Is this fair?

[werk]

Depending on equipment, I would say that the party is much higher powered than the baddies. Your real issue here is the insta-death assassin attack, without that the NPCs are really no match unless the party gets horrible rolls or the bad guys do something wickedly tricky.

If you are dead set on leaving the Death Attack in, then it may kill someone, otherwise take it out. I'd take it out or make them botch.

If you play your bad guys stupid enough the party can survive anything.

 

[Darkness]

Basic evaluation: Leave the death attack in - or at most turn one of the assassins into a Rog or Rog/Ftr of the same level.

More detailed thoughts:

Human Ftr7
Human Rog5/Asn1
Half-Elf Rog5/Asn1
Elf Sor6
Doppleganger Rog3
Phase Spider CR5

CR 7, 6,6,6,6,5
I'd call that EL 11. Before circumstancial adjustments.

Warforged Wiz1/Ftr5/Urban Ranger1/Devoted Defender1
Warforged Rog4/Psion3/Extreme Explorer1
Human Clr8
Human Wiz7/Human Paragon1
Shifter Urban Ranger6/Master Inquisitve2

8,8,8,8,8
That's about a 9th-level party (of 4). They also have action points. Do they have stats higher than, say, 28-30-point point-buy?

If the death attack fails, this shouldn't be very hard - the PCs are quite a bit stronger than their enemies.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Maybe it's just me, but when I look at the party's makeup, I don't see "Combat Beasts" written there (especially with levels in Extreme Explorer on a Rog / Caster m/c, and Master Inquisitive).

Especially given the fact that, other than the Warforged, no one's going to be in armor (do Urban Rangers get the ability to sleep in armor?), and no one will have any spells working.

An EL 11 encounter (assuming Darkness is accurate above) is going to be more than moderately challenging for an APL 9 party assuming they're more or less ready to run into it.

With all but two members of the party asleep and unarmored, you are talking about something far, far from "more or less ready."

If you run these enemies with anything even remotely approaching intelligence, you will easily kill at least one party member, if not more.

EDIT:

Hell, the Phase Spider alone will probably kill one person - and probably the wizard, who'll be asleep when, in the opening salvo, it materializes from the ethereal right next to him and applies a CDG with it's bite and:

Bite +7 melee (1d6+4 plus poison)

Poison (Ex): Injury, Fortitude DC 17, initial and secondary damage 1d8 Con. The save DC is Constitution-based.

How many wizards do you know - especially at 7th-level, who can make an, on average, DC 25 Fort save?

 

[reveal]

That's about a 9th-level party (of 4). They also have action points. Do they have stats higher than, say, 28-30-point point-buy?

32-point buy

 

[reveal]

Maybe it's just me, but when I look at the party's makeup, I don't see "Combat Beasts" written there (especially with levels in Extreme Explorer on a Rog / Caster m/c, and Master Inquisitive).

Especially given the fact that, other than the Warforged, no one's going to be in armor (do Urban Rangers get the ability to sleep in armor?), and no one will have any spells working.

An EL 11 encounter (assuming Darkness is accurate above) is going to be more than moderately challenging for an APL 9 party assuming they're more or less ready to run into it.

With all but two members of the party asleep and unarmored, you are talking about something far, far from "more or less ready."

If you run these enemies with anything even remotely approaching intelligence, you will easily kill at least one party member, if not more.

The plan is for the bad guys, except for the assassins, to be at 60 feet away before combat starts. The Assassins will strike and try to kill the main Warforged first. The Fort DCs for each Death Attacks is 14 and 15. The Warforged in question has a Fort mod of +11. Plus he has Action Points. The chances of him actually dying are very, very slim. Once that happens, combat will start and everyone will wake up (assuming everyone can make a Listen check of -5 ).

Both warforged will have armor on, the wizard doesn't wear armor, the shifter wears light armor and has endurance so he always sleeps in it and the cleric has plate mail but has a bunch of spells, including plant growth and entangle (we'll be in a forest setting), so she should be ok.

 

[Darkness]

Yeah. Like I said, 11 before modifying it for circumstances. I should have reinforced that point more; I meant to say they aren't that bad by themselves (considering the power of Eberron PCs, depending on stats). Sorry - got distracted by something in the real world, and forgot to really finish the previous post.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

So, let's assume the Warforged standing guard botches his roll against one of the two Death Attacks (after all, it *is* a possibility).

What happens to the rest of the party?

Also, keep in mind that the DC for hearing combat nearby is -10 - and if the assassin's strike appropriately, the warforged will be dead before he can yell out. So there's instead a non-zero chance that you'll be rolling against a much higher DC: the DC of a warforged being slowly and quietly lowered to the ground after being instantly slain. Add in the -10 check penalty for being asleep, and you have a non-zero chance that *someone* will be sleeping through the first couple rounds of combat.

Again, all I want to point out to you is the distinct possiblity that one or more of the PCs will end this battle in a body bag - with the possibility that they'll end up there without even rolling any dice of their own. It's far from the "easy PC victory" some of the other posters are making it out to be.

 

[the Jester]

Sounds to me like a challenging, fun and fair encounter.

 

[gnomebarbarian]

I'd say the EL is higher then 11 due to the conditions.. more like 12 and a little high for the party. If you took out the phase spider it would be more to there match. Also, not that it couldn't happen, but how do they get the phase spider, a creature of the etheral plane, to co-op with them so good to go tracking/hunting down this party?

The phase spider would be a good encounter by itself at night... or a a few of them together better yet. that would make them soil there armor I'm sure. Just have it phase in to attack the guard on duty the same round that a few more phase in to attack the rest of the group. It is a move equivlent action to use the ability and would give the lookout the chance to make noise so the rest of the group could wake up and not have to all suffer from the coup de grac attacks.

Have the assaisns attack the first night and phase spiders the night after that and your group will be parinod about going to sleep for weeks ::insert evil DM laugh:: then whenever they sleep you can just make those "random encounter rolls" several times behind your screen while giving the party the evil eye of DM doom and you got yourself some great atmosphere going on. Turns going to sleep into fun.

then give it a rest for a game session or 3 before they get attacked again at night so they start letting the guard down and throw another group of hired killers at them. You will have a great side adventure after that with them trying to find out who is trying so hard to off them. they will probaly forget about whatever quest you actualy had them on in the first place.

 

[Andor]

Out of curiosity, how did they hire a Phase Spider?