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Greetings,
I'm sorry for the vague thread title, but I figured that what I am about to discuss might be too big of a spoiler to be named in plain sight.
The battle I want to spice up is the one at the Stairs of the Moon. Let's have a look at the situation.
The primals don't want to let anybody get in or out of the clearing. Okay, fair enough - I can see them just go "Eh" as soon as the PCs who broke through their defenses are getting shot at - let their enemies kill each other, who cares.
The weirdness starts when the PCs enter the temple. The Mordrinacht have orders to prevent someone from entering the temple and...when somebody does they just figure the monster inside will kill them. Hu? Okay, maybe these wolves are extremly lazy.
And then the PCs emerge, slaughter the three guards on top of the temple and march upwards to kill the pack leaders. And nobody seems to care.
Okay. WHAT?
It just seems weird to me that the adventure seems to assume nobody would bother to stop the party of maniacs murdering their guards and attacking the pack leaders on top of the tower. Where IS everyone? Are they constantly patrolling the entrances of the clearing to hold off the Primals? Are they all struck with plot convenience? Did they dump their perception skills?
As soon as their leaders are dead it is mentioned that they start fighting each other for the position, so obviously some of them are still around. And did what, just watching their chiefs getting killed? Nothing about werewolves indicated that they would do such a thing - if you want to be leader you fight the leader or wait for his death, but up until this point you are under his command and will help him. Even if you take into account that there are likely fights elsewhere in the forest - Broken Moon mentions multiple times that the Mordrinacht defend the temple and the Primals laid siege to the temple, basically.
So what is it? Arrogance? "Well, our boss will kill these guys swiftly and without a problem" stops working once the party (of 6 people) dispatches of the guards without any problems.
Desperation? "We have to hold our positions so the Primals don't attack and get the temple!"?
No way how I twist and turn it, it just seems weird.
Suggestions are appreciated!
Blackbot
Well, if I remember, the guards are cannon fodder. Would they really throw themselves in front of the obviously more powerful PCs? Or would they conveniently be somewhere else when the players pass through? I mean, if the pack leader dies then one of them might become pack leader, right?
Also, I'm not sure which other guards you're commenting upon? If I recall (from over a year ago), there are the archers on the roof, the group in the tower, and the pack leader on the top. It would be reasonable to play things either way; everyone comes down the tower to dog (wolf (werewolf)) pile on the PCs when they engage the archers, assuming it isn't stealthy... or the guys in the tower have strict guidelines not to leave the tower.
You are, of course, allowed to change things up. Have the pack lord leap from the top of the tower to land amongst the players (or on one) at the start of the fight (hand wave the falling damage; he's a super awesome werewolf pack lord so, meh, whatever).
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You are right, I forgot about one group of werewolves. So there are seven wolves plus their pack leaders.
Seven werewolves (from two tribes) when it is said that both the Mordrinacht and the Broken do pretty much nothing but guard the temple at the moment. Also it is said that chaos breaks out as soon as their leaders die and everybody fights everybody, so there HAVE to be more than just those seven.
What I mean is this: Either the temple has almost nobody guarding it or there should be enough werewolves that the PCs are hesitating to go there because it would mean all-out war against two whole tribes. Three if the Demon Wolves join the fun. I want to find a way where they don't get the feeling that the packs are smaller then the group, but I also don't want to frighten them away from the temple...
Demon wolves are ignoring this in favor of skulking around Feldgrau... Feldegru... Whatever - the haunted town. The Pretty Pretty Princess wolves are also off doing their own stuff. The wild wolves are in the forest, presumably fighting other members of the silverhairs and the nature lovers.
You could have the players come across dead bodies from various tribes in the forest, indicating a pretty vicious clan war zone. Also doubling the number of archer werewolves won't do anything notable to the party's ability to get on top of the building.