Finished 'Words of the Wise' last night - made a few little changes and superb fun.

All got a bit tasty with Orc assault at end- 11 Eye of Saurons rolled before the 3 Gandalf runes - so PC's ended up facing a total of 21 Orcs - two PC's down, outnumbered and the archers unable to remain rearward and TPK on the cards.... excellent fun.

Started 'stewed leaves and hobbits' now

I'm probably going to run WotW as part of TftW as well, but need to modify it - what changes did you make?

I think I took a tip from Skywalker in that had Thranduil ranging in Southern Mirkwood - didn't want to have to trek the Fellowship back up to the Elven King's Halls given that just done the opposite journey at close of 'don't leave the path'.

Have two elves in the party so they were pretty fired up about thought of meeting Thranduil so thought would increase paranoia on both sides - so as well, as written, as Thranduil being sceptical of Radagast's request I added in a secret shadow and some wargs.

So, as entered Mirkwood elven scout dead, watched over by beautiful elven maiden (disguised secret shadow in reality) - party fell for it. Accepted her story of being separated from Thranduil et al., she led them to the wargs, dropped the illusion, and set on them ... needless to say, Fellowship a lot more guarded when met the real elves.

I just ran Words of the Wise tonight with a couple of friends. It's interesting how every game turns out a little different.

The players had more trouble with the Orcs in Part 1 than they did with the Orcs in The Battle of Woodland Hall. I definitely took the authors' suggestion and used the Woodman brothers to be the balancing factor. Since I had only two player-heroes, I eliminated a Rearward Orc each round through narration, telling the players that Amalric or Heva killed them.

I really enjoyed playing Radagast and Thranduil. The Encounter mechanics came alive tonight. After setting the Tolerance rating, it was fun to hear and watch the players use their Common skills in an attempt to gain successes. Although they knew the Tolerance rating, they did not know the success scale. So, after failing a number of rolls equal to the Tolerance rating, it got intense. They knew that if they failed one more time, it would effectively end their chances of adding more successes and could even hurt them a little if they pushed too hard. Since they did not know the quality of the results for their amount of successes, it presented a dilemma.

They opted to forego risking any more skill attempts and ended the encounter with 6 successes. Good enough for a war party to accompany them back to Rhosgobel, but not the Elvenking himself.

In the final battle, the players rolled amazingly and I rolled a couple of Gandalf runes on behalf of the goblins. White stags were appearing, females were singing... Altogether, they only rolled 1 Eye icon.

The battle was over fairly quickly with the remainder of the goblins fleeing. One of my players decided to chase down a fleeing Orc using the same rules as hunting the deer in the beginning of the adventure. Since the Orc was already injured, he made an Athletics roll with a great success and caught up with it enough for a close combat attack. He swung his axe and rolled an extraordinary success showing the Gandalf rune (that was maximum results on all three dice!). Twack! The head rolled across the ground. Together, we all narrated the scene. The reason he chased the goblin so violently was to protect a wandering, scared little girl from being pierced by its spear. As the goblin fled the battle, he was headed straight for her, and he would have pierce her as a final act of visciousness.

Great ideas here: making the companions suspicious of Elves, telling them the Tolerance rating to increase suspense (although my group isn't terribly tolerant of meta-mechanics, so it might not work for them), and adding sentimental moments of heroism to the battle. I think I'll nick some of this!

Thanks to people who suggested changes - I'm using them!

I run my game online, and I've taken a map from LOTRO of a town (Stangrad). I'm going to have Thranduil ranging in Southern Mirkwood (I have placed an elven outpost or something right where the Western Mirkwood starts carving in toward the Mountains of Mirkwood - gives reason for that on the map in my mind).

Anyway, I'm using Google Draw to have the map and asking players to place units and themselves around town, while I'll have battles occur. I'll treat this like a Encounter however, instead of a full-pitched battle, and describe the ebb and flow of battle. I still plan on having Radagast affect things as per the text, but I'm going to insert a harder opponent (Black Orc / Troll / not sure) that "takes the palisade" - while they fight it there will be whispers all around them, hissing, and when it's over, they'll find an emaciated corpse/head attached to said baddy. No explanation (until later) as this is to tie-in to the TfW story.

Hello, I am searching Words of the Wise pdf to run it as the introductoty adventure for my players.
I know this was a free adventure and that is the reason for my request.
I would be really greatful if someone could send it to me at: lykosofhades@yahoo.gr

Thank you in advance
Gweinel