can you help me with this encounter?

[pyromanser244]

I'm kinda new to DMing and still getting a grasp on the power of monsters and encounter difficulty. I've done this enough to know CR doesn't really work as advertized, even if it made sense. normally I throw BS on the field to see how they handle things but this tends to lead to spikes and valleys of difficulty and I think what I have might get party members killed.

so here's the rundown. I've got a party of 5 lvl 4 players with 2 NPCs, only one of whom can actually fight. the players themselves range from experienced optimizers to newbies. that being said, they have neither a cleric nor a full arcane caster besides a warmage. oh, and the they're underground and none have natural darkvision. I've got a few encounters lined up but the last one is what bothers me. I decided I want to try spellstiched ghasts. I'm planing to use 5 of them and give them spells to fit 3 roles, melee who use mage armor and touch spells, ranged fighter, and the boss who puts down area affects that his friends are immune to. they mostly have debuff spells which add into their normal debuffs and free paralysis.

add to this that the players may be low on hp and/or poisoned, I'm thinking this will be a tough fight. thing is I'm not sure if it's too much or not. what do you guys think?

also, at least 1 player visits this forum. so I'd like to not go into specifics.

[Venger]

I'm kinda new to DMing and still getting a grasp on the power of monsters and encounter difficulty. I've done this enough to know CR doesn't really work as advertized, even if it made sense. normally I throw BS on the field to see how they handle things but this tends to lead to spikes and valleys of difficulty and I think what I have might get party members killed.

so here's the rundown. I've got a party of 5 lvl 4 players with 2 NPCs, only one of whom can actually fight. the players themselves range from experienced optimizers to newbies. that being said, they have neither a cleric nor a full arcane caster besides a warmage. oh, and the they're underground and none have natural darkvision. I've got a few encounters lined up but the last one is what bothers me. I decided I want to try spellstiched ghasts. I'm planing to use 5 of them and give them spells to fit 3 roles, melee who use mage armor and touch spells, ranged fighter, and the boss who puts down area affects that his friends are immune to. they mostly have debuff spells which add into their normal debuffs and free paralysis.

add to this that the players may be low on hp and/or poisoned, I'm thinking this will be a tough fight. thing is I'm not sure if it's too much or not. what do you guys think?

also, at least 1 player visits this forum. so I'd like to not go into specifics.

well, first thing's first, can you tell us what the characters are? you've mentioned you have a warmage in your party. what are the other 4 people playing?

you've mentioned there are some noobs and some veterans. who's playing what? an experienced player playing samurai vs playing wizard are very different things.

does the party have any actual way to remove paralysis? you said no one's playing a cleric. does anyone have UMD? a wand of it? without that, the ghasts can CDG them the round after paralysis.

take it easy if you plan on spellstitching them. it helps the ghasts out a ton, and you may wish to scale back some of their abilities (warmage probably won't be able to beat the SR on them.) in my experience, the types of people who play warmage aren't the types that know off the top of their head (or sometimes at all) which spells allow SR and which don't.

[pyromanser244]

we have a druid, a rogue, a fighter (tripper), an atypical paladin (CG variant), and the warmage. the druid is the newbie, the warmage is the veteran and I think the others are in order of experience. I'm fairly certain that rainbow servant is in the vet's plans for later.

I know they don't have wands, but I'm not sure about UMD. not even sure if the paladin still has that on his revised spell list. I can look into dropping something to that effect in an earlier encounter.

[Venger]

we have a druid, a rogue, a fighter (tripper), an atypical paladin (CG variant), and the warmage. the druid is the newbie, the warmage is the veteran and I think the others are in order of experience. I'm fairly certain that rainbow servant is in the vet's plans for later.

I know they don't have wands, but I'm not sure about UMD. not even sure if the paladin still has that on his revised spell list. I can look into dropping something to that effect in an earlier encounter.

okay. the only thing you should worry about for the druid is an overeagerness to go into melee. the 5HD medium forms he can get are decidedly lackadaisical for killing advanced ghasts, and he might screw himself if he charges into melee, since at level 5, he doesn't have natural spell yet.

pallies have remove paralysis on their class list, but how many times a day he can cast it due to their MADness, how many people will be paralyzed and whether he'll even have it prepared are different questions.

the rogue will likely feel left out since SA does not work against undead. is he ranged or melee? does he have penetrating strike?

keep an eye on the fighter. ghasts can still do a lot of damage tripped.

if he's going rainbow warsnake, then he'll get a power bump much later, but nothing to worry about now.

this isn't a particularly unusual party. if they have some kind of foreknowledge that they'll be fighting undead (specifically ghasts) and prep spells accordingly, this shouldn't be that big a deal. if they did spells earlier in the day for living enemies and have loaded up on mind affecting and fort saves, they may be screwed.

are any of your players elves? remember, they are immune to paralysis.

[pyromanser244]

okay. the only thing you should worry about for the druid is an overeagerness to go into melee. the 5HD medium forms he can get are decidedly lackadaisical for killing advanced ghasts, and he might screw himself if he charges into melee, since at level 5, he doesn't have natural spell yet.

pallies have remove paralysis on their class list, but how many times a day he can cast it due to their MADness, how many people will be paralyzed and whether he'll even have it prepared are different questions.

the rogue will likely feel left out since SA does not work against undead. is he ranged or melee? does he have penetrating strike?

keep an eye on the fighter. ghasts can still do a lot of damage tripped.

if he's going rainbow warsnake, then he'll get a power bump much later, but nothing to worry about now.

this isn't a particularly unusual party. if they have some kind of foreknowledge that they'll be fighting undead (specifically ghasts) and prep spells accordingly, this shouldn't be that big a deal. if they did spells earlier in the day for living enemies and have loaded up on mind affecting and fort saves, they may be screwed.

are any of your players elves? remember, they are immune to paralysis.

the rogue is melee TWF with shortswords. also he's a halfling. in a pinch he can throw rocks, but then there's that V quote about "proficiency" vs "actually good with".

and I think you might be confusing ghasts with ghouls. ghasts are the tougher monster with higher HD, DCs and "can effect elves" in their paralysis ability description.

I'll keep your points in mind. thanks a lot.

[Venger]

the rogue is melee TWF with shortswords. also he's a halfling. in a pinch he can throw rocks, but then there's that V quote about "proficiency" vs "actually good with".

and I think you might be confusing ghasts with ghouls. ghasts are the tougher monster with higher HD, DCs and "can effect elves" in their paralysis ability description.

I'll keep your points in mind. thanks a lot.

in that case, keep an eye on the rogue. since he'll need to get up in the ghasts' collective grill, he'll be much more vulnerable.

does he have penetrating strike or not? if not, tell him about it: it's in dungeonscape and allows him to deal half SA damage to undead while flanking. all it costs is his useless trap sense, too. it'll allow him to participate in combat when you guys fight undead until he can afford a truedeath weapon crystal.

I didn't confuse the two monsters, as you did say ghasts in the OP, but I had indeed forgotten that ghasts' touch affects elves. in that case, ignore what I said in that regard.

I'm glad you will. you're quite welcome. let me know how it turns out :)