Is this a fair encounter? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Is this a fair encounter? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Khisanth Magus
05-19-06, 06:35 PM First, I want to give some background on the campaign we are in. Essentially the story goes that eons ago this dark god was sealed away in the capital city of his empire. Well, some people were investigating the ruins that happened to be said capital city, and weakened the seal holding the god in(the god's name is Exe). Our(original) party was hired by the adventurer's guild that was supplying guards for the excavation of the ruins. When we were hired was the last time we have been in a town, as the excavation site is a month or so out.

At one point our party got split up and half of us met up with the ghosts of the heroes that sealed Exe away, and were more or less compelled by them to strengthen the seal holding Exe in. The other two members of the party(which included my character at the time) were sucked into a whirlpool and compelled to do the opposite.

Well, to make a long story short, we got into the ruins of Exe's temple in his former capital city, in order to re-seal him(or set him free depending on each character's goal). In this dungeon we have repeatedly faced encounters just at the peak of what we could handle, or sometimes more. We have lost multiple characters in here(one player is on his third character in this dungeon alone), with replacement characters mysteriously appearing ala deus ex mechanus. This was our party before the encounter:

Level 8 Raptoran Shaper(me)
Level 5 Human Druid/Level 3 Master of many forms
Level 8 Tibbit swashbuckler
Level 8 Human Warlock
Level 5 awakened Pseudodragon sorcerer
Level 8 Human Bard
We were missing the players(and hence the characters) for our Level 8 Human(ish) evil Cleric of Exe and our Level 8 Sentient zombie ranger[ranged weapon specialist](who is nominally under the control of the cleric).

Right before the encounter we were joined by a Level 8 Lizardman Scout.

Ok, so this seems like a decent party. We are a bit short on healing without our cleric(she may be evil, but she helps the party because she needs us and she does memorize healing spells), but we could probably manage. The problem is that this was the third or fourth encounter since we last rested. I was almost out of PP, the Bard was almost out of spells, as was the Pseudodragon.

Then we ran into a Dragon Skeleton. According to the DM after the game it is a CR 11 monster, which he felt we should be able to handle because of the size of the party. The end result of the battle: the druid and swashbuckler are permanently dead, I am out of energy, the bard is completely out of spells, and we are in critical condition, and out of healing potions. The dragon had a +20-30 to its attack roll, with our highest AC other than the lizardman being around 20ish. So unless he rolled a 1 he hit with all three of his attacks. Which came to about 40-60 damage per round. It knocked out the druid, warlock, and then killed the Tibbit. We were able to get the warlock and druid out of the room and by using pretty much all of our healing potions get everyone back up to decent HP. At this point we were completely out of spells. Then we did the only thing we could do: we all charged. I have several weapons I'm not proficient with, so I was using a +1 flaming greatsword, the master of many forms became a fire giant, the bard used his shocking burst long sword, the lizardman used his flaming guantlets, and the warlock used a magical club we had gotten in our last encounter(not a single one of his eldritch blasts got through the dragon's SR...neither did any of my psionics for that matter). The druid was killed, but that round we managed to kill it. The next round ONE of us remaining ones would have died, as none of us could have taken its full attacks and lived, and it couldn't miss us without fumbling.

The question is, was this a fair encounter? It is true that the DM expected us to have our cleric and ranger(who has a holy longbow or something like that), and the dragon had a horrible AC...but me, the warlock, and the bard did no good until right at the end due to Low energy(me), low on spells(bard), and high SR on the dragon(all of us). In order to use the fact it had a low AC we had to get close enough to hit it, which meant we were going to get hit for 40-50 points of damage, which hardly any of us could take.
OravennasBrother
05-19-06, 07:03 PM For 8 characters, an encounter of CR 11 is not supposed to be extremely lethal, but DSragons tend to be high on the difficulty end for any particular CR. And CR 11 for what is effectively a Level 10 group should be a tough fight. Since you were running 2 Players short, and hence with more like a level 9 equivalent party, you were in a poor position. I do notice that you have nothing which I can identify as a main melee combatant, and those help a lot against large enemies (the Tank rushes in ahead of the rest, draws the monsters AoO and the remainder of you get close enough to do something)
Seems Fair Enough.
freelancer_bob
05-19-06, 07:08 PM Bunch of you has only ac 20 at lvl 8? no wonder it handed your a$$ to you. However, it was probably the fact that the encounter was planned expecting yer cleric "friend" to be present. Yeah it was fair, it was however harsh. suck it up and keep on swinging, trooper! There's hacking to be done!
Edwind
05-19-06, 11:22 PM The AC part IS pretty horrible, I have an 8th level character whos AC is 28...On the note of the encounter... I wouldn't say it was really unfair, you guys were just ill prepared for it. Maybe relying on the cleric for healing isn't the best idea. Get the bard a wand of CLW or two. Also, someone should considering going melee tank, maybe the dead druid? Every party should at least have ONE full tank type of character, unless your DM has told you you wouldn't need one. Like the game I'm playing in right now...

Paladin
Ranger
Ranger
Rogue
Barbarian

The Paladin and the rangers took the combat style from CW, so we lack in spells...And I am the only healer in the party...But we manage. I walk in with my 28 AC, get swarmed and go Full Defence...Barely anything can touch me. And I just let the ranged ranger blow things away, and the barbarian pancake whatever he wants. The Rogues uber skill monkey, 20 Int and he plans on going examplar.. We get by. Anyways, off topic...

It wasn't that bad, I'd be going through the equipment and spell forums and asking around for healing ideas. My thoughts anyways.
Khisanth Magus
05-20-06, 02:49 AM See, a great deal of our problem is that we havn't been to town since around lvl 3-4. We have been out in the middle of the jungle, a month away from the nearest city, the entire time. And all we get for loot is more and more weapons. All of our characters are carrying around like 5 different magical weapons at any given time. We can't get more potions, we can't get cure wands, we can't get stuff to boost our AC. Although there isn't a definate time when Exe will break lose, we still are kind of on a deadline. The only people who ever have magical equipment up to their level is the new characters to replace dead ones, and even those the DM limits how much magical equipment we can have. Despite this fact we are facing encounters at what we should face with equipment of our level.

We have had a couple warriors in our party, but due to the inability to get new equipment, they become ineffectual rather quickly. Our master of many forms has had to fullfill the role of tank, since we are still using the rule that his HP is according to the CON score of his new form.
Edwind
05-20-06, 04:12 AM Then why not have one of the new characters coming in have a Wand and a mass amount of potions and things like that. If you're DM isn't giving you slack then you should just bring your own goodies into play. And if all you're getting is weapons for loot, tell the DM that you don't need anymore and he should maybe throw in potions and healing stuff into the treasure instead of that +2 flaming bag of hamsters.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Khisanth Magus 05-19-06, 06:35 PM	First, I want to give some background on the campaign we are in. Essentially the story goes that eons ago this dark god was sealed away in the capital city of his empire. Well, some people were investigating the ruins that happened to be said capital city, and weakened the seal holding the god in(the god's name is Exe). Our(original) party was hired by the adventurer's guild that was supplying guards for the excavation of the ruins. When we were hired was the last time we have been in a town, as the excavation site is a month or so out. At one point our party got split up and half of us met up with the ghosts of the heroes that sealed Exe away, and were more or less compelled by them to strengthen the seal holding Exe in. The other two members of the party(which included my character at the time) were sucked into a whirlpool and compelled to do the opposite. Well, to make a long story short, we got into the ruins of Exe's temple in his former capital city, in order to re-seal him(or set him free depending on each character's goal). In this dungeon we have repeatedly faced encounters just at the peak of what we could handle, or sometimes more. We have lost multiple characters in here(one player is on his third character in this dungeon alone), with replacement characters mysteriously appearing ala deus ex mechanus. This was our party before the encounter: Level 8 Raptoran Shaper(me) Level 5 Human Druid/Level 3 Master of many forms Level 8 Tibbit swashbuckler Level 8 Human Warlock Level 5 awakened Pseudodragon sorcerer Level 8 Human Bard We were missing the players(and hence the characters) for our Level 8 Human(ish) evil Cleric of Exe and our Level 8 Sentient zombie ranger[ranged weapon specialist](who is nominally under the control of the cleric). Right before the encounter we were joined by a Level 8 Lizardman Scout. Ok, so this seems like a decent party. We are a bit short on healing without our cleric(she may be evil, but she helps the party because she needs us and she does memorize healing spells), but we could probably manage. The problem is that this was the third or fourth encounter since we last rested. I was almost out of PP, the Bard was almost out of spells, as was the Pseudodragon. Then we ran into a Dragon Skeleton. According to the DM after the game it is a CR 11 monster, which he felt we should be able to handle because of the size of the party. The end result of the battle: the druid and swashbuckler are permanently dead, I am out of energy, the bard is completely out of spells, and we are in critical condition, and out of healing potions. The dragon had a +20-30 to its attack roll, with our highest AC other than the lizardman being around 20ish. So unless he rolled a 1 he hit with all three of his attacks. Which came to about 40-60 damage per round. It knocked out the druid, warlock, and then killed the Tibbit. We were able to get the warlock and druid out of the room and by using pretty much all of our healing potions get everyone back up to decent HP. At this point we were completely out of spells. Then we did the only thing we could do: we all charged. I have several weapons I'm not proficient with, so I was using a +1 flaming greatsword, the master of many forms became a fire giant, the bard used his shocking burst long sword, the lizardman used his flaming guantlets, and the warlock used a magical club we had gotten in our last encounter(not a single one of his eldritch blasts got through the dragon's SR...neither did any of my psionics for that matter). The druid was killed, but that round we managed to kill it. The next round ONE of us remaining ones would have died, as none of us could have taken its full attacks and lived, and it couldn't miss us without fumbling. The question is, was this a fair encounter? It is true that the DM expected us to have our cleric and ranger(who has a holy longbow or something like that), and the dragon had a horrible AC...but me, the warlock, and the bard did no good until right at the end due to Low energy(me), low on spells(bard), and high SR on the dragon(all of us). In order to use the fact it had a low AC we had to get close enough to hit it, which meant we were going to get hit for 40-50 points of damage, which hardly any of us could take.
OravennasBrother 05-19-06, 07:03 PM	For 8 characters, an encounter of CR 11 is not supposed to be extremely lethal, but DSragons tend to be high on the difficulty end for any particular CR. And CR 11 for what is effectively a Level 10 group should be a tough fight. Since you were running 2 Players short, and hence with more like a level 9 equivalent party, you were in a poor position. I do notice that you have nothing which I can identify as a main melee combatant, and those help a lot against large enemies (the Tank rushes in ahead of the rest, draws the monsters AoO and the remainder of you get close enough to do something) Seems Fair Enough.
freelancer_bob 05-19-06, 07:08 PM	Bunch of you has only ac 20 at lvl 8? no wonder it handed your a$$ to you. However, it was probably the fact that the encounter was planned expecting yer cleric "friend" to be present. Yeah it was fair, it was however harsh. suck it up and keep on swinging, trooper! There's hacking to be done!
Edwind 05-19-06, 11:22 PM	The AC part IS pretty horrible, I have an 8th level character whos AC is 28...On the note of the encounter... I wouldn't say it was really unfair, you guys were just ill prepared for it. Maybe relying on the cleric for healing isn't the best idea. Get the bard a wand of CLW or two. Also, someone should considering going melee tank, maybe the dead druid? Every party should at least have ONE full tank type of character, unless your DM has told you you wouldn't need one. Like the game I'm playing in right now... Paladin Ranger Ranger Rogue Barbarian The Paladin and the rangers took the combat style from CW, so we lack in spells...And I am the only healer in the party...But we manage. I walk in with my 28 AC, get swarmed and go Full Defence...Barely anything can touch me. And I just let the ranged ranger blow things away, and the barbarian pancake whatever he wants. The Rogues uber skill monkey, 20 Int and he plans on going examplar.. We get by. Anyways, off topic... It wasn't that bad, I'd be going through the equipment and spell forums and asking around for healing ideas. My thoughts anyways.
Khisanth Magus 05-20-06, 02:49 AM	See, a great deal of our problem is that we havn't been to town since around lvl 3-4. We have been out in the middle of the jungle, a month away from the nearest city, the entire time. And all we get for loot is more and more weapons. All of our characters are carrying around like 5 different magical weapons at any given time. We can't get more potions, we can't get cure wands, we can't get stuff to boost our AC. Although there isn't a definate time when Exe will break lose, we still are kind of on a deadline. The only people who ever have magical equipment up to their level is the new characters to replace dead ones, and even those the DM limits how much magical equipment we can have. Despite this fact we are facing encounters at what we should face with equipment of our level. We have had a couple warriors in our party, but due to the inability to get new equipment, they become ineffectual rather quickly. Our master of many forms has had to fullfill the role of tank, since we are still using the rule that his HP is according to the CON score of his new form.
Edwind 05-20-06, 04:12 AM	Then why not have one of the new characters coming in have a Wand and a mass amount of potions and things like that. If you're DM isn't giving you slack then you should just bring your own goodies into play. And if all you're getting is weapons for loot, tell the DM that you don't need anymore and he should maybe throw in potions and healing stuff into the treasure instead of that +2 flaming bag of hamsters.