A heavy handed reminder to my players

[Joanna Swiftblade]

Short story is I'm GMing Rappan Athuk and my party raids the Temple of Tsathoga. They get about half way though the mini-dungeon and just books it out with over 200k of items in their bags. The whole while, they had managed to completely avoid the main evil cleric and his minions who were trying to find them in the maze like basements of their cloister. This is meant to be a reminder to the PCs that their actions have consequences, and that leaving a job half done is just not going to cut it.

The PCs are now selling said items up river (Literally. I made a trading metropolis called Up River; it's an inside joke). When they get back to Zelkor's Ferry they will be greeted with dark and stormy weather, and an village that's been taken over by what what left over from the temple, save a few guardians left behind to deter any passers by. The village is small, only 7 buildings for 18 residence.

The encounter consists of:
4 Level 2 Fighters
3 Level 3 Clerics
1 Level 9 Cleric
25 Zombie/Skeletons (CR 1/2s)
8 Skeleton Champions (CR 3)
1 Orge (CR 3)
1 Hell Hound (CR 3)
1 Advanced Tsathar Scourge (CR 6)
1 Level 8 Fighter Vampire (CR 9)

I calculated out the EXP and it comes out to about 26600 total, which is slightly above a CR 13 encounter. A large portion of it comes from the zombies and skeletons which are more or less canon fodder, so in reality it's closer to a CR 12 without them.

The Party is level 7-8, with about 6-7 members showing up tomorrow for the ambush.

The Party Consists of:
Human Oracle 4 / Sorcerer 4 CN
Ophiduan Psionic Warrior 8 CN
Human Fighter 1 / Inquisitor 7 LN (GMPC)
Human Magus 7 NG
Human Sorcerer 7 LG
Halfing Ninja 7 LG
Human Gunslinger 5 / Living Legend 2 CG (3rd party prestige class)
Elf Wizard 7 LN
Orc Barbarian 7 CN (Currently a frog, not too much of a problem though)
Human Druid 6 CN (Cohort of Oracle/Sorc)

There is a good chance that the gunslinger, barbarian and / or the wizard won't show up. They range in power from flavorful to min-maxed. They have more gold than they should if they manage to get the items they found sold.

I'm not looking for this to be a TPK, but I want the message to stick. Any ideas on how I should plan the ambush? If you have the PDF or book, there's a map of Zelkor's Ferry on page 100. Thanks for the help.

[Troubleshooter]

Plan the ambush less on overpowering them, and more on fine-tuning the enemy's tactics to counter the players' favorite strategies. I've had a villain observe the proud party wizard for a long time, so when the combat opened up and the party wizard cast his oh-so-favorite glitterdust on the foe, he was puzzled to find that it fizzled out (due to a well-placed ring of counterspelling).

Of course, with as many characters as they have, I can't honestly tell you to trim down the list of opponents too much. I know all too well that a couple extra creatures blocking squares and pulling out potions can very well mean more than a quick and easy +1 CR.

[johnlocke90]

I can't imagine that group ambushing anyone particularly well. However, if they do get the drop there are a few fun thingsthey can do.

First, heroic fortune cast by the 9th level cleric will give 9 allies a hero point. They can all use the hero point to act out of turn. Meaning that 9 standard actions happen at once(you do this at the end of round one to superload the enemy attacks).

https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/magic/all-spells/h/heroic-fortu ne

The skeletons/zombies should be focused on grappling. Have 4 zombies aid the 5th on a grapple check agaainst the sorcerer and the wizard.

[Xot]

I'd be tempted to put a moderate level witch with the bad guys to debuff, cackle, repeat.

[Red Leaf]

well if they are going throught the town have all the undead buried in the ground, or some how hidden, you could have an illusion of the bad guys in the middle of the square will a "hostage" crying out for help or something like that, if the party charges in have the undead start poping up or out of buildings and have the hostage but some exploding undead, "yeah!!! we are going to save that poor bastard..... oh wait now we have to kill him" swarm them with the cannon fodder and thenstart to attcvk the back ranks with half the main BBG and have the other half buffing from different directions. I like this plan because they will not be able to create a defensive line. But if they try adn snipe when they see the illusions in the beginning I would have the undead pop up in front of them (in the town square or wahtever) and then have the main force hit them in the back again creating two fronts. Make sure to have the lower clerics be within range to buff but have a few zombies in front of them. Also for fun I once used a few lvl 2 rogue ghouls, my players really didnt like that encouter. Anyways hope this helps.

[rangerjeff]

I'd think a little more creatively about how you send the message.

Assume perhaps, that the evil cleric has tracked down and been observing the party, plotting, preparing. Perhaps some of the new items the party buys will turn out to be cursed, broken, but only when the party faces the evil cleric will they find out (the cleric had agents coerce the shop owners in Up the River... indeed probably already had contacts there if it's fairly local to the Temple.)

The message being, if you don't finish the job now, you just give your enemy the time to prepare and fight you again on his terms.

How about a series of ambush cursings to soften the party up before the combat occurs? Nightmares to fatigue the party? Or just a series of small assaults every hour throughout the night before the main encounter.