idbeholdME: Also forgot regarding the strategy:
It seems that You, I and Smarty are currently the only people here which could go engage in frontal, full-on melee. Thulgrun is dead, Triock bailed and Darrim left through one of the doors earlier. The rest are spell casters mostly. So unless Rangers (
Kyp and Zayd) want to join the fray at the frontline, I guess it is indeed only us 3.
Green_Hilltop: Yes, that was the reason why I'm proposing the three of us go and engage the enemies in melee, while the rangers shoot from behind, since we have no idea if Triock will join us or not (he's back in the main tunnel, but behind us), so it's better to be overbuffed rather than not (and metagaming aside, we wouldn't have known the side tunnel team is approaching).
That's also one the reasons why I considered saving the cleric/paladin during the battle, so we could get more leverage in the fight, however I was thinking it over during the night and realized it's better to save him afterwards, since he might get hurt more due to not having armour anyway and you'll have the shield, so he wouldn't be protected as much - and it's better to first take down the hags and then free the captive, unless it turns out Max and Babargh don't have anything else to do (since usually only 2-3 can attack one enemy, and if they're all crowded next to each other, we might hardly have 2 people attacking one due to space).
There might be more than 3 hags too, we don't know the count, unless we can ask Roosevelt in character by shouting.
Very important question: Does your dispel work on an area, or on a specific spell? So if each hag has their own magic shield, would we need to dispel each individually, or would 1x Dispel Magic work? It's possible it's just one spell (one barrier) protecting all of them though.
The strategy which could work: 1. You cast Reflect Spells on the 3 of us, which should leave you with 2 spells, right?
2. If Dispel Magic doesn't target an area, we all start moving forward and attack with ranged to determine if there is one barrier or multiple ones by:
a) either the rangers shoot arrows at each witch so we know where the magic shields are
b) we throw rocks/torches at the Hags - or we combine both a) and b)
3. You cast Dispel Magic (and
Thras can join too if he has one, eg. "I cast Dispel Magic if Svartalf's doesn't succeed or there are magic shields remaining)
4.
Me, Smarty and Svartalf rush the hags, ideally 2 people take one, and the remaining one targets the one fighting the spider, so there are 2 allies per hag.
5. The rangers target the hag which no one has engaged, so that they don't accidentally hit us.
6.
Babargh, Max and 2 other people who want (rangers or Thras+Roark) follow, under the Globe of Protection spell (so that our Reflect can first Reflect), and start attacking whoever they assume they can, without hitting us.
Babargh has a sword and shield and Max could try positioning himself so that he could backstab, right?
This would work great if there is a fourth hag there, or if they can move to attack after the rangers have fired their shots. Idieally Babargh and Max fight one hag together. The other two with them could attack another one that's open to attack.
7. If it's too crowded for them to join us, they could instead try freeing Roosevelt or just standing by to attack in case they summon creatures or the hags move around.
8. Roark and Thras should be careful if they want to cast, so that they don't hit us- it's probably better if they don't attack with spells unless there is a fifth hag or one not attacked by anyone they could cast Poison Darts or something else at them. Otherwise they risk hitting us too.
MaxFulvus: I can try to liberate the captive but I need a derivation. The hags must remain focus on warriors, while I use my lockpicks to open the cage. I will also need to check if the cage is not trapped first !
Babargh has to assist and protect me during the operation.
A risky plan !
1 : cast everything you can !
2 : go to the close combat with the hags, while Babargh and me try to sneak and free Roosevelt.
3 : checking traps on and around the cage and open it. Giving him a sword and a shield to fight.
4 : slay the bitches !
5 : profit !
Green_Hilltop: Svartalf's right, I also came to the conclusion during the night that it might be better if you and Babargh move in to support us, and only go and free Roosevelt if there's no one you can attack - since the Globe should provide a good bonus, and the hags might be targetted by our Reflect Spells. Can you backstab and together with Babargh face one witch, if there's one not targetted by anyone?
Check the strategy I provided in the post above, I listed the steps! :)
I guess i can shoot even though she shot back the last one.