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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormtalon" data-source="post: 4487591" data-attributes="member: 5541">While I've been DM'ing 4E since it came out, I finally had what one would probably consider an "ideal" session last weekend.  Most of the time, I have somewhere in the area of 7+ PCs to deal with, so I've been consistently having to worry about scaling encounters.  Additionally, despite how streamlined 4E combat is, 7+ characters and a challenging amount of monsters is a situation designed to lead to LOOOONG combats.So, imagine my surprise and relief when I had a group of 5 players for once, including an 8-year old kid -- he's grown up watching his folks and big sister play D&D, so he's got an idea how it works.  The characters, all 4th level --Dragonborn PaladinDragonborn WarlordDwarf ClericTiefling Warlock (fey pact)Halfling Rogue (the kid)Played thru the first encounter of Thunderspire plus some RP in the Seven-Pillared Hall, then finally a random encounter.  The Hobgoblins in the first encounter didn't exactly give them much trouble -- it's a lower-level encounter after all.  Good tactics all around, even on the kid's part:[sblock]The halfling, being a shorter character, clambered onto the giant empty casks and got around behind the hobgoblin line so he could deliver sneak attacks with impunity.  The hobs never stood a chance after that maneuver.[/sblock]The random encounter was 3 wraiths and a gelatinous cube.  Made a mistake in letting them see the cube from too far away, so they knew what to expect -- or so they thought.  Once the wraiths made their appearance (one at a time), everyone started to get a bit worried; the slowly advancing cube added a nice sense of impending doom to the proceedings.  Fortunately, with a paladin and a cleric, they had plenty of Radiant damage to go around -- until the Paladin got weakened.  And got weakened again, and again.  The rogue scooted into position for sneak attacks on one wraith, but then found himself on the receiving end of love-taps from a hungry cube.  After the 3rd one, he finally failed the save to shake off the immobilization and got scarfed up the next round.By then the wraiths were done and everyone was focusing on the cube itself; the rogue wiggled free the round after getting eaten and a few crits later (from EVERYONE), the cube dissolved into a mass of lifeless goo.Notes of interest:  Wraiths can be NASTY -- take half damage from everything (including Radiant) and Weaken on a successful hit; the poor paladin spent a lot of the fight doing 1/4 normal damage, +5 when he hit with a Radiant attack (I quartered his damage, and then added the Vuln 5 after modifications).The escape attempt from a Gel Cube seems independent of the immobilization; you might be able to pop out, but if you're still immobilized, it can just swallow you up on its next turn.Can't wait to hit 'em with more Thunderspire next time we play; seems like a good, episodic adventure.  Of course, I'll probably have to account for 2-3 more characters in the group.  Argh.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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