High-level DMing

[MerricB]

After a pretty slow session a fortnight ago, last Friday's Age of Worms session sped along. I was much, much happier with how it went. In about 3 hours of play, we got through 6 combats against various EL 18+ encounters.

This was mainly due to them being quite short, most lasting only 3 rounds or so. One of the real joys of these levels is that I'm not familiar with everything, so the players are continually surprising me.

"Oh, the giant gets no save against Otto's Irresistable Dance? Well, I guess that makes sense. Well, Martin kills it a couple of rounds later..."

Craig's PDA comes in quite helpful. (Even if I killed his PC with a pyrohydra, his PDA still came in helpful ). If Peggy cast's Acid Storm, then those 15d6 (or more) can quickly be rolled.

One other aspect that made running this session much easier was that I wasn't needing to handle more than two types of opponent in any given encounter. Note to Paizo: Please don't include 4 or more unique NPCs in one encounter. It's just too painful. One unique NPC plus several identical troopers is much easier to run. (OTOH, four Dragonspawn would be fine, as they have simple abilities).

17th level Cleric, Wizard, Fighter and Druid. Woo. Power. We're missing a couple of players at present due to Christmas (Rogue and Paladin), but they'll be back.

Martin's Fighter is fun. AC in the mid-30s, and a massive attack bonus and damage. By the time he's finished with Slashing Flurry (PHB2 feat) and boots of speed he gets 6 attacks a round. 120+ damage is not uncommon, and it's needed against those giants. Martin doesn't have a PDA, but he has a calculator and precalculated power attack values.

I love that the group can use greater teleport to leave the dungeon and rest. (I'm a wizard player at heart).

The adventure is Kings of the Rift, and we should finish it next session. 7 sessions left of the entire Age of Worms, I think. Cool.

Cheers!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Congrats Merric. I hope to run my group through either SCAP, AoWAP or both sometime in the future.

As a DM, one of the things that surprised me was finding that one of the things I enjoy a lot is learning a new rule or two each session. I am still way off being a rules master but I feel that each session is going smoother from a rules perspective as I get my head around more of the rules. Having not really been a wizard or cleric player in the past I am finding that my lack of spell knowledge is my biggest deficiency.

Olaf the Stout

 

[mmu1]

Note to Paizo: Please don't include 4 or more unique NPCs in one encounter. It's just too painful. One unique NPC plus several identical troopers is much easier to run. (OTOH, four Dragonspawn would be fine, as they have simple abilities).

Heh... That sounds like the first good thing I've heard about The Age of Worms.

Unless they're all so integral to the storyline that you couldn't possibly replace them, it's easy enough to swap them for stock enemies, if there's just too many of them, and in my experience, it's unique NPCs that make for memorable encounters, especially at high levels.

 

[MerricB]

There are plenty of unique enemies. The trouble comes when you have 4+ high-level spellcasting ones in one encounter. There's just too much to keep track of.

Cheers!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

There are plenty of unique enemies. The trouble comes when you have 4+ high-level spellcasting ones in one encounter. There's just too much to keep track of.

Cheers!

Especially when you're still getting your head around a lot of the spells that they are able to cast. I had trouble in the finale of Madness in Freeport when there were 2 spellcasters in one encounter. I can't imagine the "fun" of 4.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Pants]

Minor Age of Worms spoilers below....

There are plenty of unique enemies. The trouble comes when you have 4+ high-level spellcasting ones in one encounter. There's just too much to keep track of.

Cheers!

Heh.
Let us know how the confrontation with Kyuss goes. That's, what, a 3 page statblock there?

 

[MerricB]

I will.

That won't be so much of a problem - it's when there are several big statblocks (or worse, spell lists) that I really struggle.

Spell lists are really bad as they're not summarised on the page.

Cheers!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I will.

That won't be so much of a problem - it's when there are several big statblocks (or worse, spell lists) that I really struggle.

Spell lists are really bad as they're not summarised on the page.

Cheers!

I found that it was easier if I actually typed the spell lists out into a separate document, divided up by spell level. I also included the spell DC's and the page reference for the spell. It took a bit of time but it made running the encounter easier as I could just cross the spells off as I went along.

Olaf the Stout