[D&D 3.5] One day's prep time, only a slight idea of what's coming.

[Renegade Paladin]

Okay, here's the situation: The party just got done rooting a draconic-influenced orc army out of an iron mine. While there, we uncovered written orders to the base's (spawn of Tiamat) commander, referencing the displeasure of his superior and instructing him to have his army ready to attack the nearby city on the 13th of the month, which was at that time three days away. There is a total solar eclipse set to occur on the 13th, and the city is marking it with a major street festival. The orders strongly hinted at other assets set to attack in conjunction with the orcs on that date.

The total eclipse is disturbing because we know our enemies are led in part by a vampiric dragon, and the eclipse will permit him to attack during the day. We do not know if he will do this, but it is an everpresent concern.

We have since gone through a day of ally-gathering and investigation, and have come up with nothing substantive beyond what we gathered in the mine, though the platinum knight/vassal of Bahamut in the party (yes, the character took both classes) managed to convince a copper wyrm and some of his family to be on hand for the festival in case things really get hairy. It is now the 12th in game, and there's nothing to do but gear up and steel ourselves for whatever lies ahead.

This is where you come in. In the dungeon with the orc army, we gained a level and a half worth of XP, and commensurate treasure, which means we're swimming in money. My primary character already spent a good chunk of his on a new bow (his old one was sundered by an orc in the dungeon), which still leaves him with a good six digits in gp terms, and his cohort has even more owing to not having to replace broken equipment.

The primary character is a rebalanced paladin/rogue, and except for gear isn't terribly adaptable in terms of preparation. For him all I need is suggestions for what to do with his cash, keeping in mind his +16 UMD modifier. (And yes, I know his build isn't terribly optimized; he's one of my oldest characters, and I haven't really significantly rebuilt him other than converting his paladin levels to OW4's rebalanced paladin.)

The cohort is where things get interesting. He's an Unseen Seer (Complete Mage) who entered via the human paragon shortcut and took Practiced Spellcaster, so his caster level is higher than the designers had in mind. The only unnecessary lost caster level is the second level of rogue, and frankly, with all the dragons running around, I felt Evasion was well worth it. For him, I need both suggestions on spending his cash (we're in a metropolis and major trading hub, so most magic items are available, within reason) and spell selection. The prepared spells shown on that sheet are from an earlier mission where we were supposed to not harm the guards protecting our target, hence all the nonlethal disabling spells. I'll change his spell selection for the big day to a more standard combat loadout of buffs and battlefield control, but if anyone's got any brilliant ideas on spell selection, I'd love to hear about them.

Our enemies have up until now shown themselves to be incredibly resourceful and skilled at subterfuge. The plot is headed by at least three dragons, one of which is the vampire I mentioned above. Their primary servitor in the city is a vampire doppelganger, who has given us no end of trouble in recent days. Before that, a puppet of theirs managed to briefly seize control of the government, but the party took care of that situation already. We don't know what their plan is or even what their objectives are, but their actions so far have clearly shown that whatever the purpose of this scheme is, it isn't benign. Despite my cohort being a specialized diviner, divinations have not produced anything useful thus far. So: How does Batman prepare when he doesn't know what's coming?

Edit: Though I mainly draw on the Magic Item Compendium and Spell Compendium in addition to core, almost all 3.x sources are available, so feel free to suggest anything.

[Starbuck_II]

Okay, here's the situation: The party just got done rooting a draconic-influenced orc army out of an iron mine. While there, we uncovered written orders to the base's (spawn of Tiamat) commander

So dragons and Orc and maybe undead are expected?

6 digits of money? So 10, 000?

For the Cohort: have you made much usage of Tenser's Tranformation. Seeing as it cuts of magic...it seems weak at appearance.
Radiant Sphere isnt bad when fighting undead (best part even cantrip light can recharge it). That would be 3, 500 gp.


Horn of Plenty if any of you lack Heroe's feast: 12000 go. Blocks Fear so less Dragon worries. Also blocks poison.

[Renegade Paladin]

No, six digits, not five. North of 100k. And I know Tenser's is weak by most standards; it's on there because of a very specific tactical situation he was in, and I'm going to swap it out now that he's no longer in it.

I should mention that his banned school is Evocation.

[Tyrmatt]

While I rummage through my collection for the books I want, I'm curious to find out how typical a vampire this dragon is. Does he fall prey to ALL the weaknesses, specifically the counting of thrown objects clause? If so, why bother converting all your surplus cash into weapons when it can BE the weapon.

The combination of dragon and vampire to me suggests someone with an OBSSESSION with treasure. Forcing him to count your wide-scattered loot could potentially buy a lot of time to at least hold back the invading orcs or even allow you to set up a trap consisting of say, a town square surrounded by running holy water. Between the Batman power to reshape the town and the paladin's ability to be a divine vessel and thus bless water to be holy, you could imprison the vamp and hold him back while the copper wyrm performs surgical striking on the invading soldiers. Even holding the vamp til the eclipse finishes could be enough to turn the tides here.

Sorry my solution isn't very mechanics based but if your DM appreciates a yarn this might at least let you pass the encounter with the vampire escaping and the invaders defeated.

[Theodoriph]

You do realize that total eclipses don't last long enough to allow vampires to engage in a large-scale battle. Totality can never last longer than 7 minutes and 31 seconds on Earth. The party really shouldn't have anything to fear from the Vampire (unless they decide to attack at night). I know...realism (re: science) sucks.

[Renegade Paladin]

7 minutes is plenty of time for an old dragon to wreak large-scale devastation. But we don't know if he'll do it or not; we simply don't know what's coming. It could be anything from a frontal assault to some sort of ritual that requires the eclipse.

[Suedars]

You do realize that total eclipses don't last long enough to allow vampires to engage in a large-scale battle. Totality can never last longer than 7 minutes and 31 seconds on Earth. The party really shouldn't have anything to fear from the Vampire (unless they decide to attack at night). I know...realism (re: science) sucks.

7 minutes and 31 seconds is 75 rounds. Plenty of time to teleport in, wreak havoc, and teleport out.

[Chronos]

It sounds like you've basically got two different challenges: Defeat a large army of a great many mostly-squishy things, and defeat a relatively small number of big nasty things leading the army. For the former, my preferred wizard spell is Wall of Fire: You can catch a lot of soldiers directly in the area of the wall, and then the battlefield is cut in two, with the enemy either having to go the long way around or through the fire. If you've barred Evocation, then even a shadow version of it will generally work well enough. If you need to conserve spell slots, you can keep it on the battlefield indefinitely by concentrating on it; otherwise it'll last for a minute or two without concentration (and your enemies probably can't tell which it is, so they don't know whether waiting it out is a good tactic or not).

Another good large-area spell is Sunburst, which also does extra damage versus undead. So you can do some damage to that vampiric dragon, and wipe out all of the mooks around him in the process.

For non-undead dragons (of which it seems likely you'll encounter a few), the standard spell is Shivering Touch (Frostburn), especially with some way to use it at a distance, if your DM hasn't decided that's too cheesy and banned or houseruled it. It's a 3rd-level touch attack with no save that does 3d6 Dex damage. Dragons only have about as much dexterity as humans, so one or two shots of it (especially if maximized) is likely to leave a dragon helpless and almost completely incapacitated (it could still use stilled spells and SLAs).

[Greg]

You do realize that total eclipses don't last long enough to allow vampires to engage in a large-scale battle. Totality can never last longer than 7 minutes and 31 seconds on Earth. The party really shouldn't have anything to fear from the Vampire (unless they decide to attack at night). I know...realism (re: science) sucks.

Emphasis mine. The eclipse may last longer in this game.