D&D 4E Nearly 1 Hour to play 1 Turn of 4e

[Goonalan]

So the PCs are in P1 King of the Trollhaunt, just wandered into the Briar Hags chamber (just before they get to Skalmad’s Throne Room). They have a chat with Briar Hag, disguised as a mushroom tending prisoner, they know something’s up but can’t roll anything above a 10- still good role-play, and the PCs are doing the right thing.

The Briar Hag talks a while till some of the PCs relax and then attacks and catches a few of them by surprise, at the same time 5 Boneshard Skeletons (Large) drop out of the Cages about the room- repeated low rolls from the PCs had failed to elicit much info about the Skeletons.

The surprise round takes a little while to play out and then we get into Round 1 proper- the Fighter uses Come & Get It drags in 3 of the 5 Boneshards and hits plenty, he action points and Scattering Blows them and now all three are just above bloodied.

The other two Boneshards wander over to join the fun.

The Wizard drops something nasty in and bloodies one of the Boneshards- who does his Boneshard Burst (Close Burst 3) and seven attacks- which bloodies another of the Boneshards- who does his Boneshard Burst thing and seven more attacks…

Then the Cleric heals her allies up- the Mage has taken a real beating after all the Necro Bursts- then unleashes Mantle of Glory and bloodies another of the Boneshards in the process, cue Boneshard Burst again with six or seven targets.

Then, for good measure, goes for the Action Point and Turns Undead, which results in one of the Boneshard’s expiring- cue Boneshard Burst, another becoming bloodied- cue Boneshard Burst, and the above two attacks (even with the Resist 10 Necro) killing yet another of the Boneshards- cue Boneshard Burst…

Which in turn…

Bloodies a Boneshard- cue Boneshard Burst.

It was either awesome, or terrible; if we had been watching this on some animated style game table it would have been stupendous. As it was it was… a little monotonous, although for the PC Mage who was crouched in the middle of it trying to survive it was a little more exciting. The Fighter with Resist 10 Necro just stood in the middle of the waves of necrotic destruction doing his happy dance.

With the other PCs doing their bit, I’d say there were 60-80 attack rolls to make, and it got a little confused more than once with Boneshard Bursts being put on hold until we resolved the last Burst etc.

Madness.

The PCs thought they had the fight won after, particularly as they had also quickly taken down the Briar Hag (after the Rogue Crit followed by a Critical Opportunity- and other attacks) that but because they had done so well I brought in the Grell Philosopher and some of his Grimlock friends, oh and the other Briar Hag of course.

Anybody else had this before…

 

[dvvega]

I'm sure you probably thought about this, however the Boneshards have Resist Necrotic 10.

The average Boneshard Burst delivers 10 necrotic damage. So they should not have set each other off unless you were rolling some big damage rolls.

This makes a big difference in a situation like this, it happened to my players but they trigger all the bursts in the same round themselves.

D

 

[Goonalan]

I'm sure you probably thought about this, however the Boneshards have Resist Necrotic 10.

The average Boneshard Burst delivers 10 necrotic damage. So they should not have set each other off unless you were rolling some big damage rolls.

This makes a big difference in a situation like this, it happened to my players but they trigger all the bursts in the same round themselves.

D

Yeah, I mentioned that above, but I'm doing a Stat Analysis thing at the moment- see sig, and besides some of the Boneshards were Criting each other and on at least two of the Bursts the damage was 17 & 18 Necrotic- so they kept chipping away, for a majority of the Bursts it was under 10 damage so it was entriely resisted.

I'd pay good cash money to see this happen on a turn-based on-line gaming table... That would have been lush, even in-game the players were giggling furiously at times, as Iain who plays the Mage and had got himself stuck in the middle of it all started screaming like a little girl every time another Burst was triggered.

In the space of one Turn he went from full HP to below bloodied, back up to just short of full and back down again. After the Warlord's Reorient the Axis he took to hiding in a fungi patch- he wanted nothing more to do with the madness.

A little later of course the second hag got a bunch of them with Briar Patch and then the Grell Philosopher dropped Psychic Storm (is that what it's called) on the same spot. We ended the session still in this fight- all the Boneshard's gone, one bloodied Briar Hag, a Grimlock Berserker and the Philosopher Grell (the later two having only just arrived being pretty healthy)- the PCs have used a shed-load of their resources and several of them are Dazed/Immobilised et al.

Cheers Goonalan

 

[vagabundo]

Sounds awesome, but the fight must have been nearly over after round one, no?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Boneshards. Just above Needlefang Drake Swarms in terms of annoying and lethal monsters. But sounds as if that session was fun and scary. Other than being slooooow.

 

[CovertOps]

The PCs thought they had the fight won after, particularly as they had also quickly taken down the Briar Hag (after the Rogue Crit followed by a Critical Opportunity- and other attacks) that but because they had done so well I brought in the Grell Philosopher and some of his Grimlock friends, oh and the other Briar Hag of course.

Anybody else had this before…

I don't know the module you're talking about, but I don't penalize the players for doing well. Let me clarify that a bit. If the Grell and Grimlocks are a separate encounter, then I don't bring them to the party unless they go and get them. Two encounters back to back without a short rest in between in 4e can be deadly and easily become a TPK.

 

[mkill]

What was that Wizard doing within Range 3 of 5 Boneshard Skeletons? Commiting suicide? How about using his move action to get away from the buggers? Or dropping a GTFO utility?

Also, did you roll the damage for each attack of one burst separately? That could explain why it takes so long.

 

[mkill]

doublepost - please ignore

 

[mkill]

triple post - sorry

 

[Goonalan]

I don't know the module you're talking about, but I don't penalize the players for doing well. Let me clarify that a bit. If the Grell and Grimlocks are a separate encounter, then I don't bring them to the party unless they go and get them. Two encounters back to back without a short rest in between in 4e can be deadly and easily become a TPK.

You're presuming quite a lot in the above statement, here let me furnish you with all of the facts-

The scenario is WOTC Core Module P1 King of the Trollhaunt, and I know what I'm doing, I promise- the PCs have played through H1-3 and are ahead of the game Level-wise, so they're Level 13 and the module is supposed to be 11-13, I'm buffing up the encounters all the time.

I had a chat with my players ahead of time and we agreed we need to stretch them a little more, as it was they were kicking ass and taking names, in the first confrontation with Skalmad (Troll King end-of-level-bad-guy) they killed him, three Warren Trolls and two Nothics in two turns of play.

The encounters are not back-to-back, they were supposed to be all the same encounter-

Encounter starts with just Briar Hag, who releases 5 Boneshard Skeletons.

1 Turn later- second Briar Hag arrives

2 Turns later Grell Philosopher, Grimlock Berserker and two Grimlock Minions show up.

The PCs however managed to kill the first Briar Hag and 5 Boneshards before the Grell etc. even managed to get in the room.

Besides it's only a Level 15-16 encounter all told.

Thanks for the advice however...

Oh and one last thing, why not put multiple encounters back-to-back? Maybe it doesn't work in your game but it does in mine, or at least has on multiple occasions, see my sig if you like, in Sellswords of Punjar the PCs are in the middle of several encounters back-to-back, in KOTS the PCs favourite fight was when Balgron the Fat ran to the next encounter and the PCs followed on.

In the same scenario I combined two Hobgoblin encounters...

My personal favourite encounter of all time was when I combined four PCs Level Encounters together- the guys fought the bad guys to a standstill, it took the entire sessions, every ounce of their abilities, and some of the most resourceful and smartest play I've ever been party too. In the end they were forced to cut a deal with bad guys- which is exactly what I wanted to happen- recurring villain, come patron- the smoking man (who is feared and respected), who the PCs want to kill but know they have to come up with some really smart plan to do so.

My point is if my PCs want to kill the King, and I don't want the king to die then they're going to bump in twelve encounters all at the same time- some things are within their capabilities, some things are not- same with Guildmaster of Thieves, Assassins, or anyone else I need to keep around, or will just unbalance the game world.

Here's the thing, given any opportunity, and providing the players know about it ahead of time (and my players know how I operate) why would I not combine encounters, or do something that they don't expect... again, and again, and again.

Sorry if I was a bit sharp in the opening, but you seemed to think I was doing something wrong even though you'd not got the facts.

My golden rule is... colour outside the lines.

And I've been playing 4e since the day it came out and I've DM'ed three TPKs, and I've played a lot (no, really- a lot of it, ask my Mrs.- far too much of it). Two TPKs came in the first two months of playing the game and were mostly about me and the players not making the jump from 3/.5e, the third was earlier this year- and did involve multiple encounters combined into one. It was however not a true TPK- the 1st Level PCs were captured and held as prisoner by the bad guys (sacrificed to their dark god at one/day) while the players new characters (with the clock running) were sent to rescue them, made for the best motivation the players had ever had- and the characters that survived it have proved to be some of their favourites for having done so.

Cheers