Resting under the Stone Giants

[catdragon]

Please excuse the profusion of spoiler tags but I thought it would be safer just to be paranoid than spoil something for a player. So you players, you know who you are, just hurry along. Nothing to see here. Honest.

Well, I am running Fortress of the Stone Giants now and the PCs just got to the bottom level. They just had a running fight with the

Spoiler:

runeslave hill giant (and the nifty reduction trap, which only affect two characters <pout>), the stone golem, and the headless lord and his entourage of zombies.

And i just know they are going to want to rest now. But

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Mokmurian is aware of them and he isn't going to want them to get rest.

How would you suggest harrying them so they will continue without forcing them to retreat all the way to

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the redcap's caves?

I was thinking some hit and runs by

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the scanderig.

I am also toying with the surprise appearance by

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a hound or three of Tindalos.

One quick thought i just had.... an ethereal filcher or a pack of ethereal marauders. That might be interesting. After all we are dealing with ECL 11-12 now.

Suggestions? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? :)

[DM Mogney]

From reading the scanderig it seemed to me that he wouldnt let them rest since he continually does hit and run attacks until they fight him in his lair room.

If the party retreats up a level they will need to pass through the reduce trap twice more, big incentive not to retreat.

And if they go away and rest, it is perfectly reasonable for Mokmurian to set up an ambush for them when they return. Maybe he could even go and get some more stone giant minions or something...

I really like to discourage resting in the middle of a dungeon though :) Combat isn't really about killing the players it is about consuming their resources (spells, potions, wands, per day abilities, etc) so letting them rest basically negates the warm up fights before the big fight at the end of the dungeon. In larger dungeons it is necessary for them to rest, but this isn't a particularly large dungeon, and so long as they entered the lower levels fairly fresh they shouldn't need to rest again IMO.

My players were able to clear the level without resting.