Forked Thread: So, about Expertise...

[outsider]

That's true. I don't think, however, that player death is a requirement for a challenging fight. When a player dies the fight is obviously challenging(assuming they didn't do something stupid), but I think challenge exists without player death. Healing surges spent is a really good metric, I think. Each surge spent is one step closer to death. Which fight is really more challenging? A fight where a character gets knocked out and healed back up, ending the fight with half his healing surges left, or a fight where he doesn't get knocked out but spends every single healing surge?

 

[KarinsDad]

I think something to ponder is what the designers of 4th ed consider to be a challenging fight. I think the intent is for character death to be pretty rare, so I don't think character death is neccessarily a part of a challenging fight. I am quite sure encounter length has little to do what they are going for in a challenging fight either. I'm sure they have no intent on hard fights taking 10 hours to play out. I highly suspect that resources expended is intended to be a very important metric on the challenge of a fight.

I think a challenging fight should result in unconsciousness or at least close to unconscious for at least one PC though as a general metric. A PC did go unconscious in this encounter, but not until round 18.

I think that all fights should not be challenging. Some should be easy, some standard, and some hard. It's not that fights should always be challenging (as per the anti-grind threads), its that fights should often be interesting. If a DM challenges his players every time, he is just begging for TPKs. But, a DM can make even an easy fight interesting with enemy makeup, terrain features, traps, etc. Another way to make a fight interesting is to throw enemy tactics in that the players rarely see or have never seen.

I also think players get more excitement / thrill out of a fight if there is something to lose or risk. It does not matter if hit points are lost because they come back so quickly. Undead taking away Healing Surges is an example of something that is a bit scary. Players try to avoid or kill right away some undead for that reason.

Two house rules that I have that can make encounters seem more threatening and scary (didn't use any house rules in this encounter) are:

1) Wound points. The PCs get wound points equal to their Constitution. A PC takes a wound point when hit with a critical, when they fall unconscious, and each time they miss the stabilization roll when unconscious. Wound points get healed one per day for extended rest, one point max per day for a healing spell, one point max per day for a potion of healing, two per day max for a potion of vitality, three per day max for a potion of recovery, and heals all wound points for a potion of life. If at half wound points, the PC is at -1 for all D20 rolls. If at zero wound points, the PC is dead.

2) -1 to all D20 rolls (PCs and monsters) when bloodied.

Hit points are scraps and bruises, wound points are serious wounds. The wound point system is more difficult to heal (typically 2 points per day max at lower levels, typically 3 points per day at higher level due to cheap potions of healing). PCs who are wounded are less effective and players want to avoid that.

There is suspense involved with these types of rules. I'm sure they are not everyone's cup of tea and they can make a fight fractionally more grindy, but they add dread into an encounter. Enemies are threatening because it's not just hit points ho hum, don't bother healing me cause I'm ok. Every hit can be a real threat and multiple hits will be a real threat.

If a player feels suspense or dread on occasion, the DM is doing something right. If a player does not ever feel suspense or dread unless the PC dies, then the game is not as thrilling. IMO.

Also, perhaps the intent of the Expertise feats isn't actually to make hard fights easier. Perhaps it is to make long fights shorter. Your player group had that fight won, by the sound of it. How much faster would they have won if they all had +3 to hit? How much less resources would they have expended? It sounds like you've got alot of notes. If you noted the attack rolls, add +3 to all the misses and if they now hit, assume that the attack did average damage. From there, you can answer those questions.

It's noted in this thread that inability to hit was one of the primary reasons that this fight got so grindy. It's also presumed that a grindy fight is a bad thing. One would think these new bonuses to hit would actually go towards solving the grindiness problem, and thus should be welcomed.

The problem is two fold with the new rules:

1) They cost a feat. That's an error in judgement by WotC. They should have just put in an errata. The math should be built into the system without a specific feat being required.

2) The +3 at Epic level seems slightly too high. It doesn't take into account synergy bonuses or other ways like feats or Paragon classes to gain a +1 (or more) to hit.

There were two reasons this fight was grindy. The slight math problem and using an Elite foe 5 levels higher. At level one, an Elite foe 5 levels higher with some allies is just begging for a TPK (Irontooth is only Elite 2 levels higher, although he had a lot of help). Players are a bit scared at level one with a hard encounter. At level 22, it's just grindy, even if one were to fix the math.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

I'm coming to this conclusion myself.

But, I think that +1 at 5, 15, and 25 is too much of a gain considering the synergies that can be there.

Well this was the point of the original thread. Making it 0/+1/+2 instead of +1/+2/+3 is a matter of personal choice and not a significant change in the system.

Adding terrain difficulties adds to the XP of the encounter. I was testing a hard encounter 3 levels higher, not 3+ levels higher.

There's a fine line to this. I'm not suggesting a room full of traps, just the bad guys picking an area more suitable for their powers. A cathedral that allows the ravager to extend the combat vertically is hardly a change in encounter value.

This was a test case. The fact that the PCs were vastly under-optimized more than makes up for any addition difficulties that you think were needed to create a fair test.

I pretty much agreed to this in my first post. I wasn't trying to make a "fair test" I was trying to suggest epic isn't easy for pc's if the dm is building challenging encounters. I didn't set out to kill anyone just to leave the party tested.

In our campaigns, the players purposely go out of their ways to acquire resist items, even if they have to disenchant other items and enchant new items themselves.

I agree with this also but I made a fire encounter (probably the power resisted most often) it could have just as easily been an thunder or lightning encounter.

In a real campaign with real PCs, they would have MORE fire resistance items and spells (this group had one item) and would have taken less damage.

I agree to a certain extent. The encounter could have been necrotic damage which has a lot fewer resistances.

Like I said, even the Wizard shouldn't have gone down. But, after playing the game at that point for nearly 8 hours, my friend probably wasn't making the best choices anymore.

This happens to every party. The wizard would have gone down anyway if you continued the encounter to the end. Not like his 30HP second wind was going to stop doresian from putting him down again. How many healing surges did the party use? You said all the healing was gone and everyone used a second wind before having them recharged.

In a real campaign with real PCs, it would have been unlikely that the PCs would have taken as much damage as they did.

I agree partially but that has a lot to do with the number of fire effects and fire resistances. We have a lot less non fire resistances than fire resistances in our gaming group.

The Ravager could not teleport. He was actually pretty easy to keep pinned down.

Not if he's flying and doresian is slowing people down. Was the ravager ever hit by melee attacks?

Doresian did a lot of damage though. His chances to hit are high. He could hit on a 4 in a lot of cases. His ongoing 10 was on one to two PCs most of the encounter and on as many as three PCs for a few rounds. That's probably 300+ points of damage just from his staff. In the 19 rounds, he probably dished out over 500 points of damage. He did more damage than the other four combined.

He was 65% of the encounter exp wise. It's expected he'll do the most damage. He still had 20% of his hit points and I assume the party had expended it's most effective dailies up to this point. Since the party had no healing left it's pretty likely he could have kept putting ongoing damage on pc's for a few more rounds and he likely would have been able to attack all 5 pc's if he recharged his frenzy power. If he gets 3-4 slow effects on the party he can extend the combat quite a bit based upon his speed and teleport and once again time was definitely on his side since the party is running out of healing and already used up a significant portion of their dailies.

The game design is set up in reality for x XP over a given day (on average). Throwing a hard encounter first just eats up a larger portion of x than a different order, but the encounter order really doesn't matter.

As I've pointed out repeatedly the easy encounters are sort of non factors. At level 22 I expect a party to be able to handle N+2, N+2, N+3 at a minimum per day and it could be worse. At level 5 I sort of expect a party to be able to handle about this same amount, and they have far fewer dailies and magic item dailies.

Any single player vastly for the party increases the ability of the group to coordinate.

This is a pretty important distinction.

Actually as explained above, if one goes to the DMG, I handed out fewer items (and some of lower level) than the PCs would have actually acquired in real game play if following the DMG guidelines. The PCs had slots left over where even lower level items could have helped.

I agree but... if you're making an advanced level PC you're supposed to get an L+1 item, a L item, and an L-1 item and the gold equal to a L-1 item. This means 5 23's 5 22's and 5 21's plus enough gold for 5 21's.

Easily killed? It took 6 rounds to kill even one of them. And when the Ravager was killed in round 6, all of the others were wounded, just not enough to be bloodied. It took 11 rounds to kill all four. You consider 11 rounds quick?

No I don't consider 11 rounds to be quick but I think with teleport 22 and fly 8 these monsters are particularly hard to catch. Doresian slowing multiple pc's roughly every 6 rounds also exacerbates the situation. No archon should ever be flanked by the pc's unless they're piling into a situation to unleash cinder burst.

I thought you were an anti-grind kind of guy.

I am. That doesn't mean I would move the monsters unintelligently and allow them to be gobbled up. Since the monsters have powers that recharge, teleporting 20 and then moving 8 more away from the party is a viable tactic for the archons while waiting for the ravager and firelord to recharge. After the buffeting blast is used up the ravager should be flying out of pc range until it recharges and circling the party looking for a chance to fly in 8 and use the ranged 5 wind devil to lock a pc down. When the pc's have a character inside the winddevil, doresian uses his power to slow down multiple pc's so that they have trouble trying to move to the trapped pc's aid. The archons meanwhile try and focus fire on another pc or catch groups with their various encounter powers.

Actually, it needs to stay 10 feet off the ground since it only has a 2 reach to use Slam. But 10 feet is too far away for Whirlwind which averages more damage if it can use it on two foes. Buffeting Blast has better range, but that has a 5 6 recharge. I honestly did not think to keep it out of reach for part of the battle. Thanks for the suggestion. Something to remember for the future.

Both tactics are viable. Keeping it 10's off the ground letting it get to slam without taking any melee attacks seems pretty powerful. It can't be flanked, so it can't take sneak damage unless a second power hits it granting CA first. I would have had the monsters gang up on the wizard, rogue or cleric maybe two of them. Both the fighter and the paladin are super vulnerable to the wind devil and the rogue would also be challenged by it.

Only the Rogue had a resistance here. That’s pretty minor considering how a player designed group would more likely have many resistances.

yes and no. The encounter could easily hit a gap in the pc's resistances, it doesn't have to be a "fire encounter".

It was a significant encounter. It just was not a threatening encounter. The player did not get the thrill of victory since it did not feel scary. It took 18 rounds to get one PC down to 20 hit points. Three levels higher EL and it felt grindy, not scary. PCs got bloodied and then got healed. Ho hum.

That's a little bit the nature of 4e and a little bit the fault of my encounter. The limited monster dmg threat obviously cuts down on the "scary" but as the party was out of healing it might have gotten a lot more scary if you continued the game and doresian gets off another frenzy then hits 1-2 more pc's with the ongoing damage.

It did use up a lot of resources, but you expected something different from an Elite 5 levels higher than the PCs? I think the player used two or three dailies total previous to taking on the Ghoul King. He used them then because he was low on encounter powers and was hoping for a big hit.

Level 22 pc's have 4 encounters and 4 dailies each. Obviously the nature of 4e is such that most pc's are going to rely on encounter powers early in a combat and so level 22's are rearely going to use more than 1 daily prior to round 6 or 7. As soon as the mage uses a daily with sustain the ravager should have moved in and stunned him. The fact that this encounter had no aura's was also kind of weak on my part. Look at the sorrowsworn for instance. The leader has an aura that dazes. This crushes a mage who needs to sustain a power or a cleric who would like to heal.

I do not equate using up resources as threatening, especially not in a case like this. Resources are there to be used. When the encounter is tougher, the bigger guns will be pulled out. That's to be expected.

resources used has to be part of the equation. If you randomly remove 1-2 dailies from each pc and start them with no action points is the encounter more threatening? In this scenario the pc's started with 100% resources which is rarely the case in dnd and effectively only accounts for the first encounter on a given day. Epic makes this less of an issue because of the sheer volume of dailies but it's still an issue.

But, there was no real threat of a single PC going down in a real game scenario with real players and real PCs, even though the encounter was considered hard.

The party was out of healing and still faced with a creature they were struggling to damage. ongoing 10 adds up. a single hit and ongoing 10 is roughly the value of a surge. If we take into account that doresian shouldn't have been an undead in this encounter (gives a giant advantage to the cleric and paladin to have a single undead target in the encounter) doresian might have had a lot more hitpoints. I wonder how much of his damage was from the paladins radiant mark?

And just think. If the original designers would have added bonuses to hit for all PCs to balance out the math at Epic levels, this hard encounter would have been even less threatening.

Once again this is partly due to my design. Obviously +2 to hit for all the pc's is significant. If you believe it was too easy already why would you now change your mind and agree the +2 is needed?

And just imagine how easy a standard encounter would be at Epic levels if a hard encounter is grindy, not threatening.

all std encounters are easy, I doubt a first level party would have much trouble going through 4 level N encounters.

He used his power in round one and then it recharged twice more after that. On average, it should have recharged 3 times instead of 2. Course, even if it had recharged once more, that would have only been another 30 or 40 points of damage to the group. The Slow was a bit problematic, but not overly. It didn't take long to surround him again to get flank. And, I often had him next to a pillar so that only two PCs could get flank and would have him teleport away to attack non-melee foes (especially the Wizard) once the teleport recharged.

seems like pretty solid tactics though I disagree that the attack was only worth 30 or 40 points. Should probably have averaged 3+ hits for 44-60 dmg and a bunch of slows. since the teleport is range 12 he should have been able to get away from being surrounded quite frequently. Better to put the 10 ongoing on the rogue and then teleport out of range of the melee guys than to teleport to the wizard and be surrounded again. Even giving up an OA is much better than being surrounded so he should have chosen to move almost every round and risk the small chance of being hit by OA. Since he moves speed 8 he could have prevented the fighter and paladin from EVER using an encounter or daily power against him. The best they can do is move and charge and therefore rely on 1 weapon attacks with no effects. Take away the bonus radiant damage the paladin was likely doing and they're almost a non factor.

The Wizard and Cleric tried to smack him a few times in the first 10 rounds, but for the most part, they tried more to concentrate on the other four.

The other 4 should have been out of range. Only choosing to attack once doresian had recharged. This forces the party to either spread out, or circle the wagons. If they circle the wagons it's only a matter of time before doresian gets a 4-5 hit attack slowing everyone and letting the other critters move in for area attacks and focus fire on one or two pc's. if they spread out the monsters can teleport to one side of the battle field and isolate part of the party for a round or two.

But, he was not ineffective. He gave the lesser NPCs flank, he did more than 500 points of damage, he did a lot.

as expected. he's 65% of the encounter.

That was unusual, but not totally unexpected. I was hoping for 4 hours. 8 hours was a bit much.

That's awful but at least partly because the player was overwhelmed a tad.

I will say... this thread really makes me wonder about challenging actually optimized characters out of the base books... and worries me about time required for combat.

me too, but I'm more worried about the time than the challenge. I think the monsters here did challenge the party I'm just not sure a 4 hr encounter is good for the game.

I think something to ponder is what the designers of 4th ed consider to be a challenging fight. I think the intent is for character death to be pretty rare, so I don't think character death is neccessarily a part of a challenging fight. I am quite sure encounter length has little to do what they are going for in a challenging fight either. I'm sure they have no intent on hard fights taking 10 hours to play out. I highly suspect that resources expended is intended to be a very important metric on the challenge of a fight.

I totally agree.

Also, perhaps the intent of the Expertise feats isn't actually to make hard fights easier. Perhaps it is to make long fights shorter. Your player group had that fight won, by the sound of it.

They still could have lost a pc if it had been played out. If they use up more dailies that only enhances my perception it was challenging.

How much faster would they have won if they all had +3 to hit?

it would have been plus 2.

How much less resources would they have expended? It sounds like you've got alot of notes. If you noted the attack rolls, add +3 to all the misses and if they now hit, assume that the attack did average damage. From there, you can answer those questions.

the monsters were disadvantaged too, the space is big but not very big for creatures with 20 teleport and fly.

I don't know about that - I'm sure that most of the epic destinies have a "I'm not dead yet" ability for a reason, and that is that they are expected to be killed then come back on a relatively regular basis.

pretty valid point there too. certainly being knocked below zero is a common expectation in dnd 4e.

That's true. I don't think, however, that player death is a requirement for a challenging fight. When a player dies the fight is obviously challenging(assuming they didn't do something stupid), but I think challenge exists without player death. Healing surges spent is a really good metric, I think. Each surge spent is one step closer to death. Which fight is really more challenging? A fight where a character gets knocked out and healed back up, ending the fight with half his healing surges left, or a fight where he doesn't get knocked out but spends every single healing surge?

I definitely feel resources is the most valid metric. doesn't matter if you don't have anyone go below zero if you use up all your resources on a fight that might be the fight that lines you up for the tpk later in the day.

I think a challenging fight should result in unconsciousness or at least close to unconscious for at least one PC though as a general metric. A PC did go unconscious in this encounter, but not until round 18.

You also had a party with 1.5 healers(paladin being roughly half a healer) and 2 defenders. It's much more likely the fight goes longer with more healers and defenders.

Another way to make a fight interesting is to throw enemy tactics in that the players rarely see or have never seen.

but tactics, traps and terrain can make the encounter a higher level by your own definition.

If a player feels suspense or dread on occasion, the DM is doing something right. If a player does not ever feel suspense or dread unless the PC dies, then the game is not as thrilling. IMO.

I totally agree. There has to be a credible threat.

The problem is two fold with the new rules:

1) They cost a feat. That's an error in judgement by WotC. They should have just put in an errata. The math should be built into the system without a specific feat being required.

This has been a lot of peoples point from day one.

2) The +3 at Epic level seems slightly too high. It doesn't take into account synergy bonuses or other ways like feats or Paragon classes to gain a +1 (or more) to hit.

I don't agree here. There are a lot of synergies for monsters at high levels as well. Negatives to hit as well. The sorrowsworn critters cause -2 to all ranged and melee attacks. The fire creatures telelporting to other fire creatures makes them brutally mobile. There are undead with large aura's that give bonus to hit and damge to all other undead in the aura.

There were two reasons this fight was grindy. The slight math problem and using an Elite foe 5 levels higher. At level one, an Elite foe 5 levels higher with some allies is just begging for a TPK (Irontooth is only Elite 2 levels higher, although he had a lot of help). Players are a bit scared at level one with a hard encounter. At level 22, it's just grindy, even if one were to fix the math.

Things have a lot more hit points and players have a lot of hit points and a lot of healing. grindy is semi inevitable. I disagree that a level 4 encounter with a level 6 brute is tpk for 5 first level pc's (cave bear and 3 gray wolves = 875 exp, level 4 encounter). It's certainly going to be challenging but hardly imminent TPK. Irontooth is a level 6 encounter for level 1 pc's. It's also after a level 1.5 and a level 2 and it's possible to engage the N+5 encounter(outside the expected range) before the party can take a short rest. Comparing Irontooth to an N+3 encounter is really not even remotely fair. Him being a level L+2 has nothing to do with the problem. The problem is the encounter is massively over powered for 5 level 1 pc's even before you subtract the resources used in the first two encounters. To compare it to the level 22 encounter we would need to add 4 efreets to the monsters. To be totally fair the party would have to lose some resources first in two previous encounters. Add a fireblade, a cinderlord and two flame stryders. I think you'll find this is a TPK encounter for virtually any level 22 party.

 

[KarinsDad]

I wasn't trying to make a "fair test" I was trying to suggest epic isn't easy for pc's if the dm is building challenging encounters.

It isn't easy in the sense that it uses up few resources. It is easy in the sense that there is no threat. No real challenge. Nothing to scare the PCs cause they always have something in their bag of tricks to handle most anything.

Even an Elite 5 levels higher than the PCs.

seems like pretty solid tactics though I disagree that the attack was only worth 30 or 40 points. Should probably have averaged 3+ hits for 44-60 dmg and a bunch of slows.

You are forgetting two things: The Cleric and Wizard were staying out of range because they had seen this attack 3 times before. So, the greatest number of hits would be 3, not the average number of hits.

Also, if he does not use that attack, he would mostly likely use the staff. That hits for 23 points on average (13 on the hit, 10 ongoing for at least one round). 23 plus 30 to 40 = 53 to 63. Like I said, probably only an additional 30 to 40 more than if he had used the staff.

since the teleport is range 12 he should have been able to get away from being surrounded quite frequently. Better to put the 10 ongoing on the rogue and then teleport out of range of the melee guys than to teleport to the wizard and be surrounded again.

You are second guessing my tactics when you were not there. The Wizard was bloodied. The Rogue was fine. It's an action economy problem. Take out the Wizard, then take out a different PC. Focus on one at a time until it is dead, then switch. Earlier in the fight, it was concentrating a lot on the Fighter because the Fighter was heavily injured and had it marked at the time. The Fighter got healed, the Wizard was injured, it switched targets.

As it turned out, if he had NOT attacked the Wizard repeatedly, the Wizard would not have gone unconscious. How exactly are your tactics better than ones that knock a PC out?

Even giving up an OA is much better than being surrounded so he should have chosen to move almost every round and risk the small chance of being hit by OA. Since he moves speed 8 he could have prevented the fighter and paladin from EVER using an encounter or daily power against him.

Not once the Paladin marks it. The Paladin's mark does radiant damage. It had to occassionally stay in range of the melee guys because the chances of the melee guys hitting were small, the chances of it taking Radiant damage from the Paladin by teleporting away and attacking anyone else was 100%. It only let this happen a few times because that was extra damage it could not afford.

Plus, the teleport only recharges half of the time. It was forced to either stay put when it could not teleport, or move away from a pillar and allow 4 PCs to flank it instead of 2 PCs.

But, I'm not going to go down a long path here. I've been DMing for over 30 years. I do not always use the best tactics, but they don't suck either. The party had different effects on Doresian which quasi-forced his hand with regard to tactics. Your armchair quarterbacking not withstanding, he did use reasonable tactics based on the situation including the spells and the mark they had on him.

the monsters were disadvantaged too, the space is big but not very big for creatures with 20 teleport and fly.

How many encounters occur in areas greater than 120x120 in most people's games? If using miniatures, that's a huge area. It takes up a large portion of the table. The largest we can do at our table is 150x200 (to the very edge of our Tactiles) and that almost never happens.

I seriously doubt that you have many encounters with table space larger than this on any sort of regular basis.

I consider a 120x120 area with pillars to use as cover favorable to the NPCs. Most encounters are in dinky 30x40 rooms or smaller, at least in the adventure modules.

You are grasping at straws here. What exactly are you trying to illustrate here?

This is a pretty important distinction.

I'll take 5 players who know the PCs inside and out, and have experience playing them with each other any day over a single player who has never seen the PCs and has zero experience playing them.

The team will do better every time.

I agree but... if you're making an advanced level PC you're supposed to get an L+1 item, a L item, and an L-1 item and the gold equal to a L-1 item. This means 5 23's 5 22's and 5 21's plus enough gold for 5 21's.

That guideline is really bad. Any PCs played up through the levels and using the normal guidelines would have three times as many magic items as that guideline, an item each of levels 23 to about 15 and one in most slots.

So, you think I should have gimped the PCs even more here?

The other 4 should have been out of range. Only choosing to attack once doresian had recharged.

One small problem with this. The NPCs can only teleport to where there is another fire NPC. Anywhere they go, there could be PCs near their destination NPC. Unlike normal teleport, they couldn't just teleport away. They always have to teleport to where another NPC is located.

As pointed out, Doresian's attack recharged twice in the entire encounter.

You are telling us that as a DM, you would have the non-BBEG NPCs flitter about for dozens of rounds, staying away from the PCs, rarely attacking and waiting for Doresian's attack to recharge, an attack that only does an extra 30 to 40 damage total if the PCs are spread out over his normal attack?

Talk about grind. You cannot have it both ways. Either the NPC henchmen stay away in which case the PCs have fewer attacks against them and have more resources and time to deal with Doresian and the combat takes a lot more rounds, or the NPC henchmen attack every chance they get (like what happened in the combat) and the PCs get an opportunity to take them out first.

But, there is no golden tactical solution here. The monsters were not disadvantaged.

I will gladly create real PCs and you can come over to my house and DM and my PCs will kick their butts. Course, all rolls have to be out in the open. I don't trust you to not change the scenario when it is not going your way.

Your hit and run tactics will result in a lot more rounds, but meh. It will still just be a grind without a threat.

To be totally fair the party would have to lose some resources first in two previous encounters.

How much MORE do you want to gimp the PCs?

Wasn't random items, powers, feats, restricting it to the PHB, and having an inexperienced Epic player who knows nothing about the PCs enough?

This is becoming laughable. You created the scenario. Now, you want to make it even tougher? It wasn't tough enough because the outcome was a big old grind without a threat?

How many more suggestions are you going to make to change it and gimp the PCs some more?

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

It isn't easy in the sense that it uses up few resources. It is easy in the sense that there is no threat. No real challenge. Nothing to scare the PCs cause they always have something in their bag of tricks to handle most anything.

Even an Elite 5 levels higher than the PCs.

You keep dropping "an elite 5 levels higher" into the conversation like this was cheating. It's well inside the bounds of what is expected for pc's of this level.

You are forgetting two things: The Cleric and Wizard were staying out of range because they had seen this attack 3 times before. So, the greatest number of hits would be 3, not the average number of hits.

he should have been moving every round. he can simply run away from the paladin and break his mark. he also should have been a "fire lord" and not an undead. The radiant damage makes the paladins mark like 25 damage.

Also, if he does not use that attack, he would mostly likely use the staff. That hits for 23 points on average (13 on the hit, 10 ongoing for at least one round). 23 plus 30 to 40 = 53 to 63. Like I said, probably only an additional 30 to 40 more than if he had used the staff.

Good point, I wasn't thinking about it that way but I do see what you're saying.

You are second guessing my tactics when you were not there. The Wizard was bloodied. The Rogue was fine. It's an action economy problem. Take out the Wizard, then take out a different PC. Focus on one at a time until it is dead, then switch. Earlier in the fight, it was concentrating a lot on the Fighter because the Fighter was heavily injured and had it marked at the time. The Fighter got healed, the Wizard was injured, it switched targets.

I see your point here as well but he should have never really cared about the fighter and all the creatures in this battle should have used superior mobility to make the fighter and paladin combat ineffective.

As it turned out, if he had NOT attacked the Wizard repeatedly, the Wizard would not have gone unconscious. How exactly are your tactics better than ones that knock a PC out?

well I think if I had run the encounter I would have likely killed one or more of these pc's. The ravager most certainly would not have been killed first. The melee types would have never gotten to use a single daily/encounter power on anyone other than doresian. Any time doresian was marked by the paladin he should have teleported 12 and moved 8 to remove the mark and leave the paladin in the dust.

Not once the Paladin marks it. The Paladin's mark does radiant damage.

This is because you accidentally gimped the encounter. Doresian was supposed to be a firelord.

It had to occassionally stay in range of the melee guys because the chances of the melee guys hitting were small, the chances of it taking Radiant damage from the Paladin by teleporting away and attacking anyone else was 100%.

time is on the monsters side, he shouldn't teleport away and take 25 dmg he should teleport away and break the mark.

It only let this happen a few times because that was extra damage it could not afford.

Thus my point in an earlier post that doresian might have had 200+ HP's left without the radiant mark.

Plus, the teleport only recharges half of the time. It was forced to either stay put when it could not teleport, or move away from a pillar and allow 4 PCs to flank it instead of 2 PCs.

There is no way 4 pc's can catch him. Even if he teleports only one time in 3. He also moves 8 (20 on a double move run).

But, I'm not going to go down a long path here. I've been DMing for over 30 years. I do not always use the best tactics, but they don't suck either. The party had different effects on Doresian which quasi-forced his hand with regard to tactics. Your armchair quarterbacking not withstanding, he did use reasonable tactics based on the situation including the spells and the mark they had on him.

I never said you used awful tactics but you did change the encounter (which hurt doresian immensely) and you did fail to protect the ravager through flight. I'm not sure how you played this out and I already said thanks for putting in the work on two occasions. I think you have to admit that the room being too small to maximize the movement advantage of the creatures, letting doresian take radiant damage and be surrounded when he's faster than the party and not protecting the ravager all change this encounter significantly from my design.

How many encounters occur in areas greater than 120x120 in most people's games? If using miniatures, that's a huge area. It takes up a large portion of the table. The largest we can do at our table is 150x200 (to the very edge of our Tactiles) and that almost never happens.

All of our encounters outside happen in an area that's larger. We don't always use all the area but we sometimes have to extend the map in one direction or another as something flees.

I seriously doubt that you have many encounters with table space larger than this on any sort of regular basis.

120' x 120' is kind of a small room for a creature who can move 230' in a single turn wouldn't you say? It's not about "many" it's about reasonable. Put this encounter in the outdoors (do your pc's never travel overland?).

I consider a 120x120 area with pillars to use as cover favorable to the NPCs. Most encounters are in dinky 30x40 rooms or smaller, at least in the adventure modules.

Well we have to disagree on what is favorable for the NPC's here. A lightly wooded hillside, an open field, a long stretch of road, the fiery caldera of mt doom.

You are grasping at straws here. What exactly are you trying to illustrate here?

Hardly grasping. If you let the melee guys mark the creatures repeatedly then they were played poorly. If the melee guys got to use lots of encounter powers on anyone but doresian they were played poorly. Why would a speed 8 creature with ranged attacks let a speed 5/6 guy with melee attacks close with it? teleport 20 means, I shoot you, you charge me, you get a basic attack, I slap you back with my melee attack(leaving you with ongoing possibly) and then I move 20 paces away and swat someone else or regroup wit the team. If the paladin has me marked I teleport 20 and move 8 to behind cover so his challenge is broken. I never give him free damage.

I'll take 5 players who know the PCs inside and out, and have experience playing them with each other any day over a single player who has never seen the PCs and has zero experience playing them.

The team will do better every time.

you're very mistaken. Give me 5 pc's and I will outperform any 5 player team 99.9% of the time.

That guideline is really bad. Any PCs played up through the levels and using the normal guidelines would have three times as many magic items as that guideline, an item each of levels 23 to about 15 and one in most slots.

I was just giving you the guideline. I didn't make this a federal case I even said it wasn't over the top or a problem.

So, you think I should have gimped the PCs even more here?

No. I don't think the pc's should have been gimped at all. I do think you gimped the monsters more than the pc's. Through a combination of slight changes you made to the encounter (area, doresian being undead which not only hurts him directly it also hurts the archons ability to get away. Doresian can move 20 and be the place the archons retreat to if he's the firelord This is a huge gimping. That's why I was surprised the archons died relatively quick considering their abilities. The ravager was obviously shafted by some horrible tactics. he can fly 16 how can a melee guy ever catch him? since he has the most aggressive offense this crippled the encounter.

One small problem with this. The NPCs can only teleport to where there is another fire NPC. Anywhere they go, there could be PCs near their destination NPC. Unlike normal teleport, they couldn't just teleport away. They always have to teleport to where another NPC is located.

I think you're failing to grasp the power of this. If the pc's spread out to cover multiple fire creatures then doresian moves into melee with one pc and all three archons teleport next to him for flanking focus fire and pound the lonely pc into a bloody pulp. Doresian was supposed to be a fire creature for this very tactic. You double gimped him by making him vlunerable to radiant and eliminating the monsters most effective synergy. Since a lot of your argument was about high level synergies I think you should be able to see removing the monsters most valuable synergy is pretty debilitating.

As pointed out, Doresian's attack recharged twice in the entire encounter.

ok that's fine but the encounter wasn't over and he still had 100hp's (should have been a lot more after removing radiant damage from both the cleric and paladin)

You are telling us that as a DM, you would have the non-BBEG NPCs flitter about for dozens of rounds, staying away from the PCs, rarely attacking and waiting for Doresian's attack to recharge, an attack that only does an extra 30 to 40 damage total if the PCs are spread out over his normal attack?

I am telling you I would play an intelligence 20 fire lord pretty intelligently and by extension I would make his minions do what he said and thus be relatively intelligent also.

Talk about grind. You cannot have it both ways. Either the NPC henchmen stay away in which case the PCs have fewer attacks against them and have more resources and time to deal with Doresian and the combat takes a lot more rounds, or the NPC henchmen attack every chance they get (like what happened in the combat) and the PCs get an opportunity to take them out first.

The grind is caused by the missing +2 to hit. You're basically arguing that in order to prevent grind rather than fix the math you should play the monsters poorly and let the pc's get more attacks. The game design might be problematic at high levels because of the vast number of hit points but playing the monsters smartly and letting the pc's hit more often would probably speed things up. Monsters moving away don't take a lot of time so even if the rounds go up they would be rather rapid rounds.

But, there is no golden tactical solution here. The monsters were not disadvantaged.

I disagree. Flying creatures standing on the ground and rooms that are half a single turns movement were big changes to the encounter design. Keeping doresian undead was a massive change. Without that he would likely have killed the party and proved my points that the +2 is needed and epic is not too easy.

I will gladly create real PCs and you can come over to my house and DM and my PCs will kick their butts. Course, all rolls have to be out in the open. I don't trust you to not change the scenario when it is not going your way.

LOL, I play in the no fudge campaign. I never want the rolls changed. I live in arizona are you close? We can do this via fantasy grounds it has a "show all die rolls" feature. We might need to do it over multiple sessions as I'm not sure I'm interested in spending 8 hours at this. The software will speed things up quite a bit once the powers are added to the characters (the die rolls are all calculated, init order handled, bloodied is displayed, power usage tracked) though I would probably make a different encounter of comparable power to make sure you're not able to metagame the encounter when building your party.

Your hit and run tactics will result in a lot more rounds, but meh. It will still just be a grind without a threat.

Opinion. I think I can prove differently.

How much MORE do you want to gimp the PCs?

I agree the pc's weren't optimal. Nor was the encounter. I think the monsters were hurt as bad or worse.

Wasn't random items, powers, feats, restricting it to the PHB, and having an inexperienced Epic player who knows nothing about the PCs enough?

definitely not if you're going to devalue the data collected after the fact. would have been better to at least marginally optimize the pc's so we can be sure the data we collect about "epic being easy" is based upon a more optimized scenario.

This is becoming laughable. You created the scenario. Now, you want to make it even tougher? It wasn't tough enough because the outcome was a big old grind without a threat?

You changed the scenario. I think you collected a lot of interesting data I just don't think your conclusions are totally accurate. Definitely a grind (which sucks) but part of that is due to pc's missing more often than the game designers expected. gimping the monsters most effective tactic to offset the non optimized pc's doesn't really make a great example.

How many more suggestions are you going to make to change it and gimp the PCs some more?

You seem to be taking this personal. I'm simply trying to see if pc's can be challenged at epic. My encounter was designed to be in a more open area and doresian was supposed to allow the fire creatures to be able to teleport to him. These are important considerations. You of all people have argued about high level "synergies" and yet you took away the only synergy from the monsters. It's a massive gimping of the monsters.

 

[KarinsDad]

You changed the scenario.

Actually, you were a bit vague in your first post concerning this. I thought only the Ravager was changed into a Fire creature.

Later on in another post, you mentioned making him a fire lord, but I did not go back and re-read a bunch of lengthy posts to find out everything you wanted.

My encounter was designed to be in a more open area and doresian was supposed to allow the fire creatures to be able to teleport to him. These are important considerations. You of all people have argued about high level "synergies" and yet you took away the only synergy from the monsters. It's a massive gimping of the monsters.

But, there is something you are forgetting. Changing a bunch of monsters in order to increase their synergies together DOES increase the difficulty of the enounter.

I didn't gimp the monsters at all. By definition, using a set of monsters out of the MM IS assigning a set XP for the encounter.

So, you wanted me to create a greater than EL 3 higher encounter by adding a bunch of synergies that the monsters did not have.

The point is, by changing the ravager to a fire creature, I did increase the difficulty of the scenario more than the straight XP out of the MM. Just because I did not do that for the Ghoul King does not mean that the monsters were gimped.

The experiment stands. High level is grindy. It would have been more grindy if the monsters did the delaying tactics you suggested. A lot more grindy.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

Actually, you were a bit vague in your first post concerning this. I thought only the Ravager was changed into a Fire creature.

Later on in another post, you mentioned making him a fire lord, but I did not go back and re-read a bunch of lengthy posts to find out everything you wanted.

that's fine, but it does matter quite a bit to the quality of the encounter.

But, there is something you are forgetting. Changing a bunch of monsters in order to increase their synergies together DOES increase the difficulty of the enounter.

No, you're mistaken. No where in the game is there even a hint at this assertion. If I was using a drow priest is the encounter value increased because there are other drow or spiders in it? I changed the monsters to line them up in a synergistic way and make the encounter "themed" but I only had to do this because there are so few monsters at these levels. Changing a creatures type from undead to fire doesn't change it's level or exp pt value. It just increass the pool of monsters from which i could choose. I could just as easily have followed the rules for modifying a creature up or down levels. It's expected monsters will be grouped with other monsters that give it synergies. Hobgoblin phalanx soldier etc.

I didn't gimp the monsters at all. By definition, using a set of monsters out of the MM IS assigning a set XP for the encounter.

does the term fish in a barrel mean anything to you? Putting a flying creature in a room with a ceiling IS gimping it. This is simply bad encounter design theory on your part. If you put a fire archon with ice creatures is it worth full value?

So, you wanted me to create a greater than EL 3 higher encounter by adding a bunch of synergies that the monsters did not have.

I find myself wondering if even you believe what you are typing. None of this holds water. Not to mention I've seen you post that terrain should be part of encounter design. The monster pool is very thin at level 22-28 for now. I was not adding powers to the monsters I was trying to balance the exp budget with existing monsters and then changing them to fire creatures to make a sensible encounter. If you can't see this I think the reason you think epic is too easy is because you're being too weak as a DM in encounter design. In any event, you can switch out doresian for the 4 efreets (pyresinger, cinderlord and 2 flame striders) and you'll quickly see you're mistaken.

The point is, by changing the ravager to a fire creature, I did increase the difficulty of the scenario more than the straight XP out of the MM. Just because I did not do that for the Ghoul King does not mean that the monsters were gimped.

no you didn't increase the difficulty. If there was an identical creature with the word fire in the place of earth would it be worth more exp? Increasing the selection of monsters available to the DM doesn't change their value. Suggesting it does is ridiculous.

The experiment stands. High level is grindy. It would have been more grindy if the monsters did the delaying tactics you suggested. A lot more grindy.

No, the expiriment was good but flawed. You also didn't finish and you gave the paladin and cleric huge advantages. In the encounter I presented the monsters would have put out a lot more damage in concentrated spurts and the party would have felt very threatened. The grindyness is mostly caused by the missing +2 to ATT, which was always my point.

 

[KarinsDad]

No, you're mistaken. No where in the game is there even a hint at this assertion. If I was using a drow priest is the encounter value increased because there are other drow or spiders in it? I changed the monsters to line them up in a synergistic way and make the encounter "themed" but I only had to do this because there are so few monsters at these levels. Changing a creatures type from undead to fire doesn't change it's level or exp pt value. It just increass the pool of monsters from which i could choose. I could just as easily have followed the rules for modifying a creature up or down levels. It's expected monsters will be grouped with other monsters that give it synergies. Hobgoblin phalanx soldier etc.

The monsters with the same theme and similar levels in the monster manual are designed to work together.

The moment you make the Ravager and Ghoul King fire creatures is the moment that the Ash Disciples have more movement and hence more attack options in combat. By definition. That was the very reason you wanted that.

Otherwise, you would not be making a big deal of it.

In order to make it more threatening, you wanted to change the parameters of the encounter to something that is more difficult for the players to handle.

does the term fish in a barrel mean anything to you? Putting a flying creature in a room with a ceiling IS gimping it. This is simply bad encounter design theory on your part.

I didn't once state that there was a low ceiling. That was an assumption on your part. In fact, the creature did fly over PCs multiple times during the encounter.

no you didn't increase the difficulty. If there was an identical creature with the word fire in the place of earth would it be worth more exp? Increasing the selection of monsters available to the DM doesn't change their value. Suggesting it does is ridiculous.

Suggesting that increasing the difficulty with superior tactics and abilities and not increasing XP is ridiculous. A good DM that increases the difficulty by changing the monsters also increases the XP. DMing 101.

There are examples in the DMG for changing XP for extenuating circumstances. There's one on page 31.

But, this is just common sense. DMs have been bumping up XP if they make the encounter more challenging and decreasing the XP if they make it easier for decades in DND. Maybe not by a lot, but following some DMG guidelines rigidly and claiming that the encounter is not more difficult because the XP is being held constant is silly. Do you not slightly decrease the XP for an encounter if you send a group of monsters at the PCs in waves?

In this example, the Ash Disciples could not have used their Burst attack from the best location on the map and caught as many PCs in it if the Ravager had not been a fire creature. It gave them a tactic that they did not have straight up.

 

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

The monsters with the same theme and similar levels in the monster manual are designed to work together.

is there a point here? are you saying it's "illegal or broken" to change a monster to a different type? can I make an aquatic ghoul?

The moment you make the Ravager and Ghoul King fire creatures is the moment that the Ash Disciples have more movement and hence more attack options in combat. By definition. That was the very reason you wanted that.

So? I could have and would have substituted other fire creatures if someone suggested that this was not a viable alternative. You're fabricating an argument out of air. If the MM2 had a fireair ravager with exactly the same effects but relying on fire would it be broken?

Otherwise, you would not be making a big deal of it.

I'm pointing out that you broke the encounter with your terrain and by gimping the most important monster to not have any synergy with the rest of the encounter. You're making a really obtuse argument that making a new monster with exactly the same effects and powers but changing it to be a different "type" is broken. How is this so? If i wanted to make a grey dragon and I took one of the other dragons and changed it's effects to be of some other type possibly "necrotic" instead of "poison" for the green dragon would this be wrong? broken? I don't understand how you can possibly make this argument. Page 175 of the DMG covers this explicitly. Under the heading cosmetic changes.

Use the statistics of a given monster but completely alter its appearance when you describe it to the players. You can make minor changes to its powers as well, altering damage types or changing details of weapons (lashing tentacles become a whipping tail, for example).

This is exactly what I discussed doing.

In order to make it more threatening, you wanted to change the parameters of the encounter to something that is more difficult for the players to handle.

No, I designed the encounter to be challenging, I made suitable changes to a creature that exists rather than make one from scratch to make it fit as "the fire lord". You're grasping at straws trying to make an argument that this was unfair but that's simply not the case. The "firelord" could be released in a future monster supplement and it would be PERFECTLY balanced with the existing monster.

I didn't once state that there was a low ceiling. That was an assumption on your part. In fact, the creature did fly over PCs multiple times during the encounter.

Then your tactics are terrible because there's really no way for them to kill it in 6 rounds unless it's allowing itself to be ganged up on and or letting the melee pc's hit it with encounter and daily powers. Did the cleric and wizard kill it in 6 rounds? Cleric wizard and rogue? It should have moved further away if it was getting pelted that hard. The firelord and archons should have ganged up on the wizard at melee range so he couldn't even make ranged attacks without giving up OA.

Suggesting that increasing the difficulty with superior tactics and abilities and not increasing XP is ridiculous. A good DM that increases the difficulty by changing the monsters also increases the XP. DMing 101.

I don't consider playing the monsters effectively to be "superior tactics" nor do I consider an outside battle in an open space a particularly challenging piece of terrain. I never once suggested adding abilities. You're twisting the equation but unwilling to admit it. A good dm doesn't equate changing an earth elemental to a fire elemental as "changing" the monster with regard to exp point value. The designers clearly stated this was fine.

There are examples in the DMG for changing XP for extenuating circumstances. There's one on page 31.

I didn't see it, can you be more specific? take a look at page 175 while you're at it.

But, this is just common sense. DMs have been bumping up XP if they make the encounter more challenging and decreasing the XP if they make it easier for decades in DND. Maybe not by a lot, but following some DMG guidelines rigidly and claiming that the encounter is not more difficult because the XP is being held constant is silly. Do you not slightly decrease the XP for an encounter if you send a group of monsters at the PCs in waves?

You're making bad analogies. Giving the monsters reasonable terrain to fight in is not making the encounter more challenging. Changing the monsters to all be of one type is NOT MAKING THE ENCOUNTER MORE DIFFICULT it's making the encounter as expected. The encounter makes no sense with one undead and fire creatures who get some of their value from synergies. Would you give full value for a fire archon who was not with other fire creatures? I can remake the encounter with other monsters that are already built without making any changes as you seem to think this is unfair in some way (even though it's clearly not and it's expected as per the DMG). You seem intent on some anal rules lawyering perspective that assumes the monsters will be in an encounter completely randomly with no regard for synergies. This is simply bad encounter design. Are you seriously arguing that using monsters with synergies increases the encounter value? I haven't seen a single encounter where that is factored in. Do you know why? Because the synergies are assumed to be of value in the monsters exp total. Trying to make the encounter not have synergies would decrease it's value but using the monsters abilities to effect is EXPECTED.

In this example, the Ash Disciples could not have used their Burst attack from the best location on the map and caught as many PCs in it if the Ravager had not been a fire creature. It gave them a tactic that they did not have straight up.

Who cares? The ravager could have been an efreet. If the monster as written was a fire creature would it be broken? NO. You're simply arguing to argue because you're incapable of accepting facts that don't fit the result you're seeking. The DMG clearly says that my changes were fine. If we had 50 monsters at each level it would have been easier to make a synergistic encounter, I tried to use tiny creative license that is 100% inline with RAW and now you're harping on the design as being unfair? Want to bet $100 if we sent an email to CS asking if the EXP value changes when the damage types change you'll not get an answer that fits your logic?

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm pointing out that you broke the encounter with your terrain and by gimping the most important monster to not have any synergy with the rest of the encounter.

Repeating this statement multiple times does not make it any more accurate. It's still wrong.

According to your logic here, the Ghoul King is gimped as written in the MM because that's how I used it.

You really should look up the word gimp. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means".

The only thing I seriously gimped here was the PCs, but you are unwilling to accept fact.

Next time, you spend the hours creating the PCs and the hours running the encounter and I will negatively critique your effort.

In the meantime, I will use your suggestion on the flying Ravager because it makes sense.

I will totally ignore your suggestion on the other creatures waiting for the Ghoul King's main power to recharge before attacking, and your suggestion on the Ghoul King teleporting away without attacking anyone to get rid of a mark (attacking the Paladin is more productive than attacking nobody) because both of those suggestions extend the length of a very long combat and make it even more grindy. If that is how you want to play your games, fine. Don't expect anyone else to want that.

If anything, this experiment showed me that the best tactics of the NPCs is to attack as quickly and strongly and effectively as possible, especially at higher levels. Anything else like trying to stay away from the PCs just grinds out the encounter and makes it less fun and less threatening.