So our GM is running Hoard of the Dragon Queen for three of us. We are all lvl 5, no relevant magical items.
Human Barbarian (me): 18str/14dex/17con, half-plate 17 AC, 57 HP, bear totem. Wielding a maul.
Wood Elf Monk: 20dex/16con/18wis (yeah he rolled a quite OP monk) 19 AC, 35HP: Way of the four elements, shortsword, fist.
Wood Elf Life Cleric: 16 dex, 14con16 wis, half plate AC 17, Sharpshooter perk, longbow.
So we are travelling with a caravan between Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep, where an encounter calls for 3 assassins (CR8 each).
This is a CR24 encounter that is deadly for 3 lvl 15-16 characters, so it seems over the top for little us!
The stat block for assassins give them 15 AC, 78 HP, and the riduculous damage output of two attacks 1d6+3 + 7d6 poison (con save DC 15 for half) + 4d6 sneak attack + assassinate. So potentially 20d6+3 dmg per turn each (without crits). They even won initiative against all but our cleric.
Plot twist. We won fair and square :D Well I was allowed to rage pre-combat, however it did turn out to not matter.
It started out with our cleric blessing us (in retrospect he should have cast hold person, but bless turned out to save our butts), two of them one-shot me (barb) before my turn by doing 115 dmg (I made all con saves), bringing me to -1 HP and the last one doing some range damage to our monk bringing him to 2 hp. Not a great start you would think...I belive we are 100% doomed, I almost started creating a new character right there. At this point we still have 234hp assassin HP to whittle down. But it turned out that would be the only time any of us would go down.
I won't narrate it round by round, but basically between the monk successfully hitting every stunning strike thanks to bless (until his 5 ki ran out) and them failing their save on all of them, one casting of hold person (1 of 2 stuck) and some strategic healing, the cleric using the dodge action at the necessary time, making the assassin who would have demolished him miss both his attacks and going back for another target (and also give his companions sneak attack), me making all my con saves as I was tanking many of the remaining attacks we finally walk out of it by the skin of our teeth. With a mighty 300 xp reward :p 13500gp'ish worth of gems, a potion of storm giant strength (+29) and a yet unidentified scroll.
Lucky you guys!
This is what the author, Steve Winter, had to say about that encounter:
Huscarl wrote:
^ Thanks for posting this. HOTDQ is next on the list for my group and I've been concerned about this encounter. I expect I'll choose Option 4, as one of my players (my daughter) has read the MM cover to cover and it will totally stump her...
To cap your incredible night, that scroll ought to be Wish. 