Land Outcast said:
Yep, "open field" was an overstatement, they were travelling through a grassland.
That helps. The problem I have with that though is I'm not convinced that if the heroes were travelling through that same grassland you'd have applied a 20% miss chance to attacks made against them.
Not really, the Hellhounds charged (now I realize they could have only made a partial charge, from 40ft afar) in their surprise action.
They still had to sneak up on the party to get close enough to do that. Worse yet, I'm willing to bet that you rolled a single hide check for each monster. That greatly benefits the monsters. My guess is that with the -20 modifier to hiding while moving, and the fact that you should have rolled 16 d20's and taken the lowest result, that the average DC to spot a pack of 16 hellhounds sneaking up to you from 80' away (which is as you point out also a rules oversight) a mere 3 DC. That's a long way from DC 31.
I don't mean to pick on you. I'm not saying you are a bad DM. I'm certainly guilty at times of doing the same sorts of thing. But what I am saying is that the way you handled the monsters is miles away from the way you would have handled the PC's trying to do the same thing. There is a good chance that unless you made notes ahead of time, the 'open field' would have been an open field without useful cover or concealment. You might have remembered about the partial action during a surprise round. You would have certainly applied the -20 penalty to hiding while moving. You would have certainly made every member of the party roll a separate hide check and separate initiative check. You didn't do any of this and you overlooked certain rules that would have aided the PCs. I don't think you did it deliberately. You weren't trying to cheat the PC's. But you did do it, and I think the reason that you did it is that you wanted to 'challenge tough PCs with weaker enemies' and you put yourself consciously or subconsciouly on the side of the monsters and ruled in thier favor in order to obtain the results you wanted.
And that's not the same as playing a monster cunningly. That's a DM 'trick' but its not one that I think any of us want to actually be guilty of. For one thing, you are creating an adversarial relationship with your players. For another, in being guilty of this you are just begging the PCs to start rules lawyering you, because sooner or latter one of them is going to figure out they are being screwed. And finally, if they ever do realize that you aren't being fair, some of them are likely going to assume you are not being fair deliberately and that you are a jerk - even if its just an honest mistake.
Monsters as a group, I always do so (except when there's more than one group or there are individual monsters, in that situation I roll for each monster group or individual).
I tend to do so as well, and I'm not criticizing that, I'm just pointing out that coincidently this is also the way most likely to keep the whole pack out of danger. You didn't do it to help the monsters out; you did it because it was your usual practice. But you wouldn't have handled the PC's in the same way.
Improved Initiative is usually only taken by the Rogue-Type. Of the others, I could only see the Fighter "wasting" one of his feats in I.I. (when I'm a player it's a different story, I hate getting low Initiative), not that anyone has played a Fighter ever (in 5 years of gaming... wow, just realized that).
IME, improved initiative is probably the most powerful and important feat in the game (core rules), because the intiative roll is the single most important roll in the whole combat and generally determines who is going to win the fight. If you win the initiative, you go twice to your opponents once. Your opponent may not last beyond that, and often doesn't, but if they do you'll still go three times to your opponents mere twice.
Combat reflexes is only useful if you do have a Dexterity bonus (Cleric-Type is almost always Dex +0 or worse, Fighter-Type usually is Dex +0 or +1, and the Wizard-Type doesn't find the feat worth the investment). The Rogue-Type could certainly have it.
Combat reflexes does however grant you an AoO even if you are flat footed, which can be huge. I haven't seen it taken solely for this reason, but if you have even a Dex +1 (and most fighters do) then its hugely important feat.
