Anyone familiar with War of the Burning Sky 5e?

[Draz74]

When my DM's campaign wraps up in a few months, I've offered to take over as DM. To belay my fear of being incompetent at crafting interesting adventures and save on prep time, I'm thinking of purchasing and running War of the Burning Sky (https://wotbsadventurepath.com/) for 5e.

Just thought I'd fish for advice here if anyone has any.

Any subclasses from the Player's Guide (https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ3BaFXZBprBF14CnspAo8jnJa8o9mwhJB3y) that you recommend allowing or disallowing?

How long in hours has it taken you to get through each chapter of the adventure path?

[Tormyr]

When my DM's campaign wraps up in a few months, I've offered to take over as DM. To belay my fear of being incompetent at crafting interesting adventures and save on prep time, I'm thinking of purchasing and running War of the Burning Sky for 5e.

Just thought I'd fish for advice here if anyone has any.

Any subclasses from the Player's Guide that you recommend allowing or disallowing?

How long in hours has it taken you to get through each chapter of the adventure path?

I am responsible for the 5e conversion, so feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt. :)

General, unsolicited advice
War of the Burning Sky is a heroic fantasy campaign that examines what war looks like in a setting with powerful magical weapons. It has a rich story with evocative characters. The heroes will have opportunities to fight in large battles and epic set pieces as well as decide which morally gray (or downright evil) people they need to ally with to avoid the subjugation of all the lands. Their choices will matter. It might be the closest an adventure path comes to an experience like the Record of Lodoss War anime/manga (if that reference means anything for you).

The campaign does not shy away from the darker side of war. Subjects like displaced people, war crimes, genocide, and torture do appear within the campaign. Mentioning this could be a good idea for session 0 to understand if any of those subjects could be a trigger for one of your players. You may want to make a safety tool like the X card available.

If you are wanting to run the campaign close to as written (to minimize prep time), your players should probably understand that they are playing an adventure path. They will be agents of the Resistance who will be given a series of missions (corresponding to the adventures). To avoid feeling like they are being railroaded, they should understand that they have a decent amount of latitude in how to accomplish the mission, but the mission is what the Resistance needs them to do.

Each encounter has a means to adjust the difficulty. Generally, this is used to adjust for parties larger or smaller than 4 PCs, but it can also be used to adjust the difficulty if a group is very optimized or not as great at combat. If the party is coasting through for some reason, you can bump the difficulty on the occasional encounter.

WotBS is also available on Roll20 if you are stuck gaming remotely.

Length
WotBS can be considered to be a long campaign. Each adventure has 25+ hours of playtime. With 12 adventures, you are looking at 300+ hours for the campaign. My group just finished adventure 10 after about 2.5 years. We play 3 hours a week and take the occasional week off. Because of how long the campaign is, it works best with a stable group that has been playing for a while and will likely be playing for a long time to come.

Player options
Everyone should choose a Gate Pass connection and have some sort of reason why they are now in Gate Pass and why the Resistance has recruited them for this mission.

I like all of the subclasses in the player's guide (but I'm biased). Aside from some interesting mechanical options, each provides easy opportunities to tie the hero into the story (the campaign guide has suggestions on that). I would not worry about any subclass in particular, but the wizard and sorcerer subclass essentially let you build a subclass. That is why they come with a warning that the player needs to work with their GM when making that subclass and that things might be retconned if they are not working out.

Adventure 7 provides an in-game reason for players to reroll part of their character. Perhaps a class mechanic is not working out for them, or their character has found a new resolve to change who they are. An elf might change their subrace. A warlock might become a paladin. The biggest change I had in my group was a monk realizing that they were in a fight that sometimes concerned even people's spirits, so he changed from a way of the four elements to a sun soul monk.

My group has a cirqueliste bard, and his teleportation has bailed pretty much everyone out of a dangerous situation at one point or another. The player has had a lot of fun with the character, and by the higher levels, he is bamphing about like Nightcrawler.



I am happy to answer any other specific questions, and there is a community of people who have played and finished the AP at EN World that could offer more advice.

Whether you go with WotBS or something else, good luck!

Oh, and please link to the player's guide on DTRPG. Thanks.

[Draz74]

I am responsible for the 5e conversion, so feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt. :)

General, unsolicited advice
War of the Burning Sky is a heroic fantasy campaign that examines what war looks like in a setting with powerful magical weapons. It has a rich story with evocative characters. The heroes will have opportunities to fight in large battles and epic set pieces as well as decide which morally gray (or downright evil) people they need to ally with to avoid the subjugation of all the lands. Their choices will matter. It might be the closest an adventure path comes to an experience like the Record of Lodoss War anime/manga (if that reference means anything for you).
Nope, anime/manga references are sure to go over my head.


The campaign does not shy away from the darker side of war. Subjects like displaced people, war crimes, genocide, and torture do appear within the campaign. Mentioning this could be a good idea for session 0 to understand if any of those subjects could be a trigger for one of your players. You may want to make a safety tool like the X card available.

If you are wanting to run the campaign close to as written (to minimize prep time), your players should probably understand that they are playing an adventure path. They will be agents of the Resistance who will be given a series of missions (corresponding to the adventures). To avoid feeling like they are being railroaded, they should understand that they have a decent amount of latitude in how to accomplish the mission, but the mission is what the Resistance needs them to do.
OK.


Each encounter has a means to adjust the difficulty. Generally, this is used to adjust for parties larger or smaller than 4 PCs, but it can also be used to adjust the difficulty if a group is very optimized or not as great at combat. If the party is coasting through for some reason, you can bump the difficulty on the occasional encounter.
Yeah I'll probably have 5 PCs, so I appreciate this feature.


WotBS is also available on Roll20 if you are stuck gaming remotely.
I am, but a big part of the reason I'm excited to DM is to use Foundry VTT rather than Roll20 ...


Length
WotBS can be considered to be a long campaign. Each adventure has 25+ hours of playtime. With 12 adventures, you are looking at 300+ hours for the campaign. My group just finished adventure 10 after about 2.5 years. We play 3 hours a week and take the occasional week off. Because of how long the campaign is, it works best with a stable group that has been playing for a while and will likely be playing for a long time to come.
The group has only been together for maybe 5 months, but everyone seems to enjoy this particular mix of human beings a lot, so I'm hopeful. But not confident that it'll stay stable for 3 years ...


Player options
Everyone should choose a Gate Pass connection and have some sort of reason why they are now in Gate Pass and why the Resistance has recruited them for this mission.

I like all of the subclasses in the player's guide (but I'm biased). Aside from some interesting mechanical options, each provides easy opportunities to tie the hero into the story (the campaign guide has suggestions on that). I would not worry about any subclass in particular, but the wizard and sorcerer subclass essentially let you build a subclass. That is why they come with a warning that the player needs to work with their GM when making that subclass and that things might be retconned if they are not working out.

Adventure 7 provides an in-game reason for players to reroll part of their character. Perhaps a class mechanic is not working out for them, or their character has found a new resolve to change who they are. An elf might change their subrace. A warlock might become a paladin. The biggest change I had in my group was a monk realizing that they were in a fight that sometimes concerned even people's spirits, so he changed from a way of the four elements to a sun soul monk.

My group has a cirqueliste bard, and his teleportation has bailed pretty much everyone out of a dangerous situation at one point or another. The player has had a lot of fun with the character, and by the higher levels, he is bamphing about like Nightcrawler.



I am happy to answer any other specific questions, and there is a community of people who have played and finished the AP at EN World that could offer more advice.

Whether you go with WotBS or something else, good luck!
Thanks.


Oh, and please link to the player's guide on DTRPG. Thanks.
I would have, but I don't have it handy; the link to it on https://wotbsadventurepath.com/ is broken (it's a second link to the Campaign Guide for DMs). Since it's a free product I didn't think there was any harm in linking to my own cloud upload of the file.

[comanderbeef]

I don't see too many other threads to ask tho I see this is two years old. Really interested in dming this adventure but I'm wondering what will happen if the party joins the Empire instead of fleeing? If I'm interested in having the party being the point of the empires expansion, am I just basically writing my own campaign at that point?

[Tormyr]

I don't see too many other threads to ask tho I see this is two years old. Really interested in dming this adventure but I'm wondering what will happen if the party joins the Empire instead of fleeing? If I'm interested in having the party being the point of the empires expansion, am I just basically writing my own campaign at that point?

Short answer: it depends. Like any adventure path, it provides a framework that uses an anticipated chain of events. Unlike many adventure paths, it's structure allows the party to fail and continue the campaign, and the last three adventures can be reordered to place whichever enemy the PCs want as the big bad as the final major enemy to be defeated. Without knowing your motivation for Ragesia and how the PCs fit into it, it's hard to know how best to alter the story.

That being said, here is one way the PCs could instead work for Ragesia and still use the bulk of the written content:


You will possibly want to rewrite motivations for the big bad guys, especially Leska. Originally, Leska wants the world to burn in the fires of eternal war. After having the emperor assassinated, she sends several of the imperial armies out, not to definitively conquer territory, but to engage all of the neighboring countries in battle so she can safely enact her plans well within her own territory. This will take roughly one year and involves corrupting the Aquiline Heart to doom the world to a state of perpetual war, allowing her to stay on top of the pecking order and never again bend her knee to man or god.

To use the adventure path as is while having the PCs work for the empire, you need to think about what the PCs might do and what the empire's goal is. There are several options for using the campaign while the PCs work for Ragesia, but here is one way the adventures could be used with minimal alteration to support the new goal of the campaign. In this one, Lord Shaaladel, working with the trillith, has arranged the assassination of Emperor Coaltongue. Leska has assumed control of Ragesia and is trying to have her armies simultaneously find the missing torch and defend on all fronts from countries that are wondering if Ragesia is now weak since Coaltongue has been assassinated.


The party is inserted into Gate Pass ahead of the Second Ragesian Army's New Year's attack. They are tracking down a stolen box containing intelligence and must then make contact with Haddin, an undercover operative. Bounty hunters hired to kidnap magic users identify the party and attack, but the midnight Ragesian assault disrupts the attempt, and the party is able to follow the clues to the intelligence. They then make contact with Haddin, when a kill team from a renegade Ragesian faction attacks.
With battle raging and Gate Pass not yet secured by the Ragesians (for several more months), the party's only option to safely extract the intelligence is to head through the fire forest to Seaquen. This adventure is largely unchanged.
Seaquen, an independent town with Ragesian ties on the border of Dassen, is taking in refugees from the war. Reports surface of magic users being kidnapped in the areas Ragesia is attacking (this is now being done by Shahalesti or Ostalin). Giorgio tries to assassinate the town leaders at Shahalesti's behest, while Lee Sidoneth directed by Pilus to wipe out Seaquen and the Shahalesti fleet in an opportunistic attack.
The party is directed to head to Dassen to secure a route to allow the Ragesian army through to fortify Seaquen from Shahalesti attack. Already a difficult request, influence from Madness and the Shahalesti have caused the death of King Steppengard's family and put the nation on alert. The party must gather enough support to topple the mad king Steppengard, place a more pragmatic ruler on the throne of Dassen, and keep save that ruler from Madness's attack so Dassen doesn't descend into civil war (blocking the Third Army's reinforcement of Seaquen).
With Seaquen's position fortified (or lost) the party is sent to the monastery of the Two Winds to secure a means to pass through the burning rain around castle Korstull. This adventure is largely unchanged except that the attacking army is from Ostalin.
This adventure is largely unchanged except that Magdus is not under a geas and is trying to gain the torch to overthrow Leska. The party must escape with the information about the torch.
Another one that is largely unchanged, the Ragesians at the end work for Magnus.
Shaaladel, longing for a superweapon to counter the torch, has completed the Koren Obelisk deep within the Shahalesti mountains. Using the restored torch, the party teleports an army to lure out the defenders while the the party infiltrates the Obelisk and shuts it down.
The Second Ragesian Army's position within Gate Pass is tenuous. The first issue is that the dragon which aided them in taking over the city has now established dominion over a district and needs to be put down. The Ragesian army is fully occupied with fighting the Shahalesti who have occupied the easternmost several districts. The trillith rise up, and Vigilance informs the party of a trillith plot to destroy the world. Leska plans to use the torch on the Aquiline Heart to gain access to the dream world, but two obstacles remain.
Pilus has launched an attack on Ragos with Tempest. The party needs to teleport an army to the deck of the Tempest while they descend inside to destroy it and defeat Pilus.
Shaaladel has secured the location of the Aquiline Heart. The Victory Points gained over the course of the campaign will determine how much the party needs to influence the battles before the Ragesian army is able to Two Dragons Arch. The party descends to the Heart of History and defeats Shaaladel. Leska, protected so that she can perform the ritual uses torch on the Aquiline Heart, destroying it and tearing open a portal for the party to enter the dream world. Leska sacrifices herself to replace the Aquiline Heart so the world will not be destroyed.
The party descends into the dream world, defeats Freedom, frees Trilla, and destroys Annihilation.



That's one way things could go. You could get more ideas from the EN Publishing forum at EN World, where there is much more discussion about this adventure path.

[comanderbeef]

Oh my goodness, was planning on returning to this thread in a few months. Really appreciate the reply so soon! Yes, there's some reworking of motivations for sure. I want to try a story where the PCs are torn between their duty to country and what they value as characters. I want to try to make the decision of following the Empire or not a real moral dilemma.

My plan right now is to have leska really hate the dominant religion (for very good reasons) and take charge to declare war on stomping it out. She'll hope to unite the whole continent under her rule. I plan to have The heads of the dominant religion framed by Leska for the Kings assassination. Kings assassination is the PR stunt needed to engage the population.

Leska will be secretly receiving a ton of aid from some shady organization that, unbeknownst to leska, wants what O.G Leska wants, for the world plunged into eternal war. They help stage the coup and bolster her holy war.

Leska is led to believe that the Aquiline heart is the source of the Heathens power and tries to find a way to corrupt it to basically win the war. However if she does, she destroys the one macguffin that would stop the shady organization from plunging the continent in eternal war.

That's what I have right now. I'm mostly curious "how much" rewriting of AP content I'll need to change. I absolutely LOVE some of your suggestions and really appreciate the detailed post.

If you happen to have some more I'd gladly listen. Ill also take this to the fourms you mentioned.