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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 6560595" data-attributes="member: 6786839">I've been pondering what the Cult of the Dragon might do, in response to a team of PCs which have thwarted its efforts in "Courting of Fire" and "Shadows over the Moonsea" and might do so again.This lead to some thoughts specific to Phlan, the Cult, and various NPCs there; and also to some non-setting-dependent, non-plotline-specific thoughts about 5E options for dirty tricks. I'm sticking to the low-level options for this discussion, because there's LOTS of options at low levels. A separate thread may follow, for dirty tricks requiring spell levels 3 or higher and/or other class abilities emerging at level 5 or higher. PLEASE STICK TO LOW-LEVEL-COMPATIBLE METHODS IN YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS THREAD; and post higher-level-only methods in the follow-up thread. Thanks.Actually, I'm seeing lots of options which don't even require expending any spell slots.So, let's say that there is a part of 3 to 7 PCs in Phlan, and some or all of them have, in the course of their adventures, and/or while in service to  the Five Factions, opposed the Cult of the Dragon.Let's say that there is also a group of Tiamat cultists in Phlan, including any two of the following: Cleric 3 (Trickster), Druid 3 (Moon), Fighter 3 (Eldritch Knight), Rogue 3 (Arcane Trickster), Sorceror 3 (draconic, of course), Warlock 3 (Chain/Tome), Wizard 3.First, there's the question of whether anyone on Team Tiamat, knows that the same team thwarted its operations multiple times. As best I can speculate, this depends on what TT knows about other NPCs in Phlan, and their ability to gather information from those NPCs. If TT is watching for new arrivals at venues such as the Laughing Goblin or the Teakettle, and then tracking or trailing the most important-looking newcomers, they might plausibly know a lot about who's new in town, and who's talking with whom. There might be conspicuous PCs. Any half-orc, let alone dragonborn, tielflng or drow, tends to be noticed in Phlan just because of their race. Carrying a sword might not qualify as conspicuous, by itself, in Phlan; but there might be a PC who routinely wears heavy armor, and carries a crossbow and a shield slung on his back, while on his way to the corner store to buy milk. Also, some PCs meet repeatedly with NPCs who might already be on TT's list of people to watch. NPCs such as the least-corrupt knight of the Black Fists, and the Lord Sage, and the keeper of Valhingen Graveyard.General:For many urban adversarial purposes, it is useful to have your target under observation, without them knowing who or where you are. Ways to accomplish this can be roughly categorized as follows:(B) You are within line of sight of them, and them to you, and they cannot perceive you. This requires circumstances which favor Hide/Stealth, or Invisibility, or similar abilities.(C) You are within line of sight of them, and them to you, and they do not recognize you as a threat. If the TT members have already figured out who the PCs are, based on research or espionage, then they start with this advantage. It's useful for passive observation: follow them around, see who they talk with. But even passive observation will eventually be noticed. (Wait, who is this guy following me into the office of the Lord Sage?) Ways to extend this advantage include: mundane disguise, Disguise Self (no concentration!), Alter Self, Wild Shape. NB there's a Warlock invocation allowing at-will no-slot-cost castings of Disguise Self.(D) You are not within line of sight of the target, and you are still able to act effectively. You might have a visible proxy, such as the Trickster Cleric's "Invoke Duplicity"; if you have a familiar, it could act on your behalf; you might have hired and/or magically-motivated associates. Other methods follow.(F) Ambush + Escape. You approach without being noticed and recognized. When you're close enough, you take some action, which reveals you as hostile (or, at least, out of the ordinary). You then escape, usually by some pre-arranged method, such as passing through a visually obscured area.Okay, that's an incomplete list of situation categories. Here's some specific dirty tricks!The following classes can learn Find Familiar, and thus use a familiar to spy on people: Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, Warlock (Chain), Warlock (Tome plus Book of Ancient Secrets), Wizard. (Bard eventually, but not at low levels.)In a city, how often are people within sight of a cat, rat, raven or spider? Much of the time, for one or more of those. Thus, you can spy on the target with low risk of being noticed, among all the mundane animals. Since it's a ritual spell, you could change the familiar's form with a 1-hour 10-GP casting, just in case the target notices the same cat in the market square, that they also saw earlier that day curled up by the fireplace at the inn where the target has a rented room. Alternatively, get your spider-form familiar to crawl on top of the target's hat or helmet, and your familiar has a literal free ride from then on. At will, try for telepathic contact; if you connect, then your familiar, and therefore your target's hat, are within 100', and you can get a realtime audiovisual feed from that location.Unseen Servant can be used to sabotage or harass people, without even using spell slots. Unseen Servant can be cast ritually, the servant is invisible, and you can *mentally* give it commands. So, while your spider-form familiar is on the target's hat, or you're present but not recognized, or otherwise in category (B/C) and you're within 60', your unseen servant can do mischief, poltergeist style. If your target is in a tavern, tip over the beer stein of whoever's nearby, dumping its contents into their neighbor's lap. A bar brawl may ensue. If your target is in the market square, have your poltergeist place valuables in your target's pack. Then (by any of a variety of means, see below) arrange for the target to be accused of stealing that item. If your target is in the library, knock books off shelves. If nothing else, this deprives the target of the ability to get any research done. If your target has a spellbook, and there's a spare bit of paper or other flammable item handy, and a lit candle or lamp, then set that paper on fire and put it on the target's spellbook. If there isn't a spare bit of paper handy, then send your target a letter. Bonus points if the letter is a warning to leave town, or to beware the Cult of the Dragon.Familiars can be used for *no-spell-slot homicide*. Use your familiar to transmit Shocking Grasp. The first time won't kill the target. Does the target immediately realize that the shock came from the spider on their hat (or which dropped onto their shoulder)? Maybe. Can the spider deliver a second shock before the target can squash it? Maybe. The success rate of your attempts may be low. But we can calculate that success rate from a LOT of tries, because Shocking Grasp doesn't cost spell slots. If you're using a cat, rat, weasel, owl (fly-by!) or raven familiar instead, then approaching the target may be harder, but getting away is easier. If the target manages to kill your familiar, then 1 hour and 10 GP later, you can try the same tactic, with a different kind of animal as the familiar's form. Can the target heal HP faster than you can inflict damage?After a few shocking grasps, the target might carefully, 24/7, avoid any situation where a rat or cat might brush up against their ankle, nor a raven land on their shoulder, nor a spider crawl onto them, anywhere in the city of Phlan. Good luck with that.Speak with Animals: ritual. So find some desperately hungry stray cat, and cut a deal with it. That is, feed it for three days. Then tell it that the next day's food is conditional on it following your target around town. Do this with multiple cats. Dogs, ravens, rats, too, if you can afford to bribe lots of them. Animal Friendship could help, but it costs a slot and when you're *feeding a starving animal*, it's not really necessary. Beast Sense, however, is ritual and lets you use a "hired" animal as a spy-drone. Rats might sneak into the target's quarters and steal items. And then, have the rats bring stolen jewelry and incriminating documents to the target's quarters, just before you give the Black Fists an anonymous tip about where the Fists can find that stolen item!Animal Messenger: ritual. While the target is getting the "Pied Piper" effect of being followed by lots of rats, occasionally have one of the animals *speak in a human voice* to them, again telling them to leave town. Sure, they know that the animal talking to them is under the influence of the spell. After a few times, though, wondering *which one* of the rats, cats or sparrows will be next to yell curses, may slowly abrade the target's peace of mind.Any time the target talks to anyone else, such as trying to buy a sword from a merchant, or ask an innkeeper questions: cast Animal Messenger on one of your many miniature minions, and have it tell that the merchant that the target is a thief, or tell the innkeeper that the target is accursed and impulsively violent. If the target likes to play cards, or is otherwise a player, you can shut down those hobbies: "A little bird told me that you're a cheater..."Prestidigitation cantrip. Any time the target talks to anyone else, as above, and assuming you cast the cantrip in the previous hour (that is, when you weren't in the target's sight or hearing), you can make odd stuff happen. If every time they go anywhere after dark, all the lamps and candles get snuffed out one by one, that's gonna affect their nocturnal social life. You presumably need to see their immediate area, whether indirectly by spider-on-hat or similar methods, or by having direct line of sight (LOS). You could have LOS as one of the many people in the tavern's main room, one of the many people in the market square, etc. How are they gonna figure out who's messing with their life?Okay, that was the no-spell-slots warm-up. If your target is still managing to meddle with your efforts to free Tiamat, then it's time to play hardball, using spell slots at 1st and 2nd level:Trickster Cleric: Sneak up behind the target. Pick their pocket, to remove an item, or perhaps to plant an item, eg incriminating documents. If they don't notice, well and good. If they notice your hand in their pocket, and you can get off a spell before they get a good look at you, Command them to "Grovel!". This gives you a head start. While they're getting to their feet, you're using both your regular move and your Cunning Action Dash to escape. Alternately, use Sleight to put a bottle of flammable oil with a burning wick into their pocket, a fragile bottle which shatters when they drop prone; or, if the setting allows, give them a bomb. (Then what does the target do with a bomb, fuze burning down, while in a densely-inhabited urban area?)Variation, not so useful with flame/bomb, in which the target does see you, (whatever you look like at that moment), and you need to escape: cast Command and say  "Flee!"; the target will run away from you, which gives you an even better head start for escaping. Bard or GOO Warlock variant on "Flee": Dissonant Whispers, then (either done in advance, or on the following round) Expeditious Retreat.Druids for Tiamat? Yes, it's possible, though heretical; see "Courting of Fire". Wild Shape allows changing one's appearance; not into the usual combat form such as dire wolf, but into a mundane cat, raven, rat, spider etc., for category (C). If the target hires or buys a steed or pack animal, then you could Wild Shape into the relevant animal. There's a joke in which the Lone Ranger's ally Tonto says "What you mean 'we', kemo sabe?" It's even funnier when Silver says that, or rather the druid who has been impersonating Silver up until that moment. If the target already has an animal, and if you can discreetly remove that animal while the target isn't looking, then you could possibly replace it, depending on whether Wild Shape allows you to exactly duplicate a particular horse/warg/taunton/etc.Send them a letter asking oddball questions (is Phlan a seaport, do gophers eat peanuts?), plus a few directly useful questions about whatever mission they might be on, and who their allies are. Try for blackmail material by asking if they've committed any crimes, or asking if they're keeping any secrets, or asking about their love life. Ask what they fear most.No, you're not actually expecting them to write back to you. The oddball questions are misdirection, making it harder for them to deduce who sent the letter and why. You're bringing topics to the surface of their mind, as preparation for Detect Thoughts. You don't need LOS; you can scan for minds, from the other side of a wooden wall (for example, the room next to theirs at the hostel), and then read surface thoughts, without probing deeply, which would provoke a WIS saving throw and possibly alert them to your mindprobe. Alternative method: hire an attractive stranger to buy them drinks, while asking them interesting questions. (If the target is the kind of person who would buy drinks for an attractive stranger, same thing but you save a few coins.) Start Detect Thoughts at the surface, see what you can get; then probe deeply. Intoxication may reduce their odds of success with the WIS saving throw. If they fail, then you might get better answers, at the level of their reasoning and emotions. If their saving throw succeeds, you still get to mindprobe, round after round, until their INT check beats yours (intoxication can't help their INT either). And then what are they gonna do? They know they were mindprobed, but since you're doing it from another room, what are they gonna do about it? Have they learned your name, your location, or what you look like? They might blame their drinking companion, but that companion has been in their sight for more than a minute. Therefore, if the companion cast Detect Thoughts in the last minute, they did so without the target (or anyone else nearby) noticing V S M spellcasting.Of course, if you are a Sor 3, then you can cast Detect Thoughts or Suggestion as a Subtle Spell. If the target is on their guard, 24/7, against ever interacting with anyone who might be a Sorceror, then that might complicate their efforts to oppose the rise of Tiamat.Speaking of Suggestion... approach in the guise of a friendly bard, wanting to compose a song; then suggest "tell me about your successes in opposing the Cult of the Dragon". As counter-espionage goes, that could be an immediate and total victory. But if the target saves, be ready for category (F), Ambush/Escape. Variant plan: don't bother with the Suggestion spell. Some PCs like to boast. Loose lips sink ships!Okay, there's some dirty tricks. Which of them would always fail? Which of them are worth trying? What else would Team Tiamat do?What should adventurers be doing, as precautions, when they've foiled Tiamat's minions a few times, and there are probably other Tiaminions still at large, and thus they're effectively at war with the Cult?Which of these methods, or similar methods, could adventurers use to identify, track, locate and unmask Tiaminions?</blockquote>

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