I killed a character, twice!

[Aegeri]

No, you didn't target the player in the first death - she got up during combat and apparently did not try to escape but instead tried to continue the battle - big mistake and a good way to get killed.

In fairness and referencing the previous discussion, the choice is stand and die or fall and potentially die. The PC never has a chance to escape or make that decision themselves - each of their turns is lost due to being dominated each time.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Just curious, if it was posted in the thread before, sorry....

Did any of the players do a monster check to see what they
were facing?

Thanks.

 

[Riastlin]

I think the issue here is that different people have different ideas of what constitutes meta-gaming. I suppose, if you want to get really technical about it, you could argue that its pretty much impossible to not metagame. After all, every decision a player makes in combat is going to be based at least in part on their knowledge of the rules. This is why players charge, or why they flank. Sure, you can flavor it as "the character's experience has taught him that . . . " but in the end, the decision is being made because the player knows that he or she will get a bonus to hit if they do.

That being said, a 100 foot fall (in and of itself) is not a nearly impossible fall for a 10th level adventurer to survive. In fact, depending on the character, and what his current health is, it may be impossible to die from the fall. Sure, its likely to kill you and I, but then, we're also minions, not heroes.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Defender marks one or more of the incubi (potentially all of them depending on which defender/items/powers/etc.

Controller stuns/dazes/dominates/etc.

Leader not only has the two standard heals but usually has powers that heal (heck the cleric has at-wills that heal/grant temp hps), can grant extra saving throws (frequently with bonuses), boost ally defenses/attacks, debuff monster defenses/attacks.

Any of these things would have helped immensely in this situation.

What you have done there is lucidly summarize how Defenders, Leaders and Controllers work. Thank you.

However, you didn't actually answer my question. How would those particular abilities help more than the extra damage that Strikers provide in this encounter?

To cite the most relevant example that you might have given, a granted saving throw from a Leader could have helped a Dominated character escape Domination.

But for that to work, the initiative order has to be Incubus (who Dominates) - Leader (who grants the save) - Dominated PC (who makes the save and thus escapes Domination). Aside from the conditionality of this situation -- the power that grants the save may have to hit to be helpful, e.g. Sacred Flame, and the save itself has to be successful -- once the Incubi see the Leader granting extra saves, they have two easy solutions to get things back on track: target the Leader for Domination, and Delay so they go after the Leader.

By contrast, one could make the argument that all of those Strikers could have knocked off a few of the Incubi quickly so that there were fewer Dominates being thrown around. How do you conclusively argue that the inclusion of a Leader would have turned things around?

I have no quarrel with the concept of a balanced party in general being a good idea. My point is simply that there is nothing in the description by the OP to clearly indicate that THIS was an encounter where a balanced party would have made a huge difference.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

BTW, I'm intrigued by this notion that falling = escape in this encounter. The enemies are Incubi, who can fly down to pursue the badly injured party quite easily. They are intelligent creatures known for malice and cruelty -- why would they not pursue? Even the argument that they would stay with the nest they are protecting doesn't really hold water, as the escaping party constitutes a known threat that is likely to come back for vengeance -- it makes more sense to finish them off once and for all rather than let them come back with reinforcements.

 

[Ryujin]

To put it in terms of the creatures involved I have to ask: What Incubus would throw away a perfectly good female of ANY species, once the rest of the party had been turfed?

 

[Riastlin]

Actually, the initiative order (with respect to the saves) doesn't really matter because the leader can delay/ready an action so as to set it up. Particularly since most of the leader granted saves occur as part of the leader's action, not the ally's.

As for your question, first you said how would it help. Well first off, marks focus the fire toward the defender thereby reducing the likelihood that the other characters are dominated. Not being dominated makes the encounter at least a little bit easier I would wager. The leader buffs the defender's defense, or debuffs the incubi's attacks. This makes it less likely that the incubi hit and thus, less likely that an ally (or the leader) becomes dominated. Heck a bard at that level could even prevent one of the recharges and allow the recovery of an expended encounter power. Again, I'm guessing that not being dominated likely would make the encounter easier. The controller then puts status effects on the incubi, maybe a daze, or a stun, etc. The reduces the effectiveness of the incubi, making them a) easier to hit and/or b) less effective at hitting the party. Strikers on the other hand are really good at dealing damage but not necessarily at making it easier to attack or defend.

You are right of course that we cannot say conclusively one way or another that a different party would have survived. After all, a 15th level balanced party could have conceiveably rolled all 1s, in which case it would not have mattered. This is the nature of RPGs. However, having more options available to the party would quite likely have made it easier for them to get through the encounter. The problem here was not only that the incubi could dominate, but that they were able to dominate everyone. This is, in part, do to the make up of the party.

As for falling as an escape mechanism, I don't have the entry in front of me (work firewall blocks the compendium ), but I seem to recall that incubi fly relatively slowly. At the very least though, its going to take them two rounds to get to the ground (20 squares), by which time the party could be up and running away. I agree with you that it would not have been obvious to the PC that the incubi would not have pursued -- though there certainly seems to be good evidence to suggest this since only one PC died. However, the point is, there was no real reason to expect that the PC could survive atop the tower (though maybe, there was hope that they would capture and torture her mercilessly). OTOH, falling at least provided a chance of survival (not a great one necessarily, but a chance all the same).

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Riastlin: Reasonable answers on the "how". I just don't think it's a given that it would have been enough to have a diverse party. I have seen plenty of diverse parties fail hideously in the exact sorts of situations that they are designed to shine in.

I agree with you that it would not have been obvious to the PC that the incubi would not have pursued -- though there certainly seems to be good evidence to suggest this since only one PC died.

Knowledge of what happened after the battle could not inform the decisions of the combatants during the battle.

I suppose a heroic character might choose to fail the save, but I'm inclined to think that the instinctive fearing of falling would prevent it for most. I would certainly not want to penalize a player for thinking that staying on top was the best choice. I have never liked the "All you had to do to survive was pull the levers in the right order" kind of DM logic, especially when at the same time many DMs push players to take their turns as quickly as possible.

 

[Riastlin]

Riastlin: Reasonable answers on the "how". I just don't think it's a given that it would have been enough to have a diverse party. I have seen plenty of diverse parties fail hideously in the exact sorts of situations that they are designed to shine in.

I agree. As I stated earlier, I think the encounter was flawed in its design (if nothing else, the terrain should have been factored into the budget as well, but the 5 dominators were the real problem). My point was merely that it would likely have helped, though clearly there is no guarantee a balanced party would have survived. My apologies if I had implied otherwise.

Knowledge of what happened after the battle could not inform the decisions of the combatants during the battle.

Absolutely true. Again my apologies for not clearly stating otherwise. I still think though that even not knowing whether or not the incubi would pursue, the choice comes down to "Stay on the ledge and definitely lose (i.e. die/capture) or drop and maybe (though certainly not definitely) win." As previously stated, there was good reason to believe the fall in and of itself would not automatically be lethal.

I suppose a heroic character might choose to fail the save, but I'm inclined to think that the instinctive fearing of falling would prevent it for most. I would certainly not want to penalize a player for thinking that staying on top was the best choice. I have never liked the "All you had to do to survive was pull the levers in the right order" kind of DM logic, especially when at the same time many DMs push players to take their turns as quickly as possible.

Again, I agree that the encounter should not have been designed such that the only real option for the PCs was to make a 100 ft fall. Nor, should DMs set up complex puzzles that must be solved exactly right in order to allow survival, etc. I'm a big supporter of the Three Clue Rule (i.e. for every piece of information the party needs there are at least 3 clues leading to it).

The point I'm trying to make is that a) I do not believe the DM intentionally set up this situation where the players needed to make the 100 ft fall to survive -- rather I think the DM made a mistake. I've merely been trying to point out what the player could have done once that mistake was made. There's no doubt that the odds were definitely stacked against the PCs in this encounter; however, different decisions could have salvaged the situation is all I'm trying to save. I still contend that while a balanced party would not have guaranteed success (in fact it never does) a party of all strikers is really a tpk waiting to happen. That's just my opinion of course.

 

[karolusb]

The first 4E game I ever ran ended with a party wipe on an encounter that I had considered irrelevant to the game. The encounter design was bad, the players used the worst tactics I could imagine for the scenario, luck was totally against them, and worst of all I was inflexible.

1: Player expectations. If you are gonna focus fire unconscious people to death you need to be up front about that. "But she regenerated" is a weak argument, if the party had a healer (who can also stand people back up) would that mean anytime someone went down the monsters would focus fire them to death? (As a player I ignore regenerators, they are rarely worth the effort it takes to kill them before their non-regenerating allies).

2: Encounter design. Has been beat to death (much like your party)

3: Play style. Exclusive of a skill challenge how avoidable was this encounter? Could the players just walk away? Did they know that? Does you game include challenges that people expect to run away from? 4E is presented as a fairly linear game, with balanced challenges, we don't all play that way, but a lot of players expect it.

4: Inflexibility. At some point, pretty early on, you figured out you had screwed up. This isn't just about fudging die rolls, it's about deciding that dominate (recharge 4+) is actually dominate (encounter). It's about deciding that making your falling save means you fell a short distance and landed on a ledge instead of you don't fall. It's about deciding that Incubus are corruptors rather than destroyers, and that they would sell your companion back for a sinister price rather than toss her off a cliff.

4a: Choices. Was she ever presented a choice that would have led to survival? The problem with dominate is that it takes away choices. Leaving only random chance, but random chance actually worked in reverse (every time she succeeded at a roll her odds of surviving went down).

So yeah kill people sometimes. Especially do it in climactic battles. But I doubt anyone enjoyed that latter encounter, it isn't dying after a heroic struggle, its pointless story irrelevant death by GM fiat. I would feel pretty miffed as the person who made 5 consecutive save or die checks to be have it declared a ground rules kill.

I still regret ending my first campaign that way, TPK on a lame throwaway encounter. Had they died facing the master villain at least it would have been a worthy death.

You didn't TPK, with luck you learn from it, as do your players. (Ideally though your players will think you didn't learn from it, that way they will think you are still a jerk and they survive because they are awesome )