The caught between a rock and hard place, what to do??

[Crothian]

Bad night for the PCs tonight. We lost two members and both of them were 5th level leaving us with the 3 4th level characters. We also lost the Warmage and the Cleric leaving us with a Hexblade, a Scout, and a Wizard. We are stuck in the Underdark. We have two choices (well, three if one counts giving up).

1) We can go back the way we came that will lead us to a dwqarven OPutpost over run with Orcs. When we retreated from there a few weeks back there were about 70 orcs that took the place and an army (thousands or more) in the valley between the outpost and the Dwarven City.

2) We go into the Underdark. We were hired to find a pathy through the Underdark from the dwarven outpost to the dwarven City. So, this option hopes that such an way exists and we can find it. We do have maps of the Underdark around the Dwarven City. No idea how accurate they are.

Metagame wise we know that somhow we will meet with the 2 new characters, but I'm not planning for that. We went from the dwarven outpost to the Underdark and the first encounter killed the cleric. We killed a Gas Spore and it exploded and the cleric weent from full health to -14 with a failed save (nat 1) that also caused all three of the Wands of cure light wounds to get destroyed. We have 4 potions of cure light wounds between the three characters. The scout and hexblade are both less then half health and the Wizard is at full. Any suggestions on what to do, its looking bad for the Amber Company.....

 

[Land Outcast]

What'd I do...
First, is the place moderately quiet or have you had a good deal of encounters? (You could take a full-day rest and go on so that everybody is better off, 8hp at lvl 4 CAN make the difference).
If the place is quite monster-populated: Forced march, scout ahead, until getting to the city.

For what I see, the question is more like: go to the city, or give up, or commir sucide (not that commiting suicide is a bad compared with going to the orcs').

 

[ThirdWizard]

A hexblade, scout, and wizard might have a good chance of sneaking by the orc encampment (long way around), heading to the closest city, and trying to regroup. Is there a timelimit on the mission? I really doubt I'd go on with that party configuration, but its a nice one for a retreat plan, I think.

 

[Crothian]

We think its quiet, we stopped after the battle the cleric died in and haven't explored around much. It was getting late and we were amazed at the two deaths. Heck, we almost had three since the Wizard was at -9 and got saved barely. The current plan is to set watches and heal up. THe Wizard didn't use any spells that day so doesn't need the rest to get spells.

I'm fairly certain that we are going to continue in the Underdark, though IU really want to go back to the Outpost to explore areas we passed up. I guess we could potentially take back the outpost and then just try to hold it, but I think just trying to trail blaze back to the city is the way we will go.

 

[Crothian]

A hexblade, scout, and wizard might have a good chance of sneaking by the orc encampment (long way around), heading to the closest city, and trying to regroup. Is there a timelimit on the mission? I really doubt I'd go on with that party configuration, but its a nice one for a retreat plan, I think.

We might be able to do that but we'd have to go through the orc occupied dwarven outpost. We know the lay out of it and there is only one way in and we could not sneak our way out. So, we'd have to fight to retake the outpost or fight to leave the outpost. The orcs know we went down and did send an elite group after us that were barely survived and were not able to kill all of them (we got 2 out of the 4). So, there could be some more leite orcs up there and that would be bad for us.

 

[howandwhy99]

It does sound like going back would be very difficult. I assume you are trying to find a path through the Underdark from the Dwarven City because the orc army is besieging it? If this is the case, you probably have some time advantage on your side depending.

I guess my best advice would be to realize you are not much for frontal attacks in the Underdark. Rather a Total-Stealth option is your best bet. With a scout and two arcane magic users, you may be able to puzzle out ways past whatever obstacles lie in the Underdark ways.

Since you are short on people, instead of finding an ideal route to the Dwarven City, I would focus on finding it period. Then you could use some their dwarven scouts to aid you in retracing a better evacuation route.

It really depends on why you need to find an Underdark route. But tactics would change little. Do you know what kind of stealth spells the casters have?

 

[Timely Drought]

Does your wizard have rope trick?

1. Cast rope trick.
2. Climb into the dimensional pocket.
3. Cast rope trick.
4. Wacky hijinks ensue.

 

[Crothian]

It does sound like going back would be very difficult. I assume you are trying to find a path through the Underdark from the Dwarven City because the orc army is besieging it? If this is the case, you probably have some time advantage on your side depending.

We don't know. THe Orc army arrived while we were in the outpost and we have had no communication or sightings of anyone from the city

It really depends on why you need to find an Underdark route. But tactics would change little. Do you know what kind of stealth spells the casters have?

I am the Wizard so I know exactly what he has. He has Invisibility, Darkvision (a stealth spells since it negate the need for our light spells), ghost sounds (distractions), dancing lights, (more distractions), Open Close (need to get through doors), Disguise self, and thats about it. I built him as a gerneralist so took a wide variety of spells to try out.

 

[Crothian]

Does your wizard have rope trick?

1. Cast rope trick.
2. Climb into the dimensional pocket.
3. Cast rope trick.
4. Wacky hijinks ensue.

Nope, no rope trick. But I think if I did that my DM's head would explode.

 

[Voadam]

Heal up and press on. Persevere and never give up, that is the dwarven way. Or are you just working for the dwarves and are not dwarves yourselves?