Irontooth deadliness

Forked from: Lock thread please

Branduil said:

We lost 4 here. Dwarven Fighter, Dragonborn Paladin, Tiefling Warlord, Human Wizard all dead. Only the Halfling Rogue and my Elven Ranger survived. We got off on a bad foot because the Wizard didn't want to play one and charged out in front. He got dropped in a couple rounds and after being healed once he got killed. Irontooth actually wasn't that bad, the Warlord used lead the attack on him and my Hunter's Bear Trap put him near death before the Fighter finished him off. He took out the Paladin before dying though, hitting with two of four axe attacks which dropped her from about 10 hit points to well below her bloodied value. It was mainly the skirmishers and the wyrmpriests which slaughtered us. By the end of the encounter the Rogue was at 3 hit points. I had the most left, having only been hit twice, and I wasn't ever bloodied until the second to last round.

I think Wizards went a bit overboard with this one.

Click to expand...

Zero deaths, and the party killed an extra nine minions that fight too. OTOH, this was our party breakdown: Paladin, Fighter, Cleric, Warlord, (War-) Wizard, (Control-) Wizard.

The group was basically perfect for that fight, although it took forever (no Strikers), used up everybody's dailies and a huge number of healing surges. Three or four characters spent most of the battle at "Dying's Door." I'm certain there would've been at least a couple deaths for sure without two leaders and a paladin.

No death, but everyone was rolling death saves except the Wizard with single digit hit points standing... It was a close call, and I pulled some punches. BUt then, it was a 4-man party, not a 5-man party, and I did not remove a single monster.

None, and no death saves. We beat this encounter handily. A PC got killed by the guard drakes next and we had a very scary time on the first level of the Keep.

Let's see. For us it went something like this:

A half-elf ranger, a tiefling warlord, an eladrin rogue, a dragonborn fighter and a dwarven cleric makes up the party.

We surprised kobolds outside the cave, and promptly managed to destroy them without too much damage taken. I think it took three rounds. A couple of healing surges and an extended rest took care of that.

Next we went into the caves. Thanks to the breath weapon of the dragonborn and some kinda blast from the warlord, as well as some fancy footwork, we took out a bunch of kobolds in another three rounds, before Irontooth and the warpriest and his skirmishers came into play.

The fighter locked down irontooth, and thanks to the DM rolling badly, he survived for four rounds without getting hit. By then the warpriest had been hunted down and destroyed by the ranger, and the warlord, cleric and rogue mopped up the skirmishers.

Then we all ganged up on Irontooth, and then he wielded the axe like a true champion. Down went the rogue, and the fighter sustained heavy damage. Nothing a healing surge wouldn't fix, and as the cleric healed the rogue, we quickly flanked the axe-wielder. A mighty attack by the fighter and a backstab by the rogue took down Irontooth.

So in the end; one PC below zero, three dropped to bloodied. For us, the encounter was interesting, but not terribly challenging for our PCs.

/M

It took three attempts.

Ranger - archer elf/Rogue - human/Cleric - elf/Rogue - drow/Paladin - dragonborn went in the first time.
1 rogue left.
It was decided that everyone was catured intstead of killed, they escaped and we came back.
Ranger/paladin/cleric/rogue/rogue went in again.
1 rogue and 1 ranger left.
Ranger/warlock/ranger/rogue/rogue went in again.
All came out.
Now our party is:
Ranger/warlock/rogue/rogue/cleric.

Incidentally, I have played this encounter with two groups counting the guys out in front of the waterfall too, the two combined encounters has taken 4+ hours - even with a 6 second or you are delaying rule.

It seems the overall deadliness of the encounter varies greatly on how the DM chooses to run the enemies.

We had the Ranger and the Rogue peek in and shoot two Kobold minions, after which the rest of the Kobolds retreated and we were forced to enter the cave. The encounter seems to be much easier for parties that are able to fight one wave at a time.

Oh, and the encounters I described above took about three and half hours to play through. We're averaging 3 combat encounters and 2 social encounters per session.

/M

None. No one even got dropped to 0. Party was Fighter, Warlord, Wizard, Rogue, Ranger, Warlock.

My PCs slaughtered that chump. It helped that I gave Irontooth a description as being a seriously professional soldier, and roleplayed the kobolds calling for him to help when they were losing, then rallying their courage when he arrived. My players launched a couple dailies at him, and tore him to pieces. The round he spent blinded was the big killer.