Have you played (parts of) War of the Burning Sky?

Obergnom · 30th March 2009, 11:45 AM

I am seriously considering the 4e Update of WotBS as my next campaign. I usually run rather "old school inspired" games, but it is getting old. I even lost my excitement for Revenge of the Giants.

So... have you used the Burning Sky Saga or parts of it? Is it worth it? Well, I guess 50$ is not much considering the amount of game time. But are the adventures worth playing?

Uh, and has anyone tried to run it in the Forgotten Realms? I would not mind heavily moding them, I just like to use them as a backbone of my campaigns.

BlackMoria · 30th March 2009, 06:42 PM

I like the campaign in general. Like all adventure paths which are written by multiple people, some adventures are better than others but overall, for WotBS, the quality of the adventures are quite good.

Adapting to the FR will be a huge problem due to the premise of the campaign, especially a near canon FR campaign. If canon is completely thrown out the door in your campaign, you may have some wiggle room. That said, it will be a hard fit because:

A large empire which is the top dog and defacto power in the region. The leader dies and the empire goes through an upheaval as a new leader tries to consolidate power. This empire has a hate on for arcane magic casters so forget casting Thay or the Zhentarium as this empire unless you completely depart from canon. This nation is dominated by half-orcs.

A large elven nation that is indifferent if not hostile to its neighbours.

Many small nations which need to be gathered into an alliance.

Weather is a feature in some adventures. One is winter conditions. The other is a developing full blown hurricane.

Translocation magic becomes dangerous and lethal. Your players are going to do alot of walking at first until they get a means to bypass the restriction.

Obergnom · 30th March 2009, 07:53 PM

hmm, so unless I go for Returned Abeir there is no true chance to use the realms. Thanks.

Is the AP "sufficiently" epic? I did not read alot about dragons, giants etc. in the short summaries and fighting humanoids only at very high levels is not what my players are looking for.

RangerWickett · 30th March 2009, 08:37 PM

First off, I directed the 3.5 version of the campaign. I'm not involved in the transition to 4e, so some of this might change.

Now, there's 'epic' in the narrative sense, as in, you're leading armies against armies, and defending a city against a living tempest, and fighting a 90-ft. colossus. Or there's 'epic' in the mechanical sense, as in, higher than X level.

True, a lot of the enemies are humans, but at higher levels, they're hardly mundane individuals, and the situations where you encounter them are not simple dungeon crawls. You're exploring the nightmarish dreamscape of a psionic dragon, or chasing a shadowdancer through a haunted forest to retrieve an artifact he's stolen, or assaulting the command center of an eldritch doomsday device. I think it's appropriately epic, and there are more monsters than in, say, Lord of the Rings.

I'm pretty sure the 4e version will have more interesting monsters, and rely less on soldiers and mages and such. I mean, in 4e, there are more high level monsters that are actually open content compared to 3e.

As for fitting it into the Realms, I think it works with a little wiggling. I ran a brief playtest set in and around 'near future' Thay. Instead of having the Ragesians be opposed to all spellcasters, I had the Thayans trying to capture disloyal spellcasters. Aglarond got a bit more aggressive because they have to defend themselves against the Thayans, who recently allied with . . . I don't recall which nearby nation, but someone who could field a large military.

I don't know how FR changed in 4e, but I think you can do it. Szass Tam takes the place of Emperor Coaltongue, and has been stewarding a new artifact created during the spellplague - the Torch of the Burning Sky, which can teleport whole armies at once. With its power, Thay has been expanding its influence. Say, perhaps they forced the Hordelands to ally with them, along with a few groups from Rashemen, and they're putting pressure on other nearby nations.

Szass Tam's death under mysterious circumstances leaves a power vacuum among the Zulkirs, with Lallara (or whoever the current the abjuration zulkir is) taking the place of Leska. She convinces most of the nation that traitors destroyed Szass Tam, and sets out inquisitors to capture disloyal mages. Somehow the combination of Tam's destruction and the Torch's power causes all teleportation to become hazardous in the region, so Thay sends out its armies to try to retrieve the Torch.

Aglarond takes the place of Shahalesti, as both are nations with strong magical powers. In the 4e time period, I believe the Simbul is out, so Shaaladel could just be a general who is leading the fight against Thay. Sure, in the campaign saga they're all supposed to be elves, but in 4e that is ridiculously easy to change. Ditto the half-orcs working for Thay. Just make them horde-folk.

Rotate the presumed map of WotBS 180 degrees, and have the resistance be in the north instead of the south. Dassen becomes Thesk, Sindaire becomes Rashemen, and Ostalin becomes . . . well, that's about the limit of my knowledge of that region. But I'm sure somebody's there.

I hope you find a way to use it. Let me know if you have any question.

Primitive Screwhead · 31st March 2009, 04:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obergnom

So... have you used the Burning Sky Saga or parts of it? Is it worth it? Well, I guess 50$ is not much considering the amount of game time. But are the adventures worth playing?

I have been running this campaign since it came out.. and it is definately worth it. My only complaint is that my group doesn't ahve enough time to really dig into the open edges of the modules. The world is well concieved and open to exploring. You could spin off entire campaigns within some of the modules confines.

One of the things I think is awesome about the campaign is that the final module is set up that the impacts the PC's made throughout the previous modules shape the final conflicts.. many NPCs returns as enemies or allies.

So,, in case you missed it.. well worth the cost!

amethal · 31st March 2009, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RangerWickett

Instead of having the Ragesians be opposed to all spellcasters, I had the Thayans trying to capture disloyal spellcasters.

That's the way I've been playing it anyway (although without any Thayans

) It certainly came across to me as that was the way it was intended to be run.

After all, the Ragesians are not exactly short of spellcasters on their side (although presumably they have never wondered what has been happening to the disloyal mages, and what might happen to loyal mages if the supply of disloyal mages ever dried up ....)

Our party are fairly close to meeting Annihilation, which is as epic a monster as you'd ever hope to (not) meet. The battle with the colossus was also epic, although they got very lucky early on.

Spoiler:

RangerWickett · 31st March 2009, 02:54 PM

Continuing your spoiler, I fail to see how 20 points of fire damage would be particularly powerful against that enemy. Am I missing something?

Orryn Emrys · 31st March 2009, 03:13 PM

I'll echo the sentiment that the campaign is well worth the money (though I got much of the material during GM's Day sales...). My group just finished adventure #4 last night, and it has been easily one of the most enjoyable games we've had in years! I love running it... it gives you a lot of room to work in custom material around the edges and it provides a basic plot that moves forward without assuming the PCs successes or failures or even political affiliations! Very flexible....

Incidentally, although I'm still trying to catch it up, my campaign journal can be found at my War of the Burning Sky livejournal... though you have to scroll waaaay down to get to the beginning of the story and read the entries upwards.

Cheers!

Obergnom · 31st March 2009, 03:29 PM

Well, thanks for those insights! So, the 4e Version will get significant changes? I ask, because I would not like to invest into a campaign not making use of 4e's particular style of encounter building and skill challenges. My group loves those

Thay sound great. I always wanted to run a campaign set in that region (4e Thay would not work, but thats the beauty of having many versions of the realms available)