I am writing this as I type so things may be dicussed out of order. The next installment will be more intesting. I was not going to do a journal at first, but I decided to try it.
My 1st group found a new DM. I mean new to DMing. He will now DM for us so myself and the other DM from this group can finally play together which at least puts my other campaign journal on hold for a while.
My other group had two DM's that never played together so now I am pulling relief DM duty. The final question was do they want something difficult or moderate. They wanted difficulty so I gave them AoW.
The classes:
Spellblade: Fighting caster type from the Tome of Secrets book. One of the other DM's
Barbarian: aka the spear thrower
Cleric: This guy always plays the cleric
Sorcerer: A new player to me, but not to the group. He seems to be quiet capable, and will give me much grief over the months, darn casters. :)
Rogue: This is one of the other DM's. He plans to sneak attack for many dice.
This event occured two weeks ago so and I cant remember too much, but I will tell what I can. The group set off towards "The Whispering Cairn", and I had them meet my DMNPC, who is not officially part of the group but will be known by the group in case he needs to fill in for a missing player. They did not have much trouble with the Cairn. I take that back, most of them did not have much trouble with the Cairn until the met the elemental guys with the swords. Two players went down, and before that a ghast beat the barbarian down and paralyzed him, luckily the rogue/tank was there or there would have been half-orc soup on the menu. Why isn't the barbarian the tank? He likes to throw spears, and he does not have point blank shot or precise shot and he does not care.
They did better than I thought, but they still have to bury the bones of the ghost. They diplomacied the ghost into opening the door in the chamber of the wind duke before burying the bones, and he told them there would be trouble if they reneged on the promise.
After defeating the wind dukes the session ended. We should be able to finish chapter 1 and start chapter 2 during the next session.
This post will include two sessions. The players did some information gathering and ended up striking a deal with Kullen. The deal was that they would give Kullen the Necromancer's eyes in exchange for the information to where he was. Kullen even gave them a key to enter the observatory. The players never really got into in danger when fighting Filge, and took him alive. They were about to off him, but he insisted he would be more valuable alive, and in one piece to Smenk who would pay well for him. Smenk agrees to the trade, and strikes a deal with the players to enter the mines. He offers money to play on their greed, and uses the innocent victims(citizens) as another reason to take care of the local Ebon Triad cult. The players agreed, and killed several guards on their way into the mines. They went after Theldrick cult first. They actually killed all the skeletons, commoners, and first two fighters a lot quicker than I expected, but luckily the rogue failed his perception check to locate a trap, and a silent alarm was tripped. Theldrick who is a Warlord from the Tome of Secrets book, instead of a cleric, gathered his two cohorts(clerics), and the zombies.
I had the one of the zombies open the door into the battle area, as the other one was approaching. I used them to barricade the door, while the clerics buffed up and shot an occasional arrow at the PC's. A couple of rounds later the Tiefling fighters made their appearance and harassed the party from the balcony with arrows. Whenever the zombies were about to go down the clerics channeled negative energy, healing them back to full on more than one occasion. Eventually the the zombies went down, and the barbarian made his way towards Theldrick. Theldrick proceeded to power attack and do a lot of damage. Eventually the rest of the party came in, and just when the barbarian was about to go down the cleric healed him. Of course, in the words of WoW players throughout the land, he just drew Aggro or DPS. If those are the wrong words I apologize, but anyway Theldrick 5-foot stepped his way all the way to the cleric. He also had his archers fire on the cleric until he dropped. The next key was taking the sorcerer out, since he(the sorcerer) thought it was a good idea to color spray the fighters, and I almost forgot to mention the clerics were down at that point. Just as I was in reach of the wizard Theldrick got blasted with burning hands, and dropping to negative 1. Alas the players were victorious.
They then assaulted Grallak's lair with much ease, other than the Ogre Zombie, and Boneclaw I inserted into the adventure. Grallak went down for the count the pretty quickly. I was supposed to change him into an archivist. Well actually I did, but I forgot his stats at the house.
For the next session The Faceless One will end the adventures of these ruffians. Due to his high intelligence I get to play him like I want to, which means I take the kid gloves off. Tune in again, in about a month to view my announcement of how many new character sheets I get to hand out.
Well ladies N gents, in about 3 days the party faces potential death again. Now since I plan to use this to practice my creative writing skills, hopefully the next version will be more entertaining. I plan on giving a recap of past events. I have told them the gloves were coming off. I know some of you are ashamed I kept the gloves on, but I will make up for it.
<snip>there was a longer statement, but I sounded to much like Allen(killer DM). I need to develop my own style while making fun of my player's deaths</snip>
If I can't be original I will at least try to be entertaining however.
Well ladies N gents, in about 3 days the party faces potential death again. Now since I plan to use this to practice my creative writing skills, hopefully the next version will be more entertaining. I plan on giving a recap of past events. I have told them the gloves were coming off. I know some of you are ashamed I kept the gloves on, but I will make up for it.
<snip>there was a longer statement, but I sounded to much like Allen(killer DM). I need to develop my own style while making fun of my player's deaths</snip>
If I can't be original I will at least try to be entertaining however.
Chuckling evilly
One should never forewarn one's players that the kid gloves are coming off until they are at the table, concerro.
And I rather think that Allen would have little problem with another "Killer GM" on the boards. Age of Worms is certainly an appropriate adventure path to gleefully litter the campaign history with heaps of broken (characters') corpses.
Although I do recommend that you try to keep one sap alive throughout the entirety of it - or, at least up to the very end. Badly maimed, scarred and clinically insane are perfectly acceptable conditions. ^_^
One should never forewarn one's players that the kid gloves are coming off until they are at the table, concerro.
And I rather think that Allen would have little problem with another "Killer GM" on the boards. Age of Worms is certainly an appropriate adventure path to gleefully litter the campaign history with heaps of broken (characters') corpses.
I'll second Turin's above remarks. I do hope for more Killer GMs. My campaign journal was done in part for precisely that reason, to give a nod to the early editions of the game, and inspire the daily doses of PC demise that often accompanied it. Thus, you and/or your GM, whoever he/she may be, have my blessing to grease away every last PC in sight. Just do us the favor of writing about it in painstaking and gory detail, if you please:)
Preparation(Written before the actual session)
One of players could not make it. That just means more pain for everyone else. I still have a fighter, sorcerer, rogue, barbarian, and a cleric lined up for the firing squad. Before I go any farther I will have to note I am writing this part before the actual session.
Now to continue, I noticed that the CR for pathfinder is PC class level - 1. In other words the CR 6 faceless one is only a CR 5, so I have to give him 7 levels of wizards. I never grinned so hard in my life. Why? I have an excuse to bring the pain and it’s a legal one. Another reason is I can’t seem to convince my players, who have no faith in casters that don’t blast, that battlefield control is the name of the game. So I did a slight rebuild on the old Faceless one. They may not like my idea, but they will believe in it.
I will also have an advanced fire elemental to take in place of those two worthless acolytes, and the dire weasel. I will also give The Faceless One a silenced dispel magic as a prepped spell in case they get smart enough to use that silence scroll found in Theldrick’s area. I will also give the Faceless one a potion of invisibility in place of some useless trinket I am sure he was given. That means the first time they take notice of him will be when he tags them with a fireball.
I will add a HD or two to the Ebon Aspect to make sure is properly CR’d. I am sure they will unload on The Faceless One, and if they survive will have nothing left for the Ebon Aspect. I can’t wait to see the look on their eyes to when they find the letter. If they don’t catch on to what they have awakened, that will only make it better. I don’t know who it will be but the Ebon Aspect will have someone’s soul.
I have not decided exactly how I will handle the ease of chapter 3. I want to keep the terror up, but I am too lazy to redo the chapter. Maybe I will let it play out, and just run chapter 4 as 3 levels of fighting, to make up for the ease of chapter 1.
The Session
The session today did not get anyone killed, partly because of an error on my part, and then I felt sorry for them. Oh well. The good news is that I get to try again in chapter 3 in about a month. I will most likely be changing some things for that one, but information on that will have to wait until next time.
One of the players was diseased by a Tomb Mite when they invaded Filch’s observatory(Session 2, Chapter 1) about 3 days in game time. It is now 3 days later and the ability damage is starts to set in. Even better news is that the cleric decided take a level in Warlord(Tome of Secrets) so he couldn’t do anything about it even if he were 5th level. The cleric did have a lesser restoration prepared, one spell gone, and combat has not even began yet. After walking around the maze they ran into some kenkus. These were supposed to be replaced by Varags from MM 4, but the stats disappeared so I had to use the bird men. The only goal for them was to drain party resources, which did not go so well. Eventually they beat up the 12 bird men attacking them in the labyrinth and found 4 more. The group thought it was easy picking, but they did not anticipate a Harpoon Spider(MM 3) to be there for backup. Using his ranged attack I would snatch them off the ground, and go into grapple mode. I even dropped one guy to take him into negatives. Eventually they started to whittle away at his XP so I had a Wight come in, but not an Wight; It was a variant wight, and the smack talking rogue was the first to receive an energy drain. After expending all of their spells they decided to rest. I did not have any enemies to harass them with, but I figured the Faceless one would notice and be prepared. Those two worthless acolytes were replaced by a fire elemental. The plan was to have them surround it and then drop a fireball on them, but they defeated it to quickly. I had to resort to summoning a Rhino, and having it gore a player for 30 + points of damage. Why I was taking their hit points away I decided the Faceless one would show up in round two and drop Black Tentacles on them. The CMD was 22. I did make an error with the spell, but oh well nobody died in the fight so I guess all is well that ends well. Oh I guess you want details. The rogue was the first one to stand face to face with the mighty caster before receiving a color spray to drop him out of the fight. The barbarian and the artificer decided to enter melee, but the Faceless One was not having any of that. He got away from the two and hit the barbarian with Manyjaws. One spell up, and one barbarian down. The next target was the artificer. He went down. At this point the barbarian and the artificer were down, but luckily by this time the tentacles were about to expire, the rogue was recovering, and the Faceless One was bleeding out. The party decided to search the area, where they found the note detailing the rising of the aspect of the Overlord. They were so happy to escape with their lives they did not realize the last battle had not been fought, or they were in denial. After allowing them to celebrate I called for a wisdom check. I then explained what was happening in the pool, and asked them if they wanted the fight to be now or later. I have never in my life seen such looks of despair. They opted for the fight, and the Overlord was waiting. He did not kill anyone, ok so I fudged a crit into a non-crit, but I took them to the brink of death again, and they were afraid for their lives. They did quite well, but since I have never been that close to a TPK before I figure it’s only a matter of time before I start handing out character sheets. I would say I ran at 95% efficiency this time. I figure chapter 3 may be too easy, but with a month to mess around I may be able to put fear into their souls again.
Hello my fellow Pathfinderites. This weekend as expected nobody died. Chapter 3 of Age of Worms was way too easy. Things started off in Diamond Lake where the party was contacted by the militia commander, and Allustan. They were needed to check on Black Wall Keep, and provide assistance if needed. They arrived and beatup on the lizardfolk. After much information gathering they decided to “visit” the tribe. After curing a few infected lizardfolk and putting several clues together realized there was a greater force behind the scenes. They spoke to the shaman, luckily for them they did not fight her because they would have been in no condition to fight the Lizard King. The party tried to parley with him, but he was not in a talking mood, and after enough of the paladin’s jibber jabber, he initiated combat. He took down 3 party members during combat, but they prevailed, saved by the sorcerer once again. After they defeated him they returned to the keep to find the remaining inhabitants afraid of some undead monstrosity. The braved the depths of the keep and defeated 3 spawns of kyuss. One player got a worm on him, and opted to attack the spawn, rather than take a standard action to knock the worm off. It almost got to his brain when the paladin made the heal check. I am expecting that one to die before the end of chapter 4.
After making sure the keep was okay, they spoke to the militia commander, and Allustan who directed them to Sharn, and there was happiness throughout the land, or at least in the party. Once they arrived in Sharn they sealed the deal on the treaty with the lizard folk, and visited Eligos. He set them up for free lodging, and they began to investigate the Ebon Triad when they came across the crazy guy muttering about the Age of Worms. They latched onto him for as long as they could, or at least until two of them saw the party druid(new member) running out of the inn they were staying at. The party member had apparently stabbed the innkeeper and run off, but strangely enough the party member was still upstairs sleep. After questioning the party member, I take that back, while questioning the party member, the local patrons(drunks) were getting rowdy and demanding justice, due to the influence of an elf(I used the Shadow Assassin in place of the doppelganger). He demanded the druid be handed over to him for “justice”. The party refused so he decided to take her by force. They had the elf beat, but the paladin offered him quarter if he were to surrender. He surrendered, and was given two options. He could serve the Silver Flame for a specified amount of time or he could go to jail. Elaxan(the elf) promptly chose jail, which was not what the paladin was expecting, but a deal is deal. The paladin and party was in the process of hauling him down to the local city watch district when he decided to take Elaxan’s magical gear, to which the would-be assassin pointed out would be stealing. Oh well, so much for that idea. The paladin also tried to convince the city watch to turn him over to the party. That request was denied, but they did get the information concerning the assassin’s boss and location, rather easily. They set off to visit Telakin, not knowing anything of his abilities. I did not use the mimics that were supposed to be in the first room, but I did use the trap door, and since there was no rogue-type in the party someone fell in. They eventually got past the trap and went into the room of many planks. The invisible stalkers had fun pushing them off the planks and into the water. The party eventually defeated them, but they were in any condition to continue. This was a good stopping point.
For the next session two players that missed this one will be there, and we might have two more players. I am not expecting everyone to make it out alive.
I will be combining 2 sessions in today’s retelling. After defeating the invisible stalkers the group decided to leave the hideout to get healed up. I had 3 new players, dwarven fighter, a human fighter, and an elven scout. The first change I made was removing water that was supposed to house the octopus. When the elevator lowered everyone down the party was attacked by goblin rogues in the surprise round. They regrouped quiet well and slaughtered the little bastards. One goblin however was still alive. Our paladin wanted to take him prisoner, but one of the new guys(16 years old and bloodthirsty) sealed his(the goblin’s) fate. The paladin left the party, and the player did not have a backup so he watched the rest of the session as a spectator. After dispatching the goblins they round they went to searching and the scout found a trap. He did not do to well on the disable device check and fell into the silenced and illusioned trap taking falling damage, but avoiding the spike. Eventually they got him out, and they continued on to the maze of mirrors which I had to shorten due to time constraints. The interrogation room was changed into a place for a bone devil and some bearded devils. They wanted to make a deal allowing the bone devils to fight a PC one on one, and the loser would have to leave. Nobody took the bait, so it was a free for all. The party handled the fight easier than I expected, and moved on to Telakin who I made into a Rashaka(bestiary version, and his Rashaka(Eberron campaign setting) minions. They took out the minions, and it seemed to be a stalemate so he packed up his things and left. They had no way to overcome the DR 15 (good and piercing). This ended that session.
The next session had only 6 players, but I only had the combats set up for four people. The first order of business was research on Kyuss and the Ebon Triad. I gave them some insider information. After that they decided to sell the dragon egg at an auction house. I honestly had no idea what the value of the egg would be so it was sold for about 8000 gp. I later came up with an in game reason as to why the egg went for such a low price. That will be revealed next session however. After getting magic items they decided to go after the mindflayer. They found his lair, and beat up on the bad guys. We ended the session after the fight with the Dolgaunt cleric. Next week the difficulty rating jumps back up to normal, and I think there will be brain Hors' Dourves on the menu next session. That may be the last session however. I have a feeling the group feels like I am too hard on them.
Next Journal Update: Around March 16
This session marked the end of chapter 4. Two players dropped from the campaign so I had a githzerai rogue, human cleric/warlord(3rd party class), gnome druid, dwarven fighter, dwarven sorcerer, and a half-orc barbarian. The first fight was against the advanced octopin. The fighter tried to break the class but make only managed to crack it. The octopin crawls out of the glass container on the side of the fighter away from the party. They hurt him pretty badly, but in the process he tags the fighter with both claws and does 45+ points of damage because of the rending attack. After dispatching the octopin they moved on to the brain statue, but the rogue disabled it before I could dominate anyone. Next up was the room with the vrock. Due to the size of the party I put in two Vrocks, but that trap was never set off either. However it should be noted that the alarm spell was not detected, allowing The mindflayer and company(2 advanced monk dolgaunts, and an advanced erinyes with 4 levels of scout) were now ready for them. They did pick up two cursed items of my own design. I would post them here, but I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun. If they use them I will be sure to keep you informed. After bypassing the Vrocks without a fight only had to go down a hallway before meeting Zyrxog, but a wraith appeared in front of the door. The party rogue decided to go into melee. Luckily he made his fort save. He then got smart and left so the party could fight on their terms. They killed the monster and moved on.
They enter Zyrzog’s domain, and he informs them of how he will eat their brains, how he will kill them. The rogue wins initiate and runs to where the mindflayer would be if he were not levitating. Z(Zyrzog) decides to cast sleet storm to lock the party down. The Erinyes has true seeing, and the dolgaunts have blindsight so they don’t care about the vision impairments caused by the storm. The erinyes lays into the rogue with a few arrows. The rest of the party slowly make their way forward. Eventually the barbarian and the fighter meet the dolgaunts, and instead of doing damage they spend the next few rounds disarming the weapons. When they try to pick the weapons up they trip the tanks. When the tanks try to stand up they grapple them. I thought it was funny, but the players were not amused. The erinyes continued to lay arrows into the rogue, and occasionally sent a few into the sleet storm. At one point the cleric got past the barrier of the storm and got pelted by arrows. He quickly realized that was not where he wanted to be and headed back into the sleet storm. After much taunting by the rogue the mind flayer decided to do down and pay the rogue a visit who had down nothing to help the party. To make a long story short the mindflayer got a mid-fight lunch(brains on the Barbie) and went back up in the air again. Eventually someone decided to dispel the sleet storm which the mindflayer did not like so he starting hurling fireballs, killing one of the dolgaunts. The Erinyes decided to get rid of the tanks before things got out of hand. They both failed their will saves and ran off like like cowards. I almost forgot to mention one of the fireballs took the cleric to meet his god. That left the mindflayer, and the erinyes against a druid, and a sorcerer. They were desperate at that point, and start using the spells to their best abilities. The druid starting summoning and the sorcerer finally started to pass the SR of the erinyes who was doing the most damage. The kicker was casting wood warp on the bow so the erinyes had to enter melee. They also dispelled the leviate and fly of the mindflayer, but he thought he would get more brains, so he did not care. My dice betrayed me, and nobody else would fail will saves. Darn those dice gods. At least I had one serving of brain stew before my bad guys perish. The rogue’s player has left the group for the time being. They did raise the cleric, and now they are on to chapter 5. The next session begins “The Champion’s Belt”. I will add that the fighter is brand new to D20, and he shows much promise. He is better tactically than some players than have been player for much longer. That concludes this account of Age of Worms. I will try to be more consistent with the postings. Tune in next week to witness more horrors from the Age of Worms.
I have decided to give back to my fellow DM's, considering all I have taken. From now on when I post I will include a homebrew NPC baddie that I used. Here is the first.
Xenila (4 levels of Scout)
Some calamity has befallen this angelic warrior. Wings stained black shear the air as her merciless eyes search for a target.
Erinyes CR 8
LE Medium outsider (devil, evil, extraplanar, lawful)
Init +13; Senses darkvision 60 ft., see in darkness, true seeing; Perception +19
Defense
AC 28(29), touch 17, flat-footed 21 (+6 Dex, +1 dodge, +6 natural, +5 armor )
hp 150 (9d10+45)+(4d8+24)
Fort +14, Ref +12, Will +7
DR 5/good; Immune fire, poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10; SR 21
Offense
Speed 40 ft., fly 50 ft. (good)
Melee +1 longsword +20/+15/10 (1d8+10/19–20) +1d6
Ranged +1 flaming composite longbow +20/+20/+15/10 (1d8+6/×3 plus 1d6 fire) or rope +21 touch (entangle)
The ranged attack modifiers presented assume rapid shot is used
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 12th)
Constant—true seeing
At will—fear (single target, DC 21), greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), minor image (DC 19), unholy blight (DC 21)
1/day—summon (level 3, 2 bearded devils, 50%)
Statistics
Str 24, Dex 28, Con 23, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 23
Base Atk +12; CMB +19; CMD 38
Feats Combat Reflexes, Dodge (B), Mobility(B), Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Shot on the Run , Vital Strike, (B)Improved Init
Skills Acrobatics +24, Bluff +20, Diplomacy +17, Escape Artist +14, Fly +23, Intimidate +18, Knowledge (planes) +8, Knowledge (religion) +15, Perception +19, Sense Motive +19, Stealth +20
Languages Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal; telepathy 100 ft.
Ecology
Environment any (Hell)
Organization solitary or trio
Treasure triple (+1 longsword, +1 flaming composite longbow [+7 Str bonus], rope, mithral chain shirt +1)
Special Abilities
Entangle (Su) Each erinyes carries a 50-foot-long rope that entangles opponents of any size as an animate rope spell (CL 16th, DC 21). An erinyes can hurl its rope 30 feet with no range penalty. An erinyes's rope functions only for the erinyes who made it and no other. The save DC is Dexterity-based.
Skirmish(+1 AC, 1d6)
Uncanny Dodge
Trackless Step
Purple worm poison injury24—1/rd. for 6 rds.1d3 Str 2 saves700 gp 2 doses
20 arrows <I cant remember the name of these arrows, but they are from complete warrior. They stay imbedded in the opponent, and upon receiving any type of healing of being pulled out they do 1d8 points of damage.>
40 regular arrows
Potion of invisibility
PS: I noticed a couple of errors while in the middle of combat. They were no in my favor as a DM. If you see anymore that I missed correct them and cause as much carnage as possible.
To your knowledge, do ANY of your players read this thread?
To your knowledge, do ANY of your players read this thread?
Nope. There is one that has a copy of AoW, but I change monsters enough that it would not help him. It would only spoil the plot for him. I changed Telakin into a Rashaka I added bonedrinkers from MM3 which they fought already, for example. I will combine the last session and the next one into one post*. The conversion from 3.5 to Pathfinder also makes monsters harder to fight.
*Yeah I know, shameless plug to draw readers back in later.
PS: If they are reading they are not using the information. The invisible stalkers in chapter 4 gave them a run for their money.
Between real life(jobs), and fear of death(I am to harsh on them) the campaign may be coming to an end. I am now on the search for braver souls.
Between real life(jobs), and fear of death(I am to harsh on them) the campaign may be coming to an end. I am now on the search for braver souls.
A shame, concerro. Keep us posted!
Between real life(jobs), and fear of death(I am to harsh on them) the campaign may be coming to an end. I am now on the search for braver souls.A shame, concerro. Keep us posted!
Those that were brave enough to continue are few. I do plan to start it again(from where I left off), or I will do a Kingmaker campaign, and tack on AoW at the end. They had all sorts of excuses, lack of time, needing a break, but now they are in another campaign. Most of them were playing with houserules before they met me so when I made their PC's follow the same rules as my monsters which is how the game should be play, IMHO. We are still friends. I can play with them, but I will have to DM for another group. I don't have it in me to to "allow" the PC's to win.
My work issue should be resolved shortly, but I will take a break while I go on a recruiting campaign to get two more players so I can have enough players that if someone can't make a session I will have backups. This makes it so I don't have to run a DMPC.