Tough Puzzle/Combat Situation for the Party
 

First post! But I'm wondering how you guys would handle this situation when you got to it, and exactly how much help would you need from NPCs and items (supply as necessary, but you don't get brownie points if you overuse a bunch.)

The party consists of a 4th Level Fighter, a 4th Level Monk and a 4th Level Thief. They are ungodly powerful in combat for their levels, dealing 8-13 damage for each swing, and the Monk swings twice.

The party is also very EVIL and NASTY and CHAOTIC, so they are being forced (by the king's guards of most every town) to go on a near-suicide mission to go to a humanoid fort and rescue the people capture there. The fort has look outs, and can hold up to 150 goblins and orcs. The goblins are 1st Level Rangers, and the Orcs are 1st Level Barbarians. The leaders are a 3rd Level Kobold Sorceror, a 3rd Level Orc Cleric, a 1st Level Goblin Bard (Drummer, where he can go to the top of a 'drum tower' and give everyone in the fort +1), and Grak, a 3rd Level Ranger Orge (with a Greatsword and a Greatclub. Ow!) They've also been supplied with 10 Hell Hounds which the Goblin Rangers use for mounts in raids. (They might fight a raiding party on the way there consisting of either 3 orcs and 3 goblins, or 2 goblins on Hell Hounds.)

Nothing too bad, although there is only 50 Orcs and Goblins at the fort at night, including the leaders. The fort is oval shaped and has a few lookouts, which I figure the Thief will snipe with her sneak attack... but she'd have to get the people out of the place once she sneaks in. I figure the fighter and the monk could concievably fight a lot of them with a distraction or two, until the 'leaders' came in for backup, where they'd be toast. There are also two enterances, one on opposing ends. There are also various buildings and huts in the fort.

What would you guys do?

If I were those characters? Being told to assault a fortress, outnumbered 50 to 1 or something?

I'd kill anyone who was trying to get me to go there, sneak off, and resume adventuring elsewhere. There characters are evil, nasty, and chaotic, after all... :D

P.S. Besides, I know better than to take on a kobold sorceror!

You have no spellcasters, eh? How irritating.

I would first try to subdue, then kidnap one of the lackey guards of this post. Torture him for information, or, much better, drag him back to down and get some wizard to Charm Person him until he folds. And then pump him for information in a setting (however you want to create it) made to maximize how much he shares.

But let's assume they can't do that, because the party is so evil and stupid. Let's also assume that they want to go through with this mission and not do something creative like:

1) Leaving
2) JOINING this band of humanoids and attacking a town somewhere

I wouldn't resort to any hit-and-run tactics. This is just going to make the leaders paranoid and make them build up defenses. Rather, figure out a way to plant a rumor about some cool treasure nearby, or loaded caravan coming this way. Since the party is evil, they could do this by telling such rumors to nearby travelers, and then leading the travelers to the camp. The travelers are likely caught, tortured, and eaten, and while they are being tortured they spill their guts.

If this works, either a small contingent, with the leaders, or a large contingent without them, will try to attack this passing caravan or search for this mysterious treasure. The party at this point can either ambush those leaving the fort, or they can sneak inside the fort now that its numbers are depleted.

If they can both do the torture/charm person, AND the second part, they should be sitting pretty.

Just an idea or two. The party must somehow split up the inhabitants of the fort. If they go in full-force, they will die quickly, assuming the DM is even vaguely competent.

I'd like to second that.

I'm wondering just exactly how these evil, nasty, chaotic characters are being forced to storm this castle...

Assuming that they do want to go through with this, I'd walk right up to the gate and offer my services as a evil, nasty, chaotic adventurer to the Sorcerer, Cleric and Ranger. Once the group is deep within their confidences, I'd double-cross them and release the prisoners, escaping with all expedience.

Intimidation, Bluffing, Diplomacy and general sneakiness should be the order of the day.

Absolutely. One thing to remember about chaotic evil types: they are cowards. They are more concerned about preserving their own skins than anything else. Getting someone else to do the dirty work is just the thing.

This is beginning to sound like a fun adventure... :D

Little More Detail
 

This is somewhat going to be the 'goal' of the party as a 1 shot this week, because I'm DMing and yes, I'm somewhat competent. This also means that I do know that the party could do something completely off the radar, and I have plans for that as well. The thing is that the party tends to not go off the beaten path, and if I were to lay this out for them, they'd probably go about doing it semi-effectiently. Adding a treasure helps.

We also have a semi-non existant 4th Level Ranger who is chaotic enough to spend most of his shots firing at the party as well as the monsters. Go figure. He actually does enough critical misses on the party members (we use a varient on the '-4 firing into melee combat' that if you roll a natural 1-4, you hit someone besides the guy you were aiming at.) that it doesn't really matter who he aims at.

Anyway, those two suggestions would help the party out a lot, but anything else would be helpful, as I plan to incorperate the suggestions into the game as possible solutions if the party can think about how to use them properly. :)

A one-shot?

Fort-stormings are rarely completed in one session, especially if the party needs to set up a convincing reason to draw some of the forces away from the fort.

This sounds like a very interesting tactical challenge, and it's the kind of thing I wish I was involved in as a player more often. My guess is, though, that the party is too random and chaotic to deal with it appropriately, and so should be slain horribly :).