My hat for my d02 know no limit!

[Allanon]

Last sunday I had my party encounter an Bebilith a CR 10 (according to WotC) or CR 13 (According to Silver Rule Upper_Krusk rules). The party consists of 5 members, averaging 7th level. Consisting of a Cleric, Fighter, Sorcerer and 2 rangers (one bow and one two-handed). The fight started of with both parties aware of eachother and 80 feet away from one another. It was in an enclosed arena with a radius of 45 feet.

It started of dandy with the Bebilith quickly closing the gap with the party having won initiative and biting the sorcerer. The sorcerer failed the save vs. poison and at his turn proceeded to take flight out of range of the Bebilith. The rest of the party made some small dents but especially the rangers were hindered by the DR 10/Evil.

The second round saw the sorcerer again failing his Fortitude save and dropping to 2 Con and -9 hitpoints (not bleeding though). The bow ranger was caught in a web from the Bebilith and the fighter and second ranger again didn't really dent it's armor. The Cleric summoned some monster to provide flanking bonusses for the melee fighters and proceeded to aid the bow ranger.

The third round proceeded with the Bebilith missing ALL it's attacks against the main fighter. Both melee fighters on the other hand succeeded in hitting and both critting the Bebilith, which resulted in him being left at 70 HP (of 150). The Cleric proceeded to cure moderate the sorcerer, which on his turn proceeded to blast the Bebilith with a Fireball. Again I rolled low failing the reflex save and the Bebilith ended up at 38 HP.

The fourth round saw the Bebilith jump up and try to land on the sorcerer (it weighs two tons so I ruled it would to 10d6 damage if it succeeded). Unfortunately I again rolled a one* on the jump check and subsequently missed the sorcerer. Both melee fighters rushed it and hit, and the add injury to insult after the cleric blessed the arrows of the bow ranger she proceeded to double critical it, ending the fight.

Is it just me? After evaluating my recent dice rolling spree of the last couple of sessions it seems as though whenever a dice roll really matters my dice fail me. This encounter was meant to teach them the lesson that running away is good tactics, sadly afterwards I fear they more then ever will proceed to tough it out.
/end of sad DM sob story

*We play by the house roll that a 1 on a skill check results in the check being made with an effective -10 to the roll. A 20 gives a +10 to the roll.

 

[Henry]

At first I misread the title and thought this was about that RPGNet thread.

LESSON #7 of Game Mastering: Never underestimate the dice to foul up any good plan, or make a success out of a sucky plan, so plan accordingly.

"As the gore-crusted Spider-Demon expires messily on the ground, and you all shout in victory, The rangers notice a SECOND spider-demon leaping up from the pit..."

 

[WizarDru]

First thought: When you have more than four players, the CR system becomes less accurate, using either WotC or UK's system.

Second thought: Sometimes the dice are your friends and sometimes they aren't. Remember WizarDru's First Rule: Everybody rolls a '1', eventually.

Third thought: If your goal was to present the PCs with a 'sometimes you should run' encounter, the Bebilith wasn't the best choice. Because the bebilith isn't a killer, for one, it's a hunter. You didn't use it's powerful web-ability, presumably because it would have imobilized some of the party. Rending armor is the same issue. That house rule also bit you on the butt, and generally will work more against the NPCs and monsters than the PCs, IME. Plus with a speed of 40', your party probably wasn't outrunning it...and may have thought they HAD to make a stand.

 

[Allanon]

At first I misread the title and thought this was about that RPGNet thread.

LESSON #7 of Game Mastering: Never underestimate the dice to foul up any good plan, or make a success out of a sucky plan, so plan accordingly.

"As the gore-crusted Spider-Demon expires messily on the ground, and you all shout in victory, The rangers notice a SECOND spider-demon leaping up from the pit..."

I actually thought of that, but I'm a softy . They did *cough* 'earn' the victory, however much my dice played in their favor. I do intend to make my next attempt count by indeed including more opponents. With more dice rolls it should be a statistical improbability to keep throwing below 5 with my d20's .

 

[Allanon]

First thought: When you have more than four players, the CR system becomes less accurate, using either WotC or UK's system.

Second thought: Sometimes the dice are your friends and sometimes they aren't. Remember WizarDru's First Rule: Everybody rolls a '1', eventually.

Third thought: If your goal was to present the PCs with a 'sometimes you should run' encounter, the Bebilith wasn't the best choice. Because the bebilith isn't a killer, for one, it's a hunter. You didn't use it's powerful web-ability, presumably because it would have imobilized some of the party. Rending armor is the same issue. That house rule also bit you on the butt, and generally will work more against the NPCs and monsters than the PCs, IME. Plus with a speed of 40', your party probably wasn't outrunning it...and may have thought they HAD to make a stand.

I agree with your first two thoughts. On the topic of your third observation I disagree slightly. I chose the Bebilith because it's not a killer, my goal was that in the eventuality they tried to fight it off for 1 or 2 rounds it wouldn't result in a quick TPK.

The outrunning part should have been easy as the arena had two exits which were useless for the huge Bebilith. I never meant it to be easy for them to flee, and a single character death would have been acceptable but the problem was they didn't use those escape venues at all.

And I did use the web ability to remove the bow ranger from the fight in the second round after having disabeled the sorcerer through it's poison, I choose the bow ranger because with a single bless from the cleric she would quickly outstrip even the fighter in damage. But after the web and subsequent near death of the sorcerer, Wizardru's first rule and Lesson #7 from gamemastering proceeded to bit me HARD in the ass.

If all had gone to plan that third round the fighter's armor should have been rended and possibly he would have been poisoned. Sadly that plan failed miserably.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

The fight started of with both parties aware of eachother and 80 feet away from one another. It was in an enclosed arena with a radius of 45 feet...It started of dandy with the Bebilith quickly closing the gap with the party having won initiative and biting the sorcerer.
This encounter was meant to teach them the lesson that running away is good tactics, sadly afterwards I fear they more then ever will proceed to tough it out.

So how was the party supposed to run away? The Bebilith could move 80' and still make an attack in a single round and they were in an enclosed 45' arena. If i wereone of the players I would have assumed escape was unlikely and done my darnedest to put that spider demon down.

Also the sorcerer shouldn't have had to make a save on the second round for the poison. It should have been 10 rounds later (1 minute).

 

[Allanon]

So how was the party supposed to run away? The Bebilith could move 80' and still make an attack in a single round and they were in an enclosed 45' arena. If i wereone of the players I would have assumed escape was unlikely and done my darnedest to put that spider demon down.

Sorry that discription should have been clearer on my part, there were two exits which with some team work and tactics would have been reachable for them and prevented the Bebilith from following. And I said it's radius was 45", thus making it a arena with a 90" diameter.

Also the sorcerer shouldn't have had to make a save on the second round for the poison. It should have been 10 rounds later (1 minute).

Ouch... large mistake on my part. I blame it on my relative inexperience with poison (I hardly use it).

 

[TheEvil]

I find that 'Teaching the players a lesson' rarely works out like the GM would prefer. Have you just explained to the players that not every fight is intended to be fought and that they won't necessarily miss out on something if they don't fight it?

 

[WizarDru]

The outrunning part should have been easy as the arena had two exits which were useless for the huge Bebilith. I never meant it to be easy for them to flee, and a single character death would have been acceptable but the problem was they didn't use those escape venues at all.

I'm assuming the bebilith couldn't follow them through there, or would have chosen not to? Heck, I'm not trying to second guess you here...although if the archer didn't have Good arrows, he might have been a bad choice to web (since his arrows probably would have been useless after DR). My experience, though, has been that if you want the players to run, you need to FAR outstrip their abilities: the bebilith didn't fit that bill, as written. As a CR10, against a CR 7.6 (roughly) that equates to a Challenging, but far from unwinnable, encounter. A party with good tactics and that works as a unit can take down much larger creatures...especially if they aren't worried about resources. An urban adventure usually needs to be tougher, because of the likelihood that PCs will pull out all the stops much more readily (particularly spellcasters). If you're expecting to only have one or two more encounters that day, maximum, you're more likely to toss out the big guns (like the fireball) as soon as you can and risk the major damage, knowing you can afford to burn your potions (and cleric's spells) without fear of being short-handed later.

Now, if you had advanced the bebilith a few hit dice, that might have changed things a tad.

Seriously, though, it doesn't sound like you made any big tactical mistakes...fortune favors the bold. It speaks well of you, IMHO, that you let the dice fall where they may. Next time, remember: Never send a bebilith to do a Balor's job.

 

[ForceUser]

If for some reason you want to include a monster that the party hasn't a hope of defeating, make sure the beast is, even to the casual observer, obviously much more powerful than they, and allow the party to notice it before it notices them.

That said, there's nothing wrong with simply informing your players between games that not every encounter you intend throw at them is meant to be won by force of arms. It is a disappointing byproduct of the d20 system that, for many players, violence seems to be the first trick out of the bag.