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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sfedi" data-source="post: 5040434" data-attributes="member: 15746">Trial by FireToday I ran Trial by Fire.As usual, I modified the monsters and the encounter in several ways:Flaming Lance:Changed to a +9 vs Reflex Burst 3 centered on the party member closer to the center of the formation.Damage at the center is 4d10, and decreases by 1d10 for each square further from the center.Elemental StagFort 20, Ref 19, Will 18Hooves: added 2d6 fire damageHoof and Antler did 2d8+5 normal damage (not fire), and when bloodied, the antlers burst into flames and this attack deals and additional 2d8 fire damage (this keeps the damage average the same, but makes it's attacks useful against fire immune opponents).I've also added Slide 2 and prone to the attack.Elemental BuckChanged role to Skirmisher.AC 20, Ref 19, Will 17Antler Swipe: added 1d6 fire damageHooves: removed the "basic attack" propoerty. Changed damage to 1d10+4+1d6 fire damage. The shift can be done whether the attack hits or misses.Running the EncounterI suspected that the Moving Fire Curtain wouldn't come up in the encounter. In addition the party couldn't die in this encounter because of narrative reasons (I ruled that the Elementals would knock them, not kill them. And if they loosed the encounter, Indomitable wouldn't offer them to free her).So I added another Elemental Stag.The encounter begun with their minis on the road.I placed Torrent, Crystin and Haddin two squares behind the last party member.Then I described how the fire intensified at the borders of the road, a fire curtain raised behind them (10 squares from the central party member), how several trees fell ahead making a blockade 20 squareas ahead (from the central party member) and how a swirling cloud of smoke and ash formed above them.I narrated Crystin's vision and how she shouted to the warlord, at the center of the party formation, to move out.Then, everyone got a Standard action to do whatever he liked.This is when it begun to get interesting.The Fighter, the Warlod and the Rogue moved up to the road.And the Swordmage and the Shaman backed up close to the NPCs.Then all NPCs moved, behind the Swordmage and the Shaman, 4 squares from the Fire Curtain.Only the Swordmage was subject to the attack for 1d10 fire damage, but it was a miss.After that, I narrated how the cloud dispersed and left four stags in flame.I put the four large minis on the grid, none of them adjacent to the PCs. But all of them at a 1 square distance from at least 1 party member.At this point I asked for several checks: - Arcana for the Elementals Powers, Defenses, Tactics, etc. - Nature and Insight to let them know that this was product of the spirit of the forest manifestation and that they were in a testWe then proceeded to roll initiative.The NPCs wouldn't take part in the battle, but would act after all combatants.At the last initiative count, the Fire Curtain would act.(I haven't realized that it should roll initiative too. It wouldn't have made any difference, as it turned out, since it would have only damaged the NPCs)The encounter proceeded normally. The four elementals where a good match for the PCs.The fire curtain never damaged anyone, and wasn't much of a pressure, just an inconvenience.I'm glad I didn't count it in the XP budget.The Stags couldn't charge a lot, but that wan't a problem because they could still Slide enemies with their modified Hoof and Antler power. That was fun, how some PCs were thrown to the fire bushes. Not lethal, but interesting.Only two PCs were thrown to the bushes in the entire battle.The Elemental Bucks worked well too, although they didn't have any nasty surprises (except for the teleport)They were the most prone to use the fire forest as a shield (moving into the fire forest so PCs couldn't melee with them)The teleport from all the elementals was very useful for the monsters, to keep pressure over the PCs.And the PCs were happy they forced the elementals to spend their encounter powers.The teleports were spent: - Skirmishers: both to escape the fighter's mark - Brute: 1 to escape a deadly flanking between the swordmage and the warlord - Brute: 1 when a stag was immobilized, so it could attack on it's turnThe wall moved only 4 squares per turn (the module says 4 squares as a move action, but it's not clear how much it is expected to advance per round: 4 or 8?)The fact that it didn't move the turn an elemental was dropped was a relief for the players, they were glad about that.After running this encounter I found that all the modifications I've made where useful.Specially the addition of a Slide 2 and prone to Hood and Antler and the addition of an extra elemental.</blockquote>

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