I'm almost done running the raid on sandpoint and up till now It didn't go very well. Lots of townfolks dead. Lots of buildings burned to the ground.
The main culprit here was distance. We play through maptool and when I built the map, I did scale it using the scale in the book. I didn't put too much thought into it but turns out that the scale can become a real problem for unprepared PCs. From north to south we're talking about probably more than 1000s feet to cover. Add in one PC with a speed of 20 and you've got yourself a lot of endless running (didn't help that the party wizard didn't have a couple of spells prepared cause he used them the previous day..spells like fly and teleport).
Since my PCs took longer than expected on the first encounter (the diversion at the gate), they never where able to catch up with the rest. We're now up to round 25 and they barely saw half of the enemies.
I'm not complaining about the encounter. In fact, I welcome the change from the more dungeon based encounters. Everybody is having a blast. I just hadn't anticipated distance being such a problem for the PCs. Just wondering how it played out for the rest of you..
I take it they dawdled before heading back to town? They should have gotten back 24 hours before the attack. (Or did they sleep late? ^^) I'd have given them time to recover spells before the attack, but that's just me. And hey, sometimes PCs can't be the Big Bad Heroes. Have them live with their failure.
That said? Select several of the NPCs like the Sheriff, the Paladin, and some others... and have the PCs play them for another part of the combat, perhaps fighting the giant's leader while a runner goes to grab the PCs. The NPCs don't even have to live. Just have them delay the giant long enough for the PCs to reach that battle.
It's good to hear that the distance ended up being a problem for a group, because I had the exact opposite problem. The party sorcerer had Dimension Door (800'+), plus they made the DC 30 Perception check to see the giants coming 10 minutes early, so it was just plain "whack a mole -- port to the next one -- whack a mole."
My invasion force was retreating in full by round 9.
I think it's a very important lesson for your arcane casters to learn -- transportation spells are critical. We ended up with a near-TPK in Carrion Crown because the sorcerer in that game chose not to get Dimension Door when he could. Battlefield movement is just as important (if not more important) than damage-dealing.
What about Haste? Horses? Phantom Steeds? Did the party invest nothing in any kind of movement capabilities?
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I am playing this path currently. We are past this encounter so I can comment without fear of spoiling things for myself.
As I remember it, distance was a factor in the fight for us, but not a huge factor. By this point we had Horses, so getting between points was not a horrible challenge. And frankly if you don't have a means of fast transportation at this level, why not? Horses are just not that expensive to adventurers by this point.
The other thing we did was split up. I know, I know, "Never split the party." However, we were in Sandpoint, not a dungeon. Half our party were on one side, the other half made our way to the other side on horse back. We also used the leadership of the town to organize NPC defense at various points in the town.
By no means were the fights easy, but we did win the day and drive off the enemy.
That is all I can remember at the moment. If I can remember anything else I will come back and post it.
This is actually something I'm looking forward to and dreading in the campaign. If the PCs I have do not split up and go about the battle area by area, Sandpoint is gonna be boned. Once the dragon shows up, I don't see a way of them getting his attention, since they have no Arcane caster, except if they have the Ranger on top of the Cathedral or something ready to pick off the dragon, which I don't think they'll consider.
Seeing how this battle is going to play out round-by-round in the book, I really hope they can stop the push, but I'm sure the Giants will get what they want and the city will suffer.
Here's one thing to consider: If you've not yet gone through this scenario, have the NPCs tell the PCs that they're putting messengers on horseback to quickly alert them as to where the giants are attacking from.
Then let the PCs realize "hey, we can use horses to get around!" on their own. ;)
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Sounds like it ran almost exactly as it was supposed to run. The encounter was not designed to be "winnable". The diversion was supposed to be, well, a diversion.
This is as it should be. If you had the giants take prisoners, especially named NPCs that the party has developed an attachment towards, great! Now they are extra motivated to hunt down those giants, and the assault on Jorgenfist becomes time-sensitive, changing from an assault to a hostage rescue before the NPCs are branded and sacrificed.
This is a good thing!
In my game the PCs split and took a group of Sandpoint guards with them each, it was fun cause lots of guards died, it gave the PCs a chance to 'command' people (all but one failing badly at it.)
In the end it was funny cause Terak got killed by the town guards after the Bard got a 'Hold Monster' to stick. (He had been whittled down by the Barbarian but he would of iced him and next turn the Bard, him and Longtooth can be vicious if played right)
Again just wanted to re-iterate that I didn't have any problem with the PCs having difficulty with the encounter and/or failing badly in the encounter (which they did). I was just caught by surprise by how much distance affected them and was curious to know how others handle the situation.
We finished the encounter Sunday and they did fail pretty bad. The battle went past round 25 and Teraktinus escaped with what he was looking for. Dozen of townfolks where taken prisoners, between 50-100 people dead, 3/4 of the docks has been burnt to ashes and one PC got butchered by Teraktinus.
All this mayhem makes for some pretty awesome drama. The PCs don't need any more motivation to go after Mokmurian now.
For those curious as to why it failed, well a couple of factors where at play.
* The PCs had 24 hours in Sandpoint to prepared (as suggested by the AP). However, the wizard teleported to magnimar and back the previous day. He also used up his fly spells for scouting (which was wasted cause they didn't scout anywhere near where the giants where. When the alarm rang in the morning, he was out of most of his good mobility spells. He did cast haste in the first few round and it helped a lot in them being able to get to the giant+bear encounter in time...but even there ..that run burnt out of few rounds.
* The cleric has a move of 20. His default selection of spells contains zero mobility spells. He spent most of the encounter catching up to others.
* The party's de-facto killing machine (i.e. the barbarian) split off the party when the party had regrouped at the burning theatre..he noticed tracks left by teraktinus' group and in his usual impulsiveness decided that there was no time to talk and went off on his own following the trail. When he encountered Teraktinus and his two goons, he didn't back away. It was a heroic and messy death. His +1 adamantine giant bane two-handed sword didn't save him this time. Teraktinus made great use of his lunge feat. He died from a critical pick hit.
Ah. Death by Stupidity. One of the few times I allow the dice to fall as they fall.
I have the feeling this won't be as big a problem for my group. The Trasmuter is already planning on building "Boots of Flight and Spider Climb" (in case of Gust of Wind) for every party member. All I can think of is Legion of Superheroes with their Flight Rings. ^^;;
Interesting thing is? Seeing that one of the party died fighting these giants, I can't really see the town turning on them. They tried. They lost, but they were also facing down a dozen giants and a dragon all at once.
