Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5228186" data-attributes="member: 78116">My encounters this weekend, but before beginning I must say the MM3 and the changes to monster design have really changed my game. I've gone from 2 encounters in four hours to running four encounters in four hours. I'm immensely happy with the new math behind monsters (especially their damage) and the general improvements to their powers.In any event here are the encounters I ran and ELs, my party is level 28 and then level 29 after the first encounter.Consists of: Sorcerer, Wizard, Fighter, Barbarian and Cleric.They are currently defending the deck and controls of a huge elemental warship that they are flying straight into the BBEGs swirling fortress of doom to penetrate it.First Encounter: EL 28 solo Balor of my own semi-construction (part Wizards and part my own). Used the new maths for damage and attack bonuses.Was a resounding success. It was an immensely short fight, only 4 rounds but was obscenely violent. My houserule that lets solos save against "end of next turn effects", the better accuracy and huge damage meant for a very short, violent but exciting fight. One of my favourite solo fights and was completely even level with the party! No huge 2 hour grind of almost missing with the solo "scratching" the PCs for a pitiful 18 damage a hit.Couldn't have been happier.Next encounter with the party at level 29; EL 29 encounter.2 Fire Archon Blazeswords (level 28 solider)2 Oil archons (Level 28 brute)6 Fire Archon Flamebows (Level 28 minion)1 Iron Archon (Level 28 skirmisher)This encounter didn't go so well, due to the PCs having legions hold (close burst 20 stun power if you've never seen it before). None the less the archons got some good hits in and were able to abuse the party quite a bit before dying, but overall got very unlucky (some very good dice rolls went against them so they didn't get to move that much).Next encounter was around EL 30 (So EL +1).Klurichir (level 28 soldier)Swordtail Vrock (level 29 Skirmisher)Herald of Colorless Fire (Level 28 skirmisher)Godslayer Inferno (Level 28 artillery)Chosen of Pazuzu (Level 29 artillery/controller - sort of does both)Six shards of uralinda.This battle was interesting because it was their first chosen. He's based on the demonomicon entry with the alternative powers that followers of Pazuzu have. His main thing is "Seed of Discord" which forces a PC to use their highest level encounter power against their allies (power "borrowed" from the Astral Kraken). The Barbarian has Hurricane of Blades (can you see where this is about to go by chance?). The Cleric at one point used his phalanx leader power, which allowed the Barbarian to teleport adjacent to him. The chosen went and in a very tense four attacks, the Cleric had to suffer his own allies Hurricane of Blades! 111 damage later, the Cleric managed to get away with it, but he was soon mobbed by the Godslayer inferno and the herald of colorless fire.The Klurichir didn't get to do that much overall, as he was a bit far from the action in the end. He did take a big chunk out of the fighter and prevented him from healing during the entire fight, so was overall a success. The Swordtail Vrock flew about clawing at the PCs as well and generally being a pain.None the less they progressed through that combat in 5 rounds and with plenty of time to spare. Sadly the soccer drew the defender away from the game - which slowed down this encounter and the next one quite a lot (PCs playing other peoples characters often slows the game up massively sadly).This battle took roughly an hour (that is with a PC missing!) and it was appropriately challenging. Epic tier fights before have been walkovers with the PCs barely noticing, so I am very impressed thus far.The final encounter was EL 21 (EL +2) and consisted of:1 Swordtail Vrock (Level 29 Skirmisher)1 Marilith Ward Keeper (level 29 controller)1 Molydeus (Level 29 something, I think he's a soldier)6 Goristo Eviscerators (Level 28 minion)1 Bonegouge Assassin (level 28 lurker)1 Herald of Colorless Fire (Level 28 skirmisher)This encounter has been interesting because the Marilith got a huge chunk out of the Barbarian straight away and the fighter. The PCs have got things back a lot by the wizard using Legions Hold twice (Close burst 20 stuns on hit, dazes on a miss - both save ends. Obscenely good actually). The bonegouge assassin hasn't had a single turn and neither has the herald of colorless fire - which is kind of annoying (really, legions hold is incredibly brutal when someone can do it three times in one encounter).Thankfully the demonic generals have been showing the chaff how things are done. The molydeus has been on a pure rampage of destruction against the cleric, mauling him with its two turns of attacks and an opportunity attack when the cleric tried to leave (Due to his ability to autosave stun/daze effects he's not been bothered by legions hold). The Marilith as I mentioned took huge chunks out of both the barbarian and the fighter - though will be dying on her next turn unless she gets a bit lucky somewhere. We've left the combat at around round 4 and it will probably end on round 5/6. Then I've got the final encounter of that ship to do, an antagonist from the PCs past is going to show up to try thwarting their attempt at getting to the genuine BBEG. Should be quite dramatic, as the Balor they killed in the first encounter? He's not gone yet, he's going to form into a sneaky cacodaemon and try to posses one of the PCs during that fight - making it especially tricky. It's also the highest EL I've tried since the release of the MM3: EL + 4. Let's see if it will be truly as epic as I hope!We had to stop before finishing because another player left and it was the end of the session anyway. But it won't take long to resolve at the start of next session.Overall I am a very happy DM. Epic tier is much more reasonable and playable with the new MM3 maths than it was before.</blockquote>

Verification