How to best take down an enemy party?

[Corran]

Our group will be taking on an enemy party at some point during our next session. This party of NPCs consists of 5 individuals who were sent to complete the same quest as us and it seems that we will come to blows. Thanks to information we have from an inside man, we know a bit of these 5 enemies. In game terms, this group consists of the following members:
1) human paladin (S&B, most likely crown)
2) halforc barbarian (greataxe)
3) drow rogue
4) dwarf cleric
5) halfelf sorcerer

I dont know of their level, but I guess they will be around level 11, as we are.

1) halforc cleric (knowledge)
2) water genasi land druid (swamp - plays with ice/water spells mostly)
3) human bladelock (with 3 fighter levels for maneauvres - greatsword)
4) archer (multiclass build, with levels in rogue ranger and fighter -main dpr of the group)
5) dwarf battlemaster fighter

*Our fighter will probably miss our next session, which is a blow, but we will likely have a guest and I have no idea what he will play

So..... how should we take them down, should battle be unavoidable? Aim for the sorc? Or their cleric? Or perhaps should we try to each fight one of them seperately? That last bit sounds like a very bad idea to me, but I understand why most of the others players find it appealing. I will probably be the poor soul that will have to take on the barbarian (I play the bladelock). Anyway, what would your group tactics be?

C'mon you clever tacticians, help my group emerge victorious!

Thanks in advance for your answers!

ps: Forget the 1vs1 x 5 thing, I reckon I will convince them that it is just too risky.

[Armored Walrus]

This seems like the highest level of metagaming to me...

[Corran]

This seems like the highest level of metagaming to me...
Perhaps, but on my defense, the information was hard won, you see, I had my character infiltrate the enemy forces that sent these 5 mercenaries, using sending to feed my group with info, so it is already 3 sessions I am not playing my precious character, and it will probably be a couple more of the same (I brought the bladelock as a temporary substitute). Moreover, TPKs are always bad, and this whole situation reeks of TPK, as our DM has clearly implied in the recent sessions that he really wants to challenge us hard.

[Demidos]

Disclaimer: I've never gotten the chance to play 5e.

That being said, generally for party vs party tactics you want to aim for their weakest members who also deal the most damage (their glass cannons). They will likely be aiming for the same.

You also want to prioritize anyone who might be targetting your weak points -- e.g. if your party is high on AC and low on reflex saves, try to take down the person who will most be targetting that save via AOEs (probably the sorcerer). If your party has stellar saves and evasion and low ac, try to dominate the fighter instead.

You want to also prioritize good matchups -- if your fighter (or bladelock) can stalemate their barbarian while the rest of your team sweeps, that's a pretty good deal. Furthermore, look for 2 for 1s. If you can dominate their fighter and prevent them from counterspelling it, then you've just swung a big shift in the battle.

If you have an illusionist or any capability with them, you can set up an illusion that might just soak a full round of their actions. The key to illusions is to cheat -- you need to put up the illusion before they realize there is one. An example -- they see an illusion of your party, and begin prepping. "Your party" sees them and puts up an opaque shield. Sure, the enemies can attack the shield, and might even realize its an illusion, but they will take it for granted that the party is actually there.

Countertactics:
Now, the enemy party also has access to all of these tactics equally, so some things you can do to counter them -- mix up who is who -- if all your party is covered in heavy robes, it can be hard to tell which is a caster and which is a fighter. Further, illusionary backing can change the wizard to be wearing armor. If they don't know who to target it can be hard to set up an effective match-up.

[Temperjoke]

Tactic #1 - focus fire; the faster you knock out or disable an enemy, the fewer options they have. Priority targets are healers/artillary.

Tactic #2 - Control the enemy/field; limit the enemies options by incapacitating them or restricting their movements

[Daishain]

Immediate priorities to try for:
-Limit the involvement of the sorcerer and cleric. A nasty alpha strike to kill the sorc and Banishment on the cleric would work nicely
-Limit the rogue's ability to disappear on you
-Find a way to give the Barbarian disadvantage on his attacks. Blindness will do nicely if you can manage it. He's a crit fisher, and you want to avoid those 20's. Failing that, try to force him to waste a rage by keeping him from attacking someone and not attacking him for one round.
-keep the pally from reinforcing his buddies with auras and spells

[RickAllison]

potential counters I can think of:

Conjure Animals (maybe Minor Elementals or Woodland Beings?). Basically, you are trying to surround and overload individual members with enough attacks that you can auto-fail their saves. Ideally, your archer will knock them down to zero, then the animals come in and clear out while he is down. This is important because the cleric and paladin can both heal, and the paladin even helps keep them alive through death saves. The top priorities for this are the sorcerer (removing AoEs) and the rogue (preventing him from Sneak Attacking your party through surrounding him).

If the barbarian is separated from the paladin (out of his aura of protection), Banishment will be your friend. It is a charisma saving throw (so the barbarian likely has a negative modifier) and keeps him out of your face for a while.

So the strategy between both of these is trying to take out the glass cannons quickly and removing another combatant temporarily. This leaves the healers/tanks of the paladin and cleric. Ideally, you don't want to tussle with these two too much. You want to separate the two of them, as the paladin can protect the cleric's saves through his aura and the cleric can keep the paladin healthy while dishing out AoE through Spirit Guardians.

If the animals are still around, send them at the paladin so he blows through smites or time to deal with them. Meanwhile the cleric should be thoroughly trashed by the remaining people so he can't heal the paladin. Then, the paladin can be disposed of and the barbarian should be coming back for a visit. Take him out from range so he can't Rage.

[Laserlight]

OP, not to spoiler anything--is this encounter pn the grounds of an abbey? If so, I need to make the NPCs for that encounter next week, but they're L8. Which is the same level as the PCs.

[Corran]

OP, not to spoiler anything--is this encounter pn the grounds of an abbey? If so, I need to make the NPCs for that encounter next week, but they're L8. Which is the same level as the PCs.
Haha, no, the encounter is going to take place inside a cave system most likely, no abbey closeby. I know though the adventure to which you are reffering, it is a 4e adventure, right? Anyway, I suspect that the 5 enemies were inspired from that picture in the book of that adventure, though they are going to be heavily reworked. Moreover, there is a chance that I am not 100% correct about their classes, for example the barb might actually be a fighter, or the sorcerer might be a warlock, and so on. I just made assumptions based on the descriptions I was given and on how they behaved for the short amount of time my character got to inspect them.

ps: Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far, I will try to sum up everything in a post by some time tomorrow!

[Gtdead]

Let's see what we have here.

Paladin, tank, probably STR>CON>CHA priority, expected 21 to 23 AC (shield of faith?), 100ish HP
Barbarian, probably around 16 AC, I'm going to assume bear with 220~ effective hp.
Rogue, around 17 AC, hopefully not Assassin, 75~ hp
Dwarf Cleric, 20 AC, probably concentrating on bless or SG, possible 18 CON and Hill Dwarf for 100+ HP
Sorcerer, probably draconic, 21 AC (16+shield), 75~ hp


Killing the sorcerer first is kind of a no brainer. There are a few ways to do this.

Enhance ability on archer to go first, with assistance from warlock's EB and Fighter's javelins or
Dimension Door bomb (if your warlock has this spell, he can also bring the fighter with him), action surge him.

I like the Dimension Door approach because it instantly transports your two close quarters specialist in the enemy's backline. They can wreak havor with action surges and force the Paladin to support instead of dealing damage. The archer can deal with the cleric this way.

Banish the Barbarian. This is the cleric's job. Chances are that he will be out of Paladin Aura's range and with his terrible CHA, he will most likely fail his save.

Focusing the Cleric after Sorcerer may be a bad idea as he will most likely sanctuary himself. He can cast Banish however. It's better if the Warlock cast darkness and stay on cleric, with his high CHA saves, while the fighter either stays on the Paladin or go after the Rogue. If he still has his action surge available, it's possible to kill the rogue in one turn if he can get to him.

[Laserlight]

I know though the adventure to which you are reffering, it is a 4e adventure, right? Anyway, I suspect that the 5 enemies were inspired from that picture in the book of that adventure

4e, insufficiently ported to 5e. "Insufficiently" meaning the port apparently didn't include any stats for the competing party, which is why I need to make them up.

[Sigreid]

Kill the sorcerer, then the cleric, then the rogue, then the paladin and then the fighter.

[Sir cryosin]

Our group will be taking on an enemy party at some point during our next session. This party of NPCs consists of 5 individuals who were sent to complete the same quest as us and it seems that we will come to blows. Thanks to information we have from an inside man, we know a bit of these 5 enemies. In game terms, this group consists of the following members:
1) human paladin (S&B, most likely crown)
2) halforc barbarian (greataxe)
3) drow rogue
4) dwarf cleric
5) halfelf sorcerer

I dont know of their level, but I guess they will be around level 11, as we are.

1) halforc cleric (knowledge)
2) water genasi land druid (swamp - plays with ice/water spells mostly)
3) human bladelock (with 3 fighter levels for maneauvres - greatsword)
4) archer (multiclass build, with levels in rogue ranger and fighter -main dpr of the group)
5) dwarf battlemaster fighter

*Our fighter will probably miss our next session, which is a blow, but we will likely have a guest and I have no idea what he will play

So..... how should we take them down, should battle be unavoidable? Aim for the sorc? Or their cleric? Or perhaps should we try to each fight one of them seperately? That last bit sounds like a very bad idea to me, but I understand why most of the others players find it appealing. I will probably be the poor soul that will have to take on the barbarian (I play the bladelock). Anyway, what would your group tactics be?

C'mon you clever tacticians, help my group emerge victorious!

Thanks in advance for your answers!

ps: Forget the 1vs1 x 5 thing, I reckon I will convince them that it is just too risky.

Have the bladelock and fighter disarm the paladin and barbarian then use ya'lls extra attacks to kick the there weapons away from them. Have your druid and archer and cleric stands back. Have your druid cast daylight on him self and have him keep by the archer and cleric to keep the the rouge at disadvantage if he attacks them do to his sunlight sensitivity. Have the archer focus fire on rouge then to the sorcerer. Have cleric on heal and duff. Make sure the bladelock and fighter keeps the barbarian and paladin from picking up there weapons. The bladelock should have armor of agathys on. Cleric druid need to be with the archer keeping him safe from the other casters so the archer can take care of the enemy casters.

[Corran]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions so far, big day is the day after tomorrow. Let me sum up some of your thoughts.

First of all, I really like the idea to try to cast banishment on their barbarian. If we can catch him outside their paladin's aura,and if our cleric can keep his concentration long enough (which shouldnt be a huge issue), this move can be a real game changer. As things are, we dont have a beast AC tank that we could throw against the barbarian, so banishing him seems the best option.

Neutralising their drow rogue, either through daylight (that suggestion trully took me by surprise, no matter how obvious it now seems to me), or through blindness, or even surrounding him with summons (I quite like this one too), can certainly be sth our group can work out (have to check with the other players regarding their prepared spells). Alternatively, dimension door and action surge could get the job done, though I fear their cleric poping them back up, so finding an efficient way to impose disadvantage on his attacks (and thus prevent him hopefully from sneak attacking) seems to be the most reliable solution.

Taking out the sorcerer first trough dealing pure damage seems doable, and our archer can hopefuly keep dropping him if the enemies try to heal him, I really hope the initiatve order will do us a favor there, meaning that our archer will benefit from going before the sorcerer but after the enemy that will heal him. Anyway, focusing our fire on the sorcerer in the first (few) round(s) wont be that tricky imo.

So, if things go as planned, with the sorcerer down asap, the barbarian banished, and the drow rogue neutralised with imposed disadvantage, we could be talking about taking on the cleric as soon as from round 2 or 3.



TEAM TACTICS

So our cleric will use his concentration with banishment, perhaps even upcasting it by one level to include the rogue (as the cleric or the paladin or the sorcerer would be poor choices for targeting them with this spell). Repeat until it sticks, then focus on the sorcerer with sacred flame and spiritual weapon, or with bigger guns if needs be, if the sorcerer is still up and until the sorcerer gets dropped, while trying to keep a distance so that his concentration wont be endangered. Alternatively, if he is being fired upon, he could cast sanctuary and spend his slots healing us. Though the plan for our cleric will clearly be to take out the barbarian until we can incapaciatate his allies. Edit: If the cleric does so well as to banish the rogue along with the barbarian, that frees up one round for our druid, who would need not spend a round to cast daylight.

Our druid could cast daylight on the first round. That way their drow rogue would be prevented from sneak attacking us. Then she could use her concentration to cast woodland beings and surround the paladin(?). This way we could confine him at least for a little while, so that we could have some control over where does his aura stretches, perhaps even making him burn some smites on the poor summons. There is a chance (initiative dependent), where our druid might be best off casting woodland beings to surround the paladin first, if for example the barbarian moves out from the palaidin's aura, and our cleric plays after the paladin, so our druid could intercept the paladin's movemet through casting the summons around him, thus allowing our cleric a better chance at banishing the barbarian. So our druid's role would be to de buff their rogue through casting daylight, and also using summons to restrict the paladin's movement (or even the rogue's movement, if the rogue seems like a bother).

Our archer will try to take down the sorcerer by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him, enhancing his dex so that he can hopefuly go first is an idea I quite like too. Then he can focus his fire where we need it the most, all while spending some of his attacks on the sorcerer if the enemies try to heal him. Seems pretty straightforward.

The bladelock (me), can help the archer take down the sorcerer fast, especially if I can engage the sorcerer in melee. I am a bit reluctant as to if I should burn one of my two slots to dimension door next to him that soon in combat and action surging him to bits. Perhaps I could just EB him, but I guess it will depend on how the archer rolls. I would like to think that everything will work really well, and I will be able to keep my action surge for their cleric, tripping him with my first attack and the GWMing him to the ground with the rest 3 attacks (action surge included). I was initially thinking of using my first round to cast either fireball or hold person (with a 4th level slot), but with their paladin around that seems less appealing, especially if the barbarian is a berserker (unfortunately, I have not chosen banishment). Uing hex along with EB during the first round, to help take down the sorcerer, seems like what I am going to do, and I am thinking for a defensive buff (cast before combat if possible) to use with my second slot. Either AoA, or mirror image, or even fire shield. If I cannot cast before combat, then I could use it with sth that does not mess up with my action economy, sth like counterspell, or hellish rebuke, etc. But generally, my role should be to help take down the sorcerer fast, and then just try to focus where the group is focusing.

Our fighter, well, if he can make it to the session, could try and lock their paladin down, with sentinel. Besides that, hitting harder than he is being hit is all I can think of. Between me and him using maneuvres to trip the enemies, we can work some advantage in our favour, though we will have to be careful to not make things harder for our archer (who is the main dpr). Edit: Or the fighter could just try and lock the cleric down with sentinel, allong him only healing through ranged healing spells, which heal for less, and so the cleric would be restricted to cantrips and weapon attacks with his action.


ps: I'll go through the thread one more time to see what I have missed!

[djreynolds]

Well they have a barbarian and you do not. But barbarians are susceptible to banishment. But this party is a well put together party. It has excellent balance and they can nova, and they have two "controllers" in the paladin and cleric, a pain the in the arse barbarian.

You must separate the barbarian and the paladin, if not, banishment will not work. My advice is bring in reinforcements. Conjure animals, keep your druid safe and focus on killing the paladin with arrows and eldritch blast. Perhaps a pushing blast from the from warlock can separate the pair, then pounce on the barbarian with banishment.

Number 1, conjure animals to create a line. Have the archer begin targeting the paladin, and the warlock as well, remember grenade range and spread out

Number 2, have the battlemaster plug the lines that will open up in the conjured animals, good way to get sentinel reaction attacks. Think American football linebacker, this just stopping the paladin/barbarian duo from advancing to fast. Must give the warlock time to separate the pair with repelling blast You did take repelling blast?

Number 3, have the cleric drop insect plague in the middle of their party. Why? These guys like to be close, they are designed to be together, spread them out. They want to huddle around the paladin, they have will have increased saves and a dex saved based AoE is just damage that is easily repairable.

So, druid sets a line of conjured animals, an impediment. The cleric drops insect plague on them and spreads them out. The paladin and barbarian will be attached, have the archer target the paladin and the warlock separate the duo with repelling blast, then banish the barbarian.

Their sorcerer is going to hurt you, suck it up. Their cleric is going to hurt you suck it up. But the key is that paladin/barbarian duo they must be separated. It has to be fast.

This is my advice for this party, they want you to engage them in melee. They do not care if your drop fireballs on them, they have oodles of healing.

Their sorcerer is sure to have the shield spell, do not engage him in melee. He wants you to. I know he going to drop AoEs on you, but the paladin/barbarian duo is their lynch-pin. The rogue can hurt you, but you must be willing to take some hits to seprate the barbarian from the paladin and banish him. Then you can drop AoEs on the cleric/sorcerer duo.

[MrStabby]

Use arcane eye. Know where the enemy is and ambush them in their sleep. I believe the paladin aura requires consciousness to be of any use.

Stealthy characters get close to open up first and hopefully leave the enemy surprised. If they can open up with silence then very good - it stops enemy sentry alerting the others all at once and it means casters have to move away from the rest of the group to cast (and hopefully away from the paladin aura).

Up-cast hold person might be good as well - sure a lot of characters will pass but even if you only take a couple of them out of the fight it is still a big advantage.

In the fight you want to persuade people to leave the paladin save bonus area - Silence, fireball, stinking cloud etc. are all useful, but it is likely to depend on initiative order to see if you can punish this before they regroup. Counterspell may persuade casters to back away from the paladin to cast, but if you are to far away they can close back in again.

[Sir cryosin]

I'm telling you to use a battle maneuver to disarm the paladin and the barbarian. If they don't have a weapon they can't do to much. If you have the rest of there party dead or locked down. Now I'm only gusting but they should only have 1 weapon. With out a weapon they can grapple take help action or just punch you which they again only guessing but they shouldn't be proficient with unarmed strikes.

[Vogonjeltz]

So..... how should we take them down, should battle be unavoidable? Aim for the sorc? Or their cleric? Or perhaps should we try to each fight one of them seperately? That last bit sounds like a very bad idea to me, but I understand why most of the others players find it appealing. I will probably be the poor soul that will have to take on the barbarian (I play the bladelock). Anyway, what would your group tactics be?

Your party doesn't seem to have much in the way of frontline characters, just the Battlemaster.

That being the case, hopefully the Warlock has Hold Person, that could take up to 3 of the opposing party out of the fight (albeit temporarily). Best possible targets are probably the Rogue, Sorcerer, and Barbarian.

Does your party have the option of setting an ambush now that you all know they are coming? It's probably your best opportunity to make this an unfair fight in your favor (which is the only kind of fight you want to have).

[KorvinStarmast]

Does your party have the option of setting an ambush now that you all know they are coming? It's probably your best opportunity to make this an unfair fight in your favor (which is the only kind of fight you want to have). Ambush. A surprise attack is what you want to set up. (See a few thousand years of military history and the use of deception on the battlefield). Is an ambush / deception guaranteed to work?

No. Put your brains, all five of them, into developing a plan that you think will work.
Then ... ambush the other party.
(If you have a cleric with a glyph of warding spell, loading that with a particular spell that will disable the other party when they pass by it might be a good way to trigger the ambush. One of many ideas).

[Sir cryosin]

Ambushing in Guerrilla tactics are very powerful. Let me use one example here have you heard of the Vietnam war? The u.s.a lost that war because of Vietcong used guerrilla warfare tactics. The U.S.A had a strong, bigger and more powerful army. Also why do you think assassins, ninjas and snipers, ect are feared. It because they can get in hit the target and get out and do it all over. If you can hit your enemy hard get out and make them waste resources just chasing you. You are weakling them.

[Corran]

snip
Yep, we must find a way to get the barbarian more than 10 feet away from the paladin. Unfortunately, I have not takEN repelling blast, as I was focusing my invocations more towards melee and I was considering EB for a backup ranged attack. That said, my invocations are thirsting blade, devil's sight (because human), and I took agonizing blast, now that I think about it after what you said, I seem to have underestimated repelling blast. Perhaps the initiative will do us a favor and have our cleric play after the barbarian and before the paladin, hance probably catching the barbarian outside the radius of the paladin's aura. Or perhaps we could surround the paladin with small summons for a round or two. Or line them up just like you said, if the barbarian rushes us first. Either way, I agree that it will be very beneficial to try to banish the barbarian when outside the aura, but in the end, we might just have to spam it until it sticks.

Regarding targeting the paladin first, if that is indeed what you suggested, that seems a bit odd to me. Since our main dpr targets AC, I am not too afraid of his bonus to his allies' saves, aside from some crucial spells, like banishment. I just think that it will take a long time for us to take down the paladin with his high AC and his lay on hands ability, and with the cleric healing him. I think we should leave him for last (aside of the barbarian who hopefully we will take on after we deal with his allies, once banishment runs its duration).

And sure the sorcerer will have access to the shield spell, raising his AC to around 19-20, and he sure might take us a bit longer to take him down, but as long as he is casting shield, that means he is not counterspelling our banishment, daylight, conjure spell, etc.

I also like the insect plague or casting similar spells that would split them as an idea, but the problem is that all these spells require concentration, and I am pretty convined that banishment and conjure woodland beings/animals/whatever is the ideal choice for our cleric and druid.


Use arcane eye. Know where the enemy is and ambush them in their sleep. I believe the paladin aura requires consciousness to be of any use.

Stealthy characters get close to open up first and hopefully leave the enemy surprised. If they can open up with silence then very good - it stops enemy sentry alerting the others all at once and it means casters have to move away from the rest of the group to cast (and hopefully away from the paladin aura).

Up-cast hold person might be good as well - sure a lot of characters will pass but even if you only take a couple of them out of the fight it is still a big advantage.

In the fight you want to persuade people to leave the paladin save bonus area - Silence, fireball, stinking cloud etc. are all useful, but it is likely to depend on initiative order to see if you can punish this before they regroup. Counterspell may persuade casters to back away from the paladin to cast, but if you are to far away they can close back in again.
We will certainly try to ambush them, we always try to set up a surprise, several of our group members have the ability to scout ahead via various methods (cleric has arcane eye, the archer is naturally very stealthy, the druid canscout ahead as a small incospicuous animal - she could turn into a bat and scout ahead in the caves we are in). There is a downside to this however in this occasion, in that the enemies know we are coming, they are already ahead of us in the race to finsh the quest by acquiring a magical artifact of sorts, and they will most likely try to do the same, meaning to set some traps for us or wait for us at a convenient for them point where they will have the upper hand. Hopefully they wont catch us off guard, and who knows maybe we will be cunning enough to find a way to surprise them, though I would say it would have to be a very cunning plan indeed.cunning as a fox who was just appointed as professor of cunningness in the university of Oxford

I am afraid that hold person wont work, even without the paladin's bonus, they have good wis saves most of them, and my warlock only has 2 slots, probably gonna use them for dimension door or hex, and the second one for some kind of defensive buff to tank my bit, especially if our battlemaster cannot show up for the session



Ambush. A surprise attack is what you want to set up. (See a few thousand years of military history and the use of deception on the battlefield). Is an ambush / deception guaranteed to work?

No. Put your brains, all five of them, into developing a plan that you think will work.
Then ... ambush the other party.
(If you have a cleric with a glyph of warding spell, loading that with a particular spell that will disable the other party when they pass by it might be a good way to trigger the ambush. One of many ideas).
We will certainly try, we have the tools at our disposal to do so, we just have to find a clever and original way to go about it.
ps: Crap, now I really fear that they will have a glyph of warding set up for us!!! Oh no, we are going to have a TPK...!!!!!





Your party doesn't seem to have much in the way of frontline characters, just the Battlemaster.

That being the case, hopefully the Warlock has Hold Person, that could take up to 3 of the opposing party out of the fight (albeit temporarily). Best possible targets are probably the Rogue, Sorcerer, and Barbarian.

Does your party have the option of setting an ambush now that you all know they are coming? It's probably your best opportunity to make this an unfair fight in your favor (which is the only kind of fight you want to have).
Hey, my bladelock is offended!:smallsmile:
But yeah, we cant tank the beast that is a barbarian, we have to banish him, his cha save must be weak, right? Upcasted hold person was in my plans initially, but I dont think it will work well, and we dont have the best set up to profit from it either way, I might give it a try if I see that I dont need to use my second slot for dimension door to finish off their backline (sorcerer, rogue). Regarding an ambush, we will certainly try it! Crosses fingers:smallwink:


I'm telling you to use a battle maneuver to disarm the paladin and the barbarian. If they don't have a weapon they can't do to much. If you have the rest of there party dead or locked down. Now I'm only gusting but they should only have 1 weapon. With out a weapon they can grapple take help action or just punch you which they again only guessing but they shouldn't be proficient with unarmed strikes.
Yeah, that is a good idea indeed. The problem again lies with my decisions during character creation, I did not take disarming strike (took precision, riposte and trip), and I am not sure if our battlemaster has taken it as well. Even if he has, it is very possible that we will not have him in our session tomorrow, so that seems out. But even of we could do it, I still would be very hesitant to pull off a trick like that. I mean, this trick is fine, and I could certainly see and like if a character pulled it off in a (non-lethal friendly) duel, but if we were to begin doing it in proper encounters, I think it would create a real mess in our table.


Ambushing in Guerrilla tactics are very powerful. Let me use one example here have you heard of the Vietnam war? The u.s.a lost that war because of Vietcong used guerrilla warfare tactics. The U.S.A had a strong, bigger and more powerful army. Also why do you think assassins, ninjas and snipers, ect are feared. It because they can get in hit the target and get out and do it all over. If you can hit your enemy hard get out and make them waste resources just chasing you. You are weakling them.Oh, I hear you! Our group loves ambushing enemies. In fact we have dont it so many times (sometimes even resulting in trivialising hard encounters) that I have lost count. My main character in this campaign afterall is an assassin (warlock is a temp sub while my char spies for the group), and it is no accident that the cleric uses often spells like arcane eye and scrying, nor that the archer has a dip in rogue for extra stealth goodness, and our druid has come really handy when we need to scout ahead too. Problem is, that I have a feeling that we will end up in the wrong side of the surprise round in this one. They know we are coming, we know they are ''there'', wherever ''there'' may be. Perhaps I should have started a thread on how to outsmart them and be the ones that will manage to pull the surprise instead.:smallsmile:

[Celcey]

I'm just terribly excited to see how this plays out. It sounds like you've got a great plan- let us know how it pans out!

[Corran]

Big fight is tomorrow, I will sure come back here to tell you how it played out!

[djreynolds]

But it is possible for the battlemaster to move and take the dodge action continuously. And use his parry maneuver because it is a reaction, if he has it. But the dodge action, which gives the attacker disadvantage on all attack rolls, would cancel out the barbarian's reckless attack and coupled with the fighter's high AC, make him don a shield for this fight, could keep the barbarian occupied long enough for the archer to kill the sorcerer. If he has riposte or parry, both are reaction based. But as long as he moves in the barbarian's path, the barbarian will either be forced to hit the fighter or move around him and the fighter could get some AoOs. Its not much, but it is attrition.

The only issue is the paladin's smite, if he sticks with the barbarian, the fighter is doomed in time. But it will eat up spell slots of the paladin. You only need one guy standing to win the fight and pay for raising the dead.

Also I had a thread on warding bond, I used it and its not bad. Picture this, have the cleric cast warding bond on the battlemaster, as it lasts 10 minutes, basically they split the damage and its not concentration and there is a +1 to the recipients AC. If the fighter has plate and shield and warding bond, his AC is 21 and with taking the dodge action the paladin will have disadvantage to hit him and the barbarian will just have normal strikes, the fighter could provide your archer and warlock time to do some knife work, and kill the sorcerer and start in on the cleric. And shield of faith cast from the cleric could boost that fighter's AC to 23. So if you cannot banish the barbarian right out of the gate, this could help. And seeing as warding bond is a 2nd level spell, no concentration, and lasts for 10 minutes... you could cast this first before you get to the enemy as a back up plan... I'm sure the sorcerer will try to counterspell your banishment.

Its all about contingency and redundancies.

Anyhow, I'm excited to see how this turns out. I'd much rather discuss this stuff.

[unwise]

Have you at least attempted to talk them out of fighting? It should be pretty easy to talk a paladin out of attacking people that don't want to fight. It looks like a tough fight, why not offer to split the quest with them? It would make it super easy and you at least walk away with 50% of the loot/glory.

[MrStabby]

Have you at least attempted to talk them out of fighting? It should be pretty easy to talk a paladin out of attacking people that don't want to fight. It looks like a tough fight, why not offer to split the quest with them? It would make it super easy and you at least walk away with 50% of the loot/glory.


Actually, this is not a bad suggestion. If nothing else you might be able to plead for the enemy paladin to quit the fight against you if it runs contrary to their oath and the other party goes full murderhobo on you.

[Daishain]

Actually, this is not a bad suggestion. If nothing else you might be able to plead for the enemy paladin to quit the fight against you if it runs contrary to their oath and the other party goes full murderhobo on you.
If the pally is oath of the crown though, that is only likely to work if killing you is against the interests of the society he serves. Crown panders to the full spectrum of lawful alignments, including (and in some ways especially) lawful evil.

[JackPhoenix]

Neutralising their drow rogue, either through daylight (that suggestion trully took me by surprise, no matter how obvious it now seems to me)

That doesn't work, Daylight is not sunlight and doesn't do anything to drow. Only two MM creatures vulnerable to not sunlight, but bright light in general, are shadow demon and cloaker.

[Corran]

That doesn't work, Daylight is not sunlight and doesn't do anything to drow. Only two MM creatures vulnerable to not sunlight, but bright light in general, are shadow demon and cloaker.
Hmmm, that makes things a bit trickier, however it's good to know!



If the pally is oath of the crown though, that is only likely to work if killing you is against the interests of the society he serves. Crown panders to the full spectrum of lawful alignments, including (and in some ways especially) lawful evil.
Exactly. Long story short, the king has gathered his army and has gone forth ''liberating'' other kingdoms from their oppressors so he can oppress them himself. And he left his ''Hand'' behind, to rule while he is away conquering. With the Hand recently murdered, everyone left behind in the kingdom is killing each other in the name of the absent king. The Lord who hired the enemy party, is one of the ''bad guys'' so to speak, and he knows us and clearly wants us dead (he tried it in the past but we nearly escaped with our lives). It is certain that he has tricked the paladin and the rest of the enemy party that we mean harm. I could see us trying to negotiate with these guys, and we probably at least attempt it, but I dont think it will achieve anything more than them requesting that we surrender to them so they can take us back to the bad guy who we know that will certainly kill us, and possibly them too after they bring us to him.



Resolution
I promised to come back and tell you what happened with the fight. Basically, there was no fight with these guys, as we didnt bump into them. Yet..... Instead we were set upon some really irritating animated objects, some very dangerous terrain, some traps, well... quite a lot of traps, and about a million fooking riddles, puzzles and illusions! Yeah that's right, that whole place was some sort of maze, and every time we were finding a solution to what we were up ahead, we were allowed to venture deeper and closer to the item we were looking for. In the end of it all, we came accross and old foe who was trapped there. He offered us to help us get what we were looking for (essentially he offered to give us the item we were looking for, as he had found it), in exchange, we would help him with his plan to escape from that place. After some arguing between us, we finally decided to work with him instead of fighting him, and to fast forward it a bit, we all managed to resurface safe and well. We honored our agreement with this dude, and we let him go on his merry way (I am sure this wont come back to bite us in the *ss:smalltongue:). Now we are relatively safe, in a camp among a good 120 or so armed slodiers who work for the ''good guys''. How we move on from there, is up to us, and there are many different courses of action we could take, but I couldnt even begin to explain without typing for hours about what else has happened in the campaign so far, and tbh, I am not a very good writer. As for the enemy party..... who knows? Maybe they are still stuck in that underground maze, if they even entered at all, and perhaps we beat them to the heart of the maze. Maybe they didnt even go in there, and instead let us do the dirty job and plan on attacking us when we are off guard. Time will tell...

[djreynolds]

You know that joke about how to keep an idiot in suspense.....

You just pulled that on all of us... especially me...

I was really looking forward to the results.:smallfrown: