Ugh, be careful of what players say, their DM undoubtadly gimped the encounter for them. Played intelligently 10 kobold minions with +5 to hit with ranged attacks doing 4 damage/hit will focus on and drop a level 1 character who doesn't have good AC on round one. The wyrm priest adds potentially over 50 extra HPs the party needs to cut through with it's power, then it's blast or ranged attack does a nice job softening up the party. The shields, played correctly wait for the minions to charge in, then they charge/shift in and between flank and their horde bonus it's a gaurenteed 6+2d6 damage between the two of them even against good AC, added on to the minion's attacks (with charge or flank bonus) and again, another dropped character. Add Irontooh into the mix and it's a gaurenteed TPK for a level 1 party. If the outside monsters get involved as well it's completely impossible unless the kobolds are running around like headless chickens.
I don't think you can say impossible. A fey warlock and a wizard with sphere can remove half the combatants before they move. Just the fey warlock with a little luck can pop off 4-6 minions by himself before they can act. Obviously initiative or surprise are huge here. Sphere as usual at level 1 is an encounter defining power. We play on a piece of software called fantasy grounds that automatically rolls monster initiatives as they're added to the combat it then tracks who is active in the combat tracker so a fey warlock can place his curse on the lowest init minion in a clum of 3 and they all die on their init with no action. The third triggers his curse and he teleports into the other clump assuming at least 1-2 of them has a worse init (you would pick the other clump if they had higher init values)so the warlock can easily pound 4-6 minions with no counter attacks and he still has his 12 temp hit points. The sphere gets 1-2 minions and 2d6+4 attack on the skirmisher, plus another d4+4 on the skirmishers turn. The whole first room can be killed or bloodied by 2 of the pc's. It's very easy to see how this encounter is not that challenging no matter what the DM does if the party has both sphere and armor in it's arsenal. Without the minions (and they have no chance) the skirmishers will likely be all dead by round 3 between the warlock and a rogue unloading with striker powers, a fighter pinning them down a zap cleric adding a little damage here and there and the sphere plowing trough bad guys. The fighter does block up a choke point, all 10 minions are likely dead by round 2, and the party can make short work of the skirmishers while the dragon shields, worm priest and Iron tooth get ready for battle. Iron tooth and a worm priest are pretty formidable foes but a cleric can offset most of the damage these creatures can do and the "automatic damage" of armor of agthys and sphere is just too much for creatures with 30hp's. One landed encounter power and an at will or two coupled with striker bonuses like curse and sneak all piled on top of the automatic damage provided by sphere and armor make these creatures susceptible to being killed in a single round. This all said this is a mighty tough encounter for players who aren't tactical or don't have sphere.
My problems with this were diminished because, even at level 1, two PCs had attacks to deal with minions: the human ranger had Dire Wolverine Strike and the warlord is a dragonborn. So between the two of them, they cleared half of the kobolds outside the waterfall in the first few rounds (and they got a surprise round, to boot). In addition, the ranger's longbow with Twin Strike was essential in downing two minions per round.
The wyrmpriest wasn't as dangerous, because the group's warlock is a tiefling, so his fire attacks barely singed her.
twin strike is not going to down two minions per round most of the time. It's about a 55% chance to hit so you'll only be getting two hits about 28% of the time.
...yeah.....
As soon as I see the phrase "monsters played intelligently", I get a bit skeptical. In games I've seen, that sometimes means "using information the monsters wouldn't have" combined with "thinking out how best to attack the specific PCs in question". Ugg. (I'm saying this as a pretty blood-thirsty DM.)
There's a lot of room between played intelligently and DM meta-game knowledge.
The kobolds started out spread out (again, as shown in the module), and needed to perceive threats in order to react to them, instead of acting as if they knew everything the DM knew.
The sound of clanging swords, screaming wounded, and magical discharges of energy pretty much mean everyone knows right away.
I followed the order of the fight (including waves 2 and 3) exactly. As the PCs used a side entrance rather than the waterfall entrance, there was no time at which all the kobolds could focus missile fire at one PC. (If you look at the set-up, the kobolds are pretty easy to catch in bottle-necks and around corners.)
this is fair.
Wouldn't ever like to think I'd "gimped"? an encounter but my PC's (4) managed this OK. They took it carefully, lots of scouting outside, and as Nail says bottle necks inside, plus fighting retreats (and a flaming sphere) helped. It was touch and go though a few bad rolls would have changed the outcome. I'd also made sure they were 2nd level by running them through the Kobold Hall scenario first before starting on KotS...
2nd level makes a big difference. A cleric with shield of faith can change a lot of hits into misses.
Flaming Sphere is just a super Wizard Daily. We love our wizard for it.
No denying sphere is the cream of 1st level dailies.
Our party made serious use of the waterfall squares to gain defensive benefits and a nice bottleneck.
not sure what this means. If you're outside the waterfall you're going to be firing blind at monsters inside. You're also giving the kobolds time to form one cohesive force and not face this as 2 waves.
And if your kobolds couldn't percieve the threat of the PCs then they were being played like they were gimped. It's 60 feet or so between the furthest of them, free action shout and away you go.
have to agree, there's no hiding the fact you're attacking from the other kobolds. I do think the encounter was designed to give the party a few rounds to take out the minions so even with a warning i would delay the second wave for 2-3 rounds as suggested (call it putting on armor and collecting weapons etc.) This isn't gimping them it's playing them as designed.
No, it is impossible to catch them in bottlenecks a) it's too small, they can cover half the combat area in a single move (IF THEY'RE MOVED INTELLIGENTLY) b) trying to do so puts the party in plain sight of the dragonshields and wyrm priest, c) if the party knows to even try it, then your party is acting on information THEY don't have.
if a fighter gets at the edge of the wall, then kobolds who don't know he's there might try and run around the wall to get in combat and thus suffer OA's. The dragon shields and wyrm priest are "getting ready" or letting their minions handle the light work etc. That is part of the encounter that maybe they're hoping to not have to fight directly or what ever flavor reason you want to give to them.
And this is ridiculous pilled on top of blindingly stupid that the place could be snuck up on in the first place, that the kobolds outside would fight to the death like lemmings and not flee and alert the cave when they see their allies being casually cut down. That the "gaurds" would be standing where they are where they have no line of sight.
sort of the nature of DnD that every encounter in a dungeon doesn't spill into the others based upon noise.
Despite how mind-numbingly retarded the setup is, I played it like it was in the book, even let my party "sneak in" and they got a mininon too. They weren't able to kill the 2nd one though and... oh look, it retreated and... oh look, next round there were 9 kobold minions ready for the party... which was standing in line of sight of the wyrm priest/dragon shields as my party used the same entrance yours did.
The wyrm priest and dragon shield should not be attacking until round 3 regardless or you're changing the encounter. Call it sleeping, call it eating, call it what you will but for 18 seconds the second wave is not ready, this is not gimping, this is encounter as designed.
My PCs where annihilated. I didn't gimp the encounter.
definitely a possibility, it's an N+5 encounter.
BTW, if your party beats this encounter you may as well pack in the module. It's the hardest encounter in the module, a CR6 where most of the rest is CR2, and even the final fight is easier. Just hand your party 2 levels and go on the the next module. Going through the motions of the rest of KotS is just pointless d20 wrist action. If they can beat a CR6 at level 1, the CR2s are a complete waste of time.
I sort of agree. N+1 or less is just a joke to even a reasonably skilled party. The game is a lot more interesting, challenging, exciting if almost every encounter falls in the N+2 to N+4 range.
There is a waterfall at the cave mouth. That's not likely to be quiet. In fact the term "deafening roar" comes to mind.
are you suggesting it drowns out the sounds, noises and visual clues of a battle inside the cave?
This is a general rule with any and all dungeons. Realistically the adventurers should open the front door and be met with the entire content of the dungeon in the first room. It doesn't happen though.
because it's a game. there needs to be a little suspension of disbelief.
The PCs had every advantage, used all their powers and still failed.
Two words. Automatic damage. If the party has some, this encounter gets a lot easier. no automatic damage and it's a very very hard encounter. A dragon born and a wizard can blast a lot of minions on round one even without the autokills but that auto dmg also piles up on worm priests and dragon shields. even without the 2d6+4(or +5 with astral fire) the constant d4+4(or 5) will add up to 70-100 damage in the course of the battle and remove many minions. Beacon of hope is another very strong power for pc's to win this encounter.
They tried sneaking up both times, with the rogue well out in front. Both times, the slinger-dude managed to get to the back of the pack and then fled inside when his minions got wasted. This was pretty much the killer both times because as soon as the inside is alerted, the PCs have no chance. I really can't fathom the PCs winning without a great amount of luck or a totally different party composition. Even then, I refuse to believe that my group's composition is so bad as to warrant complete failure. They certainly didn't choose poorly on actions and they didn't roll any worse, or better, than the bad guys. And, they helped adjudicate the bad guy's actions, sometimes recommending flight and sometimes not (i.e. not always a tactically sound decision).
I fully believe that the only ways for the PCs to win this fight are one or more of the following:
1. Supreme luck
2. Really really really bad decisions on the bad guys, such as always trying to provoke OA
3. Cheating
#1 would work by somehow miraculously killing all the guards outside. I refuse to say that the kobolds would fight to the death with so many allies inside. To kill everyone outside, the heroes have to target the non-minions first. That way, they'll be able to kill the minions on their escape routes. Even then, it's really iffy because the lair is so close, usually just a single turn (shift, double move). No, it's simply impossible.
Kill Irontooth in a couple of rounds? Not possible unless everyone in the party was on top of him. Where were all the other bad guys?
This is simply a bad encounter.
It is a bad encounter but it also is beatable. iron tooth is not going to crush the party singlehandedly so it's about reducing his allies as fast as possible. ray of frost can prevent that last kobold from fleeing.
Both groups I ran this for ended remarkably similarly: No deaths, but only 2 or 3 characters left standing in a 5-person and 6-person group.
First party was dragonborn paladin, human rogue, elf wizard, half-elf cleric, dwarf fighter. Second party was human fighter, tiefling wizard, dwarf paladin, human cleric, elf ranger, halfling rogue. To balance out the 6-person group I added a wyrmpriest and dragonshield.
This is certainly a (In WoW terms) highly-tuned encounter. There is a very real danger that some bad rolls on the players' side and good rolls on the DM's side will turn it into a TPK.
Both parties had just come fresh from town (as it's only a few miles away), and neither used daily powers in the outdoor encounter. Both parties managed to blow away all the minions before any had a chance to flee and warn the lair. The wizards and ranger were instrumental in this.
Both parties snuck in their stealthier members (ranger, rogue, wizard) to gain a surprise round, taking out the two minions near the door and wounding the skirmisher. They formed a line in the entrance cave, with defenders and strikers in front and casters in the rear. AoEs (especially flaming sphere) were devastating. Some of the blasts spilled over into the wyrmrpriest room, so I had them join on round 2 rather than waiting for round 3.
sphere is pretty much the consistent answer to this encounter.
In both cases the minions were gone by the time round 3 hit and Irontooth rolled initiative. The kobolds formed their own line with dragonshields protecting the wyrmrpriest and skirmisher. Irontooth joined the fight with two or three kobolds left standing. Both parties had defenders on Irontooth right away while others continued on kobold mop-up. Once he was bloodied though and his blood-crazed dual axe came into play, everyone was shocked and focused all attention on getting him down fast.
The first party's irontooth died in 2 rounds after becoming bloodied, but the second party's lasted at least five due to some bad rolling by the players.
there's a lot of danger in iron tooth but a little party healing can make it less scary.
All in all a very fun fight, but as a DM you may need to fudge a few rolls if things go too far in your direction.
or let a couple pc's die...
That is only true if the kobolds a) forget they have javelins, and b) don't know the layout of their own home so that they can simply walk around the small wall sections. Perfectly reasonable if you gimp them to having a 1 intelligence.
They can walk around the wall right into the fighters OA as well.
My players aren't children they can enjoy and learn from loss instead of fly into petulant rages and quit playing. Plus they're pretty used to poor quality modules by now.
have to agree, TPK's suck but it's not the end of the world. You're hardly vested in a level one pc and playing might actually make you want a different class or build.
