A Land Far Away

Conumdrum: Your party must defend the following area for as long as possible and survive.

Resources: Maximum of 5 party members up to 10th level (core book & splatbook rules for D&D), what appears on the map, no NPCs within the keep or available as outside help. No existing magical wards. Nothing but basic doors, arrowslits and portcullis's (to keep it simple) so no siege equipment unless your PC comes with its own.

Time: 1 Day to prepare. [start at full HP, Spells, Ect]

Opposition: Army. [hundreds of low level 'grunt' creatures, several mid level movment related shock troops (flying, burrowing, ect), one caster with a higher CR than the party.]

Objective: There is an imovable artifact object in a designated location of your choice within the area, it cannot be moved outside the area, onto another plane or destroyed. It must be kept out of enemy hands.

How would you do it?

Points for least PCs used &/or lowest level PCs used.

(A step by step plan vs. enemy overunning positions would be favoret, but each to their own)

Do you ahve to defend innocents on the inside? If you yield a portion of the keep is that considered failure?

If the answer to dergon's question is no then I choose Shadowdancer with heavy stealth specialisation and HiPS.

Hmm, M'kay edited objectives.

location of said artifact on the map if it can't be moved?

A dwarven defender built up to defend the 5 ft square at the main entrance ((assuming no seige equipment allows them to just pour in all over the place))

I like Burt's SD pc

Going to need some manner of flying expertise.....a paladin who has all the riding feats on his/her mount and has some flying magic item ((ride by attack etc)) ---he can go up and counter the flying creatures

A cleric is a must. Maybe travel domain to get all over in a hurry and help the other three.

((just shooting from the hip here))

Vendrin wrote:location of said artifact on the map if it can't be moved?

ThinkTank wrote:
Objective: There is an imovable artifact object in a designated location of your choice within the area

Place it wherever ya like, as long as its within the area. After that, it has to stay there.

Holding the top of the stairwell to 52 looks promising. Fighting from the high ground ..better defense against overrrun/ bull rush etc ....

give your DwarDef combat expertise etc.

I recon first order of the day would be to cast nondetection on the artifact, saves the caster scrying its location and teleporting himself and his shock troops straight to it. Plus it means they'd have to go room by room rather than concentrate on that one area.

I'm working on a solution with 3-4 10th levels. Wizard blockader, Drood summoner, Cleric healer, Illusionist skirmisher.

No full plan, just some points.

You need more eyes. Henchmen, cohorts, familiars, hired help, anything. The general consensus seems to involve a "rapid response" team, and I agree. But you still need to know where to respond. Plus it doesn't take a hero to push ladders away from the walls.

Any part of the fortress that is deemed expendable should be booby trapped. Given that you're up against mooks, spellcasters should focus on area spells. Defensive tanks, like the Dwarven Defender, are pretty useful too. Flight and Invisibility are a given. The artefact will of course be warded with various non-detection spells.

Likely the biggest threat is having the PC "whittled". A hitpoint here, two there... it adds up. Stack up on low-level healing stuff. And reinforce the ceilings and walls against cave-ins and rock2mud.

Agreed, I'd tend to go down the summoner route for extra hands or simply sowing an area with traps and glyphs of warding. The area has some nice fallback positions, which you could Dim Hop to pretty quick with a full caster party or nice magic items. Leaving you free to jam the areas your not walking over with horror. Could even use unseen servants if your range is good, to drop gates and such. You'd have to workout spell times though.

Although saying that, I do have a nice mental image of a movment character leaping and running over those roofs with two lightning bolt wands.

As for locations, I dunno...

The tower just to the left of 21 looks a good place for the artifact. Dead center so any area effect magic/teleport screens will cover most of the main keep. One door in, heavy walls, and not the most obvious place AKA the final redoubt. Could even use stone shape to seal it in completely, although you 'd have to stick an illusion over the door so nobody would catch on to quick.

Make it a dwarven artifact and pray that Gorm shows up.

I'd try very hard to make a dummy version of the artifact. The enemy caster is going to be the primary issue, and not knowing it's spell loadouts ahead of time will be problematic. Was there a well on that map? If so, I'd probably stick the real artifact down a well under nondetection and put a duplicate in an obviously well-defended location under heavy but expendable guard (summons or whatever). Make the army fight hard to the location, and then let the caster take the final defense of expendables and hope the caster uses most of his offensive spells on the duplicate artifact location, allowing you to jump him when he realizes he has the wrong item, with the party still at reasonable strength.

And of course use as many traps as the DM allows, which would be none in ALFA.

Mulu wrote: blah blah blah alfa drama! lol

No drama, not in NWN, issue in hand plz.

A duplicate artifact would indeed be a good idea, well defended enough to make it seem real while allowing its location to be scryable would work out. Or just slap down several scry blocks and make them guess. I'd say they would likly be heading for the last rebout ballie up at the top, its the most secure and logical location to stick the artifact. Hence its also going to be a primary target for mobile shock troops that could fly in, burrow up, or teleport like devils.