Judge this encounter [3.5]

[Godskook]

Ok, so I set up a challenge for my PCs, and tried to get them to plot and strategize prior to letting them take it on. They came in with a fairly basic plan that wound up allowing the enemy to faceroll them rather easily. Instead of a TPK, I opt for an arrogant M.Bison attitude from their captor, who cuts off the self-proclaimed leader's hand as a lesson to not muck with him again. After watching it all go down, I've been privately wondering if I stacked the deck too high against my PCs, so I'm wanting you guys to weigh in.

The intel is from an NPC who asks the party for their help killing a guy. The intel he has is that there's 11(correct) people in the camp, at least 3 of which are casters(4, but the last was a heal-bot non-combatant cleric who didn't prove relevant). The guards were watched, and found to be rotating for sleep every ~hour, with only 1 man being relieved at each rotation(2 guards on duty at all times).

I told them at the end of a session one week, and then ended the game early to literally force them to plot what they were going to do against this. I even told them that this was why I was ending game early(that and the fact that 3/5 PCs weren't there).

The encampment had:
6 guards, all warrior 2, but with different builds(tank, charger, and archer)
3 wizards, all level 1, a necromancer, an illusionist and an evoker?
1 level 1 cleric, married to the group leader
Group leader, a level 4 ninja, with spring attack as his only useful feat

The party's assets:
-Level 1 + some feats
-A full set of +4 weapons that are, in most cases, optimized to work with the PC that uses it(the others suffer from a multiclass issue)
-1 level 3 ninja with non-great feats
-Tons of wealth for their level(and probably gold too)
-No given time limit

So, was this encounter insurmountable, or did my PCs simply fail to prepare well enough for what they knew was an encounter that couldn't be taken head-on.

The party's original plan:
Group 1, with the Rogue, Wizard, and Warblade, bait guards away using the Rogue as bait, combined with a hat of disguise, allowing him to look like a hooker.

Group 2, with the Scout, Crusader, and NPC ninja, run out while the guards are distracted to coup de grace the sleeping people in the tents

The group A guards decide to give chase after the Rogue from Group 1, but awaken group B guards before trying to leave. In this slight confusion, Scout/Ninja sneak into camp from other side, making it into the leader's tent without raising suspicion from the guards. However, a successful listen check from the leader quickly turns that into a counter-gank. As things blow up, the Wizard/Warblade hold their ground for a turn in hopes that the guards continue after them, while the Rogue quickly gets himself to somewhere a little safer. The Crusader, hearing the Scout/Ninja in trouble runs in to help, but the Scout is already down. The guards give up the chase and consolidate with the main group as the 3 wizards come pouring out of their tent. The PC Wizard and Warblade decide to jump in to help, while the Rogue decides its time to GTFO. The rogue proves to be the only one who isn't captured in this fruitless PC action.

[DeAnno]

who cuts off the self-proclaimed leader's hand as a lesson to not muck with him again

Seriously people what is with all the PC mutilation lately? 3.5 is NOT SET UP to handle cutting off hands or legs or noses or other essential parts (ahem) for long extended stretches of time, and doing things like that is just going to make it even more difficult for you as a DM to judge a party's toughness.

With that out of my system, I notice a couple other things here:

First, giving low level PCs a bunch of high level gear is going to have wildly varying effects based on the exact particularities of the PCs and the gear, since the system (which does a poor job of regularizing things anyway) isn't set up for that to begin with. Giving them harder encounters expecting gear to pull out PCs with very few HP and class abilities is a dicey proposition.

Second, splitting the party up is very rarely a good idea and this proves it. However the ability of the party to make a super plan to beat the really high CR encounter is also a very hard thing to quantify, and their ability to twist things in their favor is pretty questionable as their only prepared caster is Wizard 1, possibly with a very limited spell list (though if they did indeed have the "probably" gold he could have theoretically fixed this if you let him shop).

Third, it isn't that the PCs didn't put any effort into a plan and kicked down the door blindly expecting to win a straight up fight. They made up a decently complicated plan which tried to cover everything and it simply didn't work, and some parts of it backfired. Did the PCs know about the group B guards waking up? Did the wakeup cost the guards an appreciable amount of time, or did it happen instantly in a cut scene?

Fourth, was the leader asleep? Did he take a penalty to his listen check? Did the PC controlled Ninja roll really poorly or something? How did the similar leader build of a similar level "gank" the other so quickly? This whole sequence seemed a little weird.

But honestly from the moment you cut off someone's hand I was pretty biased against you, so all of the above should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

[erikun]

Level one characters have, like, 10 HP. Frequently less. Every single one of them is just one or two hits from unconcious, and the magical weapons don't help. What it does is turn the field into low-level rocket tag; whoever strikes first and hits will likely drop their opponent. The enemy party were able to strike first, and the predictable happened.

The party was outnumbered, at least 2:1. They might have had a chance if they could have seperated the enemy into managable groups, but with those numbers the outcome was predictable.

How did the ninja not notice the guards waking up the rest of the camp?

And finally: why did the enemy group, full of 1st and 2nd level characters, chop off one of the character's hands but leave them with six +4 weapons?!

[DeAnno]

And finally: why did the enemy group, full of 1st and 2nd level characters, chop off one of the character's hands but leave them with six +4 weapons?!

So many possibilities:
1)Due to all the chopped off hands, they're worth a lot on the open market
2)The entire camp had VoP
3)Every time a player loses a hand, a DM gets his wings!

[Godskook]

Seriously people what is with all the PC mutilation lately? 3.5 is NOT SET UP to handle cutting off hands or legs or noses or other essential parts (ahem) for long extended stretches of time, and doing things like that is just going to make it even more difficult for you as a DM to judge a party's toughness.

1.The party's wealth expectation is actually well above 1st level, and their access to restorative magics is pretty easy. It'll cost 2275gold to get his hand back. This is notably cheaper than almost every form of ressurection magic, and yes, the party can afford it, probably without even selling anything off.

2.That's assuming he even wants his hand back, cause grafts exist in this setting, and he might just pull a full-metal alchemist or something.

3.And finally, the most respectable alternative idea was to simply execute everyone caught and have them all GNC(generate new character).


First, giving low level PCs a bunch of high level gear is going to have wildly varying effects based on the exact particularities of the PCs and the gear, since the system (which does a poor job of regularizing things anyway) isn't set up for that to being with. Giving them harder encounters expecting gear to pull out PCs with very few HP and class abilities is a dicey proposition.

A good point, one I need to remind myself of.


Second, splitting the party up is very rarely a good idea and this proves it. However the ability of the party to make a super plan to beat the really high CR encounter is also a very hard thing to quantify, and their ability to twist things in their favor is pretty questionable as their only prepared caster is Wizard 1, possibly with a very limited spell list (though if they did indeed have the "probably" gold he could have theoretically fixed this if you let him shop).

The party split themselves. The only thing I could've done was to OoC tell them that their plan was a bad idea.

And the Wizard had all the time he pleased to shop before starting this.


Third, it isn't that the PCs didn't put any effort into a plan and kicked down the door blindly expecting to win a straight up fight. They made up a decently complicated plan which tried to cover everything and it simply didn't work, and some parts of it backfired. Did the PCs know about the group B guards waking up? Did the wakeup cost the guards an appreciable amount of time, or did it happen instantly in a cut scene?

1.The secondary guards woke up fairly fast, while the wizards took a few rounds.

2.The PCs knew about the secondary guards waking up before anyone was in jepordized in the slightest.

3."I distract the guards while you kill everyone in the tents" is not a complicated plan by any stretch. They put some effort into refining it, but failed to account for even minor contingencies such as the 1st set of guards waking up the 2nd set before walking into an ambush.


Fourth, was the leader asleep? Did he take a penalty to his listen check? Did the PC controlled Ninja roll really poorly or something? How did the similar leader build of a similar level "gank" the other so quickly? This whole sequence seemed a little weird.

1.The leader beat out the Scout's move silently check before the ganking started, and prepared a counter-attack.

2.He ganked the guy who took the first swing at him, which was the party's scout, for ~3d6 damage. The scout hit the floor immediately.

3.The ninja was among the last standing, and probably could've either gotten away had the Crusader not collapsed the tent(Not really sure what he was thinking there....)


But honestly from the moment you cut off someone's hand I was pretty biased against you, so all of the above should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Sorry to hear that.


The party was outnumbered, at least 2:1. They might have had a chance if they could have seperated the enemy into managable groups, but with those numbers the outcome was predictable.

Except the question asked is basically "could these PCS have taken the camp had they separated it"


How did the ninja not notice the guards waking up the rest of the camp?

Everyone noticed that happening.


And finally: why did the enemy group, full of 1st and 2nd level characters, chop off one of the character's hands but leave them with six +4 weapons?!

No one with Identify, so the weapons might as well have been mwk.

[Bob the DM]

The problem there was the plan. With a rogue AND a ninja, there's no reason to alert the guards early by trying to draw them off. A better plan would have been to have the sneaky guys sneak in and then help the rest of the party in. Set up to have the rogue or ninja go kill as many sleeping guards as possible, while the other sneaky pc go to the opposite side of the camp and start a fire or something and then have the entire party attack, while the npc's are running around dealing with the fire. The npc's are split up and would take a while to realize what's going on and the party would have stayed together.

So to answer the original question, yes it sounds like with a better plan they could have succeeded.

[Diarmuid]

Was the leader asleep? Sleeping characters take -10 to Listen checks.

Also, what did the PC's do when the guards went back to wake the others? Did they just sit there and wait for the chase to resume?

The plan certainly could have used some refinement, but even with better planning, I still think the encounter was likely too much for them.

By my calculations that camp is Encounter Level ~7-8. Not quite entering the realm of "XP for an encounter this high isnt even listed", but that single encounter would have been enough to level an entire party of level 1's, so that's probably way too much.

[Godskook]

Was the leader asleep? Sleeping characters take -10 to Listen checks.

Yes, and he took the penalty.


Also, what did the PC's do when the guards went back to wake the others? Did they just sit there and wait for the chase to resume?

Yeah, pretty much. Well, the scout+ninja snuck in while guards were re-positioning(before they left).


The plan certainly could have used some refinement, but even with better planning, I still think the encounter was likely too much for them.

Well, consider the alternate plan my roommate suggested:

Surprise round:
Ninja ganks guard #1
Rogue/Scout gank guard #2
Crusader/Warblade gank guard #3

In case someone is still alive at this point, there's still the wizard with his 3d6 RTA artifact.

-Listen checks-

Gank people as they wake up and/or slaughter sleeping people.

[erikun]

Except the question asked is basically "could these PCS have taken the camp had they separated it"
No.

They would've had a chance if the Scout/Ninja/Crusader had broken off and helped the other group with the guards. They would've had a chance if they'd caught most of the camp asleep. However, once the plan went south, the party had no chance of taking the entire group out. They were facing a group twice as large as themselves, with twice the resources (HP, spells, etc). Even if they seperated the camp on two fronts, they would still find themselves outnumbered and outgunned. There was no way they could take them out in a head-on fight.

(This was roughly a CR 6-CR 8 challange, against an ECL 1 party. This would be roughly the same if the divided the camp, because they were dividing their party as well. It had no chance of succeeding in straight combat.)


Everyone noticed that happening.
Then the Scout/Ninja were quite stupid with continuing as planned. They should've gotten themselves out of there and helped the rest of the party retreat. They took a very big gamble - try to assassinate the leader anyways, while sleeping - and failed, with the expected results.

[CigarPete]

Hmm, Wizard 1, gee, maybe Sleep or Color Spray would be a good option. Or possibly Burning Hands to set lots of things on fire, like tents?

I think the answer to the question is absolutely, if they had both planned and executed better they could have succeeded.

[Godskook]

No.

They would've had a chance if the Scout/Ninja/Crusader had broken off and helped the other group with the guards. They would've had a chance if they'd caught most of the camp asleep. However, once the plan went south, the party had no chance of taking the entire group out. They were facing a group twice as large as themselves, with twice the resources (HP, spells, etc). Even if they seperated the camp on two fronts, they would still find themselves outnumbered and outgunned. There was no way they could take them out in a head-on fight.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear(apparently). I meant if they had separated the camp while remaining themselves a more unified whole.

[aquaticrna]

so, while people are throwing around a bunch of numbers about ecl, i think that they aren't taking into account that you made everything about this geared towards the pc's advantage, and as i whole i'd say this looks like a pretty easy encounter (granted the easiest encounter in the world can still turn sour with a few nat 1's). i personally would have used the following plan:
1) wizard waits and watches the guards until they're close together and casts sleep
-did it work?
-Yes: everyone moves in very quietly (preferably in a zone of silence, sounds like they have enough money to afford a ring of silent spells or some one time use item) and coup de grace everyone.
-No: stay hidden wait till another good opportunity arises and try again, if out of sleep spells (should be just about all you prepared) leave come back again tomorrow.

[erikun]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear(apparently). I meant if they had separated the camp while remaining themselves a more unified whole.
Yes, possibly. This was a well-stocked camp, so if they were fighting only half of it, there would be a roughly 50:50 chance of coming out successful. Note that "coming out successful" just means still having someone standing. The party would likely have several party membered knocked out, and wouldn't be in any shape to take the remainder of the camp.

Probably their best chance of success would be to do exactly what they planned - take out most of the camp, and the leader, when they were defenseless. The biggest problem they had was continuing with the plan after the whole camp woke up.

[Diarmuid]

Ya, with no resource issues...a scroll or two of silence and invisibility would have gone a long way.

[Morbis Meh]

This is a level one party therefore the game has little to do with strategy and everything to do with the luck of the dice. By making the PC's outnumbered 2:1 you essentially give the enemies a damn good chance of hearing the party since it just takes one lucky roll by an NPC to hear and alert the rest of the camp. Also putting level 1 characters against a level 4 character is usually a bad idea since that is a huge gap in abilities and HP. The fact that one lucky roll can insta kill a PC at level one is silly, hence why I never start PC's at level one because it is stupid since it depends more on blind luck than anything else.