Well this Thursday I will be kicking off the Age of Worms campaign in the World of Greyhawk, and I have been debating over this or the Savage Tide, and chose this.
I have read over the Diamond Lake Backdrop, Whispering Cairn, and a few other things online and started Three Faces of Evil.
The questions I have are:
1) It seems this campaign is more logically linked than the Shackled City, but is there any chapter which needs help linking to the next?
2) What in your opinion is the weakest chapter and needs the most work on it?
3) Are there any NPC's that should be removed as they are useless or provide little to the campaign?
4 I have a group of 4 people and 1 is fairly new to the game, should I consider sending an NPC along with them?
5)Any mood music you can reccommend for the The Whispering Cairn?
6) Any warnings you can give me, besides be careful of TPKS?
Thanks in advance!
Bruce
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...posting in this thread to bookmark it for my own needs (heh heh heh!)...
Have you or your players played or read much Greyhawk material before? There do appear to be a ton of Easter Eggs for players familiar with old-school Greyhawk. Whether that same sense of familiarity comes through in the Forgotten Realms or Eberron conversions, I can't say.
There are also a few elements carried through from Shackled City, which could be amusing...
Yes, I have only run 2 campaigns that weren't in WoG. One in FR...shortlived, and one in Eberron. The remainder of the campaigns have all been in Greyhawk.
I know a few things from the Shackled City, and I know most of my players will be happy to see some of the Easter Eggs.
I did have a few quibbles with the start of 'The Whispering Cairn'... it begins a little directionless, and involves investigating a pretty darn big dungeon (which in my GMing, has killed at least 7 PCs over three campaigns, and I'm NOT nasty), then going 'back to town' to do some other stuff and then going elsewhere and then going back... there's a fair bit of legwork.
Oh, and 3 Faces of Evil might cause some logistics problems with your players.
"Why are all 3 evil cults living together and not talking to each other?"
"Where are the toilets?"
"Are we there yet?"
Repeat, ad nauseam.
I did have a few quibbles with the start of 'The Whispering Cairn'... it begins a little directionless, and involves investigating a pretty darn big dungeon (which in my GMing, has killed at least 7 PCs over three campaigns, and I'm NOT nasty), then going 'back to town' to do some other stuff and then going elsewhere and then going back... there's a fair bit of legwork.
Oh, and 3 Faces of Evil might cause some logistics problems with your players.
"Why are all 3 evil cults living together and not talking to each other?"
"Where are the toilets?"
"Are we there yet?"
Repeat, ad nauseam.
I do find that the adventure, while spectacular, has a little missing in the beginning of the adventure. I have heard of the Mine Office side trek written somewhere to help start things up, and give a little XP. I know it will be a fairly brutal campaign, but my players are used to that, I don't pull any punches and they are happy about that.
In one of the players first Greyhawk campaign, I ran ToEE, and with 8 players, there was 22 deaths before it was over, but we all had fun, and continued to epic levels.
Three Faces of Evil, I have some stuff prepared for, because I noticed that it it needed it.
Any suggestions for starting up the Whispering Cairn? Or how to get the PC's together?
They have told me the rough ideas they want to make.
Gnome Sor or Wiz
Human Paladin
Half-orc, Dwarf or Human Fighter or Barbarian
Elf Ranger or Cleric
They haven't finalized the ideas, but any advice would be appreciated. I can forsee the party being the gnome sorcerer, human paladin, dwarf fighter, Elf Cleric.
Also any suggestions for music or background noise, I know the players said that would be cool if there was some.
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At the moment my PC's have recently finished "A Gathering of Winds." We started back in May 2007 and have had 7 character deaths so far...
1) It seems this campaign is more logically linked than the Shackled City, but is there any chapter which needs help linking to the next? What in your opinion is the weakest chapter and needs the most work on it?
If one of your players begins the campaign as an apprentice to Allustan, this makes the missions assigned by Allustan easier to accept as a whole. There are several "Go there and seek out info" adventure hooks which might need some reworking for certain groups. So far the adventure that I reworked the most was Three Faces of Evil. I added Smenk as an adventure hook by having him force the players to investigate the mines in exchange for not pressing charges for the deaths of Filge and one of Kullen's goons. I also made the missing priest of Heironeous (named Amon Kyre) a prisoner of the Cathedral of Hextor, added text to Theldrick and the Faceless One's handouts to explain what the cult's purpose in Diamond Lake was, and added some handouts as excerpts from the Nethertome of Trask and the Way of the Ebon Triad. Once the priest was rescued, the Cairn Hills militia was involved and actually participated in the fight against an improved Ebon Aspect.
3) Are there any NPC's that should be removed as they are useless or provide little to the campaign?
My group didn't spend that much time in Diamond Lake so there were a few NPC's that I introduced that I could have ignored. My advice is to choose a few NPC's from Diamond Lake and ignore the rest unless your players love interacting with the locals.
4) I have a group of 4 people and 1 is fairly new to the game, should I consider sending an NPC along with them?
The adventure path is designed for four players but does have some extremely difficult parts. If you're only using the Core Books, give your players an extra NPC, or 5d6 ability scores instead of 4d6. If, however, your players have access to the Spell Compendium, the Complete series, and the PH2, their PC's will be way stronger and able to handle most of what you throw at them if they have a balanced group. Of course, expect a few deaths, especially in Three Faces of Evil and Spire of Long Shadows, so you might need to make a few adjustments if your players are the type that quit after they die.
5)Any mood music you can reccommend for the The Whispering Cairn?
Sorry, not my specialty, but you might want to check out Midnight Syndicate's line of CD's which provide great background for cemetaries and haunted houses.
6) Any warnings you can give me, besides be careful of TPKS?
Overall advice:
1) My biggest complaint is the lack of recurring villains since the adventures seem to assume that the PC's will slaughter everything they come across. If you can save some villains, try to resuse them. Some decent recurring villain examples: Filge, Kullen and company, Theldrick, the Faceless One, Loris Raknian, Okoral, Ilthane, Moreto, & Darl and company.
2) Having some sort of Player's Guide for your players is useful. Check out the RPGenius site for some good examples and other useful downloads.
3) Two useful Age of Worms threads: DM-Created Resources and Best of Age of Worms
4) The most reworked adventure on these boards is possibly Encounter at Blackwall Keep, which some DM's have modified extensively. Check out Peter Fuesz's Blackwall Keep Changes.
Thank you all alot. I appreciate it! I am going to look through the resources you have listed as soon as possible. thank you so much
wasn't there talk of a compilation book for age of worms like they did for shackled city. Or should I try to run it from the dungeons?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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I'll go through my Notes on changes and observations from the first half of the campaign (just TPKed in Spire of Long Shadows, and thusly only passingly familiar with the later half)
Whispering Cairn:
* At least one Area-effect needed
* B&E (with likely murder) at observatory. Paladins in trouble
* Group incarcerated after observatory, Balabar Schmenk bails them out for solving his problem
Three Faces of Evil:
* Why do the three cults neither aid nor attack each other?
* Major logistics woes
* Solution: Add another entrance to mines?
Blackwall Keep:
* Allustan's retreat a bit laughable
* Lizardmen are too weak to challenge players, buff up with class levels
* Replaced anticlimactic "Final Kobolds" with spawn of Illthane (young adult(?) black dragons)
Hall of Harsh Reflections:
* How can mindblast be not "save or TPK"
Champions Belt:
* What happens if the group assaults the temple but does not kill BZ?
* Healing / Resurrection in the Caenoby need justification
* Play up interaction with other teams.
Gathering of Winds:
* WTF?! This adventure has nothing to do with the rest of the campaign.
* "Recovery point" for parties losing CB, but not TPK'ed?
Spire of Long Shadows:
* Play up Magepoint.
* Dungeon small, "half-size adventure"
* Gives XP like candy.
I'm just starting Spire of Long Shadows. Up to this point, I'm not sure if I agree with all of Terra Nova's critique, but it's worth looking at things closely to see what you think. Some additional things to think about:
I. Whispering Cairn.
--I didn't find the adventure hard to start based on the premises they gave in the write up. "You've agreed to meet a couple of your friends to explore an old cairn outside of town. You're meeting at the mine office at sunset tonight." If you've steered character backgrounds to have a reason to want to get rich and get out of Diamond Lake, you start the adventure at the mine office or the opening of the cairn and let them start exploring. That way nobody has to convince anyone to go out there exploring. Once they enter, it kind of replicates the "first dungeon" experience--there's a puzzle to solve, mysteries to explore.
--Encounters to be wary of and possibly water down: acid beetles and mad slasher coming out of the collapsed elevator, the "face" trap, the final battle with the wind warriors.
--Encourage players to see the exploration as a long-term project with multiple forays. Town is nearby, and treasure can be sold to equip better for tougher challenges. Don't push on if you're tired or hurt.
--Make sure players have something in their hands to fight the acid beetle swarm. Torches, at least, alchemist fire or burning hands is better.
II. TFOE
--Lack of toilets easily remedied with a latrine in each part of the complex. Most parties won't notice.
--I thought the tenuous cooperation between the three cults was well explained if you read carefully--DM's chore is to bring that out--the handouts should help. The biggest verisimilitude issue is the absolute need to camp in the dungeon, but it works because the three cults are wary of each other and don't trespass on each other's turf much, and because each part of the complex can be effectively sealed off and fortified to discourage assault. The only problem is if the party can't make it through the Hextor temple in one try, they don't have a safe refuge or an easy route of escape.
--Tough encounters: Hextor temple battle (especially Dire Boar), terrain issues in middle section of Erythnul temple which encourage splitting party (a bad idea), confrontation in Vecna temple, final confrontation with the Ebon Aspect when party is weak from Vecna temple and has to get through the Aspect to escape. If party is on its last legs, consider stashing some obvious goodies in the Faceless One's Lab that will aid in the battle, or have the Aspect emerge later to attack the town, with PC's called to the rescue.
--The kenku maze can be either really fun or really a drag, depending on how you run it. Suggest using tactiles or another erasable mat and erasing behind players as they proceed through the maze. Tac-tiles are ideal because you don't have to telegraph the layout of the maze by placement of the entrance.
III. Blackwall Keep
--Allustan's retreat is lame. I just didn't have him go at all, but instead send the party by themselves. If the party doesn't have communication magic (Quaal's token bird, sending, or whatever), the garrison can send for help once the party relieves the siege.
--It can be a bit of a stretch to get the party headed this direction. I had Marzena send reports about worms coming out of a slain lizardfolk during a smaller pre-adventure raid--the report went to Allustan and Capt Trask at the garrison, so two of my PCs got wind of it. Cf. my campaign journal ("Company of Light") on these boards.
--This is the easiest module of the AP so far. The relief of the siege was a cakewalk. My party opted to try diplomacy with the lizardfolk king directly, and had to kill him and his lieutenant while swarmed with ordinary lizardfolk--this was a challenge, but clearing the place room by room would have been a cinch. Toughest battles were random encounters in the Mistmarsh.
--The egg can create some interesting dilemmas--cf. other threads on this topic for various attempts to carry the egg in a bag of holding or whatever, and DMs' solutions to the problem.
--My PCs captured lizardfolk, so I had a lizardfolk prisoner in Blackwall Keep trigger the spawn incident, rather than Marzena's predecessor, which I thought was a bit of a verisimilitude problem.
IV. Hall of Harsh Reflections
--Think carefully what to do about the suggested "doppelganger replacement." If you've done this to your group before, it probably won't be fun a second time and you'll want to retool some of the hooks to get the party into Sodden Hold.
--Tough encounters in Sodden Hold: just about all of them, but in particular the invisible stalkers on the upper level gave nearly everyone fits. Party probably shouldn't be able to make it through without camping or retreating once, so be prepared for this issue.
--There are a number of logical problems with the dungeon design of Sodden Hold. Most parties won't notice, but there is a thread discussing these in detail. They involve the pit trap on the upper level and the operation of the octopus tank below, mostly.
--Zyrxog's inner sanctum is bad juju. The advanced octopin in the tank was the death of numerous PCs--curiosity kills the cat--and the final encounter is a complete SOB if you play Zyrxog right. Some things to keep in mind: there is an error or two in Z's stat block--mind blast save and/or SR, IIRC. Check the threads for discussion/correction of this. (Once corrected, Z becomes slightly less deadly, but not much). Remember when running Zyrxog that stunned means you can't take actions, but you're not helpless, so Zyrxog can't just automatically brain-suction anyone who is stunned. He's got to grapple and get all four tentacles attached. The stunned PC can't try to escape grapple, but can resist the attachment of more tentacles.
V. Champion's Belt
--As Terra Nova said, healing and raising of casualties from exploration below the Coenoby is likely a necessity. Be prepared to force players to find creative solutions to problem (e.g. teleportation, smuggling the body out in a bag of holding and sneaking back in). Or, have Ekaym bring in the necessary items (licitly or illicitly--he wants party to keep competing in the games so he can find out about his sister).
--The release of the Apostle is also a verisimilitude issue--if Bozal dies, recommend that Raknian has Okoral watch proceedings and UMD a scroll of sending to tell R. when to use his rod of cancellation. If, on the other hand, Bozal lives, Okoral can use sending to tell him to release the U., or Bozal can watch the battle from a secluded spot and release it as soon as the battle begins.
--If the Apostle makes its appearance in the final battle, it's better if it arrives sooner rather than later, before the pugilists have exhausted themselves against each other. Khellek's spells took out half of my party (confusion, feeblemind) before the Apostle arrived, and he and the golems were primarily responsible for its destruction. It worked, but the party didn't get to be the heroes.
--It's not entirely clear how, or whether, the apostle can attack the PCs in the lower level, if they figure out how to release it down there, due to its size.
--First arena battle was a cakewalk (which is OK), but both the dwarves and the froggy (especially the froggy) are deadly encounters.
--Bozal's chest is nasty. My party's pally got lucky on his save, but I foresee this being another reason the party might have to sneak out of the Coenoby in the middle of the night.
--The last nasty is the Alkilith. I had two deaths in this module, due to froggy and the alkilith.
Continued . . .
VI. Gathering of Winds
--In answer to Terra Nova's critique, this module serves three purposes: 1)confrontation with Ilthane, 2)connect the party more closely to the Wind Dukes, since in KoTR it comes out that they have Wind Duke heritage; 3)give them some powerful magic items for the second half of the quest; 4) activate the Talisman of the Sphere.
--Of course, 1) can take place without entering the cairn again, 2) is kind of ancillary to the larger plot, and 3) and 4) can be done in many other ways if the DM wants to cut this module.
--This was a dungeon crawl, and if your players don't like those, you'll want to truncate it and cut out superfluous traps and encounters, or cut the module entirely and replace it with something else. I actually had quite a bit of fun DMing this, and it was a nice change of pace to get away from the worms for a while, but it does make the whole module feel a bit side-questy.
--tough encounters: Ilthane was moderately tough, but the party is full on resources and should prevail, if not walk over her; depending on how the party stumbles around, the encounter with the Earl, the word of law traps, and the black pudding to the north can be a deadly combo, especially if you throw the shadow spider in at the same time; the wind warriors in the vertical fall were nasty; the seal of law was a pain to handle for a chaotic party--3 djinn against an exhausted party is tough; Augerric required two tries for my party, which fortunately by this time had a wizard always prepared for teleporting away.
--interesting roleplaying is possible in the dungeon, especially with the shadow spider and Moreto.
--The big treasure at the end didn't fit a mostly chaotic party too well, so I ended up giving them the option of trading more of these goodies to Allustan and getting better items (I custom made magic items worth about 100K each, but set it up so they will only gradually be able to activate the powers). However, this was a bit unsatisfying--it made the game feel more mercantile than it should. If I could have somehow created items that would have fit both the PCs and the Wind Dukes theme, it would have been better--then I could have stashed them in the dungeon and simplified the horse-trading problem.
--A possible solution if you don't want to play this adventure: eliminate the teleport-paintings from Tenser/Manzorian's castle and design a travel adventure to get to Kuluth-Mar. I'm working up such an adventure right now, as half my party is at 12th level due to being raised once and skipping a significant number of the encounters in AGOW. Briefly, all Tenser knows is that Bucknard went south to examine the records of the Matreyus expedition in Gradsul. (Matreyus was a famed Amedio Jungle explorer). The party will take ship from Hardby, have a couple of encounters along the way (pirate ship, sea monster) to Gradsul. At the Matreyus manor, they encounter a rival, a necromancer type who is after the same records they are. Defeating him, they discover Bucknard went to Kuluth-Mar, then have to journey there by sea and through the jungle, possibly assisting in an assault on a small Scarlet Brotherhood stronghold on the way.
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I. Whispering Cairn.
--Encounters to be wary of and possibly water down: acid beetles and mad slasher coming out of the collapsed elevator, the "face" trap, the final battle with the wind warriors.
The beetles are a PITA, and will have been the death of a good number of PCs, especially if their players are inexperienced, or just don't 'get' that weapons don't work. If you run the encounter as "Roll to hit, ...no, roll, ...no, roll, ...no...", then a lot of players will just keep on whacking, thinking they 'just didn't roll high enough to hit'.
I would advise DMs to be very generous in their descriptions during combat, and give clues that "Yes, you smash several beetles, but they are only a fraction of the total mass", and "You stick the torch into the swarm, the beetles scuttle away from you to avoid the flame, but you singe some of their wings...", or even "The paladin falls to the floor, overcome by the stinging venom, dropping his torch. The beetles swarm over him, avoiding the flaming brand...nope? No takers?...I said, avoiding the flaming brand,...f#$*ing hell, will someone pick up that bastard torch!"I had the slasher appear after the swarm, not at the same time. I couldn't see a reason why the swarm would not attack it, so had it pop out of its nest after they had gone.
This allowed the battered party to retreat up the stairs, just as the slasher's legs started to hook over the lip of the hole, and prompted them to leg it back to the shack asap.
I have two questions. I may have overlooked them, but when you get past the Wind Dukesteh players, if they have the language are supposed to reply to that sculpture's reply of "speak my name." At what point was this name given, and what language is the sculpture speaking in?
I have two questions. I may have overlooked them, but when you get past the Wind Dukes, the players, if they have the language are supposed to reply to that sculpture's reply of "speak my name." At what point was this name given, and what language is the sculpture speaking in?
The sculpture is speaking Auran, the language of the Wind Dukes. The writing in the tomb is in Vaati, which might be the original written form of Auran. See sidebar page 21 for more info.
To learn the name Zosiel, the players can decipher the glyphs in the tomb. E.g. area 24B has a bas-relief that prominently displays Zosiel's name. Even if the players can't read the glyphs, they can make a copy or a rubbing on paper and have Aluustan look at it.
The small earth elemental in area 13 also knows Zosiel's name.
Shackled City seemed give less wealth than what I was used to. I was a player for that one. Does AoW give a decent amount of wealth?
Shackled City seemed give less wealth than what I was used to. I was a player for that one. Does AoW give a decent amount of wealth?
I think all of the Dungeon APs gave out standard wealth by level and a little extra on top. However the system generally makes players poorer then expected over the long term simply because the players convert the wealth into something like a magic ring. All fine and dandy but eventually the magic ring is not good enough - so its sold for 1/2 price. A new magic item is acquired but it too will eventually be out dated and be sold for 1/2 price and this can happen again and again. The net effect is that a gold piece earned early on is at some point sold (in the form of its unit of value in a bought magic item) for 1/2 its value, later that item is sold and this gold piece now has 1/4 its initial value, eventually it might go down to 1/8 and even 1/16th its value over the course of the campaign.
Essentially whats happening is that at any given point your earning expected wealth by level, in fact more then wealth by level if your at all thorough, but because you keep trading items in at a loss your net assets keeps falling with every sale of old magic and purchase of a new item. Depending on class, purchase choices, and whether or not your using the Magic Item Compendium (where stacking magic effects is a lot more common) your actual situation might vary. Fighters for example can probably just keep stacking extra stuff on their old armour, shield and weapon and so loose less this way then a mage might because the mage trades in the Ring of Wizardry II for a more powerful magic item when extra 2nd level slots eventually become nearly irrelevant - but a Ring of Wizardry II was a 40,000 gp item and was sold for only 20,000 resulting in 20,000 gp vanishing from the characters net value with the sale.
Does anyone know if Paizo is planning on re-issuing the Age of Worms in a hard bound book format similar to the Shackled City?
Paizo doesn't own the rights to it--it's up to WotC. They never approved it before the big switch to 4e was announced, and I doubt very much it will ever happen at this point. It's no longer in anyone's interest, and everyone has moved on. It's too bad, but that's how things go with licensed material. You're at the mercy of the licensor.
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--A possible solution if you don't want to play this adventure: eliminate the teleport-paintings from Tenser/Manzorian's castle and design a travel adventure to get to Kuluth-Mar. I'm working up such an adventure right now, as half my party is at 12th level due to being raised once and skipping a significant number of the encounters in AGOW. Briefly, all Tenser knows is that Bucknard went south to examine the records of the Matreyus expedition in Gradsul. (Matreyus was a famed Amedio Jungle explorer). The party will take ship from Hardby, have a couple of encounters along the way (pirate ship, sea monster) to Gradsul. At the Matreyus manor, they encounter a rival, a necromancer type who is after the same records they are. Defeating him, they discover Bucknard went to Kuluth-Mar, then have to journey there by sea and through the jungle, possibly assisting in an assault on a small Scarlet Brotherhood stronghold on the way.
Hi Peruhain, you have more details about this idea?
rol-oeste :-)