Burnt Offerings - Thistletop question

[muklowd]

So, my PCs are just working their way in to Thistletop at the moment. They have got through the Thistle maze and had a pitched battle at the doors of the keep. Then, victorious but bloodied they climbed up and into one of the towers, closed the trapdoor leading down into the building and hunkered down to rest and recover.

Unfortunately for them, I am pretty certain that every single goblin in the place is aware of their presence. One of the party members is a Cavalier of the Musketeer archetype, so every combat is punctuated by gunfire. The druid therefore knew about them in plenty of time to get off a warning sparrow and then the battle at the doors made sufficient noise to ensure that everyone else was aware of them as well. Added to that, they wounded and drove off the two goblins in the tower rather than killing them, so they are doubtless downstairs telling a story of attacking hordes by the time the PCs get into the tower and shut the trapdoor.

So I guess my question is, what do the goblins do at this point? Mounting a counter-attack sort of makes sense, but I am pretty sure the party doesn't have the resources (spells etc) to fight off the entire remaining population of goblins and I don't want to engineer a TPK. On the other hand, the idea of the goblins just doing nothing for 8 hours makes no sense at all.

[Latrecis]

Your players have put you in an untenable position. And it's really hard to fathom. You're unfortunately not alone as this is not the first time a post like this has shown up here and I guess it won't be the last.

Either your players are inexperienced, don't understand the situation or think they are in a video game.

First, have you contributed to this by letting them rest in other inappropriate places? Did they rest in the Cathedral of Wrath for instance?

Second, I suggest you gently remind them of their situation: they've assaulted a keep full of goblins (number unkown) and haven't even gone inside. As far as they know, there could be 40 more in there. Why do they think they can rest unmolested on a tower directly attached to a fort occupied by enemies? You might point out the roof of the keep proper is closer to the top of the tower than the ground level where they came from - goblins can get on the roof elsewhere (including from the other tower) and have an easier time getting to the top of the tower. Give them one more chance to change their minds and retreat. One trick for GMing is to ask the players to explain their plan and why they think it will work. It's not your job to troubleshoot their plans but if they have made assumptions that are obviously wrong and the pc's would know that, you are encouraged to correct their misunderstanding.

"Farmer Bob told us there were Dire Skunks in that cave."
"No, Farmer Bob told you there were large skunk pelts nailed to the tree outside the cave. And you can see them right there."

If that doesn't work, throw the goblins at them in waves - 4-5 at a time. Make it dangerous but not immediately fatal. If after the first wave, they still haven't got the hint, throw another. Goblins love fire and lack foresight so perhaps they start hurling burning oil from the other tower. You can make it pretty clear the goblins are not going to stop and no one is going to get any rest and no one is going to gain spells and everyone will be fatigued, etc.

[muklowd]

They did rest in the Cathedral, although in fairness it was right at the beginning and they didn't have the musketeer with them at that stage so it wasn't immediately going to be obvious to everyone in the complex that they were there. They tend to be very paranoid about running out of resources (especially spells) and rest as soon as they get down to about 20% of full capacity. They actually rested several times doing the Cathedral but every time after the first they trekked back to town to rest. Oddly enough they never seem to have connected the fact that one of them is firing a gun to the fact that the bad guys always seem to be ready for them. But you are right, I may well have contributed to that tendency with them. On this occasion they genuinely were very battered and low on healing etc so they aren't being crazy choosing to rest, it is just WHERE they have chosen to rest that is messing with my head.