# Planning to run Age of Worms AP - Anything I should know about before I start?



## Olaf the Stout (Jan 16, 2012)

After 3 years of play my group finally completed the Shackled City AP a week or so ago.  I gave them a few different options and it looks like Age of Worms will be the next campaign we play.

In order to make this the best game possible I plan on taking my time to really prep beforehand.  I'm going to read through all of the adventures and the Age of Worms Overload document.

For those that have played or run the campaign before are there any problems that need to be fixed?

Are there any points in the plot that are a bit disjointed and could be improved upon?

Do any of the main bad guys or NPC's need to be foreshadowed better in earlier adventures so that they don't seem to appear out of nowhere when the PC's finally encounter them?

Is there anything else that I should read up on or think about before we start the campaign?

Thanks to a lot of help from other DM's on Paizo's Shackled City board, I made a number of changes to the campaign that improved the game a whole heap.  This included removing some of the minor bad guys, foreshadowing many of the NPC's better, adding in basically 2 new adventures, creating my own final adventure and changing the ending of the campaign considerably.

So, given that, I'm not afraid of putting a lot of work into the game to make it a better overall experience for my players.  At the same time, if others have already gone before me and done the work, I'm not too proud to "borrow" heavily from it! :-D

Olaf the Stout

MODS:  I wasn't sure if this thread should be in General or the D&D Legacy forum.  Please move it if you think there is a more appropriate forum for it.


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## Stalker0 (Jan 16, 2012)

To the legacy forum with you post haste!


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## the Jester (Jan 16, 2012)

The biggest problem is that rogues are 75% useless due to the high number of undead, which is a constant throughout the entire path.

Fix that and you have a thing of beauty. Ugly, worm-riddled, apocalypse-bringing beauty.


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## TheFindus (Jan 16, 2012)

I am playing this AP in 4E (Eberron) at the moment.

I do not know if you plan to run it in 4E with DDI support as well. If you do, you would have to change the encounters of course, which, since it is 4E, is not so much of a problem.

What I find hardest about the individual adventures, though, is how to get the story to the players and the basic setup of what is going on. Sometimes, it does not make any sense to me and the story does not come across if you play the AP as written.

I give you one example (Spoiler Alert!).
In the third adventure, the PCs encounter lizardfolk that are influenced by a dragon. This is THE story of the adventure and leads to everything else in the campaign, since the main enemy, certain undead, are revealed truly for the first time. However, what exactly the very important relationship between the dragon and the lizardfolk tribe is, can only be revealed by a lizardfolk druid/shaman, which is most likely killed by the PCs in a regular encounter. So if you do not change that, the PCs will not know a lot about this very important story. Which is a shame, because the story is quite cool.

So, the most important advice I would give you is that you always have to think about what part of the story you want to tell the PCs at which point and how you will present it to them in the adventure. Be prepared that you have to heavily change the NPCs behaviour and how the PCs meet them in order to tell that story. Also, if you really do not want to loose the story, make sure the PCs can go to all the places where the story actually happens. Not always are the adventures designed in a way that the PCs actually have a chance to go there, unless you as the GM do something about it. Things like: if the king is dead, everybody will try to kill the PCs so they will not have time to go to that one really really important part of the "dungeon" where they can actually save everybody. So, you will have to change that, too, for the story to really work. 

I can also say that using knowledge skills to the fullest and graciously has helped my group a lot.

Also, if you are playing this AP in 3e, sneaking will be problem, because the major opponents are undead. I played a rogue in 3e in this AP and special "Grave Strike" weapons were neccessary to make the charakter really work and not feel useless.


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## Olaf the Stout (Jan 17, 2012)

the Jester said:


> The biggest problem is that rogues are 75% useless due to the high number of undead, which is a constant throughout the entire path.
> 
> Fix that and you have a thing of beauty. Ugly, worm-riddled, apocalypse-bringing beauty.




There is either a weapon crystal or a magical weapon enhancement (possibly the "Grave Strike" ability mentioned by TheFindus) that allows you to sneak attack undead.  I will make sure that the Rogues in the party get access to these weapons so that they don't feel totally useless in combat.

Olaf the Stout


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## Crothian (Jan 17, 2012)

There is I think a swarm in the first adventure that might have caused more TPKs then any encounter in and of the AP's.  This is from reading around the new the most deadly of the AP's so might want to be on the lookout for encounters that are a little unfair.  

Best of luck, I've heard great things about it but we didn't even get through the first adventure.


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## Squire James (Jan 18, 2012)

Yeah most swarm encounters in a level 1 adventure go like this:

1.  Does the wizard have any Burning Hands spells left?  (Yes go to 3, No go to 2).
2.  Does the party have any alchemists fire left? (Yes go to 3, No YOU LOSE).
3.  Did the Burning Hands or alchemists fire kill it? (Yes YOU WIN, No go to 1).


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## Rechan (Jan 18, 2012)

THere's also a feat that lets you use SA damage on undead (but I think it cuts a percentage down). 

Be aware the adventure is a real grindfest.

Also, the author said that he wanted to marry the adventure to The Rod of Seven Parts, having the Rod be a weapon against Kyuss. You might want to look into working the Rod into the adventure somehow.


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## Southern Oracle (Jan 18, 2012)

I ran "The Whispering Cairn, The Three Faces of Evil, Encounter At Blackwall Keep, The Hall of Harsh Reflections," and "The Champion's Belt" in 3.5E.  Our group took a break when 4E came out, and now we're gearing up to return to the Age of Worms, but in 4E.  I've already converted "A Gathering of Winds" and I'm working on "The Spire of Long Shadows."

The number one complaint through all of the 3.5E adventures was how useless the rogue was because of the undead.  Our rogue took levels in skullclan hunter (and cleric) in order to be more effective.

In 4E, sneak attacking undead is not an issue.

I could write loads more, but I don't want to bore you...

(I *LOVE* the Age of Worms adventure path!)


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## StreamOfTheSky (Jan 18, 2012)

So instead of making the rogue work to find feats/items/abilities to hurt undead...

Just let him sneak attack undead.


Seriously, not that hard.  Rogue's a pretty weak class in combat normally, nevermind an undead heavy campaign.


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## Freakohollik (Jan 18, 2012)

The first two adventures in the path are great. Those are the only ones I'm familiar with. Consensus seems to be that it gets into one combat per day territory at the Spire of Long Shadows adventure.

The swarm in the first adventure shouldn't be deadly as they can be hurt by torches.

More dangerous would be the grick since he has DR 10/magic. Torches aren't going to do enough damage to bring him down quickly enough. My group managed to find the +1 weapon, and quickly discovered his DR, but due to a series of bad rolls still died.

The fight with the necromancer is also dangerous since his undead have a lot of hp.


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## billd91 (Jan 18, 2012)

Olaf the Stout said:


> There is either a weapon crystal or a magical weapon enhancement (possibly the "Grave Strike" ability mentioned by TheFindus) that allows you to sneak attack undead.  I will make sure that the Rogues in the party get access to these weapons so that they don't feel totally useless in combat.
> 
> Olaf the Stout




In line with StreamoftheSky's recommendation, just crib the changes to sneak attack from Pathfinder. The number of sneak attack resistant creatures is way down. I think it's pretty much just elementals, oozes, and incorporeal undead. Constructs and corporeal undead are totally sneak attackable (and critable).


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## Artur Hawkwing (Jan 18, 2012)

I came in mid-adventure. We had issues with my char (Rogue-Sorceress) which caused me to take advantage of ending the module I came in on to have her disappear into the fog without a trace (given the story we had working with her, that was not a problem). Our GM decided to try to level the playing field by allowing us to stack levels once we picked up a Prestiege Class. When we went up in PC, we went up in the corresponding Base Class as well. The first time we leveled we selected which class to take the saves from, hit die from and that is what we did. The only thing that didn't stack was additional spell slots. By the end of the EP, we needed far more power than we had, but we were successful.

My 2nd character, an Elven warrior, benefited from it greatly. So perhaps if the idea is used early on in the development of a rogue, it could help some. Dunno. Rogue-Sorceress-Shadowdancer just didn't work. 

Good luck with it, it's fun as all get out if you get past the fact that you need some high level magic or something undead-smasher to deal with a lot of it.


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## Uder (Jan 22, 2012)

I had the most fun with A Gathering of Winds (so well designed, it's DM bliss), the players seem to have enjoyed Fountain of Dreams the most.

The biggest problems I've had:

Three Faces of Evil - There's an elevator that can fall and cause massive damage to the occupants, but as written it falls slower than most people can walk. There's a statue that can be tipped over to reach a balcony, but the balcony and statue are about equal in height and some distance apart from each other. Also, the mine doesn't fit with the town map given in The Whispering Cairn or the description given in the write-up of Diamond Lake, and no map is given of the mine complex itself. Depending on how the PCs find out about the place or how they choose to proceed, this can be a problem.

Blackwall Keep - SKR shouldn't be allowed to write adventures until he gets some more DM experience under his belt. Ridiculously easy, and turns a major NPC into a unlikeable coward unless you restage things.

The Hall of Harsh Reflections - as mentioned in the adventure, the trick pulled on the players might work for some groups and not others.

Champion's Belt - This adventure is very rigidly staged. It's very well done, but if your PCs don't follow the tracks you'll need to do some extra work. If they _do_ follow the tracks, it's possible they won't catch the baddies and a very very bad thing can happen. If that bad things happens it will have major ramifications on your campaign world.

Prince of Redhand - The gimmick is that it's a role-playing railroad, boring for half of my group, the other half reasonably liked it. Nowhere near as good or strange as the author's rep would indicate. It is complete, though - Paizo probably had the sense to not pay upfront.

Kings of the Rift - Great setup and foes, but poorly organized. Lots of page-flipping, and lots of extraneous detail. Check Paizo's forums for the author's notes on where the various stairs and overhangs are really supposed to lead.

Wormcrawl Fissure - We're in the middle of this one, and it's fun, but for some reason it assumes PCs just shy of epic levels will be walking everywhere.





The entire series also has typical Dungeon magazine problem of shrinky-dink maps. If you plan to play with minis, many maps with printed scales of 1sq=5' should be re-scaled to 1sq'=10'.

There's also a tendency to award XP to the PCs for sitting through boxed text info-dumps. If this grates on you, prepare to make up the XP in other ways. I expanded the jungle ruins in Spire of the Long Shadows and the number of dragons in Kings of the Rift to make up for this.

I strongly suggest checking out the threads on each individual adventure at Paizo's forums. Many of the authors and editors chime in with feedback, fixes and errata.

I agree with the others too - allow crits and sneak attacks on everything or almost everything. If a player is into archers, you may want to drop in lots of special-material ammo as well, lots of damage reduction prompted one player to drop his archer character in favor of a sorcerer before I could fix that.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jan 23, 2012)

Clearly you are a flexible GM and happy to change things around to make them work better for you and your group. Given this I'm sure you'll be able to patch over problems with _Age of Worms_.

Over all I've enjoyed it (my group is up to The Prince of Redhand but we've been forced to take a long haitus from the AP) but I do have a few criticisms.

Criticisms. 

Part 2, Three Faces of Evil, was a major WTF? for me. You go into the mines looking for zombies.  You find a cult of Hextor. Then a cult of Erythnul. Then a cult of Vecna. Fight them in that order please. It's very linear with no way for the players to try try different approaches. It was set combat after set combat.  No way around anything. No way to sneak in and get the drop on anyone. Fight through each stage to get the key for the next stage. How bloody dull. And the boss monster at the end was WAY over powered. Even by the standards of this AP. Plus, we never found any zombies.

It just felt like the writer had an old (like from their early teen years)adventure and just sent that in as their contribution. It had no connection to the AP as a whole. Oh later in the AP there's some flavour text that implies the cultists in the 3 Faces are being manipulated by the Cult of Kyuss but it seems like a bit of last minute excuse making to me.


Hall of Harsh Reflections 
Caveat: I don't know how it was written, my impression is from how we had it run for us... 

I think it has great potential. It can be a nightmare of betrayal and paranoia as the doppelgangers start to take over the city council. A good role playing adventure with plenty of room for sneaky types to show their cunning and earn their keep. But the way my GM ran it for us it was a fairly ordinary dungeon crawl.  Now I'm pretty sure my GM ran it as it was written. It just seems a waste to use dopplegangers as frontline fighters. I think re-working it to be more like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers would be good. 

The Prince of Redhand.
Again great potential but my GM was running it by the book. A bit more thought and creativety and this would be an excellent role play adventure. And another good time for roguey types. It's still pretty good mind you.

One other criticism. All the end monsters for each section of the AP are VERY tough. My group was playing with core rule books and a few feats and a prestige class from the _Complete_ series. We were getting our arses handed to us with every one of end of bosses. There was so much fudging going on I was worried I'd get diabetes. Now this isn't necessarily a problem depending on your group.

But over all I've enjoyed it. Everything in the Whispering Cairn was GREAT. And I agree that putting the Rod of 7 Parts into it (as is set up in the first adventure) would be great.

cheers.


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## Olaf the Stout (Feb 28, 2012)

We'll be starting this campaign in 4 weeks time.  Any more advice to give?

I've read through the first 2 adventures so far and read through a heap of threads about them on the Paizo boards so I'm aware of any potential trouble spots.

I'll be running Mad God's Key as the starting adventure to the campaign, before following it with the Whispering Cairn.  I've been looking to run MGK for a while now as it looks like a very fun adventure.  The whole Vecna cultists and stolen book bit works in very well with the AoW AP as well.  It will also mean that the PC's will probably be a little ahead of the XP curve to begin with, which should help reduce the supposed lethality of the first couple of adventures.

Olaf the Stout


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## DrunkonDuty (Mar 5, 2012)

Let us know how it goes. I'm curious to see how else it can be run.


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## Crust (Mar 5, 2012)

I just wrapped up Age of Worms last spring.  We started in April of 2006.  Set in the Forgotten Realms.  Here are some of my experiences and some of the other additions I made to Age of Worms:

Diamond Lake: A great place to start, and it fits anywhere.  Plenty of characters if you have the Age of Worms Overload.  Mine was set southeast of Daggerford along Faerun’s Sword Coast.

Whispering Cairn: I like how it connects with a later module.  A simple early dungeon crawl that can be inserted into any campaign setting.  The lore behind the cairn connects to the Rod of Seven Parts, which allows multiple quests/conflicts.  Great way to start a campaign.

Three Faces of Evil: Three cults lairing in a mine beneath Diamond Lake allow for a lot of DM creativity given the campaign.  

Encounter at Blackwall Keep: When I saw this module, I asked one of my players if he’d be interested in playing a lizardfolk PC.  He went along with it, made a druid, and it’s been fantastic.  He now rules over 3,000 lizardfolk as the Lizard King of the Lonely Moor.  I slipped in the _Sons of Gruumsh_ module after this adventure.  Some of the prisoners from Blackwall Keep were taken to the orc stronghold of Xul-Jarak.

Hall of Harsh Reflections: This adventure has the potential to put PCs in a larger city, some place outside of Diamond Lake.  This allows the campaign to branch out to a larger pond.  I set the first half of this in Daggerford on the way to Waterdeep, and the second half was set in Waterdeep’s sewers.  I didn’t run the doppelganger switch with the PCs, but I did have Allustan killed and replaced by a doppelganger as an attempt to draw the PCs to their deaths.  It failed.

Champions Belt: This was one of the peaks of the campaign.  The gladiator games could be set in an even larger city, allowing for a myriad of encounters and quests in an urban environment.  Mine was set in Waterdeep.  I supplemented the games with the article “To the Games” from _Dungeon _132.  During this time I also used “Menagerie” from _Dungeon _126 and the entire Vampires of Waterdeep adventure path from _Dungeon _126, 127, and 128.  They also got lost in Undermountain a couple times.

A Gathering of Winds: I skipped this module (“Allustan reentered the Whispering Cairn” is the very short version), mostly because the PCs were pretty strong after all of their adventures in Waterdeep.   I used the Dragonlance module _Dragons of Despair_ as Ilthane’s lair.  Ilthane was served by a tribe of draconic lizardfolk who were in turn served by draconic kobolds.

Spire of Long Shadows: This was the module that was almost a TPK.  The Harbinger is tough after fighting through Kuluth Mar.  I set the ruins in the Faerunian jungles of Chult, on Taboo Island in Lake Luo.  I borrowed Taboo Island from _Dungeon _145, the module “City of Broken Idols.”  Those modules worked well together.

Prince of Redhand: I blended this module with _Expedition to Castle Ravenloft_ and set it in Faerun’s Savage Frontier east of Waterdeep’s Sword Coast.  The party was in the castle while the village was overrun with spawn of Kyuss.  Very “Masque of the Red Death.”  I made Lashonna a paeliryon devil (_Fiend Folio_ version), and in the end, they wound up with a castle of their own, however haunted it may be.  The surrounding lands they governed, and soon they were worrying about more than their own hit points.

Library of Last Resort: I ran this pretty much as written.  The group managed to succeed without having to kill any rocs or the titan, and they brought Krekie the kenku back with them.  Some interesting nature-based/morality quests in this module.

Kings of the Rift: This is was a fun module to run, especially when the PCs decided to assault the Citadel of Weeping Dragons.  I used the module “Storm Lord’s Keep” from _Dungeon _93 afterward.  The “story” is that the Storm Lord retaliated for the destruction of the Citadel of Weeping Dragons, but in truth, the Storm Lord was in search of the next piece of the Rod of Seven Parts.  His sword hilt was pieces 1, 2, and 3, and the PCs were in possession of pieces 4 and 5.  When the smoked cleared, the PCs had 5 pieces.

Into the Wormcrawl Fissure: I added the Dragonlance module “The Dragon Keep of Palanthus” form the _World of Krynn_ book for a dragon’s lair.  The rest was run as written, though I most-certainly didn’t have Dragotha cornered in a room waiting for the PCs to annihilate him.  They faced Brazzemal and Xyzanth in a final confrontation.

Dawn of the New Age: Honestly, I hardly used this module at all.  By the time the Ages of Worms was reaching its end, we had so many things going on that there wasn’t much I wanted to use aside from the broodfiends, Vulras, and Maralee.  The PCs helped in the acquisition of the sphere of annihilation, but an NPC wizard (former PC) used the sphere against Kyuss while the PCs faced Dragotha in a final confrontation.

The campaign is still going strong, by the way.  They’re currently navigating the River Styx with the limited aid of Charon (from _Dungeon _149), on their way to Citadel Coldsteel (_A Paladin in Hell_), there to face Geryon and Amon on their way to Malbolge in search of Lashonna and the souls she’s stolen.


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## LiL KiNG (Mar 5, 2012)

I can't give any advice on the Age of Worms AP, but I will chime in on the Rogue/Undead thing - I didn't see anyone mention the Penetrating Strike ACF (dungeon or cityscape I believe is the source).  Best Rogue ACF ever in my opinion; basically lets you SA for half damage anything normally immune as long as you are flanking - which is the Rogue's main tactic most of the time anyway.

If you allow ACF's I'd highly suggest bringing to your player's attention as an option.


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## akbearfoot (Mar 6, 2012)

Our gaming group just completed the age of worms campaign about a year ago.  Took us about 2 years of gaming once a week to complete.

Our character creation guidelines were more strict than many games, but overall we had 4 strong characters and 2 medium ones.  

As a player I enjoyed most of it.  However parts of it did seem like a long grind and we took several month+ breaks irl several times.  I tend to be the rules-lawyery hack and slash sort.


My biggest single gripe was that almost all the encounters were either really easy or so hard they had to be edited/fudged to avoid certain TPKs.  Our group had no cleric or paladin, so we had to change the way fear effects worked entirely just to be able to advance.  That happened pretty much the first time we encountered a room with several Kyuss spawn and 4/6 PCs dropped their weapons and ran screaming in random directions.

Towards the end its the same....Anyone who does not have blanket immunity to death effects, mind-effects, and poison = dead.  And in order to not slow the game down to a slow crawl, you have to make the monsters deliberately use their bad spells...ie 'I guess I'll skip the obvious choice of the Greater Dispel magic on that guy with 20 auras!  I'd rather try to use more death effects that I know he's immune to.  maybe his death ward will wear off this round?'


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