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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eryndur" data-source="post: 4255781" data-attributes="member: 2910">SPOILERS FOR KotS and DMG BELOW!I was Nifft's DM for the kobold lair encounter.  I had fun running the encounter, and it was pleasantly tense (at least from where I was sitting) when things came down to the wire.So, using hindsight, it's easy for me to say that the encounter worked, no (permanent) harm done. That said, the encounter is definitely unbalanced, and without the clever use of immobilizing gluepots, a TPK would have been the end of that particular session.That said, Irontooth's stats are pretty much by the book; in this case, pp. 184-184 of the DMG, under "Creating Monsters". His hit points seem to be the main issue, but take a close look:He's an elite brute, so his hit point total is double what a normal brute of his level (3) would be. The formula for a brute's hp is 10+Con+(level*10). That's 53 doubled, which is 106, which is exactly what he has.Now, some of his defenses and his STR score are a little high according to the design rules, but all in all, he's a picture perfect level 3 elite brute. Totally suitable as an opponent for a 1st level party.But you add in all these other creatures, and suddenly the encounter blossoms to level 6! The DMG specifically states that a hard encounter is anywhere from 2-4 levels higher than the level of the party. The kobold lair encounter is ONE LEVEL HIGHER than the HIGHEST difficulty an encounter should ever be (at least, according to the RAW).If you remove the minions and keep everything else, this drops the XP total to 1000, which is spot on for a level 5 encounter for 5 1st level PCs. A level 5 encounter would still be extremely difficult to overcome, as it's at the high end of the "hard encounter" spectrum, but a TPK becomes FAR less likely. If I were to run this again, that would be my quick fix.So, Irontooth = balanced. Encounter = unbalanced.</blockquote>

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