Encounter Feedback

[3drinks]

This was a few years ago, but stands out in my mind as one of my more iconic lv1 encounters. As a DM now, I'm probably more experienced or I should say more prone to thinking outside the box for a solution other than bashing the door in, so to speak. But alas, in a party consisting of paladin, ninja, ranger, & cleric, their urban adventure led to a warehouse where they believed a rogue Orc gang to be.

The lights from what they could see were all out (no one had darkvision). The Orcs all had readied action to fire x-bows on the first being to walk through the warehouse door. There were four Orcs, and while the standard Orc encounter is 2 for ECL 1, that is assuming Warrior class and these I had classed as Rogue. What's more, they fought with Great X-Bows from arms & equipment. They were still lv1, (so bab +0), Dex 11, and their one feat was exotic weapon (great x-bow). So their one line of attack was fire r1, reload r2, fire r3 etc. Rolling a bare d20 vs ACs averaging 16, with damage on a bare d12. Doing the math, these Orcs had an average chance of hitting at 20-30%.

The warehouse was pitch black, and even if they could see, they couldn't charge because of various turned over crates for makeshift cover. The Orcs were settled in for a "last stand" so to speak, and so I had arranged terrain to be favourable to them for their best survival chances. Which makes sense.

The players now, without discussing a plan just kick the door in and are completely surprised at the readied attacks that nearly dropped them. Now, they'd eventually manage to beat this fight...but, to this day I'm still given a measure of grief over my "overpowered" encounter.

So, what I'm asking is, are they right? Are they just over reacting to the power terrain lends to a fight? Surely they weren't adequately prepared (a light spell pre-combat could have solved this, I think...) Was I reasonable in designing an encounter to the best strengths of the Orcs' survival in this situation, given it's their best and still not particularly optimal?

[DeTess]

This was a few years ago, but stands out in my mind as one of my more iconic lv1 encounters. As a DM now, I'm probably more experienced or I should say more prone to thinking outside the box for a solution other than bashing the door in, so to speak. But alas, in a party consisting of paladin, ninja, ranger, & cleric, their urban adventure led to a warehouse where they believed a rogue Orc gang to be.

The lights from what they could see were all out (no one had darkvision). The Orcs all had readied action to fire x-bows on the first being to walk through the warehouse door. There were four Orcs, and while the standard Orc encounter is 2 for ECL 1, that is assuming Warrior class and these I had classed as Rogue. What's more, they fought with Great X-Bows from arms & equipment. They were still lv1, (so bab +0), Dex 11, and their one feat was exotic weapon (great x-bow). So their one line of attack was fire r1, reload r2, fire r3 etc. Rolling a bare d20 vs ACs averaging 16, with damage on a bare d12. Doing the math, these Orcs had an average chance of hitting at 20-30%.

The warehouse was pitch black, and even if they could see, they couldn't charge because of various turned over crates for makeshift cover. The Orcs were settled in for a "last stand" so to speak, and so I had arranged terrain to be favourable to them for their best survival chances. Which makes sense.

The players now, without discussing a plan just kick the door in and are completely surprised at the readied attacks that nearly dropped them. Now, they'd eventually manage to beat this fight...but, to this day I'm still given a measure of grief over my "overpowered" encounter.

So, what I'm asking is, are they right? Are they just over reacting to the power terrain lends to a fight? Surely they weren't adequately prepared (a light spell pre-combat could have solved this, I think...) Was I reasonable in designing an encounter to the best strengths of the Orcs' survival in this situation, given it's their best and still not particularly optimal?

Almost all of this sounds just fine, except for the readied attacks. Readied attacks shouldn't happen outside of initiative order. If you want to represent an advantage from being settled in and ready, give the orcs a circumstance bonus to initiative, which is the roll that represents who gets the actual first shot off.

That having been said, you do need to factor terrain and other circumstances into an encounter's challenge. Circumstances good for one group can add a point or two to the overall challenge rating with ease. That's not to say that you where wrong to do so, just that it's something you need to keep in mid when balancing encounters.