs of the modules.

Yeah, the 3.5 leveling system was basically 13 encounters per level. Pathfinder is around 20. I have gone with doing side quests to even it out for my party of 6. The other option is to give 50% more xp's, which should even things out for what the AP calls for level wise.

[Xavier319]

yeah, our party doesnt like the whole 'level at this point' thing, because the GM is really bad at picking points to level us up in the middle of the adventure. and if we hadnt leveled during the second section, we'd have wiped, hard-core.

[EATERoftheDEAD]

Fixed leveling points aren't for everyone, that's for sure. However, I have noticed that most published adventures (Whispering Cairn being a notable exception) have a good lull somewhere around the middle that serves as a great point to level. These things could be a new dungeon level, a move from one section to another, overland travel, etc.

[P.H. Dungeon]

We started Whispering Cairn yesterday. I was originally going to just have them level up as I felt appropriate based on their progression with the module, but I then decided I'd try calculating xp- mostly out of curiosity. I wasn't sure which track to use either, but when I did the math my group of players earned 1600 xp each in that first session. They explored a good chunk of the Whispering Cairn- the opening area and the Lair of the Architect. They also had a side encounter with some gnolls who started investigating the cairn while they were exploring it. If I had used the fast track they would have levelled up after the first session. With the medium track they only need another 400 xp to level up, so I think the medium track is advancing them plenty fast.

I'm not sure if I will continue to give out xp for the whole path, but I figure if they get too far ahead or too far behind I could always shift them over to one of the other advancement tracks part way through the campaign (my players are easy going enough that they wouldn't care).

[Callum]

I'm running a fairly standard four-PC party through this in 3.5E at the moment, and I use a spreadsheet to track XP and level advancement. It would be fairly easy for me to look through it and see at which points the PCs have levelled up so far, if anyone would be interested. We're in the middle of The Prince of Redhand at the moment.