Advice in solving a faction mission / situation.

[jokeaccount]

Hi everyone,

Last session I was presented with a situation that took me some time to solve and it was a little messy so I was wondering about someone more experienced would do in that situation (the DM wasn't inclined in giving us a complete solution on how he thought we could solve the problem).

Things you should know:

-The mission was quite simple: Go into a cave where a bunch of Clerics of the evil god we're up against were waiting around and 'kidnap' as many of the god's followers we could. Note that this heresy actually kidnaps commoners and brainwashes them + imbues them with a spirit from another plane then trains them for the final battle they're expecting to fight in order for the deity to prevail. Thus all the commoners are willingly there that's why it is a 'kidnapping' although in my character's eyes we're saving them. Note, we must not kidnap any Cleric, only the common folk.

-This mission was undertook by me a Rog4/Ftr5/Shadow Walker 1/Shadow Lord 3 (WITH shadow pounce due to some story circumstances). This character is a shadow pouncer without ToB. He usually pounces for 2 full attacks using Boots of Swift Passage then Dimension Door/Shadow Jump. He more or less does about 200 dpr. I also brought along my Wizard9/FateSpinner4/Archmage1 (also with his last Fate Spinner ability) party member.

-After scouting the cave we found out there were 7 Clerics and 18 commoners. The cave was quite large (maybe 1-2 miles in depth) and had many 'rooms' etc. They also had a training room and a common room where they would eat lunch and dinner. They would generally eat all together except 2-3 clerics and 1-2 commoners. At night they would sleep, about 4-5 in each room but never all together. About 10 commoners slept every night while others were going around patrolling or doing stuff. They would rarely go out of the cave. Also in the cleric leader's room they had a portal of an undefined destination (probably to another concentration camp). Finally the cave was protected by an bunch of Unhallow spells with Dimensional Anchor bound to it.

How would you tackle this mission? Also how would you tackle this mission solo with the Rogue character? (That was the goal in the first place).

[Fizban]

Great, lost my whole post. Well now you get the shorter blander angrier version.

Simplest plan is always smash face. How strong are the clerics? Are the commoners actually a threat? Unhallow+anchor doesn't prevent you from teleporting in, only getting out. Attack when they're asleep, hit the concentration of awake clerics while the rest of the party hits the sleeping ones. Nonlethal AoEs can be used to subdue the commoners and also soften up the primary targets. Sleeping separately means they're dumb: adventurers always sleep in the same room (barricaded shut) so they're not alone when the assassins show up. If they sleep in distant areas and there are narrow hallways you and the wizard could just frontal assault the place and take them out as they show up one by one.

Solo depends on how the DM is actually running it: some DMs will let you get away with anything because they don't actually have a simulation. If they're actually tracking everything then a "solo" character needs someone with a bird's eye view to play control tower, like a familiar that's viewing all the major areas via magic (first rule of being solo is don't actually be solo). If combat, again you can totally teleport in and drop your bomb: bait them to the edge, step out, then bamf on top of them and leave none standing to warn that their security measures were wrong (the correct spell was Forbiddance).

Can't plan the solo mission without a lot more information. All you can really do is sneak in, wait until everything's lined up so that you can pull the job, and then pull the job if it does. Either your Dim Door drop has enough range and damage to clear a room (under Silence) and you can pick off each room one at a time, or it doesn't and you can't. Don't know how you're supposed to transport multiple captured foes by yourself either.

[jokeaccount]

We thought of going the combat way but we didn't know if the enemies were strong or not so we opted for a less dangerous solution (also we generally play optimized fights so you never know what shenanigans the DM has prepared). The commoners definitely aren't lvl 1 Commoners. They all have about 3-4 class levels probably along with the custom template the DM has given them (follower of evil deity). The Clerics were about lvl 8-9 but we were afraid of them being higher so engaging them head on wasn't the best option. Also we were afraid that if we extracted them one by one they would get afraid and bring reinforcements or leave so we had to do everything in one swoop. Also the cave is quite big, using DDoor from outside to kill someone wouldn't work unless they were close to the exit.

What we did was use lots of AoE dispels on the common room suppressing the Unhallow effect for 24 hours. Then we surprised them while they were eating using Mass Suggestions, killing off any Cleric that didn't get affected. Then we teleported them out 5 at a time. I think we followed the rules correctly but I'm not 100% sure. We ended up killing 2 Clerics and left the rest there.

[Fizban]

That reminds me of another tactic: calling shenanigans on how they're paying 5,000gp per 40-80' per year on that mile long cave.

Unhallow is instantaneous, meaning it can't be suppressed by dispelling. The added spell effect is vague so the DM could make up a lot but the magic circle effect is there to stay, so technically it shouldn't have worked. But with the way you ran it that was as good a plan as any, I hadn't noticed that Mass Suggestion was only 6th and it pretty much takes the cake.

Doing it one by one, I wouldn't seriously recommend it either, it's just the only non-magical option. Barring some sort of poison or engineering feat (social or structural), but I tend to frown on those since they have no basis in actual mechanics (see: DMs letting you get away with things).

[jokeaccount]

From what we checked out, using dispel we're not suppressing the Unhallow effect but the extra effects themselves because they have a duration of 1 year. We used a, probably custom, ruling where the effect (since it is persistent through the Unhallow) gets a dispel check every 24 hours to break the suppression but otherwise I think it should have worked.

[Gildedragon]

Knock some guards out and infiltrate. I expect they wear heavy, face obscuring, robes, right? They're cultists, of course I'm right.

Go in and CdG sleeping clerics.
How to make them sleep: sleep poison in the food. A lot of it.
And prestidigitation to hide the flavor.
Tie up the sleeping commoners.

[jokeaccount]

Knock some guards out and infiltrate. I expect they wear heavy, face obscuring, robes, right? They're cultists, of course I'm right.

Go in and CdG sleeping clerics.
How to make them sleep: sleep poison in the food. A lot of it.
And prestidigitation to hide the flavor.
Tie up the sleeping commoners.

I really like your idea but I don't have any ability to handle poisons so I might mess it up. Also isn't sleep poison a low level poison i.e. its DC would be low? Those clerics have at least 10+ Fort Saves so there is a low chance of them getting affected... We generally have discarded mundane stuff like poison because at the levels we are playing most stuff can easily make the save required anyway.

[Fizban]

Mass poisoning is not feasible in DnD for many reasons, chief among them being that it's ridiculously expensive. Every single mass poisoning plan requires the DM allowing you to generate poisons with Minor/Major Creation, and I will virtually guarantee it's not something the designers would have allowed had they thought of it (which they probably didn't because the spell creates an object). Even then the poison is immediately detected upon the first person eating it and triggering the fort save: you actually need an undefined alchemical concoction to drug their food without them noticing. It's probably rather telling that I can't recall any books actually printing such a substance.

So, it only works if the DM lets you get away with it.

Disguising is plenty useful-with the right stuff you could even convince the targets to kidnap themselves, but otherwise it's just a substitute for full stealth.