A case of misplaced dragon anger

[Nenn Esoss]

Greetings all. It sucks for me to make my first post one of a cry for help but such is my lot. Will contribute here forth to the discussions as it's not the first time I browse this place. Anyhow, let me give you guys the gist of the situation...

We have a party of a great number of characters for seven players. About 2-3 PCs each, plus a boatload of followers. The average fighter level is 11 and an average caster level of about 12. A couple of characters stand out and some NPCs as well. The game has been running for nearly three years so a *lot* has happened since our beginnings. Let me try to make a brief resume...

-group came toguether as scapegoats for a demon preparing an empire-wide war, sent on a quest to kill a red dragon
-we're all evils, and couldn't care less about the dragon and we turned coat on the empire by killing the demon, selling its remains (after copious amount of harvesting of his flesh, horns etc as it regenerated) to a good-aligned bunch of a Christian-like order of fanatics: the Shalals.
-The Shalals then gave us a cube of force and other crap and sent us on our way to capture the red dragon, unknowing we had dealt with this red before.
-rather, we warned the red and embarked on a double-spy style quest to find the red a portal to the negative planes and means for the red to become a draco-liche, which hasn't happen yet. Much rewards came through and we have enough to buy a kindom...
-Meanwhile Shalal learned of the threatury and came after us with paladins, high-level fighters and two dragons: a chromatic and an amber. In a forest, the dragons were not necessary in the best setting for areal attracts and a well diced feeble mind (this might be a bad translation for "débilitée mentale") let us easilly slain the amber dragon. We sliced and diced it, emprisoned it's soul in one of parts (I think an ovary...) and sold the rest to magic users throughout the land.

Fast forward a good year of game play...

-Shalal is still rather upset. And quite hard-bent on letting us know about it.
-Now equipped with an un detectable flying ship that gathers its powers by pressing (literally, like a silver raisin press) level-2 NPCs as fuel (a level 7 press gave us 10 days of flying time once...), we have remained under the radar of Shalal for a while.
-Having accomplished a number of respectful and commendable deeds (as far as Satan is concerned), we have have literally bought most of the armies of a financially-crippled kingdom to turn on their king Osrik and basically take over management and turn the place around. Both in terms of finance and alignment...

The eve of the battle. The armies are placed in front of the city wall. Like a well played out game of chess.

Our side:
-Roughly 12,000 barbarians, 8000 of wich cavalry including 300 Druids as aids
-About 6,000 skeletons built up over a long period of time, dormant in their cemetery, awaiting command
-80 fighter dwarves, 100 orcs, 100 trolls, 60 archers
-canons of the ship and two ballistics
-Plus our party of level 10-12 fighters (5 of them) level 12 casters (7), a bunch of similar NPcs at our service and two greater mummies, including (drumm roll) myself after willingly entering a Cofin Of Creation (magic tome1 p317). This character is a level 12-1xp fighter multi classed cleric 16. It's a new thing for Nenn Esoss and casting wise, is not up to speed with is capabilities yet.
-A warewolf battalion of 5 leaded by their warebear, one of my captain followers
-A boatload of other warecritters commissioned by my other captain, a warebat, sent out for reinforcements but are still about 4days away. Will most likely miss the battle.

Their side:
-Roughly 8000 barbarians paid for by money stolen from us (another long story) and about 400 Druids aids.
-An empire garrison comprising super high-level gnome casters and druids, and fighters (Lvl 12 being e minimum required to serve the empire...)
-Shalal with 36 griffon-mounted paladins, 120 cavaliers, 3 dragons including a bronze, silver and an Airin. We suspect a fourth chromatic dragon to lurk in the waters on the other side of the city wall, who happens to be the co-founder of the Shalals, along with his wife we so joyfully slained and bartered "a while ago".

Chess game...

For as long as we don't directly get involved, the empire will not do squat: the war would remain an internal barbarian affair. The empire does not care much for the Shalal either but they certainly can give a hand should we (our party) decide to directly get involved on the battlefield. If we stay put, the empire won't get involved but Shalal will still Definitly come for us.

The king Osrik is holed up in his castle so our game plane would be to leave with the flying ship, come back from behind the city wall and assassinate Osrik, hopefully bating Shalal for an in-city fight where we have the advantage of not caring for collaterals.

The big question is this...

We've taken on two of them at once, twice before, killing one every time (first one we sold, the second they stole the carcass from us and most likely revived him).

Now it looks like we're going to be taking all 3 or 4 of them dragons at onces and it's becoming a nuisance. Given all of the above (sorry for the long text), I am looking for ideas and suggestions for slaying those dragons.

Any ideas welcome.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Make sure YOU choose the battlespace. Make it so that, even if they're all attacking you, they can't do so simultaneously.

For example, if you can get one to do an aerial strafing run on your position, you can Use the Cube of Force (or similar magic) to create an invisible wall of force in its path at a point when it cannot avoid it. This will hurt it severely, and make it unable to fly. It should then be easy pickings.

Since dragons are smart, the others will learn from this. They will then be forced to attack you from positions that are less advantageous to them in general, but will not risk that quick a defeat.

 

[Nenn Esoss]

Gonna have to check if we still have that force cube.

I should note this is a 2E campaign. Not that it affect your suggestion but maybe a moderator can add that to the thread title.

Thanks.

Anyone else has suggestions? Big or small, I'll take them all and consider they're alicability given our campaign settings.

A few other facts...

Amongst the 6000 raised skeletons in the cemetery are a couple hundred zombies of various levels and for the fun factor, 600 babies in skeletal form.

Nenn Esoss' minor spheres are charm and divination and major ones are creation, fire/earth elemental and combat. 2-handed combat fighter kit w/ two +1 blades: a fire and silver blades. Being level 16cleric means I have access to one level 6 spell.

 

[Dandu]

Obligatory Shivering Touch reference.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Experience Points

Dannyalcatraz: Welcome to ENWor

Omegaxicor: ld!

Thanks, Omegaxicor- I fatfingered my iPad2 while typing.

 

[Kodam]

A Trap!

Hi!

Are your characters able to sneak into the camp and steal your Money back? If you should succeed with that make sure the Barbarians know!

Or

You could try to lure the barbarians into a trap.

Block several streets in the city with (for you!) easily removable obstacles like wagons, barrels and reinforce the buildings along your chosen route. Hide your archers on the roofs and camoflage them from aerial reconnaisance. Make a suprise attack at the barbarians Camp with your infantry. Du NOT attack the Imperials! After a little fighting retreat to the city to draw the barbarians out. Make it seem, they were too fast for you to close the gates in time to lure them into the city. At the end of the dead end attack them with your undead for extra horror and have the cavalry take them from all sides.

Inside the city the Imperial troops won't see your group attacking the Paladins and the dragons...

Just some ideas...

Kodam

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

From what I'm reading, the Dragon's anger is very appropriately placed.

It appears that the majority of the enemy force consist of barbarians and druids. What are the differences in worldviews between the Barbarians/Druids and the Shalals? From the little I'm reading, I'm imagining the Shalal would have little love for the Barbarians, and the Barbarians wouldn't be serving the Shalal's cause if not for the money they're getting paid.

If this is the case, is there any way to pursuade 8000 barbarians and 400 druids to turn on thier employer and join your cause, or at the very least, oppose the Shalal's? Are your barbarians and theirs in any position to ally, such as being from the same tribe/land/group/whatver, or are they different people groups?

Altneratively, how quickly could you spread lycanthropy? I'm less familiar with 2nd edition, does lycanthropy come with an alignment change like it does in 3rd edition? Could your lycanthropes spread some chaos (and evil) throught the enemy with a few well placed bites? I'm imagining a Werebat carrying in a small force of animal shaped wererats in the dead of night, the rats run around biting members of the enemy camp, extract after a few hours, and then see what develops.

 

[Nenn Esoss]

For the age of these dragons, they sure act like babies

At this point in the game, the bell has been struct, the boxers stood up and the trainers are reaching for the stools. Time for preparation ran out so trying to steal our money back or arranging defenses in the city is no longer an option.

Much like Suny and Shiite Arabs in the middle east, the barbarians are all divided into clans. Technically they all follow the same rules and god but they still hate each other's guts. Each clan is divided in families that follow the head familly that make up the clan affiliation. Clan sizes vary.

We had a fairly high level illusionist Kender that infiltrated the castle and did intel recon. Was a great job until his luck ran out and a series of gaffes ended up in his capture and stripping of his possessions. He had something like 6000gp in gems on him and that's what Osrik used to pay the stronger but less numerous clans. We had to postpone the assassination plan of Osrik to rescue out kender. Twice that day so, the money is long gone and distributed with no chance to get it back. It really is chump change anyhow. We stopped counting out money long ago.

When the captains advanced on the battlefield, the Osrik-aligned clans, two of them, we're told about where their new money came from and when talks broke down, the lesser of these two clan's general returned only after hesitating. We think he might turn during the battle.

So in essence we're not worried about the barbarians. Our side has greater numbers and some were actually fed and trained freely by us. All our barbarians have had their back pay settled by us because Osrik didn't have money to pay them anymore.

While we discus various strategies on FB (we have a hidden group from the DM), we did come up with a couple of strategies but some come at a high cost...

We have a hidden chest of (near) infinite containment where our gold and a few other tricklets are storred. From a previous Whish, we have a rope of teleportation: place it in a circle on the ground and anything not alive gets teleported in the chest with the command word ("Che-Ching!"). When the red dragon gave us one of his caves in payment for the portal we found him, he gave us the command word for the steel golem guarding the cave. We actually commanded the golem to stand on one foot and we Che-Ching-ed it in the chest. The only way to take it out of there (way too big for a reversed enlargement spell) is to brake the chest. Problem with that is stashing our millions of GPs during the battle. But imagine the bomb of tossing the chest overboard with the golem inside, right on Shalal.

Unfortunately some players are not willing to sacrifice the chest just yet. I'm still trying to convince them. I'm also sure the DM would love to see that chest gone.

We also have a small group of jinns (the lesser of the gins) who offered their services for a fore payment and the access to some magical items and armor owned by Osrik. Technically, we could ask them to help take care of the griffon-mounted paladins.

So what I'm really looking for are alternatives on killing them dragons. Spell ideas or combo attacks with fighters. Looking for out-of-the-box crazy ideas we might not have considered.

 

[Nenn Esoss]

Forgot to answer the question about the Druids.

They are basically there to keep a balance in nature. They don't like us for being evil but they know a certain balance is required. They are healers for the most part and don't usually attack directly. Although Druids are the reason why the captain of our flying ship was melded to the ship. He is basically dead but linked to the negative planes with the flying ship.

That ship, BTW, was a result of a wish after we had lost it to pirates. We saved the captain hostage, killed e pirate and his crew and ships and took note of their familly's addresses. Then resumed the ship wishing the captain had a mental link to it and allowing it to fly.