You make the call: Spreading the Pain

[CovertOps]

The healing she got (90 hps worth) from the minions was brutal...and the fact that the portal into the room was one-way until she was defeated made escape impossible.

This is bad encounter design (whether from WotC or homebrew). Solo + healing = bad. They already have craploads of HPs and giving them healing just makes an encounter drag on. Also, I have seen this mistake MANY times with my own group.

Setup:
You walk into the room and standing there is this giant Golem looking construct. Around the edges of the room several lesser baddies appear as the fight starts.

Party:
We ignore the lesser bad guys and focus fire on the giant Golem (solo).

Solos and Elites are getting better in design, but it's still better to always kill minions/regular mobs FIRST (party takes less damage by eliminating threats). I haven't seen the encounter, but I'm guessing if the "minions" were dead before you started damaging the solo it would not have healed.

 

[Kobold Boots]

As I have said repeatedly, we did not consider delaying. It is not a tactic that as a group, they have really ever used. Obviously that's now changed. I apologize to the Tactical Gods for making such a blunder but can we please stop hammering us on this point. WE GET IT.

I apologize for seeming sensitive to this point, but it keeps getting mentioned, despite me having acknowledged we made an error.

As for the solo is going to keep striking us down...if the DM was quite willing to do that, he very well could have been quite willing to coup de grace me. THAT was what we were trying to avoid here.

Well said. I apologize for hammering the tactical situation home as I didn't mean to harass you with it. It's just that the only effective tactic a party has in a fight is really positioning if encounters are level appropriate, monsters always have the upper hand as the DM usually knows player tendencies and knows all the stats for everything on the table.

So again, apologies.

This is a very good point, and it was a surprise to me when the DM said that that was his intention, even to provoke a TPK if necessary. I was taken a bit aback by that, as it has never occured to me to TRY to TPK a party. If it happens by accident? Sure. But to throw an un-escapable encounter that is likely to TPK the players? That was a surprise.

I won't say I'm completely innocent as a DM of this as sometimes I'll have a story reason to want to take at least one player out.. but a TPK is really unacceptable most of the time and if it's likely to happen the players should be warned it's possible even if they don't know when.

I didn't enjoy myself because we were put up against a monster significantly above our abilites to deal with (given that our 5th man, the defender couldn't make the game) which meant that it was difficult to hit (I personally needed a 13 to hit at all). That combined with poor dice luck (rolling lower than 5 for four of the first five rounds. Then combined with coming up with solutions to my predicament (we even started dipping into the Heal checks to allow Second Wind solution) only to have them clobbered, badly. Remember, it wasn't until days later that we'd realized that we did have the solution in having the Artificer delayed. Then _that_ was combined with having the DM express his enjoyment at playing wack-a-mole.

Noted. My suggestion in this case is find a way to get the DM to allow you to hire a retainer to spot the team for the missing player. As a matter of course you get to potentially hire a stopgap and if someone happens to die you get a pregen character to replace him or her with if raise fails thus keeping story continuity going.

As to the dice rolls, that stuff happens. I have a tendency to roll 20s a lot with my longest streak (rolling across a table, not some palm job) being 5 in a row, and over the last four sessions I've had four instances of 2 in a rows. This hampers the group more than anything and they're tactically savvy cause they know it happens.

On the other hand, I have a player that rolls the number 3 a lot.. most players have their dice tendencies but I've found that a target number of 13 isn't that bad for my particular group. 16 seems to be the cutoff, but I have no idea why that is as there are too many contributing factors playing into it and it all sounds like mojo when you try to chat about it.

The difference here is that the tank is probably still able to do something, yes?

The tank's body is currently sitting on a sacrificial pyre ready to be shoved into a shadow rift to Orcus because he's part of a weapon that can kill Orcus. (They left him at a temple for safekeeping while they waited for funds to get him raised and ran off to do a few encounters to progress the adventure.. unfortunately the worshippers of Orcus were well-informed)

So um.. no.. he dies regularly and is now using a character he created as a retainer.. see above advice. That stated, the character will have a cool as heck storyline to play through if he's properly recovered.. I'm hoping that's the outcome.

It's not the 'challenge' I'm having an issue with. It's not getting wacked for loads of damage. It's being unable to affect the game when my turn comes around...repeatedly.

Yeah, that does suck, but it will eventually roll the other way for you and you'll take down the elite solo with a Chaos bolt or something..

I find it hard to believe that it's not possible to challenge the party without effectively stun-locking a single PC. Because it isn't.

Incidentally as a side note, the encounter in question is the final one in Stormcrow Tor, which is on DDI. Afterwards I'd taken a look at that monster and realized we should have been TPKed, but the DM being inexperienced didn't realize that the first two attack powers were 'basic attacks'. So instead of having one attack per round for the first five, he should have had 3...Plus he was having the PC decide which at-will to use, which I pointed out to him was not the usual way of doing it, to which of course we were just doing basic attacks...since we sucked at them.

That's all on your DM. Good news is if you all support him or her, he or she will get better at things.

 

[the Jester]

In my own games I go out of my way to advise "Ok, this encounter is important, if you wipe.. you wipe." Usually gets people to think tactically when they know they could lose their characters perm.

I guess the implication here is that, in most encounters, there is no chance of a TPK? Even if the dice turn badly against the pcs?

See, I like every encounter- even tiny ones!- to have a certain degree of uncertainty about it- I would NEVER warn the party that "This one is special". On the other hand, the situation often makes that clear... but if a BBEG sets up an ambush to look easy in order to draw out the pcs and get them to waste a bunch of their powers before springing the real attack- forewarning them would basically change their tactics completely. I expect my players to make up their own minds about whether an encounter is important or dangerous enough to warrant using dailies, blowing magic item powers and action points, etc.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

This is bad encounter design (whether from WotC or homebrew). Solo + healing = bad. They already have craploads of HPs and giving them healing just makes an encounter drag on. Also, I have seen this mistake MANY times with my own group.

Setup:
You walk into the room and standing there is this giant Golem looking construct. Around the edges of the room several lesser baddies appear as the fight starts.

Party:
We ignore the lesser bad guys and focus fire on the giant Golem (solo).

Solos and Elites are getting better in design, but it's still better to always kill minions/regular mobs FIRST (party takes less damage by eliminating threats). I haven't seen the encounter, but I'm guessing if the "minions" were dead before you started damaging the solo it would not have healed.

It's the final encounter in the DDI Adventure, "Stormcrow Tor".

Actually, the minions didn't even show up until Round 3. And since we have experienced what happens if you don't deal with minions, it's pretty much standard procedure to kill them off ASAP.

Admittedly, the DM did tell us when we killed them the Solo was getting healed, but we didn't realize the magnitude of it.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

It's the final encounter in the DDI Adventure, "Stormcrow Tor".

Actually, the minions didn't even show up until Round 3. And since we have experienced what happens if you don't deal with minions, it's pretty much standard procedure to kill them off ASAP.

Admittedly, the DM did tell us when we killed them the Solo was getting healed, but we didn't realize the magnitude of it.

That's quite a mean setup. Was there at least some knowledge skill check involved to see wether anyone knows a way to get rid of the minions w/o healing the solo? - If not that smells like a grindfest build right into the encounter.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I guess the implication here is that, in most encounters, there is no chance of a TPK? Even if the dice turn badly against the pcs?

See, I like every encounter- even tiny ones!- to have a certain degree of uncertainty about it- I would NEVER warn the party that "This one is special". On the other hand, the situation often makes that clear... but if a BBEG sets up an ambush to look easy in order to draw out the pcs and get them to waste a bunch of their powers before springing the real attack- forewarning them would basically change their tactics completely. I expect my players to make up their own minds about whether an encounter is important or dangerous enough to warrant using dailies, blowing magic item powers and action points, etc.

That's fair, here's the context

1. Every encounter has a potential for death. Some are worse than others.

2. If I feel there's a risk for TPK at a much higher than normal rate it's my responsibility to tell the players to ensure they have fun and come back to the table in good spirits.

3. Nothing I tell them about risk in vague terms is going to prevent them from using powers when they need them.

For example: If I mob on the primary tank and start hitting controllers and strikers at range (an encounter sufficiently balanced in number and type), it tends to create situations that the players can't move through quickly.

If you want them to blow powers, action points and other things, just make sure your combats take awhile.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Well said. I apologize for hammering the tactical situation home as I didn't mean to harass you with it. It's just that the only effective tactic a party has in a fight is really positioning if encounters are level appropriate, monsters always have the upper hand as the DM usually knows player tendencies and knows all the stats for everything on the table.

So again, apologies.

Accepted.

I won't say I'm completely innocent as a DM of this as sometimes I'll have a story reason to want to take at least one player out.. but a TPK is really unacceptable most of the time and if it's likely to happen the players should be warned it's possible even if they don't know when.

Last TPK I had was really the players' fault, although I did learn that players become irrational once their being 'forced' into something.

As for attacking a single player, I did have an assassin only attack one PC in one combat, but that's because he had a contract put out on him. Shame we never actually resolved that.

Noted. My suggestion in this case is find a way to get the DM to allow you to hire a retainer to spot the team for the missing player. As a matter of course you get to potentially hire a stopgap and if someone happens to die you get a pregen character to replace him or her with if raise fails thus keeping story continuity going.

Having a companion character ready would be a good idea too. And I'd wished I'd actually gone ahead and made up my fighter like I was planning, because I would have used him that session instead.

The tank's body is currently sitting on a sacrificial pyre ready to be shoved into a shadow rift to Orcus because he's part of a weapon that can kill Orcus. (They left him at a temple for safekeeping while they waited for funds to get him raised and ran off to do a few encounters to progress the adventure.. unfortunately the worshippers of Orcus were well-informed)

So um.. no.. he dies regularly and is now using a character he created as a retainer.. see above advice. That stated, the character will have a cool as heck storyline to play through if he's properly recovered.. I'm hoping that's the outcome.

I have warned the players to have a backup character ready in case their current one dies. Far as I know, no one has done that though.

That's all on your DM. Good news is if you all support him or her, he or she will get better at things.

Oh, no doubt. Though I did stick my foot in my mouth a few months ago when we were trying to decide what to do when I was starting to get burnt out...I pretty much stated that I rarely played because I didn't much care for other DMs.

Which to some degree is still true...I think most DMs, if they were going to play, like to play in the games they DM.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I didn't enjoy myself because we were put up against a monster significantly above our abilites to deal with (given that our 5th man, the defender couldn't make the game) which meant that it was difficult to hit (I personally needed a 13 to hit at all). That combined with poor dice luck (rolling lower than 5 for four of the first five rounds. Then combined with coming up with solutions to my predicament (we even started dipping into the Heal checks to allow Second Wind solution) only to have them clobbered, badly. Remember, it wasn't until days later that we'd realized that we did have the solution in having the Artificer delayed. Then _that_ was combined with having the DM express his enjoyment at playing wack-a-mole.

So... you were down a man, used bad tactics, had bad luck and still beat the foe, but you're complaining that you were so outclassed that you didn't stand a chance?

If my character had been hitting repeatedly, for good damage (like say, the Warlock in the party had been), and _then_ I get wacked, I probably wouldn't have had an issue with it. I would have been annoyed, but at least I got my licks in early. If I'd had that poor dice luck and had difficult to hit-rolls but not gotten effectively stun-locked I could have shrugged and I just had bad luck that night.

As it was, I got to roll the damage dice twice in 10-12 rounds.

And that was entirely the fault of your party. The DM posed a challenge that had multiple solutions and you and your party failed to arrive at any of them, and for that you...

won. And yet you still seem to be bitter about it.

It's not the 'challenge' I'm having an issue with. It's not getting wacked for loads of damage. It's being unable to affect the game when my turn comes around...repeatedly.

You got whacked for a lot of damage because you're really not a front-line character, and you were unable to affect the game because your party had bad tactics.

The alternative to that is that no matter how bad you and your party's tactics are, you win and contribute fully in every round of combat.

At that point you may as well narrate combats to the DM and move on.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

So... you were down a man, used bad tactics, had bad luck and still beat the foe, but you're complaining that you were so outclassed that you didn't stand a chance?

No, we didn't stand a chance if the DM had been experienced enough to know what the capabilities of the monster was. That's the only reason we won...for five rounds the DM had the monster with 1/3 it's normal attacks. Even then, on that final round we had the sorcerer down and the artificer down. We were || this close to a TPK as it was.

And that was entirely the fault of your party. The DM posed a challenge that had multiple solutions and you and your party failed to arrive at any of them, and for that you...

won. And yet you still seem to be bitter about it.

Yeah funny that. It's almost as if I get more enjoyment out of playing the game and participating as opposed to just 'winning' and rolling death saves (or repeated saves vs stun).

You got whacked for a lot of damage because you're really not a front-line character, and you were unable to affect the game because your party had bad tactics.

The alternative to that is that no matter how bad you and your party's tactics are, you win and contribute fully in every round of combat.

At that point you may as well narrate combats to the DM and move on.

Yes, because _obviously_ I just want everthing to be easy and simple so we can 'win'. Have you actually _read_ what I've written, because you just don't seem to be getting my point.

Let me try one more time.

It is not necessary to stun-lock (directly or indirectly) a single player's character for a substantial part of the combat in order to challenge the group.

I just don't know how much clearer I can get. <shrug>

To be honest, I think this thread has run it's course. I keep repeating myself. Those who think I'm wrong keep harping how idiotic we are.

There were some good points made, and I thank all of you for participating.