War of the Burning Sky: Thoughts?

[Stomphoof]

I am considering giving this "War of the Burning Sky" a try instead of running H1 Keep on the Shadowfell, as to be honest I prefer something a bit more griping and Keep is kinda...bland.

I was curious though if anyone here has run the 4E version of Burning Sky and if they could give me their thoughts?

 

[Riastlin]

I too would be interested in hearing more on WotBS, even though I have no immediate plans for a new campaign.

I would agree with you though Stomphoof that KotS leaves a lot to be desired imho.

 

[Jack99]

There is a forum here at Enworld, just for WotBS.

But in short, it's quite good, go buy it.

 

[Daern]

Right on. WOTBS is a great story. Out of the box ideas. Lots of fun. Cinematic and epic in scope from the start. I wrote some extensive notes on my campaign.

 

[corwyn77]

I concur. I haven't run or played it yet but I have the first 6 chapters and it looks quite good. Much more story depth than the Dungeon adventure paths.

 

[Odysseus]

I'm running the 4E version now. And its certainly the best 4E adventure i've run or played in. In fact its a pretty good any edition campaign.

 

[Truename]

I'm running the 4E version now. And its certainly the best 4E adventure i've run or played in. In fact its a pretty good any edition campaign.

My players just dinged level 5 (about halfway through second adventure) and I'm loving it. Lots of great roleplaying opportunities, good story, interesting situations. It inspires me to be a better DM.

My only gripe would be that some of the combats are pretty dry, and some of them are poorly designed. None of the skill challenges so far have excited me, either. That said, there are some nice set piece battles.

In short: highly recommended if you have the time to make it shine.

 

[samursus]

My players have almost completed the first module.

Its a great story, in depth and interesting. I have a few gripes about the editing (quite a few errors, probably from the translation from 3.5) and I feel that the module sometimes has too much direction.

But like others have said, if you have the time to make it your own, I would say this is the best AP you'll find outside of Paizo, and hands down the best for 4e so far. Very gripping and inspires the PC's to become involved in the story.

 

[bert1000]

I haven't played or run it, but have the 4e releases so far. My take from a read:

Plot/ Mix of situations: A. Great job of different locations and mix of objectives. Not a dungeon crawl. The PCs have the opportunity to escape from a besieged city, do wilderness adventure stuff, get involved in country wide politics, spend time in a port city, war level skirmishes, etc.

Combat encounters: B/B-. Some of the combat encounters are not very dynamic and don't make full use of 4e strengths. The modules also suffer from too many combats (like all published adventures). I would love it if someone bucked the trend, and focused on making 1/2 the combat encounters per level but making them really good, and just awarding story XP to make up the difference.

Skill challenges: F. The execution is not horrible, but none of the success/failure consequences of the skill challenges I remember actually make much difference to the story.

 

[RangerWickett]

I haven't played or run it, but have the 4e releases so far. My take from a read:

Plot/ Mix of situations: A. Great job of different locations and mix of objectives. Not a dungeon crawl. The PCs have the opportunity to escape from a besieged city, do wilderness adventure stuff, get involved in country wide politics, spend time in a port city, war level skirmishes, etc.

Combat encounters: B/B-. Some of the combat encounters are not very dynamic and don't make full use of 4e strengths. The modules also suffer from too many combats (like all published adventures). I would love it if someone bucked the trend, and focused on making 1/2 the combat encounters per level but making them really good, and just awarding story XP to make up the difference.

Skill challenges: F. The execution is not horrible, but none of the success/failure consequences of the skill challenges I remember actually make much difference to the story.

We're working on a new campaign saga for next year, which should address your concerns. Now that we've had some experience playing and running 4th edition, things should go more smoothly. And if we have skill challenges at all, I'll make sure they have a point.