The Power of Surprise: How my 7th level party took out a 40k xp challenge without a sweat

My party had a crazy encounter tonight. Through the advice of a dead god (long story) they knew the exact time and place that a githyanki raiding party would hit a specific area.

The raiding party consisted of:
1) 10 Githyanki Warriors (CR 3)
2) 7 Githyanki Knights (CR 8)
3 1 Githyanki Gish (CR 10)

Combined this was a 40k xp encounter, though if you use the horde multiplies it could be considered up 200k for difficulty purposes. As a deadly fight for this 6 character, 7th level party is 10k, so in theory this is way above the paygrade.

Now the party did a lot of prep, but ultimately the prep wasn't really needed due to the power of surprise.


The Githyanki appeared using some astral skiffs, right at the time and place the party knew they would be. The party got surprise round. Fireball, Fireball, and a Call Lightning to start the ball while the Rogue and the Wizard's undead assistants starting hitting the Gish and the Barbarian jumped on a skiff to start wrecking shop.

The party finished surprise round, and two of them got to go first again. Fireball, Fireball.....and now a lot of dead gith. The Gish was dead, and while most of the knights were still alive they were extremely wounded. Not wanting to engage in a suicide mission, the knights plane shifted out.

And so an absolute overwhelming encounter turned into a cakewalk.


The party loved it and had a great time. It wasn't how I thought they would handle it, but it all worked out.

The lesson is that CRs are great and all, but the circumstance of a battle can have a huge impact. Without surprise, in an open field, the party would have been slaughtered. With surprise and good position and they don't even get hurt.

Thanks for sharing that story. When the players at my table start getting too bunched up, somebody always starts muttering about the dangers of being in "fireball formation." This usually leads to them spreading out a bit more organically as opposed to filing in like a Roman legion everywhere they go.

Stalker0 said:

The lesson is that CRs are great and all, but the circumstance of a battle can have a huge impact. Without surprise, in an open field, the party would have been slaughtered. With surprise and good position and they don't even get hurt.

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This is very, very true. And while I do not consider it a bad thing at all--I love that a tactically savvy party can punch way above its weight class--it's important for DMs to be aware of, because it can really wreak havoc with your planning if you aren't prepared for stuff like this.

Things I've seen contribute to this kind of encounter:

• Surprise and good initiative rolls (as in Stalker0's example). This is especially important if the party has strong "alpha-strike" capacity; high-impact, limited-use abilities that they can blast out in the first round. Spellcasters are notorious for devastating alpha strikes, but they are not the only ones--an assassin rogue, for instance, can deliver eye-popping damage on a surprise round thanks to sneak attack with a guaranteed crit.
• Large numbers of closely packed enemies (also in Stalker0's example).
• A powerful enemy with a weak saving throw (or just bad luck) and no Legendary Resistance. While "save-or-lose" magic has been scaled way back in 5E compared to 3E and previous editions, it is still very much a factor, and a skilled caster can use it to great effect.
• Lethal terrain hazards. Many PCs have ways to impose forced movement on their enemies, and there are few things that make a player quite as gleeful as knocking a big bad monster into a lava pit.
• PC defenses or control tactics to which the monsters have no answer. The most common example is a flying party and foes with only melee attacks, but I've seen others. A party where everyone has gone to great lengths to boost their AC can wade through a horde of monsters with low attack bonuses, taking on far more enemies than CR would indicate.
• PCs with time and opportunity to prepare the battlefield can really slug the odds in their favor, especially with access to higher-level spells. If you can force undead foes to fight you in the zone of a forbiddance spell, for instance, they'll get blasted for 5d10 radiant damage every round, over and above what the party is dishing out with regular attacks. Even at lower levels, glyph of warding is a scary thing.

I'm sure there are plenty of other tricks I'm forgetting.

Somehow I don't think the pack of githyanki knights are going to let this go. Smart money says that there's a reconciliation coming.

Yep, environment and circumstance matter in combat.

Depending on your party, I wonder what impact this has going forward in the campaign? Will the party now expect more encounters above their weight class from the DM? If so, will they expect to dominate them like this particular encounter and how will they react if things go south the next time?

Hjorimir said:

Somehow I don't think the pack of githyanki knights are going to let this go. Smart money says that there's a reconciliation coming.

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I agree. To follow on [MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION] 's thoughts, a party that feels like they can start fresh, alpha strike, and then go home to rest can easily do a full day's worth of XP without breaking a sweat with good planning, surprise, and good initiative. Retreating enemies also helps the party avoid damage.

If a retaliation comes before the party can rest, they might be captured and brought into the consequences of picking a fight with such a strong, well-equipped foe.

Sorry to be that guy, but there is no such thing as a surprise round. Now it is possible that the party could get an entire round of surprise if all the enemy are surprised, but did you check for all 18 githyanki or did you do a group check. The former can lead to a more challenging encounter than the later.

Both are fine. Everyone had a great time and even if you roll for combatant, the party may still luck out and get an entire round of attacks in.

MNblockhead said:

Sorry to be that guy, but there is no such thing as a surprise round. Now it is possible that the party could get an entire round of surprise if all the enemy are surprised, but did you check for all 18 githyanki or did you do a group check. The former can lead to a more challenging encounter than the later.

Both are fine. Everyone had a great time and even if you roll for combatant, the party may still luck out and get an entire round of attacks in.

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Unless the enemies were actively searching the area then you would just go against the passive perception of each creature. The highest in this situation being the Gish with 16, while the knights have 12 and the warriors only 11. It's not too big a stretch that the party all passed this. Especially since they planned the ambush ahead they could have prepared using Pass Without Trace or something to give them advantage on stealth prior to springing the trap.

But that is under the assumption that none of them were looking. One could certainly argue that the Githyanki should be disciplined warriors that would be on guard when conducting raids. But I know that sometimes as a DM these kinds of details pass right by me in the heat of running the game.

MNblockhead said:

Sorry to be that guy, but there is no such thing as a surprise round. Now it is possible that the party could get an entire round of surprise if all the enemy are surprised, but did you check for all 18 githyanki or did you do a group check.

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You don't check for each githyanki. Each PC rolls Stealth; unless the githyanki are using an action to search, they must rely on passive Perception. So if each PC is able to beat the highest passive Perception among the githyanki, the entire raiding party is surprised.

The stealth vs perception is a fair point. Honestly, because the party knew exactly when the Githyanki were arriving, and the Githyanki just popped in, I assumed surprise for them.