The 3.5 Age of Worms Handbook for DMs - Major Spoilers! - PEACH!

[DragonIceAdept]

I'd love to do a full Savage Tide handbook, but the lack of web enhancements after the first four issues means there's way more conversion notes to be done, and I dunno if I can handle doing that.

[Arcanist]

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Part Two: The Three Faces of Evil

This is by far the worst module in the adventure path, with numerous copyediting errors as well as basic problems in the adventure design. As I am not a great adventure designer myself, I will point to some of the good threads about this.

TFoE general advice

TFoE fan-errata

If the PCs didn't make contact with Allustan last adventure, you may want to replace him with Filge in this adventure. As a necromancy-expert and already involved, he has an interest in seeing the truth found out.

Feel free to replace the Rope of Climbing in the Caves of Erythnul with a Rod of Ropes (Complete Scoundrel). I personally find that item much more fun.

I think it would be quite fitting to reduce the Faceless One by one wizard level, and give him the Vecna-Blooded template (Monster Manual V). If you prefer, have it be the permanent type (always-on DR 5/magic instead of temporary DR 10/--).

Kalamanthis was detailed partially in Dragon 334, but never received a full writeup despite one being promised in Overload. An excellent one can be found here.

Introducing Balabar Smenk

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Smenk is a paragon of corruption, but he's merely a horrible criminal, not a cultist bent on apocalypse. I like having the adventure start with the PCs arrested for something (if they fought Kullen's gang, for assault; if they killed Filge, for murder; if they didn't, for breaking and entering--something they did that they can justify but the law won't care). Then I have Smenk show up smugly, pay their bail, and offer to have charges dropped if they investigate Dourstone's mine for him.

Then, at the end of the adventure, when they find evidence of his involvement, he pulls a similar trick. He invites them to his manor to talk, and offers them a deal--he'll make sure Dourstone spends decades in hard labor, entirely out of their hair, if the PCs promise to forget all about his little lapse in judgment.

I really think you are underselling just how god awful and anti-PC this particular adventure module is:

First and foremost, it requires you to sneak into the adventure site before it even begins OR talk your way in. So before you even set your foot in the door, your adventure can be screwed over entirely and derailed by someone in the party making too low of a move silently or hide check, a check that if they fail, results in them having a -5 penalty on the Diplomacy check to even get in. The only workable solution is bribing the guards to let you in (every 10gp this is a +2 bonus tot he diplomacy check, so about 30 gp to get them through the door). From there, if you fail further move silent and hide checks, it turns into a full on siege of the grounds and can result in the party getting TPK'd through sheer attrition for less optimized groups.

My suggestion for this early portion of the adventure is largely to just ignore it entirely. The guards, miners and no one else whose description includes "flees at half HP" when they have at best 10 HP are in no way meaningfully stated out and therefore largely irrelevant. If you need a justifiable reason to resolve this? At the beginning of the adventure, have Filge, or Allustan, or Smenk bribe the guards before they head off and give the party disguises to get their foots in the door and maybe a minecart so they can haul around their real equipment for when they inevitable need to go into combat. Skipping this entire portion will save you a LOT of headaches in the long term and lets you actually start the adventure on a more action packed note IF your players want to be walked through.

As far as making the Faceless One into a Vecna-Blooded? I like that idea honestly, but I think you should change what spells he has prepared to reflect his benefits for being Vecna-Blooded. Replace their casting of False Life with a casting of Invisibility and have their scroll of Summon Monster III be replaced with a potion of False Life and give them an additional 75 gp in gold. Replace their casting of Lightning Bolt with a casting of Fireball. The room is small enough that he will have to be pretty much out of it entirely after summoning his Huge Fiendish Centipede (maybe call out specifically how it is a strange stygian green color like a Kyuss worm for foreshadowing?), so before he might as well chuck a fireball in and fail his caster level check to affect the Centipede anyway and do the same for the rest of his spells that hamper and damage the room.

[DragonIceAdept]

Excellent advice, Arcanist. Thank you!

I'm not sure if this thread is going to be active enough to warrant regular updates after all... it seems I did most of the stuff this topic warrants. Maybe someone else thinks otherwise?

[DragonIceAdept]

The handbook has been updated with new stats for Marzena as a warmage. This is the first NPC I've ever statted up, so if you see any errors, let me know!

[Alabenson]

One rather specific word of warning: Being undead, both Lashonna and especially Dragotha have deceptively low Fortitude saves for their CRs. If anyone in your party has access to a SoD ability that targets Fortitude and can effect undead (a rarity, but they do exist) than these fights can turn from massive set piece to hilarious anti-climax extremely quickly.

[DragonIceAdept]

Good catch. Glass strike is the classic undead-killer SoD, but devastate undead also exists and is frankly horrifying (doubly so if the caster is a necropolitan).

Added to the Overview section! (I'd also like to expand that section someday)

[Alabenson]

Good catch. Glass strike is the classic undead-killer SoD, but devastate undead also exists and is frankly horrifying (doubly so if the caster is a necropolitan).

Added to the Overview section! (I'd also like to expand that section someday)

I used AoW to playtest a few homebrew classes I had created, and that happened in both battles, in the first round no less (Dragotha rolling a 3 on his save didn't help matters).

[Alabenson]

Another area that I think is worth mentioning, in the Champion's Belt, between the rules of the competition and the abysmal Will saves of the participants, spells like suggestion or greater command can easily shut down a number of the encounters. That said, if you have an enchant focused caster like a Beguiler in the party, it might be worth just letting them dominate this section, since they're not really going to have many other opportunities to shine.

[AMFV]

Would you consider adding some advice on how to convert it to Pathfinder, since there is likely a lot of interest in that particular direction of doing things?

[Septimus]

There are already several conversion documents here and there to port Age of Worms from 3.5 to Pathfinder (and even Golarion). Most of them are in the paizo sub-forum for Age of Worms (here or there for example). I even made my own conversion for some of the monsters (mostly the named).

[AMFV]

There are already several conversion documents here and there to port Age of Worms from 3.5 to Pathfinder (and even Golarion). Most of them are in the paizo sub-forum for Age of Worms (here or there for example). I even made my own conversion for some of the monsters (mostly the named).

It might be worth OP mentioning/referencing those in the guide was the driving point I was making.

[DragonIceAdept]

Added! Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

[Vidigoia]

Thanks for the thread! I'll be taking a look at those restat tips as I start my own game. I was wondering - do you have any advice on running Blackwall Keep? Or more specifically, the Mistmarsh section. My group isn't the best at moderation, which makes it hard to run encounters with both hostile and diplomatic elements. With the lizardfolk starting out as a hostile, it's going to be pretty hard to telegraph strongly enough to get my players to think about negotiating with the shaman or others in the lair. How did this adventure go for you?

[DragonIceAdept]

Thanks for the thread! I'll be taking a look at those restat tips as I start my own game. I was wondering - do you have any advice on running Blackwall Keep? Or more specifically, the Mistmarsh section. My group isn't the best at moderation, which makes it hard to run encounters with both hostile and diplomatic elements. With the lizardfolk starting out as a hostile, it's going to be pretty hard to telegraph strongly enough to get my players to think about negotiating with the shaman or others in the lair. How did this adventure go for you?

I haven't had a chance to run Blackwall Keep yet. My players are very much diplomats, so I don't have much good advice. I guess have the shaman offer to parley? Have lizardfolk cry out about how the humans are blighting their eggs? That kinda stuff.

[Vidigoia]

>.> I want to put in some archives of the Encounter at Blackwall Keep poster map, since it took me a while to dig them up and they're in strong danger of link rot, but I literally just joined the forum for this thread so it won't let me post links yet.

[Telamont]

Hello, you have a discord or something? I am an expert to age of worms since 2013. Want to discuss some things.

[Arparrabiosa]

Greetings, Age of Worms experts.

I was thinking of introducing Kyuss Spawn in my upcoming campaign as part of a gnoll horde (as witherlings). Is there any justification, either from your perspective or in the manual, for Kyuss Spawn not infecting other creatures they are allied with?

[Vidigoia]

They are intelligent creatures, or the ones that aren't are under the control of whatever animated them, so if you can think of any bargain they would find useful (particularly the chance to infect more enemies than they could allies), that would be a decent reason. If there's some prophecy aspect they're trying to fulfill to further Kyuss's return (destruction of some city or artifact?), that would be reason for them to work with others. They could also be planning to betray the gnolls later and get everyone infected!

You could check the Age of Worms Overload for the Ecology of Kyuss section as well, for ideas. One of the notes is that Kyuss encourages his followers to lure/trick others into his service; they might have designs on the gnoll champions / leaders becoming champions of Kyuss; perhaps they've offered aid, like a magic item, that secretly will corrupt the bearers into kyussspawn themselves.

Anyone else got ideas?

[DragonIceAdept]

Added stats for a Worm that Walks of Kyuss, to enrichen Dawn of a New Age's monster selection.

[zifnab]

This is really good to have more perspectives like this. I'm currently playing AoW in my PF 1E campaign (currently in the middle of Book IV), which I'm converting to the PF game mechanics and porting to the Golarion game setting as we go.

[Ozreth]

Going to start running this next week and this resource has been very helpful, thanks for this.

[Vidigoia]

I must say, when I decided to run this magazine adventure from 2005 I wasn't expecting to be in such good company!

By the way, DragonIceAdept, I dug up something you may want to consider including for Spire of Long Shadows and later adventures, if you haven't come across it:

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It seems that Manzorian and Balakarde are loose reskinnings of Tenser and Bucknard, both members of the Circle of Eight of wizards from Gygax's campaigns. I should have recognized Magepoint but didn't think about it! The deeper history and name recognition could be very fun to restore to a Greyhawk campaign.

[DragonIceAdept]

Yes! That last point is addressed in Overload.

[Vidigoia]

Actually, can I ask what you folks did with the gladiator fights in Champion's Belt? My players are going to curb-stomp these guys as written, so I'm interested in ideas.

[Ozreth]

I'm curious about good encounters for the abandoned mine office in the beginning. I've found the kobold one but not sure kobolds make sense. The lizardmen one makes sense but seems quite OP. The other's I've found are broken links.

[Alabenson]

Actually, can I ask what you folks did with the gladiator fights in Champion's Belt? My players are going to curb-stomp these guys as written, so I'm interested in ideas.

I ran them as is when I used the AoW for playtesting, but the class that dominated the Champion's Belt section was very Enchantment-focused, and that was really the only time in the adventure path that they were particularly exceptional. If you have a player with a lot of focus on mind-affecting abilities, I might just let them have the curb-stomping, since they're really not going to get many opportunities to do so beyond that.

[DarkOne-Rob]

Actually, can I ask what you folks did with the gladiator fights in Champion's Belt? My players are going to curb-stomp these guys as written, so I'm interested in ideas.

I haven't gotten there yet, but I do intend to do a bit of reworking of the PCs - we're using PathFinder and Paizo is notoriously bad at optimizing characters. I don't want the single fight-per-day aspect of these combats to result in the PCs rotflmao-stomping them too hard. Sure, there is the mystery and exploration in the background, but solid PCs and players will stack the deck if they know a fight is coming - completely reasonably - and I want the fights to at least be fun.

I'm curious about good encounters for the abandoned mine office in the beginning. I've found the kobold one but not sure kobolds make sense. The lizardmen one makes sense but seems quite OP. The other's I've found are broken links.

We ran the lizardfolk encounters and it wasn't too much. The PCs were new and green, but handled it all pretty well. Just give them the option to escape and heal up - the lizards lack that option.

[Ozreth]

We’re four sessions in. Still in the cairn (we play weekly for 2-3 hours).

So far it feels like the first module is trying to shoehorn an overdose of Greyhawk lore into the campaign for reasons that aren’t relevant to the adventure. Everything is all about these wind dukes and almost nothing from this first adventure ties into the rest of it. It’s very odd.

A random ghost boy at the end is going to ask them for an errand for the reward of getting them through a door that just has wind dukes to fight on the other end and more lore in the way of paintings. None of which is relevant to the adventure.

But the errand makes them discover a gangs involvement in some grave robbery that the PCs should care about which leads them to the next dungeon?

I’m going to need to read further into the adventure to find some inspiration to keep running this thing. I’ve run most of the major adventures from AD&D through 5e and I’m not hard to please but I’m not seeing the hype here.

[Vidigoia]

We’re four sessions in. Still in the cairn (we play weekly for 2-3 hours).

So far it feels like the first module is trying to shoehorn an overdose of Greyhawk lore into the campaign for reasons that aren’t relevant to the adventure. Everything is all about these wind dukes and almost nothing from this first adventure ties into the rest of it. It’s very odd.

Quick warning that that'll come back later (mostly in A Gathering of Winds, if you want to read forward), so don't discard it unless you want to rewrite those parts. That said, it's true that the wind duke stuff is mostly tangential, and you could fairly easily replace it and put a different adventure in place of the AGoW dungeon crawl section.

I do think that The Whispering Cairn's disconnect is one of the weaknesses of the adventure path. Personally I think it'd be better to have a hook that's more direct and emotionally-driven than tomb raiding. But I enjoyed the dungeon itself.

[Ozreth]

Quick warning that that'll come back later (mostly in A Gathering of Winds, if you want to read forward), so don't discard it unless you want to rewrite those parts. That said, it's true that the wind duke stuff is mostly tangential, and you could fairly easily replace it and put a different adventure in place of the AGoW dungeon crawl section.

Good to know. I do think that The Whispering Cairn's disconnect is one of the weaknesses of the adventure path. Personally I think it'd be better to have a hook that's more direct and emotionally-driven than tomb raiding. But I enjoyed the dungeon itself.

The dungeon itself has been clever and well constructed. I'm doing a lot more reading forward this week and re-reading the overload to get a better feel of the connectedness of it all. There is a LOT of lore and the matrix of NPCs in and around Diamond Lake at the onset seems far more convoluted than needed.

I've started a simple campaign journal for my party, you can view it here: https://sites.google.com/view/aowgame

I've just created it and have much more to add at the time of this writing.