Hi, I am about to begin a new 4e campaign and I have decided to try running WotBS. I will post write-ups here as I do them. I would also like to discuss various modifications people have done to iron out the kinks/shine a light on the best parts. For instance, I understand the Restless Dead encounter is problematic so I am thinking of dropping that. (I am running a prologue session to introduce the setting and characters, which will give me leeway to drop extraneous encounters.)
Since I won't start "Scouring" for another week or two, I thought I'd post a version of Torrent I made with the DMG2 companion rules. I think I'll make simplified versions like this of all the NPCs.
Any input is welcome!
Cheers
Ahleena of the Torrents Level 2 Controller (Leader) Initiative +1; Senses Perception +4 Speed 5 HP 30 Bloodied 15 AC 17; Fortitude 15, Reflex 15, Will 15 Healing Surges: 9 at 7hp
Mace: (std; at-will) +8 vs. AC; 1d8+3 damage. Tidal Force (std; at-will) Divine, Force, Ranged 10; +7 vs. Reflex; 1d8+5 force damage ·one ally Torrent can see may shift 3 squares as a free action. Crashing Wave (std; enc) * Divine, Mace +8 vs. AC; 1d8+3 damage ·the target is dazed until the end of Torrent’s next turn. Ocean Shield (std; daily) * Divine Close Burst 5; ·all allies in burst gain a +2 power bonus to AC until the end of the encounter. Healing Word (minor; 2/enc [1/rd]) * Divine, Healing Ranged 5; ·the target spends a healing surge +3 hp.
Alignment Good; Languages Common; Skills Athletics +7, Diplomacy +7, Heal +9, Religion +6 Str 15 (+3) Dex 10 (+1) Wis 16 (+4) Con 13 (+2) Int 11 (+1) Cha 13 (+2) Equipment: mace, small shield, chainmail armor, +2 Amulet of the Lady of the Lake (The Kraken)
My group just finished The Scouring of Gate Pass and from what they tell me they really enjoyed it. I kept most everything the same as it was recommended in the adventure, although they skipped a few fights by making good role-play and skill challenge choices, but they'll never know.
Regarding that Dead Rising encounter, it does seem somewhat out of place there. If you do run it, drop the burst damage to 2d6 rather than 3d6+infinity or whatever it was. If you choose not to, I would add another encounter with the Black Horse guys while you're still in the city to really push that group as pursuing the heroes and causing trouble where they can.
Hopefully that helps a bit. I hope your group enjoys the game as much as mine has! Good luck!
i had to bump up boreas a lot at the end but other than that there wasnt much i had to change although i had add a black horse encounter after the white wyrms killed all but one pc
Boreas is the final encounter outside the farmhouse? What about the encounter could be improved?
About the White Wyrm encounter, what do y'all think about reflavoring that as a "Black Horse" encounter to push that story thread?
Otherwise, yeah, reading these boards has me excited about the adventure and the series.
yes the final encounter. i made him an elite. the only problem with making it black horse is the current bad guys are very thematically different, the black horse dont use arcanists for obvious reasons. it can be a difficult encounter with the flyer and the potential for getting bottle-necked between the boxes. if you were gonna change it to black horse i would suggest turning the wizard into some sort of archer to keep the ranged threat there
And also, the White Wyrm terrorists make a return in future adventures.
Regarding Boreas, the encounter can be improved by making him much, much harder -- an elite at least, with an extra power or two (close burst 2?) He's far too easy and his presence didn't make nearly the impact it should have with the players. The encounter with Boreas should instill the players with a fear, a fear which drivers them into the forest. As it was, they only really went in there passively because Torrent was pushing them.
Ah, the White Wyrms return. That's good to know.
I'll definitely make Boreas an elite. Maybe make his Rebuke an immediate reaction against arcane powers. Looking at it, I could probably re-do alot of those powers. More skeletons would help to.
That's a good point about making them flee into the forest. I'll emphasize "there's more of us where i came from".
Similarly I think the Flaganus Mortus encounter should put the fear into them to get out of the city.
One thing I'm wondering about is the plan to go through the Burning Forest. Why don't they want to Shahalesti through the Singing Chasm? Is it because the Eladrin are still allied to the Ragesians?
Because Shahalesti is in the opposite direction! They'd then have to turn around and go back through Gate Pass to get to Seaquen!
Yes , it is longer, but since you are not travelling a forest on fire, and you are going through a civilized area, you could go faster (on horse, through roads) and thenyou could catch a ship.
One of my groups actually wanted to do that, and I had a very hard time convincing them otherwise.
On the matter of the White Wyrms encounter, I recommend NOT to replace it with a Black Horse encounter, it should instead reinforce the idea of how a Ragesian cell operates within a city, as this turns out to be important in the third adventure.
I also recommend that you read all adventures if you can, specially the third one.
On the Inquisitor's Attack encounter, I was going to open a thread about that.
The way I figure it, Shahalesti's at war too, so anyone coming out of Gate Pass who isn't a known citizen of Shahalesti is going to run into trouble, probably get picked up on suspicion of being a spy, and potentially detained for a long while. If you consider how the Shahalesti envoys who show up at Seaquen in adventure 3 try to dictate terms to ambassadors of other nations, you can imagine that a few random travelers won't warrant much respect.
Torrent and the Resistance would know this, so they take the direct route.
Of course, if the PCs decide to take the scenic route, well, you can just replace adventure 2 with something different. They get to see how frustrating the Shahalesti are in person, but perhaps they catch a break and get permission to go on to Seaquen. Maybe they can even travel with Shalosha to Seaquen, and deal with a saboteur on board.
The main problem is that this skips over a key bit of foreshadowing, since the party doesn't get a chance to run into a trillith until adventure 4. So in that case, I'd try to get the PCs on a ship to Seaquen, and have Kazyk the devil hire pirates, and make the saboteur on board be Deception.
The pirates attack once, get rebuffed, but during the confusion Deception replaces the captain, who takes them out to deeper waters to 'avoid the pirates.' Deception wants them to head to an island, where a fellow trillith lives, but is trapped. This trillith controls the seas around the island, and once they're in, they cannot sail free without either releasing or killing the trillith.
Yeah, that would work. Kind of messes with themes a bit, since I wanted to play up the 'fire' aspect in a campaign called Burning Sky, but I figure it'd be a bit too obvious if the PCs dodged a 'fire forest' and instead came upon a 'fire island.' Hm. Maybe a volcanic island, though.
Anyway, you've got options there, if the party doesn't want to follow the preferred course of the adventure. Let them detour for a few sessions, and then have them get to Seaquen as intended.
__________________ Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock
Author of the War of the Burning Sky serialized novel, free at EN World. Part Two, The Irons Have Tolled, now available.
Yes , it is longer, but since you are not travelling a forest on fire, and you are going through a civilized area, you could go faster (on horse, through roads) and thenyou could catch a ship.
One of my groups actually wanted to do that, and I had a very hard time convincing them otherwise.
It's doable, but it would be an entire adventure in itself. A much longer trip by land and sea through Shahalesti and then round the coast back to Seaquen. And Shahalesti wouldn't be a fun trip - they're very xenophobic, and are currently on a war footing.
I think it would be the less efficient route, but it's certainly a fun idea for an adventure! Sneaking through Shahalesti by land, somehow getting on board a ship bound for Seaquen, etc. In fact, they could learn about the Seaquen blockade in advance, and actually be on one of those very ships!
Maybe one day we could look at producing an alternate adventure describing that route!
Great ideas! I especially like the Trillith on the Island. I think this is one of the strengths of the series, that such a major detour can make perfect sense.
@sfedi -I do have the 3rd one, but I'll have to go reread it to get a sense of the Wyrms.
One of my groups actually wanted to do that, and I had a very hard time convincing them otherwise.
Worst part about going through Shahalesti instead of Innenotdar is that the party would miss the fire forest adventure, and it is awesome!
Not to mention that the party would then run into trouble trying to break through the Shahalesti blockade of Seaquin - not that they would know that before setting out . . .
Glad my group didn't consider trying to travel via that route.
Well, it was a very short session, but we got into it. First of all, this was the third session of the campaign. The first mini adventure took place in Ragesia, establishing it as an orcish nation, rough and powerful. Much was said of Coaltongue's dominance. The heroes were hired by the Merchant Menash, which I have renamed.
The party consists of : Drow Cosmic Sorcerer, Human Fullblade Fighter, Wilden Seeker, Half-elf Cleric of War, and a human Bard (occasionally)
As we started, I gave them alot of backstory, saying that they barely made it back to their home city of Gate Pass before the news came of Coaltongue's death, and with it, the Scourge. I described the grim winter in Gate Pass with the imperial armies at city gates, and of course, the first thing the wanted to know was if there was a resistance. "Why sure," I said, "In fact they just contacted you to meet them at the Pub."
So they went for it and made a spectacular perception check outside the bar, but I ruled that the Black Horse were all out of sight, except for a wagon, which I mentioned very quickly... hoping he wouldn't investigate.
The roleplaying with Torrent went well. She gave a lot of exposition as well, some I had already given, but I was able to impress upon the party the urgency of the mission and the need to go through the Fire Forest.
Then the Black Horse attacked and were annihilated. They heard footsteps over head and positioned themselves near the stairwell. Then the battering ram crew burst in, perfectly positioned to take out the squishy sorcerer. Of course I rolled terribly for initiative, and the combo of Drow Cosmic Sorcerer and Wilden Seeker decimated the minions immediately. The thug did not fare much better. The explosions and burning room were cool. I added a chandelier from DMG2, which fell on the sorcerer.
The result was that the party burst onto the street and made short work of Kathor and his dogs. I described Kathor as very ambivalent to fight, giving up actions and calling on them to surrender, and finally throwing a net over one character, but he was doomed. Luckily all his talk and offer of a truce impressed fighter enough to subdue him rather than kill him, so I will get to use him another day.
That was as far as we got. The fight was really easy, but that was fine with me because it was interesting. I particularly enjoyed the setup of getting the players impressed with the idea of this threatening all powerful warlord emperor, and then immediately killing him off and telling them that the whole city is under attack by firebombing dragonriders. Very cinematic.
Well, the best part for me was when I told them that Coaltongue was dead, and my friend said, "And we didn't kill him?" Good lil reversal of expectations there.
The players seemed to take the mission well. Since many of them are spellcasters they all wanted to get out of the city ahead of the Scourge anyways, so this seems to be a good opportunity. I managed to get in some good Torrent talk about how the Elves would not be easy to deal with.
The concern I have, is how to play Kathor, now that he is their prisoner. I'm a little unclear about his trillith connection.
For my own campaign I emphasised that the Ragesian (or rather, the Arcane Imperium since Im using the campaign in my own game world) had flying mounts and could easily deposit blocking forces on the east side of the pass to prevent supplies reaching the city from that route.
As it is, my PC's plan on avoiding the Burning Forest alltogether, and have come up with a reasonable case for doing so. So, in my campaign, the Borealis/Farm encounter will happen on the road westward through the mountains and the impetus to get the old wizard and his daughter hurrying along with the PLC's afterwords will be the Imperial reinforcements they can see hurrying along the path behind.
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