D&D 5E A truly horrifying Age of Worms

[TheSword]

So I am looking at running the Age of Worms converted to 5e and am a little concerned that ease of access to lesser restoration and the large number of undead will be easily overcome by clerics and paladins. Particularly as the campaign progresses.

My though was to have divine magic become steadily harder to perform as the campaign progresses - each spell costs progressively a slot 1 higher slot to cast at key points in the campaign. During the Whispering Cairn and Three Faces of Evil it would be 1 higher, during Encounter at Blackwall, Hall of Harsh Reflections and Champions Belt it would be 2 higher. During a Gathering of Winds 3 etc etc.

This would make divine magic extremely precious, discourage PCs playing divine classes (they would be told about the level 1 cost upfront of course) and would provide an interesting panic to the established order as the campaign unfolds. It also mirrors the portents explored in Elder Evils (of which Kyuss is referenced as one). My group frequently plays without divine characters so I don’t think this will constrain the players. However what ramifications do you think this would have on 5e and the campaign for those that know it?

[Edit: for bonus points, how does this Campaign stack up in a Greek setting, Theros/Arkadia/Odessey of the Dragonlords. I’m thinking ancient ruins, gladiatorial games, despotic kings and ancient druids.]

 

[jgsugden]

It is better not to diminish particular PCs. It takes away their agency and makes them feel like they're being punished. If I'm running an undead heavy campaign, I want the cleric to feel like they're the star. To adjust, I would:

a.) Add more undead. Let the turn undead be effective, but just add some extra undead, or a second wave here and there. It gives the cleric the feeling that they're saving the group from overwhelming forces. That feels better as a player than feeling like your toys have been taken away. Ideally, you can shape encounters to create opportunities for the cleric to have an optimal use of turn undead, etc...

b.) Add in curse elements so that a remove curse is often needed on top of the lesser restoration. You need to remove the curse before you can remove the disease. This gives you some insulation until at least 5th level. If you do this, make sure there are other places they can use lesser restoration so that they do not feel their toy has been taken away.

c.) Just discourage paladins or clerics at the start of the game. I would not tell players not to play one, but if a player is thinking about making one, I'd encourage them to think about other classes that the group has not seen, like bards and druids.

 

[TheSword]

Age of Worms is a crazily undead heavy campaign, that goes more so as the game continues. I’m not so much worried about the Cleric/Paladin/Druid not getting to shine but rather being dominant above others. I agree that your suggestion C is always a good idea. As I said they would be discouraged from playing divine classes entirely rather than them play them and have their hands tied.

This is more a question about what impact limiting divine magic from an NPC point of view and completely removing from players has on the game?

 

[Oofta]

I'm not familiar with the mod but I wouldn't make house rules. I'd just modify encounters and how often the PCs can rest and recover if necessary. It doesn't matter if a PC can turn undead if they've already used their channel divinities for the day.

I suspect this is a solution looking for an issue - even if divine PCs are slightly more powerful, so what? Give that cleric a chance to be something other than a heal-bot. Reward a player for playing a PC that works best for the opponents they'll be facing by letting them be effective.

No one PC is going to be so much better than every other PC in 5E that it makes that much of a difference.

 

[TheSword]

I suspect you need to know a bit more about the campaign.

Spoiler

One of the tings that makes the campaign so scary in the earlier stages is the discovery of worms that burrow into a person and Turn them into undead. These are cured by casting remove disease - in 3e a fairly niche 3rd level spell that had to be memorized. In 5e It’s an all encompassing 2nd level spell that is a given for most divine spell casting characters to take.

At the later stages it is a given that the players gain defenses against this - usually immunity to disease through some method or another - otherwise they would become worm food. Though at early stages it is a big part of the feel and difficulty of the campaign.

believe me a paladin, and a cleric (or even a druid) would trivialize this game for the first half of the campaign. In my opinion. It isn’t about them being more powerful than the rest of the party... it’s them having resources that trivialize core components of the game

I’m hoping for specific discussion relating to the Age of Worms not so much general principles of limiting campaigns. I’m also absolutely in favor of house rules where they improve the style and theme of the game.

 

[humble minion]

If you're concerned that the 5e spellcasting model might trivialise

Spoiler

the worms, it might seem to be a simpler fix to make curing the worm infestation more difficult rather than banning, crippling, or rewriting core classes of the entire game. Perhaps Remove Disease only works against this particular disease when used in conjunction with rare and expensive herbs (and only when they're freshly picked...), or blessed silver powder, or some other difficult/inconvenient/expensive component? Or maybe it also requires (for example) a use of Channel Divinity in addition to the spell, or it has to be cast on hallowed ground? Or maybe the worm gets a saving throw, or the spell is not guaranteed to work for some other reason? Or even rule that each spawn of Kyuss attack infests the victim with 1d3 or 1d4 worms, each of which requires a Remove Disease of its own?

(I'm just throwing some ideas around off the top of my head here, it's a looong time since i read Age or Worms and I never played/DMed it)

edit: though having said that, I do remember a lot of the complaints around Age of Worms at the time it came out was that it was so undead-heavy and PCs who were rogues or bards or enchanters or whatever could often find themselves feeling pretty useless while the clerics powered through everything. This is less of a big deal in 5e, rogues etc are more useful against undead and 5e clerics get less Channel Divinity uses than 3e clerics got Turn Undead, but it still might be an issue. You might want to add a few more living enemies in here and there, just to keep things varied.

 

[Oofta]

It's one thing to say that a cure disease is a "mere" 2nd level spell (or 5 points of LOH), but that just changes how much you need to push resource management. Sure you can cure 1 or 2 (or 10) people but what about 20?

Or as @humble minion just adjust the disease. Make a chance of backlash - every time someone tries to cast cure disease they need to make a saving throw themselves.

There are a lot of ways of dealing with this, the last resort imho should be nerfing classes.

 

[orangefruitbat]

Having played AoW in 3.5, clerics or paladins with the right prestige class could definitely make things easier for the party. Plus, cheap wands and scrolls... But the campaign was still a meat-grinder.

Characters seem more durable in 5E, but with fewer spell slots and magic items, I don't think clerics or paladins would be any more unbalanced than in the original.

 

[Talltomwright]

Rather than changing the PCs and their spells at all could you instead rule that Greater Restoration was required to counteract the effect you mentioned (since its evidentially a powerful magical effect and not a natural disease.) 5th level spell with 100gp of diamond dust material component. Also as more magic users discover the application of that spell across your campaign world demand for diamond dust will go up and its cost will rise sharply.

 

[Var]

Wouldn't the usual opponents being undead already cancel out with the Cleric ending up to spend a lot of his resources on dealing with the worms?
The one thing I'd adjust is turn Undead. Honestly just take it away from Clerics or make it not work on Undead created by worms. It's one of the subfeatures of a subfeatures that does nothing 95% of the time and is pretty broken when it matters. Channel Divinity is pretty good without it for most Clerics, it's not going to hurt them any feelings.

Not to mention that the tired old trope of Paldin/Cleric vs evil is thematic if nothing else. Straight up making the classes less viable or discouraging them is a bit iffy when it makes perfect sense for them to be there.

Lesser Restoration is not exactly uncommon:
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger
Outside of Clerics and Druides, who'd still like to do other stuff with their Spellslots, a second level choice is no joke for a Bard and a rather big expenditure for a half caster.

If you want it to be harder to get rid off don't make it a mundane disease.
Switching the worms to a Curse (Classes: Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard) will compete with Spirit Guardians/Fireball/Haste and really hurts. Greater Restoration is a massive step up and consumes 100GP worth of diamonds. Your players will scramble for consumables to save their slots for other stuff, even if you let Lesser Restoration work.
It's also possible to scale it as already suggested. The worms coming from a Zombie bite will be weak enough to handle with Lesser Restoration. A stronger Undead like a Wight infecting someone will require Remove Curse first and then Lesser Restoration.