Evil adventuring party tactics

[CountArioch]

Note:  I want general sort of tactics here, not specific builds.

And evil adventuring party fought the PCs, lost 2 of their number, and the other 3 fled for a better day.  The party fighter was the leader, but he fell, and after reincarnating the leader the blue kineticist/diviner/cerebremancer decided that he was the ideal leader.  The other two survivors agreed, and the two that fell were not in a position of strength to argue.

Now, the blue is a genius (24 int), has above average charisma and wisdom, and has a tactical mindset.

The party has the following assets:

9th level diviner spellcasting (banned school: evocation)

9th level kineticist manifesting (mostly for blowing stuff up)

11th level druid casting (house rule:  only 1 spell per level that's not in the PHB)

2 stealthy types

2 melee combat monsters

(Note:  except for one character, they overlap.)

The wizard caster is not above spending a few days writing scrolls of buff spells, the party collectively has about 3,000 gp to spend on party-related supplies at the moment.  (the last fight took a good bit out of their shared store.)

[BowenSilverclaw]

What would they be facing in terms of opposition?

[PhaedrusXY]

Exactly. Now that they know what they're up against, they can prepare specific tactics to work against their enemies.

[CountArioch]

A rogue, a ranger/wizard, a rogue/bard, a hexblade/paladin of tyranny/mindbender, an egoist, and the party cohorts:  a bard/wizard/ultimate magus, and a soulknife.  

Note that I'm not trying to "kill" the party per se using questionable tactics, if I was going to do that, I'd have the diviner research "Kill all the PCs in Ian's Playgroup with No Save".  I just want to know what someone with that kind of resources would come up with.  The idea that when the fighter lead the party, they all charged in as individuals (except the cerebremancer, who stayed behind with several teleport spells prepared for when things started to go tits-up).  Now, they're going to act as a unit.

[PhaedrusXY]

Hmm... I'd guess the Mindbender has Mindsight, making ambushing them a pain. They could use "Scry and Die", though. Have the diviner find out where they're going to be vulerable using divinations, and have the evil party Teleport right on top of them. The rogues and melee guys go after whatever caster was the most difficult last time and try to take them down hard immediately. The casters debuff and crowd control everyone. The advantage is surprise, and the fact that the evil guys can be buffed to the teeth and strike when the other team is weakened from a previous fight. They can also use protective buffs against the things they know were particularly lethal to them the last time, like Protection from Fire if someone was nuking them with Scorching Rays, etc.

[BowenSilverclaw]

Also, apparently Count is named Ian?

As for the actual problem at hand, I have to agree with Phaedrus, Scry & Die seems like a useful tactic.

[archangel.arcanis]

you have a diviner and the group is evil so has no moral problems with stabbing someone in the back after they scry on them.

Wait until the middle of the night when only 1 or 2 characters are awake, preferably after they had expended most of their resources during the day's travels. Teleport just out of sight. Let the sneaky guys get in and take out the people who are awake, or let the manifester/spellcaster disable them quickly. Proceed to coup de gras the entire party in their sleep.

I know you said no TPK but an intelligent evil guy would think to hit them when they are a) incapacitated (asleep in this case) b)unarmored (unless they all have endurance) c)just plain old not prepared.

While i know this goes beyond what you had intended it does make the party have to work to survive, and hopefully they will enjoy the rush of almost dieing.

[PhaedrusXY]

If they're all just piled up sleeping in the woods with one or two scouts at this level, I'd be surprised. It would be a valuable and painful lesson for them, though.

[CountArioch]

Two of the party members don't need to sleep at all, and they have access to an extra-dimensional space for recuperation, so scry/die will be less effective.  However, their progress through the wilderness will be easy to track.

[PhaedrusXY]

Two of the party members don't need to sleep at all, and they have access to an extra-dimensional space for recuperation, so scry/die will be less effective.  However, their progress through the wilderness will be easy to track.

I was suggesting to use divination to figure out when they'd be weakened from a fight, and hit them right afterwards. I didn't expect they'd be especially vulnerable while sleeping. That should be pretty easy to divine. Contact Other Plane: On what day this week will asshole group number 1 be in a tough fight? What time will it be over? What geographic region will it be in? And so on, until he narrows it down to an exact place and time. Then he can set up some way to watch for them via Scrying, a scout, etc.

[bayar]

You would need minions, lots of minions. What evil masterminds go around attacking PC's without minions ?

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[ninjarabbit]

You don't attack Superman, you go after Superman's friends like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen.

Go after the PC's family and friends and force them to do your bidding, you're evil so you don't have to fight fair.

[archangel.arcanis]

sorry i always forget about rope trick since the DMs in the games i play really frown on it, because it takes away their options.

Hitting the family and friends angle is good to manipulate them. Perhaps use some Guerrilla tactics on them. In that i mean arrange to teleport in destroy one of their magic items, probably not something important the first time, and teleport away.  They would be there long enough for the party to realize who it is but short enough to not get killed. Tactically this is them weakening the enemy before they assault them, and is a drastic contrast to the charge as individuals approach previously used.  With the party now aware that they have a "fan club" they can prepare accordingly, and it can become a continuing story line that they are trying to find out about these people while they proceed with other adventures.

Another idea is for them to use disguise and literally pose as a fan club for the party.  They will fawn all over them under the guise of being some fan of them and claiming to want to be just like them.  Once they are close enough or trusted to be around when they are vulnerable they attack. Perhaps after a long night of drinking with their fans, who all happen to have Periapt of proof against poison hidden on them.

As to the bad guys not having any money they can use any of a number of different cheesy wealth generation tactics or let the party hear about a lot of dragons getting killed, or anything else with 3x treasure. To hint that there is something going on and explain why these guys show up loaded to the teeth. While scry & die won't work to well against the party it should work pretty effectively vs a dragon that isn't paranoid.

as a special note also the Blue is beyond genius the highest IQ recoded was 230 and without any more int bumps he would have 240, just to put that in perspective.

[CountArioch]

as a special note also the Blue is beyond genius the highest IQ recoded was 230 and without any more int bumps he would have 240, just to put that in perspective.

I disagree with the whole "1 int = 10 IQ" paradigm.  Mostly because a person with 4 int is basically a functional person that's really stupid, while a 40 IQ human can't even control his bowels, walk, talk, or not jerk off whenever he feels like it.  Also, IQ is really good at measuring how retarded you are, but less good at measuring how smart you are. 

[Caelic]

Agreed.  The thing about evil characters is that they don't fight fair.  A highly-intelligent evil antagonist is never, EVER going to give the PCs a fair shot at beating him.

Now, herein lies the Catch-22.  What the ANTAGONIST wants and what the DM wants are likely to be two very different things.

The antagonist wants the players to have absolutely no chance of winning.

The DM...if he's a good DM...wants the players to have a fair chance of winning, particularly if they're smart.

You need to find a happy medium between the two.  

Take hostages.  Mentally-condition the hostages to do things they would never do otherwise.  Blackmail the PCs with the knowledge that their loved ones have done these things.

Spy on the PCs--constantly.  A lot of PCs assume that if they have protection from scrying, they're spy-proof.  Not so.  Again, mentally condition those hostages so that when they're rescued, they become your agents.  You have a druid; turn the family's pet parrot into your stool pigeon.

Use the law against the PCs.  Few things are as frustrating as KNOWING who the villain is, and that he's a villain--but being unable to touch him, because he's a respected and prominent member of the local community.  Watch the Paladin seethe when the local constable stops him from confronting the villain and warns him that his "lawless ways" won't be tolerated.

Make the PCs really, really HATE this group.  Then comes the tricky part: judging when the time is ripe for the villains to make one mistake, and leave an opening.

[CountArioch]

I could work that angle.  Give it a few sessions for the evil group to consolidate their power and hit them later.

The first time, it was all business.  Now that the PCs have humiliated them, it's personal this time. 

The last time, the Blue didn't even engage the party at all.  He was swearing a blue streak (hurrr) about the party ignoring their plan in order to come into melee contact with the PCs right away when he had several Greater Mighty Wallop, Mass Bulls Strength, etc spells prepared just for the climactic fight.  He also though it needlessly complicated that the druid cast Cometfall to disable their movement when the druid's knowledge: nature and the brute strength of the ogre rogue/barbarian could have accomplished roughly the same thing if they attacked them a few hours down the road near the mountains.  And the ogre/rogue and bugbear fighter/ninja/ghost faced killer had commented on the sloppiness of the operation when the druid allowed herself to be seen.

[archangel.arcanis]

as a special note also the Blue is beyond genius the highest IQ recoded was 230 and without any more int bumps he would have 240, just to put that in perspective.

I disagree with the whole "1 int = 10 IQ" paradigm.  Mostly because a person with 4 int is basically a functional person that's really stupid, while a 40 IQ human can't even control his bowels, walk, talk, or not jerk off whenever he feels like it.  Also, IQ is really good at measuring how retarded you are, but less good at measuring how smart you are. 

I was using the fact that 100 iq is average and 10 int is average, so proportional increased would result in 24=240.  Not like it really matters the point was that the blue should be smarter than any real person any of us have ever met. Just like that fighter with a 20+ strength should be stronger than anyone we would ever meet. By levels 8-10 the characters should begin becoming super human in what they can do. Heck even a strait Fighter can perform superhuman feats of strength and swordsmanship by this point.

I think it has been pretty much agreed on this should take some time of the bad guys gathering information and power. Once ready they would likely harass the party by what ever means fit the situation. Then have a great and climactic fight, just be wary that the climax doesn't turn out to be a 2 round dud.

[woodenbandman]

^To try and avoid the 2 round dud thing, describe every action in excruciating detail. That way, on the off chance that it is a 2 rounder, it'll at least seem like a good fight.

[PhaedrusXY]

as a special note also the Blue is beyond genius the highest IQ recoded was 230 and without any more int bumps he would have 240, just to put that in perspective.

I disagree with the whole "1 int = 10 IQ" paradigm.  Mostly because a person with 4 int is basically a functional person that's really stupid, while a 40 IQ human can't even control his bowels, walk, talk, or not jerk off whenever he feels like it.  Also, IQ is really good at measuring how retarded you are, but less good at measuring how smart you are. 

I was using the fact that 100 iq is average and 10 int is average, so proportional increased would result in 24=240.  Not like it really matters the point was that the blue should be smarter than any real person any of us have ever met. Just like that fighter with a 20+ strength should be stronger than anyone we would ever meet. By levels 8-10 the characters should begin becoming super human in what they can do. Heck even a strait Fighter can perform superhuman feats of strength and swordsmanship by this point.

This isn't statistically correct. There have been threads analyzing the statistics of random intelligence in D&D vs. actual intelligence statistics in the real world. The "every point of Int in D&D = 10 points of IQ in the real world" does not hold up at all. An int of 180 is not equal to an IQ of 180. IIRC, it was more like Int 18 = IQ of 140. You can't really analyze beyond that much, because it usually involves having an inflated score due to "magic items" and "leveling bumps", things which don't extrapolate well into RL.

[Agita]

as a special note also the Blue is beyond genius the highest IQ recoded was 230 and without any more int bumps he would have 240, just to put that in perspective.

This isn't statistically correct. There have been threads analyzing the statistics of random intelligence in D&D vs. actual intelligence statistics in the real world. The "every point of Int in D&D = 10 points of IQ in the real world" does not hold up at all. An int of 180 is not equal to an IQ of 180. IIRC, it was more like Int 18 = IQ of 140. You can't really analyze beyond that much, because it usually involves having an inflated score due to "magic items" and "leveling bumps", things which don't extrapolate well into RL.

Then there's the fact that yes, IQ 100 is average... always. IQ tests are created such that within the group the test is made for, the average is always 100. That's because the formula for a person's IQ score is ([Subject's Intelligence]/[Expected intelligence for the subject's age])*100. Even an Orc with 8 Int would have an IQ of 100, because that's the average for his race (And age, assuming he's an adult, i.e. not middle-aged or older). A black ethergaunt with 31 Int? Perfectly average. The IQ=Intx10 equation is stupid because it uses humans as a baseline, when there's not even one single IQ test that works equally for humans of all ages, ethnicities, and genders.

Sorry for going off on a largely off-topic tangent, we just discussed IQ a week ago in Psychology class.