Greetings, fellow traveller.
Interesting situation that you have here. I was asking something similar in the stickied thread to Varnhold Vanishing, maybe you can also have a glimpse there (should be one of the last posts and also concerns resting inside the dungeon).
I agree with you that Vordakai would treat the barb decent in the beginning - what you have to determine is for how long? How long does it take Vordakai to extract all the information the barb can provide? I would go with something like experience/information of one level per day - this gives the rest of the group roughly one week to come back (kill the centaur to create a feeling of dread for the barbarian).
Since they have teleportation magic going on, getting in shouldn't be a problem for them. In the original adventure it is stated, that Vordakai has the group shadowed via his familiar - if that is still true, than he knows they are coming (again) and should be ready, imo. He is arrogant, but not stupid and he sure does not like to be disturbed (twice) by upstarts.
In principal he can summon new daemons from Abaddon - so another soul eater is definitely a possibility. Also, when extracts information from the barb, he should know they are coming back for him, I would place an alarm on the area where the prisoners are held - the final confrontation with him should therefore definitly take place where the barbarian is held captive.
Since he knows now who (aka classes of the barbarian's friends) will come to fight him and he has his spellbook's in his treasure pile, I would change the spells listed - e. g. get a spell to prevent teleportation magic, wall spells, black tentacles, ...).
Ruyan.
I like the idea that Vordakai would be arrogant enough not to beef up his security. At best, the various creatures in the den might be on notice that there are adventurers about. And I agree with Ruyan that while he's arrogant - he's not stupid, and will definitely change his spell list to target their strength/weaknesses more (which would make the fight a lot tougher, so the PCs best be on guard!)
If there's an NPC the PCs can get to assist them, I'd let the barbarian's player control that one, at least until they can free him. It'd suck for the player to just sit around until the other party members get their act together. (Or perhaps you can engineer some kind of escape for the barbarian and the centaur, if you want your game to be more pulp adventure.)
Overall, sounds like fun.
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Kobold Quarterly issue #11 had an article on how to do torture in 3.5, and it converts almost flawlessly to Pathfinder. It really makes torture far more threatening than a mere deduction of hitpoints. Just a thought.
Owch. Being left behind has got to hurt. Poor Barbarian! :P
I'd recommend giving the Barbarian player something that they can do while the party tackles the dungeon again. Maybe the shackles that bind them to the wall are old and rusty? If the Barbarian succeeds at enough strength checks he might be able to rip them out of the wall so he can escape. The Barbarian can run behind the scenes and possibly sabotage parts of the dungeon while the party goes in to rescue them.
As for tackling the dungeon again, I'd replenish the monsters and perhaps put in some new ones. Vordekai is arrogant but he would want to improve his security somewhat. I'd have him summon more infernal allies or create more Cyclopean undead.
If you really wanted to be evil you could have Vordekai Charm the Barbarian and have him fight his party. But that's only if you really want him to be mean. ;)
I would recommend being a bit harsh with them. Yes, they made a move in desperation, but at the same time, now they're watching you to see what you do next. On a metagame level, you are now setting the tone for your campaign: what you do next is fairly important.
If you just let the Barbarian escape somewhat easily, then it the PCs will know what actions do not have consquences, and they might be even looser in the future, so I wouldn't recommend that.
Here's what I would do, personally:
Do a cutscene where you show Vordecai talking to the Barbarian, and through it reveal exactly how much time the party has to rescue their party member. It doesn't really matter how long this is, only that it's a set deadline that they have to plan around. Someone above used the idea of a day per XP level. Great. Now they have tension.
The captured Barb: he probably has someone back in town that cares about him, right? Either a wife, or a tribesman, or a protoge, or at least someone on the rulership council he was friends with. Have the Barb player take on this "other" for the next couple of sessions. Have this substitute PC be 2-ish levels lower than the Barb. Don't just make it a random backup sheet! It has to be someone that would really care about the Barb, and that the Barb's player would feel an attachment to.
Go on to the dungeon, and beef up the defenses a little bit. Don't just respawn the same stuff they killed (IG logic: they defeated them last time, better try something else! OOG logic: it's boring to fight the same fights over again). Fight the way through, and then in the final fight against Vordecai, have the Barb be there Dominated! This will be tactically interesting, as it limits AoE effects, and makes people go for subdual damage, or dispels, or whatever. And could make for cool RP.
What happens if the Barb dies? Either in the fight, or because the time limit ran out (and they find his brains all eaten like Varn's). Give the "backup" character a chance to mourn over the Barb. Was the Barb at all spiritual? Have a Totem? (Heck, he at least had Rage!) Let the spirit/totem/rage transfer from the Barb into the Backup, giving a part of his "soul" to the backup character. This causes the backup char to instantly level up, and begins manifesting the favorite quirks, etc, of the player's old character. Continuity is established!
Go ahead and make the old Barb's axe a legacy weapon or minor artifact now or something, just to give it a little more continuity mojo.
Whatever you do, I just encourage you to not wear the kiddie gloves.
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I'd have the player make a backup character, have Vord beef up security, and when they break back in find that he has eaten the brain of their barbarian friend. Let 'em take their frustration out on the lich and learnt he hard lessons of adventuring...you leave someone behind and they're probably toast. If the player would be too heartbroken by the loss of his/her character then throw in a resurrection magic item (maybe a once per 1,000-year function of the Eye of Abaddon) so the barbarian can be brought back but wiht the lesson still learned.
Now that's just me, I like to make it rough on my players, and they prefer that style of play where death is always just around the corner. Consequently they tend to go through a lot of characters, but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea so the resurrection option should salvage that. On the ohter hand I'm the guy that killed th wizard that got split up from the party, and then they made the mistake of leaving the body behind. Of course, whent hey returned it had been skinned and animated as an undead and then they got to fight the BBEG wearing their former comrade's skin (hey, it made sense in the context of the adventure--ST4 if you're interested), so that guy basicaly got to die three times--twice at the hands of his fellows--that got a few flinches from even the jaded players. heh, heh
Dead on the right way to do it. It will be a powerful reveal to the party that their friend was killed and eaten, and it will make the battle with the big baddie later really mean something.
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I'd have the player make a backup character, have Vord beef up security, and when they break back in find that he has eaten the brain of their barbarian friend. Let 'em take their frustration out on the lich and learnt he hard lessons of adventuring...you leave someone behind and they're probably toast. If the player would be too heartbroken by the loss of his/her character then throw in a resurrection magic item (maybe a once per 1,000-year function of the Eye of Abaddon) so the barbarian can be brought back but wiht the lesson still learned.
Now that's just me, I like to make it rough on my players, and they prefer that style of play where death is always just around the corner. Consequently they tend to go through a lot of characters, but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea so the resurrection option should salvage that. On the ohter hand I'm the guy that killed th wizard that got split up from the party, and then they made the mistake of leaving the body behind. Of course, whent hey returned it had been skinned and animated as an undead and then they got to fight the BBEG wearing their former comrade's skin (hey, it made sense in the context of the adventure--ST4 if you're interested), so that guy basicaly got to die three times--twice at the hands of his fellows--that got a few flinches from even the jaded players. heh, heh
After having read Slumbering Tsar so far, somehow I know that would be your answer Greg. Only thing missing was your taunting dance out of character.
stuff about a prisoner
Vordakai would just use his paralying touch against the barbarian. That takes care of escaping. If you don't want the barbarian player to be bored have him roll up another character to use in the rescue attempt of the old one. It also allows him to continue playing if his barbarian dies.
PS:I did not read ahead so I may have been ninja'd.
I'm seriously considering not even beefing up the security, since it describes Vordakai as arrogant. I figure since he already saw them immediately run from him once, he just assumes they won't be back. If you have better suggestions, feel free to share.
I dunno about him doing nothing at all, but less than he could do is probably reasonable. If he believes that the PCs are cowards and won't be coming back (or won't come close to succeeding if they try, considering they fled right away last time), he should absolutely taunt the Barbarian with this information if there is an interrogation scene. That way, if the Barbarian keeps faith with his friends he gets a great stick it to the villain moment when the DO rescue him... or if they show up late or if the Barbarian is simply killed off quickly, the other PCs get an even stronger motive to take revenge on the villain and redeem themselves.
I'd have the player make a backup character, have Vord beef up security, and when they break back in find that he has eaten the brain of their barbarian friend. Let 'em take their frustration out on the lich and learnt he hard lessons of adventuring...you leave someone behind and they're probably toast. If the player would be too heartbroken by the loss of his/her character then throw in a resurrection magic item (maybe a once per 1,000-year function of the Eye of Abaddon) so the barbarian can be brought back but wiht the lesson still learned.
I like this answer.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
My concern with Greg's answer is how much you want to make a player suffer (losing his PC) for a mistake/bad move (an)other player(s) made.
The harshness of Vordakai's actions should stay within the boundaries set by their style of play - if a high death toll is common: brain-suck and animate-dead all the way. If on the other hand life has been cake so far, maybe not.
Ruyan.