Having a problem in my RotRL campaign.
My characters are on the way to Xin Shalast. They've just left the Vekker's cabin...
I have one character that wants to constantly retreat to safety or teleport back to sandpoint/magnimar over and over again for a variety or reasons.
I keep stressing how close Karzoug is to returning but this player keeps acting like he has all the time in the world. And he basically wears down the other players until he follows them.
I try to solve this in game by having consequences. For instance, after the giant raid on sandpoint he talked the rest of the party into waiting weeks before heading to Joegenfist.
So I had a second, much more devastating raid on the town...
I'm having the giants occupy large portions of variisa currently, building seige equipment and outposts in preparation for karzoug's imminent return. Shaleleu has had to recruit a band of guerilla fighters to try to keep the giants at bay...all because of this player's lazy attitude...
I'm getting so fed up with this I'm considering having Karzoug return and enslave the entire region, but I thought I'd ask your opinion...
How should I escalate this in a way that teaches him a lesson?
Having a problem in my RotRL campaign.
My characters are on the way to Xin Shalast.
It seems to me that your players are actually in the right place, right now. In a few sessions, they shall literally knock the Tyrants door. It should be a matter of days or hours, if your characters possess options like teleport.
I would advise you to not punish your players for their laziness, cause i believe their characters are spending their time either crafting or roleplaying with Npcs to better prepare for the final fight. They are people, after all. You should however give them a way to understand how much the situation is getting worse, and how much them and only them are uniquely qualified to handle such situation.
If you are worried that they'll go on back and forth from Xin Shalast, and waste time and resources, just have Karzoug use its magic to send powerful assassins against them. Rune giants should be the first choice, but since they are needed to better manage the population of enslaved Shalast, just have him force his apprentiance Khalib to harass them with any means. Make it personal, by showing off how much can be game breaking a wizard able to send your parties evil gold dragons, bounded angels and similar.
I would bet that your player(s) have the perception that these events are just part of the AP, and do not understand that they are responsible in the escalation of Bad Things happening. It may take you illustrating how their lazy choices lead to the next Bad Thing. Brainstorming off of Pnakotus; instead of assassins sent after the party, it could be that they send scouts that want to know where the party goes, and seeing that it's a major city, the scouts monologue for a bit, and tip their hand, by arrogantly thanking the PCs for giving them a magical trail to follow that lead them to such a ripe plum for the picking. They can now set up a directly connect portal from Xin Shalast to Magnimar (or wherever), invade very easily, and occupy the city. The PCs have saved them weeks of laborious travel to get to the heart of Varisia.
Ditto on mousmous' comment. Though that interpretation may be generous. Seems to me the group has made it 85% of the way through the AP and either are oblivious to the consequences you've previously provided or they recognize them but don't care. That's the thing with consequences of the kind you've created - the players have to recognize them as consequences of their actions and they have to care enough to regret them and avoid them in the future.
I would suggest a simpler solution. Have monsters re-spawn. So if they attack the Pinnacle and retreat too frequently or for too long, all the same monsters (or more) are in the same rooms and the pc's have to clear them out again. And again. When the players complain - "You left for three days. What did you expect them to do? Wait for you to come back and kill them too? Karzoug controls an army of giants. Reinforcements are not a problem for him."
You can also just give them a deadline--something like an angelic messenger appears and says "In but a tenday, a great evil shall return to this land, and its people shall fall forever under his reign."
I'm not at the point you're at, but I do sympathise and wish there were more built-in timelines or complications. My PCs are in the habit of teleporting away every time they meet a dangerous creature, preparing the perfect buffs and tactics for it, and then teleporting back a day or two later to kill it. It's perfectly rational from a tactical perspective, but not exactly a ton of fun from a plotting or GMing perspective.
Clear communication might help.
"Guys, your characters are aware that Karzoug is near to awakening. Every moment gives him more power in the world."
"Pondering this, your characters realise that the extra day sent in Magnimar gave Karzoug time to fill this previously explored empty room with this demon."
"Guys, your characters are absolutely certain that taking that 10 day window to craft some more magic items will give Karzoug the time he needs to escape, and his power will be vastly increased when you face him. Doing it anyway? No problem. The sky darkens..."
When they find the Library (or at some suitable earlier moment) you might let them find a fixed, definite date at which Karzoug will return - the stars are right (tm). Someone else here might suggest how long they should take from here.
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If you add Trace Teleport to Khalib's spell list, the information from the spell combined with whatever other knowledge Karzoug's minions have about the party might allow the bad guys to track them from safe house to sanctuary to wherever. Eventually, even a lazy party should get annoyed that any time they start to put up their feet and crack open a healing potion, a squad of giants pops in, tries to kill them, and wrecks all their stuff.
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I used the occlusion field to prevent my PCs teleporting in and out of Xin Shalast, or any of the areas around it... including past the Vekkers cabin. Basically, once they were close to the Fen of Icemists they were on their own until completing the campaign. Worked well.
If you have any divine casters in the party, a warning to them from a herald of their deity that they have very little time left might help prevent that PC stalling.
I also had a war raging in the cinderlands to create a sense of urgency: Karzoug had co-opted several orc tribes to invade to soften up Varisia. But that had been set up ever since book 3, not so easy to introduce something like that at a late stage.