D&D 5E Age of Worms Adventure Path

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Thanks for these conversions [MENTION=6776887]Tormyr[/MENTION]!

I'm considering adapting the ruined city of Kuluth-Mar (from The Spire of Long Shadows, Dungeon #130) for a Tomb of Annihilation game involving Kyuss, placing it in the jungles of Chult, and assuming that past adventurers mostly cleared it out and killed Ma'kar the spellweaver lich.

Any suggestions on further detailing the ruined city as an adventure site?

 

[Tormyr]

Thanks for these conversions [MENTION=6776887]Tormyr[/MENTION]!

I'm considering adapting the ruined city of Kuluth-Mar (from The Spire of Long Shadows, Dungeon #130) for a Tomb of Annihilation game involving Kyuss, placing it in the jungles of Chult, and assuming that past adventurers mostly cleared it out and killed Ma'kar the spellweaver lich.

Any suggestions on further detailing the ruined city as an adventure site?

I ran with the suggestions provided in the adventure which provide a different denizen for each quadrant of the ruined city surrounding the pyramid.

My party ran afoul of the monster in the north quadrant (I used a vampire) and chased after him in his mist form. The wizard tried to get ahead of him by using arcane gate, but the jumped into the middle of the troll village. They talked their way out of fighting the trolls and their chief by convincing them that the party was their to cook them dinner and whip the trolls into a militarized fighting force. After a cooking and training skill challenge, they were welcomed in by the boss. Eventually they tried to overthrow the chief and fought the village. During their running, they fell afoul of a yuan-ti raiding party in the south who attacked the fleeing party before they realized a horde of trolls were bearing down on them.

Eventually the party decided it would be simpler to enter the pyramid.

 

[Tormyr]

...reading ahead a bit:

1) D10, you've got DC14 for detecting the trap but the original is DC25. Are you consistently lowering the DC checks for all the traps?

2) D11, my version says: "A few of the kobolds swoop in close, and the rest attack at range with their javelins before closing to attack with their daggers."

...copy/paste error from a different document?

3) D16 "Creatures" is a copy of D15 "Creatures". I think it's another copy/paste issue. I'm not sure how to convert 3 dopplegangers with 64hp (previous ones have 22 hp). Maybe 3 with a full 80hp (8d8 + 16)?

I'm curious how people played the Mirror Maze. It feels like once the group gets split they need to go to separate rooms so they don't know what's going on or who they are facing.

It seems like there's an easy "who is the doppleganger?" test: "cast a cantrip". Maybe I need more Greater Dopplegangers.

4) D17 - Any thought to making Telakin legendary so it has multiple actions? Even with 150hp, I feel like this might end on a bad roll against Tasha's Hideous Laughter or other single shot spell.

Telakin has a 6th level spell slot, but no 6th level spell?

Where is Telakin's spellbook? I thought that might be why there are no 6th level spells - so that the party doesn't get them. But I can't find a spellbook.

1. D10: The trap is listed as a CR8 trap. In my AoW 00 - General Conversion notes document, there is the traps table which shows general damage and DCs for the traps. This table was built off the traps table in the DMG by spreading the DCs and damage from that table over the 20 character levels. The end result is that the DCs are consistently lower, but that is generally true of all DCs (and a lot of AC) when converting from 3.5 to 5e.

2. The way I enforced consistency in early versions of these documents was to use the previous document and replace the section titles and contents as I went along. I neglected to replace the text in that section which would have been from the egg room in the last adventure.

3. You can just use the 1 doppleganger per PC as the EL is the same between D15 and D16.

4. Legendary Actions could help, but you may want to pull back on his damage from his actions if you add damage-dealing legendary actions. You could also give him legendary resistance at a cost of 20 hp per use. Since Telakin's spellcasting power comes from his consuming the brain of a victim, I figure he got the spellcasting knowledge there. Since a spellbook is needed to change spells but not needed every morning, I think he is just locked in to those spells that his victim had at the time. I did not want to give any 6th-level spells but wanted Telakin to have a bit extra damage from the higher spell slot.

 

[Tormyr]

We've finally gotten into "The Hall of Harsh Reflections" and I wanted to share some thoughts/questions.

Event 2: Street Prophet

Locals say that he shouted "the dragons of the rift and the sins they proclaim" which I thought was nonsense until I read up a bit on Dragotha, who lives in the Rift. Neat tie-in!

My PCs cured the prophet so that he could explain more. I was not expecting that.

Eligos

"A white stone wall surrounds a manicured yard of trimmed hedges and exotic fauna." - I read this out and they said, "fauna? Are you sure you don't mean flora?". Later, they asked what his area of expertise is and I couldn't quickly find it in the dense wall of text except for "respected throughout the Free City for his obscure knowledge and skill in the arcane.".

Eventually I figured out (maybe from the next adventure?) that he's a specialist in unusual creatures, hence bringing the green worms to him make sense. This led me to ask the internet (5e Facebook page) for harmless exotic fauna and I got dozens of run responses. Giant Space Hamster, anyone?

Body Thief

Didn't use it. Seemed to difficult to make it work. A doppleganger wouldn't gain all the powers (particularly magic-like powers) that 5e characters have so I didn't think the ruse would last long (there are no rogues in this group). It's too bad as I've spent two years trying to decide whether to do it or not and how!

I haven't totally abandoned it - there's a friendly NPC that has been replaced.

Betrayal At The Bar

I accidentally skipped this. I had PC-based hook that got them to the warehouse because I wasn't confident that they would find the assassin and search them and realize the significance of the clue. But I still wanted the attempt just for drama. And it became a bit tricky later (see below)

Sodden Hold

From your conversion: "A DC 22 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools) check unlock the front door."

They don't have a rogue, just a wizard with a criminal background so they missed the check. It's an iron double door and they didn't have the key from the assassin. They made a strength check with help to try and knock it down and failed (it's a freakin' iron door!) and suddenly I was stuck. They couldn't actually get in without spending 10+ minutes breaking it down. I decided that breaking it down worked but felt like I cheated in their favour. The doors would be built to resist people breaking in...though maybe not because it's all a trap for the PCs anyway, so maybe they're not as tough as they look?

D2 The Storage Hall

How do the bad guys enter and leave? How do they go up to the catwalk without using the rickety ladder that always collapses in D4? Piling the non-mimic crates? That would be obvious given the "thick layer of dust" covering most of the stuff in the room.

DC14 in the conversion for the trap seem low given it's originally DC28 to find and DC25 to disable.

D7 Collapsed Chamber

a) Does this have access to the sea? It seems like PCs could swim in through here and avoid some trouble, but it's odd that this option isn't mentioned.

b) "The shaded planks all lead to a piling that is not structurally sound. If a Medium or larger character steps onto one of these planks, the piling collapses, dropping anyone on a shaded plank down into the water below."

I bought the PDFs from Paizo and I can't tell the shaded planks from the non-shaded:

View attachment 94765

Anyone have any ideas? Keep in mind that the gang still has to be able to walk through this room regularly. I assume it's one of the middle 3 pilings that fails.

c) The conversion is missing the DC checks to spot the corpses and treasure. Presumably DC11 and DC19. There are a lot of DC checks in this adventure!

D8 Water-Filled Pit

"At the bottom of the shaft, a 20-foot-long passageway leads west to area D9,...". But the map shows the corridor arriving from the North. I'm assuming by "west" they mean "south".

That's as far as they got.

Matt

Sodden Hold: The PCs in my game did not follow up on the Sodden Hold clues. After causing some problems in the city, they were arrested, gassed, and taken unconscious to D6 as prisoners. After escaping and rescuing the other prisoners, the PCs escaped through windows along the catwalk (which made sense to me). They then went through the front door on the way back and immediately regretted it after the mimic encounter.

D2: There are other ways the bad guys enter and leave (as later on you find an entrance into the sewers). If/when the bad guys use this area they probably either shapeshift into flying creatures or climb crates to reach the catwalk.

D7: While sea water flows in through gaps, it is not like there is a true entrance here. The seawater here is stagnant and nasty. The PC who was replaced in my game made an excuse to not explore the next area. While everyone else explored town the shaft, the bad guy stayed behind and diluted several healing potions with the nasty water. Several months later, the victim actually used one of the potions and received only half healing along with the poisoned condition.

D8: Yes, it should be south. I had to read D8 and D9 so many times to understand how the raising and falling of water levels changed everything.

 

[smbakeresq]

We are just getting to this one. I will let you know. I don’t think I will use the switcheroo either. Years ago I played A4 wherein the PC were captive and had to escape with equipment they found along the way, it was great fun and required great play. I think I will just have everyone gassed at some point and the whole lot thrown into cells to see if they can escape. The suggestion in the adventure is to use Areanas, who are known slavers and inter-world traders, so it’s makes sense.

 

[Tormyr]

We are just getting to this one. I will let you know. I don’t think I will use the switcheroo either. Years ago I played A4 wherein the PC were captive and had to escape with equipment they found along the way, it was great fun and required great play. I think I will just have everyone gassed at some point and the whole lot thrown into cells to see if they can escape. The suggestion in the adventure is to use Areanas, who are known slavers and inter-world traders, so it’s makes sense.

We had a great time with the prison break. The party had no equipment, and it was especially fun to watch the wizard scrounging for spell components. A cobweb for web. A dropped copper piece for detect thoughts. The lack of spell components, weapons, and armor made the group much more creative than usual.

 

[smbakeresq]

We had a great time with the prison break. The party had no equipment, and it was especially fun to watch the wizard scrounging for spell components. A cobweb for web. A dropped copper piece for detect thoughts. The lack of spell components, weapons, and armor made the group much more creative than usual.

And doing it all with a timer of a Volcano going off. That also convinced me of the value of grapple, since if you have no weapons its just better.

 

[smbakeresq]

Tormyr (and everyone else)

Ok for the Encounter at Blackwall Keep, we have a group of 4 5th level PCs; if you use XP, the PCs advance slower.

For that group the xp thresholds would be 2000 for a medium encounter and 3000 for a hard one. Anyway, I switched the egg room to four kobold dragonshields and two kobold scale sorcerers, that's 1200xp x2 (4 creatures) for 2400. Then I added in 2300 xp for the dragon egg spreading the worms for 4500, a very hard encounter but its the climax.

When the PCs enter, they would be led by lizardfolk themselves, the priest wouldn't just direct then down the tunnel. The Kobolds would attack right away, and the lizardmen stayed back. After the kobolds lost half of their number, I had a kobold open the dragon egg. The lizardmen would panic of course, and start protecting the eggs with the priests help, she would not get into combat. Meanwhile the PC's, who have the only healing magic there, then would have to prevent spread of worms while Kobolds are attacking and the lizardmen are all over trying to grab the eggs. The chaos worked great, and I gave the group the whole XP of 4500.

The PC are supposed to each get a bonus CR 4 award, 1100 xp apiece, for saving some of the eggs, or CR 8 (3900) for saving all of them. Since I rigged the encounter I gave them the 3900 xp.

If the PCs are smart enough to make a deal with the priest, I gave them xp for that also, a CR 6 award.


For the Spawn of Kyuss, I used the Volos of course, but still used three of them. I also made the PC have a free hand to squash the worm unless it is a light weapon in that hand. Three was enough even with the PCs at full health and 6th level, regeneration keeps them around and with the burrowing worms sucking up attacks or actions every turn. I would change the Kyuss also so if you touch them with unarmed strikes or grapples the worm craws on you for free.

 

[smbakeresq]

With the Spawn of Kyuss in Volos, how is everyone handling the worms if you are immune to disease? Reading the monster description directly immunity to disease does not help you against the worms. It seems to me the way to play it also, otherwise monks and paladins can immune their way through, ruining the DMs good times.

 

[Tormyr]

I used immunity to disease to protect against the worms. When I get to rewriting this with the worms doing necrotic damage instead of intelligence damage, that will go away. At least 3 of the PCs were immune to the worms. We had a paladin and monk, and the wizard had an amulet that protected against disease. The Kyuss worms lost a lot of their scariness because over half the party could ignore the scariest part of the minions of Kyuss. They were thrown for a bit of a loop when the worms from Kyuss' body bypassed their immunity.

The one magic item I would suggest keeping roughly the same would be the circlet. When fully charged, that should confer immunity to all worm damage, including the worms from Kyuss' body.

P.S. As an aside, there are some conversations that I never thought I would have but have come up in D&D. Things like when Wil Wheaton said, "I climb up the devil's butt." In my case, I never thought 5 years ago that I would have a serious conversation about avoiding worm damage.