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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1894898" data-attributes="member: 15470">A few more ideasHobgoblins wounded but not killed outright should seek to disengage: you don't 'fight to the death' at first encounter; that's what a final stand is for, and they're much more likely to make that final stand in the presence of their leader types. If there's a magical healer in their group, that gives them a shot of survival; likewise, it will help consume buffs, rages, etc., by extending the overall length of the encounter.Let them learn: any survivor who has seen that wizard cast a spell can warn others that they need to focus on him.My GM made great use of intelligent opponents in a recent lair-invasion: any time we stopped to try and rest, they re-fortified, setting up traps and defenses aimed at whichever location we were defending, and using hit-and-run tactics to insure that we never got a full night's sleep.Also, there are some little things you can do: as the party gets deeper in, let 'warned' hobgoblins start bringing pieces of the environment into play. A table turned on its side for people to hide under; (+2 or +4 cover bonus) a door left slightly ajar with something balanced atop it (to make noise when it falls and let the guys in the next room buff up); etc. This will provide versimillitude as well as challenge, especially if you paint a picture of the hobgoblins getting more desperate the deeper the party gets. (Flipside: if they overrun the first encounter and prevent an escapee, let the second encounter be unarmed, or unarmored, or otherwise scrambling to get ready to fight.)The spell darkness can be put to great use; get the barbarian fighting blind. Its also a great non-lethal trap: a mere annoyance to a hobgoblin living there who forgets about it and sets it off, but a real boon to hobgoblins trying to fight off a determined enemy.Finally, once the party has reached and passed a 'fork' in the tunnels, let some other group sneak up behind them. If (as is likely) the hobgoblins have reached a point where they know there's a wizard, but the barbarian and cleric have proven an impossibly strong barrier preventing them from reaching him, this second group can wait for them to engage a fixed defensive barrier, and then fall upon them from the rear. They get the equivalent of a surprise round: appearing in view at the start of their initiative, and then getting a full round action (move and attack, likely) before the party gets to react to their appearance on the field, and they've now cut off the party's ability to retreat from this engagement. That will be brutal - unless the party has remembered to have somebody watching their rear with an action 'readied' against the appearance of new opponents.One other suggestion: you can run this encounter *by yourself* first, running a facsimile of the party against your hobgoblins. Literally, set up a battle-mat, play both sides, roll dice (or stipulate 'average' rolls), etc. You'll see how it turns out, and may be able to judge things such as, for example, how strong or weak to make that enveloping group, or what level of difficulty a tactic or an environemtal-effects trap adds to an existing encounter. You don't want your superior tactics to result in a TPK, but you do want to make this encounter a memorable challenge.</blockquote>

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