Sometimes the Best Weapon You Have is Your Mouth

Last night our group assaulted the castle in Phandelver.  We struck at it last week.  We just killed a few and when the castle became alert we got out.  This time however, was much different.

We attacked from the south instead of the north this time.  A simple adjustment.  We hoped to avoid any ambushes the goblins may have set up.  They are very good ambushers.  We entered the castle and hell broke loose fairly quickly.  I don't remember exactly how it happened, but we had orcs and goblins to the left and right of us, our exit barred because we had orcs and wolves coming up from behind AND there was an owlbear wandering around.  Wait, wait, not done.  And an elf shooting at us.

Two of our party members are on the floors.  We've killed a large number, but we are just outnumbered and our big fighter is getting torn up by the owlbear.  We were able to stabilize one and I force fed a healing potion to another.  But we were still very trapped.

This is where it got interesting.  We are playing 5E and my character is a rogue with an 18 charisma.  He's more of a con-man than pickpocket or dungeoneer.  Since he hit 3rd level I took Arcane Trickster so I got a few spells to cast.  One included Disguise Self.  I changed myself to look like an orc and pursued the elf (who I targeted as the boss) and hoped he would think I was an orc so I could get close enough to him to get a backshot in.  Nope.  I found him outside taking the form of a dead goblin and he was not fooled by my disguise at all.

But here's where my mouth became the most import weapon.  He ran to a group of orcs and goblins thinking they would attack me.  But I used my persuasion ability along with my disguise and all of a sudden orcs were killing goblins and goblins were bleeding on orcs.  The entire group started slaughtering one another.  The elf said something like "I can't believe this shit". 

Persuasion has been a life saver on more than on occasion.  I was able to take out a group of three orcs, two wolves, and I think six goblins and never shot an arrow or bloodied my blade.  So far in our 5E adventure my mouth has been my deadliest weapon.