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Message: <blockquote data-quote="msherman" data-source="post: 4656334" data-attributes="member: 77344">I very nearly had this happen to me _twice_ in my game last weekend. I set it up to happen: the party had teamed up with a white dragon to attack a goblin lair (two enounters worth of goblins). During the fight, an elite hobgoblin warcaster deathmaster emerged from the lair, took a few potshots with his lightning staff power, then retreated back into the lair as soon as he was threatened. After the goblins were defeated, the dragon got greedy and turned on the party, to keep the spoils for herself. I split the two parts of the encounter into separate encounters -- after the goblins were dead, and the party started licking their wounds, I told everyone to reset their encounter powers and (if they wanted to) spend one healing surge. Then I had them roll Insight vs Bluff to see who was surprised by the dragon's sudden attack.That fight started off really poorly outside in the open, so the party retreated into the goblin lair. As far as they knew, it was now completely empty except for the hobgoblin deathmaster (and his zombies). They retreat around a corner into a room that looks fairly defendable, and while the dragon spends a couple rounds squeezing through the tight tunnels to get to them, they notice a secret door. Now, there's precisely one secret door in the entire lair, and there's one Big Bad Guy left. You do the math. But the party says they're going to open the door and hide inside! <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/cry.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":.-(" title="Cry    :.-(" data-shortname=":.-(" />I had them roll Insight checks, and told them that it occurred to them that the necromancer was probably behind that door, and it seemed like a pretty bad idea to engage him while still so beaten up by the dragon. Even after that, they were still talking about opening the door! I told them they could hear a haunted growling behind the door (a gravehound). I think that finally convinced them. Ugh.So depending on how you look at it, that could have potentially been up to 4 encounters worth of monsters in a single fight. And we were a PC short due to a last minute cancelation!</blockquote>

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