Age of Worms for players

[Crothian]

We are about to start an Age of Worms campaign. I've heard from multiple sources that this is a very tough (the toughest?) adventure path. I am one of the players so I'm looking for advice on what classes are more useful and what can be expected without too much spoilers.

Our campaigns are usually year or so long with very little character death. When I DM I prefer to challenge players in other ways then just killing characters. I fear that with such a drastic change in the way this AP is the players will get frustrated with their characters dieing a lot. we will have fun with the challenges but it's never fun to always lose.

I go with odd classes since as a DM I'm used to the normal stuff. I'm looking at a Dragon Adept from Dragon Magic which is very much like the Warlock. I'm hoping there aren't a lot of fire resistance creatures or this character will be less then ideal.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I'm approaching the end of Age of Worms now, as a player. (We're at 15th level.) We've had only two character deaths, but both time it was our spellthief. The player finally created a straight rogue, because it was stuff like no Uncanny Dodge that kept getting him killed.

On the other hand, through most of the AP we've had a heal-bot (cleric/radiant servant), first as a PC, then as a cohort. (We just dropped the cohort in favor of another player, whose character, while having healing abilities, isn't a heal-bot. May get ugly.)

I can think of one or two encounters since, say, 8th level in which my DM has played the opponents very suboptimally to avoid a TPK. On the other hand, he has a tendency to be too liberal is giving enemies surprise rounds against us, so that's probably a wash.

The fights are tough, regardless, and the classic "healer, beater, skill-monkey, spell-generalist" party core will help a lot, PITA though that stricture can be. Your fighter should concentrate on damage, not AC. Especially later, DR is everywhere, and you need to be able to lay the hurt. Rely on the cleric to keep the fighter standing.

AoW is notorious for screwing rogue sneak attack, and the notoriety is deserved. If you're careful defensively, I think something like a beguiler would be ideal in AoW. In any event, just keep in mind that sneak attack will end up being worth about one-third what it normally would be. (Oh, and BTW ... we switched to Pathfinder a few levels back, so rogues can sneak attack most stuff. And before that, we had a house rule that gave rogues with Knowledge ranks the ability to sneak attack associated creatures.)

Having a war mage instead of a wizard has hurt us, no doubt about it. As much as our war mage adds to combat damage -- especially with the cheeseball orb spells -- I'd recommend a full-utility arcanist.

As for a fifth member ... well, the bard is the classic, but probably unneeded if someone runs a beguiler. One later adventure in the AP is practically written for bards, and the ability to face would have come in handy for us at least once or twice in most adventures. I'm pretty sure my DM fudged some Diplomacy DCs for us some, too.

Otherwise, I'd recommend a hybrid damage-dealer/skulker, like an archery-based ranger or scout.

Oh, and a piece of general advice (ignore if unneeded): Write down names and events after every session, while they're still fresh in your mind. This will make the AP so much more fun, when you can say, "Waitasec ... I know that name! It all makes sense now!"

Hope this helps. We've enjoyed the AoW quite a bit. I've liked it better than Shackled City, although I think part of that is that my DM has improved quite a bit.

 

[Crothian]

Thanks Jeff. We played (I ran) over half of Shackled City before that ended with a TPK. I played in about half of Savage Tides before the DM called it quits. I'm in the second adventure of Rise of the Runelords but I'm going to be dropping out of that here soon because of lack of time. I've enjoyed the APs and found ways to have fun with them.

 

[Dragonblade]

Speaking as a powergamer, AoW is tough and brutal.

Be prepared for lots of undead. Rogue sneak attack will be useless in many encounters, so avoid a rogue unless you really like the sneaky aspect of the class.

The best class to play is a cleric with the Radiant Servant of Pelor prestige class. And if you don't have at least one cleric in the group, you guys are screwed.

As far as races go, I highly recommend Warforged if your DM allows it. Being immune to energy drain makes for the ideal undead slayer.

 

[Crothian]

How are the traps? Is having someone with trapfinding needed?

 

[Jeff Wilder]

How are the traps? Is having someone with trapfinding needed?

Yes. Beguiler or scout for the win!

 

[Crothian]

It will depend on what the other players want to play. No one has really completely decided what they want but from what people are talking about we might have a cleric, 2 paladins, a barbarian, and my Dragon Adpet.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

It will depend on what the other players want to play. No one has really completely decided what they want but from what people are talking about we might have a cleric, 2 paladins, a barbarian, and my Dragon Adpet.

That might work, from sheer combat beefiness. You'll get hurt by traps, but you'll have HP to spare, and saves to survive.

(Psst! Try to talk your DM into some sort of "combined effort" rules for turning undead, or into adopting some sort of damage variant (or Pathfinder's channel energy). I was trying to avoid saying "undead infest this adventure" in my earlier post, but since that's out of the bag ... )

 

[Ydars]

I have no experience with the AP but if someone wants to play a Rogue have them take a level of wizard and then practised spellcaster feat once they reach about 4th level. Then they should just keep increasing the Rogue and leave the wizard alone. That way, they can become a utility wizard to spoil the special attacks of many monsters.

Just learn AS MANY 1st level spells as possible and use any spare time to create scrolls of things like benign transposition, shield, expeditious retreat, backbiter, ray of enfeeblement, ray of clumsiness, ray of stupidity, shock and awe, grease, disguise self and shocking grasp. This means that the Rogue player can always contribute even when sneak attack doesn't work and his shocking grasp can replace/augment his sneak attack damage once per combat, especially if you get a spell storing rapier. I use this to do 11d6 damage at 9th level becuase of 4d6 sneak, 5d6 shocking grasp, and 2d6 from rapier (cold augment).

This has been my tactic in our long running 3.5E Undermountain campaign and it has worked well for me and stopped me getting bored with all the undead and sneak-attack immune constructs.

 

[Crothian]

Thanks, Ydars, that does bring up another question for those that have played this AP. Is there down time between adventures? Crafting items and researching spells can be a lot of fun for some of the players, but if the campaign doesn't allow the time for that then we'll make sure no one is going to try that type of character.