Hello everyone. I am a first time poster, after cruising the boards for a while, and thought I might get some help from the community for my upcoming Age of Worms campaign. I will be running the entire adventure in a homebrew setting similar in feel to an early Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, so the tone should fit well with the adventure. Any advice related to running the campaign is appreciated, though I have a few specific issues that I am hoping for help with.
First, I intend to convert the adventure to Pathfinder. After being a long-time 3.5 player and DM, I have played in and run a few short adventures in the system and really enjoy the way Paizo put the rules together. Of course, converting everything will be somewhat time consuming and any shortcuts will be appreciated. For a large portion of the traps and monsters, I will simply use the Pathfinder versions in the Core Rules. For the unique monster and such, I had intended to use the Advanced Creature Simple Template to keep their CR at the current level. Does anyone have any notes on their conversions that they would not mind sharing, or any suggestions regarding substitute monsters? Thanks.
Second, I am running the adventure with 6 players, rather than the recommended 4. Obviously I will need to beef up the encounters, and I have planned on using the Pathfinder rules to add monsters so that the XP and CR is appropriate. If anyone has dealt with this issue, I would appreciate any notes or suggestions you have regarding it.
Third, I believe that the adventure uses the Fast Experience track, which was standard for 3.5. I would like to use the Medium Experience track, so that I can throw in some side-quests that will provided role-playing opportunities. While the adventures themselves are excellent and will create a great role-playing environment, I believe that some side-quests will really enhance the player's connections to their characters and the home-brew world that I am placing the adventure any. This will probably create some issues in the earlier adventures where the players are expected to level halfway through the adventure, but I believe I can deal with that through manipulation of the later encounters. Since I am converting everything anyway, this probably would not generate to much extra work. If anyone has done something similar I would love to hear how it worked out.
I am sure I will have more questions going forward, but that is it for now. My apologies for such a long post. Thanks for your help, and happy gaming.
Good luck on your AP.
I wouldn't worry about the 6 players vs the 4 thats recommended because the adventure is very tough.
My group played until we TPK'd because we didn't rest enough.
Make use of the online resources that add to the AP. We are running the shackled city AP now and my DM LOVES the online help. Better detailed maps, suggestions on how to fix problems before he was even aware of them etc.
http://paizo.com/dungeon/resources is the link that has some really good details.
Sorry I can't help on the pathfinder stuff but we are staying 3.5.
Good Gameing.
Thanks for the input Steven. I think I will get a lot of use out of those resource you mentioned. They will be awesome for player handouts and such.
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I converted halfway through, after the Champion's Games; I justified any changes by the various prophecies coming true, changing the PCs' reality (not the least being the Apostle's Wave of Undeath, that took out the crowd!).
Though we didn't have too many changes to make, I'd let one player use a PF paladin, to playtest the class throughout the Alpha & Beta playtests, with the understanding that we'd change as the rules did.
And the clerics had already been using Area-damage Channeling, which had been a variant from 3.5 Unearthed Arcana(?).
The reason being, I predicted that too many low-CR but high-HD undead (like zombies; base HDx2) make the old 3.5-style Turning irrelevant past low levels vs minion undead, while allowing twinked PCs (Sun & Glory domain, plus cloak of Cha, plus circlet of persuasion...) to blow away the boss-undead (high-CR for their HD, like vampires) with every attempt. It's rather bizarre to see a Turn go off in a mixed group, and have the goons be out of the cleric's league, but their master be the only eligible target...
I'm running a "Pathfinderized" AoW campaign, still set in Greyhawk. They party is currently in the midst of the Champion's Belt. The party has had an easy time of the 3.5 encounters and I've had to modify them, as PF characters are more powerful. With a pure cleric, a paladin, and a paladin/cleric in the group, it was difficult to threaten them with death, given all their area channeling. Single opponents, no matter how strong, give the party little trouble, with all that healing. We'll see how they deal with the Froghemoth and Ulgurstasta and the Spire later on, where the baddies channel themselves. Having a blast so far!