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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DanmarLOK" data-source="post: 4948793" data-attributes="member: 71480">Scenario: Avenging Dead[sblock] XP Encounter Difficulty: Level 7+ / +4  Brief summary: The party is in pursuit of a ravaging band of raiders from the west and sees the unfortunately all too common sight of pillars of smoke on the horizon. They loosen their shovels and head over to see, yet again, if there are any survivors and to bury the dead.   They arrive to find the village still smoldering with burned and savagely hacked corpses. Area setup: It's a small village with a central area with a well that's been collapsed down so it's now a pit that drops down 30' to water.  Assorted obstacles, destroyed stands, smouldering wagons and piles of bodies create difficult terrain.   Peasant cottages are still burning at a low level or collapsed into piles of embers creating zones of damage from heat.  Drifting smoke makes the entire area hazy granting concealment to creatures that are more than 10 squares away.  Enemies:Undead - Level 7 Elite Controller x 1Level 5 Solider x 2Level 5 Skirmisher x 2Level 6 Minion Skirmishers 2x5 waves (with a third wave held in reserve pending DM judgment)Enemy setup:The Elite is in the center of the area and triggers the remainder of the enemies who claw their way from piles of bodies or emerge from the rubble.  The minions attack in waves.  How it went:  The party showed up as expected and went to survey the damage and look for survivors.  As they entered the center of the village they hear a low pitched moaning coming from one of the piles of the bodies.  They move closer to investigate expecting to find a survivor and OOC "some clues as to the bandits they've been chasing that are causing all the mayhem."   As the group got closer they saw the tortured remains of a woman who's eyes opened and she let loose a piercing cry of pain and anguish that blasted them all back several squares and knocked them prone.   Other corpses started shifting and emerging forth at the cry and the battle was on.The party was comprised of an avenger, a bard, an invoker, a fighter, a rogue.It went well enough.  The minions had an encounter power where they could inflict the psychic trauma of their burning to death against their targets, the soldiers were set up with good grab powers and the bard spent two turns climbing up out of the well after being dropped into it.  The non-minion skirmishers had interupts that interfered with the parties attacks while the elite would freeze PC's in turn in place with her outpouring of pain. During the fight there was the sound of wood creaking and groaning from one of the smoldering huts and the avenger moved toward it thinking it was reinforcements only to catch a full on explosion as a cask of alcohol inside finally exploded, the blast also destroying most of another wave of minions that were crawling forward.  I did make a reference to the sign of a ale mug still hanging by one strap to which I got the comment, "Oh great now we get to fight drunk zombies."  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Actual Difficulty: Level 5 the radiant abilities really wreaked havoc with the undead but I expected that.  The minions went down like so much popcorn which is why I had another wave in reserve but things were starting to look a bit tense since they are lacking in healing abilities so I burned most of them up in the explosion.  If I did it over again I might shift some of the minions into more standards that arrived in a second wave.   How well did it work(on a scale of 1-10): 8'ish.  The party really enjoyed the imagry as I painted a picture of the rage and pain the undead were consumed by as they tried to protect their village even after death.  The smells of burnt flesh and the choking smoke making it hard to see, the corpses stumbling to life around them.  Having to hack these poor villagers tortured bodies up was really unpleasent for them (in a good way) and increased their fervor to go after the group responsible and make them pay for their crimes.Tactically it went well enough.  The having to avoid the hot zones, and after the bard was tossed into the well, everyone shifting targets to get rid of the grabby zombies was fun.  The explosion was a high point with a lot of "You illegitimate child, I thought you were bringing in a brute or something out of that thing." type emotion. The creatures they were fighting had a lot of impeding style abilities but nothing that really shut a player down.  Dazed or Immobilized was the worst of it with slows and weakens.  I've found I really dislike Stunning powers.  The obvious references to the Witch from L4D were brought up but I didn't have her in mind when I made the creature but those game related visuals and audibles helped cement her as a pitiful but deadly creature for the players.  [/sblock]</blockquote>

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