So my players are just about to fight off the stone giant attack on Sandpoint. Reading ahead a few chapters I'm struck by the infiltration of the fortress.
So if no named NPCz were captured and the stone giants are successfully repulsed I'm not sure the players will get the hint they should sneak in. They may recon and then go back and report.
Also how visible are the river caves from the watch tower?
Is the only entrance to the valley by the watch tower?
So lets say they get the hint and sneak in and kill Mokmurian. Does that mean the Stone Giants just melt away leaving the party alone? I realize that Conna can help with that but, it seems a bit odd.
Lastly is there any reason to go into the upper structure and say deal with the black monk. It seems if the party gets to the library, meets with Conna and kills Mokurian they could just bail.
Am I missing somthing?
Okay. To put it in Warhammer 40K terms, Mokmurian is the Ork Warlord who has beaten the other lesser warlords into submission. If you take him out, the smaller warlords start fighting among themselves to establish who will be in control. Some tribes will say "eff this!" and just leave. And the threat is stopped for quite some time... especially as you have a bigger threat to deal with in the meantime.
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OK, so they go back and report. Who do they report it to? Belor Hemlock, Kendra Deverin or anyone else in Sandpoint would probably say, "We'd love to help, but we could barely hold off a small detachment of giants. There's no way we can take down an army." The Lord Mayor of Magnimar? He might have enough troops and resources to muster against the giant army, but good luck convincing him to do it. Any group that would want to pursue this line would need to both convince him that it's in his best interest to kill these giants now and be prepared to owe him some serious favors. The moment they get the idea that the Lord Mayor owns them, they should walk.
In short, the PCs are the only group with the ability and the motivation to stop the giant army, and that means finding some way around the problem instead of through it. If they don't realize that, then that's where one of Sandpoint's officials could offer that suggestion.
My tabletop group is now trying to find Jorgenfist in Fortress of the Stone Giants. They refused the "small, fast group of adventurers infiltrate the stone giant's fortress" option by a very vocal majority. ("HE** NO! No Special Forces tricks for us!")
Instead, they
used Fort Rannick, which still had Jak the Giant Slayer and Vale the axe-thrower, as well as several new soldiers from both Magimar and a dozen new rangers called up by the mayor of Turtleback Ferry, as stated in the Anniversary edition's appendix on Turtleback Ferry. So with 20 soldiers and 12 rangers, the Sandpoint adventurers felt they had an "army" large enough to go scout out all of the Iron Mountains looking for Jorgenfist. The adventurers went straight from Sandpoint while the new Black Arrows weaved around the mountains and forest to meet them at the Storval Stairs.
So far it's worked out. It means the party's lone ranger has 12 more Survival/tracking dice rolls to assist, as well as cannon fodder to take on the stone giants and dire bears hunting parties they come across as they try to find hidden Jorgenfist. I suspect it will take them a week or two of tracking to find the place, and even longer to find the tunnels going from the spider caves to the underground. Since a frontal assault against 7 tribes of giants is out of the question.
Just be sure as a GM to allow Sending (Sor/Wiz/Clr 5) from the Mayor's staff at Magimar to keep track of the adventurers at Fort Rannick, and send a new squad of soldiers to replace the Black Arrows. And read the Anniversary edition on the aftermath of Fort Rannick.