Resources of the Crimson Fleet

[Professor Frankln Von Wolfstien]

Just wondering how much the Crimson Fleet has to spend to adapt to the tactics of the party.The Party has hit the base 2x useing Astral Projection. The Fleet has now used Forbiddence spells to stop the party for now.The Pc 's are also hiding in a Mordenkainens Mansion 5 days out at Sea from Scuttelcove.Not sure what else they are doing to hide from the Fleet.Should they start useing wishes and stuff to find them??? What do you think is fair.....??????????

[Kobold Lord]

Professor Frankln Von Wolfstien wrote:

Just wondering how much the Crimson Fleet has to spend to adapt to the tactics of the party.The Party has hit the base 2x useing Astral Projection. The Fleet has now used Forbiddence spells to stop the party for now.The Pc 's are also hiding in a Mordenkainens Mansion 5 days out at Sea from Scuttelcove.Not sure what else they are doing to hide from the Fleet.Should they start useing wishes and stuff to find them??? What do you think is fair.....??????????

If the PCs are using constant hit-and-run, the Crimson Fleet has what boils down to infinite monetary resources, at least using the stated assumptions of magic availability in the next adventure. If they don't have enough liquid assets for whatever they want right now, they can Teleport to Scuttlecove, mug a few passersby, travel to the Abyss, contact the Mercanes there for a purchase from Union, and then return to use their purchase. They can do this essentially every day, and they'll certainly escalate this along with the PCs.

Wish is well within reason. If you allow psionics, Metafaculty is much better because it is absolutely and explicitly uncounterable by anything the PCs can attempt.

Bottom line, the PCs should act decisively or not at all. If you're going to poke a sleeping dragon in the eye, you should be sure to be able to deal with the angry dragon when it wakes up. They're high-level characters now; they've earned the right to fight against opponents that are high-level in fact as well as in statistics.

[P.H. Dungeon]

Remember that a dispel magic can end the astral projection, which they are surely ready for but mordenkeinans disjunction and greater dispel magic could put a quick end to their astral assault.

You can always spice up their journey on the astral plane. Once they cast astral projection they need to go to the astral plane and then find a colour pool that takes them back to the material plane. Use as many of their resources up as you can during this phase. The proper colour pool to the material plane doesn't have to be easy to find and they might run into trouble on the way- githyanki, astral dreadnaughts. Once they do find a colour pool to the material plane it certainly shouldn't just deposite them at their destination, they should need to use a greater teleport spell to get them near the pirate base.

The pirates might also go out of their way to find weapons that can cut their astral cords, and with demogorgon on their side they shouldn't have too much trouble acquiring such resources. Maybe some githyanki mercenaries would fit the bill complete with red dragon mounts.

[Ben Brenneman 22]

I agree with Kobold Lord. If I was in charge of a criminal enterprise with the resources to send an agent as far away as the Isle of Dread, I would definately have a few agents in a town as big as Sasserine. Couple of Commune spells . . . couple of Legend Lore spells . . . now I'm kidnapping your sister.

Seriously, its tough to jerk around with PCs in-session, especially when you're trying to keep things moving and there's 3-6 people staring at you. But you got to figure that anything the PCs can do, the bad guys can do, plus they got a whole criminal enterprise behind them.

If you've got time between session to plan, I'd seiously consider what havoc the Crimson Fleet could wreak on the PCs home turf. I'll admit, I've never played a character over 13th level, and I've never seen a character played over 15th level, but it seems to me that play at this level is all about maintaining a sense of urgency. Most of the really unbalancing abilities they get from prestige classes, magic items, or whatever are only usable a limited number of times per day. If they get to rest and recharge after every encounter they are invincible. Otherwise . . . ?

[Professor Frankln Von Wolfstien]

Thanks for the input.It was much needed.