TOEE Ambush question

Well, I did, when I was Chaotic Evil...

 

In regard to being evil...one of two possibilities. They (Toruko & co.) ambush you 'cause you're an outsider who is perceived to be weaker than they (and thus potential prey); or they can give you directions to the next stop in the scheme, like Nulb or even the Temple. Perhaps both is best, with them stopping the assault if they (the Hunters) become the hunted...? I'd learn the info from them, and then wipe them out if I were rp'ing it as an evil.

 

I just went through with a NE party + Lareth and also got the ambush. I recently played ToEE with a LG party, so I was aware of the upcoming ambush and what it was about. I felt that it being there for my NE party was just a programming thing, even though it wasn't appropriate IMO this time through. Even moreso since I had Lareth right there with me.

My suggestion for an easy fix is this:

Have a flag where if Lareth is with the party (regardless of alignment), Turuko et al. withdraw and leave you be.

Turuko: "Vile wretches! You shall pay for killing... Lareth?"
Lareth: "Hi Turuko."
Turuko: "Uh, we came here to avenge you. You're not dead."
Lareth: "Obviously. And thank you SO much for waiting until after I was dead to attack."
Turuko: "Uh, we uh, just got here."
Lareth: "Whatever. Look, these powerful adventurers have completely overwhelmed me. They are forcing me to lead them to the Temple where I would never dream of leading them into a trap."
Turuko: "Uh..."
Lareth: *rolls eyes* ... *wink, wink*
Turuko: "Oh! Right! Well, uh, you adventurers are lucky you have Lareth hostage *shakes fist*. We won't attack and risk hurting him, so... we'll withdraw now. But don't let us hear that you mistreated him, or you'll have me and these other 1st level foes to deal with!" *shakes fist again*

You can keep the fight in, just make a little change that if Lareth is present, the ambushers leave without a fight; maybe just some sabre-rattling. Or maybe something else could come of Lareth being there?

Let me say though that I REALLY like the idea of having a good ambush for evil parties. Since the evil ambush has might NPCs, maybe the good ambush could have magic ones? Maybe... Spugnoir, Ronald, and Pishella? Maybe throw in Elmo and some of Burne's Badgers? I'd like a druid, but Meleny is too young and killing the blacksmith would make it a pain to sell stuff.

And Gaear, I think I understand why the OP was confused with the ambush. He went in, dealt with Lareth, then took the long way out, exiting through the front door. He didn't leave via the side exit.

So, he takes out L, leaves the moathouse, goes to town, rests, sells stuff, rests, travels back, and THEN meets the ambush. In that context, yes, it could be confusing. But given that 99% of all players DO use the side exit, I think your ambush is fine.

EDIT: Bolded conversation

 

I don't think that the forces of weal would conduct an outright ambush against an evil party without justification. Remember that St. Cuthbert is a lawful deity, and would thus act within the laws of the realm. Note also that one of his spheres is retribution, so as mentioned before, any party that gains the "Butchers of Hommlet' reputation would invite such retribution.

An expedition to exact retruibution within the laws of Verbobonc, which I belive would primarily involve Burne and his badgers, with manpower assistence from the local militia and magical and theological support from the temple of Hommlet would suit nicely as an evil plotline counterpoint to the big three ambush.

 

One thing--isn't Lareth CE, and Turoko LE? Hextor & Lolth aren't really friendly, are they? I got the impression from the ambush (and I obviously misread my way through it, seeing what I expected and not what was there) that it was a little more opportunistic than Turoko & co. helping out Lareth/avenging him. i.e. if Lareth's power in the moathouse--his troops--were broken, then they wouldn't be above a little bashing to line their own pockets & please their masters. Whether Lareth was alive or no.

Tangential to this, when googling to make sure I was remembering correctly that Lareth was CE, I read this (scroll down to Friday, October 29, 2004, it's one of the topmost entries) regarding the disposition of the various evil dieties in Hommlett & environs:


http://www.3rdedition.org/merricb/minis/2004_10_01_news_archive.htm


Interesting, no? Though not really relevant, since the final module is what it is, regardless of its creative history.

 

Terjon: "Hmmm, bandit raids are on the rise. They're cutting into our profits, er, donations. I wonder where their base of operations is. There are so many possibilities. That old moathouse maybe? Where could they be hiding....
Calmert: "Terjon, there's trubble brewin' in town. The jeweler and one of the farmers 'as been robbed, Ostler complains of gamblers, an' people are blamin' a bunch of punks new in town. Worst of all, they participated in a drinkin' game and made Cavanaugh pay his dues!"
Terjon: "Blasphemy! Where are they now?"
Calmert: "They left town. I heard they were goin' to tha' old moathouse."
Terjon: "To meet with the bandits no doubt! Round up some low level good NPCs and send them there."

EDIT: Bolded conversation

 

ok here's the thing.
Lareth seems quite reclusive - known often as the master or the beautiful, Most would know of him by reputaion, but not by site - unless they thought "hey he's pretty good looking"
there is no indication that Turuko has ever met Lareth before, infact by sending a LE party to the moathouse you could assume that he's never been inside it.
Zert being an agent of the temple would probabley know alot about the moathouse, and with similar goals to Turuko would be likely to team up with him.
Infact there are quite alot of secret alliances between the evil NPCs
Now from the beginning of the game its quite clear that the forces of good don't know much, a few know where the moathouse is located, and maybe a couple even know where the temple is but not where any of the secret passages, etc are.
None of the NPCs in the game would ambush an evil party - why? Because if they had the resoures to do that then there would be no need for the LN plot.
Now if NPCs were created based on the pregenerated good PCs to confront an evil party at some point that might make sence, but not at a secret location.

 

Back in the PnP days Turuko teamed up with Zert, Spugnoir, and Furnock to form a competing party with the intent of exploring/looting the moat house. We got there first. These are twenty year old memories, so the details might not be clear.

We were first level, one human of each major class with an Elfin ranger for a second fighter, and Elmo.

The parties were fairly balanced as Turu Co. had a second level fighter who was roughly balanced against our ranger, because the ranger had two, though eight sided, hit dice and a bonus with his longsword. Their first level fighter was outclassed slightly by our fighter, though they had a thief who outclassed our own dramaticaly. They had Spugnoir (third level?), but he had no combat magic and was basicaly an academic, while our first level magic-user was a young war mage with combat oriented magic, which we figured was actually a tilt in our favor. Elmo more than made up for Turuko, who would have outclassed us without the affable drinking man, but Elmo also had to take up the slack left by our thief not coming close to theirs. What they did not have was a cleric, and that proved to be the Achiles heel that undid the short lived adventuring company. Having an elf immune to gjouls paralyzation would have helped as well, but they didn't have one of those either.

Our first level cleric turned the zombies (good roll), and we didn't finish chopping them up as they fled. Finding the secret door we came upon the ghouls. The cleric stood in front of the party and raised his holy symbol to command these abominations be gone. They did not.

We ran like hell. The old lyric "ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch them" came to mind. Fortunately nobody had been able to afford good enough armor to slow us down, so we were fleeing from the ghouls back up the stairs when Turuko's company was on the way down.

This one encounter guaranteed me an enemy for life. Yeah, maybe stiff arming Zert out of the way didn't help, and knocking Spugnoir down (an accident) on the stairs while running past them didn't help either, but we were running for our lives. It was certainly not my fault that Spugnoir's downward tumble interfered with the rest of them being able to get up the stairs after us.

Turuko and Kobort survived the ghouls attack, which was augmented by zombies who's turning had expired, but without an adventuring party to support them they had to end their moathouse expedition and couldn't come after us immediately for revenge.

They did however swear everlasting emnity, and they did mean it.

Anyhow, the point is that a rival adventuring company could provide a great plot hook for computer TOEE as well as it did in the PnP scenario.