D&D 4E 4E Adventures

[LightPhoenix]

I've been running Scales of War for my (heroic tier) group, and I'm regretting it now. I did have the advantage of having all the adventures, so I've been working in more of a broad plot involving dragons. Even so, it has required a lot of work to bring it together, and I'm trending towards burning out now.

I'm thinking of scrapping the campaign after this and running WotBS myself; from what I've seen of it, it seems a lot more coherent and a lot less work to run than SoW.

 

[Truename]

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.

War of the Burning Sky is excellent. I switched from Scales of War after the heroic tier for exactly the same reasons you mentioned: lack of consistent plot, boring/non-existant NPCs, and lack of meaningful player options. I was tired of slogging through encounter after encounter.

War of the Burning Sky is the opposite. Great overarching and epic plot, lots of interesting NPCs, and real player choice. My group is just now finishing up the second adventure, which will bring them to level 7, and I'm very happy with it.

There are a few caveats: WotBS 4e is a conversion from the 3.5e version, and the early adventures reflect a lack of experience with 4e. The most notable problem is very uneven encounter design. New modules are still coming out and the latest ones look much better, but for the two adventures I've run, I've needed to tweak the encounters to make them work better. I've also cut out portions of each adventure, as they run a bit long in the heroic tier.

Bottom line: WotBS is excellent and I highly recommend it if you're willing to put in the work to make it shine.

Another option to consider is the Zeitgeist campaign saga that ENWorld is getting ready to put out. It's written for 4e by RangerWickett, the same person who did WotBS, so I have high hopes that it will have all the strengths of WotBS (interesting, complex) without the 4e design weaknesses. You can't run that one today, though.

 

[renau1g]

I ran WotBS with a group I'd met at the local FLGS when my regular group fell apart due to real life. This group was used to LFR adventures and some of the WoTC modules so when I ran WotBS for them they kind of stalled out in it as the story/adventure does put a bit more on the players. This is not usually a problem but I kept having to prod/help them out...

So for most groups player choice is good, for this group...not as much. Also, the solo battle in the first adventure was too small an area IMO...They were blown away when

Spoiler

that solo enemy killed his prisoner when they didn't let them go

. Ain't nothing like that in WoTC adventures

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Another excellent 4e adventure is Courts of the Shadow Fey, but it is definitely low paragon tier. Lots of intrigue and tons of interesting NPCs, plus the characters have to navigate a rather strange environment. It has some interesting story supporting mechanics, notes on adjusting the monsters for different styles of play, etc. Wolfgang Bauer definitely has the experience and creativity to put together excellent adventures. I'd pretty much recommend anything he's got going for 4e. They have a town (Zobek) and various other stuff. KQ is the place to go check it out.

 

[Netherstorm]

Wow what a downer that so many people are quitting Scales of War.

I just finished running the campaign a few days ago. It was awesome. The heroic tier, unfortunately, is the worst part of the whole path. It's very disjointed and the fact that they switch out the main villain for a guy they'd barely heard of in the heroic tier 'end-battle' is pretty lame. But... It gets a lot better.

I'm tempted to go on and on about what's good about each adventure but let me just say that it really is worth playing.

I ran revenge of the giants, and that was pretty good. I ran P3-E3 and frankly it was horrible.

If you're considering quitting scales, at least flip through Haven of Bitter Glass and see if you really want to skip out on that.

 

[Riastlin]

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.

Bacon is meat candy. Can't beat that.

 

[techno]

I really appreciate all of the suggestions that have been provided in this thread. You have given me a lot to think about. I plan to investigate War of the Burning Sky and the offerings from Kobold Quarterly and Goodman Games. I also plan to read ahead on Scales of War to make certain I am doing the right thing by abandoning it at this point. I heard that one of the adventures was written by Piratecat and I don't want to miss that one. I also plan to check out the newer adventure offerings from WotC to see if they are significant improvements over the earlier modules. I am also very curious about the new Zeitgeist AP. It sounds really cool. Is there an estimated launch date for it and do we know yet whether community supporters will have access to it just like War of the Burning Sky?

One last question I have is: Are there any individual adventures from Dungeon that really stand out in your mind as excellent (in addition to the two mentioned above)? Thanks again for all your wisdom.

 

[ourchair]

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 don't own any Paizo material myself, nor have I read any, but on that note, I find that older adventures from previous editions of D&D are useful resources.

Consider looking for old 3.5 adventures, or even 2nd Edition adventures. I can say that even as a newbie DM like I am, adapting them to 4E mechanics is not difficult. Regardless of the edition, a good adventure should provide well thought out scenarios, and you can take care of the mechanics yourself with little difficulty, due to the simplicity of 4E design.

 

[techno]

Consider looking for old 3.5 adventures, or even 2nd Edition adventures. I can say that even as a newbie DM like I am, adapting them to 4E mechanics is not difficult. Regardless of the edition, a good adventure should provide well thought out scenarios, and you can take care of the mechanics yourself with little difficulty, due to the simplicity of 4E design.

Good point. That is one of the great things about 4e. I have been toying with the idea of doing a conversion of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, which (upon first reading) seems like a really cool adventure.

 

[Stormonu]

Good point. That is one of the great things about 4e. I have been toying with the idea of doing a conversion of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, which (upon first reading) seems like a really cool adventure.

Be forewarned: Expedition has too much going on it. It has a lot of cool individual encounters, but there's too many of them. After a while, the characters know that every door they open is going to lead to a fight. It's best done if you take some of the keynote encounters and ditch the rest. Doing so gives it a much spookier, "aura of decay" feel, which was what the original I6 - Ravenloft presented.