My group I'm running just finished Varnhold Vanishing last week and are about to dive into B4B. As the DM I'm trying to make sure it runs tight and smooth as possible so I figured I'd draw upon your experiences.
P.S. (I've read Dudemeister's B4B and plan on using some of it myself)
1) I'm not sure my party will risk their necks just for Kisandra Numesti's family, so that leaves the plot hook to "You just got attacked by barbarians who are tied to Baron Drelev. Better do something about it"
I don't think this is particularly a bad hook, I'm just wary the party will not want to go in there as a squad and instead try amass a colossal army and march on Fort Drelev instead. Would this ruin that segment of the AP? Is their some way I can encourage them to go in with a smaller group for investigation or something of that matter?
2) How did the mass combat encounter at Tatzylfjord go for you guys? Should I keep the base rules?
3) Are the boggards still a challenge to the players? I'm worried they'll just become speed bumps.
4) Just like in VV, I see little reason to bother with all of the hex exploration that isn't in a direct path to the chapter's plot points. Do party members actually bother exploring around in this chapter?
Also, how does one go about pronouncing Ovinrbaane?
1) They should see it as an opportunity to have ALLIES in the west, instead of possible power hungry enemies. Not to speak you could have empoverished townsfolk migrate to your kingdom, and people have begun to talk about it a lot.. Might be time to go "talk" to that despot over there?
> If they amass an army, simply have the courier say "They are but a days march away from Tatzlford. We must hurry my liege!"
2) I played it a bit differently. I gave my PCs options to "enhance their chances" but didn't say how much time they would have. So they had to prioritize and say in what order they would do things, and suddenly I said "And that's enough".
After this I went with what the AP said, and it worked nicely :)
3) As said in the AP, the boggards are a small roadbump, but it's nicce to see things blow up by the tens due to a fireball. Let them have their fun, hell, maybe they'll even surprise you! ;)
4) I had their minions (aka hunting parties etc) report where they had seen ominous signs. That way they could rule from their throne, except for ocassionaly go out and kick some butt! :D
5) Ovinrbaane is difficult coz I don't kno you native tongue. I'll compare it to English:
O from "God"
Vin from "Vin Diesel"
Baa from "bath"
ne as a closing "n" at the end of a word.
Nice! Glad to hear from someone who's run this adventure. Now I won't say "oh-veen-er-bahn" lol. I'm still worried they're not going to want to bother checkin out the side content. In RRR they do it because it's a requirement for the land grant. In VV they... Didn't... Because it strayed from the plot. I just foresee them doing tatzylford, heading straight to fort drelev, then straight to armag's and the tomb. Where is there room to explore the swamp?
Okay, maybe the party has to win the favor of Fort Drelev by clearing out local problems? That way they support them in the coup?
I'm early in VV, and my party already have a rough idea of the safe area around Varnhold, so they're unlikely to do much detailed exploring elsewhere.
There really is no reason to explore while solving the problem of the day, and for both VV and B4B they're likely to feel they're up against a time limit. However, once they inherit Varnhold (and later Drelev) they'll want to look for resources they can add to their kingdom, and for that they'll have to go back and explore. So it's probably a good idea to buff most of the encounters outside of the main plot, because they'll be running into them a couple of levels higher.
Just ran the attack on tatzylfjord last night. It went fantastic.
Now they've connected the attackers to Drelev.
I'm afraid now that they won't try and go to Fort Drelev because that's the home base of the man sending armies at them. They're a cautious bunch so it's possible they're just gonna assume if they walk into the Fort they'll be mauled. What contingency can I prepare for that situation?
Obviously many will die if they declare war on Fort Drelev. I could emphasize the fact that a sabotage or stealth mission would remove the need for a war.
This is why the spymaster is a dear npc friend of them.
He occasionaly gives them pieces of advice, including "You wouldn't risk open war right now, would you? Go take a look, incognito, and the decide?"