The Players are Coming! The Players are Coming!

[drsparnum]

I'm DMing an adventure where my players have been extensively scryed by the bad guys. Now the players are moving to attack the bad guys in their hideout.

The bad guys are a fanatical LE cult that is primarily human but includes some monsters.

My L9 PCs are:
-Human undead scourge paladin
-Goblin rogue
-Human cleric of Thoth (we're in Osirion)
-Gnome necromancer

If you were the bad guys here and had time prepare what specific counters might you recruit to your team knowing this group is coming?

[Yossarin]

I would open a plane to a terrible place with horrible monsters and a timeline that moves much more slowly than ours. Then, I would manufacture evidence that makes it seem like my entire cult fled the hideout into the portal and took a bunch of awesome treasure with us. The adventurers will jump into the portal chasing valuable gold, xp, and vengeance; then we come back from the cantina around the corner, close the portal, set up shop again, and have a few centuries to cement our dominion over the local communities before the adventurers return.

But I'm sure someone else has a more fun and fair suggestion!

[Scrapper]

Yossarin wrote:

I would open a plane to a terrible place with horrible monsters and a timeline that moves much more slowly than ours. Then, I would manufacture evidence that makes it seem like my entire cult fled the hideout into the portal and took a bunch of awesome treasure with us. The adventurers will jump into the portal chasing valuable gold, xp, and vengeance; then we come back from the cantina around the corner, close the portal, set up shop again, and have a few centuries to cement our dominion over the local communities before the adventurers return.

But I'm sure someone else has a more fun and fair suggestion!

That is one of the most sadistic idea's I've seen in some time and I'm tempted to steal it!

[VRMH]

drsparnum wrote:

undead scourge paladin

necromancer

I'd send a "helpless" waif to be rescued by this party. It shouldn't be too difficult to get them to fight among themselves after some skillful prodding.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Alternatively, manufactured plausible evidence hinting that the local hierarchy is corrupt and is using the 'Evil' folks as a 'front' could do wonders, especially if the 'Evil' folks really sold their 'escape/not being around' really well, like they were in terror of whatever the ruling power was and were poor victims of circumstance.

[Rub-Eta]

drsparnum wrote:

My L9 PCs are:
-Human undead scourge paladin
-Goblin rogue
-Human cleric of Thoth (we're in Osirion)
-Gnome necromancer

How is this a functioning party?

[Wheldrake]

If the evil cult leaves some dead corpses of high-hit-die monsters lying about, the necromancer won't be able to resist raising them as zombie pets, the paladin will react, and much hijinx will ensue.

[Trinam]

Not all necromancers raise dead... he could be a necromancy-specialist wizard who really likes tossing out cause fear and enervation.

They're good spells.

[SteelGuts]

I’ll try to make the Gnome looks guilty of raising dead and then the Paladin should have to fall or kill his teammate. Seems pretty LE for me.

[Bill Dunn]

SteelGuts wrote:

I’ll try to make the Gnome looks guilty of raising dead and then the Paladin should have to fall or kill his teammate. Seems pretty LE for me.

...or believe his boon companion's protestations that he's bring framed so they set out to clear his name in their next action-adventure buddy movie.

[Jeff Morse]

drsparnum wrote:

I'm DMing an adventure where my players have been extensively scryed by the bad guys. Now the players are moving to attack the bad guys in their hideout.

The bad guys are a fanatical LE cult that is primarily human but includes some monsters.

My L9 PCs are:
-Human undead scourge paladin
-Goblin rogue
-Human cleric of Thoth (we're in Osirion)
-Gnome necromancer

If you were the bad guys here and had time prepare what specific counters might you recruit to your team knowing this group is coming?

so, the PCs havnt noticed the scrying yet? if they have failed saves every time and rolled low every time on perception, than spell casters with hold spells and sniping rogues.

[Douglas Muir 406]

First off, is anyone in the cult high enough level to cast Lesser Planar Binding? Boom, add in a bunch of evil outsiders. Bearded devils for muscles, Accuser Devils for scouts, elementals all over the darn place.

Okay, next: look at each PC's charsheet and spot the low save. For instance, that gnome necromancer? His Fort save is probably pretty crap. Boom, poison attacks. The goblin rogue? You KNOW his Will save is complete garbage. Boom, save-or-suck Will spells targeting the rogue. The cleric's probably not great on Reflex saves (or touch AC): tanglefoot bags galore, followed by some way to separate the healbot from the rest of the party: a grab attack from a flying creature, or just a remote-triggered pit trap that drops him down a chute. Mean, but fair -- hey, you get a Reflex save!

Next: consider each PC's favorite attack, and come up with something that neutralizes it. Does the paladin love to charge and smite? The cultists have bought a bunch of innocent slaves, drugged them, enchanted them, draped them in mummy bandages, and cast Magic Aura on the bandages. Boom, a bunch of shuffling mummies attack. They even detect as evil! Except, whoops, they scream and bleed when you hit them. Except, double whoops, some real mummies are mixed in there. Does the rogue like invisible sneaking and backstabbing? Oozes with tremorsense. Necromancer's favorite spell is... enervation maybe? Everyone is warded against it. Fireball maybe? Ah ha ha haaa. You get the idea.

Best place to start: splitting the party. SPLITTING THE PARTY IS ALWAYS GOOD. Get them to split themselves! You know their psychology best, but there's pretty much always a way.

Doug M.

[drsparnum]

Lots of good tips here, thanks!

Everyone is correct...this is the party that should not be. The necromancer and the paladin were not part of the original party but after the characters of these two players died in the same session both came back the next session with these two fairly incompatible concepts.

The necromancer says he's only using the undead to defeat the threat of other undead. I know it is not very paladiny to look the other way on that, but we meta-game it a bit so all of the players have a concept they like.