Thus far, the players I am running through Age of Worms are thoroughly enjoying the story. There has been plenty of role-play opportunity and enough hack-and-slash to keep even the biggest power-gamer happy. I stand corrected in an earlier assessment that there might not be enough XP to hand out from the encounters to keep the PCs alive in later adventures; I am having quite the opposite problem – all of the ancillary role-playing in Diamond Lake has caused my PCs to gain more XP than the adventure is paced for. But that’s a good thing I suppose.
So far however, I have noticed two things that I have been wanting to mention on the message boards:
Whispering Cairn: When I read the adventure and saw the statues with their hands out and found out that they held trinkets with magical air, I just KNEW that it triggered some event later on when they were placed in the hands, even if three of them were broken. My players thought the same thing, they went as far as mixing and matching to figure out which trinket went with which statue and even considered repairing the broken three. One of the four players thought the other three was over-analyzing the problem (and as a Dungeon subscriber, I asked if he read the adventure, and he assured me he did not), but the other three were sure it had to mean something. I stepped in as DM, because I did not want this to become an all-night affair and told them that frankly, it was all about nothing. You could sell the remaining trinkets and that’s what it amounted to. I also confided in them that I wanted the devices to be a trigger, but alas I (as a DM) simply had no time to decide what it would trigger, so I rewarded them XP for figuring out the “puzzle” if they agreed to forego the gold they would make if they took and sold the baubles.
In my honest opinion, this was the worst part of the adventure, and a missed opportunity of sorts. The face trap was a bit obscure to defeat (my PCs couldn’t figure it out and were about to give up for good) so I had to help them out on that one. But in all, this was a very well written opening chapter.
Three Faces of Evil: I haven’t actually started this yet (we’re putting the finishing touches on Cairn), but I like what I see. I have read a thread where some were disappointed in this adventure, but I don’t prescribe to that opinion. Dungeon-crawl with excellent twists in each of the three parts. It probably would have helped to have had a more obvious hook dropped in Cairn, however. In any case, when I read this adventure and saw that a pair of Grimlocks ambush the PCs near a cliff, the first thing I thought of was “This is an excellent opportunity to bull-rush someone.” But that isn’t described in the tactics section. Another missed opportunity of sorts. You can bet that the Large-sized Spiked Chain Goliath is going to get a piece of the bull-rush action anyway! Three Faces of Evil will prove to be a quicker adventure than Cairn, but I think that the PCs will enjoy it just as much. I know I will.
Hey, could you give us a run-down of how you adjudicated XP for the role-playing bits?
Like describing the event and the amount of XP you doled out to the PCs? Thanks!
My group would laughingly refer to your first dilemma as a "stick in the dirt" scenario, referring to the classic Temple of Elemental Evil, in which there was an empty room which contained a pile of dirt with a stick in the middle of it. There was no reason for this room, and the module even went so far as to tell the DM to let the PC's waste as much time as they wanted here. My own party wasted quite a bit. Since then, any pointless exercise is dubbed a "stick in the dirt."
My group would laughingly refer to your first dilemma as a "stick in the dirt" scenario, referring to the classic Temple of Elemental Evil, in which there was an empty room which contained a pile of dirt with a stick in the middle of it. There was no reason for this room, and the module even went so far as to tell the DM to let the PC's waste as much time as they wanted here. My own party wasted quite a bit. Since then, any pointless exercise is dubbed a "stick in the dirt."
Interesting, and to some degree both entertaining AND realistic. The problem with this is that my players may decide a future event/puzzle is a "stick in the dirt" when in fact it is a real key or trigger.
For myself and my group, it boils down to how much time we have available to play the game. Most of us have families/jobs/etc and this limits us in real-world game time. I'd prefer not to have them waste time to learn the stick in the dirt lesson.
BTW - my players would take the stick AND the dirt thinking it would be useful later on.
Hey, could you give us a run-down of how you adjudicated XP for the role-playing bits?
Like describing the event and the amount of XP you doled out to the PCs? Thanks!
I am running a lot of side-quests/stories in Dimaond Lake that are very individualized to the player's characters, and these missions (and the XP rewards) probably wouldn't relate well to your campaign. I tend to reward between 50 - 200 XP for various actions and/or roleplay, however.
My PCs are about to take on the Wind Dukes in Whispering Cairn and are already 4th Level, so you might be able to reverse engineer the XP if you wanted to know the totals. I used to keep track of XP I handed out, but I haven't thus far. Thanks for the replys.
Hey, could you give us a run-down of how you adjudicated XP for the role-playing bits?
Like describing the event and the amount of XP you doled out to the PCs? Thanks!I am running a lot of side-quests/stories in Dimaond Lake that are very individualized to the player's characters, and these missions (and the XP rewards) probably wouldn't relate well to your campaign. I tend to reward between 50 - 200 XP for various actions and/or roleplay, however.
My PCs are about to take on the Wind Dukes in Whispering Cairn and are already 4th Level, so you might be able to reverse engineer the XP if you wanted to know the totals. I used to keep track of XP I handed out, but I haven't thus far. Thanks for the replys.
Well.... Thanks. What were some of the side quests, aside from the baby owl bear? Which reminds me, did your PCs manage to find Fester?
I blew it pretty hard when I gave my players way too much xp for the battle temple of Hextor. They invited Filge and he double crossed them. They were afraid to knock over the stautue, (which I had prefaced by telling them it had teetered a little when one of the players took shelter behind it) and were bottlenecked on one of the sides of the balcony (which they climbed with a grappling hook). That cleric just kept healing her husband over and over and they were running out of healing potions. Anyway, Filge turned on them, and thay almost all died, and I had the head Cleric Thedrick or whatever ended up running away. Well I gave my 3rd level characters the xp for a 10th level encounter!!!! Now they have just finsished killing the grimlocks and have just gone on to 5th level!!!! So I certianly have to curb their xp from now on. I am thinking about takning out the Ebon Aspect all together!!!
Well I gave my 3rd level characters the xp for a 10th level encounter!!!!
Why?
I am thinking about takning out the Ebon Aspect all together!!!
Another option is to run the Aspect, but not give them any Xp for it. If they complain, say it is like a creature summoned by a spell and part of the Xp that they got earlier.
Or, give the Aspect a level draining gaze attack... that it can hit each PC with. It could target each of them and say things like "Your strength will be mine!" to the fighter, "I'll have your mind!" to the mage, "I'll claim your agility!" to the rogue. "I'll break your faith!" to the cleric. Then once each one has lost a level...if you are lucky the Aspect chould regrow the missing limbs for cinamatic effect and yell "I am complete and now you will die"! If you can play on the fact that the Aspect stole something from each of them and make them feel used and dirty for it. Have the local temple refuse to cast restoration (I can't remember if they even can) because of the vile taint that the characters cary. "You very nearly unwittingly allowed a great terror lose on the people of Diamond Lake. Your meddling almost brought doom to us all".
Or, tell your players that you goofed, and gave them to much Xp and hold off on further Xp until they have are at the Xp level they should be at.
ASEO out
I blew it pretty hard when I gave my players way too much xp for the battle temple of Hextor. They invited Filge and he double crossed them.
I used to do this all the time (giving too much XP for harder encounters). I am now a recovering Monteholic and have discovered that the problem isn't you, as the DM, but your players - especially in pre-fabricated adventures that aren't exactly taylored to your PC's. You, as Dm, have two options.
1: After the battle, give the players the encounter CR (or EL) and explain what they did wrong and why they are only going to get the listed CR. This is bad only in that it kills the mood of the game to explain in-game mechanics. It is good in that the players know they are likely to be challenged, at what level, and they have the opportunity to adjust acordingly.
2: Coax the players to get items that will help them later in the adventure and allow knowledge checks (or Intelligence checks) to gather hints that the characters might have picked up that are helpful. Bad because it gives stuff away and good because it helps the players to be better players.
There was a particularly good article I read somewhere that defined how to figure out the EL. In it was the example of 4 trolls attacking 2 different groups of adventurers. The first group was equiped with flaming arrows and fire spells, the second group was not. They both "fought" an EL 10 encounter and got the same XP - though obviously the second group was far less prepared for trolls and used more of their resorces to defeat the encounter. Knowledge is often the key to victory and no one is nore vocal than I am when it comes to taking knowledge skills in character creation. A little scouting, a bit of "I check with the hunter's lodge to see what I am likely to encounter in the woods", a smidge of foresight on the party's part goes a long way toward never having a TPK, or misjudging the EL's and XP's.
My 2 pence anyway. YMMV!
Celric
For puzzles that aren't, I let the character take 20, and then tell them that nothing happens. That way they know that their is no chance of them figuring "It" out and they tend to move on.
One thing that always side tracks my adventures now is the corpse of the Dragon that the party just slayed. Forget moving on with the adventure, that dragon is getting hacked up for all the valuable parts. No one is going anywhere until that hide is tanned, and the teeth are made into daggers and the breath weapon glands harvested. ::sigh::
ASEO out
meh* ideas-50xp (i.e. going door to door gathering info, usually a lame attempt at xp gathering and i feel like a nice DM on that night.)
good ideas-100xp (i.e instead of just attacking the monster why not set up an ambush?)
friggin' great ideas-150xp (i.e. dives off the bridge to save an NPC, comes up with an outragious plan that i would have never thaught of.)
*Plus all donations or moneys given away (i.e Paladans, monks) each 3gp given= 1xp point.
Well I gave my 3rd level characters the xp for a 10th level encounter!!!! Now they have just finsished killing the grimlocks and have just gone on to 5th level!!!! So I certianly have to curb their xp from now on. I am thinking about takning out the Ebon Aspect all together!!!
Well, even with a goof up like this one, the XP/CR/level system of D&D has a few built-in safety nets for you as the DM.
1) The PCs can only gain one level at a time, regardless of how much XP they get. Now, this very well might mean they're sitting at 1 XP short, and so they'll level again next session. And maybe even the session after that. But they'll end up losing an awful lot of XP because of this. Unless they have something to spend it on (like item creation) of course.
2) As they go up in levels, lower level challenges are worth less XP. For example, let's say one of the grimlocks they encountered was a 2nd level rogue; it was assumed that your group would be 3rd level when they encountered him, but actually they were 5th level. That rogue is less of a challenge - and therefore worth less XP. I've found that in the long run things will even themselves out, as long as you stick to it. They'll get less XP for the encounters, which will slow their advancement rate. Eventually, they'll level again of course - but within a couple of levels you should be right back to about where you should be.