Of Kings and Commoners - Kingmaker AP

Game Master RPGGGM

I have other PCs who are all about the clever tricky plans. I often like thinking outside the box. But Durgan has neither the personality nor the skills to do much in this regard. He's kind of straightforward (and it's rather a nice break to not be the party strategist).

He will do whatever is asked of him!

True... but as a player rather than a character you might consider throwing some things out there to consider as a group. In RPGs you don't have to be an ace computer hacker to play one. Someone else in the group might be better at a subject than you and suggest an idea that your character might consider given their background (not that Aldizog is in real-life a second-story man mind you).

This is one of those times that you all have to come up with the idea. I can describe the scene, but this should be the group's plan.

So you have a rough map of the place--its 15-foot-high log palisade walls and three 20-foot towers (with peaked roofs another 10' up) and the bare hill it sits upon. You know that there are scattered bandit encampments around the hill (on the sides away from the lake), etc.... The gates seem closed at night. They keep fires burning inside at night and post a guard in the towers....

I would make this point of the plan so far--that leading a monster into the outer ring of squatter camps would be much easier if you could do it unseen.

If that's not an option then maybe take stock of what you do have available.

We have approaching darkness maybe and some amulets and cloaks, riding into the camp or running with the monster chasing us as a distraction should help provide a natural disguise..

Halt! identify yourselfffffff.... arrgggg... runn...

Aye...what I currently fail to see: Do we need the Hydra to swim over towards the Fort?
Alia with her knowledge check failed to realize they are water serpents(as per Lernaean Hydra, for lake Lerna - at least they dropped the absolute lethality) and as such have a swim speed, which will cause a significant problem if we have to bring it across somehow.

If we can move over land, then by all means, poking it and luring it to a camp is great! Scarlet is fast, and with Illthirs help, we all are. But if we can not get there by land, but need to cross water, we'll have to consider our options -

No one was making a move, so I decided to get the ball rolling and improvise along the way, whee!

I get that.

I am not sure about the Hydra plan, and don't see any way to use our resources to make it more likely to succeed, but it would be cool so I will do my part - just need somebody else with the vision to tell me what my part is.

I do have thoughts on another plan, attacking the fort directly. Spider Climb as Alia's bonded item spell, plus her scroll of Invisibility, we send up one PC into a guard tower from outside the walls (probably Scarlet or Durgan). They kill the sentries in the tower and then hold a defensive position. Pull up ladders or batten down trapdoors. Lower down a knotted rope outside the walls and everybody else comes up.

We may still have to do that eventually - and if it's tomorrow, Alia can prepare the spells rather than having to use the bonded item and scroll. And Durgan can prepare spells that might help that plan succeed, like Silence.

So my best tactical suggestions are for something other than the Hydra plan, which is not to say I don't want this plan to work.

Well, the main idea for the Hydra is to scare away the recruits camping outside.
Just to avoid getting swarmed and bogged down. (your AC does not matter - even a couple regular Peasants-gone-Bandit can grapple you and pin you down, then start peeling off your armor...)
And possibly force the local big guys to spend resources in taking it down or scaring it off.

We could probably also do some nightly harassment, sniping people in the guard towers from outside - once again forcing a reaction or having them face a situation where nobody is willing to do the job any more.

I am not so worried about getting INTO the camp as I am about getting back out again, preferably alive- But if the Hydra causes the surrounding camps to clear our, even for just a few nights, that gives us a lot more tactical options...

Durgan has a plan to deal with the "dogpile grapple." It is called "dish out AOOs." The first guy to try an untrained Grapple knows he is going to get killed. Even a trained grappler suffers an AOO if I have reach. I imagine them all standing around saying "No, you go first" and even after one dies the rest wondering if they should gamble that I don't have Combat Reflexes.

His CMD can get up there too, especially with Enlarge (potion or Scarlet), Bull's Strength, and Shield of Faith or Deflection Aura. CMD 25 isn't bad for this level. That would help even if they did something smarter like using nets.

Even so, I do recognize they could still find attacks that bypass both AC and CMD (like alchemical items) so seizing a defensive position like a guard tower seems prudent - limiting how many can attack us at once.

I certainly understand what the Hydra plan is intended to accomplish. I don't quite see how we make it happen. The terrain problems you noted could prove challenging. I'm willing to do my part with the plan, just tell me what my part is.

Maybe we could construct a large wooden female hydra and hope that it is nearsighted and horny? Okay, barring that, I think that hydra tag is our best option to get it close to the fort. I do agree with Durgan that we will need to secure a defensible position as soon as possible, though.

Zokon will be helping to shoot those who attempt to dogpile as well, unless he's bogged down attempting to shoot those shooting at us...

Meanwhile, I am actively looking for a replacement Numalar (i.e. a focused arcane caster).

Meanwhile, I am actively looking for a replacement Numalar (i.e. a focused arcane caster).

A Numalar construct?

@Hydra charm - have we actually sexed the hydra successfully? We might just have to build two charming fake hydras and see which one works :P

@Plan - Yes, I'm also looking to see what I can actually do. : )

So the hydra climbs up the wall from the lakeside and incapacitates the guards using their helmets and its multiple heads to look like all of them, while outside Posh does Uhura's sexy dance from that one Star Trek movie with the god who needed a spaceship and then....

Don't mind me, I'm being bait.

Maybe someone can give a path for Scarlet to follow back to the fort so she doesn't get caught in mud and wind up hydra food?

Meanwhile someone turns invisible and takes out a tower guard or two?

Don't mind me, I'm being bait.

Maybe someone can give a path for Scarlet to follow back to the fort so she doesn't get caught in mud and wind up hydra food?

I was going to say 'arrow catcher' but sure.

Durgan has a plan to deal with the "dogpile grapple." It is called "dish out AOOs." The first guy to try an untrained Grapple knows he is going to get killed. Even a trained grappler suffers an AOO if I have reach. I imagine them all standing around saying "No, you go first" and even after one dies the rest wondering if they should gamble that I don't have Combat Reflexes.

Thats basically true for most people first through a breach, or rushing into a line of spears, or storming a line of loaded muskets, or storming through machine gun fire towards an enemy trench, or...I wouldn't count on self-conservation being an important factor in self-defense - that never quite stopped warfare in history.

No matter if our opinions differ, we can agree that neither you, nor us, are utterly immune to what they can do, alchemical items, mechanical contraptions, swarm tactics, whatever. That guard tower seems a great idea, until they set it ablaze or just topple it over after they realize they can't storm it. Or just pepper us with arrows - with 60 or so people shooting, that's about 3 natural 20's each turn and some people are more vulnerable than you are.

I see the tactical benefit of a defensible position, but that does not force them to react in a way beneficial to us in my eyes. But I am willing to try regardless!

Alia, I am glad to hear your thoughts about what the enemy might do in response to our tactics. Moves and counter-moves is the name of the game in this case. What could they do that would bypass our normal defenses, and how could we counter that? We can't be immune to everything they could do, but we can think up as many things as possible and find counters. To that end, finding counters, we should have got more scrolls from the bank, but we're not bad off here.

The dogpile grapple tactic I think is very unlikely to be their first choice (or to work) for reasons I have outlined. But if you think it's still a threat, then we get a Grease on Durgan for another +10 CMD. The idea of Durgan (and maybe Scarlet) getting big with a high AC and hacking them to pieces is appealing for its straightforward simplicity. Probably would use this on the main fort, not an outlying camp.

Nets could work against us, but that's only Entangled, not Grappled. Still, spot anybody carrying a net and kill them first.
Acid or alchemists' fire could work - which is why Durgan has two Resist Energy spells prepared.
Pit traps could work, so maybe Durgan should prepare Find Traps tomorrow (though it would mean losing one of the Resist Energy spells).
Swarm spells are annoying, so we make sure to have some area damage of our own (we've got Serena's Burning Hands spell but not a lot else).

If we got in a position where 60 people were all shooting at us at once, which would be a very bad thing, we could still probably weather 3 natural 20's per turn for quite a while with healing, while whittling them down until they break and flee.

Self-preservation is an extremely influential factor in warfare, which is why armies normally rout at 20% casualties or so - not all fighting to the death like berserkers. The way you use this to your advantage is to give them an escape route. Don't surround them and trap them. It is really hard to train people to make those suicidal charges, it takes a lot of indoctrination, and that is one of the things that makes an elite army elite - they follow their orders no matter what (and even they rout after taking heavy casualties). "Peasants-turned-bandits" are not that. A soldier might give his life for his country, but a bandit is all about personal gain.

I certainly plan on adapting to the situation - if we see a ton of longspears lying in the camp, we change our plan and engage at range. (A stick or pitchfork as an improvised weapon has a -4 on attack rolls, which means many of their Aid Anothers would fail.) If they set the guard tower on fire, we put the fire out with Create Water. Nor do I think it will be terribly easy for them to topple over a guard tower. Wood has Hardness 5 and a lot of HP.

Most of all there is this: they cannot be fully prepared to counter every tactic we could try. They can't read minds and they are not specifically tailored to defeat us. And, they are going to be terrified individuals, each trying to do what they think is best in this situation, maybe "win," maybe "survive" - they are not a hive-mind with a perfectly coordinated plan.

What I mean is that you cannot FORCE them to do combat on your terms.
Even if you increase your speed and try to hunt them down, they can disperse and regroup, attack when you are not buffed up with 5 different spells.
How often a day can you do the full buff routine? How often can they do probing attacks?

What I am saying is that so far, our enemies were not stupid mooks that agreed to submit to our tactics. Assuming they will not counter us with the means at their disposal, whatever those may be, is undererstimating our enemy.

RPGGGM did play the enemies cunningly and, at times, exactly prepared for what was needed to give them an edge. Meta? Maybe, but it made for a exciting game so far.

The 60 people are by far not needed, because they don't need all that many natural 20's - assuming they have even basic skill at their weaponry, they will hit many party members with lower rolls.

@Warfare: The problem being that these guys seemed pretty reckless to begin with. Seeing the first one that retreats get slaughtered by their commanding LT does wonders for keeping them storming forward. Thats the direction they are already going. Also if you are pushed on from behind, such as going through a breach in a castle wall, it's not like you had the option to reconsider half-way through. You are talking army, I am talking parts of that army. Some may take close to 100% casualities, due to unfortunate placement, forced to either get cut down fleeing or die fighting, when surrender is not an option.
(And it's highly likely they know we delivered those who surrendered to Restov to get hanged for banditry - so surrendering to us is a death sentence to them.)

As you say, reacting to a situation is the thing. Heck, they may sound the retreat, abandon the fort, then heckle us with small-scale attacks repeatedly to drain our resources. Will you run out of spells or will they run out of man? If you roll in buffed up dealing damage and sporting armor like a battle tank, they will not throw themselves on your weapon in large groups, then flee and disperse and decide not to be bandits any more.
And that's assuming they don't simply let you waltz right in, then dispel you...
They are not specifically tailored to defeat us and they can't read minds. But they are effectively a group of higher-level individuals(e.g. caster is definitely higher level than us and I assume Staggie higher than him) with the support of defensive fortifications and several 100 followers of a typical leadership distribution - who know a bit about us from at least one combat(possibly more from other survivors or speaking with the dead) and know we took out some isolated camps so are likely to have at least given thought on how to counter us(minus Durgan and Selena).

I simply don't want you to trust on perceived superiority through stats and assume brute force will easily bring us victory. Our enemies acted with cunning in the past and I doubt that will change for the finale.

Waits to bonk things on the head with her sword

I am not saying stats and sheer brute force. I didn't think my tactics were particularly dull-witted; I thought seizing a guard tower with Spider Climb and Invisibility was actually a pretty good idea. Not just brute force.

I completely recognize the need for cleverness and creativity. So I am saying think what their counters are going to be... and then counter them. Think a couple of moves ahead. That is why I have had two Resist Energy prepped nearly every day. That is why I started with (and since replaced) a scroll of Invisibility Purge. Counter-measures.

So I've appreciated your ideas so far about what their responses might be. It helps with this sort of planning.

Seriously - I am not meaning to be argumentative, I really do appreciate your ideas of what the enemy might do.

Anyway, like I said, I'm happy to play a part in somebody else's plan, but we do need a plan. It seems like, after 10 months of real time, "Get somebody else to fight the bandits for us" is not a viable option. Not the mercenaries, not the hydra.

We certainly need intelligence about what their resources are.

Longspears? Nets? Alchemists' fire? Boiling oil? How many troops, and where, and with what kind of armor?

If they had intelligence on the party before through familiars, traitors, Clairaudience, or some other means, that's understandable. If they are totally prepared for us through GM meta-gaming then this would not be the campaign for me. But I assume they had in-game ways of gaining intelligence on the party... which we can plan for and deceive.

Aye, and I am not trying to be argumentative either. Sorry if it came across that way.

What I was trying to say was basically mostly that we should not rely on limited resources to provide an edge, whatever those might be - if they can not counter it, they may evade or outwait those.
Seizing a guard tower IS a good idea, certainly better than heading to the front door. But it could also mean we are trapped up there unless we have an exit strategy.
Buffing up or having scroll-options is certainly desirable, but gives us a limited number of attempts.
I do like your fresh perspective, don't misunderstand. It may just be that I am too used to things going wrong. For example, when we pursued Tartuk, me and Illthir made every chase-check on our first try and a good number of checks to move faster than regular and only got ONE chance where we closed in on his cart, then he sped away again, arrived 2 turns earlier than us and fled to the dark elves. That's the margin of error I expect. Do everything exactly right and you get one shot at success - if you fail, then it was all for naught.
But over-analysing will not help, either, so I'm fine with whatever plan is made. I am just opposed to any plan that needs us to go all-in because considering history so far, the odds are stacked against us.

Remember, whatever you guys do come up with there needs to roles for all the PCs.

Certainly.

I would suggest that whatever tactic we use, Durgan makes a pretty good "point of the spear". He has good multi-layered defenses and poses a credible threat. If the enemy focuses on him, that's good. A Dispel on him is a 3rd-level slot that could have been a Fireball on the party.

It is not my intention to solo the fort, but definitely to draw fire.

Sorry for not posting this earlier but I didn't realise the net connection may not be good, where I'll be or the next 4 days and thus my posting may not be good either.

In other news, I found us a 4th level witch.

In other other news while she's in town she will be staying at the luxurious bandit fort as a permanent guest of the owner until such time as the party joins her for tea.

Howdy, newcomer! Welcome to our merry band of "No plan survives first contact with the enemy!"

So... let's go get our new PC!

If a subterfuge plan works here with these guys Scarlet found, go for it. Durgan can't do much to help other than stand around and look dwarfy (which actually might help). But he'll do his part.

Numalar was our best at Bluff, I think, so Durgan will be prepared for this improvised plan to go sideways.

Longer-term, I've been thinking about what Alia said about the other party members' AC being not as good as Durgan's and in fact that was the concept behind my first proposed build for Durgan - an Honor Guard cavalier. I would rather help the party avoid damage rather than just heal it all up after the fact. AC is a very important defense, and enemies lose a lot of their effectiveness if they have to resort to creative means to bypass it. Now, Durgan can do some things to help the party's AC, like his Aura of Deflection, but what he really needs is a way to cast Barkskin more often, like a wand or a staff, or some 2nd-level Pearls of Power. He can also make use of Shield Other on Alia or Scarlet although he would need to get the focus for that spell.

Howdy, newcomer! Welcome to our merry band of "No plan survives first contact with the enemy!"

Hey! Your mail-order hydra showed up right on time! It's not its problem that you didn't have your garage sale last spring and cleared out some space in the garage for it.

That and stop teasing it with all of your crunchy horses.

ah yes, do feel free to join me. And if you see a helpful little fox out there, don't shoot him... he's a friend

Thanks in advance (and hello!)

@Witch

Hello : )

@Lies!

Illthir is almost as good as our late gnome at running scams and she's all for it! Especially since she wanted to try trickery instead of fighting swamp monsters herself ... :P

@AC

So a mandatory diet of Use Magic Device and Shield Wands then?^^

@Victoria - welcome!

@Lies - well that is a good Bluff. Why couldn't the bandits be considerate and find you instead?

@AC - Durgan/Scarlet/Alia have Shield on our lists, and there are several ways Illthir could get it (including Spell Kenning). Or, for a couple of feats, Shield Brace or Unhindering Shield. Or take the second rank. There's no one required solution... but a party with all the fighters having AC 17-19 at 4th level is a party in need of a lot of healing, more than I can provide. "Kill them all before they can kill you" works okay against small groups of enemies, but against many weaker foes you really want AC because you will take counterattacks. Durgan will work to get better at improving the party's AC.

There's always Arrowsong's Lament for Shield too!

Will help out a bit with healing once Illthir gets Greater Skald's Vigor too, but that's quite a bit away

So uh assuming the hydra is indeed a magical beast Illthir could throw an +/- 0 untrained Handle Animal at it. Now that seems like a safe and good idea. Right?!

So uh assuming the hydra is indeed a magical beast Illthir could throw an +/- 0 untrained Handle Animal at it. Now that seems like a safe and good idea. Right?!

Hydras are indeed magical beasts with animal intelligence. It is however still a wild adult creature.

Low Intelligence Non-Animals You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.

Untrained If you have no ranks in Handle Animal, you can use a Charisma check to handle and push domestic animals, but you can’t teach, rear, or train animals. A druid or ranger with no ranks in Handle Animal can use a Charisma check to handle and push her animal companion, but she can’t teach, rear, or train other non-domestic animals.

Ah true. I guess we need someone with ranks in it then. Or... You know... :P

---

But yeah; just pointing it in the right direction might be useful. If we could do that of course. Even if we do manage to communicate with the hydra and so on, it might not be inclined to rush into another dangerous situation with more annoying two-legs so soon.

Ah true. I guess we need someone with ranks in it then. Or... You know... :P

Yes no thanks to me throwing myself into a situation where i'll most likely get attacked by whatever I try and communicate with.

Well at least until I get at least 5 or so levels, I may have had time to take a few levels of Ranger by then...

Hello to the new With yay!!

Hello Witch!

Also, I do have Handle Aninml.
I needed to skill it to be able to train Vega into not attempting to claw off the hand that feeds him.
A hydra can't be worse than that cat, so I'm totally willing to give it a try.

That said:
Hydras reproduce axexually and semi-permanently. We could aquire offspring and rear them into domestication.

I would assume the upkeep is a bit high for consideration as labor beasts...but seriously, screw other animals - Hydra Cavalry is where it's at!

All, I am in the midst of con season and I have two cons in the span of a month, one of which I am working as staff. If I am slowing things down, please feel free to bot me. If you are in my group, please be patient and I will check in as often as time allows. Things should be back to normal after the first weekend in March.

P.S. Hello to our new player and welcome!

So we have:

Hydra distraction. Possibly hydra cavalry, but that's a few years off. First you need a to build a tannery to have enough leather to build all the exotic saddles
And
Use stealth or a distraction and scale the lakeside wall.

Other options include, but are not limited to:

Deception. Pretend to be bandits, replace bandits, or pretend to be emissaries from Mivon's young Hotspur. Some people might have access to disguise kits, or magical disguises (disguise self; Posh has the hat version).

Other Magic. In my other game we had a druid who turned into a bird and a scroll of fly (taken from Tartuk's journal, which the party would have while lacking a Numalar) that some of the party used to gain entry.

Finally, there is waiting long enough that setting develops into the Starfinder setting. Spaceships could clear those walls in no time. :)

There is also "raid the outlying camps and draw the bandits out of the fort."

I like "scale a guard tower" best but could do "raid outlying camps" or "pretend to be mercenary." Durgan looks like a dwarf carrying an axe, and even if his Abadar symbols are recognized he can honestly say that he will fulfill his obligations under a contract.

I don't know what we do with the hydra. It has fast healing, and it's not like we can build a cage or pen around it while carefully keeping it just negative enough for several hours, and then have it penned up for weeks while Alia tries to train it. I would say just kill it.

We could go back to the original plan, saddle up and ride away from it and see if it chases us towards the keep. Most likely it will slink off into the swamp.

You won't be able to train the hydra. We'd need to leave a ton of food to bait it towards the camp (and it needs to heal up, anyway)

Could we conjure an illusion of a hydra? Does Posh have the spell power to do it?

Yeah, I don't think training it will work either.

It will heal up very fast (maybe a minute to full HP) so we need to either kill it or get on our horses and ride away before it regains consciousness.

We would be the food-bait, but I don't know how fast it is.

Hey, we have downtime after Staggie goes down!
Plenty of time to train the Hydra!
At the LEAST, we should get some of the offspring.

@Plan of attack: IF we decide to pose as someone else: With Numalar not with us, we could pretend to have been mercenaries in his service, now hired by Hotspur who disposed of the Brevoyan Gnome.
We also have 3 Aspis Consortium Coins, and I could see them trying to get involved with the de-facto 'leader' of the lands if they consider extending their operations here, to work something out.

But that's still a all-in plan.
Maybe we could raid one or two camps, or search another Hydra, so we get to be Level 5 for the big confrontation?

I don't think domesticating the hydra is either viable or desirable.

With Charm Monster, maybe. That's a few levels away for Posh or Illthir. Maybe by that time we'll run into, I don't know, wyverns or something.

Let's get on with the plan. Raiding camps is fine with me, or posing as mercenaries, or attacking a guard tower from the outside. I do not want to go look for another hydra.

In the effort of moving this on, I'm picking a plan.

Let's attack a guard tower from the outside.

In the morning or now?

Now, I guess. We have a bloodthirsty hydra behind us, right?

Sorry for being absent. So now we have a new arcane user? Welcome!

*waves