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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AngryPurpleCyclops" data-source="post: 4706982" data-attributes="member: 82732">Hard for me to discuss the encounter very logically when every monster in it is a modified one.  It's very minion heavy which by level 5 is not very threatening.  Since you deployed armor of agthys and likely have a wizard in your party, all 10 minions are pretty non threatening.  I can't speak intelligently about the crocotta but the huntmaster is certainly crippled after the minions are gone and they'll obviously be gone very quickly.  If the party concentrates on the minions at first I would be shocked if there was more than 1-2 by round 3.  A good placement by the warlock with Armor would end 3 or 4 on the first round and another 1-2 on the second.  A 5th level wizard has too many ways to sweep the battle field of minions (stinking cloud, sphere, burning hands, scorching burst, fireshroud etc.)  An interesting encounter but not exactly "challenging" for 5 pcs at level 5.  Solo's simply aren't that tough in a lot of instances.  If you get a condition on them it's like gaining a round or more.  The zone is could be tough, but I assume you were able to attack from outside it with most or all pc's or else your dm rolled horribly.  That's about 21 avg dmg per hit on attack that will hit a lot of pc's more than half the time.  2 hits could easily kill a 5th level non defender pc, so either it didn't get many attacks (and neither did the zombie) or else your dm rolled horribly.  Something doesn't quite add up.This is hyperbole and basically unprovable. We're delving into my dad can beat your dad up stuff.  You have no idea how tactically proficient my DM and I are either.  Let's assume it's even.  This is actually giving you the benefit of the doubt since you already said that 99% of encounters are defeated by your awesome tactics.  This means your DM's either suck at tactics or actually are pushovers providing you with cakewalk encounters.  It can't be both ways. I'm not convinced, nor are many others I imagine.  Give examples or else stop talking about it.  Three problems already.  First, even optimized scouts roll poorly so even if you win the stealth perception battle 75% of the time that means 25% of the time they see you first.  Second, there are no smoke bombs available in our campaign, we're currently out of sunrods even because finding magic items (even mundane ones) is not easy in our campaigns (this points towards softer DM's loading the party up with all sorts of gear).  Even if a smoke bomb was available we likely wouldn't have many because we don't have lots of gold.  Some creatures are not affected by concealment such as kruthiks.  Also your eladrin build is substantially weaker in many aspects to other possible choices.  The teleport is good but even if he teleports and then moves his range is only 11 squares, 13 if he runs.  Gnolls move 7, they can charge you out to 14 range.  No getting away for Eladrin rogues against gnolls.  Ghouls move 8.  You running can't get away from them even with std moves.  And if you're in a hurry?  Don't have anything to set up defensive terrain with?  Block it with what?  Are already being chased?  How long does it take pc's to make a fortification?  How much noise does it make?  You're waiting in an intersection which means there's a chance you'll wind up with two encounters instead of one.  Once again you're also assuming that scout who apparently moves beyond range of sight ALWAYS wins stealth.  This isn't even remotely realistic. A gnoll huntmaster has an 11 perception and stealth 11, it's not too hard to imagine a scenario where he gets the jump on you.  Or 5 of them sneak up on you while you're distracted creating obstacles and get a round of surprise.So you simply accept the collateral damage of not moving quickly?  What if a PC has been captured?  Do you pursue then?  Would your band of hero's accept a commission to rescue the mayors daughter?  Would you track a goblin raiding party that burnt a village and carried off hostages?  Rescuing damsels in distress is pretty standard fair for heroic fantasy.Well partly because that's cheating the system and very metagamey.  lets stick with level 1-3 for now, tell me what your party does when they hit a bridge?  My pc's are playing DnD not navy SEAL's so we're not carrying smoke grenades nor flashbnags.  We can't fly yet and even if we could if it cost residuum to make it happen we wouldn't do it at every "potential ambush spot" because that would run you out of residuum.  A good DM doesn't allow you to "patrol" at full vigilance and still travel at your overland movement speed.  If you send the scout out repeatedly making stealth and perception checks I would cut you down to 25% movement.  If every time he draws a map you start taking stealth/perception actions and using up consumables like smoke grenades and residuum he should be drawing maps with no encounter 10 times per day until you've wasted them all.  That's what passive perception is about you simply can't maintain active perception checks all the time so you're going to have to accept that no matter how perceptive your party is sometimes you fail to spot the ambush.Two more problems.  If the monsters use every trick why are 99% of your encounters a cakewalk?  Second and MOST importantly when discussing tactics the DM has the advantage not the disadvantage.  The Navy spends about $500,000 training one SEAL to work as a coordinated member of a team.  They then continue to train him over the course of his career and the numbers can become very large.  The average goblin war party can approach an encounter with a more coordinated attack then a SEAL platoon because with one mind running them, no one ever steps into your field of fire, two people never target the same person simultaneously while leaving another unaccounted for.  The level of coordination of an elite trained group of professionals can NEVER match that of a group all being moved and coordinated by one brain.  Obviously communication is key for the group but people still have their own minds and your DnD group is not as well coordinated as an HRT or SEAL team both of which fall far short of the monsters capabilities in DnD.  people do unexpected things.  You can train to make this as minimal as possible but monsters never do unexpected things unless the DM roleplays some "gaffs".You're telling me stuff I already know.  None of it is relevant because you don't ALWAYS have the info you would like or need.  You can't always get eyes on the target, intel can be wrong, people make mistakes, die rolls go against you.  The very nature of DnD suggests that you'll frequently have LESS info than the bad guys.  Your eladrin scout doesn't work ever in a pitch dark cave.  As soon as you turn on a sunrod the bad guys know you're there and you don't know where they are.You're presupposing that you're more tactical than everyone.  Or that by saying "avg" you're above average.  I doubt you're more tactical than I am but this is completely subjective and pointless.  I believe the campaign I play in is far above average in a lot of ways. Partly because the DM is a game developer that has been responsible for major online RPG's and related product lines as well as online CCG's, board games, Real time strategy games etc.  It's not my place to point out exactly what he does or has done since he never does but he's on this forum.  We enjoy a style of play we call "gritty" in that every encounter is potentially dangerous and N+2-3 is the standard encounter with an occasional N to N+1 and more than a few N+4's.  This might not be for everyone and I willingly accept that but it our group likes it and I find it more exciting, challenging and worthwhile.  The point being, I don't think the encounters below N+2 really matter when discussing, powers, feats, tactics, levels, etc.  Below a certain level and it's obvious the pc's are going to win no matter what.  The game is about combat and really only the combats where the ending isn't 99.9% certain are worth "debating", "crunching numbers", "play testing", or "examining".I'll happily listen to your reasons why this isn't so if you have them but saying you're going to win 99% of encounters based upon your tactics being so good and the other 1% are flawed, just doesn't fly with me.Bottom line you keep implying your party never gets surprised.  Is this the case?  Your eladrin with the smoke grenade and pole is in for a rude awakening when the grell drops on him and stuns him.  No actions means no free actions and thus no yelling for help.  even if you do yell for help, this might attract monsters who would then be attackin the party from a new direction.  Grells have stealth 17, perception 9 and blindsight.  grells almost always win surprise.  The rest of your party will come looking in a few rounds and find nothing as the grell flew off to enjoy his dinner.  My perception is your DM is too soft.  You seem to have the we can't fail mentality and this probably means the DM is enabling you.  He presents you with encounters where monsters behave as expected and you get to play tricks on them but never be tricked.</blockquote>

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