KotS Total-Party-Kill!!

[Nifft]

No but it is a bit like a political candidate saying "We won the election but only by 2000 votes, my opponent was obviously cheating" A little unsportsmanlike.

Bad analogy -- unless the winner was a 1st level Human PC and his political opponent was a level 6 Elite Succubus.

The level difference would have been the perfect recipe for a TPK in 3.5e.

Cheers, -- N


EDIT: But let me clarify something: your argument ("unsportsmanlike") could be equally well leveled against losers, in which case nobody would be justified in complaining about any fight ever. That's a bad moral framework.

 

[Boregar]

Yeah. We ran it properly. Here's sorta how it went down:

The party succeeded at their perception check and noticed all of the Kobolds outside of the caves. The Rogue, using stealth, moved up and used sneak attack on the single Skirmisher. He rolled a natural 20 and managed to do exactly 27 points of damage with his crit (he must have been using one of his powers). The rest of the party advanced and within a few short rounds, managed to dispatch all of them minions and the dragonshield. Unfortunately, the rogue was not as lucky at dispatching the Kobold Slinger who, seeing how efficiently the party was slaughtering his friends, did what the module said he'd do - fled into the cave and warned the rest. The Slinger can easily get through the waterfall and into the caves in a single turn and didn't even take an opportunity attack from the Rogue because of his Shifty ability.

So the Kobolds inside the cave were aware of the party when they advanced.

Once they got into the caves, the minions died readily and I really thought they'd do okay. But then Irontooth showed up with is pals. One by one, the PCs began to fall.

This is almost exactly the same as what happened with my party. The guy playing the Warlord had picked up the gluepots and sling from the first encounter, and it was only because he was able to imobilise Irontooth with this and then pick him off with ranged attacks that I avoided a complete wipeout. Everyone else had already gone down, and failed their three saves by that point, but I'm going to wave that off and say that one remaining character was able to revive them all, so we can keep going from there.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

So my question is this:

When I run this should I:

1) Take out some minions or otherwise make the encounter easier by reducing number of opponents?
2) Reduce Irontooths stats (eg -1 to all attacks & defenses, -10 hitpoints or something like that)?
3) Have Irontooth and the second wave come in later?
4) Just run it as is and possibly kill everyone?

I'm quite concerned that my players will be quite dismayed if we go through a character generation session only for everyone to die within two sessions...

 

[hong]

Sure, but that was (a) a different era, when you were supposed to have some disposable henchmen, and (b) after the rules for new character generation were available.

OTOH, if you _are_ going to TPK, best to do it in a module with pregen characters and no chargen rules, so people don't get inadvisedly attached to their characters.

 

[Nifft]

OTOH, if you _are_ going to TPK, best to do it in a module with pregen characters and no chargen rules, so people don't get inadvisedly attached to their characters.

True, true. Though the module should come with a grey box explaining how to justify "And this is his identical twin brother Bob 2" in character.

Cheers, -- N

 

[MortalPlague]

I wonder how many of the TPKs on this module are people who didn't short rest between the outside and inside fights?

I've experienced the Irontooth fight twice.

The first time, I was playing the module. I ran the dwarf fighter, and we had an easy time with the kobolds outside, though we did wind up using a few encounter powers. The cleric used his daily, granting a +5 on all his heals for the rest of the encounter. The kobold tried to get away to warn Irontooth, but we stopped him.

Knowing that this Irontooth was just within, we made a tactical decision not to take a short rest so that we'd carry the daily power healing bonus into the fight. This proved to be a mistake. We had a party of six, however, so in the end, my dwarf and the rogue lay on the ground, bleeding, while the others were still up and fighting.

The second time I ran this encounter was as a DM, for my gaming group. We had a group of five, swapping in the warlord in place of the wizard (so far less minion-killing power). The battle was tough (and Irontooth was warned by a fleeing kobold), but the only one to drop was the paladin. It didn't help that Irontooth was unable to hit the broad side of a barn, but still... the fight felt very tough without being overwhelming.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I liked it.

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

My party

My party wiped the floor with this encounter, although it was with some unintended cleverness. The rogue scouted the cave entrances and was spotted by a minion in one of the side entrances. The minions converged, the wizard popped through the waterfall, and dropped scorching burst and burning hands in succession (via action point). With the warlord bonus to AP attacks combined with the human bonus to it, suffice to say he didn't miss. He wiped all but one of the minions off the board.

I had to bring in Irontooth and his gang a round early so they wouldn't be sitting on their hands. The fighter almost died when he was mobbed by the second wave, but the warlord and cleric both healed him. The warlord unleashed his daily on Irontooth and, from that point, everyone could hit him pretty easily. They unleashed so much damage on him that he didn't get an action after he was bloodied. It was pretty impressive.

 

[silentounce]

If you're planning on reducing Irontooth's levels, here's some good info if you're going to run before the books are released: http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080418a

Don't forget to adjust the XP award as well. You may also want to consider just removing a couple of monsters from the fight.

I know that if I'm going to run it with less than five I'll definitely be doing that. It's a sixth level encounter, remember? That's the high end for what a first level party should be able to handle, so if you don't even have a full party.... It seems like quite a few of the TPKs I've read about only had four PCs.

 

[Celebrim]

It sounds like a very hard fight.

I haven't seen the module, but my guess is that you take a fight like this 1st edition style.

a) Don't fight it on the DM's terms. If possible, move the encounter out of the encounter area by luring out the combatants. For example, instead of going into the cave, lay an ambush outside of the cave and kill tribes foraging/hunting parties. Try to get the enemy to bunch up as they come after you, or try to bottle them up inside the cave by defending the entrance in reverse.
b) Don't plan on defeating the encounter in one go. Instead, spend about 3 rounds doing your best attacks (dailies, encounter powers, in 4e terms), and then regardless of how well the fight is going run.
c) Retreat to a predetermined defensible location and rest (long rest in 4e terms). Rinse and repeat.

In 3e you really didn't start seeing this class of hit and run tactic in most groups until higher levels. In 1e, this is what we did from 1st level on. In particular, things like 'Keep on the Borderlands' (the adventure that inspired KotS) simply aren't survivable if you don't do this sort of commando stuff. Virtually all the Gygaxian modules require you to do this sort of thing - the 'G' series, The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth all have fights that will just overwhelm you if you storm off into them.

 

[Goonalan]

TPK to report- the five pregen characters, on the second Kobold Encounter, nobody did anything really badly, I got lucky (DM) when I beat on the Paladin and the Dwarf so badly earlier on that the Priest was almost out of Healing by round 5.

I decided to play the Wyrmpriest as semi-clever, he kept well away from the fight and concentrated on Acid Orbs till he needed to close a little to Incite.

The Dragonshields just plowed into the group, while the Skirmisher stayed hidden and then went after the Rogue.

Eight or so rounds in and the Paladin, Rogue and Fighter are munching dirt.

And they killed the first Dragonshield in two rounds.

Got the Fighter and the Rogue back on their feet through some judicious use of the Healing skill.

They then plowed through every Daily Power and Action Point and Healing Surge they had- which was not that cinematic, desperate, but not that interesting to watch- the word I would use, or more likely, they would use is "frustrating"

Result- Rogue dead (three failed saves)
Paladin stabilised (0) but unconscious.
Fighter on negative Hit Points, and failed two saves so far (out of about nine rolls).

There followed a short, who am I kidding, long (and drawn out) Benny Hill sketch with the Cleric and Wizard trying to keep their distance from a rampaging Wyrmpriest, who had at last unleashed his Dragonbreath.

Game over, and the Dragonpriest had only lost 12 Hit Points at the end- he hadn't been anywhere near the combat throughout.

My players hated it, particularly when it turned into a chess match at the end- "If I go here... hang on (the sound of counting squares on the board), then that'll mean the furthest away he can get still makes him in range of my blah blah blah."
The DM then moves, and for good measure- Shifts one extra space, making him out of range...

A bit of a farce really.

Three of the five have vowed never to play 4e again, a bit precious but I take their point- it's not D&D, at least not the homebrew we've crafted lovingly since 3e woke us all back up to the prospect of idle hours spent eating pizza in pleasant company.

It's a bit tabletop, particularly when you're used to not having a map much of the time- a "is he in range"- the DM shrugs and then nods, has turned into a chorus of people (the artillery- you know who you are Cleric, Wizard and the Rogue hiding behind the sofa) counting squares.

Many people have said it's a tactics based game, your A game- I like the idea, however my players want fun not maths- some of them are really not good at maths, or D&D as it turns out, which is surprising as they have 120+ years of experience between them.

And yes I know if we stick with it then eventually we'll mangle the rules enough to fit in with our own view of the world, it still seems a little... like a game, not a role-playing game, just a game... which I didn't expect.

And so with all the salutory advice from this and other great columns here at ENWorld I go again with 4E, this Sunday- my A game players (DM chuckles- who am I kidding). If they don't like it, and one of the five has already expressed doubts (I've sent them all the character sheets and the rules from the module), then I've spent a lot of money (here in the UK still waiting for my PH, DMs and MM) on nothing- which is not a problem, the module reads well.

Anyway, till Sunday, I expect tears before bed time.

Sorry long post- turned into a rant, sorry again.

Cheers Paul

Please be gentle with me- I so wanted to like this. I generally love all things D&D, you should see my bookshelves and my credit card statements. I've got every module produced (more or less anywhere, including PDFs) since 3e started up- sad, sad I know (and yet proud enough to share)- I read them like novels, there's a stack behind me half as high as I am of ones to read yet, including Dungeon magazines I still haven't got round to opening yet and everything Paizo has produced D&D like since- I hear they're very good, not read one yet. Still summer's nearly here, the teaching stops and the reading starts. Anyway- please don't scold me too much.