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CowardlyPaladin
2013-04-12, 05:33 PM
Our group is in a really nasty situation and I think we are all doomed. We are trying to defend a village from a massive army of Kythos and Darkspawn. Now I heard from my DM that he got this set up from "Some horror thread on the Giantip forums" and since he is really uncreative i am hoping that somewhere here I can find the solution to my problem.

Background:

We are running a military Game which is sort of a mix of 3.5/Pathfinder/and 2nd Edition. We were elite members of "The EMPIRE" a sort of Roman based world empire that was the main political force, when...the world ended. Basically over the course of the last year, their have been 21 great disasters that have rocked the world and civilization has fallen apart (This is because our last group failed in our epic quest to save the world. Whoops). Their have been alot of nasty things going on thus far each plague lasts about a month before it ends and the next one starts. We have had floods, Hurricanes, Plague, Locusts, raining fire and recently a Zombie invasion, every single dead thing rose as a Zombie, Skeleton, or a Wight and try to slaughter the living. We have been dealing with zombies for a month when a latest (we are on 13) Disaster struck. The Blight from Dragon AGE (which the DM thought Kytons would make a good addition too) emerged from below and started to slaughter everybody. The Party is currently on the fantasy equivilent of Britain, and we have been cut off from the rest of the Empire, and have been trying to maintain our legion the whole time. Sadly, we just came to fight the Blight, and while we were able to destroy the main hoard, the entire unite was destroyed and we got cut off. We have been traveling through the extremely dangerous wildlife until we came to a village which is still intact. Just held up here when we received word from the village prophet (Prophets basically sit around and ask the Gods for prediction if we make sacrifices) that one of the remaining Blight bands is coming straight for us. Luckily they have to fight their way through the last battlefield we left behind, so the zombie killing might hold them off. We have about 10 days before we arrive, more if they are slowed down, less if they lucky (It takes 8 days to travel so that is for sure). The DM said that we can train some villagers to take 1 level in any PC class if we take the time, and we might be able to make some magic items if we hurry. We have a decent collection of potions, scrolls, and wands that we got from our Legion, and a single powerful magic Mace that our Cleric uses (a +5 holy heavy mace) but other than that we are kinda screwed.



Resources we have


The Party: A 9th Level Human Paladin, a 9th Level Elf Wizard, An 8th Level Grey Dwarf Cleric, a 7th Level Hafling Rogue, A 7th Level Elf Archivist, A 7th Level Orc Dragon Shamon and a 6th Level Gnome Druid (With a Wolf Companion). In addition, we have 4 survivors from the massacre with us
A 5th level Half Dragon knight
A 4th Level Half-Ogre Warmian (From Arcana Evolved)
A 6th Level Hobgoblin Warlock
A 6th Level Warforge Warblade

And our Fearless Leader, the Commander of our Legion, an 11th Level Human Noble , who was one of the main villians from earlier in the game, since he was our political enemy. We captured him and took him to the village, but we don't really know what to do with him or if we should trust him. Basically he was a worshiper of Bhaal who hoped to use his position to take over the Empire, but we stopped him. He is alot like Nale honestly.

In addition, their is a small contingent of low level NPCs at the village

A 1st level Gnoll Witch
A 2st Level Half-Orc Ranger
A 2nd Level Half Elf Bard
A 2nd Level Shifter Scout
A 2nd Level Goblin FLame Oracle (From Pathfinder)
A 3rd Level Human Samurai (oriental Adventures)
A 3rd Level Half Orc Spell Thief
A 4th Level Changling Psion
A 5th Level Half Giant Mystic (From Dragonlance Adventures)

Their is also a local Dwarf Mercenary 7, though he is thoughly untrustworthy and is only here because he is literally trapped.

Finally, their are the local villagers. We have

1 Kobold Adept 3, who was the local spell caster at the village before everything went crazy
1 Captain of the Guard, an Human Warrior 5
1 Half Elf Warrior 4
5 human Warriors 2 who are wounded in some manner
6 Human Warriors 2 who are not wounded in any manner.
10 Human Warriors 1 (They were only recently recruited)
14 Commoners who are willing to fight on the front lines with us but can't take PC levels on account of all being Elves.
11 Human commoners 3 who are willing to to provide arrow support from the roof but will retreat if anything gets too dangerous.
7 Commoners level 5 who have once served in the military. Basically the same as a normal commoner but they each have weapon focus in spear.
2 Local aristocrates (level 1 aristocrate each) who have been trapped here. They each have a sword which they try to fight with and command the village as a married couple
5 Experts 1, all dwarves who work as blacksmiths.
120 Human Commoners 1 (though they all have around 6 hit points DM house rule) who have makeshift weapons and are holded up inside
84 Commoners who don't have any levels, on account of being children or extremely old.
47 Commoners 1 who are wounded in some manner, either sickness or battle wounds.
1 Ogre Warrior 1 (Intelligence 12) who agreed to help the village in exchange for food
Some local adventurers who are very unwilling to work with us. They include a Dwarf Fighter 3, a Human Spellthief 2, and a Hafling a Magister (Arcana Evolved) 2. They have taken control of the only fortified building, a three story small tower and a large supply of food and think that they can survive just hiding up in their. They are very annoyed because the local villagers tried to lynch them earlier for unrelated personal reasons and aren't eager to come outside.

1 War dog which seems very loyal
29 Commoners who are able to take 2 levels in a PC Class. Stat wise, they physically range from the 12-14 range because they are farmers, and mentally from the 8-12 range.
26 Commoners who are able to take 1 level in a PC class.
We also have the School Teacher who has a +1 Rapier and basic trainer so she gets proficiency and weapon focus for free regardless of the class. She doesn't want to give up her Rapier however. She can get 2 levels.
In addition, the local jail has 3 Prisoners. 2 of them are level 3 Human warriors, arrested for theft and desertion. the third is a 1st level Drow Duskblade, who was captured by the villagers. We know he is evil, and has murdered a family (including three children) but he can fight, though he might flee instead.

Defenses: This village has survived for awhile, so it is fairly well defended. It has a single 10 foot tall stone wall, with three main gates, all foritifed. It has an outer Wooden Wall, with a single Gate that has two towers. in addition, their are 3 makeshift barriades outside of that wall, and a large ditch outside of that. one side of the village is touching a swamp full of really dangerous monsters, so that is safe, and inside the wall their is a large church, and a fortified tower (The tower is not really ours though).

Finally, it is October, and snow is just starting to fall. We have ALOT of crops saved up, enough to last us 4 months if the food is damaged, a little more if we can take the tower. We also have 8 barrels of explosive oil (Don't ask), though I don't know if it will help. We also have orders from the Caesar to not let the island fall and that he will rescue use. Granted those orders are from 9 months ago, so....yeah


The Enemy


Darkspawn stats are not allowed to us, but I can tell you that the Grunts and Thralls are pretty easy to down, but the Hurlocks are tough as hell. Luckily, they are pretty stupid if not directed by their Alphas. . The Kythons are coming separably but we don't know when or how many their are. We know they aren't darkspawn, but neither side hurts each other and they help each other and we don't know why. Its kinda troubling. Also the Darkspawn broodmothers are mostly dead, these guys have shown no interest in kidnapping women, they just are wandering around killing.

500 Grunts (Dragon Age 2 Hurlocks)
300 thralls (Dragon Age 2 Genlocks)
200Genlocks
150 Hurlocks
50 Genlock Alphas
20 Sharlocks
10 Hurlock Alphas
5 Ogres
3 Emmisairies
2 Shrieks
1 Warlord
12 Blight Wolves

Darkspawn do rise as zombies after we kill them, but have no loyalty to their former masters.

The second swarm includes broodlings, juveniles, adults, and a slaymaster. I think the whole hoard is about 30-40


The village is currently surrounded by about 200-250 zombies, who just sort of wander around. We killed most of the wights in the area, but I think their are about 2 dozen who are still out their, trying to eat stragglers. If they don't attack in a tenday, we can try to use them against the blight.



A few more points.
1) Even if everybody dies, the Blight hoard might be stopped and we know that their are a few other villages in the area that they might slaughter, so it is an "acceptable" solution if we manage to bring alot of them down with us
2) The DM is extremely kill happy, of our six players we have had 8 deaths thus far, and this group has had 2 TPKs. So he does not go easy on us
3) However, our DM is terminally unimaginative, and has an odd habit of stealing plots whole scale from other sources, such as books, TV episodes, and video games, and then try to subtly push us to reenact those plots. obviously he is referencing Seven Samurai here, but he mentioned being a lurker on these forums and said to me that he was inspired by a village defense scenero he found on these boards (Specifically the training of the villagers idea). So if anybody could link me to that, it would be great, cause maybe they can help us out.
4) The next disaster is not going to strike for 20 days.
5) We are using the Pathfinder version of the all core classes, and the 3.5 version of all other classes.
6) Their are ALOT of house rules in this game which I don't really want to get into, but suffice to say the ones that matter includes bleeding damage, we have Defense rolls in addition to AC, and permanent non hit point damage (Like a limp, or damage eye ect).
7) Nobody is very well optimized in this group.


Anybody want to lend a hand? Please? Thanks alot

TuggyNE
2013-04-12, 08:09 PM
Hmm. On the one hand, I know exactly precisely where this is from. On the other hand, I'm not totally sure how much of the DM's story to spoil (or just how closely they plan to follow the original, for that matter, but it sounds quite similar so far). So give me a bit to think about this.

CowardlyPaladin
2013-04-12, 08:27 PM
Hmmmmm....could you maybe give me their strategies and not tell me the aspects of the world which is responsible for these things. Thanks alot

TuggyNE
2013-04-12, 11:46 PM
Basically, four major areas: scribing scrolls/crafting wands, creating fortifications, making traps, and training the villagers.

Scrolls: bestow curse, sound burst, magic vestments, magic weapon, web, cat's grace, displacement, fly, probably others
Wands: lesser sonic orb, mage armor, protection from evil, reduce person (for snipers), summon monster

Fortifications: stone shape or similar to make nice solid walls; funnel the monsters into a kill zone if you can. Arcane lock on doors.

Traps: glyph of warding in strategic spots, explosive runes, spiked pillars rigged to fall, (spiked) pit traps.

Villagers: Train high-Cha to be sorcerers, high-Wis to be Clerics, the rest to be Marshals and Dragon Shamans for their auras. Multiclass Warlock on the Shamans for sniping.

Strategy: bestow curse at least once on the biggest kython, station aura people around to stagger their boosts, try to nab any phase organ kythons early and hard. Use cover and battlefield control, focus fire, etc. Dump traps when you get a chance.

cardboardbox!
2013-04-13, 12:28 AM
Could you evacuate? I know not very heroic, but it would buy you time at least, maybe gather allies while in the run for a counterattack.

nyarlathotep
2013-04-13, 01:53 AM
Also it wasn't a horror story. It was the story of one of the greatest games of D&D ever played my good friend.

TuggyNE
2013-04-13, 02:32 AM
Also it wasn't a horror story. It was the story of one of the greatest games of D&D ever played my good friend.

For what it's worth, it was a horror-themed campaign.

Kol Korran
2013-04-13, 05:07 AM
The thing is, there are quite a few differences between your situation and the original situation:
1- you're dealing with another force (this blight thing? i haven't played dragon age) which may use entirely different tactics than the Kythons (who were for the moat part "rush them and try to kill as many as possible" sort of tactics). and we don't know how they'll interact with the Kythons' force. this may alter the game considerably.
2- you're at quite a higher level, and have VASTLY more resources than the original group had: in terms of levels, spells, magical items and even available man power and it's quality.
3- than again, it seems you might also face more foes if I understand correctly fro mthe numbers you've given.
4- and perhaps most importantly- the DM of the original group had a very good and accurate sense of pacing to make the game fun, not just to try and kill as many players as he can (at least this is what i get from reading that campaign, and a few others from the same author). he would challenge them in a way that would exert their resources, powers, dread and tension, but would do so in a way that gave a real chance at winning, catering very subtly to the groups strengths, weaknesses and strategies. from what you describe of your DM i'm not sure that is the case, which i think lays heavily against you.

all of which means that there is little advice that we can actually give you that might matter. I'll take tuggyne general advice and try to be creative from there on. the scenerio calls for out of the box ideas and solutions, so go for it. things are going to be risky, but it's a slim shot anyhow. :smallsigh:

I apologize if this sounds depressing, but I'd see it as a chance for greater glory, a challenge to inspire greatness in real heroes. If you'll achieve victory, it will be a great story to behold! good luck! :smallsmile:

Man on Fire
2013-04-13, 05:19 AM
For what it's worth, it was a horror-themed campaign.


Also it wasn't a horror story. It was the story of one of the greatest games of D&D ever played my good friend.

Can I hope to get a link maybe?

Malrone
2013-04-13, 05:21 AM
Why can't the Elves take levels?

As far as what classes they should be- Making all the chumps aura-buffers is a waste of resources; you only need so many per group. The rest? Probably resort to Tome of Battle for the lot of them. Break it up into squads.

The various special characters should either lead a squad, or form selective groups of their own. It's important you play their strengths well. The criminals might work with you for a pardon, but I'm tempted to outright kill those 'adventurers' holed up in the tower if they don't comply. That building, and those supplies, are too useful for some punks to hoard up in an emergency.

With your plans, expect them all to fail, and the unexpected to happen. Phase Kythons through the swamp wall, fire-based siege weapons to hit the wooden palisade, forward troops panicking and routing at a stiff breeze, etc. No matter what, though, they *will* get into the town proper. ]

...thought: Does *anyone* have Rebuke undead? If not that, maybe the Wizard can research Control Undead? It'd be nice to have the support of the fallen as a guarantee.

Nizaris
2013-04-14, 05:16 PM
Now are the contents of the explosive barrels flammable and retain this property when spread out over a wide area? Also important is the terrain, marshes, bluffs, anything that can be used to your advantage? Pit traps and ditches do wonders. Evacuation is always to be considered if you can get the civilians and most the supplies to safety to a more defensible location.

Ghost49X
2013-04-14, 08:32 PM
I would like to submit two possible ways to go at this.

The first which would require a narrow mountain pass or some other way you can bottleneck them would be to go the Spartan 300 way and fight in a bottleneck type terrain.

The second which is probably best:
When facing a large force with only a small force, combine skirmish tactics with scorched earth tactics.

Skirmishing Tactics:
Basically pack up the village and leave though it's probably easier to defend, it's obvious to find and they have the forces to over run it easily. Instead have the villagers set up camp in the forest/hills or somewhere hard to find and then use them to support your operations (gather food, co-ordinate scout reports and patrols) send runners (or riders if you have 'em) to the nearest villages to gather support. Organize scouting patrols to know where your enemies are at all times, strike quickly and hit supplies or other important targets. Use traps and ambushes to slow down their advance. Hit them where it hurts the most and run before they're able to organize and fight back efficiently.

Scorched Earth Tactics:
Don't leave anything behind they can use, destroy shelter, any stores you can't carry, burn bodies to prevent them from raising them as undead. Leave traps behind where you think they'll go. Destroy bridges to limit their ability to cross water.

There is so much more but I think you get the point by now.

CowardlyPaladin
2013-04-17, 12:25 PM
Sorry for the late response, lots of work at school. Same goes for my DM, so we won't be meeting until the friday after next.


The thing is, there are quite a few differences between your situation and the original situation:
1- you're dealing with another force (this blight thing? i haven't played dragon age) which may use entirely different tactics than the Kythons (who were for the moat part "rush them and try to kill as many as possible" sort of tactics). and we don't know how they'll interact with the Kythons' force. this may alter the game considerably.
2- you're at quite a higher level, and have VASTLY more resources than the original group had: in terms of levels, spells, magical items and even available man power and it's quality.
3- than again, it seems you might also face more foes if I understand correctly fro mthe numbers you've given.
4- and perhaps most importantly- the DM of the original group had a very good and accurate sense of pacing to make the game fun, not just to try and kill as many players as he can (at least this is what i get from reading that campaign, and a few others from the same author). he would challenge them in a way that would exert their resources, powers, dread and tension, but would do so in a way that gave a real chance at winning, catering very subtly to the groups strengths, weaknesses and strategies. from what you describe of your DM i'm not sure that is the case, which i think lays heavily against you.

all of which means that there is little advice that we can actually give you that might matter. I'll take tuggyne general advice and try to be creative from there on. the scenerio calls for out of the box ideas and solutions, so go for it. things are going to be risky, but it's a slim shot anyhow. :smallsigh:

I apologize if this sounds depressing, but I'd see it as a chance for greater glory, a challenge to inspire greatness in real heroes. If you'll achieve victory, it will be a great story to behold! good luck! :smallsmile:

1) Darkspawn from what I can tell are organized if they have a leadership type with them, and just swarm otherwise. They do here, so they are capable of decent battle plans, provided their leaders don't loose control over them. So they can take formations, flank, or use diversions. They just have trouble retreating or NOT attacking for long periods of time
2) Well thats good. I haven't read the original thread, but its good to know that they survived with less resources than we did. Problem is we have several untrustworthy elements in our group that we don't know what to do with, the Prefect, the men in the tower, the Prisoners, and the Dwarf Mercenary.
3) Almost 1500 Darkspawn are attacking us, which is not fun, and they are organized. Then the Kythos are attacking us, and from what we can tell, a third group might be coming as well
4) Our DM isn't trying to slaughter us, we asked for a hyper challenging game set in an apocalyptic setting. He is pretty cool with allowing us to be creative and is known to house rule things that will get us out of bad situations. Problem is that we tend to get into scenerios too big for us to handle

Honestly, i am open to out of the box scenerios, but I just can't imagine how I am going to pull this off.



Basically, four major areas: scribing scrolls/crafting wands, creating fortifications, making traps, and training the villagers.

Ok, we can do all that, though I'm not so sure how well our fortifications can do against Kythos.



Scrolls: bestow curse, sound burst, magic vestments, magic weapon, web, cat's grace, displacement, fly, probably others
Wands: lesser sonic orb, mage armor, protection from evil, reduce person (for snipers), summon monster

Ok,those are all good, lots of commoners using that could be useful. I"m suprised no scrolls/wands of fire ball or lightning bolt?
Also we won't be able to make more than a wand or two in this time, so scrolls it is then.



Fortifications: stone shape or similar to make nice solid walls; funnel the monsters into a kill zone if you can. Arcane lock on doors.

STone shape obviously, but is arcane lock that good? Because couldn't they just take the windows or if they are ogres go through the roof/wall?



Traps: glyph of warding in strategic spots, explosive runes, spiked pillars rigged to fall, (spiked) pit traps.

Villagers: Train high-Cha to be sorcerers, high-Wis to be Clerics, the rest to be Marshals and Dragon Shamans for their auras. Multiclass Warlock on the Shamans for sniping.

Sounds good, except...Spike pillars? Wouldn't that be obvious. I like the focus on Clerics, Sorcerers, Dragon Shamals Warlock and Marshals. You don't think some bards would help out as well?



Strategy: bestow curse at least once on the biggest kython, station aura people around to stagger their boosts, try to nab any phase organ kythons early and hard. Use cover and battlefield control, focus fire, etc. Dump traps when you get a chance.

I'm no even focused on the Kythons yet, the Darkspawn are the first threat.



Why can't the Elves take levels?

The DM said that only Humans have the versatility to take PC levels in such a short amount of time, the same reason they have extra skill points



As far as what classes they should be- Making all the chumps aura-buffers is a waste of resources; you only need so many per group. The rest? Probably resort to Tome of Battle for the lot of them. Break it up into squads.

Wouldn't Warlocks and Sorcerers be really good too because they can dish out alot of damage?



The various special characters should either lead a squad, or form selective groups of their own. It's important you play their strengths well. The criminals might work with you for a pardon, but I'm tempted to outright kill those 'adventurers' holed up in the tower if they don't comply. That building, and those supplies, are too useful for some punks to hoard up in an emergency.

1) Two of the prisoners are willing to fight, and I don't think they are strong enough to be dangerous. The Drow might be a bit much though, he is a child murderer and if he isn'tn loyal he could ruin stuff
2) Yeah, we want to recruit them, but if they don't come along killing them might be best, maybe we could kill 2 and recruit the third



With your plans, expect them all to fail, and the unexpected to happen. Phase Kythons through the swamp wall, fire-based siege weapons to hit the wooden palisade, forward troops panicking and routing at a stiff breeze, etc. No matter what, though, they *will* get into the town proper. ]

Well I am hoping we can level up enough so that by the time the Kythons come, the commoners will be higher level and able to better fight



...thought: Does *anyone* have Rebuke undead? If not that, maybe the Wizard can research Control Undead? It'd be nice to have the support of the fallen as a guarantee.

NO, but the Wizard can research control undead.



Now are the contents of the explosive barrels flammable and retain this property when spread out over a wide area? Also important is the terrain, marshes, bluffs, anything that can be used to your advantage? Pit traps and ditches do wonders. Evacuation is always to be considered if you can get the civilians and most the supplies to safety to a more defensible location.

We had accidently set one off earlier during a Ghoul attack, the explosion on its own spreads about 15 feet but the stuff burns for a really long time and really hot. It was some kind of military weapon that was never employed, I think it might be wild fire, cause we accidently burned part of the lake. We currently have 8 barrels, but nobody really knows how they work.
The terrian a flat forrest with a large field next to it where the village is located. The main part of the village is ontop of a small hill, though part of the village is connected to the swamp. We are thinking of retreating but its winter and this is the last defensible position left on the island. The Swamp is full of nasty monsters and I don't think many people would make it.




I would like to submit two possible ways to go at this.

The first which would require a narrow mountain pass or some other way you can bottleneck them would be to go the Spartan 300 way and fight in a bottleneck type terrain.


Well its a village, and while we have several walls, their is no natural chock point except maybe the dock leading to the tower.



Skirmishing Tactics:
Basically pack up the village and leave though it's probably easier to defend, it's obvious to find and they have the forces to over run it easily. Instead have the villagers set up camp in the forest/hills or somewhere hard to find and then use them to support your operations (gather food, co-ordinate scout reports and patrols) send runners (or riders if you have 'em) to the nearest villages to gather support. Organize scouting patrols to know where your enemies are at all times, strike quickly and hit supplies or other important targets. Use traps and ambushes to slow down their advance. Hit them where it hurts the most and run before they're able to organize and fight back efficiently.

Scorched Earth Tactics:
Don't leave anything behind they can use, destroy shelter, any stores you can't carry, burn bodies to prevent them from raising them as undead. Leave traps behind where you think they'll go. Destroy bridges to limit their ability to cross water.

There is so much more but I think you get the point by now.

This is possible, we certainty have enough fighters, but the area is full of monsters (zombies being the worst) and their isn't much food. Combined with the fact that we have so many civilians i'm not sure if that would be best

Thanks alot everybody

CowardlyPaladin
2013-04-17, 01:12 PM
Correction, we are going to have a very short session this friday just to handle some more preparations, so the most pressing advice is

1) Fight or flight?

2) What should we do with the prisoners, the aristocrat, and the men in the tower? Because this is the stuff we will be handling most in the friday session.

Malrone
2013-04-17, 01:21 PM
Warlocks can sustain their dps, yes, but low level sorcs burn out very quickly.
And you will need something of a melee front, to plug holes and hold back the enemy so everyone else can keep blasting away.

Tall pillars with spikes on them would be obvious, yes, but their point isn't to be subtle. The trick isn't in luring the enemy near them, but forcing the enemy to pass through it's threatened area. Bottle-necking and restricting passage are prime ways to do this-

And besides, battlefield control is always important. Always. It shouldn't be painful just to approach the walls, but also to interact with them, and to continue after them. You have space between the wood and stone fortifications, which can be filled with a Moat of Horrors (TM). Get creative with Wall spells in closing off areas and guiding enemy soldiers to their deaths.
Web, Grease, Entangle- these can shut down entire squads of enemies and make a patch of terrain unnavigable.

Also, I think it would be fair to have a Final Option. The Druid may not like it, but remind 'em of the long term- It is possible you could use the barrels to torch the forest. The whole thing, with all the enemies inside it caught in the blaze.
If that is too extreme for your tastes, rig the barrels somewhere outside the village. Set them so far apart, leave them just barely exposed, but have distinguishing markers for each. Then, as the enemy advances, set each off remotely. Make them pay for every yard advanced.

Edit:
If you fancy yourselves heroes, you'll fight.

Does someone in your party act as face? Have great social skills? A speech may be in order, a proper rousing oration. It is important to remind this town, to remind everyone that this is it. Stand now, together, or all fall. The darkspawn, I presume, leave no survivors and no quarter. Make this known. There can be no betrayal to the enemy for status, no hopes of exemption or bribery. Give anyone who does not help the open offer to leave the town, (with your party as escort out to a point, perhaps), right now. Make an example of those that act against you.

Deffers
2013-04-17, 01:22 PM
Fight is most badass. Go for style points, man!

Child murderer drow sounds like bad business. Try not to acquire his help, leave him in chains somewhere if at all possible, suspended and searched all over for lockpicks and ****.

CowardlyPaladin
2013-04-17, 01:53 PM
Warlocks can sustain their dps, yes, but low level sorcs burn out very quickly.
And you will need something of a melee front, to plug holes and hold back the enemy so everyone else can keep blasting away.

Tall pillars with spikes on them would be obvious, yes, but their point isn't to be subtle. The trick isn't in luring the enemy near them, but forcing the enemy to pass through it's threatened area. Bottle-necking and restricting passage are prime ways to do this-

And besides, battlefield control is always important. Always. It shouldn't be painful just to approach the walls, but also to interact with them, and to continue after them. You have space between the wood and stone fortifications, which can be filled with a Moat of Horrors (TM). Get creative with Wall spells in closing off areas and guiding enemy soldiers to their deaths.
Web, Grease, Entangle- these can shut down entire squads of enemies and make a patch of terrain unnavigable.

Also, I think it would be fair to have a Final Option. The Druid may not like it, but remind 'em of the long term- It is possible you could use the barrels to torch the forest. The whole thing, with all the enemies inside it caught in the blaze.
If that is too extreme for your tastes, rig the barrels somewhere outside the village. Set them so far apart, leave them just barely exposed, but have distinguishing markers for each. Then, as the enemy advances, set each off remotely. Make them pay for every yard advanced.

Edit:
If you fancy yourselves heroes, you'll fight.

Does someone in your party act as face? Have great social skills? A speech may be in order, a proper rousing oration. It is important to remind this town, to remind everyone that this is it. Stand now, together, or all fall. The darkspawn, I presume, leave no survivors and no quarter. Make this known. There can be no betrayal to the enemy for status, no hopes of exemption or bribery. Give anyone who does not help the open offer to leave the town, (with your party as escort out to a point, perhaps), right now. Make an example of those that act against you.

1) So try to build up lots of palisades and trenches to try to bottleneck them, and place our fighters their? Constantly retreating then?

2) Sorry, I am not a military historian. My DM is sadly, i think he is minoring in Military history. You mean a running retreat using various spells to slow them down and weaken them.

3) ...OMG that use of the wildfire is brilliant. Actually we could most likely blaze up the forest with only 2 of them, and hold the 6 remaining back for later. I don't know if the villagers will like it much (They use the forest for resources) and the Druid is certainly be pissed, however this is sort of a special case. Also i'm a rogue, I really don't mind going in and planting it their without the Druid's permission and setting it off later, works for me. Could take out ALot of darkspawn that way, the question is should we save it for a later fight or use it now. Now it might burn up the village, but I'm hoping that it will burn out the darkspawn.

4) The wizard is the leader, but the Paladin is the spokesman, he is the one who does most of the talking, having a really high charisma. He is very good at rousing speeches, but has been having a hard hard doing it since we got defeated in the last major battle. However, maybe if we can get him out of his depression he can make a great speech and maybe get the people to fight to the death. We could escort some people to the next closest village (4 days away) if it is still intact at this point, we haven't had news from them for 2 weeks.

Deffers: He has tried to escape twice, but the sunlight stopped him both times, and he doesn't have anything now. He is a drow, so Darkness and Faery Fire might help a bit, and he is a duskblade, however he is a childkilling **** so we really don't know what to do.

BTW, I just called the player who plays the Wizard, and he agrees to stay and fight.

Nizaris
2013-04-17, 04:55 PM
Setting the forest alight, especially if you only need two barrels, might be a good move. Wait to set the edge of the forest on fire/explode until the battle is about to start, IMO, assuming the forest is close to the range of your bowmen. This way you force them to split up and ideally most will be concentrated at the edge just before they attack. Right now they are likely spread out over an area which will reduce the effectiveness. For the remaining ones, I would almost discourage using them as explosives. Instead, if the fluids can be spread out over open ground to form a line and grid pattern in the expected battlefield. Maybe use a form of pitch or hay to make it easier to work with and last longer. This would greatly slow the advancing army, more-so if you can get most of the army trapped or split up (see the final battle of King Arthur 2004). If they can't all charge you en-mass, you'll have more time for archers using volley-fire to deal significant damage.

Roman fortifications worked quite nicely. Dig a 10ft-wide, 7ft-deep trench and fill with spikes, put up palisades with spikes facing outwards to prevent jumping. Have archers ready to mow down the enemy. Historically this can be built with remarkable speed too. They put up two, facing opposite directions with them in the middle, over an area that I can only assume to be larger than the village in a similar amount of time. A siege is unlikely because of Darkspawn aggression so surrounding yourselves and cutting off your retreat may not be a bad call.

I'm torn on whether Warlocks with Eldritch Spear or Scouts with Longbows are a better call. Scouts can volley (indirect, direct, or concentrated) with their longbows and deal more damage once forced to move and shoot, though using AC instead of touch unless in a volley. Scouts should pick up Rapid Fire as it works with concentrated volleys to drop priority targets. Warlocks with Spear have a 250ft touch attack for 1d6. I may recommend the Scouts over the Warlocks as the main force though make a few with Darkness to cloak parts of the wall and for priority targeting. Fighter v Scout is a hard call, the extra feat and point or two of health against the extra damage is a toss up, though a group of scouts doing a hit-and-run once the battle is about to start could be a good opening, make sure they can run well. Marshals are also a good call for once it breaks into melee and if they level then they give bonuses to ranged attacks. Also, Fog Cloud or some other vision obscuring effect may let you get the DM to ignore or reduce the penalty to the reflex DC for volley attacks at longer ranges, the smoke from the field once on fire may also be suitable for this purpose.

Artillery is always a good call, if the Wizard or Archivist can prep some really big rocks with Shrink and then dispel the effects while flying over the enemy you can get some good casualty rates, or use some other means of mimicking siege engines. The more you can kill in the field, the more that ride up as zombies to attack the Darkspawn.

Minatures handbook and Heroes of Battle are probably the two best books for large pitched battles, followed by Complete Warrior. Just remember that arrow volleys are your friend and never make concentrated volleys in more than groups of ten archers (who should all use rapid shot.) If you can get the DM to allow for regular volleys to use Rapid Shot as well you'll improve your odds significantly. Aim for the middle of the army with most your arrows, only the front line archers should release at the enemy's front line.

Malrone
2013-04-17, 07:31 PM
A fighting retreat from the field to the stone wall is probably the best, assuming the Darkspawn don't have significant ranged power of their own. But yes, you can do as Nizaris said, and reinforce the outer pallisade and barricades with front spikes and spike pits. I'd recommend the Wall of Stone and Wall of Iron spells, but iirc you need to level the casters once or twice for access. You can leave openings for your own men to fall back through, then close it off with one of the lesser walls or the other AoE controls (i.e. Entangle). Wall of Fire, with a Wind Wall behind it, is awesome for massed soldier scenarios, if they don't resist the damage type.

A few squads of Scouts/Rangers, with a Marshal leader, and some sort of support, would play skirmish. Front-liners could be Warblades, Fighters, and/or Barbarians, again with a Marshal leader and some support. Warlocks, Sorcerors, and the like stay back on the walls and just hammer away at range. I'd also check into if the DM would allow relevant NPCs to have animal companions... it's cheesy, but it'd help a lot.

Why didn't I consider pitch ditches? I played Stronghold all the time when I was small... You can cut off the Wild Fire from the town with a preliminary controlled burn around the rim of the field.

What animal resources does the town have? Work horses, cattle, etc.

If push comes to shove over burning the poor woodlands down, I'm sure the druid could come up with a spell that would repair the environment. Eventually.

CowardlyPaladin
2013-04-22, 05:32 PM
Ok so small update. We choose to not realize the drow, and we were able to negociate with the people in the tower. They won't leave the tower, but they have agreed to allow villagers to take shelter with them and share their resources. The Druid said that burning the forest down was ok in a "For the greater good" sort of way. We sent the Ranger out in order to try to find some help at the local villages if that is at all possible. Now we just have to wait.

I checked, and the animal companions are allowed. Animals we have access too are

10 Plow Mules
1 Work Horse
30 Cows
1 Bull
and a wide variety of chickens, pigs, ect. No war animals. Also sadly we don't have any roman engineers on hand.

Scow2
2013-04-29, 08:34 AM
Can you bind/summon outsiders? It may be necessary to call upon the lower planes for help.

Gabe the Bard
2013-04-30, 01:03 AM
From what I've gathered, it seems that you have two, possibly three waves to deal with, and I think you will need a solid plan for each of them if you want to survive.

Here is my suggestion...

Try NOT to involve the villagers in any direst conflict if at all possible. You have only a couple of days to train them, and I think that time would be better spent in constructing traps than training them as fighters.

Built three separate bottlenecks for each of the waves you will encounter. The bottlenecks I see as possibilities are as followed:

#1: A horde of zombies: Try to lure as many stray zombies groups into one place as possible. If you have dead corpses, maybe you can put them in the same place in the hopes that they will rise up and add to the horde. This isn't a particularly GOOD act, but hey, it's for the greater good I suppose. Hopefully, the Blight that has to fight through the zombie horde will end up turning into more zombies before they figure out a way to annihilate or bypass them.

#2: The monster-filled forest: I don't know how many monsters and what CR they are, but this seems like a good place for the second bottleneck. Try to summon even MORE monsters and traps to hopefully whittle down or exterminate the second wave.

#3: The Tower: This will be the last stand. Since those semi-cooperative adventurers refuse to come down from that tower, even if they're willing to cooperate to an extent, I think this will make a good place for the third and final stand. And it sounds like there will almost certainly be a third wave coming if your DM is into impossible last stands. Since the uncooperative adventurers are willing to let some of the villagers into the tower, I think this is a perfect opportunity to fill it to the brim with your explosives. Let the third wave of the horde take the tower and when enough of them are in there, light it up... then mop up the rest.

In any case, I think the main objective should be to save as many of the villagers' lives as possible. If there are other villages you can ally with in the future, the survivors will add that much more to your potential forces.

Towards that end, since the Blight is being lead by some sort of authority, perhaps you can send them some false intelligence somehow, convincing them that the Tower with the Unruly Adventurers should be their main objective, being the most heavily guarded and filled with food supplies. In the meanwhile, you should plan an escape route for the rest of the populace in case things go south.

Even if you and the villagers survive the battle, you should probably evacuate and relocate the village or try to find another village that's willing to combine forces with you in order to combat then next potential Blight horde.