[4e] Monster Mash! 4e MvM tournament (Closed)

[covaithe]

The dice were unkind, but I think the fight would have been greatly different if the beholder had taken advantage of being the only flying creature in the arena. The spider would still have had a good chance to bring it down, though.

I'd thought the goblin hexer was kind of an afterthought, but it turned out to be far more effective than I guessed it would be.

 

[renau1g]

Those hexer's are nasty, I just fought one in RL and between blind and that cloud, we were getting beat up pretty hard by the soldiers protecting him.

 

[Atanatotatos]

I'd thought the goblin hexer was kind of an afterthought, but it turned out to be far more effective than I guessed it would be.

Eh, it was actually the monster I built the team (and strategy, in this case) around.

 

[nerdytenor]

Yes, I suppose he could have just floated up six squares.

 

[Atanatotatos]

That was my fear. Even after being surrounded, if I was him I would have risked the OAs and done so. It was too late after he was dazed, obviously. Though probably he couldn't have gotten too far, since the beholder's eye aura is 5 squares and just too good to give up.

 

[covaithe]

I would have seriously considered going straight for the cheese and having him go 20 squares up and wait there until he saved against all the nasty stuff.

 

[Atanatotatos]

Uhmm... that might have been a good tactic. However the goblin's blinding attack is at-will, and the destrachan's daze rechargeable.
All in all, I think nerdy made two big mistakes aside from bad luck with saves and tactical movement during the fight. First, I don't think the Worg was a good choice to pair with the Beholder: since he was pretty much betting everything on the Eye of Flame, a soldier that could effectively protect it would have probably been a better choice; the Worg was also a bad match against my tem, because being a brute it had basically no chance to hit with all those nasty penalties.
The second mistake was the first double move in the first turn; although he was lucky that no charge hit the Beholder (that would have been some nasty dmg), it was surrounded right from the start with the vexing cloud covering all the monsters targeted by the eye aura.
All in all, although it is true that nerdy had really bad luck with saves (he failed the save vs blindness 6 times in a row with a +2 bonus -that's harsh) there were huge penalties to hit right from the start:
*-2 from the vexing cloud
*either -2 from the vexing cloud or -5 from blinded
*-2 agaist monsters close to the Unicorn
*-2 from the Troll's mark
*-2 from being prone
...Aside from being either dazed or stunned most of the fight. I was really surprised for a couple of round when the beholder rolled I think three crits, a couple 18s and a 19... There was no way to hit without very high rolls.

Alright, enough of giving away my tactics

 

[nerdytenor]

I don't think you're giving anything away, Ata. I agree the stacking penalties are quite harsh. I picked the Worg because it was fun, mostly.

I didn't give flight a lot of thought for some reason. Guess I thought it would make the fight too cheesy to escape to the heavens, I don't know... That and limited time for furtive posts from work. At any rate, it was an interesting experiment. I'm just glad I got my team in on time.

If I were playing this a bit more competitively, I think it would have been pretty close, despite the blindness, which makes me think that the beholder is a bit strong for its level.

I also think moving a monster down levels should also scale damage over time effects. For instance, if you have something deal 10 ongoing damage in a level 14 monster, and you scale it to level 10, surely the ongoing damage should be scaled too? And of course, some status effects can't be scaled at all - these are much more problematic. For this reason I'll be very careful when mucking with these kinds of beasties in my own adventures.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Yeah, and that works in both directions, too. Scaling a monster up too far will leave it underpowered for that level, for a number of reasons. I think the 5 level limit in either direction is OK, as long as it's understood that that's the extreme. Usually no more than 2-3 levels is what I'd say for a real game.

I mean, if you think about it, 5 levels is half a tier. A monster 5 levels above or below what it was originally designed to do and be is very far away from what it was originally intended to do. This whole thing has been rather educational

 

[Atanatotatos]

Well, it depends on the monster after all. To keep using my (and nerdy's) encounter as an example, the Goblin Hexer is a nasty controller at pretty much any level you consider it, IMO -even though he's only a level 3. And inversely, however much you reduce the Eye of Flame's level, it's still really nasty because of the number of attacks it can potentially dish out. All in all, the main stats (defenses, attacks, hp) scale pretty evenly by level and role. So the absolute measure of a monster's danger level is the special abilities it has. Some become obsolete, but others not. Even a 30th level character, when blinded, must have some kind of countermeasure, or he's pretty much screwed.

It's a bit like choosing powers for PCs. What's better, the decent dmg of Meteor Swarm, or the UBER stun-all of Legion Hold? Just like I'd choose a Rogue as a striker over a ranger any day, despite much lower average damage beyond a certain level, because of the number and nastiness of status effects it can inflict on enemies.