Age of Worms for players

[Crothian]

We will have maybe five players. One of the wife's is starting a master's degree program so he is fearful he will have to miss sessions to watch the kids. But we are are good at peer pressure and he seems to be ready to commit.

 

[Desdichado]

I've seen this question a lot, and I don't really understand it. Age of Worms is 12 adventures strung together, and as you can imagine, you pretty much do it all over the course of 12 adventures. I can't think of any build that would specifically be good for Age of Worms that wouldn't be a good build in any scenario; likewise, I can't think of a build that would specifically be poor for Age of Worms that wouldn't be a poor build in any scenario. What am I missing?

The only advice I can give, and this isn't much of a spoiler, really, is that with Kyuss being a featured adversary, any characters with sneak attack oughtta invest in that feat (from Libris Mortis? or was it in Heroes of Horror? or one of the Complete roguish character type books like Adventurer or Scoundrel?) that allows you to do sneak attack damage to undead. That'll come up often enough to pay for itself.

 

[Desdichado]

Let's see how we did this game... we started with me being a changeling rogue (although with mostly a lot of social skills; more of a con man than a dungeon debugger) a bugbear who took some druid levels after finishing all his racial hd, a goblin monk and a gnome sorcerer who went on to become a blood magus. So not exactly a standard group either. We ended up having some personnel changes; the bugbear's player moved away, we had a DM run cleric (of Heironeous) and we had a few other players who came and went; a human drunken master with a magical beer mug as a weapon, another guy who played five or six characters, usually from odd sources, but managed to get all of them killed. Not because of his build choices; because of his play choices, I might add. Another two new players who joined us at halfway through the campaign (or perhaps even further along) were elves; one a druid, and one a fighter focusing on archery. At about 10th level, I got tired of the rogue who was constantly being forced into a traditional roguish role that I wasn't interested in, so I switched to a shifter ranger/barbarian. We all dabbled heavily in prestige classes as well.

Nobody ever wanted to play a cleric, but our DM--like I said--had a DM PC that was relatively unobtrusive and actually kinda fun, especially as a foil for our mostly neutral and even sometimes evil party. In fact, for the first half of the campaign we joked about it, but we literally didn't have a single good member of the party at all.

Again; I don't know what to tell you about specific builds for this campaign. Pretty much any good build in any scenario will see some use here. A lot of things depend on your DM and how he runs things, too.

 

[Crothian]

I've seen this question a lot, and I don't really understand it. Age of Worms is 12 adventures strung together, and as you can imagine, you pretty much do it all over the course of 12 adventures.

Then that's the answer. The 12 adventures don't have to "do it all" so to say. The high number of undead is important to know and can effect character ideas. It has a reputation for being the toughest adventure path and so there are some character ideas that are weak that people might want to avoid. Knowing that there are some good diplomacy uses is important, too. It is just trying to cover the basis to have characters fit the adventures since the adventurers will not be made to fit the characters.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, I think a lot of that depends on a lot of "ifs". We did a fair amount of diplomaticizing and intimidating, but I don't know how much of that is written in the adventures as opposed to our DM just giving us some latitude to solve things our own way.

We also had an extremely lucky time with two of the biggest combats in the entire game; one was supposed to be a TPK threat to anyone, and we got the jump on it; I did over 100 points of damage with my ranger/barbarian (I had Pounce from the Reachrunner prestige class by then, so I could charge and take a full attack option, and one of my iterative attacks was a critical) and then it failed a save with a natural 1 against a Dismissal spell.

Whoops! Combat over before it even got to act. So I dunno. We didn't find the AP unduly tough, but I think we got extremely lucky at a few key points and that's mostly why.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Arguably, the most effective character in my Age of Worms campaign was the ranger with Favored Enemy (Undead). Wouldn't hurt to have someone like that around to dish out a hefty sum of damage.

Speaking of this game, the party was made up of

Fighter
Cleric/War Priest/Fighter
Ranger (Undead favorite enemy)
Wizard
Warlock
Bard (my character)

Even with 6 characters the battles were brutal. Use Magic Device by the warlock was a game saver more times then I can remember (Mass Heal and Heal Scrolls for the most part) as the cleric ended up losing a lot of spellcasting levels to War Priest and Fighter.

As the bard, I can say comfortably that I was a wild card in a lot of battles. At higher levels, Alter Fortune (re-roll a d20 roll and keep the new result as an immediate action) was golden. It cost XP, but almost every use of it saved a party member from disaster.

If I was to run this today, I would warn/advise the players about these issues

1. The AP is filled with a lot of undead / crit immune monsters
2. Law v Chaos plays a much larger role then Good v Evil. Pick wisely
3. DM Dependent: The AP does not have a lot of room for character backstories as written. The DM will have to work to insert these in. If I was going to run it, I would ask for backstory light characters.
4. DM Dependent: The AP can be brutal. If I was going to run it, I would let the players know this, let them know I was going to roll in the open, and prepare them for character deaths.

MVPs of our Age of Worms game

• Revivify (Don't know how we would have finished this AP without it)
• Use Magic Device (Scrolls!)
• Alter Fortune (Bard Spell - Save v Death, try again)
• Mobility (the Warlock's and Bard's Dimension Door, Teleport, and Regroup (as spell that teleports the party to the caster))
• Undead Slaying Ranger of Doom

 

[Desdichado]

3. DM Dependent: The AP does not have a lot of room for character backstories as written. The DM will have to work to insert these in. If I was going to run it, I would ask for backstory light characters.

That was certainly an issue with my first character, and a big part of the reason I retired him in favor of one that I could enjoy more. I had in my mind that I'd play the character a certain way, and my backstory was part of it.

My backstory was promptly forgotten/ignored and my character was driven by events in game along a different path than I intended for him to go. I'd say that that bit of advice is probably pretty good with any but exceptional DMs who specifically make a point of integrating character backstory into prewritten modules.

Not something that I'd think is common.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Also, I think Age of Worms is probably the most iconic DnD campaign I've ever been involved with. If you are looking for the "DnD Experience," I can't recommend this AP enough.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

That was certainly an issue with my first character, and a big part of the reason I retired him in favor of one that I could enjoy more. I had in my mind that I'd play the character a certain way, and my backstory was part of it.

My backstory was promptly forgotten/ignored and my character was driven by events in game along a different path than I intended for him to go. I'd say that that bit of advice is probably pretty good with any but exceptional DMs who specifically make a point of integrating character backstory into prewritten modules.

Not something that I'd think is common.

It is something we experienced. My bard's backstory involved his childhood sweetheart engaged to a lord who murdered his last wife. He was marked for death by said lord (brand on the palm of his hand) but escaped. When we had a piece of artwork commissioned for the group, the DM went out of his way to make sure that the brand was visible. Sadly, I had totally forgotten about it as the backstory was never even hinted at during the game (at least the DM remembered the backstory )

Prepping and managing player expectations
I really think this is a big role for the DM that too many DMs overlook. Backstory light is not necessarily a problem. But the players need to be aware of that expectation before going into it (especially if they craft extensive backstories). When the players are aware of this, they know that the character backstory is primarily for them and will not have a large influence in the world at large. The flip side, if you ask for backstories, you better work them into the game one way or another.

The interesting thing about character backstories is the expectation that the character will live to fulfill/complete/engage in said backstories. But that's a thread for another day

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Also, I think Age of Worms is probably the most iconic DnD campaign I've ever been involved with. If you are looking for the "DnD Experience," I can't recommend this AP enough.

I agree, though I'll also echo the "Make Backstory Light" method of char-gen, unless your DM is willing to put in the work. (We've been fortunate that our DM works to make recurring character and themes a part of the campaign, above and beyond the as-written AP.)

I'm part of a group playing through the campaign now; we're all about 8th level, midway through the 4th adventure ("Hall of Harsh Reflection".)

Our wiki is here for those interested: http://ageofworms.wikispaces.com/ (Beware POSSIBLE SPOILERS, of course!)

We seem to veer from the "Standard" party. We have currently:

1. Dragonwrought Kobold Ninja (WHo arguably has it the thoughtest, because of the sneak/suroprise attack factor mentioned earlier.)
2. Cleric/ Master of Many Forms (This character has been a bone of contention for the party, since he's playing a pacifistic-type character.)
3. Druid and cat companion (Not quite a CODzilla, but arguably the most powerful member of the party.)
4. Specialist Mage/Thief (Banned Schools: Evocation and Necromancy?!)
5. Dwarven Cleric/ Hammer of Moradin

So, it's been a tough haul thus far; several near TPK's, and one actual death. (Our DM has been taking our unusual composition into account when running encounters, though I think he's also actually lessening some of the challenges as well, from what I've gathered.)

As far as adventures go?

Our groups likes "HoHR" the best so far (

Spoiler

Dopplegangers really create quite an interesting villain; the party is suitably wary of everyone right about now!

)

"Whispering Cairn" was the next most popular, follwed by "Blackwall Keep", and everyone in the group seemed to LOATHE "Three Faces of Evil."