I'd prefer to start barraging them while they're lumped together. Call lightning, fireball, flaming sphere, etc. Scatter them and draw them to the gate. Then invisi-Lorn rescues the dwarf. If the dwarf just spontaneously starts floating, they'll just focus fire him and kill him.
And if Lys is going to start shooting, why not also have the ranger shoot while our casters launch spells? Me and Wulf can guard the gate.
Yup! She could probably help me with the barraging as well.
I'd usually side with the 'no frontal assaults' notion of Nerak. However, I would point out that we're a lot more durable and combat-y than the average party of our level, even with Varin gone. (We make it up in being considerably worse in skills), so direct assaults might be an option for us.
And they're undeniably GLORIOUS!
If Lys starts shouting various 'compliments' at the orcs in Giant while she's shooting them, it might help, too!
All in all - I suggest we settle for rescuing the dwarf for now. Sorry for being air-headed, but why are we assaulting the fort again?
Sorry for being air-headed, but why are we assaulting the fort again?
This tribe of orcs assaulted your home town of Trunau and killed a bunch of your friends. - Revenge
The reason we don't want to attack the orcs in a group is because we won't kill them all, more so if they have at least one healer among their number. After which we will enrage them and have them chase us or worse yet get the giant forces together to do so. Solidifying the forts forces against us. Which we don't want and will destroy any chance of getting the orcs to turn on the giants. Why provoke two large groups of enemies when we can have them fight each other by diplomacy or trickery?
We will be counting on the surprise of the dwarf suddenly flying away to throw them off, anyways firing directly up will shorten the range of their weapons as well as cause their ammo to rain back on them. I rather doubt they will be able to draw bows (if they even use them as orcs favor thrown weapons which have even shorter ranges) and fire before the dwarf is outside or at the edge of their range. After all he just needs to get over the wooden wall to break line of sight, that single entrance works against them in that case. It also allows us to bottleneck them with ranged fire. Planting a flaming sphere their would even be enough. Minimizing their threat unless their willing to set themselves on fire. More likely they will take cover behind that wall from fire. Which will give us time to get our dwarf and run.
Getting us what we want and still maintaining the chance to deal with the orcs. Also Nerak is not going to help provoke a army of orcs to save a single dwarf. It's not good tactics and no amount of moral argument is going to change that. That's not why we are here, more then one life or even a dozen lives are on the line.
On that note, we were sent by our village to counter attack the source of the invasion of our home. Ideally wiping out the chance of a second army showing up on our doorstep. We are here to break the horde basically. Which is why Nerak wants to make it implode not throwing it away to save a single dwarf or to toss oil on the fire.
Edit- DM beat me to it while I was typing, oh well I change nothing. :)
I'm not saying we should stand outside the gates and challenge them to a pitched battle. But we know this is going to come down to a fight. We're not going to be able to trick or sweet talk them into fighting each other. It's just not going to happen.
These orcs aren't going to sit down and negotiate with us. Perhaps if we kill half of them, the other half will surrender or something, but that's about the best we can hope for on the diplomatic front.
These people killed our friends and attacked our village, and it's our job to destroy them. Arlan is not going to sit on the sidelines while we hope that the levitating dwarf will escape. It has a low percentage chance of success and puts ALL of the orcs on alert. Even if Lorn is invisible, this is a world of magic. If the dwarf starts floating, the orcs will all man their posts and find us easily, and we lose all of the advantage that we have.
Tactically, our best chance is an alpha strike. Try to kill as many of the soldiers as we can. We have lots of buffs and control magic and the element of surprise. Buff up and attack swiftly. If they rush out to meet us, great! They won't have time to buff, even if they have casters. Me and Wulf with time to prepare can massacre many orcs. But a lot of them won't make it to us because Lys and the ranger will be lighting them up as they run towards the gates. If they try to raise the draw bridge and not come up, we keep firing and drop some flaming spheres and call lightning.
Hell, one obscuring mist and me, Wulf (and maybe a rhino) can break down the gate if we need to. Or we kill half of them, possibly save the dwarf, retreat, and regroup. Then ambush the scouting parties that they send out. If they don't try to find us, we rest and do the same thing tomorrow.
Do you think this is more risky than trying to somehow negotiate or trick the orcs?
Keep in mind, the ranger is likely killing two or three (can't remember if she has rapid shot) lesser orcs per round with orc bane arrows.
Fyi. There is no gate. The fort is open with a bottleneck at the down drawbridge.
How much drama do you think is fun? With all this discussion, should I start posting the description of the start of the bear bait?
Cheers
I definitely want to be involved in the fight (IC wise) and OOC I don't want to squander the tactical advantage. So I'm going to get the IC banter started.
Personally, I would say buff, plug the hole...murder as much as possible....retreat when the giants start moving towards us with Stone call and the like. It's a forty foot radius so we can crank out a good 80 ft of difficult terrain and easily outpace them to a degree. Drop a stone call as soon as they start into the bottleneck, drop another after Arlan and Wulfrum start the full retreat.
Arlan I would not assume anything is set in stone like that. OOC a DM or AP does not waste the time of putting something like over hearing one group of an alliance bad mouthing the other if it's not giving you a hook to use. You could have over heard a name of one of the leaders or a powerful creature in it's place without even mentioning the alliance. Something useful but not tied to the dynamics between the fort's inhabitants.
Orcs are not known for their loyalty. If their leader and people feel mistreated and are given a chance to strike down those above them they will take it. They will also get rid of rivals or allies right after if their no longer useful. That's exactly why they will deal, it's in their own best interest and advantage. No doubt afterwards they will turn on us, which is why we have to make good use of them. So we can wipe them out when they turn on us.
As for tricking them, make an illusion of one of the giants dropping a rock on an orc or taunting them for example. Do that for a few days and their rage will overcome their fear and restraint. Whatever group survives will be weakened. Then we can move in with less enemies and even some information on their numbers and abilities.
That's the thing about PF, their is no set way to deal with things. In fact if you try to bash your way through everything. Your pretty much guaranteed to get wiped, as they have a habit of tossing a few no win scenario's combat wise in my experience.
Anyways Nerak is not going to agree to attacking orcs that outnumber us 6 to 1 with bears on top. Even with surprise and all that. It's out in the open with no where and nothing to fall back on or to. We don't know what's in the fort or the extent of their abilities. They could have spellcasters of their own, more war beast, and even riders which could chase us down after we blew a bunch of resources. At the very least we know they have giants which even one would be a problem for us much less multiples. It's suicide, Nerak doesn't do suicide.
P.S. Dwarves only have 20 ft. movement. Their not outrunning anything.
If you believe there is a way to convince the orcs to fight the giants, I would love to hear it. But you haven't provided one yet. An illusion of a giant dropping a rock on an orc will do nothing but alert them that there is a magic user. They will then find us, buff up, and attack.
The point of this mission is to assault the fortress. We're tough, 6th level characters. We have a lot of weapons at our disposal, and the one advantage we have is the element of surprise. Lys and the ranger with orcbane arrows will mow them down from range. We throw lighting and flaming spheres to block their path to us. We can do a lot of damage before they reach us. If you're worried that we won't be able to flee, save haste to help us run away.
We've waited a long time to get to this moment. I want to kill the enemies. We can take some risks. I think you underestimate our survivability. Beltzer gives me and Wulf lots of temporary HP. He lifelinks me and Wulf. Wulf buffs himself, I use my mutagen. Belzer can summon a rhino, hex the big bad, and channel to keep us a live a long time.
If you have a specific idea to make it so we don't have to fight the orcs, please spell it out. But I don't see how we can do it. And all that happens if we try to reason with them (and likely fail) is that it ruins our current advantage.
So, let's hear some specifics. We are bard-less and we're in the Giantslayer campaign. I know what I want to do.
Wulf, Lys, and Bel, can y'all weigh in too?
Like I said - I'd love to drive a wedge between the orcs and the giants as much as the next Trunauan, and I am generally against a frontal assault.
Buuuut.
I think Lys would be very much against leaving the dwarf behind, regardless of how bad of a tactical decision it is. And I can't think of a way how we, with our skills and abilities, can convince the orcs and the giants to start fighting each other.
One thing we could do, is have an illusion of a hill giant jump in the pit, pick up the dwarf and jump out, while the dwarf flies on his own accord.
So I suggest we try and grab the dwarf, with Lys and Hild firing back if/when they start shooting at him. If the more detectable people stand behind the barricade, and get ready to repel attackers, we can definitely make significant headway, especially if the bridge is narrow, and we're the ones defending. I think the bears, being in the moat, aren't going to be a problem, unless we ourselves go in the moat.
Another idea would be to have Arlan and Wulfy push down the barricade, thus blocking the bridge somehow?
So, TL;DR: Lys suggests grabbing the dwarf while she and Hild are distracting the orcs by FIREPOWER, then wing it.
I honestly don't mind planning but in the end two rounds in you are winging it.
Wulfrum is garbage at sneaky shit...
But if you are planning on flying him out, I'd suggest invis on the dwarf first, then fly, then we run....if we are trying to just snatch the dwarf.
That would be more than enough to satisfy the dwarf.
From there, attack in daylight is 99% of what Wulfrum would have to say.
OK. I've loaded the map. There are two special orcs (the leader and a concubine). Each other orc icon represents 3 actual orcs.
K2a is where the bear fight is, but you cannot see inside yet.
The map is as large as I could get, so you can get at range.
I think Varin will stay back as reinforcements and prepare a hiding place, because he's not posting.
I need an icon for the sister slayer dwarf
Have to drop my girl at an overnight camp, so I'll post tonight
cheers
Sorry for the delay, current contract is taking up alot of my time and energy.
No worries, Wulfrum has no issues with the plan.
I'm assuming Nerak is the small green circle. Wulfrum will take the left of the bridge, with Beltzer behind him so he can properly shield him and Arlan takes the right? Meanwhile Lyz drops down prone about 100 feet back and prepares to bolt each orc that comes out?
I have 2 questions with your plan, not that Arian knows this.
1) How can he read the note if he's holding it while invisible, as it will also be invisible?
2) I don't think Lorn can cast fly and invisibility for you. Familiars can only cast touch spells, which are literally spells with a range of touch. So Nerak would have to invisible, fly over, and invisible and fly the dwarf as far as I can tell.
I can answer the second, the birb in question would just have to make two quick trips. Nerak starts the spell, the birb gets imbued, the birb flies and delivers, the birb then returns on next turn, gets imbued again and then flies and delivers again.
The note, perhaps a small dramatic pause before the bird jabs him with the spell to give the dwarf a few moments to read...I'd probably write it in dwarvish just to make sure his brain registers the words immediately.
My bad, I looked it up. They're both touch spells. Objection withdrawn! Carry on!
Oops. Sorry about that. I've given you control over your icons on the map. Lys, I've given you control of Ingrahild for girlpower.
Please position yourselves where you want before someone engages the orcs.
You shouldn't cast spells within 500 ft of the fort or potentially be heard. Remember your speeds.
Please post a description from where you are (2500 ft away) to your ready position with buffs and stuff.
thanks
Sorry for the delay, got swamped again. Moved my icon over to the spot he is going to be when he sends Lorn over. I'll have a post up in a while.
DM I think you mean 50 ft. as the DC would be +50 for the distance alone of 500 feet. Throw in things like them not paying attention, walls, and such would only add to it. By the nature of the rules Nerak will have to cast spells well with in that range but being on the other side of multiple walls, invisible, and drowned out by orcs being orcs with a bear on top. I doubt their going to hear quiet chanting that last a few seconds outside the fortress. ;P
I didn't see anything noteworthy to adjust Wulfrum's action...if I missed something please let me know.
I did double check Roll20.
Sorry, I will post tomorrow, everything at work/home kept getting delays so I had no time to do other things. Bot me to keep the game rolling at least and I'll keep going.
Feel free to pick some buffs and give them to folks.
How about shield other and that temp HP hex?
~grumbles~ I knew I could've done some kind of "Barrier" to slow them down. It bothered me up and down and I didn't read Web Shelter right as I could've make a 20ft hemisphere smack in the middle of their exit....~grumps~ But I didn't prepare it. IT's why I always leave a spell slot open if I can help it, for trying to adjust for plans.
Lys, Ingrahild has the Orc Bane arrows. They are +3 instead of +1 And deal an additional +2d6 bonus damage. She should use those, maybe starting next round. She also gets +4 attack and damage vs orcs (which you might have included, I'd have to check)
I would save orc bane arrows for the leader or exceptional orcs, not mooks. Just a suggestion. ;)
I forgot just how nasty bolt ace can get. Couple that dex to damage with Deadly aim, rapid shot, many shot, and clustered shot and you putting out some stupid amounts of damage that just murders it's way through dr.
DM can I get a confirmation that Lorn hit the dwarf with fly and he is flying away?
Yes. Lorn feels satisfied that he did what you asked, because it was more challenging than he anticipated.
He's scared of the raging dire bear that is too close to him for his own comfort.
Think you just get feelings.
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Lorn can talk to Nerak now, so he can just tell him once he gets back.
Lorn is not back until round 3.
It took his whole round 2 to find and land on the dwarf.
Then consider my post round three. Everyone is still fighting the orcs.
P.S. Lorn can see through invisibility. Part of the reason he is so useful to watch Nerak's marshmallow butt. ;)
Hey guys! Quick update, I mentioned I will be scarcely posting this week, as I'm just about wrapping up with university, period.
In addition, my laptop had honorably passed away, luckily the day after I handed in my final report. I'll be looking into getting it fixed, but for now I'll be posting scarcely, if I find somewhere to do it from. I'd ask you to bot me, if possible, and I'll try and get on with the game ASAP.
Cheers, and sorry!
Thanks for the heads up.
If anyone has the time to bot Lys and Ingrahild, go ahead. Otherwise, I'll do it when I post.
Cheers
DM, the dwarf got the note before he got hit by any spell. Lorn was sent over with it the first time before he even got imbued with the fly spell he needed to deliver. How did he not have time to read the note before the rounds even got started? That's the whole reason for the note sense once the dwarf became invisible, he would not be able to read it.
Well, the dude is fighting a dire bear. Probably hard to stop and read a note. ;-)
DM, do I have the temp HP from Beltzer's hex? It's not listed in the recap.
When Nerak complains to Lorn about the disruption of his plan, Lorn will explain that the dwarf was full defensive against a dire bear wearing nothing but bloody rags, wielding a skillet for a weapon, and backed into a corner.
In game mechanics, he did not want to risk an AOO to read the note. Which is also why it took Lorn a few seconds to actually touch him, instead of the 1 rounf that Nerak planned.
How does reading provoke a AoO or even cost an action? That's maaaybe a perception check in response to a note appearing, which does not provoke. Unless that's stated somewhere, it is kinda odd though.
Anyways I am more concerned over the fact that the fly spell would be wasted in that case, ruining our entire plan. Sense being hit with it does not impart any knowledge of it or anything. So he would not know it's a fly spell or that he can now fly and once that invisibility spell expires he will be back to square one with the bear. Not taking the orcs into account. xZ
If he did not read the note then I expect at worst for Lorn to panic, which Nerak would feel through the link. Or for Lorn not to use the spell until the dwarf read the note and confirmed, as he was told to do. Not go against Nerak's instructions.
The orcs know we're here anyway. Why not just yell "dwarf, you can fly" at the top of your lungs?
That I would say without a doubt be a perception check. Which would have to be overheard over the war cries and roars of 30 something orcs and at least one bear on top of distance and through barriers. That would be a very high DC.
Honestly if I knew the dwarf had not read the note I would have cast fly on myself, while still having Lorn hold invisibility. Then fly over and grab him while having Lorn hit him at the same time with invisibility. Due to the weight the flying speed would be reduced but that would be better then having a flying dwarf that does not know he can fly.
@Nerak
1. Relax. I'm working with the intent of your plan.
2. With respect to AOO, I don't need it written anywhere to determine that receiving and reading a written note would provoke an AOO. By the time, you got to the fort, the dwarf was fighting with the bears or at least attempting to survive. While I will consider your suggestions of game mechanic interpretations, please remember rule zero.
3. Going forward if Lorn is outside Nerak's line of sight, please interact with him in Gameplay, so I can tell you what he sees, hears, does, etc. I can provide real time emotions of Lorn, but I may forget.
4. So let's recap:
* Round 1, when Lorn got to the dwarf, there was zero opportunity for the dwarf to read the note. So, Lorn made the dwarf invisible and returns to Nerak. Lorn feels satisfied that he did what you asked, because it was more challenging than he anticipated. He's scared of the raging dire bear that is too close to him for his own comfort.
* Round 2, Nerak imbues Lorn with the flying spell. Once the dwarf is hit by Lorn, he could fly away. Lorn moves to the dwarf and needs a standard action to hit him while the dwarf is full defense. Lorn squawked in the dwarf's ear when he hit him with Fly; although, he has not told that to Nerak.
* Round 3, Lorn arrives at Nerak and tells him that the dwarf didn't have time to read the note. But he feels the dwarf knows that he has a Fly spell, which is why Nerak felt alright to do his following action: With the job done, the pair take off. With his enhanced speed he makes it to where the others are in moments as he runs. Again leaving nothing but a vague dust trail.
* Round 3, the rest of the players need to act. If you want to interview Lorn about what happened, please do so in Gameplay.
thanks
I think in character we talked about something to slow em down when we were exiting but I don't remember if Nerak agreed to Stone Call em or not.
Wulfrum doesn't know how strong Beltzer can call upon allies but Wulfrum is essientially attempting to ask for something like Summon Mosnter or Ally or something to help relieve some of the pressure so that the Orcs are distracted for a moment and the group can retreat as planned.
Also, I assumed most of Round 3 was done all at the same time or I wouldn't have had Wulfrum bash this round. Plans are to Do a Withdraw this round...and hopefully a full run next round and every round after till they get away.
Edit:Quick side question, this would fall more under GM call than from what I know of an actual rule but...When having a 10ft natural reach and attacking with a shield...is it within the normal 5ft reach standards or do I gotta take a 5ft back to smash an opponent. If possible I'd prefer not to...but I did adjust my roll20 character just in case.
Nerak will take Lorn's word for it. He does not expect his familiar to lie/disobey him, take that as you will.
As for slowing them down, Nerak has his speed spell on extend. So even mounted orcs don't have a good chance of catching him much less while he is invisible. He will do something to them if they chase you guys when you retreat, but all his current actions have been used up getting to Lys and co. So run and if they follow he has slow, stone call, and glitterdust to mess with them. FYI he would use stone call last sense that would break his invisibility. Otherwise if the orcs give up chasing you guys in the open their is no need to provoke to do just that. That's Nerak's train of thought.
Sounds fair, I was just tossing it back out cause 40ft withdraw plus 60 ft run equals charge Wulfrum all day everyday
Heads up that I leave for gencon tomorrow. I will try to keep up here, but I may be gone absent for a few days.
Let me live vicariously through you. Please report back. It's been many years and two kids since my last Gencon.
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I am half livid....this man...has a motherflubbing mithral SKILLET!!!! The only thing that could make me more unhinged would be if that skillet was adamantine instead...cause I tell you what, I'd switch to weapon focus (Skillet) and pick up improvised weapon if that was the case.
End of rant....taking deep breaths and moving on from the travisty that is the waste of that mithral. (Honestly like 5 lbs of mithral to make a damned skillet...bet shit sticks to it like no other. >.<)
Do you have skillet envy?
Maybe mithral is so plentiful where they are from that mithral is used to make anything.
You just saved his life. He might give or trade it to you for some gear.
I mean Wulfrum is gonna have a worse rant...
What's it to inspect the quality of craftsmanship/identify the crafter?
I'm not sure if Dwarves have 'clans' like they did in Forgotten Realms lore to try and recognize the work of a household line I might know.