My players have just about finished with the Giant/Ogre caverns in Hook Mountain, and will likely be racing to Sandpoint to head off the giant attack there. Question is: which way will they go?
- by flight: none of them have overland flight. I'm thinking I might seed the loot with a wand of overland flight, making the trip back to Sandpoint a quick affair. The advantage of such a wand over, say, a flying carpet would be that it could have just enough charges to get the group to Sandpoint, then they would be back on foot or horseback (which is good).
- by going back the way they came, along the Yondabakari river. Pushing their horses, they should take 2-3 weeks.
- by going through the Sanos forest, past Ravenmoor, Wolf's Ear and Goldurian. This looks like a more direct route, but may not end up being any faster. It seems logical that the "old Sanos Trail" comes out near Ravenmoor.
And in fact, that's the main reason for this message: Has anyone deailed the central Varisian area around Ravenmoor, Wolf's Ear and Goldurian? It seems like the players may be in quite a hurry to return to Sandpoint, so I may just handwave most of the trip. When they were on the first leg of the trip from Magnimar to Turtleback Ferry, I took like 3 hours of playing time to make daily rolls for pushing their mounts (and a few minor events) but this time it might be better to simply cut to the chase and say "after 2 weeks and a bit of hard riding, you reach Sandpoint" rather than detail the day-by-day events and riding rolls.
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At this point in the campaign the PCs will be level 10, giving wizards and sorcerers Teleport (level 5). This solved the 'get back to Sandpoint in a hurry' problem for me.
I'm assuming you don't have any arcane casters in your party? Otherwise a single scroll of teleport solves the problem if none have it as a spell already.
You could also swap out one of the better magic items for Boots of Teleportation, which enable any player to teleport. I read these as being able to teleport allies along with the wearer (some debate that), although with a limit of 'max 3 allies'. Although since they can be use 3x a day you can make two trips back, and so transport 6 total in one day.
Either way, for me this point of the adventure marked the major travel turning point in the campaign, the pre / post teleport switch. Up until that point travel was a big deal. Afterwards Teleport, with all its advantages and disadvantages appears. Clerics get Wind Walk at level 11 too, which is the other big game-changer spell when it comes to fast travel. Varisia suddenly doesn't seem quite so big!
I'm assuming you don't have any arcane casters in your party?
Yes, exactly right... until recently. The party is fighter, paladin, alchemist (recently become mythic), and sorcerer. The sorcerer was playing a barbarian, until his recent demise, and for some reason the group declined trying for the raise dead option. So now he's playing a sorcerer, but as many folks un-used to playing magic users, he's more interested in blasting magic than anything else, and hasn't explored any travel-oriented spells.
So unless I seed the treasure in our next episode with some travel magic, they'll be stuck travelling on horseback at their best possible speed.
I should also note that this party lags behind the suggested level for the RotRL campaign by 1-2 levels. Since they got 25 point buy at start, and one of their number has already progressed to mythic ranks, this has worked out well up to now.
We also play relatively rarely, once a month on average, and this is our third year in RotRL.
I've always enjoyed overland travel situations, it reminds me of the good old days (like late 70s) when we had to map out the wilderness on a hex grid. But in this case I'm getting the feeling that as a DM I should more or less handwave the travel from Fort Rannick back to Sandpoint, so as to get on to the next episode of the quest more quickly.
This said, there is a lot of opportunity for fun & adventure in the transit through Sanos Forest (the First World is soooo close!) and past Ravenmoor (though that mission would require me to jack up the challenge rating considerably). But it might just be best to have some descriptive text to cover the journey, or else seed some expendable magic like a wand of overland flight to make the trip back a footnote to the next adventure, defending Sandpoint from the giants.
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Have they actually found the note from M? What if there is no note? What if the pc's are in Sandpoint (maybe it's home?) and the events in book 4 unfold as a surprise?
The note from Mokmurian is the connection between book 3 and 4 and gives the pc's a sense of urgency. But there is no reason the events of book 3 and 4 could not be separated by months. Mokmurian could not be ready to send patrols until well after the pc's are done with book 3 instead of before.
Perhaps the note is about the weapons Barl is supposed to be producing, demanding another shipment, etc. Perhaps there is evidence of a shipment just leaving and the pc's need to track it down. The pc's could find signs of other giants scouting the Varisian lowlands or hints of Teraktinus' group heading for Sandpoint.
If you or your group like overland travel, I don't know that you should skip it just because the AP implies there is urgency. Change the story so the travel is part of it or critical to it.
And a sorceror is supposed to be a blasting machine. At 9th or 10th level, investing a 5th level spell known slot in teleport is pretty expensive for a sorceror.