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FeeFiFoFum *splat* goes the giants
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<blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8440329" data-attributes="member: 7032025"><p>And here you see why a very small parameter can completely change an encounter, and why it's unreasonable to expect an encounter calculator to give exact results. It all hang upon counterspell being effective or not, because a single fireball going off, especially at start, would have made a huge difference. It's not even a question of level, buffs, stats, feats, magic items, it's a question of synergy between the various parties and with the environment and in this case, the complete shutdown of one party major capability by just one member of the opposing party when action economy is in favor of the monsters.</p><p></p><p>And once more, it's a question of a DM's experience, Hill Giants are weak for their CRs especially if they start at range, whereas counterspell can be extremely deadly (and is one of the most debated spells of the arsenal).</p><p></p><p>But thanks for sharing the experience, I hope that DMs can learn from this and be careful about deadly encounters when not really mastering the subtleties of details in encounter building. This is why, although it's often quoted extremely badly, the DMG uses the "standard" of medium to hard encounters to explain the adventuring days. With these kind of encounters, slip ups like the above don't cause a TPK, but it's true that if challenge is what the group is after, you need more of them so that resource management over is what you are being challenged against, not raw power for one encounter (which is very unfair to some classes and combinations anyway).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lyxen, post: 8440329, member: 7032025"] And here you see why a very small parameter can completely change an encounter, and why it's unreasonable to expect an encounter calculator to give exact results. It all hang upon counterspell being effective or not, because a single fireball going off, especially at start, would have made a huge difference. It's not even a question of level, buffs, stats, feats, magic items, it's a question of synergy between the various parties and with the environment and in this case, the complete shutdown of one party major capability by just one member of the opposing party when action economy is in favor of the monsters. And once more, it's a question of a DM's experience, Hill Giants are weak for their CRs especially if they start at range, whereas counterspell can be extremely deadly (and is one of the most debated spells of the arsenal). But thanks for sharing the experience, I hope that DMs can learn from this and be careful about deadly encounters when not really mastering the subtleties of details in encounter building. This is why, although it's often quoted extremely badly, the DMG uses the "standard" of medium to hard encounters to explain the adventuring days. With these kind of encounters, slip ups like the above don't cause a TPK, but it's true that if challenge is what the group is after, you need more of them so that resource management over is what you are being challenged against, not raw power for one encounter (which is very unfair to some classes and combinations anyway). [/QUOTE]
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