Tips for Thistletop

[Poff]

Hey everyone,

First post here, looking for some input on my campaign. Great community btw!

So, where to begin. I have a party of 4: Gnome Bard, Aasimar Life Oracle, Aasimar Ranger/Rogue and a Tiefling Witch.

After a few months of playing we finally came to Thistletop. Outside they managed to convince Gogmurt and the refugees to protect them from outside patrols (as much as they can) while they removed the bad lady. Gogmurt cooperated with the ambition of taking over Thistletop after they removed Nualia and probably Ripnugget.

Inside they went west and managed to kill the sleeping guards and the goblin dogs in the courtyard. After that they went down into Thistletop. (I probably missed some Perception checks here.)

In there to the west they found Lyrie who immediately turned invisible and fled through the secret door. They followed her downstairs, but couldn't track her down. (I haven't have her do anything yet, not sure what to do with her)

They managed to evade the trap and went south after that. They couldn't find the way to open the coin door, so they went further south. In there, they got hurt pretty bad by the Shadows (especially the Ranger).
With a quick search, the party managed to find the hidden door and killed the giant crab. The ranger accidentally got swept away by the current, but managed to quickly scale the island again and join the party (I basically ignored the difficulty of this in order to keep the game going).

Finally they decided to take on Nualia. After a difficult battle, with the Oracle almost dying, they managed to kill her and her hound. They took her stuff and notes and decided to hide away at the treasury to get some sleep there (the one with the helm).

After that we ended the session.

So, I guess I just want to know what things I probably missed and just general tips from you experienced GMs. I get the feeling I'm running it too much as just encounter1->encounter2 instead of a realistic fortress that they're attacking.

Many thanks in advance!
--Poff

[Tangent101]

Well, with Nualia dead I suppose Ripnugget may want revenge... which would give Gogmurt the perfect opportunity to backstab the Goblin Chief. You still have the Bugbear Ranger... but Orik will likely bail at this point. Really, there's no need to have them kill everything in Thistletop, especially as they've effectively used Diplomacy.

[Nullpunkt]

Have your players voiced any complaints about a lack of verisimilitude? Is everyone having fun?

If the answers are no and yes (in that order) you're doing fine and shouldn't worry too much about this stuff. Relax and have fun.

If you come up with a cool idea how the inhabitants of the fortress would react to the PCs, do it. If not, don't wreck your head about it and just go with the flow.

[jasonfahy]

If your ranger/rogue is feeling underutilized, areas like Thistletop are a good opportunity to put them to work doing recce or silently eliminating bad guys to keep an alarm from being raised.

Some DMs allow parties to plow through a dungeon one room at a time, others have every bad guy in the place come crashing down on you with Japanese-fire-station efficiency the instant there's a loud noise...and most of us are in between. Anywhere along that spectrum can be fun, provided you and your players have similar expectations.

[Poff]

Thanks for the feedback!

I think they'll really appreciate Gogmurt helpig them out with Ripnugget, making them see the value of diplomacy more (which has been underused a lot).

The fact is that my players like the way it currently is, but I'm sure they'd love it if I made it more realistic. I am afraid though that I might put them up against unbalanced encounters if I let the goblins devise a smart battle plan.

Also, what should I do with Lyrie? Where should they encounter her now? She knows they killed Nualia, but she wasn't able to find the secret door to where the PCs are sleeping. What's her plan?

Next session is Sunday, I'm curious as to what'll happen. My players are loving the campaign, probably the best we've run.

[Belegdel]

From what I recall of her profile, Lyrie would probably go looking for Tsuto.
If he's dead, I'd start her working behind the scenes against the party to get some revenge.
If he's not dead, then same situation but the two of them together!

Tsuto might have the nous to go to someone like Titus Scarnetti and enlist his help in taking the party and Ameiko down a peg or even out of the picture. That's an alliance that could prove quite a challenge and be more of a diplomacy/intrigue story.

[ajbaker]

My group let Lyrie go (Orik had requested they not kill her, if possible). In my game she ran to Magnimar and is getting up to some mischief there, continuing her history of choosing her coworkers poorly. I'm blatantly stealing the ideas presented in this thread and turning her into a drug addict/dealer, but I'm thinking it's unlikely the players will run into her any time soon since they've got a lot of other stuff that they're trying to work on and I don't want to overload with plot threads. May be a little side adventure next time they're in Magnimar after the events of Skinsaw Murders.