KotS Total-Party-Kill!!

[Plane Sailing]

We played the Irontooth encounter last night and almost died. The Rogue and the Cleric were still up when Irontooth fell, then the Wyrmpriest took down the Cleric, and the Rogue and Wyrmpriest played tag for a few rounds while the rest of us started rolling death saves. Ugh. It SUCKS to not be able to stabilize! Maybe we're missing a rule somewhere. :\

The original design diary about death and dying - didn't it say something about getting a healing surge if you rolled a 20 on the 'death saves'?

I don't know whether that made it into the final rules or not, but if it seems like a cinematic enough option that it really should be there!

Why not get your DM to try it out in your next game and see?

Cheers

 

[Glororhan]

I'm so glad to hear my group wasn't the only one with a TPK. That kobold adventure is HARD. We took down Irontooth, but when we looked around there were still half a dozen kobolds left and we had pretty much used all our encounter and daily powers!

The final encounter is VERY HARD too.

 

[eleran]

Last night my group went thru the Kobold lair encounters also. They had 6 PCs (added the newly posted warlord). They bugged out of the cave with 4 PCs (one of which was unconcious and dragged out). They left behind 2 unconscious PCs and are right now trying to plan a rescue operation before reinforcements arrive. The last thing that happened was, during their short rest after leaving the cave, they spied a kobold leaving and heard someone shouting to him in Draconic "Go tell the spy to send us some reinforcements."

Since they think reinforcements are likely coming from the Keep and therefore 12 or more hours away, they are debating whether to go in and try it after a couple of short rests or to long rest and get back dailies before re-entry.

Meanwhile, I am working out in my head how to handle the remaining Kobolds and Irontooth until the return of the PCs. I think I want to encourage a negotiation to get the captives back. Not sure yet how best to achive that. The remaining force in the lair is

1 Dragonshield
Irontooth
1 Wyrmpriest
2 Minions
2 Skirmishers

Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[JustKim]

Now I haven't exactly read every single person's account of KotS, but I know I haven't read any reports of a total-party-kill.

I don't think you have read very many then. Irontooth and company mulch approximately half of all parties thrown against him. Some people have blamed this on switching out a pregen for the warlord, or inexperience with 4E tactics. I think the truth is that the encounter is unreasonably difficult.

To answer your question, yes. By Irontooth.

 

[eleran]

I disliked it. Irontooth was simply unfair. There's no way he presented an appropriate challenge to 1st level PCs.

We did this one right after the "second ambush", and we had the good fortune (or good planning) to have saved three gluepots and one stinkpot, which our Rogue used to keep Irontooth away from us while we sniped him to death.

We must have had good tactics, because the "second ambush" didn't even bloody one of us. We took them down without using any daily powers, too -- which is fortunate, since we used EVERY daily power in the Irontooth fight, and still almost bought the farm.

Cheers, -- N

What did you find inappropriate? I admit he is damn tough. But I didnt find him unfair.

 

[Nifft]

What did you find inappropriate? I admit he is damn tough. But I didnt find him unfair.

He seemed to have an ungodly number of hit points, for one thing.

Is that specific enough? I'm playing, so I'd rather not look at the module ... maybe someone else can answer more specifically.

Cheers, -- N

 

[drjones]

The original design diary about death and dying - didn't it say something about getting a healing surge if you rolled a 20 on the 'death saves'?

I don't know whether that made it into the final rules or not, but if it seems like a cinematic enough option that it really should be there!

Why not get your DM to try it out in your next game and see?

Cheers

Edit- I was not accurate, the real rule is: 20 or higher: Spend a healing surge. When you do so, you are considered to have 0 hit points, and then your healing surge restores hit points as normal. You are prone and conscious.

If you dont have a surge, 20 is just like a 19

 

[eleran]

I wasnt looking for statistics, I was looking for your impressions. And too many hit points is one I can understand.

I am not sure they are too many, but as the DM I may be biased. My group got him to 25%, although they dont know that. The rogue hit him with a critted sneak attack as the first damage done to him and when he was not bloodied they all had that "Oh S**t" look.

 

[sunbear]

TPK in the Kobold caves here as well. Standard KotS characters.

The minions went down really pretty quick. Scorching Burst or what not.

The PCs used excellent tactics.

Everything was going great until Iron Tooth became bloodied and started adding 1d10 to his damage. The fighter and Rogue fell in one round.

The cleric was useless outside of his Healing Words (He cant hit. Bad rolls + low attack = sucks for everyone)

The wizzy and cleric attempted to run, even had Irontooth slowed for a few rounds, but the only surviving kobold, the Wyrmpriest, cut down the cleric with an acid orb and Irontooth chased down and killed the wizard (the player risked another freezing ray or what have you. It missed and gave Irontooth the chance to catch up).

The players were drained a bit before the encounter began. 2 dailey's were spent as well as 3 action points from the previous encounter.

I think that if the characters could have bought one or two healing potions from Winterhaven things would have turned out different.

Iron Tooth is brutal while bloodied. We are going to wait for the books and try the module again with "optimized" characters.

The death save at 0 hit points is BRUTAL. In the previous encounter the halfling had actually died twice over (6 failed death saves) before anyone could get to him to heal him up. In the Iron Tooth encounter the rouge and fighter were both dead before the remaining characters decided to run.

 

[Rouens]

From my critical eye. Spoilers below

Spoiler

1. I think the encounter with Ironthooth runs beter if at least 50% of the minions and 1 or 2 of the Skirmishers are dispatched. From the looks of things then the party should be reasonable ok.
2. The party had at least 1 at most 2 encounters before this if you are following the module. It's probaly expected that they start with the dailies on Ironthooth and go "nova"