Here's the situation: the PCs took the nearly suicidal tactical of making a frontal attack on the ogres at Fort Rannick, and thanks to excellent battlefield positioning and the dice gods, they actually killed every single ogre manning the walls and in the courtyard. Near death, they've (wisely!) decided to retreat before investigating the keep.
I'm trying to figure out the most likely response by the ogres in the keep to the fact that there's been a massive slaughter of their fellows outside. As best I can tell, Jaagrath is not a tactician and not even particularly interested in Rannick (it's running out of entertainment for him). Lucrecia is just biding her time there after the sinking of the Paradise and has no qualms about joining Barl at the Hook Mountain clanhold, and the rest of the ogres inside are just pursuing their individual pleasures. I've been going over a few options:
1. Just leave them in place. They're not smart, and they're overconfident. This has the benefit of simplicity, but I worry it's too much like a video game where the enemies just wait for the PCs to come to them no matter what's happening in the story.
2. Have the surviving ogres leave. They've had their fun and realize that any force that can kill about twenty of their fellows outside isn't worth tangling with. I could use the additional forces to augment the clanhold. This is a bit anti-climactic, but might be the most "realistic."
3. Have them try to more intelligently defend the keep. Pile up rubble to block the doors, set some traps, do some wandering patrols, etc. This creates more work for me, but it would probably be the most satisfying option for the players.
Any advice on the options above or others I should pursue?
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I think that Jaagrath would be furious. I believe he wasn't attacking Turtleback Ferry for the whole time since defeating the Black Arrows only because Lucrecia convinced him to follow her plan instead (if ogres would start attacking the town, some townspeople could run before they get a chance to die in a flood after the dam is destroyed). But after an attack he'd lose his patience.
He could decide to personally lead a group of Kreegs in search for the group that attacked them. If PCs are camping in the woods, they should be attacked by ogres in the night. If they retreated to Turtleback Ferry, the ogres would attack the town, massacring few homesteads at the edge of the town, and retreating when townpeople manage to organize some defense. He can return the following nights, until he's satisfied with revenge or takes more loses, at which point he may move to Skull Crossing and speed up the work there, triggering the next part of the adventure.
This way the mission to retake Fort Rannick becomes a mission to protect the town.
It's only me, but I like to make my players face the conseqences of a job half-done. In this case, because they failed to break the leadership of the ogres in the fort, they need to deal with their retaliation.
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Doing nothing seems unreasonable - Jaagrath can't appear weak if he wants to stay in charge - and doing nothing in response to an attack is weak. Lucretia has no reason for ignoring the attack either.
Sending out hunting parties to track the pc's sounds like a good idea. I'd tailor patrol size/strength to what the group could handle. If the pc's retreated to Turtleback Ferry, it would be a while before the ogres had reinforcements enough to attack the town. Jaagrath knows (or should know) there are close to 500 people there plus whoever struck back at the ogres. Jaagrath knows some Black Arrows were not present at the fort when he attacked and they've already made an attempt to retake the fort (Jakardros and his team.) However the AP is unclear whether he knows those men have been captured by the Grauls. Mammy Graul is intending to use the captured Black Arrows to entice Jaagrath into some kind of alliance (dalliance? Ewww. :) But it's not clear what kind of communication has taken place. Jaagrath may assume there are more Arrows out there making trouble.
Also as the pc's return to the fort, they could encounter active patrols in the area surrounding the fort. Attacking has kicked the hornets nest. It'll be quite a while before the ogres return to their previous lax state.
I'd also point out there's no rule that says the dead ogres can't be replaced. A patrol or hunting party has returned or additional reinforcements have come from the clanhold. Do the pc's know how many ogres were there originally? Probably not. And even if they do, reinforcements are certainly reasonable.
I think it's possible for a group of pc's to take out the ogres of Rannick in one engagement/walk-through but I wouldn't find a group that had to retreat after an initial engagement to be particularly negligent so I would focus on responses that engage the players and increase everyone's interest, etc.
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One could always add some kind of animate dead effect, maybe with Lucrecia's spell list, and have a lot of zombie ogres waiting for the players when they return.
I agree with the "retaliate" opinions. Send a raiding party after them. There are consequences to leaving the job half-finished, and the ogres aren't going to sit around waiting to be killed.
I think that Jaagrath would be furious. I believe he wasn't attacking Turtleback Ferry for the whole time since defeating the Black Arrows only because Lucrecia convinced him to follow her plan instead (if ogres would start attacking the town, some townspeople could run before they get a chance to die in a flood after the dam is destroyed). But after an attack he'd lose his patience.
He could decide to personally lead a group of Kreegs in search for the group that attacked them. If PCs are camping in the woods, they should be attacked by ogres in the night. (etc etc)
I'm totally agree with you here. I cant see "doing nothing" as a good idea for your campaing. Adjoint and Latrecis have given you very good ideas, also if you are afraid of killing all your party if the ogres take them without spells, you can make them prissioners, and give them the chance to scape, after all if we are talking about an evil and egomaniac ogre i'm sure that he will be pleased to torture the players before killing them.
Thanks for the advice everyone.