Post your Lair Assault Results Here (Spoilers)

[Saracenus]

Taed,

4 minions count as one monster for the purposes of monsters per room counting purposes, just like a normal encounter at low heroic.

So, your room had 3 monsters and no traps. He could have put as many traps in the room as there are places to put them (there are limitations on where the traps can be placed in the room). So, you could have been facing a lot worse.

Since you were on nightmare mode he could have had another monster in there too.

LA is a series of trade offs. Do I put the minions in, or do I use the brute instead? There are sets of monsters at each level and a DM has to chose one or the other.

The hell-hound handler is pure descriptive fluff. It's awesome your DM made one of the creatures he chose the hell-hound handler.

Thanks,

 

[Taed]

I don't want it to be fair and balanced. But, I do want it to be semi-reasonable and not super ridiculous. When one looks at the minions in the oil, one understands that it is a lose lose proposition for any group of PCs.

Our group found it clever of the DM and a challenge for us and completely in the spirit of Lair Assault. We now have to think about how to defeat that strategy for next week (such as through initiative bonuses).

IThe DM did not have to have the Hell Hound hit the minions. The first PC that hits a minion will have that minion run in, do a close burst fire, which will light the oil, which will kill the rest of the minions, which will have them move in and blow up.
So, initiative doesn't matter. The DM was throwing hundreds of points of damage at the PCs regardless of who attacked a minion first.

We knew what the minions were (some of us encountered some of them in the first week) and we had no intention of hitting them. Our strategy was to not get involved in any combat in the first room. If we needed a path through the row of minions, we would have done a Charge / Bull Rush.

That said, the hellhound was necessary and initiative mattered since only the hellhound and handler ended up with higher initiative than the PCs. Without the hellhound, we would all have gone before the minions and run past the minions with a double-run, take the OAs, and make it into the final room at the end of the first round (giving us 4 more rounds in the final room for the attempt at speed run glory).

Also, if we decided not to run, any decent defender (of which we had none) could have taken the attacks from the minions without getting bloodied due to the high AC (or were those reflex attacks? I forget) and high hit points. So, it's hardly a certain loss.

A good part of our problem was when the first character ran, we were left in a U-shaped pattern (as he happened to be the front row middle position), and all the minions piled into the hole. Without that hole, only 2 or 3 PCs (not all 4) could have been hit by each minion's close blast. Thus, we would have all survived that minion onslaught, though all would still have been bloodied.

I don't know the rules for monster placement, but if the DM were allowed to place 16 of those minions in the first room in a semi-circle around the entrance so that it was largely two deep, that would be quite difficult. Although with initiative, Thunderwave or Beguiling Strands could still make a path, so you might end up sacrificing one PC. Or if you all had some way of doing a fly or spider walk, that's another way out.

Just for clarity, this was the layout after the first PC ran away, where P=PCs, m=Minions, H=Hellhound, and .=walking path. As you can see, the DM did leave us space to run the gauntlet, so he wasn't totally evil. If I were doing that, I wouldn't have left those spaces, forcing a Bull Rush.

m H m
m . m
mP.Pm
mP.Pm

 

[KarinsDad]

Our group found it clever of the DM and a challenge for us and completely in the spirit of Lair Assault. We now have to think about how to defeat that strategy for next week (such as through initiative bonuses).

Actually, you made it sound a lot worse than it probably was.

The minions only do 5 fire damage when they blow up, not 17.

So sure, PCs can survive that. I'm not even quite sure how the Hellhound and minions took out even a single PC that way in a single round (our PCs had a range of 50 to 60+ hit points when we played). The Hellhound does 17 max or 12 average damage and each minion burst does 5 (for an average of 52 and a max of 57). Sure, that's enough to drop a PC if every single one of them hits a PC, but they have to roll to hit. Are you sure the DM didn't mess this up? He hit all 4 PCs with 7 to 9 hits out of 9? I'm not quite sure who the hellhound handler was and how much damage it could do (and granted, the minions themselves could damage the PCs, but you stated that the minions had a low init).

So yeah, this wasn't quite the super threat that you implied once one looks at the NPCs. It was just a cool (or hot in this case) DM threat. Course, I'm not sure how the DM managed rolling that well to do that much damage.

Did the PC who made it through the lava room use an action point to activate the Void power? Cause he had to run to the door (move), minor to open, run to the second door (move) and was out of actions to activate it.


Btw, the easiest way to stop the 5 round win is to put 2 or more monsters in the lava room, preferably side by side to minimize movement past them. I'm surprised your DM didn't do that. I assume he knew what your goal was. Even your void PCs would have had to fight the monsters in both rooms for a few rounds.

That would have been funny if the DM put 2 monsters on the other side of that first door. That first PC runs up, minors to open the door, and has two monsters next to him. Then even if he tries to attack, he's at -5 to hit and the monsters are +2 to hit him because of the run action. Oops.

 

[Taed]

Actually, you made it sound a lot worse than it probably was.
The minions only do 5 fire damage when they blow up, not 17.

The drenched-in-oil minions we faced definitely did somewhere in the 15-19 range, but I don't recall the exact number. I had 50 HPs, resist 3 fire (originally resist 6 fire), and got hit by about half of the 9 attacks (hellhound + 8 minions), and ended up at -10 or so when the attacks were finished. (I don't recall if I was hit by the hellhound or not, but remember that doing about the same damage as the minions blowing up.) That's 60 HPs of damage total. From 4 hits, that would be 15+3 = 18 fire damage each. From 5 hits, that would be 12+3 = 15 fire damage each.

If they were only doing 5 fire damage, I would have only taken 2 HPs each (due to resist 3 fire), so with 5 minion hits, we would only be about 10 HPs down each (although others only had resist 2 fire), certainly not at all what happened.

I can't speak to the minions as written, as I haven't seen the module. However, we faced two minions the first week as well with a different DM and remember the explosion being surprisingly large (and I had resist 3 all with the character I was playing at the time), so it seems that both DMs were working from the same script.

 

[Taed]

The drenched-in-oil minions we faced definitely did somewhere in the 15-19 range, but I don't recall the exact number...

One of my fellow players says:
As a note about the minions, it was actually 10 damage each, and the handler had gone before the hell-hound and given all the minions a buff, which is why they had 10 instead of their normal damage.

In that case, after fire resistance, they were doing 7 damage each to my character (and 8 to the others) and we must have been hit more than I thought. Assuming the hellhound's breath blast hit for 20-25 damage, that leaves another 35-40 that was done by the minions, which was about 5 or 6 hits out of 8 minions.

And so that DM tactic only worked because both the dog handler and hellhound had higher initiative than us. Had either had lower initiative, we all should have made it out of the first room.

 

[KarinsDad]

One of my fellow players says:
As a note about the minions, it was actually 10 damage each, and the handler had gone before the hell-hound and given all the minions a buff, which is why they had 10 instead of their normal damage.

In that case, after fire resistance, they were doing 7 damage each to my character (and 8 to the others) and we must have been hit more than I thought. Assuming the hellhound's breath blast hit for 20-25 damage, that leaves another 35-40 that was done by the minions, which was about 5 or 6 hits out of 8 minions.

Well, I don't know what the handler was (I'll look again tonight now that I know that he has a damage buff), but the Hellhound does 2d6+5 damage. Nowhere near 20-25 unless the handler buffed him 5 as well and he rolled real high on the damage.

This seems excessively high, but sometimes the dice are hot.

And finding a way to do double damage is just nasty cause it blows the damage out of the park.

 

[misalo1]

DMed Lair Today...

TPK on round 7

4 Characters... 2 died in the 1st room.... 1 in the 'Runes' room and 1 in the hallway that connects to the 'Forge' room.

I played it as written... so they faces the elemental, 2 hounds and 2 traps...

Everybody had a blast...

2 are making new PCs & 1 is retooling his 1st attempt (the 4th doesn't know if he'll be back - due to life, job, etc.) 3 encounter players are going to join us next time...

So until next time - BRING ON THE PAIN

 

[sigfile]

One of my fellow players says:
As a note about the minions, it was actually 10 damage each, and the handler had gone before the hell-hound and given all the minions a buff, which is why they had 10 instead of their normal damage.

That was a screw-up. The buff you mention only adds damage to melee attacks, not burst attacks.

Personal accounts: I've run through the Lair twice, now. For the first run our group had Breaching Armor; the intent was to pop through the false door straight in to the final fight. Two nasty surprises later and we were thankful we had Plan B - a character optimized to smash down the false door. We lost two characters in the final fight, but Mordai Vell fell in round 8.

For the second attempt, we had a group primarily consisting of tieflings with final fire resistances between 7 and 9. We ignored the creatures in the first room (traps, devil, skeleton, and the fire elemental), running straight through to the cracked-floor room. In round three we started breaching through to the final chamber.

In the last action of round five, we dropped Mordai Vell. No PC was dead.

Fire resistance and regen (so, Diabolic Soul tieflings) were just sick, here. Some creatures just couldn't hurt us. Auras and ongoing damage weren't problems. Teleportation became an option again. Running in to the lava wasn't suicide. Additional equipment rendered the traps and Mordai Vell's rechargeable power largely ineffective.

While the theme was appreciated, I will look forward to future Lairs where optimizing around a single resistance type (even at half value) isn't the obvious choice.

Now that we've completed the challenge and earned Speed Demon, we're a bit excited to take our time and find some alternate goals. Nightmare Mode might be next, Commando might be interesting... In a perfect world, I'd like to run against a different DM just to see how different the experience becomes. Our regular DM has started optimizing around our group, so unless we (players) mix it up, we're likely to keep running in to "more of the same."

 

[garich]

did Lair by myself essentially

*spoilers*
did lair assault today, and i didnt make it. But there were only 2 of us.
the other person was a Deva healer; she used every single heal on herself. and she died, leaving me with a lot left.
first “encounter” was about 9 minions. none did fire damage, so my force and fire resist didnt mean squat, and i had no burst/area attacks, and neither did the cleric. she ended up using a daily, making a zone of 1d6+cha damage; they were gone soon after.
after was the jumping over platforms (oh i netted a fish and gave it to her). i drew a card that let me get a Stroke of Luck on a failed saving throw; even after about 10 ongoing damage saving throws, and 3 saving throws to avoid falling off a platform (literally about 13 saving throws), i unfortunately continued to save every time (even though i had 12 fire resist meaning 6 fire resist, meaning ongoing 5 fire did nothing). there was a fire bat and a warlock in the platform room.
i suggested we focus on one enemey- the bat- so i could intimidate when bloodied. when it finally was i rolled a ONE on the intimidate, so it just laughed at me. the cleric died after falling and getting singled out (as the DM felt like doing) for attacks. i left the room, leaving the warlock alive, went in the next hallway, and grabbed the jewels from the statue.
the jewels granted 5 REAL fire resist (didnt need) and +5 vs ongoing fire dmg; i dropped it, continuing to try and fail a save for the stroke of luck card. Oh wait both were alive- the bat and warlock followed me. i went into the third little room, put on the robe, but dropped it because it was the same as the jewels. i killed the bat, then went further down the hallway, and used the dark Sun at-will power to see what was in the main room.
there was the elemental (lv10), the boss (lv8 elite), a dragonborn, and 2 trapped statues. this was about round 14, and you have 20 to stop the boss. i went to the portcullis, rolled to lift it, failed, and rolled again using my standard and got it. the boss ran like a bitch and the elemental and the dragonborn came at me. the warlock used his power to teleport us and switch places, sending me back further in the hallway. the dragonborn and elemental blocked the 2-square wide hallway.
i moved to the dragonborn then rolled to bullrush him. i failed, but by this time i finally got the Stroke of Luck and rerolled, pushing him one square and entering the space he left. then i used my action point to move past him, the elemental, and the warlock, going 2 squares past the portcullis- Opp attacks were worth it, cant remember if they hit (my guy had regen 5, temp hp, and resist fire so i didnt care).
i charged the boss and did my Black Wrath of Hell, Takedown strike, and Bull Charge on him. earlier i used my Corona of Floating Force, levitating me and avoiding hazardous terrain and any terrain hazard, aka the lava. the dragonborn came at me, the elemental, and the traps were firing. the boss used his powers like crazy, the dumb dragonborn took 10 damage/round cuz he was in the lava but had just resist fire 10.
they ended up eventually dropping me to -3, then unleashed hell on me (including a coup de grace), but only got me to -25. my bloody value is 27, so i didnt die. then i regened 5 at the start of my turn (from armor of sudden recovery from the ongoing 5 damage from turn 4), bringing my hp to 5, and then it was turn 20 and too late.
i had hurt the boss like hell but didnt bloody him (he has over 180 hit points i think). if i could have bloodied him i could have intimidated with a +22 to the check; i would have had to roll about a 10.
but thats what happened- just me. all the cleric did was heal herself twice and lay a zone for the minions. the fish she ate gave resist 10 fire vs 1 attack, but didnt save her. just remember that having a tiefling is essential, and being a hybrid battlemind/battlerager worked well.
my 2 consumables were 2 potions of clarity (reroll encounter/daily attack, tho rerolling at-wills would have helped tremendously; my last 3 attacks vs the boss were 1, 2, and 2).

 

[sigfile]

That's an impressive run for two people!

they ended up eventually dropping me to -3, then unleashed hell on me (including a coup de grace), but only got me to -25. my bloody value is 27, so i didnt die. then i regened 5 at the start of my turn (from armor of sudden recovery from the ongoing 5 damage from turn 4), bringing my hp to 5, and then it was turn 20 and too late.

You did luck out, here; regen shouldn't work once you're below zero hp. From the Compendium's glossary definition of regeneration: "Heal Each Turn: If you have regeneration and at least 1 hit point, you regain a specified number of hit points at the start of your turn. If your current hit point total is 0 or lower, you do not regain hit points through regeneration."