My players seem mystified in how to proceed, and in an AP already lacking in clear player motivation at times, I want to be able to give some good guidance here.
They're playing in Book 5: Palace of the Fallen Stars. They've met Mockery, defeated Doc Hellbroth and the Shade (using baleful polymorph to turn her into a particularly tough, nanite-infused turtle.)
At this point, they're wondering what to do. Mockery wants them to infiltrate the palace and either rescue or confront Kevoth-Kul. Zernabeth (still just a voice on the commset) wants them to foment rebellion by the barbarians against the League. Casandalee wants them to infiltrate the the League compound and so gain access to Silver Mount and Unity.
The players have done some research and know that Kevoth-Kul is surrounded by powerful barbarians, is himself a powerful barbarian, has a giant in his court and is propped up by one of the Technic League's most powerful captains. The PCs are a gunslinger, druid, sorcerer and inquisitor. They think that Zernabeth's idea of challenging Kevoth-Kul is bonkers and they also see no other logical way of shaking up the barbarian king.
They did manage to alter/neutralize the drugs at Doc Hellbroth's, so there's that.
I'm not sure what they should do and how to motivate them to do it.
I had a similar problem and created my own thread: Inconspicuous PCs Unmotivated in Palace of Fallen Stars. I had to play to each PC's individual interests to create any action.
The module's motivation to confront the Technic League, for a party with no vengeful or altruistic reason to eliminate the Techic League, is that the Technic League knows the safe route into the Divinity, the route that does not require going up the mountainside while fighting spine dragons. The party will want that information. Furthermore, if the party clears a path into the interior of the Divinity and the Technic League finds out, then the Technic League will send their own team to follow.
The module's motivation to confront Kevoth-Kul is that he could take down the Technic League for the party. Giving him proof that the Technic League had been drugging him into a cooperative drunkenness for 30 years should be enough to rile up the barbarian: "We cut off their evil drugs last week. Are your thoughts clearer this week?" The Black Sovereign must have some way of meeting with representatives who request an official audience, so invent one that the party can use, such as bribing his secretaries.
Or let them skip the rest of Starfall and enter Silver Mount their own way. That is what my party did.
I thought of two other possibilities.
1) Just let them have fun in the big city. Go to taverns, attend the theater, go shopping for new gear and spells. Have a few random encounters, and if any random encounter seems to catch their interest, let them follow up on it. If they earn another level, challenging the local powerhouses won't seem so bonkers.
2) The Technic League will come hunting for them. The Shade disappeared, and the Technic League will investigate. Assemble a assault team with a Technic League captain and enough underlings and robots to make the attempted arrest a reasonable challenge. I statted out one of the minor 10th-level captains: Captain Akradenn Sklar.
I think my team's problem is not a lack of motivation. They get that communicating with Kevoth-Kul could lead to an attack on the Technic League compound. They just fear to enter the palace given the extreme danger with which it has been described. They see combat as inevitable.
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You could just tell them that its public knowledge that public has access to the palace and that as long their notoriety isn't too high, they won't be attacked on sight :P
Anyhoo, wondering if Mockery wasn't only character who had their statblock cut. Saoria has rather interesting picture(looks almost cyborg ninjaish) so I'm getting feeling her statblock got cutted as well
I think my team's problem is not a lack of motivation. They get that communicating with Kevoth-Kul could lead to an attack on the Technic League compound. They just fear to enter the palace given the extreme danger with which it has been described. They see combat as inevitable.
Why do they think that entering the palace means fighting the entire palace? The people there are in several factions that do not support each other. They could play politics, instead.
Page 23 of Palace of Fallen Stars says, "Unless the PCs are aggressive or confrontational, the guardians of the palace generally allow visitors to come and go as they wish, provided they limit themselves to public areas (as indicated on the map). Characters who enter off-limits areas are ordered to return to public areas if spotted—-those who refuse are attacked. If the PCs’ Notoriety is 11 or higher, those loyal to the Technic League attack on sight, and if the PCs’ Notoriety is 16 or higher, those loyal to the palace guard or the Black Seers attack on sight as well."
They could just walk into the public parts of the palace and look around without causing trouble. They could bump into Ghartone and see that he is too terribly distracted to be intimidating. They could meet a helpful contact.
Do they know that Mockery is Dral-Mok? I had set up Dral-Mok's backstory as he had been a regular warrior in Kevoth-Kul's army of conquest, so he still felt loyalty to his leader. If your party is too notorious to walk into the place with trouble, they could, at Dral-Mok's suggestion, take a ticket from my party: go incognito. Disguise themselves as backwoods relatives of Dral-Mok visiting the big city, so that Dral-Mok can vouch for them in the palace.