I'm running a group through the last portion of Thistletop tonight. It's been a long road (their repeated delays/failures to push through led me to have the goblins stage a second attack on Sandpoint, led by Orik and the Wizard from Thistletop level 1).
Reading over Thistletop level 2, I noticed that the hallway trap, despite having a DC 20 perception check to notice it, is incredibly obvious. The room description itself points out that one square is bereft of dust...no experienced player in their right mind is going to overlook a detail like that. Should I withhold that detail until they make the perception check, or is it intended that players can "guess" the presence of the trap without making the perception check, based on the room's description?
The perception check isn't to see there's a trap. It's to determine how the trap triggers. One possibility is for the party to use a pole to trigger the trap. It goes off, and Nualia is warned of the group's approach despite the fact no one was gotten. As a result she starts buffing herself.
If the trap has not been triggered (because a thief successfully disarms it) then when you encounter Nualia she hasn't cast most of her spells on her. This lessens her difficulty a bit... and means she'll likely send in her Yeth Hound to fight while she starts adding in her buffs.
Oh. And if the party just stepped over the trap and then encounter Nualia? The Yeth Hound likely howls on that first round and could send someone running back to the trap... and causing it to go off. Which is an object lesson NOT to leave armed traps behind you! ;)
It's effectively impossible that Nualia wouldn't know they were coming.
Their first attempt to enter Thistletop ended in failure: they refused to enter the thistles once they realized how small the opening was, camped on the beach, fought some goblin refugees who attacked them in order to prove themselves to Ripnugget, and were attacked the next day by the goblin Druid while they were attempting to hike around the island so they could climb up to the bridge. After the druid nearly killed them by mind-controlling the wizard's Dire Bat mount, they fled for Sandpoint.
They made a second attempt, this time against a Druid who knew they would be coming. This time their plan was to simply defoliate their way through the thistles...they fought the Druid a second time, killing his animal companion, but also burning down the forest area that had been covered in accelerant by the goblins. The group narrowly survived the smoke inhalation, and was rescued by Shalelu.
They then cast Ant Haul on the Dire Bat and flew over to Thistletop (the bridge had burned down with the thistle forest) and assaulted from the front. The goblins had barred the door, and none of them were strong enough to break it down, so under a hail of goblin arrows they entered through one of the towers, went DIRECTLY to the throne room, yelped in fear upon seeing the sheer number of goblins guarding the king, and fled after casting Web and setting fire to the webs.
At this point, they noticed smoke in the sky coming from the direction of Sandpoint, as Nualia had decided to accelerate her plans following their initial assault. She sent Orik, Bruthazmus, and Lyrie to attack the town with a troop of goblins. The group again flew the Bat back to Sandpoint in record time and defended the town. They killed Bruthazmus, captured Orik, and were unable to stop Lyrie from escaping.
Realizing that Thistletop was a more immediate threat to the town than they'd thought, they made another attempt, this time approaching by sea and entering through a cove. They were attacked by a Tentamort while swimming into the cove, discovered the temple of Lamashtu, and fought two Yeth Hounds (both of whom howled). They also encountered Lyrie again, and despite her best attempts, they managed to slay her as well (and discovered her creepy obsession with Tsuto).
Really, there's no good reason why Nualia should even still be *in* Thistletop, but I don't want to rob them of their XP.
I agree with Tangent101. Reading many campaign logs, virtually every group sees the trap. But more than half just jump over it, and then the Yeth hound's howl starts the hilarity.
Fun fun!
My group's ranger walked right into it, despite the description. The group got a portcullis lifted with a lucky Strength check after only one round of having bits sliced off.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. A lot of players just aren't paying attention like Hangar's :)
My group saw it coming, but the ninja fumbled the disable device check by more than 10 and set it off anyway.
My group actually disarmed it, but I'd made a mistake and didn't read that Orik didn't know anything about the lower level so he warned them about it. But . Which to me didn't make much sense - I mean, the Barbarian working for Nualia was offed by the trap to begin with, so it seems likely Orik would know about it even if he was hired after the fact. While he didn't participate in the religious ceremonies, there's always the chance he'd have been sent down below to contact Nualia about various things, so it made sense he'd have been warned of the trap.
That said, all he said was "between two statues" without mentioning "two statues that are in a hallway" so they started searching for traps upon getting to the first room of the lower level. ;) And seeing that Shalelu (who the party recruited to help with the goblins) failed her save (every single time) against the Yeth Hound Howl... well, it's a good thing they turned off the trap instead of jumping over it.
As for Nualia in your game knowing they're coming? She doesn't know when. Most of her spells don't last all day so she'd want advanced warning.
My group doesn't have anyone with Disable Device. That's in a group of 7 PCs. Seriously. They spotted the trap but didn't know what it'd do. Their lead guy triggered it but got past. Then they started trying to get past without triggering it again and eventually most of them did.
THEN they opened Nualia's door while the cleric AND the wizard were still on the far side.
Ooops.
The cleric ended up in the trap during the fight with Nualia because the paladin and gunslinger had both gone down and needed (more) healing.
Good times.
But hey, if you've got someone with Trapfinding your mileage may vary. In my campaign that trap was Just Right.
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In my game, the moment the yeth hound sensed the PCs approaching
Nualia stepped in the hallway, cast Obscuring Mist and fled to a better position. They didn't get close enough to see the trap before the mist rolled in. The hound saved its howl for the first PC who managed to get past the triggered trap.
At least one player in my group knew there was a trap there (nobody else said anything), and had his character go past it anyway. He expected the statues to attack. He didn't expect the floor to drop afterwards. Quite amusing. So, even if they spot it, they might try walking directly into it to prove how tough they are ;)
Edit: ^ I do like the mist idea.
It took my group several (three if I recall correctly) tries to get to level 2 of the Thistletop, by then I'd judged that Nualia was well aware of their presence. I had her station a Yeth hound at the bottom of the stairs to warn her of the party's approach.
So by the time they got down to the bottom not only did Nualia have all of her buffs up she was standing directly behind the trap. The PCs did what PCs do and the one with the highest initiative charged her, failing the perception check and triggering the trap.
Nualia laughs, the Yeth Hound bayes, and chaos ensues.
Epic fight was epic...
That was awesome. :) I figured that while the Yeth Hounds gave out a howl in the first fight in the chapel, that several doors, a secret door, and a floor between them probably kept her from hearing the howl. Even if she DID hear it, however, she'd not know when the PCs would arrive and thus stayed in her room, waiting with her hound, expecting the trap to notify her if and when the PCs got that far.
The end result was the same anyway - Nualia taken to negative hit points, stripped almost naked (with the NPC rogue refusing to return any of that clothing because she had no idea if there were hidden lockpicks or the like sewn into it) and brought back to down tied over the back of a certain liberated horse with naught but a blanket tossed over her. The same as with Lyrie =^-^=
The PCs took them and Tsuba alive... so I fully intend on them being sprung by the still-living Ripnugget and what's left of his goblins. While I was going to wait for it to happen in the city... it makes sense for it to happen at Sandpoint; the goblins will just wait for the PCs to head back to Sandpoint and do a raid-in-force. I think I'll have the Sheriff almost dead and a half dozen guards having died in the raid... and the three prisoners sprung.
The sheriff will have fallen while killing Ripnugget, so hopefully we'll no longer have the ranger/transmuter calling him "Sheriff Useless" (I forgot to have him act when they were attacked by the skeletons in the tomb). Though with that player, you never can tell. ^^;;
In my group the rogue saw it and thought she had disarmed it. (We do covered rolls for stuff like this). Half the party jumped over it anyways except for the paladin who failed but, made his reflex to jump back (as there was no room for him on the other side). The portcullis fell splitting the party exactly in half. On one side Nualia and Lyrie vs the Summoner, Witch and Rogue. On the other side Bruthazamus, Orik and Tsuto came charging in vs the Paladin, Monk and the Summoners Eidolon. Very tense fight.