New beginings

Awesome!
Let's get down to business. We were hired to stop a war between goblins and kobolds. We head off to our hotel to discuss how exactly to go about doing that. In our room we find a weird looking little gobliny/koboldish dude with a smart mouth and a surprisingly strong affinity for fashion given his apparent heritage. He seems to like stirring trouble up, maybe for pay or maybe just for kicks. Shall we place bets on whether or not he had a hand in stirring up trouble of the local gobliny/koboldy variety? I'm all in...not that I have a lot left after shopping for equipment...

Forget trying to negotiate with the warring tribes. We need to ask this guy what his role is in all of this and what it will take to make him stand down and tell his buddies to take their toys and go home. Thoughts?

-Sky D'Orien

Bought over from the previous Forum:
rashad_wb

Quest options - 1. Nuetralize threat, 2. Give up and leave... nuetralize options- kill both clans, kill one clan, neogiate a treaty, move the town, eliminate one seat of power, eliminate both seats of power, otions to do the above -have a dragon tell the kobolds to leave, convince the hybrid to help us do one of the above, trick the bandita into attacking one faction, lure a huge beast into one of the factions camp, flood the kobolds mine, gather info from each faction on why there is a war, do something that spooks one faction into leaving, move the battle ground to a different area, gather the towns people and have all of them help fortiy the town by fixing walls, creating inplaiment barricades around the town from table legs and other furiniture.have the entire town fight using ranged combat.

Alexander Holmes

Thus why I went towards the option of separating the group some, to try some of these in one day. But if we agree to one or two things to be tried in one day that'd be fine too. I figure it'd be ideal to gather more information, from the kobolds, as to why the battles are going on. And find out if it has anything to do with the hybrid, and if so negotiations can commence concerning such and possibly solving the whole situation. If it doesn't, then the two hordes wouldn't out number the town population, maybe 3/4s at the most. So fortifying the city, and arming the townsfolk as best as possible would be a possible way to deal with both hordes, but might be considered genocide, but genocide could also be considered towards the humans if we don't do something about it. I don't think we'd have the time to find a huge monster to send into one of the hordes camps. But in the process of obtaining info about the kobolds, we could find their mine and do the flooding idea.

rashad_wb

Another idea was just mercy kill the town but the paladin will hate that. But the immediate concern is whither we can survive another night with the messed up walls. So it is the druids immediate concern. We may not be able to fortfy around the walls of the city, but we can find out the primary directions the mobs come from and start there. Set up traps along the routes they come toward the town. Basicly striking out the sides of the mob and running then come back over and over. Then we do have walls. So arrows, stones, boiling water, fire arrows, big rocks, and boiling oil are enough in thd hands of a town to toss down on invaders. We can shoot and cast spells from the walls as well. Then that buys us another day.

Joshua

Alexandria has two (new) thoughts on the matter - She is very interested to see just how the thief's guild plays into all this and would like to investigate them further. She also just remembered that changlings exist and this hybrid creature may not be a hybrid creature at all. He may also be somehow related to the thief's guild and not the two warring factions.

rashad_wb

Yes and the druid can get help rebuilding the walls by using excavate earth to make a moat of air around the severly damaged portions of the walls so goblins or kobolds either go around or jump down into the 25 foot long pit and we use rhe lose dirt to pour on the wall so it helps reinforce the wall and provides loss dirt for them to attempt to climb. Then putting sharp sticks in the hole and have them stick up (small and strong enough to impale but not big enough to be climbed out of) ie basic pit trap in every low level dungoen but with out the trap door. A grass mat over the pit can hide it.

rashad_wb

We do that for the two worst areas and then across the areas were the koldolds and goblins come from. We still need the towns people. It does not look like they helped the guards alot in previous fighting. Also a changling we explain why he did not glow when detect magic hit him. Like wildshape, the changling ability is supernatural therefore it is undectable by detect magic. Is detect evil a free will ability or number of times a day?

rashad_wb

Plus i dont think 200 kobolds or goblins will march up on a town. Atmost you would see around 20 in a raiding party. So i think the rogue guild is instigating this because a town of 1700 plus people has a many identities to steal when the people are dead.

Alexander Holmes

yeah, theres a coincidental similarity between the changing of identities, and the kobolds ability to change to other people, and possibly using these stolen ideas for this very changling to put to use. For what purpose, we don't know. If that is their purpose, then we could go to the root of the problem, and take out the 80 thieves at their main camp. Or acquire the kobolds as allies, and use them to wipe out the thieves. If this situation is why the kobolds are attacking the city, they'd agree to such.

Alexander Holmes

On another note, all these ideas about fortifying the city could be no good or useless depending on the GMs decision. He could say that the townspeople aren't fit enough to fight or the like. Plus we may have to appoint the paladin and sorceress to do some diplomatic persuasiding to get the townspeople to follow such ideas. then if they agree, to determine the time and resources that would be needed to complete all this. And if the warforge's bonus's would increase the same, etc etc.

Matt

Alexandria has a great point about the hybrid, and the people smelling the same. Changeling is the simplest explanation for all that! (Jumping through shadows though, means shadowdancer maybe? Way higher level regardless.) Investigating WHY the kobolds and goblins are really at war seems like the best plan to Keane.

rashad_wb

Jumping through shadows can be shadowmeld as well. Wayne made it a point to say he was casting a silent spell as he stepped. Becsuse i detected magic. Shadowjump is a supernatural ability that doesnt require a spell. (Having played a shadowdancer before)

I still suggest honey, and not vinegar, for treating with the hybrid (or changeling, if he turns out to be one). He's got a lot of tricks for escape and deceit, and I'm not sure we have the tools to foil them all yet.

Alex's current idea is that we need to, starting immediately, investigate the identity-thieving guys and scout out both the goblins and kobolds and gather as much information as possible before making any further actions. There is a lot that we don't currently know, she reasons, and based on what we know now, we basically have few, if any options other than to hunt down and interrogate an uncooperative changling that we can't realistically imprison.

Otherwise, our options is to fight against impossible numbers (goblins and/or kobalds) or fortify the city using resources we have neither the time to implement or the money to purchase or transport with what will most likely be minimal to no benefits to the city's inhabitants.

We may be missing a great deal more information and this changling's interest in us and the identity thieves' proximity to the city and this war can't all be a co-incidence. We need to act soon.

Animate tools won't let you build a complicated anything without constant supervision and help. The tools can only be used for their intended purpose. An animated hammer won't, for example, lift up a piece of wood, hold it down, and hammer in a nail to another board that another hammer is propping up. It isn't a replacement for a laborer or group of laborers (especially skilled labor), regardless of how often you use the spell. At best, it'll give all the people who are already there a +2 bonus from aid another.

Also, you *know* all your 1st level spells but you still have to pick and choose as a druid which ones to prepare each day with your available spell slots, but even if we had the time to rest and regain spell slots for the next day, you won't have nearly the amount of spell slots needed to put a moat around an entire town. It's only a 5 by 5 cube *per casting*.

Fair enough, but what is our group decision isofar as our method of approaching this situation?

Alex is in favor of fortifying the town against further attacks, but that's a delay of the inevitable, at best and possibly too time consuming and resource-draining for us to make a significant difference as we simply don't have the manpower or spellpower to do so with the entire town before nightfall.

She also thinks that if the hybrid were willing to work with us, that it would have done so already. When we had it, it refused to answer any questions and only attempted to turn the tables on us in order to spy on us. She can only presume that there is a reason for that. It's too skilled and too smart to try to play fair with us. We have no idea what motivates it and have no carrot to dangle in front of it. She doesn't think it wants or needs our help.

Alex would like to gather more information about the goblins, kobolds, and especially this identity thief operation as soon as possible. It would also be possible to gather information around town about some of the new people showing up and attempt to locate a few of the people the identity thieves have already smuggled in - especially if a few new people showed up too recently to have left town just yet.

Then your druid should also be aware that Kobolds are commonly sorcerers and would have a working knowledge of what magic is and how it works. Goblins would likely be more familiar with psionics than magic due to the existence of blues but that's less common than sorcerers and kobolds.

Your druid should also be aware that supernatural abilities, such as wildshape, are detectable by detect magic because supernatural abilities are magical. They can't be disrupted, they don't provoke attacks of opportunity, aren't subject to spell resistance, counterspells, or dispel magic and they don't function in anti-magic areas. Therefore, an actively wildshaped creature could be detected as a magical aura via detect magic. Also, a changeling's Minor Change Shape ability is supernatural and therefore falls under those rules.

Natural and extraordinary abilities can't be detected by detect magic because they are not magical.


We don't have enough information to determine anything about these groups. They could be here acting as a military force for another country or they could just as easily be here because they've always been here and are not a part of any nation. Just because the goblinoids have a nation doesn't mean that every goblin, hobgoblin, or whatever moved in to their territory.

Both goblins and kobolds are cowards, yes, and we can use that to our advantage and Alex agrees that it's likely that this scenario is a result of someone pulling strings, but we won't know more until we look into it and if we act sooner rather than later, we might even be able to avoid or thwart an attack altogether. Alex is well trained for stealth infiltration as are two other members of our group. Darkvision or not, we'll more likely succeed than fail to at least get close enough to any camp to gather information.

These issues with fighting large groups of weaklings isn't that it can't be done - the issue is resources, time, whether this is a feasible long-term solution, and whether or not the town can survive long enough for us to actually accomplish what we came here to do.