Lions vs. 10th level party..results of low magic encounter

[Quartz]

All this should indicate the extent to which character power at higher levels depends on magic items.

Can I quibble with you here? I don't agree that character power depends on magic items; I'd suggest that it's enhanced by them. Fewer magic items means different tactics.

 

[Phlebas]

The biggest difference i notice in low magic campaigns is that you can fight against other humanoids pretty easily, and the CR stays roughly the same. But when you fight against high level monsters (who effectively have the magic items built in), you need to add 10-20% to the CR for the encounter.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Can I quibble with you here? I don't agree that character power depends on magic items; I'd suggest that it's enhanced by them.

After a certain level, it absolutely does.

Without magical items you have:

• Non-scaling AC
• One to four decent skill checks (possibly skills that aren't useful)
• Either mediocre damage or high damage with little chance of hitting
• Few tactical options
• Fewer (or even no) area attacks
• Natural hp (which tends to be lower than you'd think)
• Limited healing

D&D is balanced with the assumption of a certain access to equipment. Removing that access for the PCs makes life a whole lot more dangerous. Removing all that magical equipment and decent mundane equipment options is all but a death sentence.

Take a look at a typical Combat Rogue level 20 build. Strip away all the magical items. How effective is the character that's left?
Most of them fall down to a CR 12 or 14, based upon low AC, low HP and medium attack. Their advantages are saves, evasion, and high damage on the rare chances they get to sneak attack (remember, no rings of blinking, no allies assumed).



To the OP: Your party are now slaves of legend, and it doesn't matter that half of them died. Five guys were thrown, almost naked, against a pride of 12 lions and none of them went out like chumps. Heck, three of them lived!
That's a feat worthy of poems and songs.

 

[Quartz]

After a certain level, it absolutely does.

Without magical items you have:

• Non-scaling AC
• One to four decent skill checks (possibly skills that aren't useful)
• Either mediocre damage or high damage with little chance of hitting
• Few tactical options
• Fewer (or even no) area attacks
• Natural hp (which tends to be lower than you'd think)
• Limited healing

Apart from the last, which I don't really understand, I don't see how this contradicts me.

Take a look at a typical Combat Rogue level 20 build. Strip away all the magical items. How effective is the character that's left?
Most of them fall down to a CR 12 or 14, based upon low AC, low HP and medium attack. Their advantages are saves, evasion, and high damage on the rare chances they get to sneak attack (remember, no rings of blinking, no allies assumed).

And how exactly does this contradict me?

Yes their effective level will be lower, but they're still powerful. Sure, a group witout magic fails against one with, but I'd suggest that the test would be if all parties were in an Anti Magic Field.

To the OP: Your party are now slaves of legend, and it doesn't matter that half of them died. Five guys were thrown, almost naked, against a pride of 12 lions and none of them went out like chumps. Heck, three of them lived!
That's a feat worthy of poems and songs.

QFT!

 

[Gooba42]

The low magic "hook" is the "more realistic" game.

Pick any 5 guys, arm them similarly, put them in the ring with 12 lions.

If they're lucky, it'll come off as well as your encounter did. These are very large, very powerful animals. Without specialized equipment, i.e. the spears and shields of the Masai, and a good deal of fairly specialized training you can expect them to kill a good number of people before meeting a challenge.

Range is nothing in this situation, a simple bow has nothing on a lion. You'll hurt it and you may be the cause of its death but you won't live to enjoy that fact.

The fantasy humanoid races invented armor, magic, etc. because in general they're pretty squishy. There's quite a number of creatures that are much better at killing people than people are at killing them.

 

[Wish]

With no magic and that party composition, it doesn't surprise me a bit that the PCs got shredded. It's a straight up brawl in an arena, so how much use are the stealth abilities of 60% of the party? Zip. And the spellthief is especially hosed.

Lions not only pounce, but they improved grab with a +12 to grapple. With no magic (no freedom of movement, probably no AC above 20 except maybe the swashbuckler, no strength boost) it's likely that the only one who had even a 50/50 shot at evading the grapple was the barbarian. When you get two chances per PC to grapple them each round, and they're all useless in a grapple, that's a pretty good recipe for a TPK. I'd say you were either softballing after you realized how bad you'd hosed them, or they did a great job to limit the losses to only two party members.

 

[shilsen]

Thoughts?

Thoughts? You must have been rolling really badly for it to not be a TPK. The post from Wish above mentions one of the primary reasons why that would have been the likeliest scenario. So I'm curious - did you forget to use improved grab or did the PCs just get very lucky?

Actually, here's another question - with that combination of PCs, magic (or lack thereof), equipment (and the lack thereof), and circumstances, were you at all surprised that there were PC deaths? The fact that you started a thread on it implies you were not expecting it.