Encounter balance help

Yeah, I wouldn't have a surprise round. I'd do something that involves the PCs needing to spend time either dealing with the combat or the assassination.

Suppose as an example, the Elven Assassin has some evil desert snake that paralyzes anything it bites, then it goes for the ear ala Wrath of Khan. Give it a couple of rounds and the person dies, their brain eaten. For bonus points, it has camouflage, so it is hard to see and it can be specially treated to act almost as if it is an arrow...

i.e. you don't see the initial shot, you have a hard perception check to make to see it - most of the time, people just see the person convulsing and then blood coming out the nose. But the PCs know better because they saw the actual shot where the 'good' NPCs just saw the outcome - there's a guy with a bow, he just fired at the king, but what the heck happened?

----

Okay, so right before the start of the combat is the Assassin firing the snake and hitting the king. The PCs see this. They now have a couple of problems:
Convince the NPCs to be aware there's a snake that needs to be dead. And it might look like they're attacking the king, but really, *really*, they're not. And that snake is a clock.
The various Assassins trying to make sure the job gets finished. The PCs don't deal with them, it might be it anyway.

I like to give minions 5+1 hp per level. Magic Stones will still probably kill them a good 75% of the time on a hit, but it won't be automatic. Magic Stones is a top-tier at-will in the game for a reason

darkbard said:

I'll need to play around a bit with the mechanics and starting positions of the NPCs here (for example, in my inital set up, I had thought to have the ex-gladiator alone on stage, but if I go with having his guards be able to absorb hits, some of them will need to be atop the stage too), but your suggestions do provide an interesting, and potentially quite exciting, alternative.

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Here is a quick level 4 Gladiator Minion that might work:

Gladiator
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion. Initiative +6
AC 20, Fortitude 18, Reflex 16, Will 15 Perception+3
Speed 5 Low-light vision

Traits
Me and My Army
The Gladiator gains a +2 bonus to AC while at least one Bodyguard is adjacent to it.

Standard Actions
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! At-Will (fear)
Close Blast 5 (1 enemy); +7 vs. Will
Hit: The enemy cannot attack the Gladiator UtEoYNT.

Move Actions
Pit Tactics
Effect: Shift 3 squares.

Triggered Actions
...AND I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE IN THIS LIFE OR THE...YEAH, JUST THIS LIFE (Encounter)
Trigger: The Gladiator is hit by an attack.
Effect (Immediate Interrupt): The Gladiator gains a +4 Power Bonus to all Defenses UtEoYNT.

Ooh, that's quite good. I was tempted to ask how you might go about designing such, but I didn't want to impose. You're always so generous with your time.

Manbearcat said:

...AND I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE IN THIS LIFE OR THE...YEAH, JUST THIS LIFE

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And now I'm wiping tea off my monitor!

MwaO said:

Yeah, I wouldn't have a surprise round. I'd do something that involves the PCs needing to spend time either dealing with the combat or the assassination.

Suppose as an example, the Elven Assassin has some evil desert snake that paralyzes anything it bites, then it goes for the ear ala Wrath of Khan. Give it a couple of rounds and the person dies, their brain eaten. For bonus points, it has camouflage, so it is hard to see and it can be specially treated to act almost as if it is an arrow...

i.e. you don't see the initial shot, you have a hard perception check to make to see it - most of the time, people just see the person convulsing and then blood coming out the nose. But the PCs know better because they saw the actual shot where the 'good' NPCs just saw the outcome - there's a guy with a bow, he just fired at the king, but what the heck happened?

----

Okay, so right before the start of the combat is the Assassin firing the snake and hitting the king. The PCs see this. They now have a couple of problems:
Convince the NPCs to be aware there's a snake that needs to be dead. And it might look like they're attacking the king, but really, *really*, they're not. And that snake is a clock.
The various Assassins trying to make sure the job gets finished. The PCs don't deal with them, it might be it anyway.

I like to give minions 5+1 hp per level. Magic Stones will still probably kill them a good 75% of the time on a hit, but it won't be automatic. Magic Stones is a top-tier at-will in the game for a reason

Click to expand...

Confound you people and your excellent ideas!

darkbard said:

Ooh, that's quite good. I was tempted to ask how you might go about designing such, but I didn't want to impose. You're always so generous with your time.



And now I'm wiping tea off my monitor!

Click to expand...

Let us know how it goes.

MwaO said:

I like to give minions 5+1 hp per level.

Click to expand...

I've seen lots of people mentioning this (or variations thereof) over the years, including a discussion buried in a current thread in this forum somewhere. How have you seen it work out in play? And, [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], what would you say to my combining this with the minion you whipped up (plus the others, of course)?

darkbard said:

I've seen lots of people mentioning this (or variations thereof) over the years, including a discussion buried in a current thread in this forum somewhere. How have you seen it work out in play? And, [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], what would you say to my combining this with the minion you whipped up (plus the others, of course)?

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Well, the one above would have:

1) Immunity to AoE misses.
2) 22 AC while adjacent to bodyguards
3) 26 AC (assuming adjacent to BG), 22, 20, 19 NADs 1/E UtEoYNT
4) The ability to prevent 1 incoming attack per round AW.
5) Mobility
6) 4 allies that can mark and eat attacks if the NPC's high defenses are overcome (and if the ally is adjacent, which (5) should help ensure).

So I would be careful about overkill. That is a lot of resilience.

Also, there is something about the 1 HP Minion status that provokes a visceral sense of vulnerability and emotional urgency/desperation within players (when they are saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that 1 HP lasts through the encounter). And obviously there is less overhead in that you don't have to keep up with a HP pool.

So however, you go about handling things, just keep that stuff in mind. If you do go with the HP buff, I would probably get rid of the NPC's survivability Encounter Utility (which would doubly serve to reduce mental overhead - even though its virtually nil).

darkbard said:

I've seen lots of people mentioning this (or variations thereof) over the years, including a discussion buried in a current thread in this forum somewhere. How have you seen it work out in play? And, [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], what would you say to my combining this with the minion you whipped up (plus the others, of course)?

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Works about the same. Just means usually you're looking to see if there is a 1 on the damage roll or if the power is stat or die roll-only. Things such as Twin Strike or Hand of Radiance as examples...

Manbearcat said:

Finally, when you double down by itroducing an "escort NPC" or "protect NPC" trope to the combat, I think actual mechanical Surprise Round by fiat compounds the problem. It is one thing to do that to 4e PCs who are amazingly resilient to front-loaded salvos (by design) and can nearly always get off the ropes to rally. It is another thing entirely when a "not so resilient NPC (or group o them) of which the asymmetrical point of combat is to ensure their safety" suffers the same mechanical disadvantage.

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In my 4e game Thursday I gave the wizardess PC reading the Turathi runes on ancient seals an
Insight check to recognise the worm priests were about to break through the seals and attack...
She failed the check so they got a surprise action on the group. It was only 10 Min-1s vs 5 1st level PCs so even though they then won init & got 2 attacks before the PCs could attack, no one went down.

I think with an attack in a public place I'd do similar - Insight for visible assassins, Perception for hidden.
Given that surprise is just a standard action I wouldn't make Surprise as hard to achieve as
Manbearcat indicates, though. I think I would run it much as the OP's initial idea.

Manbearcat said:

Given these things, when the fictional positioning goes from neutral (or especially from aware and alert; in the case of high Wis characters or characters with features that hedge against Surprise) to the adversarial status of "caught completely off guard", I think its against the holistic ethos of 4e to just declare that fictional positioning status change by GM fiat (especially so when there are rules that can easily be consulted to make that determination).

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Well, I agree that DM fiat obviates (or can easily obviate, and at least makes subjective) such things as various "you are hard to surprise" feats and such (though I would note that 4e tended to make those things 'you are IMPOSSIBLE to surprise', which I found a bit shocking frankly. I mean, I do appreciate unequivocal capabilities like that, they dramatically get across the point, but there should always be some reservation, such that when you finally run into "the greatest thief that never lived" you ARE surprised, what the heck! But anyway, sure, it should probably always be stated as some sort of threshold "you must have passive Perception of X or else you're surprised" and presumably you don't get surprised much as your 'Praeturnaturally Alert' feat gives you +4.

Finally, when you double down by itroducing an "escort NPC" or "protect NPC" trope to the combat, I think actual mechanical Surprise Round by fiat compounds the problem. It is one thing to do that to 4e PCs who are amazingly resilient to front-loaded salvos (by design) and can nearly always get off the ropes to rally. It is another thing entirely when a "not so resilient NPC (or group o them) of which the asymmetrical point of combat is to ensure their safety" suffers the same mechanical disadvantage.

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Well, I'm less categorical about it. It just depends on the details of the scenario. That being said, I think your solution is pretty good. Another option would be to simply fix the results of NPC vs NPC attacks beforehand. In other words the GM simply decrees that it will take N hits by the bad guys to kill the NPC, and those will be tallied at the rate of 1 for every 2 chances they have to attack, or something like that. I don't believe in having 'battles' between NPCs with dice, this is a misappropriation of the use of randomness in a game. Checks, using dice, ONLY resolve conflicts between the protagonist(s) and their opponents (themselves, others, nature, or society as the case may be). Dice are NEVER used to simply generate 'random outcomes' where a PC isn't directly involved. This goes back to Wrecan's "The World is not Made of Numbers", its simply a stage or tool that exists to tell stories, and what happens in it and exists within it is purely whatever is most suited to that goal.

You could simply decree that the NPC will die on round 5. Certain PC actions could then be held to delay that by 1 or more rounds (IE killing the elf archer, delays it by 1 round, killing the demon delays it by one round, killing the other NPC delays it by 3 rounds, killing all the minions by 1 round, and eliminating ALL of them prevents it entirely). Honestly, you could now run this as an SC, though you'd need a little more work to cast it all in success/failure terms so it works. That might in fact be the best plan overall.