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View Full Version : Hordes of ghouls (3.5)



Balor01
2011-01-01, 02:50 PM
In a last great war in my classical D&D world, huge numbers of ghouls appeared and are now threatening to swarm weak new kingdoms. There are some things that can be send against these things, still, I would like some good ideas on how to stop the ghoul plague.
Kingdoms have at their disposal a large numbers of low lvl sorcerers, clerics and druids, regular armies (a few thousand lvl 1 warriors), a few adult dragons and one province which produces constructs. So my first thought was - constructs with huge blades and fast healing? Will never get tired and can do the job. The only problem is, you would need a huge amount of these.

Anyone has a better ideas? We are talking tens of thousands of ghouls here who can also use tactics and are far from mindless zombies from b-movies.

thorgrim29
2011-01-01, 03:05 PM
Use dragons with ridiculous amounts of alchemist fire and do strafing runs on the horde before any major battle. Lvl 1 warriors will get destroyed by ghouls in CQC, so give them bows with arrows dipped in holy water and have them hide in fortifications (made using wands of stone shape) behind a double or triple line of constructs (preferably iron golems) . Don't bother with friendly fire, non adamentine arrows do basically no damage to golems, and they probably won't even get through their AC anyways. Have the clerics and sorcerers repair the golems if necessary.

Grendus
2011-01-01, 04:24 PM
Have the low level clerics create lots of holy water. Have the low level wizards and sorcerers use Unseen Servants to drop it on the ghouls. Use lines of constructs to hold the ghouls back while archers and wizards cut the ghouls down (don't even have the constructs attack, give them heavy armor and have them take total defense every round, just form a solid wall that no ghoul could walk, or even tumble, through).

You could also arm your soldiers with lots of potions of Protection from Evil. So long as the ghouls aren't using actual weapons, they won't even be allowed to attack your soldiers. Cue slaughter.

Ghouls suffer the same problem the Tarrasque has - they're thugs in a world of magic. Unless you give them class levels, they'll be helpless against flying and ranged attacks and can be slaughtered wholesale.

Balor01
2011-01-01, 04:25 PM
Well, problem might be that these hordes are quite dispersed. Dozens of willages, even small cities will surely fall before this pest is stopped. So I guess the best way for this to work would be to pick out say, three cities, station dragons there with army and some constructs and just crush everything that comes their way? With an ability of dragons to fly out and engulf undead pest in fire?

Traab
2011-01-01, 04:42 PM
Well, problem might be that these hordes are quite dispersed. Dozens of willages, even small cities will surely fall before this pest is stopped. So I guess the best way for this to work would be to pick out say, three cities, station dragons there with army and some constructs and just crush everything that comes their way? With an ability of dragons to fly out and engulf undead pest in fire?

Then in that case the best plan would be to space out those three fortified areas equally across the land, with fast scouts to look for large scale movement of ghoul hordes, so they can call out the army to intercept. (I dunno if ghouls run fast or shamble along slow) Leave the low level warriors and clerics behind even fairly cheap wooden palisades and towers with the holy water and give em bows to attack from a distance at all the weaker towns and such. The goal is to delay until the heavy hitters can reach them.

Escheton
2011-01-04, 02:00 PM
Take refuge at Helm's Deep.
And send out the riders.
Seriously, give those lvl 1's horses, lances and a few skillranks and a good feat and they are effective.
Give them a few of those droids to deal with the fights they would otherwise have to get off. Add in a shortbow so they are at least usefull when not fully effective.

Keinnicht
2011-01-04, 02:03 PM
A good fireball or lightning bolt could take out four or five ghouls per shot if they really are a horde. Give all the sorcerers wands of one of these.

Also, heavily armored clerics with feats and items that boost their turning as much as possible.

Keld Denar
2011-01-04, 02:47 PM
There was a plot arc in Living Greyhawk that was pretty cool. The Church of Pelor built a positive energy superweapon based in the largest temple in one of the largest cities in the country. The goal was to send out a positive energy pulse that would deanimate the hoards of undead that Evard had running around the country. The PCs spent weeks aquiring all of the bits and pieces needed to build the weapon. After successfully completing the construction, the clerics armed the weapon and triggered it. The force of the resulting blast knocked the lid off the church, killed most of the city, and tore a rift to the positive energy plane.

The resulting rift was leaking positive energy into the prime, resulting in the native flora and fauna growing at alarming rates. A jungle grew where plains once stood, and oversized animals were running amuck. This leads into an excellent followup adventure...how to close the rift!

One of the better LG plotlines, if I do say so myself.