Deathjump Spiders - Too Tough?

[Lancelot]

Context: Party of 4x level 1st or 2nd level characters; good balance of classes, experienced players. They've encountered deathjump spiders (MM 246) three times now, two spiders in each encounter with no other monsters. In all three encounters, they have been utterly pasted by the spiders... the most recent case being a TPK.

Deathjumps are level 4 skirmishers, 175 xp each. Two spiders should theoretically be a manageable (maybe even easy) encounter for a 1st/2nd level party of 4 PCs.

However, compared to other level 4 skirmishers (or even level 4 brutes), deathjumps seem wayyy over-powered. Their "Death from Above" ability, usable at will, gives them a +6 attack for 3d6+3 damage, plus knocks the target prone, plus inflicts ongoing 5 poison. That means they're typically doing 18.5 damage on a hit (13.5 from the initial hit, plus at least the first round of poison), plus prone, plus more damage if the PC doesn't save against the poison. On a crit, it's a lethal 26 damage (again, counting 1st round of poison). Additionally, they have AC 20.

Compare to other 4th level skirmishers. They have the same Stealth and hit points, but dark creepers only do max 8 damage (+1d6 sneak), fey panthers do max 10 damage (+1d6 charge), greenscale hunters do max 11 damage, and rotwing zombies do max 10 damage (+2d6 if flying charge). Further, deathjumps have +2 or +3 AC over all of their peers.

I'd be interested to hear others experiences. Are my players just unlucky, or are the deathjumps overpowered for their level?

 

[NaturalZero]

They certainly tore up my 1st level party when a DM threw a couple at us. Their damage is so great that they can one-shot a 1st level character on a crit if you include the poison damage. If 2 attack the same character, that character is pretty much toast.

 

[FadedC]

Their damage is really high, but their hit chance is really low. For reference they have the same chance to hit as a lvl 1 kobold skirmisher.

So they are probably balanced over all, but kind of swingy and dangerous to use against a first level party.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The playtest version (where the Death from Above was a recharge ability) was deadlier. It very nearly killed the PC rogue and cleric in Raiders of Oakhurst.

The KotS version has a much lower attack bonus (I believe 3 points lower) and failed to hit anybody. I was really hoping to see poison in action.

 

[Lancelot]

The playtest version (where the Death from Above was a recharge ability) was deadlier. It very nearly killed the PC rogue and cleric in Raiders of Oakhurst.

Whoa. Can you recall what the original mechanic was? Given how brutal the damage is for the current "at will" version, I can't even imagine how nasty the recharge version had to be...

As for the attack bonus, I guess that could be part of the problem my group has been facing. Most of their PCs have tended to have fairly low AC (13, 15, 16, 19 in the party that was TPK'ed by two deathjumps). Hence, even a +6 attack has a pretty good chance of hitting them.

The fighter tried to hold off both spiders, got flanked, and was hit twice in one round. 30+ damage cleaned his clock. Miraculously, he rolled a natural '20' on his recovery roll... got back up again, swung, missed, got hit again (ouch), and went down for the count. The rest of the party got cleaned out in short order, not having the AC or the HP to hang with the deathjumps. The high deathjump AC was a real problem for the strikers, too. They only had about a 35% chance of hitting the things, and 55hp is a lot to get through when you're taking 20 points a round... from each spider.

 

[Nareau]

Our party of 7 (3 strikers, 2 defenders, 1 controller, 1 leader) just fought several of these guys. I think there were 4 of them, plus a couple of swarms. It was a tough battle; 2 of us used our daily powers, and at least 1 PC went down to 0 hp. Many actions were spent healing. But we managed to prevail.

Nareau

 

[Nareau]

Our party of 7 (3 strikers, 2 defenders, 1 controller, 1 leader) just fought several of these guys. I think there were 4 of them, plus a couple of swarms. It was a tough battle; 2 of us used our daily powers, and at least 1 PC went down to 0 hp. Many actions were spent healing. But we managed to prevail.

Nareau

 

[Eldorian]

The game I'm playing in, consisting of paladin, fighter, cleric, warlord, rogue, and warlock, just fought 3 of these. This was our 5th fight of the day, and my paladin was out of healing surges, and others were also low on daily resources. However, other than hitting the warrior and the rogue once each for a big hit, and a couple of guys taking OAs to get into flanking positions, they didn't hit. My paladin tanked one the whole fight, no hits. So, it ended up pretty easy. But man, they did hit hard, and we had a hard time hitting, so the fight actually took pretty long.

 

[Stalker0]

Deathjump spiders are definately very strong for their level, potentially overpowered when used against first level characters (especially if you target the wizard).

Still....they aren't nearly as bad as the needlefang drake swarm. That is the hokiest monster in the book.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

The trouble we had with them was that the at-will power 'death from above' didn't actually require them to attack from above, or even jump. As a Fighter, I could lock one down to prevent it attacking other characters, but it really didn't lose out and could take me down after a couple of rounds. Even if they ignored me, all their movement was shifting, so I couldn't do anything but a bit of damage if I managed to hit their absurd AC.

The encounter was made worse by coupling them with the Lightningclaw Scorpions, who grabbed the front line melee characters, forcing them to waste time escaping or to take damage for ignoring the grab. The spiders then climbed right over our heads to get to the Cleric and Wizard. Deadly combination - at 2nd level it took about half of our healing surges, a potion, a couple of daily powers and we just won.