Good points! I will try to play a playtest round this weekend. But I can see a problem right now. I have to build up encounters so that the players can generate WP before I hit them with an important encounter. I‘m afraid the flow of the game can’t be as you like but there have been possibilities for the players to generate WP. I think of that as a little bit artificial and strange. But I‘ll see.
What makes this so artifical? Just build a normal encounter and see how it plays out.
I suspect you save the big fights for the climax of a session anyway, why would this be any different?
I start sometimes with a bang. And I take the adventure where it will flow with the decision of the players. And therefore I don't really know what will happen next. And by artificial I mean that I have to steer the session a little bit more than I would like and don't let the action of the player characters dictate what will happen next. This is what I mean when I write about natural
And it seems to me that you have to build up your WP to be successful in a tough encounter. So you have to be careful in the adventure design. But I will try it this weekend perhaps I will be surprised
When traveling through the country they will have smaller random encounters which will give them the chance to get willpower (not just through battle, but by trying to get food, set up camp or haggling with a merchant). So you don't have to steer them to smaller adventures, these will pop up here and there on the way to the adventure sites.
When I tried the alpha the first time, they met some skeletons and a griffin in two different battles which gave them some chances to get WP in battles. Since it is quite easy to heal all the misery it isn't to awful to get some misery either as long as you have a warm place to sleep with companions and food.
And if they don't have enough WP for the Big Bad Boss they will either have to flee or use other skills/talents.