Surviving Tiefling encounter

[candidus_cogitens]

Need a little help designing an encounter. Suppose you have a group of second level PCs. They don't have any magic that could counter the Tiefling's Darkness spell. So, is there any possible way for them to defeat the Tiefling?

They could, of course, grope around in the dark and slash away whenever they bump into something. But what if it turns out to be one of their comrades?

It could perhaps be a wise strategy to just send ONE fighter into the darkness (assuming the others can avoid it).

The specific situation that I was envisioning in the campaign that I run is that the Tiefling has a prisoner that the PCs want to rescue. So, in that case, there would be a risk of hitting the prisoner as well!

Should I scrap the idea? Are Tiefling's just too tough for a second-level party!?

 

[hong]

Well, remember that the tiefling is just as affected by its darkness as anyone else, unless it has blindsight or something similar. Basically if I was the tiefling, I'd save up the darkness as an escape method -- it won't be much good helping me put the smackdown on the party. And if I have to escape, that pretty much means the party's defeated me, at least for that encounter.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

That makes sense, but let's assume we have a Tiefling who's a bit more aggressive. Or ... let's say we have a PAIR of Tieflings and they think they might actually be able to take down the party and that blind combat would be to their advantage.

They might turn out to be foolish Tieflings, of course. But the whole idea is to create an interesting combat scenario...

Q: In the monster manual, it says Tieflings can cast Darkness as a sorcerer of first level, or their character level, whichever is higher. Well, a first level sorcerer CANNOT cast Darkness, a second level spell!! What's with that?!

 

[Terraism]

Q: In the monster manual, it says Tieflings can cast Darkness as a sorcerer of first level, or their character level, whichever is higher. Well, a first level sorcerer CANNOT cast Darkness, a second level spell!! What's with that?!

I believe that it is referring to the variables of the spell itself. In the case of Darkness, that's the duration - ten minutes per level. Thus, a Tiefling with no class levels would create an area of Darkness that lasted for ten minutes, while one who happens to be a sixth-level rogue would create an area that lasts an hour.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Grappling in the dark?

Maybe the best approach would be to grapple rather than slashing. That way, you would have a better chance of identifying the target without injuring a comrade.

Would that work?

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

If I've learned anything from D&D, it's that...

A: If you are fighting a man with no arms and no legs, back away until he can't reach you.

B: If something casts darkness and you can't see, get out of the darkness.

C: Both A and B fall under the heading of, always fight on your own terms.