WotBS Integrating "A Harvest of Hope Forlorn" and "The Mad King's Banquet"?

[Bill T.]

Hi, Everyone,

In today's session, Ari and Erina managed to get themselves killed by Damatarion after having easily defeated Lee and mopped up Paradim. Only Fitz was smart enough to step away (ironic, given that his character has the lowest intelligence), and he got a real laugh out of the other two dying, which kept the deaths from being a total bummer.

So, I'm seriously tempted to treat this as TPK and start afresh from adventure 4. One thing I had been thinking about, though, is that A Harvest of Hope Forlorn, the third bonus adventure, might make a good way to get the PCs warmed up before the jump fully into the adventure path. My question for you wise people is: Does this really make sense? Could I use A Harvest of Hope Forlorn as a prequel to adventure four? Or maybe a sequel or, worst yet, a side quest? I haven't fully understood either the bonus adventure or adventure 4, but it's not clear to me whether they complement each other or pull the PCs in different directions. It seems like HoHF might provide motivation for moving on into Dassen proper, but maybe it just confuses the issue.

Anyhow, if anyone has any ideas on this, or experience with "starting" from adventure 4 in general, I'd love to hear it. We're playing the 3.5 version, should it matter.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[Morrus]

I would play the bonus adventures with different characters. They kind of add extra elements not in the main plot and illustrate that the world isn't just about what the PCs are doing.

 

[Cyclone Duke]

I have personally not had much luck in getting players to play alternative characters for the bonus adventures. I loved the content (particularly Dreamcatcher's Traveller) but my players would have no interest spending our gaming time doing tasks that does not reward or relate to their main characters. I'm planning to run Dreamcatcher between adventures 7 and 8 (when the players return to Seaquen with the Torch before going after the Obelisk).

If you had a TPK on Lee's fight then I recommend double checking the party's gold worth. Remember the players are intended to have Indomitability's Boon, preventing almost all deaths since Adventure 2. If they don't have that, you should bump each character's value up by 8,380 gp which is what that boon is worth (pg 66).