AoW - one session to go.

[Agamon]

I really, really hate the grappling rules as applied to big creatures. They do it too easily. Improved Grab is too good.

The Spell Compendium is your friend. Revivify and Revenance are almost required.

I'm yet to have a TPK in AoW, and I doubt one will happen in the last session. The closest we got was in the Hall of Harsh Reflections.

And I hate the tripping rules, overall. Got rid of the AoO for standing up from prone, it works much better now.

I did have a TPK in HoHR, but not where you'd expect. *

Spoiler

The party fought both the dopplegangers posing as captured guards and the invisible stalkers in that crazy weapon-filled water room. I was nice and just captured them, putting them in the cells, but they escaped far too easily, without much healing. They got trounced again, and I figured the dopplegangers weren't dumb enough to try and capture them again, so they were all killed.

*

The new party has had 3 deaths since, all in the last session (The Champion's Belt), all in seperate encounters. Damn save or die spells. I have a mind to just ban them all for PCs and NPCs....

 

[Agamon]

I ran HoHR a lot like Redhand; and I was able to do that because I could use my experiences of playing in a City of Greyhawk game and put bits of that to enliven up HoHR. Thus, there was all this extra stuff interacting with people in Greyhawk.

This didn't[/i happen so much with Diamond Lake, and it's a big flaw of the Adventure Path structure: Paizo spent a lot of time describing Diamond Lake, but the town is almost completely incidental to the adventure. You interact with it a very small amount in The Whispering Cairn... and that's it. TFE you're underground the whole time, and after that you're gone from the town.

I don't do much extraneous roleplaying. I don't throw in characters just to have them interact with the PCs. However, I enjoy roleplaying: I just need the structure of the adventure to incorporate it. So, both Redhand and Wormcrawl Fissure had some great roleplaying in them that was part of the adventure. I'm not so fond of an adventure which has "hack, hack, hack, talk... huh?"

I did a lot of RP in HoHR, too. And Diamond Lake is what you make of it. Obviously, there isn't much in the actual adventures, but I used the info in the DL backdrop to make the town come alive both during and between adventures. The players really loved to hate the place.

I'm looking forward to Redhand...if party #2 manages to make it there...

 

[Nightfall]

Aggy,

Nice stuff there. I hope they can enjoy Redhand. Me I'd probably hate more than Diamond Lake.

Pants,

Library wasn't bad but I'll grant the "slapped together" nature is there.

When I look at the starting points for each of the paths, I can concede that some people (like Merric) might have a hard time getting a bunch of players to try stuff out. But I am working to make them at least semi-remember Diamond Lake via NPC interactions and stuff that comes between Whispering Cairn and TFE.

*still can't believe people quit after or before Spire of Long Shadow* Cause to me that's the best part. But then I like the idea of crawling into the belly of death.

 

[Pants]

This didn't[/i happen so much with Diamond Lake, and it's a big flaw of the Adventure Path structure: Paizo spent a lot of time describing Diamond Lake, but the town is almost completely incidental to the adventure. You interact with it a very small amount in The Whispering Cairn... and that's it. TFE you're underground the whole time, and after that you're gone from the town.

That's really too bad that Diamond Lake wasn't utilized more in the AP. Even though I am not running AoW, I have cannibalized the adventures quite a bit. After a long hiatus of screwing around in Greyhawk, the party really enjoyed returning back to their home town to wreak bloody vengeance upon Balabar Smenk and his cronies.

I would've much preferred a more Diamond Lake focused adventure than the Blackwall Keep episode.

 

[Nightfall]

Pants,

Now there I can agree. Blackwall was, in my book, the least interesting and certainly didn't do much to help Diamond Lake stand out. But eh, maybe it will change after I run in a few weeks.

 

[MerricB]

Nightfall - you haven't played or run all of AoW yet, have you?

Cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

Played? No. Run, well I've run up to TFE but that didn't last. (Had to go to college). But honestly I read them all and have all the issues. I figure it's a difference in gaming styles. I mean do you go crazy for something like Rappan Athuk? Cause I do.

 

[lior_shapira]

Just wanted to say thanks MerricB for all the tips and summary reviews of the adventures. My group is currently in the 2nd adventure and having a tough time. I'll be using your notes to try and anticipate problems before they happen in the next adventures

cheers, lior

 

[BlackMoria]

Congrats, MerricB.

Hope you have a enjoyable end to the AoW AP.

A caveat

our group is particularly savvy tactically and most of the players a min/maxers so the characters are buff. Don't know how your players are in comparison.

With our group, Kyuss went down like a chump fighter with a glass jaw. If they do all the things required to weaken him and you have really good tactical players and you are using the Spell Compendium (which you are) and have a certain artifact (you know which one), expect the fight with Kyuss to potentially be a letdown.

 

[Joshua Randall]

In what regard does Kings of the Rift require commune to discern the plot? I may be misremembering, but I thought the PCs knew that

Spoiler

they were after Dragotha's phylactery, and the phylactery is somewhere in the Rift

.