bleedthefreak
First Post
Okay, just wanted to pose an encounter to you I ran this weekend that went very badly for the villans due to some very good tactics on the players part, and get feedback on if I could have done anything to make it more challenging....
The setup: The 4 heroes (a level 5 Psychic Warrior, and 3 Level 8 heroes, a fighter5/rogue3, a mage 5/elemental savant2, and a priestess of Selune8) enter into a cave they know leads to a medusa and some basilisks that have turned an entire village to stone. They have already dispached some basilisks (3) and assume the rest to be in the lair still (according to my notes, they are correct). Before entering, the preistess casts deeper darkness on a gem she picked up as treasure, and they camp inside it, which was a very cool idea (I used the Hide table in the new DM Screen for encounter chance, 2%, so they were pretty well safe for the night). The next day, the gem is put into a pouch, and she casts deeper darkness on a coin the fighter/rogue has. He puts it away for now. The wizard and the preistess enchant everyone with blind sight, and several of them put up some other spells, like endurance (more hitpoints and fort saves) and bull strength on the fighter/rogue, and some other booster spells that last hours or min/level.
Lastly, the priestess casts Silence on fighter/rogue (Darvin) sword, and he pulls out his coin of darkness and moves into the cave. The others stay 15 behind him (out of the silence radius) and the corridor they are traveling in is 10 feet wide. They get to the door, and open it. The Medusa, seeing the darkness spread in front of her (it was a very large chamber and she was about 20 feet from the edge of the darkness) uses her ring of invisibility, activates her boots of speed (I actually rolled those up for this encounter (CR11) treasure, and decided she would be wearing them) and casts Shield on herself, and applies a stone salve (stoneskin) over the course of the next two rounds. Now, the fighter (silent) moves in a straight line (he moves 60 feet per round thanks to boots of striding and springing) after round 2 and moves past the basilisks and finds her standing before him, so he attacks. He misses, but the medusa has no idea he was there, he only missed because he struck the shield spells, she is completely blind, and there is no sound at all, so I concede they are right, the medusa probably doesn't even know that she is being attacked. I further conclude that due to blind sight, Darvin can "see" the shield spell she is protected by, and next round can move away from it. Shield was a force effect, so it can likely be detected by blindsight. What do you guys think about this? I think it makes sense, blindsight is level 3 and shield (already perhaps to powerful for level 1) is level 1.
That next round the others move into the room, and find the pitufully useless basilisks. It will take about 4 rounds to take them out with some offensive spells like explosive cascade (thanks to the elemntal savant, spell focus, and prod. sorc. feats, the DC is 24) which wipes out most basiliks in the first volley, followed by some well placed acid arrows and magic missles. The medusa, meanwhile, moves away to get out of the silence so she can use listen checks (+9) to find out where her targets are at (DC is 0 + 1 per 10 feet, must break it by 20 to pinpoint which square the target is in). So, to know which square to fire her bow at, and remember the fighter/rogue is immune to this as 15 around him is all silent, I give her a free chance to listen to everybody NOT in the silence range before she take an action, and since everybody moved at the least during the previous rounds, she needs a DC 3 (23) to hear/attack the pwarrior, a 7(27) to attack the mage, and an 8(28) to hear/attack the preistes. She does not even breatk 15 on any of her rolls, and decides to try to head for the exit, where the mage can now see her (they all know about where she is at because they can all either see each other and follow each other, or see where she is and follow her, leading each other to her position). Even though she had a stone salve up, and was in fact able to tage a few targets with her bow that she *could* hear once in a while (it was an 8 round combat) she ended up getting take out by a critical hit (which was also a sneak attack) and an explosive cascade/fireball cast by the hasted mage. Oh, and then magic missles, I forgot to mention that mid-way through the mage put a targeted dispel magic her way and dropped her haste (which she did reactivete) as well as her shield (didn't get the stoneskin though).
Now, there was probably a few bits I left out, but I hope you all get the gist. Was there something more I could have done, or not? I didn't nerf the experience award, because the companions didn't get an unfair advange due to circumstance (like the medusa was unable to cast spells, or was sleeping, our bound, or something) and the players don't have any better equipment they are supposed to (they have about 24,000 or so and are level 8, which is actually a bit under where they should be, though after this weeks loot I think they are about right now). So, they just used very smart tactics and good use of the spells available to them. Any thoughts?
The setup: The 4 heroes (a level 5 Psychic Warrior, and 3 Level 8 heroes, a fighter5/rogue3, a mage 5/elemental savant2, and a priestess of Selune8) enter into a cave they know leads to a medusa and some basilisks that have turned an entire village to stone. They have already dispached some basilisks (3) and assume the rest to be in the lair still (according to my notes, they are correct). Before entering, the preistess casts deeper darkness on a gem she picked up as treasure, and they camp inside it, which was a very cool idea (I used the Hide table in the new DM Screen for encounter chance, 2%, so they were pretty well safe for the night). The next day, the gem is put into a pouch, and she casts deeper darkness on a coin the fighter/rogue has. He puts it away for now. The wizard and the preistess enchant everyone with blind sight, and several of them put up some other spells, like endurance (more hitpoints and fort saves) and bull strength on the fighter/rogue, and some other booster spells that last hours or min/level.
Lastly, the priestess casts Silence on fighter/rogue (Darvin) sword, and he pulls out his coin of darkness and moves into the cave. The others stay 15 behind him (out of the silence radius) and the corridor they are traveling in is 10 feet wide. They get to the door, and open it. The Medusa, seeing the darkness spread in front of her (it was a very large chamber and she was about 20 feet from the edge of the darkness) uses her ring of invisibility, activates her boots of speed (I actually rolled those up for this encounter (CR11) treasure, and decided she would be wearing them) and casts Shield on herself, and applies a stone salve (stoneskin) over the course of the next two rounds. Now, the fighter (silent) moves in a straight line (he moves 60 feet per round thanks to boots of striding and springing) after round 2 and moves past the basilisks and finds her standing before him, so he attacks. He misses, but the medusa has no idea he was there, he only missed because he struck the shield spells, she is completely blind, and there is no sound at all, so I concede they are right, the medusa probably doesn't even know that she is being attacked. I further conclude that due to blind sight, Darvin can "see" the shield spell she is protected by, and next round can move away from it. Shield was a force effect, so it can likely be detected by blindsight. What do you guys think about this? I think it makes sense, blindsight is level 3 and shield (already perhaps to powerful for level 1) is level 1.
That next round the others move into the room, and find the pitufully useless basilisks. It will take about 4 rounds to take them out with some offensive spells like explosive cascade (thanks to the elemntal savant, spell focus, and prod. sorc. feats, the DC is 24) which wipes out most basiliks in the first volley, followed by some well placed acid arrows and magic missles. The medusa, meanwhile, moves away to get out of the silence so she can use listen checks (+9) to find out where her targets are at (DC is 0 + 1 per 10 feet, must break it by 20 to pinpoint which square the target is in). So, to know which square to fire her bow at, and remember the fighter/rogue is immune to this as 15 around him is all silent, I give her a free chance to listen to everybody NOT in the silence range before she take an action, and since everybody moved at the least during the previous rounds, she needs a DC 3 (23) to hear/attack the pwarrior, a 7(27) to attack the mage, and an 8(28) to hear/attack the preistes. She does not even breatk 15 on any of her rolls, and decides to try to head for the exit, where the mage can now see her (they all know about where she is at because they can all either see each other and follow each other, or see where she is and follow her, leading each other to her position). Even though she had a stone salve up, and was in fact able to tage a few targets with her bow that she *could* hear once in a while (it was an 8 round combat) she ended up getting take out by a critical hit (which was also a sneak attack) and an explosive cascade/fireball cast by the hasted mage. Oh, and then magic missles, I forgot to mention that mid-way through the mage put a targeted dispel magic her way and dropped her haste (which she did reactivete) as well as her shield (didn't get the stoneskin though).
Now, there was probably a few bits I left out, but I hope you all get the gist. Was there something more I could have done, or not? I didn't nerf the experience award, because the companions didn't get an unfair advange due to circumstance (like the medusa was unable to cast spells, or was sleeping, our bound, or something) and the players don't have any better equipment they are supposed to (they have about 24,000 or so and are level 8, which is actually a bit under where they should be, though after this weeks loot I think they are about right now). So, they just used very smart tactics and good use of the spells available to them. Any thoughts?
