Age of Worms AP and the Dread Necromancer

[drothgery]

Too slow, too melee/close encounter focused, too reliant on preparing for encounters, and will promote the 15 minute day... or were you just taking a cheap dig at 3.x?

Dude, jokes about CoDzilla predate 4e by years.

 

[ArghMark]

I love the age of worms adventures, though the swamp one with the lizardmen was fairly average. We got up to one in a big city with an Illithid, and it was nice.

The problem was, we went through 36 characters to get there. Having heard about someone (on this board) saying how honest dice rolling really adds drama to the session, I said 'Lets do it!'.

We had a lot of fun. a LOT of fun. Characters waving severed limbs around in the marketplace. Creepy necromancers repeatedly killing the PC's and then animating them to fight the replacement PCs.

And it all started in an opium den.

I wouldn't say the story was top quality. Sometimes it was a little stretched from one thing to another. Sometimes a lot stretched. But none of my players really cared too much. It was too much fun having characters horribly mutilated by things.

Then, after the shapechangers, we played some Ars Magica and never picked up the Age of Worms again.

Its a nice thing for just tossing out there when there's nothing better happening, really.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Too slow, too melee/close encounter focused, too reliant on preparing for encounters, and will promote the 15 minute day... or were you just taking a cheap dig at 3.x?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

It's a shame that the right advice can be misinterpreted as a cheap shot.

I wouldn't say four clerics even though they would do well. I would have two clerics and two druids. The druids can dish out damage like a wizard and scout like a rogue so they provide a little more flexibility. That's a more rounded party than simply having four clerics.

 

[Eccles]

We got to the end of the campaign with a cleric, a fighter/rogue archer and a bard. The barbarian disappeared before the final session. We had a necromancer in the early days, but he also vanished.

The necromancer (specialised wizard) just added sinister and an edge of ethical dubiousness to the party. Though his debuffing powers were quite alarming!

 

[kevtar]

Thanks for all of the great responses. I had played a few adventures of the AP until my group fell apart with a Rogue PC and had a great time, but since there is a lot of undead, I was concerned with how dread necromancer might fit in both in terms of play and feel. These answers helped out quite a bit. Unfortunately, this player switched from Cleric to Dread Necromancer, which means that there isn't a player who will be playing a Cleric as of yet. If worse comes to worst, I might just have to have a cleric NPC tag along, but Clerics feature so much in terms of combat, etc. in the AP (from my experience anyway) that I would hate to do that.

 

[Rechan]

Too slow, too melee/close encounter focused, too reliant on preparing for encounters, and will promote the 15 minute day... or were you just taking a cheap dig at 3.x?

More a cheap dig at the AP.

It's a meat grinding undead marathon. So, lots and lots of healing + undead slaying + Restoration/Protection buffs is what a quartet of clerics offer.

 

[AllisterH]

These answers helped out quite a bit. Unfortunately, this player switched from Cleric to Dread Necromancer, which means that there isn't a player who will be playing a Cleric as of yet. If worse comes to worst, I might just have to have a cleric NPC tag along, but Clerics feature so much in terms of combat, etc. in the AP (from my experience anyway) that I would hate to do that.

I think you might have to bite the bullet. This is an adventure path where a rogue with UMD and CLW/Lesser vigor wands won't do.

This AP really, REALLY requires a cleric. Dread Necromancer might not cut it IMO.

 

[mudbunny]

The group I was going through this adventure with had no cleric, only a Dragon Shaman. It's abuility to bring everyone up to 1/2 HP +1 via regeneration aura was useful. Unfortunately, that party is now lunch in the bellies of a tribe of lizardmen.

 

[kevtar]

You don't want optimal because Rechan's right. It really will be cleric, cleric, cleric, cleric. Each cleric might be an entirely different build (I'd suggest on melee, one archer, one spellcaster that focuses on offense, one that focuses on defense), but that's how it goes. Clerics are disproportionately powerful, particularly when fighting a lot of undead, and particularly in games with a lot of effects that can instantly kill or disable.

Or to put it another way, the curve of effectiveness in 3e has a very, very long right side tail. No matter what party you come up with, chances are there's a significantly better one with sufficient fine tuning. You'll drive yourself mad and stop having fun if you pursue it.

So optimal isn't your goal.

What you want is "good enough and fun." Let everyone write down what they want to play, and if you're worried it will get killed, bring the list here and let people take a look at it.

Ah, yes. The discourse of D&D, I forgot. I didn't mean 'optimal' in terms of optimizing or most potent, but rather (as you suggest) what in the opinion of those who have played the AP creates a fun and memorable AP. This is a new group of players, and I haven't met some of the new people yet, so I'm not sure what will happen, but talking to them first will help out a lot in determining if we should even run Age of Worms. If no one wants to play a cleric (for instance), it might not be a lot of fun.

 

[kitsune9]

Hi all,

1) Has anyone played Age of Worms with a player running a dread necromancer, and if so, how was it? Even if you haven't, what do you think about this as a class choice for this AP?

The dread necro is going to feel right at home. There are a lot of undead and even moreso toward the end.

2) What would you say is the 'optimal PC party' for this adventure?

You'll need at least six characters and they need to be well-rounded and pretty much straight-classes. I would go with two clerics, two fighters, a rogue and blaster arcanist. I ran this campaign for my players and they had a really hard time. We had three near TPKs and the PC's had their fair share of losing battles. I don't think any module was easy for them and they even hired on three mercs to help out.

3) I'm an experienced DM, but I've not DMed one of these AP (like this or Cauldron) before, so what would suggest in terms of successfully DMing the AP?

If you want to run this campaign and not be brutal on your players or if they are kind of noobs, then scale down the encounters a bit. Also, if you want the player who is playing the rogue to get some sunshine on using his rogue abilities, replace some of the undead with various cultists and minions.

It was a great AP and I really enjoyed running it.

Have fun!