After 3 months of battling to level 6 we all died last night in a undead encounter. During post-mortem the players (including me) wondered whether we were ever going to win that encounter.
Players (All Level 6)
Ranger AC20 - Longbow
Warlock AC18 - Fey (No dailies left)
Cleric AC20 - Battle
Fighter AC24 - (No dailies left)
We had all just finished a fight against a similar group of 4xTomb Guardians and 1x Poltergeist which we walked though because we all had rest 5 all, due to cleric daily.
We were up against
4x Level 6 "Skeletal Tomb Guardians"
1x Level 6 Poltergeist
1x Level 6 Skull Lord
The area we were fighting in was a 12x12 room, no cover, no other terrain, no way out once locked in.
Essentially our tactics were as follows:
Ranger engaged the skull lord at range, cleric used turn undead to push the tomb guardians back, fighter went to pick up one or two of the tomb guardians, and the warlock was attacking the nearest target.
The first thing we noticed was that in the previous fight when we had resist 5 damage it was a lot easier. The DM backed the tomb guardians on top of the Skull Lord (in order for them to get the regen 5 from his aura). The tomb guardians then proceded to nuke down the fighter and the cleric.
Even though the fighters AC was 26/27 with four attacks per turn and the fighter having to shift to position some tomb guardians were critting once per round for around 20 dmg.
We managed to down the Skull Lord and as soon as that happened the cleric got wacked by 8 attacks from 2 tomb guardians and put down. Soon after that they just walked over en mass to the next party member and blended them up. At one point the warlock got surrounded by 3 of them, took 12 attacks, then used a ranged attack in her turn and got another 6 attacks.
There was simply no way the cleric could put out enough healing.
We as players were trying to figure out if it was the lack of dalies that killed us or the fact that the tomb guardians with 84 hp, +9 to hit and 4 attacks per turn were just too much for us.
Thoughts?
how long did this encounter last. and maybe you guys could have kept one daily up your sleeves
This would be a very difficult encounter for your PC's even fully rested. Tomb guardians are bad enough (4 attacks each per turn) but mixed with the skull lord it is just nasty. Focusing your attacks on the skull lord first probably would have helped as well as focusing everyone on one target at once. That being said the killing blow actually occurred when the players were locked in the room. In a standard or easier encounter this could have added to the tension but against this group it makes the encounter much more deadly than it should have been.
how long did this encounter last. and maybe you guys could have kept one daily up your sleeves
I as the cleric had stream of life and consecrated ground left, I busted out shield of faith for +2AC for everyone, then I even used my daily in my medic blade to get my turn undead back. Stream of life was keeping everyone else up whilst I was using second wind and healing positions on myself to stop me from going too low.
I used the consecrated ground to stop the Skull lord and Guardian from regenning too much but I used an action to move it under the bad guys (4 targets). Then as the skull lord went down I think I was on 30ish hps but 8 attacks with +9 against my 22AC was just too much.
I must say, thats a pretty nasty encounter....
Had a look on the Compendium what is available, there are some:
the standard Tomb guard is a level 10 brute.. then there is a
Skeletal Tomb Guardian (Level 6) (RPGA The Woolmens Restless Tomb)
but this is still a scale down from Monster Manual level 10 version, So I guess either your DM used this one or scaled it down himself from the level 10 version.. And I guess scale down just affect hp, defences, + to hit.. but still the 4 attacks per turn is really nasty.. and making a level 10 monster 4 levels lower and keep all the powers.. I would be very hesitant to do.. the damage output is just crazy..
Also the Skull Lord is also a Level 10 creature by default so if that was also scalled down the same way as the Tomb Guards, thats just nasty, as its powers would remain the same... 5 regen aura on a level 6 monster is pretty high.. and then facing off against the numbers you were facing..
This encounter is just not hard, its very hard.. I would not give this to my players.. rescalling monster by 4 levels is tricky business, specially monster that has multiple powers, as the powers are scalled for their propper level.. So I rather leave it to the Pros and use creatures that are closer in levels..
thats my 2 cents on that at least..
We fought a similar battle in Pyramid of Shadows (3 skeletal tomb guardians, 1 skull lord, 4 vampire spawn bloodhunters plus some area effects that were helping them a little). I guess your DM may have been inspired by that encounter, which we fought at 10th level against the "full fledged" versions of the monsters.
Well, the fight was nasty. We survived only by pouring down dailies on the monsters. What saved the fight was, on one side, the sword and board paladin with Majestic Halo wading in the middle of the guardians, sanctioning them automatically and using all the radiant attacks he had to exploit their vulnerability. On the other side the longbow using ranger had a fantastic streak of hits against the skull lord.
Without a good reserve of dailies or the possibility to deal constant radiant damage the encounter has a very good chance to become a TPK.
sounds like, no it isnt a fair fight.
life isnt fair either, but life can be fun at times too.
tpk= not always fun, and yours doesnt sound fun.
Hi Chaps,
I'm the DM for that campaign and I've been kind of looking at what went wrong. The players had walked through most of the encounters up to that point so I thought I'd give them a run for their money.
Encounter was put together by using the online encounter tool and just looking for undead around the level 6 mark.
They were doing fairly well until the skull lord was down to no skulls and started hiding behind his minions and the players went after him. A couple of rounds of misses by the players and a couple of crits on my end sort of turned the tide and the poltergeist separated them. Then it all went south.
I think in the future I'll be a little more wary of just pulling these Monsters straight off the tool and running as-is. The skull lord seems extremely good for the XP cost even with a good ranger hit dropping him down a skull turn one.
Also I think the tool should have a slightly reduced xp scale for four players as they have a gigantic disadvantage as soon as one character hits the deck.
Still, my first TPK... never going to forget it.
Though it does sound like the monsters were a bit on the tough side this time, do remember that if you play "by the dice", then a TPK is always a possibility.
Even a completely "fair" encounter with all good design boxes ticked probably comes with a 1% chance of TPK. Play enough encounters by the book, and you'll hit that. I don't know that it is 1%, but would not be at all surprised if it was around that value, perhaps a little lower.
Yes it's also true that lower numbers of PCs will make an encounter more swingy, so although the average result will be the same, that imaginary 1% can sneak up to a 2 or 3% quite easily.
In reality the chance varies a lot by encounter and the allegedly balanced xp budget system hides a lot of variation.
It also didn't help that the players couldn't make use of a bottleneck to try and mitigate some of the massive quantities of attacks comming at them.
Aye whats done is done. If you chalenge party there is bound to be chalenge they will trip on. There are some nasty monsters I walked into a trap once with possesing ghosts and autodamage wraith's. I did rather bad thing of Deus Exing but now its part of theyr story for they are chosen by Cyric 
.
So question stands what to do now . If you want you can replay it with or without some cost to players. Or you can make revenant group of em . Or you can make another game.
TPK's are part of game even in 4ed. Sometimes enemies get too many crits, sometimes someone gets afflickted by save ends and can't roll it for 10 turns. Sometime you misscalculate power of enemy and drop in few level apropriate or even lower monsters that can realy eat alot of your guys. I actualy threw alot of very low level (2) swarms (centypede from MM2) at lvl 7 party, and fighter nearly got eaten by autodamage alone. Or in other fight Witherling minion got our Barb to blooded solo fighting him, barb missed him for 5 turns stright, untill warlock cursekilled him (minion slaying rod, also good for hunting small wildlife). Stuff like that happens. Actualy thats why i dont like featurelss locked rooms as a DM: it doesnt give ME ability to save em on whim without resorting to Cheese monster. Sometimes some features is all you need to make some invisible dumbing down to help your party when they are in pinch.
Im proponent of the idea that TPK must only be story based. If they fight overhard "random encounter" they will not die but can loose badly. If they take on Vecna all bets are off since you wont encounter him on random stroll to pub .
Tomb guardians are just pure evil.
Hi Chaps,
I'm the DM for that campaign and I've been kind of looking at what went wrong. The players had walked through most of the encounters up to that point so I thought I'd give them a run for their money.
Encounter was put together by using the online encounter tool and just looking for undead around the level 6 mark.
They were doing fairly well until the skull lord was down to no skulls and started hiding behind his minions and the players went after him. A couple of rounds of misses by the players and a couple of crits on my end sort of turned the tide and the poltergeist separated them. Then it all went south.
I think in the future I'll be a little more wary of just pulling these Monsters straight off the tool and running as-is. The skull lord seems extremely good for the XP cost even with a good ranger hit dropping him down a skull turn one.
Also I think the tool should have a slightly reduced xp scale for four players as they have a gigantic disadvantage as soon as one character hits the deck.
Still, my first TPK... never going to forget it.
I'm the DM for a group of four (paladin, fighter, ranger and wizard). What I'm starting to see is that controller and leader monsters are sometimes undervalued when it comes to XP. The impact some powers/abilities have on the game can be devastating. This is especially true if the party is smaller than five members as you pointed out. The skull lord is a good example of one of these leaders, the succubus is a good example of a controller.
In our game a succubus was able to get close to the group and after she charmed the fighter and used him as a shield, she dominated the ranger who took off the paladin. TPK was very close and I was using a single monster of level 9 against a 9th level group. Four succubi will probably make short work of any 9th level party with four members.
From reading, it sounds like a clunker of an encounter. First tomb guardians get 4 attacks each. Not to mention shifting is useless against them, as it triggers a reaction.
So that's 16 attacks right there. If they were minions, not a problem as one hit starts reducing the number of attacks. But you basically have to take down a regular mob to do that. So at the start of the fight, there were 18 attacks a round against the parties number of attacks, which sounds to be around 10. So they are getting hit 2-1, with no chance to level to quickly alter that, via minions.
And regen on monsters can really make a difference. 9 damage. Ok, the skull lord regens 10. 
You are locked in a room, with nothing to use to your advantage. It's basically fight or die.
I would have lowered the tomb guardians to 2 attacks per round, fitting a lowering of level, or reduced the number to 2 from 4.
I would have put terrain in the room, stuff that would have helped and or hindered both players and monsters.
I would not have locked the door, but would have offered that going backwards could be worse, giving the players choices. Or if you feel you have to lock them in, a standard plot device, offer a way to unlock the door, via skill challenges, so while some players are holding off the monsters, one is trying to open the exit. Makes for nice tension.
Not all monsters scale well. 4 attacks per round is different at level 10 then at level 6.
I'd agree with the monsters not scaling well, I probably would have cut the attacks to 2 each.
But the biggest issue with this encounter is the locked in and no terrain aspects. There is no battlefield features for a losing side to try to utilize to it's advantage to attempt to turn things around. At best you can back into a corner which is hardly ideal, but would have probably been the best plan for this squad.
Is it something I would consider using?-- yes, tough encounters are part of the game, and some challenge/risk of death makes combat interesting/exciting. I would have played up the terrain and not locked them in, but that's just me.
Thanks for all the great feedback. A number of points are made well, if I can summarize:
- Lack of terrain played to the monsters advantage
- DM could in these circumstances seen that the players were in trouble and offered a way out of the locked door via skill challenges
- Sometimes encounters go bad and TPK's happen
- Be careful of picking scaled down monsters from the builder
- Maybe a slight undervalue of XP cost for monster controllers
- Tactics do help in the "marginal" encounters
As I am a fellow GM (my D&D turn hasn't come around yet) I agree with an earlier poster that unless the plot or it is an epic encounter then TPK'ing a party should be avoided if possible.
Our GM has decided to let one of the characters live and the other 3 are re-rolling.
Thanks for all the great feedback.
It also didn't help that the players couldn't make use of a bottleneck to try and mitigate some of the massive quantities of attacks comming at them.
Yeah, bottlenecks can be deadly. The first combat of my group's current campaign (as a party of 6 1st level PCs) turned out to be incredibly difficult even though we were only facing a couple of fire beetles, a couple of kobold skirmishers, and a bunch of kobold minions. We were being overly cautious but entirely too noisy going into the dungeon, which alerted the beetles and kobolds to our presence. We got stuck in a 10ft. wide hallway leading to the first room, hedged in by the beetles. The DM kept getting good rolls to recharge the fire beetles' fire spray, and the kobolds were able to stand back and chunk javelins at us at their leisure. We did have the option of backing out of the dungeon, but none of us could face the shame of retreating from a bunch of kobold minions.
After that, we decided bottlenecks were bad, and (for better or worse) started barging straight into rooms just to get out of the cramped doorways and hallways.
Players (All Level 6)
Ranger AC20 - Longbow
Warlock AC18 - Fey (No dailies left)
Cleric AC20 - BattleFighter AC24 - (No dailies left)
As multiple posters have stated, you faced a tough encounter. However, you also faced an encounter which was highly dependent on AC, and your party, as a whole has mediocre AC scores for their level [I don't mean that as an insult, I am trying to help diagnose the problem.]
First, every character in the party, with the possible exception of the fighter, has only +1 armor. Your game may vary, but in conventional game some party members would have +2 armor at this point. The lack of +2 armor especially hurts the two heavy armor classes, as they lose out on the masterwork bonus.
Warlock - Your walrock only started with a 13 or 14 in their secondary stat, int (assuming that they have +1 leather). They have not spent any feats on AC defense.
Ranger - The Ranger started with a 15 or 16 in their primary state, dex (assuming that they have +1 hide), and spent no feats on AC defense.
Cleric - Hurt by the lack of +2 armor. Also, despite having a number of potential feats available (light shield and scale), and being the second melee character in the group, they have spent no feats on AC defense.
Fighter - The fight seems to have spent one feat to upgrade to plate. But, either the fighter is using a great weapon, or has only +1 armor.
All, in all, your group has below average AC. That is not a death sentence, particularly when your cleric powers help cover that gap. But, when facing a ton of hard hitting monsters that target AC you become vulnerable. I don't know what was rolled, but, my suspicion is that this fight looks a lot different if the fighter rolls in with base AC of 26, the cleric has a 23, the ranger a 21, and the warlock a 19 or 20. Even with four attacks a turn, life is rough if you need to get a 19 to hit.
Hi Chaps,
I'm the DM for that campaign and ~~~~~
Still, my first TPK... never going to forget it.
Congats on your 1st TPK.
Since you're the DM (& not just someone complaing their PC got killed), let me throw a few questions at you.
1) Other than simply fighting, did the party have any other options once the doors had closed?
2) Did any of the players try to do anything other than simply fight?
3) Did you have any "plan" in mind for the eventuallity of a TPK? Not neccecarily "How can I get them out of this?", but simply what happens next in general? Did this screw up the entire campaign?
Congratulations on the TPK 
, I think everyone above has offered some great advice, I certainly couldnt claim to give you any better. Remember though , not always, not even often, but sometimes- just sometimes - things have to get brutal
So, from a players perspective, has anyone learned anything from this encounter?
Well, from a DM's perspective, I ALWAYS check monsters that have a (Level #) after them. It means they've been modified in some way.
Usually Monsters that have "multiple attacks" do so only when they DON'T move that turn. I'm not sure why the Tomb Guardian doesn't have that limitation. For the (level 6) version, I definitely would have added that restriction in.
From a players perspective, being locked in a room with 4 brutes (any brutes) is, well, brutal. Being locked in a room with 4 Zombie Hulks would have likely provided the same result.
And what on earth were you doing in a tomb without radiant damage dealing weapons/powers!?
DM: Next Time, throw a skill challenge in there and let them get out of the room. It would have made for a VERY dramatic Skill Challenge (seeing their friends drop around them), added to the excitement, and possibly allowed the PCs to survive the incredibly difficult combat.
It really seems like you hit them with a level 12 encounter--monsters don't scale well at all, especially against an undersize party.
That said, the party probably should have focused fire a bit more in the early rounds; those cleric dailies are usually "I win" buttons" once a few monsters go down, since then the remainer can't deal enough damage to matter.
Ad hoc skill challenge is an AWESOME idea, too.
Well, stricly speaking from an XP budget point of view, to challenge (but hopefully not kill) a party, the encounter should have been around 1000 XP. This one had 1500 XP, so it was right inbetween a level 8 or 9 encounter. Add to that a leader type artillery monster bolstering brutes (instead of soldiers, wich might have been better) and another artillery monster who was insubstantial, all in all a very tight and somewhat high Double Line variant type group.
Then cap it all off with being trapped in a 12x12 square room? That sounds like a trap of at least the level of the characters, meaning you now have at least a level 9 encounter (possibly level 10) against a level 6 group who isn't at full power? Ignoring the extra turns that the brutes get, this sounds like it was going to be brutal even if everyone was at full health. And this doesn't even touch on how badly some monsters scale. So yes, I think the encounter was bad for both the DM and the players. The players all died, the DM wanted to challenge, not murder, and everyone I'm sure was unhappy a for a bit afterwards.
To the DM, here's my encounter, based around the idea of your encounter:
1 x Skull Lord (Level 10 Artillery Controller)500 XP total Monster Manual, pg 236
2 x Chillborn Zombie (Level 6 Soldier) 500 XP total Monster Manual, pg 275
4 x Skeleton Soldiers (Level 6 Minion) 252 XP total Open Grave, pg 77
2 x Falling Iron Portcullis (Level 7 minion Obstacle) 150 XP total Dragon Magazine 366, pg 38
Total XP: 1402
Level 8 Encounter
So, the Skull Lord takes his rightful place as a really hard guy to hit, and probably the last guy to fall. The Portculli are traps that could just as easily be represented as a skill challenge; either way, the locking doors need to be represented by something, so there they are, and I figure this place had two doors, so if not, reduce the XP by 75. The minions are there because they will die in a hit and not really be effected by the Aura of the Skull Lord; they're there to hit once or twice and then die. Last are the Chillborn Zombies, an undead level 6 soldier; they don't hit as hard or as much as the tomb guards do, but they still have their chill aura and they blow up on death, so you can be sure they'll tax the party enough.
Note that I am assuming that each classes primary stat is at least 18, and since they are level 6, that means their attack bonus should be at least a +7, probably more.
While each of the Monsters given have a fair AC, the Minions have mediocre NADs, and the Zombies suck at Will and Reflex. The only big bruiser is the Skull Lord, which could just be replaced by an elite artillery or Controller of level 6; For example putting the Death Master Template to the Poltergeist. The XP value would even be the same, the aura would be replaced by one that would negate Radiant vulnerability, And with the Call of the Grave power, you are given a mechanical reason to create either the original 4 minions of the encounter, or create 4 more if the characters start carving through the encounter like a hot knife through butter.
NOTE: I am not trying to tell you to run your game my way. I am giving a few examples of how I might have tried to kill my players in a different, less assured way. 
Not having been there to observe the fight myself, I can only offer a limited opinion. I think with four PC's, the fight would be certainly difficult to win. I also think Four Skelatal Guardians was a bit much, throw in a Skull Lord and PC's without any dailies left, the party had about a 25% to 30% chance to win that fight. Personally, I would have scaled it down a bit. If the DM was out to TPK a party, that encounter would certainly make it a reality and did apparantly. But like I said, I wasn't there to observe firsthand.
Sorry about the TPK though.
I tend to start small and add more monsters depending on how the encounter goes. This is not always possible, but when it is, I do it. This way, I can test the limits of the group without killing them.
There are other DM tricks/cheats, that can save your game and your players, but I'm sure you can figure them out.
By the numbers, that encounter was fine. However, there are some monsters who in practice far surpass their assigned level. Rot Scareb Swarms, Needlefang Drake Swarms, and Banshrae Warriors are a few examples of monsters that should count a couple levels higher. The Tomb Guardians are also like them.
Also, as stated, how these monsters were 'scaled down' is important. If all that was reduced was their attack bonus, defenses, and hit points, without addressing the ridiculous DPR of Tomb Guardians, then your DM screwed up.
I'm thinking the real problem was this, right here -
"some tomb guardians were critting once per round for around 20 dmg."
When the GM dice are that hot, it just doesn't matter how good the party is. They're going to take a serious pounding. Then you toss in a very tough encounter on top of the GM having hot dice and you have a very good chance of getting a TPK.
The Xp was set as a bit difficult for your level, but well within range for something that could have been completed.
How was the rest of the day before that encounter, and was it necessary for you guys to burn those dailies? Also, did each of your party do the best they could to avoid the tpk, IE second winds, total defenses when necessary, single targeting, etc?
A little advice from playing D&D since 1st edition. You are not always going to win a battle. Remember this is a game of chance and sometimes the players make bad decisions, the dice are hot, or the DM uses his tactical genius. The game wouldn't be fun if you won all the time. If the DM had a TPK then why does everyone start pointing fingers at the DM? The game doesn't play for you, the decisions of the players are up the players. In other words "**** happens".
You have to remember though, he said the doors closed behind them meaning no escape.I might throw an encounter at my party too tuff to beat but atleast give them a chance to escape.
I'm thinking the real problem was this, right here -
"some tomb guardians were critting once per round for around 20 dmg."
When the GM dice are that hot, it just doesn't matter how good the party is. They're going to take a serious pounding. Then you toss in a very tough encounter on top of the GM having hot dice and you have a very good chance of getting a TPK.
Well, you can certainly point to crits, great dice rolls, & even possible DM malice.
Personally though I believe that the fatal moment occurred long before the dice began rolling & was largely, maybe entirely, within the PCs control.....
I have nearly tpked parties before, just because I suddenly became a crit machine.. (Okay this has happened several times, since we've been playing in just 4e alone)
So, the fighter deliberately moved into melee range of the guardians while they were immobilzed by Turn? And then shifted multiple times within range even after he knew it would draw OAs? Cripes. Hardly surprising he got chopped and left the poor cleric with zero melee support.
Odd party configuration (two melee PCs is not enough, period), tired PCs, poor tactics and some bad luck. Only thing I see that's "unfair" is running a late-day hard encounter with no retreat allowed. Letting the PCs run away screaming if they wanted would have been better form. Probably still would have killed someone, but not a TPK.
No-terrain rooms are a bit dull too, but not truly unfair.
Many folks have pointed out good things that could've been improved, but one thing I notice a lot wasn't pointed out:
The party has no controller.
While a lot of folks pass this off as unnecessary, consider how this fight would've run if:
-The skull tomb guardians were slowed, knocked prone, or suddenly surrounded by difficult terrain
-The skull lord was dazed, weakened, or blinded
-The poltergeist was slowed, blinded, weakened, dazed, etc.
I've DMed for parties without a controller, and my experience is that throwing controllers and leaders at them makes for a very difficult scenario. While none of the enemies had the Controller role specifically, the Poltergeist can slide folks around (and restrain them!), the skull lord can push folks with a minor action and the tomb guardians can lock the PCs into melee combat. That combination sounds like it'd spell battlefield control for the enemy team, and I have a hard time imagining anything beyond the cleric's turn undead and consecrated ground could save the PCs from being put in the worst possible position- forced to fight the guardians toe-to-toe while the skull lord and poltergeist pelt them from afar, round after round.
I would've taken out the poltergeist- I prefer insubstantial foes to be the party's biggest problem, and in this fight you want it to be the skull lord. Maybe replace it with a blazing skeleton, something a bit more brittle that still deals decent damage. I like giving the PCs at least one easy target, even if that easy target is a pain to get to. In this fight as written, they're forced to choose between 4 powerful meleers, an insubstantial, tough-to-close-with artillery, and a creature that has to be killed three times over- no clear first target.
I would've replaced three of the guardians with a pile of skeletal minions, to give the skull lord something to regenerate with the skull of death's command and to give the cleric's turn undead something to really write home about. I also would've added some beneficial terrain- most likely some blood rock, to give the fighter and ranger some extra potential oomph to their damage if they could shove the undead off of it. Always add terrain, even if it's something as simple as higher ground for the PCs to climb onto and fend off the undead from there, or a couple of pillars to hide behind (and hold up the room for versimilitude's sake, but that's splitting hairs).
Hope this helps!
Thanks for all your comments, chaps.
The terrain issue is definitely something I'll think about in the future - while I did add an ad-hoc arcane roll to disable the barrier - the warlock expert was stuck in the opposite corner.
I think the main issue was the number of attacks that was being thrown at the party... the encounter before they had use Moment of Glory so it was a cake walk - if they'd had a rest and got that back they would probably have been fine.
Still... we live and learn, and while I'm not a great believer in fudging dice rolls behind the screen I'll try and leave myself a little more room for daring escapes!
Maybe a slight undervalue of XP cost for monster controllers.
I would add: "if you run a fight with 4 PCs".
Controller monsters and brutes also tend to make a fight more swingy. Brutes have low-attack rolls, but high damage. If the DM has a string of good rolls, then obvious the damage output is going to be much bigger. In case of controllers, it is the secondary effect on that hit that can mean a world of difference. Combine it with the cascade effect in 4E (there is a very sharp swingpoint between an apparent easy and a really hard encounter, mostly due to the limitations on healing surge spendature) and you were taking a risk with a level +2 encounter (already hard) consisting of brutes and 1 controler.
Of course, this does not mean you cannot have level +2 fights, or cannot use brutes and controlers in them. It just means, that when you do design such an encounter you should count on a really hard fight, you should probably stick to 4 opponents (as opposed to 6) and if you do use a lot of brutes and controlers to give a clear way out of the battle.