as a DM did i make a mistake? nearly TPK party

[Slagger]

maybe i shouldn't be using http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/ to calculate difficulty of encounters, but im afraid I made a mistake. after pitting them at 3 trolls and them getting away with NO DAMAGE dealt to them they were feeling pretty cocky.


i decided to throw the party i was DMing for at 3 Dire lions, cr5.
party is comprised of
4 lv 5 characters
2 are fighters
1 swashbuckler
1 ranger

the players, after of many cruddy rolls to spot these lions, got ambushed by these 3 dire lions. they all have great AC for their LV (19-23) the dire lion does;
2 claws +13 melee (1d6+7) and bite +7 melee (1d8+3) (successful bite engages grapple+rake) meaning high hit chances and high damage output


on the initial attack, all but the ranger got hit, grappled, raked, and lowered to a tiny amount of health. then the ranger kicked in after the initiative roll with 2 rapid fire arrows that were poisoned with a Psudodragons venom, dc 14 or sleep. both hit separate targets and with fort saves of +9 they both managed to roll natural 2 and 3(fails.) after a few breathtaking failed attacks from from the last Dire lion, two of the players scored crits and one hit to finish it off before another attack.
this was a random encounter that according to the site mentioned above was supposed to be a very difficult battle, but they would of all been dead.
the players realized i almost killed them off and seemed a little annoyed and while im not their mother, making sure they dont die, i do feel bad about making the mistake of pitting them against this.

what did i do wrong and what are some better creatures to attack them with that have a better BAB to give them a greater challenge without going to these extremes?

[Bronk]

Your players may be testy, but you didn't do anything wrong. Sure, normally you go for a CR appropriate encounter, but come on! One troll is CR5, and they housed it. Of course they would! There are four of them, and they're all front line melee fighters. The troll would at best take one action, then all four of the players just hacked it to death.

Granted, that was a tough encounter you described. Three CR5 monsters would be at least a CR7-8 encounter, plus they used good tactics for another point or two. On the other hand, it was a purely physical encounter aimed at a purely physical party, so minus a point or two.

Sure it was tough, but everyone survived and were hopefully rewarded with a ton of XP. Everyone wins, and hopefully they'll be more careful in the future.

That said, they should have known that they don't have a balanced party. There's no cleric type... is the ranger going to heal everyone with his/her one or two castings of Cure Light Wounds? Where's the rogue type with the high spot check? Plus, they can do better than that for their AC. And so on. They have only themselves to blame!

If you want to challenge them without a near TPK, try throwing something more sneaky or more magical at them. Maybe see how they do when an invisible flying pixie decides to mess with them with illusions and sleep arrows.

[nedz]

Well the party is quite weak given no real arcane or divine threat.
The Ranger should have good spot, but anyone can roll low.

The CR system is quite borked, but that doesn't seem to have been an issue here.

Encounters are meant to be hard sometimes and this seems to have gone fine. You shouldn't be afraid of throwing tough encounters at the party: PCs are more resourceful than you seem to think. This was a long way off a TPK since no one was actually down.

[BWR]

Short answer, you didn't do anything wrong.

Long answer:
You have to start with expectations for the game. Nothing engenders annoyance and resentment at a table faster than people having wildly differing expectations of what is fair play and what should occur in the game. How closely one sticks to the RAW and/or RAI, how closely one cleaves to canon setting, the powers and rights of players vs. GMs, difficulty level, types of challenges, etc,
At worst it sounds like the players were expecting things to always be easy or that they feel you threw a grudge encounter at them for being too good with the former one.

Secondly, knowing the rules of the game is the GM's job and if you make a mistake and send something more powerful than you intended at the party, any PC deaths are all on you (they usually are, but you know what I mean). The CR system, as others have noted, is not by any means a perfect system. It's an approximation and what can be an averagely challenging encounter for a party depends not only on monster mechanics but party mechanics, GM and PC tactics, various environmental issues, dice rolls and more. If the PCs had spotted the dire lions, if the lions had failed their attack rolls, if the PCs had made better rolls...the encounter would have been a lot easier for the same 'difficulty' and the players would probably not be whinging.

[Bronk]

I would also point out that sometimes less is more... You could have had one dire lion pounce into the middle of the group, then claw one PC, claw a second PC and bite a third PC for a nice little CR5 encounter that wouldn't have much chance of killing anyone but still be a quick and fun random encounter while leaving the really tough stuff for planned story encounters.

[Crake]

It's worth noting that when it says "Difficult encounter" that means that there is a really good chance that someone will die, and a somewhat decent chance of a TPK. Remember that 4 CR 5 lions would be CR+4 above them, which is SUPPOSED to be an even fight, meaning 50/50 chance of a TPK, and you had 3.

Edit: That said, this does sound like a case of bad roll checks. Had they spotted the lions, and not been ambushed, then it would have been a much more even fight, so they got screwed by the rolls, then with the poisoned arrows the lions got screwed by the rolls, so it all worked out.

[jjcrpntr]

I don't think you did anything wrong. I'm not a big fan of the CR system. I usually just build encounters that will not just be a steamroll either way and my players seem to enjoy it.

That said I had a group of 5 lvl 3 characters and I threw a bunch of cr1/3 monsters at them and they nearly died. I was rolling insanely well and they were rolling 1's and 2's (we also use the crit fumble deck on nat 1's). One of the guys thought I was being super mean until he hit the creature, did a "measly 9 damage" and killed it.
Sometimes the dice are out to kill them.

[Zubrowka74]

I say on the contrary, you did perfect! Why? It was a difficult encounter, they got taxed nearly to the limit but in the end, no one died!

But I agree both encounters might be resulting from good and bad rolls, respectively.

[Geddy2112]

You did not make a mistake- you had a challenging encounter that scared your players but nobody died. This is what the majority of encounters should be. If the party wipes a tough monster quick, regardless of CR its not that much fun. Nor is dying in 1-2 turns because the monster was so powerful they all died.

But CR is just an estimate, as other replies have said. A poltergeist is CR2, but is constantly invisible and incorporeal. Your party has next to nothing to stop that, and even though it will probably take a long time for a ghost hurling objects at the party to actually kill somebody, your party has zero ability to hurt it.

Likewise, a spellcaster might be higher level than the party, but if even one of those melee brutes gets close enough the wizard is dead to rights.

[Crake]

A poltergeist is CR2, but is constantly invisible and incorporeal. Your party has next to nothing to stop that, and even though it will probably take a long time for a ghost hurling objects at the party to actually kill somebody, your party has zero ability to hurt it.

Isn't a poltergeist bound to a location or the like though? So those players could just run away, research what it is they just faced and find out how to kill it. Sure, not always ideal, but if you're slowly dying and are unable to attack or even detect your foe, why would you stay there and slowly die, instead of coming back the next day with see invis and some magic missiles prepared?

[Geddy2112]

Isn't a poltergeist bound to a location or the like though? So those players could just run away, research what it is they just faced and find out how to kill it. Sure, not always ideal, but if you're slowly dying and are unable to attack or even detect your foe, why would you stay there and slowly die, instead of coming back the next day with see invis and some magic missiles prepared?

Yes, it can only be 150 feet from whatever is causing it. And yes, a poltergeist is not much of a threat to a level 5 party but it is a CR2, and it is a major threat to a level 2 party which probably has few if any magical weapons/damaging items, so their only hope is a spellcaster. The example was more about how the CR system is not always accurate.

[atemu1234]

I say on the contrary, you did perfect! Why? It was a difficult encounter, they got taxed nearly to the limit but in the end, no one died!

But I agree both encounters might be resulting from good and bad rolls, respectively.

No one died! Truly the goal we all live for! (Actually not sarcasm)

[Flickerdart]

Players always complain about how hard an encounter is up until the point that they win. You did nothing wrong, especially since the party uses SoL tactics like sleep arrows. You may consider using monsters with less alpha strike capability in the future - Pounce is very powerful. Consider using higher numbers of weaker enemies who have one attack each.

[Shackel]

My two cents might be that by putting such a wildly difficult encounter after one that's extremely easy, you might have given the players the idea that you wanted to kill them for their hubris or something. A misunderstanding, but a justifiable one.

[Ferronach]

If your players get upset by that, they would hate me and my games :P

If I stage a difficult encounter I fully expect someone to die.
That being said, most encounters are not difficult though some may come close.

For the troll encounter did the party use fire? Because every time I have fought those things, every piece eventually grew into a troll, thanks to their regenrative properties, unless blasted with fire. That may have been grandfathered in from older systems, not too sure as I am afb. This would make fighting a troll that much harder, let alone three of them.

As a DM your job is to take the players on an adventure that is both challenging and fun. The challenges do not always have to be encounter based but without encounters, the game lacks a massive portion of itself. Encounters should be a balance of fairly easy to extremely challenging or even impossible without the proper planning and some creative thinking.

As has been previously mentioned, even the easiest encounter with the best plan of attack can fail horribly if the players roll poorly and the DM rolls well.
In theory, given enough un cheesy kobolds, even an epic level character would be overcome eventually. Is it likely? Nope but still theoretically possible.

It sounds to me like you are doing a good job of keeping things moving and challenging your players. If things start to look a bit dicey, you can always artificially weaken the monsters during the fight and just not tell the players.

[icefractal]

The only thing I'd say is that when throwing an encounter that's on the high end of difficulty, don't use enemies that are automatically going for the kill. Like in this fight, if the players lost, TPK - lions don't take prisoners; the most that'd be plausible is they get full after eating only most of the party and 1-2 people escape. And lions are faster than the PCs, so no running away either.

Now if these were, say, lizardmen instead, then you have options - the PCs might be able to successfully run away. They might be taken prisoner and have a chance to escape. They might pull off some amazing social manipulation and be let go.

Not that you can't have deadly encounters in the game. But those probably aren't the ones to experiment with difficulty in.

[Flickerdart]

The only thing I'd say is that when throwing an encounter that's on the high end of difficulty, don't use enemies that are automatically going for the kill. Like in this fight, if the players lost, TPK - lions don't take prisoners; the most that'd be plausible is they get full after eating only most of the party and 1-2 people escape. And lions are faster than the PCs, so no running away either.
However, unlike lizardmen (who are cowed by their mighty lizardman overgod to continue fighting to the death) lions are much more likely to retreat when their prey proves to be too troublesome, or if the PCs leave the territory the lions are trying to chase them away from.

[Maglubiyet]

When you're rolling dice, anything can happen.

[Lusk118]

maybe i shouldn't be using http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/ to calculate difficulty of encounters, but im afraid I made a mistake. after pitting them at 3 trolls and them getting away with NO DAMAGE dealt to them they were feeling pretty cocky.


i decided to throw the party i was DMing for at 3 Dire lions, cr5.
party is comprised of
4 lv 5 characters
2 are fighters
1 swashbuckler
1 ranger

the players, after of many cruddy rolls to spot these lions, got ambushed by these 3 dire lions. they all have great AC for their LV (19-23) the dire lion does;
2 claws +13 melee (1d6+7) and bite +7 melee (1d8+3) (successful bite engages grapple+rake) meaning high hit chances and high damage output


on the initial attack, all but the ranger got hit, grappled, raked, and lowered to a tiny amount of health. then the ranger kicked in after the initiative roll with 2 rapid fire arrows that were poisoned with a Psudodragons venom, dc 14 or sleep. both hit separate targets and with fort saves of +9 they both managed to roll natural 2 and 3(fails.) after a few breathtaking failed attacks from from the last Dire lion, two of the players scored crits and one hit to finish it off before another attack.
this was a random encounter that according to the site mentioned above was supposed to be a very difficult battle, but they would of all been dead.
the players realized i almost killed them off and seemed a little annoyed and while im not their mother, making sure they dont die, i do feel bad about making the mistake of pitting them against this.

what did i do wrong and what are some better creatures to attack them with that have a better BAB to give them a greater challenge without going to these extremes?

I was the Ranger in this encounter. Yes, I have a high spot, and spotted a lion on the opposite side of the clearing. After announcing that, a fighter decided to grab the nearest strange plant and waltz to the center of the clearing trying to smoke it. Only the Ranger was hiding successfully in the trees, trying to be tactical.

Also, let the record show, there were 4 Dire Lions. Three engaged the three PCs in the center of the clearing, and the fourth ran away after seeing his brothers slaughtered in 3 turns. As a PC facing a potential 4 Dire Lions alone, I was a little grumpy at the stupid human fighter for sitting in the clearing.

Now I have a nice warm Dire Lion blanket for my hammock on the ship while the Cleric heals them up, and I play with my pet Pseudodragon. :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

After announcing that, a fighter decided to grab the nearest strange plant and waltz to the center of the clearing trying to smoke it.
So what you're saying is, the party deserved everything it got. :smallbiggrin:

[nedz]

IRL Lions try to isolate a weak looking prey, gang up on them, kill them and then drag them away to be eaten.

I'm not saying that the DM should necessarily have run the encounter that way, but if he had then you would probably have had one dead fighter.

[Lusk118]

So what you're saying is, the party deserved everything it got. :smallbiggrin:

I still finished the encounter with full health. Sure, the 4th Lion was closer then expected when he decided to run...
I lived, and as a recently reformed Lawful Evil, I wouldn't be totally opposed to one or two deaths lol. :smallbiggrin:

Also, the other 2 melee PCs walked into the center of the clearing, so as not to split the party. If anything I would be the isolated one. I love my hide skill. :smallsmile:

[Bullet06320]

I was the Ranger in this encounter. Yes, I have a high spot, and spotted a lion on the opposite side of the clearing. After announcing that, a fighter decided to grab the nearest strange plant and waltz to the center of the clearing trying to smoke it. Only the Ranger was hiding successfully in the trees, trying to be tactical.

OMG that BSF sounds like you was playing with my brother, his characters do things like that, all the time
but then again I would have just hit the lion with my taxi

as far as the encounter goes, especially after hearing this, roll playing and role playing always make the difference

[SinsI]

4 lv 5 characters
they all have great AC for their LV (19-23)
That's weak. Adequate LV 5 AC is 24.


after of many cruddy rolls to spot these lions
Habitat for dire lions is "Warm Plains". According to that calculator, Spot checks should've started at 640 feet away. There are 4 party members, and 3 lions - that's ~80 spot attempts. No matter how many points those players allocated to Spot, it should've been an automatic success - so no surpise round for the lions.



I was the Ranger in this encounter. Yes, I have a high spot, and spotted a lion on the opposite side of the clearing. After announcing that, a fighter decided to grab the nearest strange plant and waltz to the center of the clearing trying to smoke it. Only the Ranger was hiding successfully in the trees, trying to be tactical.
Trees? Clearing? What the hell were those Dire Lions doing in a completely different habitat?
That's what OP did wrong. Different habitat can easily increase Encounter Rating, and it did, I'd say "very difficult", so +2". That wasn't 8 ER that was in the calculator - it is ER 10, an Overpowering encounter. You should reserve such encounters for something more interesting than a Random Encounter.

[Slagger]

i have to respond first with a great thanks for all the replies. i had no clue how great this form could really be and how much attendance there is here.



That's weak. Adequate LV 5 AC is 24.


Habitat for dire lions is "Warm Plains". According to that calculator, Spot checks should've started at 640 feet away. There are 4 party members, and 3 lions - that's ~80 spot attempts. No matter how many points those players allocated to Spot, it should've been an automatic success - so no surpise round for the lions.

their AC was quite low because the last time they hit a good port was while LV 4 and with the issues i was already having with hitting them i didnt make many AC boosting magical items available. they are now lv 6 (we play almost nightly on ROLL20.net) and between items found and and feats attained this is increasing greatly.
as to the lower amount of spot checks before encounter. this is a decent sized island with warm plains, forests, and rocky/mountain areas. the beasts on this island have arrived through a portal that has been built on the island (yes, Lusk is a PC in my game and its now in game knowledge) and because of the influx of predators on this island, food is getting more scarce, therefore the Dire Lions are branching out into areas that arent as common to them (example: thick forest where the encounter happened)


I wouldn't be totally opposed to one or two deaths lol.

NOTED


So what you're saying is, the party deserved everything it got. :smallbiggrin:

and still yet, not enough


When you're rolling dice, anything can happen.

and in this case it did. sleep poison fort save failed. sometimes i love DND for this aspect.


Now if these were, say, lizardmen instead, then you have options - the PCs might be able to successfully run away. They might be taken prisoner and have a chance to escape. They might pull off some amazing social manipulation and be let go.

Not that you can't have deadly encounters in the game. But those probably aren't the ones to experiment with difficulty in.

even after DMing off and on for for over 10 years im still learning. thanks for the advice, ill remember this for future encounters/tests


they should have known that they don't have a balanced party. There's no cleric type... is the ranger going to heal everyone with his/her one or two castings of Cure Light Wounds? Where's the rogue type with the high spot check? Plus, they can do better than that for their AC. And so on. They have only themselves to blame!

If you want to challenge them without a near TPK, try throwing something more sneaky or more magical at them. Maybe see how they do when an invisible flying pixie decides to mess with them with illusions and sleep arrows.

they all carry a handfull of healing potions for self medication and one of them carries a wand of cure moderate (2charges left) and a wand of cure light (23 charges)

after quite a bit of browsing i think ive found a great way of hitting them with casters that fit into the story and should provide a great challenge to a combat oriented group. these spells might hurt, hopefully kill some if their rolls are wrong creating a fun challenge.


Encounters are meant to be hard sometimes and this seems to have gone fine. You shouldn't be afraid of throwing tough encounters at the party: PCs are more resourceful than you seem to think. This was a long way off a TPK since no one was actually down.

ive said to my PCs before that ive learned to never be surprised by them. then i was surprised.

this would of been a guaranteed TPK had the two dire lions not been taken down with failed fort save vs sleep. all the lions had to do was roll a 6 or higher, and make one more attack on the PCs they were targeting.

thanks for all the advice and im sorry for the delayed responses. this campaign has been going well and i am of the belief that these players will pull through to do some great things in the future. A valuable lesson for me as a DM, especially after some of the great advice given here.

on a side note, do you think a lv6 party is a high enough level to start their own Pirate Boa--- i mean Profiteering boat? they might even hit lv 7 by the time that rolls around and they seem to be trying to do this.

i apologize in advance for the horrible grammar and mispellings.

[Ben Powers]

but then again I would have just hit the lion with my taxi


*applause*

[Nessa Ellenesse]

I was the Ranger in this encounter. Yes, I have a high spot, and spotted a lion on the opposite side of the clearing. After announcing that, a fighter decided to grab the nearest strange plant and waltz to the center of the clearing trying to smoke it. Only the Ranger was hiding successfully in the trees, trying to be tactical.

Also, let the record show, there were 4 Dire Lions. Three engaged the three PCs in the center of the clearing, and the fourth ran away after seeing his brothers slaughtered in 3 turns. As a PC facing a potential 4 Dire Lions alone, I was a little grumpy at the stupid human fighter for sitting in the clearing.

Now I have a nice warm Dire Lion blanket for my hammock on the ship while the Cleric heals them up, and I play with my pet Pseudodragon. :smallsmile:

First I would like to point out the party mix as stated by your DM. One this is a terrible party mix. You have no one with trap finding ability. You have no one with major healing and you have no arcane back up. Believe me these things are important if you want to survive. An all fighter party is asking to get TPKed. As a DM I would be looking for a clue bat big enough to get that point across to you with out doing a TPK. Also where did the Cleric you mentioned in your post come from and how do you have a Pseudodragon pet.
"2 are fighters
1 swashbuckler
1 ranger"

You guys brought this on yourselves, party mix, party tactics and party cohesion.

Not to long ago in Expidition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk the party I was in playing the mage. When we went up against the big bad's second in command we nearly got our clocks cleaned. The one thing we did not do was blame the DM. What we did do was when we went after the Big Bad, before preparing our spells for that morning the party cleric (played by my sister) and I sat down and discussed in detail every spell to be memorized that day. We started with 0th level spells planned the spells level by level. Who memorized what which spells needed overlap, which didn't I listened to her recommendations and she listened to mine. As a result we emerged victorious with every party member alive.

[Ben Powers]

on a side note, do you think a lv6 party is a high enough level to start their own Pirate Boa--- i mean Profiteering boat? they might even hit lv 7 by the time that rolls around and they seem to be trying to do this.

Yeah, I have a party of 2 (sometimes 3) level sixes that got their own pirate boat at level 5.

Of course it wasn't a pirate boat before it was their own pirate boat, y'know?

[Jay R]

They had an exciting encounter that could have gone either way, but because of the dice, all the players survived.

Congratulations - this is the ideal encounter, which almost never happens. Take pride* in it

*Pun not intended, but certainly noticed.

[SinsI]

They had an exciting encounter that could have gone either way, but because of the dice, all the players survived.

Congratulations - this is the ideal encounter, which almost never happens. Take pride in it.
It was a random encounter with TPK probability of 15 out of 16 (both lions had to roll 5 or less on d20 to fail their saves).

Such encounters are a big misjudgment on DM's part, and nothing to "take pride in".
If you really want to throw such overwhelming encounters at a party, it should only be in cases of their own stupidity - i.e. them attacking head on opponents that they should've faced much later in the story.

[atemu1234]

It was a random encounter with TPK probability of 15 out of 16 (both lions had to roll 5 or less on d20 to fail their saves).

Such encounters are a big misjudgment on DM's part, and nothing to "take pride in".
If you really want to throw such overwhelming encounters at a party, it should only be in cases of their own stupidity - i.e. them attacking head on opponents that they should've faced much later in the story.

The rules are poorly written, but they are the rules.

[SinsI]

The rules are poorly written, but they are the rules.
Please find me the part in the rules that says you should throw random encounters of ECL 5+ levels higher than the party at them.

[Sith_Happens]

If you really want to throw such overwhelming encounters at a party, it should only be in cases of their own stupidity

Which is exactly what this was:

* Ranger announces "There's a dire lion over there."

* Fighter #1 decides that "halfway to the dire lion" is the best place to get high.

* Swashbuckler and Fighter #2 decide that "halfway to the dire lion, next to the guy trying to get high" is the best place to be.

* Ganking ensues.


Please find me the part in the rules that says you should throw random encounters of ECL 5+ levels higher than the party at them.

I forget the page number, but it's a table in the DMG and specifically says you should do that about 5% of the time.

[Yogibear41]

When you're rolling dice, anything can happen.


Watched an 8th level scout/druid almost get killed by a CR 1 raiment, once. It was very amusing. Shirt kept getting natural 20s, and the player kept rolling like 2s and 3s ha.

By the same token, I remember fighting in an encounter as an incarnate/fighter around level 5-6 against a group of 4-5 worgs, and 6+ goblins, that should have been considered an "overwhelming" encounter by that chart, and I managed to make it out alive. Granted my AC was in the mid to high 20s. I was almost completely surrounded and getting tripped once then having to stand up and take about 6 AOOs with flanking bonus's was a nightmare.

[SinsI]

Which is exactly what this was:

* Ranger announces "There's a dire lion over there."

* Fighter #1 decides that "halfway to the dire lion" is the best place to get high.

* Swashbuckler and Fighter #2 decide that "halfway to the dire lion, next to the guy trying to get high" is the best place to be.


No, it wasn't. The encounter began before they did anything stupid. And instead of surprise round those lions should've received a readied full attack from Fighter #1, Swashbuckler and Fighter #2, as well as Ranger.
And fighting in the open terrain is almost always better than in the woods.

[nedz]

And fighting in the open terrain is almost always better than in the woods.

No it isn't.

They could have used the terrain to force the lions to engage them one at a time and thus defeat them in detail. It's called tactics.

[andysowhat]

I think this is just fine, I usually give my players hero points which they can use to revive their characters if they die :p then I don't feel so bad, if it happens my player encounter 2 goblins that oneshots 2 partymembers with 3 crits each on their bow (yes, I rolled 6 crits in a row once) it was two level 7goblins against a party of 4pc's level 12 xD

[Sam K]

what did i do wrong and what are some better creatures to attack them with that have a better BAB to give them a greater challenge without going to these extremes?

If you made a mistake, it was not knowing the weight of the dice you were throwing around. In my opinion, it's ok to throw hard encounters at a party, but you should be aware of how hard you're making it. You shouldn't be surprised about the outcome of average rolls. For example, in this encounter, they clearly didn't have "great AC" considering the enemies they were fighting.

You cant really plan for the enemy rolling really good rolls (but you should consider a worst case scenario for most encounters - if the enemies roll all 20s all the time, how will you handle that?), or like in this case, for PC foolishness, but you need to consider that if the enemies hit the party on average rolls, the party is going to get hit alot. Make sure they can handle it, unless you're looking to inflict some serious damage to them.

[SinsI]

No it isn't.

They could have used the terrain to force the lions to engage them one at a time and thus defeat them in detail. It's called tactics.
or Lions can attack them from hiding behind the trees. It is called "enemy you can see is better than enemy you can't see".

[Ben Powers]

or Lions can attack them from hiding behind the trees. It is called "enemy you can see is better than enemy you can't see".

Or you could hide from the lions, get your back up to a tree to avoid being flanked, take advantage of some narrow spacing that a large-sized dire lion has a squeeze through, climb a tree and start plugging it with ranged attacks - even if it climbs up after you you'll probably be more maneuverable than it in the trees. On an open plain your tactics basically amount to "get ganged up on by giant lions with plenty of room to pounce".

[nedz]

or Lions can attack them from hiding behind the trees. It is called "enemy you can see is better than enemy you can't see".

Difficult terrain, or a tree, stops them charging. No charge = No pounce.

Also you can possibly funnel them so only one can get through, this means: you get to fight them 4 on 1 rather than 4 on 4 = they get fewer attacks per round, and fewer overall.

Ed:
Also you have put yourself in a position where they can see you and you can't see them because they are still in cover, until they charge, pounce — which kind of defeats your point.

[Chester]

IMO, PCs should only die when:


They do something blatantly stupid
poor dice rolls happen


As a DM, you should always offer a "way out" -- even if that means they have an option to retreat.

Your party got away, so you offered them a way out. Sounds like the encounter woke them up a bit.

[atemu1234]

Please find me the part in the rules that says you should throw random encounters of ECL 5+ levels higher than the party at them.


I forget the page number, but it's a table in the DMG and specifically says you should do that about 5% of the time.

^this.

I'm not saying I would do this, but still.

[Sith_Happens]

No, it wasn't. The encounter began before they did anything stupid.

It most certainly didn't. If the Fighter had time to find, pick, and begin to smoke a random plant sitting nearby after being informed of the lion, then the party had time to decide what if anything do about the lion and it obviously wasn't attacking in the mean time. Yes there were three more that were planning to attack, but they took their sweet time doing so and any of the PCs had more than enough time to spot them if they'd bothered to even look.

[RolkFlameraven]

but then again I would have just hit the lion with my taxi

I died a little from this Bullet, thank you. :smallbiggrin:

And to the OP as far as I can tell, besides Lions in a forest, you didn't do anything wrong. Heck, the forest might have made the challenge easier but then your party went and fought in a clearing to allow themselves to be pounced so... yeah.