What did I do wrong with this encounter?

[Lord.Sorasen]

So, I recently had the party I've been dming encounter a dustblight, a creature in Sandstorm. For flavor's sake (dustblight in my campaign are completely different than the Sandstorm entry, and play a big part in the story) I applied to the creature the "Half-celestial" template. I felt like this battle would be difficult but not too much to handle... But it was too much to handle. Hopefully I realized this right as the first blow was dealt to the monster, so I just silently eliminated its spell-like abilities, Damage reduction, and spell resistance, and it went ok. The party at the time was...

A Half-Ogre (Neanderthal base, took out the size bonus to strength and went with a straight "now you're large, also 4 strength from template") Psychic Warrior 3
A half-elf cleric 2
A Warforged Dragonfire Adept 3
A Human Paladin 3 (who for story reasons has a sun blade)

It should be noted that I really messed up, and as it's my first campaign I failed to give them nearly as much money as I should have (to explain the reason of my error, I didn't see the wealth by level chart, and not knowing how much certain magical items would effect the game looked not to magical items but to non-adventurer items. You can probably imagine how that went.)

The monster was stat-ed out like this:

LESSER DUSTBLIGHT
Medium Outsider [Native]
Hit Dice: 5d8+15
Initiative: +4
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), burrow 30 ft., fly 60 ft. [good]
Armor Class: 21
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+10
Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7), Magic Claw +8 melee (1d3+3)
Full Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7) and 2 Magic Claws +8 melee (1d3+3)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Spell-like Abilities, Smite Good 1/day
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60, Tremorsense 60, Spell Resistance 15, Damage Reduction 5/magic, Acid Resistance 10, Cold Resistance 10, Electricity Resistance 10
Saves: Con +4, Ref +7, Will +8
Abilities: Str 24, dex 19, con 16, int 8, wis 18, cha 12
Skills: Craft (trapmaking) +2, Hide +5, Listen +3, Spot +3
Feats: Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Sand Dancer
CR: 4

Spell-Like Abilities (Save Lvl-1, Caster Level 4): Aid 1/day, Bless 1/day, Cure Serious Wounds 1/day, Darkness at will, detect good 1/day, neutralize poison 1/day, protection from good 1/day

Also, later on the party fought another of these. The difference here is that the half-giant leveled up to psychic warrior 4, and they were accompanied by a Hadozee Scout 2/druid 2. And there was only 1 this time. It was still a close encounter. Note that it was fine when I got rid of its spell-like abilities and damage reduction.


SO, I'm figuring the error was based on one or more of a few possibilities:

A: CR 6 on a party closer to CR 3!? That's dumb (though this doesn't explain how the larger party had such trouble with CR 3)
B: There's better synergy between this monster and that template than I originally understood, and the encounter is stronger.
C: It's not that this monster is always tough, but that your party's build is not set to handle this sort of beast.
D: I did it wrong, statted it out wrong. This is totally possible.
E: The party is just terribly optimized. Though it doesn't feel like that's the case.
F: The magic items the party should have at this point would really have come in handy. Though the sunblade, which would deal double damage (I have decided these Dustblight count as "negative Energy plane" type creatures) didn't really make a difference, as she couldn't really land a solid hit.


Either way I'm lost, and I really want to do better. I feel like I should start a thread (the last one has been inactive too long) where I just ask stupid questions that are obvious to everyone else, but somehow that seems wrong too.

[Hyfigh]

I can't speak for how you set the monster up. I'm AFB and can't confirm the monster stats + template.
I would say it's mostly the creatures relative power level compared to your party. That creature is likely to have been able to full attack and kill each member of that party at the level you threw this at them.
You're too low of a level for anything but uber-optimization to make much difference, so I don't think this was an issue.
I don't know exactly what your players did during the encounter, though, and this could have played into the difficulty. If the cleric used some reasonable debuffs to hinder the monster, the party could have won the fight pretty easily...

[tyckspoon]

The monster's numbers are just too high for an unoptimized party- it's got good AC for the level, good saves (high stats + Outsiders get all good base progression), good to-hit numbers, and does the damage output of any two of your party (three if you don't pick the Half-Ogre as one of them.) I honestly wouldn't expect taking the spell-likes off it to make that much difference, although taking the Damage Reduction off does.

[ericgrau]

Let's compare the lesser dustblight to a CR 4 dire boar. 2/3 the HP but also 6 more AC so he'll get hit 2/3 as much. Ok. 8 higher AB and 1/3 more damage per hit. Probably twice the damage overall Oh geeze it has SR and energy resistance too? Similar saves. Casts a bunch of spells including a couple good 3rd level spells, normally requiring a 5th level caster. That's all without the DR 5.

The guy you have is way under CR'd. His AC, HP and saves are ok for CR 4, then from there everything is way over the top. If you took away every special ability and cut his damage in half he'd be CR 4.

[Lord.Sorasen]

The monster's numbers are just too high for an unoptimized party- it's got good AC for the level, good saves (high stats + Outsiders get all good base progression), good to-hit numbers, and does the damage output of any two of your party (three if you don't pick the Half-Ogre as one of them.) I honestly wouldn't expect taking the spell-likes off it to make that much difference, although taking the Damage Reduction off does.

I have no idea about the spell-likes since I didn't have a chance to see the difference, but I'm sure the damage reduction did.

And actually, our half-ogre is doing pretty well for himself. 24 Str --> 26 with expansion, and then primitive weapon mastery allows his greatclub a +1 on attack rolls. 3d8 base, and then the 1.5 for a two handed weapon... He took it out with two hits and I think 1 miss. But the others... Yeah, I didn't at all understand how much a pure base amount of damage would mean.

Should I take away its damage reduction... And then make another tier for it with a higher CR? What would that CR be?

[starwoof]

Running that thing through Vorpal Tribble's CR calculator gives that thing a CR around 6 because it has so many abilities. I can see why it would be an issue for a 3rd level party based on that.

[ericgrau]

As-is I suppose he's around CR 6. Still better than a CR 5 troll IMO.

EDIT: Ninja affirmation. Good guesser eh?

[Gamer Girl]

With out going over all the numbers, you should just note that these things happen. Somehow modern gamers have gotten the idea that everything should be 'fair and balanced' and even encounter should be a challenge, but the characters should automatically win in the end. In more classic games, anything could happen, and anything did. And you just rolled with it.

The whole point of dice is the randomness. I've played the game for a long time, and I've seen lots of crazy stuff happen with a dice roll.

A 10th level paladin who could not score a single hit on a lower level kobold thief(he rolled like a 1 or 2 ten times in a row) and was killed by the theif.

A group of low level folks kill an adult red dragon (Every single person rolled a 19 or 20 to hit every time).

I have seen several dozen times a Fireball do 10 points of damage(yes, they rolled 10 '1's)

So this kind of thing happens.

[Lord.Sorasen]

CR calculator? I had just been using Wizard's CR advancing thing... I'm getting this feeling that that's a bad idea.

[Rainshine]

CR is a tricky beast. Sometimes advancing it works, a lot of times not. The best way to find out is to fight it, really, and try to ignore how random and vengeful the dice can be.
That said, the "calculator" mentioned by one Vorpal Tribble is as follows


from: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43009

A challenge rating is how tough an encounter with this beast will be. Generally a creature of, say, a CR of 5 should be a standard challenge for a party of 4-5 5th level characters. To defeat this creature will cause them to use up roughly 1/4th to 1/3 their daily resources such as spells, potions, etc. This depends on the build of the party, their items, terrain, and many other factors, but in general it is more or less accurate.

Figuring out this challenge rating is the real fun part, and probably the most challenging bit of monster making. Its as much guestimating as anything, and there are no true rules to determine it exactly. Here is the closest method I've been able to come up with, though creatures with an enormous ammount of hit points or really low-leveled creatures will still be innacurate. The best way is to play-test the creature with parties of varying CR and find out which one most closely fits. Here though is the guestimator method:

#1. Divide creature's average HP by 4.5 to 6.5.
4.5 for 5 HD or lower, 5 for 6-10 HD, 5.5 for 11-15 HD, 6 for 16-20 HD., 6.5 for 20-25 HD.

#2. Add 1 for each five points above 10 its AC is, subtracting 1 for every 5 below.

#3. Add 1 for each special attack (+2 to +5 or more if its got a decent number of spells in its spell-like abilities).

#4. Add 1 for each quality unless you deem it worthy of more. Add 1 for each resistance and 10 points of DR it has, and 2 for each immunity. Subtract 1 for each vulnerability.

#5. Add 1 for every two bonus feats it has.

#6. Divide total by 3. This should be its rough CR.

[nedz]

Yeah - the monster was far too powerful.

Hit Dice: 5d8+15 average HP 37.5
Initiative: +4 Fast - likely to go first
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), burrow 30 ft., fly 60 ft. [good]
Fast - hard to get away from

Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+10
Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7), Magic Claw +8 melee (1d3+3)
Full Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7) and 2 Magic Claws +8 melee (1d3+3)
Wow - +7 above BAB, +5 above HD. Damage is actually OK
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60, Tremorsense 60,
Counters Stealth Threats
Spell Resistance 15, Acid Resistance 10, Cold Resistance 10, Electricity Resistance 10
Counters most direct Magic Threats
Saves: Con +4, Ref +7, Will +8
Highish: Counters even more magical threats
Damage Reduction 5/magic
Counters characters who do lots of attacks for low damage, negates attacks where the dice rolls low (which is especially relevant at low level.)

The main problem is that it is hard for most PCs of that level to effect it, or even run away. The only threat that the party posed was the Half Ogre, and once he is out of the way: Hello TPK.

I said the damage is OK because it will probably drop them to just unconcious rather than killing them outright: better hope they make those stability rolls.:smallsmile:

CR is a poor metric. Low level characters vary so much in power. I don't usually use monsters with so many threat counters until a much later stage in the game. Even one such threat counter is a challange at this stage.

[jiriku]

Kudos to you for recognizing that something was wrong and adjusting on the fly to bring the challenge back into line with what you'd originally intended. A lot of DMs aren't flexible and quick-thinking enough to do that.

Honestly, I don't think anything went wrong. Yes, the monster was somewhat strong for its CR, and CR 5-6 would have been a more accurate measure. But really, when you run a CR+3 encounter against the party, sometimes you'll kill a PC or two. I do it all the time.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Kudos to you for recognizing that something was wrong and adjusting on the fly to bring the challenge back into line with what you'd originally intended. A lot of DMs aren't flexible and quick-thinking enough to do that.

Honestly, I don't think anything went wrong. Yes, the monster was somewhat strong for its CR, and CR 5-6 would have been a more accurate measure. But really, when you run a CR+3 encounter against the party, sometimes you'll kill a PC or two. I do it all the time.

I'm afraid it comes from a video game background, but I'm honestly not ready to kill a PC just yet. I don't know if I have it in me. Admittedly that's a huge flaw of mine.

But I gave them two of them. Even one seems to be CR 6, people keep saying. Eek, scary stuff.

[jiriku]

Oh. Two of them. And they're too fast to run from. Well, that was a bit much, then. But again, good save. A lot of DMs would be here posting "All MY GRUP IS TPK, OMGWTFBBQ?" :smallbiggrin: