kigmatzomat
Legend
Gotterdammerung said:The party had 6 players
They fought the invisible blade, fist of hextor, and spellsword, a cleric7/sorceror3 and a fighter/monk/Weapon Master ... this worked out to be an EL15 battle. (3 CR10 opponents = 13, plus one CR11 opponent = 14 plus one CR12 opponent = 15)
I see an average party level of 10.33 and a size adjusted equivalent party level of 12. You then threw a CR15 at them, not counting ambush modifiers.
Or more directly, you threw 5 ~10th NPCs at 6 ~10th PCs where the NPCs had the advantage and you are surprised your PCs suffered so?
The dice may have favored the Blade and been mean to the Spellsword and WMaster, but it was not an unpredictable result. Without anything special, you'd expect each character to have, at best a 50/50% chance of survival. Less since the players are generally weaker and as they die off the NPCs get to team up.