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

[jasper]

how about an illusion of the party as skeletons.
Think what will happen do I attack the skeleton on the left wearing Kursk armour or the right.
Add a small platform off to side with a skeleton playing the guitar, a couple playing the drums, a huge gong being struck as the minons attack the party
Hey the party just wandered into a gratefull dead concert and they the cops.

 

[green slime]

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.

Right, so equip every other skeleton with a Tower Shield in the murky water, until the moment of grappling arrives.

Darn silly rule. So 55 ft of Mercury doesn't block a turning attempt, but a pane of glass will.

I would have thought that the undead would have had to at least "see" / "be made aware" of the holy symbol. Ah well, live and learn.

 

[Storminator]

I like the idea about making the skeletons irrelevant, and I'd actually take it a step farther.

Say the skeletons are limitless, they just keep coming back. So your characters can only move 5 feet per round, suffering one successful attack per 10 feet moved (8 skeletons per square, averaged out to one auto hit, more or less).

<SNIP>

Sounds like fun just typing it.

This happened to us in a tournement. There was a clue to the puzzle hidden in a well in the City of the Dead and we went to get it. While we're looking around, out comes the horde of zombies. The cleric starts turning like mad (just blowing down zombies, Extra Turning, high Cha...) and the fighters started mowing 'em down. The thief acrobat took to the ceiling, found the clue and escaped. The destruction team then retreated back to the rope and we all took off, clue in hand.

We killed about 150 zombies, and the DM said the were never going to end. The zombies weren't the point. And everyone got to use their schtick.

PS

 

[Shallown]

Just remember to aid another etc with tme. Makes that Gang Grapple nasty.

I think you should run it with regular old Skeletons except making them burst out of the ground or water. Whatever so the characters can't do the corridor trick and only fight a few at a time.

You could just to be mean coat them with powdered poison so when they do hit it suddenly means something but I wouldn't change the actual Skeleton just make the environment dangerous. Coat some in poison, unhallow the place, etc...

and if you continue to be consistent in the dungeon/tombs it will be an encounter that is useful and exposes some of what the place has to offer ie the encounter is not there to provide a challenge so much as provide information on coming challenges.

later

 

[der_kluge]

Wow, these suggestions are just awesome. Thanks for the clarification on the turning thing, btw.

The room is like 90x90, and I think what I'll do is keep a permanent animate dead going in the room, and it activates when the PCs are in the middle. So, they go through the room halfway, the entire room animates, and start attacking. Every round, I'll trigger a new animate dead and add more skeletons to the fight.

There room is stone, and the skeletons are just in piles. But the swarm/grapple/aid another stuff is great. I especially like the concept of taking the cleric's holy symbol and snapping it in two - that's priceless! What a demoralizer!

And I think for added fun, I'll coat the room in a ten-thousand year old layer of thick fungus, which will inflict disease unless a fort save is made for anyone who is attacked.

Yep. That encounter just got really interesting.

Not to mention that there are really no doors to speak of in the dungeon, so unless they figure something out, they might just have a pack of crazed skeletons following them throughout the entire dungeon - where they get to fight other nasty things - like rooms full of 40+ mummies, and rooms underwater, and spectres, and golems. Oh My!

 

[der_kluge]

I went back and read all these more closely. I also like the idea of the CR 1 arrow traps all over the place. So that's got to be in there.

And I was thinking I could put a displacement spell on the stairs. So, if the party runs for the stairs, they'll figure out that they aren't where they appear to be, and are instead 10-feet over. Which will also suck if they try to move beside the stairs, and end up falling down them!

Evil.

 

[der_kluge]

Ouch!


"Spell effects that may be tied to an unhallow site include aid, bane, bless, cause fear, darkness, daylight, deeper darkness, detect magic, detect good, dimensional anchor, discern lies, dispel magic, endure elements, freedom of movement, invisibility purge, negative energy protection, protection from elements, remove fear, resist elements, silence, tongues, and zone of truth. Spell resistance might apply to these spells’ effects. (See the individual spell descriptions for details.)"

Not only is unhallowed, but it's under the effects of a permanent silence.

Hmm, can you turn undead if you can't speak? Probably, but fireball is certainly out.

 

[d20Dwarf]

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...)

How is it that you know so much about avoiding fireballs?

 

[Storminator]

I went back and read all these more closely. I also like the idea of the CR 1 arrow traps all over the place. So that's got to be in there.

And I was thinking I could put a displacement spell on the stairs. So, if the party runs for the stairs, they'll figure out that they aren't where they appear to be, and are instead 10-feet over. Which will also suck if they try to move beside the stairs, and end up falling down them!

Evil.

In a Dungeon module (Rana Mor) there are undead monks that set off the poison dart traps intentionally, just because they can. The darts were more like an area effect (tons of tiny darts) and if you were standing in the dangerous zone you had a 50% chance of getting hit each round you sprung the trap.

PS

 

[diaglo]

use these tactics for the skeletons bull rush, overrun, and aid another if they can't get close enough.

what do they care if the PCs get AoO.

arm some with reach weapons like spears and such.