Help me defend a city!

[Petioni]

I usually don't like min/max(ing), but desperate times call for desperate measures. I am an 8th level eladrin duskblade with the following stats: 20 str, 12 dex, 14 con, 18 int, 10 wis, and 11 cha. My feats are: power attack, arcane strike, and exotic weapon SC. I and my party (only 2 others of late because some people haven't been able to make it) have been tasked with defending a city surrounded on ALMOST all sides by mountains (climbable) against demons so that our now allies may summon an avatar of thier deity so that we may win a larger war. So what I need from you guys are strategies, items, templates, and more that are effective against demons, devils and maybe even an avatar of an evil deity.

[Abd al-Azrad]

Erfworld will tell you. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0001.html)

Stopping armies has very little to do with your personal build, items, etc. It is much more about large-scale, sweeping actions. Force multipliers, psychology, keeping fluid, hitting the enemy where they are weak, cutting or reducing your own losses.

Don't sit still and let them come to you. Hit their advancing army as often as you can, keep it off-balance. Try to identify their leaders and engage them in every form of warfare you can imagine.

Evil outsiders have a lovely tendency not to abide by any rules of warfare. You must be more ruthless than they are. Turn your own dead into skeletal suicide troops. Rig the entire mountain to collapse and take out the enemy. Call in other demonic armies which may be looking for an opportune moment to seize a quick victory.

War is hell.

[Red Fel]

What are your resources? Manpower: Whodo you have at your disposal? Just the Duskblade? Anyone with player class levels? How many NPCs? In what condition, with what abilities? Geography: You're surrounded on almost all sides by scalable mountains. What else do you have? Rivers? Swamps? Can you block mountain passes? Collapse tunnels? Fortifications: What features does the city have? A wall? Turrets? Fortified gates? Resources: Do you have weapons? Ballista and/or catapults? Bows? Lances? Horses? Traps? Time: How long until the attack? How long will you have to withstand the attack?
This isn't MacGuyver. You're going to have to give us more than a paperclip, a rubber band, and a ballpoint pen.

[Petioni]

What are your resources? Manpower: Whodo you have at your disposal? Just the Duskblade? Anyone with player class levels? How many NPCs? In what condition, with what abilities? Geography: You're surrounded on almost all sides by scalable mountains. What else do you have? Rivers? Swamps? Can you block mountain passes? Collapse tunnels? Fortifications: What features does the city have? A wall? Turrets? Fortified gates? Resources: Do you have weapons? Ballista and/or catapults? Bows? Lances? Horses? Traps? Time: How long until the attack? How long will you have to withstand the attack?
This isn't MacGuyver. You're going to have to give us more than a paperclip, a rubber band, and a ballpoint pen.

Okay so in order:

1. I have a level 8 vanguard and and a level 8 reaper (home-brew) in the party currently, IF the other players show up when this battle takes place I will also have access to a wizard and rogue of the same level. My guess is that we have less than 150 NPC's (standard guard and possibly a few divine casters) because the land we are defending has more farmers than soldiers and their main defensive tactic is pulling a Stalingrad and burning most of the food supply for the rest of the continent they are on (essentially committing suicide) which would be bad for everyone.

2. There is no way for us to block these mountains currently because they don't have passes our DM simply says they have been climbed before and did not indicate any kind of path being made. There is a secret tunnel through the mountains (love that song) that is being defended by ranger towers and it would actually take the enemy longer to go through that than just attack from anywhere else (even mountain climbing) as it is in a really weird spot geographically. Other than that we have no other natural defenses.

3. The city we are in has 1 fort that most of the city is based around (although they have not had to use it for a long time, everyone who decided to stay in the city instead of fleeing is armed and already a soldier with mostly martial weapons and standard armor, those of the church are blessing weapons left and right, however we have no strategic resources such as horses because there is no real room for them when you are surrounded by mountains. We have no equipment for siege or counter siege BUT, and this is a big but, we have a teleporter under the the fort in the city that can fit about 10 men and is instantaneous. The teleporter goes to land that is held securely by high sorcerers and wizards that we are in the process of convincing to join our side, if we can hold this city and summon the avatar of the good deity that will likely cement our alliance.

4. We have another day or so before the attack begins and I have no idea how long we are going to have to hold out for because I don't know the manpower of the enemy yet, if I were to take a guess, I would probably range it in the thousands because this is the first step to winning the war and bloodshed only brings more unholy creatures to the front.

[Abd al-Azrad]

Geez. That's a mess. You don't really have any resources that can counter a demon army, nor do you have time to gather much. I don't know what a Reaper is, but I doubt it can do much to stop a demon army that a Level 8 wizard cannot.

As much as you can, I would recommend you cede this ground as bloodily as possible. Evacuate the bulk of your noncombatants, and deliberately either undermine your structures or just fill everything you can with unstable explosives. Perhaps fill a few randomly-placed structures with a skeleton crew of guards (skeletons would be best, being disposable) to keep the demons fighting and scrambling around the city, wasting their own time.

Try to pick a few bottlenecks, with cover from the air as well as multiple sides, to hold your ground with some of your tougher forces - such as the other PCs. Given that many demons can fly or teleport at will, I don't think any standard fortifications will help you much in holding this position.

Expect chaos and destruction, and basically just try to not lose much.

...

Or, alternate plan. Demons love chaos and destruction, and you're trying to play for time, if I understand correctly. So, convince as MANY people to stay as possible, and recommend they dig into their homes, basements, etc. as thoroughly as possible. Then, DON'T try to save everyone. Let the demons come. Fight them as well as you can in key strongholds, but mostly let their forces play merry hell with your helpless citizens. Hope that they are easily distracted by weak prey, and lose discipline torturing your people while your key NPCs perform their ceremony to save everyone.

[Petioni]

Geez. That's a mess. You don't really have any resources that can counter a demon army, nor do you have time to gather much. I don't know what a Reaper is, but I doubt it can do much to stop a demon army that a Level 8 wizard cannot.

As much as you can, I would recommend you cede this ground as bloodily as possible. Evacuate the bulk of your noncombatants, and deliberately either undermine your structures or just fill everything you can with unstable explosives. Perhaps fill a few randomly-placed structures with a skeleton crew of guards (skeletons would be best, being disposable) to keep the demons fighting and scrambling around the city, wasting their own time.

Try to pick a few bottlenecks, with cover from the air as well as multiple sides, to hold your ground with some of your tougher forces - such as the other PCs. Given that many demons can fly or teleport at will, I don't think any standard fortifications will help you much in holding this position.

Expect chaos and destruction, and basically just try to not lose much.

...

Or, alternate plan. Demons love chaos and destruction, and you're trying to play for time, if I understand correctly. So, convince as MANY people to stay as possible, and recommend they dig into their homes, basements, etc. as thoroughly as possible. Then, DON'T try to save everyone. Let the demons come. Fight them as well as you can in key strongholds, but mostly let their forces play merry hell with your helpless citizens. Hope that they are easily distracted by weak prey, and lose discipline torturing your people while your key NPCs perform their ceremony to save everyone.

So the enemy army is not made up fully of demons already (although it will become more demon-like as blood is spilled), and there is a significant bottleneck into to cities "proper" entrance. The other part of defending this city is that the enemy do not EXPECT us to defend it, the two plans you just outlined are pretty much what they are expecting (they also have clerics and priests), us to simply cede ground (bloodily or not) to them while they stall for long enough for us not to do agricultural suicide and pull a blitzkrieg (they have very good rouges and spies) using the teleporter and I don't think we have the time to properly destroy it before they get here.

[evangaline]

Okay so in order:
If we can hold this city and summon the avatar of the good deity that will likely cement our alliance.


I am assuming that your primary objective is to hold the fort instead of winning. You are counting on some divine plot-power to slay them for you. I respect this, it's just much safer.

Delaying can be done in a couple of ways:
Have them traverse rough terrain
Have them go through bottlenecks
Some spells, (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Spike_Growth) (or cheese) (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Diplomacy_Skill)
I am aware that there are better spells, but these 3 are capable of winning wars all by themselves.


If the city has a lyre of building (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Lyre_of_Building) you could use that to build additional pallisade's to slow them down. You could also it to upgrade your current defenses with towers, catapults and ballista's.

The first question that comes to mind is: Why are demons on your plane of existance?
You should consider killing summoners if they were summoned.
If they are here due to planar binding then you should consider your local overdiety for interplanar smiting.
Do you have scrolls of spells available, and if so: wich spells?

[Petioni]

I am assuming that your primary objective is to hold the fort instead of winning. You are counting on some divine plot-power to slay them for you. I respect this, it's just much safer.

Delaying can be done in a couple of ways:
Have them traverse rough terrain
Have them go through bottlenecks
Some spells, (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Spike_Growth) (or cheese) (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Diplomacy_Skill)
I am aware that there are better spells, but these 3 are capable of winning wars all by themselves.


If the city has a lyre of building (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Lyre_of_Building) you could use that to build additional pallisade's to slow them down. You could also it to upgrade your current defenses with towers, catapults and ballista's.

The first question that comes to mind is: Why are demons on your plane of existance?
You should consider killing summoners if they were summoned.
If they are here due to planar binding then you should consider your local overdiety for interplanar smiting.
Do you have scrolls of spells available, and if so: wich spells?

Okay so most of the people with trade skills have fled, we have no arcane casters except for myself, a duskblade and possibly a wizard(duskbade=no good spells/wizard hardly shows up to play)and we have no scrolls. We do have divine casters but most of them are simply blessing weapons/armor and then retreating to the fort in order to try and summon the avatar of their god (every caster helps) and the demons are being summoned and we can't stop the summoners because they are already done summoning, for the most part (reinforcement through blood summoning during war). The overdiety is the one we are trying to summon and only his chosen (who are never present when we need them to play) can call for his aid directly, so yeeeeeeaaaaa...

[Abd al-Azrad]

Dude get your noncombatants out of that meat grinder.

The enemy does not have a full demon army, but their army will become more demonic as blood is spilled. So barring some weird technicality (like preventing blood from hitting the ground, use only bludgeoning weapons!) or overwhelming force that eliminates their mortal forces before they can approach (FIREBALLS FIREBALLS FIREBALLS), any extended combat makes the enemy stronger now AND stronger the next time they attack you.

If you've got to draw things out, hide your key casters in a cellar or something. Demonic forces can't be great at systematically searching a city for pockets of resistance. Keep your PCs locked up in that hidey-hole with the casters, to ensure they have a chance to finish their ritual.

There's a reason the enemy doesn't expect you to stand and fight. You can't win without divine intervention, and even if you pull off the divine intervention, you will still lose loads.

[Petioni]

Dude get your noncombatants out of that meat grinder.

The enemy does not have a full demon army, but their army will become more demonic as blood is spilled. So barring some weird technicality (like preventing blood from hitting the ground, use only bludgeoning weapons!) or overwhelming force that eliminates their mortal forces before they can approach (FIREBALLS FIREBALLS FIREBALLS), any extended combat makes the enemy stronger now AND stronger the next time they attack you.

If you've got to draw things out, hide your key casters in a cellar or something. Demonic forces can't be great at systematically searching a city for pockets of resistance. Keep your PCs locked up in that hidey-hole with the casters, to ensure they have a chance to finish their ritual.

There's a reason the enemy doesn't expect you to stand and fight. You can't win without divine intervention, and even if you pull off the divine intervention, you will still lose loads.

noncombatants are already off the field of their own vocation (fear of the war, good reason), and we HAVE to hold out, there is no other place that this can happen, this is an all or nothing combat, if we lose the whole war is shot to ****, IE: majority of the continent burns and nobody wins with evil gods just rampaging around the entire continent, the most we can hope for is that after we are dead and gone the BBEG's get in a fight and one kills the other and that is the BEST case scenario if we lose.

[Red Fel]

Alright. Let's look again at what you have. PCs: You have your Duskblade 8. You have a Vanguard 8 and a Reaper 8 (I assume they're both melee combat-types). You have a Wizard 8 and a Rogue 8. Pity your Wizard isn't a Druid, or this would go very differently. You have about 150 soon-to-be corpses. You have a small fort, an abandoned agricultural settlement, and a bunch of mountains.
Let's do this. Step by step.The Wizard. Man, I wish we had more time with this guy. Step one, have him prepare Flight. He will be Captain Battlefield Control. Prepare only BFC spells. Blasting will be pointless; the goal here is to delay the enemy and prevent bloodshed, and blasting spells won't accomplish much. Now, at 8th level, he'll have up to 4th-level spells. Running down a quick list... Obscuring Mist can be helpful. Color Spray has merit. Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Hideous Laughter... Basically, anything you can use to momentarily stun, blind, trip, or otherwise disable the enemy is useful. The Rogue. Does this evil army have a commander? Or commanders? If so, send the Rogue in to kill them. He has just one job - Hide and Move Silently like crazy, find the ones in charge, murder them, and move on. The Wizard can give him cover. He is sacrificial meat and will probably die. The melees. You guys are primarily tactical commanders, directing traffic. Only charge into melee when things look pretty bad. You'll probably die if you do. The meat shields. You have 150 force multipliers. Sending them all into combat with rudimentary arms is a guarantee of their death, and minimally efficient. Can any of them play the pipes or harp? Call them Bard 1. Make them force multipliers. Have them Inspire the crap out of the others. They're worth a lot more that way. The environment. You say the land has more farmers than soldiers. That means it's an agricultural settlement. That means you have farming equipment. Food and supplies, sure. But also shovels, wood, tools. Fortify the fort further. Dig traps. Pits lined with spikes. Nets. Snares. Refurbish the stuff used to catch wild game into stuff used to catch a wild army. Spread an area with cow dung. You've got cattle, right? Dung can be fairly flammable. This is a classic that dates back to Sun Tzu. Dried grain plus flammable compound, patted down in a large area. Wait until the enemy is in the area. Launch some flaming arrows. Roasted enemy. Good times. And you're surrounded by mountains. That means you have rocks. Tons of rocks. Know what happens when you take a bunch of big rocks and spread them liberally around an area? Difficult terrain (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#hamperedMovement). Enemies move at half speed, and cannot charge or run. Meanwhile, your archers can pick them off as they scramble awkwardly through your trap-riddled rock field.
Big takeaway: Almost all of your NPCs will die. Most of your PCs will probably die too. But you shouldn't be engaging the enemy in a traditional here's-my-army-here's-yours-let's-us-fight fair battle. You will lose even worse if you do. Simply slow them down. Make it grueling. Pick them off before they can reach you, with archers and Bards and a flying BFC Wizard and rocks and traps. And maybe some cow dung. Because stepping in cow dung can really ruin an attacker's mood.

EDIT: As an aside, there's a DM lesson here. Never make the outcome of any given encounter dependent on any particular character(s). If the player is absent or the character(s) is (are) dead, that derails plots. You may not be the DM this time, but be sure you don't make this mistake if you ever are.

[Petioni]

Alright. Let's look again at what you have. PCs: You have your Duskblade 8. You have a Vanguard 8 and a Reaper 8 (I assume they're both melee combat-types). You have a Wizard 8 and a Rogue 8. Pity your Wizard isn't a Druid, or this would go very differently. You have about 150 soon-to-be corpses. You have a small fort, an abandoned agricultural settlement, and a bunch of mountains.
Let's do this. Step by step.The Wizard. Man, I wish we had more time with this guy. Step one, have him prepare Flight. He will be Captain Battlefield Control. Prepare only BFC spells. Blasting will be pointless; the goal here is to delay the enemy and prevent bloodshed, and blasting spells won't accomplish much. Now, at 8th level, he'll have up to 4th-level spells. Running down a quick list... Obscuring Mist can be helpful. Color Spray has merit. Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Hideous Laughter... Basically, anything you can use to momentarily stun, blind, trip, or otherwise disable the enemy is useful. The Rogue. Does this evil army have a commander? Or commanders? If so, send the Rogue in to kill them. He has just one job - Hide and Move Silently like crazy, find the ones in charge, murder them, and move on. The Wizard can give him cover. He is sacrificial meat and will probably die. The melees. You guys are primarily tactical commanders, directing traffic. Only charge into melee when things look pretty bad. You'll probably die if you do. The meat shields. You have 150 force multipliers. Sending them all into combat with rudimentary arms is a guarantee of their death, and minimally efficient. Can any of them play the pipes or harp? Call them Bard 1. Make them force multipliers. Have them Inspire the crap out of the others. They're worth a lot more that way. The environment. You say the land has more farmers than soldiers. That means it's an agricultural settlement. That means you have farming equipment. Food and supplies, sure. But also shovels, wood, tools. Fortify the fort further. Dig traps. Pits lined with spikes. Nets. Snares. Refurbish the stuff used to catch wild game into stuff used to catch a wild army. Spread an area with cow dung. You've got cattle, right? Dung can be fairly flammable. This is a classic that dates back to Sun Tzu. Dried grain plus flammable compound, patted down in a large area. Wait until the enemy is in the area. Launch some flaming arrows. Roasted enemy. Good times. And you're surrounded by mountains. That means you have rocks. Tons of rocks. Know what happens when you take a bunch of big rocks and spread them liberally around an area? Difficult terrain (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#hamperedMovement). Enemies move at half speed, and cannot charge or run. Meanwhile, your archers can pick them off as they scramble awkwardly through your trap-riddled rock field.
Big takeaway: Almost all of your NPCs will die. Most of your PCs will probably die too. But you shouldn't be engaging the enemy in a traditional here's-my-army-here's-yours-let's-us-fight fair battle. You will lose even worse if you do. Simply slow them down. Make it grueling. Pick them off before they can reach you, with archers and Bards and a flying BFC Wizard and rocks and traps. And maybe some cow dung. Because stepping in cow dung can really ruin an attacker's mood.

EDIT: As an aside, there's a DM lesson here. Never make the outcome of any given encounter dependent on any particular character(s). If the player is absent or the character(s) is (are) dead, that derails plots. You may not be the DM this time, but be sure you don't make this mistake if you ever are.

Thank you for this post, I will see what I can do with this information. If my character makes it out of this alive I love you. :smallredface:

[Abd al-Azrad]

Question for you: Do you have access to the Sacrifice rules from BoVD?

If you can get a decent enough Knowledge (Religion) - I believe that's the skill you need to roll for sacrifice checks - you might be able to emulate a Limited Wish, for a Create Undead, to turn your sacrificed commoner into a Shadow or Wight or some other spawn-producing undead.

From there, you have a day to turn your 150-ish suicide corps into undead, spawn-producing warriors who do not bleed.

[Petioni]

Question for you: Do you have access to the Sacrifice rules from BoVD?

If you can get a decent enough Knowledge (Religion) - I believe that's the skill you need to roll for sacrifice checks - you might be able to emulate a Limited Wish, for a Create Undead, to turn your sacrificed commoner into a Shadow or Wight or some other spawn-producing undead.

From there, you have a day to turn your 150-ish suicide corps into undead, spawn-producing warriors who do not bleed.

yes we do have access to BoVD, unfortunately I do not have good enough knowledge religion at only 5 total ranks and the NPC's that do are concentrating on summoning their gods avatar. They are almost completely opposed to the undead entirely, so even if this was to win a battle or war I doubt they would be our allies for very long if we started sacrificing some of our already small numbers, even if for a good cause in the end.

[Lightlawbliss]

150 NPC gaurds... how tiny is this fort?

Get a map of this fort if you don't already. Assume the city is going to be destroyed no matter what, so destroy all buildings but a few of the better archer locations. Use the debree like was suggested with the rocks: make the terrain as nasty as possible without giving cover/concealment. Poor spare lamp oil on areas with lots of wood timbers and thatch right before the battle and light it on fire when the enemy is almost there, not to kill them but rather to make them think twice about moving forward. Dig some pits/trenches (I would recommend 20 ft so jumping becomes all but impossible) and cover them with something that will give out easily. Give all your troops bows and have them focus fire enemy casters.

What ever you do, HAVE AN ESCAPE PLAN. If reach a point where the divine aid isn't going to come in time, gather up the casters and bolt. This doesn't sound nearly epic enough to qualify as ____'s last hope.

[Petioni]

150 NPC gaurds... how tiny is this fort?

What ever you do, HAVE AN ESCAPE PLAN. If reach a point where the divine aid isn't going to come in time, gather up the casters and bolt. This doesn't sound nearly epic enough to qualify as ____'s last hope.

Like I sad previously, more farmers than soldiers, they are the weakest nation militarily and the strongest economically, if they burn all their land with crops on it that is game over for EVERYONE! As crazy epic as this sounds this is a nightmare for me as I am a relatively new player who has had this burden of carrying the story when the main plot characters are gone and I did not plan for this "Last hope for ____" but, it just ended up that way and ffs I started this campaign as LE and am now on the cusp of being some kind of LG saint because our chance to work with the BBEG's was shot a while ago and I cannot see a scenario where we turn evil even working out slightly well for us.

[Red Fel]

Like I sad previously, more farmers than soldiers, they are the weakest nation militarily and the strongest economically, if they burn all their land with crops on it that is game over for EVERYONE! As crazy epic as this sounds this is a nightmare for me as I am a relatively new player who has had this burden of carrying the story when the main plot characters are gone and I did not plan for this "Last hope for ____" but, it just ended up that way and ffs I started this campaign as LE and am now on the cusp of being some kind of LG saint because our chance to work with the BBEG's was shot a while ago and I cannot see a scenario where we turn evil even working out slightly well for us.

Wait, wait, what? Evil is an option here?

My friend, have I got a solution for you. You are going to defect.

During the night, prior to the encounter, you are going to approach the enemy camp with the white flag of surrender. You are going to make a deal with their commander, offering to interrupt the ritual, in exchange for membership in the winning side. You are going to do this via notes to the DM.

The day of combat, you will direct troops hither and yon. You will make sure to leave a path between troop formations - if anybody asks, explain that you're preparing a pincer. While everyone is distracted, you enter the fort, find the divine casters, and slit their throats mid-ritual. Interrupt the whole thing, throw the doors open, and sit and wait in the room with the corpses. Enemies arrive, you get a new job, and maybe next time the DM will learn not to make individual players plot-essential.

... You might hurt a few feelings, doing this. But, eh, Evil.

[Lightlawbliss]

Like I sad previously, more farmers than soldiers, they are the weakest nation militarily and the strongest economically, if they burn all their land with crops on it that is game over for EVERYONE! As crazy epic as this sounds this is a nightmare for me as I am a relatively new player who has had this burden of carrying the story when the main plot characters are gone and I did not plan for this "Last hope for ____" but, it just ended up that way and ffs I started this campaign as LE and am now on the cusp of being some kind of LG saint because our chance to work with the BBEG's was shot a while ago and I cannot see a scenario where we turn evil even working out slightly well for us.

Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly.
The fort is surrounded by mountains.
This fort guards the main food supply for everyone.
An enemy with allies that can teleport at will and kill just about any solider that can be thrown at them needs to take this position to burn crops that inside the fort.
If these crops are burned, everyone dies.


If I understand this correctly, then I would leave this area because the governments and people around here are really bad at planning ahead.

[Urpriest]

What kind of Eladrin are you? That should give you access to a fairly large number of spells, some of which are probably handy.

Or are you a 4e Eladrin (i.e., actually just a Grey Elf)?

[Petioni]

Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly.
The fort is surrounded by mountains.
This fort guards the main food supply for everyone.
An enemy with allies that can teleport at will and kill just about any solider that can be thrown at them needs to take this position to burn crops that inside the fort.
If these crops are burned, everyone dies.


If I understand this correctly, then I would leave this area because the governments and people around here are really bad at planning ahead.

The fort does not really guard much actually, it is just a city in the mountains with a fort at its heart, the land beyond it is the farmland where almost everyone's food supply comes from (hence why BBEG wants it). Almost every noncombatant has fled this area taking as much of their food/livestock with them as they can (despite there being no actual safe place from the war, so they are just prolonging the inevitable). However, the earth in those lands is still very fertile and the only other solution would be killing everyone by making the land infertile (whether by magic or whatever). Sorry I should have clarified that the BBEG wants to use the land to feed troops and starve the opposition not to just burn it because that would kill him too.

[Petioni]

Wait, wait, what? Evil is an option here?

My friend, have I got a solution for you. You are going to defect.

... You might hurt a few feelings, doing this. But, eh, Evil.

As I said previously we shot our chance to work with the BBEG right in the foot, the most I could hope for if I were to try and defect now would be a quick death... and they would still take the fort.

[Lightlawbliss]

The fort does not really guard much actually, it is just a city in the mountains with a fort at its heart, the land beyond it is the farmland where almost everyone's food supply comes from (hence why BBEG wants it). Almost every noncombatant has fled this area taking as much of their food/livestock with them as they can (despite there being no actual safe place from the war, so they are just prolonging the inevitable). However, the earth in those lands is still very fertile and the only other solution would be killing everyone by making the land infertile (whether by magic or whatever). Sorry I should have clarified that the BBEG wants to use the land to feed troops and starve the opposition not to just burn it because that would kill him too.

right... so If your dm has any skill at military strategy, you have lost as soon as something that can teleport at will shows up, which sounds like an event that happens rather early in the fight. The enemy teleports into the fields and starts a few fires and you don't have the forces to stop them before you are screwed. This sounds like a no win, not even then, situation if there ever was one. I would change my recommendation to gathering everyone into one area and buying some create food and water traps, then preparing for the big last stand where you fight to the BBEG and kill him while his minions watch.

[lytokk]

Let me get this all straight.

Your small mountain locked city is one of the most economically dominant cities on the planet due to its farming.

If all the land is destroyed, the world starves, since this place provides food for a vast percentage of people.

There's a teleportation circle to a city populated by high level mages.

The city you're in is trying to create an alliance with these mages, but needs to summon this avatar to cement the deal.

IF your city falls, the mages DIE as there is no food.

Also, if your city falls this demon army has a backdoor right into the mages stronghold.

I'm just making sure I've got these facts straight before I make recomendations.

[Red Fel]

right... so If your dm has any skill at military strategy, you have lost as soon as something that can teleport at will shows up, which sounds like an event that happens rather early in the fight. The enemy teleports into the fields and starts a few fires and you don't have the forces to stop them before you are screwed. This sounds like a no win, not even then, situation if there ever was one. I would change my recommendation to gathering everyone into one area and buying some create food and water traps, then preparing for the big last stand where you fight to the BBEG and kill him while his minions watch.

Yeah, basically, this. Look, the DM built this whole scenario with specific PCs in mind - PCs whose players are now absent. Maybe you'd stand a fighting chance if the DM's chosen PCs were present, but that's not going to happen. You have several options: Go out fighting. Best of luck to you, although you'll probably lose. Go out whimpering. Find a place to hide and hope for a quick death. Go out a traitor. Like you said, you'll probably just get a quick death, but it means less to stress over.
If you pick the second or third option, it's a guaranteed game over. If you pick the first, it's just a probable game over. It really depends on whether this is a scenario you enjoy, or whether you're a bit frustrated.

This is my baggage, but in your position, I'd be frustrated. This reads like a scenario where it's pretty much a guaranteed loss until the DM's literal deus ex machina - literal, in the sense that your divine casters are attempting to summon a manifestation of a deity - cleans up the mess for you. Until then, it feels like your job is to survive long enough to see how awesome the DM's deus ex machina is. And that would cheese me off. But that's me.

If you like the scenario, take the advice above and try to salvage the situation. Build your fortifications, focus on delaying the enemy long enough for the ritual to succeed. Hunker down for a siege. If you dislike the scenario, then bomb out any way you'd like.

[Petioni]

Let me get this all straight.

Your small mountain locked city is one of the most economically dominant cities on the planet due to its farming.

If all the land is destroyed, the world starves, since this place provides food for a vast percentage of people.

There's a teleportation circle to a city populated by high level mages.

The city you're in is trying to create an alliance with these mages, but needs to summon this avatar to cement the deal.

IF your city falls, the mages DIE as there is no food.

Also, if your city falls this demon army has a backdoor right into the mages stronghold.

I'm just making sure I've got these facts straight before I make recomendations.

Actually we are just trying to convince the mages to fight AT ALL (they are making some moves but their main strategy were we to lose would be to literally just go to another plane, plus their god already heavily supports this option) and the city itself is not dominant, it just happens to be a sort of gateway to this fertile land, a kind of monkey in the middle because these farmers have not had to deal with war in such a long time they softened up and the last time they had a war they did make the land infertile (bad move, entire continent uninhabitable for hundreds of years).

[Abd al-Azrad]

[the Mages'] main strategy were we to lose would be to literally just go to another plane, plus their god already heavily supports this option...

See, THAT is an escape plan.

More and more, I am seeing that this is not an issue of military strategy. Even knowing very little about the enemy's disposition or composition, it is clear you face not just numeric superiority, but also considerable tactical disadvantages. You face a foe that can bypass obstacles, grows stronger as the battle wages on rather than weaker. As Red Fel, Lightlawbliss, evangeline... basically everyone has said, it seems like this situation is designed for your team to lose and keep losing until God saves you.

You'll have to forgive me, as the options I've been posting are not really taking that objective to heart. I just don't like putting my faith in a higher power to save me.

The one thing you've mentioned that seems it might slow the advance of the enemy army, is the value of these crops. They clearly fear for the loss of the crops; you have said they do not even consider holding the fort to be an option and they expect you to use scorched earth tactics instead. Why not use that expectation against them?

You need to buy time to make your real play with the ritual. If the enemy figures out your actual trump card, they'll make a concerted push to strike you at that point. So I suggest you try to play their fears against them instead, keep their eyes elsewhere. Send out tactical teams of your sacrificial 150 soldiers with torches and fuel, with instructions to start burning the croplands as soon as the enemy forces are within sight. With luck, the enemy will assume this is the tactic you have selected, and devote their resources to crushing your troops and containing the fires. Note that this plan involves deliberate inefficiencies to prevent the fires from becoming too massive, which should simultaneously keep the food for later, and give your enemy a real hope of stopping this tactic so they'll actually bother wasting time countering it.

[Zirconia]

I like the difficult terrain ideas people have proposed, just make sure the rocks aren't large enough to provide actual cover. Caltrops are also good, logs or rocks rolling down from mountainsides or the top of the walls, etc. Hopefully the fort has a proper gatehouse, though fantasy ones almost never do, that provides a nice killing zone.

Then, if your DM will allow nonlethal arrows (blunts?) maybe you can knock out a lot of troops from well defended positions on the fort walls, to avoid bloodshed. It takes a fairly long time to recover from nonlethal damage, all you need is time. The key is that they have mantlets and arrow slits to work with on the walls, so they'll only get hit on natural 20s by regular troops, and if they are spread along the walls things like demonic fireballs won't hurt too badly. If you can thin them down some, your PCs may be able to handle a demon or two. Hopefully since you don't know the enemy army composition yet, the DM will adjust it somewhat for not having the other PCs along, maybe instead of 5000 troops and 30 demons it will be 2000 troops and 5 demons or something, perhaps even with no seige weapons of their own since you don't have any or any way to damage such at a distance.

If you can convince the wizards to help with even a few battlefield control spells, from behind arrow slits so they are pretty safe, it would also help to isolate small groups of enemies, maybe one demon at a time, so your PCs could sally out, take them down, and retreat before the rest of the army could get to them in difficult terrain. Or maybe if they want to remain neutral, you can buy a few scrolls of low level things like Fog Cloud from them to use. If that can block line of sight from 3/4 of the army at once, your archers on walls can focus fire on a smaller number of troops, maybe even taking out a demon, depending on how tough they are, etc.

See if there is something like a pass your troops can ambush the army from the higher ground of, and retreat to the fort without exposing themselves to the enemy army. Again, if the enemies are in difficult terrain, that will be easier. Maybe the few (hopefully) demons with higher mobility will fly or teleport ahead to chase, and your PCs can attack them without them having the support of their army. You need to find out more from the DM about terrain around the fort to pull this off. The locals should know the trails much better than the army, use that.

[Petioni]

Thanks for all the input guys, I did not like this dues ex machina plot when it was introduced through our wizard (at first CG, now CN because he kills indiscriminately) suddenly deciding to follow the NG overdeity of this land and having a vision quest where he became the chosen one, but I am determined to see this campaign to the end and by goly I will kill a god myself if I have to in order to get to the end of this and PK that wizard.:smallmad: