D&D 5E Age of Worms Adventure Path

[Pauln6]

This was the first adventure I ran in 4e!

In 5e you can build your enemy teams however you like; you are not bound by the rules for characters like they were in 3e. You could base Arcane Auriga off the elven scout with added Arcane archer options, bow related feats listed as abilities, or increased damage dice to make them a challenge. Give Rennida or members of her team Counterspell or misty step. Give the other teams potions of haste, potions of fire resistance, smoke bombs, or beads of force to help them close the gap with some advantage. They other teams can be tipped off about the PCs talents and plan ways to mitigate against them.

 

[Vienneau]

I could definitely switch the spells, but I want to be wary of building a mage that's specifically designed to defeat them. I like to think of the world as a sandbox with various encounters as defined by others and my PCs wander into them.

...that being said, I like your idea with Wall of Force. And the idea of having the golems "fall" to a fireball, and then get back up. Maybe they can be trained to do that anyway! I should probably flip through the higher level spells and see if anything else jumps out at me.

There are 4 PCs - a monk/warlock, a bard, a druid and a wizard. I suspect "Counterspell" will be my most effective tool. Now that I've looked at Khellek's options, I'm a bit less worried about that final battle. He can always Chain Lightning to heal the flesh golems!

 

[Tormyr]

You make a good point about nightly escapades. At this point, their mindset is "one encounter today, use everything we've got" so they really let loose.

...

I could definitely switch the spells, but I want to be wary of building a mage that's specifically designed to defeat them. I like to think of the world as a sandbox with various encounters as defined by others and my PCs wander into them.

...that being said, I like your idea with Wall of Force. And the idea of having the golems "fall" to a fireball, and then get back up. Maybe they can be trained to do that anyway! I should probably flip through the higher level spells and see if anything else jumps out at me.

There are 4 PCs - a monk/warlock, a bard, a druid and a wizard. I suspect "Counterspell" will be my most effective tool. Now that I've looked at Khellek's options, I'm a bit less worried about that final battle. He can always Chain Lightning to heal the flesh golems!

For more fun, I was thinking about the illusory golems being the ones to fall to fireball and then get back up for the fighters to take a swing and whiff right through the middle of them.

I get what you say about not targeting the heroes, but Khellek is a wizard with an extensive spellbook and less than lawful good alignment, and Loris is targeting them. He already is giving Khellek the golem(s), and he could provide scrolls of any spells Khellek needed to add to his spellbook. Don't forget the 60 foot range on counterspell. That bit me when I ran this encounter.

I like the chain lightning trick to heal the flesh golems.

However I am surprised that they have not snuck around to find out what is going on. The whole point of them entering the games is as a cover for snooping around. If they don't solve things in time, you won't have to worry about Khellek's tactics.

 

[Vienneau]

Woah! Counterspell has a 60' range? The wizard has certainly never mentioned that particular aspect of the spell!

I'm really glad you mentioned that.

Yeah, given that it's an unfair gladiator battle, it does seem reasonable to bring in some specific spells. Certainly every other team had their manager run out and buy Fire Resistance potions after seeing my PCs lob six Fireballs in round 1!

We ended the last session right after the first battle. They have plans to sneak around, we just haven't gotten there yet (this Friday!).

 

[Vienneau]

They've stumbled into the Shrine of Kyuss under the arena and as I'm prepping, of course there are more questions!

1) Room #8 has a glyph of warding "slay living" but Slay Living isn't a thing anymore. Not noted in the conversion. Could be Blight. Or Symbol: Death

2) Room #28 has an Unhallow effect that creates a "Zone of Silence" for non-Kyuss folks. Both of those spells no longer exist, but Hallow has a similar effect with full on silence. Reading the spell description for Zone in v3.5, I'm confused why it's there. People outside the zone can't hear what's in the zone, including sonic attacks. Why would anyone want that? The 5e Hallow version seems better - no sound comes out or goes into the area. So they can't talk to him, but the bard is a lot less effective.

3) Bozal was converted with unholy club (see next question), scroll of Heal and potion of superior healing. Why those items but not the others? Brooch of Shielding seems helpful since he wants to maintain concentration. Periapt of Health appears to be story-driven - protects him from the Kyuss worms!

4) Unholy club is converted to do damage to good creatures, but 5e has moved away from alignment-based effects. Maybe it should be sentient to account for the alignment? Reading the 3.5 unholy weapons, it looks kind of neat. You can use it if you're good, but you're effectively 1 level weaker!

5) Bozal memorized Heroes' Feast? 1,000gp consumed when cast? Is he hosting a big party that night? Same with Feign Death.

6) "True Sight" is actually "True Seeing", and more relevantly, it's a 6th level spell, not 7th.

7) The Channel Divinity power to deal 39 necrotic on an a melee hit seems a bit random. Is it mirroring the "death touch" ability of the original Bozal? Shouldn't it then be 11d6 (39) not straight up 39?...oh wait, it's based on the Death domain in the DMG (p96). That took a while out figure out/find! And explains the extra 2d8 damage with the club that I thought related to it being unholy.

8) Heal over Harm?

9) I was thinking he might want Stone Shape, just to get around the plug to the Ghast area, since they supposed throw a body in there every week.

10) 14 STR gives +2 to attack, but +1 Unholy Club attack shows +2 to hit not +3.

11) Where does the 1/day Hellish Rebuke come from?

The original Bozal has a bunch of summoning to keep PCs busy. But that just doesn't seem available for clerics in 5e. I'm thinking he has Death Ward already cast (Mage Armor for clerics!), and maybe starts with Antilife Shell to keep the melee enemies away. But with his Channel Divinity power, he's almost most dangerous up close, other than having just 1 attack a round and only +3 to hit.

 

[Vienneau]

...reading further on, we've got the "The Apostolic Scrolls" sidebar.

12) Touching the sphere is 12d6 necrotic damage, DC15 CON check for half (vs. negative energy and DC20 Fortitude)
13) Can be destroyed by high level spells that don't matter because my group doesn't have access to (is Disjunction somewhere in 5th edition?)
14) "A DC20 turn undead check followed by a DC10 caster level check" - what does this mean? The Turn Undead becomes DC15, but that's not how Turn Undead works anymore. It gets +8WIS saving throws, so DC18 seems fine. But a "caster level check"? And then failure causes 1d4 negative levels. Not sure how to convert. Success means you can cast Dispel Magic against a 20th level spell - maybe count it as a 9th level spell and so it's a DC19?

I can't tell what the intent is here. Are the PCs supposed to be able to release it? It seems really difficult, but the alternative is to slay Bozal and then wait until the Ulgurstata shrinks (d8 hp per day) to average size. That is going to take a while.

15) ...except that you've got the Ulgurstata at just 116hp, which is average. In theory, it would have 192hp, and shrink by 1d20 a day until it reaches 116. I assume that 116hp is balanced appropriately, which is why it's so low.

So it would appear that Bozal will try to release it (though maybe a bit earlier than "5 or fewer hp"!). That seems like a super deadly encounter a when he release it, it gets Haste (eats two PCs a turn *plus* a legendary bite - uh oh!), Shield of Faith and Bull's Strength, though you've got it at 30STR, so I'm not sure how much help it is to have advantage on STR checks, other than it needs to break through the roof, which is a DC24 STR check (converts to DC18, and it has +10!)

16) The Ulgurstata is missing the "Spawn of Kyuss" ability to vomit dormant undead from its gut. The conversion mentions it under Necromantic Breath (mixes up "spawn" and "skeleton" at one point) but says they just appear vs. taking an action. I think an action would be appropriate (though hopefully it doesn't actually happen). EDIT: apparently the breath weapon does this too, which you've covered, though the original could only breath once a day so - ouch!)

I see two likely scenarios for how this turns out:

1) It's not released by Bozal. My players will see it, and then flee to the wizard's guild and temples and warn them of what's coming so they bring an army down to the arena to destroy it.

Any ideas on how to deal with that? How does Raknian convince them that the PCs are just making it all up? They sound like crazies trying to get out of losing the games?

2) It's released by Bozal, bursts up into the arena, and goes on a rampage, eating random guards and people and spawning them. The PCs try to follow and stop it.

Any suggestions on how to deal with that? It sounds like it could get out of hand pretty quickly, but again, the arch mages and high level priests would likely rush to defend. (though with 6-second rounds, that's a lot of spawn created as the arch mage rolls out of bed, puts on her robe of the arch magi, pulls out the flying carpet, and heads on over)

 

[Tormyr]

They've stumbled into the Shrine of Kyuss under the arena and as I'm prepping, of course there are more questions!

1) Room #8 has a glyph of warding "slay living" but Slay Living isn't a thing anymore. Not noted in the conversion. Could be Blight. Or Symbol: Death

2) Room #28 has an Unhallow effect that creates a "Zone of Silence" for non-Kyuss folks. Both of those spells no longer exist, but Hallow has a similar effect with full on silence. Reading the spell description for Zone in v3.5, I'm confused why it's there. People outside the zone can't hear what's in the zone, including sonic attacks. Why would anyone want that? The 5e Hallow version seems better - no sound comes out or goes into the area. So they can't talk to him, but the bard is a lot less effective.

3) Bozal was converted with unholy club (see next question), scroll of Heal and potion of superior healing. Why those items but not the others? Brooch of Shielding seems helpful since he wants to maintain concentration. Periapt of Health appears to be story-driven - protects him from the Kyuss worms!

4) Unholy club is converted to do damage to good creatures, but 5e has moved away from alignment-based effects. Maybe it should be sentient to account for the alignment? Reading the 3.5 unholy weapons, it looks kind of neat. You can use it if you're good, but you're effectively 1 level weaker!

5) Bozal memorized Heroes' Feast? 1,000gp consumed when cast? Is he hosting a big party that night? Same with Feign Death.

6) "True Sight" is actually "True Seeing", and more relevantly, it's a 6th level spell, not 7th.

7) The Channel Divinity power to deal 39 necrotic on an a melee hit seems a bit random. Is it mirroring the "death touch" ability of the original Bozal? Shouldn't it then be 11d6 (39) not straight up 39?...oh wait, it's based on the Death domain in the DMG (p96). That took a while out figure out/find! And explains the extra 2d8 damage with the club that I thought related to it being unholy.

8) Heal over Harm?

9) I was thinking he might want Stone Shape, just to get around the plug to the Ghast area, since they supposed throw a body in there every week.

10) 14 STR gives +2 to attack, but +1 Unholy Club attack shows +2 to hit not +3.

11) Where does the 1/day Hellish Rebuke come from?

The original Bozal has a bunch of summoning to keep PCs busy. But that just doesn't seem available for clerics in 5e. I'm thinking he has Death Ward already cast (Mage Armor for clerics!), and maybe starts with Antilife Shell to keep the melee enemies away. But with his Channel Divinity power, he's almost most dangerous up close, other than having just 1 attack a round and only +3 to hit.

Going off of memory, so bear with me. Adventure 5 was the first "true 5e creatures" I did because the MM and DMG had just been released.

1. I went with a symbol of fear.
2. Depending on where the hallow with silence is, it could mess with Bozal. I think I dropped it for my game.
3. Brooch of shielding is very different in 5e.
4. Yeah, you figured it out later. I used Death domain from the DMG.
5. I don't remember if heroes' feast was carried over from 3.5 or I was just looking for a spell. but I don't mind having a few spells that are not combat oriented and are just there to think about what else this person was doing.
6. Oops.
7. Death domain.
8. Harm does 49 damage. Heal provides 70 healing and removes some ailments. It was part of what I did for him to keep him as a solo.
9. Sure, but that is permanent.
10. Oops.
11. He's a tiefling.
Antilife shell in the choke point to the north was useful in my game. As he died he released the seal on the apostle of kyuss.

 

[Vienneau]

I actually just stumbled across a post you made in a different thread with a picture. Impressive purple worm mini!

It sounds like you let Bozal release it from a distance. I was pondering whether to require that he touch the sphere.

And based on that other post, I'm very curious how it played out for your group.

 

[Tormyr]

...reading further on, we've got the "The Apostolic Scrolls" sidebar.

12) Touching the sphere is 12d6 necrotic damage, DC15 CON check for half (vs. negative energy and DC20 Fortitude)
13) Can be destroyed by high level spells that don't matter because my group doesn't have access to (is Disjunction somewhere in 5th edition?)
14) "A DC20 turn undead check followed by a DC10 caster level check" - what does this mean? The Turn Undead becomes DC15, but that's not how Turn Undead works anymore. It gets +8WIS saving throws, so DC18 seems fine. But a "caster level check"? And then failure causes 1d4 negative levels. Not sure how to convert. Success means you can cast Dispel Magic against a 20th level spell - maybe count it as a 9th level spell and so it's a DC19?

I can't tell what the intent is here. Are the PCs supposed to be able to release it? It seems really difficult, but the alternative is to slay Bozal and then wait until the Ulgurstata shrinks (d8 hp per day) to average size. That is going to take a while.

15) ...except that you've got the Ulgurstata at just 116hp, which is average. In theory, it would have 192hp, and shrink by 1d20 a day until it reaches 116. I assume that 116hp is balanced appropriately, which is why it's so low.

So it would appear that Bozal will try to release it (though maybe a bit earlier than "5 or fewer hp"!). That seems like a super deadly encounter a when he release it, it gets Haste (eats two PCs a turn *plus* a legendary bite - uh oh!), Shield of Faith and Bull's Strength, though you've got it at 30STR, so I'm not sure how much help it is to have advantage on STR checks, other than it needs to break through the roof, which is a DC24 STR check (converts to DC18, and it has +10!)

16) The Ulgurstata is missing the "Spawn of Kyuss" ability to vomit dormant undead from its gut. The conversion mentions it under Necromantic Breath (mixes up "spawn" and "skeleton" at one point) but says they just appear vs. taking an action. I think an action would be appropriate (though hopefully it doesn't actually happen).

I see two likely scenarios for how this turns out:

1) It's not released by Bozal. My players will see it, and then flee to the wizard's guild and temples and warn them of what's coming so they bring an army down to the arena to destroy it.

Any ideas on how to deal with that? How does Raknian convince them that the PCs are just making it all up? They sound like crazies trying to get out of losing the games?

2) It's released by Bozal, bursts up into the arena, and goes on a rampage, eating random guards and people and spawning them. The PCs try to follow and stop it.

Any suggestions on how to deal with that? It sounds like it could get out of hand pretty quickly, but again, the arch mages and high level priests would likely rush to defend. (though with 6-second rounds, that's a lot of spawn created as the arch mage rolls out of bed, puts on her robe of the arch magi, pulls out the flying carpet, and heads on over)

Ah, I unfortunately don't have time to go digging on this.
12. Substitute necrotic damage for negative energy.
13. Dispel magic now works with a high enough Spellcasting ability check.
14. It doesn't mean anything anymore in 5e. Give a level of exhaustion, necrotic damage, or disadvantage on anything to do with Wisdom instead of negative levels.
15. Average hp is fine. I had Bozal release as he died, so the heroes did not get a chance to rest.
16. Just dump a bunch of zombies or skeletons. Its more for distraction.

1. Why wouldn't Bozal release it? He wants it released as a kill switch.
2. When I had him release it early, it attacked the party rather than heading up immediately.

 

[Tormyr]

I actually just stumbled across a post you made in a different thread with a picture. Impressive purple worm mini!

It sounds like you let Bozal release it from a distance. I was pondering whether to require that he touch the sphere.

And based on that other post, I'm very curious how it played out for your group.

I wanted the fight and a reason to bring out the purple worm mini based on DM Scotty's video.

The fight was dicey. One of the heroes was swallowed and barely survived.