Gurglegut encounter questions

[Shai2e]

Firstly: My party is going to give him the Dreamtime Tea. Is that what makes Gurglegut sickened or is he already? If he is already, since it says "effectively sickened", does that also reduce his fortitude check for the tea? If I'm counting right, that means he only has 1 in 4 chance to succeed in the roll, which means 15 to 16 chance to bypass the encounter entirely in 2 minutes of waiting due to a suggestion from an NPC. Am I reading this right?

Second question: How much xp is defeating gurglegut? Is it according to moderate (accomplishment) 1, meaning 30?

[James Jacobs]

Answers:

Spoiler:

Gurglegut always starts the encounter super drunk and sickened 3, regardless of if the PCs dose him or not. So if they DO get him to drink the dreamtime tea, he takes that penalty to his saving throw from being sickened 3, making it more likely that he'll fall unconscious. This is why it's a great idea for 1st level PCs to bother with getting the dreamtime tea in the first place!

Regardless of how they defeat Gurglegut, they gain XP for defeating a level 3 creature. If they managed to do so without attacking, this XP is basically a story reward for finding a safer solution.

[Junker]

I have a hard time understanding when the gremlins actually interfer in this encounter ..I see they may do so in the case of a failed perception roll but only 4 of them

So ..when the players confronts Gurglegut they hang around but flee in panic if they are specifically targeted by a PC..why ?

They had no problem attacking the PC just a moment ago so its confusing

When does the gremlins attack if the poisoning fails or pc just starts to fight him regardless ?

[James Jacobs]

Against a 1st level party, Gurglegut can be a tough fight. Combats against foes that are higher level can be really swigny, with a sudden good roll or critical hit causing the fight to go bad for the PCs all of a sudden–but more so than normal at 1st level. The gremlins are set dressing as a result. If in your game you see the PCs aren't at risk at all from Gurglegut, feel free to have the gremlins attack, but otherwise, they shouldn't.

[Junker]

James Jacobs wrote:

Against a 1st level party, Gurglegut can be a tough fight. Combats against foes that are higher level can be really swigny, with a sudden good roll or critical hit causing the fight to go bad for the PCs all of a sudden–but more so than normal at 1st level. The gremlins are set dressing as a result. If in your game you see the PCs aren't at risk at all from Gurglegut, feel free to have the gremlins attack, but otherwise, they shouldn't.

I see, but this is just silly then the whole idea them killing townsfolk evidently slaughtered on the entire bridge and everyone warning the PC that they should be very careful to attack..sounds abit like contradictions to me .

Then there is this language barrier, gremlins doesnt understand the buso but they obviously understood it well enough to take over the bridge

This is what I will do , I will have all gremlins do a perception rolls to see if they understand what is going on , ill make it hard since they are terrified of their leader and afraid of doing something wrong that doesnt please Gurglegut.

If succesful they will join the fight and if Gurglegut drops within the first round or 2 they will flee towards downtown

Yes the game is swingy but then this encounter should have been explained better ..right now the text show no real indication what they do but very vaguely

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I haven't read the precise language of this encounter recently, but the presence of the gremlins to me served an obvious function of preventing the party from simply attacking Gurglegut right away (the 8 or 9v4 being automatically fatal unless the party got quite lucky) and thereby crossing the bridge into downtown before talking to one of the elders and/or create an barrier that would force the players to deal with the river by other means.

It also rewards information gathering because again, unless the players already know there's a division between GG and the grems, they wont know that the fight is even winnable.

Perhaps the book says the gremlins always run when the fight starts, in which case their purpose is an illusion of threat to keep players away from the bridge and explain why no one has crossed yet, but Im rather more fond of the cunning plan, so I may just have a chunk of the gremlins chase the players away if they try to brute force the fight rather than have north and south work together.

But still, it's always your prerogative if you want to put mechanics in the cinematic moment. I think its a great idea to have the gremlins jump in to make the fight more difficult if the players are having too easy of a time, although I'd personally just decide on how many and when in the moment, rather than leave it to chance. Too easy for the dice to tell me its time to TPK when I just wanted to make the fight more impactful

[Junker]

It isnt really stated at all what they do part from if players confront them specifically.

My plan is to have them stand down as they talk with their Boss who they dont understand since he talks gobblin ..then let them understand what is going on with a hard perception check DC 20-22 so most of them fails and have the succesful ones join the fight reluctantly in fear of their drunk boss.

Yes its effektivly a way to keep players away from the bridge early but its also an encounter they should have written more thourough ..right now it feels just sloopy and like they almost forgot about these gremlins.