War of the Burning Sky: Thoughts?

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have been running WoBS for almost two years now, in a once a month campaign. We started in 3.5 and I have been house ruling into 4e as the team here is just barely catching up to us. We are at the end of Module #7.

WoBS is, by far, the best adventure path I have ever seen. However, it is what I would consider an 'advanced' module set as the GM has alot of things to track, manage, and adjust based on the groups actions.

{MINOR SPOILERS}[SBLOCK]
On the broad scale, the adventure path ends in a Hobbitish 'war of 5 armies' and who is on which side depends on how the heroes did in earlier modules. Many bad guys are re-occuring and you have double-agents and people who just switch sides.

The initial modules are a bit rail-roady as the groups goal is to run away from the Ragesian Army, but after that you get into more free-form setups for the modules. One of the issues that the 4e version has is that they are adaptations of the 3.5 versions, in which you could easily have 7 combats in one session. Also, I think some of the writers should read Stalker0's comments on encounter building and anti-grind, as well has his Skill challenge rules.
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Regardless of those issues, I am completely enjoying running a complex adventure with a strong back history. The path is almost a complete campaign setting.

As noted there is a sub forum here in which the authors, guiding publisher, and a number of GMs post about the modules. with HR ideas, adaptation for setting in published campaign worlds, etc.
Drop by and read some, and pick up the players guide and campaign guides.

And finally, being free for subscribers? thats a pretty good price that I wish they had when they started!


Ah.. Ninja'd by RW I see!
I am looking forward to the new campaign they have planned, but still would go with WoBS... in either 3.5 or 4e.

 

[Stomphoof]

Thanks for the thoughts people. I think I will nab it and start running it.

 

[moxcamel]

Primitive, you might want to edit your post with a "Minor spoilers" tag. I know you're not giving away major stuff, but there may be some readers who want to be a little more surprised.

 

[bert1000]

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.

Excellent! I look forward to checking it out. I'm actually a skill challenge fan, so my vote is for including them. I know it's harder to do in published modules, but if you can make the success / failure results of every skill challenge have larger story related consequences that would be a huge improvement (WoTC doesn't do this either...).

The Star Wars saga skill challenge sample in Galaxy of Intrigue is a good example of this. Failures lead to the recapture of fellow prisoners. The loss of these prisoners could then show up later in the adventure path in all sorts of interesting ways -- one prisoner could escape on their own and try to hunt down the party that 'betrayed' them, one of the prisoners could be the relative of a monarch they meet later and influence that interaction, etc.

In my mind, these kinds of story consequences make skill challenges worth doing and feel meaningful. The "loss of a healing surge" or "failure = fight a winnable fight" are not so interesting to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Excellent! I look forward to checking it out. I'm actually a skill challenge fan, so my vote is for including them. I know it's harder to do in published modules, but if you can make the success / failure results of every skill challenge have larger story related consequences that would be a huge improvement (WoTC doesn't do this either...).

The Star Wars saga skill challenge sample in Galaxy of Intrigue is a good example of this. Failures lead to the recapture of fellow prisoners. The loss of these prisoners could then show up later in the adventure path in all sorts of interesting ways -- one prisoner could escape on their own and try to hunt down the party that 'betrayed' them, one of the prisoners could be the relative of a monarch they meet later and influence that interaction, etc.

In my mind, these kinds of story consequences make skill challenges worth doing and feel meaningful. The "loss of a healing surge" or "failure = fight a winnable fight" are not so interesting to me.

I think there's nothing WRONG with having some minor low significance SCs. For example in my game last night I had a low complexity SC to avoid a fight. Big wow, but it added a little extra dimension to what otherwise would have been a "you have to fight past this spot" sort of encounter that was probably tactically interesting, but was also not super significant. The players actually considered just taking on the monsters even though they DID get past them for the heck of it but ended up going on to the next encounter instead.

'Strategic' SCs are the really good ones though IMHO. It can be tricky to try to use them in a published product though. For example you can't really have an SC that lets the players take 2 really different paths. Nobody wants to pay for material they won't get to use. The Galaxy of Intrigue example is one that can work fine in a published adventure though. I'd say the designers should provide good dramatic fluff for it though. Make sure the lost prisoner is meaningful from a character standpoint to the PCs, not just to the plot later on. The players should wince when they lose out on it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

With the exception of the Fire Forest, I agree. Module 2 wasn't the worst railroad I've seen, but was ... constrained.

Combat encounters: B/B-. Some of the combat encounters are not very dynamic and don't make full use of 4e strengths.

And one of the encounters in module 1 is damn lethal (the Boneshard Skeletons). To the point I cut it, and put an Inquisitor and torture chamber in behind White Wyrms (with the Paladin getting stuck in an Iron Maiden, and the Eladrin getting trapped in a cage with a bad guy, and gleefully Feystepping out.) The Inquisitors (all of them) much to the party's annoyance use suicide capsules so the PCs don't even have the satisfaction of killing them.

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.

Agreed. I'm normally just cutting them. Not that I'm not using skill challenges - but normally as a way of resolving PC plans.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

In the 3.5 version, 3rd module.. my group coined a term that will stay will us for a very long time... "Ryan Nock Equivilent Encounter"

There are a couple rather lethal set-ups scattered around!

IMO, a skill challenge should move the plot forward while giving the players a chance to have thier character shine and make a meaningful choice as to which way the plot goes.
In the third module there are a ton of events that are appropriate for a skill challenge with both immediate impacts as well as long term impacts.

spoilers![sblock]
The refugees come to Seaquin from many places and there is a bid for a new temple to be built.. but only one despite the influx of various beliefs. My campaign is set in Eberron before the War, so I decided that the Sovereign Host had not yet been formalized leaving the splintered religeous sects.
The PCs get to work with the various priests and worshippers to get them to agree on a temple. In the process, they garner freinds with clerical skills and bring some peace to the refugees.
In the long term, IMC.. they basically founded the following of the Sovereign Host.

In the same adventure they encoutered a pirate lass by the name of Lhazaar who they did not talk out of heading off-continent in search for a safer place to live. The pirate went on to found the Lhazaar Principalities, which could have been a choice for the PCs to leave the adventure path and go on to something quite different.

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I think skill challenges are just difficult to work in right, and for the mechanics I prefer Stalker0's Obsideon method. I have been trying to work more skill challenges into the mix simply due to the limited time I have to run the sessions

Anyway, long story short.. the 'bones' of the adventure path are very well put together and its easy to fill in the gaps and make the encounters better for your specific group.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Anyone had any difficulties with the combat in WOTBS?

Our group is small, 1 BattleCleric, one Assassin, 1 Warlord, 1 Ranger,
and the DM gave us Torrent (NPC) for assistance.

First fight in that bar, we were facing like 10 opponents.

The fight in the warehouse, (sidequest from some dwarf), we
faced the Wyvern riders, beat them, but then this boss popped
up from behind some crates and nobody in the party could hit
any of its defenses short of a crit. We ran, lost 2 party members.

Now we've got this book (or after it) just left some school of magic,
and the DM says the next encounter will have our party facing -22-
foes.

I can only hope 17 of them are minions...

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Darklord.. do you mean in Module #1, the Scouring of Gates Pass?
Your description of the events is a bit vague, but I just relooked at the 4e version of the module and there are no combat encounters listing 22 opponents.. perhaps your DM is adjusting the encounters a bit... which he should. With only 4 PCs the balance of the game gets a bit harder to judge.

Ideally, he is modifying for your entertainment, altho your team make-up doesn't look like you can handle masses of minions easily.

4e does a much better job of allowing multiple bad guys on the table. Last months session included 8 PCs + 9 bad guys + 4 summoned monsters.. it was a mess of a battle, but very very cool.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Yes, the Scouring of Gates pass, that's it.

Sorry about the vagueness - was just recalling ad lib.

Every encounter we've felt pressed. There's not been
any "easy" encounters. I understand that life is hard,
but even a medium difficulty combat round would be
nice.

I like WOTBS, don't get me wrong. The environment,
background story, are all very compelling.

Just can't help wonder about some of those numbers
though. I guess the DM did adjust it, but it must have
been -up- then...

OH well, its all good - we got a cleric in our party.

(BattleCleric that is, need to point that "Battle" part
out to our DM... lol)