Then they went downstairs and decided to rest at the Hall of Heroes. That's where we ended the adventure. How should I treat that? I guess the monsters on the staircase leading below should get up and attack them as they are sleeping? That would just push that encounter one room up, and make it a bit less dramatic (I liked the idea of the staircase where being pushed means falling down, probably dying). What about after they deal with this encounter? Should more reinforcements appear to disturb their sleep? I mean, after all, the cave in downstairs blocks reinforcements from coming, doesn't it?
Any help would be welcome
(a) Go outside.
(b) Set up camp.
(c) Set a watch.
(d) Sleep.
If they don't go outside, they just pile up the dead bodies wherever they think the bad guys are going to be coming from (in both cases, they should have a fairly impressive pile by now...) as a little message to those who would try to interrupt their rest.
The thing is that if they rest completely outside then according to the adventure the Orcs fill up their ranks again. It's just not clear from where, because the cave-in at the bottom prevents others from coming. I can "chat" and have more Orcs that were originally in the complex appear... or I can have those in the deeper chambers climb up - but that would make the entire adventure bland, with all the encounters taking place elsewhere than where they intended to originally...
Well it seems that 4E encourages to minimize the use of extended rests, hence the action points concept. I actually didn't really understand why my party decided to rest; they hadn't really used any daily powers (they started using them just in the very end of the encounter, to finish it off quickly; they would have won in a brief anyhow), and they had about 80% of their healing surges left. They just told themselves: "we had 3 fights already and it's late in the evening, so we better have a rest". I wanted to discourage them from taking the rest, but after all, I have no control over their wills, and didn't try to force myself.
The thing is that if they rest completely outside then according to the adventure the Orcs fill up their ranks again. It's just not clear from where, because the cave-in at the bottom prevents others from coming. I can "chat" and have more Orcs that were originally in the complex appear... or I can have those in the deeper chambers climb up - but that would make the entire adventure bland, with all the encounters taking place elsewhere than where they intended to originally...
Here's the thing, from the Compendium:
Duration: An extended rest is at least 6 hours long.
Once per Day: After you finish an extended rest, you have to wait 12 hours before you can begin another one.
No Strenuous Activity: You normally sleep during an extended rest, though you don’t have to. You can engage in light activity that doesn’t require much exertion.
Regain Hit Points and Healing Surges: At the end of an extended rest, you regain any hit points you have lost and any healing surges you have spent.
Powers: At the end of an extended rest, you regain all your encounter powers and daily powers.
Action Points: At the end of an extended rest, you lose any unspent action points, but you start fresh with 1 action point.
Interruptions: If anything interrupts your extended rest, such as an attack, add the time spent dealing with the interruption to the total time you need to spend in the extended rest.
If they rested in the Monastery then they cannot take another e-rest for 12 hours, which means the decent to the Hall of Heros and the fighting of the orcs there would have had to take 12 hours. Ain't happenin' captain. They could take a short rest there, but not an extended one. Now they could also wait there until the 12 hours has elapsed, but that means at least 3 more encounters (in my book anyway) until they can rest. You may not have control over their wills, but you do have control over the environment. Bring in some more encounters. Every interruption adds time onto the rest. By the time they are actually ready for a rest, the should deserve it.
Since the adventure's clearly designed to wear the group down, I had the orcs try to break through the blocked opening three times during the rest. Three Endurance checks to account for the bad night's sleep, with each failure costing a healing surge.
Also, the orcs set an ambush in the room below the temple (don't remember the encounter names, but the one with the big statue) instead of just all sitting around waiting to be shot. The orcs hid in the monks' cells and came charging out when the group was in the middle of the room, surrounding them.
Additionally, I pretty much killed Kalad in my head as soon as they gave Og eight extra hours to work him over. I still let my group witness his death, of course, but I gave them basically no chance to do anything about it. Future references to Kalad in the Adventure Path will be replaced with some other NPC.
One thing I feel uncomfortable with though is just conjuring more orcs out of think air from the depths of the dungeon. They cannot call for reinforcements from below because Kalad has blocked the tunnel. I might then bring reinforcements from above, although the party made sure that the monastery's wall's doors are shut and locked; I guess orcs can still manage to break the doors down or climb the wall. It can be that a scout party that came through the tunnels went outside to the wilderness and is now returning back.
That said, reinforcements should be pretty low level encounters. Maybe about half strength of the original, and more composed of minions. You want reinforcements to slow the party down and let them know there are consequences, but not tax their resources so much that the party can't make progress.
Shame on them for trying to take a rest without scouting the GIANT HALLWAY leading out of the room.
i had to bolster the encounters towards the end of RAR because the last few encounters were all level 1 and by that point all the party were level 2, sinruth had been chopped up easy and it would have been an anti-climax.
(for reference i doubled the minion skeletons in the room with the wight and boneshard. added a zombie to the ghoul and zombie patrol. made the gnome arcanist able to summon an evistro demon as an encounter power. this last one was an issue because the party won the fight before without taking more than two hits between them so pursued a fleeing were-rat without resting...so entered this fight without encounter powers! one died as a result, had they have come in fully loaded though it would have been too easy i feel)
some of the encounters are level 1 in both monastery and vents and others are only level 2.
anyone found this an issue?
party for reference:
tiefling infernalock
dwarf bear shaman
half elf swordmage
dwarf twf ranger
longtooth paladin
i am more worried that the earlier encounters are going to be a walk in the park.
I, too, pumped up the end of Rivenroar, but I found the adventures in the Monastery to be fine... they scale up: 1, 2, 4, 3*, 6. (* Into the Depths should not count as level 3... get the PCs onto the stairs and go crazy with Bellybows and you can pile up the falling damage and chaos.)
My group had a hell of a time dealing with Og and company. The Eye of Gruumsh hung back until there was a good cluster of melee fighting, and then dropped his Hammer of Chaos, downing my group's Warlord, Paladin, and Fighter, leaving the ranged Ranger, Rogue, and Druid in a bit of a panic, but they pulled through (thanks in part to a nat 20 on the fighter's first death save). Anyway, point is... the dungeon felt like it scaled up just fine. We're hitting the Vents tomorrow night, so I'll keep you posted on that, but it also seems to scale up as they go.