So. D&D. Player again, so I might have just kicked the DM’s Curse.
TL:DR mode, we’re playing as mercenaries/agents/militia of a Empire that’s nominally the ‘good guys’ in the setting, the enemies are a series of Elven Queendoms that want to kill off all other races to make themselves the sole wielders of magic because the current rulers all drank the Kool-Aid and think their ‘mortality’ is the result of other races ‘polluting’ magic, and a very large, low-magic high-tech Human Imperium that really loves themselves and likes to enslave other races and has a very biased revisionist view of the world and history, and the only reason they haven’t won is because Humanity can’t stop playing the game of ‘hide the hand-and-a-half blade’ with each other over which one of them is the ‘purest’ example of Humanity.
The Issvalian Empire basically is … everybody else, including folks from the Queendoms and Imperium who decided this was nuts and wanted no part of any of it, who came together for mutual protection and became the second largest nation in the world as a result and one of the few places where religious and social freedom is accepted as the norm.
So our party is a Kobold Necromancer (me), Hobgoblin Artificer, Human Fighter, Goblin Ranger, Half-Drow Red Dragon Sorcerer and a Lizardfolk Druid. All 9th level at this point, and we started at 4th level on the 19th of last month, so we’ve … been through some shizzles, lets say?
We’ve been tasked as part of a group of ‘advanced’ scouting parties to reclaim a island-continent that was abandoned during the last open conflict between the Queendoms, the Empire and the Imperium, taking back old storehouses and stockpiles, clearing out ruins, dungeons and abandoned structures and basically doing the scut-work for the Legions so they can focus on actually rebuilding stuff.
So the poor Druid has been turned into the Heal-Bus, and I basically handle all magical macguffinery and utility so the Sorcerer can blow things up and the Artificer, Fighter and Ranger handle melee, traps and talking.
It is weird to have a character without ranks in talking skills, but I’m a spooky little ash-scaled Kobold who has 10 Human Skeletons wearing Scale-Mail, armed with muskets and basically here’s my problem.
Due to the shenanigans of the other players, we’ve got a bunch of Blackguards-who-think-they-are-Paladins from the Human Imperium who are seriously after us, and to try and keep our party alive. Ranger covers our tracks as best she can, we do a 6-to-8 hour forced march so we’re covering as much ground as we can without gaining any levels of Exhaustion, then I get the Skeleton Union to princess-carry the party and march for another 8 hours, since Undead don’t suffer from Fatigue in 5th Edition D&D, then we take a long rest.
Our speed is limited, but since the Blackguards lost most of their troops to me sending in the bulk of my Skeleton Union, loaded down with barrels of Gunpowder, Alchemist’s Fire and Lantern Oil, blowing themselves up and shearing off an entire side of a castle that was clinging to the side of a mountain, their ability to keep up with us is limited and since the Skeletons can just march up and down the streams and our Ranger only needs to make checks to obscure our passage every few hours, we can cover our tracks relatively well.
Except I’m fairly certain the Blackguards have access to some sort of Divination magic and/or they have a sample from one of the characters because they keep showing up. They are obviously high enough level to use Find Greater Steed, which means they are at least 13th level, and that also means they can use Locate Creature.
I dropped these people off the side of a mountain, and they were back for more in seven rounds.
We need to get rid of these Blackguards, but they’re absurdly tough and being Blackguards (Paladins with Oath of Conquest), they have shocking amounts of healing available to themselves, they cause Fear in combat shockingly often and it’s a six-vs-five fight, and these Blackguards have no chill, being the elite super-soldiers of the Imperium.
We’re effectively fighting Space Marines.
Should we:
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Volley Ambush. Firearms are Martial Weapons in this setting, so most of everybody has access to them, and the DM ruled the Skeletons have ‘instincts’ of their past lives, so they do know how to use a rifle. We lure the Blackguards into a choke-point, use our remaining explosives to trap them in place and just rain hell down on them while the Skeleton Union sacrifices itself to hold them in place for however many rounds it takes.
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Keep Running. The DM has let slip that these Blackguards have Class-Levels and they are higher level than we are. Currently we’re booking it back to the biggest Legion outpost on the island-continent, which is still two in-game weeks away at forced-march pace, and once we get within range, I can risk a Sending Spell, hang the Queendom’s magical ‘eaves-dropping’, and call for backup because holy
these Blackguards are tougher than boot leather and twice as nasty. -
Split the Party. One of the things I am considering is that the Blackguards are using Locate Creature to track us through my Skeleton Union (Undead raised and controlled through Animate Undead), since they know we have Undead. I want to have our Sorcerer (who knows Fly and Invisibility and could easily run back to us if I send my Familiar with her to guide her back to us) to lead the Skeleton Union down one path while the rest of us take a hidden path and burn some resources to go into hiding. If the Blackguards go after the Skeletons, we know they’re tracking our Undead through magic and we can possibly get an insurmountable lead on them as they chase after my Skeleton Union. If they come after us, they are tracking us directly and the Sorcerer is just to book it to the nearest Legion Outpost to get backup while we find a place to hunker down and wait for backup. If they split up to try and follow both of groups, we’re at least dividing them and we’ve got a chance to actually kill some of them without the Chain of Hand Holding (Blackguards basically using Healing Touch on each other) rendering our attempts to murk them useless.
Our DM has pointed out we weren’t supposed to win against the Blackguards, she intended to have them show up as a ‘no you run now’ event, and our blowing them up and killing all their men has made them go AWOL to kill us and avenge the ‘dishonor’ of ‘lesser races’ defeating them, so they are going to follow us everywhere until either they are dead, or we are, and we’ve blown most of our expendable resources just to keep away at this point, and they have flying mounts, Gryphons, which are not fun to face in melee when you’ve got Paladins in Adamantite Plate-Armor with more hit-points than God bearing down on you.
on us before, and trying to bring an elite band of the Elves down on the Paladins who have ‘claimed a powerful relic that absorbs magic’ would be certain to bring at least a handful of Elven Elite troops come rushing to claim it, even going AWOL themselves if need be, considering how cut-throat Elven politics are in the Queendoms.