I'm about to begin running the AoW for a group of 3 players, and am confident in my ability to work out the new ELs. But I'm worried I won't be able to keep the same elements of the original write-up. For instance, with what do I replace the tomb mote? or the lurking strangler? And still have the "freaky little creatures" moments?
Any suggestions will be appreciated and evaluated
Don't worry about the strangler. As you can read in other posts here, it wakes up anyone it tries to strangle, and has a -10 grapple check. It's fun to play with (see the notes I posted on the http://therpgenius.com/Default.aspx?alias=therpgenius.com/ageofworms website), but it would take a lot of bad rolls and bad strategy for it to be dangerous.
It's not really the dangerousness of the encounter I want to keep intact, just the appearance of weird monsters that the players haven't seen before. You know, what weaker monster acts (or looks similar to) the lurking strangler? What provides a strange visual?
I guess I'm having a slow day. Why are you trying to replace the LS?
It sounds to me like you are worried about the ELs of the adventure being too hard for a three party group. There used to be quite a bit of debate about the difficulty of the AP so far (that seemed to die down after EaBK), and many people that it was too difficult with groups of more than four people, while others thought it was perfectly acceptable for three. So, I wouldn't worry about the ELs too much.
If you have a good group, someone could play two characters. Or throw in an NPC/cohort. Also, if you stick with three players, remember that once you get started, they will level faster than with four people, and have more loot per character, and thus will somewhat compensate for the level discrepency.
Start with the three characters. Let them get going a ways. Maybe fudge rolls in their favor a bit (not to make it a cakewalk, but to compensate for the lack of a person); just ignore that natural 20 and make it a normal hit instead. If their hurt and you don't want them to risk getting too beat down yet, let them start hitting more often (so long as you don't have really perceptive players who like to guess monster AC).
If they need help, give it to them in the form of an NPC. Or, let them start as second level characters, instead of first. But, you shouldn't have to tweak the monsters and ELs, really.
How about replacing the Lurking Strangler with the Eyeball? It's the cute lil' "baby beholder" in Monsters of Faerun. I don't think it's been updated to 3.5 yet, but it shouldn't be too hard to use as is. That's what I'm using in my AoW campaign. Or rather, I would have used it if my players had not bypassed that section of the WC entirely. (And after I made nifty stand up counters for the little guys and everything. Grumble, grumble...)
Boy, do I know about making cool little preparations for my group that then get thrown to the wind by their choices, Urko.
I guess I could give Saern's advice a try. Especially since after WC it should be easier to lower or substitute ELs.