Haug Puns

My players (rogue, monk, and warlock, all level 6) learned that the hill giant den was built on a dam, so naturally it needed to be blown up. I didn't want to get in the way of their creative problem solving because I want them to continue to try to come up with unique solutions to things, but Grudd Haug is HUGE. I may be giving in a little much, but I have given them access to gunpowder, but what I am struggling with is how much HP should I give Grudd Haug? I know the HP for the entire place might as well be infinite, but there are the streams that trickle underneath that may be an OK place to put a powder keg which would have a fraction of the HP.

So far their idea is to blow a large enough hole on the dam to trigger a catastrophic chain reaction and bring most of it down, if not the whole thing. From what I can tell the thinnest part of the dam in the north wall under the main house. But that is still somewhere between 10 and 20 feet thick. Would that "thin" section have 500hp? 1000hp? I'm leaning towards the middle with around 700, but I'm not sure what else to base it on.

tl;dr - how much HP should walls have? Specifically the dam walls of Grudd Haug?

Hi everyone, my party of 5 level 7s (Wizard, Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Monk) are making their way to Grudd Haug in the next session.

They just ended the last session having gained the trust of Moog, the Hill Giant, and have also discussed destroying the dam at the stronghold.

Any tips for how to run Grudd Haug effectively?

There's four of them, but I thought I'd have them team up with Felgolos (as a young bronze who can take the form of a 6-8th level Rogue). I know they'll get creamed in a straight fight but are they strong enough to be able to take out Guh if they're clever? I'm going to have the conch crushed beneath her as I want to run multiple strongholds.

Hi all,

Recently, my level 8 party that consists of:

A warforged oath of the watchers paladin A wood elf hunter ranger A half orc path of the beast barbarian A tabaxi way of 4 elements monk A human abjuration wizard

Attacked Grudd Haug - they decided to take on the throne room all at once and got overwhelmed due to some poor rolls and the heavy damage from the giants. I ended up being merciful and had their friend Felgolos rescue them in a deus ex machina moment. They regrouped, recovered, and now want to attack the weakened Grudd Haug again - only this time, with Felgolos. I’m pretty sure having an adult bronze dragon will trivialise any encounters, but I’m having trouble thinking of a reason why Felgolos is unable to help or is distracted during the fighting (that doesn’t feel contrived).

I’m currently thinking that maybe some sort of greater foe comes to Grudd Haug and Felgolos has to hold it off while the party deal with Guh. Any ideas on who/what this could be?

Thanks!!

Hello SKT Reddit!

Last time in our game, the party of 8 (big party, I know) escaped Grudd Haug with the prisoners (listed in the module and also kidnapped from Goldenfields). They were able to do so by causing a major distraction by lighting the kitchen and throne room on fire. The resident Fire Genesai created a fuel-air explosion with a giant-sized bag of flour. I ruled that while such a move would be effective at setting internal wooden furniture and the goblin walkway on fire, it lacks concussive force to tear down the walls.

They arrived here straight after Goldenfiends so they were underleveled for this encounter, and thus escaped for their and the prisoners' lives. Because of that, they left without killing Guh or collecting her conch (not that they know about that yet). I think it would be fun to have them take on each of the Giant Lords, and a few other homebrew ones so each player has to get a conch, so chances are they haven't heard the last of Guh.

My question to you is what do the Hill Giants do next? How will Grudd Haug change if the party ends up returning here after they discover she has a conch? My ideas so far:

• Guh gets Hobgoblins to repair Grudd Haug. They shore up defenses the way the players initially entered (via the back door by the watchtower under cover of night) Additionally gets more reinforcements from Iceshield orcs or stations another Hobgoblin Wyvern rider as lookout. However, the fire damage leaves other means of entry such as holes in the walls or roof.
• Guh decides she isn't getting bigger fast enough. Employs help from Hobgoblin or Iceshield Orc shamans to cast ritual Enlarge, turning her into Kaiju sized Guh. Next time the players come to Grudd Haug, have a Shadow of the Colossus type of fight.
• Guh thinks Grudd Haug too damaged to repair. Instead has her tribe wheel her to Goldenfields as an invasion force, not a raiding party like last time. One of the raiding parties survived so they know the way back.
• Any other ideas you have or successfully run?

I don't think any of my players are on this subreddit but if you have a pet tressym named Peanut stop reading.

I'm running a version of Storm King's Thunder with my own homebrew changes. The only one that really matters for this post is that there are about a dozen hobgoblins in Grudd Haug with a vested interest in keeping the place in working order, with the hill giants a threat to surrounding areas (especially Waterdeep) but not so much so that local communities form an army to wipe Grudd Haug off the map. They've been letting the giants pillage as they do, and pointing them towards settlements to the south (like Goldenfields). Defenses have been lax (as presented in the module) as the hobgoblins didn't want to cause any tension between themselves and the more numerous hill giants.

That's where the adventurers come in. Last night they snuck into Grudd Haug through the side tunnel by area 10, murdered a collection of giants, goblins and orcs, and make a tactical retreat once the alarm was sounded. The adventurers spent the next day recovering and spying on their Zhentarim rivals for the job.

So the hobgoblins have one or two days to shore up any weaknesses in Grudd Haug before the adventurers attack again. Thanks to the threat, they are able to mobilize all creatures in Grudd Haug save Chief Guh.

The forces are 12 hobgoblins, about 15 giants and ogres, and some 30-40 goblins. I already had the idea to collapse the passage that leads to area 10 and move the rocks by areas 1 and 9 into place as a default. Also all the of the entrances to the upper level will be guarded at all times (though not always by hobgoblins).

I would love to hear what else you guys think the hobgoblins would do with a large amount of muscle, little to no magic, and a short time period to defend this stronghold. Thanks!

My party is taking on the hill giants tomorrow and I'm curious about your experiences?

If you played, how was the encounter?

If you ran it, what (if any) alterations did you make?

I'm running a group of 6 level 8 players through SKT, and after a bunch of side-questing and story-hopping, they ended up at Grudd Haug a little stronger than the module was probably intending. Because of this, I went ahead and beefed up the defenses, and added a handful of extra Hill Giants, a bunch of extra bugbears, and some more Hobgoblins. They did some good scouting and got a decent idea of the enemies within the fortress, and had some good plans to trick the giant chief out of her conch treasure.

However, I think they got bored spending too long scouting, and basically decided to storm the lower level after creating a distraction outside by the animal pens. I thought this was going to spell their death as they'd get pinched between the extra giants/bugbears on the lower level and the giants investigating the fire outside. However, between an archer sharpshooter fighter w/ action surge, a paladin with high AC granting everyone +4 to saving throws, a druid that is always summoning beasts to meat shield any enemies (also with an 18 AC), a life cleric that makes sure no one stays low for long, and two magic wielders that focus on CC effects like slow and hideous laughter they were able to make short work of the lower floor including the reinforcements that came in from behind.

Now, this party has been thwarting my efforts to give them a challenge for a few encounters now. I've realized that my problem is having too few encounters each day so that they can nova each one. Hence the reason I had reinforcements come from the animal pens shortly after the first fight had ended. However they were now a little bit low on their resources, and they wanted to have a short rest in the makeshift prison area on the lower floor. I thought this was the chance that they had messed up and it was finally time to give them a situation where they couldn't brazenly attack head on. I couldn't think of any reason why the Giant Chief wouldn't send as large a force as she felt comfortable of giants and ogres down to the lower levels to kill the intruders that she knew were down there and had already killed some of her men. So I sent 4 Hill Giants and 4 Ogres at the half-exhausted party.

Except they didn't die. They barely even got touched. Plant Growth + Spike Growth combined with clever use of ducking in and out of cover made it nearly impossible for the invading force to get to the group and as they got stuck in the plants, they got picked off over and over by the archer.

Hi all,

I'm currently running SKT for my group on roll20, and they found Moog on their way from Goldenfields to Waterdeep and helped her get her husband back from Chief Guh.

After that encounter, the players found a Conch of Teleportation, but I can't see anything about where it takes them. Is there a set location for the conch they find in Grudd Haug or should I just make it up and roll with it? My players are in no danger at Grudd Haug as Moog has taken over the compound.

If anybody has any ideas or similar encounters, I'd love to hear about them!

I'm the DM. My level 7 party has done some preliminary scouting on Grudd Haug. In their whatsapp group they've started discussing strategy and are focusing on destroying the dam to flood Grudd Haug. Their favorite idea is flying the druid(transformed into a small creature) into the sky high above using a familiar and having him turn into a giant killer whale and fall from the sky to try to destroy the dam. They are also trying to see what other ways they may be able to destroy the dam and flood everything below.

Thoughts on how I run with this?? It's not a terrible idea but I haven't seen anything to this level discussed yet in this subreddit.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions. We play 2 days.

Similar (https://www.reddit.com/r/stormkingsthunder/comments/hpndkf/grudd_haug_flood_plain_spoilers/)

Hello all creative fellows of the internet!

My PCs singlehandedly wound up outside Grudd Haug in chapter 3, without my railroading. Although, I must admit that I sort of hoped that they would go there. So they are there due to the Old Tower encounter, and hence aim to kill Chief Guh and free the giant husband.

They have placed a poisoned wild boar outside the entrance and is laying there, essentially waiting to see what happens. It's poisoned with a potion of poison dealing 3d6 poison damage, potentially each turn. However, these giants are quite sturdy and should make the save quite fast. But I still want to reward the PCs for this plan somehow.

I kind of want to roll the dice and see how chief Guh handles the poison and if she dies, she dies (Dolph Lundgren voice). But if she doesn't, what will happen then?

-Probably nothing unless the PCs intervene somehow.
-Or will Guh be challenged by the giants, or the orcs, or the hobgoblins when they see that she starts retching up her newly consumed food?

Bring your ideas!

So, tonight the players arrived at Grudd Haug. Under cover of dusk, and with the aid of lots of invisibility spells, they were quick to move in from the south west side, by the blacksmith's hut. Their Sorcerer made his way to the guard tower, successfully getting within range to deliver a fireball, transmuted into a poisonball via metamagic. The bugbear watchmen quick succumbed to the poisonous gasses, and he (a changeling) took the form of one of the bugbears and stood watch to possibly ease suspicion.

With the aid of sending stones, he informed the rest of the party of the success, which triggered their next move. The Lizardfolk Druid, Lizrog, rolled a jar of wasps into the hut, and cast giant insect. The jar burst and five massive wasps made quick work of the Smith and her lackeys.

They met up at the base of the guard tower, peering into the kitchen through the curtain to witness the goblins tying up the halfling. With the wasps still briefly in tow, Lizrog sent them in to cause a ruckus. Two goblins fell before the spell wore off and the rest of the party entered the fray. All this, just as the hobgoblin fisher appeared... and was cut down by Vimak, the Goliath Fighter. The goblins shouted out in alarm, causing the surrounding rooms to go on alert, and the party chased them into the feasting hall. The next two hours were a blur... fireballs, hexblade curses, Misty steps, and healing prowess unmatched by pros saw the crew eventually spilling Guh's innards and splitting her skull like a pumpkin hitting a wall (giant slayer sword feels OP). They located the Conch after Guh's form slumped forward from her 'throne', along with the other treasure, a bag of tricks, anda warning weapon (bone dagger).

We stopped right after the fight, 25 minutes ago. Its 250am. That was almost a 6 hour session.... I'm destroyed. Next week.... escaping.