saving the village! hobogoblin menace

[gandwarf]

so, the village has been taken by hobgoblins, and the survivors were taken as prisoners

in this village there are two towers, one near the border and one the highest point, near the center

need creative ideas for encounters and such, as the group tries to rescue the prisoners and defeat the invasors...

[DrKerosene]

I feel like more specific ideas may come if you said more about the Party. How many PCs? What level is everyone? What specifically are their classes (or archetypes)? Do they have any NPC allies with them?

Someone rolling high on a Knowledge Check may know that Barghests are like bogeymen to goblins, and may be able to fake a “haunting”, or explain missing hobgoblins on the presence of a Barghest.

Maybe someone can spook and release the mounts or a bunch of livestock as a distraction.

Maybe a grain silo can be set on fire (and then explodes).

Slapping the hobgoblin racial stats onto a Tribal Warrior NPC is an easy alternatively to the basic hobgoblin if you want a lower AC enemy (that still hits hard).

I usually like to include a goblin adept tribal leader who would be subjugated with all the other goblins by the hobgoblins, but for the usefulness of their spellcasting keeping them around the hobgoblin leader. Making for an unusual potential ally against the hobgoblin leadership.

[Corran]

Hobgoblins' not new year's eve is in 3 days from ''now'', and there is a good chance that most of them will be drunk by late at night, which would make it a good opportunity for the pc's to rescue the prisoners without fighting a full force at top shape. With each day passing though, the chance of some prisoners' execution rises. Do the pc's wait for the most opportune moment to strike so that they'll have the best chance they can get, or do they rush to try and put an early stop to the villagers' suffering?

The pc's can learn about hobgoblin's celebration either through a successful (history?) check, by somehow contacting one of the prisoners (who will have noticed the preparations or somehow else figured it out), if they manage to capture and interrogate one of the hobgoblins patrols, or in any other way you can think of.
The pc's can be made aware of the moral dilemma in play in a number of ways. If they watch the village from a vantage pint or sth, you can roll dice behind the screen and have them watch the hobgoblins either execute or torture (most likely whipping) a villager in the village's main square. Roll dice again and repeat every X hours. Or they could learn that it is customary for the hobgoblins to capture a settlement and execute 10 people as part of their not new year's eve festivities. Or you could tell them out of character and see what they do.

[gandwarf]

Thanks for these suggestions! I really liked them as non combat options for the group.
The presence of subjugated goblins who they can have as allies is intersting, and the pressure due to the executions too.

To give a little more information, the group consist of a well educated monk, a warlock of the GOO (who prophetizes the end of the world) and a paladin of Bahamut.

They are following on a omen sent to the paladin. He's tryin' to recover an important divine staff that was mysteriously stolen from his temple.

The staff was stolen by a human thieve who had weird nightmares 'calling' him to the temple, in these dreams he also heard whisper's that promised him great wealth and eternal life, ... these calls were sent from an evil spirit who had cursed the staff.
The clerics at the temple were trying to restore the object's properties, but were unsuccessful.

As the thief left town with his stolen artifact, he was captured by the hobgoblins
The staff is currently under the possession of the hobgoblins (maybe with a goblin shaman?)

[NecessaryWeevil]

A messenger arrives from the Bigger Bad behind the staff's theft. The messenger has a small escort with him, and is preparing to leave with the staff and half the hobgoblin garrison.

Does the party shadow the messenger's group and ambush them once they're left their hobgoblin allies behind? (But what about the prisoners?)
Does the party let the messenger and his reinforcements leave, and attack the now depleted garrison? (But the staff is getting further away every minute!)
Does the party attack now, achieving both objectives (saving the staff and the townsfolk) but facing a tougher fight?

Decisions, decisions!

[jjordan]

Why did the hobgoblins attack the village? Are they part of a larger group? A mobile horde/army? A nearby hobgoblin kingdom? I need more information!

[gandwarf]

Why did the hobgoblins attack the village? Are they part of a larger group? A mobile horde/army? A nearby hobgoblin kingdom? I need more information!

So to answer these questions a need to explain a little more.

The continent were this adventures take place is a republic, ruled by a council. Before that, there was (what we will call, to simplify this) an evil kingdom, ruled by powerful oligarch, a tyrant king who waged war against all those who opposed him.

So now, from the shadows of the world, the successor plots his comeback, allying himself with all the evil forces he can gather.
The successor is quite mad and obsessed with revenge and destruction
The hobgoblin warlord, sees this alliance with the successor, as an opportunity to gain force and deliver his judgment to the republic. But to forge this strong and important alliance, first the hobgoblin warlord must bring to the successor an important piece to the evil plan: a planetouched druid, born near the village that was taken by the hobgoblins.

This druid is key to the rise of the fallen kingdom, as he will be sacrificed to open a portal to a greater evil, that will assure the destruction of the republic.

oh, and due to some of the character's choices, the druid already was captured (but they do not know why the hobgoblins need him, they just think that they are evil and kidnap people).
sooo... the suggestion that the army of hobgoblins is leaving in a few days (after executing some people, of course!) is actually a very good idea, since they already have what they were looking for.

let's just hope that the party don't do anything stupid like rush the village and fight ALL the hobgoblins

[jjordan]

There are going to be foraging parties roaming around trying to gather food and supplies. There's likely an advance party on the road towards their next stop. They'll have sentries posted around the village but they may not be terribly alert. Those in the village will be getting ready to leave: packing wagons, sorting loot, guarding prisoners, repairing equipment. There will be a HQ, probably in one of the buildings, where most of the senior leadership will be gathered because they are needed or want to be needed. The prisoners are all gathered together, probably in a fenced area near the center of the village. The special prisoner, the druid, will be under the guard of at least 2 hobgoblin soldiers who will be alert.

Despite the best efforts of the hobgoblins there's going to be a lot of confusion, with hobgoblins entering and leaving the village and moving about within it. No one is going to pay particular attention to anything going on around them unless it's really out of the ordinary. At that point they'll go back to being a disciplined military unit under coordinated command.