My group will soon be near Balentine in Way of the Wicked, I've got a few ideas, but not nearly enough and the rest of my group doesn't appear very inventive besides ways of charging a whole castle full of guards, wizards and a high level paladin into straight combat.
So I need some help, or at least something to laugh at.
Two of us had been throguh part of the campaign already (my friend was GMing then to make things worse) so the current GM will likely change some things to surprise us, but he's allowing quite more than I would on his spot and mentionned he'll probably not change the layout of the castle, just contents..also mentionned there'll be no "bird mail" room, so that makes things harder.
On the plus side..if that can be called a plus - our party is quite a bunch of weirdos:
A batty skinwalker spellweaver from 3.5 (my ex-GM friend), just took craft wondrous items too
A ninja McGyver cat (almost literally - custom, small extremised catfolk-like race, I got an item that lets me shrink myself, meaning i get indistinguishable from a simple housecat if without gear).
That's me and with a small problem - Im the only neutral char, which means Ill be rather reluctant to wade into peoples bedrooms and stabbing them sleeping.
An obvious and oblivious blue- skinned tiefling summoner who didn't yet show any talent besides charging things head-on with his eidolon
And a sociopath human..not sure, might be a bolt ace, but more likely a ranger as he has favored enemy bonuses. Quite a killer vs humans.
We've got around 5k gold worth of resources, most hard cash or crafting materials.
The ideas I had so far:
-The cat has a collar that lets him shrink with merging of magical items into the smaller form - a perfect disguise as a normal cat, though smuggling mundane stuff is an issue - so I asked thebat to craft me the smallest bag of holding possible. The bat can literally transform into a bat and fire beams of fire or darkness without limits..the GM was a little too allowing Id say, so he has an easier time. The others have those circlets of disguise I hope, but were preparing a hat of human guise as well just in case.
-Make a dust of swarm summoning, activated by contact with saliva..add to food and watch the show
-We've met a zombie-filled whaling ship on the way And took its bell as a souvenir..the ship will eventually reappear with the bell as long as its intact. i think ill just give it a little paint job and plant it in the castle mess hall instead of their meal-calling bell. Most fun if it comes alive at the same time when someone tries swarm stew..
-I'll rig the ballistae on the gatehouse To fire backwards..not fun for anyone who tries it unawares
- maybe ill manage to fix up the catapult on the main keep..and aim it directly up. Just need to smuggle a shrunk piece of rock as ammo to it and fire it at the right time to check how much of the tower survives the rock returning back down.
- fill the castle chapel with opium-infused candles. Let the guards and clergy have some fun too..and some wisdom drain.
- there was this idea of getting dust of spell storing, charging it with the castles evokers fireball wand and mix it with bird food in the rookery..good fireworks show, but im afraid it might no longer be valid
So there im out of ideas and there's still the main problem standing inside tall and glorious - the scary 9+CR, fully armed paladin lord of the keep..with most of us being evil (part for me, who might have the biggest chance of coup-de-gracing him in his sleep..but i wont since im not evil! Maybe the bat..)
Plus the wizards (GM let it slip there may be several lower ones instead of one scary), the clergy, the dwarves and circa half the lev5-6 officers if we can still put the "come see the other officer do your wife" trick
Im most afraid the summoner will just start attacking things and screw up any plan.
So any other fun ideas on how to wreak havoc in there without just stabbing people in beds? (slitting throats of guards on their posts is fine)
And probably even more important - anything that might serve as backup plan if the summoner ends some of us in the castle jail..besides firing abovementionned catapult which might collapse the jail and kill the prisoners.
Wrote at a bad time? Or are my posts just too inedible?
That's more doable, although Im afraid that ammount of adamantine is out of reach. Still the bat might pull off getting a decent shrunk rock airborne..just need to pick a proper target. Our GM did somewhat change the castle layout after all, and it Looks like there's only one bridge left..if that's so then that bridge we want to keep..unfortunately.
The castle now looks more like a 4-corner version of the pentagon..with an additional gatehouse past the bridge. Mr. Batty went flying to scout things out today so we'll be getting some details by mail over the week.
Theres still a tunnel leading to the castle..the guards know about it, jave the entrance guarded and dwarves are working to seal it..happened before we got there. At least it seems like a secluded group of guards we might take down and blame it on a curse (the entrance is now under an abandonned temple to Asmodeus)
This was how we did it. We took out the command structure (making it look like at least two officers killed each other over one's wife), poisoned the men, blew up the rookery. We sabotaged the siege gear, broke the doors, banished the celestial and made fun of the commander's dead wife.
Essentially we took the time to find out where the weak points were, exploited them, and made it look like someone else was doing it as long as we could. By the time we were done the bugbears walked through a keep with maybe two dozen guards left.
some things even low level can do :
1: i udnerstand that you might be able to slip unnoticed? if i recal lthat AP is in a ZERO tolerence goverment. id go with planting cult symbols in some gaurds stuff(under bed matress ,in closet etc) THEN cast Murderous Command on them from hiding. and watch as the witch hunt begins.
2: get any caster who acn cast create water to the privy and flood it. try to go over the entire floor if you can, doring the night. should be a blow to morale AND might force them to clear the baracks area untill the 'sewege" is fixed
3: get some nasty posion into the food supply. somthing that take a while to hit so people wont be suspecting too soon.
4: don't kill epople in their bed. set them on fire. this should pretty much unnerve the whole baraks.
5: one of my fev. get them to think (by cahrming npc. using them desugsing hats or other spells) that an army is somewhere outside. then when they go out to strike it. take control of the weakend castle(and if oyu can.torch it).
6: see if you can reach the commanders room without him there. steal offical notes from his supriors.forge offical notes stating he should move any available men in the garrison to a difrent castle to help wit han attack on it. then go back to #5.
The water supply and toilet might not be very touchable unless we get a way to redirect a river im afraid, but..flooding the upper floors, forging "march out" order letters, making doors stuck closed and setting fire..that might just work.
One detail would help - how not to get caught in the fire ourselves if we jam all exits?
There's a secret passage from the inn that no one in the keep knows about. The innkeeper uses it to plunder the better wines gifted to the commander.
Ah yes, well our GM changed that unfortunately. Didnt I mention that? The tunnel now leads to an abandonned temple and is under guard while dwarves try to collapse it. On a side note I read your notes. You made it all look easy as if the guards didn't react much and you always had an advantage in a fight. Last time ive tried that archon gestalt it just flew up the church ceiling and kept blasting us being untouchable to all but one unlucky character with a dastardly slow 10"fly speed..now we dont have even that.
Your trick with getting rid of three officers from one plot however..ooh yes, I love that. We'll have to know if the affair part is still valid..but i guess we could as well fake one with some decent forgery..wish i had put some ranks into linguistics and had a female character in the group (funny i was considering one instead of the ninja cat) but we'll just have to do with what we have. Might still be doable.
Is there a poison or drug that makes the imbiber berserk? Infighting is a wonderful idea.
"One detail would help - how not to get caught in the fire ourselves if we jam all exits?"
- you got alter self items,no? make it look like your the last gaurd to get out.also help with infighting(that and as i posted before murderous command)
Well..um..it turned out we don't. Well cat has a hat of human guise, but that wont get the size right to look as a guard..the summoner seems to have gotten one too though..guess ill have to rely on him
When I played WotW we didn't just launch an assault. We waged a campaign based on sowing fear and discord amount the defenders. Without giving too many spoilers, we did tricks such as disguising ourselves as the captains of the guard, giving counter-intuitive orders and turning the guards on each other. We also managed to divert a significant portion of the defenders away using a false flag. We also snuck into the castle and assassinating key people, and masquerading as them. We also figured out ways to sabotage the defences using our disguises.
We had a number of close shaves. My character got captured and in the jailbreak that followed another PC died. The battle turned into a complete route pretty much but it was nail biting buildup.