NEW (AGAIN)- Thunderspire Labyrinth- Stat analysis #25 Shrine to Baphomet

Its going right to the edge, your players must have been nervous wrecks by the end.
Bit of luck with the 20's on the death saves but if it hadn't been for them it could have been tpk.
They need to get the paladin up before he dies but do they try that or try to finish the kobolds... oh the tension.

Aran Thule said:

Its going right to the edge, your players must have been nervous wrecks by the end.
Bit of luck with the 20's on the death saves but if it hadn't been for them it could have been tpk.
They need to get the paladin up before he dies but do they try that or try to finish the kobolds... oh the tension.

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Kaspard has no more Healing left, and McGyver (Paladin) already spent his Second Wind in Round #7, without a '20' on his Death Save, or someone else rolling a '20' on a Heal check then the best they can do is stabilise the Paladin at this point.

And that's if they can get to him, and remember that Grey has also failed a Death Save already, and then there's Dirty on 1 hit point (with 3 temporary hit points as well mind)...

Several of the players at this point were indeed a tad nervous, and expressing their consternation mostly via the medium of sound- squeals, strangled 'Ahhhs', staccato 'Ohs' and other more abstract noises.

Goonalan said:

Several of the players at this point were indeed a tad nervous, and expressing their consternation mostly via the medium of sound- squeals, strangled 'Ahhhs', staccato 'Ohs' and other more abstract noises.

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lol! I do tend to favour retreat by monsters if, by staying, the outcome of the fight is vastly unlikely to change. In this case though, there's way too much tension to just let it go like that. People are *dying*, man!

wedgeski said:

lol! I do tend to favour retreat by monsters if, by staying, the outcome of the fight is vastly unlikely to change. In this case though, there's way too much tension to just let it go like that. People are *dying*, man!

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Let's hope it doesn't disappoint, and remember this is just what happened, I was there- I saw it all.

H1 Keep on the Shadowfell
Encounter #4 A3 Kobold Lair, Inside (do you see what WOTC did there).

Round #11

Grey- Death Save- '20' Success Healing Surge (5 HP bloodied).

Oh my Lord! Another...

KD1- Spear Combat Advantage- Prone Dirty; Hit 2 damage (1 HP, remember he had 3 Temporary Hit Points). Move off- he's had enough KW shouting for him to stop. AoO Prone Dirty; Miss.

Yep even though I said he was going to run away when he was bloodied, I couldn't resist trying to bring Dirty down (again)- I received a chorus of boos, it felt like panto season had just started, especially when I hit. Then I rolled a '1' for damage... Apparently 'in my face', or some such- hard to distinguish what Dave, who plays Dirty, was actually yelling, certainly most of it is not repeatable here.

KD2- DEAD.

Dirty- Stand. Charge KW; '1' Miss. KW Marked.

Oh how I laughed.

Winstanley- Move. Sly Flourish KW; '1' Miss.

LOL. At this point a dice was sacrificed to the gods- thrown out of the window, if you find a slightly chewed black D20 don't touch it, 'it's poison man', apparently.

Is this grind- because if it is there's a lot of screaming going on by the PCs.

KM1- DEAD.

KM2- DEAD.

KM3- DEAD.

KM4- DEAD.

KM5- DEAD.

KM6- DEAD.

KM7- DEAD.

KM8- DEAD.

KM9- DEAD.

KM10- DEAD.

McGyver- Death Save- 19 Success. [2 FAILS].

KW- Shift back. AoO Dirty; Hit 13 damage (10 HP bloodied). Flee the scene.

Irontooth- DEAD.

KS1- DEAD.

KS2- DEAD.

KS3- DEAD.

Kaspard- Move. Heal (Stabilise) McGyver- '1' Fail.

Yeah, another- apparently when you roll a D20 there are only two possible outcomes '20' or '1'

Time to play 6 minutes.

End of Round-

Good Guys
McGyver, Male Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut 1 (HP-2/27)
Dirty Biskit, Male Dwarven Fighter 1 (HP1/31)
Kaspard, Female Half-Elf Cleric of Bahamut 1 (HP10/26)
Winstanley Portico, Male Halfling Rogue 1 (HP12/25)
Grey Morlock, Male Human Wizard 1 (HP5/23)

Bad Guys 1250XP Level 6 Encounter.
Kobold Minion Level 1 Minion [KM] (x10) (HP1) 10 DEAD
Kobold Skirmisher Level 1 Skirmisher [KS] (x3) (HP27) 3 DEAD
Kobold Denwarden Level 2 Soldier [KD] (x2) (HP15/36) 1 DEAD
Kobold Wyrmpriest Level 3 Artillery [KW] (HP10/36)
Irontooth the Goblin Level 3 Elite Brute [Iron] (HP106) DEAD

Action Points 0 Total 10
Daily Powers 0 Total 4
Healing Surges 1 Total 6
2nd Winds 0 Total 4
Crits 0 Total 0
PCs Ko'd 0 Total 6
Bad Guys Action Points 0 Total 1

Comment: To recap PC dice rolls this turn- 20-1-1-19-1, pretty much just another run-of-the-mill turn.

You think it's all over don't you- believe me, you're wrong...

More tomorrow.

H1 Keep on the Shadowfell
Encounter #4 A3 Kobold Lair, Inside (do you see what WOTC did there).

Round #12

Grey- Stand. Heal check (Stabilise) McGyver- '7' Fail.

KD1- Double Move Flee out of the Lair.

KD2- DEAD.

Dirty- Move. Heal check (Stabilise) McGyver- '4' Fail.

Winstanley- Move. Heal check (Stabilise) McGyver- '14' Fail.

KM1- DEAD.

KM2- DEAD.

KM3- DEAD.

KM4- DEAD.

KM5- DEAD.

KM6- DEAD.

KM7- DEAD.

KM8- DEAD.

KM9- DEAD.

KM10- DEAD.

McGyver- Death Save- '8' Fail [3 FAILS]- DEAD

Time to play 5 minutes (not including time taken up by screaming and threatening to smash things up by various players after James (McGyver) rolled his '8' and dead).
Total time to play 1 hour & 30 minutes.

End of Combat-

Good Guys
McGyver, Male Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut 1 (HP-2/27) DEAD
Dirty Biskit, Male Dwarven Fighter 1 (HP1/31)
Kaspard, Female Half-Elf Cleric of Bahamut 1 (HP10/26)
Winstanley Portico, Male Halfling Rogue 1 (HP12/25)
Grey Morlock, Male Human Wizard 1 (HP5/23)

Bad Guys 1250XP Level 6 Encounter.
Kobold Minion Level 1 Minion [KM] (x10) (HP1) 10 DEAD
Kobold Skirmisher Level 1 Skirmisher [KS] (x3) (HP27) 3 DEAD
Kobold Denwarden Level 2 Soldier [KD] (x2) (HP19/36) 1 DEAD & 1 FLED
Kobold Wyrmpriest Level 3 Artillery [KW] (HP10/36) FLED
Irontooth the Goblin Level 3 Elite Brute [Iron] (HP106) DEAD

Action Points 0 Total 10
Daily Powers 0 Total 4
Healing Surges 0 Total 8
2nd Winds 0 Total 2
Crits 0 Total 0
PCs Ko'd 0 Total 6
PCs DEAD 1 Total 1
Bad Guys Action Points 0 Total 1

Comment: A ten minute interlude follows in which- well, lots of gesticulating and raised voices, and laughter I may add, half finished sentences bitten of by the players are the order of the day-

“But, what if...”
“That's not... I mean...”

That kind of thing except peppered with expletives, eventually (after more laughter) everyone gets a drink and calms down.

Quite a sting in the tail. McGyver, the party leader bites the bullet, James who plays McGyver is quite sanguine about the whole thing, the other players moan and wail and gnash their teeth beseeching the gods for mercy, or at least a do-over. James on the other hand goes in search of the other pre-gen characters I've brought with me. He likes 4e, he's not stopping now, nobody's stopping now- the game is a hit.

So, a bloody battle, with a touch of grind- although it never felt for a second like that. The players re-group, search the lair and grab their rewards, including a letter signed by someone called Kalarel, something about his spy in Winterhaven. The treasure also includes some nice armour- now belonging to Dirty and a pile of gold coins.

The players head back to their temporary home, Winterhaven, with McGyver's body for burial, and new info for Lord Padraig- the Kobold menace has been ended.

The first session ends, about four-and-a-half hours to play; four combat encounters and an hour or so role-playing in Winterhaven, an excellent session I think, and the players certainly want more.

This is the fourth time I have played this encounter, on three occasions the Kobold Wyrmpriest has fled the lair to fight another day, the only time he did not escape the lair was because I TPK'ed the PCs in question.

Stats: Thirteen turns to play out, one-and-a-half hours exactly- grind? A strange thing happened in this fight, the table below represents the amount of damage done by the PC's versus the bad guys, turn by turn-

Surprise- 78 vs. 0
1- 65 vs. 12
2- 75 vs. 28
3- 32 vs. 21
4- 39 vs. 21
5- 40 vs. 23
6- 44 vs. 81
7- 12 vs. 17
8- 0 vs. 16
9- 0 vs. 9
10- 14 vs. 10
11- 13 vs. 2
12- 0 vs. 0

So we start off hell for leather, Surprise to Turn 3; then it drops off as enemies become scarce, particularly easy to hit enemies (Minions and those in clumps ideal for Blast or Burst attacks). The PC's keep up the damage rate Turns 4 to 6, at which point Irontooth Action Points and the bad guys deal 81 Hit Points damage in a Turn, which inevitably means several PCs get to sit down (0 HP). Thereafter the PCs spend two Turns scrabbling for Healing, then finally get lucky (How many '20' rolls for Heal checks?) and get back in working order, only now the enemies are very thin on the ground and the PCs have At Wills left (mostly). If Grey hadn't taken Irontooth down in Turn 7 then... TPK?

This is the first encounter in which the bad guys scored a better hit rate than the PCs, bad guys 71.43%, PCs 61.29%. Still the PCs managed to land more attacks than the monsters, 38 (from 62) versus 30 (from 42); the PCs still managed to do much more damage/turn 31.69 HP, as opposed to the bad guys 18.46- the monsters have closed though. In Combat Encounter #1 the PCs did 4 x monster damage/turn, in #2 2.5 x monster damage, in #3 nearly 6 x monster damage; in this Combat Encounter it was down to 1.5 x monster damage.

Although this fight took 90 minutes to play out the actual time/turn dropped to 6.92 minutes, the quickest average time per turn for the four combats so far- the players seemed to zone in to the fight, in desperation they became eager to get around to their turn. At times there was a little bit of stop-starting, but for the most part the fight gripped the players and so went quickly, clearly, from our perspective, this isn't grind.

Combined Stats: We're at the end of the first session of play, so a brief overview of the situation so far, hopefully a better picture will emerge when the PCs level up and I can analyse all the Combat Encounters they played out as Level 1 PCs.

Most effective (hit rate) PC attacks to date, criteria minimum 5 attacks made-

40% Dirty's AoO Maul (2 hits from 5 attacks) for 22 damage in total- 11 average.
40% Dirty's Brute Strike (2 hits from 5 attacks) for 50 damage in total- 25 average.
50% Dirty's Charge (4 hits from 8 attacks) for 43 damage in total- 10.75 average.
50% Kaspard's Lance of Faith (4 hits from 8 attacks) for 30 damage in total- 7.5 average.
53.85% Grey's Scorching Burst (7 hits from 13 attacks) for 43 damage in total- 6.14 average.
54.55% Grey's Magic Missile (6 hits from 11 attacks) for 60 damage in total- 10 average.
60% Kaspard's Sacred Flame (6 hits from 10 attacks) for 39 damage in total- 6.5 average.
66.67% McGyver's Dragon Breath (6 hits from 9 attacks) for 28 damage in total- 4.67 average.
69.23% Grey's Burning Hands (9 hits from 13 attacks) for 98 damage in total- 10.89 average.
78.57% Winstanley's Sly Flourish (11 hits from 14 attacks) for 154 damage in total- 14 average.
80% McGyver's Valiant Strike (8 hits from 10 attacks) for 73 damage in total- 9.13 average.
100% Winstanley's Deft Strike (5 hits from 5 attacks) for 63 damage in total- 12.6 average.

Note Dirty has not made 5 attacks with any of his At Will powers so far, he tends to go headlong with the Charge.

Overal Strike rate by PC.

44.83% Dirty (13 hits from 29 attacks) for 184 damage in total- 14.15 average.
60% Kaspard (12 hits from 20 attacks) for 83 damage in total- 6.92 average.
60.98% Grey (25 hits from 41 attacks) for 229 damage in total- 9.16 average.
75% McGyver (21 hits from 28 attacks) for 195 damage in total- 9.29 average.
87.5% Winstanley (21 hits from 24 attacks) for 279 damage in total- 13.29 average.

Winstnley- wow! He's missed three attacks in 27 turns of Combat. I guess he's the Striker then.

Hit Points Damage taken by PC.

43 Grey (hit 6 times from 8 attacks).
46 Kaspard (hit 7 times from 9 attacks).
52 Winstanley (hit 7 times from 11 attacks).
119 McGyver (hit 17 times from 28 attacks).
138 Dirty (hit 19 times from 31 attacks).

Again, this simply shows that Defenders get into the thick of it, the Striker has to go there on occasion, while the Leader and the Controller stay as far away as they can- Kaspard is a laser Cleric.

The PCs have used on average 3.25 Action Points/Encounter; 4.75 Healing Surges/Encounter & 2.25 Daily Powers/Encounter. Although this is all skewed as Combat #1 was a Daily Power and Action Point free-for-all, and the last Encounter (#4) was incredibly difficult.

Combat turns 1 & 2 are still the big damage turns, averages- 60.5 & 61.75 hit points damage respectively. The same could be said for the monsters although their average damage for turns 1 & 2 are- 18.75 & 21 hit points damage respectively. These two turns also take the longest average time to play out- 11 and 8.75 minutes respectively.

So Combat seems to be front-loaded, an inevitable conclusion; with First Strike, maximum targets for area and blast effects and perhaps opportune moments for Encounter Power use, the opening turns of combat are certainly when the swords and spells are flying. Is this part and parcel of the dramatic increase in hit points for monsters, after all a miss is still a miss- failing to connect with an attack in 4e brings a greater penalty, particularly in these opening turns, it makes for a prolonged combat encounter, and the increased possibility of players dropping.

In 3x edition games then the a 1HD Orc with 8 Hit Points could be despatched with one good hit, in 4e the same Orc with, for example, 28 Hit Points now requires several hits, certainly (most of the time) more damage than a 1st Level PC is capable of doing even with a Daily Power.

To counter this combat lag 4e has Minions and Action Points, what the above analysis is (perhaps) starting to show is that even with an 87.5% hit rate (Winstanley) there are going to turns when none of the bad guys are going to fall, save the Minions and those subject to massive concentrations of attacks, therefore some turns are going to be about attrition rates- which is where Healing Surges and those classes that trigger Healing come into their own- a look at this another day. Are these segments of attrition grind?

And so after 4 combat encounters, 27 turns play; the average combat (Encounter Level 2.5) takes 6.75 turns to play out, each turn taking 7.3 minutes to play- for a total of 49.25 minutes/encounter.

However, and this is a big however, that's for the four combat encounters we've played and analysed so far, perhaps the stats will begin to plateau and offer different results after a few more encounters.

Tomorrow, session 2 begins.

The thing that impresses me the most is that you managed to do all that in one session while also taking notes.
I suspect that you have got your players hooked, one death wasnt bad it could have been far far worse.
You also have a possible repeatable foe with the Wyrmpriest(and bodyguard)
Would they flee the lands for pastures greener or report to Kalarel, or stalk the party and add onto fights before running away again.
(Agrid did this in our group, finally took him down in our 3rd meeting in the final battle in thunderspire. There was a grudge match between him and our warlock which was very entertaining)
I think you ran it very well and it doesnt seem like grind, damage is top heavy for the party while monsters are more constant.
The longer the fight lasts the worse it is for the party, also if they are having several fights without rest you will find things slow down.

Looking forward to hearing how the next session went.

Aran Thule said:

The thing that impresses me the most is that you managed to do all that in one session while also taking notes.
I suspect that you have got your players hooked, one death wasnt bad it could have been far far worse.
You also have a possible repeatable foe with the Wyrmpriest(and bodyguard)
Would they flee the lands for pastures greener or report to Kalarel, or stalk the party and add onto fights before running away again.
(Agrid did this in our group, finally took him down in our 3rd meeting in the final battle in thunderspire. There was a grudge match between him and our warlock which was very entertaining)
I think you ran it very well and it doesnt seem like grind, damage is top heavy for the party while monsters are more constant.
The longer the fight lasts the worse it is for the party, also if they are having several fights without rest you will find things slow down.

Looking forward to hearing how the next session went.

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More to come of course, the secret is I don't do it all on my own, just pass laptop between players, obviously C & P initiative order. The actual notes taken are pretty much in code-

W SF CA SD1 12- 2. Mov.

Quite often just a line of acronyms.

In later sessons this process is made even easier by the availability of child slave labour, and/or half-interested significant others willing to share a little of the spotlight by being 'in charge' of the laptop.

As to recurring villain, then I too did this on a previous run through with the Kobold Wyrmpriest- who popped up quite often and was eventually destroyed either in Thunderspire or sometime after that.

Thanks for reading, more data gathering to follow.

Session 2.
H1 Keep on the Shadowfell

The second session begins with PCs back in Winterhaven, another audience with Lord Padraig, he's pleased of course, and saddened at McGyver's death, but also less pleased at the news that Winterhaven has a spy in its midst. He puts Rond Kelfern, the Militia Captain, on the job of hunting down the spy, with help from the PCs of course.

The funeral of McGyver is a sombre affair, several Winterhaven townspeople turn up at the graveyard to pay their last respects- including Lord Padraig, it seems the PCs are making friends- the hard way. Sister Linora helps out and provides the PCs with a pair of Healing Potions as way of thanks.

The PCs rest up (without incident) and then early the next day head off in search of Douven Staul, last seen heading for the Ancient Dragon Burial site.

A good start to the session, including a few last words from each of the PCs, joining their ranks is Phrenic, a Tiefling Warlord- he has been sent from Fallcrest by an unknown party- he certainly knows all about their quest, and perhaps some other things besides. Regardless, he's here to help and is welcomed aboard. Phrenic is of course James' new character.

Goonalan said:

McGyver- Death Save- '8' Fail [3 FAILS]- DEAD

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Wow! Four failed Heal checks and he dies. That's tough luck. Awesome encounter, though. Sounds like it was very exciting. No way that was grind.

H1 Keep on the Shadowfell
Encounter #5 A4 Burial Site

Three hours later the PCs approach the burial site, a huge excavation- it seems there are people present, a Gnome and some workers- no sign of Douven. The PCs chat for a while, all the time looking at me for clues, and performing a dozen or so Arcana, Perception, Insight etc. checks, they roll spectacularly badly- no, really, really badly. Irrespective of bonuses the highest adjusted Skill Check is something like a '12'- they spot nothing untoward.



These are odd moments, the players know, and I know that the players know that this is all going to end up in fisticuffs, and yet the dice have to be obeyed. Believe me I want to give the PCs the edge on the bad guys but...

So it comes as a total surprise to the PCs when a ghostly figure manifests and orders the workers at the Burial Site to attack...

Good Guys
Dirty Biskit, Male Dwarven Fighter 1 (HP31)
Kaspard, Female Half-Elf Cleric of Bahamut 1 (HP26)
Winstanley Portico, Male Halfling Rogue 1 (HP25)
Grey Morlock, Male Human Wizard 1 (HP23)
Phrenic, Male Tiefling Warlord 1 (HP24)

Bad Guys 674XP Level 2 Encounter.
Human Rabble Level 2 Minions

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