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Post by venger on Feb 6, 2007 11:53:26 GMT -5
What's the plan?
Room-by-room slaughter?
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Post by Wolfgar on Feb 6, 2007 12:18:50 GMT -5
Ideally we would want to find and kill the leaders first then take care of mopping up the rest. How detailed was the map? Any indication of where the leaders might be? Should we try to take out the priests under the Castle since we already have access to it? Or do we think there is a separate entrance to the digging that the slaves are doing?
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Post by Ginger on Feb 6, 2007 12:58:28 GMT -5
The map was pretty good, but it didn't include any of the underground stuff, so it's hard to tell how useful it will be. If there was a pre-existing temple underground, and it sounds like there is, the castle could be less than half of the area we have to clear.
Also, I forgot to include the most important development from last week. I retired the blue-turban'd grappling hook figure and picked a new Raven model. It's much more leaderly.
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Post by Dell on Feb 6, 2007 13:41:29 GMT -5
The plan is hasty killing. No subtlety, no sneakiness. Kill them before they have a chance to organize a coordinated defense. Kill them before I have to go in and do any work.
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Feb 6, 2007 13:55:17 GMT -5
The real question is if we send Jasper back to get Dell, Adrienne and Pffiffwin. That would take time of course and Diego is eager to clear out his...er...the castle. We always seem to run into truouble (i.e. lose the element of surprise) when we wait. It would probably take enough time for some napping and regaining some 1st and 2nd level spells. Antonus could then have time to use his Wizard Eye spell to scout around.
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Post by Dell on Feb 6, 2007 14:23:24 GMT -5
Hell, send us Jasper and we can open up a whole second front on these bastards. Pfiffwin can use mega-super illusion powers to draw them out, while you kill them from the other side. Meanwhile, Dell will put on a song and dance show for them.
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Post by Ginger on Feb 6, 2007 14:48:59 GMT -5
I think I vote against opening a second front. I'll settle for augmenting the current force.
Regarding strategy or tactics, we'll use the tried and true "Get into a pitched battle and wait for the bad guys to come to us, wave after wave."
I think this is likely to work, since there's a temple downstairs. The clerics will likely not want to flee their holy place.
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Post by Wolfgar on Feb 6, 2007 15:23:23 GMT -5
No one should know we are here, right? If we wait around they will likely need to dump more dirt by the river's edge. We don't want to give away our advantage by being accidentally discovered. So if we are going to wait for Jasper to bring everyone else then we need to find a place to hide. We may even be able to take out some guards/clerics if they need to usher the slaves done to river paste the wraiths. Just make sure none of them get away.
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Feb 6, 2007 16:11:00 GMT -5
From what I remember being told it has been a good number of weeks/months since the tunnel had been used. The spectre's were a pretty good deterrent for visitors. We could retreat to the spectre cavern and wait there.
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Post by Ginger on Feb 6, 2007 16:41:12 GMT -5
Yeah, it's kind of difficult to tell what's going on down here. We crossed a pit that had some corpses in it, most of which were long dead. The specters were mainly drained slaves who'd tried to flee this way. There were several other passages we didn't head down, we just followed the one with the most traffic.
It's possible that we could wait down here for the 5 hours it'll take for Jasper to fetch the rest of the gang. It would also give us an opportunity to regain spells.
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Post by venger on Feb 6, 2007 18:06:02 GMT -5
We cannot assume that the grove of screaming mushrooms didn't alert SOMEBODY.
Or that the head evil cleric wasn't friendly with those spectres and won't miss them.
Camping seems a little premature.
Once we take the battlements we can signal to Dell and he can fly over and join us. We should capture someone and get more information about the layout of this place.
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Post by Wolfgar on Feb 6, 2007 21:54:27 GMT -5
If you thought that adventurers were infiltrating the castle every time shriekers made noise you would never get any excavation done. Also it sounds like it was a long distance from the shriekers to the cave with the shaft going up. So if no one has come down to investigate yet it is unlikely anyone is going to.
But I agree sitting around for 5 hours seems unwise. Do we want to try exploring the caves more? It may be easier to dispatch some of the smaller groups of monsters now while we are higher strength. The large melees tend to just wear us down before we can get to the stronger opponents. Taking care of them now without having to go through all of the bugbears might be a good strategy.
Do we have Fido out? He should be very familiar with following bugbear scents so he may be able to lead us to this underground temple. Did he recognizes the water that was at the bottom of the shaft Jasper fell down? I sure hope it isn't like the shadow dragon stuff in the tree.
Do you think we could use Fido as a potion identifier? We could have him sniff all of different potions that we know and then ask him if any new potions are similar to them. We could hire him out to the alchemist for extra money on the side.
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Post by Wolfgar on Feb 7, 2007 8:46:15 GMT -5
Did we identify/distribute the magic items from the tree?
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Perrin
Junior Member
Posts: 61
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Post by Perrin on Feb 7, 2007 9:11:57 GMT -5
Yep. A +1 shield was given to Herbert. The ring in the water trap was a ring of swimming that does 1d4 damage when activated. Winthrop got that, since he's the only one who can breathe underwater.
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Post by Ginger on Feb 7, 2007 13:20:06 GMT -5
We mainly punted on who gets the ring, but Winthrop has it now, since it gives swimming ability without underwater breathing ability.
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Post by venger on Feb 8, 2007 13:38:53 GMT -5
So are we going up to take the castle or down to take the temple?
Rescuing the slaves is important. Who knows what vile plans the evil clerics have for them.
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Post by Ginger on Feb 8, 2007 14:11:02 GMT -5
I think upwards. I think it's reasonable to presume that the mercenaries in the castle are a somewhat distinct group from the priests down below. The mercenaries will fall back to the camps outside the forest if given the opportunity. Thus, we should kill them before they can escape. The priests will not abandon their temple and allow us to defile it, so we can attack them after we've taken the top.
A counter argument would be that the humanoids in the castle likely won't have that much loot anyway, so we might as well attack the temple and save ourselves the trouble of dislodging them from the castle.
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Post by Dell on Feb 8, 2007 14:16:54 GMT -5
One point - if they're left alone for too long inside their temple, the priests might summon something. And then that something might summon something, and the next thing you know we're knee-deep in demons.
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Post by venger on Feb 8, 2007 15:17:28 GMT -5
One point - if they're left alone for too long inside their temple, the priests might summon something. And then that something might summon something, and the next thing you know we're knee-deep in demons. I vote Temple. We can free the slaves and destroy the unholy altar. An assault on the castle will most likely alert those down below, giving them ample time to barricade themselves in and prepare glyphs/evil clerical defenses. The humanoid inhabitants of the castle aren't just going to flee their superior defensible position for some camps near the forest. They outnumber us and have a castle. That tends to make one overconfident.
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Post by Ginger on Feb 8, 2007 15:52:30 GMT -5
I disagree. We know that a few bugbears fled the tree. They're probably here. I'm sure they've told stories about how a group of fearsome adventurers slew the dragon that was protecting them. And now they're here, slaying the powerful and frightning priests who do scary things in the bowels of the castle.
I'd get the heck out. Besides, a castle isn't a superior defensive position against people who've already snuck into the castle through the back door.
So, I vote temple as well.
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Post by venger on Feb 8, 2007 16:26:45 GMT -5
I disagree. We know that a few bugbears fled the tree. They're probably here. I'm sure they've told stories about how a group of fearsome adventurers slew the dragon that was protecting them. And now they're here, slaying the powerful and frightning priests who do scary things in the bowels of the castle. I'd get the heck out. Besides, a castle isn't a superior defensive position against people who've already snuck into the castle through the back door. So, I vote temple as well. That is assuming the few bugbears who fled actually made it back to the castle. We, a fearsome group of adventurers, were accosted by wyverns and centaurs and werebears, oh my. And no evil humanoid is going to go back to their leader and not completely lie about the devastating loss they suffered... I'm sure the bowels of the castle are fraught with evil and screaming horrors - which the bugbears either ignore or steer clear of. The anguished wails of dying clerics will go unnoticed. Hmm, and here I thought you were disagreeing with me. Temple it is!
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Post by Ginger on Feb 8, 2007 16:56:23 GMT -5
Hmm, and here I thought you were disagreeing with me. Never doubt The Leader.
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Perrin
Junior Member
Posts: 61
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Post by Perrin on Feb 8, 2007 18:03:24 GMT -5
I'm all for going to the temple too.
But can we get to the temple from where we are? We arrived at a shaft in a cavern. At the bottom of the shaft was soul-eating water. So we went up the shaft into a dark room. Isn't that taking us to the castle, and not the temple?
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Post by Ginger on Feb 8, 2007 18:46:26 GMT -5
I think we'll follow the tunnels that we passed by. We kept taking the ones that had the most traffic, but the lower traffic ones might be better.
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Post by Wolfgar on Feb 9, 2007 8:24:35 GMT -5
I'm all for going to the temple too. But can we get to the temple from where we are? We arrived at a shaft in a cavern. At the bottom of the shaft was soul-eating water. So we went up the shaft into a dark room. Isn't that taking us to the castle, and not the temple? I doubt there will be direct access to the temple from the caverns. It sounds like the temple was excavated and the dirt removed using the shaft. If the temple was in the caverns then the trail would lead directly there. Not up through the castle and then back down again. But I still think it is worth investigating the caverns to make sure we aren't missing something. Is the soul-eating water like the water from the tree that the shadow dragon polluted? I would hate to have to contend with the mate of the shadow dragon we killed. Did anyone take cure blindness spells?
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Post by Ginger on Feb 9, 2007 9:13:00 GMT -5
I don't think it was the same. It actually damaged Jasper, whereas the Shadow Dragon muck didn't cause HP damage.
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Post by venger on Feb 9, 2007 9:38:51 GMT -5
I doubt there will be direct access to the temple from the caverns. It sounds like the temple was excavated and the dirt removed using the shaft. If the temple was in the caverns then the trail would lead directly there. Not up through the castle and then back down again. But I still think it is worth investigating the caverns to make sure we aren't missing something. As I understand it's a vertical shaft that requires a ladder to climb. It would be somewhat impractical to move any significant amount of dirt by that route. We didn't investigate the water at all. It may be a small enclosed well of unholy water, or an evil river of unholy water that's polluting the Javan, or even some fountain in the temple below.
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Perrin
Junior Member
Posts: 61
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Post by Perrin on Feb 9, 2007 10:20:17 GMT -5
We could investigate the other caverns at the same time Jasper fetches Dell and Co. That way, we'll still be close by when they arrive. Maybe we'll find a secret entrance to the temple? The downside is that we might have unnecessary encounters, weakening us from the big fights still to come.
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Post by venger on Feb 9, 2007 10:32:14 GMT -5
We could investigate the other caverns at the same time Jasper fetches Dell and Co. That way, we'll still be close by when they arrive. Maybe we'll find a secret entrance to the temple? The downside is that we might have unnecessary encounters, weakening us from the big fights still to come. That's assuming that the caverns dead-end. Or don't lead directly into the temple. The point of adventuring is encountering things.
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Post by Dell on Feb 9, 2007 11:33:55 GMT -5
The point of adventuring is encountering things. The point of adventuring is killing things. And then taking their stuff. As you grow in skill and power, you can kill bigger things that have nicer stuff.
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