Milak's page

Same for me, as we are about to enter the post game as well. I've woven several plots along the course of the modules and given my players no clue as to what was module and what was homebrew. At this point they just finished taking Lucre Hold and have to make some decisions.

They've promised to aid Iolandra Maxime in "dealing" with a vampire problem in Little Oppara. They stopped there around the time they were dealing with Tidewater Rock. They were chased out after a search for a missing crew member on shore leave led them to a nest of vampire spawn in the sewers and a follow up fight on there ship in the harbor. Several modules later they take a secret meeting with Iolandra Maxime in Quent which is interrupted by vampire assassins. Grateful for her life she agrees to aid them in the quest in exchange for support removing the vampires from her home port. It's been about 2 years since they left Little Oppara and the rumors say the port has gone dark.

Bedu Hanji of the Rampore Isles has a grudge against the party for interceding and destroying 3 of his hunter ships while they were taking down a famous halfling ship of freedom fighters out of Slipcove. They also had a tough encounter when they attacked an island fort while in the employ of Jolis Raffles. There they discovered Rampore slavers shipping slaves to Dahak's Fang by way of dragon. I beefed up Rampore's slave trade making them far more numerous, powerful, and independent of the Shackles pirates. They also sell quit a bit to the Chelish and now Little Oppara. EoEE is looking like a nice spot for some payback while the party is away.

Slaves are being shipped to Dahak's Fang by the Rampore slavers, and the party has killed dragon priests protecting Rampore slave ships. Little else is known about Dahak's. I wonder who's waiting for them :)

I'll likely bring out a couple of high CR encounters that are suggested in the books to keep things interesting along the way.

You sir are a genius. Thank you for this post, I've got my players starting Tempest Rising and I've been struggling to figure out how to handle all of this session by session as it's rather vague in the AP. I too have been considering expanding the Shackles scale as everything seems way to close. I've kept it as is so far while keeping the players in the dark without maps, but that is about to end. So this information is much appreciated and I'll be digging into Ultimate Campaign a bit more now.

Thanks for advice, I think I'm going to switch out the ranger for a cleric. I'm curious too see the bard in action.

I'm going to be starting this campaign in the next couple of months and we are testing all the base classes to see how they stand up. With that in mind I'm looking at the pre-generated characters and wondering how they handle this AP without a primary cleric? Is the paladin a requirement without a cleric present?

I am building a group with this in mind:
Valeros - Human Fighter
Ezren - Human Wizard
Lem - Halfling Bard
Harsk - Dwarf Ranger

I have to switch out the paladin as we already tried that class in RoRL and would like to stick with the 4 man party for this AP. So how crippling will it be without a primary cleric and rogue? Can the bard keep up with the traps?

PS. Using Pathfinder core rules..

I've allowed pretty much anything in the Item Compendium that they can afford in. The undead crystal may seem overpowering, but it's an undead campaign and the rogue has already been poked on sneak attacks. Personally I allowed the ranger to take undead as a favored enemy and be able to crit them. This opened up a multi class dip for the party rogue which has him getting some extra damage in quite a bit, but i've never felt it was overpowered at all. And in case you haven't seen it yet, Kyuss is not undead.

In my game (FR Setting) Brokengulf (Raknian) had the players so worked up with fixed matches that they completely lost sight of the main objective and dealing with the ulgurstata. My arena had near 100,000 fans including the staff as it was located in Waterdeep. When they failed to stop it from waking up it crunched through the floor during the final match and swallowed Alric pretty easily. That set off a chain of events that forced the party out of the city and back to Diamond Lake for the next module, it worked out nicely as they didn't have access to the resources of Waterdeep. It also hit home for them that this was a lot bigger than they had thought it was and they had better get serious. After the wave of negative energy killed 95% of the arena it was only a few rounds before the wights awoke finished off any higher level fans, after that they left the arena and started slaughtering the city. The party was teleported a few blocks away out of the arena by Celeste (I made her a song dragon) in human form after seeing Brokengulf transformed into a death knight. They fought a running battle out of the city as the entire city erupted into chaos. It was quite fun as I got to show off some of the city defenses including the military and magic constructs. Sadly for them it wasn't enough to prevent a massive amount of deaths and empty most of the city trying to contain the flood of undead. Currently the city is sealed off with powerful magic by Khelben Blackstaff waiting for the pc's to stop the age of worms. I've set this up as a come back epic module for the future as the players have told me they want to do a little more with their first 3.0+ epic characters. I'm not sure yet what exactly I'm going to have them up against in there but I will have a massive city of undead for them to chew on.

When I originally read the thread on these boards about what would happen if they failed I immediately started preparing this outcome. I wanted this scenario to play out as it helped me later on keep them from hanging out in a city with almost limitless resources at their disposal. I didn't railroad them into it and gave them plenty of opportunity to stop it. I for one thought this was one of the best moments in my campaign.

This adventure is where it really hit the fan for my group. After having their ass's collectively handed to them by the archons and the undead on the first level they realized that they were in no way ready to handle the place without equipment upgrades. I allowed them to return to (Manzorian) via teleports and procure some new items. The magic item compendium has armor crystals and at least one robe that can protect against negative energy attacks. The worm naga passage isn't too bad IF you don't bring them all against the group at once. I moved them in by two's and had others setup along the tunnels caves ready to ambush as they moved in. The party did retreat from the nagas once but that is how you learn. I count making the party retreat and rethink their kicking the doors in strategy as a win in my book.

My party is just getting set to investigate Kuluth Mar and all the monstrosities theirin. The Beastlords (the name they got in the Greyhawk Arena, long story)are 12th level with a human ranger (archery style) with Undead as a favored enemy, a human artificer with a warforged fighter cohort, an elven psion, a human paladin mounted on a griffon (nickname "Harpoon Missle," as he does about as much damage as that particular ship-killing missle on a mounted charge with his lance), and a human cleric/combat medic (think Piffany from Nodwick and you'll get the idea). I am having a hard time not imagining this area as a huge TPK. The Worm Naga passage in particular. I think that being subjected to 1-3 feeblemind attacks every round they descend is going to result in the whole party (with the possible exception of the Psion or maybe the Cleric) being ready for Special Ed by the time they come out the other end of hole. Their saves are pretty good, but asking party members to make multiple saves every round or become Forrest Gump is asking a lot, even with the use of action points. They may not be dead by the time they come out, but they most certainly will have problems getting back to civilization. I am considering nerfing the Feeblemind to a spell-like ability as opposed to a gaze attack. Thoughts? What happened with your groups when they ran this little gauntlet

Any help I could get with this section, and the whole Spire of Long Shadows, would be greatly appreciated.

My players were much the same way. After bashing their way through all the previous modules this one was an entirely new game for them. I pretty much lead them through the feast highlighting all the different events and comical moments with Zeech. Other than that they didn't have a whole lot to do at the feast, which was fine. The important parts of the story and important scenes played out as needed and they moved on. If they are not kind of role player then I wouldn't worry about it too much.

We are fast coming up to the Prince of Red Hand module and I am dreading GMing the "gather information feast" that is the cornerstone of the module. This is most definitely not my players' cup of tea and as carefully as these things are written (a menu, for pete's sake?!?)the path for certain types of players is very hard to find.

On the geek continuum from World of Warcraft on one end to LARPing on the other my players are all purist WoWsers who occasionally come out of cyberspace for the nostalgic tonic of a slow-paced D&D adventure. They clearly enjoy the clever manipulation of their character's skills and abilities to handle (or side-step) a fight very much more than haggling with the shopkeepers or beguiling the noblemen. [We still talk about the costume ball from Whisper of the Vampire's Blade as a mind-numbing debacle of epic proportions.]

For my part, I can get myself into the characters but with acting-resistant players I could easily find myself doing all the work and leaving them behind.

I am very willing to play the feast set piece with a very light hand but I would appreciate any advice from the various DM's who have already run this module.

Thanks.

I have been salivating for over a year to be able to run the AoW campaign, and now that my wedding and honeymoon are done I will be able to. I see a lot of people have already played through the campaign. My question is, can anyone give me any pointers as to running it. In this I mean, any possible TPK's I should be aware of, any encounters in the first 2 installments (Whispering Cairn and 3 Faces) that may be too easy or too hard, or anything else you think I should watch out for. I wish to profit from the experience of others, so if you've run a group through and wish to share your experience let me know.

There are potential TPK's throughout the entire campaign. Alot has already been said above that I agree with but here's some advice. Try to encourage your players to play characters that fill general roles in the party, and fill them well. There are going to need a powerful cleric, mage, fighter, rogue there is just no way around it. With all the splat books out there and prestiges to choose from having a main archetype class get watered down in prestiges and not able to preform it's basic function as best as possible will increase the chances for a TPK.

I've run the encounters up and into the The Library of Last Resort and there is good mix of different combat situations that will force your players to reconsider their strategy. My players have taken a "kick in the door" technique for most of the campaign and it has cost them several times.

My group is playing STAP, not AoW, but we do play about every other Friday night for ~6 hours (includes dinner and socializing). We started STAP in September. We just had our 9th session of this campaign last weekend and it was the first session of Chapter 4. We probably average about 2-3 sessions per chapter. At that rate, it should take us about 14 months to finish STAP.

-Skeld

/In our 30's.
//Have full time jobs.
///Most of us are married with small children.
////Slashies!

Ya as soon as you introduce a significant other into the equation gaming starts to take a back seat and getting a good session in with everybody present becomes harder and harder. My group is all 30's with 1 youngin at 15 so we can't always come together even though we live within a couple miles of each other. Back in the day, we use to play 6pm to 8am and there would be people out cold at the table napping in shifts so we could keep the session going. Now we go 8pm to 3am and everybody is falling out by then.

My campaign was started on 11/19/05 and has gone 52 sessions. We are nearing the end of The Library of Last Resort. We don't necessarily play every weekend, a break here and there. Plus there is another campaign running and we switch back and forth when an adventure ends.

Well if they got their stuff back but not the belt then it defiantly sounds like a hunting mission to me. Releasing Krathanos from Last Resort won't cause the druids to not allow them access to the fountain. Only not completing the 4 trials will do that (bringing back the belt that is). I would have Darl track down Krathanos and attempt to bring the belt back. That opens up a couple of possibilities. The adventure never said Darl failed to take the belt, he only failed to purchase it and lost his Minotaur in the process. I would give some clue to the pc's that Darl is going after the belt. They can either choose to side with him (and be betrayed) or they can watch and wait to see how the battle enfolds (scrying). If Darl wins he should be easier for the party to take out. If not then Krathanos will be easier for them to beat. either way you get the module back on track with the pc's getting the belt back and going back to last resort. Throw in some extra encounters for their trouble in the jungle and you have yourself a nice little side quest to the adventure.

My players finished off Krathanos last session having 1 person killed. Then got smashed by the Night Twist with several deaths. They easily crushed harrowdeath (sp?), and found the Roc King dead. So they pretty much know at this point I am about to smack them with Darl and friends. But knowing he is coming only evens the field a little bit, as Darl has watched all of their fights on Last Resort, and knows exactly how he's going to attack the group and who to target first. Oh yeah Krekie hasn't been seen yet so that's my ace in the whole to take out a troublesome pc.

Doomsday hit in my campaign and I did not give my players anything. Their winnings and betting money was being help by Urtos at his mansion which just so happen to be in the now wight infested city. They have sinse made up their losses, which at the point they are in for my campaign are pretty minor. The plan I have is to have the players head back to the city after they defeat Kyuss, and purge it of the undead. I'm not going to let them just wade through low cr wights though. I'll give them some fun with it while mixing in some higher cr slaughter wights from libris mortis before I start breaking out the big badasses that have since taken up residence in the undead city. As for the winnings, trophies, and betting money. My plan is to add to it, and provide it as a reward for saving the city they failed to save in champions belt. As for helping their treasure problem after champions belt. I doubled the value of all monetary treasure in the next module. That fixed things nicely without looking like I was giving it to them for free to fix money problems.

I am just ready to run the Spire of Long Shadows. I am examining the power and abilities of all the bad guys in this deadly adventure. Besides the Harbringer, I think Kelvos can be a potential party killer. Although his 65 hit points look meager at first, once he has an opportunity to cast some "buff" spells, he becomes very deadly. For instance, if he has chance to cast Righteous Might (+8 Str., +4 Con. and +4 Natural Armor Bounus due to size, Divine Power (+6 Divine bonus to Str.), Bull's Strength (+4 arcane bounus to Str.) and Bear's Endurance (+4 to Con.)on himself. He has a 43 Strength!!!!, a 23 Con, an AC of 36 (40 for good creatures due to his Protective aura), and 40 extra hps due to the Con modifiers). This guy would be a wrecking machine weilding a HUGE +4 Unholy Greatsword +30/+25 3d6+28 +2d6 unholy damage.

Besides his impressive melee stats, his spells are unbelievable. Slay Living, Destruction, Chain Lightening, and Prismatic Spray all can be very lethal.....especially when cast by an invisible opponent (thanks to Greater Invisibility).

In light of this juggernaut's array of potential carnage, I am asking any viewers about their experience with this guy. Did he result in a lot of party deaths?

Thanks for your input.

Kelvos and crew was the first whuppin the party took from me. They opened his door right after defeating the beetles encounter already having been alerted to there precense by that same encounter. I showed some mercy and allowed them a tactical retreat after hammering them to start in the room, then having the sword archons chase them back to the other side of the obsidian ring. They buffed again on the next day and tried to enter the ziggurat as quickly as possible. By doing that the party of 7 was spread out along the grounds between the ziggurat and the ring. Kelvos and the archons were hiding inside the top entry ways (i adjusted the top of the zigguat slightly), he saw the party buffing then starting buffing him as the archons. As the party ran in , the archons had reading actions to pounce. The battle was nasty as the archons dropped quickly, but with Kelvos invisible and pretty much forgotten about he dropped plenty of death from above on them. I ended up turning the party wizard to stone with prismatic spray then dropping another with slay living. He walled himself off at the entry way leaving the party separate at the top of the spire and at the bottom. One really quick pc ran down the other stairs into the zigguat and right into Kelvos with two worm swarms chasing him up the stairs. The party ended up finishing him inside the ziggurat in the main chamber.

This is of course a generalized account of the battle it was pretty back and forth between both groups. This battle took 3 sessions for us to run , but was by far the best. He was there first wake up all call that they would not be able to walk over every encounter just because they have had an easier time in previous modules. If your party has adequate resources and the ability to get much needed scrolls of death ward and raise dead then don't hold back in the least. Mine group did have the resources, with that being available this module cost them a bit of treasure but they learned a valuable lesson for later.

I am actually quite surprised how much my players hate him for having such a short amount of contact with him. In my campaign they took him prisoner and gained some information from him. But being a party of goody goodies they ended up turning him over to the garrison and asked the garrison commander to put a watch on the observatory. Unfortunately for them they didn't make a thorough search of the place and missed my clues as Filge's familiar was able to get away before they found it. So it can back and set off a pre-made trap from Filge that ended up burning the place to the ground and destroying all the evidence of his deeds. The party being away continuing the mission didn't realize that with no evidence the garrison could only hold Filge for so long with Smenk putting the pressure on them. So Filge got away and hasn't been seen since. But they constantly bring up his name and wanting to find him and put him down once and for all.

It does make me feel good knowing that one of the NPC's in the campaign made such a lasting impression. They are now about to have their first sit down with Lashonna which I hear she is quite memorable.

I had Eligos inform them after he had time to look at the worm they provided. They had no clue what the deal was with the egg as the wizard fireballed the area killing all the worms before any could infect the group. When they got to the zombies more than half the group was affected by fear and ran away. The ones that stayed got a taste of the worms and freaked out after they couldn't cut them out. They were lucky the cleric finally figured out that trying a healing check would extract it. After that they were so paranoid of Kyuss zombies I felt the point was well taken. So Eligos eventually informed them that he thought a cure disease spell would get rid of them.

Ive been going over this for awhile now as I dont want the PCs to get too much knowledge before its time.

When did you tell your players how to Cure the Worms if they should happen to get infected?

As it stands I was waiting for Eligos (in CB) to tell the party how to deal with this as he was supposed to be the sage on strange monsters that Allustan sends them to.
This ratchets the difficulty at the end of EaBK up a notch as my players are about to enter the egg chamber lower level of the Lizardfolk Lair. They also have yet to deal with the Spawn of Kyuss (3 of them by the time they return to the keep). They dont know much about the worms yet, let alone what spells can cure them.

I expect them to try a few things should one of them be infected. I am a little worried about the outcome.

In two sessions my PCs will have to go against Pitch Blade. It says everywhere, that they are really tough...but I see a certain course of events. First Dispel Magic will ground them easily and they cannot do anything about it. Next my Wizard will come with a Dominate Person; against a DC of 22, they have not much chance with +9 Will. After this my PCs will watch them tear themselves apart. Did anyone have such an experience? My PCs are getting a little bit cocky and I want them to have a really nasty fight (or at least cut some of their weapons to pieces ;-)) Any advice to buff up the dwarves? Thanks.

They didn't last 3 rounds in my campaign. I changed them a little bit to beef them up. I added one more dwarf and turned them all into psychic warrior/barbarians. Same potions but with psionic buffs and feats kicking. It didn't do a bit of good though..

Update from my campagin:

The party finished the celestial encounter intact, but experienced the first pc death when they opened the door to the wormcaller and 3 swords of kyuss in a separate battle. Also they descended into the pit and suffered another death of the party wizard as they were attacked by 2 worm nagas initially which ballooned to 9 by the end of the battle where they retreated.

SoLS Total Deaths: 2

Major roles must be filled.
1. Wizard
2. Fighter
3. Rogue
4. Cleric

After that anything else is just extra. Some multi class builds fill these major roles good enough as well. Here is what I got for a party in Forgotten Realms.

Human Favored Soul of Helm - Full plate bastard sword cleric/fighter hybrid
Human Paladin of Tyr - Full plate sword and shield
Human Rogue/Fighter/Dervish/Acrobat - scimitar
Half-Drow Ranger/Fighter - dual short swords
Dwarf Barbarian/Fighter - great axe
Halfling Wizard/Incantar - yup he's min/maxed

They had some trouble early on with healing but the Favored Soul has since taken leadership and gained a 10th level cleric of Helm that I made up as a cohort. Also they are in the middle of SoLS and have suffered two PC deaths in this module, which is the first time in the whole campaign.

There are currently 3 weapons of legacy in my game. The first one came in for the favored soul in my party. He "blessed" his master work bastard sword using the spell "magic weapon" and ended up making a crucial crit killing blow against the aspect boss at the end of 3 faces of evil. I had the weapon continue to stay magic as a +1 sword and turned it into a legacy weapon for the character which i created for him. The second one was Exordius from the book with some additions. I made a side quest for the paladin while they were in the free city. He liberated Exordius from the clutches of a vampire spawn in a one on one fight in the graveyard. Exordius (no money, no penalties) is his replacement for not having a special mount ability in my game. The third is a ring that came from the whispering cairn. The player actually made up the item and we used the feather fall ring from WC as it saved his life in the first session from the killer wind trap. The character is a fighter rogue and the ring gives several spell like abilities to him. Created strictly by the rules of the book as he made it. Coincidently the ring is sentimental to him as it was the first thing he stole from the party, and in the campaign. They never figured it out.

So far so good, the players are 12th and there has been no major game balance issues with the items. In my opinion only use the penalty charts as a guide and don't hesitate to adjust them. Some of the charts make no sense based on the item it's being applied to. I evened out the cost's as well for all the items instead of having different exp and monetary costs for each one, just made sense that every player be on an even footing for their item.

Oh by the way 2 things:

You can bring in a legacy item at any time, the characters may already have them and not know about it. Any magic item they find the first modules has potential. It really works out nicely if the item saved their life somehow but I can't see that being the case all the time as it makes for bad story in my opinion. So you can come up with your own explanations for how the item is awakened for the character. You should "awaken" them any time around 4th-5th level which should be near the end of the second module. At that they are all on the power level of a +1 weapon regardless of what the first ability is or if they have done the first ritual.

Also somebody in your party should play a pure cleric, that or do as I did and augment one of the legacy items with healing spells 3 times per day to help them keep up and not be a one fight a day group.

Hey everyone. New member here, I just started running the Age of Worms for my 4 players. I have a human barbarian, elven (grey) wizard, gnomish druid, and an elan scout (going to become a scout/ranger/psion/Elocator). The other three are going pure their own classes, as far as I know.

What I was interested in were weapons of legacy. While I didn't think about it initially, one of the players expressed an interest, and I was thinking of how I could feasibly work them into the game. The players are still level 1 (though they will level up to 2 next game), and are in the Architect's area of the Whispering Cairn.

Has anyone used Weapons of Legacy in the game, or could advise on their use? It looks like they can start being effective at level 5+, so I'm not sure when the best time would be to introduce them, as I've only read over once the future modules a bit (the next two, I believe).

Thanks for your help!

Since this post got dragged back up and my party just entered the place this past weekend I thought I would share as well.

The party which consists of 6 members and is pretty well rounded first entered the ziggurat from the east entrance. As soon as they entered the main chamber where the altar used to be they were attacked by the beetles and kyuss knight. This battle worked them a little but they quickly healed up and opened the door to room 5 where the celestials were at. Having heared the battle outside the door, Kelvos was already invisible and had several prep spells on him. The group entered the room and got hit with the archon's aura. The paladin and the favored soul (tanks) stepped in first and got beat down by the Archons. The whole party was forced to flee as they couldn't get past the Archons to the invisible caster, and Kelvos continued to rain hell down on them, most painful spell was blasphemy which did 11 points of str damage. That instantly dropped the wizard and sent everybody into heavy load. With some fancy footwork by the rogue and some timely potions and scrolls the group got outside of the room. The favored soul dropped a wall of stone in front of the doorway while the group gathered and retreated. Kelvos in the mean time teleported into the main chamber and began using slashing darkness on the straglers. By the time they got over the obsidian wall the archons had busted through the wall of stone and all 3 went to the top of the ziggurat. The archons took flight and chased them down pulling up at the last second as they barely made it over the wall, then retreated back to the ziggurat.

So they learned two things here. The spire is very dangerous, and the obsidian wall keeps the monsters inside while they rest. I fully plan to use another encounter outside the spire if they get to comfortable.

They rested for the day then healed, spelled, and prepped up for another attempt. This time when they went over the wall, Kelvos and the Archons were on the look out from the top of the ziggurat again. The Archons set upon the group as they ran for the door, meanwhile Kelvos began to buff up again. The group killed the Archons on the ground having survived the dives, then 4 of them flew up to the top. Kelvos invisible again blasted 3 of them with a prismatic spray turning the mage into stone. The two survivors and the rogue jumped at where they thought he was (in the doorway), then he dropped blasphemy again for -3 str damage and dazing the 3 for a round. Kelvos then used slay living and destruction to no affect (they made saves). The paladin and favored soul finally reached the top of the ziggurat having run up the stairs and proceeded to jump in at where the others were attacking. The ranger flew back down into the bottom main chamber thinking to come up behind Kelvos in the narrow staircase effectively flanking him. Passing by room 5 He saw that the two walls were broken and there were worms on the ground (he and wormspawn make spot checks). Thinking nothing of it he continued up the stairs after Kelvos. Kelvos now being mostly buffed placed a wall of force in front of himself cutting off the main group and started running back down the stairs. The wormspawn are going up the stairs while the ranger is trapped between the two oblivious to his current situation.

We stopped there for the night and this saturday will see it's conclusion. This was all 1 session for us, so this is officially our longest battle in this campaign.

Party Info:
12th Favored Soul of Helm
12th Paladin/Templar
12th Wizard/Incantrix
12th Fighter/Rogue/Dervish/Acrobat (yes he's complicated)
12th Ranger/Fighter
12th Barbarian/Fighter
Cohort: 10th Cleric of Helm (holds down the camp, healing machine)

I've allowed them in mine as well as some 3rd party books, which I now regret. I have 6 pc's and they are just now getting to SoLS and all have prestige classes. I wouldn't worry about it too much there is plenty of challenge in the encounters to give them a run for their money even with all the new feats and spells. You already have the right idea though by going through the spell compendium and adjusting spells as needed but I seriously doubt you need to do this for every encounter that has a caster in it, nor for every melee encounter and feats. Watch thier tactics and adjust your tactics so that the encounter is still a challenge even though they have a feat that is a bit overpowered for the encounter as written.

A good example is last night we played I hit them with the 6 devil encounter on their way to see Manzorian. I smacked them around pretty badly at first but in the end they pulled through without any deaths. That's 6 pc's 1 npc cohort at 11th level taking on 2 cr 11 barb devils and 4 cr 9 bone devils. I never used the bone devils fear as I had no need. They had all sorts of goodies from those books but it couldn't stop the beat down I gave them for most of the battle. Of course the barb devils were not stupid enough to leave the caster up after he dropped a evard's black tentacles which grappled two of the bone devils, they dropped him right quick after they realized his threat to their attack.

Point is, you don't have to adjust everything because of those books but keep an eye out for encounters you want to be special or toughen up if they keep walking over everything. Every encounter isn't suppose to be a life and death encounter, let them beat down the monsters occasionally because they will get theirs at some point in every adventure.

PS - In CB I didn't adjust the first fight and they walked over it. I adjusted pitch blade to have 3 dwarves and made them 9th barbarian psychic warriors, they walked over it too. They got ass's handed to them by Madtooth (unadjusted). And the final fight start to beat on Auric's band (unadjusted) bad before the Apostle (unadjusted) showed up and ate Auric. The demon under the arena (unadjusted) nearly tpk'd them but I let them live.

As my party has progressed through AW, I've begin to notice the adventures have actually become easier for the party. I've seen lots of TPK stories on the boards surrounding HoHR (they are in Zyrxog lair now), but the adventure thusfar has been easy, save the Invisible Stalker encounter.

I suspect the main reason may be is that I have allowed access to WOTC's Complete Splatbook series. This has created some very creative (and effective)character combinations, which I don't think the adventures were designed to handle. In the first few adventures, this wasn't too much of a concern, but now that everyone in the party is entering prestige classes or hitting the meaty benefits of feat trees, it's causing me a lot of extra work.

For EaBK and HoHR, I've had to:
1. Immediately implement the higher level PC adjustments
2. Reselect spells for all casters using the Spell Compendium
3. Reassess all feats and update with something more effective
4. Reassess magic items

I'm a bit concerned with Ch. Belt upcoming - this could be a LOT of work upgrading the other gladiators!

It's a bit late to retcon out the splatbook material, so I would appeciate any thoughts or advice on dealing with this situation. Thanks in advance.

Sorry if this is a repeat topic, but I've been searching for a similar topic on the boards, and other than an occasional mention, I haven't found anything specfic.

Yes do be careful and not add to many. I have 6 players and these guys gave them a challenge. The fear effect made half the group run and the worms put the rest of the group in such a dire straights that the encounter went pretty much as I expected. Ever since they have been paranoid about running into spawn of Kyuss. So far fear effects have been the party's achilles heal and these guys throw them around nicely. ;)

Milak wrote:

My situation is just as bad as my players are in the exact same spot. I have 6 players with no npc's and they are 11th level after A Gathering of Winds. I plan to drop about 10 encounters on them from Diamond Lake to Longsaddle (Magepoint). I am going to use the Devils as one of the encounters and I'm going to throw in a non combat encounter with a group of Harpers (Forgotten Realms) where I'll bring Celene out to save them from getting arrested due to their failure in Waterdeep (Free City). But yes I see a major problem with the meat grinder they are about to walk into at their current level. I'm definetly going to use the Beholder and his trolls, plus I'm going to add a group higher level Yuan Ti. By the time I am done with them they will be so sick of combat I can get them role playing more ;)

I'm in the same boat. Same party size - same XP issue - though I built in some hooks early on to give myself some latitude when this problem cropped up.

For one - the PCs found a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts in the Whispering Cairn initially. It took them a long while to open the box it was in - they didn't manage that until Eligos managed to open it half way through the HoHr. But - point was - they have two Rod fragments now - which they assembled (I knew they could not resist) and they cannot now be unassembled and put back into their scry proof containers...

So the Devil encounter has its rationale...to a point. I'm pretty sure the party will be falling over themselves to sell Tenser the Rod to buy magic items with downtime though. They've been complaining about no downtime for magic item constructions for - oh - about a year or more now. I promised them they would have it before SoLS.

And they'll take it and want the money from selling the Rod to buy/craft stuff. In fact - that's a certainty. So I need a fallback plan after a spirited devil encounter.

I gave the party a vial containing an "Elder Worm" as part of the loot from the Faceless One during 3FoE. It took a long...

I like your idea about locking them out of the spire until they deal with denizens of the city. Maybe some sort of magical lock will keep them from crossing the obsidian ring until they find the key. So no flying over it or teleporting in.

My situation is just as bad as my players are in the exact same spot. I have 6 players with no npc's and they are 11th level after A Gathering of Winds. I plan to drop about 10 encounters on them from Diamond Lake to Longsaddle (Magepoint). I am going to use the Devils as one of the encounters and I'm going to throw in a non combat encounter with a group of Harpers (Forgotten Realms) where I'll bring Celene out to save them from getting arrested due to their failure in Waterdeep (Free City). But yes I see a major problem with the meat grinder they are about to walk into at their current level. I'm definetly going to use the Beholder and his trolls, plus I'm going to add a group higher level Yuan Ti. By the time I am done with them they will be so sick of combat I can get them role playing more ;)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I have found the adventure paths provide a wide range of D&D mechanics to use that we have yet to use in home brew campaigns. For example you have modules that really make a rogue shine while there are modules that give the entire group a chance to test their battle tactics against a range of foes. We have fought more weird monsters that we have never dealt with in the past and have learned many new tactics we never thought of. My players got a rude awakening when they found out in AoW that grappling monsters can annihilate a party no matter how powerful they think they are. They now have adjusted themselves in this game and others to deal with those kinds of threats. So like I said all in all I think adventure paths give a nice broad range of challenges the players can learn tactics from without having them bog down with the same bland boring battle strategy .

The problem is that APs have a reputation of being hard going.

I've been a DM for over 30 years and have run all the APs to date and my experienced players find them challenging and hard going at times, so I imagine it would be particularly difficult for brand new players.

I wouldn't subject new players to an APs. New players are learning the the game and making lots of mistakes or taking questionable actions in the process, which is best done in adventures that are 'more forgiving' of said mistakes.

Well, if everyone is having fun, game on. Who am I to say otherwise.

I started my AoW campaign on 11/19/05 and so far have had 36 sessions. We have just finished A Gather of Winds and the players are in Diamond Lake getting ready to start traveling. I think it's going slow as well but the players are enjoying the campaign immensely so I'm not trying to rush them. I hear what your saying though, I think the problem your having is all the setup. It's not a bad thing, your bringing more life to Diamond Lake than I ever did which will make it all the more sweeter when you smash it later on and the players upset that their starting base of operations was hit hard by an enemy that they knew about and couldn't do anything about. If you find your players are getting bored with it then cut back on the background stuff and move back into the action as soon as possible. It really comes down to the players, if they love to roleplay and explorer the lore then give them more of that. If they are getting bored with it and just want to fight more, well give them that in bulk for a bit. I think you'll find they will go back and forth between combat / dungeon delving / and roleplaying irregularly. The trick is to recognize what they are looking for and adjust to it. Although sometimes there is not much you can do, like if they are exploring a dungeon with little background information and monsters in every room.

At very low levels the pc's are so fragile that 1 maybe two fights is all they have in them before they have rest for the day, and without a cleric that makes it even tougher and longer for them. Try adding in healing potions and scrolls that will keep them moving instead of trying to camp after every fight. The Whisper Cairn module took 6 sessions for my players to get through and that was without all the background build up or me adding in extra things that you have described. They also did not have a cleric in the party and had to rely on a favored soul to provide the healing. I've since augmented him with magic items to make him a better healer for the party and he has taken leadership which I have provided a cleric cohort to help the group with healing as they recognize that healing is one of their weakness at the moment.

P.S. My group of 20+ years experienced players never figured out the lantern thing earthier. :-/ go figure..

I poured over this board before starting AoW with my group, and I thought I knew everything I needed to, but I've hit a snag... things are taking too long. :-(

Admittedly some of it is my fault, and did a whole bunch or "pre-game" roleplaying with them to introduce the town and had them go to the abandoned office to fight the gobilns (they didn't get the hint to use it as a base of operations. sigh). I also had a mini dragon chess tournament to introduce the game, and Khellek from the rival group, as well as some of the mine manager politics.

Now they are crawling along through the whispering cairn! They almost died a couple of times (vs acid beetles and the mad Slasher, and against the door of smiling, blowing bad breath) and took three days (of in game time) to camp in a copse of trees nearby to recuperate.

They stopped at both the brown mold and the flooded level deciding they needed more info, so they went back to town (again) to talk to Allustan, who gave them a few scrolls to help out (Cone of Cold, Water breathing, and Flaming Hands).

I always like to inject little things here and there to add interest to the game, so when they were camping in the copse of trees thay saw a passing squad of soldiers on horseback one afternoon, and the next evening heard a moaning, shambling "something" out in the dark (spawn of kyuss). To keep the verisimilitude, when they returned to town there was a funeral going on for a man who (according to family, friends and the rumour mill) either encountered a zombie, or was drunk and met a bear in the dark.

Okay, now to the point. Even without my additions to the story, they are taking soooo long to get through this module, and I am afraid they will get bored, or that we will never finish the campaign! They STILL haven't figured out the lantern thing (much to my chagrin as I made fun of another group on these boards who didn't figure it out either).

I had originally made an NPC cleric to travel with them, through whom I could nudge things along, but we had...

I had him levitating above the pool as well. Funny thing was even though my pc's had some missile weapons. their mediocre skill was further hampered by the celestial owl the wizard summoned to fight him in the air. None of the pc's had point blank shot, so they eventually started to shoot at the owl to get rid of it ;)

Wonder what Halaster's take would be on thousands of undead appearing in the city over his home....

For my campaign he's still out of the picture. His mind is so gone that he could care less what happens in the city above. He will have his hands busy keeping the undead out of Undermountain. As for Mirt, well doesn't he live in Castle Ward? Last time I checked that was a hop skip and a jump from the Field of Triumph, so his fate is unknown at the moment but I doubt he's dead. I'm setting up Castle Waterdeep as the entry point for adventurers and high level npc's to enter the wight part of the city so when the pc's arrive they will see it's no push over, many of those adventurer's will probrably be in the city and need help or have been turned into undead by that point.

I will probrably use him with the harpers as I've already set a Harper group after the pc's to bring them in for questioning. Basically there are two rules of law in my campaign. Local Waterdeep officials like Palidinson want to question the PC's directly and have had thier hands busy containing the wights to track them down, during the time the pc's finish AGoW local officials have investigated their identities and set a Harper group after them.

The chosen I'm planning to showcase for now will be Blackstaff and Larel (sp). When the pc's get to Longsaddle they might catch a glimpse of one of them leaving a meeting with Malchor Harpell, who is of course a Moonstar as well. The chosen in my campaign will have their hands full containing the problem and dealing with the multitude of other issue's facing Faerun at the moment, they won't be spoiling my setup ;). I also plan of making Celeste a song dragon Moonstar who will aid the PC's past the Harpers on their way to Longsaddle.

I'll be bringing out more chosen at the end of the adventure path as they will be the various wizards that "aid" Malchor on the astral plane as they keep Kyuss from getting out.

My PC's failed to stop the cataclysm :)

Basically the wights came out so fast the Waterdeep city defenses could do little to stop it. They had thier hands full trying to hold back the tide while the city was evacuated. The pc's did fight 1 skirmish during thier retreat and only because they were the last line for a mass of citizens when the outriding wights caught up. As for the high level adventurers and the really high level NPC's. Well again there is only so much a high level adventurer can do against as gigantic mass of wights, those that stood and fell to them will be turned into even nastier surprises for later in the campaign. The high level npc's aka Blackstaff etc.. have setup a force dome which encumpases most of the city from North Ward to Castle Waterdeep, leaving dock ward and some of south ward available. Which I have decide has eathier worn them out or has drained them to the point that they can do little else until the threat is eliminated. "New Dawn" gave me this idea and it seems to work so far.

As for the city? well my PC's want to be able to play epic level when the campaign is done. So I've decided to give them the ultimate play ground, WaterDeep. They will be able to come back to the city and gain entrance to the sealed portion. I'm building a high level module for it and have plenty of idea's on how to go about it. What's interesting is every time I find more information about what's inside Waterdeep I find a new challenge for the PC's. One idea is that there are a couple of dragons in disguise in the city (with approval). These can easily be changed to dracoliches by this point. A massive caller in darkness (expanded psi handbook) works nicely as well. High level undead npc's with various templates work, I haven't decided on a pinnacle fight though, either a super undead controlling most of it or an item to destroy. The Apostle was killed in mine so it's out. But it's still far off at this point as they are now heading into SoLS.

The Frogemoth downed most of my party as well before it was defeated. This guy was the final draw for the group in terms of grappling. I've easily shut them down with grapple checks from the other monsters leading up to to this guy but his multiple attacks and swallowing on top of it. Yeahhh.. let's just say my players are now taking feats and spells specifically to help them beat grapple checks. Which is a nice change from the super uber combo move they all keep trying to build towards.

You need to re-read readied action very carefully. Basically if the akilith makes it spot check/listen check and is aware of the group and they are not (failed spot/listen) it can ready and action as it is considered in combat even though they have not rolled initiative yet. It can continue to ready until it's predetermined trigger goes off, such as the curtain being pulled back.

Be careful with this encounter, I annihilated my group with this demon.

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I was dwelling (perhaps too much) on the Alkilith encounter in Champions Belt. It says that "The Alkilith's first action when it sees trouble is to prepare an action... "

So how do you prepare an action outside combat?

I ran this as when they threw back the curtain it's action fired off, but I didn't think it legal to prepare an action outside combat rounds. Certainly my players would not be permitted to prepare to shoot an arrow at anything that enters the room. Adventures would take forever and there would never be surprise.

Am I just reading too much into this... tell me because in a meeting today I stated that it was 2005 so I might well just be loosing my mind today.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. My group breezed through the first fights easily as well. They got a real quick in the teeth though when the found the Akilith Demon. Then they also got smashed by the Frogemeth. It really helped using tactic of having the Frogemeth being delayed entering the arena and the group lossing all it's buffs. Madtooth's grapple check is pretty insane so he will easily bring your group down a peg or two during the battle. Let them enjoy themselves on the easy stuff because those two battles coming up are nasty.

I've been meaning to read up on Mob rules and will most likely use them in this scenario. So far I am planning to use the slaughter wight as a "captain" for groups of wights that I'm building encounters for. If they continue to crush my encounters I may be forced to put in more slaughter wights. It makes sense that other adventurer's in the crowd that were level drained could be more powerful than a standard wight. So far in my experience with my group, a lot of low cr's really do nothing against them. A favored soul in the group pulls out "Mantle of Unassailable Flame" which is non core but too late to pull out. That spell alone does 3d6 damage to any weapon attacking him. Wights using natural weapons, possibly even with mob rules will most likely just bounce off of him. That's just one example of what I'm going to have to contend with. If they start smashing wight groups easily they will be more inclined to stay and try to save the city. I want to them move on and not entrench themselves in the city and have no problem setting up encounters for them to try and turn the tide into a stalemate. I plan on leaving Waterdeep an undead infested hell hole for a time and possibly for some epic level play after Kyuss is defeated.

Most likely they are going to try and set up a base camp at one of the major temples in castle ward. Then the rest of my campaign will turn into saving Waterdeep unless I can convince them to go after the source.

My group recently finished the Champion's Belt having failed to stop the Apostle from devouring Auric before being killed. My campaign takes place in Forgotten Realms so I'm using Waterdeep as the Free City. At this point an extreme amount of undead just rose in the arena and my PC's have been teleported a couple blocks away and now have some hard decisions to make.

I'm looking for some opinions on which wight I should use from this point forward. I don't want them to try and stay in the city and try to save it. I'd rather they continue back to "Diamond Lake" and continue to the next module. So I'm looking for some nice motivation to get out of dodge. The standard wight is only a CR 3 monster. Sure with a lot of them that can get really bad for the group. But they could also get ballsy after facing a group of them and want to continue to try and save the city. In Libris Mortis (pg 121) there is the slaughter wight which is a CR 8 monster. The party could crush one of two of these guy's easily, but they are not such a push over as a standard wight. I think having all the wights that were released be slaughter wights could provide the proper motivation I'm looking for. And being this campaign is in Waterdeep, all the big time NPC's shouldn't be able to easily solve this problem for them.

Should I go this route or keep to the standard wight?

My players couldn't figure out how to get around the sphere as the Wizard didn't regularly memorize dispel magic and there is no straight cleric. Even if there was I doubt they would have thought about turning it. I had Raknian dispell it during the final combat and it rose into the arena, pretty much as the module describe. My poor pc's though were not able to stop it in time and now they have to deal with a ton of wights in the middle of Waterdeep.

Hey guys, I’d like your feedback on this subject….

We are currently playing the Arena Games in the AOW AP:
Last session, my PC went off to explore under the arena, and found the hidden home of Bozal and his minions.
The session ended with them barely able to defeat him after going through the Morghs and the Spawns of Kyuss. Next friday they will likely discover the Apostolic scrolls and the Ulghurstasta-containing sphere.
My questions are:
1) I’ve gone through the ways one can destroy the sphere (other than the one who created it – which is presumably now out of the question, since Bozal is now quite dead) and they seem all very difficult to achieve for 9th-10th level PCs…
The turning undead attempt could be feasibile, but heck! – the dispel 1d4 round later against caster level 20! That’s tough!!!

2) Even if they break the sphere, the adventure says that the Ulghur-boy vill attack anything on tendrils’range, or – much more likely option in my opinion – try to open its way to the arena floor since nobody will stay near it…
What happens next? Big night combat in the empty arena? And the games? No distruption whatsoever? To me it seems that this was not what the adventure’s author had in mind (I think that he wants the PS destroy the Ulghur with no-one else being the wiser of this fact) but the odds are stacked against this happening…

How have you handled these points in your campaigns?

Thanks all for the help!

Kella

1. Kullen & friends were just Smenk's lackey's, used for errands. Loosing them shouldn't worry him too much right away.

2. My interpretation of Kullen and Smenk's relationship was that Smenk own's a large portion of the properties in town, most likely The Feral Dog as well. I would surmise that Kullen owe's certain favor's to Smenk for letting him "own" the place, other than that he's just a thug that knows how to keep his mouth shut.

3. My PC's used decipher script alot along the walls of the cairn and found that a specific pattern was being repeated alot. They got a rubbing of it and confered with Allustan. He researched it and discovered what lanquage it was and gave the party the name Zosiel.

4. The PC's for me took him prisoner and dropped him off at the garrison realizing the local law was pretty useless. He didn't talk much after being caught in the act. What they didn't realized at first was the the rustling outside his room window they ignored was his familiar. Who came back and set fire to the observatory with a hidden vial of alchemist fire. That destroyed all the evidence and the garrison was forced to turn him loose 24 hours later while they were still in the cairn. They haven't seen or heard from Filge since. I would say that not every evil wizard knows about every cult our there. Smenk had him researching the worm and the adventure states he's very interesting in searching for clues about it in the Dourstone mines in the second adventure.

My group is just winding up the Whispering Cairn

and I have a couple of questions

- The group killed Kullen & his gang, how important do you think they were to Balabar? ie: would he hire some more goons from Daggerford (Diamond Lake) / Waterford.

- What did they do for Balabar? (other than act as errand boy for Filge)

- Zoziels (sp) name used to get the sarcophagus open (in the true tomb). How does the party get that name? Unless I missed something, the only thing I can think of is to consult Allustan or some other sage for research ect...

- I'm guessing that they are going to kill Filge, but if they don't. How have other DM handled what he knows about the Age of Worms / Ebon Triad / especially Kyuss.
My feeling is that if he regurigitates the info as stated in the module it diminishes plot revels later (the flow seems to me to be better if Kyuss's plot isn't revealed until around Manzarion (sp?) gets involved.
Especially in Forgotten Realms the plot seems to be deluding the Ebon Triad (bane, bhaal, and mykrul) into creating the overgod (which actually is a plot by Jergal & Kyuss)

I think Filge would know about Ebon Triad and who they are, and what their larger goal is, but not know of the 'Age of Worms' as a specfic name and is curious about the worm segment but has no idea what it's signifigence is ect...

.nb

Why is it one of the pc's always has to go running off into the next room while the party is mopping up? I've killed the same character twice doing things like that and I'm about to kill another as he ran into the akilith (sp) demon while exploring as the others were looking at the chest that thier two buddies got sucked into.

In my group it was the cleric of Heironeous that got trapped (he had a free round during the fight with Bozak and decided to rummage). They couldn't figure the trap out and didn't really want to mess with it, so they had the rogue and the paladin (also of Heironeous)sneak out through the sewers with the chest and run to the temple of Heironeous with it to get the magic dispelled. Then they had to race back to the Coenoby to be there in time for their next day's bout (they had already bribed the guards not to notice their absence.) I gave the three of them an exhaustion penalty in their next fight, but they survived.

I changed him into a telepath of the same level then gave him a couple similar powers and things I felt made sense. I never used psionic blast as he levitated up out of range and rained down powers at them. It became a pretty difficult fight for party but they won with no casualities.

Of course for the DMs who read this I'm talking about Zyrxog. :)

If so did he scale well to the normal version of a Mind Flayer in terms of difficulty? Do you think he would be easier or harder to defeat?

My players arent interested in running any psionic characters atm, but I kind of wanted to add some psionic stuff here and there. I was thinking I might sprinkle a tiny amount of Psionics for added flavor and only to creatures that have been known to use it. If a player dies and wants to come back with a Psionic character, I would be ok with it too.

A couple good idea's here. My biggest problem is that both the rogue and wizard have gotten themselves trapped inside of it. So knowledge checks are pretty much a no go as the group consist's now of a couple dumb fighters who like to show up and roll dice most the night. I hate to cheese the trap by giving an easy out in the end but I don't want to see a pc lost at this point in the adventure eathier. I'm considering upping the treasure list if they figure it out themselves if not I may end up just hitting them with negative energy levels and spitting them out later as suggested.

I couldn't find any other threads on this..

Ok so my group decided to fidle with this killer trap in Bozal's room on the second night. Low and behold the party rogue caught a one way trip into the chest. After that the party wizard being the most brilliant of the group tried to beat will save dc and ended up inside as well. So now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to salvage this debacle as the other players in the group ane not the brightest and I don't have high hopes of them figuring out how to save thier comrades. So my question is this, how did you handle this trap with your group?

My initial thoughts are to have Ekaym (sp) smuggle in a scroll of dispel magic. Which still calls into question who is going to cast it. So I'm considering making him a 1 level wizard or similiar so he can actually use the scroll for the group and save thier butts. All of this of course would come after they wrack thier brains for awhile and give up on it.

After deciding not to spend the entire night coming up with a name and the threat of "Happy Fun Time Gang" as a group name from me. My players ended up with "Hand of Justice".

I recruited a player for the doppleganger replacement, so I had the problem of not wanting the group to discover the other doppleganger in the tavern because I didn't want them to be aware of dopp involvement too early. My player had already decided to change little things about his char when playing the dopp, so that observant players would note something was "off" about him. So... if they already had dopps on the mind... it could blow things too early.

However, without revealing the dopp and the key, there's no link to the Sodden Hold for them to follow. So, I went with the arrest. As for, "well, they'll just break out of the jail or fight the watch and get away.".... not if you do it right. This is a MAJOR city, and as such, I expect the watch to be equipped and able to deal with major problems. The group already had a warning of resisting the watch / vigilante justice in their encounter with the thieves during the parade, and I set that up just to ensure they got the lesson that trying to overpower the watch by force is a BIG mistake.

Once they were in the Sodden Hold, my next problem was how to make them want to do anything other than find their stuff and get out. So, I told the player with the dopp that if the group gets outside the Sodden Hold without having found his REAL char, he needs to drop the charade and attack them. That's what happened, he reverted to dopp form upon his death, and now the group is turned around to explore the Hold further in search of their abudcted party member.

Actually there was a link to Sodden Hold. The dagger used by the doppelganger in the Crooked house to stab the bartender had a image on it which a skilled rogue using gather information should be able to tie together to the warehouse. This helped alot for my group as the party rogue was already tapped an replaced with the doppelganger before the other one attacked posing as yet another party member. They never caught the one that stabbed the bartender because of the chaos, but he did leave the dagger behind as a clue. So with that clue and the rogue/doppelganger in place it was very easy for them to decide to go to Sodden Hold.

For the first encounter in mine I had him and the two drow throw open the secret door as half the party was at the bottom of the room with the water lowered. The other half were stuck on the ledge when the encounter started. Helped not make it such a one way fight after Zyrxog left.

I'm actually quite interested in seeing this same situation happen in Waterdeep in my campaign. It would open up some nice possiblities for future adventurers/campaigns, in addition to keeping a couple powerful somebodies from interferring with the party and thier quest. Not that I'm working against the group to have this happen but i'm not going to be upset if they loose. We are going into Champions belt next session.

I changed him into the a Telepath of the same level and never had the chance to mind blast. He levitated up then pushed off the wall above the door to room ending up above the pool 20' up. That ended the fighter threat and forced the group to fall to missle weapons and magic. Fireballs and other psionic goodies worked nicely as I nearly destroyed the group without using mind blast. He mind blasted them earlier in module and only successfully stunned half the group, so he learned from that not to trust it with his life.

I have 6 players in campaign and we just finished HoHR. The first 3 modules weren't too bad leaving cr's as is. They didn't exaclty walk through 3FoE, but also didn't have any near death situations eathier. EaBK was a push over but HoHR really worked them. I've killed nearly every PC in HoHR (they don't know, I let it slide) from start to finish with no adjusted CR's. I think they are starting to grasp how deadly this campaign can be. Here's the group layout

Rogue/Fighter
Paladin
Favored Soul
Wizard
Barbarian
Ranger

They're a combat heavy group but trust me lack of healing is not holding them back. The advanced octopin and illithid in HoHR were particularly nasty to this group. I'd play it by ear if I were you, that's what my plan is at least.

Your them DM and you can decide to railroad them in. Sounds harsh but really it's a good info module for leading into the Champions belt as they won't have any reason to suspect Raknian if they don't find what's in the illithids chamber. My group just finished it and is already planning there next moves. It was easier for me to get my group into as I replaced the party rogue with a doppelganger and let the player have at it. He lead the group right into sodden hold without me railroading anything. By the time they figured it out there was no point turning back. And yes if they ignore the attack against them you can attack them again, this time make it hurt more and be alittle more personal. Sooner or later they will get the hint and deal with it.

I'm running AoW in the Realms and my group is just now entered The Champion's Belt. I kept diamond lake as is and stuck it a couple day's ride east of Waterdeep. There's pleny of unmapped area's there that work just fine. Renaming things isn't too difficult. Check the conversion notes of each module and the big pdf all in the downloads section. For 3FoE I turned the gods into Bhaal, Myrkul, and Bane then set the time period forward to 1370 DR. With the Anceint Empires supplement I believe there is a feat that allows a cleric to draw spells from a dead god, if not a little DM perogative and you have and interesting mystery that should stump players that know the FR Setting book by heart. Everything else has been running just fine in FR.

I'm not sure how paizo feels about it but if you look at the big supplement that was put out, you can use acrobat and photoshop to get a nice "Age of Worms" logo. I have used it on a private web site as a banner.