Question about quality of encounters [SPOILERS]

[Revinor]

Spoilers in the thread below ! Don't read if you are playing or going to play War of the Burning Sky


I'm considering getting WotBS subscription for new 4e campaign. Before going into it, I would like to ask you about something which is a kind of my pet sleeve with 3rd party 4e adventures... quality of encounters.

Things given in Dungeon by WotC are interesting. Every encounter has some tactical possibilities included, there is mix of monsters encompassing various roles, terrain plays a big part in combat.

I have seen quite the opposite in one of 3rd party modules.
Encounter 1) 8 identical zombies in square room
Encounter 2) 6 identical guards on the street
Encounter 3) 12 identical barbarians in the forest
Some people have not got the idea behind 4e...

And here comes my question. Looking at first two modules (I suppose that second one comes out any day), how will you rate the combat encounters as far as creativity/tactical possibilities/etc are concerned?

 

[roderickvd]

And here comes my question. Looking at first two modules (I suppose that second one comes out any day), how will you rate the combat encounters as far as creativity/tactical possibilities/etc are concerned?

My group is about halfway playing WotBS #1.

I consider the encounters to be interesting. There certainly are enough stat blocks if you're looking for a diverse group of opponents per encounter! The encounters are complete with sound tactical advice, NPC reasoning and sensical terrain features.

Like any encounter, the tactics don't cover for everything the PC party will do. My party has followed suit most of the time in which case the encounters can be played to great effect.

There has been one occasion where they didn't take the bait. A battle that was supposed to be inside a battered house with a powerful and believable villain fell through because they decided to take the battle outside. I had to wing it: there was no outside terrain prescribed and the villain just didn't get his chance to shine.

But otherwise, I can recommend it. My players certainly are looking forward to every night and are taken in by the story. I like the foreshadowing and mysteries: there's a sense of looming darkness but you never know when it's going to hit you and what it'll bring.

 

[merchantsteve]

As the designer of the encounters for 4e WotBS - here's what you can expect from the 1st adventure.

Imagine a warehouse with boxes piled high that tip and fall if you climb them while an artillerist and a few soldiers harry you. Oh, yeah - and a lurker or two rounds out the crew as you navigate the maze of alleys and dead ends created by countless crates.

Fighting with brutes and skirmishers in a burning building while the ceiling and walls collapse around you.

Finding yourself against artillerists and brutes in a doormaker's shop where you can run in and out of a bunch of standing doors (closing and opening them to make your own maze).

A magical shop where every push, slide and missed attack may trigger a magical backlash.

A sophisticated bank that has more than just humanoid guards.

A magically-dampened encounter where wits may just be the way to survive.

A gauntlet with dropping boulders, twisty paths and ruthless highwaymen of varying types.

And more...

And wait till the second adventure...

Strange creatures that swap places with one of your allies just as he is struck (by a third party!) Yes - there is a 3-way battle.

Swarms of critters that attack while you are on a collapsing bridge.

Cute and lovable puppies that are just bursting with energy.

How about fighting on a battlefield where you can easily slip on the blood and gore of those who went before, or potentially (depending on how you do things) run a battle while deafened and with heavily obscuring mist. Can you hope to rely on your controllers and strikers in the party to help you out?

Can you outrun sheets of flame or clouds of flaming cinders that waft over a battlefield?

In both adventures, though, the combat is only the tip of the iceberg. Skill challenges abound as well, and mysteries of all kinds are mixed in with colorful and strange characters. What goes on behind the adventure is just as important as the encounters within. The WotBS is really something special.

Boy, I wish I get paid for that Ad Copy!!!

Truthfully, I'm an old-style gamer (like from '76) who likes surprises and these encounters and the adventures themselves are full of them.

See this thread for some battlemap previews
http://www.enworld.org/forum/e-n-publishing/256691-art-preview-thread.html

 

[Morrus]

Well, the best way to answer your question, I guess, is to list the participants in the encounters in the first adventure; then you can decide if you find the composition interesting.

I think what we try to do is have the participants in each encounter have a specific objective, goal or motivation - so it's not always just a straight fight to the death. For example, in Shocking Revelation, Larion's goal is to escape, as is Flaganus' Mortus (with the aid of a captured child as a hostage).

Ambush!

• 2 Black Horse scouts​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (S)​
• 2 Black Horse thugs (T)​
• 4 Black Horse recruits (R)​
• 3 attack dogs (D)​
• 3 collapsing ceiling hazards (C1, C2, C3)​
• Kathor (K)​

Shocking Revelation​

• Larion​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (L)​
• 1 wisp solon (W)​
• 1 lightning blast trap​

Flaganus Mortus​

• Flaganus Mortus​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (F)​

White Wyrms​

• 1 mountain pseudodragon​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (P)​
• 1 human storm mage (M)​
• 2 White Wyrm guards (G)​
• 3 White Wyrm bandits (B)​
• 2 false-floor pit traps (T)​

Dead Rising​

• 1 dwarven wight​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (W)​
• 3 dwarven boneshard skeletons (B)​
• 4 dwarven decrepit skeletons (D)​

Duel or Shealis' Apartment​

• Shealis (S)​
• 1 Wisp Solon (W)​

Spies' Headquarters​

• 3 Feywild badgers​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (B)​
• 2 Shahalesti warriors (W)​
• 1 Shahalesti lieutenant (L)​

Street Ambush​

• 4 Black Horse bandits​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (B)​
• 4 Black Horse veterans (V)​
• 1 Black Horse lieutenant (L)​

Magic Mayhem​

• Feris the sorcerer​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (F)​
• 2 human highwaymen (H)​
• 1 scintillating snake (S)​
• 2 human storm mages (M)​

Gauntlet Run​

• Renard​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (R)​
• Kathor (K)​
• 2 Black Horse scouts (S)​
• 8 Black Horse thugs (T)​

Gnoll Hunt​

• 1 mountain gnoll​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (G)​
• 7 mountain hyenas (H)​

Inquisitor's Attack​

• Inquisitor Boreus​

• ​

• ​

• ​

• (B)​
• Smarg “Smiley” Hobbler (H)​
• 3 goblin snipers (S)​
• 2 Ragesian regulars (R)​
• 3 decrepit orc skeletons (D)​
• Haddin Ja-Laffa ( J) (ally)​
• Crystin Ja-Nafeel (C) (ally)​
  
  

 

[roderickvd]

Could the thread title be updated with a short "spoilers" notice? It'd be a pity if my players read this (and I know that at least one of them is reading this forum).

 

[kumagroo]

Revinor, as a subscriber with similar initial concerns, let me say that this path does a great job with the combat encounters and, unlike a certain WotC campaign arc currently being published, it also has likeable characters and a coherent storyline.

If you do go with the subscription, consider your players. If they are standard, every-day types, this path needs no adjustment. In my case, where I have players using the optimization boards at WotC everyday to buff out their PC's, I found that I simply needed to add 1-2 extras in a given fight (the White Wyrms one described above had an extra bandit and an extra strorm wizard and it went smashingly). Also, Morrus and MerchantSteve are excellent at customer care; I've received PM's and suggestions on these boards in under 24 hours on how to bump up the difficulty in an easy way that takes no prep work for me.

My advice: Go for it! You won't regret it as this path is equipped for all playing styles and all degrees of player experience.

 

[Revinor]

Thank you for all the answers - I decided to give it a try. At the moment I'm reading through the module and have following observations:

• 'Monsters' are bit heavy on humanoids. This is of course because of the environment (city), but it seems to be limit the creativity in the power types in few cases
• Daze is powerful condition and not very fun at that. Anything which considerably limits options/actions of players is bit of pain - a lot of fun in 4e is mobility/multiplayer combos, which gets cut by things like daze. And here suddenly: 1st encounter, 2x3 daze (till save!), 2nd is 1xat-will daze (till save !), 3rd is stun (1 rnd only fortunately), 4th is daze till save again, 5th no daze, 6th daze till save, then is starts to be less cruel. This means that first two sessions players can expect to be continuously dazed (maybe it is a good start, 3 actions per round is too much for starters
• DCs are rather low (post-errata DMG it seems), but it is easiest to fix (probably blank +5 will be ok)
• Flaganus is very non-solo 'monster'. I would barely qualify him as elite. Solo enemies should have abilities which scale with number of attackers and some passive/reactive ones - his only ability like that is to roll saves. While I understand it is supposed to be easy enounter, I would not name this guy 'solo'
• I like black-and-white drawings, but full-color ones are certainly not my taste

Those are small issues I have seen so far (nothing which cannot be fixed), but overall, I'm positively impressed. Let's see how it will look like after facing the players.

BTW, I think I will have to change name 'Leska' to something else. In my language it sounds almost the same as word for "hot chick", which can give wrong message...

 

[merchantsteve]

Hi,
Make sure you have the updated copy of the module. On the inside front cover with all the legal text, the lower left corner should say revision 1.

On the humanoid-centric - yep - in a city. The second module has more variation.

For the dazing encounters;
first encounter - the dazers are only activated after the main part of the battle is finished (unless the heroes go outside). This is a two-stage encounter. The 2x3 guys don't necessarily have to employ those attacks either. As a DM, part of their attack could backfire - rooftop collapses or snow dumps down - and don't forget collateral damage. There are many ways to turn those attacks around.
second encounter - that one is intended to be tough. The idea is for the bad guy to get away. The Solon Lore on page 10 can also help the party avoid things. I suppose it should add something at the DC 15 level about 'their bright gaze forces one to pause in the presence of such righteous might'.
White Wyrms - 1 encounter (save ends) and a 2x1 dazing till next turn is about right for the encounter.

Low DCs: Absolutely. The post-errata DMG table is being used. After playing for awhile, the lower DCs fit a lot better in my experience. Now Skill Challenges can be successful about 70% of the time with my crew. That is huge, because many clues and hints fall out of the successes. Of course, all these numbers are suggestions. I find the story to be more important and the lower DCs help to keep it on track.

Remember Flaganus is the 4th encounter without rest. They have probably exhausted all their dailies. Also, double-check that he has his double-attack power and ragesian scythe. Those were dropped in the first release. I've also started playing him as leaping over the heroes at the door to gain some space outside - taking an opportunity attack or two in the process. I expect that he will not experience any dailies from the heroes and never forget the 2 Action points! He can do a healing surge as well.