Black Towen

[Wolfgar]

Well we have definitely stirred up the ants nest. We are standing in a doorway with a dozen or more Black Watch in front of us and two dozen gnolls coming up behind us. We have a 15th level Haste working on all but Kazan. This means 6 shots (or 3 sword attacks) a round for Kimball and 5 attacks a round for Basel. Jesper is currently unconscious at -9. Kazan has resorted to attacking as a fighter. We considered making a break for it away from the slow moving Black Watch but with the Haste and good AC we feel can make a stand. Basil and Kimball are hemorrhaging from the sword of wounding wielded by the captain of the Watch.

Neither David nor I will be there next time so we should make sure we have plans. For the current situation I would suggest we have Basil and Kimball or maybe just Kimball face the gnolls. You should go through them pretty quickly - they may even flee if you can take down half of them in a couple of rounds. You will need to be careful in how you declare your actions so that you get the maximum targets each round. Morvan could treat Jesper or use his two attacks a round to keep the gnolls off of Kimball while Kimball is firing into the horde. Meanwhile Zinc and Kazan can make steady progress on the Black Watch. The Black Watch need a 20 and 19 respectively to hit us, so we should be fine for several rounds. Once the gnolls are dispatched we can fall back through the door to allow more people to get at the Black Watch. Kimball and Basil may want to take a couple of rounds to bind their wounds to stop the bleeding. If possible someone should grab the captain's shield, it is likely +2, and his sword. Kazan dropped his staff when he pulled out his shield and will want to get that back once we dispatch the Watch.

Assuming we make it through these guys (and everyone makes their system shock survival roll) we will need to decide what to do next. Is resting an option? We could use the secret map room or the secret passage we came in from. It seems unlikely that we are going to surprise anyone at this point but if we give them time they will marshal their defenses against our next foray. I guess it depends on how people are doing on hit points and spells. There is no telling how many more gnolls and Black Watch we will need to go through to get to Kirsi (?). Also we may want to check on the magic user up in the rope trick. She is probably pretty tapped at this point but there is still the possibility her charm could affect Zinc.

[Wolfgar]

Here is a summary of Kazan's abilities all of which he can use since he is forgoing experience. I may be forgetting some things so check the character sheet as well.

Kazan - Monk/Fighter/Magic User 5/6/5
23 of 41 hp
AC -3 (Bracers AC 5, +1 ring of protection, 18 DEX, +1 black watch shield, prayer)
1 mirror image (6 rounds remaining)

remaining spells:
magic missile
magic missile
stinking cloud
slow (note +4 to hit slowed opponents, see DMG p 67)
fireball

melee:
18/00 STR (+3/+6, +3000 enc, open doors 1-5(2), bend bars 40%)
double specialized with spear, +3/+3, 3/2
with spear +8/+10 including poetics and prayer but not magic of spear

monk abilities:
dodge missile weapons
save for no damage e.g. fireball, lightning bolt, breath weapon
26% chance of being surprised
thief abilities (on character sheet)
fall 20' if within 1' of wall
speak with animals
72% immune to ESP
immune to disease
unaffected by haste and slow
move 19"
open hand attacks 5/4 for 2-7

items:
potion of fire breathing (full potion does 5-50 in damage in 2" by 8" cone, can do smaller draughts, must be used within an hour of drinking)
scrolls - magic missile, teleport
1 honey mead
4 holy waters

saves:
Paralyzation/Poison/Death Magic: 11 (fighter)
Petrification/Polymorph: 11 (monk)
Rod/Staff/Wand: 11 (magic user)
Breath Weapon: 13 (fighter)
Spells: 12 (magic user)

[Wolfgar]

After reading the description of the potion of fire breathing maybe someone should grab that from Kazan's backpack and use it on the gnolls. A double draught does 6-24 in a 1" by 4" cone. That would clear out a mess of gnolls.

[venger]

Work is boring.

I drew this up from memory so we could strategize.



I'd like to see a Web or if we're out of Webs, maybe Stinking Cloud used to block one of the fronts.



Kimball will stay with sword and shield. Otherwise he's giving up 5-7 points of armor class. Who knows when the invisible dwarves will show up and start firing crossbows.

[Ginger]

Morvan and Kazan are both out of webs, so that's not an option. By my count, we've been killing the Black watch guys about one a round, with the three of us attacking them. Our buffs will run out before they're all dead. If Kimball and Morvan are able to relatively quickly dispatch the gnolls and we're able to get 4 of us hitting them, we would probably be able to do it in time.

[Wolfgar]

Given that the Black Watch need a 19 to hit AC -3 they are 2 or 3 hit dice monsters. Gnolls are definitely 2 hit dice. The main difference is that the Black Watch seem to take partial damage from most hits. What if we all charged the gnolls or did a fighting retreat to a corner. We could then use the gnolls as a buffer against the Black Watch. We could have everyone concentrate on the gnolls while the Black Watch slowly advances to us. We could get into a formation like this.

(I am playing with some unicode characters so this may not look good in some browsers.)

┌─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─
│J│M│A│G│G│G│W│
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─
│Z│K│B│G│G│G│W│
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─
│G│G│G│G│G│G│W│
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─
│G│G│G│G│G│G│W│
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─
│G│G│G│G│G│G│W│
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─
│W│W│W│W│W│W│W│
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─

J - Jesper
M - Morvan
K - Kimbal
A - Kazan
B - Basil
Z - Zinc
G - gnoll
W - Black Watch

[Ginger]

Do any of the gnolls have bows?

I'm skeptical about trapping ourselves in like that, with 4 ranks of bad guys surrounding us.

[Wolfgar]

It will be at least 4 ranks deep when they surround us on both sides of the door. We would go through the gnolls in a 3 or 4 rounds like this with Haste up. So it might look bad initially but I think it would change quickly. The main advantage with this formation is that there is minimal opponents attacking us each round - no one is attacked more than twice. Also Morvan can stand in the back supplying healing as needed. If Jesper was up we could shift to this formation.

┌─┬─┬─
│ │ │A
├─┼─┼─
│ │M│J
├─┼─┼─
│Z│K│B

Of course if they did pack in like this it would be perfect for a fireball or potion of fire breathing.

I am worried about the gnolls having bows as well. They could just stop 30' away and shot at our back side. If Kazan put up a Stinking Cloud it would just provide them with barrier to shot behind.

[venger]

Kimball could read the Scroll of Protection From Magic and Kazan could drop Stinking Cloud on him. Ideally the gnolls would charge into the cloud, or already be in the AOE when it goes off, and Kimball can shoot them to death.

[Wolfgar]

Here is something Flim and Flam could do. If we fall back from the Black Watch they can use trip on some of the pole arms from the fallen Black Watch placing them across the door way. It may slow the Black Watch down enough for us to dispatch the gnolls. There could be a nice pile up at the door way.

Also they could try to do some audible glamers to distract the gnolls, e.g. reinforcements coming, the sound of battle elsewhere, horns. At 6th level they can each make the noise equivalent to 16 men. It is unlikely to do much without the phantasmal force to back it up.

Or how about an invisible Buckawn with a potion of fire breathing?

Later it would be nice if they used summon insects against any spell caster. That would give us 6 rounds of not having to worry about them.

[Wolfgar]

So what is the plan? Are we staying where we are to face opponents on both fronts, moving to into a more defensive position or fleeing? If we are going to flee or move into a defensive position we need to do it this round before the gnolls pin us in.

Other than fighting it looks like our main alternatives are a potion of fire breathing, a scroll of protection from magic, stinking cloud, fireball, slow, Basil playing his lute, resuscitating Jesper and fleeing. With the Haste up I would recommend melee or fleeing.

[Ginger]

I'm sure he won't be happy about this, but Kimball can take out 6 gnolls a round with his bow. As long as he's not getting surrounded, he'll be fine.

[venger]

Aug 13, 2009 21:37:26 GMT -5 Ginger said:

I'm sure he won't be happy about this, but Kimball can take out 6 gnolls a round with his bow. As long as he's not getting surrounded, he'll be fine.

I see this going down 1 of 2 ways:

1) one of the fighter types parries the attacks on Kimball while he kills 6 gnolls a round with the bow

2) Kimball uses sword and shield and kill 3 gnolls a round.

[Wolfgar]

Kazan (only) attacks 3/2 but defends at +9. So long as he isn't rear flanked his AC will be -2. So I think he would be best at defending Kimball. That would leave Basil and Zinc to hold off the Black Watch with their 5 and 2 attacks respectively. Morvan can stand in the middle supplying healing as needed. Is this what we want to do? Kimball may need to stand a round of attacks while we reposition.

[venger]

I wonder if Ratatosk could find us a Limited Wish.

Or we could squeeze one out of Her Dark Majesty!

[Wolfgar]

For what it is worth, in the PHB it describes System Shock Survival as a saving throw. And rings of protection and prayer are supposed to aid in all saving throws. A similar analogy is when you are touched by a ghost, you are aged 10-40 years and as a result you have to make a system shock survival or die instantly. I would hope that in this case magical protections would help.

[Wolfgar]

Any thoughts on how to proceed from here? I guess once we have Rennslaer and Erikmund equipped we will head back down to the second level to explore the durin side. It sounds like the gnolls had the first and part of the second level. So I guess the durin have the rest of the second level and the third. It would be nice if we could free the slaves of the durin as well. Hopefully there will be additional NPCs to help us. We should do a better job convincing the slaves to join us in fighting the durin.

I wonder how many more Black Watch there are. I am guessing they came from the third level since the durin and gnolls seemed to occupy most of the second.

Do we have additional magic items for Rennslaer and Erikmund? I could let someone borrow my other magic spear or the staff/mace. We have the flaming short sword, Basil bastard sword and Kimball's giant slayer. There are flails from the gnoll priest and Iron Jaw. Someone should use the elven chain. Was the captain of the Koth mercenaries wearing anything nice? Does everyone have a magic shield? Kimball had two, Zinc took one after his was damaged. Kazan exchanged his Black Watch shield for a hopefully better one.

I think when we are ready to head down to the third floor we should avoid the main stairs off of the gnoll temple. There is at least one more set of stairs going down on the gnolls side.

[Ginger]

Zinc's got a magic hammer and hand axe, for throwing. He has Kimball's +2? shield, to replace his +2 shield which is now +1. A fighter-thief is probably proficient in shortsword, so maybe he can use Basil's off-hand weapon...

[Dead Greyhawk]

Erikmund is proficient in short sword, dagger, shortbow, and club.

[Ginger]

Were there short bows in the armory?

Since we've already stirred up the hornet's nest, and now that we're going down to the 3rd level, any thought to using the oil casks to torch the two armories? They might see that as a more pressing problem than dealing with us, since even if they kill us, it won't matter much if their army's supplies are all gone.

[venger]

I suggest Basil wears the elven chainmail and the ring of protection +2, and Rensslaer wears the chainmail +2.

[Ginger]

A good week. How should we proceed? Down the corridor, back up the staircase, or deeper into the cavern?

Question: Were the Black Watch guarding facing the door or facing away from the door?

I don't know what to make of it, either way, but it seems relevant.

[Wolfgar]

I agree. Good week. The poisoning of Kazan was the low point. Next time I want to use the lens of detection to see if it helps with finding and removing traps.

It is hard to know what direction they were facing. It took Kazan and Rennslaer a couple of rounds to open the door wide enough to show the Black Watch. So they could have turned around.

My guess is that the other Black Watch captain is heading back to alert the durin and Kirsi of our presence in the caves. From the map it appears that the passage they were guarding would be below the gnoll temple or the main throne room. I assume that is where the majority of the remaining forces would be arrayed. Do we want to head in that direction or circle around and try the stairs on the gnoll side? I think it is helpful to take on smaller groups but I don't know how many are left at this point.

Question: Should we take 45 minutes so Kazan can exchange Slow for Fireball? Slow is good for a concentrated group of high powered opponents but I haven't seen a good opportunity to use it. If we are going into a mass of durin and gnolls a fire ball is going to be more effective. Alternatively we keep the Slow for Kirsi and use the second half of the potion of fire breathing on the massed opponents.

Do you think we could use the cave cows as a stampede? Or just as shielding? We could tie glowing stones around their necks and push them ahead of us as we move down the passage. If there is a mass of durin/gnolls waiting we should have plenty of warning.

If we are following the Black Watch captain then Rennslaer should dispense with some of his healing beforehand. No point in holding those back if we are about to face the bulk of their forces.

[venger]

Two words: "Animate Dead"

[Wolfgar]

Isn't Kirsi a high level priestess? Won't she be able to command any undead we send at them? Zinc would just be wasting time destroying them. I would rather have the healing.

[venger]

Aug 25, 2009 10:11:29 GMT -5 Wolfgar said:

Isn't Kirsi a high level priestess? Won't she be able to command any undead we send at them? Zinc would just be wasting time destroying them. I would rather have the healing.

If their high level priestess is wasting a round's action trying to control my zombies instead of casting flamestrike or slay living that's a win for us.

Besides I'm sure the animated dead would be used up before we hit the BBEG(s). They'll soak up a round or two of crossbow fire and that's that.

[Ginger]

Slow only hits 5 bad guys anyway, and I think it'll be well used when we run into the durin leader.

[Ginger]

Any exciting new insights or ideas from anyone in the past weeks?

[Ginger]

Plan for Sunday? Go forth and kill all who oppose us?

[venger]

Rensslaer will have the dwarf zombies go around the corner and give the "THUMBS UP" or "O.K." sign to any crossbow wielding dwarves.

Then when they come up to check it out we get the drop on them.