stronghold infiltration
Paul MacKenzie
stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
something?
It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
I'm interested in both experiences from individual campaigns and general
suggestions.
Cheers,
Paul
Tim Scoff
Well, speaking from painful personal experience storming the gates in
broad daylight is not the wisest course of action. We survived, but we
didn't win.
The best way to do it is let the experts do it while you create a
distraction. A theif or two with an invisibility spell cast on them will
do much better without any help as long as they have a magical escape
route planned than any other character class combination other than a
mage/theif.
>Cheers,
>Paul
--
Tim Scoff
cas...@nb.net
<http://www.nb.net/~casper/>
"If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed--Oh, wait a minute... he does."
Roy and Susan
Paul MacKenzie wrote in message <36DAF8...@crim.ca>...
>How many times have PCs needed to stealthily infiltrate a well-defended
>stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
>something?
>
>It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
>guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
>another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
>approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
Storming the gates in narrow darkness gets my vote!
(Sorry I had to ;-))
Roy Northern
S. Wilson
> Heres what the character ACTUALLY did:
>
> With his two thief assistants, Gekko the battle mage approached the back
> wall of the building, with Gekko invisible. Wall of fog was cast on a
> section of the wall and the guards came running. The thieves darted into
> the fog to hide, and went for the walls to scale, but they were not fast
> enough. Gekko threw a grappling hook over at another location on the wall
> and started climbing, but a guard on the wall saw it and pushed the hook
> off. Not falling far, Gekko quickly recovered to see the guardsmen on the
> ground surround the fog and then enter it with swords drawn. The thieves
> were unlucky and screamed in pain under attack. Arrows flew at Gekko from
> the towers. Now what?
How did the tower archers see Gekko? He was invisible.
He should have skipped the (visible) rope and just used Levitate or Fly,
as well.
Hemlock
The Archveult
member in my group had to do this recently and, um, didnt do a good job but
here were some things he MIGHT have done.
1. With connections to the Thieves' Guild, request blueprints to the
prison. Look for weaknesses.
2. Big cities have vast sewer networks. Maybe once upon a time a thief got
out that way? Investigation warranted. In real life I doubt this would be
possible but in a fantasy setting sewers go everywhere. :)
3. A prison is not a selfsustaining system. They take in supplies. Maybe
one could stow away in a supply wagon.
4. Dress up as a beggar and piss off the gate guards. They might throw you
in a temporary holding cell to cool off. Not a good idea but sometimes this
might work. If your character is good with hiding items in his clothing and
IF the campaign tone warrants the guards doing this.
5. Create a distraction and go over the wall on the other side.
6. With the aid of a forger (again from the Thieves' Guild), and the
uniform of a fallen enemy, just walk up to the gate and present your
character as a special agent from the enemy leader (better to choose a
subleader actually, to make it believable). Perhaps your character is here
to "interrogate a prisoner suspected of committing other crimes".
Heres what the character ACTUALLY did:
With his two thief assistants, Gekko the battle mage approached the back
wall of the building, with Gekko invisible. Wall of fog was cast on a
section of the wall and the guards came running. The thieves darted into
the fog to hide, and went for the walls to scale, but they were not fast
enough. Gekko threw a grappling hook over at another location on the wall
and started climbing, but a guard on the wall saw it and pushed the hook
off. Not falling far, Gekko quickly recovered to see the guardsmen on the
ground surround the fog and then enter it with swords drawn. The thieves
were unlucky and screamed in pain under attack. Arrows flew at Gekko from
the towers. Now what?
Gekko pulls out his wand of fire and goes crazy. First he launches a
fireball into the fog and kills all the guards. He kills his thief
assistants as well (later I tell him they bled to death which made him feel
even worse that it wasnt quick). He then resorts to fireballing his way
through the prison to meet his goal.
Not good. I dont know what to do about the experience because he defeated
many enemies but didnt do what I had hoped he would do. And of course he
has not made a good impression with the local Thieves' Guild, having slain
two of their top men. (On special loan.)
Paul MacKenzie wrote in message <36DAF8...@crim.ca>...
>How many times have PCs needed to stealthily infiltrate a well-defended
>stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
>something?
>
>It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
>guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
>another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
>approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
>
>I'm interested in both experiences from individual campaigns and general
>suggestions.
>
>Cheers,
>Paul
Rob Bruce
make sure you have the ability to find each other however...... usually some
landmarks are available to meet at a given time. Flying in roped together
is an interesting concept until it all goes wrong.........
This assumes the castle is ready for you, otherwise just walk in with the
villagers during the day - AFTER you have surveyed what security is in
place......
Rob
Werebat
> >well-defended
> >stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
> >something?
I just got this image of five or six Pentiums creeping about in the
shadows, hurling a grappling hook up a wall, and crawling up to the
parapets unseen by the Baron's guardsmen...
:^)
- Ron ^*^
The Archveult
I forget. Maybe I skipped something there. Either way he DID become
visible.
>He should have skipped the (visible) rope and just used Levitate or Fly,
>as well.
Unfortunately he did not have those spells.
Snuggles the Psycho Shepherd
They're trying to break into Castle Macintosh and steal the processor so
they can make the p4. ;)
--
To reply by email, remove .ENDSPISH from my reply-to address
-Louis
Eyal Weinstock
so good, i found it really realistic.. The idea is you are a thief, and
in the beginning at least, you are sent to steal things of rich
landowners who have a castle. To enter it, you must search for the best
way inside. It was really great finding the sewers, exiting just behind
the guard, pickpocketing him or knocking him cold to get the key to the
well, entering the water of the well, and then exiting the water when
you are already in the mansion.. It's just great. I don't have to tell
you about the other missions... :)
Eyal Weinstock.
--
"Work? Why? I summoned your demon to do it!
...Of course I had to erase the pentagram!
What do you think I am, an idiot?"
"Don't steal. The government doesn't like
competition."
DURANLEAU Francois
> How many times have PCs needed to stealthily infiltrate a well-defended
> stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
> something?
>
> It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
> guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
> another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
> approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
>
> I'm interested in both experiences from individual campaigns and general
> suggestions.
IMC, the PCs once entered a castle via the use of a potion of polymorphing
and a portable hole. One PC use the potion to change into a bird, while
the others got into the portable hole (so they had a bit less than 10
rounds to get inside and get out of the portable hole, since there is not
a infinite amount of air inside it).
At another moment in the campaign, they sneaked behind the castle, and the
psionicist in the party created a dimension door on the battlements of the
keep (which was in fact a tower set in the wall... well, I know that
usually keeps are built in the middle of a castle, but that one was built
on the top of a small hill, and there was a cliff just outside the castle
walls where the keep was, so the psionicist created the door from the
bottom of the cliff).
___________________________________________________________________
"There once was a boy who dreamed of being a hero,
who believed sincerely in the battle
to banish Darkness from a world of Light.
But Light and Darkness are equal,
and where one exists, so too must the other.
And when the boy finally realized this,
he had taken the first step toward being a true hero."
- from Record of Lodoss War
Francois Duranleau
Etudiant au baccalaureat bidisciplinaire Mathematique-Informatique
Universite de Montreal
<dura...@jsp.umontreal.ca>
Dreamer
wrote:
>How many times have PCs needed to stealthily infiltrate a well-defended
>stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
>something?
>
>It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
>guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
>another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
>approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
>
>I'm interested in both experiences from individual campaigns and general
>suggestions.
>
>Cheers,
>Paul
Hehehe. IOG, a guy had bought an adventure in which we had to destroy
a chaos glove (an artifact). To do so we had to bring together the
opposed law glove and forementioned chaos glove (I don't recall the
exact names).
The glove of chaos was located in an upper level of a keep on a
mountainside, which our law glove told us (or did we use "locate
object"?). Basically the adventure was designed as a dungeon crawl,
where the final level would have been the throne room with the glove
of chaos... hehehe.
2 game hours later the session was over, the gloves had blasted each
other out if existance, we had achieved our goal.
Basically we had 3 plans, springing into motion in successive order
without regard to whether the previous plans (all with the same goal)
had succeeded. ... well actually we didn't execute plan C, for A had
already worked out so fine.
Our group consisted of 4 party members: A wild mage, capable of
casting 3rd level spells, a speciality priest of the Red Knight (also
not very powerful), an evocator (I'll blast them all to bits) and ...
duh ... a ranger, I suppose.
In the shroud of the night and protected by invisibility, we used fly
and levitation to get to the barred window of the throne room, and
hooked up those party members not supported by individual
levitation/fly spells (they were carried along with a levitator).
Then, upon a signal, we executed our plans.
First, the priest (with the law glove on his hand) used a special
power called knights move, a short ranged teleportation ability,
somehow like an improved blink. He appeared directly in front of the
glove carrier (invisible), we didn't realize whether he could see
invisible, for the priest instantly grabbed the glove with both hands
and teleported out again. :)))
Actually, he succeeded in pulling off the glove, but both gloves only
had to touch, blew eachother away.
Then, a lightning bolt (from our nervous-fingered invocator (who
already accidently killed a PC of mine and nearly killed two others))
shot through the window and melted the metal bars, fizzeling through
the once-wielder of the glove. At the same time, a fireball shot into
and detonated inside the room (that was me, yesyes).
Plan C would have been to storm inside the room, through the new hole
in the wall.
Well, we left the keep flying away into the night sky, the burning
room behind us... the whole affair had taken 10 seconds (IOG a round
of combat is only 5 seconds long).
The next day we came back to drive the occupants from the keep, but
that's another story.
--
Dreamer
If God exists, how could I stand not to be one?
GX9000
>stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
>something?
>
>It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
>guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
>another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
>approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
I actually wrote an adventure in which the PCs (max. 5) had to take the
shinobi kit and infiltrate a castle on an island which was isolated, and
take out the heavy weaponry so that the griffon fighters (from the army back
home) could safely seige the tower with minor difficulty. It kicked ass.
>I'm interested in both experiences from individual campaigns and general
>suggestions.
Well above is an idea right there... I guess you could also do Drow city
infiltrations... underwater city adventures, I dunno, outer-planar castle
infiltration...
goshin
>It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
>guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
>another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
>approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
>
>suggestions.
>
>Paul
Have one of the more charming characters in the party get to know one
of the servants. Wine and dine the servant and let all the guards
know that servant x and character y are a hot item ( so that character
y will become familair to the guards). Get as much information from
servant x as possible. Draw maps of the castle ( fort, whatever ) As
for how to "break" in.. it depends on class.. how many people are
going in.. etc
-----------== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ==----------
http://www.newsfeeds.com/ The Largest Usenet Servers in the World!
-----------== Over 66,000 Groups, Plus a Dedicated Binaries Server ==----------
Duane VanderPol
wrote:
>How many times have PCs needed to stealthily infiltrate a well-defended
>stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
>something?
>
>It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
>guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
>another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
>approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
The most easily accomplished yet most difficult to defend
against method we'd ever worked out was to go in as Hasted Invisible
Wrens (polymorphed). This was predominantly for purposes of
assassinating dukes, kings, and emperors hence the Haste spell but
small birds fly very fast and have little problem skimming through
arrow slits and slightly ajar doors. Now, potions were disgustingly
common in most of these campaigns but between potions, rings,
memorized spells and scroll spells it was just that easy. The added
bonus of being polymorphed meant that you begin battle by changing
from bird form to some humanoid form other than your true form, then
changing to your actual form and gaining the d12 in healing when
necessary.
Duane VP
Visit the Castle of the Glowing Sky at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/
Alexander Bernert
: How many times have PCs needed to stealthily infiltrate a well-defended
: stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
: something?
: It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
: guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
: another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
: approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
: I'm interested in both experiences from individual campaigns and general
: suggestions.
Get yourself a couple of bandits. Let them attack the carriage of the lady
of the castle. When all seems lost, appear (accidentally) along the way,
run over the bandits, let the fight look good, at least one of you should be
knocked out. Chances are that you will be invited into the castle.
Alexander
: Cheers,
: Paul
--
This message was created by chaotic complex forces, generating bits and
bytes randomly, and only seems to have some meaning.
Die Nutzung meiner email-Adresse fuer Werbezwecke ist nicht gestattet. The
use of my email-address for advertising purposes is not allowed.
Werebat
>
> Paul MacKenzie <pmac...@crim.ca> wrote:
> : How many times have PCs needed to stealthily infiltrate a well-defended
> : stronghold to either steal something, rescue someone, or destroy
> : something?
>
> : It seems like a traditional sort of task for adventuring parties, so I'm
> : guessing that many players have had to face this at one point or
> : another. Does anyone have any ideas of how a party of PCs might
> : approach this, aside from storming the front gates in broad daylight?
Check out a Dungeon magazine (can't remember the #) featuring an
adventure centered around breaking into a prison and rescing someone. I
think it was called "Escape from Granite Mountain Prison" or something
like that. The prison was well-developed and enhanced with magic, said
to be "unescapable" (and it pretty much is unescapable without the use of
magic).
- Ron ^*^
Student
: >How did the tower archers see Gekko? He was invisible.
: I forget. Maybe I skipped something there. Either way he DID become
: visible.
Throwing a grappling hook can be called a called attack. If so, Gekko became
visible. Or was he using IMPROVED invis?
Even if he was invis: firing enough arrows into an area may panic at least.
Even when not visible, a stray arrow does a lot of damage. Well, when an arrow
hits, it will stay visible, and an arrow floating in mid-air may draw some
attention.
Oh Boy, I'd have loved DM-ing this. :-)
Greetings,
der Joachim
--
Computional linguistics student at Tilburg University,
The Netherlands
http://pi0959.kub.nl/Haterd/index.html
A true hunter weeps at a merciless kill (The God Machine)
Thomas Francis McGrath
Well.. I dont know how anyone else does it but The campaign that I am in
(the night below) just finished the assult on the broken spire keep...
Our group had 2 magethiefs, ranger, mage, cleric, and dwarven fighter..
The group followed behind the thirefs as they move to the walls..(to make
sure they don fall in any pits) and then we climb the walls... Pretty
simple.. then the thiefs climb onto the roofs of the buiuldings and use
missle weapons on the thiefs that come out.. and the fighters meet the
fighters on the ground..
Main thing to keep in mind is to use thiefs.. during the dead of night and
then let the rest of the party follow in their tracks... (Preferably with
a dwarf that has been maxed out by a Munchkin) :) (I played a thief.. )
PenDragon...
The Pocket Sized Flame Thrower..
Please don't Squeeze the Shaman..
When God Created men She must have been drunk and Horny..