The 64 gp question...

[Mark Chance]

Situation: You're a 16th-level character who has heard rumors of a powerful hobgoblin warlord rebuilding a ruined city in the desert. The ruined city has a long-standing reputation as being accursed of the gods. You have access to any information-gathering spells 8th level or below.

Question: What spells do you use to try to divine what facts about the situation?

 

[jgbrowning]

Situation: You're a 16th-level character who has heard rumors of a powerful hobgoblin warlord rebuilding a ruined city in the desert. The ruined city has a long-standing reputation as being accursed of the gods. You have access to any information-gathering spells 8th level or below.

Question: What spells do you use to try to divine what facts about the situation?

none. i get my group together, cast wind walk on all of them and fly over to investigate during nighttime. If i see a city of hobgobbies i find a safe place to land. cast improved invis and fly on all the party, fly back up and rain distruction down upon the poor helpless humanoids using my wands of fireballs. if anything bad happens, i turn back into wind and fly away.


(honestly i'd just commune. then probably do the above)



joe b.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Not so much WHAT you use but how you use it

I'd direct your communing/divining spells toward finding out what exactly is the deal with that curse. It would suck to wind walk in there ready to nuke the place from orbit ("...the only way to be sure.") and find that your magic doesn't work the way it should, or worse--your whole party transformed into donkeys, dominated into aiding the evil warlord, etc. etc.

Plan the destruction once you've received the divine intelligence report.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Re: Re: The 64 gp question...

none. i get my group together, cast wind walk on all of them and fly over to investigate during nighttime. If i see a city of hobgobbies i find a safe place to land. cast improved invis and fly on all the party, fly back up and rain distruction down upon the poor helpless humanoids using my wands of fireballs. if anything bad happens, i turn back into wind and fly away.


(honestly i'd just commune. then probably do the above)



joe b.

Joe, your post is eerily reminiscent of the game session I was involved in last Friday! We went one step futher, wind-walking right through the compound, bypassing monsters and traps alike. Once in the Hall of Irrational treasures, we filled our bags of holding, and left without incident. Booyah!

 

[Mark Chance]

Re: Re: The 64 gp question...

(honestly i'd just commune. then probably do the above)

Commune to find out what specifically?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Why all of them of course.

The first question of course would help to let me know if there was any sort of time limit that can affect what I need to do about the hobgoblins actions.

 

[DM with a vengence]

I would probably use multiple Divinations and Communes to narrow down what tactics to use, then I'd scry out base defenses with Scry or Greater Scrying.

Then buff up with everything you have, get several Planar Allies and use a Limited Wish to gain +7 on your next initiative roll.

Teleport in and Harm the warlord, then kill him and grab his corpse to prevent Raise Dead and such. Once the warlord and his bodyguard are dead, Windwalk or fly up and unlease all you tactical nuke spells on his army. Sunburst, Firestorm, and Storm of Vengence are my personal favorites, followed up by several hits from a Wand of Fireballs.

For your Planar army I recommend Planetars for sheer melee hobgoblin whomping and Ghaeles for support, as they can cast as 14th level clerics, have a Gaze attack that cleans out low-level goons, and due to their domains can each have a Changestaff Treant.

A prepared 16th level party that's willing to call in all the chips can take out just about any threat in a few quick minutes of destruction.

Of course, it's even worse for evil characters, as a CR 18 Balor has only 13 HD. Imagine how much havoc 8 Balors loose in a city could cause.

 

[Wolfspider]

Do you guys actually like to have fun when you game, or do you just prefer 15 minute gaming sessions?

 

[Mark Chance]

Hmm...

Do you guys actually like to have fun when you game, or do you just prefer 15 minute gaming sessions?

Plus very few people are actually answering my question. For example, how exactly do you use divination spells to narrow down acceptable tactics.

I'm also amused by the reigning assumption that the goal is to destroy the evil hobgoblin warlord when not a single person has bothered to find out if (a) he is evil and (b) he is in fact a warlord.

This last observation is perhaps the most instructive.

 

[Kal Torak]

If you don't even know if the hob is evil, a worlord or a bad guy why are you even investigatig him??

But if you are i would start with a few Divinations (the spells, not the school) and a Commune with questions devised after you know the divination results. Also a Contact other Plane (is that the right name, I have the italain PHB so it's a guess) or something to discover if the guys a threat and something about the curse before you start using exp may be a good idea.