At our gaming store, players are assigned randomly to tables and there are many players/groups so it is often difficult to create balanced parties for each group. Here is the group I was in last night:
Level 2 Fighter
Level 2 Rogue
Level 1 Rogue
Level 1 Rogue
Level 1 Swordmage
Level 1 Artificer
Our group decided to play on 'high' difficulty.
In our first encounter, we were fighting the monsters in the water cave. We killed the monster on the ceiling, but the level 2 fighter died and we ran out without killing the other monsters.
- The only area where we could stand was the small plot of shallow water near the entrance.
- The monsters would constantly pull and grab us into deep water.
- We had no good ranged attacks vs. Reflex or vs. Will.
- Due to lack of ranged attacks, we had difficulty hitting the monster on the ceiling.
- Attempts to melee the monsters in the water proved extremely ineffective due to deep water.
- Rogues could not get consistent combat advantage because of deep water.
- Attacks of AC 22 and Fort 20 failed to hit the monsters in deep water.
In our second encounter, we were fighting in a warehouse type building. There were two mages on the balcony, two artillery types at the back of the room, a rogue/ninja, and some type of defender. The level 1 swordmage died and the rest of the party ran out, only managing to kill the rogue/ninja before leaving.
- The mages did massive damage. It is difficult to position our characters to effectively deal damage without taking lots of damage from the mages.
- Our party was taking a lot of damage. Two of our characters were down by round 2.
- The soldier type enemy had a crazy ability where he appeared to move 7 or 8 squares, then charge the Swordmage. He did not have line of sight during his normal move or at the start of his charge. He was able to charge because he saw the Swordmage run behind the obstruction in the previous turn, so he knew he was there.
After that we stopped.
So we played RPGA Flames of Initiation (levels 1-4) last night. I keep hearing that RPGA games are "so easy" that they should always be played on high difficulty, but our party got our butts kicked. Below are the details. Did we just suck or was it something else?
Well, "Flames of Initiation" is probably an outlier to the "you can easily play up" paradigm of the level 1-4 modules. I played it at GenCon last year, and we pretty much got our butts kicked, on "low".
Your party makeup may not have helped. With three strikers and only one leader, your group may have been more than a little fragile, esp. if the dice started going against you.
1. Bald 1-1 is known as one of the more challenging LFR mods and you played high with a party that was mostly level 1s. That's not necessarily going to lead to disaster, but it does help explain it when disaster strikes.
2. It seems like you were lured into a bad tactical situation in the cavern encounter. It may suck to keep rolling ranged attacks against AC against creatures in the water, because it is boring waiting to roll the 19 or 20 you need to hit. On the other hand, unless you run out of ammo, there's no reason to stop. The monsters can either leave the deep water to get you or sit there and take it. Getting drawn in to attack them in the deep water is asking for trouble.
I've seen this dynamic at work in some of my tables too. There was one mod where we would have had to climb down a cliff under fire from the entire encounter in order to even start attacking our enemies. It seemed like a workable gamble if we were able to surprise them but by the time we got to the top of the cliff, it was clear they weren't surprised. So, the plan wasn't going to work any more. We all agreed on that. But I still had to argue to keep the warlock's player from running to the edge and starting down. He wanted to do something. The problem that was the something he was going to do was stupid. The monsters didn't want us up there either (we were likely to climb down during the night when they went to sleep, or roll rocks off the top of the cliff without exposing ourselves, or something like that). So, when it became clear that we weren't going to walk into their trap, they had to hoof it up the cliff and around the trail and walk into ours. Encounters like that and like the deep water otyughs you faced are tests of will. You need to stick to your guns and say, "we will not engage the monsters on ridiculously unfavorable ground. End of story. We will sit back here and roll dice with our largely (but not completely) ineffective ranged weapons until they get tired of getting nickled and dimed to death and give us the opportunity for a fight on a more level playing field."
3. There's always the "you just suck" theory.
Getting drawn in to attack them in the deep water is asking for trouble.
Absolutely right. We did not try to fight/flank them in deep water (once we knew where it dropped off). We immediately tried running back into the hallway and using ranged attacks. Although some of our players were stuck in deep water and/or grabbed...
We tried range fighting for a little bit (which is how we killed the mob on the ceiling), but quickly gave up on that.
We hit on a 19 or 20 vs. AC 23.
We do about 6 damage.
They hit on an 8+ (the DM said they get +12 to attack, ouch!)
They do about 10 damage per hit. And pull and grab.
So we played RPGA Flames of Initiation (levels 1-4) last night. I keep hearing that RPGA games are "so easy" that they should always be played on high difficulty, but our party got our butts kicked. Below are the details. Did we just suck or was it something else?
At our gaming store, players are assigned randomly to tables and there are many players/groups so it is often difficult to create balanced parties for each group. Here is the group I was in last night:
Level 2 Fighter
Level 2 Rogue
Level 1 Rogue
Level 1 Rogue
Level 1 Swordmage
Level 1 Artificer
Our group decided to play on 'high' difficulty.
In our first encounter, we were fighting the monsters in the water cave. We killed the monster on the ceiling, but the level 2 fighter died and we ran out without killing the other monsters.
- The only area where we could stand was the small plot of shallow water near the entrance.
- The monsters would constantly pull and grab us into deep water.
- We had no good ranged attacks vs. Reflex or vs. Will.
- Due to lack of ranged attacks, we had difficulty hitting the monster on the ceiling.
- Attempts to melee the monsters in the water proved extremely ineffective due to deep water.
- Rogues could not get consistent combat advantage because of deep water.
- Attacks of AC 22 and Fort 20 failed to hit the monsters in deep water.
In our second encounter, we were fighting in a warehouse type building. There were two mages on the balcony, two artillery types at the back of the room, a rogue/ninja, and some type of defender. The level 1 swordmage died and the rest of the party ran out, only managing to kill the rogue/ninja before leaving.
- The mages did massive damage. It is difficult to position our characters to effectively deal damage without taking lots of damage from the mages.
- Our party was taking a lot of damage. Two of our characters were down by round 2.
- The soldier type enemy had a crazy ability where he appeared to move 7 or 8 squares, then charge the Swordmage. He did not have line of sight during his normal move or at the start of his charge. He was able to charge because he saw the Swordmage run behind the obstruction in the previous turn, so he knew he was there.
After that we stopped.
It's not that you sucked it just you have no ranged strikers, no leaders, and no controller and your playing encounters designed for levels 3 or 4. I would have told two member of the party having three rogues IS A BAD IDEA and they should concider playing a Ranger, Warlok, Sorcerer, Warden, Warlord, Cleric, or Wizard. Because a poorly balanced party with good tactics can lead to a TPK just as easily as a balanced party with bad tactics.
So we played RPGA Flames of Initiation (levels 1-4) last night. I keep hearing that RPGA games are "so easy" that they should always be played on high difficulty, but our party got our butts kicked. Below are the details. Did we just suck or was it something else?
At our gaming store, players are assigned randomly to tables and there are many players/groups so it is often difficult to create balanced parties for each group. Here is the group I was in last night:
Level 2 Fighter
Level 2 Rogue
Level 1 Rogue
Level 1 Rogue
Level 1 Swordmage
Level 1 Artificer
Our group decided to play on 'high' difficulty.
In our first encounter, we were fighting the monsters in the water cave. We killed the monster on the ceiling, but the level 2 fighter died and we ran out without killing the other monsters.
- The only area where we could stand was the small plot of shallow water near the entrance.
- The monsters would constantly pull and grab us into deep water.
- We had no good ranged attacks vs. Reflex or vs. Will.
- Due to lack of ranged attacks, we had difficulty hitting the monster on the ceiling.
- Attempts to melee the monsters in the water proved extremely ineffective due to deep water.
- Rogues could not get consistent combat advantage because of deep water.
- Attacks of AC 22 and Fort 20 failed to hit the monsters in deep water.
In our second encounter, we were fighting in a warehouse type building. There were two mages on the balcony, two artillery types at the back of the room, a rogue/ninja, and some type of defender. The level 1 swordmage died and the rest of the party ran out, only managing to kill the rogue/ninja before leaving.
- The mages did massive damage. It is difficult to position our characters to effectively deal damage without taking lots of damage from the mages.
- Our party was taking a lot of damage. Two of our characters were down by round 2.
- The soldier type enemy had a crazy ability where he appeared to move 7 or 8 squares, then charge the Swordmage. He did not have line of sight during his normal move or at the start of his charge. He was able to charge because he saw the Swordmage run behind the obstruction in the previous turn, so he knew he was there.
After that we stopped.
It's not that you sucked it just you have no ranged strikers, a Leader whose a poor substitute for a cleric, no controller, and your playing encounters designed for levels 3 or 4. I would have told two member of the party having three rogues IS A BAD IDEA and they should concider playing a Ranger, Warlok, Sorcerer, Warden, Warlord, Cleric, or Wizard. Because a poorly balanced party with good tactics can lead to a TPK just as easily as a balanced party with bad tactics.
It's not that you sucked it just you have no ranged strikers, no leaders, and no controller and your playing encounters designed for levels 3 or 4. I would have told two member of the party having three rogues IS A BAD IDEA and they should concider playing a Ranger, Warlok, Sorcerer, Warden, Warlord, Cleric, or Wizard. Because a poorly balanced party with good tactics can lead to a TPK just as easily as a balanced party with bad tactics.
That's not quite right. They have three rogues--one of whom could have been a crossbow rogue or a range focused dagger rogue (drow are pretty good at either type of ranged rogue). Also the artificer is a leader (and, with the EPG, he has gone from being the worst leader on the block (playtest version) to a very good leader). They lacked a controller but a lot of parties will be missing a controller and, in general, if you are missing a role, it's the best one to be missing. Now if all of their rogues were melee rogues, adding a ranged striker (probably a sorcerer or a ranger--warlocks make better controllers than strikers) would have made them stronger in general and particularly so in the otyugh cave fight, but it is not a terrible party.
Your table had no real 'healer'. While you did have a leader, artificers arn't known for their healing (at best a support-specific build can put up some good damage prevention and some minor healing).
I would reccomend to your organizer not to assign tables 'randomly' but to have everyone sign up with their role. Our group uses Warhorn for this, and it divides characters into the following categories; Striker - Ranged, Striker - Melee, Leader - Tactical, Leader - Healer, Controller and Defender.
The party above would be Defender x2, Striker-Meleex3 and Leader-Tactical. Not a good mix. Assigning characters by role (and sub role in case of Leaders and Strikers) is key to forming good parties - you don't even need to know what the actual classes are (Leader-Tactical is great for all non healer-specific characters like Artificers, Tactical Warlord and Stalker Shaman). If there are not enough Leader-Healers for a particular table, an organizer would be better off trying to put two Leader-Tacticals at that table (or find out how many players are running Lay-on-Hands Paladins)
Also the artificer is a leader (and, with the EPG, he has gone from being the worst leader on the block (playtest version) to a very good leader).
It depends on how the artificer is built. My artificer went from being a very good controller/striker to a mediocre 'striker' with the changes to the weapon attacks (I miss my area weapon attacks with my greatbow
). My artificer is NOT a healer, or a damage prevention outside of my base freebies and utilites, but relies on his bow ('Arcane Archer' style build pre-Euphonic Bow)Since the OP did not go into detail how the Artificer was built, we can only speculate.
It's important to ask - how experienced with D&D were he above players? If they were all new players they should not have been playing high, even with the advice that 'you can always play high as lfr is easy'.
That's not quite right. They have three rogues--one of whom could have been a crossbow rogue or a range focused dagger rogue (drow are pretty good at either type of ranged rogue).
Agreed, but all our rogues were melee rogues.
Agreed, but all our rogues were melee rogues.
So there is a bit of a problem (though IME, even melee rogues can generally transition to range 5 rogues if they have a corner to hide behind or are willing to give up sneak attack and just to sly flourish with W+dex+cha damage). Still, I strongly disagree with the people who are saying that it is a particularly bad party. Obviously it could be better balanced (and would be better with a mix of melee strikers rather than all rogues), but I've seen much much worse.
At my last 7-10 table, if it had played out the way people signed up, it would have been swordmage+tactical warlord+bear shaman+laser cleric. And if it had played out the way it looked after another player joined us, it would have been: swordmage+tactical warlord+bear shaman+laser cleric+infernal warlock which is not an improvment. Fortunately, the bear shaman signed up with the wrong character and one of the other tables collapsed and its DM joined us with his fighter so the actual table was: swordmage+strength paladin+tempest fighter+tactical warlord+infernal warlock+laser cleric which is actually an unusually good party and remained so even after the tempest died in the first encounter (two hits by soldier for moderate "I'll need healing next round" damage, followed by two claw hits and an action point automatic beak hit from an owlbear that dropped him and then followed up by two coup de graces from the soldier-type monsters. Without any healers in between the owlbears and the coup de gracers, we didn't have a chance to save him).
I want to point out that the "LFR is easy you can always play on high" only applies to combats - skill challenges might be very difficult if you play high. Since a lot of (poor) DMs gloss over skill challenges, this is generally moot.
Your table had no real 'healer'. While you did have a leader, artificers arn't known for their healing (at best a support-specific build can put up some good damage prevention and some minor healing).
I would reccomend to your organizer not to assign tables 'randomly' but to have everyone sign up with their role. Our group uses Warhorn for this, and it divides characters into the following categories; Striker - Ranged, Striker - Melee, Leader - Tactical, Leader - Healer, Controller and Defender.
The party above would be Defender x2, Striker-Meleex3 and Leader-Tactical. Not a good mix. Assigning characters by role (and sub role in case of Leaders and Strikers) is key to forming good parties - you don't even need to know what the actual classes are (Leader-Tactical is great for all non healer-specific characters like Artificers, Tactical Warlord and Stalker Shaman). If there are not enough Leader-Healers for a particular table, an organizer would be better off trying to put two Leader-Tacticals at that table (or find out how many players are running Lay-on-Hands Paladins)
It depends on how the artificer is built. My artificer went from being a very good controller/striker to a mediocre 'striker' with the changes to the weapon attacks (I miss my area weapon attacks with my greatbow
Since the OP did not go into detail how the Artificer was built, we can only speculate.
It's important to ask - how experienced with D&D were he above players? If they were all new players they should not have been playing high, even with the advice that 'you can always play high as lfr is easy'.
We use Warhorn, but it is still difficult to make balanced parties for all the groups.
Our Artificer was more tactical.
Two players were awesome, two were average, two were the suck.
Don't judge all of LFR by this fight.
2. It seems like you were lured into a bad tactical situation in the cavern encounter. It may suck to keep rolling ranged attacks against AC against creatures in the water, because it is boring waiting to roll the 19 or 20 you need to hit. On the other hand, unless you run out of ammo, there's no reason to stop. The monsters can either leave the deep water to get you or sit there and take it. Getting drawn in to attack them in the deep water is asking for trouble.
I'm not so sure. The otyughs can just descend back into the water. If you want to defeat the encounter, you have to play their game, at least to some extent.
To the OP, this is a brutal mod for most teams. Having the team you did only made it harder. It is one of those educational mods that teaches us all how challenging terrain can be. And, it is probably a bit too hard for a 1-4 mod. The BALD mods in general are seen as pretty challenging (I had 2 TPK encounters with a 4-PC party in the second mod, and our group regularly owns most adventures... though we had a pretty lame team composition that night).
The otyugh fight is horribly designed. Either that or it is deliberately designed to be blatantly unfair to and unfun for the players.
Don't judge all of LFR by this fight.
Yeah it really is an annoying fight.
I'm not so sure. The otyughs can just descend back into the water. If you want to defeat the encounter, you have to play their game, at least to some extent.
Only to some extent. They can descend entirely into the water, but unless they hide that does not prevent targetting them with attacks. It just means you are almost certain not to hit--but that's not the point if you are just rolling dice until they decide to come and get you. Sooner or later you will roll a 20. Given long enough, you will roll enough 20s to kill them (as long as you have a magic weapon or an implement attack that you can repeat infinitely without returning to town). If they do hide, then you can roll active perceptions until you locate them and then continue the boring but tactically sound dice rolling proceedure.
Alternately, depending upon the exact layout of the cavern, you could also make some skill checks to look for shells while out of their reach. Holding them off with ranged attacks seems like a legitimate way to beat them if they don't stop you from accomplishing your goals in the cavern.
Agreed, but all our rogues were melee rogues.
And they didn't have piercing strike? I single-handedly saved that encounter with my level 1 rogue with that power.
And they didn't have piercing strike? I single-handedly saved that encounter with my level 1 rogue with that power.
That is how Brutal Scoundrels differentiate themselves from Artful Dodgers.
That is how Brutal Scoundrels differentiate themselves from Artful Dodgers.
? by having an ability that any rogue worth a damn has?
Piercing strike is like a must have at will for rogues, at least from a optimization standpoint.
As has been said, this is one of the mods where playing high-tier with a low-tier party causes problems. I'm not sure exactly when people decided they'd only play high, but occasionally playing out of tier causes bad things to happen. Like PC death.
? by having an ability that any rogue worth a damn has?
Piercing strike is like a must have at will for rogues, at least from a optimization standpoint.
Suffice it to say that this is highly disputable.
A lot of artful dodgers stick with sly flourish for high damage with sneak attack and semi-decent damage without sneak attack and deft strike to be able to easily do the "hide around the corner and then deft strike out for the sneak attack" trick. Unless they are human, that leaves no room for piercing strike. Since most of them are not human (they are generally drow or halflings IME), few artful dodgers end up with piercing strike.
I'm not sure exactly when people decided they'd only play high, but occasionally playing out of tier causes bad things to happen. Like PC death.
I think people started behaving as though low tier didn't exist about two or three months after the premiere of LFR when people figured out that in the vast majority of the modules, there is no risk at all, even when playing high with a low tier party--and in the ones where there is risk... that's often what they want anyway.
Suffice it to say that this is highly disputable.
A lot of artful dodgers stick with sly flourish for high damage with sneak attack and semi-decent damage without sneak attack and deft strike to be able to easily do the "hide around the corner and then deft strike out for the sneak attack" trick. Unless they are human, that leaves no room for piercing strike. Since most of them are not human (they are generally drow or halflings IME), few artful dodgers end up with piercing strike.
I started out as sly flourish and piercing strike on my AD rogue. I changed to piercing strike and deft strike eventually (as I'd think any player who realizes hitting nearly every time is more important than a few points of damage when you use an at will)
I think I was too harsh in the way I put it but I think that any player who really looks at the choices will end up taking deft strike and piercing strike, they are the 2 that work to grant you the option to inflict sneak attack the most often and are what your at wills should be the vehicle for anyway. 1d4+13+3d8 against AC 32 vs 1d4+9+3d8 against Reflex 29 and I'll take the equivalent of +3 to hit unless I'm already hitting on a 2 against AC
Granted, two of them were level 1 and might have only packed a single non-magic dagger on their camping trip.
Also, "We hit on a 19 or 20 vs. AC 23." does not compute. You can be in short range for a thrown dagger and still be out of the otyugh's melee reach, and you're outside of its stench aura. Given a -2 for cover/concealment, your rogues only had +6 vs AC?
Also, "We hit on a 19 or 20 vs. AC 23." does not compute. You can be in short range for a thrown dagger and still be out of the otyugh's melee reach, and you're outside of its stench aura. Given a -2 for cover/concealment, your rogues only had +6 vs AC?
Depending on their build, yeah, that may be right. If they weren't overly optimized, and Brutal Scoundrels, they might have had 16s in both Dex and Str. Combine a 16 Dex with a dagger (+3 proficiency) and you get +6.
Depending on their build, yeah, that may be right. If they weren't overly optimized, and Brutal Scoundrels, they might have had 16s in both Dex and Str. Combine a 16 Dex with a dagger (+3 proficiency) and you get +6.
Rogue weapon talent would then yield +7. For +6, you would need:
18 dex and ruthless ruffian with a mace
16 dex and brutal scoundrel/artful dodger with a double sword, shortsword, or rapier.
Rogue weapon talent would then yield +7.
Oops. Clearly, I don't play a rogue.
For +6, you would need:
18 dex and ruthless ruffian with a mace
16 dex and brutal scoundrel/artful dodger with a double sword, shortsword, or rapier.
None of which they'd likely be throwing. ;)
Alternately, I suppose they might have been using hand crossbows or slings.
If you have enough players for multiple tables, the organizer(s) should be building more-or-less balanced tables, not (repeat NOT) stocking the tables randomly. Random could lead to a table without any healing at all, at all, or a table with all one class or other (IMO bad) results.
This is a case where DME, even the new version, could be easily used to make for a more enjoyable experience for the players. DME allows the lowering of a monsters level by 1 or 2, which also lowers both hit points and all defenses, as well. Heck, I had a party (of 4) playing up in EAST1-4, and, even just using the guidelines in the module, without DME, I was able to lower the creature considered most broken's defenses to where it was a combat, not a "kill the PCs" encounter.
Unless the three rogues were build very strangely, they should all have been able to sub as ranged attackers, since they should have a stock of daggers/shuriken or slings with bullets with them. To be honest, any rogue I build will have at least one at will that is usable as either melee or ranged. Oh, and I have a stock of semi-optimized LFR pregens, of all types, available for the new players that show up at the games I run...
But, to be honest, in the main, it sounds like you got stuck either with a new DM, or with a less flexible experienced LG DM; one of the types that are unfamiliar with the "make it fun" priority of LFR, rather than the "make it consistent" priority of LG.
And, by the way, I thank you for this thread, since I am planning/scheduled to run this very module on Saturday, and this makes me more aware of the potential problem areas I will need to keep an eye on when I am running.
The otyugh fight is horribly designed. Either that or it is deliberately designed to be blatantly unfair to and unfun for the players.
I have run and played this fight. Both groups had a great time with the challenge of the room. Not everything needs to be an orc with a pie in a room.
I have run and played this fight. Both groups had a great time with the challenge of the room. Not everything needs to be an orc with a pie in a room.
You are so right. Clearly, by criticizing this encounter, I was suggesting that the only types of encounters I enjoy are those featuring a single monster in a featureless room.
But, to be honest, in the main, it sounds like you got stuck either with a new DM, or with a less flexible experienced LG DM; one of the types that are unfamiliar with the "make it fun" priority of LFR, rather than the "make it consistent" priority of LG.
I don't think "make it fun" as a priority necessarily means "nerf it so the PCs always win." For me at least, the theoretical possibility of losing is necessary in order to make winning worthwhile and fun. If I buy the new RTS game, I don't set it on easy all the time to be sure of winning. I usually start on normal and develop my skill a bit then play at whatever level makes winning a challenge. If I don't have a chance of losing, that means I want to crank the difficulty up a step.
Thus the odd module that catches me by surprise and puts the party in danger of a TPK or of having to retreat enhances the experience of all the other mods where it doesn't happen... because you know it could. Now that's a bit less true for replaying, but it's the challenging mods with good treasure that I want to replay, not the weaksauce mods with weak treasure. (Weaksausce mods with good treasure and challenging mods with weak treasure both come somewhere in between. They're not my first choices, but they're not the last either; for that matter, annoying mods (which may or may not be challenging but feature massive lockdown status effects or immobilizing zones that hit on a 2 for a healing surge worth of damage plus keeping you in the zone for another turn, or monsters that can only be hit on a 19 or 20, for instance) go straight to the bottom of the pile. If I never play Akan 1-2 or Barrow of the Ogre King again, for instance, it will be too soon).
Were the Otyughs in that mod actually surrounded by water, or just in a 2x2 section of water? Cause I remember them grabbing someone in a tentacle then having the option to take an action to drag someone down into the water, but I don't recall them being surrounded by deep water such that they were inaccessibly be melee.
When I first played it at Gencon, I remember that the only characters who could attack them in melee had to be swimming to do it.
When I played it a second time, we were able to see better and found a couple ways to approach them without being in deep water (but my character was wielding a reach weapon that time).
Looking at the tile itself, it has 4 squares (2x2) of water surrounded by a 1 square border of land + water. I bet some DMs rule that the land+water counts as underwater and other DMs rule it as the edge of the pool so you aren't swimming yet. At least six of the sixteen squares of land+water are almost entirely land (like 90+%) if that matters.
Any chance someone knows authoratively whether it's supposed to be 4x4 pools of deep water or not?
That does mean, of course, that the half-and-half squares along the border could go either way.
and then followed up by two coup de graces from the soldier-type monsters. Without any healers in between the owlbears and the coup de gracers, we didn't have a chance to save him).
Two coup-de-graces when you had five standing targets?
Your DM was a bastard.
Or if someone happened to attack the low stat and rolled low. I mean, if a monster has a low X defense, but people are constantly "over hitting" it, like say it is 15, but people keep rolling like 22 or more when they attack that defense, it isn't obvious.
My group happened to have a wizard magic missile one, and we realized what was going on. Unfortunately, only one PC could attack that defense and he was too busy being a bastard and thunderwaving the carrion crawler into the direction of the DOWN and DROWNING Fighter.
In our case some PCs made a few bad decisions, meaning the rest of the party was mostly busy saving them. We eventually succeeded, but it was a really tough fight. I was glad I had designed my wizard to be able to attack all defenses, or we might really have been in trouble.
Gomez
Or if someone happened to attack the low stat and rolled low. I mean, if a monster has a low X defense, but people are constantly "over hitting" it, like say it is 15, but people keep rolling like 22 or more when they attack that defense, it isn't obvious.
That is up to the DM. There was an excellent Dragon magazine article by Andy Collins where he talked about game transparency. Amongst the topics was the suggestion of letting players in on the low defenses after a bit. Let them know that 22 hit easily. Let them know that 15 was way off the mark.
As a DM, you are supposed to aim for fun. If the party is having a good challenge, and revealing the defense would lessen the fun challenge, cool, keep it quiet. But, if the party is having trouble and you realize that they could use an assist... that's the perfect time to clue them in.
Of late I've been implementing several parts of that article. For example, when a fight gets tough and there is one main monster left, I'll let them know how many HPs are left. It creates some fun as the turns pass and everyone feels like they are doing their share (plus trying to steal the kill). I've also been cluing PCs in on low defenses, plus which effects are recharging (via the RP cues discussed in the article).
All of the above is fairly contrary to my old DM nature, where 'the rules are the rules'. Goes to show an old dog can actually learn new tricks.
Amongst the topics was the suggestion of letting players in on the low defenses after a bit. Let them know that 22 hit easily. Let them know that 15 was way off the mark.
One of the things I usually do when the PCs make a relevant information check is reveal the highest and lowest defense of the monster. Not the number, but just "AC is the highest defense, Will is the lowest" as appropriate.
One of the things I usually do when the PCs make a relevant information check is reveal the highest and lowest defense of the monster. Not the number, but just "AC is the highest defense, Will is the lowest" as appropriate.
Good one. I'll use that.
Two coup-de-graces when you had five standing targets?
Your DM was a bastard.
That's what I was thinking, myself. Everything I've read encourages DMs to ignore downed PCs, especially with 5 other threats in the encounter. Killing the downed PC makes it sound like the DM had some personal issues with the player.
On the module in question, I just played it on high (3 Valor Bard(me), 2 Sorc, 1 Ranger (Melee), 1 Fighter, 1 Warden, and 1 Valor Bard. We got through the module pretty well, our warden dropped a couple times, but with 2 Leaders we brought him right back up... and with him going down he took a lot of the encounter powers of the baddies, which was great for the rest of the encounter. It would have been a lot tougher module without 2 Leaders, and without all the temp HP we would both give out.
It was fun for us, and challenging.
However, my party had much more difficulty in the warehouse fight. Luckily for us we had 2 defenders and got a few lucky hits, or we could easily have lost 1-2 characters.
However, my party had much more difficulty in the warehouse fight. Luckily for us we had 2 defenders and got a few lucky hits, or we could easily have lost 1-2 characters.
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The warehouse fight, IMO, has long been pretty trivial. Of course, that's because we enforce the use of the post-update Stealth rules, which reduces the advantage the tiefling snipers can achieve using their tactics.
Really, the tactics in the warehouse fight are ... pretty readily dealt with unless you're a party with no ranged powers - having alternative characters for random musters is good, really...
The high-defense otyughs are a much bigger threat, in my experience both playing and running.
The warehouse fight, IMO, has long been pretty trivial. Of course, that's because we enforce the use of the post-update Stealth rules, which reduces the advantage the tiefling snipers can achieve using their tactics.
Really, the tactics in the warehouse fight are ... pretty readily dealt with unless you're a party with no ranged powers - having alternative characters for random musters is good, really...
The high-defense otyughs are a much bigger threat, in my experience both playing and running.
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In my experience, the warehouse fight is the most swingy of the three. If you have someone who can get in amongst the tieflings quickly, or who resists fire, then they will go down pretty rapidly. If your defender goes first, charges in against the soldiers and pins them down it makes life a lot easier.
If you lose initiative, you could have two of your party hurt and on fire, the tieflings ducked behind the cover where they can't be seen, ready to pop up and hit you again, and a couple of halberdiers ready to knock you prone when you try to charge them.
The sneak can do a lot of damage with CA, too, and a low level party who doesn't spot him will be toast on high tier play.
Once when I played it, our wizard was set on fire three times by the tieflings. He ran away to jump in the river
In my experience, the warehouse fight is the most swingy of the three. If you have someone who can get in amongst the tieflings quickly, or who resists fire, then they will go down pretty rapidly. If your defender goes first, charges in against the soldiers and pins them down it makes life a lot easier.
If you lose initiative, you could have two of your party hurt and on fire, the tieflings ducked behind the cover where they can't be seen, ready to pop up and hit you again, and a couple of halberdiers ready to knock you prone when you try to charge them.
The sneak can do a lot of damage with CA, too, and a low level party who doesn't spot him will be toast on high tier play.
Once when I played it, our wizard was set on fire three times by the tieflings. He ran away to jump in the river
I was trying to do things that would impede their attacks, or knock back effects on them so that they'd drop the grabbed party members.
We struggled and had to to fight tooth and nail to win. 3 players used their daily powers, everyone used an action point. At one point, my wizard ended his turn with 2 failed saving throws, 5 points of continuing poison damage, and only 4 hit points before my negative bloodied value. After the fight was over, I was left with 0 surges left and had to start the next (and final) fight down 7 from max hit points.
Yeah, it was tough. Extremely tough, but dang it felt good to survive that.
and then followed up by two coup de graces from the soldier-type monsters.
That's just unnecessarily brutal and vicious on the part of the DM. He seems to clearly forgetting that players are not the enemies. It's not the job of the DM to kill players, but to challenge them, and to promote fun.
The Otyugh fight is actually a lot easier than most people think. The problem is the GM needs to know and double check the rules. Otyughs are not aquatic creatures and thus suffer some of the same penalties the PCs do while fighting in the water, including penalties to hit and having to make checks to keep from drowning every round they took damage in. As creatures, they only have 1 healing surge, so drowning becomes a problem fast for them. The Otyughs pretty much have to come out of the water to be able to fight, at which point the fight is significantly easier, but still can be a pretty tough fight.
I think that your assessment here is questionable, with at least 1 point that is wrong.
Otyughs are not aquatic creatures, that is correct. However, they *don't* they do have a swim speed, so they don't have to make checks for swimming. Since they have no swim check to fail, unless they are intentionally submerging completely, there is no reason to make endurance checks. Likewise, a PC shouldn't have to roll Endurance unless they take damage that round, and fail their swim. The Otyugh is only really completely submerged when it's hiding and using it's spying eye before it actually attacks.
Also, you are incorrect on the penalty to hit from the Otyugh. If you double check those rules, it is for Fire based powers, or weapons (other than spears or crossbows). Because the Otyugh is neither using a weapon, nor a fire based power, the attack penalty does not apply.