Intimidate foe? [Spoiler: Nightmares of Angmar]

[Corvo]

My felloship is in the closing stages of Nightmares of Angmar...

BIG SPOILER AHEAD!
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To make a long story short, the Steward of Carn Dum had been destroyed. The throng of Goblins swarm towards the heroes, just to have the Iron Crown thrown to them, rattling on the ground, while the red robes of the ancient wizard lay on the dirt. What would the Goblins do?

The heroes effectively destroyed the Steward (and a Mountain Troll, too), but there are too many Goblins in Carn Dum to defeat them all. So the leader of the company tried a desperate gesture: he seized the crown of the Witch King and the robes of the Steward, and threw them defiantly to the Goblins, shouting something like “Your lord is no more, vermin. Who's the next?”.

I think that, rules-wise, it's a big bonus to Intimidate Foe. My doubt is how to put such bonus.

I was mulling about taking away 1 Hate point from all the servant of the Shadow in Carn Dum: since the Goblins of Carn Dum have 2 Hate points, they can still stand and fight.
If the Heroes manage to defeat another leader (the Witch-Servant of Angmar, or Burzash -in my game, he's in Carn Dum right now-) I would deduce another Hate point from the Goblins, triggering a general rout. Leaders with Voice of Command could muster some forces around them, but Carn Dum as a cohesive force would be (temporarily) shattered... so that the heroes can free the children and escape the fortress.

What do you think about that? Unforeseen pitfalls?

[doctheweasel]

I wouldn't use the standard combat rules to resolve this. They aren't designed to handle these kinds of situations.

Have one of the goblins' leaders step forth and then have it be an encounter-ish challenge where the leader is trying to convince the goblins to attack and destroy the party, while the party is trying to get the goblins to scatter. First to x number of successes.

Plus, it's cool to have everything ride on a social challenge rather than combat.

[Falenthal]

I don't know how I would put that as a rule, but your group surely deserves to be able to make the goblins craven.
As you said, they have to know that there's just enough time to grab the kids and run, before some orc captain rallies a bunch of goblins to his side and prepares a strike back.
But they already won the big fight if they killed the Steward, so that dying now because of plain goblins might feel very anti-climax. In fact, it may feel as if the adventure you proposed them was badly designed (which is not the case).

[Angelalex242]

Or is it?

"You've slain the leaders of this wicked force of goblins, but they outnumber you badly. They take revenge for their fallen leaders, and overwhelm your PCs with raw numbers. However, after their deaths, the goblins don't launch any major raids, and the lands are safe. None will ever know the fate of your heroes, or why the raids stopped, only that they have. The Shadow lost this round..."

[Falenthal]

Have one of the goblins' leaders step forth and then have it be an encounter-ish challenge where the leader is trying to convince the goblins to attack and destroy the party, while the party is trying to get the goblins to scatter. First to x number of successes.

Great idea!
Corvo, go with this! As I player, I'd sure be amazed to play it that way instead of the expected combat.

[jamesrbrown]

I wrote a suggestion under The Goblin Pit, that when the number of Gandalf runes rolled reaches the number of player-heroes, the Goblins flee. This rule could be extended to begin every new encounter with Goblins in Carn Dûm rather than just in the Sleeping Quarters. Otherwise, the 2 points of Hate each is difficult to overcome. And, with a Success die worth of Goblins arriving each time an Eye is rolled, they could become very annoying.

Aside from this, if my player-heroes had made it that far and were facing an overwhelming number of Goblins after killing some major enemies, I think I would allow a social showdown to take care of the rest of them.

Question: At that point, have the player-heroes dealt with the Witch-servant? What did Essylt do?

[Corvo]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

A clarification about the situation: the Companions aren't about to be overrun by the Goblins. They are defending the room of the Steward, and the Goblins cannot use their superior number through the door. Think like Mazarbul room in LotR.
Their problem is “strategic” rather than “tactical”: they think that they need to break the spirit of the Goblins to prevail, else it would be impossible to take away the prisoners (the Goblins will simply surround them in the Frozen Path or in the Grey Wastes).

For me, I think the morale of the Goblins is pretty destroyed by the defeat of the ancient sorcerer (and the capture of the Iron Crown). I stopped the session when the Heroes threw the red robes at them, so I got some time to think an appropriate mechanical solution for the scene.
On the other hand, there are two other leaders in (my interpretation of) Carn Dum: the Great Orc Burzash (from Rivendell) and the Witch-Servant of Angmar (they haven't yet meet him).
Will their troops desert them? The Witch-Servant got his own plan to complete, so he will stand and face the Heroes.
Burzash can flee the fortress if he think the heroes are too much for him, but maybe the Witch-Servant can persuade him that together they can prevail (and reign on Carn-Dum).

[Corvo]

(...)
Have one of the goblins' leaders step forth and then have it be an encounter-ish challenge where the leader is trying to convince the goblins to attack and destroy the party, while the party is trying to get the goblins to scatter. First to x number of successes.

Plus, it's cool to have everything ride on a social challenge rather than combat.

I think I wouldn't use that idea for the first encouter. There are no Goblin leaders here, just rabble. I think they will scatter as soon as they understand what happened.
But I'll use it when they later reach the jails and confront Burzash and/or the Witch-Servant.

[Angelalex242]

Well...actually, with sufficient numbers, the PCs are always about to overrun. See, there's enough of them that they can just keep sending more troops in. Those troops will roll eyes sooner or later. Sooner or later, the PCs will either run out of hope, or take two wounds. No matter how well defended the area is, attrition is more powerful then they are. Always.

[Corvo]

Well...actually, with sufficient numbers, the PCs are always about to overrun. See, there's enough of them that they can just keep sending more troops in. Those troops will roll eyes sooner or later. Sooner or later, the PCs will either run out of hope, or take two wounds. No matter how well defended the area is, attrition is more powerful then they are. Always.

Yeah. That's the reason I wrote "aren't about to be overrun". They aren't in a critical situation right now. But they know they cannot win a battle of attrition: they have to break the morale of the Goblins