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If you're a player in my campaign, please stop reading now. If not, please continue... :)
My Age of Worms campaign is currently at the beginning of the Kuluth Mar investigation, and the three PCs are already nearly 17th level. Here's how it happened:
When we (I'm playing an in-party mage since it's a small group) met Manzorian, things were right on track in terms of level progress, wealth, and so on. It's the mid-point of the campaign in many ways, though, and I wanted to give the players the option to fine-tune their characters and perhaps shake things up a bit. Well, they got shaken up, alright...
I had Manzorian offer to let them use the Pool of Fortune's Folly in his keep, as described in Dragon. That went over passably well; introduced some quirks but nothing really game-shaking.
Then I added a homebrewed "Potentium Orb" or something like that (I don't remember exactly what I called it). It's a major artifact that allows a PC to rebuild his character from the ground up, reselecting classes and feats, etc. It functions only once for any being that touches it and wills the transformation to occur. I used it as a sort of "reset point" to let the players make different choices for their characters, and it worked well. No really game-shifting deviations took place: I think the soulknife swapped out some rogue levels for more soulknife, the psion took a slightly different mix of spells, and my daggerspell mage swapped out his wizard levels for sorcerer levels.
Then I had Manzorian offer to let them draw from his Deck of Many Things. (I picked up the Green Ronin accessory and thought this would be a great time and place to introduce it.)
First went the gnome psion: 3 cards, says he...
1) The Throne: He now has a keep just outside of Greyhawk, a bonus to his Diplomacy, and is seen as a leader. Hmm. OK, I can deal with that.
2) The Talons: All of his magic items were stripped away, permanently. This seemed horrifying at first, but the player made a decent argument that psionic items are different, and after much consideration I allowed the exception. I also ruled that items blessed to them by the Wind Dukes in their previous adventures in order to combat the Age of Worms were exempted by the influence of a higher power. He lost a lot of good gear, but not everything. (We've been playing with some exceptions to the magic/psionic transparency rules, and I had a moment of pity. My compassion for his plight was not to last, however--see card #3)
3) The Sun: He gained a random medium wondrous item (randomly rolling a headband of intellect!), and 50,000 XP. That bumped him from 13th level to 16th level!
He was already the most powerful combatant of the group, and those three levels would likely have relegated the other two PCs to background support roles for the rest of the campaign. That stung, but I'm the one who introduced the deck in the first place and it would have been unfair, IMO, to try and take it back.
The rogue/soulknife, arguably showing better sense than the rest of us, declined to draw any cards.
I had my daggerspell mage draw two cards:
1) The Knight: Yay, I got a 4th level fighter to babysit. :-D
2) The Moon: 1d4 wishes! Rolling randomly, I got...one wish. Doh.
I could have done a lot of things with that wish, but foremost on my mind as DM was the level imbalance that would have made the game less fun for two of the three players (myself included). So, I went ahead and wished for the effects of the Sun card to be applied to my mage and the soulknife as well. That was clearly not within the normal parameters of a wish spell, and if it wasn't in the best interests of the group I wouldn't have allowed it to work--but it seemed like the best solution to the level gap and was perfectly in-character for the mage. As a backlash for taxing the arcana of the Deck of Many Things past its limits, I had Manzorian's deck scatted across the multiverse. *Poof*
(Now Manzorian is none too happy with Allustan's pupil...)
Anyway, so now I need to retool my Age of Worms campaign to accelerate the final chapters, or maybe skip over some parts. (I don't want the PCs hitting epic levels before they face the finale.)
Any suggestions?
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Howabout sending Warduke to kill them all?
Just kidding. Seriously, I would suggest continuing with Spire of Long Shadows. Leave most of that adventure as written since its pretty difficult anyways. But I would suggest beefing up the Harbinger. Then I would run Prince of Redhand, Into the Wormcrawl Fissure, and Dawn of a New Age. Library of Last Resorts and Kings of the Rift are great adventures, but they aren't essential to the main Age of Worms plot. Prince of Redhand has little combat so little has to changed, except perhaps beefing up the Blessed Angels in case your PC's decide to attack Zeech, as well as making the Ebon Aspect more powerful. Darl and his cronies could be introduced in the Wormcrawl Fissure. Dragotha's phylactery could be hidden in the same place, but let your players get there before the dragons. At worst this should allow your players to reach level 22 instead of 21 if my calculations are correct, since they'll be getting less XP.
Another idea: Howabout giving the Harbinger or the Ebon Aspect the ability to permanently drain levels?
As cool as a Deck of Many Things is, this is the reason why I would never introduce one in a campaign. Either your players get insanely powerful or really bad things happen to them. I'll stick with Tenser's fountain.
I'm not sure I'd do much at all. If you bump everything up they'll just get ever more powerful.
I'd run each adventure but go over them carefully to see if you can remove encounters without disrupting the story. If you can get rid of between one third and half the encounters this would certainly help. They'll get less XP for the encounter they do run so that will contribute. Cut all the story award XPs in half or even quarter them.
Hopefully this will get them back on track after some time into their 3rd adventure.
Its unfortunate that you have to do this as it will take a bit of the flavour away from the campaign and the next four or five sessions are going to be a tad easy for you players but I think this is the best solution.
Do a search on these threads for "Swirly Tables" or "Swirly Potions" and you'll find my homebrew random magical effects table that are a hoot to roll on. That said, they are campaign ruiners - I never allow random permanent magical effects like this in a serious campaign due to their usually significant (and negative) impact it has on a story. We use the tables in one-shots, and only one-shots.
Looks like the Deck of Many Things amounts to a watered-down version of these portals. But I'm sure you'll figure it out.
...figure out the adjustment to your campaign, that is....
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Then I had Manzorian offer to let them draw from his Deck of Many Things. (I picked up the Green Ronin accessory and thought this would be a great time and place to introduce it.)
I got one from Paizo and used it before Library of Last Resort. Wasn't too bad, except it turned the NG Druid NE, and caused his animal companion to turn against him.
Anyway, so now I need to retool my Age of Worms campaign to accelerate the final chapters, or maybe skip over some parts. (I don't want the PCs hitting epic levels before they face the finale.)
Well, in addition to removing some encounters as suggested above, put the PCs on a time crunch. Let them know, in some of the adventures, that the enemy is considerably ahead of them. Maybe the harbinger is about to escape? Maybe Brazzamel is about to get the phylactary?
Possibilities:
- Have the Harbinger greet them when they arrive at the Spire. Perhaps he can give them a tour of the monument to the glory of Kyuss, pumping them for information via communication and divinations as they progress? This also ties into the acceleration of the story.
- Library of Last Resort: As written, Cleric has defeated the Roc King before the PCs make it to the island.. You could have him already have completed one or two more by the time the PCs arrive (and drop Krekie). Then, the PCs have to rush to defeat the last one (perhaps Krathonatos?) and then immediately deal with Cleric and friends. To improve the exploration theme, when the Druid challenges them, his first action is to Tree Stride across the Island and engage in a guerilla war against the PCs. Summoned and gated monsters don't count for XP, so you can be liberal with them without increasing the advancement.
- Kongen-Thulnir: Perhaps some diplomancy gets them one or both keys without the dungeon crawl aspects of it?
- Wormcrawl Fissure: You're probably back on track by this point, but you can drop the number of Avolkia priestess.
Alternately, just talk to the players and say, "Um, guys, I think that I shouldn't have had you draw from the Deck, it's gonna break the campaign." And see what they come up with. They may be perfectly happy to remove the "extra levels" but leave everything else alone, or they may agree to make it just 1 extra level.
Note that in 2nd edition, the 50,000 XP was only a small portion of what was needed to level up, once you reached higher levels. You could make an argument that this item, in 3.5, should only grant 5,000XP, or that it grants this absurd 50,000 XP but anything over what is required to level up is "lost" since you can't accumulate XPs and level up multiple levels at once, anyway.
I inserted a Deck of Many Things into a campaign once, discovered while the party was checking out the World Serpent Inn.
This was easily 6 or 7 years ago, and it was the first time I decided to try out the Deck in 3rd edition.
By the end of the session, one of the characters shot up several levels, while another was irretrievably imprisoned on another plane.
I, admittedly, took the cheesey way out - much to my players' relief. (Odd, no?) I made the dreaded "dream sequence" call, and called the session a wash.
I would remove the XP awards for the Visions/Revelations in SoLS and modify the Harbinger's stats a little (maybe add 80 hit points or something). Your group will still probably raise a level and be at level 17 for Prince of Redhand but since most of that adventure is roleplaying you could still run it and just remove the story based XP awards. With luck they wont advance in level and will still be at level 17 for Library of Last Resort which is only 1 level above target for that adventure. Remove an encounter here and there in Library and Kings of the Rift and you should be pretty close to being back on track by Into the Wormcrawl Fissure.
The Deck of Many Things keeps the game interesting for me as DM, but - to take a term from our Warhammer Fantasy Battle game - man is it a wonky fanatic. It's the "save or die" problem, but cutting in both directions and on steroids, if that makes sense. I don't know if I would use it if I were committed to an overarching plot, like the AOW. In fact, I certainly wouldn't. Only bust out the 'deck when your campaign needs a shake up. Badly.
As for suggestions, you admitted the Wish was out of bounds - you could always have it backfire and strip the psion back to his regular level. The permanent level drain suggested above's not a terrible idea, either - you fight so many undead over the course of the age of worms that the party probably won't know the difference between the abilities you've added and the ones their foes already had.
It's probably too late for this suggestion, but I think I'd have wished that Manzorian never offered the deck of many things to the party...
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Thanks for all of the suggestions, folks! This is very helpful!
It is too late to go back and change the deck situation without really applying a heavy DM hand, and my players would resent it tremendously. I'm the one who bought the deck, brought it to the game as a special surprise, and offered it for their use through Manzorian, and I knew it could have massive consequences for the campaign when I did so. I decided from the beginning to stand by whatever it threw at us.
While it had some big ramifications on the campaign, the outcome could have been a lot worse. It just forces me to tailor the remainder of the adventure path a bit to fit their new level. Since we only have three PCs and no way to turn undead, this level boost is probably a much-needed blessing for the group's survivability, the more I think on it. I'm just glad the deck provided a means (even if I had to stretch things a bit) to re-establish equality within the party.
I think I will be dropping the XP rewards for the visions in Spire of Long Shadows; they always seemed strange to me anyway. I know they compensate for the lower number of combat encounters in that adventure to keep character progression on track, but that necessity no longer exists in my campaign. :) I will still give them a story completion award if they manage to witness all of the visions, though. It just seems fair, even though they'll probably reach 17th level before they're half way through the Spire.
Likewise, I'll probably ditch any extra XP rewards from Prince of Redhand, and possibly skip one or two of the remaining adventures, as suggested above. I may streamline the process of recovering Dragotha's phylactery, too. Perhaps as the Age of Worms looms closer and signs point to greater urgency, Manzorian Tenser will rethink his outward neutrality on the quest and lead Eligos, Celeste, and the high level psionict my PCs met in Greyhawk, on a quest to make Dragotha vulnerable--even as the PCs seek out the dracolich himself. Imagine if the PCs end up fighting Dragotha while waiting for a signal from their friends that the phylactery is destroyed. They could end up in a situation where they're trying NOT to kill him before the signal, thus drawing out the fight and making it more intense. What good is being able to one-shot Dragotha if you can't take the shot and have to let him chew on you instead? :-D
Anyway, thanks for all of the good ideas! Much appreciated.
I'll never use a Deck at the table again. Pure catastrophe.
To the OP, I suggest introducing the next module that is equivilant to their level. Just shorten the bread crumb trail to Kyuss.
you could reduce the tresure also. that would compensate for the extra power they gained from the extra levels.
Good stuff. Don't forget that by being three levels ahead, they will earn less XP (they are mostly higher level than the CR's now) and need more XP to gain a level, so they actually won't get to 17th level in any great hurry at all, maybe not even until they reach the Island of Tilagos if you ditch all the story awards (which is a good idea).
Deleting too many pieces of the adventure path would be a shame, especially at this stage (personally, I'd ditch some or all of the Island of Tilagos, not anything prior).
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I thought about just jumping ahead, but there's some good story development in there that I'd hate to miss. I don't want to gloss over Dragotha's phylactery, so I'm rethinking my decision to have Manzorian & company handle that part of the plot. As much as it could be cool to have the PCs trying to hold out for a "good to go" signal during the fight with Dragotha, I'm honestly not sure if they could possibly survive it. Heck, Two casters and a rogue will be lucky to survive one or two rounds with him without more targets for his devastating attacks. They'll certainly need those extra levels they picked up, in any case.
I think what I might do is continue as planned through Spire and Zeech's party until the PCs meet with Lashonna, and then, instead of sending them off to the Library of Last Resort, I'll simply establish that Balakarde already went there and broke the enchantment keeping the phylactery's location a secret. Now Lashonna has done her homework and knows where to send the PCs, kicking off Kings of the Rift and skipping the Library.
To set other the events of that module underway, I might have Zeech's little minion eavesdrop on the conversation somehow, so that when the little twerp goes to meet Dragotha, he has the information that leads to the great confrontation in the rift.
All I really have to do is find a way to insert Darl Quethos (or his hand) somewhere.
I'm still nervous about the level progression, though: the sun card put the PCs near the threshhold for 17th level, so they'll definately hit it before the end of Spire unless I cut a lot of encounters. We'll see how it goes.
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All I really have to do is find a way to insert Darl Quethos (or his hand) somewhere.
Perhaps Darl is on a quest to retrieve the lost knowledge of the Order of the Storm located in Kolgen-Thulnir. What else but the seeking of secrets would those wacky clerics of Vecna do when they go adventuring? Although it might get a tad confusing with dragons, giants, and Darl and his groupies wandering around.
Although it might get a tad confusing with dragons, giants, and Darl and his groupies wandering around.
"Tonight, playing for a stadium packed with fans, giants, and dragons, the hard-core thrash sound of VECNA!!!! And now let's hear it for the opening act: Darl Quethos!"
I hate to sound like a know-it-all, but the most your uber character (the one who drew the Sun card from the DOMT) would be able to advance would be one level. Period. It's very clear on page 58 of the PHB. The extra XP may put him/her somewhat ahead of the rest of the group, but it's far from capaign busting IMHO.
Any suggestions?
Yeah, it's all good! Now they're the right level for Spire of Long Shadows! Lol!
Seriously, though, just keep going with it. Don't give XP for the visions in SoLS, it's unnecessary. The adventure won't be a complete pushover, but it won't be really difficult either, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Their level gains will be a lot slower and by the time they meet Kyuss they'll be around where they should.
Edit: and having read the rest of the thread, looks like you figured this out for yourself already. You artists really are smarter than you look. *ba-dump-ching!* :D
the hard-core thrash sound of VECNA!!!!
The Sound of Vecna? Do you have to lose your voice to use that?
I have also had some...interesting experiences in my time with the Deck of Many Things. My worst encounter, however was with a Bag of Beans, using the 2nd edition Magic Item Compendium Volumes multiple random charts. Bear in mind I was NOT the DM but a player in this game.
The Party was already full of conflict, in game,not OOC, my Drow Weaponmaster character being the focus of most of it. The party rogue, a halfling thief had gotten a Bag of Beans a little earlier in the adventure , and had decided to plant a bean while we were camped in the wilderness, en route to some baddies castle. The first effect, permanent confusion on the planter. He rolled to drop his held items. This scatter the entire bagfull of magical beans across the area (I'm starting to think the DM was being particularly kooky, as he didn't require these beans to be planted to take effect).
The resting party was next hit by an Ice Storm (bean conjured), we thought we were under attack and began to flee down the mountain path trying to find out assailant. The ground began to rise in a giant 100' column of stone underneath us, to a height of about 200' up I believe. Then a strange magical horse and saddle appears. The character that mounted it (which was really stupid, and believe me I tried in Char to discourage them) was given a one way trip to Gehenna I believe.
We still had NO idea what was really happening. Then the rogue backstabbed the party cleric, the wizard's cloak turned into a rug of smothering, a minor death appears and a round later the column of stone disintigrated (that was part of the proscribed effect). Essentially, total chaos ensued. Thank goodness my Drow could levitate. The rest of the party miraculously, minus the cleric and the now Yugoloth-food Psionicist, survived. It was crazy, but we laughed our butts off when the DM told us what had caused it.