[DnD] Let's Cast Magic Missile!

Okay, well I'd still rather take the mausoleum in the day, but we haven't used a single one of Shin's plans yet. Which may be because his overarching goal in this game is to get us all killed.

However, it sort of is his turn.

FELIPE NO

Actually think about it. We can't rest at night, that's suicide. We can't take them all on at once for the same reason. If we draw parties of the undead into our obviously-occupied building we can spread out our encounter powers* relative to the number of monsters to fight.

I agree that we need to take the final assault during the day however. Undead is weaker during the day yeah?

Hey, can we perform hit-and-run attacks? Me and Shin run up and shoot a zombie or two dead, then get the hell out of dodge? That may be a good way to wear down their numbers too.

* TURN UNDEAD

How ya doing, buddy?

Isn't it permitted for you ranged attackers to keep using them each turn, and using your move actions to back up the number of squares the zombies shamble forward?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Your average humanoid zombie only moves at a maximum of 4 spaces a turn, so there's really nothing to stop someone from just kiting an individual zombie with no particular threat to themselves.

In theory, anyway.

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That theory excludes the bits about zombies wandering in from every direction, or just popping straight up out of the ground.

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

And the zombie birds and zombie dogs and disembodied zombie hands that scuttle out of mouseholes, yeah

but in theory!

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

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

This isn't just some crab cave down here, it's a freaking cavern. The fact that there's a rendering for the Inn probably means that it'll lead to the Mausoleum, and we can save ourselves the trouble of dealing with those zombies. We probably couldn't enter the mausoleum directly anyways if the log is any indication.

Additional Spam:
On the other hand if you all were a bunch of roleplaying queermos, I guess your characters don't even know about the cavern and the dwarf and I are gonna get ourselves killed. =(

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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.

FELIPE NO

Also Shin's plan is to get us all killed.

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

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...

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If the undead can come up through the cavern it won't matter how well defended we are.

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Originally Posted by Shin

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...

That's why you wanted the face paint?

I hate you. Hate you so much.

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

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

I say we barricade the cellar and make a stand of it. Like I said, its pretty much your turn for plan making.

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?

I'm down for Undead Alamo.

Additional Spam:
haha I'm not down with that plan, though, you're just gonna split us up and get us all killed.

FELIPE NO

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...

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

I've played too much L4D to be comfortable with somebody splitting off from the group when facing hordes of enemies.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

We have no snipers. There is no one-shot-one-kill in this game unless you can coup-de-gras past the bloodied level. People who split off would be surrounded and mauled to death by zombies.

e: or unless we're facing hordes of minions I guess

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

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.

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

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Pang, two questions:

1) Can Brigid sanctify water with her holy symbol and/or prayers?

2) Does holy water hurt the undead?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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?