Can you help a bored DM?

[Amaroq]

A good trick when converting older editions to 4e, imho, is remembering to put multiple rooms together as one encounter.

Yes - and the flip side of that is, "don't put two full encounters in adjacent rooms and expect the party to prevent room 1 from warning room 2." Speaking from experience, that's a TPK recipe when room 2 piles into room 1 before the party have had a decent chance to spend healing surges, recover Encounter powers, etc.

If that's the kind of feel you want for an encounter, you want a Level +1 or Level +2 or even Level +3 encounter spread out over 2 or more rooms ... if the party can split off the first room and keep it from getting the warning out, you have two easy encounters .. but more than likely you get one challenging encounter with success depending on how well they handle the first group, how well they adapt to the "reinforcements" arriving, and how they use the terrain to their advantage.

 

[eriktheguy]

I used KotS for my group. I took about half the fights out, gave some monsters less hp, and peppered the dungeon with generous helpings of my own spices. Basically I ended up using KotS maps and doing the rest myself.
Here's a tip, when running a combat, use any monsters you want, describe them any way you want, and then use the monster stat blocks from the module. The players will not notice.

 

[Burchard]

I'll second the Goodman Games suggestion above. The most talked about times at the table for our 4E group has been going through the three Punjar adventures (Sellswords of Punjer, Scions of Punjar, Thrones of Punjar). We also enjoyed Isle of the Sea Drake and are just getting into The Forgotten Portal. Check out their 4E Dungeon Crawl Classics for all available titles.

They aren't like KotS at all. They feel much more like 1E and 2E. They aren't a bunch of rooms thrown together and stocked full of monsters. Rather, they are plot-driven, NPC-driven and have ample role-playing opportunities. The combat, especially the bosses, are VERY memorable.

We are gearing up to start War of the Burning Sky and as the DM, I'm very excited. It seems to be the sort of epic challenge that we often dream about.

 

[Elric]

If you are running KotS, Eleven Foot Pole has great commentary and suggestions for how to improve things: http://elevenfootpole.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html. Also, if you're running KotS try to use the updated version (free here: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (D&D Test Drive)) rather than the originally published version; there are a bunch of improvements.

 

[Kzach]

If you're old hands and have a solid grasp of the rules, I'd recommend ENW's own War of the Burning Sky.

Although I'm finding that a lot of the monsters are a bit overpowered, or not all that interesting in terms of abilities, and occasionally I have to reread a section a couple of times before I'll get the gist of it (lots of tiny bits of information that can alter things and the order of presentation leaves a lot to be desired), the story itself and the general feel and flow of it, as well as the setting, is quite cool.

It's definitely not for a first-time DM, though, or first-time players. It's incredibly complex and has a huge amount of information that both needs to be retained as a player and DM, but also huge amounts of information that the DM and players can miss or have to be aware of so that encounters 'work'. There's also huge amounts of information that needs to be conveyed in short amounts of time, which can be difficult for a DM to keep a track of and remember all at the same time.

But if you're up for the challenge and you're willing to do a bit of monster checking to correct the critters (which isn't too painful with a DDI sub and the Monster Builder/Compendium), then it's a challenging and rewarding module to DM. So far the players seem to be enjoying it as well, although time will tell on that

 

[Kzach]

As an addendum, Keep on the Shadowfell is incredibly boring. As is Scales of War and Chaos Scar. In fact, just forget about WotC modules altogether, they're a waste of time and energy.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Kzach: I think you hit the nail right on the head with those two posts. I have started reading up on WotBS and it is complex and has a lot of depth. I am especially impressed by how many clues and hints have been put into each encounter. Unlike a lot of modules I haven't found a single encounter in WotBS that doesn't have some sort of twist. It's extremely impressive. It really makes the rest of the modules I have read look quite dull.

 

[Regicide]

The biggest strike against KotS is that it's level 1. What do players do for the first few levels of existence? Use the same at will power over and over and over again.

 

[Gort]

All of the 4e modules are terrible. They are 30 encounters in a row and you'll have forgotten why you're in this vast inexplicable dungeon by the time you reach the final fight.

Get the dungeon delve book instead, slap your own plot in there, and have fun. They're small dungeons balanced to every level in the game, and you can work your own plots around them, and they'll probably take a session or so to run.

Alternatively, just run a homebrew. All the module books really do is build some encounters for you, and if there's one thing 4e makes easy, it's encounter-building.

It's like they missed the point of their own game with those well-presented piles of boredom.

 

[Burchard]

For a scant $2, try Mists of Madness by Goodman Games. It's for 1st level and was a lot of fun. There's a good deal of battles, but great traps (our Goliath Fighter still cringes whenever we see a pit trap...he tried to leap over one at first level with disastrous results!) and an awesome final confrontation ("This foe is beyond any of us!") make this a winner. And the price point is a steal!

Mists of Madness

I've yet to find a 4E adventure from Goodman Games that wasn't a blast to run. WotC stuff on the other hand...well, it's just so repetitive!