Age of Worms - Likes/Dislikes? [MY PLAYERS KEEP OUT]

[howandwhy99]

Likes thus far: It's an end to end campaign designed to take players from level 1 to level 20 with minimal work on the part of the very busy DM (me). The overarching story is very heroic, and I suspect the players will have a great sense of accomplishment when done if they succeed. The encounters are tough if approached the wrong way, but cakewalks if certain tactics are used. It seems like every encounter has a weakness that if discovered makes for easy going. There are opportunities for each of the group members to shine throughout, although I am waiting for when they need to have some diplomacy... it will be interesting.

I wouldn't call the encounters cakewalks, but preparation definitely rewards the players. This is one of my favorite parts too. Hack and slashers beware!

 

[Gundark]

Good and Bad: The enemies and opposition are built tough to handle Min/Maxed PCs. This means small mistakes can lead to high kill counts.

yep...3 faces of evil claimed the entire group last night. The AOW is VERY unforgiving of mistakes.

 

[howandwhy99]

yep...3 faces of evil claimed the entire group last night. The AOW is VERY unforgiving of mistakes.

No kidding. I loss nearly the whole party last session when I sent an army of Lizardfolk to Blackwall Keep to kill them. But I did tell them at least 12 hours ahead of time the army was coming. :embarrassed:

 

[TracerBullet42]

yep...3 faces of evil claimed the entire group last night. The AOW is VERY unforgiving of mistakes.

Thanks for all the input, everybody. It sounds like AoW is pretty tough. This will be my first campaign as DM, and only my fourth time ever running a game. Tomorrow we'll be doing some character generation and probably starting into the adventure a bit, or at least mill around Diamond Lake a bit.

The party will consist of 7 PCs (yes, I know...large group). I was worried about having to scale up all of the encounters, but it sounds like I might be ok to leave them as is, at least for now. Most of the players are pretty smart and won't just hack 'n slash their way about, though, so I can always toughen things up later if things look a bit easy.

I'm going to start them all at 2nd level from the beginning, though, or I think that acid beetle swarm might kill them all. We'll see how it goes...

Keep the input coming! I appreciate it so very much.

And if anyone has the search function and wants to point me towards some older threads on the subject, that wouldn't break my heart either.

Thanks!

 

[sydbar]

I'm running it, and its the first d&d game i've dm'ed in 18 years, and i have 7 players, but sometimes one or two can't show up. They are almost done with the 2nd door in 3 faces of evil, and due to the numbers i was advised by people on the board to use the listed stuff for 2nd & 3rd level parties. So far there have been 2 deaths, and 2 almost tpk's, but they tend to overthink stuff, till one of them forces the others to react(half-orc monk, who died last week, was main trouble maker for the group). the original group was an elf cleric, a halfling monk version of druid, a human hexblade, a human monk, a human wizard, a warmage(died at end of whispering cairn), and the half orc monk(killed by chief in north door of 3faces of evil). Its a tough adventure, but only a few spots are very deadly.

 

[Psion]

Too deadly for the levels given in many adventures.

Tomb of Horrors style is good fun and all, but not too conducive to a campaign style game.

Before you start any adventures, I might consider evaluating the encounters and ask yourself if the group is ready for them. Perhaps even run your group a level or two higher or throw in prophecies to tip them off, given them a fighting chance at some encounters.

 

[ssampier]

I only have Whispering Cairn. I was thinking of running a quick adventure to get them all to second level. Any ideas?

 

[MerricB]

I've had a few deaths so far, but here's a couple of tips for PCs:

* Burning Oil. You need it against swarms and it makes dealing with the Whispering Cairn much easier.

* Spread out. Don't stand in a line waiting for a sorcerer to lightning bolt you.

* Revivify (SC) is a really good spell.

Cheers!

 

[Beckett]

Whispering Cairn doesn't strike me as that tough... provided your players know how to fight swarms. Most of mine seemed content to stand around and get eaten, but fortunatly, the sorcerer had taken the dragon heritage feat that let him convert spells into breath weapon. His damage rolls sucked, managing 3 on his first 2D6 breath, and I don't think he ever rolled above a 7. The monk solo against a ghoul could have also been very bad.

Three Faces of Evil is where I think things will get ugly (once the given tactics are adjusted to fit the actual map). Organized foes on their own turf can cause all sorts of problems.

 

[Abraxas]

I've run my players through the Whispering Cairn, Three Faces of Evil and Blackwall Keep in an Eberron setting and this is what I've noticed.

1) Hard to convert - but that may be primarily due to trying to use it in an Eberron campaign.

2) TFoE is particularly dangerous and has a particular problem that I didn't catch until we had started - There is no good reason for it not to turn into a three way gangpile on the PCs.

3) Once the PCs start to discover what's going on it is very hard to come up with a good reason why the authorities don't get involved in these early adventures.

I don't dislike the Aow adventure path - but I haven't been having as much fun running it as I thought I would when I began reading it.