A fun encounter I ran today

[Lord Zardoz]

I had set up a fight in a neighborhood of an abandoned level of a dwarven city, which had a bunch of Goblins living in it. Some buildings had tunnels, many had walkways between roofs (as well as some buildings with ladders in them to grant easy access to the roofs). There were 6 Goblin Cutters (I gave them javelins), 2 Warriors, and 2 Sharp Shooters. The players were all level 1, and there was a Wizard, a Cleric, a Paladin, and a Ranger.

I had goblins running from roof top to roof top and making ranged attacks. I had one warrior who got in a lot of nasty shots with the Mobile Ranged Attack, by moving in, then attacking and moving back to cover. The sharpshooters also got some damage in, but not quite as much. The combination of Great Position and Mobile Ranged attack is vicious if you have an environment that lends its self to their use. At one point I had a goblin run back into a building to re-arm his supply of Javelins.

By the end of the fight, I had dropped 3 of the 4 PC's (the cleric, the Paladin, and a Wizard), and had one Goblin Warrior left standing. The Ranger was also in rough shape, but was in the process of moving up behind the last goblin. It is very plausible that the PC was saved by me rolling low on an Int / Wis check for that last Goblin. Because I rolled low, the goblin started looting the paladin rather than trying to locate the last PC. The ranger landed both attacks on a twin strike, essentially ending the encounter.

I made the last survivor roll the untrained heal checks to stabilize his three comrades. He lucked out when the Cleric landed a natural 20 on a death save though, so everyone who was not a goblin survived.

I am absolutely going to recycle that encounter at some point.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[helium3]

Hah!

Today I ran my party's first encounter in our new 4E campaign. I totally kicked their asses!!

Paladin, Wizard, Warlock and Warlord went up against 2 Guard Drakes, 2 Hafling Thieves and an Elven Archer.

It was, according to the DMG, a level 3 encounter. So, for a 1st level party difficult but not insurmountable. Keep in mind that the DMG says that a party can reliably handle anything up to n+4.

100% POWNAGE.

We had the warlock charging in to attack the guard drakes. We had the Eladrin Wizard teleporting in to try and catch the Hafling Thieves in a crossblast without thinking about what the thieves would do once the wizard was done setting them on fire. So much glorious chaos!!

At one point I had three characters on the ground and bleeding out while the Warlock and the 9 year old NPC that had accompanied them are desperately trying untrained heal checks to keep them alive.

As I understand it though, I should savor these moments of power. I'll soon find myself permanently the party's whipping boy.