Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ksbsnowowl 07-12-04, 12:32 PM	Hello, and thanks for taking a look at my senario. Any helpful ideas would be wonderful, but please don't spoil anything if you have already played the City of the Spider Queen module. Here is the deal. My 14th level party (3.5) is in the midst of playing through the City of the Spider Queen module, and we recently entered an underground city that is the site of a faction war between some undead and some fiendish giants. We 'befriended' a group of goblins that want both factions gone, and have provided us with some intel to aid us in that end. We have dealt with two major undead sites in the city, and we are about to take on the fiendish creatures that congregate almost daily in a colloseum of sorts. We do have the option of resting to reprepare spells, etc. Here is a quick rundown of what we are expecting to face, and what characters compose our group: As far as we know, the following creatures meet at the colloseum: -A half-fiend Fire Giant - he's the leader -His Fiendish Elephant pet -Approximately 6 Fire Giants and 11 Ogres, many of which are likely to have class levels. I'm pretty sure the colloseum has several doorways open into its 'playing field', though they are likely guarded by Ogres, etc. The structure's walls are 60' high, placing the tops 40' above the back row of seats on the wall's interior side. Here is the breakdown of our party: My character is a 14th level druid with the following feats:Extend Spell, Empower Spell, Spell Penetration, Natural Spell, Blindsight (MotW), and Dragon Wildshape (Draconomicon). I have a Tiger Companion, and my only 'offensive' magic items of note are a Standard Strand of Prayer Beads, including a Bead of Karma. A Shugenja (sp?) [the sorcerer-like divine caster from CD] - He focuses on a lot of fire spells, and I know he has the following feats: Bloodline of Fire, Emower Spell, Maximize Spell A Sorcerer/Hathran 1/Incantatrix X - the Hathran level allows him to use Quicken Spell (as it was explained to me), and he has the following feats: Empower Spell, Extend Spell, Quicken Spell, Silent Spell, and Still Spell. He also has an item granting a +10 (IIRC) bonus to spellcraft checks, allowing him to pretty easily apply his metamagic feats to party members' spells (3x/day). A Cleric, possibly with levels of Radiant Servant of Pellor. He has the Sun and War domains, IIRC. He has an exalted ability that makes him (or maybe his armor?) radiate light that damages undead. Being a servant of a sun god, he will not, or is perhaps unable to turn off his light (yes, this has greatly increased our random encounters in the Underdark). We also have a fifth party member, a sorcerer, but he sometimes does not show up to play. He was not there last week, and I don't know if he will be there this coming week. Another item of note, in the area of this entire city there is a disturbance in the magic weave that increases the effects of necromantic spells (act as though empowered), and makes using positive energy difficult (must succeed at a Spellcraft Check DC 15 +spell level to cast a spell). This effect also applies to wand usage. Yeah, not too hard for a 14th level party, except our cleric has no ranks in spellcraft:eek: Our ideas thus far are to summon lots of creatures into the colloseum the next day (or next time we find them there). Things like a T-Rex (SNA 7), a Dire Rhino (SNA 7), maybe some earth elementals (perhaps 'freely' empowering a SNA 7 to gain [1d4+1]*1.5 Large elementals with the aid of the Incantatrix) We might also get on top of the wall, and erect a wall of stone, stone shaping arrow slits into it, so we can cast spells from cover. That is the extent of our tactics thus far. Can anyone help with some other ideas?
argorond 07-12-04, 01:21 PM	Lot of casters and many enemies are hard hitting guys, so you should prepare lot of spells that can disable enemies, like stone walls or something that you dont need to fight vs them all, forcecages would rox :)
Michaelot 07-12-04, 04:40 PM	Okay hopefully you have this spell...it would seriously throw your DM into a fit and kill tons of baddies. ;) Do you have the "shrink item" spell? Being 14th lvl you should about 6 of them. Go to some place where there are stones of gigantic proportions and shrink them down into stones of about the palm of your hand. :smirk: Put these into your sling at battle time and throw the shrunk boulders at your enemies. With a command you can undo the spell in mid-air and the little stones become a huges boulders flying at the speed you threw it at. Can we say Tons of Damage!!! :eek: There is also a personal favorite. Find the largest glass container you can or get one made...you can also something as a temporary container that will hold these substances just for a moment....you really only need a momemt. Any way pour as much acid/alchemist's fire as you can into the container. Shrink it, throw it and then command it to go back into a regular form. Can you think of 80 Alchemists Fire or 80 Acid Flasks hitting a baddie or an area full of baddies. They won't survive it. :D Also planting little bombs like "fireseeds" allows is a fun thing to do. Especially since you have natural spell you can go in as an animal or something that would naturally be in the area. Place them and sit back and watch the fun when things start exploding. Hope these help.
Enslaved DM 07-12-04, 09:08 PM	Why fight them? I didn't. Ignore them and take out the followers of Kiarnselee.
Mitchell 07-12-04, 11:23 PM	Wow... Got casters? Fire is probably worthless, so go cold if/when you can. Divide and conquer, maybe? Instead of casting wall of stone where you are, cast it to separate the foes and/or seal them in the arena. This would let you try to tackle one at a time and if that doesn't work, you can just leave. It's cool that you are all (in theory) playing what you want, but the lack of a fighter can hurt here. Of course, with the cleric lacking spellcraft and having the war domain, maybe they're the best fighter you've got. Anymore interesting items? Your healing is gimped... you have to do this as low-risk as possible.
argorond 07-13-04, 12:42 AM	Mithcell yes no fighter but cleric can be better than fighter expecially at those lvl:s and mages can summon monsters / cast tensers transformation and become fighters. You just need enough time to prepare all ^^
ksbsnowowl 07-13-04, 01:46 PM	Yeah, the group has undergone some changes in the past few weeks. One player (who had a ranger) quit, and two of the other players made new characters (one's ranger had died, they other went from Arcane Trickster to Shugenja). Still, the Cleric makes liberal use of Divine Might, and so is a fairly good warrior-type. I feel useless as far as blasting goes, druids have mostly fire spells. I had wanted the enegy substitution feat, but couldn't fit it in before 5th level, after which I've taken feats that require Wildshape. I may summon some Air Elementals, their whirlwind ability requires Ref saves, which ogres are usually bad at, so that could occupy some of them for a while. I had also thought of casting a Transmute Metal to Wood spell, and then directing a Repel Wood at the half-fiend or the giants, hopefully taking them out of the fight for a while (it takes at least a minute to remove heavy armor, doesn't it?). I suppose we could ignore them. That may be what we have to end up doing. Any other thoughts?
Super Guy 07-13-04, 03:30 PM	What with all the wizardry, it doesn't seem too hard to kill them without a lot of combat. They surely have to sleep, sometime. You can just be invisible and levitate, so they'll never see you or hear you. When they sleep, approach the leader with ALL of your casters and cast Dominate Monster. He's bound to fail it. If anyone wakes up, levitate up to the ceiling and go invisible again. Have your new ally beat the crap out of his underlings. Then, when the work is done, Hold Monster him and coup de grace.
ksbsnowowl 07-13-04, 08:17 PM	Originally posted by Super Guy When they sleep, approach the leader with ALL of your casters and cast Dominate Monster. Um...Dominate Monster is a 9th level spell. We're at least 3 levels away from having those (and 4 levels for the sorcerers).
Evandar_TAybara 07-13-04, 08:58 PM	As people have said before, if you are forced to face this crowd in the open of a colloseum (ouch) then you need to find ways of keeping at least some of them at bay. If you are forced into close-quaters melee where area affect spells become impractical due to the chance of taking out you own party members, a great spell at this level that your druid has access to is creeping doom. At 14th level this will give you 7 centipede swarms, or to put it another way 28 grid squares of swarm, which are completely flexible (assuming you keep them in bunches of 4). You can cover a lot of bad guys with this amount of swarm (probable all of them), doing 2d6 points of automatic damage each round (no attack roll, no save, no SR), as well as the chance of distraction and poison (some of the bad guys WILL roll 1s). It's likely the enemy will ignore the swarms as their weapons are useless against them and the only effect means of combatting them is with area affect spells which they won't want to have to drop on themselves, assuming they can make the concentration checks to cast in a swarm in the first place. Evan.