D&D 5E Age of Worms Adventure Path

Tormyr said:

I did a slightly oddball thing to model the 3.5 Gather Information check and combined Charisma with Investigation. It is one of the few cross ability skill checks I use, but it seems to help a larger group be able to contribute something without usually having anyone really good at it. In my experience, there are few PCs that are good at Investigation and Charisma, but lots are good at one or the other.

Thanks for finding the typos. I am building a list of stuff to hit on a second pass through all of these documents.

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Its actually not oddball. Using the Blackwall Keep example, its perception to notice the worm or physical changes and investigation to realize the changes are connected to worm infestation , or %100 if the players ever see it happening.

Players seem to forget the Guidance spell on their spell sheets. It should be cast all the time, it also works on initiative.

smbakeresq said:

Players seem to forget the Guidance spell on their spell sheets. It should be cast all the time, it also works on initiative.

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Interesting, if you know you are about to jump into a fight within the next minute, you can cast guidance to help someone get the jump on the enemy (better initiative roll). I had not thought of that.

Tormyr said:

Interesting, if you know you are about to jump into a fight within the next minute, you can cast guidance to help someone get the jump on the enemy (better initiative roll). I had not thought of that.

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Every time you open a door. I would certainly allow a player also to use guidance (I have done it) "I am keeping alert for danger all the time by casting my guidance spell every minute to help out my perception of enemies." Guidance is so abusive on any type of ability check as a DM its just better to think of situation where it cant be used ahead of time.

We finished off Blackwell Keep last week. What I thought would take a few minutes ended up taking the entire session!

They took my hint about checking out the submerged tunnel but were scared off by the "submerged" portion. Eventually they decided they could swim it. That triggered:

1) The conversion doesn't mention the DC 10 Swim check for room #10 in the lair

It's a 100' foot tunnel, but I didn't make a big deal of it until someone rolled a 1 on their Swim check. That meant they accidentally brushed against the Vine Blight that Hishka had waved aside and we had a bit of a tussle, but nothing too bad.

The kobolds were easy. I wish the PCs had acid attacks so that they could be surprised by them not working against all the acid-resistant creatures!

2) The "cure light wounds" potions aren't defined (clearly they are healing potions, but for completeness, I included it)

3) The "Slow Worm" sidebar isn't converted. DC 15 Fortify save + CON poison is mentioned, plus a DC 20 Spot check.

They got to the egg chamber and despite my worries about a calamity, carefully levitated someone over to extract the dragon egg without breaking it. That's when I realized that the treasure chest is underwater near the egg.

4) The potions in the chest aren't converted. In particular, "Bull's Strength" turns into "Enhance Ability: Bull's Strength" I think, or maybe just Potion of Hill Giant Strength?

The part that confused me the most and had me pause the game a minute while I flipped pages: There are three chests on the map and mentioned in the box text...but there's no explanation for them. They're just empty? Locked? Why are they there?

Now we're off to the Free City and I have to decide which parts of the doppleganger plot/dungeon I want to use. I'm keen to jump right to the gladiator stuff!

Vienneau said:

We finished off Blackwell Keep last week. What I thought would take a few minutes ended up taking the entire session!

They took my hint about checking out the submerged tunnel but were scared off by the "submerged" portion. Eventually they decided they could swim it. That triggered:

1) The conversion doesn't mention the DC 10 Swim check for room #10 in the lair

It's a 100' foot tunnel, but I didn't make a big deal of it until someone rolled a 1 on their Swim check. That meant they accidentally brushed against the Vine Blight that Hishka had waved aside and we had a bit of a tussle, but nothing too bad.

The kobolds were easy. I wish the PCs had acid attacks so that they could be surprised by them not working against all the acid-resistant creatures!

2) The "cure light wounds" potions aren't defined (clearly they are healing potions, but for completeness, I included it)

3) The "Slow Worm" sidebar isn't converted. DC 15 Fortify save + CON poison is mentioned, plus a DC 20 Spot check.

They got to the egg chamber and despite my worries about a calamity, carefully levitated someone over to extract the dragon egg without breaking it. That's when I realized that the treasure chest is underwater near the egg.

4) The potions in the chest aren't converted. In particular, "Bull's Strength" turns into "Enhance Ability: Bull's Strength" I think, or maybe just Potion of Hill Giant Strength?

The part that confused me the most and had me pause the game a minute while I flipped pages: There are three chests on the map and mentioned in the box text...but there's no explanation for them. They're just empty? Locked? Why are they there?

Now we're off to the Free City and I have to decide which parts of the doppleganger plot/dungeon I want to use. I'm keen to jump right to the gladiator stuff!

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Thanks, I will add them to the list.

1. I didn't really see a need to have a swim check as the water was calm, and everyone should get through even with the minimum 5 rounds of air.
2. I used CLW as a healing potion, CMW as a greater healing potion, and continued up from there.
3. I use a simple formula when the DC is not calculated from an NPC's stats: the 5e DC is .75 of the 3.5 DC. So the spot check is DC 15 Wisdom (Perception). The poison is a DC 11 Constitution saving throw.
4. In this case it is just a potion that imitates the effects of the Bull's Strength portion of Enhance Ability.
5. There were a lot of discrepancies between maps and text in this adventure path. I would call those barrels of supplies and move on.

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:



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

...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.

Vienneau said:

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.

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http://paizo.com/search?q=planks&forum=v5748dmtyxpkp

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2h0mb?The-Sodden-Hold#3

The links are much appreciated. I had some paizo links but they didn't work anymore. It's a bit of a challenge running something a dozen years after everyone else, so it's great having these old conversations around.

I will get to these as soon as I can. I have been slammed for about 6 weeks by an international move.