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Post by Dell on Nov 15, 2004 10:35:28 GMT -5
Everything was going well, until... well, until what?
We were intoxicated by our success in room #1, and neglected to take the same care on our way to room #2. So what went wrong there?
1. - no checking for traps. Even the most casual of probes would have found that pit trap that the paladin fell into.
2. - separating the party. Or as the bard says in the ballad, Top Sword - "That was some of the best dungeon-crawling I've ever seen - right up to the part where you got killed. Never leave your wingman." Even Scientologists know better than that.
3. - lack of spellpower - There are a number of spells that would have made a BIG difference in the way that things went in that battle. But the spellcasters couldn't SEE any targets, so they weren't able to do so. So even if we were going to split the party up, we picked the wrong guys to do what we did.
4. general bad ideas - Standing out on the middle of a ledge and letting every mercenary in the world take shots at you, when you can't go anywhere because you're surrounded by your own party members seems a little unwise, in retrospect.
Good things:
Sanctuary - kicks ass against low-level enemies. Prayer - still good. Paladin - still Lawful Good. Winthrop - still got two fireballs left. Dell - still got two invisibilities left.
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Post by Ginger on Nov 15, 2004 11:18:28 GMT -5
Everything was going well, until... well, until what? We were intoxicated by our success in room #1, and neglected to take the same care on our way to room #2. So what went wrong there? 2. - separating the party. Or as the bard says in the ballad, Top Sword - "That was some of the best dungeon-crawling I've ever seen - right up to the part where you got killed. Never leave your wingman." Even Scientologists know better than that. Um, we didn't really separate the party. We just left Dell with his zany Orkish posse. We could only have 5 or 6 people fighting at a time, and they were pretty much fighting all of the time. The "Divide and Conquer" strategy of theirs worked because of architecture, not because we split up. True, but then the casters would have to be on the bridge, where they would have been pin-cushioned, since the shield only works one way. Yeah, but what's the alternative? We had a plan to take them by surprise, but it failed. After it failed, we could have run away, or we could have charged up the bridge, which we did.
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Nov 15, 2004 12:17:52 GMT -5
Well the next time we do an assault we need to remember that a few "Knock" spells would go a long way. If we had "Knock" for getting through the last portcullis it would have been a much different battle. This would mean I would not have "Strength" spells to hand out. Although I didn't have it with me "Invisibility 10' radius" would have helped getting across the ledge.
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liato
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Posts: 123
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Post by liato on Nov 15, 2004 12:38:28 GMT -5
I think the way the battle turned out was a lot more bad luck than terrible tactics.
First, the guards got pretty lucky to make a hear noise check.
then both archers decided to target the cleric instead of raven and managed to take him out in one round.
Then the archers decided to target me instead of the priest and AGAIN did nearly maximum damage on two hits to put me down in one round. If we had gotten either the hold or the heat metal spell off that would have made a big difference.
We probably should have run out initially with more than just raven and the priest but that was our only major mistake. The other mistake would have been keeping the ring of jumping on the cleric. Al or Frank should have been wearing that for the assault. We'd have sliced through the archers then.
Things went kind of badly but I don't think it was all a tactics issue.
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Nov 15, 2004 13:03:53 GMT -5
If nothing else we could have taken a half hour for me to drop my web spell and pick up "Knock." Even with that might not of worked since I don't know what the casting range is off hand but the guards still would have heard me cast it. So even there we still would have ended up out on the ledge for a couple of rounds.
The shadows could possibly have been handled by casting "Bless" on Raven's arrows. That would have made them magical.
The Orcs are just part of the chaos that we come to expect when Dell is involoved. Always keeping things interesting.
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Post by Ginger on Nov 15, 2004 14:09:40 GMT -5
The other mistake would have been keeping the ring of jumping on the cleric. It is extremely unlikely that the Pelorites would loan us (a bunch of mercenaries) their magical items.
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Post by Dell on Nov 15, 2004 14:23:19 GMT -5
The layout really was our worst enemy. If we could have gotten the portcullis open, we could have taken the fight to them, and our melee specialists would have ripped them to shreds. If a couple people would have charged in and lifted the gate, it would have been a much shorter and more successful fight.
It's not that we did horribly - but we could have done better. It was a combination of bad luck and inability to put down the enemy archers that really crippled us. We should have had a contingency plan for if the sneak attack hadn't worked - and it should have involved a fireball, or a web, or some other mass disruption spell. At the time we charged in, the two wizards and the druid were near the back of the party, leaving us with nothing but clerical spells to try and go on the offensive - and those were being used to cast heals on people.
Anyway, that's not important. What's important is, the Wraiths are coming back soon, so we need to get ready: Al and Frank should block the door, backed up by the paladin to get the benefit of his holy aura.
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Post by Dell on Nov 15, 2004 14:27:00 GMT -5
It is extremely unlikely that the Pelorites would loan us (a bunch of mercenaries) their magical items. He would have let the Paladin use it - the paladin's double-specialized in a melee weapon, so he would have been a good choice to leap into action and attack the enemy.
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liato
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Posts: 123
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Post by liato on Nov 15, 2004 15:29:11 GMT -5
Plus he's a paladin. If they don't like leaping into battle against undead I don't know who does.
Speaking of which, how about giving him that cleric's ring and heading down to kill the wraiths? If we get them while they are turned we'll only have to fight one at a time. Do we have some rope? Alternately we can have Raven shoot at them one by one to un turn it and (with blessed arrows) maybe even kill it.
Knock doesn't work on portculises. Didn't we read that? We couldn't have opened the portcullis, either. It's one thing to lift it when there are no enemies, but if Al and/or frank had tried to lift it with two soldiers and an archer next to it they'd have died almost for sure.
What Al cold have done is to put his shield over the holes so that the archers couldn't fire at us. That would have helped.
Focusing on the positive, the bad news from last battle is good news for the future. We made it through that room without using almost ANY spells. That means we have almost all our spells left and, as we saw from the giants/orcs, that's a LOT of spells.
One of them got away so they're going to be alerted to us.
Should we run down that corridor and try to fight them before they can prepare? I think at this point our main goal needs to be to find the high priests ASAP. We need to kill them before they can get ready for us.
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Post by Ginger on Nov 15, 2004 15:39:56 GMT -5
Since we heard the sound of horses, it seems to me that they'll be running away.
However, here's something to think about. They didn't set a single cleric against us. If the archers moved out of the way for a minute, to leave space for a cleric, they could have held us, opened the portcullis, and pushed us all into the pit in a round or two. Imagine how much fun the wraiths would have with our unconscious bodies.
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Post by Dell on Nov 15, 2004 16:00:03 GMT -5
The jump spell doesn't work like that - if he jumped down, he would take regular falling damage. It looks like they're trying to get away, so we should get after them quickly. But the wraiths are still on their way back, and we can't run off with them behind us. We need to split up, I think.
The Al/Frank/Paladin combo at the door should drive the wraiths away, and the priest of Pelor can back them up with Turns if it gets too thick. The rest of the party can continue - carefully - into the temple, and see if there's anyone escaping that we can catch. Remember, there's a ranger with us, so we can track them down if they get away.
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Post by Dell on Nov 15, 2004 16:01:10 GMT -5
Since we heard the sound of horses, it seems to me that they'll be running away. However, here's something to think about. They didn't set a single cleric against us. Evil clerics are cowards.
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liato
Full Member
Posts: 123
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Post by liato on Nov 15, 2004 16:10:17 GMT -5
Do you guys really think they're running away?
I like the plan where Raven shoots them anyway.
How about Dell goes invisible and does an intel run while we kill the wraiths. We need to figure out: Are they running away? If so, where is the exit? Are they setting up defenses? About how many of them are there, specifically how many spell casters?
That should give dell about 10 to 20 minutes to figure out exactly where we need to go while we kill the wraiths.
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Post by Dell on Nov 16, 2004 10:43:08 GMT -5
I'm sure some are running away - perhaps to get help, perhaps because they're cowards. Or maybe the hired mercenaries are running, but the actual Nerulites are staying. But someone is probably preparing the defenses, releasing the powerful undead to come kill us, and in general doing evil evil eeeeeeevil things.
If they are running away, that's fine - we'll clear out the temple, and then track them down later. Dell is more than happy to turn invisible and do a little scouting.
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Post by Dell on Nov 16, 2004 11:58:48 GMT -5
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Post by Ginger on Nov 16, 2004 14:58:32 GMT -5
I'm sure some are running away - perhaps to get help, perhaps because they're cowards. Or maybe the hired mercenaries are running, but the actual Nerulites are staying. But someone is probably preparing the defenses, releasing the powerful undead to come kill us, and in general doing evil evil eeeeeeevil things. If they are running away, that's fine - we'll clear out the temple, and then track them down later. Dell is more than happy to turn invisible and do a little scouting. Well, if they are fleeing, then it is a pretty good win for us. This is obviously a ridiculously fortified position, and they wouldn't leave it lightly. If it's anything like the last temple, then there is a lot of stuff left to loot/purify that can't be carried away by them in a rush. If they're not running, then we'll have time for Raven to take an 8 hour nap, so he can get to 7th level!!
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