WotBS Experiences with the bonus adventures in 3.5 complete campaign

[Mrpereira]

Some time ago I bought the 3.5 complete campaign and have enjoyed playing it so far. We are more or less through part 3 - they are at the sunken prison, where we stopped the last sesssion.

I have been considering throwing in the five bonus adventures as part of the main storyline, instead of having them play other players. The first one is not much of a stretch, since I entroduced the steam vents when they arrived at Seaquen, and it is easy to fit in the first adventure as an additional task in the city. The second one is more of a stretch, since I can't see why they would go to the Northern part of Shahalesti atm. I have considered placing the adventure somewhere in the Southern part of Shahalesti or just inside the Eastern border og Dassen and giving them a task of handing over some missives to an agent, before they go to Dassen. A Little far fetched, but could Work. The third one is a bit more far fetched, as they kinda would have to help out, the Duke, while also have to hurry back through Alydi Gap.

What I would like to hear is have anyone else incorporated the bonus adventures in the campaign?

How did you do it?

Did it Work out well, or didn't they function that well?

Do any of you have any ideas I could use, that would be better than what I have mentioned above.

 

[Matthan]

I'm currently running WotBS for 5E, and we're a little behind where your group is at. I'm on the fence about using the additional adventures, but I would be wary of using them with the same set of adventurers.

My main concern is pacing. The adventure path is long. If you're finishing up Seaquen, you are a fourth of the way through with no additional adventures. Consider how long it's taken your group to get that far. For my group, it's looking like it'll take anywhere from 6-8 weeks to finish one adventure (we play online for roughly 3 hour weekly sessions). It's already going to take a long time to finish the path. I'm not sure I want to add time to that. I want to finish the adventure (there's some amazing stuff that I want to run like the room in adventure six that has variable gravity! It's going to be awesome), so my goal is to make sure the story keeps moving at a solid pace. If you guys are rocketing through the path, maybe it's not a big deal to add five additional adventures. For me, I'm afraid that it will stretch out the game more than I can sustain.

My second concern is experience. Personally, I just went ahead and instituted milestones for my campaign, but if you are running with experience points, you do run the risk of overleveling later adventures. Notice that the first two bonus adventures are for levels 5-7. If you run both of them, you'll be looking at a lot of restructuring encounters for appropriate difficulty. Additionally, that will snowball into later adventures. The more bonus adventures you include the more work you are creating for yourself later on as you have to rebalance more encounters with a wider gap between what's written and the current level of your party. Personally, I'm already adapting to 5E and I don't want to give myself more work than I already have. I don't think the benefits outweigh the time and headache costs.

I know none of that is directly helpful, and I apologize for that. The best advice that I can give is to pay careful attention to the timeline of the war. Remember that adventure 9 is one year later than adventure 1 (and if you included mentions of the Festival of Dreams in adventure one like it encourages you to, you can't move it as its written as part of their New Year's celebration). Each of the bonus adventures have suggested times for occurring during the war as well. I think that will be your biggest hurdle. Without teleportation magic, travel is going to take time and with this path, the clock is ticking for all the pieces to fall into place right. If you go for it, good luck with it and let us know how it goes.

 

[Morrus]

IMO, the best way to handle them is as separate one-shots using different characters. I don't think forcing them into the main campaign works well. They illustrate that the war is larger than just the PCs. Use them after the campaign is over, or when you're missing some players, or when you feel like a break from the main campaign.

 

[Graphil]

I used the first one but that was it. The others didn't fit right into the flow.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

Can I ask: Where does one find those mentioned adventures?
And, having only run the first session of the first book, but having some experience running Paizos APs under my belt, I'd agree that time will be a major issue. So, personally, I'd not run them within the big campaign. I might, in fact, use them on a different mix of players - some from the main group, some new - thusly giving ME another group to play with, and the players from the main group another glimpse at what happens in the war, like Morrus said. I really like that idea.

 

[Matthan]

The additional adventures are in the compiled deluxe version for 3.5. I purchased it through dtrpg.com. As far as I know that is the only place they have been released.

 

[Mrpereira]

Thanks for the replys.

Most of the points address my concerns, specifically the timing is an issue.

The XP part is something that is easier to handle, as we have agreed to use a rather loose structure for it. I do like the idea with different Groups, but not sure how well the players will like it. I guess we will see.

I think what I will do is that the first one, just as Graphil did, will be played by the main characters. The fall in temperatures will be happening anyway and they are in Seaquen. The other ones I think would be possible to run with a different recurring group.

Thanks for the responses.