|
Here's a question..
My players alerted the goblins of Thistletop very quickly without realizing it. And with the addition of my own flavor of behavior to certain npcs tactics this is how things went.
Pc scout is spotted in C2 tunnel by goblin refugee guard. Who is lazily playing a game of cards just around a slight bend, the only one in the tunnel and the only place to really hide. The scout rolled so low on his perception and stealth in this case that he didn't even notice the goblin just beyond the bend, DC 14. And the goblin got a roll with a -4 for being distracted and saw him. So the scout, who is a Ratfolk and very distinctive amongst the denizens of Virisian coastline and even more so in small sandpoint and its surrounding areas. The Goblins know that he is one of the adventurers that slayed so many goblins during the raid on sandpoint.
So the goblin runs and reports to his buddies, who promptly move to ambush the pcs in the tunnels. They keep the pc's busy while the goblin then warns Gogmurt, who sends his animal messenger, and two of the refugee goblins acrossed the bridge to deliver a message to Bruthazmus. Gogmurt knows that one of the pc's is a Half Elf and that the bugbear would not pass up a chance to slay a elven 'hero'.
Instead of running cowardly so, all the way to Nualia, a woman he wants desperately to become intimate with, he instead mans up to the challenge and a chance to claim another set of ears. He and the four goblin warriors with mounts await the pc's to cross the bridge. The goblins are hidden off to the sides on their mounts, the briars hide them from sight. But Bruthzamus easily begins pelting the hero's. They know that only three of them can go onto the bridge at one time, and unfortunately, all three that went were not the tank.
So Big B lays low one, the Kitsune Wizard. With two arrows. Then the Ratfolk scout. Then slowly the Cleric of Nethys. The pc's are able to move themselves off the bridge just far enough that Tolly can get acrossed. He gets over the bridge just in time to take the Ratfolk scouts place, who falls to a goblins dogs bite. Then Tolly goes down as well leaving only the cleric of Nethys. Who channels to heal several times, leaving the Ratfolk dead and literally buried beneath a goblin dog corpse and a unconscious and not waking up tank. Finally, just before the cleric goes down Tolly is up and he cuts his way through the goblins easily and charges Bruthzamus.
His blow misses and the bugbear dodges it with vigor. Tolly is worn out from all the fighting and Big B is fresh from his lady's comfort and ready to go. They spar, Tolly slightly wounding Big B, but then Bruthzmus side steps to Tollys right, getting away from his shield as the bug bears heavy flail comes sailing down and leaves a gore ridden trails acrossed what used to be the big mans face. He falls dead. Shining and blood stained and battle damaged House Arkona Plate mail in all, Tolly is gone.
Big B laughs and raises his flail in triumph. Looking at the bridge he sees that one goblin dog is alive and struggling with the cleric on the ground. He laughs, shouting encouragement to the hound. It rips into the cleric again, its teeth drawing more blood. But the bugbear takes things more seriously when the wizards gets up and begins to back away. Drawing a long spear from his back and trying to leave. Big b moves up and swings at him but misses! " I want those ears! I will have them! " just as the goblin dog lunges around the bugbear into the cleric and they both go sailing off the bridge into the waters below...
This was my cinematic way of sparing that party the last person to die since they already lost 2. The ratfolk escapes after the bugbear drags away tollys corpse and tells the last goblin in the back to gather their items and anything that looks valuable. The goblin was so terrified of the pc's during the fight based on tales from other goblins he did nothing and attacked only rarely.
The bugbear moves away and as the goblin begins to loot the pc's. The ratfolk scout, hidden under a gore strewn husk of a goblin dog whose insides had been partially destroyed by acid damage, chooses that moment to stop playing dead. But the sudden rush of moving up caused his aim to be off ( he rolled a 1 ) he missed the goblin. IT shrieked and ran away screaming about the dead and angry spirits. The scout gets away and finds the horses, and finds a fisherman who caught the cleric in his net and is trying to save his life.
End last session.
Summary, party attacked thistletop, raised alarm quickly allowing the druid to organize a delaying tactic hoping that his added force of goblin refugees and the remaining goblin dogs will be enough. He also sends 2 goblins to tell Bruthazmus that the heros of sandpoint are here, and that one of them is a Elf, or half elf. This is enough to get the bug bear to lay in wait at the guard tower at the end of the bridge. With 4 dog riding goblins to stall the pc's as he kills them from above.
He kills 2, 3 technically but I honestly felt kinda bad, so the third person i gave a break to and said he 'fell' to his death, but like in the movies. Hes found by a fisherman and then by the ratfolk on his way back to sandpoint. I'd rather move things along than take time in session to do that.
Now, here is my question. Why would these guys just sit in thistletop waiting for the pc's to come back? I think its a lot smarter to go on the offensive and attack sandpoint and its surrounding areas with terrorizing tactics; while more goblin tribes are brought into the battle.
Why wouldn't Nualia just put her studies on hold, to establish a more secure perimeter for her to continue her work. I mean whats the point of just having people attack you right when you don't want them to.
I'm sure Nualia can get ad least two more tribes interested in fighting.
What are your thoughts on this. Would a full scale goblin uprising occur? and if it did how would it spread, and how fast? To be honest i kinda want to do this. They need a bit more beef on their bones. Because so far they have been taking a beating. So I'll use this to give them say 2 more levels or so. so 6th by the beginning of chapter 2.
Wipe out Sandpoint, end the Runelords campaign and start-up a homebrew game about defeating the united goblin horde.
Other people have asked about what to do if the party gets repelled from Thistletop, and I had to think about it in my campaign.
Don't forget that Sandpoint has a population of 1200. Goblins are not great fighters; even a human commoner would have a decent chance against one, so you're going to need at least 200 goblins to overcome the presumed "resistance rate" of around 10% of the population (120 commoners). There are also a LOT of NPCs with levels who would lay waste to swaths of goblins.
So I think a full-scale assault-and-sack of Sandpoint isn't in the cards; that's why Nualia is doing her work at Thistletop -- to gain an insurmountable advantage. Riding in once her work is done, no one could stand up to her core group of fighters.
But I do like the idea of 30-40 goblin raids (that is, raids with 30-40 goblins each; NOT 30-40 separate raids). That's a LOT of goblins, a lot of dead NPCs, and enough experience and misery that the PCs are really going to be out to exterminate all of goblinkind by the end of it.
Have 'em burn down the cathedral! That would be fun! :-P
|
|
Hm... Well one of the pc's was a avid reader and had three books, one was a holy book of Lahmatsu, from the tombs. One book on thassalonian traditional history and Brodern's personal theory's on the empire and the old light.
I was thinking that with the addition of those tomes, she would now finally be able to find and free Malf in the level two dungeon. I was thinking of having her send out raiding party's of goblins, back up by Big B. They would be entirely about causing chaos. While the pc's track them Nualia is bringing two smaller goblin tribes into her fold.
With the failed raid on thistletop, me having mentioned there are one perhaps two patrols beyond what they found here on the lost coast road area near thistletop, that'd probably be enough to make a decent sized raid, all the while shes actually freeing the Barghst back at base still. What does she do afterward? Head to Magnimar or let the Barghast out for lunch time?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Once the Barghast is free, she has enough forces to sack Sandpoint. Stack her, her named minions, and the barghast against the PCs and you'll see the PCs are hopelessly outclassed, as would the residents of Sandpoint. If you like epic battles, you could play it out, statting out all the NPCs with levels so Sandpoint has a chance. (In CotCT when I had more time I had an orc army (130 orcs, 30 with levels, plus a red dragon) attack the Shoanti village in which the PCs were staying. Unfortunately Cloudkill and 1st-level orcs do not stack well, at least for the GM.)
You can have Nualia's thirst for vengeance override her tactical sense and have her attack now now NOW. You can decide that she's still waiting for the goblin tribes to get organized, and set a time limit.
I think the key is, "What would be the most fun for you and the players to play out, without forcing you to quit your job to build a scale model of Sandpoint in your garage?"
I worry that a group of low-level PCs would be "lost in the noise" of a full-scale invasion, and would have to flee or die. Could your players handle this as a plot development? Would they enjoy it?
Or, as you said, the barghast's been hungry for thousands of years now. Maybe it just wants to run amok for a while while the army is gathering...
P.S. There's another thread that's just been updated on things to do with Nualia if she survives. That one has some cool ideas as to what she can be up to if she's not ready to sack Sandpoint.
Here's a question..
My players alerted the goblins of Thistletop very quickly without realizing it. And with the addition of my own flavor of behavior to certain npcs tactics this is how things went.
** spoiler omitted **...
Just throwing this out there - if they successfully defended themselves from the so-called 'Heroes of Sandpoint' as they seemed to (very successfully perhaps), as far as they are concerned that threat is deal with, a minor annoyance at best. Why would they feel the need to up the timetable now that they've seen the best that Sandpoint has to offer and defeated them? They don't necessarily know that the PC's know about Nualia and her plans unless Tsuto escaped to tell them... and truth be told, they are still waiting on more goblins to join them for the final attack - and herding cats is probably easier then herding goblins, so any number of delays are legitimately possible.
Now if you want to engage in a goblin raid on Sandpoint by all means, but you might be blunting the effect of the Giant Raid later on the AP.
Here's a question..
My players alerted the goblins of Thistletop very quickly without realizing it. And with the addition of my own flavor of behavior to certain npcs tactics this is how things went.
** spoiler omitted **...
Sounds like "your own flavor" may be stacking the cards too high against your PCs...
In the AP, the PCs encounter Gogmurt solo, quite a bit away from the thistle tunnels (C2). That's still a CR4 by himself, and still a deadly encounter for a 2nd level APL. Add five CR1 goblins on top of that, and that's at least a CR8 encounter. Add Tangletooth, that's CR9 easy, if not CR10. Throwing that sort of encounter at 2nd level PCs... wow.
You also mention rolling Stealth ("only place to hide") for the goblin playing cards in the tunnel... A goblin sitting at a table playing a card game shouldn't get a chance to hide.
I also don't see a reason to bring Bruthazmus out of the dungeon and into the fight at C10... or why the goblins would want to talk to him, when he's cruel and abusive to them. The AP also points out he sees Nualia as a mother figure, so if you're deciding Bruthazmus wants to be intimate with Nualia... o.O
But just from a CR perspective, that immediately jumps the C10 fight up from CR5 (already potential tpk at 2nd level APL) to another CR8.
And did your PCs really send the scout, priest, and wizard across first, instead of the fighter and scout first, backed up by the priest and wizard? That seems really odd.
|
|
Interesting, i forgot i even made this thread. So let me answer a few things.
@ Andrea1 - Ty for the sarcastic comment that provides no help but rather only bad attitude. In the future please contact my secretary with such comments as I've no interest in reading them. With luck, it s big forum we may never read each others posts again.
@Nobodyshome - Thank you for the link it is helpful for suggestions on what to do with her if she escapes. Personally i was thinking of having her simply return to Magnimar as a additional solo encounter. Perhaps somehow melding her into the Dawn of the Scarlet Sun mod. but i will pour over this page for advice and inspiration.
Secondly, yeah a raid on sandpoint with them would be brutal. Overall I've decided to reset the AP to just before they entered thistletop. As my editing of placing certain mobs dragged the gaming sessions out and also was to difficult, although they did slaughter their way, step by step through thistletop.
@Damocles Guile - Yes actually them beating them would make them see them as less than a threat to be taken seriously. To be honest i had thought about that but ended up going with something else. To be honest I regret not toning down the difficulty so far and going with that idea.
@HangarFlying - Neither do I !
@Shillelagh Law - As far as how difficult it is for my players so slaughter goblins, its easy. They usually kill them in waves with burning hands and cleave. So adding more goblins is not so much as a Cr increase as it is simply more hp for the fighter to hack through each round. they get the loot and xp for killing the additions, and it isn't hard in the slightest for them to kill them. Only the goblin commandos even stand a chance.
Which to be honest the fighter effectively had the goblins beat. They could hardly ever hit him, Gogmurts wand of produce flame was the only thing keeping the fighting going at a certain point. I actually didn't even use tangletooth. As far as the tunnel and hiding in it, the description says the 4 foot tunnels wind through the briars and nettles. It doesn't specifically say its flat and strait, nor would a tunnel dug by goblins probably be exactly strait. I do not see a reason there couldn't be a bend in the tunnel that would break line of sight. My "flavor" that you sound so distasteful towards was a bit to difficult and i have since made adjustments.
Bruthzumas treats Nuaila like a mother and is bitterly jealous of Tsuto because he thinks the half elf is attacking sandpoint while he is forbidden to do so. Nualia a cleric of Lahmatsu who advocates rape, monstrous orgies and a whole host of Conan the barbarian flavored cult scenes I could think of, none of which are normal for civilized races. Her taking Bruthzumas is, i think, more likely than keeping Tsuto as her only lover. I mean this is just speculation at this point but.. yeah I mean read her gods info in faiths of corruption, she probably would eventually. And betraying allies is also a way for her to advance her ritual, tsuto doesn't really have much use after sandpoint is gone..
And yes, the pc's determined that if all of them went the bridge would fall. The fighter being the heaviest person in the group stayed behind while the three of them crossed.
And your right I was stacking it against them a bit to much.
thanks all.
Edit: Ah, @Nobodyshome, its only three posts? Still it does give me a idea, plus i just found another thread about it.