How our party almost got wiped (or why the GM should pre-read monster abilities)

[ButzSanchez]

So a quick disclaimer; everyone walked away from this okay and we had a good chuckle about it afterward.

That said, this was a heck of an encounter. We're a party of six all at roughly level 8. My Half-Orc Sorcadin is currently leading the levels at 9, right in that sweet spot before the multiclass really begins to shine. We had been tasked with killing a Glabrezu someone accidentally summoned because they wanted to make a deal with a DEVIL to (I kid you not) own a Unicorn. Well they failed the containment circle and got a demon instead, and they don't do deals with mortals, and he somehow escaped with his life. Earlier in the game we got some badass magical crystals that turn any weapon they're attached to into a +2 weapon when used against fiends, so we think this will be a cakewalk. For the most part, it is. We walk in, disrupt the summoning circle so it can't be used again, marvel at the moss on the wall my paladin identifies as somehow being evil (some of you already see where this is going, I'm sure) and find the Glabrezu. We rock him so hard the only real damage he did was a few minor scratches to our rogue-warlock. The first thing that tipped me off that our DM may not have done her research on this encounter was that our rogue managed to sneak directly up to the glabrezu while invisible, since they have true sight and he was in plain view of the demon. I didn't want to be the jerk at the table who used meta knowledge of a creature to correct the GM (since I've had a bad habit of doing that in the past) and kept my mouth shut about it until after the game.

Anyway, we're cleaning up and my Paladin remarks that the guy paying us is just going to come home and get killed by the evil moss if we don't deal with it. The rest of the party grumbles it's not what he paid for, but I don't want to leave it around to cause trouble, and as a follower of Helm my character feels obligated to protect a contractee up until the contract is fulfilled. We go to deal with it and find it's moved into the dining room. I state I'm going in first, since it's probably just hiding beyond the doors to ambush us as we come across. Our cleric (who up till this point has been the player at the table with simultaneously the best AC and the worst luck, constantly getting downed more than anyone else,) decides he's going to step in front of me for some dumb reason. And naturally, he triggers the encounter and immediately begins to suffer the effects of the Alkilith's maddening aura, failing his save and falling under the effects of a confusion spell.

Our GM then admitted she didn't know what the confusion spell does. And despite having a description of the creature in front of her, she also didn't know how it would be implemented as an aura effect, so she winged it. She chose to rule that the moment you cross into a space within 30 ft of it, you immediately had to roll to save, and if we failed, we IMMEDIATELY ENDED OUR TURN. This is very different from it's actual trigger, starting your turn in a space 30 ft away from it. For those not in the know, being under the effects of confusion means every turn you roll a d10, and do one of four things; absolutely nothing, attack the nearest random creature, run in a random direction, or act normally. You also can't use reactions, so no cutting damage in half for our rogue. Since it's hiding just next to the doorway, we can't cross into the room without falling into this area of effect. To make matters worse, it's a DC 18 saving throw, though you only get confused if you fail that by at least 5.

Everyone. But. Me. Gets confused. All in a nice neat little line too, so there are plenty of friends to attack. I jump the table and immediately use my action to flip it with athletics and use it as a barrier between me and the thing. Later find out this shouldn't have kept the thing's mental attack from affecting me, but I think at this point the GM has realized something is wrong and is trying to make rulings in our favor, she just can't go back on the thing's effect. I drop a level 3 bless on everyone but myself and then play the waiting game, during which time our wizard and cleric are the only two who make the required save *WITH BLESS* and join me behind the table. Our ranger and rogue go down since the only rolls they make are "attack randomly", miraculously always aiming at a friend, and "do nothing". The fighter only survives because she runs screaming randomly into the living room and eventually breaks the confusion. The player for the wizard gets super discouraged since his fire spells aren't working on the demon since it has resistance to fire, and also spells for that matter. He's about ready to quit since he sees a party wipe coming. The cleric, LIKE A DOPE, spends two turns casting sacred flame before he remembers HE HAS BANISHMENT. Our Wizard suddenly has a use for his low divination roll and we barely manage to send it back to where it came.

So why is this problematic? Well, since our GM ruled that the Alkilith's whispering madness effect occurred the moment we crossed into it's range and that our turn stopped the second it took effect, she had inadvertently increased the enemy's CR by a buttload. All you Sentinel feat fans out there know that controlling a creature's movement is powerful, and taking away their action outright is a massive tactical advantage. Action economy is king in DnD. This creature managed to successfully screw all but one party member out of their actions for the majority of combat and steal their reactions, while being generally hard to hit, as it halved all magical damage and approaching it in the open was asking to fall to it's confusion effect. None of us had rolled between the 13-18 range on our saves, so as far as we knew it was just a really high save DC that would immediately incapacitate us. What's worse, with the way she had originally worded the trigger for the effect, someone breaking free of it at the end of their turn would just result in it automatically forcing another save once their turn started again and stealing their action again if they failed, making it incredibly hard to get out of range once you already failed once. I think she must have realized that herself, because she ruled that breaking free at the end of your turn allowed you to move again immediately, despite being at the end of your turn.

Now I'm not saying the fight would have been easy had our GM read up beforehand and had the effect work properly, but at the very least we would have had a chance to better position ourselves and feel the fight out more before getting chain confused. There were a LOT of unlucky rolls involved as well, so law of averages is in effect, and our cleric was admittedly being dense. It might just be me, but once two party members are unconscious, I'd say that's the moment you want to scroll all the way to the bottom of your spell list and pick out the big guns.

So lesson learned; if you're GM, read your creatures and make sure you understand what they do!

p.s. - as a sidenote, once he used Banishment he also realized something that immediately made our DM groan. We're currently stuck in the Shadowfell trying to find our way back to the material plane. He realized that, just like the demon, he can send us back to the material plane one at a time if we deliberately choose to fail our save and let Banishment send us back. One spell, and we could completely undo all the planning she had made for the campaign for the next several weeks. Fortunately, she has since pulled something out of her butt to keep us there. :)

[MrStabby]

So I think that the encounter is not "wrong".

Your PCs encountered some demon moss with a set of powerful abilities and had a really tough time facing off against those abilities. Now, that those abilities were not what was expected by the party may be a DM issue if you party had done some research and been mislead. On the other hand if the way the abilities worked is different to the expectations of the players due to information their characters would not know, then that is a different matter.

It doesn't mean the DM did a great job - if they miscalculated or made mistakes then they can hold themselves to account for an encounter too easy or too difficult - but it is only a mistake in terms of delivering their outcomes for the campaign and a mistake if it isn't fun. Having a monster with abilities that are unexpected is not really an issue by itself.

Sure, an aura of confusion is powerful; monsters can have powerful abilities.

Was the encounter fun though? Is it one to remember? By this criterion, did the DM do a good job?

[ButzSanchez]

So I think that the encounter is not "wrong".

Your PCs encountered some demon moss with a set of powerful abilities and had a really tough time facing off against those abilities. Now, that those abilities were not what was expected by the party may be a DM issue if you party had done some research and been mislead. On the other hand if the way the abilities worked is different to the expectations of the players due to information their characters would not know, then that is a different matter.

It doesn't mean the DM did a great job - if they miscalculated or made mistakes then they can hold themselves to account for an encounter too easy or too difficult - but it is only a mistake in terms of delivering their outcomes for the campaign and a mistake if it isn't fun. Having a monster with abilities that are unexpected is not really an issue by itself.

Sure, an aura of confusion is powerful; monsters can have powerful abilities.

Was the encounter fun though? Is it one to remember? By this criterion, did the DM do a good job?

I had fun, but I can't speak for the other players, especially our wizard who was clearly agitated by it. What's more, I can't imagine the encounter was fun for either of the players who spent the whole encounter attacking allies, doing nothing, and getting downed, but again, can't speak for them. I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed that happening to me, at that point I might as well leave the room and let the DM roll for me if I can't do anything.

Also, I think the creature itself was a good choice; I enjoyed the encounter with it and thought it had great potential to inspire good tactics from the players and give a real sense of urgency and threat. It was a good choice in creature.

But the minor changes in how it's aura worked made it nearly lethal when, by the GM's own admission, it wasn't supposed to be that difficult of a fight. We had no information about the creature, even the job giver wasn't aware of it's presence. We wouldn't have even known about it if I hadn't used my divine sense.

My point in this post was more why it's important to be aware of a creature's abilities and what makes it dangerous before you throw it at a party. If you read what a creature can do mid combat and say "I don't know how this works" you have to make a ruling that second, and that can tip an encounter one way or the other in terms of difficulty by a huge margin. When I GM I try to work out exactly what tactics a creature(s) will use before it ever encounters the party, and if it has something I'm not sure about, I don't use that ability.

Affecting action economy in such a major way is still a bad move. With the way she ruled the triggering effect, players could end up spending the entire fight locked in place unable to do anything, made worse by the fact that they wouldn't even get an initial action, just getting cut off mid move. She had to homerule something beneficial on success just to get out of that corner. When most of the players can't do anything but sit there and die, it's a recipe for frustration. I also wouldn't say remembering an encounter makes for a good job necessarily; being the encounter that makes everyone leave the table is a decidedly bad outcome that will certainly be remembered.

As for the GM herself, I still like her because she was able to look at this afterward and say she messed up. She wants to provide a fun game and made a mistake this time. It'll happen, being a GM is a constant learning process.

[MrStabby]

This is what I mean - the DM can judge themselves and might want to have done something different - but it doesn't mean the fight was is some way wrong due to the abilities working they way they did.

I would say that the bigger issue was not the way the ability triggered when you entered its area, but rather the high DC. I think occasionally skipping a round is an appropriate price for dumping a stat but agree that when it is every round it is kind of a pain. "Know what your monsters do" is obviously good advice for any DM, but also "your monsters do what you say they do" is also apt - especially for anything the party has no reason to have knowledge on to the contrary.

[ButzSanchez]

This is what I mean - the DM can judge themselves and might want to have done something different - but it doesn't mean the fight was is some way wrong due to the abilities working they way they did.

I would say that the bigger issue was not the way the ability triggered when you entered its area, but rather the high DC. I think occasionally skipping a round is an appropriate price for dumping a stat but agree that when it is every round it is kind of a pain. "Know what your monsters do" is obviously good advice for any DM, but also "your monsters do what you say they do" is also apt - especially for anything the party has no reason to have knowledge on to the contrary.

Yeah, initially the DC isn't terrible, you just get disadvantage on attacks if you roll between 14-18. But once confusion sets in the 18 DC is really tough to get over.

On your other points though, I have to respectfully disagree. It's one thing to fudge how an illusion might present itself, or whether something is triggered by a particular player action. It's another to take that kind of ruling to an effect that could have a hugely detrimental effect to the entire party's action economy or cause them to kill each other. There's a reason such effects are usually worded by WotC really specifically; if implemented improperly they change the balance of how such effects would work. Action economy is something that (for the most part) WotC have been really adamant about keeping from becoming broken. If you want to be able to mess with it, there's usually a specific cost, limitation, or resistance to such an effect. Action economy is a key piece of the "game" portion of the role-playing game, one you've got to be extremely careful with or it becomes unbalanced.

For haste, you get one target and it requires the caster's concentration, and the extra action you get from it is limited in what you can use. For slow, all enemies affected get an initial saving throw and another one at the end of their turns. Player characters can't utilize bonus actions without fulfilling certain conditions first or being a particular class. There's always limitations placed on affecting action economy in one direction or the other. But in this specific case, a misunderstanding led to a situation where the GM had to overcorrect to deal with a misinterpretation that even she realized went too far after it had already been implemented. If she hadn't made those corrections, it could have led to a situation where the players were unfairly screwed out of being able to do anything.

I don't ascribe to the school of "GM gets final say=anything they do is excusable". You have to exercise due diligence. Sometimes it's appropriate to be handwavy, sometimes you need to follow the letter of the rules to make sure an experience is balanced.

[Pex]

A DM can make a mistake. It happens. She realized the error and made amends in the combat to get it back to a fair fight. That's what good DMs do. Players can still not have fun with it, but as long as the worst of it is the players didn't have a fun fight as opposed to character death or loss of a prized possession it's a campaign blemish to be ignored. That you can joke about it is a good sign everything is ok. Game on.

[MrStabby]

Yeah, initially the DC isn't terrible, you just get disadvantage on attacks if you roll between 14-18. But once confusion sets in the 18 DC is really tough to get over.

On your other points though, I have to respectfully disagree. It's one thing to fudge how an illusion might present itself, or whether something is triggered by a particular player action. It's another to take that kind of ruling to an effect that could have a hugely detrimental effect to the entire party's action economy or cause them to kill each other. There's a reason such effects are usually worded by WotC really specifically; if implemented improperly they change the balance of how such effects would work. Action economy is something that (for the most part) WotC have been really adamant about keeping from becoming broken. If you want to be able to mess with it, there's usually a specific cost, limitation, or resistance to such an effect. Action economy is a key piece of the "game" portion of the role-playing game, one you've got to be extremely careful with or it becomes unbalanced.

For haste, you get one target and it requires the caster's concentration, and the extra action you get from it is limited in what you can use. For slow, all enemies affected get an initial saving throw and another one at the end of their turns. Player characters can't utilize bonus actions without fulfilling certain conditions first or being a particular class. There's always limitations placed on affecting action economy in one direction or the other. But in this specific case, a misunderstanding led to a situation where the GM had to overcorrect to deal with a misinterpretation that even she realized went too far after it had already been implemented. If she hadn't made those corrections, it could have led to a situation where the players were unfairly screwed out of being able to do anything.

I don't ascribe to the school of "GM gets final say=anything they do is excusable". You have to exercise due diligence. Sometimes it's appropriate to be handwavy, sometimes you need to follow the letter of the rules to make sure an experience is balanced.

I think that this isn't the DM reinterpreting the rules, this is a DM taking one monster and replacing it with a more powerful one. Something a DM can do.

There are two reasons this can be an issue -

Firstly players are using their knowledge of what a monster is "supposed" to do to have an impact in an encounter and are thrown off by this. This might be on the DM or it might be on the players - depending on where that information came from. If it came from outside the game and it is something the players know but the PCs don't then this is on the players

Secondly it is on the DM if it is less fun. The trouble is, is that this can vary player by player substantially. Is a DM who gives the cleric a space to shine by whopping down a monster with nasty wisdom save effects being a bad DM by doing so? It depends on the effect over multiple sessions and multiple players. Some enemies attack HP and some PCs have more HP than others; other monsters attack wisdom and some PCs have more wisdom than others.

I don't think that swapping out a monster for a tougher homebrew one is a bad idea at all in a lot of cases.

I agree absolutely with your final sentiment that "sometimes you need to follow the letter of the rules to make sure an experience is balanced" - sometimes you do. Equally sometimes you don't - but the point is that you faced a monster with certain rules and those were the rules that were followed. What seems to be contentious was the DM didn't follow the rules for the monster that the players were, for some reason, expecting. I would add that I also believe that "an experience is balanced" is across multiple sessions. Not all encounters need to balance party members for the DM to be doing a good job, but they should allow everyone to be cool and to save the day sometimes. Frankly it sounds like a tense encounter that let some party members shine more than others - the one that played characters with good wisdom saves. This can be a bug if these same characters are dominating every session, but it can be a good feature if it is slowing down the PCs that otherwise tend to be more powerful.

[prabe]

GMs make mistakes. It happens. I've found the best way to handle them is to admit to the players that you made a mistake. It's hard to imagine the players whose characters weren't doing anything were particularly having any fun, but tastes differ; that's why abilities that leave characters unable to act are really rare in my encounters.

[ButzSanchez]

I think that this isn't the DM reinterpreting the rules, this is a DM taking one monster and replacing it with a more powerful one. Something a DM can do.
I would add that I also believe that "an experience is balanced" is across multiple sessions. Not all encounters need to balance party members for the DM to be doing a good job, but they should allow everyone to be cool and to save the day sometimes. Frankly it sounds like a tense encounter that let some party members shine more than others - the one that played characters with good wisdom saves. This can be a bug if these same characters are dominating every session, but it can be a good feature if it is slowing down the PCs that otherwise tend to be more powerful.

Ooh, that's a really good point. Something I'll write down for future campaigns I write, I hadn't considered that angle before. There's another takeaway there; know your players' strengths and weaknesses and see how you can craft particular encounters around it. I've had a bad habit in the past of just crafting encounters based on a theme and plugging it into a CR calculator.

[WaroftheCrans]

This reminds me of that time my dm threw 3 gargoyles at our group of lvl 1 pcs, when everyone other than me was new to DND. The DM was not new, just to clarify. He halved their hp nearest I could tell, and seemed to think that was enough to make it work.
To make matters worse, this was before our characters had really met as a group, so we were in three groups.
Bard and Pally vs one, druid and rogue vs another, and myself the sorcerer vs the last one.

Bard and pally nearly died, as they tried fighting it, and only were saved when the bard casted animal friendship and the DM treated it basically as conjure woodland creatures. Both the pally and bard were down to two or 3 hp regardless, despite the DM not using the multi-attack after round 1.

Rogue and Druid tried fighting, started losing, the druid cast entangle, and they just ran away.

I cast a firebolt, nearly got killed in one round, and then just put it to sleep and ran.

Read the stats and CRs DMs. Its not much fun when you massacre your party with poorly planned encounters.

[ButzSanchez]

This reminds me of that time my dm threw 3 gargoyles at our group of lvl 1 pcs, when everyone other than me was new to DND. The DM was not new, just to clarify. He halved their hp nearest I could tell, and seemed to think that was enough to make it work.
To make matters worse, this was before our characters had really met as a group, so we were in three groups.
Bard and Pally vs one, druid and rogue vs another, and myself the sorcerer vs the last one.

Bard and pally nearly died, as they tried fighting it, and only were saved when the bard casted animal friendship and the DM treated it basically as conjure woodland creatures. Both the pally and bard were down to two or 3 hp regardless, despite the DM not using the multi-attack after round 1.

Rogue and Druid tried fighting, started losing, the druid cast entangle, and they just ran away.

I cast a firebolt, nearly got killed in one round, and then just put it to sleep and ran.

Read the stats and CRs DMs. Its not much fun when you massacre your party with poorly planned encounters.

That situation is definitely leagues worse than what we went through. We were at least fairly leveled and had some options to attempt. That just seems like poor understanding of what CRs represent and how stats work. It honestly reminds me of the first time I ran a high level campaign in 3.5 years ago, and set the party up against two pit fiends. The more knowledgeable players at the table immediately lost their composure and explained how CRs actually worked. I swapped them out with a single Balor on the spot.

[KorvinStarmast]

To run confusion at a lower level, toss an Umber Hulk at the party. It's a good "training wheels" way to get used to how confusion works, and Umber Hulks are plenty deadly with their attacks and the whole "if you look away from it you attack at disadvantage" deal.

[NorthernPhoenix]

Honestly the most painful part of this to read was the part about the cleric. Nothing would make me happier than a player casting a few sacred flames before finally turning to banishment, that's so cinematic! Instant inspiration right there. Calling the person a "dope" for that made my heart sink.

[Keravath]

Interesting story. In this case, it sounds like the DM needed to read the confusion effect and the demon description a bit more before running it though in the end the only big mistake seems to be taking away your turn on the first failed save.

However, the Alkilith effect says it takes effect if you start your turn within 30' of it. Were you all within 30' of the creature when the cleric opened the door? You said it was hanging on the wall just on the other side of the door. In this case, everyone would have to make the save at the start of their turn anyway so it sounds like that part was played out correctly. Losing your action on the first failed save though makes it much more challenging.

There is no proviso for the effect being blocked by a door or walls so if the DM had wanted to, they could probably have had it take effect before you even opened the door and the demon could then have come through the door and attacked.

Since the save is made at the start of your turn, every turn, the odds of failing a save if you are within 30' aren't bad though bless and the paladin aura could help a lot.

In the meantime though, the demon should be attacking with 3 x 15' reach attacks, each at a +8 for 4d6+4 acid damage each. After so many of you failed the initial save, the odds were pretty good that some of you should have died.

Anyway, from the description of the demon ability, the 30' range, the fact that you were all by the door when initiative started and saves are at the start of your turn if you are within 30' ... it seems to me that it played out pretty much as expected with the exception that you mentioned the DM took away your turn on the first turn you failed rather than just imposing confusion on the failed save.

Keep in mind that the Glabrezu was only a CR9 while the Alkilith is a CR11 and should be much more of a challenge for a party of level 8/9 characters.

[ButzSanchez]

Interesting story. In this case, it sounds like the DM needed to read the confusion effect and the demon description a bit more before running it though in the end the only big mistake seems to be taking away your turn on the first failed save.

However, the Alkilith effect says it takes effect if you start your turn within 30' of it. Were you all within 30' of the creature when the cleric opened the door? You said it was hanging on the wall just on the other side of the door. In this case, everyone would have to make the save at the start of their turn anyway so it sounds like that part was played out correctly. Losing your action on the first failed save though makes it much more challenging.

There is no proviso for the effect being blocked by a door or walls so if the DM had wanted to, they could probably have had it take effect before you even opened the door and the demon could then have come through the door and attacked.

Since the save is made at the start of your turn, every turn, the odds of failing a save if you are within 30' aren't bad though bless and the paladin aura could help a lot.

In the meantime though, the demon should be attacking with 3 x 15' reach attacks, each at a +8 for 4d6+4 acid damage each. After so many of you failed the initial save, the odds were pretty good that some of you should have died.

Anyway, from the description of the demon ability, the 30' range, the fact that you were all by the door when initiative started and saves are at the start of your turn if you are within 30' ... it seems to me that it played out pretty much as expected with the exception that you mentioned the DM took away your turn on the first turn you failed rather than just imposing confusion on the failed save.

Keep in mind that the Glabrezu was only a CR9 while the Alkilith is a CR11 and should be much more of a challenge for a party of level 8/9 characters.

Yeah, again, I think she took some steps in our favor once she realized what she had done. The way she described it, it was attempting to deliberately not confront us, so activating it's madness effect when we were too close to it's hiding spot may have been something it wanted to avoid doing. It wanted to hide out until it was left alone so it could act as a portal to the infernal plane, so it only became aggressive after it saw us pursuing it. As for being safe from it behind the table, she also ruled in our favor for that.

Unfortunately, my character isn't level 6 as a paladin yet, so aura of protection wasn't a factor. I've been kicking myself over that for a while now, I prioritized sorcerer levels for a bit so I could get more spell slots and spells. I only realized later how incredible aura of protection is.


Honestly the most painful part of this to read was the part about the cleric. Nothing would make me happier than a player casting a few sacred flames before finally turning to banishment, that's so cinematic! Instant inspiration right there. Calling the person a "dope" for that made my heart sink.

It was a loving affectation, not a serious accusation. We actually thought it was kind of funny when it happened.