Strategy Help Needed (Torm please don't read)

[Nail]

Your best bet is to "spread the word".

there have to be other creatures interested in preserving the forest. Even potentially hostile creatures within, which might come around to your side. Given your (Henry) strength (social skills), I'd even hazard a guess that this is exactly what your DM has in mind.

 

[Nail]

As for what to "awaken": animals really are your best bet. You would use them for skirmishers and scouts, not straight-up melee.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

So here are some of the questions that need to be answered before we can all go hog wild and promise you success:

A. Other than the hypothetical druid, what are your resources?
1. Dryad paladin--of which level?
What else?

B. What capabilities have you observed or can you reasonably infer the Thayan army to have? You mention loggers backed up by several hundred Thayan troops, backed up by wizards and summoned creatures. (In which case, do you mean called creatures that stick around long-term or creatures the wizards can summon? And what kind of creatures are they? If they have a half dozen barbazu bodyguards, that's quite different than if they have a Gelugon and a pair of ice devils at their beck and call.

C. Do you have any allies in the area (other than a hypothetical druid who you think you may be able to bribe)?

D. What are your limitations on tactics? Since you want to save the forest (not to mention you have a dryad in the group--how does she get around that whole tree dependency thing anyway?), I presume starting a forest fire to burn it all down is out of the question--that would, however, be a reasonably good and practical way to deny the Thayans the lumber. Similarly, paladin codes might preclude poisoning the Thayans' water supply (and druid and dryad as such might not be too happy about it either if that meant polluting the whole stream until it was deadly).

Without knowing these, we can give advice for setting up clever ambushes that presume you have quite a few archers, but we don't know that the wizards won't get a pet priest to cast speak with dead on the corpses of their dead soldiers, legend lore to find out a bit about you and then scry every day until you fail the save and then teleport in with their Gelugons and bone devils, smear you across the pavement and go back to what they were doing. A good part of this kind of planning has to include the expected response as well as the clever ambush plan or it won't work. (And I assume that you can come up with any number of clever ambush plans to ambush on your own--not that mid level adventurers need a clever plan to successfully ambush a small group of loggers; even a barely competent plan will probably work).

 

[Henry]

Resources are based on current level; I have no idea what level we will be when the time comes, but based on to-date levelling speed I'm guessing 11th to 12th level.
1. Kalashtar Telepath 8 (me)
2. Dryad Paladin 8
3. Halfling Rogue/Acrobat 8 (unsure of level split)
4. Half-Orc Barbarian 1 / Cleric 7
5. Aerenal Elf Sorcerer 1 / Monk 7
6. Human Sorcerer 8 (Thayan expatriate)
7. Gnome Wizard 8
8. Spryte (arcana unearthed) Wizard 8

Based on current power, (metagaming hat on) I have a feeling the Thayan opposition will be HUGE when we actually encounter them. (metagaming hat off)

The Dryad got around her tree dependency prior to my having met her - it's something she has been reluctant to speak about, and OOC the GM and her are tight-lipped.

"Scorched Earth" policy is definitely out of the question - it's the dryad, gnome's, and halfling's quest, and we others agreed to help them, in exchange for their helping us with our burdens.

The Thayan response will likely be "heavily armed logging". Knowing how the DM plays the Thay, the "loggers" may well be a bunch of controlled wood and copper golems under command by wizard foremen Or it could be a contingent of slaves under duress. The paladin may have some problems in this instance, but causing a slave armed revolt changes the problem into something much easier to handle.

Their response is first and foremost on my mind; the counter-assassination attempts are what are on MY mind. To this end, the next few sessions are going to see me concerned with non-detection and reveal detections spells and powers rather than more firepower, so that when we are elevated from "fly in the ointment" to "thorn in the side" they can't just track and kill us.

Also, something you just said reminds me to remind the cleric about dismissals.

So here are some of the questions that need to be answered before we can all go hog wild and promise you success:

 

[Oryan77]

How about a common bit of advice we see in almost every thread on Enworld, "Try talking to them about the problem".

Seriously though, any chance a war can be prevented with social skills? Maybe convincing them that it's a bad idea because of some "made up" danger? Attempt to make them worried about cutting down the forest. That could backfire I suppose if they still plan to cut down the forest and just bring a bigger force along to do it. If anything, meeting them would get you info about their plans and help you prepare for it.

I don't know anything about Thayans, so if talking to them is absurd, I really meant to say, "Loggers need entertainment & companionship at night...so have women poison and assassinate them one at a time".

 

[Andor]

Well from mid-level a Druid is the most terrifying guerilla combatant DnD posseses. One backed by a telepath and arcane power should be nigh unstoppable. And the trick is to anticipate your opponents moves and counter them.

Blow up the bridge to isolate them. The druid can spread poison and disease in the camp. If you're really worried about golems see if you can find a rust monster. If the wizards have demons set up magic-circled strong points. Actually, do that anyway since it will stop spell summoned critters too. Try to have your Telepath pick up at least one Fort save or die power. Awakened trees are good. Awakened animals are good.

Basically you want to isolate and destroy the wizards. A couple of raids by weak forces should get them stirred up and allow you to pick off a lot of the fodder as they search for you. Then make a big dramatic attack to draw the heavy hitters away from the wizards, then pound them with targeted dispels and grapples while you smack the golems with rust-monster-on-a-stick.

 

[Henry]

Try to have your Telepath pick up at least one Fort save or die power.

Note: Pick up Crisis of Life at 13th level... Unfortunately, I don't see too many fort-based psionic powers - plenty of will-save ones, though.

...isolate and destroy the wizards...pound them with targeted dispels and grapples while you smack the golems with rust-monster-on-a-stick.

Definitely on the list.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

OK, so looking at the list here, you seem to have the party almost entirely composed of light infantry and arcane types. I suppose it's possible that the dryad may have a good strength and hit hard, and the barbarian/cleric almost certainly hits hard, but it doesn't look like you have much in the way of a tank. What you do have is a lot of arcane power.

In a lot of ways, that's good because most of the tactical responses you are going to need are sor/wiz only. Assuming that a massive Thayan response probably means they'll have 7th level spells at their disposal, and that frontal assault will not be a practical option, you're going to want to have defenses against both scrying and teleportation.

Now, nondetection and mislead are both useful in that regard, but they aren't particularly reliable (especially since nondetection works on a caster level check mechanic and the red wizards will probably be higher level than you and misdirection grants a will save). A more reliable scrying defense might be detect scrying and false vision. Both have long durations and both let you know when to worry.

Another defense that will be key is anticipate teleportation. Even if they don't scry you, there are a number of ways that they could mount an instant counterattack using teleportation tactics. (For instance, they could telepathic bond their foreman, etc with the wizards and teleport capable outsiders so that, one round after you start any attack on a group of loggers, their entire elite reaction force shows up and starts hammering you). Anticipate teleportation would give you a good chance of finding out that they're coming and having at least one round (three if using greater anticipate teleportation) to clear the area using whatever means are available to you (possbily leaving an evard's black tentacles and an acid for or something for the bad guys to enjoy grappling with when they arrive).

In order for all of those to work, you will need to have quick exit strategies available to at least half the members of your party and some way of making sure you meet back up after making your hasty retreat.

The dryad with her tree stride (I assume she kept it) is set.
The sorcerers and wizards will need to learn dimension door or teleport. Getting one or two others a similar power or a cape of the montebank would be good. (In a forest, just going 760 feet from your current location will generally be enough to get you out of sight and allow you to either disengage or engage the response force on more favorable terms). The barbarian cleric could use word of recall in this fashion, but I'd recommend against relying on it. Tying it to a particular sanctuary is a big weakness because sanctuaries are fairly easy to locate.

Another big capability for you will be to prevent information gathering. Dispels may take care of telepathic bonds, and are a good precaution, but you will also want to ensure that they can't get anything from speak with dead spells on your victims. Do your best to leave no survivors to be interrogated and to destroy the corpses of your victims. If you take prisoners, try to keep them in an extradimensional prison to keep minimize the possibility of scrying or sendings reaching them. Dimensional anchor will also fall into this capability. The enemy will have a number of very high value, very mobile targets who are smart enough that they will often be able to retreat before being killed. In order to succeed, you are going to need to kill or defeat them all piecemeal before they get enough information about you to make a coordinated assault. Dimensional anchor will probably be the best way for you to prevent escape since dimensional lock is a realtively small area and comes with much higher opportunity cost. Another possibility if they employ groups of called outsiders as their heavies is banishment. As a 6th level cleric spell, you may well have access to it when you face them and as a multitarget spell with a pumpable spell resistance roll and DC (by items--silver holy symbols of good gods tend to be good against devils--as should fey paladins' holy swords), it is miles better than dismissal.

However, probably the best thing you can do would be to discover why they are there. Unless they are really after the lumber or are on some kind of punitive expedition against the fey and druids of the forest, beating the Red Wizards to whatever they're looking for or rendering it inaccessible to them may well convince them to leave.

Another possibility that you might employ with a possibility of success would be stirring up enough trouble for the individual wizards' interests in Thay that they had to leave the forest operation in order to maintain their interests vis a vis the other red wizards in Thay. Your Thayvian character might prove helpful in this regard and you should not overlook rival red wizards as potential allies in your fight against these wizards. Given that your only wilderness skill looks to be in dryad racial HD, you're probably better suited for political intrigue in Thay than for guerilla warfare in the forest anyway.

Resources are based on current level; I have no idea what level we will be when the time comes, but based on to-date levelling speed I'm guessing 11th to 12th level.
1. Kalashtar Telepath 8 (me)
2. Dryad Paladin 8
3. Halfling Rogue/Acrobat 8 (unsure of level split)
4. Half-Orc Barbarian 1 / Cleric 7
5. Aerenal Elf Sorcerer 1 / Monk 7
6. Human Sorcerer 8 (Thayan expatriate)
7. Gnome Wizard 8
8. Spryte (arcana unearthed) Wizard 8

Based on current power, (metagaming hat on) I have a feeling the Thayan opposition will be HUGE when we actually encounter them. (metagaming hat off)

The Dryad got around her tree dependency prior to my having met her - it's something she has been reluctant to speak about, and OOC the GM and her are tight-lipped.

"Scorched Earth" policy is definitely out of the question - it's the dryad, gnome's, and halfling's quest, and we others agreed to help them, in exchange for their helping us with our burdens.

The Thayan response will likely be "heavily armed logging". Knowing how the DM plays the Thay, the "loggers" may well be a bunch of controlled wood and copper golems under command by wizard foremen Or it could be a contingent of slaves under duress. The paladin may have some problems in this instance, but causing a slave armed revolt changes the problem into something much easier to handle.

Their response is first and foremost on my mind; the counter-assassination attempts are what are on MY mind. To this end, the next few sessions are going to see me concerned with non-detection and reveal detections spells and powers rather than more firepower, so that when we are elevated from "fly in the ointment" to "thorn in the side" they can't just track and kill us.

Also, something you just said reminds me to remind the cleric about dismissals.

 

[ajanders]

Just find a nice pleasant grove of trees with fresh water and a nice view. Awaken the trees. Tell them to hold still until a group of Thayan wizards go to sleep under them. Logging, after all, is messy and noisy. Any Thayan wizard would rather sleep under a tree than next to a logging iron golem.
Once the wizard goes to sleep, the tree steps on his head.

Owls. And bats. Dropping acorns with magic mouths programmed to say rude things about Thayan women. Loudly. At midnight. A tired wizard is a wizard without spells. Also, usually a cranky wizard. Cranky Thayan wizards lead to fratricide.
Chipmunks chewing into spell component pouches.
Magpies carrying off magic wands.
Six weeks of unremitting rain -- even motivated villains eventually go home and get dry shoes.
Hope for human slaves:thirty or forty logger types with axes should cause real problems for the Thayans.
Hallucinatory Terrain should be lots of fun...create your own landmarks! Take them away! Put them someplace else! Thayan wizards aren't putting much stock in Survival, after all. You can get them lost pretty easily.
Giant Vermin! Spiders and centipedes are probably local in whatever camp the Thayans have. Cast and run while the Thayan wizards make fort saves.
Or, have your bats and owls drop suitable vermin, then enlarge them.

 

[smilinggm]

Well here are some nasty combos that I think that your party has in its reach.

Lets start with slowing down or imobilizing the targets.
Entangle
Evards Black Tentacles
Web
Soften Earth
Entangling Ectoplasm
Rock to Mud
Fields of Caltrops hidden under brush or other foilage
Lots of Tanglefoot Bags traps.
Solid Fog
Sleet Storm
Waves of Fatigue
Plant Growth
Hallucinatory Terrain to guide the target to the traps


Now that you have them imobilized lets start neutralzing thier spell casting ability.
Smokestick to take away thier vision
Thunderstone to deafen them
Fog Cloud again to take away thier vision
Various darkness spells to take away thier vision
Drop a confusion or 2 on them for alot of fun
Stinking cloud
bring in agroup of Troglodytes to the party for thier stinking cloud ability alone.

Now if they have not gotten the message yet and diplomancy has failed
It is now time to start killing the mages (Use these after the target has been imoblized)
Cloud Kill
Blade Barrior
Chain Lightning
Deep Slumber
Live Oak
Ice Storm
Creeping Doom (esp nasty if they cannot move)
Insect Plague
Shout, Greater
Shout
Ectoplasmic Shambler
Dont forget about basic archers
Summoned Elementals always help

Now this is just for fun
Summon or Convince a group of Shambling Mounds to join the fight. Hit the things with lightning often.

Keep in mind some of the Basic Rules of Combat:
Know your enemy
Control the terain to your advantage.
Make the enemy fight on your terms not his.