KotS: Would this adhoc encounter be too much?

[Sigdel]

So I'm running my PC's through KotS and they have this habit of full-out resting a bit much. Just through the first level alone the have camped out three times already. But they have done it in a smart fashion. Locked secure rooms and such. Because of this resting, they have not felt the need to go back to town, thus they have not triggered interlude three. Not wanting them to think that the can rest whenever they feel like it, I decided to try and combine three encounters into a ambush on the PC's. The encounters are: interlude three, area 4 (minus balgron and the gob warrior in his room. Explanation below) and the graveyard exterior encounter from the Shadows of Kalarel side trek in dragon.
My logic goes like this, Ninaran got tired of waiting for the PC's to head back to town and decided to take her undead minions and attack them in the keep. On her way back to the keep, she runs into Maw. Those two kids decide that their combined forces will wipe the floor with those pesky heroes. When they get back to the keep, Ninaran scouts the inside and finds the goblins that the heroes avoided fighting but locked in that area. ( In a stroke of genius, the PC's snuck in to area 4, took out the warrior gob and subdued Balgron. After some interrogation they decided not to fight the other gobs and instead just locked the door leading to area 4 from area 2 from the outside and disabled the secret door in balgrons room.) after she kills some gobs to prove that she is serious, Ninaran get them to participate in the ambush. Now all the parties are set and they just need to bide their time...

Planned ambush is going to take place in area 5. the reason why I chose area 5 are that the last game ended with the PC's resting in area 7 after usuing some diplomancey on Sir Keegan and that the traps wont bother the enemies one bit.

How I hope it will play out is like this. The pc's head towards lvl 2 of the keep but start getting shot at by the decrepit skeletons. When they try and engage the Skeletons the run right in to the zombie rotters. Not too long after they engage the zombies the door from area 1 bursts open and Ninaran leading the goblins and zombie hounds attempts to flank or get behind the pc's.

Running the numbers it looks like they will be facing this:
Area 4's roster:
4 goblin warriors
6 goblin cutters
xp total: 550

Interlude 3:
12 decrepit Skeletons
2 gravehound Zombies
Ninaran
Xp total: 775

Graveyard Exterior:
18 zombie rotters
Maw
Xp total: 834

For a grand total of: 2159xp for an encounter.

Do you think that this is too much for a party of 6 lvl 2 pc's and Splug from area 2 to deal with?

The party make up is this: Paladin, Cleric, Warlord, Rogue, Ranger, and Wizard.

 

[Mengu]

A level 8 encounter will kill a level 2 party. If that is what you mean by teaching them a lesson, go for it.

I would build an add on to the dungeon, and just have another adventuring party come in and clean up that part of the dungeon while the PC's are taking their extended rest, walking away with a good bit of treasure. Make the second adventuring party drow or something so the players won't be likely to go after them at level 2. Losing potential xp and treasure should make a better lesson than a TPK.

 

[darkadelphia]

Punishing players for playing intelligently? I love when DMs do that.

I haven't read the module, but I'd come up with a work around that does not punish the PCs for playing the game well. If you REALLY need them to go back to town, have a messenger track them down and ask them to. Even better, have the messenger be a trick from whichever baddy is going to ambush them.

Do NOT punish players for playing well, nothing ruins D&D more than DMs arbitrarily freaking out cause their PCs are thinking.

 

[Mengu]

Do NOT punish players for playing well, nothing ruins D&D more than DMs arbitrarily freaking out cause their PCs are thinking.

Taking an extended rest after every encounter is not playing well. It is playing like cowards instead of heroes.

Staying in character while managing your meta-game resources and getting through as many encounters as you possibly can in an adventuring day, is playing well.

 

[Deverash]

To encourage them to go back to town(to trigger the interlude), remind them of all the cash they have lying around, being dead weight. If they dont' spend it, it's not worth much. That's what I had to do with my players.

If you want to discourage this type of camping, remember that it's effectively 24 hours before they can continue. Play up the time issue with Kalarel. He is, after all, working while the party stops. And, if the goblins are still around, mostly of them have decent thievery. If you want to jump them in the dungeon, have them send a party of goblins to attack them while they're resting in their 'safe' room.

The first level only has, I think, 3 areas that you could lock the door. Ones covered in mold. One's a 10x15 room that's the goblin leaders hidey-hole, and and 2 are former goblin areas(to which the goblins probably have keys if the doors even have locks that still work after a hundred years).

 

[Yumepenguin]

It sounds to me like you're forgetting about one of the rules of the Extended Rest. The party is only allowed to take one extended rest within a 24 hour time period. If your group is doing 2 encounters and then taking an extended rest, that is against the rules. Punish them by enforcing the rules.

 

[Sigdel]

It is not my intention to punish my players. It is my intention to show them that this is a living game. If they rest too often then they run the risk of the dynamics of the adventure changing. But I do see your point in that this is a bit much and I run the risk of a TPK if I go through with it as is. So upon looking through my records I found that I gave them the xp for the goblins as if the had killed them. Now I can take that factor out of it. That brings us to 1609 xp for the ambush. Now if I hold off on it until they leave the keep and ambush them in the ruins above lvl 1 then it could be interesting. They are within spitting distance of lvl 3, and if they don't leave the keep until they kill kalarel, it is entirely possible for them to be 4th or higher. In any event it's only a 6th level encounter and they could handle it, with maw, ninaran, and the zombiehounds being the only non minions in the encounter.

But as a side note I am hoping to have Maw and Ninaran survive and use them as reoccurring foes.

 

[Nail]

WARNING! SPOILERS TO KotS!

( In a stroke of genius, the PC's snuck in to area 4, took out the warrior gob and subdued Balgron. After some interrogation they decided not to fight the other gobs and instead just locked the door leading to area 4 from area 2 from the outside and disabled the secret door in balgrons room.)

I'm not "getting" this. They did *what* now?

Did they get to Balgron thru the secret door? Then they knocked out Balgron, the Goblin Warrior with him, and then locked the door in Balgron's room? How does this trap *any* goblins?

There are 12 goblins in the rest of Area 4. What happened to these?

Given that Splug is with the PCs now, I'll assume Area 2 is cleared. You know that the door between Area 2 and Area 4 are unlocked, right? The implication is that they have no locks on them at all.

If you want the goblins to get free, have them hack the doors to peices. This should be a no-brainer.
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As for what to do about "over-resting" PCs:
Paradoxicly, hitting them with huge encounters will cause them to rest MORE not less. Don't do it, as you'll be teaching them that it's critical to take extended rests whenever possible, as they need all their dailies and Healing Surges for the next Big Encounter.

Instead, give them smaller encounters, in which they don't really need their Dailies. Also have monsters flee from these encounters and escape. And finally have evidence on the dead monsters of time constraints (like Kalarel's timeline of Openning). These 3 tactics will get the PCs to engage in more encounters during a given day.

Seriously: Don't hit them with that Whopper you were planning. Bad idea.

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Finally: What to do about Ninaran?

Hey, sometimes PCs do things the adventure didn't intend. Absolutely positively do NOT punish them for this (that is: hit them with the Whapper Encounter). The players will not thank you for it. Instead they'll just get that "It's Hopeless" attitude about how they affect the Game World.

Instead, have one of the goblins they kill have a note from Kalarel to Ninaran, saying something like: "My plans continue well. But I need more humans. I assume you are already kidnapping some of those pathetic villagers of Winterhaven....but perhaps you could broaden you search for fresh blood to the surrounding farmers. I need perhaps a dozen, the younger the better."

The point: If the PCs don't go back to town, Ninaran will have her way with the villagers. The PCs must decide: Do they go back to protect the townsfolk, or do they push on to stop Kalarel.

Get it?

 

[keterys]

For this adventure, too frequent resting should result in the ritual advancing. There can be signs as things get closer to help prod folks into action. If they never go back to town, then things can happen without them - for instance, the town can be attacked or even overrun while they're gone.

You need to give them incentive to go back to town - make it hard to rest in the KoS. If they've been there for a few days, the inhabitants should know what's going on and start smoking them out (perhaps literally) when they try to rest. Have them find evidence that Ninaran is bad, letting them know that cultists still have a presence on the outside, etc.

I concur on the 'Bigger encounters lead to more resting which leads to bigger encounters' spiral. It is a possible way to play the game, but I don't think it's optimal.

Now, if it really bothers you, you can house rule things to make it less advantageous to rest.

 

[Shabe]

I threw the two graveyard encounters at my players (6 of them) after they came back from the keep and they were serverly depleted. I took out around 8 zombie rotters though. The players dealt with it easily.

I'd seriously not send the encounters after them, have a patrol of undead come up from the bottom of the castle as kalarel has just completed part of the ritual and opened up a small hole (enough for weak undead to come through) if you want have the hobgoblins take a small patrol up and smoke the PCs out.
If its been 3 days and they were told they were in a hurry then when they go back to town have the gates being a bit battered after the undead attack and some of the villagers having been kidnapped (for sacrifices to keep the ritual going, still a chance to rescue them though).

Or theres always the suggestion that the keep is haunted by the power that drove keegan mad and it starts driving the adventurers mad, maybe have it effect splug he starts advancing on the person who is on watch with a glazed look in his eyes and dagger drawn uttering the following words in a monotonous tone "orcus shall have your souls" splug seems to half snap out of it squealing "no no, get out of my head!", skill challenge to start exorsising splug, knowledge religion medium, diplomany hard, strength medium to restrain him (1 success only), perhaps stealth to sneak up on him etc,if the players choose to start killing him have 3 attacks kill him / knock him out and award xp for a level one skill challenge but if they get him to snap out of it award a level 3 or 4.