Session 5
Session 5 (Scenes 2-6, 2-6-2, 2-7, 2-8, 2-9, 3-1)
This session had some pacing problems. It was all roleplaying, no combat. Some of the roleplaying dragged--I didn't get much sleep last night, and . I've noticed that a good night's sleep is the best predictor of how well a session goes; when I've slept well, I'm quicker on my feet and better able to respond to surprises.
Another problem was that this section of the adventure isn't very well laid out, and there's some inconsistencies in the editing. For example, the assumption seems to be that the players get the case (it's a major plot point in Fire Forest, with Kazyk), but the way the adventure is written, the default path (the skill challenge with Shealis) has her keeping the case, but promising to share its information later.
Finally, there isn't much combat in this section of the adventure. Shealis, as a level 10 controller, just isn't a fun combat encounter. The players would miss almost every attack, and she has more hit points than my entire party combined. And the encounter in the spy headquarters only happens if the players defeat Shealis in combat (unlikely) or fail the skill challenge (also unlikely, given the low DCs).
I think this section illustrates the biggest weakness of the WotBS 4e conversion: poor balance in combat encounters and skill challenges. However, it's a weakness I'm willing to put up with. Shealis would have been much better as a lower-level solo--she still could have been a difficult or even overwhelming opponent, but without the boring "you can't hit me" aspect.
Anyway, on to some specific comments.
I cut out Scene 2-6-1 (Dead Rising) because it didn't add to the plot and seemed cliche. (Also, my players asked me to accelerate leveling through the heroic tier, so I'm looking for encounters to cut.)
Scene 2-6 (Diogenes) went well. I played him as being quite bitter and jealous about Shealis, while still charming. They clued in and played him nicely.
Scene 2-7 (Shealis) dragged. I skipped the skill challenge here (as I've said, I've never liked social skill challenges, and 8 successes before 3 failures is just too many for that sort of challenge) and just role-played. I had decided that Shealis had some fey politics that made her want to keep the case out of Shahalesti, so she was interested in bargaining. After testing the PCs for a bit, she offered them a bargain.
This is the part that dragged. They were very skittish about making another fey pact. Two of the players refused, the others went along. None of them were very interested in negotiating. If I were to do it over, I would make it less contingent on group consensus, and instead design the bargain so that each individual could accept (for an individual benefit) or decline. Eventually, they agreed, and Shealis took them to the spy headquarters to retrieve the case.
Scene 2-8 (Elven Ghetto Hideout) was uneventful because Shealis was with them. I hinted at Kurychek but saved him for later.
Scene 2-9 (Spy Headquarters) was a neat scene. As you may recall, the PCs had previously made a fey bargain with Larion to kill Shealis, and he was waiting at the headquarters. Everyone else had been sent away. He gave the group the signal and moved to strike... and they chickened out at the last moment. I had dropped a
lot of hints about how powerful Shealis was, including a blatant mention of her level in response to a monster knowledge roll, but it was still a near thing.
I'm very happy they didn't try to attack Shealis. She completely outmatched them, and there's no way it would have been fun with the amount of missing they would have done.
But once they decided not to attack, the session took a fun turn. Larion was sent to fetch the case and the artificer tried to subtly hint to Shealis that Larion wanted to kill her, but Shealis wasn't getting it--so the artificer spent a fate point, tagging Shealis' fey appreciation for subtlety.
That did it. Shealis told the PCs to pretend to attack so she could see Larion's reaction.
He fell for it and I had a nice little scene where Larion was "banished from Summer" and cursed to wander until he loved three times was loved three times in return. His hair turned red and fell out, and he fled into the snow.
After the group left the spy headquarters, I introduced Kurychek. I had a lot of fun roleplaying him, but the group had cleverly hidden away the case, so Kurychek couldn't tell they had it. They dismissed him out of hand and Kurychek went invisible. He's too fun not to bring back, but I'm not sure exactly how.
We ended with the group back at the temple, deciding how to escape the city.
All in all, a lot of talking. This session was supposed to be the big payoff for the whole fey/Shahalesti/case subplots and, although it had some good moments, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I asked my players about it afterwards and they were mostly okay with it, but I could tell it wasn't keeping their attention as usual.
If I had it to do over, I would have introduced some combat to break up all the talking, thus spreading the scenes over two sessions. But it was nice to see so much progress on the plot. The next few sessions have the climactic "leaving the city" scenes (since they already talked to Councilman Menash) which have some easy combat sequences.
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