Sagiro will have an analysis.
Yes. Yes I will.
Last night was run #34 of the campaign. All PC's are 7th level. A quick reminder/rundown of the party composition:
Caldwell: Human Two-Blade Ranger (Striker)
Logan : Human Shadowy Rogue (Striker)
Cobalt: Human Brawny Rogue (Striker)
Gilran: Odassian Elf Chaos Sorcerer (Striker) (Race is mechanically a Drow, I believe)
Bramble: Quith Protector Shaman (Leader) (Race is mechanically a Wilden)
Strontium: Warforged War Wizard (Controller)
And, some quick context: we're in a city that's about to be flattened by an Incredibly Large Colossus, unless the rebellious Duke gives himself up. But since that Duke has secretly teleported out of the city, everyone else is doomed. Worse, all the city gates are now “guarded” by traitors from the neighboring country of Croghan, and those traitors are killing anyone who tries to storm the gates. So everyone in the city is a) trapped, and b) about to get flattened.
We started the session by finding a local (non-traitorous) city guard, and convincing him (mostly via excellent Diplomacy by Gilran and Caldwell) that the Duke had fled, and that he should no longer be ordering everyone back into their (soon-to-be-flattened) homes. He gave us a contingent of 20 guardsmen, and let us go to the city's north gate to try to take it back from the traitors who held it.
That presented the following tactical challenge:
- The city's stone wall is thick and 50' tall
- The gate itself is a tunnel through the wall, sealed with portcullises at either end.
- There's a sealed stone guardhouse up on the wall, directly above the gate, out of which the enemy can fire crossbow bolts through arrow slits. The guardhouse has only two ways in: thick iron-banded doors on either side, both up on the wall. We don't know how many enemies are up there in the guardhouse.
- There is a street-level door in the wall that opens onto a stairwell, and the stairs lead to the top of the (crenelated) wall near to the guardhouse. But the door is locked, and there's a hostile guard directly inside.
- Atop the wall is another guard right outside the guardhouse.
- The next guard is (fortunately) well down the wall.
Our biggest asset was the still active Traveler's Camouflage ritual cast by Bramble some hours earlier. It gives us all +10 to non-combat stealth checks. Using a combination of Stealth and an incredible Thievery check, Logan picked the lock on the ground-level door without alerting the guard just on the other side. He left it closed but unlocked.
Then we sneaked down the wall to a spot about half-way between guardsmen, where Logan and Cobalt scaled the wall and lowered ropes for the rest of the party. Thanks to the Stealth Ritual, no one was spotted. In very short order we killed the first two guards – the first so quickly and silently that he didn't have time to raise the alarm. (With only 4 PC's attacking, we did 75+ damage per round to two different guards on two consecutive rounds.)
The third remaining guard on the wall spotted us killing the second, and started banging on the guardhouse door. This also brought up the door-guard from below, which caused us to signal our force of 20 allies to storm through the ground-level door and up the stairs. Someone inside the guardhouse opened the door; the guard slipped inside, and they closed and barred the door against us.
While the 20 allies mostly guarded our rear, we were now faced with a locked guardhouse with two arrow slits and an unknown number of enemies inside. The bad guys taunted us. We responded with a couple of very lucky magical attacks from Gilran and Stron through the arrow slits, Cobalt moved right up the door, so as to be out of line of sight from the slits.
That's when the enemy made their big mistake: they opened the door, used a forced-movement attack to pull Cobalt inside with them, and barred the door again. Things actually looked good for the (4) bad guys inside, since Cobalt was now injured, dazed and outnumbered. But he used his Action Point to slash at their eyes with Blinding Barrage, and his standard action to flip up the bar. Oh, and a free action to yell “door's unlocked!”
After that we pretty much mopped up, pouring into the guardhouse and beating down the baddies inside. I don't
think that any PC became bloodied in that fight.
Things that helped:
- The “Blind” status on two enemies turned at least two party misses into hits due to the +2 from Combat Advantage
- Strontium and Gilran (wizard and sorcerer) both used powers that caused bad things to happen to the Big Bad's allies if he attacked. (Concussive Echo and Chaotic Defense(?))
- Our die-rolling was, by a significant margin, the hottest that it's been in the whole campaign. We hit with about 80% of our attacks, and rolled 4 or 5 criticals.
- Piratecat's die-rolling was... not so great. With a chance to butcher Cobalt, two of the four bad guys rolled “1's” while he was dazed.
- After we had taken out all the lesser bad guys, and bloodied the Big Bad, Hrudduk, he surrendered. He was a Level 9 Elite Soldier (“Dragonborn Gladiator Battle Champion”)
- One of our soldier allies, a guy named Anvil who used to be a blacksmith, delivered the killing blow on one of the lesser bad guys (Level 7 Skirmishers using the “Royal Eyes Agent” block). Unlocking that door in the beginning made a real difference!
In theory, this was a borderline “hard” encounter. 5 of the skirmishers plus the elite solider add up to 2300 XP, where 2400 makes for a Level 9 encounter vs. 6 PC's. Our ability to gang up on guys one at a time, plus our smokin' dice, made it easier.
A few minor rules things came up:
Imagine an open door in a wall. Attacker is in the square on one side, defender is in the square in the other. Attacker hits with a power that lets him slide the defender one square. Can he slide the target through the doorway and then laterally one square – effectively a diagonal move around a corner? Can O slide X to square S?
***|***
***|S**
**X O**
***|***
***|***
We ruled that yes, he can. And I think that's right, since you can forced move a target to a square you have line-of-effect to, and you do have LoE to a square around a corner.
Also, I don't see any reason a Dazed creature can't use an Action Point to get two actions in a turn, but I can't find a rule that specifically addresses it.
Is it kosher to fire attacks through arrow slits if you're not right next to them? We decided that it was, though the creatures on the other side of the wall have superior cover.
Finally, I wanted opinions on the Stealth ritual (“Traveler's Camouflage”) we've been using. Are we allowed to use it for sneaking up on people, before initiative has been rolled? By the letter of the law, it seems that yes, yes we can, though you can't rely on the ritual to give you stealth FOR the attack:
"You cloak yourself and any allies present for the ritual in a camouflaging shroud. The subjects of this ritual gain a bonus to Stealth checks while traveling, and other creatures take a penalty when using Perception to find your tracks."
...
“This camouflage protects you and your allies as you travel, but not during battle. Any subject who rolls initiative or makes an attack roll loses the benefit of this ritual until the end of the encounter. If a subject is hidden when he or she makes an attack, that subject loses the bonus before making the attack roll, which could cause him or her to lose the benefit of being hidden for that attack.”
The question this raises in my mind is: does “travel” mean any movement outside of combat, or did they really intend this ritual only for actual overland travel? If the former, it's a pretty powerful effect for a Level 1 Ritual that only costs 10 GP, lasts 10 hours, and is likely to net either a +5 or +10 bonus to Stealth checks.
