Phase 1 : Operation Fire Giant Genocide
As the name suggests our goal will be to kill as many Fire Giants as
possible before re-entering the lair. Based on the note we revived there were
approximately 60 Fire Giants who live inside of that lair, a handful of Trolls
and a handful of Hellhounds? Thus far we have killed and burned most of the
troll population I'd imagine, and downed I believe 4 Fire Giants as the fifth
one ran away. That leaves around 54 of them for us to contend with, no easy
feat. We know 5 of them have left the lair and are tracking our party, while I
think we have time to make it to the town and rest up for a night, I believe we
can run into them on the way back to the volcano and take them out. That would
reduce the Fire Giant population to approximately 49. Of those 49 we have no
idea how many of them could be Shamans, so based on the numbers we ran into at
the Great Moot they probably have 1 Shaman per 10 Fire Giants, so we should
expect no less than 6, possible more of them in there.
That being said, 49 Fire Giants are alot of mouths to feed, and while we
didn't explore a large portion of their lair, I imagine they have to raid
regularly in order to maintain their stocks of food. That bard stew probably
didn't go far. With that in mind its likely that nearby towns and villages have
had run-ins with these guys and may possibly be willing to help us out, whether
it be in the form of supplies or man-power, kind of like the Green Rangers.
However, assuming Al isn't going to give us another safety net like that, we'll
have to assume that its on us alone to take out the remaining Fire Giants.
Ideally we'd want to get eyes on a raiding party leaving the lair, figure out
which town/village they are heading to and setup an ambush for them on the
return trip in order to reduce their numbers even more. Judging from the size of
the raiding party at the Great Moot, we can probably expect a dozen or two Fire
Giants to be caught out this way, which if we can deal with them then that will
cut down their numbers by anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 their remaining
population.
The primary issue we have fighting the Fire Giants is the amount of damage
they are almost guaranteed to do to us. Aside from Ragnar, everyone else is
almost a 100% hit rate for these guys, and they're dropping some serious damage
from that. We simply do not have the healing available to keep up with
back-to-back fights with these guys. A hasted frontline would hopefully drop 3
or 4 of them in the first round of an ambush, then more in the rounds after,
giving us solid odds of walking away with our lives.
Phase 2 : Operation There Is Nowhere To Hide
This phase is pretty simple, assuming we're still alive after the initial
combat with the patrol hunting us, then assuming we're able to take out a raid
of them in an ambush, that will leave around 25 - 35 of them left down in the
Lair. We'd head in through the kind-of secret passage in the snowy area, as they
will likely have the front guarded heavily, and go room to room clearing them
out. With some luck we can manage to silence groups of them without alerting the
rest of the lair and can make good progress through it. I imagine this wil not
be do-able in a single fell sweep, even if drummer boy didn't screw everything
up last sessions I imagine we would have still fell back out of the lair in
order to re-group and heal up. Ultimately the key goal inside this lair will be
to not get surrounded, it looks like there are multiple ways to approach pretty
much any area inside of the lair and if we get ourselves cornered then we're
pretty much done for.
Phase 3 : Operation Taking Out The Trash
Assuming the previous phases have been successful and after the last one we
needed to fall back once more for some additional healing/leveling, then this
phase would see the party looking at a dozen or less Fire Giants, including
their leader and Ragnar's father most likely remaining inside the lair. They
would likely be grouped up in a room or area together and hunkered down for a
final assault, which we rarely turn down the opportunity to assault heavily
fortified areas. We'd hit them with full spells and full hp and hopefully come
out as the last ones standing.
Phase 4 : Operation Get Rich
So a den of Fire Giants who have likely been raiding and pillaging the
surrounding area for quite some time (as noone would have the man-power to root
them out) is likely hoarding some serious loot inside the place. We retrieve
Ragnar's Father's Axe, Ragnar's Father's Head if things go down that way (still
not sure if Ragnar will allow it regardless of the situation, be warned), and
turn the place upside-down taking everything but the kitchen sink... unless its
made out of gold, then we'll take it too.
This entire plan works off of some assumptions based on previous Giant
tendencies that we've witness, and the fact that we won't simply die along the
way. Overall, I think it is do-able, there will be a ton of exp to be had (54
Fire Giants x 8,000 xp each = 432,000 xp / 7 players = 61,714 xp each, not
including any treasure xp or potential quest xp, or shamans additional xp)