In my campaign, the players ripped through the entire place with relative ease.
Now, first off, yes, the goblins are currently organized by Nualia and set up to be well defended. But they are FAR from a well-oiled militaristic machine. Everyone at Thistletop MAY be on the same side, but they don't like each other. There's bickering and in-fighting going on. Orik and Lyrie don't like the goblins (especially Orik) and don't really want to be around them, so they stick mostly down below. Bruzalthamus is a bully among them, and most likely goblins wouldn't back him up in a fight, just lead him into one and hope both sides wipe each other out while any other goblins run for another advantage. The Goblin Druid himself is nearly on the verge of a coup, as he severely dissaproves of their leader's decision to ally with Nualia and is looking for any excuse or reason to get Ripnugget to kick Nualia out. He wouldn't cooperate or help Nualia or her gang if they needed it unless his own immediate survival depended on it. The goblins on Thistletop playing with the gull are in the back and most likely have no idea any invasion would be going on until something drew their attention. The goblins in the watchtowers would stay posted because that's the best defensible posiiton. And Ripnugget himself has a trap planned for invaders in his throne room. This trap wouldn't work if he had the entire room packed with goblins brandishing dogchoppers.
The encounters that you also list as being worried about such as the Bunyip, the Hermit crab, and Malfeshnekor aren't even active threats. They stay pretty much where they are and can only hurt PC's if they willingly enter their area.
(It's been over six months since book 1, so my memory may be a bit off on things)
The players arrived at the Briar maze, and instead of SEARCHING for the entrance, just started hacking through the briar vines. They hacked in, and stealthily took out the first group of goblins. They then encountered the goblin refugees, and midway through slaughtering them the alarm was raised in the maze. First, the goblin dogs were let loose and came in from behind the party. Next, the goblin druid and his pet were alerted and headed toward the battle. The firepelt was taken down rather quickly, while the goblin druid made effective use of walking through the bramble walls doing guerilla-style attacks with flame blad and pinning the party down with Entangle and blocking passages with flaming sphere.
Eventually the party drove him away, where he retreated across the bridge and to Ripnugget, alerting him of the invaders (and of course blaming it on Nualia)
The party cleared the last of the maze out. From here on out, any surviving goblins or returning goblin patrols would shore up inside the fortifications on Thistletop, leaving the breached maze abandoned.
The party then chose to explore the Bunyip pit, and after a quick rope climb down, an extended swimming session, and a whole lot of "summon sharks" from the party druid, it was cleared.
Next, they assaulted Thistletop directly. It had only been about five to ten minutes in game since the initial clearing of the briar maze, so only the goblins on the first level were aware of the PC's still at this point. The front door had been closed and barred shut from the inside. The goblin dog riders behind Thistletop were still unaware of things since they're outside in the back. The distant proximity and crashing of ocean waves all around prevented them from hearing anything. The PC's took out the goblins on the two towers, and behind Thistletop through a combination of archery and the party "ninja" climbing on top of the fortifications. At this point the majority of the party zerg rushed the bridge, tripping the rigged bridge and dumping the Bard into the ocean along with a few others hanging to the bridge on the side of the cliff wall.
After regrouping and fishing for the bard with rope, the party climbed to the top of the largest tower, barricaded the trap door down, and camped for the night. I now stepped up the alert to the next level. Nualia and her minions knew that Thistletop had been attacked. The goblin druid healed up with potions and spells and waited in Ripnuggets room until Ripnugget's ambush. The bottom of the stairwells leading into the second level were barricaded and posted with defending goblins per Nualia's orders, and a patrol of four goblins patrolled the halls of the first level on a constant basis. All of the doors leading outside were barred.
The next morning the party broke in, cleared the patrol, then set off Ripnugget's ambush. They downed Ripnugget on the first round and the fight was largely a slaughter for the goblins. The rest of the first level was cleared.
From there on out it was pretty much a systematic, thorough room-by-room sweep of each level until everything was cleared. Lyria was encountered barricaded in the "study" area with several goblin guards, and when things went badly she ordered the goblins to hold back the PC's while she retreated to Nualia, warning her of the PC's approach and giving Nualia time to buff up with spells. Other than that, everything else ran pretty much as described in the module.
In the end I felt it played out realistically, but I had the opposite problem... the PC's ripped apart Thistletop like tissue paper with the only difficult encounters being the fight with the Druid in the briar maze, and Nualia.
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Nualia actually doesnt have much to do with the goblins on the top floor. She is pretty focused on her project as it is, this is part of the reason why she has Orik as her bodyguard, who is relaxing in his room.
Nualia is depending on Ripnugget to take care of any issues and the goblin "king" may be reluctant to involve her in anything as a last resort. I dont think the "longshanks" would take an active role in any of this until Ripnugget sends a runner down to Nualia, who I think would tend to dismiss this and just send the bugbear and yeth hounds to deal with the problem...maybe after an hour after the hounds dont return she would be more active, but in general its Ripnugget's problem.
The goblins are stupid and the heroes can gain access thru stealth to take the goblins by surprise. The main issue is the PCs getting into the goblin fort. There it could be a TPK if the goblins use ranged weapons on the PCs, and the PCs cant retreat cuz of the bridge issue, but once the PCs are in the inner walls then they should do quite well (bad rolls and decisions not included).
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Having literally just finished what you're about to start, here's how it went.
They blundered into one of the little guard posts, thanks to having a druid who can go through the bramble thicket without any trouble. Landing directly on top of one of the goblin guards, the fire bolts cast by one PC missed and caught the brambles on fire.
Fleeing the burning part of the thicket, they stumbled into the goblin druid, Gogmurt, and wounded him, driving him off -- but again, fire bolts caused more fire. The prisoners in the thicket had a rough time of it, some dying and the rest somehow running off.
Facing the druid's little pet, they got nicked up a bit, and by the time they got to the bridge, they were too tired to look for traps. The rigged bridge plunged one of the PCs into the water below.
A second PC dove after him without bothering to do anything vis-a-vis ROPE, and the two PCs, thanks to armor and equipment, BARELY made it to shore, whereupon I sicced a giant crab on them as a wandering monster (the bunyip wouldn't have been a good match, so I threw a 9HD advanced crab at them instead, and they demolished it posthaste).
The party managed to climb out of the Howling Hole, and headed back to Sandpoint for a little R&R, which meant the goblins, et al, were fully alerted when they decided to return.
Which they did, with more muscle. Figuring Ripnugget wouldn't just sit on his butt in the throne room, I brought the whole crew out to face them -- Orik (I figured it made sense -- Nualia, with her above-average Wisdom and average Intelligence, would be painfully aware, especially after hearing of the Shadowmist debacle, that goblins are stupid, so she told him to go out and make sure the goblins didn't fall apart), Ripnugget, Bruthazmus, Gogmurt and a dozen goblins.
One friggin entangle spell made a hash of my plans to let the PCs make it to Thistletop, cross the bridge, and then jump and thump them.
Everyone on the goblins' side except Orik was killed; wounded, he begged for mercy, and was captured and recruited as an extra sword thanks to some downright absurd Diplomacy, etc., rolls. Friggin 20s...
After this, the rest of level C, the area of Thistletop the goblins used the most, was pretty easy. They found Shadowmist and again the druid did his thing, offering the animal food and winning an instant friend. They cleared the rest of the topside level with virtually no problems, goblins and goblin dogs in C16 being only a minor hazard.
On level D, it went rather smoothly, though I decided to have Tsuto and eight goblin Ftr1s ambush the party (the party was by now 3rd-4th level and the regular gobbos wouldn't do) in the temple of Lamashtu. I waited a couple minutes after they dispatched the two yeth hounds there.
The goblins got wasted, and Tsuto, injured, fled to get help from Lyrie, who was in the research room.
Lyrie and Tsuto ambushed the party as they came down the steps leading to E1. I bumped Lyrie UP to 6th level as a wizard, gave her fireball AND lightning bolt, and the party -- a 4th level druid, 4th level cleric, 2nd level barbarian and Orik -- not only survived, but thanks to yet another da%$ed 20 (double damage -- 34 total -- from a splinter bolt spell from the 3.5 D&D Spell Compendium is rough on a mid-level NPC), Tsuto (to whom I had also added levels and gave a disgustingly high Acrobatics number) and Lyrie lasted about four rounds, though I did knock two of the PCs (well, the barbarian and Orik, anyway) into negative hit points for a couple of rounds (lesser vigor, by far, is the best low-level healing spell around -- again, the 3.5 SpellComp saving the PCs' day).
At the end of the last session, the party had clean out C11-C24, almost all of level D, and was about to enter E2, the Hellcat's Lair.
Now, as I said, the party had reached 3rd or 4th level by the time we had this last session, but there's been some rough going so far.
The goblins, as others here have said, are fairly well organized, but hey, they're goblins. They live in fear of their leaders, and when the leaders aren't around, or (especially if) they fall while the little 'basic' goblins watch, the morale of the tribe folds like a cheap tent.
I brought out what I thought was a pretty heavy load -- a bunch of the tougher monsters in a well-planned battle, followed by a total of three ambushes between C11 and E1! -- and the party survived. Granted, their PCs are a little beefier than many, but I thought by giving the critters class levels (or more class levels) it'd counteract it.
The PCs will figure out a way to make it through unless they have to face Nualia, Lyrie, Orik, Gogmurt, Ripnugget, Bruthazmus, the rest of the Thistletop tribe and a partridge in a pear tree all at once.
A party which is light on muscle might struggle, but Thistletop is very survivable for most groups; we only had 3 PCs, one of whom is EIGHT YEARS OLD (my third-grader played the barbarian) in the session and they kicked butt.
As long as the PCs fight as a team they should do fine, especially if you stick to the apparent plan for the goblins and major NPCs in Thistletop and they're encountered in dribs and drabs. Heck, I sent the house against them right outside the door to C11, ambushed them three times, and added something like 30 total class levels and 150 hit points to the monsters and NPCs combined, and the party beat my guys' brains in.
Relax. It's survivable. As long as they're somewhat organized and THINK about what they're doing.
An entangle spell or a meat shield with an AC of 20 won't hurt much either.
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My party dealt with Thistletop last session, and they really didn't have many problems. They're a stealth-heavy group of 6 PCs, and they did things like send in their best sneaks to take out guards, make distractions, pull patrols away from entry points, that sort of thing. Thistletop is only a serious challenge if your PCs decide to kick in the front doors and announce their presence to every goblin in the place. If you work your way in slowly, taking apart patrols and guards as you find them and then killing the people they would report to, it becomes a lot easier.
It helps that upper Thistletop (the goblins) and lower Thistletop (Nualia and her crew) basically don't talk to each other unless an alarm gets raised or someone needs something. My party pushed through the whole thing, and the only areas they didn't deal with were the shadow crypt (the barbarian got 12 points of Strength damage and then they decided to run away, hoping the shadows wouldn't follow), and Malfeshnekor (who they taunted, then sealed up in his chamber with a sign that said "Do Not Enter!"). They plan on going back for old Mal' after a while, but overall Thistletop was challenging without being a slaughterhouse.
Jeremy Puckett
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My group just completed Thistletop as well. Two key events allowed them to infiltrate most of Thistletop with ease.
1) The goblins guarding the outside of the Thistletop were so engaged with the Kill Gull game and they were actually playing it on the west side of Thistletop, they never saw the PC's cross the bridge.
2) Gogmurt tries to send an alarm to the goblins in Thistletop but the thrush he sent was shot down by the PC ranger so they never get the alarm. Therefore, all of the guards on the watchtowers are asleep or distracted and the front door is ajar.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!!!
I found drowning, yes you heard right, to be the greatest danger... not for the party as a whole, but for the dwarf cleric who charged over the rigged rope bridge. Heavy armor + rotten reflex save + "hey I can't really swim!", made for a lethal combination. (saved by strong, light armored bard with good swim skill, a rope and amazing die rolls:-)
The rest of the place was fun, sometimes challenging, but never too dangerous. In fact I've started a new thread, asking for advice about to make Nualia more of a threat.
GRU
Last week, the (5) players in my game had a pretty hard time of it, but that's probably because i had the goblins actually pick decent feats and stuff, but they got through it in the end. Then they got crushed by the chieftain.
The problems were:
a) they didn't use the horse (which i thought they would considering i'd spelt out how afraid of horses goblins are) in the fight with Ripnugget.
b) when Ripnugget told the Paladin that he 'had not earned the right to approach the throne' - he stopped! I couldn't believe it!
c) then the Rogue tried to bluff Ripnugget into believing that they'd destroyed the other tribes and that they should surrender - while he walked forward between the pillars - that 2 goblins that were hiding behind!
cut down.
2 pc's dead, 2 ko'd and captured, 1 escaped (and nearly eaten by the Bunyip.
I honestly didn't expect it.
In summary, make it painfully obvious that they fear horses and hopefully they'll use better tactics.
My party fell right into Ripnugget's trap as well. The thing was, everyone at the door was readied with held actions, because they already suspected something to jump out at them. Two of the four rogue goblins got pasted before the end of the surprise round.
Using the merchant's rescued horse against Ripnugget is kind of a careless or even slightly evil act. If i remember correctly, the horse was starved and suffering from exhaustion and fatigue, or something along those lines. It wouldn't be much but a meat target against Ripnugget. Yeah, the goblins fear the horse, which is why every goblin in the entire area is going to target it with ranged weapons as the sole target, likely killing it.
That's gonna be an awkward conversation with the merchants. "Yeah.. we uhh... we sorta rescued your horse. But then it died... when we uhh... we sent it in to attack the goblin chieftain. We brought back the hunks of it that were left. Now, you were talking about some kind of reward?"
Now if the PC's used their own horse, hopefully riding it to use their riding skill to keep it alive, that would be a smart move.
Just my two cents.
My party fell right into Ripnugget's trap as well. The thing was, everyone at the door was readied with held actions, because they already suspected something to jump out at them. Two of the four rogue goblins got pasted before the end of the surprise round.
Using the merchant's rescued horse against Ripnugget is kind of a careless or even slightly evil act. If i remember correctly, the horse was starved and suffering from exhaustion and fatigue, or something along those lines. It wouldn't be much but a meat target against Ripnugget. Yeah, the goblins fear the horse, which is why every goblin in the entire area is going to target it with ranged weapons as the sole target, likely killing it.
That's gonna be an awkward conversation with the merchants. "Yeah.. we uhh... we sorta rescued your horse. But then it died... when we uhh... we sent it in to attack the goblin chieftain. We brought back the hunks of it that were left. Now, you were talking about some kind of reward?"
Now if the PC's used their own horse, hopefully riding it to use their riding skill to keep it alive, that would be a smart move.
Just my two cents.
I probably should have said that there was a Ranger in the party and they had healed the horse to full. He could have ridden it safely.
Well, that's a horse of a different color, then.
Bah-dum tish!