D&D 4E 4E Sample Combat: The Terrasque

[Surgoshan]

I got a little lost reading the whole thread. But the T has +5 to saves so only needs a 5 thru 20 on a roll to save. Throw in any negs the characters can give but you would have to roll real crappy for him to fail saves. Also I agree he would have been immune to the Fear.

Except that the mage also has Spell Focus, which gives creatures -2 to save against his effects.

Also I didnt notice did you take into account that he has Immunity 10 to all damage types? Meaning -10 to each thing that hits him.

Yep. It caused me quite a bit of grief, because I had to go back and change a whole lot of stuff in the second round.


Okay, some questions: the tarrasque started by Trampling, so that he could get close enough to use his Fury. He steps onto four people, takes OAs, and makes his attack.

1) the five PCs are standing in a line E-W and the tarrasque is moving directly south to step on the first four. The Tarrasque's SE corner is therefor leaving a square adjacent to the man on the end; does it provoke an OA? I think it should.

2) While trampling, one of his attacks (+34 vs Reflex) makes a critical miss. The DMG says that critical misses on area attacks shouldn't be ruled as fumbles, but as guaranteed misses. At the time I figured the attack should be forcibly ended (the tarrasque had four more move squares left in the Trample and thus could have made more attacks) and the tarrasque moved south until he's no longer in enemy squares (thus signaling something serious about the critical miss), but doesn't lose his next turn or end this one (thus making a compromise with the area attack recommendation).

The rogue then used close quarters to move into one of the Tarrasque's spaces and provoked an OA. The tarrasque rolled a natural 20 and thus critted, which the rogue then turned into a critical miss with a Deadly Trickster daily ability.

3) I ruled that the critical miss on that did count as a fumble and cost the tarrasque his next turn.

4) Does this also prevent the tarrasque from taking further OAs? Because the squishies would like to get out of range of his Reach 3 Fury.

 

[Infiniti2000]

1. From your description, it seems like it.

2. Wait, the DMG has rules for critical misses? I hope that's a variant and not an actual rule.

3. I really hate the idea of critical fumbles. A round in D&D is REALLY a huge deal and not acting for a whole freakin' round is a death sentence, especially for a solo monster. If critical fumbles is a variant, I suggest you not use them (Especially for a test run you are posting about). If they're not a variant, I just found my biggest gripe with 4E.

4. Losing your turn doesn't cost you OA's, I don't think.

 

[Surgoshan]

It's a variant; I should have looked more closely.

 

[Vaeron]

1. From your description, it seems like it.

2. Wait, the DMG has rules for critical misses? I hope that's a variant and not an actual rule.

My personal rule is that a natural 1 is a fumble, but the only effect of that fumble, other than an automatic miss, is that the fumbler grants Combat Advantage until the start of his next turn. No other penalty, no loss of attacks. It seems reasonable to me, but not excessively punishing to monsters or players. And gives the rogue something to cheer about (unless he's the one who fumbled, and doesn't have elven accuracy or something of the like).

It's basically a much less harsh version of the fumble rule in the DMG.

Edit: Oh, and yeah. The house rules/variant rules section of the DMG is the only place you will find fumbles.

 

[JesterOC]

Long Fall into Darkness has both Illusion and Fear, so I'm guessing big T can be effected by it. He's not scared, but he's still falling to a pit.

Yeah, tough call. The PHB uses teleportation as an example and says "a ritual that forbids teleportation could block a power that has the teleportation keyword." At first I thought the use of the word could was a hint than another keyword world allow a spell to sliip by. However after reading the ritual it appears that a higher level caster can ignore the ward.

So what about Astral Refuge. The spell is Healing, Teleportation. THe effect is the target is teleported to the astra plane and then gets to use healing surges if he wants.

I would argue that the teleportation ward would completely block that spell, if you can't get to the astral plane, you can't use healing surges.

Another source that seems to support this lies in the monster manual.

In the Monster Manual it says this about immunities

... a monster with “immune
poison” never takes poison damage and can’t suffer any other ill effect from a poison attack.

So if it is hit by something with both fear and posion keywords it would be immune.

My current guess is that for effects, the more keywords the more suseptable the spell is for blocking.


JesterOC

 

[Valdier]

It's a variant; I should have looked more closely.

Why are you running this combat and trying to pass it off as anything if you don't even know the basic rules of the system yet?

~Edited out stuff ~

Cut out the insulting language please - Plane Sailing

The fact that you are using "critical misses" and then house ruling extra rounds lost on top of it... didn't realize they were a house rule under a heading entitled "Example house rules" is... well... just sad. The number of incorrect "calls" on rules so far have been... well... I will stop there.

It pretty much ended the legitimacy of any speculation of the combat in this thread.

 

[NMcCoy]

... a monster with “immune
poison” never takes poison damage and can’t suffer any other ill effect from a poison attack.

The wording of this suggests a pretty elegant solution.
The damage is "fire and psychic"; it's not immune to either of these, so it takes full damage (if it were immune to one of them, it would take half). The stun is "any other ill effect from a [fear] attack", so it's negated.

Similarly, with Long Fall into Darkness, if a monster is immune to either Illusion or Fear effects, it takes the psychic damage (from having its mind pried open to stuff the scary illusion inside) but has no other negative effects. If a creature was immune to psychic, it'd be completely unaffected by both the damage and the side effects. Does this seem like a reasonable interpretation?

 

[AtomicPope]

This actually doesn't surprise me at all. He's a level 30 solo, which means that as one encounter (out of several in a day), the PCs would be the distinct favorites. When they can blow all their dailies and action points on one fight of their level, yeah, it's going to be a slaughter.

This.


A Solo of equal level is supposed to be an average fight. If you wanted to make the Tarrasque a difficult fight then have a group of five level 24 characters fight it (this is in the DMG).

There are dozens of things you SHOULD do to make this a challenging fight. Such as add a Leader to grant out-of-turn saves with bonuses, some Soldiers to soak up hits and run interference, and artillery to target the PC's from anywhere. Or add several Lurkers to move past the fighter and hit the Strikers and Hybrid Controller. With a group of lower level monsters (Preferrably Devils) supporting the Tarrasque it will go from an average challenge to a difficult one (as per DMG).

 

[Plane Sailing]

My current guess is that for effects, the more keywords the more suseptable the spell is for blocking.

The Astral Storm makes me think otherwise - since you take the weakest of the keyword defences to defend against it.

 

[MadMaligor]

My personal rule is that a natural 1 is a fumble, but the only effect of that fumble, other than an automatic miss, is that the fumbler grants Combat Advantage until the start of his next turn. No other penalty, no loss of attacks. It seems reasonable to me, but not excessively punishing to monsters or players. And gives the rogue something to cheer about (unless he's the one who fumbled, and doesn't have elven accuracy or something of the like).

It's basically a much less harsh version of the fumble rule in the DMG.

Edit: Oh, and yeah. The house rules/variant rules section of the DMG is the only place you will find fumbles.

This