I've been co-dming an AOW campaign with the other DM in my group -- we're about to play the very last session of the last adventure, and I'm excited to finally face Kyuss, and to finally have the adventure path completed.
Our logistics created some special challenges for the other DM and myself -- we take turns running each adventure, so I'm a player this adventure and I was the DM for the Wormcrawl Fissure.
I've also been running the campaign a second time for a group of D&D novices, but I'm planning to divert away from AOW after we complete Blackwall Keep -- I find I'm not enjoying the experience of running the same adventures a second time as much as I hoped I would -- and the reduction in prep work isn't enough to make up for that.
As has been reported earlier, some of the adventures needed some hefty adjustments. I made some changes to Blackwall keep to make it a bit more interesting -- running battles with lizardfolk through the marsh as the party tried to escape with the Dragon Egg (of COURSE they tried to take it out and sell it!).
Our group averages 6 players per session, so we tend to play about a level lower than the adverntures call for, but these are all very savvy, experienced players who squeeze everything they can out of their characters, and many of the encounters that look like they should be tough don't end up being as tough as they ought to be. We didn't lose any characters permanently in Spire of Long Shadows (at that point, a death here or there isn't that big an impediment, since we've houseruled the level loss to by an XP loss that doesn't actually eliminate any abilities, just makes it a longer haul to the next new level) and I even made some encounters tougher than they needed to be (the overworm, for instance, I gave the ability to absorb a wormswarm and heal itself that many of the other NPCs in the adventure had -- that made for a very long, scary fight for the party, but in the end they pulled it out).
Playing out the last adventures in the path isn't as much fun as the previous adventures have been. This is only my second time DMing and playing at this level (the previous experience was with a home campaign), and there's just a lot more flipping through books and trying to keep up with everything you need to know. Key battles with major enemies tend to be too easy, IMO, if there are no minions to absorb some damage and PC attention during the fight. Dragotha, whose battle I was DM for (instead of player), never really had a chance against the PCs, and I had even brought in some other NPCs as fodder (the warlock and wyvern rider were also in the room with Dragotha, as well as some other trash).
The Ulgurstasta Sorcerer (whose name I forget) who was one of the first major bosses was nuked in a single round by a well-placed, heavily metamagiced spell from the party wizard. (sudden maximize is downright nasty at high levels). A big fight that should have been climactic was about as climactic as hitting a caterpillar with a hammer.
I think, in large part, the way our parties handle the encounters is in part because of the party size -- even if we're a level lower than might be expected for that encounter, I think that numbers are more important than that missing level. Having 6-7 actions for everyone one of Dragotha's, for example, is very telling. And the shards of Balakarde's soul were much too helpful, IMO.
We've had a great time with the AOW path, overall, and we're jumping from this into the pathfinder one as soon as we're done with AOW. I don't mind that some of the adventures like Spire of Long Shadows are exceptionally deadly -- or at least I don't agree that they're TOO deadly.
If there were things that I would like to be stronger in the APs, it would be related to the plot and the NPCs, but I'm fairly certain that these complaints are more about the style of game we've fallen in to as much as it is the AP. One example would be Lashonna. In our campaign, Lashonna made very little impression on the party when she first appeared, and so the discovery of her true nature and goals made very little impression on them. When they finally encountered shards of Balakarde's soul, they needed to be reminded of who he was and why they cared. Sustaining character relationships with the NPCs -- and keeping them engaged in the ongoing plot -- is a challenge, especially when the AP is so linear -- the PCs can't really change the course of the path through their actions, so why should they pay close attention to what's going on? There's no reward for that investment.
At the same time, I don't know how you'd write an AP that had that sort of flexibility. And our game tends to be combat heavy and RP light, so that's a big part of the issue, too. But the PCs know that they're going to end up where the fight is anyway, why should they worry about trying to steer? The AP experience doesn't really reward that sort of player engagement, at least not without major DM investment and customization.
-rg
