Goblyns Hoard
First Post
I’m putting together my next game and I’d like some advice from those of you that have run more than my current two games of 4E. I’m curious as to how well the encounter creation calculator works when you start pitting parties against higher level foes.
The idea is that the characters are on the run from their old boss, who is sending out bounty hunters to bring them back. This will be only the second game, and the party is on the verge of hitting 2nd level (so may do so before this encounter). My plan is for the first bounty hunter that finds them to try and take them out individually, rather than fronting up against all of them. His intention is to capture them and take them back to the old boss. So I thought having an enemy that one on one is likely to seriously overpower each character, but when they’re all together and have the opportunity to escape will merely give them a good fight. If I have the chance to allow him to escape and become an ongoing nemesis as well I might take it.
So I was thinking someone of about 6th or 7th level. According to the encounter design guidelines that gives an XP value firmly in the easy range for a party of 4 1st level characters, but I would expect able to give them some serious trouble if each of them has to take it on solo. I’d probably also go with a lurker for the ambush style of combat. But from what I’ve seen most of the sample encounters in the books are geared toward encounters of more creatures generally closer to the current party level, and I’m not sure how it balances when you step away from that model.
So what is your experience of throwing your parties up against single foes of significantly higher level? Do the XP guidelines still work, or do I need to fudge them up/down a bit when dealing with big gaps in level. According to the guidelines a single Dark Stalker (level 10 lurker, 500XP) should be ‘standard difficulty’ for a party of five 1st level characters. This is a creature that can fairly consistently move without OAs (Invisibility as minor with recharge on 3-6 or Dark Fog as minor), will pretty much have combat advantage whenever it wants (Dark Step as move at will) and with a +15 (+17 with CA) to hit is almost guaranteed to do on average 16.5 (1d8+5+2d6 for combat advantage) per round against first level ACs. Its defences also a challenge (though by no means impossible) for low level heroes to be hitting. Based on the sample characters in KOTS no character lasts two rounds without spending a surge, and even with a surge, only the defenders can make a third round. And if the stalker targets the leader first then anyone that spends a surge (except dwarves) isn’t doing damage so is just prolonging the inevitable. So the party has seven rounds to take it down – do they have the capacity to deal out 81 HP of damage in that time – undoubtedly if they all hit with their dailies – but how quickly are they going to know that dailies are required? Are they all going to hit? And how many of them will have gone down by the time they realise. I’m not convinced that this should be classified as a ‘standard’ difficulty encounter.
That said I might be wrong and if any of you have any experience of actually running this sort of encounter I’d appreciate your advice and insight. We’ve just started this new campaign, and I don’t want to start it with a slaughter if I can avoid it, but also want it to be a challenge rather than a push over. I should point out the Dark Stalker encounter above is not the one I’m proposing, I just want to get a feel for how well the encounter calculator works with big gaps in level.
Cheers
The Hoard
The idea is that the characters are on the run from their old boss, who is sending out bounty hunters to bring them back. This will be only the second game, and the party is on the verge of hitting 2nd level (so may do so before this encounter). My plan is for the first bounty hunter that finds them to try and take them out individually, rather than fronting up against all of them. His intention is to capture them and take them back to the old boss. So I thought having an enemy that one on one is likely to seriously overpower each character, but when they’re all together and have the opportunity to escape will merely give them a good fight. If I have the chance to allow him to escape and become an ongoing nemesis as well I might take it.
So I was thinking someone of about 6th or 7th level. According to the encounter design guidelines that gives an XP value firmly in the easy range for a party of 4 1st level characters, but I would expect able to give them some serious trouble if each of them has to take it on solo. I’d probably also go with a lurker for the ambush style of combat. But from what I’ve seen most of the sample encounters in the books are geared toward encounters of more creatures generally closer to the current party level, and I’m not sure how it balances when you step away from that model.
So what is your experience of throwing your parties up against single foes of significantly higher level? Do the XP guidelines still work, or do I need to fudge them up/down a bit when dealing with big gaps in level. According to the guidelines a single Dark Stalker (level 10 lurker, 500XP) should be ‘standard difficulty’ for a party of five 1st level characters. This is a creature that can fairly consistently move without OAs (Invisibility as minor with recharge on 3-6 or Dark Fog as minor), will pretty much have combat advantage whenever it wants (Dark Step as move at will) and with a +15 (+17 with CA) to hit is almost guaranteed to do on average 16.5 (1d8+5+2d6 for combat advantage) per round against first level ACs. Its defences also a challenge (though by no means impossible) for low level heroes to be hitting. Based on the sample characters in KOTS no character lasts two rounds without spending a surge, and even with a surge, only the defenders can make a third round. And if the stalker targets the leader first then anyone that spends a surge (except dwarves) isn’t doing damage so is just prolonging the inevitable. So the party has seven rounds to take it down – do they have the capacity to deal out 81 HP of damage in that time – undoubtedly if they all hit with their dailies – but how quickly are they going to know that dailies are required? Are they all going to hit? And how many of them will have gone down by the time they realise. I’m not convinced that this should be classified as a ‘standard’ difficulty encounter.
That said I might be wrong and if any of you have any experience of actually running this sort of encounter I’d appreciate your advice and insight. We’ve just started this new campaign, and I don’t want to start it with a slaughter if I can avoid it, but also want it to be a challenge rather than a push over. I should point out the Dark Stalker encounter above is not the one I’m proposing, I just want to get a feel for how well the encounter calculator works with big gaps in level.
Cheers
The Hoard
