An army of skeletons against a 9th level party - dumb?

[Al'Kelhar]

Don't run this fight. I was involved in a similiar fight with 50 ghouls or so. We backed up to the door, so they could only come 2 at a time, and formed the conga line of death. The DM insisted that we fight the entire battle, it was increadably boring, and lead to the phrase, "Like killing ghouls in a corridor" for any time consuming yet utterly simple act.

Eldorian Antar

Eh? Ghouls have Int 14. IMC that's more intelligent than every party member except the wizard - I suspect most parties of PCs would only have the wizard smarter than ghouls. Ghouls do not perform conga lines in narrow corridors in front of scythe-wielding PCs. A bunch of ghouls can easily outwit a party of typical PCs. I can scare merry hell out of 10th level PCs with ordinary 2HD ghouls, using clever combat tactics in situations the ghouls have engineered - using their very high intelligence - to their advantage. IMC ghouls are never mooks.

I like the suggestions coming from others about the varied skeletons idea. I too have had regenerating and exploding skeletons, although only in previous 2E compaigns. I was going to suggest the Bone Creature template from BoVD, but got in too late by the looks of it. There are some interesting spells in Book of Eldritch Might for use on undead, too (unfortunately, I don't have the book with me at the moment, but certainly remember thinking "now a bunch of skeletons with that cast on them, would be a challenge").

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Mark]

Use less of them (maybe 12) but make them Huge so they have Reach and are more difficult to turn. Have them reform in four rounds after they are destroyed. Have them not able to leave the room where they exist (guarding it or some such). Have some sort of glowing gem (or some other magical object) on the far side of the room that is causing them to reform.

 

[hong]

I'm working on a dungeon, and I was thinking (just thinking, mind you) of filling a room with like a hundred skeletons. Now, skeletons are obviously no match for a 9th level party, but it was more for flavor, and since this would be like one of the first rooms in the dungeon, it would be more to set the feel of the dungeon.

So, is it feasible? Is there a way to run an encounter like that that won't take 4 hours, or where I can actually make it interesting so that I don't just have to say "You annihilate all the skeletons, and when the dust clears, you see a door on the other side of the room..."

How big is the room? If it's just a standard 50'x50' chamber, note that one fireball could clear most of the skeletons without any trouble. Even if the skels attack in waves, two fireballs should do the trick. After that, the cleric can destroy the remnants.

From the adventure planning point of view, the aim of relatively easy encounters is to wear down the party's resources, not kill them outright. In this situation, the party might blow up the skels with ease, but that's two fewer fireballs that they can use to get through the rest of the dungeon. Hence even if the skels don't do much damage, you've achieved your objective.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

If you are going to do a battle like this, make sure you incorporate some rules for fatigue. Fighting that long would definitely wear a person down.

 

[Dthamilaye]

.

Heh, brings back memories when I kept the Nightfang Spire to my players and one of them had Sunblade.

You can imagine what happened to the hundreds of skeletons/zombies in the deep cavern... . That was like the explosion in the end of Akira .

 

[Hypersmurf]

Re: .

Heh, brings back memories when I kept the Nightfang Spire to my players and one of them had Sunblade.

You can imagine what happened to the hundreds of skeletons/zombies in the deep cavern... . That was like the explosion in the end of Akira .

Ha.

First edition, an adventure based on the Desert of Desolation modules.

We'd set an Efreet loose, and he was off building an undead army.

En route to trying to stop him, we crossed a chasm that extended down into darkness. Several wraiths flew up out of the gloom - we dispatched them and moved on.

Somewhere along the way, we came across an abandoned altar to Seker, a god known for his hatred of undead. The dwarven fighter sacrificed some minor magical item on the altar (I can't recall why) - it vanished, and was replaced with a bronze gauntlet.

We didn't find the efreet in the underground complex, so we left. Recrossing the bridge over the chasm, the dwarf paused.

"I aim the gauntlet over the edge," he told the DM, "and say 'Seker'."

The DM froze for a moment, flicked through some notes...

"Uh, no apparent effect," he informed us in a tight voice.

The dwarf shrugged and moved on.

A couple of weeks later, the DM informed us out-of-game that the (non-visible) positive energy wave the gauntlet unleashed had wiped out half the efreet's army, massing at the bottom of the chasm...

-Hyp.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

To avoid somem typcial tactics (like wait at the door and let only a few skeletons get through to the group), they should probably be in the mid of a room, when suddenly the undead appear from all sides.

You could invent a spell-effect like "Re-Animate" dead that could "repair" the Undead a few times before its magical energy is exhausted.

If you combine the skeletons with some (potential) enviroment hazards (ranging from bridge to a underground lake to a place of boiling lava...) it might make the encounter more interesting.
(Especially since bullrushes do not require to hit rolls, only cause AOOs - probably destroying the first undead who tries it on a character - and opposed Strength Checks...)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[green slime]

Well the obvious effect of having an enormous room brim filled with water and skeletons, is;

a) Fireball won't affect the skeletons underwater.

b) If the water id murky, you have no line of sight to those submerged skeletons, to turn/destroy them.

c) The cleric will burn an inordinate amount of turning attempts to destroy these minor creatures. Until it becomes apparent that this is going to cause problems: "Hey, I've only got 3 turning attempts left... Perhaps we should slaughter these skeletons the proper way..." Setting them up for a tougher encounter with undead later.

d) If the room is unhallowed and in the presence of an evil altar, the turning is much tougher, and may cause the party to overestimate the badness of these skeletons. If they turn as 7HD undead instead of 1 HD, they won't even be automatically destroyed (unless the cleric has an amulet of undead turning)

e)While their Attack may be low, do not forget the +2 bonus "aid another" bonus, which you apply to those being assisted in their grappling attempts to drown the PCs. (+14 to a single grapple attack from 8 skeletons, attempting to pin a PC underwater...)

 

[Mark Chance]

To avoid somem typcial tactics (like wait at the door and let only a few skeletons get through to the group), they should probably be in the mid of a room, when suddenly the undead appear from all sides.

Or modify the skeletons that they are incorporeal only with regard to walls of the dungeon.

Muahahaha!

 

[Hypersmurf]

b) If the water id murky, you have no line of sight to those submerged skeletons, to turn/destroy them.

Line of sight is irrelevant.

Turning affects undead who are a/ within 60 feet, and b/ do not have total cover relative to you. Concealment makes no difference.

-Hyp.