I’ve been running the Age of Adventure Path since November and can say with absolute confidence it is one of the finest offerings ever to come out of a Dungeon Magazine. My party and I are enjoying the whole experience thoroughly and eagerly anticipate the AP’s momentous conclusion (though, in all honesty, we’ll be sad when it all comes to an end).
My players are currently preparing to go forth to confront a certain black dragon that had recently laid waste to parts of Diamond Lake so we’re currently far enough into the AP for me to offer some ‘humble’ feedback and suggestions for the editors of Dungeon, at least as far as this AP’s eventual compilation into a hardcover masterwork.
Feedback #1: Encounter at Blackwall Keep was disappointingly simplistic. It was a fine adventure, but it had nowhere near the ‘satisfaction value’ of any of the adventures preceding or coming after it. The lizardfolk siege wasn’t the threat that the author perceived it would be (two fireball spells and its about done). The lair was gratifying but very simple. In the end, the party came out of the adventure with a ‘This was it?’ feeling only to find themselves badly out-classed when they really got into the Hall of Harsh Reflections.
Suggestion #1: I’d strongly suggest re-working Encounter at Blackwall keep a bit to add more meat to the adventure. I’d make the lizardfolk army unassailably bigger (though the skirmish at the keep is fine the way it is, but perhaps it is the tip of the iceberg and the party realized that the swamp’s northern border is now teeming with an army of lizardfolk made up of a conglomerate of the tribes – all under the sway of a certain lizardfolk chieftain who has had the aid of a particular black dragon). The keep skirmish hammers home the fact that bad things are afoot, and the party will need to go in and take out the chieftain in order to break the lizardfolk alliance (and perhaps find a way to negotiate peace between the Free City and the lizardfolk of the Mistmarsh).
Suggestion #2: I mentioned adding more meat to the adventure. One way to do it is to add a chapter to the whole thing. One idea is for a Favored Spawn of Kyuss Druid (and his favored spawn animal companion) is the servant of Ilthane and has been working corruption of his own in the swamps and was using the lizardfolk uprising as the perfect opportunity to begin infesting creatures (and people) outside the Mistmarsh. This would go a long way toward explaining the mention of ‘Unkillable Undead’ in the hills and would introduce the party to the horrors of the spawn of Kyuss a lot better than a sole spawn in the basement of the keep (who was likely slain by the reinforcements who arrived from Diamond Lake long before the party ever got back from the lizardfolk lair). I suggest this to give the party a nice way of accumulate some extra XP and wealth before they head to the Free City and deal with the Hall of Harsh Reflections.
Feedback #2: Balabar Smenk is a character my party loved to hate. The campaign set him up perfectly as the bad guy the party longed to bring down. He embodied the corruption and hopelessness that permeates Diamond Lake to its core and they still take no end of pride in how they brought him to justice. While many DM’s are capable of putting together a nice ‘adventure’ that deals with Balbar’s fall I felt it would still have been nice for us to have more detail and perhaps an mini-adventure provided for this event.
Suggestion #3: Put together a ‘floating chapter’ that can be inserted anywhere in the campaign (though, likely, at some point after the Three Faces of Evil and before the Hall of Harsh Reflections) that deals with Balabar’s fall. I’d suggest detailing how any of the other Mine Managers would go about contacting/helping/using the party for this end. I’d also detail Balbar’s Mansion and what the party would have to go through navigating it to find the damning evidence necessary to get Smenk arrested. I wrote a short ditty detailing just this and my party beamed with pride and wicked glee as Balbar was led off to stand trial for his myriad crimes. They all agreed it was vastly more satisfying than killing him and I agree: they assassinated him politically and that went light-years toward preparing their mind-set for the intrigue of the Free City and likely Ahlaster.
Feedback #3: Kyuss, his spawn, and his depraved worshipers are fantastic foes who will forever have a place of dark dread within the hearts of gamers worldwide. The AP has been rife with new spawn that will horrify and disgust all that come into contact with them, ‘Bravo!’ I say. One thing all my players agree on is the enjoyment they take in encountering and fighting all the new and unusual monsters (as well and some old favorites from years and classic modules of the past) the AP has used. They’re on the edge of their seats once they realize they have no idea what it is they’re dealing with (those octopins were just plain NASTY) and that tension adds to gaming experience as a whole. What the AP has lacked, however, are specialty powers and abilities for the followers of Kyuss…
Suggestion #4: Make the followers of Kyuss stand out (and unusual) as much as the variety of new monsters that the Wormgod has created. Prestige classes, new magic items, unique spells, and the whole lot. Bozal Zahol would have been MUCH cooler had he been something more than a mere 11th-level cleric. Perhaps a 5th-level cleric/6th-level Wormeater of Kyuss? A party of adventurers gets just as tired of NPC’s all having the same suite of spells (resist this, blast that, heal, repeat…) as they are of fighting the same trolls (rend, regenerate, rend, regenerate, repeat…) over and over again. Dress the NPC’s up! The players are taking the time to take up prestige classes, research new spells and magical items, make use of as much material from the Expanded Books (Complete Class books, Complete Race books, etc etc etc) as they can. I say strike back with the devoted followers of the Wormgod doing the same! Likewise, I’d spend zero time worrying about space detailing feats, spells, classes, magic items, etc found in the Complete Book Series (or Libris Mortis, or Draconomnican, etc, etc, etc) within the hardcover Age of Worms book. Some assumptions need to be made and most hardcore gamers will have these books. For those that don’t, put a disclaimer in the forward warning them that the above books were used and that they may need to substitute for some things. Followers of Kyuss just scream “Book of Vile Darkness!” and “Libris Mortis!” (particularly the Corpsecrafter feat tree), use ‘em and enjoy the aftermath!
Feedback#4: This is a bit of feedback that can be aimed at any dungeon magazine adventure, but I figured I’d put it here. Simply put, I’ve found that most D&D campaigns have at least 4 players and sometimes range to 7 (with 5-6 being the majority). These adventures are written to challenge 4 players and are the treasure and ECL ‘payout’ reflect that. So do the adventure encounters.
Suggestion #5: In the ‘Scaling the Adventure’ sidebar I’d suggest the following:
- Continue detailing how to modify the adventure for characters of certain levels (suggestions additional monsters to add/subtract or how many Hit Dice/Levels to add/subtract from monsters and NPC’s).
- Add some detail about how to increase/decrease the treasure (say, increasing/decreasing the monetary take by a certain %, leaving out or adding a specific magic item here or there – this would only be used for particular items) based on party level.
- ALSO: Give detail, along the lines of the two entries above, on how a DM would best go about modifying an adventure’s encounters and rewards based on a larger or smaller party. This would be VERY useful for a number of DM’s who are dealing with larger or smaller groups. The larger groups are trickier, because just adding levels oftentimes just doesn’t translate (particularly when you begin dealing with higher level spells and wicked save DC’s).
That about does it for now. It’s a mouthful, but in my opinion it would help to really round out and improve on the Age of Worms AP when it gets put into hardcover form. I’m sure there are numerous additional suggestions and feedback (and errata) that will be posted as well, but I just wanted to make my suggestions known.
Cheers!
-B
I concur with most of Xaene's ideas (and I may steal some of them for my own campaign). I particularly like two ideas and my steal them for my campaign:
1) Expanding the background threat in EBK. Sure, the party can't handle a lizardfolk army by themselves, but in the larger scheme of things, a tribe of 50-60 lizardfolk is a buzzing fly--might require a temporary bolstering of a couple of garrisons and an expedition of 100-200 from the Free City to root them out. If taking out Shukak nips a larger lizardfolk uprising in the bud, this makes the module much more meaningful. And if Shukak is such a powerful and charismatic chieftain, maybe he's a bit tougher, and has more help--perhaps an alchemically enhanced wyrmling from Ilthane's brood, or a whispering half-dragon lizardfolk advisor that everyone is intimidated by?
2) Developing a wormeater prestige class and re-engineering Bozal Zahol and perhaps one or two other opponents so that they have some special powers and aren't just "generic evil cleric"
I do, however, beg to differ about saving space by cutting descriptions of special powers from non-core books. I'm a fairly hard-core gamer, but I don't really have the budget for all of them, and I think if you're going to put this in HC you want to aim for as wide an audience as possible, including some fairly new gamers who may not have had time to accumulate the whole supplement library. When I ran the earlier Istivin arc I ended up having to make at least one substitution because a monster was listed as having a bunch of spells that are detailed in a book I don't have--and I think as much as possible you want to make the campaign "playable out of the can" rather than "assembly required."
I can agree with the idea of expanding the threat of the lizardfolk, but throwing in a favored spawn of Kyuss lizard-druid to introduce the Kyuss undead? That's going too far, in my opinion. The idea of the Thing in the Basement is horror, not high fantasy, and the final encounter of EaBK is a perfect closure. It seems to say "oh, you thought that wasn't too bad, did you? You want to know what's really bad?" It doesn't have to be a near TPK to be scary. Besides which, the favored spawn druid minimizes the idea that most of the lizardfolk attacking Blackwall Keep are just tools of Ilthane and the puppet Shukak.
A Kyuss-based PrC for Zahol, though, would be perfect.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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If we do a hardcover (and as much as I'd love to do one, I must continue to point out that this is still an "if") I think we'll expand the "Encounter at Blackwall Keep" along the lines I expanded it in my own Age of Worms campaign, which is to say by adding a few encounters in the swamp on the way to the Twisted Branch lair and by toughening up the lizardfolk a bit. We always wanted this installment to be a bit easier than its predecessors, but I would be shocked if any parties had serious trouble with the raid on Blackwall Keep encounter, which was laughably easy in my game (and quite frustratingly so, I might add).
I agree that we should add a section entitled "Murder in the House of Smenk." :)
--Erik
Please, Please make the Age of Worms Hardcover!!
I wanted to run it but was in the middle of my own campaign and also wanted to wait until it was put into one book so that I wouldn't have to cut paste to keep the stuff together.
I will go out right now and buy the Shackled Hardcover if that will even slightly improve the odds of getting the Worms HC. Tell me what I need to do to get this HC published, I will preorder it, or even accept print to order.
PLEASE, I beg of you this has been the only printed adventure in a while that has interested me. I just preferred to have it all organized before running it, if you included a handouts/dm screen specifically made for this campaign I would pay upwards of $75 for a well put together kit.
Anyway, please tell us what we need to do-
Jim
Bloody Loon * Lizardman Chieftan
Please, Please make the Age of Worms Hardcover!!
They've made it pretty clear that they want to do it. However, WotC must give them permission to do so.
It's quite possible that WotC might require them to choose certain products. If might be a tough decision if they have to choose between a second Dragon Compendium or a Age of Worms hardcover, for example.
Feedback #4-
another suggestion: the whole premise of the Ebon Triad which forms the nub of Kyuss's re-creation is that there are heretics from 3 evil churches involved. Now to differentiate this from some action all 3 churches support you realy need agents of those churches working to disable th ebon triad. But you want the players to reman the hero. So 1. have an evil schemer (hextor/bane perhaps) pulling the strings 1 layer back from those the PCs are dealing with. A manipulator or even master for Allustan or Smenk. (I've gone for Smenk in my game- a banite, being faerun, has infiltrated his organisation and is feeding him specificly tailored information. even though I think the allustan presented makes a good dupe..) The trick is that that the churches REALLY don't want knowledge of the Ebon Triad spreading.
So an Erthynul/Bhaal approach migh be to send in a serial killer/sociopath to torture info out of captured towns folk. He's trying to find out who supports the ebon triad, but he's an insane killer. The players investigate dissappering miners either at the managers or some loved one's request. The psycho's lair is full of Bhaal/Erythnul religious scrawl (movie "7") and notes on what he has found out about the Ebon triad. Obviously any preist of Bhaal/Erythnul contacted (? the pcs would do that ?) about this would pull out ALL stops to have them eliminated.
From a Myrkul/Vecna perspective I favour a Stratholme attack- cut off the Diamond lake food supplies (attack caravans) and them supply them with tainted grain (does damage as per ghoul rot- con+dex but turns them into basic zombies not ghouls) This agent's idea is to destroy Diamond lake's inhabitants to starve the Ebon Triad out of their dungeon... Obviously need to put lots of clues into this and there are some higher lv NPCs who would attempt some sort of action but it's main intention is to give the PCs a couple more encounters and some clues as to Myrkul/Vecna opposition to the "heretics" in the basement.
The biggest problem with these is losing track of the original path. The flow of the adventure. But it strikes me as better than relying on knowledge (religion) checks to transmit the "heretics of their own blasphemous religions" (should just be evil I think but it's a quote) idea. If you are a paranoid member of a forbidden splinter sect of a secret evil cult how much is a young (low lv) cleric of a good religion going to know about you. Nil methinks. :P
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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In my original thinking, Prince Zeech was to play that role somewhat, which is why I did not make him overtly allied with Lashonna (or aware of her plotting). A faithful cleric of Erythnul was to appear during "Kings of the Rift," probably in the form of a giant cleric. Darl Quethos, the strange-handed cleric of Vecna who appears in "The Library of Last Resort," "views this cult of heretics as one of the greatest insults to Vecna's glory."
The idea was to introduce a villain/foe associated with each of the three "orthodox" faiths throughout the course of the series, both as a way to insert more of the backstory into the campaign and as a way to show that not all bad guys in the world are keyed into Kyuss' plot.
--Erik
The idea was to introduce a villain/foe associated with each of the three "orthodox" faiths throughout the course of the series, both as a way to insert more of the backstory into the campaign and as a way to show that not all bad guys in the world are keyed into Kyuss' plot.
--Erik
You know, I started this particular plotline in three faces of evil - I had a cleric of hextor (agent of prince zeech) hunting down a rumored cell of the ebon triad. Unable to take them on himself, he approaches the party in an "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of way and cajoled them into raiding the dourstone mine. Worked perfectly, provided for some great roleplaying involving the lawful good monk/cleric of heronious, and gave the party a good solid forshadowing of Redhand/Alhaster.
Fix the CR on the Harbinger. I know that advancing a spell weaver and adding the lich template, you get that CR. But you and I both know that spell weavers are overpowered. A CR10 creature that casts as a level 12 sorcerer and can cast 6 spells a round and has a +10 BAB is overpowered. Harbinger, as a CL17 sorc with the same abilities plus the lich template, is not CR17.
did anyone mention "PLS NO APPENDIX 4!"
i loved Shackled City, but i HATED to always go at the end of the book to check many different foes...
if you REALLY have to put an appendix 4, pls make it a separate booklet, and order it per ROOM/LOCATION, and not in alphabetical order
one last thing... AGE OF WORMS ROCKS!!! and then some...
did anyone mention "PLS NO APPENDIX 4!"
i loved Shackled City, but i HATED to always go at the end of the book to check many different foes...
I have to second that. This constant page flipping to find the stats of the creatures (sometimes from the same encounter!) was a real nightmare and "post-it"s barely made it more bearable.
I think that "The Red Hand of Doom"'s web enhancement is the perfect solution. Even if the non-regular creatures are all in a "Appendix 4", you can download a file with all the stats organised by encounter! Even if it means repetition of statblocks.
Bocklin
I like the suggestions above about Blackwall Keep's lizardfolk threat, and adding an encounter to bring down Smenk. A prestige class for priests of Kyuss would be cool.
As for my suggestions, I'd like to see the hardcover address the problems with Three Faces of Evil, because as written it seems to have problems with getting the players to take on each faction without either going for help or bringing them all down on the PCs at once. I saw several good suggestions for fixing this adventue on these messageboards, including one from Mr. Mona himself, so I have high hopes for this.
Second, I'd really like improvement of the transitions or "hooks" to get the players from one adventure to the next, especially from Blackwall Keep to Hall of Harsh Reflections and some of the other early adventures, where it seems the players are always being sent to get information from some sage that only tells them stuff they already know.
Finally, I also wish that the ton of experience from "visions" were reduced or removed from the Spire of Long Shadows adventure, and replaced with more encounters before, during or after the adventure.
As for the Wormfood articles, I think most of them are not really necessary to the hardcover. I'd prefer if the editors chose at most a couple of the best things from those articles to add to an appendix. Fixing the few rough spots in the adventures themselves would be much more important to me than including the Wormfood articles.
But regardless, I'm really hoping Age of Worms makes it into a hardcover. It's going to be an awesome experience to DM from that as a resource.
did anyone mention "PLS NO APPENDIX 4!"
i loved Shackled City, but i HATED to always go at the end of the book to check many different foes...
I have to second that. This constant page flipping to find the stats of the creatures (sometimes from the same encounter!) was a real nightmare and "post-it"s barely made it more bearable.
I think that "The Red Hand of Doom"'s web enhancement is the perfect solution. Even if the non-regular creatures are all in a "Appendix 4", you can download a file with all the stats organised by encounter! Even if it means repetition of statblocks.
Bocklin
One Word:
Photocopier.
More non-combat roleplaying encounters in some of the longer dungeon crawls would be nice (for example: Artios the fire elemental in Gathering of Winds).
Speaking as a player our group may have missed some of these, but I got the impression that there was far too much hacking and too little talking in places like 3FOE and HoHR. Those locales would make really interesting places for infiltration, disguise, bribery, etc.