Is my DM setting us up for failure? [Minor Spoilers for Demon Queen's Enclave]

[wayne62682]

So last night we had a fight that was an EL 17 encounter: two ghouls of some kind, two Bodak Reavers, and a Cambion Hellfire Magus, on a bridge of spiderwebs that, if we didn't move constantly, we would get poison damage. Although we won this fight seemed to be insanely difficult (and our DM was forgetting the Bodak's aura and wasn't using death gaze following a melee attack which weakened us to auto-kill people).

I asked him what the EL for it was, since we just hit 14th level, and he made a comment that all the rest of the encounters in Demon Queen's Enclave are of that level or possibly higher. This seems ridiculously tough for 14th level characters.

I once had a debate with him where he basically said that the adventure is scaled for 13th-17th level characters (or some range like that; we started it at 13th I believe) so he doesn't have to scale anything down. But if all the remaining fights are like this one, I wonder if he screwed something up and if we should be higher level. The Encounter Builder states that an EL 17 encounter is "hard", but as I recall there should only be a few hard level encounters, and most should be standard, and we've already had a few hard fights. Now, I have no idea how many encounters are left but IMO something is wrong somewhere if everything else we fight is 3 or more levels above us as far as EL is concerned. I think if it wasn't for the DM being absentminded and not really coordinating monsters, this encounter would have been an easy TPK.

Can anyone confirm or deny my fears that we're in over our heads and we should either A) be a higher level than we currently are (we just hit 14th two weeks ago), or B) the DM is throwing too hard fights at us and should be modifying them a little, or C) I'm worrying about nothing major and should just go with the flow?

 

[ExploderWizard]

A- Did you survive? check
B-Was there doubt about A? check
C- Was the encounter fun to play? ..................Bueller.

If the answer to C is check, just move on and hope that more encounters are like this one.

I don't understand the obsession as player of worrying about what things I think we are "supposed" to fighting. Take challenges as they come. If a struggle looks too difficult then maybe pull back, evaluate, and find a solution.

 

[Jack99]

Okay, took a quick look at the adventure, its been a long time since I read it, but..

Demon Queen's Enclave is 14-17, not 13-17. If you are 14 atm, you are too low. You should be 16 IMO (15 might work too, with a good deal of resting). Every single fight you have left is EL17 or EL18, except for the final battle which will be EL21.

I do not know if your DM is setting you up for anything, but things might be getting a tad rough soon...

 

[wayne62682]

We only just hit 14th level about three fights ago (it was against some armored undead drow, as I recall). So that's what I'm afraid of.. the DM thinks that it's like the old 1st edition adventures that were "for a party of 14th - 17th level characters" and that we should be fine since we fall within that range. Even if we hit 15th before that final battle (I don't know how many fights we have left; we're just about to enter Deadhold) it will be 6 levels higher than us which is way too hard. I'm 99% certain that we won't be at level 17 before that last fight.

I thought something was up because the creatures were having a ridiculously easy time hitting our defense. For instance, I have the highest AC of the party at 29, and I think I got missed maybe once; going from memory I think the creatures needed like a 7 or 8 to hit me.

 

[LostSoul]

You might have to start using a lot of divination rituals to prepare for future battles. Also, see if you can manipulate things so that you don't have to fight the whole encounter at once. Turning enemies against each other, steath assaults, guerilla tactics, diplomacy and trickery, etc.

See if you can pull it off; no guts, no glory, eh?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Mention this concern to the DM. Maybe he'll remove a few creatures from fights, or drop their stats slightly.

 

[wayne62682]

Mention this concern to the DM. Maybe he'll remove a few creatures from fights, or drop their stats slightly.

This isn't the first time I've voiced these concerns to him, and he just says how no, we're fine - the adventure says it's for 14th-17th level characters (and ignores my pointing out that this is not the case). In fact as I stated in a previous thread my girlfriend recently joined as our 5th party member, and prior to that he was running combats meant for 5 PCs with only 4, and still dividing our XP by 5. When I pointed this out he basically just said that he's allowed to give whatever XP he wants since he's the DM.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

In my experience tactically astute parties punch above the weight given in the DMG guidlines. I have run Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth with 4 PCs and not (aside from the initial encouters) adjusted the encounters and the party has coped pretty well.

Now it seems your DM does not run the monsters to their potential so you can do even better than that.

From you post, it does not appear that anyone died, has there been many PC kills in the campaign so far?
If the answer is none then you should manage. Remember to gain as much knowledge before the encounter that you can and be prepared to run if things go wrong and keep some alchemical and mundane items to slow pursuit when you decide to withdraw.

If you are not being slaughtered in every encounter and the players are having fun then the EL guidelines are irrelavent.
If you are not having fun but everyone else is then perhaps that is not the group for you.

 

[Derulbaskul]

This sounds like one of those threads where the question becomes something like, "Has your DM broken the social contract?" It also sounds like he's not fully across the rules. So, is he your friend? Are you having fun? The answers to those questions really determine what you do next.

 

[Shroomy]

It sounds to me like your DM doesn't understand how encounter scaling works or how the adventure is supposed to be structured. He definitely put you behind the curve by dividing XP for a four person party by five. If he doesn't rectify the situation by allowing you to level up to where you should be or by scaling the encounters appropriately, at the very least you're likely to run into endless grind. At the worst, everything is going to end in a TPK.