Thrane strike force. RAIDERS OF AUNDAIR STAY OUT

[Eidalac]

General battle plan:

Go invisible when we come into range of the tower.
Have Ast scout the base & set alarm spells where prudent.
The others will fly up and scout the general layout (via the arrow slots, much as possible) as well as scout the airship (just looking for obvious things like patrols, etc.)
Move to the hold of the airship, avoiding as much as possible, but subduing anyone we have to.

If we are spotted at any point, neutralize them, taking any steps to prevent a general alarm.
If the alarm is raised before we find the coffins, find a choke point and hold the enemy up while the best scout determines if they are behind us. If they aren't, we push the enemy out of the way.

IFF the coffins are in the hold, make preperations to move them (depends on weight and general layout of the place).
[This raises a good question - assuming the coffins are man-sized and weight, we could be talking about 200-300 lbs each, and we dont' know how many there are - we need some way to get moved efficiently...]
If possible, make ready to take down the ramp to prevent the enemy from getting back tot he ship (if the alarm hasn't been raised, we may hold off on this - in case the noise would rouse them, but that's situational).

If we don't find them in the ship, we move down, floor by floor.

If the alamr has been raised while we are up top, we may want to take out the ship/ramp and move down the the lower level and assulte upwards - catch them off-guard while they are rushing up.


Another question - how would you disable the ship?

IIRC, most airship are controled via a Wheel of Wind and Fire (or some such magical focus). If I'm correct, moving or destroying this item should be sufficent to kill the ship, but I'm not 100% on that.

Releasing the elemental may be an option, but a very bad one we should only consider as the last resort.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Remember the sayings about plans and contact with the enemy, and remember that we're dealing with another team of PCs here, which means they're going to be cunning. It'd be nice if we pulled it off, but I don't think we're going to do this without a fight (they have alarm too, let's not forget).

That said, I've never found plans like 'hold them off while someone scouts' to work very well in D&D time. If we're made and encounter stiff resistance, our objective should be to take out the enemy forces in a quick fight - keeping as many alive afterwards as possible for questioning , meaning our healers should consider putting Cure Minors into downed opponents if they have a free round. We can always retrieve the coffins after the fight is over, whereas if we take heavy casualties we aren't going to be able to carry out a heavy load.

Speaking of a heavy load, so long as we have a party fund we should invest in buying some high-level scrolls of Tenser's Floating Disk. For each 100gp scroll we bought we could carry 400lbs worth of stuff for 4 hours. These have to stay on the ground, so they won't be good for a quick extraction from an airship, but they could make our lives a lot easier if we make it out.

 

[Zurai]

From all my time playing Shadowbane, I learned a bit about PvP. There are two things that seperate the winners and the losers in PvP:

Sticking together and concentrating on a single target at a time.

In other words, fight as a group, not an individual. Communications are vitally important in real-time PvP, but not so much in a play-by-post environment. Before going in, we should establish a general priority list of targets to take out first. Once we get into a fight - and I have every expectation that we will - we need to concentrate on the first target on that list until he drops, then move on.

Generic priority list:
Cloth-wearer (probably a mage)
Healer, if we can determine who that is
Light armor wearer
Heavy armor wearer

 

[Eidalac]

*nods*

That's why I called them general plans - really more of me thinking out loud, as it were, looking for any obvious issues we aren't prepared for, such as the weight, which you've already covered.

And, yeah, the only way we'll do this without a fight is if one of us pulls some mind-fu with the elemental to control the ship, and even with Eagle's Splendor, the best Cha mod we have thus far (myself) would only net a +5. Not terrible odds, but not much to bet on.

 

[FreeXenon]

Scroll

OK, so I am looking for a scroll of Silence (2nd) and Alarm (1rst), Expeditious Retreat (1rst), Grease (1rst), and Cure Light Wounds (1rst).

At 75% that should net me 149.982 or 150 for short.

 

[FreeXenon]

My basic will be to get to a out-of-the-way place and concentrate my fire on soft targets such as the Arcane Casters and other Blasters, Divine Casters, and those of the Striker Role. If I can find a moment where my attacks can drop a target that someone else is working on I will take it to free them up to move on to other important targets so their overflow damage is not wasted.

I can act as an Emergency Healer.

Edit: Oh, and of course, I will inspire my comrades to ever greater heights to destroy the infidels.

 

[Zurai]

FreeXenon: You might consider changing out one of your 1st level spells for Inspirational Boost. It's a swift action spell that increases the bonus granted by your next Inspire Courage by +1. With that and Song of the Heart, you're inspiring at +3

 

[FreeXenon]

Done. I have heard of it before. What book is that from?

 

[Zurai]

It's in the Spell Compendium; I'm not sure what the original source is.

 

[Eidalac]

Hrm.

One question for our DM:

Do we have some kind of transport (wagon or such) waiting to haul the coffins if we make the acquisition, or would we be on our own if things get to that point?

Just wondering as it affects our 'exit strategy', as it were.