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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 4638011" data-attributes="member: 40177">So, last night, we had our usual tuesday night session - except that the player of the Warlock didn't show up.  But, hey, we still had five characters, and things looked pretty good.  The group decided to explore the ruins of Spellgard (in my mind, the loosely-defined setting of Spellgard is much better than the detailed encounters, and my players seem to agree with me... we're having a lot of fun just straying off the beaten path).  Only, they decided "hey, let's explore it at night!"Well, I had already dropped the warning that the ruins were dangerous at night, and they knew it was going to be rough, so I took off the kiddie gloves.  I had an encounter I had pre-made, and quickly changed the map on the fly so that it could be run.(the map went from a dungeon room to an above-ground guardhouse... in more or less the same dimensions, though there were a few minor changes)Now, I've been trying to do things "by the book" lately, and make fights where the monsters support one another, because that's something I've been kind of lax on lately.  So, when I made this fight, I kept in mind how they'd work together.  The fight?  The Blinkstone Companions (AKA "The Good Guys")A Drow Artful Dodger Rogue (5)A Halfling Brutal Scoundrel Rogue (5)An Eladrin Tactical Warlord (5)A Minotaur Two-Handed Fighter (5)A Dwarven Cleric (5)The Bad Guys2 Vine Horrors (Controller)2 Vine Horror Spellfiends (Artillery)2 Ettercap Fang Guards (Soldier) - Retooled as Vine Horrors, with Forest Walk and Malleability, but less damage.The Setup:  The PCs enter a dark gatehouse, and are in a narrow hallway when the vine horrors attack.  The Spellfiends open up with their Caustic Blast, blinding everyone in the hallway (except the halfling), and causing ongoing 5 damage.  The 2 Vine Horrors move up - one from the front, while the other squeezes through the walls using it's malleability power to get a flank.  They use their at-will ability to make vines squeeze up and start grappling everyone - and it hits them all, meaning everyone is now restrained, and taking ongoing 10 damage.In the first round, the entire group but 1 Rogue is taking 15 ongoing damage, is restrained, and blinded.The Ettercaps moved forward and engaged the rogue, getting flanks so they could use their special poisonous bite attack.  Later, they'd be able to use their powers against restrained foes, as well.  This was a disastrous fight.  The PCs - lacking in a melee attacker, because the Warlock didn't show - were taking a lot of damage and were unable to move into a good position.  Their usual reliance on narrow hallways to form bottlenecks were now killing them, leaving them open to attacks from the artillery's burst attacks.  And the poor rogue found herself surrounded by the monsters, because she was the only one who won initiative, and had charged into the room.  The fight has taken over an hour and a half so far, and it's still going on (the positions are marked on my battlemat).  Right now, two PCs are dying (the cleric and the rogue);  all the group's big dailies have been spent;  action points have been spent;  all the healing words have been used up (along with a nice chunk of surges);  and only half the monsters are down.  It's a damn tough fight......but I think it's also one of the better ones I've put together.The moral of the story?  The DMG is right - if you actually try to put together a fight where the monsters influence one another, you can make a fight much more challenging than if you were to just throw bigger and better monsters at the group.(Also, the pure desperation of the PCs has led to them doing some crazy things, like trying to use a desk as a battering ram to knock a hole in a wall, to give them a bit more maneuverability... Or really trying to help each other getting into flank positions, drawing AoO's on the way).</blockquote>

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