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Total Members Voted: 23

[Shoruke]

The complete and utter lack of exterior walls would be a problem with that plan.

So it's what, underground? Or a wall-less fortress? In either case we should get a look at it, then PAUSE AND COME UP WITH A PLAN instead of doing the usual bit and rushing in.

[Lucus Casius]

Have we ever been in a situation where we could actually come up with a plan?

Mostly I've been either gone during planning stages or we've fallen into situations where we just have to react.

Except the bridge.  The bridge was my fault.

[Shoruke]

You remember that beggar I mentioned in my journal? The abridged version of the first time we saw him went something like:

Beggar: "Hey I overheard you guys talking about assassinations, there's this creepy abandoned building you guys can use to plan stuff."
Cerrad: "Um, guys? He just heard us talking about killing people and we have no reason to trust him. This is especially coincidental because we got this mission all of twenty seconds ago. Don't you think we should interrogate him, threaten or bribe him or something so he doesn't tell anyone what he's heard, and NOT go into this building, and go back to the base we already have so we can come up with a plan to kill some professional killers who are more ruthless than we are?"
Group: "Naw way guy barz are fun lets go!!1" *walks into two traps in quick succession and almost gets TPK'd by overpowered devil lady*

And then there was the bridge. I don't think I need to repeat that rant just now, since my next journal is going to include it anyway.

[Robocorn]

There was the first dwarf fortress, where we just winged it, but that turned out pretty well. I guess if we had known there were orcs there we could have planned but yeah, that'll be my bad.

There was the assassin thing where we were coming up with a plan inside the trapped place after we failed our sense motives against that beggar, so yeah.

There was the bridge where we had the plan to sneak attack it but naren blew it (no harm done buddy)

There was the telf castle where we came up with the plan to stock up on fire and acid items which worked pretty well. And the scouting the outside of the castle for guards. So we did plan on that one.

There's this brigand thing, I guess we didn't plan too well. We just bought a bunch of kegs and figured we'd blow them sky high. We don't have enough information to plan ahead and it turns out that an underground fortress might not be a good place to blow up (mostly because there might be loot).

The only plan I can think of that would be to send Cerrad down to scout, invisible, and then he'd come back with information. Then if there are no guards, we rush in before any show up, or if there are we rush in and kick their asses. I don't really know if Naren or Gurk is silent enough to venture silently but in the end there will probably be a brawl of some sort.

Unless you're suggesting some sort of solo Cerrad Saboteur mission where Cerrad lugs a haversack full of invisible kegs down into the base, deftly avoiding detection, and lights them throughout the base while emerging from the entrance minutes later deactivating his blink ring just as the explosions rattle the ground from the outside collapsing the brigand base of operations.

Because that sounds boring as shit.

[Lord Shonus]

Don't worry. If Cerrad tries that, he will die.

[Shoruke]

Perhaps we could set a trap just outside the entrance and lure them into it?

Naturally, this trap would involve removing the bodies quickly and not alerting the rest of the fortress to what exactly is going on.

[Robocorn]

Do you have any potions that knock people out? I can't see constructing a very elaborate trap outside of the entrance, and harming people with no provocation has recently become against my alignment. Do you think we could dig a pit trap?

[Shoruke]

I think a few dozen shots of some kind of inhalation poison should do the trick. Page 41 of CrystalKeep's huge equipment page has a whole bunch of poisons, organized by delivery type. Stun gas might work.

Or we could ambush their supply carts (fortresses do need supplies... and if these not-dwarves can't grow a town worth of food underground) and poison their food... or just ambush the supply carts and destroy them, so they starve...

But in any case we should definitely make some observations before making a definitive plan or executing it.

[Heron TSG]

Do you have any potions that knock people out? I can't see constructing a very elaborate trap outside of the entrance, and harming people with no provocation has recently become against my alignment. Do you think we could dig a pit trap?

We could try stringing piano wire across the door and then taunting them until they rush at us and gut themselves on the bowel-high wire. That counts as provocation, right?

As for nonlethal methods, I have many options in Obscuring Mist (useful for trap laying), Blindness (or Deafness), Meld Into Stone, Water Breathing (for swimming in via a stream?), and the ability to see things in a single bound! Honestly, there's not much I can think of for stealthiness. (I usually play a fighter or fighter-like character.)

[Robocorn]

I think a few dozen shots of some kind of inhalation poison should do the trick. Page 41 of CrystalKeep's huge equipment page has a whole bunch of poisons, organized by delivery type. Stun gas might work.

Or we could ambush their supply carts (fortresses do need supplies... and if these not-dwarves can't grow a town worth of food underground) and poison their food... or just ambush the supply carts and destroy them, so they starve...

But in any case we should definitely make some observations before making a definitive plan or executing it.

I don't think we have stun gas on us at the moment but I like the idea. It would probably be a good bet to ambush a supply cart. Though, instead of starving I find it more likely that they'll be provoked to raiding more frequently without their supply of food. These guys have taken out dosens of caravans, I don't find it likely that they'll sit around, afraid of what took out their supply run. I'll probably have to do some gymnastics to justify this to my alignment, and it probably won't be kosher to kill a guy and steal his wagon in order to starve the thieves. We could just knock him out and have Naren Suggest him into selling his wares in town instead of giving it to the bandits.

We could try stringing piano wire across the door and then taunting them until they rush at us and gut themselves on the bowel-high wire. That counts as provocation, right?

As for nonlethal methods, I have many options in Obscuring Mist (useful for trap laying), Blindness (or Deafness), Meld Into Stone, Water Breathing (for swimming in via a stream?), and the ability to see things in a single bound! Honestly, there's not much I can think of for stealthiness. (I usually play a fighter or fighter-like character.)

The obscuring mist gives me an idea. It would probably be easier to pull a trap on a supply cart than on a few guards. We could spread some mist, set up a pothole not too far from their supply area so when they hit it we'd be able to surprise them and dispatch them mostly harmlessly. (I mean we can deal lethal damage, but we'd just have to pull that 15 DC heal check to not kill them, I mean, Gurk can kill them, but I'd scold him) At best, we'd wait a week and fight a weakened raiding force followed by a siege of the, now weakened, fort. At worst, we'd fight the whole bandit gang in fog as they gradually came out of the entrance ripe for the dispatching.

These ideas are up for revision, I'm assuming that the bandits have some kind of magical support we don't know about because they've done so many raids.

[Heron TSG]

I just realized how awesome Obscuring Mist would be for me. Nobody could see except me!

As far as healing goes, I have half a dozen points into Heal, so I could prevent them all from bleeding to death.

[Shoruke]

Here's one, you guys... can be part of whatever overarching strategy we eventually settle on...

-Toss in some stun gas (stuns enemies for 1 round; no dex to AC, drops weapons/shields, and -2 AC beyond that)
-shoot arrows/bolts with Drow Poison (unconscious for 1 minute, then another save against unconscious for 1d3 hours)
-mop up the still-conscious
-lower the unconscious peoples' fortitude saves with debuffs (Doom, Prayer, Bestow Curse is best)
-several will fail their fortitude saves and be out for hours; we can take these ones hostage

You know, in case we want to take hostages or otherwise not kill some people who have no qualms about killing/stealing from others. I suppose I could purchase a couple +1 saps to KO people that pass their fort saves...

And, as I finished that last sentence, I considered: caltrops with Drow Poison. Also, I want to note that drow poison costs 75 coins a pop and, failing that, is only DC 15 to create.

[Robocorn]

I like the plans, I just want to know if we actually have these poisons. I figure if we could set up an alchemy lab in the back of the wagon (It's probably still there from when you bought it unless it fits in a haversack) Then we could either stop for a couple hours for you to make the poison, or you could take some small penalty for making poison while we're riding down the road.

I just recommend dispatching the supply convoy first before killing anyone to ensure that the convoy is being guarded and run by bandits and not hapless merchants who have been bullied and threatened. The part where we actually keep around the captured bandits is a different matter. From a moral standpoint, wiping out the bandits is good, whether we should kill them, knock them out and destroy their weapons, base of operations, and supplies to prevent them from amassing such a scourge again, or knocking them out, tying them up, and bringing them to jail is an ethical dilemma.

I mean Dharsus, being Lawful good now would probably recommend sending them to jail, because killing them would set their souls free from atonement and on the cycle of reincarnation (I copied some belief system that justified ninjas in killing people because of reincarnation so they wouldn't all be evil, it's probably not cosmologically true in the campaign setting) We can argue about the ethics and morals of killing killers in character and decide what to do with them.

As a rule of thumb, if we let them know that we're here to pay them back for their crimes and not just another bandit band closing in on their turf, then we can be justified in using unrestrained deadly force when most of them respond by trying to kill us. We can make heal checks to save the unconscious after people have stopped swinging swords at our heads.

[Lord Shonus]

Ok, so you DID change your alignment to LG. I wasn't certain.

[Robocorn]

I sort of changed it back when we met the Archon. I just reread the Book of Exalted Deeds so I could make it convincing. Turns out that being good involves very little killing and a lot of charity. Who knew?