Streamlined Age of Worms


Age of Worms Adventure Path


I started the campaign in early July and might need to move to a different town next spring. Therefore, I've been carefully editing the adventures to get them as far as possible before I skipped town. This might be helpful to others looking to cut out the fat, so to speak.

Whispering Cairn: I eliminated all of the encounters (wolves, beetles, slasher) up to the abberation, and also eliminated the later beetles and fungus. In my mind, they had little to do with the grand plot. I also had Alistair Land be an obvious good guy so they would spend little time debating whether to help him or not. To avoid TPK, I put one of the Wind Warriors around the air elevator and another one in the tomb itself so the players could heal. They seemed to like this, except it was a little slow before the players finally had an encounter.

At Alistair Land's place, I had the owlbear dead when they arrived. Kullen's gang killed her, but not before Skutch was killed.

Three Faces of Evil: I haven't played this yet, but here's what I have in mind. In the temple, eliminate all rooms except for the room with the statues and the balcony, and the individual living quarters rooms. The statue room will be an interesting challenge - There will be ranged fighters shooting at them, and I'm going to have the mascot charging at them as well. The cleric will have fled the room and will be hiding behind 10 cultists in his own bedroom.

I haven't gotten much beyond that, but I'm restricting the Erythnul battles to 10 grimlocks and the boss. The maze sounds too fun to abbreviate too much, but I will still have to do it. What have people had the most fun with in the maze?


Viconus wrote:

I started the campaign in early July and might need to move to a different town next spring. Therefore, I've been carefully editing the adventures to get them as far as possible before I skipped town. This might be helpful to others looking to cut out the fat, so to speak.

Whispering Cairn: I eliminated all of the encounters (wolves, beetles, slasher) up to the abberation, and also eliminated the later beetles and fungus. In my mind, they had little to do with the grand plot. I also had Alistair Land be an obvious good guy so they would spend little time debating whether to help him or not. To avoid TPK, I put one of the Wind Warriors around the air elevator and another one in the tomb itself so the players could heal. They seemed to like this, except it was a little slow before the players finally had an encounter.

At Alistair Land's place, I had the owlbear dead when they arrived. Kullen's gang killed her, but not before Skutch was killed.

Three Faces of Evil: I haven't played this yet, but here's what I have in mind. In the temple, eliminate all rooms except for the room with the statues and the balcony, and the individual living quarters rooms. The statue room will be an interesting challenge - There will be ranged fighters shooting at them, and I'm going to have the mascot charging at them as well. The cleric will have fled the room and will be hiding behind 10 cultists in his own bedroom.

I haven't gotten much beyond that, but I'm restricting the Erythnul battles to 10 grimlocks and the boss. The maze sounds too fun to abbreviate too much, but I will still have to do it. What have people had the most fun with in the maze?

My PCs: Spoiling it for the DM. Im serious: one solid tactic, and the labyrinth becomes a nuisance. Leave it out.


Viconus wrote:
What have people had the most fun with in the maze?

The way that D&D works, I found the maze to be impossible to run effectively. I skipped it entirely and nobody minded.


I actually enjoyed the maze. I hit the PC's with a few sneak attacks and fairly effectively used cover and misdirection to challenge them.

In some cases I was able to have the Kenkus shoot, pull around a corner, drink an invisibility potion, and double back around for attacks from behind utilizing the secret doors in the complex.

Ultimately no characters died but they felt very threatened.


We also had a good time with the maze. I took the advice in the module, and laid it out on the battlemat as they walked through it. I didn't treat it as a "you'll get lost" maze, but rather as one where the kenku will be able to hit and run at will. Yeah, it got a bit frustrating for the players, but not in a bad way. Some times battles aren't going to be a straight up fight, and they had to work hard for that one.

I think repeating the idea in the Hall of Harsh Reflections was a bit much, and if anything, I think I might've removed that one, were I to do it over again. But even then, the things that made that one unique helped to make it less repetitive.

Now, if memory serves there is another one in Library of Last Resort, is there not? We'll have to see what happens to that one when I get to it.

Greg


The maze was fun (and creepy), but I ran it with "Search" checks. Maybe railroaded a little to win time. We had some fun encounters though with the Kenku and dire weasels.

If you map it out completely, it takes way too much time without adding anything significant to the story. If you're lacking time: SKIP it!

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