I'd appreciate some advice for an encounter we recently had to run away from.
The party is level 6, evil characters, and have approximately half the normal WBL. Alchemist (fire/poison/smoke bombs), antipaladin (mainly guisarme but recently lost that and is temporarily using a morningstar), life oracle, sorcerer with... eccentric spell choices, and synth summoner. We have allies, but they will not arrive in time to matter.
The encounter: stone golem, level 10 paladin (greatsword, I think), level 10 (caster?) cleric; essentially barricaded in a 30x30ft castle room. stone walls / floor / ceiling. Unknown if they have magical equipment. The cleric either already has or currently is in the process of sending for reinforcements, of unknown capability and arrival time.
Assuming we enter the next fight with full resources, this still seems like a pretty much unwinnable fight to me. The alchemist's bombs are the only thing we have that can damage the golem, and he doesn't have enough to kill it (and no expendable alchemy items).
Any suggestions on what we can do other than basically leave and come back when we're better equipped? We'd been making an effort to operate in secret, but it seems like that is entirely blown now.
Edit: We had originally gone after the cleric and paladin while low on daily resources (~20% or so remaining), thinking we could barely pull it off. The golem was a nasty surprise that seems to put all of them handily above our capabilities. The only bright spot is that they seem to be in the defensive, for some reason. We got the impression that the golem was restricted to that particular room, but we could be wrong.
Can you elaborate on the spell choices of the sorcerer?
How much of your abilities does the enemy know?
This seems pretty much impossible for your average sixth level party. Three entities of CR 10+? You're very unlikely to exit without casualties.
You could consider trying to pick them off one-by-one. Rush in, focus-fire on the cleric (fewer HP than either of the others, and has the most healing magic), and exit once they're dead. Then repeat for the paladin. Does the sorcerer have any battlefield control spells? The alchemist's smoke bombs could help. You want to prevent the other two from interfering as much as possible—any one of them could easily one-round any one of you.
I think your best chance would be to get the cleric out of the picture, then pick the other two off gradually. You will have the healing advantage (do you have a wand?) and might be able to win a war of attrition. Once the paladin is down, you can focus on the golem—10 DR shouldn't be enough to totally shut down your melee fighters. The sorcerer can always acid splash.
Are there any exploitable features? It sounds like this is just a boring giant room. Can you circumvent or alter the physical battlefield, such as by smashing walls or teleporting to the other side? Finally, how much time do you have? Hours or days?
I don't currently have access to the sorcerer's or oracle's spells known lists. I've asked, and will post if I get them. The only ones I know for sure are (sorc) Spider Climb, Invisibility, and SM1/2/3. (Edit: I don't think she knows acid splash.)
The enemies know that Dismissal poofs eidolons (and have used two scrolls of it; we're not sure if the cleric can memorize it or not - he either can't or won't memorize any of the Raise Dead series, which seems really strange for a Good cleric). They know pretty much all of the alchemist's tricks (sadly the recent Skinsend change has seriously reduced his combat efficiency), the antipaladin doesn't really have any nonstandard abilities, and the oracle basically just heals. We don't know how much they know about the sorcerer.
Edit 2: It'd be easier if it was a giant room. ~30x30 isn't much when the golem itself is large, it alone can control about 60% of the room. The room has two 5ft doors. There was a table but the golem walked on it. Walls/floors/ceiling are made of 3ft thick dressed stone. The only teleport we have access to (that I know of) is the summoner, and that appears to be once a day and self only.
Are any of your party particularly stealthy? You could probably do something with invisibility to sneak in and, say, grab the cleric's backpack and take it back. The sorcerer could also just use invisibility to summon monsters with impunity. There are summoned monsters that can deal limited damage to that stone golem, especially if someone has Augment Summoning. Even just surround the stone golem in low-level monsters so it can't reach the fight in time.
My top suggestion: A lantern archon. 2d6 easy, non-reduced damage per round. Nothing blocks the sorcerer or summoner from using them. Plus, they can boost you all with aid beforehand!
Spider climb could be handy, since the enemy party likely can't climb walls. It lets you utilize an otherwise blank terrain.
My advice to focus fire still stands, of course. Hit-and-run works well, too—small doors mean small choke points. If you can lure one of them out to surround and pile on, so much the better.
But seriously, half WBL and 6th level against a CR 13.5 encounter? You have a very mean GM.
You might just want to flee. Even one of these enemies would be an Epic challenge (technically worse, but "Epic" is the highest marker available). Alternatively, send in the goblin babies and see if that gets the divine casting out of the equation.
Much appreciate the suggestions.
We'll probably try the invis trick, although I'm not sure we can get away with using lantern archons. At the very least the sorcerer's deity will be very unhappy about it. I'll definitely bring it up. Smoke bombs are a bad idea because none of us can see through it either.
Flying and spider climb are all but useless in the given terrain, due to the room's ceiling (I seem to remember it being 15' up, which the golem at least can still reach).
I wish we had some way to divest them of their holy symbols.
Turn the summoner invisible, let him teleport in, and quietly confiscate one or two of those symbols? Alternatively, sunder them! That's what sunder is for! Many high-level characters neglect to purchase resilient symbols, and they're very vulnerable to attack.
If you can summon swarms, you could take out either the paladin or cleric, as I doubt they have any sort of damaging AOE capability. Although given the level of healing power, with lay on hands and channel energy, the best you could hope for would be to drain their number of uses per day.
Summoning something that does attribute damage is always a good option, usually better than hit point attrition. If you can do anything that will reduce his options -- like steal a holy symbol or spell component pouch, that is good, too. Barring that, sniper attacks beyond his ability to retaliate will eventually wear him down
One possible option: Move in while invisible and surround the cleric. Blast him with everything you've got until he's down, then run. Summon monsters to keep the others from inferfering (and perhaps to carry downed partymembers).
Oracle Spells Known (CL 6th; concentration +11)
3rd (4/day)—cure serious wounds, neutralize poison, remove curse
2nd (6/day)—cure moderate wounds, flaming sphere (DC 17), hold person (DC 17), resist energy, lesser restoration, scorching ray
1st (8/day)—bane (DC 16), bless, burning hands (DC 16), command (DC 16), cure light wounds, detect undead, infernal healing[ISWG]
0 (at will)—bleed (DC 15), create water, detect magic, mending, read magic, resistance, stabilize
Special Attacks channel positive energy 6/day (DC 18, 3d6)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 6th; concentration +11)
1/day—disguise self
Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 6th; concentration +11)
3rd (4/day)—summon monster III
2nd (6/day)—blindness/deafness (DC 17), bull's strength, invisibility
1st (8/day)—burning disarm (DC 16), cause fear (DC 16), color spray (DC 16), sleep (DC 16), summon monster I
0 (at will)—daze (DC 15), detect magic, ghost sound (DC 15), jolt[UM], mage hand, penumbra[UM], prestidigitation
Bloodline Abyssal
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 6th; concentration +11)
1/day—dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire
Not as weird as I thought, nor as light on spell slots.
Aether elementals (and Psionic elementals from TOHC - even one reflected hit on the golem will make a huge difference) seem to be the best tactic so far. No swarms seem to be available on the SM lists at all, from what I can find on the PFSRD.
The only issue now is what the "good guys'" reinforcements turn out to be, and how quickly they can arrive. I suspect they'll all be well buffed against fire, so it's good that we have a source of different energy damage. Lantern archons would rock, but since we cap out at SM3 (thus one per spell slot, and max 4 a day) they're a little inefficient. The extra blasphemy is delicious, though.
I'd appreciate some advice for an encounter we recently had to run away from.
The party is level 6, evil characters, and have approximately half the normal WBL. Alchemist (fire/poison/smoke bombs), antipaladin (mainly guisarme but recently lost that and is temporarily using a morningstar), life oracle, sorcerer with... eccentric spell choices, and synth summoner. We have allies, but they will not arrive in time to matter.
The encounter: stone golem, level 10 paladin (greatsword, I think), level 10 (caster?) cleric; essentially barricaded in a 30x30ft castle room. stone walls / floor / ceiling. Unknown if they have magical equipment. The cleric either already has or currently is in the process of sending for reinforcements, of unknown capability and arrival time.
Assuming we enter the next fight with full resources, this still seems like a pretty much unwinnable fight to me. The alchemist's bombs are the only thing we have that can damage the golem, and he doesn't have enough to kill it (and no expendable alchemy items).
Any suggestions on what we can do other than basically leave and come back when we're better equipped? We'd been making an effort to operate in secret, but it seems like that is entirely blown now.
Edit: We had originally gone after the cleric and paladin while low on daily resources (~20% or so remaining), thinking we could barely pull it off. The golem was a nasty surprise that seems to put all of them handily above our capabilities. The only bright spot is that they seem to be in the defensive, for some reason. We got the impression that the golem was restricted to that particular room, but we could be wrong.
Alright, well lets break this down:
"We had originally gone after the cleric and paladin while low on daily resources (~20% or so remaining), thinking we could barely pull it off."
Seems like a good plan. Pretty High up in suspense, and if you pull it off you can loot their bodies and go back to HQ fondly reminiscing how you barely pulled it off.
"The cleric either already has or currently is in the process of sending for reinforcements, of unknown capability and arrival time."
Alright, well this really presses you guys for time. A fast paced battle, going after the Paladin first would seem like a good idea. (Smite Evil is going to wreck you. and If you are dealing good damage to the Paladin, then the cleric will be focused on healing and not doing damage.)
"The golem was a nasty surprise that seems to put all of them handily above our capabilities. "
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT
"The only bright spot is that they seem to be in the defensive, for some reason. We got the impression that the golem was restricted to that particular room, but we could be wrong."
So to summarize: you gave chase to a paladin and cleric. Who presumably would know they themselves were in and over their heads.
The Chase ended in a 30x30x30
A Stone Golem's reach is 10 feet. Please take a look at the following picture:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/_/rsrc/1452829556123/images/large-long2.png
However, despite all of this, they seem to be in the defensive.
Why? Most likely they know that they have the upper hand in 2 ways.
1. you will be ambushed soon by more reinforcements
2. A stone golem is a pretty hefty defense.
1 stone golem is enough for your party. being immune to spells and all. +22 to attacks dealing 2d10+9 damage.
It seems to me, that the GM is really, REALLY banking on retreating. Usually creatures on the defensive and with the upper hand know that they will turn you guys into cream corn. But of course you already know this. You are hoping on a hail mary and not running away.
So even you if do manage to beat them all down, there is still the looming threat of reinforcements, and I do not think resource wise you can be prepared for that.
I estimate a good 20% of success for the initial fight. and 5% for any battle afterwards.
Best tactics In my opinion:
Sorceror:
Summon monster 3 to create 1d3 mud elementals. their entrap ability seems pretty nice to shut down the cleric and the paladin.
Blind the paladin and the cleric. They both have pretty good will saves... so it might not work out so well.
burning Disarm sounds good against the paladin. its either free damage, or he drops his sword.
Oracle:
Unfortunately his usefulness is based on keeping his party alive. Spells per day are precious and he cant afford to use them for combat.
Perhaps try to find out who created the stone golem, and alter self to pretend to be the master/creator and command the golem to stand down, or to burst down a wall.
Sorry.
I definitely wouldn't relegate the oracle to healbot duty. They're much more useful casting spells during combat, unless they lack a healing wand.
I definitely wouldn't relegate the oracle to healbot duty. They're much more useful casting spells during combat, unless they lack a healing wand.
I just read a thread today that if you can kill the other enemies faster that its "essentially" better healing. Because the faster the enemy dies, the less damage your party takes.
However, this is a pretty tough call to begin with.
What I would hate to see happen is for the oracle to blow his spells trying to take down 1 out of the 3, only to have his allies take too much damage too fast. (The golem bascially has reach of almost the whole room).
Even if they kill 2 out of the 3 targets, they still have to worry about getting out of there alive.
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The Goal would be Handling them 1 v Party. Possibly a wall of some sort to catch the first one...Kill them. After/IF they make it through the wall you can create a pit or something to keep the Golem busy while you deal with the other.
Usually when you cut a big problem down to manageable pieces you can overcome the problem bit by bit.
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The main thing about healing in this scenario is the cleric and the paladin can probably kill any I dividual party member if they getca full attack off.
Yes to the Paladin...less so on the cleric. I think he would need 2 rounds to kill someone...mostly cause he needs to buff to be as good in Melee combat as the Paladin. But he can do it...it will just take longer. But he has the ability to sustain and recover.
My advise would be Separate them and Kill the paladin first in a 1v4 scenario. Try to debuff or put the paladin in a situation where he can not use full attack. Drag the corpse out with you and come back later for the Cleric in a similiar fashion...perhaps Pit the Construct the second time around so your strategy is not exactly the same as the first time through.
But it seems like the DM is really wanting to hurt you guys lol.
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It seems to me like the only way you are going to win is to pull them out of that room and make them face you on your own terms. One thing that hasn't been touched is the fact that your party is evil, and therefor has access to some... interesting options. You may be able to use hostages to draw the enemy out of that room into a killbox you set up ahead of time.
Our oracle has basically no control spells that aren't single-target (with Will or Fort saves, both of which these guys are good at) or fire based (such as Burning Disarm, which is not so good because the cleric/paladin know we have a focus on fire damage and have buffed against it in the past). Same thing with damage. It's not that we want him to be restricted to healing, that's just the situation we're in for this fight.
At the moment, we're only facing the cleric and paladin (and golem). However, long-term we need to pacify the area, ideally before our allies arrive. There are still militia (basically level 1-3 rabble, from what we can tell, probably only a few dozen remaining) and emplaced defenses such as siege weapons and walls, that will pose a problem. If we don't clear them, our allies are going to take pretty heavy losses, and we're (probably) going to get reamed for it afterwards.
If we just hide and wait for our allies, there will be enemy reinforcements at some point. We don't know when or what, but I'm figuring the quicker we take out the cleric/paladin the better position we'll be in when their buddies show up. As stacked as the fight already is against us, I'm not happy with our odds if we allow the enemy time to reinforce. On top of this, our characters are all pretty gung-ho for the cause, so we're all very much in favor of attacking as long as long as it's not completely suicidal. We're even okay with casualties, as long as we can win and recover the bodies.
We don't actually need the room they're holed up in, but if we don't clear them it's an additional flank we'll need to cover while we clear the other defenses; I'm assuming they'll be harrying us as much as possible (I would, in their situation). We've already engaged them at least once each in the past several hours in-game, so there's basically no chance of hiding our identities/capabilities as long as they live.
During our last encounter, we were split up to take out other priority targets; IIRC the summoner was engaged with the paladin and the cleric dismissed his eidolon, driving him off and giving them the chance to retreat indoors.
We actually did manage to take out a couple of other significant NPCs during the initial attack, I'd say we reduced their collective combat efficiency by about 1/3 (not counting the golem). If we'd been close enough to support each other I think we could have won the last fight even with the eidolon gone. This all kicked off earlier than planned, because the cleric got spooked before we were ready to make our move (we were all disguised and infiltrating the town). Plus we did something stupid to get their attention, inadvertently (that was ultimately my fault).
Our antipaladin is not super DPS focused, but is all-round decent, and his own smite will let him face off with the paladin, at least to hold him off while we burn down the cleric.
The cleric and paladin are pretty well defensively optimized, so it's a job even landing hits. Summons aren't really going to help that with their normal attack routines, we'll be depending on their specials (such as the mud and psionic elementals) to help there.
I'm very doubtful about us being able to shut down the golem or even co-opt it; it's apparently a historical guardian of the keep (so the cleric and paladin probably aren't giving it orders), even though it would have to squeeze to leave the room it's in. It can control the whole room with 10ft reach plus a slow effect.
I think they'll just stay bunkered down inside the golem room until their reinforcements arrive, at which point the situation will get significantly worse for us - if their allies show up before ours do, it will mean they have at least one more caster, likely arcane, on their side. That means they'll have more buffs and damage available, and maybe more control spells. If their reinforcements are anything close to on par with the cleric/paladin, we've lost the battle at that point, because our allies are going to be slaughtered when they show up.
Basically, we already screwed up by letting them get away once. In-character, we don't want to let them live at all, but we realized it's suicide to attack with no (daily) resources. Out of character, we're still trying to decide if it's worth trying again (ie, do we even have a chance), and it looks like we do. With a few tricks, I'd put our odds at about 60%, better if the golem is played dumb (which I believe Int -- should be). It's all going to hinge on the first 2 rounds and whether their allies show up in time to help them.
Our oracle has basically no control spells that aren't single-target (with Will or Fort saves, both of which these guys are good at) or fire based (such as Burning Disarm, which is not so good because the cleric/paladin know we have a focus on fire damage and have buffed against it in the past). Same thing with damage. It's not that we want him to be restricted to healing, that's just the situation we're in for this fight.
At the moment, we're only facing the cleric and paladin (and golem). However, long-term we need to pacify the area, ideally before our allies arrive. There are still militia (basically level 1-3 rabble, from what we can tell, probably only a few dozen remaining) and emplaced defenses such as siege weapons and walls, that will pose a problem. If we don't clear them, our allies are going to take pretty heavy losses, and we're (probably) going to get reamed for it afterwards.
If we just hide and wait for our allies, there will be enemy reinforcements at some point. We don't know when or what, but I'm figuring the quicker we take out the cleric/paladin the better position we'll be in when their buddies show up. As stacked as the fight already is against us, I'm not happy with our odds if we allow the enemy time to reinforce. On top of this, our characters are all pretty gung-ho for the cause, so we're all very much in favor of attacking as long as long as it's not completely suicidal. We're even okay with casualties, as long as we can win and recover the bodies.
We don't actually need the room they're holed up in, but if we don't clear them it's an additional flank we'll need to cover while we clear the other defenses; I'm assuming they'll be harrying us as much as possible (I would, in their situation). We've already engaged them at least once each in the past several hours in-game, so there's basically no chance of hiding our identities/capabilities as long as they live.
During our last encounter, we were split up to take out other priority targets; IIRC the summoner was engaged...
"so there's basically no chance of hiding our identities/capabilities as long as they live."
you already have an oracle than can alter self.
Worst case scenario, get some scrolls or wands and alter self everyone to infiltrate the place again. Then have everyone roll disguise artist.
This time youll be well rested and prepared, and you can even slowly take down guards one by one.
One tactic you might look into: don't attack their hit points. Attack their ability scores. If you can do ability damage as a secondary effect to your attacks, sometimes NPCs are built with a lower than normal stat that can be reduced to the point where they are incapacitated.
Example: Ray of Enfeeblement -- reducing the paladin's strength (may or may not be high, depending on how he was built can potentially put him in the highly encumbered category, which has some serious penalties on his attacks.
However, you have some serious healing power on the side of your opponents.
You could use a create pit to temporarily separate the cleric/oracle from the stone golem / paladin and grapple/subdue and kidnap him to deal with later.
The trick is to separate them so that they can be taken down individually.
You say there are encampfments with siege weapons somewhere around?
Go take out one of these (those militia-guys seem to be a lot weaker) and then shoot the room in which the paladin etc hide to crap with the conquered siege weapons. (ideally they take damage from the roof collapse too)
Afterwards, attack them with the siege weapons from a distance that allows them only long range spells. Sooner or lateer, they will have to come to you which a) makes them leave the golem behind and b) has them walk through your fire for quite some time.
Also, send in some militia dudes with nerally zero hitpoints and a pleed effect, so the good guys will have to waste their healing to save them, only to then have the militia-guys die from a poison that you put in their system beforehand.
Send them in one by one, so the cleric can't just heal them all with a single channel.
If there is enough material around and you can reach both doors of the room, stack a lot of flammable stuff in front of it and ignite it, the heat and loss of oxygen will either take care of the cleric and paladin or force them to come out.
These are the answer to winning the unwinnable situation. Both your sorcerer and summoner can summon small aether elementals with summon monster II or III, and they are overpowered enough to singlehandedly make up for uthe difference in levels.
They speak all four elemental languages, so your party will almost certainly be able to communicate with them. They have flight and natural invisibility, so they can slip into the room just below the ceiling for tactically advantageous positioning. They can then use their telekinetic throw ability, which can fling an object up to 480 feet with no saving throw, on the holy symbols and weapons of the cleric and paladin.
Assuming that your GM decides that they have the ability to no-save affect attended items unlike everything else in the entire game. He miiight decide to interpret the ability differently.