Guerilla fighting in a 15th lvl jungle Battle Royale

[tectonix26]

Hey all, a player in one of my games has decided to dm a one shot between some of the people in our group as a chance to stretch out min-maxy muscles. (Group is much more roleplay orientated over rollplay).
The players are leaving their charcters secret, but the field has been revealed to be an innately magical jungle, it's been heavily recommended that the group will be playing ranged characters, and survival will apparently be a bonus to have in this situation.
All players have a large budget for items, 5common magical, 3 uncommon, 1 rare, and may spend 2k our of 5k on a very rare
All players are dropped into this location at different corners with no preparation time to construct or rig anything beforehand.

My answer to this is a highly defensive tactic, scout rogue 12, fighter 2, ranger (revised) 1. Basically utilising ridiculous stealth rolls with the cloak of elvenkind and expertese on stealth, and equally ridiculous perception and survival to take the feld advantage. I'll be setting mundane traps to give away enemy locations and generally try to be a confusing git. My chosen items were a large amount of string, bells, tinderboxes and oil for traps, several dmg listed poisons, potion of climbing, 4 potions of healing, a scroll of pass without trace, sentinel shield, cloak of elvenkind, scroll of protection: humanoid and an ioun stone of agility to round my dexterity up to 20. Feats taken were Alert and Observant.

Given this situation, how would you guys try to wrestle advntages out of this? Any advice on how to more effectively usilise dense, rainforest/jungle terrain to one's advantage?

Not only am I looking for advice but also just interested in seeing how the wonderful people of the internet would handle this challenge themselves, feel free to throw in your own characters that you'd want to try in this style of session too!

[Aett_Thorn]

How do we stand on the "can we burn the jungle down" assumption?

[tectonix26]

"You can certainly try" -Direct Dm quote~

[Aett_Thorn]

Well then, my Cheaty McCheaterson way would be to cast Fireball, followed by numerous Gust of Wind spells to make sure that the fire blew away from my general direction.


But my actual way to deal with this might be to just go Moon Druid. Turn into whatever jungle creatures were there and blend in until only one enemy remains. Then blast them to smithereens since they'll likely be low on resources. Probably Wood Elf to ensure that I have slightly more move speed than they do to stay out of their range.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Getting a ridiculously high stealth, perception, and survival is a good thing, but setting traps all over might be reductive, at least until later. If it's a battle royale, it's not about killing the most people. It's about being the last one standing.

You need to hide in order to not be targeted very often/at all, especially in the early game. You should also have a method for gathering as much information as possible. Some of the other contestants might also be very good at hiding, misdirecting, and surviving the ordeal. You need to flush these people out and get them fighting strong combatants, but not you. Lay fake trails, traps, and other toys that point other contestants to these people. You want them worn out, missing HP and supplies, and otherwise incapable of fighting you towards the end. If there's a chance that a dangerous foe might recover after such an attack, you'll need to decide whether to reveal yourself and try to finish them off. Only do this if they really are just that dangerous and you've got a premier opportunity to sink them without significant risk to yourself.

If survival's a thing, I'm guessing you'll need to forage. Procuring necessities may be very important, but don't get greedy. Take what you need to survive with a bit of a surplus, but never anything so large that it may attract unwanted visitors. Taking an alchemy jug and a decanter of endless water completely bypasses these issues and can offer interesting tactical options. Make sure to remove traces of your passing, including the leftovers of any kills you make, battles you've had, or tracks you've made. Tree climbing could go a long way here. Either get athletics proficiency or something like spider climb. A cloak of arachnida would do the trick and give you some other neat tricks, and so would playing a tabaxi.

For when fighting is inevitable, you have two major concerns- be able to kill very fast, and be able to survive everything going very wrong. Your current build is pretty decent at doing this, though I might rethink going scout for arcane trickster. A little magic can go a long ways here. Minor illusion by itself alters the dynamic in your favor. Things like sleep, blur, suggestion, hold person, especially invisibility, magic mouth- and some other nice toys like find familiar for a strong, disposable scout with great range, rope trick for a quick breather anywhere, counterspell to deal with enemy mages, and even fireball for a fantastic ranged AoE damage option. There are way more tools and options in this subclass that can get you out of the worst situations.

[tectonix26]

One thing I suppose I left out of note, is that the survival skill is moreso necessary to navigate without magically getting lost, as the location seems to have a latend sentience. Apparently there will be threats and boons strewn about the place.

[MasterMercury]

Personally, I'd probably go shadow monk. By level 15, you have at-will invisibility, immunity to disease and poison, and don't need to eat or drink. Plus, super agile, able to run up trees and escape at a moments notice.

But that's just me, I tend to prefer melee builds anyways.

[Talionis]

You might treat the jungle like a red herring. It's there but maybe not that big an advantage. What else might be good generally in a battle royal?

I say Eagle Barbarian 6/ X Goo Chainlock with a sniper build.

Eagle Barbarians can see for a mile. Goo can telepathically stay in touch with his invisible spotter, Improved Familiar. Spell Sniper feat plus Elderich Spear and Anguishing Blast and Repelling Blast. Grants large range and damage and makes you hard to get close to.

You can create duck blinds with Misty Visions or the cantrip illusion.

Goo also allows you to make political alliances like informing opponents of each other's locations if your familiar can find them.

Spirit Seeker allows you to cast Beast Sense and Speak with Animals which can get you even more scouts or ways to bring enemies to your killing field.

Fast Movement and danger sense aren't useless. Rage is an escape technique Eagle let's you Dash Away and basic resistances should help you get away from the martial characters, since you can't cast spells while raging. Trick is keeping up Rage while escaping, so something that does a minimal amount of damage to you might be helpful.

Not to mention you have five invocations known. You have two fifth level spell slots. You can pick upDominste person from Goo list and spells like Mirror Image and Atmor of Agthya. You can nap if nrvcary. You can recharge liberally on your short rest recharging of spell slots.

You'll want to max Charisma (to hit damage and social interaction), but otherwise you are a little MAD, but the basic tactics allow this build to shine in this type of arena even with a flatter array of skill points.

[tectonix26]

Certainly a not bad idea, dm has filled me in on a tip that visual based perception won't be overly useful due to the dense vegatation, we'd apparently be better off to muffle our sounds and utilise hearing, smell, other senses, etc rather than focus on whatt can be seen.

Edit: "Certainly a bad idea" Massive mistype on my part!!! Meant the current version.

[Azgeroth]

Druid is probably your strongest option.

summon a bunch of wolfs, or apes, go earth elemental, set them off hunting in a pack, go underground..

dont get your wolfs/apes in a slog fest with another player, you just want to expose them to the others so they start to fight each other, once everyone is exposed and fighting, pop back out and pummel them to death, remember you have siege damage, to wrecking trees to pen them in, or potentially crush them is a good idea.. if you drop out of elemental form, you still have all but one of your spell slots.

if you have to go toe to toe, you stay underground, but close by to the player, move up, attack, back underground.. rinse repeat..

another way to do it, conjuration wizard, forest gnome, hope you can hide whilst your uber summoned beasties wreak havoc.. a fun tactic with conj. wizards at higher level, summon a **** ton of owls, they all get +5 to hit, +5 damage, and +30hp... thats a lot of damage per round that dont provoke oppurtunity attacks, though they are prone to aoe's.

when you find them, wall of fire/fireball/firestorm

assuming there are fires about, hold person, bonfire to move the fire onto them, watch them burn..

[tectonix26]

summon a **** ton of owls, they all get +5 to hit, +5 damage, and +30hp...

I can see how they get the +30 hp from 14th level conjuraiton feature, but how do they get the buffs to attack and damage rolls?

[Potato_Priest]

I'd play a warlock (hexblade with blade pact). My race would be air genasi for the ability to hold their breath indefinitely. Holding your breath is very useful as it will allow you to mitigate smoke inhalation from the fires you'll be starting. The levitate spell could also possibly save you if you fall out of the air.

Take eldritch spear and the spell sniper feat to give your eldritch blast a range of 600 feat. Note that it also now ignores anything other than full cover. Also take the maddening hex and agonizing blast invocations and learn the hex spell. Maddening hex in conjunction with running away can take out many of the best builds you might have to face. Make sure you can cast counterspell, because enemy casters will likely be your main weakness. Excellent arcanum choices include etherealness and power word stun.

As for your magical items, choose the broom of flying and cube of force. The others are up to personal preference.

With the rest of your money, buy the best incendiaries you have access to, as well as a significant number of rations, and a few arrows for your pact weapon (it's sort of a last resort if for some reason your eldritch blasts fail you) Remember the carry weight of your broom (500 lb I think)

When the game starts, immediately take to the air and gain lots of altitude.

When you see signs of battle down below, set the area around the fighting on fire, trying to herd your opponents into a corner of the arena. With luck, they will end up pinned between the arena wall and a raging forest fire. If they somehow manage to wait out the blaze, they will have to make their way across a charred wasteland of burnt trees enduring your incredible range eldritch blasts to get back under cover.

If you find yourself facing a ground-based super sniper and for some reason you can't avoid them by gaining and losing altitude between attacks, use your cube of force to keep the projectiles out.

If you end up going toe to toe with another aerial foe, flee while shooting them with your eldritch blasts. The likelihood that your foe will have flying abilities and a great super long ranged option of their own is very low. If worst comes to worst and they close on you, your cube of force will be able to keep them from using whatever they normally use on you while you continue to attack them with whatever will go through the cube.