Age of Worms 5e difficulty

Tyler Dunn · Feb 2, 2019

On the subject of the 5e conversion of the Age of Worms adventure path, just how hard is it to play through the whole way? Do characters need to be super optimized to survive it, or can any group get through it?

Mistwell · Feb 2, 2019

I don't think they would need to be optimized to survive it. However, as you'd need to heavily convert it to 5e anyway, you have the tools to adjust the adventure for your adventuring party anyway. Should be fine. If you do it, please let us know how it goes as I am sure many others would like to hear about it.

toucanbuzz · Feb 2, 2019

It really depends on your conversions and whether you pull punches. The unique monsters and traps can be nasty, even with harder to kill 5E characters. Played it with Pathfinder as our last campaign before switching to 5th, and I recall everyone died at least once before we hit a TPK involving a flooded cavern. We never picked it back up, but it was a blast getting there.

Pauln6 · Feb 2, 2019

My group are not optimised and are doing just fine.

Tyler Dunn · Feb 3, 2019

So how well would this party do?

Variant Human Wizard (Abjurer)
Feral Tiefling Rogue (Arcane Trickster)
Half Elf Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Hill Dwarf Cleric (Life Domian)
Human Fighter (Battlemaster, Archery fighting style)
Half Orc Barbarian (Bear warrior, plans to take 3 levels in champion fighter)

Mistwell · Feb 3, 2019

Tyler Dunn said:
So how well would this party do?

Variant Human Wizard (Abjurer)
Feral Tiefling Rogue (Arcane Trickster)
Half Elf Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Hill Dwarf Cleric (Life Domian)
Human Fighter (Battlemaster, Archery fighting style)
Half Orc Barbarian (Bear warrior, plans to take 3 levels in champion fighter)

They should do well. That's a pretty strong party.

jgsugden · Feb 4, 2019

It all comes down to the conversion. You need to understand how to transition spells, DCs, monsters, etc... rather than just winging it. I watched a DM throw a level 11 party up against a "converted" 3E module and exhibit surprise when the PCs nearly needed 20s to hit and 20s to save... The math is very different.

Matrix Sorcica · Feb 4, 2019

There's a full 5e conversion in the downloads section.

Mouseferatu · Feb 4, 2019

I've never played any version of AoW, and I've never read the 5E conversion. But I did read the original 3.5E version, way back when, and I remember thinking that the last few adventures seemed damn near impossible. Even allowing for the massive power of characters at that level--especially in that edition--it really felt like an absolute meat grinder.

I'm curious if that matches other people's impressions or experiences.

Tormyr · May 10, 2019

Tyler Dunn said:
On the subject of the 5e conversion of the Age of Worms adventure path, just how hard is it to play through the whole way? Do characters need to be super optimized to survive it, or can any group get through it?

Sorry I did not see this before. 5e makes Age of Worms more like a "regular" 5e adventure in a few ways:
1. Undead don't have a lot of the protections they did in 3.5 or they are simplified. Notably, anyone can hit undead and incorporeal, and most importantly for rogues, sneak attack works. There are no classes that will struggle to contribute.
2. Dying rules are more survivable with death saving throws. Aside from the first few levels, characters shouldn't have to worry about being felled by a single hit.

There is probably 300+ hours of play time in the campaign. It took my group 3 years to complete it, but we took breaks here and there to combat campaign fatigue.