Some Ideas, if you please.

OK, if you're one of my players: Vamoose.

Beat it.

I mean it.






OK.

Now then, I turn to you, my fellow ENWorlders, for some ideas. If you have statted out beasties, I'll take them, too. Mostly, I'm looking for some clever or entertaining ideas for the following situation:

Since I doubt many of you have any familiarity with my game (the previous session is listed here in the Story Hour ), here's a brief summary:

Our heroes, the Savage Sword of Meepo or SSOM for short, has been summoned back to town of the party's cleric. The cleric is both local lord and currently regarded as a 'Living Saint' of Pelor. Facts that you should know: since the game originated with the Sunless Citadel, evil druids using more and more horrific 'twig' creatures. The players are unaware of why, but the villains have begun an attack on the town.

The attack is being led by a Death Knight, once of the inner circle that serve St. Kargoth (THE death knight of Greyhawk fame). He has sent the first wave during the day (an artificially darkened day). This wave featured a couple of hundred zombies aremed with bows and twig-blight arrows. They also sent two advanced flesh golems and two creatures called 'Corpse Snakes' (variant naga with a ghost template). They also attempted to deploy two evil nasties (slightly modified version of Piratecat's Sluush).

The evening and the next day are set to bring renewed attacks. At least one of these, the next day attack, most likely, will be a subterranean assualt. I want there to be plenty o' undead...but I also want some non-undead, to give the rogue and druid something to fight.

That brings us to you guys: I'm looking for ideas, suggestions and the like. Monsters are good, assualt ideas too. The party complement is currently:

• Elven Archer
• Halfling Druid
• Elven Paladin
• Human Rogue/Shadowdancer
• Human Wizard
• Human Cleric/Radiant Servant

Hit me, folks. I've decided to take advantage of the ENWorld hivemind (hey, if it works for Piratecat...).

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

I should also mention that the players are in the 17th-18th level range. Cry havoc and let loose the ideas of war!

The undead's goal, without bothering with too much detail, is to release something beneath the town. That something is, for all intents and purposes, what you might call a 'plague elemental'. During the battle, I intend for a few lesser of these to free themselves and roam the streets of the town, wreaking havoc. I'm thinking cure disease would act as a cure spell to undead.

Thoughts? Templates? Salsa?

A random suggestion or two

A stray thought about the subterranean aspect of any assault. Might I suggest the use of one or moreCharmed (Monster) or even better Dominated Bulette? to do the groundbreaking so to speak? That would be one way to more or less burrow into the heart of a stronghold, and bypassing the walls. The possibilities of these beasts as extraordinary sappers should also be considered. As living creatures, they would also provide something for your Rogue and Druid players.

Naturally, a puny CR7 9d10 model wouldn't be very interesting, even in "bulk". No reason why there couldn't be at least one 17-27 HD Gargantuan sized advanced version to challenge your adventurers. At the very least, such a beast would create quite a bit of havoc against "soft targets" and need to be dealt with quickly. A good feint perhaps?

You could get really nasty and deploy a Fiendish version, or worse (Awakened? Half Fiend?). These Kargoth types probably have that sort of thing at their disposal.

Of course, if you really want to bring out the big guns at some point, you could always inflict the end result of a Greater Planar Ally on them. You could definitely bring out some concentrated Eeevil that way.

Subterrean assault

I would combine the subterranean assault with something designed to cause panic. It is unlikely that the panic effect will hurt the party, but all of the Commoners in the city stampeding out the gates will make it more difficult for the party to protect them.

There are a couple of options for leading the assault teams: xorns, delvers, beholders, bulette, nightcrawler (undead!), purple worm, or some sort of earth/magma elemental. It might be cool to use some sort of advanced/templated version of some of the more obscure monsters to minimize OOC knowledge. Depending on knowledge, you might have a significant demon/devil leading the assault (having been Gated or summoned via Planar Ally).

If it is looking to a be a long siege, the enemy could toss via catapult the bodies of dead villagers from the surrounding area infested with some sort of disease, or for greater horror, Gutpuppets (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/mm/mm20030118a). The Gutpuppets would sow panic in the city by themselves. In order to make them more effective the bad guys would have to do something to cause mass death in the general populace - catapult bombardment, spells from a ridiculously high level wizard, ...

mypetrock

Dire/Awakened Snakes and Rats with the "fiend" template. If you have the Manual of the Planes you could also slap the "anarchic" template on them. That should give you some nice cannon fodder for the players to hack through while still invoking monsters they haven't seen before.

Re: A random suggestion or two

SpaceBaby Industries said:

Naturally, a puny CR7 9d10 model wouldn't be very interesting, even in "bulk". No reason why there couldn't be at least one 17-27 HD Gargantuan sized advanced version to challenge your adventurers. At the very least, such a beast would create quite a bit of havoc against "soft targets" and need to be dealt with quickly. A good feint perhaps?

Click to expand...

Hmmm. I like that. There WILL be a subteranean assualt, and having some half-elemental (acid) templated advanced bullettes leading the assualt....

That could definitely be a good appetizer. I full expect the party to get fragmented, as threats arrive from different directions, forcing them to either prioritize or tactically split. I intend to use lots of lesser creatures to help fuel this. The 'Sluuth's will be summoned via gate spells by an evil cleric, this time out.

Re: Subterrean assault

mypetrock said:

I or for greater horror, Gutpuppets (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/mm/mm20030118a). The Gutpuppets would sow panic in the city by themselves.
mypetrock

Click to expand...

Now we're cooking with EVIL GAS! A modified version of these are perfect. A few hundred war refugees were camped outside the town in a tent city. When the attacks began, they flooded inside, mostly unchecked. I had considered having some of them be werewolves, but this much better. Horrific, not undead (but appearing to BE undead!) and suitably weak. I want them as footsoldiers, and good cannon fodder for the heroes.


You guys are doing great! I was worried about throwing some things at the party, but this is excellent stuff! Much Thanks!

Hmm. Really, really gigantic zombies serving as siege towers.

Some sort of evil weather. It could be an ordinary storm or something more magical, like the morale sapping darkness Tolkien used at the siege of Minas Tirath.

I'd try to give the party a feeling of frantic helplessness - the defense is breaking down in too many places, enemies are flying in, enemies are tunneling under, there are emergency cries for help everywhere.

You have to give a melee character the opportunity to stand in a breach in the wall or a shattered gate and hold it alone against endless hordes of attackers.

Were you planning on a whole siege or just a battle? If it's a siege I'd suggest turning up the tension by having the enemy make small gains over a number of days. This assumes the defenders can't come out and trigger a whole battle, of course.

If I were the bad guys I'd want something to distract the PCs so my army isn't getting slaughtered but I don't know what resources your guys should have. An evil party? Summoning a bunch of demons? Threatening the innocent townsfolk?

Threatening innocent townsfolk will be a big part. I expect to unleash both of the horiffic oozes at the same time as the gutpuppets, to create havoc in the town.

Giant zombies isn't bad...but Greater Gulthites (essentially plant golems based off of the 'Gulthias horrors') sounds better, now that I think about it. The players haven't encountered a second one, but the first one was in the general vicinity of town (about a year ago), so that would be good. WITH zombies running as foot soldiers. That will give everyone different targets to hit, and mix undead and more horrors.

The frantic pace is a good way to work it, too. I'll have all three gates under siege by different forces, forcing the players to split, but allowing them each their own place to shine, so to speak. This is starting to come together very nicely.

Although I think this will be a session that's somewhat short on role-playing.

This would be more psychological harrasment than any real threat, but how about polymorphed ghouls (or some other baddy) that are made to appear as the PC's? It's an oldy, but a goody - bound to sow some dissension in the ranks for a little while... at least in the townspeople, even if the PC's don't fall for it.