I am about start running the AoW. If you had to give me your top three points (or more, if you want) to keep in mind while running AoW, what would they be?
Thanks!
Doyle
Be prepared for lots of deaths. I got around this by integrating AoW into an ongoing campaign populated by lots of characters of different levels, so that PCs could "swap out" as needed, and play could be picked up by another party of characters entirely (as has happened twice). All three points relate to mitigating this.
SPOILERS
2. Help the players with their character builds (see thread on "best build for AoW" or whatever it was called). Do NOT allow the wizard or cleric to "dilute" their spellcasting levels. Make sure someone has the Sun domain and full turning ability.
3. Some of the monsters are outrageously powerful for their placement (the Ebon Aspect at the end of TFoE and the occulus demon in GoW stood out as particularly absurd for our group). You might wish to swap them out for others or at least mitigate some of their more powerful abilities. The Ebon Aspect, for example, should really be a CR 9 monster, when compared with other "Aspects of," and it's somehow supposed to be defeated by a party of 4th level characters who are likely out of spells and at the end of their resources at that point.
Hard to keep it to only three... here's all my key advice, good luck, it's a great ride...
1. make sure your players have some vague idea of what they are in for, i.e. a long-running, challenging campaign with opportunity for role-play but also some fearsome combats. Ultimately it's a very rewarding campaign for DM and player alike as long as everyone understands it might be a bit tougher than a more 'by the book' style of campaign. this is especially important if you've never run such a long campaign before, especially one which actually has a consistent thread to it (although it takes a long time for it to be apparent what that thread really is). hopefully you can hang on to your players for the long-haul, as the longer the campaign goes on the harder it is for a new player to get up to speed and into it. my game is now down to only two players (started with 5), but you just can't easily slot in someone new and get the same experience. also decide how you're going to deal with PC death, i.e. roll up new character or help them get raised; preferably agree this with your players at least in concept (mine were a mix, with one or two happy to try a new character should theirs ever die, but the rest couldn't imagine playing a different character, they would want to be raised or reluctantly quit the game)
2. be very mindful of your players abilities, and adjust the game accordingly, i.e. if your players are not experienced and good at building a strong party, they will really struggle so you might need to help them out a bit, whereas if they are experienced and strong character builders and gamers, they should be challenged with the adventures but not overwhelmed. let them build their PC's together, so they have a coherent group (I didn't follow this advice, and it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but we did need to re-tune the party early on to make it more balanced especially when we went to three players). also, be clear on what books you will allow players to use - core only (i.e. only PHB) is likely to find the PC's up against foes that can do things they cannot, so they will struggle unless they are really really strong players, especially at mid to high levels. conversely, if you let them use any published book they want and they are good cherry-picker character builders, you might find they come up with characters who are more powerful than the adventures can handle. so you'll need to decide some kind of middle ground, depending on your players skill levels, and preferably agree this up front (you can always let them choose from more books from mid levels, too, although this can hamper their ability to plan ahead). similarly, let them know how magic items will work, i.e. are there likely to be enough times and places to sell and buy magic items, or will they be stuck with what they find in the adventures? if the latter, you'll want to tweak the items int he adventures at least a little bit, especially later on, otherwise your players might get a bit annoyed at all the rubbish they are carrying around when at their level they would normally expect to have more useful magic. this is especially key for wizards - there are very few arcane scrolls in the adventures, so if a wizard cannot easily purchase scrolls and/or easily scribe extras into their spell book, they are going to feel crippled (and rightly so, I forgot this one in the mid sections of the campaign).
3. flick through all the adventures and the overload pfd, as well as these boards, to get a good idea of the overall campaign, but keep your eye mainly on the current adventure. Most of them will need at least a bit of errata (search these boards), and the transitions from one adventure to the next will be a lot easier if you've read the next one or at least the intro to it before hand, so you can smooth out the transitions and work hooks in or out before you need them, plus also tailor things to how your group approaches things and who they leave alive that you might want to re-use etc. But each adventure is pretty big in itself, so don't go overboard in your preparation, I find looking about 2-4 sessions ahead is all I've ever needed. If you prepare well, for the most part the players will choose their next actions according to the overall adventure plots without you even having to seem like you're leading them, it will seem like they are driving the plot and making all the decisions on what to do. Careful management of what info they receive is key here, you need to lead them to the right clues and areas without seeming heavy handed or restrictive.
4. photocopy each adventure, and scribble your notes and changes on them, and highlight key pieces of text. This is the one mechanical thing that made it so much easier for me, as otherwise I'd get lost or miss things that are buried in all the "fluff" text that's useful to read before hand, but useless during actual play. For a long time I also used init cards, but now days I find them onerous to create, so mainly I use the stat blocks from the adventures (with key parts highlighted and extra notes added). I also keep a document of notes and ideas for the future, i.e. stuff that one day gets scribbled on my photocopies (or deleted when I change my mind).
1. Make sure the PCs have a competent healer and that the healer gets wands of CLW. Backup healers are also a good thing--it has kept my party from TPK on a number of occasions, including at least twice in TFOE and once in HOHR.
2. Skim the whole AP as time permits so you've got an idea what's coming up. Read the adventures that are upcoming twice through in detail, since there are quite a few places with small errors or inconsistencies. Most of the adventures have a thread or three discussing how to resolve these, usually started about the time the mag in question started arriving.
3. Pay close attention to transitions between adventures, and be willing to tailor these to your group and what they've accomplished. The transitions are in several cases the weak links in the AP (due to handoff between authors), but lots of alternative ways of linking the adventures together have been posted on the boards, if you see a problem and can't think of a solution.
Probably the most problem adventure in the path for you will be Prince of Redhand. As written, PoRH presents a large number of BIG JUICY TARGETS that your players will, by natural inclination, want to go fight, but the AP wants them not to. Which isn't necessarily a problem except that the adventure give little to no suggestions for what to do if that's what your players decide to do.
The AP is a little railroady, as the big picture isn't made clear to the players until late in the game, so they wind up doing a lot of things because a powerful NPC told them to, but PoRH wound up being the most railroady for me, because I really had to discourage my players from picking these tempting fights, so as not to throw the AP off track.
Read through PoRH several times, especially as you get close to running it, and give a lot of careful thought to how you'll handle the various possible PC reactions to the adventure, and try to make a good guess as to what exactly you think they'll do, based on player actions through the earlier parts of the AP.
Probably the most problem adventure in the path for you will be Prince of Redhand. As written, PoRH presents a large number of BIG JUICY TARGETS that your players will, by natural inclination, want to go fight, but the AP wants them not to. Which isn't necessarily a problem except that the adventure give little to no suggestions for what to do if that's what your players decide to do.
The AP is a little railroady, as the big picture isn't made clear to the players until late in the game, so they wind up doing a lot of things because a powerful NPC told them to, but PoRH wound up being the most railroady for me, because I really had to discourage my players from picking these tempting fights, so as not to throw the AP off track.
Read through PoRH several times, especially as you get close to running it, and give a lot of careful thought to how you'll handle the various possible PC reactions to the adventure, and try to make a good guess as to what exactly you think they'll do, based on player actions through the earlier parts of the AP.
This adventure was not a problem for me. During the briefing before hand I made sure to impress upon my party that it was a factfinding mission. They would be in a Lawful Evil environment, but would have to reign in any desire to confront these powerful, evil npc's.
My players understood the idea of working towards a greater goal. Their motto was "We'll deal with these mortals after we've stopped a demigod". If you can impress your players with the importance of why they are going to Redhand, they'll only have problems if they don'tt care about the greater good.
Although some of the adventures feel like railroading, I don't think they are. There is a lot of "this NPC says go there" stuff, but usually with reasons the PC's would want to. But if at any point the characters decide to do something else, there is often a "well then this happens". For instance if the PC's decide to cleanse Redhand...
Aside from that I can only reiturrate to watch out for tough fights. If your players try to retreat, in general you should let them. If they want to buy certain gear, as long as it's in the gp limit of the town you should let them. And try yo encourage a cohesive party build.
1) Your characters are going to die - a lot - if you play as written and don't fudge rolls. I reached a point where I gave them max HP every level, and set death at -CON. Unfortunately, it was too late. None of the original party is alive (in fact, all but one is on at least his third character). This leads to a serious lack of motivation.
2) Use the Search function here liberally. Odds are, any problem you're facing has been hit before. Search the net a lot, too - there's several sites out there devoted to this campaign, and you can find things like typed up stat blocks for the NPCs that you can yoink to save you lots of time.
3) Don't be afraid to skip encounters entirely. We're in the next-to-last episode right now - going after Dragotha next week - and I've skipped one episode entirely and condensed two others down to two or three encounters only. Simply award the PCs extra XP for finishing the episode. Your group may enjoy fighting every little battle and scraping up every copper piece - mine don't.
Good luck.
If you read through the archives you will find a lot of what has been said so far is both true and false. A lot depends on the party make up and the play style of players. Milage in each adventure varies a bit.
Half of my players have been around since 1st edition. I told them early on that this adventure path was about as deadly as the original Tomb of Horrors. After a couple of close calls with the swarms in the first adventure, they started playing smart and working as a team. Even without a cleric (they have and archivist) instead or a dedicated wizard, the group has done very well with only one PC death so far. There have been a number of close calls though.
That said, here are my suggestions.
1. Rogues are at a disadvantage in later adventures due to the large numbers of undead. Introducing/providing an item that allows them to use the gravestike spell a few times per day will help ofset this and make things more enjoyable for them in combat.
2. Tell the players that all skill are important. The number of times that Climb, Jump, Swim, Diplomacy, and the various Knowledge skills come into play in the adventures is unbelieveable.
3. Become familiar with the combat effects of terrain. a number of encounters take place in rough terrain or even in the water. These effects can turn what looks like an easy encounter for the party on paper into a TPK waiting to happen when it is run.
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3) I’ve taken a very active roll in character generation to increase the party survivability.
I personally try to stay hands off for character creation as most of our players are seasoned gamers. I had to hint heavily that a trap specialist would be good and have guided the newest player with her character advancement, but that's it. I think the experienced members of the group would resent my meddling. Advice yes, direct action no.
1. Pay attention to what your players like in the adventures and play that up. It took until Hall of Harsh Reflections to realize that I have to trim out some of the more superfluous combat encounters to keep the players interested. If they seem bogged down with dungeon crawls, consider altering an installment here or there to be something different.
2. Make sure to play up Diamond Lake, The Free City and Alhaster as locations. They should each hopefully feel different and have their own distinctive cast of NPCs. Diamond Lake is a gritty, desperate town of miners; the Free City is a bustling metropolis, probably the first that the characters have ever been to and Alhaster is a repressed dictatorship. For me, reading the campaign journals kept by the editorial staff has really helped with this. I managed to get a real feeling of competition between the PCs and the three adventurers from the Free City in the first adventure, giving the impression that the characters had to keep their "find" in the Cairn a secret, lest they have it usurped by the out-of-towners.
3. Decide in the beginning how deadly you want this campaign to be. Helpful hints from mentor NPCs and altered treasure finds can help give the PCs some breathing room if a consistent cast of characters and the storyline is more important to you than letting the dice fall where they may.
3. Decide in the beginning how deadly you want this campaign to be. Helpful hints from mentor NPCs and altered treasure finds can help give the PCs some breathing room if a consistent cast of characters and the storyline is more important to you than letting the dice fall where they may.
I'd really pay strong attention to this one. Its a huge factor in how successful your campaign is going to go. There is no hard and fast correct answer for this point because different gaming groups have wildly different expectations regarding the level of mortality that should prevail around the table.
This is a hard campaign and if you want mortality to be rare you should give your players some advantages like good point buy and lots of easy access to the varous splat books. If you hate character death you might want to have players start off at 2nd level and/or get some extra minor magic to start with. Some kind of action points are also a very popular choice for many DMs.
On the other hand if you have really good min/maxers in your group and you don't want this to be too much of a cake walk then you should be a little stricter with the point buy and outlaw some of the more egregarous munchkin builds possible.
The boards are full of extreme examples for this AP from players that are so powerful that nothing really slows them down to groups that are in perpetual danger of a TPK with breaks taken only when things do finally go over the edge and the TPK happens at which point they make a new party - or give up on the AP.
Think about this and try and come up with something that you think is the correct answer for your group.
I've run the game pretty much as is without much trouble and no deaths at all. The brunt of the problem is the players doing little, if any, investigation into the whole Age of Worms business. They have little idea what is going on, and seem to think that "nothing is going to happen" at all.
(1) I'd suggest figuring out, in consultation with your players, whether this will still be a fun game if there is a lot of character turnover. For my group it would not have been; the adventures are not interesting enough for us if they happen to disconnected groups of PCs.
If you need to avoid character turnover, you have two choices. You can allow the players to make highly optimized characters; but this is easy to overshoot, leading to a game where the occasional hard fights are interesting and everything else is a turkey shoot. Or you can do various things to reduce the lethality of the occasional hard fights. These will be rather specific to your own player group; the big thing is to look ahead and try to spot trouble. Use your intuition: if a fight looks too hard, good odds it *is* too hard.
(2) You may also want to think about whether the high number of red herrings works for your group. The Adventure Path introduces the Wind Dukes, the Rod of Seven Parts, an enemy pit fiend, the Ebon Triad, and a couple of other plot elements--and then expects not to resolve them. For some groups this is fine, for others it nearly guarantees going off track. You could either trim out some of the extraneous elements or make them more central. (My midgame, from Prince of Redhand on, is apparently going to be about finding the Rod of Seven Parts. This is not what the modules expected and will mean extra work, but there is no reasonable way to discourage my player without spoiling his engagement with the Adventure Path.)
(3) PC motivation can be an issue. The PCs are repeatedly pulled away from things they may have come to care about, and asked to do something entirely different. Side adventures can help here. For example, if your PCs are strongly attached to Diamond Lake, it can be really good to run some side adventures (perhaps involving the Ebon Triad) in and around the town, rather than sticking to the main line which forces them away.
Be prepared for the PCs not to react the way the module expects: to mistrust people they are supposed to trust, to follow up on clues the module expects them to ignore, etc. Generally there is a way to get back on track but you may have to work hard at it.
If your players are the type to complain when someone else could obviously do the job better, but asks them to do it instead, you might consider dropping Manzorian and feeding in those clues another way. We found Manzorian seriously demotivating. I ended up making him a borderline bad guy, because the player could not stand him as a "good guy".
The module somewhat expects that names like Kyuss and Dragotha will have resonance for your players before the game even starts. If that's not true, you will want to build them up more in game.
Good luck!
Mary
Mary makes some good points.
I set my game in Eberron and opted to move some of the suggested locations to other areas, such as Xendrik and the Demons Waste for atmosphere. I added a couple of side adventures and changed a few encounters to tailorthem to the PCs. This has really connected them to certain people.
I played up the arena fights by adding an anouncer using a magical bullhorn-like device and doing a play-by-play after each action be a PC or NPC. I also fleshed out a few of the other teams as far as individual members and their personalities went.
A few little things like that can really get a group into the story.
I also opted to use the Legacy item rules. The idea was that in the case of a TPK, a new group could find the legacy items of the previous characters. Thank fully that has not happened yet.
(2) You may also want to think about whether the high number of red herrings works for your group. The Adventure Path introduces the Wind Dukes, the Rod of Seven Parts, an enemy pit fiend, the Ebon Triad, and a couple of other plot elements--and then expects not to resolve them. For some groups this is fine, for others it nearly guarantees going off track. You could either trim out some of the extraneous elements or make them more central. (My midgame, from Prince of Redhand on, is apparently going to be about finding the Rod of Seven Parts. This is not what the modules expected and will mean extra work, but there is no reasonable way to discourage my player without spoiling his engagement with the Adventure Path.)
This is an interesting point. I think we see a slew of red herrings in the AP because the goal of the writers is to attempt to give the illusion that the everything is taking place in a living breathing fantasy world. This is especially true considering that the writers tend to be either Greyhawk nuts or, in the case of the overload conversion notes, their nuts for other settings. In all cases your getting a strong bias to make the world itself seem authentic, even if that could potentially distract from the actual story being presented.
If one where to do this as a one off I could really see a strong motivation to chop out all this extraneous fluff. On the other hand, for many DMs, their really is a powerful temptation to throw in material that is more about the worlds the players live in then about the actual adventure at hand - in which case its going to be a more complicated balancing act involving keeping the players on the railroad tracks while still presenting the facade that there are no tracks in this world or this AP.