Forked Thread: So, about Expertise...

[AngryPurpleCyclops]

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

I designed the encounter. You changed it and made it weaker. This is the definition of gimped.

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

This is the epitome of a straw man argument. I said the encounter was gimped not the creature. putting a fire archon with ice creatures gimps the encounter by decreasing synergies. the encounter was designed to use monster synergies and you'll twist and try and wordsmith your way out admitting that you modified it to the monsters large detriment.

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

Now you're once again being smug and condescending even though you're unable to EVER admit that you're mistaken. You REGULARLY avoid responding to the points that prove you're 100% wrong and a little ridiculous. Did you read page 175 of the DMG? Do you now agree that it is fully part of the game to modify a monsters type, description, etc without changing it's exp value?

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

No, you're just being obtuse and trying to deflect away from the facts as they are. The encounter was designed around challenging the party via monsters with synergies. This is very common in 4e. You've made ludicrous assertions that monster synergies make the encounters higher exp value yet fail to respond to the points about phalanx soldier and flame step being ALREADY factored into the exp value of a creature. I'm the one that designed the encounter, you used a watered down version and then try to argue that's how it should have been built. The point was to see if epic is too easy... why would you water down the encounter and thus make it more easy unless you're not really interested in challenging pc's just interested in arguing senselessly.

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

I will. You can. Don't be so sensitive, I just pointed out the facts. If you weren't married to your position on every thread you wouldn't be so defensive. You can't argue with the fact that my design was fair and reasonable and you can't argue with the fact that you made it weaker both in design and in tactics. Seriously, if you always under play your monsters abilities of course epic will be too easy but this is just a byproduct of ineffective dm'ing, not a broken game.

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

Thanks.

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.

I didn't suggest totally waiting without ever attacking nor did I suggest the ghoul king always flee but if you think attacking the paladin only to be the victim of 4 attacks with CA the next round is "more productive" for the monsters, I feel you're mistaken. The monsters should chose their spots to confront the party on rapidly shifting fronts where the monsters can maximize attacks and the pc's can't.

I think this combat would take under 3 hours with experienced players. Some groups impose a 60 second rule on pc's when choosing actions. Even if you have some slippage on the time constraint some players and monsters will act in 30 seconds and a round should be over in under 10 minutes with 10 combatants. 6 rounds an hour at worst. I'm going to build an encounter and play it with people via fantasy grounds. I think the software takes notes from the chat log so if the players always type in in the targets we should be able to have a roughly readable log.

If that is how you want to play your games, fine. Don't expect anyone else to want that.

No you're trying to trade positions with me? LOL. I have always been suggesting that epic was not too easy and that the "grind" was caused by the missing +2 on ATT. Now you're saying that playing the monsters intelligently will cause too much grind so it's better to play them stupidly and let epic be too easy? What actually is your position? Is epic too easy or too grindy? Both? What would fix these things? is the +1 per tier math still wrong? you seem to be shifting from your initial positions.

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.

less fun perhaps but I assure you if the ravager lives for 15 rounds and the archons gang up with 4 attacks on a single pc in a round at times it will not be less threatening.

 

[KarinsDad]

I designed the encounter. You changed it and made it weaker. This is the definition of gimped.

If I had changed it to a Fire Lord, yes the Ash Disciples could have teleported near it. It wouldn't have changed much. The Ghoul King often hit on a 4. It really doesn't need an Ash Disciple to teleport in and give it flank. The Ash Disciples already teleported to flank positions anytime they wanted to use Flaming Fist or to a central position when they wanted to do an area effect. In the early rounds when the fire creatures were still alive, the GK with a move of 8 and its own teleport could pretty much be in the thick of it and get all the flank it wanted.

On the other hand, the Rogue would have been safer in such a situation. His cloak would have stopped the Ghoul King Fire Lord's ongoing damage and would have seriously minimized the Fire Lord's attack damage. And the Paladin and Cleric would have had to healed him less often, which would have resulted in more healing for the rest of the group.

The only disadvantage to the party is the 50 less points of bonus radiant damage due to its vulnerability (I went back and added it up) that they would not have done to the Fire Lord. They hit it 5 times for radiant damage total including the Paladin's mark. Not doing that would have extended the combat. No doubt.

But compared to the amount I gimped the PCs, this is extremely minor.

So quite frankly, I think that your contention that I gimped the encounter in favor of the monsters is totally nonsensical. The encounter would have in reality been about the same for the monsters using a Fire Lord since the Rogue would have been much harder to take down and would have used fewer party resources, but the party had fewer cold attacks than they had radiant attacks.

You might have some fantasy "teleporting creatures" model in your head about how such an encounter would be thrilling to the players, but the grindiness of a long encounter (that you would have made longer based on the two run away tactics that you talked about) does not support that contention either.

Go ahead and take these exact same PCs and run the encounter your way with your players. I seriously doubt that it will be a short combat and I also seriously doubt that the players will feel threatened.

I've already done the hard work and put together the PCs. See what happens. Put some effort in to support your POV instead of being an armchair quarterback.

Now you're once again being smug and condescending even though you're unable to EVER admit that you're mistaken.

Ever? I freely admited that your tactic for the Ravager is better than what I used.

Yup, I'm wrong a lot. It just happens that I am not wrong about this. Your encounter was not thrilling, not threatening, not a challenge. It was grindy, nothing more. It was fun for the player until the second half, but it was just a grind fest after that.

Changing it to a Fire Lord would have still resulted in a grindy encounter after the other four bit the dust.

The moral of this story is to NOT throw much higher level Elite foes at PCs because it just grinds the encounter to a halt. It's much better to have many slightly more powerful foes than one BBEG that is too overwhelming with to hit and defenses, especially at higher levels (due to the math problem).

And this POV is supported by page 57 of the DMG which states that even if a creature is within the XP budget of the PCs, it shouldn't be used if it is too hard to hit and/or hits the PCs too easily. You ignored this suggestion when you used the other DMG guidelines to put together your encounter.