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So, my players just defeated the tengu on the doorstep of Ravenscraeg. They are now wanting to use the potions of disguise self to infiltrate the stronghold.
Ordinarily, I would like to reward this...but the module says the raven swarms in the great hall will attack when they enter. To be honest, the great hall fight is one I've been looking forward to, as I think the swarms, followed by the thugs, followed by the ninja will challenge them in a way they have not been challenged in a long time.
How would you guys handle this situation?
Look at the map of Ravenscraeg on page 36. The two rooms marked C5, the room marked C17, and the room marked C18 have arrow slits overlooking the outside stairs. Lookouts could have seen the fight on the stairway and the inside could be waiting in ambush. Or simply barred the main door.
However, the descriptions of those rooms have no lookouts in them. Kimandatsu is terrible at fortress defense.
When I ran that module, the kitsune sorcerer in the party, with a kitsune trait to mimic anyone, shapeshifted to match Omoyani, whom the party had killed on the road to Ravenscraeg. That ruse got them to the top of the stairway before the guards realized that the people in loose robes accompanying Omoyani were not the tengu who had worn those robes. I did have lookouts at the arrow slits, so the quick fight at the doorstep alerted the Frozen Shadows inside, but not soon enough to bar the door. A barred door would have been so disappointing to the players, because a real fortress door would have been beyond their capability to force open.
Thus, if your party's fight up the stairway took long enough for someone to yell inside that intruders were coming, then the Frozen Shadows would have to be idiots not to have a thug watch at an arrow slit. The disguise plan will fail.
But inside the fortress in the lower levels, the disguise plan would be fun. So let the players notice that they are watched before they waste their potions of disguise. In the great hall let them overhear, "Is anyone going below to tell Kimandatsu?" "Risk her wrath? No, we tell her after we kill the intruders." That way, they know that no-one below has been warned.
By the way, the great hall has lots of pillars to provide partial cover to the PCs and the best places on the balcony for archers are occupied by tables. A fifth arrow slit is directly above the main door with no platform where an archer could stand. Terrible design. I suspect that Kimandatsu's recent remodeling messed up the defenses that Snorri Stone-Eye originally built. Perhaps they even lost the bar to seal the front door.
I thought of a consequence that is simpler than the above.
Whom would the party disguise themselves as? The only people that they know are Frozen Shadows are the ones that they just defeated. If they disguise themselves as those people and enter the fortress, then the Frozen Shadows will treat them as those people.
BOSS THUG: Hey, you defeated the intruders?
PC: Yeah. (Walks further inside.)
BOSS THUG: You're on watch, Bruce. Go back outside. You know what happens if you disobey orders.
PC: Come on, we are badly injured.
BOSS THUG: Okay, have a Cure Light potion for each of you. Now back outside. You can't disobey orders.
PC: What if more intruders show up?
BOSS THUG: Then we need you on watch to call warning. Back outside!
No matter how much the Frozen Shadows believe their disguise, those particular people have been ordered to guard the stairway. Eventually, either the party members give up pretending, or they defy orders so much that the Frozen Shadows realize that they are not bound by Oathtaker and therefore not real Frozen Shadows.
BOSS THUG: Okay, Bruce, answer this. What is my name?
The encounter in disguise would be more hilarious if the raven swarms do not attack, so assume the raven swarms are fooled, too.
You don't have to keep everyone in their usual place.
One thing that GMs sometimes comment on in JR is that a character like Goti has an incredibly detailed backstory, but in game he just hangs out in a corridor waiting for the PCs to kill him.
So maybe they can meet him and talk for a while, learning snippets of information about the place, before inevitably giving away the fact that they're not who they're pretending to be and triggering a battle similar to the usual one. (Goti tries to retreat, using his minions as cover. When the PCs beat the minions, the ravens attack. And so on.)