Fighting my PCs. With Teamwork.

[Illithilich]

So for an upcoming encounter I want to have the monsters to use tactics against my PCs. I know that the monsters will be a War-troll with a single class level, and 10 hobgoblins with 6 class levels each (right now I am thinking fighter levels for both). Right now all I have is that half the hobgoblins will have towershields and the other half will have longspears. The longspear hobgoblins will focus on getting attacks of opprotunity and the tower sheild ones will protect them. What im at a loss at is how they are going to do this. I am looking for advice on how to make them as good at this strategy as possible. Also, does CR 15 for this seem about right, I just want to be sure.

Edit: Also, most of the treasure for this will be in the War Troll's equipment, so he will be decked out in magic armor, weapons and maybe wondorus items.

[Turtleroll]

if i may ask, what sort of terrain are they fighting on? that, and do you want to main, kill or give a good chance too your pcs? finally, if appropriate, how many and how strong are their opponents? all this will help create an eeeeeeeeeeeeevil trap. :smallamused:

[Illithilich]

They are in a rocky desert, so it could be either open sand or there could be conviniet rocky outcrops for them, depends on what I would rather have. While I don't want to TPK my party or kill a bunch of them one death wouldn't really be that bad, as they have easy access to raise dead and ressurection magic (if they survive to get back to town that is, as the clerics who could raise them are NPCs cause none of them wanted to be a cleric). One of them is actually a lich, so even if they got TPK'd the lich would reassemble after 1d4 days and get them all raised (well, should get them raised....). As for the # of PCs it depends on who shows up to the session, but it usually averages about 5 to 6 ECL 14 characters. Most are mid op, but the wizard, artificer and pyrokinecist could probably be high op if they actually tried to come up with ideas instead of the simple " I lightning bolt/wand of fireball/ fire bolt it!" In addition the artificer has a chain golem and the lich wizard a few zombies, one of which is a unicorn.

[Kymme]

If you have tome of battle, make the hobos warblades or crusaders. Then look around here for some ToB guides. In my experience, warblades can make exeptional team players. You could even have the tower shield ones use iron guards glare and tank! I you don't have ToB, then you could crack open complete warrior, or player's handbook 2. They both have nice team work feats. Good luck with your DMing!

[legomaster00156]

With Teamwork, you say? (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/teamwork-feats)

[Doomboy911]

I think the beauty of the trap can come in how they fight. I say you start with one of them being a wizard. He hides in the rocky outcropping and casts a powerful gust of wind. The sand begins to get in their eyes but they'll easily press on. Suddenly one of them gets cracked in the face with a tower shield. They stumble backwards and look for where they got hit but see nothing. The goblins are hiding in foxholes in the sand they have their shields on top covered in sand and colored a sandy brown so they have stealth. They party thinks it was nothing just a branch or something and they continue to get hit from behind . Every time they try to proceed they get cracked with a shield. Also you should have them kidnap someone in the party.

[Illithilich]

If you have tome of battle, make the hobos warblades or crusaders. Then look around here for some ToB guides. In my experience, warblades can make exeptional team players. You could even have the tower shield ones use iron guards glare and tank! I you don't have ToB, then you could crack open complete warrior, or player's handbook 2. They both have nice team work feats. Good luck with your DMing!

I have ToB, but ive never really read it. I had got a bunch of other books at the same time as it, so I never really got around to looking through it.

As for the wizard and foxholes ideas, while I like the idea of them having a wizard in the group (maybe I can add a cleric in as well) I was intending for the goblins and PCs to just come across each other in the desert, and both decide to kill the other group, so the goblins haven't really pre-planned this fight.

[Doomboy911]

Well put a camp nearby that the hobgoblins would be defending or you could have the party be walking through a narrow path with the hobgoblins hiding in the walls. Now the hobgoblins are there because people pass though there often.

[Randomguy]

PHB2 has teamwork benefits, which take 2 weeks of training (that your npc's could have gotten beforehand) with a team leader and team members. I suggest cunning ambush and improved cunning ambush.
If all the hobgoblins that can reach (possibly the ones with tower shields, since they won't be doing much damage anyway) use Team Melee tactics to help the war troll hit, he could power attack for loads of damage.

[Hiro Protagonest]

PHB2 has teamwork benefits, which take 2 weeks of training (that your npc's could have gotten beforehand) with a team leader and team members. I suggest cunning ambush and improved cunning ambush.
If all the hobgoblins that can reach (possibly the ones with tower shields, since they won't be doing much damage anyway) use Team Melee tactics to help the war troll hit, he could power attack for loads of damage.

They were in PHB2? Hm, I really should buy that. The ones I know of are in Heroes of Battle (shock trooper unit, take that bull rush one and that sunder one. Absolutely awesome).

[ExemplarofAvg]

Tucker's Kobolds. :D

Or, I guess Hobgoblins.

[illyrus]

Have one of the hobgoblins be a bard and carry some wardrums (for flavor). Have him silence some of the weapons and they can feasibly try to get in close to the party. He can use some scrolls to do this if you like. He should probably put blur on the wartroll before the fight and then concentrate on using Rage on the wartroll and an ally unless he gets a good chance to sing due to silence going down. While in close if the party doesn't have silent spells they're going to be caught off balance. The spellcasters will want to move away from the warparty so they can get out of the silence which may provoke AOOs.

I'd probably have a silenced something ("trusty rock don't fail me now") that could be launched at the party in case they encounter the hobgoblins at range. The party looks like it could wipe out most of that force in round 1 without issues if they're not caught off balance. Even then I think it should be a certain win for the party unless the players go into shock and freeze up or something.

If you feel especially mean have the bard hobgoblin use a scroll of invisibility sphere or two so the entire band is invisible as well as silent.

Have a few of the hobgoblins towards the rear (if there is a rear) carry thunderstones and/or tanglefoot bags. If they cannot get within melee range of the spellcasters they can throw those (low chance of success but better than standing there).

If the party gets surprised I'd have them immediately realize they're silenced so they don't waste an action trying to cast. It should be kind of obvious to them.

I think the hobgoblin team would look at that party and say "screw that I'm not fighting a chain golem, bunch of undead and is that a fricken LICH!?!?!" or else come up with a plan that the hobgoblins might think would allow them to win throwing all their resources at the problem. I think a silence and perhaps invis sphere would give them some confidence (which is probably false).

[Flickerdart]

No competent party at level 14 should be threatened by any amount of 6th level characters. Even without trying, the Wizard's fireballs (standard 10d6, I presume) will be chunking Hobgoblins (6th level, assuming Warblades, gives us 52 HP on average, the Fireball takes off 3/4 of that HP for quite a few of the blighters, and they have absolutely no chance of making the save). The War Troll will find itself without backup after round 1 is done, and then it's toast, simply because its damage doesn't really keep up at that level, and its dazing thing won't make up for action aconomy loss.

[W3bDragon]

Akaidei is a war troll with a plan. Having been part of some troll mercenary groups in the past, he always had problems with other war trolls. As strong as a group of war trolls can be, their fierceness and lust for battle makes them hard to control. Unlike his other brethren, Akaidei fully believes that control is what wins a battle. After his last mercenary group fell victim to an Elder black pudding, mostly because no one would listen to him when he ordered them not to attack the thing with their swords, he decided to form his own group, one that he can control.

He has traveled the desert looking for competent warriors who can take orders and want some coin or glory. Some time ago he came across several tribes of hobgoblins and peppered among them were some good candidates. He managed to assemble a solid squad so far. He's been putting them through their paces, picking fights with everything from Ogres to Remorhaz. His hobgoblin scout reported a sighting of a strange band of travelers, with some spellcasters among them. Akaidei jumped on the chance to see how well his squad would do against casters, and he set about preparing a plan.


Akaidei
War Troll, 1st level Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian
Large Monstrous Humanoid
Hit Dice: 12d8+1d12+93 (201 hp)
AL: LE
Initiative: +7
Speed: 30 ft. in breastplate (6 squares); base speed 40 ft.
Armor Class: 31 (-1 size, +14 natural armor, +5 breastplate, +3 Dex), touch 12, flat-footed 28
Base Attack/Grapple: +13/+23
Attack: +4 greatsword +28 melee (2d8+19/19-20) or masterwork composite longbow (+10 Str bonus) +16 ranged (2d6+10/3)
Full Attack: +4 greatsword +28/+23/+18 melee (2d8+19/19-20) and bite +20 melee (1d6+5); or 2 claws +22 melee (1d8+10) and bite +20 melee (1d6+5); or masterwork composite longbow (+10 Str bonus) +16/+11/+6 ranged (2d6+10/3)
Pounce attack with full PA and ST on a charge: +4 greatsword +30/+25/+20 melee (2d8+45/19-20) and bite +22 melee (1d6+18), AC drops to 16.
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Dazing blow, Pounce, Shocktrooper
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/adamantine, darkvision 90 ft., low-light vision, regeneration 9, scent, spell resistance 20
Special Defenses: Resist Acid 30 (Ring of greater energy resistance, acid), Freedom of movement
Saves: Fort +13, Ref +11, Will +10
Abilities: Str 31, Dex 16, Con 29, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 12
Skills: Listen +11, Spot +12, Survival +7
Feats: Power Attack, Improved Initiative, Improved Bullrush, Multiattack, Shocktrooper
Challenge Rating: 14
Treasure: greatsword +4 and masterwork composite longbow [+10 Str bonus]), Ring of greater energy resistance, acid, Ring of freedom of movement

COMBAT
Dazing Blow (Ex): The force of a war troll's blow can be overwhelming. If a war troll hits with a weapon or claw attack, the opponent must make a DC 25 Fortitude save or be dazed for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Regeneration (Ex): Unlike with their lesser cousins, acid (not fire) deals normal damage to a war troll. If a war troll loses a limb or a body part, the lost portion regrows in 2d4 minutes. The creature can reattach the severed member instantly by holding it to the stump.

Rage (Ex): In a rage, Akaidei temporarily gains a +4 bonus to Strength, a +4 bonus to Constitution, and a +2 morale bonus on Will saves, but he takes a -2 penalty to Armor Class.

Tactics: Akaidei rarely joins combat alone. When in a party, he's an adaptable opponent, using his bow or his deadly charge to attack the most dangerous opponents. He rarely enters the rage, using it only if his party is losing with no hope of retreat.

Note: Akaidei's HPs have been maxed.

As for the hobgoblins, I'd recommend a mixed party. 2 Fighters, 1 Favored Soul, 2 Sorcerers, 1 Ranger/Scout. Most of the melee punch of the party will come from Akaidei himself, so the casters will focus on buffing and disruption. The Scout will give a solid report about the party, perhaps observing them during some other fight to relay their tactics. The party will buff accordingly, using energy resistance and the like. Akaidei will order the Favored Soul before the fight starts to cast 2 Silence spells on both of the hobgoblin fighters, who will then move around the battlefield stopping casters with ready action charges. The sorcerers will position themselves far away, ideally in an unreachable spot, and focus fire down one target at a time, following Akaidei's lead. If the opportunity arises, one of the sorcerers will create an illusion of more hobgoblins arriving from another direction to create a distraction and let the party expend precious spells. The scout will hold back with the sorcerers and use his bow to deliver skirmish damage.

Favored Soul Spell Selection:
1st:

* Cure Light Wounds
* Entropic Shield
* Protection from Good
* Remove Fear
* Sanctuary

2nd:

* Resist Energy
* Restoration, Lesser
* Silence
* Sound Burst

3rd:

* Create Food and Water
* Invisibility Purge
* Protection from Energy


Sorcerers Spell Selection:
First Sorcerer:

1st:

* Grease
* Magic Missile
* Ray of Enfeeblement
* Expeditious Retreat

2nd:

* Touch of Idiocy
* Spectral Hand

3rd:

* Major Image

Second Sorcerer:

1st:

* Color Spray
* Magic Missile
* Enlarge Person
* Featherfall

2nd:

* Web
* Invisibility

3rd:

* Haste

[Cwymbran-San]

1. Catch them off-guard by attacking them late that day, with the sun at the backs of the hobbos.
2. Equip two or three of them with bows, have a low-lv cleric with silence stand next to them, cast Silence on the arrow and shoot for the nearest PC-Caster. Even if you miss, it should silence at least one of them.
3. Have your shield bearers bullrush and trip their casters, easily doable with fighter lv 2 (all the feats you like). Have the abovementioned cleric cast bulls strength on the rushers before that.
4. Let the spear guys surround the party, such as to pull as many AoO as possible.
5. Decide how you want to deal damage. Wearing down a high-power party in melee can be a lenghty process. If you have no casters or psi at your blasting disposal, let the hobbos have a catapult. Just a light one. The fighter just shepherd the party into tight space, the catapult launches a pile of rocks at them and have at it. Or multiply the number of archers, though firing into melee is always risky.

[Phaederkiel]

I like Akaidei, he looks like fun (if you are into killing pcs, that is...)

may suggest, that you give him whirling frenzy instead of rage? that one more blow can really change a fight. Then you can change your second sorcs 3rd level spell to slow, which should be better, since it hinders enemies to leave that sphere of silence.

I really like the fighters with silence on them that follow the casters.


But i´d like to suggest making these fighers crusaders. Feats: shieldmate, improved shieldmate, phalanx fighting. Combine with Iron guards glare and shieldblock and they are a handful for any meelee. Revitalizing strike makes them quite selfsufficent when it comes to damage.

[W3bDragon]

But i´d like to suggest making these fighers crusaders. Feats: shieldmate, improved shieldmate, phalanx fighting. Combine with Iron guards glare and shieldblock and they are a handful for any meelee. Revitalizing strike makes them quite selfsufficent when it comes to damage.

Indeed, they could be made better as crusaders. I just wrote that up in half an hour with only the srd as my resource. I used spirit lion from memory. If you can splat out a bit more, I'm sure they can be made better, but I didn't have books at the time.

[Doomboy911]

I still feel the threat should come from proper positioning and not force. Maybe put up a fun little trap for them to play in. I had the idea of a piece of canvas spread over a ton of holes. Their's enough slack in the canvas that if one person fell in a hole they'd reach the bottom but if someone else jumped into a hole the canvas would shift and send the player in the hole up out of the hole.
Try to keep that in mind for what I'm about to lay down.

They come walking across a big open area where one of them falls down a hole. No damage is done and as someone goes to help them out and they fall into a hole. The other player gets raised up. Above them they see a glowing golden orb. Tell them that it's putting off a anti magic field but it looks valuable. Their's enough holes that everyone can fall in one. So what the do is find the hole directly below the orb. One guy hops in and everyone else hops into the other holes. He bounces up a bit but not enough to reach it. So they continue to jump in bouncing him higher and higher with every jump until finally he's high enough. He grabs onto the orb and lands in the canvas. Everyone hops up and lands but now the canvas has more slack from being stretched. Now they're all in different holes tangled up in canvas. Now let the hobgoblins come in to whoop them.

[Illithilich]

So it seems that the main problem is that the hobgoblins are to weak, and the only way to fix that is through strategies that, I admit are pretty good ideas, don't really match the whole random fight in the desert thing. So I think I will switch the hobgoblins for two more War Trolls. So, I am willing to re-arrange their feats as needed, and add up to one feat if really needed. The PCs don't really have acid attacks. Of any kind. So this should make the fight harder for them to win. So, the question from before is the same, how can the war trolls use teamwork to be even more powerful?

[Fyermind]

Just a lot of basic points here but:

Flanking: At no point in time should the damage dealer(s) ever not be flanking.

Counter spellcasters: Nothing ends a mook fight prematurely like a single third level spell. The silenced chargers sound great for this.

Aid another: Hobgoblins suck for damage. They know this. have them use aid another tactics as much as possible to maximize the power attack of

A solid hitter: There should be someone able to dish out damage bigtime. With casters tied up, he should be focussing on melee guys. This is good for party survivability (the melee dudes should be able to take punishment) but should also scare the holy living **** out of the less survival oriented characters if round 1 takes out 3/4th of the tanks HP.

No Save Stacking Debuffs: Mooks suck if the PCs have a chance to avoid the effect. There are quite a few no save debuffs out there. Find them. Use them. Stack them if you can. Shaken + Sickened + Entangled is nice. Shaken + shaken +shaken = panicked and is amazing. (Only do this if you are also scaring the players. Nobody likes it when they have to run away from a fight they think they can win.)

Split the party: Don't let the players use teamwork. This means luring them apart, locking them down, and making them fight on their own.

Buff the team: A level 8 bard with a few tricks gives +4 vs fear and +4 to hit and +4d6 damage to all his allies. A one level dip in marshal can add his charisma to everyones flanking damage. A one level dip in swordsage says everyone I threaten is flanked if someone else threatens him. A few classes have auras, look for them and abuse them. Haste effects a lot of people. Everyone should be using it. This can replace the aid another + solid hitter strategy.

Use expendable troops for suicide missions: Summon monster and the like create temporary mini-mooks for deadly jobs. (such as using up AoOS)

A PRC in miniatures handbooks gives a strength boost to all your buddies but deals them damage too. It is easy to qualify for (Crusader 3/Warchief 3) Sounds like fun times to me.

If you ever want to do it again with different monsters, Legion Devils from Fiendish Codex II are great in a team. Pair them with a caster with some buffing spells and maybe a paladin of tyranny/bard (with a variant of that friendly bard-paladin feat) and go to town.

[Doomboy911]

Wait if this is pathfinder you should keep the hobgoblins and the trolls. Have the hobgoblins be bards because the buff's stack and a high powered bard has a spell that lets them control constructs. So the construct is marching behind everyone when all of the sudden he begins to attack them all from behind. They turn to figure out what's going on and they see a single hobgoblin who turns and flees. They think nothing of it but suddenly the golem flees off in a random direction. They follow because well they probably paid good money when boom ambush hits them. A bunch of hobgoblins begin playing and the trolls charge out magic and might at the ready.

[Madara]

Tucker's Kobolds. :D

Or, I guess Hobgoblins.

I made the mistake of using those Kobolds... in my campaign(not a one shot). The party died...But I would say its a good idea to makes the Goblins interesting.

Suggestion: One of the Goblins could use the Wartroll as a mount! Or the WT could be a hulking hurler

[Metahuman1]

No competent party at level 14 should be threatened by any amount of 6th level characters. Even without trying, the Wizard's fireballs (standard 10d6, I presume) will be chunking Hobgoblins (6th level, assuming Warblades, gives us 52 HP on average, the Fireball takes off 3/4 of that HP for quite a few of the blighters, and they have absolutely no chance of making the save). The War Troll will find itself without backup after round 1 is done, and then it's toast, simply because its damage doesn't really keep up at that level, and its dazing thing won't make up for action aconomy loss.

Hate to tell you this mate but Flickerdart has it pegged right here.

There is no good reason an actual party of that level should be threatened by the encounter you outlined no matter what kind of tactical genius they use.

Heck, there's no particular reason an individual character of that level should be threatened by itself by the encounter you outlined.

[Cirrylius]

I think the beauty of the trap can come in how they fight. I say you start with one of them being a wizard. He hides in the rocky outcropping and casts a powerful gust of wind. The sand begins to get in their eyes but they'll easily press on. Suddenly one of them gets cracked in the face with a tower shield. They stumble backwards and look for where they got hit but see nothing. The goblins are hiding in foxholes in the sand they have their shields on top covered in sand and colored a sandy brown so they have stealth. They party thinks it was nothing just a branch or something and they continue to get hit from behind . Every time they try to proceed they get cracked with a shield. Also you should have them kidnap someone in the party.

You just watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, didn't you:smallbiggrin:

[Doomboy911]

No not really I just read the books. I don't remember anything like that happening.

[smasher0404]

Have 2 of the hobgoblins be clerics and have one of them take Shield Specialization
Now set up the encounter in an area where the players can only engage them 4 on 4
Now use the Team Shield Maneuver from PHBII to send the injured hobgoblins back to where the clerics are, make sure every hobgoblin is carrying a tower shield and long spear. Now when an injured hobgoblin is sent back the one using the long spear drops it and draws his tower shield moving up one square. When the injured hobgoblin is healed back to health by the clerics, they draw their long spears and move up to the spot where the first hobgoblin was.

The War-Troll should be in reserve in case for when two hobgoblins die to fill their gap