Hello everyone. My pathfinder campaign has lasted for some time, and now my party has turned 10th level and I find they can take on some seriously tough opposition.
Background: The party is fighting against an evil powerful organization that wants to spread a disease around the world. After sabotaging production, the PCs have learned that 2 huge (relatively) modern warships (carracks) will take the virus to their homeland. They have the assistance of a organized crime/pirate society, so could expect enough support to deal with one of the ships.
Ships: Called galleons, but resembles historical carracks. 10-12 siege weapons per ship, with access to magical ammunition. crew size around 50, but room for 300 Marines (this number can be altered, but should be many enough to discourage most pirates). The ships have been magically enchanted to protect them against fire attacks and magic.
Opposition: One high level wizard (probably lvl 15), several mid level ones, and professional soldiers of level 1-8. The captains of each ship might also be fairly high level - around 10-12th.
Goal: Since the ships are loaded with virus, the goal will be to either sink them or capture them.
PCs, mostly level 10: 1 Illusionist with highly annoying spells, 1 Magus with good AC/damage, 1 weird wizard focusing on summoning, and one social Rogue. They have access to fairly powerful magic items, mostly self-crafted.
So, how do you think this will work out? The evil organization is powerful enough to subvert a nation, has almost limitless resources, and access to strange magic and forbidden knowledge. They know most the PCs and can take some precautions against them.
If the PCs get engaged with the soldiers, how to play a combat against so many? IMO if they try to stay and fight they shouldn't really have a chance, is there a Mob-style rule I could use? I saw something in a PF module, but it seemed to auto-kill almost anything in 1 round.
How to play out the ship-to ship? The PCs themselves can choose to infiltrate the ship somehow, or they could assault on ship vs ship thinking they can out-magic it. I don't want them to be able to sink the ships at 500' using magic, they're gonna have to work for it.
In the end they should face some of the enemy who will go to great lengths to stop them, especially the high-level wizard.
Twist: It's possible some or all of the soldiers/crew are innocent/just doing their jobs, and that the PCs should avoid killing many of them outright. Not sure yet if I want to do it like the Death Star, or have them consider making the soldiers abandon the ship before it sinks.
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for reading through it all.
