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View Full Version : level 4 party against infinite level 1 commoners... need advice



sikyon
2007-12-25, 03:11 PM
So I'm sending my party up against a horde (infinite)number of level 1 commoners proficient with various martial weapons, who stream out of doors and houses in an attempt to overpower them in a small street. The party is a soulknife with VoP, a wizard, a palidin and a rouge. I'm wondering on how well do you think they will fare, and how to justify knocking them unconcious. I am planning on having commoners throw nets down from overhead, allowing them to be captured after a certain number of turns (basically it would be a hold-out thing). The problem with this is that the palidin and the soulknife may start pushing the commoners back, by killing one and then moving forward with a 5 foot step. While this does leave the wizard and rouge potentially isolated, bascially I'm afraid that they will figure out a way to push too far along the street for the net tactic to work. Any ideas?

TheLogman
2007-12-25, 03:16 PM
The Mob rules from Cityscape would work well there. Bullrush and Grapple would also work, especially Grapple with assists.

Learnedguy
2007-12-25, 03:17 PM
1, Bar their exists. They are PC:s, they'll try to escape (sneaky hobbits:smallmad: !).

2, If you want to knock them unconsious, make the peasants unarmed or armed with saps. You might declare that a shovel is a non-lethal attack as well.

3, I want to stress that you need to make it impossible for the PC:s to escape.

4, Give the commoners improved grapple. That way they'll be really dangerous. Alternatively, don't give them it, but grapple whenever you get a chance.

5, If anyone starts a sentance with "Can I...?" then the answer is no.

6, Make sure they can't escape. They're sneaky buggers, they'll try you know.

Treguard
2007-12-25, 03:18 PM
The mob rules from DMG2 would spice up your commoners, turning them into a far more imposing threat.

edit: dammit, ninja'd

Ne0
2007-12-25, 03:24 PM
Adding some obstacles in the alley might make it harder for the meleers to push the commoners back. Useful obstacles are heavy boxes or other things that can't be moved by them.

sikyon
2007-12-25, 04:53 PM
Can you give me a run down on how mob rules work?(nothing specific, it's at my friend's house right now). I figured that I didn't need mob like rules because the street is small so only a few can be fighting at any time anyways. Improved grapple doesn't exactly make sense. Without it the first one who trieds to grapple will drop to the AOO and the rest probably wont' succed against a +7 grapple bonus or so. Oh, they are also cultists who are supposed to be waving swords around. I'm not afraid of them escaping, if they try to go in doors they will find them barracaded and if they try to go up then they'll find cultists forcing them back down from above.

I also don't see how obstacles help keep them from moving. If it totally blocks the road, then the cultists can't really get by either (and it doesn't make much sense) and if it doesn't totally block the road then they just kill one-> 5 foot step to where he was each turn. Maybe they can tip a cart or something though which could need a full move action to climb over... provoke AOO climbing over? They have tumble though.

Perhaps I should just say that the press of bodies prevents them from taking a 5' step, or perhaps I should throw in a few bull rushers to push them back. Hmm...

Tycho
2007-12-25, 04:57 PM
If I had to guess, the Wizard sounds like your biggest issue since he's likely to have ways to get out of there or at least cause massive AoE damage, and Commoner's don't seem the types to have Antimagic Fields, Dimensional Anchors, or the like. Granted, it'll depend heavily on what he has available.

I'm looking at the SpC and here are a few 2nd level spells to beware of:

Just about any AoE. It won't take much to bring down a packed group of Commoners.

Baleful Transposition: swap places with a Commoner towards the edge of the mob. Expeditious Retreat to get out of there.

Death Armor: Damages creatures attacking you. 1d4+2? He'll kill any Commoner that touches him. Of course, they can just throw things at him. Balor Nimbus is similar in regards to grapples.

Swift Fly: Self-Explanatory. If he wins initiative, he's out of there. This is decent enough as a low level escape that he may have it, and have it prepped.

I'm not even going into anything complicated, just straight spells. Also, keep in mind that as a DM, you have to accept the possibility that the players may escape. Don't railroad them if they have a genuinely clever way out.

sikyon
2007-12-25, 05:38 PM
If I had to guess, the Wizard sounds like your biggest issue since he's likely to have ways to get out of there or at least cause massive AoE damage, and Commoner's don't seem the types to have Antimagic Fields, Dimensional Anchors, or the like. Granted, it'll depend heavily on what he has available.

I'm looking at the SpC and here are a few 2nd level spells to beware of:

Just about any AoE. It won't take much to bring down a packed group of Commoners.

Baleful Transposition: swap places with a Commoner towards the edge of the mob. Expeditious Retreat to get out of there.

Death Armor: Damages creatures attacking you. 1d4+2? He'll kill any Commoner that touches him. Of course, they can just throw things at him. Balor Nimbus is similar in regards to grapples.

Swift Fly: Self-Explanatory. If he wins initiative, he's out of there. This is decent enough as a low level escape that he may have it, and have it prepped.

I'm not even going into anything complicated, just straight spells. Also, keep in mind that as a DM, you have to accept the possibility that the players may escape. Don't railroad them if they have a genuinely clever way out.

He doesn't really have any spells outside of core, and most prepared ones are damage/AOE spells. It doesn't matter if he kills a bunch of commoners, more will get into the press very quickly. He can't even see where the commoners stop.

If they do find a clever way out, that's fine, but I just don't want them to be able to brute force their way through.

kpenguin
2007-12-25, 05:57 PM
How exactly are there infinite commoners? Are the houses lined with commoner creation machines or something?

Drider
2007-12-25, 06:03 PM
How exactly are there infinite commoners? Are the houses lined with commoner creation machines or something?

Plot mister penguin, Plot.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-12-25, 06:20 PM
"I'm not sure what the challenge rating is on an infinite number of orcs...but I'm betting it's more than you're supposed to give to a single low-level fighter."
-Boromir, DM of the Rings

Just make sure you're doing nonlethal damage so your players don't say screw it and go play SWRPG instead.

sikyon
2007-12-25, 06:28 PM
How exactly are there infinite commoners? Are the houses lined with commoner creation machines or something?

does nigh-infinite work then? d(commoners rushing to attack)/dt > d(commoners being killed)/dt

daggaz
2007-12-25, 07:01 PM
I dunno... sounds a bit like a railroad to me. Why not just cram X amount of commoners in the buildings, and try to grapple the party? If they can escape, they outta be allowed to, but with enough grappling going on, that could be pretty hard. Also, chances are you will catch at least one of the party members this way, forcing the others to either a) abandon one of their own or b) commit mass murder against a bunch of commoners.

Curious, btw, why are the commoners teaming up against the party?

Tengu
2007-12-25, 07:26 PM
The problem with this is that the palidin and the soulknife may start pushing the commoners back, by killing one and then moving forward with a 5 foot step.

Wait, what? Are those evil commoners or are paladins allowed to kill innocents now?

sikyon
2007-12-25, 07:45 PM
They are supposed to be evil cultists, but I said commoner because that's mechanically what they are. And yes, it is railroading. But sometimes a test is not a test of whether you can outsmart the encounter, but what sort of courage you show against it.

Tengu
2007-12-25, 07:49 PM
Cultists, huh? Sounds like a fair game then.

Anyway, remember about AOOs, and Aid Another - the cultists from the back should use it at those in front, thus greatly improving their attack bonus. Level 4 characters aren't really indestructable and they will get worn down after some time.

RTGoodman
2007-12-25, 07:52 PM
Just be glad you don't have a Fighter with Great Cleave! Doesn't that let you take 5-foot steps between attacks? If so, that'd be the end of the Commoners/Cultists!

Leon
2007-12-25, 08:15 PM
Just be glad you don't have a Fighter with Great Cleave! Doesn't that let you take 5-foot steps between attacks? If so, that'd be the end of the Commoners/Cultists!

No, thats is Supereme Cleave that lets you do that

FlyMolo
2007-12-25, 08:40 PM
Just be glad you don't have a Fighter with Great Cleave! Doesn't that let you take 5-foot steps between attacks? If so, that'd be the end of the Commoners/Cultists!

Actually, I don't think it does. It would still be terribly effective. An attack for each commoner you can reach, 5-foot step forward, then take your great cleave attacks. About 6 commoners a turn. More if they come in at your sides. Which they probably would.

What you should really be worried about is Great cleave, Whirlwind Attack, and a spiked chain. Kill every commoner within reach, take a 5-foot step, and do it again. If your wizard has enlarge person, that's a LOT of commoners. Think Bag O' Rats fighter, but each rat is an enemy.

Also, be glad nobody is a warlock with that invocation that makes your eldritch blast a cone. Luckily, it's least invocations only at first level. You would still have to worry about bat swarms, though. 4 squares of commoners basically die every round. But I digress.

Careful of how much exp gets handed out. There could be lots.

sikyon
2007-12-25, 08:55 PM
No worries about cleave, neither of them have it. EXP is handed out on a mission basis, not on a kills basis. Aid another doesn't work if you can't attack the opponent yourself.

My basic plan now is to disarm -> bull rush -> grapple. If after a few rounds they are still doing well then a net gets tossed on them for -4 dex and -4 str to ease the process. Eventually I hope to have them grappled to the ground, where unarmed strikes will knock them unconcious. May attempt to overrun past the front liners if they get too far ahead, shouldn't be that hard considering they have to fight on 2 fronts. The players may not know these are cultists, however (detect evil will detect as evil though) and may be restrained in using lethal force (given that they are not trying to use lethal force), but I doubt it.

Uthug
2007-12-25, 08:57 PM
So you deliberately intend for your party members to fall unconscious and get captured to further your plot, yet you don't want them to feel rail-roaded, so you send a limitless amount of commoners after them to make them feel better? Well it could make for a cool fight if your party actually makes it through the battle, by the way, how wide is this ally? 5-feet? If so, any meat shield with a reach weapon could stem the flood if he had enough AoOs.
A question out of curiosity: How are you doing the initiative for that huge mass of commoners? Group initiative?

sikyon
2007-12-25, 09:58 PM
Oh no, the great thing about my group is that they don't mind being rail roaded. The occasionally try to screw with my plans out of spite, but purley out of trying to get a rise out of me. They don't actually want to have to decide what to do for themselves, as that would require too much effort. For example, in the current campaign we are in, one of the playres said that he was going to split up. I put him in his place by saying that if he split up, that was fine, I'd just DM the rest of the group and he could have a narrative. That put him in his place.

The alley will be 15 feet wide, so enough room for cultists to be comming in from all sides. Level 4, nobody has combat reflexes or cleave, so this is a golden situation. I always do group initiative, makes things eaisier. Streamlining combat is a must.

But really, if they get out of the situation then all that really changes is that we skip the part about them escaping to rest.