WotBS Choosing a great adventure and WotBS 4E

[Zinovia]

Like many of you who are playing War of the Burning Sky, what appealed to me about the series was that it was an adventure path that was something more than a series of linked dungeon crawls. It has big bad guys, an evil menace to spellcasters, a developing war, lots of diplomacy and intrigue, and a chance for the heroes to make a difference. It sounded great. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Around the time I began looking for a possible adventure path to run, our intrepid heroes were at 15th level in our 6-year long 3.5 campaign, DM'd by my husband. We were on the verge of saving the world from the demon army menace, having revealed their wicked plot to take over the neighboring country. It was epic (not literally), but the cracks in the 3.5 system math were showing. The paladin hit on a 2 for massive damage, the cleric was like unto a god, the druid laid waste to all her foes as a mighty bear, and my poor rogue was having more and more trouble making a difference in combat. The bard was our essential negotiator and party face, but in combat, well... the less said there the better. Poor bards.

We knew that the game couldn't last - and it helped that the storyline was drawing to a natural conclusion. It was time to retire those characters and try something new. I saw this as my opportunity to seize the DM's seat for the first time in many years. Given that 4E was going to be released around the same time, I planned to bring everyone over to a new system when we started the new campaign.

They didn't much like the idea.

Modules are boring. They have no plot. They are all just dungeon crawls.
I hate combat. Modules are all about combat. 4E is all about combat. Combat isn't fun. (said the Bard).
4E will suck. We don't want to learn new rules. I heard it's too much like an MMO.
Have you ever actually DM'd before? (nah, no one said this. Aloud )

Okay, so that was heavily paraphrased. But I did persuade them that I had found a wonderful adventure path that had an interesting plot, plenty of chances for diplomacy and intrigue, and wasn't just a bunch of dungeon crawls. They agreed to try it, and 4E out, for "the first module". I tried my darndest to make it clear that the "modules" were heavily linked into a single ongoing storyline, but they didn't quite get it. They were still thinking of episodic modules where you appear *poof* at the meeting point of the mod, receive your quests, do the dungeon crawl, and return victoriously - to never encounter those particular NPC's or locations again.

I was a bit concerned about my ability to do a conversion of WotBS over to 4E, but there was no way I was going to DM a 3.5 edition game (shudder), and I'd already bought the first module or three by that point, and liked the story. So I spent a great deal of time re-envisioning Ragesia as a nation of Tieflings, with Coaltongue being a great leader who was trying to rebuild the lost Empire of Bael Turath in the form of Ragesia. I fiddled with names, history, and the player's guide to remake the world in a way that suited my own vision.

We started playing, and it went great. There are mistakes I made and encounters I would have done differently. Still, everyone was having fun with the power of first level characters in 4E and the development of the story. After the first couple sessions there was no longer any talk about giving up the game after the first module. I'm not sure they even know when we moved from the first one into the second.

Having purchased all of the modules for the 3.5 version (so I could read ahead and know where the plot was heading), I was now faced with a choice when the official 4E conversion was announced. Do I continue doing my own conversions or do I buy the official conversion and save myself some amount of work? There would still be some work required - I have changed dozens of names, the racial mix of entire nations, added genasi, removed half-orcs, and fiddled with the story. Would reconverting be just as much work as doing the initial conversion from 3.5 to 4E in the first place?

The more I read ahead in the modules, the more I would think "I need to put a skill challenge there", and "how on earth will I translate *that* over to 4E?" and "omg there's a lot of work involved in this!". I subscribed to the 4E conversion, with a small amount of trepidation based on some of what I had seen in the Campaign Guide and Player's Guide conversions.

The first module however did not disappoint. In fact, as I read through the 4E version of Scouring, I kept thinking, "Dang, I wish I had had this back when we ran through this adventure!" I would likely have made some of the same changes with regard to races and such that I did in my current game, but I love many of the extra encounters that have been added. The new maps, the layout, and the entire feel of the product is improved. It seems easier to follow, and easier to run than the 3.5 version. I was very impressed, and I do not say that lightly.

If the future modules continue to be of the same quality, then I will happily use every bit of them that I can, and save my time for converting those things that don't match the changes I have already made to the story, or the few conversion decisions that I may happen to disagree with. In order to make the best use of WotBS 4E, I need to level my group up some; they excel at talking their way out of combats, and are only mid-way through 4th level as they are approaching the swamps outside of Seaquen. Had we been playing the official conversion all along, we would not face this level discrepancy because of extra story-related content added in.

Overall, I am convinced that the conversion will be well worth my money, even though I already had the 3.5 modules. I can't wait to see more of them. Really. Hurry up!

A few (minor and personal) quibbles about WotBS in general (some spoilers):
[sblock]Is War of the Burning Sky perfect? Nah, nothing is really. All adventures need to be tailored to fit your party, your players, and your own ideas.

Due to my misspent youth as an SCA herald, I have several hang-ups about names for instance (having studied the esoteric art of onomastics). I hate names like "Onamdammin" It sounds too much like "NoNameDammit". Steppengard is too much like Steppenwolf -the band. Gallo is a vineyard that sells no wine before its time. Megadon should be a dinosaur with big teeth. Horstea sounds like Horse-tea. Kisten is the sexy vampire lover of the protaganist in a series of novels that the female players in my group have all read. Why do monks have Latin-style names? Bechus (Bake-us) the baker. Huh. I changed many names of both people and places to be more regionally themed - for instance Ostalin has a Mongol-theme, and a mix of Chinese and Mongolian names for people and towns. Dwarves generally have old Norse names.

I thought it was weird that Dassen is largely inhabited by dwarves but mostly ruled by humans. I feel there are too many NPC's that end up tagging along with the player group for no good reason. Torrent didn't exist in my version of the story, and Weeping Raven (not three of him) will have some info to impart about his order, and perhaps the state of things in Ostalin near the monastery, but he's not going with them for the journey. Haddin and Kristen were with the group, but Haddin wound up mind-controlling a bar-maid in one town, and got himself arrested (and poisoned while in jail). He's out of the party's hair. He was pretty obnoxious while he was with them, and that's a good thing. The party was happy to see him gone.

Serious spoiler - players don't read!
[sblock]I'm unsure of Lee Sidoneth's motives. Why is he working for Ragesia exactly? What's he getting out of betraying his city? All I could come up with was that he feels a sense of futility - that Seaquen hasn't the ability to fight Ragesia and he'd rather be on the winning side. Seems a tad flimsy though given he is respected in Seaquen and has some authority there. Furthermore the fact that I have made him the mentor to the genasi swordmage in the group makes it important that he have a solid reason for his eventual betrayal.[/sblock]
Most of these kinds of things are easily altered, although I have a big spreadsheet of names, races, and other info that I have changed by this point. It keeps getting larger with every adventure I read through. But don't let my personal quibbles discourage you from picking up this adventure. It's good.[/sblock]

 

[Morrus]

I'm delighted that your players like it!

On the naming front - you think that's bad... I have to mention a nation named "Morrus" to my players... I think I may well change that one!

 

[RangerWickett]

Answer to your spoiler-ish question. Or at least, what the answer was in 3.5; they might change it in 4e. And my memory may be fuzzy about some of the details.

[sblock]Lee is an elemental-themed magic-user who is also a monk, so he's not working with Ragesia; he's working with Pilus. Let's assume Pilus visited Seaquen once a few years back and met Lee, then slowly turned the man to be loyal to him.

So then the war begins, and Pilus, who has close to having The Tempest leviathan airship ready, begins to worry that Ragesia will come a-knockin'. Pilus decides to feign an alliance with Ragesia. He wants to lull Leska into not viewing him as an enemy until he has The Tempest fully armed and operational.

Once his superweapon is ready, and he has Onamdammin's armies on his side, Pilus expects to be able to crush Ragesia, and then cripple the other nations so that no one is strong enough to rule it all. Balance through destruction.

(He'll destroy Ostalin too, but Onamdammin doesn't know that. Pilus lies a lot, and he's convinced Onamdammin that in the war's aftermath, Ostalin will be the only nation left standing.)

Ragesia starts to think Seaquen might be a problem, but they can't get down there, so they talk to Pilus. He agrees to help them with their problem, and somehow smuggles the hurricane orb to Lee. He tells Lee that Seaquen is a threat to their goals, and since Pilus is so damned charming, Lee listens to him and betrays his city. And because he's a fairly wise guy, Lee knows not to half-ass it and let his emotions get in the way, which is why he doesn't even warn his friends or student Torrent.

The Ragesian plan is two-pronged. They really want the hurricane to succeed and wipe out Seaquen, so they want to make sure the mages in charge of Lyceum aren't in any condition to stop them, hence the Wayfarer assassination plot. So while Ragesian inquisitors, some soldiers, and a succubus take up residence in the flooded ruins and lava tunnels, Lee enlists a second front.

First he convinces Giorgio to help him betray the Wayfarers and the Lyceum mages. Then he gets the two half-orc brothers from Ragesia -- Brutus and Setales -- to contact the witches and get the Tidereaver's Tears, so that the assassins won't get killed by the hurricane. Then, when the Shahalesti fleet shows up, he sees an opportunity to cause more havoc. He gets Paradim Dogwood the biomancer to mock up fake bodies to pin the blame for the assassination on the Shahalesti.

He does all this to trick Seaquen's defenders into not noticing the real plot, which is to destroy everyone with the hurricane.[/sblock]

Clear enough?

Also, I'm thrilled you're enjoying it. And I apologize for any names that don't work for you. Hehe.

Whenever someone mentions running the campaign, I always end up curious about how their group handled a few key points:

1. The fate of the fey in Innenotdar.
2. What the PCs do with Haddin.
3. How they interact with Katrina.
4. The fate of Steppengard and Dassen.
5. How the group deals with Rhuarc and the drow in adventure 7.

And a few others. But those are some of my favorite places for the PCs to do wildly different things.

 

[Zinovia]

Answer to your spoiler-ish question. <snip> Clear enough?

That's very helpful, thanks.

Spoilers: [sblock]
It should tie in well in my game given that I have made Lee, Longinus, and Pilus over into genasi. Longinus and Pilus are air genasi, and Lee is a water genasi. I plan to rebuild the MM2 "Genasi Hydromancer" for his statblock, along with some swordmage powers most likely, as he is the mentor to the genasi swordmage in my group. I should be able to come up with some good reasons for Lee to cooperate with Pilus - it's possible that Lee is even related to the other two somehow. Of course given my propensity for meddling, I turned Longinus female and named her Yin Tao Ling. Tao Ling means "Closed Flower". Pilus is named Yin Yun Ching. Yun Ching = "Minister of Clouds". [/sblock]

Also, I'm thrilled you're enjoying it. And I apologize for any names that don't work for you. Hehe.

Nah, it's just my strange compulsion to get away from weird fantasy names and use stuff that's more historical and (to me) sounds better. It's not the names that are important, it's the story. So thank you for that!

Whenever someone mentions running the campaign, I always end up curious about how their group handled a few key points:

1. The fate of the fey in Innenotdar.
2. What the PCs do with Haddin.
3. How they interact with Katrina.
4. The fate of Steppengard and Dassen.
5. How the group deals with Rhuarc and the drow in adventure 7.

And a few others. But those are some of my favorite places for the PCs to do wildly different things.

What have they done so far? (spoilers)
[sblock]
1) Once they figured out what was going on, the group decided to save the fey in Innenotdar and managed to free Tenacity (I renamed Indomitability as well because it is harder to pronounce). They didn't really try and save the dryad Timbre, but did bind her sword over to Tiljiann with the thought that the living sword would be able to grow into a new tree - keeping the Seela alive. Everything worked out very well actually. Now when they are talking to people trying to warn them that the forest is no longer burning, they tell them "It just went out. Really". Lol.

2) They rescued Haddin and his daughter and brought them along through the forest. Haddin would do annoying stuff like critique their performance after a fight, or golf clap when they won. I tried to make him irritating. He had no respect for the group that had saved him. At one point during a battle in the fire forest involving chokers, the swordmage used a power that swapped the position of two allies. He put Haddin into the grasp of the choker, while moving the rogue out of it. Haddin promptly dominated it, and made it jump rope with its very long arms. Then he laughed at the group (which turned into a coughing fit).

Once they got to a town, I figured I'd have Haddin create some trouble by dominating a barmaid into sleeping with him. I had planned to have this be found out by the employees at the bar, who saw their friend acting out of character (this girl was a former victim of a violent attack and never got close to men anymore). The group would find out about it after the fact. Instead two of the PC's decided to go carousing that night, and happened to go into the rough bar where this was going on. I listed several choices for them, but they chose the low dive where Haddin happened to be. So they just stumbled upon him and confronted him about it. A bar fight broke out. Haddin stunned people and tried to run, but the swordmage shook it off and used Lightning Lure to pull him right back in from the doorway. They managed to sit on him and knock him out until the guard came to arrest him. He was poisoned while awaiting trial by the owner of the bar - who is very protective of her employees and happened to be the head of the local rogues guild. Heh.

3) Not quite there yet, but they will probably be rescuing Katrina next session. We only get to play every 2-3 weeks at the most, so we don't progress all that quickly.
[/sblock]

 

[RangerWickett]

FYI, the name 'Onamdammin' was created by a friend of mine 7 years ago. She originally wanted him to be an ancient immortal warlock whose tomb was made of the petrified bodies of his victims. He was of mixed race, and hated himself for it, so he kept modifying himself. After much searching baby name sites, my friend pieced together a couple different names that meant "broken blood," then shuffled the letters to get Onamdammin.

Took me a week of practice to be able to pronounce it.

 

[Marius Delphus]

The new maps, the layout, and the entire feel of the product is improved.

Incidentally, I want to thank you for the compliment here. It was a great pleasure to "put my money where my mouth was," as it were, and create a layout that's obviously inspired by the WOTC books, is just as usable, and yet clearly isn't a rote copy.

 

[roderickvd]

Incidentally, I want to thank you for the compliment here. It was a great pleasure to "put my money where my mouth was," as it were, and create a layout that's obviously inspired by the WOTC books, is just as usable, and yet clearly isn't a rote copy.

I'll take that compliment and raise you another. The campaign itself and the materials are well layed out and truly original. So say my players and I. Keep up the good work.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Thanks; I'll do my best.