It took place in a large temple with a magical arch/portal that apparently lead to some nasty place (abyss? hell?). Most of the enemies retreated into a magical circle of runes on the floor located near the portal. Apparently it gave them defensive bonuses that made them nearly impossible for us to hit as well as fast healing.
What's more, if we got within 5 squares of the portal (which many of us had to do to get within melee range of the evil bads) a giant hand would reach out from the portal, attack us, and attempt to drag us kicking and screaming towards the opening. It didn't help that the "giant hand" had threatening reach 5!
It also didn't help that all the cultists had Ranged 20 attacks, ungodly melee attacks (regularly getting 30+ on the attack rolls and 15+ on the damage rolls), and the leader had a burst 5 power which could immobilize the entire party as a minor action EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ROUND! The bastard just laughed at us as the hand dragged us into the damned portal and we couldn't even run away.Our poor ranger got dragged into it--and died. No save. No damage. No nothing. Just death. It was little better than the old "YOU TAKE AN ARROW TO THE NECK. YOU DIE."
I want to punch the guy who designed this battle.
Who the hell puts "YOU DIE" traps in the game anymore? I thought a big selling point of 4E was to take out all the "HAHA! YOU DIE!" spells and traps. It also reaks of Harry Potter, something that just killed the atmosphere/mood for us players.We lost both the ranger and cleric in our party to this crap trap.
The first got dragged into the portal by the hand, the second lost consciousness and was bodily carried by a cultist and casually tossed in. Our defender couldn't defend or otherwise do anything to prevent it cause he was rooted in place by the cult leader's immobilization power.Simply as stupid and pointless as putting a sphere of ahnillation into a hole in the wall at the start of a module ("GO AHEAD! CHECK OUT THE HOLE! SEE IF THERE IS ANYTHING VALUABLE HIDDEN THERE!").
Seriously!? Did this erk anyone else out there?
We had two healing focused clerics in the party and it didn't mean sh1t on account of that damned portal.
Just...yuck...
EDIT: And my GM tells me it was meant for 3rd-level characters. We were 4th! WTF!?
My PCs swore the writer up and down, but I think it was fear...allbe it hard as all heck.
Your DM messed up, the death should have had a save...negates to fall prone at the portal, and if you had the statues of bahumit you could have had bonuses
My PCs swore the writer up and down, but I think it was fear...allbe it hard as all heck.
Is the save to fall prone listed in the module? If not, I can see a lot of GMs missing that particualr rule.
The cleric that died did have the staues (since she was a follower of Bahamut). Sadly the GM told ME (the other cleric, a follower of Corellon) that I got +2 to my saves (and he didn't tell me why at the time).
What's more, if we got within 5 squares of the portal (which many of us had to do to get within melee range of the evil bads) a giant hand would reach out from the portal, attack us, and attempt to drag us kicking and screaming towards the opening.
The Tactics section says: "If an adventurer falls to 0 hp or less within the Thing's reach, it attempts to drag the body into the rift. The Thing continues attacking a fallen PC with grasping claws, sliding the fallen PC 1 square closer to the rift with each hit." Also the Thing only has Reach 3.
So, although I completely agree that an auto-death terrain feature in this introductory module was a terrible idea, your DM did make it far deadlier than it was intended to be run by having the hand grab active PCs and drag them into the rift.
My players will be facing this in our next game session, and I will definitely not be auto-killing any PCs simply because they happen to fall down within 3 squares of the portal.
No way.
So it was never meant to drag conscious characters?
My DM is such an ass!
EDIT: That or an idiot. He does misread things a lot.
During the game, I asked him to read aloud the text pertaining to the claw and he was kind enough to oblige. He basically said what you said: "If an adventurer falls to 0 hp or less within the Thing's reach, it attempts to drag the body into the rift. The Thing continues attacking a fallen PC with grasping claws, sliding the fallen PC 1 square closer to the rift with each hit."
To which I asked him to read the rest of it (at the time I thought he obviously wasn't reading all of it because what he told us only mentioned unconscious characters). I brought this to his attention and asked him to read ALL the text, but I didn't get any more info out of him (I think because the other players wanted to get back to the game).
You shouldn't have been up against Cultists either, you should have been up against Kalarel, who stands on the left until he is bloodied or until somone closes into him in melee, at which point he teleports to the ring. You should also have been up against 2 Skeleton Warriors, who follow Kalarel, and a Deathlock Wight who sits on the right side of the map and peppers you with ranged attacks from up there.
The circle also only provides +2 to defences and 5 regeneration.
And finally, the only character that could possibly roll frequent 30's is Kalarel, who has a +14 to his melee attack. The other enemies have +9s and +10s, or less if they're targeting defences other than AC.
Oh, and Kalarel doesn't have any burst 5 powers that immobilise. He has a ranged 5 power called Call of the Grave that is a minor with a recharge of 4, 5, 6 and can only target PC's with ongoing necrotic damage. Furthermore as it is a ranged attack it provokes OA's.
I also can't see how anyone except Kalarel was rolling frequent 15 damage, as his melee attack is 2d6+5, and is by far the highest. The attacks of all the other monsters are single die, with lowers pluses.
Your DM is a complete ******* and drastically overpowered the encounter (either that or an idiot). I suggest you ask him to explain himself next time you see him, and feel free to deck him as well.
Our "claw" had an initiative count and would actively attack us (unconscious or not) on its initiative. If it hit, it would deal a nasty amount of damage (10+) and pull the target 1 square. Also, it most definitely had threatening reach 5 the way our DM played it. We couldn't do anything without provoking from it constantly.
Thing only does 1d10+3, i don't see how it can be frequently doing more than 10 damage.
It can make Death's Claws attacks against conscious characters to slide them around, but the tactics section specifically states that it does so to move the PC's around to stop them from flanking Kalarel, and doesn't try to drag them into the portal until they're unconscious.
Your DM screwed up, the Thing only has Reach 3 (so it can only reach the very north end of the circle), not 5 and it can't grab - only use it's attack to slide 1 every time it hits, and the Cultist certainly shouldn't have picked up the body and dropped it through the portal; it specifically states that the Thing will attack any mortal that comes within range except for Kalarel. The Thing can slide a target 1 square, Slide is a forced movement and a blanket rule for all forced movement is you get a save to avoid it and fall prone if it would move you into somewhere dangerous.
We didn't get any saves for the portal (although we did get a save to keep from falling into the pit fromt he room above). Strange.
You shouldn't have been up against Cultists either, you should have been up against Kalarel, who stands on the left until he is bloodied or until somone closes into him in melee, at which point he teleports to the ring. You should also have been up against 2 Skeleton Warriors, who follow Kalarel, and a Deathlock Wight who sits on the right side of the map and peppers you with ranged attacks from up there.
There was a dude named Kalarel, who did stand by for the first few rounds. He also teleported to the ring, so I guess our DM got that right, but he teleported all of his allies to the ring with him at the same time. Was that part right?
The description the GM gave us of that one monster does fit that of a wight. His tactics largely relied on ranged attacks too (or bull rushing; see below).
The circle also only provides +2 to defences and 5 regeneration.
That sounds exactly like the way our DM ran it. That +2 totally killed us.
And finally, the only character that could possibly roll frequent 30's is Kalarel, who has a +14 to his melee attack. The other enemies have +9s and +10s, or less if they're targeting defences other than AC.
I guess it was just Kalarel rolling 30+ then. His allies probably just got lucky rolls/crits or something a couple of times.
Oh, and Kalarel doesn't have any burst 5 powers that immobilise. He has a ranged 5 power called Call of the Grave that is a minor with a recharge of 4, 5, 6 and can only target PC's with ongoing necrotic damage. Furthermore as it is a ranged attack it provokes OA's.
*snarls* That...sucks. He was regularly hitting the ENTIRE party with Call of the Grave (except for the wizard which was out of range). He did play it as a minor action with a 4, 5, and 6 recharge. He was most definitely hitting characters whether or not they were affected by ongoing necrotic damage.
I also can't see how anyone except Kalarel was rolling frequent 15 damage, as his melee attack is 2d6+5, and is by far the highest. The attacks of all the other monsters are single die, with lowers pluses.
I could be remembering the damage wrong. I think I took something like 15 damage and the DM stated that, that was "2 points away from maximum" or something.
Your DM is a complete ******* and drastically overpowered the encounter (either that or an idiot). I suggest you ask him to explain himself next time you see him, and feel free to deck him as well.
I'm thinking now that he just totally misread most of the abilities. I still think he may have cheated on the THREATENING REACH 5 bit though.
Thing only does 1d10+3, i don't see how it can be frequently doing more than 10 damage.
Again I could be mis-remembering the damage.
It can make Death's Claws attacks against conscious characters to slide them around, but the tactics section specifically states that it does so to move the PC's around to stop them from flanking Kalarel, and doesn't try to drag them into the portal until they're unconscious.
Our DM obviously changed the tactics then. That thing did absolutely nothing but try and drag us to our doom each round from the very beginning. The "cultists" were constantly bull rushing anyone close to the portal as well.
Again, thank you for your detailed response. I intend to get my hands on a copy of this module and see for myself now. I will probably confront my DM about it, though I won't be accusatory (at least not at first). That way, if it was some kind of reading mistake, we won't have hard feelings afterwards.
There was a dude named Kalarel, who did stand by for the first few rounds. He also teleported to the ring, so I guess our DM got that right, but he teleported all of his allies to the ring with him at the same time. Was that part right?
No. It only teleports him.
*snarls* That...sucks. He was regularly hitting the ENTIRE party with Call of the Grave (except for the wizard which was out of range). He did play it as a minor action with a 4, 5, and 6 recharge. He was most definitely hitting characters whether or not they were affected by ongoing necrotic damage.
This significantly increases the difficulty of the encounter. Your DM needs to seriously compensate you if he was playing it like this, i'd suggest you request he unkill the people who died, as playing Call of the Grave as a close burst and affecting players who don't have ongoing Necrotic makes this power rediculously imba.
As for bull rushing, the Skeletons might possibly be able to make a decent bull rush attack with their strength of 15 (giving them a +3 for bull rush) but the Wight only has a strength of 10, and thus has a mere +2. It shouldn't have been bull rushing anyone very well. It's also a primarily ranged controller and shouldn't be going anywhere near melee combat.
He's definitely screwed up here. Either he didn't read the encounter properly, in which case i suggest you and the rest of the players have a talk with him, as this will become a serious issue later on, or he's a malicious asshat.
Out of curiosity, did you guys stomp all over Irontooth yet? That is easily the hardest encounter in the game, given the level disparity. My party survived that encounter with two unconscious so they should have no trouble really against the final encounter in the module.
If you guys won that, your DM may have taken that as a sign to take some "creative license" and increase the difficulty of the last fight - and done a bad job by the sounds of things.
...playing Call of the Grave as a close burst and affecting players who don't have ongoing Necrotic makes this power rediculously imba.
IMBA? That's a new one for me.
This encounter sucked for my players. and once all the baddies were down but Carl it became boring. "Miss, Miss, Miss, Miss..."
That +2 sucks, I let them disable the magic circle.
I suggest to anyone to weaken this encounter, have the dragon statues disable the circle, make the regen 5 into temp 5 hp. Or have the circle do something diffrent, +2 to will or something...
Just to play devil's advocate, how many people are in your party, and what level are they?
5 characters, each level 4. Probably had a few more magical items than is appropriate.
2 clerics
1 fighter
1 ranger (TWF)
1 wizard
An arcana trained character can deactivate the circle, or can grab the spell book from where Kalarel used to stand and reverse the ritual making the Thing kill Kalarel instead.
Our party is 6 PCs, all 3rd level:
Half-elf Paladin (me)
Dragon-born Fighter
Eladrin Warlord
Eladrin Wizard
Elf Bow Range
Halfling Rogue
It was our 5th encounter of the day, so we had pretty much used up all our dailies, including those from magic items.
The ranged characters stayed up top. The DM ruled that by moving to the appropriate side of the opening, they could target much of the lower floor. The melee PCs had a hard time climbing down the chains. My paladin was the only one that made it straight down, despite have only a 60% chance of avoiding a fall (using up many of by good rolls in the process!). The other PCs were getting immobilized on the chains by the ranged attack of the wight I think. The fighter took 4 saves to finally get moving again!
At the bottom, it was my Paladin alone, later joined by the rogue, in melee against the two skeletons and Kalarel. I pulled out Pelor's Radiance to hit the two skellies, and rolled a 2 and a 3 to hit. Then I missed on subsequent attacks (also rolling 3's!). The only reason I didn't die was because the DM was also rolling poorly at times. I still took a beating however.
When all the melee characters were down, Kalarel and the skellies backed into the magic circle, which we discovered was bad for us. We eventually dropped the two skeletons, but we were weak by that time, with basically no healing, except the fighter still had his second wind.
The battle was taking a long time, not only because of their defensive bonus, but also because of really poor rolling. Then one of the skeletons jumped back up, so we decided we needed to run away.
As we started retreating, my Paladin was dropped, but fortunately I got some good luck again, rolling two 17's on death saving throws, before the rogue revived me with a potion. I was hit again, dropping me to a few hit points, so I tried climbing up out of there -- 60% chance of not falling and dying, but my luck held again. The rogue and warlord also climbed up, leaving the fighter to sacrifice himself as a rearguard.
Then our party luck started to change. The ranger got several critical hits, or rolled near max damage. The wizard also started hitting, with good damage. As the fighter backed towards the chains, Kalarel and the skeleton pursued him out of the magic circle. Finally, the fighter was also starting to hit. What really helped him was a resist 5 necrotic magic item, which really reduced the damage he took from the wight.
Between the fighter and the ranged attacks, we were finally victorious. The battle ended as all epic battles should: all dailies and encounters used, all healing used, and many/most PCs down to a few hitpoints!
As a DM, let me tell you my story.
This encounter sucked for my players. and once all the baddies were down but Carl it became boring. "Miss, Miss, Miss, Miss..."
That +2 sucks, I let them disable the magic circle.
I suggest to anyone to weaken this encounter, have the dragon statues disable the circle, make the regen 5 into temp 5 hp. Or have the circle do something diffrent, +2 to will or something...
Or your players could actually use tactics and bullrush/force move him off the magic circle.
Don't reward your players for bad tactics.
) and improve their gameplay. 1st death: When at single digit hp, shift 1 and second wind.
2nd death: If you need to, use your Daily. Better to extended rest than rest in peace.
3rd death: You can run away, allow the Strikers to kill anyone that follows, hide, take a quick rest, then return with fresh encounter powers and more HP.
I'm pretty proud of them.
Or your players could actually use tactics and bullrush/force move him off the magic circle.
Don't reward your players for bad tactics.
Bullrushes are usually less accurate than regular attacks, especially when you start get weapon enhancement bonuses. Likewise whether or not they had push powers is dependant on build- they might not have been able to move him if they tried, not could they necessarily stop him from walking back.
They didn't approach Kalarel until they'd dealt with the others, so they didn't have to deal with the portal.
Then, the Warlock curse of the Dark Dreamed Kalarel into the portal.
Kind of an anticlimax, really.
What they did that turned the tide was simple: the fighter bullrushed Kalarel out of the magic circle, and everyone else unloaded everything they could before he had a chance to get back to the circle - they did about half his hit points in damage in that one turn, after that the regeneration just wasn't enough to cope any more since the fighter was using reaping strike and the wizard was using cloud of daggers, so Kalarel was at least loosing 1 HP a round no matter what.
Bullrushes are usually less accurate than regular attacks, especially when you start get weapon enhancement bonuses. Likewise whether or not they had push powers is dependant on build- they might not have been able to move him if they tried, not could they necessarily stop him from walking back.
So what? Why wouldnt you Bullrush him off the circle when he gains such ad advantage from being on it? Most groups I know have done this, and my group has at least three different ways of forcing movement through powers, so I am sure most groups should have at least 1.
Then he is at a disadvantage while trying to get back, especially if there is a Fighter who has him marked. Combat Challenge thank you very much.
If players cannot use decent tactics in order to defeat a BBEG fight, then you shouldn't dumb it down for them if you don't want them to ever learn. I hope at least XP was adjusted accordingly.
Mine group is mostly melee strikers so they were able to dish out enough dmg to make up for the circles regen while our 'lock took care of the wight mano a mano. I let the circle grab and try to slide anyone, I dont remember it restricting me to them being uncon, however I favored sliding uncon pc's over ones who were still standing, simply because they were easier to get at.
Your DM did mess up some stuff, but dont be too hard on him about his tactics, seems like he just misread some of the encounter.
P.S. And yes the kobold cave was far harder for my party as well, all but the warlock went down, I was gracious with a few death rolls, but even still two of the party rolled 20's to get up only to go right back down the next round lol.
In addition to what others have already said:
An arcana trained character can deactivate the circle, or can grab the spell book from where Kalarel used to stand and reverse the ritual making the Thing kill Kalarel instead.
Our wizard made an Arcan check of 24 to get information on the runes (I made a Religion check of 17) and the DM didn't say anything at all about disabling it.
So what? Why wouldnt you Bullrush him off the circle when he gains such ad advantage from being on it? Most groups I know have done this, and my group has at least three different ways of forcing movement through powers, so I am sure most groups should have at least 1.
Then he is at a disadvantage while trying to get back, especially if there is a Fighter who has him marked. Combat Challenge thank you very much.
If players cannot use decent tactics in order to defeat a BBEG fight, then you shouldn't dumb it down for them if you don't want them to ever learn. I hope at least XP was adjusted accordingly.
We couldn't hit AC 24 with our regular attacks most of the time. His other defenses were nearly as high (22 or thereabouts I think) when he was in that damned circle. So basically, we had 10-15% chance of bullrushing him, and then we would most certainly be rooted in place in retaliation and dragged to our deaths by the claw. Yeah, bull rushing was a GREAT idea for our game.
We couldn't hit AC 24 with our regular attacks most of the time. His other defenses were nearly as high (22 or thereabouts I think) when he was in that damned circle. So basically, we had 10-15% chance of bullrushing him, and then we would most certainly be rooted in place in retaliation and dragged to our deaths by the claw. Yeah, bull rushing was a GREAT idea for our game.
Your fight was ridiculously skewed, and I am on your side here.
However I am saying that this fight NORMALLY doesn't need to be dumbed down. If the players can't handle it because of using inproper tactics, then XP should be scaled down accordingly also.
Your fight was ridiculously skewed, and I am on your side here.
However I am saying that this fight NORMALLY doesn't need to be dumbed down. If the players can't handle it because of using inproper tactics, then XP should be scaled down accordingly also.
Disabling the circle isn't dumbed down, nor is using the book against him, it's written in the actual adventure book as a viable path for use of skills in combat.
Disabling the circle isn't dumbed down, nor is using the book against him, it's written in the actual adventure book as a viable path for use of skills in combat.
Correct, and may even be better options that removing Kal from the circle through forced movement.
Please note who I originally quoted - it wasn't you, now was it?
Disabling the circle isn't dumbed down, nor is using the book against him, it's written in the actual adventure book as a viable path for use of skills in combat.
Is it? Where?
I think in future against solos we might line up multiple aid anothers prior to each and every daily use.
Is it? Where?
That's what I want to know. The copy my DM and I looked through didn't reveal any such thing.
EDIT: My DM says he misread/misunderstood the Call of Darkness power, but also that he had deliberately extended the reach of the claw to make it more challenging. He also changed the claw's tactics so that instead of having it prevent flanking, it simply dragged everyone near the portal (conscious or not) because, as he put it, "it made more sense to me that way."
There is no talk about making it up to us with extra XP at this time, though I forgot to bring it up (he may have already included extra XP for all I know).
I don't think there are any actual monsters at all anywhere that even have reach 5, much less threatening reach.
Actually, slightly wrong there, Balor has Flame Whip with reach 5 (which is also much weaker than his normal reach 3 attack) and Lamia has a special swarmy power with reach 5 which does all kinds of other stuff too.
Again, I think he was spot on with the claw grabbing anyone, since part of them not flanking would be to get them into the waiting mouth of doom right? But reach 5......he needs to put down the kool-aid.
Again, I think he was spot on with the claw grabbing anyone, since part of them not flanking would be to get them into the waiting mouth of doom right? But reach 5......he needs to put down the kool-aid.
Sorry. Allow me to clarify. He changed the tactics so the claw dragged every one of us towards the portal. It ignored all the bad guys completely.
I'm curious as to what these 'cultists' were though, that encounter should only have Kalarel, 2 Skeletons and a Wight.
It specifically states that the Thing grabs for any living being except for Kalarel, and it goes for Kalarel if he dies.
I'm curious as to what these 'cultists' were though, that encounter should only have Kalarel, 2 Skeletons and a Wight.
It did have only those 4 (and the claw). We the players just considered them all to be cultists of Orcus at the time (still do for the most part, except now we know most were monstrous cultists of Orcus).
Indeed he messed up when he made it grad and drag all of the pc's. And I think the "cultists" mentioned are the skeletons.
The DM was regularly rooting the entire party to the ground (except for the wizard who excels at staying out of the way) with his incorrectly run Call of Darkness power, but the Claw was only ever attacking one character at a time on its turn (usually targeting the PC closest to the portal). It did however, move to other PCs for opportunity attacks when they occured, however.
Point him to these forums if he has issue with your assessment of how the encounter was botched. Again, I recommend not being too harsh on him however, as DM's we can't always be perfect you know :P
If you are going to play canned advenures, I would suggest you ask the DM to stick to the script until he is more skilled at improvisation.
Or your players could actually use tactics and bullrush/force move him off the magic circle.
Don't reward your players for bad tactics.
Don't assume my players had bad tactics, it's insulting. This encounter is setup a little too difficult.
If my players are getting frustrated because they can't roll past Carl's defenses, how the heck is that bad tactics? That's me as a bad DM if I don't step in and fix something without tipping off to the players that that's what I'm doing.
And how can you bull rush someone if you can't even hit them in the first place?
Raving Dork,
If you are going to play canned advenures, I would suggest you ask the DM to stick to the script until he is more skilled at improvisation.
My Dm is actually considering getting away from the modules and doing his own thing. I think it's good in that he is creative enough to make it MORE fun than modules, but I worry that his sense of game balance might be lacking and what that might entail for our characters.
Don't assume my players had bad tactics, it's insulting. This encounter is setup a little too difficult.
If my players are getting frustrated because they can't roll past Carl's defenses, how the heck is that bad tactics? That's me as a bad DM if I don't step in and fix something without tipping off to the players that that's what I'm doing.
And how can you bull rush someone if you can't even hit them in the first place?
That's kind of what I was implying earlier. You can't bull rush something you can't hit.
Is it? Where?
The disabling the magic circle is and isn't in the book. It's not on that battle, but is is on another. There is a poster map that has a magic circle, disabling that circle has rules.
Also, there is nothing about using the ritual book against Carl in the book. There was an extra entry on Wizards.com that you can add.
But adding either of those is just the DM giving more options. I don't feel the PCs should die. "LordHell" seems to tell me I need to punish my PCs if they are bad. :D
If your players can't get out of a situation, you need to provide them with options. My players wanted to shove Carl into the portal, I should have let them, but at the time the fight was still early and I didn't want to give them a free instant kill, so I ruled that the portal wouldn't let him through. That was my mistake. They had forced movement as well, and got him out of the circle, but he got back in. It's hard to force movement when you can't hit.
The whole point is that the DM needs to provide options, and there is nothing "dumbed down" about that.
He would also get a saving throw to avoid falling in.
Shoving him into the circle would work, but you lose out on the +2 Magic Dagger he's holding, as it ends up in the Shadowfel along with the rest of his dead body.
He would also get a saving throw to avoid falling in.
We got it off em' since the DM didn't have the claw drag his body away. I went to town, was acclaimed as a local hero with the rest of my friends (*cough* survivors *cough*), and purchased the transfer enchantment ritual. I made the +2 dagger into a +2 longsword and gave it to the eladrin wizard whose opportunity attack capabilities sucked. Would have given it to the fighter, but he wanted Aecris instead.
But if you go for the quick kill by punting him through the portal, no dagger for you. That's the cost for the benefit of the quick kill.
Dont worry about it Dork, the second adventure book seems to have alot less for the DM to misinterpret and lots of wiggle room for helping players out in key areas. Not to mention its a great spring board for lots of random encounters and adventures so your creative DM can do like I am and just throw things at the party out of shear malice :P
I am running a party through KotS. It is tough. I have had to do some things to help the party survive certain encounters. We have not reached the final battle so reading this thread will help me plan ways to play the encounter without a TPK or heavy casualties. It is important to balance encounters between being tough; which is not always a bad thing, and too tough, which is always a bad thing.
Being WotC first module for 4e, they may not have playtested the module significantly before release. They may have been under alot of pressure to release it. Either way, it is a good module, that can be alot of fun if the DM is careful with some of the encounters. Quite frankly, you may never have as much fun fighting Kobolds.
Later,
Mazra
Or your players could actually use tactics and bullrush/force move him off the magic circle.
Don't reward your players for bad tactics.
The problem with that theory is that Kalarel is an overlevelled challenge, his defenses are simply too high for a 4th level party to deal with - /before/ you take into account the +2 from the circle.
Our group litterally used every push & slide we had available on him, some buffed with Action Surge & Tactical Presence - they all missed. Even when four of us used Aid Another to give our remaining Push a +8, it missed.
IMHO, that final encounter is flawed, because Kalarel was statted as an overleveled elite, instead of an apropriately-leveled Solo.
...
We'll see if the final battle vs Paldomar in Thunderspire is as ill-concieved. I shudder to think that he might be another twice-our-level elite with an extreme environment advantage, again.
The problem with that theory is that Kalarel is an overlevelled challenge, his defenses are simply too high for a 4th level party to deal with - /before/ you take into account the +2 from the circle.
Our group litterally used every push & slide we had available on him, some buffed with Action Surge & Tactical Presence - they all missed. Even when four of us used Aid Another to give our remaining Push a +8, it missed.
IMHO, that final encounter is flawed, because Kalarel was statted as an overleveled elite, instead of an apropriately-leveled Solo.
My cleric used both Command and Cause Fear in an attempt to get him out of the circle. Our fighter and other cleric tried bull rushing him at least once.
THEY ALL FAILED. And in many cases such great "tactics" actually put us in a worse tactical position than before we tried (in melee with an over-leveled elite and a claw that we, apparently, couldn't fight back against).
Beforehand, we were just shelling the crap out of him with flaming sphere (which was doing an automatic 1d4+5 fire damage every round to negate the rune's fast healing), several cleric at wills, and the fighter's and ranger's bow. It's not like we had much of a choice, being rooted to the ground and all.
We were slowly winning and wouldn't even have lost the one cleric if she hadn't decided to help the fighter bull rush. The only reason the fighter decided to go back into melee in the first place was because he got boared with the "battle of attrition" and wanted to use his abilities. So the moment he was free and the bad guy failed his recharge roll, he rushed him and tried a bull rush (which failed) followed by an (admittedly successful) daily power.
We used up approximately 7 potions of healing, two clerics worth of healing powers (one of which is healing focused up the wazoo), and it wouldn't surprise me ovelry much if the GM pulled punches somewhere.
In the end, I can't imagine how a party of 3rd-level characters with weaker equipment and one less cleric could possibly survive this encounter.
Well, I'll be sending my troops into Kalarel's room in a few weeks. I'll let you know how it went.
Oh, and Kalarel is only level 8, he's not even remotely overleveled, you can go up to level +5 or +6 for bad guys, for a level 4 party, Kalarels's level 8 eliteness is just about right for a good boss encounter.
The fighter charged the wight and smacked it all around the place (he had Black Iron Chain Armor)
Everyone else smacked around the skellies.
As soon as Kalarel teleported, the Rogue rolled a crit and sent him through his own portal with positioning strike... he didn't even get to regenerate once.
The party took out the first skeleton, but when maneuvering for the final blow on it, got in range of K. So the rogue closed on him and led off with Trick Strike (with the added effect of a Slide 1 on every successful hit afterwards). K ported to the circle, party took out the second skeleton (since I only had 3 PCs, I dropped the wight to even things a bit), then closed on him.
They managed to hem K in a bit, and the rogue slid him to just outside the circle, side nearest the portal. Then the rogue decided he was going to use an encounter power (don't remember the name) that let him Slide 2 on a hit--and suddenly K was rolling his Save to keep from falling into the portal himself.
He failed.
Miserably.
Given the desire to encourage creative play (and this was one of the few creative thing's they'd tried thus far--are all new to 4E, only one had played any 3E/3.5), I took the rule for the portal literally--anything living that entered the portal dies. Period. K failed his save, in he goes, encounter over. Sure, the attack that sent him in was also the attack that dropped him to Bloodied (so I could have drawn it out quite a bit), but it was a good idea on their part, and they were quiet happy about the guy that had been manhandling them so much suddenly got whacked by his own trap.
They managed to get through the encounter in the end but it was tiring. The kobold warlock kept getting immobilized by the wight. The elven ranged Ranger kept being beat on by the Drow Warlock. The Dwarven Fighter had a hard time with one of the 2 Skeleton warriors. Towards the end I ignored the threatening range of the claw and Kalarel's regeneration of HP (I forgot about it at first but I decided not to make this encounter longer than it should be). At one point, the warlock did threw Kalarel in the portal but I had Kalarel bounced back out.
Yeah, I realized now that I shouldn't have made that tougher than it should have. The Irontooth encounter wasn't that bad with my party since they managed to form a very good defense against flanking by using the cave walls to their advantage. I did TPKed them but that was because I combined two encounters in the room before Kalarel which the hobgoblins from the barracks and wardroom were guarding the entrance since they completely ignored them before going back to hidden room in the cave to rest. Even before they went back I gave them a chance to revisit the rooms they didn't go to. They didn't do it so I felt that there needs to be some adaptive molding. I did have the wardroom group appear a few rounds later though. I even allow them to get their magic items back from before. Afterwards, I give the original party a chance for free resurrection but they preferred to play their new characters. I felt bad for doing that so it was my way of apologizing.
So I'm going to try to run Thunderspire by the book as much as possible with some new rules I felt it was needed.
He won with only one of the 5 characters dropping below 0 - and the cleric got him back up. He beat the added skill challenge with the book. The hard part was, as everyone mentioned, hitting Kalarel.
Tonight I ran it with my regular group. Because of the difficulty of hitting Kalarel, I dropped him 2 levels, but added a recharge to the Wight's ability to raise undead allies, and increased the reach of the Thing (over 6 rounds) out to six - restricting it based on successes against the ritual book.
Kalarel didn't stand a *chance.* Upstairs they thunderwaved 4 of the vampires into the hole, and dropped the Underpriest as well. He survived the fall, so I kept him for the last, and had the Wight raise two of the vamp minions.
First the fighter charged the Wight, then Tide of Ironed it into the pit. It was left with one HP. (It missed her on the only attack it got.)
The cleric immediately turned the two skeletons which kept them out of the way quite a while. He also commanded Kalarel into the portal. (He made his save. *phew!*) This after his lamenting his 6% chance of success at that... The fighter then pegged him with a thrown axe and marked him. No one ever even *thought* of melee with him.
But the worst for poor ol' Kalarel was the Wizard's Flame Sphere. I don't know what to do with that thing. It wore him down quick. The others just stood way back and ranged him. The Wizard last night went further - he made the flame sphere, went to the altar, then did arcana checks as his freebee, sustained the sphere as a minor (causing it to attack), moved it if necessary, and then did magic missile as a standard.
I'm no great DM or tactician yet. I thought the fight was a bit clunky and long the first time through, but doable by my group. The changes I made were to hopefully speed up the boring parts (they'd wear him down eventually between the flame sphere and their ranged attacks anyway long before he could do much to them with his), and make it a bit more exciting - and they creamed him. :-) And got him before the Thing. Tied him up (along with the underpriest) and tortured him just 'cause.