My PCs are getting ready to take on the Citadel. It appears the module is set up so the PCs take 2-3 runs at it.
Did your PCs need more than one game day to take it? There are 9 encounters on the main floor. I will probably combine a few and tweak some of the named villians. I just can't see how the party can clear the first level in one run even though "realistically" that is what they should do.
If it took more than one run, did you have the bad guys take steps since a "group got in"? I would welcome any suggestions.
3 days for my players to complete since had to retreat to heal up. They also skipped most of the upstairs (printed and taped the whole map) since came in back way and found downstairs soon after.
It took my PCs 4 days. Three for the top level, and one for the bottom. And everyone certainly reacted to the PCs repeated incursions, which changed the Staunton fight rather dramatically.
My post from August 4th covers a bit of this here.
As far as I remember my players managed to take the citadel in one day. The city itself they managed in 2- 3 days if my memory serves me right.
Details:
They probably would have split the first floor up into several incursions, but they attacked through Soltengrebe's lair, killing Staunton Vhane relatively early and triggering a massive combined battle. Then they utilized their monk's insane AC to sweep up the rest without spending too many resources, using him effectively as a tank and having their Holy Gun use named bullets the wizard had prepared on some bosses. They probably would have rested before going downstairs after that, but I let them find clues that the cultists were preparing some kind of ritual down below in order to destroy Drezen, so they had their NPCs heal them up and went back in again. Two of the four died, one almost twice, and the wizard went evil due to the trap, but they survived - barely and only thanks to activating the sword of valor.
My groups currently in the middle of playing this section.
We ALMOST cleared the upper citadel in 1 game day.
But we ran into a combined force of Staunten, his cleric brother, a few babau demons, a few fiendish minotaurs, & that duelist succubus. We don't know where that traitorous 1/2ling is.
The fight was going our way - killed the cleric dwarf, 2 demons, 1 minotaur, & (we estimate) had Stauntan about 3/4dead.
The fight turned against us when the succubus revealed herself & our mythic gunslinger fell victim to her various mind controls and leveled his gun at the paladin.
He almost can't miss, & none of the rest of us could absorb the type of damage he's capable of doing in 1 round....
The ONLY reason we aren't all dead is that our divination wizard was ahead of him initiative wise. She grabbed the two of us she could reach(a paladin & a cavalier) & hauled us out via a Dimension Door.
Our war-priest-bear-thing & the gunslinger were left behind and sorely outnumbered.
As our characters were too far away, we then got to watch the final stand of the war-priest/gunslinger.
The WP broke whatever hold the succubus had on the GS. The minotaur died. And then the PCs were cut to pieces by Staunten & the succubus.
So I imagine that it'll take another day for us to heal, reload spells, promote two more heroes to PC status & take these two NPCs down.
Of course if I were the DM I wouldn't give us that time. That succubus is unharmed, knows how hurt we were, knows how many spells etc we spent, can definitely track us down, & has no reason not to press the attack.
I don't know what's in the dungeons below, but I bet it'll take us 2 game days.
I'm currently running this game and my party of 3 so far has been steamrolling everything. They cleared the top of Drezen in one game day, but I supplemented the Staunton fight with a CR 13 Wizard (the one from the demon knights section of the villain codex book) with about 7 incubi (There's a monk that can clear many enemies quickly, a paladin that's the single-target killer, and an alchemist crafter). It was an even fight, and the PCs only JUST made it out alive. The paladin ended up dying, but he was rezzed shortly thereafter.
However they just got to the bottom section and killed the vampire. Most of their buffs are wearing off, and they're out of abilities pretty much. So they want to spend a mythic point to get a 15min rest in the citadel. Realistically speaking, what happens then? Does that tiefling lady crumble the castle on them, or do they get captured and placed in that working anti-magic cell? Like what do I do?
The group of 6 I'm playing in took two days to clear the upper level of the Citadel - however, we had dealt with Staunton at the end of Day 1 so there wasn't much resistance left to organize by the time we got there. The lower floor took 1 more day.
Bagra, I've got an answer to your questions in the spoiler below.
Bagra's Question:
If they are third tier, they'll need more than 15 minutes per Recuperation:
SRD wrote:
Recuperation (Ex): At 3rd tier, you are restored to full hit points after 8 hours of rest so long as you aren't dead. In addition, by expending one use of mythic power and resting for 1 hour, you regain a number of hit points equal to half your full hit points (up to a maximum of your full hit points) and regain the use of any class features that are limited to a certain number of uses per day (such as barbarian rage, bardic performance, spells per day, and so on). This rest is treated as 8 hours of sleep for such abilities. This rest doesn't refresh uses of mythic power or any mythic abilities that are limited to a number of times per day.
If they are not tier 3, you are well within your rights to tell them they can't do that - they aren't powerful enough for that ability yet.
However, if you would like to let them keep going, tell them they can do it, but they only can recover, say, 1/3 of their daily use class features and only level 1 and 2 spells/extracts per day. They don't recover any Hit Points or Mythic Points. If they don't like that, they can choose to retreat and come back after a full night's rest.
Regardless of what they decide, I would allow them to do it no consequences - the Tiefling's ritual isn't just to collapse the citadel, it's to collapse the entire city of Drezen, killing not only the PCs but also their Paladin army. That ritual should take a long time to complete, and they should have the opportunity to disrupt it. As for getting captured, who's going to capture them? The vampire spawn just felt their master get killed - are they going to risk attacking whoever killed him, or take advantage of their new-found free will to flee Drezen? If they flee, that gives you side quest opportunities later. If they got to the Vampire, they killed the spectres, so they aren't a threat. That leaves the salamanders, the ritual room, and Eustoryiax. Eustoryiax won't go seeking them out to capture them and those in the ritual room are busy. Do you honestly think the salamanders are enough of a threat to capture your PCs, based on how effective they've been?
I'd say give them their rest, and then buff up the enemies. Have the salamanders retreat to the ritual room to provide protection there (more enemies means action economy favors you). Make Eustoryiax more powerful - say, by giving him the advanced template. Maybe give him the support of one or two non-mythic shadow demons as well.
