Fire and Flight: A GM's dilemna.


Rise of the Runelords


After many years of sitting on the books waiting for the right opportunity to run the adventure path Rise of the Runelords (my favorite adventure ever read) I have recently begun a campaign with a good group of players. Half the group are veteran gamers, but half are new players.

Well the first encounter went skew when the goblins raided the Swallowtail festival and one of the more veteran gamers yelled for the part to flee. And they did. Because their gear was at the Rusty Dragon Inn (they had decided to wear casual clothes while enjoying the festival).

The session ended with them fleeing down towards the inn. I have some ideas for how to potentially interrupt their flight, but they all seem determined that they're useless without their gear, and the new players are just following the more experienced ones.

Could anyone suggest an idea on how to prevent them from fleeing without seeming like an obvious invisible wall tactic from a GM? I could possibly try to appeal to their morality in protecting the citizens, etc, but they all assume they will be more use once they have their gear.

Looking at the distance and the time to don armor I would imagine they could be out of commission for about 10 minutes, which should be more than enough time for the raid to have moved on.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Child/maiden/youth screaming, climbing a gutter away from a goblin with a torch?

Also, Goblins are great examples of how to use random things around you to fight with.. perhaps they run past a spilled wagon full of fence spikes and the goblins are already using them to terrorize.

Of course... you could have then run to their rooms, get their gear, put it all on, and return to a deserted burnt scene. The "Local Heroes" section would turn into "Local Laughing Stocks", but the story could continue on the basis that Sheriff Hemlock isn't at all impressed with them, but "there are barely any town guards left alive".


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Its a fairly large raid on more than just the festival. I agree with Majuba.. send some random goblin encounters at them and see what they do. Make it plain that the goblins are demented and torturing those they have trapped.

I would recommend you include a scene where the local guard is hard pressed and losing a fight. Put a downed guardmen by your party with a sword and a dagger to arm anyone who is not (or maybe a crossbow if someone needs ranged help.) If you think that giving out some free mundane weapons will get your party in the fight and having fun.. then do it!


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Have the party run past a weapon merchant's wagon, who just happens to have most or all of the kinds of weapons & shields that the party uses. Three goblins have the merchant cornered, and she screams for help. The PCs can borrow the needed gear from the merchant, with her immediate blessing. Once the PCs have defeated these goblins, they can suit up into borrowed armor to help defend the town.


I had considered that idea. Start them off with disgrace instead of fame, and let them see the consequences of their actions, but it would also make it challenging to introduce Aldern Foxglove.

Love that idea Haladir. There's some good suggestions here, but I can't see how they would justify running back to the inn if they have weapons available to them right away.

Thank you very much for the great suggestions everyone!


If not a merchant with weapons, they could run past some dead guards with weapons (and a bunch of goblins which immediately need to be dealt with). Obviously it's a matter of what equipment they think they need. The casters shouldn't really need anything much, assuming they have their material components.


Your players don't want to fight the goblins unarme and in casual clothes. I wouldn't try to force your players to do things they don't want to do, as those tend to end poorly.

Have an NPC come handy and give them weapons, or make one of the weapon smither shops to be open, or something like that, so they can take the weapons they feel they need, as others have suggested.

In any case, what do you mean by "they gear"? Weapons? Did not they carry a sword at least with them? If it's just armors, maybe make one of the town's wizards to appear and cast Mage Armor on the party's fighter.


If you go with the merchant idea, the PCs won't be in armor. Give them another edge by having the sadistic goblins arm themselves with Medium weapons they've taken from the merchant: -2 to hit.


Personally I'm a big fan of letting the players actions shape the story - if they run - they run - I have no mercy for my NPCs at all - it *would* require extensive reworking and it takes away large bonuses the adventure assumes the players will earn from the town (free food/lodging/mounts/etc).

That being said if you want to give them a *reason* to fight - that's what improvised weapons are for after all - have some goblins jump from a roof and tackle the 'last' person on the wall - make sure they (however many it takes to grapple that person) are all using 'aid another' on the one that makes the grapple check.

Then have him start biting (eating) the player alive. *edit* bite does 1 point of damage and requires an attack roll *after* a grapple check - just play up the other goblins saying 'save some for me picklebreath' etc.

If you have a group of people that will flee from a couple of goblins while they eat another player - I predict bad things in the future.


I totally agree wth Ckorik. I don't believe in railroading the players. My rule is, you do whatever you want to do and it's my job to figure out appropriate, in-game, consequences.
If they flee, let them flee. You're the GM, it's your job to make them feel like their actions dictate the story. Not that they're being pulled along a predetermined story that they don't affect unless it's convenient.
When I ran Burnt Offerings, the players started with no weapons or armor. My Sandpoint rule is, no open carry weapons in the town limits. I expected my players to improvise, and guess what? They did. The only player that ran to get his gear was the cleric. And he missed the entire fight and didn't get to reap the benefits that the rest of the players gained. And he was reprimanded by the higher priests for his actions in the face of so many innocents in danger. Did he complain? No.
I think placing a weapons cart or an open weapons dealer's shop conveniently next to the players as they flee is a giant cop out. I wouldn't want to play in a game like that and I certainly wouldn't want to run one.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Why would that be a cop-out? It's Sandpoint's annual fair, fer cryin out loud, and there are at least 3 merchants selling weapons within the town limits, not to mention however many freelancers might take advantage of the fair to sell some weapons on the side.

Another thing: Sandpoint is a frontier town, I think of it like in the Old West. Why would there be an open carry ban at all? Surely there are loads of mercenaries who float through, and with only ten city guards and three gates, they don't have the manpower to even suggest adventurers abandon their weapons on entering town, let alone man an impound station.

I do agree with the previous posters in not railroading players, or making things too easy on them. But at the fair there are surely loads of opportunities to grab available weapons, even if they are only spears (maybe used to hold up tent flaps) and axes (folks need to cut wood, don't they?)

Give players perception rolls to see items that they could use as weapons. Heck, there could even be a few shields being used as improvised signage during the festival! Not to mention town guards who fell to the gobbos, or the goblins themselves. The sources of available weapons should be many and varied.

Also, players fleeing back towards their inn will likely run past one or more of the existing shops selling weapons, and with a little DM fiddling, other groups of gobbos who might draw them into the fight after all. I mean, those gobbos are so weak that players could doubtless punch & kick them to death.


Festival entertainments are another source of weapons. Archery stalls with bows, wood chopping with axes, throwing darts, javelins, wooden swords (non-lethal damage) for dueling, etc...


A couple dead guards. That gives them enough equipment to start with.


My players carried their normal gear, but they used the xbow in the shooting range to shoot against some goblins (I changed the goblin dogs for spiders and put a few of them climbing roofs and shooting with shortbows, and they didnt have a lot of ranged weapons at lvl 1).
The shooting range was there for the 3 days or festival fair and the players actually won a price there before the fight :)


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Mine were typical adventurers. They went armed. :D

Except for the Barbarian, who was a local boy. He brought brass knuckles. And used them against goblins whenever he could because "goblins aren't worth using a sword on."

(Even more amusing is the player is a rather smart young lady. And her barbarian was a scholar, who was a bit embarrassed by his heritage and tendency to rage. Sadly she ended up leaving the group.)


I'm... trying to figure out how ten minutes misses an entire raid. Yes, in combat rounds are extremely quick in PF, but a raid itself? Battles generally take hours to days IRL, and raiding towns takes longer due to the logistics, distractions and other such things involved. Hollywood videos of raids are NOT at all accurate. They are not over quick and easy.

When I run the Sandpoint raid in RotR the goblin takes course over an hour or more. Most of that, game mechanics wise, is RP'd as things like fortifying, searching for more goblins, helping people from burning buildings, first aid, calming hysterical people, etc.. If you go JUST by combat rounds, you're saying the goblins run in, get killed, and the raid is over in 2-3 minutes. That is horribly unrealistic.


I totally agree with Myrryr. Keep in mind: They are Goblins, not an organized army. They will go plundering, hunting some dogs and cats, searching for food... That all needs time. And more than 10 combat rounds.

And Sandpoint is not New York City. You can run from the market to the inn in a couple of minutes. That is nothing compared to the time of such a raid. If they return with their gear and help the citizens it's Ok.
Throw in some scenes the others mentioned before but if they insist in collecting their gear no real harm is done.

btw: That is one of the problems with the giant raid in the beginning of chapter 4. 3 minutes and an entire raid including a dragonfight is over. Never! I changed that as well and made it a siege lasting 2 days.


Show, rather than tell.

Have some of the prominent locals defending less-capable villagers against the goblins. If they see Vesnut Parooh pick up a rock and conk a goblin on the head before it can use its dogslicer, then they will realize that they can make a difference too, even without weapons and armor.

The spellcasters should have some cantrips, too. Goblins aren't bright. My bard (who didn't carry any weapons with him) used his cantrips to spook and distract goblins. The WIZARD bonked two of them on the head with his staff, for Pete's sake.

If they see that the braver villagers (not the toughest) can do something, maybe they will realize that they can help.

I also had the goblins each take malicious, but not clever, actions. They might rush up and knock a basket out of someone's hands, or throw rocks at people, or chase chickens around the street. The goblins need to be seen as pandaemonium, not a deadly raid.

You could also just move part of the fight to an area in between them and the inn. They will run up on the fight. If they actually do something, they might get a reputation for heroism that they might feel is a bit undeserved!


Thank you all for your great suggestions. I've got some good ideas on what to do for the next session.

Really great community here.

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