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kirkspencer wrote:

Curtisin wrote:

That's a fair point, hadn't thought of that one, unless Skreed either ran into serious trouble (placing a large number of corpses around would sort that, but then surely someone would know already) or he retreated after taking a beating in the initial run-in and is doing the "Dr. Jones" approach, waiting for the PCs to clear the remainder and then coming along to take it from them.

I've seen that a place or two as well and it may be the way I take it.

Right now, though, I'm leaning toward just making it a slog. The march down the hill, the toss-bucket, the giant - after that this last bit is a walk in the garden, right? (sarcasm, please note).

The thing is, I'm leaning toward thinking it locks into the mind that this is, well, it's an attempt to stop a war. Not a small cult or a nasty demon but orc hordes braced by giant masses. And while it's been a bit since I ran Giants, it seems like the enemies were almost endless then, too.

That said, I'm leaning toward a serendipitous scroll or two. I'll see how it looks when we get to that point.

I'll be throwing my players a Scroll of Nap Stack. I'm running 3 players through, so they're already a bit short changed, but I've got two casters, so sleep is essential to them. I do however, want to press upon them that there's very little time for rest in the middle of a war.

I'm still not sure whether I'm going to play "Dr. Jones" or not. I guess I'll decide that once I see the outcome of Crusher.

I think that is a great idea...I might do the same. Thanks. In fact, you could have Silvermane given it to them for saving them. Or, once the inner quarter is secure, perhaps Kurst surveys the damage alongside Tyari Varvatos from the Sanctuary. She could likely cast it for them and might be a nice touch.

One fun thing that I did was run two sections as ambushes:

- For L6 & L7 I basically had orcish archers with readied attacks at the tower's murder holes. Once they saw the PCs, they shot, then I had two of the buildings' orcs come out seperated by a few rounds. Then I had Kagak come down to beat his drum, motivate and generally cause havoc. In the process I had the PC barbarian to -11 (he could go to -12) and the battle mage at (-4), the PCs ALMOST had to fall back to the safe zone before a natural 20 killed Kagak and turned the tide.

- I also ran L8 & 9 as an ambush. Basically I got them into that alley with Urnsul, before the the beast tamer and her dogs emerged from the smoke. I cut out the orcish raiders from L10 because they were exhausted and well beat up by then.

Hey...I told them to bring back up PCs! This group enjoys what they call "battle with consequences" and I want to reward them for smart battle and punish for dumb moves.

Overall this is a lot of fun doing this AP!

If I'm reading the pacing right, casters are almost certainly out of spells by the time they face Crusher, much less the final battle.

Am I reading it right; if so are other GMs just planning to let this run its course; if so and if not how do you plan to deal with it?

personally, it feels like the scenario becomes unfun for casters when they spend the last half trying to contribute without casting spells or getting into close melee. I could be wrong, though, and so the question.

Hey Kirk, I was really glad to find this thread because we are playing it right now. In fact, we are just at the point where the PCs level up to 3 and are about to engage with Omarst Frum at the assault of the west gate of Inner Trunau.

Basically in getting there, one barbarian and one battlemage fell but were brought back with healing. Where they stand now (Group of 5: barbarian, battlemage, slayer, cleric, rogue) is to be almost out of spells, although I did give them that wand of cure light wounds and with the potions they found I don't suspect healing will be an immediate issue.

I was going to run that final assault with Frum with a few mods:

1. In reading the adventure it never made sense to me that the PCs would secure the inner quarter, then run outside to the barter stones, then somehow come back to fight a giant. So they are going to go straight from the closing of the Inner Quarter to Crusher. Depending on how the waves of orcs go with Frum, I ***might***introduce a light catapult that flings the flaming bodies of Trunauan guards at them. Thought this was a particularly grisly touch.

2. After closing the inner quarter gates, I was thinking you could do something like have Kurst ride up and tell them that the inner quarter and Trunau common (the area they entered from, can't remember the name at the moment) are all secure and that the battle appears to be shifting in their favour the lower quarter, giving the PCs once they get through and light the fire at the hopespring (FWIW I agree with the previous sentiment that the exploding piece seems gratuitous. If you are giving them a rest however, do it, if not, don't maybe)? Then, they could be woken up with the message at the Longhouse that all hell has broken lose at the hopespring and Trunau's guard have been driven back by a giant?

Am trying to decide what to do...might just make a judgement call when I see how wasted they are at the end of the battle with Frum and the Orcish waves.