D&D 5E Age of Worms Adventure Path

[Dax Doomslayer]

That sounds like a lot of fun and must have been pretty epic Tormyr!

 

[Tormyr]

Lots of fun and also one of many times I thought, "This is it, they are all going to die...", while one of the players starts chanting, "TPK! TPK!" Somehow, they always managed to pull through, sometimes by the skin of their teeth.

 

[Tormyr]

Any updates?

Also playing through this again with kids and at very end found a problem that only affects you if you go on to realm play. When the Spire comes down and the Worms eat 600' down the pit would flood, it's on the coastline. There wouldn't be a pit to adventure in as indicated.

This path is TOUGHER in many ways in 5th edition then in 3.5. There just is a lot of HP to chew through and 5e has very few spells that just end things. Multiple bad guys with multiple Spirit Guardians up just wear down PC's. This AP was made to be though, at the end you get huge amount of treasure and a kingdom to run, it shouldn't be easy.

When done the kids get to rule a kingdom and fight Iuz and his minions.


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I just said that Alhaster was built on bedrock. I am now running a short adventure with the descendants of the heroes of Alhaster. 200 years in the future, a branch of the Green Dragon inn purchased the land around the hole and constructed a huge, shallow dome over the pit. They built the Alhaster branch of the Green Dragon on the dome with a seal over a central hole. Adventurers can pay a gold piece to be lowered down in a bucket into the deep pit...

The descendants of the heroes of Alhaster decided to make a name for themselves, but now they are making their way through a modified Tomb of Horrors.

 

[Tormyr]

Not much in the formatting department, can you send me your template for writing these up? I think I am going to covert the Savage Tide AP and I like they your template looks and reads.


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Sorry for the silence on this. I have sat on this for a while because the Word file that I used has been slowly deteriorating chapter by chapter, and I was trying to figure out how to offer something that was not falling apart. Among other problems, different line and character spacing has crept its way in and is difficult to clean up. I have moved to LaTeX for all future projects of this sort, and I would highly recommend you take a look as well. You can use an online editor such as https://www.sharelatex.com?r=23b51720&rm=d&rs=b for free, and the following template here ->https://github.com/evanbergeron/DND-5e-LaTeX-Template will give you a starting point for a document that looks like it came out of a WotC adventure book (scroll down in that link to see what it can look like. You can download the files as a bundle and then upload them to ShareLaTeX. I plan on re-releasing at least this adventure path conversion using a modified version of that template.

The nice part of using LaTex is that it separates content from presentation in a similar way to how html and css work. You can write out the content and make a couple of changes to alter how the document looks, but the content stays the same. There is a small learning curve, but I would highly recommend it over Word or most other means of laying out something like this. There are some downsides to LaTeX. It can be harder at first to put something in a specific place or figure out why a bunch of your text has split apart, but it really is worth it for a project like this.

 

[Vienneau]

So the PCs sneak up on Blackwall Keep...and decide to boldly walk up and announce themselves to the Lizardfolk! I did not expect that. And they might have been able to bluff their way through it if their spokesperson didn't have a Jewel of Attacks on him, inciting everyone to attack him.

Mass combat ensued. 30+ creatures with 44hp - that's 1300+ hp to fight through!

We ended the session with many lizardfolk (including Kushak) down, but the shaman Sasath is still pressing. I'm pretty sure that the lizardfolk will retreat after taking heavy losses.

What I didn't realize until now is that the adventure text doesn't really talk about what to do with 10-20 retreating lizardfolk. It talks about tracking the original kidnappers back to the lair. And at the lair it talks about how the patrol are down due to everyone attacking the keep. But it seems to suggest that they are still away attacking the keep, which is very unlikely, but elsewhere in the text it's clear that they retreat when down to 10/20 people.

Conclusion: They messed up a bit, but whatever. I think it means that the lair will have 20+ more lizardfolk (including full 5-man patrols)? That seems nasty.

How did other people handle the retreating lizardfolk? Were there any?

Also, with the patrols around the lair, what odds did you use that they would be encountered? I can't imagine the PCs sneaking when racing after the kidnappers, so they almost definitely will be noticed and the lair alerted. Is that how everyone else played it? Does the patrol attempt to interact with them, or just rush back and warn the lair, with a chance of the PCs noticing them fleeing?

The PCs are back tomorrow (Tuesday) night - give me any advice you've got!

 

[hastur_nz]

From memory, yes, the adventure isn't especially well written, potentially you need to ad-lib a lot based on what your players get up to. I'm pretty sure I had lizardfolk retreat back to their lair, I think I also had a little black dragon ambush the PC's as they slogged through the swamps, just before the lair.

 

[Tormyr]

Just because the lizardfolk force goes back home does not mean that they all go back to that specific tree. If you set everything up on a map, that tree is full. I would recommend going with the tree as written regardless of how many lizardfolk retreated. They either integrate into the lizardfolk already on the map or stay in other nearby dwellings.

In my game, they took a long rest and set out the next day. So the random encounters came into play rather than more lizardfolk.

 

[smbakeresq]

Having the Spawn of Kyuss (and rules for the Worms) come out in Kyuss is good timing for this thread.


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The new rules for Kyuss Worms actually work well. The DC save to avoid them is lowish, by since they are basically an every round occurrence it’s effective and annoying without seeming like a screw job.


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[smbakeresq]

So the PCs sneak up on Blackwall Keep...and decide to boldly walk up and announce themselves to the Lizardfolk! I did not expect that. And they might have been able to bluff their way through it if their spokesperson didn't have a Jewel of Attacks on him, inciting everyone to attack him.

Mass combat ensued. 30+ creatures with 44hp - that's 1300+ hp to fight through!

We ended the session with many lizardfolk (including Kushak) down, but the shaman Sasath is still pressing. I'm pretty sure that the lizardfolk will retreat after taking heavy losses.

What I didn't realize until now is that the adventure text doesn't really talk about what to do with 10-20 retreating lizardfolk. It talks about tracking the original kidnappers back to the lair. And at the lair it talks about how the patrol are down due to everyone attacking the keep. But it seems to suggest that they are still away attacking the keep, which is very unlikely, but elsewhere in the text it's clear that they retreat when down to 10/20 people.

Conclusion: They messed up a bit, but whatever. I think it means that the lair will have 20+ more lizardfolk (including full 5-man patrols)? That seems nasty.

How did other people handle the retreating lizardfolk? Were there any?

Also, with the patrols around the lair, what odds did you use that they would be encountered? I can't imagine the PCs sneaking when racing after the kidnappers, so they almost definitely will be noticed and the lair alerted. Is that how everyone else played it? Does the patrol attempt to interact with them, or just rush back and warn the lair, with a chance of the PCs noticing them fleeing?

The PCs are back tomorrow (Tuesday) night - give me any advice you've got!

Running the kids through this now. I didn’t up the HP since with large groups of reasonably intelligent combatants I have half use the help action to give the other half a boost. This is a faster at the table since you cut the attacks rolls in half but still roll the same number of dice, players feel like they are getting attacked many times but actually are only taking half the attacks but with advantage.


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[smbakeresq]

Running the kids through this now. I didn’t up the HP since with large groups of reasonably intelligent combatants I have half use the help action to give the other half a boost. This is a faster at the table since you cut the attacks rolls in half but still roll the same number of dice, players feel like they are getting attacked many times but actually are only taking half the attacks but with advantage.


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Has anyone played this with Spirit Guardians up interacting with the Worms? Would Spirit Guardians attack the Worms? It seems RAW they would vaporize the Worms in air on before they burrow.


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