(Spoiler warning for players, I guess)
It's been commented on in other threads that it's a bit of a problem that the PCs in The Stolen Lands are given a password to the Stag Lord's fort with a one-week shelf life. The opening situation of the module encourages them to head to Thorn River camp fairly immediately after dealing with Happs and co., but if they press on to the fort to use the password before it expires they'll get there while still first level, and well...
So, I had a thought about the password that I thought I'd share. Make it that the passwords don't expire - knowing any previous password grants access to the fort. However, the fort residents still change the password regularly (every week, or every month, or whatever). The primary purpose of these changing passwords is to determine how long it's been since a password-giver has been back to base, and therefore how much loot they owe. Anyone who gives a valid password and can pay for their time away (based on the age of their password) will be given the current password before they head out again.
This way, the players can sit on the password from Thorn River camp as long as they like - but the longer they wait, the more loot they'll need to muster to "pay" the fort with if they want to play the role of bandits and get in without grief.
Thoughts? Am I being too generous to my players?
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That's pretty cool.
I went with a different variation - the passwords were phrases from a specific children's book (the one from chapter 6). I also said that each password was good for a couple of weeks (to make it reasonable they could take their time). I had Akiros be the one who came up with the phrases.
The PCs were able to figure out the phrases came from an obscure children's storybook, and then research to learn the full text of the book. Optionally, you could even let the PCs obtain a copy of the book as part of the treasure when they take out Akiros...
That works very, very well!
Dotting for reference
Yep, is very nice. Maybe even let the pc's hear of this thing, when sneaking up on yet another pair of bandits.
"What's this month's password?"
"Same as last month, but Calistria..."
I had it expire like written in the book, but the players got around that problem by capturing one of the remaining bandits and getting the latest password out of him.
My group was pretty quick to head straight there after getting the password from Kressle's gang, but this is nice stuff. I really like the "old passwords work but require bigger loot" bit.
Well, I did as I described - some bandits captured from Thorn River camp told my players the set-up I described above along with the password, but my players have decided to head straight to the Stag Lord's fort at 1st level anyway... and hand over the grog and some loot, get the new password, have a look around, say "see you next month" and leave again without attacking.
It's a pretty clever and ballsy plan really. They know from a metagame perspective that the Stag Lord is the module's Big Bad and they should wait until 3rd level before trying to attack, but they're going to walk into the lion's den anyway and trust that they can play the role of bandits convincingly enough to get in and out without a fight. This way, when they return a month later (hopefully having levelled up a few times by then) they'll be known to the folks in the fort and know the layout a bit themselves, and should be able to catch them even more off-guard.
Unfortunately for them, they let some bandits flee from Thorn River camp. Those bandits never actually saw the players - they just saw a Silent Image of vine-strangled zombie versions of Happs and his three cohorts from the trading post appearing to devour the hapless bandit from one of the watchtowers that the players had just sniped with arrows. I rolled low for the bandits in camp and some of them took off for their lives and have returned to the Stag Lord's fort.
I'm not quite sure how to to play it out if the players turn up at the fort with the Stag Lord's grog claiming that they're making the regular run from the Thorn River camp and everything is just dandy back there, in direct contradiction of the fled bandits' report of zombies attacking...
Just to complete the story: my players actually did wait a bit and levelled up to 2nd level before delivering the grog (they'd been told it was expected two weeks into Pharast, so they had some time). Through random dumb luck they were exploring around Thorn River camp on the date I'd decided the expedition from the Stag Lord's fort came to investigate what was actually going on.
By attacking the second Thorn River camp (led by the levelled-up and recently elevated lieutenant Falgrim Sneeg, since neither Akiros or Dovan wanted to leave the other one alone in the fort) and capturing or killing everyone, they were able to report to the Stag Lord's fort a few days later to spin whatever story they liked. They said that the attack the earlier bandits had fled from was illusions, but blamed them on the Fey, and said Kressel hadn't been seen since. They claimed Falgrim had started fortifying the camp and was going to lead the search for Kressel. A convincing story plus some good dice rolls led to a successful and peaceful reconnoitre of the fort. (The 2nd level Bard getting 30 on his Sense Motive check on Akiros gave them a lot of useful information about his ambiguous loyalties).
I've had to come up with a few different passwords for the fort now. It would have been nice if the module had given some suggestions. I decided to follow the implied pattern of the first password... so far they've had
- By the cackling cauldron of the Black Annis, who wants to know?
- By the doleful dirge of Sorrowbrand, who wants to know?