Ian Ford's page

And the rarity thing still persists, one figure is a buck fifty, another is 20 dollars. This is manufactured rarity for the sake of making money. Whereas I would buy 100 figures if they were a buck a piece, the cost of 20 for one piece of plastic turns me off right away. maybe I"m alone here, but that's my opinion.

Fantastic!

Now if they weren't so damned expensive...

My players don't like starting below 7th any more -- they like to be able to get into Prestige Classes pretty quickly. I like your 3FoE suggestion. My specialty, as a matter of fact, is the large scale set piece battle so that fight at the elevator sounds very cinematic.

Ian:

Curious as to why you started them at 7th level? Were they established characters?

I think, in your shoes, I'd get out of the 3FoE asap. Have them clean out one of them temples and, just as they're heading back out to the elevator, have a mass exodus by all the other cultists as the Aspect arises. A huge battle to control the elevator, while the EA is crunching grimlocks left and right. This would limit the amount of xp from the combat, while giving the chance to loot the temples, to some extent.

My group doesn't like starting a new game at anything less than 7th -- they just like having many character options when they play (and they can begin to enter prestige classes pretty quickly) and the "fun" of starting at 1st level isn't there for them. So, I had no choice. I like your suggestion for 3FoE. Thanks!

Ian:

Curious as to why you started them at 7th level? Were they established characters?

I think, in your shoes, I'd get out of the 3FoE asap. Have them clean out one of them temples and, just as they're heading back out to the elevator, have a mass exodus by all the other cultists as the Aspect arises. A huge battle to control the elevator, while the EA is crunching grimlocks left and right. This would limit the amount of xp from the combat, while giving the chance to loot the temples, to some extent.

I appreciate the help -- here's what I did in the end (just yesterday) and it seems to work fine:

I used all of the references in Age of Worms as they are listed. The only things I changed were the names of the gods (Hextor/Bane) etc., "Free City" became Waterdeep, Aqaa became Calim, "Rod of Seven Parts" became "Scepter of Calim" and Queen of Chaos/Wolf Spider became Kossuth/Memnon. Everything else, characters, locations, etc, I kept the same. I set Diamond Lake in the Sword Mountains east of the High Road between the Mere of Dead Men and Waterdeep, telling players it was a smaller, "off-map" mining town. Later, the Mere will be used instead of the Lizard Swamp for the Blackwall adventure. Since my PCs only know so much about the Forgotten Realms, I didn't bother changing anything else (NPC names, other city names) as suggested. No one will ever know the difference.

The, for WC, the first module, I upped every encounter to a CL/EL of 5 or 6, making it a fairly easy romp for my beginning 7th level characters but I complicated the plot by adding my own "intro" to get them into Diamond Lake. Once they were there I got them involved in a few more of the politics in town and thus, even though the Cairn itself is not as hack-and-slash satisfying (we're still going through it) the overall plot has been intriguing and fun. They're getting to be heroic, for the moment, then things will gradually get harder as the CR/EL catches up to 7.

My only glitch will be that I have to give them experience for WC and 3FoE, and if I give them truly accurate credit for their CR/EL 5 and 6 encounters they may be "off" the scaling as they proceed to each new module (always a level higher than suggested). But, I think with judicious application of DM perogative (making some of those EL 4 encounters seem a bit tougher than they're actually credited for in XP) and by keeping the plot interesting the players will overlook the fact that they might not be advancing as quickly for the first 2/3 modules as they might otherwise.

If anyone else experiences any more interesting/necessary AoW FR conversions coming up in the future modules that you've already solved, please pass them along. This discussion board has been valuable because so many of you are ahead of me and have cited problem areas and provided plausible solutions.

And thanks, again, the game creators themselves for actually reading these posts and responding.

Etienne Tremblay wrote:

So Erik I don't want to sound picky but I'm not sure I'm less confused here you say

Eric Boyd wrote:

Jergal is in addition to Kyuss. Jergal does replace Kyuss.

I those two phrase you say he's in addition but actually replaces Kyuss so which is it.

Yikes! I meant to say "Jergal does NOT replace Kyuss."

Etienne Tremblay wrote:

I'm a but confused on the plotline as well. My players are currently in 3FoE and I'm getting them all pump up on Kyuss and him coming with the age of worm and all that, but I remember reading in the various supplements and AOW overload about Jergal being the one pulling the strings so is Kyuss the one coming back or will it be actually Jergal... In the Overload it states Kyuss comes out of the monolith in Alhaster I think so will we replace all this with Jergal? Thanks for lurking and answering all these pesky questions Erik.

Cheers,

ET

Nope. Nothing in the Age of Worms changes when set in the Realms. It's all about Kyuss.

The secret backstory is that if Kyuss succeeds, then Jergal will take over the world. This is revealed to only the PCs (and possibly only one PC) in the Spire of Long Shadows in a series of secondary visions unknown even to Ao or the "nice" Jergal. It's up to your PCs what they do with that information.

I haven't read any farther than you, so I don't know if I'll get a chance to work a reference to Jergal in the backstory in the adventure's after the city of giants adventure.

I'm starting AoW and setting it in Forgotten Realms, my players are 7th level and I'm trying to think of the best way to do it. I'm considering skipping Whispering Cairn, having its plot details explained in the "preamble" and letting them run through 3FoE with the adversaries upgraded to 5/6 EL levels, just to get them into it without too much difficulty. My gut told me to start with 3FoE so that there were at least two scenarios before they have to go to Waterdeep (Free City).

So, anyone had issues with the translation to Forgotten Realms? I'm still a little confused about the whole origin story -- does the FR version still use Kyuss or does Jergal (Lord of the End of Everything) replace him?

Also, has anyone noticed that in the Web Enhancement for AoW's "Forgotten Realms" translation article they mention that the WoTC Web Enhancements for "Waterdeep -- City of Splendors" details the areas around Daggerford (Diamond Lake) when it actualiy it does not (it merely details noble houses)?

Any suggestions around FR translation and starting AoW with higher level characters appreciated.