Into the Wilds questions

[The Incredible Kid]

Hello all,

I took a more-than-tweny-year absence from DMing D&D. After warming up with a Basic campaign I am running my first 3.5 campaign beginning with Into the Wilds. After going through the publication and having run one session I have several questions. I'm fully capable of improvising but when I am buying a module I guess I have certain expectations of clarity and a fairly spoon-fed presentation. My expectations may be unfair and unreasonable. I could have also missed something in my reading of the text. Thanks for any help.

1)The map makes the Saedre river appear to be more than a hundred yards across at the ford. Yet you can cross the rope bridge quickly in one round or carefully in two. Doesn't that mean it would only be dozens of feet across? Yet it also requires four swim checks to cross? (I looked foolish to my players when I described how wide and raging the river was based on the map just to turn around and tell them they could cross it in one or two rounds.) Would that also apply to the the other river, should players attempt to cross it? Is it just as dangerous?

2)Wildsgate is "guarded by a steep cliff" on one side. It is described as being "built atop a high ridge of exposed rock." Yet there are docks along the river side of the keep. Are these docks well below the level of the town square? Are they below a cliff? A giant slope the merchants push their goods up? How do people get the goods from the boats to the level of the keep? Narrow cliff ledges? Are there trails up the cliff? Maybe I'm missing something.

3)I spent a lot of time having NPCs tell the players how dangerous the Wilds are and how no one goes there only for the players to find the ford and the "Hunter's Way." Um, I guess hunters brave the Wilds even if the Captain of the Outriders is too chicken? Are the crops that sparse that they have to brave the Wilds for meat? The module makes it seem like you are on your own in the Wilds. Yet how many of the adventurers filling the Mug and Blade have ventured there? I could have played it wrong.

[The Incredible Kid]

Oh yeah, in the Goblin's lair only one player crossed the pit and got thrown back in the pit by the Ogre trap. The session ended there. The players feel that the Ogre would land in the pit on top of the character, and trap him. Oh, and they think charging goblins should run over the ogre crushing the player trapped underneath the ogre for more damage. Bloodthirsty even against their own kind. None of this seems anticipated by the text. Does the ogre land in the pit? Seems so. Wouldn't that trap and crush a character? Hmmm.

[Harley Stroh]

Kid Incredible,

Thanks for your questions. Hope I can help out ...

1. You're right in that my map is misleading (the river is a bit too wide). That said, the multiple swim checks were an intent to convey the danger of swimming the swift current, without simply bumping up the DC to unimaginable levels.

The "crossing safely/unsafely" was done in mind that the PCs will be under attack by the goblins the entire time --- devastating to low level PCs and a serious tactical nightmate if the heroes don't think it through. As in all games, ultimately it should happen "at the speed of plot."

2. The cliff is on the back side (south and east) not the dock side. Sorry for the confusion. On the map you can see where the wall ends on the east --- this is where the cliff begins.

3. Hunters Way is blunder on my part. You are right to play it that no one from Wildsgate normally crosses the river to the north.

Ogre Trap: "He" is swinging on block and tackle. No dropping or crushing. Sorry.

//H

[The Incredible Kid]

Harley,

Thanks for the answers. I appreciate it.

IK