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View Full Version : [D&D 3.5] Planning a jailbreak



Gnaritas
2010-06-18, 05:20 AM
Hello,

i am a DM, next session the party will most likely try to free a few dozen dwarfs from prison, hoping to start a rebellion-force.

The prison is inside a dwarven city. The entire city is located inside a mountain. The city is occupied by a human army.

They will need to get inside the city first. The main entrance will be heavily guarded and will be a very tough fight should they choose that route, which i doubt.

No, they will most likely come into the city through the mines of which they know how to gain access to and it will lead them into the city. Even then, they will have to fight to get into the city, they are easily recognizable.

Once they defeated the guards at the entrance from the mines to the city the alarms will most likely be raised, since they hardly ever manage to go around unnoticed and more soldiers will rally inside the city. Fighting them all would be do-able if they are smart enough to take a good defendable position and a bit of luck.

More likely they will try to go for the prison itself, and free the dwarves there to help them fight. The few guards there will be easily killed and the dwarves freed, some of the dwarves can be provided with weapons from guards and spares from the players.

At that point the two BBEG's (a Drow Swordsage and Drow Cleric, both in human disguise......once exposed, maybe some of the soldiers will be so confused they stop fighting) they have met on several other occassions will likely confront them, along with a small army of soldiers.

I was wondering if anyone had some exciting ideas to make this less linear, more surprising, more fun. A trap could be setup somewhere since the existence of the party is known and that they are near the city too. But i seem to be blank on ideas.

Ranos
2010-06-18, 06:50 AM
What level are your players ? Because unless they're 7+, taking on a small army of dwarves headfront IN THEIR CAVERNS is a really bad idea. Doesn't matter if they're all low level, those are dwarves we're talking about.

They'll probably have decent tactics - For dorfs, I like some defenders with tower shields protecting a slew of archers in a defensible tunnel. It needs some fiddling around with delaying and 5ft steps to let the archers fire without removing their cover, but it works. Any aoe spell wrecks this though, then they have to get actual cover.
You can probably also expect a lot of traps, hell, maybe even a collapsing tunnel or a lava switch if things get bad.

Now if they ARE 7+, then yeah, only thing that can stop them is more people in their level range.

Snake-Aes
2010-06-18, 07:05 AM
What are they planning to do once the cell doors are busted?

Because unless they have an escape route to secure, your players don't really have any hope to end the adventure in anything other than "Body count: tons of mooks and everyone you wanted to free, and maybe one of you"

Escheton
2010-06-18, 07:21 AM
What races are your chars and does the arcanist have access to reflective disguise, disguise or alter self?
Because looking like the guards is always a good thing.
Even being medium sized means they can knock out the first guards, swipe their suits, and just wear a hoody, cowl or whatever to hide their faces. They will prolly be found out, but from far away it works, and from close up it gives them a few round for them being confused and cautious instead of straight up hostile.

Gnaritas
2010-06-18, 08:37 AM
Sorry i left some information out.

They are a party of 5 level 7 characters.

A Half-Ogre Werebear (don't ask)
A Goliath Warblade
A Human Rogue
A Dwarf Barbarian
A Human Sacred Fist

Although the half-ogre can change into a bear, he won't be allowed into the city and the soldiers know about the werebear.

The normal soldiers are level 3, there will be some level 4 sergeants and a level 5 captain of the army. The two BBEG's are level 6.

They are slicing through smaller groups of soldiers like butter. But like 25 soldiers at once will give them trouble.

Their plan is to free this city from the humans, there are way more dwarfs than human soldiers but the dwarfs are unarmed, unorganised and outnumbered when the rest of the human empire should turn their eyes on them. This is however the time to rise against the humans, since the big army is marching against the elves currently. By freeing the dwarven prisoners (those who did try to rebel) they have allies and together they might inspire the entire city to rebel and kick out the humans.

Snake-Aes
2010-06-18, 08:49 AM
Well...make the soldiers play smart. There's no reason for them to throw themselves around stupidly if they can lock shields and shoot from behind the lines.

On the jailbreak itself... If there are that many dwarves, I Suppose a brute approach can be done, but it helps to arm as many of them as possible before an actual alert is sent. There's not much to be said without the same informations that the players have.

A good way to surprise your players is to bait them. Defectors and disguised agents ready to sound alarms as soon as their own cells are breached. Depending on how willing they are to stop your group, collapsing strategic points may be interesting. A prison in high alert could have alert bells/gongs on every hallway.

Prepare traps that are threatening enough to your party without killing everyone that is on sight, but requires manual activation (collapsible hallways for example).
Lock the prison's escape routes when the alert is given.
Since it seems to be a low-magic group, simply being out of range is very threatening. Set up a crew ready to shoot from above.
Given enough time(a few minutes), barricade the gates with stuff that provides cover for their shooters.

Escheton
2010-06-18, 09:12 AM
great, they made a do or die party.
Either they overwhelm and destroy their foes, or they die.
They have no crowdcontroll, proper healer or arcanist of any kind.
Prolonged battles are not for them, nor are any battles where they can't just charge and slaughter. Any terrain problems or enemy tactics will screw them over royally.

They don't really have a choice besides power through the tunnels and charge the cells. Then take lead in the follow-up battles to keep dwarf casualties down.

Too bad, a well-rounded party could have done so much.

Snake-Aes
2010-06-18, 09:16 AM
great, they made a do or die party.
Either they overwhelm and destroy their foes, or they die.
They have no crowdcontroll, proper healer or arcanist of any kind.
Prolonged battles are not for them, nor are any battles where they can't just charge and slaughter. Any terrain problems or enemy tactics will screw them over royally.

They don't really have a choice besides power through the tunnels and charge the cells. Then take lead in the follow-up battles to keep dwarf casualties down.

Too bad, a well-rounded party could have done so much.

Well, if they pull that off, it'll make a good story. Most good stories didn't have lots of wizardy interference.