Taking an informal poll...
Did it take your group more than one average session length to finish Thistletop? If it did take multiple sessions, how many sessions for the first floor portion?
If I can recall correctly I think we did the first floor in one sessions and part of the basement, and then we finished the basement in a second session.
But, after reading through it, I can see Thistletop taking 3 sessions total, easily. How fast did our group do it? And how many long rests?
2 sessions. Like in your game, my party cleared the ground floor and almost all basement at first, and finished it at second session. They were 4th levels, so it was a no problem run for them at the time.
My group will likely finish Thistletop in its next session (though they may never encounter things like the Bunyip), and this will be their fourth session there. Our sessions last about 3.5 hours, usually.
Mind you, the party was 2nd level when they arrived there, which is about what is normally expected in the module (typically they would level to third after clearing out the mainland and getting to the bridge, and get to fourth before encountering Nualia).
Ashkar's party of 4th level guys no doubt finished the area quickly, as they were a lot stronger than is necessary for the module.
The first session got off to a really slow start having a big debate within the party as to the "perfect" way to approach the area. They ended up taking a boat and scaling the cliff up to the top of the island. They then broke into Ripnugget's bedchamber via the roof, and their first fight in Thistletop was in his throne room. It was a big fight and we called it after that since the fight brought them to 3rd level.
The second session got them through the rest of the ground level of Thistletop and the group decided to camp in one of the towers, so I had Bruthazmus come up the stairs with some goblins to interrupt their camping attempt.
They swept the 1st underground level (except the tentamort) in the second session and explored some of the 2nd underground level including the portcullis trap, but we called that session before starting another combat.
Peet
Yeah, combination of fast progression, easy random encounter that gave some exp boost, party consisting from base classes only and rolling for stats (no 15-20 point buy) ended in cutting throw Thisletope with almost no resistance.
My first group is still dealing with Thistletop. So far, it's taken them seven sessions, as they are not optimised and have made an unfortunate strategic decision which roused most of two levels against them. They also failed to interrogate Orik properly before he left town for greener fields. However, it probably won't take them more than one more session to finish it (two if they go after the tentamort and find Mal). Sessions vary in length (effectively between three to six hours).
For most of the following session summaries, the party returned to Sandpoint in between forays. There usually was some RP'ing and investigation of the underlying issues (Nualia's backstory) in the town segments. In some cases, the party deliberately waited a few days before returning to Thistletop (to take advantage of that infamous goblin attention span).
The mainland thicket took two sessions alone (Gogmurt and TT kicked their collective @$$ the first time). Back to town at the end of both sessions.
The third session took them over the bridge (they didn't trigger the trap due to dumb luck) and partway through the ground level. The fourth session picked up straight away from where the third had ended, and had them discover one set of stairs going down - which they took without clearing the top level first. My reaction: O_o! So they cleared maybe a quarter of the first dungeon level before returning to town (triggering the bridge trap on the way out and dumping an unconscious, bound, and gagged Tsuto into the drink where he drowned, then was eaten by the bunyip). Back to town after the fourth session. The really unfortunate thing about their decisions was that they managed to activate two levels of foes at once. :(
The fifth session was mainly planning, a reconnaisance from the mainland thicket (including a missile duel across the "dropped" bridge), and some belated item identification/selling back in town. ("Wow, we actually have some cash and magic?")
The sixth session had the party dealing with the bunyip (mainly to prevent any "accidents" when approaching Thistletop by boat), climbing the sea-side cliffs of Thistletop under the cover of the morning mist, and taking out a small group of guards. The seventh session (the most recent one) picked up right after the sixth one and had a huge running battle in Thistletop's ground level section, with only Lyrie and Erylium escaping downstairs. And Shadowmist was finally found and rescued. (I seriously thought that the poor horse was going to die before the party found him.)
What lies ahead: exploring/clearing the rest of the first dungeon level, and exploring/clearing the second dungeon level. Aside from the "stationary" foes, Nualia will probably leave two dogs in the chapel, and hole up downstairs with Lyrie and Erylium plus her third dog while she tries desperately to make the necessary break-through to accomplish her goals. Having a tiny, invisible flying spy really helps ...
My party needed over seven sessions of at least 4 hours each to clear thistletop, so perhaps 30-35 hours, including time spend for talking, eating, joking and so on, which leaves it at about 20-25 hours play time.
We needed 13 game sessions to play through chapter one. I´d guesstimate that at about 40-50 hours net game time, all told. Two full days of fun for 10 € (1/6th of the book price) is not too bad, I´d think.
My group cleared the thistles, were attacked by a goblin raiding patrol while resting for the night, and cleared everything except the goblin dog/Shadowmist open area in one session ~6 hours. They took a second full session to clean out the rest through the gold coin door ~7 hours. They cleared the remainder of the lower levels, then raided the bunyip's cave, without driving it off in about 1/2 a session ~3 hours.
My group was 7 PCs hitting level 4 between the first two of the above 3 sessions. I upped a lot of things (everything's HP, # of enemies, increased several bad guys' character levels, extra random attacks) to keep the XP on track with the AP expectations. It was no cake-walk as I had several of them into negative HP at various times, but a smaller party would have gone faster with fewer enemies.
3-4, depending where one starts to Count.
the first session was clearing the thistle thicket, befriending Gogmurt and getting his help attacking the Goblin Settlement. It ended with the Group on the other side of the Bridge.
the second session saw the death of Ripnugget and the rest of his Goblins as well as the descent into the dungeon beneath, killing Lyrie, Bruthazmus and a couple of extra Goblins I added to make it harder.
In session three they befriendet Orik, fought against the Yeth hounds and it ended with their fight against Nualia. The trap, sadly, wasn't really an obstacle.
Session 4 was used to clear the second level of the dungeon, find Malfeshnekor and end his existence.
We play twice a month, from about 18:00 to 23:00. usually people show up late. also, since they come straight from work, we order pizza or chinese food wich takes time to consume as well so in reality it's closer to 4 than 5 hours. which means it took my group about 16 hours and that included reading 5 Din A4 pages of Nualia's diary and listening to Orik's detailed background Story.
My group is currently 3 sessions in, and look to have 1 more to finish up:
My players just spent a good 6h session on the boat ride, scouting, and dealing with the thorn thicket and the outer guards, the horse, and the two dogs inside. They've managed to alert the keep now, so they might be slowed down for the next bit.
We goof off a lot though - I'd say we could've accomplished the same thing in about two hours if it weren't for all the social stuff.
Wow. My group took nine four-hour sessions to get through Thistletop, over three different forays.
The first foray cleared out the thistle maze and pushed into the Throne Room, but the bad guys got some lucky hits in, and forced the PCs to retreat... after killing Ripnugget, but not Gugmurt (who had escaped the thistle maze and raised the alarm.) They retreated to Sandpoint.
The second foray cleared out the goblin zombies that Nualia and Lyrie created, then cleared out most of Thistletop. It culminated with a showdown with Nualia, which the PCs won, but barely. They then retreated to Sandpoint again.
The third foray saw the PCs retrun to deal with Malfeshnakor, the giant crab, and the bunyip.