Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1464318" data-attributes="member: 5171">Well, first off, let me say that it doesn't sound like you did anything WRONG per se.  I don't think the encounter was designed to be that hard, by the sound of it.The real problem here is that you only had one person who could actually hurt the PCs, from the sound of it -- your Rage Mage.  Your 5th level warriors were flavor text more than anything else against a party like this, or at least they were in this situation.  Your cleric buffed what turned out to be the losing side for all of, what, two rounds, and he was so far below the level of the PCs that, in this situation, he wouldn't have been a threat anyway.  What level is your party?  I'm guessing 10-12?  This is actually about right for them -- they used some of their big spells, took a little damage, but were never really in trouble.Now, if you had wanted to give them some trouble, here are a few sample things you could have done differently.  These are all just random thoughts:- More environmental problems.  The half-dragon's cold immunity never came into play, and you gave the PCs an enemy stronghold that they could fly into and teleport into without any trouble.  If the PCs had been slogging through waist-high snow that the much lighter kobolds could just run across instead, that would have slowed things down (and given the kobold archers time to do something).  How about light?  The kobolds don't need it.  Not everyone in the party has darkvision, so some good quality natural darkness would have given PCs a penalty on spot checks, granted the kobolds concealment, and forced the PCs to spend time getting light sources up.- More anti-spellcaster tactics.  The kobolds seemed optimized to deliver damage, which is nice, but they got creamed by spellcasters.  Spells that either granted immunity, massive save bonuses, or negation of incoming spells would really have helped.  Also, your kobold ranged guys were never going to be putting a real hurt on people, and they only got one attack per round -- why not have them all ready actions to fire at the first person they see casting a spell?  Sure, they probably won't hit, but hey, even if just one of them does, there's a good chance that it'll disrupt the spell.  My favorite anti-spellcaster tactic is Silence.  Almost no spellcaster is prepared for it the first few times -- either cast Silence on a slingstone and toss it near them (while the other kobolds sling stuff in, making it impossible to know which slingstone is silenced), or cast it on one of the kobold warriors and have him do a suicide run, lasting a few silent but very interesting rounds.  Even if he doesn't hurt the spellcasters much, that's a round or two that they're worried about themselves, not helping the fighter deal with the sorcerer.- Take the fight to the PCs.  In D&D, at least, the advantage is almost always with the attacker -- with the exception of traps, which you didn't have here.  The kobolds could either have attacked first, catching the PCs unbuffed, or had a lair lined with enough traps to cause a world of hurt for the PCs.  Given the powerful spellcasters in the kobold camp, you could even do magical traps.  A magical Dispel Magic trap can be handy, for instance.- Your Rage Mage got involved early, which is good, but it also made him a target -- and once he died, you had the fight basically end.  You really didn't use all your resources, and I'm not even sure you lost -- the cleric and warriors are free.  Sure, they've lost their big guns, but if they're feeling vengeful, they can harry the PCs with attacks for the next little while.  Next time, you might consider having your Big Gun fight from a more defensive position -- either invisible or behind cover, so that he's impossible to get to for the first few rounds.  Anyway, hope this helps.  Really, it sounds like a good fun fight -- they shouldn't all be killers.  If you need more help, you could try the Rat Bastard DM's board -- they almost always have good advice for DMs in need. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification