Sejs
First Post
Long reply incoming.
The advancing party cannot see the drow, for the drow have Piwalfis that defeat normal sight and even infravision (darkvision.) Furthermore, the drow can Hide In Shadows as a racial trait.
Piwafi give a 75% chance to hide in shadows, which is then modified by any armor penality the drow would have - likely to be drow chain, which I believe has a -15% hide in shadows adjustment. I may be wrong, but I am positive there -is- a penality. Note hiding in shadows is equally effective against normal, and infravision .. no matter who is doing it. The thief scout mentioned later would be just as invisible to the drow.. possibly more so, if they had a high skill.
Drow do not have Hide in Shadows as a racial trait, any more so than normal elves, etc do.
The advancing party cannot hear the drow, for the drow wear their own version of Boots of Elvenkind, and are absolutely silent when they move (even in their metallic armor and with metal weapons.)
Drow boots give a 75% chance to move silently, again modified by armor (a much smaller adjustment than hide in shadows, above, I think only -5%). While quite sneaky, 70% silent isn't total. They'd still have to roll, and that party scout would still get their Detect Noise chance against them.
The party is carrying torches, which makes them easy for the drow to see.
Or perhaps the party walking in the dark, using infravision. The drow have infravision (to 120 feet, farther than the party's) so the drow see the party.
Or perhaps the party threw invisibility on themselves. The drow magic resistance defeated that, and the drow see the party.
A party using light sources, or infravision would be spotted easily by the drow's supperior dark sight, granted. If they were invisible, however the drow do not see them unless they have Detect Invisibility up. Infravision does not detect invisibility. Detect Magic does not detect invisibility. You do not get a MR check against an invisibility spell unless someone is casting it on you, and you want to resist it. Your magic resistance does not affect me being invisible in any way.
The drow heard the party coming for the last 20 minutes.
Even if the party was magically silenced, the drow heard them, for the drow magic resistance (spell resistance) of 75% defeated the Silence spells cast by the party clerics.
See above statement about invisibility. If they wern't magically silenced, they probably made enough sound to alert the drow patrol well in advance (large group of people, metalic armor, tight confines, echo, etc). If they were magically silenced, the drow do not hear them coming. You only get a magic resistance check (or a saving throw for that matter) if someone casts a silence spell directly on you. If they cast it on themselves.. no MR. If they cast it on a rock and throw the rock at you.. no MR.
The party mage could have Stoneskinned the party.
However, the mage does not know exactly when to throw the Stoneskin spells (or other spells of this sort), for the party has a long journey and opponents could be anywhere along the way.
And perhaps the party mage saved the Stoneskins for himself (and, thus, has one up currently.) Mages do do such things.
The point being, the party does not have Stoneskin spells up currently.
2e Stoneskin lasts until it is used up. It could be up for months at a time, if the recipient were careful. However, the material component per casting of stoneskin is a killer.. 1,000gp worth of diamond dust. This cost is what usually keeps it from being tossed about willy-nilly. If the party mage has the spell, it's likely to be up on themselves only. Possibly on the other caster types, if they party has funds to spare. There is nothing stopping the party from having Stoneskin spells up.
The party thief is on point, but she cannot see or hear the drow.
Her detect magic was foiled by the drow's Hide in Shadows abilities (the drow expect this kind of scanning.)
Her detect poison and find traps locate nothing.
Her detect life is foiled by the Hide in Shadows as was her detect magic.
Her clairaudience might have worked, but a throw of the dice for the entire drow group (for magic resistance) failed her.
Hide in Shadows (the skill, or the ability granted by elven/drow cloaks) does not defeat magical scanning of any kind. If you are hiding and have magical items, Detect Magic can spot them. Detect Poison would pick up the buckets of sleep poison most drow carry on them, Detect Life would point out that they're living. A find traps check would only detect a trap (deadfall, rune, pit, tripwire, etc) but wouldn't spot an ambush. Clairaudience allows you to listen to things at range, and if the drow all made their (estimated above) 70% move silently checks, the caster wouldn't hear anything. The drow again do not get to MR the spell, as it is not affecting them directly.
True Seeing would have spotted the drow, but True Seeing has a very limited duration, and neither of the party clerics has it up.
True on both accounts. True Seeing is a very situational spell.
Out of a darkness inpenetrable to the thief comes 10 bolts, fired from 5 hand crossbows by hands that move with lightning speed.
The thief goes down, succumbing to the sleep poison in the bolts.
I don't have a 2e PHB handy at the moment, but if the RoF for hand crossbows is 2/1, then yeah.. 10 bolts. There would be a normal supprise check, however.. there's a good chance a trained thief may win, in which case they should probably fall back to the party asap. Drow sleep poison is powerful (-4 penality to save against it) but does not knock someone out instantly. If you fail your save you suffer a 4pt penality to AC until the next round .. then you pass out. Plenty of time to alert your party of the ambush you just walked into.
In 2nd edition, initiative would now be rolled.
The extremely fast drow gain initiative, and they attack again.
Expecting a volley of Continual Light stones and blasts from spells, not to mention charging fighters, the drow move fast to counteract all of these.
A fireball detonates behind the party. It's flames move up and down the tunnel, enveloping the entire party but not the drow. This causes damage and wrecks any spellcasting on the party's part.
Drow have no more bonus to initiative than any other reasonably dexterous race (elves and halflings). If the drow move first and toss off a fireball to behind the party, yes blast channeling will have the PCs taking 5d6 (save for half) fire damage. A party of 12th level adventurers isn't terribly threatened by 30/15 max dmg. If all 5 drow cast fireballs however, that's a different story. Note - if the drow do go first, and they chuck fireballs on the group -before- the group's initiative comes up, this will not stop the party's spellcasters at all. 2e spells had a casting time, and if you were took damage in the time between you started casting (your initiave) and finished the spell (your initiative + casting time) THEN is it ruined. It would be more prudent on the drow's part to have one of their members delay an action until they see the party members start to cast a spell, and then blast them with a fireball.
A web spell is placed between the drow and the party, to block any charges.
4 more poisoned bolts are fired from two of the drow, this time at one of the clerics, downing him.
The drow - knowing their darkness spells won't stop a flood of Continual Light stones - simply retreat down the tunnel out of the target area (and yes, the drow can cast spells and fire missiles, as they retreat.)
The web will stop their bolts from going thru. Also see above statement about sleep poison not being instant. Clerics also have -really- good poison saves. A single torch or other source of fire will burn the web away in a round or two.
One of the fighters has a Ring of Free Action and passes through the Web.
The drow anticipated this possibility, and one of them now fires her Wand of Viscid Globs.
The fighter is ensnared in the Glob, and halted.
Ring of Free Action would have the Viscid Glob slide off the fighter, but could still glom anyone walking thru the area where it fell. A glob remains active (sticky) for 10 rounds after it was fired, and alcohol disolves it handily - the example given is a belt-flask of wine is enough to disolve two globbed areas.
Note that the drow are trying to take the party alive.
Otherwise, these five female drow would have fired three Fireballs and two Frostballs on their surprise attack, then fired three more Fireballs and two more Frostballs from readied scrolls.
What's a frostball? A cold-type fireball, I'm guessing - yes? Also, if they're readying scrolls (a sound tactic, if they're hit-and-running), they will have to unready their hand crossbows, weapons, etc. Also, as an above poster mentioned - any fire/frost balls cast while that web is still up would detonate when they hit the web.
The mage and one of the clerics were spellcasting, but their spells were ruined by the Fireball.
The other cleric threw a number of Continual Light stones, now illuminating brightly an area of the tunnel between the drow and the party (including the downed thief, the web, and the entrapped fighter in it.)
The last fighter and the monk stopped their charges due to the Web blocking the way.
The light stones are a good idea, but better used in the hands of someone who is proficient with slings (better range, placement, and hey.. you could do 1d4 dmg with 'em). As mentioned, the party's spells are not ruined unless the fireballer held their casting until the pcs started their own spells. The presence of stong light hampers drow concentration, and lose the ability to cast any spell, or use spell-like abilities. Noble drow (are these nobles on patrol?) must make a saving throw vs spell to cast, and cannot use a spell and a spell-like ability in tandem. As above, the drow MR does not apply.
The drow and the party throw initiative, and the drow win again.
The drow know they cannot douse all the Continual Light stones, nor can they see through the light to make out the party.
They know the party cannot see them.
They also know the mage and the clerics may fire spells blindly, hoping to hit them in the concealing darkness.
They fire first.
The drow only win init if they are lucky. See above. Once that web is gone, there's nothing stopping the party from rushing the now hampered drow. And if there are lightstones in play, the party can probably see the drow just fine. Also if the drow are still in the light radius, they arn't casting anything.
They fire three Fireballs and two Frostballs, placing the center of the explosions far behind the visible Web.
The blasts hit all of the party except the fighter ensnared on the drow side of the Web and the thief, unconscious on the floor on the drow side of the Web.
The unconscious cleric is caught in all five blasts and killed. The mage, with few hit points, is also killed. The monk is able to dodge enough of the explosions that she survives. The standing fighter, unable to get through the Web or free her companion caught in it, easily survives the blasts.
The standing cleric survives the blasts, but his spellcasting is ruined.
Again, if they're in the light, they cannot cast. Also, a 5th level wizard has one 3rd level spell per day, and a fireball was already possibly cast to ruin party casting. See above statements about: casting thru webs (if it hadn't burnt away yet), drow casting in light, delay on sleep poison.
One of the drow girls calls out in Common for the party to surrender.
The standing cleric, fighter, and monk tell the drow where to go.
heh heh.
Initiative is rolled, and the drow win again.
The drow are very good at pinpointing enemies by sound, and the standing party members foolishly opened their mouths.
One of the drow Dispels the Web.
Then 4 Viscid Globs are fired at the 3 standing party members (the standing fighter, the monk, and the standing cleric.)
They're dark elves, not bats. They cannot echolocate. Again, their luck with initiative holds true, but *shrug*. No, they can't cast dispell.. even less so if they just tossed off fire/frost balls last round. They're out of 3rd level spells, unless they're packing a whole lot of scrolls. The Viscid Globs are fine, assuming they're all packing 25,000gp wands each. Alcohol can negate the glue if someone makes their save (most likely to be the monk). Light does not hinder the drow ability to use wands.
The cleric is caught and held in the Globs. The monk and standing fighter charge.
Normally a charge would bring the monk and the fighter into combat.
Indeed, they reach the drow.
Then, unable to see or hear the drow, they run right past them (even though they can guess where they would be, approximately.)
For they had to run through the bright light of the area of the Continual Light stone, and then into the darkness beyond, where the drow were.
Light has this wacky tendancy to radiate, instead of just ending in a curtain of inpenetratable blackness. This also assumes the party members arn't carrying additional light sourced with them as they charge. The drow cloaks and boots do not help at this point because of previous actions taken that broke hide. The party could also pelt the drow with missle fire once the web is down to make them charge or retreat.
The drow oblige this, then strike from the rear with poisoned swords and knives in both hands, attacking 10 times, 5 attacks on each person.
These attacks hit (the drow weapons are heavily enchanted), and the sleep poison takes effect.
The position of the drow is debatable, as was just mentioned. Yup, drow are highly ambidexterous, but not perfectly so. So they're dual wielding with a smallish penality, offset somewhat by the enchantments on their weapons. As patrol members their equipment is likely to have a +1 - +2 enchantment. The +5 gear is for people like First House nobles, and noble guards, not patrol members.
One or two attacks may hit. The THAC0 of a 5th level fighter, duel wielding with minor magical weapons vs the Ac of a 12th level, properly equipped fighter and monk doesn't really go that far. If they do hit, the sleep poison is not instantaneous.
The monk and the fighter go down, fast asleep.
At this point, a Flame Strike erupts, cast by the stuck cleric.
The cleric was guessing where the drow would be, and the cries of the monk and fighter (the drow made no sound as they attacked hand to hand) tipped him off.
The Flame Strike catches two of the drow. One of them fails magic resistance, and burns to death. The other one is unscathed.
The unfortunate monk is caught in the Flame Strike also, and is killed.
Poor choice of spell by the cleric. The drow make plenty of sound as they attack in hand to hand, same as everyone else. If the cleric did choose to Flame Strike the melee (did I mention it's a bad idea?), and the drow were in the AoE, then yes, their MR would take effect to try and save them from the damage.
The sudden, and this time unexpected, light dazzles the drow.
They retreat out of range of the cleric's spells, taking several semi-blind shots from the bow of the stuck fighter first.
Once they have recovered, they charge (squinting hard as they pass through the area of the Continual Light stones.)
If the fighter were stuck, he could neither ready, nor fire a bow. Also, they would have to look out for those globs if they were not negated, as they're likely to have some rounds of stickyness to them. A bit hard to maneuver around if you're light-blind at the time.
The drow girls fire their bolts repeatedly, making pincushion out of both stuck characters, felling them with the sleep poison.
The irritated drow then cast Animate Dead on their slain comrade, and also upon the slain monk and slain cleric.
The rest of the party is stripped, trussed up, and the mage has her fingers and tongue removed (unfortunately, her Contingency doesn't cover this, and she isn't teleported away to safety.) The still living cleric suffers a similar fate, as does the monk.
The drow have a Ring of Regeneration to fix this, later on, should they desire to fix their work.
The animate dead on the fallen is a good idea, as is cutting the tongue out of a captured caster if you know you can restore it later. You'd have to be careful that they didn't go into shock, or drown in their own blood (cut tongues bleed a whole lot).
The party is taken away.
Soon, they will give pleasure to the drow.
Their agonized screams will be most satisfying, as their items are studied and claimed for later use against other adventurers foolish enough to come into the Underdark.
Eventually, most of the adventurers will be sacrificed to Lolth.
Two of them will be kept as personal slaves of two of the drow, for the amusement of these girls.
Such is the fate of those who dare to challenge the supremacy of the drow.
There are a number of holes in your scenario.
Some pretty big, some not so big.
By and large the drow didn't use their cleric spells, other than to animate the dead at the end.
In another post you mentioned that drow can read thoughts. This is only available to exceptional priests and priestesses and works on other drow only. Also note - the ESP ability does NOT give you the power to 'scan for thoughts' like mental radar.
I think you heavily overestimate the abilities of the drow. Yes, indiviually they can be powerful, and they come from a very dangerous, and competative society, but they're not super heroes.
~ all information on drow in my response was taken from the Drow of the Underdark book.
The advancing party cannot see the drow, for the drow have Piwalfis that defeat normal sight and even infravision (darkvision.) Furthermore, the drow can Hide In Shadows as a racial trait.
Piwafi give a 75% chance to hide in shadows, which is then modified by any armor penality the drow would have - likely to be drow chain, which I believe has a -15% hide in shadows adjustment. I may be wrong, but I am positive there -is- a penality. Note hiding in shadows is equally effective against normal, and infravision .. no matter who is doing it. The thief scout mentioned later would be just as invisible to the drow.. possibly more so, if they had a high skill.
Drow do not have Hide in Shadows as a racial trait, any more so than normal elves, etc do.
The advancing party cannot hear the drow, for the drow wear their own version of Boots of Elvenkind, and are absolutely silent when they move (even in their metallic armor and with metal weapons.)
Drow boots give a 75% chance to move silently, again modified by armor (a much smaller adjustment than hide in shadows, above, I think only -5%). While quite sneaky, 70% silent isn't total. They'd still have to roll, and that party scout would still get their Detect Noise chance against them.
The party is carrying torches, which makes them easy for the drow to see.
Or perhaps the party walking in the dark, using infravision. The drow have infravision (to 120 feet, farther than the party's) so the drow see the party.
Or perhaps the party threw invisibility on themselves. The drow magic resistance defeated that, and the drow see the party.
A party using light sources, or infravision would be spotted easily by the drow's supperior dark sight, granted. If they were invisible, however the drow do not see them unless they have Detect Invisibility up. Infravision does not detect invisibility. Detect Magic does not detect invisibility. You do not get a MR check against an invisibility spell unless someone is casting it on you, and you want to resist it. Your magic resistance does not affect me being invisible in any way.
The drow heard the party coming for the last 20 minutes.
Even if the party was magically silenced, the drow heard them, for the drow magic resistance (spell resistance) of 75% defeated the Silence spells cast by the party clerics.
See above statement about invisibility. If they wern't magically silenced, they probably made enough sound to alert the drow patrol well in advance (large group of people, metalic armor, tight confines, echo, etc). If they were magically silenced, the drow do not hear them coming. You only get a magic resistance check (or a saving throw for that matter) if someone casts a silence spell directly on you. If they cast it on themselves.. no MR. If they cast it on a rock and throw the rock at you.. no MR.
The party mage could have Stoneskinned the party.
However, the mage does not know exactly when to throw the Stoneskin spells (or other spells of this sort), for the party has a long journey and opponents could be anywhere along the way.
And perhaps the party mage saved the Stoneskins for himself (and, thus, has one up currently.) Mages do do such things.
The point being, the party does not have Stoneskin spells up currently.
2e Stoneskin lasts until it is used up. It could be up for months at a time, if the recipient were careful. However, the material component per casting of stoneskin is a killer.. 1,000gp worth of diamond dust. This cost is what usually keeps it from being tossed about willy-nilly. If the party mage has the spell, it's likely to be up on themselves only. Possibly on the other caster types, if they party has funds to spare. There is nothing stopping the party from having Stoneskin spells up.
The party thief is on point, but she cannot see or hear the drow.
Her detect magic was foiled by the drow's Hide in Shadows abilities (the drow expect this kind of scanning.)
Her detect poison and find traps locate nothing.
Her detect life is foiled by the Hide in Shadows as was her detect magic.
Her clairaudience might have worked, but a throw of the dice for the entire drow group (for magic resistance) failed her.
Hide in Shadows (the skill, or the ability granted by elven/drow cloaks) does not defeat magical scanning of any kind. If you are hiding and have magical items, Detect Magic can spot them. Detect Poison would pick up the buckets of sleep poison most drow carry on them, Detect Life would point out that they're living. A find traps check would only detect a trap (deadfall, rune, pit, tripwire, etc) but wouldn't spot an ambush. Clairaudience allows you to listen to things at range, and if the drow all made their (estimated above) 70% move silently checks, the caster wouldn't hear anything. The drow again do not get to MR the spell, as it is not affecting them directly.
True Seeing would have spotted the drow, but True Seeing has a very limited duration, and neither of the party clerics has it up.
True on both accounts. True Seeing is a very situational spell.
Out of a darkness inpenetrable to the thief comes 10 bolts, fired from 5 hand crossbows by hands that move with lightning speed.
The thief goes down, succumbing to the sleep poison in the bolts.
I don't have a 2e PHB handy at the moment, but if the RoF for hand crossbows is 2/1, then yeah.. 10 bolts. There would be a normal supprise check, however.. there's a good chance a trained thief may win, in which case they should probably fall back to the party asap. Drow sleep poison is powerful (-4 penality to save against it) but does not knock someone out instantly. If you fail your save you suffer a 4pt penality to AC until the next round .. then you pass out. Plenty of time to alert your party of the ambush you just walked into.
In 2nd edition, initiative would now be rolled.
The extremely fast drow gain initiative, and they attack again.
Expecting a volley of Continual Light stones and blasts from spells, not to mention charging fighters, the drow move fast to counteract all of these.
A fireball detonates behind the party. It's flames move up and down the tunnel, enveloping the entire party but not the drow. This causes damage and wrecks any spellcasting on the party's part.
Drow have no more bonus to initiative than any other reasonably dexterous race (elves and halflings). If the drow move first and toss off a fireball to behind the party, yes blast channeling will have the PCs taking 5d6 (save for half) fire damage. A party of 12th level adventurers isn't terribly threatened by 30/15 max dmg. If all 5 drow cast fireballs however, that's a different story. Note - if the drow do go first, and they chuck fireballs on the group -before- the group's initiative comes up, this will not stop the party's spellcasters at all. 2e spells had a casting time, and if you were took damage in the time between you started casting (your initiave) and finished the spell (your initiative + casting time) THEN is it ruined. It would be more prudent on the drow's part to have one of their members delay an action until they see the party members start to cast a spell, and then blast them with a fireball.
A web spell is placed between the drow and the party, to block any charges.
4 more poisoned bolts are fired from two of the drow, this time at one of the clerics, downing him.
The drow - knowing their darkness spells won't stop a flood of Continual Light stones - simply retreat down the tunnel out of the target area (and yes, the drow can cast spells and fire missiles, as they retreat.)
The web will stop their bolts from going thru. Also see above statement about sleep poison not being instant. Clerics also have -really- good poison saves. A single torch or other source of fire will burn the web away in a round or two.
One of the fighters has a Ring of Free Action and passes through the Web.
The drow anticipated this possibility, and one of them now fires her Wand of Viscid Globs.
The fighter is ensnared in the Glob, and halted.
Ring of Free Action would have the Viscid Glob slide off the fighter, but could still glom anyone walking thru the area where it fell. A glob remains active (sticky) for 10 rounds after it was fired, and alcohol disolves it handily - the example given is a belt-flask of wine is enough to disolve two globbed areas.
Note that the drow are trying to take the party alive.
Otherwise, these five female drow would have fired three Fireballs and two Frostballs on their surprise attack, then fired three more Fireballs and two more Frostballs from readied scrolls.
What's a frostball? A cold-type fireball, I'm guessing - yes? Also, if they're readying scrolls (a sound tactic, if they're hit-and-running), they will have to unready their hand crossbows, weapons, etc. Also, as an above poster mentioned - any fire/frost balls cast while that web is still up would detonate when they hit the web.
The mage and one of the clerics were spellcasting, but their spells were ruined by the Fireball.
The other cleric threw a number of Continual Light stones, now illuminating brightly an area of the tunnel between the drow and the party (including the downed thief, the web, and the entrapped fighter in it.)
The last fighter and the monk stopped their charges due to the Web blocking the way.
The light stones are a good idea, but better used in the hands of someone who is proficient with slings (better range, placement, and hey.. you could do 1d4 dmg with 'em). As mentioned, the party's spells are not ruined unless the fireballer held their casting until the pcs started their own spells. The presence of stong light hampers drow concentration, and lose the ability to cast any spell, or use spell-like abilities. Noble drow (are these nobles on patrol?) must make a saving throw vs spell to cast, and cannot use a spell and a spell-like ability in tandem. As above, the drow MR does not apply.
The drow and the party throw initiative, and the drow win again.
The drow know they cannot douse all the Continual Light stones, nor can they see through the light to make out the party.
They know the party cannot see them.
They also know the mage and the clerics may fire spells blindly, hoping to hit them in the concealing darkness.
They fire first.
The drow only win init if they are lucky. See above. Once that web is gone, there's nothing stopping the party from rushing the now hampered drow. And if there are lightstones in play, the party can probably see the drow just fine. Also if the drow are still in the light radius, they arn't casting anything.
They fire three Fireballs and two Frostballs, placing the center of the explosions far behind the visible Web.
The blasts hit all of the party except the fighter ensnared on the drow side of the Web and the thief, unconscious on the floor on the drow side of the Web.
The unconscious cleric is caught in all five blasts and killed. The mage, with few hit points, is also killed. The monk is able to dodge enough of the explosions that she survives. The standing fighter, unable to get through the Web or free her companion caught in it, easily survives the blasts.
The standing cleric survives the blasts, but his spellcasting is ruined.
Again, if they're in the light, they cannot cast. Also, a 5th level wizard has one 3rd level spell per day, and a fireball was already possibly cast to ruin party casting. See above statements about: casting thru webs (if it hadn't burnt away yet), drow casting in light, delay on sleep poison.
One of the drow girls calls out in Common for the party to surrender.
The standing cleric, fighter, and monk tell the drow where to go.
heh heh.
Initiative is rolled, and the drow win again.
The drow are very good at pinpointing enemies by sound, and the standing party members foolishly opened their mouths.
One of the drow Dispels the Web.
Then 4 Viscid Globs are fired at the 3 standing party members (the standing fighter, the monk, and the standing cleric.)
They're dark elves, not bats. They cannot echolocate. Again, their luck with initiative holds true, but *shrug*. No, they can't cast dispell.. even less so if they just tossed off fire/frost balls last round. They're out of 3rd level spells, unless they're packing a whole lot of scrolls. The Viscid Globs are fine, assuming they're all packing 25,000gp wands each. Alcohol can negate the glue if someone makes their save (most likely to be the monk). Light does not hinder the drow ability to use wands.
The cleric is caught and held in the Globs. The monk and standing fighter charge.
Normally a charge would bring the monk and the fighter into combat.
Indeed, they reach the drow.
Then, unable to see or hear the drow, they run right past them (even though they can guess where they would be, approximately.)
For they had to run through the bright light of the area of the Continual Light stone, and then into the darkness beyond, where the drow were.
Light has this wacky tendancy to radiate, instead of just ending in a curtain of inpenetratable blackness. This also assumes the party members arn't carrying additional light sourced with them as they charge. The drow cloaks and boots do not help at this point because of previous actions taken that broke hide. The party could also pelt the drow with missle fire once the web is down to make them charge or retreat.
The drow oblige this, then strike from the rear with poisoned swords and knives in both hands, attacking 10 times, 5 attacks on each person.
These attacks hit (the drow weapons are heavily enchanted), and the sleep poison takes effect.
The position of the drow is debatable, as was just mentioned. Yup, drow are highly ambidexterous, but not perfectly so. So they're dual wielding with a smallish penality, offset somewhat by the enchantments on their weapons. As patrol members their equipment is likely to have a +1 - +2 enchantment. The +5 gear is for people like First House nobles, and noble guards, not patrol members.
One or two attacks may hit. The THAC0 of a 5th level fighter, duel wielding with minor magical weapons vs the Ac of a 12th level, properly equipped fighter and monk doesn't really go that far. If they do hit, the sleep poison is not instantaneous.
The monk and the fighter go down, fast asleep.
At this point, a Flame Strike erupts, cast by the stuck cleric.
The cleric was guessing where the drow would be, and the cries of the monk and fighter (the drow made no sound as they attacked hand to hand) tipped him off.
The Flame Strike catches two of the drow. One of them fails magic resistance, and burns to death. The other one is unscathed.
The unfortunate monk is caught in the Flame Strike also, and is killed.
Poor choice of spell by the cleric. The drow make plenty of sound as they attack in hand to hand, same as everyone else. If the cleric did choose to Flame Strike the melee (did I mention it's a bad idea?), and the drow were in the AoE, then yes, their MR would take effect to try and save them from the damage.
The sudden, and this time unexpected, light dazzles the drow.
They retreat out of range of the cleric's spells, taking several semi-blind shots from the bow of the stuck fighter first.
Once they have recovered, they charge (squinting hard as they pass through the area of the Continual Light stones.)
If the fighter were stuck, he could neither ready, nor fire a bow. Also, they would have to look out for those globs if they were not negated, as they're likely to have some rounds of stickyness to them. A bit hard to maneuver around if you're light-blind at the time.
The drow girls fire their bolts repeatedly, making pincushion out of both stuck characters, felling them with the sleep poison.
The irritated drow then cast Animate Dead on their slain comrade, and also upon the slain monk and slain cleric.
The rest of the party is stripped, trussed up, and the mage has her fingers and tongue removed (unfortunately, her Contingency doesn't cover this, and she isn't teleported away to safety.) The still living cleric suffers a similar fate, as does the monk.
The drow have a Ring of Regeneration to fix this, later on, should they desire to fix their work.
The animate dead on the fallen is a good idea, as is cutting the tongue out of a captured caster if you know you can restore it later. You'd have to be careful that they didn't go into shock, or drown in their own blood (cut tongues bleed a whole lot).
The party is taken away.
Soon, they will give pleasure to the drow.
Their agonized screams will be most satisfying, as their items are studied and claimed for later use against other adventurers foolish enough to come into the Underdark.
Eventually, most of the adventurers will be sacrificed to Lolth.
Two of them will be kept as personal slaves of two of the drow, for the amusement of these girls.
Such is the fate of those who dare to challenge the supremacy of the drow.
There are a number of holes in your scenario.
Some pretty big, some not so big.
By and large the drow didn't use their cleric spells, other than to animate the dead at the end.
In another post you mentioned that drow can read thoughts. This is only available to exceptional priests and priestesses and works on other drow only. Also note - the ESP ability does NOT give you the power to 'scan for thoughts' like mental radar.
I think you heavily overestimate the abilities of the drow. Yes, indiviually they can be powerful, and they come from a very dangerous, and competative society, but they're not super heroes.
~ all information on drow in my response was taken from the Drow of the Underdark book.
