RoTRL Experiment

Game Master ciretose

Agreed. Salis would be interested in finding a wand of magic missile or shield if possible -- though with the magic missile I would be interested in caster level 3 if possible.

I went with toppling spell for my third level feat choice. I won't be able to use it until next level, but I need something to get full benefit out of those higher level spell slots as I gain them and there are a couple of nice force spells that will be able to benefit from toppling spell as I gain level, and getting the monk and oracle +4 bonus to hit (as well as possible AoOs) as we level will certainly help too.

If anyone not judging but lurking is interested in taking Ringtail's judge slot (or if Ringtail comes back...) let me know.

I like what Salis is doing in the encounter, by the way.

After the next encounter day there will be about a two week break. Plus there is a substantial amount of loot coming from these next two encounters days prior to the next book.

It might be worth checking one of his other pbp's I think I've seen one or two pop up.

I have posted in the game play thread since we're pretty much up to date.

treasure wise uGo has spent pretty much all her cash on full plate and a scroll for the stockade wall.

iGo has crafted and purchased some utility scrolls for the stockade when planning ahead (how do i get over a wall, how do i get the oracle over all wall?). He is also carrying a few hundred GP worth of paper and inks for scroll crafting while out adventuring, just enough to make a few 1st or second level scrolls on a night time before getting into his bedroll.

Since iGo has nothing that he wants to spend his cash on at the moment (planing on crafting a Blessed Book at level 5 with his CWI feat) he will offer to purchase a wand of cure light wounds for the party if they will pay him back from the next lot of treasure, its not something that i can see the party having a huge need for but if we need to rapidly heal up after a fight its better than using all the oracles channels and spells. If this is acceptable let me know so i can delete the cash and add it onto the sheet, at the end of each encounter day we should come to some agreement about the amount of resources that have been consumed on that day. Ciretose could you make a post with your thoughts on the consuption and then we will hammer out the details.

I've not added the items Boghu purchased onto iGo's sheet as they are not his but if you want to add them onto your sheet and a note that iGo is carrying them thats fine Boghu. If anyone wants to do the same its fine, just put in requests for scrolls of buffs or pearl usage in the discussion thread and i'll add it in. When we get another unflux of cash it might be worth Boghu, Salis and iGo all going a third into a rod of extend for all day mage armour for all three.

Not really concerned with carrying the scroll materials / pearl of power...they're paid for by Boghu for the iGo's use to help the party.

Probably works better if iGo carries them, anyways, since he can use them easier if needed.

I think what Egoish has been doing with materials is perfect. I feel like we have a pretty honest group at this point, so I'm not that worried about abuse. If something pops up, everyone is kind of competing with each other and we have independent judges.

I would just say if you want to indicate you will be using it, remove it from your inventory.

@TarkXT - Regardless of if Ringtail comes back there is room for another judge or two. I would love for him to come back, but if he is posting in other PbP and not posting here, I'm not going to hound him, as it will show up in his campaign stuff that things are happening here.

In place of the wand I mentioned earlier I would be willing to go part in on a rod of extend spell.

When do we hit 4?

You'll hit four after the next encounter day, right before we start the 2nd book.

Honestly Psi, i just don't want the extra extra book keeping that comes on top of being a wizard and a scroll caddy and a crafter, if you can hold onto your own mats and pearl then pass me them when you want something thats ideal.

I'm currently playing a wizard/diabolist in a home game in which i am also the party accountant and its a massive ball ache (character sheet to organise, scroll/item crafting, spellbook and memorised lists, imp companion sheet and items for UMD, party fund list and on top of that i do the loot splits and identifies) which is one of the reasons i think wizards can be more powerful, if your organisation is up to scratch then your very powerful but sorcerer is easier to run with less messing.

Now seems like a good time to update on our opinions as well for each character while we wait on judges.

Boghu, Interesting build, very versatile and well constructed character that is going from strength to strength with support. I still think a different pure melee type would be performing better overall but not hugely now the monks damage and defense is increasing, i think as we get to higher level encounters the monks touch ac and saves will make a huge difference.

Salis, a really good build and i love it, such an interesting sorcerer package from the archtype combined with the sage bloodline, if i had known that the character would turn out like this i would probably have written my character(s) slightly differently to let Salis do the control and have the wizard contribute more to damage. The only thing i would change is the crossblooded choice, i don't think having the two bloodlines adds enough to this character to warrant losing a spell known per spell level, even with the human bonus helping out.

uGo, has turned out better than i hoped, now she has picked up power attack and getting some more buff spells in up coming levels will let her get mixed up in melee combat more effectively. The rerolls are superb as long as the party take advantage of them (and all of the other characters can).

iGo, is starting to pick up steam but in a caster heavy party i should have written a blaster diviner to pick up some of the slack, i've been happy with his contribution to important combats and i am quite willing to sit out of combats with 6 goblins to save spells even if it effects my scores.

One thing i would like to note is that when characters who contribute to fights with normal goblins do a little damage that contribution is in my opinion not as high as a contribution by someone who only joins in on the 3 hardest fights of the day and ends them outright before anyone gets hurt. The judges scores have been low for iGo since Boghu and iGo are doing most of the damage and Salis can contribute to normal goblin encounters with his rays, if i were the parties fighter i would rather have a wizard who blinded all the rangers on the tower than a wizard who blew his load on standard goblins on the walls and part of the skill of playing a good wizard is knowing when to fade into the background of combat and let the other PC's have their fun wading through a horde of insignificant threats.

So everyone can get ready while the judges do their thing…

The party is going to have to choose if they are going to stay and rest in the fort before going on (there are lower levels…) or leave and come back. Both have risks, either way let me know how you are doing it because it will require discussion on how the next part plays out.

If you leave and come back, presumably the people below will react in some way to re-secure the base. Similarly if you stay, the people below will presumably come up to see what happened at some point. At least logically as a GM I would think they would…feel free to discuss as it will effect my next description and what everyone would do to mitigate, etc…

The loot for the first part of thistle top (again, assuming you do and find everything to make it easier). This is all usable for the next adventure, but if we are assuming next day you finish what you started (you are on a timer…) than you can’t sell yet.

20 Dogslicers
potion of cure light wounds (2),
potion of speak with animals (2),
potion of tree shape (2),
wand of produce flame (34 charges)
+1 leather armor,
spear
sling
cloak of resistance +1
dagger with pearl handle (100 gp value)
6 Daggers
5 masterwork horsechoppers
27 Shortbow
Heavy Warhorse
potion of cure moderate wounds (2)
masterwork breastplate,
+1 dogslicer,
dented crown worth 20 gp
Whip
studded leather
whip
short sword
7,432 cp,
2,490 sp,
89 gp,
3 pp,
a leather pouch of 34 badly flawed malachites worth 1 gp each,
Medium chain shirt,
Medium masterwork scimitar,
pair of masterwork manacles,
Gold holy symbol of Sarenrae worth 100 gp,
jade necklace worth 60 gp,
fine blue silk gown with silver trim worth 150 gp.
spinel worth 100 gp,
a rusted masterwork kukri with an intact
violet garnet in its hilt worth 200 gp,
a rotted quiver containing
3 +1 arrows,
wand of shield with 9 charges remaining.

Well, I think uGo will be able to heal through another encounter since most of the goblins won't have scratched us and even the ones with class levels were mostly neutralised quickly. iGo is low on spells but still has some low levels spells left over, i doubt he would be much use in a night fight but then again i doubt whatever is below us would send anything amzingly difficult out to die to adventurers in the night, even if they send up 6 goblins or something similar it will just disturb us rather than hurt us.

The best plan may be to withdraw to the other side of the thorn maze and return the next day, that way we can find a spot that gives us a nice wide view of the maze enterance and anything that the fort sends out after us will get noticed with plenty of warning. I wouldn't be too worried about them repopulating the fort as that will just mean there are less of them in the catacombs below when we go to get them out.

uGo would like the cloak if possible by the way. Might as well give the potions to Boghu. Everything else is pretty much trash.

The wand of produce flame has some use in the sorcerer's hands -- he'll be getting a 1d6+1 touch attack and as a ranged touch attack it'll do 1d6+2. It's not amazing but the range isn't bad and it gives him another option on damage type and choice (I believe the range is a little better too). If I had the means to change out wands quickly the wand of shield would be interesting -- but as is I want to keep one hand empty as much as possible -- which means the time to draw the wand and put up or drop the other one simply isn't worth the investment.

Can you use the wand of produce flame? i thought it was a druid spell?

I know you have UMD but i don't hold much hope of you passing the check every time in combat.

Eh, Yeah I forgot for a minute that I'm not charisma based! I have a +5 currently but that's far from a safe bet. So in retrospect I would probably pass on it.

RE: character design...

Salis I like a lot. He takes the traditional "sneaky lockpicking guy" and turns the mechanics on their head. While I likely wouldn't have cross-blooded myself, I can see it's effect. He seems like a Wilder, in gameplay, which is a good thing IMO.

uGo is quite the handy little cleric-buddy. Heavy Armor, LOTS of healing, and can mix it up with the beat-down when necessary. About the only thing I could wish for would be some stealth capacity, but that's not everyone's cuppa tea.

iGo is a very competent Diviner, and an excellent addition to any adventuring party. I'm not sure if its the player's attitude (tossing spells to buff party, knowing when to conserve vs. go for the knockout) or the class-design itself, but I sure wouldn't mind having him in my party.

For Boghu, I was intending on a defensively-oriented, stealth-ambush type of character. He can stand toe-to-toe for a round or so, but his real strength lies in forcing foes onto their back foot right away. The only thing preventing him from rocking as hard as possible is a bard, but they're hardly to be expected at every table.

All told, so long as we don't make any serious errors, or suffer ridiculous bad fortune, I feel this group could successfully complete the AP. Perhaps they won't do it in exactly the order as described in the books, and perhaps it won't be easy, but they can pull it off.

If i could get some stealth ability on uGo i would Psi, its just a nightmare trying to get a decent defense and a good stealth score on divine casters. It's definately the one area of the game where divine casters hold the party back, normally its not as pronounced because there is at least one other armour monkey clanking around as well but in this caster/monk party wearing heavy armour is something of a chore, its also slowing us down as well but i think i'll get iGo to craft her a pair of boots of striding and springing at level 5 to up her speed back to 30ft. Spotting problems like this with characters is something i've noticed most groups don't do, if players took a little more time with each other and thinking about how their strengths and weaknesses interact with the other characters groups would probably be better off for it.

iGo is a quintisential god wizard basicly, and i think that any player who has experience with the game in general and with wizards in particular should know when to cast and when to watch, its most likely one of the reasons that people who come on the boards and say god wizards don't work have their opinion. I can imagine a wizard who blows all his good control spells on basic goblins having trouble in the later encounters and i can also imagine a less patient player feeling useless doing nothing (casting jolt) in encounters that the monk/oracle combo are rolling through like juggernaughts, but then again everyone should get a chance to shine and wasting your chance to shine (cast glitterdust) on 6 cr1/3 goblins is a mistake. One thing we currently aren't taking advantage of which it might be worth while to take another look at is the lookout feat, since iGo always acts in the surprise round anyone adjacent to him who has the feat gets to act as well automatically and if one other person has the feat iGo gets a full round of actions (as does anyone else who would normally be able to act), it can be a very powerful option and anyone playing with a character like a diviner should put some thought into taking advantage of the feature.

I recently had a chat with a player in one of my games who is playing a caster druid and loves summoning, he got used to blowing his load and a 15 min adventuring day in the first book of kingmaker and now he is also doing it in book two. But i have been punishing them for using all their resources on one encounter by stacking kingdom events and hoarding random encounters to chain after exploration encounters. He has been watching me play a conjurer in another game and wondering why his druid is not performing as well, obviously natures ally is not as powerful as monster for summoning and he has less spells per day but the main reason is when i approach a fight as a caster i always think "how can i end this fight with one spell?", weather its an enlarge or a control or a haste or even a blast, if spellcasters truely are THAT powerful then you shouldn't need to use 2 3rd 3 2nd and a 1st level spell to end a cr5 encounter at lvl 4.

I totally agree regarding divine characters & stealth (well, Inquisitors & Rangers aren't really casters, but you get the idea).

Don't mistake me, uGo is a fantastic addition, and with her AC & general survivability, she could easily serve as the "bait" to pull enemies into the party.

Our Serpents Skull party (Rogue/Bard/Guide Ranger/Illusionist/Witch) just happened to have everyone with some modicum of stealth abilities (Bard/Witch) and everyone else has ridiculous scores. Being able to "set" the battlefield conditions and manipulate the enemies with simple image spells has allowed us to get through otherwise very challenging encounters.

I am looking forward to see how we stand up against the "big hitters" later on...first one is coming up soon, too!

@Egoish - What you describe is kind of what I wanted to illustrate. The wizard is the best class for the BBEG, at a trade of making you all but a 3 person party at times in various other "lesser" encounters. And through those "lesser" encounter, the party needs to protect the generally squishy wizard, who is more vulnerable to these "lesser" enemies than other classes.

I think that is what we have seen so far and what the judges are ruling on. Also, we are playing assuming you know when you are having the BBEG conflict...which isn't always the case. In fact, this issue will likely come up next encounter day.

@Egoish - What you describe is kind of what I wanted to illustrate. The wizard is the best class for the BBEG, at a trade of making you all but a 3 person party at times in various other "lesser" encounters. And through those "lesser" encounter, the party needs to protect the generally squishy wizard, who is more vulnerable to these "lesser" enemies than other classes.

I think that is what we have seen so far and what the judges are ruling on. Also, we are playing assuming you know when you are having the BBEG conflict...which isn't always the case. In fact, this issue will likely come up next encounter day.

The wizard actually had defenses as good as the monk who was our front line fighter for the first 3 levels so needing to support him through encounters with lesser creatures is just untrue. By providing a simple buff like enlarge person for a fight (which lasts for a minute) the wizard can provide far far more utility and damage than say a rogue sneak attacking every turn even if his only action in the entire fight is to cast that spell and avoid being a drain on healing.

I do not think that i will always know when we will have an encounter with a BBEG but i do know that i do not need to use spells on standard goblins even if there are 8 or more of them as they are simply not a threat that any class should be using resources on. This is something that is probably down to the player as much as the character, i did mention in my posts that this may be the reason some people think that the god wizard is not as powerful as others.

One thing to bear in mind is when we harken back to TM's guide is that the god wizard is not ment to be the parties top performer, he is ment to make the encounters easier for everyone else to deal with and give them their time in the lime light while sitting there knowing that he is the major factor contributing to their success. If you think i'm a waste of space when it comes to fighting 4 goblins with pointy twigs or some dogs that have already been convinently tied up then i think that i may be wasting my breath(keyboard?).

I think the crux of the debate was not what can a sorcerer do in combat that a wizard cannot, it is what can a wizard do out of combat that the sorcerer has any way of replicating? At the end of the day a sorcerer "may" be able to cast colour spray 3 more times and stop the extremely dangerous pointy stick tribe of goblins from missing your fighter with their weak attacks for another round of so before he cleaves them all into oblivion but why does it matter when the encounters that you can perform so much better than the wizard in are so unimportant? Many people, and this seems to include you Ciretose, seem to think that characters that are taking actions are inherently more powerful than characters that are not. But if my character is so powerful that with one action i can achieve something that another character may take 5 actions to achieve (ie effectively end the encounter), weather it is with a buff such as enlarge person on the longspear wielding monk or glitterdusting a bunch of archers so they are no longer a threat, which is more powerful?

It comes down to the principle of the god wizard which you do not seem to understand, when i have taken my action and my minions (party members) are in place to achieve victory should go over the top and steal their thunder or should i just step back and let them have their fun?

I think Egoish makes a fair point about caster conservation.

Plus, just because he's not casting a spell does not necessarily means he's not contributing. Nothing stops him from snatching up a wand of magic missiles, grease, or just a nifty crossbow and pop goblins heads off if they don't immediately die.

I mean consider glitter dust. If the caster blinds and messes up more than half of the critters how much protection will he really require? Afterall if he's sitting back in the back row anyway he might need very little from the start as the monk runs up and long spears people left and right.

Plus, he is not the only person in the group. Let's jsut take a recent combat I was in.

Sorcerer - Glitterdust on dudes (now blind)
Cleric - (summons a dog who trips one)
Bard - Inspires courage
Rogue - dazzling display now they are all shaken (eventhough he had an option to frighten but we didnt want to have to chase people down)

+2 attack and damage against flat footed opponents who can't hit and are having their ankles gnawed off by Lassie my new flanking partner and thye swear to norgorber that the orc rogue is the single most terrifying thing in existence. Why should I bother using smite evil or heck one of my two spells when all that jsut dropped on their head?

By Round 2 it's going to be a blood bath and we won't even need to cast anymore spells.

That's what a good god caster does it uses a small investment of resources in order to ensure a long and productive day. If it means splitting their forces so they can't focus full attacks, or debuffing, or buffing. Whatever happens I'll still ahve smite evil available, I'll likely still have lay on hands and channels to spare and the bard will likely still have plenty of rounds of bardic music. All because of one glitterdust.:)

No one has posted for a while, whats up with that?

We are waiting on the judges.

Treasure:

Give the potions of clw to the arcane casters just incase, it helps if they have one for stabilisation incase someone goes down. You might as well keep the cmw pots as you have the most use for them.

The warhorse might be handy for keeping uGo's pace up depending on the next parts of the adventure, if we are travelling its definately worth keeping for her.

sell the wand of produce flame as its no one can use it, i'd also sell everything else as well other than the cloak of resistance. Not sure who will get the most use out of the cloak but i would suspect that it would be a better investment on uGo as if either of the casters go down to a spell uGo can try to fix it, if uGo goes down i think the party is boned.

Give the potions of clw to the arcane casters just incase, it helps if they have one for stabilisation incase someone goes down. You might as well keep the cmw pots as you have the most use for them.

The warhorse might be handy for keeping uGo's pace up depending on the next parts of the adventure, if we are travelling its definately worth keeping for her.

sell the wand of produce flame as its no one can use it, i'd also sell everything else as well other than the cloak of resistance. Not sure who will get the most use out of the cloak but i would suspect that it would be a better investment on uGo as if either of the casters go down to a spell uGo can try to fix it, if uGo goes down i think the party is boned.

That works for me. If/when back in town, can buy saddle/tack/etc for Horsey from party loots.

Can work up total value later.

As far as tactical considerations go: several of the upcoming encounters can be completely neutralized through a stealthy approach. The wizard girl, the fighter dude, and even the bugbear (if we can catch him with the chicks, at least) will reasonably go down with a Grab/Morningstar/Stab/Spell. Assuming they are unwilling to simply die (Boghu would prefer to grab & interrogate before executing enemies, simply because it makes the rest of the dungeon easier), we stand a chance of clearing about 1/3 of thistletop without significant threat.

The tentamort, yeth hounds, crab, and Nualia are all a different level of bad, though. There's no real easy way to stealth in, so it may end up being a tank 'n spank, with poor Boghu getting a lot of the "spanks."

Any other clever tricks you can think of?

Ciretose, were you recruiting other judges? Should I go ahead and post? I fear that the experiment will likely suffer with too few adjudicators.

Please go ahead and post. Each section is going to be a averaged based on whichever judges weigh in.

I was looking to replace Ringtail, who seems to be gone, not anyone else. I'm not even looking to replace Ringtail if he comes back.

Yeah more judges isn't a bad thing -- and if the judges rotate in and out that's fine too in my opinion.

Yeah more judges isn't a bad thing -- and if the judges rotate in and out that's fine too in my opinion.

Agreed. I'm worried we seem to only have one left at this point, so I'm all for recruiting.

Recruiting a few more judges would not be a bad plan, since its quite heavily opinion based i can't help but think more opinions would be better to get an overall picture.

That said i've just read AU's post in the gameplay thread and i think he is spot on with his judgement, as strong as the oracle is her weaknesses (mobility and stealth) are highlighted in this fight and thanks to the wizards performance her strengths are probably not required.

I'm actually surprised that the AP still has you fighting standard goblins at level 3 but then again you have to have easy fights as well as hard ones and it does kind of play into the point i was trying to make all those weeks ago that a good caster probably won't even be casting every fight.

Recruiting a few more judges would not be a bad plan, since its quite heavily opinion based i can't help but think more opinions would be better to get an overall picture.

That said i've just read AU's post in the gameplay thread and i think he is spot on with his judgement, as strong as the oracle is her weaknesses (mobility and stealth) are highlighted in this fight and thanks to the wizards performance her strengths are probably not required.

I'm actually surprised that the AP still has you fighting standard goblins at level 3 but then again you have to have easy fights as well as hard ones and it does kind of play into the point i was trying to make all those weeks ago that a good caster probably won't even be casting every fight.

I think that fighting goblins en masse can still challenge a 3rd level party with mediocre AC. A traditional wizard/sorcerer build would have a tough time with a large number of low level ranged attackers.

And of course, it burns resources.

I agree -- the earlier goblins are simply opportunities to blow resources.

Thank you Egoish, I am pleased that you agree with my assessment. Ciretose, in light of first Ringtail, and now Sylvanite being so long quiet, should the experiment be put on hold until more judges can be recruited? Perhaps Tark would like to lend his expertise? Or do we press on in the meantime?

I would love for tark to weigh in. And everyone should feel free to recruit.

So since I'll weigh in there's soemthing that's been bugging me.

How is Ugo proficient in heavy armor?

Her third level feat I believe.

No...that does not appear to be the case.

Unless I'm missing somehtign she has.
1 Selective Channeling
1 Extra Revelation (misfortune)
3 Power Attack

That is odd. Under the feats tab she has selective channelling, extra revelation (misfortune), heavy armour proficiency. Under the stat block tab she has selective channelling, extra revelation (misfortune), power attack. Good catch. I did not even know she had Power Attack on her list, and certainly did not including it in my deliberations.

Egoish, you might want to pick one and change the other. On that note, it would be a tad easier for the judges if all the PCs had a consistent format for their character sheets and made sure all relevant information was included and checked for accuracy.

Well egoish did mention having power attack in several of his posts including in Ugo's latest post about the final goblin encounters.

I think i was torn between power attack and heavy armour prof then decided at the last minuite that i since i had enough cash for full plate i'd take heavy armour prof.

I actually went over that last post twice because i thought i had mentioned power attack in it and i could not find it when i went back to edit, now i see its in the second to last paragraph and i must have glossed over it.

I'll edit the character sheet and fix it.

Good judging Tark, accurate and pretty much what i expected. One correction though, iGo cannot memorise invisibility over detect thoughts as it is his speciality slot and invisibility is not a divination spell. While invisibility would have been useful Salis can cast vanish repeatedly so if there is a point that we really need a +20 stealth check (like on the oracle) Salis can cast it in a shadow to last 4 rounds which is more than enough for an invisibile dash.

I'll get the character sheet upgraded at some point today.

Two quick questions...well one quick and one not so quick...

1. Do we want to wait for either Sylvanite or Ringtail, or do we want to move to the next round.

2. If we are in agreement that the group is leaving the fort to camp on the other side of the bridge to recharge prior to attacking the lower levels, is it a reasonable GM modification to move the human fighter and the bugbear upstairs as guards.

This is more or less what I did when I ran it (my players also left and came back at pretty much the same point), but I am open to suggestions. It basically softens the downstairs a bit, but forces the players to retake the fort. This was what I thought logically those in the fort would do on discovering the goblins killed, given the resources they have.

If this is acceptable, this will be the basis of the next part, if not...well that is why we have this forum :)

I've sent a message to Syl in the hopes he will return as we had been discussing some things via message anyway. If you want to give him until the weekend thats fine with me.

Moving back over the bridge to rest then coming back was my suggestion i think so i'm happy with it, if people want to stay in the fort iGo is a bit low on spells but uGo can probably duo whatever comes at us overnight with Boghu considering the resources she has left over if people really want to stay there.

If you want to put some monsters upstairs ciretose then that does seem like a reasonable npc reaction to discovering their fort has been cleared by adventurers.

I think they are both great judges, and I would love to have them back. I'm going to average the scores by encounter, so the more the merrier.

I would actually prefer to fully scout the upper level and set up potential ambushes on any reinforcements coming from the lower levels.

If we can prevent any goblins from fleeing "downstairs," the soonest the bosses downstairs will know something is amiss is when someone comes up top.

I am confident that between Boghu & uGo, either Vanderboren or his bugbear friend will pose little threat.

If they send the female wizard up, even better.

Basically, clear the top level of the fort, secure the bridge (disable the drop-trap on this side, perhaps?), and block all but 1 of the exits we find from the lower level.

If everyone's against this, we should at least leave difficulty-increasing stuff behind...poison ivy, sand fleas, broken glass on stairways, that kind of stuff. Boghu can stay on the Thistletop side of the bridge, ready to haul ass across if someone comes out he can't solo.

If we want to get really clever, "camp" on the little grass bit just outside the gates, tear them down, and make it appear as if we came, raided, and left. With some luck, the bosses come up, see the destruction, realize the attacking force left the way they came, and either pursue or return to downstairs.

If pursuing, we can drop THEM into the drink.

If retreating, we ambush them and neutralize them up top.

If we do such things Salis's ability to disable device becomes that much more useful for funneling them the way we want and breaking things in clever ways. I'm looking forward to getting the break spell soon too...

My only comment is that if you do what is described, you are also likely provoking a fight before your group has fully rested.

I'll defer to the judges on how they thing that would work out, but I would presume logically if the group down below felt the place was fully being attacked/held they would send more than the two guys up to deal with it. And they have quite a bit more resources than just the Orik and the Bugbear down below.

The logic of the two guards was that they would need to take some shifts, and those two would be likely to be one of the shifts.

Again, I defer to the judges, I'm just here to facilitate. If I were running it, I would likely send up at least the Yeth hounds as well as Orik, the Bugbear and the Wizard if the people down below felt truly threatened in an immediate way.

If they didn't notice the noise from the goblins dying in the first place how will they distinguish the noise of us doing stuff from the general noise of having goblins as your upstairs neighbors in the first place?

Again, I defer to the judges, I'm just here to facilitate. If I were running it, I would likely send up at least the Yeth hounds as well as Orik, the Bugbear and the Wizard if the people down below felt truly threatened in an immediate way.

I tend to agree in this way. Nualia might feel the pressure to complete her project and might throw everything she has into making sure whatever force managed to slay an entire goblin tribe doesn't return to explore the innards of the head.

If they didn't notice the noise from the goblins dying in the first place how will they distinguish the noise of us doing stuff from the general noise of having goblins as your upstairs neighbors in the first place?

The lack of fire, screaming and giggling?

Honestly if the group stuck around and decided to lay down traps or play with terrain someone would come up out of sheer boredom or necessity. That's when the bodies will get noticed, and when they run down and thigns get hairy.

I think I'd want to know what specifically the group would want to do, how long they plan on doing it, and whether or not it's worth treating it as aseparate portion than the descent into the dungeon.