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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Uller" data-source="post: 6155460" data-attributes="member: 413">I finally managed to listen to the actual game play that resulted in this discussion.  A couple of things:1) I don't think they were really in TPK range.  At no time was the entire party paralyzed and even if they were, the ghouls seemed to be doing only a little damage at a time (it's not like the coup de grace of earlier editions where being paralyzed was nearly a death sentence).  Clearly Mike M was taken aback a bit.  His solution of having one of the two remaining ghouls try to carry away a paralyzed PC was a good one.  If he had run the fight as originally written (8 ghouls and 2 ghasts) clearly it would have been a TPK the way the players' rolls were going.  In fairness the party didn't play it all that well.  Their only spell caster walked into the room first and they weren't using stealth at all.  If the cleric had been 3rd, he'd not have been paralyzed and could have turned undead on his turn.2) However, this is a pretty clear example of something I've been experiencing with my own game with a similar level party (4th).  Fights with multiple lower level monsters are much tougher than expected.  Two recent fights come to mind: 8 lizard men (2 with shield and greatclub and 2 with blowguns) and 2 crocodiles) and another with 6 giant spiders and one spell casting Aranea.  Not a bad thing...just that what I would have expected to be a little tougher than an average fight (around 400xp each for four 4th level PCs) left the PCs with very few resources left after the fight - a lot fewer than I expected so I ended up changing things a bit to give the PCs a chance to have a long rest.  So there probably needs to be an XP bonus associated with multiple monsters.I'm not saying a fix isn't in order for ghouls.  For a low level monster that usually appears in groups of 4 or more to be able to move and get three chances to paralyze every round is a bit much.  But I don't think the fight was going to be a TPK...it shook the players and the DM up which is kinda what a small horde of ghouls should do to 5th level characters when they get the jump on them.  I agree that some level bonus to saves (and DC) is in order...probably not half level but something like 1/3 or 1/4 level should do nicely.  And no more than one save per series of ghoul attacks or allowing only claws to paralyze and bites can only be used against paralyzed foes or some such would be sufficient.</blockquote>

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