Joshua Randall said:
James, or anyone else at Paizo who's listening (or really, anyone who'se ever designed an adventure) -- the Lotus Dragon lair
definitely[ needed a sidebar describing how the bad guys would react to repeated PC forays into their lair. (You could take the old module U2: Danger at Dunwater as an example -- it gave details of how the lizardmen would react to repeated PC assaults.)
Would patrols be stepped up? Additional pirates recruited? Funds be spent to bribe the watch to harrass the PCs? Would the Lotus Dragons eventually abandon the lair? Would they take the fight to the PCs, ambushing them in the foyer of their partoness's house, in a huge cinematic melee? (Hmm, that's a good idea I just had.
)
That's my only minor -- MINOR -- quibble with the adventure.
That would indeed have been a nice sidebar to include... but we didn't have space. Instead, notes here and there about how the guild reacts are integrated into the room encounter descriptions.
As it was, I had to cut a LOT of material from the adventure to make it fit... about 9,000 words in all, actually. The end result is a stronger adventure, I think, but it certainly didn't have room for any more sidebars.
In the absence of that, a few off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts:
After one PC raid, the Lotus Dragons send out a group to ambush them but don't make much more of a change; they think the PCs are an isolated incident.
After two PC raids, the Lotus Dragons realize that the PCs are trouble, and step up patrols, creating groups of 3 thieves that rove the guildhall. Cruncher the worg is put on guard at the location the PCs seem to favor as a guild entry, and the thieves start to set traps in areas that the PCs have already explored (flails that swing down to hit people in hallways, poison needles in door handles, etc.).
After three PC raids, Rowyn uses her wand of animate dead to bring back Cruncher or any other dead folk to supplement the guild's numbers. Kersh and Nemien, if they still live, are brought down to guard Rowyn in her chambers.
After four PC raids, Rowyn bundles up her loot and moves everything back into the basement of the Kellani family estate. You should consider, in this case, having her "forget" Vanthus' letters, so that when the PCs come back for the fifth time, they'll find the hook to the next adventure in the form of these letters, perhaps forgotten under her bed?
After this, the next two adventures proceed normally (the Kellanis continue to be a thorn in the PC's sides through to the third adventure as scripted already).
