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Does anyone else feel like every combat in 4e is a meatgrinder?
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<blockquote data-quote="wayne62682" data-source="post: 4699165" data-attributes="member: 40455"><p>** </p><p></p><p>VERY MINOR PYRAMID OF SHADOWS SPOILERS AHEAD </p><p></p><p>**</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My group (4 players including myself) are currently running through Pyramid of Shadows and are near the end of it. We're all level 9 and our group consists of:</p><p></p><p>- Dragonborn Fighter, guardian (Me)</p><p>- Dwarf Cleric, "battle cleric"</p><p>- Eladrin Ranger, archery</p><p>- Eladrin Wizard, blaster w/some control</p><p></p><p>So far, nearly every single combat in this place has been a near TPK. It seems like our defenses are utter garbage and monsters can hit us on anything but a 1. We just had to have a "DM ex Machina" retcon save us last night because we would have had a TPK (in fact, the two Eladrins actually did die [failed death saves] and it was changed by the DM because even he said that encounter was ridiculous).</p><p></p><p>We were fighting two skeleton tomb guardians (getting 4 attacks a round is total crap) and two banshee-like wraiths in a maze with screaming souls trapped in the walls, and it seemed like they were just demolishing us left and right. Half the battle we were immobilized because of the wraith's shrieking, nevermind the fact that they could use it through the freaking walls so didn't even have to be in LoS to attack us, and could move through the walls shrieking to do hit-and-run attacks (the DM was even ignoring the 4 psychic damage per turn from the walls, and later "forgot" to roll for recharges) and well, it was pretty embarrassing. The combat before this one, we had to have DM intervention again and destroy a certain special intelligent item which you get in PoS (avoiding spoilers here) to save the dwarf after being turned to stone by a Medusa. And we sidestepped a few rooms in the dungeon to boot.</p><p></p><p>This seems to be a trend I'm noticing in 4e combat - pretty much every encounter has some weird situational effect that, of course, only affects the PCs (ongoing damage from hazards, difficult terrain, etc) while the monsters not only get to ignore all of that for some bogus reason, but typically have double our HP and insanely high defenses, or at least that's what it seems. Our highest AC is 24 (mine) and it seemed like the monsters were hitting that like it was nothing, let alone the fact most of their attacks seem to hit Reflex/Will which are our lowest stats (in my case, the wraith things could hit me on anything but a 1 with their ridiculously-high bonus to hit).</p><p></p><p>Does our group just suck, or is this what everyone's encounters have gone like? I don't recall 3.5 being this harsh, with everyone being bloodied (yeah, I know bloodied wasn't in 3.5 - substitute "below half HP") and out of healing (powers) in pretty much every single encounter after just a couple of rounds. Part of it might be that everyone else are still relatively new to D&D (only started w/4E), but as a veteran it seems like everything is insanely tough now, akin to playing a game on the highest difficulty instead of medium which should be the default. I don't want it to be a cakewalk, but really EVERY encounter being a life-or-death situation seems a little extreme to me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wayne62682, post: 4699165, member: 40455"] ** VERY MINOR PYRAMID OF SHADOWS SPOILERS AHEAD ** My group (4 players including myself) are currently running through Pyramid of Shadows and are near the end of it. We're all level 9 and our group consists of: - Dragonborn Fighter, guardian (Me) - Dwarf Cleric, "battle cleric" - Eladrin Ranger, archery - Eladrin Wizard, blaster w/some control So far, nearly every single combat in this place has been a near TPK. It seems like our defenses are utter garbage and monsters can hit us on anything but a 1. We just had to have a "DM ex Machina" retcon save us last night because we would have had a TPK (in fact, the two Eladrins actually did die [failed death saves] and it was changed by the DM because even he said that encounter was ridiculous). We were fighting two skeleton tomb guardians (getting 4 attacks a round is total crap) and two banshee-like wraiths in a maze with screaming souls trapped in the walls, and it seemed like they were just demolishing us left and right. Half the battle we were immobilized because of the wraith's shrieking, nevermind the fact that they could use it through the freaking walls so didn't even have to be in LoS to attack us, and could move through the walls shrieking to do hit-and-run attacks (the DM was even ignoring the 4 psychic damage per turn from the walls, and later "forgot" to roll for recharges) and well, it was pretty embarrassing. The combat before this one, we had to have DM intervention again and destroy a certain special intelligent item which you get in PoS (avoiding spoilers here) to save the dwarf after being turned to stone by a Medusa. And we sidestepped a few rooms in the dungeon to boot. This seems to be a trend I'm noticing in 4e combat - pretty much every encounter has some weird situational effect that, of course, only affects the PCs (ongoing damage from hazards, difficult terrain, etc) while the monsters not only get to ignore all of that for some bogus reason, but typically have double our HP and insanely high defenses, or at least that's what it seems. Our highest AC is 24 (mine) and it seemed like the monsters were hitting that like it was nothing, let alone the fact most of their attacks seem to hit Reflex/Will which are our lowest stats (in my case, the wraith things could hit me on anything but a 1 with their ridiculously-high bonus to hit). Does our group just suck, or is this what everyone's encounters have gone like? I don't recall 3.5 being this harsh, with everyone being bloodied (yeah, I know bloodied wasn't in 3.5 - substitute "below half HP") and out of healing (powers) in pretty much every single encounter after just a couple of rounds. Part of it might be that everyone else are still relatively new to D&D (only started w/4E), but as a veteran it seems like everything is insanely tough now, akin to playing a game on the highest difficulty instead of medium which should be the default. I don't want it to be a cakewalk, but really EVERY encounter being a life-or-death situation seems a little extreme to me. [/QUOTE]
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Does anyone else feel like every combat in 4e is a meatgrinder?
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