(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Last weekend, our DM nearly punished our PCs' collective stupidity with a TPK.
He's running a 1e adventure, converted into 4e. During our exploration of a cave system, we almost stumbled upon a lizardfolk camp. We had run into them before, working with gnolls, and itched for revenge. There are five PCs (plus a recently rescued companion) and we sneaked up on a group of ten lizardfolk, our first mistake. Their shaman was giving a religious speech, so we figured they wouldn't notice. Second mistake: not only were we wrong, but the three lizardfolk darters hidden in the nearby lake got the jump on us! So that's thirteen lizardfolk, a couple of them elites and some two levels higher than us, for a combined XP value of 3100 against 5 5th-level PCs plus a companion. Essentially a level +6 encounter! This is probably the hardest XP budget encounter I've seen (only done up to level +4 in my games so far). It turned out this was the lizardfolk head base, and not just a double-strength patrol.
The lizardfolk bog mystics immobilized and dazed us in fields of difficult terrain they created. I never realized how much my wizard relied on minor actions, namely potions. We were all bloodied for pretty much the whole battle. Anyone who had any kind of healing ability used them. I think someone spent an action point on Second Wind! We only lost our monk, but our warden only survived due to rolling a natural 20 on a death save. I'm pretty sure the group has a raging hatred for enemy controllers now.
So tell me about your own hard battle experiences. Did you win? Go out in a blaze of glory?
He's running a 1e adventure, converted into 4e. During our exploration of a cave system, we almost stumbled upon a lizardfolk camp. We had run into them before, working with gnolls, and itched for revenge. There are five PCs (plus a recently rescued companion) and we sneaked up on a group of ten lizardfolk, our first mistake. Their shaman was giving a religious speech, so we figured they wouldn't notice. Second mistake: not only were we wrong, but the three lizardfolk darters hidden in the nearby lake got the jump on us! So that's thirteen lizardfolk, a couple of them elites and some two levels higher than us, for a combined XP value of 3100 against 5 5th-level PCs plus a companion. Essentially a level +6 encounter! This is probably the hardest XP budget encounter I've seen (only done up to level +4 in my games so far). It turned out this was the lizardfolk head base, and not just a double-strength patrol.
The lizardfolk bog mystics immobilized and dazed us in fields of difficult terrain they created. I never realized how much my wizard relied on minor actions, namely potions. We were all bloodied for pretty much the whole battle. Anyone who had any kind of healing ability used them. I think someone spent an action point on Second Wind! We only lost our monk, but our warden only survived due to rolling a natural 20 on a death save. I'm pretty sure the group has a raging hatred for enemy controllers now.
So tell me about your own hard battle experiences. Did you win? Go out in a blaze of glory?
