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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 824231" data-attributes="member: 6533">I'm playing through CotSQ right now, and while I can certainly see why it is challenging my party has yet to endure a character death.Looking at the thread we may be a little overpowered, but my understanding was that level 13 was appropriate and we have been playing through many of our encounters with a severely small party, assuming that 4-6 is the most common appropriate size.Our success against seemingly terrible odds thus far has been due to two factors:1.)  We take advantage of all the tactical advantages and tricks that we can.  We layer buff spells on our characters with the least essential spells on last so that the area dispells only take out our bull's strengths before we close for combat.  We haste whenever possible and we always look for ways to surprise and confuse potential enemies.  We are also very careful to avoid enemies where possible, when we do encounter them we make certain to isolate them and act extremely aggresively. We have also carefully tailored our magical items for this campaign as we have always had some inkling that we were going to be doing some heavy underdarking at some point in our career.   Among other things we make heavy use of runes, wands, scrolls, potions, and other disposable but also easily available ability expanding items.In terms of intelligence we make heavy use of interrogation and scouts.   Scry can be detected, but a bat is a bat is a bat.   Druids are super-useful.2.) While Shark's idea of an invasion is an effective strategy we are specifically without support in this setting and have opted to adopt a more discrete model of disabling our enemies' response.   Over the course of the campaign we have put our efforts into a successful disinformation operation.   We are not simply stealthy, though we do make use of that, are overall goal is to confuse the drow as to our specific nature and threat and to disrupt their defenses and decision making as much as possible.In particular we are taking advantage of natural Drow paranoia and the apparent crisis to make the Drow feel they are threatened by as many different elements as possible.   We have pursued several actions towards this goal.   We leave evidence of battle and intruders in random places throughout our travels, use illusion to confuse our attacks even when we know victory is assured- noone should ever assume the enemy won't use speak with dead-, and we plant evidence that points to as many potentially responsible parties as possible, including intruding adventuring parties from the surface such as ourselves.  That way when we leave actual evidence about our presence it will be confused by the false indications we have left in other places and situations.We make certain to vary and complicate our forays into Drow territory and to avoid any constant plays on particular Drow weaknesses or tactics.  We try not to give them any definite dangers to react against.  When we must cause general destruction and mayhem we try to cause as much as possible, though we always work to maintain our tactical standard of preventing a unified Drow response, we simply loot an officers quarters for papers when you can burn all the furniture and bodies in that chamber, the one's that surround it, and a random area in a hallway we were otherwise uninterested in.When we make camp we make camp in areas that contain other threats the Drow know about and feel they have dealt with, such as caves in which they have imprisoned Driders.  We displace the original threat but make certain to promote the appearance of its continued presence.    So far this has worked, but we never know what the next session will bring.</blockquote>

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