Question for those who ran Siege of Black Tarn Hall

[Cleggster]

First off, major spoilers upcoming so don't read if you are playing this!




So, my group is in the middle of this adventure. They encountered the "thing" in the woods, and now have to decide what do do next. What they went with was to send one character to Rhosgobel to alert Radaghast while the others stay behind to defend the town. Now this makes perfect sense from the story perspective. The problem is that the adventure assumes that the party is traveling with Saruman for the final confrontation. This creates a small dilemma for me. The 2 ideas I have come up with are:

Have the party fight orks back in Black Tarn while the lone adventurer deals with the final confrontation. This has the problem with the big final fight being done by the "face" of the party while the fighters are away. Only having 1 or two combatants doesn't really make for a good ending while Saruman drives away the darkness.
or
Have Saruman pop up in town, grab the rest of the party for help with the Mewlips. This is better from an adventure structure, but makes less sense from a narrative point of view.

Aaaaaaand, while typing this I came up with the solution. Saruman would insist on having more than one person to deal with the marsh-men while he handles the threat. So option two is suddenly obvious to me.

So, there. The only reason I am still posting this is to demonstrate the true value of working through a problem, for there come solutions. So now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

[guver]

Yeah, in my case I went with second option also.

[Indur Dawndeath]

I think I would drive back the one person who tried to travel alone to Rhosgobel.
I prefer to keep the party united...
And there is a siege going on.

[SirGamingScotsman]

I just ran the Siege for my group a few weeks ago. They all went to Rhosgobel to alert Radagast/Saruman. In regards to your problem I would go with the second option as having everyone there would be more epic. Rather than just having Saruman appear and take them away, perhaps have a lull in the combat with those that remained in Black Tarn Hall, maybe they see a strange light at the edge of the mists and they get swept up in some strange maelstrom. When the mist settles they are standing with Saruman and their other companion at the area with the Marsh Dwellers, then you can run the final combat. This also gives Saruman a bit more awesomeness to his powers, as-well-as the speedy journey he just made.

[Cleggster]

Holy cow. I was actually starting answer how I ran this adventure. Then I noticed who wrote the OP. Heh.

Sigh

[Vuriche]

Holy cow. I was actually starting answer how I ran this adventure. Then I noticed who wrote the OP. Heh.

Sigh

Haha, that's a good one!