Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinneus" data-source="post: 5242804" data-attributes="member: 48215">Thanks, Keterys. That's some cool synergy, and I like the fire theme. One problem with making brutally effective encounters is that, sometimes, the monsters that really compliment each other mechanically don't make a lot of sense together story-wise. But it's easy to imagine a bunch of fire-powered monsters hanging out together. I think I remember hearing somewhere, though, that the Bloodfire harpies were errated? Or possibly that auras were fixed in general so that multiple, overlapping auras no longer do cumulative damage? I might be off on that, though... I'll have to check my errata. Anyway, I thought of another one. The dread archer (MM3) is extremely nasty. It has an ability that lets its master, if it has line of sight to the archer, use implement attacks as if it occupied the archer's space. I'm imagining an encounter in which the heroes arrive in a large, arena-like chamber. Dread archers are stationed on towers or balconies above them, and the ceiling is made of an iron lattice-work that provides the master standing above superior cover, but lets it have line of sight. The master would "cast through" his minions as they pepper the heroes with arrows. What's worse, every time the master's attack hits, every single dread archer can use its Sustained Attack ability to make another shot as an immediate reaction. So... four Dread Archers and one master means the combat looks like this: 1. The PCs have their turns, and spend most of it trying to reach the archers and/or making ranged attacks. 2. The dread archers attack, using their area burst 1 within 10 attack where feasible. Assuming they hit, that's 4d10+12 damage on a single character, assuming they focus fire (and why wouldn't they?). They might get some collateral damage in, too, if they manage to catch others in their Arcing Volley. 3. The master attacks. 4. All four archers attack again, potentially doing another 4d10+12 damage. So... the players have only had one turn, and they've just been exposed to 28-104 damage, not even counting the master's attacks. And, after the poor battered players have had their turn again, there is nothing stopping the enemies from using the exact same tactic again, and again, and again, because Sustained Attack is At-Will! We all know that focus-firing with artillery is a great way to kill players, but this just seems brutal. Anyone have any suggestions on what the master should be? Probably a controller of some type... that way, if the melee characters somehow manage to reach the archers, the master could just push/slide them off.</blockquote>

Verification