I wanted to post the battle on here and ask for opinions on whether or not our group lacked teamwork. I'm curious to know if that is why we lost the fight.
OUR PARTY
Dragonborn Paladin (polearm warrior)
Elven Fighter (polearm warrior)
Gnoll Warlord (inspiring beserker)
Gnome Rogue (shuriken ambusher)
Human Ranger (scimitar-wielding pirate)
2 DEFENDERS / 2 SKIRMISHERS / 1 LEADER
We fought several kobolds in a small forest clearing near a river and waterfall. They were spread out and roughly half of them came into melee while the other half stayed on the opposite side of the river and used ranged attacks. Our party, except for the rogue, rushed across the river and slaughtered everyone with little trouble. The rogue was left behind to deal with the meleeists on the starting side of the river. Being a gnome, she started the encounter hidden in some trees--where she stayed sniping the crap out of all the meleeists who couldn't figure out who the hell was atttacking them (skill focused stealth gnomes kick ass). Easy battle with little to no trouble (aside from the fact that the squishy rogue with no healing surges was left all alone against half the enemy).
One of the last surviving kobolds ran behind the waterfall into a secret lair. The party pursued him into the cave where they were met by a trio of kobold skirmishers and (unbeknownst to us) about a dozen minions. One of the kobolds pulled a lever dropping a bunch of boulders on the poor gnome (everybody had moved too far ahead to be effected while the gnome stayed back to pick people off) thereby blocking our only escape route. Weakened from the previous fights and the boulders falling on her head, the gnome teamed up with the human to fight off the right side of the crowd of monsters. A few dailies later the room had been entirely cleared of enemies. A moment later (before we could get rested) a goblin Swartzeneggar wannabe showed up and entered the fray. Opposite the goblin beserker, a couple of dragonshields and a wyrmpriest showed up.
Our two defenders left the group and rushed the goblin brute all the while telling the skirmishers to "hold off the other three." Out of game I asked "aren't you two the defenders? We're the strikers. Let us go after the big guy while YOU hold off the artillary and his guards." Sadly it fell on deaf ears and the defenders fought the brute anyway. Before either skirmisher could move to take out the enemy artillary, the gnome rogue was knocked out by a blast of magical fire.
The ranger maneuvered around the outskirts of the fight, got a hit or two in on the brute, and them moved around a wall to get behind the wyrmpriest all the while having cover as he moved up. Since the ranger lost a round or two taking the long, safe way around, the artillary shelled the defenders across the room. The ranger got the jump on the wyrmpriest but missed with his attacks and was forced to retreat from the two dragonshields.
The wyrmpriest and his bodyguards, having driven off the wouldbe assassin, entered the fray along with the defenders and the brute. He released a huge area effect attack that took out nearly everybody leaving only himself, the monstrous goblin brute (who we estimated only made it to a little less than half hit points) and the human ranger left standing (who himself had only survived because he wasn't in the area at the time). The ranger had no hope of taking out the brute and the artillary all by himeslf. He was quickly squashed
Personal Observations
Defenders: They left the rogue and ranger to die in order to fight a single monster themselves. tsk. tsk.
Leader: The Leader was just trying to keep everyone up with his healing (getting in a couple of furious smashes on the brute here and there). He should have used a more damaging power.
Skirmishers: The only two doing their jobs, except the rogue was low on hit points (and out of healing surges) from the get go and both skirmishers should have been pounding on the brute and not following the orders of the two defenders who clearly did not know what they were doing.
What do you guys think?
Irontooth launched an area attack? I don't see any in his stat block.
Battleaxe (standard; at will) weapon +8 vs AC; 1d8+4 dmg
Dual Axe (standard if Irontooth doesn't move) basic attack vs, two adjacent foes
Goblin Tactics (when missed by melee attack, Irontooth can shift 1 square
Blood Crazed (while bloodied) Healing: while bloodied, he gets +1d10 dmg, loses "Goblin Tactics", MUST attack nearest foe, charging when possible. At end of turn heals 5hp.
Nothing wrong with tweaking the moduleto suit your playing style, but it sounds like he may have overpowered things a bit. Does he normally do this?
4E has a much larger focus on teamwork than any previous edition. If you don't think as a team and work as a team, then you'll suffer. You are asking for a TPK (or at least severe damage) if you get into significant combat without your friends nearby.
1. This fight was made to be hard, it's one of the hardest fight in the entire module.
2. Your DM, for some reason, made it even harder by including extra things like the boulder trap.
3. Your party spliting up and attacking different targets without any coordination or cooperation was a bad, bad, bad idea. It takes three or four hits to kill anything that's not a minion in 4e (elite and solos require even more). Your party needs to concentrate their attacks to take out enemies one at a time to kill anything quickly. Getting into situations where you essentially have 1 PC vs. 1 monster dueling each other gets the entire party TPK'ed.
One more thing, a party have to be very cautious about triggering encounters. 4e balances fights by encounters. If you trigger two encounters simultaneously or one after another without resting, you will be in very rough shape.
There was no boulder trap.
Son-of-a-****!
I don't have any problem with the DM adding/changing things, but he probably did it just to get back at me for slaying his monsters! He has a bad habit of getting annoyed when his players seemingly cake-walk his encounters.I played the gnome rogue and have spent my last several fights looking for cover/concealment with which to hide and get combat advantage. Except for those fights where I couldn't find cover/concealment, I've done exceptionally well in combat (though I've been knocked out more than any other character).
When everyone entered the cave, I told the DM I was going to hang back near the waterfall to use its rising mist as concealment to hide in and make sneak attacks from. He probably improvised the trap just to flush me out into the cave where all the bruisers were!
What's more he TRAPPED THE ENTIRE PARTY with NO HOPE of escape thereby practically ensuring the TPK. He even kept insisting that there were no side passages to the outside despite what the map showed! I knew there was something wrong when my character ran in and used torturous strike on the kobold who threw the levar to the boulder trap, only to have him scream and die before I got to roll damage. Bosses are supposed to throw levars! Not minions!If he's just trying to set us up for a homebrew mini-adventure he has in mind (an escape scenario could be a LOT of fun) than I can tolerate a tiny little bit of railroading. If, on the other hand, he did it because he is tired of my striker being a striker then we are going to have a really big problem (as he will likely try and foil my perfectly valid battle tactics later on as well) and I may not want to continue playing under him.
Thanks everyone. Keep it up.
I'm not saying pursuit is always a bad thing, but through a waterfall, knowing there is a kobold lair nearby? With the party already split and resources already limited, a quick pull back and short rest was called for. This would have given you back your encounter powers and everyone (except the Rogue I guess) could have healed. It also provided a chance to decide if it was time for a long rest.
The kobolds might have emerged to attack immediately - but this usually favors the party in a defensive posture - yours in this case.
So I think the error was strategic, not tactical.
While adding the boulder trap may have been unnecessary (balance wise) it does go with kobolds mentality for having such things.
It's always nice to hear of tpk's, especially when the party have mainly themselves to blame.:P
Shows 4e has worked out balance well. It sounds like a wiz might have helped a bit.
I agree that bad tactics is nothing to complain about. If you messed up tactics-wise, then you messed up. I also agree that while kobolds would be expected to have their lair rigged (I was surprised, as a DM, to see this was not the case), it would have upped the EL, probably to an unbalanced level. Heh-heh, as it was, my players wasted a bit of time looking for traps that they were justsure they were missing. Some minor metagaming here, I've never played kobolds before who hadn't booby-trapped the hell out of their lair. I figured that Irontooth just kept them too busy to prepare proper defenses, but it sure kept the party on edge. Even during retreats they were asking for perception rolls, even at serious penalties, because they just knew the kobolds had something trapped somewhere.
I hope your party learns from this, that "GET 'EM!!!" isn't a plan. I also hope your DM is over his bruised ego about your killing his monsters. That's what they're for, isn't it? Maybe you can get back on with a balanced game, now. Good luck escaping!
Each striker should pair off with a defender, and try to get into flanking positions with the main gribblies. Then while the target is marked by the defender, the striker can go to town. Then I guess the warlord could heal and pick off minions, but this is not optimal.
I played this encounter with a party of six - Warlord/Fighter/Paladin/Warlock/Rogue/Wizard. We got through the first part (outside) quick enough to stop the kobolds from warning the ones inside. So after they were finished, short rest and then went into the waterfall. Finished off the first wave pretty quickly so when the second wave came there weren't too many left. The priest's healing doohickey was annoying though.
Good heavens, no Wizard? I think 90% of the people TPKed in their first sessions of KotS had no Wizard. For the love of Ioun people, have a designated controller. :P
Not merely no wizard, but almost no ranged capability of any type.
Not merely no wizard, but almost no ranged capability of any type.
My gnome rogue throws a lot of shurikens at least.
Not merely no wizard, but almost no ranged capability of any type.
That was my groups problem, no range (well we did, the wizard was way far back) and one of the sneaky bastards made a run for the cave. We had the elven ranger go after him since the dinky ranger couldn't use ranged (not that we mind, hell if I was a ranger I would be a Two-Weapon user but its fun to comment on it) weapons he cashed after the bugger and activated the second encounter.
The good news was that the ranger was able to retreat successfully and our DM let the encounter reset.
Was the Warlord able to allow effective healing (granting people the use of healing surges)? While a cleric isn't exactly needed the power to grant others Surges is a life saver. I honestly don't know much about Warlords so I can't comment on its ability.
I think your biggest problem is that the two defenders went off together. That said if the defenders didn't move off to play 'squash the peon' but stuck together to make a wall/plug a hole I could understand there wanting to stick together. Normally I think each defender should have worked with a striker and the warlord shift to whichever position is the more deadly.
Biggest think is it seems like a mixture of poor tactics and evil DMing.
Was the Warlord able to allow effective healing (granting people the use of healing surges)? While a cleric isn't exactly needed the power to grant others Surges is a life saver. I honestly don't know much about Warlords so I can't comment on its ability.
The Warlord blew through his healing abilities in no time at all. Considering the damage our group was taking, the severe limitations imposed on his class abilities were crippling.
I think your biggest problem is that the two defenders went off together. That said if the defenders didn't move off to play 'squash the peon' but stuck together to make a wall/plug a hole I could understand there wanting to stick together. Normally I think each defender should have worked with a striker and the warlord shift to whichever position is the more deadly.
Peon!? That thing must have had nearly 100 hit points! We pounded on him for a good 4 rounds and seemingly only managed to bloody him.
Biggest think is it seems like a mixture of poor tactics and evil DMing.
That's kind of what I thought too.
Peon!? That thing must have had nearly 100 hit points! We pounded on him for a good 4 rounds and seemingly only managed to bloody him.
Well in the grand scheme of things the goblin is but a peon but that wasn't what I was referring to.
Our party, except for the rogue, rushed across the river and slaughtered everyone with little trouble. The rogue was left behind to deal with the meleeists on the starting side of the river.
..the gnome teamed up with the human to fight off the right side of the crowd of monsters.
Our two defenders left the group and rushed the goblin brute all the while telling the skirmishers to "hold off the other three."
Your defenders stick together always it seems, which was my point, unless there are plugging a hole or making a wall they shouldn't be together. It sounds like they play 'smash the peon' whether it is a minion, a normal monster or a 'goblin Swartzeneggar' which is poor use of 2 defenders. Ganging on the the goblin with 2 battle axes probably caused them to die faster as he attacks adjacent enemies.
Your defenders stick together always it seems, which was my point, unless there are plugging a hole or making a wall they shouldn't be together. It sounds like they play 'smash the peon' whether it is a minion, a normal monster or a 'goblin Swartzeneggar' which is poor use of 2 defenders. Ganging on the the goblin with 2 battle axes probably caused them to die faster as he attacks adjacent enemies.
Can you flank with reach weapons?
Both defenders had reach weapons and thusly could have avoided the Goblin's special abilities despite double teaming him. Even so, I remember them being "up close" to the Gobbo anyways because we were under the impression that you could not get flanking at reach anymore.Both defenders had reach weapons and thusly could have avoided the Goblin's special abilities despite double teaming him.
True, but I never assume the players are using the weapons as intended unless told so.
I just ran my players through these encounters Monday night. Things did not go well for them either. The group is composed of Eladrin Wizard, Eladrin Ranger (bow), Drow Ranger (dual wielding), Dragonborn Fighter (sword & board) and Minotaur Warlord (inspiring).
How It Went
They did fairly well against the first encounter outside the cave, although the Warlord did have to use both of her inspiring words to keep the fighter alive as he stood toe-to-toe with the Dragonshield in the sacred circle. The wizard and rangers went after the minions and the slinger, leaving the warlord and fighter to deal with the skirmisher and the dragonshield, which was a hard fight for them. (On a side note, my two rangers' players seem to be very competitive out of character as far as stats and damage output and kills, which I find very taxing.)
The problem came when the slinger ran to warn Irontooth about the intruders when the fight started to go bad for the Kobolds. The bow ranger and the wizard followed him and managed to kill him at the mouth of the cave, but rather than regroup with the warlord and fighter (who were still fighting the dragonshield and skirmisher) they entered the cave by themselves to see what was in there. The drow ranger followed a minion who tried to make a break for the cave into the other entrance, and eliminated him, but also chose to proceed deeper into the cave on his own. They were all well aware that the warlord had no more healing powers and that most of them had taken a decent amount of damage.
Eventually, the fighter and the warlord managed to kill the dragonshield and skirmisher. Rather than taking the warlord's advice of sticking together, the fighter chose to go after the eladrin characters, while the warlord followed the drow. The warlord character entered the main chamber just as Irontooth appeared, and was taken out by him in two turns after rolling badly and missing him with her daily power. (The player was very upset as she had already been knocked down once that game due to being the first one to enter combat against a pack of wolves.)
Quickly thereafter, the Wyrmpriest managed to blast the Dragonborn into oblivion as Irontooth went after the Eladrin ranger and wizard. The Drow snuck up on one of the Dragonshields, and was stuck fighting him for a couple rounds. The Wizard used his Flaming Sphere to great results against minions and then Irontooth. The Eladrin Ranger made good use of her Twin Strike and Split the Tree to do decent damage to Irontooth and others.
Before they managed to take him out, the Wyrmpriest also took out the Drow character, leaving the Eladrin characters to take out the badly wounded Wyrmpriest, a single Dragonshield and Irontooth. They managed to kill Irontooth and survive the encounter, but only barely.
The problem came when the slinger ran to warn Irontooth about the intruders when the fight started to go bad for the Kobolds. The bow ranger and the wizard followed him and managed to kill him at the mouth of the cave, but rather than regroup with the warlord and fighter (who were still fighting the dragonshield and skirmisher) they entered the cave by themselves to see what was in there. The drow ranger followed a minion who tried to make a break for the cave into the other entrance, and eliminated him, but also chose to proceed deeper into the cave on his own. They were all well aware that the warlord had no more healing powers and that most of them had taken a decent amount of damage.
Eventually, the fighter and the warlord managed to kill the dragonshield and skirmisher. Rather than taking the warlord's advice of sticking together, the fighter chose to go after the eladrin characters, while the warlord followed the drow. The warlord character entered the main chamber just as Irontooth appeared, and was taken out by him in two turns after rolling badly and missing him with her daily power. (The player was very upset as she had already been knocked down once that game due to being the first one to enter combat against a pack of wolves.)
Quickly thereafter, the Wyrmpriest managed to blast the Dragonborn into oblivion as Irontooth went after the Eladrin ranger and wizard. The Drow snuck up on one of the Dragonshields, and was stuck fighting him for a couple rounds. The Wizard used his Flaming Sphere to great results against minions and then Irontooth. The Eladrin Ranger made good use of her Twin Strike and Split the Tree to do decent damage to Irontooth and others.
Before they managed to take him out, the Wyrmpriest also took out the Drow character, leaving the Eladrin characters to take out the badly wounded Wyrmpriest, a single Dragonshield and Irontooth. They managed to kill Irontooth and survive the encounter, but only barely.
The DM never even bothered to tell us anything about it (I guess because it no longer made any difference after all the monsters near it were killed).