Favorite combat tactics? (2nd attempt)

[Dirigible]

Zombies have an Intelligence of 0 - changing tactics to account for environmental conditions is beyond them.

1) But they can obey orders if given by thier friendly neighbourhood necromancer, yes?

2) Cut their legs off.

I love this thread. The combination of raw cleverness and rules-monkery y'all display is frankly titilating.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Zombies have an Intelligence of 0 - changing tactics to account for environmental conditions is beyond them.

Very true, zombies are not able to come up with tactics on their own. However, zombies are also supposed to be able to follow simple orders, and I do not think that a standing order to 'hold them down' is unreasonable.

If you dont mind your players hating you, you can always just use ghouls. They need air just as much as Zombies (they dont), and causing a paralysis effect in waist deep water wil be much more dangerous then simple grappling.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Hussar]

A party tactic that is nasty.

When opening a door (that hopefully isn't trapped) have all party members stand on the same square. While you cannot charge through a friendly square, there is nothing saying you can't start from there. Have the unseen servant open the door, and then have the spell casters take a 5 foot step to either side of the door and blast away, then have the melee types charge with the ranged combatant left in the doorway plugging away.

Means that everyone gets a shot during the surprise round. If you roll well on initiative, you can get basically two free rounds in before the enemy even moves.

 

[Gold Roger]

Eh, how are four people supposed to stand in one square? I don't want to check right now, but I think, while you can go through a square occupied by an ally, you can't stand in one. Besides, that really is cheesy. I'd propably rule it out.

 

[wmasters]

One of my favourite tricks at the moment is playing with Benign Transposition (I think that's what it's called) - the Spell compendium spell that lets you swap 2 characters round.

There's a lot of ways of using this. The raging barbarian who's just charged into combat, for example, and who has just lost 4 AC for a big hit gets swapped to saftey with the tank who's yet to act, who then gets a full attack on his action.

It works equally well for pulling someone who can't grapple well out of a grapple and putting your monk grappling champion into it instead.

On the other side of the table, I love the kobold trap. The adventuring party go into the kobold lair. Kobolds look through arrow slits and see the party, pulling a lever to drop portcullis on either side of the party. Trapped, the party get shot by the sneaky kobolds.

I do like the zombie pool, and unseen servant weapon collector as plans as well!

 

[Hussar]

Eh, how are four people supposed to stand in one square? I don't want to check right now, but I think, while you can go through a square occupied by an ally, you can't stand in one. Besides, that really is cheesy. I'd propably rule it out.

You can occupy an allied square, you just can't attack from it. Besides, from a realism standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. You gaggle up behind the door, break the door down and pile in, massacring everyone.

Otherwise, you spend the surpise round poncing around moving a bit and then go to initiatives. I tend to reward parties that use tactics rather than just change the rules so that their tactics don't work. Kind of like the tripping parties. It's a great tactic, it works pretty well against certain opponents. Just switching the rules because the party hits on a good idea seems far more cheesy to me.

Not to be really snippy, but, I think this is the reason I see so many players out there with the tactical sense of a concussed gerbil. In my opinion, there are a rather large number of DM's out there who actively screw over parties that try to use tactics, so players learn that the only thing that works is charge and power attacking greatswords.

I tend to applaud players who use the rules to gain a tactical advantage - so long as its by the book and doesn't require some arcane bit of rules-lawyering to change definitions, then I'm groovy. A party that has everyone use reach weapons? Bloody fantastic - makes sense when nearly everything you face has reach. A party that works together to come up with reach weapons+trip? Even better.

I'm more than adept enough at critter tactics to mop the floor with players. My players know that I'm going to use the critters to the best of their abilities without any fudging. I expect that they do the same.

 

[ceratitis]

the transposition spell thingie is also good to extract friends who were swalloed whole. and great for breaking and entering :send in your ferret familiar, swap places.
Z

 

[wmasters]

I forgot the other favourite combat tactic (albeit I've never actually had the heart to use this) - the collossal mimic, disguised as an inn.

 

[lukelightning]

Recently my tactics have been "my rogue does nothing useful, just waits around until the Radiant Servant of Pelor totally pwns the undead."

 

[Nebulous]

I forgot the other favourite combat tactic (albeit I've never actually had the heart to use this) - the collossal mimic, disguised as an inn.

Nasty. On a side note, does the poor mimic even get USED anymore? I'd love to populate a dungeon with a swarm of the tricky things...