Merged: Against all odds [Darmanicus] & Adv. Party Needs Killing (Inconsequential-AL)

Inconsequenti-AL · Mar 11, 2004

Adventuring Party Needed! (Killing)

My GM stay out!

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=79965

I havn't looked, but I'm betting it's not pretty! What's good for the GM is good for us. So I'm asking for some advice!

There's a party of six undead wyvern riding undead orcs that I can see we're going to end up in a fight with. We saw them at the end of our last session.

We've fought an orcish Blackguard mounted on one of these before, he was extremely nasty. We were caught in the open and he killed 50% of the party (and fed them to his wyvern

) before the survivors managed to run away. Later, we lured him into a forested area, shot his mount out from under him and beat him to a pulp. Even then it wasn't easy.

Our adventuring party:
1)A mage (L 11) - divination specialist.
2)A cleric (L 10)- wot can fight. Suprisingly. Can't turn undead very well.
3)An elven archer (L 11) - like a machinegun, with a big holy bow.
4)A paladin (L 10) - 2 handed fighter - with a big tiger.
4.5)A halfling rogue (?) - glass jawed cohort.

We're wondering what we can do to survive.

What we've got so far:

Most importantly: Avoid anything that looks like a fair fight - there's a lot of them and they'll kill us! We'd like to find out what their capabilities are, but not sure how to test them?

Next, avoid the fight. This would be great, but we're stuck in the region. As far as we know, they have scrying abilities and will find us sooner or later. So we're thinking of starting the fight to try and get things on our own terms.

We figured we want to split them up if at all possible - will make them easier to fight. My initial thought is to set up multiple events for them to respond to. Possibly make use of a house rule about teleportation being noticable (within a several mile radius): Use Lesser Planar Ally to conjure a couple of Arcons to teleport all over the place...

The big problem is the wyverns. The cleric and paladin are at their best while on the ground, these guys can fly around and attack us from above. How can we neutralise this advantage?

Anything else?

Please, no spoilers from the other thread!

Sorry about the rambling!

Any help keeping our characters alive would be much appreciated.

shilsen · Mar 11, 2004

Some more information would be nice. Especially what spells the group has prepped, what feats the PCs possess and what magic items are available.

The obvious thing to do is to take the mounts down as fast as possible, but without the above info a really viable strategy is hard to come up with.

Inconsequenti-AL · Mar 11, 2004

We're hopefully going to have time to prep before the next fight. We're currently beaten to hell & out of magic - so teleported to a large city to rest and plot. Could possibly pick up an item or two if they're essential, have about 10K in 'liquid assets' we could spend, anything much more than that is possible, but would require sale of existing items.

Archer - Ranger (archery!)/Blood archer (Not sure where that's from). Uses a Holy Longbow, has a wide selection of the ranged attack feats - precise shot, rapid shot, many shot.

Fighter/Cleric - casts as 9th level - can use anything from the PHB. Domains are War and Glory (from the Book of Exalted Deeds). Fights with sword+board or 2 handed styles. Feats - power attack, expertise.

Wizard - has a wide selection of spells - oposed school is necromancy - could probably acquire any spell of level 4 or below fairly easily. As far as top level stuff, he's just reached 11th level - True Seeing + 1 other are his only 6th level choices - likely to be disintegrate. AFAIK, teleport is the 5th level that gets used most often. He likes 'evocating'. A lot.

Paladin - is a paladin/annointed knight (BOED). Wields Falchion, rides around on a poke-tiger. Feats include power attack/divine might combi. Nasty in close. Not much in the way of AC!

Paladins Cohort Rogue - entertaining, but has about 10 HP, tends to hide and run away a lot.

EDIT: Wealth levels are reasonably standard - none of the items are particulalry notable (bar 1 below.), the paladin is a new character and is somewhat underfunded. The Wizard is overbudget, but most of that is focused into a custom uber-ring of wizardry he found lying around in Rappan Athuk.

That's a rough overview. I can happily provide any further information, if you've got any specific questions...

Definitely with you on the wyvern killing/neutralising. If we could force them to dismount it'd be great, but just can't see how to do that. Possibly fly up and meet them?

Pax · Mar 11, 2004

Control Winds. Druid spell, 6th level; I think also a spell on the Air Domain list. If you can pull it off - and have enough caster levels - you can BLOW them out of the sky.

Dunno how you'd get access to it, mind, but if you can (wish or miracle?), it'd work wonders for you.

Darmanicus · Mar 11, 2004

Against all odds.............

MORRUS SOD OFF!

As you're all probably aware Morrus is recruiting your help to create a party of undead, uber evil, wyvernesque riding orc dudes...........like the rat-bastard needs your help!

We, on the other hand, almost certainly do need your help and would appreciate suggestions as to how we could counter such a threat.

The party consists of,(roughly):

1. Elf Ranger 11
2. Human Wizard 11
3. Dwarf Priest 10
4. Human Paladin 10

This evil party will be garrisoned in a keep we've been trying to clear for the last few weeks and they'll be supported by about 100-150 orc soldiers and a wizard of about 9th level that just about manged to escape our attentions last time.

We have the back-up of around 30 horseman minus the horses although we don't want them going toe 2 toe with the BBEGs obviously.

We don't have any money so stocking up on undead killing goodies is out of the question.

I suppose what I'm asking for are some ideas as to how to maybe split this wyvern riding group up for long enough that we can take them out a bit at a time, or we're so much sliced salami.

The rest is up to you folks, you've helped me many times before and I've a lot of faith in you so don't let me/us down.....please!

Pielorinho · Mar 11, 2004

If you could turn even one of the wyverns, that'd really help to split them up. An eagle's splendor on the cleric or paladin might enable this.

Obviously put delay poison or neutralize poison on everyone.

Consider fly on the paladin and wizard; dimension-door into the path of one of the wyverns, hop aboard, and start some smitings.

Do you have a sense of what a wyvern would do if its rider were killed? Are they sentient, in other words?

You could do the paladin-trick wtih the cleric instead, and cast cure light wounds, mass to hurt all the wyverns -- or a cure critical on one of them.

The wizard and cleric may attack from safety with little danger: cast obscuring mist and true seeing, and then begin firing away with fireballs and flame strikes. If the archer can't manage to see out of the obscuring mist, he can stand right beside it and pepper the enemy with arrows. With luck, you'll get the wyverns to close the distance, at which point the paladin and tiger can come out of the mist (flying?) to attack.

If you get the wyverns to close to within melee range, do everything you can to trap them. Web is fantastically good; solid fog is even better (and can be cast in midair, actually).

Obviously, focus-fire.

If you want to test them out, consider a quick battle in which y'all stay clustered together ready to teleport or plane shift away as soon as it turns against you. Use traditional tactics in this battle so as not to give them too much information; basically you're looking for their spellcasting abilities, ranged attacks, grappling attacks, etc. Alternately consider casting a divination asking God for advice on how to fight them.

Daniel

Inconsequenti-AL · Mar 11, 2004

Control winds would be nice. Ground them for a fair while! Unfortunately, no druid and we just can't really afford wishes and things. It'd be nice though

Poison resisting is a great point, I really hadn't considered that one :heh:

Slight embarrasing!

Focus fire - check!

Flying - check! Hadn't considered combining that with dimension door. Good idea.

We're not sure about the wyverns - we've fought 1 already - it was nasty, but died a while before it's rider did... Don't know what they are! Although they do breathe large clouds of poisonous gas, so I think it's rather different from a normal wyvern! :uhoh:

True seeing could be interesting - havn't really looked at that yet. New spell as of last session...

Solid fog is sounding very attractive! Wonder what happens if a wyvern flys into one of those? 5'/round speed limit can't be good.

Just thought of 2 more spells that the wizard has - could be good - Telekinisis - possibly for the combat maneuver usage - bull rush the riders off their wyverns. Wall of force - that would smart if they flew into one at speed...

Plane shifting assault is an intriguing plan - quick hit and run... to a positive energy plane or some celestial realm, unlikely to be followed!

Divination could work. Might try a more guided one after we've cooked up a plan. Seek final aproval from the great GM god

I guess if we could lure them into a canyon or other restricted flying area it could help... Wonder how maneuverable they are?

Edit: Neither me (cleric) or the paladin can turn - both have non turning PrC's - turn at about 6th level - don't think these things would even notice. It's a crying shame!

youspoonybard · Mar 11, 2004

It really sounds like you could use a Druid...Flight, Poison Resisting, Spellcasting : P .

Do you have access to spells, etc, in splatbooks, like Draconomicon? There are many anti-flyers (Wingbind, Earthbind) and anti-breath weapon spells (Aura of Evasion, Suppress Breath Weapon) in that book that might help you out. Did you have to roll Reflex saves on the breath weapons?

Inconsequenti-AL · Mar 11, 2004

youspoonybard said:
It really sounds like you could use a Druid...Flight, Poison Resisting, Spellcasting : P .

Do you have access to spells, etc, in splatbooks, like Draconomicon? There are many anti-flyers (Wingbind, Earthbind) and anti-breath weapon spells (Aura of Evasion, Suppress Breath Weapon) in that book that might help you out. Did you have to roll Reflex saves on the breath weapons?

Draconomicon would be great

But unfortunately not!

No Druid - you're right - could really do with one of them here... I'm in need of a new cohort and could create one, but I think the DM may throw pointed dice at me. Or say no.

Breath weapons were more like regular poison - fort saves instead of reflex - no effect on a successful save, so really not sure what it should do - not entirely sure I want to find out either!

Pielorinho · Mar 11, 2004

Wall of Force would be tremendous fun

. Just run the tactic by the DM first, as it's not really covered in the rules what would happen; my suggestion would be to treat it like falling damage and would immediately change the wyvern's flight direction to straight down, requiring rapid maneuvering to avoid crashing to the earth.

Solid fog, OTOH, would be most useful for dividing and conquering the enemy, if you can get it. Cast it to catch half or so of the wyverns, and deal with the other half quickly.

Remember that you can use plane shift offensively: if you succeed on a touch attack and the target fails a will save, they go to whatever plane you want. I'm not sure, but I betcha those wyverns have crappy will saves

. Still, that's a risky proposition: if they make their save, you've cast a useless fifth-level spell. It's basically save-or-die material.

And telekinesis is a fantastic idea: assuming a 22 int (cast fox's cunning before the battle), you're looking at 11 rounds of bull-rushing anyone within 840 feet with a +17 on your opposed check. If there are any spellcasters, ready an action to cast it on the spellcasters. (you may want to make sure that your DM won't be superpicky and consider a lost readied action in this cast to end the spell). Otherwise, pick off the weakest ones.

Another idea for unseating the riders: have the wizard use her sixth-level slot to summon a large air elemental, if possible. It can transform into a whirlwind for four rounds, and use those four rounds to move 200' (a double-move) back and forth across the wyverns. The wyverns themselves will be unaffected, but each time the whirlwind reenters a space containing a rider, the rider will need to make a reflex save DC 16 to avoid being picked up. Pick up riders, move over the PCs' heads, and drop them down to where the PCs can finish them off. Check this tactic out with the DM first, too.

Daniel