Age of Worms for players

[Crothian]

2. Law v Chaos plays a much larger role then Good v Evil. Pick wisely

It is looking like we are coming down on the lawful side just the way the characters are.

 

[RodneyThompson]

It is something we experienced. My bard's backstory involved his childhood sweetheart engaged to a lord who murdered his last wife. He was marked for death by said lord (brand on the palm of his hand) but escaped. When we had a piece of artwork commissioned for the group, the DM went out of his way to make sure that the brand was visible. Sadly, I had totally forgotten about it as the backstory was never even hinted at during the game (at least the DM remembered the backstory )

To be fair, though, you did come in partway through the campaign. The other characters that went heavy on the backstory (the dwarf fighter and the warlock) both had (hopefully) satisfying resolutions to their character histories. The ranger kind of got dragged into some interesting backstory revelations, and the war priest didn't have character history so much as he interacted a lot with the campaign's history.

I think early in the campaign there are a lot more chances for character backstory development, but I definitely agree with Alaxk that once the plot train starts a-rollin' then your DM will probably need to really focus on trying to integrate backstory materials.

I think a nice, two to three sentence hook is a good middle ground for Age of Worms. For example, the dwarf fighter's backstory was basically that he was sent out into the world to reclaim the ancestral armor of his family, which had been scattered to the four winds when his ancestor was slain. For those of you who played Shackled City (as much of this same group did), this dwarf was a member of the Splintershield clan who had pursued his uncle, Zenith, south from the clan hold but had gotten himself in debt in the Age of Worms starting town.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't think that's a difficulty inherent in Age of Worms in particular, though, so much as a difficulty in published adventurs, and long-running adventure path type published adventures in particular. It takes a really focused GM to keep that kind of stuff in mind.

Which is why I prefer to raid adventures for NPCs, maps, concepts, ideas and set-pieces, but not run them as is. It's just easier to tailor the campaign to the PCs that way for me.

Also; I don't know that the law vs. chaos is necessarily inherent in the AP. Certainly our game felt like a traditional good/evil dichotomy, and we didn't really notice law/chaos.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

To be fair, though, you did come in partway through the campaign. The other characters that went heavy on the backstory (the dwarf fighter and the warlock) both had (hopefully) satisfying resolutions to their character histories. The ranger kind of got dragged into some interesting backstory revelations, and the war priest didn't have character history so much as he interacted a lot with the campaign's history.

I think early in the campaign there are a lot more chances for character backstory development, but I definitely agree with Alaxk that once the plot train starts a-rollin' then your DM will probably need to really focus on trying to integrate backstory materials.

I think a nice, two to three sentence hook is a good middle ground for Age of Worms. For example, the dwarf fighter's backstory was basically that he was sent out into the world to reclaim the ancestral armor of his family, which had been scattered to the four winds when his ancestor was slain. For those of you who played Shackled City (as much of this same group did), this dwarf was a member of the Splintershield clan who had pursued his uncle, Zenith, south from the clan hold but had gotten himself in debt in the Age of Worms starting town.

That's fair, I did come in mid stride (right about the time the plot goes into overdrive). And to be fair, Moridin worked in a nice side story with the fighter (which none of us realized at the time wasn't part of the adventure path) and turned a minor NPC into a major villain. If I had a dime for every time the Warlock wished he's just killed Theldrick (or had gotten his armor)

All things said, this is an amazing AP and something every DnD player should experience.

 

[Runestar]

Dungeonscape has the rogue variant which allows you to deal 1/2 SA damage to foes normally immune, in exchange for trap sense, if you are interested.

 

[Crothian]

Some characters were made last night and people went odd. We have a Pixie Paladin, a Goliath Barbarian, a human cleric, and my Dragonborn Dragon Adpet. Hopefully, one of the other guys we can get to play a wizard and we are seemingly getting a new guy that we were going to stick with a rogue.

 

[Desdichado]

As a quick aside; what are you using for 3.5 Dragonborn stats? Or are you converting everything else up to 4e?

 

[Qualidar]

Some characters were made last night and people went odd. We have a Pixie Paladin, a Goliath Barbarian, a human cleric, and my Dragonborn Dragon Adpet. Hopefully, one of the other guys we can get to play a wizard and we are seemingly getting a new guy that we were going to stick with a rogue.

What, pray tell, is the point of a precious pixie paladin?!?!

 

[Crothian]

As a quick aside; what are you using for 3.5 Dragonborn stats? Or are you converting everything else up to 4e?

This is a 3.5 campaign, so no converting needed. The stats of the Dragonborn first appeared in the 3.5 book Races of the Dragon. I'm mostly using the book plus Dragon Magic fora good mix of Draconic feats.

 

[Crothian]

What, pray tell, is the point of a precious pixie paladin?!?!

She is a precious pixie paladin of Pelor!!