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View Full Version : Avoiding a TPK. Long, advice solicited.



Telok
2007-05-04, 01:22 PM
I'm asking for some quasi-advice here. A combination of indecisive/mmorpg players, an experienced and good GM, and my not making a character with the inclination to lead half the party by the hand has started to cause some problems. We got all the way to second level before facing a d***fool TPK.

The adventurers (all level 2 and various Good alignments): Soulblade, high teens AC and mid 20s HP. Ranger, mid teens AC and Rapid Shot and longbow. Warblade, high teens AC and mid 20s HP with MW polearm. Warmage, mid teens AC and high teens HP with a spiked gauntlet. Wizard, 11 AC and 12 HP with light crossbow, spells (Mage Armor, Magic Missle, Hailstones?, Cantrips), map, scroll of Color Spray. Cleric (myself), 17/19 AC and 17 HP, long spear, spiked gauntlet, 3 daggers, heavy shield, unidentified potion, scroll of Animate Dead and Cure Light Wounds, Magic and Travel domains.

Everyone is human except the cleric who is a Xeph (Expanded Psionics book). Party loot so far is the scrolls, potion, and 4000 silver or so. The warblade has a masterwork weapon because the rogue died and he started at level 2 with 900 gold on the wealth by level chart.

History: The local city is having a succession crisis. The town guard is being kept close to home to try to prevent 'bloody rioting' type trouble. The Captain of the guard had reports of nighttime troop movements in the hills about a day and a half walk from the city. Enter our intrepid band of first level adventurers. These adventurers learn that there are camps of goblins in the hills. The goblin camps are organized by hobgoblins and have goblins on wolves scouting. The goblins are coming from the north, to the south is an ocean, to the east is the city and farmland. All of the camps have hobgoblins, none of the camps have any non-combatants, the goblins are not hunting, raiding, or engaged in banditry and move exclusively at night. These are astonishingly well organized goblins. The rogue went off scouting and never came back, he had all the party funds at that point (killed by a scouting goblin on a wolf, got the gobbo but the wolf ate him).

After a report back the party is given a map, asked to locate about half a dozen camps for intel and/or military action, and picks up a warblade in a bar (to replace the rogue). Everyone is now level 2 (Yay!).

Back in the hills the party locates four camps, moving steadily north/northwest deeper into the hills. At camp number five the plan of "kill the lookouts, count the camp, retreat" gets a little... overzealous. The party semi-decimates the camp and half a dozen goblins ride off into the woods on wolves. At this point the warblade is at 4 HP, the cleric and warmage are out of spells (and the cleric is down to 14 HP), the wizard is down to cantrips, local time is about noon. The decision is made to continue forther north along the path that the groups goblins have made as they travel south. The cleric flinches, the GM asks if they're sure. They continue north.

By 2 in the afternoon there are hunting horns to the north, east, and west of the party. It is noted that wolves move at 50 while the party is on foot and moving at 30. A decision is reached to get off the trail and head southwest, since these are heavily wooded hills the going is difficult and all movement is halved. There is no effort to conceal the tracks the party leaves since this would slow the ranger down. About 5 in the afternoon the party encounters a clearing, a large depression with a small hill in the center. It is about 200 feet across with the small hill rising roughly 20 feet off the bottom and a few small boulders at the flattened crown of the hill. The party decides that this is the most defensible location they're likely to find and encamps at the top. The ranger makes an effort to conceal the tracks from the edge of the woods to the hill and then proceeds to patrol the treeline, the soulblade collects wood for a fire, the warmage tries to dig a foxhole, the others take a nap. About an hour later (evening/dusk) a goblin leading two wolves is spotted at the edge of the clearing, one wolf has a saddle on it's back and the other wolf has a raven on it's back. The ranger takes a Rapid Shot as misses twice, the goblin retreats and sounds a horn several times and is answered from nearby. The ranger climbs a tree and hides. By full dark the clearing is surrounded by goblins and wolves, about 50 goblins and 25 wolves is the estimate.

At roughly midnight a hobgoblin with a falcion and breastplate walks up with two goblins under a white flag of truce. The soulblade goes to negotiate, the cleric is woken up to go along. An offer is made, two champions will fight. If the players win they get a 24 hour headstart before the goblins hunt them down, if the hobgoblin wins then the goblins attack one hour before dawn. Since the goblins are going to attack immedately if the offer is refused the challenge is accepted. Bickering over who gets to fight the hobgoblin begins. The soulblade refuses to fight, the warmage has no spells, the cleric has no spells until dawn, the wizard isn't even considered. The 4 HP warblade gets 7 HP more from the scroll of Cure Light and goes off to fight.

It's a very nice fight. Six rounds, quite cinematic (the hobgoblin has warblade levels), and very tense during the multi-round whiff fest where they both had less than three hit points. At the end the warblade had -21 HP and the hobgoblin had 1. The goblins will attack an hour before dawn.

So, a problem, we're facing a TPK. The hobgoblin will be at least partially healed by then, I belive that at least one of the goblins has a level in either druid or cleric, a goblin or two with a level of sorcerer is 50% likely too. At this point the cleric is rather unimpressed with his companions and fairly sure that either a major coalition of tribes or small goblin army is moving into the area. The map (remember the map?) with goblin camps and trails marked on it needs to get back to the city, and this party just ain't up to the task. The choices seem to be to slaughtered to a man, or abandon the party and try to get the map back to town.

I've come up with two plans so far.

1) Swipe the map and wrest the scroll of Color Spray from the wizard. Use the scrolls of Animate Dead and Color Spray to cover an escape in the darkness. This relies heavily on Xeph racial speed burst and darkvision while the goblins are too busy killing the party and a couple of zombies.

2) Swipe the map (mabey the Color Spray too) and parlay with the hobgoblin again. Do not allow other players to help talk. Trade the scroll of Animate Dead and the location of the ranger in exchange for freedom. Or at least a 24 hour head start, that ought to be enough to get away.

So I'm looking for suggestions. Any better plans to escape? There's really no decent chance of us surviving an assault and the GM is good enough to not just rescue us from stupid choices because we're PCs.

Other notes: The boulders are not loose enough and the slope is not steep enough to make rolling them down easy or effective. I'm expecting one round of javelins before the goblins command the wolves to attack us, then the goblins will attack. We've already tangled with a goblin cleric and warlock team before this in another camp, and goblins with a caster level are fair to use aginst us.

Sundog
2007-05-04, 02:52 PM
I'd say you're totally screwed. Surrender now and allow yourselves to be sold into slavery - you have a better chance of escaping later.

You can't beat them in the state you're in. Oh, you'll take plenty of them with you, but in the end they'll overwhelm you.

Your escape plan will not work, because of the wolves. Wolves have scent, so they will track you even if you manage to escape from the encirclement.

Ulzgoroth
2007-05-04, 03:08 PM
If all else fails, set something on fire... It depends on local conditions, but a good forest fire ought to well and truely break your trail, if you could get enough of a lead to arrange it.

Lapak
2007-05-04, 03:17 PM
Unless you can fly, you're done.

The best bet would be to give the map to someone and try to sneak them out, letting the others fight to hold off the pursuit. Doing this in a planned manner would have a (very slight) chance of success, if there is a river or something to break the trail with.

But backed into a corner with 50 goblins in your face? Wounded, out of spells, and no clear escape route?

Yeah, it's pretty much over. If there's a party member they don't know about, give him the map and hide him as best you can. Bury him or something, hope he survives long enough to dig his way out once they leave.

Jasdoif
2007-05-04, 03:52 PM
I wonder if you can recover some spells. I mean, your wizard went down for a nap at 5PM if I read that right, so by 1AM his spells could be recovered, if he's been resting the whole time. Even if his rest has been interrupted a couple times, 2AM or 3AM should be a few hours before dawn, giving the wizard time for readying spells.

Also, your never mentioned what time you (the cleric) need to mediate to regain your spells. You don't even need sleep for that, since you're a divine caster.

Wolf_Shade
2007-05-04, 03:53 PM
Have your casters sleep.
Have the others dig two pits, say, 10' deep.
Have everyone roll around in pit #1 (to make it smell as much like you as possible), then use the color spray scroll on the bottom of the pit (I'm assuming color spray works like a magical painting here, if it doesn't ignore me) to make it look from the edges like it's... say 100-200 feet deep (Is that enough of a fall to kill a 2nd level character? Is that deep enough to reasonably expect to see that far?) with a torch and a pile of bodies at the bottom. (Bury most of your cloths under the bottom of Pit #1 too now that I think about it.) Basically it looks like an old well that was covered over. Your party was digging a pit to create a defensible position and fell in. It's quite apparent from the funny angles legs and necks are resting at your dead, and if you aren't, you aren't getting out alive. The buried clothes are the strongest scent in the area, reinforcing that you recently fell to your doom. I suppose if you really want to ham it up you could all scream just before dawn too.

Unless they toss something down, (or the spell does nothing like what I think it does) it's as good as an illusion.

Dig Pit #2 more narrow, and about as deep. Hide in Pit #2 and roll a boulder over it to cover it.

Leave your stuff (tent etc) out as well to make it look like you were planning on staying to fight, and just hit a stroke of bad luck.

Pray they fall for the ruse and the ranger can come rescue you when they leave.

bloodhawk
2007-05-04, 04:03 PM
If you have time to regain spells, Longstrider and Obscuring Mist would help improve your escape plan. With luck, they won't even notice you've left, and by the time they do, you should have a good head start.

Jasdoif
2007-05-04, 04:09 PM
Have your casters sleep.
Have the others dig two pits, say, 10' deep.
Have everyone roll around in pit #1 (to make it smell as much like you as possible), then use the color spray scroll on the bottom of the pit (I'm assuming color spray works like a magical painting here, if it doesn't ignore me) to make it look from the edges like it's... say 100-200 feet deep (Is that enough of a fall to kill a 2nd level character? Is that deep enough to reasonably expect to see that far?) with a torch and a pile of bodies at the bottom. (Bury most of your cloths under the bottom of Pit #1 too now that I think about it.) Basically it looks like an old well that was covered over. Your party was digging a pit to create a defensible position and fell in. It's quite apparent from the funny angles legs and necks are resting at your dead, and if you aren't, you aren't getting out alive. The buried clothes are the strongest scent in the area, reinforcing that you recently fell to your doom. I suppose if you really want to ham it up you could all scream just before dawn too.

Unless they toss something down, (or the spell does nothing like what I think it does) it's as good as an illusion.

Dig Pit #2 more narrow, and about as deep. Hide in Pit #2 and roll a boulder over it to cover it.That's not how color spray (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/colorSpray.htm) works.

It's certainly sounds interesting though. Prestidigitation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/prestidigitation.htm) should be able to mostly pull it off with the coloring, if the wizard can prepare new spells or if prestidigitation is one of the remaining cantrips.

Wolf_Shade
2007-05-04, 05:52 PM
That's not how color spray (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/colorSpray.htm) works.



Go figure.

Do wizards recover spells all at once, or can you gain x spells per y hours of rest?

Jasdoif
2007-05-04, 06:05 PM
Do wizards recover spells all at once, or can you gain x spells per y hours of rest?It's all at once. Recovering expended spell slots takes 8 hours of rest. Not necessarily sleep, but you can't be doing much of anything during the time. If your rest is interrupted, add an hour to the amount of remaining rest you need.

You can read the particulars here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm).

Just Alex
2007-05-04, 06:08 PM
I vote fire. I don't care how well trained those wolves are, fire is scary. I can't remember off-hand if goblins are small or medium, but if they're small, a forest fire and 30ft movement should spell freedom.

Corolinth
2007-05-04, 07:02 PM
Construct the largest bonfire you can manage. Stoke the flames as high so that the goblins recognize it as a funeral pyre. Use your scroll of Animate Dead on the warblade, and send zombieblade back to camp with the map. He should leave under the cover of night so that nobody sees him. The hobgoblin killed him, and you cremated him. The goblins won't be looking for him. They could track him, but they'd have to know they were looking for him in order to command the wolves to do it. By the time the goblins attack, he'll be out of scent range.

I'm assuming, since you haven't mentioned anybody else being wounded besides you and the warblade, that the soulblade wasn't injured when he refused to fight. Although it looks like the hobgoblin killed the warblade with some ginormous crit, so it wouldn't have mattered. Still, this plan must secure the soulblade's death. His cowardice needs to be punished, and I'm still working on part two.

Mr. Moogle
2007-05-04, 08:02 PM
i can only see one problem with fire, forest fires move at around 100 that would eventually overtake anybody, i would have the xeph soulknife run around trying to get some cheap shots in on the hobgoblin via ranged soulknives, and make sure the wizard can cast ray of enfeeblement on the hobgoblin leader, that will severely hamper him. As this is happening, meet up with the ranger and have him lead you through the forest while the wizard casts ghost sound (with uberspeed the xeph can catch up). But in order for this plan to work you have to not directly engage the hobgoblin / wolf riding goblins. or you could take the easy path and charm person the hobgoblin :smallbiggrin: REMEMBER TO BUFF THE SOULKNIFE!!!

Corolinth
2007-05-04, 09:03 PM
Phase 2:

You'll want to retreat ASAP. You've got until about 4 or 5am to get the fudge out, and the bonfire will take a good hour. That leaves you with three hours (conservative estimate) of time before the goblins attack. You'll need to make a quick and dirty copy of the map for this next part. Once you've all put some distance between you and the goblins, split up. Send the soulblade back to town with the "map", while you, the warmage, and the wizard go to "look for the ranger". This requires you being duplicitous, and not telling the soulblade about the zombie taking the real map back to town.

You have three daggers. Give one of them to the warmage, and another to the wizard. Circle around, and head for the ocean if it's close enough (to get rid of your tracks). If the ocean is too far, just head for town and hope they followed the soulblade. There are enough of them to split up and follow both of you, and that's why you handed out the daggers. The goblins will not get the satisfaction of killing you themselves. Between you and the doomed soulblade, you ought to put them on enough of a wild goose chase to get the zombie back to town. Hopefully the goblins see three of you split off and think it's a diversion, thereby chasing after the soulblade. You might just get out of this alive. As for the ranger, he's got the best chance to make it back on his own.

Silkenfist
2007-05-05, 05:54 AM
Good idea, one additional bonus: Take the map and bury it somewhere in the territory where you are currently in. Make sure every one knows the location and is able to find it later. Then split up and make a run for it (with one of the methods above) in order to get at least one of you out of the forest alive. When the dust has cleared, return to the spot later and retrieve the map.

Telok
2007-05-05, 10:12 AM
A few notes and things that have been missed by several people.

The world is homebrew, well done and with alot of history in it. The game takes place on the New Continent, about 500 years ago the New Continent had just been discovered by exactly one city-state when the Old Continent had itself a nice little war. A nice little war involving epic spellcasters, armies of fiendish dire animals, CR 26+ dragons, necromatic rituals sacrificing whole cities and animating them, raising new volcanos, flattening portions of mountain ranges, and ending with what I think was an explosive continent-wide Mordenkainen's Disjunction. The western most island of the New Continent has, over the last 500 years, been turned into a fortress where the entire population is ready and waiting to kill anything that comes over the horizon. The decendants of the refugees from that war are about 75% likely to lynch a gold half-dagon paladin because the wings and scales make him look like a demon. We're fairly good about character/player knowledge and have tried to use anti-demon tatics on half-dragons before, it killed them anyways so obviously those tatics work well on demons. The reaction to necromancy is similar. Flagrant and ostentatious use of magic is frowned on and occasionally hazardous to your health. The goblinoids are indegenous to the continent and lack the strong negative reaction to such things.

Sending a zombie to deliver a map won't work. "Kill it with fire!" is the most restrained response I'd expect.

Local geography has us being about two days (mabey three) into the hills. From the edge of the hills it's farmland east/southeast to the city, about another day of hiking. The ocean is about six to eight days travel south of us. There are some streams in the hills but no rivers. It's currently early to mid spring, climate similar to southern Spain or France. We're facing cool damp nights and occasional light rain. If it were high summer we'd have gone pyro on the forest long ago, perfectly willing to risk druidic wrath.

It's currently shortly after midnight and the duel. The cleric and wizard have rested, the warblade has not. The wizard only has the spells I've already mentioned, the cleric regains spells at dawn. The goblins will attack one hour before dawn. The ranger is currently hidden in a tree at the edge of the clearing. The warmage has spent his time digging a shallow pit, his 'foxhole'. It's mabey two feet deep at most, just large enough to lay down in, and has a berm of earth around the edge about one foot high. I'm expecting it to function as decent cover until someone get's to melee range of him and turns it into a shallow grave. There is currently a large bonfire on the top of the hill, it will last to dawn which is more than can be said for the party.

My character is the Xeph cleric, everyone else is human. At this point I'm trying to save a fun character and two pages of backstory. I figure getting a couple of miles away from the wolves and surviving until dawn will do it, killing the soulblade would just be icing on the cake.

If this character dies, they're going to get a leader...

...and it's going to hurt.

Diggorian
2007-05-05, 12:48 PM
Hmm ... doesnt look good.

Of the two options you list, number 2 seems the best because the DM maybe feeling pity for such an overpowering encounter (and assuming your alignment let's you betray the ranger ally). You know your DM though, this may not be the case. do gewt the map. Without horses and with Xeph darkvision and speed you're the best bet to escape.

The javelins are the least of your worries, from 100 ft away they'll be at -6 to hit and kneeling by the boulders will give +6 to AC versus ranged.

Hopefully they'll send in the wolves next. Being only animals it could be possible to lure them to attack from a point opposite of the rangers location. The Color Spray and some Burning hands from the warmage could catch several in the AoE. Even if ya kill half, 12-13 wolves is still too many.

With the wolves engaged, burst speed down the hill towards the ranger yelling for him to cover you. Perhaps carry a light source so the human can target those that approach the cleric. Fifty goblins surrounding a 200ft diameter clearing means that there should be one goblin every 12-13ft. If they're levelless shouldnt be hard to overrun/bullrush/kill one or two, especially with the ranger sniping them.

In the the thick woods, the Xeph will have speed advantage on the goblins for 1 or 2 more rounds. Some will likely go to kill the newly revealed ranger, which will buy ya so more time.

That's about the best non-surrender plan I can see in your situation, sorry Telok. Not a total PK maybe. Sound like this crew could've used a strong leader type to avoid this.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-05-05, 02:50 PM
Surrounded, one hour prep time, almost out of every decent resource? You could have really used that skillmonkey and some clever use of the disguise check right about now.

As it stands, fighting and running aren't options. In the former they'd slaughter you, and in the latter they'd catch you. Negotiating is a rather poor choice too- no deal you could possibly cut would be worth more then all of your cooling and looted corpses. Surrendering might work, but that's a dangerous choice- if they take prisoners then you're good, but there's at least an equal chance that they'll just take your gear from you and then stab you because it's easy.

Your route is clear- you have to out-think these guys. A forest fire, as has been mentioned before, is a good start, but you should use it deliberately. It'd make for a great distraction, but you're surrounded. Thus, the distraction isn't so useful because you don't have the resources to muster any sort of surprise attack to overtake them afterwards. But fire can be useful for other things too. Like a hiding place.

If there's a serious fire, they aren't going to check the crispy center of it for you. They're going to expect the distraction and look for where you ran to, or brace for an ambush. You have one hour. Fell as many trees as you can, collect as much tender as you can, and surround yourselves by the downed trees and dry flammable forest bits. Get them just far enough away from you (though still encircling you) that it won't cook you alive, though it's likely to be very, very hot. Set fire to sections of the forest, then your little enclave of trees last. The goblins aren't going to be jumping through the fire to find you. You've bought yourselves some time.

Have the wizard and cleric rest. The soulblade and warmage need to start digging a trench of dirt to help survive that heat, then rest while keeping lookout for when that fire stops. Hopefully you can manage eight hours before it stops, but there's no guarantee on how long it will last- depends on the trees. At the very least, the goblins aren't going to come anywhere near you for a good while, and it'll still take them quite some time after the fire to locate the party. Scent ought to have a very hard time working over ashes and smoke, and the blazing inferno that appeared to be your camp ought to dissuade your pursuers into thinking you're still there.

Your biggest and best wild card right now is the ranger. He escaped this whole ordeal, he's still out there, AND he's got a good alignment- chances are, he'll be coming back when he's got either help or a good plan. But don't rely on him as anything other then a remote possibility.

Regardless, you've now likely got your party better healed again and either two or all casters back at full strength. Your odds are looking a lot better. Now is when you make a dead bolt run to escape the area. Your enemy is scrambled and no longer surrounding you, so your encounters will be vastly smaller. Unless you run into the hobgoblin's own portion of the search party, your escape should now be reasonable.

The New Bruceski
2007-05-05, 03:36 PM
If you do try to negotiate, remember: you're just trying to save your own skin from the actins of a group of fools, and the ranger has the map, and plans to stay hidden and flee to town with it. You want to make the ranger's location as large a bargaining chip as possible.

Corolinth
2007-05-05, 04:52 PM
Sending a zombie to deliver a map won't work. "Kill it with fire!" is the most restrained response I'd expect.Once the zombie gets to the city with the map, it doesn't matter if they kill it. In fact, that's probably for the better. The city guards kill the zombie, find the map, and assume old-world people are coming to invade them with goblin necromancers.

But hey, if you don't like that plan... I'll just keep thinking.

You could try digging your own foxhole, then scattering the warblade's blood all around to make it look like your friends killed you and hid the body.

Keep in mind, without UMD you can't use that scroll of Color Spray. Don't factor that in to any plans you make unless you're going to take the wizard or warmage with you. Honestly, I think you're looking for too much. This isn't about getting out alive, or getting the map back to the city. You need to make sure that the right people die. You could try offering to trade the soulblade into slavery in exchange for your own life. I'm going to have to let this stew. The zombieblade map courier was the best idea I had.

Diggorian
2007-05-06, 01:17 PM
I gave this scenario to a friend of mine during a party last night (yeah ... I'm that geeky :smallwink:).

His idea was for you and the whole party to make a dash for the ranger's postion while he covers you. If the wolves are encircling, only a quarter of them will get to you simultaneously and they'll give penalties to ranged goblin attacks. Only half the goblins will have line of sight for these attacks with roughly 2/3 at a couple of range increments. I like this as a better basis for the escape than my plan.

I further add that since it's just after the midnight duel and they'll attack at dawn -- giving you about six hours to prep -- make copies of the map for everyone to carry. This is easier than wrestling the map from the wizard and stealing other scrolls.

Suggest to the others that starting a forest fire would be a good distraction, we know it wont but they'll make themselves easier targets than you. Have everyone grab a torch or stick from the bonfire. Once you get to the treeline have your Xeph drop his flame then burst to get distance.

The undergrowth give ya 20% concealment but slow ya, still you'll faster than everyone else save the wolves, who'll be going for the slower easier to catch party members. Once you get 60ft away, the goblins wont see ya anymore and the wolves will likely be distracted with the others and have a -6 to spot/listen on top of that. They have to move at at half the speed of their goblin handlers to track ya well. Then three to four days to the city.

Corolinth
2007-05-06, 03:25 PM
Goblins can ride wolves. That's the problem he's facing. Wolves = goblin cavalry

Roethke
2007-05-06, 03:36 PM
Nah. At this point you've got to think outside the box. Way outside the box to avoid TPK, assuming DM isn't putting up the PC-shields.

Negotiate with the goblins. Agree to help them attack the town/ sneak inside or open the gates or some such. If the DM is on the ball, you'll probably learn that the reason the goblins were so well organized is that they were forced to band together to fight Urzoth, the Frost-Giant king, who has invaded their homelands. They're attacking the town for food and supplies. So then, the PCs have the opportunity to
A) Say, I know town X, a few days ride from here which is much, much richer
or
B) Start negotiating an alliance between the town and the goblin bands against Urzoth, because he's coming here next.
or
C) Impress the goblins with how many they've killed before meeting this band, and offer to "take care" of a rival goblin leader, without implicating the band. All this working together is unnatural, and there must still be rivalries that are kept under wraps.

Diggorian
2007-05-06, 04:27 PM
Goblins can ride wolves. That's the problem he's facing. Wolves = goblin cavalry

The wolves left over from fighting the rest of the party will have to track the Xeph at half their own speed then, still this gives speed advantage to the PC. If they move their normal speed, the wolves have a -1 Survival mod versus the firm ground DC 15. If they fail, the Xeph get's another hour further as they reorient. The cleric can slow to half speed for a few rounds to cover his tracks and add 5 to their DC further.

Not a great chance, but better than giving the map to a zombie that will get easily spotted and taken down.

My first post #17 acknowledged the viability of negotiation with the goblins, but I dont see why they risk trusting the party from what Telok has told us.

Telok
2007-05-08, 11:15 AM
Success! The cleric lives!

While the wizard was resting the cleric grabbed the map and walked down to talk to the hobgoblin. Traded the scroll of Animate Dead for safe passage and an escort of eight goblins and then left. At dawn he got spells, cast Longstrider, left the goblins in the dust and arrived back at town the following evening.

The rest of the party didn't fare so well. The top of the hill was about 40' across with 10' by 5' boulders along the edges, the boulders were about waist high and 10 feet apart. One five foot hex of bonfire in the center of the hilltop.

What was left of the party spread out around the area. Soulknife next to a rock in the NW quarter. Warmage in his hole at a gap in the boulders on the east side and had borrowed the soulknife's shortbow. The wizard was looking over a boulder on the south edge, no Mage Armor, only saw him cast a couple of Hailstone spells. There's about 15' separation between people. The ranger was still hidden in a tree at the edge of the clearing, just over one longbow range increment away.

The attack was from the southeast. Ten goblins on wolves, one goblin with three zombie wolves (riding one of them, and the GM uses Liber Mortis too), the still hurt (half health) hobgoblin, ten goblins with shortbows. The goblins fell out into three lines. First rank was wolfriders, last rank was archers, hobgoblin and goblin cleric in the middle with the zombie wolves.

End of the first round: Wolfriders near the top of the hill, leaders halfway up the hill, and the GM forgot about the archers. One goblin dead to a thrown soulblade, one wounded by an arrow, hobgoblin and one zombie wolf wounded by a spell.

End of second round: Soulknife menaced by a wolf after killing the rider. Wizard menaced by a wolfrider and a wolf, killed one goblin and hurt the wolf with a spell. One goblin dead to Ray of Frost, one goblin wounded by an arrow. Leaders at the top of the hill.

End of third round: Wizard is very dead, hit and tripped by a wolf and then failed to cast on the defensive (bad roll, all three AoO hit). Soulknife killed the wolf and circled to the back of the rock, hobgoblin moved up and hit him for 8 damage. Warmage killed another goblin with a cantrip, made a Will save from the goblin cleric and is surrounded by two wolves and a wolfrider. Zombie wolf hit by an arrow for 1 damage.

End of fourth round: Soulknife withdraws, hobgoblin pursues but cannot catch up. Warmage out of magic and surrounded by two wolfriders, two wolves, two zombie wolves. Some arrows miss, GM remembers the goblin archers and decides to ignore them. (The soulknife is an elf, which nobody realized until the player remembered at about this time. The low light vision bit became important suddenly.)

Fifth and later rounds: Ranger and soulknife flee after warmage is shredded by wolves. Hobgoblin decides not to pursue them. They will get back to town three days later.

There was some grumbling from the other survivors about the cleric's actions, this was passed off with "I didn't feel suicidal." There was more barking about the fact that the cleric had spent 200 of the 500 gp reward on a stone shrine commemorating the warblade's heroic sacrifice, and then buying almost another 200 gp worth of alchemical supplies and caltrops. The barking was dutifully ignored.

The party has now recruited new members and is becoming involved in local politics. "I go to a bar and look for the biggest, strongest, most heavily armed guy there and offer him a job."

Telok
2007-05-08, 11:29 AM
Ehh, the Edit function isn't working well for me. Multifail.

Possibly the best bit about this is the fact that the soulknife failed a spot/listen check.

The player didn't notice that the cleric mini wasn't in play until initative for combat was rolled. The resultant "He did what!?!?!" Was golden, purely because we had all been in the room while I was negotiating the cleric's escape.

Diggorian
2007-05-08, 12:07 PM
Congrats! :smallbiggrin: