Adventure help needed

[Teflonknight]

Last session the party (5 level 6) almost lost their battle. Only the ranger remained conscious and was able to finish off the last attacker. They are out of dailies and low on surges. Here is the situation. They are attempting to rescue slaves that are being used by the Elven kingdom to mine ore. The fight they had took place just outside of the mine with the guards stationed there. I rolled a perception check to see if the guards in the mine heard the battle and they did not.

At the end of the session the players were not sure of their next move. They could go back into the forest to rest, the could forge ahead or they could send in the sneakier members to do some recon.

I'm not sure how to respond to these choices and still make the rescue possible. They fought 6 guards outside and I was figuring there would be 2 to 3 times as many inside. This would allow prisoners for the guards and a set to be resting.

I could use some ideas as I am having difficulty coming up with some good responses.

 

[Herobizkit]

Are any of them E-Classes? If so, Dailies are less important to them.

How did they get so low on surges... is this their first fight of the day?
Are they using tactics or just run-and-gunning it?

Sounds like this is an excellent time to introduce "Choices and the Accountability of Making Them".

- If they pull out and long rest, the guards should be put on high alert and (special?) reinforcements added.
- If they decide to stealth it, make it fun - use minions for the guards and Soldiers for the guard captains.
- If they forge on, let the dice fall where they may... but still use minions.

 

[MwaO]

One of the things that's often interesting to introduce is the concept of fail forward. You anticipated that the PCs would succeed, but they didn't. So now they have a couple of choices:
Potentially get TPK'd by the final battle.
Go away and rest, but allow 8 hours to happen.

So think about what's the outcome that happens in each scenario that makes their lives more interesting. Maybe they get captured by the slavers instead of being TPK'd. Look at the ancient mods of A3 and A4.

Maybe the slavers find something they're looking for or something they weren't expecting happens. Ancient evil artifact or open up some ancient tomb. Maybe a couple of slaves die from exhaustion(but give them that information before they take the extended rest so they know the outcome)

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

Yes, some words about the party size, their levels, strategy and how many fights they had since their last extended rest would be useful to interpret the whole situation.

I'm a fan of wisely used "fail-foward" situations, too. If they are subdued by the slavers they could be used as slaves and transported somewhere else where they can maybe free themselves.
And the idea with the minions is also very good. If you put the party in an adventure where a lot of enemies can be encountered then most of them should be minions. 4E D&D is often/mostly about grandeur and big confrontation in which the heroes are truly exceptional people. Why should they die because of some measly slavers or being bitten by a rat? They should face bandits and other scum, crush them and then face their end boss like master who maybe wields an abyssal artifact (see also MwaOs idea).

 

[Teflonknight]

None of them are Essential classes. All are level 6. Ranger - Archery Style, Rogue - Aerialist, Warlord, Psion, Battlemind. The rogue has no surges left and is at 13hp. This was their first fight after a long rest.

The battle strategy is usually run in and attack, though the Rogue works hard to get combat advantage.

If they had gone down in the fight they would have been taken captive and would have had to escape. I was thinking if they rest then the guards would be on high alert and a message would have been sent for reinforcements, this would put them on a time limit.

I also thought it might be interesting that as they were heading in the front door, some creatures from within the mountain would attack the elves from inside the mine.

Lastly I was thinking of doing it as a skill challenge.

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

Well, when than it surely was a tough first fight of the day.

There is nothing wrong with your thoughts on possible outcomes in this scenario. Captivity would lead to a possible escape scene - that's good. And calling in reinforcements will put the players in a situation in which they have to plan/strategize better. A possible third party would spice things up, too. So far I don't see any problems.

But given the beating the players received in the fight: would you say that your players are more experienced or new to the hobby? And what do they expect from a fight? Do they like to have tough encounters? Or would they prefer brawls that are a bit more forgiving? Have you talked with them about how all of you want to play D&D? Just to make sure that everyone enjoys the game.

(I for example had a DM in 3.5. who was very dedicated and did a great job with the story and characters and all of it. But his monsters where really, really tough ones. He played them out just as they were designed but using synergies between different monsters really well. And it was after a while quite frustrating for our party to get thrashed so effortlessly by meager kobolds... We told him that we were a bit overwhelmed by the fights. So we turned the difficulty to "easy" and had a great time till the rest of the campaign.)