Sendai battle (Baldur's Gate II campaign)

[Braininthejar2]

So my Baldur's Gate campaign has reached the point where the party is to fight Sendai.

Since the game gives her allies such as illithid, beholders, and an elemental prince, I decided that rather than have an 'enclave', she would take over a whole drow city, and have an actual army of monsters.

While the party tackled the other bhaalspawn, Viconia went on a scheming spree in Underdark, trying to rally multiple drow houses on a crusade against the heretic. I want the fight to be a massive battle like the ones in "Ways of the Wicked" campaign, with the party deciding the general outcome by handling several key encounters on the battlefield.


I'm looking for sub quests the party could go on, to gain an edge in the battle - things to reduce Sendai's forces, or increase their own.

So far, they have two assets: Viconia has used the "control spawn through controlling the parent" principle to amass a horde of shadows (which would anger the good guys in the party, so she hasn't told anyone yet) and Sarevok got himself polymorphed into a fire giant and managed to subjugate what was left of Yaga Shura's army.

[Braininthejar2]

Okay, something has crystallized.

As an epic character, the player can be sent for negotiations that would be suicidal for anyone else.

1 There might be an ancient deep dragon they could recruit for their cause. But that's like negotiating with Smaug - what could they offer him to make him actually put his life in danger?

2 The illithid that support Sendai must have come from somewhere. If the party could meet their elder brain, they could perhaps persuade it to withdraw support - but the idea is missing something.

3 I think there should be some third force, but what? At this scale and level, this is not a battle where 50 duergar axemen would have made a difference. (and even if the duergar had something like a dozen iron golems to contribute, how would one motivate them to risk their lives alongside the drow? - I need either some other faction/force to replace those, or something to refine the idea with.

[AnimeTheCat]

You could pull a feather from the Dragon Age hat and have the party seek out and forge alliances across different races/kingdoms to combat the threat. This goes along the lines of "Increasing their own forces".

Simultaneously, the group will need to figure out what kinds of things Sendai is interested in or seeking. From there, petition the various kingdoms for 'Hit and Run' tactics on the units that are making their way out to retrieve or search for the items, locations, people, etc that Sendai is in search of. Some of these should be ones that the party does alone like special operation missions. Another means is to spread rumors that make their way back to Sendai which will ideally cause Sendai to "Sendai out" (HA!) some troops into a trap. Best traps are canyons and the like which can be collapsed to cause massive damage to the unit and thereby fufill the "Reducing the opposing forces" idea.

Other methods of either can simply be quests for the deities to petition for their aid, surgical strikes to the heart of the military's leaders to strike fear and unrest across the force (less for reducing the opposing forces and more for reducing the effectiveness of the opposing forces).

[Braininthejar2]

So, in order:

1 That's much of what Viconia, and her team were doing for the last two chapters, allowing them to level up in pace with the protagonist, while keeping them out of the party to keep the numbers down for more convenient play.

The thing with gathering allies is, for other underground races, this war is "drow killing drow", so they have more reasons to prepare some popcorn than to join the bloodshed. (see point 3 of my post above) Of course, if there was something to gain, someone might contribute. But what would that be?

2 Sendai is done with sending people to get her stuff - the reason she took over a city in the first place was to get ways of obtaining masses of slaves - to sacrifice for pacts, or burn up for exp cost of her magical shenanigans. Now she's using her clones and demons to repeatedly scry and fry the party, whenever she can locate anyone - she has attacked the monastery once already ( it ended with Balthazar throwing a glabrezu through a wall, and his marut allies finishing off any intruders the party didn't get, but they did manage to kill one of the minor bhaalspawn the player left there for safety.) and she ended the last session breaking the player's monopoly on doing the impossible - she came up with an epic spell that allowed her to send a demonic strike team into the pocket plane.

She might still have some slave-hunting operations in progress, but those hardly involve her most competent servants.

3 As Cyric's visit reveals in the game, Ao has ordered the gods to sit through this one. As for hunting enemy leaders, that would require infiltrating the city - with the limited options for teleportation (me ruling that underdark anomalies make it unsafe to teleport to unknown locations, to make the party do some walking late in the campaign, and the drow city fortification wards being able to hinder teleporting in and out - which was needed for some parts of Ust Natha plot) and Ogremoth's minions patrolling the bedrock on lookout for tunneling intruders, it will be very tricky - worst case scenario it would force the party to fight all of Sendai's forces without a drow army backing them. My player hates fighting enemy on his home turf like that. (of course, if it worked, it would work brilliantly - for example, killing Sendai's hive mother would set loose all of her beholders)

[AnimeTheCat]

I mean, the factor that should unite all of these forces against the common foe is fear. For the underdark races, cities, organizations, and groups it's the fear of being forcefully united and enslaved. For the surface dwelling races cities, kingdoms, organizations, etc. it's the fear of a forcefully united and enslaved underdark. For all intents and purposes, the forces of good (churches of good deities and the like, not necessarily the Gods themselves) should willingly and freely offer help against such a growing dark. The underdark dwellers that aren't evil (such as mountain dwarves and the like) should be willing to put their lives on the line to combat the growing dark on their very doorstep. There shouldn't be a third party necessary. If this adversary is powerful enough to scry and fry a high level party and is developing epic spells, this is a total world problem and no longer a simple drow vs drow fight. Really, it's up to the party to decide how to convince any NPC or organization to join the fight. It's up to the DM to determine what motivates an NPC, Kingdom, or other organiztion.

[Braininthejar2]

Hmm. I guess it will have to be the evil underground races - since they do coexist at least a little.

***

For good underground races it would be a suicide mission: imagine a contingent of dwarves going underground. Either they lose, and perish in battle, or win, and find themselves badly outnumbered by drow, who won't have any reason to follow any deals, now that the common enemy is gone.

***

As for the surface kingdoms? Tethyr has been the whipping boy of the campaign for a couple chapters now - first they tried to send an army to break the siege of Saradush, and Sendai sent hers to intercept them. Turns out a human army, even elite one, is ill suited to a night fight against umber hulks and beholders.

Then Abazighal made a couple air raids against Tethyr, and (lacking resources to locate the protagonist) threatened to burn down the capital with his dragons if they don't bring him her head. They were mostly unsuccessful, but one unlucky group of adventurers did manage to find Sarevok.

After the battle in Saradush escalated to "elemental monolith breaking apart a colossal scorpion in the middle of the city" most humans' idea of handling the crisis is "hide, keep your head down, let the demigods sort it out among themselves."

***

That leaves the underground races:

1 Drow - already engaged on both sides.
2 Derro - engaged on Sendai's side for whatever crazy reason she managed to suggest them.
3 Illithid - engaged on Sendai's side, with some slave exchange, and high hopes of continued cooperation if she ascends. The Elder Brain could be persuaded to reconsider, if the party can get an audience (without fighting the whole illthid city - because if they do kill the brain, the Illithid with Sendai will stay with her just for revenge)
4 Beholders - Sendai has a hive mother in her fortress, giving her control of a sizable beholder force.
5 Demons - both sides employ them through magic. Sendai also has some yugoloth mercenaries.
6 Elementals - Sendai has Ogremoth - but she's keeping it a secret so far - he's her trump card in the battle.
7 Undead - both drow armies have a couple liches in their ranks - undead fodder is bound to be used.

8 Duergar - unafilliated so far. Might go to war against the ilithid, but it won't be worth as much as the illithid quitting. Might contribute some iron golems to the siege effort.

9 Kuo Toa - so far unafilliated. Also a bit weak. What could they contribute, and how to phrase the message to make them join?

10 Neogi - both sides already have umber hulks, but Neogi could provide a good deal more. Problem is, they're a race of honorless, pragmatic slavers. (and offering them enough slaves to justify possible loss of that many umber hulks is something that won't stand with the good guys in the party.

11 Deep gnomes, myconid, flumph - too weak military to contribute.

12 Assorted monsters. Perhaps a tribe of fomorians or something? Would they be stupid enough to go to an epic battle for a promise of loot? Sendai has a megalopede (controlled by a magical rod rammed into its head) - unless the party recruits an ancient deep dragon, they will have to handle it themselves during the battle.

13 did I miss anyone?

[AnimeTheCat]

Ok, since everything you mentioned was demon or negatively inclined, send the party on the high road to the Celestial planes to petition for help from the good aligned entities. If there are Illithids, Beholders, and Demons, then the attention of some of the creatures in the celestial planes should have a fair amount of stock in what's going on. Again, this doesn't even concern the gods, just the denizens of those planes trying to maintain their level of influence on the material.

[Braininthejar2]

A host of angels appearing on that battlefield could turn it into a three-way battle.

But perhaps there are some celestials who could provide pointers concerning useful artifacts and such?

Any ideas for 8, 9 and 10?