Players needing fresh thoughts... :)

[Perun]

I'd like to hear some thoughts, and hopefully, ideas on the situation we just have in our FR campaign. We've been running about the High Forest for some time now, and at this particular point in the campaign it appears that quite a large part of it is being attacked by demonic forces.

We're near the town of Loudwater, which we've known to be the potential target of a Zhentillar attck (from Lorc, IIRC) for some time now. Recently, Zhents did launch an attack, but it wasn't anything particularly spectacular - a thousand or so soldiers decided to lay a siege. We figured Loudwater would be more than able to deal with it on its own.

However, very recently (as in athe last coule of days) the Zhent forces swelled up to about 10,000 soldiers. More importantly, the army now includes at least one unit made up of drow, and there are a few illithid in the army as well. The army positioned itself north of Loudwater. We were a bit confused as to why they haven't encircled the town, but then we discovered there was a "secret weapon" in the forest just south of Loudwater, consisting of partially demonic drow experiments (we figure these are the either the regular drow half-fiends, or draegloth).

Loudwater won't survive the attack. We can't summon any meaningful aid (as I said, most of the High Forest is under attack, and many attacks involve demonic forces of some kind or another). There a small chance we might gain control over 12 stone golems form an ancient dwarven complex dedicated to Dumathoin, and we have some gargoyle allies we set free ages ago (in fact, it was they who discovered the dwarven complex) that might join us. What we really lack is time.

The party consists of 5 members:
- gold elf wizard 9
- human Ftr 1/Kineticist 1/PsyWar 7
- human fighter 8 (oddly built, high Str, Dex and Int, low Con)
- halfling rogue 8
- human druid 9 of Silvanus (that'd be my character).

We think it's really important (as in REALLY really) to save Loudwater. We figure, although so far we haven't been able to prove, that they have something of great importance (my gues is an artifact of some kind). Only something really big would justify raising an army of 10,000 that includes drow, demons, and illithid, against a city of 1,500 inhabitants. There is a big clerical presence in Loudwater (mostly Helmites, but some Tyrans, and a small presence of a number of other faiths) (the clerics started travelling to Loudwater since the first signs of the incomming Zhent attack, IIRC).

I guess we're looking for a kind of objective, outside view of things. Perhaps you'll notice some option we simply overlooked. We've been tangled in the campaign for some time now (the DM is big on secrecy, continent-spanning plots, ultra-powerful enemies, mysterious allies that reluctantly share any information they might have, and such things -- it appears the enemies are always two steps ahead of us).

We have two choices, basically -- we can either attampt to somehow disband the enemy army, or we can strike at their command centre. The latter is particularly difficult, since it's located right in the midst of the army camp. Me and the wizard could sneak in (via wildshape and polymorph) and attempt to blast it with spells, but there's no way we'd manage to get the fighters inside, and the wizard can't cast in most suitable polymorph forms (my character has the Natural Spell feat).

So, thoughts and ideas would be appreciated

Thanks!

 

[shilsen]

Get a sending off to Elminster

Actually, I'm only partly kidding. I haven't looked at the FRCS in a while, so I'm not sure exactly where Loudwater is, but I'm sure there would be a number of powerful groups or political entities (and not even necessarily good ones) who would be very alarmed at the existence of an army of 10,000 in the area, especially one including drow, demons and what have you. Isn't there anyone you could contact to spread the word as soon and far as possible? Heck, if need be, just spread the word that the Zhents are on the verge of obtaining a powerful artifact in Loudwater (you may be right, as you conjecture).

As far as buying time is concerned, do hit and run (emphasis on run) attacks to irritate the army. The gargoyles you mentioned (and golems, if you can get them) can aid you in this. What sort of spells does the wizard have? Knowing that would make it easier to make suggestions. A druid with natural spell has lots of options. Turn into a bird, fly around and drop a few ice storms, call lightnings and walls of fire around the place. Cause a nuisance with sleet storms, spike stones, etc. Use tree stride to pop out of trees around their camp and drop a spell in and take off.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head.

 

[Thanee]

Sneak in, kill their leaders, and let the evil ones fight among each other with no strong hand to hold them in line.

Bye
Thanee

 

[The Forsaken One]

Get hold of an orb of storms and kill them all. Or a scroll of control weather, or something of the likes.

That'll take care of an army nicely in Hurricane mode.

 

[twofalls]

The Wild elves of the High Forest have little love for humans, however the Moon Elves or Gold Elves there would be likely allies against any army that included Drow in its ranks. Time is your enemy there, you might not have the option to get ahold of them.

Get a message off to Silverymoon... the Silver Marches are going to be very alarmed at this HUGE army situated south of their boarders and might be willing to send maigcal aid. (10,000 soldiers is a huge army by ancient standards... stories of armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands are routinly assumed to be greatly inflated by western historians... this would be the entire garrison of the Citadel of the Raven, Darkhold, and most of the forces of Zhentil Keep...)

10,000 armed soldiers equipped with seige gear, bolstered with magical races against a town of 1,500? Its obvious that your GM doesn't intend for you to fight them, or that he is tired of running this game. Better find the supersecret artifact that the army is supposedly waiting on so that you can use it for your side of this conflict... that or learn to speak the Zhentish Dialect of Common...

 

[mr_outsidevoice]

What type of spells does the wizard have? that alone will determine what kind of strategy you can use.

If you are not opposed to splitting the party, have a couple of members who are able to, infiltrate the camp, scout it out, gather what intel you can.

If the wizard has Polymorph, he can send in the rogue and at least one of the fighters to assianate the leaders while the rest of you provide diversions by attacking key parts of the camp like the food supplies and armories.

If you can get your Gargoyle allies to launch a hit-and-run attack on the common troops while evrything else is going on, that would be great.

Multiple strikesw over several nights, and daytime to disrupt the darkness lovers can wear them down. no protracted battles.

 

[Nightfall]

Design a spell called "Summon Blade" to summon Blade, the Vampire hunter.

Barring that "Summon Driz'zt."

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Guerrilla warfare, my friend...

Get everyone, from kids to women to the elderly mining the roads and fields. Turn the approaches into a death trap.

Burn the fields, give the army NOTHING to live off of...

Despoil water supplies...

Strike at patrols, stay mobile, hit supply dumps and caravans.

Make the town a royal bitch to take. House to house fighting, and have the houses prepped to collapse and burn after you retreat.

Tunnels, spiderholes...

You could make that army absolutely miserable, starve them, beat them and kill them.

Either they will go home, or slaughter everyone, but don't sell it cheaply.

 

[Perun]

Get a message off to Silverymoon... the Silver Marches are going to be very alarmed at this HUGE army situated south of their boarders and might be willing to send maigcal aid.

That's one of our biggest problems... It seems Silverymoon itself is under some sort of attack by demons... One of the original ideas was to go to Silverymoon and gather whatever information we can. When the party teleported there (without me, the wizard can only teleport three plus himself at a time) they were ambushed by a group of 6 babau, not 40 yards from the walls of Silverymoon. Bad, bad, bad.

So far, we know or suspect the following:

• Hart (see below) is active in various parts of the High Forest

• there are "dark druids" in the woods, killing regular druids with arrows of druid slaying (the vast majority of the High Forest druids is busy trying to deal with this problem)

• the treants are busy at the Hellgate keep (we're still in DR 1369, IIRC)

• some lich is being extra active at the Anauroch border

• the drow are unusually active along the southern borders of the High Forest

• somehow all the halflings in Secomber have been taken into slavery to work in some mines (it seems drow are behind this, but we're not certain), except the most influential halfling (a magic item merchant), who is buying ships and large amounts of weapons (although noone has seen him for some time, and there are some strange men in his tower in Secomber). The Great Inquisitor of Tyr has been asked (by the general population) to take over the control of the city

• demons are becoming rather common

• it seems the giants of the Star Mts. (?) are being controlled by an artifact, the Northern Star (or was the Star of the North), which we, unwittingly gave them (apparently there are two almost identical artifacts, but one is good and one is evil, or somesuch)

• the Silverymoon is under attack by demons

• the city of Shade has appeared, or will be appearing in the near future, there are some odd shadows over Anauroch, in any case...

(10,000 soldiers is a huge army by ancient standards... stories of armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands are routinly assumed to be greatly inflated by western historians... this would be the entire garrison of the Citadel of the Raven, Darkhold, and most of the forces of Zhentil Keep...)

Our DM is pretty big on BIG things. As a matter of fact, our current campaign is revolves around the fact that there are creatures of god-like power out there, that existed before gods, and before the time itself. One of them is, naturally, the bad guy. The bad guy, in fact. The other such creatures are trying to stop him from doing whatever he's doing. The bad guy is called Hart, and he has something to do with shadows. The other such entities are a bit odd, to say the least. One is a pretty large blue cat, living in an old cabin in Secomber, with an insane old woman. In fact, she treats the woman as her familiar. The other one is known as Trixie, and she appears as a beautiful gold elven female. She is concerned with Balance (capital B), as in the absolute balance. Trixie is also known as the Green Lady, and it appears the cat is the Blue Lady. Triexie's "beloved" appears as a gold elven wizard, and calls himself Natas (!!!). There's another elf in Zelebros, called Isib. He's a necromancer, but we don't know whether he's one of the mentioned creatures, or just insanely powerful. There's another ancient "elf", and we also don't know anything much about him.

This Hart person apparently does something to the fabris of reality, and changes it every so slightly whenever he gets the chance. We, the mortals, don't notice it, but the said creatures do. And they're trying to stop him.

His Faerunian headquarters are located somewhere in the Dire Wood (I think that's what it's called. We once stumbled in, and the area is warped in some way, so it's darn difficult to get out of there. There are five identical fortresses, apparently filled with orcs, and half-orc arcanists.).

We don't know how pwerful these mysterious ancient creatures really are. Trixie picked me as her champion of sorts (I died in a climactic battle while trying to save another druid held by the drow, who we thought had some really important info (eventually it turned he was "just" a turbo-poweful artifact with an identity crisis), and when I found myself on the Fugue Plain, Triexie appeared next to me, in disguise, and offered to bring me back to life, along with the chamion thing). This gave me the ability to detect balance at will (by concentrating, I get to know whether something is removed from the absolute Neutrality, but I don't know in what direction (i.e. whether towards Good, Evil, Law or Chaos. it's all the same to Trixie, apparently), I can only sence the degree of removal (slightly removed, totally unbalanced, etc.), as well as the abilty to transport myself and a number of others to some weird extraplanar location. Trixie says it's a leftover from the time before time, that managed to escape the deities' attention. It's a weird, highly morphic (demi)plane, and apparently I got the abiltiy to control it to some degree. The default formation has a small wooded area, with a small keep, a cave that goes for hundreds of feet underground, and opens in a pretty large cave with an inn (!) in it. The ancient elf I mentioned above always sits at this inn, reading and writing something. There's another cave even deeper down, and that one, albeit small, is filled with Underdark radiation (my druid is Underdark-themed)

Get hold of an orb of storms and kill them all. Or a scroll of control weather, or something of the likes.

This is actually an excelent idea! And I think I know where to find such scrolls.

What type of spells does the wizard have? that alone will determine what kind of strategy you can use.

He has the "standard" fare, I believe. He firmly believes in the offensive way, and has fireballs and magic missiles on the read at all times. He likes to have dominate person prepared, but lately he usually has three teleports (yup, three, he has the equivalent of Int 31 for determining bonus spells), so he can teleport most of the party in one go, then come back for those remaining behind (as I said, he can teleport a total of three plus himself in one casting).

Phew! This is one long post. As you can see, we got ourselves in a bit of a mess. But that's a given with our DM. He loves to run a number of parallel plots, twisting and interweaving continuously. Sometimes we just overwork ourselves, and fail to see the (usually) simple solution. happened to us a number of times. We, the players, have a slight tendency to overcomplicate things.

Thanks for all the responses!