Entangle

[Tiberius]

Second, the party should have preped a possibly hostile force with Readied actions on the caster.

Regrettably, I don't think they could have. Ready is a combat action, and they weren't yet in combat. If they had won initiative in the surprise round, they could have, but otherwise not.

 

[Nail]

Entangle, at low levels, is deadly.

Next time, use Briar web. It's even worse.

 

[sullivan]

Regrettably, I don't think they could have. Ready is a combat action, and they weren't yet in combat. If they had won initiative in the surprise round, they could have, but otherwise not.

Sort of. By choosing to Ready an action combat starts. If the opponents are unaware of this because they haven't Spotted the combatant, thus don't act, or for whatever other reason don't realise combat has started (possibily Bluff?) then the sniper etc. has the initiative advantage. It is sort of mucky at that point as combat turns aren't really set up for verbal negotiating. But with a little DM glue it can be patched together.

At the very least the onus would be on the elves to make a surprise check, not the party.

P.S. We can't tell from skeptic's post if there were surprise things going on. I don't think everyone was aware of everyone else, unless all the invisible PCs were sniffed out and the wolverine was somehow able to communicate this to all the elves. There might be some issues in there.

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

dc 14/ref web vs monk & a swash buckler, well even they have a good chance of failing and they are considered top notch dodgers! they had what a +6 ref total? So they had a 40% to fail about so yah this has happened to my parties before......enemy Wizard webbed, silenced followed by sleep then and enemy Rogue (could move thru web unaffected) picked the pockets of the party wizard getting his wand the fighters x bow of distance and took off......web/silence/sleep the idea is -cant move, then cant communicate or cast verbal spells then your in a cloud until you sleep or the rogue feals safe moving in with his free movement...or whatever ring it was back then that allowed you to go thru webs and entangles unaffected..

They were a team of bandit thieves and targeted the party because they had a Wizard just so happened everyone failed vs web..............my party was PO!!! to say the least!!!


Thorncrest

 

[marune]

The ranger and his wolf, the druid and his wolverine were tracking the PCs from a couple hours ago.

The PCs were waiting, lets say.. at 200 ft from the "border of the forest". The fey'ri (invisible) was moving along the border, looking to see if elves were coming.

At a certain time, she spoted the wolverine and the druid that was behind, so she run to get to the others PCs, warning them about the elves.

The party leader (rogue with good charisma, bluff, diplomacy, etc..) then move (with the monk and swasbuclker at his side) to try to talk to the elves, and the druid replied with an entangle.

I called for iniative just after the Entangle effect.


Just a little story from yesterday evening too...

Before getting near the forest, they were in a swamp, and a task given by a necromencer living there was to get a pair of eyes from a Catoblepas. (Huge abberation with a death ray).

With a fey'ri (equiped with a comp. long bow) in the party you can imagine how they got it without any problem... in fact, she succeeded in removing all it's HP except 1. The swashbuclked killed the poor beast with a shot of his Mukset

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I called for iniative just after the Entangle effect.

The Druid got a free surprise round.

In other words, the party and the elves were surprised by the Druid.

Mechanically, that's what happened, anyway. Given that the party was [possibly?] expecting an attack, you might have wanted to instead roll Spot and / or checks for the party - those who roll well enough would not be surprised when the Druid began casting, and would be able to act during the surprise round as well.

 

[sullivan]

I called for iniative just after the Entangle effect.

There is a problem. The druid should not have automatically gotten a surprise action. In fact by RAW he shouldn't have gotten a surprise action at all since he was in plain view (unless he had been made aware of the return of the fey'ri and the the presence of the other 2 invisibles), but typical house ruling is that the initiator of combat when you are face to face gets a chance at surprising. The people that can see him though should at least get a Spot check. However if the invisible PCs were present and the wolf/wolverine not aware of them, or did not communicate that to their masters some how, the invisible PCs should have possibly gotten a surprise action.

EDIT: BTW that surprise is very, VERY important and quite pertanent to the discusion. At the least it would allow people to scatter ranks to avoid area of effect spells. Something that should be SOP (standard operating procedure) when meeting a freakish nature hugger in the forrest.

 

[ForceUser]

Last evening, the party waits at the Forest border for a group of elves. The PCs wrongly think that the elves will talk... One of the PC, invisible move around the first big trees to spot the arrival of the elves. The elves leader are a ranger and a druid, and the druid's animal compagnion (wolverine) detect the invisible PC with his scent ability.

The invisible PC then run to the party and say, "Elves coming!".

So the charismatic PCs move toward the forest..(thinking about what they will say) and that's where everythings get really bad... The elves doesn't want to talk and want to show them clearly that they are not welcome in the forest. The druid cast Entangle, a little first level spell that clearly doomed the party.

3 PCs are entangled in the middle of the 40ft burst. They all fail their saving throws... Now they have 10 elven ranger shooting them with their longbows from behind their trees..

The player's were a bit surprised of the power of that spell...

Is it something wrong with this situation?

Yes. Entangle is ridiculous for a 1st-level spell. After a party wipe at 5th level because of this one little spell, I house-ruled it to a 20-foot radius, with a Strength escape DC of 15, not 20. When my 6th-level druid used entangle in a previous campaign to hamper a trio of hill giants, it effectively took one of them out of the fight for two rounds, and another out of the fight for the entire encounter. No other 1st-level spell could do this.

Entangle is broken. It is stupid powerful for its level.

 

[marune]

There is a problem. The druid should not have automatically gotten a surprise action. In fact by RAW he shouldn't have gotten a surprise action at all since he was in plain view (unless he had been made aware of the return of the fey'ri and the the presence of the other 2 invisibles), but typical house ruling is that the initiator of combat when you are face to face gets a chance at surprising. The people that can see him though should at least get a Spot check. However if the invisible PCs were present and the wolf/wolverine not aware of them, or did not communicate that to their masters some how, the invisible PCs should have possibly gotten a surprise action.

Don't forget that the PCs wanted to talk to the elves, not fight, they have seen the elfs, but their "surprise round" action was to say "Hello, we want to ....". Then at the druid turn, she cast entangle. But yeah, I didn't make an initiative to know exactly when they talk.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The party leader (rogue with good charisma, bluff, diplomacy, etc..) then move (with the monk and swasbuclker at his side) to try to talk to the elves, and the druid replied with an entangle.

I called for iniative just after the Entangle effect.

See, this is where you got it wrong. The initiative goes BEFORE the entangle effect. NOBODY should have been surprised.

And the house rule that the initiator of a hostile action gets a surprise round - no, not unless he's somehow concealing his hostile act. I suppose that in the above case, if the elf had cast a silent, stilled spell and use sleight of hand to conceal the fact he was holding his holy symbol, and the party failed their spot checks, I'd have given him a surprise round, but not otherwise.