Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flamestrike" data-source="post: 6950853" data-attributes="member: 6788736">A bunch of highly intelligent NPCs with 8th and 9th level casting, including an immortal lich equivalent, an Archdruid with a Wisdom of 20 and a 15th level genius Int 18 diviniation specialist Wizard, just... strolled into town with no spells up, no scrying of the party, no information on them, and were all too haughty to act intelligently?I find that extremely hard to believe.Personally I would have run them very differently.Awesome. Im not saying the Monk cant teleport. Im saying it chews up his bonus action to do so, leaving him with all of two attacks to stun the Archdruid on arrival.For some reason the Archdruid hadnt cast stoneskin, foresight, and heroes feast on at least himself if not his companions, nor had he assumed elemental form (the latter of which it can do at will, retaining casting in that form, lasting for 9 hours AND granting a swathe of abilities and resistances).My Archdruid would have been an Earth Elemental (with foresight running, lasts 8 hours) or better yet, a flying Air elemental, a ton of conjured animals surrounding him (7th level slot), with an AC of 17, making Con saves at +5 at advantage (with the help of the Diviners portent if needed).Your monk teleports in as his bonus action (lets give the monk a chance and go with Earth elemental). He gets to make two attack rolls against the Druid at disadvantage at +8 vs AC 17, and if any of them hit, the Druid makes Con saves at +5 with advantage vs a DC of around 16 and with the Diviner there to re-roll them for him via portent.He's pretty unlucky to get stunned even assuming earth elemental form.On that note, how weird is it that elementals can get stunned?Your diviner was an idiot unbefitting of his Int 18. Just glancing over his spells, I would have him ready an action to drop Maze on the Monk (who almost certainly has dumped Int) triggered to occur after the Warlock hits him with Hex (Int), and have him sneer and tell the lock to 'Wipe his mind'.After the diviner goes the Lock, who hexes the Monks intelligence, then drops feeblemind on him, triggering the readied Maze.Good luck making a DC20 Int check to escape the Maze at disadvantage with an Int of 1. Goodby Monk, no save.He wasted an entire round running to his death. Its not my fault if this immortal tactical genius akin to Lord Soth was too stupid to conduct any recon on the party (via the 15th level Diviner next to him with Scry and Clairvoyance) and instead charged in like Lancelot from Monty Python instead of hellballing the three PCs that had just emerged from the Town hall. He got everything he deserved.Action surge is indeed very good. Its even better when your DM only ever gives you one encounter a day making it a 1/ encounter ability.Of course, you cant shadow jaunt as an action. So he must have moved + used the dash action again in any event. I suppose he has an action either side of it, to attack both the Druid and the Diviner twice.Not that it would have mattered if I was running the NPCs. By the time the Monks turn 2 comes around the Monk is a drooling idiot stumbling through an extraplanar maze. The three emerging PCs have been Hell balled, and are facing a wave of conjured animals, an angry earth elemental about to hit them with fire storm, a diviner about to toss an 8th level fireball at them, a warlock about to hit them with finger of death, and a Death knight and Blackguard warily pushing forward at them from opposite directions.Im not assuming it. Im flat out telling you you did. If that was a deliberate choice by you to do so, then more power to you.If the point of your exersize is 'a bunch of NPCs played poorly, using suboptimal tactics, and with bad spell choices, and not using their abilities got steamrolled by a fully rested party' then yeah, that happens.I can assure you that If I was running the exact same encounter, your PCs would be dead by the end of round 2.This encounter says nothing about the NPCs as written or the rules. It says an awful lot about how you play high level NPC threats, and manage the abilities of high level intelligent opponents.Im not having a go here either. Its just I cant help but shake the feeling that you're having another swipe at the systems challenge ratings and resource management metagame.In fact, I know you are.</blockquote>

Verification