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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WalterKovacs" data-source="post: 4488026" data-attributes="member: 63763">It was not only a "hardest" encounter for them to go up against, there were a combination of factors to make it more difficult. The monsters starting the encounter swarming them put the characters [especially those without melee/close attacks] at a significant disadvantage]. That ups the difficulty of the encounter. In general, opening doors in combat is a big no-no. One of my players learned that the hard way, as he brought a solo into a fight with an elite, after the party had already used up some encounter powers on minions because the elite waits to show up until a few rounds into the fight. One way for the fight to have been a bit more possible for the players to fight would be for some of the monsters to come in later, perhaps the Wraiths hanging back for a turn or two.  Still though ... the players definitely missed out on the obvious benefits of trying to toss the skele's down the well. There are few powers at 2nd level that can dish out damage comparable to 5d10. [Speaking of which, a 50 ft well, at 2nd level, is also highly unusual ... as it can easily kill any of the PCs on a decent damage roll, not to mention it would take an extremely long time to climb out even under optimal conditions.] It was a mix of an encounter that was obviously more than they could handle when they weren't at full strength, made harder by terrain [the 50 ft well] and the monsters instantly being next to them at the start of the encounter [the infamous TPK situation with Iron Tooth is high level relative to the PCs, but is broken into waves to make it easier], some sub optimal choices from a player construction stand-point [having the fighter have a shield would have let him get a higher AC/reflex AND the ability to push monsters around while he damages them and the ranger not using twin strike to deal out better average damage than careful shot] and on top of that, some sub-optimal choices by the players during play [including forgetting the part about immobilization from turn undead]. All of that adds up to TPK. If they had the two weapon ranger from the start, they would have had 2 strong characters, which would have at least meant 2 people able to push somewhere around 50% to 55% of the time. So, a full party and some different tactics would have turned the problematic terrain into something they could use to make things a bit easier. EDIT: Having looked at the character sheets ... the archer ranger just seems quite odd ... I believe those stats are spread way too thin ... and why a magic sword but no magic bow?</blockquote>

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