Give me some Duergar tactics.

Bagpuss

Legend
The players have managed to break into a Duergar underground cavern and fort complex, can you provide some suitable challenges for a party of about 8th level, 2 fighter-types, a sorcerer, cleric and rogue.

What sort of encounters should they face? What sort of size should a patrol be and what tactics might they use if they either

a) stumble across the party.
b) get ambushed by the party.
c) know the party is coming and have time to prepare.

I've got some ideas, but from posting here for a while I know you guys/girls/transgender-species can come up with some seriously devious tactics.
 
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Where drow are evil, silent killers, I see duergar as evil, sadistic, well... bastards. The stereotypical drow sneaks in, knocks you out, and coup de grace's you. The stereotypical duergar sneaks up, breaks your arms, stabs your dog, and then laughs at the little crybaby.

Maybe give them some kind of poison that mimics a symbol of pain. Perhaps some wounding weapons thrown in for good measure. They would do things like sunder weapons, kill familiars and animal companions, basically things that don't get better in the morning. You can make it hard on the PCs by having the duergar do some damage, make the PCs waste some spells and potions, then turn invisible and run away. As long as the PCs can't rest and regain spells, the duergar will win the war of attrition. I enjoy the Nightmare spell for this purpose, but just sending in some summoned horses to attack (with the Mount spell - it lasts for hours and is level 1) will keep the party from getting the rest they need.

So kick them while they're down, and don't stop kicking!
 

First, I will pimp out Mongoose Publishing's Slayer's Guide to Duergar.

To me Drow are much more nasty, but they are sadistic on a whole other level. Duergar, I would think, are much more practical, like the above post. Almost like Kobolds, with just more of a Punch.

Magical Missiles (Maxed for the most punch) right to the familiar. Poisons that cripple and blind (They're immune to certain poisons, so they could just smear it on their hands and use like so). Thunderstones and Tanglefoot bags every man would be outfitted with. Grease (on weapons).

They are immune to paralysis, so maybe there's a Duergar cleric with some pet Ghouls. When the alarm goes off, they set loose the starving ghouls to go 'hunt'.

Here's some ambush tactics: have the party go down an area, and find a wounded thing. Animal, person, whatever. It's crying for help, or near death. They go over, and *WHAM*. Invisible duergers. Or a pit trap that not only hangs the wounded individual, but drops the PC. Or a little illusion that the wounded individual is actually a poisonous creature.

Or a lone Duergar, who surrenders. When they get up close, *BAM*, invisible weapon (Make him a rogue, by the way, for sneak attack damage), and then have the ambush begin.

With their large dark vision, have some Heavy (Or even Giant crossbows) set up. PCs charge the bowman, and then some Duergar are hiding behind stalagmites, waiting for the PC to run past (Likely with a trip wire, or other nasty trick, or just flanking sneak attacks). Or maybe just charge the spell casters once the Fighters are allready running into the darkness. :D

In a book I read, dwarves had constructed catapults which fire around corners of tunnels. :D

These guys would definetly be bullies, and the more there are, the more superior they are.

Oh. And, whatever they can do th distinguish a party's light source. Torches? Pyrotechnics, buckets of water, Gusts of Wind, Control Flame. Magical lights? Everburning torch? Dispel. Since they have massive Darkvision (And this surpasses PCs vision with magical light), they will definetly be hitting form distances.
 
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And don't forget, duergar are notorious (or at least they were in earlier editions of the game) for riding "steeders" - Large monstrous spiders of the "giant tarantula" variety. The duergar cavalry ("kavalrachni," or spider-riders) had elaborate saddles allowing them to remain seated on their steeder mounts even while the creatures crawled along the cavern ceiling. Steeders are good at jumping, but do not produce webs.

"The Ecology of the Steeder" appeared in Dragon #245, if your collection goes back that far (or if you've got the Dragon Anthology CD-ROM set).

Johnathan
 

Drow are known to use subterranian lizards for that (Or, IMC, subterranian Kobolds do the same thing with big sticky lizards).

BTW, that's an awesome visual. :D
 


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