[DnD] Let's Cast Magic Missile!

Originally Posted by Bradylama

What is that, Geneforge?

Nope, its The Horde. I only ever played the demo but I think you can grab it as abandonware pretty easily these days. Home of the Underdogs certainly used to have it.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Pang, what time is it when we arrive at the village and what are the rules regarding the setting of booby traps and training of feeble villagers into a servicable fighting force?



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It's a lack of being bothered to load filezilla more than a lack of hosting options.

I was speaking idiomatically.

So if the town's deserted, we can pick a house to use as a defensible position then?

I think we should pick a sturdy looking place with a minimum of ground floor windows, barricade up the door, gather up a load of loose masonery for those of you without ranged weapons to use and just camp out upstairs until the undead turn up. Then we kill them from upstairs while Arg and Gabe guard the door.

Once they're dead, we ransack the village for loot then head to the cemetry to find out who or what's in charge of the zombies in the morning, kill the shit out them, loot their body, indulge in a casual bit of grave robbery while the priest and the templar aren't looking and be back in Freeport in time for Friday night karaoke at the Griffon's Head.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Can do, yeah. Could we not send someone off to do a bit of recon while the rest of us start building barricades?

I mean, I am assuming there'll be literally a town full of zombies to kill and I reckon it's better to approach that on our terms rather than just trying to wade through them all in what's likely to narrow confines in a crypt. It's possible that we could just punch through everything in their at once but after nearly getting murdered by an ogre and a magic dwarf last time out, I don't think an air of caution is unfounded.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Well yes, quite. I figured that we'd barricade the door, not just lock it and as such, the zombies wouldn't get in and we wouldn't break anything. We could move some fences or a cart or something to make a handy corale in front of the house and funnel the zombies into a kill zone, possibly through the use of some live bait. The town's abandoned anyway, who's going to know if we accidentally cause a bit of damage to someone's house?

We can charge blindly into the cemetary and fight overwhelming numbers of zombies in their own turf if you really want but I suspect that will just mean five more zombies for the next group of adventurers to fight. Even if you just want to fight them out in the open in the town, you'll forgive Bob if he looks for an elevated position they can't reach I'm sure.

Or we could always just try to sneak into the graveyard without any of them noticing and try to kill who or whatever's raising them and cut off the problem at source but we ain't exactly the stealthiest group ever are we?

Also, does anyone have anything that'll cure zombie bites?

How ya doing, buddy?

That sounds like the best plan to me really. You're right, we should be able to kill 20 or so zombies without breaking a sweat but killing that many and some wights and ghosts and a vampire or whatever might be pushing our luck a bit.

And anyway, making silly booby traps appeals to Bob's inner child.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Once we ascertain the liklihood of the basement spewing out a bunch of zombies we can think about a suitable plan. Bob's certainly quicker than a zombie so might have to volunteer for bait duty then we build barricades and fires to funnel the zombies towards the strongest part of the building and murder them as they come with ranged attacks while the others keep the lickers at bay.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Oh I agree, the chances of the cave not leading to the mausoleum are slim but, yes, I'm being a roleplaying queermo and Bob's getting quite excited about the prospect of a noble siege against the zombie legions. Don't you think a desperate battle where we kill a load of zombies until they smash their way in, followed by a flight into the dubious safety of the cavern which eventually leads to the bad guy's lair would be more exciting anyway?

Even better, we could engage the zombies, acting like we're unaware of the cave and then while Bob and Brigid hold them off with our bows and spells and shit, the rest of you can camp out the cave entrance and when the vampire or whatever tries to sneak down it to flank us, you jump him and kill him in a round of hilarious surprise attacks.

At the end of the day, Bob's an elf, he doesn't like caves and he likes being romantically heroic. And he thinks the pale dude might prove to be an ally. Coz he's silly like that.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Hush you. You reckon fighting a few zombies from a well-defended building is more likely to get us killed than wandering off into a dark cavern to inevitably meet some liche or vampire on his home turf under a graveyard? I even volunteered to be the bait so I can run back to the building and you can all lift up the stakes after I pass them and impale all the zombies like that bit in Braveheart only with zombies instead of horses and without the blue face paint because it was too expensive.

I would rather face a combined Braveheart/Shaun of the Dead battle where we might live to see the end of it than a Descent style massacre in the darkness.

If it makes you feel better, Bob could use his silence and wizards' curtain rituals to make you a panic room to hide in...

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well no, Bob wants half blue, half red on his face to reflect his mastery of fire and ice magic but the analogy worked better with a Braveheart reference.

I was kinda banking on the cave only being used for the higher up undead types, rather than just zombies, otherwise wouldn't we have found some in the pub and why would they all be outside the mausoleum? Wouldn't the necromancer have kept them indoors to send down the tunnel to flank us after we tried to get in the mausoleum through the front door?

If you guys want us all to just head into the cave I really don't mind, I'm sure we can bolt the cellar door behind us and keep the zombies off our backs but I just think a smidge of tactical thinking for once wouldn't kill us. If I'm wrong and rather than the head honcho, a bunch more zombies come at us through the cave you guys can just leg it up the stairs and drop a cupboard over the door or something. Mots can make us a new door with his axe anytime anyway so it's not like we're going to get trapped inside the building.

Even if it's not the main dude, chances are he's got some kind of double hard henchman backing him up and if he sends that, we're better off fighting a higher number of small battles than one big one, to maximise our encounter power use.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Ha ha, I might have to set up a wizard's curtain next to the cave entrance for someone to hide in and launch a surprise attack, just so I can say I've used it, although I suspect hiding in the shadows would actually be more subtle.

Ooh, I could set one up so it looks like an unsubtle hiding place and then you guys could hide the other side of the hole and murder the shit out of everyone while they think they're being all clever and attacking the wizard's curtain. Double bluff the motherfuckers.

Assuming anything comes up through the cave of course. I mean, someone ought to guard it anyway and your ranged abilities are rather limited.

So, the plan according to Bob:

• Build bonfires to funnel the zombies towards the strongest, shooty-outiest bit of the pub, probably the front door.
• Sharpen some stakes, lash them together and attach some rope, lay them in the killzone with the rope leading back into the pub.
• Come nightfall, Bob heads out to the cemetary and attracts the attention of the zombies with some flame burst spells.
• He then retreats slowly or legs it, depending on whether there's anything quicker than a zombie out there.
• When he makes it back to the pub, the inpenetrable wall of spikesTM is raised behind him and the bonfires are lit.
• Bob and Brigid bar the door and make with the killing.
• Meanwhile, the close combat element of the team lie in wait at the cave entrance, hidden and dangerous.
• Should loads more zombies come up it, they retreat up the stairs, barricade the door and get a pint in.
• Should some big, hard undead motherfucker come up the cave, they jump it from behind and see if they can beat our current surprise attack record of 66hp with no reply swing.
• Mots acts as a floating support, either to help us keep the zombies out, help you kill what's downstairs or if the worst comes to the worst, make us a back door.
• We kill everything, get some kip then go spelunking, assuming anythng did come through the cave at all and it's not just a big, empty cave.
• Find the farmer and his dead wife and the evil mastermind, Bob tries to kill the farmer and befriend the evil dude, everyone else persuades him not to, kill the evil dude, re-inter the wife, head back to Freeport two fields richer after persuading the farmer to rent them off us.
• Pang laughs at our feeble planning and a dragon attacks the inn in the middle of the night.

Sound good?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well could we not have at least one person by the cellar door to spring a surprise attack on anything coming through it then? I just think the best surprise attacks are those you make on someone who thinks they're surprising you. Maybe we could all be upstairs then but with someone guarding the cellar door? I figured having a team in the basement would give us time to block it off if it's just zombies down there but engage the bad guys if it's anything bigger. It's not like we'd be that far apart after all...

FELIPE NO

But I've played too much Rainbow Six to leave a long corridor behind you not covered by a sniper. He might only kill the first terrorist to try and flank you but he can then retreat a bit back towards the group and get his machine gun out. If we were talking about a two-pronged assault on the mausoleum throught the cave and front door then yeah, I'd agree with you but you'd only be in the next room, still within a turn's run. Also, thinking about it, it makes sense for Bob to lend someone his bow to shoot at zombies, seeing as how he can use magic for ranged attacks (Although over a shorter range, I'll hand it over once they get within flame burst distance). Who has the highest dexterity?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

There's not that much room to split us off though and if there's a load of zombies coming up the cave, even the dwarves can run fast enough to get away from them and back up the stairs. Once there, we either block the entrance or Gabe can stand there all night killing them one at a time as they come up the stairs. Assuming we can stop them coming in anywhere else, I can't see us getting properly divided.

That said, the only real benefit of being down there is a surprise attack on anything big leading a charge and because it's dramatic. I'm sure we can still get surprise attacks from the stairs so yeah, let's all just hang out in the bar rather than splitting up. Someone needs to be incharge of stopping the barman opening a side door or window to escape too as he's currently the weak link in our chain. It might be safeest to just tie him up or knock him out.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

My main concern with this kind of "tactical" planning is that D&D isn't a tactical game. We're playing Command & Conquer, not Jagged Alliance, and often times the best way to deal with enemies is to focus fire and whittle them down. The problem I see is if we split up we're not focused as a group, and as a result we might weaken a couple zombies where we could have at least killed one.

That's very true although we've only got three ranged weapons between us including Bob's magic and Bob is fuck all use in a fight against a single, large enemy anyway as a rule. If we stick together in the main room we can back each other up and cover both potential entrances and if we block the entrances well enough, those attacking the zombies outside can backup and help the others without the zombies actually getting in. As I see it, if we keep them pinned together close enough we only ever have to fight a maximum of one each at a time and with enemies like that, it's the numbers that makes them dangerous. With Gabe blocking the stairs, Arg blocking the front door and the others shooting shit, I reckon we could hold out fairly indefinitely against run of the mill zombies. Gabe held off a fucking ogre for about 5 turns on his own after all.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Bradylama

We'd have to create a single-space corridor and funnel them through, but only one person could melee at a time, because otherwise they can just walk around you at the end of the corridor. We can try it your way if you want, but I say we just barricade the cellar and focus on the zombies walking around outside instead of splitting up, even if it is just a room away.

The only problem I see with that is if Pang throws something strong enough to bust the door open down the cave at us. My plan was always to just retreat and barricade the door if it was just zombies. I just don't want to have an undead troll smashing it's way at our backs without us having the chance for a round of surprise attacks on it first.

I mean, if I were a necromancer and I found out a bunch of adventurers were holed up in the pub, I'd let the zombies distract them outside and send my big, scary henchman through the tunnel in the cellar to surprise them. I think we've been singing from the same hymn sheet all along mate.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

LOOK ALRIGHT, SOME OF US ARE REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO FACING CERTAIN DEATH IN A NEEDLESS SIEGE AGAINST OVERWHELMING NUMBERS OF THE UNDEAD SO LET'S FORGET ALL THIS TALK OF INVESTIGATING TUNNELS HOPING TO BRING THIS WHOLE DEBACLE TO A SWIFT CONCLUSION AND HUNKER DOWN AND FORTIFY THIS PUB, OK? NOW I HOPE YOU ALL KNOW THE WORDS TO MEN OF HARLECH BECAUSE YOU WON'T HAVE A FREE HAND TO HOLD THE CRIB-SHEET WHEN THE BUTCHERING STARTS.



I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by AcerBandit

Should have made Ewan black, Pang. Always gotta have a black man in dese tings.

As if he wasn't likely enough to die already...

I was speaking idiomatically.

There goes the plan to kill the zombies before they made it into the building then.

It was such a good plan too.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well quite, I was hoping to kill them while they were still outside the building, maing it a siege rather than the current indoor fight situation we find ourselves in. I was kinda hoping we'd start at the windows and have a chance to thin their numbers before they even reached the door but apparently we were having some important conference behind the bar and the zombies snuck up on us or something.

It's no biggie, Bob's quicker than a zombie even at walking speed anyway.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Pangalin

I don't quite get how Shin intended to have a ranged battle through barricaded windows, myself.

It's quite possible to make a window one can shoot through but not climb through. Don't you people have castles in your country?

Oh wait...

Anyway, should we survive this I'm officially retiring from cunning plan making.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

More than likely. Pang, if everything's dead when my actual turn rolls around (As in dead and not moving, not just technically dead) then I'll make the same movement but save the spell for when something busts through the window.

Assuming there'll be enough dead things to swamp us at some point, who's up for retreatng to the kitchen? There's only two entrances and the most important thing is to limit how many zombies can get at us at once.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

One would hope that Pang would assume I adjusted my aim as a result, rather than us all waiting for him to post in between our turns.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Haha, I didn't realise that was a wall. My monitor here is really shit.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.