My First 4e TPK!

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nope, an ace is 5 kills

Ah, my bad. Do ground kills of planes also count, e.g. parties that die before intiative is rolled?

 

[mach1.9pants]

Ah, my bad. Do ground kills of planes also count, e.g. parties that die before intiative is rolled?

It depends, mud mover* losers will tell you that a ground kill counts but real fighter-gators* will tell you unless it is airborne it is the same as blowing up a garden shed!

* Mud Mover: aircrew that are a little bit slow and cannot deal with 3d manoeuvres so they are stuck attacking things on the ground. Gets confused if they have to think about anything more than their own height and the ground!

* Fighter-gator: Nickname for the Navigator of a fighter aircraft, the brains behind the Knights of the Sky. Without which your average stick-monkey Navigator/Stick Interface pilot is lost in a complex 3d multi-aircraft engagement. Sadly replaced by computer technology

Definitions, slightly modified, provided by The Aircrew Dictionary.com

 

[Nebulous]

The constantly spawning minions were just brutal. They could hit quite easily and in groups just did tons of damage - 24 and 36 acid damage was a common number called out against single targets. My PCs were shocked that minions were actually deadly for a change, and that ignoring them caused a lot of pain.

I can't say if this is a problem exactly, but if your PCs have played 4e for 15 levels and have grown to expect what a typical "minion" damage is like, is it unfair to suddenly ratchet up the damage for no particular reason? Scaring the party is one thing, but an accidental TPK because of minions is another. But then again some minions do too little damage and aren't perceived as a threat. Just a thought.

 

[chaotix42]

Nope, an ace is 5 kills

Damn, 5 TPKs?! With last night's routing I've downed 6 PCs total during my time as a 4e DM... I've got some work to do. I've got a bunch of those medals in my 3.x shoebox beneath my bed though!

I've seen two TPK's so far with 4E.

Ouch! It hurts when someone can't show up to the game and their character isn't in play. When someone can't make it to our game we just hand over their character to the PC that wants to use them, or I'll run them if nobody wants to.

I can't say if this is a problem exactly, but if your PCs have played 4e for 15 levels and have grown to expect what a typical "minion" damage is like, is it unfair to suddenly ratchet up the damage for no particular reason? Scaring the party is one thing, but an accidental TPK because of minions is another. But then again some minions do too little damage and aren't perceived as a threat. Just a thought.

Looking at the DDI Compendium, podspawn (15th lvl minion skirmisher) blow almost every other minion out of the water. They do 12 acid damage on a hit, which is more damage than even the 26th and 28th lvl minions in the database. By comparison, the other 15th lvl minions do 7 or (under certain conditions) 9 damage on a hit. They also have a bonus of +20 to hit and gain CA against adjacent enemies, for a net gain of +4 to hit over other 15th lvl minions. They have damn good defenses too, outclassing their peers here as well.

I would definitely say the effectiveness of the minions caught my PCs offguard. 3 podspawn did the damage of 5 level-equivalent minions and could hit a whole lot easier, too. Once again, if the PCs had access to more encounter-long energy-resisting powers they could have mitigated the minion damage quite a bit. Mass Resistance (wizard utility) comes to mind.

I wonder how the other minions in the MM2 will be?

 

[Nebulous]

I wonder how the other minions in the MM2 will be?

It's probably a good thing in the long run; minions can be a dangerous mixed bag, and the PCs shouldn't ever get too comfortable with them.

 

[Runestar]

Seems like the PCs may have been a tad overconfident for their own good, and their metagame knowledge of what to expect of minions actually worked against them by causing them to underestimate the pod demons.

Looks like MM2 will be turning a lot of conventional MM wisdom on its head and shaking things up quite a bit.

 

[C_M2008]

Thanks for the report.
I've been shying away from minions for a bit, hopefully there are more like this.

 

[Nebulous]

Looks like MM2 will be turning a lot of conventional MM wisdom on its head and shaking things up quite a bit.

The game desperately NEEDED this, i think. I can't wait to see what MM3 presents

 

[chaotix42]

Seems like the PCs may have been a tad overconfident for their own good, and their metagame knowledge of what to expect of minions actually worked against them by causing them to underestimate the pod demons.

Looks like MM2 will be turning a lot of conventional MM wisdom on its head and shaking things up quite a bit.

Quite! The first wave of minions hit them hard and fast, which was surprising to them - minions usually miss as often as they hit and end up doing laughable damage. When the pod demons kept churning the little buggers out they were really thrown for a loop!

I can't wait to see what MM3 presents

Great thing is we get a MM3 playtest article next week!

 

[Festivus]

Three soldiers? Ow.


Ask anyone on the boards about Irontooth.

Yep, Irontooth TPKed my group when I ran it.

I had a near TPK in Living Forgotten Realms last time I ran a game, East 1-4 is a bit of a tough module, and only 4 players, playing high = near TPK... I killed 3 of the 4 in the party. The other table also had a rough time of it, but had 5 players and played low.