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Message: <blockquote data-quote="auburn2" data-source="post: 8175155" data-attributes="member: 6855259">That is not how it goes.  The party made stupid decisions by not being spread out to start with, they are not going to make more stupid decisions in the battle.  I clearly said they retreat back through the door and you have them engaging in melee and going nova, casting third level spells and hunters mark .....while watching the rogue bleed  out no less?Round 1: Bladesinger and enemy do like above.The Rogue gets killed round 1. He lost initiative (for some reason) and the enemy got great rolls.  He is doomed, Two of the Origs and one of the orcs can get to him and kill him.  They got 4 out of 5 hits when they should have statistically hit less than 3 out of 5 ... but luck is real so he is down.  He is also obviously not a scout or arcane trckster or he would still be alive even with those great rolls by the enemy.  The more significant point here is he is down whether I have a bladesinger or a barbarian or any other character class and more or less regardless of what I do.  Without wasting slots there is nothing that could have been done to stop that.  If I waste slots with fireball it still happens.  Fireball to start round 1 and the 1 orc and 2 Orogs remaining alive go kill the Rogue.  Or they go kill the bladesinger because she did not bother with any defense.  We are going to bring the Rogue back though, so it is not that big a deal, you will see.The Ranger and the cleric did not do what I said they would do in your example.  I very clearly said they would retreat through the door, why would the ranger use a long sword when he is a bowman, and why would he waste hunters mark?  He has fewer spells than the Wizard.   And why would the cleric use a spell that does no damage this turn while leaving the Rogue bleeding?  Since 3 of them attacked the Rogue at least one of these two PCs have no one threatening him.Cleric:  We will say no one is threatening the cleric.  Your description of SG is incorrect.  Spirit guardians does no damage on the turn she casts it  It does damage on the Orogs/orcs turns if they start in range or enter the range.  Regardless - she does not cast SG, what the cleric really does is uses healing word on the rogue and then backs up through the doorway like I said she would.  She then casts sacred  flame on an orc but he makes his save (continuing bad luck for the party).Ranger: Screw a longsword!  The ranger backs up and takes 1 OA from the Orc threatening him.  Since they hit the rogue 4 out of 5 times we will assume they miss the ranger.  From the doorway after he backs away he uses his bow and kills one of the Orcs and hits an Orog.  He is not wasting a slot with Hunters Mark.  His BA goes unused, but if he was going to use it it would be ensnaring strike not hunters Mark anyway.Rogue:  He lost  initiative it is now his turn and he is back up thanks to the cleric.  He takes disengage, backs up 5 feet.  Kills the Orog who is already injured and then backs up further to get behind the Ranger.  Note this assumes he has enough movement to do this.  If he doesn't he takes dash action.  It should be close, but we will assume he does have enough movement since they literally just entered the room last turn.Now we are set for round 2. The Ranger is 5 feet out the doorway with the rogue and cleric behind him. 1 Orog and 1 Orc are dead. The Bladesinger is in the opposite doorway with 3 orcs on her.round 2:  bladesinger:  We will assume the bladesinger does noth have thunderwave.   She tumbles through the orc in front of her and moves across the battlefield to position herself 5 feeet from the entry door, between the enemy and the Ranger.  We  will assume one of those OAs even makes it through on a critical and does 20 damage  ... ugh bad dice, she is really unlucky ......  She is now 5 feet from the entry door and draws her dagger she is holding a dagger and a whip and can get an AO either from 5 feet or from 10 feet.Enemy:  All four turn and attack the bladesinger as they can't make it around her to the ranger without taking an AO and only two can do that even taking an AO.  All miss (another shield is used)Cleric: moves up, stands next to the Ranger and uses spirit hammer and sacred flame on an Orc.  Damages it for 12 (bad rolls again).Ranger: moves to the side for a clear shot, takes out two uninjured orcs and moves back.Rogue: tries similar.  He is using crossbow expert and he does 24 damage to the Orog with SA but misses the wounded Orc on the second shot (continuing bad rolls).Round 3: We now have 1 Orog and 1 Orc remaining, both injured, the orc with 3hp left. They are toe-to-toe with the bladesinger. The Ranger and everyone else behind her on the other side of the doorway. Bladesinger is near death because of the one critical that slipped through, Rogue is near death. Ranger and cleric are unscathed.Bladesinger: Note an important point here.  One of these orcs is injured and she could easily kill it with an attack or cantrip. With GFB she has a slight chance of killing both enemies if she attacks the Orog with it and rolls a crit and the orc dies no matter what. But defense is the better play.  If she kills just the Orc she might die this round with another lucky hit.  If she doesn't attack she can be virtually assured she doesn't die while still taking the enemies melee attack on her party away this round with equivalent action economy.  Her party is going to win this round the point now is staying alive. The bladesinger takes dodge  and moves behind the Orog and orc so that he is on the edge of her whip reach.  She takes two OAs but they both miss because they have disadvantage.  So ranger is in the door 10 feet from the enemy.  Bladesinger is on the opposite side 10 feet from them. Rogue and Cleric are behind Ranger.Now tell me what you do?   Battle is over this turn regardless.We will say Orog attacks the Ranger (bladesinger is dodging so this makes sense he won't attack her right).  He gets hit with Sentinel and he can't move.  He now has 13hp left.Orc attacks Ranger and hits for 10 points.Cleric kills orc with spirit hammer.  Cleric, Ranger and Rogue kill wounded and immobilized OrogSo we have a battle where the party was really stupid in terms of positioning and despite being stupid and getting consistently poor rolls we lost 4  first level spells (2 shield, 1 cure, 1 spirit hammer) and are down 62hp (most of it in round 1) and one bladesong.  Form an action economy point of view, despite the awful positioning the bladesinger ate up 8 attacks (7 actions) over three rounds that all missed and would have been enough damage (80) to down two more party members if they had been used on others and connected .... and at the risk of being redundant this was after putting them in awful position to start the battle.  Think this through - the enemy used 13 actions in the example battle above (6 first round, 5 second round, 2 third round).  Over half of those actions were wasted on the bladesinger.  Even in the first round when you called their move and they downed the rogue with lucky rolls, 3-of-6 or half of their actions on that round were still wasted on futile attacks on the bladesinger.  Without her movement and drawing three of them away they might have killed the Rogue outright or severely bit into one of the other party members.Put the bladesinger in the door with the party behind like she should have been to start and we lose less.  The party should have never allowed this.  The party should be behind the bladesinger all the time.  The only exception is the Rogue when scouting and using stealth, and going through a door is not that.What should have happened is the bladesinger opens the door and sees the enemy, backs up and blocks the doorway.  The cleric casts guidance on the Bladesinger in round 1 and then again every time it is used.  She does not even need to go into bladesong, she only takes dodge and the two archers behind her shoot (with -2 due  to cover).  Two enemy are in melee with her every round, for the first round another four can throw javelins with -2 or -5 to hit because of cover but not much else.  The two guys in melee hit her 1 time in every 17 attacks.  So once every 4-5 rounds if they are Orogs or once every 8-9 if they are orcs in the front (the fight won't last 8 rounds).   Assuming the Orogs  are the ones  who go into melee first she uses 3 shields on average in a 5 round fight and gets hit once for 10hp damage.  Alternatively she  could have used bladesong and probably used no spells and got hit once or used 1 shield and bladesong and not got hit at all.  That is how to win that fight easier.  To be honest the best thing for the enemy to do is to not both attack but rather have one one enemy use help to try to kill the disadvantage and have the other guy have a small but significant chance of hitting, or try to grapple and move her out of the doorway (that is the reason for guidance and it is difficult with her having a better dex +1d4).  This will make them hit more often while she is not in bladesong or mover her to surround her and get to the others, but it will kill their action economy.</blockquote>

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