Player strategies

[technomagi]

I wanted to start a new thread where players could brainstorm strategies for handling various situations.

Just to throw a couple out there I always like to have my characters carry a small steel mirror with them. I use it in dungeon crawls to look around corners and through partially opened doors. Often this has alerted my party to the presence of creatures laying in wait.

I always have character carry pitons and a hammer. I sometimes use these to pin doors open or closed depending on the situation. This prevents having ones retreat blocked or having creatures burst in on you unannounced while your party is trying finish a time consuming task.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Mount is one of the most useful 1st level spells out there. Sure, it can be ridden around, both in and out of battle, but it can also be used to make money (assuming your mark doesn't have ranks in Spellcraft), to act as a mobile wall during a fight, and to simply stand in front of a door, inside a doorway, or in a 5' or 10' hall (especially in an intersection) to prevent anyone passing through. If the door is closed, just have the horse lean against it for 2 hours/level to act as a makeshift arcane lock that can't actually be unlocked, because horses are heavy.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I like carrying around lead sling bullets, when I have the matter agitation power, which allows you to melt it. Pour molten lead into locks that won't close, throw molten lead through peep-holes you don't trust, all sorts of practical applications.

[technomagi]

Situation:
Your party is faced with a new unknown creature. It is 8' tall, very strong, has the ability to walk through stone, and have very fast regeneration. These creatures stand between you and a great treasure which must be accessed by completing a time consuming puzzle. Unfortunately the puzzle resets if the process is interrupted and this has already happened to the party multiple times.

While taking the creatures out has not proven overly difficult for your party they keep getting back up and interrupting you half way through the puzzle allowing it to time out and reset. Not to mention that the party is taking damage and using resources to continually fight a foe that keeps getting back up.

It is not known if there is anything that can permanently kill the creatures all that fighting them has accomplished is to knock them unconscious for a short time. The party has tried burning them, hitting them with magic, and dumping acid on them. None of these worked. The only thing that you know about the creatures is that they seem content to stay near the treasure. When the party has left to rest and bind wounds the creatures did not follow. What do you do to give your party time to complete the puzzle?

[ExLibrisMortis]

[Situation]
Well, what did I just say? Molten lead! Just cover fill the creature with molten lead, particularly the ears, nostrils, throat, and so forth. That should keep them out of order for a while.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Situation:
Your party is faced with a new unknown creature. It is 8' tall, very strong, has the ability to walk through stone, and have very fast regeneration. These creatures stand between you and a great treasure which must be accessed by completing a time consuming puzzle. Unfortunately the puzzle resets if the process is interrupted and this has already happened to the party multiple times.

While taking the creatures out has not proven overly difficult for your party they keep getting back up and interrupting you half way through the puzzle allowing it to time out and reset. Not to mention that the party is taking damage and using resources to continually fight a foe that keeps getting back up.

It is not known if there is anything that can permanently kill the creatures all that fighting them has accomplished is to knock them unconscious for a short time. The party has tried burning them, hitting them with magic, and dumping acid on them. None of these worked. The only thing that you know about the creatures is that they seem content to stay near the treasure. When the party has left to rest and bind wounds the creatures did not follow. What do you do to give your party time to complete the puzzle?One word: Diplomacy.

[Gildedragon]

Go invisible/hide-in-plain-sight and very quiet, get a tinkering with the puzzle
Diagram the puzzle while away to examine the clues (take 20 on the disable device check to solve the puzzle intelligently)

Use HIGH (30+) knowledge checks to find out what the things are OR try dispelling them (my guess: pseudoreal monsters)

Alternatively: why bother with the puzzle? Dump acid and mountain-hammer the puzzle itself

[technomagi]

This is an actual situation from a game I played in. The creatures seem at best bestial. They grunt and growl so communication didn't seem likely. What we did was split the party. Our fighters and healer kept the creatures busy while the wizard and the thief worked on the puzzle and then retrieved the treasure. It made for a tough fight with a reduced party. We also tried tying them up with a rope while they were knocked out, but they were very strong so they broke the rope.

I like the molten lead idea. It wouldn't kill them but it would make life difficult for them.

[technomagi]

Well, what did I just say? Molten lead! Just cover fill the creature with molten lead, particularly the ears, nostrils, throat, and so forth. That should keep them out of order for a while.

I think that would probably do the trick.

[technomagi]

One word: Diplomacy.

They aren't intelligent.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

They aren't intelligent.Neither are politicians, but they seem to manage.

[Gildedragon]

Drop them down an enveloping pit
Observe them and see if they eat or not: if they do wait until they eat to work on the puzzle
Ditto if they sleep
Try to get them drunk or otherwise poisoned
Or manage to get water on them so they drown

[technomagi]

Another neat little trick that I have used is to put liquid in a jar, drop a metal sling bullet inside, seal the jar, then cast heat metal on the sling bullet. My DM called me a name probably not allowed on the forum for coming up with that. Basically the bullet heats the water to boiling point explodes the jars and sprays boiling liquid and glass around the immediate area. I once prepared a few of these filled with acid in a cave full of orcs and goblins. We set them up in the chamber near the entrance, made a big show to get the orcs and goblins to chase us. Then detonated them when our pursuers came into the room.

Hint make sure that you role play the experimentation process out with your DM. Your character has to no what the timing is to get it right.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You don't have line of effect to the sling bullet inside the jar, unfortunately.

[Necroticplague]

Another neat little trick that I have used is to put liquid in a jar, drop a metal sling bullet inside, seal the jar, then cast heat metal on the sling bullet. My DM called me a name probably not allowed on the forum for coming up with that. Basically the bullet heats the water to boiling point explodes the jars and sprays boiling liquid and glass around the immediate area. I once prepared a few of these filled with acid in a cave full of orcs and goblins. We set them up in the chamber near the entrance, made a big show to get the orcs and goblins to chase us. Then detonated them when our pursuers came into the room.

Hint make sure that you role play the experimentation process out with your DM. Your character has to no what the timing is to get it right.
Doesn't work.You wouldn't have Line of Effect to the bullet in the jar, so you can't cast a spell on it.

Even ignoring that fact: If you're gonna use physics-based things like these, it's usually best to test to see how hard vs. loose the DM is with the rules. I know for myself, this wouldn't work, because my response to this plan would be "where does it say that boiling water can make a jar explode like that? If so, where's the stats for the damage?".

[technomagi]

Drop them down an enveloping pit
Observe them and see if they eat or not: if they do wait until they eat to work on the puzzle
Ditto if they sleep
Try to get them drunk or otherwise poisoned
Or manage to get water on them so they drown

I don't know if they sleep but they did try to eat one of the fighters when he was bleeding out. We had to fend them off until the healer got him back on his feet. When we entered the chamber there was nothing there but when we approach the puzzle they came walking out of the solid stone walls. When we exhausted ourselves on our first attempt we left and they didn't follow us. They simply walked back into the stone walls.

We returned after resting cast a few spells to verify that the walls were actually walls and not an illusion of some kind. We tried removing the creatures from the chamber while unconscious and when they reach a certain distance into the tunnel an invisible force prevents their removal. That is about all that I know about them.

[Bobby Baratheon]

There's probably some way you can screw them by messing with the walls until they can't come through. Alternatively, use whatever means necessary to immobilize them while they're passed out.

[technomagi]

I've been wondering if chains or manacles might work.

[Gildedragon]

Dip them in quintessence?

[technomagi]

One of my friends used telekinesis and ventriloquism spells to con NPC's out of money. He would use it to convince them that normal items were magical items and convince them to buy them. It works as long as the NPC's don't have any spell craft. His favorite was to make them believe that a sword could dance and sing on its own.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Put up some walls of iron up against the natural stone of the room you're in, walls, ceiling, and floor? If there's an iron coating they can't move through, they...can't really move through it.

[Gildedragon]

You could always try to apply ghostwall shellac to the walls to hamper their incorporealtity

[Hamste]

Just have one person coup de grace the monster over and over so it stays unconscious while your party figures out the puzzle? If this is 3.5 I think you could even kill it by just doing that.

[Manyasone]

Just have one person coup de grace the monster over and over so it stays unconscious while your party figures out the puzzle? If this is 3.5 I think you could even kill it by just doing that.
Creatures with regeneration can't be coup de graced unless you use a weapon that shuts the regeneration down, I think

[ExLibrisMortis]

Creatures with regeneration can't be coup de graced unless you use a weapon that shuts the regeneration down, I think
Yep, absolutely. You can still power attack and full attack each turn, which should keep the creature deep down in the negatives.

[noce]

In my party, there is a strong fighter and there is a sorcerer. I think you can find a warrior and a mage in every party.

Ray of enfeeblement on the creature, enlarge person on the warrior and make him grapple/trip the creature.
If the party is high enough level, polymorph or draconic polymorph should be better than enlarge person.
At every level, grease.
These are basic techniques to put a creature on its butt without killing it.

[untrippable]

Knock the creatures unconscious, then tie them up and hang them from the ceiling. When they attempt to escape the ropes, beat them unconscious again. Nothing is dangerous after you've turned it into a pinata.

[technomagi]

Knock the creatures unconscious, then tie them up and hang them from the ceiling. When they attempt to escape the ropes, beat them unconscious again. Nothing is dangerous after you've turned it into a pinata.

I don't know if it would work but it sure would be fun to try it lol

[Gildedragon]

Knock the creatures unconscious, then tie them up and hang them from the ceiling. When they attempt to escape the ropes, beat them unconscious again. Nothing is dangerous after you've turned it into a pinata.

Gotta use a staff with of casting Create Candy for that

[morkendi]

the creatures you described dont seem very smart. I would have taken a chance and put them in a rope trick and closed it with a darkness spell inside and the window facing a wall or corner. If they are smart enough to get out, thats fine. I doubt they whould know how the spell works. Another trick is the spell dark way. It is 1 round a level though. Drag them to corner and put the bridge vertical conecting floor to cealing. Spell states it can be any angle and unbreakable. Basically functions as a wall of force from a second level slot. If they are to big to pile in a corner an fit behind the wall, you can combine the 2 and put the in a rope trick in the corner and cast dark way in front since the rope trick can hold 8 creatures up to any size as long as you have the as ability to put them in.

[morkendi]

I don't know level or equipment you have, but my wizard uses baleful polymorph and a bag of holding pretty often. Turn them into a small creature like a turtle ( because turtle is easy to catch). Drop them in the bag. In 10 minutes, they are dead reguardless of regen or such.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Situation:
Your party is faced with a new unknown creature. It is 8' tall, very strong, has the ability to walk through stone, and have very fast regeneration. These creatures stand between you and a great treasure which must be accessed by completing a time consuming puzzle. Unfortunately the puzzle resets if the process is interrupted and this has already happened to the party multiple times.

While taking the creatures out has not proven overly difficult for your party they keep getting back up and interrupting you half way through the puzzle allowing it to time out and reset. Not to mention that the party is taking damage and using resources to continually fight a foe that keeps getting back up.

It is not known if there is anything that can permanently kill the creatures all that fighting them has accomplished is to knock them unconscious for a short time. The party has tried burning them, hitting them with magic, and dumping acid on them. None of these worked. The only thing that you know about the creatures is that they seem content to stay near the treasure. When the party has left to rest and bind wounds the creatures did not follow. What do you do to give your party time to complete the puzzle?

I'm guessing either you weren't of sufficient level or the wizard just didn't know force cage? 'Cause force cage would've shut this encounter down. Hard.

[Incorrect]

Situation Siege

You are a typical party of 4 with access to 6th level spells.
Your party and small army, needs to conquer a medium sized town with a large army holding it.

The army is garrisoned within the walls of the city and a siege is beginning, but if the enemy army sallies forth you may loose to their superior numbers.
Killing the king will not be enough to win, the enemy army needs to be broken as well.
It is in your best interest to keep the town and the population generally intact, ~30% collateral damage may be acceptable as this is war.

Any stratagems?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Molten lead!

I'd probably use animate dead or command undead to get some strength-draining incorporeal undead, and let those wander through the enemy army. Nonlethal, but sure as hell incapacitating. Meanwhile, move earth, stone shape and general druidic goodness can be used to discourage leaving the walls.

[morkendi]

Summon undead an allips. Incorperal and nasty. Symbol of fear an perswation scribed on catipulted stones. Someone fires a big rock at me, i would look. Set up a terror team. Teleporter and a couple high damage people. Target seige engines and such. Pop in, kill crew or diable device and pop back out. Wizards can fly by now. If done right, a wizard with 6th lvl spells can take on a small army by himself.

[Gildedragon]

Retrain a feat for War Spells; use warspells to attack walls and bolster the army

Minor image to make it seem you've gotten reinforcements; intimidate the city into surrendering

Minor/programmed image spellclock/trap to make it seem like camp is unchanged; invisibility to bring the army into the city all stealthlike; take the city from within while the forces are focused on the "Army" outside the walls (using traps of war spells to attack the walls, or animated ballistae and other siege engines).
A benefit of mimicking a camping army with the illusion is that the unwavering regularity of the illusion works with the subject: a tightly regimented and highly disciplined army

[Quertus]

One of my characters (Ikou, the valiant hero) discovered that army morale falls when you kill the leader, then kill whoever replaces him, then kill whoever replaces him, etc.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

One of my characters (Ikou, the valiant hero) discovered that army morale falls when you kill the leader, then kill whoever replaces him, then kill whoever replaces him, etc.Preferably performed in such a way that it's both incredibly messy and painful-looking and that nobody knows how it was done (and thus, can't be defended against). Who in their right minds is going to step up to replace someone who just had their head explode all over the inside of the command tent when nobody was looking?

[Immabozo]

I have a friend who always carries around a 5 lb sack of flour for easy detection of invisible characters

[Azoth]

Could always stone shape a large thin sheet of rock filled with holes to look like a shower head, planar bind creatures to fly it invisbly over the enemy army, and then Minor Creation Black Lotus Extract over it. Nothing like a poison drizzle coating the entire enemy camp. Once one section is saturated, move to another area and do it again. Eventually enough people die that they surrender, or you have a structurally intact city with all its wealth intact and no residents to offer resistance.

[khadgar567]

Preferably performed in such a way that it's both incredibly messy and painful-looking and that nobody knows how it was done (and thus, can't be defended against). Who in their right minds is going to step up to replace someone who just had their head explode all over the inside of the command tent when nobody was looking?

personaly I prefer killing him while polymorphed in to one of his generals and make sure some of them soldiers see me as polymorped form then release the person I am pretanding so party starts( dont forget to raise the alarm before leaving)

[Gildedragon]

Preferably performed in such a way that it's both incredibly messy and painful-looking and that nobody knows how it was done (and thus, can't be defended against). Who in their right minds is going to step up to replace someone who just had their head explode all over the inside of the command tent when nobody was looking?

Get them infected by a mockery bug