Forge of Fury, setting time restraints, what's fair, what's too long, ideas.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I just ran a party through the Sunless Citadel and that story provided a couple excuses to "hurry the party up" to prevent long rest after long rest. Now we are going to start the Forge of Fury and I don't see any obvious plot hooks to put a time limit on things.

So:

What do you all who have run it think is a reasonable amount of time to give the party? A week? Five days? Four days / long rests?

Any ideas on an reason to hurry them up? A competing band of adventurers due in? The Snowy season?

I think this one and the habitat around it give me an excuse to make long rests more painful until a level of the dungeon is cleared and maybe after. Go out into the woods and have a 50% chance of a random encounter? Is that too punitive? I don't want to drive them two days hike back to town.

[ImproperJustice]

Seriously depends on how badly you want to kill
your party or deny players access to their abilities?

I have been through it with no time restraints. However, the enemies responded to some of our retreats by:

Fortifying areas and calling for reinforcements (leading to more rests....)

and leaving with the treasure for greener pastures.

[Unoriginal]

If the PCs kill a few monsters, then go back in town, the whole section of the dungeon will be on alert for intruders.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Seriously depends on how badly you want to kill
your party or deny players access to their abilities?

I have been through it with no time restraints. However, the enemies responded to some of our retreats by:

Fortifying areas and calling for reinforcements (leading to more rests....)

and leaving with the treasure for greener pastures.

Your suggestions about the bad guys fortifying the area and taking their treasure elsewhere if they are obviously under attack are great. I wonder if there is a way to give a hint about that happening.....maybe something to do with the other ways into the mountain.....maybe if they come at the Orcs a second time I'll have one of the party roll a perception check and hear an orc yell "they're back, evacuate the treasure"! or something.

I don't really want to kill them but I need to:

-maintain a proper length adventuring day to balance it between the spell casters and the martials
-wear out the party a little so every encounter is not easier than the writer intended
-not wear the party to death
-not kill PC's or take away reasonable actions

[Unoriginal]

The adventuring day isn't about Martials or casters. A Paladin is just as advantaged by a few numbers of combats that a Wizard is, for example.

Now, I can understand you not wanting to kill the PCs, but this adventure's bad guys SHOULD want the PCs dead, and work toward that.

If the PCs kill a few orcs, leave, then come back, the orcs should be on high alert, have put their treasure in a safe place already, and have every combatant not busy guarding something rush toward the PCs the second the alarm is raised ( and if the PCs engage one in combat, they will raise the alarm).

The PCs can take a Long Rest if they clear out a section of the dungeon.

[Malifice]

I just ran a party through the Sunless Citadel and that story provided a couple excuses to "hurry the party up" to prevent long rest after long rest. Now we are going to start the Forge of Fury and I don't see any obvious plot hooks to put a time limit on things.

So:

What do you all who have run it think is a reasonable amount of time to give the party? A week? Five days? Four days / long rests?

Any ideas on an reason to hurry them up? A competing band of adventurers due in? The Snowy season?

I think this one and the habitat around it give me an excuse to make long rests more painful until a level of the dungeon is cleared and maybe after. Go out into the woods and have a 50% chance of a random encounter? Is that too punitive? I don't want to drive them two days hike back to town.

Isnt there a bunch of Orcs in there? What kind of idiots assault a fortified Orc stronghold, then leave and rest, only to try again the next day?

When the PCs return the gates to the dungeon are closed and there are 20 Orcs there. With an Orc Mage. And 6 Orogs. And an Orc Champion. The CR 9 Kind.

[ImproperJustice]

Your suggestions about the bad guys fortifying the area and taking their treasure elsewhere if they are obviously under attack are great. I wonder if there is a way to give a hint about that happening.....maybe something to do with the other ways into the mountain.....maybe if they come at the Orcs a second time I'll have one of the party roll a perception check and hear an orc yell "they're back, evacuate the treasure"! or something.

I don't really want to kill them but I need to:

-maintain a proper length adventuring day to balance it between the spell casters and the martials
-wear out the party a little so every encounter is not easier than the writer intended
-not wear the party to death
-not kill PC's or take away reasonable actions

I want to apologize. I reread my response and it was unnecessarily combative. You are definitely within your right to apply a little pressure on a group.

We had some hints as we retreated to a secure camp site we were using as a base, we witnessed an increase in Orc Patrols, and later saw an heavily armored wagon in the distance which we rightfully assumed was carrying some of the treasure within.

When we got to the duregar, we fought a team moving a chest of loot from one area to another, etc....

We also had to deal with Duregar laying traps and having an ambush ready for us.

It’s subtle, but we have learned to weigh our rests vs enemy prep time.

[kardar233]

I see a lot of agitating for “if they rest kill them with hordes and don’t let them have any treasure” here. I get really frustrated as a player with this kind of double bind, because it feels like a punishment for not blindly pressing on no matter what. We keep going as best we can but we can’t always know what’s around the corner and whether we still have tools to deal with it. If the Wizard is out of Counterspells, the next Warmage we fight might drop three of us with its first turn. When we do know, sometimes the conclusion is “we can’t deal with that in the state we are in”.

It makes sense for the enemy to respond to our actions but taking a punitive view is just frustrating. If you want to have the orcs start carting out their treasure and such, at least let us raid the caravan.

In regard to the OP, I think that you should take a reasonable guess as to how much resting the party should need for this dungeon and imply a time limit around that. Metering rest is a better tool than punishing it.

[Avonar]

I see a lot of agitating for “if they rest kill them with hordes and don’t let them have any treasure” here. I get really frustrated as a player with this kind of double bind, because it feels like a punishment for not blindly pressing on no matter what. We keep going as best we can but we can’t always know what’s around the corner and whether we still have tools to deal with it. If the Wizard is out of Counterspells, the next Warmage we fight might drop three of us with its first turn. When we do know, sometimes the conclusion is “we can’t deal with that in the state we are in”.

And you are well within your rights for that, pulling back and resting outside is valid and the adventure even accounts for it happening. But if you are choosing to rest for 8 hours in a place where you know there are hostile inhabitants, well there's no reason to give the players a freebie for being stupid. Would orcs attack them 4 at a time or would they gather their forces for an overwhelming advantage?

The treasure question is pretty moot, they don't have much.

[kardar233]

And you are well within your rights for that, pulling back and resting outside is valid and the adventure even accounts for it happening. But if you are choosing to rest for 8 hours in a place where you know there are hostile inhabitants, well there's no reason to give the players a freebie for being stupid. Would orcs attack them 4 at a time or would they gather their forces for an overwhelming advantage?

The treasure question is pretty moot, they don't have much.

There’s a wide range of possible responses to players resting between “give them a freebie” and “hey let’s TPK these idiots with an entire orc tribe.” If you’re set on the realism of what the enemy would do in this scenario, I would also invite you to examine the realism of why a quartet of adventurers are making an attack on an overwhelming force of orcs.