Well, after 30 years of playing AD&D with the same people, I have come to the conclusion that they are a strike force to be reckoned with! We've been running module G3 for a few months now and they are STILL no further than 3 rooms in to the 1st level....
I've been trying to play up the danger of the scenario - the hostile environment, the danger of fire, the remoteness of the location, etc. - while keeping them in suspense and entertained. They have done well thus far, only losing about 6 of their dwarven soldiers (1st level fighters all), and several of them have made levels since entering the place (some more than once, since they are new henchmen getting XP for giants, which even halved is amazingly high).
The party set up a safe base located 3 miles from the Halls to the east. The base is hidden from the air, as it is a fissure opened in the earth revealing a section of old dwarven construction destroyed by the volcano erupting decades ago. They secure it daily by casting hallucinatory terrain over the place. The dwarves have taken one side of the fissure for their own. This section also houses the mules (8 dwarven mules + 4 party mules). They have a huge party - three PCs (half-elf druid 12, human magic-user 11, human ranger 10), six henchmen (halfling fighter 6, dwarf fighter 8, human fighter 7, human thief 9, human magic-user 3, human cleric 9), 5 followers (3 druids 2nd level, 2 gnome fighters 3rd level), 2 dwarven sergeants (2nd level fighters), a dwarven healer (fighter/cleric), and 14 dwarven crossbowmen (all 1st level fighters). The dwarves are soldiers from Rockhome sent by the clans to help with the mission to defeat the fire giant king once and for all.
Due to the small folk in the party, their movement rate is 6". With the harsh volcanic terrain, I halved that, so the party is only moving 3" outdoors. This means that their base, 3 miles away, takes about 6 hours to reach on foot. They have set up a forward base at a volcanic ejecta crater about 1 mile north of the halls, which they use when they are readying to enter the dungeons. This provides them enough time to enter the place after prepping spells. Since they cast Leomund's secure shelter as their campsite, they fear little in the night. After a 2 hour trip to the Halls they can merrily enter and slay to their heart's content all day if desired.
They entered the first time and easily took out the fire giant guard behind the tapestry and handled the two ettins without a problem. They approached the throne and handily took down the kings guards and hell hounds, even with reinforcements arriving after the guard at area #1 blew his horn. It was a huge battle taking multiple sessions, but the king escaped through his secret door behind the throne (completely unnoticed by the party who were otherwise engaged in a fight for their lives). They searched around and found nothing, so they pried three gems off the throne and left to recover hit points and spells.
The second foray, they faced the ballista trap, but the cautious PCs knew something was up when the doors were left open. The druid had scouted the place in falcon form and spotted the trip wire. On their return trip, he alerted his thief henchman to disarm the trap while the others waited outside. The attempt failed, but the ballista missiles harmlessly passed overhead and out the front door. They found within more giant guards and a chimera led to the front on a heavy chain. These were slain, as were the replacement guards defending the king. THe king got involved this time, and destroyed the druid's summoned earth elemental, but he could only watch as the party cleaned up the other guards while hedging him out behind a wall of force.
During their recovery period, some of the party went off to train. The magic-user used a crystal ball with clairaudience to keep tabs on the king who was healing thanks to a dark-clothed female cleric of man-size. They assumed that this was one of the Dark Ones they had already encountered elsewhere (drow), and now assumed that he had a pocket cleric casting spells for him (little do they know). The magic-user also saw the details of the king's bedchamber and the Queen consoling him. The druid, cleric, magic-user, and one remaining fighter went on a mission to cause havoc, releasing a polymorphed bulette against the giants' defenses, followed up by a creeping doom spell, before retreating. (See the previous post.)
The next few sessions dealt with the training time and the actions of the others as they defended the safe base from patrols of giants, hell hounds, and armored trolls sent to find them. They remain undetected by the main force, as they have handily eliminated all invaders to their safe base. Recently, they went in for a fourth assault (keep in mind that they have not ventured past the Great Hall very far yet). I had the drow cleric set glyphs of warding in random locations in the front corridor. The players, being suspicious, used a wand of trap detection to locate the presence of the traps, then the druid cast detect magic to sense their location (despite being invisible). He led the party through the glyph mine field and back into the Great Hall which was empty. The party went to the south tapestry and encountered a group of giant guards, both male and female. We did not finish the combat yet, but you can already see that fooling these characters is really hard given the resources at their disposal!
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