So I killed my Gestalt PCs last night

[CleanDeceit]

3 evil level 8 gestalt PCs were proving to be more than a match for other challenges I designed for them. They finished of a seven headed hydra no-problem and in the same day took on an army of Palor clerics and paladins.

So I figured I needed to step it up a notch. But Gestalt PCs are so difficult to predict interns of power output. What level challenge to truly face them with?
I decided to use an encounter in the Book of Challenges CR 10 assuming that a gestalt ELC 8 = 10.

I sent them into a cave where an aboleth using several illusions lie in wait with a "drowned" undead (from the MM3 i think). Just two monsters: a CR 7 and a CR 8.
Totally wrecked them.

Round one, the dual wielding crit-fisher gets dominated by the aboleth and throws his weapons into the water. After that, over the span of about 5 rounds, one player falls to straight damage from the Drowned slam attacks, one is grappled and held underwater and drowned by the aboleth and the last one passes out due to the Drowned undead aura.

Needless to say I was surprised how easy it was to overwhelm them with this. Given the number of other monsters they have decimated in open combat before. If anything this shows just how large a factor the environment, tactical information and the surprise round (or lack there of) can make. The players didnt even put a dent in these monsters.

Defeat was written all over their expressions in the aftermath of the combat.

[Demonic_Spoon]

CR is borked, actual tactics and use of the environment are vital, and certain abilities can completely wreck the normally nigh-invincible but unprepared pc, like the aforementioned dominate.

[CleanDeceit]

He recovered in the second round and picked up an extra rapier from one of the other players but without his other weapons he was still severely disabled. :smalleek:

[holywhippet]

Which is why it can be a good idea to run a battle by yourself in advance to see if the PCs have a chance. If you think CR is a reliable guide, especially when the environment favours the enemy, try doing a search for Tucker's Kobolds.

[Jormengand]

Which is why it can be a good idea to run a battle by yourself in advance to see if the PCs have a chance. If you think CR is a reliable guide, especially when the environment favours the enemy, try doing a search for Tucker's Kobolds.

CR is almost a reliable guide, so long as the enemy fight fair.

Tucker's Kobolds did not fight fair.

[jedipilot24]

3 evil level 8 gestalt PCs were proving to be more than a match for other challenges I designed for them. They finished of a seven headed hydra no-problem and in the same day took on an army of Palor clerics and paladins.

So I figured I needed to step it up a notch. But Gestalt PCs are so difficult to predict interns of power output. What level challenge to truly face them with?
I decided to use an encounter in the Book of Challenges CR 10 assuming that a gestalt ELC 8 = 10.

I sent them into a cave where an aboleth using several illusions lie in wait with a "drowned" undead (from the MM3 i think). Just two monsters: a CR 7 and a CR 8.
Totally wrecked them.

Round one, the dual wielding crit-fisher gets dominated by the aboleth and throws his weapons into the water. After that, over the span of about 5 rounds, one player falls to straight damage from the Drowned slam attacks, one is grappled and held underwater and drowned by the aboleth and the last one passes out due to the Drowned undead aura.

Needless to say I was surprised how easy it was to overwhelm them with this. Given the number of other monsters they have decimated in open combat before. If anything this shows just how large a factor the environment, tactical information and the surprise round (or lack there of) can make. The players didnt even put a dent in these monsters.

Defeat was written all over their expressions in the aftermath of the combat.

If you haven't already, I suggest you read Saph's Seven Kingdoms Campaign Journal. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139572)
A pair of Drowned feature prominently in the first battle and they also later have encounters with Aboleths.
Both this and Saph's Red Hand of Doom (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94243)campaign journal give a whole new meaning to the phrase "Revolving Door Afterlife."

[Callin]

Kuddos! Teaches them the lesson of breaking up monster tactics.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/18205767/images/1330912219544.gif

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Most of the undead in MM3 are notoriously difficult for their CR. Drowned are CR 8 with 20 HD, fast healing 5, and its save-or-die drowning aura which forces a Constitution check (not a saving throw) every round, with the DC increasing by one per round. It also gets 2 slams at +12 power attacking, for 1d8+12 each.

Compare that to a Bodak from the core Monster Manual. It's also CR 8, but only 9 HD, and a Fort save-or-die gaze that's only a DC 15, and as a death effect you can be protected from it by any number of methods. Plus its melee attacks consist of a single slam at +6, for 1d8+1. An 8th level Cleric has a pretty good chance of turning a Bodak, but no chance at all of turning a Drowned. Both of these monsters are the same CR.

[Eurus]

Yeah, I think Drowned are actually a little infamous because if you don't know what you're getting into in advance to prepare, they're seriously insanely deadly. Aboleths are also awfully nasty, in part because aquatic environments are a good way to seriously mess up anyone who's not specifically prepared for it with relatively niche items or spells.

[umbergod]

Most of the undead in MM3 are notoriously difficult for their CR

isn't all of the mm3 pretty borked as far as CR is concerned?

[Captnq]

I sent them into a cave where an aboleth using several illusions lie in wait with a "drowned" undead (from the MM3 i think). Just two monsters: a CR 7 and a CR 8.
Totally wrecked them.

Round one, the dual wielding crit-fisher gets dominated by the aboleth and throws his weapons into the water. After that, over the span of about 5 rounds, one player falls to straight damage from the Drowned slam attacks, one is grappled and held underwater and drowned by the aboleth and the last one passes out due to the Drowned undead aura.

Needless to say I was surprised how easy it was to overwhelm them with this. Given the number of other monsters they have decimated in open combat before. If anything this shows just how large a factor the environment, tactical information and the surprise round (or lack there of) can make. The players didnt even put a dent in these monsters.

Defeat was written all over their expressions in the aftermath of the combat.

Okay,

1) Why did the players not scout ahead?
2) These guys weren't paranoid about mind control? you ALWAYS assume mind control.
3) They didn't have body parts being "preserved organ" on standby somewhere so they could be regrown?
4) Why didn't they drop the money for deepdweller? Someone in the party ALWAYS needs to take deepdweller.
5) Wizard didn't have a stilled short ranged teleport-ish spell availible?

Seriously. Your Players were overconfidant. That should have been a push over. Or at least an easy "run away!" Do they just not work together? A lack of teamwork would have explained the outcome. Or maybe I'm just used to the dungeon destroying crew I run for being planned for everything I've ever thrown at them. Ever. I'm serious. I only get to use any given trick once. After that, they make a defense. Gets tough to deal with after 8 years.

[Kuulvheysoon]

isn't all of the mm3 pretty borked as far as CR is concerned?

While it's not nearly as bad as the MM2 (read: Adamantine Clockwork Horror), the undead in there in particular can be really tough, like BF pointed out.

Dust Wraiths are also pretty nasty CR5s, IIRC. But in my opinion, Drowned are one of the worst CR'd (non-spellcasting) Undead in 3.5e

[Sith_Happens]

isn't all of the mm3 D&D 3.5 pretty borked as far as CR is concerned?

Fixed that for you.

[*.*.*.*]

MM3 is by far my favorite monster manual: the monsters are mostly interesting, good art, adaptation suggestions, and they feel -much- closer to proper CR.

[holywhippet]

CR is almost a reliable guide, so long as the enemy fight fair.

Tucker's Kobolds did not fight fair.

True, but the days of "you walk into a room in a dungeon, there are 3 orcs guarding a treasure chest" are hopefully long gone. There's no reason why a monster with decent intelligence won't use it to get an advantage. Especially if they are on their home turf or performing an ambush.

[Epsilon Rose]

Okay,

1) Why did the players not scout ahead?
2) These guys weren't paranoid about mind control? you ALWAYS assume mind control.
3) They didn't have body parts being "preserved organ" on standby somewhere so they could be regrown?
4) Why didn't they drop the money for deepdweller? Someone in the party ALWAYS needs to take deepdweller.
5) Wizard didn't have a stilled short ranged teleport-ish spell availible?

Seriously. Your Players were overconfidant. That should have been a push over. Or at least an easy "run away!" Do they just not work together? A lack of teamwork would have explained the outcome. Or maybe I'm just used to the dungeon destroying crew I run for being planned for everything I've ever thrown at them. Ever. I'm serious. I only get to use any given trick once. After that, they make a defense. Gets tough to deal with after 8 years.

I'm not sure how reasonable that stance is, especially if a party isn't really high op.


It was a cave, scouting ahead might not have actually been an option.
Fair-ish, but only one character got mind-controlled and it's not that unreasonable for a single character to have a lower defense against an attack type, especially in the short term. Conversely, it is unreasonable to expect every player to be immune to an entire category of attacks.
I've never heard of this or done this, but if it works the way your describing, I could see a lot of DMs not being ok with it. Having a guaranteed "get better" option takes the fangs out of a lot of fights.
What is deepdweller?
Fair-ish, though he might just not be going in for that type of meta-magic.

[holywhippet]

3. There is a preserve organ spell from the BoVD, but I don't see that being useful as ressurection only works on bodies parts collected after death.

The general get out of death free trick for wizards/sorcerers is the clone spell combined with something to keep the clone preserved until you need it, like the gentle repose spell.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Effects that automatically remove a PC from the combat, like that dominate effect, are MUCH more potent to a small gestalt party than a normal sized non-gestalt party. They lost 1/3 of their actions before they even got to act, it sounds like. While as in a party of 5 non-gestalts, it'd be 1/5.

Sounds like things just snowballed downhill from there.

I don't like Bodaks and other one-save-you're-doomed monsters much in general, but ESPECIALLY in gestalt, they're way too swingy on the combat.

EDIT: And yes, I agree with others, MM 3 is really overpowered. A lot of the monsters from it are much, much stronger than equivalent CR monsters of the same style/tactics in MM1. Not just a little, a lot.
On the other hand, my polymorph-using caster was *ecstatic* when the DM pulled some cave trolls on us. He had a rule that I needed to encounter a monster to take its form / give it to others. Them cave trolls...better than any piece of loot we ever got, that's for sure... DM was smart enough to not use War Trolls on us after that. :smallwink:

[TuggyNE]

The combination of a brutal combat monster like Drowned and a tricksy mastermind like an Aboleth is non-trivial for any but the most experienced and careful PCs; raw power is a terrible substitute for immunities, defenses, and planning in this case.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Before I played/DM'd gestalt I figured most PCs would have ridiculous saving throw bonuses, or otherwise immunities/other defenses.

So I DM'd for three level ~6 optimized gestalt PCs; they went up against a fear-based caster, and I learned only one of them has a good will save bonus. Suffice to say I have something akin to Shadowrun's edge in the game, and they used a lot of it.

[Magnetic]

So I figured I needed to step it up a notch. But Gestalt PCs are so difficult to predict interns of power output. What level challenge to truly face them with?
I decided to use an encounter in the Book of Challenges CR 10 assuming that a gestalt ELC 8 = 10.

I sent them into a cave where an aboleth using several illusions lie in wait with a "drowned" undead (from the MM3 i think). Just two monsters: a CR 7 and a CR 8.


Drowned are actually CR 9, not 8. This was changed in MM3's errata because they are just so dangerous.

Aboleth's are even more overpowered for their level.

It was a very nasty combo of very nasty monsters.

It's okay that you accidentally TPK'd your party. It's genuinely hard to know without a lot of experience which monsters are going to wreck your game. You learn by making mistakes (and from reading about other people's mistakes online).

As far as appropriate CR's, a gestalt party counts as one level higher than a normal party (see link below and search for challenge rating).

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm

[CleanDeceit]

Drowned are actually CR 9, not 8. This was changed in MM3's errata because they are just so dangerous.

Aboleth's are even more overpowered for their level.

It was a very nasty combo of very nasty monsters.

It's okay that you accidentally TPK'd your party. It's genuinely hard to know without a lot of experience which monsters are going to wreck your game. You learn by making mistakes (and from reading about other people's mistakes online).

As far as appropriate CR's, a gestalt party counts as one level higher than a normal party (see link below and search for challenge rating).

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm

We all learned something I guess. I knew I was giving the monsters the uper hand and even suspected it would be overbearing, but the players were so confident in their ability to stomp everything that I just thought "what the hell, lets see if they can pull it off"

But its true that they did not scout for info at all. They totally bought into the illusionary dragon on its perch and started talking with it rather than look around for other dangers.

One of them had Darkvision out to 120ft but didnt bother to let the other players know what she saw other than "there is a dragon ahead". The other two players had more limited Darkvision but one of them had detect magic up yet he failed to tell anyone about the magical auras he was seeing in the landscape (which would have alerted the others that something fishy was going on).

In the round by round, they all agreed that there was little else they could have done to win the combat without knowing what they were going up against. One player did ask for such information before going in but the available NPC didnt have it and his search for the vital info stopped there. I think now he and the others will be less confident to walk into a dungeon they know nothing about.

So now they are building new characters and I promised them a chance to go back for revenge :smallcool:

[Kaerou]

The environment especially is completely king of determining how difficult an encounter is (granted a simple spell like dominate completely skews CR mechanics also)

Its usually a rule of thumb of mine to add a +2 to all CR's if the enemy starts with a serious terrain advantage, and even then its hard to predict.

I'm terribly wary of mixing the two myself. Tonight i'm running a fight where pirates start with a terrain advantage and the CR's are even. i'm giving the PC's a surprise round and hoping it evens things out. Still, I'm a little nervous.

[CleanDeceit]

Ironically my PCs were pirates too. Their ship was moared outside the cave entrance

[Sith_Happens]

They totally bought into the illusionary dragon on its perch and started talking with it rather than look around for other dangers.

Did you give them a save? Holding a conversation is definitely "interacting."

[Worira]

The (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=53) problem (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=54) with (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=55) illusions. (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=56)

And yes, I know this isn't exactly how it works in 3.5. It's still dumb.

[Crake]

The (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=53) problem (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=54) with (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=55) illusions. (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=56)

And yes, I know this isn't exactly how it works in 3.5. It's still dumb.

Disbelieving in 3.5 specifically requires interacting with it, or being informed (i like to add "from a reliable source") that there's an illusion present. If you want to disbelieve the different parts of a room, each section would require the full round "inspection" described under illusion magic in chapter 10 of the phb, which is fine if you wanna waste time, all the better for the enemy to set up an ambush, after all inspecting for illusions would definitely come under "distracted" for spot and listen checks.

[HalfQuart]

1) Why did the players not scout ahead?
2) These guys weren't paranoid about mind control? you ALWAYS assume mind control.
3) They didn't have body parts being "preserved organ" on standby somewhere so they could be regrown?
4) Why didn't they drop the money for deepdweller? Someone in the party ALWAYS needs to take deepdweller.
5) Wizard didn't have a stilled short ranged teleport-ish spell availible?


Eh, a maybe reasonable critique. At least when they bought into the illusions they tried to parlay with the dragon rather than just attacking, but really a DM and players need to find a happy balance between being paranoid about everything such that play slows to a crawl and just recklessly charging forward. I don't think a player necessarily needs to say "I look around for other dangers" for them to notice things out of place around them, for example.
Don't forget, these are 8th level characters. Proactively blocking mind control is not simple at that level -- no Mind Blank -- unless you allow a custom continuous item of Protection from Good or something, but that's pretty cheesy. If they have some buff time they can cast it, or if they can find out the abilities of the monsters they're fighting soon enough to cast it... but without metagaming, that's certainly not guaranteed.
Huh, preserved organs? What's that for? And is it applicable to 8th level characters?
Deepdweller is +12,000 gp (MiC) -- probably not affordable for 8th level characters (although I have no idea if there are WBL implications for gestalt). Certainly characters need to think about how they're deal with aquatic combat, but that's probably not how. Maybe Potion of Water Breathing, Crystal of Aquatic Action, Aquatic weapon enhancement, or Third Eye Freedom? The Crystal only actually gives water breathing with the Greater version, and 8th level characters are pretty unlikely to have +3 Armor to use it with.
At 8th level a Wizard could have access to Dimension Door, but with only 2 or 3 4th level spell slots, it's quite possible it wouldn't be memorized... maybe accessible via 700gp scroll or maybe more likely is Dimension Hop or Dimension Step (or Dimension Leap if Eberron content is available), but those won't get you very far. Tactical teleportation items are certainly affordable at that level, also.

I think what this TPK most likely shows is that players always need to be cautious, try to make your knowledge checks to determine monster abilities (and be generous with info if they do this when the consequences are likely to be lethal -- otherwise the lesson learned is to metagame), plan for how to deal with lots of different scenarios, and to have an exit strategy.

[holywhippet]

Disbelieving in 3.5 specifically requires interacting with it, or being informed (i like to add "from a reliable source") that there's an illusion present.

No it generally requires, not specifically. The church inquisitor PrC at third level can get a will save to see through illusions and disguises as soon as they see them and they don't have to interact with them.

[Jormengand]

No, it generally requires not specifically. The church inquisitor PrC at third level can get a will save to see through illusions and disguises as soon as they see them and they don't have to interact with them.

You know that specifically can mean more that one thing? Something is specific if it is specified, which is what I imagine he was talking about.

[holywhippet]

You know that specifically can mean more that one thing? Something is specific if it is specified, which is what I imagine he was talking about.

Yeah, but in D&D terminology you usually use "generally" for what the rules say for most instances. You use "specifically" for cases where something overrides those rules. As such, specific overrides general.

[Jormengand]

Yeah, but in D&D terminology you usually use "generally" for what the rules say for most instances. You use "specifically" for cases where something overrides those rules. As such, specific overrides general.

True. The fact remains, I assume what he meant was that the text actually specifies what kind of action you have to take to "Disbelieve" something, so you can't do the same as the characters in the comic, walk into a room and say "I disbelieve the floor, and the table, and the walls, and the DM."

[TuggyNE]

Yeah, but in D&D terminology you usually use "generally" for what the rules say for most instances. You use "specifically" for cases where something overrides those rules. As such, specific overrides general.

That's why I prefer to use explicit vs implicit for when the text specifies something (however generally).