Giants Proceeding Well

The "Against the Giants" campaign I started a few months ago is going well. We're into a few sessions and the party is running strong and finally making off with sufficient quantity of loot to progress at the level they should be. The ranger is kicking ass as predicted and the planning of the druid is paying off as they are systematically taking out the giants and ogres in hit-and-fade runs.

The first entry to the steading involved a lengthy reconnaissance of a couple days using spells and abilities to locate the major players in the steading and how best to attack. It seemed that the giant security was lax so the party took advantage of this and entered the place during early morning when most of the place was asleep. They entered the main door and began taking out sleeping giants. They found the sub-chief awake in his chamber and, using silence spells to mute the combat, took him out easily, polymorphing his concubine in the bed into a mule. They then explored the eastern half of the place, eliminating 10 sleeping giants in a barracks room with a well-thought out plan (none of the giants awakened, even though I rolled the 1 in 20 chance) and then maneuvered through the other rooms by guile and stealth. When they came to the chief's room they encountered his pet bear on guard at the door and this alerted the chief to danger. The chief managed to escape out the secret door and summon the wolves to attack the intruders. This large battle was amazing, ending in the death of one of the hired crossbowmen and all of the combatants except the chief's wife who retreated to the safety of her room. The chief himself went to rally the troops but there were few left to pose a threat.

After taking out the wolves the party went north to find the chief. They instead came to the outbuilding where the other sleeping giants were just starting to rise for late breakfast. The party stumbled into the place but managed to catch at least one barracks room unawares with a fireball before launching into a melee. Some spell mistakes were made (like casting hold monster on the giant in the doorway - preventing most attacks from both sides) but the party worked well together, displaying their new high-level abilities and spells.

Once both rooms were taken care of they decided to leave and replenish their strength. Stefan (one of the henchmen) actually leveled from the haul so he and the wounded returned to Threshold. On the trip back a freak random encounter had them meet a ki-rin who healed the wounded men to full health. Only Stefan is missing the current activity while training.

Some time was spent waiting for Falim and the other hirelings to return and more reconnaissance missions were performed. During one of these the party learned that the cloud giant emissary left in disgust over the inability of Nosnra to capture the intruders.

The second foray into the steading ended in the slaying of numerous ogre guards posted at the gates during another early morning run. They then went directly to the chief's chamber where he was found sleeping with a concubine. The party would have taken him out easily but the giantess woke and alerted the chief to danger as some wandering ogres on patrol came across the rest of the party in the hall outside. The chief was still slain by the druid and ranger, and the combat outside was silenced by the cleric. This giantess was also polymorphed into a mule to keep her from alerting the others.

The party took all the jewlery on the ogres and the chief's jewelry from his room. They also found some gems on the ogres and some potions in their room. They managed to kill off the remaining giant in the northern chamber and frightened the giantesses, keeping them from leaving the room. So far, they have not killed a single giantess - some form of chivalry keeping them from doing so! Or it could be that most of the females refuse to fight (so far). I had most of the rest of the giants retreat to the safety of the lower level, so they will be unpleasantly surprised to find them below!

They found the stairs down but refuse to leave unknown quantities in the upper level. So they spent some time investigating the other rooms to make sure that they were empty. They seem confused about the fact that the giants might be working with tactics (given to them by their masters), but that's how the module is supposed to be so it seems that it's working thus far. I'm not sure how I want this one to play out. I'm guessing I'll leave this up to the players how deep they wish to progress. I'm willing to run the whole series of G and D modules, but I would highly modify Q1 since I disagree with the tone of the module and the entire premise for the adventure is shaky at best. I much prefer to leave gods and goddesses alone in the outer planes and make the players deal with demons instead.

My take on Q1 would be to have the party end up captured by the drow priestesses and forced to eliminate the threat of the Elder Elemental Cult from the vault with help from the least of the drow houses. Success means that the party 'may' gain their freedom and one of the drow houses would be eliminated - thus creating more chaos as they war with each other to gain favor and higher position. In this way the Elder Elemental God becomes the enemy, not Lolth, and any extraplanar adventures happen in his realm, not the Abyss. Demons, evil elementals, and other nasty villains and high-level drow would still be encountered, just not Lolth.