First things first...I haven't DM'd in years, but so that the current DM can get out from behind the screen (he is running us through the first AP) I have decided to run AoW to give him a break.
It looks like I will have a group of about 7 characters. What should I do in terms of encounters and treasure as I don't want the characters to fall behind in levels or magic for the next instalments (3FoE has some definate TPKs in it).
Also what kinds of hooks did you use to get the AP moving, what kinds of things have you run into, or things I should watch out for while running this.
If this helps I am running this in the Forgotten Realms. Any help will verry appreciated.
Lord Foul
It looks like I will have a group of about 7 characters. What should I do in terms of encounters and treasure as I don't want the characters to fall behind in levels or magic for the next instalments (3FoE has some definate TPKs in it).
Because my party consists of several newbie players, I have a 7-member party and I did not modify the adventure. To make up for lost XP to get them to 3rd level for Three Faces, I will run Cry Wolf (Dungeon 102) in between the adventures, as was suggested by another poster on this board.
From reading the playtest journals, it seems what Erik did was beef up the encounters as suggested in the 124 online supplement for higher level parties. At least, he added a second lurking strangler and made the earth elemental Medium. He also sent some goblins after the PCs in their hideout (the abandoned mine office) after Whispering Cairn was finished.
Also what kinds of hooks did you use to get the AP moving, what kinds of things have you run into, or things I should watch out for while running this.
I used the tips found in Dungeon 124, and Erik and other posters' character backgrounds on these boards to develop backgrounds for my PCs. Then I had them all meet at the abandoned mining office and introduce themselves/roleplay there. This is an excellent hook, I believe, but there are others you can find posted on these boards as well.
What to watch out for? The swarms. Aside from the swarms, my players have had a blast plowing through this module. There have been no non-swarm-related fatalities. But we lost 5 PCs to the swarms. Chris Wissel has posted an idea to equip your party and give them some experience before they venture into the cairn by putting a band of goblins in the mining office, and lots of useful treasure like scrolls of burning hands and alchemist's fire. This is the best idea I have seen yet for avoiding a TPK early on. Because swarms in and of themselves are not terribly deadly, provided the party has the tools to deal with them.
From reading the playtest journals, it seems what Erik did was beef up the encounters as suggested in the 124 online supplement for higher level parties. At least, he added a second lurking strangler and made the earth elemental Medium. He also sent some goblins after the PCs in their hideout (the abandoned mine office) after Whispering Cairn was finished.
This sounds great. I like this alot.
What to watch out for? The swarms. Aside from the swarms, my players have had a blast plowing through this module. There have been no non-swarm-related fatalities. But we lost 5 PCs to the swarms. Chris Wissel has posted an idea to equip your party and give them some experience before they venture into the cairn by putting a band of goblins in the mining office, and lots of useful treasure like scrolls of burning hands and alchemist's fire. This is the best idea I have seen yet for avoiding a TPK early on. Because swarms in and of themselves are not terribly deadly, provided the party...
The swarms were my biggest fear of the adventure. I think I will use the goblin thing at the mining office. Now I just hope the PCs will be smart and use the "gifts" on the swarm.
Thanks again QBert and to anyone else who posts here for the help.
|
It looks like I will have a group of about 7 characters. What should I do in terms of encounters and treasure as I don't want the characters to fall behind in levels or magic for the next instalments (3FoE has some definate TPKs in it)....
If this helps I am running this in the Forgotten Realms. Any help will verry appreciated.
The first thing I'd look at is why you have 7 characters -- is it because you have 7 players each playing "full" characters, or do you have fewer players and either a few NPCs attached to the party or players running multiple characters?
This is important as, coupled with whether all the characters will appear in every session, it will affect how you handle it -- if you've seven players at every session it's more carved in stone than a flex&flow ensemble cast where characters come and go (different problems).
Personally I don't feel that 7 characters is too many, so long as your players aren't the sort of people who hang out on the optimisation threads! :) They may advance a little more slowly than a party of four and you may need to bump them up a little, but don't go overboard and have them each as powerful as they would be in a 4 character party, as the threats then need to be that much bigger in turn.
One problem you may encounter with more-lower characters is access to particular spells, assumptions may be made that a party has access to particular (types of) spells either immediately or within a day or so (eg a 7th level party should be able to air walk/fly/dimension door/something similar within a day). And particular to AoW, I expect you're likely to want to make sure you've got access to Remove Disease sooner rather than later!
Giving out more charged items and one-shots is generally a lot safer than increasing the amount of permanent stuff around, and things that are either straight forward bonuses or direct damage are a lot more predictable than miscellaneous utility items that innovative players/characters will find unexpected uses for.
Regarding the Realms, the official customisation for the realms seems okay, though personally my first thought was "Shar" as the premise feels very well suited to her :)
I'll be DMing AoW with a 7 (and later, 8) player party. All characters are starting at 1st level (with a few +1 ECLs), but little in the way of power-gaming or optimization. I figure the notes on scaling The Whispering Cairn will help. For example, giving the Owlbear all of its hp probably won't be too much. And, from what I hear about the acid beetle swarms, I might not have to do anything else to modify the adventure!
I guess I'll know after it's over. If the party doesn't good strong enough to handle The Three Faces of Evil, I can always knock off a grimlock or kenku here and there. Saves me from having to find zillions of miniatures anyway.
Oh, and I hope the Overload comes out soon. I'm starting this AP on August 15th, so I have just over two weeks to get totally prepped (and converted to FR).
I'm also running AoW with a large party, 8 people. I'm not changing Whispering Cairn at all. I figure they'll be just a level or two behind where a smaller party should be by the time they move on to 3FoE, but that will be ok because there'll be more of them.
So far there's been two deaths, one from the swarm and one last week from the Owlbear. I don't know if I would recommend making the Owlbear full strength; at that point, with 8 players, the party will only be second level or so. He was plenty challenging as is.
So far there's been two deaths, one from the swarm and one last week from the Owlbear. I don't know if I would recommend making the Owlbear full strength; at that point, with 8 players, the party will only be second level or so. He was plenty challenging as is.
My party of 7 was all 1st- to 2nd-level and they waited 4 days in between finding the Land graves and investigating the farmhouse (they are very cautious and wanted to heal ability damage). Thus the owlbear had healed 20 hp and was at 42 hp. Nevertheless, they suffered only one unconscious PC in the fight and defeated it handily.
This party I'll be DMing with is (with all 8 players):
2 clerics (1 human, 1 dwarf)
1 paladin (human)
1 rogue (forest gnome)
1 monk (air genasi)
1 sorceror (draconic human)
1 necromancer (good aligned, too!) (half-elf, if i remember correctly)
1 ranger (moon elf)
That's a lot of combat prowess, especially if the rogue has opportunities to deal sneak attack damage. Plus, with the ranger's Heal skill, at least one Cleric, and the Paladin, staving off injuries shouldn't be too hard. Two between arcane spellcasters, I'm sure they can buffer themselves with protective spells too, even at 1st level. The monk took a feat allowing him to levitate three times per day, so that should be interesting. Oh, both the wizard and the sorceror have foregone familiars (using either a Flaw or a variant from Unearthed Arcana).
I'm playing AoW with a group who recently completed the Sunless Citadel module. They are between 4th to 6th level, so I'm modifying the adventure path. The effective level of the party, according to my calculations is 7.8
My current group consists of:
A human ranger/justicar
A half-elf fighter/master of the woods
A tiefling monk
A half-elf rouge
A half-orc rouge/master thrower
A shifter barbarian
A human fighter
A human fighter/deepwoods sniper
I'm playing AoW with a group who recently completed the Sunless Citadel module. They are between 4th to 6th level, so I'm modifying the adventure path. The effective level of the party, according to my calculations is 7.8
My current group consists of:
A human ranger/justicar
A half-elf fighter/master of the woods
A tiefling monk
A half-elf rouge
A half-orc rouge/master thrower
A shifter barbarian
A human fighter
A human fighter/deepwoods sniper
They entered the first part of the Whispering Cairn tonight. I had altered the adventure somewhat because some of my players have subscriptions to Dungeon. Although the party mostly escaped unscathed, it was due mostly to dumb luck and excellent luck with the dice.
We saw a lot of natural 20's tonight at critical moments, plus action points were helpful. The shifter barbarian and half-elf rouge were killed when they set off a magical trap I added to the story based on the Howling Demon door from Tomb of Horror. (The screaming face brought back memories.) The sphere of annilation wasted both characters who decided to probe into the dark doorway.
The rest of the party are about halfway through the Cairn.