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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 996296" data-attributes="member: 99">A lot of the way things went last session is probably evident given the backstory I just posted.  I just thought I'd add a bit more GM commentary to clarify some of the calls I made.First of all, this encounter didn't go at all the way I envisioned it when I first decided to include the Forge of Fury in my campaign.  I had assumed that by this point, the party would be suspicious and mistrustful of the dwarves to attack them on sight.  Surely they would attack them when they realized that they were not at all like the dwarves they were used to from Glynden (you know, the ones that don't grow to 140% of normal size and go invisible).But as things grew closer and closer to this point, I had to come to the conclusion that I should be prepared for the party to want to negotiate with the Duergar.  That was fine since the module specifically points out that Nimira is quite willing to negotiate instead of fight if it is in her benefit to do so.  Still, I thought it was pretty likely that the party would attack when they saw the dwarf who answered the door surprised and unhappy that they weren't orcs.Obviously, they didn't.  At that point, I rolled a reaction roll for Nimira because I couldn't quite decide how I wanted her to respond.  I rolled low and therefore she decided to send her troops to attack invisibly.  The party was just standing there with their hands in their pockets.  Nimira's men were in perfect health and none had used their enlarge or invisibility for the day.  She wasn't going to get a better chance than this.  So they attacked the party.As you could probably tell, things were going very poorly for the party and showed no signs of changing for the better.  The group had caused a total of about 6hps damage to the Duergar and suffered in excess of 30 points to themselves.  Less than half of the Duergar could be seen and their spellcaster hadn't used any of his spells yet.  I was pretty sure the party would be entirely killed or captured.  I didn't plan to fudge this.But then, Rhys made that "I can't believe we killed half the orcish army to save these bastards!" comment (accompanied by a good bluff roll) and I decided to make a new reaction roll for Nimira.  I rolled high this time and she called off the attack until she could talk with the party.Based on the information she now had, she believed that the barbarians had somehow defeated the orcs and that there must be a barbarian army nearby.  If these were their diplomats, it would cause her a lot of trouble in the future if she killed them.  She decided to talk.Rhys did a good job of rolling well with diplomacy, bluff and sense motive rolls and Nimira was convinced that she needed to at least be civil.  After she told her story about only allying with the orcs out of desperate necessity (which was fairly true, actually) she set about trying to turn this situation to her advantage.  If she could get the barbarians to do guard duty for her, she would be in the same situation she had with the orcs (which she regarded as a good, if delicate, arrangement).  If she could get the party to destroy the undead and/or the dragon, that would be a nice bonus.It did occur to her that the party might be exaggerating their defeat of the orcs but her only way to test this is to send a scout outside the mountain to see how big the barbarian army is.  The problems with accomplishing this are several.  First, she must assume that her scout can successfully make it past the party undetected.  The odds of this are good given their invisibility but she (skillfully) discovered that the party contains an arcane spellcaster who might be able to detect such a scout.  Second, she knows from talking to the orcs that it is wintertime outside the Stone Tooth.  If a scout goes down the path from the Mountain Door to seek out the army, he will leave tracks in the snow that could easily be discovered by the party or someone from the "army".The other scouting option was for Snurrevin the wizard to use his familiar to scout.  This was not really an option because, as mentioned before, the Glitterhame has not been cleared of nasty critters and any one of them could easily gobble up Snurrevin's rat familiar.So, Nimira is hoping that the party will be successful at destroying the undead (who the Duergar really are terrified of) and ultimately slaying Nightscale so that she no longer has to give tribute to her.As for a few of the features that you are missing if you've played the module already, I've changed things considerably.  The Troglodytes are gone.  They didn't fit into the scenario well at all for me.  I replaced them with some other nasty creatures but the party hasn't gone into that area yet (and may never).  I also ditched Mr. Roper which frankly was a rather dumb encounter put in only to teach a lesson that my players already know.  The northern halls of the foundry (with the exception of the shrine) are clear of undead and the Succubus isn't there either.  I also got rid of the animated furniture.These changes take away a bit of the variety in the module, I know.  But they seemed to clash with the mood and feel I was trying to present, not to mention the story.Anyhow, I hope this extra information has been helpful in explaining why the past couple encounters have gone as they did.  I'll post the Battle for the Shrine of Moradin on Monday.  And next week the party meets their first dragon!Stay tuned!</blockquote>

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