My players managed to bumble their way through the opening goblin fights, and in "local heroes" went on the boar hunt and cleared the undead from father Tobyn's crypt. But having identified that among the goblin tracks in the graveyard there is a human-sized set leading to and away from the crypt, the party is now planning on tracking the human-like footprints (Tsuto's) outside the town.
I figured this was a good chance to introduce Shahelu (sp?) and she has given them the skinny on the goblins in the area. But the group is still intent on chasing Tsuto's tracks back into the woods.
So I figure it would be really lame to just have them wander out, make a roll, say "you lose the trail" and everyone comes back into town. Though the players idea doesn't neatly fit into the storyline I do want there to be something to reward them with for taking the initiative. I am thinking a small encounter with perhaps a little treasure as well. I am also thinking that maybe it shouldn't be goblins since there are plenty of those in the adventure already.
Any suggestions as to what the party should find? I note that the forest at the northern edge of town (where the tracks disappear into) is not marked on the local map of the Sandpoint region but I guess that it ends up being a part of the Tickwood or Shankswood? Or does Ravenroost cut those off from Sandpoint?
Also, I am assuming that Tsuto after leaving Sandpoint went straight to Thistletop with Ezakien's bones. But would he have stayed there? I know that he returns to murder Lonjiku and kidnap Ameiko later but that is several days away. I'm guessing that he would want to hang around Nuala as much as possible and probably won't return until just before his plan to kill Lonjiku.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks,
Peet
I gave my players a boggard tribe to dispatch, though this may be too difficult if your players are still in the first chapter. Mostly there seem to just be goblins around Sandpoint, though I believe there are also apparently gnolls and such. There's always the Sandpoint Devil, though he is pretty tough too.
Maybe some more wandering undead? If your players wonder what they're doing there, you could say they were left to allow Tsuto etc to escape?
My players did the same;
I gave them a little "Caravan in distress" encounter. 4 (6?) Goblins lead by Bruthazmus attacking a caravan (two wagons lead by oxen; one on fire, one driver killed, 2 goblins guarding the prisoners, Bruthazmus and the others pilfering the load).
As my group is good-aligned throughout, they extinguished the fire, righted and repaired the wagone and scorted the commoners back to Sandpoint; once there Local Heroes kicked in.
Ruyan.
Meh, trail got lost in the river.
Yeah, losing the trail is easy. But my point is that I don't want to waste the build-up on nothing. As I said in the first post:
So I figure it would be really lame to just have them wander out, make a roll, say "you lose the trail" and everyone comes back into town.
Thanks, Kalshane, but as I said in my OP:
I am also thinking that maybe it shouldn't be goblins since there are plenty of those in the adventure already.
OK I am thinking about maybe a spider swarm and a weakened (perhaps elderly) ettercap. They will be hiding in one of the many Thassilonian ruins scattered across the landscape.
Are there any known effects of Thassilonian objects that would cause something to gradually sicken? Like some kind of poison perhaps? I am thinking that something about the place is gradually killing the ettercap (making it CR 1 or 2 instead of 3). Or should I just make something up?
Abysium was at least somewhat common in Thassilon basically because exposure to it makes you sick and the people oppressing you would make cell bars and manacles out of the stuff to help keep you in line.
They could find an ancient manacle of the stuff in the ruins the ettercap is now hiding in, the ettercap itself completely unaware of the wasting effects of the items buried in the rubble of its nest.
I love ettercaps for some reason, the earlier you spring one of those horrid monsters on your party, the better!
Why not just have a wounded ettercap, from a previous fight? And no spider swarm?
Ruyan.
Partly the spider swarm is to get the sorcerer to use his burning hands spell, which he optimized for and then never uses. He casts it as a 3rd level caster, which should have a good chance of cooking the swarm in one go. I also want the party to know about swarms and how to deal with them, and this one should be fairly easy.
As for the elderly ettercap, the idea I had was for the party to find a Thassilonian relic which has ioun stones built into it (it will be a part of a shrine to either Lissala or the Peacock Spirit). The ettercap has been fascinated by this relic but it also is slowly killing him through accelerated aging. If the party pries out the stones they will end up with some of those cracked ioun stones that are worth 200 gp (they provide a +1 skill bonus). It's a way to feed the party a bit of treasure, demonstrate that Thassilonian artifacts can be dangerous, and give the players a bit of variety before they go back to goblins.
I am going to give the ettercap a -3 to his physical stats (as he has been artifically aged to old age), and I will also give the players a surprise round (the ettercap spends most of its time gazing at the relic and won't notice the players) and maybe they will also have Shalelu along.
Peet
OR you could have the PCs whitness how the Ettercap dies--grasping the relic in hands--and then have 2 spider swarms attack.
Ruyan.
With 2 swarms basically the sorcerer is doing everything. Nobody else has any area effect abilities. One is enough, I think. It will certainly teach them to bring some acid flasks next time!
So the ettercap is a more straightforward enemy that the martials can go bash on.
I'm planning on splitting it up into 2 encounters, first the swarm, and then the ettercap. The party will see some dead goblins strung up in nets so they will know something is up.
Peet