Please help me kill my rival adventuring party [3.5]

[DoctorJesus]

Okay, so here's the story, I am in an evil party of six and all of the players (myself included) are either playing D&D for the first time or are still pretty new to it. The GM is also fairly new, but he seems to spend all of his time researching rules and making cool NPC enemies, and so he tends to be able to outmatch the rest of us in terms of mechanics and strategy.

Two sessions ago, our party spent several days traveling over a mountain in a blizzard, only to be attacked once we made camp in a safe location. The session ended with a lone sniper (there are guns in this setting), taking a few shots and making us use up our abjurations so they could attack us in force later. The last session was the attack, and despite us preparing traps and knowing to some extend who was going to attack us (one character had met the rival party before), we were forced to retreat after about four or five rounds of combat.

Now it was pretty clear that we were meant to lose the fight, but that doesn't make me want to murder this party any less, and so I am coming to you with the hope that you'll be able to give me some veteran advice. So here's what we're working with. I should note our DM is very particular about only using mechanics that can be found on the SRD, so if it's not there I'm sorry but I won't be able to get it past him.

PC Party

Level 9 Drow Cloistered Cleric - Very much a support caster, channels negative energy so he has quite a few undead at his disposal such as a meat shield zombie, shadows, wights, ghouls and a couple of dire bear/boar skeletons. If you guys have any suggestions of other undead to get, feel free to let me know.

Level 11 Elf Domain Wizard - Has the storm domain, the player is very keen on lightning and evocations in general, but has a mind for creative uses of some spells. Also has the ability to craft and animate objects, which essentially gives him access to mini-golems.

Level 5 Half-Orc Vampire Barbarian - Drinks haste potion, rages, hits things hard and acts as a tank most of the time.

Level 11 total Human Assassin/Rogue (I don't know the exact levels, he is secretive) - Really likes the use of his observation and subsequent death attack.

Level 10 Tiefling Urban Ranger - Shoots a bunch of arrows at one target each round, also has a leopard animal companion I believe.

Level 7 Pixie Sorcerer - Really loves fire spells, also has a raven familiar.

Rival Party

I don't actually know all of the levels and classes exactly, so I am just going to make my best guess based off what they did in combat and I'll assume they're ECL 11.

Level 11 Dwarf Paladin - Has a hippogriff mount and a holy adamantine lance which she uses to power attack + smite evil + charge our asses into oblivion, as she demonstrated by doing around 150 damage to one of the cleric's best undead, destroying it instantly. Due to the lance she would always be out of melee range after she attacked, we managed to take down her mount but were never able to reach her before she healed it and took off again.

Level 11 Halfling Cleric - Likes to cast sanctuary and buff/heal the crap out of everyone. He also seems to be a negative energy cleric, as their party also had two advanced wights, one of which managed to soak up well over 100 damage, apparently due to extreme preparation and abundant use of the temporary hitpoints given by their energy drain ability. Also has spell resistance, plus the sanctuary and standing on the edge of the fight meant he was hard to hit.

Level 6 Hound Archon Ranger - This was the sniper I mentioned earlier, likes to hide in trees and fire on our casters. Our own ranger has lawful outsiders as a +4 favoured enemy, but we still weren't able to get enough hits on it to kill it as it is good at hiding far away from the battle.

Level 9 Ogre Wizard - This one fell into a pit we made, then polymorphed into some kind of giant burrowing insect (we weren't able to identify it), and started attacking us from below.

Level 11 Derro Rogue? - This was the one character we managed to keep from taking any actions during the fight, so I'm not entirely sure what he's capable of, but I would assume something rogueish.

Level 6 Gargoyle Monk? - Again, we didn't see much of this character, as he showed up right at the end, though he seemed to fight with his fists so I'm simply assuming monk.

So please, if you could tell me how best to murder these *******s, I would be very grateful.

[dupersudi]

Knock out the cleric as quickly as you can, if you can do it fast enough those advanced wights will no longer be controlled and will probably attack the closest living things(And if not you can try and control them with your cleric).

After that it sounds like the Paladin is the most dangerous one, try neutralizing his mount again, its will saves should be low. If the paladin should happen to fall off, or fall while attached to its corpse, well I would find that rather amusing wouldn't you?

While your casters and ranged PCs are doing that, use the undead as a screen to delay/kill the rogue and the monk while your melee PCs move around the flanks(stealthing if possible, or if you had a chance to prepare the battlefield have them behind the enemy PCs to begin with). The assassin can then use his death attack to kill the sniper/ogre mage(whichever is the priority), and the Barbarian can start hitting the other one, or assist the assassin if the one he is trying to kill proves more formidable than expected.

If this doesn't work, retreat, regroup, heal and buff, and attempt an ambush. Focusing on one hostile at a time, rinse and repeat as needed.

Note that my plans don't always work, and winging it is usually my plan B. But I think the priority should remain cleric>paladin>Ogre mage(Can't find a greater than/equal to sign so just imagine one here, prioritize based on which is a bigger threat)Sniper>Monk>Rogue

Of course you can alter the priority list as you see fit, that's just what I came up with from what you said.

[DoctorJesus]

Thanks, I really appreciate the help.

[Karoht]

The sniper can probably be negated by Wind Wall and similar effects.
Rough Terrain to prevent charges from the Paladin will likely be a wise idea. Lots of spells and effects can generate that. Heck, you have Wizard you say? Create Pit or two would probably mess up that Paladin and keep it locked down for a while. Worth a scroll or two. Same for your Sorceress.
Rogues can't sneak attack through concealment without a few tricks, might be worth investing in, or using the terrain to your advantage if possible.
I agree with the suggested target priority. Emphasize trying to take their undead and use them against them.

If you can arrange a smaller ambush (or more than one) before the major encounter, I would. Take the Rogue and Ranger to scout them and hit them, with the Cleric in tow. Cleric and Ranger take up a position down the way. Have the Cleric cast Hide from Undead so the Rogue and Ranger can ignore the undead which will undoubtably be on guard duty. If they are camping outside, do some damage, set some things on fire, ect, then retreat. If they are camping in a Rope trick with the undead outside on guard? Have the Cleric move up to support, Turn their Undead guards and Dispel Magic on the Rope Trick. Beat them up with a pile of undead holding their action for the surprise round.

Best of luck.

[Humble Master]

How underhanded are you willing to be to kill these people? You could potentially just kill them in their sleep or something.

[Feilith]

How underhanded are you willing to be to kill these people? You could potentially just kill them in their sleep or something.

Yeah, I'm not too sure about urban rangers but their track DC shouldn't be past 20 so even if he doesn't have track you should be able to send in your assassin (high ranks in move silently and hide) and cu de grace them in their sleep. Insta-crit and sneak attack damage.

Maybe get him a scythe x4 crit to insure them going down on the first swing

[Randomguy]

Which one of these guys is you?

Invest in some teleportation. Next time the enemy ranger starts taking pot shots at you, have one of your casters teleport you all to him. Make sure you've got someone who knows Anticipate Teleportation to stop them from doing the same thing to you.

Get one of your spellcasters to learn the spell "Ray of Stupidity" from the spell compedium. It should be able to knock out the paladin's mount in one round.

Remember to use battlefield control. You don't need to kill the cleric if you can use something like Grease or Entangle to stop him from reaching his allies so that he can't buff them. A well placed battlefield control spell (or slow, but it's hard to hit paladins with debuffs) can stop the paladin from charging, too.

[Blackhawk748]

Ok the paladin has a flying mount right? go into thick trees, cant charge through that much cover, then open by killing the cleric, have the assassin hide in a tree and drop on him or something, next the Mage. Do i see another death attack? i think so, his Fort save shouldnt be amazing. While he's doing that the Barb should be punching the Gargoyle while the undead are being good little meat shields.

Remember these are generic observations, use your own judgement, and if all else fails cause an avalanche.

[DoctorJesus]

This is all very useful, so thanks again.

It has also just come to my attention that the Derro isn't exactly what I thought it was. Apparently, during one of the character's previous encounters with the rival party, the Derro was able to make a touch attack against someone and transport them to the Plane of Shadow. He then did a five foot shift and did the same thing to someone else in the same round.

I'm not really sure what is capable of doing this, and I kind of wish it had been mentioned earlier, but if any of you have any idea how he's doing it I'd be thankful.

Edit: Almost all of us are evil, though some are neutral, so I'd say the more underhanded the better, especially as their tactics for fighting us were hardly honourable.