bromleylaerchenheim's page

Dear DMs,

my AoW campaign is about to come to an end after 18 months of play. Unfortunatly it seems that the ending will be not as fortunate as it should be and I feel that an unfortunate mishap will ruin the experience of the campaign to both players and DM.

Here is what happend:

My group just killed Dragotha (man, what a fight!). Then they scryed Lashonna. Spontanelously I decided that they spot Lashonna together with some blessed angels and some Kyuss knights on top of the Alhaster spire doing some praying to the Kyuss monolith. The group so should get an impression on the thuner storm above Alhaster, the chaos going around in the streets and so on...

Unfortunalty they spontaneously decided to power themselves up and teleport to the spire right away to confront Lashonna! According to the information given in the module, going directly to the top of the spire without killing Kyuss minions first and doing several other things will really make the task impossible to kill Kyuss. Well, Lyashonna goes down in a single round as she spoiled 2 saves (I rolled a 2 and a 4!): The psion made 340 HP using a maximized augmented Disintegrate followed by a lucky sunburst from the wizard for another 60 HP.
The group then has some trouble fighting the Kyuss knights and the angels as they lack melee power.
We finished that evening play with Kyuss starting to emerge from its prision leaving the players with still several angels and knighs and some other minions coming from lower levels of the spire to aid their master.

What I do not want is to get the PCs defeated next evening. I want to come to a heroic ending, but how to help them without spoiling the game? Divine interaction is not the right way :)

One idea is to let Manzorian emerge using a timestop or something to bring them the Sphere of Anhiliation. I also might rule to deprive Kyuss of some of his divine powers as if the PCs has managed to fullfill all the other tasks of the module.

Any suggestions?

Folks, I as the DM have a problem with a possible misunderstanding of the storyboard of Spire of Long Shadows and any forthcoming modules. It is regarding the AoW prophecy detailing that the re-unification of the tri-partitite spirit will one of the two last events heralding the coming of Kyuss.
The PCs are about to learn during the visions of SoLS that this might happen. Later in the path they will met Balakardes ghost and - if they are clever - they will count one and one together and prevent his ghost to be one again though successfully stop the course of events towards the AoW!

Am I misinterpreting something or will a clever group (which my definitly is) have a chance to save the day at an relativly early stage of the path?

It says, that the summoning of the Ulgurtasta using the Apostolic Scrolls finally needs "the blood of a champion".

So what does that mean for the climax of that module when the beast tunnels to the arena floor with respect to the outcome of the last arena battle?

Option 1: The fight between Auric and the PCs is still going on. So Auric is the champion still?

Option 2: The PCs defeated Auric (by disabling him) but are not yet declared winner by the master of games. Who is champion now?

Option 3: Is there a way to avoid having a champion at all and would that spoil the evil guys plans?
e.g. the PC concince brave Auric to voluntarily lay down the belt - there will be no this-year champion anymore
e.g. the PC kill Auric prior to the fight so the actual champion is killed with no successor

... I am just wondering if there is a way to avoid the railroaded climax of the module as otherwise, killing Bozhal, destroying the scrolls etc will not really have an impact on the flow of the adventure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Worms

When will we see the first documentary on Discovery Channel on Kyuss or the Ebon Triad cult?

Eventually my group found the dump-entrance to the hidden shrine level and killed several Kyuss zombies and the Morgh. Then they decided to stop advancing (in fact approaching the tiefling cleric), recover, do the next days arena battle and return the other day.
Now that leaves me with the villians discovering that their lair has been invaded and how.
What do you think should happen next? How should Raknian or the cleric handle this situation? Should they recruit new undead from the sewers? Should they release the Ulgurtasta? Should they command red-shirts down there to protect the entrance?
Any ideas welcome.

Ich bin´s (Hofheim, Hessen, bei Frankfurt)

In 10 days we will have the dinner event of TCB and I expect my group to closely inspect other potent warbands and would be combatants (beside the ones they will combat but they do not know that yet of course). Unfortunatly the module only gave names but no ideas who might be behind the names.

What about collecting ideas about warband compositions just to gave the players something to worry about? Eberron warbands welcome.

(Beside: Because we re playing in Eberron, I changed the dwarven twins to a w´forged titan and his w´forged fighter/artificer captain. My group learned that soon and some of them read through one of the Eberron novels where the PCs have to fight a titan. Now they are a bit afraid... he he)

Lets put together a list of your groups team names in the glatiatorial games of TCB. My group named themself "The Diamond Lakers" (and started to produce tags, T-Shirts and caps as give aways which raises their rank :))

DM´s, lets hear how you did the PC replacement story? I will collaborate with one PC and let him play the evil part with all knowledge about the hideout. We ll play tomorrow and I ll let you know how it worked next week.

The subject says it all...

My party just finished 3FoE and my players do have real trouble to catch a glimpse of the overall story and how things glue together. With just 3 adventures there are so many plots, rumors and names that one could go completly lost. My fear is that with the forthcoming adventures things will go even worse with a lot more NPCs, evil schemes, rumors and loose ends.

What do the Wind Dukes have to do with the Kyuss background? What role do the Wind Duke artifacts play?
Why does collaborate Smenk with Ragnolin as they were competitors in their businesses?
Who is Kyuss and what are his ties are to Ebon triad? Who are the master chiefs behind Ebon Triad? What does Ebon Triad have to do with green worms? Who is responsible for the players got into trouble in Free City if nobody of the dark cathedral will survive to tell their guilt?

There are so many names and organisations that I wish I had a map or something to draw all connections in one picture.

Does anybody has an idea what Grallaks silver key is for?

I want to share my party experience of their yesterday trip to the grimlock caves as it shows how terrain advantage could outclass even a highpowered PC party ;-)
It was really a classic beat-up-the-party match where they maneauvered themsleves into a situation that was much more dangerous than designed.

The party features 6 4th level PCs (samurai, druid, wizard, psion, cleric and rogue/bard) and I did not change any of the stats given in the adventure (which - you remember - is made for 4 3rd level PCs).

Lets start after defeating the kennel master and his krenshas. The party investigates the drop-off and realized that there is a ledge on the far side of the cavern with two archers scouting. However, they could not find a way to cross the gap so they decide to go down to the cavern floor and use the tunnel there after they scare off the two grimlocks with a well placed flaming sphere.

Down they noticed the choker (good listen check) but are unable to get hold of him so they decide to ignore him for know. Both chokers decide not to headlessly attack a 6-people group.

The group then scouts the second cavern and noticed the rope-bridge. Because of their light disadvantage they are unable to figure out what is on both sides of the bridge. They managed to shoot a rope over the bridge, fastened it somehow to have something to climb up. It proves very difficult to climb up, manage to move from rope to rope-bridge and to traverse the bridge to the ledge (Balance) - exspecially for heavy armored PCs.

The first to take that route was the druid (a goreburute shifter who is not helpless in close combat). He spots two grimlocks on the ledge but not the barbarian and decided to attack. Unfortunatly he does not stand a round against 3 of them and went to -2 hitpoints.
The samurai was next but was unable to get foot on the bridge failing climb and blanace checks miserably as he got under fire from the two grimlock archers who positioned themselves on the other side of the bridge. This sends him down for some falling damage. Nobody else was able to help as they could not see to the bridge and could not see the grimlocks either. Meanwhile the grimlock pushes the unconcious druid over the ledge (I am a very nasty DM sometimes but like to make the PCs really hate me or my mosnters :-)) which brought him to minus 9 through falling damage.

The next who tries was the rogue/bard plus the restored druid. The restored samurai following close. The rogue manages to get past the barbarian to flank him together with the druid. Druid plus samurai were struggeling with one remaining grimlock plus the barbarian to get off the bridge and onto the ledge. The rogues falls prone after an attack from the barabarian. The archers were peppering the group with arrows for another round until they got distracted through a summon swarm from the druid.

Nobody down at the cavern floor remembers the chokers... The first choker gets very close to the cleric. The cleric, heavy crossbow at hand, readies his action to find something to shoot at. She does a great listen check and realised the choker just 3 ft behind her. Her crossbow nails the choker to the cavern wall. After defeating the choker noboday gave a thought on that there maybe another one...

Meanwhile the samurai kills the barbarian with his double-bladed scimitar with two very lucky strikes - both critical.

The wizard was grappled by the second choker but the aberration gots killed by a heavy augmented mind thrust from the psion.

When the rest of the party manages to get onto the ledge, the two archers are still alive and so the group now is trapped between the archers and the rest of the grimlock staff in the deeper caverns, most of them barely wounded, most spells wasted, with no chance to recover. Lets see how they will manage that next week...

Actually after the show we discussed what the best way to avoid being trapped by terrain disadvantage would be as it seems to be impossible to deal with the archers from the kennel-master hideout.

Hi Folks,
if you like it or not, I will start posting my experiences with my AoW campaign in Eberron right here. My campaign starts tomorrow and here is the rooster of characters:

Luura, a female Changeling rogue who worked at the Midnight Salute as a table dancer. She constantly change places with Constance (who also is a Changeling) and so got involved in her agend business by mistake now being the would-be victim of Constances assassins.

An Valenar Elf "Samurai" (name yet tbd by player) with a special double-scimitar as his weapon combo. He works as one of six guards for Elival Moonmeadow. His weapon is a legacy weapon but this fact is currently unknown to the PC.

A human female cleric of Dol Arrah (name yet tobd by player) who works at the garisons church. She is very talented with the hellebard and uses improved trip to bring down foes and offer conversion or dead.

Takashtai, a female Kalashtar Telepath raised as an orphant by poor human inhabitants of DL. She is very loyal to her parents but knows that she belongs to somewhere else. She owns the abandoned cottage presented as the players homebase in Dragon mag.

A male Shifter (name still tbd by player) Druid of the Bronzewood comunity.

A male (name tbd...) human wizard, one of Allustan apprentices. He is secretly in love with Takashtai which fact is not known to her (as she not even has noticed him yet).

A male (name tbd...) warforged fighter, member of the garrison who wants to understand the concept of friendship beyond cameraderie.

All players have recieved written background on DL with special information tailored to their character. Most of the PC do not know each other at the start of the campaign and it will be tomorrow evenings game to let them introduce themselves.