Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I am a big fan of reactive villians, and such, like to hash out their motiviations to determine their response to when adventurers strike.
Nualia
Motivation: Unearth remains of father and offer them to Lamashtu to begin change to fiendish form. Mount massive attack against Sandpoint for (a) revenge and (b) to fill the runewell of wraith.
Plan: Free Malfeshnekor and, with him as her general, rally the goblin tribes to attack Sandpoint.
Actions: As written, it's not clear what stops Nualia from freeing Malfeshnekor other than locating the key in room E9. Thus, 1d4 days after the party arrives at Thistletop, Nualia succeeds in releasing Malfeshnekor. Following his release, she dispatches him to rally the goblin army and attacks Sandpoint in 2d10+5 days. Meanwhile, Nualia begins making preparations to secure the Catacombs of Wrath as a secondary front in the coming battle, sacrificing goblins to fuel the runewell and creating additional sinspawn.
Response to Adventurers: Given how close Nualia is to freeing Malfeshnekor, she refuses to abandon her efforts in Level Two. Instead, she sends Brathzamus, Orik, or Lyrie (in that order of preference) out with a band of goblins to track the party and kill them. Once Malfeshnekor is freed, she sends him instead (or in addition to, if one of the prior mercenaries has already failed). Meanwhile, she returns to the Catacombs of Wrath to await news of his mission. Should he fail, she puts into place a desperate plan to have the goblins attack Sandpoint while she rouses sinspawn with whatever sacrificial victims she can muster. Unfortunately, after the destruction of the Thistletop goblins and the defeat of Malfeshnekor, the goblin tribes cannot be sufficiently roused to make the attack, and Nualia makes it her mission to hunt down and destroy the party.
I had the same thought regarding Naulia. It felt like it was just a simple matter of flexible time before releasing the Barghest, something to absolutely exploit should PC's procrastinate or otherwise waste time doing something else.
I "third" this line of thinking. My group of players is wont to rest and rest and rest (lazy bums) so I think I will add this "reactive" side to the adventure so they can't just blow all their spells recklessly and then rest because *cry* all their spells are gone.
See! I still have a little rat bastard DM in me!
There is another thread on this same topic with more posts:
"Burnt Offerings - Dynamic Villians [SPOILERS]"
I've spent an embarassing amount of time posting to that thread. I think the ideas are great, but I suppose I'm biased...