So last night the party I GM for assaulted the clanhold and slaughtered almost everything. When they fought Barl, his bodyguard, and Lucrecia(she escaped earlier) they had finally met their match. In a hilarious twist of fate Lucrecia was petrified with her sisters mask. The party monk was enervated by Barl and stomped to a pulp by his bodyguard. By this point the party has begun to formulate a retreat plan.The brother of the monk (the inquisitor) runs forward to grab his body and nimbly avoids an AOO and an attack before retreating with the corpse when Barl animates it. The paladin rushes forward and kills the zombie monk then grabs the Lucrecia statue and the wizard uses D-door to get the paladin, her cohort, the Lucrecia statue and the monk corpse safely outside the clanhold where the paladin promptly kicks the statue over the edge and down the mountain. Barl chases the inquisitor down who had a bit of a head start but catches up swiftly and due to poor rolls and a GM fiat due to the awesomeness of his escape plan Barl misses with his earthbreaker. The inquisitor dives into the pit by the entrance absorbing the fall with his ring of featherfall and hiding among the bones making a bluff check to appear dead from the fall and due to his badly damages state Barl fell for it. So now the wizard, her cohort, the paladin, and the dead monk are at their camp a short ways down the mountain and the inquisitor is lying at the bottom of a 100foot deep pit with no spells left. The question is Should Barl stay or leave? The army he was supposed to gather is gone and there is no one left to work the forges. He could return to Morkmurian but has nothing to show for the time he has spent here and would likely be killed, but he has no reason to stay in the clanhold. He assumed the inquisitor died and knows the monk died so he figures that the other three will not return. I am not sure if he should stay and meet them in battle again or if he should flee and be spared by Morkmurian only to be encountered again at Jorgenfist.
It seems your situation is very similar to what happened to my RotRL group a couple months ago. They also ran from Barl+Lucrecia, but without any casualty on either side. They decided to regroup at the emptied Fort Rannick, occupied only by Jakardros and Vale, planning to go back the following day for the kill.
Meanwhile at Hook mountain, Barl and Lucrecia had simply no reason to stay there, because the PCs had wiped their entire force of ogres. Barl and Lucrecia were unscathed in the first encounter, so I decided Barl would raise two ogres as zombies (with the Gasburst variant), and proceeded to Fort Rannick, emboldened by their first victory.
The following morning, as the PCs opened Fort Rannick's door to march on Hook Mountain, they met Barl's small army. They lost. Hard. In the end, they defeated the two zombies and Barl's bodyguard (who was raised as a fast zombie moments later), but were very close to TPK. The witch's teleport, along with a clever use of the druid's air elemental form, allowed them to escape once again.
At this point, I thought about W.W.B.D.? (what would Barl do!), and decided that he would face the same dilemma you are with, Loren. He stayed at Fort Rannick for a couple of days before agreeing with Lucrecia's plan - to finish the job at Turtleblack ferry, and slay all those who were wearing the sihedron mark. The PCs teleported in right in time to save the day, slaying the evil trio at Turtleback Ferry.
So my advice would be the same as I did - Barl has no reason to stay in Hook Mountain if his workers are slain, so Lucrecia might persuade him to retake Rannick once more, then march on Turtleback. Since your group has to raise the monk from the dead, you could decide to have the remaining Black Arrows flee from Barl's attack and join the PCs in time to save Turtleback. Or die as a consequence of the PCs' failure?
I like the idea but I will need to work on it it a bit. Lucrecia is dead and the only remaining black arrow is jakardos (Kaven is alive but he fled to morkmurians lair after the encountered him again in the clanhold). In addition the paladin and wizard have no intention of backing off.Thank you very much for the advice.
You're welcome. Please let us know what you choose and how it goes!
Will do. Our session resumes on Sunday.
Hmm ... "doting" this for later sharing ...
@ Loren ... Hi there, I am still in the beginning of "The Hook Mountain Massacre" - my players just finished off/killed the entire Graul family, tore-down their homestead and barn, and set the thing on fire. (Actually hoping to lead some of the Kreeg ogres down from Fort Rannick).
And that's were I'll be picking up (also this Sunday). :)
I've had a lot of fun and some memorable encounters with some of the villains in RotR AE ... Tsuto Kaijitsu (who I made a Zen Archer monk archetype), the Skinsaw Man aka
Looking forward to hearing/reading all about it.
Dean
In my game Kaven escaped by playing dead during the siege on Fort Rannick and warned Lucrecia of their approach and fled. So far Lucrecia's statue has been destroyed but I plan on having her return in part 6, Barl sent Kaven on to inform Morkmurian of Lucrecia's death and that he will be finishing the job at Turttleback Ferry. So far my plan is to have Kaven plan an ambush specifically tailored to taking out the PCs in part 4. So far my plan is to have Barl and his bodyguard start murdering the citizen's of Turtleback Ferry with a few zombie ogres (thanks for the idea Lithrac). Hopefully the PCs will stop him but we shall see how it goes on Sunday.
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond.
So here is how it went down. The inquisitor is awoken early in the morning by the sounds of conversation (he passed his perception check while asleep). He overhears Barl telling someone in giant to head to a place called Jorgenfist and tell Mokmurian that Lucrecia has failed and the ogre army has been slaughtered, but Barl himself will finish Lucrecia's job and then return to Jorgenfist. The unknown messenger (Kaven)leaves swiftly and the inquisitor soon hears Barl and several other pairs of footsteps leave the cave. He puts on his gloves of climbing and casts invisibility on himself then hoists himself out of the pit and proceeds to make a series of climbing check and controlled falls using his ring of feather fall to get back to camp. He strides into camp triumphantly and explains to the paladin, wizard, and her cohort that Barl is headed into turtleback ferry to kill everyone. They finish preparations and take the kreeg hunting trails back to fort rannick where they secure the aid of Jakardos and Shalelu (controlled for this session by the dead monk's player). They ride like hell until they reach the city to find it mostly on fire, smashed, and full of dead bodies. Barl is flying in the town square hurling chimneys, wagons, and whatever he can get his hands on while two gasburst ogre zombies (thanks for that idea btw) and his wounded body guard smash everything in sight. The fight consists mostly of the inquisitor and paladin fighting the zombies while the wizard and tow rangers bombard Barl with spells. Eventually the bodyguard and zombies are slain and Barl surrenders. They found his note and killed him then returned to Magnimar to raise the Monk and Vale.
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond.
So here is how it went down. The inquisitor is awoken early in the morning by the sounds of conversation (he passed his perception check while asleep). He overhears Barl telling someone in giant to head to a place called Jorgenfist and tell Mokmurian that Lucrecia has failed and the ogre army has been slaughtered, but Barl himself will finish Lucrecia's job and then return to Jorgenfist. The unknown messenger (Kaven)leaves swiftly and the inquisitor soon hears Barl and several other pairs of footsteps leave the cave. He puts on his gloves of climbing and casts invisibility on himself then hoists himself out of the pit and proceeds to make a series of climbing check and controlled falls using his ring of feather fall to get back to camp. He strides into camp triumphantly and explains to the paladin, wizard, and her cohort that Barl is headed into turtleback ferry to kill everyone. They finish preparations and take the kreeg hunting trails back to fort rannick where they secure the aid of Jakardos and Shalelu (controlled for this session by the dead monk's player). They ride like hell until they reach the city to find it mostly on fire, smashed, and full of dead bodies. Barl is flying in the town square hurling chimneys, wagons, and whatever he can get his hands on while two gasburst ogre zombies (thanks for that idea btw) and his wounded body guard smash everything in sight. The fight consists mostly of the inquisitor and paladin fighting the zombies while the wizard and tow rangers bombard Barl with spells. Eventually the bodyguard and zombies are slain and Barl surrenders. They found his note and killed him then returned to Magnimar to raise the Monk and Vale.