Nerd Pride Radio

So to recap for those who missed last night's session:

We marched to Hook Mountain and did some scouting. Eldthor wildshaped into an eagle, Annemenue turned him invisible, and he flew around inside the big cave to scout things out. And here's what he found:

In the entry tunnel, there's a skeleton of some sort of large creature with ribs that reach 20 feet high. There's also a 40 foot tall statue of a giant wearing a sihedron rune necklace. That tunnel leads to a small central chamber (with a side room containing a pit of ashes that looked like a funeral pyre), with a room to the left that is the living area/forges (with tunnels leading down to mines), and a tunnel to the right. Taking the tunnel to the right, that branches in two: the right branch leads to a very large, open air throne room, while he was unable to check out the tunnel to the left (you'll see why below).

In terms of opposition: There are two Kreeg ogres guarding the main tunnel entrance. In the small central chamber, there are two Kreeg ogres and a giant keeping guard. In the living/forge area, there are 10 normal ogres working the forges and 1 Kreeg ogre boss. And in the throne room, there are two stone giants and our friend the lamia. At least one, or both, of the stone giants appear to have magical abilities, because when Eldthor flew into the room, they stopped talking, looked around, and one of them began heading towards where Eldthor was. At that point, he took the better part of valor and withdrew from the cave.

So now we need to discuss options for how we handle this. We could take the direct approach and enter through the tunnel, taking out ogres as we go and working our way towards the throne room. Or we could try climbing over a 75 foot high cliff in order to climb down through the open air ceiling of the throne room and directly attack the giants and lamia, bypassing all of the ogres (who could then potentially come attack us in the throne room). If we do the latter, we have to somehow take care of the 2 Kreegs keeping guard at the tunnel entrance, since the 75 foot cliff we would need to climb is right in front of them. Feel free to bring up whatever other options you think are viable.

P. S. - He didn't see the former commander of the Black Arrows in any of the rooms he looked at. So he's either down in the mines or off in the section of tunnel that Eldthor wasn't able to explore.

I'm personally in favor of a direct approach. I don't like the idea of fighting at least 2 spellcasters, a dozen regular ogres and at least 3 Kreeg ogres at the same time.

I think we can come up with a way to get the sentries away from the entrance and deal with them, and then deal with the ogres in the forge room, and then take the spellcasters to task.

What do you guys think?

Actually, we would potentially be facing 3 spellcasters at the same time: the 2 stone giants (if both are casters) plus the lamia. And this is the lamia who almost put Hal on his ass with one attack round back in the cellar at Fort Rannick. I'm worried about our odds in facing these three opponents one-at-a-time, let alone together, let alone if they are able to summon a dozen or so ogres to come harass us as well. So I'm fine with a divide-and-conquer-the-lowly-peon-ogres first approach.

Yeah, I didn't want to assume that the other stone giant was a spellcasters, though it seems likely.

The other valuable notes we got from the remaining black arrows:

The Kreeg are led by someone named Grolki. Its not clear whether or not he was scouted out last night.

The Kreegs are known to occasionally work with a coven of hags. Eldthor did not see them during his scout, do it is not clear whether or not they are working with them currently.

Kay leans toward the more direct approach as well. The last thing we want is to be fighting a group of spellcasters and having a dozen or so ogres rush in to flank us. (Of course, fighting a dozen or so ogres and having the spellcasters start pelting us isn't the best either... Or having the Lamia dimension door away again...)

If there were a way to draw some of the ogres away from the complex by using an illusion or something, that would be good. But they would come back... so maybe we could set a trap for them to run into?

BTW I think it's really cool that our DM has a picture of Dwyn as his NPR avatar. Thanks, Dothan! Hey, how cool would it be if Dwyn and/or Hal could be made invisible long enough to slip up riiiight next to the Lamia and giants, while Eldthor floats down on them in Eagle form before landing somewhere twenty feet above as a human and taking some bow shots straight down at their skulls? Ew, vicious thoughts. It's hard for me to think like a fighter sometimes. What other buffs you got for me, magic-users?

Wellllllll poop.

So it sounds like the general consensus is to take the direct approach through the cavern, starting with trying to lure away the two guards at the cave entrance. Agree?

Sounds good to me.