How Do We Survive This?

If you can figure a cunning way to slide out of it, say using a few clever illusions (of fire) and Charisma skills, that would be best. If you can't, however... well, I don't think you're necessarily doomed. The gaze attack is the danger here. Paralysis is a fast ticket to death. If you take that away, the fight may be winnable.

Now, that gaze attack has three weaknesses. First and foremost, as soon as you make the Con save, you're immune for an hour; and that immunity is to all three yetis, not just one. Second, it requires the yeti to actively trigger it on its turn--it's not like a medusa's gaze where it happens automatically. Third, it doesn't work on anyone who can't see the yeti.

So, here's what I'm thinking: Try to find a nook where the yetis have to come at you from one direction, and have the druid cast entangle. That creates a 20-foot zone of difficult terrain, which is enough to eat up a yeti's entire movement. If you stand 5 feet back from the edge, they will have to choose between Dashing to close with you (giving you a round to whale on them and hopefully kill one), or using the gaze attack at range (giving you a chance to recover before they get into melee range).

Your party fighters are proficient in Con saves, and I assume they have good Con scores as well. If they're lucky, they'll make their initial saves and the gaze attack will roll right off them; if they do get tagged, they'll recover fast. As for you and the druid: Shoot from behind the fighters, and when it isn't your turn, close your eyes. The yetis can't target you with a gaze while your eyes are closed. They would have to ready an action for you to open your eyes on your turn, which comes with its own set of problems (like the fighters see the yeti hold its action and yell "Keep 'em shut!" and the yeti has wasted its turn).

After entangle, the druid should use produce flame to impose disadvantage on one yeti each round. (Obviously, the first target should be whichever yeti is in melee range.) Do you, the arcane trickster, have any way to add fire damage to your attacks? Alchemist's fire you could throw, maybe? Try to spread the disadvantage around, while the fighters focus fire to bring down the yetis one by one.

One other possibility: Your triton cavalier has an ace to play in the form of fog cloud. That shuts down the yetis' gaze completely. The drawback is that it means you don't get sneak attack and you can't exploit the yetis' Fear of Fire (due to both you and the yetis being blind), and the spell goes down if the cavalier's concentration is disrupted. (Concentration spells kind of suck for melee warriors.) But if you aren't able to set up a good defensive position, it might save your butts.

Dausuul said:

Now, that gaze attack has three weaknesses. ... Second, it requires the yeti to actively trigger it on its turn--it's not like a medusa's gaze where it happens automatically.

Click to expand...

They have a multiattack that includes two claw attacks and a gaze attack. So assume that every round that's what they would be using just for the two claw attacks. The chilling gaze is effectively automatic as long as they get an action, and with no action denial characters that's likely to happen.

Leatherhead said:

Yeti's are CR 3, each. This means just two of them are a "Deadly" encounter for your rag-tag group. Additionally, they ambushed you, so you have neither the advantage of surprise nor location.

You guys are going to have to run. A good plan is to throw down a line of fire on the ground between you an the Yeti, possibly toss them some food so they have further reason not to go after you all immediately, then run as fast and as far as you can in order to regroup. Hopefully, you have some form of flammable materials that isn't your clothing and packs. But if not, hey, it's a small price to pay for your lives (and an interesting story hook).

After that, you can work on your revenge. Preferably by isolating and setting up your own ambush.

Click to expand...

The issue with running is that yetis have a higher speed then the PCs, as well as a climb speed (which might be relevant in the mountains). I think you idea of food, fire or other distraction is really important to a successful escape.

Fog cloud to impose disad on everyone - likely favors pcs due to the odds of a hit with disad being in their favor.

Druid heals - yetis dont.

Concentrate fire.

If you can take down at least one yeti during fog cloud time without losing a lot of damage, you got a chance. If somehow you get two, that's great. But your specific configuration vs specific threat and ambush setup is not at all in your favor.

Allistar1801 said:

So my party of 3 level 3's(a triton cavalier, a bugbear brute, and me, a sea elf arcane trickster) as well as an NPC druid (who is just using the stats from the monster manual) just won a tournament and got a few things. 500GP (that I took) a masterwork maul (the brute got that one), 5 masterwork throwing hammers (the trickster split these with the brute), and a set of plate that gives its wearer 5 temp hp that replenish at each long rest (the cavalier got that one). After that however the town noble conscripted us to clear out some yeti in the northern pass. I roll a good int check and know that they fear fire. "Sure, why not" we say as we begin our trek into the mountains. We get ambushed by them and The DM starts murmuring "I might have made a mistake" as he shows us the stat block for a yeti. He wanted us to fight 3 of those things while we were boxed in by the mountain pass. Luckily we ended session before the combat broke out, but that left me irked.

My question is how likely are we to just strait up die in this fight?

My guess is somewhere between 80% to 90% depending on how well our cavalier tanks and the brute dishes out damage and then I can maybe get some good sneak attacks off while my dudes are next to them, other than that my spells are useless against them.

Click to expand...

You can win, but it's far from certain.

1. NPC Druid Needs to entangle as many of the Yeti's as he can.
2. Use this time to get to any choke points if possible.
2. After casting entangle NPC druid should use produce flame to try and give them disadvantage
3. The fighters and rogue should focus fire a yeti that isn't entangled. If all are entangled fall back and use ranged attacks.
4. If all the Yeti's break free the druid should try to entangle them all again as restrained is nasty even if they in melee with the party.
5. Hopefully if someone drops you have healing potions

Basically ignore the cold gaze attacks and pray that your con saves hold up. If they don't then hope the yeti drops that pc to 0 and you can bring him back up with a potion. There's a low chance you win this fight but if things go well you can do it.

Alternatively sacrifice a single fighter and have everyone else run far far away.

As others have said I'd try entangling/fire illusions simply to run the heck away, but it also depends on the DM and whether you can valiantly retreat or not.

You're in the mountains, right? So is there a possibility of a Thunderwave causing an avalanche? Yes, this is a desperation move, but desperate times and all. You could have the druid produce flame, but I don't see that it helps all that much, it's an action to cast and it gets used once and then it's gone.

The trickster's spells just depends on what they have prepared. Hideous laughter can be great to take one opponent out of the fight if it works and taking out even one of the yetis would significantly tip the balance. Color spray and/or sleep are also options (and color spray blinds) but it's HD dependent. This is one of those few cases where splitting attacks might be beneficial, in general focus fire is best. You could also silent image in a big pile of snow between you and the yetis, but they already know you're there so you'd have to get out of sight somehow.

A lot of this is going to depend on luck. If the dice gods bless you and you make your saves you might surprise everyone. If not ... well the druid can always cast animal messenger to let everyone know how you died valiantly.

Good luck!

Blue said:

They have a multiattack that includes two claw attacks and a gaze attack. So assume that every round that's what they would be using just for the two claw attacks. The chilling gaze is effectively automatic as long as they get an action, and with no action denial characters that's likely to happen.

Click to expand...

As long as they get an action that they don't need to use for something else.

That's the whole point of using entangle to create difficult terrain: Put them in a situation where they can't close to melee in one round unless they Dash. If they don't Dash, then they have to endure a round of ranged attacks, and the party has one extra round to recover from the gaze (remember, as soon as you save once, you're immune). If they Dash, they give up the gaze attack for a round.

There are more ways to deny actions than casting hold monster.

@Dausuul Fog Cloud is a great idea. If it really will stop the cold gaze attack then as soon as they are in melee striking distance fogcloud is a must use.

If the Druid can get a well placed spike growth off you can kite them and hopefully cause enough harm that they break it off and don’t pursue and fight to the death

If Fog Cloud is not an option, closing your eyes/not meeting their gaze would help with the Chilling Gaze. The downside is that you will have disadvantage to hit and they will have advantage to hit. Their AC isn't too high, and their damage output isn't amazing, so you could still out damage them probably.

Knowing the spell layout of your group would be helpful to provide other ideas ( if it was in an earlier post I missed it ).