It has been a long time since I have played a tabletop RPG and this is my first time playing Pathfinder. It has been hard for us to find players so it is just me a Fighter who specializes in a bow, and this girl completely new to tabletop role playing who is a Cleric.
Our GM has mentioned that people gossip about a cave with Ogres who wear fancy armor and wield fancy weapons. My guess is that this is a good place for us to get some XP and some great loot. Problem is, it's just us two, and the sound of things, this will be extremely hard for us. So my character has been planning and collecting materials for what he figures he might expect upon going there. I am asking for advice on how to fight such things, and any strategy or tactics that might come in handy.
I have tried to think of creative things that most likely won't work in Pathfinder or at least would take a lot of time improvising rules on how it would work. The best things I have come up with are to exploit Ogres large size with throwing down caltrops. I figure if I can figure out a pattern or just spam the entrance of the cave that any ogre that comes out is doomed to step on some. Since they take up 4 squares they would again most likely step on the same square when advancing having to retrigger the whole ordeal (1 damage if it worked the first time) or a second chance to half their speed. From there, I would just out run them and shoot my bow until they died.
I really don't have much other than this and their reach is not something I enjoy. I'm not sure if anyone has anything creative to suggest, or something that they have done before and could share with me. I looked into bear traps and stuff, but I am unclear on the rules for setting up traps being a fighter class.
I also have a question on the caltrops. Is it possible to salvage them after combat?
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Depending on the DM you should be able to collect your caltrops afterward.
Here is my advice:
You have an archer and a cleric so use the strengths of those characters to your advantage while trying to minimize the weaknesses. Your primary weakness is your duo doesn't have a front line fighter. A front line fighter can go toe-to-toe with your enemies while archers and rogues and whatnot do their thing. You don't have that option so rely on your range. You have the right idea with caltrops. Slow them down while you fire from cover and the cleric stands ready to offer spell support in the form of buffs and healing.
When you set up your hide make the ogres move through an open area while you have cover and do as much to that area as possible to slow them down. If you have the time to set up more than caltrops do so, especially if those things cause damage. Ogres have long legs and are fast so this is important. Through all this make sure you have a melee weapon handy in case you have to mix it up. Whatever you do, drop the bow if they get too close and you can't fall back. Ogres also have long arms and can hit you from 10 feet out if you try to shoot them.
When the ogres get close to your position fall back to another set up and do the same thing. You are going to find yourself in all combats doing the same thing, deal as much damage from range as possible before falling back and doing it again. I played in a group once that was an archer ranger, sorcerer, and rogue. We spent a lot of time attacking then falling back so the enemy had to pursue.
I hope this helps.
You didn't mention your level, so it's hard to answer. If, say, you're 12th level, just storm the place - those ogres won't give you much trouble. If you're first level, don't go near it, not even with the best gear your limited money can buy.
Normally a single ogre wearing crappy hides and wielding a simple greatclub is CR 3. That's a good fight for FOUR characters of 3rd level. One ogre. Two ogres are CR 5, a good fight for FOUR characters of 5th level. Etc.
But you don't have 4 characters, you only have two. That effectively reduces your Average Party Level by at least 1. Which means one ogre is a fair fight for TWO characters of 4th level, two ogres are a fair fight for TWO characters of 6th level.
You described the ogres as wearing fancy armor and wielding fancy weapons. If that's true (and not just a rumor you guys heard that will turn out to be a false rumor), that might be enough to bump them up one more CR, which might mean one ogre is a fair fight for TWO characters of 5th level, two ogres are a fair fight for TWO characters of 7th level.
Just how many ogres are there in this cave full of ogres? A very small cave might be "full" with only one ogre. A giant cave might not be "full" even if it has hundreds of ogres. The Bestiary says they top out at around 16 ogres, max, in any one "family", but that doesn't mean this cave strictly complies - maybe it's a whole "village" of large ogre "families".
Another factor might be whether they are all close to each other. If there are 10 ogres in there (with fancy armor and weapons that would make this about a CR 10 which means you would have to be around 11th level to call it a good fight), but if they are so far apart that you can kill them one at a time, then it's just really ten separate CR 3 (or 4) encounters. But note that the game is designed for about 4 normal encounters per day - it is assumed that you will be running out of resources by that time (resources include HP and cleric spells, among other expendable things), so you probably don't want to fight 10 of those separate one-ogre encounters in one day if you're only 4th level (no more than 4, or 5 at most).
Given all that, ask yourself if you think your level is suitable for this adventure.
Another really interesting question is whether your DM knows all this? If he is as new as you are, he might be sending you to certain death without knowing it. If he knows all this, you can probably assume he has something prepared to make it possible for you to survive, even if it's not clear right now what that is. Making these assumptions is "metagaming" and generally frowned upon (how would your characters even know there is a DM out there creating balanced and challenging encounters for them - they should be deciding what to do without using out-of-game player knowledge like this) but if your DM is really unclear on what is about to happen, maybe he should find out before you have to roll two new characters (which could be especially frustrating for a brand new player).
And yes, given time (i.e. you're not running for your life away from a dozen hungry ogres) you should be able to recover caltrops - they are permanent chunks of metal, sort of like tiny daggers (which you can always recover unless they're lost for a good reason, like falling into the ocean or into lava or eaten by a rust monster, etc.).
Our party is currently at level 3, and we're about to go invest in getting upgrades for our gear. The cleric invested in heavy armor prof. and is going to get some along with armor and heavy shield enchantments so she can dodge them blows.
@EldonG, I was imagining if the cleric got a spell I read about where you can manipulate stone, and possibly sealed the cave entrance up, while having a fireplace sort of thing with a hole for smoke to enter the cave. I have no idea how that works in Pathfinder, and how much trouble it would to figure something like that out. I figure it would eventually kill them, or at least make them starve. The starving thing would take awhile, especially if you figure they're in a cave they're living in, and most likely have food, while I would need to bring my own while I keep the fire going, or at least hunt.
My character has been thinking and looking into things, so this is slightly metagaming. Myself, and my DM most likely will have trouble exploring a fighter trying to set traps up, or acquiring traps. Perhaps there are low level Cleric spells that could easily work out for making improvised traps, but I'm not sure. I had earlier in the campaign a monster with Cleric levels use entangle on me, which I got to discover how crazy it was on how far you could send it out, and how much space it covered. I was hoping our Cleric could do that, but it seems to be domain specific.
Any advice on setting up traps, or using our characters to do something creative to get an advantage. Anyone ever use a mechanic of climbing up a tree with an archer, or smoking people out?
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Not sure how many ogres you are talking about, but since ogres generally have poor will saves, perhaps a cause fear could help. Getting rid of 1 of them could be useful, even if only for a couple of rounds.
Shield other could help. Players in my campaign use it alot. Also try to hit them with missle weapons as long as you can.
Trick them into fighting each other.
Buy a few sheep, feed them a slow-acting soporific, and leave them in front of the cave. Ogre eat sheep, fall asleep, give you no problems.
Or just buy a big barrel of wine, lace it with same,and deliver it. If they don't drink themselves into a stupor, the soporific will finish the job.
Dig a big pit and lead a ogre over it.
Seduce the smartest ogress and enlist her aid in finishing off the rest of the family, if either of you have the diplomatic skills to pull it off.
Not positive but I believe trap making is its own skill under the craft skill.
Hire some help. Find a couple mercenary types in town and offer them a cut of the loot.
You can also hire an NPC to accompany you. You'd need the help.
A single ogre is a match for a party twice your size. You'll need to attack from range, and hit and run is a good idea. Get the cleric a ranged weapon as well.
Their ranged attacks are terrible, which means that they will probably just rush at you. Caltrops are a good idea.
You don't need to wipe the whole place out in one go do you?
I figure the GM wants me to go in and clear house, but I have been taking most encounters in a more methodical non-traditional hack and slash style. I figure I can shoot into the cave, and if it's real dark, I can have the Cleric cast light on my arrows to see what's up.
My Cleric has trickery domain, so perhaps she can become invisible and lay down the caltrops, or I can considering I am wearing light armor. From there perhaps just harass them with shot and run tactics until they're all dead. I still really want to figure out more ways to possibly gain an advantage.
I am not too familiar with Clerics, so perhaps there are some interesting spells that could work out for my plan?
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I am not too familiar with Clerics, so perhaps there are some interesting spells that could work out for my plan?
What is the other domain your cleric has? If it's plant, Entangle could help.
Also, exactly how big is the cave exit? If it is only big enough for one ogre to leave at a time, Have the cleric stand in the exit and cast Sanctuary. Ogres have terrible will saves, so the cleric should be able to hold the entrance while you pincushion the Ogres with your arrows.The problem with this is as you are third level, it will only last three rounds per casting, and your cleric will eat up all first levels slots to pull it off. The trickery domain mirror image power will give one more round of safety.
If the cleric has the Earth domain, casting Soften Earth and Stone on the cave entrance ceiling can cause a minor cave in that might seal the entrance if your DM is generous. The orges are strong enough to dig out eventually, but they they will be fighting fatigued or maybe even exhausted when they get out.
Nightmare and Trickery. I thought of entangle, but I found out it was exclusive to domain powers. I was hoping to have entangle happen in the entrance, and we would both shoot forever.
I did read sanctuary before briefly, and told myself to go look at it again. The Cleric is going for building up her AC, so if the Ogres all fail the save then that's good, but if not she can dodge the hits, while I shoot.
I think I am going to wait until level 4 or 5 to consider going, especially since I'll have Weapon Spec. on my longbow for damage.
I have no idea the dimensions or anything of this cave. Rumors about this cave, and it seems there is a lot of good loot to be had if we go.
Cause fear, get at least one ogre to run.
Command, get them to drop prone (easier to hit, provoke an attack of oppurtunity when they get up),
Bless or protection from evil on you, cast beforehand. You really don't want to get hit by a power attacking ogre great club, or a Large greataxe,particularly not if they've got fancy weapons and armor.
I would suggest some careful scouting and inquiry rather than amhead-on assault. Going toe to toe with hide fierce melee monsters is not recommended. Archery, traps, other means!
Recon will happen, and hopefully the cave entrance will be small enough to easily exploit.
I figure I might stay back and use my range which should extend into the cave, and surround myself with bear traps. I figure putting the spike of the trap in the ground would make a lot of noise, and I would need a hammer or an improvised hammer?
Against ogres, find ways to hit touch AC or their will saves. These will be very risky battles, though; ogres hit hard and at your level they can kill you if they get a couple lucky attack rolls.
If you can bring along some henchmen, then equipping them with acid and alchemist's fire while spreading caltrops to halt the advancing ogres could be very effective. Even CR 1/3 warriors have a ~75% chance of hitting ogres with a touch attack, and with 1d6+1 damage a small group should be able to take down an ogre every other round so long as the ogres can't pick them off.
Hammers make noise, yes. You could use cloth to deaden the sound a bit, or if the terrain is right you could chain the traps to tree trunks, but on the whole I might recommend being on horseback so you can make a fast withdrawal if necessary.
What if the ogres hear you coming and rush out of the cave before your traps are set in place? Can you set up a ambush somewhere else and draw them into it?
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Hammers make noise, yes. You could use cloth to deaden the sound a bit, or if the terrain is right you could chain the traps to tree trunks, but on the whole I might recommend being on horseback so you can make a fast withdrawal if necessary.
What if the ogres hear you coming and rush out of the cave before your traps are set in place? Can you set up a ambush somewhere else and draw them into it?
If they spot me, then I will use my CMB to trip the Cleric and make my getaway!
You don't have to run faster than the ogres, just faster than your friend!
Hire some mercenaries. 2 characters of level 3 will have a hard time against a single ogre, even if prepared and you have the right favoured enemy.
At a guess, your cleric (12 con, 3xfavoured class hp) will have something like 23 hp and AC 20. A normal ogre (fancy weapons aside) will hit on a 13 for about 16 damage. This means that if you're relying on her to get in the way while you shoot (do you have Precise Shot?) she'll be dead in about 5 rounds against a single ogre, spells aside.
In the meantime your ranger will (PBS, rapid shot, MW bow, no FE bonus) need about 9 to hit for 1d8+3, so about 9 damage per round. The cleric will need about 13 to do 1d8+1 for 2 more. That's 3 rounds to drop an ogre. So against one ogre you should win (though it's risky). Against two, she's dead and you might be.
Sanctuary will have a DC of about 14 or 15, so an ogre needs 11 or 12. If there are 4 ogres, about 2 will ignore it, shove the ditherers out of the way and slaughter her.
What this means is that you need some meat shields. They'll die and/or run away, but better them than you. Based on domains and quoted motive (xp) I infer that your cleric is not Good.
Otherwise, get information. Half the battle is knowing what you're up against. Tracking will tell you whether there are 3, 13 or 30. Spying (invisibility on the ranger) might tell you more.
Caltrops are a fine place to start, though they don't work well on soft ground [RAW it makes no difference, but your DM might think otherwise]. Similarly, getting your meat shields to carry a load of logs, branches and other junk to clutter up the cave and impede the ogres' exit would help.
It's actually worse than that analysis, because that presumes standard ogres, and you already know these are specially outfitted. Maybe they're more capable, too. Extra hit dice, a level or two of fighter or barbarian ...
Does the GM scale his encounters or is this cave a place that 6th level pcs and over should go? I worry that you may have a GM that gave an adventure hook for a later in the campaign option and you are going in too early....
I feel this is an eventual thing, but I am itching to get in on this. I do plan on leveling before going, but I'm sure it will be plenty hard regardless considering the "rumors" our characters have heard.
The best thing overall is if we can finally find another player for the party.
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With just two of you, you should plan on leveling at least twice. Even if you do get another player, you should still level up before going after a cave full of ogres with fancy equipment. If you go too soon, you'll likely experience a TPK even if your tactics are flawless. A new player walking into a TPK due to fighting monsters that are way too powerful for your group will probably not want to come back.
Charm (dominate) one of them into being your friend. Ogres have notorious low will saves. Turn one into your frontline melee busy. Fire from range, and kick some but. Hold monster (scroll) takes another one out of the fight. Set a ring of caltrops to discourage pursuit, and range attack until done.
I think it's worth mentioning that some of the ideas here may not work well. For example, a reading of the charm spell makes it seem as if it's difficult to make an ogre fight other ogres, especially ogres that are his friends, especially since he might be facing overwhelming (suicide) odds to do so - maybe a DM will let this happen, maybe not, but even if he allows it, clearly there is an opposed roll that might fail, leaving you with no charmed ogres.
Kiting is great in video games and awesome in Pthfinder too when it's possible, but if there's a dozen ogres in a cave and someone attacks, it's not likely that just one of them will give chase. Even if the other 11 say "Hey, George, you go kill that guy", when George never comes back and the guy shows up again, they won't be so overconfident the second time.
Ogres are stronger than bear traps and will pull them right out of the ground. Digging pits takes a long time and you'll probably be discovered while you do it, unless you dig them far, far away, and it's a losing proposition to think that they'll chase you for miles without either giving up, catching you, or killing you with ranged weapons during the chase. Caltrops are a neat idea to give you an edge in the chase, but ogres would probably just give up and go back to their cave.
And no matter how much you like the idea of picking them off at range while they deal with entangle, caltrops, or hirelings, never forget that they can fight back at range with javelins or even thrown rocks, and with their STR modifier, those ranged attacks can really hurt. Yes, it's true, they're much more likely to hit you in melee than they are at range, so it's better that way, but it surely doesn't mean you're "safe" to fight them at range.
I'm still thinking it's time for you to look elsewhere, for at least 2-3 more levels, before you even try this cave. I'm also thinking it's time to acquire a couple more party members. If you can't find actual players to join you, then maybe each of you can run two characters - tedious, but lots of people do it. If that doesn't work, have your characters hire a couple mercenaries to join you, not as cannon fodder like someone suggested above, but rather as permanent (or nearly permanent) members of your party.
Finally, don't rule out the possibility that the "rumors" are just that. Maybe it's just one or two ogres, maybe their fancy armor is woven of hair, and maybe their fancy weapon is just a greatclub with sea shells stuck on it, heck, maybe they're not even ogres at all but just orcs. Rumors have a way of turning out to be untrue, and usually, that means they're greatly exaggerated from the reality.
But if it really is a cave "full" of ogres, you're way out of your league no matter how much you prepare, and just two hits or one critical hit will kill half of your party and there's NOTHING you can realistically do to get a certain fight where that cannot happen, or realistically, where that will not happen. You'll die. All these plans are just to see how many you can kill before you die. My guess, three at max, unless your DM is extremely generous or the "rumors" are greatly exaggerated.
1/2. Hope your DM allows 3rd party spells.
1, Find out when the ogres sleep.
2. Go along when they're asleep, cast create water on the earth around the cave entrance. Repeat until the earth is nice and soft. Do over several nights, if required.
3. Cast Animate Tools.
4. Repeat 3 until big hole is dug in front of cave. (You could possibly do it over several nights.)
Note: if they post a guard, use the above tactics on the routes they use in and out of the area.
Alternatively: Murderous Command.
1) Kiting is great, but to be effective you have to stay in or at least near the enemy's range - if you try to kite from too far away, the enemy will just break off and ignore you, or wait for you to come closer. When you are in range, just a couple good hits with rocks or javelins and your horse is dead and that pretty much guarantees that you are dead too, if you're low level facing a dozen ogres you can't escape.
2) Caltrops can be avoided by moving at half speed and they are easily visible. Even if all the ogres charge through, the caltrop needs to attack AC 15 with a +0 attack roll, so only 30% of them will be injured, the rest, at least 8 of them using your example of 12 ogres, will still pursue.
3) Good point, but they'll just go back in their cave rather than stand outside and be picked off from long range while they can't return fire. Even ogres are not that stupid.
4) Digging pits right outside their cave is stupid and suicidal. Digging pits farther away, say, 1/4 mile, so that they don't hear you or see you before you're done, still leaves you with the problem of getting them to chase you that far without killing you or your mount.
5) Agreed. But unfortunately, while the ogres are short on the brains, they're very long on the brawn, and when you're only 3rd level going up against a cave "full of ogres", it only takes a tiny bit of bad luck to turn this from a brain fight into a brawn fight, and the latter can only end one way.
By the way, it's been almost 3 weeks, I hope the OP comes back in here to tell us how this turned out.
Maybe the PCs were raped.
Ogres love to rape, everything.
They might not want to talk about that.
So wrong, but soooo funny! :-D
Yeah they do, but they're especially fond of raping their dead, dismembered relatives, so maybe the OP is fine after all.
I didn't think to come back because as it turned out the encounter turned out to be a fortress instead of a cave. I ended up sneaking over with bear traps and caltrops and we took our time. The inside was built to our advantage and I just shot them dead by full attacks with my longbow.
My booty virginity stayed intact for those who were worried.
EDIT:
We were leveled up a bunch more before doing this encounter too.