Stalling at the stag lords keep, to nudge or not to nudge


Kingmaker


I'm running a 5 player, generous point buy, max hp KM game. I've been using the 6 player conversion to keep things balanced against what the party brings out the table. We're using 95% 3.5 rules with a few house rules about skills and a couple things taken from PF (Power Attack most notably).

The players have reached the SL's keep after clearing/mapping all of the forest and the majority of the swamp, but they completely bypassed Nettles' Crossing, the mites, and the kobolds.

They're 3rd level currently and the party consists of the following:

Human Knight 1/Paladin 2
Halfling Druid 3 w/ Riding Dog
Gnome Rogue 1/Wiz 2
Human Bard 3
Human Warblade 3

Their first attempts to scout the fort showed them the lazy patrolling/watching anywhere but the path leading to the front gate. They tried sneaking up with some ideas to try drawing out some forces to whittle down the SL's numbers and ran into the zombies. They eventually dispatched the 6 zombies before another 6 came out, but they did attract the attention from the guards in the watchtowers and above the gate.

With the PC's getting max HP, so too do the npc's/monsters, so the 24 HP zombies took a while to kill.

i had the guards start sending out flaming arrows every couple rounds to try and see what was going on out there and eventually Akiros was summoned to the gate and yelled some challenges to the party. They shouted at each other from the darkness for a while, but the party was smartly not willing to get too close, and Akiros wasn't sending anyone out there. Mexican standoff occurs and eventually the SL was awoken and he came out to see what is making allthe darn ruckus. He starts slurring about the questionable heritage of the PC's and what professions their mothers might have, but again the PC's can't be drawn in. The Knight/Paladin tries a long shot from the darkness at the SL that comes close enough that the SL fires off a couple arrows into the darkness but then slinks off back to his room to drink more.

Akiros stays a while to make sure the PC's don't try anything funny, and eventually the Knight/Paladin offers up a challenge to him. Akiros eventually has the gates opened and slips out under cover of his archers in the towers and asks if the K/P wants to settle this the old fashioned way. (At this point, the party has killed off a lot of the bandits, routing the river camp, and the few that have returned to the SL's keep told tales of how strong these adventurers are, so Akiros sees this as a bit of an opportunity). They discuss the terms of the duel a bit, the Kni/Pal ensures his comrades won't help, and as they come together to start Akiros mouths the words "flat of the blade" to the K/P. They start fighting, and unfortunately the K/P just can't make a single roll. The -4 for dealing subdual damage certainly didn't help, but after a few rounds of really bad rolls Akiros decides he needs to save face and "finishes off" the K/P, taunting his friends and strolling back to the keep.

The bard and Warblade rush out of the darkness to drag their friend away and eventually realize he's just unconscious.

They go back to rest and heal up again and watch for another day to see if any patrols come out. None do as the SL is down to only about 8 bandits in the fort along with his lieutenants and Auchs. (I had bandits with Ranger levels tracking the party the week before and they finally caught up to them a hex away from the SL's hex a few days earlier. I also had the SL send a force against Oleg's because the party was taking a really long time getting down to the fort even after a couple not so polite nudges from the sword lords saying "hurry this up!".

So after nothing comes out the next day, they come back the following night with a plan to try to burn the gate down with flaming spheres. Unfortunately while getting close enough to cast the spell, the Druid triggers more zombies and another big fight occurs, again drawing the attention of the guards. They do manage to deal a significant amount of damage to the gate and the nearby wall, but they are forced to retreat when the SL again is drawn out by the noise and starts shooting at the humans in the party for heavy damage.

The K/P tried to hang back to keep the illusion he was dead going but eventually needed to run up and provide another target.

The party retreats, but they seem to have no plans for how to get into this place.

Per the 6 player conversion, there should be another round of zombies if they try more of the same, and the party is convinced that with it happening twice in a row that the zombies are either being recreated every day, or they just regenerate every night.

Part of me wants to sit back and see what they do next, but I get the impression the group is getting frustrated. I'm tempted to have Akiros defect or something, but I don't want to just hand them a solution. And if he leaves the keep, then he's much less likely to be able to swing the fight than if he was inside and it came as a surprise to the bandits and the SL.

I'm kind of stuck as how to let this play out.

Thoughts?


The Stag Lord, while on a binge, gets sick of the PC's harassment, grabs some men, and goes to hunt them down and ambush them. He's such a high level that, even with the drunk penalties, getting the drop on the group while they're sleeping and mostly vulnerable should be cake.

And perhaps he's encouraged to do this by Akiros, who uses the opportunity to either leave the Stag Lord's service, or to seize the fort for himself and pursue a less malicious style of banditry.


Perhaps I gave the wrong impression, I'm not looking for ways to end the campaign. Rather I'm looking for ways to help nudge my PC's into a decent strategy that doesn't rob the stag lords keep of its importance and difficulty.


You could do the thing with the Stag Lord and posse coming out and hunting them down (it makes sense that he might do that), but have Akiros yell out a warning just before the ambush, thus preventing a surprise round against the party and making Akiros' defection quite dramatic and significant (if not potentially fatal for him, as the Stag Lord is likely to focus on him in the first rounds of combat).

Alternatively, have the party encounter some bandits who have been away raiding for some time (and thus don't know about their recent attacks on the fort) on their way back to the fort with loot. This would give the party a chance to get the current password (if they don't know it already), bandit disguises (if they haven't kept the bandit equipment from previous bandits they've dealt with) and loot to hand over, giving them another shot at the subtle approach.


Third option Staglord puts the OB on a starvation diet and releases it next time the PCs show up.


I like what you've done with Akiros -- see if you can play on that. I also like the idea of them running into a returning group of bandits. If they didn't pick up on the winebottles with Kressle maybe this group has another load of them? Or maybe Akiros is sent out after that, letting you play on the rivalry and sense of trust you've established.

Note that the fort walls are wood and they've got a druid in there -- the PCs could notice that the walls have been repaired and might deduce the presence of a spellcaster.

One thing you might consider: is there a secret entrance to the fort, maybe a tunnel dug by the druid that nobody else knows about? Maybe the PCs could stumble across it?


Ugh, had a long post detailing how this played out that my browser decided to eat.

Long story short, party kinda tipped their hand that Akiros was trying to work with them, and Dovan used that to turn the keep and SL against Akiros.

The SL ended up making Akiros fight the Owlbear out front of his keep and the party came to break it up. Big fight, one PC dies to crit from SL's bow, but they win.

We stopped right after the fight. Dead PC's player had a backup ready to go and this is a decent place to inject a new player as a prisoner of the SL. They havent found SL's father yet and Akiros submitted once the fighting was done.

The players liked the way there were behind-the-scenes politics going on that moved the story along. I dont think it came off as railroading or forced so for that I'm happy.

Just wanted to provide a bit of closure for those who had been following this. Thanks for all the feedback.

Edit - While I'm here, I'd like to inject a little more foreshadowing about Nyrissa for the party. The character that died (warblade) has made a new cleric (Sarenrea) that will be in a cell in the SL's fort. He's a Rostlander by trait. Any good ideas on either things the party could find amongst the SL's items/room or perhaps a spiritual vision the cleric might have been following to have brought him to this region (rather than coming by getting the charter?).


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The prisoner could have...

...overheard a conversation between the Stag Lord and his father full of the father trying to warn his son about "fey gifts" and their dangers, particularly fey lovers.

....had the Stag Lord rant at him about "the Green Lady" and how she guarantees his triumph, and gave him the owlbear. (Not everything that is said needs to be true. Staggy could have been drunk, or recounting a dream, or something.)

...seen the Stag Lord fondling a locket of green hair (Nyrissa's token), perhaps in a disturbing and creepy fashion.

...had Sarenrae send a very minor angel to protect him the night one of Nyrissas dreams get sent to the Stag Lord and the prisoner gets caught up in the overflow.

...had the druid come talk to him, asking help getting free of his evil son (probably a bluff as part of the interrogation, but maybe not.)


As an aside: if you have the prisoner overhear things (which I think is a great way to do it), it would be good to also make them overhear enough to know that Nugrah is the Stag Lord's father. As written, the "creepy druid in the basement" is a bit puzzling without that piece of context, and none of the bandits know about the relationship to fill in the PCs later.


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That has also been addressed, DM Bloodgargler created a secondary story to that that includes the crazy druid's journal.

And gives a historical account of one of the previous attempts to gain a kingdom of the greenbelt nearly 40 years before.


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One thing I meant to add (but forgot to when the time came) was a journal of the Stag Lord's where he writes about dreams of the Green Lady and a sword, of her wanting him (the SL) to find the sword, that sort of thing. But he had no luck finding it and his despair in failing her was part of his slide into the bottle.

One bit that I did manage to add is that the SL considered himself the favored of the Green Lady, and told the players that in battle.


I did notice the module mentions a journal, but I didn't see anything referenced. Has anyone done a version that I could riff from?

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Spatula wrote:

One thing I meant to add (but forgot to when the time came) was a journal of the Stag Lord's where he writes about dreams of the Green Lady and a sword, of her wanting him (the SL) to find the sword, that sort of thing. But he had no luck finding it and his despair in failing her was part of his slide into the bottle.

One bit that I did manage to add is that the SL considered himself the favored of the Green Lady, and told the players that in battle.

This is exactly the kind of foreshadowing the AP needs more of. PCs ought to meet several champions of the Green Lady before they get to the final chapters. Maybe even give him a couple pages from Zuddiger's Picnic.


KenderKin, I tried searching these boards for DM Bloodgargler and didn't get any hits other than your post in this thread. Do you have a link for his version?

Has anyone else seen any GM created versions of the SL's journal?


Let me see what I can find on that and post it here.....


My game


I checked that link but the only reference to any journals I could find was tartuks.

Thanks anyways.


I thought I linked page 52.....


KenderKin wrote:

I thought I linked page 52..... /QUOTE]

You did - 4th post down...plus bits in others...


You sure did. I'm a boob and immediately clicked Campaign and some other links after clicking yours. Didnt even realise it was directly to the page I would need.

Thanks. That appears to be Nugrah's journal as opposed to the Stag Lord's. Gives a very different angle on the goings on and wouldnt really work with how I portrayed Nugrah in my game.

Thanks though, I do really appreciate it.

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