Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Byakugan01 Jul 28, 2015 7:34:16	**Princes Spoilers Below**   I dont know how to format stuff, so this is your warning!         My players raided the second floor of the Sacred Stone Monastary last week.  Naturally they decided on the most circuitous route possible.  They fought their way through the ogre/orog room, which for them had 2 ogres and 3 orogs.  They took a few good hits, but the last orog standing retreated to get backup.  They decided not to chase him, and instead waited and used healing magic to heal up afterwards.  Then they decided to explore the opposite direction from which the monster had went.  They quickly skipped past a couple dead end alcoves and right into an intersection of tunnel with a pack of Invisible, enlarged Duergar on every side of them.  They heard the loud battle and hunkered down to wait.  The party is immune to being surprised, so they rolled initiative and most of the players went before the invisible monsters did and didnt know who to attack, so they readied actions to attack when things became visible.  Was a short fight once the duergar took their 1 attack with advantage and gave the PCs a few good hits.  A couple more healing spells down they continued on but they still had a bit of damage left over that they didn't want to use more resources on.  They ended up at the door leading into the room with the Umber hulk, and made a bunch of noise before the barbarian kicked the door open.   Nobody was surprised, but the umber hulk did win initiative.  Since it's a large party, I decided to take a page from another of our DMs book and restore the umber hulk's gaze attack.  He went berserk on the first person he saw...the half orc-barbarian.  Everyone but 1 person averted their gaze and the umber hulk hit the barbarian all 3 times for like 35 damage before he got the chance to use rage.  The 1 person who looked at it failed his save and ran back down the hallway confused.  In the cramped hallway, they couldnt get clear attacks off so they mostly missed him due to disadvantage plus cover.  The barbarian raged, but didn't want to risk looking at the monster, and he did some damage, but the umber hulk retaliated with a claw of his own, and put a gash in his chest with his sharp mandibles.   This left the half orc at a precarious low number of hitpoints, and the umber hulk multi-attacked him again.  The first claw triggered his orcish ferocity ability, and the second claw sliced him across the chest and knocked him out bleeding from the now open chest wound...and then he bit into him with his crushing mandibles critting him.  It was clear that he was laser focused on the barbarian(One of it's cruel captors)...The players decided to gaze fully at the monster to try and kill him quickly, but the gnome druid and the Paladin were overpowered by the mesmeric effect.  The paladin ran back down the hallway, and the druid mistook the cleric for the monster and hit him with his shilleliegh.  The cleric healed the barbarian, and the half-orc stood up and tried to finish the monster off, but failed to breach the thick carapace.  Finally, the Umber Hulk got revenge on his 'torturer' with another multi-attack that hit all 3 attacks.  Rending him with his claws again and lifting him up in his huge mandibles and crushing his torso before releasing a victorious chittering sound.   The party finished off the umber hulk the following round, and the cleric's prayed to the Gods of Life to bring the orcs soul back from the edge of nothingness, and the 300gp diamond  was accepted by the gods who restored life back to the orc(Revivify).   This was my first PC death since I started DMing.  I have to admit it felt a bit satisfying, although that is only because I knew the cleric would end up saving him.  So, I was able to take off the gloves so to speak.  I think the fact they went in the 'wrong' door, and the tactical decisions they went with effectively doubled the difficulty, and the decision not to withdraw and get to the back rank at the end.  That was the last encounter of the dungeon, and their XP reward pushed them all into lv 6.  So it was a well earned reward.  I know it's a cosmetic thing, but I need to remind the Half-orc that if he wants he can have a permanent scar marking his 'achievement'.     Any comments or feedback is welcome.   anecdotes- I used the term rend, but there was no actual rend attack, just 2x claws that hit like Ginsu knives. :-p   I use colorful descriptions to depict what happens in combat, so the descriptions, like being picked up in the jaws, are purely fluff...think Dragon Age kill sequences.  The characters did get scared for a second because they thought I was going to decapitate him, lol.  I do feel like if they can imagine the scene more lifelike than the 'move-attack-move' abstraction the combat system uses it makes for a much more immersive experience.  And also, hopefully he didn't mind getting killed in a really epic way :-p
#2 Danny_Montanny Jul 29, 2015 18:33:41	I would question what actually killed the PC. Once the PC goes unconscious, you still had the monster attack them? The Umber Hulk wouldn't keep attacking a limp Barbarian, they'd just move on to the next threat. Nothing it could've done would've been enough to kill the Half-Orc through the Instant Death rules. Did the Half-Orc manage to fail their death saves in the one round it took the other PCs to finish off the monster? I mean, there wasn't too much harm done (minus 300 gp), but I'd definitely question it if it was my character.
#3 Byakugan01 Jul 29, 2015 23:39:58	thats what berserk means?  he didn't get any death saves, as the monster hit him with 3 attacks from a multi-attack...ie knocked out, then crit twice automatically for 4 failed death saves.   I usually pull punches..ie the smart humanoids don't do the smart thing which is focus 1 PC till they are dead...This best way to get a band of adventurers to leave your dungeon is to kill 1 of them....not to beat all of them up a little bit each.  Especially when u are talking about evil cults that are perfectly willing to sacrifice their subjugates to thwart the enemy.  There have been several fights where at least 1 PC was left unconscious next to an enemy with nobody rushing over to distract or taunt the enemy.   The only other time I did this was with the Fathomers...one of which constricted a bard into unconsciousness, and I made it clear he wasn't going to let him go until he stopped breathing....I actually had the mental picture of the water snake going down the bards throat and the bard drowning as the red tinged snake emerged, but they rushed to save him and chopped the snake off him...then later we did the Drowned Tower, so it was cool to see an idea I had show up in print, and the PCs seemed to think it was cool.
#4 Ravix Jul 30, 2015 0:42:46	It looks like he had the Umber Hulk kill him off with a crit from the claw and a crit from the bite after knocking him unconscious with the first claw attack. I'd say it makes sense, since the half-orc had already "died" once and came back to life due to the cleric.  Umber Hulk wanted to make sure he was dead this time.
#5 Vulf Jul 30, 2015 17:29:27	It makes sense for the Umber Hulk to act the way he described. If the party knew the Barbarian was in such danger they really should have made a better effort to come to his aid. The Umber Hulk probably could have dropped any member of the party, so they should have run away into the narrow hall, or the Barbarian should have used dodge instead of attacking.   Also no party should run in to a room with a monster and allow the monster to take it's turn first before they turn on their defenses! Hopefully the party becomes more careful.   If a DM really wanted to be a dick, he could have had the Umber Hulk carry off the corpse and escape.  Time to reroll.
#6 Byakugan01 Jul 31, 2015 2:47:27	I would be pretty pissed if a DM killed one of my characters -AND- made it permadeath without it being some kind of special encounter...like Barghests or disintegration or undead with create spawn abilities, etc.  So I would probably never do that to one of my players.    Princes is actually pretty a pretty deadly module...Pretty much every boss fight is an Easy TPK if the DM were to play the monsters as smart as PCs.   Low and medium level characters just have very few ways of dealing with multiple NPCs that can cast fireball, for example.  Short of killing them VERY quickly.  Tonight they went to the Scarlet Moon Hall, and the very first encounter with cultists has 2 npcs that can cast fireball.  Since the archer went first and did like 40 damage to the guy in the first round, they had very little reason NOT to fireball all 6 PCs that were clumped together on the trail.  But it would have probably been an instant TPK, cuz the first firebal did 36 damage...So the next one was like umm, Scorching ray!  They nearly failed to kill the 2nd caster by round 2 and they would have gotten firebaled again, had the cleric not used silence.  The silence effect caused the NPC to move away and he died from the AoO from the barbarian, otherwise another 3-4 PCs would have eaten another 8d6.  It's super brutal.  Pretty sure the PCs figured out real fast why the Fire cult is the last one they are supposed to do.  Their tactic immediately became 'sneak through the rough terrain so we can be spread out'...which promptly put them into range of the monsters with Scent, immediately followed by reinforcments showing up.  I turned the second part into a verbal encounter so they could talk their way out of it and gain some more information, since it was the group with the Water cult spy who sorta benefits from the fire outpost being destroyed.  They noticed him flash the water symbol and they showed it back.  I decided he did not put together that they are the same group of adventureres that had already cleared out Riverguard Keep.
#7 Kalani Jul 31, 2015 7:19:10	This post is as spoiler free as possible   Tell me about it. My party was in the Fire Temple last week and were forced to tank 6 fireballs from some random cultists (3 in a single round). Half the party dropped to the first volley alone (Thankfully no one died). I tanked 5 myself (it's good to be a raging wildshaped bear totem Druid/barbarian).    Two weeks before we got into the mini-boss fight with the fire temples #2. That fight was also ugly with most of the party dropping several times to walls of fire. Toward the end, my 8th level wizard was out of spells (I rotate my characters as needed each session) - and I charged between the three guys left standing.   The #2 was on his last legs and centred a fireball on himself which my wizard tanked. It was then followed up by two other fireballs and two burning hands (the cultists were sacrificing themselves and the party to the flames). Fortunately I made most of my saves and had resistance to fire so I survived that one. The fight did kill the party cleric outright though (requiring raise dead).    This week - it was just as tough as we fought several cultists and their slave master in the Temple foundry. The fight would have gone much better if we had the option to rest before hand (we couldn't even get a short rest, and had to rely on clerical healing). As such, the party was still recovering from being fireballed a half-dozen times the week before and while we killed the cultists, we were forced to flee from the slave master and his pet fire elemental. This despite having help from the Slaves themselves.
#8 Ainulindalion Jul 31, 2015 7:49:09	In one of the Tier 1 Season 2 adventures, a Strong (or stronger party) gets a caster upgraded into a full Fire Priest.  When I ran it the first time, he killed (outright, negative max HP) half the party with a single fireball.   Fireball is an extraordinarily deadly spell, particularly if you aren't set to tank it somehow.  There's a reason it's called 'fireball formation'.
#9 Kalani Jul 31, 2015 7:55:38	Yep. Our party was in the "fireball formation" when we tanked 6 fireballs from 3 separate fire cultists - but through little fault of our own (we were in a 10ft wide corridor and were ambushed from two directions). As it was, we had two party members with the Alert feat who were able to spread out the party a little (myself included), but despite this we were still just inside the AoE of the fireball. It is for that reason, and that reason alone that I only had to tank 5 fireballs (instead of 6) as one of the BGs was unable to hit me with the final attack on rnd 2. Sadly, the mooks were faster than the party (even those with Alert) as we bombed our initiative rolls, and so we were forced to tank the first volley before anyone could act in the surprise round. Fortunately for me, I was wildshaped at the time and made 2 of my 3 saving throws, so I tanked them pretty good. Worse yet, they also had fire shields, which caused us to take even more damage each round we fought them in melee. I used the fireshield to my advantage however, as I was down to 1HP on my wildshape at the start of my 2nd turn. As such, I attacked one of the guys with fire shield, which caused my wildshape to end. After my attack, I then spent my bonus action wildshaping again and refreshing my HPs.
#10 Primarchx Jul 31, 2015 8:12:55	As I recall that Umber Hulk had it's confusion ability removed and just retained it's normal attacks.
#11 Ravix Jul 31, 2015 10:39:29	Primarchx wrote:
#12 Byakugan01 Jul 31, 2015 20:42:20	I said in the first post i restored the gaze attack.  6 person party with tons of damage and healing i have to make basically every fight tougher or they will be bored out of their minds.    I have not added any monsters to the scarlet moon hall sofar though...so i will have to add persuit squads or something eventually or they wont be 7th level when they go into their first temple.  Which just seems like suicide. The air and water ones are the easiest but there are so many spellcasters!     And particularly the rooms are set up so its really hard to justify reinforcments not hearing the battle.        @Kalani - nice story!  i like hearing about your games.  Yeah my entire table of 6 took a 36 point fireball, but not a single person failed the save(pretty sure 1 guy fudged cuz i saw the look on his face when he rolled but the number he called out was remarkably high for a +0 save value.)  pretty unlikely odds for 6 characters who need on average an 11-12+ to save.   But now they know better, lol.
#13 Ravix Aug 01, 2015 2:28:55	Yeah, now they know to have someone who can cast Counterspell!
#14 Kalani Aug 01, 2015 8:45:25	If used correctly - counter spell acts as preventative healing for the party. For example: during the fight with the Fire Temples #2 I prevented some 50-100 odd damage to the party when I counter spelled his fireball (which would have hit 5 of the PCs if I didn't).    I was also forced to counter spell his counter spell in order to have my hypnotic pattern succeed (which affected all but 2 of the opponents in round 1).    Despite my perfect timing with counter spell - we still had our cleric die and half the party drop several times during that fight. It was a brutal fight with our APL 6 party (everyone was L6 except my L8 wizard and another L7 character).
#15 Ravix Aug 01, 2015 11:08:51	Always death ward the cleric!
#16 Primarchx Aug 03, 2015 8:11:27	Ravix wrote: