Tartuk is gonna slaughter my PCs

[johnnymac]

Hey gang! I have a six PC group running the six player Kingmaker conversion and we've been having a great time. My players are a bit impetuous, however, and after running into (and befriending) the kobolds at the Radish Patch, decided they absolutely love kobold NPCs and wanted to get involved in their politics. Through impressive ingenuity and teamwork they managed to overcome the mites at the Sycamore and are headed straight to the Sootscale caves.

And I was really happy for them! I gave Nakpik and Mikmek class levels to help them out (Cavalier and Rogue) and they love them - they want both to come live with them at Oleg's, lol.

Anyway, they're still level 1, and headed for the Sootscale caves. I used the Tartuk as Summoner conversion because it is just 1000% more awesome. I looked at his eidolon's (Old Sharptooth, of course) stats and realized "Wow. He's gonna slaughter them". I downgraded Tartuk to level 5, but his eidolon is still more powerful than ... anything they've encountered and is almost unhittable.

I want to keep Tartuk and his eidolon but I don't want to kill the PCs. If possible, I'm going to try to have Tartuk try to get away to hassle the PCs in the future, so him not fighting to the death gives me a little leeway. I guess the best way to run this encounter after giving the Chief that statue is something different than "show up, swing sword" and I was hoping to get some ideas here.

I was thinking of starting it off by having the PCs battle Tartuk socially at first for the hearts and minds of the tribe, exposing him as a fraud through some roleplaying. Depending on how that goes, X amount of kobolds will be converted from Tartuk's cause to the Chief's before battle commences. Maybe have Sharptooth/Tartuk more focused on slaughtering the kobold population once he is exposed, and rallying the kobolds there to stop him? As Tartuk flees the caverns, his eidolon's hps will become lower and lower as their connection weakens. I have about 8 different kobold NPCs personalities developed and this might be a great way to showcase them.

Anyway, --- any ideas on how to make this encounter less linear? Has anyone else encountered problems like this in a sandbox adventure?

Thanks for the help guys! I always appreciate the help I receive here.

[FatR]

Well, what did you expect? Paizo's classed NPCs are "built" (in the loosest sense of word) to fail against the absolute lowest common denominator of PC competency, replacing them with something more awesome without radically reducing their levels will often create unsurmountable challenges.

As about this situation, let kobolds give PCs an idea to convince the Chief, use him to ensure a successful infiltration of Tartuk's lair and stab Tartuk to death in his sleep. If PCs establish a contact with kobolds early, this is the optimal course of action in any case.

[Norin d'orien]

I have to disagree, since the adventure paths are filled with tough encounters:eryllium in rotrl, staglord's fortress taken on a level lower than 3 and countless other are all but sub-par npcs, at least in my experience..
I realy like the idea of a social battle for the heart of the kobolds tough! But then you should consider tartuk fighting to death, but making him focus on kobolds first, and later on the pcs, that would be story-wise and fun too, i think.

[pennywit]

Here's what I did in my campaign:

I used summoner Tartuk, and he had his eidolon fight the party for the most part. The eidolon actually came close to killing a couple party members until they started working as a team, rather than individually. As soon as Tartuk was somewhat injured (50 percent hit points), he headed for the hills.

Tartuk and Sharptooth become recurring villains for the second third of SL. They constantly harried the PCs and occasionally directed other annoying characters to come after them.

Once my players got to early third level (and the main RPer/party face was absent for out-of-game reasons), Tartuk rounded up a bunch of mites and assaulted Oleg's rest. We played it as a big tactical battle. It took us six hours of real time to run that sucker, and it was hella fun.

TL; DR: Have Tartuk flee when it becomes clear to him that he has lost the fear and loyalty of the kobold tribe. He can then become a recurring villain, and you can give your players a knock-down, drag out battle with him when they're ready.

[Mackenzie Kavanaugh]

I take it you're using the normal or slow advancement track? On the fast advancement track, just defeating Happs and the mites should have advanced them to level 2, and on the normal advancement track they should be only a few xp away from 2 even if they've made a beeline straight for the Sootscale Caverns.

That said.... there is absolutely nothing wrong with making Tartuk only level 4. Just boost a CR 3 encounter elsewhere in the book to CR 4 to compensate and nobody will ever be the wiser. They'll be facing that encounter at a higher level than normal anyway, so bumping up the CR will keep it challenging. Might I suggest giving the brush thylacine in Area V the advanced simple template?

[FatR]

Norin d'orien wrote:

I have to disagree, since the adventure paths are filled with tough encounters:eryllium in rotrl, staglord's fortress taken on a level lower than 3 and countless other are all but sub-par npcs, at least in my experience..

Stag Lord is a level 8 character. Even when deliberately weakened by giving him alcoholism, he is a CR 6 challenge and should be a 50/50 battle for a fresh party of level 2 PCs by himself, not counting his mooks, certain death if PCs get tangled with the latter. But his build is bad. He needs his oh-so-speshul helmet to give low-level PC parties a bad memories of himself by one-shotting a fragile-looking character before the rest dogpile him.

Eryllium (and Xanesha later) are strong because, first, they are both using monsters who are rather strong for their CR as base. Monsters can be strong in PF all right. And then they are underCRed for no particular reason.

[Norin d'orien]

FatR wrote:

Norin d'orien wrote:

I have to disagree, since the adventure paths are filled with tough encounters:eryllium in rotrl, staglord's fortress taken on a level lower than 3 and countless other are all but sub-par npcs, at least in my experience..

Stag Lord is a level 8 character. Even when deliberately weakened by giving him alcoholism, he is a CR 6 challenge and should be a 50/50 battle for a fresh party of level 2 PCs by himself, not counting his mooks, certain death if PCs get tangled with the latter. But his build is bad. He needs his oh-so-speshul helmet to give low-level PC parties a bad memories of himself by one-shotting a fragile-looking character before the rest dogpile him.

Eryllium (and Xanesha later) are strong because, first, they are both using monsters who are rather strong for their CR as base. Monsters can be strong in PF all right. And then they are underCRed for no particular reason.

you sure are right about Xanesha and the quasit.

the stag lord is a worthy menace in and of itself, particularly if the party is human-rich (for his build allows him to be rather deadly to them, even without the helm).
That said I think that in the future i might have some problem of 'too much linearity' as well.
I must say tough that KM is filled with areas of less linear aproach (say the boggard refugee..but i made him a bit less prone to get himself killed).
a different problem emerged with the temple of elk. the bear was way to low a CR to annoy my 3-4th level party, so I decided to make him a Dire Bear, still mad at erastil's worshippers and make him a CR6 encounter. linear indeed, but the bear grabbing the sorceress was a sight to see..and the party not thinking of the bear running across the pool was really fun..

[thegreenteagamer]

"I made this guy more powerful, now I'm worried he's too powerful." Really?

You could just...you know...use the original...