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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 3342237" data-attributes="member: 2011">You don't know the half of it.First, I agree with you and RigaMortus2 about the initiator level stuff. I read the paragraph before the table, but had only skimmed through the section before that which explains it.However, the DM was really loading the dice. He had about 12 Yuan-ti (Monk/Warblade?) combatant types (maybe 15th level) with these abilities and 2 Yuan-ti Sorcerers (maybe 16th level) against 4 20th level PCs (Cleric, Paladin, Beguiler, Eldritch Knight) and a 17th level PC cohort (Sorcerer). So, outnumbered about 3 to 1 with NPCs who the DM was breaking rules for.The combat was on this massive chess board with each square 10x10 feet. The "white squares" led to a fall into some void. The "black squares" were solid stone.8 of the combatant types diagonally surrounded and attacked our Enlarged EK. Four would move in and attack, four would move behind them. The four in the back (illegally) used White Raven Tactics to give extra turns (not extra actions, extra turns) to the four in front who would full round attack and take a 5' step back whereas the other 4 would move in and attack. The EK was 90% wounded in a single round.So, my Cleric was forced to cast Mass Heal (on him and the Paladin, even though the Paladin was not wounded) because Heal has range touch and I was too far away.It went from bad to worse. They had Improved Evasion to avoid energy type spells and could auto-dispel any battlefield spells we cast. Some of the Monks were giving extra turns to the Sorcerers who were using Celerity or Greater Celerity (immune to the Daze somehow) to cast 2 or 3 spells per turn, for 2 turns per round (4 to 6 spells per round each or 8 to 12 spells (although lower level) per round compared to our typically 5 or 6 spells per round with Quickened spells). And, I also think the DM may have been giving extra turns to multiple allies per use of WRT, not one.So between the illegal use of White Raven Tactics and the illegal use of Iron Heart Surge, they got about 5 turns in to each of ours and virtually none of our spells affected them.The EK flew into the air (to get away from 8 full round attacks every other round even after he cast Iron Body on himself), got most of his spells dispelled, got hit to about -8 hit points, and fell into one of the voids (actually, he fell onto a stone square, but at his iron body weight, the DM rolled to see if it broke and it did, so he and the square fell in). Fortunuately, the cohort Sorcerer got a Feather Fall on him as he fell and my Cleric had cast Persistent Lesser Vigor on the party the night before which didn't get dispelled, so he auto-stabilized. We couldn't get to him at that point. It probably took 5 more rounds, just to get the battle semi-under control.We beat them because the Beguiler got a Mind Fog up on them followed by whatever the spell is that does massive subdual damage and they had to dispel/end the Mind Fog individually and did not have the time to do so with the spells coming from the Cleric and Sorcerer.It was, quite frankly, one of the most overwhelming, threatening, and complicated battles I have ever played in (partially because the DM had not carefully read the Bo9S rules). Even so, it was a lot of fun, even though it seriously looked like we were going to get creamed. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> On the bright side, the DM and I are now in agreement on how those rules work (as per the actual writeup in Bo9s) and we won't face another combat like that soon. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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