Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Hvitar-Hrafnar 06-19-05, 01:45 PM	Recently in my campaign, the DM has been doing an excellent job at giving us the spark of the game back, and instead of being depressed and angry every time my group meets, we are having a blast. In the campaign [Not going to go into a huge amount of detail unless you ask for it] our main enemy through the entire story has been undead. They first started taking over small villages, and as more and more fell and became undead, they took over the capital city of one of the world's continents. After that, our group travelled across the sea to a vast land of powerful elves and humans. Shortly after heading back to check on our old location [About a year after] we recently learned that the elves and most likely the humans have also fallen. That leaves us with my group of players, a small town we are rulers of, but we also have some outside help. A few days from our town are two large cities secretly ruled by two brother dragons we are allied with. The more powerful of the brothers has many armies, and after using a small part of it to take out a death bringer that was annihilating cities and walked right into our own town, he lost about 8,000 total soldiers. We are also friends with the dwarves. After about 100,000 undead were gathering, the dwarves constructed a wall that spanned the entire continent, which we had a battle on. The dwarves suffered heavy losses, mostly against trolls, ghoul, and vampires, but the problem is that leading the army are 7 death bringers, 2 of them being gargantuan and one of them being advanced enough to be colossal. The army retreated, and after gathering an army lead by druids and rangers that is 10,000 strong who are martyrs in defending the only remaining forests in the world [as far as we know], as well as our own army of 2000, and the army of the stronger dragon brother which I can estimate to be between 50000 - 200000, we have decided to open the gates and invade the continent and reclaim what was taken over by the undead. Now after that little story, here is what my questions are: Our characters have prepared [I even bought customized barding for my animal companion, "war barding"] and are ready to launch an assault, but we are not sure if we can win, or how to win. On the other hand, we are going to do everything possible to finally send this enemy back to the grave. We are all about equal to 10th level, and are not nearly strong enough to take on ONE death bringer. [Monster manual II] Using any book you can think of for DND, do you know of any way we can take them out? [Our army is atleast 100,000 plus us, and we have about 250k to spend on supplies] If we can, how many do you think it would take to defeat a colossal death bringer? Better yet, we also have to defeat a black dragon that when we met, we are pretty sure is near great wyrm power. On top of that, I'm not sure if we will have to, but it's possible we will have to fight their leader, who is, as far as we know, an epic-level caster. [Although the druid/ranger leader of the army of druid/rangers is possibily epic level] Any tactics, questions, feedback, and whatnot on how to even try to defeat them and move on [The DM intentionally told us we have a chance and that the defeat of the undead could be near] to a better place. Even if it's ridiculous, feel [b]FREE to state it.
Lyinginbedmon 06-19-05, 01:59 PM	If you have 250K to spend try renting out a local Epic Paladin/Cleric with the permanent emanation feat, that'll help you carve a path through the undead and will give you a helping hand against the deathbringers. Otherwise, I recommend using long, long, LONG range weaponry to evade being hit by them whilst trying to take as many as you can. The thing to remember with undead is that they usually aren't that fast, so you could make an encampment, fire off a couple of trebuchet and catapult shots into the stumbling masses and then have enough time to move the encampment back far enough to repeat the process safely.
Hvitar-Hrafnar 06-19-05, 02:05 PM	If you have 250K to spend try renting out a local Epic Paladin/Cleric with the permanent emanation feat, that'll help you carve a path through the undead and will give you a helping hand against the deathbringers. Otherwise, I recommend using long, long, LONG range weaponry to evade being hit by them whilst trying to take as many as you can. The thing to remember with undead is that they usually aren't that fast, so you could make an encampment, fire off a couple of trebuchet and catapult shots into the stumbling masses and then have enough time to move the encampment back far enough to repeat the process safely. Interesting. We've been trying to find a paladin/cleric that is far superior to our own to no avail. The undead have taken over so much of the world and have such a force that other than the dragon brothers, my group are the strongest known living beings left [Other than possibily the druid/ranger leader]. We used to know a VERY powerful giant but he betrayed us for the undead, and hasn't been seen since. To give you a hint at how powerful the undead are [Although they lost a lot defeating the elf empire] they broke through tens of thousands of troops, a fortified island city that was guarded by its location and many, many dragon turtles in the waters. The undead broke through all the defenses and the dragon took out the epic level King as well as his two epic bodyguards. We are also considering trebuchets, but the problem is that not only being colossal, the death bringers have mounts. [We are not sure what they are but they are not slow] If we shot at them, one swing from a flail would take out a trebuchet.
JohnnyShotMe 06-19-05, 02:13 PM	Hmm. Sounds interesting. When fighting an enemy who outnumbers you, the best tools to employ are fear, confusion and hit their supply lines. The problem is undead are not subject to any of these problems. The main thing is the leadership of these forces. Through what mechanism are they directed in their assaults? Are there middle level commanders, field commander types that you can target to sever the connection between the leadership and the undead masses? Undead with no leadership are as much of a pain in the butt to your enemy as they are to you, and far more easily defeated. Depending on how the undead army is directed, you may want to use misdirection to scatter the groups into different directions. Maybe documents can be intercepted? Send out some forged documents to half of the mid-level leaders saying the base is under attack and they are to bring their forces back to help defend. The other half can get orders to carry out a full assault and win no matter what the cost. The result would be splitting their forces in half, one retreating from you without knowing it and the other charging forward moronically into your fortified ambush zones. Also keep in mind mobility factors. Most undead groundpounders kinda shamble along, and take forever to get from point A to point B. Use this to your advantage. Because most undead have no sentience, they have no feeling of self preservation. Lure them into ravines where you can drop an avalanche of boulders down onto them. Use fire to cut off chokepoints after half of them have passed, so you only fight 50% of them and the other half die in the fire or have to wait for it to be cleared. Also, you need to handle your dead bodies. They must be cared for so you do not reinforce the enemy. Your overall best bet is mobility, ranged attacks, and ambushes that exploit the undead's lack of self-preservation.
Hvitar-Hrafnar 06-19-05, 02:20 PM	Hmm. Sounds interesting. When fighting an enemy who outnumbers you, the best tools to employ are fear, confusion and hit their supply lines. The problem is undead are not subject to any of these problems. The main thing is the leadership of these forces. Through what mechanism are they directed in their assaults? Are there middle level commanders, field commander types that you can target to sever the connection between the leadership and the undead masses? Undead with no leadership are as much of a pain in the butt to your enemy as they are to you, and far more easily defeated. Depending on how the undead army is directed, you may want to use misdirection to scatter the groups into different directions. Maybe documents can be intercepted? Send out some forged documents to half of the mid-level leaders saying the base is under attack and they are to bring their forces back to help defend. The other half can get orders to carry out a full assault and win no matter what the cost. The result would be splitting their forces in half, one retreating from you without knowing it and the other charging forward moronically into your fortified ambush zones. Also keep in mind mobility factors. Most undead groundpounders kinda shamble along, and take forever to get from point A to point B. Use this to your advantage. Because most undead have no sentience, they have no feeling of self preservation. Lure them into ravines where you can drop an avalanche of boulders down onto them. Use fire to cut off chokepoints after half of them have passed, so you only fight 50% of them and the other half die in the fire or have to wait for it to be cleared. Also, you need to handle your dead bodies. They must be cared for so you do not reinforce the enemy. Your overall best bet is mobility, ranged attacks, and ambushes that exploit the undead's lack of self-preservation. I didn't think about a lot of these. As far as we know, this is the order of leadership: 1st: Ancient, epic leader. 2nd: Colossal Deathbringer General 3rd: 6 other Deathbringers. 4th: Field commanders consisting of Famine Spirits [Those fat guys in MM2] Since our best bet is to invade their land, having fortified bases is going to be hard if we are to try and outwit them [A wall is the only thing protecting us from them]. Not only is the entire world beyond the dwarven wall dead [No trees, no life, no nothing] but every single city and fortification is under undead control. Forging documents does sound like a good idea, if only we know where the leaders retreated to. Dead bodies shouldn't be a problem. The dwarf corpses were forcefully incinerated.
Always-Late 06-19-05, 02:31 PM	Crap. I lost the last post. So I'll reconstruct it. The entire city should be in war mode. Temples will be making holy water as fast as possible, and make sure to utilize that. All minor spellcasters should be armed with the basic undead-destroying spells, and high-level clerics (and to a lesser extend, druids) should use hallow or consecrate on all strategically important areas. If a druid can move earth, do it. Build moats and hills where things like arrows or burning oil can be dumped on top of them. Even the low rankers can cast hide from undead, especially useful against undead masses. Invest in seige weapons. A ballista does 3d6 with range increment 150, and takes two full-round actions to reload, and it's not exceedingly large or expensive. However, you're bound to hit something if it's a giant army of anything. Create proper defenses. A giant moat filled with spikes is good, and don't even put in a bridge. Any time, for example, they put a makeshift bridge up, there should be at least one wizard or sorceror that can fireball it, destroying everything on it and the bridge. Every soldier should carry ranged weapons, a light weapon, and a standard weapon (some with reach) Find unlikely allies. There will be kobolds and goblins or whatnot around. Sure, they don't like you, but I'll give you fifty to one odds that they'd rather ally with you than become undead. Find anyone or anything you can that is willing to fight undead. That should give you a decent amount of extra soldiers. Remember: Consecrate/Hallow, Holy Water, Ranged Weapons, Any Allies you can Find. Yeah. I'll help you save the world some more when I think of more things.
Lyinginbedmon 06-19-05, 02:34 PM	Here's an idea: The undead aren't too smart are they? So that means that they'll be slow to adapt to changing technology and won't come up with a counter-method very quickly. So, strap a barrel or two of explosives (Various combinations will slow their progress to adapt) to some of the catapult and trebuchet ammunition and fire that at the commanders, with smaller explosives being thrown into the undead masses to blast good numbers of them at a time. This way, you can quickly take out the commanders/generals/leaders etc. and cut a major hole in their main infantry. Perhaps even extending to 'divine wind' methods (Ie. Kamikaze) Meanwhile, continue barricading the doors and divert as many men as necessary to the stronger creatures if they get close enough
Hvitar-Hrafnar 06-19-05, 02:35 PM	Crap. I lost the last post. So I'll reconstruct it. The entire city should be in war mode. Temples will be making holy water as fast as possible, and make sure to utilize that. All minor spellcasters should be armed with the basic undead-destroying spells, and high-level clerics (and to a lesser extend, druids) should use hallow or consecrate on all strategically important areas. If a druid can move earth, do it. Build moats and hills where things like arrows or burning oil can be dumped on top of them. Invest in seige weapons. A ballista does 3d6 with range increment 150, and takes two full-round actions to reload, and it's not exceedingly large or expensive. However, you're bound to hit something if it's a giant army of anything. Create proper defenses. A giant moat filled with spikes is good, and don't even put in a bridge. Any time, for example, they put a makeshift bridge up, there should be at least one wizard or sorceror that can fireball it, destroying everything on it and the bridge. Every soldier should carry ranged weapons, a light weapon, and a standard weapon (some with reach) Find unlikely allies. There will be kobolds and goblins or whatnot around. Sure, they don't like you, but I'll give you fifty to one odds that they'd rather ally with you than become undead. Find anyone or anything you can that is willing to fight undead. That should give you a decent amount of extra soldiers. Remember: Consecrate/Hallow, Holy Water, Ranged Weapons, Any Allies you can Find. Yeah. I'll help you save the world some more when I think of more things. Kobolds and other creatures wouldn't be bad, didn't even think of that. The city we are in control of only has 8000 people. In it, there is one cleric. [The PC from the group] and two wizards [An old timer that has lived there for awhile and the thrall of the Psion/Thrallherd] How can we make moats and defenses if we are invading [As in marching all of our army right at the undead]? Our moats have already been compromised; the ghoul, trolls, vampires and what not still got on the wall even after going through a ditch, boiling oil, a wall of crossbows, and massive spikes on the walls.
Always-Late 06-19-05, 02:53 PM	You have an army of 100,000. There'd better be some supporting spellcasters. If what to do on your own... Use the spell "Hide from Undead." You should be able to pass through masses of mindless undead with ease. You can even start hacking at mindless undead with impunity. NPC's: Medium-high level druid's can cast hallow. If he's epic, he can cast storm of vengeance. Not something to be taken lightly. Neither is an elemental swarm. You only need to be a level 1 cleric to cast "bless water." Anyone running a temple should have at least one cleric. Do you know the breakdown of the people under your command? How many adepts? Experts? Commoners? Warriors? Aristocrats? Even without specialized spellcasters, adepts can work well in lieu of them. barbarian, druid, rogue/assassin, psion, cleric The barbarian, sadly, probably won't be able to do too much front-line fighting - your best bet is remaining unseen. The rogue/assassin is in for a tough time, as undead are immune to sneak attacks. However... he can, if he wishes, sneak attack the enemy heroes with a ray of frost from scrolls - a low-level spell that will do a lot of damage coming from him. The druid, psion, and cleric you should have a pretty good idea what to do. If it can be done, assassinate the high-level enemies or commanders. These can leave areas where enemy undead resistance will be considerably lower. And remember, any unlikely allies you might find will have their own class levels. If you've ever been in a kobold dungeon when you were low level and seen all sorts of sorceror kobolds (or anything like that), use their spellcasting abilities also. Make sure that any race you recruit does stuff suited to their race. Kobolds and goblins are good for sneaking, and they can prepare basic traps to protect advanced positions (won't hold an army, but can probably defend against a small strike squad.) Anything that breathes can be recruited to your cause.
Hvitar-Hrafnar 06-19-05, 03:45 PM	You have an army of 100,000. There'd better be some supporting spellcasters. If what to do on your own... Use the spell "Hide from Undead." You should be able to pass through masses of mindless undead with ease. You can even start hacking at mindless undead with impunity. NPC's: Medium-high level druid's can cast hallow. If he's epic, he can cast storm of vengeance. Not something to be taken lightly. Neither is an elemental swarm. You only need to be a level 1 cleric to cast "bless water." Anyone running a temple should have at least one cleric. Do you know the breakdown of the people under your command? How many adepts? Experts? Commoners? Warriors? Aristocrats? Even without specialized spellcasters, adepts can work well in lieu of them. barbarian, druid, rogue/assassin, psion, cleric The barbarian, sadly, probably won't be able to do too much front-line fighting - your best bet is remaining unseen. The rogue/assassin is in for a tough time, as undead are immune to sneak attacks. However... he can, if he wishes, sneak attack the enemy heroes with a ray of frost from scrolls - a low-level spell that will do a lot of damage coming from him. The druid, psion, and cleric you should have a pretty good idea what to do. If it can be done, assassinate the high-level enemies or commanders. These can leave areas where enemy undead resistance will be considerably lower. And remember, any unlikely allies you might find will have their own class levels. If you've ever been in a kobold dungeon when you were low level and seen all sorts of sorceror kobolds (or anything like that), use their spellcasting abilities also. Make sure that any race you recruit does stuff suited to their race. Kobolds and goblins are good for sneaking, and they can prepare basic traps to protect advanced positions (won't hold an army, but can probably defend against a small strike squad.) Anything that breathes can be recruited to your cause. Hehe, this makes it seem more hopeful. The barbarian will be doing front-line fighting because hes the best melee unit other than the dragons [Tank, he can easily do 100 damage in 1-2 rounds] A breakdown [This may not be perfectly accurate but its close] Top: 6 Leaders [PC's: Psion/Thrallherd, Rogue/Assassin, Barbarian, Druid (Me, and I can cast hallow), Cleric/Warpriest] + Druid/Ranger Leader [Powerful enough to make dire threats against the Barbarian] 2nd: Psion's thralls [about 40 level 1-2's] + 8th level wizard thrall. 3rd: 250 6th level barbarians 4th: 1750 1st-2nd level barbarians. 5th: 10,000 Druid/Rangers [Most likely levels 1-6] 6th: 2,000-200,000 Fighters [5th level, but still questionable] 7th: Any dwarves that may fight. [1000-10,000 fighters] Spellcasters: Myself [Druid], Druid/Ranger Leader, PC Cleric/Warpriest, NPC Thrall Wizard, Old-Timer Wizard, Any casters from the druid/rangers. I myself plan on marching to the biggest thing I can find. With my pet all armored up, scrolls made, etc I feel very prepared. [My animal companion is a dire lion with extra HD from a feat]
Always-Late 06-19-05, 08:48 PM	Any druid that can wildshape, wildshape into a bison, form a herd, and stampede when tactically favorable. (For example, if the undead are dumb enough to march in lines.) Stampede (Ex): A frightened herd of bison flees as a group in a random direction (but always away from the perceived source of danger). They literally run over anything of Large size or smaller that gets in their way, dealing 1d12 points of damage for each five bison in the herd (Reflex DC 18 half ). The save DC is Strength-based. If you want to support druid's call lightnings, you can summon one large air elemental if you want to increase the damage. Spike growth works well on undead, I think, because they're mindless and probably too stupid to avoid the spikes. A lot of the druid's spells were meant for single hard encounters and dealing with living things, so a lot of their spells will be hard to use. Spells to utilize: Entangle, Shillelagh, summon spells, call lightning, and spike growth. Why rangers and druids? They've got the least effective anti-undead spells. (Yeah, I know you didn't choose them, I'm just saying.) If there's still any living forest to be found, or even ruined or burned ones, take advantage of the rangers' and druids' woodland stride and the barbarians' fast movement. You can go faster than them; use this to your advantage. All dead bodies are to be burned, or, if sixth level or higher, brought to a hallowed zone for raising. If you're going to lose, retreat and burn your dead. We don't need more bodies for the enemy to raise. Minimize losses at all costs; if you kill ten thousand undead but they kill five thousand soldiers, you're both down five thousand. This is fun!
sabrewolf 06-19-05, 09:21 PM	A while back, playing birthright the DM tossed undead, goblinoids and deamons at us (i am wondering if he hates us, eh) didnt faced the undead but the other two and though the 3 great battles my regent ( a pharaoh) faced were deffence, two happened half in the open fields before we retreated. So besides the advices already spoken by others, here´s my :twocents: on the matter: Trebuchetts: your best first friends, mobile and very-long range, stays on the back.. if your city have clay-workers, urns are a nifty ammunition for them: holy water, alchemist´s fire (expensive for a full urn, but war is war, mabe the price lowers), acid.. These are good against the enemy mass of combatants while your group foccus on the Big-Ones.. or if you have time and little oil, jugs, flasks and vials wih firetrap inside an urn shall ammount some damage.. Wards and holy area spells (like hallow) placed on them or around them shall be good deffense. Also, ballistas are nice, make one of that huge arrows holly and aim at he Big-Ones.. Archers: your best seccond friends, between the fighters and the seige goodies, backing up your front line with hails of arrows.. burning arrows and trebuchett assistance with flamable oils or tar sure can hurt.. And leave orders to foccus fire once the Big-Ones get in reach. a few dozen arrows each turn can down or weaken anything. About the melee fighters: Use hit and run tacics with small groups to draw the enemy and let them close in. Instead of simply charging at your foes, set your army and let the enemies come for you instead. After mowing down some with the seige and archery the melee-ers can engage then. Make sure they are well prepared (armors, weapons, buff-up and ward spells, etc) and go for it. Druid troops: since you have these, place between the archers and the melee to back your troops up with spells, with a few ones only on the front lines: you´ll need them to double as clerics for healing. Airborne troops: If the undead have none, use the sky for your advantage. Anyone with wings or polymorph / wildshape goes in there. Gryphons and similar are good for mounts, with spellcasters on them plus the morp / WShaped ones also casting spells if possible. If you have bags of holding or similar, think bombardment: holy water, flamable oils, firetrapped vials. If you can cast shrink the better, fits more in each bag. Of tactics, well.. try traps, choose your battle grounds, use the druids to turn the environment agaisnt the undead, try singling out the leades and destroy them first, or avoid the really strong ones while possible and cripple out the enemy army, and if they have dark-temples or cursed graveyards make sure to find them out and isolate /destroy / bless / hallow / consecrate these places..
Lyinginbedmon 06-20-05, 02:43 AM	You could try using empathy with explosives to draw them in and blow them to smithereens. Q: Is it right to call it killing them if they're already dead? :confused:
Always-Late 06-20-05, 01:24 PM	Here's an idea your DM may or may not accept. Make a announcement that runs, "A random powerful diety wants you to join his army! All veterans should consider going in to medical/religious service. Benefits: You get killed less often. You can spend your whole day making holy water and still contribute to the cause. You can make undead go away instead of going through the trouble of killing them." Out of game terms: When low-level people level up, they should take some cleric levels.