How much trouble are my party in?

[Shadowsong666]

Last session, the paladin of our group fell prey to a werewolf's bite and succumbed to the moon frenzy; she's no longer a playable PC (and there's no way of curing her).

For Sunday's session, the Fighter of the group will be absent, so the group will be entering the second level of the Pyramid of Shadows with the following party:

Longtooth Shifter Ranger 8 (two-weapon) -- striker (replacement PC)
Elf Warlock 9 -- striker
Goblin Rogue 8 -- striker (Splug!)
Eladrin Wizard 8 -- controller

The session will be fascinating. The Ranger will have to be the de-facto Defender, I guess, but with 65 HP and an AC of 22, can he do it? Possibly not. Certainly the party will be hitting hard, but so will the monsters!

What do you think?

Cheers!

Well i don't know how your characters are setup individually, but i think thats not a problem at all with the right setup and tactic.

Wizard
I would advice to let the wizard do the controlling and i hope he got thunderwave to do as much controlling of the battlefield as possible (if i would play a wizard, he would have a high wisdom score and should have the equipment to push enemies around 4-5 (even 6-7 sq. are possible) squares with an action easily so that controlling is possible) and helping in getting the enemies get down one by one. If the enemy needs 2 actions to get back into combat range thats good - they spend a round doing nothing. Against ranged combatants - kill them first.

Warlock
If going fey, should be able to handle one enemy alone as long as the enemy is blind all the time he will go down without even being able to do anything at all - hold action first round to get above the enemies initiative is adviced (if you fail to do it on a roll). If he also moves 3+ squares he is also concealed against others.

Rogue & Ranger
the rogue and the ranger should go and play "flank him to death" with one enemy after another. shouldn't be that hard with these classes, right? They both can take a beating and still go on. Thats ok imho.

Healing
The wizard could use thunderwave to clear players of too many enemies. Second wind usage and a some healing potions for everyone look like a good idea. Think about giving one player character a healing sash. Thats a good tool for a ranged character to heal one melee pc so that he doesn't go down.

Thats my short advice. If they don't make it - just adapt.

 

[MerricB]

Quick run-down of what occurred in the session:

[sblock]
The PCs went after the White Dragon first. The fight against the Winter Eladrin was a breeze: the PCs could basically just stay in a doorway and stay off the ice and hit all the Eladrin with their very strong ranged attacks.

Against the White Dragon, they bluffed their way past. Nate's Warlock convinced the dragon that the regular pack of cards they'd stolen from the Eladrin was "The Royal Pack of the Feywild King", and then Splug used his Thievery skill to exchange it for the amethyst splinter whilst Nate continued to distract the dragon. That was very nicely done by the party.

After that, the party started exploring the Far Realm foulspawn. The first encounter (with the demonic mouths) was tough. Without the defenders to lock them down, the foulspawn attacked the wizard and warlock and caused them a lot of grief, and Greg's ranger took a lot of damage against the foulspawn barbarians.

At this point, the wizard and the warlock were out of dailies, but the ranger and Splug (rogue) still had all of theirs. They decided to try one more encounter... the ogre and the gorgon. I hadn't toned this encounter down, and it was brutal. The Ranger (being a two-weapon fighter) ended up in melee with the ogre, and took a lot of damage. To be fair, he probably could have survived the ogre's damage. What he couldn't survive was the poison arrow that he failed 4 saving throws against! Adam was able to give him potions of healing, but the 10 damage just put him unconscious again.[/sblock]

Eventually, the ranger died (third failed death save) and the rest of the party escaped back down to the first level to recover.

Cheers!

 

[Nymrohd]

Ongoing damage: the serial killer of 4E strikes again!