Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Silveus 12-08-06, 09:43 PM	my group consisting of..... cleric 10 druid 11 monk 9 warloc 7/ranger 2/druid 1 ninja 11 (he is actualy a thri-kreen so i think its 13 for him) paladin of tyranny 11 soulknife 11 got sent to jail for several crimes. on our way out we went into the prision bosses room and it tuned out he was a barbed devil. at this point no one except the ninja had their equipment. our equipment was stored in the room with the commander so we could get it but it is behind him, also all of our equipment sucks, out of the 7 of use we got like 5 magic items. so we start fighting this barbed devil and it turns out he has class levels and has some kinda crazy blackfire spear. and can make walls of force around himself while he chugs cure postions. we still almost kill him but then the ground starts breaking up. the party is now split up on 6 little islands surrounded by a pit to hell. and 2 bone devils come up and make a giant wall of force between our forces on the main island. this leaves me (cleric) and the soul knife to take on 1 bone devil. the monk gets to fight the barbed devil and the other bone devil pretty much by himself. the paladin was using a cross bow to help the monk. and every one else got stuck on other islands that left them with no open shots to help. then the ninja is the only one capable of jumping the 30 foot pits but is realy hurt and can't get healing. then an erines (spelled that wrong) uses the little rope tangle thing on the paladin and is begining to drag him into the pit. at this point we can't escape because the stairs that we used to get into this room are blocked and half of the group can't even get over to them. i am pretty sure that this encounter is too strong for us. we might have been able to do it if we had our equipment at first but we didn't. what would the encounter level be for this encounter and is it to hard for us?
IdleAltruism 12-08-06, 09:59 PM	That encounter is literaly nothing to 7 10-11 level characters that are properly geared. The lack of an arcane caster in your group I can see being a problem with so little gear. Throwing devils at naked PCs is a no-no. This was a big DM oops. I'm not sure how you could have won with gear(you said you had like 5 magic items between all of you).
MareltEkiran 12-08-06, 10:05 PM	I can't answer that if I don't know what kind of class levels that Barbed Devil had, but assuming that he's just a normal Barbed Devil: CR 11 (Barbed Devil) CR 9 (x2) (Bone Devil) CR 8 (Erinyes) CR +1 (unfavourable conditions) Two CR 9 creatures = CR 11 CR 11 + CR 11 = CR 13 The Erinyes and the bad conditiond combined probably add another +2 to the whole thing. So we're looking at an EL of about 14-15, which is a very difficult fight for a party of level 10 characters on average, but since there were seven of you, you might have been able to pull through under normal conditions. However... Devils are very hard to fight without proper equipment, due to their damage reductions. Unless the Paladin had Bless Weapon prepared, the Barbed Devil probably didn't take a single point of damage from that crossbow. This seems to be a pretty melee heavy party, without any arcane casters. These devils can all fly and/or teleport, so they have an immense mobility advantage. And they pretty much have a monopoly on arcane might, which they used quite well to separate the party forces. In these situations, Erinyes are absolutely deadly... far worse than their CR 8 would indicate. Overall, it sounds to me like your DM didn't expect the Barbed Devil to lose, so he started summoning more and more hell minions, until your party was guaranteed to be on the losing side.
Knight9910 12-08-06, 10:22 PM	I agree. That sounds like you simply weren't supposed to win. Especially at the end where you almost do win and the DM suddenly tears the ground apart around you and has more enemies come up. Either your DM didn't realize what he was doing (doubtful) or you were supposed to lose.
Silveus 12-09-06, 08:32 AM	i don't understand why he would want us to loose tho. he forced use into the jail thing to progress the story line since we all kinda went off and di what ever (half the party went out and started a riot while the other half started looting shops). when the guards came after all of us it was complelty impossible for us to escape. so unless he wanted to end the game i don't see why he would force us into a fight we can't win like this. as for the barbed devil i am pretty sure he has levels in duskblade. the the weapon he is wielding is a legacy weapon, but oi have no idea what those are or how the work. the paladins cross bow shots were all criticals so he did hurt the bone devil. first time i ever saw some one roll 3 criticals in a row. and as far as i can tell the Erinyes is invisable since the paladin was standing alone on a platform when he suddenly got entangled by a rope. no one has actualy seen the Erinyes, ther emight be more than one also. and i forgot to mention this earlier. the room contained our equipment but it was behind the barbed devil. the room also had alot of locked chests with random stuff in it. it looks like the dm was giving us magical equipment for this fight. except the only person that can open locks was the ninja and since he had equipment he went and fought the devil. so while half the party was fighting the othe half descided to loot the room, thats why half the party is divided by a 40 pit to hell. and the ranger/ druid/ warlock descided that durng the barbed devils healing time that he would kill my cohort so he pushed her into a pit to hell. with that we wound out that these pits kill us. (after this i am killing that guy) EDIT: we had a sorcerer but in the fighting to get to the room with the barbed devil he was killed. its also why the druid and myself have almost no spells left
draco1119 12-09-06, 08:47 AM	Maybe you weren't supposed to fight the devil at all. You are in an Evil party, so maybe the devil was going to recruit you guys, but you all went off half-cocked and started a fight. In order for the devil to survive, the DM had to pull something out of his butt to make you guys give up. Now that I think about it, if you're playing an evil party, why didn't the ones who could escape just run away? I'm pretty sure it wasn't "loyalty."
Silveus 12-09-06, 08:54 AM	from what the devil said before he atacked us. we apperenlt are working for the same guy/thing and the barbed evil used to be his "favorite underling" (the devil said that) and then the devil went crazy and pulled out this huge spear with black flames and attacked us. and the ninja released us all because he thought it would make escapeing easier. this devil was in our path to escape so we had to fight him and the escape path has been closed, and a dimensional anchor had been cast so no one can leave that way. we also released all the prsioners sp they would be a distraction but it turned out all the guards were way higher levels than the prisioners and killed them all. we did manage to move around semi undetected until we ran into the gaurds that killed the sorcerer
draco1119 12-09-06, 09:03 AM	Well, it's possible the DM's trying to kill the party, but it's also possible that it's a plothook. Looks like about a 50/50 chance from where I'm sitting... Another possibility is that the devil was supposed to get away and become a BBEG later on, but the DM over-compensated when you started thrashing him. (Why is it that the BBEG never runs away?)
Silveus 12-09-06, 09:10 AM	at this point i could see how this encounter is the dms way of trying to kill us, but its a school game and its only gonna run about 6 more weeks. so we don't have enough time to start a new one. maybe he just wants to stop DMing but that would realy suck for every one else. he might want the barbed devil to become the BBEG but that doesn't realy make alot of sense. i would have assumed that the superpowerful thing that we ment that some how prevented the entire party from moving without saves would be the BBEG. not his self declared underling. i think the DM thinks we can win this fihgt because we have won some other crazzy fights in the past. when we were all level 3 we killed 7 level 10 guards by forcing them at us one at time in a halway.
Morrowner 12-09-06, 12:30 PM	Here is how I see it... Assuming 3 class levels and another +1 to the CR for gear that was too extravagant(a legacy weapon? come on) the Barbed Devil should have mopped you guys up. Especially since you were gearless and not a totally cooperative group. The DM ex machina of 2 bone devils and an erinyes literally springing out of the ground to make the devil's mobility dominance even more glaring shows to me that the scene either got out of hand or the DM wanted to kill you but gasp, you didn't just bend over and take the TPK and say "Thank you sir! May I have another?" Either way, you were not supposed to win. I would have had the Barbed Devil get his ass whupped so when he came back to fight the party when they had 3 or 4 more levels under his belt he'd have a rock solid vendetta against the party and Real Ultimate Power(tm).
Tiefling_Warlock 12-09-06, 02:41 PM	Assuming 3 class levels and saying the spear was Thanifex, which is a Greatspear made out of colmpletely black material it would just be a normal +1 Greatspear. That means the CR wouldn't go up due to legacy weapon.