How Would a BBEG React to a Dungeon Invasion?

[Laurellien]

The PCs entered a hidden dungeon beneath a village where the local priest had gone mad and is trying to summon an elder evil.

They killed some of his living guards, his pet Tendriculous, and a significant number of his zombies.

They then camped in the dungeon, he discovered what they had done, and he roused the denizens of the dungeon to come and kill them (11 zombies, 12 skeletons, 16 advanced zombies, 1 minotaur skeleton, 1 shambling mound, 1 flesh golem, and a band of 20 bullywugs (including a cleric and 3 barbarians).

Hopelessly outnumbered, the PCs collapsed the ceilings of the corridors and dug their way out.

Now the priest has no intention to leave his lair. It will take the best part of 8 hours to dig out all of his zombies and skeletons, and he is trying to complete a dark ritual.

Knowing that he has been discovered, how would the priest organise his dungeon? Would he send people back to the rooms where they were originally (spread out), or would he concentrate his forces around himself or at the entrances to protect the ritual?

In balance terms, all of the dungeon's denizens at once is horrifically difficult for the PCs, but they could waltz over any of the individual encounters.

[Keltest]

He would re-collapse the dungeon entrance and as many other points as possible to maximize the amount of time it would take to reach him and interrupt the ritual. He would also have a magical way of exiting the now-collapsed lair, or at least some way to do so quickly that wont provide easy access for the heroes.

[Octopusapult]

The PCs entered a hidden dungeon beneath a village where the local priest had gone mad and is trying to summon an elder evil.

They killed some of his living guards, his pet Tendriculous, and a significant number of his zombies.

They then camped in the dungeon, he discovered what they had done, and he roused the denizens of the dungeon to come and kill them (11 zombies, 12 skeletons, 16 advanced zombies, 1 minotaur skeleton, 1 shambling mound, 1 flesh golem, and a band of 20 bullywugs (including a cleric and 3 barbarians).

Hopelessly outnumbered, the PCs collapsed the ceilings of the corridors and dug their way out.

Now the priest has no intention to leave his lair. It will take the best part of 8 hours to dig out all of his zombies and skeletons, and he is trying to complete a dark ritual.

Knowing that he has been discovered, how would the priest organise his dungeon? Would he send people back to the rooms where they were originally (spread out), or would he concentrate his forces around himself or at the entrances to protect the ritual?

In balance terms, all of the dungeon's denizens at once is horrifically difficult for the PCs, but they could waltz over any of the individual encounters.

Depends on how smart he's supposed to be. A priest is hardly a battlefield tactician.

If he's got magical teleportation means then shut down all possible entrances, lock him away with his zombies, and have them center on / near the Priest or patrol priority corridors.

If shutting down entrances isn't an option, place the biggest guards at each possible entrance, use a sentry system of patrols (not intended to fight, only to alert the main bulk of troops) and then swarm the PCs when they're found (if they get in.)

And put down as many magical traps as seem possible. Specifically in places the PCs have already been just in case they think it's safe to return there.

[Telok]

I'm basing this response off of playing the Dungeon Keeper series of games.
1: Minimize the number of entrances.
2: Put alarm traps as far forward as practical.
3: Put a sentry post close to each alarm trap and try to keep them manned.
4: Put a couple of your strongest doors and traps after the sentry post.
5: Put your mess halls, training rooms, and rec rooms between the entrance and the important parts of your dungeon (treasury, magic portals, VIP living spaces).
5: React to intruders with immedate and overwhelming force.

For this guy I'd dig out the undead, collapse all but one entrance, and prepare an escape plan. Pick some room near the entrance and place a mixed squad of undead and living troops. When the intruders arrive the undead attack and the living troops run back to sound the alarm. Then everyone but the critical core people for the ritual goes out to attack the intruders. If the intruders bypass the assault you fight a holding action untill reinforcements arrive. If the intruders beat your assault thow your two or three best attacks at them, then if most of the intruders are still standing initiate your escape plan.

[Lapsed Pacifist]

If he's summoning an Elder Evil, it sounds like an escape plan is way at the bottom of his list of priorities (unless he has a way of leaving the plane he's on).

[JellyPooga]

He's got 60-odd minions at his disposal and assuming a minimal guard or militia in the village, why doesn't he take the offensive? Keep a couple of his big-brute minions (perhaps the flesh golem and some of the Bullywugs) to defend his ritual chamber and send the rest up-top (perhaps led by the Bullywug Cleric). The PC's will be kept busy defending the village and they've no way of knowing whether what they faced was everything he had at his disposal, so risking the safety of the village on the presumption that they'll face minimal resistance in the BBEG's lair is a bit much of a leap of faith.

This way, the PC's are faced with the moral dilemma of sacrificing the village for the greater good. Alternatively, if they can muster the villagers to mount a good defence, then they might be able to pull off the "ultimate good ending - top score!".

[Laurellien]

He probably wouldn't send anybody to attack the village, because that would deplete his resources (he already has some zombies wandering the surface), but he's a little insane so I'm not sure...

I'm torn between two courses of action:

1) Destroy the entrances to his dungeon and set his horde to guard the only way to the ritual chamber in one chamber to concentrate force (now that he knows that he faces a credible threat from enemies with access to powerful magic).
Positives: In character for somebody who doesn't want the ritual to be disturbed, and the NPC allies will probably grow restless and leave.
Negatives: Makes it harder for the PCs who will now have to conduct a long excavation to get to him.

2) Destroy one entrance to the dungeon and leave the other one trapped and well guarded so his minions can maximise their combat capability so that it will be a blood-soaked meatgrinder to get in. He might do this because of madness or bloodthirst.
Positives: It stops the session becoming an episode of Time Team, and it allows the PCs to have a bloody battle against a horde of opponents.
Negatives: It seems silly to leave a way for enemies to stop your diabolical plans, the PCs could turn it into a pitched battle if they deploy their allies to the fight.

Either way, he is going to release the dungeon denizens he doesn't control (2 ghasts and a now-berserk flesh golem) into other areas so that the PCs have to weaken themselves against them first.

[Shadowsend]

There's a third option:

Gather all his forces around the ritual room and leave the rest of the dungeon empty. (The way to be fair to the PCs in this case is to use waves of enemies)

[Laurellien]

There's a third option:

Gather all his forces around the ritual room and leave the rest of the dungeon empty. (The way to be fair to the PCs in this case is to use waves of enemies)

Hmm, why would he want to be fair though? He has already seen them use powerful spells, and he knows what they are capable of killing, so he wouldn't want to risk his forces like that knowing that there is such a threat.

He won't leave the dungeon empty, he'll just release all of the wandering, uncontrolled monsters.

[Shadowsend]

By fair I wasn't talking about *his* motivations. I was talking about ways to not overwhelm the players and still make them feel like they're fighting a lot of stuff. The wave technique can allow for larger and larger groups of baddies to appear if it fits. Waves also cause the players to consider when to use their big nasty spells.

I guess a fourth solution would be princess is in another castle...Have the evil cleric leave that temple and go desecrate some other area and start over.

[Slipperychicken]

I'd gather the minions all together near the ritual-place, leave some by the entrances for early warnings, then get back to the summoning. After all, we can dig ourselves out once Kuth'hoo'luu is freed. It's not like the invaders can get in now; if they had the power to move through the walls or the debris, then why didn't they do so before? If food runs low, just prepare and cast Create Food and Water. I would assume that you'd need to be at least a little over level 5 to be conjuring up the big boys.

But yeah, the PCs kind of wrote themselves into a corner here. Maybe they can try to do damage-control after BigBad McCreepyFace is unleashed onto the world.

[JellyPooga]

He probably wouldn't send anybody to attack the village, because that would deplete his resources

Yes, but the PC's don't know how many "resources" he has available. In addition, if all he needs is enough time to complete his ritual, then the best way to gain time is not to wait for the "heroes" to come charging in to his domain, but rather catch them on the hop by taking an aggressive move. They're still going to have to be cautious coming in, because of their lack of knowledge about what they're going to be facing, not to mention the time it takes for them to dig through whatever barricades/collapsed tunnels BBEG has set up. By attacking the village, he's sending all manner of confusion up to the surface. Confusion, I'll add, that will probably have the hapless "heroes" standing around in indecision, debating whether to organise a concerted defence of the village, trying to herd villagers away from "danger spots" and so on and so forth. Once the attack on the surface has been repelled (assuming it ever is...), the PC's are going to be mired in the "rescue mission" of locating lost loved ones, pulling survivors out of burning buildings, chasing down stray livestock and accepting the praise of the villagers. All the while this is going on, BBEG is completing his ritual...

...unless the PC's see through the ruse and leave the villagers to die whilst they assault the subterranean lair. But that wouldn't be very "heroic" now, would it? It opens up potential future problems for the PC's; perhaps a survivor of the massacre makes it to the next village or town and tells everyone about the "cowardly adventurers" that left everyone to die when the village was attacked. After all, it's only the PC's word that they were tackling a greater evil by stopping the ritual; what proof is there when the whole complex collapsed behind them as they made their escape? As rumour spreads, the PC's find it harder and harder to find legitimate work for honest folk; perhaps the only people that will deign to employ them are not so scrupulous themselves and they do say the road to damnation is a slippery slope. Heh heh heh...

The real crux of it, though, is that the players won't expect it and it's something different to the usual "plan a dungeon bash and then bash the dungeon whilst the BBEG sits on his hands and waits for us" game. That's what makes it fun!

[Whyrocknodie]

I would decide what I would want the party to have to deal with - spread out foes, or one big mash-up.

Because that is what he does. It is a situation which does not require precise adherence to a particular strategy - which is to say, it could go any way depending on his personality, which you are in complete control of.

[Spamotron]

There's no reason he has to just do one thing or the other. Leave a small group of his most elite minions in the ritual chamber and collapse all the access points to it. Send the remaining minions up top to wreak havoc and buy time. He's presumably crazy enough to believe that the Elder Evil in question will fight alongside him rather than eat him so if loses all his minions but completes the summoning in his mind he still wins.

[dream]

This guy's trying to summon an elder evil? He's insane, which means he could care less what happens around him. He'd keep trying to summon Cthulhu & if the PCs don't get back down there ---- GAME OVER

[Endarire]

If he collapses the tunnels around him, how does he breathe?

[goto124]

Bottle of air!

[oball]

Collapsing the tunnels doesn't necessarily seal the dungeon air-tight.

Which means the PCs can skip their tedious excavation with a few potions of Gaseous Form, if they realise this.

[Lapsed Pacifist]

Yeah, the reason the cleric doesn't keep all of the monsters in the ritual chamber for overwhelming force is because his goal isn't to kill the PCs, but to delay as much as possible. Do the PCs have any options if the EE gets summoned or is it just campaign over?

[Slipperychicken]

Do the PCs have any options if the EE gets summoned or is it just campaign over?

This is what I was thinking before; failing to stop the summoning ritual could just escalate the threat level. After EE comes into the world, getting rid of it might mean quickly dealing with a whole area filled with its minions (before its powers grow or manifest to their full potential), or perhaps the PCs need to somehow overcome it and perform a binding or banishing ritual.

[Laurellien]

Hmm, interesting thought. It was meant to be the Leviathan, because that is the arc around which my campaign revolves and it would work within the context of the Elder Evils book because Leviathan is being awakened by servants of Demogorgon, and the kopru of the Isle of Dread are servants of Demogorgon.

On reflection, I might change it to being an attempt to summon an aspect/aspects of Demogorgon. Those are surmountable challenges and would explain the later presence of one on the island.

[Knaight]

What's the air situation? It may be a choice of excavate or suffocate, depending on how much space there is and the number of living minions. If so, I'd expect said minions concentrated on excavation duties, working at the best places to get back the surface air supply.

[Laurellien]

There is a passageway out to a concealed cove so the bullywugs and kopru will be able to breathe still.