Was I asking too much?

[Yair]

In a recent adventure I pitted my 3 level 5 player characters (a rouge, a musket-totting bard with tasha's hideous laughter, and a fire-focused wizard) against a barghest, a sea hag, and 6 Warrior 3 goblins, each equiped with basic armanents plus a potion of CLW and CMW (barghest too).
After defeating all but 2 goblins and the barghest (which remained unheart), the PCs fled. The barghest alone followed, and the result was a TPK.

I attribute the TPK to some bad tactical choices (like waiting for the visible foes to close in, not anticipating a front guard hiding and moving silently, or the party spending a few rounds & spells in a misconcieved plan that only forced the foes to launch a full attack) and some bad luck (the barghest resisted six Tasha's Hideous Laughter, on average he should have failed 25% of the time), plus poor resource management (they neglected to use/take some magic items). But maybe I was giving the party too much of an opposition? I'm particularly worried that the barghest is more powerful than I thought. What say you?

Edit: For the record, the Barghest and Sea Hag have a CR of 4, according to WotC. War3 Goblins have... what, CR 2? The equipment may up those numbers slightly.

 

[Darkness]

1 barghest (CR 4)
1 sea hag (CR 4)
6 goblin War3 (CR 1 each unless they had elite stats)

Meaning, EL 7-8.

A 5th-level party of 3 is about as powerful as a 4th-level party (of 4). (Slightly better, but not much, and having fewer characters also makes you more susceptible to casualties.)

That's a Very Difficult encounter (at the upper end of Very Difficult, actually), meaning casualties are likely and a TPK is possible.
Factor in sub-optimal PC tactics and some luck with the dice for the barghest, and a TPK is certainly to be expected (though not necessarily guaranteed).

 

[S'mon]

It was a weak party - effectively about PL 3rd, and I'd put that encounter at EL 8. You were definitely asking too much.

 

[Arthedain]

Hi

My first impression is that you gave your players more than thay can realistically handle.


Barghest - CR 4
Sea hag - CR 4
goblin warrior3 - CR2; 6 goblin warrior 3 = EL7 (see table 3-1, revised DMG p.50)

2 CR 4 creatures = EL 6
EL6 + EL 7 = approx EL 8

Since your party consists of three characters, instead of four, this means that an EL8 encounter is somewhere in the "overpowering" category.

In my experience, humanoids with class levels are some of the most dangerous monsters. Often the players anticipate goblins/orcs/kobolds/etc with low hp and attack bonuses. It might be wise, from a DM'ing perspective, to give some subtle clues that "these aren't your average goblins". Your party could probably have handled the barghest and the sea hag, but the goblins are (in my opinion) more dangerous to the characters because of the above mentioned.

With regards to how tough the barghest is: I haven't thought much about it, but I've only used barghests twice before. Both times the barghest appeared to be a goblin (or an oversized goblin when I used a greater barghest), and my players definately underestimated to monster because of this. The first time they meet one was quite funny, actually. The goblin was "sneaking" (think Jim Carrey as the Mask, when tip-toeing forward) towards the players camp during the night. The player who was on guard duty gave it a wack with his weapon, and thought it would die...but no such luck. Loved the expression on his face . But I disgress...

Bottom line: The encounter was to tough. Learn from it, and continue providing good gaming for your players .

 

[Yair]

For the record, I was using Grim Tale's method to determine the difficulty. It is based on squaring the CR to get the power. My calculation went as follows:
Party Power is 3 x 5^2=75
Opposition Power is 4^2+4^2+6 x 2^2=56
56/75=0.7466. The equipment MAY increase that somewhat, but it seemed like a hard encounter but not one that should result in TPK. Especially since 2 goblins didn't follow the party.

I like the simplicity of the GT method. But perhaps I should reconsider using it...

 

[Yair]

In my experience, humanoids with class levels are some of the most dangerous monsters. Often the players anticipate goblins/orcs/kobolds/etc with low hp and attack bonuses. It might be wise, from a DM'ing perspective, to give some subtle clues that "these aren't your average goblins".

The party was well aware of, and scared of, the "meaty" nature of these goblins. They had encountered them before this encounter.

Still, a good point.

 

[Jupp]

I attribute the TPK to some bad tactical choices (like waiting for the visible foes to close in, not anticipating a front guard hiding and moving silently, or the party spending a few rounds & spells in a misconcieved plan that only forced the foes to launch a full attack) and some bad luck (the barghest resisted six Tasha's Hideous Laughter, on average he should have failed 25% of the time), plus poor resource management (they neglected to use/take some magic items). But maybe I was giving the party too much of an opposition? I'm particularly worried that the barghest is more powerful than I thought. What say you?

Edit: For the record, the Barghest and Sea Hag have a CR of 4, according to WotC. War3 Goblins have... what, CR 2? The equipment may up those numbers slightly.

The party doesnt have a class that can take the main damage from the more dangerous creatures. That point alone is almost deadly with such an encounter as you had there. The argument about anticipating a hidden front guard is a bit cheap in my eyes. The part about the magic items was not too clear. You mean they found magical items on the killed goblins or whatever and didnt choose to take it? If that is the case I can understand them because taking something and equip it takes a full round and with that kind of encounter I wouldnt want to waste a full round doing nothing as well. Another thing is that you did take away the possibility of an escape because you have the barghest. With its scent ability escape would have been futile. So a retreat was out of the question from the beginning on, leaving only the fight as the last resort.

What you had there was a wipe out encounter Front line goblins that will block the first round of attack of your party and will waste the first few rounds so the party cannot reach the magic user (sea hag). The barghest (bite/claw/claw/magic abilities/damage reduction) that goes for the toughest opponent and the sea hag that supports the barghest and tries to disable the parties magic user.

My 2 cents

 

[Yair]

The party doesnt have a class that can take the main damage from the more dangerous creatures.

Yes, I know. But they did fine for several adventures already...

The argument about anticipating a hidden front guard is a bit cheap in my eyes. The part about the magic items was not too clear. You mean they found magical items on the killed orcs or whatever and didnt choose to take it? If that is the case I can understand them because taking something and equip it takes a full round and with that kind of encounter I wouldnt want to waste a full round doing nothing as well. Another thing is that you did take away the possibility of an escape because you have the barghest. With its scent ability escape would have been futile. So a retreat was out of the question from the beginning on, leaving only the fight as the last resort.

This isn't an excuse, but this isn't how things went down.
The party KNEW there were unseen members in the gang that chased them; not taking that into account is, IMHO, a tactical mistake.
The part about magic items is that the players didn't keep an orderly list of magic items looted, so neglected to use some in the fight. They had a few magic items we simply forgot about. It was not an in-character thing, it was a meta-game thing.
Finally, escape WAS possible but only for one character - the wizard could fly away (that would have saved also another character, actually). He chose to stick by his friends to the (bitter) end. I LIKE that - it is heroic. Unfortunately, it did not work.
I considered letting them go unchased, but considering the situation it didn't make sense.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

It's a shame when this happens.

From looking at the monsters and the PCs, it does seem like this is a particularly hard challenge for them. It's a situation where the lack of a fighter, paladin or barbarian is going to hurt.

It was a nasty encounter, but it's not like it you threw them up against a Balor - or something impossible? With a little more luck, they might have pulled through.

Missing the gear and the bad tactics is a shame. But it happens. Was this a temporary player lapse or do they do this sort of thing a lot?



Prisoners?

Entirely possible the barghest wasn't feeling hungry right then, so stuck them in a larder. Some/all of them wake up, stripped of gear, missing a leg, etc.

It stretches things a little, but not too far? Frankly, I'd rather ignore a little stretching than start a new campaign.

Unfortunately, I don't know if you're the same... but these sort of things occur with hindsight. Generally about 5 minutes after we've started rolling up new characters.

Ah well, lets hope they survive the next campaign!

 

[Yair]

It's a situation where the lack of a fighter, paladin or barbarian is going to hurt.

Missing the gear and the bad tactics is a shame. But it happens. Was this a temporary player lapse or do they do this sort of thing a lot?

We are continuing the campaign with a dfferent party. The PCs were safeguarding an artifact, so now tha bad guys have it and it is up to a brave bunch of heroes to save the day...
An all-dwarf fighter-heavy party, of course

They often mismanage gear, but then again they probably had too much of it anyways. They usually do pull off great plans, though, and I guess I was relying on one here too...