Hello everyone,

I'm running AoW AP to my team of players, and right now I'm about to begin the Champion's Belt module. After reading several threads here, gathering some good tips on the overall AP related to some bugs and ideas to customize the AP, I've come to a couple of topics I'd like to mention and ask for your opinions/ideas on how you've dealt with them:

Ulgurstasta: I'm very tempted on running the module so that the Ulgurstasta is released, and I'm planning to have it eat one of the fighters (anyone will do, since Lorian had proclaimed all competitors as Champions of the Free City for the duration of the games - :-)), but as it's written, as soon as it swallows a champion, it becomes completly healed to it's full HP. Also, considering that almost all the public has 0 lvl (as commoners) and that they will instantly become wights due to the loss of 1-4 lvl, it wouldn't be a lot for the group to handle having both thousands of whights set loose on the arena, plus the Ulgurstasta completly healed? Also, since I have a medium-to-high high lvl paladin on the group, this wouldn't be something his God (Helm) would be paying atention to? Maybe even send an Avatar to help? On the other hand, having a paladin on a group tasked to prevent this tragedy from happening, that essencialy have failed (given that I'm planning to have the Ulgurstasta accomplish his task), wouldn't be enough for Helm to end up penalyzing his paladin for his failure?

Manzorian: On other module (Spire of Long Shadows), after the group asks all the questions they want to Manzorian about their quest, Manzorian asks to have the Rod fragment in return to any magic item up to 40k in value to each of the players. And as a bonus, he offers to cast polymorph any object on the magic itens to change their appearance. Isn't this too much for an archmage to waiste several 8th lvl spells (1/each item) on itens just to please the player's. And also, this spell does not works on magic itens, as PHB indicates.

Any suggestions/comments?

When I ran AoW, the Ulgurstasta was released because the PCs deliberately chose not to investigate the secret temple under the arena. It also ate the reigning champion, and yes, the city was overrun with wights.

The characters had to not only kill the ulgurstasta, but escape from the wight-infested city.

After they fled. The emperor ( I based the campaign in Kalamar campaign setting) had to call out the imperial army to quarantine and purge the city. The PCs had to be careful not to let it known that they could have stopped it.

Interesting...

That would work if my group didn't have a Paladin with them... And that's one of the problems... The fight with the Ulgurstasta and later it eating a champion is very epic to be avoided... But having a Paladin in the group, and releasing thousands of wights in the city, this would mean a terrible failure to the Paladin if not a situation wich Helm (his deity) wouldn't be paying attention to... That being said, maybe Helm would send any kind of help, maybe he would punish his Paladin due to his failure...And as a Paladin, this player would never flee from the city on a situation like that... he would probably end up getting killed trying to save the city...

Heroic self-sacrifice is what playing a paladin is all about isn it?

Yeah... it is... But the idea of the adventure is having the PCs finishing it, right?

Well... I'll run this module this weekend... lets see how far they go and how they deal with the situation... Thanks!

You have several options. As written, completing the ritual (which happens when the Ulgurstasta eats a warrior) means there is severe damage to the Free City and it will no longer exist in its present form. The event is not meant as an added challenge to the PCs, but evidence that they screwed up big time. At that point, the GM really needs to wing it in terms of what the next PC moves will be, as well as deciding what NPCs will be doing. As a GM, I had to ask myself if that was something I was ready to deal with. I decided it was, and am ready to move on with the consequences if the PCs fail to eliminate the threat. This is basically a sub-campaign though - not a single encounter - as players work with NPCs in the city to recover from the disaster.

If you simply want the Ulgurstasta to be released to have a spectacle for your players, but don't want to deal with the mini-armageddon, then use alternate rules on when the ritual takes effect. Maybe it is 10 rounds after he eats the champion, or after he spends several full round actions speaking to Kyuss or whatever. In which case, there is no healing and there are no wights erupting in the arena at that time. Or full heal the Ulgurstasta, but don't do the wights until later. In any case, as long as the PCs are distracting the Ulgurstasta by fighting it, the disaster can't happen - but they know if they fail, it will have huge consequences.

Going back to Practus' original question, this is how I would handle it if I was the GM.

1) In the games I run, I don't have divine interventions. God Avatars don't show up simply because something bad is happening. If Helm did visit the Prime Material Plane, what is to stop some other god from doing the same for something else, or even stopping Helm at this point? Most settings have some sort of built in logic to explain this. How many other terrible events happen in the history of the game world where Avatars never showed up? This is no different.

2)If the issue is that Helm paying attention to the paladin, why would he? D&D gods are not omniscient. They aren't looking over every single cleric, paladin, or lay follower on the entire world (or worlds in the multiverse) to see what they are doing. There is no reason to expect Helm to be "watching" the PC paladin at all. After all, there are probably lots of paladins and clerics of Helm across the world or multiverse engaged in important tasks of their own.

3) I personally would never strip a Paladin of their powers for simply failing at a task. Paladins should only have their powers taken from them by a conscious choice on their part to violate their oath/restrictions that the GM set for them. Failing to achieve a task is not violating their oath. Failure will be bad enough for the PC; don't make it worse by punishing the PC for something you the GM decided couldn't be done anyway!

In fact, you should do the exact opposite - give the PC paladin some omen or sign (like in a dream) that essentially says, "The task set before you was against all odds. Do not despair that it has happened as it was ordained. Your courage and bravery shall be remembered. In the ashes of defeat shall rise the root of victory. Carry out your task and you shall dwell at my right hand in the House of the Triad." And then give him some type of good thing like a free Divine Power use once per game or something once for the campaign he can call upon when trying to make up for the failure."

4) If you have the disaster occur and the wights are in the arena, and the ulgurstasta is present, at that point the Paladin has two options. A) Die futilely that helps no one, but allows him to keep his pride (which is a sin). B) Realize that he cannot help anything by staying in the arena, and that the wise thing to do is escape with the other PCs to rally the city's defense because that will allow the most people to survive. To help the player out, you should probably have some suggestions ready on how the Paladin can start helping people escape their doom. Present this as an option. OK, you can see most people in the arena stands turning into wights. Some have miraculously survived, but look weakened. You know there is a temple of Lathander near the arena. Do you stay and fight? Try to lead some survivors close to you out of the arena to save them? Go to the temple of lathander to spread the word and save the rest of the city before the wight horde rushes out?

Hope this helps.

The ritual is not completed when the champion is swallowed. It is completed when the swallowed champion becomes a spawn of Kyuss. The swallowed champion becomes a spawn of Kyuss only when they have had their CON drained to 0 by the necromantic acid in the creatures stomach. So if a PC is swallowed, the party has a few rounds to kill the Ulgurstatsa before the ritual is completed and the undead monster is healed to full and the crowd dies.

I agree with the Black Fox regarding the paladin.

We just finished this part of the AP. The catastrophe was narrowly averted by a good use of lay on hands to finish off the Ulgurstatsa before poor Auric would have been dissolved within.

Wow... Black Fox gave excellent suggestions indeed, and Phrennzy reminded a crucial point about the ritual completion...

... but I just ran yesterday CB from the beggining, and the group went up to the fight with the Frogemoth (they did not investigate the arena's undergrounds completly - all they did was investigating the Cenobie lvl, finding nothing which could indicate that Bozal Zahol was creating the Ulgurstasta)... During the with the Frogemoth, they all were killed, leaving the Frogemoth with only 3 HP.... The Paladin suffered the worst fate being swallowed by the Frogemoth and not being able to get out it's stomach... He died inside his gut, being completly devoured by the monster, which left no room for a raise dead spell...

The group had a Bard who did not join the Gladiator's team, so he was able to "buy" two raise dead spells from a Heironeous cleric, wich consumed all their gold coins in the process... As for the rest of the group who died (3 players), I've made Celeste raising them as well as a favor requested by Eligos should anything terrible happened to the whole group during the games (afterall, Eligos were concearned with all the findings related to the imminent comming of the AoW, right?)...

So, depending on how they behave on the next session, probably the Ulgurstasta will rise from the middle of the Arena only to eat one of the warriors without too much of resistance...

Next session will take a while to happen, but I'll keep you guys posted on the updates...

Thanks a lot!

I'm glad you found the suggestions useful. I am DMing my own group in part of the Champion's Belt as well right now. So it is good to hear how others are doing.

I am not running the Age of Worms in its entirety, but about half the AP is present with other modules or dungeons of my own design being the other half. I eliminated the PCs in the tourney because that is not an idea I liked, but I have other games going on and have kept the arena dungeon more or less intact.