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If any of my players at Valhalla's are reading, I'll see you all next session, but hit the 'back' button! Other players should probably not read past the 1st spoiler if they're just starting out. I'm covering events at the Thorn River camp.
First off, love the Adventure Path already. Things could have played out any dozen different ways with just one event (rather than a typical "I kick in the door, fight something interesting, and move on"), leading me to admire the quality of the project. Anyhoo...
Looking for some brainstorming ideas about the bandits. Here's the background to our current campaign:
Although another group already got the Greenbelt Charter, they were slain trying to stop assassins who slew the Orlovsky groom (party saved the bride, which resulted in her father working to ensure they got the charter). Meanwhile, the group wants to know "why," and the noble has said that while his fight need not be theirs, he'll do everything to find out why his daughter is now a widow on her wedding day.
And here's what happened with the bandits:
This resulted in them eventually stumbling into the Thorn Camp and facing half the camp, which was still expecting Happs back with some sweet loot. After a very interesting and tough battle involving lots of use of cover and sniping, the bandits broke rank and two (Kressle included) got away. Pretty beat up, the party set up camp, and the 4 bandits out hunting returned. After a very close battle, the party took 2 captive (1 escaped) and had 2/4 players and an animal companion down into negative hit points. We're paused this week to resume at this exact point, before anyone's talked to the captives.
I'm plotting what Kressle would do. Eventually, word will get out that Oleg hung some bandit bodies from his walls, and Happs's body will be found, without head, following his execution by the party for banditry.
Wouldn't mind getting more use out of the Flipmat for Oleg's, was thinking she might rebuild strength, get the lowdown on these new guys, and invade the fort. Thoughts on this, other thoughts??
Greetings, fellow traveller.
My group was beaten by the bandits (one was killed) and Kressle and two others got away.
Since your group seems to be the kind which asks questions later, I will not suggest anything along the line of having her return to the group, offering them to spy on the Stag Lord etc..
I had Kressle return to the Stag Lord's reporting about the new kids on the block.
He wasn't amused about 1) the group showing up 2) Kressle's failure. So he had her beaten up [and what else depends on maturity of you/your group] and chained inside the fort as reminder to the others.
In my game Akiros has taken to her, quitely nursing her back to life. After the defeat of the Stag Lord by my group she's married to Akiros who vouched for her (and after his redemption by Jhod/Erastil) and serves as the Barony's Master Spy (him being the Warden).
Alternatively, I would give her new orders to set up a new camp somewhere else in the Greenbelt and let her return later (maybe use some caves mentioned in KM #3 where the Spriggans dwelt) and let her have running a bigger operation (aka Stag Lady - she could harrass Varnhold in the meantime).
Ruyan.
I'd have Kressle try and attack the PCs during the next night, before they can rest, if she thinks she has any hope of success. Or at least keep throwing axes at them out of the woods on a regular basis if she doesn't think she can take them.
Otherwise she goes back to the Stag Lord, who probably decides to try and re-establish the Thorn River camp (it was in a good place to start with) and perhaps attack Oleg's.
In my opinion, Kressle is iredeemably evil, and is your excuse to do whatever is cruelest to your PCs - within the limits of what your group can still find "fun."
That night, she might snipe from darkess to keep them from getting any sleep (and pick off individuals she manages to lure away from the camp), or she might lure a wandering monster (or something from a nearby lair) to the camp. She might also make as much distance as possible, disguising her trail, so they have no hope of following her in the morning.
You mentioned the assassination attempt that happened during your campaign's start. Is it possible that Kressle is somehow affiliated with whoever arranged that assassination? If so, she can turn to them for information on the PCs as well as more recruits and weapons to let her go after the PCs in the future. Even if not, you can do something similar if any of the assassins survived and were sent to prison - someone releases them and sends them south to join the bandits, and they end up as Kressle's reinforcements.
Once she has reinforcements (from the assassins or elsewhere), Kressle will probably set up a position to watch Oleg's and observe when the PCs leave. Once she knows they're gone, she can enter the fort, perhaps using subterfuge (send ahead a couple of the new recruits that folks at Oleg's have never seen, or kidnap a kid from southern Brevoy and threaten to slit his throat if Oleg doesn't open his gate). Maybe she kidnaps Svetlana, or maybe she just leaves a scar on Svetlana's face or something.
Or, Kressle could use fire arrows to try to set the fort on fire - this is probably better if the PCs are at the fort. She knows the layout of the place, and if the PCs have captured a bunch of horses from prior bandits, then aiming the first few arrows to arc down onto the stables would cause some lovely chaos. Kressle doesn't even have to make a serious attempt to enter the fort, she could just be harassing the PCs. This goes well with occasional hit-and-run attacks, then leaving tracks that try to lead them directly toward dangerous creature lairs or toward wandering creatures she'd spotted earlier.
Have her show up in Pitax in AP 5 sitting at around 15th level.
My PCs recruited her and made her into their Royal Assassin. Of course, her general "have fun chopping fingers off" nature conflicted with their lawful approach to kingdom building. I kept dropping hints that she was dissatisfied, that the peasants were annoyed with her wolfpack, etc., etc. They mostly laughed it off.
Eventually she got fed up, and when she was sent after an escaping Baron Drelev (long story), she met up with him, the two agreed to fake his death (also a long story) and she came back to the PCs as his agent. Eventually she and Stroon (who has now escaped from the PCs four times via teleport, either by himself or a scroll used by his familiar) broke into the treasury and stole the Oculus of Abbadon, then launched the first stroke of the War of the River Kings with a surprise attack on the PC's town at the Wyvernstone Bridge.
Didn't work. Stroon had nicely prepared everyone with magic circle vs. evil spells to block out the PC's favorite, summoned fiendish animals. Should have done magic circle vs. law spells to block out the PC's dominate person spells. :( Kressle didn't get away and was executed.
I am still thinking of ways to bring her back, maybe as an undead out for revenge...
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Ultimately, I'd be inclined to have Kressle as a semi-recurring villain that the PCs ultimately defeat in Fort Drelev or in Pitax.
Tying Grigori into Kressle as an intermediary between the rabble-rouser and Pitax would
be a far more satisfying way of presenting Grigori rather than leaving him mysterious (unsatisfying) or leading to directly to Pitax (campaign altering). Kressle is a perfect intermediate villain.
Play this right and it could be the best addition to your KM campaign, EVAR!
All these suggestions sound great to me, but if you want to keep some of the action focused on Oleg's for now, I'd suggest Kressle regroup and take a stealthy tactic. For maximum drama, she might sneak into the fort and take a hostage (Svetlana?). This could lead to a dramatic overland chase, either back towards the Stag Lord's camp, or through the forest and inadvertently into the lair of some monster or other.
But take pains to keep Kressle alive -- remember her first instinct is always to save her own skin -- because she makes a fabulous recurring villain. In my campaign, she has chopped off three of Kesten's fingers, and seduced/betrayed both Akiros and the PC Baroness. And we're not even into Book Three yet.
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Great ideas! If she can stay alive, like the idea of Kressle becoming a recurring villain. Having lost the Stag Lord's booze and his trust, don't see a future for her in his army, but she's resourceful enough (hmm, Stag Queen?) The party has an inquisitor who's good at tracking, interesting to see if she could keep pace with a ranger who's covering her tracks or leaving false trails.
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My group just completed the Thorn River encounter.
With a well targeted sleep spell and quick work of Kressle, they ended up with 3 captives. Then they did a good job ambushing the other 4 bandits returning from scouting and subsequently then had 7 captives.
Oddly enough, on the way back to Oleg's they actually gave a watch to a single party member with a -1 Perception, so I had 5 of the bandits sneak away and run off. The other 2 were too scared of the group to run (their Inquisitor is pretty scary...)
At any rate, I've been trying to think of something fun to do with the 5 escaped thugs.
I thought about letting Kressle have a twin sister out there who herds them back up for some vengeance.
Then again, I pre-rolled our next session's wandering encounters and ended up with the trolls.
I'm kind of in favor of the PCs cresting a hill and just seeing a handful of trolls tearing the limbs from the bandits that ran away.
They're still level 1 so Gods help them if they engage -- and it seems like a good way for them to temper their workday if they realize there are such dangers about. I'm quite nervous about the 15-minute workday kicking in too much after Oleg's and Thorn River.
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The party didn't go looking for Kressle and didn't question their two captives as much as I expected, so I've got Kressle and two bandits on the loose as well as two captives who they let go after promises of having seen the light. Being bandits, can't say their song and dance would be genuine. That's 5 bad guys who might just head back to Thorn River and reform their camp, perhaps with some traps this time and thoughts of finding this so-called band of heroes.
@wakedown, I'm finding the constant threat of random encounters and not knowing what each hex holds is ensuring the group doesn't expend all resources on a single battle unless absolutely necessary.
All in all, been a great start. Find myself taking copious notes to adjust things based on what happened last session. They just had a fun time messing with the mites...
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My group has yet to reach a hex containing more than 2 encounters (as in no mite or kobold lair yet).
Technically, I ran the Thorn River camp as 2 encounters - the main group (of 5), and the returning group (of 4).
Further expanding on the trolls tearing up the escaped bandits on the horizon, I've given some thought to the group spotting the forest drake from RRR soaring across the sky southward carrying a dead bandit in it's claws.
I'm always tempted to invent more fights for my group, but in hindsight I usually realize it's slowing them down from getting to a couple of the sites I really want them to get to sooner rather than later (in this case the mite and kobold lairs and Nettle's crossing).
My group killed Kressle and somehow managed to let Happs live twice, letting him go after the fight at Olegs and then two weeks later at the thorn river camp allowing him to escape into the forest.
Kressle would probably fit into a similar role of being hired by someone (look over the later books for likely candidates) but she would probably use a different method of delivery for her assassination attempt, perhaps an ambush outside of town when the party are returning injured from some adventure, i could picture her waiting around near the main city waiting for a chance to strike.
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Alas, Kressle was killed after daring to rebuild her camp. When the party went on a hiatus after one of them came down with the Red Aches, the bandits got bold again. After daring an old bridge over the Thorn River during additional exploration once everyone was better, the group decided to cross back at a spot they knew was passable. The bandits were less than thrilled, as were the players who spotted two bandits they had spared who professed they had "seen the light" and swore off their thieving ways.
Bandit activity fell off so much that the Swordlords heard about it from merchants and trappers and sent a little something the party's way. It's even convinced Oleg and Svetlana to try again for a child, now that things are safer and trade is up. Moon radishes make an excellent soup and wise women say help with fertility, but Svetlana insisted her husband couldn't know how much she was personally shelling out (250gp!) for a basket-full. I think she's feeling freer with the influx of cash especially since her husband offered to shell out big coin for some tatzlewyrm heads. But since they've lost 2 kids already to the harsh life on a frontier, this might be their last shot at it, so what's a few coins?
Loving this AP. The scenarios rewrite themselves naturally.
Random encounters can get brutal. At level 1, a CR2 werewolf is a serious fight...
