My poor LBEG - what went wrong?

[Crothian]

But in order to do that they need to bring along a lawyer to explain the rules loophole to the PCs.
(And don't forget to count the lawyer against the necro's undead HD limit.)

No you don't, as DM you just have to say it is so. The PCs do not have to understand the rules that monsters use.

 

[Len]

No you don't, as DM you just have to say it is so. The PCs do not have to understand the rules that monsters use.

Oops, sorry, I forgot the "".

 

[KarinsDad]

Let me get this ríght. The party opens the door and walks in. They see the necromancer and the zombies (and vice versa). The necromancer speaks to them and they decide to attack.

IMO no one is flatfooted in this situation. There is no surprise and everyone can clearly see each other. I would roll for initiative and let everyone be eligble for taking AOO and so on.

That's fine for your game, but it is a house rule. And one I prefer.

Personally, I do not like the aspect of initiative that everyone is flatfooted until their action in round one. Flatfooted in the surprise round, fine. Flatfooted in round one, not so fine because it causes problems like the Zombies cannot AoO until their init of the current example.

I think I will talk with my group and see if we can drop that in our game.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm trying to picture the shape of the room where the necromancer is behind 5 zombies, but there is a way past his meat shields which the fighter can take to get to him within one move... was it like a 30ft square room with 2 zombies on one side and 3 on the other leaving a channel for the necromancer to see his enemies through?

FWIW I would have played that as the combat "started" with the quick dialog between the necromancer and the PCs, so that when it actually comes to blows neither side is flatfooted because they are all effectively past round 1.

If combat broke out in the middle of a conversation between people who were nominally at least neutral to one another then I'd start the melee with initiatives and flatfootedness, the works. But when two sides which know that they are out for one anothers blood are discussing something they already have their weapons gripped that bit more tightly, keyed up for when the action goes down. They are not flatfooted at that point.

Regarding that encounter itself, I don't know what spells they gave the necromancer. I hope that one of his 2nd level spells was false life that had been pre-cast. 1d10+5 extra hp for 5hrs is a pretty significant benefit, and necromantic to boot!

Still, villains soliloquising and then getting taken out by the good guys is a genre classic...

Cheers

 

[BSF]

The fighter turned over the table with an attack? I thought you said he walked up (move action) and attacked (you only get one swing when you've moved during the round).

1. He doesn't get multiple swings if he moved during the round.

2. I wouldn't have allowed someone to "turn over a table" onto someone with one of their attacks. It's at least a move action, like "picking up item from floor" is a move action (and provokes AOO - not that that is important in this case). Then, if someone did turn over a table onto someone else, we'd have to hit rolls, etc. (attack with improvised objects don't do much damage) or perhaps a refex save to avoid the table would be required, it's not just an auto to knock the gnome over.

1) Quite true. You only get multiple attacks if you use a full-attack action. Any move action brings you down to a single attack. That goes for iterative attacks, two-weapon fighters, or things like rapid shot.

2) I see this as more a campaign style issue.

For me, I would have possibly ruled it as follows:
Fighter moves and wants to turn over desk.
Guesstimate the weight of the desk and have fighter make a str check with a SWAG DC setting.
I might consider a to-hit roll, or just arbitrarily give it a Ref save for the necromancer.

Generally speaking, standard actions are much more valuable than move actions. Primarily because you can do any move action with a standard action if you need more than one move action. But I wouldn't count turning over a desk as a move action because it is a lot more involved. Well, OK if the gnome's desk was like a little kids play desk and the fighter was a big strong guy, I might allow moving the desk as a move action with a str check. But not turning it over on the NPC. That is definitely a standard action. The difference here is moving the desk out of the way, such as shoving it aside, as oppossed to pushing it on top of somebody, which is like an attack.

 

[irdeggman]

Fighter(4), Thief(4), Cleric(4), [NPC] Sorceress(2), [NPC]
Ranger(3).[EDIT] Forgot the Psion(3)

Average level of party = (4 + 4 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 3)/6 = 3.3. + 1 for every 2 characters beyond 4 (4 is the basis for EL/CR) {I got mechanic this from an e-mail from Sage advice, and it fits the mechanic fairly well too}. So you have to decide whether or not the avg level of the group is 3 or 4 (you can round up, depending on what they have equipment-wise, etc.) so the EL would be either a 4 or a 5 depending on how this was handled.

Now the necromancer also has cover from the fighter. See pg 151 in the PHB (I don’t think you can get this from the SRD since it is mentioned in the illustration on that page). Add to this that there are varying degrees of cover (pg 152 in the PHB) that grant an AC bonus of +4 to +8). So cover from the desk and the fighter would, IMO grant an AC bonus of greater than the +4 for standard cover. The archer can’t negate cover, since he needs a feat (Improved Precise Shot) that he is ineligible to take at his present level. There is an optional rule on pg 24 of the DMG for striking cover on a miss. This is really good for these types of circumstances since it gives incentive to players to have their PCs watch each other’s back since shooting through an ally may result in hitting him yourself.

AC of necromancer is 10 + 1 (size he is a gnome you said) + 4 (cover from desk) + 2 (my estimate for the fighter) + Dex (he has already acted and is not flat footed – assuming he has at least a +2 mod here and that is probably low) for an AC of at least 18. Pretty decent AC for a 3rd level archer to have to hit (of course a “20” is still a “20”)

I assume the ranger has Precise Shot (pretty poor if an archer didn’t take that feat) with one of his 3 feats (also assuming he is human) otherwise there is a –4 to his attack roll. Of course that means he get s a +1 to hit (when within 30 ft since he needed Point Blank Shot to take Precise Shot) and probably has at least a +2 due to Dex.

 

[Squire James]

As you figured out, the CR system can't accurately account for combat difficulty against all parties. I've had a full group of 4 level 3 characters nearly get TPK'd by... 2 ghouls. Then, later on in the same adventure, they destroy 6 level 2 fighters and inflict a significant amount of damage to a level 6 rogue before forcing the latter to retreat (#1 rule for retreating enemies: retreat the moment situation looks bad, not when HP low).

Undead and cleric issues tend to cause many CR problems. I have to be real careful with undead encounters when they get to the "EL >= party ACL +3" level, because a TPK can easily happen unless at least one of the PC's can take advantage of the creatures being undead (turning, Holy Smite, etc.). Actually, I have to be careful in general, because I can take an "EL = party ACL" encounter and make it deadly if I plan it out too much!

 

[RigaMortus]

For the benefit of our viewers at home, I'd like to explain the loophole since I
just had to look it up.

Zombies can only perform a single move or attack action EXCEPT they can
perform a charge attack. A charge attack is listed as a full round action but
given the last sentence, in the case of zombies, charge-attack = single move
or charge-attack = standard attack action.

You can only ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action.

Very clever --- I'll print this out for next campaign as a quick-lawyerly reference

Can't someone who is Slowed do this as well?

Does the Slow spell affect Zombies?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Can't someone who is Slowed do this as well?

Yes. You can do it if you're Disabled as well, since you're restricted to a single Move or Standard Action.

Does the Slow spell affect Zombies?

Partially. A zombie is already restricted to a single Move or Standard action each turn, so that aspect of Slow has no effect on a zombie. But it'd still suffer the penalty to attack rolls and the 1/2 speed penalty.

 

[Corlon]

This still happens 6 levels later...

In one of my games, I had a true necromancer with 3 12 headed hydra skeletons and 4 girrilon skeletons near her. The PCs scry, and of course she fails her intelligence check. The PCs port in (there are 3 of them), and the fighter takes his surprise round to partial charge.

He rolls a 20, and then confirms with a 20 (which would've killed her anyway, but in my games if you roll two twenties in a row, it's an automatic coup de grace), and then rolls well above her AC for the confirming of the coup de grace. It was over before the suprise round had ended.


But to make this relevant to your thread, generally with spellcasters having some sort of barrier (gates at lower, walls of force and stuff at later levels) in between your casters and the other people, because they're dead if any powerful melee gets near them.