As the title says, I've been reading the Age of Worms adventure path and it's great. I've not been able to read it all as I've only had a subscription for the past 5 months and started with Spire of Longshadows.
I play a bi-weekly game with 5 characters within it. I was thinking of buying all issues previous to issue 130 that contain Age of Worms adventures, but my players are all quite high level now and each have clear goals they are working toward. I was thinking that perhaps I could push the age of worms path as a level 20+ adventure path. Basicly a path for epic characters.
This thought hit because in the last several AoW adventures, I think my players would have a tough time of it, even at the recomended levels. I finished reading Into the Worm-Crawl Fissure and man Dragotha would probably woop all their butts lol. It would at least be a VERY hard fight. And to know that Kyuss is even tougher? I think I could very easily push the path forward into epic levels. I already have their path to 20 layed out. Here are my players:
Slipper Kendrick - 5 rogue/12 illusionist (17th level)
Delynn Medora - 9 fighter/8 cleric of Pelor (17th level)
Elisabeth Medora - 17 Druid
Buck Himasu - 15 Cleric/4 Divine Agent (see Manual o/t Planes)
Kett Daedanor - 15 Bard/3 Fighter
So you can see my players are 17-19th level and quickly on their way to 20th already. I have suggested playing the age of worms with them but only one of them would be willing to start a new character lol (these 5 have been their primary characters for several years now, in one big ongoing campaign set in the forgotten realms.)
I figure I'll start it as an epic campaign. However, I clearly cannot start an epic campaign at the first age of works adventure. I was hoping some of you on this board (likely many of you) have read and perhaps played through much of the AoW and can suggest to me which adventure to start with. It wouldn't be all to hard to advance each adventure to around my players levels. I'm an experienced enough DM to be able to add on to an adventure even, to bolster it's difficulty.
So can anyone please recommend which adventure I should start with? Where does the story really pick up and the age of worms become apparent? Would it be possible to modify say the 10th lvl adventure to include important parts from previous ones?
I suppose I could buy every one of them back to the first and do all this myself, but it would add up to a fair bit of money and I already have barely the time to get each adventure written out for our bi-weekly games already, let alone finding the time to read 12 odd adventures and modify the campaign lol. Not to mention I've several other roleplaying projects in the works, between a totally new and rather unique D&D campaign world, to working on our World of Darkness campaign we switch to once in a while.
At any rate, I could use a little help. :) So thank anyone in advance for helping me out.
I think Spire of Long Shadows might be a good place to pick things up. It's a pretty tough dungeon, and you can make it tougher and cut out the story awards so that your characters don't advance terribly quickly. You just have to have Manzorian contact the party because he's heard of a bunch of events that seem to fulfill the prophecies about the Age of Worms, and he knows this wizard Bucknard who was working on it, and the last place he went was Kuluth-Mar. If you'd rather, you could use the same basic hook by having them read Bucknard's account of K-M (with the visions) as a prelude to the adventure, and have them go off to investigate Bucknard's disappearance in Alhaster, starting with the Prince of Redhand.
Yeah, Spire of Long Shadows is spot on story wise it fits perfectly
BUT.....
I would hate to run this path and not run the coolest adventure, Champions Belt. So what I would do is run Champions Belt (skip an adventure) and then go to Spire of Longshadows, you can fudge the story to make it work. I definetely wouldnt run "A gathering of winds" as it sort of deviates from the path.
By the way there is a Campaign Synopsis called "Age of worms Overload", its a PDF and available for free on this site. It will help you figure out where you want to jump in.
It would be a shame not to start at the beginning--you know level draining effects are a real nice way to keep the same characters running through campaign after campaign. But if you are unwilling to be despised by your group forever, here is what I suggest...
Have your group find a preserved green worms much as in the Whispering Cairn, only instead of going to Allustan for advice, they seek Manzorian/Tenser (as 17th level characters he's likely to have at least heard of them if they haven't already met him). Where as low-level characters are sent to the Dourstone mines to learn more, your guys are sent to Kuluth-Mar and the Spire of Long Shadows.
In this truncated version I think its best to ignore the whole ebon triad aspect of things, as that is the gateway for lower level groups. This will require only minor editing (if not wholesale ommission) of much of the Prince of Redhand. Beef up Libraray and the rest and you should be fine. It is worth noting that by skipping the Wind Duke adventures the characters miss out of the artifacts that may prove key to defeating Kyuss, but as epic level characters it should all balance out in the end.
Alright thanks all, starting with Spire of Longshadows would work great, as I said thats the earliest AoW issue I have lol. I have heard good things about Champion's Belt so I may pick up that backissue and see what I can do to try and work it in. :)
I forgot about the whole Rod of 7 Parts thing. Actually that 'hole' may be filled with their current travels. They are currently locked in a battle of wits and strapped for time as they seak to overcome a rather powerful lich (lich/sorc 16/pale master 8) who is seaking the Rod of Dramadine, which lies in three parts and is rather powerful once assembled. They currently have one part, as does the lich, and are in the jungles of chult exploring an ancient and dangerous ruin for part 3. If they get it assembled first, I'll probably let them hang on to it for use later in the Age of Worms.