WotBS Please help me on the second adventurer - The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar

[rui]

Hello all!

I'm sorry if this is not the right forum for that, but I'm pretty sure that it is.
I'm running my group the WotBS campaigning (in 4th edition and Roll20 if that matters) and we just finished the first adventurer, "The Scouring of Gate Pass". As they head to the second adventurer I read and didn't understand what to do in the second act... the instructions are:

"Because the previous section was fairly straightforward and did not offer many character choices, you should be sure to let the players go through this section however they want, to avoid any feelings of railroading.
For XP purposes, the heroes should face the following encounters:"

And then comes the list of battles that the group must face. I don't understand what am I supposed to do... I understand that there are 2 crucial encounters that they must face, but how can I run the others?

Thanks,
rui

Edit:

P.S
Sorry if I made any grammar mistake, English is not my native language.

 

[RangerWickett]

The idea is that they've walked down a road so far, having encounter after encounter. Then they get to a village at the intersection of the road and a river. Don't try to force them to go any particular way. We kind of put in barricades to limit how they can get out of the fire forest -- after all, we want them to go to the Seela village, where the interesting stuff is -- but we don't want the players to feel like every time they try something a big wall of flame shoots up to block them. We encourage GMs to give the PCs leeway to explore, and to let them feel like they have options. This will hopefully avoid keep them from getting upset because the one option they don't have is to just leave.

 

[rui]

I think I understand it now. Thank you!

 

[Oldtimer]

I've just finished this adventure with my group (using the 4e version). I few central points about it:

1. The whole business with Khadral the sorcerer is basically XP padding added to the 4e version of the adventure. You want the adventurers to find the remains of Torfendar, but there are just too many encounters around Khadral, and I felt it detracts from the main story here.

2. This adventure is another excellent part of the campaign where the adventurers face choices with a moral quality. There are many NPCs that want them to take the easy way out (Kazyk, Vuhl, and Indomitability himself) and just a single lone seela imploring them to save them from death. And there are very natural consequences of the choices they make (though I wish there was a single section summarising them).

3. Underlying the problem of leaving the forest and continue their journey to Seaquen is also the mystery of why the forest started to burn in the first place. This will serve up some great hooks in their relation to one of the great nations of the region.

All in all, a very memorable adventure for everyone involved.

 

[Cheeslord]

If I can give you one piece of advice for 4th edition fireforest; do not use the original rules for Indomitability! I think there is an official rewrite available from the website, but as written, unless your party is incredibly weak, they will not find Indomitability a challenge as specified in the campaign and it proved a bit of a dissapointing boss fight when I ran it.

Mark.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I tried posting this last night but ran into some network problems.. so this time might be a little less clear..

I am glad to see that WoBS is being enjoyed by other groups, it is the best adventure arc I have ever had the privilege to run.

That being said, I have some warnings about running the 4e version. Caveat, I tend to 'adjust' pretty much any published module to some degree so I might have done some overkill on these.

The first third of the modules, up to #5, suffered from being converted to 4e shortly after the new game system game out. The authors did not fully understand the full paradigm shift that the system came with and the conversion was a bit rushed and rather imperfect. Also this was before the monster math 'fix' so all the published monsters should be reworked.

The middle third were converted with a better grasp of the new system and were playable right out of the book, altho I had to tweak for my rather unwieldy group dynamics.

The last third suffered from 4e Epic levels not being well designed and not being well supported. They were converted just like the rest of the campaign but Epic level just didn't work with the rules as written.
Note, some of the most spectacular stories in my group came from the Epic tier, like defeating the dragon who was chucking portions of houses at them...

The big sore spots are:

- Using 3e style attrition encounters to burn the PCs daily resources. This leads to a number of long sessions with combats that don't matter too much. I recommend skipping some, changing some to skill challenges, or other means of quicker combat.

- Boss battles are designed in the 3e paradigm with one hefty boss and a couple of minions. Focused fire in 4e with dailies and encounter powers make short shrift of them. I recommend rebuild and using more minions {not the 4e game term necessarily}

- Epic level. The whole modules are lower tier paradigms and WoTC never really figured out the Epic Tier. I recommend revamping with any help you can find on these forums and elsewhere. Variant combat methods, super-solos {multi-phase solo monsters}, and anything you can to get Epic to work.



I posted some of my work here in this forum.. just keep in mind I was converting not only for 4e but also for my groups dynamics...

These are just my input, there are tons of other posts that have better ideas:

Shelter from the Storm
Mad Kings Banquet skill challenge
Adv 7 Black Widow Encounter
Trial of echoes souls Chorus and Ghaele
Soul Tapping
Trial - Rhuarc
Trial - Evil Party
Trial- Meditation
Wintery Song - Obelisk
Wintry Song - Blizzards
Festival of Dreams
Adv 10 - missing hazards

4e Epic thoughts
Epic play report and discussion