Valdir the Wanderer's page

That is a lot to take in, and I really appreciate the thought you've put into this.

I think I'm beginning to see that my players are too powerful for a conventional skill challenge.

Here's some context. The country they're in is falling under control of its old motherland. They (Alvaria) tried to revolutionize and declare independence, and it went well for a number of years. The motherland, Thalcania, never acknowledged Alvaria's independence, and took its time building up a massive fleet of ships, and started invading the cities on the south coast. The city where the PCs currently are is one such city (the first to fall, in fact).
The agent they're trying to meet up with is part of the Alvarian resistance.
In addition to having soldiers who are better equipped than the average Alvarian, the Thalcanians have wizards. And they have photographs of the PCs, so they could scry on them. They've also opened contracts with the Bounty Hunters' Guild, so maybe that's where some elite characters could come in.

A single card transition is supposed to be a double move right, so on average about 60'. In 60' then there may be 2 skill challenges. If the PCs go 3 miles in a straight line with no deviation they're moving 15,840'. This translates to 264 cards; 528 skill checks.

I did the math and came up with the same number, which seemed like a bit much, so I thought I might pare it down a bit to be more manageable, so it doesn't drag on for two hours.

A few questions, about your PCs:

Do any of them possess movement types besides their Base speed, such as a Climb, Fly or Swim speed?

None of the PCs do, unless my mom's sorcerer uses the Fly spell.

Is there any form of teleportation magic in the group?

Yes, the sorcerer has Dimension Door, and the dwarf has Abundant Step.

Would this party feel comfortable traveling to other dimensions?

Funny you should ask. They got to the city they're at by plane-hopping. Since no one has Teleport, the cleric cast Plane Shift to go to the Plane of Air, then again to get them to their destination (150 miles from their starting point) since they'd been to it before.

Does anyone in the party possess a spell, racial or class ability to either summon or turn into another creature of any kind?

Well, the Hunter has Aspect of the Beast, and the sorcerer just got Form of the Dragon I as a bonus spell from her bloodline (13 minutes per casting).

What consumables do the PCs usually carry?

Hard to keep track. If the cleric ever gets time to brew potions, he usually makes healing potions. The sorcerer has a few wands, one of which has a few charges of Invisibility left. She's also got some scrolls, and the rest of the party probably have a few single-use items they've been carrying around forever.

These are all common exploits, along with having racial/class abilities, spells, feats or magic items that grant either enhanced Base movement rates or alternate movement types. Generally, by level 12, PCs find a way to fly, teleport, navigate water, etc. in order to deal with enemies in a variety of environments.

For example you have a Dwarf Monk in the party, I'd suspect level 12. So without knowing anything about the build, I'm going to look at a generic core monk, 12th level, as well as the basic dwarf.

Using Abundant Step, for every 2 Ki Points this monk spends one Move action teleports them 880'. A 12th level monk has 6 Ki points plus their Wis modifier; I'm guessing at least +2 but it might be higher. With 4 Abundant steps this monk could teleport 3,520' from wherever the first patrol spots them.

That might negate some of the Chase scene.

You would be right.

Also one of the PCs has a black Pegasus AC. While I can't find stats for that specific creature a standard Pegasus has 60' Fly speed and can carry 300 lbs as a Light load. I'm guessing the 12th level AC is likely stronger than it's Bestiary counterpart and has a greater than average carrying capacity. Said AC may be capable of holding the Elf Hunter along with the Catfolk Ranger, at least based on carrying capacity. If the monk teleports away and 2 other PCs fly...

Right again. The ranger also has a habit of casting Ant Haul on the pegasus so he can carry the whole party (they made a rope harness so everyone can hang on).

Don't pick a number of rounds. The encounter lasts as long as it takes to answer the dramatic question. As long as the pace is good and there are plenty of decision points, it won't "drag".

Logistically, a chase isn't just an all-out run. You might hide in an alley for a moment, double back, fein a retreat, stop to create a diversion, etc. Instead of measuring distance and time, measure what matters: story beats, decisions and consequences.

So with all this in mind, I should just keep track of the distance, and let the PCs get to their goal however they can, while making checks for the Opposition to try to find them at each beat? I think the soldiers will have a fair chance of finding them at any given point, since they occupy the whole city, and the PCs have alerted them to their presence.

To the Don's point, sometimes a chase isn't a chase. I generated a "chase" scene of a pack horse breaking away from the camp of a group of APL 3 PCs. The horse broke away, heading for a steep cliff it was going to tumble over. Round 1, rather than any of the skill challenges the PCs let go of the animal's reins, all fired Ranged attacks, dropped the horse to negative HP, then ran over and healed it to keep it from dying.

That's pretty clever. :)

I was kind of hoping for advice on how many squares should be in a 3-mile chase, and by extension, how many rounds? Essentially, how many skill checks should I stack together before it's over? I feel like I have to balance it between making it long enough to be a challenge and not so long that it drags on forever.

Also, it's happening late at night, and they've just had a pretty tough fight. One of them was Disintegrated down to 6HP. Also the soldiers know a bit about them, so they've got spotlights all over the city in case they try to fly.

I'm using the Skill Challenge rules here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/skill-challenges/

My party of five (APL 12.8) are on the run from the soldiers occupying the city they're in. They have about 3 miles of the city to cross to get to a predetermined meeting place where a resistance agent will take them underground and they'll be safe. They are being pursued by soldiers who want them dead or captured, so this is a pursuit.

Here's what I do have:
The CR (12)
The skill DCs (easy 27, average 32, challenging 34, difficult 37, very difficult 39)

Here's what I don't have/quite know how to put together:
Primary Skills
How many squares I need
Frequency (how many rounds/minutes in a cycle?)
Obstacles, if any
The Opposition's skill list

*I have a few of the Opposition's skills: Acrobatics, Perception, and Knowledge Local.
So that the soldiers actually have a chance of catching a group of fairly high-level PCs, I've scaled them up so that they're skills are comparable to the players'.

Also of note are my players. We've got:
An Elf Hunter
An Aasimar Sorcerer
A Catfolk Ranger and her black pegasus animal companion
A Dwarf Monk
A Human Cleric

Nobody has Knowledge (Local).

To keep things as simple as I can, I'm not bothering with any special qualities.

There are probably some other things I'm forgetting, but this is what I'm focusing on now. If anyone here is experienced in putting together skill challenges, I'd be grateful for any help in how to streamline this process. My next game isn't for another week, so I'm not in a big rush. I just want my players to have a good time with a new (for our game) mechanic that will net them some pretty sweet XP should they succeed.

The first thing that catches my eye is that you killed off his master so that you would not have to roleplay an NPC, and now he wants to find a new one. This sounds like you have a basic conflict with your player.

Well, he's a good friend of mine. He's really smart- probably smarter than me- and he's really good at justifying his actions, no matter how obtuse they might be.

If you want to prosecute this conflict, then you should make this PC's story arc about learning how to deal without a master, to master himself. His high-born noble sense of entitlement seems like a nice character flaw to grow the PC out of. Perhaps you should give him some humiliating experiences with masters or would-be masters.

The problem there is I don't think he as a player recognizes it as a flaw. It's one thing if a player knows his character has a flaw and plays to it for the story with every intention of growing out of it, and quite another when he doesn't think he has a problem. At the moment I'm not sure there's a way to humble his character without humbling him. Not that I can't figure it out, of course. This is just the challenge I'm facing right now.

So my 7th-level human Draconic Druid player has lost his master and is going to try to find another teacher among his order of druids (called the Keepers).

I wasn't very imaginative at the beginning with having my master druid NPC giving him training regimens or cirricula, and half of the reason I killed him off was so I wouldn't have to run a party NPC. I want the party to solve their own problems without a much wiser character constantly telling them when they have stupid ideas. (The other half of the reason was for story elements, of course.)

Now he's on this quest to find another master to help him learn how to control his gifts. In the story, he's prone to bursting into flame when overcome with emotional stress. He also has some kind of draconic heritage in his bloodline. His master was trying to teach him how to protect the world from himself by controlling the fire inside him. Now his master is gone, and he thinks he needs someone else to guide him.

To add another layer to this sweaty onion, he's a high-born noble and has a propensity for entitlement. His father is a duke, he's a lord, and he's starting to throw that around.

One of the plans I have for him is giving him the opportunity to gain (at least part of) the Flame-touched template. He'll have to work for it, and probably the first time he attempts to walk the Path of Fire, he'll fail and realize he has a long way to go. (Basically this involves spending 24 hours in the Plane of Fire.)

Is there some kind of progression I can take his character's story through that, in the frame of a fast-XP game, will provide the opportunity for him to learn what he needs to without burdening me with another NPC to tag along with the party?

How would you go about turning a Clockwork Dragon into a vehicle? I'm picturing a huge vehicle with just enough room inside for a crew of six to operate the limbs, wings, and head and tail. Whoever operates the head also fires the breath weapon.

All I'm really concerned with is knowing how the AC, saves, and HP would change, and how its initiative would work.

I'm in a bit of a rush to get this posted, so I can't think of everything to ask about right now. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

@ Azothath:
That is great advice, thank you. I'd never heard of GM 101 before, but I'll begin reading it immediately.
I'd never considered DPR before. I've still got a lot to learn.

So here's the story.

Ever since I found out about the Trox, I've wanted to see one in a game, as a barbarian or a fighter. I haven't been able to play as one myself.

In January, I started running a game for a few friends from church. One has been playing D&D for more than 10 years, the other two have never played a tabletop RPG.

Here's the party composition we ended up with:
Human draconic druid (he's the veteran D&D player)
Catfolk Celestial bloodline sorceress
Trox barbarian

The idea here is that with two spellcasters, they needed someone to protect them. As the third party member didn't have any particular preferences about what he wanted to be, I suggested the Trox barbarian (and, to be honest, I really played up how massively strong he would be), and he went for it. To be fair, I did not exaggerate at all how powerful he would be. If anything, I may have underestimated.

Which brings me to today. My brother and sister (who have played Pathfinder for 2 years in another campaign of mine) are also joining, as a halfling rogue and a homebrew lizardfolk shaman. They'll help fill in some skill gaps and provide a party healer (my brother, playing the shaman, is playing his character as someone who doesn't like killing things).

I've come to realize that I've created a monster. The party is now 6th-level (I started everyone out at 5th), and the trox can one-shot most low-level monsters with a Power Attack. And now they have two more party members, one who can buff the party and debuff enemies, and one who can sneak attack.

To be fair, it isn't like they haven't come close to death. When it was the original 3, they went up against a pack of gnolls, and a demon and a sorceress and almost died. And that was with me running another druid (my friend's in-game teacher) to serve as not only a story element, but also as a sort of healer. I plan to kill him off just to make things easier for me to run, but until then I've got a very powerful party and I'm not sure what to do with it.

As of the end of my last session, the new party of 5 were just assembled and haven't engaged in any combat yet. So I haven't even thought about what kind of encounter to design for their first battle.

I'm trying to strike that delicate balance between challenging them enough that they have a chance to succeed and throwing a horde of monsters at them that just wipes hem out. I've already learned that spellcasters are effective against the trox, but arcane spellcasters are rare in my world. It doesn't make sense for every battle they have be against a sorcerer who can put the trox to sleep and drop him with Create Pit.

So I'm looking for ideas to challenge this party in a way that makes sense, while not overpowering my monsters. Maybe create one or two really tough monsters to challenge the trox while the others fight the rest of the party? Not sure. I know I need my mind opened up a bit, as I've got a minor case of tunnel vision here.

Any help, even the smallest idea, would be greatly appreciated.

So the slave revolt was the start of a nationwide revolutionary war. The two countries are Alvaria and Thalcania (Thalcania being the "parent" country). The war has lasted about 16 years, during which time the government has changed and slavery has been outlawed. The fighting was intense during the first few years, but has died down to almost nothing for a long time. Thalcania still refuses to acknowledge Alvaria's sovereignty.

I say all that because Thalcanian forces are going to invade again. This whole time they've been building up their armies and their naval forces, and in a few weeks' time, they'll have taken over some of the cities on the southern coast of Alvaria and will be in the process of re-establishing Thalcanian law.

When my player's character was taken, he was alone and separate from his family. After the revolt, he joined the Alvarian military and helped in the fighting, until his contract was up and he went off looking for his parents. He went back home, but didn't find them there. So far he hasn't found any other leads.

So part of a player's backstory is that he was separated from his family at a young age and spent most of his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood as a slave.

Fast forward several years, there's been a slave revolt, he's free and working for a powerful thieves' guild. He wants part of his "main quest" to involve looking for his parents.

Keep in mind, he's a Trox. His parents are Trox. They're not very common, and they're really hard to miss. They tend to leave an impression on people.

I'd like for his employer (a woman with long reach and deep connections) to have some kind of tip for him, but I haven't had a decent "Aha!" moment, and my next session is this Friday. I'm in last-minute-panic-prep mode.

Also, they don't have the same racial history as the Trox in the books. They originate from an island off the west coast, and he's already been there looking for them. Where did they go? If they were sold as slaves, they were probably separated, but after the revolt, where did they end up, and why have they been so hard for him to find?

Any ideas or starting points or can openers for my brain would be greatly appreciated.

I've gotten a lot of great ideas here. Thank you all.

I'm not too worried about him getting things to which the other players won't have access. The sorceress (my mom) recently met an ancestor of hers, an ancient silver dragon, who gave her a powerful magical artifact (basically a beefed up version of a Headband of Alluring Charisma +6), and I plan on taking the rest of the players through similar character-specific story arcs that will net them some pretty sweet rewards. This one just happened to work for my dad at the time.

Here's my idea so far (feel free to tell me if it's too much): Give him a part of the Fey-touched template, but reduce the Dex bonus to +2 instead of +4. He'll still get DR = 1/2 HD, and I'll let him add Barkskin to his spell list as a free spell (since Hunters are like Sorcerers in their limited spell knowledge, and that spell seems appropriate).

I'll also let him have an aspect of the Noble Born trait, so he'll get a +2 bonus (or more, maybe add Diplomacy as a class skill) on Diplomacy checks made to deal with fey creatures (this bonus will extend to checks made when negotiating on the Erlking's behalf), and a +1 bonus to Will saves against Fey spell effects.

Also I'd like to point out that everyone in the party is 10th level, and they don't have a lot of gold, so most of the rewards they've been getting over the past several levels have been quest-related (it just hasn't made sense for gold to fall out of zombie dinosaurs or flying Qlippoth).

Congratulations to your player! Do you have to address him as Sir Player now?

(SCNR)

Well, I don't, but the other players might.

My players just discovered a chamber deep in an untamed forest where an Erlking and his wife had been sleeping for millennia. My dad's elf hunter spoke the command word to awaken them, and the first proclamation that the Erlking made was that the hunter would now be a Knight of the Untamed Wood.

This was a huge moment for my dad, and honestly it wasn't something I thought through at all. It was a bit of spur-of-the-moment improv, and I have no idea what it might mean for my dad's character going forward. I think there should be some kind of conditional bonuses attached to it, like he just gained a trait, but I'm not sure what.

If there are any established rules for this sort of thing, point me there and I'll figure it out.

I do realize that now he is technically in service to a powerful fey creature, which could either be really good or really bad, depending on the character's sensibilities of right and wrong. Fey are capricious and unpredictable, and this particular Erlking was recovering from a war with a demon general, and his entire kingdom was practically destroyed. So he wouldn't be the most stable person in the first place, regardless of his creature type.

I also know that, for better or worse, this event has changed the world the PC's are in. With the Erlking's influence behind it, that forest is going to expand, and in a few months of in-game time it will have absorbed several small towns and a couple of larger cities within a few miles of its borders.

But for now I'd just like some ideas on what kind of boon my dad's character might get for being a knight of a brand-new kingdom that consists of exactly three people (the Erlking, his wife the Hamadryad, and my dad, the king's single current subject).

Any help or advice on this would be most appreciated.

Wow, I haven't looked at this thread in over a month, and I'm seeing a lot of great ideas here.

Thanks!

I did come up with something I think I'll go with, but I might make some changes, given the new insights I've gotten from you all.

As settlers spread out into a new land, they encountered dragons. Inevitably, conflict arose. The humans suffered many dragon attacks, but were resourceful and inventive, and began developing weapons to help hunt them.

This is where guns and firearms enter the story, and so the decline of dragons is directly related to the rise in the use of guns.

Long story short, a council of metallic dragons convenes to decide what their best course of action is. They ultimately decide they should leave, go to another world, and a Gate is prepared. Some of the metallic dragons were sent out as emissaries to the surviving dragons to tell them of the time and date the Gate would be opened.

Meanwhile, five chromatic dragons banded together and assaulted the humans' capital city, laying it to waste and getting away with it. They arrogantly proclaimed their triumphs from any high place they could find, but did not stay together. They went their separate ways, satisfied that they had dealt the humans a fatal blow.

They hadn't. The humans regrouped, made stronger weapons, and sent out hunting parties to catch and kill these chromatic dragons.

Four of them were slaughtered. The white one was caught in his cave, but by this time he'd heard of the demise of some of his friends, and was alerted by traps he had set up in his paranoia. He was able to escape by burrowing through the ground and out of the mountains.
The silver found the white, and knew what he'd done to the human city. He decided then to lie and tell him the Gate was opening in a different place on a different day.

The silver is still in this world because he is serving as a sort of monitor for the humans. If their society ever gets to a point at which it can peacefully coexist with nature and magical creatures, he'll send word to the other dragons that they can return.

The white is angry that he got left behind, and has made it his life's work to end the silver dragon. His mate was killed by humans, but not before she had lain a couple of eggs.

That's the basic idea I'm going with. There might still be some holes I need to plug, but I think it'll do the trick.

In the world I'm building, dragons are extremely rare. My party have met two, but are aware of three. One is an ancient silver dragon and my sorcerer's ancestor (draconic bloodline). One is an ancient white, and a rival to the silver. Another is the ancient white's son, and they barely escaped him alive when they encountered him.
These encounters have not been frequent. No other NPC they've ever met has seen a dragon. It is generally believed that they are either severely endangered, or extinct.
That isn't necessarily the case. The dragons didn't all die off, I just haven't figured out where they went. I've got a loose idea rattling around in my head about something called the Dragon's Gate, and maybe there was a mass migration and they went to a different dimension, but that raises its own set of problems (like, why would chromatic and metallic dragons migrate together? Did all the Imperial and Primal dragons go too? If so, why? Also, why are there still a few dragons left?).
Another common theme in my world is that magic is not as common as it used to be. There's one country that is a magical superpower, but on the whole, arcane magic is becoming more rare. Perhaps there is a connection between that and the disappearance of the dragons.
Also, society is becoming more modern, and spreading out to tame the wilds of nature. It is possible that dragons got in the way of the spread of civilization, and some of them were eliminated.
Addendum: Creatures like drakes and wyverns are not quite as rare. Sea drakes patrol the coasts, and forest drakes live in the deep forests. A player in my second party decided to be a draconic druid, and chose a fire drake as his animal companion.
That's part of the biggest reason I want to figure this out. My storytelling has always been driven by my players and the characters they've created (these are the first two games I've ever run as a GM), and I want to have something for them to do for their main quests. A draconic druid in a world with no dragons has some interesting paths to tread. He's going to be on a quest to find out where the dragons went, so I need to figure that out for myself.
I'd like some help fleshing out ideas for this, if anyone is willing.

Wait, I think I got it. The one attack from Double Slice counts as two attacks, and so technically the multiple attack penalty wouldn't apply until you made a third attack, at which point it would take the -10 penalty.

Am I right?

Both attacks are at full BAB, the second isn't -5. Also the damage combines so if enemy has damage resistances it only applies 1 time.

Okay, thank you. I get the damage combination now. But my brain is still hiccupping over the last part of the feat description, where it says, "This counts at two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty."

I just want to understand your reasoning for why there's no penalty on the second strike.

I also don't get what Double Slice is actually supposed to do. Isn't it the same outcome if I just attack something twice? What does the language about combining the damage of the weapons mean?

Page 178: Multiple Attack Penalty

If you attack more than once on the same turn, your attacks after the first take a penalty called a multiple attack penalty. Your second attack takes a -5 penalty, and the third takes a -10 penalty. This penalty is untyped and cumulative with all other penalties.
The penalty doesn't apply to attacks you take when it isn't your turn (such as attacks made as part of a reaction), though these attacks often have their own penalty. You an choose a weapon with the agile trait to reduce your multiple attack penalty (see page 182).

Agile:
The multiple attack penalty you take on the second attack each turn with this weapon is -4 instead of -5, and -8 instead of -10 on the third and subsequent attacks in the turn.

The problem I'm having is, I don't fully understand how Double Slice works with multiple attacks, and why the 2nd attack is at a -2 if the weapon DOESN'T have the Agile trait.
Does this mean that the total penalty on the second strike without the Agile trait is at -7?

I don't know how "multi layered" you want the plot to get but you could also run an intrigue through this whole thing. The PCs get to the newspaper and find some goblin scrawl from a particular agent inside the tribe, communicating with the rogue.

Some old acquaintance is trying to bring the rogue back into the tribe's business. Maybe they don't like being beholden to a barghest or whatever but they're actually helping the party and feeding them info.

At the same time the local cops are getting tipped by another faction of the goblins. The police are trying to apprehend the rogue for her ties to the enemies and evidence is suddenly materializing of her crimes, some of which might not even be real.

I just had the idea of making the Boss the Barghest. Since they're shapechangers, he's just been masquerading as a goblin this whole time. The party has even seen him and just thinks he's a bigger-than-average goblin. But he's something so much worse.

Also, the rogue has a photojournalist friend who helps tip her off to some of the goblins' movements (he also gives the party a heads-up on the newspaper office's layout so they can have a better attack plan). He ends up on the Boss's radar, the Boss eats him, which puts him at enough growth to turn into a Greater Barghest. Ultimate boss fight for the party at the end of the invasion.
(Just before the photojournalist gets snackified, he snaps a shot of the barghest as it's coming down on him. When the photo gets developed, it's grainy and blurry, but it shows the vague shape of some wolf-like creature. Might be a fun little way to mess with the party and make them think a werewolf is involved. Wisdom checks to see if anyone notices whether there's been a full moon.)

I like the idea of a back-and-forth between the rogue and the goblins. Could cast doubt on her in the party's eyes, but she's using it as an avenue to predict the goblins' moves.

@ Mark Hoover 330:

There are a lot of great suggestions here. I like the idea of adding the Barghest (I honestly didn't even know about them or that they were related to goblins).

Multiple little scenarios like the burning orphanage are perfect for what I want to do with the invasion. Ultimately I'd like it to end with the party having to storm the central military base after it gets taken over. Enough little scenarios where resources are being pulled around would lead up to that pretty easily.

Here's a bit more insight to what's going on. The country they're in is in a revolutionary war with its parent country, so the military is already spread pretty thin.
The rogue of the party is currently being looked for by the local police, because they suspect her of having dealings with the goblins. She did used to work for the goblins in the distant past, but quit after freeing my sister's character from their clutches. (Cat was a slave of theirs for a long time, and that's partly why they're invading- they want her and her parents back). So the rogue is looking for a way to clear her name with the cops, since she's on the right side of things now.
The catfolk's parents have been taken to a secret location by the police for their protection. The goblins printed a threat in the newspaper saying the citizens could stop the pillaging of their city if they just handed the cats over (think the Joker's threat to blow up a hospital in The Dark Knight- it puts the parents in danger of the citizens in addition to the goblins).

I think I might use that entire burning orphanage scenario, and just add my own things to it. I really like that idea.

Thank you. I realize I'm not very good at coming up with multi-layered scenarios on the spot. I guess I just haven't had enough practice.

I'm a new GM and have been running a game for my family since about April 2017. My party consists of my dad's Elf Hunter (and his tiger animal companion), my mom's Aasimar sorcerer, my brother's Dwarf monk, my sister's Catfolk Ranger (and her pegasus animal companion), my ex-fianceé's Half-elf rogue, and my human cleric (since nobody wanted to play a cleric and I decided to just provide the party with one).
(Side note: My ex-fianceé is no longer in our party; I'm just running her character because I couldn't bring myself to kill her off.)

They're all a few hundred XP away from Level 6.

They've been in a city for a couple of weeks and events have led up to a horde of goblins invading the city. They're already inside, and are using the sewers to move around and cause trouble. The party has 6 days before they're scheduled to leave the city as guards for a ship going downriver. They would like to have the goblin problem mopped up before they leave, and so would I- I just want to make it a close call.
Their next objective is to liberate the local newspaper office. The goblins have taken over and are printing threats and demands to the city (specifically, they want the parents of my sister's catfolk ranger- long story). So the party wants to take the newspaper back and look for clues to the Boss goblin's whereabouts, since that's currently their only lead.

I need some advice on making this whole invasion interesting. I want it to last the rest of the 6 days the party will be in the city, and I want to make it more than just a long string of garden-variety goblin encounters. What other creatures could the goblins sneak into the city to use as allies? What kinds of traps could they set for the party? Is there anything else I can do to make it more intriguing and memorable?

I've spent a lot of creativity on crafting this city and the scenarios for each session, and I'm running out of steam. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.