Yesterday my group assaulted the lair of the Stag Lord.
I used a different castle lay-out, more Skyrim castle-ruin like. It stretched the encounter out a bit --- from front to back it was a 24 round combat. By the end the Alchemist was out of bombs, the Cleric out of Channel Energy, and the Mage had exhausted a wand of Burning Hands and was beating on Giant ants with his staff. But Aid potions and Str Buffs carried the day.
I admit to being in a bit of a pickle. I mean it's not terrible, but the expectation is that they fight to their death. Thoughts?
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He was the one that got away.
The Stag Lord was killed by the PC, the head sent to Restov for the reward and the body throw into the river. The Stag Lord head was put onto a pike outside the gate of Restov as a waning for bandits.
You can do something similar, giving your players a chance to buy the corpse from the headsman (and getting someone a good rumour to spread about them being closet necromancers or worse.
So far the PC don't have heard news about the reincarnated Stag lord, but they know that the head was stolen by some flying entity (Nugrah in air elemental form) and suspect what happened.
The Stag Lord will make his appearance at the appropriate moment.
Once the nightmares get bad enough, I imagine they will do *something* dangerous. It will be amusing. But for someone who is supposed to die on his feet, filled with rage at the world and so forth, it was kind of amusing to have him just crumple due to Non-Lethal damage.
The players had an OOC conversation about being able to keep the prisoners after we ended the session -- there were a lot of suggestions that ran the gamut of alignment choices, that would have been very interesting if it were the actual characters talking.
At the end of the session I was playing the person-in-question as being morose and despondent, defeated not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. Still, one night in a bumpy prison wagon and I don't imagine that he will remain a prisoner, unless they surround him night and day with spell-users armed with Wands of Admonishing Ray (and the group doesn't have any).
** spoiler omitted **
The Stag Lord was killed by the PC, the head sent to Restov for the reward and the body throw into the river. The Stag Lord head was put onto a pike outside the gate of Restov as a waning for bandits.
You can do something similar, giving your players a chance to buy the corpse from the headsman (and getting someone a good rumour to spread about them being closet necromancers or worse.** spoiler omitted **
I have ran kingmaker twice now, about to run it a 3rd time... i love this idea!!!!
I say run a trial encounter! Doesn't sound like the players are planning on heading for the opposite side of the planet or burning the river kingdoms to the ground. Let em go back to Restov and engage in a little political back-n-forth between the Sartovas and the Sword Lords of Restov in terms of who gets the credit for bringing the Stag Lord to heel.
Toss a few non-combat encounters at the players in-town. Foreshadow some encounter that may happen further down the campaign trail (mentioning a certain town, and associated NPC's that may be visited in book three for example). They can rest up, spend some of their reward cash and then head back to the greenbelt with their (now hand delivered via a courier in restov) charter to be the new dukes/duchesses of "insert province name here."
That way you can tie a bit more of the political machinations going on in Brevoy to the actions of your characters. AND it'll get them right back to where you want them to be in Rivers Run Red. Sure Davik Nettle may be p.o.'ed...but every kingdom deserves a ghost haunting the rivers and roads :). And you can probably find another way to appease the ol' bugger later on.
Let em go back to Restov and engage in a little political back-n-forth between the Sartovas and the Sword Lords of Restov in terms of who gets the credit for bringing the Stag Lord to heel.
Excellent idea, which is why a Knight Commander of the Imperial and Royal Gendarmes (my brevoy is more than a little Austro-Hungarian Empire in flavour) has summoned them to New Stetvin. Pol-i-tics! Pol-i-tics!
Sure Davik Nettle may be p.o.'ed...but every kingdom deserves a ghost haunting the rivers and roads :). And you can probably find another way to appease the ol' bugger later on.
They better solve it before Varnhold Vanishing -- because right now they can't cross the Shrike River! Mind you, they could always row across the Tuskwater!
It is kind of funny -- the two NPCs who are "supposed to die" get captured, and the one NPC who may well live through the combat never stood a chance.