The party will basically have Kullen and his gang at their mercy, possibly coup de gracing some of them and keeping Kullen alive to be interrogated. Allow them to do this.
Play out Kullen as the dumb muscle. He doesn't know a lot about Schmenk's schemes, he just carries out the missions he's given, such as setting up Filge in the abandonned observatory (meeting the creepy necromancer gave Kullen an immediate dislike to the newcomer) and collecting corpses (a job Kullen found disgusting, to say the least, not to mention that one of his companions lost an arm there).
Kullen doesn't know anything about the the reasons behind the missions he's carrying out, he's just a stupid, buff drunk who can only lift a small tip of the veil. So it wouldn't be a problem to have the PCs question him. Whether he would be willing to cooperate greatly depends on how the PCs handle him and his friends. If the PCs kill his friends, he might turn out to be very stubborn.
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MrVergee nails the likely outcome on the head. Drunk and sleeping makes for coup de grace sapping. Make sure the PC have enough rope. ::smile::
I added a twist in my Kullen Gang dynamic in that Rastophan actually had a decent idea of what was going on in and around Diamond Lake. Taking a cue from his name, Rastophan was just too doped up at any given moment to really comment on his thoughts/theories. Having the PCs in a position of threatening his life may be sobering enough for Rastophan to spill any tidbits of story advancement you want or add some other details to fill out the setting.
I would include some kind of crude alarm system inside the front door of your shack - a stack of empty bottles, hanging bones or chimes, etc. to alert the sleeping gang of intruders. Some kind of simple (DC 15) disable device type obstacle. Kullen's gang are cocky and overconfident as the ruling 'toughs' in town and, as such, they probably wouldn't even think to set up watches while they sleep, but its still a really rough place and they wouldn't just crash without some minor form of protection - no matter how sloshed they are.
My party approached them in the Feral Dog. The priest attempted a straightforward reasoning with them (failed), next the rogue attempted a very creative bluff (failed), our female warrior attempted seduction (failed), and then our little gnome illusionist just got impatient and started one heck of a bar brawl. The party pummeled them soundly. Later, Kullen decided the party's 'gang' was tougher than his, and, being fed up with his last assignments from Schmenk, he asked to join up. This led to some excellent showdown's between Schmenk and the party over the next few game sessions. Kullen is 6th level now and enjoys his new employment tremendously.
Are you still running him as an NPC, or did one of your players take him over? Could be a good potential cohort for a rough and tumble type who wants leadership. What about the rest of the gang?
I would note that although as town toughs, they likely do drink to excess frequently, Diamond Lake is a tough town, and they wouldn't have survived along if they regularly got drunk until they passed out and then went to sleep in an unprotected hut. Somebody would have stabbed them in their sleep and taken their stuff long before now if it were that easy. They would at the very least have physical obstacles in their hideout (barred door and windows, locks, etc.), or warning devices against intruders. One thing very in keeping with their characters would be to give them a couple of pit bulls as guard dogs, or something of the sort.
In my own campaign, the party took a couple of days to study them and then grabbed one of them when he went outside to use the outhouse behind the tavern. They were able to get most of their questions answered then, but still had to have a showdown with Kullen and the rest of the gang later on. It was a good fight.
It’s always a delight to hear about other parties and how they have played the same adventure. It gives a great sense of a dynamic game, where there many possibilities and no two games are ever the same unlike, say, computer Games. My group did something entirely different.....
The youngest and most inexperienced player, (playing a knight from PHB 2), decided to challenge Kullen to a fight in the middle of the town square during market day. Kullen being …well Kullen wasn’t shy in answering the challenge. A fight ensued and Kullen lost and died Toderick now the new leader of the gang, (which is reason enough not to have helped Kullen), raised the town guard and the players knight was arrested. The knight resisted arrest but was quickly overcome and taken to sheriff Cubbins cells.
I will point out at this stage that I gave the knight plenty of hints and opportunities to the player that this was not a good course of action, I even at the end had Kullen hang on staggered at zero hit points to see if the knight would have any mercy. None was given and Kullen lost his head. So as a dm I’m faced with a player character locked up, and my main NPC and plot hook to filge dead. So what do you do….?
You have a raucous game of Three Dragon Ante in the Feral Dog. I had brought the card game and had been smarting to get it out and play it with the group. In fact I had planned to use it as a foil with Kullens gang and the players anyway for them to bluff the info they needed on filge over the game.
Kullens death wasn’t too much of a problem for the game in the end. I had Tordrick as the gangs leader now and he knew everything (or as little) as Kullen did. Seeing Kullen killed they headed for the Feral Dog to drink themselves into a sullen stupor and ponder there future under new leadership.
The other (more experienced) players followed the gang into the feral Dog and Roleplayed their way into Tordricks company and joined his game of Three Dragon Ante, got the info they wanted, won the game of three dragon ante (with the players using the actual cards) and then Tordrick having lost his leader and mate, his money and the game got angry and threw the over the table showering the taproom floor with over 80gp, …bring on the bar brawl it got nasty and Tordrick lost his head too. Gambling games often turn nasty in the Feral Dog and so the law wasn’t brought in this time.
For the knight justice was swift (Cubbin style) he was tortured and sold to Ragolin Dourstone as a slave to work in his mine, which sets up a new Roleplaying hook for the Three Faces Of Evil. We are now on the Three Faces and the hook really paid dividends a thousand fold. The player has been allowed to resume playing his knight character now the party is in the evil temple.