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Im finnaly getting around to DMing the Age of Worms, but the group is made up of my little brother and his friends, who are all beginners, and one or two are first timers. Im looking for general tips on running the Whispering Cairn, and any help would be appreciated.
also, im running into a quandary about party composition.
so far, I have a Human Warlock and probably a Samurai. I know we need a healer, and a rogue, and a wizard now. but, it just seem to me that this composition is lacking a more mobile combatant, like a ranger or monk, whoch i think would be very useful. any advice?
Well, the adventures in the AOW campign really needs a flexible party, the forcus initially on combat and later on more interaction.
my advive is to make sure at least one PC has a decent CHA and some social skills, and a anti undead cleric of sorts will also be helpfull.
I would also advise you to leave clues leading directly to filge instead of the Kullen group. My 10 year veteran party had problems figuring out how to get the info they wanted from him without turning criminals.
The encounter under water is also dificcult to run, so perhaps make the room semi submerged, at waist level
other than that, good luck and nice gaming
For party composition purposes, an arcane spellcaster and a cleric are really handy. At first there aren't a ton of undead, but they get more numerous as the path goes on. This is just a personal thing, but I would want my players to pick from classes in the Player's Handbook rather than supplements if this is their first campaign. But, you know what you're doing and if they're going to have more fun this way, why not?
A number of folks on the boards have run the party through an encounter at the mine manager's office to introduce the party to the game as well as to outfit them covertly with things they may need to survive the cairn. You're definitely going to want to encourage them to get flasks of acid or alchemist's fire and/or a burning hands spell or scroll. Those swarms are nightmares without these things.
It doesn't hurt to be a bit forgiving, especially when starting out. The combat encounters in the Cairn are spread out but deadly, so fudging die rolls every now and then to avert character death may be in the cards (unless you want to teach them about character mortality early on).
I ran the first adventure over the summer when it came out and it's one of the most fun I've ever DMed. You're in for a treat, so enjoy!
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thanks for the tips, especialy the one about acid and scrolls of Burning hands.
and,about the non core classes; everyone else will all have classes from the PHB (likely wizard, rogue, and Cleric/druid). and, in fact, there are two people with social skills, both the rogue and the samurai. since the sammie is probably going to be the leader, this will work out well.
I started my group with some stuff they escaped Keoland with.
The monk had a Necklace of Adaptation and little else.
Every water hazard he shines.
Letting them buy one potion of water breathing might help.
With my group there was a Spell Thief.
That's why I had a bunch of Kobolds including the Kobold
Sorcerer in the office.
Im finnaly getting around to DMing the Age of Worms, but the group is made up of my little brother and his friends, who are all beginners, and one or two are first timers. Im looking for general tips on running the Whispering Cairn, and any help would be appreciated.
I'd recommend using Chris Wissel's upgrade of the mine office at the start of the Whispering Cairn. It has several low-level encounters to test the abilities of the group and to get them working together. It also lets them get hold of some gear that will be very helpful once they start exploring the cairn itself. I made a tidied-up version of his mini-adventure here:
http://paizo.com/dungeon/messageboards/ageOfWorms/aoWPreludeTheMineOfficeSi deTrek