Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zollex 05-26-04, 11:11 PM	Link to old thread. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45657) We're back (again)! This time with a new thread for the new board! I'm sorry to everyone for my lapse in posting at this foundation's old thread. School drained my time and I could post on only a few threads. Let's get back to business.... MEMBER LISTING: Zollex Salla Milo Highill Hierophant of Yondalla thalious Fernandes eclipticavatar d20_DM_highpriest_RSW LilSilverDragon Dabo Heathertop Jamven the Fighter Al2902 Elessar Telcontar charlatan7373 Fingers Boggis spartan22x Spook - Denmark - Lezard the Necromancer AngelicDragon SoulLord CS_Buddy Roland the Crownbreaker DrakeRunner piwi Arcanix AlfaMale26 Kurozuki King_Alex Adriayna cambric AlonisAlon lordyuri24 getyourspotusa kedi Armoured Priest Frostbite_Ravenheart friendlyfire515 Penterghast Belzebub gutz pointyears Jarred Garrison Aiden2 Kernith Hastings Warduke Xod, Archmage Myst the Moonscout Silmarien Aldalome thasis garrote If you want to join, please use the word "join" somewhere in your post. It makes it easier for me to find you. If I missed you, please PM me. We don't need to spam up the thread. CURRENT TOPICS: Ways to beat giants and other oversized meanies Tactics against large groups of creatures Low-magic defense against high-magic attacks The tactics challenge format posted by Donnavin Snowolf "-Post a challenge with roughly 3-5 characters, give us all a general knowledge, feats, weapons, classes and spells. -Post the information they have to work with, and a position -Let us go wild with it" Let's go... Zollex :mage:
Silmarien Aldalome 05-27-04, 12:54 AM	Hello Zollex. You can add me to your list. I'm pleased to see you back at the Half-Elven Foundation. stav PS - what do we do here?
Zollex 05-27-04, 11:09 PM	Well, we discuss strategies and tactics for D&D. We had some pretty good stuff on the old thread, which I forgot to link in the first post... Tactics against large groups of creaturesLet's see....I like to draw small groups off from larger groups, and pick them off like that. Also, I enjoy sniper or hit-and-run tactics. If you can take out the leaders with ranged attacks or spells, attack, and then retreat quickly to a better position, you can cause mass chaos. Against single enemies, sniper tactics can also be effective. If you can get an invisible rogue to backstab the enemy, then have a fighter charge in and attack (the rogue flanks right away), and have a spellcaster or two for cover, you could take out a single creature pretty quickly. Zollex :mage:
Jarred Garrison 05-28-04, 05:53 PM	Against large group of creatures, wizards/sorcerers and ambushes are your friends. Think of guerrilla warfare where you wait for your enemy, cast meteor swarm at the army, then teleport away... :smirk: Charming spells (specially if use of the mass charm spell is allowed) to turn half the army against each other also work wonders. Imagine that nifty dragon they have an as ally turning against themselves... Or the soldiers turning against the dragon, for a similar outcome... If all that fails, or you canīt use those tactics for a lack of resources, then old warfare tactics are in order... Against single opponents... Surround them, use numbers to beat them. If itīs an opponent based on hand to hand combat, use your melee specialists to keep him entertained while the ranger/sorceror/wizard blast him away, and the cleric keeps the melee chars going. If it is an opponent that attacks from the distance, close up as soon as possible on him, and meanwhile use your long distance attacks to wear him down while you approach. Magic that allows you to reach him in less time than you would normally need makes wonders too.
Silmarien Aldalome 05-30-04, 09:25 PM	Ahh, I see! *muses to self - summoning "strategy lore"* But first off, hi there Jarred, great to meet you. Like your ideas - guaranteed to "toast" the upitty party that think they're "it and a bit". I can 'cluster' strategies as follows: 1. Role-Play devices, that create moral tensions for characters - and test their commitment to their PC's "flavour". 2. Meta-devices - those that have a rules-based structure to them. 3. The tools of DM-secrecy. 4. If you want your party to squabble (i.e. the PC's enemies would want this outcome - to split PC's apart) - there are many ways of using NPC-devices to do this. But - I only use this one when the players have good, strong, healthy rapport, and know the difference between "role play" and "real life". 5. Stalking creatures - that tease from the corner of the eye, and that create mood. I.e. "Mood-devices" for causing PC-panic - which makes for fun blunders and great RP.
thasis 05-30-04, 10:58 PM	I would like to add you to my numereous other guilds I ally my self with (in fancy talk, I want to join). Also on the topic of attacking big people what I would do is get my elf wizard to pull out my bow and shoot the giant in both eyes so he becomes blind then hit him with a magical missile in the groin dropping him down in pain the jump on his head and fire numereous arrows into his skull. This stradegy unfortunatly only works in campaigns with a variant combat system that adds realism.
Zollex 06-02-04, 12:12 AM	Welcome back, Jarred. Welcome, Thasis. On the topic of beating the big brutes: Go someplace they can't. If you can find a cave with multiple exits (you don't want to get trapped) that you can lure them to and shoot at them with ranged weapons from, you could do some damage. If they're smart, they'll try to wait out of view from the cave in ambush, in which case you can use one of the other exits and ambush them. If you can't plan ahead, try to disable their combat abilities. Spells like slow, ray of enfeeblement (if you're luck and they don't make the save), hold monster, and, if you're really evil, reduce can help do this. While the giant is in a weakened state, your tanks can move in and whack away. You could also try sniping them after blinding them or using a similar effect. Zollex :mage:
Zollex 06-02-04, 03:29 PM	Originally posted by Silmarien Aldalome I can 'cluster' strategies as follows: 1. Role-Play devices, that create moral tensions for characters - and test their commitment to their PC's "flavour". 2. Meta-devices - those that have a rules-based structure to them. 3. The tools of DM-secrecy. 4. If you want your party to squabble (i.e. the PC's enemies would want this outcome - to split PC's apart) - there are many ways of using NPC-devices to do this. But - I only use this one when the players have good, strong, healthy rapport, and know the difference between "role play" and "real life". 5. Stalking creatures - that tease from the corner of the eye, and that create mood. I.e. "Mood-devices" for causing PC-panic - which makes for fun blunders and great RP. 1. Sounds cool. It would make sure the players know what their character would do. 2. Very interesting. Please say more. 3. Say, "Roll a spot check," and watch your players squirm. They can't tell what's after them if they fail the check. 4. A split-up party is a lot weaker than a unified one. Sun Tzu said a lot about defeating the enemy by causing problems in their ranks. 5. Stalkers can torment the players. If they're really good, they can shoot an arror or two from time to time. The players will go insane. "Is he coming? When will he strike next? WHAT WAS THAT?!?" Please expand on everything. :D Sil, your post reminds me that strategy can go both ways - PCs and DMs can both use it. Zollex :mage:
Silmarien Aldalome 06-02-04, 06:42 PM	I can be too technical folks sometimes. Please inquire if I'm a bit off-beat, and I'll be happy to re-map something out in better language. So - I'll tackle one of 'em at a time (over the coming days) - and by providing some "living" examples to make it more fun. 1. Role-Play devices, that create moral tensions for characters - and test their commitment to their PC's "flavour". Hmmm: The Neutrally Good aligned players want everything in the Chaotic Good Dragon's Horde. The DM deliberately set it up, to "test" the players' integrity. They're being hounded by hundreds of Orcses - who beat drums and whose glowing eyes are about 1/2 a day behind them. They happen on a Dragon Horde - it's full of treasure, Tomes, shining items, platinum, spells and scrolls. Falling into metaplay, the characters forget themselves - and start talking theft, Dragon death, greed and so on. The Thief steels something from the Horde. The "good" DM, while smiling at players - ensures that there's a right royal toasting coming the party's way for the impropriety and lapse of moral reasoning. The item stolen - is needed by the Dragons - to stop the invasion of Realmspace by the Evil of Aziz. The Good Dragons have thus been betrayed by the party's moral lapse. Thus - players will (in due course) become aware that they have inadvertently botched it. Requiring them to, erm, front the Council of White Dragons. ....see you suddenly soon. sil
anglar 06-02-04, 07:14 PM	So many topics to hit upon Large enemies - Cover, Cover, and Cover. Play on the enemies weaknesses. So much depends on who controls or initiates the combat. Let's say that your party of four(the typcial for this example) and a Hill Giant in a bad mood stumble over one another so there's no time to prepare the sitch. Wizard should probably try dancing lights or something else the can make the target lose his next action. Wizard's next action is get space or obstacles between him and giant. Then pepper with spells. Cleric should start with a Bless spell cause it helps everybody. Next round would be to take position away from the Wizard. Don't want both spellcasters getting caught together. Rogue, simple, go for a flanking position or third area to hit with missile fire. Fighter is hard because of what's happening around him. Probably should help the rogue set up flanking or follow suit and go for missile damage. Large # of Enemies - What's already been said, but if you have time, Move Earth and Minor Creation can be used to devastating effect with a good illusion spell thrown in. A nice pit about as long a you have time for filled with lots of sticks sharpened and "covered" by the illusion can make for quite a slow down to an advancing army. Use Disintegrate to make random 10' cubic holes in the terrain to makes them change course and split up. So much depends on the level of your party's capability.
Azer Firelord 06-02-04, 07:43 PM	Interesting tactic I saw used in one of my games recently (unfortunately, not in actual play, but it was described to me by the players and I decided the result) Player A, a cleric is kind of being the BBEG...he has fled the party after being betrayed as an evil maniac by the wizard. Player B, a half-celestial samurai who acts rather like a paladin with an even stricter honour code than normal, decides to hunt him down. He asks for help with scrying- player A has an item which makes him immune, but he has a follower who isn't covered by the item, which allows the wizard to spy on him. Now, this is the clever part: Player A works out that this scrying tactic will be used, and arranges a carefully contrived scene with the follower in which he appears to be unaccompanied, outside the pyramid he has found to live in. Of course, when the party gets there, it is a trap- the melee fighters enter the pyramid and the spellcasters hang back, when suddenly a wall of stone appears seperating them and half a dozen weretigers spring out at the fighters in ambush! This tactic would have workeed better if the party hadn't brought some silver weapons, and if Player A hadn't panicked and run away once the wall was broken down. Still, Player A lived to fight again, at the expense of his minions (he's really grasped this BBEG mentality), and one of the NPC heroes was killed. Probably a bit random there, but any comments welcome.
Tenzhi 06-04-04, 01:20 AM	Here's a topic that may seem anti-thetical to this Foundation: Presenting encounters to players that challenge their wits and creativity (or merely their sanity and survival) without relying on the ever-dull 3E tactical grid of DOOM. That's right, no attacks of opportunity or any of that nosh. Just delightfully cheesy setups from the days of Yor that are as simple as the blue dragon with lightning rods strategically setup in his lair so that he can hit the entire party with a breath weapon regardless of how they split up... or as complex as the rotating cavern floor set up by kobolds and their urd generals, creating quite adverse conditions for the party to fight in. But none of that stuff like a Giant standing in the middle of a bunch of man-sized barriers set up in such a way as to make opponents have to move through the maximum number of threatened squares to get to him.
garrote 06-09-04, 12:46 AM	This board is great, just what I was looking for, creative tactics for all sorts of situations. I especially love the silenced pebble ranged legerdemain. A good strategy makes life a lot easier than just hackin' and slashin'. My newest character (currently level 2) is going to be an Invisible Blade/Master Thrower, so at like 15th level I'll be making ranged touch trip attempts against flatfooted opponents. I was wondering what good throwing/grenade weapons are effective at second level, I have a +9 to throwing, so I can use exotic weapons, I've been using a net pretty effectivly so far. I'm thinking of trying moltov cocktails just for the disruptive effects, plus right now I'm dishing out a whopping 1d3 +1d6 sa. Also any low level tactics for parties with no real spell caster would be cool, we actually have a small army now, 2 monks, 2 fighters, a rogue (me), a bard, a paladin, and a cleric. Keep the stratagies coming. Oh, and put me on the list.
Jarred Garrison 06-14-04, 03:19 PM	What about strategies when your character has no equipment at all? (I recently survived being left alone naked and without anything in a glacier in the middle of nowhere... Was hard even for a level 23 character to kill a pack of wolves led by a dire wolf).
Silmarien Aldalome 06-14-04, 08:20 PM	Greetings Jarrod and Garote - welcome! And g'day Ang/Tenz/Azer and Zollex. What about strategies when your character has no equipment at all? Enter psionicist. I'm opting for this PC. I've hadda look at the various (and really cool) functions of psionicists. Tenzhi - you're right - my PrC's at H/E Foundation have psionics leanings. Hello there Anglar Goldstems Sil puts a fresh bundle of wood onto the fire, as the midsummer stars travel through the heavens. She is cooking a stew on the fires and it smells of fresh forest herbs. She hands Anglar a bowl.
Jarred Garrison 06-16-04, 08:40 PM	No, Iīm not referring to when you cannot get any equipment, but instead when you character has temporarily been stripped of all his equipment (letīs say he gets captured and put into a cell, but he escapes, carrying only a bone to defend himself with, or heīs left in the middle of nowhere, and has to come back to civilization, so you get what i meant). Taking a level in a class wouldnīt be a strategy, but character optimization/development.
kedi 06-17-04, 02:04 PM	Well. The best way to beat giants etc is to get a little dwarven-gnome rogue party and flank them. A: Dwarf Fighter 3 / Barbarian 1, bonus on Intimidate skill, power attack and it's chain feats. B: Dwarf Rogue 3 / Fighter 1, stealthy, combat expertise and it's chain feats. C: Elven Enchanter 5 with charn spells, sleeps, powerful enchantment with spell focus (enchantment) feat. D: Gnome Fighter 2 / Rogue 2 with stealthy and skill adjuster feats. E: Gnome Fighter 3 / Rogue 1 with stealthy and combat expertise chain feats. A goes first, seen easily by the big dudes. Then B, D and E get behind the giants. First E strikes, making a sneak attack, as the giant(s) move to E, B sneak attacks this time while E disappears. Then as they are bothering both with A and B, E and D sneak attack this time. As they are striking, C dominates, charms, puts giants to sleep etc. Theyt are not so smart, not so fast, so a simply party would take a 3 giant group out easily if well organized.
Silmarien Aldalome 06-17-04, 08:46 PM	@ Jarred Fair enough. Tell us what you did to survive in the Icy Wilds - sounds like it was a lot of fun! ....but instead when you character has temporarily been stripped of all his equipment (letīs say he gets captured and put into a cell, but he escapes, carrying only a bone to defend himself with, or heīs left in the middle of nowhere, and has to come back to civilization, so you get what i meant). Taking a level in a class wouldnīt be a strategy, but character optimization/development. I've just read more on how the new Unearthed Arcana allows the "pooling" of two PC-classes into one level. It's one way of adding survival chances to a PC. I'm curious to hear about your optimisation/development ideas. @Kedi Kedster - did you realise your All Races Foundation is nominated for an Award this month? *grins* Yes - flanked sneak attacks are *deadly* especially at higher levels. Add to that, the Improved Evasion and Slippery Mind - and voila - you gotta kickass character. Cheers stav
Zollex 06-18-04, 12:47 AM	Originally posted by Jarred Garrison What about strategies when your character has no equipment at all? (I recently survived being left alone naked and without anything in a glacier in the middle of nowhere... Was hard even for a level 23 character to kill a pack of wolves led by a dire wolf). This brings to mind an Order of the Stick comic. You'll have no Armor Check Penalty. (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=25) Use your Hide skill as much as you can. If you avoid enemies, they can't kill you. Unless they've got equipment you could use, avoiding enemies would probably be your best bet. You could either try to kill all the enemies (using the equipment from the ones you've already killed) or make your way back to civilization. Thanks for the comments, everyone. Zollex :mage:
Jarred Garrison 06-19-04, 03:26 PM	What I did was getting into the first cave I could find, while I kept moving all the time till i got there. It turned out that cave was occupied by a pack of wolves led by a dire wolf... I thanked Tempus for having taken improved unarmed strike for pure RP reasons, then fired up all the buffs I had due to the Divine Champion class, and tried to take down as many wolves as possible in the first round (with the use of power attack so i could kill a wolf in two punches), using my cleave attacks against the dire wolf, and then concentrated on the dire wolf during the rest of the fight, using Smite Infidel against him. When I had killed all the pack, save for two wolves, they fled. At that point, I had some food (wolf tastes horribly, but itīs better than nothing). The pelts of the wolves served to make some very rudimentary "clothing" (think of a badly dressed conan the barbarian :D ), and the tendons of the wolves served as strings to tie something to my feet. After getting equipped in that way, I was able to reach civilization after two days of forced marching, and finally, some days later, the Wizard in my party scryed my location, and teleported to take me back with her. After I was back home, I got some basic equipment, and we went back to the place where I had lost my equipment to recover it, and kick some BBEGīs rear.
Frostbite_Ravenheart 10-20-04, 11:06 PM	Well it is from my experiance that Giants tend to lack in ranged weapons. Only the very good giants are smart and only the smart have bows in the like. However most giants can use rocks, so take them away from rocks than all you have to do and slowly skirmish and attack by range to take them out. You will need some skirmishers to try and distract them from the archers that have to stay still. Giants can move fast so if all possible put the archers on horseback and if you can afford it the Skirmishers too. Thats my best tactic for regular old conventional human troops. -Frosty
turalisj 10-21-04, 09:34 AM	ooooo, i love tactics and strategies. count me in!!! :D
thasis 10-21-04, 09:43 AM	This thing Kinnda died a while ago. Maybe we could restart it though. :bump:
Silmarien Aldalome 10-10-05, 01:44 AM	okay. Here's my first clue. I'll put it to you as a question if you were wanting to work out if someone was walking around, tanked up with methods to hide from scrying, how would you do it? stav
erbmjw 10-11-05, 12:44 AM	first I'd like to join :) second - large groups: are they attacking or are you attacking? If they are attacking, bottleneck's are great. Bottlenecks force them to reduce the numbers of attackers that can get to your group at one time. Keep your support forces well protected from melee forces ( keep those healers as far back as possible while still being in useful range). Moving bottlenecks and mind games also work together well. I was in a game that was able to hold off a large group of Orc's and other nasties over several sessions, because we choose a path that allowed us to retreat through many bottlenecks. We were able to save a small county ( not country ) from destruction because we kept the large war party very angry at us so they would not break off contact. :) At one point while the rest of the party retreated my character - who was the fastest moving as well as being a constitution and hit point pig - stayed behind alone in a 5 foot wide twisting rock corridor while the rest of the party retreated. After a fairly long and highly defensive fight on my part I was able to break off from the war party and run like a madman back to the party. I didn't kill that many orcs but I was able to slow the war party down because the most they could send at me was two attackers, no one could get by me and I could fight for a very long time before getting to tired to run away. Every session was very funny, seeing our party's bard and paladin compete for who could enrage the war party and it's leaders more. The player with the rouge/bard was more inventive ( as well as playing a beautiful female half elf who was not above using sexual innuendos,etc to drive them into an unthinking fury) but the player with the paladin knew how to use the righteousness of the paladin to drive the orc clerics into a determined rage - determined to see the half-orc paladin dead!. A couple of his rousing "convert" speeches actually were written up before he came to the game. The best though was the no magic, naked, and two knives each combat challenge made and won by the bard/rouge. She intentionally bled the orc champion out rather than killing him quickly when she had the chance; at one point she even sucked/licked the blood off the handle and blade of one of her knives. The two women in our group and our host's wife applauded the role-playing by the guy running the female rouge/bard. At the end of the fight the leader of the warparty vowed to his god that he would destroy us, and torture her before he sacked the county. At the end we were able to get them to follow us into a narrow high walled low tide trap -the druid created an avalanche to block off the cave exit and then all we had to do was keep them from digging their way back through the avalanche and climbing up our narrow path and the extremely dangerous ( imagine wet jagged shale ) walls while we waited for the tide to come in. We were lucky that the militia cleric (NPC) knew that the war party could not swim out of the trap. Because we were able to choose suitable fighting grounds most of our party survived, though at the end battle most of the local militia who had volunteered to help us did not. While we were able to keep them from doing much digging or wall climbing and at the end the remains of the war party knew they had to get out of the tidal area at all costs. We ( and luckily they ) did not have many spells left at that point so it became a bottleneck hack and slash. Since the war party could now use missile weapons more effectively we took more damage here than at any other point in the scenario. The GM was very happy with our strategy, tactics and overall role-playing; everyone that survived, both PC's and NPC's, were treated as heroes by the county.
SoulLord 05-23-06, 04:53 PM	low magic defense against high magic. #1.- Grapple most of the time you'll beat the punny wizzies from here you can even pin them to cover their mouth no more casting!
Kobold_Ur_Priest 05-23-06, 07:08 PM	IM IN! once i'm more active (when the new round comes/ D&R: SF starts (Death & Rebirth: Soul Formed) my campaign becomes open, im gonna post play-by-plays of the campaign