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Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Play By Post Party Thread - Page 240

This is not how I imagine orcs would behave at all, negotiating, holding back, the well worded note and during the day.?

I think something is up and we beat the info out of them, but they are still really far away and waiting half an hour so we can huddle together prepare and discuss.

I say we split into the forrest on foot, half on one side half the other. Using trees for cover close in on them, their horses and bows will be no good then. Surround and flank.

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OOC: Except, you know, they can see us, and if we leave the caravan, they'll just go and take it. Our options are laid out pretty well, we have half an hour to set up defenses if we want to try to fight whatever army he throws at us, or, if we want to survive with no risk, we can ditch the caravan.

Another thing we could try, which might actually work, would be to fire back a note of our own. On the note, we write in orcish, "Pumpkin ruffles the peanut ox. Grumpy pink porcupine eating a mango." That should confuse him, at the very least.

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Play By Post Party Thread Archive Pathfinder / D&D

Ooc: They are probably expecting us to split off from the caravan, leaving it unprotected. I say we brief the drivers on how to form up in the triangle and that they should do it only on our command (which will probably be as soon as we see a bunch of orcs rushing at us). After briefing the drivers, we just continue on down the road like the orcs are beneath our concern. That'll force their hand, bring them into the open.

If they don't immediately rush us, I say we have Ryorst shout a couple of orcish insults for good measure.

On a side note, if they are under control of a higher intelligence, I'll bet 'ignoring them' is not a case they are programmed to handle.

Edited: scriptwizard on 28th Sep, 2010 - 5:09pm

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OOC: Yeah, but we don't know if they're under control of a higher power. Either way, "Grumpy pink porcupine eating a mango." is a surefire way to catch them off guard. I mean, how do you react to something like that?

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So its safe to assume these orcs are under someones order, its probably safe to assume, do anything they are not told how to answer, they will just answer with violence.

I still don't get whats wrong with the splitting and useing the bushes? it not like they can pick up the caravans and take off in one round, Its the caravaners we need to look after, they would be safer hiding in the bushes, but I'm betting there are some more orcs around to actually take the caravans as these guys couldnt do it on their own.

Lets move to the side and as the come to take the caravans then attack. I don't think we are going to achieve anything with notes, If we keep moving forward at the caravans speed, they could take out all our caravaners before we reach them with their bows.

I could just drop an obscuring mist right over the caravans so no one can see anything, don't know how much that helps us but it makes things interesting. Then we could charge or go through the bushes.

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Play By Post Party Thread

Ooc: How much of the caravan can you cover with mist? I don't know how long we are, but I'm assuming it is pretty big. But then again, I've never looked at the aoe of obscuring mist.

Just had another thought. Maybe the half hour is not just a nicety. Maybe they need that long to get all of their people in place. I'm beginning to think that splitting off and attacking right now is the best course...

Maybe drop the mist to cover our exit to the side.. Let them wonder if we really ran off to attack them or if we are now hiding in the wagons... That part of the illusion could be enhanced if we got the caravaners to make a good show of 'not' looking at a few of the wagons... And 'not' talking to the 'people' who are 'not' hiding in them...

It is just a thought. I'll go along with whatever you post in the leader thread. (except maybe "we tie the skinny dwarf to a horse and kick it in the direction of the orcs as a peace offering" Hehehe! )

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Play Post Party Thread - Page 240

Ooc: Yeah again, I know you all are going to do what sounds best. I really urge us to stick together though. These guys ARE going to flank us. If we don't use cover or a bottle necking technique KNtoran is going to be rolling 20d20's when attacking instead of 5 or 10. Splitting up, really ? I just don't see how that is going to work to our advantage. We have like 7 people fighting an orc army and you want to split us up and try to flank them. Ok so what happens if it works and we flank them (and thats a pretty big if).

We are still horribly outnumbered and at that point have little or no defenses. If anyone has seen the ending to the movie 300 you can imagine how that's going to play out.

I'm not a general and have no training in battle tactics but any plan that involves us splitting up just doesn't feel right to me. Obscuring mist sounds like a good spell that Eth could use to the parties advantage. However I don't think it's going to help if we use it to split off or split up. It may delay their ability to locate us but once they do then what.

Having the cover of the forest does help but certainly doesn't make us immune to arrows. As you stated earlier Eth we will be moving slowly threw the woods too. That means more rounds of arrows flying at us while we try and get in melee. I mean if we had a unit of archers at our disposal I would fully agree with that plan. But we don't, we have a measly 7 players.

Edited: Oliron on 29th Sep, 2010 - 5:23am

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Play Post Party Thread D&D / Pathfinder Archive - Page 240

OOC: Which brings us to this. Tactically, our best option is to ditch the caravan, break through the woods on one side, and never look back. That is our best chance of survival, no ifs ands or buts. However, that's not exactly an option, if we want to protect the caravan. What I would LIKE to do, would be to have Eth cast Obscuring mist, and for us to all, caravan included, bail out through the woods. The carts may be unable to come, but if the caravanners load up the horses, and lead them on foot, we might make it. The problem then being that we have to avoid detection from however many orcs searching for us. The benefit being that we could kill of patrol by patrol, and hopefully make it to the town without encountering the entire army.

Other than that, let's see... The "Ryorst challenges the big guy" plan is still a possibility, though I don't want it to have to come to that. If we had someone who was a good enough shot, we could take a shot at the big guy, even at the negative modifiers due to the huge range, and hope for a nat 20. We can form up. We have 8 carts, total. If we set them, I think 2 carts across the path in front of us, 2 behind it, and2 along the sides of the path on each side, that would leave us with a single space between the carts in front of us, and a single space between the carts behind us. We set the caravanners in the middle etc, and have the party hold the two openings (Ryorst and Oliron, as our best two melee fighters, would do the most of that, with Eth and Nei healing respectively, and everyone else using whatever skills and weapons they have to help as they can.) The main problem with that is that we have no cavalry coming. We'll end up in a standard siege situation. They just starve us out, or overwhelm us with numbers. Except it's designed to keep it a 2-on-2 battle, Oliron at one opening, Ryorst at the other, keeping off the orcs, killing them one by one. We take out an Orc on our turn, and take a hit on theirs, then we get a heal. I think we have 3 or 4 full wands of cure light wounds, and one half-charged wand. That gives us around 90-110 rounds before the wands run out, if we get a heal each round. Longer if some orcs miss. That's pretty good. We can take 100 orcs each on that kind of healing. Plus there are lower leveled party members to aid in our attacks, giving us a nice +2 with our swings, so we hit more often. That's great, unless there are 400 orcs, or 500. That's the problem.

So, we have options.

Bail. No risk, no reward. We live, the caravan doesn't. We probably lose favor with the townspeople.

Mist, and bail with horses and whatever we and the NPCs can carry. Some risk, and we might not be able to carry all the items we are hired to protect. We might still end up dead. Gives us a whole new situation to consider before deciding on this for sure, if we lean this way.

Duel. I take all the risk, and probably die. If I lose, then you're in a really bad situation, BUT you can then Bail, or Mist. If I win, we might have control over the orcs, and can then actually work from the orcish end of the problem, and set them up as an actual village, rather than bandits, murderers, and raiders. Might solve all the problems in one fell swoop. Or it might just kill the leader, injure me, and set us back to square 1.

Dig in. We set up a defense, and try to fight it out. Victory depends on how many orcs there are.

Diplomacy. Ryorst knows orcish. We could try talking, see what the hell is going on. Low risk, but also almost guaranteed to fail.

Baffle. We could use the various spells and abilities we have to confuse and astound the enemy. Put them into a situation they do not understand, and are unequipped to deal with. Might warrant discussion.

Bluff. Plain and simple, we lie. If we can make them think that we have the upper hand, then they might just back off. Could be worth a shot, but if it doesn't work, they'll probably attack.

Ignore. We get out of the way of any arrows the fire at us, and keep going as if they weren't there. Maybe they're illusions.

Charge. Suicidal. High risk. Low reward. Low chance of success. Still, it's an option.

Turn. Join the orcs, kill the caravanners. Switch sides. Viable, would be my first choice in most situations. Hard to justify, unless we attempt diplomacy, and find out something important.

Flank. Like charge, but using tree cover, and attempting stealth. Probably the same results.


Personally, I like either Dig, Mist, Turn, Diplomacy, and Bluff. Maybe Baffle, if it would work. I don't see many other options here. I brought up Duel because it seems viable. I'd rather not, but I mean, if it comes down to drawing straws to see who takes one for the team, I have the best chance of success.