Burning Sky Player Maps?

[ChuckBarrington]

I recently purchased the PDF of WotBs, and I immediately thought to myself, "Holy **** this thing gives me maps for days." The only problem I found with this is that there are maybe two player maps out of the 65 odd total.

Most are easy enough, just cover the legend with something and let er rip. But a good number of them have the traps and such laid out very obviously on the map, and I'm god-awful at editing photos.

Does anyone have the maps, either as a link from EN World directly, or hand- done, edited to not show all the traps and monster icons?

[Mike Miller]

I too purchased the WotBS pdf over the summer. I haven't gotten close to ending my current campaign so I've not begun preparations for WotBS, but if you let me know which maps you want a player version of I can give it a go. I'll be making player versions eventually anyway, might as well try now.

[Fizban]

I've got two bookmarks regarding maps, here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=992) and facepalm, but I think those are unmodified.

Try searching on gitp for the last thread about WotBS, I'm pretty sure it came up then and someone might have found a couple.

[ChuckBarrington]

Mike, thank you for the offer. Pretty much all the maps have some level of DM information on them, but only some have things I can't just cover up without making it more obvious. This post would go on forever if I listed each one, but given that you also purchased the pdf, please take a look through the maps. The one's that need editing are fairly obvious.

Fizban, those links are actually identical, though they might be almost exactly what I was looking for. I'll have to piece them together because they're all separated into chunks, but that'll only take me a day or two.

[Mike Miller]

Mike, thank you for the offer. Pretty much all the maps have some level of DM information on them, but only some have things I can't just cover up without making it more obvious. This post would go on forever if I listed each one, but given that you also purchased the pdf, please take a look through the maps. The one's that need editing are fairly obvious.

Fizban, those links are actually identical, though they might be almost exactly what I was looking for. I'll have to piece them together because they're all separated into chunks, but that'll only take me a day or two.

So, I found this (https://wotbsadventurepath.com/maps/)site. It has the maps in a much more convenient form than the cut-up images. I didn't look around too much, but it may have more resources, too.

[Fizban]

*Facepalm.* Second link was supposed to be https://wotbsadventurepath.com/resources/ , it's part of the official free resources for the module. Looks like it does have some clean maps though, and they open in your browser's pdf reader. The first link apparently was the printable pieces, as noted.

[ChuckBarrington]

There are indeed a handful of clean maps in both links, and I shall use the printables for those that still contain DM info.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah, I had to "clean up" many maps, which was pretty annoying. Usually in MS Paint by copy/pasting small portions over the offending parts, sometimes Photoshrop for really tough changes.
Also, it may look like a ton of maps, but you'll discover you need to create or find your own for the majority of the combat encounters in the campaign. Or in some cases, design an entire city (ah, Bresk....)

[ChuckBarrington]

Well dang. I figured they gave me the combat maps and then anything other than that was on me. Good thing I kept a handful of generic encounter maps.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well dang. I figured they gave me the combat maps and then anything other than that was on me. Good thing I kept a handful of generic encounter maps.

Have you started the campaign yet? What chapter are you on, if so?

[ChuckBarrington]

Haven't started yet, was planning on starting Friday.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, I actually skipped most of the first chapter in order to start the players at a higher level. From what I saw, the first chapter seemed pretty good about providing maps. they seemed to generally get more sparse as the chapters go on...with one chapter being a notable exception since most of it occurs in one giant "dungeon" of sorts.

So it starts you off gently. I definitely recommend reading ahead for many reasons. Plot continuity being the biggest, but also to see what encounters and situations you'll need maps for.
Also I began making a habit of listing out all the potential encounters of a chapter and their CR / encounter level, starting w/ chapter 3 because I noticed the amount included in the campaign seemed too few (plus many of them could potentially be skipped or ignored if the party wasn't interested) so it was handy to see when I'd want to insert some "random encounters" to keep the xp awards where they should be. Sometimes when there are "long days" it's also useful to just list all the encounters for said day out to see how tough it will be, and see if you want to shift some to earlier in the chapter if possible (or it's not hard enough and needs more foes :smallamused: )

[Fizban]

In particular, chapter 3 leaves a ton up to the DM. Like, "here's a bunch of town flavor and hooks, now make up stuff until the PCs gain a level or two." Which is quite jarring after the first two are essentially all on rails (good rails though). It's not until six and eight that you get back to just boom dungeon. That's as far as I've read.

So yeah, definitely should skim or more than skim through the rest of the campaign before you get too committed.

[StreamOfTheSky]

In particular, chapter 3 leaves a ton up to the DM. Like, "here's a bunch of town flavor and hooks, now make up stuff until the PCs gain a level or two." Which is quite jarring after the first two are essentially all on rails (good rails though). It's not until six and eight that you get back to just boom dungeon. That's as far as I've read.

So yeah, definitely should skim or more than skim through the rest of the campaign before you get too committed.

Since we both mentioned Chapter 3 now, I just want to take the opportunity to mention that I love this campaign and it's almost all good stuff, but Ch 3 was just terrible and the only one my group hated (and to be honest, I kinda just wanted to move on to the MUCH more awesome 4th chapter, myself as DM...). You know, just to be safe, let me put this in a spoiler block:
It's just like Fizban says, very bare bones with a ton of sidequests that still don't nearly cover enough to get the players to the expected experience level by the end. This is apparently made up for by spending several weeks in the wilderness at the start of the chapter w/ even LESS narrative direction than once they reach town where you fill in some encounters and all the campaign offers you is insulting short one sentence "plot hook ideas" that it leaves to you to completely create. I threw out those "campfire quests" and just ran a bunch of wilderness encounters I statted up myself instead.

I'm a very pro-rails and anti-sandbox person, so yeah. The first chapters are on very awesome rails and then 3 is just...half-baked. It also tries to introduce way too many recurring characters in such a short amount of time for the players to keep up with or care. But push through it, because Ch. 4 is basically a condensed version of a Suikoden (video game series) plot. In other words, EPIC!

[Fizban]

The city you reach in chapter 3 is supposed to be your home base for the rest of the campaign, and I'm pretty sure the intent is that the DM really get the players interested in the place, get involved, get them to feel like it's home. Since this would require a lot of personalized activities and roleplaying depending on the players involved, it can't really be done on rails, so they describe a bunch of background and hooks and some named characters that can give out quests and then leave it up to the DM.

I can see why they did it, and for some groups having a sandbox chapter might be near mandatory, but for myself (and both of you it seems) who were interested in the first two chapters for being so complete, not so much. Annoyingly there's a bonus adventure that could probably fill the gap quite nicely, except it's leveled for after finishing the chapter.

[ChuckBarrington]

I have one player who has political ambitions, he'll love that part. The rest, maybe not so much. Sandbox is fun sometimes as a player, but it looks like a horror show from a DM standpoint. Players are chaotic enough as is.