# War of the Burning Sky – Scouring of Gate Pass detailed impressions (spoilers)



## Skyscraper (Jun 23, 2010)

*War of the Burning Sky – Scouring of Gate Pass detailed impressions (spoilers)*

I have read the first adventure of the 4E version of the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga called Scouring of Gate Pass, together with the Player's Guide and Campaign Guide (for the DM).

  In essence, I find the background and setting for the campaign and adventure to be great and the story to be appealing; but the adventure itself to be very underwhelming. I welcome input and argument to the contrary and would love to be convinced otherwise concerning the points I dislike.

  *** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

  I assume people in this forum are familiar with the game background,  but I'll summarise in case some readers are not.


The background for the campaign sets the PCs in a general setting world that can be fitted into just about any conventional setting, where an emperor dies and leaves the empire headless. A few individuals and groups try to take advantage from the vacated space to gain power. War ensues with neighbouring nations and the PCs are caught in the middle of it all.

  The PCs find themselves in the first adventure Scouring of Gate Pass in a city that one of the empire's armies is besieging. There, they need to hook up with the resistance and not only survive the perils of a besieged city (including bombings from wyvern riders) but accomplish a number of tasks.

  The environment is dynamic and exciting. The snow-covered city streets, the attacking army, the threat of a deal with the enemy to let the "Inquisitors" into the city, hooking up with an underground resistance, several competing factions that the PCs need to interact with... All that makes for an interesting setting. The different factions are fun: the resistance (allies), bounty hunters, terrorist mercenaries, the inquisitors (that hunt magic users), eladrin spies, they're all interesting groups that intermesh in a plausible way.

  I also like the general idea of the storyline: the PCs need to recuperate intel, escape a besieged city and carry this precious information to a faraway ally that supports the resistance. One upside is that they'll be opposed to some groups that are not necessarily the bad guys, which makes for some measure of moral dilemmas, at least for some players it will.

  However, it's in the details that the adventure loses its shine. There are numerous things that bug me importantly.

  First, many of the different quests asked of the PCs look like boring side quests to me. The worst is probably this fellow that comes up to the PCs on the street (while war is raging) and asks them to help him find his dire weasel pet that he lost (while war is raging!). Ensues a skill challenge in which the PCs must track down the animal in nearby buildings and streets, without any interaction with other creatures. Reading through this, I had the impression to be in a 1996 computer RPG tutorial where you learn how the game works by carrying out some dull task.

  Another quest is to help a woman out of a burning building: they find her screaming for help from the second storey window of her house with smoke coming out of the window. Did I see this before? I'd say about 1000 times, mostly in Looney Tunes or Benny Hill.

  They need to fight undead that coincidentally break out of a crypt where the PCs happen to lodge and this has nothing to do with the story whatsoever, these century-old undead just burst out the very day the PCs are there; they need to stop a depressed singer from being beaten up by a couple of teenagers because she's singing depressing songs; stop to cure an injured man... And they earn XP doing each of these actions, isn't anything free anymore? With the table of XPs, I understand that if you don't do all this stuff, which might be a very logical decision given that war is raging and they are on an important mission, well then they'll be short on XPs when it's time to level up.

  Another point I dislike about the adventure is the railroad. Not only are the PCs expected to follow events on set tracks, but someone tags along with them and leads them by the nose just about the entire way. She's a cleric named Torrent and, by the way, the adventure mentions that she should only use her healing powers in battle when the PCs are out of healing... What kind of an ally is that? Not only that, but the adventure suggests that this cleric should be ordering the PCs about on the battlefield to have them improve their battle skills. Talk about fun: their boss is tagging along!

  So as far as railroads go, it's hard to do worse. Torrent is even the one to go out to find some story-related information and bring it back to the PCs while they battle unrelated undead. I can't wrap my head around that one. 

  Then there are things that just seem wrong. The PCs go into a very important repository that is so badly guarded it's a wonder no one ever broke into the place to start with. Later, they are likely to have to fight a 10-th level elite opponent when they're level 1 or 2 at most, while the DMG clearly states that opponents should not be of that level for 1st level PCs. Speaking of powerful opponents, the only solo opponent they face is a wyvern rider that coincidentally falls from the sky in the building next to them. I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but to me a solo opponent is supposed to be somewhat of a Big Bad Evil Guy, someone you'll be expecting to fight, a quintessential enemy, not just a happenstance...

  I guess this solo falling from the sky sums up a major issue I have with this adventure: the PCs never seem to have any initiative over what happens to them, everything simply happens to fall on them as they follow the direction given by a NPC. To me this is a major flaw.

  For the time being, I doubt that I'll be running this adventure, or if I do to take advantage of the great setting, story and background provided therein, I'll have to work to modify the encounters and the storyline significantly, which is a bummer.

  All this being said, I haven't played the adventure so it's quite possible that some of my concerns are not supported or that I misunderstood some things. If you have read or played and feel differently than what I have expressed above, I'd love to hear from you.


Sky


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## Morrus (Jun 24, 2010)

Sorry you didn't like it. 

Obvously I'm not going to try and persuade you point-by-point why you should like something you didn't.  Hopefully you got some enjoyment from it, though!


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## RangerWickett (Jun 24, 2010)

However, as an (admittedly not wholly satisfactory) explanation for the flaws, the 3.5 version was E.N. Pub's first time producing an adventure, and the 4e version was its first ever product for 4th edition. They get better later in the line. 

I'm not working on the revision, but it's obvious that a few of the encounters in the 4e version were added in to fulfill the XP requirements of the new edition. In some cases these are just side quests, but in a few instances it looks like they're weaving in whole new plot threads that give the campaign more depth. 

We're working on the early stages of the next campaign saga, and if we go ahead with it, I'm confident our plan will better integrate the structure of 4th edition.


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## Daern (Jun 24, 2010)

As someone who has run the module I would first defend it by pointing towards all the threads on this forum describing peoples' play experiences -They tend to be very positive!
Otherwise, I would just say that the set-up and story are unique and really compelling and that I treated most of the various encounters as optional and used them as appropriate to the story and the pace of the game.  This certainly makes it more appropriate for experienced DMs.
In general I have come to see this huge size of these adventures as a strength because, while I end up dropping a great many sub-plots and encounters for the reasons given above, I realize that I could just as easily have used those pieces if the players made different decisions or expressed different interests.  This make for a great amount of freedom and creativity along the Adventure Path.
I chuckle whenever one of my players looks at me and does a little "choo choo".  Little does he know its more like a wide open highway!  Cue Highway to Hell...


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## Skyscraper (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks for the replies. And sorry if my post sounds a bit gruff. I still stand by what I said, but I want to convey that I respect this work that comprises several very interesting elements for which my superlatives were perhaps not as colorful as those used in my (consequently not consctructive enough) critisism. I managed to cite Benny Hill for the first time in 15 years though! 

I went and read Durn's adventure description in this board and, at the outset, congratulations on a great forum writeup. Interesting and good balance between too much and too few details. Fun read.

And, I admit, it has given me pause to consider the adventure path differently. There are some things that still don't jive with me in the Scouring of Gate Pass but perhaps I'm focusing too much on single encounters (such as the weasel one) and not enough on the big picture that includes some of the very strong upsides that the AP has to offer.

I'll have to reconsider my decision to avoid this adventure and perhaps work out a few of the disturbing (for me) elements (unnecessary encounters and too much Torrent intervention) and use those encounters I find cool in more of a free-form manner based on the good setting and story. Hmm. Food for thought.

**********

Short wish-list if you're going for another AP (probably would belong in another thread and who-the-heck-am-I-to-give-you-advice, but here it is if you wish to hear just this ordinary guy's opinion):

- free form adventures are cool (inasmuch as design permits). E.g. provide a setting, a storyline, a goal, then let the players find their way to that goal anyway they like, providing numerous encounter a portion of which will probably remain unused. The precise time or sequence of encounters should be left out. Of course, this can only be done for a number of encounters, then a goal is achieved, the PCs have levelled up once or twice and you constrict the game back to a chokepoint, whereafter you let the PCs loose again, and so on.
- skill challenges should be few and far between, not every other encounter. General skills challenges can be provided to the GM such as a footrace through the city, breaking out of a guarded area, and the like, usable in different instances.
- bring back the RP officially in the modules. Let PCs play their way out of key situations without providing a mechanic for it! It might come down to a (general) skill challenge or a battle, but the _DM _is not aware of where it's supposed to go, and that's the key point.
- don't pay XP if a player heals an NPC by the roadside 

I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of designing APs or modules and some of you most obviously know better than I do on that topic. My intent is only to give my feedback and impressions and the above list is to hopefully make it constructive.

Sky


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## Blackbrrd (Jun 24, 2010)

After DM-ing the Scouring of Gate pass I can tell you that it's a really good module. Although, as you note, there are some issues that you would want to resolve.

There are some silly encounters, but hey, they don't need to take much time and the characters are quite free to skip them. The group I played had quite a lot of fun with the weasel-guy. It's so ridicules it gets amusing. Most of the skill challenges can be run in such a way that they are amusing and a break from hard combat. My party loved the Dwarf-skill challenges at the end of the module and the resulting feast afterwards. Yeah, and the melancholic singer: it got one of my players start singing in character and really made the place feel alive. Think of the skill challenges as opportunities to create atmosphere and pulling the players into the game.

Regarding Torrent and how you run her: it's very much up to you as a DM. I ran her as a normal NPC in the first combat and stated out of character to my players that she wouldn't interact in combat after this because it's a huge party and having her help doesn't make combat any more fun, it just makes it slower. The way I ran her I am quite sure the players didn't feel led by the nose. They had a lot of opportunities to choose what actions their players would take.

Regarding the 10th level elite, there are so many ways for the characters to handle this situation that has nothing to do with combat I am nearly feeling we aren't reading the same module. The only way it will end with a fight is if your characters are looking for one and they should have plenty warning about it being a bad idea. 

I think that the reason you feel the module is rail roading the characters along is that it might seem so after your first reading, but if you take the time to see how you can run it, you will notice that the characters have plenty of options the whole time and that the NPC's have their own motivation for their actions so it's relatively easy to adapt their behaviour to the characters actions.

For instance the players had gotten their hands on the quest item back from the Eladrin and the little devil knew about it but couldn't take it from the PC's. He also knew about the the Eladrin elite, so while invisible he blackmailed the characters for the item. It's not something that is written in the module, but the motivations for the devil NPC is quite clear - he will do anything to get his hands on it.

To sum it up: Some parts of the module are probably not as you would want it, but the basic plot, the NPC's and the motivations are very logical and easy to build upon as a DM. It's not at all like the typical WoTC modules that are very straight forward with no thinking necessary.

You can read the review I made after DM-ing the module here. I was quite enthusiastic as it was one of the best experiences after running a module I have had in over 10 years of roleplaying.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/war-burning-sky/275279-scouring-gate-pass-short-review.html

(Regarding XP: I levelled the characters using the xp-chart as a guideline instead of counting xp for every single encounter. It just doesn't fit in with how the module works, just as you noted)


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## liggetar (Jun 24, 2010)

One thing I like about the War of the Burning Sky series is that it seems everyone, and every place, is well-described and real enough to me that as a DM, I am more able to deal with those monkey wrenches the PCs always seem to have about.  More than once, my PCs have been interested in following up lead X,Y and Z instead of A, B and C that are presented in the book, and I find that I'm able to let them the vast majority of the time, simply because I have the information to do so.  And even though you may have a set series of obstacles, where the adventure really shines is in the number of ways the PCs have to overcome them - and my players and myself agree that this is what makes a game really fun.

The XP charts make it easy for me to give level ups at appropriate places - this is the first game (after 10+ years DMing) where I've not kept track of XP, and just let the levelling go with the pace of the game, and I really like the freedom that comes with it.

And last, but most important to me, this adventure delves deeply into the shades of grey that should surround a conflict like this.  I've always felt that it's those shades that help you stop and really think about your character - and make them that much more real.


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## Bercilak (Jun 25, 2010)

I initially felt the same way as the OP about WotBS 1. But as I've continued the campaign, I was really thankful for that first adventure. 

Even though my players were experienced, their characters weren't. A couple were new recruits to the Resistance, and the others were new to Gate Pass. They had no problem with being lead around a bit by Torrent, as she represented someone more knowledgeable about the town and the Resistance. 

As the campaign progresses, and the PCs get more responsibility (and even their own NPCs to boss around), it's nice for them to be able to look back on their humble beginnings.

While some of the encounters are a bit silly, others seem less so. I wasn't reminded of Benny Hill at all by the woman in the burning building--it seemed a standard heroic trope to me, and it fit well with the attack going on. (The weasel was less connected, but my group enjoyed the encounter with the fighter and weasel wrestling and the other characters trying to convince the owner that he wasn't really hurting the weasel.) These encounters seemed to reinforce the idea that the heroes are at the start of their heroic journey. They rescue people, feeling heroic, but they also track down lost pets, something reflecting their humble beginnings.

-Berc


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## aryus (Jun 25, 2010)

I have to agree that I didn't find everything in Scouring of Gate Pass to be to my liking, but the overall story arc is excellent. That's why I chose War of the Burning Sky as the campaign I will be starting tonight.

I won't give away all my changes in the case one of my sneaky players is browsing these boards, but I had a lot of fun altering the encounters. I don't care much for skill challenges so I've replaced many of them with minor quests that are accomplished through roleplay. Two things mentioned in the original post that also didn't jibe with me were the weasel skill challenge and the undead encounter. I changed that skill challenge to one in which a thief takes advantage of the chaos and absconds something from a PC. The undead encounter I made into one where a terrorist is bedding down with the PCs and many refugees in the crypt of a temple. He summons the undead and then kills himself and several refugees with alchemist's fire.

Anyway, I'm really excited to start DMing War of the Burning Sky. I hope I can do the story justice.


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## Skyscraper (Jun 25, 2010)

Thanks for more thoughts and for constructive suggestions.

I've just bought the HS1 WotC module entitled The Slaying Stone. (Only minor spoilers ahead on HS1.) It's somewhat the opposite of The Scouring of Gate Pass in my opinion, in that it suffers from poor backstory and setting support, but it is to a certain extent open-ended and free-form in its encounters. It looks fun overall. I'm now thinking about throwing this adventure as a first opening adventure before setting the PCs into The Scouring of Gate Pass, allowing me some leeweay to drop some encounters that I'm less inclined to run. HS1 could occur somewhere in Ragesia, probably not far from Gate Pass.

This being said, the HS1 module asks that the PCs recuperate an item in a village populated by goblins. Although this item is specifically mentioned in HS1, I could trade it for anything else that suits my campaign. Do you have any ideas on an item that could be merged into the WotBS campaign and more specifically link to the Scouring of Gate Pass adventure, perhaps leading to the reason why the PCs want to meet Torrent? I have a few general ideas (other intel, such as names of resistance members and spies that was going to be given to Ragesia or to the better payer), but I wonder from those with experience with WotBS.

Thanks for any thoughts,

Sky


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## aryus (Jun 25, 2010)

Skyscraper said:


> Do you have any ideas on an item that could be merged into the WotBS campaign and more specifically link to the Scouring of Gate Pass adventure, perhaps leading to the reason why the PCs want to meet Torrent?
> 
> Thanks for any thoughts,
> 
> Sky




Perhaps the Dianoem?


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## Skyscraper (Jun 25, 2010)

I haven't read far enough into the AP yet to know what the dianoem does, would you mind sharing that with me?

Sky


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## Bercilak (Jun 26, 2010)

The Dianoem (a dwarven artifact that becomes important in adventure 3, see page 20 of scouring of Gate Pass) would be a great call. Or if you want to be amusing, you could have Katrina send them to get the scroll she wants to leave her brother. (Of course, then he would later give it back to the PCs to take back to Katrina--although the players would likely not realize this until adventure 3 either.)
Berc


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## Skyscraper (Jun 26, 2010)

Bercilak said:


> The Dianoem (a dwarven artifact that becomes important in adventure 3, see page 20 of scouring of Gate Pass) would be a great call.




Yeah, I read page 20 but it doesn't say what it does (unless I skipped something), only that it becomes important in adventure 3. I'll read that eventually, but I need to read adventure 2 before so I won't know what the dianoem is about until a week or two at least. I might even start my game before then.

It reminds me of another thing in Gate Pass, for which I have a question: there is an encounter with a frightening creature that flies overhead while the PCs are running the streets: any idea what it is? Apparently it's too dark to see the creature (but some PCs have low-light vision... How to reconcile that??) but still I'd like to be able to navigate properly when asked the inevitable questions about what's happening.

Thanks,

Sky


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## Daern (Jun 26, 2010)

The frightening creature is a dragon, but it is off stage, the encounter is all about dealing with the effects of dragonfear on crowded streets.  
I also did a small pre-adventure, and while I also think HS1 is great, I suggest a slightly shorter scenario.  In my case I used the freebie, "Kyber Pass".  
Anyways, the Dionem would be a great item to throw out in that it remains mysterious for a long time.  In fact, I'm about to start #4 and it is only now about to come into play.  Unfortunately, I still don't really get it.  Apparently its some ancient machine that helps Dwarves with their social skills, so of course they were thought to be destroyed.  Likeable Dwarves could take over the world!  
I think I'm going to use it as a Monster Tamer so the PCs can get a hold of some killer mounts to go along with paragon status!


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## Skyscraper (Jun 26, 2010)

Thanks for the explanations, Durn.



Durn said:


> The frightening creature is a dragon,




How did you handle this encounter out of curiosity, given that those with low-light vision are supposed to see at night?


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## RangerWickett (Jun 26, 2010)

It's high up, visible only as a hole in the stars. Low light vision lets you see fine in dim light, but where the dragon is, it's in darkness.


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## Daern (Jun 26, 2010)

Yeah, no chance of seeing it, or interacting, not that they wanted to, the players knew well enough what it was.  I did a loose series of skill checks for that part, that whole getting across town sequence to me was all about maintaining a sense of momentum and urgency.  I didn't want to get bogged down in combat or too many dice, it was a series of vignettes on the way to the next big thing, which if I remember correctly was the battle with the downed Wyvern rider.  I added a wounded Wyvern to that one and it was a fun battle.


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## Skyscraper (Jun 27, 2010)

Out of curiosity, how do you play low-light vision? I had always assumed that those with low-light vision see normally at night, or just about, except when they enter forests or heavily shadowed areas. (I believe the PHB says something to that effect.)

This aside, I assume that the story about a dragon that was fought by a druid who transforms into an eagle, story told by the council member whose name I can't remember and referring to the night when the attacks occurred, might refer to the dragon who inspired fear in the citizens that night. And, on another note, it's somewhat of a foreshadowing of events to come, with reference to the myth of the dragon and the eagle.

Sky


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## KidSnide (Jun 27, 2010)

Skyscraper said:


> And, I admit, it has given me pause to consider the adventure path differently. There are some things that still don't jive with me in the Scouring of Gate Pass but perhaps I'm focusing too much on single encounters (such as the weasel one) and not enough on the big picture that includes some of the very strong upsides that the AP has to offer.
> 
> I'll have to reconsider my decision to avoid this adventure and perhaps work out a few of the disturbing (for me) elements (unnecessary encounters and too much Torrent intervention) and use those encounters I find cool in more of a free-form manner based on the good setting and story. Hmm. Food for thought.
> 
> ...




I finished Scouring of Gate Pass last month and I should say that, in my experience, the story runs as good as it reads, but the encounters run much better.  You're right that there are some problems (particularly around the 4e conversion), but I find that many of the "less important" encounters fulfill useful functions in the game.  For example, the random series of events that occur while moving through the city early in the adventure provide an interactive (instead of narrative) way to establish the atmosphere of the city under attack.  As for the weasel... well, if I used xp, I'd award it for analyzing the situation and deliberately deciding to skip the encounter.

The other thing I should mention is that Gate Pass is the beginning of a rather long AP.  Starting off a campaign with a more "railroad-y" adventure is not a bad thing.  You want the players to be able to make meaningful decisions in the world, but you need to teach them about the world first while giving them the opportunity to do something meaningful while they get their sea legs.  Gate Pass is great at both those things.  I wouldn't like it if all 12 modules were written like Gate Pass, but now that my group is playing through module #2 and I've read through #4, I'm satisfying that's not the case.

Also, while the overall plot is tightly directed, the PCs have a lot of simple decisions to make.  There are several "negotiate or fight" decisions (my PCs skipped at least 3 battles), the combat encounters permit multiple approaches  and there are at least a half dozen ways to get out of the city.

Even if the "1st conversion to 4e problems", I only found that I wanted to make four changes:

1) I re-statted the high level elite wizard to a lower level solo encounter.  My PCs never fought her, but it would have been a hella boring encounter as written.

2) I wrote up a new general skill challenge for "convincing an NPC to go along with your reasonable plan" that (IMO) made for better encounters with the aforementioned high level wizard as well as the dwarf king.

3) When it came to leaving the city, I let the PCs decide whether they thought it was better for Torrent to come with them, or stay in Gate Pass to help the resistance.  My PCs left her in Gate Pass (which was my preference - there are an awful lot of NPCs that can follow the party around), but even if they took her with them, I thought it would be better if it was their choice and not some sort of adventure mandate.  (I had her give them a letter of introduction to her mentor.)

4) I re-statted Torrent, Crystin and Haddin to use the companion rules from DMG2.  (As written, I think Haddin's attacks are for a level 16 wizard.)

-KS


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## Morrus (Jun 28, 2010)

KidSnide said:


> For example, the random series of events that occur while moving through the city early in the adventure provide an interactive (instead of narrative) way to establish the atmosphere of the city under attack. As for the weasel... well, if I used xp, I'd award it for analyzing the situation and deliberately deciding to skip the encounter.




I think the important thing to realise here is that these encounters take up five minutes of your game at most.  In my campaign they worked out really well to quickly portray the "city under siege" environment, but if you don't like them - WotBS is a campaign which does _not_ hold you by the hand. A WotC adventure might lead you from room to room or encounter to encounter; we try provide enough information for you to adapt and adopt.  

We've never made a secret of the fact that this series is for experienced DMs.  Our goal is to create a story, but in a way which a DM can improvise, adapt and explore to his/her desire.  Thus that series of encounters is clearly not plot-critical; it's merely a scene-setting series.  If it's not to your taste (and there's no way it can be to _everyone's_ taste - as it happens, it was to mine), then it's structured in a way that a DM can do whatever he likes.  

There are options to simply narrate the atmosphere if you prefer.  But it's structured in a way that you can easily deviate.  

You'll find this repeated all the way thorugh the series.  We're never going to lead you from room to room and encounter to encounter.  We trust you to take your game to the next level and to use the information and ideas to run the game _you_ like, not the game _we_ like.


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## Skyscraper (Jun 28, 2010)

I thank everyone for their input. I realize that some DMs had the same concerns as I have but the experience appears to be that the game is fun to play out notwithstanding those issues. Convincing.

Sky


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## urbanfractal (Jul 2, 2010)

Keep in mind that these vastly different and perhaps kitch/extravagant/bizzare/etc encounters are given for a specific purpose. And I am not telling it to you.

No, just pulling your leg.

In my opinion it shows how much common people cling to their routine normal lives, even when chaos errupts. Especially the dire weasel encounter is a perfect example of snobbish attitude. At first the merchant asks or even orders the group to save his prrrreeeeciousssss from certain death, wile wyvern drop WWII-like bombs to the city. Probably he knows a couple of the City Council members that have agreed to letting the Inquisition in, so he doesn't care much for collateral damage. Right after the rescue, he pretends to be all broken etc and insults the characters that ask for a reward for their troouble.

I think all of it is a qute realistic scenario of someone who is wealthier than avarage in a small society and is used to boss everyone around, stingy as hell, etc.


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## Skyscraper (Jul 3, 2010)

urbanfractal said:


> I think all of it is a qute realistic scenario of someone who is wealthier than avarage in a small society and is used to boss everyone around, stingy as hell, etc.




But the scenario gives XP for helping out this stingy, short-sighted individual while lives of people are at stake? This is suggestive that doing so is "the right" course of action and I think it makes little sense, although you can probably find some reason for that also.

It's always possible to figure out a reason to explain anything written in a scenario and it's always possible for a game to turn out great whatever the base product you have.

In this case, although I accept many of the convincing arguments set out in this thread and I now plan to run this adventure starting 10 days from now, I think that some of the encounters are less interesting or make little sense. I'm also sure that some DMs will find them to be to their liking, which is fine, and will make them look appropriate in their game. Me, I don't like having to resort to mental acrobatics to convince myself that some far-fetched encounter makes sense in an adventure, and if I don't believe it, my players won't, so I'd rather simply drop those encounters. It's not that little things like the weasel don't matter and that life isn't about little things; it's that heroic fantasy where players wield power to change the world doesn't intermesh with weasel pet saving, in my game. Personal preference.

Edit: In the end, this thread turns out a bit like my initial reading of the adventure: too much focus on the weasel, not enough on the big picture. Heh. 

Sky


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## Marius Delphus (Jul 3, 2010)

Just because the PCs solved a problem (and therefore got XP) doesn't mean it was the "right" problem to solve, or that it was even necessarily a good idea. If it still troubles you, take a Magic Marker to your printout, cross the encounter out, and don't even present the PCs with it. Have the PCs save some citizens from a collapsing (possibly burning) building instead. Or maybe present them with the encounter but give them XP for snubbing the selfish prat for the greater good. As with all published adventures, you have to make sure it's tailored to your group.


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## Gort (Jul 4, 2010)

Marius Delphus said:


> Just because the PCs solved a problem (and therefore got XP) doesn't mean it was the "right" problem to solve, or that it was even necessarily a good idea. If it still troubles you, take a Magic Marker to your printout, cross the encounter out, and don't even present the PCs with it. Have the PCs save some citizens from a collapsing (possibly burning) building instead. Or maybe present them with the encounter but give them XP for snubbing the selfish prat for the greater good. As with all published adventures, you have to make sure it's tailored to your group.




Agreed. I'd give them XP if all they did was yell, "Find your ferret?! Don't you know there's a war on?" You could even make a skill challenge of it - "Convince this idiot that he has more pressing matters than finding a pet right now".


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## Blackbrrd (Jul 4, 2010)

Skyscraper: It would be really interesting to have your feedback after DM-ing this module.

One thing I am wondering - is anybody running the skill challenges as written? I am usually winging about half of it, sometimes not bothering with skill checks if somebody has some clever solutions in character.

I like the idea with the skill challenges and they give me a lot of inspiration, but I usually run them a LOT looser than I run combat. For me, the skill challenges are about role playing, not roll playing.

Combats on the other hand are for me more like tactical board games - which I and my players enjoy. Most board game players don't enjoy rules that change while playing, so I house-rule as little as possible. This makes it much more satisfying for the players when they win a fight - they know I tried my best to kill their characters within the limits of my monsters/npcs.


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## Morrus (Jul 4, 2010)

Blackbrrd said:


> One thing I am wondering - is anybody running the skill challenges as written?




I, for one, have never run a skill challenge as written. I realise WotC keeps wrting articles telling us _"don't hold it that way_" (oh, wait, that was Steve Jobs), but I have never thought Skill Challenges to be a good mechanic; and explanations as to how we're doing it wrong don't solve the issue.

We include them because we have to. I'd rather not have them at all and devise interesting skill-based custom encounters, each one structured completely differently, but we'd get shouted at if we did that for not following convention.

My advice to those who subscribe to my school of tought is to just use them as a general situation-advice guideline and just wing it according to how much your players are enjoying it.  I've extended short skill challenges into two-hour long skill-based encounters on the fly and ignored skill chanllenges in favour of a single skill check depending on how I read my players at the time.  

I personally think skill challenges in the core rules should be simply replaced with a chapter on advice how to use skills to make encounters more interesting.


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## Gort (Jul 5, 2010)

Agreed. I hate skill challenges because they just seem so _artificial_. A single roll should suffice for most things. 

Why does, "I try to sneak past the guard" or, "I try to convince the baron" have to involve _fifteen seperate dice rolls_? Perhaps they were trying to mitigate the effect one bad D20 roll might have on an important skill check, but in that case why not give them a +5 bonus to the check and have them roll a D10 instead of a D20? Or something like that that doesn't require vast amounts of dice rolling and spurious rubbish from players justifying using the History skill to shoe a horse.


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## Morrus (Jul 5, 2010)

Gort said:


> Agreed. I hate skill challenges because they just seem so _artificial_. A single roll should suffice for most things.
> 
> Why does, "I try to sneak past the guard" or, "I try to convince the baron" have to involve _fifteen seperate dice rolls_? Perhaps they were trying to mitigate the effect one bad D20 roll might have on an important skill check, but in that case why not give them a +5 bonus to the check and have them roll a D10 instead of a D20? Or something like that that doesn't require vast amounts of dice rolling and spurious rubbish from players justifying using the History skill to shoe a horse.




Well, if your players are into the encounter, then it's fine to make it an extended thing.  It's all about reading your players' enjoyment.  

I've had buying a single meal take 45 minutes, and I've had 500-mile journeys take 3 seconds.  It's all about mood, interest, lucky spontaneous bits of DM roleplaying which really hook your players, etc.

There's no rule here.


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## KidSnide (Jul 5, 2010)

Gort said:


> Agreed. I hate skill challenges because they just seem so _artificial_. A single roll should suffice for most things.
> 
> Why does, "I try to sneak past the guard" or, "I try to convince the baron" have to involve _fifteen seperate dice rolls_? Perhaps they were trying to mitigate the effect one bad D20 roll might have on an important skill check, but in that case why not give them a +5 bonus to the check and have them roll a D10 instead of a D20? Or something like that that doesn't require vast amounts of dice rolling and spurious rubbish from players justifying using the History skill to shoe a horse.




I've been running WoBS over Fantasy Grounds, so it's a little harder than usual to gauge how much the PCs are enjoying the game.  (I'll let Cerebral Paladin provide a player perspective if he's still following the thread.)  But, from what I can see, I think the "convince an NPC" skill challenges work pretty well if you put enough emphasis on what the players are saying.  

It has to be more than simply justifying a history check, so I would give -10, -5, 0, +5 or +10 modifiers depending on whether the players made intelligent arguments for why the NPC should go along with their idea or whether the players accidentally touched on something about which the NPC was particularly sensitive.  With those kind of modifiers, the players have to pay attention to what they are saying.  But still - it also matters which characters are saying it - so there is also a benefit to playing a character with superior social skills.  Sure, you could get an auto-success if a skilled PC says something really intelligent and on-point.  But, when you think about it, that *should* be an auto-success.

-KS


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## Skyscraper (Jul 5, 2010)

On skill challenges, after having tried them in other games I DM or have DMed, I rarely use the skill challenge mechanics at all.

However, the entire skill challenge topic, together with reading a lot about it on forums, has opened up a different approach to handling social RP situations and non-social RP situations.

For social RP situations, I don't really use skill challenges (but I do ask for social skill checks when I wonder how an NPC would react) but the skill challenge mechanic has showed me or reminded to try to avoid dead ends in social interactions. In particular I try to avoid ultimatums or other verbal exchanges where the NPC will bring the PCs towards a final choice from which there might be no way out if they reply in a certain way. This might appear obvious, but it was a good reminder for me to keep things open ended and at worst, to allow them a way out but with consequences.

For non-social skill situations, e.g. presently my players in a 4E-modified version of Shackled City are trying to evade a strong opposition who is pursuing them through caves and then a jungle, I use a skill-challenge like mechanic but with no requirement for a predetermined number of successes or failures and, importantly, no predetermined outcome. The players have been proposing different uses for their skills and rolling skill checks, and I use those skill check results (with a DC depending on how hard what the PCs are trying to accomplish is according ot me) to determine where the story will go from there. There results what I find to be a rather interesting and dynamic chase through the caves and jungle the outcome of which the players can really influence. I've used something similar for their prison breakout earlier, for getting an old gnome-constructed lift to work, ... These are story elements that I think really benefit from skill usage, and an open-ended skill challenge type mechanic (i.e. with no predetermined number of successes or failures and no predetermined outcome) is well adapted to them IMO. The general idea is to move the game according to the skill check results and if I eventually find that success or failure suits the situation, then I just stop the "skill challenge" there and they obtain success or failure. Often they achieve success, but it might come with a drawback if they missed some skill rolls, e.g. the guards were on to them when they broke out of prison. I try to use missed skill checks to add something interesting to the story, for example at some point they missed an Athletics skill check opposed to the enemy's Athletics skill check during their chase and the enemys sprinted, gained a bit of ground and one of them attacked with a blinding encounter power, but missed.

Sky


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## Skyscraper (Jul 5, 2010)

Marius Delphus said:


> Just because the PCs solved a problem (and therefore got XP) doesn't mean it was the "right" problem to solve, or that it was even necessarily a good idea. If it still troubles you, take a Magic Marker to your printout, cross the encounter out, and don't even present the PCs with it. Have the PCs save some citizens from a collapsing (possibly burning) building instead. Or maybe present them with the encounter but give them XP for snubbing the selfish prat for the greater good. As with all published adventures, you have to make sure it's tailored to your group.




Yes, yes, that's pretty much what I'm saying, consider me armed with a magic marker


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## Skyscraper (Jul 5, 2010)

Blackbrrd said:


> Skyscraper: It would be really interesting to have your feedback after DM-ing this module.




I'll try to remember to post about it.


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## Stormrazor2000 (Jul 19, 2010)

I finished running Scouring about a month ago in my online campaign. FYI I am running the 3.5 version. I had the same impression as you on some of the encounters. Many I skipped, and some I added based on the flow of what the PCs decided to do. For example, the fire you mentioned. The group wanted to skip it, but Torrent felt bound to help. So they actually split up and went without a cleric for several sessions. 

The main thing I like about the AP so far is that it has tons of background, so as a DM I have a lot to draw on when PCs go off the rails, which my players do like clockwork. 

I'm currently in the Fire forest and have done the exact same thing with adding and subtracting encounters. It has worked out well so far.


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## Morrus (Jul 20, 2010)

lemontree said:


> Yeah, I read page 20 but it doesn't say what it does




What doesn't say what what does?


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## Skyscraper (Jul 20, 2010)

Morrus said:


> What doesn't say what what does?




I think he's referring to the dianonem. That appears to be a translation device if I understand the other posters correctly.


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## OnlineDM (Jul 22, 2010)

Just for everyone's information (and seeking their input!), I'm getting ready to run The Scouring of Gate Pass via MapTool and Skype for a group of online players, beginning on July 23 (Friday).  We've played a single one-shot adventure so far as a group, and it was lots of fun.  Now we're going to try a campaign, building characters and their relationships to one another, getting everyone involved in the setting, etc.  I'm pretty excited about it, although I'll admit that I'm woefully underprepared so far (I have lots of MapTool work to do tomorrow to get everything ready).

I'll be blogging about my experience as we go, so if anyone is curious to see how it looks to play this campaign please tune in!

And thank you all for your insight on how this adventure plays out.  I'm very much looking forward to running it.


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## mattdusty (Jul 28, 2010)

Bercilak said:


> The Dianoem (a dwarven artifact that becomes important in adventure 3, see page 20 of scouring of Gate Pass) would be a great call. Or if you want to be amusing, you could have Katrina send them to get the scroll she wants to leave her brother. (Of course, then he would later give it back to the PCs to take back to Katrina--although the players would likely not realize this until adventure 3 either.)
> Berc




This is not in the 3.5 version.  Is this something new in the 4e version?  Can anybody that's played both versions let me know if this is just a once or twice thing or is there new stuff spread throughout all of 4e modules now?


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