Why you shouldn't use 5 ft corridors

[S'mon]

Suggested Tactics in confined spaces:

Anything else people can suggest?

Swap out the lead PC?

At 1st level a fight normally only takes a few minutes to resolve, players shouldn't have time to get bored.

 

[phindar]

If its an utterly untenable position, don't fight there. You could put a ranged combatant in the western most space of the upside down "L" and shoot at the monster; it'll either move forward or retreat into the room (or get picked to death, but we're not that lucky its that dumb). If it moves forward, you can retreat and try to lure it into the larger room where everyone can get their licks in. If it moves away, you flood the 2x3 room and get as many people as you can in there.

I haven't played through the scenario, so I'm just going off the maps and details you've provided (tight corridors, low level pcs), but I don't see this as a bad encounter necessarily. I see it as an opportunity for out of the box thinking. I mean, you have a monster in a dungeon who is smart enough to pick a point where he can keep from getting dogpiled-- this just seems like good tactics on his part. The advantage of the pcs is numbers, and he's got terrain that can invalidate that advantage. The pcs have to figure out how to invalidate his terrain advantage (by luring him out or driving him away), or they have to take their lumps in trying to bulldoze the encounter on the monster's terms.

The positions you've highlighted aren't where the pc's have to stand, its where they choose to stand. That's my take on it.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I disagree with Merric

I don't have the adventure, but in general I'm in agreement with Phindar and James Jacobs.

Intelligent opponents _should_ often be able to find defensive positions where the whole party can't gang up on them, especially when they're in their own lair! It may be fun for Merric when everyone gets to attack every round, but it isn't fun for _me_ when the world feels fake and contrived (every hallway is 10' wide, every room is gigantic) to accomodate this.

Perhaps D&D needs to ditch the 5' square. If the miniatures were 15mm instead of 25mm, we could have 3' squares and still put an equivalent (or greater) amount of terrain on a battlemat.

Or maybe, as others said above,we need to have more complex rules about what happens when two figures share a square. Two people fighting back to back shouldn't occupy a 5x10 foot area.

Ken

 

[Vigilance]

This is one of the worst encounters.

The (red) creature has a +8 modifier to avoid being Bull Rushed. The green positions are where PCs can stand and see the monster. The yellow positions are where two PCs must stand... unable to even see the monster and thus participate.

Cheers!

Might I suggest a little more flexibility with the RAW? The idea that 5 people can't fit into a 15ft room stretches the mind a bit, whether it violates the RAW or not. Even if you wanted to say PCs two to a square were flat-footed, it wouldn't have mattered much in that situation, since their opponent likely couldn't attack the "crowding" PCs anyway.

At the very worst, you should have allowed the character right outside the door to lean in and attack with a missile weapon or spell.

 

[blargney the second]

In that particular encounter, I remember the xeph swordsage ended up tumbling Up The Walls to get around the rhagodessa. Prior to that, I had three PCs fail Tumble checks to get through its square. Because of the tight quarters, they were all squeezing and prone in the same square right in front of the beastie with the big nasty bite. It was pretty funny.

 

[MerricB]

Might I suggest a little more flexibility with the RAW? The idea that 5 people can't fit into a 15ft room stretches the mind a bit, whether it violates the RAW or not. Even if you wanted to say PCs two to a square were flat-footed, it wouldn't have mattered much in that situation, since their opponent likely couldn't attack the "crowding" PCs anyway.

I'm fine with house ruling when necessary.

However, if you need to house rule to play an Official D&D adventure, then I reckon there's something wrong with the adventure.

Cheers!

 

[Doug McCrae]

I read this to allow the second rank to step forward, squeezing in with the front line fighter...take a shot at the bad guy and then slip back. In this manner you could have two fighters 'on the front line' of a 5' hallway.

That's illegal by the RAW. You can't end your move in the same square as another creature unless it's helpless, or there's a major size difference.

Even if it wasn't you still can't move, attack then move again without Spring Attack or a similar feat.

 

[frankthedm]

I'm fine with house ruling when necessary.

However, if you need to house rule to play an Official D&D adventure, then I reckon there's something wrong with the adventure.

When not in combat, no houserule is needed at all.

Moving Around In Squares
In general, when the characters aren’t engaged in round-by-round combat, they should be able to move anywhere and in any manner that you can imagine real people could. A 5-foot square, for instance, can hold several characters; they just can’t all fight effectively in that small space. The rules for movement are important for combat, but outside combat they can impose unnecessary hindrances on character activities.

 

[Nikosandros]

I'm fine with house ruling when necessary.

However, if you need to house rule to play an Official D&D adventure, then I reckon there's something wrong with the adventure.

Yes,

But the "stacking" rule in D&D is really silly... it exists solely for miniature purposes.

 

[hong]

I deal with this problem by the simple strategem of not using dungeons.