D&D 4E 4E Adventures

[techno]

I am looking for some friendly advice about 4e adventures. I love 4e but I am not enjoying the 4e adventures from WotC as much. I don't have time to create my own adventures anymore so I have been running the Scales of War AP from Dungeon. These modules have some cool stuff in them but the overall plot seems almost incomprehensible and "tacked together" as if the whole thing was done without a lot of advanced planning. My players keep asking me, "Now, what is going on again?" with regards to the overarching storyline. The focus of this AP is clearly on cool encounters and exciting combats (which I like). A compelling storyline, interesting moral dilemmas, non-combat role playing opportunities, and memorable NPCs (which I also like) seem more secondary. Granted, I am just finishing Umbraforge so there is much that I have yet to run. Am I judging this AP too quickly? I also tried the original H1-H3 adventures and had much the same feeling about them as I do about Scales of War. To me, the storyline of an adventure is just as important to my enjoyment of D&D as the rules themselves are.

I really like the quality of the Paizo adventures but cannot see myself going back to the complexity of DMing 3.5e/Pathfinder. Paizo's APs seem much better developed and appear to have 1) cohesive story lines, 2) interesting NPCs, and 3) more non-combat role playing opportunities. Do you think Paizo would ever consider adapting some of their APs to 4e or is that out of the question? It seems like there is a dearth of quality adventures for 4e and Paizo could cash in on this shortage, in addition to selling their own unique materials for Pathfinder. I think there are many people who really like 4e but wish they could play the Paizo APs without needing to do a lot of manual conversion. My dream would be 4e rules by WotC and adventures by Paizo.

I was wondering if there are any 4e adventures that are more like the Paizo APs. Does "War of the Burning Sky" fit this description? Are there other publishers out there, other than WotC, making high-quality adventures for 4e? If not, why not? It seems like a niche that perhaps someone could be successful in filling.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Firstly, I agree that the series that begins with Keep on the Shadowfell and ends with some adventure involving Orcus (aka H1-E3) is rubbish. Similarly, Scales of War seems to be an exercise in bad adventure design (with a few exceptions).

That said, the more recent WotC efforts have been very good. The Slaying Stone receives a lot of praise and I'm also quite partial to The Orcs of Stonefang Pass. I think that Reavers of Harkenwold in the DM's Kit is also excellent and the Cairn of the Winter King from the Monster Vault has really good potential. Tomb of Horrors is very good but I would avoid Revenge of the Giants like the plague.

The DDI version of Dungeon has some good stuff as well: I would recommend the recent adventures Lord of White Field and Bark at the Moon. There are more than that, of course, but it's too early in the morning for my brain to function properly.

As for the Paizo APs, a very kind soul on the Paizo boards has a couple of blogs where he converts Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne to 4E with some nice PDFs and all. His name is Scott (edit back in later).

Paizo, however, has stated many times that they will not be doing 4E adventures themselves. I think this is a shame because 4E needs their special touch but the overly restrictive GSL that replaced the OGL meant that they couldn't risk their business on the whims of some corporate type at WotC.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

There is this website called ENWorld with a comprehensive and cool adventure path. You should check it out.

(I also like the very recent WotC 4E material, but what do I know?)

 

[techno]

Thanks for the advice. For those who have played it, how does "War of the Burning Sky" measure up in the categories of 1) compelling, cohesive story lines, 2) interesting NPCs, and 3) non-combat role playing opportunities?

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Thanks for the advice. For those who have played it, how does "War of the Burning Sky" measure up in the categories of 1) compelling, cohesive story lines, 2) interesting NPCs, and 3) non-combat role playing opportunities?

Head to the wotBS sub forum.

The main arc of wotbs, to me, is quite compelling.
The NPCs are, at a minimum, plentiful, and many are compelling.
The path is geared, it seems, toward experienced DMs. As such, RP opportunties are plentiful.

I must confess I have read only a few of the adventures so far, and run just over one. I am not the most experienced DM in the Known Lands, but I really like running it so far.

 

[occam]

Granted, I am just finishing Umbraforge so there is much that I have yet to run. Am I judging this AP too quickly? I also tried the original H1-H3 adventures and had much the same feeling about them as I do about Scales of War. To me, the storyline of an adventure is just as important to my enjoyment of D&D as the rules themselves are.

I really like the quality of the Paizo adventures but cannot see myself going back to the complexity of DMing 3.5e/Pathfinder. Paizo's APs seem much better developed and appear to have 1) cohesive story lines, 2) interesting NPCs, and 3) more non-combat role playing opportunities. Do you think Paizo would ever consider adapting some of their APs to 4e or is that out of the question? It seems like there is a dearth of quality adventures for 4e and Paizo could cash in on this shortage, in addition to selling their own unique materials for Pathfinder. I think there are many people who really like 4e but wish they could play the Paizo APs without needing to do a lot of manual conversion. My dream would be 4e rules by WotC and adventures by Paizo.

I was wondering if there are any 4e adventures that are more like the Paizo APs. Does "War of the Burning Sky" fit this description? Are there other publishers out there, other than WotC, making high-quality adventures for 4e? If not, why not? It seems like a niche that perhaps someone could be successful in filling.

The design of Scales of War is built around a (very) gradually unfolding threat. The end goal doesn't come into view almost until the end, so it's hard to get a handle on what's going on if that's what you're looking for. Unfortunately, they also chose to make the progression of major events and reveals almost as much a mystery for the DM as for the players, which makes it difficult for the DM to put things in context for the players. Paizo learned from doing the original APs in Dungeon that it's important to give the DM the entire context up front, and they write the adventures to emphasize the through-lines so you have a better idea of where you've been and where you're going.

Scales of War has some really good parts to it, but the quality is uneven. While I also have no interest in DMing 3e again, I agree that the Paizo APs I'm most familiar with (Savage Tide, Legacy of Fire, and now Serpent's Skull) rock mightily.

 

[Riastlin]

Scales of War is a bit of a mess in Heroic tier (particularly early on), but I do think it gets to be pretty good by the time Paragon tier rolls around. Granted, much of the work in terms of fleshing out NPCs will have to be done by the DM, but I am not overly concerned by this as I have found that every group latches onto different NPCs anyway.

Umbraforge in particular is a real trainwreck (or trainride) of an adventure, but I also think it is by far the worst of the adventures I have read in the path (just started reading Tyranny of Souls, the last of the paragon adventures). You will still have to connect many of the dots in order to keep the story line held together nicely, but I don't think that its too difficult to do.

As for War of the Burning Sky, I've heard nothing but good things about it (which makes sense on these forums), but have not read any of the adventures myself. For my money, its probably worth it to subscribe for a month or two and check out the adventures that have been released and see how you like them. Certainly for my next campaign (whenever that might be) I would check it out in a heartbeat -- particularly if I was looking to run something published.

 

[Goonalan]

I've written off two 4e camapaigns on the back of H1-H3, my players on both occassions had just plain had enough of fight after fight with little respite, so I hear you brother/sister.

My Scales of War AP group has just about given up also- we're on the 6th adventure, no I don't remember what it's called.

We're all pretty pushed for time so we rely on bought products with a little tinkering, that said, we really enjoyed a lot of the Goodman Games stuff, particularly the Sellswords (lovely opening adventure with loads of NPCs to chat/threaten et al your PCs- linear but fairly lovely with a huge helping of flavour, and fun).

I played Goodman Games Isle of the something Drake with a bunch of 7-14 year olds and they loved it, plenty of places to explore, Ray Harryhausen Special Effects and Pirates aplenty, it needs a little work but at one point I thought the PCs were going to stay on the island, they loved it so much. The finale was just... stunning (not actually stunning you understand), a fight worthy of a film franchise- subject to Mr. Depps availability.

We also played the other first levle Goodman Games- Dwarf Forgotten Forge, sorry name escapes me, mad- difficult, TPK for the first outing, however (and refreshingly) that just made the PCs second party all the more determined to see it through.

At present-

HS1 is proving to be a great success, see sig.

Likewise some of the scenarios mentioned above are very well thought out- particularly Stonefang (in parts) and the Harkenwold stuff, don't want to say too much in case my players visit but... Oh yes, very nice.

Good luck, and I know what you mean about Paizo stuff, now if we could just convince Wizards to do the rules, and Paizo to do the scenarios & community stuff...

What a wonderful world that would be.

Goonalan

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'm playing the 3.5 edition of WotBS, but I assume the story and NPCs remain the same in 4e.

It definitely is more cohesive and memorable than the arcs that WOTC has put out. Also I'm liking what I'm hearing about the new Zeitgeist campaign that EN World seems to be putting out soon. I'm not quite sure how soon though, so if you need something now, you might not want to wait.

 

[Morrus]

Thanks for the advice. For those who have played it, how does "War of the Burning Sky" measure up in the categories of 1) compelling, cohesive story lines, 2) interesting NPCs, and 3) non-combat role playing opportunities?

is awesome in every possible way! It's even better than bacon!

You can download the free player's guide and the free DM guide to see if you like what you see.