Age of Worms - Deadly

[Nightfall]

a mix of new and old faces from the shackled citty

Old: Ebon Triad given more time, dragons,
New (but kind of old): Dragoth, Kyuss, Wind Dukes, and the Rod of Seven Parts.
New: Diamond Lake, lizardfolk, Spawn of Kyuss, Uguloth(sp)

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

To rephrase; we had three characters, a Barbarian, a Druid/Greenbond (Can't remember) and a Bard to begin with, which changed into Barbarian, Magister and Paladin.

They actually put effort into their stories and backgrounds and things. Thats four years of RP training .

The problem with that is that when they finally do find magic items they are endlessly suspicious of them. The barbarian flat out refused to wear the armor unless they could find it's history and whether it's cursed or not. We tend to be a rare-magic lot, so it's a change to hit the standard D+D setting power again.

Nonetheless, I never dictate actual class choice, though I might limit what they actually are. Just a thing of mine. If three people play fighters, They'll have to live with it until we all get to grips with it.


Well, it got them killed. But hey, they chose it

 

[Nightfall]

Mark,

Riighttt...

Well in any case I do think if I was in the group, I'd change to suit the needs of the party as whole, rather just RP it that much. But having an innate distrust of magic, especially after years of low/rare magic stuff, makes sense. Not sure I'm against not having some background for a couple magic items, but some times as they say "A magic ring is a magic ring is a magic ring." Something to that effect anyway.

 

[Agamon]

Reading though the Shackled City hardcover now, the first adventure is really deadly.

??

Is the hardcover that different from the Dungeon mods? I found the first adventure kinda dull, compared to the next few.

Edit: oh, wait, that last fight was really tough, if I recall...

 

[Saeviomagy]

??

Is the hardcover that different from the Dungeon mods? I found the first adventure kinda dull, compared to the next few.

Edit: oh, wait, that last fight was really tough, if I recall...

Yeah - the last fight in Bazaar is extremely heavy duty, primarily because the main opponent can easily drop an appropriately levelled-character (and I'm talking a barbarian) in a single shot. If you just give up his main weapon, it makes it a lot more fun and survivable.

Nothing else in there was really that dangerous - some close calls, but close calls are what makes a game fun.

Critters that kill a character whenever they swing - not fun.

 

[wingsandsword]

Anyone else have deadly problems in the Age of Worms bit? The second adventure seems quite hard as well.

In 7 years of gaming, I had my first permanent (i.e. could not be raised) PC fatality in the first Age of Worms adventure on Sunday.

Now, we were playing through it with Iron Heroes (so there was no ability for ressurection, but with a 2nd level party, dead is pretty much dead anyway). Our party was a Thief, an Executioner, an Arcanist, a Weapon Master and a Hunter (my character).

In the final encounter, the Wind Dukes tomb (I think), there is the central island with the wide chasm leading to it, protected by three flying air-elemental suits of armor creatures (as I said, I was playing, not DM'ing, so I don't know the actual name of these things).

Our weapon master was knocked to bleeding out on the central island, and three other PC's not able to make headway against the three guardians protecting the bridges, I decided to be heroic and try and jump the chasm to the central island to try and bandage our downed party member. A failed Jump check meant I went to -17 HP and was dead on impact, two other PC's were downed and bleeding by the end of the fight (with none of the creatures significantly hurt) before the Thief managed to do something at the altar to deactivate the guardians. If she hadn't figured out that puzzle, it would certainly have been a TPK of a 2nd level party.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I think your DM did a bit of quick house-ruling a control panel or something in there. I can't seem to remember one, though I haven't read it since I played it some weeks ago.

Nonetheless, it's a hugely difficult dungeon. Interesting to see that both of these adventure paths seem to have PC's prevailing against impossible odds.

What I mean is, those monsties kill and they kill bad. The last guy isn't an appropriately-modelled challenge to kill one PC and wound all the rest to bleeding and have one PC of one hit point remaining take him out- sort of bad guy.

Which is both good and bad. It leads onto a simulationist/gamist sort of game more than a narrativist, interestingly.



Is this a thing that Dungeon are doing? If indications are correct, Shackled City is also on the difficult side.

I love the idea of long, hard adventures/campaigns that link together. And I'm a narrativist to the core

 

[KenM]

??

Is the hardcover that different from the Dungeon mods? I found the first adventure kinda dull, compared to the next few.

Edit: oh, wait, that last fight was really tough, if I recall...

Some of the NPC's can be tough. There is also something in there that if you die from it, you can only br broght back with a reincarnate, res or true res, not raise dead.

 

[Rugger]

We just started the Age of Worms 2 weeks ago, and I had to fudge a bit because

Spoiler

swarms

are REALLY rough at 1st level...auto damage and only AoE effects damage them...

1st Level is a good time to fudge though, cause all a TPK causes at that level is a lot of heartache/time loss.

-Rugger

 

[iLoVeKobolds]

Whoa! I'm getting ready to run AoW with a small party. Sounds pretty scary.
Did you happen to tone down any of the encounters?