# Fire Forest recap - online game



## OnlineDM (Dec 11, 2010)

TL;DR version: We finished the Fire Forest and had fun with it.

I've just finished running my online MapTool game through the Fire Forest adventure, and I thought I'd share my thoughts.  More details (with token images and a couple of maps) are on my blog.

SPOILERS AHEAD, obviously

My party was traveling with Torrent and Crystin (I had the Inquisitor kill Hadden, mainly because I didn't want to deal with him).  I ran the adventure mostly as written, though we did not revisit Khadral and see the trillith ritual because the party buried the body of the Solei Palancis knight the first time and thus had no reason to go back to Khadral's area.

The first couple of encounters were:


Bat versus goblin
Crumbling bridge
Devil and lemures
Hell hound with the bone
The bat versus goblin battle was silly because they all deal fire damage and yet have fire resistance, so they can't affect one another.  I'm guessing that's an oversight, but so be it.  This one is skippable.

The crumbling bridge encounter ended up being fun, partly because one of the party did fall overboard, but mainly because another adventurer later used an attack that let him shift a square, and he shifted right into a square that he KNEW was fragile.  Priceless.

The first encounter with Kazyk and his lemures was fine, and the encounter with the hell hound with the offer carved on a bone led to some fun role-playing.

Helping Khadral was all right, too.  I had the party collect a mixture of mushrooms and flint (which required climbing on the walls of the cavern).  I also hid the journal from A Cool Cave here; the party's shaman discovered the journal, wasn't interested in it, and tossed it on the floor.  That was amusingly good role-playing!

The ritual to help Khadral put out the dryad's grove went well, too.  I would suggest shortening the distance between where the dryad's children start and the lake on the far side - it was too far to effectively let the PCs who wanted to carry the children get over there via initiative rules.

When Khadral was swallowed by the earth, I ended up using some custom fungus monsters in a smallish chamber in a battle that I think wound up being pretty good (not great).

Next came the contact from Indomitability and his fiery stags and bucks on the road.  The battle was easy, and the party basically accepted Indomitability's offer (though they later reneged).  

The mace guarding the bridge fort came into play and beat up on a couple of the PCs before they were able to deactivate it.  The fort itself essentially ended up as a skill challenge with all of the collapsing stairs and locks to pick and clutter to search through - and that's not intended as criticism.

Fiery creatures attacked the party as they explored the ruined elf village on the far side of the bridge; another battle that didn't really add anything.  I loved some of the flavorful minor magic items that the party found here.

The willow shrine beckoned, and the battle with the ghast and his skeletons was pretty cool.  Inside the shrine, I had the Solei Palancis knight be more of an eladrin spirit than an actual eladrin (I've read that he was an angel in the 3.5 version, which makes more sense).  Honestly, the whole "I was sent here and yet somehow knew nothing of the fire" thing was really hard for me to work with.  Anyway, a fantastic History check from the party's wizard when she examined the case that had held Anyariel's hair revealed a bunch of the backstory of Anyariel, Gwenvere, Timbre and Indomitability.  Also, I made Anyariel a male.  No, I'm not prejudiced or anything - I just thought it would be easier for the players to understand who was who if there were two females in love with the same male, rather than with another female.

I had Kazyk confront the party again when they came out of the shrine and into the ruined village; they spurned his offer.  As they walked back toward the river with the plan of heading downstream to the lake (no visit to Nelle; I can't figure out whey they would ever even go upstream) they saw Tiljann getting attacked by the other seela.  They helped her out, but did kill one seela in the process (a few got away).  The skill challenge to gain Tiljann's trust was a success (barely), and the party tied up the captured seela and headed downriver.  Oh, just before they left, the "dead" seela rekindled - so hey, no harm done!

I threw Kazyk and his wolves at the party one last time as they moved toward the village, and I let the dice decide in the last round whether Kazyk would stay and fight or teleport away.  The dice said stay, so the party was able to finish him off.  They found that tremendously satisfying; Kazyk was getting on their nerves.

In the seela village, the captives were turned over, the party rested, and then they started asking around.  The Gathering Information skill challenge was interesting, because as soon as the PCs got a little bit of information they wanted to go act on it.  "Okay, Indomitability is somewhere out there - let's go find him!"  "There's a hag on the far side of the lake - dibs!"  "Hey, there's this dryad - let's go see her!"  It was kind of funny.  I believe they got five successes and two failures when they made up their minds to go see Timbre.

This is where I had Vuhl invite them in for an audience.  The fey-lover in the party rejected his proposal about killing Timbre and stormed out, but the others were willing to hear him out.  Acting on his advice, they sought out Gwenvere first.

The encounter with Gwenvere is one I would change if I were to do it over again.  The party just decided to fight, which is their option.  But Gwenvere is just a regular level 8 monster against a party of level 6 characters.  If the party takes the "attack" approach, Gwenvere should probably be able to summon a horde of aquatic creatures to fight alongside her or something like that. 

Anyway, Gwenvere was defeated and surrendered, allowing the party to get the lock of Anyariel's hair (the party's fighter fell victim to the mirror curse and and now a twisted abomination - awesome!).

Next up - Timbre.  The party successfully gained her trust in the skill challenge (the fighter creatively used Endurance to stand in the flames and show that he understood Timbre's pain regarding the burning forest).  She gave them some more information about Anyariel, Indomitability and the Living Sword, and the party headed back to the lake to fight the beast.

There's no specific mention in the adventure of how the party is supposed to get out to the lake, so I ruled that the seela would lend the party a pair of rowboats.  As they rowed toward the glowing spot in the lake, they were attacked by the ogres (I used three of them instead of two).  The ogres focused on trying to sink the boats, and this ended up being an okay battle (one boat sunk, not a lot of damage taken).  The party retreated to shore to rest for a few minutes, then went back for the stag.

Three of them went in the remaining boat, one swam and one walked on the bottom using some magic items.  The bottom-walker claimed the Living Blade and then threw a Web at Indomitability (and his own partner, the fighter).  I gave Indomitability a power similar to dragons in the Monster Vault where he gets an extra attack / shake off a condition at 10 + his initiative.  He used this to Hurl the fighter and infected him with his Possession, which I ruled would work as "+2 to Will (save ends); first failed saving throw: Dominated (save ends)."  The disease track didn't make any sense to me.  Unfortunately, the fighter failed six saves in a row, leaving him with little to do as the battle moved toward shore.  I eventually had Indomitability make the fighter swim toward shore partly for flavor - he would want the fighter to fight for him - and partly so that the fighter would be able to do something useful once he shook off domination.

I made liberal use of Indomitability's trample attack on the seela and the PCs, taking some opportunity attack damage but dealing out a bunch of damage at the same time (yay for attacking Reflex!).  I also loved the move action that left a wall of fire behind.  One turn I had him move, making a wall of fire, then Hurl a PC into it.  Brutally effective.

In the end, the outcome was never too much in doubt even with the amping-up I gave the stag, and the party won.  I'm happy to say that the ever-dominated fighter shook off the domination just in time to land the killing blow.

One member of the party who had teleported on top of the seelas' tower noticed Vuhl directing Indomitability, and she decided to tear after Vuhl as soon as Indomitability dropped and Vuhl ran.  This let her see him turn into his tentacled form and fly away, which worked nicely with the vision that Crystin had a few minutes later.

All in all, this was a fun adventure, and I'm looking forward to the next one.


----------



## OnlineDM (Dec 11, 2010)

If I were to run this adventure again, here is what I would change (and some of these are changes I actually did make as I ran it, which I would do again the same way):

Cut out the goblin/bat encounter and the elf village wandering creatures encounter.  They add very little.  Keep the collapsing bridge encounter, though.

Program in the appearance of the random fire forest events - the cinder  clouds and so on.  I never remembered to roll for them.  Pick a battle  and say, "Okay, event X happens at the end of round 2" or whatever.

Mix up the reagents - mushrooms and flint seemed to work well.  Also, have the A Cool Cave ledger found here.

Move the dryad children closer to the lake so that rounds of movement make sense (it shouldn't take three full rounds of running to get from point A to point B).

Clarify that the PCs can stand in the grass in the dryad's grove - otherwise, how can they get to the children?

Make the encounter with Indomitability's wall of fire and fiery bucks/stags scarier.  Probably add another bad guy.

Consider adding another ghast outside the willow shrine - the PCs were really scared of him.

Make the eladrin the shrine a spirit who was magically teleported there when it was too late.

Get specific about when Fey Save happens.  I had it happen after the party had already crossed the bridge and was heading back toward the river - I think that's the right place for it.

Either give the PCs a reason to go see Nelle or just get rid of Nelle (as I did).

Don't bother going back to Khadral a second time, unless the PCs are just curious about how he's recuperating.

If the PCs decide to fight Gwenvere instead of talking to her, have her be accompanied by a bunch of semi-aquatic allies rather than fighting by herself (she's not enough to even come close to challenging a level 6 party).

Have Papuvin be willing to lend the PCs some rowboats to go see Gwenvere (instead of walking around the lake) if they like.  These can also be used to go near to Indomitability.

Have Papuvin offer each PC a leaf from a precious plant that he has grown in his spring-fed cave: The leaf will let someone who eats it breathe underwater for a time.  This is useful for going after the ogres and Indomitability.

Add a third water ogre.

Give Indomitability an extra action at 10 + his initiative roll.  He can make a Hurl or Fiery Hooves attack with this action (I think letting him Trample here might be too strong), or shake off a condition like daze / stun / dominate.  Also let him shake off one of those conditions at the end of his normal turn.


----------

