EugeneZ
First Post
Now that I have run Scouring and let the experience simmer in my mind for a week or so, I'm prepared to take a good hard look at this adventure. First, I'm going to assume that the only other Adventure Path out there is Wizards' Scales of War. I also DM that adventure path, and the PCs there are currently going on 14th level. There are pros and cons to Scales of War but considering there are no other adventure paths, I don't regret starting it; but it was the inadequacies in Scales that led me to Google for other adventure paths. I found Burning Sky. So, understand that my baseline for any quality in an adventure path or adventure is Scales of War.
I'll start off with the good stuff, because it's easy to say good things about Burning Sky. Scouring is an excellent way to start off what looks to be a promising adventure path. The city of Gate Pass is unique, and between the Player's Guide, Campaign Guide, and the adventure itself, I felt very comfortable with the city as a whole, and even made a small prequel encounter that I thought worked well. I'd say it compares favorably with Scales of War's Overlook.
However, my favorite aspect of Burning Sky, the shining gem that makes the adventure path something special, is the brilliant story. The word 'story' means more in DnD than in most other media. The task of an DnD adventure story writer is tough: You are basically writing the detailed outline of a chapter of a novel without knowing your main characters! You don't know if they are good or evil (most writers assume good; EnWorld does not) or what their goals or motivations are. The Scouring of Gate Pass is set up in a way that truly gives players the freedom to solve problems their own way, and see the results of those encounters ripple across the adventure, and if what the writers say is true (I'm inclined to believe them), future adventures as well.
Well, I am the DM -- what looks like a free form and interesting story to me doesn't matter. It needs to appeal to players. Well, when we finished the adventure, I asked the players to rate the adventure on a scale of one to ten. Three of the guys I play with also play in the Scales of War campaign. As a group, they agreed it got a 9/10 from them. Even I was surprised at their enthusiasm. Still, it makes sense; they say that they can't wait to see where their journey takes them and the challenges their characters will face. After each session, they enthusiastically discussed their feelings about NPCs and the moral issues that come up occasionally. Heck, as a DM, I was very excited to see what adventure #2 had in store for us. I just don't get that feeling of anticipation for Scales of War adventures, and neither do my players. In Scales of War, we tend to discuss cool fights and interesting encounters/skill challenges after a session, but never the characters or story.
I also have to commend EnWorld on the production quality and presentation. Before Scouring was published for 4e, I purchased the 3e version of the first adventure to better prepare for the campaign. Well, I haven't touched 3e in years and the layout and presentation of the published adventure instantly reminded me of why I like Wizards' books and PDF adventures: crisp, clear text, excellent art, and most importantly, carefully laid out blocks of information about every topic, all grouped in a way that I as a DM find helpful. The 3e version of the adventure may or may not have been excellent in its time, but 4e set a new standard. And EnWorld met that bar handily, using Wizards' material as inspiration and modifying it where their adventure had a different focus or different angle. I think that a failure in this aspect is the kind of negative that can keep me away from a published adventure. I'm happy to say that I have no problem recommending this adventure as one that is as well laid out, organized, and edited as any Wizards material.
Well, that's all well and good, but no one is perfect. One thing that stood out to me was that the writer converting the adventure path to the new edition has a tough job, and unfortunately, their understanding of the mechanics that underline the new edition are flawed. Never outright wrong, and rarely detrimental, but only rarely. The biggest criticism I have was The Gauntlet encounter that takes place in the fourth act. This was the most poorly designed encounter I've seen in 4e to date. The low quality was noticeable even when skimming through, since I reeled when I saw the map, which, per the art credit, was drawn by Adventure Path designer Ryan Nock on the back of a napkin during a ten minutes lunch break. In an edition when maps and tactical movement are the bedrock of encounter design, including a very poor one is a bad idea. In an encounter that relies VERY heavily on zone-to-zone movement, positioning, speed, and reaction time, like The Gauntlet, it's a travesty.
The Gauntlet encounter itself is also completely unplayable as written. The premise is that the PCs are riding on horseback through a valley (the titular gauntlet), and are ambushed by mercenaries that chase them through a number of areas, or zones, comprising the valley. A set of rules for combat in the gauntlet is given to the DM, but this list is completely nonsensical. First, it seems to throw out the idea of tactical movement completely, dictating the exact number of move actions it would take to traverse the zone. Then, there are strange rules that specify the number of squares away from an enemy a PC is if knocked prone, off the horse. This makes no sense combined with the zone-to-zone movement mechanic.
There are other problems with this encounter as well, but it's possible I may have just misunderstood it. Never-the-less, I insist it is extremely poorly designed; an encounter should never need its own set of rules that modify what the PHB and DMG already provide for us. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how to "complicate" an encounter in 4e with a mechanic such as an ambush chase. The correct solution would have made heavy use of the mounted combat information in the PHB/DMG and added a skill challenge that allowed PCs to navigate from zone to zone. And, of course, a decent map is always required in any combat situation.
I wish this one encounter was the only example of these misunderstandings but that is not the case. A number of NPCs appear to be built strangely, and upon closer inspection, they seem to be designed as PCs-to-NPCs in the style that Torrent and other friendly allies are done. This process is alright for allies like Torrent, but it makes no sense for Renard Woodsman, who is designed to be kind of like a ranger. Renard feels oddly disbalanced in combat because of this and certainly could have been made more effective and interesting. The players thought Kathor was the leader of the Black Horse because he was able to more easily show off his strength, even though Renard was "technically" the bigger challenge.
I also have a bone to pick regarding the "Dead Rising" encounter. As designed, it is my firm belief that the skeletons here can easily completely annihilate most parties. I think a party that is able to fight while spread out might have a chance, but the boneshard skeletons have a close burst 3 attack, and the map is tiny, so this attack covers more than half of the entire area. Each attack deals 3d6+4 damage, averaging out to about 13 damage a pop, and each skeleton does two of these, guaranteed. There are three of these skeletons. That means if we completely ignore the skeletons' other attacks, they are doing about 78 damage (13*6) to each character. The PCs are still level one for this encounter, meaning that most have under 30 hp. If the bursts hit 50% of the time and deal average damage, you've killed the entire party. Keep in mind these are attacks these skeletons are guaranteed to make and I'm not including ANY standard actions here, just immediate actions. This encounter is basically unwinnable unless the PCs know exactly how the power works, stay out of its range, and very carefully, quickly, and luckily take them out. Impossible for my party, four out of five of whom are melee-based.
The one other criticism I have are the Skill Challenges. I have to say that I can't fault EnWorld much here. Skill Challenges are a completely new idea in 4e and even Wizards themselves seem to be having a very though time understand how they should be designed and used. EnWorld is only guilty of the low quality of skill challenges that Wizards adventures promoted for a year. I don't want to spend too much time discussing this because I can point readers (and, hopefully, EnWorld writers) to Mike Mearls' "Ruling Skill Challenges" articles. Mearls was the one who came up with the idea of skill challenges and he is also clearly the only one who understands them. This article runs for many parts and after reading it, I went from hating the idea of skill challenges to completely understanding how they can be extremely fun and playable, if done right. EnWorld hasn't done this, but on the other hand I found that most (but not all) the skill challenges are social encounters and due to the excellent story and characters, play just fine without a single die roll.
Here's a good way to summarize the pros and cons of Burning Sky when compared to Scales of War: When preparing for Scales of War sessions, I have to go through the adventure, and future Scales of War adventures, to "fix" the characters and story, something Wizards does not do well. The encounters, mechanics, and combat, however, very rarely need any work. With Burning Sky, it's the exact opposite: I spend time adjusting the encounters, combat, and mechanics, but make almost no changes to the story, which is brilliant. This seems to put Burning Sky on equal footing with Scales of War but let me be clear: adjusting a few numbers, throwing out a poorly written Mounted Combat sidebar, and tweaking a mechanic or five is easy work that just requires a DM with an understanding of the core 4e rules. Adjusting the story of Scales of War to be enjoyable, rewarding, and non-railroaded is an onerous task that is usually impossible; I merely add a shiny veneer on what is otherwise a completely un-extraordinary story and cast.
I'll take Burning Sky's cons any day. It's brilliant story and characters designed in the best possible way for maximum player enjoyment easily make this excellent start to a promising campaign worth every penny and more. Having started running the second adventure, I can already see a number of improvements, so I have high hopes that I will need to make fewer and fewer modifications. Regardless, I highly recommend this adventure to any DM and would be surprised if it's not one of the finest 4e adventures produced to date.
I'll start off with the good stuff, because it's easy to say good things about Burning Sky. Scouring is an excellent way to start off what looks to be a promising adventure path. The city of Gate Pass is unique, and between the Player's Guide, Campaign Guide, and the adventure itself, I felt very comfortable with the city as a whole, and even made a small prequel encounter that I thought worked well. I'd say it compares favorably with Scales of War's Overlook.
However, my favorite aspect of Burning Sky, the shining gem that makes the adventure path something special, is the brilliant story. The word 'story' means more in DnD than in most other media. The task of an DnD adventure story writer is tough: You are basically writing the detailed outline of a chapter of a novel without knowing your main characters! You don't know if they are good or evil (most writers assume good; EnWorld does not) or what their goals or motivations are. The Scouring of Gate Pass is set up in a way that truly gives players the freedom to solve problems their own way, and see the results of those encounters ripple across the adventure, and if what the writers say is true (I'm inclined to believe them), future adventures as well.
Well, I am the DM -- what looks like a free form and interesting story to me doesn't matter. It needs to appeal to players. Well, when we finished the adventure, I asked the players to rate the adventure on a scale of one to ten. Three of the guys I play with also play in the Scales of War campaign. As a group, they agreed it got a 9/10 from them. Even I was surprised at their enthusiasm. Still, it makes sense; they say that they can't wait to see where their journey takes them and the challenges their characters will face. After each session, they enthusiastically discussed their feelings about NPCs and the moral issues that come up occasionally. Heck, as a DM, I was very excited to see what adventure #2 had in store for us. I just don't get that feeling of anticipation for Scales of War adventures, and neither do my players. In Scales of War, we tend to discuss cool fights and interesting encounters/skill challenges after a session, but never the characters or story.
I also have to commend EnWorld on the production quality and presentation. Before Scouring was published for 4e, I purchased the 3e version of the first adventure to better prepare for the campaign. Well, I haven't touched 3e in years and the layout and presentation of the published adventure instantly reminded me of why I like Wizards' books and PDF adventures: crisp, clear text, excellent art, and most importantly, carefully laid out blocks of information about every topic, all grouped in a way that I as a DM find helpful. The 3e version of the adventure may or may not have been excellent in its time, but 4e set a new standard. And EnWorld met that bar handily, using Wizards' material as inspiration and modifying it where their adventure had a different focus or different angle. I think that a failure in this aspect is the kind of negative that can keep me away from a published adventure. I'm happy to say that I have no problem recommending this adventure as one that is as well laid out, organized, and edited as any Wizards material.
Well, that's all well and good, but no one is perfect. One thing that stood out to me was that the writer converting the adventure path to the new edition has a tough job, and unfortunately, their understanding of the mechanics that underline the new edition are flawed. Never outright wrong, and rarely detrimental, but only rarely. The biggest criticism I have was The Gauntlet encounter that takes place in the fourth act. This was the most poorly designed encounter I've seen in 4e to date. The low quality was noticeable even when skimming through, since I reeled when I saw the map, which, per the art credit, was drawn by Adventure Path designer Ryan Nock on the back of a napkin during a ten minutes lunch break. In an edition when maps and tactical movement are the bedrock of encounter design, including a very poor one is a bad idea. In an encounter that relies VERY heavily on zone-to-zone movement, positioning, speed, and reaction time, like The Gauntlet, it's a travesty.
The Gauntlet encounter itself is also completely unplayable as written. The premise is that the PCs are riding on horseback through a valley (the titular gauntlet), and are ambushed by mercenaries that chase them through a number of areas, or zones, comprising the valley. A set of rules for combat in the gauntlet is given to the DM, but this list is completely nonsensical. First, it seems to throw out the idea of tactical movement completely, dictating the exact number of move actions it would take to traverse the zone. Then, there are strange rules that specify the number of squares away from an enemy a PC is if knocked prone, off the horse. This makes no sense combined with the zone-to-zone movement mechanic.
There are other problems with this encounter as well, but it's possible I may have just misunderstood it. Never-the-less, I insist it is extremely poorly designed; an encounter should never need its own set of rules that modify what the PHB and DMG already provide for us. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how to "complicate" an encounter in 4e with a mechanic such as an ambush chase. The correct solution would have made heavy use of the mounted combat information in the PHB/DMG and added a skill challenge that allowed PCs to navigate from zone to zone. And, of course, a decent map is always required in any combat situation.
I wish this one encounter was the only example of these misunderstandings but that is not the case. A number of NPCs appear to be built strangely, and upon closer inspection, they seem to be designed as PCs-to-NPCs in the style that Torrent and other friendly allies are done. This process is alright for allies like Torrent, but it makes no sense for Renard Woodsman, who is designed to be kind of like a ranger. Renard feels oddly disbalanced in combat because of this and certainly could have been made more effective and interesting. The players thought Kathor was the leader of the Black Horse because he was able to more easily show off his strength, even though Renard was "technically" the bigger challenge.
I also have a bone to pick regarding the "Dead Rising" encounter. As designed, it is my firm belief that the skeletons here can easily completely annihilate most parties. I think a party that is able to fight while spread out might have a chance, but the boneshard skeletons have a close burst 3 attack, and the map is tiny, so this attack covers more than half of the entire area. Each attack deals 3d6+4 damage, averaging out to about 13 damage a pop, and each skeleton does two of these, guaranteed. There are three of these skeletons. That means if we completely ignore the skeletons' other attacks, they are doing about 78 damage (13*6) to each character. The PCs are still level one for this encounter, meaning that most have under 30 hp. If the bursts hit 50% of the time and deal average damage, you've killed the entire party. Keep in mind these are attacks these skeletons are guaranteed to make and I'm not including ANY standard actions here, just immediate actions. This encounter is basically unwinnable unless the PCs know exactly how the power works, stay out of its range, and very carefully, quickly, and luckily take them out. Impossible for my party, four out of five of whom are melee-based.
The one other criticism I have are the Skill Challenges. I have to say that I can't fault EnWorld much here. Skill Challenges are a completely new idea in 4e and even Wizards themselves seem to be having a very though time understand how they should be designed and used. EnWorld is only guilty of the low quality of skill challenges that Wizards adventures promoted for a year. I don't want to spend too much time discussing this because I can point readers (and, hopefully, EnWorld writers) to Mike Mearls' "Ruling Skill Challenges" articles. Mearls was the one who came up with the idea of skill challenges and he is also clearly the only one who understands them. This article runs for many parts and after reading it, I went from hating the idea of skill challenges to completely understanding how they can be extremely fun and playable, if done right. EnWorld hasn't done this, but on the other hand I found that most (but not all) the skill challenges are social encounters and due to the excellent story and characters, play just fine without a single die roll.
Here's a good way to summarize the pros and cons of Burning Sky when compared to Scales of War: When preparing for Scales of War sessions, I have to go through the adventure, and future Scales of War adventures, to "fix" the characters and story, something Wizards does not do well. The encounters, mechanics, and combat, however, very rarely need any work. With Burning Sky, it's the exact opposite: I spend time adjusting the encounters, combat, and mechanics, but make almost no changes to the story, which is brilliant. This seems to put Burning Sky on equal footing with Scales of War but let me be clear: adjusting a few numbers, throwing out a poorly written Mounted Combat sidebar, and tweaking a mechanic or five is easy work that just requires a DM with an understanding of the core 4e rules. Adjusting the story of Scales of War to be enjoyable, rewarding, and non-railroaded is an onerous task that is usually impossible; I merely add a shiny veneer on what is otherwise a completely un-extraordinary story and cast.
I'll take Burning Sky's cons any day. It's brilliant story and characters designed in the best possible way for maximum player enjoyment easily make this excellent start to a promising campaign worth every penny and more. Having started running the second adventure, I can already see a number of improvements, so I have high hopes that I will need to make fewer and fewer modifications. Regardless, I highly recommend this adventure to any DM and would be surprised if it's not one of the finest 4e adventures produced to date.