Rules question about planned ambush

[Pooh]

I'm GMing a pathfinder game with 6 PCs. I'm only occasionally giving them enough a fight to seriously challenge them so I'm planning an ambush to try and give them a test. The party is 5th level.

The party will be traveling down a road with refugees going the other way. The refugees will thin out until there is only 1 wagon of them, a pathetic looking group comming toward them. When the refugees get close, they will be revealed a a bunch of zombies which will attack the party.

The party, if it follows its normal course, will deploy fighters to the from and magic users to the rear. Its the magic users I'm after. Once the fight is joined, an antipaladin with vanish cast on him will come out of the woods and attack the magic users from the rear.

Questions:
1. The antipaladin has aura of evil, will the cleric (NG) have a chance to detect him coming because of it.
2. If undetected, are the 2 magic users (cleric and warmage) flat footed. I'm assuming there is no surprise round as the battle has been joined and the antipaladin does not have sneak attack and I'm also assuming there is no flanking. The 2 being attacked have no special feats such as uncanny dodge or evade.
3. The antipaladin has power attack, cleave, smite good, touch of corruption and cruelties. If he is planning to use cleave, how many of these can he use in a single attack round. Smite would be against the cleric who will be the initial target.

Pooh

[Dorje Sylas]

Unless the Cleric drags out the parties overland travel by concentrating every round on Detect Evil, no he will not sense the Anti-Paladin. Aura of Evil just makes him more visible to Detect Evil, which normally 1st-5th level character dont show up in.

While not Flat-footed (they have already acted in combat), they are denied their dexterity against an invisible attacker. In this case his first set of attacks.

Smite - Swift
Cleave - a Standard Action
Corruption - touch attack
Cruelty - pick one with a Corruption attack

So yes you can start Smite (swift), walk up to the two (move), Cleave (Standard) the cleric with Corruption and a Cruelty then make an attack with a normal weapon on warmage. Both PCs loss their Dex bonus to AC if any.

The players will hate you forever I'm sure.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Before we start, I have to ask: Does the anti-paladin know who the PCs are, and that they'll be using this road? I'm just trying to get a feel for the scenario. The trouble with setting up ambushes is that the ambushers need to know the location/movements (and preferably the makeup of the party) of the ambushees. I'm assuming this is the case, though.

Pooh wrote:

Questions:

1. The antipaladin has aura of evil, will the cleric (NG) have a chance to detect him coming because of it.

Unless your cleric really does detect evil every time he sees pretty much anyone or anything on the road (which is pretty paranoid), chances are he won't (or shouldn't) bother. However, if you describe them as suspicious, then I assume he will. Remember, though, detect evil only has a maximum range of 60', so he won't notice the zombies until they're fairly close. Also keep in mind that detect evil can pick up lingering auras, so the anti-paladin needs to stay away from the kill zone even beforehand.

If the anti-paladin is in the right spot, he can be much closer than 60 feet and avoid detection; most likely, the cleric will aim his cone forward, which leaves blindspots to to the sides and rear. Makes sense to hide off to the side somewhere, just off the road, maybe behind some trees or what have you.

Quote:

2. If undetected, are the 2 magic users (cleric and warmage) flat footed. I'm assuming there is no surprise round as the battle has been joined and the antipaladin does not have sneak attack and I'm also assuming there is no flanking. The 2 being attacked have no special feats such as uncanny dodge or evade.

The 2 magic users probably won't be flat-footed, unless the antipaladin charges before anyone realizes what's going on (ie, surprise round), and that isn't the plan. However, being smitten while your meatshields are a double-move away still sucks.

Quote:

3. The antipaladin has power attack, cleave, smite good, touch of corruption and cruelties. If he is planning to use cleave, how many of these can he use in a single attack round. Smite would be against the cleric who will be the initial target.

Is the antipaladin mounted? If so, I suggest a charging smite against the cleric in the opening round. Frankly, it's a good idea on foot, too, as he'll need to cover a decent distance to get there. After that opening attack, if the casters are adjacent, cleave. If he drops the Cleric and starts working on a second target, consider Touch of Corruption, depending on which cruelties you chose; Staggered and Dazed are great against solo opponents.

[Pooh]

Chris P. Bacon wrote:

Before we start, I have to ask: Does the anti-paladin know who the PCs are, and that they'll be using this road? I'm just trying to get a feel for the scenario. The trouble with setting up ambushes is that the ambushers need to know the location/movements (and preferably the makeup of the party) of the ambushees. I'm assuming this is the case, though.

The PCs have been making a name for themselves as part of a campaign by local authorities to smash banditry and goblin raids that have been plagueing the border between Isger & Druma. They just saved a town from a large goblin raid the previous day and are on their way to destroy the goblin king. So, yes the bad guys know who they are and where they're headed.
The ambush is a delaying action on the part of 3 bad guys; the antipaladin, a necromancer and an evil cleric. The evil cleric throws some zombies at the party while the antipaladin, on foot, sneaks up from behind under a vanish spell (APG).

The whole idea is to get at the 2 magic users who have been doing the most damage. The cleric by keeping all the PCs on their feet with incessant channeling and the warmage, who has been burning and blowing up everything in sight. If the PCs can be set back a couple of days,hopefully with the 3 key bad guys living to tell about it, the goblin king can get some re-enforcements.

BTW: The 3 evil guys are about the same level as the 6 PCs and are only intermediate level bad guys. The big bad guy is a high level necromancer who is looking for powerful underlings. He is grooming the party for this though they are not aware of it.

Pooh

[BigNorseWolf]

Quote:

The party will be traveling down a road with refugees going the other way. The refugees will thin out until there is only 1 wagon of them, a pathetic looking group comming toward them. When the refugees get close, they will be revealed a a bunch of zombies which will attack the party.

That should call for a fairly easy spot check unless its VERY late at night. zombies have a distinctive walk and only go at half speed.

The party, if it follows its normal course, will deploy fighters to the from and magic users to the rear. Its the magic users I'm after. Once the fight is joined, an antipaladin with vanish cast on him will come out of the woods and attack the magic users from the rear.

Good plan, just expect the party to wonder how someone knew they were going to be on the road.

1. The antipaladin has aura of evil, will the cleric (NG) have a chance to detect him coming because of it.

Only if the cleric has cast detect evil. Paladins were notorious for doing that ad nauseum, but its an actual 1st level spell for clerics, so he shouldn't have it up constantly.

2. If undetected, are the 2 magic users (cleric and warmage) flat footed. I'm assuming there is no surprise round as the battle has been joined and the antipaladin does not have sneak attack and I'm also assuming there is no flanking. The 2 being attacked have no special feats such as uncanny dodge or evade.

-Once battle starts there is no flat footed condition. The invisible Antipaladin will have one attack where his foe is denied his dex bonus. There is no mid fight surprise round. People popping in during the middle of the combat do just that: they don't create any special conditions.

Quote:

3. The antipaladin has power attack, cleave, smite good, touch of corruption and cruelties. If he is planning to use cleave, how many of these can he use in a single attack round. Smite would be against the cleric who will be the initial target.

Your spell casters may or may not stand right next to each other. Don't count on that happening. If you are not using mini's, don't assume that that happens at all, just because its better for the bad guys.

CLeave: is a standard action, that limits your options

Power attack: non action in and of itself goes with any attack

Smite good: swift action, goes with anything but another swift action

touch of corruption: (i think thats their lay on hands right?) Standard action on another, swift action on self.

[Shifty]

...or simply have the party wander across a 'recently ambushed caravan' and have the zombies lying in wait as the apparent 'victims'.

The cleric will detect evil as normal and will pick up a trace of evil... thats fine, they will either mistakenly believe its a lingering aura from the attackers, OR they will smell a rat and deploy the fighters.
If they don't smell a rat, then the fighters will wander up to investigate.

Either way you are likely to still get your split, and the paladin, who is waiting 90' away from the ambush (now 30' behind the party when the cleric pops 'detect' at 60'...)

I love a good ambush.

Anyhow, bad guys tend to do recon and intel gathering on adventurers (whether direct observation, paying off touts etc) in their area, especially adventurers who might be opposition force. If the party always travels by road they tend to be much more predictable.
That being said, this might have been the 5th attempted ambush for all they know... eventually ambush tactics pay off, especially in quiet areas.

If the party doesn't specifically state counter ambush strategies (scouts off the road in the advance etc) then in my book they are FAIR GAME :)

[Pooh]

Shifty wrote:

...or simply have the party wander across a 'recently ambushed caravan' and have the zombies lying in wait as the apparent 'victims'.

That's a good idea except that I've done something similar before (when they we 1st level and investigating a river barge).

I love a good ambush.

To allay their fears, they will see only one figure apparently the worse for wear, leading a cart pulled by a pathetically skinny horse (but live). The rest of the zombies (only 5 or 6) are hidden in the cart. The cleric who is controlling them is in the woods the party is passing by. If necessary, I can throw in skeletons lying in the grass waiting for the cleric to call them. So the cleric calls in the zombies, the fighters rush up to dispatch them. While they are briefly engaged killing zombies, the antipaladin strikes. If the fighters kill the zombies too quickly, a half dozen or so skeletons jump up to occupy them. The antipaladin continues to attack the magic users while the necromancer snipes from the woods. If things go badly for the bad guys (and I expect them to eventually), they regroup and the necromancer casts invisibility sphere to cover their escape.

The antipaladins attack will, as I understand it be: target 1 cleric, power attack, cleave, smite good (and he has a +1 unholy greatsword) doing 2D6 +4 sword, 2D6 unholy, 6 smite good to the cleric. then target 2 just 2D6+4 to the warmage whose alignment is neutral. I'll hold off my attack until both the magic users have gone so they don't get to just turn around and hit me back. The antipaladin has a pretty good initiative so he'll likely go before the cleric next turn but not the warmage (who has a +8 init or something).

Pooh

If the party doesn't specifically state counter ambush strategies (scouts off the road in the advance etc) then in my book they are FAIR GAME :)