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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6594664" data-attributes="member: 5834">Fortunately shenanigans don't much matter on a message board.Our average AC is indeed 18 for our front line warriors.Yes. We didn't give him a choice. We rarely give the DM a choice as to where the battle will take place. We aren't players that walk into a room and spread out attacking as individuals. We're a coordinated group. We choked them in a hallway around a corner to prevent missile attacks. The wizard set up a flaming sphere in a 10 foot wide hallway, so the gnolls couldn't mass to start archery fire from behind without getting burned. The wizard as I told you we do, stayed around the corner so that his concentration couldn't be broken. He used his bat familiar hiding up in a corner and action to look through its senses to coordinate hitting with his flaming sphere to control the gnolls. The cleric cast bless and also moved back and forth behind Total Cover to prevent getting struck by any archers occasionally dropping sacred flame and heals.The monk and fighter archer drew them into the ambush. The monk moves fast enough that the gnolls had no chance of catching him. He used the Dodge Action while retreating. The archer took up position to move back and forth around the corner to hammer with his bow. The warlock/fighter and the monk held the choke point. The warlock fighter is a human with Heavy Armor Mastery, fiend pact that allowed him to gain temporary hit points, the monk is a monk/rogue. He used an occasional Dodge to reduce his chances to hit. In general, we focused on the target fighting the warlock because each timed he downed a gnoll, eh gained 6 temporary hit points. The temporary hit points along with Heavy Armor Mastery make for a very tough combination to bring down. Much harder than a gnoll.Let's just say a 3rd level wizard is very effective in a hallway choked off.This is how the majority of our fights go. It's pretty rare that the opponent dictates the battlefield to us. We retreat if we cannot turn the battlefield in our favor. We had to retreat last night from assaulting an evil temple. Priest was too tough backed up by his undead. Had to run and come back another day. That happens sometimes. You can't win them all. 20 skeletons, 20 zombies, a CR 8 legendary high priest in a temple with lair actions, and a CR 2 adept was too strong.Crits aren't a very big deal, especially at low level in this game. You know that man. You could crit in this game and do 2d6+2 and still roll 5 points or something. It's not like 3E where crits were devastating. Though Orc greataxe crits are still damn nasty.10 foot wide corridor. Why bother? Because we dictate where we fight, not the enemy. We dictate the battlefield and tactics, not the opponent. Isn't that our option as players? Or as a DM do you make that impossible even when the players are willing to do whatever is needed to make it happen through intelligent play?No. Only the archer, cleric, and wizard maintained total cover. The monk and warlock alternated offensive and defensive actions as needed while being healed by the cleric to stand in the hallway and hold the horde back.And the 3rd level wizard, he made it work. A flaming sphere in a 10 foot wide hallway makes twenty gnolls fairly fangless. How's that for a low level wizard contributing? Without that single tactical control spell, that fight is a whole damn lot harder. The gnolls wanted to mass to push the party back. They could not do that effectively with the flaming sphere in place. It was a long fight. Though after they had beat the Fang, the two pack leaders, the regular gnolls were quick.You do realize in this game Stealth characters with expertise have a huge advantage scouting? We have a trickery cleric in our group that gives Advantage on Stealth Rolls to the rogue/monk. The rogue/monk has Expertise Perception and Stealth. He is a high wisdom and dex character. It is almost impossible for anything at this current level to not be surprised or easily scouted by him.That is in brief parts of the explanation as to why we won as easily as we did. We had an ideal character for standing up to a lot of attackers (warlock/fighter with heavy armor mastery and the ability to generate constant temporary hit points giving our frontline fighter incredible durability), a supreme scout with exceptional mobility (wood elf monk/rogue), a wizard with a key spell (flaming sphere), the ability to deliver strong damage at range behind our martials (archer), and a cleric focused on healing and buffing. It all adds up to fairly easy fights.Three fourths of our group are min/maxers that look for maximum group coordination. The wizard doesn't min/max as much as the three of us, but is a good tactician. You can believe what you want. We won the fight. It wasn't very hard, though it was long. We used one, maybe two, cure wounds spells, a bless, and an aid spell.Just an FYI if you play a cleric in the future and aren't aware, aid is a very powerful spell. The way it is currently designed it will act as an AoE heal for 5 hit points, though you can also use it for its intended purpose to boost hit points prior to entering battle. If you use it as a spot heal, the five hit points can help at any time.</blockquote>

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