Our ranged which consisted of a warlock, rogue(who got dropped like 5 rounds in a row, took up all the healing, and did about 2 rounds of actual combat), and a wizard who stayed back 15 or more squares picking off the melee me and the fighter were dealing with instead of the ranged archers/casters that were raping us.
While I kept suggesting in character and out that the ranged should be taken out, the answer I got was "screw you, you can't hit anything, im gonna take out the minions"
I have to say this was annoying to the least. In the end, I was unconscious, the cleric had no healing, and the ranged had to finish the fight. No one died that encounter(the cleric did the encounter before, we lost 6 days in game ressing) but it was too close for something that should have been easier.
Any thoughts on how to make suggestions more suggesting?
So... Deal quickly with the minions.
Fighters need to cleave. If you have a paladin, get him to mark an adjacent minion and attack a different adjacent minion. He hits, the one minion goes down. Your striker walks by the other minion intentionally provoking an opportunity attack. If the DM takes the attack, the minion is -2 to hit and takes 3+CHA mod radiant damage, killing it immediately. If the DM doesn't take the attack, your melee striker doesn't have to worry about that opportunity attack.
Area / burst / blast attacks are really, really helpful against minions. Sometimes party members get hit too. Dragonborn melee are pretty much minion killers with their 1/encounter dragonbreath racial. Half Elf melee can pick up Thunderwave as their diletantte, as can anyone else with 13 int. Swordmages can have a burst 1 attack as an at-will power.
Tell us a little more about your party composition, and we'll try and help you out.
I am the paladin. Fighters should cleave yes, but the fighter was at a +8 to hit as well, and Vs a 24 AC it wasn't happening. I missed with my dragonbreath and the fighter's dragonbreath too.
Even surrounded by 4 guys, with valiant strike, and combat advantage, +14 to hit and I rolled a 6 to miss. This wasn't a joke.
The warchief was dealt with quickly, but the problem was also the monster constantly having combat advantage over the whole party because of higher ground house rules(they are higher elevation then you, so you grant combat advantage to them).
Party-
Dragonborn paladin- me
dragonborn fighter-
dwarf cleric
dwarf wizard
eladrin rogue
human warlock
Hope that helps. And my apologies for my other post. I was extra upset because my friend had asked for help with coming up with tactics for his group to use. I came up with some really good stuff, which ended up being wasted effort, if it weren't for the fact that I saved tactics by writing them down.
Any thoughts on how to make suggestions more suggesting?
When I first started playing I was fairly poor at the concept of tactics, as I think many of us probably were. I was young I knew a little about history but the intricacies were kind of lost on me.
Then one day while hanging out at the game store and one of the older guys that was kind of a history buff, retired from the military like 30 years ago, and always played the boardgames with all the cardboard chits, came in and I asked him if he could teach me about tactics.
Five minutes later we were playing ASL (advanced squad leader). About fifteen minutes later he had beaten me, and we were playing again. After about two weeks and ten or so losses, I learned about tactics, and I actually beat him in the Stalingrad Tractor Factory scenario.
Then I played some miniatures games, then I was invited to play some Napoleonics. Then the same guy introduced me to For the People. And I got my
handed to me. A couple of months later I was introduced to World in Flames, that was really cool and fun but, same result. Now I know tactics. But I was interested in learning.
Tactics is something that really isn't talked all that well about. I remember people trying to explain it to me and just really not getting it. Tactics needs to be LEARNED. I would say until the other players decide to learn for themselves there will be many more scenarios like this...
Try some board games or mini games that are tactics heavy, just for fun, see if they take to the idea.
Good luck.
Now, whats really a bear is when the DM uses tactics against the PC's. That will learn them. I did that last session with my players.
In the next room there is a magical crossbow trap flanking an open area where the PC would be entering the room. In addition there are two Hobgoblin Archers, one Goblin Skullcleaver, one Deathjump Spider, and one Goblin Hexer.
They enter the room, the rogue rushes forward to engage the trap box and work on disabling the Magical Crossbows. The Paladin rushes in behind the rogue and marks the Deathjump spider that the goblins were using like a Bloodhound. With a swing of the sword the Paladin engaged the Goblin Hexer and effectively had both targets distracted. But the Warlock and Wizard decided to hang back. That made the Goblin Skullcleaver in the room mad. I also had two archers that focused on the ones in the back. The Skullcleaver rushed the wizard and the archers focused on the Warlock. With big damage the warlock bloodied the Skullcleaver in one shot and then the wizard cast scorching burst on the archers but forgot to shift away from the Skullcleaver. Retaliating for that the Skullcleaver hit with a Critical Stike on a bloodied Battleaxe attack dealing an automatic 25 and dropping the wizard to -2.
So you are right, those archers are nasty but I don't know that they were being used as effectively as they could have been. There were things the wizard could have done to aid you based on what he keeps in his arsenal. A Sleep daily would have effectively removed the archers from the fight and made them easy kills as well. What I have seen is that people slowly start to come away from the King of the Hill mentality of being the hero in every round to working as a team. The more experience they gain the more they will see they need to work with each other. There have been moments that, as a DM, I have been able to split the party up but that has been because I have put together good on the fly countermeasures to the PC's actions.
Anyway, I guess from what I read is that I need to be more patient and let the tactics come to the players
well, the archers were in fact being optimized. Why I say this is because when 1 archer hits, he gives another archer a +2 bonus to hit. So, +4 to hit before even their own modifiers is what was causing the 22 hp rogue to drop so many times...can't mark what you can't get to =(
Anyway, I guess from what I read is that I need to be more patient and let the tactics come to the players
It should only be +2, that bonus does not stack multiple times over. Another question is this, was the DM attacking the rogue because the goblins / hobgoblins have seen what a rogue can do? Or was it because the DM read the books?
I try to mix a bit of RP into the tactics, which will be great at high levels when the enemies will have a clearer idea what they can do, but right now my enemies only know the rogue as a boisterous loud mouth pirate.
In the end, though, patience is a key element to good party strategy. Make the suggestions, compliment the smart moves, and react to your companions strategically even if it means going against your original intentions. Eventually they will catch on and learn they can't go in with the mentality that worked for every edition prior as that will get them killed.
Does anyone have any suggestions to speak to groups on tactics? I feel like the last session I played was a test of our failure at tactics. The melee were being held off by minion and warchief hobgoblins with phalanx fighting(24 AC, and I have a +8 to hit at level 2) while the ranged were picking everyone off.
Our ranged which consisted of a warlock, rogue(who got dropped like 5 rounds in a row, took up all the healing, and did about 2 rounds of actual combat), and a wizard who stayed back 15 or more squares picking off the melee me and the fighter were dealing with instead of the ranged archers/casters that were raping us.
While I kept suggesting in character and out that the ranged should be taken out, the answer I got was "screw you, you can't hit anything, im gonna take out the minions"
I have to say this was annoying to the least. In the end, I was unconscious, the cleric had no healing, and the ranged had to finish the fight. No one died that encounter(the cleric did the encounter before, we lost 6 days in game ressing) but it was too close for something that should have been easier.
Any thoughts on how to make suggestions more suggesting?
Warlocks need to move and curse every round if at all possible. Spreading their Curse to as many foes as possible helps. However, each pact makes slightly different use of tactics. Knowing more about your party's warlock would be helpful.
Rogues need Combat Advantage to get the most from their class abilities. This is very hard to do consistently with ranged attacks.
The wizard should have At Will attacks which target different Defense Values. If he's a Human, he'll ideally have an At Will which targets all three. If he's having trouble landing one power, switch to one which targets a different defense. In the case of a Phalanx, Thunderwave is just the thing to break their line. Properly aimed area effects will take advantage of bunched opponents. Cloud of Daggers makes for guaranteed damage as well, and works well when combined with Reaping Strike to damage opponents with high AC.
Clerics do more than heal. They have several At Will options which grant bonuses to an ally's attack. If your cleric isn't using these, he needs to.
As a Fighter, switching between Cleave and Reaping Strike goes a long way toward whittling down opponents. Cleave does your StrMod in damage to any adjacent opponent when you strike another, and Reaping Strike does 1/2 StrMod even on a miss. If you can't hit their AC, Reaping Strike will eventually take them down. Tide of Iron is also useful to break a line, though you have to hit to make it worthwhile...
As a Fighter, switching between Cleave and Reaping Strike goes a long way toward whittling down opponents. Cleave does your StrMod in damage to any adjacent opponent when you strike another, and Reaping Strike does 1/2 StrMod even on a miss. If you can't hit their AC, Reaping Strike will eventually take them down. Tide of Iron is also useful to break a line, though you have to hit to make it worthwhile...
I would like to point out that reaping strike can't kill minions if it misses. I think another problem was that we were fighting level 8 minions at level 2. I am not sure about the math, I will have to go do it, but I think the encounter was a bit higher then what we were supposed to be going for even at max recommendation of the DMG...
> over the whole party because of higher ground house rules(they are higher
> elevation then you, so you grant combat advantage to them).
And that's why it's not an official rule. Granting combat advantage for high ground is flat-out too powerful.
> but the problem was also the monster constantly having combat advantage
> over the whole party because of higher ground house rules(they are higher
> elevation then you, so you grant combat advantage to them).
And that's why it's not an official rule. Granting combat advantage for high ground is flat-out too powerful.
and thats why I plan to use it for my own advantage when the time comes. anyway, I did a little math. 88x4=352(level 8 minion) 150x2=300(warcasters level 3) 150x3(450)archers level 3 38x4=152(level 3 minions) hobgoblin commanderx1=200 level 5.
=1454 experience pool. Now, I might be wrong about the minions, there could have only been 3 of each, not sure, but that means 122 less XP from the total.
1328 xp from monsters killed. we will use the lower just to save arguments.
5 level 2 characters=125x5=625
1 level 1 character=100
total =725
in essence we did an encounter of twice our level and lived. well, higher because of the constant combat advantage. so with 1328 xp divided by 6 we each should get 221 xp(it was too late at night so we didn't do xp)
If you only have 22 HP, 6 healing surges, and are in leather armor, when fighting in a large battle the quickest way to die is to jump right in. The leaders need to not waste their healing abilities on a character that's just going to keep getting stomped. That rogue needs to play more intelligently, and I think that's the crux of your problem.
edit: Attacking with a crossbow or slings still gets you a sneak attack, provided you go before your opponent in the first round, or that you have combat advantage in some other way (ie hiding behind barrels and making checks to stay stealthy).
The house rules and rules errors (archer's granted bonus doesn't stack, and combat advantage for higher ground was a dumb choice) obviously didn't help your group, either. So it's hard to pin the difficulty of the encounter entirely on poor tactics.
However, having said all that, it does sound like your party's tactics were a bit off. For instance, if you can see that the hobgoblins are backing each other up and shielding each other, shatter their formation. If the wizard insists on working with you on the minions, ask for a thunderwave or cloud of daggers instead of magic missile every round. (The wizard's proper role is controller, not artillery.)
Also, don't forget that you can combine divine challenge with ranged attacks; if your minion target doesn't break formation to come after you, he takes automatic damage and dies. Since your PC is backed up by a fighter, use your respective marks to pull the hobgoblins away from each other (and don't forget that you can combine divine challenge with ranged attacks).
As Kalanth said upthread, it's important to break 3e thinking. My suggestion is that you ask your players for a short (five or ten minutes at most) look at tactics at the end of each combat encounter. What did you do right, what did you do wrong, what could have gone better, etc. Other than that, the best you can do is to lead by example: if you consistently display good tactics, they may eventually get the hint.
When discussing tactics as a player, I like to discuss how we're going to fight encounters at the beginning of the night, or if time permits before the fight and then let people play their characters. Trying to tell anyone else how to play their character leads to un-needed tension in a group. "Tanks hold the line here, the wizard will keep them off of us from the right, while the rogue sneaks around the corner to get CA." Anything beyond that is being an asshat.
Of course YMMV.