Combat encounter rebalancing

[Thalantor]

Last week, my D&D group had a 4e session with another guy in our group as the DM. All was good and fun till we encountered something which we quickly dubbed the ‘Encounter of Death’. Though noone died in it on our side, it could very well have ended very differently.

The encounter in point was one that the DM had figured to be an easy quicky but ended up one where we pulled out all the stops and lives hinged one some very lucky rolls.

Afterwards, we established why this was, as the DM made some serious errors in handling the mobs which upped the encounter level very much. We didn’t hold it against him as it was his first time, but a discussion did commence on what level this encounter had with all the DM errors added to it.

Consequently, we also discussed how much xp such an encounter should be worth, if the new level was to be used by the DM instead of the amount he gave us now for the ‘easy’ level he thought he gave us.

Now, to the crunch of it all.

We are a party of a lvl 2 tank, lvl 3 leader and 3 lvl 3 strikers (Leader is a cleric specced for healing his (Gibbering Mouther Ate Your Word!) off. Played by moi.) Our gear is sufficient for our level, and we have no NPC’s running with us.

The Encounter of Death consisted of a room 6 squares wide and 8 square deep with 1 Goblin Hexer and 4 skeletons. Skeletons started out standing at the side walls, 2 each. GH was in the middle, and aware of us coming. The DM had thought this to be an ‘easy’ lvl 3 encounter.

The following are the mistakes the DM made which added to the hardness of the fight:

- The GH’s Stinging hex which only did damage on moving also seemed to do damage when the target either cast or used a power.
- The GH’s Incite bravery which only works for those that have Goblin tactics as a class ability also worked on Skeletons.
- The GH’s cloud ability provided *full* concealment for the GH and any skeleton in the cloud for the duration of the fight. The GH didn’t need to use a minor action to keep it up.
- The GH and the Skeletons themselves had no sight or concealment probs from the cloud to target us in any way.
- Skeletons were moving around tactically, making sure they made full use of the cloud and avoided unneccesary oa’s and whatnot.

Additionally, the DM is a player known for, and I kid you not, to roll 15 or higher for 70% of the time. Either his dice are loaded (we don;t believe that as he is too honest for that) or the gods of chance and luck have spawned him at the lunar equinox, but he *always* rolls high. This happens to the point that we accept that any encounter played by him is a lvl higher for us than intended due to his attacks always coming through. However, for the sake of this question, we’ll ignore this for now.

After the fight, we earned 180 xp each for this.

My questions are the following:

* Taking the abilities into account how they were played by the DM, what was the actual encounter level?
* Based on that new encounter level, what would our individual xp have been if it were based on that?

 

[Baumi]

Ouch these were some very serious modifications!

Giving you the full cover penalty (-5!) without giving it to the enemies is the same as 5 level difference in increased defenses!

The Stininging Hex modification changed an already high 3d6+1 damage attack to a 6d6+2 attack (plus more if no save was made). The original power was done to limit the movement (controller ability) but this change made it a striker ability of a mid-paragon monster (with a 5-6 recharge)!

But it's hard to give an encounter level since the monsters don't have higher attacks, hit points and without the Goblin Hexer it would have been an easy to normal encounter, so if it died early it would have been a cakewalk. I would give out XP for a Level+3 to +5 Encounter and be happy that nothing more happened ... and take that as a lesson for the future.

Next time I would recommend just making the Goblin an Elite Monster or increase the number of enemies to make things harder. For changing Monsters either use the new Monster Generator or stay within the Guidelines of the DMG and the MM until he has more experience. Heck I have more than enough 4E experience now and I would be very carefull to change monsters beyond what is recommended by the Books (it's much easier to take one of the over thousand Monsters and just change the fluff).

 

[Thalantor]

Mind you, these changes were not intentional by the DM. He just thought that is how you played a hexer..

Also, I forgot one additional thing. The DM also misread the ability of the hexer that made him able to redirect incoming damage to one of his allies. He read it as being able to misdirect the damage to another *player* character.. Suffice to say, I had to use every healing power I had plus ever single potion the party had sofar (used about 5 in one encounter).

Oh, and the hexer died last in the fight, since he hid in the cloud the entire time. My cleric was lucky enough to roll exceptionally high on a spot, and I manged to get a 'Command' in on the hexer and move him well away from the cloud.

But I'm not bitter.

 

[Mesh Hong]

The problem I have when reading this is that I can fully understand and have massive sympathy for anyone that has read a power wrong in the heat of combat (with overpowered results). But to read 4 powers wrong seems a little too convenient.

During the encounter did no-one stop and question the abilities of the hexer, just to make sure he was running it correctly?

I use my own creatures in game so my players are used to comming across strange or powerful abilities, if they have a problem with something I can usually tell from their expression or reaction. With some powers I also read out the description (when the power is used) to them if it is appropriate.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with a player questioning an ability that is used against them. The DM can check it quickly and say if he is using it correctly or not, then move on. If a player still has a problem with it they can discuss it after the session. (This is what you appear to have done at least in part, so hopefully it is a lesson learned for the DM)

As for awarding bonus XP personally I wouldn't bother. I don't reduce the XP when an encounter is easier than I expected, so I am not going to increase the XP when an encounter is harder than I expected. It might seem harsh to some, but it is a consistant approach.

 

[Baumi]

Things like that can happen, after all the GM is under a lot of pressure especially a new one, the important thing is that he learn from his mistakes. The best way to gain GM-XP is after all from mistakes (and player deaths)

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Usually I don't adjust XP based on how difficult the encounter is, as it tends to all come out in the wash (some end up being too easy, some too hard).

That said, where the encounter is drastically easier/more difficult than expected, I will adjust things. For example, I once had an encounter where my players fought a bunch of zombies and used absolutely zero resources (didn't lose any HPs and used no dailies) - I think I gave little or no XP for that. Likewise, I had an encounter where a blue dragon didn't have any room to fly and attempted to negotiate once it was bloodied - only gave half XP for that one.

In your case, I would give more XP - the way the hexer was played basically made it a totally different monster. From the sounds of it, his damage transference to the players gave him rouhly the HP of an elite, so making him the equivalent XP award (so, double) sounds appropriate. Then again, it depends on your group - if the level progression seems too slow, err on the side of "topping up" the XP for hard encounters, or if progression seems too fast, reduce the XP for extremely easy ones.

All that said, I think I would shy away from altering XP awards if the difficulty difference is based purely on the luck of the dice. Rather, I'm more likely to alter awards based on encounter design factors (for example, if the party needs to climb a cliff to get to the enemy archers, those archers will be worth more XP), or if a major rules slip up made the critters much more/less powerful (my last boss fight I forgot to use either of his action points [I'm bad for that] but it balanced out with my accidentally giving the boss more saves versus the dangerous terrain than I was giving to my players, so I didn't change the XP).

As for your friend's DMing - I know people make mistakes, but it seems he got pretty much every ability the hexer has wrong... wow... I guess from now on you should make sure he really reviews the monster abilities before gaming. That and if things seem odd, ask him about it...

 

[tmatk]

No one died, whats the problem?
An encounter which almost kills the party, but in the end doesn't, sounds awesome to me.

 

[Turtlejay]

No one died, whats the problem?
An encounter which almost kills the party, but in the end doesn't, sounds awesome to me.

Dude wants more XP for it, that's what.

When I read it, my initial reaction wasn't "oh gee, those folks had a tough time, they need more XP!" it was more "That DM pretty much hosed an entire creature's stat block, was he high or something?"

Because I could understand a mistake or two in an encounter, but not that boatload of mistakes, and all relating to the same monster. Either he did it to toughen the encounter and is being less than up front about it, or you are embellishing a bit too much, or he really needs to sit down with someone and learn how to read and run 4e monsters.

You think that was bad? What if he had this issue with a monster and there were a few of them? Suddenly you are fighting 5 creeps with the power level of an elite. I don't think this is a problem that moar XP's will solve, I think maybe there is something else going on.

Jay

 

[Saeviomagy]

You get the basic experience for the original encounter. Experience isn't supposed to be some sort of carrot to keep you fighting when the going gets tough: the enjoyability of the game should do that.

Hopefully the DM has learnt from his mistake, and in future will be more careful observing the rules.

 

[Griogre]

DM's make mistakes - especially new ones. I would just give the normal XP. I don't think there was any "conspiracy" by the DM. The OP flat out says the guy is honest, and while he made a number of mistakes they were all on one power. It is easy to read a power incorrectly if you haven't read a bunch of them. It doesn’t help that some powers are flat out confusing.

I was playing in an RPGA game and the DM was brand spanking new. There was a hexer in the encounter too. The guy did some similar mistakes as the OP's DM: He gave the hexer and everything in the aura "double" concealment (-4) and he made us roll to attack using "double" concealment even with area attacks. We were too low a level to win a fight like that, but all the players were experienced so we just gave it our best shot, spent our dailies and action points and when that didn't work - the group did a fast coordinated disengagement - shocking the hell of the DM. That DM was the only guy at the table who didn't realize the fight was hopeless after the first several rounds. He really didn't understand the party could not win that fight and no player wanted anyone to lose a character so we just bailed.

Last weekend I was playing with an experienced DM who was new to 4E - it was like his 4th session and he messed up a monster’s power - for some reason he was thinking “shift” meant shift the player. Sure it seems obvious that the power would have said push, pull or slide but he simply hadn’t read enough stat blocks to pick up on that.

Back to the OP, the only thing I would do if I made a mistake like that is "top" off the potions - i.e. the party spent all their one shot heals, so once I realized it was my fault - I'd make sure the next few encounters had replacement potions.