KotS: Would this adhoc encounter be too much?

[grickherder]

If the group takes too long and camps too much, Kalarel makes progress on the rift. Have a surge of undead come from below. Have obvious evidence of an increase in necrotic energy-- maybe have the air become freezing cold and the dead things they previously killed get up as zombies. Instill in them that at the current rate, they're going to fail to stop the cult in time. Remember that K's note to IT said he was just days away.

No need for another encounter to "teach them a lesson". Just have time actually go by and the rift get closer and closer to opening.

I thought it would be perfectly fine if the group also doddled too long and failed. It would require not continuing with H2 and other modules, but you could certainly have the rift open, Winterhaven fall and the PCs needing to either run, run, run as necrotic energy and undead beings carve out a new kingdom for Orcus in the western half of Ninter Vale or die.

Bring back the time pressue and this problem will fix itself.

 

[LostSoul]

It is not my intention to punish my players. It is my intention to show them that this is a living game.

In that case, have an encounter with some hobgoblins or something who are saying, "The master is almost finished! In two day's time, the rift will be open! If you value your lives, you will flee! Orcus' will shall not be denied!"

 

[Sigdel]

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?

Area 4 only has two doors out of the area: the secret door and the western door that attaches to area 2. The PC's disabled the secret door and then sneaked back to area 2 and locked the door to A4. Trapping the goblins. the logic used was that without a leader, certain goblins would try and take over, thus creating infighting amongst them. By the time a gob did become the leader, they would have whittled their number down significantly. And yes, the PC's did clear out all the goblins from areas 1-3 before they did this.

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.

But their is no reason that I could see that would state that the doors would have no locks at all. This was a former military outpost, no reason to not have locks.

It's not so much as I have a problem frequent resting, it's more that I need for them to understand that resting at the wrong time could have dire consequences. Plus I think they are still too into the mindset of, "I'm out of dailies! We need to rest!"

I think that I will use Ninaran like this. Once the PC's kill Kalarel and return to town they find that Ninaran killed some people, raised some dead, hooked with Maw and his group and then split. When Kalarel died Maw became free willed. Ninaran And Maw decided that anybody who could take out big-K would more than likely kill them as well. So they leave the area and bide their time until they can either A) Attack the PC's when they least expect it, or B) Seek the componats to bring back Kalarel as a big nasty undead thingy and then kill the PC's.