More frustration with KotS

[Herobizkit]

Update.

So I've successfully talked the others into 3-manning. The Eladrin Assassin remains, as does the Warforged Warlock - but he's being re-purposed to a Witch.

The third player is dropping his characters altogether and making a Gnoll Ranger (Scout).

The NPC Companion is in the works, but we have all hinted that we'd like a Leader for healing.

... More as it develops.

 

[Klaus]

Update.

So I've successfully talked the others into 3-manning. The Eladrin Assassin remains, as does the Warforged Warlock - but he's being re-purposed to a Witch.

The third player is dropping his characters altogether and making a Gnoll Ranger (Scout).

The NPC Companion is in the works, but we have all hinted that we'd like a Leader for healing.

... More as it develops.

I'd strongly suggest that the Ranger (Scout) be statted as a longtooth shifter, even if it's described as a gnoll. Shifters have better racial support.

 

[Herobizkit]

[MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION]: Please explain "racial support". Do you mean in terms of available racial feats?

 

[Klaus]

[MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION]: Please explain "racial support". Do you mean in terms of available racial feats?

Yep. Feats, paragon paths, etc.

 

[Herobizkit]

Update.

Our party has changed. We are now playing:
Gnoll Ranger (Scout) 5
Warforged Witch (Full Moon) 5
Eladrin Assassin 5
and our Companion, Splug the Cleric of Hruggek

We entered the third area of the dungeon, looks like an altar. There's

Spoiler

a Dark Priest, a pair of Berserkers, 5 or 6 minions... and some monster that keeps teleporting all over the board, sneak attacking us.

The fight is nearly won... only two beasts remain. One in sight, one "hidden".

On our end, our Gnoll is down, our Companion is 1 hp away from perma-death.

What really got me mad was that the "hidden" creature attacked the Gnoll while he was unconscious in an attept to finish him off. As a player, that shocked me. I didn't think DM's ever attacked PC's while they were down.

But anyhow... I've only played half a fight, and I already see two things I regret about my Witch:
a) I didn't take a Cleric multi-class feat for a Healing word;
b) I took way too many close burst powers.

The Gnoll performed as expected, dropping lots of hurt in a short period of time.

At present, I can't tell if our 3-man experiment is working or not.

Will update again after tomorrow's session, which I hope will be the end of the Keep.

 

[jbear]

The problems you are having are, in my opinion partly your own.

3 players each running 2 characters ... seriously? Totally unneccessary. At the very most you should be running a Companion each. At the most. 6 is slow. That's part of the problem. And you have only 3 players, so it needent be.

I bet your player turns are real slow, not just the DMs.

Also you have chosen to have 2 leaders in the party ... so even slower, harder to challenge and slow to deal with enemies ...

Your strikers are the weakest strikers in the game ... Assassin ... Warlock ... Monk ... what do you expect. Your damage output must be pretty poor.

And your thinking of turning a striker into a contorller???? Go sorceror, not witch if you want area attack damage. Your controller isn't going to speed things up.

So 2 characters each, sub-optimal damage dealers = big part of the problem.

On your DMs side:

He's entitled to alter the module as he sees fit. That's what a DM does. Where he has made an error is choosing to add controllers and soldiers. Positively the worst choice to add to a fight if you want correct pacing.

He needs to add skirmishers, lurkers, minions and brutes. The only one time I have ever severly suffered absolute boring grind in a fight was precisely with Hobgoblin soldiers, and that was calculating their trait correctly. Pft, stacking the bonus ... oh dear.

I don't know ... tell him you thought it was odd that the monsters defenses could get so high at level 4. With an average attack roll PCs will need to roll around 16 to hit 28. Avg should be somewhere around 10. So you checked out hobgoblins and see where the error came in. Tell him about your concerns of length of combat. Admit part of the fault is your own. Suggest checking out Stalker0's Guide to Anti-Grind here on EnWorld, I'm sure you can track it down with google or someone can post a link.

Think about changing your party make up. Think about demoting PCs to companions. Then DM won't have to buff encounters. You'll be faster, he'll be faster ... it will all be faster.

Sorry to be hard, but I really don't think all the fault lies in the hands of your DM.

 

[Rechan]

What really got me mad was that the "hidden" creature attacked the Gnoll while he was unconscious in an attept to finish him off. As a player, that shocked me. I didn't think DM's ever attacked PC's while they were down.

That happens. It's rarely done, but it's 1) smart from an enemy's perspective (especially when you have a healer in the party), 2) it gets the players moving/defending/helpign the downed guy as opposed to just letting them death-save, and 3) puts the fear of death into players.

As a DM, you just do it sparingly.

What I find unfair is if the attacker wasn't able to be seen when he was doing it. You can't defend against that.

 

[S'mon]

That happens. It's rarely done, but it's 1) smart from an enemy's perspective (especially when you have a healer in the party), 2) it gets the players moving/defending/helpign the downed guy as opposed to just letting them death-save, and 3) puts the fear of death into players.

As a DM, you just do it sparingly.

I have hungry critters attempt to drag off dying & dead PCs, or feast upon the fallen if they're ghouls or ravenous zombies. If intelligent foes see healer PCs bringing fallen PCs back up, they'll start CDGing downed PCs - IME though usually by the time PCs are dropping & being healed it's usually too late for the NPCs to take advantage of their newfound knowledge.

Otherwise I'll typically follow the DMG advice not to CDG fallen PCs, at least not at Heroic tier. At Paragon+ I'd expect smart NPCs to be aware of the possibility of healing, and try to finish off the fallen, but by then the PCs should be able to raise the dead.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have hungry critters attempt to drag off dying & dead PCs, or feast upon the fallen if they're ghouls or ravenous zombies. If intelligent foes see healer PCs bringing fallen PCs back up, they'll start CDGing downed PCs - IME though usually by the time PCs are dropping & being healed it's usually too late for the NPCs to take advantage of their newfound knowledge.

Otherwise I'll typically follow the DMG advice not to CDG fallen PCs, at least not at Heroic tier. At Paragon+ I'd expect smart NPCs to be aware of the possibility of healing, and try to finish off the fallen, but by then the PCs should be able to raise the dead.

Yeah, that seems like about where I'm at too. I think once in a great while I've had a monster pound on a down PC, but it was a ghoul or something. The more likely situation is a monster may catch a guy that's down in an AoE. Usually its plenty scary to have one or two PCs just making death saves and the healer running around trying to make sure he can get them up again (or stuck not being able to and then someone has to chance running in to use Heal, etc).

 

[Herobizkit]

Of course, the issue above is that our healer is down, too. Luckily, my Witch has the Heal skill...