Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 theapokalypseshovel Jun 05, 2008 18:11:03	I am currently DMing a campaign that is currently going through a heavily modified portion of Shadows of the Last War . (Spoilers Ahead, maybe) Anyway the party has already fought the Emerald Claw camp in the ruins of Rose Quarry, with the end result of the complete devastation of the entire force except Garrow, a single foot soldier and a weaker cleric that managed to stabilize but was left for dead. It was a quite epic battle and the party ended up reaching level 5 after it. There were however random clumps of zombies spread around the town and the party spent a session killing them and finally finding out information about the location of Whitehearth. Anyhow, I still plan on having Garrow return for a climatic end of the school year session tomorrow in which he will attempt to steal the artifact. I am planning on having him show up with reinforcements to wait outside the facility. The problem I have is that in the zombie killing session, the artificer discovered "bane: undead" as a weapon enhancement which adds +2 to hit and 2+2d6 to damage. So now I'm somewhat lacking in effective 'grunt' style bad guys to throw at them. I will probably have a couple Emerald Claw soldiers, but they were quite horribly slaughtered in the last battle and will probably be held back as reserves. So my question is this: What other kind of warriors would OotEC use as grunts besides undead? Or any other ideas on making this battle suitably climatic?
#2 dread_lord Jun 05, 2008 18:22:16	Keep it simple. You can also mix the basic goon with some zombies and maybe some attack dogs.
#3 schala_zeal Jun 05, 2008 18:53:47	You could always say that the Order sent reinforcements to see what was taking Garrow so long to find the location of the next piece - it also depends on how long it took the party to find the location of Whitehearth in the Mournlands. You could say that Garrow is able to make more effective undead with extended rituals - advanced skeletons or zombies, for example, or maybe ghouls. I wouldn't completely punish them for noting a solution to the undead soldiers of the Order by removing their undead support.
#4 theapokalypseshovel Jun 05, 2008 19:06:26	I don't intend to entirely remove undead from the battle, I'm mainly looking for more variety to send against them. In fact I fully intend for them to have their chance to blast away undead in single shots, but that alone doesn't make for a very interesting encounter :p
#5 dread_lord Jun 05, 2008 20:08:41	Just mix it up a bit. Some undead, some foot solders, and some attack animals. It will take forever to put a Bane on a weapon against 3 types. Maybe even a couple warforged.
#6 schala_zeal Jun 05, 2008 20:21:11	One idea I had was to have mounted soldiers - either on living or skeletal horses. Just make sure they either ride by attack or have bows to make sure melee characters have a hard time dealing with them. And make sure they don't just retreat into the caves - that's what my group (tried) to do.
#7 Ventus_Frago Jun 06, 2008 11:21:31	Send in a dozen Karnathi Zombie soldiers and archers. CR3 mobs and they will do enough to slow your party down and still be a credible threat. And definetly fitting with Garrow being from Karnath.
#8 mystrich Jun 06, 2008 22:25:17	Have a mix of living and undead. Stronger undead will work if your party is especially good at them (remember, experience can be lowered if the challenge is easy for the party, despite CR/EL). Another suggestion, have humans or changelings who follow a tradition similar to the Aernal elves, and have used disguise self or chemicals to decay their own flesh to look like undead.
#9 ChaoticGood Jun 07, 2008 21:38:55	Another idea is to add a shadow, which - if you're lucky - will be protected by its incorporeal nature. A bane weapon deals 0 extra damage if never hits.