What with all the stories of death and carnage, I thought I would like to mention that my group just finished the Whispering Cairn without a character death! Hooray for them. Admitedly, every character has gone into the negatives at some point. In fact, two players have gone down to -9 before getting their healing in the same fight. But they made it through alive.
My players are:
Human hexblade
Human monk
Human druid
Elven warmage
Pixie (using savage species, so no character class yet)
They are all experienced players, so they have pretty good teamwork.
I just thought I would come on and counter all the "dead party" comments with some positivity, and point out to people who haven't started the campaing yet that it is, in fact, survivable.
I'll add our group, although we nearly lost the scout in the first encounter, and used nearly 100% of resources on the encounter (IE: All cleric and all wizards spells, and most of peoples hit points). I think we only survived by resting after each encounter. Encounter One, rest two days to heal. Trap, rest two days to heal, swarm rest two days to heal, club together to afford 2 bottles of Alchemist's fire. Took us two weeks (or more) in game time to explore the place, more than half of that was me memorising cures and fixing the party up.
You know it would be nice for a 1st level adventure to have at least on EL 1 event in it, instead of starting with EL 4 and going up. Still the next adventure seems to follow the same lead with an early EL 8+ encounter for a 3rd level party.
Dwarven Cleric
Human Scout
Elven Wizard
Halfling Rogue
Human Monk
Human Paladin
My group of five (fighter, wizard, monk, druid, and arcane mechanik) lost only one character, who was dropped to exactly -10 in one round by one of the wind warriors in the final encounter. It should be noted, however, that I eliminated the mad slasher and the lurking strangler encounters because I thought they were weakly tied into the adventure and would have simply been confusing.
O
I've been running a group through this dungeon using the Birthright campaign as a backdrop actually. Its turned out great so far with little to no adjustments needed. The group is as follows:
Human cleric 3/wizard 1 (regent/king)
Elven rogue 4
Human paladin 4
plus two 1st level NPC followers
They have not faced the wind tunnel, wind warriors, owlbear, ghost, kullen's gang, or filge yet but I am getting worried. The beetle swarms have been absolutely devastating to them thus far and they've had to rest twice already.
Its a challenging adventure, even for higher level PC's, so I think its great! They are having a blast and are salivating at what's to come in the following weeks.
We've got the following:
Human Cleric (replaced Human Psion at 2nd level)
Human Barbarian/Fighter
Half-Elven Rogue
Human Fighter/Magic-User
They made it through with no fatalities (often in spite of themselves), although two of them were unconscious after the wolves.
So far so good -
Human fighter
Drow rogue
Halfling (Ghostwise) druid with lost of tiny animal companions
Thri-kreen (lesser) psi-warrior
Both the Drow and teh Thri-kreen are +2 ECL but are run using a -2 on BAB, saves, skills, natural armour etc etc
They are very cautious and have picked up on every trap so far. The wind tunnel they tackled by sending the drow to scout, while the rest of the party either dangled off ropes or waited below. When the drow tiggered the trap - he got lucky and his spell resistance prevented him being paralysed. But they are having to rest up between encounters...
With all due respect to you, Busker, the survivability (is that a word?) of the Whispering Cairn is often completely separate from issues of player experience or "good, smart" gameplay. I understand your point was probably to encourage those who are considering the AoW adventure path and may be discouraged by all the talk of TPKs and character death/disability. I think the adventure path is the best written module (or whatever you want to call it) EVER and I sincerely hope everyone gives it a fair shot, despite its potential deadliness. Here comes the big "but..."
I don't think DMs who had groups survive the Whispering Cairn are due any more kudos than those who didn't. How does anyone know the DM's unique style which might have significantly influence the survivability of WC? Maybe you're the kind of person (and I'm not saying this is necessarily true) who fudges die rolls to further the plot or who tones down some potentially deadly encounters or who adjusts the timing so PCs are ready and able to face whatever the challenge may be. Maybe the DM, consciously or even subconsciously, directed the party along a "safer" path or set up scenarios that greatly benefited the adventurers. There are hundreds of variables. I'm not saying that if a DM plays Whispering Cairn flat-out, straight-up, as written that one or more of the player WILL die nor that with even liberal "tweaking" that no player would perish; it's just too subjective to call either way. That's why I think the AoW obituary thread is so helpful. It notes the death of characters but also reveals some important details of their deathes. I think most people reading that thread would have to agree that a large number of those deaths (if not the majority) are completely separate from adventure design and more often the result of unlucky dice, player or character mistakes (poor judgement), or even DM error.
As a final point, I'd like to say that I don't believe the survival-rate is always the best indicator of whether an adventure (or AP) is well-written and/or worthwhile.
Just my opinion.
I had one character die in the Whispering Cairn. The same player (new character, 3rd level) died right away in The Three Faces of Evil.
He plays characters that rush into combat and ahead of the rest of the group. So pretty much he got what was coming for him.
Peace and smiles :)
j.
You make a good point SirMarcus, in that you don't my DM style nor how it might influence the party's survivablilty. But I was, in fact, trying to reassure DM's reading all the horror stories about TPKs and seeing comparisons to the Tomb of Horrors that the adventure, although hard, is not an Insta-kill Dungeon meant to kill everyone. A party can get through it.
I think the adventure is one of the most fun I have run the party through in a while, and it would be a shame to scare DMs away from it by giving the false impression that it is designed to be a party killer. More importantly, my players had fun as well, and they are all looking forward to the entire campaign.
Hello All,
I am starting the Age of Worms campaign for my players in 2 weeks, characters as follows;
Human Paladin of Heironious - Lvl1
Human Wizard - Lvl1
Halfling Rogue - Lvl1
Elven Fighter - lvl1
Dwarf Monk - Lvl1.
I must admit this is my first time DM'ing but i have played for a number of years. I also think Age of Worms is a great campaign to start Dm'ing with :)
Can anyone give me advice on the Whispering Cairn?? tips on surviving it etc..?
One of my players is a experianced DM and the others have played as long as me, however most of them miss simple things as they have a hack n slash approach or a search absolutly everything approach on any given day it could be either.
thoughts?
Thanks
DM shane
My group is at the point where they are in town trying to find clues as to the whereabouts of the missing Land family members bones. That being said...
Several times while inside the dungeon several of my players were dying or at 0 Hit points. My wife kept saying, who wrote this adventure? Don't they know we are first level?
In my game, my characters are Gestalt characters, and we are using some alternate rules for Defense, Massive Damage, and Dying (all found in the UA book).
Even with Gestalt characters they nearly got their butts kicked by the beatles and the Mad Slasher. This is the most fun I think we've had.
Thanks Eric :)
My group of six players just finished as well and we had several close calls, almost losing a couple of the characters, and just about every one of them has been in negative hit points. We have a Human Wizard, a Human Paladin, a Half-Elf Ranger, a Human Monk, a Half-Elf Rogue, and a Dwarven Fighter.
We’re now gearing up to start TFoE, and everyone is looking forward to our next game session. They got a lot of info out of Filge, and have all the clues they need to point them in the right direction.
DJ
SPOILER WARNING!
My group has almost cleared WC (Actually, they were so badly beaten up by the Wind Warriors that they are returning to the mine house before going up the wind pillar). Assuming they don't do anything stupid now (like trying to fight Khullen's group or the Free City Trio), they will complete the scenario.
The group at completion is:
Gnome cleric 3
Gnome druid 3 w/ Wolf animal companion
Elf rogue 3
Human barbarian 3
Elf expert 1/ wizard 1 NPC.
Of the fights, the wind warriors were the toughest, due to a series of critical hits that took out the barbarian and the rogue. It was only by the cleric and druid pulling EMT duties, and the NPC going "Hey, the armor is ceramic!" prompting the cleric that the wand of shatter would be useful, that the party prevailed.
The owlbear fight was also bad, but that was because the rogue, on seeing the body parts in the farmhouse, decided to yell out and then tried fighting hand to hand.
I had thought that Filge's fight would be worse (the barbarian was at str 9 due to 3 failed saves when peppered by the skeletons with poisoned bolts), but the party luring everyone downstairs - jamming the zombies on the stairs, as well as the cleric turning all three of the trog zombies at one saved their bacon. The only problem is that they let Filge bleed to death in the fight, so they are operating solely on the note.
Overall, a fun adventure for my group (I've got them convinced that Smenk is going to rain fire from the heavens on them for killing Filge). I am thinking that I'm going to screw with them a little by running them on a merchant caravan rescue mission for another of the mine owners - to recover what is actually Smenk's caravan of goods for the Cultist HQ... Heh heh heh!