Questions from beginner

[eamon]

It was a while back. As I recall it was 3 Wraiths, a couple Blazing Skeletons, a Boneshard Skeleton, some regular skeletons, and a few Decrepit Skeletons. It was a pretty tough encounter vs 5 level 4 PCs but the STR cleric got to go first oddly enough. So the wraiths ended up spending a couple turns immobilized while the starlock burned them down pretty well. One wraith became quite annoying phasing in and out of the room and that was about it. They do take a while to kill and I guess I can see an encounter with many wraiths and mad wraiths being nasty though a clever party that isn't pressed for time should be able to work around it. That's the thing with mindless undead, just focus fire on a couple of them and if things aren't going as you want once those are down then pull back and regroup. Its not like the undead are going to adapt to your tactics or set up better defenses. I suspect this is why wraiths are as they are, they stand up well against those tactics. A party that insists on duking it out toe-to-toe with mindless undead until one side or the other drops, they need to learn better tactics.

The absence of mad wraiths really matters; that dazing aura is not a joke. There's not much room left to tactically maneuver with that around. I'm not sure wraiths count as "mindless", but in any case their tactics suggestions are that they like hit and run tactics (using phasing) and will retreat when bloodied until they regenerate enough hitpoints. That's impossible to stop when the party is dazed (hard enough to do otherwise). I'm pretty sure that the encounter makeup really mattered here. Skeletons don't have any particularly tactically tricky features for this (although the boneshard's bloodied+dead-burst-thingo is nasty). A few wraiths are focusable, 6 get really tricky because when a bloodied one backs off the rest aren't somehow terribly vulnerable due to it (also, for the wraiths really to work well, they want to weaken every significant damage dealer; that requires a certain number of them). The mad wraiths are the icing on the cake that make a coordinated response very hard.

So, I expect you wouldn't have had as much issues because only a few wraiths just don't expose their particular brand of synergy so well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I think that's a pretty reasonable analysis. I would go a bit further and say that as a general principle playing an encounter with a whole bunch of the same monster will tend in this kind of direction. Consider an encounter with 4 Carrion Crawlers vs a level 7 party. It gets pretty ugly. Maybe not quite to the degree that the wraiths will but it still makes a pretty rough time for the PCs. There are plenty of monsters this won't be true of, but DMs are well advised to be careful when they deploy a bunch of one monster type, especially controllers or anything with strong condition generating attacks.

 

[JLV]

Thanks for your advices.

The swarm thingies seem pretty nasty to me, so I decided to use them later (if ever).

I have another question: If I'm attacking someone from behind, do I get combat advantage? I'm little confused here:
I get CA if the defender can't see me (and common sense says he can't see me because I'm attacking his back).
But the line of sight rule says to pick a corner and trace an imaginary line to the target. So if the attacker is behind, the defender can clearly pick a corner and trace that line, so he has line of sight = he can see me = no CA... How does it work?

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

In 4th ed., creatures have no "facing" - so, in a combat situation, they are assumed to be turning and looking equally in every direction. Which perhaps isn't realistic, but does simplify actually running combats.

So no, one does not get combat advantage for being behind someone - your view on how line of sight (LOS) works seems correct.

That said, it is a DM's discretion on how facing works outside of combat - for example, one can stay hidden even if in LOS, if the target is distracted. IMHO, a good DM should take such into account when determining if you surprise an enemy - an enemy SHOULD (in most circumstances) be easier to surprise if you come up from behind them - and suprise DOES grant combat advantage.

So, in short, creatures have no "front" or "back" ruleswise, but a DM can (and arguably should) rule that in certain circumstances a given creature does have a facing and have that facing effect how easily it is to surprise said creature.

 

[eamon]

Out of combat, it may make sense to assume that a particular creature or group of guards is all facing one way. In combat, creatures are all assumed to be frantically looking about, listening closely and generally have awareness of everything that goes on around them - in all directions.

To represent the fact that it's hard to simultaneously pay attention to diametrically opposed threats the game uses the "flanking" mechanic; if you're being threatened by two creatures on opposite sides, then these two creatures have Combat Advantage against you (see the PHB combat section for more detail).

Note that in this edition, all creatures normally threaten, regardless of what weapon they have (or even if they have a weapon at all) - you only cease to threaten when you can't take Opportunity Attacks at all anymore, such as when you're unconscious or dazed. Attacking unarmed with a terrible attack bonus (say, a weaponless wizard) suffices for Opportunity Attacks and thus flanking.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks for your advices.

The swarm thingies seem pretty nasty to me, so I decided to use them later (if ever).

I have another question: If I'm attacking someone from behind, do I get combat advantage? I'm little confused here:
I get CA if the defender can't see me (and common sense says he can't see me because I'm attacking his back).
But the line of sight rule says to pick a corner and trace an imaginary line to the target. So if the attacker is behind, the defender can clearly pick a corner and trace that line, so he has line of sight = he can see me = no CA... How does it work?

Within an existing combat situation you'll just need to find a way to become hidden before you attack. This won't always be possible of course, but there are items and powers which can make it a lot easier to achieve. So if you're a sneak attacking rogue kind of character you'll probably want to get things like Deft Strike, Fleeting Ghost, Shadow Stride, and one or two items that help you hide.

 

[ValhallaGH]

I have another question: If I'm attacking someone from behind, do I get combat advantage?

Yes.

The problem is that characters rarely have a "behind" side during combat, because they are at maximum situational awareness. Outside of combat, and the PH / DMG discuss this, characters have a "behind", allowing them to get stabbed in the back / have their throats cut (hooray for conditional minions.* Hooray!).

*Conditional minions are opponents that are minions while they are unaware of you but full monsters when they are aware of you. This allows for, and rewards the party for, a stealthy advance upon the stronghold that silently kills the guards but has to fight like crazy once the guard force is alerted. One of the major advantages to the "minions are just like other monsters, except for 1 hp and immunity to miss damage" mechanics of 4E.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes.

The problem is that characters rarely have a "behind" side during combat, because they are at maximum situational awareness. Outside of combat, and the PH / DMG discuss this, characters have a "behind", allowing them to get stabbed in the back / have their throats cut (hooray for conditional minions.* Hooray!).

*Conditional minions are opponents that are minions while they are unaware of you but full monsters when they are aware of you. This allows for, and rewards the party for, a stealthy advance upon the stronghold that silently kills the guards but has to fight like crazy once the guard force is alerted. One of the major advantages to the "minions are just like other monsters, except for 1 hp and immunity to miss damage" mechanics of 4E.

Any monster this trivial should just be a minion, PERIOD. Either its cannon fodder and there mostly for show (minion), or its something that should take SOME amount of effort to kill (non-minion). Low level mooks aren't that hard to kill anyhow.

 

[Stuntman]

In my experience the effectiveness of creatures varies depending on the party make up. I ran a party that has one burst or blast encounter attack and nearly got slaughtered by swarms.

 

[jbear]

Don't write off swarms though.

They add a very fun element to the game. Their is nothing wrong with danger and pushing your players to their limits. If you want to give your players a warm up easy period, great. But don't write off swarms definitively. There's nothing like a few good rat swarms dropping down on your players as they sludge through sewer tunnels!