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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ccs" data-source="post: 8000064" data-attributes="member: 6803664">My last session?  In a word, annoying.Several sessions ago the players knowingly went into the Fire Giant chapter of SKT (slightly modified to fit into my campaign world) under-lv.They managed to NOT get killed by the yakmen, succeeded in rescuing a # of slaves, & fled.  They even came up with a fairly decent plan to evade the yakmen pursuing them.  From the slaves they learned the gist of what's going on.  Then, once the slaves were a "safe" distance away, the PCs doubled back so that they could infiltrate the FG lair.  The Fighter player also wanted the slaves to relay the situation to the local Lord & hopefully get some additional aid sent.(This is an annoying theme with this player.  He always wants NPCs to come in & solve the problems.)  It's a good 6-8 day round trip between the nearest town & the adventure site.So the rescued slaves head back to town, the yakmen search the wrong area of the forest, & the PCs infiltrate the mines/forges.This past session?The PCs infiltrate the mines where they spend about a week skulking around, gathering info, determining that they cannot take the giants in any sort of stand-up fight, & hiding out in the empty mine lvs.Then things get exciting.  The NPC "army" arrives upstairs & a good # of the giants are drawn away to deal with the attack.  This leaves things that the Ps can handle - mostly orcs/ogres/etc (and a single giant) - to keep things running down below.  So the PCs venture into the forge lvs.They have 3 objectives:1) locate & recover the Iron Flask, then use it to re-trap the fire elemental.  Without the fire elemental a huge wrench will be thrown into the giants plans.2) rescue more slaves.3) Escape - What they do not have is any actual plan of escape.  They know this & decide that they'll wing it.....Things go well enough.  They fight assorted orcs/ogres/salamanders etc, avoid fighting a hoard of goblins in the kitchens, free some more slaves & stage them in a "safe" room, explore a bit looking for the Flask....  And then they find the assembly room where the giants are constructing their Vonidar(sp?) super sized dragon killer golem(?).All thoughts of the Flask are immediately discarded as they decide crashing this thing to the floor is the new best way to sabotage things.At this point the session goes from alright to annoying on my end.They partially manage this, attracting the attention of the last giant & virtually all of the remaining enemies.  And then, mostly at the insistence of the Fighter, they run away with the slaves (who are in no condition to fight) into the mines as the enemies are distracted by the crashing construct.  The intent is to work their way back up through the mines, link up with the "army", get some healing, & come back down....It's never occurred to them that:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">this NPC "army" will not be the victors.  Despite me telling them, & demonstrating in the past, that NPCs will not solve the adventures for them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's not occurred to them that this armies function story-wise is to be the Dues Ex that'll allow them a chance of succeeding/escaping despite them being too low lv vs fire giants.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Minor physical sabotage (toppling the construct) will only slightly delay the giants plans.  But stealing the magical fuel (the fire elemental) that makes it all possible....</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">As a party, they do have the gear, info, & class abilities to quickly find the flask, capture the elemental, & effect an escape....  They just aren't using them.</li> </ul>So.  Instead of just finishing up the adventure they spend almost 45m doing anything but & in ways that aren't going to be effective, based on OOC assumptions that given the past they know are flawed (at best).So instead of being able to prep a new adventure?  I'm stuck dealing with something that should be done already.</blockquote>

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